The Sonic the Hedgehog Continuity Thread of Love and Timelines

Sure, but we don't know how and when (after Rush) she arrived in Silver's future. Maybe she just didn't have enough time to find out. Even in Rush Adventure, which is probably after 06, Eggman Nega is still acting as a counterpart.

 

From Blaze's point of view, the two Eggmen appeared to be counterparts. That's all she needs to believe that there might be more counterparts.

She doesn't need to personally know a Sonic Nega.

Also, Blaze is the princess of a kingdom, not the entire world. Even if she looked up on Sonic in her dimension and failed to find any info on him, it doesn't preclude him from existing somewhere in the planet from her point of view.

Besides, it's arguable whether or not she would look up on him.

 

I think the idea that Blaze didn't initially think she was in Sonic's world is completely natural and something I feel a bit silly for not thinking of sooner. Blaze is pretty reserved and introspective, so it's organic to me that she refrained from jumping to the conclusion that she had to be in Sonic's world again, despite that being an obvious fact for us as the audience. This was only her second time doing extradimensional travel, so it's not really a viable sample size for confirming that it only occurs between Sonic's dimension and her own.

With regards to her lack of reaction towards learning about Sonic and Eggman's involvement...it goes without saying that 06 is rushed (hah) and unfinished. While there's nothing that directly suggests this to be the case, I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that perhaps a detail like that getting fleshed out just got lost in the shuffle of this game's hellish development. Or maybe it didn't, we don't know. At the same time, we can only work with what we have and what is presented by the released product, regardless of the state it's in. With that, we need to accept that we can't join every dot and sometimes these things just don't make sense within the format they're presented.

 

That's a fair point, but I would expect Blaze to at least try and talk to Sonic. "Hey, I'm not sure, are you the same Sonic who helped me with Nega or was that another world?"
Not to mention Sonic not addressing her once, which you would think he would do since the last time he would've seen her, the dimensions were bleeding into one another. Again, it goes both ways, it's not just that Blaze isn't acknowledging Sonic (or Amy, but I don't think they ever actually cross paths in the story so that's fine), it's that Sonic is also not acknowledging Blaze.

It's why I prefer the idea Sonic Rush hadn't happened yet/was averted due to Iblis being a factor on the timeline, and Blaze only knew of Sonic from history records. It lets Blaze know of Sonic, but not in a personal way you would expect them to talk about.

 

Eggman Nega was introduced as being the Eggman counterpart in the Sol Dimension. Him and Blaze even have history. So it doesn't make sense for him being from the future, a fact that is only brought up in the Sonic Rivals games.

 

In-universe it makes sense if you consider Eggman Nega was just lying about it, so he could team up with Eggman to change the past and prevent his family's name to fall into disgrace. After Rush Adventure, when he was not able - again - to help Eggman win, he reveals his true nature in Rivals when he attempts to kill Eggman and everyone else.

But from Blaze's perspective, during 06 she should still think Eggman Nega is from the Sol Dimension, imo.

 

And has been confirmed as the actual origin.

Again, the fact is he's the only 'identical' counterpart, in a world that is very much distinct from Sonic's world, was weird from the getgo. Blaze is not Blaze Nega, the Sol Emeralds are very distinct from the Chaos Emerald counterparts, it's just very bizarre that Nega is the only one who has a direct counterpart like that.

 

Man, I think I hate Blaze.

 

There's probably potential for a really great writer to tell a really good story - focused around Silver and Blaze - that retcons all of this mess into something quite interesting.

...we'll probably never get that story, though.

 

It would require SEGA allowing us to look back at a 17 year old game the fanbase hated. Then again, there's that recent video with the ghosts from Sonic Unleashed, so who knows.

 

I'll be fine with a IDW story focusing on Blaze and Silver in an adventure, and that somehow manages to clean things up about 06. A game like that is never going to happen, but a comic? I think it's doable.

 

The "but everybody hated 06" reason for not publicly explaining, in some capacity, how its plot is intended to cohere with the rest of the games' loses more of its punch every year that we get more "Sonic 06 is underrated, actually" video essays on YouTube.

 

Silver and Blaze are not really the plothole in 06 that most needs patching up. Yes, it's confusing as to why Blaze is there, but if all you have to say is "Sol emeralds" then I'm not sure you really need a whole IDW story. She goes there sometime before Silver's playthrough starts, and goes home when it ends. If anything, it's their actual character dynamic that needed work, and lots of different Sonic stories have offered their take on that in the years since.

What I'd like to see is an explanation to how Elise had the blue chaos emerald for ten years when it kept getting rolled up in Eggman schemes. Did she lose it for the 2 or-so years between Sonic 1 and 06 and just recently find it on the floor again or something before Eggman attacked?

 

It's not trapped in a loop.

The series prior > Silver finds it on the ground > Silver goes back in time with it > Silver gives it to Elise > Elise carries it with her > Elise hands it off to Sonic at the opening > Sonic brings it to Robotnik in White Acropolis > Robotnik leaves with it.

Robotnik's entire goal is to collect them to use them in conjunction with the Flames of Disaster. I doubt he'd just leave it dropped outside of his base right after Sonic handed it over.

So there's a second blue Chaos Emerald in Soleanna during the initial timeline of events.

 

Hm, maybe. I guess it's just weird that he finds it in the middle of Eggman's base, so it's easy to assume that that's the blue emerald Eggman had, whatever reason it had to end up in a different part of the base. If he were able to find the other emeralds, it's weird that he didn't see one right under his nose.

See, storytelling like that is why I'm kinda less interested in diegetic retcons or reexplanations and more into the idea of wholesale re-adaptations, if the comics were to do anything with the existing series canon. I feel like I remember hearing a while back that Ian or someone pitched the idea of graphic novel game adaptations to SEGA at some point, but they didn't go for it. Does anyone else remember that? Given how they don't want to lean too heavily on the more dogshit stories in the series, I get it, but there's absolutely interesting elements that can be mined out of 06 or Lost World or Forces or what have you, and having a definitive point A to point B version of Shadow the hedgehog's story would save a lot of the trouble of trying to explain what actually did and didn't happen in that game.

 

The Chaos Emeralds are a bit off and on regarding how easy they are to track. There was the one up in Windy Valley when he was fighting Sonic and Tails with the Egg Hornet during Sonic Adventure, you'd think he'd have just grabbed that one while in the area with the Egg Carrier but apparently he didn't notice it and just left with the one he filched from Tails.

Then, using the Japanese manual of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and specifying just because it only happens there, you've got the Master Emerald on Angel Island, which was a huge Emerald signal he knew was there, but he had no idea where it was specifically beyond "underground".

Plus, all those times he began mining out islands and deploying armies to look for these things.

My best guess is that unless they're in an area with sensors that can pinpoint it like on the ARK, the most you can get with Chaos Emeralds in an environment is a vague "it's in this area" where the area can span a whole island. He might have been looking for it before Shadow wrecked his base, Sonic delivered 'another' Chaos Emerald, and Silver got lucky and happened upon it.

 

I think I especially hate the pairing of Silver and Blaze. It was so arbitrary and it ultimately fucked up everything just so Blaze could be in one more game and not interact with anyone but Silver and now she basically can't appear without anyone asking "where's silver". Also what the fuck are the two actually supposed to do outside the specific point in time where Blaze managed to get into the fucked up version of the future and unable/unwilling to go back where she belongs? The two have so little chemistry outside of that that they literally have to bullshit them saying "we just feel a connection ".
Nah. Fuck that.

 

What I actually wanted to see about 06 is a coherent explanation about everything Mephiles did.

And this is never going to be shown in any media because there is no way to address things that ceased to happen.

 

Remember when back in September someone asked Ian about Shadow's bio on the Fast Friends Forever website and how it contradicted the True Ending of the original game? In the website it is said that Shadow fights for the planet not to protect humanity, but because of Maria's wish. In Shadow the Hedgehog (2005), though, Shadow makes the decision to "put the past behind him".

If this short comic is anything to go by, the official answer is....
...Shadow often loses his memory, I guess.