I'm pretty sure we're at a point in which things mentioned in old manuals can be decanonized all the time.
Relics, not replicas. "They're stone relics, created in their absence when the Chaos Emeralds once again drifted off into the Special Stage Dimension"
Yes, like Metal Sonic Kai being retconned into the name of Metal Sonic's red transformation, and the whole Knuckles is a stranger thing in the Triple Trouble manual was dropped in the Encyclo-speed-ia. The Encyclo-speed-ia says Eggman just tricked Knuckles again.
The Metal Kai thing was probably a goof. That book cites a lot of common fan misconceptions as facts.
I think there's a Bumblekast where Ian mentions that Sonic Team wanted the Kai name to be applied to the red transformation. I find it fascinating that Sega has the need to tweak old lore like this. Especially as the giant blue Metal Sonic in Mania had the file name of "Giga Metal", so it's not like they didn’t have another name they could use.
Most likely them trying to resolve old lore with the new mandate of "there's only one Metal Sonic", which came into effect toward the end of the Archie series iirc.
Huh. That's just weird, but thanks for letting me know. I don't think the old Metal Sonic Kai lore contradicts the one Metal Sonic rule. His profile states that he uses the CPUs recovered from the original body, so he can be considered the same character as in CD. In fact, I feel that's why they specifically mentioned that detail in the Chaotix manual in the first place.
Do remember we're of very different mindsets to Sonic Team: we might think the CPU thing grants an excuse, but Sonic Team had Metal Sonic recovered from the Little Planet in the Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode Metal cutscene. To them, it might be that the new body is a different Metal Sonic, even with the same CPUs, thus needs to go. Of course, I'm sure my stance on changing canon* has been made clear prior to this. *Not retcon, the word's being used wrong: retcon is the introduction of elements to change the perception of a prior event or element, not outright changing the event or element itself. That's just bad writing.
"You are familiar with the thought experiment "The Ship of Theseus" in the field of identity metaphysics?"
So, on last Bublecast, Ian was asked what came first - the Chao or Emeralds. What's interesting, Ian said that "he knows things" so he must be careful about wording the answer. So, *puts a tinfoil hat* we all know that Ian is writing the new game, right? What if, the game actually has a lot of Chaos Emeralds lore in it, and the cyberspace are actually levels, in which You obtain the Emeralds? And that's why Ian needs to be careful of what he says, so he doesn't slip anything about the story? Also, the Chao came after Emeralds.
I have a feeling that, while Chaos came from the power of the Chaos Emeralds reacting on a chao, the chao came from the power of the Chaos Emeralds reacting on water, and the animals like Sonic came from the power of the Chaos Emeralds reacting on regular animals. I think this makes sense...?
I like this idea. It ties everything together in a neat way. Then the question becomes, what is it about those things that reacts to Chaos Energy? If it's something in particular bodies of water then it's easy to assume that any animals with prolonged exposure, perhaps over generations, would thus become Chaos-reactive. Perhaps this explains why the effect is more frequent on island dwelling animals? Perhaps more so, since I believe old manual stuff indicated that South Island itself may have had a ring-shaped migration pattern. This also suggests that South Island is similar to Angel Island in that it's a landmass detached from the Earth itself. And that further suggests history with the ancient tribes and explains why it has a set of Chaos emeralds. I feel my point has trailed off here and doesn't unify it all together, but they're neat things to ponder.
Was that the one about if something is the same if you progressively change all of its parts but not at once? In the case of Metal Sonic, even if it's rebuilt, repaired or reinvented, keeping a familiar shape, behaviour and purpose makes it to be the same even if it's hard to compare Metal Overlord with Classic Amy's kidnapper (yes, that one whose eyes shone GREY in-game). And we see Mecha Sonic as the only one of its kind each time too, until Mania shows various Silver Sonics and Metal Sonic bodies, and we even find the look of the EggRobo Knuckles constantly fights as a boss as something different from the horde of quite stiff EggRobos Sonic finds in Sky Sanctuary because that actually shows some expressions and not because the manual states that's an special one among the crowd.
They're not: Humans stem from Africa, the Mobians from South America, so the Humans have only been exposed recently. Alternately, it causes subtle alterations over time, such as an immune system being severely compromised...
