Sniffnoy wrote:If the half-ring problem is just in reference to Super Sonic, then I think it can be settled by saying that Sonic "burns" each ring from one at a time; the Superness from this ring lasts for one second, at the end of which he burns another for the next second.
I'm saying that the ring you're burning from when you untransform (like at the end of a stage when you still have rings left) either has to recharge the part of it that burned or disappear completely.
Sniffnoy wrote:But, as noted, he's Super for a second before he actually uses any rings; perhaps this could be the flow of energy from the Chaos Emeralds cutting itself off after a second?
Where the emeralds act like a spark plug and the rings are the fuel? It's workable. The Final Hazard fight could support it since Sonic and Shadow couldn't both have the emeralds, though they might still have been drawing power from them. But on the contrary, when Knuckles knocks the emeralds out of Sonic in the intro to Sonic 3, he loses his super form. I don't think there's enough evidence to call either right.
You're on the right track with this super-readiness, but you're making it more complicated than it needs to be. Let's ignore riders for the moment and decide that you need 50 rings to transform. You don't actually use any of those rings to transform, so having them must give you something that you can use without draining the rings. This something could be the same thing that enables you to use timestop and such in SA2 vs. mode without losing rings. This something could be another energy that builds around you or it could be a physical change that occurs in you as you collect more rings. It could be a lot of things but, barring Rider's retardedness, it's definitely there.
There are some interesting observations in this thread.
Where was that [the machine that converts rings into coins] anyway? I don't remember it
In the vault section of Casinopolis are two mechanical hands that shake Sonic causing him to drop his rings. The spilt rings appear as gold coins.
Since rings appear just a bit above ground, it wouldn't be surprising if many were buried by shifting landmasses or knocked to the ground and then buried by rain. They've been around for at least 3 millennia, so they've had plenty of time to accumulate in the crust.
Another observation related to this is that, when digging as Knuckles, it isn't uncommon for a flow of rings to erupt from the grown (similar to lava erupting from the Earth). This suggests that, in certain areas, the underground ring energy is fairly volatile.
I'm liking the 'rings as a catalyst to go super' theory, but what exactly is the explanation of the ring generator in Reactive Factory? Did they just shove a bunch of rings in a vat and let them loose in a steady stream?
That's my preferred take on it. I think the same applies to the buttons that make the ring trails (some magic machine somewhere phases them in from a storage room in another dimension or something). Eggman's Big Ring Generator could've been him combining smaller rings to make big ones. Otherwise, rings can be manufactured somehow. I can't think of any reason why that would be impossible, though.
Frieza2000 wrote:That's my preferred take on it. I think the same applies to the buttons that make the ring trails (some magic machine somewhere phases them in from a storage room in another dimension or something). Eggman's Big Ring Generator could've been him combining smaller rings to make big ones. Otherwise, rings can be manufactured somehow. I can't think of any reason why that would be impossible, though.
Maybe they could be made out of all the ring energy that's "lost" when dropped rings aren't picked back up? (I get the idea that would probably cause a problem with 2nd law of thermodynamics, but we can safely ignore that here, right?)
Brazillian Cara wrote:... now seriously, where does the *TLING* sound comes from? And while at that, the *TRIILING* sound when you lose them?
Rings make a *tling* when they are let loose from sonic or containers (like in Flying Battery) or when they are collected. Say if the rings are energy based, it could just a reaction to them being absorbed.
The *trilling* is probably the noise of a mass of ring energy turning back into ring-form.
Note that switches that create lines of rings don't make the noise though, which complicates things.
So would I be right that rings are like crystals, in that they naturally form and grow? Or is ring energy more like oil, being made up of carbon/ energy from ancient creatures?
The only connections I know of are that you need rings to transform and big rings lead to the special stage.
If there was any question of my nerdom, let it be dispelled. Here's my pet theory in its entirety. I enjoy mapping out the details of imaginary physics and trying to make them sound rationally possible. It's an exercise in imagination and problem solving.
I wrote this a little over a year ago. It just outlines the mechanics of the theory without offering much justification, so I put a bit of supporting evidence at the end. If you can read through the whole thing without yawning, you get an automatic passing grade.
Rings draw their power and are generated and distributed from "the source", situated at the center of the Ring dimension (possibly the Special Stage). When rings first appear in this world they are still loosly connected to the source and constantly draw energy from it. This connection holds them in place with a force strong enough to overpower their own weight in Earth's gravity and the air and water resistance they encounter while spinning. They spin in place as an effect of the energy flowing through them. If the rings are jarred from their starting position, they lose their connection and stop floating and spinning.
Physically, rings are made of an extremely durable substance (Ringidium is a fitting name), which is the physical manifestation of a unique band of energy. This material is atomically unstable and requires ring energy to exist for more than an instant. Once the ring energy is absorbed, the ring dispels. Rings were designed to be absorbed by living beings, but machines can be specially built to as well. When rings are absorbed, they convert to pure ring energy. In this energy form, rings regain their connection to the other dimension. Absorbed ring energy pools together but behaves as individual units of ring energy.
A ring is a portal to the source. The physical ring is composed of 1 unit of manifested ring energy which is being projected from the other dimension. When a ring's connection to the other dimension is severed, 1 unit of ring energy is left behind but will lose stability if it loses any energy. The big rings that lead to the special stages are a collection of enough rings to create a portal through which matter can be moved (and, with a little tooling from the ancients, routed to specific places).
A ring must always be complete. If a ring does not contain 1 whole unit of ring energy, it loses atomic stability and its remaining energy will slowly be drained trying to sustain its physical manifestation until the ring is gone. If an incomplete ring is connected to the source (it's still in its original position or in energy form), then it will replenish any lost energy less than 1 unit in size. However, if a whole unit of ring energy is drained from a ring before it can recharge, it will lose stability and vanish instantly. That takes a huge drain since rings recharge almost instantly.
The original purpose of rings was to protect. Ring energy naturally clings to life force and reacts with it in a way that causes it to erupt if the life’s aura is disturbed. If whatever has absorbed them is injured by a tangible outside force, any rings it has will automatically dedicate all their energy to blocking the injury. All ring energy will be concentrated into charging the carrier’s physical form making it temporarily invulnerable to any kind of change, which is essentially what injury is. This process of charging the carrier causes the ring energy to be outside of the carrier and forces it to manifest itself as rings. Depending on the strength of the injuring force, some or all of the energy of all of the rings will be drained. This renders them incomplete and severed from the source and thus unstable. If the injuring force is greater than the combined power of all the rings' energy, the shield will fail.
If a carrier has x number of rings, it is carrying x units of ring energy. At the same time, it is exposed to a portal to the source of size x rings. This exposure creates a field effect upon the carrier. The energy of this field is much weaker than ring energy, but still considerably powerful. This field can be used just like ring energy, but since it stems directly from the link and rings are not spent accessing the field energy, it is indefinably renewable. The energy of a single ring is notably greater than that of any size field effect. Examples of field effect are the special moves in SA2 multiplayer like time stop (you need to collect another 20 rings to do an attack again because commanding all that energy is taxing to the body. The time it takes to collect the rings gives them rest and the expanded field effect energy can be used to recharge themselves once they regain enough strength to use it) and the required presence of 50 rings to achieve super form.
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There are only two ways the rings can be floating. Either a force of exactly 9.80665 m/s squared is acting on it in the opposite direction of gravity, or it isn’t being affected by gravity. If there were an upward force on it, the rings on the moon and in the upper atmosphere should fly away in the weaker gravity unless there’s an intelligence governing how much force is needed to make a ring float at a given height. The only evidence of sentience in the rings’ behavior is that they protect their user. It’s possible, but since dumping rings into the upper thermosphere to float for eons untouched is hardly what I’d call intelligent, I went with them not being affected by gravity. That means they either have no mass or there’s some weird third-dimensional stuff going on. I think we’ve seen floating rings affected by physical forces - the lightning shield, at least. But they obviously reflect light; that means they must have mass, so we’re left to conclude that forces of an interdimensional nature are at play.
When a ring disappears, where does its power go? There is no burst of light, heat, sound, or any other recognizable form of energy. It just blinks out of existence. Therefore, its energy is either released in a form we can’t see like radiation (every character should’ve died of radiation poisoning by now), it’s being released in a place we can’t see like another dimension, or the energy is used up by something before the ring is gone. I don’t know why the energy would go into another dimension, even if that’s where it originated from, so I sided with it getting used keeping the ring together as long as possible.
Working under the atomic instability theory, the rings have to recharge. The rings that Sonic picks up are disappearing because they don’t have enough energy to sustain a physical ring, yet when Sonic recollects them they’re still worth a whole ring. Furthermore, if Sonic ends up with half a ring of energy in his body after untransforming, there’s nothing for the energy to be used up on. The excess would have to be released from his body, and as with the vanishing rings we don’t see anything like that so it must go back to being a full ring. The energy recharge has to come from the source, which creates the necessity for rings to be connected to the source when inside a machine or body (pure energy form).
Frieza2000 wrote:When a ring disappears, where does its power go? There is no burst of light, heat, sound, or any other recognizable form of energy. It just blinks out of existence.
I really couldn't read all that, Frieza, but I'm dropping my two cents.
Here's what I agree until now.
The rings are connected to the Emeralds.
The reason there are no rings in Echidna past is simply that we are talking about a city there. There are hardly any rings in Station Square around humans, so the same happens with the civilized echidnas.
50 Rings work as the catalyst for being Super. 50 is just a number that, by chance, ended up being the exact amount of energy needed. It's like the minimum amount of sticks and straw needed to make a fire. With that on hand, Sonic can harness the power of the Chaos Emeralds and the rings become fuel, lose the rings, or the Emeralds, and you're not Super anymore.
The *tling* sound is a result of energy loss, such as the little sparks that are left behind. So there IS a burst of light and sound. We won't be able to know about heat or smell until Nintendo's next console launch in 2015.
I've got a question, but that goes to a whole other area, with the Super Emerald thing. But it can help with the whole "harmful energy" theory.
Sonic and Knuckles can become Super by harnessing the power of the Chaos Emeralds, but Tails can only become Super after they've transformed into Super Chaos Emeralds by contacting the Master Emerald. So does that mean that some "body energy" is needed to use the chaos power? So after the Emeralds became more "stable" with the Master Emerald, Tails was able to use them. This could also explain why Amy and the others can't turn Super.
Other thing. S&K's Metal Sonic seems to be the only one able to turn Super by simply absorbing power from the Master Emerald.
Opa-Opa wrote:50 Rings work as the catalyst for being Super. 50 is just a number that, by chance, ended up being the exact amount of energy needed. It's like the minimum amount of sticks and straw needed to make a fire. With that on hand, Sonic can harness the power of the Chaos Emeralds and the rings become fuel, lose the rings, or the Emeralds, and you're not Super anymore.
Sonic didn't really need the Super Emeralds with him to turn into Hyper Sonic, they only had to be present and energized in Hidden Palace. As long as he had 50 rings as well, he could transform at any time. He did, however need the normal Chaos Emeralds to change into Super form, as evidenced by his inability to go Super after losing them the first time he went into a Super big ring to get to Hidden Palace in the S&K half of S3&K.
Opa-Opa wrote:Other thing. S&K's Metal Sonic seems to be the only one able to turn Super by simply absorbing power from the Master Emerald.
Not only that, but shortly before being defeated it gained the ability to generate rings and fire them as harmful projectiles. If rings really are created by energy leaked from Emeralds, then that would do the trick.
Opa-Opa wrote:The *tling* sound is a result of energy loss, such as the little sparks that are left behind. So there IS a burst of light and sound.
That's just when they're first dropped. They stay around for several seconds after that, which means they still have some energy. Then they just disappear.
Owen Axel wrote:Not only that, but shortly before being defeated it gained the ability to generate rings and fire them as harmful projectiles.
They may not be the same rings you pick up though, they seem quite a bit fatter. They do seem to shine and use a similar pallete though, so it's debatable.
Opa-Opa wrote:Other thing. S&K's Metal Sonic seems to be the only one able to turn Super by simply absorbing power from the Master Emerald.
Maybe not so, in Doomsday Zone after Sonic beats Eggman, he retains his powered up form through the Master Emerald.
Knuckles does thsi too, in his good ending, holding the Master Emerald and being powered-up while riding the Tornado.
I've only tested after having all the Super Emeralds though, can anyone verify what happens with just the Chaos Emeralds present or not-present at the altar?
I was thinking about this while watching the greatest sitcom American television ever had, and I came upon a startling thought: in Sonic 2 and Sonic 3, any rings Tails acquires will somehow transfer instantaneously by unknown means right back to Sonic.
