She's here, reaching far across these new frontiers
Rediscovered
Frontiers is a Sonic the Hedgehog Intra-Franchise Crossover story written by The Infamous Man that combines the worlds of Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) and Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW), as well as incorporating the events of Sonic Frontiers. It can also be found on Archive of Our Own here.
While exploring the forest, Tangle the Lemur discovers an ancient PDA half-buried in the ground, which she salvages and brings to Whisper the Wolf in hopes that she can repair it. When Whisper activates the PDA, however, it turns out to contain a very distraught Artificial Intelligence with a hologrammatic lynx avatar. Introducing herself as "Nicole", the holo-lynx pleads with them to bring her to Sonic the Hedgehog, claiming to know him. Along the way, they will discover the dark history of their world, and the secret of the Super Genesis Wave...
Has its own spin-off called Rediscovered Frontiers Universe where it focuses on the other parts of the multiverse that can be read here along with a second spin-off called Rediscovered Frontiers Super Special on other Archie characters interacting with the new timeline characters that can be read here.
A podcast audio drama for the fanfic was announced on 16 June 2026.
It later inspired the Recursive Fanfiction Passengers (Pubmechanic), where Mobian Echidnas came on an alternative version of Earth from IDW comics.
Due to the numerous twists throughout the story, all spoilers up until Chapter 34 will be unmarked.
This fanfic includes examples of:
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- Abilene Paradox: Amy ended up drifting apart from Tekno and Ebony due to her time with the Freedom Fighters. Both sides wanted to rekindle their friendships with each other, but were waiting for the other party to do so first, and by the time Amy and Tekno decided to stop waiting and just do it already, the Super Genesis Wave hit and they both got rebooted, leaving Ebony alone and bitter.
- Abusive Parents: Game/IDW Bunnie suffered from a father and a mother who, living in a community that rejected much of the modern world in the name of their beliefs that it's inherently "sinful", began to see her as just a burden as a result of her illness, which couldn't be treated without the very modern medicines and technology of the wider world, paralyzing her arm and both of her legs. When she got her Artificial Limbs, her father was more angry and horrified at the fact she got them at all and "turned her back on Gaia" and their ways than the fact that she now had an Explosive Leash in one of those limbs, which he seemed to view more as a punishment, even lashing out and giving her the scar on her face. The tipping point was her angrily accusing him of caring more about his god than his own daughter, to which he could only sadly mutter to himself on how he wished she could have just died instead of growing up like this.
- Adaptation Expansion:
- Naugus amplifying the hate of Mina's concert audience to cause Nicole's bad reputation was never discovered by anyone else outside of his apprentice Geoffrey throughout the Pre-SGW Archie run. In Chapter 9, Harvey Who had found out about this after the concert as a Secret Freedom Fighter, before informing Mina about this after she initially apologized to Nicole in Archie Sonic Issue #237. This was something that was even confirmed by Silver, implying that the Secret Freedom Fighters as a whole also found out about this offscreen.
- A flashback in Chapter 16 shows the final conversation between Knuckles and Julie-Su before the latter was exiled, taking place shortly after Sonic angrily left as Knuckles refused to help by lending him a Warp Ring in Archie Sonic Issue #232.
- Chapter 33's flashback shows the clash between New Mobotropolis Team Freedom and the Tails Doll until the SGW's arrival, as Archie Sonic Issue #247 only showed the fight's beginning before the SGW happened.
- Due to the Sword of Light being crafted by the Ancient Walkers and wielded by the forces of good for its battles against evil, it can reject its current wielder if he or she has turned evil and go for another user, as shown with Elias and Tangle respectively.
- Rediscovered Frontiers Super Special Chapter 13 shows what Infinite has been up to since Sonic Forces, showing his reaction to various IDW events like the Metal Virus.
- Adaptation Name Change: An event example. The war in Sonic Forces is officially referred to as the "War to Take Back the Planet" or "Eggman War". In here, it is referred to as the "Magenta Egg War".
- Adaptation Origin Connection:
- The main premise is that after the Super Genesis Wave, the Archie multiverse became the Games/IDW canon rather than Post-SGW Archie. In the franchise, the two multiverses are their own separate continuities.
- The Ancients are responsible for the arrival of the Chaos Emeralds in the old world as well as the new one. The Mobius Ancients also turned the real Master Emerald of their world into the Phantom Ruby, with the one guarded by the echidnas and the Chaotix being a replica the former created.
- After Nicole starts uncovering some memories that had been locked away, she discovers that she had originally been a servant of the Pre-SGW Ancients before becoming an A.I and those same memories later reveal that the Ancients also created the first Enerjak. Chapter 35 reveals that the Ancients also invented the anti-Enerjak weapon. Ni-Col the head priestess became A.I. NI-COL 1.0, the first version of Nicole the Holo-Lynx. Said A.I would be sent to a Sally Acorn who was grieving for Julayla in another Zone.
- The White Space is connected to the Chaos Force.
- Chapter 38 reveals that the Paradox Prism was formed when Hyper Sonic defeated THE END and created the new multiverse, having gone to a parallel zone — later revealed to be the Games/IDW universe, as opposed to the Post-SGW/Classic Universe.
- The Source of All is THE END's cosmic waste, retroactively explaining its shady behavior.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: The Super Genesis Wave (SGW) is a story-wide invoked example of this In-Universe. Most of the Archie relationships and group dynamics were erased or radically altered by the Cosmic Retcon. This causes no small amount of grief and disconnects between the Archie survivors and the current Game/IDW incarnations as the former became The Artifact.
- Adaptational Backstory Change:
- For Nicole's origin here, her backstory is expanded upon and revised, with key elements taken from the canceled storyline for her SatAM incarnation, which — much like in Archie — was re-imagined for both her Pre-SGW and Archie Post-SGW incarnations' backstories, leading to her holographic form as a Mobian lynx. As opposed to being created by a version of Rotor in an alternate future and repeatedly sent back in time to Sally to aid in their war to defeat the original Dr. Robotnik in a Stable Time Loop before Robo-Robotnik's arrival broke it, she instead originated from the time of the Pre-SGW Ancients. In her PDA form, it was planned that she would be sent into the future of a similar timeline parallel to the Prime Zone, aiding the native Freedom Fighters before being destroyed and rebuilt, and then being sent to another similar timeline to repeat the cycle, enabling her to update and advance her software capabilities each time until she was ready to return to the Prime Zone. By her 247th cycle, she returned to the Prime Zone as the present finally caught up, resulting in the Archie storyline up until the reboot.
- In the Archie lore, the first Enerjak was stated to be a Chaos energy scientist and the husband of Aurora, whose attempted transcendence into the Chaos Force with his wife became corrupted and resulted in his insanity, forcing his wife and the Ancient Walkers to destroy his body and having his essence scattered throughout the Chaos Force. In this story, according to the author, he was instead merely amongst the many succeeding Enerjaks that predated him, originating to the time of the Ancients, where the true, original Enerjak was a lab experiment of the Warlord. Unlike the Enerjak in the comics, he was originally a farmer who had a wife and five children that was brought to the Starfall Islands, in which his transcendence into a demigod and descent into madness resulted from the cruelty of the experiments. Upon death, he ensured that his rage and will would linger and manifest in future generations of echidnas that would become his incarnations. Thus, that Enerjak served as the namesake for the one that originated in the comics, in which during his transcendence, he was possessed by the demigod and had to be destroyed.
- Adaptational Explanation:
- In the Archie comics, the Unwilling Roboticisation is shown to make its victims being Reforged into a Minion, with their controlled personalities being more akin to a warped version of the victim's own. This makes it more like Mind Control with extra steps. However, it wasn't clarified how aware the victims are of their actions while under said control, with only Jules being noted to be totally aware. In Chapter 2, Eggman reveals to Sally that what she went through, in which she is left conscious but trapped while an AI loyal to him is grafted from her personality and mindscape to efficiently use the robot body while obtaining her skills and memories, is actually the same as his other victims. This was how deroboticisation would restore the victim's original personalities and memories. This makes the overall situation more like a Demonic Possession, with the villainous invader successfully suppressing the victim for control of the body.
- The Source of All's infamous advisory to King Max wasn't explained in Archie outside of some nebulous "greater good", as it supposedly gave the royalty who bonded with it the gift of foresight, which should've made him keep the right people (Nate Morgan) while getting rid of the bad ones (Ixis Naugus, Kodos and Robotnik), resulting in quite a Voodoo Shark. It would be explained in here that the Source was actually THE END's cosmic waste and has been playing Max and practically the entire Acorn dynasty for fools, using its cosmic power to give them a crippling dependency on it while curbing their ability to critically think for themselves.
- Adaptational Villainy: One of the first major twists in the story is the revelation that Bunnie ended up being rebooted as a violent criminal and member of the Hooligans. Flashbacks over the Studiopolis arc explore just how she ended up like this, and it isn't pretty.
- Age Insecurity:
- It’s revealed that Amy felt this on Mobius even after using the Ring of Acorns to gain a teenage body. When her friends found out they either treated her like a teenager their age, which made her feel uncomfortable when the topics turned more mature, or would treat her like she was still a little kid, which she hated.
- Inverted age-wise for Lupe who is a full-grown woman. She was married and with two kids, or four counting her two adopted Overlander girls. She feels wrong in the body of her teenage version.
- All for Nothing:
- Hershey bitterly laments that her team's efforts to discretely extract Mina and her decision to try and silence her when things got dicey were pointless by Metal Sonic showing up and Silver recognizing her teammates. Lyco and Leeta bitterly call her out on this.
- Aurora was the one who sent Locke the vision that led him to experiment on Knuckles' egg, hoping to create a savior for the Echidnas that is also capable of stopping THE END. However the individual that had been foreseen as the one to release THE END, Ian Droid, ended up being defeated in a completely unrelated incident while Knuckles' Chaos powers ultimately wound up causing more harm than good. Aurora is understandably horrified that all the suffering she wound up putting Knuckles through was for nothing.
- A small subversion. Due to the Neo Walkers dying and the Chaos Force being destabilized, it becomes impossible for the New Gods to return the world back as it was originally planned, their only option being to create the Games/IDW Universe in order to at least allow the still-existing people of Mobius to live in it while preventing the even worse outcome of having all of existence being consumed by THE END.
- Operation "Brave New World" was stopped before it could even be used in Chapter 43 courtesy of Silver imploding the Universal Spire after the defeat of the Secret Freedom Fighters, meaning that every action that went into concealing it for the sake of seizing Naugus' Promised Day Spell was a waste of time.
- All There in the Manual: While most of the important info is in the fic itself, there are some miscellaneous details like info on the Restoration that can only be seen at the "Informational" list located at the SpaceBattles thread.
- All Your Base Are Belong to Us: The end of Chapter 41 has the New Mobotropolis Freedom Fighters underground base raided, with the next chapter showing the aftermath.
- Alternate Self: A canon sidestory reveals that alternate versions of the Freedom Fighters exist in a version of Classic Sonic’s world and
Word of God is that said world is a past version of the Post-SGW Archie continuity. However, TIM also confirms that this timeline is the one that was intended to become the new prime universe for Sonic and the others, but due to THE END interrupting the process, all of the denizens of the old world instead migrated into the parallel timeline, which later became the Games/IDW timeline, essentially making it the prime dimension instead. - Ambiguous Situation: It is implied that the wolf twins and Elias were stuck in Cyber Space when they were teleported to the Game/IDW Verse, with them possibly seeing THE END, though that could have just been mad rambling from Elias over what happened. Chapters 34 and 43 confirms that the trio encountered THE END.
- And I Must Scream: At the beginning of the story Nicole ends up stuck in her PDA form and stranded in the wilderness. She spends what is later revealed to be at least eight months completely alone with no one to talk to and no way to move. It becomes even worse when she runs low on power and is forced into standby mode, which essentially strands her consciousness in a black void. She just barely manages to cling onto her sanity.
- Antagonistic Offspring: In a broad sense, after Phage's "evolution" she starts to see Nicole as her mother as it was induced by consuming Nicole's code in Studiopolis. She still intends on devouring the rest of the holo-lynx.
- Arc Villain:
- Mecha Sally served as a minor antagonist at the beginning of the story in the At All Costs - Part 2 arc, being the Starter Villain that was quickly dealt with in the chapter following her debut, concluding the threat of Mecha Sally.
- Both Metal Sonic and Mammoth Mogul take center stage as the main antagonists in the Studiopolis arc.
- Naugus serves as the main antagonist of the story as of the Return to New Mobotropolis arc. His role as the story's main antagonist was seemingly going to be eventually downplayed by the Endless Possibility arc until his status was reaffirmed in Chapter 43.
- THE END serves as the main antagonist of the His World arc.
- The Secret Freedom Fighters were seemingly going to overtake Naugus' role as the story's main antagonists as of the Endless Possibility arc. Their actions throughout the story set up how deeply the Super Genesis Wave emotionally affected them, most of them are desperately clinging to the past and are willing to achieve their goal of restoring Mobius, through all means necessary despite how similar it makes them to Naugus and Eggman (Robo-Robotnik), even at the cost of countless, innocent lives. Tangle and Silver subdue them in Chapter 43 and render their plans moot, reaffirming Naugus the main villain until Metal Sonic and the Egg Bosses' army arrives.
- Arc Welding:
- Mogul reveals that he was responsible for the events of the "Endangered Species" arc, having Nicolette bring Thrash to Angel Island as a distraction for her to retrieve the Phantom Ruby.
- Classic Sonic's world is actually the Post-SGW universe from canon, just set a few years back. However, this was later retconned by the games' canon, making it instead a parallel timeline that was intended to become the prime universe and home for the Pre-SGW denizens, which unfortunately did not occur due to THE END's interference and damaging Nicole's body during the process.
- The Mecha Sonic from Sonic Adventure makes an appearance during the Return to New Mobotropolis arc. It’s mentioned that on Earth, Eggman never got around to activating it and the Secret Freedom Fighters stole the badnik from Clutch. It now helps the Secret Freedom Fighters and the New Freedom Fighters of New Mobotropolis under the name "Mach".
- Ascended Extra: Saffron, who had little role in the Archie comics outside of being Charmy's Satellite Love Interest, is promoted to a major character as Julie-Su's Only Friend during her travels with the echidnas during their exile through the multiverse, even getting a considerable number of scenes set from her perspective.
- Ascended Fridge Horror:
- While IDW focused mainly on the main cast helping people evacuate in the Metal Virus outbreak, Rediscovered Frontiers Super Special Chapter 4 showed critical places like hospitals being attacked by Zombots with the patients unable to escape. Cassia is an example of what happens if the Zombots were cured while still retaining their original ailments, especially if it was a life-threatening condition like hers. The only thing they can do is to immediately pray that a doctor is a nearby former infectee.
- The His World arc's Framing Device was a forced global broadcast that was played around the world In-Universe, as Archie!Sonic and Nicole needed that amount of reach to ensure that their warnings could reach the right people. This meant that practically everyone on Earth watched it but the other implications were overshadowed by the global panic over THE END's incoming return. Rediscovered Frontiers Super Special Chapter 11 explores the other previously ignored reactions to such a broadcast. Countless children got traumatized by the horror of THE END's actions. Public opinion towards the Archie Echidnas are now swinging towards fear and paranoia due to their messed-up ancient history making people worry that they are going repeat their mistakes on Earth while calling for the Restoration to cut off their aid, not helped by the previous chapter showing implications of the echidnas not entirely ditching their superiority complex, much to Lara-Le and Remington's vexation. The calls for Sonic to kill Eggman intensified as well, as the latter's crimes have already made many wonder why the hedgehog didn't do so earlier like in IDW, let alone allow him to survive the "reboot".
- Due to how asinine the Source's advice is despite it supposedly granting the power of foresight to whoever it bonded with, it has been speculated before that Max wasn't the only Acorn king who blindly took its "advice" without thinking it through and paying dearly for it. Chapter 43 has THE END state that almost every Acorn monarch in history had been manipulated by the Source to some extent. The only known exceptions were Julius Acorn's predecessors (since the Source wasn't discovered yet) along with Elias and Sally, who mostly distrusted it on principle.
- The Atoner: Upon finding out about the Awful Truth about how the Echidnas became the advanced race they proclaimed themselves to be, Aurora resorted to a certain idea after millennia of watching her kind repeat their mistakes over and over to break the cycle. That idea was making Knuckles a savior via visions in Locke's sleep. You can guess how that turned out.
- Bad Boss: Lien-Da was both brutal and incompetent during her leadership of the echidnas during their Exodus, turning them into an army of interdimensional raiders at gunpoint when Julie-Su pointed out that they could've simply asked for help in many of the Zones they ended up in, and caring little for any casualties they took. This understandably leads to most of the Dark Legion to turn on her.
- Berserk Button: The discovery that Robo-Robotnik treated his Metal Sonics as disposable Cannon Fodder rather than his Magnum Opus becomes one for Metal Sonic, destroying the Death Egg in a fit of rage after discovering it. Sally and Mina inadvertently press it during their fight by assuming that Eggman is directly controlling him.
- Bookends: Excluding the reactions from Earth afterwards, the His World arc begins and ends with Sonic's using Chaos Control. Notably, both of the heroes' attempts at fixing things cosmically, Archie!Sonic at the beginning and Nicole at the epilogue went wrong due to a sudden intervention from the enemy they thought had finished fighting, Robo-Robotnik and THE END respectively.
- Bond One-Liner: Before Hyper Sonic beats THE END:THE END: Why… why aren't you afraid…?Sonic: Because I never fear the fall. (...) Do you?
- Big Bad Wannabe:
- In the greater scope of the Archie lore, Ian Droid turns up as this. In Aurora's visions, he was supposedly the one responsible for releasing THE END out of it's bindings and the reason why she gave Knuckles most of his powers. However, in the end, he ends up being neutralized by Invincible and Savage Dragon with little fanfare. The actual person responsible for it was, ironically enough, Eggman himself, in his last spiteful act while Sonic attempted to perform Chaos Control to stop the Super Genesis Wave. It's later clarified in a sidestory that he was the original Robotnik of Mobius Prime who uploaded his mind before his demise, so she was technically correct regarding who would release it, just not which version of him would.
- The Warlord of the Archie Ancients tried to use his creations, Enerjak and Ni-Col to remake his race and the multiverse in his image while making use of THE END's rampage by hijacking Nicole with a cyber copy of himself during the events of the His World arc. Nicole stopped him and his plans in a few paragraphs before deleting him from existence because he never locked her out of her own systems to do so. And that's not even considering how he got killed by Enerjak.
- Big Badass Battle Sequence:
- Chapter 38 has the Prelate army formed from most of Archie!Sonic's friends and allies he made throughout his life helping Hyper Archie!Sonic fight THE END.
- Chapter 42 onwards has the battle of New Mobotropolis, with the New Mobotropolis Freedom Fighters fighting against Naugus and his forces while Mina rallies the populace, with the Chaotix slipping through the city's gates at the end. Even the Secret Freedom Fighter subplot in Chapter 43 was a brawl between Tangle and Silver against the Secret Freedom Fighters happening while the fighting is still happening aboveground. Chapter 46 has the Restoration's task force join in the battle assisting the local resistance against Snively's deployed badnik forces, with several of the Secret Freedom Fighters joining in as well.
- Big Damn Reunion:
- Played for drama with Julie-Su. The hope for this with the Chaotix kept her sanity together during the Exodus, only for her learn about the reboot and meet Vector, Espio and Charmy under less than ideal circumstances. She proceeds to Freak Out before calming down and eventually bonding with the new incarnations of the Chaotix.
- Chapter 26 is one for Sally and Nicole reuniting with the original Knothole Freedom Fighters who were not rebooted, Antoine and Rotor in the New Mobotropolis Freedom Fighter base.
- Chapter 44 has Sally and Nicole reunite with Julie-Su and Saffron after the latter breached New Mobotropolis together with the rest of the Chaotix.
- Bittersweet Ending: For the His World arc, the old Archie universe is unsalvageable due to THE END's actions damaging the Chaos Force along with various flaws in the past building up to an irreversible point and some of the people of the old universe are destroyed in the process of helping them fight it, but the trio still manages to defeat the mad god and create the current universe thanks to Jani-Ca and Dimitri's sacrifice, where people hopefully will be able to live in peace. THE END still is around, sealed, and damages Nicole to the point she ends up in the condition we see at the start of the story and the old Sonic ultimately perishes, his mind a blank slate from THE END’s curse, but they manage to send a message to the future warning about the danger posed by him, and ultimately their efforts crippled the entity to a weakened state.
- Bizarre Alien Biology: According to Dr. Quack, there's a huge discrepancy between Mobian (Pre-SGW) and Islander (Post-SGW) biology. It serves to highlight how different characters from the two universes are.
- Mobians biology resembles that of humans and is a result of Xorda's Gene Bombs. Islanders, a naturally evolved race, have more in common with their respective species and are more prone to Furry Reminder.
- Both Mobians and Islanders can develop powers depending on their species. The main difference is that Islanders can be born with them completely naturally (like Tangle's Prehensile Tail), while in Mobians the traits are a result of exposure to Chaos Energy. Islanders also possess a degree of Super-Toughness and Healing Factor absent in Mobians.
- Breather Episode: The first few chapters (Chapters 39-41) of the Endless Possibility arc, while not without their own dramatic moments, are downplayed examples of this with the various characters reacting to Archie!Sonic's message and planning their next moves, as they are sandwiched in between showing how the Cosmic Retcon went down and the battle for New Mobotropolis.
- Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: Sonic, Nicole, Dimitri, Jani-Ca and the Neo Walkers alongside many of the citizens of the multiverse, are able to subdue THE END, a horrific Eldritch Abomination capable of consuming the multiverse and beyond if not stopped which broke out during the Super Genesis Wave. However, it came at a terrible cost - trillions of people at least along with countless universes are consumed and wiped from existence, the Neo Walkers are killed, Dimitri and Jani-Ca give up their lives depowering it, Sonic loses almost all of his memories and sense of self, ensuring that he will be rebooted as a blank slate with no way to retrieve his Mobius persona and the entire multiverse has to be recreated from scratch. Not only is THE END still alive (albeit heavily weakened) after all this, with plans to pursue the rebooted Ancients and Sonic, but its final shot at Nicole ensures that the majority who did survive will be rebooted without their memories instead of living the facsimile history Nicole planned and live completely different lives as a result, effectively killing them.
- Bumbling Henchmen Duo: Orbot and Cubot were designed to be this for Eggman. They are programmed to occasionally screw-up in order to motivate Eggman to apply himself and gain inspiration from their mistakes.
- Bus Crash:
- Mammoth Mogul reveals in Chapter 14 that he had Nic the Weasel killed after having her steal the Phantom Ruby.
- Lien-Da was effectively killed by Julie-Su during the Echidnas' exile, with her leaving her half-sister and her remaining Dark Legion loyalists stranded in a desolate alien world with no apparent chance of escape. She also left behind a bomb, though she herself admitted it would be a toss-up if Lien-Da would let it explode/fail to disarm it in time or successfully escape the blast radius/shut it down to let herself live a little longer. Chapter 16 shows the event in full via flashback.
- The author notes that, due to Dimitri being in Haven at the time the Super Genesis Wave hit, he ended up subject to a full-blown Ret-Gone and was erased from existence. It is later clarified that he popped up to help the New Gods fight THE END, by empowering Jani-Ca to a point where she could stop the god and let Hyper Sonic and Nicole do the rest - at the cost of both of their lives.
- Wynmacher was among the echidnas that died in the desert trek, due to giving his food and water to Lara-Le and their son.
- Dark Enerjak was supposed to be arrested by the Zone Cops shortly after his defeat, as implied from his armor showing up in No Zone Jail during "Scourge: Lockdown". He was instead consumed by THE END saving Jani-Ca. The author stated that many Zone Jail inmates were erased in their cells, so he wasn't exactly safe there either.
- Butt-Monkey: Zangle, the Zone Cop that took Zonic’s beat after the Super Genesis Wave, apparently is overworked and gets no respect from Blaze who goes between the Prime and Sol Zones without a care.
- Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp":
- Due to the changes of the universe, the terms "Overlander" and "Mobians" have been changed to "Humans" and "Islanders", which causes some slight confusion to those who don't use one pair of those terms.
- When Nicole brings up roboticization, Tangle and Whisper have no idea what she's talking about and think it must be her term for the Zombot Plague, which confuses Nicole in turn.
- Characters from Mobius call every non-anthropomorphic animal Mobini.
- Call-Back:
- In Chapter 18 Whisper recalls her first meeting with Tangle, during their attack on Angel Island controlled by Neo Metal Sonic. In the same chapter, the Team meets Barry the Quoka, surprised that he still works for a train company.
- In Chapter 36, Nicole notes that the time she knew what pain was like was when she swapped bodies with Sally, which took place in the Archie Sonic Issue #146 story "Circuit Me". She wound up projecting her leftover feelings of Sonic when she switched back to her own body on Shard and experienced heartbreak when he died to Metal Sonic.
- The Extreme Gears were left behind by Team Freedom at the desert hideout when they were driven to New Mobotropolis in Chapter 21. 20 chapters later, the Hedgehog parents note this very fact when deciding on how to travel to New Mobotropolis since the Beat Monster is at almost full capacity, riding on their loaned Extreme Gears.
- Call-Forward:
- Chapter 28 has Nicole suddenly receive a playback of her memories, showing her fighting THE END alongside Hyper Sonic and Jani-Ca. Said fight and context would be shown in full several chapters later throughout the His World arc.
- Upon seeing the Paradox Prism pop out, Archie!Sonic knows that it will be something that he would have to deal with down the line.
- Cannot Spit It Out: Whisper can't bring herself to admit to Tangle that she likes her in a romantic sense. It took Tangle having an existential crisis in Chapter 29 to finally get her to open up about her feelings.
- Canon Welding:
- Jet Set Radio is apparently part of this universe, with DJ Professor K being a popular pirate radio broadcaster in the Islands. It's also revealed that the Noise Tanks have joined up with the Egg Bosses.
- While the story primarily takes place in a universe largely based on the games and uses settings and characters from both Archie and IDW, elements from other iterations of the franchise also found their place. For example, characters like Lee Stone, Tekno, Porker Lewis, Ebony, Helen, Anton Veruca and Dave found their way into the story with bigger or smaller roles.
- Cast Herd: To cope with the large character roster in later chapters, the narrative spotlight is usually divided into groups. And then within said group, it is a case of Rotating Protagonist to see which character gets featured. As of Chapter 34, we have Team Freedom, Team Chaotix, Restoration HQ, the Egg Bosses mostly from Metal Sonic's perspective, the New Mobotropolis Freedom Fighters, the Secret Freedom Fighters and Naugus' regime. And the story still occasionally cuts to the perspective of characters that are not featured in any of these groups, like the Hooligans and Echidnas.
- Caused the Big Bang: As part of the Cosmic Retcon, Jani-Ca and Dimitri rework the cosmic energies left to turn into an energy blast and hit THE END, Nicole creates the seed of a completely new universe instead trying to save the already-doomed old multiverse. Sonic takes said seed created by Nicole and hits THE END with it, creating the current multiverse from the clash of old and new cosmic forces.
- Cell Phones Are Useless: Justified. When the cast reach Mirage Dunes Town which is at the edge of the Mirage Desert Zone, Tangle and Whisper note that their phones can barely get a signal due to the remote location. After entering the desert itself, the aforementioned remoteness combined with Naugus' Jedi Mind Trick barrier block all communications to the outside world. The result is that Team Freedom cannot contact the Restoration and inform them about the various developments within the city.
- Cerebus Retcon:
- When Sally is reminiscing about her early adventures with Sonic, Nicole notes that while she can’t directly remember them due to not being sentient at the time, she knows that Sally is looking at them through a Nostalgia Filter and these “silly” adventures were actually much more serious than she’s describing them. Specific highlighted examples are how terrified the Knothole Freedom Fighters were in their first battle against the Krudzu, Sally's brief experience with body dysphoria after her fur was dyed pink by exposure to waste sludge from Robotnik's chemical factories, and how full of self-doubt Bunnie Rabbot was after her initial escape from the Roboticizer.
- Geoffrey's actions when hitting on Sally during Ken Penders’ run take on a new and more sinister light thanks to him being a traitor working for Naugus since the beginning. The only reason he began making moves on the teenage girl was because he was trying to use her infatuation of him to manipulate her and turn the princess into his & Naugus’ pawn.
- Archie!Amy's infamous Plot-Relevant Age-Up instead of having her grow normally to tie her into the Sonic Adventure adaptation caused a lot more problems for her as revealed in here. The way she got older was due to using up the Ring of Acorns, which could've been used to heal a comatose Queen Alicia Acorn and pissed off many people, especially the royalists. She only escaped punishment due to her deeds as a Freedom Fighter and the queen being healed by an alternative method later on. Due to being simultaneously too mentally young and too physically old as only her body was aged, it resulted in massive Age Insecurity that tanked her friendships with Tekno and Ebony while being forced to go to the younger people's classes. It is also implied from their conversations that this was also responsible for imploding her love life, as no sane man would risk dating a minor in a teenager's body. Her fellow Freedom Fighters who did know what she did still treats her like a minor as a result and this gets her Demoted to Extra for most of the Pre-Reboot run.
- Rediscovered Frontiers Super Special Chapter 10 "A Mother’s Sorrow" recontextualizes Lara-Le's enablement of her son Knuckles being put through the wringer for the sake of becoming the Avatar back on Mobius. It turns out that from her POV, she only did this as she had no choice in the matter. The Brotherhood of Guardians effectively control all aspects of life, including the law which means that legal system would be biased on Locke's side while running away with Knuckles would just get the entire police force hunting them down. Standing up to Locke would only be delaying the inevitable as he wields Chaos powers while she doesn't. Even her divorce was possible due to Locke allowing it in the first place.
- Cerebus Syndrome: While not exactly sunshine and rainbows given what happened at the start, the story overall takes an even darker turn from Chapter 20 onwards due to the events surrounding New Mobotropolis along with the themes of cosmic horror and psychological projection.
- Chekhov's Gag:
- Sticks rambles to the Chaotix that Lupe was taken to "Area 2014" and that it was hidden by magic, as it is not showing on any GPS maps. Over a dozen chapters later, Sticks would be proven right, as "Area 2014" is New Mobotropolis and its surroundings hidden by Naugus' Jedi Mind Trick barrier.
- When fighting the Noise Tanks, Charmy pulls off wrestling moves on one of them, despite Espio's insistence that they are fake. Chapter 45 has Espio completely outclassed by Conquering Storm in ninja combat. So his solution was to use said "fake" wrestling instead to suplex her into unconsciousness, as Charmy had apparently forced Espio to watch wrestling matches with him.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- When Nicole uses Jewel's laptop to scour the world's databases for any familiar information on the Archie world, she also captures several viruses due to latter's... escapades after she finishes. She gives the same viruses to Sally Acorn in her robotic body's mindscape, giving her the edge against the Mecha Sally AI controlling her body.
- Upon arriving in Mirage Dunes Town, Team Freedom notices that the local express has an Extreme Gear launch station, in which they cannot currently go for because of their mission. When they discover Naugus' invisible magic perception field that messes with any intruders' sense of time and memories to make them turn around and report that there is nothing to be found, they figure out that the only way to get past it is to charge in at very high speeds before the spell could take effect. They also learn that there are train tracks near the barrier. Cue Team Freedom becoming Extreme Gear riders.
- Upon reaching the Hedgehog couple's desert hideout, Team Freedom leave their Extreme Gear behind as they were picked up by Beauregard and Mordred to enter New Mobotropolis unscathed. After being rescued by the Chaotix and deciding to make their way to New Mobotropolis, two of the Extreme Gears got used by the Hedgehog couple in response to the lack of available seats. This allows them to fly ahead and open the gates of New Mobotropolis for the Chaotix.
- When Team Freedom starts their journey, they use Akira's van which was loaned to Silver. When reaching the barrier surrounding New Mobotropolis, they map out the barrier and leave the van behind in Mirage Dunes Town as they have to use the speed of Extreme Gears to breach the barrier. When the Chaotix reach the town a dozen chapters later and notice the same van parked nearby, they come across the very same map Team Freedom used and was able to correctly deduce what happened to them along with what they did thanks to the marked map, giving them (along with the Restoration and unwittingly the Egg Bosses) the much-needed lead to reach New Mobotropolis.
- Julie-Su's cybernetic eye was implanted into her due to the original being lost in a battle with the Nocturnus Clan. Said tech was of the Dark Legion. As such, when it scanned a graffiti of Cassia containing a nearby QR code, it was able to actually scan the code despite the difference in technology. It is later revealed that said code was actually a way to register to the Egg Boss' network and as a result, the Egg Bosses were able to find out about New Mobotropolis' exact location and barrier with her as their unknowing camera echidna. As for Julie-Su herself, her eye has been updated to the latest Eggman OS.
- In Chapter 38, Hyper Sonic needs backup against THE END but Nicole and Jani-Ca are too busy patching up reality to help. There is an entire army of cores and a good Enerjak. Guess what was the solution?
- In the SFF's base, Uncle Chuck was introducing a cloaking device, presumably the same kind used by Rosemary Prower, to Tangle when Silver's outburst happened in Chapter 33. She secretly kept it after hearing what the angry hedgehog said. In response to the Harvey Who's non-answer regarding why they didn't ask for outside help several chapters later, she uses it to investigate the SFF's inner workings.
- When escaping from Castle Acorn in Chapter 25, Bunnie and Mina make a detour getting The Marvelous Queen, with the former stating that its firepower would be a great asset. After it blasted its way to safety with the girls in tow, it was brought to Rotor for upgrades, much to his dismay. When the New Mobotropolis Freedom Fighters base was raided in Chapter 42, it became integral in ensuring the escape of Bunnie, Antoine, Hamlin, Rosemary and Amadeus.
- To prevent Mina from running away, the Hooligans used a substance on her feet that is non-harmful while completely restraining her legs. Chapter 42 notes that Rotor noticed this very substance when checking Bunnie's arsenal for upgrades, who proceeds to upgrade The Marvelous Queen with it and blasts it on the raiders while the Freedom Fighters escaped being caught in it due to Sally's command, allowing most of them to escape to take the fight to the surface.
- Child Soldiers: The comparison between Mobius and Earth shows how the young heroes would eventually turn out in the long run, depending on their circumstances, duration and brutality of fighting evil.
- The Knothole Freedom Fighters of Mobius fought Robotnik from a very young age. It's often highlighted that while they fared amazingly against the original and Robo-Robotnik, it wasn't without serious physical and emotional damage.
- Sally was separated from her father and forced onto the position of the leader of a whole village. Most of her time had been occupied with helping out around Knothole, managing the Freedom Fighters, planning the next attack on Robotnik's bases, sneaking into his nightmarish cities or dealing with the politics of being a princess. Looking through Sally's memories, Nicole notes that the earlier memories of their 'adventures' look more fun and innocent than they were in reality, suggesting internalization. Once the "grown-ups" returned, she found it irritating that they tried to show her aside as if she was a mere child, and not a seasoned soldier. Then, as a teenager, she got roboticized, followed by most of her body being rebuilt by Robo-Robotnik, practically making it impossible for her to return to normal. All this leads to a capable but ultimately damaged person.
- Antoine and Bunnie married young. At one point, Antoine wondered if their decision wasn't too hasty or if people would judge them for it. Bunnie counters it by pointing out that with their kind of lives, you can never be sure how long one will survive. Her words proved to be prophetic when Antoine uses himself as a shield to protect Elias from an exploding Metal Sonic, putting him on the verge of death. For extra cosmic irony, he survives, but while he is in a coma, the SGW hits, rebooting Bunnie since she left New Mobotropolis and making him an equally young widower.
- Rotor used his genius to provide technical support against Robo-Robotnik's forces, until one of his creations almost killed his own allies. It led to him developing a severe aversion to any kind of lethal weaponry. His back was wrecked as collateral when Knothole was razed, which put him off the field until Nicole made a special suit for him to move without any pain and put him back in action. While he was disabled, he gained a position on the Council of Acorn, despite being only slightly older than his friends. All the years of stress aged him physically.
- While Tails and Amy were spared from the worst parts of the war, they were still deeply affected. Jeremiah recalls his surprise that they both found the library a wonderful place. He wonders if it's because the idea of such a calm and safe place is inconceivable during a war.
- The Restoration employs mostly teenagers and young adults, but has little problem with asking for help from kids that proved to be capable, like Cream. In contrast to the previous universe, their employment is much less taxing and even beneficial for its members' mental health, due to the overall history having less constant warfare and more occasional small-scale skirmishes instead thanks to Sonic's better track record. With a few glaring exceptions like the Magenta Egg War and Metal Virus. It helps that the organization hires therapists to deal with any mental issues.
- Whisper's first time using a gun was as self-defense against a Black Arms soldier, when she was a pup. Some time later, she joined Diamond Cutters as a successful sniper, a time she remembers fondly until Mimic's betrayal and death of her friends. After that, she became withdrawn and spent her time secretly helping the Resistance during the Magenta Egg War and hunting down Mimic. All of that while still being just a teenager. Working with the Restoration slowly made her open up and make tight bonds with a new team.
- Lanolin, despite being overworked, finds working for the Restoration preferable to living next to her controlling mother. Her time at the organization turned out to be a cathartic experience that allows her to grow as a person and to deal with the trauma from the Magenta Egg War and Metal Virus outbreak. Eventually, she reluctantly takes the position of the field leader, and turns out to be decent at it.
- The Knothole Freedom Fighters of Mobius fought Robotnik from a very young age. It's often highlighted that while they fared amazingly against the original and Robo-Robotnik, it wasn't without serious physical and emotional damage.
- Connected All Along:
- The Phantom Ruby was the original Master Emerald of Mobius, taking on such a form due to the Ancients wielding the Chaos Force turning it into the Phantom Ruby after it called them to Mobius. The one that was guarded by the Brotherhood of Guardians and the Chaotix is a powerful replica created from fragmented tales passed down over the course of history.
- It is eventually revealed that Nicole has a connection to the Ancients of Mobius, being both their high priestess and best friend to the daughter of Master King (known as The Supreme God on Mobius), who is a Mirror Character of King Max rather than Eggman in the Archie canon.
- Conscious While Possessed:
- The fate of Mecha-Sally. Robotnik's Roboticization protocols were already sadistic, as the robians had to use the cognitive minds of their original incarnations to be able to function effectively as Artificial Intelligences — something he dealt with by creating data codes that prevented their original personalities from seizing back control. With Mecha-Sally, however, he went the extra mile, creating a more complex set of coding to make it theoretically impossible for her to ever regain control of her body, even as she remained fully aware of everything it was doing under Robotnik's control. Then he took things up an even further notch by replacing her original roboticized limbs with brand new artificial ones, ordering the originals smelted down like scrap while she could only watch, meaning that even if she was freed from his control, it would be impossible to de-roboticize her. He even specifically modified her to be able to cry just in case she ever broke free so she could despair at her new state more thoroughly.
- The Game/IDW selves of the "semi-debooted" characters are trapped in their bodies while their Archie versions are in control, completely unable to do anything while they're stuck in the Egg Grapes.
- Continuity Nod:
- Belle vows to scrap Tangle's bike for telling other people about her Gag Nose in Chapter 5, something that she threatened to do in Issue #46.
- Chapter 44 shows the mass-produced tanks used by the collaborators to help subjugate the population of New Mobotropolis is the one Rotor designed back on Mobius.
- Since Rediscovered Frontiers Super Special Chapter 14 takes place before her public appearance in Chapter 6, Sally would still keep to herself while not using any of her weaponry when leading Team Freedom against an invading Eggman force. As such, the people saved by Team Freedom wouldn't know about Sally Acorn, as she has yet to reveal herself.
- Cosmic Horror Story: The story starts with a new reality being formed the the demise of the old. The denizens of the old world suffer heartbreak at the loss of their home while the denizens of the new world undergo an existential crisis. People around the world are being kidnapped so that their past incarnations can take over their bodies. And then THE END shows up...
- Cosmic Retcon: The basic premise of the story is that when the Super Genesis Wave was unleashed in Sonic the Hedgehog/Mega Man: Worlds Collide, the forces unleashed created the Game/IDW timeline instead of the Archie Post-Wave timeline. Except that, for some reason, retgoned characters from the original timeline are materializing in the new timeline, beginning with Nicole.
- Crazy-Prepared: Mammoth Mogul kept a piece of his soul in the Master Emerald, which gave him an early warning on Eggman's plan with the Genesis Wave. Similarly, Master Mogul hid a piece of himself inside Silver's mind, so that he could protect his student from his own evil past self when they inevitably crossed paths.
- Cross-Cultural Kerfluffle: An In-Universe example. In the Sol Dimension, it's normal and even expected for kids to become independent at a young age. Blaze finds it normal that Marine is only seven and already has her own ship. At the same time, she doesn't find Cream living with her mother unusual either. She chastises herself for thinking her Zone's rules apply to others when she found out about Archie!Sonic's parents and how the current Sonic isn't related to them anymore due to the Cosmic Retcon.
- Culture Clash: A major roadblock between the people of Mobius and Earth coexisting peacefully is that their values are decades apart, with the former rooted in the The '90s and Turn of the Millennium while the latter are from around the The New '20s. This results in differing views in attire, gender norms, romance and sexual orientation, especially with humanity for the latter two. Another notable clash is that Mobius' society still adheres to real-life age conventions while Earth's society has no problem with Free-Range Children as per the games, at least for the Islanders. This led to many adult Mobians being shocked upon seeing that the Restoration sent teenagers to aid them, leaving them wondering where all the adults went.
- Curb-Stomp Cushion: In Dark Mobius, Sir Connery tried to defeat Enerjak and like everyone else, he failed. Yet, Enerjak admits that Connery was one of the few that actually posed a challenge to the Mad God, courtesy of the Sword of Light native to that world. Jani-Ca uses it to replace the broken Sword of Acorns after Silver left. THE END in its One-Winged Angel form effortlessly breaking it shows how outclassed the "New Gods" are to it in power.
- Curse Cut Short: Various times throughout the story, the word "bi***" is mostly cut off from being said on-page mid-word and mid-sentence.
D-F
- Damn You, Muscle Memory!: An In-Universe example Played for Drama. As Whisper, Tangle, and Silver start eating nachos, Sally goes to eat one without even realising, and Nicole has to stop her from putting it on her mouth. The reminder about no longer being able to so much as eat with her friends sends her into a brief Heroic BSoD.
- Darker and Edgier: This story is much darker than the Games/IDW canon and arguably even the Archie canon. It deals with the themes of gaslighting, psychological projection, PTSD, clinging to the past, broken relationships, cults, cosmic horror and much more. Injuries are much more visible and visceral with confirmed deaths. Ascended Fridge Horror and Cerebus Retcon for the source material are often invoked.
- A Day in the Limelight: The second spin-off Rediscovered Frontiers Super Special show what the other characters, both Archie and IDW, were up to while the main focus was on Team Freedom and — after the Studiopolis arc — Team Chaotix.
- Chapter 1 focuses on what the Rookie (named and themed after Akira) is up to after the events of Sonic Forces, who runs into a wandering Mina Mongoose.
- Chapter 2 shows how Metal Sonic met and obtained Phage as part of his systems.
- Chapter 3 has Sonic come across an Egg Memo on Breezie during his adventure on the Starfall Islands.
- Chapter 4 is Rough and Tumble's jailbreak courtesy of Cassia and Clove.
- Chapter 5 has Espio learn about the the tragedy of Archie!Charmy from Julie-Su and Saffron.
- Chapter 6 shows the first contact between the Restoration and the Echidnas, led by Lanolin and Remington respectively.
- Chapter 7 is a meeting of the various companies in response to the return of the Echidnas from Clutch the Opossum's perspective.
- Chapter 8 shows what Sara has been up to since the events of Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie, with Jewel asking for her help dealing with the events of the story.
- Chapter 9 shows how Ian Droid, the supposed evil that made Aurora send Locke his visions in the first place was defeated by Invincible.
- Chapter 10 is a flashback of Lara-Le's reaction to Knuckles' death after his stint as Chaos Knuckles. It also shows the Archie Echidnas' reaction to Archie!Sonic's broadcast about THE END in present day, as it revealed the true origins of their supremacy.
- Chapter 11 focuses on Nite and Don hosting their radio show, dealing with civilian reactions to Archie!Sonic's broadcast.
- Chapter 12 shows Sage reinforcing THE END's prison while Sonic is traversing Rhea Island.
- Chapter 13 shows what Infinite has been up to since his defeat in the Magenta Egg War, along with his reaction to Mobius and the global broadcast.
- Death of Personality:
- Naugus has figured out a way to restore the Pre-SGW memories of rebooted characters, but this comes at the cost of erasing their new personality. Conquering Storm admits she can't remember her new life, though her body still retains the instincts and emotions of her new self, such as her affection for her infant son. Chapter 44 would clarify what exactly he did. It turns out that by default, he would bring back a rebooted Archie Sonic character's Pre-SGW persona before making them the one in control, with both minds Sharing a Body. And if he wants to or the old persona requests it like what happened with Conquering Storm, he would forcefully merge the Post-SGW self into the Pre-SGW one, effectively assimilating the poor victim.
- Archie!Sonic lost nearly his entire persona fighting THE END during the Super Genesis Wave thanks to the latter's Mind Rape before performing Chaos Control, with only his feelings for Sally still being intact when he did so. This is why his rebooted self would have barely any reaction to Nicole's Pre-SGW memory restoration ability.
- Deconstruction Crossover: As the chapters progress, it is shown that making the Game/IDW Sonic and Pre-SGW Archie Sonic casts coexist peacefully on the same planet is practically a herculean task due to the Culture Clash and technology gap, with various heroes trying to get everyone to work together instead of butting heads due to the differing ideals. The mixed teams that do work together had to constantly bring each other up to speed quickly whenever their teamwork is being hindered.
- The Archie Sonic characters' reactions to losing everything to the SGW are pretty much what you'd expect, with most of the resultant villains' considering Earth a bad facsimile of Mobius and want to either remake it to their liking regardless how many bodies they pile up (Naugus and Elias) or conquer it the old-fashioned way into their liking while acknowledging what they consider Earth's better points (Mammoth Mogul).
- The Game/IDW denizens aren't exactly innocent either, with Metal Sonic considering the Mobians an obsolete species and would later on recruit an army to raze New Mobotropolis to the ground while the average citizen is turning against the Archie Echidnas after their dark deeds and history were exposed.
- Chapter 38 shows In-Universe why would two such incompatible settings would even be thrown together in the first place. The crossover itself was revealed to completely unintentional and the Cosmic Retcon was supposed to result in the Post-SGW Archie world like in real life, if it wasn't for THE END blasting Nicole just as the latter was trying to integrate the Archie Sonic refugees into the new universe, forcing her to abandon the integration. This results in said refugees finding themselves in a completely unfamiliar world that basically rendered everything they did All for Nothing while making the people of Earth like Tangle suffer an existential crisis due to thinking that they only exist due to the deaths of countless people instead.
- Deconstruction Fic:
- Aspects of the Cosmic Retcon are taken apart piece by piece in the fic through the characters’ reactions to the Super Genesis Wave.
- Sally and Julie-Su have an extended Freak Out when it's revealed that Earth is the rebooted Mobius, because it means that all their struggles and the friends they lost along the way have been for nothing with their world now gone. Not only that, but their loved ones are either rebooted into people who will no longer recognize them or are erased from existence completely. Not every survivor will be able to cope with such a catastrophic loss after the initial denial and could also undergo a Despair Event Horizon, actively rejecting reality and deeming the new world a mockery as shown with Naugus and Elias, resulting in dehumanization and clamoring for the past.
- Mina Mongoose and other survivors of the Super Genesis Wave show how being The Artifact in Sonic's universe would really screw with their heads. Mina herself becomes incredibly depressed when Sonic and Tails, her friends, do not even recognize her and she finds out she no longer exists. The majority of the citizens of New Mobotropolis with some manipulation by Naugus even resent Sonic, thinking that he intentionally screwed up fixing everything and left them all behind so he can continue to have fun adventures when in reality he was forced into a no-win scenario thanks to Eggman's interference and what's heavily implied, and later confirmed, to be THE END's emergence as a consequence, which would have destroyed everything if he hadn't mitigated the damage.
- The fact that numerous people were erased from existence is treated with utter horror, rather than it being brushed aside or never mentioned again. It even makes Tangle fall into an existential crisis because she cannot handle imagining she's only alive because so many people no longer exist.
- Doppelgänger Gets Same Sentiment is shown to be a very easy way to get on the bad side of the current incarnation, as you aren't acknowledging them as their own person. Those that do often intend to project what is considered the "original" on them with disastrous results.
- Due to being effectively refugees since their nation no longer exists, the survivors are technically stateless which hinders them from adjusting to Earth unless some bureaucracy, be it legal or illegal, is done. Rediscovered Frontiers Super Special Chapters 7 and 8 highlights this, stating that Clutch helped Mammoth Mogul obtain a fake identity and capital to start afresh in exchange for his magical services while Jewel has to call Sara for help in getting citizenship to be implemented for them respectively.
- His World arc shows that the idea of a Cosmic Retcon, a tool used by comic book editors to restart continuities, is considered a last resort In-Universe, as the cosmic gods are responsible for the fate of countless lives. Sonic, Nicole, Jani-Ca and the Neo Walkers literally had to exhaust or be denied every other option to even remotely consider such an action. And when the new reality was conceived, it was effectively treated as a cosmic requiem for the old one. This effectively means that the only reason the Games/IDW Sonic multiverse exists is because they failed to save the Pre-SGW Archie Sonic multiverse and had to salvage what is left to prevent total cosmic annihilation. This plunges all of Earth into an existential crisis upon finding out, inciting global panic. This also shows on a narrative level why would such a crossover even happen in the first place.
- The "debooting" process is meant to be an analogue for whenever the current incarnation of a character get replaced by their older ones without any explanation. It also shows how horrifying how that would be from the perspective of the replaced incarnation, with their entire lives and existence replaced by a doppelganger.
- The "zap" subplot to restore Nicole's functionality in the original Post-SGW Archie comic was meant to be a meta means of closure for the longtime readers implemented by the writing team and outside of giving the Knothole Freedom Fighters Heroic BSODs from shock at their state pre-reboot, it was brushed aside as the memories faded away by the time the Shattered World Crisis went into high gear a few issues later. In here, not only the memories given by Nicole's "zap" actually persists as shown with Silver still able to draw from his Mobius memories, it also results in a brief Identity Breakdown due to the memory conflict. So Nicole and Sally refuse to do the same to anyone else rebooted due to how unethical it is as they are not acknowledging the new incarnation as a person. This was after the latter's stunt with Hershey in where Sally out of impulse made her hold the PDA. As shown in the His World arc, the whole reason why is there a "zap" function in the first place was due to Nicole needing to store the memories thanks to THE END's sneak attack on her when she was making the new world into its canonical Post-SGW Archie form, forcing her to do a rush job of storing everyone's memories of Mobius.
- The Secret Freedom Fighters' portrayal in here is this in regards to their Spy Fiction and Cloak and Dagger portrayal in Archie as per author's word. The fic doesn't shy away from showing the Dirty Business they have to deal with for the sake of aiding the heroes who are out in the open, which shocks Silver and disappoints Tangle. Not only that, being overly secretive causes a lot of unneeded communication issues between them and the people they are supporting. On the bright side, not everyone involved is fully on board with this method of doing things and are more than willing to aid out in the open when needed, orders be damned. Chapters 41 to 43 shows the mental toll such actions would deal to the Secret Freedom Fighters in the long term, as the differences between what they expected and what they actually wound up doing causes them to be plagued with self-doubt, with Larry and Uncle Chuck having absolutely enough of all this and turn against their teammates when Tangle and Silver find out about their secret actions.
- The insistence of Sega that the games and IDW comics can't let Sonic and company have biological families unless they are created together like Cream and Vanilla (which is why Chuck stopped being Sonic's biological uncle Post-SGW in Archie) also gets deconstructed a bit. Besides Nicole's distress at Sonic and Tails being orphans again, implicitly at least in part because their parents weren't rebooted like they were, some of the IDW characters (Tangle especially) have some cognitive dissonance at the idea of Sonic having parents at all despite the fact that logically speaking he must have at some point, noting that he might as well have just popped out of thin air, just like what Sega is basically implying. Blaze even comes to the horrific conclusion that such a setup only works In-Universe due to the Cosmic Retcon making the game characters unrelated to their surviving Archie family members, as the latter's "function" is no longer needed on a cosmic level when meeting Jules and Bernadette, who were Archie!Sonic's parents. She is understandably appalled that such a loving family was torn apart and calls herself out for not realizing this sooner. And even then, that scenario only came to pass due to THE END's interference.
- The consequences and after-effects of major calamities throughout the game franchise were often brushed aside or given a quick mention in the IDW comic, due to the age rating. In here, it is noted that the Metal Virus resulted in a major manpower loss for the Restoration, with many surviving members quitting due to their horrific experiences which exacerbated it. The average civilian is still suffering from the trauma caused even after months have passed.
- Chapter 29 shows a flashback of Whisper being attacked in her own home during the Black Arms invasion, with her only surviving because she managed to grab a nearby Ring Shot and pull the trigger. As shown with other various world-spanning scenarios in the Modern era like the Metal Virus, the scenarios are only fun for the superpowered game cast or adrenaline junkies like Tangle. For the average person caught up in it, it is a race for survival.
- His World arc tears apart the concept of the All-Powerful Bystander and Bystander Syndrome by showing the consequences of ignoring the problem. Sonic and Jani-Ca rightfully call the Neo Walkers out for the numerous times they could've helped whenever the heroes got pushed to a dead end but somehow didn't for nebulous reasons, even when the people in danger are their loved ones. The culmination of their inaction effectively resulted in the cosmic catastrophe that is the SGW and THE END's release, in which they paid the biggest price by the time they were forced to take action.
- The track record of the New Mobotropolis Freedom Fighters and the Secret Freedom Fighters are a brutal deconstruction of La Résistance. The New Mobotropolis Freedom Fighters find themselves hopelessly outgunned as time passes, which makes liberating the city by themselves a pipe dream. The Secret Freedom Fighters, who can access the outside world do the bare minimum to support the overall resistance instead of getting Sonic and company ASAP to give their tyrant the boot, something that many of the former clearly know that is the only viable solution with each passing day. Chapter 41 has Sally note that if Team Freedom had came a week later, the New Mobotropolis Freedom Fighters would have been long crushed by attrition.
- Tangle acting as a Naïve Newcomer is completely accepting of Nicole's weird circumstances and even Sally who was trying to kill her as Mecha Sally before she was rescued. While nice and great for building bonds in practice, it also leaves her completely clueless to the larger context of Pre-SGW Archie Sonic, with her succeeding with Nicole and Sally because they themselves are sensible people who seen their fair share of weirdness. When it comes to New Mobotropolis however, after her big speech saying how Sally came as fast as she could the moment she learned of their location and that her being a Robian is the last thing they should be worried about, instead of being humbled the mob proceeds to tear Tangle down from her ivory tower by citing all the crimes Mecha Sally did. Fantastic Racism aside, Tangle lacking the context made herself look like an ignorant white knight instead and would later on rub many of the local Freedom Fighters the wrong way by accident. It is eventually reconstructed as she was able to eventually repeat her successes in the city due to learning about said context afterwards, as shown with the Secret Freedom Fighters in Chapter 43. It also helped that most of the people who verbally tore her down were Ungrateful Townfolk (which by itself made it a lost cause to begin with) or later forced to see the ugly truth of their own actions courtesy of her or her friends.
- The overall depiction of the Egg Bosses deconstructs the idea of "organic minions that work under Eggman/Robotnik", as depicted in previous media like Archie, Fleetway, IDW and Sonic Forces. Without the allure of working under the dominant power of the world to justify the need for non-mechanical minions due to Sonic's more successful track record as per the games, the Egg Bosses in here are a combination of self-proclaimed supporters of Eggman with various screws loose like him, desperate people who got roped in due to circumstances beyond their control, outcasts who think that working for Eggman can help achieve their goals or believe that they are joining the "winning" team, and past enemies of Sonic and/or his friends wanting to settle old grudges under a mutual enemy. Turns out that anyone with any shred of sanity would not willingly and openly work under a person that threatened the world and beyond multiple times, as shown with the Hooligans refusing to do any jobs from Eggman after the Perfect Chaos incident. As a result, the organization isn't a united front due to all the differing ideologies, only kept together with the mad doctor as a unifying lynchpin and blackmail to keep the saner members in line. As shown with their former member Starline, not even having a mutual adoration for Eggman can prevent any backstabbing from happening. As it turns out, the Chaos Emeralds Starline supposedly got for Eggman when they first met was actually a group effort, only for him to steal them for himself and leave the rest hanging for his own plans. The fact that they were the ones who located the Chaos Emeralds as a prize in the first place meant that are also aware of Eggman's massive ego and chose to build up in the shadows, so that he can be convinced to actually hire them when they show themselves to him and not consider them a rival to crush. With all this in mind, when Metal Sonic initially met them, he is understandably not impressed due to the majority's lackluster motivations and was considering just stealing all their data before leaving. It took learning about New Mobotropolis along with being treated as an individual for him to shift gears and actually consider them useful additions to the Eggman Empire.
- What happened with Conquering Storm and her post-reboot self is meant to deconstruct Light Mobius Lien-Da morally improving thanks to her son, courtesy of Morality Pet and Even Evil Has Loved Ones. Unlike the echidna, the son of the rebooted lynx woman does nothing to improve her behavior; besides burning the house down after dumping him on a relative, while the love Constance has for him survives her personality being overwritten completely, it's twisted into wanting to give him a position of power in the new world order the villains are planning, and the author notes that she'd be abusive by any real standards once that happened.
- It is also one towards the idea of the franchise's Joker Immunity. While Eggman and other villains constantly fail, this doesn't change the fact that the damage caused still lingers and their repeated comebacks by itself would cause a lot of psychological damage for everyone. One of THE END's motivations for erasing Archie!Sonic's personality is because it sensed his subconscious frustration at a never-ending struggle against evil thanks to Status Quo Is God. Archie!Sonic and Nicole resorted to Brainwashing for the Greater Good as an alternative due to their Thou Shall Not Kill code when Archie!Sonic had Eggman's core in his palm, effectively being the reason Eggman survived being rebooted to the Game/IDW world much to the general public's dismay when they found out. The other main objective of Operation "Brave New World" is to erase the major villains from existence with a hijacked Cosmic Retcon, as the perpetrators responsible are sick of dealing with them constantly coming back and resorted to such extreme measures just for a chance of getting rid of them for good. On the plus side, the idea that they would return but never actually win is a major breaking point for the villains as well, with some deciding to quit villainy altogether or change to more subtle villainy that act as public services to avoid the constant heat and getting their faces pounded in yet again like the Hooligans and Mammoth Mogul.
- It is also one towards the Improbable Age of their characters, especially when it comes to fighting evil. Turns out that to avoid the negative repercussions of Child Soldiers on Earth, Islander teenagers and children are considered In-Universe to be Free-Range Children or straight up adults if they reach their late teens, which puts them in danger but not exactly attracting negative stigmas. The examples set by the various game cast members (especially Sonic) often have other people of their age sign up for heroism, for better or worse. It also helps that Eggman was mostly subdued to a recurring relative annoyance thanks to Sonic and company. Mobius, on the other hand, wasn't so lucky and carefree. Children and teenagers being sent to fight is seen as a bad thing as they would lose their childhoods while speaking volumes about the failure of adults, who had to be removed from the equation one way or another to explain why children are fighting in the first place. They had to fight Robotnik and his replacement Robo-Robotnik for over a decade, which mentally screwed up most of them even before the SGW.
- Aspects of the Cosmic Retcon are taken apart piece by piece in the fic through the characters’ reactions to the Super Genesis Wave.
- Defector from Decadence: Almost the entire Dark Legion turned against Lien-Da after realizing how much of a Bad Boss she was and discovering the bombs inside their Legion cybernetics, working with Julie-Su to strand her in another Zone with her loyalists before blowing them up.
- Destroy the Evidence: To say Metal Sonic reacted negatively to Archie!Robotnik/Eggman treating him like a disposable lackey is putting it mildly. While he DOES keep certain files safe (plans for new badniks and the Egg Grapes as an example), he made sure to erase what he deem was the inferior Robotnik and any mention of the Archie verse multiple Metal Sonic attempts, and is now off to try and kill Sally to end the final trace of what he deems as dimensional mockery. When he learns about the existence of New Mobotropolis, he and his "sister" Phage change tracks and decide to recruit the Egg Bosses to raze the city to the ground.
- Distant Prologue: The story begins with Nicole fruitlessly calling out for help in a white void and later somewhere in the wild for seasons. Jump cut to Tangle cleaning up her PDA, as she apparently found it while cycling. Cue a very confused holo-lynx appearing before her and Whisper.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?:
- A totalitarian state that treats certain people as sub-beings that deserve to be killed. Yeah, this brings to mind Nazi Germany. Does not help that Naugus' forces have rebuilt the Egg Grapes, which are execution machines. On a positive note however, the resistance against Naugus' regime brings to mind German resistance groups that were fighting against Nazi control like the White Rose.
- The varied reactions of the Game, Archie and IDW cast towards each other is easily interpreted as the Sonic fanbase's various heated opinions to the other interpretations and spinoffs in the overall franchise.
- The civilians' reaction post-Rediscovered Frontiers Super Special Chapter 11 towards the Archie Echidnas is very similar to what happens when countries take in refugees with a troublesome history in real life.
- A totalitarian state that treats certain people as sub-beings that deserve to be killed. Yeah, this brings to mind Nazi Germany. Does not help that Naugus' forces have rebuilt the Egg Grapes, which are execution machines. On a positive note however, the resistance against Naugus' regime brings to mind German resistance groups that were fighting against Nazi control like the White Rose
- The Dog Bites Back:
- Rosemary notes this trope with how Naugus!Geoffrey treats Snively, remembering a fact that Snively was the one who killed the original Robotnik.
- Downplayed with Conquering Storm, as while she is treated better than Snively she despises how she and her clan are treated as canon-fodder/servants. When Mordred made his offer of an exit strategy, she quite open to the idea of to buddying with his "allies"/the Egg Bosses (on her terms, of course).
- Doorstopper: The main story alone clocks in at just over 500,000 words and the end is nowhere in sight. Have fun.
- Do Not Adjust Your Set: Hyper Sonic and Nicole record a warning message in case THE END's prison weakens too much, and the latter automatically sends it to everyone at the end of Chapter 34 when KNIGHT is destroyed by Sonic.
- Dramatic Irony:
- Sally thinks that Hershey's spying within the Restoration was her being The Mole for the Secret Freedom Fighters, not helped by the various plants that Jewel did indeed discover later on. She has no idea that Hershey's friendship was genuine and is one of the things the cat lamented losing over her mistake in Studiopolis, as shown in Chapter 13. Lanolin makes a similar mistake in Chapter 46 wondering if Hershey mentoring her was her being a False Friend to wring information out of her like the rest of the Restoration. Tangle is the only person who knows the whole context.
- Julie-Su and Saffron spend Chapters 13 to 16 thinking that they have returned to Mobius, unaware that it was rebooted to Earth. Julie-Su comes up with all forms of excuses with faced with the conflicting information. When Jewel breaks the bad news to them at the end of Chapter 16, their reactions in Chapter 17 aren't pretty. The echidnas who stayed behind on Angel Island also had the same mindset as the duo and wouldn't receive the bad news until much later, as shown with Remington thinking that they entered another Zone again when meeting with the Restoration.
- On the way to New Mobotropolis in Chapter 18, Nicole expresses immense guilt about what happened to the echidnas, telling Sally she should have been able to spot the signs. She laments that not only were they taken from their homes and dumped into some nightmarish Zone, but would have been erased by the Super Genesis Wave even if they had survived. All this happens right after the past few chapters focusing on the echidnas finally making their way home, with Julie-Su and Saffron joining the Chaotix to meet up with Sally and Nicole at the Mirage Desert Zone.
- On that prior point is another dose of irony. Thrash the Devil intended to completely get rid of the echidnas by tossing them into another Zone with no apparent way out as his revenge for the Tasmanian Devils. And yet it was his actions, even if they resulted in much suffering and turmoil amongst the echidnas due to the Dark Legion over the course of their zone-hopping, that ensured the echidna civilization survived the Super Genesis Wave and would eventually return as the largest group of intact Pre-SGW characters aside from the citizens of New Mobotropolis, and they're actually doing better than the city thanks to getting rid of Lien-Da and her die-hard loyalists and acquiring Restoration aid barely days after arriving back, all while New Mobotropolis has still been suffering Naugus' tyranny. Far from being the echidnas' downfall, Thrash ended up being their unknowing savior. It is highly implied in Chapter 44 that Thrash realized this after hearing Archie!Sonic's broadcast which covered said events.
- Chapter 34 has Ebony call out Julie-Su that the latter has no idea of what she is going through and cannot judge her, which is serving a tyrant as long as their lost friends and family are reunited with them at the end. Except that Julie-Su does know what it is like due to her servitude under Lien-Da giving her that exact promise.
- During the invasion of New Mobotropolis, Shadow believes that getting Power Rings to empower his Chaos abilities would make defeating Naugus' forces all the more easier. He's unaware that, if anything, using Chaos Control so openly gives Naugus a new target to capture and use his abilities to finish his evil plan. As a cherry on top to this, Shadow is unaware that he was the original planned keystone for it, with Blaze being captured first for it the reason why he wasn't primarily targeted.
- Cream is very disappointed with Silver upon his looks of disgust towards the Secret Freedom Fighters in Chapter 46, unaware of his very justified reason as shown in Chapter 43. However, she correctly guessed that the SFF did something bad, in which Larry admitted.
- Upon discovering Lupe in the Egg Grape chamber, Sally notes the different body Lupe has and thought that she suffered the same horrific fate as the others which amplified her hate for Naugus, unaware that the actual owner's persona is still lingering at the back of her head.
- Drinking the Kool-Aid: Hoo boy, did most of the citizens of New Mobotropolis drank from it; they would rather stay in a xenophobic hell-hole starving to death rather than leave and start a new life in the Game/IDW verse. Granted Naugus made it almost impossible to leave after Mina ran away but still.
- Dysfunctional Family: Sally's family, the Acorns suffer from major personal issues long before the SGW.
- Sally's father Max, a traditionalist with poor judgment, practically caused all of the family's issues due to his idiocy. Her mother Alicia, a well-adjusted but submissive figure, struggled to address their children's needs. Her older brother Elias, unprepared for his royal role due to his isolated life on Angel Island, became a ruler just to please his father with mixed results. Sally herself spent too long as a Child Soldier to navigate the kingdom's politics. This dysfunction convinced Amadeus Prower to view them as unfit leaders, while Naugus took advantage of their recent failures to usurp the throne by the time of the SGW.
- After the SGW, Sally became a Broken Ace with massive PTSD, Max's mental health somehow got even worse while Elias Took a Level in Jerkass complete with hatred for Earth as a whole, to the extent that he is willing to wipe them from existence to get back Mobius even after hearing from Archie!Sonic's message about how fragile the foundations of Mobius truly was. While Alicia managed to stay mentally unscathed, she is still very clueless about just how deep her family's woes are, as shown with her not noticing Elias' insanity until Tangle and Silver's clash with the SFF in Chapter 43.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: In-Universe example. Chapter 4 reveals that at least some of the "goofy era" stories from the early days of Archie's run, when the tone was closer to Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, did actually happen in-universe, albeit not exactly like they were shown in the comics.
- Ensemble Cast: Chapter 30 onwards features multiple sets of characters per chapter. Team Freedom are still the main protagonists of the story, with the Chaotix as the deuteragonists. There are still various chapters that solely focus on one or two characters due to the plot.
- Eldritch Abomination: THE END was already basically like this in the game canon, but its pure Lovecraftian nature was only hinted at. Its release leads to the very colors of reality shifting constantly, Jules and the others hearing the screams of people dying across the multiverse as they are erased from existence, and it reveals how the Source Of All was just waste it expelled at the start of the multiverse.
- Establishing Series Moment: The first arc establishes two very big things that readers would have to get used to in later chapters.
- The Mecha Sally fight shows the contrast in brutality between the Archie and IDW worlds.
- Sally's breakdown upon receiving the bad news from Silver establishes the crushing existential crisis that would plague the cast, meaning that you are in for a ton of angst.
- Even Evil Has Standards:
- After Nicole detects Thunderbolt's bomb and what would causes it to trigger, she and Sally realize that the one who created Bunnie's limb couldn't have been Eggman, because even in Archie Sonic he considers a bomb he could detonate at anytime more than enough as a proper deterrent.
- In a flashback, Thrash does show a moment of remorse for imprisoning Saffron along with the echidnas, agreeing with Julie-Su that she didn't do anything to deserve this. He also agrees it isn't fair to Charmy either, who has been through enough suffering as it is, and that Charmy would be well within his right to come after him in revenge. Zigzagged in that he still goes through with it, since he wanted to minimize any chances of people stopping him.
- At seeing the condition of the starving and dehydrated regular citizens of New Mobotropolis and learning that those who have sworn themselves directly under the power of the king get larger rations, IDW!Bunnie bluntly points out that not even Eggman when he took over the world ever did something like that, but rather treated everyone under his control without favoritism or sugarcoating. Archie!Beauregard angrily tells her to never claim that any version of Eggman could treat people better than how it is here, while Nicole herself is legitimately surprised since Robo-Robotnik would have done exactly what Geoffrey/Naugus is doing just to be a Sadist, much less to better tighten his control over the world.
- Everyone Has Standards: Remington is shocked that the Restoration crew sent to help his people are mainly comprised of teens. He guesses that their leader isn't even 20. Other Mobian adults have the same sentiment.
- Evil Learns of Outside Context:
- Metal Sonic finds out about the Death Egg Mk II after Sally's rescue taught him about Mobius and his more unfortunate track record. He blew his top and started a personal mission to destroy all survivors like Sally.
- Infinite learns about Mobius when torturing Hershey via the Phantom Ruby copy in his chest as it was the true Master Emerald of Mobius. After his defeat, he had been in hiding biding his time to destroy both Earth and the remnants of Mobius in one stroke.
- The Egg Bosses discovering the existence of New Mobotropolis when trying to obtain an alternative prize for Dr. Eggman made it their target.
- THE END learns about the location of the Chaos Force from Hyper Archie!Sonic's head in their showdown during the SGW, allowing it to breach the higher dimension and kill the Neo Walkers.
- Evil Reactionary: A number of the villains in the story dislike the Post-Super Genesis Wave world in some manner, and wish to remake Mobius in its place.
- Faking the Dead: Team Freedom believe this was the case when Mina told the story about how Ixis Naugus "died" and made Geoffrey the new king, unaware that the former (who was dying) is possessing the body of the latter, though it is hinted (and later confirmed) that the SFF are aware of Naugus' deception. Chapter 23 has Sally figure out the possession when meeting him and subsequent chapters has her revealing it to the local Freedom Fighters and their allies.
- Fantastic Racism:
- Explored in detail when the characters meet other characters from New Mobotropolis who survived the reboot.
- The Mobians hate Overlanders, and by extension humans, for years of conflict during the Great War. Some don’t even bother making the distinction between Overlanders and humans because to them all of them are Overlanders, even though it has been discovered that it was Kodos the Lion (a mobian) whose started the Great War due to his rampant xenophobia, the mental scars created by the Great War are still there.
- Robians are seen with fear and suspicion by mobians because they used to be unwilling slaves to Robotnik and Eggman, and as Robo-Robotnik demonstrated he could take back control after they had been seemingly freed. Thus, the residents of New Mobotropolis react with fear and suspicion when Sally arrives in her robian body, which is hypocritical since A) many of them used to be robians and B) there have been proven methods for robians to free themselves from Robotnik/Eggman control in the past and not be used as his unwitting spy cameras.
- Most of the residents of New Mobotropolis all hate the people born from the reboot like Tangle & Whisper, calling them Shades who are merely acting like real people and taking up spaces that rightfully belong to them. They are seen as physical manifestations of the Super Genesis Wave rebooting the universe, and as a result are hated by all those under the sway of Naugus. Even the ones who don't outright hate them are noticeably wary and fearful of them.
- Rediscovered Frontiers Super Special Chapter 8 reveals the Akhlut Pirates, an anti-human pirate fleet that attacks any human ship they come across. They do not exclude any Islanders that also happen to be onboard and have something "special" for any Half Human Hybrids they find.
- Bunnie's commune called Islanders "True Folk", believing humans to be inherently evil servants of Dark Gaia.
- According to TIM, because of this, they have strong contempt towards Human/Islander Hybrids, not unlike the Akhlut Pirates. Bunnie is a known exception, due to renouncing most of her commune's teachings and being eased into modern society, enabling her to have a more progressive view of things and be more accepting of humans.
- According to TIM
- Explored in detail when the characters meet other characters from New Mobotropolis who survived the reboot.
- First-Episode Twist: When it seemed that Sally and Nicole were the only ones to survive the reboot with their personas and memories intact while the people they know are likely scattered around the world without their memories, the end of the first arc quickly establishes that Hershey is actually unaffected like them while still playing dumb before she contacts the Secret Freedom Fighters about it, who are also unaffected. Meanwhile, Bunnie is shown to be working as a Hooligan while looking at a bounty photo of Mina Mongoose. This establishes that Sally's mission to find her Mobian friends will not be as simple as she thinks while outside forces have already involved themselves with the people of Mobius.
- Fish out of Temporal Water: Many of the Pre-SGW characters come from a world that was culturally around the Turn of the Millennium and most available technology was in a similar state. As such, most of the refugees are greatly shocked by the cultural and technological changes in the more up-to-date Post-SGW universe, which are around the late The New '10s and early The New '20s. Eventually deconstructed as this causes no small amount of Culture Clash that are funny (the dress code and smartphone) and dramatic (coexistence with humanity).
- Fling a Light into the Future: Hyper Sonic and Nicole record a message in the event of THE END's prison weakening to a certain point, setting it to automatically broadcast over the entire world to warn everyone of the incoming threat.
- Forced to Watch: What Robotnik and Mecha Sally did to Sally as he went through with “upgrading” her body before compressing her mind’s file. Nicole is enraged when the metadata on her file implies this.
- Foregone Conclusion: Despite all the efforts Hyper Sonic, Jani-Ca, Nicole and the Neo Walkers went to saving the Archie multiverse from THE END throughout the His World arc, the fact that it was still rebooted into IDW while Nicole was left in the middle of nowhere makes it clear that they failed in some form, as the end of Chapter 34 ended with Archie!Sonic leaving a video message in Nicole showing what exactly happened between the SGW and the reboot to explain why it is so.
- Foreshadowing:
- After the fight with Mecha Sally, Tangle shrugs off her broken shoulder like it was no big deal, only needing a few days of rest and painkillers. When Rough and Tumble attack with their Stinkbomb Special, Nicole notes that the animal people of the Game/IDW world are more inclined to their animal characteristics and abilities compared to Mobians. Dr. Quack would reveal that the Mobians of Archie and Islanders of IDW/Games are two separate species biologically, with the former being more inclined to humans and the latter being more inclined to animals.
- In Chapter 4, Sally calls herself out for forcing Nicole's memory restoration on Hershey after it supposedly failed without any consent, saying that in her desperation to not be alone, she didn't treat the person in front of her as a fellow individual but a blank slate for the memories to fill in. The Return to New Mobotropolis arc would deal in this exact moral issue, with the reveal of the "deboot" process in where various people were being kidnapped to become hosts for their Archie past lives, the lucky ones merely being trapped in the back of their own heads. On that note, Sally's situation as Mecha Sally is more akin to being left helpless as she is possessed by an external being. The situation with the various "debooted" victims from Chapter 21 onwards is basically a magical variant of what she went through.
- During Hershey's flashback in Chapter 7, Infinite reveals himself to be aware of her being from another world, much to her shock. As we learn in Chapter 14, this is because the Phantom Ruby is in fact the original Master Emerald in the Archie world.
- Chapter 9 has Geoffrey stated to be King of New Mobotropolis as Ixis Naugus' heir. However, when Mammoth Mogul described how the Enigma Emeralds were formed, he stated that Ixis Naugus survived unlike Wendy Witchcart due to having a Chaos Emerald just like him, which makes Ixis Naugus dying as per Geoffrey's word make no sense. Chapter 23 reveals the possession of his student. This twist is mainly for those who never read the old Archie canon, in which his possession is shown in full before the reboot. For those who did know, it is to foreshadow Naugus being a false martyr.
- Chapter 9 has Lyco and Leeta mention that the Wolf Clan has gone crazy with Lupe's disappearance with the only person available to help them is "some crazy badger girl". Several chapters later, Sticks the Badger would come banging on the Chaotix's doors with info on where Lupe is.
- A flashback in Chapter 15 has Finitevus tell Julie-Su about the ruins of "Those Who Came Before" and more importantly, enlightened the echidnas when asked to help the banished people. This was despite all evidence at that time pointing to their advancement being self-taught due to their innate superiority. Later chapters would reveal that the echidnas were never the first and only advanced race in the distant past of Mobius while being responsible for killing the true uplifters of Mobius, who were the Ancients before rewriting history.
- Chapter 22 has a flashback where Bark gets immediately incapacitated by several darts. The next chapter has Silver knocked out by the same kind of dart in the throne room.
- When Sally was being brought to New Mobotroplis, Larry states that he needs to give Hamlin the heads-up. Several chapters later, it will be shown that the New Mobotropolis Freedom Fighters are being led by him.
- When Nicole tried to access the systems of New Mobotropolis, she was actually denied access despite being its creator. The only known geniuses (Rotor and Charles) are busy working against Naugus' rule and even if they were forced to secure the systems, either one of them could've made a backdoor for her. Combined with the Uber Caterkiller being fully functional when encountered in the desert despite not being so when Mina escaped, this hints that there is another genius in town who is working fully for Naugus. Later in Chapter 24, Snively Robotnik makes his grand entrance hacking Sally while she was fighting.
- New Mobotropolis being under the Eggman supporters' surveillance and involved in their affairs until it was officially revealed in Chapter 26 was actually hinted at in the previous chapters.
- When Thunderbolt got angry with Bunnie's bomb being disabled, she rants about how she cannot wrangle the money out of her uncle with him in the desert. Bunnie's flashback has shown that she has taken up full responsibility of the debt years ago, meaning that her uncle shouldn't even be involved with Thunderbolt in present day, at least for the original reason. Cut to the big reveal several chapters later about the "deboot" process with him as one of the victims.
- When Metal Sonic first came in for repairs, one of their screens was showing a desert. To be more precise, it is the Mirage Desert Zone.
- Mordred Hood contacting a third party in secret to "move their plans up" after Blaze's capture. Said third party are the Egg Bosses.
- In Chapter 33, Nicole finally explains her Archie secret origins to Rotor as his future creation, who sent her back in time to create a Stable Time Loop which needed her secrecy in regards to her origins. However, said future never had anyone like Naugus or Robo-Robotnik and combined with what she learned when escaping from Castle Acorn, made her question if it was true to begin with. This is a hint at her true origins which will be explored a few chapters later, which exploits the nature of alternate Zones to fake being in a Stable Time Loop when she was actually travelling between Zones. So her backstory is just part of a bigger whole.
- At the beginning of the story, Nicole's PDA is discovered by Tangle in a forest, only dirty from being left in the middle of nowhere. For fans of the Archie comics and avid researchers, they may recall that Nicole's handheld device was destroyed following Sally's roboticization in Archie Sonic Issue #231, though she didn't cease to function due to her connection to New Mobotropolis' computer network. However, this generates the question as to how her PDA was still intact following the Super Genesis Wave, making it seem like a Series Continuity Error. In reality, this is a blatant hint that Nicole underwent something during the reboot that resulted in her recreating her PDA body. Over 35 chapters later, her clash with THE END during the SGW and the being's sneak attack against her that necessitated her PDA body to survive is shown in full.
- Chapter 21 has a small but noticeable plot point being that Naugus needs Shadow or Blaze alive. Over the next several chapters, we hear Snively complaining about needing to do last-minute configurations that seems rather excessive even for a supposed Tailor-Made Prison, which Rosemary noticed. Silver wonders if getting Blaze captured led to the Bad Future he saw. At Chapter 41, it revealed that Naugus needed a being theoretically capable of using Chaos Control as a keystone for his mass "debooting" of Earth.
- Chapter 42 reveals that the Secret Freedom Fighters are planning to hijack Naugus' spell to "deboot" Earth themselves. There were multiple hints leading up to this.
- After Chapter 12, a major question asked by Team Freedom is why the Secret Freedom Fighters never asked for outside help despite having access to the outside world while Hershey herself worked in the Restoration for months. While their reasoning to prevent Mammoth Mogul from making things worse is sound at first, they should know from their spying that the magical criminal is satisfied to simply observe the desert from afar instead of directly intervening. Almost as if there is something that they themselves do not want everyone else to know. The real reason is that their plan will fail if the Game/IDW cast were called for help and dethroned Naugus before he done his part, since the SFF's success requires the wizard casting his spell. This would also explain why they let Naugus stay in power for as long as he did, as they need for his own plan to go into motion before seizing it.
- In Chapter 31, Sally points out how remote the Secret Freedom Fighter base is from their New Mobotropolis counterpart's, saying if the latter ever gets raided, they would be a hard time providing support due to the distance. The response was to prevent any enemy forces from breaching the SFF base. Specifically, it is to keep Naugus (and practically anyone else) from finding out about the Universal Spire meant to hijack the "Promised Day" spell, which will ruin their plans.
- Chapter 40 has Harvey Who saying that the reason why Sonic and company wasn't called over to depose Naugus is due to a good chuck of New Mobotropolis being Naugus' bootlickers. Getting rid of him early would only make them double down on his propaganda, which are all valid points. But at no point he mentions any notable efforts to discredit said propaganda that is preventing them from getting outside help. That is because this reason is a convenient excuse to stall the civil war long enough to let Naugus cast his spell, in where the SFF would counter with the Universal Spire.
- In Chapter 31, Tangle briefly wonders if the reason behind the secrecy of the Secret Freedom Fighters was because they are hiding a super weapon. Chapter 42 has her be the first non-SFF person to witness the Universal Spire while finding out what it does.
- Chapters 20 and 35 has THE END address someone, but it was never revealed who outside of the person being connected to the Source. Chapter 43 would reveal said person to be an unlucky Elias Acorn, who was caught in the SGW but wasn't turned to a core unlike the others due to his recall teleporter sending him to THE END's prison within Cyber Space.
- When Rosemary learns that Naugus needs a person capable of Chaos Control to warp Earth into Mobius in Chapter 41, readers would remember that Naugus isn't remotely concerned that he is lacking the Chaos or Sol Emeralds needed after capturing Blaze in Chapter 25, despite them being a requirement. Rotor also noted that the Lake of Rings were locked down instead of being used by the local regime, as shown in Chapter 42 with it surrounded by a crystal dome. Chapter 42 also has Sally and Nicole note how the power plant that regulates the Lake of Rings was barely used at all. This is because Naugus is planning on using Power Rings as a substitute for the emeralds, as proven by Shadow using a bunch of them to perform Chaos Control in Chapter 46.
- Four Lines, All Waiting: Besides Sally, Nicole, and the rest of Team Freedom doing their best to try and make the world a better place alongside Jewel and the rest of the Restoration, there's the actions of Hershey and her allies, Mogul's plots to gain further power, Metal Sonic's desire to erase any remainder of the Archie universe for good, Phage seeking to devour interesting data, including Nicole, the Egg Bosses trying to get into Eggman's good books after Starline stole their Chaos Emeralds and messed things up, Naugus furthering his power over New Mobotropolis in Geoffrey's body, THE END manipulating Sonic to try and gain freedom and revenge, etc.
- Framing Device: The entirety of the His World arc begins with Archie!Sonic, in his last minutes, using Nicole's PDA in order to send one final message to the future warning about THE END and explaining the circumstances that led to the end of the original Archie universe and it's rebirth in the Game/IDW one.
- The Fundamentalist: Bunnie's parents are shown to have lived in a religious commune, complete with the distrust of modern society as inherently sinful. This ultimately leads to tragic consequences for Bunnie once she contracts her illness.
- Funny Animal: How Islanders, Sonic's kind fall under in the Sliding Scale of Anthropomorphism as per the games, complete with Funny Animal Anatomy.
- Funny Animal Anatomy: Commented on by Dr. Quack, who says that Islanders are actually biologically closer to animals than Mobians, who are more closer to humans instead. One particular difference is their durability. Islanders are able to shrug off a broken shoulder in a few days as shown by Tangle, compared to Mobians and humans who would take weeks to heal the same injury.
- Future Me Scares Me: Mammoth Mogul is not happy when he learns of how different his future self Master Mogul is from his current self.
G-P
- Good Thing You Can Heal: Due to the all-ages rating and the nature of the story, expect anything robotic to get smashed in all kinds of conceivable ways while biological beings walk away with unspecified minor injuries and mental trauma instead. There is a reason why Julie-Su getting her left arm sliced off and Tangle getting her tail broken are so shocking.
- Gory Discretion Shot: Before Julie-Su can remember the operation on her damaged left eye, which she was fully awake and didn’t have painkillers for, that had her new robotic left eye installed, she’s broken out of the memory by Honey the Cat.
- Groin Attack: Sally gives Fang, who she calls Nack since it was his name in the previous world, another "love tap" with her knee. A roboticized and completely metal knee.
- The Gunslinger: Whisper, Fang, and Julie-Su all have and primarily use some form of firearm.
- Heartbroken Badass: Antoine has become a skilled warrior with amazing physical power thanks to the nanites that are in his body, but he is still mourning the loss of Bunnie after being informed of how she was rebooted. He only comes to accept that she is truly gone after meeting the Bunnie of Earth. It also crosses over into Handicapped Badass since using the nanites in such a manner is putting horrible strain on his scarred and crippled body.
- Hero Stole My Bike: Chapter 25 has Tangle stealing a skateboard from a kid to help evade the various soldiers and acolytes of New Mobotropolis.
- Heroic BSoD:
- Sally has one after learning that her world has been completely overwritten by a Cosmic Retcon, breaking down over how everything she struggled and fought for has been rendered meaningless, how her friends and family might not even exist, and how Sonic, the man she loved, won’t even know who she is. Nicole is able to snap her out of it, but the AI was only seconds away from going into one herself and has a less severe breakdown once she gets some time alone.
- Mina Mongoose had one similar to Sally’s, though without someone to snap her out. She’s been left as a depressed homeless wreck living on the streets of Studiopolis until Chapter 9.
- When Julie-Su finally learns the truth about the world and accidentally hits Saffron during her Freak Out, she breaks down over how the all the horrible things she was forced to do in the process of getting back were All for Nothing, how she never got to say proper goodbyes to her friends, and how Knuckles won’t even remember her anymore.
- Heroic Sacrifice:
- Mina's bandmates helped her escape from New Mobotropolis at the cost of being caught by Naugus' regime.
- In the face of THE END's multiversal consumption, Sonik (a version of Sonic from 1000 years in the future) detonated the Positive Matter bomb. He died in the process, but it managed to hurt the omnicidal being and gave Nicole enough time to save everyone from his universe.
- To stop THE END's escape during the SGW, many Archie Sonic characters were effectively erased from existence in the process of doing so.
- Hidden Depths: Many of the characters in general have surprising quirks that were never shown beforehand. For example, Whisper has an eye for fashion, having been the one to pick out Sally and later Mina's new outfit. She also has a rather impressive sense of humor if Tangle is to be believed. She later reveals herself to be fluent in French or its Sonic equivalent and an avid reader of history while noticing any nuance, like propaganda.
- Hold Your Hippogriffs: "What on Mobius?!" is commonly said among the Archie Sonic characters.
- Honey Trap: "Egg Memos 1" confirms that Breezie was created for a G-rated version of this, but Sonic never fell for it.Eggman: (in an audio log) Breezie did her best, acted like a good little hostage and attempted to say the right lines, but Sonic just wasn’t interested in her advances! I’d figured that if he was thirteen and holding an attractive member of the opposite sex in his arms, then surely he’d get distracted! Distracted enough that he’d give that Silver Sonic unit the opportunity he needed! But no, the hedgehog simply didn’t care and quickly found out that Breezie was in on the plot.
- Hopeless War: The situation in New Mobotropolis in general by the time Team Freedom arrive at the place. Due to Naugus successfully turning the city into his own personal fiefdom, isolated from the outside world thanks to a few choice words and the city's remote location, the New Mobotropolis Freedom Fighters are slowly but surely losing more of their numbers and supplies with each passing day with no reliable sources of supply. The Secret Freedom Fighters spend their time doing their own operations and use their ability to actually contact the outside world to spy on the Restoration and Mammoth Mogul instead of calling Sonic and company over as soon as possible to boot Naugus out. Meanwhile, Naugus turned the citizens into either more prisoners for his Egg Grapes or new Ixis acolytes if they weren't too focused on being crushed under his tyrannical heel. This situation has been going on even before the events of Sonic Forces. Tangle and Whisper, who are complete outsiders that have only been in the city for a day, know that this conflict clearly requires outside intervention for any hope of a good ending and is appalled at the SFF's choice to not ask the Restoration for aid. Chapter 41 has Sally generously estimate that the NMFF will only last a few more weeks if nothing changes. If she was being completely honest, they wouldn't have lasted until the end of the current week. Chapter 42 reveals that the SFF's entire plan hinges on Naugus casting his "deboot" spell, in where they will respond by hijacking his plans to "deboot" Earth for their own using the Universal Spire in an attempt to bring back Mobius on their terms, which explains their refusal to get Sonic and/or the Restoration to liberate the city while dragging out the conflict to give Naugus time to prepare.
- Horrible Judge of Character: Discussed about Maximilian. In the pre-boot verse Harvey Who, his advisor at the time, specifically told him not to trust Warlord Kodos, not to let Ixis Naugus remain in the kingdom, and not to take Robotnik in (to be fair, that last one was due to guilt over what happened with Nate clouding his judgement, though Whisper notes after a quick skimming of the history books that he probably should have been warier of someone willing to sell out their species like that) with even Elias noting that negative trait of his father.Elias: (thinking/musing) There laid the former king of the Kingdom of Acorn. The man who ended the Great War through his defeat of the Overlander leader, Charlemagne. Appointer of Warlord Kodos Lion, Royal Wizard Ixis Naugus, and Warlord Julian Kintobor. Husband of Alicia Acorn and father of both Elias himself and Sally. A hero of the Kingdom of Acorn… and the man who arguably led to its decline.
- How the Mighty Have Fallen:
- A common example that happened to the Archie characters surviving the SGW.
- The Zone Cops used to be The Dreaded to any illegal travelers between Zones, having captured several Reality Warpers and Physical Gods and kept them imprisoned. After the Super Genesis Wave wiped out a good chunk of the multiverse and plenty of their own administration, they're left scrambling to keep on top of the situation and are no longer able to enforce the rules as effectively as before. This is on top of no one knowing that they even exist unless they are also from the Pre-SGW reality, which further diminished their already crippled authority. Rookie Zangle is dismayed that Blaze doesn't even bother to avoid her while travelling between Zones while Zonic had to take up the leader role as he is the highest ranking officer left despite being ill-suited for such a job. Their failure to stop Lien-Da's Zone raids is further proof of them being reduced to a sad joke.
- New Mobotropolis, and by extension, the Kingdom/Republic of Acorn used to be the shining beacon of Mobius, being one of the most advanced and powerful civilisations that are not the echidnas and the main opposition to Robotnik with their powerful Freedom Fighters. Thanks to a tyrannical reign, it has been reduced to an unrecognised third world city-state in where the citizens either struggle to live or resist their despot.
- The echidna race (who already underwent this back on Mobius) was put through the wringer under an incompetent and sadistic Lien-Da, losing their people left and right due to picking fights, many which are unneeded, with various dimensional people. By the time she was overthrown along with those that supported her, the echidnas are reduced to an unrecognizable ramshackle group of refugees that needed immediate Restoration aid upon reaching Earth. And then their dark past that they themselves had forgotten is aired to the entire planet.
- THE END used to be a being that was powerful enough to be Above the Gods. After the SGW thanks to the intervention of Archie!Sonic, Nicole and Jani-Ca, it was reduced to a "mere" planet destroyer. THE END certainly took issue with that and has tricked the current Sonic into breaking it free.
- On Mobius, the Shinobi Clan was one of the four major ninja clans of the Dragon Kingdom, only being forced into a defensive stance due to having the least manpower out of the four from playing peacekeeper in the nation while every member was trained to fight and even possibly sent to spy on the major players of Mobius like the Brotherhood of Guardians. The Shinobi Clan after being rebooted still retained their prowess, becoming one of the Islands' greatest defenders throughout history. However by present day, they were heavily neutered due to longtime peace, to the extent that Espio was the only member that can defend himself and still wield their ninjutsu.
- Apparently, after the events of the Magenta Egg War, G.U.N is just a shell of its former self.
- A common example that happened to the Archie characters surviving the SGW.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Each chapter except for the first one is named after the title of, or the lyrics from, a music track from the Sonic franchise.
- Idiot Ball: Lampshaded by Rouge regarding Shadow. As powerful as he is, he had a terrible tendency to get too confident in his own strength, leading to him falling into traps by his enemies. The Mobotropolis raid has it bad in spades, as not only he is a high-value target for Naugus due to his Chaos abilities that he used recklessly alongside Power Rings to empower them, but also due to the simple fact he refused to get a communicator which prevented him from even knowing about this.
- Ignore the Fanservice: "Egg Memos 1" has Eggman remark that Breezie's mission to distract Sonic failed because he simply wasn't interested in her. Sonic notes that it's because he immediately realized that something was up with her because she wouldn't stop flirting with him.
- I Hate Past Me: Based on their brief interaction, Master Mogul has no love for how he used to be as Mammoth Mogul, outright comparing him to a spoiled child.
- Impaled Palm: Sally is the victim of this thanks to Metal Sonic stabbing his thumbs through her hands in their Studiopolis clash to disable her defensive abilities while spiting her. Fortunately, it gets fixed later thanks to Tekno's efforts since she is a machine.
- In Spite of a Nail: In spite of living a radically different life in the rebooted universe compared to the original, Bunnie still ends up a cyborg.
- Internal Retcon: The Echidnas who rebelled against the Ancients rewrote the history of Mobius to their liking while killing most, if not all of their Mobian rivals at the Starfall Islands as well to ensure that no one can contest it after their rebellion. This includes making them the pioneers of civilization instead while wiping out the Ancients from history. It worked so well that the Echidnas by present day genuinely think that it was the truth rather than a lie they knowingly cooked up. After finding out the horrific truth in the Chaos Force while realizing that her kind are stuck in their isolationist ways, Aurora resorted to her visions with Locke to forcibly reform the Echidnas. It took Archie!Sonic's broadcast (which was also a Framing Device for the His World arc) about THE END's prison being crippled to expose the whole truth to Earth, including the Archie!Echidnas on Angel Island.
- Internal Reveal:
- After learning about Naugus possessing Geoffrey in Chapter 23, Sally notifies as many allies as she can about this in future chapters. This was already known to anyone who already read the Archie comics.
- Chapter 35 has Sonic learn about the Bad Future Jani-Ca came from, in where his Dark Mobius counterpart lost to Enerjak. Chapter 36 has Sonic even learning about Enerjak ripping the cores out from his victims and Jani-Ca putting them back after his defeat.
- Chapter 41 has Rosemary reveal her role as a deep-cover spy for the New Mobotropolis Freedom Fighters to Sally, something that has been established since Chapter 29.
- Chapter 42 has Sally and Nicole being made aware of the Archie Echidnas' survival, something that has been established since Chapter 13.
- In Chapter 46, Rouge and Omega learn from the Chaotix (whom they themselves learned in Chapter 44) that Shadow is a MacGuffin Super-Person and they just possibly did a MacGuffin Delivery Service for Naugus by bringing him here. This was foreshadowed since Chapter 21 while only known to the readers and local resistance in Chapter 41.
- Sally and Bunnie finally discover the existence of the Egg Grapes and the various prisoners in Chapter 46, something that was established at the end of Chapter 24.
- Interspecies Romance: Discussed in Super Special Chapter 1.Mina: (after checking out the library) I-I’ve read comics before. But none of them were like this. Usually they were about some Overlander wearing a costume or two girls fighting over a boy, but they were always about Overlanders! This one has Mobians in it and one is even the main Overlander girl’s love interest!
Akira: Is it really that strange? I know that there aren’t many humans living on the islands, but they are here and it’s not like they would limit their options when it comes to partners.
Mina: Don't be gross.
Akira: I’m not being gross. It’s a fact of life. - I Reject Your Reality: Julie-Su is so traumatized by her experiences and desperate to see Knuckles again that she refuses to acknowledge that something is clearly different with their Zone, coming up with increasingly flimsy excuses to justify the obvious changes. This becomes incredibly pronounced once she meets the rebooted Chaotix — who don't recognize her — convinced that this is a trick or they’re playing a sick joke on her.
- Invading Refugees: The fic plays with this trope when the Archie Sonic cast were brought into the Games/IDW world. In the wake of the reboot caused by the Super Genesis Wave and THE END's rampage, the survivors have various reactions to Earth as a whole.
- Sally and Nicole immediately join the Restoration as new members.
- Mammoth Mogul used his magic to become the de-facto ruler of Studiopolis while planning to outlive Sonic and Eggman. Like on Mobius, this isn't the case and he is planning a new scheme to undermine the heroes, from both Mobius and Earth.
- New Mobotropolis is stuck under the thumb of King Geoffrey who is still possessed by Naugus. They have been systematically kidnapping rebooted Archie characters to "deboot" them back into their past lives, either joining him or getting thrown into the Egg Grapes afterwards. Their general populace's hostility to Earth is a combination of feeling that Earth existed at their world's expense, projection of their hatred for humans while being gaslighted into believing that everything outside their walls is hostile to them. Both Naugus and Elias plan on resetting the world back into Mobius.
- The echidnas arrive back and were initially confused as to why Angel Island is nothing like they knew. They were too focused on getting aid to worry about anything else. After Archie!Sonic's broadcast, public opinion is shifting towards negativity due to their dark secrets, both known and unknown, being aired to the planet, worrying that they are going to repeat their mistakes on Earth. Meanwhile, the echidnas are split between keeping their attitude or changing to acclimate themselves to Earth in response to the actions of Jani-Ca and other revelations.
- It's Raining Men: How the Restoration and their allies enter New Mobotropolis in Chapter 46. They dive downwards at high speeds to avoid being messed with by the Jedi Mind Trick barrier, destroying any enemies that tried to intercept them.
- Jerkass Has a Point:
- The people of New Mobotropolis turn on Sally due to her Robian status in Chapter 22, saying that Eggman can just take control of her any time if he wished based on their own experiences as Robians. Sally mentally agrees with them as a major reason she is currently free is that Eggman doesn't know she exists yet.
- In a dream flashback, Locke justified all the harm he put his son Knuckles through for the sake of stopping Mammoth Mogul, saying that if he didn't do so Knuckles would have been alone for real. Lara-Le bitterly agrees with her ex-husband yet again.
- The general public developed a growing movement against the Archie Echidnas due to their dark past and deeds being revealed, demanding that the Restoration is to stop aiding them out of fear that they are going to repeat their mistakes. Lara-Le and Remington were left dealing with at least a portion of their people refusing to learn anything from the Exodus, with some even calling their ancestors' genocide of the Mobius Starfall Islands "liberation from the Ancients" in an earlier chapter, meaning that the public's fear isn't wholly misplaced.
- Lack of Empathy:
- In his appearance in a flashback, Finitevus admits he knew Thrash was attacking the echidnas, and sees no reason to prevent his own species from going extinct. He cites their many, many faults throughout history and that this is their karma finally catching up to them. This ignores the fact that most of the people being attacked are innocent.
- From the same flashback as Finitevus', Scourge offers to let Julie-Su and Saffron join the Destructix to even out the group's gender ratio in exchange for bringing them out of the desert, but gives a nonchalant "What about them?" when the former asks about her people. Julie-Su predictably tells him to go to hell.
- The Secret Freedom Fighters plan to kill everyone on Earth to bring back Mobius by hijacking Naugus' Promised Day spell for their own ends. When Tangle coldly asked what about people like her when Mobius is brought back, their guilty looks was all the answer she needed before Elias dismisses her very existence and shoots a crossbow bolt at her.
- Lady of Black Magic: Ebony and Rosemary (who was implied and later confirmed) have become this after joining the Naugus Cult. Any Mobian women who joined said cult also qualifies.
- Late-Arrival Spoiler: This fic takes place after the major events of Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) up to Issue #247, Sonic the Hedgehog/Mega Man: Worlds Collide along with Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW) until Issue #53. There are also spoilers for Sonic Superstars and Sonic Frontiers. As such, any related twists that happened beforehand are taken into account and spoken as if you have already known them. There are usually sporadic amounts of exposition to help provide context.
- For Archie Sonic, we have Sally's Unwilling Roboticisation, the Super Genesis Wave, Geoffrey's possession, Mina's strained relationship with Nicole, Bunnie leaving New Mobotropolis after Antoine was put into a coma, Naugus being made king and the list goes on. Blaze even nonchalantly talks about the major events of Worlds Collide in Chapter 8, in regards to the various game characters being turned into Roboticised Masters by Eggman and Wily, Sonic's team-up with Megaman along with Archie Super Sonic's Chaos Control being messed with by Eggman at the end.
- For the IDW comics, there was already mention of the Metal Virus while hinting, if not stating outright who got infected by it, Belle being made by an amnesiac Dr. Eggman who became Mr. Tinker and the latter's death, Starline's various actions along with Surge's rampage in Central City.
- For the games, we have the events of Sonic Forces being common knowledge, Trip's Heel–Face Turn from Sonic Superstars and everything about THE END from Sonic Frontiers.
- Legend Fades to Myth: As time went on, the Echidnas genuinely forgot the truth of how they became so advanced compared to the rest of Mobius (killing the Ancients, along with other Mobians who the Ancients had tried to uplift, and looting their technology) while refusing to aid society due to their isolationist policy for centuries. This convinced Aurora for her stunt to create a savior.
- Lifesaving Misfortune:
- Make no mistake, the Echidnas and Saffron suffered horribly after Thrash exiled them to another Zone, Lien-Da's questionable at best leadership making it worse, but said Zone had Ancient ruins, allowing Nicole to give them access to Cyber Space, putting them in a place where they were safe from the Cosmic Retcon. Lien-Da's insistence on implanting cybernetics against the Echidnas' wills allowed them to survive the journey, even if they also had bombs inside them that were disabled after Julie-Su's coup.
- Although seeing it traumatized Rotor, Cream and her compatriots being rebooted likely saved the girl’s life after she was wounded by the Tails Doll. It also allowed her family and Big to escape New Mobotropolis under Naugus.
- ZigZagged. New Mobotropolis having Naugus as king, who is an even worse king than Max, saved them from being rebooted by the SGW but it still trapped them under his cruel heel. Later revealed that Nicole's access to Cyber Space was the final step needed to prevent them from being rebooted, meaning that he still would've failed if it wasn't for her.
- A Lighter Shade of Black: Ironically Eggman of all people (at least his IDW/Game self) compared to Ixis Naugus, at least according to Bunnie. While Eggman's cruelty is to the point, he doesn't sugarcoat his actions behind a false veil of benevolence. Meanwhile, Naugus actively gaslights his own subjects into Blind Obedience while actively placing them under the jackboot.
- Lions and Tigers and Humans... Oh, My!: Both Archie and Game/IDW worlds feature a world of anthropomorphic animals and humans living on the same planet. However, their histories and relations with each other differ greatly.
- Played with on Mobius. The original iterations of humanity foolishly dissected a Xorda emissary which prompted the planet's bombardment and got most of them annihilated in response while anthropomorphic animals do not exist at all beforehand. The fallout of the planetary bombing resulted in the rise of Mobians (various animals that underwent evolution to become Funny Animals while still being more biologically inclined toward humans) as the dominant species of the planet, with the discovery of humanity's remnants being a relatively recent development. Tensions flared between Mobians and Overlanders (a Mobian variant of the original humans) over the generations due to various incidents, eventually resulting in the Great War due to the machinations of Warlord Kodos. After the conflict was resolved and remnants of the original humans are later discovered to be still alive due to the Hidden City Initiative creating isolated cities like Station Square when the Xorda declared war, both major species isolated themselves from each other due to the bad blood, with their relations lukewarm at best even with Sally's efforts.
- On Earth, humans and Islanders (who are more akin to Funny Animal with a higher tendency of Furry Reminder while being more biologically inclined towards their respective animals) coexist on Earth, albeit with some heavily implied segregation with the former taking the continents and latter living on islands, as based on the main Game/IDW canon. Tangle even mentions the "great wars" humanity fought and notes that Islanders mainly stayed out of it. There are various Islander and coastal cities around the world like Studiopolis in where the population ratio between the two species are roughly equal, complete with Interspecies Romance and marriage. However, humans are the dominant species of the planet and have made slaves out of Islanders in the past while there are anti-human advocates running around due to various reasons.
- MacGuffin Delivery Service: Naugus needs a being capable of Chaos Control to use as a keystone for his "Promised Day" spell, a spell that will rewrite Earth to Mobius in his own image. Silver recruiting Blaze into Team Freedom before they made their way to New Mobotropolis saved him a lot of time and effort, as one of the people he considered capable for that was Blaze herself. After luring Team Freedom into Castle Acorn, Blaze being unaware that she is the real objective, decides to cover her friends' escape which led to her capture in Chapter 25. It is noted that his original target was Shadow until this situation occurred. Upon finding out that Shadow is among the Restoration's task force in Chapter 46, Vector is worried instead of being ecstatic because of this.
- MacGuffin Super-Person: While implied over past chapters, Chapter 41 reveals that Naugus needed either Shadow or Blaze for their capability in Chaos Control. This is one of his key components for his mass "debooting". With Blaze captured back in Chapter 25, his plan could finally come into fruition. Chapter 46 has the heroes attempt to inform an ignorant Shadow from getting himself captured in his recklessness, just in case Naugus wanted a second Chaos Control user.
- Mad Bomber: Bean of course. He even demonstrate his love of explosion by giving a eulogy for 'Bomby'.Bean: NOOOO! Bomby! Why?! How could you do this to Bomby?! He was just two seconds old! How could you cut his short life even shorter! And do deny him of his purpose in life! It's a cruel thing!
Blaze: ...Are you seriously doing this again? - Mass "Oh, Crap!":
- Metal Sonic’s arrival in Studiopolis gets this reaction from just about everyone in the area in Chapter 12.
- The world plunges into a panic after Archie!Sonic's recording about THE END at the end of Chapter 38.
- Meatgrinder Surgery:
- If Bunnie's surgery was anything to go by, it meant that every person who went to Thunderbolt for prosthetics underwent the surgical process with little to no anesthesia, under excuse that it would "mess up her calculations".
- Lien-Da replaced Julie-Su's busted left eye with a cybernetic one, obviously with a bomb inside it to keep her in line. The process itself was done by strapping Julie-Su to the operating table and doing the entire process while she was fully conscious, with a piece of leather forced into Julie-Su's mouth for her to bite down from the immeasurable pain.
- Metaphorically True: Belle tells Sally and Nicole her father made her out of Badnik parts and coding and reveals that he was killed by Dr. Starline. Technically true, since Mr. Tinker basically suffered a Death of Personality when Starline and Metal Sonic restored Eggman's memories.
- Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot: Team Freedom was sent to the Mirage Desert Zone to investigate mysterious reports since they are the nearest team available by getting Blaze in Studiopolis → Find out about the survival and location of New Mobotropolis from Mammoth Mogul. → Fight a civil war. → Save the Earth from being turned back into Mobius.
- Mirroring Factions:
- Naugus' New Mobotropolis and Metal Sonic's army of Egg Bosses are more similar than they admit. Both factions champion the superiority of their worlds while considering the other to be redundant.
- This was what Tangle realized in her fight with Elias in Chapter 43. She realized that both Team Freedom (specifically her and Silver) and the Secret Freedom Fighters are simply desperate people fighting for their own world while denying the other world the right to exist. She even admits that if a similar loss happened to her, she would be doing the same things as Elias. Her acceptance of both Earth and Mobius was effectively the reason she won and being chosen by the Sword of Light.
- Naugus' New Mobotropolis and Metal Sonic's army of Egg Bosses are more similar
- The Mole:
- Chapter 26 reveals that Mordred Hood is one for the Egg Bosses to gather intel on New Mobotropolis.
- It’s revealed in Chapter 29 that Rosemary had infiltrated Naugus’ forces and gained his trust by partly playing the broken mother of Tails so she could find out what he and Snively are planning for the New Mobotropolis Freedom Fighters.
- Moral Myopia:
- Thunderbolt is a Mad Scientist that gives desperate people cybernetics with explosives installed and forces them into debt with exorbitant prices that she has zero intention of clearing even if they do manage to reach the number. Despite all of this, and having multiple sources she outright calls "piggybanks", she becomes outraged when one disables their leash, vowing revenge on them and treating it as a betrayal from an Ungrateful Bastard.
- For all of the Secret Freedom Fighters' justified hate towards Eggman and Naugus, their ultimate goal is to hijack the mad wizard's spell to recreate Mobius, destroying Earth to create a world more to their liking and without said villains and other threats, which is exactly the kind of thing the villains would do.
- My God, What Have I Done?:
- Silver feels awful about crushing Nicole and Sally's hopes by saying their world was replaced in the Cosmic Retcon, and tries to contact Blaze to start trying to find leads and make amends.
- Mina still feels incredibly guilty over her efforts having gotten Nicole exiled from New Mobotropolis, lamenting how much pain she caused her friend.
- Julie-Su is horrified that she hit Saffron during her Freak Out, partially because she promised herself that she would keep her friend and her people safe throughout their journey home.
- Myopic Architecture: In Chapter 46, Sally is briefly stymied by a spell Naugus put over the castle's doors and windows to keep her out... but then Bunnie blasts a hole in the wall.
- Mythology Gag:
- The team stops to eat at a fast food truck called Joe's Sushi, which might be a reference to Fleetway character named Joe Sushi.
- When the group is waiting for their orders, Silver's number is 2006, a nod to his debut game.
- One of the attractions in Studiopolis is a place called 'SEGASONIC POPCORN SHOP', a version of the SegaSonic Popcorn Shop. In contrast to its real world version, it's big enough for people to fit in and catch the huge pieces of popcorn.
- Both Sally and Mina (along with anyone else from Mobius) call Fang the Sniper by his previous self's name, Nack the Weasel.
- Sally gives Fang yet another "love tap" in the groin.
- Bean is mistaken as a duck by the Pre-SGW characters since he was one in the old universe, unaware that he is now, a woodpecker.note The connection with Dynamite Dux is further highlighted when Bean mentions "Daddy Dynamite".
- One of Bunnie's family horses is named Connery.
- Bean once more gives one his bomb's a tearful eulogy after being defused by Blaze, which he did in the previous universe in Sonic Universe #24.
- During his fight with Silver and Blaze, Bean at one point kicks one of his bombs with a football maneuver, a subtle nod to his appearance in the SEGA football game Virtua Striker 2.
- The events of Sonic the Fighters happening in this verse but recreated in a way that reminds you of the Chaos Emerald Championship arc, the story even hints that the promoter was Breezie the Hedgehog, who would debut in Chapter 11.
- The first job Fang recruited Bunnie for is to loot an Ancient Gear.
- Bean asks Silver and Blaze about seeing their mutant hedgehog-cat babies, much like how he asks Sonic if he’s going to marry Sally and have mutant hedge-squirrel babies in the Archie comics.
- Rediscovered Frontiers Super Special Chapter 2:
- Metal Sonic's password to the Eggnet is "0-9-2-3-1-9-9-3". 23 September 1993 is the JP release date of his debut game Sonic the Hedgehog CD.
- Before gaining the name Phage, she was called Special Unit 71 or SU71 for short. Sonic Universe Issue #71 is where she made her debut.
- Chapter 3 of Rediscovered Frontiers Super Special reveals that Breezie is an Eggman invention, much like her AOSTH counterpart.
- When getting onto Zilver about ignoring a zone excursion in the I-Zones Zonic brings up the SSSI-7 incident, which was the issue of the Archie Sonic Super Special that had a crossover with Image.
- Speaking of said crossover, Aurora's vision sending which led to the creation of Chaos Knuckles only for it to be a false future is actually based on Ken Penders' initial plans for Dr. Ian Droid to be the final villain of his "Mobius: 20 Years Later" series, only for him to be killed off in Archie Sonic Super Special Issue #7 without the planted plot points coming to fruition.
- Speaking of said crossover, Aurora's vision sending which led to the creation of Chaos Knuckles only for it to be a false future is actually based on Ken Penders' initial plans for Dr. Ian Droid to be the final villain of his "Mobius: 20 Years Later" series, only for him to be killed off
- The Pre-SGW version of Wendy Witchcart is revealed to have been the mentor to Regina Ferrum/the Iron Queen, an allusion to how Witchcart used Regina's Signature Laugh in the Tails 30th Anniversary special.
- During the Echidnas' exodus across the Zones, they apparently ran into a young version of Sonic who played in a band with his siblings, and ran afoul of enemies such as an evil version of Super Sonic, the Metarex and the Nocturnus Clan, the last of which explains Julie-Su's violent reaction to Gemerl when encountering the Gizoid.
- Sticks searches for "Area 2014" on the Chaotix's GPS, thinking that it holds government secrets. 2014 is the debut year of Sonic Boom, the spinoff series where she came from.
- The mechanic who removes the bomb from Bunnie is named Lewis, but is nicknamed as Porker by Fang. This is in reference to Porker Lewis the Pig from Sonic the Comic.
- When the SGW hit New Mobotropolis, Nicole spaces out and cites herself as "NI-COL 247.0". Archie Sonic Issue #247 is the last Pre-SGW Archie Sonic issue before Worlds Collide would conclude the Pre-SGW continuity.
- The main cast run into Barry the Quokka, who's currently working in the Mirage Desert, when trying to reach New Mobotropolis.
- Rough and Tumble are served Meh Burger while in prison.
- The Online Alias of the Egg Bosses are nods to their debuts.
- LightningAsh263 is Thunderbolt, who debuted on Archie Sonic Issue #263.
- BaristaMaster2020 is Agent Stone, who debuted on the 2020 movie.
- TreacheryClarent37 is Mordred Hood, who debuted on Archie Sonic Universe Issue #37.
- Chapter 26:
- A Swat-Bot goes by "Unit 1994". 1994 is the year Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) would mainly air.
- Lee Stone runs a coffee chain called "Mean Bean Machine".
- Chapter 27 has Dr. Quack say that Antoine was lucky to survive being at point-blank of the self-destructing Metal Sonic's explosion. The original plan in Archie was to have him outright die to the explosion. However, that was turned into a coma due to
fan outcry. - Chapter 30 has Lyco and Leeta pull off a Twin Switch to Silver to see if he remembers Mobius, which is a reference to the Off Panel of Archie Sonic Issue #239.
- When Julie-Su's cybernetic eye got an update, it states that it has fully updated to "EgOS 2018.4.4". 4 April 2018 is the publication date of Sonic's IDW Issue #1.
- Nicole's origins in Chapter 35 is based on the plans for the cancelled Season 3 of Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM), in where she was a deceased friend of Sally who was subjected to Brain Uploading to became an A.I. by Robotnik, effectively killing her biological body. It also seems to derive from the Post-SGW comic world where it was revealed that she was created by a scientist trying to upload his daughter to save her, and while he seemingly failed, like in this story she showed more intelligence over time.
- Jewel notes that Shadow has contradicting records of his actions during the Black Arms invasion in Chapter 41, which is a reference to the game's infamous Story Branching.
- Bunnie's arm after upgrades states that it undergoes "blast processing".
- One of the Zombots that became a Royal Knight is Kip the Capybara.
- Akira is seen to talking to Ian Jr., Gadget the Wolf, Corvin the Bird and Fuchsia the Cat, other semi-codified versions of the Player Character from Sonic Forces.
- Lanolin's controlling mother is based on her creator Adam Bryce Thomas' (her real-life creator) various artwork and notes that were never made official.
- Nice Girl: Honey the Cat does a lot to promote her own business and fashion line, and takes pride in the wealth she’s gotten from both, but she was also willing to just give Sonic and his friends the Chaos Emeralds should she win the Fighters Tournament and shows a clear concern for Julie-Su when the echidna has a traumatic flashback in her store.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Studiopolis is full of various expies or anthopomorphic animal versions of movie stars, TV stars, directors, and music artists. One example is the EDM artist cracked3GG who is a human that wears a heavily modified full-head mask of an Egg Pawn a-la deadmau5.
- No Historical Figures Were Harmed: Kirby is named after the creator, Jack Kirby. On Earth, he's a comic book artist that never got much mainstream recognition like his real-life counterpart, but enough for Whisper to think that Tangle would love to meet him. Interestingly, it seems he's the same person as Jeremiah’s grandfather, who was an achieved historian and storyteller, back on Mobius.
- Not Distracted by the Sexy: Based on his and Eggman's accounts, Sonic found Breezie attempting to flirt with him more suspicious than distracting.
- Not Quite Saved Enough: After a cosmic battle against THE END ending with it stripped of its power and kicked into a sun in the end of the His World arc, Archie!Sonic and Nicole attempt to rebuild a new Mobius after the surviving Prelates resume becoming cores and flow away with the others, awaiting the new world. And then Nicole proceeds to get shot in the head before she even starts by a heavily weakened THE END before it escapes. This heavily damages her into being unable to recreating history as intended among other important actions like rescuing the echidnas and dealing the escaped Archie Sonic villains. This forces the new world to live history naturally, becoming Earth instead while the survivors from Mobius wound up living completely new lives if they got rebooted while those that don't became a Stranger in a Familiar Land. Meanwhile, after recording everything that happened so far to warn the world about THE END should its prison be weakened sufficiently once more, Archie!Sonic himself uses Chaos Control to restart the universe with his last shred of power while Nicole reforms her PDA to hide inside and preserve the memories of Mobius, effectively stranding her in the middle of nowhere until Tangle found her.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Something that Tangle finds herself admitting to during her climatic fight with Elias in Chapter 43 is that at the end of day, when one strips away all the self-righteous justifications they've told others and themselves, both of them just want to protect the people they love come hell or highwater, with everyone else they save in the process (including the whole world) being more of a bonus than anything. Which is why both of them can fight with intent to kill when the survival/salvation of one version of the multiverse means condemning the other because neither of them can just give up on their loved ones, and they can live with the consequences of that choice.
- Oh, My Gods!: Characters from the old universe often invoke phrases like "By the Source" along with "By the Walkers" or "Thank the Walkers". Aurora is also occasionally called upon. Mostly by Echidnas and Elias, who was raised by them.
- Old Shame: One of the Egg Memos Sonic finds has Eggman clearly ashamed of how desperate he was getting to beat the hedgehog that he resorted to making Breezie to distract him.
- Once More, with Clarity:
- Chapter 8 ends with Mina singing her song in Club Spin, in where she sees Sally among the audience upon finishing. Chapter 9 starts by winding the clock back by an hour, showing that Team Freedom decided to hit up Club Spin upon Tangle's suggestion after they have gotten Blaze's help. After they were suddenly given the VIP treatment and let inside, we see Sally's POV when Mina was singing until the song ends. We then catch up to the present with Mina rushing up to Sally.
- The plot line of what stranded Nicole in the middle of nowhere in Chapter 1 when she was fighting the Tails Doll within New Mobotropolis during Archie Sonic Issue #247 is told over multiple chapters and different perspectives.
- Chapter 22 has Nicole wonder why Big and Cream were rebooted despite being supposedly safe within the walls of New Mobotropolis. She suddenly receives a memory playback, showing that the game characters are somehow outside the walls and got rebooted by the SGW while she herself was spacing out saying Robo-Speak. And then Sonic showed up in a new form and needed her help to beat something.
- Chapter 33 shows Rotor's side of the story. Team Freedom of New Mobotropolis consisting of him, Nicole, Big, Cream, Cheese, Heavy and Bomb fought and defeated the Tails Doll. However, the monstrosity managed to smash Cream right into the city wall at the last moment, sending her outside in where a distraught Vanilla was weeping at the fate of her barely alive daughter with a saddened Big. Nicole's spacing out proceeds to happen, in where the game characters outside the walls got hit by the SGW. Nicole later became responsive just in time for Sonic to arrive, in where they both leave in a flash of light. Rotor noted that while Sonic was stating with his usual bravado, his eyes betrayed his sadness.
- Chapter 36 finally shows what happened to Nicole when she was spacing out. She was actually being taken control of by The Warlord's cyber copy and had to stop him from interfering with the protection spell (which was actually the "Chronicles Protocol" used by the Ancients to protect the Starfall Islands in case of cosmic incidents) meant to save New Mobotropolis. By the time she regained control and having realized who she really was, she left with Sonic to stop THE END. Sonic actually wanted to explain everything to Rotor but was pressed for time while being saddened with Cream's injury, but he had to keep a brave face as the Hero of Mobius.
- Chapter 38 has Nicole critically injured due to a sneak attack by THE END. She had to recreate her PDA body and take refuge in it to save everyone's Pre-SGW memories. Her PDA is hurled throughout time and space by Sonic's Chaos Control, eventually landing right where Tangle found her after months in the wild.
- In various flashbacks, we hear Nicole suddenly space out and say "ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE NI-COL 247.0 HAS DEVIATED FROM EXPECTED PARAMETERS." at the worst possible time. Jump forward to Chapter 36 in where we see Nicole's perspective, where we learn why was she spacing out in the first place. The Warlord's cyber copy was trying to take control of her and that statement was Cyber Space's automated warning message that Nicole has broken free of the restraints placed on her.
- Chapter 11 shows that when the SGW hit, Elias was in a Troubled Fetal Position muttering "Something happened." over and over while Leeta and Lyco were weeping in each others' arms. Chapter 43 would reveal that they saw THE END's true form (among other horrific things) before their teleporters managed to rescue them, resulting in them being in the aforementioned state.
- Chapter 31 has Silver find out that the wolf twins were near him in the Arctic Tundra, courtesy of a planted tracker in his glove. Chapter 43 shows why were they nearby in the first place, which was a mission extract him during the events of Archie Sonic Issue #247, only to get hit by the SGW.
- Back in Chapter 20, THE END appeared to be addressing someone in a grand speech but it was never clarified who, just someone who was implied to be one of the Acorns due to it speaking of the Source. Even when Sonic fought it in Chapter 35, it was clearly talking to someone else. Chapter 43 would reveal the unfortunate person to be Elias, who was in the SGW's ground zero and brought to THE END's crumbling prison. It noticed him due to Elias supposedly bonding with the Source before for his first reign as king, in where said speech was meant for him before THE END capped it off with revealing its true form out of spite.
- One Degree of Separation: Chapter 15 has Honey visit a clothing store that she owns while Julie-Su and Saffron were inside, allowing them to get help for the Archie Echidnas by having her contact the Restoration along with new clothes, since their money (if they still had any) isn't going to work on Earth anyway. Honey also tells the duo where the Chaotix live/work when asked about them, resulting in them running into Sticks who just so happens to be breaking into the detective agency building. When asked about Amy and Cream, Sticks leads them to the Rabbit household just as the Chaotix happen to visit them. All of this happened because of Julie-Su's lack of undergarments confusing an alpaca shopkeeper about her gender.
- One-Steve Limit: An interesting In-Universe variant. Due to Robotnik dying in the Archieverse and being replaced by Robo-Robotnik (who took the moniker Eggman), the people in the IDW verse are confused to say the least about why the Archie characters are treating Robotnik and Eggman as two separate people. Takes a darker turn with Metal Sonic who disdainfully refers to both versions as 'The Obsolete Doctors', seeing them VASTLY inferior to his creator.
- Open Mouth, Insert Foot: Silver tactlessly crushes Sally and Nicole's hopes of getting back to their friends by returning to their Zone by revealing that a Cosmic Retcon occurred, meaning it no longer exists. Justified in that he himself was reeling from having his memories of the old timeline suddenly restored, and was simply thinking out loud to try and process the influx of new memories. To his credit, he recognizes he screwed up and wastes no time trying to make amends.
- Orcus on His Throne: Justified example. At the moment, Mammoth Mogul is content ruling Studiopolis as its kingpin. That said, he fully admits that once Sonic, his friends, and Eggman die of old age, then he will make his move. Subverted in later chapters as it is clear like his time in Archie, he isn't going to actually wait for time to do the deed for him and is cooking up a new scheme.Mammoth Mogul: If I were to show my hand, he would become a thorn in my side. Likely find some way to foil my plans yet again. So I decided to leave this one alone, as I did for the last one. He and his annoying friends, along with Eggman, shall all wither and die. Their children will be weak and inexperienced. I will likely make my move then. Or perhaps whenever running this company bores me, which it likely will in fifty or so years. I have nothing but time to decide.
- Orwellian Retcon:
- Even before the Super Genesis Wave occurred, the timeline of the world didn't exactly match up with that of the Archie Comics in the initial release. Per the official timeline, Eggman met up with Dr. Wily prior to the first Genesis Wave going off, which was the original source of the blue Chaos Emerald ending up in the Megaman universe and lead to the events of Worlds Collide which was when he actually met Wily. The author admitted that it was a mistake from his end and edited accordingly later.
- Rediscovered Frontiers Super Special Chapter 8 has the G.U.N Commander's name initially be Walters as a reference to the Paramount movies. This was released a few days before Sonic × Shadow Generations: Dark Beginnings canonized it to his name in Archie which was Abraham Tower. The author replaced the name as it felt more fitting, since this is an Archie Sonic fic.
- Even before the Super Genesis Wave occurred, the timeline of the world didn't exactly match up with that of the Archie Comics in the initial release. Per the official timeline
- Outliving One's Offspring: When the Super Genesis Wave arrived, in what is effectively a cruel cosmic technicality, it sundered many parent-child relationships in the new reality since the parents survived while their children are rebooted into new iterations. However, there are some of them who did undergo this in the most tragically straight example as they died due to THE END's rampage when the reboot happened. Examples include Jules and Bernadette (Archie!Sonic) along with Julie-Su and Knuckles (Jani-Ca).
- Pantsless Males, Fully-Dressed Females: It’s pointed out that now women wearing entire outfits is the norm rather than a rarity. Sally, used to just wearing her vest and boots, admits that even if she wasn’t a Robian she would have worn a full outfit out of peer pressure alone. Julie-Su is later tripped up by this change when she makes her return.
- The Paragon: Sonic the Hedgehog as well as Tails, Amy, and Knuckles are this on Earth and were this on Mobius, but the story delves into how their actions affect others. Some examples include:
- On one hand, Sonic’s heroism inspired Tangle to be the hero of her hometown which eventually lead to her becoming one of his companions. He also helped to guide Belle the Tinkerer to become a valued member of the Restoration in spite of everything that happened with Mr. Tinker/Eggman. On Mobius, he also helped ensure that people like Mina as well as Sally and the rest of the Freedom Fighters kept resisting Robotnik/Eggman however they can. Tails and Amy also helped inspire Tekno to join the Restoration and become a valued member of the Studiopolis chapter, allowing her to eventually help Sally and Mina.
- On the other hand, Julie-Su used Sonic and Knuckles as a basis for her ‘staying strong’ in the face of all her hardships which she interpreted as never talking about her problems. This in turn caused her to become unstable until it all led to a violent freak out.
- Played for drama regarding Rosemary Prower. The main reason why she is a spy within the court of King Geoffrey is because she wants to be a mother her son Miles "Tails" Prower can be proud of instead of being ashamed, as her actions back on Mobius made him disown her.
- Parting-Words Regret: Part of the reason why Julie-Su is so distraught over being a survivor of the Super Genesis Wave is because of how she left things with her friends. Her last conversation with Sonic was her arguing with him, she barely talked to Amy or Sally, and her final goodbye with the rest of the Chaotix was done half-heartedly because she was busy making a spare blaster.
- Patchwork Fic: While ostensibly using the Game/IDW continuity as its base, the rebooted world also incorporates a variety of other pieces of material from the rest of the Sonic franchise, including much of the post-Continuity Reboot Archie characters, multiple aspects and characters from Sonic Boom, Tekno the Canary and Ebony the Cat, Agent Stone, Sara, Helen and Anton.
- Point of Divergence:
- According to Word of God, the divergent point between this story and the IDW canon is Issue #53, as Whisper wasn't in the area during Surge's rampage, meaning she didn't absorb Whisper's Wisps thanks to the Dynamo Cage. Additionally, after Surge was defeated and rescued by Kit, no one was able to track them down. As a result, Sonic and Tails put pursuing them on hold and instead head to the Starfall Islands alongside Amy, kicking off the events of Sonic Frontiers.note
- The events of Worlds Collide happen pretty much as they should, up until the point where Eggman fires at Sonic. Where this ended up resulting in the Post-SGW Archie world in the comic run, here it instead freed THE END from its shackles, and he proceeds to start devouring the entire multiverse. This cascade of events leads to the Games/IDW world being created instead, though some snippets reveals that a Classic variation of the Post-SGW world exists in the multiverse.
- According to
- Propaganda Piece: Whisper secretly suspects this is the case with the echidna entries in Kirby's history book, musing somebody might have tampered with said entries. Considering what we know of the Brotherhood of Guardians, it's pretty much a safe bet. Sure enough, it is later revealed that most, if not all of them were indeed pro-echidna propaganda while Stealing the Credit from the Ancients (who they wiped from history books) and was eventually taken as the truth over time due to having nothing to dispute them.
- Pseudo-Romantic Friendship:
- Tangle and Whisper's relationship is definitely friendly, with Whisper pining for Tangle romantically, but it's unclear if Tangle reciprocates or is even aware of her feelings. Subverted as of Chapter 29, in where they become an Official Couple.
- There's also Sally and Nicole, the latter of whom often rides along in Sally's robian systems just for starters, and their relationship is given a lot of focus, as much as Sally's previous relationship with Sonic.
- Put on a Bus: Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, and Eggman are all currently trapped on the Starfall Islands while the story is going on.
R-Y
- Race Against the Clock:
- The finale of the His World arc becomes this. After THE END killed the Neo Walkers and rendered the Chaos Force practically impotent, Nicole notices that Cyber Space's integrity is failing, with it increasing with each second. Turns out that since the Chaos Force is critically damaged and the Neo Walkers died before they could fully reconstruct the Prime Zone, the half-finished Prime Zone is on the verge of falling apart. Which will take down the Chaos Force, White Space and Cyber Space in one fell swoop. This meant that the moment THE END broke the Chaos Force, it doesn't even need to do anything to crash all of existence and can simply wait it out if it wasn't for Nicole and Jani-Ca. What became a mission to restore the multiverse became a countdown to salvage what's left of existence while stopping the Mad God from finishing off everything else.
- Shadow considers himself in one in Chapter 41, which is why he is saving New Mobotropolis on own without waiting for backup first, as that city to him is a speedbump to his real objective: Intercept Sonic at the Starfall Islands and warn him about THE END. Jewel had to rein him in due to how idiotic it is, as she has no idea what kind of danger would be present at the city since she lost contact with Teams Freedom and Chaotix.
- Due to Naugus finally obtaining all the pieces he needed to rewrite Earth into Mobius in his image, the local resistance and their allies must breach Castle Acorn, rescue Blaze and stop the wizard from casting his genocidal spell. All without a defined time limit. This starts the battle for New Mobotropolis in Chapter 42.
- Relationship Upgrade: After several moments between them, Tangle and Whisper become a couple in Chapter 29.
- Retired Monster: Clutch the Opposum wished to leave The Don life and live off rigging the Chao races. Unfortunately for him, the intervention of Amy, Cream and Rouge forced him to ask Mammoth Mogul for a favor and rebuild his criminal empire.
- The Resenter: Hamlin remains this even after the Super Genesis Wave. Even though he is the leader of the New Mobotropolis Freedom Fighters and the respect of those under him, he hates the idea of Sally returning and usurping his position. It’s something Sally FINALLY calls him out on after she has enough of his accusations of the war being a vanity project for her.
- The Reveal:
- Chapter 14: The Ancients were around in the Archie universe and created the Phantom Ruby out of the original Master Emerald, with the one made by the Echidnas being a replica. With its power, Mammoth Mogul, Ixis Naugus and Wendy Witchcart weaved an existence protection spell to save themselves and New Mobotropolis. The Chaos Emeralds wielded by Mammoth Mogul and Ixis Naugus absorbed some powers of the Phantom Ruby in the process of tanking the SGW, becoming Enigma Emeralds. Wendy Witchcart was rebooted due to lacking one herself. New Mobotropolis is placed in the Mirage Desert Zone.
- Chapter 24: Mighty, Ray and Lupe are among the kidnapped prisoners in the Egg Grapes. They are currently "semi-debooted", a state where the Archie persona is dominant, but the IDW persona is a voice in their head rather than purged.
- Chapter 35:
- The real purpose of the Zone Cops is to collect data from other Zones and keep tabs on THE END, with their mission of policing the multiverse being a lie fed to them by the Warlord.
- The Warlord planned for Ni-Col to be sent to various Zones that are thousands of years ahead in the future, in where she will assimilate to the local culture and technology before being sent to another Zone that has a similar history but earlier in the chronology instead of the past for a Stable Time Loop as the locals believed. She would study the energies of the multiverse whenever she was sent in between Zones, eventually becoming an artificial god by the time the Prime Zone's present catches up.
- The first Enerjak attacked the Ancients in response to his experimentation and the Echidnas joined him in rebellion due to envy of the lynxes being chosen over them by the Ancients. This was responsible for the near-destruction of the remaining Ancients on the Starfall Islands, resulting in an exodus of the local mobians to the continents while the Onyx Emerald would be transported to Soumerica by the lynxes.
- Eggman's interference at the end of Worlds Collide resulted in not just the Cosmic Retcon but also breaking THE END's imprisonment.
- Aurora's sending visions to Locke which will result in Chaos Knuckles and everything that came after as a result was due to a combination of attempting to atone for her forefathers' rewriting of history and sins when she found out about it in the Chaos Force while discovering a calamity that required his help, which was Ian Droid (the Big Bad of Archie Sonic Super Special Issue #7) supposedly releasing THE END. When Ian Droid was dealt with offscreen by non-Sonic heroes, she left aghast at her terrible mistake.
- Chapter 36:
- The Warlord’s scheme of faking a Stable Time Loop worked. Since she is designated Ni-Col 247.0, she actually travelled between Zones 246 times while thinking that she was actually helping the same people before returning back to the Prime Zone.
- The spell that Mogul, Naugus and Wendy used was actually the "Chronicles Protocol" used by the Ancients to send the Starfall Islands into White Space in case of shifts in the multiverse. When they cast it, their spell would've failed if it wasn't for Nicole stopping the Warlord from interfering and granting them access to it.
- Nicole's original function planned by the Warlord was to rebuild the multiverse after THE END was done with the old one.
- The true nature of the Source of All was that it was cosmic waste expelled from THE END.
- Nicole gave the access keys of Cyber Space and multiverse travel capabilities to the Archie Echidnas to keep them safe from THE END's rampage. This also makes her responsible for the Zone raids and Julie-Su's subsequent coup.
- Finitevus and the Destructix were in the Sol Zone when the SGW hit which protected them from rebooted while making an alliance with Captain Metal.
- Chapter 37: The reason why most characters are erased by the reboot? When THE END found out about the plan to rip out the cores that he consumed from probing Hyper Sonic's mind, it preemptively fully consumed them out of spite which erased them from existence.
- Chapter 38:
- The Archie multiverse has long suffered from a fragile foundation and could've collapsed anytime if it wasn't for the various deities continuously shoring it up. The SGW and THE END were just the last straw.
- The Paradox Prism is created from the clash between Sonic and THE END.
- The surviving Archie characters would have been included in the reboot, but THE END shot Nicole right in the head just as she was recreating their histories, forcing her to leave them alone and making them foreign intruders to their own (rebuilt) universe.
- Nicole's zap wouldn't have any effect on Sonic, as his persona was erased before the reboot, at best it might trigger some flashes of memory that quickly fade away again.
- Chapter 40: After the ancient lynxes brought the Ancient Onyx to Soumerca when escaping the Starfall Islands, their civilization eventually assimilated into the Felidae over time, with their final duty of protecting it being passed on to them. However, the belief was also shared by the Wolf Tribes, which effectively became the cornerstone of their conflicts.
- Chapter 41: Naugus' plans revolve around using a being theoretically capable of Chaos Control like Shadow or Blaze and the books from the Sonic Storybook Series as components and fuel to rewrite the world back into Mobius in his image, regardless of the people in said books or the denizens of Earth for that matter. With Blaze captured, he can finally begin.
- Chapter 42: Operation "Brave New World" is revealed. The Secret Freedom Fighters plan on hijacking Naugus' "mass deboot" spell of Earth to use it for their own ends.
- Chapter 43: Elias, Leeta and Lyco ran into THE END during the SGW. While it was known that the Source of All was THE END's cosmic waste back in Chapter 35, THE END gloated to Elias that the Source has also been playing the Acorns for saps ever since it was mistaken as a force of good by them.
- Revealing Cover-Up: The critical flaw in how Naugus hid New Mobotropolis from the rest of the world, where he uses a powerful magic field to make it not show up on satellites while also messing with the heads of anyone approaching it to turn back and say that there is nothing there. The overall weirdness of the situation was what exposed New Mobotropolis to multiple people. Jewel got suspicious when she got several reports in a row from multiple operatives saying the same thing when they went on patrol over at the Mirage Desert Zone, which got her to send Team Freedom there. Sticks lurked around conspiracy sites and the field creating a giant blank patch on maps was what got her attention, which in turn got the Chaotix involved.
- Rewatch Bonus: THE END's speech when it gained its freedom made sense, but the reference to the Source of All seemed surprising. It's later revealed in Chapter 43 that Elias and the twins briefly saw it when their teleporters activated, and it was speaking directly to them.
- Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory:
- Played for Horror with Silver, whose efforts to change the future are successful, and he always remembers the old timeline, but not the new one. This has resulted in places, people, friends and even his own parents being outright erased or replaced from his perspective, and each time he has to refamiliarize himself with the new history, of both the world in general and his own personal life.
- Thanks to her connection with the Jeweled Scepter, Blaze was completely unaffected by the Super Genesis Wave and retains full memories of both the old timeline and the events of Worlds Collide. She hadn’t brought anything up before because she simply didn’t have much knowledge about Mobius outside of a few visits and didn’t know how much it had changed.
- It's implied by a few of his comments (such as not having a family "anymore") and later confirmed that Bean of the Hooligans is somewhat aware of the Pre-SGW world, but due to his status as the local Cloudcuckoolander he is typically ignored when he speaks up.
- Robosexual: Breezie the Hedgehog displays a clear attraction to both Metal Sonic and Sally; she even admires Bunnie’s upgrades to her robotic limbs since the last time she saw the Hooligan. Justified, as she is later confirmed to be one of Eggman's creations.
- Rotating Protagonist: Each chapter focuses on multiple characters with their own respective perspectives and plots if they are not interacting with each other.
- Sadist:
- Robotnik was a cruel, spiteful man who reveled in every bit of misery he could inflict on his enemies. He literally incorporated artificial tear ducts into Mecha-Sally as part of her reconstruction to ensure that she stays a robot, just so she would be able to weep in horror and grief on the off-chance she was freed from his control.
- Then there is Infinite who (thanks to the Phantom Ruby scanning Hershey's mind) enjoys the prospect of returning the world to the hellhole it was in Archieverse Robotnik's day, but in his own image. The only reason why Hershey is still alive is due to him wanting her and the other SFF to watch, but before he leaves, he left with an illusion of Drago Wolf (who beats her shitless) and Geoffrey (who cruelly berates her for letting him think she died) to torment her. By the time she's rescued, she was an emotional wreck. He outright wishes that he could force a Restoration member to help him and then gut him anyway instead of having to hide in present day.
- Sand Worm: The giant caterkiller that Naugus reactivated to protect New Mobotropolis invokes this image, being a sand-swimming worm-like robot.
- The Scapegoat: A sidestory reveals that the Zone Cops have made Zonic into one for not arresting Robo-Robotnik, mainly because almost all the other higher ups were erased by the Super Genesis Wave.
- Series Continuity Error: A dream flashback showed that Julie-Su had her blaster thrown with her when banished in Chapter 14. In canon, said blaster was left behind on Angel Island as a sign of its owner being written out of the comic. Chapter 17 explains that the blaster she currently carries is a spare she made out of boredom and happened to use when Thrash attacked, while the original was left behind as per the comic's events.
- Ship Tease: Let see... There's Whisper/Tangle, Blaze/Silver, Vector/Vanilla and possibly Sally/Nicole. And according to Sara, Sonic became more receptive to Amy's advances as they grew older.
- Shapeshifter Mode Lock: A Darker and Edgier version. Robotnik had Mecha Sally deconstructed and removed essentially all of her original roboticized body apart from her original head and spinal column, with the original parts then scrapped. Due to the limitations of how deroboticizing tech worked, this means Mecha Sally can't be changed back into flesh and blood, or at best she'll just end up a cyborg with an artificial body.
- Sharing a Body: The various characters that are in the process of being debooted by Naugus are revealed to be sharing their bodies with their rebooted selves. The rebooted persona is reduced to a voice in their own body's head while the Mobius self is in full control of the body while being able to communicate with each other.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: Pretty much all the Archie cast are this in various degrees. Although there are some stand-out examples due to all the trauma they underwent.
- The Knothole Freedom Fighters that weren't rebooted are practically war veterans, as they fought their Eggman for over a decade since they were children while their parents are dead or turned into Robians.
- Julie-Su has been serving as a Dark Legion soldier since a young age. And then her forced servitude under Lien-Da happened...
- While he handles it better than Julie-Su, Remington is still haunted by his time in the Dark Legion. The guilt over the things they had to do while with them makes him vow to change his people for the better.
- Shout-Out:
- Sally shedding tears of oil whenever she is sad is a reference to Sonic Retold in where Mecha Sally's cracked optics is giving the illusion that she is crying due to being used to kill her father King Max.
- The Custom Character is one to Persona 5. He lends the heroes a black and red striped van, is named Akira, and owns the Cafe Leblanc. In other words, he is a literal Phantom Thief.
- Zonic notes that ever since the events of the Archie Sonic Super Special Issue #7 (listed as the SSSI-7 incident), I-Zones have became under their jurisdiction as stated in the manual, much to the dismay of Zilver who was trying to justify why didn't he stop Angstrom Levy's incursions. A later scene has Zamy report that the Hamato clan has crossed into the DC-Zone again.
- Elias will occasionally mutter "Something happened." in his mental episodes.
- Ristar has been mentioned a few times during the Studiopolis arc, with mentions of cartoons and comics.
- Sally getting her palms stabbed by the thumbs of Metal Sonic is a homage to a rather infamous scene from Ghosts of the Future.
- Mina's Wispon is inspired by Hi-Fi RUSH.
- The scene involving Mammoth Mogul, Silver, and Master Mogul is based on a scene from The Sandman (1989).
- Trigger and Cheshire are based on Himeno and Kobeni respectively from Chainsaw Man.
- The reason for Sticks' state of mind is because she drank too much cactus juice.
- The wanted poster for Hooligans in Mirage Dunes Town that says if you have any information on them, they are to report to Sheriff McGruff.
- The Islander interviewing Lara-Le is a turtle woman named April wearing a yellow outfit.
- Cassia's underlings are practically the same Noise Tanks from Jet Set Radio. DJ Professor K even has his own radio channel In-Universe, named after the game he is from.
- Julie-Su has an honest to goodness chainsaw arm, bringing to mind Chainsaw Man and Evil Dead.
- The situation involving Mighty, Ray, and Lupe sharing a body with their post-reboot selves is a reference to Get Out (2017).
- Watchmen is referenced by Thrash who mentions that his post-reboot self brought up a story where the antagonist set a plan in motion "thirty-five minutes" before the heroes came to stop him, noting that Naugus is NOT following the antagonist from that story’s lead.
- One of Julie-Su's flashbacks reveals that one of the universes she traveled to was based around feudal Japan and got her arm sliced off by a samurai rabbit named Usagi.
- Mina and Akira discuss Scott Pilgrim in one of the side-story chapters.
- Multiple characters respond to upgrades to their cybernetic arms with the word "Groovy".
- Cortez claims that he got his sword from a job at Bellbridge.
- Among the portals to other Zones are seen in Chapter 35, Ni-Col saw massive golems that transformed into strange chariots, riding into battle with golems that flew from the sky, a masked warrior flying through the sky, firing upon alien crafts that bore a strange insignia that bore a pinwheel and four mobian turtles wearing colored masks as they walked next to a dirty river.
- Aurora shows that Ian Droid, the man who would’ve originally released THE END, had been defeated and arrested by Savage Dragon and Invincible. The two superheroes ended up derailing her entire prophecy with a casual team-up.
- THE END's consumption of the remaining cores left in their body is a reference to Jean Jacket's feeding on the Star Lasso Experience.
- THE END stops the Sword of Light before destroying with one finger upon entering its true form in Chapter 37, with the explosion sending Jani-Ca back. Sound familiar?
- Mina's songs when she was playing is based on many real famous songs and bands, one of them being named Nine Inch Tails. "Nine Inch Tails" is a famous joke art drawn by Archie Sonic artist Jay Axer.
- The Universal Spire is based on the cosmic tuning fork from Infinite Crisis.
- Mach's frost "breath" and how it works is a reference to Kiryu's Absolute Zero cannon.
- The climax of Chapter 43 is a reference to Shirou vs Kirei in the Heaven's Feel route, with Tangle and Elias taking up their respective places. They even fought in an underground cavern with the Universal Spire in the background, which considering what it does, practically makes it a stand-in for the corrupted Greater Grail.
- The first Raiju Clan member to be "debooted" is Meifeng, an Original Character from Archie Sonic Online serving as Conquering Storm's attendant.
- Espio's wrestling moves are named after various Sega games, like Shining Wizard, Golden Axe Kick and Ristar Powerbomb.
- Shut Up, Hannibal!: Tangle delivers one to Mecha Sally, comparing her unfavorably to Metal Sonic for relying on insults abusing her roboticized identity over just fighting like the latter.
- Silent Antagonist:
- For the most part, Metal Sonic never speaks. He mostly communicates through nonverbal body language such as wagging his finger. He even notes it’s his favorite gesture because the action can mean a lot of things. At one point Tangle even insults Mecha Sally for relying so heavily on using her identity to wear Nicole down emotionally instead of being silent like him, although she has to reminded that Metal Sonic can talk.
- As with the source material, Bark is completely mute. Even when texting he sticks to using emoji to communicate.
- Sink-or-Swim Mentor: A very dark example with Finitevus, who gives Julie-Su and the echidnas the location of a portal out of the wasteland they were trapped in, but leaves it up to them to figure out how to operate the technology, showing zero care whether they live or die.
- Simultaneous Arcs: The story takes place around the start of Sonic Frontiers, with the absence of Sonic, Tails, Amy, Knuckles and Eggman being one of the driving forces for the cast. The Titan fights coincide with a Wham Episode that leaves the cast dealing with the result of the Titan's destruction.
- GIGANTO and WYVERN's destruction has Julie-Su coup Lien-Da along with her fanatics and opens the Angel Island Gate Portal respectively, allowing the Archie Echidnas to return to Earth as it is a rebooted Mobius in Chapter 13.
- KNIGHT's destruction at the end of Chapter 34 activates Archie!Sonic's message, broadcasting the events of the His World arc (Chapters 35 to 38) to warn the rest of the world of THE END's possible escape as the prison has been sufficiently weakened.
- Smarter Than You Look: Chao as a whole are smarter than most people assume. The narration even points out that while simple-minded, they are far from animals. Chapter 46 has those in the Lake of Rings put together that Power Rings can make for a cheaper substitute compared to a Chaos Emerald for Shadow, despite the current Shadow having just arrived in New Mobotropolis while seeing him use a Chaos Spear only once.
- Sons of Slaves: Islanders, which is what Sonic's kind are called as a whole In-Universe, are split into two distinct groups. The first are the ones that were born in islands around the world, usually living there for their whole lives. The second were descendants of those who were kidnapped from said islands and taken into slavery in the past, living in cities where humans and Islanders now live in equality. A notable way to tell them apart aside from their proximity to human territories are their naming conventions. The former have their names act like a Meaningful Name as per the games and IDW comics, like being named after objects and actions. The latter follow human naming conventions instead like Mobians due to their upbringing among humans.
- Species Surname: As a holdover from Archie Sonic, there are various characters whose surnames are simply their species like Mina Mongoose and Rotor Walrus. Game characters like Charmy Bee also count.
- Story Arc:
- Arc 1: At All Costs - Part 2 (Chapters 1-5)
- Arc 2: Studipolis (Chapters 6-14)
- Arc 3: Return to New Mobotroplis (Chapters 15-34)
- Arc 4: His World (Chapters 35-38)
- Arc 5: Endless Possibility (Chapters 39-present)
- Story-Breaker Power: Due to the massive cosmic power being thrown around, the main characters of the His World arc qualify as this, needing to be removed from the rest of the story or nerfed hard to stop them from breaking the current setting in two by just existing. The Neo Walkers (Aurora, Athair and Merlin) are effectively the highest of the cosmic order in the Pre-SGW reality and had to be killed off. THE END was a Mad God as old as time capable of erasing multiverses and had to be weakened by the Chaos deities and heroes. The "New Gods" trio consists of Archie Hyper Sonic who was at least Super Sonic squared, Nicole who was capable of making any physical object on a universal scale and interact with all forms of technology with no restrictions, while Jani-Ca was a good Enerjak with mastery over her Chaos powers. They had to undergo Death of Personality while losing the combined Chaos and Master Emeralds, suffer a near-fatal error due to a sneak attack and straight up die respectively when the reboot happened.
- Sweet Home Alabama:
- Bunnie speaks with a Southern accent.
- Pre-Reboot Vanilla spoke with a slight accent of the Southern Baronies.
- Tactical Withdrawal: Sally and Mina caused enough damage to Metal Sonic that she knows it would be enough to force him into a retreat in Chapter 12.
- Take That!:
- Chapter 8 has a not-so-subtle jab towards the ideas of Human-Focused Adaptation and In Name Only, with Silver noting that movies made about Sonic cast humans to play the titular character instead of having a hedgehog Islander play him. It also takes a jab at the infamous trend of apps stealing user data without their knowledge and/or consent, with Nicole intervening whenever she finds such a program on her search for Blaze.
- Chapter 18 features a fairly blatant jab at Eggman-Nega's incredibly convoluted origins while Tangle is recounting the stories Blaze told her.Plus there was that whole business of him actually being from the future… maybe? It honestly made the lemur's brain hurt.
- Chapter 21 has Porker grumble about how ridiculous the software of Bunnie's robot limbs is, comparing them to the smartphones and tablets of the United Federation, which is Sonic's version of the USA. Bunnie even remarks that it wouldn't be surprising if Thunderbolt took the idea of monopolizing the ability to repair her products from them.
- There are several jabs at some of the more questionable writing choices of Ken Penders during his time on the comics, such as Whisper expressing confusion on why a history book of the Pre-SGW universe she's reading has a habit of going on what seems like out-of-character tangents about the importance of the echidna race and their "superiority", or how Espio in the sidestories despite listening in mounting horror at what happened to the Pre-SGW Charmy can only be baffled at the event of Charmy's best friend dying to an LSD-laced hotdog and questioning the motive of the drug dealer responsible, to which Julie-Su can only reply with "insanity". Sally herself even bemoans her infamous brief romance with Geoffrey St. John, wondering what was going through her head at that time. It would be revealed later on that the echidnas were only the most advanced race due to murdering the other Mobian inhabitants of the Starfall Islands along with the Ancients, the real uplifters of Mobius, while the ones who managed to escape plunged into a dark age thanks to the brain drain, though they'd lost all memory of this by the modern day. Due to how suspiciously it behaved in canon, the Source is also revealed to be THE END's cosmic waste that the Acorns mistook as a force of good.
- A reason the Archie Sonic multiverse ultimately went poof? Its foundations were flawed from the ground up which made it beyond saving, with the Super Genesis Wave and THE END simply being the last straw, a reflection of the comic's infamous real-life troubles like the whole mess with Penders and the lawsuit that led to the canonical Post-SGW world.
- Tempting Fate: While worrying about the rest of his friends on Starfall Islands, Sonic reassures himself that they can handle things and things can't get too crazy in the few days he's been gone.
- There Are No Therapists: Subverted. Cream reveals while trying to calm down Julie-Su that she started seeing a trauma therapist to help emotionally recover from the events of the Metal Virus outbreak, and recommends the latter do the same. Jewel states that after what happened with Julie-Su in Chapter 17, she subcontracted some psychiatrists and grief counsellors to avoid more mental breakdowns when breaking the news to the other echidnas.
- There Is Another: At first it seems like Sally and Nicole are the only remnants of the world before the Super Genesis Wave, but then Silver regains his pre-reboot memories, Hershey reveals that she remembers Sally, Blaze and the Sol Dimension are revealed to have been effectively unchanged, Mogul and Mina show up, the exiled Echidnas and Saffron return from Cyber Space, it’s revealed that Naugus and New Mobotropolis managed to escape being rebooted, the Zone Cops are still active if a shell of their former glory, and characters start showing up who have had their Archie-verse minds put into the bodies of their IDW versions.
- Time Crash: This is apparently happening in Silver’s time as the result of the above mentioned Cosmic Retcon and what Naugus is doing.
- Trapped in Villainy:
- Belle argues that this is the case for most Badniks to Sally, pointing out that Eggman never really gave them a choice in the matter. Sally concedes as she remembers her world's version of Gamma and Omega.
- Bunnie is revealed to be suffering from this in the Game/IDW universe, due to Thunderbolt planting a bomb in one of the limbs she gave her and threatening to set it off if she isn't paid off regularly, which she supplements with her jobs as a Hooligan. She only got them in the first place because her commune, which rejects the modern world, refused to take her to a doctor who knew what they were doing in time to save her flesh and blood limbs and never got her any official documents that would have let her have health insurance or a proper job. Clove is under similar pressure with a similar fate in store with her sister Cassia's implants if she tries to betray the Egg Bosses, and even worse since an unknowing Cassia fully buys into their rhetoric since getting those implants is what saved her life from a living hell and Clove can't in good conscience try and break her from that thought process.
- Trauma Button:
- Nicole still hasn’t gotten over being banished from New Mobotropolis and when Whisper accuses Nicole of leading them into a trap she briefly breaks down.
- Sally has one when her body is going to be repaired by Belle. The use of power tools makes her remember Robotnik’s modifications to her body while she was still conscious, and it ends up making her have a panic attack before Nicole and Belle are able to calm her down.
- Julie-Su had an extremely rough time during the Echidnas' exile, and she constantly has flashbacks when faced with reminders of her experiences. The biggest comes when she and Saffron come face to face with Gemerl when visiting Cream due to his nature as a Gizoid and how she lost her eye because of the Brotherhood, jumping straight to attacking him despite Cream's protests.
- Trauma Conga Line: Due to the Cosmic Retcon, many of the heroic Archie Sonic characters suffer breakdowns as everything they did was All for Nothing upon finding out, usually snowballing into even more suffering due the chain reaction. It is easier to list the Archie Sonic characters that do not undergo this.
- Underestimating Badassery:
- The Archie Sonic cast often suffer from this in response to finding out about the various stuff the Game/IDW characters have got into in the new reality due to it clashing with what their Archie counterparts did.
- Many survivors of the Pre-SGW universe have a less than impressed reaction to the track record of the current Dr. Eggman, as he's never held control over Earth for longer than six months compared to the years he ruled Mobius. Most of them don't quite realize that has more to do with the competence of this universe's Sonic and his allies in stopping him from getting that far rather than a decrease in his threat level. G.U.N and the rest of the world learnt that the hard way after Sonic got defeated and captured by Infinite, with Eggman conquering the globe in six months except for a few holdouts once his biggest obstacle is taken out without needing any roboticizer tech or to subvert the local government from within like his Archie counterpart. Now Metal Sonic is planning on teaching the same lesson to the Archie Sonic cast...
- Metal Sonic was at worst Cannon Fodder that had multiple copies to throw away and at best a strong but disposable badnik Archieverse Robotnik/Eggman wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice and remake as he needed, so Sally, Nicole, and Mina initially treat his arrival in Studiopolis like he's a drone being controlled by Eggman. Certainly a threat, but moreso for the apparent fact Eggman now knows about them than Metal Sonic himself. What they don't realize is that this Metal Sonic is the current doctor's Magnum Opus in terms of combat badniks with a fully developed AI and will that's here of his own initiative (motivated by the well-being of the Empire or not), and he's very pissed off at said treatment of his previous selves and dismissal as a mere tool. He proceeds to show he fully anticipated Nicole trying to hack and erase his AI and turns it back on her with Phage, and then proceeds to mangle Sally's hands. After running into the Egg Bosses and finding out about New Mobotropolis from them, he is very adamant about hammering in very painfully what he taught to Sally to the rest of the city and anyone else that just so happens to be there, like the Chaotix who has Julie-Su as a member.
- Mammoth Mogul dismisses Sonic as weaker than his Pre-SGW self, even if he's still smart enough not to try anything while he's still alive. Blaze mocking him for said dismissal is enough to annoy him.
- Amy's tenure as the Restoration's director was given incredulous reactions from the Archie Sonic cast like Hershey. She mainly knew Amy as the crazy berserk immature lover of the Freedom Fighters who wasted a life-saving magic ring (Ring of Acorns) to make herself older (for those who knew about it) and was surprised the Restoration lasted as long as it did under her, as she was more focused on being a powerhouse. What they don't know is that this Amy was a seasoned warrior and field leader who effectively kept the Restoration together during a world-wide war and pandemic while dealing with Knuckles' incompetence, only quitting due to the massive amount of stress and paperwork after the Metal Virus.
- Jewel has no idea that the people of New Mobotropolis as a whole, not just Sally and Nicole, are experienced war veterans who fought for several years, making the ones the Restoration has look like New Meat. Upon arrival, Lanolin is caught off guard when the New Mobotropolis Freedom Fighters collectively want to fight alongside the Restoration reinforcements instead of evacuating from New Mobotropolis and leaving the rest to them. The Mobian adults even confidently say that they can keep up and the youth can probably learn some new tricks from them.
- The Archie Sonic cast often suffer from this in response to finding out about the various stuff the Game/IDW characters have got into in the new reality due to it clashing with what their Archie counterparts did.
- Unwilling Roboticisation:
- Robotnik's bread and butter, of course, whereas Eggman prefers Artificial Intelligences.
- Julie-Su was further "gifted" more mechanical parts by Lien-Da during the Echidnas' time in exile. The other Echidnas were also forced to get cybernetics if they didn’t have them already (along with Saffron getting a replacement antenna), supposedly to increase their chances of survival (which it admittedly did boost) but mainly as a means of control.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Julius Acorn, the fourth king of the Kingdom of Acorn was this in the grand scheme of things. It was him who discovered the Source of All in Pre-SGW Archie Sonic, which would be revealed in here to be THE END's cosmic waste. Due to being tricked by its power, he made the tragic mistake of having himself and the rest of the dynasty bond with it which also made them very dependent on it. A major factor behind King Max's asinine decisions was due to him trusting its guidance over Harvey Who, resulting in Kodos starting the Great War, Nate Morgan getting exiled, Robotnik Prime being in a position of power to launch his coup and Ixis Naugus making his deal with Max in the Zone of Silence. This effectively started everything bad in Pre-SGW Archie Sonic. After the reboot, it still has the impact of leaving Max an even worse senile wreck calling for its guidance and shattering the already fragile psyche of Elias when he found out about the truth, as THE END found Elias due to him bonding with the Source for his first reign as king.
- Video Wills: Technically this in the sense of Archie!Sonic last words to his friends, explaining what happen that day where he, Nicole and Jani-Ca battle THE END.
- Villain Has a Point: Finitevus is clearly a monster for showing zero empathy to the echidnas and leaving them stranded in a wasteland. However, he accurately notes that as a whole, the race has done very little to progress despite an ample head start on the rest of Mobius, outright calling the Brotherhood of Guardians and Dark Legion's feud as petty squabbling. Given all the problems they caused for the rest of Mobius, he's not wrong, even if he is essentially punishing innocents for it. Given later revelations in the His World arc, it is also implied he found out about the Ancient Echidnas' rewriting of history at some point given his instructions to Julie-Su in Chapter 15, coming to the conclusion that the Archie!Echidnas are nothing more than selfish frauds.
- Villain Takes an Interest: Upon learning of Mecha Sally’s existence, Metal Sonic takes an interest in her and begins investigating her origins. It then turns to full-on hatred on discovering said origins and the Mobius Robotniks, enough to prompt him to make terminating her and everyone associated with her a priority.
- Villain Team-Up: A flashback in Chapter 15 reveals Dr. Finitevus is now working with Scourge and the Destructix. Chapter 36 shows that they made contact with Captain Metal in the Sol Zone.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Due to having no counterpart in the IDW world, Mammoth Mogul is able to use his powers and experience to establish himself as a wealthy businessman and philanthropist.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Bunnie appears to have this with the Hooligans surprisingly enough; granted, in this verse she is a member. It's heavily hinted in an earlier chapter she even trusts them enough to tell them about her problem with Thunderbolt. TIM confirms that Bunnie considers them her friends, despite not outright saying it.
- Warm-Up Boss: Sally's first fight in her Mecha form is against Rough and Tumble and while they give her some slight trouble at first, once she gets her bearings they go down like chumps.
- Weapon Chooses the Wielder: Elias' plan to restore Mobius at the cost of the new reality and his insistence on the "Genesis Births" not being people causes the Sword of Light to deem him evil and reject him. It instead decides Tangle is worthy to wield it.
- We Have Become Complacent:
- Snively notes that the Dark Legion, so self-confident in their tech, has been stagnating as the world catches up to them. The fact that the average tech level on Earth is notably higher than it was on Mobius just proves his point.
- Espio begrudgingly agrees with Conquering Storm that the Shinobi Clan has gone soft due to longtime peace, to the extent that he is the only person in the clan trained in ninjutsu by present day.
- Weird West: Mirage Desert Zone looks like it was taken out of the old west, being mostly desert with old wooden houses, people dressed in ponchos and hats and small towns carved into mountains. It has practically no internet signal and the law enforcer is Sheriff McGruff. It's also where New Mobotropolis materialized. Naugus created an invisible field that compels everyone to turn around and to get about the place, and uses the Reborn Raiju Clan to kidnap people and his new Ixis Cult to terrorize the city's populace.
- Wham Episode:
- Chapter 4: The Secret Freedom Fighters are implied to be out there and Hershey is their undercover plant in the Restoration.
- Chapter 7: While implied in Chapter 6, Mammoth Mogul is still alive and is very much himself, rather than a rebooted being. Mina asks why should she work for him after everything he did, he responds that he is the reason why she still exists.
- Chapter 9: New Mobotropolis still exists and has transplanted itself to Earth. Naugus is supposedly dead from sacrificing himself to do so, passing the crown to Geoffrey.
- Chapter 13: A group of self-proclaimed Eggman supporters shows up. The Archie Echidnas have returned to Earth, as it is a rebooted Mobius.
- Chapter 20: Beauregard Rabbot shows up. In his Mobius incarnation.
- Chapter 23: Naugus' deception and possession is revealed to Team Freedom. He never died and possessed his student Geoffrey long before the SGW.
- Chapter 26: The Egg Bosses have known the location of New Mobotropolis for some time and is planning to pillage it before presenting themselves to Doctor Eggman. Thrash is among the semi-debooted prisoners.
- Chapter 29: Rosemary Prower is actually is a spy for the Secret Freedom Fighters. She overhears the latest plan of King "Geoffrey" planning to acquire a couple of books.
- Chapter 32: Julie-Su's cybernetic eye turns out to have scanned for access to the Egg Boss' network and they now know exactly where New Mobotropolis is due to seeing through it.
- Chapter 34: Naugus has obtained his books which are hooked to his machine and trying to break free. Sonic has destroyed KNIGHT. In response, a video hidden inside Nicole made by Archie!Sonic is played. Said playback would only happen if THE END is going to break free, which is broadcast around the world.
- Chapter 37: The majority of the cores taken from the multiverse by THE END were preemptively fully consumed by it due to catching on the heroes' reason for fighting it, erasing them from existence. It proceeds to breach the Chaos Force and kill the Neo Walkers before entering One-Winged Angel to finish off Hyper Sonic, Nicole and Jani-Ca.
- Chapter 38: Archie!Sonic's warning of THE END fully plays out. The Games/IDW universe is created in response to the Archie universe being beyond saving. The world plunges into chaos at the prospect of THE END returning. Sonic is revealed to be zap-proof as his Archie self is erased from existence creating the Games/IDW universe.
- Chapter 41: The Restoration, Team Dark, Julie-Su, Saffron, Team Chaotix, Jules and Bernadette Hedgehogs are coming to New Mobotropolis while Tangle found a meeting room of the Secret Freedom Fighters to find anything about Operation "Brave New World". Sally prepared a plan to stop "The Promised Day" after hearing from Rosemary what Naugus will do to restore Mobius. However, the hideout is attacked by Mordred Hood, Conquering Storm and their loyal forces.
- Chapter 42: Mina helps trigger an uprising in the population against Naugus while Team Freedom and the New Mobotropolis Freedom Fighters were forced to enact their plan early due to being raided. Julie-Su, Saffron, the Chaotix and the Hedgehogs make it to the city, and it's confirmed that the Secret Freedom Fighters plan is to hijack the wizard king's spell to recreate Mobius with Tangle and Silver trying to stop them.
- Chapter 43: Tangle and Silver successfully stop the Secret Freedom Fighters and destroy the Universal Spire. Tangle was chosen by the Sword of Light for stopping Elias after it rejected him. Silver and Tangle head to surface to help the resistance in their battle for New Mobotropolis.
- Chapter 45: Conquering Storm is defeated by Espio. Naugus' forces are on the verge of collapse and heroes are coming to attack Castle Acorn, so Snively decides to hell with secrecy and resorts to unleashing his Swat-Bots just as the tides are in favor of the local resistance. However, the Restoration and Team Dark has reached New Mobotropolis.
- Chapter 46: The Restoration members quickly help turn the tide of the battle. Lanolin meets the Prowers and Hedgehogs. Rouge discovers the history her Mobius self had with Julie-Su. Sally and Bunnie find Snively's Egg Grape prisoners and confronts the madman in a scorpion mech.
- Wham Line:
- Chapter 4 has Hershey being supposedly her Game/IDW incarnation with no memories of the Archie world, leaving Sally aghast at at her own actions of not treating her like her own person by forcing Nicole's memory restoration on her. The very next section has Hershey go to a security blind spot and mutter Sally's name in regret and sadness. The real shocker is that afterwards, she takes out a hidden communicator and this line pops out on the other side when trying to report, singlehandedly dropping this big bombshell:This is Agent King. Go ahead, Priestess.
- Chapter 6 drops this big revelation that Mina Mongoose is still alive and kicking, who is in shock that everything she knows about doesn't exist or is vastly different. She gets picked up by some supposed goons in suits who give her a card and message. The message was about how they apparently know each other. As for what the card said?Mammoth Studios
- Chapter 9:
- Sally runs into Mina Mongoose at Club Spin, who isn't rebooted. When asked how is this even possible, Mina recounted the day the Super Genesis Wave hit. After getting her and her mother's bearings after the Super Genesis Wave, they walked out to the center of town. Silver immediately realizes the implications.
Silver: Wait, the center of the town? You mean New Mobotropolis?- When Mina was asked how the city's survival could even be possible, Mina replied that Naugus gave his life to protect the city with his magic, despite not showing any level of power needed for such a feat. And then she states who replaced him.
Mina: It's Geoffrey, Sally. Geoffrey's the king now. - Chapter 13:
- A damaged Metal Sonic runs into a couple of pronghorns. The one who came out to meet him is excited to see him, before revealing who exactly are they.
Cassia: My name is Cassia! Cassia the Pronghorn! Me and my sister, Clove the Pronghorn, want to help you get the repairs you need to hopefully assist with a mission that will benefit the doctor! GLORY TO THE EGGMAN EMPIRE!- On Angel Island's Sky Sanctuary, a gate opens up and multiple robed figures show up. They proceed to comfort the local Chao and after some scanning, proclaim that they have returned home. As for the lead figure?
Julie-Su: We're back, Knuckles. We're finally home... - Chapter 14: During the meeting with Mammoth Mogul, he reveals how exactly he saved New Mobotropolis along with Naugus. He reveals a stone tablet that shows the Phantom Ruby, the original Master Emerald back in the Archie canon. And then he states why he set up shop in Studiopolis:Mammoth Mogul: I made sure to set up my base of operations near him [Naugus]. I want potential annoyances to be within my sight.Sally: The Mirage Desert Zone. New Mobotropolis is in the Mirage Desert Zone.
- Chapter 21: When everyone present was left wondering how Beauregard Rabbot of Mobius is somehow around despite being supposedly rebooted, Sally drops this query.Sally: Are you the Beauregard Rabbot that lived here with some newly acquired memories? Or are you Beauregard Rabbot, who was Grandmaster of the Great Desert Egg Legion of Mobius and just found yourself here with a body that wasn't your own?
- Chapter 23: After questioning King Geoffrey in Castle Acorn, Sally drops this line:Sally: Time to drop the act, Naugus. I know it's you.
- Chapter 25: After Nicole receives some Genesis energy from Naugus using his Egg Grapes, she spaces out and has an encrypted file playback of the Ancients that she has no idea about. The person whose name she is seeing this flashback from?Ni-Col
- Chapter 26: After a nice chat, Lupe asks for the name of who she just spoke to.Thrash: Nice to meet you. Name's Thrash. Thrash the Tasmanian Devil.
- Chapter 29: Rosemary Prower is actually a spy for the Secret Freedom Fighters. She overhears the latest plan of King "Geoffrey".Geoffrey: Oh, we're just borrowing two books...
- Chapter 34: Nicole suddenly plays a live feed of Sonic fighting and destroying KNIGHT. She then undergoes a forced playback of a video. Said video's name?See You On The Other Side, Sal
- Chapter 35:
- The result of the Warlord's experiment in the distant past.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE NI-COL 1.0 IS NOW ONLINE.- When Ni-Col the A.I. was sent to the Zone, said Zone's description is very familiar...
Then, in a flash of light, Unit Ni-Col 1.0 was gone from the Prime Zone.
...and in another Zone, a grieving chipmunk looked up to see a falling star. - Chapter 36 has Nicole learn how many times she travelled between Zones."I believe you are in your 247th update. So about 246."
- Chapter 38: Due to the damage the Chaos Force accumulated over time, Nicole and Jani-Ca is unable to save even Mobius. Seemingly trapped at a roadblock, Dimitri resorts to a suggestion for Nicole that retroactively explains everything.Nicole: You...you think we need to stop recreating Mobius?
- Chapter 42: Uncle Chuck reveals what Operation "Brave New World" exactly is to Tangle.Uncle Chuck: Yes, in a sense. It's to wrest control of his (Naugus') spell. To make this location, us, the center of the spell instead of him. We will hijack the ritual he is going to enact, gaining control of its intended purpose.
- Chapter 43: After defeating Elias, Tangle decides to pick up the Sword of Light after seeing it reject Elias due to his warped morality. What happened next shocked everyone present."It can't be..." The former king whispered. "It...Sir Connery's sword...it chose...you...?"
- Chapter 45: Just as the local resistance is worried about the unleashed Swat-Bots with their exhausted forces, something proceeds to blot out the sun. What was it?Rosemary and the others looked up…
…and saw a flying aircraft none of them had ever seen before.
One with the symbol of two blue stars on its side.
- Chapter 4 has Hershey being supposedly her Game/IDW incarnation with no memories of the Archie world, leaving Sally aghast at at her own actions of not treating her like her own person by forcing Nicole's memory restoration on her. The very next section has Hershey go to a security blind spot and mutter Sally's name in regret and sadness. The real shocker is that afterwards, she takes out a hidden communicator and this line pops out on the other side when trying to report, singlehandedly dropping this big bombshell:
- What the Hell, Hero?:
- Sally is given grief by the rest of Team Freedom after she tears into Mina for her role in Nicole's exile, leaving the mongoose a crying mess.
- Hershey underwent this multiple times. First is due to her attempted shooting of Mina as pointed out by Lyco and Leeta, which was completely unnecessary in the grand scheme of things and only compromised her relationship with the Restoration. Second is Tangle calling her out for her refusal to ask the Restoration during her time there and instead become The Mole who leaked their info to the Secret Freedom Fighters.
- Sally asks Hamlin when it was that he started making the war about himself rather than the people when he starts ranting because he felt threatened by her presence, leaving the pig at a loss for words.
- Jani-Ca and Archie!Sonic give hell to Aurora for how her decisions in handling Knuckles put him through much unnecessary suffering and were all for nothing as Ian Droid was easily neutralized by two other heroes. To say that they took it badly was an understatement, given how personal Knuckles was to the two of them and how being Chaos Knuckles was the catalyst that was responsible for practically all of his life's misery. The Walker is very much aware of this, a fact that causes her no small amount of grief.
- Whole Episode Flashback:
- The His World arc (Chapters 35-38) is a giant flashback to explain what happened between the end of Worlds Collide and Chapter 1. It is even played In-Universe at the end of Chapter 34 as a recording to warn Earth in the event of THE END's imprisonment being sufficiently weakened.
- Rediscovered Frontiers Super Special Chapter 14 is a flashback showing Sally's leadership skills in action shortly after forming Team Freedom, taking place in between Chapters 5 and 6.
- Worldbuilding: Various chapters would drop a paragraph or two on what is Earth's society like, human-islander relations and history along with the origins of Nicole and THE END. To list:
- Islander and coastal cities like Studiopolis have almost equal human and Islander population ratios, with mixed marriages of all kinds being a thing.
- First contact between Islanders and humanity was a rocky start, as they ran into conquistadors. According to TIM, their interactions were very violent, with some of the Islanders being taken away from their homes and brought to the human countries, forced into slavery. The Islanders' acclimation in those countries influenced their current cultural norms and practices, including their nomenclatural practices. This is part of the reason why Islanders can have human-like names (e.g., Akira the Wolf, Evan the Cat, April the Turtle, etc.).
- The various wolf packs kept their nomadic lifestyle, with a portion like Whisper's family moving to the cities. In exchange for not uniting under a single exclusive nation with a Grand Chief, they are instead offered citizenship with full rights to the nation whose land they were roaming in.
- The past of the Mobius Ancients along with how THE END came to be.
- The history and current state of the rebooted Shinobi Clan.
- Worth It: A common theme. Plenty of characters believe that the goal is more than enough to justify their actions, but that doesn't mean they are not plagued by doubt and regret. And more often than not, it turns out to be All for Nothing.
- Julie-Su constantly struggles with the guilt over the raids she was forced to commit during the Exodus. None of which she wanted, but Lien-Da had put a bomb into her to keep her compliant. What drives the trope home is that she took the worst of her half-sister's orders to spare Saffron from the same guilt. The only thing that helped her going was the idea that once she got back to Mobius, her friends and family would forgive her for all the horrible things she was forced to do. Even then, after reaching Earth, she began wondering if she would tell them everything, or if things would ever go back to 'normal'.
- Ever since the fiasco with almost causing Sally's death, Hershey believed she's a horrible person, so additional sins wouldn't mean that much, and it's better for to commit morally questionable decision than let the Knothole Freedom Fighters deal with hard choices. She fully commits to the operation Brave New World, knowing that Sally and Sonic will never forgive her nor any of the other Secret Freedom Fighters, but all the blood on her hands will be worth it once the old Sonic and her husband will be back and safe.
- Harvey's bread and butter. He built an entire network centered around secretly committing Dirty Business in the name of the greater good. He does it partially out of the belief that cold pragmatism is necessary to keep everyone safe and partially out of the belief he's the only one that can see the truth. He knows that many of his actions are morally wrong, but he's fully prepared to take the blame on himself.
- Ebony sees her actions as a Geoffrey/Naugus' student and servant as a necessary evil to bring back the old world. Deep down, she knows what the Promised Day does is wrong and its purpose most likely impossible to fulfil, but she holds to that weak hope even if it will cost the lives of billions. Just like Julie-Su, she believes that it will be worth it once her friends are back. That they would forgive her, and everything would be like in the old times.
- Rosemary believed that removing Acorns from their position of power was a righteous and necessary action for the better future of her kingdom and cared little for who would take their place, let alone a fact that this change of power during the Second Robotnik War was anything but good. That someone turned out to be Naugus. It didn't take long for her to understand how much she messed up even before the SGW.
- Written by the Winners:
- Mentally lampshaded by Blaze regarding how Naugus is trying to change the narrative to one that suits him better upon looking at what he did to New Mobotropolis.
- Whisper notes that the history books she was reading in New Mobotropolis have several points that go into pro-echidna tangents, causing her to suspect that some echidna paid off the writer or something. It's later revealed that the supposed "advancements" and "superiority" of the ancient echidnas were really just them stealing the technology of the Ancients and killing the non-echidnas who had knowledge of how it worked before passing their accomplishments off as their own for so long that they'd forgotten the truth completely.
- Wrong Context Magic: Mogul is aware of this trope and made sure to avert it. He fully recognized that while it may not be Chaos Magic, the magical energies that flow through the Game/IDW world were old, untamable and powerful, thus making sure to learn the new world's magic for himself, even scoffing at any buffoon stupid enough to think the new world's magic is inferior to the old one's.
- You Can't Go Home Again: After revealing that some of the multiverse still exists, Sally immediately becomes hopeful that her original Zone could still exist. Blaze immediately shoots this down by pointing out that even if Sally could find a Zone with a near identical history to the original universe, a version of herself would already be living there.
- You Don't Look Like You: An In-Universe example. Tangle's reaction at seeing the SWATBots, noting that they look completely different than the usual badniks. She is obviously unaware that Eggman dabbles in different designs.