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!