I'm just happy to know there seems to be a semblance of ironing thing out going forward. Even if whatever they toss our way down the road doesn't suit me right, I'll take it over feeling like they're just doing whatever without much care.
There really seems to be an effort to organize the lore. Ian said in his live podcast today that soon we will know what happened to the humans in Forces.
I've never thought it impossible to make sense out of what (99% of) the games have done; it just required Sega to give a proper shit. I'm a bit shocked that we might actually get that, now.. it doesn't feel real, lol.
Does that even need an explanation? It's not like we see all of the world in Forces. The only populated area we see is The City, which could interpreted as just an anthro city in some remote location. It's easy to assume that humans were in other areas we didn't get to explore.
It does. Forces was a global war, so even if we didn't go to human locations, there wasn't a single indication of their presence. And that's because Forces was made with an alien world in mind, with no humans. Now that this was retconned and there were humans somewhere, it raises questions. Were they fighting for the Resistence led by Knuckles? Were they all imprisioned? Where was GUN (and even the President)? It's not the same as asking where were the anthros in Unleashed, because Forces told Eggman dominated 99% of the world - and its people are included. We can headcanon everything about this, but it's nice to have a proper answer.
It definitely could use an explanation, considering what they've established. But it's so granular that I imagine it'd just be mentioned in passing while talking about something else.
It probably doesn't take more than a few sentences to explain it. I'm calling it now. The explanation will be something along the lines of "Eggman took over all of the world's countries, so the only people left free to oppose him the anthros living in islands and remote locations. That's why there no humans in the Resistance." If they even address GUN, it will be "They were defeated by Eggman during the time skip at the beginning of the game". Let's see if I guessed right.
That's likely. And if it seems like a cheap cop-out, let's just remember the source itself. I remember how hard I busted out laughing seeing the "and then Eggman took over the world" card. "Poochie died on the way home to his home planet" tier stuff.
Could also be "an illusion was cast over the entire planet", which would also explain why the Ruby was so strained.
Honestly, if the worst thing to come out of this clarification on the setup of Sonic's world is that now Sonic Forces is contradictory, then I can very happily live with that. Forces' story was hardly stellar in the first place and the game itself will likely end up being consigned to the history books as one of the more forgettable Sonic games, considering how little of its own it actually brings to the table, so I certainly wouldn't bend over backwards to make the consolidated setting work smoothly with it.
Considering it's contradictory anyway with the Phantom Ruby subplot being on heck of a continuity snarl, it's liveable.
I'm just happy that we lost the two worlds nonsense. I'm looking forward for the things to come with the premiere of Sonic Frontiers. Thank God Ian is involved with the game.
I am too, but we have to remember that Ian is not alone in this. Sonic CD's placement, for example, is now before Sonic 2 but Ian prefers it after Sonic 3K. What I'm intrigued is the origin of the Chaos Emeralds. Ian knows of it, but Tails and Sonic told they don't know much.
When we get the origin of the Chaos Emeralds I hope they don't forget about their connection to the Gaia temples. I want to know when the Gaia temples were built.
I would like to know how the Gaia mythos relates to the Echidnas, if at all. It seems weird having the Gaia temples AND Hidden Palace holding the Emeralds (albeit for different purposes).
I don't think there is any relation between the Gaia Temples and the Altar of the Emeralds at all. The Altar was probably built by the echidnas some thousands of years ago, while the Gaia Temples probably exist for around several thousands of years, even millions. The weird part is who built the Gaia Temples, because humans weren't supposed to be that intelligent at that period of time.
I think it's fair to say that the Emeralds have passed hands several times over millions of years that they've existed.
I feel a lot of evidence points to the Emeralds having been around since the dawn of time like the Gaias. Regardless, do we really know how old the Gaia Temples are? Couldn't they have been made after the Emeralds first got scattered following Perfect Chaos' rampage?
It's not likely. The last time Dark Gaia woke up was tens of thousands of years ago (unless the Japanese dialogue says differently???). Probably Light Gaia used those temples back then, and maybe they were actually created by the humans at that time. The Chaos' rampage occurred 3,000 years ago, it's more recent.
That makes sense. And yes, it says the same thing in Japanese: Could have been humans, could have been echidnas. Plenty of evidence points to the echidnas having lived all over the place at a point, like the Mystic Melody ruins (which Knuckles specifically says remind him of ancient echidna architecture), or Holy Summit in Sonic Battle.
