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What was life actually like under the Eggman Empire?


Dr. Mechano

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In Sonic Forces, Eggman finally takes over the world... and we see essentially none of what society looks like under his rule. We see his robots, and we see the active resistance fighting against him in war-torn environments. But what we don't really see are Eggman's subjects - the people in the cities he's conquered.

We do see Metropolis, Casino Forest, etc. And they tell us a little bit. Metropolis is a clean, futuristic-looking city. While Casino Forest shows Eggman's willingness to desecrate ancient ruins to promote gambling among his populace. (Perhaps gambling helps him fund his endeavors, since the house usually wins)

But what do you think life was like for the average Eggman Empire citizen? Were the towns patrolled by Badnik cops on every street corner? Were kids forced to pledge allegiance to Eggman every morning before a school session of pro-Eggman propaganda? Was preferential treatment afforded to scientists or perhaps robots compared to the average person? 

We don't really have much to go on, so tell us what you think Eggman's rule was like!

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Eggman's Empire was a perfect utopia where everything, every resource, every pleasure and product, was available to you.

If you willingly assimilated.

Eggman's Metropolis is what you get when you surrendered or otherwise joined in.

If you resisted, you get Park Avenue. A completely destroyed wasteland with no hope of rebuilding. 

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In the Sega Sonic universe we don't know.

But in Archie Sonic we know. You better obey his rules.

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3 minutes ago, Vampfox said:

But in Archie Sonic we know. You better obey his rules.

The funny part about this is that Archie Robotnik broke plenty of his own rules.

No Laughing - Self-explanatory. Dude laughed all the time.
No Singing - Archie Eggman - who, up to a certain point - shared mostly the same history with Robotnik Prime, sings his own theme song!
No Plants - Robotnik grew his own horrible plant - the Krudzu!
No Music - Redundant rule since singing is music and Eggman sings, as described above!
No Fun - Robotnik threw parties with his robots, where they (and disconcertingly, he) drank motor oil and WD-40.

What a hypocrite!

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23 hours ago, Dr. Mechano said:

The funny part about this is that Archie Robotnik broke plenty of his own rules.

No Laughing - Self-explanatory. Dude laughed all the time.
No Singing - Archie Eggman - who, up to a certain point - shared mostly the same history with Robotnik Prime, sings his own theme song!
No Plants - Robotnik grew his own horrible plant - the Krudzu!
No Music - Redundant rule since singing is music and Eggman sings, as described above!
No Fun - Robotnik threw parties with his robots, where they (and disconcertingly, he) drank motor oil and WD-40.

What a hypocrite!

A true tyrant. 

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I can only picture everyone under Eggman's rule taking advantage of one or many major oversights of his system. That's because state of his empire will fatidically reflect his mechas: humongous, over the top, technically impressive, but doomed to collapse one way or another.

https://youtu.be/_JHidfKURbc

And then, when everything falls apart, He'll move on and make a bigger one.

 

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In Forces at least, if the level design is anything to go by, the Eggman Empire was probably filled with baffling and arbitrary decisions that didn't support anyone's interests. Not even Eggman's.

"Dr. Eggman! Why did you flatten my garden with blocks of cement covered in toothpaste?!" screamed the confused homeowner.
"I have NO IDEA! Now I'm off to fill Marble Zone with fairy lights and giant candy canes! OHOHOHOHO!" And he flew away in his Eggmobile.

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Just now, WanderingBleats said:

In Forces at least, if the level design is anything to go by, the Eggman Empire was probably filled with baffling and arbitrary decisions that didn't support anyone's interests. Not even Eggman's.

"Dr. Eggman! Why did you flatten my garden with blocks of cement covered in toothpaste?!" screamed the confused homeowner.
"I have NO IDEA! Now I'm off to fill Marble Zone with fairy lights and giant candy canes! OHOHOHOHO!" And he flew away in his Eggmobile.

He just really thought Green Hill would look a lot better with sand, okay?

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Sonic CD tells you everything you need to know. Anything "living" would be contorted and stuffed inside some kind of robot. Anything that couldn't be repurposed to generate fuel and power would be turned into funhouses for his own amusement. He would indulge and indulge until essentially all life and free will had been smothered to death in machinery and smog. Then he'd find some other pot of land to conquer and the process would start again until the whole planet is one cold, lifeless dome.

There isn't any 'life' in the Eggman Empire. Not really.

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1 minute ago, Wraith said:

Sonic CD tells you everything you need to know. He would indulge and indulge until essentially all life and free will had been smothered to death in machinery and smog. Then he'd find some other pot of land to conquer and the process would start again until the whole planet is one cold, lifeless dome.

One detail I always liked about that is that, in the bad futures, even the Badniks are worn-down and in disrepair, and are edited slightly to have saddened, tired facial expressions.

See Anton here. On the left is its normal state, and on the right is what it looks like in the bad futures:

image.png.1f0dfff52984734a2ef9af64aa2bbd0a.png

In the long run, the Eggman Empire isn't even good for the Eggman Empire.

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I don't think that's the outcome Eggman wants, mind you. It's just the natural result of his terrible ruling style. Like, not just "terrible" as in "cruel," but terrible as in "Eggman would be totally incompetent as a leader and have no idea how to actually maintain an empire." He doesn't even see what he's doing as exploiting and overusing resources, so he burns them all out before he realizes it enough to stop. His machine in Lost World may have ended up ruining the world even if the Zeti hadn't hijacked it, given Eggman's track record with this kind of thing.

He could rule the world by crushing all opposition, but after that, his empire would essentially destroy itself, and no one would be happy in the end.

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Both excellent points and why I think Sonic CD is the most important game as far as characterization of the main duo goes. Games like Adventure 2 are stellar as far as showing off the doctor's cunning, but nothing will give you a better understanding of the guy than a run through the bad futures.

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Though with that said, the six months of his rule in Forces wouldn't be enough (yet) to burn out all the planet's resources and get to that point.

I absolutely agree that it'd be the inevitable future of the Eggman Empire if Sonic hadn't stopped him, but there's still a lot of ambiguity over what the actual "politics" of Eggman's dictatorship was like. How the citizens were treated, what day-to-day life in an Eggman-occupied city was like, etc.

Offhand, Casino Forest implies there's gambling and thus, still money and an economy, so people probably still have jobs. Maybe Eggman promotes gambling to give the hopeless overworked, underpaid masses some faint hope; "If I can just strike it rich at Eggman's casino, I'll live the good life" instead of actually organizing or demanding better treatment. Yeah, you can quell a rebellion with force (and I'm sure Eggman did plenty of that too), but dangling distractions in front of the populace is probably another effective way to ensure compliance.

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Its why I never really had a problem with him getting upstaged by other villains. Eggman is the type of egotist to think he could control godlike power and then pay for his hubris. He's wants to be Freeza so badly, but is more of a Chairman Drek.

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There was a Japanese exclusive broadcast from Eggman to promote Sonic Forces where the only thing he promised under his rule was "three meals a day with a nap time" but it's pretty clear from his next sentence that he's not being honest:

"Test, test. Today is a sunny day :clears throat:
To the good, innocent people of this world. I am Dr. Eggman. A man with a miraculous brain who will become the new king of this planet. To the foolish Resistance or whatsoever. Stop any meaningless opposition and surrender now. 99% of this planet is already in my hand, and your admired hero Sonic was also defeated by my power. Put your weapons away and capitulate. You don't have to follow the stupid echidna who can only think about fighting. If you come to my side now, I will promise you three meals a day with a nap time. And an underground prison, erm, :clears throat: I will be waiting with a clean, warm dormitory. I am expecting a wise choice from you all.
That's it. Ho ho ho ho ho ho!"

 

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3 hours ago, Plumbers_Helper said:

There was a Japanese exclusive broadcast from Eggman to promote Sonic Forces where the only thing he promised under his rule was "three meals a day with a nap time" but it's pretty clear from his next sentence that he's not being honest:

 

Right, but to be fair, this was a message to the Resistance. I don't think Eggman planned to throw the entire planet's populace into prison; Just the people who dared defy him.

I do like that Eggman would still keep his enemies alive, though. Feels in-character that he'd keep them around to gloat at them as he rules the world.

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Whether or not one likes SatAM or its version of Robotnik, it shows what it'd be like as well and it's not terribly far removed (if at all) from Eggman's own destruction in the games. There isn't anything SatAM Robotnik does that game Eggman wouldn't do; maybe the latter isn't as overtly gleeful about deforestation and dumping toxic waste into lakes but he still accomplishes all of the same things as Robotnik and has on more than one occasion proved he's willing to resort to genocide and irreparable damage to the planet to get what he wants.

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On 5/8/2022 at 7:54 AM, Dr. Mechano said:

Right, but to be fair, this was a message to the Resistance. I don't think Eggman planned to throw the entire planet's populace into prison; Just the people who dared defy him.

I do like that Eggman would still keep his enemies alive, though. Feels in-character that he'd keep them around to gloat at them as he rules the world.

Forces is so dumb that the intention probably was to put literally everyone in jail. Then either stuff them in robots, or replace them with robots.

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On 5/11/2022 at 2:44 PM, Sean said:

There isn't anything SatAM Robotnik does that game Eggman wouldn't do

Well, game Eggman doesn't want to turn everyone into robots. I'm not convinced he even could, aside from using animals to power his Badniks.

SatAM Robotnik doesn't really rule the people of Mobius in anything resembling a society. The roboticized citizens are mindless drones. He does have robots he built himself that do have personalities, like Cluck, and the various musician bots from "Harmonic Sonic" (that two-headed saxophone robot is the most Eggman-ish design Julian ever built), which are shown to have recreation time and even a bad-guy bar they hang out in. So I guess his "citizens" would be his own creations, with roboticized people being more like a slave caste relegated to mining and menial labor.

But I think game Eggman wants to take over and rule the people of Earth, not just replace them with his own robots. And that's a pretty big difference, since Eggman would be more akin to a typical (if more technologically advanced) political dictator than SatAM Robotnik was.

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I don't see any perceptible difference between what SatAM Robotnik does and what you think game Eggman does, to be honest. There's no indication Eggman is happy to let everyone retain their free will since turning creatures into robots has been his modus operandi since the very first Sonic game. And the technology to turn Sonic's friends into robots is clearly there in some alternate, rudimentary form if Sonic Lost World is any indication of that, not to mention his attempt at mind control in Colors.

If one were to consider the IDW continuity (since that's the comic that Sega has maintained their control over the most; the characterizations are for the most part what Sega considers to be true of the games), then Eggman just straight up tried to convert the entire planet into a zombie wasteland and exhibited zero empathy regarding the fallout.

The way I see it game Eggman would happily mentally enslave all forms of life if he were able to. He just hasn't gotten to that point yet.

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52 minutes ago, Sean said:

I don't see any perceptible difference between what SatAM Robotnik does and what you think game Eggman does, to be honest. There's no indication Eggman is happy to let everyone retain their free will since turning creatures into robots has been his modus operandi since the very first Sonic game. And the technology to turn Sonic's friends into robots is clearly there in some alternate, rudimentary form if Sonic Lost World is any indication of that, not to mention his attempt at mind control in Colors.

If one were to consider the IDW continuity (since that's the comic that Sega has maintained their control over the most; the characterizations are for the most part what Sega considers to be true of the games), then Eggman just straight up tried to convert the entire planet into a zombie wasteland and exhibited zero empathy regarding the fallout.

The way I see it game Eggman would happily mentally enslave all forms of life if he were able to. He just hasn't gotten to that point yet.

More like someone keeps him from getting there.

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I mean, he uses animals - like, the really small ones - as Badnik batteries. But he's never tried to use Sonic-sized animals or humans that way.

I'm not sure if IDW counts yet. It does branch off from Forces, but I guess time will tell if the games acknowledge its events. For now, I'm considering it a separate continuity.

My immediate objection, though, is that if Eggman turns everyone into shambling zombies who can't speak or think or anything, what's the point of Casino Forest? Can't exactly have gamblers if all your subjects are mindless drones who have no use for money anymore.

I mean, I suppose Eggman's own creations (like Orbot and Cubot, the E-series, even the normal Badniks) would still have personalities and some degree of autonomy, so maybe all the casinos and amusement parks and the like would be for them instead of the formerly-organic denizens of the world?

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Eggman doesn't build amusement park zones for others' entertainment. He builds them for his own, and to annoy Sonic and delay his progress. He couldn't care less about whether anyone is enjoying life under his rule or not. The casino zones are toys, not public service facilities.

And I don't really see a distinction between Eggman using small animals and using Sonic and his friends as robot fuel. Sonic and co. have superpowers and can actually fight back whereas the animals he kidnaps are defenseless, so it's easier to use them than Sonic. And like I mentioned, he developed a method of roboticization in SLW and mind control in Colors that Tails is subjected to both times (even though the D6 were the ones using it in SLW and Tails managed to avoid it)

In fact I'm willing to wager Eggman generally doesn't care whether or not there is ANYONE LEFT to rule over at all. Perhaps he would prefer it but he's not above resorting to tactics like blowing up the planet multiple times and developing devices designed to suck the life out of the planet. He would have destroyed the entire earth in SA2 had it not been for Gerald's programming hijacking the ARK.

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25 minutes ago, Dr. Mechano said:

I mean, he uses animals - like, the really small ones - as Badnik batteries. But he's never tried to use Sonic-sized animals or humans that way.

I don't think this distinction actually means anything, since the games have always portrayed the animals he uses as sentient beings capable of some level of communication with the main cast regardless of them not being four-foot-tall bipedal mammals speaking English; instead with Eggman targeting them for the purposes of power sources and not Sonic-esque characters or humans because the other animals are largely defenseless against it.

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1 minute ago, Tornado said:

I don't think this distinction actually means anything, since the games have always portrayed the animals he uses as sentient beings capable of some level of communication with the main cast regardless of them not being four-foot-tall bipedal mammals speaking English; instead with Eggman targeting them for the purposes of power sources and not Sonic-esque characters or humans because the other animals are largely defenseless against it.

Yeah, this is true. The Flickies are even shown to be able to speak in Sonic 3D Blast, and in SA1 they're shown to keep photos of their loved ones and clearly have a concept of family. So they are - as far as their intelligence is concerned - people just as much as Sonic or Eggman are.

So it's not a distinction of sapience or sentience, but a distinction of their suitability as a power source. Eggman is willing and able to use these small animals to power his machines, but I don't think he can do that with larger creatures. In a global empire under Eggman's rule, I think we could assume that not everyone would be spending their days powering a robot (or physically turned into a robot, if game Eggman ever started dabbling in that sort of thing).

The fact that his empire in Forces shows signs of still having money and an economy - notably that he built a big ol' casino after conquering the world  - makes me think that surely some organic citizens would still live and work under his rule in some capacity.

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