So I made this Ultimate Timeline Form of the games from 1991 to 2018

I don't know if ever said "past dimension", but Iizuka referred to Classic Sonic in Forces as "Sonic's past self from another dimension".

 

About the red Tornado: It appears in the Fin screen of Tails' story in Sonic Adventure. And then Tails goes flying in it in Sonic Shuffle, so I think it was probably fixed immediately after Adventure 1 and so probably can't be used to work out the position of games.

 

This one wasn't specifically directed to you, some other "timeliners" have showed up here. And I can react to whatever I feel like, because it's about that, feelings. And, while I keep my position about why waste time with this, I was saying you're amazing because of your perseverance with the challenge, which, you know, is a good thing.

About the Phantom Ruby, I'm honestly getting lost on what's that thing really supposed to do or have caused, it's like Sonic Team's thought processes about plots and scripts crystallized into a McGuffin.

Now, that said, sorry if I'm being mean on my posts here, I'll talk again only if I remember something that could help like I did with the orbit of Little Planet.

 

That doesn’t look ambiguous to me, it’s literally telling us that’s the case. Tails can’t straight up say that it is because he’s not the narrator, however they’re clearly inserting lines of dialogue for the characters to paint us a picture of the events.

Mania hasn’t happened before up to this point either, because we’ve never played the game. When the events in Forces happen, Mania happens in the past which splits to an alternative dimension.

Why would coming from another dimension be such an important change, when SEGA still decide for that other dimension to be in the past and for the events of SEGA SONIC to S3&K still happen? It’s clearly a split timeline they’re going for here and therefore Forces has to happen for Mania to happen.

Just to be clear from my timeline set-up as I’m not sure if this is causing confusion:

The first few games in the timelines that are identical all take place in one timeline. It’s only when an anomaly happens that they split but try getting that all on one page to screen cap!

 

Has anyone checked the japanese version of that cutscene?
It may have a different say on the matter...

 

Windii's translation has that line as "Could it be that Eggman's mysterious power is breaking the boundaries of dimensions...?"

 

Reading this thread led me to check a couple of things for my own interest, and I think what I found might be interesting for you. For me, it's been wonderfull and awful at the same time, but this is not the day to talk about that.

Well, I've been reading Windii's translations from JP manuals for Sonic 1, 2, 3, K, CD, and 3D, as well as Chaotix, plus a bit of StF and all episodes of S4. Found some unexpected conclusions:

- SCD should happen before S1 for many reasons despite the available skillset in that game. The yearly cycle of Little Planet is an easy one, to give the planetoid time to come back for later events, but also because the wording suggests, at least to me, that Eggman spent his time in following Sonic after S1 to the point of even being possible that S2 is quite a direct followup of the first game, and that Eggman developed quite a habit of imprisoning little animals that didn't happen in SCD despite those little animals being present. The manual of Chaotix and the game itself don't mention the presence of little animals on that island, but talks about Eggman developing dark rings as power sources, so the replacement should be reasonable.

- Sonic the Fighters should be taken as the "true" EpIII of Sonic 4. Little Planet becomes Death Egg Mk. II, and Death Egg II is already built at the beggining of StF, and got a lot bigger than it ever was. TBH, Sonic Colours could be the counterpart of this game on a different timeline, given the designs of DEII and the galactic park.

- Chaotix would happen after S4 and StF so Metal Sonic timeline fits, but it could even be in both of your after-CD timelines as it would contradict neither of them. Also, if we put SCD before S1, Eggman could have lost the technology to make another Metal Sonic before the events of S4, hence the creation of inferior doppelgangers in S2 and S3k.

- Now, the bigggest reveal or bigggest fiasco, depending on your take: The way the manuals are worded you can assume either each island has its own set of Chaos Emeralds, prompting the biggest retcon happening from Adventure onwards (a single set for the whole world), or, if you read it from a more poetic standpoint, it could be that EVERY ISLAND IN THE CLASSIC GAMES WAS A PART OF THE ECHIDNA CONTINENT AND CIVILIZATION. All of them are said to be resting places of the emeralds or connect to their resting place through giant rings, which are supposed to come from that civilization, West Side Island had its civilization destroyed by the same reasons the Knuckles clan was, and it would explain why there were six emeralds on one island, why they would merge with a lonely seventh one on another, and why the seven grey super emeralds needed the standard sized ones to reappear and be revived. I would say the divine breakdown of the echidna lands and the inbalance causes by the wrong use of emeralds made their cores pop out to a different dimension while their grey, empty husks stayed at hidden palace until Death Egg crashlanded and the Master Emerald hid them, and revealed them again when Sonic brought their cores back to the shrine.

- I would add that, by placing SCD before S1, Eggman could have thought of finding Chaos Emeralds after finding the legends about Time Stones were true, and, whether you place SCD before S1 or not, he could have also thought a seventh emerald could be hidden somewhere if time stones were seven and shared a similar nature with the jewels from South Island, prompting him to follow Sonic in hope of finding the missing emerald and the ones released at the end of S1.

That's everything, I think. While there's a bit of baseless speculation on the second part of this wall of text, it helps avoiding retcons. I would have made a fix that allowed multiple emerald sets on modern games as it seems to be the best approach for the classic games, but Unleashed won't allow me to do that.

Also, have read about the Phantom Ruby and I still think it just causes massive illusions, no true reality transformations, but the effect could still cause strong dimensional quantum effects to make said illusions fully work. It also helps treating Forces as a big illusion that never happened. XD

 

Or, the Chaos Emeralds were used by various civilizations across history, as a result of their abilities to scatter themselves (as shown in Super Sonic's story in SA1) and warp themselves into the special stage dimension (which the various islands in the classic games seemed to have warp points to, seeing how you had to go into the special stages to collect them).

They originally laid dormant in the Knuckles Clan's land (as the Chaos Emeralds and the Master Emerald cancel each other's powers when in close proximity, per SA1 and complementary material), but after Chaos used them to lay waste on the echidna city, the Master Emerald took to the sky (per official material), leaving the Chaos Emeralds unrestrained to pop up all over the place.

 

My personal headcanon is that Fang brought a fake emerald.

 

I also think the 8th emerald in Sonic's playthrough in Fighter's is a duplicate emerald that was made when Sonic was cloned on stage 8.

 

How's this for a (completely fanon) idea:

The emeralds were deliberately scattered on seven different islands (to prevent them falling into the hands of evil etc.); when one is found and used, it moves to a different island (perhaps attracted by the emerald already on that island), and forms a group with that. When both of those are found and used, they collectively move to a different island and so on.

Eggman found the first emerald (mythology, chance, however you want) and used it for Eggman stuff, and then chased it across multiple islands. He roboticises those islands in the process (one of these could be the island we see in Segasonic the Hedgehog, for example). Sonic 1 occurs when Eggman arrives at the sixth island, South Island, only this time Sonic is the one to find and use the emeralds to undo Eggman's influence, at which point they then travel to Westside Island; when all seven of them are together again (and Sonic turns Super Sonic), Angel Island reappears after being hidden for an untold age.

The Chaos Emeralds then are not only just a power source, but a key to unlocking Angel Island itself; the mural fortells of one who can use the emeralds to stop a major evil - and it's the act of hiding these emeralds, and the island itself, that brings this prophecy to fruition.

 

Where/When was this?

 

...Sorry. I recalled Iizuka saying that in an interview, but can't seem to find it now. I might have misremembered.

Still, I know I read Classic Sonic being called that before Forces came out, as I remember it striking me how self-contradictory it sounded. If only I could remember the source