If You Were In Charge: How would YOU handle one element of the series's lore?

[Spin Attaxx]

So Sonic Team's done things we don't agree with when it comes to story and mythology when it comes to this series. But this topic is here to discuss how you - yes, you - would handle elements of this series's 22 (going on 23) year long mythology if you were in a position to do so. It can be anything - a character's design, something's backstory, a location, anything! Just make sure it's detailed - so no "Mephiles wouldn't be an idiot" answers - expand on HOW you would make Mephiles not an idiot.

 

To start with, I'd write the Lost Hex as being this small broken planet that teleports between worlds, and can absorb pieces of other planets to "fill in the blanks". The Zeti would I guess be Saiyan expies in so much that they go down to the planet the Hex arrives over and fight/kill everyone there for sport/to make piece stealing easier somehow.

[Chaos Incarnate]

There really isn't much I would change from the series lore, honestly. I love just about all of the Modern designs (Boom's are growing on me, but they only work as something for that series and it's not something I want to see affecting the main games), and Sonic Team's original Japanese canon/backstory is pitch perfect in about every way, so I don't see the need to give Sonic an origin/backstory.

 

I guess I can say the one change I would've made was having the decency to keep Shadow the Hedgehog dead after Sonic Adventure 2. I thought bringing him back in Heroes was a real middle finger to his sacrifice in Adventure 2. At least it established he could have possibly just been an android copy of the original, so I would have been fine if they kept going in that direction, but then his spinoff title directly threw that out the window. Adventure 2's ending really doesn't leave any impact on me whatsoever knowing he immediately returns in the next title.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

I would stop this disjointed mess that's going on and make things connect more, and make the world more interactive. Each event is standalone, making it easier for someone new to jump into, but they can still hold a connection to the previous titles and lore before it that might make someone interested in looking back into past games.

 

For example, in Unleashed the world breaks apart, and you visit various parts of the world to fix it. I would have other characters and organizations like GUN trying to help out and keep order when Dark Gaia's minions spring from the night. Characters like Team Dark and Chaotix are trying to hold them off in certain parts of the world, and you can visit them to help them out while looking for Gaia Temples. In addition to that, you can visit characters like Knuckles who, like Pickle, has some knowledge of ancient cultures, but unlike Pickle doesn't have very much knowledge on the Gaia Temples. But what affects the Gaia Temples and the Chaos Emeralds also affects his Angel Island and the Master Emerald, both because of the energy that started the mess and the fact that Gaia's minions are invading his island and he needs help fighting them off, which brings Knuckles into the conflict and you can see the greater connection here with the world and the lore. (nevermind this is me venting how much wasted potential Sonic Unleashed was, despite being a decent story)

 

I would also make it a point to reuse elements to enable better growth and progression. Make Little Planet come back again, and use its Time Stones to travel to the future or the present not just there, but to the rest of the world below it. You can see the effects of Eggman taking control of things or how things would thrive without him, or even see the future where Silver resides. Make Lost Hex more recurring (despite what happened to the Zeti), and have them invade the world.

 

All in all, I wouldn't just create something and throw it away or ignore it when a new game comes out. It would essentially be doing what the Adventures did by expanding on past elements, or making new ones that still connect to the old.

 

Even better, I've though up a way to make things in Battle's backstory connect with the entire series lore, one that might have been unintended on Sonic Team's part. So there were four great civilizations, with Emerl being discovered as part of the Fourth one, later revealed to be the Nocturnus Tribe of echidnas in the non-canon story of Chronicles (I'd completely retcon and retool the entire narrative so that it fits with the series more, and with as few of the connections to the comic as possible beyond "more echidnas").

 

So with the Nocturnus as the Fourth Great Civilization of the Ancient Sonic world, there should be a Third, Second, and First. The Knuckles Tribe could be the Third Great Civilization since they were warring with the Nocturnus, the Ancient Babylon (alien, genie things...eh...) are the Second Great Civilization, and due to it predating the world by millions of years those that created the Gaia Temples can be the First Great Civilization.

 

And in addition to this, I would make a bible of Sonic lore so that these elements aren't forgotten and have greater utility in the expansive variety of places, events, and artifacts that go on and can be build upon further.

 

One more thing? I would give the Chaos Emeralds some really defined abilities to make them less of a deus ex machina, and more like really powerful objects that can do crazy stuff when utilized properly. We know they can be fully drained (Unleashed) or half drained (SA1) but I would also emphasizing on their other known weakness/strength: The Master Emerald. The ME can negate or amplify the Chaos Emeralds, and whenever those seven get misused the Master Emerald is the back up that prevents things from getting too chaotic with their power. So the Chaos Emeralds can bestow infinite energy upon a user who can harness them, enable flight, warp space/time, tear holes in dimensions (their misuse opening portals to places like the Twilight Cage or Blaze's Dimension), tho I'm not sure about allowing it to keep its abilities to resurrect a life or seal demons like in Sonic 06 - although to be fair, they have to collect all seven Emeralds for that former ability, so maybe it can work out better. I'd just want to make things less "Collect the Chaos Emeralds to return everything to normal" like the Dragon Balls and more "Collect the Chaos Emeralds to stop the threat before it gets any worse," so that there's more tension and even less of a status quo, kind of like how they ended SA1 where Chaos was stopped but Station Square is still in ruins.

 

And as for other things like the Black Arms? I don't know about everyone else, but I'm of the opinion of completely removing them from Shadow's backstory (and rewriting the entirety of Sonic Heroes so that there's better flow, but Shadow doesn't have amnesia), or if people want them to stay I would have them as a human splinter group that caused the problems in SA2 and causing problems now that would bring things back full circle instead of introducing outside elements elements that, although they fit with the chronology, came completely out of nowhere to explain things that were already explained well enough before. Aliens are perfectly fine in the Sonic series, you can have the Wisps around, you can bring back the Twilight Cage residents, but the Black Arms veered a hard left into the series as a backstory element that had no connection to anything before or after ShTH in the gameverse and we're expected to follow this connection as if it were there. And I think, if we're to keep them as aliens, they should be retconned into something else rather than as a part of Shadow's past.

 

And Sonic 06? I'd rather write it out, or just leave it alone. I'm not sure how to deal with it anymore than that.

 

Lastly, I want to explore Blaze's Dimension more. There's very little we know about it, and that uncharted territory is ripe for worldbuilding.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

Eh...

 

I'd say what I would do, but that is future stuff planned in my fanfiction. Colors is currently under adaptation first, and will likely have a bunch of things that will need further explanation in the potential prequels and sequels (assuming I can even work that quickly).

 

But like CSS said, definitely a bit more connected, and cleaning up some of the clunkier stuff (and possibly adding more clunky stuff due to my inexperience at this kind of thing).

 

Oh, and link for anyone who cares: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9919657/1/Our-True-Colors

[FriendBot]

I would have made Unleashed and Colors connect in some way.

 

I thought of the idea that Dark Gaia hit Eggman all the way to space, where he'll be with his destroyed amarda. SA-55 says the same dialogue to Eggman but instead he puts SA-55 into a "robot convertor", which gives us Orbot and makes Cubot. Then Eggman sees the Wisps playing with the scrap metal and Eggman sees the aliens using their Color Powers, offscreen of course, and Eggman is intrigued on seeing the Wisps and begins to chase after them, scene ends.

 

It does sound kind of stupid but maybe with a few tweaks, it might work.

[azoo]

Well, if I had my way with the series the only thing I could think of that would be a major change would be to scratch out anything about ShTH's story. Probably the most try-hard, overconvoluted rubbish the series has ever had, and it didn't seem to do a single bit of good for the character it was directed at.

 

Other than that, there's nothing I can think of that'd really need removing, just expanding and fleshing out. Fill in some gaps inbetween games, about mythos stuff like the Gaia temples and why the Chaos Emeralds go to the special zones, minor bg info about the islands and locales Sonic visits, story relevant stuff (which the past couple of games has been lacking in), etc etc etc.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Well, if I had my way with the series the only thing I could think of that would be a major change would be to scratch out anything about ShTH's story. Probably the most try-hard, overconvoluted rubbish the series has ever had, and it didn't seem to do a single bit of good for the character it was directed at.

You know, the more I think about ShTH, the more I think it could have worked if it were done COMPLETELY different.

 

Don't get me wrong, scratching it out is still an option that I am more than happy to support. Yet at the same time, I'm wondering how it would be if it were even more of a "Megaman Zero" to the Adventures "Megaman X" without completely betraying everything about the franchise. Where the X and Zero series had enemies and characters completely related to the world, they had devastating weapons of ruinous with Zero topping it with the Ragnarok space weapon as a near mirror of Space Colony ARK, down to the laser weapon and the colony drop, with rogue factions trying to make use of them for their own selfish ends.

 

This makes me wonder how it would be if, instead of the Black Arms being aliens they were humans instead, a splinter group responsible for making the ARK into a secret factory of WMDs and then trying to cover it up and keep it secret 50 years ago, using the Eclipse cannon to hold nations hostage. Then said splinter group comes out more openly in the world and tries to take advantage of Eggman being a threat and tries to usurp power.

 

I wonder how the power play between that splinter group, Eggman, and a more benevolent, but misguided GUN would play out with Sonic, Shadow, and everyone else in the middle of that mess?

 

Eh, just something to get off my head.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

You know, the more I think about ShTH, the more I think it could have worked if it were done COMPLETELY different.

 

Don't get me wrong, scratching it out is still an option that I am more than happy to support. Yet at the same time, I'm wondering how it would be if it were even more of a "Megaman Zero" to the Adventures "Megaman X" without completely betraying everything about the franchise. Where the X and Zero series had enemies and characters completely related to the world, they had devastating weapons of ruinous with Zero topping it with the Ragnarok space weapon as a near mirror of Space Colony ARK, down to the laser weapon and the colony drop, with rogue factions trying to make use of them for their own selfish ends.

 

This makes me wonder how it would be if, instead of the Black Arms being aliens they were humans instead, a splinter group responsible for making the ARK into a secret factory of WMDs and then trying to cover it up and keep it secret 50 years ago, using the Eclipse cannon to hold nations hostage. Then said splinter group comes out more openly in the world and tries to take advantage of Eggman being a threat and tries to usurp power.

 

I wonder how the power play between that splinter group, Eggman, and a more benevolent, but misguided GUN would play out with Sonic, Shadow, and everyone else in the middle of that mess?

 

Eh, just something to get off my head.

My version of Shadow fused some aspects of 06 together with Shadow. It involves a mortal version of Mephiles, who was a jerkish scientist who had a one-sided rivalry with Gerald Robotnik due to always being second best. However, sometime after Shadow's creation 50 years ago, a strange artifact (something Black Armish) was obtained and stored on the ARK for safekeeping and research. Gerald did eventually discover some kind of property in the Black Arms artifact that could potentially either cure the fatal disease Maria had, or if used incorrectly/abused, could result in a deadly virus that turns others into monstrous aliens.

 

Mortal Mephiles, being a self-important jerk, decides that he doesn't want to be second-best to Gerald anymore, decides to set up Gerald to make it seem like he had gone mad with power, and "sells out" the info to GUN. Insert SA2 stuff, and Mephiles seems to get away with it...

 

At least until Shadow reappears again, without any memory of his past life, and Rouge and Omega try to restore his knowledge of his past life. Mephiles panics and sets off a chain of events (that includes the GUN commander) that ultimately exposes his part in the tragedy of Shadow, Maria, and Gerald Robotnik. Oh, and some kind of thing where he absorbs the power of the Black Arms artifact and becomes an eldritch abominations, but I'll figure that part out once I actually think up the details.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

My version of Shadow fused some aspects of 06 together with Shadow. It involves a mortal version of Mephiles, who was a jerkish scientist who had a one-sided rivalry with Gerald Robotnik due to always being second best. However, sometime after Shadow's creation 50 years ago, a strange artifact (something Black Armish) was obtained and stored on the ARK for safekeeping and research. Gerald did eventually discover some kind of property in the Black Arms artifact that could potentially either cure the fatal disease Maria had, or if used incorrectly/abused, could result in a deadly virus that turns others into monstrous aliens.

 

Mortal Mephiles, being a self-important jerk, decides that he doesn't want to be second-best to Gerald anymore, decides to set up Gerald to make it seem like he had gone mad with power, and "sells out" the info to GUN. Insert SA2 stuff, and Mephiles seems to get away with it...

 

At least until Shadow reappears again, without any memory of his past life, and Rouge and Omega try to restore his knowledge of his past life. Mephiles panics and sets off a chain of events (that includes the GUN commander) that ultimately exposes his part in the tragedy of Shadow, Maria, and Gerald Robotnik. Oh, and some kind of thing where he absorbs the power of the Black Arms artifact and becomes an eldritch abominations, but I'll figure that part out once I actually think up the details.

Does the rogue scientist have to be named Mephiles? Just seems too obviously evil to me. And I'm a bit mixed on the monstrous alien part; that's gonna need something more solid to sell me onto that idea, as I'm still against the idea of aliens being a part of the conflict. Now, you could probably mix that in with one of the ancient civilizations of the world, and that might work out better - since the Babylon Rogues are alien-genie things that became birds, you could use them...then again, maybe that's going a bit too far with the fixfic? I dunno, needs more ironing out.

 

Back to the Mephiles as the antagonist, aside from a different name I was thinking we could add more of a rogue general, the previous GUN commander who was greedy and wanted to use whatever artifact he finds as a weapon to secure his own power. And if you do this, you could probably keep "Mephiles" but instead of it being a real name, it's a codename (there are military units in real life that nickname themselves after devils, so this is why I think it would work better this way). Maybe mix it with a military scientist if we want to compromise (and I'm thinking that's too far myself, but who knows?). But beyond that, whether rogue general or scientist, I wouldn't be against him secretly selling Gerald out to GUN or being the one to use his pull with GUN to arrest and execute the man himself.

 

As for Shadow, can't we avoid the amnesia part? I'm not saying this just because it's been overdone in fiction, but it's not like he would know of all this other stuff when the events take place anyway, since he only knows what he knew back in SA2. I think we could keep his memory the way it is, the reason being that it would be pointless to have him not know something he already doesn't know about as far as what "Mephiles" did and will do as the chain of events unfold.

 

And as for absorbing the artifact's power? Sounds good. I'm really cautious because we've abused that shtick to death in this series, but it could work out better than previous attempts in this franchise. Or here's a thought, rather than use an artifact to transform, how about he fuses to a machine like Dr. Wily at the end of Megaman Zero 4 and the artifact is a power source, or catalyst that helps him bond to the machine? Better yet, name that machine Project Mephiles.

 

It's up to you, but just some thoughts on the idea.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

Does the rogue scientist have to be named Mephiles? Just seems to obviously evil to me. And I'm a bit mixed on the monstrous alien part; that's gonna need something more solid to sell me onto that idea, as I'm still against the idea of aliens being a part of the conflict. Now, you could probably mix that in with one of the ancient civilizations of the world, and that might work out better - since the Babylon Rogues are alien-genie things that became birds, you could use them...then again, maybe that's going a bit too far with the fixfic? I dunno, needs more ironing out.

 

Back to the Mephiles as the antagonist, aside from a different name I was thinking we could add more of a rogue general, the previous GUN commander who was greedy and wanted to use whatever artifact he finds as a weapon to secure his own power. Maybe mix it with a military scientist if we want to compromise (and I'm thinking that's too far myself, but who knows?). But beyond that, whether rogue general or scientist, I wouldn't be against him secretly selling Gerald out to GUN or being the one to use his pull with GUN to arrest and execute him.

 

As for Shadow, can't we avoid the amnesia part? I'm not saying this just because it's been overdone in fiction, but it's not like he would know of all this other stuff when the events take place, since he only knows what he knew back in SA2. I think we could keep his memory the way it is, the reason being that it would be pointless to have him not know something he already doesn't know about as far as what "Mephiles" did and will do as the chain of events unfold.

 

And as for absorbing the artifact's power? Sounds good. I'm really cautious because we've abused that shtick to death in this series, but it could work out better than previous attempts in this franchise. Or here's a thought, rather than use an artifact to transform, how about he fuses to a machine like Dr. Wily at the end of Megaman Zero 4 and the artifact is a power source, or catalyst that helps him bond to the machine?

 

It's up to you, but just some thoughts on the idea.

Well to be honest, the amnesia thing is because I'm following the whole "Shadow is an android" shtick, not because he is the original Shadow. I just wanted to keep that a partial secret until I could get the kinks out.

 

Also, I just called him Mephiles simply because it was first name on my mind, not because I actually thought of a good name for him yet. As for the alien stuff? Yeah, still working on that, just needed something to provide a good reason for the artifact to exist.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Well to be honest, the amnesia thing is because I'm following the whole "Shadow is an android" shtick, not because he is the original Shadow. I just wanted to keep that a partial secret until I could get the kinks out.

Meh. Now I'm a hardliner of completely rewriting Heroes' story, up to and including scratching out that sub-plot, so that's probably more of why I'm resistant to that idea.

 

But oh well. Might as well see how that plays out before I judge any further.

 

EDIT: Also, made some edits in that last post to give you more material to work with.

[Sparky]

I would officially connect the elements of Sonic Rush with Sonic '06. I mean, all the pieces are there. The Sol Emeralds and the Gems of Soleanna having the same exact shape, colors, and number, the Sun God deity taking the form of an eternal Flame and being named Solaris can easily be connected to the Sol Emeralds and form a nice parallel with Chaos and the Chaos Emeralds. The events occurring towards the end of '06 could easily work as a "lead in" to the Rush games with Blaze sealing herself and Iblis in "another dimension" and Elise blowing out the Flame of Hope causing Solaris to be erased from the timeline of Sonic's world and causing a temporal reset. It can easily be said that those events caused the creation of the Sol Dimension. 

 

I would also have the Time Eater actually be a temporal remnant of Solaris (mostly the Mephiles or corrupted pieces), which would actually work really well and have Sonic Generations be the perfect conclusion to the Modern Era which was started by Sonic '06. 

 

Another thing I would do is take something introduced in the comics and bring it over to the games: Sonic's Chaos Factor. It can easily be said that over the course of the games, Sonic has formed a strong bond with the Chaos Emeralds. A bond so strong that the Chaos Emeralds' recognize Modern Sonic as the Embodiment of Chaos even throughout different points of time. The Knuckles Clan could have used the Chaos Emeralds to make predictions of future events, and many of their prophecies could have centered around Sonic and his battles with Eggman. One example of this is the Hidden Palace mural depicting the events in the Doomsday Zone. I would even confirm that Professor Gerald did in fact did research on the Echidna ruins, and not only studied Chaos and the Emerald Altar, but also the murals depicting Sonic. This would have lead to Gerald thinking that this hedgehog is a very special being and may even be the true Ultimate Lifeform. Thus leading to Gerald basing Shadow's species and such on Sonic, with the Black Arms' blood and DNA making Shadow black and red and slightly furrier. The Chaos Energy used during Project:Shadow may have also had a hand in this, making Shadow even MORE like Sonic down to the last physical detail and ability. 

 

Another thing I would do is connect Silver to this as well and say that Silver is both Shadow's descendant and Sonic's reincarnation. 

 

 

 

And of course, I would also keep games like Tails' Adventure and Knuckles' Chaotix in the canon-timeline; keeping Tails' and Knuckles' connection to the Chaos Emeralds and having Super forms, and doing what the Comics did and connect the Babylonian history introduced in the Riders games with the Battlekukku Army, keeping them as secondary villains for Tails that want to unlock the secrets of their ancestors that they believe is the key to them conquering the world and ruling over the skies.  

 

The last things I can think of right now is showing that Cream has a connection to Chao, and Marine officially being a hydrokinetic in parallel with Blaze's pyrokinetic abilities.

[Kaze no Klonoa]

I would be connecting certain plots in the series. They should answer why certain characters and certain points in the story happen. In fact, Sonic Generations seems to be (Correct me if i'm wrong) the only title linking other games together, from references of the Storybook Saga to the fact that every main series game has a stage in Generations. And yes, Generations is part of the main canon.

 

However, how other games feel disjointed and feel disconnected from the other games is like restarting the world in a cartoon after one episode. The latest title, Sonic Lost World should had been connected to Generations and Colors. Otherwise, exactly how would Eggman got out there? If Generations is Main Canon, the next game should had at least detailed how he got out of the white space. They could had done better and explained how Eggman returned like they did in Sonic Generations, mentioning what happened after the events of Sonic Colors. A bigger question, what are the wisps even DOING in Lost World? It made sense they returned in Generations, because of Time Travel, but in Lost World, they are just there. No story means, for some reason trapped in a capsule like before.

 

Although I already said what element of the series' lore I would had handle, but one thing I would also fix is make the games take place in ONE WORLD, AND ONE WORLD ONLY. The fact that Station Square should STILL EXIST, Soleanna should still be a town despite the characters not remembering the events, and that the entire world in Unleashed was replaced with green grasslands and such (Which would look nice, but where the heck did everything go?) in Colors, Generations and Lost World. The Comics actually do this better, while having all of the locations in Unleashed PLUS Station Square and even all of the locations in the ORIGINAL COMICS still there. Sonic and friends would live in a forest area, but also would visit urban towns populating with people and animals.

 

That's just what I would do.