centralcitylibrary

[centralcitylibrary]

The Crimes of Sonic Adventure 2 (2001)

Before we begin, another brief reminder that we have a Discord server now! Click this link right... here! To join the server. There's a permanent link on the blog's pinned post.

The Crimes of Sonic Adventure 2

DISCLAIMER: I am not a qualified United States of America lawyer (nor do I even live in the United States of America), do not treat anything in this document as legal advice. This is all to entertain a what-if scenario.

---

Do you like crimes?

Do you want to see the rap sheet of the characters of Sonic Adventure 2?

Well I know I wanted to see the rap sheet for Dr. Eggman, so I begun digging into his history… and very quickly realised it was unfeasible for a singular document.

So how about instead a singular document covering Sonic Adventure 2? And to sweeten the deal, we won’t just be looking at Eggman, we’ll be looking at everyone, even Sonic the Hedgehog himself.

These are…

The Crimes of Sonic Adventure 2.

---

Why start at Sonic Adventure 2?

Well, Sonic Adventure 2 takes place in a city that visually resembles San Francisco, giving us a frame of reference for a real word location and time period (2001) to list the crimes over, unlike the Classic games which do not given any kind of reference. This is kind of important to actually listing crimes, since what’s considered a crime and what the punishment for that crime is varies depending on the country/nation, state, city, and even district within that city (though I won’t get that specific), and they change overtime.

Okay, but what about Sonic Adventure 1? Station Square shares the same name as Station Square, Pittsburgh, surely that’s good enough for a location to base the crimes on?

Well you can blame this one enemy for that. They do not spawn infinitely, and as I am in a position where I cannot legally play the game myself (and, unsurprisingly, nobody is willing to count for me), I cannot get a precise number for them. So I’d rather just wait until I’m either in a position where I can do that or I find someone who IS willing to count for me (in the unlikely chance that you, reading this, are willing to do so, I’d provide credit to you for it).

Needless to say, I have a solution to that issue for Sonic Adventure 2.

---

A note from future Numbug: uh it might turn out that I didn’t need to count the individual amount of Eggman robots anyways, as illegal weapons manufacturing is counted by the process of manufactoring weapons, rather than the individual amount of weapons made – and since they lack robots, Beats wouldn’t be counted for that anyways.

Hooray?

---

Some clarification:

If committing a crime in gameplay is possible but optional without glitches (or other unintended behaviour), the assumption will be that no such crime occurred. Even though in some cases this will go against common logic or otherwise be out-of-character, this will provide the best case scenario for each character (and if we went the opposite direction, multiple characters can rack up violations ad infinitum). This “best case scenario” will also be applied on a per-character basis, so one character’s rap sheet might be assuming a scenario that’s mutually incompatible with another character’s.

Related to the above, the assumption is that each character only goes through each level once, and always on mission 1. There’s no evidence anything else is canon, and there’s no evidence the characters visit the chao garden during SA2 (nor would that make logical sense the way it’s presented).

The desert levels, while clearly inspired by the Egyptian Pyramids, are shown via the in-game map to be within walking distance, so they’ll assumed to be an equivalent historical site in the USA and treated as such.

The ARK, being a United Federation space station, will be treated akin to a military base (abandoned or not, they would still have government ownership by default). Any crimes committed on it 50 years ago will be treated akin to the law for 1951.

While I will link the English version for convenience, this crimes ranking will be using the original Japanese dub, and in any instances where the dub changes changes the legal status of an action the Japanese version will be given default priority and linked appropriately.

Robots and artificial creations will only be counted IF they display any autonomy from their creator. So Shadow will be given his own spot, while the Biolizard will not.

Some terminology:

Conspiracy to commit: you planned with another person to commit a crime.

Complicit in: means you didn’t do anything per say, but you were with someone who committed a crime, and did nothing to stop them.

Aiding & abetting: you didn’t commit the crime itself, but you helped someone else to commit it.

Attempted: you attempted to commit a crime, but didn’t end up doing so (whether you failed, you changed your mind, or some other third thing).

1st degree murder: you planned on killing someone in advance (regardless of if you discussed such plans or not).

2nd degree murder: you decided in the moment to kill someone present.

And lastly, as much as I hate to admit it, there will be no sentence given for these crimes. I did want to, I really wanted to, but I found researching it not only incredibly difficult, but also definitely not up to the quality standard that I expect from not only the Central City Library, but also myself.

Now, onto the rankings, from least crimes committed to most crimes committed. Starting with those who have a perfect record...

---

Clean: Pilot of Flying Dog (real name unknown)

Age: unknown (at least 16+)

Nationality: United Federation

Species: human

Only including him for consistency’s sake, since the other two have codenames

n/a

Total crimes committed: 0

Sentence: n/a (deceased)

---

Clean: President of the United Federation

Age: unknown (35+)

Nationality: United Federation

Species: human

n/a

Total crimes committed: 0 cases (if only all presidents could have such a perfect track record)

Sentence: none

---

Clean: President of the United Federation’s Secretary

Age: unknown

Nationality: United Federation

Species: human

n/a

Total crimes committed: 0 cases.

Sentence: none

---

Clean: Spider Troop (real name unknown)

Age: unknown (at least 16+)

Nationality: United Federation

Species: human

You know him, he pilots Big Foot!

Assault on a minor: 1 case – unfortunately, outside of particularly egregious examples, the right to self defence when arrested for a crime you’re not guilty of is not enforceable, so this charge is most likely dropped.

Total crimes committed: 0 cases.

Sentence: none

---

Clean: Scorpion Troop (real name unknown)

Age: unknown (at least 16+)

Nationality United Federation

Species: human

He pilots Hot Shot.

n/a

Total crimes committed: 0

Sentence: none

---

Clean: Maria Robotnik

Age: n/a (unknown at time of death)

Nationality: United Federation

Species: human

Attempted theft of government property: 1 case – because yes, Shadow the Hedgehog is a top secret military research weapon, artificially created with G.U.N. budget. So yes, Shadow was owned by the military. However, Shadow has displayed awareness and autonomy, and the entire shutdown of the A.R.K. was a corrupt operation from the beginning, to such a degree that by all accounts Maria should be acquitted for attempting to let Shadow escape. That, and the fact that under U.S. 2001 law a living being technically a slave wouldn’t fly.

Total crimes committed: 0 cases.

Sentence: n/a (deceased)

---

Clean: Omochao

Age: n/a (robot)

Nationality: n/a (robot)

Species: n/a (robot)

I’d positively love to give Omochao a rap sheet a mile long, for no other reason than how funny it would be. However, I need to apply the same standards to everyone, and that includes Omochao. Omochao is a mass produced robot, producer unknown, who are incredibly knowledgeable and widespread. One even had knowledge on the Biolizard, that’s how much they know. And yet, they only activate if someone approaches them. That means that, giving them the same leeway we give the rest of the cast, they haven’t committed any crimes. No aiding and abetting, no conspiracy, not even entering military bases, since it’s assumed the military would have to bring them in.

n/a

Total crimes committed: 0 cases

Sentence: none

---

And now we reach the point where characters have committed at least one crime, and can thus be charged.

Oh, by the way, initially I wanted to present the minimum and maximum penalties for each character, but uh… turns out, finding a minimum charge for a crime is very difficult, far more difficult than finding the maximum penalty.

So, I’ll be sentencing according to the maximum penalty, preferably for specifically 2001 when I can find such metrics. As before, if I make an error on this (and, as I’m not a US lawyer knowledgeable on the law as it existed in 2001, nor a US lawyer, nor a US citizen, nor ever set foot on the USA, I’m bound to make an error on this), please inform me so that I may correct it.

---

#13: Egg Golem

Age: unknown (a few days old?)

Nationality: n/a (robot)

Species: n/a (robot)

Yes, we’re seriously covering the Egg Golem. It spends 1 boss fight free from Eggman’s control, so it is eligible for committing crimes.

Aggravated assault with a deadly weapon: 1 case – for the entirety of its time spent independent from Eggman’s control, it spends that time attempting to kill Eggman. We know this isn’t from self defence (or defending Sonic and co.), since it does this in response to Eggman insulting it. It’s with a deadly weapon because the Egg Golem IS a deadly weapon.

Attempted 2nd degree murder: 1 case.

Total crimes committed: 2 cases.

---

#13: King Boom Boo

Age: n/a (unknown at time of death)

Nationality: United Federation

Species: ghost (formerly human)

Assault on a minor: 1 case.

Attempted 2nd degree murder of a minor: 1 case.

Total crimes committed: 2 cases.

---

#12: Knuckles the Echidna

Age: 16

Nationality: n/a (sole resident of Angel Island)

Species: echidna

As the first playable character on the list, I need to define a unit of value for the stolen items, or more accurately what the maximum penalty shall be. … I don’t want to do that, so instead, I shall just label “compensation for stolen item” instead.

Illegal border crossing: 1 case – Knuckles might have de facto diplomatic immunity for being the sole representative of his own nation. Even if he doesn’t, he only entered the United Federation in order to stop Rouge from stealing the Master Emerald, a gemstone of unimaginable value.

Theft: 1 case – yeah it’s a rural canyon, but those Shovel Claws surely belonged to someone, and Knuckles made no attempt to find the original owners yet along return these to them.

Trespassing: 2 cases – an abandoned mine is still, well, a mine, and thus a place Knuckles doesn’t have clearance to enter unannounced. And then he goes through a sewer. Of course, there is genuine argument that Knuckles is unaware that he’s trespassing, and nobody informs him of such nor requests that he leaves these areas.

Complicit in trespassing into a government space: 1 case – going inside of a vehicle is considered trespassing, and this appears to be the president’s private limo, given the screen set up for a private discussion with Dr. Eggman.

Complicit in hacking: 1 case.

Complicit in interfering with a government meeting: 1 case.

Trespassing: 2 cases – given the existential threat Eggman is currently posing, any efforts to stop him would absolutely be forgiven under law.

Conspiracy to commit grand larceny: 1 case – ditto.

Conspiracy to launch a rocket without clearance: 1 case – ditto.

Theft: 4 cases – ditto.

Grand larceny: 1 case – ditto.

Launching a rocket without clearance: 1 case – ditto.

Trespassing a government space: 1 case – the ARK, while abandoned, is still a G.U.N. base, and is still being patrolled by G.U.N. robots. However, Knuckles is here to stop a global atrocity like the rest of the gang.

Reckless endangerment: 1 case – attempting to commandeer a vehicle you have no idea how to pilot while it’s in flight in outer space is a one way ticket to kill everyone on-board.

Resisting arrest: 1 case – by this point Knuckles has associated himself with Sonic and co. (whom have certainly committed various crimes by this point), and thus is liable to being arrested.

Resisting arrest: 1 case – everyone was saving the world.

Total crimes committed: 6 cases

---

#11: Amy Rose

Age: 12

Nationality: unknown

Species: hedgehog

Entering a restricted military base: 1 case.

Aiding & abetting escape from lawful custody: 1 case.

Petty theft: 1 case – stole an identification card to release Sonic from prison.

Resisting arrest: 1 case.

Conspiracy to trespass onto a government area: 1 case.

Conspiracy to hacking: 1 case.

Complicit in trespassing into a government space: 1 case.

Complicit in hacking: 1 case.

Complicit in interfering with a government meeting: 1 case.

Trespassing: 2 cases – given the existential threat Eggman is currently posing, any efforts to stop him should be completely legal.

Conspiracy to commit grand larceny: 1 case – ditto.

Conspiracy to launch a rocket without clearance: 1 case – ditto.

Grand larceny: 1 case – ditto.

Launching a rocket without clearance: 1 case – ditto.

Conspiracy to commit destruction of government property: 1 case – ditto.

Complicit in attempted destruction of government property: 1 case – ditto.

Total crimes committed: 9 cases

---

# 10: Big the Cat

Age: n/a

Nationality: unknown (presumed United Federation)

Species: cat

As hilarious as it sounds, Big commits some crimes in his cameos. Under the logic of giving everyone maximum benefit of the doubt, his cutscene cameos will not be counted, as he only appears given player input. But his in-level cameos will count as he’s there regardless of if the player checks on him or not.

Entering a restricted military base: 4 cases – Big is seen in Prison Island in Iron Gate and Weapons Bed, and is seen on the Space Colony: ARK in Lost Colony and Mad Space.

Trespassing: 5 cases – enters in Eggman’s base in Sand Ocean, Egg Quarters, and Hidden Base. He also ends up on a blimp in Radical Highway and under the road in Mission Street.

Reckless Endangerment: 1 case – Big hanging onto a blimp like that endangers everyone inside of the blimp.

Escape from Lawful Custody: 1 case – despite appearing behind bars in Prison Lane, Big later appears out from behind bars.

Total crimes committed: 11 cases.

---

#9: Professor Gerald Robotnik

Age: n/a (unknown at time of death)

Nationality: unknown

Species: human

Anything the Biolizard does can be presumed to be a direct result of Gerald remotely reprogramming it, and so its actions will be added to Gerald’s (post-humous) list. Oh, and given Gerald lost his sanity before committing his crimes, it’s entirely possible for him to be posthumously declared innocent on grounds of insanity. Crimes committed 50 years ago will be listed in bold to note the time gap.

Reckless endangerment: 1 case – Gerald was blamed for a crime that never happened to cover up a separate crime G.U.N. committed.

Collective punishment: 1 case – while you could argue this should be “conspiracy to commit [x]”, the fact of the matter is that Gerald had already set all of the programming up for both the Eclipse Cannon, the ARK as a whole, Shadow, and the Biolizard. The plan was already in motion by the time he admitted/talked about it, and all he needed was someone to wake up Shadow. To me, that’s more than enough to sentence him for actively attempting these crimes, albeit posthumously.

Attempted mass murder: 1 case – same as above in regards to violating the Geneva conventions.

Attempted mass property damage: 1 case – ditto.

Assault: 2 cases.

Aggravated assault with a deadly weapon: 3 cases.

Attempted 2nd degree murder: 2 cases.

Assault on a minor: 1 case.

Attempted 2nd degree murder of a minor: 1 case.

Total crimes committed: 12 cases.

---

#8: Sonic the Hedgehog

Age: 15

Nationality: unknown (born on Christmas Island)

Species: hedgehog

Resisting arrest: 3 cases – Sonic is constantly ignoring G.U.N. trying to apprehend him, the mistaken identity doesn’t matter as he began resisting by immediately assaulting government officers, which is, well, crime.

Assault on a government officer: 3+ cases – took out “everyone aboard” on the G.U.N. helicopter, and then later fought Spider Troop.

Destruction of government property: 5 cases:

1 Mono Beetle (cutting off as many from homing attack chains as possible)

Stripped off 1 piece of a G.U.N. helicopter

1 wooden boxes

1 Big Foot

Some metal casing

Theft of government property: 3 cases – stole that aforementioned strip of the G.U.N. helicopter, a pair of Light Shoes, and some of that aforementioned metal casing.

Jaywalking: 5 cases – I mean. Yeah. He kinda does do that. The G.U.N. truck chase doesn’t excuse anything, as he still runs on the road before it even arrives.

Speeding: 4 cases – well technically he’s not driving, he’s running/snowboarding. Can’t speed without a car.

Reckless endangerment: 3 cases – Sonic ran along the streets of City Escape on two separate occassions, once on an impromptu snowboard. Even assuming he didn’t hit anything, that’s still dangerous to everyone on the road.

Entering closed off areas: 2 cases – ignores “do not enter” signs twice; though it turns out you also need to be told to leave and then refuse to do so in order to be sentenced.

Trespassing: 1 case (+$5,000 fine, 1 year in prison, and 2 years probation) – runs down the side of a building.

Entering closed off areas: 1 case – the instance just before the G.U.N. truck is arguable due to signs providing conflicting messages.

Reckless endangerment: 1 case – okay see in this case a giant 2 lane truck is chasing him and trying to run him over, this is more acceptable.

Assault: 2 cases – Sonic charges at Shadow, assuming he’s being framed (incorrectly). He does so again later on.

Escape from lawful custody: 1 case.

Trespassing into a government space: 2 cases – clinging onto the G.U.N. rocket launch, and then later jumping into the president’s limo.

Resisting arrest: 4 cases – first the island’s blowing up, and Sonic and co. are just trying to not die from that; then Sonic’s trying to save Amy from Eggman, then Sonic’s saving the world, then everyone’s saving the world.

Conspiracy to trespass into a government space: 1 case (+$10,000 fine & 10 years in prison).

Conspiracy to commit hacking: 1 case.

Interfering with a government meeting: 1 case.

Complicit in hacking: 1 case.

Trespassing: 2 cases – given the existential threat Eggman is currently posing, any efforts to stop him should be completely legal.

Conspiracy to commit grand larceny: 1 case – ditto.

Conspiracy to launch a rocket without clearance: 1 case – ditto.

Grand larceny: 1 case – ditto.

Launching a rocket without clearance: 1 case – ditto.

Conspiracy to commit destruction of government property: 1 case – ditto.

Attempted destruction of government property: 1 case – ditto.

Resisting arrest: 1 case – hostage situation + trying to save the world.

Destruction of government property: 14 cases – there’s saving the world from the Eclipse Cannon, and also saving Amy from her hostage situation.

Theft of government property: 1 case – given the hostage situation he was in and the fact he was actively attempting to stop Eggman’s existential threat, stealing one measly Flame Ring should be excusable. Besides, we don’t even know if Sonic kept it afterwards, as next time he gets something similar he’s seen buying it.

Total crimes committed: 35 cases.

---

#7: Boos & Boom Boos

Age: n/a (unknown at time of deaths)

Nationality: United Federation

Species: ghosts (formerly humans)

Given the Boos are a group of people, and not an individual, the charges will be doled out as 1 case per individual Boo involved.

Assault on a minor: 29 cases – pretty simple, whether they harm or grab, they’re still assaulting Sonic and Knuckles.

Attempted 2nd degree murder of a minor: 19 cases – most of these cases are from directly attacking, but some are from grabbing Sonic in close proximity to another hazard such as a trap or one of Eggman’s robots.

Assault: 2 cases – they attempt to grab Rouge too.

Attempted 2nd degree murder: 2 cases.

Reckless Endangerment: 2 cases – some of the “fright” Boos do so in the presence of traps, Eggman robots, or more aggressive Boos.

Aided & abetted assault on a minor: 1 case – a Boo holds an hourglass for King Boom Boo.

Aided & abetted attempted 2nd degree murder of a minor: 1 case.

Total crimes committed: 56 cases collectively.

Total number of Boos: 68

Average of cases per Boo: 0.8 cases per Boo (rounded down)

---

#6: Miles “Tails” Prower

Age: 8

Nationality: unknown (born on Westside Island)

Species: fox

This is the first time that it’s relevant, but for the multiplayer I’m making the assumption that it’s inclusion isn’t a canonical event, but items made within it are considered canonical, especially since external media does provide an origin for some items (such as the Chao Walker and Dark Chao Walker).

Illegal weapons manufacturing: 1 case – the Cyclone, a personal mech that can transform into a plane and a car, is not a weapon you can just carry around. He also built the mech that Chao uses in the multiplayer mode. It’s only one case as the law is defined by the act of manufacturing weapons, not the specific number of weapons you make.

Entering a restricted military base: 1 case.

Aiding & abetting escape from legal custody: 1 case.

Destruction of government property: 54 cases – Tails has to destroy G.U.N. robots to progress in his stages. Including:

23 G.U.N. Hunters

2 Hornet-3s

19 Mono Beetles

10 caged crates

Resisting arrest: 1 case.

Theft: 1 case – stole the Boosters.

Hacking: 2 cases – accessed government computers.

Conspiracy to trespass into a government space: 1 case.

Conspiracy to commit hacking: 1 case.

Trespassing into a government space: 1 case – he and Sonic jump into the President’s limo.

Interfering with a government meeting: 1 case – he and Sonic interrupted the President’s attempted surrender, which caused Eggman to attempt to fire the Eclipse Cannon again.

Underage driving/driving without a licence: 1 case – from my look, I don’t see a separate charge for underage driving, to my surprise. Instead, the charge gets applied to the legal guardian/s. Tails seemingly has no legal guardians on account of having his own homes and labs, implying he’s an emancipated child, so that charge should still fall onto him regardless (as all of these other charges, in case you’re wondering).

Speeding: 1 case – clearly sped on the road to reach the President’s limo.

Reckless driving: 1 case – I mean when one of the optional missions is “don’t hit other cars” and another is “don’t hit walls”, even the game itself considers your driving dangerous.

Trespassing: 2 cases – given the existential threat Eggman is currently posing, any efforts to stop him should be completely legal.

Conspiracy to commit grand larceny: 1 case – ditto.

Conspiracy to launch a rocket without clearance: 1 case – ditto.

Grand larceny: 1 case – ditto.

Launching a rocket without clearance: 1 case – ditto.

Conspiracy to commit destruction of government property: 1 case – ditto.

Resisting arrest: 2 cases – first time he was trying to save the world, second time everyone was trying to save the world.

Complicit in attempted destruction of government property: 1 case – ditto.

Destruction of government property: 9 cases – given the situation, Tails is excused for attacking the robots trying to attack him.

Theft of government property: 1 case – given the situation, Tails using the Bazooka is excusable.

Total crimes committed: 68 cases

---

#5: G.U.N. (short for Guardian Unit of Nations)

Age: varies

Nationality: varies

Species: varies, typically human

Now we leave the realm of mundane crime volume and jump into the truly absurd… And you can thank a singular truck for that.

As both their name and dialogue in Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity shows, G.U.N. is an international military, not beholding to any specific branch of government. However, perhaps as a requirement of being an officially recognised government branch, they do still need to abide by the local governments of any nation a particular branch is stationed in, as seen by the future G.U.N. Commander, Abraham Towers, obeying direct orders from the President and generally protecting his well being. This is all to provide important context for not only their current actions, but also the actions they performed 50 years ago (the latter of which will be in bold).

And, due to a majority of the robots being either controlled by an AI and/or remote controlled, it’s practically impossible to determine how many G.U.N. soldiers are truly involved, meaning I can’t present an average like I did with the Boos.

Lastly, as the G.U.N. Truck driver was responsible for a vast majority of these cases, charges for them specifically will be underlined.

Conspiracy to commit mass murder: 1+ cases – the ARK’s Indestructible Seal, a top secret plan detailing the closing of the ARK, involves killing the scientists who knew of Project: Shadow, and pinning it all as an accident caused by Professor Gerald.

Conspiracy to commit a false accusation: 1+ cases.

Conspiracy to falsify information: 1+ cases – the plan was carried out on the premise that G.U.N. knew nothing.

Mass murder: 1+ cases – Maria doesn’t even get singled out, she’s one of an unknown number of victims.

False accusation: 1+ cases – successfully pinned the blame for the ARK’s shutdown on Professor Gerald.

False arrest: 2+ cases – successfully captured both Professor Gerald and the finalised Ultimate Lifeform, Shadow the Hedgehog

Improper documentation: 1+ cases – until Shadow himself expressed recollection of being captured, it was unknown if Shadow was even the original or a clone, which proves that said capture was not properly reported.

Failure to comply with a lawful order: 1 case – I decided this has enough to be worth including, but not enough to be worth sentencing, as the President requesting Rouge obtain this information from G.U.N. implies that he tried asking them directly and got nothing. It’s plausible that G.U.N. (truthfully or not) claimed they couldn’t access it, and later that they couldn’t look for it due to fighting Dr. Eggman, so this is a grey area. And as said, I lean on the best case scenario for these rap sheets.

False arrest: 1 case – can’t apply to Shadow breaking out of Prison Island, since breaking out of jail is still a crime even if you’re innocent of the crime that got you sent to prison to begin with.

Animal cruelty: 1+ cases – holds the turtle hostage.

Aggravated assault with a weapon: 4+ cases.

Assault on a government officer: 1+ cases – oh yeah, Rouge is a government officer and isn’t even undercover yet during her first stage.

Spying: 4+ cases – the Gold Beetles are canonically reconnaissance robots. Now, spying on your own population is (as far as I can tell) fully legal, unfortunately. However, G.U.N. is an international organisation, and can & has acted in their own interests in the past and during this game, even spying on a United Federation government agent.

Assault on a minor: 3+ cases.

Reckless endangerment: 6 cases – Knuckles and Rouge could’ve died from these robots attacking them. Oh, and the G.U.N. truck driving through a populated city, including Big the Cat. Poor guy. Lastly, the G.U.N. Robots in Cannon’s Core still attack Sonic and co. despite them working to save the world (something Rouge can easily communicate to the President and by proxy G.U.N.). We can reasonably assume that G.U.N.’s still in control over their robots given the teleportation technology and the fact that Shadow 05 presents G.U.N. robots as good aligned (given that destroying them gives Shadow dark metre). G.U.N. failing to get these robots to stop attacking the 5 of them risked both their lives and the lives of everyone on the planet.

False arrest: 2 cases – arrested Sonic the Hedgehog due to mistaken identity.

Reckless driving: 1 case.

Vehicle size violation: 1+ cases – it might be made by the military, but even the military needs to be able to drive on the road without causing widespread devastation. Anyways, the exact sentence depends on the weight of the G.U.N. truck, which I can’t know with certainty, but can estimate. Its height, in comparison to the cars it runs over, is roughly 3.6 times wider. The average car is 1.94 metres wide, while the average semi-trailer truck (what the G.U.N. truck appears to be) is 2.5 metres wide, 3.6 times 1.94 is 6.984 metres wide, making the G.U.N. truck 3 times larger than a semi-trailer truck. Applying square cube law, that should make the truck 270,000 pounds. As the California weight limit is 80,000 pounds, this makes the G.U.N. truck 190,000 pounds over the weight limit. If you have a better calculation, please let me know.

Speeding: 1 case.

Attempted 2nd degree murder: 1 case – tossing a truck this big on one person is clearly an attempt to kill.

Property damage: 185+ cases – the G.U.N. truck, in one 30 second segment, breaks through the wall Sonic just went under (it clips through it, but realistically that wall is just gone), destroys 98 cars, 1 bin, 72 trees, 2 ramps, 1 street light, and 4 traffic signs. On top of that, I’m also going to assume 2 houses get damaged every time the G.U.N. truck turns (which it does 3 times), purely due to its sheer size. And it’s likely committed more violations, given we see it driving in from the area Sonic was just in, it likely destroyed everything in there too.

Assault on a minor: 1 case – the right to self defence on a false arrest is not enforceable, except for particularly egregious examples. Now, I’m no expert, but attempting to run over someone with a truck so big it cannot fit onto the road properly, and did widespread damage to the immediate area in an attempt to run them over would count as particularly egregious.

Total crimes committed: 215+

Total crimes committed (50 years ago): 8+ cases

Total crimes committed (current day, sans G.U.N. truck driver): 22+ cases

Total crimes committed (G.U.N. truck driver): 188+ cases

---

#4: Shadow the Hedgehog

Age: unknown (chronologically 50+)

Nationality: United Federation (G.U.N. created weapon)

Species: hedgehog/Black Arms hybrid

Realistically speaking, after Shadow is confirmed to survive post-SA2 (and gains his memory…), he has a solid argument to avoid being sentenced for any of these crimes, by virtue of a mixture of government conspiracy and the fact that his memories were tampered with by Professor Gerald, with evidence in Gerald’s diary itself, and thus he can argue he was coerced to commit these crimes. A moot point, since he’d likely be fully pardoned after Heroes, but the argument remains.

Resisting arrest: 1 case – we don’t actually get any evidence that G.U.N. ever made any attempt at a formal arrest on Shadow in SA2 or supplementary material (other games will be covered if/when I get to those specific games), so there’s no grounds to argue he was resisting arrest. Even if they did, the military’s actions in this game are blatantly corrupt in hindsight, and are far more than enough to warrant an exoneration for such a charge.

Theft of government property: 1 case – Shadow being an artificial lifeform created by G.U.N. gives credence to the idea he was owned by them, but as above the corrupt nature they attempted in order to capture him should be more than enough to exonerate him.

Escape from lawful custody: 1 case (7 years in prison) – Escaped from Prison Island. Yes, breaking out of prison when you were put in for a crime you didn’t commit is still a crime in and of itself.

Assault on a government officer: 1 case – attacked the pilot of B-3x Hot Shot.

Destruction of government property: 37+ cases – Shadow has destroyed a fair number of robots, machines, and other government equipment. This will also included every single robot in White Jungle, as regardless of if Shadow personally destroys them or not they’ll still be taken out in the ensuing explosion. However, non-robot equipment will be excluded from White Jungle due to their cost being negligent in comparison, unless Shadow directly has to destroy it.

Conspiracy to commit grand larceny: 1 case – plotted to steal more Chaos Emeralds with Dr. Eggman.

Conspiracy to commit terrorism: 1 case – plotted to use the Eclipse Cannon with Dr. Eggman.

Grand larceny: 1 case – stole a Chaos Emerald from a bank.

Theft of government property: 1 case – stole the Air Shoes (not to be confused with his shoes, which are also called air shoes).

Resisting arrest: 4 cases – continues running even as G.U.N. robots chase after him.

Collective punishment: 1 case – plans on inflicting a punishment on the entirety of the human race rather than just those who were responsible for the raid on the ARK/Maria’s murder in the first place.

Jaywalking: 1 case – Radical Highway might be the most unsafe highway imaginable. But it is still a highway, and Shadow clearly has no regard for staying off said highway.

Entering a restricted military area: 2 case.

Conspiracy to commit usurpation: 201 cases.

Conspiracy to commit destruction of government property: 1 case.

Conspiracy to commit destruction of a government base: 1 case.

Conspiracy to commit 1st degree mass murder: 1 case.

Aiding & abetting destruction of military property: 1 case.

Aiding & abetting grand larceny: 3 cases.

1st degree mass murder: 1 case.

Destruction of a government base: 1 case.

Complicit in aggravated assault with a lethal weapon: 1 case.

Complicit in assault on a minor: 1 case.

Complicit in attempted 2nd degree murder of a minor: 1 case.

Assault on a minor: 1 case – Sonic attacked him first, so it’s self defence.

Complicit in hijacking of radio signals: 1 case.

Terrorism: 1 case

Mass destruction: 1 case.

Mass manslaughter: 1 case.

Mass reckless endangerment: 1 case.

Mass emotional damages: 1 case.

Holding a hostage en masse: 1 case.

Inducing public panic: 1 case.

Aiding & abetting attempted usurpation: 1 case.

Stalking of a minor: 1 case.

Complicit in attempted 1st degree murder or a minor: 8 cases.

Intimidation: 1 case.

Assault on a minor: 1 case.

Attempted 1st degree murder on a minor: 1 case – while he didn’t know it was Sonic specifically, he knew someone was approaching the Eclipse Cannon, and was going to guard it, likely with lethal force (and in both languages he expresses intent to kill towards Sonic).

Uttering threats: 1 case.

Collective punishment: 1 case – needless to say, all of humanity didn’t assault the ARK 50 years ago, nor did they kill Maria. A large majority of them wouldn’t have even been alive back then.

Attempted terrorism: 1 case – the reason Eggman gets charged with this and Shadow doesn’t is pretty simple: Shadow knows everyone is going to be killed, while Eggman didn’t.

Attempted mass murder: 1 case – this isn’t a genocide charge since it isn’t targeting a specific demographic of humans, but rather all humans.

Attempted mass property damage: 1 case.

Total crimes committed: 288+ cases.

---

#3: Rouge the Bat

Age: 18

Nationality: unknown (presumed United Federation)

Species: bat

One complicating factor is that Rouge was an undercover agent, not working for G.U.N., but working directly for the President, with a specific goal to achieve. So if she commits a crime in order to maintain her cover to achieve her goal, as assigned by the President himself, is that permissible? Does that get struck from the record? Looking it up, it counts as a crime if she took up arms/aided the enemy against her own during times of warfare. Which… yeah, she did. I don’t know, I’ll list them here regardless, but she might get a Presidential pardon after this game since she did accomplish her primary objective. If a crime is in italics, then committing it was part of her spy duties. If you don’t count those, then Shadow takes the #3 spot instead.

Illegal border crossing: 1 case – Knuckles is constantly on the lookout for intruders to his island, and Rouge still came on and stole the Master Emerald regardless.

Burglary: 1 case – technically Knuckles doesn’t have a defined house, but surely if Rouge got onto the island in the first place with the sole intent of committing a crime then she should get this charge regardless.

Grand larceny: 7 cases – Rouge steals the Master Emerald, then when it gets broken into pieces she steals 6 of the fragments.

Stalking: 1 case – puts a tracker on Dr. Eggman to follow him into his base. I’m not sure when she was able to do that, but apparently she did.

Destruction of government property: 2 cases – Rouge destroys two G.U.N. Hunters. However, these G.U.N. Hunters were holding a turtle hostage, so destroying them would be defensible as preventing animal cruelty.

Trespassing: 1 case – infiltrates Eggman’s base.

Destruction of private property: 4 cases – Rouge destroys 4 of Eggman’s caged boxes.

Theft: – steals 3 of Eggman’s keys to infiltrate his base, and the Pink Nails that were in there.

Entering a restricted military base: 2 cases – Rouge infiltrates ARK independently of the rest of the gang, and then infiltrates Prison Island with them.

Conspiracy to commit grand larceny: 1 case – plotted to steal more Chaos Emeralds with Dr. Eggman.

Conspiracy to commit terrorism: 1 case – plotted to use the Eclipse Cannon with Dr. Eggman.

Conspiracy to commit usurpation: 201 cases.

Conspiracy to commit destruction of government property: 1 case.

Conspiracy to commit destruction of a government base: 1 case.

Conspiracy to commit 1st degree mass murder: 1 case.

Complicit in aggravated assault with a lethal weapon: 8 cases.

Complicit in assault on a minor: 8 cases.

Complicit in attempted 2nd degree murder of a minor: 1 case.

Grand Larceny: 3 cases – and here’s where Rouge stole 3 Chaos Emeralds.

Aided & abetted 1st degree mass murder: 1 case.

Aided & abetted destruction of a government base: 1 case.

Aided & abetted destruction of government property: 13+ cases – just like Eggman, every robot in Security Hall that Rouge doesn’t destroy personally will still be destroyed with the island’s destruction, so they’ll be counted as part of this list at bare minimum.

Assault on a government officer: 1 case – fought against the pilot for R-1/A Flying Dog.

Destruction of government property: 1 case – destroyed Flying Dog.

Complicit in hijacking of radio signals: 1 case.

Complicit in terrorism: 1 case

Complicit in mass destruction: 1 case.

Complicit in mass manslaughter: 1 case.

Complicit in mass reckless endangerment: 1 case.

Complicit in mass emotional damages: 1 case.

Complicit in holding a hostage en masse: 1 case.

Complicit in inducing public panic: 1 case.

Complicit in attempted usurpation: 1 case.

Espionage: 1 case – I mean- it’s the entire reason she’s here.

Stalking a minor: 1 case.

Speeding: 1 case – clearly sped on the road to reach Tails’s Tornado-2.

Reckless driving: 1 case – I mean when one of the optional missions is “don’t hit other cars” and another is “don’t hit walls”, even the game itself considers your driving dangerous.

Complicit in 1st degree attempted murder: 7 cases.

Hacking: 1 case.

Resisting arrest: 1 case – Rouge ignores G.U.N. robots trying to apprehend her during the events of Mad Space.

Assault on a minor: 1 case – while it’s ambiguous who specifically started the fight, the fact remains that she’s stolen Knuckles’s Master Emerald fragments, so even if Knuckles began the fight it’s to protect and reclaim his property.

Attempted grand larceny: 6 cases – maybe, if you squint, this could be part of her duties as a spy to sabotage the enemy, but it’s pretty clear she’s doing this because she wants the gemstones themselves.

Resisting arrest: 1 case – everyone was saving the world.

Total crimes committed: 292+ cases.

Total non-undercover crimes committed: 11 cases

---

#2: Dr. Ivo “Eggman” Robotnik

Age: unknown (at least 60+)

Nationality: unknown (presumed United Federation)

Species: human

Was there ever any doubt? I mean, seriously, this man was the mastermind for most of the game and most of his robots commit 2 crimes each by just existing. For the rest of Team Dark, plotting to take over the world accounts for most of their crimes, but for Eggman… well let’s just say that’s just a footnote.

Counting up the total number of Eggman robots in Sonic Adventure 2, there are 9 in Egg Quarters, 43 in Hidden Base, 15 in Pyramid Cave, 18 in Death Chamber, 2 Egg Beetles, 1 Egg Golem, 1 Metal Sonic (in the multiplayer), 1 Egg Robo (in the multiplayer’s kart racing mode), 1 Egg Walker, and to top it all off that little custom pistol he has, for a grand total of 91 robots, mechs, and weapons. Just purely from making and using these weapons Eggman has committed:

Illegal weapons manufacturing: 1 case (yep, all 93+ weapons would fall under a singular case).

Animal cruelty: 84 cases.

Possession of unregistered firearm: 2 cases.

Usage of firearm without a licence: 1 case.

You read that right, 260 crimes just from Eggman’s gear – we haven’t even gotten to Eggman himself. Speaking of which:

Theft of government property: 4 cases – Eggman has stolen from the government: Gerald’s diary, the Jet Engine, and the Large Cannon. Also technically, he stole Shadow, who was made for the President and is/was thus United Federation property.

Entering a restricted military area: 3 cases – pretty simple, he assaults Prison Island twice, and takes over the ARK.

Burglary: 2 cases – Assaulted Prison Island twice, both times with full intent to commit a crime.

Destruction of government property: 84+ cases – As an absolute bare minimum (not counting Weapons Bed since everything there would get destroyed later on anyways), Eggman destroys:

36 G.U.N. security doors

4+ G.U.N. robots – 1+ in Iron Gate (implied, cutscene), 1 in Lost Impact (guards the elevator upwards, impossible to avoid without taking damage which I figured is too far beyond the realm of believability), 2+ in Weapons Bed (the + accounting for Eggman’s intent to cause a distraction)

2 wooden G.U.N. boxes

8 G.U.N.… storage silos? Empty missiles?

35 caged boxes

1 G.U.N. storage metal slider

6 metal G.U.N. boxes

That weird drill thing in Cosmic Wall

Complicit in assault: 1 case – stood by as Shadow attacked B-3x Hot Shot, even calling its destruction “spectacular”.

Aided & abetted unlawful escape from custody: 1 case.

Attempted grand larceny: 1 case – attempted to steal the Master Emerald from Knuckles even while knowing it’s not what he needs.

Desecration of archaeological ruins: 1 case – hidden his base inside of the nearby pyramids, including re-sculpting many of the statues to match his face.

Desecration of a graveyard: 1 case – yeah a pyramid is a tomb, and as the various Boos inside show, Eggman absolutely learnt that and continued with it.

Unlawful claim of territory: 1 case – the pyramids are, obviously enough, not actually Eggman’s, he just built a base inside of it.

Complicit in grand larceny: 1 case – didn’t make any attempt to take away Shadow’s Chaos Emerald, and even proceeded to collect more for Shadow’s plan.

Assault: 1 case – Eggman’s robots attack Rouge during Egg Quarters. I call it assault and not reckless endangerment, as the robots are clearly placed to keep people out of Eggman’s (illegal) base.

Aggravated assault with a lethal weapon: 13 cases – combine the assault and assault on a minor charges together, as Eggman uses weapons for all of them.

Assault with intent to kill: 13 cases – ditto.

Conspiracy to commit grand larceny: 2 cases.

Conspiracy to commit terrorism: 2 cases.

Conspiracy to commit usurpation: 201 cases – according to this graph, there are 201 recognised nations during the year 2001. While this list is not definitive, as the number of officially recognised nations varies depending on which nation you’re in (and 2001 is over 20 years ago), I am using it as the closest available estimate for how many there are in the Sonic canon version of Earth during Sonic Adventure 2.

Conspiracy to assault a government base: 1 case – self explanatory

Conspiracy to destroy a government base: 1 case.

Conspiracy to commit 1st degree mass murder: 1 case – those government soldiers on the base.

Aided & abetted grand larceny: 3 cases.

Aided & abetted destruction of government property: 246+ cases – at bare minimum, every robot that was present in Iron Gate & Weapons Bed would be added here. I will not count non-robot debris in these levels as their individual costs would be negligible regardless of if Eggman destroyed them personally or not. The true volume is likely higher. I counted a combined total of 66 robots in Iron Gate and 180 in Weapons Bed (not counting two robots that I had to destroy)

Aided & abetted 1st degree mass murder: 1 case – according to this website, the average number of military personnel assigned to a military base can vary from a few hundred to several thousand. Again, assuming best case scenario for Dr. Eggman, we’ll say this military base had 200 soldiers stationed (this should balance out its overall size and importance with this military’s reliance on using military drones for direct combat).

Aided & abetted destruction of a government base: 1 case.

Assault on a minor: 12 cases – attempts to kill Amy, Tails, Sonic, and Knuckles a total of 9 times throughout the campaign. In addition, his robots collectively attempt to kill them an additional 3 times collectively as they assault his base.

Attempted 2nd degree murder of a minor: 4 cases.

Attempted destruction of personal property: 2 cases – attacked Tails’s Tornado 2 – judging by the aftermath, he was seemingly unsuccessful. Same with the follow-up, where Tails was able to use the Tornado after his fight with Eggman regardless of who won.

Hijacking of radio channels: 1 case

Terrorism: 1 case

Mass destruction: 1 case – destroying the moon should have global ramifications, causing untold amounts of damage and death, alongside emotional torment en masse. Technically we can’t charge for the destruction of the moon in and of itself (besides the few spacecraft that have been left on the moon, which are negligible in comparison) as there are no laws against destroying the moon and it isn’t considered any nation’s property (if such a situation happened in real life a crime and a charge would likely be decided in the following court case, however we obviously lack the precedent to decide such a case), however the destruction to Earth that happened as a side-effect can be charged.

Mass manslaughter: 1 case – ditto to above.

Mass reckless endangerment: 1 case – ditto to above.

Mass emotional damages: 1 case – ditto to above.

Holding a hostage en masse: 1 case – According to this website, the population of the USA during 2001 is 285,470,493. Subtracting 1/25th to account for Alaska and Hawaii (a severe lowball) reduces that number to 274,051,673. This should be enough to qualify for a mass hostage situation.

Inducing public panic: 1 case.

Attempted usurpation: 1 case.

Coercion: 3 cases – attempts to make the President surrender to the Eggman Empire, makes Sonic go to him with the Chaos Emerald and give it to him, and attempts to convince Tails and Amy to give him the Chaos Emerald via threatening their lives (and, depending on the story being played, seemingly succeeds).

Stalking of a minor: 1 case – co-ordinates with Rouge and Eggman to track Tails’s location, with the intent of stealing his Chaos Emerald.

Uttering threats: 2 cases.

Attempted 1st degree murder of a minor: 9 cases (including the final room of Crazy Gadget).

Holding a hostage: 1 case.

Intimidation: 1 case – repeatedly emphasised that he will kill Amy while Sonic’s on his way to the meet up point.

Illegal usage of explosives: 1 case – tried to kill Sonic with one.

Grand larceny: 1 case – yeah, giving Eggman the benefit of the doubt, the only Chaos Emerald he conclusively stole in this game was at the very end of the main story, after fighting Tails.

Attempted terrorism: 1 case.

Resisting arrest: 1 case – everyone was saving the world.

Total crimes committed: 593+ cases.

---

Now we can wrap up with- huh? What do you mean he was only #2? Oh… But then that means… #1 is…

---

#1: The Population of Central City

Age: varies

Nationality: varies, typically United Federation

Species: varies, typically human

Congratulations on the combined population of Central City, by working together you all managed to commit so many crimes that you all collectively placed 1st! Wow, what an unsafe city! I’m going to break these up per stage to make it more digestible, but the totals will all be combined together.

City Escape

Road safety violations: 67 cases per day gone without being fixed – With a total of 16 roads sloped 45 degrees, 8 ramps plopped in the middle of the road, 31 abrupt 45 degree shifts in elevation, 10 crossroads without traffic lights, and 2 un-fenced cliff ends for roadways, the “City Escape” portion of Central City is a disaster.

Disability accessibility violations: 20 cases per day gone without being fixed – with 16 roads sloped 45 degrees, alongside 4 sets of stairs without an accessibility ramp, the disabled cannot navigate this city at all.

Traffic violations: 12 cases – now, since we want to avoid sentencing something ad infinitum, this specific violation requires an upper cap. So, I decided to use Mission 4’s time limit of 3 minutes to serve as that upper cap. There are a total of x stop signs that cars will just blatantly ignore and drive past. Starting at 1:18.19 and ending at 4:18.29, a total of 4 cars ignored the first stop sign. Assuming a similar pace for every stop sign that we can see cars violating it, the total value comes out to 4 stop signs and thus 12 violations.

Missing signs: 1 case per day gone without being fixed – there are three sections with “do not enter” signs leading into them, where the bulk of violations lie for non-road sections. However, these signs are only placed on one end (the entrance from Sonic’s perspective), making them all too easy for a clueless civiliation to enter from the back end, endangering themselves in the process. It’s also the reason these violations aren’t being removed, as it’s entirely feasible for someone to not realise that they’ve entered these areas.

Structural safety violations: 71 cases per day gone without being fixed – With 63 easily accessible dash panels (possibly more, I might have missed one during the GUN truck sequence with how fast that goes), 6 easily accessible drops without a protective fence (including the two road drops above as they’re also dangerous for pedestrians to be walking near), and 2 springs in accessible locations, it’s a blatant hazard for anyone to be walking about. This is both assuming the 45 degree slopes aren’t considered hazardous for able-bodied people and ignoring the final on foot area, as both ends are labelled well enough to feasibly indicate it’s off limits (presumably for plans on changing the construction).

Improperly placed signs: 1 case – the above mentioned fence has a “do not enter” sign and 3 “pass under” signs on the same side of the exact same fence. No matter what, their placement is contradictory.

Radical Highway

Road safety violations: like a bajillion cases – the road is clearly under construction, so it being unsuitable for driving is excusable. We can’t charge them for safety violations…

OSHA violations: 63 cases – That’s right baby, we’re charging them for OSHA violations! No means to get to the construction site (1), higher entrance is accessible only via blatantly hazardous means (spring, pulley, etc.) (11), no means to get to another area of the construction site (2), easily accessible drop without adequate guard rails (temporary or otherwise) (33), unguarded rockets (3), and accessible giant roller without guard rails (3).

Unsafe road construction: 13 cases – a 45 degree slope was built into the road 7 times, a loop-de-loop was built into the road 4 times, corkscrew built into the road 2 times.

Mission Street

Road safety violations: 2 cases – 2 instances of the road just ending. The rest at least seem to be clearly inaccessible to civilians, so…

OSHA violations: 18 cases – given the same aesthetic and the fact the road’s all sorts of messed up, I’m assuming this is also a road construction. As such, there are no means to exit the construction site (2), high falls without sufficient handrails (temporary or otherwise) (11), no means to access another section of the construction site (1), higher entrance is accessible only via blatantly hazardous means (spring, pulley, etc.) (3), unguarded rockets (1).

Route 101

For this stage and route 280, I’m assuming them having no support railing underneath at all is purely an abstraction born from the fact that these games are from 2001, since otherwise they’d instantly fall down as they’re not attached to anything for immensely long periods.

Road safety violations: 2 cases – there’s 1 ramp on the road, and 1 45 degree slope… it’s… Well, not perfect, but believably illegal. Insanity.

Route 280

Road safety violations: 12 cases – ah, here’s the cartoon level of safety violations. Straight up 5 massive holes in the road, 2 ramps in the road, 3 parts of the road without any walls to avoid driving off the bridge, and 2 45 degree slopes.

Total crimes committed: 652 cases collectively.

Total number of citizens: 782,223 (presumed, based on the population of San Francisco circa 2001)

Average of cases per citizen: 0.0008 per citizen (rounded down)

---

In conclusion.

…

Central City is an unsafe disaster and every major character is a wanted criminal.

---

CREDITS:

The whole document: Numbug

---

DISCLAIMER: I am not a qualified United States of America lawyer (nor do I even live in the United States of America), do not treat anything in this document as legal advice. This is all to entertain a what-if scenario.

[centralcitylibrary]

How do you think Black Doom and Dodon Pa would interact if they ever met?

Ah yes, the intergalactic warlord who conquers for conquering's sake

And the tanuki racer with no combat skills, no bodyguards, and was effortlessly kidnapped

I think it's business as usual for the Black Arms

[centralcitylibrary]

What do you think would’ve happened if the Death Egg had crashed somewhere else after Sonic 2? Like, for example:

The Northstar Island (Superstars)

The Starfall Islands (Frontiers)

Station Square (Adventure 1)

Prison Island (Adventure 2)

Northstar Islands: depends on if Eggman comes across knowledge of the dragon/black onyx or not. If yes, then Superstars happens early (except Sonic starts off as Super Sonic). If no, then nothing of note happens.

Starfall Islands: Without the Chaos Emeralds, Eggman can't exactly do anything. So he'll just develop a means to leave and get back to his bases.

Station Square: important news bulletin! Thousands dead as wanted criminal Dr. Eggman's orbital space station "the Death Egg" crashes into Station Square! Authorities are still investigating the cause of the crash.

Prison Island: jail :( Oh until Eggman's robotic army breaks him out. I can't imagine he doesn't have a fail safe for going to jail.

[centralcitylibrary]

What do you think would happen if Silver was erased from the Timeline after Sonic 06?

Eggman Nega turns the world into a card the end.

Okay, in all seriousness, almost every time Silver appears it's to prevent a disaster that already happened in the future (or it's a spin-off game where he got an invitation from beyond time and space), so by virtue of that alone excluding him very quickly leads to an apocalypse scenario.

Sonic Rivals 2

Sonic Forces

IDW Comics Metal Virus Arc

These are all cases where Silver came back from a known disaster to change it, and they all changed because of his intervention (even if in very unsatisfying ways (see: Forces)).

So excluding him very quickly just causes a new apocalypse to take place.

[centralcitylibrary]

A while back you asked what would’ve happened if Sonic died in Sonic 1 but what would’ve happened if Eggman died at the end of Sonic 3 & Knuckles?

(There was a fan game with this premise whose name I can’t remember.)

I mean... nothing until the Black Arms invade?

No Chaos, no SA2, no Metal Sonic, and then abrupt bad ending.

Eggman's responsible for like 99% of game plots, you remove him and then... game plots stop happening.

[centralcitylibrary]

Asking cause I wanna hear your take on this: Is Blaze native to the Sol Dimension or did she simply end up there due to the events of Sonic 06?

"Blaze is a queen from another dimension who protects and controls the Sol Emeralds - a role similar to that of Sonic and Knuckles combined. She has the power to control flames with her body, but since she was teased about it when she was younger, she wears a cape to disguise her abilities. However, when needed, she will toss the cape in a heartbeat."

Given this is from the official Sonic 06 website, by far the most likely explanation (given Blaze shows up without explanation and yet is still implicitly a princess given Iblis requires royal blood) is that 06 simply suffered from being 06 and was unable to provide an explanation as to why Blaze is present.

[centralcitylibrary]

I really like your World without Sonic the Hedgehog thingy and there’s a What If question I’d be interested in seeing you answer: What if Sonic had fallen to Earth at the end of SA2 instead of Shadow?

I generally don't like to do the same idea someone else has done, unless I have a heavy disagreement (and thus major divergence) than the original.

On that note, may I direct you to this YouTube series that handles the exact premise?

[centralcitylibrary]

Just letting everyone know that a permanent link to the Discord server is now up.

Welcome to the Central City Library!

Welcome to the Central City Library, your destination for any lore on Sonic the Hedgehog.

Hi, I’m Numbug (he/she) - the founder of this blog and its main member (2023-present), but you can also call me Alexander or Alexandra (no preference). If we’re going to continue the library analogy, you could think of me as one of the helpful librarians responsible for running this blog.

Now, you might be wondering what this blog is about. Well, that’s a fair question; we’re looking to help promote the sharing of official lore and knowledge of all kinds about this franchise for all to see. We do things such as deep dives into a particular lore subject, character analysis, timeline chronology, power scaling, and answering common misconceptions and areas of confusion, and hopefully more in the future (such as translations). All backed up with as thorough of a source as we can manage.

And that “source” detail is important, as we’re not an official part of SEGA in any capacity, nor do we have any insider info (and if we did, we wouldn’t include it on the blog anyways).

Our first and primary focus will always be the games continuity, but as we expand we’ll love to include all forms of Sonic media under our umbrella.

As for a few predicted questions…

“How frequently are you going to upload?”

We promise to make no promises about this, but the aim is to upload a minimum of one post a month, preferably a larger post. If our team gets large enough we might be able to make more posts more often, but that is to think about in the future.

“What are your goals for the blog?”

Long term, our goal is to be a worthy source for all of your referencing needs. Short term, we’re going to want to get ourselves started with some posts of note, such as our post on the Sol Emeralds.

“How can we contact you?”

To contact the team as a whole, you can use our Ask box or our Submission box (no anons, apologies) for questions you have, submissions you want to make, or to inform us of any errors we’ve made. However, it is worth pointing out that we are under no obligation to answer any question that is sent, if for no other reason than the fact that if this blog takes off it will become difficult to keep track of all of them.

Alternatively, you may visit the Discord server for more direct (albeit less serious) access.

As for individual members, you can find our contact information below:

Numbug Tumblr Twitter Tumblr (writing blog)

Lastly, if you feel like you have skills that can help out for this blog in the future, feel free to check this post: Help Wanted

Thank you so much for reading, and we hope this blog will be to your liking!

[This post will be updated to reflect updates in the team and the blog’s motivations]

[centralcitylibrary]

Response to Death Battle's Bowser vs. Dr. Eggman: Part 3/3 - Analysing the Match-up

Welcome to part 3/3 of my response to Death Battle. This part will focus on my providing my own analysis of the match-up, and my conclusion at the very end of it. If you watched the whole episode, you’ll know that this absolutely required its own dedicated part just to focus on. For the sake of a fair analysis, this will operate on the same standards that Death Battle themselves operate, rather than my usual methods (assuming you’ve seen it prior).

You can find part 1 here, and part 2 here.

This is probably the absolute hardest Mario vs. Sonic MU to decide on. Both sides have so many options, it’s dizzying, and any side could pull out a win from just unveiling one of their strongest weapons at the right time.

In fact, these instant win weapons are so numerous on both sides, that it turns the strength advantage, usually a major factor in any fight, into merely another number on the list of victory conditions. As such, while I will still provide my own strength calculations, I’ll primarily be focused on each of these trump cards, and what options the opposing army has in stopping them – alongside how both combatants could leverage these trump cards.

Let’s first list out the actual trump cards both sides have, just to make things clear:

Bowser:

Castle Bowser – can warp reality on a universal level, given enough time to charge up.

Dream Stone – can erase people from existence, and if broken its pieces can be consumed for Dreamy Bowser, which empowers him based on how many dreams he can absorb – potentially a raw power option if it can absorb enough dreams.

Fury Bowser – can mind control and corrupt others while he’s active in the form, alongside sending people to another world, and lastly invulnerability negation. Requires Bowser Jr.’s paint brush.

Star Rod – can grant wishes and is on par with the Star Spirits, who created the Dream Depot.

Painting (King Boo) – sealing. Anyone who gets trapped in this cannot escape.

Several ghosts – operating under King Boo, their release can destabilise the dimension.

Mind control.

Power Stars & Grand Stars – raw power.

Pure Hearts – raw power (but even more), invulnerability negation.

Eggman:

Metal Virus – transmutes any organic member infected by it into a metal zombie.

Finalised Phantom Ruby Prototype – can create tangible illusions (effectively reality warping) that only affect those the user wants to affect, alongside inverting gravity, creating an infinite army, and banishing others to Null Space (which blocks dimensional travel) – has 4 copies.

Phantom Ruby (original) – the same as above, except it provides its own power source. All Phantom Rubies can only be used by those with enough willpower, which amongst Eggman’s army includes Eggman himself, Infinite, Metal Sonic, and the Hardboiled Heavies.

Modified Phantom Ruby Prototype – can modify memories alongside the above’s effects, designed to alter the planet’s memories – has 2 copies. Can create infinitely sized areas via his Egg Fields, and thus has infinite range.

The Chaos Emeralds – just… so many things. Including raw power.

Mind Control Cannon – mind control.

Jewelled Sceptre – raw power (again).

Reverie – turns dreams into reality (aka real reality warping).

Sol Emeralds – they’re like the Chaos Emeralds.

Cyber Space (Sage) – can trap people within, separating their bodies and soul, and even (slowly) corrupt anyone who tries to save them. Even if they can escape, they’ll be left involuntarily intangible.

Time Eater – space-time erasure (and by proxy, existence erasure), raw power (yet again).

Supreme – raw power (constant showings of raw power).

Now all of these tools should – in theory – be able to instantly end the battle, or at bare minimum instantly remove the opposing side’s standard army, leaving it to just the main 2 to duke it out. However, a vast majority of these trump cards has at least 1 method of dealing with them, usually multiple. These are all of the checks and counters to those trump cards mentioned above (if you’re familiar with competitive Pokemon, those terms should be familiar to you – a check is anything that can prevent an opposing tool from working once it’s actively on the field, while a counter is either outright immunity or can be brought on after the fact to counteract it).

Bowser’s checks & counters:

Transmutation magic (Bowser, Kamek) – can counter the Metal Virus, and can check the Phantom Rubies, Jewelled Sceptre, Reverie, Mind Control Cannon, and Time Eater. Cannot counter the Chaos Emeralds, as the latter are not only able to undo their own transmutation, but still work even while transmutated.

Reality warping (Castle Bowser, Bowser to a lesser extent) – checks the Phantom Rubies’ own reality warping; Jewelled Sceptre, Reverie, the Time Eater, and Supreme. Counters the Mind Control Cannon.

Item theft (Kamek) – checks the Phantom Rubies, Jewelled Sceptre, Reverie, and Time Eater. Because of the presence of both the Chaos Emeralds and Sol Emeralds, attempting to steal either of them without knowing how to control them will destabilise the universe, and Eggman’s knowledge on this fact will prompt him to leave the universe immediately while Bowser’s side dies, letting him gain a technical win. Phantom Rubies will not work for Eggman’s side when stolen. Some of Eggman’s items can check his trump cards.

Power nullification (Kamek) – can check everything except the Metal Virus and Sage, especially the Chaos Emeralds and Sol Emeralds. While both can be restored by positive emotions, Eggman has never done so himself, and likely can’t due to his poor genuine leadership skills combined with his immense ego; leaving Sage as the only positive bond he has in this fight. Counters the Mind Control Cannon, as it does not function without Hyper-Go-On.

Illusions (King Boo, maybe Kamek) – since the Phantom Rubies are all illusion-based, counteracting the illusions should be a functional check to them.

Bowser’s computer brain (Bowser) – yeah his computer brain. It can restore his memories, allowing Bowser (albeit only Bowser) to counter the memory altering effects of the Modified Phantom Ruby Prototype.

Minion Spirit – makes Bowser’s army immune to mind control from sheer loyalty, if they’re devoted enough. Should also apply to Bowser himself, and is thus a check to both the Metal Virus and the Mind Control Cannon.

Existence erasure (Dream Stone) – is a soft check to everything Eggman can bring out, albeit it’s possible for Eggman to send Metal Sonic, or a Replica of Metal Sonic or Shadow into White Space to search for and restore whatever has been erased, if Eggman’s forces can stall for long enough.

Data immersion (King Boo) – is a very soft counter to Sage, by virtue of being the only individual who can directly deal with her when she’s not piloting Supreme. Cannot check Supreme directly, as Sage was unable to hack any of the Titans and could only pilot Supreme because it had no pilot.

Invulnerability negation (the Pure Hearts) – can negate invulnerability granted by the Chaos/Sol Emeralds.

Raw Power & restoration (the Pure Hearts) – can counter Eggman’s strongest weapons by virtue of equivalent power and counteracting space-time erasure (assuming finite values).

Eggman’s checks & counters:

That weird illusion/selective reality manipulation (the Phantom Rubies) – can check Castle Bowser (and Bowser’s reality manipulation), the Dream Stone, and Fury Bowser.

Reality warping (Reverie) – can check Castle Bowser, the Dream Stone, Fury Bowser, and the Star Rod.

Memory Manipulation – can check everything that doesn’t come from Bowser himself, and even remove some of Bowser’s own checks and counters such as Minion Spirit or his allies.

Dimensional travel (Chaos Control, Sage, potentially the Phantom Rubies) – can counter anyone being removed from the battlefield by Fury Bowser.

Item theft (Forcejewels) – can unreliably check the Wonder Flowers, Dream Stone, Star Rod, Power Stars, Grand Stars, and Pure Hearts. Some of Bowser’s items can check other items of his.

Mind Control Cannon – can unreliably check King Boo’s painting sealing, by forcing King Boo to undo the effect. Not guaranteed to work, given the potential of true minion spirit, but given there is no indication King Boo is particularly loyal it should be more likely to work than not. Even if Eggman is taken out, Sage can use the mind control cannon on King Boo to undo it.

Sage – given she’s not a physical entity and is really on the EggNet, she should be able to ignore Kamek’s mind control and send Eggman out of range to command his troops from afar, or take direct control of Eggman’s army – a check.

Neo Metal Sonic – his bio-data copying means that he can become immune to any check/counter that comes from an innate ability of any of the Koopa Troop, which can potentially counter many of Bowser’s own checks and counters.

Damage transfer (rings) – checks Bowser’s Power Stars, Grand Stars, and Pure Hearts, as they allowed base Sonic to survive hits from The End, a being more powerful than even Solaris and Time Eater.

Shield (Sage) – is able to block hits from even The End, serving as a check to the Power Stars and even Pure Hearts.

Raw power (Chaos Emeralds, Jewelled Sceptre, Sol Emeralds, Time Eater, Supreme) counters Bowser’s Power Stars and the Pure Hearts (assuming peak values).

That’s a lot, isn’t it? But if you noticed, everything has at least 1 check or 1 counter to it, no matter how unreliable that check/counter actually is.

Some highlights include:

The Chaos/Sol Emeralds are only checked by Kamek and the Dream Stone, and attempting to steal them will in fact force a tie from the resulting destruction and destabilisation.

Kamek alone checks so many of Eggman’s trump cards that he’ll end up becoming a priority target as the battle goes on.

Metal Sonic, if he’s not shut down by Kamek, can continue to copy more and more of Bowser’s powers based off of the bio-data of him and his army, which means that with enough time he can gain a majority of the checks and counters that Bowser’s army has, and gain immunity from them as a result (albeit that likely came too late for it to influence the result of the Death Battle).

Sage, due to being part of the EggNet/Cyerbspace, can only be checked by the Dream Stone and King Boo, meaning she’ll become a top priority to deal with by the end of the battle. Piloting Supreme ironically makes her more vulnerable, given that if Supreme is destroyed while she’s piloting it she’ll die too.

Bowser’s computer brain is the only true method Bowser has to deal with the modified Phantom Ruby’s memory manipulation, and he’ll need to get rid of it as soon as possible if he doesn’t want his allies turning against him.

Supreme is the most dangerous of the raw power weapons on Eggman’s army, as it came in pre-charged and doesn’t need continued use of the Chaos Emeralds unless it were to get its power drained, and is invulnerable to conventional damage.

Altogether, the sheer volume of weapons plus the fact that every single one of them has the potential to be stopped in its tracks with the right set up means that ultimately this duel is going to come down to a quick draw – who can pull off a broken win condition first. Which, of course, means that stats is the next most important factor to bring up.

And I’ll be bringing out stats twice for each side, a calculated finite value, and their absolute peak.

Power:

Bowser (base):

Finite: 2.28012318407×10^108 Foe – Can defeat Culex, who claimed – after gaining a 3rd dimensional form – to be capable of destroying all of time and space. Assuming this would destroy the entire universe at every single moment in time down to the Planck time, and assuming the universe is as old as ours from Big Bang to present, this is the value required to destroy the universe. Mario (and by proxy Bowser) has gotten stronger since then.

Peak: Infinite – could defeat Culex, who claimed to be capable of destroying all of time and space.

Power Stars & Grand Stars:

Finite: 8.05115087719×10^50 Foe – 284 Power Stars/Grand Stars, with one possessing enough power to destroy the universe. Likely lower, as Power Stars are weaker than Grand Stars.

Peak: Infinite – unspecified boost from every single Power Star and Grand Star.

Pure Hearts

Finite: 2.28012318407×10^108 Foe – their amp allowed Bowser to defeat foes amplified by the Chaos Heart – which is strong enough to destroy the entire space-time of a universe (same as the Culex finite feat). Much higher to an unquantifiable degree, as every universe should bring back a roughly equivalent value.

Peak: Infinite multiverse – could threaten the entire Mario multiverse.

Eggman (base mechs):

Finite: 1.4125×10^48 Foe – can fight with Sonic, who while weakened could defeat the Erazor Djinn empowered by half of the World of the Arabian Nights, which should be comparable to a universe given it resembles Earth and has stars. Sonic has gotten stronger since then, and Eggman constantly upgrades his machines to match.

Peak: Infinite/2 – the World of the Arabian Nights includes an infinitely sized location, which should make the whole universe infinite in size.

Chaos Emeralds:

Finite: 2.28012318407×10^108 Foe – Solaris could destroy the entire space-time of a universe (same as the finite Culex feat). Much higher to an unquantifiable degree, as every universe should bring back a roughly equivalent value.

Peak: Infinite 4th dimensional multiverse – Solaris could threaten the entire Sonic multiverse (Maginaryworld is explicitly confirmed to be 4th dimensional, and when the (weaker) Paradox Prism shattered Sonic’s prime universe into the Shatterverse, it was divided into multiple universe sized spaces with separate space-times and ended with restoring the original universe within the Shatterverse, suggesting that a universe is a higher dimensional construct housing one or more 3rd dimensional spaces within).

Now that was power, and as you can see who’s stronger depends on whether we’re using finite values or infinite values (Bowser handily taking the advantage in the prior category, Eggman taking the advantage in the latter). But as I said before, raw power is not important in this fight, and merely a bullet point on the list of ways they could win.

The real important stat is speed, and well...

Speed:

Bowser:

Finite: 24,450,000,000,000,000 C (24.45 quadrillion times the speed of light) – Mario flew to the trial galaxies – located at the edge of the universe with a launch star (and back with a Power Star), and can react at these speeds (as evidenced by landing on his feet and picking up star bits on the way) – given this happens before Mario rescues Peach from Bowser, each trip should take no more than 6 hours to make, but I’ll be generous and claim it took 1 minute.

I know Death Battle claimed this trip took 3 seconds, but there’s a loading screen both to and from the Trial Galaxies, and when the loading screen ends Mario is already back at the observatory – and the trip to the galaxy features a menu while Mario is flying at high speeds (as evidenced by the moving speed lines), which doesn’t have any time limit to the player selecting the Star, making the true time frame hard to accurately verify.

Peak: 24,450,000,000,000,000 C (24.45 quadrillion times the speed of light) – Mario flew to the trial galaxies – located at the edge of the universe with a launch star (and back with a Power Star), and can react at these speeds (as evidenced by landing on his feet and picking up star bits on the way).

Eggman:

Finite: 48,900,000,000,000,000 C (48.9 quadrillion times the speed of light) – Time Eater erased the entire universe in seconds. Even though we see Shadow sent to White Space in the time it took to raise his hands, and Sonic’s chilli dog landed back in his hand instead of landing on the ground after he defeated the Time Eater, I’ll be strict and assume a 30 second time span. Eggman was piloting the Time Eater, and Classic Sonic and Shadow could each react to this feat happening to them, so by all accounts this should scale to Eggman’s reaction time (and the reaction time of his post-Generations machines). In addition, later in Frontiers base Sonic could react to the Titans, who are themselves empowered by the Chaos Emeralds.

Peak: Immeasurable – regularly battles Sonic, who could restore areas erased from time by the Time Eater with his raw speed.

… Oh. Even with being generous towards Bowser, and strict towards Eggman, Eggman still ended up faster. You could argue that I could be even more generous towards Bowser, or even more strict towards Eggman – and that’s true – however, the opposite is true as well.

If we treat both these feats as generously as possible Eggman’s speed feat should still be extremely close to Bowser’s, enough to have little relevance, while if we treat both of them as strictly as possible Mario’s half-universal trip has a lot more potential time to cross than Sonic’s chilli dog flight.

All of this, of course, while ignoring the fact that Shadow Generations just provided a better speed feat than before with no ambiguity, showing Time Eater erasing the universe in 12 seconds – and no loading screen, so the timeframe is exact. This likely wouldn’t be added into the voiceover, but would absolutely make it into the analysis & black boxes given information from Mario & Luigi: Brotherhood made it in.

And that’s just talking about the finite values, once we delve into their hypothetical peaks that speed advantage just gets exaggerated, and Eggman just speed blitzes Bowser’s entire army and wins for free.

If we exclusively discuss in terms of finite values then Bowser’s strong enough to one shot anything that isn’t a Super tier in base, but only his Pure Hearts form is strong enough to contend with those Super tiers. This raw power gap would also prompt Eggman to rely on his trump cards far quicker than usual (something he already tends to go for), making an incredibly close match, but ultimately one that Eggman should come out on top for.

This in addition to Sage being able to make millions of calculations in a short time span, whose battle strategy is said by Sage herself to be on focusing on the best method of survival, and whose intelligence surpasses even Eggman’s, thanks to her AI nature and being integrated with the Ancients’ Cyber Space.

Or in other words…

Eggman wins.

Thank you for reading my 3 part response to Death Battle – or at least reading any one of my 3 parts, I hope you enjoyed this deep dive into the match-up, and I hope Death Battle going independent means that they can continue to push and evolve the show even further beyond what it’s been this last decade.

Happy independence!

[centralcitylibrary]

Response to Death Battle's Bowser vs. Dr. Eggman: Part 2/3 - Corrections

Welcome to part 2 of my 3 part response to Death Battle. This part while focus on the only major negative I had with the episode, the errors. Though I won’t focus on my feelings about the errors, merely on listing all of them out (though some opinions may come out on particularly egregious cases).

You can find part 1 here.

This list will be divided into 6 categories, 3 for Bowser and 3 for Eggman – Nitpicks, Minor Errors, and Major Errors.

A nitpick is, as the name suggests, just me nitpicking. It has no relevancy to the debate or the quality, and are only included because I’m listing every single error I notice.

A minor error is something that I do feel is an important detail, but one which ultimately has no impact on the battle.

A major error is something that’s such a significant error that I believe it has a major influence on the result (not just anything that could give an Eggman win, but also anything that can give Bowser an even greater advantage than he already has).

In addition, I will admit I am significantly more familiar with Sonic than I am with Mario, so you can expect to see more errors listed for Eggman’s side of the analysis than Bowser’s, but I will still find every error I can.

Bowser

Nitpicks:

Fake Bowser is inconsistently referred to as either his brother or a fake impostor (page 50 of 「ファミリーコンピュータ必勝道場⑦スーパーマリオブラザーズ2」; page 89 of 「スーパマリオブラザーズ2<裏ワザ大全集>」; page 65 of 「パーフェクト版 マリオキャラクター大事典」; for just a few examples of being referred to as a fake Bowser)

Paper Mario is canon, though I can tell the intent behind this line is to say that it’s the same Bowser – a factoid which is highly debated within the community thanks to Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam. Though given Death Battle’s soft composite rules, yeah even if they’re not the same Bowser I too would 100% counter Paper Bowser as valid for the compositing.

I know it’s a joke referring to Bowsette, but as far as is confirmed, only Toadette can use the Super Crown.

Dreamy Bowser didn’t try using the Dream Stone’s power to erase Mario & Luigi, despite intending to do so moments before the Dream Stone got shattered – this implies he was unable to as Dreamy Bowser.

Minor errors:

There is no calculation for Raphael’s constellation explosion.

Culex isn’t extra-dimensional…? In fact he makes it very clear that he’s a 2-dimensional being normally.

Major errors:

Their calculation on taking Mario from the edge of the universe to the Star Comet Observatory in 3 seconds is a ludicrously generous timeframe provided, given that the beginning of the trip is not seen, and has a loading screen separating the Trial Galaxies and the Star Comet Observatory that can provide an unspecified time-frame between. In fact, the fact that Lumas can also turn into Launch Stars shows that the two should be equivalent, and the Launch Stars that took Mario to the edge of the galaxy have a demonstrably longer time-span even ignoring the loading screens.

Kamek’s inability to mind control Eggman’s army is listed as a downside – despite the fact that Eggman himself is not immune, making such an ability actually a massive advantage.

One of the black boxes in the conclusion mentions that there’s arguments for incalculable speeds on Bowser’s end… But in my digging and asking, I have yet to find an actual, proper argument for incalculable speed, just claims without sources. Given that Eggman has multiple separate arguments for incalculable speeds through statements and feats, lacking such arguments puts a massive disadvantage towards Bowser’s side of things.

Doesn’t even mention 1-Ups

Eggman

Nitpicks:

While claiming Eggman was neglected based on his own recollections sounds fine on paper, it bears emphasising that Eggman’s immense ego + consistent lack of empathy makes this reading unreliable. It’s entirely plausible that Eggman merely did not appreciate his family grieving for his deceased cousin instead of focusing on him.

Eggman considered his grandfather a hero as a child, and was distraught at the notion that Gerald’s final days were planning to kill everyone (and specifically Eggman, let’s be real) – but he evidently continues to hold his grandfather in high regard afterwards.

MeteorTech is technically correct, but every single piece of dialogue in the game calls it MeteoTech, with only background details referring to it as MeteorTech.

Eggman was never seeking revenge against Shadow, and that wasn’t the reason he and Infinite even teamed up in the first place (in fact their team up was prior to Infinite even meeting Shadow).

E-102 Gamma and Chaos Gamma are separate robots (although the latter uses recycled parts of the former).

Metal Series is a term exclusively used in Archie Comics, a canon which was name dropped as a source deemed too different. Hilariously, not a single member listed in this series is even called Metal [x].

Sage wasn’t made as an assistant, she was made to hack into the Ancient’s technology and to protect Eggman.

The spacial displacement trap never backfired, its effects were merely disabled when the Eggperial City’s power ran out (Sonic the Hedgehog issue 61, IDW Comics).

Never led some beloved villains (and Zavok), he made Replicas of said beloved villains (and Zavok).

Mecha Sonic, Mecha Knuckles, Gemerl, the Deadly Six, Trip, and Mother Wisp never betrayed Eggman

Mecha Sonic and Mecha Knuckles were abandoned (Sonic the Hedgehog: Scrapnik Island)

Gemerl was reprogrammed.

The Deadly Six were enslaved.

Trip was forced to help Eggman against her will (Sonic Superstars: Fang’s Big Break).

Mother Wisp was drained of Hyper-Go-On, and then escaped.

Minor errors:

There is no calculation for the Death Egg’s Final Egg Blaster’s constellation destroying power.

Their description of the Phantom Ruby is technically accurate, but misleading – those caught under the Phantom Ruby’s control experience the illusions as reality (under the discretion of the user, as Eggman was confident the sun wouldn’t affect him despite being able to see it) – it should be a form of legitimate reality warping, but selective (and still able to be countered by counters to illusions in general).

Super Eggman/the Egg Field only requires prep time in the same way that all of Eggman’s technology requires prep time – I don’t know why it got singled out. Besides, Eggman has multiple gemstones that possess infinite energy in this match that could be used to gather up energy quickly.

That calculation they made of Solaris reaching other timelines? Yeah, that was actually it dying. They quite literally calculated the wrong scene.

The artificial Phantom Ruby (the one that requires an external power source) can quite literally make an infinite number of Replicas, each and every individual one being equally powerful to the original – this ranges from basic robots like the Egg Pawn to powerful and unique individuals such as Shadow (artificial life form), Zavok (a demon), and Chaos 0 (made out of liquid). The original Phantom Ruby can make Replicas even faster in comparison, including of Infinite himself.

Eggman’s modified prototype Phantom Ruby that affected the entire planet could also create an infinitely sized Egg Field – and manipulate that infinite space within – such a feat would require infinite range.

White Space is an area of nonexistence, where areas erased from the timeline are sent. The Time Eater is able to freely enter and leave this place, and can out-speed Sonic (whose speed can undo this erasure) even while Eggman was explicitly holding back for fun. This should be enough to counteract Dreamy Bowser’s existence erasure (since you can’t erase something from existence if it already doesn’t exist), but even if it doesn’t Eggman has plenty of mechs and Replicas, and knows where White Space is.

Sage doesn’t just send people to CyberSpace. She can separate their souls from their body and leave said soul in a digitised state that’s unable to interact with the world. And trap them in Cyber Cages where they have disturbing visions, unable to see the real world, and cannot escape from those Cyber Cages without an external member collecting memory tokens to stabilise them – and even that comes with corrupting whoever breaks the Cyber Cages. While this can be undone by defeating the source of the Corruption, in this instance that cause is Sage herself, whose body is intangible and whose consciousness resides within the EggNet and/or Cyber Space.

Null Space is explicitly closed off from all other dimensions and was considered inescapable by Eggman himself, and even blocked off communication (including by Tails, who casually built a communication device that can reach to other dimensions).

The Chaos Emeralds still function while transmutated (via reality warping, but still), and can even undo their own transmutation alongside the transmutation of the metal virus (Sonic Otherwordly Comedy, and Sonic the Hedgehog Issue 29).

Sage, being an AI, doesn’t physically exist to be sucked up by King Boo’s stolen E. Gadd tech. Even if we assume she is vulnerable regardless, she can still teleport at will, providing an easy method of avoiding the pull of such technology.

Doesn’t even mention Rings.

Major errors:

Infinite never had the original Phantom Ruby, he had the finalised prototype Eggman made.

The Egg Wizard, the multiversal mech that’s more powerful than the Chaos and Sol Emeralds combined (given their overall power should be identical to each other and Eggman references both of them in the same sentence), whose ultimate move is a planet busting attack. I don’t get why multiversal gets limited to an optional side bar when this mech’s only appearance features a very plain statement that it’s at least multiversal.

Sage never helped Sonic defeat the Titans. In fact, she used the Titans to fight against Sonic – and this directly contradicts their claim that Sage isn’t able to calculate a win condition against the Titans – not only was that attributed to The End, but Sage was also explicitly banned from making any calculations that involved teaming up with Sonic when she made such a claim, made one such calculation before being banned, and immediately came up with a second one upon being permitted to ally with Sonic.

Solaris reached alternate timelines in 20 seconds – you know, alternate timelines, the thing that’s very famously able to be reached with a finite time span. Seriously, whoever decided on that calculation, did they even notice the logical flaw in their statement?

And on the topic of Solaris, despite very plainly saying it reached alternate timelines they still cap out its overall power as just universal. On top of that, they argue that 260+ Power Stars and 24+ Grand Stars should be ultimately greater.

They claim the Chaos Emeralds are only universal despite also saying that Time Eater could affect the entire multiverse (and Super Sonic obviously scales to him)?

Hey, so you know Maginaryworld? A place that visibly has its own time, contains the dreams of the entire Sonic the Hedgehog multiverse, and is outright stated to be a 4th dimensional space (this is from a licensed magazine published by SoftBank, a known partner of SEGA, and supports that 4th Dimension Space’s name is not a name fallacy)? Yeah, didn’t even get a passing mention in this episode (apart from Void, who was only mentioned in a black box without mentioning his power).

Hoo boy, that was a lot, wasn’t it? Just from my own views, that results in a total of 42 errors – 14 nitpicks, 15 minor errors, and 13 major errors.

As I hopefully made clear in part 1, this isn’t me declaring their research egregious – a big part of the high volume of errors comes from the fact that there’s quite a lot of information to present, digest, and discuss – and I’m sure there’s more information that wasn’t even brought up because it just wasn’t relevant to the debate, given just how big and complex it was.

Still though, if I have so many issues with the analysis, enough to make a list of 40 errors, shouldn’t I say who I believe wins and why?

No, but I will anyways.

It’s… a really complex match up, and can’t be boiled down into a short post, however – so that will have to be saved for part 3.

[centralcitylibrary]

Response to Death Battle's Bowser vs. Dr. Eggman: Part 1/3 - Review

These three parts feature the following media from Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Mario Bros., and Death Battle:

Basically all of Mario

Basically all of Sonic

Death Battle’s Bowser vs. Dr. Eggman

Welcome to part 1 of my response to Death Battle, the review. What do I think about this episode, the first game Sonic episode since Shadow vs. Ryuko? Eggman’s triumphant return since Season 1 over a decade ago?

Well...

Let’s not beat around the bush. This is, without a doubt, Death Battle’s best episode yet. That’s high praise, given it’s had incredible episodes over its lifespan (with multiple contenders for best/favourite episode coming just from Season 10 alone), but this episode has a very small number of episodes that can even compete with it for that position.

As you can probably surmise, major spoilers for the episode in this review, and if you somehow stumbled onto this review without having seen the episode, I urge you to go watch it. Right now. In fact, here’s a link to the episode itself so you can go watch it.

So the fight begins with Bowser’s wedding-

Nah I’m just tricking, I’m not going to skip the analyses like that, I wouldn’t disgrace the debate side of things like that. What am I, a reaction YouTuber?

Anyways, those analyses were given impressive editing, a genius at both being slick and at properly conveying what information the hosts are talking about. It really does sell every single feat and analysis they display, and the information they give flows naturally from point to point as a result.

Bowser’s analysis sets up the family aspect of him and his army quite well, at first masking it behind a joke over being mistreated and farmed for one-ups, planting the seeds for that reading while also being deliberately absurd enough to not take the supposed mistreatment seriously. It’s very well done subliminal priming for their dive into Bowser’s character.

And focusing on family for Bowser’s analysis set up a great contrast to Eggman’s, where it delved into how awesome and intelligent he is, but also on the fact that he’s really all on his own – that army might be formidable, but not a single one of them is a person in his eyes – with the sole exception to Sage. He’s so lonely that his only family was an AI girl that he created.

And both analyses cover a good blend of their most iconic and most dangerous weapons. While blatantly impossible to mention everything (even mentioned by the hosts themselves in regards to just Bowser’s troops), they did cover quite a wide blend, and every single trump card the two possessed was at least mentioned, either in the individual analyses or the post-analysis at the end.

… And yet the analyses also contain the worst part of the episode, and the main reason I wouldn’t call it perfect. Yes, the research was off, even with the black boxes included there were multiple incorrect scaling claims and questionable interpretations of how some of that equipment worked (for example, how they claimed that the Pure Hearts nullified the Chaos Heart, despite the fact that even after two uses of the Pure Hearts the Chaos Heart was still threatening to destroy everything; or how they deemed the Phantom Ruby to lose to real reality manipulation despite the fact that – for anyone caught in the Phantom Ruby’s illusions – it IS real reality manipulation).

Given the sheer size and volume of everything, it’s not a deal breaker for the episode like others are (and like a certain episode just earlier this “season”), but it’s still disappointing to see both sides not quite get their dues.

I won’t focus on it anymore however in this part, and from this point onwards I’ll operate under the assumption that the information presented in the episode is 100% accurate for the sake of the review.

… Now, if the analyses are already this good, and I’m saying the worst part of the episode is contained within them, then what does that say about the actual animation? Especially a fight like this, where it’s simultaneously a fight between two armies and one where both sides have a billion instant win buttons – such a combination is inherently difficult to write and difficult to animate, a recipe for disaster in most circumstances.

… Not this time.

This fight was perfection.

The first quarter or so of the match-up focuses on the armies and how well they fare against each other, and it uses that to transition into the first showcase of one of many trump cards – the phantom ruby.

It being so powerful that when Infinite got one tapped (genius idea to amplify gravity when Thwomps exist, loser), the focus on the two armies’ primary focus became just obtaining that gemstone. It’s chaos, different enemies being thrown around all over – even Orbot and Cubot get involved, that’s how important maintaining control over it is.

And given how powerful just the phantom ruby alone is, when that Chance Time guarantees the destruction of the Phantom Ruby, the battle immediately pivots into both combatants and their generals using their trump cards, with the armies turning into a background detail as a result.

And boy did they really sell the raw power of those trump cards. Neo Metal Sonic defeating standard Bowser in one hit and Super Neo contending with Fury Bowser after the latter overpowered both the Death Egg Robot and Sage, Fury Bowser breaking through the Death Egg Robot in a single strike, and that Grand Star boost being so powerful it obliterates Super Neo and the entirety of the Egg Fleet combined in a single blast.

Everything hits hard, and just from seeing them play out we can see that this is what will call the shots in this war.

And all that raw power comes to a head when Eggman commands Sage to fire the Death Egg’s Final Egg Blaster. This is also where the mini-story that was in the animation comes to a head here – Eggman gathering them all up under the false pretense of a wedding to take them out at once, prematurely assuming the fight’s won (and only entering it himself when he believes that), and how callously he sacrifices any robot if it’s for his own sake. Bowser, meanwhile, focused on keeping his own troops alive when the Phantom Ruby starts decimating them, and unleashed the Grand Star due to his fury at seeing Bowser Jr. harmed (which given that he was already Fury Bowser is saying something), and fighting side by side with his army and generals the whole time.

It all comes to a close with the Death Egg, as Eggman’s troops know that they’re being completely sacrificed – the only reason they’re even able to flee being because they’re all being sacrificed in an instant. Bowser, meanwhile, jumps in the way and sacrificing himself to save his army.

And it all means that when Dry Bowser emerges, Eggman’s left with no tools, no options, against the entirety of the Koopa Troop – despite the fact that only Bowser and his son were needed to close out the fight, periodically closing out Eggman’s last few remaining options one by one. He can’t fire the Death Egg again, he can’t run, he can’t use his jetpack – even his weak little gun is denied the opportunity to even fire off a shot.

And his death is celebrated as coins rain down from the sky onto the entire army.

It’s an incredible animation that really sold just how chaotic such a fight would go down with all of their best stuff combined. My only negative is that Sage ultimately did very little, I definitely think they could’ve given her a moment of commanding the Eggman Armada while Eggman himself is busy elsewhere, or a brief POV shot to showcase her aiming at Bowser’s army instead of Bowser, or gave her a voice actress to provide suggestions from her analyses.

Still though, this was already a battle jam packed full of so many factors that it would be hard to include such scenes without ruining the pacing, so I can’t really hold them against it.

Oh, and the music. I don’t have the words to really describe it properly, but the music’s incredible and fits the fight very well. Calling it Game Over is a nice touch.

And then the post-analysis kicks in, and closes out why the Death Battle team came to this conclusion for the battle. It’s a standard post-analysis, but with some really nice brief looks into alternate scenarios. I don’t like how literally all but one of them is Bowser winning for what is supposedly a really close match (and even that one exception isn’t given a conclusion), but they’re great, I really hope they show up again in future episodes when it’s appropriate to have them.

This episode was originally planned for Season 10, but ultimately had to get pushed back due to taking too long to fit in, but man am I glad they gave it the time they needed to, this is without a doubt my favourite Sonic episode in Death Battle. Wait no, scratch that, it’s my favourite episode overall in Death Battle.

I do not normally do reviews on this blog (as you can probably tell), but if it’s something you’d like to see more I can do it for some future Sonic games and/or future Sonic episodes of Death Battle. I mainly did a review this time because I wanted to preface just how much I enjoyed the episode before I delve into parts 2 and 3.

And before I forget (again), I have a Discord set up for this very blog, a temporary link will be available here, and a permanent link should be edited into my introductory message for the blog.

I hope to see you there!

[centralcitylibrary]

Temporary Help Wanted!

My previous Help Wanted post is still as relevant as ever, but I also have need of some temporary assistance.

Due to an unexpected case of being unable to play the game, I need someone willing to assist me in counting the robots that are present in Sonic Adventure.

If you are willing to assist, there are there general categories I need:

Robots with an animal inside (most of them)

Robots without an animal inside (Pirates, Cart Kikis, Beats (which despite common assumption are not actually infinite), and the ships

Weapons that are internally treated as enemies but are obviously not (Missiles, Mines, and Missiles Launchers, all from Sky Chase)

Named characters that fit the criteria (such as E-102 Gamma) need not be counted.

Whoever assists will be credited in the lore piece this is being used for.

Thank you in advance for your assistance.

[centralcitylibrary]

The Truth About Chaos Control

“But his most remarkable feat is “Chaos Control.” By tapping into the power of a Chaos Emerald, he can warp space and time, moving freely and dominating the competition. I’m… Still working on replicating the technique.”

-Dr. Ivo “Eggman” Robotnik, Shadow 101: A Brief History of Shadow the Hedgehog

If you know Shadow the Hedgehog, you know Chaos Control, the iconic move that’s associated with him. Eggman’s description says it all, you use a Chaos Emerald to teleport or freeze time.

…

But do you need a Chaos Emerald?

I’m going to delve into the history of Chaos Control, and really get to the bottom of this, and whether this piece of common knowledge has any weight to it or not.

This document talks about the following entries:

Sonic Adventure 2

Sonic Battle

Sonic Heroes

Shadow the Hedgehog (2005)

Sonic the Hedgehog (2006)

Sonic Rivals

Sonic Rivals 2

Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW Comics) Issue #59

First thing I want to establish is that this limitation was even established in the first place, and not just a recent addition. Fortunately, that’s not very difficult, as we get statements in Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic Heroes, Sonic 06, Sonic Rivals, and his Sonic Channel profile that all claim he uses Chaos Emeralds for Chaos Control.

Sonic Adventure 2 (US manual), page 7 (the scan just cuts like that, I presume it’s an error on the actual page as well?)

Sonic Heroes (English manual), page 6

Sonic Rivals official website (archived) (visual error is likely due to imperfect emulation of the original website)

SA2 even presents warping with an artificial Chaos Emerald as an impressive feat, implying that doing so without one at all is impossible. Only for Shadow to immediately use Chaos Control seconds later in his fight against Sonic (and we know it’s Chaos Control despite him not shouting the phrase as it looks identical when Sonic does it, who does shout Chaos Control as part of teleporting).

So what gives?

Is it maybe a matter of proximity to the Chaos Emeralds? That would line up with the Biolizard using Chaos Control in front of the heroes, Metal Overlord using Chaos Control against Team Super Sonic, or Devil Doom using Chaos Control near Super Shadow, or Metal Sonic using Chaos Control when racing against Shadow.

Except that can’t be the case, as Shadow can use Chaos Control even while on the other side of the Black Comet. Well, maybe the range is surprisingly generous, only needing Shadow to be vaguely a city’s worth of distance away?

It can’t be that either, Shadow can use Chaos Control while in Chaotic Inferno, a whole universe away (and Rouge left behind the 6 Chaos Emeralds), but laments that he cannot escape from this universe without one when the portal closes, despite Metal Sonic’s Chaos Emerald quite literally being right next to him.

Is there any explanation at all? Well, kind of.

In Sonic Battle, almost all of Shadow’s moves are described as using Chaos Control

A list of such moves:

Shadow Dash

S. Teleport

Shadow Guard

Shadow Heal

C. Nightmare

Chaos Upper

Chaos Magic

Air C. Magic

Chaos Burst (implied via Air C. Burst)

Air C. Burst

??? (Shadow)

In story, Shadow’s power to fight is attributed to his Chaos Emerald. But when he surrenders his Chaos Emerald to Emerl, he reassures that he’ll be able to continue fighting despite the lack of the Chaos Emerald as “I no longer need it. I have Maria in my heart.” Which simultaneously suggests that physical possession (or extremely close proximity) is required in order to use Chaos Control normally, and that there are ways to utilise it without a Chaos Emerald.

… That explanation works for Shadow, and it’s possible to handwave it away with Metal Sonic (after all, it’s copying abilities allowed it to become one of the most powerful characters in Sonic canon, superior to solo super forms which are powered by 7 Chaos Emeralds), but what about the Biolizard? Devil Doom? Shadow himself during Shadow the Hedgehog (2005)’s Last Story? Those can’t be under the same conditions.

Is there an explanation that can account for everything?

Well, there is one…

In the IDW Comics, in issue #59 (part 3 of the Urban Warfare arc), on page 11, Shadow makes a claim regarding his use of Chaos Control.

“I don’t have the energy to perform Chaos Control without an emerald.”

The power of the Chaos Emeralds are considered a form of energy, dubbed Chaos Energy, or Chaos Emerald Energy, or- you get the idea. We’ve seen non-Chaos Emerald objects hold them before, like the Chaos Drives invented by Professor Gerald. It’s plausible that the various times Shadow (and other such characters) used Chaos Control without a Chaos Emerald were derived from using leftover energy from when they had prior possessed a Chaos Emerald (or Metal Sonic’s copying abilities, which let him compete with Super Forms directly).

Afterall, the Chaos Emeralds turn your thoughts into power, and has been described as being enriched by the heart. Having the bond of someone close to you etched into your heart could have such an effect to amplify the Chaos Energy leftover, at least enough to delay running out for some time.

Credits

Writer: Numbug

Sources obtained by: Numbug (various videogames), Stoshi (Sonic the Hedgehog IDW #59)

[centralcitylibrary]

A World Without Sonic the Hedgehog

This document talks about the following entries:

Sonic the Hedgehog (1991)

Sonic the Hedgehog 2

SegaSonic the Hedgehog

Sonic the Hedgehog CD

Knuckles' Chaotix

Sonic Adventure

Sonic Adventure 2

Sonic Heroes

Shadow the Hedgehog

Sonic Prime

The beginning of a videogame is important.

You need to make a good impression so as to encourage those just trying the game (or just trying it at an associate’s place) to commit to a purchase.

But you also need to teach those same players how to play the game, a hurdle that’s extra tough when accounting for those who have never picked up a controller before.

Older games usually had to dedicate their entire first levels into being subtle tutorials, teaching everything important without halting the flow of the game (it helps that back then it was normalised to print the game’s control scheme in a small booklet that came with the game).

Sonic the Hedgehog 1 was no different, if you passed the game to someone who had never played videogames before ever, you’re most likely going to see one thing first of all.

The player learns how to move left or right, and then walks straight into the first robot (a Motobug) and die.

That’s fine, obviously, that’s why the Motobug is even there in the first place, with rings just prior, so the player learns how to jump before they can continue with the game and see what it has to offer for them.

But I can’t help but wonder…

What if that was Sonic’s fate?

We may never truly know, but here's what I think would happen, in...

A World Without Sonic the Hedgehog

Era 0: the… Where’s the Timeline?

Wait, what?

Ah, right. With no Sonic, Shadow and Silver would never travel back in time to stop Mephiles and Iblis from escaping, creating the fiery post-apocalypse followed by the complete erasure of time itself as Solaris forms and destroys all.

But then Sonic never would’ve died against the Motobug to begin with, since that future never even comes to be, so how would we be able to say this happens for sure when the cause and effect are only possible due to a stable time loop of unknown origin?

Let’s… for simplicity’s sake, let’s assume this is in a timeline where 06 was already undone, shall we? We want to actually have a timeline, afterall.

Era 1: Classic Games

Our inciting incident, Sonic learns what’s happening on South Island, the animals being trapped and turned into robots by his long-time nemesis, Eggman, and runs off to help… directly into that first Motobug.

Eggman’s bounty system, which he had in place long enough that civilian trains he secretly made before this time period were using them, would mean that motobug would get any one “wish” it desired granted, within Dr. Eggman’s realistic capabilities. Likely nothing would come of this, but it is possible that it requests to, like, become Eggman’s strongest robot or something.

Eggman gets his hands on the 6 Chaos Emeralds hiding out amongst the island (given he achieves this even when Sonic stops him, as evidenced by the bad ending of Sonic 1), and from there gains the power needed to take over the world.

As for the supporting cast:

Mighty and Ray probably still get captured, and may or may not escape from Eggman Island. Presumably they do, given the game can be beaten solo or with a team of two as-is. They’re likely Eggman’s biggest obstacles going forward, just by virtue of Eggman’s rapid expansion.

With Eggman in charge, the fate of the world would likely have a resemblance to the Bad Futures of Sonic CD, the world in Sonic Forces, and New Yoke City in Sonic Prime.

But what about the 7th Chaos Emerald? We see at the end of Sonic Origin’s Sonic 1 that the 7th joined up with the other 6 when flying to South Island, but with them never making the trip where was it in the first place? Would it fly off somewhere? And if not to Westside Island, then to where?

It’s not a stretch to say Eggman will eventually be able to find it, especially since Tails is able to make an emerald radar by the time 3&K come around, and Eggman develops his own emerald radar by Sonic Adventure 2.

Amy Rose, whether due to some unconfirmed burgeoning clairvoyance or just fortune telling being an accurate method of telling the future in this continuity, would not get the same warning of a hero saving her on Little Planet, and as such would have no reason to go. Now, would Eggman grab the Time Stones?

Maybe.

But also maybe not. If he thinks the Chaos Emeralds are that much better he might just decide there’s no point, like when he left the Master Emerald behind because he was so impressed with the Phantom Ruby.

Given the Chaos Emeralds are also capable of time travel, it’s really a moot point in the grand scheme of things.

Tails, without Sonic to save him from bullies, would likely go on to develop vaguely similar to Nine from Sonic Prime (given that his mindset was born as a direct result of never being saved from bullies). Now that's not to say that he'll wind up exactly the same, the whole point of the Shatterverse is that they're different versions of the same cast, afterall.

Knuckles… would remain on his floating island, defending the Master Emerald from Eggman. At least until Newtrogic High Zone appears out of the ocean suddenly, then he’ll investigate that. Knuckles’ Chaotix is most likely the game that’s closest to playing out how it’s presented, with the only difference being that there’s no Metal Sonic and Eggman had plenty of time to prepare an emerald powered army, but conversely caught off-guard by so many people able to fight him all at once.

But beyond that, there's not much involvement Knuckles would have - afterall, Eggman's main benefit is the Chaos Emeralds, but the Master Emerald is capable of neutralising the Chaos Emeralds, and it's unlikely Eggman wants to push his luck unless he finds a good enough opening.

Say...

You remember that big dragon in Sonic Superstars, right? The one that just gets freed from no discernible cause? Yeah that probably still happens, causes problems too. But like, I don’t even know what it’s doing in the main timeline, there’s no way I can predict what it’ll do in this timeline. Just going to ignore it, pretend Eggman captures it somehow (like he planned to).

Era 2: the Adventure Games

Sonic Adventure… just wouldn’t happen. There’s no reason for it when Eggman’s already taking over the world with minimal resistance. As a result, Chaos and Tikal never get freed from the Master Emerald.

Big, given that he lives in a jungle, likely wouldn’t be bothered by Eggman’s takeover until it starts tearing apart his home. Gamma, if he exists, would never find reason to question his existence (and those birds will likely stay trapped).

Sonic Shuffle… might happen? It’s hard to say, but it’s within the realm of possibility. Nothing about Amy or Knuckles are fundamentally different that would lead them to decline, Big would probably still show up (if Gamma’s presence is given an in-universe explanation then it’s likely Big’s presence is within the realm of canon too).

And since the power of dreams can bring people back within Maginaryworld, and Sonic is already a world famous celebrity, it’s entirely plausible that he’d be present to help out, though I doubt he could just go back to Earth (given Gamma never went back either). Uh… Eggman ironically wouldn’t be present, not because he wouldn’t want to get the Precioustone, but because he wouldn’t be able to follow Sonic due to his death (not that I really understand how he managed to achieve that in the first place...). Tails is the only real outlier here, and likely wouldn’t end up in Maginaryworld.

Sonic Adventure 2 doesn’t happen… except for Knuckles and Rouge clashing. Unlike before, their fight over the Master Emerald would likely happen right away, given Eggman would not happen to be in the area.

Cream and Vanilla would get kidnapped for unspecified reasons, and then after that… Heroes wouldn’t happen, as there’s no Metal Sonic.

And already things aren’t looking great, are they? Eggman’s taken over the world, Tails has become a cynical, self-centered hermit, most of the cast are either fighting against Eggman’s emerald-boosted forces or just trying to protect themselves, and the nature and beauty of the planet is slowly getting torn apart.

Yeah, well, now the Black Arms arrive. Strong enough to overpower both GUN and the Eggman Empire, in a timeline where only one of those exist now, and who have the motivation to awaken Shadow – someone who wants revenge on humanity – and is as powerful as SA2 Sonic would’ve been, without a Sonic to necessitate Eggman making bigger and stronger robots, they'll be more than a match for Eggman.

And Eggman has all 7 Chaos Emeralds gathered together. This is the fate of humanity without Sonic, kept aboard the Black Comet as food for the rest of their lives. Even if Shadow tried to stop Black Doom (due to wanting to outright destroy the planet), he’ll just end up getting mind controlled due to his genetic relation with Black Doom.

Some miscellaneous events that would not be effect by this:

Blaze’s universe would be rather peaceful, with no Eggman Nega from the future to cause problems. But also Blaze would forever be in the mindset of being cursed to be alone and needing to do things by herself.

Erazor Djinn would not be able to find the 7 World Rings without someone not native to his world to collect them (assuming his book world doesn't get destroyed upon the physical book's destruction).

Merlina’s spell to summon “a hero from another world” either wouldn’t work or would bring in… someone else. So she’d either die from King Arthur or there would be too many unknown variables to even try and predict what will happen (again assuming the world's existence isn't reliant on the physical book).

The Wisps never get captured en masse? Yay?

Time Eater chilling in the void.

Dodon Pa will have to find his racers elsewhere.

All in all, it’s quite a good thing that the future of Sonic’s world wasn’t dependent on the very first time you played a Sonic the Hedgehog game, because that first run would have almost certainly ended in an apocalypse.

[centralcitylibrary]

Arceus vs Solaris: a Battle of the Deities of Light

There’s been a question burning in my mind. A question I am unable to shake away from my thoughts. Eat, sleep, research, it all comes back to one thing, one all consuming question…

Can Solaris, Soleanna’s Sun God, triumph over Arceus, Sinnoh’s Original One?

I decided that I couldn’t take it anymore, so that’s why I’m here in the library, checking out anything I can find in the mythology section. I’ve got the information I need for Sonic the Hedgehog’s Solaris, so we’ll see what I’m able to do for Pokemon’s Arceus.

These won’t be entirely comprehensive overviews (mainly because Pokemon, by the sheer nature of being an RPG with a lot of moves, inherently has a lot to go over), but I will be sure to provide enough information to make sure you all can understand the conclusion.

Oh, and just so we’re clear, when applicable the standard rules for this lore blog will also apply to the Pokemon side of things where appropriate (the key differences being “no word of god”, and by extension using the main Pokemon continuity, a distinction that only matters when not using WoG statements).

Solaris, the Sun God, the Flames of Disaster…

Ah, Soleanna, one of many popular tourist destinations, and it’s hard not to see why. Between the old castle town of Soleanna, the city of water, and the various celebrations such as the water festival, it is truly a one of a kind experience.

Even their mythology is fascinating, with the yearly Festival of the Sun to give thanks to Solaris for watching over them with its eternal light. And it’s no wonder that Solaris would watch over them, as legends speak of the sacred flame being entrusted to the royal family.

But it’s not all good things, as Solaris is also said to have a wrath which, if awakened, would destroy the world - taking the form of Iblis, the Flames of Disaster. As Iblis, it could burn the world to ash if it wanted to, blocking out the sun to keep new life from growing, and even create an unending army composed of incarnations of itself from its rage. And even if someone were strong enough to defeat it, it would merely continue to reincarnate again and again for eternity. Once it’s released, the only way to stop it would be to seal it within a royal soul via a Chaos Emerald (although in theory, if a soul were already alit with flames they might serve as a substitute). Given the mythology is centred within Soleanna, the assumption is that a royal soul refers to the royal family.

Hidden deep within the library, I could also find a few tales of Mephiles the Dark, a schemer and manipulator who can take physical form by absorbing one’s shadow, and then mimics the power from whom he absorbed the shadow of. And on top of that, displays some level of control over time, even banishing others through time. If he’s absorbed your shadow, he can hide within it, unable to be expelled by anything besides the holy light of the Chaos Emeralds (given the lack of information, it’s hard to judge whether this is due to the light in and of itself, or if enough Chaos Energy is required).

Of course, as with every culture, the Chaos Emeralds manage to find a way to sneak themselves in somewhere. It’s said that if Solaris were to channel the miracle gems, it would become a transcendent being with a body of light, and be able to reduce all of time down into nothing, until the very concept of time ceases to exist. That’s even more impressive than it sounds, since to bring time itself down to nothing, it would have to bring Cyber Space, a universe composed entirely of information, down to nothing, alongside Maginaryworld, the 4th dimensional universe that holds the dreams of the entire multiverse.

But that’s not all, this empowered form of Solaris can exist throughout all of time at once, it can summon blue eyes of solaris to pull things in (even ignoring the protective properties of rings), or orange ones to spit out debris. It can fire laser-like beams, and it would even be able to harm the invincible super forms. And given this true form is achieved with the Chaos Emeralds, it might even be invincible itself (and can create a momentary shield that protects it from harm even from beings that can bypass said invincibility).

If this Solaris is a real being, then the people of Solaris have very, very good reason to keep it happy, as enraging it could very well reduce all of existence down to nothing…

Arceus, the Original One, Almighty Sinnoh…

Over in the world of Pokemon, the Sinnoh region has its own legends about the world and the universe. Their own theories on how the world came to be. In the beginning, before space, before time even, there just existed the primordial chaos.

Then within that primordial space an egg came into being. When this egg hatched, the Pokemon Arceus came to being. Arceus then created three beings from within this primordial nothingness: Dialga - whose existence caused time to start flowing, Palkia - whose existence caused space to start expanding, and Giratina - whose existence brought both matter and antimatter (most sources omit Giratina’s presence entirely, as its violent disposition caused Arceus to banish it).

And so Arceus created three more beings: Uxie - which granted knowledge to the world, Mesprit - which granted emotion to the world, and Azelf - which granted willpower to the world.

Palkia and Dialga created matter, and then Uxie, Mesprit, and Azelf created spirit. And then Arceus went into a deep, everlasting slumber.

Despite the everlasting slumber, there have been a small handful of claims towards spotting Arceus - one of a trainer from the Sinnoh champion battling and catching it, one of a trainer from Johto with it in their possession being taken to the Sinjoh Ruins and witnessing the creation of an egg, one of a team of Pokemon Rangers situated in the Oblivia region calming it down and convincing it not to destroy the universe it created.

Most interesting one, however, is this old record from the Sinnoh region (back when it was known as the Hisui region), about when the very first Pokedex was created. It speaks of a trainer who was sent from the present to the ancient past and tasked with catching every single Pokemon by Arceus itself; and upon completion faced off against and defeated Arceus. Then to claim that Arceus as we know it is only a fragment of the real thing. Given that the Hisui Pokedex includes entries on what appear to be Porygon, a Pokemon we know the date of invention, there appears to be at least some validity to this time travel.

This supreme creator deity should be capable of everything its creations have been able to achieve, but on a much grander scale. Given that includes the universe, and plausibly many universes, that’s quite a lot of things it’s capable of. Too much to get into, truthfully.

Just know that there’s a lot of Pokemon who are capable of a lot of crazy things, such as Hoopa going through hyperspace, Porygon travelling through data, Eternamax Eternatus shutting down all (or I should say most) Pokemon’s ability to fight, the list goes on.

If all of these legends are true, and Arceus really was responsible for the creation of an entire multiverse, then it’s a good thing that it’s in an eternal slumber. And it’s a good thing that Pokemon Rangers are able to convince it to leave individual universes alone. Because otherwise, there’s not a single being that could stop it…

So, who wins?

I think overall the winner is-

… What?

Oh, you want some kind of fight, don’t you?

Well I technically could write one, but I don’t really want to put outright fanfiction on the lore blog, even if it’s for the sake of hyping up a lore fight.

Hm… You know what, I’ll put it on my personal writing blog, and just link it from here, that way if you want a fight you can read it, but if you don’t you can just skip to the conclusion.

Go read it here!

…

And welcome back, those of you who went to read the narrated battle, and for those who just want to hear the result, let’s break it down.

Speed wise, Solaris exists throughout all of time, and is able to fight against beings fast enough to dodge its attacks, which should grant it immeasurable combat speeds (movement speed is not relevant due to its temporal omnipresence). Arceus predates time itself and created the deity of time, and so should be immeasurable in kind - and should also allow it to land hits on Solaris throughout all of time to boot, even if it has to actively manipulate time to do so.

However, Arceus can easily gain the speed advantage by boosting its own speed up, up to a 4 times speed advantage.

So what about power?

Both can destroy an entire 4th dimensional universe (the size of these universes don’t matter, since breaking the universe itself is more impressive than destroying anything within said universe), but both benefit from intra-verse scaling differently.

The Palkia/Dialga that threatened to destroy the entire universe in Diamond/Pearl (and the Giratina that interfered in Platinum) were all at level 47 - less than half of their maximum strength. We know this event happened in a vague sense even in continuities that are confirmed 4th dimensional thanks to each event still following an overarching vague timeline - after DP is BW, and then XY (which introduces hyperspace thanks to Hoopa, who can traverse hyperspace via its Hyperspace Hole move).

At level 100, Palkia/Dialga/Giratina should reasonably be capable of threatening the universes contained within a singular copy, which includes that of Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, where there are so many universes that it’s said to be uncountable (possibly even an infinite amount).

Then consider that stats in Pokemon can be given a +6 modifier, for a x4 increase, which puts that uncountable number even further apart from what Solaris would be able to achieve. And the Legend Plate (which Arceus can use even without the aid of a trainer) ensures its Judgement will always be the most efficient attack option possible, ensuring that Arceus will be attacking Solaris’s consciousness.

Even if we are deliberately overly generous for Solaris, its best scaling for durability (and invincibility) only goes to x40 (thanks to scaling from Super Sonic Powered Up and theoretically using the full power of the Chaos Emeralds rather than just an approximate quarter), and that’s well below an uncountable amount. Heck, some people have passed by more universes in their individual Ultra Space trips than that (such as this video, where someone passed by 89 of them, for a total of 90 alternate universes in this one trip).

And Arceus the Original One might possibly have created the entire multiverse rather than just the multi-universal structures that each game copy finds itself in, which would balloon the already clear power gap by millions, maybe even billions of times over.

So even if Solaris could defeat Arceus the Pokemon, Arceus the Original Spirit can merely create an endless stream of Pokemon at equivalent power for Solaris to fight through endlessly, ensuring that it loses the endurance battle. And as the creator of all Pokemon, it should have access to a greater array of specialised abilities than Solaris has ever had to deal with even as its base components.

Solaris vs. Arceus estimated win rate: 0%/0%/100% in favour of Arceus.

And… there you have it. An unfathomable battle between two deities, but in the end it can only ever end one way.

[centralcitylibrary]

What is the Canon Route in Shadow the Hedgehog (2005)?

This document talks about the following entries in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise:

Sonic Battle (passing mention)

Shadow the Hedgehog (2005)

Introduction

“I promise not to make any promises.”

Well thank god I didn’t make any promises with the pace this blog has been going at.

Anyways, welcome to the long overdue return of the lore blog! Let’s not beat around the bush and get right into today’s topic.

What is the canon route in Shadow the Hedgehog (2005)?

For simplicity’s sake, most linked cutscenes will be in English, but if a point requires access to the Japanese version (the version that would’ve been written first, given Takashi Izuka (the game’s writer) is Japanese), then that will be used instead.

Stage 1: Westopolis

This is pretty simple, there straight up cannot be any other choice as the beginning of our pathway, so the only remaining question is which mission does Shadow clear? Well, we can’t say for certain, but the next best guess would be…

Stage 2: Glyphic Canyon

And already we’ve reached a point of uncertainty. We cannot say with complete confidence which of these locals Shadow visited. We cannot even say that he definitely did not visit Lethal Highway, as we just do not have enough evidence for it.

But, we do have more evidence for the other two stages. For Glyphic Canyon, Shadow references visiting it before in Sky Troops, expressing surprise that it could fly, but only if you actually take Shadow to Sky Troops in your route.

Conversely, in Digital Circuit it’s well established that - regardless of what route you take - the Black Arms do assault and ultimately take down the information network, effectively shutting down the internet for GUN and the United Federation for the duration of the war, though with no mention that Shadow is involved.

Given the two possibilities, I’ve deemed Glyphic Canyon to have stronger evidence, as Shadow himself displays recollection, combined with information I’m going to gleam in Stage 4 - coupled with the fact that the takedown of the internet happens even if Shadow refuses to do it himself, as shown in the Hero Mission of Digital Circuit.

Stage 3: Cryptic Castle

Here we not only know which stage Shadow visited for sure, but even which mission he took.

When visiting Cryptic Castle during the Expert Mode run (which implicitly takes place after the main campaign of the story), Cream outright thanks Shadow for rescuing her, something which only takes place here.

Stage 4: ???

Uh.

Well, it’s not like the case in Stage 2, where there was a lack of information to really determine which stage Shadow went to.

Rather, Shadow absolutely, definitely visits at least two of these locations.

The Doom comes about from a sequence of memories present in the Last Story, where among one of them (in Japanese only), a direct re-use of one of Black Doom’s lines during The Doom is used, clearly indicating that Shadow remembers this exact event.

Conversely, we know Shadow also visited Mad Matrix, as Shadow’s impressive hacking skills are imitated by Charmy during the Last Story.

While Shadow would visit Sky Troops after rescuing Cream, if we take the mission he cleared there as canonical evidence.

Death Ruins is one of two points where Black Doom mentions the ritual of prosperity prior to the Last Story’s reveal of what it is (albeit not by name), and the other reference likely can’t be used due to associated information present there.

So, technically, the canon story can’t be any individual route… Buuut, Stage 4 also happens to be the only point where Shadow isn’t collecting a Chaos Emerald. So if multiple stages are already canon, it could be surmised that there could still be a canonical emerald route, and Stage 4 is just a collection of the roadblocks and dead ends along the way on Shadow’s journey.

Stage 5: Iron Jungle/Space Gadget

God damn it.

Iron Jungle has to be canon because, while Eggman hints at it during Mad Matrix, this is the only point where he outright says that Shadow is an android, a lie he admits to during the story’s climax (in easily missable dialogue…)

But Space Gadget also has to be canon, because in that same surge of memories Shadow experiences he also remembers himself quoting shock at remembering his death.

So there you have it, no individual route can be canonical in Shadow the Hedgehog, because mutually exclusive events still happen simultaneously.

Oh, and it should go without saying, but the flashback portion of Lost Impact should be canonical regardless of the route taken, given it’s, you know, a flashback.

Stage 6: Cosmic Fall/Black Comet/Final Haunt

Cosmic Fall needs to happen, not only to help Vector find the computer room, but also because Shadow talks with the GUN Commander, where not only his memory sequence shows that he met with the Commander here. The Commander even apologises for his actions during the Last Story.

Yet at the same time, Shadow’s journey needs to end on the Black Comet (either stage), as that’s where the Last Story begins.

What about GUN Fortress, though? The President is there in the Last Story, and we see that happening at the beginning of GUN Fortress, and we’ve established that multiple stages are canon, so it must be canon too, right?

Well, no. For one, it doesn’t matter whether Shadow attempted to kill him, left him alone, or even attempted to save him would have no bearing on where the President would wind up, as he was already being evacuated.

For two, in GUN Fortress Shadow had associated himself with the Black Arms thoroughly and validated the Commander’s hatred, which contradicts their conversation over in Cosmic Fall where the Commander let go of his hatred.

For three, Central City isn’t blasted lol. I know this only factors for one of two paths leading into that stage, but still lol.

Boss: Egg Dealer (Black Comet)

He needs to get the final Chaos Emerald from somewhere, and we’ve already established why it wouldn’t make sense for Diablon (piloted directly or indirectly by the Commander) to fight Shadow, we know that Black Doom’s plan is to get the Chaos Emeralds and will ask Shadow for them in the Last Story, and we know his journey ends on the Black Comet. So it has to be Eggman by process of elimination.

But at the same time, the ending of that boss fight can’t be canon, given it ends with him killing Eggman, and that clearly doesn’t happen. That’s fine, though, as clearly none of the endings are canon since Shadow has no such epiphany at the beginning of the Last Story and seems to have just collected them.

Outroduction

Well the truth about a singular canonical route is that… there isn’t one. So it’s more likely Shadow in fact hopped through most of these areas in his search for the Chaos Emeralds, and only got his hands on them in specific areas during his search.

Given the timeframe, this clearly makes Shadow one busy hog.

So what’s the most conservative route throughout Shadow the Hedgehog (2005)? It goes a little something like this…

Westopolis Neutral

Glyphic Canyon Dark (awakens the temple)

Cryptic Castle Hero (saves Cream & Cheese)

The Doom Dark

Sky Troops Normal

Mad Matrix Hero (helps Espio collect data)

Death Ruins Dark

Iron Jungle Normal

Space Gadget Hero (racing Sonic)

Cosmic Fall Hero (finding the Computer Room)

Black Comet Hero

Egg Dealer (Black Comet)

That’s not to say that other stages can’t be a part of that routing, just that this is - by all accounts - as conservative as you can get with the knowledge of canonicity, with other stages serving as additional add-ons.

Still though, it would’ve been nice if we could point at an individual route and just say “hey, that’s the one that takes place”. Would’ve made the 326 individual story routes a little more meaningful if we could actually analyse them for the true one. But I guess that’s the point, isn’t it? The routes aren’t meant to showcase Shadow’s actual journey, but instead are gathering up the individual pieces in order to build up towards the conclusion of the Last Story, all the while showing who Shadow could have become along the way.

And who Shadow will end up as by the end of all this.

---

Credits:

Writer: Numbug

Sources obtained by: Numbug (Shadow the Hedgehog (2005), Sonic Battle)

[centralcitylibrary]

Sonic the Hedgehog's Speed

This document talks about the following entries in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise:

Sonic CD

Sonic Adventure

Sonic Advance 3

Sonic Unleashed

Sonic Generations

Sonic Frontiers

Introduction

Sonic.

Sŏn′ĭk

Adjective.

Having a speed approaching or being that of sound in air, about 1,220 kilometers (760 miles) per hour at sea level.

Sonic is fast. So fast, in fact, that it’s part of his very name. He’s associated with the wind that blows free, and is given various titles that denote his speed (such as “world’s fastest hedgehog”, “fastest thing alive”).

But just how fast is he?

“The speed of sound” is the first answer I hear you call out. And it makes sense. He’s called Sonic, he’s often described as supersonic, and the songs and media always talk about how he’s rolling around at the speed of sound.

But that’s only scratching the surface of how fast he goes. Not only does it go deeper, but Sonic can go significantly faster.

… Which is where we run into one issue. See, the answer to “how fast can Sonic run” is an open question, and there’s multiple potential answers to that very question, all depending on how you look at it. Do you take lore only? Do you use game mechanics as well? Do you calculate speeds and compare Sonic’s speed to comparable events (also called scaling)?

I, Numbug (this article’s author), have decided that rather than suggest only one answer, I shall go through the list of possible ranges, going from the fastest speed that’s been explicitly confirmed, and working my way up beyond that, until I reach the absolute fastest that could have any legitimacy. Along the way I’ll also present any counter-arguments to each new rank of speed as I go along.

Now let’s go.

Disclaimer: Before you ask, we’re not even going to have a discussion on if Sonic holds back his speed or not, nor by how much. We’re just going to be looking at potential avenues for what Sonic’s top speed is - that is to say Sonic is sprinting as fast as he possibly can, with no regard for stamina.

With that out of the way, let’s look at the various arguments that exist for Sonic’s top speed, starting with the slowest possible speed…

1C - Sonic CD.

I told you that the speed of light is only scratching the surface. This is our baseline because it’s the absolute fastest speed that is explicitly confirmed in the franchise, as Sonic CD’s japanese manual tells us that Sonic needs to run at light speed in order to time travel.

The quote: “While running at the speed of light for a set amount of time, the warp panel will flicker and initiate the warp if maintained.”

Arguments against 1C:

There really isn’t a quality counter-argument against this speed, given it’s directly stated for Sonic in a Sonic Team product. The closest that does exist is Ian Flynn (the primary writer for the IDW comics, Sonic Frontiers, and the animations for Sonic Origins) claiming that the old manuals for the original Sonic games are non-canon.

However, not only does the Central City Library exclude WoG statements for reasons detailed here, but a lot of these classic era games relied on those manuals to tell their stories, including information that’s completely omitted from the games themselves (and those short little animations).

Information such as South Island being a moving island, Eggman following Sonic to West Side Island for the Chaos Emeralds, Little Planet appearing for one month out of every year, and Knuckles believing the Death Egg to be the egg of “the legendary dragon” (which - pure speculation - could have been one of the pieces of inspiration for creating Chaos later on in Sonic Adventure).

Given that - with one exception - the animations that supposedly replace them don’t even contradict the Japanese manuals in any form, I’m just going to completely exclude such a statement, and put light speed as Sonic’s minimum speed.

As a bonus little bit of trivia, Sonic was originally intended to have a name based around the speed of light rather than the speed of sound, but they just couldn’t come up with a name that sounded good, so going light speed was always in their idea of the character.

5.2C - Sonic Adventure

This is the only calculation in this document that I did not attempt myself, so the relevant link will be shown here.

To keep it brief, as part of his fight against E-101 Beta Mk. II, Gamma is able to outmanoeuvre and dodge his laser attack via moving a set distance out of the way.

Oh, I’m sorry. What does this have to do with Sonic?

Well see, Gamma is not Eggman’s fastest robot. No, Eggman’s fastest robots are robots that are designed with the explicit goal of keeping up with Sonic, mimicries of him - such as Mecha Sonic Mk. II or Metal Sonic. So if Gamma is able to run this fast, then not only should Sonic also be able to, he should be able to run even faster.

Arguments against 5.2C:

Well is this definitely a laser? And if it is, is it actually moving at light speed?

Not to mention that, while gameplay is representative of what’s going on, you can’t be sure that what’s possible in-game is 1-1 with what actually happens in the narrative. Maybe in the lore Gamma merely aim-dodged it (dodging the aim of the weapon before it’s actually fired), even though in-game you can begin to dodge it basically any time you want even after the laser’s fired.

11.4C - Sonic Unleashed

More maths, but this time it’s incredibly simple, so simple that I can do the math here and now and be confident that my numbers line up correctly.

But before I do, I’d like to take a moment to mention a certain popular “vs series” channel on Youtube, Death Battle, and how they chose to handle this very speedometer.

When using this game to calculate Sonic’s speed, they looked at the SPD metre, and openly assumed it represented kilometres. Except, SPD is an accepted acronym meaning “speed”. Without getting some kind of metric on what a number on that SPD metre represents, the numbers are irrelevant, so their assumption was flawed from the very beginning.

Now, as to obtaining a value from that speed, we actually have the light dash for use, consistently said to send the user across rings at the speed of light (even formerly being named the light speed shoes). Including this very game.

So using the light dash through a checkpoint to get the speed value brings up an SPD value of 385. From there, it’s simply a matter of analysing the top speed Sonic can achieve, which appears to be this moment, with an SPD value of 4,399.

4,399/385=11.425974026.

Or 11.4C, after rounding.

Arguments against 11.4C:

Once again, it’s an instance of gameplay. The SPD directly ties into your score, therefore it directly ties into your ability to achieve S ranks, and thus what is possible in gameplay might not be reflective of what’s possible in story.

In addition, the latter video with the high speed value has the uploader openly state that such a speed value shouldn’t be possible in the video’s description, even going so far as to call it “weird” (and while they’re not the developer, as a speedrunner & score attacker, even possessing the current world record in the Sonic Unleashed any% speedrun, they should have at least some familiarity behind the underlying mechanics of the game), and indeed other score attacks of this same stage don’t have such high speed values listed (or when they do, it’s labelled as “the checkpoint glitch”).

672,466,243C - Sonic Advance 3

Finally, an instance of speed that isn’t gameplay centric! But it’s also millions of times faster than what we’ve presented before, so what gives?

Well, at the end of Sonic Advance 3, Super Sonic and Dr. Eggman fly off to the Nonaggression Zone in order to defeat Ultimate Gemerl. Super Sonic is whatever, he can go faster speeds - but the Egg Mobile is not. The Egg Mobile is a machine invented by Dr. Eggman that doesn’t run on any special energy normally. What this means is that if the Egg Mobile can reach this speed on its own, then it should be able to travel these speeds in other instances.

How fast was that? Well, they’ve travelled to a starry nebula. Given the nearest starry nebula is the Orion Nebula, 1344 lightyears away from Earth, and assuming they took 1 minute to arrive, that would make the Eggmobile able to travel 672 million times faster than light.

1.2096e+16 kilometres in 60 seconds = 2.016e+14 kilometres per second. Compared to 299,792 kilometres per second (the speed of light), and that is almost 7 hundred million times faster

201,600,000,000,000/299,792 = 672,466,243.262

Or 672 million C, after rounding.

Even giving the benefit of the doubt and assuming that this Eggmobile is faster than older models, there are still plenty of instances of various characters catching up to the Egg Mobile after this game, and as if that wasn’t enough, Eggman - in the Eggmobile - was surprised at Sonic’s speed when he managed to catch up to Eggman, which means that Eggman incorrectly believed that the Eggmobile would’ve been able to at least give him enough of a head start.

Arguments against 672,466,243C:

First of all this is compared to an act of speed performed by Super Sonic. Like Super Sonic’s capable of more but there’s inherently going to be some apprehension to accepting that sort of idea purely on a narrative level, lol.

Second of all, this speed is a massive jump up from the previous amount, to a rather immense degree, and makes the very notion of travel time a laughable concept.

Inaccessible - Sonic Generations

This is a pretty simple speed to-

What?

Oh, you want to know what “inaccessible” speed is. Well, infinite speed is when you can travel any distance, even infinite distance, over a finite amount of time. Meanwhile, inaccessible speed is if you can travel that any distance at all over a period of literally 0 time. Afterall, if you can travel even the slightest bit in exactly 0 seconds, then you can travel anywhere and everywhere in 0 seconds. As you can probably guess, this breaks the very logic of speed itself since with no speed to calculate time anything above a 0 is mathematically impossible. Hence the “inaccessible”.

Now, how would Sonic even achieve those speeds? It’s pretty simple, in Sonic Generations, Eggman makes a claim right at the end of the game that there is no time in White Space. If there’s no time in White Space, and the Sonic crew can move in White Space, then clearly they can move at inaccessible speeds, right?

Arguments against Inaccessible:

First of all, travelling at inaccessible speeds would be openly implausible with the concept of having to get anywhere in any amount of time, something which has happened in the stories since. It is also, by definition, more than infinitely faster than the previous speed.

But more importantly, classic Eggman (whom modern Eggman considered the only person comparable to his own intellect) did not know of this fact, and going by the 3DS version, struggles to understand it. Meanwhile, Tails (and Tails) actually gives an entirely different, contradictory statement. And while he logically does not have as much experience with White Space, his claims are backed up by being an explanation of how the Sonics (and seemingly only the Sonics) are able to restore the locations erased from time within White Space. Not to mention both Tailses being on the same page.

Immeasurable - Sonic Frontiers

Here it is. The absolute theoretical peak of Sonic’s speed. And how fitting that we get it thanks to the (at the time of writing) most recent Sonic Team game in the series. But it’s not quite as simple as Sonic just running super fast, we’re going to need to set up the framework.

If you’re a bit confused about the explanation, a summary will be given at the end of the section.

But first of all, what even is immeasurable speed? Well, if inaccessible speed is travelling anywhere in 0 seconds, immeasurable is travelling that same distance in negative seconds. It’s immeasurable because by this point it’s impossible to judge if someone is going back x time by going faster, or by travelling further distances, it breaks down on a fundamental level.

So how does Sonic achieve this speed? Well, he achieves it by running away from one of the Titans in Sonic Frontiers, Wyvern, for an extended period of time (alongside surviving an extended escape sequence against Knight).

Why is Wyvern relevant? Because the four Titans were made to fight against and compete with The End, a being that was stated by Sage to be a foe that Super Sonic could not defeat, and they only defeat it by intercepting it before it regains that strength and teaming up. With this, it’s safe to assume that Super Sonic was absolutely giving it his all in this fight. I know this is comparing Sonic’s speed to Super Sonic, but unlike the previous example escaping from Wyvern is not only a plot event, but is also done for an extended period over a few minutes.

But then the question becomes how is Super Sonic that fast? Well, the Chaos Emeralds - the very thing empowering Super Sonic - was capable of creating the fusion Solaris (specifically the re-fused form, not the little flame at the very, very end of Sonic 06), a being who was directly stated to exist across all of time at once, and was effectively immortal as a result.

Really quickly, when the characters talk about Solaris being in the past, present, and future all at once, they’re not talking about 3 separate points in time, they’re talking about the times themselves. There’s always more past in the past, and more future in the future.

So the Chaos Emeralds are already capable of granting temporal omnipresence, but Super Sonic still harms him. Same with Super Shadow, and Super Silver. In order to do that, the super hedgies would not only need to be attacking fiercely, but they’d need to be moving fast enough to hit throughout all of time “simultaneously” (relatively speaking, of course).

In short, this is how it applies to Sonic

Solaris’s temporal omnipresence (existing through all of time simultaneously) = Super Sonic harming said Solaris throughout all of time.

Both are powered by the Chaos Emeralds, as are all four Titans.

The four Titans fight against The End (one of which ultimately succeeds in a rematch alongside Super Sonic).

The End was stated to be a foe Super Sonic stood no chance against, justifying him going all out against The End.

Wyvern (who should be comparable to Supreme) would later attack Sonic, forcing him to run away for an extended period of time, during which neither was able to outpace the other.

Arguments against immeasurable:

Well, we gotta reiterate that this still comes from Super Sonic, and at his arguable peak as well, so that’s an incredibly hard pill to swallow.

But then we also need to point out that, while a safe assumption, nothing actually explicitly says that Super Sonic went all out against The End, nor that the Ancients were able to use the Chaos Emeralds to their full potential (or as close as the modern cast use it for).

Then we also need to point out that the world’s flow of time moves on as normal while the two race, despite the speeds they’d need to be achieving for this race to be as fast as this.

Lastly, there’s also the fact that this kind of speed would logically allow Sonic to time travel, something which he is not portrayed as being able to do.

Outroduction

As you can see, Sonic is very, very fast. Impossibly fast, even. I’ve given you the tools to gauge for yourselves just how fast Sonic is, and I’ve given what I hope are sufficiently detailed explanations for each level of speed.

But how fast do I think he is?

Well, given he’s already an impossibility and the concept of travel time effectively means nothing when his slowest speed can still get him running around the planet’s equator in 2/7ths of a second, I’m inclined to go with six hundred million times the speed of light, given that we directly see Sonic outspeed the very Eggmobile that reached those speeds to begin with.

But I suppose it’s in Sonic’s nature to hit new speeds, to always go faster than we expected him to and to achieve new heights.

Because he always was and always will be…

The world’s fastest hedgehog.