One True Blue Canon (the "Everything Happened" theory)

[Moose the Cat]

Hello.

I am not a fan of the idea that "Modern" and "Classic" Sonic are two different individuals, or that other Sonic stories couldn't basically all co-exist with a little bit of fudging. As it is now, there are multiple different versions of the Sonic "canon" that detail which events "actually" happened in the character's ongoing continuity. I think it's boring/confusing/unnecessary to have different versions of Sonic exist as alternate universes, rather than simply being the same Sonic in different periods of time.

The reality is, too, that most of the Sonic stories -- games, animation, comics -- aren't directly at odds. There is the possibility that everything could have the Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik fix — where both versions are true, simultaneously. You just have to fudge it a bit. Another example is the post-reboot Archie verse under Flynn. They did a great job of what I'm talking about, bridging so many gaps between conflicting versions of the stories/characters/tones/styles, and coming away with a new whole that makes everything more harmonious. 

About ten years ago, Grant Morrison wrote an epic long run on the Batman comics that had a brilliant approach to continuity — essentially Everything Counted, and Everything Happened. Instead of old pre-Crisis Batman stories not being canon, everything was back in play. The idea was simply that this extraordinary individual, Batman, has an extraordinary backstory with a lot of different adventures. He began dark and alone using questionable methods. When he adopted the first Robin, life was like that Adam West '60s Batman show for awhile — goofy, weird, a little psychedelic. Then he became dark after the death of Jason Todd, and a non-stop series of difficult losses like Knightfall, No Man's Land, and so on, and in Morrison's present-day story, Batman has to come to terms with the totality and holistic nature of his being and move forward as a more complete person. 

The first thing to accept with EC/EH continuity is that for everything to fit, you need to do some squinting... everything happened, but the way things were portrayed in the old media won't line up with later media, and you need to fill in some of the gaps and resolve contradictions yourself. If you go back to watch the Adam West Batman, and then Batman The Animated Series and then Batman v Superman, obviously they are different universes, but you can also track a larger meta-timeline and imagine it all working as one, more or less. (Morrison's continuity idea was also known as Hypertime, which suggests that EC/EH but only provided it's actually relevant to the current story)

The upside is that this framing makes "out of continuity" or "alternate universe" stories more fun to revisit, as you try to imagine how this could possibly co-exist alongside other aspects of the Sonic world, rather than just dismissing it as something completely different. 

...

Okay. Now the thread is about our attempts, together, to make everything fit together. It will require a bit of creativity. But I have faith in this community to make it work. I'll start us with something to work off of. 

(Update 4/10 — I intended this for be to more collaborative than it's been so far, and still encourage any readers to participate in helping to flesh things out. Pointing out inconsistencies is fine, but pitching an idea of how to fix is better. Regardless of how you engage, I appreciate your input and will give each reply consideration and take it into account. Either way, I will complete at least this second pass before deciding what to do next. 

A couple of replies have expressed a basic opposition to the concept, in general, and that's fine too; I hear you. I'll have a fuller reply coming soon to why I think EC/EH not only makes more sense than the alternative for Sonic in particular, and also as a framework to view any fandom in general. Stay tuned!)

 

One True Blue Timeline 

 

Continuing on! Updated a few things from the last post (like Mobini) and added in a results summary below each section. For now I've taken to reformatting the subheads as different "Quest"s, though I still don't think that's quite the right wording or framing. Maybe "Game" or "Series" but that's confusing because there would be multiple games and series within that. Like if this were a series of novels or films instead of a bunch of different media, each Quest would be one novel or film, like the Harry Potter series for example, with the games/cartoons forming the contents within. 

Is this all a huge waste of time?

My friends, if we start asking those kinds of questions on a message board based around a mascot character explicitly intended for children, we may never recover. This is very obviously a gigantic waste of time. But we can all waste our time however we want.

So enjoy the Phantom Ruby ride through the x-treme Adventures of Sonic Mania Forces Generations Heroes Underground Unleashed Adventure 2: Battle X 3D Blast & Knuckles the Fighters CD, written by creators from Sega, Sonic Team, Dimps, DiC, Archie Comics, IDW, the OVA, Paramount, and more. 

PROLOGUE — THE BEGINNING

• Headcanon: A blue Hedgehog is born to Jules & Bernadette on a small island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean many thousands of years in the future from the 21st century. The planet formerly known as Earth is now known as Mobius, and human beings are no longer the only intelligent species. The talking life forms that look like cartoon animals are collectively known as Mobians, though within that classification there are many different races, including Hedgehogs and also many others. 
• Headcanon: The upcoming travels between Earth and Mobius are actually a journey through time, not space, unbeknownst to the characters.
• Headcanon: Jules & Bernie leave their only son in the care of their neighbor, Longclaw the Owl, while the Hedgehogs travel to the mainland city of Mobotropolis where Jules' brother Charles lives. When the Hedgehogs never return, and Longclaw raises the child under her protection on South Island. 
• Headcanon: Longclaw lives in the same community as Old Man Owl. Birds and owls are the most populous species on South Island, although other species of Mobians and Mobini (unevolved animals) live there, too. 
• Headcanon: Sonic is not the name he was assigned at birth. When Jules & Bernie drop him off with Longclaw, they only refer to him as "our son" before they must depart. The name was born on the day that this Hedgehog took his first steps, which turned into a jog, then a sprint, and a run so energetic that he broke the sound barrier. This is also what made Old Man Owl lose his hearing! It's unknown who first called him "Sonic" — but once Sonic heard this name, he instinctively knew it was his. When he told Longclaw that was his name with some of his first words, the request stuck and Sonic the Hedgehog came into existence.
• Headcanon: As a toddler with Longclaw, Baby Sonic loves to run and chase Flickies and other birds. Without any other Hedgehogs around, Baby Sonic comes to think of himself almost as a bird, envying their freedom and speed, and develops a deep affection for both birds and flying.

Major Ongoing Addition:

1. The fastest thing alive, the blue blur, the legendary hero Sonic the Hedgehog is born.

QUEST I — THE TWO WORLDS

• Sonic the Hedgehog (2020 movie) — Baby Sonic is forced to flee to Earth via warp ring when his unusually high speed attracts the attention of a power-hungry tribe of echidnas.  Sonic grows up in Green Hills, Montana, in hiding and without any friends. His personality is formed through pop culture, which is how he develops "an attitude." He befriends Tom Wachowski and his family. He attracts the attention of Dr. Ivo Robotnik, who Sonic nicknames "Eggman." After battling Robotnik, Sonic and Tom use a warp ring to banish him to a distant planet. Though Sonic's goal was to warp himself back to his homeworld, he prefers to have friends instead, and stays with Tom and his wife Maddie on Earth. 
• Headcanon: Sonic learns that his homeworld is now under attack by Robotnik. Sonic uses a Warp Ring to return to Mobius and Longclaw's home on South Island. 
• Headcanon: Power Rings are by-products of the Warp Rings. If you see Power Rings in the world, it usually means you're not far from a Warp Ring. Power Rings provide the user with additional power in terms of vitality. Both Sonic and Eggman quickly learns to follow the rings when they're searching for Emeralds. Eggman uses Power Rings to cheat the science in many of his creations, which is partly why they often fall apart so easily.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (1991 game) — Dr. Robotnik has, in seemingly no time at all, established a factory base and a fleet of badniks to on South Island, using baby animals (Mobini) to power the machines. Perhaps due to his interdimensional space travels, Eggman has either lost his mind, or gained an extra 100 points in IQ, depending on your perspective. He uses his machines to search for the legendary Chaos Emerald that supposedly reside within South Island. Sonic foils his plans by defeating Robotnik's machines and gathering the gemstones before he can. Shortly after being collected, the Emeralds scatter away like repelling magnets.

Major Ongoing Additions:

1. Sonic gains an arch-nemesis in Dr. "Eggman" Robotnik who first demonstrates his ambition for ultimate power and a willingness to enslave animals to power his Badniks. 

2. Sonic gains the ability to travel through dimensions with Warp Rings, usually to a pocket dimension where the powerful, mysterious Chaos Emeralds tend to hide. Sonic learns to power up with Power Rings.

3. Sonic learns to value friendship more than anything after a literally alienated childhood.

QUEST II — FRIENDS FROM HOME

• SegaSonic the Hedgehog — Robotnik successfully captures and imprisons Sonic on his new island base, along with Mighty the Armadillo and Ray the Flying Squirrel. Making fast friends, the three escape the prison and confront Eggman in his tower. Robotnik tries to blow up the island to rid himself of Sonic, but Sonic and his new pals escape and Robotnik is left stranded in the ocean. 
• Headcanon: Mighty and Ray warn Sonic to stay away from the capital city, where Robotnik seems to have gathered power in a coup. Unclear of how Eggman could've accomplished this (and so fast), Sonic heads into the heart of danger toward Robotropolis. Along the way, he meets a pair of hedgehogs named Manic and Sonia who claim to be Sonic's siblings. Based on all their similarities, including names, Sonic has no reason not to believe this.
• Sonic Underground — Sonic learns that their mother is Queen Aleena, who ruled Mobotropolis before Robotnik took over. She abandoned her children because of a prophecy she received from the Oracle of Delphius, and now the three Hedgehogs must find her to restore the kingdom to defeat Robotnik. Sonic also meets his Uncle Chuck, who is roboticized but retains his real personality.
• Headcanon: After rescuing Aleena, it's revealed that the prophecy was a lie. The Oracle of Delphius is, in fact, Ixis Naugus, and was manipulating these events for reasons unclear to Sonic. Furthermore, Aleena was never queen — she was just led to believe so by Ixis's spell, which also impacted others' perception of her. Once Aleena is safe, Uncle Chuck reveals that she is his wife, and Manic and Sonia are his children, and actually Sonic's cousins. Chuck first began developing the roboticizer to help Aleena when she first became ill, but eventually turned toward The Oracle for help. Both decisions obviously backfired. Sonic asks Uncle Chuck if his parents are still alive, and Chuck tells him they didn't survive Robotnik's takeover. Sonic wants to give Robotnik payback, and Chuck tells him where to find Knothole.
• Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog — Sonic meets Miles Prower on Westside Island and gives him the nickname "Tails." They quickly become a dynamic duo. Sonic & Tails regularly embarrass Robotnik's badniks, especially Scratch, Grounder, and Coconuts. 
• Headcanon: Sonic brings Tails to Knothole as a way to find a permanent home for the orphan, which is why Tails takes to calling Sally his "aunt." Before long, Sonic will realize Tails is his closest friend and feels like a true brother, moreso than even his time with Manic. 
• Sonic the Hedgehog (1993 series; SatAM) / Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics, pre-Endgame) —  Sonic, Tails, and Uncle Chuck settle in Knothole. Uncle Chuck opens a chili dog stand as a way to try to show some normalcy to the kids and residents away from Robotropolis. Sonic & Tails join the Freedom Fighters: Princess Sally Acorn, Antoine D'Coolette, and Rotor the Walrus. Chuck uses his roboticizer to help save Bunnie Rabbit's life from an injury, showing how the device was originally intended to be used; her new cybernetic limbs are a big advantage in the fight against Robotnik. We learn that the real ruler of Robotroplis was King Acorn, Sally's father, who has been banished to an alternate dimension. Sonic's had some practice and he's ready for the challenge. Sonic becomes temporarily fixated with phrases like "Juicin'!" and "Way past cool!".
• Headcanon: Knothole and other "free lands" like South Island and elsewhere are part of the "Land of the Sky" and Robotropolis/the ruins of old earth are in the "Land of Darkness" like the OVA. (This explains why SatAM looks much darker than AoSTH). 
• Headcanon: Robotnik was able to overthrow Mobotropolis from Metropolis and establish himself as a despot via time travel with the Phantom Ruby. More on the logistics of that in a bit when we catch up to it.
• Headcanon: Eggman's ability to industrialize quickly is partly because this world is alien to him; there aren't as many organized human societies prepared to oppose him on Mobius as there are on Modern Earth. Robotnik views Sonic and the Mobians racistly, as an inferior species living on an abominable freak show world, and approaches like a colonizer. He sees the opportunity to capitalize with these unusual power source gems. So he has no hesitation to capitalize on being the first human to build on Mobian land, cynically terraforming the land with self-duplicating Egg Robos, Egg Drones and SWATBots powered by the unusual natural resources, like polluting the ocean to slightly increase the speed of his factories.
• Headcanon: Many of Eggman's factories are dedicated to building robots who can build factories that build robots that build factories that build robot factories.
• Headcanon: Sonic is 12 years old during the events of the 2020 Movie. He's 13 during Sonic Underground and AoSTH. He's 14 at the beginning of SatAM and 15 by the end and into Archie.
• Headcanon: Oh, and Sonic sounds like Urkel because he's... basically going through puberty in this time period. It's an awkward time and he's kind of chubby and not as cool as he likes to think when he says "juicin" for the twentieth time that day. Obviously Sonic is undiagnosed but be honest, he's probably on the spectrum. He's definitely obsessive compulsive, almost certainly ADHD, and a bit of a narcissist. His relationship to Eggman defines his life's purpose, so he's also co-dependent. Sonic isn't asexual, as he has shown romantic interest in Sally Acorn, but ultimately, he loves freedom and friendship more. It's hard to see Sonic ever settling down in any kind of long-term monogamy, but on the other hand, we only really know Sonic during his teenage years. It's possible that by middle age, as in Mobius 25 Years Later, Sonic will return to Knothole to live as King with Queen Sally and everyone has families and it's kind of deliriously dull but somewhat charming in a weird trashy way, a bit like the timeskip epilogue in Harry Potter. M25YL works well enough with "Everything Happened, Everything Counted" because other stories haven't bothered to show Sonic going on 40... he names his children after his step-siblings, Sonia and Manik. The older "Sonic Underground" version of Sonia, Manik, Aleena, Chuck, Jules, Bernie, maybe Really Old Man Owl would've all returned for the big dinner parties with Knuckles and his Archie family and so on. Yeah why not. It doesn't matter either way. The overall story of Sonic is like a G.O.A.T. athlete in his teen and prime years, who's life is completely devoted to the game (beating Robotnik) and otherwise chilling and relaxing. Every 
• Headcanon: Welcome to the next level. Sonic's agility increases, resulting in longer and more athletic spin attacks. Robotnik becomes more cruel, ambitious, and obsessed with defeating Sonic.

Major Ongoing Additions:

1. Sonic makes his first furry friends, including his best friend, Miles "Tails" Prower, and a number of new acquaintances like Mighty and Ray.

2. Robotnik demonstrates his ability to quickly industrialize (especially on planets alien to him; he has the fewest bases on Modern Earth, as we see later in Adventure 1/2/X), establishing Robotropolis as the capitol Metropolis of his burgeoning Eggman Empire.

3. The Knothole Freedom Fighters led by Princess Sally Acorn welcome Sonic and Tails to join them in the organized war against Dr. Robotnik. 

QUEST III — THE DEATH EGG SAGA

• Headcanon:  Tails is the inventor of the Spin Dash. He learns to spin fast from running with Sonic in SatAM and AoSTH, then comes up with a way to charge the spin in place before shooting forward. Tails actually teaches the Spin Dash to Sonic, although because of Tails low confidence and Sonic's narcissism, they both later tend to inaccurately remember it the other way around. Tails will struggle with confidence issues from now until later in the story. 
• Sonic the Hedgehog 2 — Sonic and Tails spin dash through the hills and caves of Westside Island in pursuit of the 7 Chaos Emeralds before Eggman can get his hands on them; the intel is he wants them to power a new weapon. The island's ruins suggest an ancient civilization that once  Of course. So they pursue him through his expanding factories, like Chemical Plant, and the horror of Oil Ocean as they fight into the Metropolis known as Robotropolis. Eggman flees to his airship, so Tails flies Sonic in a sky chase where Sonic boards Eggman's flying fortress, but Tails' plane, the Tornado, is shot down. Sonic sneaks aboard Eggman's ride to the Death Egg, where he meets the first robot Sonic — Silver Sonic. He's slow and stupid. Eggman's Death Egg Robot mech inside the Death Egg airship is overkill, but Sonic patiently waits for Robotnik to finish his impotent fit before destroying everything with a few spin attacks. The Death Egg's space dock explodes, sending the gigantic airship plummeting down onto a Floating Island. Tails and Mobinis like the Flickies watch the fireworks, then Tails takes to the skies in the repaired, now jet powered, Tornado bi-plane where he expertly catches Sonic like they'd done it a million times. Sonic, having collected the 7 Emeralds, achieves an advanced form: Super Sonic. Dreams come true!
• Sonic 3 & Knuckles (Sonic/Tails Campaign): Sonic & Tails pursue the Death Egg's crash site to capture Robotnik. They discover an island they don't remember being there before, Angel Island, and the moment Super Sonic runs up from the beach, he's ambushed by Knuckles the Echidna with a punch that scatters his Emeralds. Knuckles collects them and runs off, using Warp Rings to toss them into the island's Special Zones for temporary safekeeping while he works to thwart Sonic's progress to what he assumes is a run toward the Master Emerald. Sonic & Tails don't know what that is, they're trying to reach Eggman. Tossing Knuckles aside at Eggman's Launch Base, Sonic blows up the Death Egg's launch take off, sending the ship crashing face-first into Red Volcano, down into the Lava Reef. Sonic & Tails witness Knuckles exiting a hidden Warp Ring, which takes them to the Hidden Palace's shrine for the Master Emerald. Reacting to the 7 Chaos Emeralds, the Emeralds are upgraded into a Super form with each activation by acquiring them through special zones as before. After more run around with Robotnik's machines and airships, Sonic & Knuckles finally go head to head later in the chambers of the Hidden Palace. Eggman takes advantage of the chaos to steal the Master Emerald, which he uses to finally repower the Death Egg. Knuckles realizes he was tricked, and with his last breaths, he helps Sonic and Tails to the Sky Sanctuary where they manage to board the Death Egg as it takes off. Sonic and Tails work through the airship to confront Eggman's Death Egg Robot mech. The Death Egg airship is destroyed again, plummeting finally into the ocean, as Super Sonic goes Hyper to pursue the mech in the Doomsday Zone through the flying debris. Robotnik's last machine is destroyed, and Hyper Sonic grabs the Master Emerald. Rescued again by Tails in the bi-plane, they return the Master Emerald to Knuckles, who waves a grateful, exhausted goodbye. 
• Sonic Spinball — Sonic and Tails fly aboard the Tornado into Eggman's pinball volcano base and Sonic destroys it.
• Sonic & Tails (Sonic Chaos & Sonic Triple Trouble) — Sonic and Tails continue to follow and counter each of Robotnik's ongoing efforts to acquire the Chaos Emeralds and power his Death Egg. Along the way, Sonic bumps into Knuckles again, who only gives him grief, and Fang, aka Nack the Weasel, a sniper, bounty hunter, thief, and overall scoundrel. Sonic and Tails save the day and defeat Eggman and Fang and Knuckles is again embarrassed.
• Knuckles in Sonic 2  / Headcanon— Knuckles travels back in time with the power of the Master Emerald, and retraces Sonic's steps that led him to Angel Island. This allows him to empathize with Sonic, and regrets punching the Chaos Emeralds out of his hands, especially after Sonic flies him and rescues him in the Tornado bi-plane. As with Sonic Mania's & Knuckles option, after the events of Knuckles in Sonic 2, he would actually begin his S3K campaign by getting punched by himself, off-screen before Angel Island Act 1. There is seemingly an "& Knuckles" paradox to the universe, a weird wrinkle in the timestream, caused by his relationship to the Master Emerald. It allows Knuckles to exist outside of himself to be like a physical version of a spirit form. Although Knuckles insists this happens to him, most people laugh at him and think he's just dreaming. 
• Sonic 3 & Knuckles (Knuckles Campaign)  / Headcanon— Knuckles traces Sonic's path through Angel Island to take on an advanced Egg Robo using Eggman's old machines and the leftover badniks still roaming around. When Knuckles arrives to close the timeloop by finding the Master Emerald in the Hidden Palace, he finds it isn't there. Instead, it's in the Sky Sanctuary, where it's been taken by Mecha Sonic, an advanced version of the Silver Sonic design who charges on the Master Emerald. The Floating Island teeters uncertainly, but Knuckles skillfully defeats Super Mecha Sonic and returns Angel Island to the correct altitude. He catches a lift from Sonic in the Tornado bi-plane, again, but Knuckles ends up still confused about how to feel about Sonic. He literally walked/spindashed miles in Sonic's shoes... Tikal's way of teaching empathy through the Master Emerald ... but because of Mecha Sonic, part of Knuckles still views Sonic with suspicion, and wonders if he would ever be a real threat to the security of Angel Island or the Master Emerald. Sonic might not be bad, but he sure brings trouble with him.
• Headcanon: After use, the Chaos Emeralds scatter and warp to Special Zones, which is like a bed or a cave for the Chaos Emerald to reset after draining its power. This transfer is conducted by the controller, the Master Emerald, which is in fact being guided by Tikal's spirit, who cares for the Chaos Emeralds as though they had feelings. Later, after Tikal escapes the Master Emerald in Sonic Adventure, the Emeralds no longer hide in Special Zones, because they don't have Tikal in the Master Emerald protecting them from harmful collectors. That responsibility is passed to Knuckles, who is oblivious of this for awhile. Knuckles is very good at finding hidden gems, but he's not good at hiding them. It's why Sonic more easily acquires the Emeralds without Warp Rings from Sonic Adventure forward; because Knuckles isn't hiding them with the power of the Master Emerald, because it's a process that used to be automated. 
• Headcanon: Chaos Emeralds contain the souls of dead Chao. Each Chaos Emerald contains a universe of ghost Chao who correspond to the color. 

Major Ongoing Additions:

1. Sonic's friendly rival Knuckles the Echidna lives on the Floating Island, Angel Island, held aloft by the power of the Master Emerald; Knuckles is the Guardian of both the Island and the Emeralds. He's got the strongest punch in the world, but he's easily manipulated by Dr. Eggman into unwittingly helping his schemes. 

2. Dr. Robotnik builds the Death Egg, a space station doomsday device but needs more power from the Emeralds to make it functional. 

3. With the power of all 7 Chaos Emeralds and 50 Power Rings, Sonic can become a super-powered being of pure energy called Super Sonic before the Emeralds run out of power and need to reset again with 50 Rings.

...

THE EGGMAN EMPIRE HATCHES

• Sonic OVA  — Sonic is back on South Island for a vacation with Tails, when he's bothered by the old man owl neighbor to visit the President and Princess Sara, who've been taken hostage by Eggman and his SWATbots. Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles travel to Robotropolis/Land of Darkness and meet Metal Sonic for the first time.
• Sonic CD / Sonic Mania / Sonic 4— Although seemingly defeated, Sonic CD intro shows Sonic tracking Eggman to Little Planet and pursues Metal Sonic and rescues Amy Rose, who returns later to rejoin Sonic permanently. Mania also deals with time travel displacement, and Sonic 4 continues the fight against Metal and a new Death Egg.
• Eggman jumps through time and basically pulls off Biff's plot from Back to the Future 2 successfully. So when Sonic arrived back on Mobius in Sonic 1, it was already the "wrong future" but present day, like the Wrong 1985 in BTTF 2. This is how Robotnik was able to establish Archie/OVA/SatAM Robotropolis seemingly overnight following Sonic Movie and Sonic 1... overthrowing the Kingdom of Acorn and everything else.... time travel!
• Sidequests — Sonic 3D Blast, Sonic R, and Knuckles Chaotix are sometime around Sonic 4.

ENDGAME: THE QUIET PERIOD

• Archie Sonic (Endgame&beyond), Archie Knuckles— As Sonic battles alongside the Knothole Freedom Fighters, Robotnik nearly wins in Mecha Madness... until Knuckles returns again to save the day. Robotnik creates an Ultimate Nullifier but ultimately nullifies himself. Hooray? Now that Robotnik has vanished (vaporized, or time traveled), the adventures become increasingly convoluted as Sonic gets wrapped in rebuilding Mobotropolis and the whole drama surrounding the Kingdom of Acorn. Knuckles deals with some odd family history and the return of a city called Echidnaopolis. They fight enemies like Nack "Fang" the Weasel, Mammoth Mogul, Enerjak and Ixis Naugus. 
• This is basically the mid-90s Ken Penders era as one big long sidequest that doesn't amount to a lot in the long run... because we're now leaving Sonic's World!

WELCOME TO EARTH (THE SECOND TRIAL)

• Sonic X / Nintendo Sonic— Eggman returns to Mobius with a vengeance but in the battle Sonic and friends are warped to Earth (where Eggman and Sonic previously lived), and many adventures ensue. Unlike his first trip to earth, Sonic becomes world famous for his heroics, and Robotnik becomes a worldwide villain. The cast now includes Shadow, Rouge, Cream, Big, Comet, Gemerl, the Wave Riders, etc. 
• Sonic Adventure — We learn more about the Echidnas and the Master Emerald. We meet the Chao, the Sonic-verse's adorable midicholorians for chaos energy. Robotnik wants a new Robotropolis, now renamed Eggmanland, established on his home planet. Station Square is destroyed by Perfect Chaos until Sonic opens his heart.
• Sonic Adventure 2 — We learn that Robotnik's grandfather tried to invent Sonic before he was born, by following the study of chaos energy (which is why Bio-lizard, resembling Perfect Chaos, was the prototype for the Ultimate Life Form before a Hedgehog). 
• Eggman blows up Earth's moon!! This doesn't get much reference after SA2, but then again, a lot of the upcoming games return to Mobius/Sonic's World. A fun perk of "Everything Happened" comes here — by blowing up the moon, Robotnik dooms Earth's climate change to be even more disastrous and apocalyptic, accelerating the destruction that will eventually shape the planet into becoming Mobius, and ultimately creating the lifeform known as Sonic. (And perhaps also at some point a gene bomb from an alien race also destroys Earth, but I think there were many apocalypses).
• The Sonic 2020 movie opens with the Knuckles Clan of the Echidna Tribe attacking Sonic's owl guardian Longclaw. We know they are interested in Chaos power. The Echidnas saw baby Sonic, recognized his chaos power, then they saw Robotnik arrive on South Island, and they created the murals we see in Hidden Palace accurately forecasting the events of S3K. Professor Gerald Robotnik somehow found the murals -- perhaps in his search for chaos power, he once chaos-control warped to the Hidden Palace on Mobius, saw those, and then returned to Earth, inspired to create the Ultimate Life Form).
• Similar to the First Trial of the Death Egg saga, Sonic and friends again "level up" after these adventures on Earth. 
• Sidequests — Sonic Advance, Sonic Battle, Sonic Shuffle, Sonic Riders, whatever else I'm forgetting. 

ANCIENT ALIENS

• Sonic X (season 3) / Sonic Heroes— Sonic and Eggman and everyone return to Mobius. Cosmo and the Metarex story unfolds. Afterwards, it's implied Eggman knows what happened after Shadow disappeared in the final battle, he contains him under the guard of one of his old E-100 robots, cue Sonic Heroes.
• Dark Brotherhood / Shadow the Hedgehog / Archie Sonic (Bollers/Flynn pre-reboot) —Ancient Echidnas. Black Arms. Xorda. Clones. Metallix. Sir Connery blows up the Crown of Acorns. Shadow finds answers, kind of.

THE PRINCESS RESETS 

• Sonic '06 / Sonic Rush / Super Genesis Wave (Archie reboot) — Princess Elise kisses Sonic back to life. The Sol Emeralds must be kept away from Eggman Nega. None of it really matters, and in the end, no one exactly remembers... but we know Sonic helped saved some princesses from the end of the world, and stopped Eggman. Sonic meets Silver and Blaze in his multi-dimensional travels, and becomes solid bros with his new psychic/pyrrhic pals.
• Sidequests — Secret Rings, Black Knight.

EGGMAN WINS! (THE THIRD TRIAL)

• Sonic Unleashed Eggman blows up planet Mobius by awakening the Dark Gaia. Sonic meets Chip, who is actually the Light Gaia. In other words, Robotnik finally caused the apocalypse on Mobius, and Sonic uses godly & ungodly powers to restore it. 
• Sonic Colors Eggman enslaves a planet of Wisps for financial gain.
• Sonic Lost World Eggman takes over another planet, Tails has a panic attack. I don't really remember other than Robotnik makes some new kinda boring friends.
• Sonic Generations It makes sense that "modern" Sonic has become more powerful over time... the difference in his appearance (taller, slimmer, longer quills) indicates both growth from age, but also, he's been exposed to the Chaos Emeralds more than any being anywhere! The line between Super Sonic and Sonic blurs further with each activation, it seems. We may never know the upper limit of his abilities! But it's fun to look back and see the progression... or regression, in Eggman's case. Haha, everyone wins, the end.
• Sonic Forces — And then Sonic loses to Eggman's newest ally, Infinite. Robotnik captures Sonic and successfully takes over Mobius. But, lo and behold, all of the friends Sonic has made along the way, all of the kingdoms he's fought for until this point, unite for a worldwide Resistance team. It's not hard to imagine the full extended universe cast, the Freedom Fighters, Princess Sara, Tangle and Whisper, etc, being among the crowd fighting in the last scenes in Forces.
• IDW Sonic — The adventures in "present day." Eggman was soundly defeated but now he's infecting the entire planet of Mobius with a metal virus. It's possible that Robotnik could, once again, rule over the world with a metal fist while Sonic fights for freedom.

POST-MODERN SONIC: EGGMAN LOSES!

• Sonic Boom — This is basically adult "fully leveled up" Sonic... this is the furthest in the future we've seen so far, I think, because the world is peaceful, Eggman is contained to being a rude neighbor than a real threat, and because Sonic's arms are blue again. Blue arms is Sonic with, like, a beard. He grows fur on his arms naturally, but when he's doing a lot of intense adventuring (ie, in the games/comics), he likes to keep them bare. It's a runner's thing. He had furry arms as a baby, and as a kid in the movie. So he cut it as a teenager. And as an adult hanging out on an island with his friends, he's letting it grow natural. Knuckles looks different/taller, because they're older.  I like to think this actually takes place on Prison Island, and Eggman's base is actually his containment and Sonic & friends are hanging out together to keep watch over him, like a giant toddler they all have to share annoyingly. Sonic & friends have more gear on because they're more experienced and have got beating Eggman down to basic science.
• The Distant Future — Silver, etc. 

 

—As you can see, it's mostly chronological with the exception of Movie and Boom book-ending the whole span of however many years you'd want to quantify.

—I think every single Sonic media has included the basic fact that Sonic can magically travel worlds and dimensions and does so with regularity. This allows for all of the various settings and expanded universe characters to still remain "in existence" even if they are no longer relevant.

—Sonic/Tails/Knuckles have different allies in different places, but it's always the same fight, and they are the core friends.

—I'm not familiar enough with Sonic the Comic to know how it would fit, exactly, but I suspect probably alongside the Archie periods. 

—It's possible that Archie / StC / OVA / games are different worlds that Sonic travels between, but I think it makes more sense that they're simply all on the same planet. There are floating islands, humans and Mobians and Robotropolis and different kingdoms and presidents and rulers.

—The "two worlds" aren't just "Sonic's World and Our World"... it's exponential. There are so many "tale of two worlds" going on in these stories. The Land of the Sky and the Land of Darkness (OVA). Knothole and Robotropolis (Archie/SatAM). Mobius and Earth (Sonic X). Mystic Ruins and Angel Island (S3K, SA). The 'real world' zones and the special stages, etc.

 

Anyway.

Thanks for reading.

What do you think?

Edited April 11, 2020 by Moose the Cat
I've incorporated suggestions from feedback in thread

[SatAMhog]

Aaron Webber has outright stated that it's better to think "EVERYTHING is canon." and just leave it at that.  I tend to agree with the man.  As for creating a timeline that melds everything together...I applaud your effort man.   It's like trying to meld all Zelda timelines together and having them make sense...it's a growing futile effort but hey, if someone like yourself can make it work and it make complete sense, then major kudos.   Though, to make Knuckles look like he does in Boom, a lot of Genesis Waves would have to happen...

[Big Panda]

This is an admireable effort, and I can see you put a lot of effort into this.

But it just doesn’t work.

There are way too many things across different media that contradict each other to the point that it’s just impossible to reconcile.

Don’t get me wrong, I fully understand what exactly you’re trying to do here. I know nothing about Batman, but I am part of another fandom which has a very similar outlook on the definition of “canon”.

The only way you could potentially implement the “everything is canon” mindset is if you focus on ONLY the games and nothing else.

[Diogenes]

I just don't see the point of these kinds of things. You mash together a bunch of different versions with radically different settings, events, casts, characterizations, etc...to what end? What's a completed timeline actually do for you? Can't give you new insight into the series, since you're changing things to make it all fit. No official works are going to follow it so it's not a guideline for understanding future works.

I'm not a fan of having a bunch of different versions of a character/series either, but if they already exist, I think they should be kept separate. Let them each stand (or fall) on their own merits, let them be their own experiences and send their own messages.

[Moose the Cat]

1 hour ago, SatAMhog said:

Aaron Webber has outright stated that it's better to think "EVERYTHING is canon." and just leave it at that.  I tend to agree with the man.  As for creating a timeline that melds everything together...I applaud your effort man.   It's like trying to meld all Zelda timelines together and having them make sense...it's a growing futile effort but hey, if someone like yourself can make it work and it make complete sense, then major kudos.   Though, to make Knuckles look like he does in Boom, a lot of Genesis Waves would have to happen...

That's cool, didn't know that. I think that's the right mindset. Ian Flynn has a similar-ish approach to IDW, although I know there's a bunch of restrictions on characters.

Knuckles in Boom makes sense if you assume it's like 10 years after the "present day." He's had a growth spurt. He's older and bigger. Somehow he's able to not worry about the master emerald. They've all relaxed and grown up.

1 hour ago, Diogenes said:

I just don't see the point of these kinds of things. You mash together a bunch of different versions with radically different settings, events, casts, characterizations, etc...to what end? What's a completed timeline actually do for you? Can't give you new insight into the series, since you're changing things to make it all fit. No official works are going to follow it so it's not a guideline for understanding future works.

I'm not a fan of having a bunch of different versions of a character/series either, but if they already exist, I think they should be kept separate. Let them each stand (or fall) on their own merits, let them be their own experiences and send their own messages.

The timeline is mostly chronological, and when you look at the franchise holistically, as everything counted for the character as well as for you as the audience/player, I think it does give you some new insights.

Mostly though it's just like an optional lens to view the franchise as the character, in a way. Throughout the different mediums and stories, there are clear recurring ideas and themes expressed in a variety of tones and experiences. But you as the reader/viewer/player have experienced more Sonic than Sonic has. But if you adjust your framework to separate as much of the line between the meta context and the content to just let it all exist as one relatively coherent thing. You see the series/character be very adaptable, go through growing pains, how certain ideas repeat -- Sonic saves a lot of princesses, as one specific. You can kind of even trace a broad, rough character arc for Sonic's ability to trust and rely on people, with the 2020 film as the beginning and Forces as the culmination of 29 years worth of adventuring with many different animal sidekicks.

It's not impossible that the IDW comics could re-incorporate Archie characters, or classic characters like Fang, or OVA characters, or even Sonic Underground characters. Flynn's done a great job in the past of making everything fit together pretty well. Obviously there are legal and corporate restrictions. I'm not saying it's likely, but stranger things have happened.

As for how it's useful — Sonic 2 and Sonic 1 were both re-released recently on Nintendo Switch. I've played these games countless times. As I was replaying for the millionth time I decided to do a slower run where I made sure to defeat each badnik in each level. "Sonic's a freedom fighter; we gotta catch 'em all."  It made it more fun to play an old game a new way, by remembering and reincorporating the "rebels vs empire" theme that's very present in Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 and even more so in Archie/SatAM/etc. You can imagine Sonic or Knuckles' "inner monologue" as you're playing however you want it to be, and the existing extra media gives you a framework to imagine this as part of a larger whole ... like rewatching a Star Wars movie and figuring out how to sync it with other SW media.

Also, with the distinct possibility of a Sonic 2 movie, there's an opportunity to stop the "Sonic's World" thing and call Sonic's world Mobius. If you're doing chili dogs, you might as well just call the planet what it is. 

There's also a lot of apocalypses, which is interesting.

OVA and Archie both make clear that Sonic's World is a post-apocalyptic future Earth. It's not hard to make OVA and Archie match up, we just haven't seen the South Island president or Princess Sara since then.

More apocalypses occur in Sonic Adventure, Sonic Unleashed, Archie Super Genesis Wave. 

It makes sense that Mobius would be terraformed the way it is, being shaped by many thousands of years of repeating big Climate Crises on what used to be modern Earth. It's basically like Planet of the Apes but instead of nukes, most of the planet was sunk into the ocean, and some civilizations fled into the sky. It fits with the other genre influences like Star Wars and Dragon Ball. 

 

Edit — Also, I think the term "Freedom Fighter" shouldn't have to be relegated to the Archie/SatAM dustbin. I'm fine if we never see those characters again (they more than had their time), but "Freedom Fighter" just sounds cool and should belong to Sonic and Tails, not duds like Antoine and Rotor. It sounds better and communicates motivation better than "Team Sonic."  Sonic has been fighting for animal freedom since day one. He and his friends are Freedom Fighters.

[Plasme]

People talk about the canon being unclear as if it's a modern thing, but I don't think Sonic Team ever cared about canon, with a few exceptions.

I mean, let's take Sonic 1 and Sonic 2. It's easy to overlook, but the transition from 1 into 2 is extremely jarring. At the end of Sonic 1, Eggman has been defeated and Sonic has restored life back to his homeland. You could easily take Sonic 1 as its own self-contained story and I kind of do. You could imagine how Eggman has rebuilt his empire in 2, but there's no explanation as for why Sonic lost the chaos emeralds and Tails is never introduced in game and just appears out of nowhere. It doesn't feel as though Sonic has gained a new friend since 1, but that you've entered a new timeline where Tails has just always been Sonic's friend. And yeah, the manual might try to mitigate it, but I'm talking about what's actually presented in game. In many ways Sonic 2 actually comes across as a reboot to me and it has almost nothing do with the story of Sonic 1.

Sonic 3 is different because there's a clear effort to connect it with Sonic 2. It takes place immediately after 2 and there's an actual reason as for why you lose the emeralds. The story is directly connected to 2 (Eggman is rebuilding the Death Egg). Knuckles is introduced in the story and doesn't just appear out of nowhere, as if he's always been around (as Tails is in 2). 

After Sonic 3, Sonic Team only cared about the canon when they felt like it. Sonic 3 and CD are kind of connected to Adventure, but Adventure 2 has so little to do with Sonic Adventure 1 that it is extremely jarring. In fact, I remember when I played the game as a kid that I was unsure how much the game was even connected to Adventure 1 until that scene where Rouge talks about Tails fighting Eggman in Station Square. But honestly, if you took that scene out, the two games are virtually completely unrelated.

And then you have stories getting retroactively rewritten (as is the case of Shadow the Hedgehog).

[Sonario]

I much prefer just headcanoning what's canon and what's not with no official "word of god" canon that overrides everything else and makes you wrong. Kinda like something I heard about Dragon Ball Z where it was said that Manga or Anime doesn't matter and you can just pick the canon you like best.

[DryLagoon]

43 minutes ago, Plasme said:

Adventure 2 has so little to do with Sonic Adventure 1 that it is extremely jarring. In fact, I remember when I played the game as a kid that I was unsure how much the game was even connected to Adventure 1 until that scene where Rouge talks about Tails fighting Eggman in Station Square. But honestly, if you took that scene out, the two games are virtually completely unrelated.

This is intentional. Despite being called Adventure 2 it's more of a self contained story than a direct sequel. The writer was completely different and wanted to do his own take on the series. I see Adventure 1 as ending on points of the classic era, mostly about Knuckles. So SA2 was more of kicking off a new era and this time focusing more on Eggman and the new characters.

As for this time line stuff it's not really possible to link. Maybe if you did one for English and Japanese. The manuals had some issues but for the most part questions were answered there. The Chaos Emeralds shoot off (dragonball style), Sonic and Eggman keep running into each other, Sonic meeting Tails, etc. The main difference that splits them apart is Sonic's world had humans, while Mobius doesn't. But a lot of this comes down to personal taste. I used to try to link Adventure and Classic as a kid before I realized Sonic was supposed to be the same age in both before it got retconned. (Did Generations mention Classic Sonic's age?) 

[Moose the Cat]

23 minutes ago, DryLagoon said:

This is intentional. Despite being called Adventure 2 it's more of a self contained story than a direct sequel. The writer was completely different and wanted to do his own take on the series. I see Adventure 1 as ending on points of the classic era, mostly about Knuckles. So SA2 was more of kicking off a new era and this time focusing more on Eggman and the new characters.

Story-wise, this is totally right. Sonic Adventure is an expansion and conclusion to the arc of why Knuckles must guard the Master Emerald. Sonic 3-->Sonic & Knuckles-->SA1 is the "Knuckles Trilogy" in the way that S3K also forms the 2/3 of "Death Egg trilogy." 

And then, yes, Adventure 2 sets up the whole new universe, plus the addition of anthro / human interactions. It's the City Escape years. SA2 takes place on Earth but whether that means Earth (as per Sonic X), or earth (as per the game itself), and/or if earth is Sonic's World, or if earth is Mobius... it can work however you want it to, because it is so self-contained in a lot of ways. Sonic X and the Sonic Movie and Sonic Mania and years of Archie Sonic and the Special Stages all point to world and dimension-hopping being a fact of life for Sonic. 

So since world/dimension-hopping is a regular thing for him, it stands to reason that "alternative" settings -- SatAM/Archie, OVA -- are simply additional side-quests that Sonic took at some point between games. 

24 minutes ago, DryLagoon said:

The main difference that splits them apart is Sonic's world had humans, while Mobius doesn't. But a lot of this comes down to personal taste. I used to try to link Adventure and Classic as a kid before I realized Sonic was supposed to be the same age in both before it got retconned. (Did Generations mention Classic Sonic's age?) 

Mobius has humans -- iirc, there were humans of different types in the Archie stories. Overlanders (four-fingers) were basically de-evolved humans. Full humans survived in Station Square and other places presumably. And then of course there are the Mobians, who are what happens when modern day human civilization is wiped out and then eventually evolution restarts but this time animals develop the higher functions and become anthropomorphic people. 

Like "Freedom Fighter", Mobius is also just a good noun... "Team Sonic and Sonic's World" or "Freedom Fighter and Mobius", which version is richer? It's a shame to let these perfectly good words and concepts fall away from Sonic when they belong to him in the first place.

1 hour ago, Sonario said:

I much prefer just headcanoning what's canon and what's not with no official "word of god" canon that overrides everything else and makes you wrong. Kinda like something I heard about Dragon Ball Z where it was said that Manga or Anime doesn't matter and you can just pick the canon you like best.

I should say that this Everything Happened approach to continuity is one that is, of course, only possible from the player/reader perspective — it actively ignores the imposed corporate restrictions (word of god) in favor of looking at the many Sonic adventures as one larger tapestry. It basically is a version of continuity that simply believes Sonic's experiences happened to him. If you can see it, it happened. Instead of seeing a Sonic adventure that doesn't fit and saying it doesn't mean anything, this is basically a version of head canon that is ongoing, because of all of the ways it doesn't link need to be shrugged off or assumptions need to be made; information could be wrong or distorted. I see it as the mainline games are the big building blocks, like the 9 episode movies in Star Wars, and all of the ancillary media is extended universe. But, imo, you can easily choose to watch Return of the Jedi and then The Last Jedi and assume that a lot of the extended universe/legends stories did happen to Luke, more or less.

Personally, I think the distinctions between a lot of the versions of Sonic are largely minor inconsistencies, and the differences are overblown and overshadow the obvious commonalities across the depictions. Sonic's World is Mobius. Classic is Modern. It doesn't need to be half a dozen different individuals unless you're doing Into The Sonic-Verse, and then you're probably getting sued by Penders  

1 hour ago, Plasme said:

People talk about the canon being unclear as if it's a modern thing, but I don't think Sonic Team ever cared about canon, with a few exceptions.

So, this idea -- that Everything Happened -- flips this paradigm. Instead of valuing the creator's intent as the arbiter of what is or isn't "true," it values the audience's selective interpretation. 

Instead of deciphering what we think the creator meant, it's more of "in what ways could these fit together, even though they are completely unrelated in origin and intent (aside from being based on the same IP)?" 

With something as fantastical as the Sonic-verse, with many different worlds and regions and zones and dimensions established in multiple games and outside media, it's not too difficult to come up with simple explanations for how that could be. It's a flipped way of how canon is usually discussed, which is more about how things don't fit... but Everything Happened is incredibly liberating, and that's why I am suggesting it.

[SBR2]

The only way this would work is if you just ignore how absolutely none of it fits together. I mean if Sonic met Eggman on earth as a 14 year old he can't very well have been in Mobotropolis at 5. To say nothing of how Longclaw's entire existence contradicts Sonic living with his Uncle Chuck...or being left with adopted parents after his mom the Queen abandoned him and his siblings as babies while Eggman was in control. 

Honestly I don't see how the Multiverse is so confusing. Everything still matters it's just a different universe. I also don't see what's so confusing about Classic Sonic's current situation. He splintered off into a separate timeline after the Time Eater effectively making it a different dimension. 

[thumbs13]

The timeline really doesn't work with every single piece of media in it. Honestly, it'd just be easier to go "Sonic knew an Owl when he was younger and hangs out in station square with rich kids sometimes" than it would be to make the movie and X canon by themselves. Do what Archie/IDW does and have broad strokes version of alternate media.

Also, I love how you didn't even try to fit underground on the timeline.

[Big Panda]

That’s another thing: the fact that many of these continuities are indeed alternate dimensions from eachother have even been acknowledged within actual canon in a lot of cases, mainly within the Archie continuity.

Archie Sonic visited the Sonic Underground universe and directly interacted with his Underground counterpart. Archie Shadow has been to the Sonic X universe where he was acknowledged as being a different Shadow to the one in that universe. Sticks the Badger came from the Sonic Boom universe to take part in Worlds Unite, and told her native versions of Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Amy about it all when she got back.

[Razule]

The closest thing to something like this existing officially was probably the rebooted Archie continuity, with the games, SatAM, and kind of AoStH. I think it'd be easier to headcanon broad strokes of stuff in other continuities happened in some form, because they are there's just too much that'd be way to complicated to reconcile.

[UnknownByME]

20 hours ago, Moose the Cat said:

Hello.

I am not a fan of the idea that "Modern" and "Classic" Sonic are two different individuals, or that other Sonic stories couldn't basically all co-exist with a little bit of fudging. As it is now, there are multiple different versions of the Sonic "canon" that detail which events "actually" happened in the character's ongoing continuity. I think it's boring/confusing/unnecessary to have different versions of Sonic exist as alternate universes, rather than simply being the same Sonic in different periods of time.

The reality is, too, that most of the Sonic stories -- games, animation, comics -- aren't directly at odds. There is the possibility that everything could have the Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik fix — where both versions are true, simultaneously. You just have to fudge it a bit. Another example is the post-reboot Archie verse under Flynn. They did a great job of what I'm talking about, bridging so many gaps between conflicting versions of the stories/characters/tones/styles, and coming away with a new whole that makes everything more harmonious. 

About ten years ago, Grant Morrison wrote an epic long run on the Batman comics that had a brilliant approach to continuity — essentially Everything Counted, and Everything Happened. Instead of old pre-Crisis Batman stories not being canon, everything was back in play. The idea was simply that this extraordinary individual, Batman, has an extraordinary backstory with a lot of different adventures. He began dark and alone using questionable methods. When he adopted the first Robin, life was like that Adam West '60s Batman show for awhile — goofy, weird, a little psychedelic. Then he became dark after the death of Jason Todd, and a non-stop series of difficult losses like Knightfall, No Man's Land, and so on, and in Morrison's present-day story, Batman has to come to terms with the totality and holistic nature of his being and move forward as a more complete person. 

The first thing to accept with EC/EH continuity is that for everything to fit, you need to do some squinting... everything happened, but the way things were portrayed in the old media won't line up with later media, and you need to fill in some of the gaps and resolve contradictions yourself. If you go back to watch the Adam West Batman, and then Batman The Animated Series and then Batman v Superman, obviously they are different universes, but you can also track a larger meta-timeline and imagine it all working as one, more or less. (Morrison's continuity idea was also known as Hypertime, which suggests that EC/EH but only provided it's actually relevant to the current story)

The upside is that this framing makes "out of continuity" or "alternate universe" stories more fun to revisit, as you try to imagine how this could possibly co-exist alongside other aspects of the Sonic world, rather than just dismissing it as something completely different. 

...

Okay. Now the thread is about our attempts, together, to make everything fit together. It will require a bit of creativity. But I have faith in this community to make it work. I'll start us with something to work off of. 

 

One True Blue Timeline 

 

THE ORIGINS

• Sonic the Hedgehog 2020 movie. The origin of Sonic and Dr. Eggman/Robotnik's meeting.
• Sonic 1 (8/16-bit). Dr. Robotnik comes to Sonic's World/Mobius and begins aiming for world domination knowing now there's a multiverse. Learning of the Chaos Emeralds on the moving island of South Island  (per the Japanese manual) that Sonic once called home, Eggman begins using his drones and roboticized Badniks to terraform the land in search of the Emeralds. When Sonic arrives, though it seems to only have been a year of Earth time, Eggman has already begun his work conquering Mobius. Sonic foils his plans.
• Sonic SatAM / The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog / Archie Sonic (pre-Penders)  — We see Sonic find friends for the first time, when he rescues Tails (AoSTH) and they join the Freedom Fighters to fight against Robotropolis, which is in the region known as the Land of Darkness according to the OVA; Robotnik discovered the remnants of civilization, threw out the Mobians ruling it, and industrialized quickly with the advanced roboticizer he's developed. We'll later learn that some time travel was involved for Eggman to scale up so quickly before Sonic's arrival. Oh, and Sonic sounds like Urkel because he's... basically going through puberty. It's an awkward time and he's kind of chubby and not as cool as he thinks he is.

THE DEATH EGG ADVENTURE

• Sonic 2 / Sonic 3 & Knuckles / Sonic 4  —Sonic hits new peaks in his abilities and accomplishments. He saves the world like Goku demolishing the Death Star. The Knuckles and Master Emerald are introduced; the Death Eggs are destroyed. Sonic is a hero without parallel. 

THE EGGMAN EMPIRE HATCHES

• Sonic OVA / Sonic CD / Sonic Mania / Archie Sonic (pre-Endgame)— Sonic is back on South Island for a vacation with Tails, when he's bothered by the old man owl neighbor to visit the President and Princess Sara, who've been taken hostage by Eggman and his SWATbots. Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles travel to Robotropolis/Land of Darkness to take on Metal Sonic. Although seemingly defeated, Sonic CD intro shows Sonic tracking Eggman's time-travel schemes on Little Planet and pursues Metal Sonic and rescues Amy Rose, who returns later to rejoin Sonic permanently. Mania also deals with time travel displacement. Basically, through all of the time-traveling, Eggman successfully establishes Robotropolis and Sonic returns again to Knothole to join the organized fight.  Robotnik nearly wins in Mecha Madness until Knuckles returns again to save the day.

THE QUIET PERIOD

• Archie Sonic (Endgame&beyond), Archie Knuckles, Game Gear/32X/Saturn titles — Robotnik has vanished (vaporized, or time traveled) and the adventures become increasingly convoluted as Sonic gets wrapped in the Mobotropolis/Kingdom of Acorn story, and Knuckles deals with some odd family history and Echidanopolis. They fight enemies like Fang/Nack the Weasel, Mammoth Mogul, Enerjak and Ixis Naugus. Sonic Underground could go in this weird time, too.

NOW FEATURING: HUMANS

• Sonic X / Sonic Adventure / Sonic Adventure 2 / Advance / Sonic Battle — Eggman has returned with a vengeance but in the battle Sonic and friends are warped to Earth, where Eggman and Sonic previously lived, and many adventures ensue. Unlike his first trip to earth, Sonic becomes world famous for his heroics. The cast now includes Shadow, Rouge, Cream, Big, Comet, etc. We learn more about the Echidnas and the Master Emerald and Chaos Control. We learn that Robotnik's grandfather tried to invent Sonic before he was born, by following the study of chaos energy (which is why Bio-lizard, resembling Perfect Chaos, was the prototype for the Ultimate Life Form before a Hedgehog). 

ANCIENT ALIENS

• Dark Brotherhood / Sonic Heroes / Shadow the Hedgehog / Archie Sonic (Ian Flynn) — Ancient Echidnas. Black Arms. Clones. Metallix. Sonic gets wrapped up in more convoluted ancient evils. Sir Connery blows up the Crown of Acorns. Shadow finds answers, kind of.

PRINCESS REBOOTS

• Sonic '06 / Sonic Rush / Super Genesis Wave (Archie reboot) — Princess Elise kisses Sonic back to life. The Sol Emeralds must be kept away from Eggman Nega. None of it really matters, and in the end, no one exactly remembers... but we know Sonic helped saved some princesses from the end of the world, and stopped Eggman.

MODERN SONIC

• Sonic Unleashed / Colors  / Generations / Lost World / Forces — Eggman goes to the end of the world, and other worlds, and times, and does everything he can to conquer any world, but Sonic just won't let him win... until finally, Sonic loses to Infinite in Forces. But, lo and behold, all of the friends Sonic has made along the way — all of the kingdoms he's fought for — unite for a worldwide Freedom Fighters team leading the Resistance. It's not hard to imagine the Archie Mobians being among the crowd fighting in the last scenes in Forces.
• IDW Sonic — The adventures in "present day." Eggman was soundly defeated but now he's infecting the entire planet of Mobius with a metal virus. It's possible that Robotnik could, once again, rule over the world with a metal fist while Sonic fights for freedom.

POST-MODERN SONIC

• Sonic Boom — This is basically adult Sonic... this is the furthest in the future we've seen so far, I think, because the world is peaceful, Eggman is contained to being a rude neighbor than a real threat, and because Sonic's arms are blue again. Blue arms is Sonic with, like, a beard. He grows fur on his arms naturally, but when he's doing a lot of intense adventuring (ie, in the games/comics), he likes to keep them bare. It's a runner's thing. He had furry arms as a baby, and as a kid in the movie. So he cut it as a teenager. And as an adult hanging out on an island with his friends, he's letting it grow natural. Knuckles looks different/taller, because they're older.  I like to think this actually takes place on Prison Island, and Eggman's base is actually his containment and Sonic & friends are hanging out together to keep watch over him, like a giant toddler they all have to share annoyingly. Sonic & friends have more gear on because they're more experienced and have got beating Eggman down to basic science.
• The Distant Future — Silver, etc.

 

As you can see, it's mostly chronological with the exception of Movie and Boom book-ending the whole span of however many years you'd want to quantify. I'm not familiar enough with Sonic the Comic to know how it would fit, exactly, but I suspect probably alongside the Archie periods. 

It's possible that Archie / StC / OVA / games are different pocket worlds that Sonic warps to, but I think it makes more sense that they're all on the same planet. There are floating islands, humans and Mobians and Robotropolis and different kingdoms and presidents and rulers. Sonic/Tails/Knuckles have different allies in different places, but it's always the same fight. The Land of Freedom and the Land of Darkness. The "two worlds" is exponential, there's so many "two worlds" going on in Sonic: Mobius and Earth, Station Square and Eggmanland, Knothole and Robotropolis, Mystic Ruins and Angel Island, South Island and Westside Island, the Past and Future of Little Planet and Soleanna and Kingdom of Acorn.  

It makes sense that "modern" Sonic has become more powerful over time. He's been exposed to the Chaos Emeralds more than any being anywhere. He was powerful to begin with... the Sonic 2020 movie opens with the Knuckles Clan of the Echidna Tribe attacking Sonic's owl guardian Longclaw. We know they are interested in Chaos power.The Echidnas saw baby Sonic, recognized his chaos power, then they saw Robotnik arrive on South Island, and they created the murals we see in Hidden Palace in S3K forecasting those events accurately. Then they try for the Master Emerald and Chaos ensues in Sonic Adventure.

Then somehow Robotnik jumps forward 4,000 years with the time-traveling capabilities from Sonic CD to begin his takeover, which is easier because he planted drones and self-replicating robot factories in the distant past. He basically did Biff's plot from Back to the Future 2 successfully. So when Sonic arrives back on Mobius in Sonic 1, it's the wrong-ish future but present day, like the Wrong 1985 in BTTF 2.  Seemingly overnight, Robotnik has quickly taken control and he's searching for the Emeralds.

And then it goes from there.

 

Thanks for reading.

What do you think?

You could also put the Metarex Saga sometime before Heroes.

Eggman finds Shadow after SA2, contains him, he's released in the Metarex Saga, afterwards, it's implied Eggman knows what happened after Shadow disappeared in the final battle, he contains him under the guard of one of his old E-100 robots, cue Sonic Heroes.

[Moose the Cat]

1 hour ago, Razule said:

The closest thing to something like this existing officially was probably the rebooted Archie continuity, with the games, SatAM, and kind of AoStH. I think it'd be easier to headcanon broad strokes of stuff in other continuities happened in some form, because they are there's just too much that'd be way to complicated to reconcile.

Yeah, Flynn definitely appreciates Everything Happened continuity... the Archie reboot did a good job of justifying everything and the IDW series starts similarly but even more simply, implying all of the past adventures did happen in one form or another, even if they're not directly relevant anymore. 

[UnknownByME]

1 minute ago, Moose the Cat said:

Yeah, Flynn definitely appreciates Everything Happened continuity... the Archie reboot did a good job of justifying everything and the IDW series starts similarly but even more simply, implying all of the past adventures did happen in one form or another, even if they're not directly relevant anymore. 

I'd say it's less of an "Everything Happened" continuity, and more of an "Anything Happened" continuity

[Big Panda]

1 minute ago, Moose the Cat said:

Yeah, Flynn definitely appreciates Everything Happened continuity... the Archie reboot did a good job of justifying everything and the IDW series starts similarly but even more simply, implying all of the past adventures did happen in one form or another, even if they're not directly relevant anymore. 

Merging a bunch of established canons together and trying to reconcile them with eachother is completely different to making a new continuity that’s primarily based on one canon while borrowing certain characters and elements from a select few others.

[Moose the Cat]

3 hours ago, thumbs13 said:

The timeline really doesn't work with every single piece of media in it. Honestly, it'd just be easier to go "Sonic knew an Owl when he was younger and hangs out in station square with rich kids sometimes" than it would be to make the movie and X canon by themselves. Do what Archie/IDW does and have broad strokes version of alternate media.

Also, I love how you didn't even try to fit underground on the timeline.

Yep! That's basically what I'm suggesting. 

Underground is in there... it could happen in that general time period between S3K and Sonic Adventure when Sonic stories were getting really far away from their origins. 

IMO, Underground fits best if you think of it as being a "story book tale" like "Secret Rings" or "Black Knight." But you could choose to view it as literal! 

5 minutes ago, UnknownByME said:

I'd say it's less of an "Everything Happened" continuity, and more of an "Anything Happened" continuity

I'd say those are essentially the same idea. It's basically like Hypertime in the old DCU comics -- all of the timelines are overlapping, and mix together or separately as needed.

[thumbs13]

3 hours ago, Moose the Cat said:

 

Underground is in there... it could happen in that general time period between S3K and Sonic Adventure when Sonic stories were getting really far away from their origins. 

IMO, Underground fits best if you think of it as being a "story book tale" like "Secret Rings" or "Black Knight." But you could choose to view it as literal! 

 

Underground and Archie/SaTam can't both be canon. Sonic has a different set of parents in both. Underground wouldn't work as a storybook game either, because those are about Sonic getting sent to worlds he isn't apart of, and underground relies on Sonic's lineage. To make Underground of all things fit on the timline requires a lot of squeezing.

[Moose the Cat]

2 hours ago, thumbs13 said:

Underground and Archie/SaTam can't both be canon. Sonic has a different set of parents in both. Underground wouldn't work as a storybook game either, because those are about Sonic getting sent to worlds he isn't apart of, and underground relies on Sonic's lineage. To make Underground of all things fit on the timline requires a lot of squeezing.

Right. So for "Everything Happened" to work, it requires some headcanon choices when you have things that directly contradict, like Sonic's origin, which is basically a multiple choice question that just depends on what you want it to be.  

Underground is definitely the one that fits the least. The reason I say it could work in the Storybook framework is that we saw the Sonic cast get "recast" into alternate roles in Secret Rings/Black Knight, and that's kind of what's going on with the Underground premise. Although to be honest, Underground is my least favorite Sonic anything, so I'm also not as personally motivated to make it fit better than a "what if? dream" kind of story. That works well enough for me; "everything happened" but Sonic Underground was basically a bad dream. 

Hypothetically, if someone were a huge fan of Underground, you could position it as the framework for all that comes later. Or you might choose to assume that Sonia & Manic weren't actually Sonic's siblings, and there was a mix-up, and once Sonic realized he wasn't needed, he continued on to other adventures. I think if, say, IDW chose to include Underground in a flashback montage that showed "everything happened" I would probably do it something like that. "I played in a band with some hedgehogs that felt like family. We fought to restore the monarchy that Robotnik usurped. Turns out there was no relation after all, but still a fun opportunity to rock and kick butt." Or, "I had a weird dream that I played in a band..." etc. 

This is the area where "Everything Happened" becomes basically just headcanon. But, outside of direct contradictions like SU/Archie, for the most part, the Sonic characters are remarkably consistent through the different story settings, generally. So it's really just a matter of finding ways to blend/justify those different settings/ancillary characters... and for a lot of it, I think the answer is just like "Yeah Sonic hung out with this cast for awhile and they fought Robotnik, then he moved on to a new fight at a new place" etc.

 

EDIT —

Haven given it a bit of thought, I actually think Sonic Underground works best if it's alongside the other Urkel / DiC Sonic cartoons. Again I'm not deeply familiar with Underground, but I think it could fit in this time period. 

Sonic Underground / Sonic SatAM / The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog / Archie Sonic (pre-Penders)  — After saving his home from Robotnik, we see Sonic look for friends on his home planet. He finds his family -- turns out he's royalty, and he has siblings, Manic and Sonia, and Robotnik has even overthrown/kidnapped their mom, and they need to rescue her through a rock band(?). After however many adventures, Sonic learns that there was a mix-up, and he isn't their sibling, but perhaps maybe they are distantly related. Sonic continues running, and finds Tails on Westside Island (AoSTH) and they join the Freedom Fighters to continue the fight against Robotropolis (which is in the region known as the Land of Darkness according to the OVA; Robotnik discovered the remnants of civilization, threw out the Mobians ruling it, and industrialized quickly with the advanced roboticizer he's developed. We'll later learn that some time travel was involved for Eggman to scale up so quickly before Sonic's arrival). Oh, and Sonic sounds like Urkel because he's... basically going through puberty. It's an awkward time and he's kind of chubby and not as cool as he thinks he is.

[Almar]

Naka already talked about Sonic's origin being on Christmas Island there on Earth (which is backed by internal lore from back in the Genesis days). If you include authorial intent then that provides a problem.

[Myst]

On 4/4/2020 at 10:50 PM, Moose the Cat said:

Hello.

I am not a fan of the idea that "Modern" and "Classic" Sonic are two different individuals, or that other Sonic stories couldn't basically all co-exist with a little bit of fudging. As it is now, there are multiple different versions of the Sonic "canon" that detail which events "actually" happened in the character's ongoing continuity. I think it's boring/confusing/unnecessary to have different versions of Sonic exist as alternate universes, rather than simply being the same Sonic in different periods of time.

The reality is, too, that most of the Sonic stories -- games, animation, comics -- aren't directly at odds. There is the possibility that everything could have the Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik fix — where both versions are true, simultaneously. You just have to fudge it a bit. Another example is the post-reboot Archie verse under Flynn. They did a great job of what I'm talking about, bridging so many gaps between conflicting versions of the stories/characters/tones/styles, and coming away with a new whole that makes everything more harmonious. 

About ten years ago, Grant Morrison wrote an epic long run on the Batman comics that had a brilliant approach to continuity — essentially Everything Counted, and Everything Happened. Instead of old pre-Crisis Batman stories not being canon, everything was back in play. The idea was simply that this extraordinary individual, Batman, has an extraordinary backstory with a lot of different adventures. He began dark and alone using questionable methods. When he adopted the first Robin, life was like that Adam West '60s Batman show for awhile — goofy, weird, a little psychedelic. Then he became dark after the death of Jason Todd, and a non-stop series of difficult losses like Knightfall, No Man's Land, and so on, and in Morrison's present-day story, Batman has to come to terms with the totality and holistic nature of his being and move forward as a more complete person. 

The first thing to accept with EC/EH continuity is that for everything to fit, you need to do some squinting... everything happened, but the way things were portrayed in the old media won't line up with later media, and you need to fill in some of the gaps and resolve contradictions yourself. If you go back to watch the Adam West Batman, and then Batman The Animated Series and then Batman v Superman, obviously they are different universes, but you can also track a larger meta-timeline and imagine it all working as one, more or less. (Morrison's continuity idea was also known as Hypertime, which suggests that EC/EH but only provided it's actually relevant to the current story)

The upside is that this framing makes "out of continuity" or "alternate universe" stories more fun to revisit, as you try to imagine how this could possibly co-exist alongside other aspects of the Sonic world, rather than just dismissing it as something completely different. 

...

Okay. Now the thread is about our attempts, together, to make everything fit together. It will require a bit of creativity. But I have faith in this community to make it work. I'll start us with something to work off of. 

 

One True Blue Timeline 

 

THE ORIGINS

• Sonic the Hedgehog 2020 movie. The origin of Sonic and Dr. Eggman/Robotnik's meeting.
• Sonic 1 (8/16-bit). Dr. Robotnik comes to Sonic's World/Mobius and begins aiming for world domination knowing now there's a multiverse. Learning of the Chaos Emeralds on the moving island of South Island  (per the Japanese manual) that Sonic once called home, Eggman begins using his drones and roboticized Badniks to terraform the land in search of the Emeralds. When Sonic arrives, though it seems to only have been a year of Earth time, Eggman has already begun his work conquering Mobius. Sonic foils his plans.
• Sonic SatAM / The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog / Archie Sonic (pre-Penders)  — We see Sonic find friends for the first time, when he rescues Tails (AoSTH) and they join the Freedom Fighters to fight against Robotropolis, which is in the region known as the Land of Darkness according to the OVA; Robotnik discovered the remnants of civilization, threw out the Mobians ruling it, and industrialized quickly with the advanced roboticizer he's developed. We'll later learn that some time travel was involved for Eggman to scale up so quickly before Sonic's arrival. Oh, and Sonic sounds like Urkel because he's... basically going through puberty. It's an awkward time and he's kind of chubby and not as cool as he thinks he is.

THE DEATH EGG ADVENTURE

• Sonic 2 / Sonic 3 & Knuckles / Sonic 4  —Sonic hits new peaks in his abilities and accomplishments. He saves the world like Goku demolishing the Death Star. The Knuckles and Master Emerald are introduced; the Death Eggs are destroyed. Sonic is a hero without parallel. 

THE EGGMAN EMPIRE HATCHES

• Sonic OVA / Sonic CD / Sonic Mania / Archie Sonic (pre-Endgame)— Sonic is back on South Island for a vacation with Tails, when he's bothered by the old man owl neighbor to visit the President and Princess Sara, who've been taken hostage by Eggman and his SWATbots. Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles travel to Robotropolis/Land of Darkness to take on Metal Sonic. Although seemingly defeated, Sonic CD intro shows Sonic tracking Eggman's time-travel schemes on Little Planet and pursues Metal Sonic and rescues Amy Rose, who returns later to rejoin Sonic permanently. Mania also deals with time travel displacement. Basically, through all of the time-traveling, Eggman successfully establishes Robotropolis and Sonic returns again to Knothole to join the organized fight.  Robotnik nearly wins in Mecha Madness until Knuckles returns again to save the day.

THE QUIET PERIOD

• Archie Sonic (Endgame&beyond), Archie Knuckles, Game Gear/32X/Saturn titles — Robotnik has vanished (vaporized, or time traveled) and the adventures become increasingly convoluted as Sonic gets wrapped in the Mobotropolis/Kingdom of Acorn story, and Knuckles deals with some odd family history and Echidanopolis. They fight enemies like Fang/Nack the Weasel, Mammoth Mogul, Enerjak and Ixis Naugus. Sonic Underground could go in this weird time, too.

NOW FEATURING: HUMANS

• Sonic X / Sonic Adventure / Sonic Adventure 2 / Advance / Sonic Battle — Eggman has returned with a vengeance but in the battle Sonic and friends are warped to Earth, where Eggman and Sonic previously lived, and many adventures ensue. Unlike his first trip to earth, Sonic becomes world famous for his heroics. The cast now includes Shadow, Rouge, Cream, Big, Comet, etc. We learn more about the Echidnas and the Master Emerald and Chaos Control. We learn that Robotnik's grandfather tried to invent Sonic before he was born, by following the study of chaos energy (which is why Bio-lizard, resembling Perfect Chaos, was the prototype for the Ultimate Life Form before a Hedgehog). 

ANCIENT ALIENS

• Dark Brotherhood / Sonic Heroes / Shadow the Hedgehog / Archie Sonic (Ian Flynn) — Ancient Echidnas. Black Arms. Clones. Metallix. Sonic gets wrapped up in more convoluted ancient evils. Sir Connery blows up the Crown of Acorns. Shadow finds answers, kind of.

PRINCESS REBOOTS

• Sonic '06 / Sonic Rush / Super Genesis Wave (Archie reboot) — Princess Elise kisses Sonic back to life. The Sol Emeralds must be kept away from Eggman Nega. None of it really matters, and in the end, no one exactly remembers... but we know Sonic helped saved some princesses from the end of the world, and stopped Eggman.

MODERN SONIC

• Sonic Unleashed / Colors  / Generations / Lost World / Forces — Eggman goes to the end of the world, and other worlds, and times, and does everything he can to conquer any world, but Sonic just won't let him win... until finally, Sonic loses to Infinite in Forces. But, lo and behold, all of the friends Sonic has made along the way — all of the kingdoms he's fought for — unite for a worldwide Freedom Fighters team leading the Resistance. It's not hard to imagine the Archie Mobians being among the crowd fighting in the last scenes in Forces.
• IDW Sonic — The adventures in "present day." Eggman was soundly defeated but now he's infecting the entire planet of Mobius with a metal virus. It's possible that Robotnik could, once again, rule over the world with a metal fist while Sonic fights for freedom.

POST-MODERN SONIC

• Sonic Boom — This is basically adult Sonic... this is the furthest in the future we've seen so far, I think, because the world is peaceful, Eggman is contained to being a rude neighbor than a real threat, and because Sonic's arms are blue again. Blue arms is Sonic with, like, a beard. He grows fur on his arms naturally, but when he's doing a lot of intense adventuring (ie, in the games/comics), he likes to keep them bare. It's a runner's thing. He had furry arms as a baby, and as a kid in the movie. So he cut it as a teenager. And as an adult hanging out on an island with his friends, he's letting it grow natural. Knuckles looks different/taller, because they're older.  I like to think this actually takes place on Prison Island, and Eggman's base is actually his containment and Sonic & friends are hanging out together to keep watch over him, like a giant toddler they all have to share annoyingly. Sonic & friends have more gear on because they're more experienced and have got beating Eggman down to basic science.
• The Distant Future — Silver, etc.

 

As you can see, it's mostly chronological with the exception of Movie and Boom book-ending the whole span of however many years you'd want to quantify. I'm not familiar enough with Sonic the Comic to know how it would fit, exactly, but I suspect probably alongside the Archie periods. 

It's possible that Archie / StC / OVA / games are different pocket worlds that Sonic warps to, but I think it makes more sense that they're all on the same planet. There are floating islands, humans and Mobians and Robotropolis and different kingdoms and presidents and rulers. Sonic/Tails/Knuckles have different allies in different places, but it's always the same fight. The Land of Freedom and the Land of Darkness. The "two worlds" is exponential, there's so many "two worlds" going on in Sonic: Mobius and Earth, Station Square and Eggmanland, Knothole and Robotropolis, Mystic Ruins and Angel Island, South Island and Westside Island, the Past and Future of Little Planet and Soleanna and Kingdom of Acorn.  

It makes sense that "modern" Sonic has become more powerful over time. He's been exposed to the Chaos Emeralds more than any being anywhere. He was powerful to begin with... the Sonic 2020 movie opens with the Knuckles Clan of the Echidna Tribe attacking Sonic's owl guardian Longclaw. We know they are interested in Chaos power.The Echidnas saw baby Sonic, recognized his chaos power, then they saw Robotnik arrive on South Island, and they created the murals we see in Hidden Palace in S3K forecasting those events accurately. Then they try for the Master Emerald and Chaos ensues in Sonic Adventure.

Then somehow Robotnik jumps forward 4,000 years with the time-traveling capabilities from Sonic CD to begin his takeover, which is easier because he planted drones and self-replicating robot factories in the distant past. He basically did Biff's plot from Back to the Future 2 successfully. So when Sonic arrives back on Mobius in Sonic 1, it's the wrong-ish future but present day, like the Wrong 1985 in BTTF 2.  Seemingly overnight, Robotnik has quickly taken control and he's searching for the Emeralds.

And then it goes from there.

 

Thanks for reading.

What do you think?

This is a great post! Very complex way of thinking about Sonic, but it definitely could work.

I don't like the idea of classic and modern being separate characters either. 

I was thinking the same thing about the blue arms being like a beard Sonic shaves. (If we get a sequel to the movie, I hope there's a slow-motion shot of Sonic holding an emerald and the power emitting from it singes the blue fur off his arms, making them tan)

Well done!

[Moose the Cat]

3 minutes ago, Myst said:

This is a great post! Very complex way of thinking about Sonic, but it definitely could work.

I don't like the idea of classic and modern being separate characters either. 

I was thinking the same thing about the blue arms being like a beard Sonic shaves. (If we get a sequel to the movie, I hope there's a slow-motion shot of Sonic holding an emerald and the power emitting from it singes the blue fur off his arms, making them tan)

Well done!

Thank you, I appreciate it. I hope this helps to increase your enjoyment of Sonic stuff by even a fraction of a percentage, that's the goal. 

As a kid, I was always annoyed by how much the Archie/SatAM/AoSTH/etc never lined up with the games. What Ian Flynn eventually did post-SGW was what I (and most kids I think) wanted from the comics... for it to be an expanded universe of the Sonic we already knew and recognized.

And I'm annoyed as an adult that Sega/Sonic Team has chosen to dilute Sonic even further by suggesting there are multiple different versions when it's really all the same characters with tweaks in design/setting. 

Now, in present day 2020, there's enough Sonic media at this point to look at everything with a really wide, pulled back view and see all of it as being the crazy life story of one very active blue hedgehog. I just think it's more fun to think the Sonic who rescued Princess Sara, Princess Sally, Princess Elise, and Princess Blaze is the same guy, rather than four different people in different universes who all look/sound identical.

[Moose the Cat]

2 hours ago, Almar said:

Naka already talked about Sonic's origin being on Christmas Island there on Earth (which is backed by internal lore from back in the Genesis days). If you include authorial intent then that provides a problem.

Oh yeah I forgot about the Christmas Island bit. That falls in with what I was saying in the posts above... there's multiple choice options for how to think Sonic was born, to what parents and where. I always liked the idea from the Japanese manuals that Sonic and most anthro/furries (I'm just gonna stick to calling them Mobians, I think) grew up on uninhabited islands in the Pacific, ie, on our Earth... and that origin isn't really so different from what we see of Sonic's world in Sonic Movie, Sonic OVA, and even Archie Sonic (which reveals Mobius is indeed Earth, but many thousands of years in the future after many climate apocalypses), so it's more fun to meld these together into one larger story that's bigger than the sum of its parts.

What's so different (and freeing) about the "Everything Happened" approach to continuity is that authorial intent is discarded in favor of the reader/viewer/player experiencing the work.  It's a complete flip of perspective. 

In other words, whatever the author intended doesn't matter to "Everything Happened" because this assumes that the character belongs to the character (a shared entity that can't "belong" to any one in particular), and not any individual creator.  (This type of "canon" is only really necessary for long-running IPs with multiple creators, like the aforementioned Batman and Doctor Who).

I'm not talking about corporate ownership. This is a way of snubbing your nose at that, in a way. Your ongoing relationship to the character is valid; if you can remember it, the character can remember it. Another way of looking at it is you are choosing to "believe" Sonic himself, rather than his spokespeople. 

I mentioned Grant Morrison in the OP and he talks about this idea a lot in his book SuperGods and in other interviews, but he takes the position that fictional characters who become modern myths outgrow any one interpretation. At first it can seem like an either childish or highfalutin way to think about silly comic book and video game characters, but really it's the most mature view of it. These characters have 'life' in the sense that they are animated each time someone interacts with the work. It's not lifeless; many hands are behind those comics or games, and they are passing that life along to you via these coded symbols. 

What "counts" is what actually happened on screen/page. The events that you saw Sonic experience mattered, particularly if they mattered to you the individual, and of course, they still exist. So, then... what's the point in trying to convince ourselves that some Sonic thing that doesn't exactly fit other Sonic things isn't actually Sonic, when they're all just Sonic?!?!  

[Mobius_Historian]

10 hours ago, thumbs13 said:

Underground and Archie/SaTam can't both be canon. Sonic has a different set of parents in both. Underground wouldn't work as a storybook game either, because those are about Sonic getting sent to worlds he isn't apart of, and underground relies on Sonic's lineage. To make Underground of all things fit on the timline requires a lot of squeezing.

Um, yes Underground and SATAM could (loosely) fit together. Sonic's parents weren't in SATAM at all. Uncle Chuck was in both, he was roboticized in both, Sonic makes references to other 'freedom fighters' in underground spread all over the planet. And a statue of King Acorn even showed up in underground. You could easily fit underground before the events of SATAM, then at Some point Sonic left his siblings to join up with princess sally and the Knothole freedom fighter group.  King Acorn and Queen Aleena rule two separate kingdoms on Mobius, and during the events of the episode 'blast to the past' Sonic and uncle chuck were visiting King Acorn's capital (North Mobitropolis), when Warlord Julian took over. Heck, the great war in SATAM might have been between North Mobius (King Acorn) and South Mobius (Queen Aleena's kingdom) Aleena's kingdom fell first, she put her children in hiding, then Acorn kingdom fell later, when Sonic was a toddler and living with uncle chuck.

I've figured out several ways to fit those two together. Heck, I once came up with a theory to fit ALL of the cartoons thus far together loosely. Fitting every form of media together however... that's a bit harder, lol.