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The Dark Side Of Gerald


Frozen Nitrogen

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Professor Gerald Robotnik - a man who wants to use the power of science to help the people of Earth. Sure, he went mad in the end, but he was still the very epitome of a utopian humanist until the death of Maria, right? Right?

Wrong, I say.

Think about the stuff Gerald's responsible for, tinkering away up there on the ARK. For starters, we have the Gizoid. He KNOWS it's a horrible weapon, capable of destroying whole civilizations, and yet a ) he continues messing around with it anyway, then b ) hands it over to the more hawkish researchers in order to buy himself time to complete Project Shadow! It then goes on to rampage through the ARK and presumably kill a whole lotta people. Nice one, Gerald.

(copy of the relevant Sonic Battle Gerald's Journals in section [10'02] here)

And then we have Project Shadow itself. Teaming up with fascisto-religious aliens in order to play God messing around with Shadow - a sentient creature - is not something the Ethical Oversight Committee would approve of, no matter how much NIDS you wanted to cure.

Of course, the fact that the aliens are fascisto-religious still makes double-crossing them by orchestrating their complete genocide via Eclipse Cannon a little harsh. Gerald does it anyway.

There's probably more, but I don't remember my SA2 confidently enough to list them. Were the Artificial Chaoses and the Chao Drives his idea too? The man seems to be developing an AWFUL lot of dangerous military hardware. Irrespective of how much he wanted to save Maria, his inventions will no doubt have vicariously killed hundreds as GUN deploys them in its rather trigger-happy modus operandi. His ends fall quite a bit short of justifying his means, IMO.

So, there you have it. Professor Gerald: doting grandfather, or willful self-deciever whose obsessive determination to save his granddaughter blinds him to the extreme moral dubiousness of his actions?

(Also note: never makes a mention of his OTHER grandchild. EVER. Ivo robably got a lump of coal for Christmas, or something. No wonder the Eggman went rotten.)

Edited by Frozen Nitrogen
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Some of that was actually a major point of contention for Eggman in Adventure 2, if I recall correctly. Eggman went WTF when he figured out everything behind the ARK incident.

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Some of that was actually a major point of contention for Eggman in Adventure 2, if I recall correctly. Eggman went WTF when he figured out everything behind the ARK incident.

Yeah, but Gerald put the whole "orchestrate a Colony Drop and kill everyone" scheme AFTER he went certifyably mad. So for that one at least he had "Plead insanity!" as an excuse. I'm trying to make the point that Gerald was really quite morally dubious even before Maria got pwnt and the Prof had a psychotic breakdown.

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What you missed is that Gerald was forced by the president to find the answer to immortality. He even refused at first to tamper with the laws of nature but was ultimately persuaded by Maria's illness.

As for the Gizoid, he's not the one who makes him absorb weapons, but the higher ups who he has to hand the robot over to. He reprograms the Gizoid to have a free-willed, emotions based AI so that he doesn't go berserk when he absorbs a lot of weapons. He does the same for Shadow.

Gerald wasn't a bad person at all. He was instead caught in the middle of military greed and his own emotions to create things he didn't want to make. He was said to want to make people happy through the power of science, but his amazing intelligence instead made him the first person to look towards in search of the presidents intentions.

(Also note: never makes a mention of his OTHER grandchild. EVER. Ivo robably got a lump of coal for Christmas, or something. No wonder the Eggman went rotten.)

Gerald only lived with Maria on the ARK while Eggman was still a child on Earth. I doubt the two really kept in touch a lot, especially during his work to save Maria.

Edited by VirgoTheCougar
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Gerald wasn't a bad person at all. He was instead caught in the middle of military greed and his own emotions to create things he didn't want to make. He was said to want to make people happy through the power of science, but his amazing intelligence instead made him the first person to look towards in search of the presidents intentions.

I didn't say he created weapons because he likes creating weapons. My point is that a lot of the things he did "for Maria's sake" are pretty reprehensible, and he shouldn't have done them even if he had a gun held to his head. Which he didn't. A person with a well-aligned moral compass would, I think, refuse and quit before agreeing to design a kill laser that could slag an entire planet. Gerald seems to have missed the point completly that EVEN IF he succeeded in his experiments-on-sentient-creatures in the form of Shadow, and managed to cure Maria, she (and everyone else) would live out their lives with the Eclipse Cannon orbiting over their heads... with twitchy military personnel and a president obsessed with his own immortality in command of the firing controls.

ADDENDUM:

Gerald only lived with Maria on the ARK while Eggman was still a child on Earth. I doubt the two really kept in touch a lot, especially during his work to save Maria.

In fairness, we don't even know for sure whether or not Ivo was even born before Maria / Gerald got HEADSHOT. So fine; I can't hold his mentionless-ness against the Prof.

Edited by Frozen Nitrogen
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(using italics for quotes because it's quicker)

For starters, we have the Gizoid. He KNOWS it's a horrible weapon, capable of destroying whole civilizations, and yet a ) he continues messing around with it anyway, then b ) hands it over to the more hawkish researchers in order to buy himself time to complete Project Shadow! It then goes on to rampage through the ARK and presumably kill a whole lotta people. Nice one, Gerald.

The 'higher-ups' were actually interested in the weapons aspect of Emerl, he was the one who programmed it with a 'soul' so it wouldn't want to attack. Still, I like to think that's where he started to go insaine. Slightly. He was frantic, he was so obsessed with saving his grandaughter's life that he didn't care what the cost was, even if it meant giving up a highly unstable robot to folks who want to give it more weapons.

And then we have Project Shadow itself. Teaming up with fascisto-religious aliens in order to play God messing around with Shadow - a sentient creature - is not something the Ethical Oversight Committee would approve of, no matter how much NIDS you wanted to cure.

Of course, the fact that the aliens are fascisto-religious still makes double-crossing them by orchestrating their complete genocide via Eclipse Cannon a little harsh. Gerald does it anyway.

The President actually 'forced' him in a way to make immortality syrome, he refused to 'play-God' until he found out Maria was ill. Like I said, he wanted, no, needed his grandaughter to live, for the sake of his sainity. To bad his rationale in the process.

There's probably more, but I don't remember my SA2 confidently enough to list them. Were the Artificial Chaoses and the Chao Drives his idea too? The man seems to be developing an AWFUL lot of dangerous military hardware. Irrespective of how much he wanted to save Maria, his inventions will no doubt have vicariously killed hundreds as GUN deploys them in its rather trigger-happy modus operandi. His ends fall quite a bit short of justifying his means, IMO.

The Chaos Drives were generally safe; they were just a way to power things (machines and... chao? :blink: ). I think that the AC were actually just an experiment that went bazerk (at least that's what Maria said).

So, there you have it. Professor Gerald: doting grandfather, or willful self-deciever whose obsessive determination to save his granddaughter blinds him to the extreme moral dubiousness of his actions?

(Also note: never makes a mention of his OTHER grandchild. EVER. Ivo robably got a lump of coal for Christmas, or something. No wonder the Eggman went rotten.)

We don't even know if he knew the good 'ol Doctor. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't... but if he did, WHAT A JERK!

In short, I think he meant well, and in many ways he did help; he created Shadow, who has saved the world on multiple occasions, and also made sure Shadow would clean up the mess he started when the aliens returned, but he still did much evil.

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A person with a well-aligned moral compass would, I think, refuse and quit before agreeing to design a kill laser that could slag an entire planet. Gerald seems to have missed the point completly that EVEN IF he succeeded in his experiments-on-sentient-creatures in the form of Shadow, and managed to cure Maria, she (and everyone else) would live out their lives with the Eclipse Cannon orbiting over their heads... with twitchy military personnel and a president obsessed with his own immortality in command of the firing controls.

The only thing is, he created it for the sole purpose of destroying the Black Arms, who he had recently found out were planning to enslave the human race. And by this time, the military were getting antsy about Gerald's projects and were planning to shut down the ARK. Gerald had to work fast to find a way to prevent the coming invasion, and the only surefire way he'd be able to stop it would be to make something powerful enough to eliminate them completely. The only problem was that he had to entrust Shadow with the responsibility of fulfilling his counter-attack against them.

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I am among the few who believe Gerald would not have gone insane if someone just went up to him and gave him a chocolate-chip cookie. It would have solved all of mankinds problems.

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But wait, lets say Ivo had been born prior to the ARK-incident. Then he would probably be on earth. So then when Geralds plan to crash the ARK into earth... ooh, that BASTARD! :angry:

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Well, Eggman had to get it from somewhere. How old is Eggy, anyway? I always figured he was in his late fifties/early sixttes.

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I'm going to pretend this topic makes sense, and then go far, far away.

But in all seriousness, in what game is it said that the president was obsessed with immortality? I don't remember seeing that anywere.

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But in all seriousness, in what game is it said that the president was obsessed with immortality? I don't remember seeing that anywere.

I think in the Strategy Guide, there's an article called "Rouge's Report" that explains the whole backstory. One of many plot points that weren't explained in the game unfortunately.

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(Also note: never makes a mention of his OTHER grandchild. EVER. Ivo robably got a lump of coal for Christmas, or something. No wonder the Eggman went rotten.)

There's probably a reason why too, because Ivo wasn't probably even a thought at this time. Gerald would be quite surprised and excited if he found out that he had another grandchild.

I'm guessing Robotnik is the same age as Mario and company, around midage- 30 to 40. Direct age probably ranges around/between 32 or 42 due to male pattern baldness and smoothness of skin.

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Present-day situation disregarded, you have to bear in mind that pretty much everything after Sonic Adventure 2 has been retcon. In SA2, he probably *was* just doing things for the good of mankind and went crazy after the Maria incident. Only later did they add the Gizoid matters (which at least made sense) and (unfortunately) the Black Arms retcon.

I think in the Strategy Guide, there's an article called "Rouge's Report" that explains the whole backstory. One of many plot points that weren't explained in the game unfortunately.

Is that the same strategy guide that started all the 'Hyper Shadow' hoo-hah? If so, I'd question the credibility of that statement anyway.

Edited by Mahzes
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Present-day situation disregarded, you have to bear in mind that pretty much everything after Sonic Adventure 2 has been retcon. In SA2, he probably *was* just doing things for the good of mankind and went crazy after the Maria incident. Only later did they add the Gizoid matters (which at least made sense) and (unfortunately) the Black Arms retcon.

It's not retconned! It just... requires a bit of creativity and imagination to reconcile. ;)

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