Question about Shadow the Hedgehog and Maria

[Darth InVaders]

On 10/15/2017 at 8:15 AM, Shard The Gentleman said:

Did Shadow actually ever meet Maria, or were those Memories put into Shadow by Gerald?

In SA2 (and ShtH) Shadow has memories of meeting and growing with Maria.  But according to Geralds Journal, Shadow didn't even exist until Maria was already dead.

  Reveal hidden contents

I don't quite know what happened or what went wrong. Was it a mistake to create the ultimate life-form? I thought it would be something that would benefit mankind. But then the military guards landed on the colony that day.

They were sent to destroy the research project that I had been working on. My Colleagues at the research facility, my granddaughter, Maria, I hope you are all safe. The colony was completely shut down, probably to keep the prototype from falling into the wrong hands.

The ARK was shut down under the premise that there had been an accident. I found Maria's name among those who died when the ARK was shut down. She meant everything to me and I couldn't bear the thought that she died because of my research. I lost everything. I had nothing more to live for...I went insane. 

All I could think about was to avenge her...somehow, someway. I got scared as I no longer was able to control my thoughts. All I could think about was that I wanted it all to end. Based on my original projections, I was able to complete my project: Shadow. I designed its mind to be perfect, pure. I will leave everything to him. If you wish, release and awaken it, to the world. If you wish to fill the world with destruction...

We know the Prototype was Biolizard.

Now you could argue that Shadow was existing, just not complete until after the events at the ARK, but that can't be the case since Shadow was launched to Earth by Maria (according to his memories) and Gerald was jailed, with no access to the would-be incomplete Shadow.

In Shadow the Hedgehog, it's mentioned that Shadow COULD have fabricated memories put into him by Gerald Robotnik. Is that the case? Did Shadow never actually meet Maria?
 

On 8/16/2017 at 11:54 PM, Darth InVaders said:

On the Sonic Wiki it claims GUN had Gerald continue his work (sourcing it to a Prima Guide) but this is obviously wrong for reasons I will get into in a moment... 

To figure out how Gerald finished Shadow and his revenge plan we need to look over the things we know for sure:

Gerald knew beforehand that GUN was going to shut down his research and the ARK research facility, and imprison all who knew about him (he said so in the recording that played in Shadow's game Last Story: "The government plans to shut down this research facility. The government plans to cease all of our research... and imprison all who know about you." and in SA2 Last Story "They were sent to destroy the research project that I had been working on. My colleagues at the research facility, my granddaughter Maria, I hope you are all safe." - this also proves the Sonic Wiki wrong) Clearly from these words, Gerald did not know the full murderous extent of GUN's plan where everyone except Gerald would die, and Gerald would be the only one imprisoned.

After being imprisoned, Gerald somehow was able to view the casualty reports (SA2: "I found Maria's name among those who died when the ARK was shut down.") and somehow reprogram Shadow's memory ("Based on my original projections, I was able to complete my project; Shadow."), the Biolizard, and the ARK with the Eclipse Cannon (evidenced by the calculations written on the prison walls of Prison Island). He also continued to make his diary/journal (to make it possible to quote him) and set up the video of his execution to be played before the world.

So how could Gerald have "finished" Shadow and set up all these things to happen after his death?

Well, first things first, Shadow was technically finished being created before GUN's assault, but then Gerald needed to do more with him when he started his revenge plan. This is evidenced in Shadow's memories.

But going to before the need for a revenge plan, since he knew beforehand that Proj Shadow would be shut down and he would be locked out (and imprisoned) he probably created backdoors so he could hack back into the computer systems at a later time - he after all created a program to play and give Shadow encouragement to defeat Black Doom. All he would need are the resources to access this from prison: an internet enabled computer primarily - well in Sonic X he is shown in his prison cell with a computer, and I'm certain that is similar to what happens in the game continuity (although the computer may have been in the prison library where it was supposed to be supervised - like it would be in real life - but Gerald's awesome hacking skillz made it nearly impossible to catch him).

From this computer, he saw the casualty report with Maria's name - well, unless that was publicly available to him which is possible. He also continued typing entries into his electronic diary / journal.

As he went mad and began evil schemes by writing on the cell walls (which probably shows his computer was somewhere else like a library), he then used this computer to hack back into ARK's computer systems. He reprogrammed the Eclipse Cannon so that when the 7 Chaos Emeralds were placed into its core, it would allow itself to be overcharged and become a planet destroying explosive and then redirect energy to the ARK to shift the colony into a collision course with the planet. He programmed the system to release the Biolizard to attack anyone who interfered with his plan (and probably hacked the Biolizard's brain to be his attack dog too).

He would need someone to get his plans in motion. So he would have also had to have found Shadow in the computer systems and hacked his brain to change Shadow's final memory of Maria, altering it from bringing hope to humanity by letting humanity live for their dreams or whatever to revenge for her death; also he would have to implant the instructions to get the plan in motion. Obviously this requires that either GUN had hooked Shadow and the Biolizard's brains up to something or Gerald was able to broadcast something remotely into their brains over the airwaves sort of like WiFi or Bluetooth or something - the idea of Gerald hacking their brains is slightly more plausible because they are artificial lifeforms that he created, and he may have created a way for himself to do such a thing.

As for broadcasting his execution video message - the one thing that hangs up many people on how could he have done it when he was already dead - it is not that hard. He only needed to figure out 2 things: the file path to where his execution video would be placed in what in computer speak is called the "directory tree hierarchy", and also the pattern used in naming the file his video would be stored under. For example, GUN tends to store execution videos in the "execution" folder which is inside his own folder which is inside some other folder called a parent directory on GUN's intranetwebserver; and they tend to name the file after the prisoner's number with the word execution and the extension ".mp4". For this example, let's say Gerald's prison number is 6192001, so his predicted file path and filename would be something along the lines of "http://GUNintranetwebserver...\parentdirectory\robotnik_gerald\execution\6192001execution.mp4" (apologies for mistakes, its been a while since I dabbled in this technical shit and I never had to deal with an intranet - and the "..." is just because there would clearly be a longer file path). The file would be a broken link in Gerald's programs until GUN makes the video and places it where it is supposed to go. Voila, GUN unwittingly finishes his work for him.

[Shard The Gentleman]

2 hours ago, Darth InVaders said:

 

Thank you for the detailed answer!

[Justausername]

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