An odd thought about Badniks and their brains

[SuperStingray]

Is no one going to bring up the Sonic CD robots? Remember, they had flower seeds instead of animals. Perhaps the robots don't run on brainpower so much as some organic substance or a more abstract concept like life force or vim. Then again, it's possible that he only was experimenting with a new series of models specifically in CD, but they didn't work out for him so he went back to animals. I think that would make more sense since flowers are a lot more convenient and economical to harvest than animals.

Edited July 9, 2010 by SuperStingray

[Frozen Nitrogen]

Is no one going to bring up the Sonic CD robots? Remember, they had flower seeds instead of animals. Perhaps the robots don't run on brainpower so much as some organic substance or a more abstract concept like life force or vim. Then again, it's possible that he only was experimenting with a new series of models specifically in CD, but they didn't work out for him so he went back to animals. I think that would make more sense since flowers are a lot more convenient and economical to harvest than animals.

That's my excuse for CD. Note also that flower-seed badniks don't tend to do so well; some of them are beat-up and decrepit in the present, and most/all of them in the future. But the rings in Chaotix power badniks fine; which goes back to my earlier suggestion that Robotnik doesn't use animals purely out of necessity, but also because he's an evil bastard.

[Gatestormer]

As for current times, I'd bet that Robotnik is using Rings to power his robots now. Big example of this is Unleashed, where destroying an Eggman robot gives Sonic power Ring Power.

Ring power gained from robots? Kind of speaks for itself.

[Phos]

Yeah, the E-series / badnik distinction is all very HAZY. I know this acutely because I wrote most of those Retro articles you'll have been looking at, Marcello.

Sonic 1 / 2 / 3 style robots we all KNOW are badniks. I think these are clear-cut because:

* The robots THEMSELVES usually look a bit like animals

* They have animals inside them

It gets hazy when we have 'bots that lie outside this particular Venn Diagram. For example, the robots in the 8-bit games were blatantly copies of the ones from the 16-bit games, but when you popped them there was NOTHING inside. Likewise, Chaotix robots had rinds inside rather than animals.

Alternatively, you had Beta / Gamma / Delta / Epsilon / Zeta, who few people think of as badniks, presumably because they were more humanoid and intelligent in their own right.

The first few of the E series bots had animals in them, but it's pretty obvious that later ones such as Omega and the Egg Pawns don't.

As for Sonic CD, I'm just going to guess that what the animals actually did din't enter into the creator's minds. I don't really care much either way.

[Thrippa]

It's not quite that clear cut, though, because the Rush games have Egg Pawns that do drop critters. So some of the later robots / Egg Pawns DO have animals in them.

Perhaps the plants on Little Planet are sentient. Then again, some scientists are studying way to use DNA codes as computer memory and such, so perhaps Eggman only needs the DNA source, plant, animal, or . . . other. I wonder if Chaos drives have any chao DNA in

them . . .

[Dejablue]

I think most inconsistencies seen when it comes to eggbots and what you find inside when you break them can be attributed to...Sonic Team not caring much about consistency in that matter.

[Octarine]

The first few of the E series bots had animals in them, but it's pretty obvious that later ones such as Omega and the Egg Pawns don't.

Is it? The inconsistencies with Egg Pawns have already been mentioned, but apart from that one time in '06 when he ripped off Chrono Trigger shut himself down for years to "time travel" (which would be kind of fatal for an animal in most circumstances), I haven't seen much indication one way or another for Omega. I always sort of assumed that he did have an animal inside him, since the earlier E-series models that he shares the most aesthetic connections with all had flickies. Omega hasn't really interacted with anyone outside of Team Dark anyway, and I doubt either Shadow or Rouge would care much if he was powered by a trapped, innocent animal.

I guess the reasoning is that Eggman stopped using the birds if/when he discovered the reason for Gamma's betrayal? I guess that makes Gamma's sacrifice a little more poetic, in a way... he not only freed all of the flickies inside the E-series robots, but his betrayal convinced Eggman that using animals wasn't viable and he gave up entirely on the process, freeing the little animals from opression forever.

...except Eggman used badniks, animals and all, in SA2. Crud.

[HunterTSF]

A topic pertaining to Egg Pawns and I wasn't invited?! D:

This shall be rectified!

Your skepticism is well-placed. I can't count the number of times I've asked them to implement a Wikia-style reference citation system (actually, I can. It's four).

Anyway, IF I REMEMBER CORRECTLY it's from the Prima official strategy guide for Heroes.

I've just searched through the Prima guide, and I don't see that number listed anywhere. I've come to the conclusion that the number "E-1001" was a fan-wanked numeral that's spread like wildfire across the interwebs since its conception somewhere. Egg Pawns are definitely E-1000 series robots though - the E-2000 series introduced aboard the Egg Fleet were implied by Omega to be the successors of the badniks that everyone had encountered until that point, which would include Egg Pawns, Flappers, Klagens, Camerons, Falcos, etc.

Anywho, Egg Pawns are fairly simple minded. They're childish, easily confused, fairly lazy and they get all scared if the eggs man yells at his TV. They pretty much all act the same regardless of what they're powered by - Egg Pawns are quite versatile when it comes to power sources, after all.

In Sonic Heroes, some of them were given extra horsepower via HEXAeco's stolen Power Cores, but aside from that they appeared to be entirely self sufficient and presumably were powered by relatively "normal" means - such as a standard electrical battery of some sort. Whatever it was, it didn't feel like popping out of them once they a-sploded. Same thing can be said for the ones present in Shadow the Hedgehog, as well as the Rivals and Mario & Sonic series. However in Rush, they were indeed powered by Small Animals a-la the classical badniks of yesteryear. Unlike them, however, the Egg Pawns' current emotional states were easier to read by their behaviours and actions, in contrast to the classic badnik's poker faces and limited movements.

The Casino Bunnies in Night Carnival displayed the classic characteristics displayed by the Egg Pawns (Choosing these guys, because they're the most notable examples) - they were happy-go-lucky and looked like they were having a blast on their Egg Pogo Sticks. Their faces may not be capable of emoting - but their head was kept in an optimistic upright position, their ears were all high and perky, and they looked like they were deliberately trying to jump as high as they could just for the fun of it - "Whee!". Which would leave me to believe that the animals are in fact not brainwashed, at least for this case.

Why would Eggman go through the hassle of making some program that specifically brainwashes these animals to retain the personalities of the robots they are trapped within? "Okay, I've got to make this squirrel a total goof that loves to play on pogo sticks, but is also totally determined to beat the crap out of oncoming blue hedgehogs and pursuing cat princesses. And those G.U.N. geeks too." "And oh, now I should make this walrus a total jerkass that wants to smash things with his trusty ol' hammer." "And I have no idea how to turn this Flicky into a schizophrenic magician."

So I'm thinking that, at least for the E-1000 series, the robot's thoughts aren't really impeded by the creatures that may possibly be trapped within - perhaps only because they were fully developed to work independent of Small Animal power. The E-100 series and the classic badniks may have had this flaw, but if so, I think it's been fixed in newer models. 'Cuz Eggman's been bugfixin', yup.

Edited July 13, 2010 by HunterTSF