Y'know what's probably gonna be easier? If someone rips the model from the game and we get a better look at the Death Egg Robot's Phantom Ruby...
Ruby 0.5 is the same as Ruby 0. It’s the original stone. The comic appearance is the same as the prototype, but the comics don’t match up 100% with the games art-wise, just look at the Shadow one compared to the Shadow DLC.
Yeah. That's why i listed it as 0.5. looks enough like the rough shape of the origin stone that for now I'll just assume they can line up but you never know if they just say it's another duplicate anyways. I would like to see a model rip. Saw some for the mech itself but nothing that included the Ruby. Seemingly it's self powered or the like. Now I'm wondering why they Prototype jumping Universes seemed self powered. Or maybe they all are and use the power sources are responsible for their bigger feats akin to the power disparity between the chaos emeralds and artificial ones. Forces always leaves me feeling braindead.
Could also get a free cam, but that would require playing the game again via Steam... I wonder if there's any 100% saves I can filch...
Just grabbing and editing on a phone. Looking more closely the concept art if taken out of its Geode might actually perfectly match up with the final battle Stone? The reactors are full of oversized prototype stones with some seemingly extra bottom crystal. The prototype in Mania/Encore just lacks the weird dark lines so it may be an early imperfect copy or just the Artistic Style being different in effect. Now I'm thinking about the alternate Universe from Mania Adventures which I'm just writing off since it's standalone Universe. Easiest not to think about it. Edit: Just realized Forces seemingly has a more Shard looking form of Ruby too? Hardly played so don't even remember.
Ooh, that’s useful. I had no idea there was a shard-looking one. I guess there’s more than one kind of prototype. There’s some crystal-like objects in some of the test tubes near Infinite in the intro if I’m recalling correctly, maybe those are prototypes too. Edit: searching for pictures of them lead me to this. Proto-Infinites floating in tubes in the area where they talk about Infinite being created. More proof the DLC and comics were made at the last minute I guess.
There is also this concept art of the Ruby production. The major story was all planned out as the leak of the script shows but they certainly seemed to keep changing things up to the last minute. Just assuming incongruities that crop up are likely due to changes and updates. That or having some version of the script with only loose visuals or art to go off of.
I'm gonna have to pretend these are just androids that Eggman was using to test the final Phantom Ruby before introducing in Infinite. I think this headcanon does the job.
They could be other animal-people who couldn’t become Phantom Ruby hosts like Infinite for whatever reason. Couldn’t handle the Ruby’s power or something like that. Kind of a dick move that Sonic and co didn’t free them… though I guess it’s possible they’re dead.
At the end of the first Sonic vs Infinite boss, Sonic says to Infinite "Unlike mechs, I can grow." 35m 30s. Presumably Infinite was at one point intended to be a robot? No idea what the Japanese version says.
Probably. We could headcanon this saying that Sonic was referring to Omega, who was beaten by Infinite.
I took that as Eggman having data that Sonic has this amount of strength/power/speed that Infinite knows about and is supposed to be above because of his Phantom Ruby powers. Makes sense since they had to run experiments before unleashing him to face off against Sonic and Shadow. I do wonder if the Japanese version is more clear about this.
That's exactly how I understand it. Man. Sonic Forces truly is a cluster*uck. I always thought that Phantom Ruby originated in Sonic Mania, guess I was wrong.
I think we actually don't know at this point. Originally it was created by Eggman in Forces and then one of the prototypes went to Mania, as shown in the concept art. However, Ian told he was not aware of the concept art when he was writing the prequel comics - which explains why the gem was depicted with the wrong shape. Maybe all of this was scrapped?
I feel the fact one of the prototypes went to the classic dimension/timeline enforces the theory that Eggman gathered the Chaos Emeralds. It takes the Ruby + the Emeralds to enable warping to the other dimension/timeline, and only Eggman had access to the prototype Rubies. So I'm guessing he tested the reaction of one of the prototypes on the Emeralds, causing the former to warp to the Mania world, which prompted him to lock the Emeralds away.
Or just consider it one timeline to save headaches, have him attempting to reconstruct the Phantom Ruby from Sonic Mania, leading to the Final Prototype of Sonic Forces, and ignore the chaos inducing comics and concept art. Sonic goes from Sonic Mania's ending to Encore Mode, the one we see in Sonic Forces is a Phantom, and we get out of this chaos with two plotholes instead of a giant gordian knot we can't cut.
Yet again we seem to be ignoring the official stance on Classic Sonic. If I recall, it's officially stated somewhere (I believe it was said as much to Ian by Sonic Team?) that there's a branching timeline as the result of Generations. It's not a singular timeline and it's not a wholly independent dimension. I'm going to reiterate what others have said here, just because you disagree with it doesn't make it any less canon. We got tremendously lucky with two worlds being eliminated, and I'd argue that has more to do with Ian's arguments that it made no sense than the fandom's reaction to it. Feel free to have a headcanon, but it has no more validity than the 90s American bible. As far as the Phantom Ruby situation, the problem here are conflicting sets of information since Sonic Team kept witholding information/changing it as they developed Forces. The Mania Team and Ian were led to believe that the Ruby appeared first in the Mania timeline and then jumped to the Modern timeline at the end of that game due to reality warping powers while Sonic Team's concept art depicted it as a prototype that jumped to the Mania timeline using Virtual Reality... somehow...? That's where the problems lie.
Honestly, considering it's very unlikely to come up again in the future, I'm sure we'll one day find it's quietly been remerged into one and we never have to consider it again. We got two worlds merged into one, I see very little issue on getting two timelines merged into one. Either way, Sonic Forces is just a massive knot of trouble. Best to let it lie. Anyone else got something of continuity that's caught their eye?
