That's a...Chaos Emerald!

Perfectly explains the storyline carried over from Sonic 2 to Sonic 3 & Knuckles, and the one carried on from SA2 to Heroes to ShTH.

So I can assume that this is why Sonic CD is alluded to in Adventure, yes?

 

Okay, they leap to the next dimension/game after Sonic saves the world except for Sonic 2/3/K.

SA2: Shadow never went to sleep. At game end, he dies. End Timeline.

Heroes: Shadow wakes up for the first time since events on the ARK colony.

ShTH: Shadow wakes up for the first time since ARK, but the events that happened in Heroes did not take place.

 

In Eggman's base? With Rouge automatically knowing who he is?

So he escaped from GUN on his own? And Prison Island is blown up just because? And Omega just, knows him?

I'll concede that your theory works well for the classic continuity. Making it work in the modern continuity however, requires just as much fanfic-ish rewriting and work-arounds to make plausible as it does without trying to make it work.

I think we should just conclude that Sonic lives in a crazy, nonsensical universe (due to the carelessness of the writers of the plots), and that trying to actually make sense of it will only cause peoples' heads to explode.

 

So the echidnas named the Emeralds exclusively on account of their drama-generating abilities?
Awesome.

 

Sonic 1: Sonic doesn't get all 7 in that game.
Sonic The Fighters/Sonic Championship: Knux contributes the Master Emerald, everyone else wagers Chaos Emeralds. (considering colors a minor detail that doesn't matter here. They change between every fucking game anyway.)
Sonic Spinball: It's a spinoff game with the Freedom Fighters in it. Pretty safe to assume it's non-canon IMO.

 

Or the 8 in Sonic Adventure 2, since one was artificially created by Tails, which I'm thinking Robotnik also did in Spinball, but eh, non-canon.

 

Agreed.
The fact that they were all blue is also a bit of a hint that something might be up.

 

When it comes to inconsistencies like these I tend to just sit back and watch people speculate. Nice to know people want some continuity in the franchise, but it's also a shame that they'll never find it.

Sonic's continuity was destined to fail the minute SEGA decided to split the series for Western/Eastern audiences. It's an utter mess. At this point in time, I generally concern myself less over the unexplained properties of the Chaos Emeralds in the classic games and am having loads more fun trying to figure out how the moon was repaired as if nothing had happened.

 

For some reason, seeing that makes one thing comes to mind:

Sonic didn't seem to return to the ARK immediately, otherwise he wouldn't have found Shadow's Ring floating about space. Perhaps he used Chaos Control to repair it and prevent catastrophical tidal changes on the planet that's as cool and blue as him?

 

Wouldn't they have shown that scene if it actually happened? And besides, I don't think Chaos Control in the hands of a character who's barely begun to understand its functions would be able to recreate matter.

 

Who said anything about recreating matter? Sonic could have just put the pieces back and gravity did the rest.

 

He doesn't have to, Chaos Control could merely be used to reverse the damage by reversing time of the moon, but not the time of the rest of the universe. And you have to think, Sonic pulled it off repeatedly* in normal form, so in Super form he's probably able to do it with a mere thought. Look at the ARK, it was burning up before they used Chaos Control, yet afterwards it was perfectly operational.

And the game's story ended, did you honestly care if they went ahead and had shown Sonic repair the Moon after Shadow had 'died'. Wouldn't they have also shown Sonic grabbing Shadow's ring from space?

*That's debatable, since you can't do it with Sonic when you're playing as him, but he does when playing as Shadow.

 

It's because Mobius has several moons and in the subsequent games set on Mobius you've not seen the moon of Mobius that got blasted but instead various other moons of Mobius.

 

I don't know what crazy fantasy land you live in, but THE MOON IS KIND OF A BIG DEAL. And besides, the moon wasn't left in chunks like the Earth in Unleashed, it was UTTERLY OBLITERATED.

 

Of course, but I'd think they'd rather focus on a death of a character and the reaction then DEATH/FIX MOON/REACTION. Fixing the moon wasn't exactly important to the plot of the game and thus not necessary to show. Blowing it up was, to show the damage the Eclipse Cannon could do, and there wasn't anything else going on plotwise, while fixing the moon would have cut into Shadow's death.

And like I said, send the moon backwards through time while limiting the time effects to just the moon and it's flaoting chunks, the damage reverses and since the Eclipse Cannon isn't shooting at it at this point in time, the damage isn't redone.
Think like pressing reverse on a video player, then recording over the events from that point with an alternate ending. You've seen what happens, but now it doesn't happen.

 

I suppose.


I still think they should have put more focus on it. It confused a ton of people who actually gave a darn about the continuity (me being one of them for a while)

 

Yeah, perhaps if Tails questions how the tides will be affected now, with Sonic replying he repaired the moon with Chaos Control, so for him to not worry about it. That would have saved us a whole lotta bother.

 

The ARK was shoved into the moon in place of the other half.

Its size is rather variable- huge in cutscenes, big enough to house a shitton of levels, but small enough to fit snugly in the Biolizard's ass during the final boss.

 

But it was visited in Shadow the Hedgehog, whose opening clearly shows a full moon.

It's fun to rationalize these things, but come on, the Sonic games have never had that strict of a continuity.

 

Well put. Besides, th moon is 1/4 the size of the earth, and the Ark is considerably smaller. Take a look at the final cutscene where we see the Ark falling to earth... it's as small as Texas, I'd say.