#it got retconned at IDW six years after being established.

[nielsthecat]

[ID: Tags from @autisticstarscream reading, "#that's why sometimes to me starscream is a woman #she's either a woman or a gay man. there is no in betweens #ratchet... 💖 #i love gay old man ratchet but woman ratchet? Hi 💖 #transformers #to be fair transformers don't [really] have binary gender #the concept of femme vs. mech was a newer thing i think...? i'm not sure #they're giant alien robots i feel like assigning them binary gender is a little dumb but [whatever]". end ID.]

Hey by newer thing do you mean 1985 because that's when the first female Cybertronians showed up. they were never called "femmes" because that's a fandom term that has slowly started seeping into canon, but they were called female, and woman.

Also, do you only bring up the (actually recent, by dint of being ~20 years old) idea that Cybertornians are "genderless" when people start headcanoning character as women, or do you also bring it up when people use "he/him" to refer to characters like Optimus Prime who are for all intents and purposes, men?

The whole idea of them being genderless due to their alien robot-ness is deeply sexist anyway, because they aren't actually written as genderless, they're written as men. It's only brought up in canon to do what you're doing now--to say that there shouldn't be women.

Also just to clarify

banner by augustheart

i know i clowned hard on that jason todd is female coded post but guys. why does starscream experience misogyny

[sminny-wew]

“You Ain’t Got the Soul”: A Sonic Theory on Robots and Life Energy

The following was written prior to the release of Issue 50, which I still haven’t read

From the chick who brought you that “The Deadly Six's one-note characterization in Sonic Lost World is being retconned by the IDW Comics as a symptom of the cruel and selfish conservative culture that is Zeti society” theory comes a whole new beast lol

So while the writing in the Sonic comic series from IDW Publishing isn’t perfect (lots of people have circulated the image of Shadow stubbornly getting infected by the Metal Virus, a consequence of SEGA demanding that Shadow be written with very specific characterization in mind), there is a lot that it not only does well, but even pleasantly surprises me with. I love the new characters this series adds to the world of Sonic: Tangle and Whisper are fun allies, the logical Dr. Starline is a wonderful contrast to the creative Dr. Eggman, Mimic and Clutch are both intriguing villains that I want to see more of, Surge and Kit are exciting takes on the Sonic fandom’s fascination with glitches, and Belle is just a delight, no matter what any disgruntled party may say about her. In fact, she’s kind of the reason I wanted to write this post. Well, her, and this scene from Issue 4 of the Imposter Syndrome miniseries:

Say what you will about the fight itself, but Surge’s comment here is what I want to focus on. She sees Metal Sonic as any other badnik: a soulless robot, a hunk of junk, a thing with no heart or soul that could never be real, not like her.

But the comic, and even the games themselves, prove the opposite to be true. And the IDW crew in particular seem to be doing it in a way that makes use of something that has nebulously existed since Sonic 1, but was first properly addressed in Sonic Lost World.

(Quick note: I’ll only be using examples from the games and the IDW comics as they are considered canon material; as much as I love Ian Flynn’s run on the Archie Comics and how Shadow was characterized there, those comics are no longer supported by SEGA and thus will be ignored here.)

Buckle up, folks, this one’s gonna get long

Sonic the Hedgehog as a franchise is primarily geared towards kids. That’s just how SEGA wants to operate it and it’s very unlikely to change, no matter what tone the games may take on. But like any other piece of kids’ media, Sonic is no stranger to exploring more emotionally-mature themes. After all, Gamma’s entire story in Sonic Adventure is about him gaining self-awareness, recognizing with Amy’s help that Eggman’s cruel and power-hungry agenda is wrong, and enacting mercy killings to free the animals trapped inside each of his E-series “brothers”.

But Gamma is not the only robot in this franchise to demonstrate self-awareness.

Emerl spends the entirety of Sonic Battle imitating others, learning and growing from every character (and Chaos Emerald) he encounters, until his personality eventually evens out. He was a “Gizoid” built by the mysterious Fourth Great Civilization thousands of years ago to be a weapon, but upon being discovered by Eggman’s grandfather Professor Gerald Robotnik, Emerl was apparently given a “soul” like that of Gerald’s granddaughter Maria. I mention Emerl not only because of how his character growth ties into the rest of this post, but because after his destruction, his data was used by Eggman in Sonic Advance 3 to create Gemerl, an enemy-turned-ally prominently featured in the IDW Comics.

Omega may not seem very lively if you don’t know or think much about him, but his debut in Sonic Heroes clearly establishes something: he feels things. Eggman locked him in an abandoned base to guard Shadow, putting him into stasis to boot; when Rouge finds the room holding Shadow and activates his pod, she also unintentionally reactivates Omega, and he is pissed. Since then, he’s defected from Eggman and made his life’s goal to destroy all Eggman robots, motivated entirely by rage. With that said, it isn’t the only emotion he feels: both Team Dark’s story in Heroes and Shadow’s story in Sonic 06 feature moments where Omega displays small glimpses of care for his teammates. If Omega didn’t care about them, why would he bother telling Rouge that the original Shadow must exist somewhere among the clones Eggman created, or bother going into standby mode to help Shadow in the future when he could be fighting badniks in the present instead? Because he isn’t driven by logic, he’s driven by feelings.

Orbot and Cubot are interesting to think about in the context of this post. Compared to badniks (which these two apparently aren’t), Orbot and Cubot have very clear personalities, with Orbot being the more sassy and tired one while Cubot is more scatterbrained. Aside from a few animated series here and some comic books there, Eggman never really had any sort of long-term ally to banter with in canon until these two showed up in Sonic Colors. (Sonic Unleashed tried to give him one with SA-55, who’s basically a proto-Orbot, but the character didn’t stick.) As high and mighty as Eggman may consider himself to be compared to the rest of humanity or any other species, he’s still a human being; human beings are social creatures by nature, we come from families and make friends and adopt pets and talk to coworkers and form communities and send messages across long distances. Thus, it makes sense that Eggman would build robot companions with more lifelike artificial intelligence to keep him company, even if they’re sassy and idiotic (also, it’s more interesting from a writing perspective when characters have someone else to interact with and bounce off of).

And of course, there’s Metal Sonic. I’ll get to him shortly.

First, I gotta talk about Belle, because she helps tie this whole thing together.

It’s no secret that the comics have made a pretty big deal out of Belle, to a point where some fans feel she is hogging the spotlight (for the record, I disagree, but I really don’t want to debate over this). Along with her companion, Motobud, Belle is one of the few remaining robots created by Eggman during his amnesiac “Mr. Tinker” phase, and thus is, literally AND metaphorically, built different from anything Eggman has made. It’s been noted, within canon and by the fandom, that Belle is remarkably lifelike for a badnik: she has free will, she speaks in full sentences, and she doesn’t just feel emotions, she cries actual tears. Belle’s technology is so remarkable that Dr. Starline kidnapped her to examine her AI, and used his findings to mold Surge and Kit into who they are now. And what did he discover was Belle’s secret?

I’m not the first person to point this out, but if you type that binary code above Belle’s head into a translator, you get...

(I just googled “binary translator” and clicked on the first result I saw, the site itself is binarytranslator.com if you’re curious.)

So, what exactly am I getting at? How does this all connect to “life energy”?

The concept of energy as a classical element is nothing new. In Greek mythology, “aether” was considered to be the bonus 5th element that made up the stars and other non-Earthly celestial bodies; its Roman equivalent was called “quintessence” (meaning Voltron didn’t make that word up lol). It’s been utilized under various names in plenty of media, including W.I.T.C.H., Final Fantasy VII, and of course, Sonic Lost World.

Lost World is a game I don’t normally think about that often due to how lackluster its story is (and also I didn’t get my Wii U back until recently, so it’s not set up for me to play). But even so, the story has hints of potential at its core, namely in the fact that it delves a little deeper into Eggman’s process of creating badniks and why he tends to use living beings to power them.

Since Sonic 1, Eggman has been capturing animals to use as organic batteries for his badniks; he occasionally uses alternative power sources, such as Little Planet’s flower seeds in Sonic CD, Power Cores in Sonic Heroes, and Chaos Drives in Sonic 06, but for the most part he sticks to using animals. In that sense, he is harnessing the animals’ life energy to power his badniks and act as their AI.

In Lost World, where life energy is directly named and addressed for the first time, Eggman creates a machine called the Extractor in order to siphon life energy directly from the planet itself, which the machine condenses into a green liquid. However, the Extractor could only borrow a limited amount of energy without completely destroying the planet (you can’t rule the planet if there isn’t one left to rule). After the Deadly Six broke free from Eggman’s control, they used the Extractor to drain the planet and its inhabitants of all their life energy, hoping to make themselves stronger and destroy the world.

And when Tails reprograms the Extractor to give the planet back its life, all the plants that withered into husks are shown re-growing leaves.

This establishes that people, animals, plants, etc. all have life energy in them.

But what about robots?

Emerl and Belle are both explicitly stated to have souls. If Gerald “gave” Emerl a soul, that may very well mean that he cared enough for Emerl that some of his life energy made its way into the Gizoid. Belle regards Mr. Tinker as her father: he is her creator not only in the sense that he built her, but that he brought a child, a new life, into the world.

Gamma, despite being powered by a Flicky with its own will and desires, developed a soul.

Orbot, Cubot, and Omega all have clear personalities and wills. Though none of them are powered by animals (Omega is debatable but I can’t remember for certain if he is), it could be argued that they, too, all have a piece of Eggman’s life energy in them to make them stand apart from standard badniks.

Which brings me back to Metal Sonic.

Despite being referred to as a badnik, Metal apparently isn’t powered by an animal (which makes sense, see the other power sources I mentioned before). We don’t know what exactly he runs on, but I firmly believe that like his “sister” Belle, he possesses some amount of Eggman’s life energy inside him.

Although Eggman has been known to be cruel to his creations and even neglectful of them, Metal is different. Metal isn’t just some mass-produced badnik, Eggman specifically created him to match Sonic’s speed and power. He put a lot of work into perfecting such a robot, so of course he’s not going to just throw Metal away, but his dedication and commitment to this one specific badnik speaks volumes.

Metal Sonic is Dr. Eggman’s golden child.

Seeing Metal Sonic is what causes Mr. Tinker to revert back into Eggman, and in the image on the right he literally calls Metal a work of art. Eggman is clearly very proud of Metal, even when he fails, and is dedicated to Metal’s upkeep. Metal is also the only badnik known to be able to scan and copy life data (which he’s done at least 3 times: Sonic Heroes, Sonic Free Riders, and the first saga of the comics), the only other robot capable of doing so being Emerl, a Gizoid. And as far as I know, Metal doesn’t need to be in his Neo form in order to do that (though apparently it’s the only form where he can talk with an actual voice).

As for a personality and desires, it’s been made clear in games like Sonic Heroes that although he knows he is a robot, Metal Sonic sees himself as the one true Sonic: a clear indicator of a superiority complex. He also mimics a lot of Sonic’s gestures in apparent mockery. And though he’s otherwise completely loyal to the Eggman Empire, he’s no stranger to rebellion.

One of my favorite one-off stories in the IDW comics is “Reflections”, a story written by Caleb Goellner, featured in the 2020 Sonic Annual, and set during the Metal Virus saga. Because Metal can’t talk in his base form, there’s almost no dialogue, except for a few lines from Dr. Starline. As a result, the storytelling is 99% visual. Basically, Metal Sonic wanders around Eggman’s Faceship until he finds a vat of the Metal Virus in Starline’s lab. There’s also a screen showing footage of Sonic being infected by the virus. Seeing all this, and checking that the coast is clear, Metal Sonic hesitantly dips his finger into the vat...

...and the stuff just slides off his finger, because it can’t infect what’s already made of metal.

If this doesn’t convey the extent of Metal’s feelings of envy towards Sonic, I don’t know what does.

And thus, we finally wrap back around to Surge.

Starline created Surge not just to replace Sonic as the world’s hero, but to be a better match for him than Metal Sonic. Metal’s sense of superiority as the “real” Sonic stems from him being a machine and lacking the perceived limitations of an organic lifeform. His systems can overheat and he needs to recharge, but he doesn’t need to sleep, eat, or breathe. He can be dented and has to be repaired, but he doesn’t bruise or bleed (as much as a kids’ comic will allow). Sonic may be fast and strong but he’s also made of flesh and blood. Sonic needs rest, food, and oxygen, because he’s organic. Metal doesn’t, because he’s a robot. If he can do everything Sonic can, but without the hassle of getting tired, then Metal must be the superior Sonic, right?

Surge, on the other hand, is a cyborg. She needs air, but she’s also less fragile than the average person. Thanks to Starline giving her cellular upgrades with a modified form of the Metal Virus, Surge can survive the crushing weight of a badnik’s spike hand, something that could seriously hurt Sonic if he couldn’t dodge, with nothing but a few scrapes. And despite her current personality and memories being fabricated by Starline through the use of both Belle and Neo Metal Sonic’s coding, she’s still a living person who thinks and feels independently.

Surge is, logistically speaking, the perfect balance between Sonic and Metal. She can match practically all of Sonic’s abilities, from superspeed to consuming chilidogs, but with the enhancements of a machine. And I strongly believe that because of this, Metal sees/will come to see her as a threat to his goal to become the “real” Sonic. Maybe even form a rivalry with her.

Maybe I’m looking too deep into something that isn’t there. But then again, these comics are written by Ian Flynn and Evan Stanley, and in all 15+ years that he’s written for Sonic comics, Ian has been known to recycle lesser-known and poorly handled characters and concepts with impressive results. And as someone who engages in character design, I can only commend him for it. He’s already made readers open their hearts (pun intended) to the Deadly Six, you never know who or what else he might put a fresh spin on next.

TL;DR: I theorize that more advanced badniks/robots like Metal Sonic, Belle, Orbot, Cubot, Gamma, Omega, and Emerl (+ Gemerl by extension) are more lifelike than standard badniks/robots due to possessing some amount of their creator’s (or studier’s, in Emerl’s case) life energy, a concept which was properly introduced in Sonic Lost World and is arguably the whole reason Eggman primarily uses animals to power his badniks. These robots’ possession of life energy stems from how invested their creators are in their construction/maintenance, and plays a role in them developing feelings (Belle seeing her creator as her father) and desires (Metal Sonic wanting to be the true, superior Sonic).