It doesn't look like he was just messing with Sonic when he converted the animals of Angel Island into robots way before Sonic even knew that island even existed.
But it's not saying that: it's saying he converted them, yes, but at the same time it's not saying what they're being used for, just that he is. They could be hostages in case Knuckles starts getting uppity, for instance, or he's using them as CPUs. If anything, Sonic Adventure implies the latter, since the Flicky inside E-102 Gamma begins affecting his processes. There's also Knuckles, not to mention he probably had it figured Sonic would find him eventually (and was right).
"Convert" in this case clearly means that they were transformed into robots. SA and SA2 continue the tradition of badniks being powered by critters, evidenced both by how one escapes from every defeated machine and since that Flicky was able to affect Gamma. I'll have to look into whether Gamma was some newer robot powered by some other source akin to Metal, but it appears that Eggman neglected to either remove the critter-power function or tune down his capacity for emotional learning. [Edit] E-100 Series bots are indeed powered by animals.
To be clear, I'm not disputing that they were put into the robots. I'm pointing out that there's nothing actually saying they were put in to power said robots. It seems to be fanon that's been mistaken as canonical for the sheer factor of popularity it's attained. Other options include hostages against Sonic and wetware CPUs.
How come we never see badniks not drop a critter as it irreparably ceases to function from S1-SA2 and probably beyond? In the case of CD, they drop seeds, while 3D Blast has them dropping Flickies. All the terminology employed by Sonic Team and the imagery/mechanics in the games themselves point to the critters/flicky/seeds/stolen life source enable the badniks to function.
I mean, I can't see any terminology indicating Robotnik's using them for power. Convert can infer many things: if anything, convert makes me think of roboticization from the SatAM cartoon. Checking Sonic 3D: Flickies Island, it has them more as hostages: What quotes do you have specifying that they're being used for power specifically? I'm gonna check Sonic Lost World, see if that mentions their function. Also, SEGASonic the Hedgehog has robots but no animals.
This topic is becoming really hard to follow when members post multiple times in sequence. Sometimes I’m not sure if there are deleted posts in-between or if people are following up their own posts… Anyway, having followed this thread for a while, I don’t understand why some are trying to rationalise and place all of the games into a canon timeline. Some games, like the Game Gear games, simply can’t and aren’t meant to be canon to the rest. They’re little spin-offs. Some games, like Spinball, can be, because the reality of obtaining 10+ emeralds is simply explained away by the fact that you’re playing pinball, and the number of emeralds is irrelevant to the plot and only tied to the mechanics of the game. I’m happy though that there’s becoming more awareness about the Sonic ‘06 / Rush & Rivals connections. It is quite clear from these games that ‘06 portrays a bad future for Blaze and Silver, and then Rush and Rivals are their good futures, where they (seemingly) never met. The connections deepen with the Solaris / Sol Emerald naming, the cut Sol Emerald style gems from ‘06, and then Rivals showing that Nega is not from an alternate dimension, but the future. I haven’t watched Tails Tube but from what I can gather some of the changes seem a bit unusual and I do wonder if, like any franchise, the nuances and details of the games are a bit too much for SEGA to keep track of without losing meaning or detail. They should hire me - hell, I’ll do it for free for them
It also only has a single enemy that can be destroyed... [Edit] ...and here's this from our wiki entry for Lost World
Yeah, I'm not finding anything saying he's using the animals for power in the manuals. I did find this quote on the Sonic News Network, apparently from a Sonic Adventure guide, though they don't link to anything for source: They also bring up E-100 Alpha "ZERO", which also brings up another point: what's powering ZERO, since it lacks an animal, yet doesn't seem to be hindered by this?
Indeed, the case of Zero and Metal Sonic perplex me, which is why I had to go check to see if Gamma and the rest of the E-100's were powered by animals. They are. Eggman is always experimenting with alternative methods though... time stones instead of chaos emeralds, powering badniks with flora instead of fauna or even rings as you mentioned. https://info.sonicretro.org/index.php?title=File:S&K_MD_US_SonicJam_manual.pdf&page=11
Just because most Badniks use animals a doesn’t mean they all have to. I never found it very weird that the Metal/Mecha Sonics or Zero didn’t use them.
Also E-123 Omega, unless there's an animal in there we're unaware of... I find it odd: it'd be like G.U.N. having random robots in their ranks that don't have Chaos Drives, despite everything else using them...
I only really find Zero odd, but progressively less so as I continue fixating on it. Eggman was probably aiming to make the E-100's more like Metal, and clearly failed since he went back to organic energy sources for the rest of the series. I *assume* Omega was powered by an animal too, but there's no definitive indication one way or another. Plus he hails from Heroes... a game that hardly makes any sense and that I am incapable of taking seriously.
Bordering on fanon here, but I think it's a matter of specialisation and what exactly is needed in each machine. Now, we don't know the exact intent behind each and every machine, but badniks are produced en masse. Could be that, in the early days, before Eggman had got his feet under him in terms of using front organisations to sell ersatz versions of his machinery for revenue, he lacked the funding and/or resources to outfit the badniks with conventional fuelling means, so resorted to using the small animals instead. Alternatively, badniks are a self-perpetuating army in a sense. You stick a bunny in a motobug and suddenly it has the capacity to go and round up several more bunnies, meaning several more motobugs. Meanwhile, Metal Sonic, Mecha Sonic, Eggman's boss vehicles, etc. are custom pieces with much more durability (and in some cases complexity) than your garden variety badniks. The robot Sonics in particular probably demand a huge amount of energy and would likely burn through animals very quickly to operate optimally. In my mind, it's kind of like how an alarm clock or TV remote will run on AA batteries, yet laptops and games controllers will run on rechargeable lithium batteries. What's most economical for the purpose while still providing adequate performance?
It's Gamma's Sonic Channel profile that says the robots extract bio-energy from the animal inside: https://sonic.sega.jp/SonicChannel/character/gamma.html Eggman's profile in the Sonic Adventure Tokyo International Forum Unveiling Booklet offers an alternate explanation: the small animals are used as AI. https://archive.org/details/SonicAd...Forum_Unveiling_(1998-08-22)_Book_Page_09.JPG https://ia801207.us.archive.org/4/i...Forum_Unveiling_(1998-08-22)_Book_Page_09.JPG Plus the mini bosses in Sonic 3 & Knuckles, all the robots in the Game Gear games, and so on.
This one might be due to technical limitations. So both are options. Honestly, I think the AI one makes more sense: the amount of energy output by a living organism is pretty much rendered worthless by the amount of energy you have to put in, due to biological processes consuming a good chunk of said energy, unless the mechs are dumping dead animals and just grabbing another one when needed. I can see that in Sonic the Comic, since Robotnik punishes people with death regularly and has working badniks jumping into molten metal to melt down for their failures (and since they're active, they've likely still got their biobatteries inside...), but not in the games... An AI that's basically self-powered, though? And as mentioned, E-102 Gamma gets influenced by the animal within, getting an image of a family from the Flicky, indicating there is some interaction with the computer systems and the animal's brain... Edit: wait, is that the correct link for the AI information? 'cause that looks like what I got from Sonic News Network, Pengi:
Yes, it's correct. It's in Eggman's profile. The text is completely different to what you just quoted. "AI" is there in English.
So it is, sorry, I was looking at E-102 Gamma's profile since he's the one with the Flicky. Do you have a translation, or shall I get my friend to do so? Edit: Got it anyway:
This may fall more into headcanon, but given how all the "Eggman's Robots" in Heroes had power cores that leveled up speed, flight. and strength respectively, maybe Omega is powered by them as well. We should keep in mind that as time went on, Eggman switched to Chaos Drives to power his army, presumably because it was more efficient than catching animals (Lost World kinda throws a wrench into this annoyingly but they were focusing on roots there). Come Generations and Forces, there's not much in the way of discernable power sources.
