Reimagining the Nocturnus clan

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

20 minutes ago, Wraith said:

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.

Honestly, this is where I appreciate Chronicles leaving the full details of their conflict with Knuckles’ tribe unexplored, because we only know they fell because the created Emerl and Argus noped them out of the world.

No telling what else they may have created since they were into the sciences. And given we’ve seen ancient technology create black holes and artificial gravity, it’s not far out to say the Nocturnus tried to invade the Sol Dimension in the distant past through some dimension warping technology after Chaos wiped out their rivals, and the reason they couldn’t return after the Argus event was because they were dealing with the other races there.

(And now that you mention it, who says there couldn’t be surviving echidnas in Blaze’s world?)

[Johnny Boy]

On 3/5/2022 at 6:28 AM, Wraith said:

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.

This is actually the most creative way to revamp the nocturnus clan that I’ve heard so far.