#maybe in an attemtp to keep him alive long enough to free it

[boom33713]

fun stuff about cyber corruption in sonic frontiers that i think about a lot:

sonic specifically absorbs the energy from the cyber cages, things described as “a nightmare” where you can’t “see or hear anything clearly”. most importantly, the cyber cages are for people actually in cyberspace, and being freed of them only partially frees you from cyberspace.

it’s not the energy itself that’s inherently corrupt, but the way it interacts with sonic. tails says that sonic “took on so much cyber-energy. it corrupted him.”

the combination of sonic being more and more in pain the more cyber energy he absorbs, and the way that cyber energy does not react well to physical bodies quite possibly means that it was literally eating away at sonic’s body while attempting to drag him fully into cyberspace.

apparently, the energy gives sonic some kind of boost. sonic both literally says so when talking to amy, and it’s also implied by the way he gains a new skill for every cage he absorbs.

cyber corruption shares a lot of symptoms with the way sonic’s friends were stuck both in the cyber prisons and halfway in cyberspace, most notable being a disconnect from reality (amy, about the cage: i couldn’t tell if i was coming, going, or moving at all. sonic during rhea island: know i’m moving. can’t feel it.)

sonic was, at the peak of cyber corruption, halfway inside cyberspace and halfway outside of it. just like his friends had been. but obviously, his version of halfway was entirely different, since instead of being laggy holographic image, he was more glitching corpse without apparent consciousness. one foot in both worlds, but their feet have different weight to them.