Anyone else want an origin story of some sort?

[Speederino]

I understand how and why Sonic was created. SEGA needed a mascot to rival Mario, and they had a super-fast game engine lying around. They combined the two and made Sonic. Alright, I can certainly understand then why Sonic is a blue hedgehog with super speed in that context, but ever since the plot's have gotten more complicated and humans entered Sonic's world, it really raises some questions about the game's continuity. That's right, I'm seriously talking about Sonic continuity. There's just so many things I would love to see SEGA explain in a future game.

Okay, most obvious question first, how did Sonic get his speed? Was he born with it, did he get in a freak accident, was he one of Robotnik's first victims? There is potential for an interesting backstory here, but so far we know nothing at all.

But that isn't what bugs me most. As I was playing Sonic Unleashed, I noticed that none of the humans seem to bat an eye at 3 foot tall talking animals with super powers. It's this sort of thing that makes me understand why some people hate having humans in Sonic games. Personally, I don't really mind the humans as much as I mind the lack of an explanation. I can buy the co-existence of humans and anthropomorphic animals so long as there's a reason. Example, in Sonic X there was some dimension hopping involved. Alright, perfect, that would explain some things. Only in the game continuity, there has been no indication of such a thing ever happening. It kinda seems like they've always co-existed. Alright, so are talking animals just considered a different nationality in this world? Even that would be good enough for me.

But that just raises another question, why are some animals anthropomorphic and other's aren't? In Unleashed alone, you see elephants, giraffes, some sort of long-necked bird in Apotos, and an eagle in Chun-nan. Why can't these things walk around and talk?

Now obviously, SEGA has never really even thought about continuity let alone trying to explain it, which is why I would really like to see a prequel-game of some sort. A game that explains how Sonic came to be, and why humans don't think twice about furry citizens. I say dimension hopping is the way to go. Maybe Sonic and friends come from a different world called, say, Mobius. Maybe Robotnik was a mad scientist from Earth who figured out how to dimension hop and tried to take over Mobius. He captures a bunch of animals, and experiments on a hedgehog accidentally turning him blue and giving him super speed. And then maybe a vortex opened after the first time Sonic used the Chaos Emeralds, and the two worlds kinda intersected and...oh wait, I'm pretty sure this is almost exactly what Sonic X cooked up.

So...yeah. Is there anything else people would like to see explained? Any other plausible explanations? Am I thinking about this way too much? Should I not get on the internet when I'm tired and think differently? Remember, just have fun, I'm not really taking this ultra-seriously or anything.

Edited April 5, 2010 by Speederino

[NiGHTS]

How Sonic came to be? Its hard to say, I mean, the only time they did Sonic as a child was Sonic Underground, then in the Adventures of Sonic The Hedgehog, people started to get use to furry animals. I can't think of any other history for Sonic unless its fan made of course.

[Blue Blood]

But that isn't what bugs me most. As I was playing Sonic Unleashed, I noticed that none of the humans seem to bat an eye at 3 foot tall talking animals with super powers. It's this sort of thing that makes me understand why some people hate having humans in Sonic games.

I feel the need to highlight that Unleashed 360/PS3 DOES point out the randomness on Sonic-like characters in human world and seems to laugh it off. Start a new file, and once you get to the Spagonia HUB talk to Elios. He'll mention that there's something weird about the blue guy, a fox with two tails and some guy with a mohawk. I think it was Sonic Team's way of saying it doesn't make sense, but it doesn't need to. "Because it is" is a pretty perfect approach in my ideal Sonic canon (and Unleashed was near enough that in most aspects).

Read the above paragraph, it's very relevant to this discussion and is missed all the time.

If Sonic was given a reasoning for his speed, then Knuckles would need one for his strength, Tails for his brains and Blaze for her command over fire. Also, what about Amy's hammer? Her abilties with magic are never referenced, besides the trumpcard that Bioware pulled in Chronicles (one of her moves is Tartot). They'd also need to explain the presence of not only the realistic animals, but why on Earth we have two kinds of swallows and rabbits. Cream, Wave and their miniature species counterparts that Eggman uses in his robots. Now onto the subject of robots... what the hell? Is Eggman the only one with this amazing technology as Unleashed would suggest? If the whole world split apart, GUN would definitely do something. SA2 puts a lot of emphasis on human intervention and Zero Gravity/Riders has a futuristic GUN and rest of the world. It doesn't make sense.

Explaining how Sonic came to fight Eggman in Sonic 1 would be fine I guess, even if totally unnecessary. But explaining the fundamentals of the world would be too much I think. The way I see it is the SEGA/Sonic Team have purposely designed the world to be flexible. They haven't bound themselves to a strict set of rules so they can treat the universe how they like without the need for questioning.

Edited April 5, 2010 by Blue Blood

[Flyboy Fox]

Haha. Well, those who know me well already know where I stand on the issue. Basically a big fat NOOOOO. I just do not feel that it's necessary, especially at this late date, to go back and prequel Sonic's origin into stone cold fact. No one (or only a select few anyway) would be happy. We all have our own ideas and we've come to see Sonic for what he just... is. To me, his very character is the epitome of 'now' rather than the past. He just is what he is. He doesn't need a crazy back story and to give him one would sorta ruin his charm.

Okay, most obvious question first, how did Sonic get his speed? Was he born with it, did he get in a freak accident, was he one of Robotnik's first victims? There is potential for an interesting backstory here, but so far we know nothing at all.

Ooo God please no ^^; I think I will cry and give up on SEGA forever if they ever say that Sonic's speed is the result of an experiment or that Robotnik was involved (ugh, like the American storybooks...). You say 'interesting backstory', I say 'generic anime angst backstory'. I'd like Sonic to be free from that. I'd like to believe that he was born with his speed, thus drawing a very strong contrast with his metal counterparts and Shadow, who were created. Shadow is meant to be the epitome of what science can create, so surely Sonic should be the epitome of nature's fluke by comparison? Also, no one is rushing to say that all of the other characters with crazy powers and abilities were 'made' to be that way. I see no real argument for it, and really would just prefer for it to be left alone ^^;

Don't get me wrong - I LOVE character development. But I prefer it to go forwards rather than backwards, especially when it comes to Sonic, who, I feel, could be completely destroyed by a convoluted backstory. Keep it, and him, simple please (:

But that isn't what bugs me most. As I was playing Sonic Unleashed, I noticed that none of the humans seem to bat an eye at 3 foot tall talking animals with super powers. It's this sort of thing that makes me understand why some people hate having humans in Sonic games. Personally, I don't really mind the humans as much as I mind the lack of an explanation. I can buy the co-existence of humans and anthropomorphic animals so long as there's a reason. Example, in Sonic X there was some dimension hopping involved. Alright, perfect, that would explain some things. Only in the game continuity, there has been no indication of such a thing ever happening. It kinda seems like they've always co-existed. Alright, so are talking animals just considered a different nationality in this world? Even that would be good enough for me.

This is more something I can agree with. It does always seem odd to me that no one seems surprised by Sonic and co, or even characters like Chip. It just seems odd, given the EXTREMELY skewed human/furry ratio. Most towns/cities seem to be exclusively populated by humans, but the history of Angel Island would suggest that furries have been around for a while and perhaps were once more populous...? Or maybe they just congregate elsewhere, who knows? It's definitely something that perplexes me, but I'd be very content if they simply showed more furry inhabitants around to even the balance rather than creating a convoluted story to explain it. I'm a big fan of cutting out needlessly complicated crap in favour of simple solutions, as you can see =D

But that just raises another question, why are some animals anthropomorphic and other's aren't? In Unleashed alone, you see elephants, giraffes, some sort of long-necked bird in Apotos, and an eagle in Chun-nan. Why can't these things walk around and talk?

Oh, this one's simply a non-issue (: Just because Sonic and co are sentient verbal beings, why should there not be 'regular' animals too? Why are we sentient and verbal and apes and chimpanzees aren't? Why aren't Flickies and Chao able to talk? Different stages of evolution is all. No need to explain it any more than there is to explain why humans and animals co-exist in our own world.

Maybe Sonic and friends come from a different world called, say, Morbius. Maybe Robotnik was a mad scientist from Earth who figured out how to dimension hop and tried to take over Morbius. He captures a bunch of animals, and experiments on a hedgehog accidentally turning him Blue and giving him super speed. And then maybe a vortex opened after the first time Sonic used the Chaos Emeralds, and the two worlds kinda intersected and...oh wait, I'm pretty sure this is almost exactly what Sonic X cooked up.

I reeeeeally hope that was a joke/parody because if anything like that ever became canon I would die of shame ): Also, why can't Sonic be naturally blue? It's not like Amy, Knuckles, etc are 'normal' colours for their species either =P

Remember, just have fun, I'm not really taking this ultra-seriously or anything.

I'm glad you're not because I know some people who WOULD, and that scares me D:

[Nepenthe]

When it comes to the co-existence of anthro, animal, and human, it's a subject I'd rather the creators leave alone. That's mostly because it's a universe-based trope that's decades old, one that probably arose from just a mixture of convenience and carelessness on part of the creators. Thus, it gets the benefit of assumption of just being a quirk of that particular reality, just as Superman's world gets the benefit of there being humanoid superbeings with laser vision; It's just something that is.

If I were to ignore that and offer a scientific explanation anyways, I'd probably simply say it's the result of island gigantism, a mixture of interbreeding amongst the different 'species' (I have a kooky theory I keep in the back of my mind that humans and every humanoid animal on Sonic's world is actually biologically close to one other; It explains their body structure, the plausibility of echidna-bat relationships, and wolf-weasel offspring) and maybe a fuckload of luck as anthros and humans decided not to wipe each other out during the earlier years of civilization. xP

Edited April 5, 2010 by Nepenthe

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

I like to think that Sonic 1 serves as Sonic's origin. I'm not really bothered about how he gets his speed or why he's blue, heck even Shadow's creation doesn't exactly go that deep into how he can use his Chaos Powers other than him being created by someone else who could use it.

I don't exactly see much of a point in going for an origin story.

One minor nitpick...

Ooo God please no ^^; I think I will cry and give up on SEGA forever if they ever say that Sonic's speed is the result of an experiment or that Robotnik was involved (ugh, like the American storybooks...). You say 'interesting backstory', I say 'generic anime angst backstory'. I'd like Sonic to be free from that.

Generic I can understand...anime, slightly. But how in the hell does "angst" even come close to something like that? We seem to misuse that word a lot lately.

[Flyboy Fox]

Generic I can understand...anime, slightly. But how in the hell does "angst" even come close to something like that? We seem to misuse that word a lot lately.

Basically look at the issues that Shadow had, and he is very typical of 'created' powerful beings. Almost all backstories that have to do with villains doing experiments on people are angsty. I don't feel I'm misusing the word here at all, but perhaps my perception of it is different from yours? I've just seen SO many angsty stories with that theme, and I don't wanna see the same happen to Sonic.

Basically I am saying I don't want generic anime angst, so really it only matters what my perception of angst is as far as what I mean by it =P

[Rusty Spy]

Frankly I wouldn't want an in depth explanation as to how Sonic got his speed for the same reason I wouldn't want to have a huge backstory about how Mario became a plumber by going back to college to get a degree in plumbing, after his girlfriend was killed in a pipe accident while living as a high school drop out.

[Phos]

I've got two words (Or maybe it's one word, who can tell) in reaction to this general concept: "Midi-chlorians". Essentially, when your story has a fantasy element to it, you need to be very careful not to explain too much. Anime in general seems to have a hard time with this. They explained Goku's origins, and they went from an excellent sort of fairy tale to some kind of abstract arms race where different factions spent large amounts of time avoiding one another due to being too mismatched to compete.

[batson]

I would'nt be as interested in fining out about the characters pasts as i would be interested in finding out a bit more about the characters present lives. I want to know what the heck Sonic, Tails, Amy and the rest does on a regular non-saving-the-world day. And what about Shadow; just where the hell does he hang out when hes not on missions from GUN? What does he do for fun? Im asking specifically about him because he seems like he is'nt even able to experience the feeling of "fun". So does he litteraly pend all his spare time just leaning against a wall with his arms crossed, eyes closed and a grumpy look on his face untill GUN commander calls him up on his cell-phone? And let's not even begin speculating about Omegas whereabouts when he is'nt involved in crazy adventures with the furries.

[Doctor MK]

There have been plenty of Sonic origin stories in the cartoons and comic books, the most notable in my book being the one in Sonic the Comic:

Sonic was originally a normal brown (yet still anthropomorphic) hedgehog who was given speed sneakers by Dr Ovi Kintobor, using them he broke the speed of sound and turned blue. This story also leads to the origin of Dr Ivo Robotnik, with the help of a rotten egg, the Chaotix, and a whole load of Metal Sonics.

However, I don't think they should ever do a proper origin story in the games. Like with Shadow, if they give the character a canon past and not everyone likes it, it may damage the reputation of that character. Leave the origin stories to people's imagination in fan fics and the like, I'm quite happy just knowing that Sonic is a superfast hedgehog that likes kicking Eggman butt.

[Blacklightning]

Remember how they explained the origin for the Babylon Rogues? ALIEN GENIES FROM SPACE.

Remember how they explained the origin for Shadow? ARTIFICIAL LIFE FORM WITH A DOUBLE AMNESIAC BYPASS DESCENDED FROM VENGEFUL ALIENS FROM SPACE.

Yeah, needless to say, Sonic Team is not very good with origin stories. I'd rather they did not try any more.

[Doctor MK]

Remember how they explained the origin for the Babylon Rogues? ALIEN GENIES FROM SPACE.

Remember how they explained the origin for Shadow? ARTIFICIAL LIFE FORM WITH A DOUBLE AMNESIAC BYPASS DESCENDED FROM VENGEFUL ALIENS FROM SPACE.

Yeah, needless to say, Sonic Team is not very good with origin stories. I'd rather they did not try any more.

Oh god, I forgot about that Babylon Rogues origin story Which now leads me to say...

Sonic origin story written by Sonic Team? DO NOT WANT.

[thesketchsector]

Two words...

Supersonic Treadmill.

Gadzooks!

Edited April 5, 2010 by Mr. Needlemark

[Vertekins]

I'd like to see what exactly made Sonic into the eternally optimistic and lovable heroic hedgehog we know in the present timeline of the Sonic series because it isn't exactly realistic for him to be 'born' like it. Like, if he had somebody to look up to or had something happen to him that steered him towards or inspired his fighting for the freedom of the oppressed.

I also found it curious how the humans in Unleashed are weirded-out when they see anthros. Kinda implies that the intelligent, bipedal animals akin to Sonic and his friends are perhaps a very secluded people or maybe they're endangered or critically endangered, hence the curiosity shown by humans when anthros are in their midst.

Edited April 5, 2010 by Verte

[Cortez]

It is far FAR too late to give the origins of Sonic, it's best they just leave it untouched lest they split the fanbase into EVEN more groups.

Besides we all know Sonic is an evil alien shape shifter robot magic crocodile penguin who came back in time from the year 33XX to meet Jesus realised he was 2000 years too late so befriended the IBLIS TRIGGA who introduced him to Pokemon and after downloading the Shaymin wi-fi event Sonic decided he would shapeshift into a hedgehog with the speed of Deoxys Speed Forme to live out his dream as the worlds fastest Pokemon however Beyonce wasn't impressed by this and so disguised herself as a fat ginger bald man who has a sexual fetish for small animals dressed as robots and decided to lure Sonic Speed Forme into her base to have hot furry sex with him then IBLIS TRIGGA decided that they were onto a good thing and gave Sonic Speed Forme his own multibillion dollar franchise only to betray him fifteen years later by self inserting himself into Sonic's anniversary game and killing him.

TRUTH

[Diogenes]

Sonic, both the character and the series as a whole, does not need a backstory. This sort of stuff is just meant to be accepted as part of the universe...why is Sonic fast/why are there superpowered animals? He just is/there just are. Why are there normal animals, small animals, talking animals, and humans? There just are.

Shadow was able to pull off having a backstory because it came with him when he was introduced, and the depth of the story at the time allowed it. Knuckles is similar; his backstory is limited to the backstory of Angel Island, which started with the first game it was introduced and was expanded on and finished in the next story-relevant game. Characters that didn't start off with something, we're supposed to just accept that they exist. Their past is not meant to be important.

That's not to say I don't have questions about things; they're just not so much of the "origins" sort. I'd like to see them show more about the balance and interaction between humans and talking animals, explain why we never see any besides the main cast and yet no one's particularly surprised by them...that is, explain the situation as it is now. Come up with some plausible explanation for it, but don't use it as a story hook, or write some in-depth timeline of how it came to be. Similarly, I've been wondering if it's possible for humans in the Sonic universe to have powers like most of the animal cast does. A straight yes or no would be all I need; I'm not concerned with the reasons why they can or can't, or why such powers exist in the first place.

[Blue Blood]

*Awesome words*

Oh my God. Sig'd. So sig'g.

It's nice to see that the general consensus is that we wouldn't want a origin story. Thinking about it, we had an story for Emerl. We know where he came from and why there were no others of his kind. And yet, at the same time, we weren't told exactly how Knuckles came be the Master Emerald guardian even though the two are inexplicably linked. We just accept Knuckles role because it always has been what it is, but the whole point of Emerl was that he was a mystery. The only other character that was sort of a mystery was Shadow... and well they fucked up big time on that.

Edited April 5, 2010 by Blue Blood

[Tornado]

No. There is no real need to do so, going through with it any way would only make people angry; and not only do I doubt that Sonic Team could even do it, but off the top of my head I actually can't think of anyone who could. Phos pretty much hit the nail on the head: What essentially amounts to retconning rational explanations for long-held fantasy elements is a terrible idea.

Look at it this way: We can all think of examples where origin stories added on after the fact have ruined the original work in some way, but can we think of any where the original work was strengthened? The closest I can think of to that being the case is the DBZ example mentioned, but that required a complete genre shift to pull off in the first place and is easily a very divisive idea by itself. Sonic Team has gone out of their way in screwing up relatively straightforward origin stories (like Shadow's) so they can give more convoluted ones that have more finality, so I shudder to think how they would handle an overall origin story.

Edited April 5, 2010 by Tornado

[Octarine]

I'm going to toss in another "please, no". I cringe whenever I read the origins supplied by early American materials, just as much as I cringe when I see the "Mario is from Brooklyn and found his way into the Mushroom Kingdom via a warp pipe" stuff. Sonic's simplicity is a large part of his appeal; if you're a new player, you can get the premise of his character over with in a sentence or two and get right on with playing. He's a little more complicated than that, of course, but most of the other stuff is just the natural buildup of things that have happened to the character because of how many games he's been in; it's not particularly vital to the layperson. I'm not against looking into the pasts of some of the other characters or the setting in general if another RPG or something rolls around, but Sonic would only be hurt by an origin and a family, especially this late in the game.

...also, was I the only one who actually sort of liked the expanded Babylon Rogues origin story in Zero Gravity? I wasn't invested enough in the characters to think of it as anything but awesomely wacky. It was handled considerably better than the tacked-on Shadow stuff, anyway.

[Viktormoros]

I'm going to toss in another "please, no". I cringe whenever I read the origins supplied by early American materials, just as much as I cringe when I see the "Mario is from Brooklyn and found his way into the Mushroom Kingdom via a warp pipe" stuff. Sonic's simplicity is a large part of his appeal; if you're a new player, you can get the premise of his character over with in a sentence or two and get right on with playing. He's a little more complicated than that, of course, but most of the other stuff is just the natural buildup of things that have happened to the character because of how many games he's been in; it's not particularly vital to the layperson. I'm not against looking into the pasts of some of the other characters or the setting in general if another RPG or something rolls around, but Sonic would only be hurt by an origin and a family, especially this late in the game.

...also, was I the only one who actually sort of liked the expanded Babylon Rogues origin story in Zero Gravity? I wasn't invested enough in the characters to think of it as anything but awesomely wacky. It was handled considerably better than the tacked-on Shadow stuff, anyway.

I disagree on the "Mario is from Brooklyn...etc." part. I always thought that was hilariously awesome.

As for the Archie comics of Sonic, the origin story of "Dr. Kintobor" was just silly, Sonic turning blue the first time he broke the sound barrier etc. I never cared to think about it too much.

The character is here, and pretty much any origin story is going to be silly, not make any sense at all, or a combination of both.

[Badnik Mechanic]

I don't really think that Sonic 'needs' an origin story now.

Who cares? We know who he is, we know what he does, do we really need to see/know how he came to be? Other than the 'Kintobor' legend, does there really need to be any other kind of origin story? Even Kintobor won't really be accepted until it appears as a mention in the games even if Sega did invent it.

But otherwise, we don't need to see how Sonic got his super speed, or how he's a 6ft odd hedgehog that has a foxy friend that can fly planes. They've been around long enough for us to accept that 'they just are here and thats what they do."

For the sake of argument, lets imagine that the Kintobor origin did make it into the game....

I personally like the Kintobor idea because even though it's an origin of sorts, it doesn't really do much but explain the origin of Robotnik, Sonic was brown yes, but he was still fast. we don't know how he came to look the way he did, or how he got his speed. He always had it, it was only the shoes that made him go that little bit faster. The blue was caused by him breaking the sound barrier. Even if that appeared in the game, would it totally ruin Sonic? The problem if that did appear in the game is Kintobor becoming Robotnik. Whist it almost works out, we've seen that the emeralds have positive as well as negative energy, so the idea of Kintobor absorbing the evil side of the emeralds isn't that far from the rules that we've already got now.

The problem with the Kintobor legend is that it'd mess up the origins of someone else.... this fellow...

Yeah... The Kintobor legend would now bring in so many more questions due to the origin of this guy... specifically... so who is Geralds son? How did he hide from the government after the arc raid? How did he go on to have a Son and who was his mother and grandmother.... and ugh....

Cheers Shadow... ruin the Kintobor legend for me why don't you!

P.S. Anyone seen that bird in Sonic Unleashed that does the Hitler salute?

Edited April 6, 2010 by Casanova

[Blue Blood]

P.S. Anyone seen that bird in Sonic Unleashed that does the Hitler salute?

They point you the the direction you're supposed to go...

[Meow]

Once upon a time a blue hedgehog named Sonic was born and he was really fast. One day he got into one too many drugs and he had a fight with his dealer, Dr. Eggman, who was known for providing Sonic with prescription medicine he didn't need so he could go on trips. Thats where our story starts.

In other words nah, I don't want an origin story...unless its that one.

[Flyboy Fox]

But otherwise, we don't need to see how Sonic got his super speed, or how he's a 6ft odd hedgehog that has a foxy friend that can fly planes.

DDD: He's not 6ft. He's 3'4". I WILL DIE BY THAT CLAIM.