Does Gerald Robotnik deserve to be pardoned for his crimes?

[cjmoore25]

20 minutes ago, Supt. Gabe said:

Everyone saying that Gerald Robotnik should be pardoned is overlooking a huge issue.

The case has been closed. He was condemned as guilty and sentenced to death. It's gone cold.

In order to pardon him, they would have to reopen the case. This would require sorting through lots of litigation and putting in a ton of money to start it back up.

Even if they managed to sift through the legalese and forked up the necessary funds, they'd have to close the case once again. Because you can't put a dead man on trial.

So there is no point to exhume the man or his trial. It's over.

Pardoning a person for their crimes after death is nothing new. Just a few years ago, they tried to do just that with Billy the Kid. It didn't work, but still.

[Sega DogTagz]

3 hours ago, Nepenthe said:

I don't tend to really count the handheld games within canon, but just for the sake of argument:

Feel like I'm shaking a hornets nest for no reason than my own enjoyment,  but seriously?

What about the two Rush games? Or the Advance Series? Shoot, Sonic Adv 3 straight up seals the Gizoid's as a direct continuation of Emerl's story from Battle.

Some of those handheld games are pretty meaty in lure and canon - not to mention quite a few important-ish characters made their debuts in those titles. Why ignore them wholesale?

 

3 hours ago, Nepenthe said:

Shadow really has nothing to do with the Gemerl incident. His only purpose was to be a link to immortality, the issues of which were recognized and handled by the ARK itself considering they halted and sealed away the Biolizard when it started going out of control. No muss, no fuss. Furthermore, if the Gemerl incident was that destructive- again, I don't think the public knew about this- you would think they wouldn't have based their superficial reasons for going in on the Biolizard being cranky (hence why I don't take Battle as canon). Also is the fact that, as I said before, they lied about the details of the raid and killed people without public knowledge and just buried the incident. Also, Shadow hadn't had a Gizoid incident. He literally hadn't done a single thing to warrant being sealed beyond existing. I don't know; I don't think preemptive fears are a reason to go in shooting children.

 

Shadow had nothing to do with Emerl, but Emerl had everything to do with Project Shadow. Not in the direct applied science way, but more-so thematically.

Gerald's logs in Sonic Battle state that he started work with Emerl slightly before and alongside project Shadow. His fellow scientists and his superiors (who are the same people who demanded project shadow - thusly making them GUN execs) were well aware of his work with the Gizoid and even contributed to its developments. Gerald was essentially juggling two major projects. The Gizoid and Shadow.

Now, lets fastforward down the timeline

Journal #4 states that his superiors were in a frenzy, looking to stop work on Project Shadow, which was close to completion. Combine that with Journal #5 and we know that Gerald handed the Gizoid over to GUN in order to buy more time for project Shadow. GUN had access to all his files and all his data. They knew of the "links" and how Emerl worked. They continued to feed Emerl weapon data until he ultimately and inevitably went into rampage mode and destroyed half the arc.

So after that Gizoid rampage, a rampage that Gerald himself had predicted, despite his numerous attempts to veer him away from such a fate, please do tell me what that entails for the other living weapon under Geralds control? The one he dubbed the ultimate lifeform and was desperate not to turn over to GUN?

That Gizoid gave GUN something to fear. Gerald stated several times that with all seven emeralds, the Gizoid would become a god of destruction, bringing down the wrath of the heavens themselves. Now enter project shadow, something that seeks to outshine even the Gizoid itself? You can't tell me that wouldn't have some kind of serious impact on the decision making process of bull rushing the research laboratories. Lo and behold, Gerald's next journal entry was the unfortunate accident that killed Maria.

I don't think that was a coincidence.

It didn't matter that Shadow hadn't done anything wrong... yet. It doesn't matter that all these events were heavily classified and covered up. All that matters is exactly what Omega says in Sonic 06. "Eventually when something or someone is seen as too powerful, It is seen as a threat". Shadow checked all the boxes like nothing that came before him. Project Shadow had to be stormed, even more so in the aftermath of project Gizoid. When Gerald refused, they took military action.

What other choice did a desperate delegation have? Their fear made it clear that project Shadow could not be left alone. Gerald wasn't about to back down, and every day that passed pushed the risk for a extinction level event closer and closer.

Desperate people made a desperate decision.

 

20 minutes ago, Supt. Gabe said:

So there is no point to exhume the man or his trial. It's over.

Gerald wouldn't be the first person to be pardon'd from beyond the grave and he wouldn't be the last. It doesn't matter if his case can be closed. If you study the facts and come to the conclusion that he should have been deemed innocent (again, I myself don't) then you owe it to Gerald, his legacy and, ironically enough, his descendants to go back and right a wrong by clearing his name.

 

Justice might take time, but even so it deserves to be done.

[KHCast]

Sonic has time and time again been shown to beat Shadow, so by that logic, shouldn't the government be hunting down Sonic and his friends?(SA2 doesn't really count since GUN stupidly assumed Sonic was Shadow) After all, their fear is pointed at anyone stronger than them it seems.

[Sega DogTagz]

10 minutes ago, KHCast said:

Sonic has time and time again been shown to beat Shadow, so by that logic, shouldn't the government be hunting down Sonic and his friends?(SA2 doesn't really count since GUN stupidly assumed Sonic was Shadow) After all, their fear is pointed at anyone stronger than them it seems.

Not exactly.

50 years ago, there was Shadow, the Gizoid and then nothing else. (Okay maybe Biolizard if you wanna get technical). Nothing on that planet could match their power or potential. Nothing could challenge them.

Looking at Sonic, sure he might always come out on top, but there are a multitude of fuzzy critters running around that are at least on his level. Blaze, Silver, Shadow, Knuckles,Tails you could go on and on. Sonic isn't the sole representative of power, therefore the threshold for condemnation is much higher that it was in the past.

 

Think of it this way. A single tank in today world isn't going to make anyone loose any sleep, but pack that baby into a time machine, go back 150 years and you'd have a force of nature capable of taking over the continent. Shadow's the same way. Right now, impressive as they may be, Sonic or Shadow aren't enough to cross that fear threshold. Backpedal 50 years, and that same Hedgie would be the distinct and clear strongest thing alive by a very wide margin, capable walking over every capital without breaking a sweat. He had to go.

[KHCast]

How are we so sure there were no other Anthromorphic creatures with abilities 50 years ago though? I mean to assume they started only after the Space colony event and forward(spanning 200 years to silvers time) makes little sense to me. There had to have been animals close to the strength of shadow.

[Sega DogTagz]

While I would think there would be anthro's running around, there is no reason to assume there were any with superpowers to the extent of Sonic or Shadow. I would guess that there are a few that could fly, perhaps even some with a small degree of super strength but I don't see their faces splattered on murals in hidden palace or Lost World and I certainly don't see any photo's of bygones of a previous age sitting on the presidents desk.

We don't know alot about the recent past, but we know plenty about the ancient past. The Knuckles tribe was the dominant power in the region, full of big and buff echidna's, but I would be confident in saying that those scrubs pale in comparison to Knuckles himself. All of those guys combined got slaughtered by Chaos. Shoot, Chaos 0 stopped them in their tracks and had them peeing in their boots.

We also know that a 1 chaos emerald powered Emerl destroyed half the arc 50 years ago. If even a few mobian had even a little bit of super human ability, they would have been able to mitigate the damage a little better. An Emerl with 1 emerald isn't exactly a power house. Pretty pathetic by Sonic's standards if anything.

We know that the legendary treasure that lied in the center of the Gigan rocks laid untouched until Jet went after it, hinting that all era's of treasure hunters before him simply lacked the ability to face the danger.

you could go on and on. Nothing points to their being any individuals of exceptional means before Sonic's era. Everything points to the opposite.

[Nepenthe]

I'm currently high off of Tramadol so excuse me if I say any dumb shit.

2 hours ago, Sega DogTagz said:

Feel like I'm shaking a hornets nest for no reason than my own enjoyment,  but seriously?

What about the two Rush games? Or the Advance Series? Shoot, Sonic Adv 3 straight up seals the Gizoid's as a direct continuation of Emerl's story from Battle.

Some of those handheld games are pretty meaty in lure and canon - not to mention quite a few important-ish characters made their debuts in those titles. Why ignore them wholesale?

It's honestly not a big deal nor an indicator of what I find good or not. I just simply find most of the games ignorable to the main releases and thus don't go on to logically establish certainty that they are or aren't canon. Battle for me is kinda different though because I feel the whole Gizoid story doesn't line up with what happened in SA2 or even any of the games involving Shadow afterwards do. It's a pretty big stretch to just try and do a Scott Cawthon and insert two catastrophic events into the canon after the fact, particularly since- again- it contradicts what the tipping point for GUN was to shut ARK down. Battle says it's the Gizoid. "The Truth" story says it's the Biolizard.

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So after that Gizoid rampage, a rampage that Gerald himself had predicted, despite his numerous attempts to veer him away from such a fate, please do tell me what that entails for the other living weapon under Geralds control? The one he dubbed the ultimate lifeform and was desperate not to turn over to GUN?

Shadow isn't a "living weapon" though. He's not a Gizoid. Project Shadow's aim was to be a search for immortality. Conflating the two projects as capable of the same exact degree of harm is the actual issue here, as is conflating a robot with a sapient being in any issues concerning their rights and dignity. There's significant scientific considerations with regards to what can and can't be done with humans (Shadow is by all accounts human as he can be subject to the full extent of criminal law and holds a human job), and I'm pretty sure secretly putting a person on ice for half a century in secret because they were born wrong constitutes some serious breaches in ethics. The same isn't done for robots. You can indeed kick one and not get arrested.

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What other choice did a desperate delegation have? Their fear made it clear that project Shadow could not be left alone. Gerald wasn't about to back down, and every day that passed pushed the risk for a extinction level event closer and closer.

Desperate people made a desperate decision.

How about not lying about the procedures of the mission and going in guns blazing unbeknownst to the public? When a medical facility needs to be shut down due to ethics breaches, or a chemical plant needs to be evacuated and shut down due to serious potential for, governments don't send in SWAT to basically kill up a whole bunch of people, including children. I'm not arguing Gerald's obstinate attitude didn't force their hand. I'm saying this was not a binary choice between "certain death of the entire world" (Shadow wasn't a guarantee until they pushed Gerald over the brink, and he's been doing fine saving the world ever since) and "people and children need to get shot up," and the blood on GUN's hands is not justifiable just because Gizoid and/or the Biolizard scared them. Hell, there are direct parallels about this in the real life with the police being absolutely stark-raving mad right now. 

[Sega DogTagz]

56 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

Shadow isn't a "living weapon" though. He's not a Gizoid. Project Shadow's aim was to be a search for immortality. Conflating the two projects as capable of the same exact degree of harm is the actual issue here, as is conflating a robot with a sapient being in any issues concerning their rights and dignity. There's significant scientific considerations with regards to what can and can't be done with humans (Shadow is by all accounts human as he can be subject to the full extent of criminal law and holds a human job), and I'm pretty sure secretly putting a person on ice for half a century in secret because they were born wrong constitutes some serious breaches in ethics. The same isn't done for robots. You can indeed kick one and not get arrested.

As far as Shadow was concerned in Battle, he and emerl were one in the same. When he went to collect emerl at the start of his campaign, he went to do so with the intention of welcoming a fellow "weapon of war". He used several analogies quite similar to that one over the course of the game including "living weapon" if I'm not mistaken.

Shoot, his mindset through most of the game was that humanity would have to destroy both him and Emerl if it ever could hope to achieve peace. Shadow adhered to the power = threat montra as hard as anyone.

 

No, Shadow was not a gizoid, but you would have to be blind to not see the military implications that lied beneath Project Shadow. It doesn't matter if the goal was a medical cure when the chief by-product is a Hedgehog that far exceeds anything the modern planet had ever seen. Just like the Gizoid before him, if the wrong person got inside his head, the world as they knew it would fall. Shadow was a weapon first and anything else is an afterthought. 

I'm not debating the ethics of the issue. What they did to Shadow was pretty messed up, but they were forced into a corner. He couldn't be allowed to roam free as Gerald taught them the consequences of playing with power you can't comprehend. They couldn't destroy him. The word immortal was scattered all over his file, and previous attempts to destroy the gizoid proved impossible. Not to mention euthanizing Shadow is even more inhumane than flash freezing him.

 

Keeping him on  ice was pretty much the only thing they could do.

 

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How about not lying about the procedures of the mission and going in guns blazing unbeknownst to the public? When a medical facility needs to be shut down due to ethics breaches, or a chemical plant needs to be evacuated and shut down due to serious potential for, governments don't send in SWAT to basically kill up a whole bunch of people, including children. I'm not arguing Gerald's obstinate attitude didn't force their hand. I'm saying this was not a binary choice between "certain death of the entire world" (Shadow wasn't a guarantee until they pushed Gerald over the brink, and he's been doing fine saving the world ever since) and "people and children need to get shot up," and the blood on GUN's hands is not justifiable just because Gizoid and/or the Biolizard scared them. Hell, there are direct parallels about this in the real life with the police being absolutely stark-raving mad right now. 

We arn't comparing this to a medical facility that mistreats its animals or deals in the black market. This is the prevention of an extinction level event. I for one wouldn't bat an eye if the military stormed an island fortress if they had credible belief that the mad scientist inside was attempting to detonate the Earths core.

As Gerald put it, both the Gizoid and Biolizard were capable of destroying the Earth. The Gizoid already had a notch on his belt for wiping out the forth great civilization and had already wrecked half of the most advanced platform ever built, all while running at 1/7 of its maximum potential. So then we have Shadow. Billed as the biggest and the best. The Ultimate Life form as it was stated.

What was GUN supposed to do? Sit on their hands and sent request #12 that Gerald allow his grandaughter to die by turning over project Shadow? I would have liked to see some more non-lethal force utilized but when GUN raided the Arc they had to deal with monsters and aliens. Any troop on hand had to be in shoot to kill mode.

[Nepenthe]

Shadow's ramblings about his purpose in Battle and this defeatist attitude that he's basically got no free will and is just as dangerous as Emerl is are about as factual as his ramblings about Maria's promise for revenge that he was so convinced was true. Shadow isn't all that reliable a narrator in most of the games. He got caught with his pants down in SA2 when Rouge revealed he knew nothing about the Biolizard, his mind has been tampered with and his emotions manipulated so many times that it's just ridiculous. His personal beliefs about his purpose don't mean squat in light of the fact that the science in Gerald's reports about Project Shadow objectively outline the purpose of the project, and also because he ain't the only super-powered animal running around anyway. Bonk Sonic on the head just right and you could probably get an apocalyptic whirlwind of destruction, a reverse Goku. I don't see GUN freaking out about that.

Seriously, this entire plot thread that Shadow- a sapient creation documented and understood so well by Gerald he was able to give him false memories from a jail cell while he was encased in ice- is nothing more than a ticking time bomb based on the precedent that Gerald made a mistake in the past with an artificial intelligence he did not program nor admittedly had any idea about is dumb. It's dumb to conflate the two situations as being equivalent and thus having the same exact chance for worldwide destruction, it's dumb for Shadow to be so mopey about it and think he's roughly the same thing as Emerl was, and it was dumb for GUN to be like, "Yeah, this guy will definitely do something because the computer went wild, so let's kill up a whole bunch of folk."

And again, you keep framing the question in terms of what GUN was supposed to do in light of Gerald's refusal to stop his research. I keep telling you what they were supposed to do: Not kill scientists and children. This is my sticking point with GUN and you have yet to explain why Maria's and others' deaths were entirely justifiable. If they're not, then some people need to be tried and imprisoned for murder and withholding evidence. GUN doesn't deserve the public's trust in light of dumb shit like this.

[Sega DogTagz]

10 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

Shadow's ramblings about his purpose in Battle and this defeatist attitude that he's basically got no free will and is just as dangerous as Emerl is are about as factual as his ramblings about Maria's promise for revenge that he was so convinced were true. Shadow isn't all that reliable a narrator in most of the games. He got caught with his pants down in SA2 when Rouge revealed he knew nothing about the Biolizard, his mind has been tampered with and his emotions manipulated so many times that it's just ridiculous. His personal beliefs about his purpose don't mean squat in light of the fact that the science in Gerald's reports about Project Shadow objectively outline the purpose of the project, and also because he ain't the only super-powered animal running around anyway. Bonk Sonic on the head just right and you could probably get an apocalyptic whirlwind of destruction, a reverse Goku. I don't see GUN freaking out about that.

If you won't take Shadow as a reliable narrator, then lets turn to Rouge. She is on record saying that while Gerald had no interest in creating weapons, he was forced by the government and military to use his research for war. That includes both Project Shadow and Project Gizoid. Despite the peaceful intentions of Project Shadow there were without a doubt intentional militaristic aspects to its implementation and execution. To say nothing of the UN-intentinal military consequences of when you build something that moves that fast and hits that hard and warps spacetime with his pinky.

If you build a molecular destabilizing ray gun with the intention of erasing garbage, and then some bloke takes it and uses it to erase aircraft carriers, I don't think it matters what you built it for anymore. Its a weapon. If you build a living being that can generate the cure to a nasty illness, and it turns out that living thing has the power to crush the world beneth its heel? Guess what, you just built a weapon.

Gerald was forced to create Shadow with military implications. Shadow's superior spec's make him a weapon by default. What more do you want?

As for that reverse-Goku nonsense, I'd be right there with you if Sonic was running around 50 years ago. GUN doesn't crap their pants over the blue blur because at the moment, there is a never ending parade of superfriends to help keep the balance of power in line. No one person (Sonic himself included) could ever tip the scales in either direction by jumping ships or changing allegiances. Looking back 50 years, that same fact isn't true. Whatever force a "Shadow the Hedgehog circa 50 years ago" aligned himself with would be unstoppable. 50 years ago, there were no check and balances in the form of Sonic, or Omega. The crap-your-pants threshold was achieved by the lack of parity.

If Shadow decided to destroy the world back then, who would be able to stop him?

 

10 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

Seriously, this entire plot thread that Shadow- a sapient creation documented and understood so well by Gerald he was able to give him false memories from a jail cell while he was encased in ice- is nothing more than a ticking time bomb based on the precedent that Gerald made a mistake in the past with an artificial intelligence he did not program nor admittedly had any idea about is dumb. It's dumb to conflate the two situations as being equivalent and thus having the same exact chance for worldwide destruction, it's dumb for Shadow to be so mopey about it and think he's roughly the same thing as Emerl was, and it was dumb for GUN to be like, "Yeah, this guy will definitely do something because the computer went wild, so let's kill up a whole bunch of folk."

First off, Gerald gave the Gizoid and Shadow the same "soul" (Maria's soul if I recall correctly) so any fault on the Gizoid has to reflect negatively on Shadow. They were essentially programmed the same way, to adhere to the same set of rules.

It was pretty easy to see Shadow as a check without a balance back then. A military might so powerful it could not be used. Living thing or not, the Shadow as they knew it had to be dealt with. It couldn't be left alone. I'm sure killing all the scientists wasn't their first option but storming the Arc was their only resort when it became clear Gerald would not relent. Come time to storm the base, the Artificial Chaos were running amok and the Black Arms were there to. Troops had to go into kill mode. Crap just hit the fan.

 

10 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

And again, you keep framing the question in terms of what GUN was supposed to do in light of Gerald's refusal to stop his research. I keep telling you what they were supposed to do: Not kill scientists and children. This is my sticking point with GUN and you have yet to explain why Maria's and others' deaths were entirely justifiable. If they're not, then some people need to be tried and imprisoned for murder and withholding evidence. GUN doesn't deserve the public's trust in light of dumb shit like this.

 

If it makes you feel any better, Gerald himself called Maria's death an "accident" before he lost his marbles. So even he must of realized that GUN didn't go in with the intent of gunning everyone down, considering he'd be the first person to pen that theory if it were the case. 

[Nepenthe]

If that is the case, Shadow's powers being the fault of the military forcing Gerald to do something against his wishes, well, entirely implicate the military for everything that happened in this storyline. It would be one thing if his abilities were the side-effects of his creation, and I was under the assumption that that was the case since Shadow shares Black Doom's penchant for Chaos Control. But what you're basically telling me is that GUN forced a weapon to be made, got scared of the weapon, and then shot everyone to get the weapon when Gerald said "I wanna keep my project because it's not just a weapon." The more we discuss this the less I find GUN in the clear in regards to its ethics (But remember, keep in mind that I don't seriously consider Battle canon anyway).

Regardless, this doesn't really address my point. There are inherent differences between a sapient organism and a robot, even one with advanced AI, in terms of decision-making. AI simply cannot account for all of the subjective, historical, psychological, and physiological variables that influence human decision-making because AI is fundamentally the inorganic creation of a person or people with a very myopic point-of-view of reality. This is why Emerl went out of control and had to be put down twice, and why instead Shadow made the choice to quit his tantrum and save the world. Even if we take into account that they have the same soul, whatever a soul even is, this is not a scientific smoking gun that Shadow and Emerl are definitely the same risk factor for destroying the planet over the long term, especially when you take into account the fact that GUN hired Shadow, and also the dearth of knowledge Gerald had with Emerl versus what he knew about his own pet project. For all we know, Gerald didn't affect any of Emerl's weapon assimilation functions with this. He just made him more "curious" or whatever. So them sharing certain bits of research with one another doesn't definitively say anything about Shadow's ability to simply decide not to kill stuff and thus the rationality of his own views about his self-worth.

You also can't claim that there would've been nothing to stop Shadow at the time because we have an extremely narrow scope of who or what was truly around 50 years ago within the universe. Personally, I decide to err on the side that Shadow wasn't all that special beyond his immortality. Entire civilizations, those endemic to Earth and not, have been messing with the Chaos Emeralds and technology for thousands of years, which at the very least indicates that someone- either individuals or entire races- could physically harness the Emeralds to enhance their powers, or had some types of super powers beforehand. The Super Sonic mural I feel is less of a prediction and more likely than a reflection of specific beings who were actually around at the time able to tap into the same power that Sonic and others can; same with the depiction of the robot. And Gerald obviously went with a hedgehog for a reason beyond the fan-theory that he was inspired by said mural. After all, do we really think Sonic got his powers because he's basically a freak of nature, or is it more than likely his traits got passed down from somewhere in his family line? Super-powered animals have probably been a thing in this universe forever, so to claim that it's reasonable to believe that Shadow and Emerl had no checks whatsoever- especially since they were able to be put to sleep by human beings anyway- is a large stretch to me.

Also, did he call it an accident in the sense that it was an unforeseen mistake, or did he call it an accident in that it was a tragic incident that happened despite GUN's ability to check it? Like, if I'm on the phone in my car and I hit another car with deadly consequences, it's still a car "accident" even though I could have not been driving with the cell phone in my hand.

[Tailikku]

I can count the amount of crimes on 0 hands.

[Blades]

Gerald went ahead and contacted a hostile alien race that planned to exterminate humanity, and he knew about it and went along with it because he was desperately trying to save Maria from NIDS. All of it was for her. I'd say that's a pretty big conflict of interest. Even though he built a big cannon that might've destroyed the black comet, he put the entire planet in harm's way for selfish reasons when he was sane, and outright planned it's destruction when he lost it. That's pretty criminal.

GUN was right to shut it down before old Gerald contacted anyone else in his desperate attempts.

[Sega DogTagz]

21 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

If that is the case, Shadow's powers being the fault of the military forcing Gerald to do something against his wishes, well, entirely implicate the military for everything that happened in this storyline. It would be one thing if his abilities were the side-effects of his creation, and I was under the assumption that that was the case since Shadow shares Black Doom's penchant for Chaos Control. But what you're basically telling me is that GUN forced a weapon to be made, got scared of the weapon, and then shot everyone to get the weapon when Gerald said "I wanna keep my project because it's not just a weapon." The more we discuss this the less I find GUN in the clear in regards to its ethics 

We could go with that line of thought, as its well documented that Gerald didn't want to make a weapon, it was just the meddling of others that pushed him that way. Although he probably didn't help when he recruited black doom for some of his super blood.

Doesn't change the facts though. The people who created the atom bomb had that famous "what have we done" moment when they saw what it could do. GUN just had the same epiphany beforehand following the Gizoid's rampage and the promise of Shadow being the Ultimate.

GUN's ethics were F'd up for sure, but I still contend that their goal in containing Shadow was still a necessity. I see no other alternative. Gerald made a superweapon, GUN shut it down. They had to.

 

21 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

 

(But remember, keep in mind that I don't seriously consider Battle canon anyway).

Duely noted. I personally consider Battle as the single biggest addition to Sonic lure in the entire franchise, but your basically just talking with me for the "what-ifs"

 

I appreciate that. Its been fun at least ^^

 

21 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

 

Regardless, this doesn't really address my point. There are inherent differences between a sapient organism and a robot, even one with advanced AI, in terms of decision-making. AI simply cannot account for all of the subjective, historical, psychological, and physiological variables that influence human decision-making because AI is fundamentally the inorganic creation of a person or people with a very myopic point-of-view of reality. This is why Emerl went out of control and had to be put down twice, and why instead Shadow made the choice to quit his tantrum and save the world. Even if we take into account that they have the same soul, whatever a soul even is, this is not a scientific smoking gun that Shadow and Emerl are definitely the same risk factor for destroying the planet over the long term, especially when you take into account the fact that GUN hired Shadow, and also the dearth of knowledge Gerald had with Emerl versus what he knew about his own pet project. For all we know, Gerald didn't affect any of Emerl's weapon assimilation functions with this. He just made him more "curious" or whatever. So them sharing certain bits of research with one another doesn't definitively say anything about Shadow's ability to simply decide not to kill stuff and thus the rationality of his own views about his self-worth.

But what about Shadow's potential to cause such devastation? If he was a force that could go unchecked, then his sheer potential alone would have been more then enough to evoke the fear response. Even if you subscribe to Shadow as his own identity, capable of making his own decisions, there would still be that fear of what would happen if he made the "wrong" decision. Its the same reason humanity was doomed to eventually demonize a heroic shadow in the events of 06.

No matter the circumstances, the fact that he could single handedly level the planet made him the priority 1 threat. Despite never doing anything wrong, he wasn't given the chance because he stoked the fears of people who knew he could not be countered.

 

21 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

You also can't claim that there would've been nothing to stop Shadow at the time because we have an extremely narrow scope of who or what was truly around 50 years ago within the universe. Personally, I decide to err on the side that Shadow wasn't all that special beyond his immortality. Entire civilizations, those endemic to Earth and not, have been messing with the Chaos Emeralds and technology for thousands of years, which at the very least indicates that someone- either individuals or entire races- could physically harness the Emeralds to enhance their powers, or had some types of super powers beforehand. The Super Sonic mural I feel is less of a prediction and more likely than a reflection of specific beings who were actually around at the time able to tap into the same power that Sonic and others can; same with the depiction of the robot. And Gerald obviously went with a hedgehog for a reason beyond the fan-theory that he was inspired by said mural. After all, do we really think Sonic got his powers because he's basically a freak of nature, or is it more than likely his traits got passed down from somewhere in his family line? Super-powered animals have probably been a thing in this universe forever, so to claim that it's reasonable to believe that Shadow and Emerl had no checks whatsoever- especially since they were able to be put to sleep by human beings anyway- is a large stretch to me.

 

I seriously doubt the name "Ultimate Lifeform" was thrown around for shits and giggles. That is a name you only give to something that is clear cut, heads and shoulders above everything else at its time of creation. If there were any Sonic caliber mobians around, I think they would have been slower to adapt that moniker to Shadow. Calling Shadow the Ultimate and then sizing him up against Sonic is rather silly. Sonic is close enough to Shadow that many people would snicker at the idea of crowning one over the other so definitively. However take Sonic, and the others who are nearly as capable as him out of the equation, and the name has much more credibility and sticking power. If there was no one around to challenge his throne back then, it would make more sense to call him the ULF.

Furthermore, not to turn this into a Shadow wankfest, but that guy possesses the strength of the strongest mobian, the speed of the fastest thing alive and the chaos harboring of his bloodline. If your going to sit there and tell me that Shadow isn't all that special beyond his immortality then I'm going to go get some soda so I can do a spit-take. Shadow in undoubtedly elite in an era of super-freaks. I'd imagine he'd be considered pretty hot stuff with no Sonic running around. 

Your right that our view of that time period is slim, but we do know a few things. Sonic's speed is an anomaly. Nothing is supposed to move that fast and no one on the planet has ever seen or heard of anything quite like Sonic. 50 years isn't going to degrade the legacy of anyone who could move like that. and the same would be true for anyone with abilities on that caliber.

In order to "check" Shadow you would need someone on Sonic's level. A Silver, a Blaze, something. If there was a super mobian with that kind of power running around he would have had to of had some impact on the world. A legacy or something. We get nothing, not even whispers. I don't see how we can extrapolate that to anything more than a world full of Creams and Vanilla's. Furries that could do special talents, but nothing to the extent that we see now. Why should we assume otherwise. You could have a Storm type hulk walking around, but thats not going the check Shadow. Normies arn't going to get the job done.

Emerl got bested while at 1/7th of his maximum power. And they barley managed to do that. It never stated how they managed to capture Shadow, but its completely within the realm of possibility that they collected his sleeping corpse following re-entry (since we already know that renders him unconscious). I don't see anything in that time period pushing Shadow for his title.

 

21 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

Also, did he call it an accident in the sense that it was an unforeseen mistake, or did he call it an accident in that it was a tragic incident that happened despite GUN's ability to check it? Like, if I'm on the phone in my car and I hit another car with deadly consequences, it's still a car "accident" even though I could have not been driving with the cell phone in my hand.

 

Who knows. Unfortunately thats a question best left up to interpretation.

[Nepenthe]

6 minutes ago, Sega DogTagz said:

We could go with that line of thought, as its well documented that Gerald didn't want to make a weapon, it was just the meddling of others that pushed him that way. Although he probably didn't help when he recruited black doom for some of his super blood.

Doesn't change the facts though. The people who created the atom bomb had that famous "what have we done" moment when they saw what it could do. GUN just had the same epiphany beforehand following the Gizoid's rampage and the promise of Shadow being the Ultimate.

GUN's ethics were F'd up for sure, but I still contend that their goal in containing Shadow was still a necessity. I see no other alternative. Gerald made a superweapon, GUN shut it down. They had to.

If Gerald was forced to create a weapon then that changes the ethics of his actions entirely in the same way that I don't think most people believe that Oppenheimer is an asshole for creating the atomic bomb under the circumstances that the tech was militarized beyond his control. The end result is, ultimately, the fault of the military, and thus any perceived necessity to shut everything down is still on them and their actions. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy at that point which lessens Gerald's culpability.

6 minutes ago, Sega DogTagz said:

 

Duely noted. I personally consider Battle as the single biggest addition to Sonic lure in the entire franchise, but your basically just talking with me for the "what-ifs"

 

I appreciate that. Its been fun at least ^^

Same here! This has been an awesome conversation. x3

6 minutes ago, Sega DogTagz said:

But what about Shadow's potential to cause such devastation? If he was a force that could go unchecked, then his sheer potential alone would have been more then enough to evoke the fear response. Even if you subscribe to Shadow as his own identity, capable of making his own decisions, there would still be that fear of what would happen if he made the "wrong" decision. Its the same reason humanity was doomed to eventually demonize a heroic shadow in the events of 06.

No matter the circumstances, the fact that he could single handedly level the planet made him the priority 1 threat. Despite never doing anything wrong, he wasn't given the chance because he stoked the fears of people who knew he could not be countered.

I maintain the belief that you cannot preemptively start ruining or destroying sapient lives based on their potential to cause harm and the hypothetical of "Well, what if they do snap?" That is basically thought crime and is, again, the very issue we're currently dealing with in regards to American policing. Most of the characters in this series have the potential to cause immense amount of collateral damage and actually have, yet their lives weren't so thoroughly ruined as Shadow's was.

6 minutes ago, Sega DogTagz said:

I seriously doubt the name "Ultimate Lifeform" was thrown around for shits and giggles. That is a name you only give to something that is clear cut, heads and shoulders above everything else at its time of creation. If there were any Sonic caliber mobians around, I think they would have been slower to adapt that moniker to Shadow. Calling Shadow the Ultimate and then sizing him up against Sonic is rather silly. Sonic is close enough to Shadow that many people would snicker at the idea of crowning one over the other so definitively. However take Sonic, and the others who are nearly as capable as him out of the equation, and the name has much more credibility and sticking power. If there was no one around to challenge his throne back then, it would make more sense to call him the ULF.

Not that the moniker wasn't seriously decided upon, but humans are given to hyperbole when it comes to naming or describing various technological achievements. The Titanic was unsinkable, the telegraph and Internet were both hailed as the way to world peace due to their ability to connect humanity on an international scale, and so on. That's just emotional egotism. At best, you can call him the ULF because he's immortal. But that's not an argument in favor of how his powers compare and stack up to the best of the anthro population which- again- I still contest had to have been full of characters who were either naturally powered or had the knowledge to use the Chaos Emeralds and technology in surprising ways that would've acted as counters to him. Heck, it was an ancient civilization that created Emerl.

6 minutes ago, Sega DogTagz said:

Furthermore, not to turn this into a Shadow wankfest, but that guy possesses the strength of the strongest mobian, the speed of the fastest thing alive and the chaos harboring of his bloodline. If your going to sit there and tell me that Shadow isn't all that special beyond his immortality then I'm going to go get some soda so I can do a spit-take. Shadow in undoubtedly elite in an era of super-freaks. I'd imagine he'd be considered pretty hot stuff with no Sonic running around. 

I'm not saying he's not powerful. I'm saying despite his powers he can still get his ass handed to him by a guy whose greatest power is nothing more than super speed. Shadow is powerful, but he's not a god.

6 minutes ago, Sega DogTagz said:

Your right that our view of that time period is slim, but we do know a few things. Sonic's speed is an anomaly. Nothing is supposed to move that fast and no one on the planet has ever seen or heard of anything quite like Sonic. 50 years isn't going to degrade the legacy of anyone who could move like that. and the same would be true for anyone with abilities on that caliber.

In order to "check" Shadow you would need someone on Sonic's level. A Silver, a Blaze, something. If there was a super mobian with that kind of power running around he would have had to of had some impact on the world. A legacy or something. We get nothing, not even whispers. I don't see how we can extrapolate that to anything more than a world full of Creams and Vanilla's. Furries that could do special talents, but nothing to the extent that we see now. Why should we assume otherwise. You could have a Storm type hulk walking around, but thats not going the check Shadow. Normies arn't going to get the job done.

Sonic being an anomaly doesn't mean he is the only anomaly to have ever existed in history (Tails, Blaze, and various robots can keep up with him anyway) nor that his particularly make-up is the only way to check Shadow. Shadow's powers are still dependent upon his strategy and emotional response to a fight. He's not a robot and battles just aren't won on contextually-vacuuous comparisons that reign in fandom arguments (otherwise America's independence and loss in Vietnam would just not be things). Not only can he be checked by Sonic but he can be checked by Mephiles, Omega, and humans in general, which potentially opens up the feat to other characters. And this is only in regards to straight battle. Shadow is still subject to the laws of physics (roughly) and the technological prowess of various weapons themselves, so even if he can't be beaten in a contest of strength that says nothing about just trapping his spiny butt.

Which goes into the point that even if we assume that his initial capture by GUN after the ARK raid succeeded because he was unconscious after re-entry, that doesn't explain how, in some timeline, the world turned on Shadow and managed to capture him and seal him again in 06. Note that Sonic would be dead by this time so under your own argument the only person able to reasonably check him wouldn't have been able to do the job. So how did this impossible outcome happen? One of Eggman's throwaway robots did it. If a throwaway robot can do it, what makes the rest of the cast sans Sonic and other hypothetical characters of similar aptitude being completely incapable?

As for why we don't have the legacy of anyone similar to Sonic, it's entirely possible that the world was actually far more peaceful than it was before Eggman grew up and lost his mind. If super-powered hedgehogs are normal throughout society for whatever reason (and you would have to expect them to be given how humans treat their presence as no big deal), but they're not really doing much in the way of saving the world every week then what is the point in honoring them? All in all, the only thing we can say is that we simply don't know. (Also, Sonic Team doesn't go out of their way to write lore that expands upon the relationship between the anthros and humans anyway, so hell for all we know Sonic's just one dude in a long line of awesome protectors, but it's simply not relevant to the plots they're telling for them to put i in).

6 minutes ago, Sega DogTagz said:

Emerl got bested while at 1/7th of his maximum power. And they barley managed to do that. It never stated how they managed to capture Shadow, but its completely within the realm of possibility that they collected his sleeping corpse following re-entry (since we already know that renders him unconscious). I don't see anything in that time period pushing Shadow for his title.

The only anthro character we know from the time period are indeed Shadow, so whether or not there was someone out there is something no one can reasonably claim to know.

[Milo]

On 2/24/2016 at 10:57 PM, cjmoore25 said:

Pardoning a person for their crimes after death is nothing new. Just a few years ago, they tried to do just that with Billy the Kid. It didn't work, but still.

 

23 hours ago, Sega DogTagz said:

Gerald wouldn't be the first person to be pardon'd from beyond the grave and he wouldn't be the last. It doesn't matter if his case can be closed. If you study the facts and come to the conclusion that he should have been deemed innocent (again, I myself don't) then you owe it to Gerald, his legacy and, ironically enough, his descendants to go back and right a wrong by clearing his name.

 

Justice might take time, but even so it deserves to be done.

Bit of a late response, but you guys may want to check the italicized letters in my post. =p

[Sega DogTagz]

18 hours ago, Nepenthe said:

If Gerald was forced to create a weapon then that changes the ethics of his actions entirely in the same way that I don't think most people believe that Oppenheimer is an asshole for creating the atomic bomb under the circumstances that the tech was militarized beyond his control. The end result is, ultimately, the fault of the military, and thus any perceived necessity to shut everything down is still on them and their actions. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy at that point which lessens Gerald's culpability.

Gerald almost did his job too well. While it was GUN pushing him to take his research and make weapons out of them, he did pump them up to pretty powerful degrees. Plus, its hard to put all that on GUN considering Gerald did build his fare share of monsters on his own. The artificial chaos clones didn't seem to serve any other purpose other than to fight, and Shadow did say the Arc was home to several other weapons of mass destruction aside from the Eclipse Cannon, so lets not be too quick to give him a total pardon. While he was pretty solid on the pacifist vibes, dude did have his mitts on some serious contradictory projects.

 

Quote

I maintain the belief that you cannot preemptively start ruining or destroying sapient lives based on their potential to cause harm and the hypothetical of "Well, what if they do snap?" That is basically thought crime and is, again, the very issue we're currently dealing with in regards to American policing. Most of the characters in this series have the potential to cause immense amount of collateral damage and actually have, yet their lives weren't so thoroughly ruined as Shadow's was.

I don't think the US policing is a good analogy for this, since its not presenting an injustice toward a single entity that is the sole directorate of the global balance of power.

A much better comparison would be the Batman/Superman conflict. Superman, despite never wishing any harm to the planet and standing against those that would do it harm is characterized as a threat by half the populous. The commercials describe him as a single man who has the power to wipe out the human race. A quote right out of one of the recent trailers goes something like this.

"If there is even a 1% chance that he might be against us then we have to take it as an absolute fact"

Superman never showed a hint of being anything more than a collateral damage threat in his movie. He never made an action that could be extrapolated toward hostility  against humanity. The sole reason so many people stand against him is simply because they fear what could happen if he were to make the wrong choice. The way I see it, Shadow is in the same boat.

Is it a thought crime? maybe, but I think we've seen enough cartoons/movie/comics/videogames to establish that fear response as the natural human response when presented a situation like this. You can't actually compare it to anything in real life, as there is no one force that can reasonably reach the global annihilation threshold. If Emerl was a threat to destroy the planet, then I don't think its a stretch to say Shadow was as well during that time period.

Collateral Damage isn't a threat to global extinction, so Sonic, Knuckles and everyone else duck that fear threshold. There was no reason to ruin their lives to the extent that GUN mettle'd with Shadow because those characters don't pose an over the top threat in today's age of a super characters run amok. Its the same reason why Shadow is able to work with GUN today while they feared him in the yesteryear. The law of parity changed.

 

Quote

Not that the moniker wasn't seriously decided upon, but humans are given to hyperbole when it comes to naming or describing various technological achievements. The Titanic was unsinkable, the telegraph and Internet were both hailed as the way to world peace due to their ability to connect humanity on an international scale, and so on. That's just emotional egotism. At best, you can call him the ULF because he's immortal. But that's not an argument in favor of how his powers compare and stack up to the best of the anthro population which- again- I still contest had to have been full of characters who were either naturally powered or had the knowledge to use the Chaos Emeralds and technology in surprising ways that would've acted as counters to him. Heck, it was an ancient civilization that created Emerl.

I never contested that there wouldn't be a furry population with abilites. I think its pretty safe to assume that there would be.

The real kicker here, is in order to properly counter Shadow, you would essentially need a Sonic. Sure, the past civilizations could build some pretty impressive things, but in the end, none of that would have been enough. There hasn't been a historical entity short of a Monster of the Week that even comes close to accomplishing that. Emerl, as strong as he was with all seven emeralds, got trumped by regular ol Sonic. That Gizoid was the crowning achievement of what was probably the most advanced civilization on the face of that planet, and Sonic wiped it out minus 7 in the chaos emerald count. You could hardly consider even Emerl a reliable counter to Shadow. You'd need something or someone much stronger. 

If someone with capabilities on par with Sonic was running around 50 years ago, I feel like his existence shouldn't be so easy to conceal.

 

Quote

I'm not saying he's not powerful. I'm saying despite his powers he can still get his ass handed to him by a guy whose greatest power is nothing more than super speed. Shadow is powerful, but he's not a god.

Sonic being an anomaly doesn't mean he is the only anomaly to have ever existed in history (Tails, Blaze, and various robots can keep up with him anyway) nor that his particularly make-up is the only way to check Shadow. Shadow's powers are still dependent upon his strategy and emotional response to a fight. He's not a robot and battles just aren't won on contextually-vacuuous comparisons that reign in fandom arguments (otherwise America's independence and loss in Vietnam would just not be things). Not only can he be checked by Sonic but he can be checked by Mephiles, Omega, and humans in general, which potentially opens up the feat to other characters. And this is only in regards to straight battle. Shadow is still subject to the laws of physics (roughly) and the technological prowess of various weapons themselves, so even if he can't be beaten in a contest of strength that says nothing about just trapping his spiny butt.

Which goes into the point that even if we assume that his initial capture by GUN after the ARK raid succeeded because he was unconscious after re-entry, that doesn't explain how, in some timeline, the world turned on Shadow and managed to capture him and seal him again in 06. Note that Sonic would be dead by this time so under your own argument the only person able to reasonably check him wouldn't have been able to do the job. So how did this impossible outcome happen? One of Eggman's throwaway robots did it. If a throwaway robot can do it, what makes the rest of the cast sans Sonic and other hypothetical characters of similar aptitude being completely incapable?

Well, in 06 we know it was Omega who did the trick in capturing Shadow, so we can throw away that rubbish about wondering who could get the job done after Sonic is up  over and gone. (for the record, I always assumed that Shadow simply would not be able to fight his friend, rather than Omega being so strong that he could beat Shadz).

So we know how it was done post 06. There is nothing in the series that comes close to suggesting that humanity has the means or the ability of engaging or trapping something of Shadow's caliber. Certainly not 50 years ago.

[StaticMania]

He can't exactly be pardoned if he didn't officially commit any real crime. He didn't commit any before he was arrested.

 

Just based on how things went down in Sa2, it just seems like he was executed simply because G.U.N. was paranoid. Him and everyone else and Maria were all killed.

 

I'm not saying he was innocent at all, but when you think about it, he really did no wrong until G.U.N. killed Maria. The fact that he snapped because he couldn't handle it is totally his fault, but it wouldn't have happened if they had simply ordered him to shut down the project.

 

Even if you consider the direction they took in Shadow the Hedgehog, with all the aliens and whatever. He made a weapon designed to kill them when they returned so he wouldn't have to betray and doom planet Earth just because he needed progress in his research. He apparently wasn't without his morals when doing this.

[Sega DogTagz]

17 hours ago, StaticMania said:

but it wouldn't have happened if they had simply ordered him to shut down the project.

They did order him to shut it down before they stormed the place. Several times even. When the clamor's first rose to nix project Shadow, Gerald sacrificed Emerl to the "wolves" in order to by some time to finish his work with Shadow.

When the Gizoid went rouge, the clamor to hand over Shadow increased again, and Gerald continued to remain stagnant from handing over Shadow. Doing so would essentially mean the death of Maria. It was clear to everyone involved that Gerald would not relent (he wasn't about to Doom his granddaughter) so GUN kicked the doors down to end the stalemate.

Its not like they just up and decided to storm the ARC because they could. There was a clear build up of tension that happened before hand. They gave him a cease and desist, and he ignored it. Hands were forced, mainly by Gerald himself.

 

17 hours ago, StaticMania said:

Even if you consider the direction they took in Shadow the Hedgehog, with all the aliens and whatever. He made a weapon designed to kill them when they returned so he wouldn't have to betray and doom planet Earth just because he needed progress in his research. He apparently wasn't without his morals when doing this.

Those ends don't justify the means.

Sure, he built in a contingency plan to blow up the black comet, but that specific plan only took effect after massive casualties and massive destruction (they carpet bombed Westopolis and Independence Day'd the White House). So I'm not about to wipe his slate clean for that. Lets also not forget that the Eclipse Cannon itself was also responsible for blowing a hole in the moon. Thx Gerald!

[StaticMania]

30 minutes ago, Sega DogTagz said:

Those ends don't justify the means.

Sure, he built in a contingency plan to blow up the black comet, but that specific plan only took effect after massive casualties and massive destruction (they carpet bombed Westopolis and Independence Day'd the White House). So I'm not about to wipe his slate clean for that. Lets also not forget that the Eclipse Cannon itself was also responsible for blowing a hole in the moon. Thx Gerald!

I'm not quite familiar with the remaining lore provided in Sonic Battle, so excuse me for not thinking with that in mind.

Regarding the Ark's laser beam cannon destroying the comet. He would've died anyway before the Black Comet came back to Earth. It's nothing but circumstance that it wasn't used before the aliens destroyed anything. Things happened, complicated things.

 

If everything went up for him, he would've planned for someone who takes his place to fire the Ark's cannon at the Black comet the day it returned...he did plan for Shadow to do it, but we already know what happened both on and off screen that stopped him from doing so.

 

Also Eggman used it to wreck moon tail, that's not really Gerald's fault that his grandson decided to use the weapon for evil.

[Sega DogTagz]

18 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

I'm not quite familiar with the remaining lore provided in Sonic Battle, so excuse me for not thinking with that in mind.

 

No worries. You gotta hardcore Battle to the max to get the most out of it. Kinda like Colors DS. You won't get the full story unless you put the time in, dig for it and be fairly good at the game to boot.

 

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Also Eggman used it to wreck moon tail, that's not really Gerald's fault that his grandson decided to use the weapon for evil.

 

Well if Gerald never had kids, this wouldn't be a problem...

seriously though, it was his creation, Shadow, that lead Eggman to the cannon and it was Geralds weaponization of the Emeralds power that allowed Eggman to do what he did. He built a really big, really powerful gun and then put in zero safeguards as to who could use it or what it could be aimed at. You might as well leave a doomsday trigger dangerously close and unattended by the cell of a deranged man. Its low hanging fruit at some point. Even if you don't blame Gerald directly, he's got some share of liability for what people did with his stuff.

[StaticMania]

Well what Shadow did came from Gerald snapping, which I do blame him for. Causing Shadow to misrember Maria's dying words so he would hate humanity, it's terrible...and at some point programming the Ark to fall towards Earth after receiving the Chaos Emeralds, that's even worse.

[Hyp3hat]

The thing I love the most about Gerald's speech before the firing squad is that GUN killed Gerald Robotnik for... some reason, decided to cryo-freeze Shadow, then, after reviewing the video recording they made of him as they shot him, appear to go like:

"Lets not decommission the ARK space colony! It was a catastrophic failure and we murdered a bunch of people and a child! But let's not do anything about that, we'll just leave it abandoned and fully operational in space. Oh, and make sure to save that video and beam it to the colony in the event of someone activating the doomsday device he just told us about in very specific detail."

 

GUN are the real villains here!