I just remembered that you're gonna need to be careful with Sonic Drift. Tails visiting Green Hill might seem odd because in Generations he doesn't recognizes Green Hill as familiar to him. Well, at least in English. In Japanese apperently his line is somewhat more vague. Spoiler
Thanks for the heads up. Headcannons incoming. I will say though, if were gonna use japanese scripts for Blaze in 06 and Gens, why can't we do the same for Tails? On the other hand, if we are going to use the English script, is it at all possible that Tails has just had a memory lapse? I can say with confidence that irl I've completely forgotten I've seen or experienced certain things until someone or something jogs my memory. Tails never actually steps foot into Green Hill until after the cutscene ends, so it's possible he may not recognize it from the White Space gate alone. Compare that with Chemical Plant and you get something similar. Tails points the gate out to Sonic and (in the english script- can someone cross check with Japan?) he has no idea what they are... until he and Sonic actually go inside. Then Tails appears to have bad flashbacks to Sonic 2. So... is it possible that Tails not recognizing Green Hill is due to literally just being pulled out of a black limbo and being disoriented? Again, heeeeeaaaadcannooooooon!
Continuity important info I grabbed from Sonic 2 8-bit: >The game is confirmed to take place on South Island. >South Island is currently in a state of peace due to "Sonic's actions" (If nothing is supposedly wrong until Eggman kidnaps everyone, then would that put this after 8-bit Sonic 1? Especially so considering my headcannon that 8-bit tells the story of Sonic shutting Eggy's factories down for good). >Sonic returns from his "whimsical adventures" to find Tails kidnapped (so he not only brought Tails off of West Side, where Tails grew up, but since they arrived on South Island and Sonic departed, a supposedly significant amount of time had passed before Sonic returned.). >Tails himself confirms all 6 South Island Emeralds are needed to access Crystal Egg (access how? Is Crystal Egg affected by South Island's distortions somehow? Or did Eggy just remember to lock the front door?). >A Sonic robot is seen. Dubbed "Mecha Sonic" in Japan. >It's heavily implied in the bad ending that Tails dies if Sonic fails to break into the Crystal Egg (or at least, they'll never see each other again. Could Tails get sealed in the Special Zone by any chance?). Okay. That's all the facts. But I have a question now... What is the Crystal Egg? Did Eggman build it? Did the Special Zone? What happened to it after the game? Is it on South Island? Is it in the "distortions"? What do the South Island emeralds have to do with it? So many unanswered questions lmao Double post, but it's about gens so I didn't want to edit. Had some fleeting thoughts about everyone's memory pass by me in the shower- I just realized that Sonic also doesn't remember Green Hill when he and Tails are talking. I'm beginning to suspect that getting flung into white space wiped everyone's minds. Then, in the same way Sonic's speed restores the zones, it's also jogging everyone's memories too. This can be upheld (in the English version) by how when knuckles is rescued, he recognizes that Sky Sanctuary belongs to him, and by the time Blaze is rescued, she's able to call out the erased Crisis City Zone by name. Over the course of gens, everyone's memories are coming back, even lost ones, but things that stay in white space (06) are forgotten again by the end of the game. Edit: usual headcannon disclaimer
And nothing implies a significant amount of time hasn't passed. There's no reference to time passing, so it could be up there for days, it could be up there for a couple of months. Really? Because you keep turning up to tell me how ridiculous it is to have games between Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Mega Drive) and Sonic the Hedgehog 3. And this has been happening for months now. I'm aware I've had to jump through a couple of loops to get the Game Gear titles into place between the two events. If you think those are bad, have you seen the jumps I made with Sonic the Hedgehog 4? I'm using exact wording to try and do it because I find timelines enjoyable to make and I genuinely think they'd be best suited there, since they feature Sonic, Tails and Robotnik doing their usual thing. If you look at their plots, you can kind of see little subplots form between them. For instance: Sonic Triple Trouble - Knuckles actively leaves Angel Island to stop the 'villainous' Sonic the Hedgehog, even using a robotic suit to try and stop him. After being trapped by Fang (since we don't know which of the two did it and both were present) and freed by said villain, Knuckles get the impression something is amiss. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 - Knuckles, rather than being as antagonistic, just collects the emeralds and runs off. Rather than try and kill the Hedgehog, he keeps forcing Sonic onto different paths to redirect him towards Robotnik. He could have abandoned the hedgehog in Hydrocity Zone when they fell into that pit with no exit, or could have easily bombed the Launch Base building before Sonic got close to the entrance. Sonic Blast - After what happened, Knuckles comes down from Angel Island (again) to punish Robotnik. Boy's holding a grudge after what happened in the above game. Beginning: Knuckles is actively hostile toward Sonic. Middle: Knuckles is passively hostile toward Sonic. Ending: Knuckles is not hostile toward Sonic. But we can't have that because of a couple of lines in Sonic the Hedgehog 3's manual which, if you look at it from a slightly different angle, no longer poses the obstacle it would. Frame it around the Death Egg rather than the general plot, boom, Sonic and Tails' journey can still include other adventures while Robotnik awaits for his prized weapon to drop out of orbit. I'm sorry if I'm irritated as hell, things haven't been good for me and I had fun with making the timeline. Being bothered about it for months, while trying to explain my point of view and failing because I have the social skills of an abandoned brick is really sucking the joy out of it. So do as you please with the timeline I've suggest. As I keep saying, it's my interpretation, but if I need to remove it, I'll remove it.
For now there is one tiny thing bothering me in my timeline. I have placed Sonic Chronicles in a dead timeline after Lost World, being replaced by the events of Sonic Forces. It's interesting because both games present Eggman taking over the world. But while Chronicles fits there, I don't think it belongs there. I think it should be placed in a dead timeline somewhere after Sonic Battle and before Colors. It would be easy if I just remove it from the timeline though, but I don't want to.
Making a list of big things that move at speeds to try and reasonably scale the Sonic 2 Death Egg -> Angel Island crash time down: Sonic Advance 1's Cosmic Angel takes a maximum of fifteen minutes to reach it's ideal upper atmosphere position from it's launchpad (which I presume is at sea level based on the background, but the last level before Egg Rocket is Angel Island so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ). This is measured by the timer gimmick of Egg Rocket... Sonic has 5 minutes per section, and there are 3 total sections to get through. Sonic Adventure 2's Space Colony ARK was calculated by Gerald to be able to crash into the planet from it's stable moon-esque orbit in a little less than 28 minutes, seeming to be using all seven emeralds to just straight-up slam-dunk it down there as fast as possible. Sonic Advance 2's Egg Utopia falls from the upper atmosphere quite quickly, though the only measurement for this is that Sonic is in the air for quite a bit after it makes contact. + - Also holy shit he just straight up lands on the ground from that fall, without being Super or doing a soft catch on the Tornado. Sonic 3's Death Egg starts half-submerged in a lake on Angel Island (which itself is currently at sea level), is rocketed up far enough for the sky to presumably thin/darken by the time Eggman brings out Big Arms against Sonic (which Generations3DS claims to be a battle that has happened), and is sent careening off to Lava Reef by the dislodging of the thrusters after the battle. Generously extrapolating the &Knuckles-alone title screen for incredibly vague timing puts the Death Egg landing in the crater either right before or around the same time as Sonic getting ready to touch down in Mushroom Hill... so probably a few short minutes at most. Any other feats for giant hunks of metal I'm forgetting about?
The issue is that most of these are gameplay focused. For instance, does Big Arms count, since it's absent in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles, and the Death Egg falls from a clear sky? NASA estimates a rocket takes an average of 8 and a half minutes to reach orbit at 115 miles above the surface of the Earth. Assuming Sonic's World is Earth for now, debates later, I assume the payload of Egg Rocket is slowing it down if it requires 15 minutes to reach orbit and the Death Egg has enough ΔV to counteract the massive weights. Terminal velocity also varies dependant on the weight and shape. Do we have the mass or size of the Death Egg anywhere, does anyone know? Otherwise, the issue with the Death Egg falling isn't the speed at which it falls, it's the orbit. Something in orbit doesn't drop suddenly because of no thrust, and the Death Egg was up there since before Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Mega Drive) even started, meaning it has a stable orbit already. I'm assuming the explosion nudged it so it would catch the exosphere and encounter the drag required to pull it out of orbit, if the Death Egg isn't at Low Earth Orbit in the Thermosphere like the ISS. It's hard to tell, might look into it later from that shot in Sonic Generations of the Death Egg in orbit, it looks higher than the ISS and that planet is confirmed Earth.
Iirc all the maps you @BlackHole have shown, everytime a game on Earth presents a map it is an Earth-like map; but everytime a game on Sonic's world exclusively presents a map, sometimes it is an Earth-like map, and sometimes it isn't (like Sonic 4 ep Metal or Sonic Forces). So what if: Sonic's world has lands that move around, as Sonic 1's manual states about South Island. From time to time (years, decades, centuries, I don't know), these lands take a position similar/identical to Earth. When that happens, the two planets merge together (don't ask why) and they stay merged for a certain period of time. And then they de-merge and become two separate planets again. And the cycle repeats itself. Thus, 4,000 years ago the two planets were merged. Eventually they de-merged, and before Sonic Adventure 1 (I guess?) they merged again. They stayed that way until before Colors, when they de-merged again.
Sonic the Fighters, Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic Battle, Shadow the Hedgehog (CGI), Sonic Riders, Sonic Generations and Team Sonic Racing have Earth. Shadow the Hedgehog (G.U.N. Map), Sonic Unleashed and Sonic Colours have Earth-like maps. Sonic the Hedgehog 4 and Sonic Forces have a non-Earth planet when seen. The rest tend to not show enough detail to gauge either way.
Earth and Earth-like can be considered the same thing for practical purposes. The point is, when it's Earth, it's Earth. When it's not Earth, sometimes it looks like it is, and sometimes it definitely doesn't. And Sonic 1 states that South Island moves. So my interpretation above "works" for what matters. I don't see flaws at the moment, though it probably has some.
Islands are different from continents. And floating islands do exist in reality. They're more common in lakes, most famously in Lake Titicaca, but some exist in the oceans.
Fair, but I did append my original post with "or at least, they'll never see each other again", which I think is the case here. In the bad ending, Tails is alone in the sky, but in the good ending, Sonic and Tails are together. There is a very strong implication in the bad ending that in some capacity, Sonic will never see Tails again. That's what I was trying to convey. The death part is just internet urban legend, I get that.
My headcanon is Crystal Egg the actual Special Stage dimension, which doc has taken over and made a base out of it. You need the chaos emeralds to bypass any dimensional defense doc has built and enter it. 8-bit Sonic 1 has special stages which don't feature chaos emeralds and, while different from Crystal Egg, still has pink and crystal blocks around, so it might be another area of the same parallel world (also 8 special stages, StF is 8-bit timeline lol). Chaos Emeralds not returning to the special stage after Sonic releases them at the ending of 16-bit Sonic 1 could allow the 8-bit game to be Sonic 1 Ep II, but I'm more inclined to use the dimensional distortion of the island as the way the timeline break since the beginning in two series of games, the 16-bit and the 8-bit ones. By the way, some observations: - In a standalone 8-bit continuity, South Island can be the home of Knuckles, who became a guardian of the chaos emeralds after all the mess of Sonic Chaos. Doc could have tricked him to say Sonic started all this conflict and it was Sonic's fault the island had those earthquakes in the previous game. - Eggman could have sold weapons to the Battle Kukku to trade info on their history and ancestors, since bird art is a thing in S1 and the Kukku have eggmobiles, getting the right info about where to search for chaos emeralds or find south island at all, given the nature of the island. This alliance could have been a reason why Sonic and Tails met in the 8-bit games. - Both Super Sonics are the only ones facing Time Eater directly in his den, so... Could its influence be the reason why Sonic remembers more than anyone else? And some really dumb observations too: - 6 chaos emeralds in south island plus 8 chaos emeralds in Sonic the Fighters make two sets of 7 chaos emeralds valid for Sonic 2 and standalone Sonic 3 manual, which would also lead to why there are 14 chaos emeralds in S3K: each S2 emerald merges with its angel island equivalent to become the super emerald, then Sonic takes the S2 emeralds out and Knux ends up with 7 ugly stones in hidden palace (Sonic was evil after all lmao). - Generations Classic Sonic still reminds me more of the 8-bit Sonic than the 16-bit one, while there's this Classic Sonic in Forces that comes from another dimension. Conclusion: Modern is a grown up 8-bit Sonic, which is also classic but not from the same dimension as Mania/Forces Sonic. If Mephiles was a god of time, and Time Eater was another god of time, was each of them from a different dimension of these two?
That's what I was suggesting. Mecha (Silver) Sonic is holding the 6th South Island emerald, but it's seemingly destroyed with him at the end of Scrambled Egg, provided Sonic doesn't have the power of the other 5 to stop it. This then warrants the bad ending I was theorizing. The 6th emerald was destroyed, permanently locking Sonic out of Crystal Egg and preventing him from ever seeing Tails again, who is now trapped within the Special Zone.
So basically, Sonic the Comic it? EDIT: It occurs to me they have a pillar of light for the Chaos Emeralds...
Does Light Gaia have a giant form of his own, instead of using that Megazord made of temples? If everytime Dark Gaia shatters the Earth into pieces Light Gaia has to use the Chaos Emeralds in the temples to restore it, does this mean that the Chaos Emeralds was born with the Earth itself?
I always figured the temples were designed to be an In Case of Emergency option built around the Chaos Emeralds, but only really use them to empower the temples. Chaos Emerald power restoration is a funny one since we've only seen it twice: Sonic Adventure, where positive cheers were enough to restore them. Sonic Unleashed, where they were taken to the temples. I'm guessing the Chaos Emeralds aren't so much depleted as much as in a rest mode to stop too much abuse of power. Give them a quick jab of power and they wake right back up. Otherwise, I'd say Light Gaia does have his own form to combat Dark Gaia, but the entire plot of Sonic Unleashed is that the two were awoken too early, so Chip had to invoke the "In Case of Emergency" temples.
I am very curious what info Ian has on the origins of the Chaos Emeralds. He has said for sure that they're not related to Light or Dark Gaia, so I think BlackHole's correct in that some civilization built the Shrines independently to both harness and empower the Chaos Emeralds somehow, much like the Echidnas built the shrines of the Master Emerald on their own. Of course, this leaves us with the question of where exactly they came from and what their original purpose was. It's clear that they likely come from the Special Stage dimension (or Subspace), but given that there are repeated myths of gods bestowing the emeralds unto a civilization that would later abuse that power and be punished for it, it's very possible someone created them.
