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Sonic 2006 Theories
Sonic 2006 is known for its stories issues. Well, it's a game with time travel. In this page, we'll try to make some theories about that. Several elements of its story are well known paradoxe in the Sonic Lore :
- The Blue Emerald is stuck in a ontological loop… which makes it impossible to have been used elsewhere
- Blaze get a contradicting origin with Sonic Rush
- There are two different vision of time travel used within the game : one where the past doesn't change, one where it change
- Who remember what part of the game ?
Timeline placement
I place Sonic 2006 as happening just before Sonic Rush, but on a parallel branch. Basically, when we should get to 2006 on the timeline, we have a split in two:
- A first timeline that leads to 2006 and the future destruction of Silver. In this timeline, none of the following games have happened, and this timeline is heavily damaged, causing contradictions (such as the emerald ten years back).
- A second one with Rush, Rivals and all the following games.
Since 2006 cancels itself out, placing 2006 right before Rush is kind of the same thing, but I think it makes sense that none of the following games could have happened between Soleanna's attack and 10 years in the future.
Blaze and Iblis
One of the biggest issue that many people have with 2006 story (outside the kiss) is that it create two origins for Blaze. A common theory on the subject and that I agree with is that Blaze got into her world after Sonic 2006, and somehow lost her memories of the events of Sonic 2006. As in Rush she never mention having heard of Sonic, with everything that happenned, it's simply impossible that she remember those events, except some vague memory that she either kept, either got back in Generations.
I see two way to explain her loss of memory :
- The erasing of the future she comes from combined to the power she introduced "rewrote" her
- She lost her memory due to the choc
Another theory of mine is that the choc of her entering her dimension split Iblis. As Iblis is the "power" of solaris, it's pretty possible that the Sol Emeralds comes from Iblis/Solaris, and were creating by when she entered her new dimension. So there would still be a fragment of Solaris' power, inside the Sol Emeralds. The "body" of Iblis could be the source of the Ifrit due to their similarity (and we could even see Ifrit dimensions as some "remanent" of Iblis environnement that was created around Ifrit).
Sonic 2006 is a paradoxe
In fact, 2006 can be explained very simply, since the whole story of 2006 is a contradiction. Sonic 2006 is based on a vision of time travel where ontological loops are possible, i.e. time travel is self-induced, which means that the past is not rewritten by the time travel (since otherwise the time travel would not have produced its consequences in the past in the first place). An example of this is Mephiles and Shadow, where Shadow frees Mephiles and then locks him up in the past, causing an ontological loop (since upon release, Mephiles explicitly refers to the fact that it is ironic that Shadow freed him).
But if the consequences of time travel already exist, then Solaris is already reconstituted at a precise point of the timeline, since it is one of the consequences of the plot... Which means that during all 2006, the present and the future were already destroyed? We can say that the whole story of 2006 is the last shred of reality. From that, we can accept - I think - more easily the chronological inconsistencies : it's a logical consequence of the fact that the space-time has been severely smashed by Solaris. Solaris being transcendent, it also transcends the rules of logic and human understanding.
It is therefore not surprising that in the chain of action producing its birth, there are elements not possible. The issue with this theory is that it's a bit of a "cop-out" of the problem. We simply accept that there are contradiction. But it's also pretty cool, and it makes some of the issues of Sonic 2006 something we can play with, instead of just "an issue". We're inside the tempest.
Time travel and philosophy
Time travel is generally based on one of three theories of time:
- The single but changeable timeline theory: Time travel events change the present (back to the future). This timeline can cause the grandfather paradox: If you go back in time and kill your own grandfather, what happens?
- The fixed and unchanging timeline theory: Time travel events do not change anything, since they have already happened.
- The multiple timeline/multiverse theory: Events changed in the past cause a separation in several timelines
Sonic 2006 uses the second one most of the time, but he uses the first one twice:
- when Sonic saves Elise
- when Mephiles kills Sonic
This is the source of all the paradoxes (except 1: the blue emerald). And with what I say above about timelines, it keeps a contradiction: why timelines if the universe is fixed? My theory for 2006 is that in the end it doesn't just change an event in the past, it fixes a whole timeline that was destroyed by Solaris (since Solaris destroyed the present, the past and the future). Now, I could go on about how it's not logical, how it's an issue… But I think there is another reading to do about these differences. Because maybe we should not see this story as something completely logical and scientifique. Because Sonic 2006 take a lot from fairytales and mixt it with science fiction. So maybe we should ask ourselve what these time travel say philosophically ?
I think that each use of the time travel is a way to characterise the three main characters, and link them to Silver evolution.
- Sonic use time travel to change an event, like the Shonen hero he tend to be. He refuse destiny, and use the mean he have to change it. We can also notice that the time travel he do is on a smaller scale than the one of Shadow : Sonic change the future, not the past, in a way.
- Shadow use time travel, but produce the event he is fighting. It's a way more pessimistic vision of the world, like the whole Shadow story, where he seems doomed to be captured, to have humanity turn on him. His lesson is to not stop fighting despite that. It kinda suit a character that is way less optimistic than Sonic.
- Silver start by trying to change the past, but finally decide to change the future instead. He made the change, but in his future, to get more happier day. In a way, he can be see as a conclusion of the two previous story : it's useless to try to change the past (Shadow), but you can change the future (Sonic). We can notice that Silver time travel with Shadow before helping Sonic to time travel. So in a way, Sonic respond to Shadow. As Sonic have often the role to inspire people, we can see that a logical in Silver evolution (Silver being the true protagonist of 2006).
Note that it doesn't "solve" any logical consistency, and doesn't explain the Blue Emerald ontological loop. But it can give a good thing to think about, on two level. First is about what is destiny, are we condemned by it ? The second is that an element of the story is not tied only to "canon" and "logic", but about the message. Way too much people in fandom thinks too much like wiki editors, and not like people thinking about stories.