Who wrote "The Truth of 50 Years Ago"?

I appreciate your research, DefinitiveDubs. There's a lot of things in your post I wasn't aware of, and I'm definitely re-evaluating my stance over the information you found. But I'm not completely convinced by *all* your reasoning.

The summaries have some small contradictions, but the Sonic X scene I agree is important information for interpreting just what's going on at the beginning of the ME's journey. It's in the vincinity of the Hidden Base because she stole it, not at Knuckles' defensive action after SA1. But I don't agree that this conclusively prevents the location from being on Angel Island, as a sort of Sandopolis/Sand Hill equivalent.

After all, while it would take two decades for the idea that the island moves around between dunks to be stated as definitive canon, that was based on this era of stories strongly implying it. He would have witnessed the edge of the island earlier and had his reaction then, and been surprised that the Emerald was in this location on it - there's not enough information to make a robust denial based on this.

In addition, you haven't made any remark on the world map's harsh, vertical, and continuous edge around the desert area. That's a very specific detail.

I'm not quoting the other part of the post because there's no one line that I can point to and say "I disagree", but the very first line Eggman says in Sand Ocean is:

This is mildly contradictory to the idea that the base is Gerald's, but not concretely. More importantly, though, both imply that GUN's presence at the base is actively hunting for Eggman in the short term and attempting to claim territory, not regaining access to a location they previously operated. After all, if the hidden base was theirs, they'd know the secret steps needed to access it while he was away...

 

When it came to SA1, a Dreamcast was imported and played in Japanese and translated on the fly by someone on staff. They were told to make an adaption.

With SA2, an adaption was once again forced onto them, so much so that issue #100 became #101. With this they were given the trail for the game, I believe, as well as some details. This is why SA2 just happens off screen in Archie and why game adaptions as a whole stopped happening around game releases, instead regulated to short stories in the back of the book as advertisements mostly (for example, Riders had no adaption and the Babylon Rouge's first appearance is in the comic proper).

SA2 wouldn't get any kind of adaption until Sonic Universe over a decade later, and even beforehand anything SA2 related was barely talked about if at all before said adaption.

 

It falls apart if you willfully misinterpret the mural sure. The figure looks just as much like Sonic as the other figure looks like Eggman and he literally doesn't have wings or a staff, those are his quills and his arms. The player is supposed to recognize the figure as Sonic as soon as they see the mural. Like come on now.

I've heard no other satisfying explanation for why Gerald built a dinosaur before building a Sonic.

 

Counterpoint: I would infer the Altar was destroyed recently, specifically by a large space station slamming into the island based on the still-canon-at-the-time Sonic the Hedgehog 3 Japanese manual.

Why include the detail of it being half destroyed after the Death Egg hit Angel Island if it were always half destroyed prior?

 

Even in the revised continuity from Origins, a massive spherical space station could easily cause enough turbulence to damage the altar on the surface not just once but twice. I didn't think about this when writing my post so thank you for bringing that up BlackHole.

 

Obviously, the manual is referring to Hidden Palace and that manual is now non-canon anyway, I'm saying that it's very plausible the Death Egg damaged the other alter that we see in SA1. We know both exist in canon.

Likewise, I'm not saying Gerald necessarily visited Hidden Palace, just that he visited Angel Island and found the "Altar of Chaos" as I'm gonna now call it. As you've pointed out, the chaos emerald pillars were damaged by Chaos, but the altar that housed the Master Emerald itself wasn't. Now a good-faith question: Were all the pillars completely damaged or did one remain intact? In that shot there you don't see the pillars directly behind the altar, so maybe Gerald recreated the others using data from an intact pillar.

Now I'll concede that the roof may not have remained intact over those centuries, but maybe it was still nearby when Gerald supposedly visited and something happened to it between then and when Knuckles was guarding it in Sonic Superstars. I have the funny thought that it was placed on it's side leaning against the altar and when the Death Egg Crashed it rolled forward and off into the sudden drop .

 

Counterpoint: the Master Emerald is not mentioned with the Altar, and is referenced separately as a pillar underneath the island, thus inferred as Hidden Palace being separate from the Altar of the Island.

I'm aware of them not thinking of Sonic Adventure years in advance, doesn't mean they're forgetting elements after.

Meanwhile, while the altar itself is intact by the time Tikal seals Chaos within the Master Emerald.

 

Yeah, the mural figures are supposed to be legible as Sonic and Eggman to the player. Sorry if it sounded like I was saying otherwise. I meant that they don’t match within the setting of the game. We can clearly see a yellow spiky haired angel and say “oh wow, that represents Super Sonic!” but if Gerald had seen that image and tried to copy the figure’s appearance Shadow would have looked very different.

I assume the Biolizard was probably based on a lizard due to the latter’s regenerative abilities such as regrowing its own tail. I’m pretty sure I read that somewhere before, but searching for it now only brings up speculation.

 

Mural theory is a concept so good that despite not being "canon", it absolutely should be. Sonic fans did it yet again and spun solid gold, ripe for Sonic Team to use for free.

 

There are so many strange and contradictory bits of lore around SA2's plotline, between what was written in Japan when the game was made, what was later retconned by StH05, what was presented in supplementary material like Sonic X, and even other western sources like Archie. As well as western strategy guides and their take on the lore.

I find it sad that getting to the exact truth of how everything played out is too muddled, but the different ideas have been and always will be interesting to me. As I've said before; if I had my way, I'd canonize the "Shadow never actually met Maria, but only learned of her through Gerald's own implanted memories" and "Sonic was the real Ultimate lifeform" ones myself, along with the mural. Those feel closest to the story the original game wanted to tell, but never quite could commit to due to how future games retconned their plans.

And yes, I love the mural theory. It's weird but logical enough given the other stretches of evidence you're expected to believe, like Gerald somehow creating the chaos drives and artificial choas enemies at all. And somehow creating a replica emerald shrine, no matter how he learned of it, leaves a lot of room to speculate. And speculation is harmless and fun so long as it's clearly labeled as just speculation/theory.

 

I'm not a fan of the mural theory. If Gerald found another, similar, mural on the surface, then I could buy it, but not the Hidden Palace mural: that would require someone getting close to the Master Emerald's hidden location.

Robotnik found an ancient Pictograph while digging an underground base, which I think is actually what got him started on this entire thing (the blurb notes it told him about the power of the Chaos Emeralds), then you have the Lost World mural, and the Echidna Ruins all over the place. So there's the possibility of another mural out there.

It then comes down to when the mural was made and if it would be sent around to be made into pictographs: Perfect Chaos makes sense being all over the walls as a warning, not sure why they would have a warning about the Master Emerald being stolen anywhere except where the Master Emerald actually is, as having it elsewhere seems like a recipe for a self-fulfilling prophecy, so I wouldn't think it the case. Yet he has enough details to rebuild a replica of the Altar of Emerald...

Anyway, I think we're getting off-topic with the mural and altar discussion in the Truth of 50 Years Ago thread. I think, it being an in-universe document, it doesn't really matter.

If canonical, Rouge wrote it with the information she had to hand by the end of Sonic Adventure 2, but she's only got that information to work with. There really isn't anything contradictory in there: she can't have known Gerald worked with aliens, and it's not like she could ask G.U.N. since she was investigating them on behalf of the President. And she's also right in that the capsule he was ejected in is not the cryogenics tube he was in at the start, so the capsule is missing at that point in time, possibly blown up with Prison Island. Gerald mentions in his diary in the Last Story: "Based on the original data, I've finally completed Shadow," further muddying the waters of if Shadow is the actual Shadow from the ARK, or a replica Gerald made under G.U.N.'s observations.

If non-canonical, nothing is really lost that we don't already know.

Any information that could be wrong probably is since it's Rouge's report, and we'll learn the truth during Shadow the Hedgehog. Canonical or non-canonical, it's pretty much fine for the details, at least with what we know from Sonic Adventure 2.

 

I mean, do you want official documentation that you found and continued a black project for Immortality after killing everyone but the head scientist involved in said project in the, quote, unofficial operation called "Operation ARK Shutdown"?

50 years ago was a massive crapfest, with the President of the United Federation and G.U.N. pulling strings behind one another then burning the puppets. Whatever documentation can be found on it is probably from someone lying out their arse, such as the casualties of the ARK 'accident'.

Most likely they found the capsule, moved it covertly to Prison Island, burned the paper trail and got Gerald to finish the project. Were I a betting man, there were probably some G.U.N. Agents who were 'lost' to the accident a few days after it. Can't have someone blabbing about finding the capsule, after all.

 

Which documentation, just so I can go check?

Rouge isn't even sure if G.U.N. was the one continuing the research. Like I said, 50 years ago was a mess of backstabbing and subterfuge.

 

Something I want to reiterate, the best way to get clarity on Shadow's entire inteded backstory is to watch it exclusively in Japanese with the original translation intact. A lot of little things were changed or missed in the localization that aren't always obvious. I won't comment on what, but just about all of Shadow's 2001-2006 lore now has a proper translation on Windii's channel:






Additionally, info from Sonic X 36-38 in Japanese should be considered as well, as that arc was overseen with Sonic Team's involvement, and appears to even have used some cut dialogue in some ways. I can't seem to link to the full episode, but this depiction of Maria's death in the show tells the most complete version. I suspect the second capsule was the Gizoid, as this would have been released at the exact same time Sonic Battle came out globally, and that arc was adapted in the show only a few weeks later:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vg1IuWwd6QQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVs-W_hOPEU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3eIsk0HFyw

Shadow 2005's original script is also much, much more coherent and much less campy. As much as I like the english version for its silliness, the original version actually tells a much more straightforward story about Shadow and was pretty heavily altered in the adaptation, perhaps because the game's gameplay premise was so absurd. Or perhaps because it was the first game dub with the 4Kids crew. Sonic 2006's script fared much better, but for those curious to see the JP version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lT7NLNiYSw

All in all, it really does seem like 90s-2000s Sega had a rough time dubbing the series. IMHO, a lot was lost in translation, even if I did eventually come to enjoy the various casts. Any fan who wants a better idea of the lore should watch the original versions to compare.

Also, as one final resource of information, Shiro Maekawa, writer for SA2, Heroes, 06, and consultant for Sonic X, is still active on twitter, and frequently shares and even sometime comments on Shadow related material. Shadow is his creation arguably more than anyone else, so it's always interesting to see what he shares/retweets about the character:
https://x.com/mizuhano

I feel like, when you remove the english dub's influence on the character, you get a much more pure idea of who Shadow was, and what his storylines were meant to be. Again, not to knock the western fandom or the dubs, but it's much more consistent across the titles in Japan, and arguably makes him much more unique than the Vegeta trope some seem to think he is.

 

re: lack of staff cited in the book

The Official Sega Sonic 1 & 2 Strategy Guide released in the US doesn't list anybody from Sega or Sonic team in the front panel, BUT it includes Archie Comic's Sonic the Hedgehog Issue 0 which includes his Sonic the Bible backstory in comic form, indicating that despite a lack of staff overseeing the guide, they still had access to the bible. I would expect this famitsu guide to have had some sort of similar insider info.

 

If Hyrule Historia, which is a whole other debate, is anything to go by, they're given access to documents and the game to draw from.

Of course, Hyrule Historia also got it incredibly wrong, so despite this these things are not infallible, but again that's a whole other debate.