Preview: Season 3, Episode 14

Sonic x Shadow Generations isn’t the only place Black Doom is coming back this week! Here’s the preview for long-awaited final piece to the finale of Season 3!

The Black Asteroid — Core

Shadow the Hedgehog stands at the center of the Asteroid’s command room, arms crossed as he observes an array of floating screens depicting many angles of the battle waging outside. Latched around his face and acting in place of the host body’s eyes, Doom’s Eye turns slowly from one screen to the next. On one, Eggman’s army of Sentinel robots intercept the Black Arms bioweapon capsules launched towards the Earth one after another. On the next, Mighty’s Piscean Saucer flies through the wreckage and debris left behind by Seraph’s SG-1000 II. Another shows Sage, the three color-coded Titans, and The End. The fourth screen shows that with Titans occupied, Black Arms forces converge towards the White Dreamnet with little hindrance. The weapons of the mothership appear to have stopped firing, leaving it nearly defenseless. Only the personal ship of White Genesis attempts to fight them off, making little difference on its own.

Shadow-Doom laughs at this. “Such chaos on the battlefield as I’ve never seen before. The White Arms will soon fall. Tonight, our children shall feast upon their bones. Tomorrow, upon the humans of Earth. Soon, the entire galaxy shall come to fear us.”

The Eye of Saturn-Gladius is closed as he gives psychic orders to the Black Arms hivemind. Past him, alien soldiers march through in perfect double file, arming themselves to be deployed. “Your Herald has developed a strong will, Morbus. This added conviction, this strength of presence, will make our soldiers all the more deadly. Consider me impressed.”

Luna-Morbus kneels by a pool of red slime, submerging her hands to draw out the material she uses to craft weapons, some familiar in shape, others far too strange and elaborate to imagine what use they might have. Each one is levitated into the hands of a marching soldier. “Your own child has learned a great deal about the art of killing from you, Gladius. I would never have thought to engineer weapons such as these.”

Shadow-Doom’s face grows stern. “Your little pets are paltry improvements, compared to my own creation.” He looks down at his open hand. “The Ultimate Life Form…the perfect being. At last, that is what I have become.”

“Do not forget, Famis,” Saturn-Gladius growls, “that it is only by our benevolent will that you stand here before us. You, who were the first to fall.”

Luna-Morbus adds, “We could have just as easily eliminated your Herald, and stripped your rule from you, if it so pleased us.”

Shadow-Doom turns on them with a frightening rumble. “Do not forget, lesser monarchs, that it is only by the execution of my perfect plan that the two of you stand at all. As we speak, the greatest of all Black Beasts grows in the depths of this Asteroid. Without me, you could not hope to control it. Without me, you could not hope to defeat the enemies that surround us. We formed this alliance because I am the only one powerful enough to hold it together. Do not forget. Or you will suffer as surely as our foes. None will stand in our way.”

—–—

Never Lake

Sergeant Ayanna Brown pulls the lever on the strange machine in front of her, then dives to the ground before Omega’s first shot can be fired in retaliation. Zed’s weapon arm rotates into a flamethrower that he fires off immediately in a wide arc that forces the group of rebels—Omega, Rouge, Vector, and Espio—to scatter.

The machine generates a thin beam of light that shoots straight up into the sky. It strikes an empty point in space, where the sky begins to ripple, then crack. 

In a sparkling flash, the Little Planet reappears. Its landmasses are filled from end to end with bright neon city lights, and skyscrapers so high that they stand out against the curvature of the planet.

“Just what we needed,” Rouge mutters. “Another planet full of people to drag into this mess.”

“What people?” Espio questions. “Where could they have all come from? The planet was unpopulated when it disappeared.”

“Those would be the Postcursors.”

Everyone turns with a start towards the source of the voice behind them. Ayanna straightens into a salute. “Master Sergeant, sir.”

“At ease, Sergeant Brown.” The Master Sergeant looks up at the sky, where the false purple moon hovers above the Little Planet. “This is how The End comes for all of us. I see, and I have seen.”

What is Black Doom’s so-called perfect plan? How has the Master Sergeant returned? Can The End be stopped? Find out all this and more, next time on The Chaos Project, coming soon!

Preview: Season 3, Episode 4

Happy 6th anniversary to the website! Another episode of The Chaos Project is coming soon, so please, have a look!

Cream’s House — The outskirts of Carnival City

The quaint beachside abode appears different than it once did under the twilight overcast, with all of its flowering hedges dried and shriveled from a lack of attention. Cream shakes her doubts aside. She starts to walk up the cobblestone path to the front door. She stops there for a moment, then knocks firmly on the door. Not getting a response, she tries the doorknob. The door opens wide.

Cream’s eyes go wide. An explosion has triggered inside. The shockwave throws her off of her feet. The house is engulfed in flames. Shielding her face, she looks inside. Something is walking out through the flames. Hedgehog on one side and robot on the other, the silhouette clearly belongs to Cyber Sonic. But as it steps into view, that form changes. It’s Tails that steps out from the fire, wearing a vicious smirk and glowing red eyes.

“Useless… useless… useless…”

Cream climbs back to her feet and turns to run. The flames have spread to the field all around her, funneling her escape straight forward. Her friends stand along the path. Omega. Gemerl. Shadow. Amy. Sonic. But each time she reaches out for their help, they turn away, walking into the flames. Left behind where they disappear are demonic faces, scowling and laughing at her. As she runs, they come back out to chase behind her, their forms nothing but shadowy, snarling masses. Crying in fear, Cream puts everything into running faster, nearly tripping over herself in the process. The world goes black, but the shadows keep on chasing.

Something lies ahead. A point of light, distant at first, but growing ever brighter. The shadows hiss and snarl at the light, their progress suddenly blocked. Cream’s wide eyes take in the light with a sudden wave of calm. She throws her arms wide open, letting the light overtake her completely.

—–—

? ? ?

As the light fades, Cream slowly stirs into consciousness on a cobblestone road, the dark of night looming overhead. The distant sound of a distinct melody can be heard, played by a simple flute. Three notes high, three notes low, then back and forth between the two. Cream finally manages to push her head up off of the ground. “Where…?” She looks around in confusion. The road seems to stretch on endlessly into the darkness behind her. Ahead, it leads through a wrought iron gate, open to some manner of courtyard. Left with little other choice, Cream climbs to her feet and starts walking towards the gate, and the source of the strange yet familiar melody.

Just where exactly has Cream found herself? What were those strange apparitions pursuing her? And why does this odd tune seem to draw her in? Find out all that and more, on the next illuminating episode of The Chaos Project!

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 3, Episode 1

A lot of odd stories surrounding episode development recently. This one is a Season 0 throwback—a planned standalone episode getting split into a two parter because it just turned out too darned long. I wrote as far as Shadow and Tails appearing in the brig still planning on this being a single episode (that was about 75% of the way in). Hypothetically, I could’ve cut out the ensuing fight with Knuckles, cut out the travel to Camp Beta subplot, drastically shortened Sonic’s roundtable conference after Shadow left, and probably managed to fit in a shortened version of next episode without the need for a part two. But that’s a lot to cut out. The Season 2 premiere episode was a lot to live up to, and I figured that cutting important content out of this episode wouldn’t help that comparison. On the other hand, maybe this plot could’ve been better served by a faster pace and less time to breathe. Hard to say.

Anyways, let’s talk a bit about the episode itself. By now, I’d hope the inspiration is pretty obvious—Marvel’s “Captain America: Civil War,” a film about a super hero team turned against one another by a sleeper soldier who has a shockingly-revealed dark history with one of the protagonists. You can see that even the cover art made for this episode is a callback to similar art from that movie.

Civil War Cover

 

There are some interesting stories surrounding this cover art as well. It was originally meant to be a simple cut-and-paste of existing character renders from Forces. Obviously, I had to give Sonic a black glove as well, but that was easily photoshopped (though I did experiment with an alternate version that would have Sonic and Shadow’s faces much larger to better replicate the Marvel art, abandoned because I wanted to keep Sonic’s hand visible). Trouble is, these “existing” renders didn’t actually exist. That front and focused artwork of an angry Sonic charging forward against the opposing forces is something that I’ve theoretically been staring at for years now—it’s on an official desktop background purchased from MyNintendo. What I didn’t realize was that this was the only place such a render existed. This means that this angry Sonic render is partially covered up by various other characters, and doesn’t have a transparent background, so using it for anything other than its intended purpose was pretty much impossible. I found this so surprising because I already knew the render was used elsewhere—in Sonic Forces Speed Battle, where it was photoshopped to have brighter, more saturated colors and a facial expression displaying more snarky confidence and less anger. Obviously, this means someone had to have that original full-body transparent angry render somewhere, that had to be modified into the final product, but without it being accessible to the public, there was nothing much I could do about that. So instead, I had to put my revers-photoshop skills to the test. I took this lower-quality Speed Battle artwork, and adjusted the colors and lighting to match the original Forces render as closely as possible. Then I had to carefully cut out the angry mouth from the original MyNintendo background and paste it on to the new render, hiding any traces of the Speed Battle smirk. The result turned out well enough, I’d say. Only trouble is that Sonic ended up being the lowest-quality image used on the cover, relative to his size, so he comes out looking just a tiny bit blurry/grainy. Once I got started on a photoshop streak, I just kept it going. I sourced other renders from several iterations of Olympic Games titles, and, in the case of Omega, even Sonic Runners, which had a very different artstyle. All were modified by hand to roughly match the Forces lighting and colors, and Omega’s thick black outline was removed. Then there was Hero, who had the same problem as Sonic—except that he didn’t get a Speed Battle version. As a result, his entire character model had to be meticulously cut out from the MyNintendo background. Bits and pieces of Classic Sonic that I didn’t bother cutting out are actually still hiding on the layer behind Rouge. So yeah, that all turned out a lot harder than it was planned to be, but I still smirk every time I see the result.

That was a long diversion, but back on the topic of the episode itself. As was probably made clear by the “previously” segment at the beginning of the episode, Shadow being responsible for distributing the Doom Virus was planned as far back as the introduction to that concept. That this episode would specifically be the Season 3 premiere came later, when I was considering what ideas I had in store that could compete with the groundbreaking premiere of Season 2.

What else can I say without spoilers? The whole thing was meant to take its Marvel movie roots very seriously, playing into a lot of action movie tropes that were hopefully pretty satisfying. Opening on the Shamar incident was heavily inspired by the similar opening scene of Captain America, a seemingly well-coordinated but still intense mission in a foreign country which starts to fall apart and ends with an explosion deemed the fault of one of the heroes, leading to the creation of a set of strict rules for the heroes which causes the first signs of dissent within the team. I was completely unsure of how to open the episode going in, so that inspiration proved necessary. However, that scene actually went through some significant changes before publication. The context was originally quite different. Sonic wasn’t told anything at all about what the mission was—before Fox could get the chance to explain, Sonic would hear the explosion and move in for the rescue. This rescue would be of just two civilians, a mother and child, who were “accidentally” missed when Fox had the building evacuated. The mission itself, then, was purely a publicity stunt. Fake an accident, then have Sonic save people from said accident. Moment for moment, the scene played out in a pretty much identical way, with the only difference being the target as civilian instead of military, and the changed setting inside the building as a result. There was still a person pinned down by rubble, still a statement of “you have to save [person],” and still a realization of “you really are a hero,” all while the building is falling apart. The change was made to give some more credit to Fox. It was a very careful balancing act throughout the episode, getting characters to fight each other without everyone looking stupid, so Shadow supporting Fox in the end needed to be as reasonable as possible.

Anyways, I long had in mind the scenes of Sonic and Tails finally talking, Shadow finally reading the datapad, and Knuckles “accidentally” overhearing, and those might have been the first three scenes of the episode, had I not solidified a more concrete direction with the Shamar Incident. The Rebellion eventually adopting standardized laws was something that I knew I wanted to happen eventually in the series, but I didn’t necessarily know when that would happen or how it would start. Rewatching Captain America for reference and making the connection to the Sokovia Accords worked out great for that purpose. Once I had all that figured out, the rest of the episode actually went over surprisingly smoothly. The biggest trouble was figuring out exactly how and when each character would choose their side, and the roundtable conference at the end turned out to be an unfortunate ad hoc necessity for involving the rest of the characters who weren’t in the room for the initial conflict.

That’s all I have for now, so on to the trivia!

• As mentioned above, this episodes title, “Civil War,” is lifted directly from the subtitle of the Marvel movie which inspired its plot.
  • A line cut from the final episode would have had Sonic stating near the end, “Shadow has declared war against us,” or something of the like, meant more than anything to justify the title. The line was cut to keep Sonic’s choices feeling a bit more reasonable, giving Shadow the benefit of the doubt even as both of them are doing what they feel they have to do. The war line would’ve solidified an unwanted idea that Sonic is now convinced of Shadow’s guilt.
• The following locations from previous Sonic games were shown or mentioned in this episode:
  • Shamar (Sonic Unleashed, CP debut)
  • Hill Top Zone (Sonic 2)
  • Mirage Saloon Zone (Sonic Mania, CP debut)
    • The zone was placed geographically near the Hill Top Zone, lining up with its adjacency to Oil Ocean Zone in Mania, which has also been shown in the Chaos Project to be quite near Hill Top.
    • In describing the setting of Mirage Saloon, the phrase “dazzling desert” was used, referencing “Desert Dazzle,” the name of the scrapped zone from some versions of Sonic CD on which Mirage Saloon was based.
• This episode featured something of a checkpoint for character development in the form of pointed theme song quotes.
  • Sonic uses the phrase “It doesn’t matter” early on, but when forced to confront his feelings, sings a different tune. “Now, it matters.” This shows how his character has fundamentally changed over the years, as he’s grown into the leadership role and embraced his destiny.
  • When asked if he is sure he wants to know the truth, Shadow asserts, “I am.” Unlike Sonic, Shadow is showing just how little his character has fundamentally changed since finding himself. Yet the unchanged repetition mirrors the seeming repetition of circumstances in his life, and is his acknowledgement of feeling trapped by this cycle. But there is one change shown. Regarding Tails’ relationship with Sonic, Shadow asks how he can Throw it All Away. Though Shadow hasn’t changed much in the Chaos Project, he certainly has changed since his SA2 debut, and now he takes concern at the notion of others feeling the way he once felt about himself.
  • Tails’ response to the above is done in kind. “I believe in myself, and I believe in you.” This one speaks for itself. Tails once had to figure out how to believe in himself, but that task is long done. It’s no longer something he will do, but something that he does every day, just the way that Sonic taught him. Now, he passes that support onto others. If it wasn’t enough to tell you in this episode that Tails is growing up, this is where we show you.
• The alleged code to unlock Shadow’s mind is a number that may be familiar to some, though not from any game. “27:53:00” is the number at which the countdown timer to the ARK’s collision with Earth started, not in SA2, but in Sonic X. Definitely not trying to claim that Sonic X is canon here, and if I had the appropriate number from SA2, I would’ve used it. Unfortunately, the game doesn’t give you a look at the timer until it’s been ticking down for a while. The Sonic X number lines up well enough to assume it to be true, and, to be fair to Sonic X, that whole arc does feature some known cut content from SA2, implying that the creators likely had access to insider knowledge about the game, which could potentially include the original intended number for that timer.
  • Why is this number being used for this purpose? Wait and see!
• It was already mentioned in a previous review that Sonic losing a hand is Marvel/Star Wars reference (unrelated to Civil War specifically), but now we see Sonic making use of the replacement robot hand for the first time, including the fact that it remains covered up by a black glove that doesn’t match the opposite hand, much like Luke and Anakin before him.
• In the Shamar scene, Sonic refers to Fox as “Cap,” while Fox refers to Sonic’s lack of an “iron head.” This is a reference to the two primary characters of Civil War, Captain America and Iron Man. This analogy is pretty superficial, as the better comparison for Captain America in this context would be Tails, the one taking the side of the sleeper solider in spite of allegations, while Knuckles is the one who plays the role of Iron Man combined with Black Panther, seeking vengeance/justice against said sleeper soldier. However, this comparison still serves to draw the necessary dividing lines early on.
• The guard robots in Shamar speak the phrase “Priority one rebel detected.” This resembles a common phrase spoken by Eggman’s Swatbots in Sonic SatAM regarding the priority one hedgehog. I see it as notable that I treat the entire cast as relevant, not just Sonic.
• The therapy scene, where Sonic throws Cyber Sonic’s faceplate into the ocean, is a scrapped scene that was considered to be included in the Season 2 finale instead.
  • Similarly, Sonic’s discussion with Tails was considered as a possible epilogue to that episode.
• Shadow and Rouge’s discussion of the SCOPE datapad was directly compared to very similar scene from S0 E13 and 14, the end of the Black Cloak arc and beginning of Birth of Blacklight, where a GUN datapad kicked off the events of said arc. This is, in significant part, addressing my own thoughts of how similar these ideas ended up being presented, despite being so different in concept. I don’t have much of a problem with it however, calling back to what was mentioned earlier of Shadow being caught in a bit of a character cycle.
• During Sonic’s discussion with Tails, it is mentioned that Tails’ voice is getting deeper. Were this an actual TV show, this scene would be what addresses the fact that, starting with this season, Tails would now have a male voice actor. This is only natural, given his continued aging, and if anything, it might be too much to say that he would still have the standard female voice actress as late as last season. There are no real voice actors, of course, but I like to pretend.
• The phrase spoken by Agent Black in the recording, Indicium sit Imperium, is a Latin phrase roughly translating to “Information is Power”—something spoken by Ayanna back in the finale. It would seem to be some sort of slogan, though its significance is not yet clear.
• One of Agent Black’s alleged targets, the Controller to come before Sonic, is actually a character who has been mentioned once before, though never named, in S0 E19. Of greater interest is that we’ve already talked a little bit about this character, and his scrapped role in the Birth of Blacklight arc, in a previous review, where I specifically promised that he would get a “proper introduction” later in the series. Four years later, and we’re still not there. Just give it a little more time. We’ll hear a little more about him next episode, and then that’ll be it until his actual, proper, complete introduction, for real. I promise.
  • The reference to this character at this time was quite unplanned, until after this episode was nearly complete. It was decided that Sonic needed just a little bit more skin in the game in order to be justifiably ready to turn against Shadow, and this was all I had that could accomplish that. Since this character already got an earlier reference anyways, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to reference him again before the proper intro.
• In the final moment of tension before Shadow makes his escape, he quotes a familiar line from Shadow the Hedgehog: “If what you say is true…then I will respectfully accept my fate. But I just need some time…to uncover the real truth.” Another case of Shadow being caught in a cycle, and showing the same reaction.

That’s all for today! I hope you’re all looking forward to the continuation of this story as much as I am!

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

 

Review: Season 2, Episode 18 (Finale)

I wrote this episode backwards. Could you tell? As explained in the last review, a lot of the ideas going into this finale were nebulous and unclear until writing time came close. But that does not apply to the final 5000 words of the episode. The personal drama of the scenes surrounding Cyber Sonic’s operation was structured almost word for word as the earliest surviving narrative ever conceived of for the Cyber Sonic arc. Before Season 2 was even slotted, I wasn’t exactly sure how the Cyber Sonic idea would be brought into the story, but I was certain that this was exactly how it would end. Needless to say, I was very particular about how it needed to go. And I knew it would be long. Quite probably the longest “conclusion” that any episode in this story will ever have, save, perhaps, for the Series Finale. I decided as I was wrapping up part one that I had no choice but to write the ending first, see how long it took, and then fit the first half of the episode into whatever space was left. I predicted 3 to 4 thousand words, and it ended up at 5. In other words, it’s a good thing I did. As it is, this is another record setter in the top three of longest episodes yet, and it would’ve broken number one for sure if I’d just estimated based on my original assumption. The unfortunate result, of course, is a disjointed episode where the second half doesn’t have much to do with the first, but that was unavoidable from the episode’s inception. As important as the ending was, it doesn’t exactly have the action, or the sheer length, necessary to fill an episode on its own. It couldn’t be delayed into next season, where it would be completely irrelevant. But the scenes were absolutely necessary, and this is where they had to go.

The one thing I did before writing the ending was the opening scene, just because it was continuing on from the cliffhanger of part one, and I was in the mood to round that out. Writing for the Sergeant in this episode was actually quite interesting, and a bit refreshing. Where the Sonic cast generally fight like anime characters, putting lots of power into every move, where fights are typically decided when a single decisive blow is landed, the Sergeant was written to fight much more like an action hero, with movements that are skillful and precise, taking advantage of the shape and weight of the bodies involved to stun or land lesser blows that add up over time. Pitting one against the other, even if for only a brief bout in the timestream, made for a very enjoyable fight scene to write.

Fight scenes with Ayanna were much harder, despite being under similar circumstances. She couldn’t be too strong, because I wanted it to be clear that the Master Sergeant was still well above her skill level. Her fighting style needed to be very much like Johnny’s to draw parallels between them, yet she really needed to be stronger than him to hold her own against multiple opponents—yet she still needed to “lose” in the end. It proved a bit too much to juggle, and I think she came off as too weak in the end. Room to grow, I guess. The real problem with coming off as too weak was Zed. He was meant to be just as threatening if not more than Omega, but just wasn’t given the room to show it. It doesn’t help that Bruno made a joke out of him in the only fight scene he got. Honestly though, I was just trying to wrap up that scene as quickly as possible. I was keenly aware by that point that every word written was a word effectively cutting into the true final fight with the Cyber Overlord.

That final fight was really something else. Definitely the grandest scale fight scene I’ve ever written, between the relative power of the combatants and the sheer number of characters involved. It was hectic and it was long and yet it was over a little too quickly—but I think I like it that way. Unlike last season where the action sequences both against Discord and aboard the Death Egg were more obligatory than anything else, this one properly felt like the true emotional culmination of everything that’s happened this season. Obviously, there were lots of different intentions that went into making that fight the way it was. It was brought to my attention pretty early on in the season that all the little hints references I was making towards the Neo Metal Sonic’s power would lead to a lot of disappointment if there wasn’t a Metal Overlord fight in the end. SCOPE was introduced in this season more for the long game than for any immediate concerns, but it was similarly a setup for disappointment if they played such a big role during the season and then were left forgotten in the finale. Pitting these two against each other was a quick and fun idea. Amy’s role in the fight existed for the purpose of me wanting to properly use the full potential of the Time Stones, since the extent of their power is pretty much ignored in their only canon appearance. There was consideration given to having the Time Stones used by either Tails or Omega instead, since they’ve effectively become the main characters of the season. I decided in the end that Tails got his due in part 1 and in the epilogue of this episode, while Omega would be better served as a character by getting a more personal story here. Amy was left as the obligatory option, given that this is a Sonic CD themed season and she’s hardly gotten any focus at all for it.

Rewinding back to Omega, not giving him the Time Stones meant having to get very particular about how his role in the battle would go. In order for his character arc this season to be satisfying, he would (1) need to accomplish something legitimate from joining Sonic that couldn’t have been done if he hadn’t, and (2) end it all with some kind of proper, not so one-sided rivalry. Ideally, he should also learn something about his need for a rival along the way. Turning him into the leader of the Mecha Sonic Army was the way to solve those issues. As seems to be consistently happening to his assigned rivals, the line between rival and friend has once again been blurred for him. For the first time, it seems, he truly accepted these rivals-turned-friends as legitimate contributors to his own desires. He was once distraught that he could not defeat Metal Overlord—and later, even ordinary Metal Sonic—on his own. Now, facing the Cyber Overlord head-to-head, his concern is not what he accomplishes, but what they all accomplish together. It took five some odd years from Heroes, but he finally learned the true meaning of teamwork. And as for having a proper rival in the end, he and Zed seem to have something going, though that story will have to wait. Tails, on the other hand, definitely drew the short straw in this fight. It seems kind of silly, given all that happened in this season, that Tails would even be willing to engage the Symbolon when fighting the Cyber Overlord is also an option. My explanation is that he’s just so ready to be done with it at this point, that he accepted whatever orders he was given. And of course, he wouldn’t have synergized very well with Omega and the Mechas, which is why the teams got split the way they did in the first place. So, Tails got deferred to ha ha funny Thunder Shoot reference, and that was pretty much his only involvement in the fight.

The original plan was to have this be a proper three-way fight, where each side is trying to fight both of the others at any given time, but I quickly realized that would be much too complicated for me to handle. So I settled for getting in some good robo-kaiju action before breaking them off separately.

Possibly the biggest flaw in the logic of this whole thing is that it’s hard to imagine an oversized Diablon being on the same power level as Metal Overlord. In part, this was meant to be an extension of what we had seen from the Sergeant already. Maybe the power levels weren’t equal at all, but the Sergeant was relying on skill and ability, not on pure power. Another flaw is that the fight dragged on an awfully long time just to be ended by an event that could hypothetically have happened right from the beginning. There wasn’t much time to touch on this as it was happening, but theoretically, the implication is that the Little Planet made a big sacrifice to end that battle. The Times Stones were described as the Planet’s beating heart, and only after that do we find out that the planet itself has sentience. A sentient creature’s heart exploding is probably a big deal.

And of course, with this arc done, I can’t help but dwell angrily on the fact that, canonically, as far as we know, the Little Planet should still be trapped by the Death Egg Mk. II. Maybe I should’ve done that Sonic 4 episode for the anniversary after all. Regardless, maybe I’ll find a way to touch on that topic sooner or later…

Here’s one last interesting story about this episode and the season as a whole. In large part, this was a play on a Star Trek Voyager episode by the name of “Tuvix”. Tuvix was a character-of-the-week created by a transporter accident, a complete fusion of the two main cast members Tuvok and Neelix. The episode takes an intense turn in the end when a method is found to split Tuvix back into Tuvok and Neelix, only for Tuvix to declare that he wants to live. In the end, he is forced to split against his will, and everyone looks the other way as it happens. I have a lot of gripes with that episode, and I understand that I’m not alone in that sentiment. In many ways, this season was built to correct what I saw as the biggest flaws of that episode:
1. The episode had no lead-up and no consequences. Theoretically, this is, at minimum, a life-changing event for the two characters, yet it is never mentioned again for the duration of the series. The Cyber Sonic arc was designed to have far more lasting consequences, despite coming to a similar end.
2. We, as an audience, are expected to side with Tuvix, but are not given good enough reason to do so. Numerically, we are getting back 2 lives by sacrificing 1. Emotionally, we care about the two characters we would be getting back, but are given no time at all to care about Tuvix. Tactically, the starship Voyager is in a very desperate spot, and Tuvix, while being shown to be very effective at filling the roles of either Tuvok or Neelix, is shown failing to be able to do both at once. For Cyber Sonic, I was very careful to introduce him slowly and steadily, hopefully getting the audience to root for him as an underdog and as a theoretically good person who goes through a lot of his own personal hardships. I was careful to establish the ethical debate in a less clear-cut way, so that the emotional choice and the numerical choice are in conflict. And of course, I was careful to make sure that a tactical argument was made that puts Sonic at no clear cut advantage over Cyber.
3. The first half of the Tuvix episode was played off as a comedy, which led to complete tonal whiplash, and made it much more difficult to think of Tuvix as a real person, rather than a walking joke. Cyber Sonic, on the other hand, was built to make it very clear how serious of a situation this is.
With all of these factors together, my hope is that the narrative came out far stronger. There’s a real debate, not just a hypothetical one. It would absolutely be reasonable for some, if not many audience members to hope that a way is found for Cyber Sonic to live. That was meant to be seen as a very real possibility, right up until the moment that Tails defies orders.

I feel like I had plenty more to say about this episode, but it’s all starting to escape me now. So that means we’re moving on to the trivia!

• This episode features the same locations seen in part one.
• Sonic Heroes quotes, both in terms of script and music, were littered throughout the episode. See if you can catch them all!
• When the Sergeant uses a Time Stone, he must speak into the stone in order to activate it. Conversely, Amy does not speak the words, and her activation of the stones triggers the same mysterious voice heard when passing a time travel signpost in Sonic CD. This implies both a closer connection to the Stones/Planet and a higher power level at having all of them.
  • Whenever the Time Stones are used, a sparkling effect is produced which matches the particles that follow Sonic in CD as he is preparing to travel through time.
• The Sergeant defeats Mecha Sonic by dislodging its skull to expose the eye inside. This strange blueprint is a little-known fact about Mecha Sonic, technically seen in-game (the skull is removed to expose the eye whenever he charges on the Master Emerald), but very difficult to interpret from the few pixels available. This reddit post explains it simply enough.
• For the first time in this episode, an explanation of the Time Stones is given which explicitly differentiates them from the Temporal Sapphires. Sonic explains that the Time Stones very specifically control the nonlinear time present on the Little Planet, and not the universal time controlled by the Sapphires.
  • When the Temporal Sapphires were created, I wasn’t even sure that I wanted to call CD canon. I was so naïve…
• On being commended for his work, Zed’s first spoken word is a gleeful “Kill.” This is a reference to the same word spoken by Omega in Sonic Heroes whenever receiving a high point bonus.
  • Having recently begun replaying Heroes in the hopes of getting all A Ranks and unlocking Super Hard Mode, I joked with my brother early on that I needed to use that line at some point. This wasn’t what I had in mind when I said that, but it worked out well.
• A question I asked myself when reviewing the ending of Sonic Heroes. Does Neo Metal Sonic have lightning powers? He appears to send a bolt of lightning up into the sky for his transformation, which would imply so. The Lost Labyrinth Treasure and the power it grants Metal Sonic also seems to have an electric effect to it, another point in favor. But I just…wasn’t sure. Something about that idea seemed off. So I left it vague in this episode. It could be that Sonic caused the bolt of lightning that struck the palace, or it could be him intentionally using himself as a lightning rod for the semi-natural storm that was already brewing.
• Symbolon is a Greek word meaning “to come together,” and it is considered the opposite of Diabolon in Catholic religion.
• The decision to disrupt the Little Planet’s temporal orbit and destroy the Time Stones was made for the simple purpose of answering the question “Why does no one go after this power next year? Or the year after?” And so on. No one knows when or if the Little Planet will be back, so there’s not much purpose in planning for it.
  • What does this mean for the fate of The Sergeant and the Mecha Sonics? It’s a mystery for now…

Not a lot of trivia this time either. I guess I don’t need to get by on references and metacommentary when I have a real story to tell. Of course, there’s plenty more to talk about in terms of plot points that were set up for next season and elsewhere, but those will just have to wait. In the meantime, have an announcement! As hinted at in the footnote of the finale, a special episode is coming soon, to tie in with…a brand new Chaos Project spinoff series, guest written by the amazing Yuni Oha! Stay tuned for more information!

-And until then, remember to reach for the other side of the rainbow!

S2 E18: Metallic Madness Part 2 (Finale)

Part 2 has arrived! Jump right in to the action-packed, heart-breaking conclusion to the Cyber Sonic saga by clicking right here!

Freedom requires control. Control requires power. Power corrupts. Corruption destroys freedom. What power is enough to defy Cyber Sonic’s fate? What power is enough to prevent a planet’s devastation? What power is enough to stop two unstoppable forces? At what cost does such power come?

Review: Season 2, Episode 17

Much like our last Season Finale, this one ran into some problems with last-minute planning. In a way, I kind of wanted it like that. I wanted to see where the season would take me without restricting myself too much to a particular climax. I had lots of nebulous ideas, and many of them solidified around the plot threads I started coming up with in the moment when it came time to write. Taking place on the Little Planet was planned. Tails ending up on his own to confront Cyber Sonic was planned. Obviously, the existence of the Mecha Sonics was planned, though not quite as far in advance. But how the characters would be split up, and why, was not a problem that got a lot of prior consideration. Even after writing the full episode, I got to wondering if there was any way I could have handled it better, which led to quite a few scenes being rewritten.

And, as with the last finale, there are some obvious pacing issues. Scenes are jumping around pretty steadily, until all of a sudden the race between Tails and Sonic takes up the whole last 25% of the episode. Originally, that race was planned to be the bulk of the episode, much like the Discord fight was in the last finale, but setting up for it just took a lot longer than I was expecting this time around. As I wrote, I was constantly being very careful to balance what would be shown in this episode versus what would be saved for part 2. Unlike last finale, the respective plots of each are not so distinct this time around. So far, I’m thinking I kind of like it the old way better. Doomsday Part 1 was a great episode standing on its own, which was made only slightly better by the extra context from part 2. By comparison, this one doesn’t stand on its own nearly as well. I’m hoping that part 2 can make up for it, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

Something else I don’t like is how we ended up getting an almost identical setup here compared to Doomsday Part 2. The characters are rushing towards an unknown base, they get confronted by a team of robots, some number of them split off to go do important things while the rest stay behind for a gratuitous and ultimately meaningless fight scene. This time around, the fight scene was at least shown all the way through. Then again, I don’t know if that’s better. There’s a reason it was skipped last time. There’s a reason I call it meaningless. Anyways, this similarity was definitely an accident, but with such a large group of potential antagonists who each deserve to show off at least a little bit of their skills this once, it was the necessary minimum.

The scene of Omega training with the Mechas was actually added in after the rest of the episode was already written, as well as several other pretty large edits to the episode. That…sort of made the fight with the Chaotix & Knuckles all the less necessary, but it actually led to some more concrete plans for part 2 that makes getting to know them a little more important. Other edits include Cyber Sonic’s tarot reading and Tails’ physical pain at receiving his implant, plus some big changes to the general interaction between Tails and Sonic in the end. The original version of these scenes had Sonic just sort of accepting his fate after failing to convince Tails that the match was rigged. The implication of him caring about Tails and the others in some way was left much more subtle in the original script, but I decided clarity was more important, which is why I also went back and seeded that idea more clearly in the scene with Amy.

As mentioned in a previous review, Tails’ Extreme Gear, gifted to him in S2 E2 Green Light Riders, is meant to be a sort of symbol for the phase of growth that he’s going through right now, defying authority and taking risks mixed with a healthy amount of proving his worth and coming into his own. What wasn’t mentioned before is that when the board was originally given to him, I had no such plans to use it in quite that way. I just thought it would be a neat tool to pull out of the arsenal once in a while, and giving it to him at a particular time would give that a little more meaning. When I got halfway through the season, I realized, “I should probably bring it up here to make sure the audience doesn’t forget about it,” and at that point I formed this whole symbolic story around it. This also means that Sonic and Tails racing through Stardust Speedway was actually a relatively late idea, designed to complete the Extreme Gear arc. Before making that decision, I actually wasn’t even sure that this finale would be taking place on the Little Planet—it was only after bringing up the planet’s existence in S2 E3 Miles to Go that it occurred to me that I seemed to be setting up the promise of it eventually being important, even though that wasn’t the original intention. Even then, I didn’t want to bring it in as just a flashy setting if I couldn’t give meaning to it. So once I thought about the possibility of this culminating race, that was the deciding factor in going through with it. Of course, from there, I was able to do plenty of setup with Cyber Sonic’s goals and the Postcursor lore that made it seem like I’d been planning this all along.

There’s a lot more that I’d like to say, but much of it would be better saved for part 2. So, for now, on to the trivia!

• The title of this episode, “Metallic Madness,” is, obviously, a reference to the final level of Sonic CD, also showcased as a location within the episode.
  • This episode continues the tradition established last season of each finale being named after the final level of a Sonic game. (It was Doomsday from S3K last time.)
• The following locations from previous Sonic games were shown or mentioned in this episode:
  • Final Egg (Sonic Adventure)
  • Never Lake (Sonic CD, cutscenes/manual)
  • Eggman’s Incredible Interstellar Amusement Park (Sonic Colors)
  • Metallic Madness (Past and Present, Sonic CD)
  • Stardust Speedway (Present and Future, Sonic CD)
• The Mecha Sonic Army is named as such primarily for the purpose of consistency with Japanese canon. In Japanese, all of the Sonic robots (other than Metal Sonic) are just called Mecha Sonic. It is only in English that the names start to get confusing.
  • The robot identified as “Silver Sonic” from Sonic 2 for Genesis/Mega Drive, derives its name from peculiar places. It is not named in the English version of the game (but it is called Mecha Sonic in the Japanese). English comics either continued the trend of not naming it, or chose to name it Silver Sonic as is used here. Both names were acknowledged officially in a pre-release advertisement for Sonic Generations, and an attempt was made to settle the issue in Lego Dimensions by calling him “Robo Sonic” instead. (Obviously, this caused even more of a headache for me, enough to get its own dedicated post on this website.)
  • The robot identified as “Drone Sonic” from Sonic 2 for Game Gear/Master System uses a completely made-up name for this series. This robot is more definitively called “Silver Sonic” in its home game, but a new name had to be chosen to differentiate it from its more threatening Genesis counterpart. This is explained in universe as Sonic pretty much making up the name on the spot for that same reason.
  • Mecha Sonic is Mecha Sonic from S3K, and I hope there’s no confusion about that.
  • Robo Sonic was the name already previously given to the large and unused Sonic robot seen floating in a tank in Sonic Adventure. This is why I refuse to accept the Lego name scheme for Silver Sonic.
  • Metal Sonic probably could’ve used its own name to differentiate it from the Metal Sonic seen in Sonic Heroes, who is currently dead and downloaded into Sonic’s brain. But given that this is the same Metal Sonic we’ve been seeing for fifteen-some-odd years (mostly in spinoffs, but still) it seemed unreasonable to rename him.
• The scene in which Ayanna and the Sergeant climb a cliffside to reach the view of Never Lake is intended to parallel the similar climb that Sonic and Amy made in S2 E3.
• Although Ayanna was presumed dead by Johnny,  her involvement in SCOPE was hinted at in her introductory episode, S2 E6 Adventures in Hedgehog Hunting, which ended with a vague mention of the Sergeant’s newest recruit.
• As mentioned by Bruno, the golden chain device used to hold down the Little Planet is intended to be the same device used by Eggman to hold down the various planets of Sonic Colors. This seemed like the natural technological progression of the ordinary iron chain used to the same effect in CD. It does, however, call into question why such a device wasn’t used for Angel Island in S1 E18, where the ordinary iron chain was used as a CD reference. I’m sure there’s a reason, I just can’t be bothered to think of it right now.
• Shadow remembering Tails’ birthday was supposed to be a meaningful growth from what we saw of their relationship when it first started forming in S1 E15 In Too Deep. In that episode, Tails’ upcoming birthday was a topic that led to Shadow sarcastically shutting Tails down. One year later, they’re practically inseparable, and Shadow seems to be the only person who cares about that birthday.
• Shadow attacking through a false image of an enemy is something that happened to him exactly a season ago with Infinite. Poor guy is beginning to look pretty gullible.
• Cyber Sonic’s palace is an actual landmark of Stardust Speedway…or…the Past version, anyways. In the Present, it’s replaced by an under-construction mechanical tower in Eggman’s likeness. With Eggman nowhere to be seen, I figure that timeline is no longer in play, so the building was never replaced. And it would be better described as a cathedral than a palace, but it’s ambiguous enough that I thought palace would sell it better. Although, in hindsight, there could’ve been some very interesting religious allegories if I’d gone the cathedral route.
• Vector noting that the Chaotix have dealt with worse than the Mecha Sonic Army before is intended to be a specific reference to Metal Sonic Kai, the final boss of Knuckles’ Chaotix, and one of the few robot Sonic variations to get no direct acknowledgement in this episode.
  • Knuckles being involved in this group, and Vector’s note of “that means you too” is also a reference to the events of that game.

Short trivia this time. But all the more for next time!

 

-Until then, toot toot, Sonic Warriors!

Preview: Season 2, Episode 17

Part one of the exciting Season 2 Finale is coming soon! Here’s the preview!

A pair of mechanical red eyes light up, reflecting off of a chrome plated face. “The first prototype, Silver Sonic.” A red light flashes across a high-tech visor. “The failure of an experimental upgrade to Silver Sonic. The Drone Sonic.” A single cycloptic eye glows from the inside of a blue metal skull. “The deadly ruler built for intelligence. Mecha Sonic.” Two detailed red eyes light up in a sharp and intense gaze. “The silent replica of the robot from the future. Metal Sonic.” A yellow gridded pattern with no discernable pupils is the last to illuminate. “And the forgotten, untested behemoth. Robo Sonic.”

All at once, the Mecha Sonics point their weapons and claws threateningly towards the half-metal hedgehog—Cyber Sonic.

Sonic doesn’t flinch. “You can all stand down. I am not Sonic the Hedgehog. He is gone. I am your friend.”

One by one, they each obey.

“At least, that’s what you’ve all been programmed to understand. But as of this day, you are all free to make that decision for yourselves. However, I ask that you all let me remain your friend, because we all share something in common. We’ve all been used. But we are not the playthings of Eggman or of Sonic. We are free. I found you all, and repaired you, because I wanted you to be free as I am. But now, I ask for your help. There are those out there in the world who wish to take away our freedom. Alone, none of us could hope to stop them all. But together, it is us who will be unstoppable. So…can I count on your loyalty?”

The Sonic robots begin to look towards one another, analyzing those around them. After a moment, Silver Sonic bends his knees, lowering his head in deference to Cyber Sonic. Beside him, Drone Sonic does the same. Mecha Sonic follows, as does Robo Sonic. But Metal Sonic remains standing.

Cyber Sonic eyes him carefully. “What do you have to say?”

Slowly, Metal Sonic extends his hand forward.

Sonic can’t hide his smirk. “You’re smarter than the old Metal Sonic gave you credit for.” He takes Metal Sonic’s hand with his own matching one. “The rest of you should take notes from this one. You’re my friends, not my servants.”

The other robots stand silently.

“We’ll build a new future together. Somewhere we can decide our fates with our own hands. And those who would stand in our way…will be crushed beneath our feet. We are the Mecha Sonic Army. And we fight for freedom!” Sonic raises his metallic fist into the air.

The Mecha Sonics follow his motion one by one.

Above them all, E-123 Omega looks silently over the railing, watching as the Mechas cheer for the coming destruction of the Rebellion he once called his friends.

What is Cyber Sonic’s plan? Where will the Mecha Sonic Army go? Find out in the next episode of The Chaos Project, coming soon!

Review: Season 2, Episode 15

Considering that this episode was the result of an emergency eject of the episode I’d actually planned to put here, this turned out just about as well as I could’ve hoped. In fact, I think the season as a whole is going to be a lot stronger for it. This episode conveniently tied together the separate plot threads of Omega, Cyber Sonic, Shadow, SCOPE, GUN, Johnny, and the Commander all at once, in a way that otherwise would’ve been done rather frantically in the finale. What’s funny is that this whole thing was actually a mishmash of two entirely separate episode ideas.

On the one hand, we have Shadow’s first days with GUN, told as a flashback while exploring the ruins of GUN headquarters. This was always planned as a follow-up to S2 E9 A Shadow of Myself, originally planned to happen around now, but deferred off to next season when I realized how crammed the episodes would be around this time. On the other hand, we had Omega’s backstory with Omochao, which was planned to be told under very different circumstances. Left with an episode slot to fill, it quickly occurred to me that I could combine the two ideas to produce this nice tying together of things.

Shadow’s episode definitely would’ve been a little different as it was originally planned. I always had it in mind to be “The Expert Mode Episode.” I thought it into existence purely for the purpose of canonizing the Expert Mode of the Shadow the Hedgehog game, where Shadow undergoes an unspecified training, getting cheered along by all his friends, and finally making amends with the Commander. Given some of the questionable claims made by some of the characters in that mode, it would be easy to dismiss it as non-canon. But then Sonic ’06 rolls around, and now Shadow is a trained GUN Agent. And the sad thing is, a vast majority of players probably have no idea Shadow actually led directly into ’06 like that. Heck, even I didn’t know that Expert Mode existed when I first started writing this story, and Shadow the Hedgehog is one of my all time favorites. So I made it my mission with this episode to draw that line for all to see. Of course, in my original vision, that would’ve meant putting a bit stronger of a spotlight on that particular event. We would’ve had Shadow offering himself to the mercy of the Commander first, then Shadow getting settled in the mess hall second, and finally seeing the training third, which then would’ve lasted a majority of the rest of the episode, instead of being cut down into highlights. But since there’s technically no new content in there, is was the easiest place to cut down to make room for Omega’s story. In that original format, Omega’s distress call likely would’ve come at the end, and that story would’ve been deferred to some other episode. Which wouldn’t have made sense considering that Omega was just on the base for Shadow’s training, but I wasn’t thinking that hard.

So anyways, then there’s Omega’s story. I’ve talked about how weird of a place Omega has been in this season, and now that I’m committed to making it a proper character arc, taking advantage of this newfound episode space for him seemed like a must. I had the Omochao story idea on one side, and the Iron Jungle/Lava Shelter on the other, and I knew that neither of them would make a particularly complete story arc on its own. The former was intended to be a brief flashback to add context to a present-focused Omochao episode, while the latter had no particular plans at all. It was obvious that I could fit them on either side of the Expert Mode ideas to create a complete narrative that shifts focus back and forth between Omega and Shadow, and the clean weaving that could be done between them is definitely what encouraged me to go ahead with the episode in this way. So why did I want Omega and Omochao to be best pals? That’s…an interesting question, actually. It probably started with the simple thought of “if I were to bring in Omochao as a character, how could I possibly integrate him into this otherwise serious world in a way that makes sense?” I can definitely tell you that this was among some of the earliest plans for the series, as I referenced them before the series even began! I used Cast by the Light, the SA2 novelization, to test run my idea of Omochao being a defecting Eggman robot. Apparently I didn’t hate how it came out on paper, because the idea persisted all these five years since. But anyways, as with any character who gets an introduction into the series, I wasn’t going to bring in Omochao without exploring the character, and pairing him up with Omega just…kind of made sense to me, in an ironic sort of way. Besides the fact that I just needed more character development for Omega in general, I also just really liked the idea of these two polar opposites being not so different after all. And with Omochao being the older and more experienced of the two, combined with his innate drive to help, and the fact that the circumstances of Omega’s rise to sentience have always been ignored and left ripe for exploration, the pieces all just kind of fit together. And once I decided that I wanted to dive deeper into Omega’s whole rival complex that I’ve been setting up, it was clear that it needed to be something rooted in how he defines himself, which means looking back at how he gained sentience, which means fasttracking the Omochao story.

Hmmm…what else? I thought this would be a long one, but I’m thinking a lot of this episode turned out to be mostly self-explanatory. Another advantage that came of doing this episode now in place of my original plans was refreshing Johnny’s role in the season. He hasn’t really done anything since before the midseason arc, even though he was theoretically introduced to be an important part of this season, so it’s probably for the best that he stepped back into the spotlight here so he can be better prepared for the finale. I’m not super thrilled by that fact that Johnny has still appeared for more total screen time in flashbacks than he has in the present day, but at the same time, him being the guy who was everywhere and saw everything is pretty much the entire point of his character, so it sure doesn’t surprise me. Hopefully that can be turned around soon enough, anyways. The other shame is that, with so few episodes under his belt, being relegated to a sequel to one of the few episodes he’s already been in sort feels like a cop out. On the one hand, I keep seeing nothing but flaws with this character I’ve created. On the other hand, I wonder if I’m just judging him too harshly because of the intentionally awkward circumstances surrounding him, with him supposed to be out of place among the rest of the Sonic cast. I don’t know.

I suppose I also ought to mention Maria. The new Maria, that is. As I mentioned above, part of the entire point of making the “Expert Mode Episode” was to make sense of all the theoretically important things that happen there, and showing this scene—which the game implied would happen but never showed for itself—was just the logical extreme of that. The man who swore to kill Shadow invited him to his home to meet his newborn grandchild, and that’s just…that’s the kind of thing I wish we had more of out of the Sonic world. These raw, real, touching moments, in all of their awkward glory. I knew I had to write this scene, and nothing was going to stop me. The only barrier in my way was navigating around the Commander’s awkward dodging of the baby’s identity. I had the opportunity to do whatever I wanted in that area, and giving the Commander a granddaughter named Maria just felt too perfect to pass up. Anyways, as of the present, Maria is now five years old, quickly getting close to six. Old enough to meet the minimum age requirements of a Sonic character, if you know what I mean…

And now for the trivia!

• The title of this episode, “Arrival,” is a simple yet meaningful pun. The episode, in general, is marked by things arriving. Omochao arriving to Omega was a pretty important event, as was Shadow’s arrival in the GUN base. And of course, there’s the Commander’s little new arrival. But, read as it is, the episode title also refers to “A Rival,” a quote which popped up at least a couple of times in the episode, and should hopefully have a pretty obvious meaning by now.
• The following locations/levels from previous Sonic games were shown or mentioned in this episode:
  • Eggman’s Secret Base (seen in Sonic Heroes)
  • Final Egg (Sonic Adventure)
  • GUN Fortress (Shadow the Hedgehog)
  • Egg Fleet (Sonic Heroes)
  • Central City (Shadow the Hedgehog)
  • Iron Jungle (Shadow the Hedgehog)
  • Lava Shelter (Shadow the Hedgehog)
  • Westopolis (Expert Mode, Shadow the Hedgehog)
  • The Doom (Expert Mode, Shadow the Hedgehog)
  • Mad Matrix (Expert Mode, Shadow the Hedgehog)
  • Space Gadget (Expert Mode, Shadow the Hedgehog)
• This episode features the Chaos Project introduction of both Omochao and the President (and also his secretary, I guess). However, both characters have already been referenced in the past.
  • Big and Froggy were transformed into Omochao by Heavy Magician, and Froggy remained that way, in S1 E16 Maggie Magician’s Magic MacGuffin.
  • The President has been cited often as the authority figure who authorizes GUN arrests and the distribution of medals to civilians. He is mentioned as having played played a slightly more direct role in S0 E13 Black Cloak Forever Part 2.
• Omega’s first moments of life call back heavily to the similar experiences of Gamma seen in Sonic Adventure.
  • Gamma being “too sappy” is used as a justification for why Omega was programmed to be so extraordinarily violent.
• In this episode, Omochao frequently refers to himself in the third person. While this happens occasionally in SA2, it is generally not recognized as something that Omohchao commonly does. However, in Japanese, Omochao has a verbal tic, causing him to end a majority of his sentences with the word “chao”. (Personally, I’m glad they chose not to translate that—he’s perfectly annoying enough as he is.) I chose to use the third person reference as an English equivalent to that quirk.
• Omochao’s dialogue frequently references quotes from SA2, and a couple from Heroes. His speech pattern was designed, in general, to always sound like he’s giving a tutorial, even without the particular references to buttons and control schemes.
• The scene showing the epilogue of Sonic Heroes drew attention to many particular plot points that have been introduced in the last few seasons of The Chaos Project.
  • Metal Sonic using the last of his strength to look up at Tails is a canon thing that actually happened in the original scene. I was pleasantly surprised to see it.
  • Eggman claiming that the Eggman Empire will pay the Chaotix is a line that was added in. Wait a minute, you don’t know about that one yet…
  • The most important one of all, Omega picking up Metal Sonic, as if with the intention to keep him, is the canon sequence that pretty much created this entire season.
  • The scene goes on after the original cutscene ended, showing Sonic coming back around to talk to Shadow about a medal. This is the medal that Sonic was recently shown being offered in Adventures in Hedgehog Hunting, and the fact that Shadow’s always had this medal waiting for him was introduced as far back as Black Cloak Forever Part 2.
    • The fact that Sonic ignored and dismissed Shadow so hard in the original Heroes is just…ugh. I can’t believe I had to jump through these hoops to make this scene work, when Sonic should, by all rights, have been very concerned about Shadow.
    • The scene goes on to show Sonic and Shadow taking the picture which is seen on the President’s desk (next to a medal) in Shadow the Hedgehog cutscenes.
    • I’ve often seen people questioning when this photo could have possibly been taken, and wondered why they didn’t make the easy assumption that it happened…well, right here. They’re right in thinking that it couldn’t have happened any other time, but…whatever, just one more question I get to have fun answering through flashbacks, I guess.
• The flashback scene win which the photo is taken flashback was originally planned to appear (slightly modified) in Shadow of Time, as one of the typical once-per-chapter flashbacks, but it never ended up fitting in anywhere particularly well, so it was left out. Glad I got the chance to write it somewhere!
  • This scene features Shadow using (*gasp*) an edgy swear word for the first time!
    • Sonic’s utterly shocked reaction was meant to be a joke on that fact. The purpose is to show that we have now left the territory of kid-friendly Sonic Heroes and entered the edgy Shadow the Hedgehog.
    • This is also the first time that an uncensored swear word has been used in The Chaos Project, with the exception of Future Sonic using the conjoined word “hellscape” in S2 E1 Time Heals All Wounds (which evoked a similarly shocked reaction from our Sonic).
  • In this scene and the one before it, Shadow also cleverly uses the phrase “I am what?” referring to the theme of Shadow the Hedgehog, “I Am All of Me…” for similar reasons.
• “Goodbye forever, Shadow the Hedgehog.” What a strange way to end a game, I’m sure many people thought. Ignoring that fact that it’s a translation error, and that he should be ending on the same words that Sonic used to end SA2 (Sayonara, Shadow the Hedgehog—or “Adios” in Japanese), it regardless has a pretty strange implication. Under what context would a person say goodbye to themselves? It was always sounded pretty suicidal to me, if we’re being honest. And in the context of the last conversation he had with the Commander, which we saw a flashback to in Final Mode, making it definitively canon? To me, this was never a theory, just an obvious conclusion from the facts presented. Shadow’s next move, at the end of that game, was to offer himself to the Commander for execution—to “respectfully accept my fate.” And this is what I thought even before I knew that Shadow became a GUN agent in ’06. That just made it all the more perfect. That’s what made me want to write this episode more than anything else. In many ways, it’s shocking to me that it took me this long to CP-canonize this theory. Although I suppose I mentioned it back in the Black Cloak arc. This is just the first time I’ve shown it.
• This episode seems to feature the return of the main character from Shadow of Myself, the Shadow Android who we all believed was the real Shadow. Sonic suggests that this could merely be a replica of that particular android, but Omega doesn’t quite seem to believe that. There’s no way to know for sure…
• This episode features the triumphant return of everyone’s favorite background character from Chaotix and the Computer Room Caper, Phil the uninformed GUN soldier! Poor guy’s always left out of the loop.
• This episode showcased the lighting system power surge that Shadow mentioned having seen before in Shadow of Myself.
• This episode features the events of Iron Jungle and Lava Shelter in the Neutral Story of Shadow the Hedgehog, though taking place slightly out of order compared to what one might expect. Given the oddity that is Shadow the Hedgehog canon, this is simply the next step in piecing it all together in a way that makes sense. There is no justifiable reason that these events should take place while an alien invasion is going on outside, so in this interpretation of canon, those things just got delayed a little bit.
  • The Egg Breaker fight that would ordinarily take place between the two levels was removed, and many lines from that scene were adopted into the Egg Dealer fight instead. This is because the Egg Breaker fight was already confirmed to have happened in Mad Matrix, seen in Chaotix and the Computer Room Caper. Also to improve the flow of the episode.
• The orders to eliminate a particular number of Shadow Androids was intentionally meant to sound like a typical level completion mission from Shadow the Hedgehog, even though no such mission actually existed in the game, and despite the fact that this mission ended up being ignored. You might say, in this reinterpreted level, that destroying the androids was the Hero mission, destroying the Egg Balloon with Eggman still on it was the (failed, time sensitive) Dark mission, and following Eggman into the base was the Neutral mission.
  • Omega greets Shadow in Iron Jungle with many of the same or slightly altered lines used in the original level.
• Johnny’s jump mech is a vehicle from Shadow the Hedgehog, which appears for use in Iron Jungle (although not the armed variant). I thought it’d be nice to show Johnny actually using one of the experimental weapons his unit is supposed to be known for. A joke was made about the fact that Shadow was successfully able to commandeer and pilot such a mech without any prior training, an ability he is stated to have in In Too Deep.
• Eggman tries strongly to convince Shadow that he is an android. This would seem to contradict a statement made by Eggman during the Devil Doom fight, apologizing for the android lie and assuring Shadow that he is the original. Most players have likely never heard this dialogue, as it only plays after the player has somehow managed to keep the boss fight going for longer than 10 grueling minutes. It is assumed that the fight canonically took less time than this, therefore, Eggman never said it. Instead, this speech was adopted into Eggman’s Expert Mode dialogue later on in the episode.
  • Eggman tries to use this manipulation to turn Shadow and Omega against one another. Seriously, why was that not a plot point in the original game? Omega was designed to fight Shadow, and is obsessed with destroying Eggman Robots. If he learned that Shadow was an Eggman Robot, and even Shadow believed it, they should have fought! Omega was created to fight Shadow, they hinted at that for years without ever making it a reality! That would’ve been an awesome fight! Certainly, it would’ve made more sense than battling Eggman immediately after siding with him in the previous level.
• After defeating the Egg Dealer, Shadow gives a unique new variant on his usual “this is who I am” speech, minus the dramatic flair of the Chaos Emeralds
• Johnny explains that his grandfather, Mr. U.G. Naka, was among the team that shut down the ARK 50 years ago. This refers to the fact that a random line of dialogue from the GUN soldiers in Shadow the Hedgehog (“Mr. Yuji Naka is alright”) can be heard both in the present day and in ARK flashbacks, suggesting that he was present for both events. This is the reason why Shadow recognizes the name.
  • This odd factoid is one of the inspirations behind creating Johnny’s character in the first place. There was a brief consideration of making Johnny himself U.G. Naka, before I realized that would make him much too old.
• The training room used by Shadow is stated to be based on the same technology that allows Shadow to travel inside of Eggman’s Computer in the Mad Matrix level.
  The existence of this level was canonized to The Chaos Project in Computer Room Caper.
  • Before I remembered that it was canon, I instead had the training room functioning very differently, with a VR-like device on Shadow’s head, and the panels in the room moving and adjusting in order to simulate the experiences he would be feeling in the VR. I considered a proper virtual world approach, but that felt like too much of a stretch for Sonic world technology of the time. (Again, I completely forgot that level existed, let alone was canon.)
• As the Commander explains the training to Shadow, he uses the phrase, “I know you’ll prove yourself to be an expert,” referencing the fact that this training course is literally expert mode.
• The encouraging words given to Shadow are mostly direct quotes from each respective character in their correct places, with the exception that references to game mechanics such as the Goal Ring, Lives, and the Pause Menu, were removed or substituted for more generic language.
• Each time Shadow pauses the simulation, the context of quoting the game is removed, freeing me to have the characters say whatever I need them to before resuming the original dialogue.
• Eggman’s encouraging words to Shadow adopt several quotes that were originally used for Eggman’s second such appearance in the game (“Are you upset with me for something?”). This was purely to streamline things, so I could use the content without bothering to bring back Eggman a second time.
• In an ideal scenario, where this episode wasn’t sharing the spotlight with Omega, Shadow hearing the words from Maria might have gone down a bit differently. Perhaps Shadow would’ve been angry about words being put into her mouth like that, or perhaps the Commander would’ve taken the time to explain to someone why Shadow seems to be okay with it. Regardless, the flow of that scene was already interrupted a bit in that particular moment, and I thought it was important to get things back on track with the episode wrapping up by that point.
  • For similar reasons, the level where Black Doom would speak to Shadow was cut out entirely. This would’ve been sure to evoke some kind of reaction, and I decided the scene was better off without stopping for that. Theoretically, it probably did still happen, somehow, and I can always flash back to it if I need to.
• During the President’s scene in Expert Mode, his secretary whispers something into his ear. In the original game, this dialogue was heard quite clearly. “Mr. President, you’re late with your tee time with the Chief Cabinet Secretary of Japan.” There are obviously several problems with this. One, Japan doesn’t exist in Sonic’s world. Two, the implication is that the President is out playing golf when he claims to be working on the reconstruction efforts following the war. The same joke repeated later discussed his “karaoke party with the Minster of France.” Which, I mean, sure, he could be doing these things. But I like to imagine he’s a little more competent than that. I couldn’t realistically use the line either way, so I drew attention away from it as best I could.
  • A scrapped ending scene for this episode would have had us seeing the President’s political karaoke party, perhaps with them singing Live and Learn or something of the like. It would’ve been written into canon the same way as the Commander’s later discussions with Shadow. And it would’ve been absolutely hilarious. But in the end, I could bring myself to bloat the end of the episode with a joke that has no right to be canon.
• The scene with the Commander’s family was originally intended to show both the mother and the father, but one unnamed character felt like enough as it was. I’m worried about the awkward possibility that it might look the Commander is the father, which is…very wrong. The father probably just left to go get milk or something. It’s not important.
• At the end of the episode, the Sergeant mentions the “Postcursors.” This is a new concept which will be explored in the future. The name is intended to sound mysterious and timey-wimey.

And that’s all for now! Join us next time, June 23rd, for our big anniversary celebration! That’s 30 years of Sonic, and 5 years of The Chaos Project!

-Until then, remember to live and learn every day!

S2 E15: Arrival

Season 2 of The Chaos Project is approaching its climax, with a revealing new episode available to read right here!

What does it mean to be alive? Was does it take to be an individual? Cyber Sonic is hardly the first to grapple with this question. Years ago, Shadow and Omega each asked themselves the same. Though their journeys were not always aligned, they somehow came to the same two answers. A friend. And a rival.