Your Unanswered Sonic Questions

[Diogenes]

8 minutes ago, StriCNYN3 said:

As I stated above in my edited comment, take note that Eggman's Death Egg was completely destroyed and he himself says he needed the Chaos Emeralds to fix it and get it back up and running again.

Even after Sonic 2 the Death Egg was still intact enough to crash into the island and drive it down to the ocean's surface, and Windii's translation implies it's still intact enough to continue calling it the Death Egg (and not "a giant mess of flaming scrap") after the impact. And Eggman specifically says he needs the emeralds to get it back into space, not to "fix it".

8 minutes ago, StriCNYN3 said:

Later on Knuckles sees the Death Egg working.

He sees the Death Egg. Not one single word is said about whether or not it is "working".

[___-_]

17 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

Even after Sonic 2 the Death Egg was still intact enough to crash into the island and drive it down to the ocean's surface, and Windii's translation implies it's still intact enough to continue calling it the Death Egg (and not "a giant mess of flaming scrap") after the impact. And Eggman specifically says he needs the emeralds to get it back into space, not to "fix it".

He sees the Death Egg. Not one single word is said about whether or not it is "working".

You're splitting hairs on the main point here though. The point is that Eggman couldn't get it to run again without the emeralds. Also, the beginning of the jap ver. literally states that the Death Egg from Sonic 2 was destroyed, debris was falling from it crashing onto earth, and that it became a fireball crashing onto Angel Island.... but that's besides the point.

Also, Knuckles says he saw the Death Egg appearing near the lake. Clearly its running and not stuck and dismantled on the island.

Look, just take into account what the US versions of the story says. They say Eggman didn't have the emeralds yet. Well, if that were the case, then how did he get the Death Egg fully completed and running by Launch Base Zone? He should have had the emeralds there if that were the case but the US ver says he doesn't... which is why Eggman having the emeralds in the beginning like the jap version says makes a lot more sense, because the US version literally says he needs the emeralds to make the Death Egg start up and never got them yet he has the Death Egg running in the game anyway.

[Diogenes]

1 minute ago, StriCNYN3 said:

You're splitting hairs on the main point here though. The point is that Eggman couldn't get it to run again without the emeralds.

Nothing says this. The language in both translations of the Japanese story is specific: he needs emerald power to get the Death Egg back into space. We see this explicitly in the game: he tries to get it back into space by strapping rocket boosters onto it but this fails, he gets the Master Emerald and it can float up into space otherwise unassisted.

1 minute ago, StriCNYN3 said:

Look, just take into account about the US versions of the story. They say Eggman didn't have the emeralds yet. Well, if that were the case, then how did he get the Death Egg fully completed and running by Launch Base Zone?

Same way he built it the first time. Even if you want to say it wasn't "complete" in Sonic 2 it was still plenty functional, and I'd hesitate to call it "complete" in Sonic 3 when it can't even successfully launch.

1 minute ago, StriCNYN3 said:

... because the US version literally says he needs the emeralds to make the Death Egg start up.

Where are you getting this from? The US manual says he decides to go after the emeralds to repair it after figuring out that they make the island float, but it doesn't say that they're necessary for it to start up. Even here the key point is that Eggman needs a way to float the Death Egg.

[DabigRG]

 

This is a nice lore off and all, but I think you're both overlooking the obvious Phoenix Egg in the Sky

Spoiler

Sonic had the Chaos Emerald at the beginning of the game, which Knuckles takes from him.

 

[Diogenes]

4 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

This is a nice lore off and all, but I think you're both overlooking the obvious Phoenix Egg in the Sky

  Hide contents

Sonic had the Chaos Emerald at the beginning of the game, which Knuckles takes from him.

 

This whole thing started with a discussion on whether there's multiple sets of emeralds or not, and the Japanese Sonic 3 manual implies that there are (as Knuckles was guarding a set before 3&K starts).

[___-_]

I'm having trouble what we're not seeing here @Diogenes

Read here what this says stated by Eggman in the Jap ver of the manual:

"If their energy could be utilized", Dr. Eggman thought, "the Death Egg may be able to fly into orbit again."

What else could that possibly mean? The Death Egg's main functions are by flying and going into orbit.... and clearly Eggman is gambling if this could even work, because he said it may be able to fly again... this is after the manual just telling you that the Death Egg was thoroughly destroyed. 

about Sonic 2's Death Egg, difference here is that there was only one set of emeralds to beat Eggman to the punch with and wasn't destroyed vs Sonic 3 where its saying there are other emeralds and that Eggman has them already and that he was working with a destroyed craft. So really, theres two possibilities.

One: Sonic 2's Sonic fought Eggman on an uncompleted Death Egg base as Sonic gathered all the emeralds before him as this was Eggman's desperate last line of defense.

Two: Sonic getting all the emeralds in Sonic 2 is actually non canon and Eggman actually did get the emeralds before Sonic for his Death Egg Base to be completed. (Edit: which could still mean Sonic got them all back from Eggman by the end, but I personally think that's a whole lot of reaching haha. Scenario one seems more probable)

And I don't know how you could tell the state of how it launches in Sonic 3. That seems like a reach to me. All we can honestly tell from the game is that it launched, and then that Sonic destroyed part of it from under. Keep in mind, the jap manual has already told the player that Eggman has the emeralds for the Death Egg to go into orbit again.

And look here and read the last paragraph under Knuckles's bio. It literally says the Death Egg lost its ability to fly after crash landing and needs the chaos emeralds for it to fly again.

 

[Multikaris]

Also, how did Knuckles lose the emeralds again after snagging them from Sonic? 

[Diogenes]

4 minutes ago, StriCNYN3 said:

I'm having trouble what we're not seeing here @Diogenes

Read here what this says stated by Eggman in the Jap ver of the manual:

"If their energy could be utilized", Dr. Eggman thought, "the Death Egg may be able to fly into orbit again."

What else could that possibly mean?

Yes, what could it possibly mean, besides that the emeralds are for making it fly into space. Not for structural repairs, not for powering the lights and the doors and the light-ring tunnel zipper things, the emeralds are for lifting it into space, just as the Master Emerald lifts Angel Island into the air, just as we see it do in Sky Sanctuary once Eggman has the Master Emerald, while conventional rocket boosters failed to get it into space in Launch Base. Magic rock+island=floaty island, therefore magic rock+space station=floaty space station, that is the point of him trying to steal the emeralds.

15 minutes ago, StriCNYN3 said:

... Sonic 3 where its saying there are other emeralds and that Eggman has them already ...

... Keep in mind, the jap manual has already told the player that Eggman has the emeralds for the Death Egg to go into orbit again.

You still have not proven this.

[DabigRG]

34 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

This whole thing started with a discussion on whether there's multiple sets of emeralds or not, and the Japanese Sonic 3 manual implies that there are (as Knuckles was guarding a set before 3&K starts).

Ah. Continue, should you feel free. 

21 minutes ago, Miragnarok said:

Also, how did Knuckles lose the emeralds again after snagging them from Sonic? 

He put them in the Special Zone with hidden Warp Rings.  

[___-_]

Making things fly is not the only function of the Chaos Emeralds. Besides, you're mixing up the Master Emerald with the Chaos Emeralds. Eggman wanted and got the Chaos Emeralds for the Death Egg initially. Not the Master Emerald. Your angel Island analogy does not apply. And you're missing the fact that the Death Egg was destroyed and the chaos emeralds was what he needed and you see it flying later, told within the manual and seen in game. 

And I just stated that Sonic destroyed part of the death Egg from under when you beat the Launch Base Zone boss. You're mixing scenarios here. It was already up and running. Sonic was the one that went and destroyed the thing to begin with before re crash landing onto Angel Island.

I already did prove to you @Diogenes. You're making me run in circles when I've already pointed and highlighted where it says Eggman grabbed the emeralds already. You didn't even address my comment when I said that Knuckles saw the Death Egg appearing near the lake after the Emeralds were missing. Like how could you not see right there that Eggman has them at that point? It's clearly stating he has it at that moment. It's not like the Chaos Emeralds just got up and decided to leave, and it was only mere coincidence that Eggman shows up right then and there with the Death Egg and Knuckles.

[Diogenes]

3 minutes ago, StriCNYN3 said:

Making things fly is not the only function of the Chaos Emeralds.

But it is the relevant property here. Again the manuals explicitly talk about how the emeralds make the island float and how Eggman needs them to get the Death Egg into space.

3 minutes ago, StriCNYN3 said:

Besides, you're mixing up the Master Emerald with the Chaos Emeralds.

3's manuals don't treat them as being fundamentally different. The English manual says the island uses "the power of the emeralds", plural, to float. The Japanese manual says Eggman detects a huge Chaos Emerald underground, obviously the Master Emerald.

3 minutes ago, StriCNYN3 said:

Your angel Island analogy does not apply.

It's the entire goddamn point of the game!

3 minutes ago, StriCNYN3 said:

And you're missing the fact that the Death Egg was destroyed

If you really believe the Death Egg was blown to smithereens, are you trying to tell me that Eggman basically wished it back into existence with the emeralds within the minutes or at best hours that Knuckles was unconscious? I'm not expecting realistic construction times here but that's a bit much to swallow, and if he's wielding that level of power what's stopping him from just wishing the thing back into space right away?

3 minutes ago, StriCNYN3 said:

and you see it flying later,

Using conventional rockets, not magic emerald power.

3 minutes ago, StriCNYN3 said:

I already did prove to you @Diogenes. You're making me run in circles when I've already pointed and highlighted where it says Eggman grabbed the emeralds already.

You did not. I've been reading the exact same text as you, at no point in it does it say that Eggman has gotten his hands on the emeralds, you're simply making leaps of logic.

3 minutes ago, StriCNYN3 said:

You didn't even address my comment when I said that Knuckles saw the Death Egg appearing near the lake after the Emeralds were missing were missing. Like how could you not see right there that Eggman has them at that point? It's clearly stating he has it at that point.

That's where the Death Egg landed. I don't buy your notion that it was obliterated and then magicked back into existence while Knuckles was out.

[___-_]

Quote

 

But it is the relevant property here. Again the manuals explicitly talk about how the emeralds make the island float and how Eggman needs them to get the Death Egg into space.

 

No, that's just twisting the narrative. What the Jap manual actually says is this:

Long ago, back when the island was still part of a continent.
People of an exceptional civilization lived there.
That civilization built a peaceful and wealthy society by the energy of certain "power stones."
However at one point, when a faction of elders tried to make the energy of the "power stones" theirs, they accidentally made that energy go awry.
The civilization was destroyed in an instant, and vanished from history.
And after this incident... It is said that the gods that came down from the sky restored part of the civilization as an "island," and released it into the sky along with the "power stones."

This is Sonic's perspective of what he recalls the legend of the Angel Island to be. This is not the game telling you this is how all the emeralds function.

Quote

 

3's manuals don't treat them as being fundamentally different. The English manual says the island uses "the power of the emeralds", plural, to float. The Japanese manual says Eggman detects a huge Chaos Emerald underground, obviously the Master Emerald.

 

No, because this is what it says afterwards, starting off from where you left off:

Dr. Eggman, who escaped from the fallen Death Egg, was aware that the Chaos Emeralds were on the floating island.
He could catch a signal of a huge Chaos Emerald from a crack in the earth opened by the Death Egg. Using that energy, it is possible to let the Death Egg fly out into space again.

Dr. Eggman started building a base on the floating island at a quick pace in order to obtain the Chaos Emeralds.

They're clearly referring to Eggman getting the Chaos Emeralds and not the Mater Emerald. Not only that, the Master Emerald was clearly untouched the whole time in Sonic 3's portion, as you can see when you eventually go after the Super Emeralds, and the Master emerald is clearly shown to have different properties in game, where when that's taken away, The Island falls, but when the Super Emeralds are all there at the Altar but NOT the Master Emerald, the Island is still at the risk of falling because that's not what those emeralds' duties are.

Quote

It's the entire goddamn point of the game!

Yo, you're literally trying to tell me the Chaos Emeralds are the same as the Master Emerald? No. That's completely wrong.Look at my post above this quote and see why.

Quote

 

If you really believe the Death Egg was blown to smithereens, are you trying to tell me that Eggman basically wished it back into existence with the emeralds within the minutes or at best hours that Knuckles was unconscious? I'm not expecting realistic construction times here but that's a bit much to swallow, and if he's wielding that level of power what's stopping him from just wishing the thing back into space right away?

 

....Seriously, I mean this in the most non snarkiest way possible, but honestly... Are you even reading what I'm replying to you? First of all, what do you see here? @59:08 - 59:22 of the video

Looks like The Death Egg's blowing up into smithereens, correct? Or do I need my eyes checked?

Second of all, read here and tell me what this says from literally the beginning of the Japanese Manual of Sonic 3 that I already pointed out before plenty of times before and gave you a source of:

After Sonic 2's Adventure...

Dr. Eggman's fortress, the Death Egg, which was thoroughly destroyed by Sonic in the previous adventure, was just starting to crash towards the earth.

On the Death Egg's dropping orbit, there was a single huge, floating mass of clouds closer to the ground.
And there was an enormous shadow quietly hiding within those clouds...
Towering mountains, spread out woods... That shadow was an island. It was a massive "floating island" that drifted through the sky.

The Death Egg became a fireball and crashed hard into that "floating island."
The mountains tumbled, the woods were knocked down.
That tremendous impact greatly slanted the "floating island" and gradually lowered its altitude.

The floating island finally collided with the sea surface.
The floating island caused large waves that one could call a tsunami to surge, but did not sink to the bottom of the ocean.
Bearing the Death Egg, the floating island stayed slightly above the sea as if nothing had happened.

Sonic and Tails's Journey

Several days later... On an island far from the place where the Death Egg and the floating island collided.

Tails, a two-tailed fox, suddenly started catching a strong Chaos Emerald signal on the jewel radar he invented.
"It might have something to do with the giant tsunami that happened recently..." Tails pondered as he headed to the beach where Sonic was.

When Knuckle regained consciousness, his body was thrown out of the altar.
As he slowly rose his body and looked around the vicinity, a partially destroyed emerald altar came into Knuckle's view.
Knuckle hurriedly leaped into the altar.
However, the Chaos Emeralds that should have been in there had vanished, without leaving a single fragment behind.

Knuckle went out of the altar dumbfounded.
Then, when he turned his feeble glance into the distance... He noticed something strange appearing near the lake.
When he saw that large, round object shaped like an egg, Knuckle felt a shiver along his spine.

"That large egg is the legendary dragon's..."
There's no mistaking that this egg must be the one that appears in the legend described in the Chaos Emerald's altar, the egg that will bring disaster to this island.

Knuckle patrolled the altar of seven Chaos Emeralds that exist on the island for the following few days, but all the Chaos Emeralds have disappeared without a trace.
And then, while he was examining every nook and cranny of the island, still not giving up, Knuckle encountered an unfamiliar man in the forest.

it was not mere minutes that Eggman set this all up, but several days upon days that this was set up. And they clearly said the Death Egg was thoroughly destroyed... Now, whether you want to believe something else is entirely on you, but this is what the Japanese manual is saying.

Quote

 

Using conventional rockets, not magic emerald power.

 

Evidently that's how its supposed to start out. Where are you getting that it's supposed to just fly on its own or any other way than what was shown?

Quote

 

That's where the Death Egg landed. I don't buy your notion that it was obliterated and then magicked back into existence while Knuckles was out.

 

So... you just ignoring evidence? Well that's not my problem. I'm just stating what the manual says. All you're doing is just fighting what was written. I don't see how you don't see how 

1: The Emeralds suddenly are missing when Eggman appears after just saying he wants them.

2: The dismantled and once thoroughly destroyed Death Egg stuck on the ground making a crack on the Island's earth suddenly appearing near the lake side by Knuckles's own words

3: All taking several days by a huge armada of robots, magical gem stones, and the smartest in-universe fictional scientist to get this all running

Somehow doesn't tell you that Eggman has the emeralds and got his Death Egg running, especialy when it's shown that was his motive for getting the emeralds and what was shown in game... but hey I'll gladly just agree to disagree on this whole notion.

[Diogenes]

1 hour ago, StriCNYN3 said:

No, that's just twisting the narrative. What the Jap manual actually says is this:

There's more to the manuals than the story Sonic recounts and that's not even the part I'm concerned about. Both manuals' stories connect the emeralds to floating to the Death Egg:

Quote

After learning that the island is able to float in the sky by harnessing the power of the emeralds, the Doc decides to steal the emeralds so he can repair his Death Egg ship.

Quote

He could catch a signal of a huge Chaos Emerald from a crack in the earth opened by the Death Egg. Using that energy, it is possible to let the Death Egg fly out into space again.

And then this is literally what happens in the game, he gets the Master Emerald and uses it to make the Death Egg float into space.

Quote

No, because this is what it says afterwards, starting off from where you left off:

*snip*

They're clearly refereeing to Eggman getting the Chaos Emeralds and not the Mater Emerald. Not only that, the Master Emerald was clearly untouched the whole time in Sonic 3's portion, as you can see when you eventually go after the Super Emeralds,

It is referencing Eggman's desire to obtain the emeralds. He doesn't actually get any emeralds of any sort until Hidden Palace Zone. He wants the Chaos Emeralds, he tries to get them, but he does not.

Quote

and the Master emerald is clearly shown to have different properties in game, where when that's taken away, The Island falls, but when the Super Emeralds are all there at the Altar, the Island is still at the risk of falling because that's not what those emeralds' duty are.

I could fairly argue that the Super Emeralds aren't canon, considering it's Super Sonic's ending that has a teaser for Knuckles' story. But even aside from that neither you nor I can presume to know exactly how "emeralds make stuff float" works. Maybe the Master Emerald is just that much more powerful than even 7 Super Emeralds and without it there's only enough power to keep the island above water.

Quote

Yo, you're literally trying to tell me the Chaos Emeralds are the same as the Master Emerald? No. That's completely wrong.Look at my post above this quote and see why.

I am saying they are the same type of thing, that the Master Emerald is a Master Chaos Emerald. And it's not just me saying this, again, the manuals themselves don't make a clear distinction between them besides one being real fuckin' big and strong.

Quote

....Seriously, I mean this in the most non snarkiest way possible, but honestly... Are you even reading what I'm replying to you? First of all, what do you see here? @59:08 - 59:22 of the video

*snip*

Looks like The Death Egg's blowing up into smithereens, correct? Or do I need my eyes checked?

Man you think those dinky explosions are enough to tear an entire space station to pieces? Eggman gets caught in those kinds of explosions all the time, including this very instance, and they've failed to render even one adult human into chunky salsa, much less a that's-no-moon space station.

And you realize the Death Egg crashes into Angel Island, right? Enough of it stayed together to push the entire island down to sea level. If that black and white scene is actually meant to be the entire space station being blown to pieces in space it's very clearly been retconned by 3.

Quote

Second of all, read here and tell me what this says from literally the beginning of the Japanese Manual of Sonic 3 that I already pointed out before plenty of times before and gave you a source of:

Dude I have been reading from the exact same source as you you don't have to act like I'm ignoring it.

Quote

it was not mere minutes that Eggman set this all up, but several days upon days that this was set up.

So are you claiming that Knuckles was knocked out for "days upon days"? Because he goes from watching his emeralds freak out, to being unconscious, to waking up and finding the emeralds gone, to seeing the Death Egg. If the Death Egg was blown to bits, and Eggman repaired it with Angel Island's emeralds, the whole repair process must have happened while Knuckles was unconscious. I don't think we're meant to assume he was put into a goddamn coma.

Quote

Evidently that's how its supposed to start out. Where are you getting that it's supposed to just fly on its own or any other way than what was shown?

Well when we see it float up in Sky Sanctuary, no rockets are involved. There's no rockets visibly attached to it in S&K's intro, or in the background of Lava Reef and Hidden Palace, mere minutes before it rises under emerald power. And again, the entire point is that the Master Emerald can make a large thing like an island or a space station defy gravity.

Quote

1: The Emeralds suddenly are missing when Eggman appears after just saying he wants them.

Eggman always wants the emeralds, that doesn't mean he's any good at getting them. You've failed to provide a sensible timeline wherein he could get them or any actual evidence that he had them.

Quote

2: The dismantled and once thoroughly destroyed Death Egg stuck on the ground making a crack on the Island's earth suddenly appearing near the lake side by Knuckles's own words

Why can it not have simply cracked the ground near the lake?

Quote

3: All taking several days by a huge team of robots, magical gem stones, and the smartest fiction scientist to get this running

What? Unless you're going with the Knuckles coma idea, your take on the events does not allow the Death Egg to be rebuilt over several days, it would have to be recognizable as a bigass metal egg in the time it takes Knuckles to wake up. And you keep trying to slip the emeralds into the process despite that being the point you're trying to prove.

e: and like, even setting all this aside, if Eggman's supposed to have a full set of emeralds on hand, why the shit do they not appear anywhere in the game? He doesn't stick them in his boss robots, Sonic doesn't steal them back and deliver them to their rightful guardian, we don't get some post-credits stinger of Eggman juggling emeralds even if you collected your set. How do you give Eggman the world-conquering power he's been seeking for several games and then completely fail to actually address that?

[Pengi]

11 hours ago, StriCNYN3 said:

Yea, here's from that same source on that same page on Retro:

Dr. Eggman's Conspiracy

Dr. Eggman, who escaped from the fallen Death Egg, was aware that the Chaos Emeralds were on the floating island.
He could catch a signal of a huge Chaos Emerald from a crack in the earth opened by the Death Egg. Using that energy, it is possible to let the Death Egg fly out into space again.

Dr. Eggman started building a base on the floating island at a quick pace in order to obtain the Chaos Emeralds.
Then, he remodeled the animals into robots, and changed the floating island's nature into a more severe one with an environmental change machine.

"Daaaahahaha!! Sonic, you're too late to come to this island. This time, by using the Chaos Emeralds, the world will be mine!"

----

Knuckles then notices the emeralds shake violently before a big explosion of sorts happens. At this point the emeralds are gone and Knuckles got kicked out the emerald altar and was knocked unconscious. When he wakes up, he notices an EGG in the sky, aka the Death Egg. Following that, he notices Eggman right next to him, which is when Eggman lies to him about Sonic being evil, targeting the emeralds and all that stuff. 

The main prologue talks about Eggman's ambition to obtain the Chaos Emeralds, just like Sonic 1, 2, 3D etc. It doesn't say that he actually managed to obtain them before the start of the game.

Re-read the Knuckles prologue. He notices the Death Egg near the lake, not in the sky. He doesn't encounter Eggman until a few days after the Chaos Emeralds disappeared.

9 hours ago, Miragnarok said:

Also, how did Knuckles lose the emeralds again after snagging them from Sonic? 

That is a bit of an odd one. After the credits of Sonic 3's bad ending, Knuckles is seen with the Chaos Emeralds that Sonic/Tails didn't retrieve from the Special Stages. So it can be inferred that Knuckles put the Chaos Emeralds into the Special Stages for safekeeping, to keep them out of Sonic's hands. 

[___-_]

Yo @Diogenes... All of the questions you're bringing up are easily answered if you just read the Jap manual of Sonic 3&K on Sonic Retro and play the game for yourself. I've tried telling you everything with written and visual evidence, but it's just going in circles. You're mixing up what you remember from Sonic 3 and at the same time, trying to poke holes into a manual's story that you evidently haven't even fully read or understood the context of yourself, and then mixing up the US version of the story that clearly has errors. Chaos Emeralds working the same as the Master Emerald to float the Angel Island? And that's evidence for the Death Egg? Come on now, do you seriously think that's the case for any Sonic game, let alone what the in-game cutscenes of Sonic 3&K tell you, or are you being disingenuous? I just told you how the Chaos emeralds don't keep the Islands a float like like Master Emeralds do.... but here we are.... I don't know why you took it upon yourself to try to answer me when this wasn't even in reply to you to begin with and then clearly you're not even doing your part in reading what's being brought to you, but I did not come here to argue with you about what you want to believe what the manual says and what the game does. Because that's all you're doing. Fighting the story of the manual I presented with your head canon.

All of a sudden the Death Egg doesn't need thrusters to start off and fly? Says who? You? Mind you, that was an extreme close up of the Death Egg in Launch Base Zone, and you're comparing a far shot of the same Death Egg from Sky Sanctuary and Lava Reef which were already launched way up above for the thrusters to even matter... but I'll get more into that in a second... Dinky explosions of Sonic 2's Death Egg? You mean the Sega Genesis 16-bit cartridge video game of the early 90's this is all seen in? Where the Jap manual of Sonic3 deliberately says it got thoroughly destroyed which you keep ignoring? This is your argument? Don't even start with that. Also, did you just somehow not see the giant star bomb all the animals and Tails saw from ground level into freaking space? This dinky explosion?...

...The scene I told you to watch and gave you a time stamp of specifically for what I meant? This is what I'm talking about. You're just being to busy being so quick to be a contrarian with your head canon instead of looking at what I've got to say and show. The evidence is there. There's no refuting this. This is your head canon you're arguing with. But back on to the Death Egg argument.... Clearly the game showing the thrusters of the Death Egg is how it get's launched in LAUNCH BASE Zone. Never mind the fact that you're once again mixing scenarios up. By that point of Sky Sanctuary and Lava Reef Zone where you see the Death Egg alone for your argument.... That's the end of Sonic and Knuckles where Eggman had the Master Emerald, not the Chaos Emeralds. This is not Sonic 3! This is a complete false equivalence and is a completely moot argument.

Again, let me be more clear. Your point about "Eggman takes the Master Emerald for the Death Egg".... Yes, after the fact he wanted and got the Chaos Emeralds, as I've already said plenty times. If you had read the manual I keep telling you about, you would know that all of this manual's story is set in the beginning of Sonic 3. Eggman does NOT take the Master Emerald until way later in the game, which is Sonic & Knuckles's end portion. You can see that by how Angel Island is not sunken described in the manual. You can see that in-game when you get to the Sonic and Knuckles portion of the game where the Master Emeralds rests in Lave Reef Zone's Altar when going to the Special Zones... but guess what you don't see with the Master Emerald when going to the Special Zones when just coming from Sonic 3? The Super Emeralds aka Angel Island Chaos Emeralds. So tell me again how the Death Egg is beginning to go up and orbit again in Sonic 3's portion in Launch Base Zone if Eggman doesn't have them yet with him saying he needs them for anything to start up again? Because the game is clearly telling you they're missing from the start and now all of a sudden the Death Egg is going into orbit again....

Again, you seem to keep ignoring every time I bring this up... The Chaos Emeralds Mysteriously Vanished from the Altar when Knuckles wakes up from being unconscious, notices they're all missing and searches for days for them (Which you keep trying to question the validity of what the manual itself says. Did you forget that Angel Island is... idk.... an island and is a very huge place at that? The Death Egg doesn't just eclipse the entire island like you're describing where it's just "noticeable everywhere". Yea The Death Egg is huge also, but you're solely reaching and purposefully ignoring what the manual says about the situation for your head canon of what you want Sonic to be to work. In Sonic & Knuckles's game intro, it's clearly seen to be only as sizable as Lava Reef Zone is (The Volcano it crash landed on) which is on one side of the Island!There're plenty more zones and areas on Angel Island that's not even shown in that screen shot because it's just. That. Big of an island!.... And that's just the surface of the island for crying out loud. Again, read the manual or you wouldn't be questioning this)...

But back on the the emeralds mysteriously vanishing... what does Knuckles find instead after days of searching for the emeralds under and on top the island like said in the manual? The previously destroyed Death Egg which is now on the lake side of the Island aka Launch Base Zone, and then Eggman....

...You can't put the two together and see that Eggman took the Chaos Emeralds there? The main evil scientific and greedy antagonists of Sonic the Hedgehog who literally says he wants those Chaos Emeralds in the beginning of Sonic 3? Does the manual literally have to hand hold the audience and say "And at that moment when the emeralds vanished, Eggman took it all for himself"? Like seriously? This is why this seems you're coming off as disingenuous or somehow actually coming across as believing the Chaos Emeralds just grew legs and left, because this should not be this hard to grasp, but let's break it down further:

1: Destroyed Death Egg of Sonic 2 Crash Lands on Angel Island's earth area and can't function.

2: Angel Island Chaos Emeralds from altar mysteriously vanish afterwards.

3: Death Egg is now in new lake area of Angel Island aka Launch Base Zone.

4: Eggman is now seen and lies about Sonic having the missing Chaos Emeralds to Knuckles. 

Are we clear now? At any case, I'm done, because again, I did not come here to argue about the many ways you could spin new random preconditions and rules on what the game actually deliberately tells us through manual and in game cutscenes, and I don't want to stink up this thread.  You keep trying to act like this is up to my interpretation. I'm literally just reading the manual that I gave you a source of for yourself.... to which evidently you had no idea of but feel the need to keep questioning me like I wrote it. That's all. I really don't want this to escalate anymore but it's really coming across as you just ignoring what I'm pointing to you from the manual and in-game cutscenes like I'm crazy despite me constantly showing proof while you're blatantly just failing to see how your own questions of the manual can be easily answered if you re-familiarized yourself with the game, read the Jap manual and even the US manual more clearly and fully, stop using head canon to dissuade actual points and events stated and shown in the manual and game and read what people have to say instead of glimpsing over them... Because again, "dinky explosions" and "The Death Egg didn't fly the way I wanted to despite being a whole different scenario" are not arguments and are explained in game and manual what things actually are.

So yea, any ill will or anything you may or may not feel, I apologize in advance and will just check out what you gotta say from afar because I got things to do now and spent waaaaay to much time on Sonic and all this right now lol. Peace out.   

[DabigRG]

@Diogenes@StriCNYN3

Also wanted to say that I get the feeling that the Master Emerald itself was something they didn't have fully thought out until after they were forced to split Sonic & Knuckles off as a separate game. Notice that in a couple of early things, the Master Emerald is referred to as just The Chaos Emerald. 

And given that they had already done a bit of retconning regarding the number of Chaos Emeralds, their shape, and where they happened to be from game to game, there's definitely more precedent for that to be the case.

[Diogenes]

28 minutes ago, StriCNYN3 said:

Chaos Emeralds working the same as the Master Emerald to float the Angel Island?

Again, even the Japanese manual conflates the Chaos and Master emeralds. Direct quote, from Windii's translation of the Japanese manual:

Quote

Dr. Eggman, who escaped from the fallen Death Egg, was aware that the Chaos Emeralds were on the floating island.
He could catch a signal of a huge Chaos Emerald from a crack in the earth opened by the Death Egg. Using that energy, it is possible to let the Death Egg fly out into space again.

They are not treated as fundamentally different things.

28 minutes ago, StriCNYN3 said:

All of a sudden the Death Egg doesn't need thrusters to start off and fly? Says who? You?

Says the game when it does exactly that in Sky Sanctuary.

28 minutes ago, StriCNYN3 said:

Mind you, that was an extreme close up of the Death Egg in Launch Base Zone, and you're comparing a far shot of the same Death Egg from Sky Sanctuary and Lava Reef which were already launched way up above for the thrusters to even matter...

Take a look at these Death Eggs, and notice that only one shows any indication of what might be rocket boosters, and it's the smallest one, from Sonic 3's ending.

28 minutes ago, StriCNYN3 said:

Where the Jap manual of Sonic3 deliberately says it got thoroughly destroyed which you keep ignoring?

I haven't ignored it, I've rejected your interpretation of it, because it clearly makes no sense. If the Death Egg was completely destroyed, it couldn't fall on Angel Island, as every version of the Sonic 3 manual claims. The manuals don't say that some pieces of the Death Egg landed there, they say "the Death Egg" crashed into it.

28 minutes ago, StriCNYN3 said:

Also, did you just somehow not see the giant star bomb all the animals and Tails saw from ground level into freaking space? This dinky explosion?...

Seems awful odd that this space station destroying explosion did no damage to Sonic or Eggman despite being right there.

28 minutes ago, StriCNYN3 said:

But back on to the Death Egg argument.... Clearly the game showing the thrusters of the Death Egg is how it get's launched in LAUNCH BASE Zone. Never mind the fact that you're once again mixing scenarios up. By that point of Sky Sanctuary and Lava Reef Zone where you see the Death Egg alone for your argument.... That's the end of Sonic and Knuckles where Eggman had the Master Emerald, not the Chaos Emeralds. This is not Sonic 3! This is a complete false equivalence and is a completely moot argument.

I'm not mixing anything up, this is exactly what I've been saying.

28 minutes ago, StriCNYN3 said:

but guess what you don't see with the Master Emerald when going to the Special Zones when just coming from Sonic 3? The Super Emeralds aka Angel Island Chaos Emeralds. 

Yes, because as the Japanese manual states, they disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Circumstances that you have decided are "Eggman stealing them", but that you still have yet to provide the slightest bit of proof for.

28 minutes ago, StriCNYN3 said:

So tell me again how the Death Egg is beginning to go up and orbit again in Sonic 3's portion in Launch Base Zone if Eggman doesn't have them yet with him saying he needs them for anything to start up again?

You keep saying that the Death Egg needs the emeralds to "start up". This is not stated anywhere in any of the manuals.

And it's able to get into the air briefly because there are a bunch of giant rocket boosters attached to it. Get a big enough rocket and you can get anything airborne even without magic rocks.

28 minutes ago, StriCNYN3 said:

But back on the the emeralds mysteriously vanishing... what does Knuckles find instead after days of searching for the emeralds under and on top the island like said in the manual? The previously destroyed Death Egg which is now on the lake side of the Island aka Launch Base Zone, and then Eggman....

You've got a lot of fucking nerve condescending to me and demanding that I just "read the manual" this whole time when you can't even get the basic order of events as presented in plain text right.

Knuckles sees the Death Egg before he spends days searching for the emeralds.

Again, direct quote, from the same exact source you claim to clearly and unambiguously support your interpretation:

Quote

When Knuckle regained consciousness, his body was thrown out of the altar.
As he slowly rose his body and looked around the vicinity, a partially destroyed emerald altar came into Knuckle's view.
Knuckle hurriedly leaped into the altar.
However, the Chaos Emeralds that should have been in there had vanished, without leaving a single fragment behind.

Knuckle went out of the altar dumbfounded.
Then, when he turned his feeble glance into the distance... He noticed something strange appearing near the lake.
When he saw that large, round object shaped like an egg, Knuckle felt a shiver along his spine.

"That large egg is the legendary dragon's..."
There's no mistaking that this egg must be the one that appears in the legend described in the Chaos Emerald's altar, the egg that will bring disaster to this island.

Knuckle patrolled the altar of seven Chaos Emeralds that exist on the island for the following few days, but all the Chaos Emeralds have disappeared without a trace.
And then, while he was examining every nook and cranny of the island, still not giving up, Knuckle encountered an unfamiliar man in the forest.

 

28 minutes ago, StriCNYN3 said:

...You can't put the two together and see that Eggman took the Chaos Emeralds there? The main evil scientific and greedy antagonists of Sonic the Hedgehog who literally says he wants those Chaos Emeralds in the beginning of Sonic 3? Does the manual literally have to hand hold the audience and say "And at that moment when the emeralds vanished, Eggman took it all for himself"? Like seriously? This is why this seems you're coming off as disingenuous or somehow actually coming across as believing the Chaos Emeralds just grew legs and left, because this should not be this hard to grasp,

I guess Eggman stole the emeralds at the end of Sonic 1, too. Weird how he used them to make some flowers around Sonic and then completely forgot to use them to take over the world.

28 minutes ago, StriCNYN3 said:

1: Destroyed Death Egg of Sonic 2 Crash Lands on Angel Island's earth area and can't function.

2: Angel Island Chaos Emeralds from altar mysteriously vanish afterwards.

To be maybe a bit picky here, if the emeralds only disappear some amount of time after the Death Egg crashes, it seems a bit odd that Knuckles' story in the manual doesn't mention anything about the enormous impact that shook mountains, flattened forests, and forced the island to sea level. I'm inclined to believe that either the impact itself caused the emeralds to disappear, or that they disappeared slightly sooner and the impact happened while Knuckles was knocked out.

Also this little rundown still does not prove that Eggman stole the emeralds.

[Sonic Fan J]

I have to agree with @Diogenes @StriCNYN3. The evidence that you are supplying is what is called in a court of law "circumstantial". It means that you are effectively using a set of circumstances that could match up to match up. You claim though that this is evidence by insisting on reading between the lines and there in is the problem. The burden of proof lays with you, but at no point have you provided direct evidence that either Eggman obtained the Chaos Emeralds or that the Death Egg was completely destroyed. Now you may question that second part, but the very manual you are referencing points out a couple of sentences later that the Death Egg despite being completely destroyed in fact crash lands onto the island and pushes it down into the ocean. This implies that the Death Egg is both still complete enough to be recognizable as the Death Egg and to be heavy enough to push an entire flying continent into the ocean. If that's completely destroyed then the I need a new dictionary pretty badly since last time I checked destroyed is what happened to the Death Star at the end of Episode 4 (there isn't even debris left in case you didn't know) while the Death Egg might better be described as ruined since it is in need of repairs. And if we are going to read between the lines as you insist, the manual contradicts total destruction by having it crash land after it was totally destroyed. Your argument implies that there was nothing left by relying on the start and ignores the contradiction that follows. This internal contradiction however invalidates you entire argument as your argument does not work for as long as the contradiction exists the Death Egg must be presumed to both not exist anymore and exist at the same time. Considering the Death Egg is not a quantum object this is scientifically impossible not to mention that the narrative requires the Death Egg to exist after it's destruction so that way it can crash land which results in the internal inconsistency that prevents your argument from working.

Now all of that leads us back to your original question about Emerald sets and how many of them there are; however many are needed at the point of the narrative to make the story work. Internal inconsistencies like this are a bane of the franchise and have been since the beginning as the franchise has always tried to have both no continuity but also interconnected lore at the same time. If you really want to see how bad this can be just ask Knuckles fans what Knuckles' duty is or ask @Shadowlax about why Infinite only works in Forces by writing the plot to fit anytime he needs to be a threat.

And lastly just to wrap it up let me quote you real quick

2 hours ago, StriCNYN3 said:

 Does the manual literally have to hand hold the audience and say "And at that moment when the emeralds vanished, Eggman took it all for himself"?

The answer to this question is yes. At no point in game, or in the manual, is it stated or shown that Eggman has the emeralds. There is no proof, only circumstantial evidence which is for all legal and practical definitions, not proof. It's good for supposition and debate, but under no circumstances can it be used as proof alone. So again yes, for it to be known that Eggman has the Emeralds it needs to be explicitly stated or shown as otherwise it is up for debate as their is no proof.

[Skull Leader]

Some of mine:

* Where did Amy got the Piko Piko hammer? Was it a gift by destiny? A relic passed down through generations of clan Rose? Or something she found inside a specially marked cereal box?

* Who is Cream's father?

* Why was Eggman so bloody determined to kidnap Vanilla, an apparently ordinary mother that had nothing special about herself, by all means in Sonic Advance 2?

* How did the Chaotix meet and became a team? And no, Knuckles Chaotix doesn't count. I think there has to be a backstory to how a rockin crocodile whose dream of becoming a famed detective, a shinobi chameleon who has mastered the shadow arts and a scattered brained little bee all got together.

* How is it possible for Sonic to eat fully loaded chilidogs and not get a single stain of chili sauce on his perfectly clean white gloves?

* Who in-universe keeps placing springs and all other sort of gimmicks in such a convenient way that help Sonic navigate through places that he just could not possibly on his own?

* How can Big be featured as a cameo in one version of SA2 but not in another? Is he some kind of God?

* What happened to Chocola after Heroes?

[Splash the Otter]

49 minutes ago, Skull Leader said:

Some of mine:

* Where did Amy got the Piko Piko hammer? Was it a gift by destiny? A relic passed down through generations of clan Rose? Or something she found inside a specially marked cereal box?

I have a headcanon that Tails gave it to her. This assumes that it's the same hammer from Tails' Adventure.

[DabigRG]

1 hour ago, Skull Leader said:

 

* Where did Amy got the Piko Piko hammer? Was it a gift by destiny? A relic passed down through generations of clan Rose? Or something she found inside a specially marked cereal box?

 

She bought it at a toy outlet.

 

1 hour ago, Skull Leader said:

* Why was Eggman so bloody determined to kidnap Vanilla, an apparently ordinary mother that had nothing special about herself, by all means in Sonic Advance 2?

 

Because he knew otherwise.

1 hour ago, Skull Leader said:

 

* How is it possible for Sonic to eat fully loaded chilidogs and not get a single stain of chili sauce on his perfectly clean white gloves?

 

1 hour ago, Skull Leader said:

 

* What happened to Chocola after Heroes?

He hangs around the cottage with Vanilla.

 

 

 

[___-_]

Fair enough @Sonic Fan J and the rest of yall

About the Death Egg, I visualize it like a totaled car, where you still see like the husk of it but it's still considered completely destroyed unless one wants to be overly pedantic on terminology. Then it was just a matter of Eggman rebuilding it in the amount of days he had as he would have to along with the rest that he wanted to do on the island, but anyway. 

Yea I'll let the whole thing go since I guess at the end of the day, what I'm saying is just circumstantial.

Not gonna lie tho, it's still irks me that considering this is the 3rd iteration of relatively simple, black and white children's game where out of the 4 casts members on an island with emeralds, 1 of the members being evil who has a history of wanting to steal, admitting he wants to steal again, is stated in game to take action to steal, then with his big evil plans mysteriously succeeding right when the emeralds are missing, but then his same plans starts failing on him just at the right time those emeralds can be found again later on.... I feel like we're giving too much of a blind eye on that amount of evidence, because it's not like we don't know their perspectives. It's all shared in the 3rd person with them openly admitting what their goals are in the manual and explored more in game. It just adds up to me, especially considering the counter evidence. Like how the US manual says Chaos Emeralds makes the island float like it's the only gems in the game. That's wrong going by the actual game events and already makes that source less credible. But I've already stressed this enough too many times I know you guys are already tired of that lol. I'll def leave it alone and will probably come up with a another question another time.

 

 

[Shadowlax]

To comment on a previous conversation. Sonic is a franchise where looking at things like manuals internet lore addons and even sometimes in game descriptions are often contradictory to what happens in the games. (Heck what iizuka says himself qualifies this) don't yield the best results as to finding out what's going on. Looking at the games themselves and how the marketing and subsequent games after that react to it is what will give you what is and what isn't. Unless its a situation that so abstract that it requires outside delineation that isn't your own interpretation of events. 

Now to contribute to the topic, I have unanswerable questions.

One is simply, how did knuckles end up on the island alone. I'm gonna assume he had parents... so they had to like...vanish at some point. Did they die defending him? Like legit what happened. We will never get the answer to this question. But its and lways interested me. At least in my head, I like to think of the echidina's as mostly irresponsible. And it would be interesting, in a dark way , if knuckles's parents were still alive and just dumped him off to do that duty. For knuckles to sort of find his family only to learn they aren't really his family his friends are. And maybe he shouldn't hold himself to the traditions of those that came before him because its been shown time and again that its not a good idea. And it serves as a natural transition for him to just leave the island, and maybe find a more technical way to guard the M.E.

Question two, is shadow a hedgehog that Gerald found or is he a hedgehog that Gerald made. Now this will, much like the previous , this will never be answered. Now some of you might be going " Well obviously he made him " we don't actually have confirmation of that. In fact if you look at what happens or what's around in shadow's game and in sonic adventure 2, it suggests the opposite. The nature of shadow's creation is mystery and Gerald at the time was desperate to find something desperate to help his daughters condition and if you ignore Shth and go by the myth that gerald used the echidna ruins as a basis , its not to hard to believe that a desperate doctor grabbed a hedgehog because they are naturally chaos emerald attune and did some experiments. And if you don't ignore Shth which you shouldn't because its canon, those ruins aren't echidina ruins, they are black arms ruins. So that just throws that entire other theory out of the window, and you just wonder why shadow is a hedgehog. Now yes the real reason is " They wanted to create an edgy hedgehog to sell toys " but in the world itself along with geralds penchant for happening to find ancient mythical stuff in the first place it isn't too far fetched to suggest he found a hedgehog....somewhere. Now if you ask me, I believe that all of mephilies and his demons were just old black arms and shadow was someone else who may have been powerful and black arms related even before the events of of sa2, would explain a lot of stuff in that game and Shth.

 

That said, will most likey never get the answer to this question and the previous one. While I would to believe the shadow thing exists written down somewhere but they just couldn't make it work with the time they had. In general a lot of these questions wont get answered because sega hasn't actually given any sincere thought of what they would like a canonical answer to those questions. They may have ideas, but none of them are thought out enough or in some cases relevant enough to warrant them elaborating one. Hence their aversion to even a spin off like boom addressing it. They don't wish to add on anymore lore that might turn some people off. Then again, this new film is rumored to do some sonic back story, but I'm gonna bet it was out of their control and they will distance themselves from this film when it releases to be the uninteresting dumpsterfire that it will most likely be.

But hey speaking of questions that will never get answered

I HAVE MORE QUESTIONS AND THESE WILL SUPER NEVER GET ANSWERED

What was the deal with the ancients from boom, they look like the sonic 4 ( Sonic tails knuckles and amy ) reincarnations maybe? Are there more folks like lyric? Where were they gonna go with that story. Does that mean there were echdina's living in harmony with the rest of the world at some point unlike the normal universe, and if so where are they now, besides knuckles. Where in the heck did this version of shadow come from. Where there any concepts planned to be included in games, comics, TV show ect that didn't actually make it in because cancellation. What was sonic synergy gonna be like before it combined with the comic tv show to become sonic boom. Why was rouge the bat banned from being used in sonic boom, where there other banned characters?

[Sonic Fan J]

1 hour ago, StriCNYN3 said:

About the Death Egg, I visualize it like a totaled car, where you still see like the husk of it but it's still considered completely destroyed unless one wants to be overly pedantic on terminology. Then it was just a matter of Eggman rebuilding it in the amount of days he had as he would have to along with the rest that he wanted to do on the island, but anyway.

I like this description but pedantic is a thing I can do from experience in this case.

Number of years ago my mom got rear ended at a red light and there was almost no visible damage to her van. It even worked. Started up, could drive, shift gears, work as normal. The insurance company still called it totaled and it became illegal to drive because of unseen damage that did not prevent it from working. It's a real life case of your totally destroyed but not really problem involving the Death Egg. It's why I called out the internal inconsistencies in the narrative as what defeated your argument. It's not that your argument was even weak or not well thought out, it's a matter of the story itself not working making any attempt to rationalize it meaningless.

Anyway I know you were willing to drop it but the invination to be pedantic with experience for the example you cited made me want to address it. Anyway though, I'll try to let it go myself now as well.

-----

Moving on to the topic, why did the Sonic 2 team choose a character to allow for a second player to play at the same time who doesn't naturally fit the gameplay of the time? Instead they forced their design to fit the gameplay rather than coming up with a design that fit the gameplay naturally. I know people love Tails, but when I look at the problems and divisions that the franchise and fanbase suffered from I can actually understand why some blame him as starting everything wrong with the gameplay and additional playable characters as his ability to fly was independent and demanded different rules from what the gameplay was built as and that Sonic was designed to fit into no less. Tails opened the way for countless other characters to ignore the design philosophy of Sonic himself as well as raising fan expectations of every character having their own unique gameplay (it should be noted that even though Knuckles debuted and was playable at the same time as Tails' flight was introduced to the player that Knuckles himself played identically to Sonic until Sonic and Knuckles released and made him different with not even his gliding or climbing appearing at any point in Sonic 3). So again I wonder, why did they design outside of the gameplay and force the design into the gameplay instead of the other way around?

[Wraith]

3 hours ago, Sonic Fan J said:

 

Moving on to the topic, why did the Sonic 2 team choose a character to allow for a second player to play at the same time who doesn't naturally fit the gameplay of the time? Instead they forced their design to fit the gameplay rather than coming up with a design that fit the gameplay naturally. I know people love Tails, but when I look at the problems and divisions that the franchise and fanbase suffered from I can actually understand why some blame him as starting everything wrong with the gameplay and additional playable characters as his ability to fly was independent and demanded different rules from what the gameplay was built as and that Sonic was designed to fit into no less. Tails opened the way for countless other characters to ignore the design philosophy of Sonic himself as well as raising fan expectations of every character having their own unique gameplay (it should be noted that even though Knuckles debuted and was playable at the same time as Tails' flight was introduced to the player that Knuckles himself played identically to Sonic until Sonic and Knuckles released and made him different with not even his gliding or climbing appearing at any point in Sonic 3). So again I wonder, why did they design outside of the gameplay and force the design into the gameplay instead of the other way around?

First I'd like to speculate that Tails was only given flight in the first place because it provided an easy way to get him back on the screen despite all the chaos that comes with Sonic gameplay. If there's some official source that contradicts that let me know but that was always my thoughts on the matter. Letting him fly naturally is just the next natural extension of that. It may not make sense to implement it on paper, but it's definitely something Sonic fans would want to see happen because it's a fun idea. Players would want to feel more like they're playing as Tails and not just a Sonic skin.

In order to keep evolving and shake things up, you have to be able to look critically at things you once thought to be rules, right?  You can't be completely pragmatic and logical about everything because you have to tap into what would make the kids with the controllers enthusiasic. Sometimes, to have a hook, you need to think about what would wow your audience, what they would like to see in a game in their wildest dreams, the type of crazy idea that makes developers excited, and work backwards. That's how you get 'Sonic' in the first place, because it doesn't actually make sense to develop a platformer focused on as moving fast as possible on hardware where you can't actually see what's in front of you. 

Tails's flight is a concept I'm open to having rethought, but I wouldn't say exploring it was a mistake by any means.