I mean... doesn't the game itself and both of its accompanying manuals indicate that Knuckles' route is a post-game scenario?
I think at first they tried to explain it by saying that both earths are in an "eco-universe" but they threw in that wrinkle of time being different in order to have a younger Chris again. Which does make you think why Eggman doesn't age (or deage) when he traveled between earths. Or what are the conditions that made the Metarex arrive to Sonic's world instead of the human earth. That I agree are probably things that perhaps they didn't think through but didn't let them stop them from telling the story they wanted. It's a shame the series doesn't have a lot of info of the behind the scenes/production like others. --- --- About the whole thing with G.U.N. not interfering with islands thing is just silly to me. It's like when people debate on why Superman and the Flash don't show up to help Batman in every story. This is not even going into them not even appearing in something like Unleashed, which was the biggest event we've seen happened to the earth. (And this is not even going into what we've seen of them doesn't give too much faith of them doing a good job.) I almost hate to say this because it might start everyone to push again for another change, but a more elegant solution would've been to say humans and "mobians" or whatever co-habit islands and the continents and that's it. "Why don't you see humans in Sonic 1 then?" Well, you don't see other beings like Sonic either. Doesn't mean they don't exist. Why? Because it was a video game and that's how the story was presented at the time. I think as fans (and even creators) we have to understand that there's times when a simple solution/answer is perfectly okay, and there are times when something requires a more complex answer. Would anyone would've been weirded out if humans and mobians were coexisting since the beginning? Or if Sonic X and the movies would've taken place in a world like that? It's not like the world is a stranger to media with that setup. This is what my issue was with the 2 worlds thing, it was such a complex answer on a story beat that didn't really need did it.
Honestly, why would GUN get involved with the events in some islands beyond the United Federation's jurisdiction? And how would they even know what Eggman is doing in some remote islands to begin with?
Isn't GUN a global thing? They were in Soleanna, and they invaded ARK. I guess they could have invaded the Death Egg.
Hmm... Robotnik was 60 years old, living on Mobius. 1 Earth Year = 1 Mobius Month. Assuming Robotnik was born then went straight to Mobius somehow, since he's shocked he was born on Earth so it must have happened very early on, then Robotnik should be 720 Earth years old. Good thing whatever caused Chris to deage didn't affect him... Spoiler I figured they were like NATO, not all countries but you can opt in.
GUN is not in Unleashed because they wanted that game to have a simple story of Sonic vs. Eggman with the Gaia stuff involved, and whatever other Sonic elements they presented they decided it should be more simple ones like Tails and Amy while the rest of the game would be brand new Unleashed wasn't made to follow up on any one game chronologically (I would argue 3/4 of Sonic Heroes wasn't, either) and Colors and Lost World followed suit, which is why there's no GUN (on top of the latter two taking place in Sonic's world anyway)
They are literally called "Guardian Units of Nations". Nations. That said, let's say you're right. Why would GUN care about islanders being attacked etc etc ... isn't that exactly what I was complaining about? Congratulations, you've just brought real world first world-third world country relations into Sonic. "Why would the rich nations care about what's happening in these far away islands" etc. I need you people to understand I'm not complaining of a plot hole or something prosaic like that. There's no contradiction here. I'm complaining of tone and feeling being destroyed, not plot.
I was going to say something similar and I'm going back to what I said in my previous post about simple explanations. Why didn't they invade the Death Egg and save Westside Island? Is it because humans are xenophobic or is it because they just didn't exist yet in the lore? Why weren't they in Unleashed? Is it because they didn't care or is it because Sonic Team at the time didn't feel they fit with the scope of the story and game along with the other characters? This is why I brought up the complaints of heroes not collaborating when they're in a crisis. Would The Killing Joke be a better story if Flash helped look for the Joker after the kidnapping of Commissioner Gordon? Would Unleashed be a better game if GUN appeared? A throwaway line helps here and there, in fact Zero Gravity does with them. But it's not something you need to explain every time.
But the Death Egg is a weapon of mass destruction, isn't it? It's not an islander thing. GUN not invading the Death Egg is an issue that goes beyond furryphobia.
No offense intended, but this reads somewhat as complaining of problems of one's own making. That there is no official reason for GUN's non-involvement in certain stories does not necessitate invoking xenophobia as the explanation (and then complaining about that explanation). Sega almost certainly doesn't hold that stance, and it's at best a fan hypothesis. What's more, "GUN only cares about first world powers" doesn't even work as a catch-all explanation. As others have pointed out, GUN makes no appearance in Sonic Unleashed, which depicts a global event that impacts the human continents. Wouldn't the countries in Unleashed be top priority for GUN, according to that line of thinking? (Note that GUN's absence remains unexplained even in Two Worlds framing.) Does Sonic Unleashed have a tone problem because of GUN's absence, because it implies the military fails in its ostensible purpose of protecting citizens, or some such real world thinking? I would say not, it's merely a developmental choice not to be bogged down in continuity. Why then apply such thinking to the island-centric stories? Yes, Two Worlds happens to offer a less problematic (albeit likewise flawed) alternative to the xenophobia theory - but it's not a binary position. People are free to come up with any explanation for the discrepancy they'd like. One may feel "forced" to accept the latter in the absence of the former, but that's not a fault of Sega, nor is it logically sound. Any perceived tone problem is dependent on accepting the xenophobia framing. I hesitate to say that this is over-thinking, since, let's be honest, over-thinking is perhaps the entire point of this thread. But Sega's approach to continuity, specifically when and which established elements are re-used, can be mercurial. They have more often than not allowed game plots to stand on their own, absent any context as to how they situate in the greater Sonic universe. In short, I just fundamentally disagree with the notion that the absence of one element (a global military) in some games has an negative impact on those games' tone. I can accept both that Dr. Eggman has invaded South Island, and that there is a global military elsewhere on the planet that is not present for X reason, and still recognize only the cohesive, cartoony tone that was originally intended.
Also Sonic Adventure. You'd think when the Egg Carrier started appearing over a major Human city, G.U.N. would step in.
Gun being multinational might be as someone said earlier akin to NATO, or even the U.N.'s peace keeping force. They'd have to be called in and given jurisdiction for any kind of military operation as a standing reserve force. Soleana may have been a time they had Intel something would happen and episode Shadow might have been similar since i think it was said Rouge was being fed intel. Which with Rouge, they seem to operate with operatives first before moving to direct conflict. So in other cases unless outright being invaded or have knowledge of terrorist activity they might have just been dragging it out in bureaucratic red tape or just how fast a Blue Hedgehog seems to always resolve everything. South Island was an unknown relatively in early Sonic lore so that gives Eggman some leeway. Westside Island, they've never really stated how much of the infrastructure was new or not meaning it all could have been Eggman related industries in operations as a cover to build a superweapon. Though oil Ocean seems to be a compliance failure of some sort that should be fixed. Why didn't gun get involved in the Death Egg? Well, we didn't see it initially launch but it was grounded far longer than it was airborne. Again, someone mentioned awareness and military intelligence and these situations many things were likely unknowns to them. Again, Sonic cleans house as he always seems to so why do they need to bother? By the time they would have stepped in a surprise orbital weapon would probably be pointed at them or it would be the ARK scenario ransoming the world or something. Adventure, also like most games takes place in a span of days, and the Egg Carrier goes from hidden in the Mystic Ruins to airborne and shot down within a day? Maybe two. We really don't know how quickly G.U.N. can mobilize their Airfleet from the Shadow game, but Station Square may have been far enough away from major GUN activity for Eggman to set up shop there at least. SA2 where there would have been some airspace issues was a game in the adventure Era he didn't whip out an Egg Carrier or Fleet. GUN was in Soleanna and he was gallavanting around. The three points Eggman has really riled up contention were him blowing up half the moon after freeing Shadow which did garner direct responces (Rouge and Gun capturing Sonic lol), his direct airfleet combat with GUN if I remember Shadow's story right, and then when he stomped GUN in the lead up to Forces we didn't see. It seems his industrial connections dealing in robot sales (Sonic Battle), and shell companies (MeteoTech) may have been to keep himself off of the radar? Fronts to obscure what he was really up to. And since none of this is elaborated on it's all head Canon stuff both following real world Conventions or more direct criticism so it's going to probably stay up in the air and they will continue to just sidestep any issues as unimportant to the story.
I've been lurking this thread for a while and your posts are the first time I've ever seen something that made me feel the need to say anything. You are overthinking this to an almost worrying degree that makes me wonder how you're capable of enjoying anything. How come the cops don't show up in every horror movie to arrest the killer before they can kill anyone? If it's a movie about demons, why doesn't God instantly vaporize them? Why doesn't Superman show up to instantly kill every villain in any DC movie? Why didn't the Avengers show up for every conflict in every Marvel movie? It's because they're evil, of course! The fact that you're not only creating this problem for yourself but then getting so upset you claim it's completely destroying "the tone" of these games is genuinely worrying. You guys sometimes seem to forget that Sonic is a product first and foremost. The story is only there to serve that. It's become more cohesive as people who care about that story take the reigns, but that will never take precedent over serving the overall product. GUN and Sonic Adventure 2 as a whole were created during a time when edge and faux-realism were the hot subject. Sonic evolved from cute-edgy to greasy-pimples edgy and that meant Sonic was going to start fighting "cooler" foes. So Robotnik and his goofy robot animals were replaced with the faux-J/EDF and their slick, modern-looking (kinda) robots, because fighting and killing actual soldiers wasn't going to be on the menu for another few games. After this era passed, so too did the desire for "cooler" enemies so GUN was retired to the annals of time, only to be mentioned in places like this and the occasional offhand reference. The full name is entirely in service of the "GUN" moniker and it's not even clear what "nations" there are in this world and how they coexist. Maybe the Federation calls its states individual nations? Soleanna could very well be a territory of the Federation, as well. Even presuming they're a global force, Robotnik is a single person and can build huge space stations by himself. Sonic and Shadow pretty much beat GUN singlehandedly (usually without being too bothered in the process) and Robotnik has Metal Sonic, who's either on par with them or a few notches below, depending on the day. Dr. Robotnik has an army, and ONE of his robots (albeit one of his strongest) could reasonably destroy any task force GUN throws at them. You want to talk about grim implications? How about throwing away soldiers with families and lives by the thousands to fight the crazy guy with the death ray in space? Are you okay with Private Williams getting turned into a pink mist by Metal Sonic or some other mechanical horror for the sake of GUN saying "we tried"? I didn't play Forces and don't know much about it but I'm pretty sure they said Robotnik beat them without much trouble. They just can't compete with the Doc, so they do their best to protect their civilians and cover up weird conspiracies to make alien hedgehog hybrids, and for most things outside of a direct, invading force ala the aliens in Shadow, they're willing to let the magic blue hedgehog fix everything. Hasn't done them wrong yet, has it?
Or they didn't have the element of surprise that they did with the ARK and any approaching G.U.N. vessel toward the Death Egg would have been shot down, killing all aboard.
It surely wouldn't go unnoticed by governments, armies and secret services. It was floating freely in open space, totally exposed and visible to everyone.
