Item Monitors

I always thought that they were just thrown out TV boxes, y'know, seeing as the original Sonic games focused on a beautiful serene landscape littered by humans technological remains, and since Sonic is a cool dude who likes fast food and sports and TV's, theyw ere included for him to smash and get power ups as a bonus.

In Sonic Adventure 2 the item boxes are publically advertised as being upgraded, so it seems humans are aware of these as power ups and well, I dunno, who knows!?

 

Simple, they're just there.

Don't need a complicated storyline on their original. Just have them be there. I mean, that's like questioning the origin of Mario's mushrooms.

Making a serious storyline for Sonic the Hedgehog is like trying to make a Mario storyline deep and compelling. You're going to fail horribly.

Of course, maybe the animals have a civilization with Casinos, TVs, and Chili Dogs?

Again, you can always just focus on a comedy-based storyline that doesn't fail, instead of trying to make something serious out of Sonic.

Sorry if this was slightly out of topic.

 

Well, working on my own complex universe where everything has a purpose and reasoning behind it, I have it that the classic monitors were G.U.N. devices attempting to utilize the background Chaos Energy to boost the Rings into Chao Emeralds. Since they've no clue what they're actually doing, they get varied results. Robotnik takes these on in Sonic 3K, in order to try and develop an alternate source of energy for the Death Egg after it crashes since the explosions knocked out the fuel containment and Angel Island has a noticeably larger amount of Chaos Energy radiating from it then anywhere else on Mobius.

After that, Tails opts to develop them, leaving them scattered since for Mobians (Humans here are colonists from Earth), since only they can use the effects (until Robotnik develops his Egg Walker MK-II to use them much like Tails' Tornado), since Mobians have long been exposed to the CE where as Humans settled around 2000 years ago (after the events of SAPast).

That's what I've got, I hope it assists in developing ideas for your comic :3

 

Yes, since you're completely going against what it sounds like upg wants to do with his(?) comic.

Hand-waving away efforts to explain in-universe features is all well and good if that's your opinion in general, like if someone asks whether other people think they matter—but it doesn't belong in a thread where someone is asking for opinions on how to explain in-universe features. People's opinion on whether this phenomenon should be explained is irrelevant; what is presupposed is that upg is going to act as though they should be, and what is requested are others’ opinions on how to do so.

 

I'm very sorry for having an off-topic post.

Now, I would say that the best way to explain it would be the idea that upg posted at the opening post, with the other animals putting them there. Possibly to help Sonic in his quests?

Once again, I am sorry for my previous post.

 

You don't need to apologise to me! That's just my opinion, and I might be wrong anyway. Besides, I'm just a patsy

This is something I never really considered, but it probably makes more sense than Robotnik leaving useful things lying about. Now I'm trying to imagine little animals working on a production line making really fast shoes … I really hope they're unionised

I'd be interested to see what upg has come up with so far for other items. Ideas like those and BlackHole's suggestion about the monitors demonstrate a lot more thought than I could put into something like this, and sometimes everything clicks together very well! So I'm looking forward to any further brainstorming.

 

Maybe Robotnik did leave them around, but not for Sonic. Maybe his badniks were supposed to utilize them but are too stupid to. (Programming being too simple or too buggy for them to understand?)

 

It's possible, espcially for the ring moniters, as a way of Eggman trying to trap and store the energy from the rings and such, but gave up after seeing so many. Heck, his robots have been shown to be powered by rings in some games, so maybe he's putting them in containers for easy use, not realising Sonic is gonna smash them.

Or maybe a truck full of TVs had it's back left open and the moniters fell out, I dunno.

 

I suppose it's for the same reason why Dracula always leaves meat in the walls in his Castle and the candles always leave hearts or why Wily's minions give Megaman powerups or why every planet Samus visits has nifty powerups for her suit :v:

Maybe its a technology invented before Robotnik's time but he either didn't understand how to utilize it or just didn't care given how arrogant Robotnik can be?

 

I actually really like this idea. Him giving up would also make sense because look at how many rings there are. Way too much for a fat man to go around and turn into monitors. Hell, it makes even more sense because as the Sonic series went on to the Adventure and Modern series, monitors became scarce to non-exist.

 

I would go for Occam's Razor on this. They're boxes that contain items. That's about as much as the audience needs to know, unless you're writing a technical specification instead of a comic (and even tech specs have to abstract things at some point). Maybe they are being used by Eggman, maybe they're just powerups. If it's relevant to the story, great. Otherwise, leaving them be would work just as well as it has for the canon series. This is something I need to work on, too, so don't feel like I'm chastising.

Since this is this month's fanfic thread, I guess I'll post my example: there's nothing really "special" about item boxes. They hold items or forces, and are sometimes seen as TV Monitors due to heavy recycling. But they represent mankind's pollution: a bunch of technological has-beens washed up on various islands and natural habitats.

 

I support the idea that those are owned by Eggman, they clash with the environments and they are all over the place.
He probabbly uses them as storage, and probabbly after some time he learned that sonic also used them, so he made fake ones, his Eggman Monitors, to get him.

 

There actually has been sort of an explanation for them in the form of Stay Sonic - namely Dr. Ivo Kintobor, who probably placed the monitors around to help Sonic in the search for the Chaos Emeralds.

 

Uhg.... if there is an western story that I hate 100% is that version of the the origin of Robotnik, Sdrawkcab Names are the most stupid thing they could apply to "Ivo Robotnik"... Well thank god is now set that he was born with Ivo Robotnik as his real name.

 

Are we forgetting that despite the IQ, Eggman is a dumbass? He has stated in one of the recent games, when he has left an opening for Sonic, instead of leaving him with no chance in hell... that he does it because he likes a challenge (And despite always bitching about failing afterwards.)

I say Eggman was the dumbass who actually left it there for Sonic, based upon this very principle... to give himself a challenge in defeating Sonic.
I think if you gave this explanation, and add a little intro to the items where Sonic is skeptical and avoids it at first or something, it's bound to give the items some meaning... and the comedy behind it will just write itself. Just my thought.

 

Well, others have already mentioned many times already so I'll just say it as well.
They are just there like the rings and springs. Its practically the same for all games that have collectibles like Mario, Rayman and whoever else. Still, There is that small(Nope) possibility that Eggman placed them around the levels ever so conveniently for Sonic to use...Afterall, he created a robot that give Shadow super powers.