Headscratchers / Shadow the Hedgehog

• Where is Omega during the Last Story? He's a robot, he would also be immune to the nerve gas. All that firepower could sure come in handy.
  • If he's anything like the other E-Series, Omega has a Flicky powering him. That could mean Black Doom's nerve gas could affect him indirectly through the Flicky.
  • Omega has a knack for doing things his way, and not being too concerned about the fate of the world. In Heroes he helped defeat Metal Sonic to assert dominance as the ultimate Eggman robot, while in 06 he developed a stronger bond with Shadow and Rouge and was facing Mephiles as part of GUN too. This game's Omega is only seen in the context of the Eggman Empire, meaning Omega was likely wreaking havoc on Eggman's forces while Eggman was concerning himself with the Black Comet.
• Why on EARTH was Dr. Eggman on the Black Comet in Last Story? It would make sense if he showed up piloting the Egg Breaker or in his Eggmobile or even on his floating screen, but he's on foot! He doesn't even have anything to defend himself with, like a squad of Egg Pawns! Must've been clutching that Idiot Ball pretty close, Ivo...
  • And Sonic and friends, huh? They're strong enough, they could survive easily. Eggman was WITH them, not as a enemy for that situation, of course. Having them as "temporary allies" against Black Doom left him a reason to do that.
  • Plus, Eggman is also pretty strong himself.
• The President at one point mentions while looking at a picture of Sonic and Shadow that "The world was once saved by you two heroes". Now, he's probably talking about SA2, or possibly Heroes, but regardless of that... when was the picture taken?!
  • My take is sometime between Sonic Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog. Shadow was thought to be dead at the end of SA2, so it couldn't be right after that game.
  • I'm guessing just after Sonic Heroes; after the incidents of that game, Sonic and Shadow had been responsible for saving the world. Only plot issue is why none of the other teams were in the picture.
• Why does it cost "ammo" to put out a fire? Also, how does he refill its "ammo"?
  • He uses a water gun?
• The motivation of the Black Arms is that they want to eat us. Keep in mind that they've been waiting for this meal for over 2000 years, so why haven't they starved by now? Even if you argue that they've got really good metabolism or have been hibernating, their comet-home means that they've never been able to try this before.
  • Maybe their "going hungry" lasts longer than a normal human's?
    • Still doesn't explain how such a species could evolve if their eating habits require such a complicated gambit. Though it could just be that we're simply more nutritious/tasty than their comet's vegetation.
    • Who's to say that Earth was the only planet the Black Arms had/were going to invade? The Archie Sonic Comics canon says that the Black Arms have fed on other worlds while waiting for Mobius/Earth to reach a certain population level so the Arms could invade and have a planet wide smorgasbord.
    • Also, remember that, without the seven Chaos Emeralds, the Black Arms have no way of controlling where the Black Comet goes. The first couple times the Black Comet passed the earth, the Black Arms could have appeared, gotten a taste of humanity, so to speak, but were forced to leave before the Black Comet got too far away. During one of the trips, Black Doom helped Gerald with the Ultimate Life Form Project as a long term plan for the Black Arms. By having an agent to get them the seven Chaos Emeralds, Black Doom could warp the Black Comet to the planet, spread its paralyzing nerve gas all over, and basically have an all-you-can-eat buffet for the Black Arms (and more importantly, the newly born Black Arms), which would allow them to replenish their numbers, then use the Chaos Emeralds to warp the Black Comet back into space, get to another planet, and repeat for infinity.
  • Maybe the Black Comet has stuff for them to eat, but humans are significantly more nutritious/effective food than their native prey. Also, as the Earth has a significantly larger biosphere they might want a larger quantity of food than food on its own/enough food for a larger population.
• If Shadow wants to find out whether he's a robot or not, why doesn't he just cut himself to see if he can bleed? Or use an X-ray to determine whether his skeleton is metal or not? Or simply weigh himself?
  • Shadow never seems to bleed anyway; the intro cutscene sees him shrugging off bullets and explosions, and in game all taking a hit seems to do is knock him down and cost him rings (and far fewer rings than Sonic usually loses, mind). I think it's safe to assume that while he can be killed with sufficient effort, he doesn't really take injuries. As for X-ray machine, he saw the androids, then immediately chased down Eggman, who told him for certain that he was an android, and he believed that. There was no time when he was uncertain in which he could have gone and done anything to test it.
  • It wouldn't have worked anyway since the idea of an android is a living outer skin over a robotic skeleton and interior.
    • Not really. The idea of an android is a robot designed to resemble a human (or hedgehog, in this case): an organic outer "skin" helps with this, but isn't an essential part of the concept.
  • Because no Sonic characters ever bleed. Only pure Black Arms are allowed to bleed, because they're icky alien creatures. Double standard!
• How is a melee weapon capable of refilling its "ammo"?
  • By having more than one of the same weapon. When the first one breaks, Shadow starts using the second one, etc. They just don't show the switch because it's easier that way.
• If the Black Arms can be harmed and even killed by standard firearms, which GUN possesses, shouldn't GUN be winning by a considerably huge margin?
  • The initial attack by the Black Arms was effectively a blitzkreig that caught G.U.N. completely off guard. Depending on which one Shadow sides with, they're either able to contain the Black Arms menace, or are pushed all the way back to their Fortress.
    • But GUN knew Prof. Gerald made contact with Black Doom, which is why they massacred all of the researchers aboard the ARK. Shouldn't they have had records about that to either predict or straight up confirm when the Black Arms would return and plan accordingly? Again, another reason GUN should have been winning by a larger margin than depicted.
• If the commander of GUN has such a vendetta against Shadow, how the hell did the military mistake Sonic for Shadow in Sonic Adventure 2? Sure, that plot contrivance was unbelievable as hell to begin with, but this just makes it more absurd.
  • It's entirely possible that Tower (the G.U.N. Commander's actual name in the comics) simply wasn't the commander during the events of Sonic Adventure 2, that he was still rising up in the ranks. There's a theory on the Sonic Adventure 2 page that hypothesizes G.U.N. mistaking Sonic for Shadow was intentional. The higher-ups knew from the get-go it was Shadow committing crimes, but they didn't want the public to know about Project SHADOW, so they used Sonic as a scapegoat, manipulating the media accordingly. That pretty much solidifies the possibility that Tower wasn't in command at the time of Sonic Adventure 2. If he was, then he wouldn't have even considered using Sonic as a suspect - he would have just straight up ordered the military police to kill Shadow on the spot.
  • Adding on to this, it's entirely possible that the GUN commander who was in charge during SA2 was fired/forced to resign after the events of the game, due to backlash against the organization's higher-ups. If this is the case, Tower may have been promoted to commander at least partly due to him being a known opponent of Operation: Scapegoat Sonic, but that's kinda headed into Fan Wank and/or Wild Mass Guessing territory.
  • There is the possibility that Tower was the commander during SA2, but he was having trouble remembering what Shadow looked like since he only got a glimpse at him 50 years ago and that the rest of G.U.N. had mistaken Shadow for Sonic since they could've forgotten about Project Shadow. So if that's the case, then that's why Sonic was chased after, or maybe someone else was in command but was absurdly and comically incompetent, though this is also heading into Fan Wank and/or Wild Mass Guessing territory.
• Rouge is a G.U.N. agent, right? She'd also be on the search for Shadow. I can buy the fact that she just wouldn't report back, taking Sonic Heroes and Sonic Adventure 2 into account, but wouldn't G.U.N. be constantly asking her if she found something?
  • You probably answered your own question; she probably just wouldn't report back, or would fabricate her reports if they demanded them. GUN already knows that Shadow's out there, they have sentries and soldiers everywhere, but they also know that Shadow is ridiculously skilled at evading arrest and eliminating entire GUN battalions, so Rouge claiming "I didn't see him" or "He escaped from me" doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility to the higher-ups at GUN. As to why she wasn't brought under suspect or a court-martial during the onslaught at GUN Fortress (where there are security cameras and GUN soldiers and mechs in every corridor), either A.) Shadow just evaded the areas with security footage aligning the hallways (which Rouge encourages you to do, probably to evade the cameras herself so they can't use the footage against her afterwards), or B.) GUN was in such a state of disarray and anarchy that nobody was keeping tabs on Rouge at that rate, too preoccupied with tending to the current alien threat, the safety of the President, the rushed activation of Diablon, and straight-up trying to survive.
  • Also, two of the Missions where you help Rouge have you either aiding G.U.N. (Death Ruins Hero) or at least working against the Black Arms (G.U.N. Fortress Hero). The second example even has Rouge say that the Chaos Emerald there belongs to G.U.N. and to not let the Black Arms get their claws on it. Even if Rouge did report Shadow showing up in Death Ruins, she just has to point out that he fought on their side there before running off somewhere. We don't know what happens after Shadow beats Black Doom at G.U.N. Fortress and declares he'll conquer the universe. For all we know, he somehow drags G.U.N. into helping him wipe-out the leftover Black Arms and build a new world order (in which case Shadow being a possible enemy wouldn't be an issue anymore).
  • Besides, the orders we know of were for Rouge to spy on Shadow and Eggman during the events of Sonic Adventure 2 and Tower's order to kill Shadow, if they find him, in the immediate aftermath of Westopolis. For all we know, Shadow received a presidential pardon after saving the world and didn't need to hide until the Black Arms came and got Tower paranoid.
• Why is the G.U.N. Commander... the G.U.N. commander? He was on the ARK when it was attacked and seized by G.U.N., and about the only character motivation he has is that he loved Maria and hates whoever killed her. When he confronts Shadow, it's clear from his dialogue that he blames Shadow for the incident because he's the reason it was attacked. So... instead of blaming the army who infiltrated the ARK and killed the researchers, he's blaming the guy they went to the ARK to kill? And not only that, went on and joined up with said army and became their commander? Even if we go at it from the direction of "it's the fault of whoever caused the invasion to happen", shouldn't he be blaming Gerald Robotnik and Black Doom, since it was them that created Shadow?
  • Revenge Before Reason. Honestly, he may not have known. You have to remember, the Commander was a young, young boy at the time of G.U.N.'s raid aboard the ARK. Too young to fully consider everything, and too angry about losing one of his best friends. He was probably being hauled into an escape pod and hurriedly shot off back down to Earth while Shadow was trying to escape with Maria. After that, he was likely fed some fabricated story that "Shadow was the one who killed Maria" and that nobody else was to blame for the incident. Either that, or he just jumped to conclusions. Kids are prone to mistakes.
  • He saw Black Doom. He knew that Shadow's creation would only bring trouble. So maybe to him, GUN were the heroes who did what they had to do to save the world. It may sound like a jump in logic, but he was a kid when it all happened, and GUN's internal records may skew the picture too.
  • Let's look at it from his perspective: He knew that sinister aliens were helping to create experimental creatures, including Shadow; he probably knew that experimental creatures had escaped and endangered people even before the final incident (after all, Lost Impact is a flashback to one such incident), and GUN troops had to kill them; he knew that there was an emergency where Shadow escaped, many people were killed, and Maria was found shot to death near the last known location of Shadow, an escaped experiment who clearly knew how to use firearms. The raid may even have been an extreme overreaction to an actual life-threatening emergency involving escaped experiments; AFAIK, we are never actually told otherwise, and many war crimes and crimes against humanity sadly are colossal overreactions to relatively minor incidents (not to say that the perpetrators should be treated leniently: In fact, this is arguably exactly why the laws of war need to be strictly enforced). Ergo, it was logical for him to blame the creatures for all of the casualties and Shadow himself for Maria's death. As to why he didn't look up the truth of the incident? He was there. He thought he knew what happened. Why look into something that (he assumes) will just tell him what he already knows is true?
• Where the heck did Rouge and Knuckles go during the hero endings of G.U.N. Fortress and Black Comet respectively? I mean, Sonic, Vector and Omega were there for their own cutscenes, but why not those two? And for that matter, Black Doom was absent for all the endings he assisted with, and was absent for the Egg Dealer boss fight in Cosmic Fall where Vector was, and Omega hopped out of nowhere for the 'Neutral Dark' boss battle. What gives?
  • Inconsistency. Or, potentially, because they weren't very relevant to the ending at hand, and were only there for the adjacent boss battle to provide backup and tactical advice. Omega is relevant to the neutral endings because they involved androids, Sonic is relevant to the hero endings because he's there to help eliminate the alien threat, and Vector is relevant cause... uh... he's there? Or maybe the computer room was the place where he and the Chaotix put in all the information and gimmicks they had you collect over the course of the game, like the top-secret Prison Island discs or the information from Eggman's cyberspace terminals. Or this is all just a Fan Wank and the game just isn't terribly consistent.
• How come the game didn't include a Path/Ending where Shadow joins Eggman to crush their enemies? This gets to the point where you can complete Iron Jungle's Dark Mission and still have the cutscene before its boss where Shadow is running with Omega until Eggman shows up calling the two traitors. Even though Shadow would have aided him in the last Mission.
  • In-universe reason: Eggman figured Shadow was going to overthrow him and tried to kill him before he got the chance. He just failed at it. Plus, it's likely Shadow will have disobeyed Eggman at some point of your pathway (especially if you play True Neutral), so he figured you'd do it again. Practical Reason: The devs couldn't be bothered to write another scenario that would have fit.
    • If the devs were less lazy they could've swapped out Egg Dealer in Lava Shelter Dark for Sonic and Diablon. The stage and the one before it both have Eggman's base getting invaded by G.U.N. troops with Eggy tasking Shadow with countering the invaders (clearing a path for Eggman to reach his base in Iron Jungle and activating the defenses in Lava Shelter).
• Wouldn't the easiest way for Shadow to discern if he's an android be to simply take a moment and think about if he's ever needed to do basic biological things like eating, sleeping, or going to the bathroom? Sure Nobody Poops in this franchise, but they do eat and sleep at least (and if they eat they inevitably need to use the loo).
  • The ultimate lifeform may not even need to eat, sleep or go to the bathroom.
  • Some robots are capable of eating.
• Who took the picture of the Black Comet seen in the newspaper in the opening?
  • A satellite, maybe? Seriously, if humans in this world had built a giant space station 50 years before Sonic Adventure 2, they must've already had simple satellites long before.
• Why are both Chaos Emeralds in the first level just lying around on the street (well, one of them is in a cage, but still)? And why is Black Doom prioritizing killing GUN soldiers over getting the emeralds?
• How did GUN get a close-up picture of Black Doom? It can't have been taken recently, since he was still on the Black Comet at that point, and I doubt Gerald would want documentation of his shady dealings with literal alien invaders.
• Why did the United Federation have to send Rouge into their mainframe to retrieve the emerald in there? Since Rouge has to get out, surely they could get the emerald out the same way they could get her out.
• Seriously, what was Eggman thinking with his lantern-based defense systems?
  • He's always been the type to sometimes put his eccentric ideas and designs before practicality. This is the man who dream of turning the world into an amusement park, afterall.
• Why does Shadow sometimes need to attack his own allies to progress in his missions? It makes sense for the GUN troops, since the GUN commander has a vendetta against Shadow, but what about the Black Arms and Eggman's robots? Couldn't Black Doom or Eggman, respectively, just order them to let him through?
• How did the president survive his residence getting blown up by the Eclipse Cannon? For that matter, how was the entire population of Central City evacuated in less than a day? Where is this "safe zone" they were evacuated to? And why didn't they take the president there as well?
• Why did they cut the shot of Maria falling in the opening cutscene?
• The GUN commander says Maria was the closest thing he had to family... and also says that he didn't just lose Maria in the ARK incident, but also everyone he knew and loved, including his family. Which is it?
  • A translation error.
• Why does the Egg Dealer even have Shadow Fever? For that matter, what even is the purpose of having the buttons where they are? Eggman can't reach them from where he's sitting.
  • Perhaps they power the Shadow Androids. Not sure about the buttons though.
• How does Shadow beating Sonic in a race change the path he's on?
  • Look at the paths that Shadow beating Sonic in the race lead to. It leads to Final Haunt, where he can either once again challenge Sonic in a hand-to-hand fight (leading to the ending where Shadow declares himself to be the ULTIMATE HEDGEHOG) or defeat Black Arms once and for all. These endings center around Shadow defining himself by his heroism or rivalry with Sonic. Meanwhile, the endings gained by ignoring Sonic's race leads to endings where Shadow defines himself by being created by Gerald as either an experiment gone wrong or a guardian of the Ark. Choosing to race Sonic basically rerails Shadow back into Sonic Adventure 2, personality-wise, where he cared more about proving himself to Sonic to an extent then the plot.
• What's with the inconsistent filter on Eggman's dialogue in his levels? Sometimes it sounds like he's on the phone, and other times it sounds like he's right there with Shadow.
  • Beyond the real-life reason of "inconsistent/rushed sound editing," it could be a connection thing; Eggman's voice sounds a lot clearer sometimes because his communicator machine has a stronger wi-fi connection at the moment.
• How did Espio get into Eggman's computer system before Shadow if Shadow entered first?
  • It took the computer longer to analyze and render Shadow inside the Cyberspace. Why? Because he is the Ultimate Lifeform.
• What is up with the morality and allegiance system in this game? For example, in Lava Shelter, it's possible to side with Eggman. So why does Eggman attack Shadow afterwards, and why is Omega helping Shadow considering Shadow helped Eggman, whom Omega hates? While we're on the subject, it seems like the morality of the paths and endings is chosen at complete random. In the Neutral-Dark ending, Shadow just wants to prove himself superior to the original Shadow, but in the Neutral-Hero ending, he plans to lead a robot uprising and take over the world. Meanwhile, the True Hero path involves Shadow stealing a chaos emerald while talking like a cartoonish supervillain.
• Even ignoring the fact that having a Last Story kinda defeats the purpose of deciding whether Shadow should be a hero, a villain or neither, there are problems with both the "last" and the "story" parts. The title implies that it's both canonical to the overall story, and also that it's the final entry in a series of entries that all lead up to it. You could say they were going for a story that combines elements from all the different paths, but when you really look into the details of all the various stories, that becomes an increasingly implausible explanation.
• Why doesn't Diablon's antimatter cannon annihilate everything it comes into contact with?
• In the Last Story, how did the other characters escape from the Black Comet and not get eaten by the Death Leeches? They were almost completely paralyzed, and there was no indication that anybody was coming to save them. And how were they able to talk to Shadow during the final boss battle?
• Why is Eggman so shocked that Gerald would betray humanity to Black Doom? He already knows Gerald tried to wipe out all intelligent life on the planet by reprogramming the ARK to crash into it.
  • Given this was before the GUN raid, he would've assumed Gerald wouldn't betray humanity while of sound mind.
• How was Professor Gerald's message streaming to the Black Comet? Even if you go with the idea that it's really more of a spaceship, how is it compatible with the ARK's technology?
• Who hired Team Chaotix to hack Eggman's computer system and retrieve data from the ARK? For that matter, how did they even get to the ARK?
• Gerald's message in the Last Story implies he somehow knew in advance that GUN was coming to shut down his research. If that's the case, why didn't he do anything about it? He had enough time to leave Shadow a message. For that matter, why did he leave Shadow a message? Shadow was living on the ARK at that time, why not tell him in person? And why did the government never find the message? If they seized all documentation related to Project Shadow, shouldn't they have gotten Gerald's video too, meaning they would've had advance knowledge about the Black Arms and how to defeat them?
• Why does Black Doom leave the Chaos Emeralds where Shadow can easily get them?
  • Same reason he always tries to get Shadow to work with him, even if Shadow betrays him, probably: At least on some level, he seems to consider Shadow a son.
• Why are the Black Arms gray?
  • Maybe they're named after the Black Comet, rather than their appearance.
• Why is G.U.N. trying to demolish Circus Park during the Black Arms invasion? Sure, Eggman is a threat as well, but is tearing down his latest Amusement Park of Doom really a priority when there's a catastrophic alien invasion going on?
• Why do G.U.N/The Black Arms still attack Shadow no matter how many missions he's completed for their side? Wtf sense does that make?
  • G.U.N. attacks because Tower hates Shadow however Black Doom has no reason *not* to tell the Black Arm soldiers to stand down unless attacked first.

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