I feel this is the most sensible way of reading it. The Sol Emeralds took Blaze to Sonic's future, so she teamed up with Silver to fight Iblis and solve the problem. When she heard from Mephiles that a blue hedgehog had released Iblis she made the connection to Sonic, but wasn't sure of it, as there had to have been more than one blue hedgehog throughout history. So she investigated the matter with Silver, planning to talk things through with Sonic if it turned out to be him. Unfortunately she and Silver happened to get separated at various points, so he was alone every time he ran into Sonic. I think the biggest problem is Blaze deciding to sacrifice herself to stop Iblis at the end. It doesn't feel like something she would do, considering that she knew she had her duties at her dimension. But plenty of characters act in nonsensical ways in 06 anyway, so... Here you go: Spoiler So, this is the past world... I don't think I should let Silver run wild on his own. The Iblis Trigger. Blue hedgehog...
Honestly I think a Super Genesis Wave-styled cosmic retcon is probably the smoothest answer if 06 is to take place before Rush, but even then, this is not something that needs to be addressed within the story itself unless it genuinely presents a compelling story opportunity, whichever order is correct. It's all well and good for us to theorise about it, but unlike two worlds, it doesn't have an effect on the core setting and I don't want them to bend over backwards and take away from any given story by going out of their way to clear this up.
Unfortunately, there really isn't much to go off to suggest actual knowledge. Yeah, she notes the blue hedgehog and "could it be...?" but at the same time, she never reacts to things she should be reacting to. Do you not think she would react to Robotnik being mentioned? Let's get a timeline of what we've got set up so we can better contextualise this: --- Mephiles informs Silver of the 'Iblis Trigger'. Blaze notes "Blue Hedgehog..." with noted interest. Blaze and Silver are taken back in time. Silver is separated from Blaze: Blaze notes "so, this is the past world...", then "Blue Hedgehog..." Wave Ocean level: at the start, Blaze notes: EXTRA NOTE: A unused idle line in this stage has Blaze note "Could it really be him?" Blaze locates Silver, who questions about killing someone to prevent a terrible future. Silver suggests going to Robotnik's base, White Acropolis. Blaze does not react to this new information: this is the first time she's met up with Silver and as far as we know, they did not know of Robotnik before coming back in time. White Acropolis: Blaze notes at the start: "Eggman's base is ahead. Let's hurry!" No real indication of familiarity with the madman who stole the Sol Emeralds. EXTRA NOTE: A unused idle line in this stage has Blaze note "Sonic..." After Egg Genesis, Blaze informs Silver of the Chaos Emeralds. Silver doesn't seem to be aware of them, noting "it transforms your thoughts into power..." Blaze and Silver are sent to the terminal station by Mephiles, who didn't bother to tell them who the Iblis Trigger was. Blaze notes she can't get in, so is separated from Silver who has to teleport himself in. Silver goes to the past after encountering Shadow, then finds Blaze waiting for him when he comes back to the present. She asks what he saw, and he notes "The Iblis Trigger... wasn't Sonic the Hedgehog...", to which she responds with "I see." No noted familiarity, despite this being the first time Silver has confirmed his target as Sonic the Hedgehog. Silver heads off Sonic and helps him when Robotnik's robots attack. Blaze is oddly absent here for no reason. Kingdom Valley: Blaze continues to be absent, no interactions to be had. Might have to play through to see if any interactions missed in the playthrough. Blaze turns up suddenly with Silver when they observe the Egg Carrier crashing. Sonic only ever acknowledges Silver in this cutscene, never once interacting with Blaze, who remains quietly in the background while Sonic and Silver address things. Silver and Blaze return to the future, where they discuss how to seal Iblis. Silver attempts this, but can not, so Blaze seals him herself: she asks Silver to send her to an alternate dimension, but Silver does not, and she disappears. Unclear if she does go to the alternate dimension: was there a reason she asked Silver to do this instead of just doing it herself? --- Now, an area of interest is Kingdom Valley, the one area where Sonic and Blaze should be in a position to interact: does anyone know of any unused elements around this area? Otherwise, Blaze does appear to be aware of Sonic, Robotnik and the Chaos Emeralds, however she muses about the past and does not seem to suggest direct familiarity with either of them. Sonic does not acknowledge her at all, suggesting no familiarity on his part, since I'd be sure to at least greet my friend if I saw her. As such, this would be my assessment on Blaze the Cat: Blaze has travelled to the future of Sonic's World somehow, before the events of Sonic Rush have taken place. She has not met Sonic before this point. However, she is aware of him due to his heroics in the past: she appears to be the 'brains' of the duo, noting Silver as naive and otherwise guiding Silver to Iblis, while Silver, the 'muscle', deals with Iblis. Sonic Adventure, Sonic Adventure 2 and Shadow the Hedgehog all confirm Sonic as a well known hero around the world, who has saved the Earth several times thus far. Quote from Sonic Adventure 2: "According to eye-witness accounts, the criminal is presumed to be the hero who saved the world from numerous catastrophises, Sonic the Hedgehog." Considering her status as the 'brains' between them versus the 'naive' Silver, it could be, and this is speculation, she has been researching the past to see if she can find any way to deal with Iblis, learning of the Chaos Emeralds, Sonic and Robotnik. Computers are shown to be still working in the future, and perhaps they've raided some of Robotnik's bases before. Perhaps at one point she was considering locating the Chaos Emeralds to use Super Forms, but opted against it for whatever reason? TL;DR - Blaze comes from the Sol Dimension to the Chaos Dimension's Future before Sonic Rush, she's done research to try and figure out how to stop Iblis and has learned about the world famous hero Sonic the Hedgehog through this. This is pure speculation, but how I feel is best to attend to the plotholes with both interpretations.
By god you've done it... This completely works within the mechanics of 06's plot while also retaining the continuity and backstory set up in Rush. The migraines can finally end...
That... surprisingly works... I'm pretty content with this explanation. Now if only P-06 could implement this lol.
Perhaps they can have a prequel comic drawn showing this, like how they sometimes get some done to advertise the upcoming game? Looking at you, Sonic Forces.
Excellent work Blackhole. It’s nice to know the context behind those idle lines. I think before the theory was that they indicated a prior familiarity with Sonic. But with the context, it looks like she was just mulling over what Mephiles told her about the blue hedgehog being a trigger. So it’s probably better to put 06 before Rush. It still doesn’t fit easily. Blaze seems to have known Silver for a while and it’s not clear why she would abandon her royal duties to go live in his time/world, even if only for a short period. Crucially, if 06 comes first that works against Blaze learning her lesson about friendship in Rush, as in 06 she has no problems with friendship (unless we assume the loss of Silver lingered in her subconscious thus explaining her attitude in Rush). So I think some head canon is needed be it either some sort of preemptive royal mission to stop Iblis entering the Sol dimension and/or a Sol Emerald transportation mishap and/or amnesia. And the fact that she has to learn the lesson of friendship in Rush doesn’t completely rule out Rush from coming first.
Maybe in the original timeline, Blaze learned about the real superpower of teamwork from having to work together with Silver to fight Iblis? Then after Sonic and Elise changed the timeline she forgot, having never met Silver, so she had to learn it again in Rush.
As noted, she may have been there for a while, hence knowing Silver for it. We also don't know why she's there: it may not be entirely willing on her part, as happened with Sonic Rush. She is also a heroic figure, so might be teaming with Silver and his superior firepower with the psychic powers versus trying to fight a lava monster with fire powers, and they've just naturally grown close, as happens in high-stress situations (such as, y'know, the end of the world).
Maybe she went there because that was the will of the Sol Emeralds. Because maybe Solaris is actually originally from the Sol Dimension (hence the name with the world 'sun'). There you go.
I've long wondered if a connection between Solaris and the Sol Emeralds was one of the planned 06-Rush ties that had to be scrapped. Maybe Solaris was going to be the Chaos to the Sol Emeralds' Chaos Emeralds? Would be rather fitting. One emerald set is connected to a water deity, the other to a fire deity. Iblis' minions might even have been the counterparts to Chao.
Imagine if a long time ago Blaze's ancestors entrusted Solaris to someone from Sonic's dimension (Chaos Dimension?), and with this new god this someone created a town called Soleanna.
I think I said this earlier in this topic, or in another one a few weeks ago.. But the connections between all the themes in Rush, 06, Secret Rings and Riders (Sol, princesses with raging fire inside them, weird oblong not-Chaos-Emerald gems, middle-eastern / Indian crossbred visual influences, Islamic names for demon gods, genies) feels like Sonic Team had a massive concept jam and created this very particular idea, only to split it into four projects running simultaneously, each with their own wild takes. So many weirdly shared ideas and conceptive tissue.. Makes you wonder what kind of story they could've made if they were allowed to make just one Sonic game during this era instead of crunching themselves to death. lol
I think it makes sense that Blaze was created to be the Rouge to Silver's Shadow, and things just happened to work out that Rush made more sense to release before 06, creating a big mess. Blaze is from the future -> sent into/creates Sol(aris) Dimension and Sol(aris) emeralds -> Sonic Rush happens. It also would make sense that Eggman Nega is presented as from Sol at one point and from the future later on, it's because all these characters were supposed to originate from the same place and things just got a little fucked-up in-house. I mean, hell, I think the fire princess connection between 06 and Secret Rings is the strongest, I'm willing to bet that "Sonic Wildfire" was a name tossed around before Secret Rings was ever a separate game from 06. Rivals and Rush were meant to be the follow-up games to the characters you met in "Wildfire". Riders...that one I'd call a coincidence, unless you argue that the world the babylonians were originally from is the Sol dimension.
There's absolutely no way Blaze originated to be Silver's sidekick in 06. In fact, the discussions had in here completely say the other way around; that she was put into 06 in attempt to tie into Rush. It's a large part of why I always found the fan theory that she originated in 06 and then got sent to a "Sol" world to be icky. Give a girl her autonomy as a character (before 06, even) only to write that her entire schtick that justifies her presence wouldn't have existed if not for being a good second-banana to Silver. Feels really lame.
Honestly, I never bought Nega as being a universal counterpart. Blaze isn't Blaze Nega, after all, it isn't the Nega Dimension. Why is Nega the only counterpart with his origin's name -Nega?
Well, far be it from me to advocate for misogynistic writing in Sonic, but I dunno, the only other way for it to work to me is if they intentionally took parts of Rush and retroactively shoved them into 06. The connections are just too deep to be coincidence. Well again, that's the point. I think all three of them were supposed to originate from the future from the very beginning, and the mess of the mid-2000s canon was the result of both trying to move forward with that canon and alter it at the same time.
I've always had this theory that Nega is just Eggman from the far future. He's lost so many times that he's lost all form of reason and goes traveling through time and space to mess with everyone. "Oh, I'm the Eggman of this dimension", "Oh I'm Eggman's great great great great grandson", etc, anything to make no one question who he is or what his motives are in the moment. And he himself seems absolutely beyond the idea of winning, he just wants destruction compared to normal Eggman's ambitions. It's not like this would be the first time Eggman's met up and conjured plans with his past self, either.
The issue with that to me is that Eggman Nega sucks. He needs less relation to the Doctor we love, not more. If you were to make them the same guy, I'd rather he at least be visually fucked-up in some way to signify it. Put him in Dimitri's head-bubble thing with the tentacles or something.
