Revenge of the nerds

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Wombatwarlord777
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Re: Revenge of the nerds

Post by Wombatwarlord777 »

I just noticed that I didn't use spoiler tags. If we need to delete my last post, feel free to do so. I've saved its text.

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

Post by Frieza2000 »

Wombat, that parallel between the botanical theme of the shrine and the original emeralds as seeds is neat! Probably not intentional, though. Your emerald theory works but for the lack of mention of what happened to Knuckles's set of Chaos Emeralds.

Chris, you've got the start of something there. I didn't see a good way to make that work at first - my immediate impression was that they had to be memorial statues. Interesting to find out that CW tweeted something that could be taken that way. "In their absence" seems to indicate that the Super Emeralds are absent, however - you wouldn't usually say a power source is absent just because it's lost its charge or been damaged - and the fact that the departure of the Chaos Emeralds is mentioned at all suggests that it was the Chaos Emeralds that were sitting on those pedestals, the stone emeralds now taking the place they departed from, not a separate set that strictly go by the name Super Emeralds. I would consider it a retcon to suggest that the Super Emeralds and the Angel Island set were one and the same - I think the scene where the Chaos Emeralds fly off screen in Hidden Palace and the Super Emeralds fly down in their place clearly intends to show a transformation - but it can work. You missed a few pieces of the puzzle though.

1) Why do the Chaos Emeralds take the shape of the Super Emeralds from that day on, and why did they have that shape 1000 years ago?
The easiest explanation for the latter question is that the Chao had the Super Emeralds, not Chaos Emeralds. Kind of duh, but worth clarifying because it brings up another issue. At some point after the Chaos incident, they lost their power. Perhaps the Master Emerald, in sealing away Chaos, didn't drain him of the Super Emeralds' energy, so the energy was trapped within the Master Emerald as well. It seems kind of odd for the echidnas to guard dead stone emeralds, but it's passable (though I should point out that the "relics" in Mania are cracked, whereas the dead emeralds were undamaged in S&K after 1000 years - and no, I don't think any of the on-screen events since then or their usage in Hyper transformations would believably have damage them if being used by Chaos to destroy the world did not damage them.). Another explanation could be that they simply lost their power over time, but there's no precedent for that; the Master Emerald didn't have this problem, and presumably the octagonal Chaos Emeralds have been around just as long. Perhaps this set of emeralds has a kind of safety mechanism where they can be turned 'off' in such a way that they no longer have any energy, but that has the same issue of precedent.

The first part of the question is more problematic. Wombat's idea of the Chaos Emeralds retaining some of the energy from having been transformed into Super Emeralds doesn't work here because there was no transformation. You had the Chaos Emeralds retreat into the Special Stage upon the appearance of the Super Emeralds for no given reason, so they weren't even in play (your opening thesis was that the Chaos Emeralds were powering the Super Emeralds, but you didn't mention it in the theory itself). So why the shape change? If they were lending their power to another set of emeralds then they should be weaker, if anything. Tails is able to go Super sans flickies with them as of Mania, which he was not able to do with the octagonal emeralds, so we could assume that they're stronger than before but not as strong as the Super Emeralds, though it's also possible that he's just gotten stronger and no longer requires the extra energy to transform. So they don't necessarily have to be stronger than the octagonal emeralds, but they do have to be weaker than the Super Emeralds. I've got two ways to explain this.

-If we start from my earlier idea that the Master Emerald had absorbed the power of the Super Emeralds during the Chaos incident, then when Sonic brought the Chaos Emeralds to Hidden Palace he unknowingly presented the Master Emerald with what it needed to restore the Super Emeralds and aid him in fulfilling the Doomsday Zone prophecy. The energy of the Chaos Emeralds was then absorbed by the ME, which it used to teleport the dead emeralds to Hidden Palace and to transport Sonic into its own depths to manually retrieve the energy of the Super Emeralds one at a time. Perhaps this was necessary to avoid releasing Chaos at the same time (returning that extra energy to the Super Emeralds doesn't prevent it from containing Chaos and Tikal for at least another year, so that's not a factor). When the events of S3&K are over the Super Emeralds are no longer needed, so the Master Emerald takes back their power and gives some of it to the Chaos Emeralds along with the energy they originally had. Not all of it (otherwise they would be even stronger than the Super Emeralds and we would still have Hyper forms). Perhaps these smaller emeralds aren't able to contain all of the energy. It changes their composition (and shape) in order to accommodate as much of the energy as possible, but there isn't enough material to work with to make them equivalent to Super Emeralds, so the ME retains part of that energy within itself.

Why? Why not just leave the Super Emeralds restored and give Sonic back his Chaos Emeralds? Surely having all of that energy diffused between 7 stones instead of all trapped inside of one is less dangerous. Or, if this was somehow undesirable, why not return to the previous status quo where all of the Super Emerald energy was in the ME? I don't see a good reason for this, but on the previous pages I discussed how arbitrary the will of the gods/ME seems to have been throughout the series so this isn't a huge sticking point.

Then it recreates the Super Emeralds to help Knuckles fight an Eggrobo. For some reason. I'd probably go with that being a gameplay element, but again, arbitrary gods being arbitrary gods.

-Let's say instead that the Super Emeralds just lost their energy over time, or in some incident between SA1's past and S3&K. In this case, the Master Emerald took the energy from Sonic's Chaos Emeralds and transferred it into the Super Emeralds. This was not enough to restore them, however, since the Chaos Emeralds are significantly weaker. So Sonic needed to go to the Special Stage to gather more energy for each one. At the end of the process, there is still not quite enough to make them usable, so the Master Emerald begins channeling some of its own power to them (thus the glowing). Once Eggman is defeated, it does the same thing as in the above scenario. Some of the extra energy that Sonic gathered is returned to the Chaos Emeralds, making them stronger than before, but they're unable to contain all of it so the Master Emerald either keeps the rest or discards it.

-Maybe the Super Emeralds are so wildly powerful that every time they get used they break themselves. Not physically - we've seen what happens when emeralds sustain normal physical damage: Knuckles repairs them. What could cause an emerald to stop working other than physical damage? And why would a second set of Chaos Emeralds be instrumental in repairing them? I could probably come up with some convoluted reason involving life energy and Feng Shui, but it's 2am. But if this is the case then presumable Sonic et. al. just decide to leave the Super Emeralds in the broken state they found them in, or the Master Emerald has never felt like facilitating that same repair again. It doesn't do it in Mania, and Knuckles can stand right on those relics with all of the Chaos Emeralds in hand.

2) Why was the Master Emerald glowing after the Super Emeralds were empowered?

Already answered for scenario 2. For scenarios 1 and 3, all I can imagine is that the Super Emeralds are not enough by themselves to support Hyper forms, so the ME needed to lend its hand as it does in scenario 2. None of this accounts for the glowing behavior in SA1, but as we discussed earlier that's hard to explain no matter what position you take on the Super Emeralds.


I don't like any of these theories. #1 involves some really contrived postdiction, #2 involves a set of emeralds having their power lost in the ether when we've previously been given the impression that they have basically unlimited energy (i.e. that they're a power source, not batteries) - a problem that also applies to #1, and #3 introduces a state of inertness to the emeralds that requires other emeralds to reverse. Though we didn't really talk about it before, the idea of the Super Emeralds being the Angel Island set was always on the table. At first glance it might even appear to be what the manual intended, but the reason I never brought it up was because it seemed to fly so hard in the face of the Hidden Palace scene.

I still think the fusion theory works better. Remember that Knuckles mistook Sonic's Chaos Emeralds for his own missing set. If they were different shapes, how would this be possible? You pointed out that he mistook a Chaos Emerald for a Master Emerald shard in SA1, but that was at a distance, partially visible, and it was the same color. Knuckles can act dim sometimes, but I'm loath to pass him an idiot ball of this magnitude. And there's still that mural with 14 octagonal emeralds in SA1's Lost World. I don't think your new theory handles any of the difficulties better (I was going to say that an independent set of Angel Island emeralds gives us room for there to be two ancient civilizations that destroyed themselves with their power but that's equally possible with two sets of octagonal emeralds, just within a shorter window of time). In fact, I think the Super Emeralds being permanently damaged is a weaker explanation for why we have no Hyper forms than the Master Emerald being arbitrary in how and when it chooses to intervene; if we were able to repair them once then why not again? Why is the damage worse now than when Chaos used them?

Mania still contributes to the fusion theory, though. I had previously favored the idea that the new diamond shaped emeralds are in fact the Super Emeralds and that modern Super forms are actually Hyper forms, just without the seizure-inducing coloration, but Mania supports your prior theory that the Master Emerald had boosted them into Super Emeralds because Super Tails does not have the flickies and Super Knuckles does not kill all enemies on screen when he glides into a wall.

The idea of stone relics appearing in place of the Super Emeralds when they returned to the Special Stage kind of reminds me of the way that the energy of the Pillar solidified into the Chaos Rings within the space of the Hyper Ring portals in the Chaotix manual, but these relics don't appear to be made of energy so that probably doesn't apply.

chriscaffee wrote:Knuckles ambushes Sonic and takes the Chaos Emeralds which also quickly retreat to the Special Stage.
He probably tossed them there for safe keeping, assuming Sonic would never be able to find or retrieve them.

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

Post by Opa-Opa »

Man, what a huge thread.

Just bringing something to the table here that I always thought about the layout of Angel Island. What if Hydrocity Zone was deep in the ocean, under and outside the Floating Island? That always made sense to me considering that when Sonic and Tails arrive at the Angel Island Zone they are at sea level, and there's not much vertical movement in that stage.

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

Post by chriscaffee »

Opa-Opa wrote:Man, what a huge thread.

Just bringing something to the table here that I always thought about the layout of Angel Island. What if Hydrocity Zone was deep in the ocean, under and outside the Floating Island? That always made sense to me considering that when Sonic and Tails arrive at the Angel Island Zone they are at sea level, and there's not much vertical movement in that stage.
It's possible. However, also keep in mind that there is plenty of "Angel Island" mass below sea level as well. The island isn't a Frisbee with a few mountains on top, it also has rocky formations below the sea level parts. My assumption is that the "Hydrocity" ruins are part of Angel Island, likely flooded, due to it being in the ocean. Now, it is possible that they are distinct from Angel Island, similar to the Newtrogic High Zone. But also something to keep in mind is that in Sonic Mania the Tornado is parked somewhere in Angel Island Zone. After you finish Hydrocity, Sonic, Tails & Knuckles are seen on the Tornado flying to West Side Island. So, if Hydrocity is just a set of ruins that Angel Island just happened to land on in Sonic 3, then it just happened to land on the exact same set in Sonic Mania. It's possible.

I'll have to digest Frieza's post a bit before I respond to that monster. O.O. :)

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

Post by chriscaffee »

So it's been two months. That might be enough digestion. Let's dig into this:
Chris, you've got the start of something there. I didn't see a good way to make that work at first - my immediate impression was that they had to be memorial statues.
I agree that the plain reading of Christian's tweet indicates this. The problem I have with it is...why? Did Knuckles carve these statues? Perhaps. Or he had a friend on Angel Island do it. At first I couldn't understand why Knuckles would memorialize the Super Emeralds, but perhaps it was because they were related to the fulfillment of the dragon prophecy. I suppose if Knuckles had been studying the murals and legends as guardian of Angel Island, Eggman's defeat in The Doomsday Zone could have had special meaning for him. It also suddenly occurs to me that "doom" is just a really negative way of saying "fate". When keeping that context in mind "The Doomsday Zone" is basically "the place of the fateful day" which is a cool connection to the whole event being prophesied, because, again, we see that battle on the Hidden Palace mural. So it's not just a catchy name for "Eggman is trying to destroy the world with the Master Emerald" but that that specific battle was predetermined. I think the connection to the mural was always obvious, but I never really paid the name of the stage much mind. It could just be coincidence, but it ties into the prophecy idea very well.
1) Why do the Chaos Emeralds take the shape of the Super Emeralds from that day on, and why did they have that shape 1000 years ago?
The meta answer is that Sonic Team made a decision, for the sake of consistency for the Chaos Emeralds to always be brilliant cut and seven in number. I know we are discussing fan theories, and this sort of meta reasoning isn't helpful, but in this case, it's something to keep in mind because the Chaos Emeralds do appear to be different all the time. In Sonic 1 they are octagonal, in Sonic 2 they are hexagons and in Sonic 3 they are pentagons. But we KNOW the Chaos Emeralds from Sonic 3 are intended to be the same as from Sonic 2. (Unless the first set of emeralds Sonic collects are actually the Angel Island set...) So we know the emeralds are very inconsistent in the classic games. We can either hand wave that and say "yeah but they are all supposed to be the same" and therefore the changes in size and shape are meaningless, or we can say that changes in side and shape are significant story elements and analyze them accordingly. Sonic Team isn't going to ever write a story bible explaining the inconsistencies between the games. They don't care. So the size and shape of the emeralds in Sonic Adventure...could be ignored as not significant. Or it could be important. But that's entirely up to personal preference.

In this case, I think you are correct. I am slowly being pulled back into the fusion theory. The reason I came up with the Super Emeralds being a separate set was because I couldn't rationalize in my head Knuckles having fake Super Emerald statues commissioned for a palace that only four people know about. But, again, the plain reading of Whitehead's tweet is pretty clear that they are replicas. There is a little ambiguity, but yeah, I think you're right on this one.
2) Why was the Master Emerald glowing after the Super Emeralds were empowered?
I always interpreted the glowing Master Emerald as less about whether it was powering up the Super Emeralds and more that it had attained "harmony." The Master Emerald (I believe) glows in the past in Sonic Adventure, because everything is the way it should be, until the Knuckle Clan attacks and then it is dark and no longer glowing. In the present it glows initially, but once broken it no longer does until it is completed. Then once again, it stops glowing when Angel Island falls during the Super Sonic story, because something is out of balance. In Sonic 3 & Knuckles, when Sonic restores the Super Emeralds, the Master Emerald starts glowing because everything is the way it is supposed to be. The glowing is just the Master Emerald's way of saying "everything is cool."
Mania still contributes to the fusion theory, though. I had previously favored the idea that the new diamond shaped emeralds are in fact the Super Emeralds and that modern Super forms are actually Hyper forms, just without the seizure-inducing coloration, but Mania supports your prior theory that the Master Emerald had boosted them into Super Emeralds because Super Tails does not have the flickies and Super Knuckles does not kill all enemies on screen when he glides into a wall.
And Super Sonic also doesn't have Hyper Sonic's double jump. However, you might be onto something here with the modern Super forms being Hyper forms. But that's not quite it. I think the modern Super forms are Diet Hyper forms. So, back in ancient times we have the Chaos Emeralds. The emeralds are then split into two weaker sets. In S3K, Sonic reunites them and they get a boost from the gods/Master Emerald to become Super Emeralds, temporarily allowing Sonic & Knuckles to access Hyper transformations. After the events of S3K, the "Super Emeralds", which are now considered to be the "Chaos Emeralds" for every other game from here on out, vanish into the Special Stage dimension. The stone relics were then created to commemorate the event. Now these "Super Emeralds" are still very powerful, more powerful than they were when they were divided, but they don't quite have that boost to make them "Super Emeralds" anymore. But, since they are more powerful...so are the Super forms. Sonic & Knuckles can't breathe underwater and don't have screen clearing area of effect attacks, but they are faster and stronger than their classic Super forms. For instance, you get the "after images" in Sonic Mania and in Sonic Adventure 2 as Super Sonic when you are moving at maximum speed, which previously only appeared for Hyper forms. So I think you are right that Modern Super Sonic is definitely more powerful than Classic Super Sonic, but I don't know that he is as powerful as Hyper Sonic.
The idea of stone relics appearing in place of the Super Emeralds when they returned to the Special Stage kind of reminds me of the way that the energy of the Pillar solidified into the Chaos Rings within the space of the Hyper Ring portals in the Chaotix manual, but these relics don't appear to be made of energy so that probably doesn't apply.
This is possible. Perhaps the stone relics are a sort of "cocoon" of Super Emerald energy that was converted to solid matter when the "Super Emeralds"/Chaos Emeralds returned to the special stage.

Now, all of this has got me thinking about another topic. It's pretty clear that "classic Sonic" in Sonic Forces is the same "classic Sonic" from Sonic Mania. Sonic Mania is said to happen after S3K. I believe there is some promotional material that says "classic Sonic" from Sonic Forces is from "another dimension" and is not simply "modern Sonic's" past self. Until we get a hold of Forces, we can really only speculate about the specifics, but, given these facts, is Sonic Mania "canon" to the classic Sonic story line?

For that matter, is Sonic Generations? Did Sonic, in the middle of a play through of Sonic 1, get warped from South Island, to West Side Island (Chemical Plant), then to Little Planet (Stardust Speedway), then to Angel Island as the Death Egg is taking off (Sky Sanctuary) and then back in time to the Death Egg before it was destroyed at the end of Sonic 2? Then proceed through all the modern stages until being returned to...what, the Marble Zone? And where does that leave the time-displaced classic Eggman who was recruited...I guess at the climax of Sonic 2? But "classic Tails" is present in Sonic Generations...but Sonic was abducted in Green Hill Zone on South Island...before he met Tails...or is the implication that this is "classic Sonic" but after the classic games and he just happened to be in Green Hill Zone at the time, and he was time traveling through his recent history, (and then future) and not just entirely traveling through the future?

I don't know, my take is kind of to pretend Generations is some pocket universe Sonic game made to capitalize on this 20th birthday and has nothing to do with the classic or modern Sonic stories since it offers essentially no original content. For Forces..., I kind of feel the same way. I think the Mania good ending should just be ignored and classic Sonic should remain in his own world. I really, really don't like the idea of classic and modern Sonic being in the same game, particularly in a story we are supposed to be taking as serious. It was okay as a one-off for the 20th anniversary title, but as a trend...I don't like it. The classic games are sort of my solace. I can sort of pretend that everything after Sonic Adventure 2 is fanfiction, but it's a bit harder to do that when the folks at Sonic Team are saying that between the events of S3K and Sonic Adventure, Sonic time traveled to the future...twice. Which means that modern Sonic in Sonic Adventure, and Sonic Adventure 2 and Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic '06 and Sonic Unleashed...already knows what's going to happen? Which makes it sort of a split alternate timeline...but the new games don't really address that it's an alternate timeline, which just makes the series feel like even more of a mess then it already is. I thought the whole point of establishing rules for the Chaos Emeralds and such in the Sonic Adventure days was to clean up the canon and make things simple, consistent and have good continuity. These weird dimension hopping and time travel stories just don't make any sense.

We'll see what happens with Sonic Forces, but classic Sonic just seems like an unnecessary tag-along. Considering that modern Sonic and Buddy's levels are already 60% 2D sidescrollers anyway, do we really need a third character that is 100% 2D sidescrolling (even though classic Sonic has been pseudo-3D since 1992 and was fully 3D as early as what 1996? 1997?)...but not as good as what we just experienced with Sonic Mania? Assuming equal level treatment between the three characters, we are talking about a game that is 70% 2D in terms of game play. Remember 19 years ago when Sonic Adventure came out and the entire game was 3D? And it was pretty good? And then Sonic Adventure 2? Which was even better? And then Sonic Heroes? And then Shadow? And then Sonic 06? Sonic '06 just seems to be the gift that keeps on giving. Not only was it a really bad Sonic game, but it seems to be the reason why we can't have 3D Sonic games, and why we can't play as characters who aren't named Sonic. Why are we still being punished for Sonic Team making a bad game?

What were we talking about again?

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

Post by Frieza2000 »

chriscaffee wrote:When keeping that context in mind "The Doomsday Zone" is basically "the place of the fateful day" which is a cool connection to the whole event being prophesied, because, again, we see that battle on the Hidden Palace mural. So it's not just a catchy name for "Eggman is trying to destroy the world with the Master Emerald" but that that specific battle was predetermined. I think the connection to the mural was always obvious, but I never really paid the name of the stage much mind. It could just be coincidence, but it ties into the prophecy idea very well.
It probably is coincidence, but I dig it!
chriscaffee wrote:brilliant cut
I have been searching for this term for so long.
chriscaffee wrote:So we know the emeralds are very inconsistent in the classic games. We can either hand wave that and say "yeah but they are all supposed to be the same" and therefore the changes in size and shape are meaningless, or we can say that changes in side and shape are significant story elements and analyze them accordingly.
It's easy to write off the changes between games as mere design changes, and that's naturally what I did until I came to the Hidden Palace scene. To have different shapes between games, or even between different menus and game modes within the same game, is something easily dismissed. But to show two different shaped emeralds in the same game mode within seconds of each other in a cut scene strongly calls attention to it. Even if they are separate emeralds and it's not showing a transformation, it definitely gets you thinking about the fact that we never see those roundish emeralds in any game ever again, and not just nerds like us who think way too hard about these things. The mural in SA1 is more easily overlooked, but the attention to detail in that game was impressive enough that I give it weight. I do honestly think there was intent, at least by someone at some point, to show that the Chaos Emeralds canonically changed shape in Hidden Palace. Whoever they were (Oshima/Naka?) they are obviously long gone and nobody involved seems interested in coming back to the issue. Except Headcannon, I guess. Anyway, I think we're pretty much on the same page again.
chriscaffee wrote:The reason I came up with the Super Emeralds being a separate set was because I couldn't rationalize in my head Knuckles having fake Super Emerald statues commissioned for a palace that only four people know about.
I think the best explanation is that the gods created them as a way of erecting the middle finger at Iizuka for not allowing Whitehead to include actual Super Emeralds. Also, they really help pull the room together.
chriscaffee wrote:The Master Emerald (I believe) glows in the past in Sonic Adventure
No, it doesn't. That's whats difficult about it. It doesn't glow in the past at any point, but in the present it's always glowing, even when it's broken. More details halfway down page 2 of this thread.
chriscaffee wrote:And Super Sonic also doesn't have Hyper Sonic's double jump.
Does anyone know if super forms can breath underwater in Mania? I was going to check myself but I still haven't gotten a second sitting with the game and my Googling last month suggested that nobody else was even curious.

I've been saving my Forces rant for next month. It has the potential to be the most painful moment in the franchise's history for me, perhaps surpassing even Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic Boom. The base premise (minus the needless inclusion of two Sonics) is really cool and has a lot of potential. Infinite is a DBZ villain and I like that - we haven't had one since Sonic 06 (and we haven't had a good one since SA2). The character creator is kind of neat. But then I look at the actual game footage and I'm reminded of everything that's happened in the last 10 years and it makes me wish the series would just die. And I have a feeling that my conclusion is going to be that Sonic Team will never be able to implement a Sonic game that doesn't make me wish that no matter what they try. All of the big names involved would have to go away. We'd need to start from scratch again, like they did with Colors except with people who actually understand Sonic this time. Viva el Taxman.

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

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chriscaffee wrote:For that matter, is Sonic Generations? Did Sonic, in the middle of a play through of Sonic 1, get warped from South Island, to West Side Island (Chemical Plant), then to Little Planet (Stardust Speedway), then to Angel Island as the Death Egg is taking off (Sky Sanctuary) and then back in time to the Death Egg before it was destroyed at the end of Sonic 2? Then proceed through all the modern stages until being returned to...what, the Marble Zone? And where does that leave the time-displaced classic Eggman who was recruited...I guess at the climax of Sonic 2? But "classic Tails" is present in Sonic Generations...but Sonic was abducted in Green Hill Zone on South Island...before he met Tails...or is the implication that this is "classic Sonic" but after the classic games and he just happened to be in Green Hill Zone at the time, and he was time traveling through his recent history, (and then future) and not just entirely traveling through the future?
You know, I think I've been so disinterested in Generations that the absurdity of this has never occurred to me.

If Forces includes some kind of flashback from the void at the end of Generations where Classic Eggman is sent back to his own time/timeline in order to obtain the Phantom Ruby in coordination with Modern Eggman's plan to create Infinite, I will at least give it props for making an attempt at continuity.

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

Post by Wombatwarlord777 »

I myself had always assumed Sonic was just out for a morning jog or something in GHZ at the start of Generations, not actually going through the motions of Sonic 1. I thought there was some sort of lore about Sonic particularly liking to run through there, but I can't seem to find it at the moment.

Anyways, Classic Sonic's relationship with Classic Tails does only seem to make sense if Classic Sonic had at least experienced the events of Sonic 2. For the sake of convenience, though, I do generally assume that Classic Sonic had experienced the events of the Genesis games and CD before Generations.

Interestingly enough, the opening cutscenes to Classic Sonic's boss battles do suggest that he's somewhat caught off guard by them (he doesn't seem to anticipate Metal Sonic zooming past him and collapsing the road he's running on, and on the Death Egg he nearly runs off a ledge before the Death Egg Robot rises up from below).

Generations has a whole bunch of weird little plot holes.

> The Time Eater apparently does "eat time", which is why the areas in the hub world look dead and lifeless at first. But does that apply only to a set place at a set time (say Green Hill as Sonic happened to be jogging through it), or does it apply to every place at a set time (like, if you were to run through Green Hill as accessed from the White World for long enough, would you eventually hit Marble Zone?)? Also, does the Time Eater even "eat" set pieces of time, or does it eat entire timelines originating from a specific point in time? Like, let's say that the Time Eater does intercept Classic Sonic as he's running through Green Hill in Sonic 1. Presumably that would also prevent the events of Sonic 2, Sonic 3 & Knuckles, and the rest of the subsequent games from ever taking place. The fact that you can access different places at different points in time from the White World means that the only way this could work is if the Time Eater sequentially devoured points in time from the future to the past.

> After the Time Eater erases a place in time, why does said place at said time wind up in the White World? Is it a type of graveyard for terminated sets of time / timelines? Modern Eggman mentions in the game that he wants to use the Time Eater to undo his past failures. How does this work? The Time Eater erases time, but it doesn't seem to be able to magically alter past events. Are the Eggmans working in the places trapped in the White World to try and make them more lethal than they originally were, so that Sonic has a harder go of it when he inevitably passes through? That might explain why the level design / object placement in the game's levels are different from those of the original levels, and why the bosses have different behaviors.

> Why does Modern Sonic wake up in the White World when all of his friends are petrified? Wouldn't doing the same to him prevent the Eggmans a lot of grief? The only explanation I can think of is that he did get petrified, but Classic Sonic freed him and ran off before Sonic could come to. Unlike Modern Sonic and the modern cast, Classic Sonic is never shown getting sucked into a different time period or getting knocked unconscious. That would seem to imply that the act of freezing one of Sonic's friends is a separate act from deleting (or whatever) the place and time that said Sonic friends happened to be occupying.

> Are Orbot and Cubot okay? Dr. Eggman, you went back to space and brought them home, r-right? :sad:

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

Post by Dr. BUGMAN »

If we are to consider StF and the GG games as canon, Sonic sojourns to South Island frequently. Drift 1 and G Sonic in particular explicitly feature the GHZ, the latter being at the time the last proper Classic Sonic game. Which only raises the question of why Tails doesn't recognize the GHZ if he raced cars there...

Oh, and speaking of G Sonic, its intro shows the 5 emeralds splitting from a single, larger emerald. This is clearly Eggman's experiment the manual refers to, but there's some significance beyond this, like can CEs be combined, albeit unstably, or broken apart a la the Master Emerald?

And to completely change tracks, something dawned on me that I cannot believe took so long to. That is, Ohshima was borrowing more from Santa Claus than red and white:

Image
Image

It's the gesture mentioned in Washington Irving's influential poem of putting the index finger along the nose. which has its own implications not ill-fitting of the hedgehog.

Also, I vaguely recall that Christmas Island (of which there are two in real life) was Sonic's native habitat. If it's the atoll in the Pacific, then it would also explain that abandoned "nuclear explosion" origin.

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

Post by Frieza2000 »

Dr. BUGMAN wrote:If we are to consider StF and the GG games as canon
Several nods from Sonic Mania imply that they are!
Dr. BUGMAN wrote:Oh, and speaking of G Sonic, its intro shows the 5 emeralds splitting from a single, larger emerald.
It's probably just an artistic way of showing the 5 emeralds being scattered. A few Chaos Emeralds break in Sonic Battle, but that's the only time I'm aware of.

To answer my own question, Super forms can still drown in Mania. If they'd been able to breathe underwater it would've lent to the idea that the emeralds were meant to be stronger than they were pre-S&K since that's something they would have to have gone out of their way to code into the game engine, though its absence isn't a strike against the theory.

It's occurred to me that, following Iizuka's retcon of Generations as a multiverse adventure rather than a time travel story, the Sonic games have more universes at this point than Dragonball Super.

1) Classic Sonic's world
2) The special stage/interdimensional torsion/Fang's dimension/the Flicky dimension
3) Modern Sonic's world
4) Maginary World/Nightopia
5) Blaze's world
6) Ifrit's world from Sonic Rivals 2 (Chaotic Inferno Zone)
7) The storybook dimension (we'll be generous and consider it all one world)
8) Inside the black hole from Colors/Riders Zero Gravity, the space between worlds in Rush Adventure, the timeless void from Generations, and Null Space
9) The Twilight Cage
10) Sonic Boom (if a crossover was considered as the original concept for Forces then we can assume that in Iizuka's mind they exist in the same setting)
11) Sonic Boom's Parallel Universe, apparently? Might just be in the TV show.
12) Sonic 06 (Iizuka said it's a separate thing) and all of the other dimensions whose existence is implied during the Solaris fight
13) If we count the Olympic games then Sonic exists in the same multiverse as Mario, which adds several more worlds to the list

That might even be more named worlds than Archie Sonic got around to exploring! Did I miss any?

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

Post by Wombatwarlord777 »

Minor nitpick, but is there really anything to suggest that Nightopia / Maginary World are the same thing aside from the NiGHTS cameo? Or are you just saying that there's a generic dreamworld Sonic has access to?

If we count the Olympic games' as... "canon", and their settings as their own dimension/s, then I think anything that has really been in a game is up for consideration. Here's what I've got.

1) The world in which Mean Bean Machine takes place. Apparently it's just the setting of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog in a videogame medium.
2) The "alternative worlds" in which the handheld rather than the console version of a game takes place (Sonic 1, Sonic Colors, Sonic Generations, Sonic Lost World, debatably Sonic 2).
3) The world in which Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal takes place. It's got enough inconsistencies with Rise of Lyric's continuity that the differences between the two really couldn't be handwaved away. Also, the events and tone of that game are much more in line with both the Sonic Boom TV show and Fire & Ice.
4) The space between Sonic and Blaze's world where the final battle of Sonic Rush takes place.
5) Billy Hatcher's Morning Land (which, pardon the pun, opens up a whole can of worms; If Sonic has a cameo in / a crossover with another franchise, does that count as another dimension for Sonic? If so, then I can think of several others, like wherever you want to consider the Sega All-Stars Tennis / Racing games to take place. Fuck, is there a Sonic continuity that takes in a version of Hyrule?!).

Harder to argue are the Chao areas in Sonic Adventure 2. At the very least, I think the Chao Lobby either exists in its own space or is a portal mechanism suspended in the sky / space.

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

Post by Dr. BUGMAN »

If Bean is indeed Bin's (adopted?) son, then Dynamite Düx is part of the greater canon, yes? The intro implies interdimensional shenanigans, whether it's the arcade or MS version. Which is canonical, if not somehow both, to Sonic is anyone's guess.

And, yeah, S2 8bit is even more irreconcilable than Triple Trouble. It can't happen before 16bit on account Sonic and Tails first met on Westside Island. It can't happen after on account of, a, no spindash, b, the most inchoate Mecha Sonic ever, and, c, just how many games can you sandwhich between S2 16bit and S3 before you break credibility in half. Was Knuckles just standing around with his thumb up his cloaca waiting for someone -- anyone -- to give him the 411???

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

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Wombatwarlord777 wrote:Minor nitpick, but is there really anything to suggest that Nightopia / Maginary World are the same thing aside from the NiGHTS cameo?
The NiGHTS pinball machine suggests that either the game NiGHTs into Dreams exists in Sonic's world or Nightopia exists. It could be a separate thing from Maginary World, but I grouped them because I was trying be conservative with my count just to show that you don't have to nitpick to get a really high number.
Wombatwarlord777 wrote:1) The world in which Mean Bean Machine takes place. Apparently it's just the setting of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog in a videogame medium.
The graphical style is different, and we've never seen Beanville make another appearance, but there's nothing strictly preventing it from being part of the Classic world. Same with Spinball, despite SatAM cameos.
Wombatwarlord777 wrote:2) The "alternative worlds" in which the handheld rather than the console version of a game takes place (Sonic 1, Sonic Colors, Sonic Generations, Sonic Lost World, debatably Sonic 2).
In at least some of these cases, you could say that Eggman pulled the same scheme twice. Certainly the Game Gear games are generic enough plots to be repeated. For the others, it's possible one game takes place in the Modern world and the other in a future version of the Classic world, or even in the 06 world.
Wombatwarlord777 wrote:4) The space between Sonic and Blaze's world where the final battle of Sonic Rush takes place.
I grouped that under #8 with all of the other void worlds, though I'd forgotten that you actually go there in the first Rush.
Dr. BUGMAN wrote:It can't happen after on account of, a, no spindash, b, the most inchoate Mecha Sonic ever, and, c, just how many games can you sandwhich between S2 16bit and S3 before you break credibility in half. Was Knuckles just standing around with his thumb up his cloaca waiting for someone -- anyone -- to give him the 411???
None of that is a real barrier. (A) can be written off as a game design choice, (B) is just Eggman trying something different that didn't work out, and putting the majority of the side games between S&K and Sonic Adventure makes perfect sense. Prior to Heroes, where he decides to give up his day job and become a roadie, Knuckles has no interest in what Eggman does so long as he keeps it off his island. He doesn't like or even really trust Sonic until SA2, so why would you expect him to get involved in something as trivial as rescuing Tails? The only games that don't fit this pattern are Triple Trouble, where Eggman actively solicited his help (probably by having Metal Sonic impersonate Sonic and harass him), Sonic the Fighters, where Knuckles somehow ended up with one of 8 Chaos Emeralds (along with Amy, so, I dunno, the emerald fairy left it under their pillow?), leading Sonic to fly up to Angel Island and take it from him, and the racing games, where his participation can be taken as a type of revenge against Sonic for that time he beat him up and stole the emerald he had gotten from the emerald fairy.

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

Post by Dr. BUGMAN »

I think you misunderstand. I mean the events of S2, the DE crashing onto AI, would leave them and Knuckles in an unresolved state for too long if all those '93 games were to happen in the interim. Like, Knuckles would have absolutely no idea Eggman or Sonic even existed, and just left pondering the nature of the DE the whole time. Eggman would have to strike the iron while it was hot, you'd think, before Knuckles started investigating or something, at the very least.

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

Post by Frieza2000 »

Ah, so you're beginning with the assumption that the Game Gear games take place between S2 and S3 because of when they came out? I don't give that too much weight for the pre-Adventure games - I just put them wherever they fit. I mean, technically S2 8-bit came out a month before S2, though obviously it has to take place after it. The only game that came out directly between S2 and S3 is Sonic Chaos. Triple Trouble came out a month after S&K.

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

Post by Dr. BUGMAN »

Well, not just Chaos but SegaSonic Arcade, Sonic CD, the DiC-centric titles(if they count at all) and Cosmo Fighter were all released between MD S2 and S3 also. (And I was only citing TT as a similar instance)

And, yes, I do agree they all should be pushed aside to have the Death Egg arc make sense -- always had, but lots of people do go by release dates. It is, however, tempting to place some of the gaiden games before MD S2, specifically SSA and Sonic Labyrinth (and the kiddie rides if we're being all-inclusive) if for no other reason than they're absent core supporting/defined characters. Mighty, like Amy, can come and go with narrative impunity.

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

Post by Wombatwarlord777 »

Honestly, if we're going to try to sort through the early-Nineties games, I really think you have to go off of story elements alone. Trying to figure out when Sonic learns the Spin Dash just mucks everything up and, like Frieza said, you can chalk that up to game design. And release dates are just release dates.

Here are a few other things to consider:

:EB: There are a few reasons to think that the events of SEGA Sonic Arcade are the first canonical events in the Classic timeline, or even the first time Sonic and Eggman butted heads. Namely, Sonic is captured just like any other old animal, and Mighty and Ray are either old friends that Sonic drifted away from or were simply fellow captives that first met each other when they were captured together.
:EB: It's possible that both versions of Sonic 1 took place as two separate incidents. Eggman seems to have taken an extra bit of precaution in the GG version in that he has an escape blimp ready to go in case shit hits the fan. Remember, in the Genesis game Eggman's escape was incredibly haphazard and resulted in him careening into a pit.
:EB: Eggman's Silver Castle in G Sonic is just a dredged-up Death Egg that he manages to get semi- airborne. Therefore I assume it happened quite soon after Sonic & Knuckles.
:EB: The premise of Sonic & Tails is basically Eggy taking revenge on Sonic and Tails by trying to drown them. Given that the whole Death Egg thing was one of Eggman's greatest defeats, I assume that is what sets him off here.
:EB: Knuckles being brainwashed or blackmailed in Sonic & Tails 2 is the only way I can reconcile that game with the rest of the series. :confused:

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

Post by Frieza2000 »

I like to think that CD came before S2 because Bulma was the first supporting character that Goku met on his journey. Go on, laugh. And yes, I know Sonic 4 puts it after but I don't count games with unfinished stories as canon (like Chronicles, and you could make the same argument against the Rush games since Rush Adventure ends with a sequel hook that's never been followed up on).

I don't know much Japanese, but I know enough to tell from the dialogue in Arcade that Sonic and Eggman have a history.

I always unconsciously associate Silver Castle with the Death Egg and have to double check the manual, so you might be on to something there.
Wombatwarlord777 wrote:Knuckles being brainwashed or blackmailed in Sonic & Tails 2 is the only way I can reconcile that game with the rest of the series. :confused:
I'm telling you, Metal Sonic flew up to Angel Island and mooned Knuckles. This reignited his hatred for Sonic to such a degree that he not only abandoned the Master Emerald with no way of returning to the island, but he even went so far as to bring Eggman 6 Chaos Emeralds and trick him into building a doomsday weapon to kill Sonic, thus setting the events of the game in motion.

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

Post by big_smile »

Out of interest:
-How did Sonic 4 place CD after Sonic 2?
-What was the hook in Rush Adventure? (It's been a while since I've played either of these games, so I don't remember).

I've flip flopped over the Game Gear games, but I think overall they work better as a separate continuity for the following reasons:
-Sonic Team's never included any reference to them in their games (although there were a couple of bots in Sonic 4 ep2 that seem to have been inspired by the Game Gear bosses).
-Iizukia was dismissive of them, which is why they didn't appear in Sonic Generations
-They only seem to have six emeralds. All the games are set on South Island which will apparently sink without the emeralds.
-S&T2 describes Knuckles as a stranger.

It's possible to explain all of these issues. But they seem to fit better in their own world. And when Fang appears in Sonic the Fighters, he's crossed over from the GG world (as in S&T2 it is said he has the ability to move between dimensions).

Then again with Mania's big reference to them, we might seem the Mania team work the Game Gear titles more into the classic continuity.

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

Post by Dr. BUGMAN »

I suppose I can rationalize 8bit S2 happening after S&K if the mecha Sonic is some prototype that escaped of its own volition and happened upon a CE. I'm not as fixated on release dates and spindashes as you're making me out to be, however it is weird to think of a game entitled "Sonic 2" would happen so out of sequence.

Sure 8bit Sonic1 could also take place after S&K as well, but absent both Tails and Knuckles? I dunno... I guess Tails could've been faffing about with his music lessons in the meantime. (My headcanon for G Sonic is that it is concurrent with Skypatrol, much like Tails Adventures is with Sonic CD [to rationalize why the Battle Kukku gave up after a single attempt])

As for number of emeralds, *shrug*, having 6 or 5 doesn't preclude the rest from existing elsewhere (works for MD Sonic 1!). The other(s) could be keeping the SI afloat for the duration of those games.

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

Post by Wombatwarlord777 »

big_smile wrote:Then again with Mania's big reference to them, we might seem the Mania team work the Game Gear titles more into the classic continuity.
I don't know about any of the other titles, but you could argue that both versions of Sonic 1 focus on separate events taking place during the same overall story. In the "complete" version of Sonic 1, Sonic travels through 8 distinct areas of South Island, trashes Scrap Brain Zone, and finally confronts Eggman as he attempts to flee via the Sky Base.

Part of this is wishful thinking, honestly. If we ever get a game that directly deals with Sonic's early lore and takes place on South Island, I'll be disappointed if there isn't at least a throwaway reference to Bridge Zone or something.
What was the hook in Rush Adventure? (It's been a while since I've played either of these games, so I don't remember).
Fast-paced platforming across colorful locales, with a strong female playable character to act as Sonic's foil.

Image

In all seriousness, that's the Jeweled Scepter, which can control the energy separating different dimensions. Eggman and Eggman Nega want to use it to craft their own personal plane of existence / cause mayhem.
Dr. Bugman wrote:(My headcanon for G Sonic is that it is concurrent with Skypatrol, much like Tails Adventures is with Sonic CD [to rationalize why the Battle Kukku gave up after a single attempt])
For some reason, I've always had the impression that Tails Adventures takes place way before Sonic ever met Tails. Like, years before the events of Sonic 2. I suppose if you consider Sonic CD to take place between Sonic 1 and 2, then Tails Adventure could still take place before Tails and Sonic first met.

I had also assumed that Tails Skypatrol was also set years prior to the Genesis games, although looking at the museum page now that definitely can't be right.

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

Post by Frieza2000 »

Sorry, I was off about Sonic 4 influencing Sonic CD. I was thinking of this interview, but the guy backpedaled later so that CD's placement could remain nebulous.

It was definitely a big deal to introduce the Power of the Stars as a force stronger than the Chaos and Sol Emeralds (not sure if it means independently or combined, but either way Super Sonic and Blaze destroyed the Egg Wizard that was being powered by it), and it's the sort of thing that would be followed up on if this franchise had any kind of direction, but what I was referring to is this:
The Sonic Rush Adventure ending wrote: Blaze: So, this craft uses the power of both sets of Emeralds?
Tails: Yeah. The energy acts to form a sort of tunnel between this world and our world.
Blaze: Hmmm. So, then, the Chaos Emeralds and the Sol Emeralds are...
Sonic: ...sort of like North and South on a magnet.
Blaze: If they have the power to repel each other, they can attract each other, too.
Sonic: And if misused, they could potentially bring ruin to both worlds.
Blaze: Right. That's what the Eggmen were both saying.
Sonic: So, then, how do you prevent that from happening, Tails?
Tails: Well, I haven't done anything special in particular. They're both extremely stable. Because of that, I was able to put this ship together in such a short time.
Blaze: What do you mean?
Tails: Well, I got to thinking... Doesn't it seem like the Emeralds are trying to help us?
Sonic: Chaos Emeralds...?
Blaze: ...and the Sol Emeralds?
Tails: Yeah. If they weren't, I don't think they'd be nearly as stable as they are. It's almost as if they WANT to be used to do this.
Sonic: Trying to help us... Huh...
Blaze: Hmph.
Tails: I'm going to get us ready to launch soon, Sonic. [Walks away]
Sonic: Thanks, Tails. By the way, Blaze, what happened to the scepter?
Blaze: Ah, yes, the Jeweled Scepter. It's been returned to its altar, under even heavier guard than before. It's safe.
Sonic: Oh, good. That's a relief.
Blaze: Sonic...
Sonic: Huh?
Blaze: Do you think that maybe you were brought here for a reason?
Sonic: Brought here? By who?
Blaze: By the Emeralds.
Sonic (mouth agape): ... ...
Sonic (smiling): ... ...
Sonic (thumbs up): Heh, well, you never know.
It's not a sequel hook properly speaking, but I think it's pretty obvious that Dimps's writers intended this as a tease of the next game they wanted to do, the end of what would have been the Rush trilogy, but instead they got saddled doing the portable version of Colors and have been making handheld ports ever since. On the one hand I'm glad it didn't happen because the Master Emerald already fills the god role just fine, but on the other hand I'm curious where they would have gone with that.

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

Post by Dr. BUGMAN »

Wombatwarlord777 wrote:For some reason, I've always had the impression that Tails Adventures takes place way before Sonic ever met Tails. Like, years before the events of Sonic 2. I suppose if you consider Sonic CD to take place between Sonic 1 and 2, then Tails Adventure could still take place before Tails and Sonic first met.

I had also assumed that Tails Skypatrol was also set years prior to the Genesis games, although looking at the museum page now that definitely can't be right.
Well, not to retread a prior point, but yeah. SCD is the notable game featuring both Sonic and Eggman but not a single CE*, leaving them to be poached by the opportunistic Battle Kukku, who probably fear Eggman's greater forces and the growing coalition of heroes. Tails Adventures is explicitly a prequel to MD S2, so it makes even more sense to make SCD one too among its many other reasons.

*On reflection, however, this is the case for all the Arcade/kiddie rides, too...

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

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Tripel Trouble ends with Sonic or Tails releasing Knuckles from imprisonment. The implication is most likely that Knuckles discovered that the doctor was up to No Good again sometime after the Tidal Plant Zone boss fight. However it's ambiguous enough that it could've been a (needle)mole operation that went awry; that they knew Fang was eavesdropping and we're putting on an act -- likewise the TPZ fight -- but somehow the secret got out.

'Course this is all fanwank of the most contrived sort. Especially as it beggars what possible end such a ruse would accomplish.

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

Post by Dr. BUGMAN »

Anyhoo, has anyone else sense a general background theme of eggs in general and birds in particular? The one thing all races in the series with detailed ancient history -- the Echidnas, the Chao, and the Babylon Rogues -- have in common is oviparous reproduction. Even Eggman, viviparous that he is, is a link to his long-deceased grandfather. In other words, eggs are symbolic of the past. (Also, there is the alarm clock in NiGHTS into Dreams which is egg-themed. While obviously a visual pun on "egg timer," it could additionally be indicative of this symbolism)

As for birds themselves -- Tails and GUN aside -- the only factions that seem to be in the same technological ballpark as Eggman are the Battle Kukku and the Babylon Rogues. There are also bird faces carved into the ancient aqueduct, Labyrinth Zone, in South Island. Plus the giant rings tied to the Special Stage are often featured on the games' titles screens with bird wings affixed to them; it may be possible the Flickies affinity to giant rings may be related in some manner as well, like perhaps a more advanced bird race took favor on their more basal kin. There are also angel/bird wings depicted on Super Sonic in the Hidden Palace Zone's mural.

It may be likely the race at conflict with the Echidna were avians! (In reality, both are present in the fossil record, birds seemingly more ancient than echidnas, diverging from nonavain dinosaurs approximately 150mya; echidnas diverged from platypuses 50mya, but both having diverged from viviparous mammals 112mya -- again eggs are symbolizing the past/deep time.)

(Metroid also features ancient tech-savvy bird people, so there may be a common influence somewhere in Japanese culture, assuming Metroid didn't directly influence Sonic. Maybe it was Egypt's ibis-headed Thoth, god of wisdom)

Thoughts?

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