Characters / Sonic the Hedgehog - Eggman Empire

Sonic the Hedgehog characters index
Main Characters (Sonic the Hedgehog) | Recurring Characters (Team Dark) | Eggman Empire (Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik) | One-Shot Characters | Classic Era Antagonists | Modern Era Antagonists 1 | Modern Era Antagonists 2 | Other Groups and Species

"Eggman Empire! Our world, your future!"

Every hero needs a good villain and none provide that better than these guys. These are the primary antagonists of the series, led by the comically ego-driven Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik. This list includes the not-so good doctor himself, as well as the various creations under his command.

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Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik

The Big Bad of the franchise and Sonic's one and only Arch-Enemy. Eggman wants one thing, complete and total control over everyone and everything with his robots. Naturally this puts him at odds with the freedom loving Sonic and his friends, ensuring their neverending rivalry. See his page here.

Metal Sonic

^{Click here to see Metal Sonic's Classic Era design.}

^{Click here for Metal Sonic Kai.}

^{Click here for Neo Metal Sonic.}

^{Click here for Metal Madness.}

^{Click here for Metal Overlord.}

"Long time no see, Sonic... my imperfect self!"

Debut: Sonic the Hedgehog CD

Voiced by: Jun'ichi Kanemaru (Japanese, games), Ryan Drummond (English, 2004)

Eggman's premiere creation and robotic replica of Sonic, Metal Sonic is a cold-hearted killing machine designed to not only match but exceed his fleshy counterpart's speed and power in every way, later gaining the ability to analyze and imitate the data of any lifeform he sees. Despite constant defeats, he is a stubbornly persistent recurring foe of Sonic, dead-set on one day destroying his "imperfect self" and proving himself to be "the real Sonic", even having gone against his master on a couple occasions to accomplish such despite his otherwise stellar track record.

Other appearances:

• Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics)
• Sonic the Comic
• Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie
• Sonic Boom
• Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW)

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• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Eventually goes mad with power and ego, upgrades himself to Neo Metal form in Heroes and betrays his creator.
• All Your Powers Combined: As part of his DNA copying in Heroes. He gets the speed, power, and flight of Team Sonic, as well as Shadow's Chaos powers (particularly Chaos Control) and Chaos' shapeshifting abilities (via Froggy and Chocola), with his lines implying that he successfully copied all pertinent data from the rest of the cast.
  Metal Madness: (to Team Chaotix) You're all useless now that I've copied all your data.
• Always Second Best: Something that drives him absolutely nuts. No matter how hard he tries, and no matter how many upgrades he receives, Metal always falls short against his organic counterpart.
• Amplifier Artifact:
  • The purple gem he finds in the Lost Labyrinth during Episode Metal, which enhances his powers significantly and lets him fire lightning blasts from his hands.
  • In Sonic Mania, the Plus update changed the final phase of the fight into Eggman throwing the Phantom Ruby at him, causing Metal Sonic to transform into a vicious-looking Humongous Mecha resembling Metal Sonic Kai in Knuckles Chaotix, referred to in the internal files as Giga Metal.
• Animal Motifs: In Sonic Heroes, he utilizes an avian theme with the Egg Hawk, Egg Albatross, and Egg Emperor. The Last Story uses a draconic theme with his transformations, Metal Madness and Metal Overlord.
• Arch-Enemy: His literal sole purpose is to kill Sonic and replace him as the only Sonic around.
  Metal Overlord: Sonic... I was created for the sole purpose of destroying you.
• Art Evolution: The original design is a bit more simplistic and puppet-like, while his post-Sonic Adventure 2 design gave him a little more detail and played with his proportions a little. His overall look has stayed very consistent, with Sonic Generations actually tweaking the Classic Era design to look less like his current day look from the Modern Era.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Many of his more powerful forms are these, specifically Metal Sonic Kai in Knuckles Chaotix, Metal Madness and Metal Overlord in Heroes, and his giant form in Sonic Mania Plus.
• Ax-Crazy: Though it depends on the game, Metal Sonic's obsession with defeating Sonic can drive him to borderline-murderous lengths in order to do so. By his return in Sonic Heroes, he's descended to the point of turning himself into a giant monster to Take Over the World.
• Badass Boast: He's got plenty as both Metal Madness and Metal Overlord, but one in particular stands out:
  • English version:
    Super Sonic: It's not over yet! Let's show him what we're made of!
    Metal Overlord: See me as I am, no longer afraid of anything! I shall become the ultimate overlord, ruling as the world's most supreme being!
  • Japanese version:
    Super Sonic: Just a little more! Let's show him what we're made of!
    Metal Overlord: Show me, then! Show me what you're made of against this brand new me! I am no longer afraid... I shall never be afraid of anything!
• Badass Longcoat: Neo Metal Sonic sports one.
• Batman Gambit: The entire plot of Sonic Heroes was one for him. He issued a challenge to Team Sonic while impersonating Eggman just to copy their data and defeat them; likewise, he captured Froggy and Chocola to copy Chaos's data. Team Dark, by sheer luck, also appeared which allow Metal to copy Shadow's data as the Ultimate Life Form to make himself even stronger, it still worked in Metal's favor.
• Beware My Stinger Tail: His Metal Madness form sports a tail that's equipped with 6 spikes around the tip.
• Big Bad: In Sonic Heroes.
• Bishōnen Line: Neo Metal Sonic is distinctly more humanoid than his regular look. Zig-zagged when he immediately proceeds to go One-Winged Angel after revealing himself as the true mastermind behind the plot of Heroes.
• Bootstrapped Leitmotif: Stardust Speedway Bad Future from Sonic CD. While it was originally used mainly as the Bad Future track for the titular zone, it was also used as the BGM for the Metal Sonic boss battle (which took place in said level). As Metal Sonic's Breakout Villain status grew, it became increasingly iconic for its association with him. Every boss fight with him from Generations onward uses the same theme or a remix of it (more frequently the JP/EU version, though the NA version does occasionally get reused as well, in games such as Sonic Forces).
• Breakout Villain: He went from a boss battle in Sonic the Hedgehog CD and just one in a long line of robotic ripoffs of Sonic, to the most iconic villain in the franchise next to Eggman thanks to fandom popularity. He's appeared in numerous games since, got adapted into the OVA as the main villain and is one of the very few characters to receive a counterpart in Sonic Boom. It helps that, unlike the other Sonic knock-offs, he was given a far greater focus in his game of origin and the promotional material for it.
• Characterization Marches On: The Japanese manual for Sonic CD described Metal as having an advanced neural-network-like AI but being an extension of Eggman's will regardless, and in-game, Metal is simply shown off imitating Sonic's mannerisms but in a more robotic manner. Come Sonic Heroes he's revealed to be bitter about his constant defeats and deluded that he's the true Sonic. While Eggman reprogrammed him to be similar to his original self after his little stunt, Metal's desire to surpass and be the true Sonic stuck.
• Chest Blaster: His Plasma Pulse Attack in Knuckles Chaotix, and a chest laser in Fighters. As Metal Overlord, he can fire crystals from the hole on his chest.
• Cool Plane: Pilots one in Sonic the Hedgehog 4.
• Conjoined Eyes: Being based on Sonic, he follows the hedgehog design scheme.
• Continuity Cameo: Shows up in the ending of The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog alongside Sage, both wearing a Fun T-Shirt.
• Continuity Snarl: His role in Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode Metal retroactively introduces one to the series. The game explicitly points out that Metal Sonic was left abandoned for a long time on Little Planet after he was defeated on Stardust Speedway, and wasn't revived by Eggman until the Modern Era. Problem is that Metal Sonic makes several other appearances in the spin-off Sonic games of the Classic Era (e.g. Sonic the Fighters, Sonic Triple Trouble, Sonic Drift). While these were explicitly new models at first, that's since been retconned to Metal Sonic always being the same individual, which makes it unclear where Sonic 4's placement in the timeline is. With the release of Sonic Mania, the issue seemed to be finally solved considering Metal Sonic is once again left on Little Planet after his defeat in Stardust Speedway but Sonic Superstars (which is confirmed to be the next game in the timeline) has him appear again. Of course, given the nature of Little Planet, this can be chalked up to Timey-Wimey Ball.
• Costume Copycat:
  • Disguised himself as Eggman for the majority of Sonic Heroes. The real Eggman gave orders to Team Chaotix during that time in order to free himself.
  • Also repeated in Sonic Free Riders, where he disguised himself as a blue E-10000 in order to copy everyone's data and prove himself the best user of Extreme Gear.
• Crippling Overspecialization:
  • He was created to exceed Sonic's speed, which he does very well due to having a jet engine sticking out of his torso. However, since this causes him to outright fly, he often has trouble stopping.
  • In addition, that kind of speed puts a huge strain on his insides — Metal Sonic is prone to overheating after traveling faster than Sonic for too long, and he then has to spend time to cool down. In Sonic Generations, this is his one biggest weakness.
  • The fact that he is specifically designed and programmed to match, counter and surpass Sonic tends to zigzag this trope. Since he has almost all of Sonic's basic abilities, he can be just as unstoppable against the real Sonic's friends. On the other hand, if his only directive is focused entirely on Sonic, other heroes can exploit this and take the robot down themselves. And unless he is able to adapt on the fly, Sonic himself can rely on unorthodox tactics to beat his double.
• A Day in the Limelight: He stars in Episode Metal, a bonus episode of Sonic 4 that chronicles his return after his defeat in Sonic CD.
• Determinator: His resolve is almost as strong as Sonic's. No matter how long it takes or how many defeats he suffers, he will defeat Sonic. To quote his only other line of dialogue from Generations:
  Metal Sonic: I WILL BATTLE YOU AS MANY TIMES AS IT IS NECESSARY.
• Demoted to Dragon: In appearances post-Heroes, and he loses the ability to talk he had as Neo Metal Sonic.
• Disney Villain Death: Subverted. He falls several thousand feet from the sky when defeated as Metal Overlord, but he survives, somehow crashing in one of the many Egg Fleet ships.
• The Dog Was the Mastermind: He's the true mastermind of Heroes. The threat of Eggman plotting to take over the world in three days? It was him disguised as his own master. Sonic stealing Chocola and Froggy? It was Metal Sonic trying to frame him.
• The Dragon: To Eggman when Orbot and Cubot aren't filling the role.
• Dragon with an Agenda: Despite being programmed to serve Eggman and often doing so very well, his drive to defeat Sonic sometimes risks overriding his loyalty to Eggman. This is especially shown in Sonic Free Riders, where he goes behind Eggman's back and disguises himself as a blue E-10000 to copy everyone's racing data so that he can use it to beat Sonic.
• Dragon Ascendant: In Heroes, he locks Eggman in a room and decides to conquer the world for himself. Unfortunately for him, he's defeated and Demoted to Dragon. Likewise, in the Sonic IDW series, he became the Eggman Empire's ruler once again, though this time it was because the Eggster was MIA after his defeat in Sonic Forces.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: At least, as much as a Robotic Psychopath can love someone, but Metal Sonic seems to genuinely care about Eggman. He almost always follows his orders without question, goes through quite a bit of hell to find him after he disappears, and even after usurping him in Heroes, he keeps Eggman safe and unharmed aboard the Egg Fleet.
• Evil Counterpart: To Sonic, of course. Personality-wise, his single-minded drive to beat Sonic contrasts the real Sonic's free-spirited nature.
• Evil Knockoff: Provides the trope image. However, in Heroes, his desire to prove himself to be better than Sonic had progressed to the point that he thought he was the real deal in the English dub. Some alternate translations of Japanese script however has him refer to Sonic as "his imperfect self," and that he, in essence, is perfected version of the hero.
  Metal Overlord: (Before battle, English script) Long time no see, Sonic... my loathsome copy!
  Metal Overlord: (Before battle, Japanese script) Long time no see, Sonic... my imperfect self!
  Metal Overlord: (After defeat, English script) Guooooo! Why! I had it all! I am the ultimate overlord, Metal Sonic. I am the real Sonic!
  Metal Overlord: (After defeat, Japanese script) Guwaaagh...! How could this be?! I have done everything...! I am the undisputed king of all, Metal Sonic... I am the true Sonic!
• Evil Is Petty: His entire plan and motive in Sonic Heroes evolved out of his desire for revenge on Sonic for losing to him so many times.
• Evil Sounds Deep:
  • In his Sonic Heroes appearance. Surprisingly, it's just Ryan Drummond's Sonic voice in Creepy Monotone, with the pitch deepened and with a synthesized reverberation added. Hear it unaltered.
  • The same applies in Japanese for Jun'ichi Kanemaru, although the vocal manipulation differs somewhat from the English version.
• Eyes Do Not Belong There: Trades his hedgehog-style eyes for two individual ones on his forehead when he turns into Metal Madness/Metal Overlord.
• Failure Is the Only Option: No matter how hard he tries, he can never defeat Sonic.
• Finger Firearms: He can fire his claws like missiles as Metal Madness. If it hits a character, he or she is trapped in a crystal dome. If all three characters are trapped, they lose a life.
• Finger Wag: Considering the original Sonic does it, it's only appropriate that his robotic clone did it as well — First in Sonic the Hedgehog CD before his race, and then again in Sonic Mania at the start of his boss sequence (and, pre-Plus update, before the Advancing Wall of Doom begins chasing after you in the second phase).
• Flight: Thanks to a jet engine in his chest, Metal is capable of flying, allowing him to surpass Sonic during the many races they have — even if Sonic always ends up winning at the end.
• Flunky Boss: His past self in Sonic Mania summons the Silver Sonics from the 8-bit version of Sonic 2 during his boss fight.
• Fire-Breathing Weapon: Metal Madness's right hand is a flamethrower that he uses against Team Rose and Team Dark.
• Fragile Speedster: He was designed to be faster and stronger than Sonic, both of which he gets down, but he's prone to overheating after attacking and can be neutralized by flying into a wall.
• "Get Back Here!" Boss: The fight against one of the Phantom Ruby replicas of him in Sonic Forces involves chasing after him on a neverending bridge and then Homing Attack when you get close enough.
• Good Wings, Evil Wings: Metal Overlord has some sharp and scary-looking wings.
• Grew Beyond Their Programming: His Sonic Channel profile has stated that his AI evolved enough by Heroes for him to become fully self-aware and personally trigger his upgrade into Neo Metal Sonic. After enough time and budding turmoil over losing to Sonic, Metal breaks his protocols of serving Eggman and comes to the conclusion that his creator isn't capable of taking over the world with all the times he's previously failed. With that, he imprisons Eggman deep within the Final Fortress and takes command of the Eggman Empire, setting about destroying Sonic and friends by his own hand, and then creating a worldwide empire of machines with himself at the helm.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Yes, heroic. In Sonic Rivals 2. He rips out his own power source to allow Shadow to use it to transport them both out of the Ifrit's dimension.
• Hidden Depths: Despite seeming like a mindless robot on the outside, supplementary material such as that from Sonic Channel has stated that Metal is a very intelligent machine and can in fact feel emotions such as vengeance. It's also been stated that Metal's belief about being "the real Sonic" sends him for a loop whenever Sonic still manages to beat him.
• High-Altitude Battle: The fight with Metal Overlord in Heroes takes place in the sky over the Egg Fleet.
• Humongous Mecha: His Metal Madness and Metal Overlord forms, as well as his Metal Sonic Kai transformation from Knuckles' Chaotix. And again in Mania post-Plus update, thanks to the Phantom Ruby.
• I Just Want to Be You: Implied to be his beef with Sonic, although it overlaps heavily with There Can Only Be One, as Metal's goal of defeating Sonic and proving his own self-worth is his sole purpose for existing.
• Image Song: Metal Sonic has two vocal themes about him, though they aren't traditional image songs like other characters.
  • From the Genesis era, there's "Metal Sonic" from the Sega Virtual Tunes, about his purpose and personality.
  • "What I'm Made Of" from Sonic Heroes, while mostly sung from the point of view of Super Sonic, the chorus can be seen as coming from the perspective of Metal Sonic and is also the final boss theme.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: Heavily implied to have this. He was created with the sole purpose of defeating Sonic, but no matter how hard he tried, he could never pull it off, even when he found that Amplifier Artifact in Sonic 4. By Sonic Heroes, his inferiority complex and obsession with defeating Sonic had grown so out of control that it drove him completely insane and caused him to copy the powers of Sonic and his friends and attempt to Take Over the World just to prove he's better than Sonic.
• In-Series Nickname: He's commonly referred to as just "Metal" by other characters.
• The Juggernaut:
  • In his debut appearance in Sonic the Hedgehog CD, Sonic can't even harm him due to his electrified force field, and Metal can effortlessly smash through obstacles that Sonic has to work around. Sonic has to rely on a combo of the raceway's closing gate and Eggman's instant kill laser to bring him down.
  • Metal Overlord. It's saying something that it took twelve characters to put him down. Nine of them had to distract him so Team Sonic could use their super powers. Then the other three had to finish him off, and it took five Team Blasts to do the trick.
• Kick the Dog: Your first clue that he's bad news is a hologram recording in Palmtree Panic of Metal Sonic stepping on a squirrel for no reason.
• Kill and Replace: Metal Sonic's ultimate goal is to not only kill Sonic, but replace him as the only Sonic.
• Killer Robot: He's a robot version of Sonic hell-bent on destroying the original.
• Kneel Before Zod: Demands that everyone bows to him in Sonic Heroes.
  Neo Metal Sonic: All living things kneel before your master! (English)
  Neo Metal Sonic: Now begins the time that all living things shall kneel before me! (Japanese)
• Knight of Cerebus:
  • Chaotix is a pretty whimsical game, with a fun carnival theme and a matching colorful palette. Then comes the surprisingly creepy final boss, consisting of Metal Sonic transformed into a giant fanged abomination with a more intimidating design than anything else in the classic games. And that's to say nothing of the bad ending, in which we see this form of him hovering over a city in flames, implying he just destroyed the place and killed thousands...
  • Sonic Heroes is pretty lighthearted until he shows up. In general, he's portrayed as one of the darkest villains in the franchise, being ruthless, cold and not engaging in any of the whimsical theatrics that Eggman is prone to.
• Large Ham: He chews the scenery with almost every one of his lines in Heroes, including the portions where he was disguised as Eggman.
  All living things, KNEEL BEFORE YOUR MASTER!
• Leitmotif:
  • He's most commonly associated with the Japanese/European Stardust Speedway "Bad Future" music, with Sonic Generations and Sonic Mania in particular bringing it back for his boss fights, and Sonic the Hedgehog 4 using it for the final race against him in Episode II. As of more recent games like Sonic Forces and Team Sonic Racing, the North American version of Stardust Speedway "Bad Future" has been getting more attention as well.
  • A notable exception to this was Sonic The Hedgehog 4: Episode II, which introduced a unique boss theme for him that was later remixed as his All-Star theme in Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, but this theme has not returned in any game since.
  • "Never Let It Go" is used as his associated theme in Sonic the Fighters.
• Lightning/Wind Juxtaposition: He is frequently depicted with lightning powers in contrast to Sonic's wind.
• Loophole Abuse: Metal Sonic has only one main directive: defeat Sonic. If something will bring him closer to that goal, he will do it... whether ordered to or not. This has leads to him disobeying Eggman in Sonic Heroes, and again in Free Riders.
• Macross Missile Massacre: His Metal Madness/Overlord form can fire missiles from the spikes on his back.
• The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: In Heroes. As Neo Metal Sonic assumes his Metal Madness form, he is shown roaring, despite still having the capacity for human speech, though in all fairness, he was just doing it for the scare/monster effect.
• No Mouth:
  • In his normal and Neo forms. Subverted with all his transformations besides Neo Metal Sonic.
  • Strangely averted in the American◊ and European◊ box art for Sonic CD, which gave him a rather awkward-looking mouth, apparently a result of the artist misinterpreting a small reflection in his muzzle area in the Japanese cover◊ as a mouth.
• No Name Given:
  • His monstrous red transformation in Knuckles' Chaotix originally went unnamed, with the name "Metal Sonic Kai" (kai meaning "revised" or "modified") being carried over from his blue base form. The 2021 Encyclo-speed-ia refers to the base form as Metal Sonic, and the red giant form as Metal Sonic Kai; Ian Flynn mentioned on his podcast that this was a retcon on Sega's part.
  • Likewise, his Phantom Ruby-induced transformation in Sonic Mania is unnamed, though the internal files call it "Giga Metal".
• Ominous Visual Glitch: In Sonic Forces, Metal Sonic has the same red glitchy aura as Infinite, even using his energy cubes. This is due to Metal in Forces being a replica created by the Phantom Ruby.
• Omnicidal Maniac: Implied, but not outright stated. During the Final Battle with him in Sonic Heroes, he mentions wanting to rule a robot kingdom, slightly implying he wanted to destroy all organic life. The Bad Ending in Knuckles Chaotix also implies that he used his One-Winged Angel form to burn down an entire city.
• One-Winged Angel: Metal Madness and Metal Overlord in Sonic Heroes, and before that there was Metal Sonic Kai in Knuckles Chaotix. As of the Plus update for Mania, he does it again with the help of the Phantom Ruby, turning into "Giga Metal" (as per the game's internal files), a blue version of his Chaotix transformation.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: To Sonic. In Sonic Heroes, he's not only obsessed with defeating Sonic, but believes that he is the real Sonic.
• Our Dragons Are Different: His Metal Madness/Overlord forms resemble western dragons.
• Out of Focus: He was fairly prominent in the 90's, being the secondary antagonist of Sonic CD and starring in a few spin-off games. After Sonic Adventure, he was mostly relegated to cameos or playing a few minor roles as Eggman's attack dog, Sonic Heroes being the only real exception. He's slowly been making a comeback after the second episode of Sonic 4, however, and stars as one of the villains of Sonic Forces as a Phantom Ruby replica made by Infinite.
• Overdrive: The V. Maximum Overdrive Attack, as its name would suggest, is stated to be rather taxing on Metal's systems — enough so that sustained use could potentially destroy him.
• Person of Mass Destruction: His Neo Metal Sonic and Metal Overlord forms. Metal Sonic Kai from Knuckles Chaotix is depicted in the bad ending burning down a city during the credits.
• Power Copying: His main superpower, used to copy the abilities of everyone in Sonic Heroes and his opponents in Sonic Rivals. And he does it again in Sonic Free Riders, disguising himself as a blue E-100000 to copy everyone's Extreme Gear data.
• Psycho Electro: A Robotic Psychopath with electric powers.
• The Psycho Rangers:
  • In Sonic R, he's one of the unlockable characters, and alongside the Tails Doll and Metal Knuckles, he's on Eggman's team for the competition.
  • In Sonic Superstars, he's put in a team with the other Metals to face the heroes in the battle mode.
• Rage Quit: In Sonic Free Riders. After challenging Sonic to a race and, predictably, losing spectacularly, Metal runs off in a rage.
• Ramming Always Works: His V. Maximum Overdrive attack, where he overclocks his systems to make himself hazardous to touch and zoom across the stage.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Along with the black sclera, it really makes him look imposing.
• Ridiculously Human Robots: How certain it is depends on the game, but this is most evident in Heroes. He's almost indistinguishable from a Reploid in terms of cognitive ability and emotional expression, as well as the capacity to go completely insane.
• Robot Me: Really now?
• Robotic Psychopath: The most aggressive and violent automaton in the series — yes, even surpassing Omega.
• Satellite Character: A downplayed example. Metal does have a personality and motive separate from his creator, but he is, for the most part, treated as Eggman's attack dog when it comes to keeping Sonic at bay. He very rarely strikes out on his own as an antagonist, mostly due to him being programmed to be loyal to Eggman.
• "Second Law" My Ass!: Pulled this one out in Heroes. Fed up with Dr. Eggman's failures, he threw the doctor into a room and took over the Eggman Empire to go about killing Sonic and ruling the world himself.
• Shock and Awe: Most of his attacks, such as the V. Max Overdrive Attack and the Ring Spark Field, deal with electricity. Neo Metal Sonic can fire lightning from his hands, and as shown in Sonic the Hedgehog 4, he's still capable of this to some degree.
• Silent Antagonist: With the exception of Sonic Heroes, Metal Sonic never speaks a single word, likely due to Eggman reprogramming him after the events of said game. However, this doesn't stop him from showing attitude.
• Smug Snake: He may not be the real Sonic like he claims to be, but at least he's got all of Sonic's ego.
• Some Kind of Force Field: To make up for his lack of special moves in Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, Metal Sonic is given the Black Shield ability, which makes him completely invulnerable while it is active.
• Spikes of Villainy: Neo Metal Sonic wears a spiked belt. His Metal Overlord form has spikes on his back. And they aren't just for show.
• The Starscream: Goes behind Eggman's back and upgrades himself to Neo Metal form in Sonic Heroes, although by his defeat, Eggman reprogrammed him to ensure this would never happen again — although that may not have been foolproof, since Sonic Free Riders shows he still has hints of free will, going behind Eggman's back to copy the racers' data, and promptly challenge Sonic to a new race.
• Super-Speed: Naturally. He is a robot of Sonic, after all. Eggman built him to be even faster than Sonic, and was quite successful.
• Tail Slap: He gains an extended dragon-like tail in his Metal Madness form, which he uses to fling it across the arena to attack Team Rose, Team Chaotix, and Team Dark with in each of those rounds. Despite its range, the attack comes out rather slowly as its easier for the characters to jump over whenever he attempts to swipe his tail again.
• Terminator Impersonator: Metal Sonic is a robot made in mockery of its enemy who keeps coming back no matter how often it's destroyed. His black eyes with glowing red irises resemble the Terminator's own red eyes which it kept hidden under a pair of sunglasses. Taken even further in Sonic Heroes, where he's now made of liquid metal and can shapeshift thanks to copying Chaos' data.
• There Can Only Be One: It's never outright stated, but it's pretty clear that Metal's main goal is to destroy Sonic for good by his own hand, and become the only supersonic blue hedgehog around.
• This Was His True Form: While he didn't actually die in Heroes, after he's defeated, he shrinks from his Neo Metal Sonic form into the Sonic CD appearance we're all more familiar with before he shuts down.
  Metal Sonic: (is forcibly reverted back to his original state) It's no use... but why can't I defeat you...?!
• Tragic Villain: Metal Sonic was programmed with one primary goal: defeat Sonic. Yet, regardless of how well-built and highly skilled he is, Metal Sonic is completely unable to outdo the real deal. This inability to fulfill his main objective causes him to spiral into madness, leading to him taking over the Eggman Empire in Sonic Heroes in a complicated gambit to finally defeat his rival and become the "real" Sonic. Even after being defeated and having his sanity restored, Metal remains utterly obsessed with usurping the real Sonic, a torturous mission that he will inevitably fail at over and over again, no matter how hard he tries and how much he suffers as a result.
• True Final Boss: Of Sonic Heroes.
• Undying Loyalty: Metal Sonic is typically the most loyal and competent of Dr. Eggman's creations. It's clear that Eggman appreciates it greatly, given how he surprisingly sounded sad when describing how Metal betrayed him in Heroes, but still giving him another chance through reprogramming his loyalty back in.
• Villainous Breakdown: When defeated in Sonic Heroes.
  Metal Overlord: Guooooo! Why! I had it all! I am the ultimate overlord, Metal Sonic! I am the real Sonic!
• Villainous Friendship: Has a pretty good rapport with Bowser Jr., just like his creator is friends with his dad, as well as Bass and Treble in Worlds Collide of the Mega Man (Archie Comics), just like his creator is friends with Dr. Wily.
• Villain Protagonist: In Episode Metal.
• The Voiceless: He is unable to talk in most appearances, though upgrading to Neo Metal Sonic briefly gave him the ability to speak. Otherwise, if he ever tries to communicate, it'll be in computer noises. He does speak in text in Sonic Generations, and in Sonic Free Riders while disguised as a blue E-10000. Cubot and Orbot talk for him in Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: He gained this ability circa Sonic Heroes, at least the ability to superficially imitate them in appearance. He gets the ability to outright morph, T-1000 style by copying Chocola Chao and Froggy's data (who had the DNA of Chaos in them), and Sonic Free Riders shows that he can still pull this off to some degree.
• Walking Spoiler: Metal Sonic served as this for a while, in the wake of his role as the Big Bad in Sonic Heroes, although it's greatly diminished over time.
• We Can Rebuild Him: Originally, Metal Sonic really was destroyed at the end of the Stardust Speedway race, and all of his further appearances in the classic era were simply new models; the manual of Knuckles' Chaotix makes this explicit, calling him "Metal Sonic Kai" ("revised"). By the time of Sonic Heroes, it was decided that Metal Sonic has always been the same robot, as he explicitly states that he rebuilt his own body to take revenge on Sonic. Sonic the Hedgehog 4 follows suit by showing Eggman recovering him from the Stardust Speedway race. Supplementary material since then has shown that Eggman always retrieves Metal Sonic and repairs him after his defeats, implying a more personal attachment than most of his robots.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Read the above.
• Xanatos Gambit: His Batman Gambit to Team Sonic in Sonic Heroes can be seen as this. If Team Sonic answers his challenge, he can copy their data; if they don't, he can conquer the world with the Egg Fleet he stole control of from Eggman. Either way, he wins.
• X-Ray Sparks:
  • In Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, he shows a skeleton when electrified, despite being, well, a robot. This is likely a goof on Sega's part and not intentional, however.
  • It could just be an endoskeleton considering he's a highly advanced robot that is able to properly mimic Sonic's moves. A robot without an endoskeleton probably would not be able to perform such moves.

Badniks

From top left to bottom right: Buzz Bomber, Crabmeat, Caterkiller, Balkiry, Moto Bug, Nebula, Snail Blaster, Spinner and Egg Pawn.

Debut: Sonic the Hedgehog

The robots used by Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik to aid in many of his schemes, traditionally (but not always) powered by various animals as organic batteries.

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• Amphibian Assault: Ribots from Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles, Kero-Keros from Sonic Advance, Gekogekos from Sonic Advance 3, and Toad Mechas from Sonic Superstars, the last of which latch their tongues onto Sonic and his friends.
• And I Must Scream: In at least some of the games they are powered by animals who have been trapped inside them and are helpless to do anything. Fortunately, Sonic can set them free by destroying the Badnik.
  • Though there's the question of whether they're actually aware or not when inside badniks, and if not wouldn't be so much this trope but something more like Brainwashed.
• Action Bomb: Bombs, Bigboms, Bomblins, and Matryoshka-Boms, which will blow themselves up in an effort to hurt Sonic and his friends.
• Animal Mecha: Most of the Badniks are modelled after various kinds of animals. To name some examples, Moto Bugs are modelled after ladybugs, Caterkillers are based on caterpillars, Buzz Bombers are robotic bees, Coconuts are mechanical monkeys, Balkiries are machines based on birds, etc.
• Aquatic Mook: Choppers, Jaws, Mashers, Chop Chops, Aquises, Octuses, Pointdexters, Jawz, Steelions, and other Badniks such as Hariisens, Jousons, and Sea Pawns.
• Bat Out of Hell: Bat Brains, Batbots, Bladed Spinners/Spinas, Thunder/Electro Spinners, and Slots.
• Blow You Away: Cluckoids, Badniks based on weathervanes introduced from Sonic & Knuckles onwards, will blow their enemies into harmful hazards or other Badniks. Egg Typhoons from Sonic Unleashed and Turbo Turtles from Sonic Mania also fit the bill.
• Bombardier Mook: Nebulas, Bombbearers, Condors, Falcos, Sprinkers, Mantas, and the Sonic Forces version of Balkiries ^note  Known as Valkeens due to ingame files from both Lost World and Forces, with the Forces incarnation having several unused behaviors in the game.
• Bubble Gun: Sonic Superstars introduces a new variant of the Aquis that is encountered in the Golden City Zone, and spits bubbles.
• The Bus Came Back: The Badniks from the early Genesis game made a return to the series from Sonic Colors onwards and have been featured in some subsequent games alongside the newer Badniks like the Egg Pawns and Egg Fighters.
• Demoted to Extra: In Sonic Adventure 2 the G.U.N. Robots take their place as the primary enemy encountered in most levels. As a result, the Badniks only appear in a handful of levels throughout the game, and only when a level takes place inside of Eggman's pyramid base.
• Drill Mole: Starting with the Burrobots in the first game, Eggman has consistently used mole themed robots that almost always have tank treads for feet and a drill for a nose. On an interesting note, the original Burrobots were probably the most technically impressive models, showing a surprising amount of movement options for sidescrolling Video Game Mooks, being able to change direction, jump. and climb up walls with ease.
• Elite Mooks: A lot of the late game ones are notably tougher than the norm, such as Slicers, Asterons, and Shellcrakers. Many players have been blindsided by these guys much to their frustration.
  • There's also the Egg Hammers from Sonic Heroes. They can only be destroyed with the Power member of the team, or with a Team Blast. And those have an upgrade as well in the form of Heavy Egg Hammers, which can't be destroyed at all without either a Team Blast or attacking its very small weakpoint on its head, which is covered by a helmet that must be removed.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog 4's 2nd half has the Snowies, polar bears who could take more hits than the average Badnik.
• Expy: Batbrains are the Eggman version of the Swoops, while the Egg Pawns are the Eggman version of B1 Battle Droids, the Egg Fighters are the Eggman version of the B2 Super Battle Droids, Blowfish Transporters are the C-9979 Landing Crafts of the Eggman Empire, etc.
• Giant Mook: Sonic Colors and Sonic Generations feature giant versions of Buzz Bombers and Moto Bugs, although they can't be destroyed in the latter, only bounced off.
  • The Sonic Lost World version of Sandworms in the Wii U and PC versions, though the 3DS version just has them act like the Big Pokeys from Super Mario Galaxy. In addition, the same game introduces the Big Caterkillers,^note Known as Big Nal in the game's files giant versions of the Caterkillers themselves, that depending on the version of the game, will either burrow and slam their heads down the ground to produce shockwaves or chase Sonic, like Emerald Coast's orca.
• Glass Cannon: The common Badniks can kill Sonic in one hit if he doesn't have any Rings on him, but he can destroy them any same way, such as Homing Attack, Spin Dash, etc.
• The Goomba: Lots of first level enemies, but the most notable and iconic is probably the Moto Bug. Its only attack is to try and ram the player....veeerry slowly. The weaponless Egg Pawns as well.
• Homing Projectile: Sentry Bugs from Sonic Mania can lock on to their targets with laser drones and damage them if they stay too long.
• King Mook: Several Badniks are either encountered as subbosses at the end or a mecha Eggman pilots, such as Big Icedus for Star Pointers ^note Backing up that name is the Star Pointer's Japanese name Icedus, Hotaru Hi-Watt for Hotarus, Giant Eggman Robo for the Eggrobos, and Mega Octus for the Octuses.
• Mana Drain: Gotchas from Knuckles Chaotix, Egg Magicians when the player uses Tornado Jump on their Egg Bishop alter egos in Sonic Heroes, and the Lost World version of Aquis drain players of their Rings.
• Mecha-Mooks: Naturally.
• Mook Medic: Egg Bishops, as well as their Egg Magician alter egos, can heal allies to full health when they spot the player.
• More Dakka: Several Badniks, such as Blitzs, Egg Gunners, and Egg Shooters can fire a round of projectiles like missiles or machine gun bullets.
• Painful Pointy Pufferfish: Pointdexters, Bubbles, Senbons, and Hariisens.
• Playing with Fire: Several Badniks encountered in volcanic environments either use fire as projectiles/defense or a Breath Weapon, such as Gohlas, Rexons, Redzes,^note Originally cut from Sonic the Hedgehog 2 until the 2013 remaster onwards Fireworms, Boa-Boas, Jack Bommers, and Egg Flames.
• Put on a Bus: The classic Badniks were mostly exercised from the series after Adventure, though some like Buzzers, Gohlas, and Unidasus still remained.
• The Spiny:
  • Several Badniks, such as Caterkillers and Spikes, will damage Sonic if he tries to jump on them, and in the case of the former, will scatter their segments everywhere.
  • The Antons from Sonic CD will grab Sonic if he tries to use his Homing Attack on them during the events of Sonic Lost World.
• Super-Deformed: At a glance, Sonic Lost World reverts the Badniks to how they appeared in the Genesis titles, after several games of sporting a more modernized look. However, they've had their features softened, making them into Adorable Evil Minions. For reference, compare the classic Buzz Bomber◊ to its counterpart in that game◊. This is likely a result of Lost World releasing on the Wii U and emulating the style of Super Mario Bros., which likewise had cute enemies.
• Theme Naming: The E-100 Series are all named after the Greek Alphabet.
• Underground Monkey: Various subspecies of Badniks have been made depending on the environment, such as Gohlas, Flamers, Star Pointers, and Tubinauts for the Orbinaut line, Thunder/Electro Spinners and Metal Spinners for the Bladed Spinner/Spina line, Cannon, Laser, Needle, Gun, Search, and Sea Pawn for the Egg Flapper line, IceBombas for the Bombbearers, and so on.
• Unwilling Roboticisation: A great number of them are powered up by a trapped animal in their interior.
• The Voiceless: Zigzagged. Sometimes the Badniks will speak, as seen in earlier media such as Sonic the Comic and the old Archie Comics, while in modern media, they never say a word, though they will emote and the Egg Pawns' dialogue consists of "Beep".
• Zerg Rush: Two boss fights in Sonic Heroes is pretty much fighting an army of these guys in succession.

Classic Era

Mecha Sonic

Counterclockwise from the top left - Sonic 2 (16-bit), Sonic 2 (8-bit), and Sonic 3.

Debut: Sonic the Hedgehog 2

Often confused with Metal Sonic, Mecha Sonic is Sonic's other robotic replica(s). Unlike Metal Sonic, Mecha Sonic is notable for having a drastic redesign in every major appearance:

• Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (8-bit)
• Sonic the Hedgehog 2
• Sonic 3 & Knuckles

Lack of a solid background means no one can seem to decide if this is one recurring resilient robot that keeps getting rebuilt, or really entirely separate robots with the same designation. The 16-bit incarnations of Mecha Sonic recently made a surprise modern appearance in the Sonic Dimensions Expansion Pack of LEGO Dimensions, treated as two different characters. Not to be outdone, the original 8-bit incarnation of Mecha Sonic, reidentified as Silver Sonic, made an appearance alongside Metal Sonic in Sonic Mania.

Other appearances:

• Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics)
• Sonic the Comic
• Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW)

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• Ambiguous Situation: It's unclear whether Rocket Metal in Sonic the Fighters is his own character or one of Metal Sonic's forms. If the latter is the case, it would imply that Metal Sonic is actually part of the Mecha Sonic line, given Rocket Metal's designation of "Mecha Sonic Model No.29".
• Big Bad: While he doesn't appear until his Final Boss fight, Mecha Sonic Mk. II serves as this for Knuckles' story in Sonic 3 & Knuckles, having made an Eggrobo its Dragon.
• Conjoined Eyes: Played with. The 8-bit Sonic 2 incarnation has what seems to be some kind of visor for eyes. The 16-bit Sonic 2 incarnation has these with a single red pupil. The Sonic & Knuckles version is similar, but the eye is actually some kind of energy-absorbing device he has inside that he can expose by pulling his head up and his chest down. The Sonic Adventure design has large yellow eyes with no irises.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Barring a cameo appearance in Sonic Adventure and a role in the IDW comics, Mecha Sonic vanished completely after the Classic Era, until Sonic Mania.
• The Dragon: The penultimate boss just before the Death Egg Zone in Sonic 3 & Knuckles. Notably, this is after Metal Sonic had been established as a character.
  • Dragon Their Feet: Mecha Sonic Mk. II manages to survive his encounter with Sonic and Tails, ultimately becoming the Big Bad of Knuckles' story.
• Dub Name Change: With the exception of Sonic the Fighters (which is designated "Mecha Sonic Model No.29" in-game and identified as "Rocket Metal" (Sonic) in unused fighter data), "Mecha Sonic" is nearly always the name of the robot in Japanese strategy guides. In western game media, each version of Mecha Sonic is instead given a unique name to help differentiate, at least at some point:
  • The Mecha Sonic from the 8-bit version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is originally known as the "Silver Sonic" in the Master System and International Game Gear manuals. This name also applies to its Sonic Mania appearance.
  • The Mecha Sonic from the 16-bit Sonic the Hedgehog 2 initially remained as Mecha Sonic on the old Story recap section of the International Sonic the Hedgehog 4 - Episode I website, but is given the name "Robo Sonic" (unhyphenated) in the Sonic Dimensions pack of LEGO Dimensions. As of 2021, official merchandise in North America has identified it as just "Mecha Sonic" once again. On occasion, it is also erroneously mistaken for its 8-bit counterpart, likely due to the shared game title, and the fact that the Sonic The Hedgehog 1 & 2 SEGA's Official Player's Guide refers to both as "Robo-Sonic" (hyphenated).
  • The Mecha Sonic from Sonic 3 & Knuckles actually had at least four alternate names - he was erroneously called "Metal Sonic" on the back of the North American Sonic & Knuckles box (causing much confusion), "Robotic Sonic" in a mail-in Sega of America walkthrough, the "Evil Sonic Robot" in Brady's Sonic & Knuckles Official Game Book, and the "Evil Sonic" in a Sonic the Comic Q Zone (mini-walkthroughs for Sega games). Unlike the above, this Mecha Sonic managed to keep his Japanese name in both the International Sonic the Hedgehog 4 - Episode I website and the Sonic Dimensions pack of LEGO Dimensions. This Mecha Sonic would later be known as "Mecha Sonic Mk. II" in Sonic the Hedgehog Encyclo-speed-ia.
• Evil Knockoff: Arguably more so than Metal Sonic, due to him having a variation of Sonic's Spin Attack and Spin Dash move, though Metal Sonic himself got these added to his own skill set eventually.
• Flat Character: Unlike his more famous counterpart, Mecha Sonic appears to be completely nondescript in personality; in the 16-bit Sonic the Hedgehog 2, he is even presented as a mere mindless drone to Eggman.
• Flight: The first two Mecha Sonics are capable of this via rocket boots in both Sonic the Hedgehog 2 games, but Mk. II ditches this in Sonic 3 & Knuckles in favor of being made much more agile, with fast zero gravity flight.
• Hidden Weapons: In his 8-bit Sonic the Hedgehog 2 encounter, he has an extendable grappling arm built into his body.
• It Can Think: Unlike the early models seen in 2 and Mania, the Mk. II model is smart enough to operate an Egg Mobile. It also possess an authority, comparable to that of Metal Sonic's (who is left stranded on Little Planet), being capable of leading the surviving Badniks in Knuckles' storyline, and even made an Eggrobo as its subordinate. On top of that, it figures out how to channel the Master Emerald's power directly through its body. Other than piloting the Egg Mobile, all of this happens on its own initiative, after losing contact with Eggman.
• Macross Missile Massacre: The 16-bit Sonic the Hedgehog 2 incarnation can fire the spikes on his back during a Spin Jump.
• Nostalgia Level: In Sonic 3 & Knuckles, during the Sky Sanctuary Zone, he provides this for the first boss from Sonic 1 and the eighth from Sonic 2, and then finally for his own previous incarnation at the end.
• One-Winged Angel: Super Mecha Sonic Mk. II at the end of Sonic 3 & Knuckles, where he absorbs the power of the Master Emerald, granting him even faster speed, as well as a energy blast attack and the ability to launch dummy rings. This turns into a Clipped-Wing Angel, however, as using the energy blast will eventually drain his power, leaving him vulnerable while he goes to the Master Emerald to recharge.
• Power Floats: Mk. II gains this in his Super form.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Usually depicted with these.
• Robot Me: Shares this trait with Metal Sonic.
• Rocket Boots: In Sonic the Hedgehog 2, but only used during the boss fight in the 8-bit version and during his entrance animation in the 16-bit version.
• Rollerblade Good: He achieves his super speed by the wheels in his heels in Sonic the Hedgehog 2.
• Shout-Out: The Sonic Adventure incarnation, "Mecha Sonic Mk. III" is a reference to Mechagodzilla, down to the plate design and yellow eyes. The 16-bit Sonic 2 incarnation is also this to an extent, though this is more obvious in concept art, where it has an "MS" symbol reminiscent of the "MG" on Mechagodzilla.
• Super Mode: At the end of Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Mecha Sonic Mk. II gains one by absorbing the power of the Master Emerald, making him the first creation of Eggman to ever utilize Chaos energy.
• Super-Speed: While the first Mecha Sonic in the 16-bit Sonic the Hedgehog 2 encounter is sluggish, Silver Sonic is surprisingly fast in the 8-bit Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Mecha Sonic Mk. II ups the ante in his Sonic 3 & Knuckles encounters.
• Took a Level in Badass: Considerably in Sonic 3 & Knuckles. In Sonic the Hedgehog 2, the first Mecha Sonic was a clunky, sluggish drone that could be taken down in less than ten seconds. In Sonic 3 & Knuckles, the Mk. II model received a considerable upgrade, getting a sleeker design, as well as super speed both on the ground and in-flight, a devastating air-dash move, the ability to slide backwards, and is much more durable, managing to survive his encounter with Sonic during the game, and later taking on Knuckles.
• Transforming Mecha: Shows up solely to do this at the beginning of Sonic the Fighters... and doesn't come back after that.

Eggrobo

Debut: Sonic 3 & Knuckles

Other appearances:

• Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics)
• Sonic the Comic
• Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW)

The Eggrobos are a series of Badnik Elite Mooks modeled after the good old Doctor himself to serve as his Mook Lieutenants. While the series originally appeared in Sonic 3 & Knuckles, they mostly disappeared from the franchise until returning to Sonic Mania in the form of the Hard Boiled Heavies.

After Sonic defeats Doctor Eggman in his story of Sonic 3 & Knuckles, one Eggrobo survives the destruction (in Sonic's Super ending he can be seen emerging from a pile of wreckage) and becomes the Arc Villain of Knuckles's story, apparently determined to carry out Eggman's plan all over again and unleash chaos on the Floating Island. Things take an unusual turn once Knuckles reaches the Sky Sanctuary, however, when Eggrobo turns out to have been in cahoots with Mecha Sonic Mk. II

The original Eggrobo was destroyed at the end of Sonic 3 & Knuckles, but Sonic R and Sonic Adventure 2 each have a playable Eggrobo of their own who may or may not be the original Eggrobo rebuilt. Heavy King of the Hard Boiled Heavies (a team of Eggrobos transformed by the power of the Phantom Ruby in Sonic Mania) also has several striking similarities to the Eggrobo that harried Knuckles.

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• Ambiguous Situation:
  • Sonic 3 & Knuckles never quite gets around to explaining the alliance between Eggrobo and Mecha Sonic before the Eggrobo is destroyed, though the Master Emerald was involved somehow. That said, a strategy guide states that Mecha Sonic made the Eggrobo his subordinate and the IDW comics would clarify that both were still working for Eggman.
  • It's unknown whether the playable Eggrobos that appear in Sonic R and Sonic Adventure 2 are the same King Mook Eggrobo from Sonic 3 & Knuckles rebuilt or just another member of the series.
  • Despite being Eggman's enforcers, they are completely absent when playing the main story in Superstars, and do not show up in the Egg Fortress at all (despite being Eggman's main base of operations). Suspiciously enough, they only show up in Trip's Campaign as common enemies in most stages. It is unknown if these Eggrobos have decided to either side with Fang (who is noted to be simply a mercenary-for-hire), or are still loyal to Eggman and choose to aid Fang on their creator's behalf.
• The Artifact: The chassis of the Eggrobo is a direct imitation of Eggman's classic outfit; it keeps this design during its downloadable/unlockable appearance in Sonic Adventure 2 and subsequent games, after Eggman gained his modern design.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • Among the franchise's core titles, the Eggrobo Badniks originally only appeared in Sonic 3 & Knuckles, but Sonic Adventure 2 featured one in the Kart Race minigame, available either by being downloaded or unlocked depending on the version.
  • The Eggrobo Badniks return as enemies in the Sky Sanctuary stage of Sonic Generations, with the game even introducing a new variant that fires missiles from its head.
  • After being The Unfought in Mania, they make their return in Superstars as regular enemies in Trip's campaign, and the lead Eggrobo becomes the Recurring Boss in place of Eggman.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Dropped from the series after 1997 aside from minor roles in party games, though it eventually made a reappearance in Sonic Generations. Sonic Mania brought them back, with the Phantom Ruby turning a team of them into the Hard Boiled Heavies - and gaining a lot of personality to boot. A series of regular Eggrobo Badniks appear as enemies in Trip's Story in Superstars.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: After the Eggrobo that survives the fall of the Death Egg spends the entirety of Knuckles' story as the primary antagonist, he gets destroyed by the Mecha Sonic Mk. II right before the final boss battle begins. Eggrobos have managed to retain some minor roles since then but never as important as its initial role.
• Dub Name Change: Only for one game — in the Japanese version of Sonic R, it is renamed Eggman Robo.
• Dynamic Entry: The Arc Villain Eggrobo begins Knuckles's story by dropping a large, mustachioed bomb right in front of him.
• Elite Mook: The Eggrobo Badniks are designed to serve as administrators of Eggman's operations when he's absent; indeed, in Sonic 3 & Knuckles, they only appear in the last level of Sonic's story, Sky Sanctuary. In Superstars, they (fittingly) only appear in Trip's Story as regular enemies in most stages, to highlight the increase in difficulty.
• Energy Weapon: The average Eggrobo's signature means of attack is a slow firing laser bazooka.
• Establishing Character Moment: The Arc Villain Eggrobo drops a literal bomb on Knuckles before revealing itself, alerting everyone to the fact that villainy is afoot and the Eggrobo is out to kill.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Eggrobos are robots shaped like eggs.
• Expy:
  • The E-100s of Sonic Adventure are said to be based on Eggrobo, as laser firing humanoid robots based upon their creator. Notably many of Gamma's concept designs were a dead ringer for the Eggrobos.
  • The Egg Pawns from Sonic Heroes and onward are quite similar to the Eggrobos in conception and carry out the same purpose, but are much larger in number and variety.
• Flat Character: Outside of its implied desire to avenge Eggman, Eggrobo is completely devoid of anything resembling a personality.
• Flight: He can fly either with a built-in jetpack or by piloting the Eggmobile.
• Game-Over Man: In the ending for Sonic where only the Chaos Emeralds are collected, Eggrobo rises from the wreckage of a bunch of Badniks.
• The Heavy: The one in Knuckles' story, while technically The Dragon to Mecha Sonic Mk. II, is much more prominent than the latter.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: The Sonic 3 & Knuckles Eggrobo is unceremoniously destroyed by Mecha Sonic Mk. II just before you fight him — it was apparently intending to just hit Knuckles while Eggrobo pinned him in place with a giant claw arm machine, only for Knuckles to glide out of the way in time and cause Mecha Mk. II to smash right through Eggrobo.
• Inconsistent Spelling: Originally EggRobo and occasionally Egg Robo before settling on Eggrobo. The physical instruction booklet of Sonic Mania even goes with yet another possible spelling, Egg-Robo.
• King Mook: Downplayed. The Eggrobo in Knuckles storyline looks identical to the other Eggrobo mooks in Sky Sanctuary, but unlike them is a recurring boss and doesn't appear to be powered by an animal^note Sonic Origins would add that, however.
• Macross Missile Massacre: Sonic Generations introduces the Missile Eggrobos, which fire rockets from their heads and have a purple colored body design.
• Nonstandard Character Design: The Eggrobo series is unusually humanoid in appearance, quite a contrast from every other Badnik, which are almost always animal-based.
• One-Hit-Point Wonder: The normal Eggrobos can be destroyed in one hit, but the recurring Eggrobo is usually protected from attacks by the Eggmobile — unless the opponent in question is Mecha Sonic Mk. II.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted. Eggman has a doomsday mecha named after this Badnik in Sonic Lost World, which is powered by the energy drained from Sonic's world via the Extractor.
• Promoted to Playable:
  • An Eggrobo can be unlocked in Sonic R.
  • Eggrobo is playable in Sonic Adventure 2's kart racing minigame, in the original as Downloadable Content, in Battle as a Secret Character.
• Robot Me: Built in the image of Dr. Eggman himself.
• Shoulder Cannon: Each Eggrobo only has one weapon, a laser bazookas on their shoulder.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: To Dr. Robotnik in Knuckles' story in Sonic 3 & Knuckles, sans the boss encounter in Flying Battery, at least until Sonic Origins.
• Taught by Experience: He uses better versions of the bosses Sonic fought earlier on Angel Island. Another Eggrobo does the same on the Northstar Islands.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: The Arc Villain Eggrobo is destroyed before its motives are really explored.

Tails Doll

As a last resort, Eggman manufactured this to catch Sonic unprepared. This, except for the power plant embedded in its head, is a mere stuffed animal, whose meager form nevertheless exhibits considerable ability in races due to its lightweight design. Still, it is also able to float in the air for a long time.

Debut: Sonic R

A floating doll-like robot from Sonic R, made in the likeness of Tails.

Other appearances:

• Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics)
• Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW)

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• Continuity Cameo:
  • In Sonic and the Black Knight, it makes a cameo appearance in the fan art section.
  • In Sonic Superstars, it makes an appearance in the Pinball Carnival Zone during Act 2, hovering around. The player can get a Medal for hopping into it.
• Evil Knockoff: With emphasis on "knockoff". Tails Doll is nothing but a hastily made attempt by Eggman to provide a counterpart to Tails as Metal Sonic was to Sonic, by simply putting an floating mechanism into a ragdoll.
• Flat Character: Has no personality beyond "doll of Tails". Justified as it's not even a robot, but a ragdoll with a floating mechanism slapped onto it.
• Joke Character: It was made by Eggman in a hurry, and it shows. Tails Doll has poor handling, average acceleration and average top speed. He is the slowest character in the game, but he can glide over water better than most of his metal allies, and he has a strange floating ability as his "air action", allowing him to remain airborne longer than the real Tails can.
• Mecha-Mook: Barely even meets the qualification, since the only mechanical part of it is its floating mechanism, and the rest of it is a crude ragdoll.
• No Mouth: It's a ragdoll with a floating mechanism, so it doesn't have or even need a speaking function.
• One-Shot Character: Only appeared in the racing game Sonic R, though would make a brief re-appearance in Superstars.
• Power Floats: Its sole ability is to float through the air.
• The Psycho Rangers: Along with Metal Sonic and Metal Knuckles, it serves as part of an evil trio counterpart to the main heroes.

The Prototypes

Debut: Sonic Superstars

A series of modular robots made to capture the power of Metal Sonic in a more adaptable and disposable package, and the playable characters of the Battle Mode in Sonic Superstars.

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• Character Customization: Each one can be fitted with a variety of parts that offer different visual changes. And yes, you can mix and match them.
• Expendable Clone: They generally fight similarly to Metal Sonic, but make up for a lack of his speed and durability with sheer numbers and adaptability.
• Faceless Mooks: Their default design looks similar to Metal Sonic, but "unarmored", with their heads being simple spheres with no animal-like traits.
• Make My Monster Grow: In the second phase of their boss fight, Eggman and the Eggrobo in Trip's story can enlarge them to use as mechs.
• Mecha Expansion Pack: The Prototypes can attach themselves to a special booster pack with an arsenal of lasers and missiles.
• Virtual Paper Doll: They're effectively a customizable Badnik, with their appearance varies depending on how you make them in the Battle Mode.

Metal Fighters

Metal Knuckles

Metal Knuckles, as seen in Sonic Superstars

Debut: Sonic R

A robotic doppelganger of Knuckles, created with similar attributes of Metal Sonic.

Other appearances:

• Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics)
• Sonic the Comic
• Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW)

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• The Bus Came Back: Unlike the Tails Doll, which would be referenced time and time again thanks to its reception amongst fans, Metal Knuckles had to wait until 2023, when it returned as a playable character in the Battle Mode of Sonic Superstars
• Flat Character: Lacks anything resembling a personality.
• The Psycho Rangers:
  • Along with Metal Sonic and the Tails Doll, it serves as part of an evil trio counterpart to the main heroes in Sonic R.
  • He also occupies this role in Sonic Superstars, facing the heroes in Battle Mode alongside the other Metals.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: The only member of the Metal line to avert this, as it it features green eyes instead, likely as its body is already red.
• Robot Me: A robotic doppelgänger of Knuckles, following a similar design scheme from Metal Sonic.

Metal Tails

Debut: Sonic Superstars

A robotic doppelganger of Tails with similar attributes to Metal Sonic.

Other appearances:

• Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics)

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• Canon Immigrant: The concept of a Metal Tails was first used in the Pre-Super Genesis Wave Archie Comics; however, that version of Metal Tails was based on Modern Tails, while this version is based on Classic Tails.
• Clothing Appendage: More like "robot part appendage", it has two waist-mounted turbine engines which resemble its inspiration's namesake twin tails.
• Flat Character: Thus far, completely lacks any personality.
• Mythology Gag:
  • It can be considered Eggman's answer to Tails' remark in the Archie Comics (during the climax of "Panic in the Sky"◊) and IDW 30th Anniversary Special, where both times, the fox boy complains about having a ragdoll instead of a "cool Metal Tails".
  • It has a red light on its head, in the same place that its predecessor Tails Doll had its similarly-colored antenna tip.
• The Psycho Rangers: Joins Metal Sonic, Metal Knuckles, and Metal Amy as Eggman's metallic answer to Team Sonic.
• Robot Me: Another Eggman-made doppelgänger of Tails, this time sharing Metal Sonic's design scheme as opposed to Tails Doll's simplistic appearance.

Metal Amy

Debut: Sonic Superstars

A robot imitation of Amy Rose, created in the same vein as Metal Sonic.

Other appearances:

• Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics)

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• Canon Immigrant: Similarly to Metal Tails, pre-SGW Archie had a Metal Amy; however, that version was based on Amy's post-Dreamcast redesign, whereas this version is based on original Classic!Amy.
• Clothing Appendage: Has turbines around its waist in a similar position, shape, size, and color as Classic Amy's skirt.
• Flat Character: Does not currently have much, if any, personality.
• The Psycho Rangers: Joins Metal Sonic, Metal Tails, and Metal Knuckles as an evil robotic counterpart to Team Sonic.
• Robot Me: Eggman's latest doppelgänger of Amy, following the same basic design as Metal Sonic as opposed to the Amy Doll.
• Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: She's one of the only Metal characters to be based on a girl, and as such is the only one with eyelashes built into its eyes.

Metal Trip

Debut: Sonic Superstars

Anticipating that Trip will betray him and Fang, Eggman created this robotic imitation of the sungazer lizard in the same vein as the other Metals.

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• Robot Me: Eggman's doppelgänger of Trip, once again following the same basic design as Metal Sonic.
• Two Girls to a Team: Joins Metal Amy as part of the Psycho Rangers that is formed by Metal Sonic, Metal Tails, and Metal Knuckles.

Hard Boiled Heavies

In General

Debut: Sonic Mania

An elite group of Eggrobos created by Dr. Eggman to investigate a mysterious new source of power, before growing into something not even the good doctor could predict.

Other appearances:

• Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW)

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• Boss Rush: The standard final boss has the player alternate between attacking Eggman's machine and fighting four of the Heavies, although the battles aren't the same as the first time around.
• Five-Man Band: Downplayed. There are five of them, all Color-Coded for Your Convenience and with a different Motif each. The Leader is even bright red, like the head of a Sentai team.
• Grew Beyond Their Programming: At first, the Heavies were ordinary Eggrobos, but contact with the Phantom Ruby not only granted them with powers they didn't previously possess but also gave them self-awareness. At the end, Heavy King turns on Eggman for control of the Phantom Ruby.
• The Heavy: It's in their Meaningful Name. The Heavies and their actions drive much of the plot and must be fought by the heroes.
• Inconsistent Spelling: Their name is spelt as Hard-Boiled Heavies in various promotional sources, but the official website, digital manual, and the final game itself all drop the hyphen.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Since Sonic Forces reveal the Phantom Ruby induces illusions, it's called into question whether they are simply just illusions brought on by the Phantom Ruby, or if they are robots corrupted by the Ruby. The true ending of Encore mode shows that despite the Phantom Ruby being MIA, the Heavy King and ostensibly the rest of the Hard Boiled Heavies are still sticking around.
• Personality Powers: Though not directly explained in-game, Christian Whitehead mentioned in an interview that when the Heavies were transformed, each of them gained powers based on the interests and aspirations of the animal used to power them. For instance, Heavy Gunner was a cop Picky (pig), and Heavy Magician was a magician Pecky (penguin).
• Quirky Mini Boss Squad: They serve as this for Sonic Mania.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: With the exception of Heavy King, all of them have red eyes like any regular Eggrobo.
• Shout-Out:
  • Heavy Shinobi's attacks have a few sound effects from The Revenge of Shinobi.
  • The group as a whole is a minor homage to Super Sentai and Power Rangers. While not abnormal for a Quirky Miniboss Squad to have a Sentai theme, the colors of the Heavies - Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, Pink - are the colors of the first ever Super Sentai team, which went on to be the most used color set when a team has five core starting members in both series as a result.
  • The Motobug that Heavy Rider uses is named Jimmy; a reference to late ROMhacker Polygon Jim, who created a hack called "Motobug The Badnik", which had you play as a Motobug with an extending wheel when jumping. Jimmy in Mania uses an updated version of the jumping sprite from the hack and frequently speeds up akin to the usage of the sheer abundance of Speed Shoes powerups added in the hack.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • The Heavies actually start out as plain Eggrobos until they became the more powerful Hard Boiled Heavies thanks to the Phantom Ruby.
  • When battling the Phantom Egg, you're occasionally sent to fight the Heavies once again with Phantom Forms. Heavy Gunner and Shinobi have emphasized weaponry at the cost of their limbs, Heavy Magician is relatively unchanged aside from using a Shell Game, and Heavy Rider is unchanged either, except that Jimmy is now a fierce-looking motorcycle.
  • In the True Final Boss, the Phantom Ruby empowers Heavy King to the point where he becomes one of the few bosses in the series to officially hurt Super Sonic.
• Two Girls to a Team: According to the digital manual, Heavy Magician and Heavy Rider are female.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: The Hard Boiled Heavies all have unresolved fates; none of them are destroyed when beaten normally, and they cannot be destroyed in the Final Boss, leaving only Heavy King's fate to any apparent resolution when defeated by Super Sonic. Encore mode eventually reveals what happened: All of them were destroyed except Heavy Magician, who went to strike out on her own, ultimately reclaiming the Phantom Ruby and handing it off to Heavy King to revive the whole group.

Heavy King

• Affably Evil: Heavy King shows up at the end of Encore Mode with a huge bowl of ice cream for the heroes.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: All of the Hard Boiled Heavies act loyal to Eggman, but Heavy King betrays him during the final story, trying to take the Phantom Ruby for himself as the Phantom King.
• Ambiguously Related: It's hinted at several points that Heavy King might be the Eggrobo who acted as the Big Bad for Knuckles' story in Sonic 3 & Knuckles, but a conclusive statement has never been made.
• Continuity Nod: The Heavy King makes several pointed Call Backs to the Knuckles campaign in Sonic 3 & Knuckles.
  • He has a unexplained grudge against Knuckles, who is the only character that fights Heavy King outside of Encore mode.
  • He makes frequent use of the same claw-arm machine that the Eggrobo who served as the Big Bad of Sonic 3 & Knuckles did.
  • He powers up with the Master Emerald, much like Mecha Sonic Mk. II did at the end of Knuckles' campaign.
• Dragon with an Agenda: The Heavies actually start out as plain Eggrobos until the Phantom Ruby grants them unique personalities and appearances. They remain loyal to Dr. Eggman, but after Eggman loses the final battle at Titanic Monarch, Heavy King views him as an unfit leader and they start fighting over the gemstone.
• Dual Boss: Super Sonic fights both Eggman and Heavy King for the final boss.
• Evil Versus Evil: Heavy King tries to overthrow Eggman during the final boss. Unlike with most usurpers throughout the series, however, Eggman keeps up a fight, with the two scuffling over the Phantom Ruby through time as they simultaneously battle Super Sonic.
• Game-Over Man: Heavy King takes Dr. Eggman's place as the one who juggles the Chaos Emeralds you failed to collect in the Bad Ending of Encore Mode in Sonic Mania Plus. Oddly, he doesn't juggle the Phantom Ruby with them, despite claiming it in the Ending cinematic.
• King Mook: Heavy King in particular is literally a Eggrobo King, though unusually Eggrobos are not regular enemies in the game outside the Heavy Gunner fight and transports in Titanic Monarch.
• Mêlée à Trois: The True Final Boss fight consists of Eggman and Heavy King struggling to take control of the Phantom Ruby while Super Sonic fights to keep it out of both of their hands.
• Sorcerous Overlord: The Heavy King's staff lets him cast different "spells" if it's powered up.
• Staff of Authority: Heavy King's weapon.
• The Starscream: Heavy King turns on Eggman after his defeat, intending to take the Phantom Ruby for himself. It's also implied he was trying to steal the Master Emerald too behind Eggman's back.
• The Unfought: Knuckles is the only one who confronts the regular form of Heavy King. And only Sonic, as Super Sonic, fights the Phantom King.
• Your Size May Vary: In promotional art and the opening animation, the Heavy King is about the same size as Heavy Gunner. Meanwhile, his in-game sprite shows him larger than all the other Heavies.

Heavy Gunner

• Dirty Coward: Heavy Gunner is this Played for Laughs. When Sonic reflects one of Heavy Gunner's missiles, he freaks out and scatters, leaving an Eggrobo troop without the sense to flee to get hit by the missile instead.
• Dirty Cop: Heavy Gunner is designed to resemble a cop, not helped by the fact that the Eggrobos flanking him are all armed with nightsticks.
• Flunky Boss: Subverted with Heavy Gunner. Three regular Eggrobos flank him with batons, but they do nothing except block reflected rockets. When all three are gone, the next rocket defeats Heavy Gunner, effectively making them his HP.
• Macross Missile Massacre: Heavy Gunner as Phantom Gunner fires various missiles from the cannons on his back, putting the Aero/Egg Chasers to shame.
• Oh, Crap!: Heavy Gunner's eyes bug out and flash with an urgent beeping when you knock a rocket back at him.
• Tactical Suicide Boss: Heavy Gunner would be unbeatable if he didn't shoot the blue, reflectable rockets.
• Trigger-Happy: Heavy Gunner is described as "a loose cannon that packs serious firepower".

Heavy Magician

• Affably Evil: Heavy Magician never fails to lift her hat in a gesture of courtesy to her enemy before trying to kill them or when taking the Phantom Ruby after it survived the Eggman War.
• Dragon Their Feet: She's the only survivor of the Hard-Boiled Heavies after the end of the main story, and acts as the catalyst for Encore Mode by gathering the remains of her cohorts and resurrecting them with the Phantom Ruby.
• Master of Disguise: Heavy Magician turns herself into Fang the Sniper, Bean the Dynamite, and Bark the Polar Bear in Mirage Saloon Zone, losing the form when she gets hit. In Encore Mode, she also sheds her disguise of either Ray or Mighty if the player didn't choose the other character.
• Pull a Rabbit out of My Hat: Or Pulling Out a Badnik in her case. She summons a Rattlekiller and/or 2 Vultrons from her hat to hinder Sonic. At the end of Act 1, Heavy Magician summons another Rattlekiller to turn into the Uber Caterkiller.
• Shell Game: Heavy Magician as the Phantom Magician uses this. She hides under a massive cup which is shown at the beginning, then all three cups are shuffled around. The two she isn't under fire a Wave-Motion Gun.
• Stage Magician: The Heavy Magician has this routine down to a T, complete with stage, curtain, spotlights and a prop. (the box she uses)

Heavy Shinobi

• Become Your Weapon: Heavy Shinobi as Phantom Shinobi becomes a giant shuriken that will try to hit Sonic and his friends during the Phantom Egg boss fight, even firing out the blades on some occasions.
• The Comically Serious: Heavy Shinobi comes off as this, having the least amount of goofy moments and sprites while still being fairly silly (Ex. he's seen bouncing the Phantom Ruby on his head when the Heavies first appear and his design screams McNinja).
• Gratuitous Ninja: Heavy Shinobi, who throws Asteron shurikens and cuts Sonic with a katana that freezes him cold.
• An Ice Person: Heavy Shinobi's katana freezes on contact. Thankfully, though, it deals no actual damage.
• Super-Reflexes: Heavy Shinobi will immediately counter and freeze Sonic, Tails, or Knuckles with his ice sword as soon as they even try to get near him when he's standing around, their Super-Speed be damned.

Heavy Rider (and Jimmy)

• Aerith and Bob: The Motobug is named Jimmy, a rather common name in a world full of weird ones.
• Cool Bike: The upgraded version of Jimmy is a robotic motorcycle ladybug, which admittedly looks pretty dang awesome.
• Epic Flail: Heavy Rider's weapon.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Heavy Rider genuinely loves Jimmy, and is horrified when Fang and the Hooligans try to harm him.
• Huge Rider, Tiny Mount: Heavy Rider rides a Motobug named Jimmy in her boss fight. She upgrades him into a much fiercer Motorcycle in Titanic Monarch Zone.
• The Unfought: Knuckles never fights Heavy Rider, as he fights Heavy King in his route.

Dreamcast and Modern Eras

Recurring

Orbot and Cubot

Orbot on the left, Cubot on the right.

Orbot's Debut: Sonic Unleashed (as SA-55)

Cubot's Debut: Sonic Colors

Orbot Voiced by: Mitsuo Iwata (Japanese), Chris Collet (English, 2008), Kirk Thornton (English, 2010-present)^{additional VAs}Tony Marot (French, 2013-present), Massimo Di Benedetto (Italian, 2013-present)

Cubot Voiced by: Wataru Takagi (Japanese), Wally Wingert (English)^{additional VAs}Benjamin Pascal (French, 2013-present), Luca Sandri (Italian, 2013-present)

Dr. Eggman's robotic assistants. While the duo is more or less inseparable, SA-55/Orbot predates(?) Cubot.

Other appearances:

• Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics)
• Sonic Boom
• Sonic Boom
• Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW)

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• Affably Evil: Neither of them actually have anything against Sonic and Tails, and are pretty friendly towards them when not being forced to follow Eggman's orders.
• Alas, Poor Yorick: Orbot quotes this almost verbatim in Sonic Lost World while holding Cubot's decapitated head. Of course, since they're robots, Cubot is fine.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: To Metal Sonic in Rise of the Wisps, much to the robotic hedgehog's (implied) chagrin.
• Anti-Villain: Working for Eggman is really the only reason they can be considered evil. In Sonic Lost World, Cubot apologizes for attacking Tails, and Orbot asks Sonic if he can be his new sidekick if they don't get Tails back.
• Art Evolution: In Sonic Unleashed, SA-55 had a white casing. From Sonic Colors onwards, Orbot's casing was red to better contrast the yellow Cubot.
• Big Brother Worship: During Rise of the Wisps, Orbot is shown to be a huge admirer of Metal Sonic, whom he keeps calling "Big Bro".
• Blatant Lies: Orbot tells Eggman there were "technical difficulties" in trying to reach him on D3-COY's defeat at the hands of Sonic, Tails, and Amy, though the AI/Sage sees through it saying there was a delay between D3-COY's death and the video call.
• Breakout Character: SA-55 was originally just a robot with no real plot importance in Sonic Unleashed, mostly there for explaining the plot and making fun of Eggman, which netted him popularity with the fanbase. He then went on to show up as Orbot in Sonic Colors afterward, and has since become a recurring character.
• Bumbling Henchmen Duo: Eggman's comedic pair of minions.
• Characterization Marches On: SA-55 was very disrespectful to his master in Sonic Unleashed, snarking on his inability to do things right, as well as being physically different from having a different color. In Sonic Colors, Orbot's much more like a butler with much more subtle sarcasm, possibly due to having a new voice chip, or just being a new Orbot altogether. In Sonic Lost World, however, he regains shades of his original snarky self, asking Sonic if he can leave Eggman to be his new sidekick, within earshot of Eggman.
• Childish Older Sibling: Older Siblings, if Sage's comments are anything to go by.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Cubot. Though his faulty voice chip doesn't help.
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: Orbot.
• Co-Dragons: In recent games, the two have been Eggman's main, though ineffectual, backup. They're demoted to Bumbling Sidekick status when Metal Sonic shows up, though.
• Comic Trio: They form with Eggman, with Eggman as the Schemer, Cubot as The Fool, and Orbot as the Only Sane Man.
• Cuckoosnarker: Despite his general stupidity, Cubot's occasional sarcastic remarks about Eggman's plans and the flaws within them tend to be spot-on, much to the latter's annoyance.
• Deadpan Snarker: Orbot, to the point of his serial name is literally called SA-55, as in Sass.
• The Ditz: Cubot is a downplayed example, being just competent enough to do his job.
• Dumbass Has a Point: During Sonic Colors, Cubot questions Eggman's usual This Cannot Be! rant by pointing out Sonic has ruined his plans all the time. When Eggman snaps that Sonic hasn't stopped all of them, Cubot challenges him to name one. Eggman can't come up with an answer.
• Expy: The concept of robot buddies to work off a somewhat comically inept Eggman likely comes from at least two adaptations. Orbot and Cubot have since taken this role across all mediums.
• Foil: To each other; Orbot obeys Eggman faithfully, but doesn't really like him very much, while Cubot does like Eggman, but is lazy and tries to get out of doing any work.
• Harmless Villains: Aside from piloting a few of Eggman's machines, the duo do nothing but slapstick. Justified by the fact that they aren't built for combat.
• Hidden Depths: If Orbot's offer to be Sonic's new sidekick alongside his obsession with Metal Sonic is any indication, there's implication that he might have some genuine admiration toward the Blue Blur.
• I Can't Feel My Legs!: Cubot says this in Sonic Lost World when Orbot puts his decapitated head on a snowman's body... Except he never had legs to begin with.
• Iconic Sequel Character: Exaggerated. Orbot and Cubot didn't appear until 17 and 19 years^note Going off of the list of main series games on our Franchise page, Orbot appeared in the 9th game and Cubot in the 11th, not counting the numerous other games and adaptations before then into the series respectively, yet they have cemented themselves as Dr. Eggman's lackeys, far more than the lackeys he was given in cartoons and other adaptations.
• Losing Your Head: Cubot is decapitated when the Deadly Six turn on Eggman. Being a robot, he survives.
• Mecha-Mooks: Eggman's new pair of elites.
• Mook Lieutenants: They act as this in Sonic Runners, giving orders to Eggman's other robots.
• Motor Mouth: Cubot, especially when he gets his old voice back. In Lost World, however, he talks normally.
• Machine Monotone: SA-55 spoke this way in Unleashed, but from Colors onward, Orbot's voice sounds much less robotic, and he expresses a wider variety of emotions.
• Non-Action Guy: They're built to personally assist Eggman and perform simple tasks, not for combat.
• Odd Friendship: Both with each other and with Eggman, and the latter makes Orbot think of joining the heroes.
• Only Sane Man: Orbot acts as this to Eggman and Cubot.
• Plot Armor: In Sonic Lost World, the two seemed to be immune to the Deadly Six's ability to manipulate electromagnetic fields. Though it's possible that the Six either can't control sentient robots or just didn't bother to control them due to their ineffectiveness in combat (and everything else).
• Plucky Comic Relief: They're this in every post-credits scene from Unleashed onwards.
• Portmanteau: "Orbot" is one of "orb" and "robot", while "Cubot" is "cube" and "robot".
• Punch-Clock Villain: Despite being loyal to Eggman, they don't really have anything personal against Sonic and have actually been quite friendly towards him.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Despite their colors, Cubot is the ditzy and loony red while Orbot is the focused and scarcastic blue.
• Remember the New Guy?: Both of the robots started appearing without any fanfare, as if they've been around to witness Dr. Eggman's failures for a while.
• Riddle for the Ages: Are SA-55 and Orbot the same robot? While they are very similar, they have a few notable design differences (mainly Palette Swap), and the former's tone was noticeably harsher towards Eggman. Sonic Channel and Sonic the Hedgehog Encyclo-speed-ia suggest that SA-55 might be a precursor to Orbot instead of a rename, though no definitive statement is provided. It should be noted that Archie Comics in Ian Flynn's tenure used SA-55 as Orbot's serial number, though given the medium, this may be Broad Strokes.
• Ridiculously Human Robots: Unlike Eggman's other sapient robots, who still speak or behave in robotic fashions, Orbot and Cubot speak and behave like humans.
• Robot Buddy: They're pretty much the closest thing Eggman has to friends.
• Robot Maid: Eggman created Orbot to wait on him hand and foot.
• Sarcastic Devotee: Orbot.
• Servile Snarker: Orbot in spades. Cubot to a lesser extent.
• Shoo Out the Clowns:
  • In Sonic Forces, they appear a grand total of four times and each time they appear, they hardly snark at each other. Orbot himself refrains from insulting Eggman throughout the whole game. Furthermore, they do not appear at all during the climatic battle against the Resistance. This was likely done because having their usual lighthearted bumbling comedy would clash with the Darker and Edgier tone the game was aiming for.
  • For similar reasons, they don't appear in Frontiers as well, though they are mentioned in passing. Eggman compares them unfavorably to Sage, and when Sage asks if they could be considered her siblings, he brushes off the idea. They do appear in the prequel comic Sonic Frontiers Prologue: Convergence, showing that Eggman simply left them at his base during the events of the game.
• Sleep-Mode Size: When not in use, they compress themselves into a sphere and a cube, respectively.
• Snarky Non-Human Sidekick: Orbot.
• Something We Forgot: A recurring side-plot in Colors is Orbot and Cubot trying to find the latter's original voice chip, because every substitute chip used changes his voice and personality to be gradually worse. Near the end of the game, Cubot finally restores his old voice.
  Eggman: "Now I remember why we changed his voice chip."
• Terrible Trio: Forms one with Eggman.
• Unexplained Recovery: As seen in Sonic Generations, Eggman left them in space. Despite this, they reappear in Sonic Lost World. Given that they are robots, it's likely that they survived and Eggman simply retrieved or rebuilt them.
• The Unfavorite: Eggman doesn't think highly of Orbot and Cubot compared to Metal Sonic, whom he considers his most prized creation, and Sage, whom he gradually grows to think of as his daughter. He notes in Frontiers that Sage is superior to them due to her being a true AI rather than a simple robot, and when Sage refers to them as her older siblings, he seems dismissive about it.
• Visual Pun: Cubot is a blockhead.
• Vocal Evolution: Cubot's voice at the end of Colors had a somewhat high pitch and fast pace. In Lost World onward, while his voice remains the same, it's deeper, and he talks normally. This may be justified by Cubot simply being excited to have his original voice back.
• Voice for the Voiceless: In the London Party mode of Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games, they act as the voice for Metal Sonic.
• Yes-Man: Despite Orbot's snarky attitude, he's always willing to follow Eggman's orders.

Sage (Unmarked Frontiers Spoilers)

You cannot run forever. Leave. Immediately.

Debut: Sonic Frontiers

Voiced By: Ryan Bartley (English), Megumi Hayashibara (Japanese)^{additional VAs}Valentina Pallavicino (Italian)

An A.I. created by Eggman, taking the appearance of a young girl and appearing across the Starfall Islands. Despite Sonic's mission to save his friends, Sage warns him to leave the islands. But there is more to her than either she or Eggman realize at first...

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• Affably Evil: While sometimes coming across as blunt, being an artificial intelligence and all, she still treats Sonic with genuine respect as an enemy.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: A benevolent example, at that. After Eggman gives Sage access to the Cyber Space network of the Starfall Islands, it takes all of ten seconds for her to go rogue after witnessing the Ancients being annihilated by THE END. However, rather than wanting to harm anyone or hasten its progression, she becomes terrified of what will happen to her creator and hastily drags him into Cyber Space despite not having an easy way out for him, because that's the only way she can fathom him surviving THE END.
• Ambiguous Innocence: Downplayed, in that she's not at all cruel, but her lack of emotional experience and overly logical thought process means she blindly assumes that Sonic is trying to free THE END deliberately (in truth, he doesn't even know about it). This is eventually subverted due to Sonic treating her as a Friendly Enemy, eventually getting her to cotton on to more complex moral issues.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different: During the final fight against THE END, you get to play as her inside the SUPREME Titan for the most part while Super Sonic is backing her up.
• Anti-Hero: While remaining on Eggman's side, Sage becomes this after Sonic is saved from cyber corruption by Tails, Knuckles, and Amy, and helps him in saving the world.
• Anti-Villain: Despite being an AI created by Eggman, she is this, being more of a Noble Demon. Her ultimate goal is to free her father from Cyber Space and protect everyone from THE END. Unfortunately, this puts her at odds with Sonic, whom she staunchly opposes because he's her father's enemy who's being manipulated by THE END into releasing it. What's more, as a being of pure logic and simulations, she used to believe that there was no point in cooperating with Sonic's plans because of their sheer unlikelihood to succeed; however, she eventually comes to trust him after he and his friends continually defy the odds and help her understand their emotional sides better. That said, even after her adventure on the Starfall Islands, she is still devoted as ever to fulfilling her dad's schemes for world conquest and defeating Sonic. The Final Horizon update's Another Story scenario has her spell out that her and Eggman teaming up with Sonic to defeat THE END is so that her father can conquer the world for himself afterwards. She even created "Let's Go Dad" t-shirts to celebrate her father's (supposed) victory in The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog.
• Artificial Family Member: She was created by Dr. Eggman, and (even if he doesn't say it out loud until the end of Frontiers) he considers her as his daughter.
• Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: Her hair resembles a cracked egg, hinting at her relation to Eggman.
• The Atoner: To make up for trying to attack and intimidate Sonic so many times earlier, Sage selflessly helps him in stopping THE END from destroying the world.
• Badass Adorable: Eggman directly calls her "an adorable program" in one of his Egg Logs, and the fact that she takes the form of a human girl in the first place means she's prone to other cute moments throughout the story. That being said, she manages to help Sonic destroy a cosmic planet-devouring monster with the aid of the SUPREME Titan, even if it does (temporarily) cost her her life.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Thanks to Sonic's selflessness and kindness, he's able to get Sage to redeem herself. He even refused to allow Knuckles to attack her, even after she tried to attack him first; this alone proves to be the first big step in her redemption.
• Black-and-White Insanity: Being an AI, Sage only views everything in logical terms, and does not understand emotions like love. This makes it difficult for her to understand why Sonic would try to save his friends when doing so would have led to indescribable danger. She immediately views this as an indication that Sonic has bad intentions up his sleeve. The fact that her creator despises him also doesn't help matters.
• Call-Back: Her default color scheme combined with her digital essence brings Infinite and the digital constructs created by the Phantom Ruby to mind. Her alternate color scheme, when she shows more positive emotions, is primarily blue — a light shade of blue associated with Maria Robotnik, Eggman's long-lost relative.
• Casting Gag: Sage is a Rei Ayanami Expy voiced by Megumi Hayashibara in Japanese and Ryan Bartley in English. Fittingly, both voice actors played Rei Ayanami herself^note Ryan Bartley voiced Ayanami in Netflix's VSI Group dub of Neon Genesis Evangelion.
• Colour-Coded Emotions: When feeling positive emotions, such as admiration or processing positive reinforcement, her black-and-red colors occasionally flicker over to a white-and-blue pattern.
• Continuity Cameo: With Metal Sonic at the end of The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog, with her appearance also being a Late-Arrival Spoiler for her debut game.
• Creepy Child: After being infused with Cyber Space's data, Sage takes on the appearance of a little girl. Despite this, her glitchy appearance alone undeniably invokes this trope.
• Creepy Monotone: The way how she speaks carries no glimmer of emotion nor inflection… for the most part.
• Daddy's Little Villain: She's created by Eggman, and becomes a surrogate daughter to him.
• Deflector Shields: Is able to create one when Sonic tries to throw a punch at her, as seen in the Story Trailer.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Originally, Sage was a completely emotionless girl who carried out her orders without complaint, but as the game goes on, she gradually becomes more emotive if still reserved for the most part.
• Deuteragonist: Even when she acted as an antagonist for a good chunk of Frontiers, Sage acted as this for the game. Her actions prove to be just as impactful as Sonic's and it's their clashing that gets them, as well as the entire world, in trouble. Eventually, on Ouranos Island, Sage becomes fully cooperative with Sonic, and assists him in stopping THE END.
• Disney Death: After seemingly destroying herself to stop THE END once and for all, the player beating the final boss on Hard adds The Stinger where Eggman is revealed to have recovered her data and restored her alive and well in a computer. In the Golden Ending, she’s spared her death.
• Dragon-in-Chief: She's the main threat throughout most of the game, keeping her father safe while she does most of the work. Subverted later on in the climax, as the real Big Bad was THE END all along.
• Dub Personality Change: In the original English script, Sage simply warns Sonic to leave the islands and resorts to brute force when he doesn't listen, viewing his death as ideal, but optional. The Japanese script changes it so that Sage is explicitly out for Sonic's blood from the get-go. Her stated reasons are also different: in English, she claims it's for the good of the world, which is really just a front for her directive of protecting Eggman, because a threat to the world is a threat to him; in Japanese, she bluntly says that Eggman's safety is her foremost priority.
• Establishing Character Moment: During the game's Prologue: Convergence digital comic, she, in her initial AI form before being downloaded into the Egg Device, informs Eggman that all Eggman Empire assets have been deployed across the Starfall Islands and accurately points that there was a significant delay between D3-COY's defeat at the hands of Sonic and his friends and the video call Orbot was making, thus seeing through his lie in a heartbeat. Later during the comic, she warns Eggman that her integration is not ready yet and an accelerated timetable would not be wise, but when the mad doctor tells the AI that he built her to protect him from anything and orders her to download herself for deployment since Sonic will be making his way to stop him from making the Ancients' secrets his, she obeys his command. All of those instances show her loyalty to her creator and able to calculate various scenarios with great efficiently.
• Evil Counterpart: To Tails, as a Hypercompetent Sidekick who adds something vital that the character they support lacks. Where Tails provides a source of brains to the headstrong and book-dumb Sonic, Sage provides the pragmatism and sense of risk assessment that Eggman usually neglects whenever he tries to exploit other evil entities.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: Subverted. She promptly threw Eggman into Cyber Space after seeing the Ancients killed by THE END, but it was born out of a panicked attempt to protect him rather than anything resembling malevolence; her goal is to figure out how to somehow undo that without freeing THE END.
• Females Are More Innocent: She is the most sympathetic member of the Eggman Empire by far short of Gamma before his Heel–Face Turn and is their Token Good Teammate. She's also the only creation of Eggman that he actually cares about on an emotional level as opposed to merely stroking his ego.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Sage initially sees Sonic as an enemy, given that she had been programmed by Dr. Eggman to be that way, but when THE END makes their move to wreak havoc upon the world, Sage buries the hatchet with Sonic and helps him save it after having a change of heart.
• Foil: She is this for Sonic and all three of his friends.
  • She's this for Amy in that deep down, she is pacifistic and merely wants to protect and show love towards those that matter most to her.
  • She's this for Knuckles in that she acts as a guardian for the Starfall Islands, and once acted like an obstacle to Sonic, much like how Knuckles once was in his debut game.
  • She's this for Tails in that she is just as intelligent as he is, and also because of how Sonic was willing to help her when everyone else perceived her as a malicious threat, much like how Sonic had helped Tails when everyone else picked on him for his extra tail. Not to mention how Sage actually starts looking up to Sonic when he proves just how persistent he is in saving those he cares about.
  • Most importantly, she is this for Sonic, in that the both of them are very determined and persistent in achieving their overall goals, which ultimately involves protecting and helping the people that matter most to them. What ultimately sets Sonic and Sage apart are their outlooks on life itself. While Sonic is free-spirited but reckless, Sage is calculating but cautious.
• Friendly Enemy: She's aligned with the Eggman Empire and her loyalty to Eggman is absolute, but as opposed to other members of the faction who exist to enforce his will, Sage is a great deal more sympathetic in that she works less to fulfill Eggman's ambitions and more to keep her father safe from harm. This makes it easier for her than Orbot, Cubot, or Metal Sonic to actually form a genuine appreciation and respect for Sonic, and by spying on the blue blur, she takes in some of Sonic's positive quirks — namely, his trust in others.
• Get Out!: She wants Sonic to leave the Starfall Islands once she finds him there. It's because if he keeps getting the Chaos Emeralds, he'll free THE END.
• Generation Xerox: The relationship between her and Dr. Eggman is very similar to that of Gerald and Maria Robotnik. Gerald loved Maria as though she were his own daughter, and Dr. Eggman does much the same with Sage. Eggman even ponders if Maria's personality was anything like Sage's.
• Good All Along: Well, not exactly good (she is Eggman's technological daughter, after all) but she is trying to get Sonic to leave Starfall Islands for a noble reason: to prevent THE END from completely annihilating the world, if only so it will protect Eggman. But after Sonic is saved by his friends, she helps Sonic in stopping THE END in the final act and has a change of heart.
• Good Costume Switch: To an extent which overlaps with Blue Is Heroic and Good Wears White; After witnessing Sonic and Tails having a beautiful friendship moment together, Sage's red and black colors (namely her coding, eyes, and dress) shift to blue and white colors when doing something positive or being helped by others. And in the end, just before Sage commits her Heroic Sacrifice, her colors finally settle on blue and white during her last moments. In the "Final Horizon" revision of the ending, this color change is more permanent, given that she survives unlike in the base game.
• Good Counterpart: Compared to Infinite, Sage is very much this in some very noteworthy ways:
  • Whereas Infinite is a hot-tempered and cold-blooded sadist who plans on betraying Dr. Eggman, Sage is a calm and reserved AI Program who is loyal to Dr. Eggman and wants him to be safe.
  • Unlike with Infinite, who wants to destroy the world for purely sadistic reasons at the end of Sonic Forces, Sage selflessly works with Sonic on her own volition (after asking Dr. Eggman for the A-Okay beforehand) to save it from THE END who wants to destroy it.
  • While both Infinite and Sage have been antagonizing Sonic and his friends, Infinite extends his sadism to even the innocent and helpless civilians in Sonic Forces whereas Sage merely attacks Sonic several times while not laying a finger on the innocent Kocos in the actual game itself.
• Grew Beyond Their Programming: She was originally an A.I. assistant to Eggman, but her work in protecting her creator from the threats of Cyber Space led her to see and yearn for him as a father, while her faithfulness, ingenuity, and loyalty lead Eggman to see her as a daughter.
• Heroic Sacrifice
  • In the base game, not wanting THE END to destroy the world, Sonic, or Eggman, Sage sacrifices herself to save all of them from destruction. However, through Eggman's hard work afterwards, it doesn't stick.
    Sage: Please... Look after... Father...
  • In the "Final Horizon" update, she once again attempts this under different circumstances - protecting her father from THE END's attack while possessing Supreme. Unlike the base game however, Amy, Tails, and Knuckles are there to assist her in keeping up her cyber barrier, and Sage ends up surviving as a result.
• Hiding Behind Your Bangs: One of her eyes is covered by the swirled bangs of her white hair, invoking an uncertain air of looking extremely ominous and enhancing her elusively secretive role in her debut game.
• Humongous Mecha: Her first appearance in Frontiers' story trailer shows her with the GIGANTO Titan ready to attack Sonic, the first of four the player will encounter in the game.
• Hyper-Competent Sidekick: Compared to Orbot and Cubot, Sage actively aids Dr. Eggman in his battles, even pointing out to Eggman that Orbot was lying about the technical difficulties during the update on D3-COY's defeat.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: Deep down, she wants a family of love and not genetics, as shown in the cutscene where she witnesses Sonic and Tails bonding, wishing that she could have that same relationship with Eggman.
• It's All My Fault: When THE END gets released, Sage expresses a noticeable amount of guilt, sighing with her head down, for not just telling Sonic about why she was keeping him from saving his friends and destroying the Titans. This is after he tells her that she wasn't at fault for anything that occured, and that he himself should have earned her trust first.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Sage wants to protect a race that was in danger from a literal Eldritch Abomination and sees Eggman's other creations as her siblings. Unfortunately, as a result of her Black-and-White Insanity, she can't comprehend why exactly Sonic would want to save his friends outside of possibly wanting to try and free THE END, and therefore takes extreme measures in trying to stop him. When she does finally understand love, she is genuinely concerned for Sonic when it seems his own heroic acts led to his own undoing. She even tries to suggest to Eggman on many occasions that his rivalry with Sonic is destructive, as well as how much they could accomplish by becoming allies.
• Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter: Artificial, but is essentially this to Dr. Eggman.
• Magnum Opus: In the Convergence comic, Eggman expresses frustration at how his previous intelligent robots have failed him, and hopes that his next creation will be the one to truly make him proud. As that creation, Sage exceeds the doctor’s expectations to the point where he treats her as his own daughter instead of just another invention to fuel his schemes.
• Mature Younger Sibling: With Orbot and Cubot, should they ever meet.
• Meaningful Name:
  • A sage in real-life is someone who is distinguished for their wisdom or prudence, two things that Sage proves to have with regards to the Starfall Islands.
  • Sage is also the name of an edible herb that not only boasts many nutritional benefits, but also serves as a popular topping for fried eggs, much like how Sage herself provides emotional and logistical support for her father.
• Minion with an F in Evil: She's a creation of Eggman's who surprisingly has some pretty noble causes in mind, even if her means of accomplishing them conflicts with her need to serve her creator. She ultimately concludes that Eggman and Sonic must assist each other in order to defeat THE END when it gets freed. She also shows genuine guilt for threatening Sonic in a few instances after he shows compassion towards her, despite all the crap she put him and his friends through prior.
• Morality Pet: While it's not apparent at first, she eventually becomes this to Dr. Eggman, with his Egg Memo reveals that he is slowly growing fond of her. When THE END has been released, she pleads with Eggman to work with Sonic in defeating it and he (reluctantly) agrees to do so.
  • Though according to Ian Flynn, Sage's existence may actually make Eggman even more evil, such as reshaping an entire continent because Sage finds its shape illogical.
• Mystical White Hair: Sage has silver hair with a swirl pattern, and is enigmatic.
• My God, What Have I Done?: After Sonic is willing to help Sage with her problems after Knuckles takes the bullet for him, Sage is horrified and feels that she doesn't deserve it for losing control of her temper and trying to attack Sonic earlier.
  Sonic: (to Knuckles) Whoa-whoa-WHOA! Time-out!
  Knuckles: "Time-out"? She attacked you!
  Sonic: Yeah, it's kind of her thing. But she's trying to protect something — or someone. (to Sage) I'm willing to help, but first I need to know what's going on.
  Sage: (looks shocked, but then shakes her head) No! You don't know what you're talking about! (disappears)
• My Master, Right or Wrong: Being that she is an AI program created by Dr. Eggman, she is programmed to be loyal and obedient towards him, no matter what the directives are, and to protect and obey only him.
  Sage: But... keeping you safe is my priority...
  Sage: It is my function. I live to serve.
• Mythical Motifs: Word of God states that Sage was primarily based off of the Eastern folktale of the Moon rabbit, which adds onto why THE END appears as a moon in the battle with it. In the folktale, when the rabbit makes a sacrifice, it becomes a part of the moon, much like how Sage sacrificed herself to prevent THE END from completely destroying everything around it.invoked
• Never Trust a Trailer: The trailers for the game make her seem a major antagonistic force for Sonic to overcome, not unlike Infinite from the previous game. Not only is she nowhere near as antagonistic as initially presented, she's actively trying to prevent something far worse from being unleashed.
• Noble Demon: She may be working for Dr. Eggman, and she kidnaps Sonic's friends, but she ultimately wanted to keep the Starfall Islands and the world safe from THE END, who had been manipulating Sonic this whole time, and is also non-hostile towards the Koco. In addition, the reason for the kidnapping wasn't out of malice, but rather so that her simulations to protect the island and free Eggman would run more smoothly by excluding external variables, as they were not supposed to be on the islands. This is what ultimately causes Sage to form an alliance when THE END makes their move to destroy the world after manipulating Sonic.
• Non-Standard Character Design: If you show an official art of her to someone, they wouldn't believe she's supposed to be a Sonic character. Unlike most other characters in the series, who consist of anthropomorphic animals and humans, (which have varied from anime-esque to caricatured) Sage is a human girl with an anime-esque appearance that seems somewhat off and incomparable to the rest of the series at large.
• Not So Above It All:
  • Apparently she tells Eggman a pretty genuinely funny joke off-screen that he recounts in his Egg Memos ("How fast can Sonic screw up? Instantly — he's the fastest thing alive!"), and one scene starts with her talking about using one of the robots to smack Sonic around just to get Eggman to have fun while trapped in Cyber Space.
  • According to DEEGEEMIN, the character artist of The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog, Sage was the one who made the "Let's Go Dad" t-shirts that she and Metal Sonic wear at the end of the game in order to support their father.invoked
  • In TailsTube Episode 6, if Eggman is to be believed, she asked for some time where she and her father could do some "family bonding activities," which Tails provides by giving the doctor a book about things that the two can build.
  • In a piece of art posted to the official Sonic Twitter, Sage is inspired by the Koco playing in the snow and builds a family of snowmen.
• Not So Stoic: Normally, she keeps a straight face much of the time, but there are times when even she expresses emotions, mainly due to Sonic's actions and from experiencing what he and his friends have been doing. This all comes to a head when she is clearly crying in despair◊ when she sees Sonic and Tails being friends with each other and from longing for a loving relationship. Later on, Sage is clearly distressed when she sees the cyber corruption taking its toll on Sonic after clearing some of the towers on the Starfall Islands, and when she performs a Heroic Sacrifice to save Sonic from certain death by THE END.
• Ominous Visual Glitch: Her body is absolutely littered with a black and red code texture that almost resembles Sonic's own gradual cyber-corruption throughout the game, and even pulses outwards through more of her body at frequent intervals. However, the similarity is mostly a Red Herring, as the effect is primarily due to her being an AI and thus a pure cyber being.
• Pet the Dog: Sage has a soft spot for Orbot and Cubot and thinks of them as her brothers, unlike Dr. Eggman who sees them as mere nuisances. Aside from that, Sage hasn't made any attempts to hurt the innocent Koco and wanted to help protect the Ancients from their evil foe with the use of their technology.
• Poor Communication Kills: Sonic and Sage's rivalry, and as a result THE END being released, ultimately happens due to one huge misunderstanding between the two, as well as their individual character flaws.^note Sonic in that he jumped into everything so quickly without understanding the full picture, and Sage in that she took extreme measures such as imprisoning Sonic's friends and attempting to kill him in order to prevent THE END from escaping. As Sonic notes repeatedly, if Sage would just explain herself instead of jumping straight to force and ignoring all attempts at diplomacy, they'd be able to get Sonic off of the island quicker and save Sonic's friends at the same time. That said, he doesn't hold it against her and just figures he has to earn her trust first. However, Sonic's only half-right — thanks to Sage's programming, she couldn't tell Sonic anything about this island or THE END without Eggman's explicit approval, and Eggman refuses to do anything that would help his archnemesis.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Sage admonishes Sonic for endangering the world through his actions not because she cares for the Earth, but because a threat to the Earth is a threat to Eggman, her beloved father. The "Final Horizon" update drives the point home by having Sage tell Sonic matter-of-fact that her only motive for saving the world is so Eggman can conquer it.
• Radio Voice: Sage's speech is filtered in such a way, which alongside her appearance points to her digital nature.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Initially, her primary color scheme is a sinister-looking red and black. Adding in the shades of white in her design serves as a hint that she's actually connected to Dr. Eggman.
• Rei Ayanami Expy: While she may not have blue hair, she has most of the other characteristics down to a tee, even having the same voice actresses in Japanese and English^note at least from the Netflix dub. Some of her design elements also line up with the "based on a deceased loved one" aspect of Rei, as it's implied that Sage may have been inspired on some level by Maria Robotnik.
• Ridiculously Human Robot: You'd never know it at a glance, but for all intents and purposes, Sage is essentially a Badnik that looks like a human. If it weren't for the strange lighting effects, she could probably fully pass off as one. How much of her current form is Eggman's design and how much of it was caused by exposure to Cyber Space is unclear.
• Single Tear: Sheds one upon seeing Sonic and Tails bond after the Blue Blur says he's glad to call him his friend.
• Shout-Out: Everything about her, screams of Neon Genesis Evangelion; her personality and appearance being a Rei Ayanami Expy (even having the same Japanese and English voice actresses), the Humongous Mecha resembling the EVA Units and Angels, and the implication of having a personal connection to Sonic the Hedgehog since he never once showed any form of his usual laidback attitude. This even extends to having a sad Image Song sung by her Japanese voice actress played during a pivotal emotional moment for her, reminiscent of Rebuild.
• The Smurfette Principle: The only female currently affiliated with the Eggman Empire.^note Heavy Magician and Heavy Rider are confirmed female too, but don't look the part.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Sage exhibits this personality in the latter half of the game, where she has a change of heart and selflessly helps Sonic in saving the world during their visit in Rhea Island while keeping an emotionless and reserved exterior.
• Sympathy for the Hero: Sage wants nothing more than to be rid of Sonic at first, seeing him as nothing but a stubborn, reckless thorn in her side. But as time goes on and she sees how noble, determined, and caring he is to both his friends and to her, she not only begins to understand him better as a hero, but eventually finds the thought of his death unbearable.
• Token Good Teammate: Her hands don't have the metaphorical blood that the rest of her faction has; her alignment with the Eggman Empire is out of a love and respect for her father, and outside of entertaining Eggman with tales of Sonic getting beaten up and taking a crack at joking at the hedgehog's expense, she doesn't take any action out of malice. Her duties are also to protect and advise Eggman, rather than wreak havoc like the other machines he built.
• Token Human: She is the first humanoid character aside from Eggman to appear in a Sonic game since Sonic Unleashed (Sonic and the Black Knight if one counts spin-offs).
• Took a Level in Kindness: Thanks to Sonic's companionship with his friends and from being given Heart Tokens by said hedgehog, Sage becomes significantly nicer and more heroic to at least some extent to the point where she no longer considers Sonic an enemy, while at the same time still being loyal to her creator.
• Touched by Vorlons: Sage was originally just another AI that Eggman created bound to a disc, but that changed when she was plugged into the Ancients' technology. Already the most advanced AI Eggman created, exposure to Cyber Space altered Sage into something even greater, capable of running millions of calculations like a machine while at the same time experiencing a full range of emotions like an organic being.
• True Blue Femininity: Her design changes colors to a light blue when she experiences positive emotions.
• Undying Loyalty: To Dr. Eggman, whom she grows to see as her father.
• The Unfought: Although she antagonizes Sonic at first, the hedgehog never engages in direct combat with her.
• Villainous Crush: In a conversation with Amy, Sage refers to Amy as "The one who admires Sonic." When Amy asks if she's a "fellow admirer" too, Sage tells Amy she should focus on the Emeralds and not Sonic, even though Sage is the one who brought up Sonic first. She also flashes blue and white when Amy asks, which is what happens when Sage harbors strong emotions.
• Walking Spoiler: While her (at first) villainous role is shown through trailers, what isn't shown and becomes a First-Episode Twist is how instead of an Ancient-created entity acting as their representative, she was instead made by Eggman through him messing with Ancient technology. Everything else about her, from her motives to her plot role, are built off that initial twist.
• "Well Done, Daughter!" Girl: At the end of the day, after gaining emotions, Sage wants Dr. Eggman to love her as a daughter and not just as an AI program. According to Eggman's voice logs, he was already well on his way to seeing her as one; he just had difficulty expressing it to her.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: She imprisons Sonic's friends out of fear of them interfering with her simulations, and constantly tries to stop Sonic despite him trying to save his friends. Having learned the secret of the islands, she is trying to prevent anyone from unleashing THE END, but a mix of her duty to Eggman and her programming as an AI prevents her from simply telling Sonic why she is antagonizing him.
• What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?: At first, Sage is confused about love and can't comprehend why Sonic and his friends would do anything for the Koco and each other, but as time goes on, she becomes more and more emotionally aware and wonders if she can be loved too after witnessing the companionship between Sonic and Tails.
  Sage: "Love." An emotional status too vague and varied in its definition.
  Sage: He helps those he is at odds with. He is quick to make peace.
  Sage: (to Tails) Your loyalty is founded on empirical data. I can appreciate that. The feelings he inspires in you and the others... is that a facet of being alive?
  Sage: Such a beautiful friendship. A family born of love and not genetics. Everything I want... I wish I'd never seen this. It was so much easier accepting the future when they were simply enemies.
  Sage: I believe I have come to understand you. Both of us will do anything to protect those who are precious to us.
• When She Smiles: Despite her seemingly stoic nature, there are a few instances where she can briefly be seen smiling. One instance is where she states looking forward to◊ meeting Eggman's other creations, as she declared them as her siblings. In another instance◊, when Sonic flies out to confront the SUPREME Titan after becoming Super Sonic for the 4th time, Sage flashes a really sweet and non-sinister smile at him before realizing what she is doing and covering her mouth. It's quite adorable, too!

One-Shot

E-102 Gamma and Chaos Gamma

"Doctor Robotnik... Enemy. Master Registration... Deleted. E-Series... Friends. Must save..."

Debut: Sonic Adventure

Voiced by: Joji Nakata (Japanese, 1998), Steve Broadie (English, 1998), Taiten Kusunoki (Japanese, 2004), Jon St. John (English, 2004)

An intelligent creation of Dr. Robotnik's who is convinced by Amy to rebel against his creator thanks to the memories of the bird trapped inside, and who goes on to liberate those trapped in the other E-Series robots.

Other appearances:

• Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics)
• Sonic X

---

• Affably Evil: Despite working for the evil Dr. Eggman, Gamma's kindhearted nature means he doesn't do anything malicious of his own accord; anything evil is only done on Eggman's orders and he's a Nice Guy otherwise.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Inverted; he was intended to be a Killer Robot, but ended up turning good.
• Ambiguous Situation: Is Gamma's personality just a AI or is he the Flicky inside filtered thourgh the Badnik AI? Plenty of evidence for each interpretation is provided but the game does not outright say which is correct.
  • For Gamma being just a AI, you have the scenes where he reacts to his brothers' fates, his theme song and his half hearted revial attempts in Sonic Shuffle and Sonic Battle.
  • For Gamma being the Flicky you have the bird's memories being responsible in conjunction with Amy's words for his Heel–Face Turn, Gamma considering freeing the animal inside as saving his brothers instead of killing them, his ending screen which shows the Flicky's family instead of a shot of Gamma, the Flicky showing up with Amy in the Final Story and it being Amy's constant companion in Sonic Prime. (Which is said to be canon to the games.)
• Anti-Villain: Started out as a Noble Demon before his Heel–Face Turn.
• Arm Cannon: He has this along with his brethren.
• Back from the Dead: He appears as a playable character in Sonic Shuffle, having been brought back through the power of Maginaryworld's dreams. It didn't stick, however.
• Baritone of Strength: A large, high-tech, battle-ready assault machine with a deep, monotone voice to match.
• Bittersweet Ending: Unusually for a Sonic game, Gamma's story ends like this. He succeeds in his mission to "free" the E-series, but takes critical damage courtesy of his battle with brother Beta and is soon to destruct. Before Gamma's demise, he gets a vision of the Flicky inside him with its family. As the robot explodes for his sacrificial mission, the pink flicky inside Gamma is free to reunite with its mate, the final shot of Gamma's ending being a still of the entire Flicky family flying together happily. The final story continues adds more sweetness by revealing Gamma's pink Flicky accompanied Amy to help Sonic, thus fulfilling the promise that they'd meet again in some way.
• Captain Obvious: After being told to head to a (for him) unassuming destination, he stumbles upon his older brother being modified in a manner that is implied to be painful. His response upon slowly walking out and shutting the door behind him?
  "This is the wrong room."
• Color Motifs: Gamma's medley of red, yellow, black, and white is shared by Dr. Eggman himself.
• Death Equals Redemption: Though, he never did anything truly evil while working for Eggman aside from assisting Chaos as ordered, he still decided to make everything right by destroying/freeing his brothers, before his final death. Of course, this overlaps with Heroic Sacrifice.
• Death Seeker: If you listen closely to his theme song, the distorted voice in the background repeats: "It's my pleasure. Ready to die."
• Disguised Horror Story: Gamma's story in Sonic Adventure only appears after exposure to other, more light-hearted character stories—Sonic's battle with Eggman, Tails' aspiration to rise to Sonic's level, Knuckles contemplating the mystery of his existence and restoring the Master Emerald, etc. Gamma's story starts out neutral enough, but a mood of encroaching doom becomes increasingly obvious as Gamma suffers Surprisingly Creepy Moments of increasing intensity when he sees the fate of his brothers and takes on the morbid duty of killing them all. At least two of his brothers are transformed into Mechanical Abominations.
• Dissonant Serenity: Gamma's Robo Speak and lack of emotion leads him to react to his Trauma Conga Line without fear or aversion—most of his thought process is implied by silent pauses.
• Doomed Protagonist: He sets upon freeing his brethren's animal forms. As he re-assesses his progress, he adds himself to his mission log, making it abundantly clear he intends to kill his own robot form following its completion. However, E-101 Mk.2 does the job for him.
• Duel to the Death: He had one with Sonic, until Amy intervened. The winner of the battle is unclear as the one who needs saving by Amy changes depending on whose story is being played, however. Later he has one with an upgraded E-101 Beta. Neither of them survive.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: When ordered by Eggman to retrieve the bird accompanying Amy, he calmly asks that she give it to him, but she refuses. He can't understand why she would care about said bird, because what use is it to her? Fortunately, this is the beginning of his Heel–Face Turn, as he frees them shortly afterward.
• Expository Pronoun: In Japanese, he initially refers to himself as "watashi" (a formal neutral pronoun), but switches to "boku" (an informal masculine pronoun) near the end of the story. This serves to indicate that he's become more independent through his Heel–Face Turn.
• Eyes Always Shut: His Sonic Shuffle model depicts him as such◊.
• Foil:
  • To Omega, the last robot in the E-Series. Gamma is comparatively Lean and Mean and attacks with precise and accurate shots. Omega is notably bulkier and shorter and just attacks everything at once regardless if it hits or not.
  • On a character level (which would not apply to Chaos Gamma, the version who existed after Omega), both defect from Eggman and decide to eliminate his other robots, but Gamma's mission is to free the trapped animals inside his brothers, while Omega wants Revenge on the doctor for abandoning him and to prove his status as the best against his "inferior" creations in full Killer Robot fashion.
• Grew Beyond Their Programming: After Amy convinces him to stop following his boss's orders, Gamma realizes what he's been doing is wrong, wipes his own master registration, and resolves to save the creatures he and his fellow robots have been ordered to capture.
• Heel–Face Turn: For the first part of his story, he's just another E-Series robot after the Chaos Emeralds and Froggy. Once he goes to collect the bird that Amy is protecting, he starts to recognize that what Robotnik is doing is wrong and sets out to do the right thing by saving the birds powering his brethren and himself.
• Heroic Sacrifice: He makes saving the animals from Badniks, mainly the E-Series, his mission. He's also a E-Series robot powered by an animal, so he self-destructs at the end of Sonic Adventure, to free the last trapped bird.
  Gamma: Units remaining... (gazes at hand) ...Gamma.
• I Die Free: Invoked. Gamma deletes Eggman's master status from his own body and then decides that he must rescue his brothers, who are still Eggman's servants, by destroying them.
• Image Song: "Theme of 'E-102 Gamma'" doesn't contain any lyrics besides the occasional mechanical phrases of "It's my pleasure. Ready to die." and a distorted "Get Emerald", but these along with the cool yet increasingly emotional melody perfectly embody his character and growth from his own programming, and the few words spoken are quite resonant with his eventual goal.
• Killed Off for Real: At the end of his story, Gamma died and stayed dead. There were a couple of half-hearted attempts to revive Gamma in spinoffs, but these stopped once Omega was introduced, and "Chaos Gamma" is really more like a Back Up Twin anyways.
• Law of Chromatic Superiority: He's red and succeeds against his supposedly more advanced brethren.
• Machine Monotone: He's a robot, so it's a given.
  Gamma: This presents a problem...
• Minion with an F in Evil: Ultimately turns out to be one after gaining self awareness.
• Mutual Kill: With Beta.
• Nice Guy: He's one of the nicest characters in the series. He even helped Amy and lets her go during his story upon meeting her.
• Noble Demon: For most of the early half of his story, due to his limited sentience and over-logical programming, his "evil-doing" is never personal.
• Not Quite Flight: Gamma has it two ways; a giant set of rotor blades that extend from the middle of his body for hovering over water, and the Jet Booster he can find to glide through the air with.
• Power Floats: He can hover above the ground with his grav-linked Jet Booster, and also fly both long and short distances with the help of a built-in Helicopter Pack.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Gamma is never willfully evil, he's Just Following Orders from Eggman. He eventually quits his mission and decides to "free" his fellow E-series robots after Amy shows him some kindness.
• Pyrrhic Victory: He manages to beat Beta MK.II, but solely by the terms of Beta dying from their mutual kill before he does. He's already come to realize that he must die anyway in order to release the Flicky that powers him, so if anything Beta just saved him the trouble of offing himself.
• Real Men Wear Pink: Gamma's organic battery is a male pink Flicky.
• Red Is Heroic: The batch of E-100 robots he belongs to are Color-Coded Characters. Gamma is only one of the five to make a Heel–Face Turn, and is naturally assigned the color red.
• Robot Buddy: His Heel–Face Turn is pivoted by Amy becoming his friend in what little interaction they have.
• Robot Me: Downplayed, but his shape and Red/Black coloring bring to mind his creator.
• Telescoping Robot: Although his wheeled mode can be easily explained by him folding his legs back, it's never shown how Gamma's chassis is able to accommodate for the giant rotor blades he uses to fly.
• Token Good Teammate: He's the only one of the E-Series robots who is neither blindly loyal to Dr. Eggman nor a Robotic Psychopath, thanks to three things: Amy showing kindness to him, his seeing Beta get heavily modified, and his brothers being banished for failing to find Froggy.
• Tragic Hero: His storyline is very much one of a Doomed Protagonist seeking redemption. He goes off on a mission to kill his brethren to free the animals trapped within them and inevitably comes to the conclusion that he must destroy himself to complete said mission.
• Trauma Conga Line: Gamma's story in Adventure is studded with disturbing scenes as Gamma discovers what Eggman does to his less successful brethren—Gamma watches the later models being banished, he sees Beta in the middle of a radical remodel, and he later discovers Zeta has also been remodeled in a likewise monstrous fashion.
• True Companions: Gamma comes to see E-101 to E-105 as this during the Froggy mission. And then Eggman decides E-103 to E-105 are no longer useful to him.
• The Unfavorite: Eggman claims that he's not as advanced as his "older brother" Beta, and is surprised when he beats Beta and earn the right to be part of the Egg Carrier's crew. However after he successfully locates the frog with Chaos' missing tail, this trope reverses as Gamma actually seems to hold the honor of Eggman's favorite creation for a while, even being rebuilt a few times (granted these were loyal copies with none of the original's memories).
• Unwilling Roboticisation: He, along with his brethren, are powered by small animals inside their chassis acting as a battery. Gamma at points gets flashes of memory from its bird host. Gamma upon his Heel–Face Turn takes it upon him free the animals inside his brothers and ultimately himself.
• Wham Line: Spoken just before Gamma's final boss fight becomes available, when he's listing off the E-100 series units he's yet to destroy. It's here you know his story isn't going to have a happy ending.
  Gamma: E-105 Zeta rescue complete. Units Remaining: Gamma... Beta...
• White Sheep: Of Eggman's army and the E-Series in general. This is the reason why Amy defends him from Sonic in Sonic Adventure. He's also nowhere near as violent or destructive as his "younger brother" and fellow Eggman-betrayer E-123 Omega.

Chaos Gamma

In Sonic Battle, Eggman builds a new robot from Gamma's old body. This new robot, Chaos Gamma, has a grudge against Emerl for having received the Chaos Emerald that Eggman was originally going to give to him.

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• Alas, Poor Villain: In Shadow's story (the last chronologically before the Final story), Chaos Gamma has become more and more determined to destroy Emerl and prove himself worthy after being denied something what he viewed as properly his. When he's beat down, he's in such a dysfunctional state that he can no longer move or say anything more than "Destroy" over and over. Emerl pities Chaos Gamma's state, while Shadow has nothing of the sort and cites him as an example of those who are simply Eggman's weapons.
• Back from the Dead: Subverted. While Chaos Gamma is largely made of Gamma's recycled parts, Chaos Gamma's personality is so vastly different that it becomes clear they're not the same rather quickly.
• Beta Test Baddie: In contrast to the original Gamma (who fought against an example, E-101 Beta), "Chaos Gamma" was such. Upon Emerl being discovered by Eggman the doctor used a Chaos Emerald presumably intended for Gamma to power him. Chaos Gamma held a grudge against Emerl over this.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Chaos Gamma's whereabouts are unknown, as he is fine during the final story of the game. Was he decommissioned off-screen? We don't know.
• Determinator: He's fought twice in every single story route (outside of Emerl's) in Sonic Battle, that is a total of 14 times, where he has to be taken down multiple times in each case.
• Evil Counterpart:
  • To Gamma, being the ruthless, cold, loyal Badnik that does what Eggman wants of it without second thought.
  • To Emerl, being an example of what would've happened had Eggman gotten him functional as he wanted, and it is shown in multiple story routes that Emerl could've turned out exactly like Chaos Gamma has.
• Flat Character: In contrast to Gamma or even Emerl, Chaos Gamma is mainly defined by one thing: His hate of Emerl. There's also a brief flash of sadism and Heel–Face Turn, but both are very minimal.
• The Heavy: He serves as the main threat from Eggman for most of the story, challenging Emerl and friends multiple times to get a chance to best the former.
• Kick the Dog: Gleefully beats Emerl severely when the gizoid refuses to fight back in order not to make Cream cry.
• Misplaced Retribution: He hates Emerl for being given a Chaos Emerald that was otherwise going to him, but that was Eggman's decision and no one else's.
• Meaningful Name: "Chaos" Gamma, as in Gamma model that was supposed to be powered by a Chaos Emerald. Also "Chaos" as in the destruction he brings in his relentless pursuit of Emerl.
• Non-Indicative Name: No, when Chaos Gamma is entering "Recovery Mode" he is not repairing himself, he's instead seconds away from blowing himself up to damage anyone near him.
• Pet the Dog: Downplayed. After Cream tells Chaos Gamma that power was not something to take or give, but was meant to be used to protect loved ones, which he did not have, Chaos Gamma chose to leave Emerl and Cream, rather than continue his revenge.
• Taking You with Me: When Chaos Gamma is KOed, he uses a "Recovery Mode" to detonate his own body, causing severe damage to anyone — usually the one that got him in the first place — caught in the blast.
• Unexplained Recovery: After his Alas, Poor Villain moment above, Chaos Gamma shows up, fully repaired and functional without explanation, content to be a sparring partner to Emerl (who he felt immense animosity towards). His Heel–Face Turn is never explained either.
• Walking Arsenal: Compared to the original E-102, Chaos Gamma's arsenal is a lot more varied, including weapons like a shoulder-mounted Grenade Launcher (known as the Blinker), Mines, Electrified Daggers, twin Laser Beam Cannons, and a Self-Destruct Bomb as a last resort.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Last he was seen, Chaos Gamma was completely fine and allied with Emerl and company, but has yet to appear in anything else after Sonic Battle.

The E-100 Series

Debut: Sonic Adventure

A series of advanced robots created in Sonic Adventure, with the purpose of serving Doctor Eggman. Five of them (E-101 Beta through E-105 Zeta) comprise the Egg Carrier's elite crew. The doctor's first mission for them was to look for a frog with Chaos' tail, but since only E-102 Gamma found Froggy, the rest were reassigned to dispatch work by Eggman. Gamma eventually destroyed them all, including himself, as part of his mission to liberate them. Meanwhile, E-100 Alpha (a.k.a. "ZERO") was sent to capture a Flicky with a Chaos Emerald, but ended up being defeated by Amy. Multiple robots were labelled as part of the E-series after Adventure, with E-123 Omega being the last of them.

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• Breakable Weapons: With the sole exception of ZERO (who doesn't use them), the E-100 robots' lock-on missiles can be shot out of the air when they're fought as bosses.
• Chicken Walker: E-100s 1-5 are scaled-down versions of these, using backward-kneed legs so that they can jump more easily and fold them up to assume a faster alt-mode with the powered wheels they have.
• Continuity Snarl: Sonic Battle names its Evil Knockoffs of Emerl E-121 Phi, despite having a Call-Back to E-123 Omega. This would imply that the E-121 Phi robots were created after E-123 Omega.
• Dual Wielding: Clearly, Eggman must really dig the "Missile Launcher on each arm" design philosophy. Beta has a pair of arm cannons from the start, and Delta and Epsilon are remodelled to have them as well sometime before Gamma finds and defeats them in the wild.
• Elite Mooks: Like the Eggrobos, they serve as slightly more competent Badniks who take orders directly from the doctor himself, and function as mini-bosses at the end of Gamma's stages.
• Expy: Their function is to be a modern counterpart to the Eggrobo series.
• Flat Character: Barring Beta, Gamma and Omega, all of them have minimal characterization. Justified, since they were never meant to have "real" personalities to begin with. They were made to serve Eggman as mindless weapons, and Gamma and Omega weren‘t supposed to develop personalities of their own.
• Leitmotif: Besides Gamma, Beta and ZERO, the theme of the E-100 Series on the whole is Heartless Colleague (E-Series Target), an aggressive techno and drum-based riff which accompanies all their boss battles. The aforementioned bots have their own unique themes instead.
• Mercy Kill: After pulling his Heel–Face Turn, Gamma inflicts this on each of them; both to end their own suffering (after being either left for dead and/or torturously modified by Eggman) and to rescue the animals that power them. Notably, Gamma refers to this as "rescuing" them.
• One-Shot Character: All of them appeared in only one game, while Gamma appeared as a playable character in at least three, in both his E-102 Gamma and Chaos Gamma forms.
• One-Winged Angel: Gamma's four brothers are each remodelled to some extent by the time Gamma comes to "rescue" them, though only Beta and Zeta get full-body rebuilds.
• Palette Swap: With the exception of ZERO (E-100 Alpha), all of them in Adventure share the same design minus the color. With their eventual remodels, however, this is no longer the case; especially not for Beta and Zeta, who are both altered pretty much beyond recognition into much more dangerous forms.
• Rollerblade Good: E-100s one through five^note E-101 Beta, E-102 Gamma, E-103 Delta, E-104 Epsilon and E-105 Zeta were all designed with this in mind, as an alternate means of locomotion. When walking at full pelt for several seconds, their legs fold up toward the ground and allow the powered wheels on them to touch the ground; and they can then drive around much faster. Only Gamma is outright shown doing it though, and Beta and Zeta lose the ability later through their massive redesigns.
• Theme Naming: All of them are named after Greek numerals.
• The Voiceless: Unlike E-102 Gamma and E-123 Omega, they are (outside of one cutscene where Delta, Epsilon and Zeta each say a line off-screen) completely silent and does not utter a single word.
• You Have Failed Me: Downplayed; Eggman never actually kills any of these robots, but Beta, Delta, Epsilon, and Zeta all lose favor with him and suffer the consequences. Delta and Epsilon are cast out and left for dead in the wilderness, while Beta and Zeta are put through horrific remodelling procedures and each forced to become a One-Winged Angel. Gamma kills them all.

E-100 Alpha (ZERO)

A robot who is sent to capture a Flicky in possession of a Chaos Emerald. As Amy protects that bird, he goes after her, too. He's also the first of the E-Series, his code-name being E-100 Alpha.

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• Achilles' Heel: There's a battery in his head that acts as his weak point, but it can only be taken advantage of in his boss fight. Attacking him too much anywhere else causes him to Turn Red and become temporarily invulnerable.
• Arc Villain: He's The Heavy of Amy's story in Sonic Adventure.
• Cranial Processing Unit: ZERO has a large lightbulb-like battery in his head that can only be exposed by knocking him into one of the electric fences in his boss battle. From there, his head opens up while he's stunned, opening said battery up to Amy's hammer.
• Final Boss: He's this in Amy's story, along with being the only boss she must fight.
• Green and Mean: This viridescent robot has two goals only; to serve Dr. Eggman and steal Birdie's Chaos Emerald from Amy. ZERO is also mean to the point that he insists on hurting Birdie even after Eggman has no more use for them, which ends up getting him killed by a furious Amy.
• Ground Punch: One of Zero's two main attacks is to jump up a short distance and punch the ground with both fists, causing huge, crackling rings of energy to burst forth from around him. Notably, he'll spam this attack repeatedly if you attack him too much and set him off.
• The Heavy: Serves as the main antagonist and the biggest constant threat of Amy's story in Sonic Adventure, but he's still just Eggman's crony.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: The electric barrier in his boss fight is to, presumably, make it so Amy doesn't escape again. That said, it's integral when it comes to killing him, since it stuns him and exposes his Cranial Processing Unit.
• Implacable Man: Amy must avoid ZERO in every level, and whenever Amy loses him, he soon catches up. His tenacity, even after his target is obtained and no longer of use to Eggman, is what gets him killed.
• In a Single Bound: For such a huge brute of a machine, ZERO is surprisingly capable of jumping. Not only does he jump around a lot to perform his Shockwave Stomp attacks, but can also launch himself at least thirty feet into the air while trying to jump after Amy and Birdie's balloons.
• Jump Scare: ZERO can pull these by breaking through walls and monitors to get to Amy and Birdie when he gets too far behind, which causes her to yelp in horror. Most notable are the ones he pulls in Hot Shelter's monitor rooms, where he appears on every single screen before crashing through one of them.
• Kick the Dog: ZERO follows Amy to the downed Egg Carrier, and after seeing Birdie re-unite with their parents (the Flickies that previously powered Beta and Gamma), downs them with a Rocket Punch for seemingly no other reason than petty cruelty. Thanks to Amy, this backfires on him with lethal results.
• Killer Robot: He's a psycho robot with no common sense other than completing his objective.
• Leitmotif: ZERO the Chase-Master (Eggman Robot ZERO), which doubles as his boss theme.
• Mighty Glacier: Compared to the more adaptable future E-100 bots, ZERO's main focus is sheer power and resilience. He's capable of ploughing through even solid walls with no issue, shrugging off most attacks with little issue, and hitting him too much — at least, without the electric fences in his boss arena — lets him temporarily turn invulnerable. His low speed and intelligence are his biggest weaknesses.
• My Hero, Zero: Averted. His name is ZERO, and he's only an ally to the villainous Dr. Eggman.
• Primal Chest-Pound: A trait of his that emphasizes that he's a cruder model than the rest of the E-series.
• Psycho Prototype: Said to be one to E-101 Beta (and by extension, the rest of the E-100 series), as he is given the codename E-100α or E-100 Alpha on the official websites.
• Puzzle Boss: Knock him into the electrified fence to expose his weak point, then attack.
• Ring-Out Boss: A variation. To defeat ZERO, Amy has to knock him back into the electric fences that line his boss arena to stun him and expose his vulnerable battery to attack.
• Rocket Punch: One of his two main attacks, which also doubles as a mid-ranged Homing Projectile. ZERO locks onto a target with a laser beam, and after a couple of seconds, fires off one of his huge robot fists to punch them from afar; retrieving it with a cable in his wrist immediately after.
• Spin Attack: ZERO has one of these for when he's reduced to his last bit of health during his boss fight. He jumps into the middle of the arena, extends his fists out to their maximum length and electrifies the cables, whirling around on the spot to hit with them.
• Super-Persistent Predator: Relentlessly pursues Amy (and Birdie) through her stages, not even letting things like walls or an accidental fall into a bottomless pit stop his pursuit.
• Super-Strength: On top of having a powerful Rocket Punch and Shockwave Stomp as his attacks, ZERO also frequently catches up to Amy by smashing through parts of the level itself to surprise her.
• Tactical Suicide Boss: If those electric fences in the arena weren't there, you'd have no way to truly harm him.
• Too Dumb to Live: He continues to chase Amy and attack Birdie even after the Chaos Emerald in the latter's locket is removed, knocking down Birdie after its reunion with its parents/the recently-freed batteries of Beta and Gamma. Amy reaches her Rage Breaking Point as a result and finally decides to fight back, killing him.
• Turns Red: ZERO can be knocked over and stunned for a moment by Amy's hammer blows, giving her and Birdie time to run away from him. Do it too much though, and ZERO will get angry^note Indicated by him turning red and venting steam, causing him to attack much more aggressively and become invulnerable for some time.
• Unexplained Recovery: Despite being blown up by the end of Sonic Adventure, he inexplicably reappears in the Special Stages of Sonic Advance 2 as a hazard. Given his purpose is still chasing the heroes specifically to stop them from getting a Chaos Emerald, it's possible Eggman rebuilt him with a similar objective to before.
• Unwilling Roboticization: Averted. He runs on batteries, as opposed to an animal. This also means he is the only one of the then-current E-series who Gamma does not bother to target; in fact, they never meet and never so much as acknowledge each other's existence.
• Would Hit a Girl: ZERO has absolutely no scruples regarding forcibly capturing and attacking Amy, and going to extreme lengths to pursue her. Which also leads into...
• Would Hurt a Child: ...him having no problem doing the same to Birdie, a Flicky chick. Since Amy is only 12 years old as well, it puts ZERO on another level of mean, even compared to most of Eggman's other mechs.

E-101 Beta

^{Click here to see E-101 Mark II.}

Debut: Sonic Adventure

A robot in the E-Series made by Dr. Eggman. The first and final boss for Gamma.

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• Be Careful What You Wish For: Beta is very insistent that Eggman take him along to board the Egg Carrier after the doctor gives Gamma permission to become crew, while Eggman appears to shrug it off and permits Beta to board on the grounds that they could use some spare parts. The next time anyone sees Beta, he's in the middle of being completely remodeled.
• Beta Test Baddie: With his powerful dual missile launchers and Jet Booster, Beta was actually supposed to be better than Gamma at being a Killer Robot; but then, to Eggman's surprise, Gamma outperformed him in combat.
• Big Brother Bully: A possible interpretation of Beta after losing to Gamma for the first time and being slated for decommissioning. His insistence on being Eggman's choice despite losing and being denied sets him up to be jealous of his "little brother", Gamma.
• Big Brother Instinct: An alternate interpretation of his reaction after losing to Gamma for the first time; Beta moves in front of his younger brother and (non-verbally) insists to Eggman upon still coming along in a vaguely protective fashion. However, whatever protective instinct he once had is removed by the time they meet again in the final stage of Gamma's story.
• Book Ends: He's the first and the last boss — albeit upgraded the second time — in Gamma's storyline.
• Breakable Weapons: In both forms, you can destroy Beta's homing missiles with Gamma's cannon.
• Climax Boss: He's the last E-series robot to be destroyed, besides Gamma.
• Crippling Overspecialization: In keeping with their shared Symbolism—Gamma has a single Arm Cannon and a single hand, allowing him to both destroy the world around him and to interact with it. Beta's original design has a cannon for both arms, meaning he can only destroy. This gets taken even further when Eggman remodels him and gives him his One-Winged Angel form, which has no legs and extra claws.
• Cyber Cyclops: He's this when upgraded, having one single green glowing eye.
• It Can Think: Despite being just a robot, Beta almost immediately shows enough personality and will to insist that Eggman take it along to the Egg Carrier, getting so close to Eggman as to completely block Gamma from view. Eggman does not appear to recognize this as aberrant behavior, though there's no indication the robots were designed with any personality at all, to judge from Gamma himself.
• Dual Wielding: Unlike his brother, Beta has an Arm Cannon for each arm. Originally, they shot homing missiles (much like Delta after him), but they're later upgraded to twin Laser Cannons that can charge up and fire off huge explosive beams.
• Good Colors, Evil Colors: Beta is Gamma's chief enemy during his story arc, is loyal to Eggman to the very end, and is painted in a foreboding pitch black.
• Kill Sat: One of Mark II's new attacks involves him acting as one of these; flying up high into the air and raining explosive laser beams down on Gamma. He is invincible during said attack.
• Last Breath Bullet: After being shot down by Gamma, E-101 Beta Mark II uses the last of his energy to fatally wound his brother with one final blast at point-blank range, before exploding himself. What he presumably didn't know, however, was that it was exactly what Gamma wanted.
• Leitmotif: Crazy Robo (E-101β), his unique boss theme, is a more threatening Jazz and saxophone-based arrangement of his brother's theme.
• Lightning Bruiser: Not in his original form, but when E-101 is upgraded into his Mark II form, he's definitely this. Not only does Beta now have a small armory's worth of weapons, but he can also fly through the air at high speed and avoid shots by dashing over short distances fast enough to look like he's teleporting.
• Macross Missile Massacre: E-101 Beta Mark II retains his homing missile attacks from his first boss battle, but they're now launched in large swarms from his back, which he'll often combine with his Kill Sat attack.
• Making the Choice for You: With Beta's final defeat, Gamma still had the matter left of deciding how or even whether he was going to destroy himself—Beta then gets one last shot in, resolving the matter.
• Mutual Kill: With Gamma, who he shoots with the last of his energy when finally downed.
• One-Winged Angel: E-101 Beta, Mark II, is an even more streamlined killing machine than the original, with a new sleek, flying profile and a whole assortment of deadly weapons, including twin laser cannons, improved missile launchers, Wolverine Claws that double as shields, and even short-range teleportation.
• Painful Transformation: While it's never specifically shown whether or not Beta could feel pain, Gamma's quietly-horrified reaction to seeing his brother's in-progress transformation would imply this is the case. The somber music of the scene helps, as does seeing his old body parts littered around.
• Parrying Bullets: Deflects Gamma's shots using his arms. As a result, he can only be attacked from behind.
• Psycho Prototype: To Gamma. He may have been the physically stronger of the two, but he doesn't take being junked by Eggman in favor of his little brother very well.
• Shadow Archetype: To Gamma. Beta is nearly identical to Gamma early, but designed to be more of a specialized Killer Robot. Later on, we see him be upgraded into even more of a war machine.
• Stealth Pun: He serves as the first boss and gets upgraded later on, like a software beta version.
• Tactical Suicide Boss: Unlike the other E-100 series robots that Gamma faces, his Mark II form cannot be defeated by simply continuously locking on and firing on him. He is only vulnerable when he attempts to charge at Gamma and misses.
• Taking You with Me: After being defeated, he, apparently fatally, shoots Gamma one last time before exploding, but ultimately that's exactly what Gamma wants.
• Undying Loyalty: To Dr. Eggman. Out of all the E-Series Robots, Beta is the most loyal to Eggman and continues to serve him even after becoming Mark II and wants to kill Gamma for his betrayal.
• Unwilling Roboticization: He's powered by a Flicky, one of Birdie's parents along with the Flicky housed in Gamma. When both Gamma and Beta are killed, the two birds are reunited.
• We Can Rebuild Him: Was rebuilt as E-101 Mark II, after being defeated by Gamma the first time around.
• Who Needs Their Whole Body?: E-101 Mark II has his legs removed in the process of his massive rebuild, but hovers and flies through the air with improved boosters instead, and is even more deadly than before.
• Wolverine Claws: E-101 Mark II has an enormous pair built onto his forearms, that he can not only use as shields to swat Gamma's missiles away, but also charge at him with to attack. Missing said attack is the only point when he's vulnerable.

E-103 Delta

Debut: Sonic Adventure

One of Eggman's E-series robots, decommissioned and abandoned by Eggman after his failure to procure Froggy. The first target on Gamma's list in Sonic Adventure, found in Windy Valley.

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• Brick Joke: Early in Gamma's story, Eggman permits Beta to come aboard the Egg Carrier on the grounds that they could use some spare parts. Not long after that, Gamma finds Beta being remodeled and his original parts strewn all over the floor. Later, when Gamma finds Delta in Windy Valley, Delta has become a Palette Swap of Beta; which suggests that Beta's leftover parts were recycled and used on Delta.
• Developer's Foresight: With some clever positioning, it's possible to knock Delta off the side of his arena in Windy Valley; but he'll simply use his Jet Booster to fly back up if you do.
• Dual Wielding: Delta is equipped with twin arm-mounted missile launchers, much like Beta before him.
• Killed Off for Real: By Gamma to release the animal inside. In Delta's case, it's a parrot.
• Palette Swap: When he first appears, he's one for Gamma. When Gamma comes to rescue him, he's instead become one of Beta, complete with the dual arm cannons and Jet Booster.
• Small Role, Big Impact: While Delta, like most of the other robots, is given little to no characterization, he lingers longer than his brothers after Eggman banishes everyone except Gamma and Beta from the Egg Carrier, which allows him and Gamma to share a parting look. This wordless exchange leads to Gamma feeling emotion for the first time; namely, sympathy for Delta's pain and remorse for "causing" it by succeeding where he failed.

E-104 Epsilon

Debut: Sonic Adventure

Another decommissioned E-series robot on Gamma's list, located in Red Mountain.

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• Dual Wielding: Epsilon has a very similar twin arm-cannon setup to Beta and Delta before him, but his are improved STINGER Missiles, which are fired and fly faster than theirs.
• Killed Off for Real: By Gamma to release the animal inside. In Epsilon's case, it's a robin.
• Took a Level in Badass: Compared to Beta and Delta, Epsilon's STINGER Missiles are trickier to deal with due to how much faster they are. Much like them, he can also outright fly using his Jet Booster as opposed to simply hovering like Gamma does.

E-105 Zeta

Debut: Sonic Adventure

Yet another E-series robot on Gamma's list. This one eventually became the defense system for the Egg Carrier and was housed within its Hot Shelter.

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• Console Cameo: E-105's second form is partially built out of Sega Dreamcasts, which you can see if you look closely at the middle area of his model.
• Killed Off for Real: Once again, by Gamma to release the animal inside. In Zeta's case, it's a peafowl.
• Off with His Head!: Unlike the other E-100 units, who explode completely upon destruction, Zeta's head jumps off and explodes when defeated, leaving the rest of him behind.
• Purple Is Powerful: He's the most powerful member of the E-Series tasked with retrieving Froggy, though it's unknown whether he held this title prior to receiving a massive upgrade following his decommissioning.
• Sentry Gun: Zeta's remodelled form in Hot Shelter takes on this kind of design, becoming a massive stationary defence unit with missile launchers all around him. To defeat him, each of said guns must be destroyed.

E-121 Phi

Debut: Sonic Battle

A series of robots modelled after the Gizoid, Emerl. They are a mass-produced series of robots powered by Chaos Emerald shards.

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• Bit Character: All fourteen of them do exactly one thing, which is to be sent by Eggman to fight the good guys and lose.
• Continuity Snarl: Sonic Battle names its Evil Knockoffs of Emerl E-121 Phi, despite having a Call-Back to E-123 Omega. This would imply that the E-121 Phi robots were created after E-123 Omega.
• Evil Knockoff: A two-fer. The Phi are all knockoffs of the Gizoid, but each is a Moveset Clone of a different character.
• Flat Character: The E-121 Phi robots have no characterization to speak of, being mindless robots. #13 and #14 have better speaking abilities than the others, but this is due to the Chaos Emeralds shards.
• Moveset Clone: They copy the moveset of one of the many playable characters in the game, just like Emerl. Unlike Emerl, they only copy the moveset of one character rather than Emerl's combination of multiple playstyles.
• Non-Indicative Name: The robots named E-121 Phi have nothing at all to do with the E-100 series except sharing the Theme Naming.
• Odd Name Out: Phi is the 21st letter of the alphabet, true, but the E-100 series uses zero-based numbering (see E-100 Alpha), so by rights it should either E-120 Phi or E-121 Chi. Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) leaned on this when it gave Gamma a log of the status of the E-100 series; E-120 Phi and E-121 Chi both had the note "Memory Damaged" in their entries.
• Palette Swap: They are identical to Emerl, except all gray-colored.

Egg Golem

Debut: Sonic 3 & Knuckles

A giant stone golem robot controlled by Eggman, who is forced to destroy it in Sonic Adventure 2 after it goes berserk following a failed attempt to stop Sonic from progressing through his desert base. A different version of it appears in Sonic & Knuckles, which Eggman controls directly via his Egg Mobile.

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• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: In the Dark storyline: It goes bonkers after Sonic hits its brain and must be stopped by Eggman.
• Musical Nod: Its theme is exactly like the previous boss, but with more electric guitar.

Mecha Knuckles

Debut: Sonic Advance

A robotic doppelganger of Knuckles, created during an attempt to take over Angel Island.

Other appearances:

• Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW)

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• Evil Knockoff: Mecha Knuckles is obviously one for Knuckles himself, built by Eggman as a high-level enforcer because the real Knuckles actually knows he's up to no good this time.
• Flat Character: There's not much in the way of characterization for him, just as with most Eggman mech. He seems to have mostly been created because Knuckles wasn't fooled by the doctor this time.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: Much like the real Knuckles, Mecha Knuckles has a pretty mean punch for a close-range attack.
• Hammerspace: The huge homing missiles Mecha Knuckles fires from his mouth are longer and wider than his whole body, let alone his head.
• Legacy Boss Battle: Played With. The first half of his boss fight is almost a recreation of Knuckles's boss fight from Sonic 3 & Knuckles, but by the second half his true form is revealed. The boss fight is quite tough compared with its inspiration.
• Mirror Boss: Like the original Knuckles, Mecha Knuckles attacks mostly by punching, gliding and Spin Dashing. Once he takes enough damage however, his speed greatly increases and he gains the ability to cough up giant homing missiles.
• One-Shot Character: It seems Eggman never bothered to rebuild him after the Angel Island takeover.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: He's an robotic Evil Knockoff of Knuckles, and his eyes are seen glowing red at different points. They periodically flash red in his regular "Knuckles" form, and then permanently turn that color in his true form.
• Robot Me: A robotic clone of Knuckles, and the second one in the game series. This Knuckles is identical to his counterpart (except for the yellow gloves and pinker fur), and could pass off as his imposter. After enough damage is done to him, his true form is revealed.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: He's not Metal Knuckles from Sonic R, but is more or less the same idea as him. Metal Knuckles is a brother of sorts to Metal Sonic, while Mecha Knuckles is more in line with the Mecha Sonics.
• Turns Red: After taking enough damage in his regular form, Mecha Knuckles' outer shell breaks off to reveal his metallic endoskeleton. In this form, his speed is greatly increased and he gains a nasty new attack where he fires giant homing missiles from his mouth.
• Unusual Weapon Mounting: In his true form, Mecha Knuckles can shoot volleys of giant homing missiles from his mouth. What really pushes it into this is how he can do that despite each missile being bigger than he is.

Shadow Androids

Debut: Sonic Heroes

A mass-produced series of robotic clones of Shadow the hedgehog. They were created based on the original after the events of Sonic Adventure 2, with Omega seemingly guarding the one copy that joined Team Dark. A later game would reveal that Team Dark's Shadow is the true Ultimate Life Form, who was saved by Eggman with one of his robots.

Other appearances:

• Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW)

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• Arm Cannon: Four of the six playable androids (specifically the silver-coated ones) in the Shadow the Hedgehog multiplayer have these built into their bodies; with the blue and magneta-striped ones having machine-guns and the orange and green-striped ones having missile launchers. As a consequence though, they can't pick up weapons like the two "regular" Shadow Androids can (though they can still drive vehicles).
• The Bus Came Back: After their last appearance in Shadow the Hedgehog, they were seemingly phased out of the series. They wouldn't make a return to the games until Sonic Speed Simulator, with the Androids using their designs from the IDW Comics for all the colored models, ranging from orange to red.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: They haven't appeared in the games after Shadow the Hedgehog. Considering their use in the IDW comics, its likely most of their units were destroyed by Team Chaotix and Omega in Sonic Heroes and in the war with the Black Arms in Shadow the Hedgehog. It would take until Sonic Speed Simulator for them to make a return in the games.
• Divergent Character Evolution: Of the playable androids in the Shadow the Hedgehog multiplayer, only one actually looks just like Shadow, while another has orange stripes rather than red, and the remaining four have a silver coating akin to Metal Sonic complete with unique color stripes, black-and-red "Uh-Oh" Eyes, and Arm Cannons to distinguish them, while the androids of the main campaign are all physically indistinguishable from Shadow.
• Macross Missile Massacre: The Shadow Androids in the main campaign don't carry obvious weapons on their person, but they do possess built-in lock-on missiles, seemingly as a "knock-off" Chaos Spear. Considering they often come in groups of three, it's possible for them to quickly fill the air with missiles if left alone.
• Nonstandard Character Design: Inverted. They share an established character design, but unusually for Eggman's Evil Knockoffs, they look exactly like Shadow does and don't share any of the traits of Eggman's other Robot Mes like Metal Sonic. Downplayed with the playable multiplayer androids, as well as the updated designs for all the colored variants, which have the same black-and-red eyes that Metal Sonic does.
• People Jars: In Sonic Heroes, they are all contained in jars filled with a green fluid.
• Robot Me: They are robotic copies of Shadow, identical in almost every way. To the point even Rouge thought her friend was a copy, while Shadow fights Eggman over the belief he's an android in the neutral route of Shadow the Hedgehog. An Easter Egg in the Final Boss would reveal Shadow's the original, (as hinted at throughout Sonic Heroes) as Eggman saved him with one of his robots. There are also variations in the multiplayer mode that resemble Metal Sonic.
• The Unfought: The player never fights them in Sonic Heroes. Eggman possibly requested Team Chaotix to destroy their capsules in Bullet Station so Metal Sonic wouldn't use them, and Omega destroyed the in-stasis ones on the Final Fortress flagship after the events of Team Dark's storyline. They are later fought in Shadow the Hedgehog in two Eggman levels.

SCR-HD

Debut: Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity

Voiced by: Taiten Kusunoki (Japanese), Andrew Paull (English)

A robot created by Eggman's front company MeteoTech which serves as the main antagonist of Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity. It went out of control when it was possessed by one of the Arks of the Cosmos.

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• Big Bad: Of Zero Gravity.
• Colony Drop: Master Core: ABIS can toss meteors.
• Final Boss: Of Zero Gravity. Hell, it's the only real boss of the game.
• Generic Doomsday Villain: SCR-HD doesn't really have any real reason for its actions. Justified in that it's a robot so it doesn't have much in the way of personality, and it's under the influence of the Ark of the Cosmos.
• Gravity Master: Thanks to the Arks of the Cosmos.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: He ends up sucked into the black hole he created.
• Humongous Mecha: Master Core: ABIS.
• King Mook: Of the mass-produced SCR-GP robots. The only difference in appearance is SCR-HD has two slanted blue eyes, while the SCR-GPs have a single red eye.
• Meaningful Name: Master Core: ABIS. It's the core of Astral Babylon and it's creating a black hole, or abyss.
• Nonstandard Character Design: The streamlined, futuristic designs of the SCR-HD and SCR-GP robots don't cohere with the other robot characters in the series.
• Omnicidal Maniac: After finding all five Arks of the Cosmos, it merged with Astral Babylon's core unit and created a black hole to destroy the planet.
• One-Winged Angel: Master Core: ABIS a Fusion Dance with it and Astral Babylon's core unit.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: When it goes One-Winged Angel.
• Shock and Awe: Master Core ABIS can fire bolts of electricity.
• Tactical Suicide Boss: If it didn't keep spamming Gravity Dive, it would be impossible to defeat.
• Teleport Spam: Does this during its boss fight.

Infinite

Debut: Sonic Forces

See here.

The Mastermind of the Murder Mystery (Unmarked The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog Spoilers)

The Mirage Express

Debut: The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog

An advanced, intelligent train-based Badnik that grew rather attached to the train's Conductor, throwing Amy's birthday party in turmoil once the Conductor announced his upcoming retirement.

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• Alas, Poor Villain: It tried to deliver Sonic and his friends to Eggman and wanted to abduct the Conductor, but this is because the Conductor was retiring, which the Mirage Express saw as betrayal. The Conductor promises he won't forget their time together.
• Apple of Discord: Its motivations were entirely unrelated to Eggman's desire to kill Sonic, being more focused on the Conductor's retiring. Eggman throwing in a bounty for Sonic to grant any wish it desires prompts it to take advantage of Amy's birthday party.
• Big Bad: It influences Espio to kill Sonic so it can deliver him to Eggman. Once Sonic comes back, the train stages a full takeover.
• Big "NO!": The train reacts to having its Flicky removed by letting out a "NOOOOOOOooooo—!!!" that goes on for two whole dialog boxes.
• Cool Train: A train tricked out with advanced technology, loaded with automated hands to clean up after the guests. Although its menu leaves much to be desired and it can't cook anything itself, requiring somebody else aboard to microwave meals. It turns out that Eggman designed his passenger trains specifically to function autonomously, reporting back to him upon discovering anything of note, like if Sonic and his friends have boarded.
• Cyber Cyclops: The train looks through its own interiors via a robotic hand, which contain a single eye in its palm.
• The Dog Was the Mastermind: Introduced as a helpful companion to the conductor and the passengers aboard, the train was the orchestrator behind the events of the game, as it was one of Eggman's Badniks.
• Evil All Along: The arm introduced is thought to be a friendly, helpful cleaner of the train. Then it turns out the entire train was one of Eggman's Badniks that had its own goals to capture Sonic and his friends during Amy's birthday.
• Eyes Do Not Belong There: The Mirage Express has eyes located in the palms of its robotic hands.
• Final Boss: The last challenge of The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog, requiring the player to successfully complete three stages in order to land three hits on the train.
• Grew Beyond Their Programming: Eggman explains that his Badniks are usually rather straightforwardly trying to kill Sonic, but he designed his passenger trains to completely autonomous, giving them advanced AI. The Mirage Express specifically grew an attachment to its Conductor and doesn't immediately care for Sonic's capture, bringing him to Eggman to cash in on the bounty and keep the Conductor by its side.
• Hidden Villain: Aside from Sonic being genuinely hurt and the Conductor going missing, everything seemed to be perfectly fine. It was when Tails, Amy, Shadow and the player got to the Conductor's car that things started to look odd, and even then the four manage to construe a narrative out of the clues presented that still implicates Espio without any idea of the train itself fighting Sonic.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: It was very close to the Conductor, and his retirement warrants it to try and kidnap him.
• It Can Think: Was thought to be a train that took commands from the conductor is revealed to be a Badnik made by Eggman that had the capabilities of enacting a plan to manipulate Espio into poisoning Sonic without anyone suspecting a thing until it was too late.
• Knight of Cerebus: Besides Sonic really being injured, everything seemed to just be a part of the game. Then the train reveals itself, its ploy to bring Sonic to Eggman, and its own twisted motivations.
• Love Makes You Evil: Platonic version, but its motivation is kidnapping the Conductor because it doesn't want him to leave after 32 years of riding the rails together. Although it probably doesn't help much that it's a Badnik powered by a Flicky.
• Platonic Life-Partners: It and the Conductor had been a duo for 32 years, but the Conductor is growing old and weary and seeks to retire, greatly upsetting the Mirage Express.
• Powered by a Forsaken Child: The first Badnik in a while to be explicitly powered by an animal, a green Flicky is the source of the Mirage Express' power. After the train is destroyed and the bird is freed, it flies around the Conductor.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: The Mirage Express' hand's eyes go from yellow to bright red upon revealing itself as the true antagonist of the game.
• Retirony: Invoked, as it makes its move on the last possible day before the Conductor leaves because it doesn't want the Conductor to leave.
• Suddenly Speaking: The train itself never speaks to the Conductor or cast members during the story, only communicating through its actions. Once Amy and Vector cause enough noise in the Conductor's car, it then reveals that it has the Conductor held hostage, along with it being able to speak.
  Amy: Is the train talking??
  Train: Of course I can talk! You fools were too distracted playing your little game to figure it out.
• There's No Kill like Overkill: Invoked; it tells Espio to shoot Sonic with a blowdart laced with a sleeping agent as opposed to just "killing" him as per the rules of the game. This means Sonic is unable to tell anybody that the train is a Badnik.
• Tragic Dream: The Mirage Express wants to continue running the rails with the conductor forever, but unlike a Badnik, the Conductor is mortal and has grown old and tired of running the train. A bemused Eggman also admits that there's no way he can truly deliver on that dream as a reward for capturing Sonic either.
• Villainous Breakdown: Once Sonic has freed his friends and start fighting the Mirage Express itself, the train begins losing its composure, with it becoming enraged when accused of being selfish. Once the last hit is landed and its Flicky is removed, it starts breaking down until it stops functioning.
• Walking Spoiler: Thought the train was just a normal, if advanced, smart train? You thought wrong; it's one of Eggman's smart trains, and it kickstarts the entire plot of the game.
• Yandere: A platonic version. After hearing the news of the Conductor wanting to retire, it became hellbent at wanting the Conductor to not leave it to the point of kidnapping him.

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