The Sonic the Hedgehog Continuity Thread of Love and Timelines

And the western change of using animals as batteries was also codified there, instead of their original AI use.

Seriously, why is Robotnik wasting time chasing down animals and dealing with Sonic and friends getting upset with him for it when, from all indication, Rings are a good power source and are literally just sitting there freely?

Just grab a bunch of rings, slap them in, and he gets his robot army without upsetting Sonic and co. for attacking the animals.

 

They’re both a power source and a source of AI, as you can see in Gamma’s story. I don’t know what is so hard to understand about that.

 

They’re cartoon animals being stuffed into robots and freed harmlessly when the robots blow up, I think questioning the science of it is overthinking it.

 

It's what we do best

 

I'm going to go through Gamma's story, I don't recall them saying anything about the Flicky being a power source. It only ever suggests the AI via the Flicky's memories flashing up.

It's also implied via the only one without a Flicky/animal, E-100 Alpha "Zero", being also the least capable robot among the E-100s in Sonic Adventure: it continues chasing after Amy and the Flicky despite Robotnik already getting what he wanted from the bird, compared to the other E-100s in the game who are able to banter between themselves about which frog looks correct, E-101 Beta who protests against Robotnik leaving him off the Egg Carrier, and E-102 Gamma who is able to rewrite his directories to label Robotnik an enemy.

I never said science, I said logic. Robotnik is wasting time, power and effort chasing things that can flee when there's free power sources literally scattered around the area, something Tails and Silver use in Sonic Rivals 2 while confirming they are a power source in-universe.

If he's using them for cheap AI, then fair enough, I can understand his mass-produced machines using them since AI is hard (and a good chunk tend to turn on him), but power sources seem to be a lot more effort for something literally in bundles of three or more.

 

I'd actually like to know what baffles you.
If you're trying to integrate what the movie shows with what the games' emeralds have historically been, the two aren't very compatible. But what we do know doesn't conflict with anything already shown about the movie universe, and is pretty much all we know about them.
- Emeralds previously existed seperately, but were then forged into one all-powerful emerald by the echidnas at some point in time.
- That caused the owls to band together and take it and hide it on earth.
- That's where it sits while the dwindling owl and echidna races kill each other off.
It's best not to think too hard about how pre-existing stories in the games that involved them fit in with this lore, because you can't be sure how exactly they'll be adapted, or if they get adapted.

 

If they are able to create a Master Emerald, remove the Chaos Emeralds, then reassemble the Master Emerald to full strength after the Chaos Emeralds were sent away, what was stopping the mass production of Master Emeralds?

How did Knuckles even know how to restore the Master Emerald without the Chaos Emeralds that were once housed within it, considering it was sealed away for millennia?

 

We don't know what "Full Strength" for this Master Emerald is, whether or not it's at full strength when it was reformed, or that it necessarily spawned from the emeralds coming together. I know it doesn't appear until after they do come together in the animation, but I think they'd be willing to say it always existed if a story they want to tell needs it to exist next to the rest before the end of Sonic 2. These writers don't need to write with things that are as set in stone as the games.

As for Knuckles, maybe there was something for him to have read or it was something learned from his tribe. He's dedicated almost a whole decade of his life to finding the thing, so he has to know more about it than anyone else.

 

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Honestly, I think Frontiers should've been the beginning of a new continuity with Origins acting as backstory for said continuity. That way you streamline the brand and don't have to deal with a lot of contradictions and you also leave the old stuff open for anyone who want to discuss that. As a bonus, I think that Forces would be a nice ending for the old continuity

 

I honestly wouldn't mind Sonic Origins being a soft-reboot, retolding the story. I'm pretty sure Jet Set Radio Future did something similar with the original game.

 

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And Vector and Charmy being clueless about Robotnik during the Egg Albatross fight, though I maintain it's Charmy being Charmy and Vector already cluing in that it's not actually Robotnik and testing to see if he remembers them.

I mean, Vector at the very least should know him from the fact he blew up the Moon within, what, the past few months?
At least Espio is well aware of Robotnik, so you could also say Chaotix was solely Knuckles and Espio solving the issue.

Also Rouge being tasked by the President of the United Federation to retrieve Emerl.

Also also once more the events taking place in Central City, alongside Sonic Adventure 2, Shadow the Hedgehog, and that shout-out in Sonic Heroes via newspaper clipping from Central City News Today.

I remember them trying to justify it as there being two Central Citys, one on Sonic's World and one on Earth.

50:01


Ah the attempts by SEGA to split the world needlessly... and then they did it again with the Classic and Modern games...

Also Sonic Jam's Man of the Year short.


Sonic Origins missed such a great opportunity to make a Part Two and conclude this...

It's a mix, since it also features Tails' introduction and such, but it is primarily Sonic the Hedgehog 3's lore being brought in.
Probably since another, non-needle mouse would probably be cheesed off over the Death Egg, which was Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Mega Drive)'s focus, so I can understand them quietly skipping that plot...

Depends on when you set it, according to the Sonic the Hedgehog CD concept art he was born 1931.

 

Yes, because that interview is long ago, and things have changed since then.

Well actually no.
The Japanese lore for the classic games was the true continuity only for the main games (the ones in Origins), but not for the Game Gear games. The GG games have their lore just fine on their own, but a coesive timeline joining everything was always a problem.
People argued for decades the best way to fit the Game Gear games lore into the main games because they don't fit well enough. Mainly due to Triple Trouble calling Knuckles a stranger, and also due to the need of breaking the flow between S2 and S3K.
And about CD, it was also always a headache. People defending it after S3K, and people defending it before S2, was like 50% 50%. Even among people who worked with the game (Oshima was not the only one talking about it).

What Origins really messed up was trying to summarize all the manuals within a few minutes, basically throwing the manuals out in the trash. Even so, the manuals were already messed up back then, saying that Knuckles was guarding the Chaos Emeralds in S3K when he was clearly not. Probably a leftover of an old idea of having a new set of Emeralds in each island.

 

It used to be so easy to follow the story too, everything used to just be in a straight line from Sonic 1 to Sonic Lost World with a few outliers here and there. It's incredibly frustrating to see them just throw things in and out of canon and let's be honest Ian is just saying whatever is convenient at that time. I don't doubt he hasn't thought about all this stuff but he isn't the only person working on Sonic guys.
And to think all of this because they tried to do two worlds and decided to retcon it.

 

The only problem was Sonic the Hedgehog 3, and it's not really that big a problem.

 

Well it is a big of a problem. Just look how many different solutions were proposed just here and how many agreed with each other.

I made a convoluted timeline with 3 or 4 branches in order to fit everything, and everybody thought it was a mess. And you sure as hell know nobody agreed with your proposal as well.

 

I just don't get the desire to fit the GG games into the timeline. You've gotta jump through some hoops to fit them in, and even not considering that it's still kind of unnecessary to include them at all when it's much simpler and more cohesive to just have the Genesis titles.

If it really does make more sense or feel tidier to have the GG games in the timeline then I'd be happy to get proven wrong, but I just don't see it.

 

It's only as big a problem as people let it be.

Mostly since people are adamant Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Mega Drive) goes straight into Sonic the Hedgehog 3 with no breaks. Also the concept of Knuckles fighting Sonic before Sonic the Hedgehog 3 in Sonic Triple Trouble, even though they can't actually dispute the idea with the manuals and games. Just 'it doesn't feel right'.

 

Yes, and of course yes. For most people, the feeling of feeling right (that was ackward to write) about the main games is much more important than fitting the Game Gear games based on what they say in their manuals. Simply because they don't matter much, as they weren't even canon for a long time.

Myself included. In that sense, I agree with the new canon. If we can never get a single cohesive timeline gathering all the games, it's fine to change the plot of the least important ones.
That doesn't mean I agree with changing the plot of the main ones, specially when there is no need to. But the GG games? Nah, don't care. It was never going to be good anyway.