Reimagining the Nocturnus clan

[BildLox]

So, I was thinking…

Why doesn’t SEGA make replacements for Ken Penders’s characters? For his echidnas, I think we could reimagine the Nocturnus clan so that Ken won’t be mad about them being too close to the characters they’re going to replace. I was thinking… instead of making them echidnas, they should make them beings made of dark energy bent on conquering the world?

[KnuxDLX]

As a general fan of the Archie comics and a huge fan and enthusiast of Sonic Chronicles:DB, I would say Penders’s claims were and still are ludicrous. He was allowed to create some echidna characters of and related to Knuckles, the most recognizable Echidna then and now, and then claim they were his own IP? Even the physical design of his characters was clearly inspired by Sega IP’s such as Nights, which is actually what I was sure the Nocturnus Clan was related to when I first saw it. They were created in the Sonic universe and they look like Sonic characters. It is like totally ridiculous to claim they are his original work.

 

Anyway, the concept of another echidna tribe besides Knuckles’s lost clan would surely not be subject to any copyright other than Sega’s……………………………………………..

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[Diogenes]

Penders is going to Penders regardless of what anyone does, but nobody should care what Penders thinks anyway.

But if you were going to retool the Nocturnus to the point of getting Penders off our backs, changing them from echidnas into "dark energy" creatures or whatever...why even bother having them be reimagined Nocturnus? Why not just create some entirely new group of bad guys?

The Nocturnus were always kind of dumb anyway. I'm supposed to believe a civilization capable of creating super-powerful self-aware robots had trouble dealing with a bunch of buff dudes with spears? And they were so dangerous a cthulhu had to show up out of nowhere to stop them? Whole thing feels like bad fanfic, trying to tie together elements that were never meant to connect and make their original characters the biggest, baddest guys to ever exist.

[Rabid-Coot]

The simple answer is that they don't care.

[MetalSkulkBane]

No point. Sega doesn't care. Most fans don't care.

Either we're getting Dark Brotherhood as they were and giving satisfying middle finger to Penders or I don't care either.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

4 hours ago, Diogenes said:

The Nocturnus were always kind of dumb anyway. I'm supposed to believe a civilization capable of creating super-powerful self-aware robots had trouble dealing with a bunch of buff dudes with spears? And they were so dangerous a cthulhu had to show up out of nowhere to stop them?

How is that any harder to believe in fiction than a guy smarter than Einstein capable of building fleets super-powerful robots and world shattering weapons of mass destruction that makes the US Armed Forces look like sticks and stones, using gods and civilization destroying monsters for conquest…only to lose dealing with a teenage blue hedgehog that runs super fast?

[Diogenes]

Because in spite of his brilliance Eggman is ultimately just one deeply flawed man, and Sonic has superpowers. Ultimately the conflict comes down to that 1v1 of Eggman's technology vs Sonic's speed and skill; Eggman's machines are dangerous, but not so overwhelmingly powerful (at least not as they're applied) that they beat out Sonic's abilities. Whereas with the echidnas we are comparing a relatively realistic ancient civilization to one with hyperadvanced technology. Nothing we've seen balances that equation.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

29 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

Because in spite of his brilliance Eggman is ultimately just one deeply flawed man, and Sonic has superpowers. Ultimately the conflict comes down to that 1v1 of Eggman's technology vs Sonic's speed and skill; Eggman's machines are dangerous, but not so overwhelmingly powerful (at least not as they're applied) that they beat out Sonic's abilities. Whereas with the echidnas we are comparing a relatively realistic ancient civilization to one with hyperadvanced technology. Nothing we've seen balances that equation.

Right, which means we don’t know the exact details of how they fought their conflict, at least when it comes to how the buff dudes with spears fought wars. We just know they were a problem to the other echidnas.

But considering the only surviving member of those buff echidnas can punch holes in mountains and machines alike, and went with a small band of friends to give that same hyper-advanced civilization difficulties just like his ancestors were claimed to…you’re seriously having trouble believing they couldn’t simply have had more than one member as strong as Knuckles to give them problems? Because it’s the exact same pattern here—high-tech struggling against or even being beaten by low-tech, this kind of thing is not unheard of.

[Diogenes]

8 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

But considering their only surviving member can punch holes in mountains and went with a small band of friends to give that same hyper-advanced civilization trouble, you’re having trouble believing they couldn’t have had more than one member as strong as Knuckles to give them trouble? Because it’s the exact same pattern here.

I typically do not invent offscreen superhumans to fill the plotholes of a bad retcon.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

8 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

I typically do not invent offscreen superhumans to fill the plotholes of a bad retcon.

Well then do yourself a favor and don’t bother questioning the so-called plothole if you couldn’t care less of a simple answer to it. This stuff is no more or less harder to believe than every other crazy thing done onscreen in this series.

[Diogenes]

I'm not concerned with it as a plothole, as if any logical explanation that can be made to fit is enough to wipe it away, but because it's lazy writing that doesn't know or care what the pieces it's playing with actually are or what they're meant to mean.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

38 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

I'm not concerned with it as a plothole, as if any logical explanation that can be made to fit is enough to wipe it away, but because it's lazy writing that doesn't know or care what the pieces it's playing with actually are or what they're meant to mean.

Dude, this isn’t lazy writing. It’s just a case of just not knowing the full backstory—a conflict in the past that hasn’t even been fully delved into compared to their aftermaths that their stories are currently dealing with. And I’d argue it was left unexplored on purpose like every other great offscreen war done in fiction done to give context to their narratives.

Given that your main complaint here is over a high tech civilization somehow struggling against a low tech one, an army of “big buff tribesmen that can punch holes in mountains like their last living descendant” is really not a far fetched answer given we already have a piece that could explain why—Knuckles by himself is trouble on his own (for Eggman, and just about anyone stupid or brave enough to take a punch from him), so I’d imagine a whole tribe of more like him warring at your doorstep would be a great hell even for an high tech society.

But if that’s not reasonable enough, then you’re still better off sparing yourself the trouble and not bothering to question it at all.

[Diogenes]

"The full story" doesn't exist. It never will exist because a sequel to Chronicles will never happen and it probably never existed as anything more than vague brainstormed theoreticals, if that. What exists is a poorly written game with a knockoff Dark Legion slapped together from unrelated bits of game lore with no care for their original meaning. Instead of respecting SA's story of a relatively realistic ancient expansionist empire seeking power to oppress more people eventually falling to their own hubris they recontextualize it into a stalemate between two superpowers where one has hyperadvanced tech and the other has ???, purely because they wanted to hype up their new villains and win points by referencing lore.

[Kuzu]

Cultural tribes being divided between technology inclined sides and a more warrior related side isn't exactly uncommon. I don't really see it as being all that out there unless you just inherently hate the idea in of itself when it comes to Sonic.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

1 hour ago, Diogenes said:

"The full story" doesn't exist.

The full story is incomplete. The pieces have been in your face for years by this point.

You may not find it adequate, and that’s fine—I’d like to explore it more myself to get the full picture, but that’s obviously not going to happen any time soon. But regardless of that…

1 hour ago, Diogenes said:

It never will exist because a sequel to Chronicles will never happen and it probably never existed as anything more than vague brainstormed theoreticals, if that. What exists is a poorly written game with a knockoff Dark Legion slapped together from unrelated bits of game lore with no care for their original meaning.

That is more connected than the poorly explained retcons or expansion that come from Sega themselves—Two Worlds, Black Arms, Classic Dimension, etc. That they actually tried to make connections to the game lore says more than the way you keep trying to mock for doing.

1 hour ago, Diogenes said:

Instead of respecting SA's story of a relatively realistic ancient expansionist empire seeking power to oppress more people eventually falling to their own hubris they recontextualize it into a stalemate between two superpowers where one has hyperadvanced tech and the other has ???, purely because they wanted to hype up their new villains and win points by referencing lore.

Is that what they really intended, or are you just mocking them for daring expand on the lore beyond what SA1 (or Sonic Battle) did with the echidnas with other materials in the franchise? Because the later is what seems to be the case—literally nothing in Chronicles says anything against SA1’s original story of the echidnas. If anything, it expands on it further, actually giving an idea of who another one of the countries mentioned by Tikal when she once pleaded with her Father.

Yes it recontextualizes it to add in new elements, but it still carries the same story as before, only in Chronicles’ case it does so by adding new faction, which isn’t anything new in Sonic (or elsewhere for that matter).

There we’re two tribes, both expansionist—and far from anything realistic given the world they both occupied—both seeking to oppress more people into their fold. Why there are two echidna tribes could be any number of reasons: civil war, or because one tribe was different from the other due to their way of life, but both fell to ruins due to their own hubris and were wiped out—one by a water god, another by a extradimensional god—and the remnants of their civilizations, their cities, relics and artifacts, remain as a testament to who they were.

This isn’t that unbelievable. Especially now with continuity being more murky than before. And mind you, Sega have barely put much into the original story as is—everything related to the ancient echidna is done more in context for Chaos, the water god who wiped them out and left Knuckles the last echidna, than anything about the echidnas themselves. We don’t know their society beyond what it looks like and why it fell, and going from what it looked like anyone can make anyone assume crazier stuff like tribal mystic magic being the strength of Knuckles clan that brings them on a equal playing field with the Nocturnus.

[Diogenes]

6 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

The full story is incomplete. The pieces have been in your face for years by this point.

You may not find it adequate, and that’s fine—I’d like to explore it more myself to get the full picture. But regardless of that…

Do you honestly think there was any real planning here, and not just developers/writers doing whatever suited their plans for that particular moment? Like...ever, in this series, not just with this issue.

6 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

That is more connected than the poorly explained retcons or expansion that come from Sega themselves—Two Worlds, Black Arms, Classic Dimension, etc.

I don't care, it doesn't make this good.

6 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

That they actually tried to make connections to the game lore says more than the way you keep trying to mock for doing.

No. Thoughtlessly linking random elements is not actually good writing. It's nerd wank. It's wiki fodder.

6 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

Is that what they really intended, or are you just mocking them for daring expand on the lore beyond what SA1 (or Sonic Battle) did with the echidnas?

Yeah man you caught me I'm lying about my intentions

6 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

Because the later is what seems to be the case—literally nothing in Chronicles says anything against SA1’s original story of the echidnas. If anything, it expands on it further, actually giving an idea of who another one of the countries mentioned by Tikal when she once pleaded with her Father.

Yes it recontextualizes it to add in new elements, but it still carries the same story as before, only in Chronicles’ case it does so by adding new faction, which isn’t anything new in Sonic (or elsewhere for that matter).

There we’re two tribes, both expansionist—and far from anything realistic given the world they both occupied—both seeking to oppress more people. Both fell to ruins due to their own hubris and were wiped out—one by a water god, another by a extradimensional god—and the remnants of their civilizations, their cities, relics and artifacts, remain as a testament to who they were.

Right, see, here's the thing, stories have themes, and messages, and such, that go beyond the literal raw facts. Putting a name and a face to the Knuckles tribe's enemies isn't mere addition, it changes the context of their actions. They're no longer invading and crushing unspecified countries, they're locked in battle with a rival empire that's (by all appearances) more powerful and probably more evil. Pachacamac going after the emeralds is no longer an expression of his greed and desire for power but, at least to some extent, a justifiable plan when their survival actually might depend on having them. It's not the same story anymore. The meaning's changed.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

17 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

Do you honestly think there was any real planning here, and not just developers/writers doing whatever suited their plans for that particular moment? Like...ever, in this series, not just with this issue.

I did to a certain extent before Two Worlds came along and muddied that belief. Why?

17 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

I don't care, it doesn't make this good.

Then do yourself a favor and not bother with it. 

17 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

No. Thoughtlessly linking random elements is not actually good writing. It's nerd wank. It's wiki fodder.

Depends on what counts as “thoughtless,” because I don’t see this as one of them.

17 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

Yeah man you caught me I'm lying about my intentions

Good to know.

17 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

Right, see, here's the thing, stories have themes, and messages, and such, that go beyond the literal raw facts. Putting a name and a face to the Knuckles tribe's enemies isn't mere addition, it changes the context of their actions. They're no longer invading and crushing unspecified countries, they're locked in battle with a rival empire that's (by all appearances) more powerful and probably more evil. Pachacamac going after the emeralds is no longer an expression of his greed and desire for power but, at least to some extent, a justifiable plan when their survival actually might depend on having them. It's not the same story anymore. The meaning's changed.

No. I can see the exact same themes and messages as they’re told (if anything, I’ve explained and shown how Pachacamac and the Nocturnus are made more as mirrors of each other)—you just have a problem with these things being expanded upon.

They add a new faction of echidnas, and show more to a backstory, and all of a sudden everything else doesn’t exist because of that one detail. Nevermind that Pachacamac could still be doing those things you mentioned in that backstory that lead to what was further explained in Chronicles—we now know one of the countries names that Pachacamac tried to conquer out of greed, so it invalidates and ruins everything said in SA1 and these themes and messages can no longer live on now that we know more history.

…yeah, I don’t buy that.

[Diogenes]

I don't even know what to say at this point. If you can't understand that recontextualizing the events from an evil empire conquering its neighbors to an evil empire bumping into an eviler empire changes the meaning of the thing then this conversation cannot possibly go anywhere.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

22 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

I don't even know what to say at this point. If you can't understand that recontextualizing the events from an evil empire conquering its neighbors to an evil empire bumping into an eviler empire changes the meaning of the thing then this conversation cannot possibly go anywhere.

That’s great, because it needs to be repeated that, no, it doesn’t change the meaning of anything. It doesn’t change what we know in Adventures, nor does it change Pachacamac’s intent and flaws considering we don’t the full details between the two tribes beyond them opposing each other.

And funny enough, it was more hinted that Pachacamac was apparently strong enough to stand against the Nocturnus in the past. So the Nocturnus weren’t so much eviler than they were just rival power that were in each other’s way (hell, the Nocturnus city was shown to look similar to Pachacamac’s tribe 4000 years before being sucked by dimensional chthulu). For all we know, they may have committed Sonic’s version of the Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage.

[Diogenes]

Then we fundamentally disagree on how stories work and we should probably leave this argument to die a sad, pathetic death.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

3 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

Then we fundamentally disagree on how stories work and we should probably leave this argument to die a sad, pathetic death.

You can. I like talking about these things—stories work in many ways, and I like imagining backstories of the games.

[Wraith]

My "solution" to the absurdity of the Nocturne subplot was always to flip them over to Blaze's dimension and present them as a sort of alternate history of the echidna instead of a direct part of Sonic's timeline. Instead of being failures that let their society collapse due to their own greed and lust for power, perhaps the echidna in the Sol dimension were too competent. Too cold and calculated. They were able to create weapons so advanced that they eventually turned against them. Insert Gizoids here, maybe? I actually like Sonic Battle's plot for the most part and don't think it gets all that silly until Chronicles comes along but I digress.

Of course, in this hypothetical rewrite, this positions Shade as the Sol dimension variant of Knuckles. To contrast Knuckles's goofball tendencies, Shade is a hyper-competent fighter that has mastered the weaponry of her culture. While Knuckles's ego and lack of self awareness keep him from doing any real damage to Sonic, Shade is a true challenge to Blaze because those pesky emotions don't get in the way of anything she decides to do. This would both contrast well with Knuckles and make her a good foil to Blaze, who's prone to emotional outbursts and rash decisions despite her calm demeanor. Shade would truly be cut off from emotion and have herself under complete control.

This comes with a caveat: Knuckles is capable of being humbled and doing the right thing eventually because he has some sense of responsibility and empathy. He's a good guy deep down. He's also just really, really fucking stupid  and selfish sometimes. Shade wouldn't have a good grasp on any of these things and be selfish to her core like the echidna of old. Blaze can overcome with friendship in classic Sonic style because that's what it's all about at the end of the day. Friendship, being nice to people, respect for life, all that jazz.

Anyway, that's my attempt at turning boring wiki fodder that I liked the concept of but kind of failed to connect with emotionally into...something? It gets it out of the way of the main series canon timeline too which is fine with me since I didn't think adding that wrinkle to Sonic Adventure's story made it more interesting. It reads like the Black Arms twist to me where it does nothing  the emotional core of the story and risks muddling things. This is why you have to be careful with trying to expand on the stories of old shit. It can make things more complicated, but that isn't always a good thing.

[Kuzu]

Of course, it makes them a bit less thematically relevant to Knuckles than they would be to Blaze, but it doesn't retroactively "ruin" Knuckles` story either so that's probably the best way to go about it. 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Not a bad idea. But that leaves a gap that begs the question of how Gizoids came to Sonic’s world and how the Fourth Civilization was somehow known there based on Battle. I would’ve just rewritten Chronicles to better use its concepts and explore the tension between the ancient tribes. (I love Shade, but I did not like her being Ms. Exposition in Chronicles)

The contrast between the Nocturnus’ strength in Technology against Knuckles’ tribes natural mysticism, and their actions mirroring each other despite their different beliefs was something that could’ve been looked more into what with both Ix and Pachacamac being megalomaniacal conquerers willing to harm or even kill their own tribesmen for standing against them against conquest.

That said, I wouldn’t pass on the idea of the Nocturnus invading the Sol Dimension. Never actually thought of that one. 

[Wraith]

I know it doesn't line up with Battle. I like Battle alright but wrote that idea as if it didn't happen. It can probably be tweaked to work with it in mind though.