Review: Season 3, Episode 7

Here we have what will quite probably be the longest episode of The Chaos Project. Ever. I thought the same thing about the Silver & Zero prequel, Zero Hour, which I decided didn’t need a strict maximum length due to its special nature. But then here I go making a regular episode almost 2500 words longer. It’s definitely not something I anticipated going into it. I wasn’t necessarily worried going into it that it would be too short, per se, just that I knew pretty well what was going to happen the second half, but was going in almost completely blind to the first half, so I had no idea how long or short it was going to end up. I had a pretty clear vision in mind for what White Arms society looks like, but I had no idea what parts of it would be relevant to show or explain, or how detailed those explanations would be. On the other side, while I did have a vision in mind for the scene of Luna training Shadow with his mental powers, I wasn’t sure how exactly I would lead into Shadow accepting that offer, or what exactly Luna’s argument would be for convincing him. So I just wrote, and wrote, and wrote, and suddenly I realized that I was 9500 words in (long enough to qualify as its own episode already) and the inciting incident hadn’t even happened yet. So from there, I rushed through everything that was left. The fight between Genesis and Saturn was shortened drastically, as was the fight between the Heralds and Gladius. A planned scene with Tails trying to talk to the Master System was cut out entirely. Sonic fighting his way out of the Dreamnet and across the battlefield was skipped over to get straight to him encountering the Manta. And even with all that, I still ended up at over 18,000 words. If I’d known going into this arc that it would end up this long, I would’ve absorbed a bit of material from part 1 and turned this whole thing into a 3-parter. But it’s too late for that now. I think it goes without saying that this extra length is also reason why this episode ended up being delayed by a week. I really wanted it out by the week of the anniversary/the release of Origins, but that proved simply impossible.

Length aside, I can also say that this might be one of my favorite episodes. Ever. Obviously there’s a lot of great episodes to choose from, and there’s going to be a lot more, but writing this one just brought me back to the good old days of Season 0, where I was telling more complete, well-rounded stories. In fact, these two episodes together were almost exactly the same length as a typical shorter Season 0 arc, about 30,000 words total. Significantly longer than my entire novelization of SA2, for a different comparison. Luna and Saturn may still feel like new characters after only two episodes, but technically, we’ve been on just as long of a journey with them as we were with Blacklight and Chaos in their respective introductions. Although, I suppose that’s technically not entirely true, given that our attention here was split between a lot more new characters than was typical back then. But back on topic, the things liked about this episode. I think my favorite part was the complex interplay between the character arcs of Shadow and Luna. Sure, maybe it’s a little on-the-nose for her secret backstory to be so similar to Shadow’s, but that similarity accomplished a lot. Throughout these episodes, despite their seeming friendliness, Luna and Saturn have been shown with all the typical indicators of firm villains. They spout plenty of talk about why their way is the right way, perhaps making a “good point,” but refusing to acknowledge the harm that’s done as a result, all combined with the seemingly undying love and support for their own kind, and disregard of others. Yet all this turns out to inspired by a backstory we’ve already seen before—one that was supposed to inspire a hero. This is as significant a realization to Shadow as it is to us. We’ve spent this time wondering how she can be defeated, but suddenly, there’s another way. And suddenly, that job is already done. Because all she needs to see to change her ways is that Shadow has done the same. Meanwhile, a sort of inverse is happening with Shadow. Over the course of these episodes, Shadow has been pushed down a darker path—doing whatever is necessary to return home — and all the while finding his interests aligned more and more closely to the villains’. It’s the reminder of what it is that he’s fighting for that puts him back on in the place he needed to be to support Luna in bringing her to that same place. I’m not sure how well the precariousness of that situation came across. When Luna was broken to her absolute core, a few wrong words from Shadow might have pushed her in the opposite direction—convincing her that he will never turn, and must be destroyed. But instead, he supported her. He reached out his hand, and she chose to take it. And the end result, I hope, is one of the strongest formations of a friendship I’ve ever been able to write.

Saturn, of course, is his own beast. I knew going into this episode that Luna would be getting the focus over Saturn, but given that, I’m still impressed with how Saturn was able to stand out on his own. In fact, in many ways, he probably ended up being the more interesting character of the two. The questionable conspiracy around Genesis’ identity is something I was thinking about going into the episode, but I wasn’t necessarily sure that it had a place in this particular episode. It turned out to be very helpful both for her and for Saturn. Doesn’t really help the fact that he was just sitting behind a door and making snarky comments for the whole first half of the episode, but that was also sort of a good thing. It showed who he is apart from the more stereotypical musclehead-wants-to-fight personality.

Black Rex, being a last-minute addition to the last episode, obviously wasn’t planned to exist in this one, but I think I squeezed it in well enough in spite of that. What proved a little more difficult was continuing Johnny and Seraph’s relationship, despite theoretically being planned a lot farther in advance. It simply needed to take a back seat to everything else that was happening, which made it difficult to progress in any meaningful way from where it was left off after their last episode. That lack of progress is going to make things more difficult next time, but it’s what I had to do.

Other than that, I don’t think I have much to say. The episode speaks for itself, I should hope. So, on to the trivia!

• This episode is the first in The Chaos Project to exclusively feature entirely unique locations—none appearing in any Sonic game, nor any previous episode (not counting Serpah’s ship or the Manta as a location, per se).
  • Though the outside of the Ebony Tower was seen in the last episode, the inside was not.
  • The area in which ship-to-ship combat between the Black and White Arms is happening is labeled as “Conflict Zone,” which sounds like a Sonic thing, but technically isn’t.
• Given this episode’s proximity to Sonic’s anniversary and the release of Sonic Origins, there are several numerical references thrown in here and there. For example, the case number used for Shadow’s criminal involvement with the Heralds breaks down as the release date of Sonic Origins, the number 31, and the initials SO. The number 31 alone comes up a number of times.
• Continuing the trend of alien planets being named after Sonic musicians, the planet near Orthan at the beginning of the episode is Tolkoi, named for Kenichi Tokoi, a composer and drummer who has worked frequently with both Senoue and Ohtani.
• The trend of other alien things being named after other SEGA references is continued as well.
  • The Dreamnet’s AI computer is called the Master System, named for the non-portable version of the Game Gear.
    • Tails notes the good news that the Master System didn’t kill him, referencing the “Tails dies” meme that originated with a theory about the bad ending of the Game Gear/Master System version of Sonic 2.
  • The bomb used to destroy Kaos is called Sage’s CD, named for the SEGA CD add-on to the Genesis/Mega Drive needed to play Sonic CD.
  • The Kaosian unit of measurement given for distance and time are the “gageyer” and the “exin,” named for the Game Gear and the 32X respectively. (Hence the 3.2 exins.)
    • It is reasonable to assume that “ga-” and “ex-” are prefixes to the base units of “geyer” and “in”. It was under consideration to also make use of the English prefix “pico-” as a reference to the SEGA Pico educational machine, but that wouldn’t have made much sense in this context.
• Various uses of numbers throughout the episode are intended to imply that the Kaosians use a base 6 number system, as many things seem to be thought of and organized in powers of 6. This is understandable, given the six fingers on their hands compared to our 10.
• The 36 districts on the White Dreamnet are all named after different shades of the color white, with a few exceptions. Scale District would be the equivalent of “skin color” in human context, referring to the particular shade of white seen on White Kaosian scales. Spectra District isn’t exactly a color, but the intention is to refer to “white light” in terms of a combination of all colors of light wavelength. The implication would be that they have their own dedicated word for that type of white, and “Spectra” is merely the closest we can get to an English translation.
• In discussion with Luna, Shadow references a previous faux family member he had in Blacklight. This reference was recommended by my editor (Yuni), but the wording I chose to use also references a review left on Impending Doom by a guest, suggesting that Shadow would have a reaction quite similar to this upon meeting “Eclipse”.
• White Genesis’ armor is designed to resemble a combination of standard Sonic box art decorations for both Mega Drive and Genesis—gridlines and colorful nonsense shapes.
  • Similarly, her throne is intended to look like a SEGA Genesis, sleek and black with no straight lines.
  • Also similarly, Sage’s CD looks like a SEGA CD. It is referred to has having hardware on the bottom that is meant to attach to some “platform” underneath it. This would specifically reference the American model of the console (if I remember correctly), as other models attach to the side of the Mega Drive, rather than the top of the Genesis.
• Upon giving Sonic the gem that he uses for his later Chaos Control, Genesis mentions that the gem is powered by the conflict between Light and Darkness. This refers to the war between the Black and White Arms in this context, but lines up with what we know about the Chaos Emeralds—that they derive their energy from the Earth, which in turn derives its energy from the cyclical conflict between Light and Dark Gaia.
• Upon confronting Genesis, Saturn declares his intent to replace her. This is, of course, a reference to the SEGA Saturn replacing the SEGA Genesis on the console market.
  • This confrontation is accompanied by a Saturn-accented version of the phrase “Welcome to the next level,” a well-known SEGA advertising slogan of the time.
• Luna’s friend is named “Toma the Orthani,” named for Tomoya Ohtani.
• At the end of his memory sequence, Shadow explains that the block on his mental powers came from the trauma that apparently came from him seeing into Maria’s mind when she died. This is intended to explain the slight discontinuities between SA2 and Shadow the Hedgehog, where in one, we see Maria actively launch Shadow away, yet in the other, we see that Shadow saw her being killed. It also explains the self-contained oddity of SA2, where the final version of Shadow’s flashback we see has Maria’s final words being spoken after Shadow has already been launched away.
• Shadow’s final advice for Luna to move on from tragedy is to “Never Turn Back,” the end credits theme of Shadow the Hedgehog.
• In the final confrontation with Black Gladius, his reaction is quite similar to Black Doom’s upon Shadow’s various betrayals, right down to several word-for-word quotes. Shadow responds to these with an ironic quote of his own, claiming that Gladius is boring him to death.
• In this same confrontation, the two primary types of Black Arms enemies missing from part 1 appeared by name, the Black Worms and Black Volts.
• Saturn the Skenouan’s immediate liking taken to Johnny is an odd sort of reference to the leading members of Crush 40, Jun Senoue and Johnny Gioeli.
• White Genesis’ secret name, White Sage, appears to be shared with the recently-revealed antagonist of Sonic Frontiers, the AI girl named SAGE. This episode was completed less than 24 hours before that character was officially revealed, so I can confirm that this was a coincidence. That being said, that doesn’t mean there won’t be some sort of connection made in the future…

That’s all for trivia, but speaking of Frontiers, now is the time to talk about some news that was footnoted at the end of this episode. As of this day, as was the case almost exactly 6 years ago for Forces, The Chaos Project is officially on Sonic Frontiers break. Simply put, I’ve decided that right here is the optimal place to freeze the plot in order to have the best chance at integrating Frontiers into the future of the story in a meaningful way. As you may remember, doing this last time resulted in what we now know as the Forces of Chaos arc in Season 0. Imagine if I was halfway through that arc when Forces came out, and it had gone without the Forces-related content for all that time. It wouldn’t have made sense to squeeze it randomly into the second half while ignoring it in the first. It would have been a much duller story, wouldn’t you say? It was the right decision then, and I know that the same is true now. Thus, this will be the last numbered episode of The Chaos Project to come out until, at the soonest, the as-yet unannounced release date of Frontiers (most likely late November or early December). But until then, we still have plenty to look forward to, starting with part 2 of my discussion with Blacklight about the recent stream of Sonic news. From there, we have the continuation (possibly the entire remainder and conclusion) of Silver & Zero, as well as a potential tie-in special to Sonic Prime. With the extra time I’ll have instead of writing, we may see some other bonus content popping up as well, so stay tuned!

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

Review: Season 3, Episode 6

I know I say it a lot, but we have another very early episode idea here. In fact, as far as early episode plans go, this one was quite possibly the most thoroughly planned and scripted out of any of them—planned and scripted to last the length of a standard episode back in Season 0: less than half of the average these days. In TV terms, half an hour rather than an hour. So yeah, with this episode basically being a done deal in my mind, I wasn’t too concerned about ironing out the details as the time to actually write it approached. Then I sat down to start writing and realized that I only had half an episode planned out. In this original script, there would have been no final chase sequence, no gauntlet of boss fights. Black Gladius would’ve been waiting for Shadow right where the Black Manta landed, and that would’ve been the cliffhanger ending of the episode. Figuring out what to put in that space turned out to be simple enough, however. I just had to ask myself what would’ve been missing otherwise. The base of the episode already gave us an action-focused introduction to the character and power set of Luna, but Saturn didn’t have the same, even though, him being the fighter of the two, him getting something like that was probably more important. To give them a reason to fight, Shadow needed to escape and be chased down. Using that escape sequence to cram in a quick and intense look at this alien planet, as well as the full gamut of Shadow the Hedgehog enemies and weapons, was a natural conclusion. After all, this being advertised as the “Black Arms Season,” we sure haven’t seen much of them so far. Why not load them up here? Regardless, I was still figuring that wasn’t quite enough in length terms. The Black Rex fight was the last piece that was needed, and I decided on that both to follow up on promise made in S3 E3 Impending Doom that the Black Beasts were effectively a fourth Black Kaosian house that didn’t have its own herald to be represented as a character, and also to lead into some new ideas for next episode, adding some greater context to the coming explanation of why Shadow is wanted here in the first place. Also, it didn’t hurt to give a clear reason behind Shadow being tired out for his Saturn fight. I wanted to show, in a general sense, that Shadow, Luna, and Saturn are all on a very roughly equal power level—but in the end, Shadow is the Ultimate Life Form and a lot more adaptable in combat than them, putting him a step ahead.

Black Rex’s design philosophy was simple enough—he’s really just meant to be a sort of superevolved Black Bull. Black Bull births Black Wings? Black Rex births the larger and more powerful Black Hawks. Black Bull is fat with stubby wings? Black Rex is muscular with big dragon wings. Black Bull is a master of land and air? Black Rex adds sea to the mix. Despite being of a form that’s probably a bit more aesthetically pleasing than Black Bull, Black Rex is designed to look a bit more obviously like a genetic experiment, looking like a reptile, an insect, and an aquatic species all at once. And of course, Shadow apparently now has a pet chimera dragon, so that’s cool.

As far as character crafting goes, Luna and Saturn are of course the more interesting story here. Of course, as already pointed out by a reviewer, the elephant in the room is Archie Sonic’s Eclipse the Darkling. I already talked about this in the review for Impending Doom, but now we’re getting a much closer look at the similarities between these ideas, right down to the moon-themed name in Luna’s case. In a way, however, Luna and Saturn are effectively opposites to Eclipse. Eclipse, in the end, is an alien copy of/thematic opposite to Shadow. Luna and Saturn are originals—not the backup plan, but the true plan all along. They’re hybrids, just like Shadow. They have their own histories and motivations which are independent of the Black Arms. In the end, however, they do share the same purpose of, to a varying degree, humanizing the Black Arms, and giving them a face that isn’t just “evil bad guy”.

With that acknowledgement out of the way, let’s talk about the characters themselves. They’re in a pretty unique situation, in Chaos Project terms. They’re the first “major” “Sonic-style” OCs to be introduced to the universe since Season 0. That definition is a little fuzzy with them having only been featured in one episode so far, but we can take that to mean, “I made a sprite for them, and they’re not human.” The important point is that a lot more effort than average went into their creation. Design wise, of course, they had to fall within the Black Arms standard of red on black color schemes, but from there, the goal was to make the two of them quite distinct from one another. Keen-eyed readers may have noticed that Shadow, Saturn, and Luna fall quite nicely into the standard Sonic Speed-Power-Fly categories, suggesting that was actually the plan of the Black Arms to create a well-balanced Heroes-style team. To add to that idea of a diverse trio, a different Order of animal was chosen for each one—mammal, reptile, and avian. Of course, as hybrids, they all have a little pseudo-insectoid-reptile in them, and as Sonic characters, they all have an animoid body type—although, Saturn definitely pushes that a bit, looking in musculature more like a middleground between a Black Warrior and a Black Oak. In general, I wanted to craft Saturn as something as thoroughly alien as I could imagine, within those recognizable constraints. That would serve as a contrast against the far more familiar form of Luna. They would appear to be a very odd duo with little in common, and yet they would show that they synergize well together. Their powers, of course, play heavily into that. It makes sense that their powers would synergize, given that their powers are pretty much a two-way split of Black Doom’s original power set. Luna gets his mental powers—telepathy, telekinesis, mind control, and the creation of illusions—while Saturn gets his physical powers—Meteor Rain, Swift Strike, Chaos Control, and, although it wasn’t shown here, presumably the fire wave attack as well. Of course, I couldn’t have him breathe fire like Devil Doom given the lack of a mouth, but in lieu of that, I gave him a different power to push him another step up both as a fighter and as something uniquely alien. Here on Earth, many reptile species have fluid sacs in their throats, generally for storing venom. The native Skenouan species presumably has the same, but Saturn, being a uniquely engineered life form, was modified to produce and store the red slime instead, giving him instant access to any Black Arms weapon of his choosing. Although we’ve only scratched the surface so far, the implication is that, as an equivalent to this extra power of Saturn’s, Luna has a mind which is far more powerful than Black Doom’s. After all, she was able to compel Shadow to take actions against his will where Black Doom was not.

As far as general comments go for this episode, I’d like to express again how much fun it is to really dive head-first into the unique elements brought in by a particular Sonic game like this. Sure, I use references and locations from lots of Sonic games all the time, but those sorts of things always focus on finding a throughline between the games, pointing out what’s similar between them, rather than what’s different. Working with the Black Arms themselves and the variety of weapons they use, designing a new location inspired by the visual uniqueness of the Black Comet, that sort of thing is a rare treat when writing.

And I think the rest will have to wait until part 2. So for now, on to the trivia!

• This episode’s title, “Arms Race,” refers to a rapid escalation of military might between two warring or potentially warring powers. In this case, of course, it refers quite literally to the Black Arms and the White Arms entering into such a conflict.
  • This so-called arms race was already referred to as such by White Seraph in Impending Doom.
  • An alternate consideration for this episode’s title would have been “Black Writings,” where the follow-up episode, instead of being a part two, would have been “All of Me.” These are lyrics from the theme song of Shadow the Hedgehog, “I Am… All of Me.”
    • The original line, “Black writings on the wall,” refers to the term of phrase “The writing’s on the wall,” meaning that the outcome of the current circumstance has already been predicted, and is now unavoidable. Change that to “black” writings, and it is now specifically a dark or destructive prophecy. Obviously, “All of Me” would suggest that someone is discovering or showing all of themselves in a way that was hidden before. I leave it to you to speculate what that might mean…
• The following locations from previous Sonic games were shown or mentioned in this episode:
  • The Doom (Shadow the Hedgehog, via dream)
  • Westopolis (Shadow the Hedgehog, via simulation)
  • Digital Circuit (Shadow the Hedgehog, mentioned)
  • Meta Junglira Zone (Sonic Triple Trouble)
    • This is the first location from Triple Trouble, or from any Game Gear Sonic title, to be featured in The Chaos Project. It was intentionally chosen as a place that would be on the obscure side, and therefore presumably pretty isolated and hard to find. Also, the general concept of a jungle or forest location was chosen before Meta Junglira specifically was applied to it.
  • Black Comet/Final Haunt (Shadow the Hedgehog, visually referenced and mentioned in narration)
• As established in Impending Doom, space is apparently filled with lots of Sonic/SEGA references. We already had White Genesis and the White Dreamnet, but we now have the following added to that:
  • Veimue, the generic name for a White Arms scoutship, which gathers, stores, and communicates information to the White Dreamnet, would be pronounced quite similarly to “VMU,” the Dreamcast Virtual Memory Unit (basically just a memory card/storage drive with a screen and a couple buttons). These ships are intended to visually resemble the VMU as well, with a black docking port where the memory card would plug in, and a large windshield to represent the screen.
  • Saturn the Skenouan, named for the SEGA console to come between the Genesis and the Dreamcast.
  • The method of faster-than-light travel shared by the Black and White Arms is called Mega Warp, induced by an engine called the Mega Drive, sharing a name with the non-American version of the SEGA Genesis.
• Shadow’s initial rejection of the pistol given to him by Johnny is meant to be contrasted against his eventual intentional use of the Shadow Rifle, showing how his mindset seems to revert as he is dragged back into the Black Arms conflict. In a more general sense, this is meant to subtly demonstrate a sort of commentary on the nature of guns and Shadow’s over all character in the original Shadow the Hedgehog game. We’re suggesting here that while, yes, the guns and the swearing certainly seemed out of the norm for Shadow’s character, that didn’t stem from any sort of writing or presentation issue. Shadow in that game was a man pushed to the absolute limits of his patience and his sanity, and his response was justifiably aggressive. Here, we see Shadow being pushed back in that same direction for the first time since then, and his reaction is understandably similar.
• The Eggshelter’s new simulation area is dubbed the “Virtron” room. Knowledgeable readers might better recognize the word “Valtron,” which was given as a prototype name for the Phantom Ruby in a leaked beta script of Sonic Forces. Although the script was in English, it is assumed that Valtron was an Engrish mistranscription, intended to combine the term “virtual” with “tron” to describe a machine that creates virtual reality. This was, of course, before Sonic Mania came in and turned it into a naturally-occurring object. Regardless, I figured the term fit as well here as it would anywhere.
  • Tails describes the Virtron room as resembling the Holodeck from “Chao in Space Next Gen.” As with all things pertaining to Chao in Space, this reference is one part Sonic and one part Star Wars/Trek. In this case, the Holodeck is a solid hologram simulation room from Star Trek: The Next Generation, so the Chao in Space equivalent is pretty spot-on. Of course, Chao in Space is a movie franchise, and Star Trek TNG is a TV series, so that’s where the Sonic part comes in. Though it isn’t stated in this episode, Chao in Space Next Gen is intended to be the 6th movie in the franchise, known colloquially to some as Cha’06. Compare Sonic ’06, also known to some as Sonic Next Gen.
• This episode shows for the first time that the training program Shadow underwent in the flashbacks of Arrival are, in-universe, referred to as an Expert course, as is the case in the game on which those events are based.
• The design of the Black Manta is based on that of the Black Tank seen in Lethal Highway. Presumably, this ship is a little bit bigger, and has a clear opening in the back. Its shields are stated to work in the same way they did in that level, beginning at blue, and reducing to green after taking on some damage. Presumably, there is also a yellow and red phase before the shields go down completely.
  • The concept of a bioship, where all controls and other interior amenities grow straight out of the interior by psychic command of the operator bears a strong resemblance to the DC Comics universe, particularly the interpretation seen in the TV series Young Justice in regards to Miss Martian’s “Ship”. Coincidentally, early seasons of Young Justice also prominently feature a character named “Black Manta.” The name of this ship is unrelated, instead meant to refer to the manta-like shape of the ship and Black Tank it’s based on.
• Over the course of the episode, every time of Black Arms enemy from Shadow the Hedgehog is seen, with the exceptions of the Black Worm and the Black Volt variant of Black Hawk. In both cases, although the creature does not appear, its primary weapon, the Worm Shooter, is used as an integrated part of the Black Manta’s weapons system. The Black Volt is basically just an armed Black Hawk, so in technical terms, the species was still shown. Although the same can’t be said about the Black Worm, we do see a different kind of Black Alien worm, used as binding chains for the prisoners, which could perhaps be a larval form of the Black Worms we already know.
  • Similarly, every type of Black Arms weapon is used at some point during the episode, with the exceptions of the Splitter gun, which fires a bouncing disc-like projectile not unlike the Swift Strike, the Big Barrel cannon, the Black Barrel gun, which shoots a circular wave-like projectile, the Vacuum Pod suction weapon, and, arguably, the Satellite Gun, which calls on the strike of an orbital laser.
• Shadow’s use of the Shadow Rifle is, of course, a reference to the postgame-exclusive Shadow the Hedgehog weapon which is capable of one-shotting every enemy in the game. It’s a unique weapon in that it isn’t clearly identifiable as a Black Arms weapon or a human weapon. It has design philosophies of both, with personalized style for Shadow on top of it. The implication with this episode is that the use of this weapon in the game is not canon, but that Shadow invented the weapon at this moment.
  • This is the first instance we’ve seen of Shadow using his weapon creation powers since they were introduced at the end of the Black Cloak arc. It was a convenient coincidence (though not exactly an unlikely one, given the context) that the Shadow Rifle naturally bears the mark of the Black Cloak, giving a hint to readers of where they need to look if they don’t remember this power.
• During his swordfight with Saturn, Shadow briefly flips his blade into a reverse grip, matching the fighting style of his Arthurian counterpart Sir Lancelot.
• The creature used as the “third eye” of Black Gladius is referred to as “Eye of Gladius” rather than “Gladius’ Eye,” as would be consistent with Doom’s Eye, because the awkward trailing-s-apostrophe would be awkward to write over and over again.
  • Its design is based on an octopus to differentiate it from the Doom’s Eye starfish.
• At the end of the episode, Tails is excited by the prospect of experiencing faster-than-light travel. Sonic casually reminds him that this is nothing new—after all, they’ve been using Chaos Control for years. However, this is also an acknowledgement of the fact that Team Sonic Racing, which is at least ambiguously canon at this point, also featured travel on a spaceship between distant planets. Which…actually calls into question how Eggman pulled all of the Wisp planets into Earth orbit in the first place without an FTL method of his own, but that’s a Colors problem, which I generally tend to ignore.

Review: Season 3, Episode 3

So this was…a complicated episode to write. Like many recent episodes, it’s a story that I’ve been looking forward to telling for a very long time. But how exactly I would tell it is another issue. In the earliest pre-planning phases, the assumption was that this episode, like S1 E11 Condition Extreme, would derive its drama almost entirely from the medical emergency taking place. Rather than Johnny already being deathly ill, Seraph would have some other reason to be scanning everyone in the Rebellion one by one, and eventually finding that Johnny is the only one in imminent danger. That obviously means that the context of Johnny being treated would’ve been very different, Seraph’s story would already have been at least mostly told, so the two of them would’ve had a lot more alone time together. That probably would’ve been better for the “romance” aspect of this episode, but the way this episode ended was problematic as it was, focusing on storytime for nearly the entire second half. If the story had already been told, any sense of interest left in the plot of the episode would be pretty much gone, and it was clear to me that “oh no Johnny’s sick let’s heal him” would not be enough drama to make up for that. Also of note is that, at this early phase in the planning, heavy consideration was being given to having the Rebellion still split up following the events of Civil War at this point, such that it would take the alien visitor and the potential threats to everyone’s lives to get them all back on speaking terms for the first time after their falling out. In that hypothetical plotline, S3 E2 Agent Black probably wouldn’t have existed at all (some of its elements might have carried back into part 1), this would’ve been episode 2, and all that drama would’ve been what kept this episode going. But, as planning for the Civil War plot reached more detailed phases, I decided that Civil War required a far more direct, cohesive, and wholesome ending. If you can call it that.

The Civil War arc obviously took mega priority over this more random early season episode, so I was left to pick up the pieces here once that was set in stone. Seraph’s origin and her medical role was, as mentioned, planned far in advance, but the circumstances of Shadow/Shadow’s Civil War team/the Rebellion as a whole meeting her for the first time was a little bit more…nebulous. As was what she was generally capable of. I knew I wanted her to attack Shadow on sight, and have her stopped by Johnny stepping in to defend him. That sounded like a two minute scene at best. But, now with the need to add action/drama back into the mix, this felt like the right place to do it. I knew that three things needed to happen here. 1: As our first look at the White Arms, she needed to represent the absolute opposite of the biological everything that the Black Arms are tied to. 2: To give this scene the length, action, and drama that it needed, she needed to not only hold her own, but downright outclass Shadow, at least in his surprised/off-his-game state. 3: To lead into Johnny having a crush on her, her trained fighting skills needed to shine through as much if not more than the power of her technology. So, taking all of this into account, I needed a highly futuristic alien technology that is hypothetically capable of taking down almost any foe, regardless of power level, yet also seamlessly and organically integrates with the user’s action movie–oriented skills. My thoughts went to one place. Samus Aran, Space Warrior and protagonist of Nintendo’s Metroid franchise.

Now, I’ve been a fan of the Metroid series for quite some time, and I’d like to state for the record that this episode’s proximity to the recent release of Metroid Dread is a complete coincidence. The choice to give Seraph a Samus-style power armor was storyboarded out on (virtual) paper in December of last year, 6 months before Dread was announced to exist, and even longer given that I’d had the idea for some time before writing it down. It likely was Dread, however, that reinforced the tone I wanted this set of scenes to have. As the Metroid series has gone on, its protagonist has been portrayed more and more like an action hero, pulling off incredible feats of agility and control, and looking freaking awesome while doing it. Dread has integrated those concepts into gameplay more closely than ever, and Seraph’s fight against the giant snake…well, that’s pretty much what a Dread boss fight looks like.

It would be a stretch to say that I “had to” make Seraph so much like Samus. But given the three requirements I stated above, making something that didn’t come out looking like Samus would’ve been a very difficult feat. Futuristic technology that depends entirely upon a user’s combat skills that would be instantly recognizable to a soldier pretty much mandated some form of power armor. I didn’t have to give that power armor a variable (and chargeable) Arm Cannon, or a Speed Booster, or a Morph Ball, but it had to have some kind futuristic weapon that could keep Shadow back, and it had to be fast enough to keep up with Shadow’s speed, and I really wanted to give her a Sonic-style technology-assisted Spin Attack. I suppose I could have made those all separate pieces of technology instead of integrated armor, but that would look less futuristic, less intimidating, less mysterious, and would take away the logical aspect of her studying alien planets and likely needing a suit/helmet that can keep her alive in a variety of environments anyways. So I had the choice to either make a character who doesn’t suit my needs as well as she could, or to make a Samus ripoff. I decided, much as I did with a certain Sly Raccoon, that if I was going to make something that already exists, I might as well go all in and call it a reference. And so, Seraph gained not just the weapons, but also the specific skills and body language of Samus. Of course, visually, the armor is quite a bit different from that of Samus, lacking any of the signature orange color (although Dread stole my white and blue color scheme), having a three-eyed alien face visor with elongated skull, and having a general focus on “teardrop” shapes that Samus’ armor definitely doesn’t have. There’s also the difference of personality, which appears quite similar at first, but soon clarifies that Seraph is perfectly well allowed to talk where Samus is not. (Long story short, Metroid had its own version of Sonic 06 called “Other M,” where Samus apparently talked “too much,” and now the franchise avoids everything that game did like the plague.) So yeah, that’s the story of White Seraph.

But perhaps what you came here for is the story of the White Arms. It’s, uhh…quite a shake-up to the canon, to say the least. There were a lot of factors that went into Seraph’s storytime. Above all else, like much of this series does, the goal was to create a backstory that accurately explains the actions and circumstances, in this case not just of a single Sonic character, but of an entire species…which is technically just a Black Doom hivemind, so it really only is one character, but whatever. The motivation of the Black Arms in Shadow the Hedgehog are unclear at best. Sometimes it looks like they want to simply own the planet from an imperial standpoint, calling for surrender and whatnot, sometimes it looks like they want to specifically subjugate the humans for slave labor/a food source, and sometimes it just looks like they want to annihilate everything. I’m not sure if the Japanese script is any clearer about this than the English one, but between the need to land the Black Comet and plant its roots into the Earth, to spread a new gas into the atmosphere, to plant Red Fruits and other alien vegetation, it always sounded to me like terraforming. They don’t actually want Earth, they want a planet that’s healthy and sustainable for their unique biological needs, and they’re replacing what’s on Earth in order to make that happen. What happens to the humans after that is effectively irrelevant, hence why they seem to keep changing their minds about what they want done in that area. They might hypothetically have some use, but no harm is done if they’re wiped out, so both options are explored over the course of the game. The real question is why. Why did they spend 2000 years or more in the attempt to terraform this particular planet? What was so important about it? Why did they need to in the first place?

We do have at least a small number of clues to look at. The Black Comet, as far as we’re made aware, is a thriving home for them. There’s no indicator that they are in any sort of desperate need for land or resources, and even if they were, Black Doom has such complete control over the population that he most certainly has access to other solutions that, while drastic, would definitely be easier than the 2000 year wait for this particular planet. Even if it was just for the land, there are…a lot of planets with land out there that don’t have the ability to fight back. That goes for our solar system alone. It pretty much can’t be for resources needed to sustain themselves, because they show themselves to be quite capable of bioengineering whatever resources they need regardless of the present conditions of the planet they intend to use. They show no interest in Earth’s inorganic resources—with the singular exception of the Chaos Emeralds. But that’s not it either. They don’t need the planet for the Emeralds, they need the Emeralds just to get down to the surface of the planet. There are planets with much thinner atmospheres that the Black Comet would have no trouble passing through. There’s another interesting factoid in there. Black Doom states that the Comet is unable to pass through “another planet’s atmosphere.” Another planet, as in, he considers the Comet to be a planet. That was what led me to an answer to all of these whys. If we were to assume that the Black Comet is the fragmented remains of what was once a home planet, it would explain almost everything. We’re no longer assuming that the Black Arms are trying to extend what they already have, but instead that they are trying to restore/replicate something that was lost. Sure, any old planet would be better than just a measly comet, but if they’re trying to replace a home planet, that would mean a much narrower range of acceptable conditions. They would need a planet with the right mass to produce the right amount of gravity, the right distance from the sun to maintain the right temperature, and the right composition and age of the sun for that matter. That’s just to name a few. Suddenly, coming across a planet like Earth is a once in a lifetime chance, and any amount of waiting is worth it. Of course, the Chaos Emeralds are probably a bonus/what allowed them to find Earth in the first place, and I’ll get to that.

But before that, we’re now left with the question of what destroyed their planet to begin with. There are plenty of ways to answer that question, but the Black Arms are such an intensely warlike race, seeming to be literally engineered for combat, that a planet-shattering war seems like by far the most reasonable option. But…all evidence seems to indicate the Black Arms are a hivemind species, where only the leader has any agency, controlling the rest telepathically as he attempts to do to Shadow at the end of the game. So…he certainly isn’t fighting himself. Ignoring the whole “Three Houses” idea for a minute, that leaves us with the need to introduce an outside element. A new species so threatening that the Black Arms’ home plant was completely obliterated in the conflict with them. The most straightforward way to play that would be…well, the Metarex style if we’re being honest. Introduce a new alien invader which eats planets for breakfast, outshining the Black Arms and sweeping them aside to show themselves as the far greater threat. There would certainly be some merit to that, but…we’ve spent how many paragraphs now trying to establish why the Black Arms are being made relevant again? It would kind of defeat the purpose if that train of logic ended at them being made irrelevant again. So instead, we need to complicate things a bit more, and give the Black Arms a more evenly matched foe. There are a couple smaller details here that I can’t necessarily talk about yet, but the important point here is that the threat level of the Black Arms is maintained by pitting them against a foe that didn’t clearly force them to do anything drastic or cowardly. A foe that came from their own planet was the most logical way to go about that.

But why White Arms specifically? Any number of strange, planet-destroying things might have been born of the nonsensical alien world the Black Arms came from. Again, this starts heading towards certain details I can’t talk about yet, but hopefully the connection to Chaos Project lore is more than a little obvious. For all Light, there is Darkness, and for all Darkness, there is Light. The Black Arms are the absolute most unquestionably Evil Darkness that has ever existed in the Sonic canon (besides maybe Mephiles, but that’s a different debate). Creating a balancing force to them was a fairly logical conclusion, all things considered. But…doesn’t the whole “Balance” thing usually only apply in matters of Chaos? Well…this is something I hope to talk about in a future episode, but at this moment I’m not certain where it will fit, and I don’t mind sharing it here. The Black Arms are a matter of Chaos. On Earth, being able to use Chaos Control takes a highly specific set of qualifications that are generally unique to the existence of the Chaos Emeralds. Black Doom is the only creature in the known Sonic canon who can use Chaos Control naturally—despite not having Chaos Emeralds on his home world/comet. The claim I’m making is that this unique natural ability derives from the unique nature of the Black Arms’ origin. They come from a planet that is likely more perfectly balanced than any other in the universe. Any, that is, but Earth—which, as stated in Sonic Unleashed, gets quite a bit of an extra outside push to maintain that balance. The energy of the Chaos Emeralds doesn’t come from nowhere. It comes from the energy of the Earth, which in turn is generated by the cyclical war between Light and Dark Gaia. A war between light and dark that permits the use of Chaos Energy. Sound familiar…?

So anyways, if we’re making the light opposites to the Black Arms, they, thematically, have to be good guys, and they naturally became a very useful vessel for introducing us and the cast to all of these ideas we just discussed, which pretty much leaves us at the origin of this particular episode. That all took a while, but I think that’s about it on the story of this episode’s creation. So, on to the trivia!

• This episode’s title, “Impending Doom,” is a pretty straightforward reference to the idea that signs are pointing towards the impossible return of Black Doom. Definitely not my favorite title, but it does its job.
  • You might almost say that a sense of impending doom is the same thing as a sense of “Dread”. That’s a coincidence. Mostly…
• The majority of this episode was spread across all 3 (and a half) acts of the Mystic Jungle Zone from Sonic Forces. This is the first major appearance of this location in the Chaos Project, though Big was seen fishing there in the 50th Episode Special.
  • The spot where Johnny and Shadow land appears to be somewhere below Hero’s Act, Aqua Road (and Ep:Shadow Eggman’s Facility by extension), matching the description of aqueducts passing over the ocean.
  • From the top of the hill, Johnny and Shadow are able to view large patches of forest where fires burned years ago, as seen in the background of Sonic’s Act, Luminous Forest. (Eggman’s scattering bombs like confetti!)
  • Being chased by Seraph, Johnny and Shadow enter a particularly decorated ruins structure with a half-finished casino inside, apparently one of the same buildings seen in the background of Classic Sonic’s Act, Casino Forest.
• The concept of the “Black Heralds” shares something of a similarity with post-SGW Archie’s interpretation of the Black Arms in the form of Eclipse the Darkling. It would be a lie to say that no inspiration at all was taken, and planning for this season was happening right around the time those comics first hit my radar, but personally, I never quite liked the way that Archie handled that whole ordeal. Don’t get me wrong, I love that they handled it at all. But you might say that this is me showing how I would’ve done it.
• In his early discussions with Johnny, Shadow mentions that, were he to remove his Inhibitor Rings, he would no longer need a source of Chaos Energy in order to use Chaos Control. This is the first time that this possibility has been mentioned since Chapter 1. Sort of dropped the ball on that one. At that time, the Inhibitor Ring part wasn’t mentioned, so this is serving as the explanation for why we’ve never seen this ability used in The Chaos Project, despite it being explained as possible.
  • Material at lower levels of canon (such as Sonic Battle) have stated outright that this is possible at any time regardless of Inhibitor Rings, but this is one of those instances where I’m choosing not to take everything that game says at face value, even though it has otherwise been CP-canonized.  (7 green Chaos Emeralds, some of which are casually shattered offscreen. I don’t buy it.)
• In the Shadow the Hedgehog game, random soldiers have idle dialogue that includes “Don’t touch the Red Fruit.” If I remember correctly, there might even be a soldier in Westopolis who is forced into one of the Fruits when you get close, teaching you that they’re damaging to the touch. For all we know, that could be Johnny. Sonic was probably off rescuing him during that period of time where he magically disappeared so that Doom’s Eye could introduce himself to Shadow.
• Expect this season to be absolutely packed with random SEGA references. Many of them have already shown up here.
  • The empress of the White Arms is called White Genesis. Besides being the literal opposite of Doom, Genesis is also the American name of the SEGA console that Sonic first appeared on. This is, effectively, the origin point from which all the other references spawned.
  • The mothership commanded by White Genesis is called the White Dreamnet. You might say that I’ve…cast a net to pull in that one. Dreamnet isn’t a SEGA console, but Dreamcast sure is. It’s also been pointed out to me that the “net” change allows the ship’s name to kinda sorta sound like “comet.” Total coincidence, but I’ll take it.
  • The potentially dangerous species listed by Seraph at the end of the episode include the Zoah, a Twilight Cage resident species from Sonic Chronicles, the Algolian monsters, a recurring component of the SEGA fantasy/sci-fi series Phantsy Star, and the Titans of Star—…we’ll get to that.
    • The use of the term “Algolian” was intended as a clever dodging of the issue that the Phantasy Star planet in question is called “Algo” in some games and “Algol” in others. This phrasing is able to cover either option.
      • What Seraph originally said here was “Algolian Monsters and Mother Brain “. Metroid fans likely know that Mother Brain is the primary antagonist of most Metroid games. What they probably don’t know is that Mother Brain is also a primary antagonist in Phantasy Star. As far as I’m aware, it’s a complete coincidence. But it’s such a hilarious one to me, and such an unlikely scenario that I’d be able to simultaneously reference both of them, that I felt like I just had to do it. In the end, however, I cut the reference, because I was just too worried about introducing the potential confusion of “Are you claiming Metroid is canon to Sonic here?” Phantasy Star, maybe, but Metroid, no. The episode starring a Samus knock-off is the last place I would want to give people that false idea.
    • As for the Titans, this is, hopefully, a Sonic Frontiers reference. According to the (deleted?) plot synopsis we currently have of the game, the giant machine(s) seen in the trailer are referred to as Titans. I already theorized that there was something “alien” about the design of that Titan, and when you combine that with the name of the “Starfall Islands,” a potential alien connection becomes downright likely, if you ask me. I theorize that the Titans quite literally fell from the stars, and therefore that there are likely others out there in the galaxy. Depending on how things go from here, I’m starting to think that the “Titans of Starfall” might actually play a significant role this season. Later.
    • EDIT: Hit and a miss! This reference was retconned out of existence, following the release of Sonic Frontiers. The alien prediction was right, but the use of the Titans as something that makes space dangerous didn’t end up making much sense, so this item on the list was replaced with “the enemy of the Ancients.”
  • Also a reference is one of the creatures kept by Seraph on her ship—the Skenouan Astropede. This is a reference to the title character of a scrapped Genesis game which was originally pitched to SEGA as taking place in the Sonic universe. The game never saw the light of day, but the little guy ended up in the CP canon anyways. Welcome home, Astropede! Enjoy your tiny cage!
    • The respective planets from which Seraph’s creatures come are “Orthan” and “Skenoua.” There’s a reference-y naming pattern here, but I think I’ll keep that to myself until a little bit farther down the road.
  • Least notable on the list of SEGA references is the “port town of Miracworl,” a reference to “Alex Kidd in Miracle World,” the former SEGA mascot who was usurped by Sonic. It made sense to me as something that was around before Sonic on the Genesis.
• The three hive leaders of Black Kaosia—Black Famis, Black Morbus, and Black Gladius—have their names derived from Latin. “Famis” for famine, or starvation. “Morbus” for mortality or death, especially by illness or plague. “Gladius” for gladiator, soldier, or death by blade. Combine those three with the Black Beasts, and you have representations of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse—the four general ways a person can die: by starvation, by illness, by the hand of man, or by the hand of nature. Naturally, the unifier of them all would become Black Doom. Literally, the apocalypse.
• The “three ruling houses” of Black Kaosia are of absolutely no relation to the game “Fire Emblem Three Houses,” despite that being one of my favorite games ever. It’s a coincidence, I swear.

I was expecting a longer trivia section than this, but that’s all I got for now!

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