In Support of Humans

[Sean]

Was it even directly stated that Knuckles was the last of his kind? I thought it was only implied.

If anything, I've only thought of him as the last of his kind on Angel Island.

[Flyboy Fox]

I think he was the last of his tribe... I'm not even sure exactly what was stated. But nevertheless, the implication was that he was the last of SOMETHING, and that was unusual... no one else ever claimed to be the last of their kind, and they never seem surprised at the species of any new friends they meet, implying that all these species are commonplace... or at least, not unheard of. SO WHERE THE HECK ARE THEY ;_;

[Frozen Nitrogen]

Heh, I guess Shade's pretty much the only bright spot in all that.;;

Well, and maybe Rouge.

Eh, I'm not convinced that Shade is a bright spot for Knuckles at all. Like he says in Ch5 or something: "Now I find some other echidnas... and they're villains."

The Nocturnus might be echidnas in the genetic sense, but they're not the Knuckles Clan, not by a long shot. If anything, they're the antithesis of everything Knux believes in: technology over strength, deciet over honour, rigid military discipline over individual combat skill, and everywhere, schemes within schemes within schemes. And lets not forget that if we take Ix's boasting about "driving Pachacamac's clan to its doom" as at least partially true, they drove the old chief to attack the Emerald Shrine out of desperation and therefore CAUSED the first Perfect Chaos catastrophy.

Shade might have repudiated Imperator Ix, but she maintains throughout that she's loyal to the Nocturnus civilization. She might not approve of it being hawkish and expansionist, but she's still a sneaky Nocturnus technophile through-and-through. Just not a kill-everyone-else one.

So while before, at least Knux could derive perhaps some "consolation" in the fact that he could take his species into the grave with honour and dignity as its last survivor, now he has to live with the fact that those bastard Nocturnus essentially won after all, by outlasting the Knuckles Clan. All that remains of echidna-dom is the enemy: a twisted, blackened perversion of everything Knux and his ancestors stood for.

LOL, DOOMED^2.

[Sean]

Suddenly, Knuckles's history seems just as interesting as it does in the Archie comics.

Edited May 17, 2009 by Jake

[Frozen Nitrogen]

Suddenly, Knuckles's history seems just as interesting as it does in the Archie comics.

It's almost as if Bioware took some sort of inspiration from Archie, or something?

[Blazey Firekitty]

Nocturnus= Dark Legion, Ix= Dimitri with Finitevus' color scheme, Shade= Julie.

[Frozen Nitrogen]

Nocturnus= Dark Legion, Ix= Dimitri with Finitevus' color scheme, Shade= Julie.

LIES!!

Also, Ix = Finitevus = DOCTOR ZACHARY. Fleetway ftw.

Incidentally, the whole "Go into another dimension where time travels slower and pop out to find Robotnik's conquered the world" is the entire plot of Fleetway's first 100 issues.

True fact.

[123654]

I agree here. It annoys me so much when people say humans don't belong in Sonic's world just because there were no human NPCs in the old games, neglecting to consider that there were no animal NPCs either. By their logic, the playable characters, Eggman and the little woodland animals should be the only inhabitants on the planet.

Edited May 17, 2009 by AXB

[The Adventurer]

Nocturnus= Dark Legion, Ix= Dimitri with Finitevus' color scheme, Shade= Julie.

I always thought that Twilight Cage = The Covenant and Shade = The Arbiter, personally.

Anyway, Sonic's definitely part of a species. There's a female (Amy) and other hedgehogs that continue to exist in the distant future (Silver.). Tails has a surname, Prower, which means he's part of a family, which again implies a species. Given that humans look at Sonic and say 'oh, look, it's Sonic!' instead of 'Holy fuck a talking hedgehog!', some kind of familiarity between races is implied. So yeah, there's probably a bunch of other walking, talking hedgehogs walking around somewhere. Maybe in secluded, Knothole-like villages scattered throughout the wilderness?

[Frozen Nitrogen]

Anyway, Sonic's definitely part of a species. There's a female (Amy) and other hedgehogs that continue to exist in the distant future (Silver.). Tails has a surname, Prower, which means he's part of a family, which again implies a species. Given that humans look at Sonic and say 'oh, look, it's Sonic!' instead of 'Holy fuck a talking hedgehog!', some kind of familiarity between races is implied. So yeah, there's probably a bunch of other walking, talking hedgehogs walking around somewhere. Maybe in secluded, Knothole-like villages scattered throughout the wilderness?

That's what I'd hope. Being... talking woodland critters, I wouldn't expect the furries to have their own human-esque bustling cities. With the exception of the echidnas, they don't seem to be all that big on living in large community huddles - or even family huddles, given that no-one except Cream (and Jet?) ever mentions any sort of family. So you might get a cluster of huts slapped down next to a convenient watering hole, or something, and that'd be the extent of it.

[Dr. Mechano]

That's what I'd hope. Being... talking woodland critters, I wouldn't expect the furries to have their own human-esque bustling cities. With the exception of the echidnas, they don't seem to be all that big on living in large community huddles - or even family huddles, given that no-one except Cream (and Jet?) ever mentions any sort of family. So you might get a cluster of huts slapped down next to a convenient watering hole, or something, and that'd be the extent of it.

Huts? Watering hole?

Why must the animals be less technologically advanced, again? We know that Sonic(in Secret Rings) and Tails(in many games) own homes. I believe Amy officially lives in Station Square as well.

The animals aren't some ancient tribe or anything like that- They're as modern and, yes, even as "materialistic" as their human neighbors. I guess you're drawing from SatAM with the whole "Living off the bear necessities without technology" image, but even in that series, they had the modern city of Mobotropolis originally, and only lived in Knothole because they had to.

In the games, where such societal distinctions don't need to be made, I'd especially like to think the animals are just as modernized as anyone else is. Whatever they are, they're a part of human society to the extent that they live among, and act like, humans themselves.

[Crystal Kingfisher]

No love for Eggman? Aww.

But you like two at least, which should mean that they have some purpose and potential, eh?

I like Eggman too, but I forgot to put him on the list. I like Eggman, don't worry.

[Frozen Nitrogen]

Huts? Watering hole?

Why must the animals be less technologically advanced, again? We know that Sonic(in Secret Rings) and Tails(in many games) own homes. I believe Amy officially lives in Station Square as well.

The animals aren't some ancient tribe or anything like that- They're as modern and, yes, even as "materialistic" as their human neighbors. I guess you're drawing from SatAM with the whole "Living off the bear necessities without technology" image, but even in that series, they had the modern city of Mobotropolis originally, and only lived in Knothole because they had to.

In the games, where such societal distinctions don't need to be made, I'd especially like to think the animals are just as modernized as anyone else is. Whatever they are, they're a part of human society to the extent that they live among, and act like, humans themselves.

Don't let my avatar and penchant for a crueller, darker Eggman fool you - all my SatAM / Archie knowledge is second hand.

You say in the game societal distinctions don't need to be made, and that's true - but need or no, I'd prefer it if they were. Having the animals seamlessly integrated into human society would be... well, boring and unreasonable, in my eyes. Setting up the contrast of pasoral, nature-loving, don't-need-any-of-this-fancy-technology-'cos-the-forest-gives-us-everything-we-need furries and the yay-lets-all-live-in-cities-and-talk-on-cellphones humans is a good source of depth. If you're not going to make any distinction between the species AT ALL besides the fact that one's got fur all over and one hasn't, then you may as well continue down the route Sega's going now and just totally ignore the furry civilization, as their inclusion won't actually ADD anything in a worldbuilding sense.

Also, it occurs to me that there weren't no humans in Pachacamac's city. Where's the integration NOW? (Err... by which I mean "then")

[Blazey Firekitty]

Also, Ix = Finitevus = DOCTOR ZACHARY. Fleetway ftw.

I personally think Zachary gets points for being the only echidna mad scientist who has a fairly modest sounding name instead one meant to be all flash.

The animals aren't some ancient tribe or anything like that- They're as modern and, yes, even as "materialistic" as their human neighbors.

I think your points make perfect sense Gordo(With the possible exception of Knuckles), but I am sort of amused at the notion of Amy's casual teenage outfit in actuality being some sort of ancient ritual costume.

[Blacklightning]

Also, it occurs to me that there weren't no humans in Pachacamac's city. Where's the integration NOW? (Err... by which I mean "then")

There weren't any hedgehogs either. Or foxes... or birds... or any other species, really. This is kind of null point considering the city itself consisted of a single clan - it's a bit like saying it's wierd that most African tribal communities don't have any white people (no racism intended).

[Water Colours]

The amount of humans makes me wonder though, how small is the population of talking animals? I'm not proposing more characters (God no!) but just random animals around who basically serve the same purpose as humans in the games. Is it some kind of specism can't animals live among humans. I have a dream people!

[Tori Himemiya]

I'm ok with humans in Sonic. They give something to do and be pretty good if they're well written like Unleashed. But I just don't like the ones who give really bad and confusing directions. The best example of this is the boy with the lost dog in 06. I went in the direction he pointed and I never found a dog. D:

Oh and where would be if Sonic had something else as a villian like a chipmonk or a rabbit. Then no one will take it seriously. This is why Eggman makes such a good heel. It's because he's human he considers himself better than everyone else and trys to take over the place. Oh gosh Eggman, you need to be more playable in the main games so it would be epic.

Oh and we need more the furries. Just random furries kind of like what Conker's Bad Fur Day had. You had to do a lot for a bunch of anthrophmorpic(sp?) objects and animals.

Edited October 19, 2009 by U N Owen was Wei

[Bubonic Bunny]

My main gripe about the humans is that at sometimes they out shadow the nonhuman characters. I love humans populating cities and interacting with sonic when the time comes but wouldn't it be nice to have places just populated with animal characters again? Going all they way back to that old Saturday morning cartoon, they featured this with knothole. It was always one of my favorite part of the shows seeing the gang of "freedom fighters" interact with each other. Everything felt more personal when it was them interacting with animals, other then humans. They also would run into other civilizations of animals. I believe one episode they found this underground place with some sort of things.

But anyways, humans are great but they need to reintroduce animal civilizations. Humans are getting a bit boring.

[redmenace]

Don't let my avatar and penchant for a crueller, darker Eggman fool you - all my SatAM / Archie knowledge is second hand.

You say in the game societal distinctions don't need to be made, and that's true - but need or no, I'd prefer it if they were. Having the animals seamlessly integrated into human society would be... well, boring and unreasonable, in my eyes. Setting up the contrast of pasoral, nature-loving, don't-need-any-of-this-fancy-technology-'cos-the-forest-gives-us-everything-we-need furries and the yay-lets-all-live-in-cities-and-talk-on-cellphones humans is a good source of depth. If you're not going to make any distinction between the species AT ALL besides the fact that one's got fur all over and one hasn't, then you may as well continue down the route Sega's going now and just totally ignore the furry civilization, as their inclusion won't actually ADD anything in a worldbuilding sense.

Also, it occurs to me that there weren't no humans in Pachacamac's city. Where's the integration NOW? (Err... by which I mean "then")

Uhm, I do believe there are clusters of animals like you describe. This can explain why we haven't seen any besides the regular cast, since the stories are in civilized places, but I don't like this opposite sides for animals and humans. I don't see how making them having black and white values on what life should be is deeper then all of them thinking the same. It's the cliché nature VS technology, black and white, right or wrong.

I much prefer to think that there are animals who like to cluster in forests and there are those that venture through cities or lived there all their life. Sonic, Tails, Amy, Shadow and Rouge just to name a few are examples of the latter and I think them having the choice of doing whatever with their life is far more deep than just making them sterotypes of their "races".

It bothers me this humans are evil and animals are good mentality of some people (I'm not saying you fit into this, you don't). It makes sense in our world, where animals are irrational (though there are some cruel things in nature that are often overlooked) and therefore not able to do much harm to the planet, but not in the Sonic series, where animals are very "human" besides their animal design. And no, I wouldn't like Sonic to have some kind of PETA activist behaviour either. God save us from that concept.

Edited October 19, 2009 by redmenace

[Phos]

This situation reminds me of a Farside comic.