The Sonic the Hedgehog Continuity Thread of Love and Timelines

Honestly the only issues I’ve had with the canon reshuffle so far are the idea that Sonic 1 is now the first conflict and Sonic may not be from Christmas Island anymore, but these things honestly don’t even matter beyond flavour text. Sonic being from Christmas Island has never ever been referenced in the games or basically any mainstream material to my knowledge (maybe it was in the manga or something I don’t know), but maybe it’s better we don’t know. That has merit as being congruent with Sonic’s trickster god vibes. Meanwhile, Sonic 1 being the being Sonic and Eggman’s first meeting is probably done as a simplification more than anything else. I don’t really think that was necessary but it doesn’t really hurt anything either. Like Christmas Island, nothing has ever been done with this concept. I think it’s natural to feel an urge to push back on this due to a perception of these original details being sacred, but they’ve never actually served the games in any way and I’d argue it’s more arbitrary to preserve them for no real benefit.

Oh, I also don’t like the Sonic 1 16/8-bit split but I can’t really rationalise that.

 

I have a hunch that that Christmas Island being Sonic's birthplace might hold some relevance to his origin story (whatever it is), seeing how Naka specifically brought up the fact the real life island it's based on was used for nuclear weapon testing by USA. Of course, we won't know it until they reveal said origin, but still, it makes one think. Was Sonic or his superspeed a result of nuclear tests, or perhaps something similar (Chaos Energy tests?)? Was he an experiment by the United S̶t̶a̶t̶e̶s̶ Federation, giving credence to Shadow's suggestion that Sonic is the true Ultimate Lifeform? Does this all somehow tie in with the Mary Garnet story, which I understand is set around the time Project Shadow took place?

Did the manga drop any hints about his origin or backstory? I understand that Nicky's father had the Sonic aviator jacket from that story, but haven't read the manga, so I don't know the context behind it.

 

Personally, these are all things I don’t want answers to. Sonic doesn’t need an origin story, he just is, just the same as Tails, Knuckles, Blaze, Silver, etc.

I’ve always hated the original bible/StC stuff where Sonic was just a regular ass hedgehog before meeting Kintobor. It sucks all the mystique and uniqueness from him.

 

I think there are lots of things in this series that just don't really need answers. I always just took the weirdness at face value and didn't question it because it's just kinda fun and whimsical to me that way.

 

Christmas Island was first mentioned in a 1990 issue of SPEC: https://segaretro.org/index.php?title=File:SPEC_JP_07.pdf&page=78

Sonic says it's where he and his friends live. He also mentions his rock band.

In that 2010 Russian interview, Naka mentions the real world nuclear testing and says something along the lines of "that's why we populated it with robots and strange animals". (If someone could give this a proper translation, it would be appreciated.)

So I think what probably happened is that Christmas Island was the original setting for Sonic 1, before it was renamed South Island. In the interview, Naka probably forgot that they didn't go with Christmas Island in the end, given that he matter-of-factly says it was populated with robots and animals. His answer reads as though he's talking about the setting of Sonic 1.

The STI internal documents do mention both Christmas Island and South Island however. They also mention Sonic's rock band, so it seems like they were holding onto some early unused Sonic 1 concepts for a little while, though nothing ever came of them.

I doubt Shiro Maekawa was giving any thought to this stuff when he wrote Sonic Adventure 2. He was doing his own thing.

Naka was more likely hinting at the nuclear testing being an explanation for the anthropomorphic animals in general. But he could just have been joking. Regardless, it doesn't fit in with the current continuity, given that anthropomorphic echidnas have been around for thousands of years.

SegaSonic the Hedgehog could take place after Chaotix. It's not my preference, but there's nothing preventing it.

 

There is some basis for the assumptions that Tails Adventure and Tails Sky Patrol are canon, because they're being adapted in some way for the comics.

Izuka mentioned to Sonic Stadium they kind of want the games, comics, and even Prime to at least "feel" like the same universe, even if they're not exact.

That kind of just makes me wish that the comics went for telling the Whole True Story of Sonic the Hedgehog from 1 to Now with as many retcons as they need to make it work out and just point to it whenever a new question comes up. Somewhat in the same vein as what Ian did for the Mega Man Archie comics, although this project would be a way bigger undertaking.

 

Keikaku doori.

Now reveal Robotnik created a duplicate Phantom Ruby after losing the first one, which is why there are so many prototypes, and the Classic Sonic of Sonic Forces is actually a Phantom Clone akin to Shadow, Zavok, etc, due to the Ruby being engaged with Sonic and friends when Robotnik scanned it during Sonic Mania, later using these scans for the Duplicate Ruby, so they were transferred over as well, and was summoned by Tails and the power of friendship.

Personally, I have it between Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Mega Drive) now, since lacking Tails.

I do have a headcanon that there's multiple Hidden Palaces, several on Angel Island scattered about, one on Westside Island and one on Newtrogic Island, which is what draws Robotnik's attention to it during Chaotix. Each and the Emerald Altar has an emerald pillar that acts as a relay: so long as the Master Emerald is on one of the pillars, the other pillars relay the power.

But that's just a headcanon, mostly to answer what the pillar being mentioned is, why Robotnik has trouble finding the Emerald (the energy is being distributed all over), etcetc. I have fun with these.

But he wasn't? He was always superfast, the issue was the drag from his shoes would slow him down lest he wreck his shoes, until Kintobor built the friction resistant sneakers he wears now: the lack of risk to the shoes let Sonic go full speed and break the sound barrier and caused him to turn blue.

He was always superfast, and we don't know why. Kintobor had nothing to do with that.

Honestly, would not surprise me if G.U.N. decided to try using the Chaos Drive shards in a bomb to see what would happen...

Ancient Egyptian Nuclear Weapons!

Oh no... oh no... they're trying to pull another Sonic X.

 

I mean, they're "trying to pull another Sonic X" with an additional 15 years of experience and hindsight under their belt and with a much more expanded wealth of material and a solidified canon. Fort all intents and purposes, the IDW book is already a supplement to the games. We don't know how close Prime will fall in line, but Sonic X took liberties that contradicted the games in the first place. Here, it seems to be the case that the games lead and everything else follows. If it means that we get cheeky nods to the IDW cast, or even someone like Tangle showing up, then great. There doesn't need to be anything too committal but SEGA seems to be much more attentive to the comic than they ever were under Archie. Whereas before it was this weird AU/SatAM continuation that was separate from the games and even had game tie-ins largely take place in different continuity to the main book, IDW has always felt like far more of an extension of the games, so I really have no problem with this idea of unifying the two if it means an overlap in what can be used where.

 

They've had 30 years of experience and hindsight for continuity and story, but looking at Sonic Origins and how they're handling the Classic Era, please forgive me if I'm not optimistic regarding that.

 

Honestly I'm not even sure what to say to you when you're still this dead set against the efforts to solidify a cohesive canon and being this snippy about it, but what Origins has done (opted to not transplant the manual stories wholesale for the sake of retelling the stories in a succinct and accessible manner) and what X did (implicitly retconning entire games and skipping over others within its runtime while radically changing the trajectory of canon in season 3, not to mention the entirely different setting in the first place) are two very different things.

 

What we need for this series is Classic Sonic's band playing Nirvana.

 

I'm against the arbitrary changes that serve no purpose, and in fact make the cast stupid half the time and occasionally interfere with canon (Sonic meets Tails, Sonic is immediately cheering him from the outset instead of ignoring him. Can't wait to see how people justify him ignoring Tails during the Sonic Adventure flashback like in the now defunct manuals).

You can keep claiming they're making the canon cohesive, I don't see anything showing the 'new' plots they'll pull out of thin air to justify the Game Gear placements and not interfere with Sonic Origins, such as the case of Tails' Adventure and his being able to fly, but it being a prequel to Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Mega Drive). We can't use manuals, which are again now defunct, and do you see them doing a Sonic Everything Else Classicwise Collection with new cutscenes for those games?

I'm snippy because I can't do anything but watch the continuity burn and be told repeatedly that I shouldn't be so irritated by it. Because I'm supposed to just consume utter crap.

 

Except those games hardly had plots to begin with. The original Mega Drive story told an overarching saga that was the (at the time metaphorical, now literal) origin story of the Sonic/Eggman conflict, before Sonic then meets Tails and Knuckles and the Death Egg chicanery happens. Sonic CD was very much a side game that has been grandfathered into that trilogy but is nonetheless important for its two most enduring contributions to the franchise in Metal Sonic and Amy, with Origins tying it into the Death Egg saga with it being the immediate adventure between Sonic 1 and 2, not to mention the game being developed as Oshima's own take on a "Sonic 2".

Meanwhile, how do Chaos and/or Triple Trouble further the plot in any way? They're filler through and through with entirely non-sensical antagonism from Knuckles because nothing within the games is contextualised. They were made by B teams with no bearing on the trajectory of the series. That doesn't mean the games can't be enjoyed or be fun, but it's entirely disingenuous to claim that solidification of the canon contributes nothing (when in fact we now have the validation of Sonic Spinball AND Knuckles' Chaotix, cementing the Chaotix as classic characters and opening the door for the canonisation of the "Freedom Fighters" respectively), when the majority of Sonic titles released before Adventure do nothing to further the story while also just muddying the continuity of the series with oddities such as strange numbers of Chaos Emeralds and South Island supposedly sinking because Eggman has one Chaos Emerald for some reason???.

I can't stop you from disliking the changes to canon, nor do I want to, but discussion becomes completely unproductive every time you're on your high horse about Origins and retcons to the past when it wasn't even relevant to the current discussion in the first place.

 

Maybe because you're dead-focused on a potentially outdated and less relevant (to SEGA) continuity set originally by the classics and that started to change by the Adventure games.

 

Just like the manuals!

I've said before how silly it is to treat details from the manuals as being in any way essential to experiencing the game, but it's especially true when we're talking about details that are specifically from the Japanese manuals. If these details are essential to "getting" the game, then even kids back in the 90's who bought these games brand new never really "got" the games they were playing, even if they read the manuals, had they not been living in Japan (or been importing the Japanese versions). You would have to go out of your way to look them up translations of them (assuming you couldn't read Japanese). That's extremely esoteric information, and we're only privy to the details because we're huge nerds.

 

They have just as much plot as the Mega Drive games. More, in certain cases. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is the only game where there's a significant plot going on, with the Master Emerald.

How does Sonic Spinball? Or Sonic 3D: Flickies Island? Also, what plot? If you mean the Death Egg, it was a two game thing, that's half of the Sonic Origins set. It was not the driving force behind Sonic the Hedgehog (Mega Drive) nor Sonic the Hedgehog CD.

Also, what story in the Classic continuity are you referring to?

I have no problem with that being the plot, all they need to do is justify it. "Robotnik damaged the island, and the Chaos Emeralds are being used to restore it. Robotnik's removal of one causes the chaos."

I very much doubt this happening. Most likely they'll be completely ignored as bonus stage stuff and nothing more.

Sorry, I'm complaining about continuity changes in the continuity thread, such as Robotnik not claiming the Master Emerald once the Death Egg is operational and instead wasting time constructing thrusters that Sky Sanctuary proves are unnecessary with said Master Emerald, showing the game's own internal continuity being brought up and against 'new' continuity. Please direct me to the correct thread for continuity related topics.

Then update them instead of replacing them with terrible plots.

I'm not against necessary changes, such as the Chaos Emeralds being changed to be a consistent seven overall, if that did happen, still need to look into the fact seven were established in the US Bible in 1991 with Kintobor having six and looking for the grey "control" emerald, suggesting a consistent seven were always planned. Sonic Origins' plot changes were not necessary changes, they are frivolous and actually interfere with continuity, even excluding the Game Gear and other games being involved.

But I'll ask the question again: what did we get from Sonic Origins' cutscenes that justify them?

So you should totally accept terribly written plots instead of wanting them to use the pre-existing plots that already worked and were developed for them already!

It seems people appear to think if it wasn't for the continuity changes, I'd accept Sonic Origins' plot. I should remind you I think they're terribly written on their own merits, let alone with the continuity and the shadow of the pre-existing plots. The only good thing about those cutscenes is the animation work itself, which is beautiful. That's it.

 

When explaining Sonic 1 being the first adventure (last page of the thread), Ian said about Origins:
"There were a lot of long conversations about how to approach stuff, what to keep - east and west - (...)"

So my bet is Tails Adventure will follow its American manual.

 

If so, I'm giving up.

 

I don't mind the (incredibly!) minor alterations to the continuity if it means we finally get one that makes sense all the way through.

It's a little bit sad Christmas Island may no longer be Sonic's origin point, Tails Adventure might no longer be a prequel to S2 and SegaSonic can't be a fanon prequel to the series, but... who even knows half that info even exists outside of the diehards? All of these things are less than footnotes to the franchise; it's not like they make a cataclysmic difference to be shifted around a little.

That said, you can like it more that way and that's fine. But I don't know how this breaks anything.

 

Tails Adventures being set before Tails met Sonic breaks the continuity of the 16-bit games (and Origins). In the 16-bit Sonic 2's story Tails was a meek, bullied child, with low confidence until he met Sonic. In Tails Adventures, Tails is a hero who defeats an entire army single-handedly.

It only really works as a prequel if the Game Gear games are their own self-contained universe, since Tails didn't have the bullied child backstory in the 8-bit Sonic 2's manual.