Review: Season 3, Episode 2

Hoo, where to start with this one? It feels great to finally be done with this plot after teasing it for so long, not to mention the extension created by splitting it into two parts. It was not supposed to take this long. It was supposed to be a nice, memorable, self-contained experience, just like last season’s premiere. But I just couldn’t do it. So anyways, let’s talk a bit about Agent Black. My goal with this episode, above everything else, was to deepen the tragedy of Shadow’s past in a meaningful way. I’ve done a lot with Shadow’s character so far in this series, tending towards themes of repeating history and learning from mistakes, but this is the first time I’ve ever really touched Shadow’s original backstory. Most Sonic characters don’t have a backstory, so crafting stories for them was comparatively easy, to the point that Shadow was starting to feel left out of the strong character development the rest of the cast is getting. But now, by adding just 20 seconds of footage to a video we’ve already seen, I’ve created what is perhaps the darkest moment in Sonic history, centered, of course, around Shadow. (Though I reluctantly admit that said title will soon be taken by Silver & Zero—more on that next week.) That raw moment of Shadow being shaken to his core is something that happened to him quite a bit in his first few games, but hasn’t really been possible since 06 pushed his character into a stronger place. It feels good to break that wall.

Another big component of this episode was attempting to fix the mistakes of part 1. Well, not so much mistakes, but unavoidable consequences. In part 1, there were a lot of hasty, emotional decisions being made, and it, perhaps, made everyone look a little bit stupid. In this part, everyone got a chance to stop and think, really express why they’re doing what they’re doing, and make choices that seem clearly reasonable in the end. Of course, it wouldn’t have had to be a “fix” if I’d just kept it down to one part, and I worry now that it might be too little too late. The true premiere episode of Season 3 will forever be tainted, because it lacks what the following episode has to fill in. Still, taken as a whole package, I’m very happy with the narrative that these two episodes tell together.

There were, of course, more Captain America inspirations continuing off of part one. The sleeper soldier team finds a target in the soldier’s original base in “Siberia,” one of the teams recruits a “Spider-Man” (a character that everybody knows but no one expected to actually show up in this context), there’s a big team-vs-team fight which ends with the robot accidentally shooting down one of his allies, the sleeper soldier and one companion make it to the base followed by a leader of the other team (“I allowed myself to become distracted”), and finally, there’s a big shocking reveal via old recorded video within the base. The big subversion here is that, while Captain America and Iron Man entered the base as hesitant allies turned against one another by the video, Shadow and Knuckles enter the base as enemies brought together by the video. I like to think that my ending is a bit more wholesome and satisfying.

It probably came across pretty clearly that the whole Vector subplot wasn’t necessarily originally intended to be a part of this episode. In its original intended form, this hypothetical Vector solo episode would’ve been seen near the end of Season 2, playing a similar role to “In Too Deep” in Season 1. We’d get a roll of flashbacks to events that happened behind the scenes throughout the season, this time from Vector’s perspective. This episode would most likely have introduced SCOPE’s moon base, so it wouldn’t have to come in so suddenly here in Civil War territory. I’d like to say that Mighty also would’ve been introduced there, but I honestly wasn’t far enough along in planning to know that. I ended up realizing that the second half of Season 2 was already crammed too full of other episodes, so Vector’s story had to be delayed. The plan was to put it early here in Season 3, perhaps the first or second episode after the premiere. But when Civil War turned into a two-parter, that meant some other episode here in the first half of the season had to get the axe to make room for that second part. Rather than delaying Vector’s story even further, I decided it could work out pretty well to merge it directly into part 2. It had the bulk that this episode would’ve been lacking without it, and the SCOPE connection was already there. The result still ended up a bit strange, as Vector’s scenes are very tonally different from the rest of this Civil War plot, but the “everything is connected” theme was able to justify it in a narrative sense.

And that brings me on to Mighty. There’s an interesting story behind him. Once upon a time, six or seven some odd years ago, before The Chaos Project was ever published, I made a Mighty sprite in the Sonic Advance style. You can see here, that process went through quite a few iterations over the years since then.

Original Sprite (Knuckles’ Chaotix)

First attempt (Not bad, too classic-y)

(Didn’t really change much)

(Oh no it’s worse)

I decided to give him light blue eyes, inspired by this post from the Sonic social media account. I understand that the same decision was made for Mighty’s design in the Archie comics, but I never liked how weird they went with the shoes and gloves.

Knuckles' Chaotix was released 21 years ago today in Japan. Here’s a remix of its game art to celebrate. pic.twitter.com/fEOgCxmNmx

— Sonic the Hedgehog (@sonic_hedgehog) April 21, 2016

At the time, I was figuring, “This is going to be a long-form Sonic story spanning many years. Of course I’m going to use every character at some point. How else will I fill all that space?” Mighty was my testing grounds, to see how well I could convert a Classic sprite into a modern design. Of course, Mania wasn’t a thing back then, so I had to use Knuckles’ Chaotix sprites for reference. But anyways, the first attempt at Mighty’s sprite seen above is among the very earliest images uploaded here on the website, hiding away for all this time. So yeah, I didn’t know how I would use Mighty, I just figured that I eventually would. Then two things happened. One, as I started to write through Season 0, I settled on a clearer tone and setting for the world, which relied a lot on Modern lore and not a lot on Classic lore. And two, Sonic Mania was released, drawing a line between the Modern and Classic worlds harsher than ever before. I was just about ready to abandon Mighty and give in to SEGA’s silly mandates—”the Classic games are a different world, and share absolutely no relation to the world where current Sonic games take place.” But then I got to Season 1, realized that the loose scattering of episodes I had planned were lacking something, and constructed a slightly stronger overarching plot revolving around the return of Fang. I still wasn’t sure about Mighty, but I knew the floodgates were open, so I left myself an opening. When everyone is trying to take account of who is or isn’t present when the Rebellion is forming in S1 E1, people start asking about those who aren’t. And although he is cut off, Knuckles asks about a name beginning with the letter “M”. I thought that was pretty subtle, but Yuni Oha at least saw through it immediately. I suppose there aren’t a lot of other “M” names in Sonic.

Generating a personality for Mighty was a different story. The post-reboot Archie comics gave him rage issues that he’s constantly trying to keep in check. That didn’t seem quite right to me. As most of us already know, Mighty in Chaotix was just a draw-over of Sonic’s sprites. The result was a character who shared Sonic’s poses and expressions, with all the confidence and cockiness that came with them. Mania also showed him as a bit of a show-off with pride in his strength. To flesh that out, I decided to fold it in with some…armadillo traits, I guess. He has his guard up all the time, both figuratively and literally. He’s a little more reserved, a little more laid back, and, as Vector described him, defensive and smooth under pressure. That’s the perceived difference between a hedgehog and an armadillo that originally led to the decision of Sonic being a hedgehog. Quills are sharp and offensive. A shell is smooth and defensive. The result, interestingly enough, turned out feeling a bit like an echo of Sonic’s past to me. Mighty has that aloofness that was often associated with Sonic in the late Classic and early Adventure eras. In my opinion, anyways.

Also worth mentioning the Ray tease. As uncertain as I was about brining in Mighty, Ray was even less so. But, thanks mostly to Mania, the two characters are now pretty much inextricably linked, so using him as Mighty’s motivation here was just the logical way to go. An amusing suggestion made by this tease is that the “Missing” poster featuring both characters in Sonic Generations is most likely canon. Ray actually did go missing, and Mighty made himself disappear to search for him.

Moving on, there was an attempt made in this episode to keep things just a little bit more lighthearted and fun than the last episode. It’s been an unfortunate trend coming to my attention that this series just isn’t quite as fun as it used to be, with plots getting darker and characters maturing further. I did my best to include at least one good joke in nearly every scene, up until the climax. Special attention was paid to Eggman, who’s had nearly all of his comedic appeal stamped out by this point. Having him in a situation that wasn’t the typical “I’m going to kill you” interaction he usually has with the rest of the Sonic cast gave the perfect opportunity to bring back his more zany, eccentric personality.

Juggling the huge number of characters in this episode was, of course, another big issue. It’s an unfortunate shortcoming of this episode that we really didn’t get to follow up on any of the fights that happened in the climax in more than trivial ways. Hero and Bruno fighting each other was theoretically a big deal, but it happened, and now it’s done, and no one got the chance to talk about it. Same goes for the Chaotix. Cream lost her fight, and no one has said anything about that. There just wasn’t the time, really.

I’ll probably come up with more to say later, but for now, it’s on to the trivia!

• This episode’s title is very straightforward. Continuing with the Marvel references, it is, effectively, the equivalent of “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” which actually came before Civil War.
  • In hindsight, it might not have been a bad idea to switch around these titles. But I wanted the premiere itself to maintain the Civil War moniker, since it’s more attention-grabbing, and regardless, we learn a lot more about Agent Black in this episode than we did in the last.
• Only one location (arguably zero) from a previous Sonic game appeared in this episode, that being the Wood Zone, a scrapped level from Sonic 2. Given that it’s completely inaccessible in any game, I think it’d be fair to say that it’s the single best hidden location on Westside Island, making it a great place for a rebel base.
  • As it turns out, the post-reboot Archie comics beat me to that conclusion, placing Knothole Village in the Wood Zone for the same reason. interestingly enough, I was actually thinking about calling Camp Beta “Knothole” as a joke/reference before I realized that Archie beat me to it. I don’t mind making Archie jokes, but I don’t want it to look like I’m actually using Archie lore.
  • Although it isn’t from a previous game, there is another notable location in Whiteout Zone. Although no such location has been named previously, the name may still be familiar. The implication is that this is the location which appeared in S0 E16 Project: Whiteout. In that episode, an Omega from an unspecified time in the future is attempting to hunt down Shadow through a snowy tundra, claiming that he has betrayed humanity and must be taken in. It can be interpreted that this episode may be an alternate timeline version of that same event, now involving a little bit more than just Shadow and Omega, but still matching the same basic premise.
• In the first scene of this episode, Eggman, five years later, follows up on the promise he made to Team Chaotix at the end of Sonic Heroes, that he would pay them once he conquered the world. Should’ve happened in Forces, honestly, but it once again falls to me to pick up the slack in Sonic continuity. This fact served as a major inspiration for the creation of Vector’s current character arc.
• All of the “oddities” that Tails finds in the SCOPE data are explained by the end of the episode, except for one—a period of deleted logs “a while” before Shadow was found by Eggman. What was in those logs, and why were they deleted? I can’t say just yet, but I can say that there was a hint left a long time ago.
• This episode is the first to give us the name of “Sonar the Hedgehog,” the Controller to come before Sonic. “Sonar,” an abbreviation of “sonic radar” refers to the detection of objects by the sound waves that bounce off of them. What does this have to do with the character? We’ll find out. Eventually.
• Vector’s detective agency spells out the acronym VICDA, pronounced quite a bit like Vector’s name with a Brooklyn accent. It was originally going to be “Vector’s Certified Imperial Detective Agency,” before I realized the potential joke and switched around the words to fit it.
• Vector’s flashback to the agency takes place a short time after S2 E10 Heads or Tails, confirming an interesting connection to that episode’s plot. In that episode, Tails’ father, Clicks, attempted to contact the Rebellion using the same “breaking eggs” code seen again here with Vector. It is quickly confirmed that this is a code of “the network”, which Clicks is newly revealed to be a vital part of.
  • This is actually reflective of a change made to S2 E10 soon before publishing. Clicks’ code was originally planned to involve bakers and the number of eggs used to make a cake, with the knowledge that Vector was eventually going to use the omelet code, so it had to be different in some way. It was suggested to me that the baker code was weird and should be replaced with an omelet code, and I decided, “You know what? I can make that work.” This means that Clicks was not originally intended to be associated with Vector or the network, but I think I like it better this way. Heads or Tails focused on all the terrible things that he did, so I like that we’re seeing in hindsight how hard he was working to make up for them. It also explains a little better why Eggman targeted him.
  • It is also strongly implied that Cream’s mother Vanilla is a member of the network, as she was shown doing underground activities in S2 E14 The Weapon’s Will, and Vector discusses a cook in Carnival City matching her description.
• In response to being told what’s happening with the Rebellion, Vector responds, “Broke up? What, like a band?” This is sensible for Vector, given the music aficionado he is, but it is also a Marvel quote, not to Civil War, but to Infinity War, spoken by Bruce Banner after learning about he events of Civil War for the first time.
• In this episode, Vector once again shows a bit of his religious side with a use of the word “God”.
  • He appears to be rubbing off on Mighty over the course of this episode, who also uses the word by the end.
• Not long after the mention of Carnival City (the name given to the setting of Night Carnival in Sonic Rush), Vector mentions Carnival Island (the setting of Knuckles’ Chaotix) by name for the first time in CP-canon. This unfortunate coincidence couldn’t be avoided, and probably led to some confusion.
• In his fight against Cheese, Shadow picks up the Chao and throws it at a wall. This is a sequence of events which most Sonic fans have likely seen at least once in their lives, in the SA2 Chao Garden. Shadow even implied as much—this isn’t the first Chao he’s picked up and thrown in exactly this way.
• Agent Black’s commission number, 00031427, is slightly higher than that of the Commander’s, implying that he became an agent relatively soon after. The numbers also kinda sorta spell out the word “BLACK” if you squint.
• When the two sides of the Civil War meet to reaffirm their stances before the final fight, Espio uses the phrase, “You know my stance on evil.” This is referencing a well known quote from Sonic Heroes. “Evil must die! Behold, ninja power!” It was my intention to call that quote to mind without actually claiming that Espio planned on killing Shadow.
• Espio shows off a new move in the fight, “Chroma Refract.” I don’t love the name, but the point is to call back to “Chroma Camo,” suggesting that Espio is using the same power he already has, just in a new way.
• When Omega defeats Rouge, he delivers a “casualty report.” This is a quote to Sonic Forces Episode Shadow, one of the stranger things he said while being attacked by Infinite.
• As Mighty leads Shadow away from the battlefield, he declares that he and Shadow “make a pretty good mix.” This is an obscure reference to an unofficial time when Shadow and Mighty were seen together—Sonic Megamix, a fangame by the now famous Simon Thomley aka “Stealth,” who would go on to put Mighty in Sonic Mania. But not Shadow. Missed opportunity, if you ask me.
• This episode answers a long-standing Sonic mystery which was last mentioned in S1 E5 Team Chaotix and the Case of the Computer Room Caper. How was the moon un-destroyed after SA2? Apparently, it was by a combination of physics that make sense if you squint (a Sonic standard) and a cleverly designed moon base (not unlike the explanation given by Sonic X).
• Shadow, Mighty, and Knuckles travel up to the moon base using a space transporter of the same type seen in Eggman’s base in SA2. Here, it is explained why this technology is so rarely seen elsewhere in the Sonic world.
  • This technology was also seen in S0 E32 The Time of Reckoning Part 2, where it was apparently built directly into the Hard Boiled Heavies to aid their retreats.
• Shadow “hacks” the SCOPE computer using a technique seen in Shadow the Hedgehog—hitting it really hard. It worked back then, and it still works now.

That’s all for now! Next up is part 3 of Silver & Zero, so stay tuned!

-And until next time, remember to live and learn every day!

Review: Season 2, Episode 8

This was a very…unique episode. I’ve been hinting at the fact that I’d eventually tell this story for quite some time, most prominently in S1 E5—the last Chaotix episode (well, the last one that I wrote, anyways). Of course, this one couldn’t have been any more different from that one. Computer Room Caper was an unapologetic comedy, while this was…well I don’t want to say 100% serious crime drama, because I definitely parodied the genre in a few places, but it was definitely meant to be taken seriously, with a few lighthearted laughs mixed in. But anyways, I’ve been putting thought towards this plot for a very long time, trying to figure out how to build a convincing mystery that tells the story I’m aiming for. Heavily pre-planned episodes always end up in an interesting conundrum. Writing goes much faster than average for some scenes, because everything right down to the wording has already been planned out, but much slower than average for the rest, because it suddenly becomes a puzzle of how to perfectly word each less-planned scene such that it leads perfectly into the next planned one.

Another interesting consequence of planning out this mystery was that this turned out to be the third longest episode ever (13,888 words), behind only S0 E32 Time of Reckoning Part 2 (14,689) and S2 E1 Time Heals All Wounds (14,824)—making this the absolute longest episode that isn’t a finale or a premiere. I wasn’t expecting it go this long, in fact I was worried about it being too short at first, but it turned out that the need to thoroughly set up each suspect, and to give them roughly equal treatment with a second appearance each, on top of basically introducing Vector, Espio, and Charmy as individual characters from scratch, just took up a whole lot of time. I wanted to make sure that this was a legitimate mystery, not some Scooby Doo type situation with 2 suspects where one of them seems to be the obvious culprit so it must actually be the other guy. I wanted there to be no clear-cut answer, I wanted there to be a legitimate reason to suspect anyone—the boss who’s suspiciously unlikeable, the kid who’s suspiciously too likeable, the suspiciously non-suspicious girl who makes you question why she’s there, and the intentionally hinted red-herring friend. I figured there was zero chance of anyone suspecting Espio or Charmy, so I didn’t bother trying anything there. Interesting random tidbit, I was originally thinking that Graff was going to be the culprit, but I decided that would be way to obvious. There’s something to be said for picking the obvious choice on purpose, since the audience wouldn’t expect it to be so obvious, but that was too much roundabout thinking for me.

Despite what a relatively small percentage of the episode it took up, what happened in the present day is worth mentioning as well. The decision to have Vector leave the Rebellion was, in strong part, pushed along by a goal I’ve mentioned before. The cast must be dynamic. The Sonic cast is so wide and varied that constantly changing up who is and isn’t available is a guaranteed way to keep interesting character interactions going. The other, more important component of this decision came from much the same place as the decision to make Charmy a doctor. Unlike Charmy, Vector certainly didn’t need something to do in the logical sense. Putting his detective skills to work gathering intel for Rebellion made him plenty useful enough. This was more about how to treat him as a character. It’s my goal to make every main character go through some kind of relevant character arc, which was quickly and easily out of the way for big characters like Sonic, Shadow, and Tails. But even though Vector’s played an important role in a good handful of episodes by now, he’s been a stagnant character the entire time. This was the attempt to end that stagnation. Will he ever be able to make it back? That remains to be seen. I’ll also admit that I just really wanted to imagine how a Vector vs. Espio fight would go down. I intended it to be a smidge longer than it ended up being, but given the length of the rest of the episode, I figured “over in a second, blink and you miss it” would serve for a more powerful moment, letting the leader of the team prove his strength without necessarily confirming that a more standard fight would go the same way.

I’ll go into more detail about this in the trivia, but another interesting conflict/inspiration in writing this episode came in the form of Knuckles’ Chaotix. At some point along the line, however long ago that may have been, I was definitely considering ignoring Knuckles’ Chaotix as non-canon. After all, Charmy was 16 in that classic game and 6 as of Sonic Heroes, and there’s…really no reconciling that. However, looking once again at Yuni Oha’s Out of the Shadows episodes, there was some information from the Chaotix manual used as backstory for the relationship between Espio and Charmy. (“In my youth, before I first joined the Chaotix, I was what you might call a hothead. I would lose my temper at the smallest of annoyances. Of all people, it was Charmy who had to calm me down.”) Making a Team Chaotix origin episode, it was a bit of a necessity for the sake of continuity to address this specific statement. And I figured, if I was doing that, I might as well go the whole mile. So I studied the Chaotix manuals, both English and Japanese, very thoroughly, and did my best to address every little quirk and oddity in there. Except, of course, Charmy’s age. What I should be saying is that I did my best to address the quirks without causing any contradiction with modern canon. This goes back to the whole “CP-Canon” thing. I’m basically establishing that something resembling Knuckles’ Chaotix happened, but those events just might not be exactly the same as you remember them.

Before we get to the trivia, I’ll mention a few last-minute changes that were added by recommendation of the editor (you should know his name by now). “The Chaotix” as an oldies band enjoyed by the Chief was a very specific recommendation used exactly as suggested. Originally, it was Charmy who simply brought up the name for the first time on the spot. Changing it simply tied the whole story together a lot better, giving real meaning to the name, and to the team as a result. Some major alterations were made to the Commander’s phone call as well. Originally, the Commander was much more forward with his information, simply asking Vector if he had anything to add, based on that information. By shifting things around a bit, having Vector put together the pieces without much outside help, it not only improved Vetor’s credibility as a detective, but also made a lot more sense in terms of the Commander’s motivations for calling Vector in the first place. Perhaps most importantly, it made sure that, by the time of S2 E6 Adventures in Hedgehog Hunting, the existence of SCOPE could be more of a suspicion and less of a certainty.

Now for the trivia!

• The title of this episode, “Who Framed Espio the Chameleon!?”, is a reference to the 1988 Disney animated/live action hybrid movie, “Who Framed Roger Rabbit.”
  • Similarities between the episode and the movie exist in that both are crime dramas focusing on a world with a schism between humans and non-human characters (cartoon characters in the movie, animoids in the episode).
• Windopolis, “the windy city,” is inspired by the real-world city of Chicago, Illinois.
  By my understanding, Chicago is a popular choice of setting for crime dramas, hence the inspiration.
  • Somehow, this is the first newly-created, present-day settlement in the history of The Chaos Project to be both named and visited. All previous towns/cities have either been pre-existing locations (Westopolis, Central City, Metropolis), been in the past or future (Speed City, Neo Soleanna, unnamed town from Birth of Blacklight), or gone unvisited onscreen (Westside Village).
• Dixon Montse is named after Dixon Hill, a fictional detective within the universe of Star Trek. “Montse” is traditional Spanish for “jagged hill.”
• Stewart Butler is a steward and a butler. As in, “the butler did it.” Figured that one could at least get a pity chuckle.
• Graff’s name is intended to sound like “gruff.” It also may or may not be based on someone who may or may not be involved in the writing of certain Sonic games…
  • Whether it is or is not, there is no actual association between the character and the person, although it wasn’t really an accident that Captain Graff was an intentionally unlikeable character.
• Dunham’s name isn’t necessarily supposed to mean anything, I just liked the sound of it. There’s probably some inspiration from the name of a character from Marvel’s “Agent Carter,” one Chief Roger Dooley.
  • Dunham’s first name was originally intended to be Richard, making it sound even more like that character. It was changed to Charles so that Richard could be used as a name for someone else, about…four seasons from now.
• Several components of this episode were foreshadowed in Computer Room Caper.
  • It was in that episode that Vector revealed he was a former detective of “the force.”
  • It was stated in that episode that Vector’s thorough reports were a habit from those old days, hence why his paperwork was called “legendary” in this episode.
  • In that episode, Vector chose not to tell the story of the first Chaotix case to Cream, citing that it would be too dark for her. Accurately to his claim, this murder mystery was far darker than that comedy.
  • In that episode, Vector stated that he and the Commander had history, Vector having once been questioned about a case. That interaction happened at the end of this episode.
• Several references were made to Knuckles’ Chaotix, which would take place soon after the events of this episode.
  • Vector’s tape player and different headphones, as well as Espio’s simpler shoes and gloves, were intended to be their outfits from Knuckles’ Chaotix.
    It is assumed that it is just the outfits that are classic, and not the total character designs.
    • The injury to Espio’s wrist is implied to be the reason why he later wears what could be interpreted as protective devices around his wrists.
    • Charmy’s design change was not mentioned. He went through the least changes of the three, and I figured the point was made. Imagine him however you prefer.
  • Vector mentions “God” by name, a first in CP-Canon, referencing his strong belief in God as detailed in the Chaotix manual.
    • It was hidden within the phrase “Good God,” a common exclamation that could be interpreted as not having any actual religious meaning.
      • Vector also later said something about praying for a person’s salvation, which, similarly, sounds religious, but doesn’t necessarily have to be.
    • I chose to be coy about this detail because it just seemed so odd and irrelevant to his modern character. I didn’t want to push anything that was pretty clearly untrue. Plus, I have always elected to avoid the use of the word “God” in the past, electing instead for “gosh,” or more recently, the more canon-appropriate “Lords.”
  • Throughout the episode, Espio indicated that he was working on controlling his anger issues, a trait mentioned in the manual as well as in Out of the Shadows.
    • Espio’s other stated classic personality trait was a strong sense of justice, which turned out to be a bit difficult to reconcile with his hotheadedness in the context I was going for. I finally reached a nice reconciliation by having Espio admit that he desired justice, but was disheartened by the lack of it he saw in the world.
    • This moment was basically a direct quote to the manual, with Espio thanking Charmy for reminding him of his manners.
  • Graff calling Vector “Gator” is a reference to the fact that Vetor was actually called an Alligator in the manual, changed to a Crocodile for the modern incarnation.
  • In the manual, Espio’s occupation is listed as “detective,” yet Vector’s isn’t. In order to reconcile this with Vector being the leader in the modern incarnation, I had Espio claim that he puts “Detective” as his occupation on official documents, even though he doesn’t typically do that sort of work for anyone other than himself, which is the reason why he’d accept the proposition of becoming an actual detective later.
  • Vector encouragingly complements how fast of a sprinter Charmy must be, a reference to one of Charmy’s more random traits from the manual, in which “sprinter” is actually listed as his occupation.
  • At the end of the story, Espio claimed to hear a report of an island mysteriously appearing overnight. This island is assumed to be Carnival Island, and marks the instigating event of Knuckles’ Chaotix…
    • …at least, in Japanese. This marks the first clear preference towards Japanese canon over English canon for classic games. (I was surprised to learn how different they are. But in English, Carnival Island is an ordinary island with a carnival built on it, for which Knuckles was somehow hired as a security guard. Presumably by Eggman. Like, what?)
    • In the future, I hope to use, to the best of my abilities, an optimal balance that include elements of Japanese and English lore for all classic games.
    • Dunham living on 3210 (read as 32X) Carnival Street is also a reference to this location.
•  Vector stating the desire to be a jazz singer was not a reference to Chaotix, but to Heroes, where his terrible singing was a game mechanic.
  • As a plus, jazz and Chicago are often associated.
• A love of coffee as Vector showed is an existing detective trope (often as a kid-friendly alternative to alcohol), but in this case it was most specifically inspired by Detective Pikachu (more the game than the movie).
• Espio’s prized shuriken is assumed to be crafted by Shino the Hedgehog.
• Espio is shown using his camouflage ability, despite not having it in Chaotix. This was a purely plot-driven choice.

And that’s all for today! I’m afraid I must say now, with much more certainty than before, that starting now, you probably won’t be hearing from me for a while. Despite having about two and a half weeks to write the episode I’m on so far, I’m still only about a page and a half in (for an average of 20 pages per episode). So at this rate you might hear from me again in about…oh, ten weeks or so, when I might be able to provide a preview. Sometimes, life just gets in the way. But worry not! However slowly it may be going, The Chaos Project is still being worked on, and the next episode will come. Eventually.

-But until then, remember to live and learn every day!