If i may intrude, to my knowledge, it was Eggman firing the Chaos Emeralds energy at dark Gaia itself that split the world in Unleashed. This is perhaps the distinction you are looking for. I've always had misgivings about Unleashed in regards to the continuity, given Sonic goes on a World adventure and we never see any past locations, (unless Empire City is supposed to be related to Central City/Station Square and the like). That said, I do think the difference of Dark Gaia being given the energy directly and woken up early played a role in the difference between the two scenarios. The split in Sonic Advance 3 seems to be timespace based and done via machine, whereas the split in Unleashed is done by Gaia itself as it wakes up early.
It seems you haven't read my post properly, as I was actually dealing with pre-Unleashed stuff, like your usual comment about GUN in Sonic Rush that would be explained if they finally got their hands in the technology Eggman used to enter Sonic's world in classic games. I'm not agreeing with the two worlds statement, but I find ways to explain it if we have to accept it. When talking about Unleashed, I've always been more worried about the effect of breaking a planet into pieces, for so many reasons I still think it's the worst thing in a Sonic plot ever. I don't know why everyone was so worried about the eclipse cannon shooting Chaos energy to the planet; if that happened, the continents would have funnily kept safe and afloat around an even sooner awakened Dark Gaia. But I suppose this also confirms the human world in Sonic's universe is the same featured in Illusion of Time and Terranigma, so "yay!" for the cross-platform and cross-genre crossover continuity.
So do we all agree that the best (or the least worst) way to treat the two worlds thing is to consider the worlds were merged until right before Unleashed and demerged after that and onwards?
The best way to treat the two worlds thing is to act like it doesn't exist. As long as the games don't discuss it (and they haven't), it's been for the best to ignore it. For everyone's sake.
I read it, I just disagree that it's a "better fix". I'm fine to ignore Iizuka's games from the continuity. It's quite evident the modern Sonic Team is either uninterested or incompetent with continuity, feel free to pick. They can't even manage continuity longer than two games: Classic Sonic appeared in Sonic Generations, and his next game was Sonic Forces, where he was altered haphazardly into an alternate dimensional being. The Phantom Ruby appeared in Sonic Mania, and the next game involving it was Sonic Forces, where Robotnik... was working on the final Phantom Ruby Prototype. The comics do nothing to make sense of that, beyond have it so Robotnik is happy with the Phantom Ruby and so created a prototype to use instead. And this is a plot element in consecutive games, need I remind you. If they're so desperate for two Worlds, then they can have two worlds. I'll stick to World 1, the continuity from 1991 to 2009, and they can have World 2, the mess that they're making from 2010 onward with two planets they have to dance the characters between and half-arsed explanations. Sonic the Hedgehog 4 and Sonic Forces feature planets that are not Earth as a background set up when Sonic is in orbit around "Sonic's World". While the rest have Earth or some variation of the Earth in the background, they've established intent that they're separate planets.
I don't remember any other planets than one featured in Sonic Forces, and even though it's called "Sonic's World" and may not 1:1 match the tectonics of Unleashed's version of Earth, I don't imagine that matters too much. After all, Unleashed's continents don't match ShTH's, etc. Also Sonic 4 has more than one planet but.. isn't one of them Little Planet? I thought that was the setting of that game.
No, but they're generally recognisable as Earth or Sonic Unleashed Earth. Also, Shadow the Hedgehog's Earth is just Earth. Not sure what G.U.N.'s map was about, but there's North America being blown up for you. No, it's set on "Sonic's World" as the Little Planet closes in. You see the Death Egg mk. II being constructed around the Little Planet as the game progresses. Otherwise, you can see "Sonic's World" from the E.G.G. Station, during the Episode Metal cutscene of Metal Sonic returning to "Sonic's World" and while on the Death Egg mk. II. Spoiler
If' you're gonna ignore what I'm saying and instead read what you want so you can repeat what we're fed up reading, that you don't like Iizuka, fine then, but I was providing a fix to official stuff, not to whatever your headcanon is. And yes, it's better than just "there are big rings everywhere anyone can go through and even huge stuff can cross". And a constantly merging and demerging world so we can have Sonic's world, human world, fully merged world and any intermediate state necessary so we can explain each game individually isn't a good explanation either. That said... They make whatever earth-like map they want each time, and not only I fail to see similarities or consistency in globe screencaps you've posted throughout the thread, but it's also evident they don't care about consistency at all in this regard either. If you're gonna be so nitpicky with a series, you'd have to say almost each game with a view of the planet from space happens in a different world from the rest. Answer in both cases and many more: Fine if you want to discuss continuity and timelines and dimensions and whatnot, but keep it on reasonable levels, you're really wasting more time of your life with this than it deserves, and I'm not disregarding your passion, but man, here it seems like you have to unfold this mystery to cure cancer or something like that, and it's just crappy handling about an inconsequent piece of entertainment media. I like to vent my feelings about it too, but won't spend hours proving how bad and inconsistent it is.
If it makes it better somehow, I think there would need to be only one or two demergings. They were merged 4,000 years ago, I guess they demerged after Chaos rampage, then they merged again at the present time (don't know exactly when), and demerged again before/after Unleashed.
Chaos' attack was 3000 years ago. Emerl was created 4000 years ago. Sonic Chronicles set them both 4000 years ago, but Sonic Chronicles is non-canon.
I'm not sure if Knuckles is various milleniums old or had become orphan just a while before S3&K. That's something more intriguing to me since it was already there before the Saturn and no game has given any light about it after despite featuring ancient echidnas, flashbacks and more echidna lore in general.
My 'headcanon' is that there is One Earth, as stated by Yuji Naka during an interview during 2011 thus shooting Iizuka's inheritance claim down. I have Yuji Naka backing my thoughts of the One Earth until 2006 at least, since that's when he left Sonic Team, as well as internal documentation indicating the world was developed as one and the actual games showing a single Earth. I'm not saying it's still One Earth. I'm just saying that since it's a stupid decision, I'm electing to ignore it in anything that isn't Iizuka's handled work, which I'm shuttling into it's own world because it's just that incompatible with World 1. Plus side, at least we get the retcon of Classic Sonic into an Alternate Universe being from Sonic Forces! I'm genuinely not sure how to make it clearer. Actually a modified version of a famous Earth picture, rotated -90° and 'blued' up. Spoiler That's North America being blown up. I'm well aware G.U.N.'s map is inconsistent with this, I will admit that annoys me, but it's not exactly as egregious as turning Sonic into an Alien. Spoiler Basic map of Earth Spoiler https://www.treehugger.com/thmb/2bt..._1-187e4c1df95c4efda2082d8833c3d68e.jpg[/img] EDIT: I don't know why, but the site seems determined to put a quote break between 'Sonic Riders' and '- Earth'. I have tried to edit it out repeatedly. If these 'not matching' is the issue then: The only reason there's differences is due to the nature of prerendering giving it more detail and the angle I took of Sonic Unleashed's planet, which I couldn't do better since bloody Apotos kept grabbing my cursor. I'd do a clearer one if I had access to a model of this planet, but I don't. Otherwise, I'm not sure how to make it clearer. Even Sonic Generations gets in on it, with Classic Sonic's background planet being the actual Earth, filename and all. Once again, basic Earth. Spoiler Again, Earth has been the fixture of the series since it began, with Sonic Adventure games tying the Echidna and Mega Drive games to Earth. And yes, I'm compiling evidence toward that as I did the Sonic series Earth quotes thing. Just taking a while due to outside factors at present. Like I said, I just dislike the Sonic the Alien aspect. I do find it highly and ironically amusing, though, that everyone got upset about them turning Shadow into an alien, and now they've done it with the rest of the cast. I'm actually fairly curious about this as well. I do genuinely think Knuckles was Tikal'd at one point: the Sonic the Hedgehog 3 manual says Knuckles was born and raised on Angel Island: So someone had to, y'know, raise him. This one is a headcanon, but I do think he was either Tikal'd until Sonic the Hedgehog 3's plot kicked off or otherwise caught up in a Chaos Control.
Again, you didn't get the point of my post, and repeated something you've said tons of times. It's really clear what you said, but, just because I say something different than what you'd want, doesn't mean I'm not understanding you, it just means you're just one more among many people posting in this thread who have different views from yours. Maybe you created this topic, but it's about official continuity, not about your headcanon, so treat other uses of the thread as equal to yours. Well, I know, but it's rather odd how it's presented the whole backstory. Oh, and the word "years" from a lot of places where they put a character's age, so given the floaty continuity and the way they talk about Sonic fighting Robotnik for such a long time, I'm starting to think those numbers are decades or centuries instead of years. I wonder who will protect the Master Emerald when the last echidna of Angel Island gets old and dies.
The Sonic Adventure strategy guides fill in some of the gaps: https://pastebin.com/Vu8yNjtz Knuckles is the last descendant of the Knuckles clan who guarded the Master Emerald on Angel Island. 16歳 = 16 years old. There's no hidden meaning to the numbers.
That's why I'm worried about what will happen with the Master Emerald when Knuckles dies. He'll have to recruit new reliable guardians (the whole cast of current heroes taking Angel Island as their new home could help). My fault for not paying enough attention to japanese media in that regard. Having an eternal Knuckles that never aged beyond 16 would be cool anyways.
The problem is, as noted, official continuity has changed due to a change in directors. Hence my personal decision to split them into World 1 - One Earth (Naka) and World 2 - Two Planets (Iizuka). The Iizuka Era of Uncertainty is genuinely incompatible with the Yuji Naka Era games (or, frankly, themselves, but that's besides the point), and I also feel like he doesn't care either, considering the treatment Chaos and Shadow got during Sonic Forces it feels more like they're embarrassed about that era. Feels like, not are, perhaps I'm wrong there. Either way, there's no way to resolve it. Iizuka is in charge, and so they'll keep chopping and changing things arbitrarily. Sonic is an alien now, Team Dark don't exist, Classic Sonic is from an alternate dimension, I'm willing to bet that next is Shadow just being a regular Sonic's World Hedgehog and 50 years ago never happened. The most I can do is let the series continuity burn itself to the ground and focus on my own project. You have to introduce your headcanon to try and solve the massive continuity shattering Iizuka has introduced (merging and diverging worlds, which has no basis in anything: Sonic X indicates a merge would be permanent and devastating, and 'official canon' is that they hop between planets via giant rings with no indication of worlds merging according to Ian Flynn, who says that's what Sonic Team have told him), so let's not throw the 'official continuity' thing around.
