The Sonic the Hedgehog Continuity Thread of Love and Timelines

Well, learned something new today ^^"
That's a nice way to justify Pixar-style humans, due to being depicted as Sonic sees them.
Still, I'd rather see them as realistically as possible, Eggman included.

 

I don't like realistic humans and I don't like the weird Pixar-wannabe stuff of Unleashed. I think Sage is a pretty good design, actually.

 

I never knew progressive would be the ones to help me cope with hyper realistic eggman. Does this also mean that Progressive is canon? Does sonic qualify for coverage? What are his rates considering how dangerous he can be/is in? SO MANY QUESTIONS.

 

I've never really minded Humans looking different between games really. I've always just chalked it up to art style differences, which is what most people I believe I think. I do like @BlackHole 's theory of Sonic viewing Humans as cartoony through his viewpoint, and them actually looking more 06 or SA2-esque in reality though. It creates a convenient in-universe explanation which I think is cute, I like it.

Maybe Sonic himself qualifies for coverage because he moves so fast he's legally considered a vehicle

 

In Sonic Pocket Adventure he didn't launch Sonic all the way to space, but that was already above Asterix standards.

 

Actually, Asterix did see a character launched into space from a punch, so it's not above that standard.

The event in question, if you wish to see it:

Spoiler

 

Indeed, Sonic needed Shadow's help performing a Chaos Control large and fast enough to stop the ARK hitting the planet. He wasn't exactly able to just idle on that one, he needed the Chaos Control then and there, so better both work together to sort it out, especially with someone more experienced with the Chaos Control side of things.

Then he goes off to perform another large scale Chaos Control, only this time without the immediately impending threat of what he's using Chaos Control on ramming into the planet and wiping out all life on it, so he can handle that one while Shadow should be making his way back to the ARK. What do you mean no one's seen him? I'll check where he was last and... oh hey, one of his rings...

Ah yes, those friends who were calling you throughout the FinalHazard fight, as if they have some sort of... radio device...

These aren't exactly hard conclusions here.

I mean, how often do we see these platforms without the Chaos Emeralds in the area or having been there for who knows how long?

Always been a small jokey headcanon of mine that the Little Planet is actually crashing into the Earth, and the Time Stones are simply slowing it down and then reversing time to take it back up. Still, the Little Planet is an oddity of it's own: as soon as the chain is removed, it suddenly floats away and disappears.

...wait a minute...

Spoiler: Sonic Frontiers Final Boss Spoiler

The Little Planet, a small planet.
The End, a small moon.

Solaris, God of Time.
Little Planet, Home of the Time Stones.

Solaris, associated with the sun.
The End, associated with the moon.

A sun, a planet and a moon...

Headcanon developing.

I can't really answer much about the Lost Hex since there's really not much said about it. I know Humans once inhabited it, and it's described as a continent more than a planet. Might see if there's anything I can actually glean from Sonic Lost World...

South Island is also floating. Possibly, probably something to ask about with the continuity snafu going on, don't know what environmental details apply any more...

 

Speaking of floating, it’s interesting to me that Sky Sanctuary seemingly keeps floating when the rest of Angel Island falls. Was it always that way? Was it built by another ancient society other than the echidnas? There’s a lot of cool stuff they can explore with Angel Island, though I wonder if they’ll stay away from it due to the possible risk of being bugged by Ken Penders.

Also just fyi there’s headcanon thread that seems awfully lonely right now

 

I know, I made the thing, but I'd rather not double post. But a thought occurred so I'm going to have to...

 

Why would he need to collect the pieces of the Moon? Sonic and Shadow didn't collect the pieces of the ARK that snap off as it falls, but they're restored when the ARK is Chaos Control'd back. Same logic, the Moon's destroyed half is restored by the Chaos Control without having to look for the pieces.

19:50


The issue with Shadow is that Sonic was right there next to him, so really should've been about to catch him. I know the recent Twitter Takeover had Shadow say he waved Sonic off and Sonic let him fall, so you could use that if you want? I also recall Archie had it that Sonic did try to catch him, but wasn't fast enough (Super Sonic not being fast enough...)

Personally, I'd say Sonic did check on Shadow, who assured Sonic he'd make it back to the ARK while Sonic took care of the Moon (perhaps even make it Shadow's idea to repair the Moon?), but when no one could find him on the ARK after, Sonic did a search and found the ring. But this is heading straight into headcanon territory, so probably best we leave this be.

Sonic Unleashed is a bit odd, since everyone's overly chipper in the day, and suffering dread over night. Not really sure if anything's influencing them...

I think the justification for Windy Valley would be, well, the wind. Not to mention they're next to where the Chaos Emeralds and Master Emerald resided for an unknown length of time before the Chaos Incident.

Spoiler

Possible Ancient Settlement?

Still, I don't know why the platforms exist, do note I said apparently and any indication. Perhaps they exist due to the above spoilers influence?

It does seem to jolt the chain and smack a mountain in Sonic the Hedgehog CD's opening once Sonic has arrived on the scene. So perhaps that was the hint?

More "I was the last person to post in the Headcanon thread, so if I posted it would be double-posting in said thread". But I did it anyway, since it had been a while.

 

I don't get your confusion. You might not like the concept, you can even argue it's unscientific and would result in destruction etc whatever (but then again that'd happening anyway just by the mass shift)- but "there's no pole so it can't appear round" genuinely makes no sense to me. Just like, grab any spherical object, and paint a crater into it. You'll be able to rotate it in such a way that you can still see the object as a perfect ball without seeing the crater you drew in.

 

I meant with the pole blown off, a chunk of the north missing, when it spins on the axis part of the north should still be missing. The Moon won't turn to have the remaining half face the Earth, it would just keep rotating.

Oh, yeah, Earth would be screwed if half the Moon disappeared. Hell, the tidal patterns would be all over the place with the half getting blasted away from the main mass, earthquakes, and chunks falling to Earth. It's why I prefer to think Sonic went to deal with it, rather than have an Endor Holocaust from Moon chunks hitting the planet...

How the world was probably going during Sonic Adventure 2:

 

Sonic and his friends are biologically-impossible abominations whose very existence doesn't make a lick of real-world scientific sense. It's a cartoon. Real-world astrophysics doesn't have to apply to its cartoon world. It sure didn't in Unleashed when the planet broke apart.

 

Unleashed: World literally shatters
Ice Cream Guy: “World might literally be drifting off into space but fuck it ICE CREAM”

 

Spoiler: Sonic Frontiers/Unleashed/SA1 Spoilers

superluigi018 - "How do the Gaia Temples factor into the new chaos emerald lore introduced in Sonic Frontiers? SAGE says that the Ancients came to earth (along with the chaos emeralds) tens of thousands of years ago. After The End attacked yet again, a small group of Ancients brought the emeralds to what is now known as Angel Island. The Emeralds remained on Angel Island until the Knuckles clan was destroyed by perfect chaos 3,000 years ago (according to the Japanese Sonic Adventure Navigation Guide). But according to Sonic Unleashed, the temples of Gaia were also created tens of thousands of years ago and are integral to the cycle of the planet and the time of awakening (Dark Gaia vs Light Gaia). The temples couldn't have existed without the emeralds so they must have been created after the Ancients came to earth, but they couldn't have been created before the emeralds left Angel Island after the extinction of the Knuckles clan. How could the Gaia Temples exist?"

Ian Flynn - I don't want to go into fine detail for various reasons, but some things to consider. Humanity as we know it didn't leave the African cradle until like somewhere between 60 to 80 thousand years ago. So even on that time scale if the Ancients had arrived on Earth 90 thousand years ago, that's 10 thousand years, between major species events. As I don't think it's safe to assume that the Chaos Emeralds didn't move at all ever in a period of tens of thousands of years and also keep in mind that you know this game is written well after Sonic Adventure and there are adjustments being made to the lore so not everything is necessarily going to stay intact, especially obscure Japanese only numbers. So let's just for pretend numbers and I do mean this just for pretend numbers if the Ancients arrived 90 thousand years ago and the Gaia Temples were built 89 thousand years ago that's still a millennium in between the two events. So there is a lot of time for things to have happened.

Oh boy that was a lot of typing!
46:39

 

You missed the part where Ian confirmed + - that the Ancients evolved ("devolved", in his words) into "various stuff", among which are Chao.  

 

I just didn't want to type anymore after the first question.

 

Alright @Sneekie and @Shaddy the guy. Let me explain why the story of Sonic Origins is not an abridged version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Mega Drive)'s manual. First, let's get both on hand so you can confirm what I'm pointing out and I'm not taking single lines out of context.

To summarise the Sonic Origins cutscene:

Tails is being chased by two foxes whom proceed to harass him after backing him into a corner.
Sonic rushes past, confusing them. Tails proceeds to give chase.
Sonic sees and rushes off a bit faster, but Tails keeps pace. Sonic winks at him.
Tails spins his tails so fast, he realises he can fly. Sonic sees this and cheers the fox on.

So let's see here:

"Tails is being chased by two foxes whom proceed to harass him after backing him into a corner."​

Let's see if the manual covers this:

Hmm, that's weird... there seems to be a thing here...

It seems to be some sort of... past tense...
As if this is something that happened in the past, not happening now... Hmm, I wonder if the manual addresses such a thing...

Oh, would you look at that, it does. It confirms the bullying was something that happened when he was younger, as in not now. That's all three instances of bullying being mentioned as well: all three are past tense, two say it happened when he was little. So no, before you try and raise that argument, it's not me nitpicking, it's the intent.

So from the first scene alone, there's a retcon that does not match the manual. Aka, it ain't an abridgement of the plot.

"Sonic rushes past, confusing them. Tails proceeds to give chase."​

Other than the above basically meaning this could not happen, this didn't happened. There's no mention of Sonic interfering or stopping the bullying at all. In Sonic Prime's recent clip, this is "the very moment we first met" according to Sonic.

0:35


Now, let's see, what does the manual say about Sonic and Tails first meeting...

According to the manual, Tails was following Sonic around because he thought Sonic looked cool, while Sonic... didn't care. Not maliciously, more he was content to let the fox do his own thing, even if that thing was stalking him around the island.

While I could believe Sonic would have interfered in any bullying since he hates injustice, so that's in-character, that's not the point of this. The point is that this is not a truncated version of the manual. Tails was not getting bullied in the present, so Sonic had nothing to stop in the first place.

That's two for two on plot beats the animation has changed. Next one:

"Sonic sees and rushes off a bit faster, but Tails keeps pace. Sonic winks at him."​

This is the closest it gets to actually covering the manual plot. Tails does, indeed, begin following Sonic around, and Sonic notices. The issue is, as noted above, Sonic doesn't care. He wouldn't encourage Tails on, he was being aloof and just ignoring the fox chasing him. He actually sees Tails, and Tails hides behind a palm tree, before this conclusion. I don't see Tails hiding behind a palm tree from Sonic in the animation, but feel free to reply with a time in the above video of the cutscene if you're seeing it.

As note above as well, Sonic Prime confirmed the cutscene was their first meeting entirely in the Sammy SEGA canon. The manual notes a time skip between Sonic seeing and ignoring the fox, to Tails finding the Tornado. Unless you refer to the same day's afternoon as "One afternoon"?

So it's not just continuity, Sonic's personality has changed from an aloof guy to standard encouraging hero #1991. And if the cutscene leads immediately into the game, which I'm going to assume it does since of course it would, then this entire scene is cut and we lose Tails displaying his interest in mechanics that actually becomes crucial to later in the game's story, and could have actually been used as the basis for the cutscene to better introduce him:

What plot point does this introduce? Why, the booster that was installed onto the Tornado for Sky Chase Zone was his handiwork:

"Tails spins his tails so fast, he realises he can fly. Sonic sees this and cheers the fox on."​

The first part is additional fluff. Nowhere does it mention this being Tails' first instance of flying. The flying part doesn't contradict the manual, but doesn't actually exist in text anywhere.

As for the latter part, as noted several times, Sonic did not care. He was being aloof, so would not cheer Tails on like he does in the animation. So that wouldn't happen.

So this 'abridgement' of the manual's story covers the following details:

"Tails chased Sonic."

Astonishing. And they didn't even get the detail right, he's barely following Sonic for a few seconds instead of all day.

Special Stage - Contradictions with Other Games​

Tails Adventures - As noted above, Sonic Origins' animation shows Tails realising he can fly. This is contradicted by Tails Adventures, whose manual confirms it a prequel, and Tails is shown flying. So even that additional fluff contradicts the manual canon, just not Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Mega Drive)'s.

Sonic Adventure - In Tails' flashback, Sonic rushes past him, ignoring a sad looking Tails. Considering the very first instance they met, according to Sonic Prime, Sonic immediately helped Tails and encouraged him, does this sound in-character for standard encouraging hero #1991? Or does Sonic ignoring the fox sound like the aloof manual characterisation?

10:29


Now I get it, you don't care about the manual plot, fair enough, it's your opinion as much as me hating Sonic Origins' cutscenes is mine. But stop making it clear you've barely done a cursory glance and come at me with the first point you found that you seem to think counters my claim it's a full retcon. It covers nothing of the same ground, it's an entirely new thing they made up, not an abridgement.

I'm sorry for the long post and rant, everyone else, but I'm getting tired of this claim that the Sonic Origins manual doesn't change much when it literally changes everything from the manual.