The Sonic the Hedgehog Continuity Thread of Love and Timelines

You say this in jest, but yes, that's exactly the sort of thing I'm getting at. I dunno if you're plugged into the grander state of Sonic on social media, but there's been a huge wave of absolutely ingratiating discourse over whether Rivals or Advance or whatever is canon specifically because of these exclusions. Yes, I know better, but I do legitimately think it goes to show that the way they've laid this out is flawed. There's no discernible methodology as to which games were chosen, and because they've revamped the individual game pages too, people are interpreting manual details as canonical specifically because of the correction to the fact that the games themselves are still canon. If they'd properly distinguished between games that do and do not count, and game descriptions that are current versus dated manual details, none of this would be a real problem.

You can say "continuity changes with time" all you want, but that's not a justification for a resource that's ostensibly supposed to guide people's understanding being this half-baked. If continuity has to change that bad, they can just change the timeline, too. I don't even think that's really accurate for this series, not unless you count manual details, at least. Sonic is turning 35 next year and the only actual video games to at one point be canon and later get decanonized amounts to Chronicles and Pocket Adventure, and both of those were out of the creators' hands. If there's something obvious I'm not thinking of, I don't see it.

 

I find it really hard to get so riled up over this. Yeah, it's not done perfectly, or frankly all that well, but they're apparently not even done adding things to it yet:

So like, take a deep breath and stay tuned?

And I know that at this point it's basically a thought-terminating cliche to say "man, social media sure sucks!", but this is a case where it's not just a lazy truism. Discourse surrounding Sonic (or anything, really) on social media tends to be a dumpster fire no matter what happens, so I especially don't understand getting so bothered by the impact this is having on that. Like, oh no, people who are habitually annoying (many of them literal children) are being annoying about this??? The horror! You say "Yes, I know better" but the importance you're placing on that shit makes it look like you actually don't. You do not need to look in those largely worthless spaces to glean that they did this in a flawed way with minimal discernible methodology. That is self-evident.

 

I Think I know what you're referring to here, however, I don't think having a Timeline designed around online discourse is a good idea, especially since a lot of this discourse is made in bad faith and can be extremely reactionary.

And as for if this Timeline was a response to that kind of discourse specifically... I don't know. I can't say it is for sure.

 

"Riled up"? I said it annoyed me. I feel like I'm entitled to voice my displeasure and expect better from them. I'm not attacking anyone, what's the big deal? It's not like they were on some time crunch to meet our demands, this came out of nowhere, so "what if they fix it later?" rings pretty hollow here. They could have just made sure it was in good condition before they launched it, nobody forced them to do it this way.

This is a pretty misanthropic way of looking at things. I happen to be a part of Sonic social media communities, and as much as they do suck sometimes (okay, a lot of the time in terms of twitter, which is why I keep it at arm's length)...but so does this place! And everywhere else! Every Sonic discussion space is terrible sometimes. But I actually don't think they're all full of unreasonable narcissistic psychopaths, lots of times it's well-meaning people, yes, including adults, who are just doing their best to inform others. I actually really like answering new fans' questions about the series on reddit, because I like knowing they've had a more-accessible path to being a fan set for them. This is the official side of things, which should have much more reach and ease in such a task, completely bungling it and confusing new AND old fans for basically no reason at all.

Either way, my only reason for bringing it up was to say that the evidence for it being confusing is "look at all these confused people".

I don't know what you're talking about. All I want is a timeline built around saying which events from the games, comics and cartoons happen, and when. That will satisfy...everyone? I can't think of a loser in that scenario other than someone who wanted a crack-theory about some other continuity or game order canonized. And the thing is, SEGA clearly has a vision for the timeline! Because they made this! And adding the missing games isn't that hard! So they could have just done it themselves and spared everyone else the headache, but they didn't, and that's annoying.

 

I'm specifically referring to the Twitter crowd here, but it's not exclusive to that place.
Like there are people who think Sonic liking chili dogs is some sort of betrayal.
I've seen folks pull up long out dated obscure, never translated manual pages to "criticize" Frontiers' Chao lore. And outside of getting upset at arbitrary and inconsequential retcons, these folk are constantly twisting creatives words and harass them over it.
I do not want to humor these people.

 

Knuckles' Chaotix is constantly left out of stuff like this. It could be because it sold so little in Japan, the Mega Drive already didn't sell well in Japan, the Super 32X must've had what? A couple hundred of Japanese users? A dozen of those bought Chaotix? This could be the reason why it isn't considered for things like these. Nobody here is up in arms about the Game Gear games not being included, or the arcade games. Chaotix is probably seen the same way internally, and just isn't by the western fandom because it was promoted and sold more, people can play it on emulators, etc.

I think a good way of looking at "canon" in the lens of big franchises like this is that whatever is canon or gets considered as a part of the world is whatever the next game/show/etc wants to use or borrow. Everything is both canon and not, don't lose sleep over figuring out a timeline, that stuff isn't and *shouldn't* be important, and this page exists unfortunately because people really obsess with this stuff and so it pushes the team to have to keep it all in mind and write around that stuff. In some ways, it's understandable: Nobody wants their favorite game and characters and events that happen within it to feel ignored. If a game you like isn't here, maybe if it gets really popular it will. I don't think anything not included here means they will never not be considered, just that these are the games and stories that they feel are important to know Sonic's characters and stories for now. Maybe in the future SEGASonic gets really popular and gets an actual re-release and a game really wants to call back to it and so it becomes a part of "important points in the history of Sonic games"

 

I think that's perfectly fair, because it shows a lack of extensive research on the lore team's part. Enforcing with the series' lore and consistency is their very job, and if fans on the internet have access to that lore, then surely they should have access too.

And not sure those pages being never translated has to do with anything. Sonic isn't a western franchise that relies entirely on material released in English. Should Halo ignore any lore material that wasn't translated to Japanese?

 

Okay, well, like I said, I only brought up anyone on social media to bolster the point that this timeline is mostly just confusing and unhelpful. I'm not interested in throwing out stuff sourced from the western material or anything, in fact I want everything that conceivably can be included to be included. That's kinda the point of a timeline if you ask me.

Me. I'm up in arms about that, actually. Fang is from Triple Trouble! Mighty and Ray are from SegaSonic Arcade! Honey only gets to exist in Fighters, and I guess that one IDW panel.

If their mindset is "the canon isn't important", then they shouldn't bother with a timeline at all. If their mindset is "fans should have their attention to continuity acknowledged", then they shouldn't make this ameliorated thing that stops halfway and satisfies nobody. If they make that and then canon still isn't a big deal, then SO WHAT? It's a webpage, they can just change or remove it.

 

I'm not arguing against using Japanese material. I should specify that the example i am giving was extremely vague in the original manual, and was never relevant to the games.
Basically originally, the origin of Chao was presented with a sense of mysticism and mystery.
And Frontiers makes them alien blob things, arguably the mysticism and mystery aspect is still there but eh.
My main problem is the over reaction.
I don't know, I don't think not knowing extremely obscure details from the material outside of the games is something worth criticizing.
Because even the Japanese developers do not care that much.

More than anything, I don't want creatives to be bogged down by creative decisions that even those who came up with it don't want to use it.

It's like going Hirohiko Araki and saying "hey, weren't stands some sort of hamon magic related to breathing? Why are they spirit things now, what are you some sort of fraud?". It happens with all sort of media and creative work that goes on longer than 10 years or so.

 

Think of it this way: do they want to re-sell Knuckles Chaotix? do they want to promote it? do they think it's necessary to know about it or play it to understand the world and characters of Sonic? Their answer is "No." In the future maybe they'll go "Yes, actually.", because conditions change. Why is Shuffle here? Maybe one of the answers to this is "yes". Maybe a single person in the team really likes it and snuck it in. It would be very stupid to try to put the events of every single Sonic game in here, and choices of what should be considered or not will end up being arbitrary. Maybe the whole list internally is much bigger and the Japanese team decided that these are the most important points (because, again, making this too expansively and meticulously long is just not feasible)

edit: also, about Fang, Mighty and Ray, they're in Mania and Superstars, so they consider those games to be their formal introductions. Does it mean SEGASonic, Triple Trouble or Sonic the Fighters don't exist? No, just that they don't see them for now as important to know about since Mania and Superstars act as introductions of the characters to a wider audience and they don't want to promote those games or have plans to re-sell them. Maybe that changes! The games exist!

edit2: wait, Sonic 3 isn't here? that's a weird oversight lol I wonder if they had planned for both Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles to be under the plot bit at the same time and didn't tell the web designer? Maybe someone got confused because Sonic 3 & Knuckles is under one game in Origins? very strange. I'm glad that they did this though because it means maybe people will stop being so silly about canon when they realize that arguing that "Sonic 3 isn't part of the canon because the webpage didn't list it" would be very silly. I hope they never fix it

 

I was not struggling to understand that this was how you were positing they were thinking, it is simply a very stupid way for them to allegedly think. If it's just to promote whatever comes next (which I don't think it is, for reasons you make clear and subsequently dismiss), then it shouldn't be framed as a timeline, because that means that's not what it actually is.

Again, if that's any part of how it was made, then they might as well not have made it. But if so, then that person could just as well have "snuck in" all the other shit that actually matters.

It's already arbitrary. Again, what information are any of the choices actually meant to impart upon viewers?

"Unfeasible"? It's some text and images on a website. I could do this if they gave me control, and my dumb ass barely remembers high school HTML.

Since when? Where has SEGA ever said anything like that or given that impression? Going by their latest appearances is literally the exact opposite of an introduction.

 

It's so weird that IDW isn't in the timeline even when they specifically placed TSR before Forces, which isn't what I'd assume based on the fact that it uses Forces' Death Egg Robot design and I'm almost sure Silver talks about how his future is now saved. It's also weird that none of the Sonic Channel stories are here, despite the fact that they're all sitting on the same website you'd be reading the timeline in the first place.

Having an online timeline is much better than publishing it on physical form because you can actually update it, but I'm not sure they'll actually do it. I really hope they do update the timeline to include some of the missing games and supplemental material though.

It also could be very useful for new fans, since some issues of the comic don't take place at the time of their release (like the 2022's FCBD or the classic minisseries) and the site could be a way for them to learn about the comics being a thing (specially if, you know, Sonic Channel wasn't a japanese only site for some insane reason)

 

As mentioned earlier in the thread, it's already been confirmed that the current timeline is just the highlights, and more games will be added to it in the future.

 

He did that in Sonic Colours on DS as well. I just assume the future is ruined even when he thinks it's fine, he just doesn't realise it until he looks closer.

"Everyone has a smile" = Robotnik's brainwashed everyone to support the Eggman Empire with the Phantom Ruby. It's an Eggman smile.

 

That's true, but I was assuming Forces retconned that, while TSR was released right after and was certainly written with Forces' future in mind

 

Actually the future thingy is kind of confusing. It looks like it shifts from good future to bad future out of the sudden when something time travels.

Future was good after 06 and during Rivals 1.
Then it was bad during Rivals 2, caused by time-travelling Eggman Nega.
Silver helped change it, so it was good again during Colors DS.
Then it was bad again during Forces, caused by Eggman using the time-travelling Phantom Ruby.
Silver helped change it, so it was supposed to be good again.
But when he went back it was actually bad again during the comics, caused by the Metal Virus that wouldn't have been created if Silver hadn't helped defeating the Eggman Empire.

The weird thing is, there's no indication that Silver uses any Chaos Emerald to time travel. And all the time travels happen from the same future 200-years-from-now to the same present.
In fact, when Eggman created/reused the machine from the Solaris Experiment in 06, he thrown Sonic, Tails and Knuckles to the same future 200-years-from-now.

I'm assuming there is a natural link between the present and Silver's future, caused by the Solaris Prototype (maybe), and until this day the link exists and is used by Silver (somehow) to travel to the present.

 

Silver's future changes as the present timeline moves forward through the principle of circumstantial simultaneity. Silver doesn't know about the future from Forces because Forces hasn't happened yet to change his future into that.

 

The gray Death Egg Robots appearing in a story set before Sonic Forces doesn't contradict anything in Sonic Forces.

If TSR was set after Sonic Forces then it would also have to be set after IDW's Mr Tinker storyline. And at some point in the IDW comics the TSR cars that Dodon Pa gifted everyone started showing up, so it would have to take place before those issues. They'd need to look for a gap to thread the needle. It's simpler to just say it happened before Sonic Forces.

Ian Flynn said that when working on the IDW comics he asked Sonic Team how Silver time travels post-Sonic 2006, and was surprised by the answer. The official explanation was made public in his character profile on the Sonic "Fast Friends Forever" website: https://sonicthehedgehog.com/fastfriendsforever/

 

That's not the point. I've never said it was a contradiction, but intuitively, you'd assume Forces, the game that actually makes a big deal of the robots that use these designs and is our first time seeing them is also where they're first used in-universe. It's like placing Unleashed in between Shadow the Hedgehog and 06, there wouldn't really be a contradiction caused by this scenario as far as I can tell, but you can just feel that Unleashed doesn't quite belong to that era.

The point is that it is clearly a retroactive change made for the sake of the comics... which are not included here for whatever reason.

Okay, that's on me, because I actually planned to address this in my original post, but I removed that part before sending it. Yes, this is a necessary compromise. There is no point in between Eggman's defeat in Forces and the Zeti Hunt where both Eggman and Zavok are avalable at the same time to participate in a rance, and at that point the comic had already introduced the cars from the game. The only way TSR and IDW can be part of the same timeline is if the game takes place earlier than originally intended, and since nobody really cares about it, it ends up being a relatively harmless change.

I get that. I'm not arguing against the choise itself. But as I said earlier, it's odd that they included the game in the timeline in a way that accomodate the comics, but just didn't include the comics. Sure, maybe they'll add it later, but in that case... Why release this timeline at all if it's so incomplete they couldn't even include half of the stuff that clearly should've been there?

 

So my headcanon is still alive.