I kinda have to echo a lot of the sentiments here about Triple Trouble's placement. It would make a lot more sense if STT happened after S3&K and honestly it might be prudent to examine the japanese wording for "stranger" here. It could be an implication that there was a "mysterious figure" blocking their path which turned out to be Knuckles, rather than a straight up stranger, but that's just theorizing. Either way, it's not possible for Knuckles to have been in Sonic's way before Sonic 3 and it comes down to timing with the Death Egg's crash. Honestly, there's no way the Death Egg could've taken that long to fall to Angel Island. It's a massive space station with lots of mass and nothing to keep it in orbit so it's going to be pulled down very hard by gravity and thus very rapidly. We know that power became an issue for returning it to orbit so one assumes that Sonic destroying the Death Egg Robot and the subsequent explosion either destroyed or permanently disabled the power source keeping it up there and knocked thrusters offline. That means Eggman had an uncontrolled re-entry on his hands at speeds of about 17,500 mph from an altitude of at most 22,236 mi which means that a generous figure would put the length of the crash at about an hour or less depending on Angel Island's altitude. (As an aside, it's why the timing was so critical with the ARK's crash, it was accelerating towards Earth with its own thrusters which decreased the time remaining until it crashed.)
It's still vague. They made Sonic the Hedgehog 2 the previous adventure in question by directly referring to it. Not to mention that, as far as the Death Egg is concerned, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was the previous adventure, since it wasn't involved with the others. Also, not to confuse kids. I'm definitely not expecting them to Kingdom Hearts it and make you have to play seven different titles between 2 and 3 to understand the plot. You seem to be missing my "left the adventure on less hostile terms" that I've said repeatedly. Not to mention we don't know who imprisoned Knuckles. Fang the Sniper is present in the Atomic Destroyer, when he has no reason to be (he's not employed by Robotnik, he's a rogue third element of the titular Triple Trouble) and runs off the second Robotnik comes along with his usual vehicle. Smart money would say said bounty hunter was the one who did it. Yes. Sonic the Hedgehog 2's adventure was address and became the previous adventure. You do realise the Mega Drive games take place over the course of, like, two or three days, right? Sonic the Hedgehog (MD) Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (MD) Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (MD) *based on the fact the Death Egg has a glow around it in Hidden Palace Zone, but not in Lava Reef Zone, but would most likely be down to simply the art of the level due to the backgrounds where it's stuck looking visibly different. So Sonic the Hedgehog (MD) starts at day, transitions to night and possibly the morning, a single day and night. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (MD) takes place over two or three days, maybe four depending on Chemical Plant, and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles takes place over two, maybe three days. (No wonder half the time he's trying to sleep when Robotnik gets the drop on him, he keeps pulling consecutive all-nighters.) Are you telling me that Sonic could not have had an adventure in the several days between the Death Egg Impact and finding the ring, despite their bigger adventures never going over three days at most? I'd place Sonic Triple Trouble as over two days within those several, simply because of Sunset Park Zone and the ending transitioning to evening as Sonic flies toward what I could easily believe to be the island the where they find the ring. He doesn't take over South Island? He kidnaps Tails and Sonic beats him, then takes a Chaos Emerald and Sonic beats him. Again, these adventures are taking place over the course of, at most, three or four days. We have literally no time-frame for when the Death Egg was destroyed and when it actually begins re-entry, simply a "was just starting to crash towards the earth." I wouldn't say it took years, but I could say it took a couple of months and these two to three day adventures could probably sit happily within those sixty days. Indeed, hence my comments about it being up to personal interpretation and referring to the timeline I posted as such. It doesn't stretch mine due to the ambiguity of how long between events, while the games always seem to indicate it's events are happening over the course of a couple of days, with Sonic the Hedgehog (MD) taking place over the course of an afternoon and evening. Very much in agreement there. I'd still tell Iizuka point blank it's a stupid idea and ask him to stop lying about him inheriting it from Naka, since Naka blew that out of the water in 2011. I don't trust liars, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say it's a miscommunication rather than actual lying. You... you don't know how gravity and orbital mechanics work, do you? There was a famous experiment done by Neil Armstrong on the Moon where he took a feather and a hammer and dropped them, to determine if gravity pulled heavier objects first. Sure enough, the hammer and feather fell at the same speed, as gravity doesn't care about mass: the only reason things fall slower is due to catching the air as they fall. And the point of orbit is that you're going so fast you're missing the planet and atmosphere. Do remember that the Death Egg was up there for a while in the first place, before Sonic the Hedgehog 2 at least, so it was up there for over three (or four) days without falling. Essentially, if it were in a stable orbit, which it either was after spending days up there or Robotnik is really bad at putting things in orbit, then it didn't need a power source to keep it up there, as there's precious little drag at that altitude to slow it down and force reentry. So yes, it could have taken that long as it looks like it was in a stable orbit by the time Sonic reached it. While the ISS does regulate and reboost its orbit monthly, it's not necessary and could go a few months before absolutely needing to do it. (I like space.)
You know, if you worded things with a little more tact, I don't think people would be so off-put by your comments on this thread. I'll grant you that point about orbital velocity and mass (my bad), but we also have to bear in mind that there was a massive explosion upon Sonic's defeat of the Death Egg Robot, one Tails could see from the ground as well. An explosion of that magnitude would have pushed the Death Egg out of a stable orbit, especially if it knocked the power systems offline. Even counting for air resistance and terminal velocity, that doesn't leave you a lot of time before it crashes into Angel Island. And the Death Egg aside, it doesn't logically make sense that Knuckles would go after Sonic on South Island when Eggman lied about him. He has this giant egg that could lead to disaster if the prophecies are to be believed and the Master Emerald is apparently under threat of being stolen by this hedgehog. If I were a guardian of the Master Emerald and the Island, I would not leave for fear of that "egg" hatching or the Master emerald being stolen, I'd stand watch. Additionally, Knuckles has the home field advantage on Angel Island which gives him a tactical edge over intruders, but if he were to launch a preemptive strike on South Island, tactically he's at a disadvantage. Likewise, it doesn't make logical sense for Eggman to leave the Island either with his one-track mind. He has to oversee the production of Launch Base and locate this giant Chaos Emerald reading he's picking up on. Running off to conduct an experiment on regular Chaos Emeralds would be a waste of time if he can locate and obtain this massive power source that's sure to get him back into orbit. If he really needs to fallback on the chaos emeralds, he knows that Sonic will arrive in time and he could steal them from him then.
Probably, but I've always had that problem no matter how hard I try to correct it. If you felt insulted, I sincerely apologise. It's all still dependant on various factors. Where was the explosion on the Death Egg? Would it have pushed it further away from the Earth? Accelerated the Death Egg? Slowed it down? Was it all in one direction or was it vented out the still under construction hull? Etcetc. There's just the shot of a blast, so we've nothing to gauge on how much it actually affected the orbit. Looking at the detonation, it honestly looks like the whole thing went up. Perhaps that was the initial plan? To have the Death Egg completely destroyed in Sonic the Hedgehog 2, but then they decided to use it to tie to Sonic the Hedgehog 3. It doesn't make sense for him to leave Angel Island at all, since Robotnik is now aware of it and the Master Emerald, at least in this instance he's under the assumption Robotnik is a good guy. He's still done it for various games after: it's likely he's operating under the assumption that if Sonic is collecting Chaos Emeralds, he knows how to find them, and would inevitably head for Angel Island and beeline for the Master Emerald. I wonder if Robotnik also told him about Super Sonic? That might have been a prompting for him to try and cut off the Hedgehog. If I've learned anything from Robotnik reading these manuals, the man does not do sensible. He often proudly proclaims his plans for Sonic to hear, sometimes even explaining how to defeat them. Even then, would you test a weapon on the island where you've got the guardian convinced you're the good guy? Actually, the Death Egg has two destructive weapons in its eyes, as it fires them off in Lava Reef Zone. What were they called? Perhaps they were two Atomic Destroyers and the test was for a replacement? Headcanons for later. Also, it seems the Death Egg of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was more inspired by the Death Star from Return of the Jedi than from A New Hope: it's still under construction at the start, the level icon shows a similar construction layout as the Death Star (the bottom half and top right hemisphere still show construction underway on both) and seems to be based on a shot of the Death Star orbiting the Forest Moon of Endor and that explosion invokes the image of the detonation from the moon's point of view.
Also, considering Knuckles was tricked into actively attacking Sonic at least two other times after this (Sonic Adventure, Sonic Advance 2) that I know of, it's not exactly out of character for Knuckles to fall for it in Triple Trouble. Sonic Mania Adventures also kinda runs with the idea of Knuckles not totally trusting Sonic, the plot synopsis in the description outright says this:
I've noted that: Knuckles is generally merely acting on information in Sonic Adventure, and he 'confirms' it before picking a fight. Sonic Advance 2 has no such excuse, though. The most I could suggest is that it was a pretty good lie since we never actually see that lie. Either way, I don't think Knuckles would be tricked into believing Sonic is a full fledged villain looking to collect the Chaos Emeralds to take over the world after returning the Master Emerald and saving Knuckles' life at the end of his own story. Mistaking Sonic for collecting shards of the Master Emerald, sure. Whatever the hell in Sonic Advance 2, sure. But not full fledged villain after literally leaving the ultimate power on the planet twice.
So turns out, there might be a reference to the Black Arms in Sonic Adventure 2. Spoiler Can't think of much else that could include Astronomers concluding something about "Monstrousblacks". And this is all centred around Shadow...
I think we're all forgetting one thing. By plugging Sonic 2 into S&K, it creates an entirely new timeline branch where Knuckles defeats Eggman circa S2 instead of Sonic. This could provide an entirely new chain of events in which to fit the GG titles.
Oh, no, I just don't bring it up since I get enough flak for the Game Gear titles. I put it after Sonic Blast/G Sonic on my personal timeline, as Knuckles is hinted in the Sonic Blast manual to be tracking down Robotnik for his stunt in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles. To me, it's him running through West Side Island and the remaining badniks in a continuing pursuit from Sonic Blast. I'm well aware that wasn't the intention, but hey, I still like my continuity.
Hm. Perhaps this timeline leads into an alternate continuity in Sonic Adventure. I was playing Knuckles' story the other day, and I noticed something extremely questionable. After the Chaos 4 miniboss, the Wind Stone, which must absolutely be on its pedestal at this point in the story, is nowhere to be seen. If it's not present, then how did Sonic & Tails get the Chaos Emerald out of Windy Valley that was then stolen by Robotnik and ALLOWED CHAOS TO BECOME Chaos 4? Does Sonic Team give this little of a TOS about their own continuity!? But your idea offers an explanation: In Knuckles' timeline, he fought Eggman on Westside Island, the ramifications of which could have led to a chain of events where Knuckles maintains a noticeably more active role. Sonic & Tails fight Eggman on Westside Island -> Sonic 3 -> Sonic & Knuckles -> Sonic 3D Blast -> Sonic Adventure Tails is Captured (Sonic 2 8-bit) -> Knuckles fights Eggman on Westside Island -> Sonic Chaos -> Sonic Triple Trouble -> Knuckles' Chaotix -> Sonic Blast -> Sonic Adventure By the time of Sonic Adventure, the Chaos Emerald that was in Windy Valley in the "prime" timeline must have simply ended up somewhere else, meaning Sonic & Tails never had to go there. Remember, Knuckles is a more experienced hero in his own story, which is why HE WINS his own fight against Sonic, whereas in Sonic's story, he is defeated. Sonic Adventure's litany of differences (dialogue changes, events playing out differently, stages being locked/unlocked) depending on who you're playing as are likely an indication of FURTHER timeline shenanigans; It seems that this one game depicts at least six different quantum realities between its characters, and yet still presents all this discrepancy as a cohesive whole. This gives us a clue as to all the OTHER continuity "errors" present throughout the rest of the series: They're not really errors at all, they're just depicting slight variations on the timeline. One culmination of all this is Shadow the Hedgehog, which canonically presents MORE THAN 300 different "versions" of its story.
Why stop there? What about the timelines when Sonic & co are defeated? If Sonic dies to the first motobug in Green Hill Zone in Sonic 1, Robotnik wins. What does that mean for the timeline? If you die to one of the glitches in 06, Mephiles becomes Solaris and can enact his will on the entire continuity! The possibilities are endless!
Welcome... to Multiverse Theory Thinking. Where everything has happened, and nothing has at the same time. Those fan games you used to play? They're canon to their own universe. Those fanfics you read? Canon, but a different universe. Those weird comics you used to read where-oh... let's not go there. But seriously, does anyone know a good archive of interviews? I've not really gotten anything back about Iizuka discussing Giant Rings between the Human and Sonic's world, only that no one knows how Sonic (and, y'know, the rest of the cast) travels between them, so I'm going to start digging around and seeing if we can figure out how Iizuka Canon works. Oh, also remembered a good example of the World Word Ambiguity: Last I checked, Disney's Tarzan wasn't set on a different planet, simply a "paradise untouched by man." Kinda like what Naka said, right? The islands of the Mega Drive games being remote enough that Humans hadn't visited them. So yeah, world can honestly just mean a different land, and somewhere along the line someone's gotten confused about the two worlds being separate planets. Also, I've read that Iizuka never actually said the Super(-Charged Chaos) Emeralds were non-canon, simply that they were unlikely to return after Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles. That's also something I'm going to look to dig into.
Timestamp wasn't in the link. 26:37. I don't fault Ian, but that answer has pretty much cemented that I'll no longer be supporting the games. That and the Silver Future answer earlier on. It's quite evident they just don't care, no matter what they claim. The franchise has gone from Sonic the Hedgehog to Sonic the Alien, and the game-play can't cover the hammer they're taking to the worlds knees because it's in the same chamber. Well at least the Black Arms aren't out of place in the Sonic the Alien side of the series. Aliens drop from the skies, other aliens come in to fight them as they were all apparently on Earth at the time rather than in their own world, and a mix between those two aliens is running around doing his own thing. Totally justifies the canon changes. (I refuse to call them retcons, as they're not.) I'm going to keep digging at the lore, since I still genuinely love the franchise and want to explore what I can, even if I refuse to pay for it to become more and more mutated. Might still buy the IDW comics, since that's an adaptation and not a butchery of a pre-existing world. Speaking of the Silver Future thing, apparently SEGA are still treating Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) as the canon version of the future, as that's apparently the future Silver the Hedgehog comes from. I have no idea how that works, considering the world was wiped out and those events erased. Did Silver come back, wander around Soleanna for a bit, and then go back to the future and defeat Iblis?
Looks like the forum took the link and reformatted it into an in-bedded video and dropped the time stamp. Sorry about that. :/ That said, I don't think the Two Worlds thing will ever be referenced in a game. My suspicion is that Sonic Team (for whatever reason) just wanted to get away from humans and GUN and the two worlds retcon was the excuse they used so they don't have to address those topics for the time being. Then if they decide they want to revisit the human-side of things, they can just shrug and say that Sonic is back on Earth. I mean, really though this has been par for the course since Sonic '06. The last fifteen years have basically been episodic games with no overarching story, flanderized characters with no arcs and only the vaguest of references that past games happened. For whatever reason, they aren't interested in continuity and world-building, but this has been the case for almost fifteen years.
I've figured it out! Sonic's World is called Coral! But seriously, if they wanted to withdraw from Humans, they had some perfectly valid islands in the southern seas they could have used. Or, y'know, just not focus on them like Sonic Heroes did? I wasn't wondering where Humans were in that game, I was wondering why it looked so bad and played like crap. Then I stopped playing the PlayStation 2 version in favour of the GameCube version. It's just a needlessly complicated answer to a very simple issue, really. One that's leaving a bad taste in people's mouths, as it turns out. They also now have to explain if Angel Island is doing the dimensional do-si-do (are these magical rings giant enough to consume islands? And if so, how do we not see these giant island-eating rings? Is Knuckles leaving Angel Island in a different world every time he appears? Is Angel Island an Earth-based location and thus Knuckles remains on Earth? And so on), why literally the entire Sonic Heroes cast was present for the Black Arms invasion of Earth in Shadow the Hedgehog, unless Sonic Heroes is set on Earth still, which kind of defeats the split itself since it shows Sonic's World-esque locations on Earth that could easily continue to be applied to other such locales, etcetc. Again, you apply even the feeblest of thought towards this scenario, and the logic breaks down. Regardless, something I noticed in Sonic Adventure 2 is that apparently Robotnik still can't tell the difference between the Master Emerald and Chaos Emeralds from the signal. Robotnik, while picking up the Master Emerald: Which somewhat matches the discussions we had about Sonic the Hedgehog 3's manual, regarding if he was detecting a giant signal or giant Chaos Emerald. Apparently the signal is ambiguous enough he doesn't know it's the Master Emerald until he's checked it out.
A potential theory has occurred to me, about all that. The whole two worlds thing started on the Iizuka Era. So it's safe to assume the continuity only got those retcons by the time he took the helm of the franchise. Anything before that keeps the "One World with Humans & Anthros" shtick started on SA1. Easy, I guess?
The problem is they're attempting to retcon it in to everything before. I also don't appreciate Iizuka's claim he inherited it from Yuji Naka, because it comes off as him attempting to throw Naka under the bus for his decision when a bit of digging revealed Naka maintained One Earth in 2011. Honestly, I'm doing what you've suggested and splitting the canon between the directors of Sonic Team. Naka Canon (1991 - 2006) and Iizuka Canon (2010 - Present), with a minor schism between when Naka up and left and Iizuka became director of Sonic Team. I'm just annoyed that it's had to come to this, rather than the preferable singular continuity. Even DOOM, the guys who think story in computer games is like plot in 'adult films', has a more consistent story and lore for goodness sake. Regardless, it is what it is and there's not much to be done other than watch it happen.
