[Music] sonic adventure 2 last episode wishes are eternal hey everyone chamix here when you think of the sonic the hedgehog series you'll usually think of brightly colored and whimsical environments cartoony animal characters and lighthearted fun unless you're a sonic adventure fan yeah it's no secret that both of these games had some pretty dark undertones sonic adventure 1 had that whole war with the echidna tribe being brutally wiped out by chaos all after waging a bloody war for the chaos emeralds oh and these cute little child creatures over here yeah they obliterated them they knew too much but sonic adventure 2 took it even darker it involves government conspiracies assassinations and biological experiments gone wrong and it all stems from a scientist attempting to play god it's a plot that requires patching together piece by piece because the game never explains the story in a straightforward or organized way so join me today as we take a deep dive into the lore of one of the darkest plot points of the entire sonic the hedgehog series the events of project shadow [Music] this video is proudly sponsored by magic spoon some of my fondest childhood memories come from waking up early every sunday morning and tape recording episodes of sonic x while eating a big bowl of cereal man what i wouldn't give to go back to the glory days but now i'm old and i have the curse knowledge of knowing that traditional cereal is actually really bad for you seriously all you have to do is take a look at the pure amount of sugar in the nutritional facts of any big name cereal brand it ain't pretty but that's where our sponsor magic spoon comes into play with magic spoon you don't have to feel guilty about slamming down three bowls of cereal at any given time of the day trust me i'm not going to judge you if you decide to finally have that bowl of cereal at 3 in the morning that you've been craving all day because one of the biggest features of magic spoon is that it's actually 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that being said let's get on to today's episode over 50 years before the events of sonic adventure 2 we have gerald robotnik renowned scientist and grandfather to none other than our very own dr eggman this scientific genius seems to run in the family but in complete contrast to his grandson gerald is devoted to using science to make the world a better place one of his greatest accomplishments being the space colony arc the world's first satellite colony allowing people to live in space it's an incredibly advanced research center created by gerald for the purpose of allowing great scientists such as himself to conduct research and perform experiments for the greater good of mankind gerald has a very close bond with his beloved granddaughter maria robotnik after all she lives on the ark with him as she has an incurable and terminal illness called neuroimmune deficiency syndrome and apparently the low gravity could help keep her condition in remission but this wasn't enough for gerald he devoted himself to finding the cure for his granddaughter's disease through science during this time gerald received a request from the president of the united federation the sonic universe's equivalent to the united states a research program called project shadow it would be dedicated to developing the formula for immortality initially gerald refused as he felt that he would be playing god and that it could possibly be used as some sort of biological weapon for war by gun or the garden units of nations which was essentially the united federation's military anyways it was all morally gray areas gerald did not want to put his foot in but he soon realized that something like this could lead to a medical breakthrough the perfect solution for curing maria of her illness so he obliged such a task seemed impossible at first despite the pessimism from his colleagues gerald robotnik spent a great amount of effort researching this formula for immortality but where to even begin luckily for gerald there just so happened to be a set of seven mystical gems capable of granting miracles and unlimited power we all know them the chaos emeralds if gerald could just replicate their powers surely he could convert their energy into a means of granting immortality right so he began experimenting with ways of replicating the chaos emeralds energy and created the chaos drives the chaos drives needed to be created in such a way that living beings would be able to consume their energy so gerald began thinking of a vessel that would be able to properly handle this kind of power it's heavily implied that gerald based a lot of his research on ancient depictions of such a vessel the mystic ruins the very land that angel island home of the master emerald was split away from it had ties to the ancient clan of echidnas that fought over the infinite power of the chaos emeralds it was possible that remnants from this extinct clan held some clues to this formula for immortality well it turns out that deep in one of these echidna shrines gerald happened across an enormous mural this mural depicted a water serpent devouring an ancient city with carvings of jewels that seemed very similar to the chaos emeralds we know this water serpent as perfect chaos from the first sonic adventure game gerald thought that it was possible that this creature had the ability to harness the power of the chaos emeralds so he began basing several of his prototype experiments after it the ultimate life form someone or something that could never become ill wither away with age or die the experiment started off as a pretty straightforward interpretation of this creature from the mural we can actually see these experimental creatures inhabiting the ark during the events of sonic adventure 2. first we have the artificial chaos p1 variant which is clearly modeled after perfect chaos from the mural its body is entirely made up of water and has an almost identical shape to that of chaos it seems to retain both its shape and sentience from this headpiece found on top of it and then there's the artificial chaos p100 variant whose body takes a larger more circular shape it's able to split itself up into tinier versions of itself with the helmet acting as the master controller these experiments were good steps in the right direction but the issue was that these artificial chaos were just that artificial how could gerald move forward to apply this same energy to a biological life form well he would take what he learned from these artificial chaos experiments and begin his work on the prototype of the first ultimate life form the bio lizard its rate of growth was incredibly fast it had the ability to regenerate and even self-reproduce and its organs were capable of utilizing the power of the chaos emeralds everything seemed very promising at first but the scientists quickly realized that the biolizard was very very flawed its limbs proved to be weak so weak that it didn't even possess the ability to walk but worst of all the biolizard's nature grew extremely violent and primitive and it became too difficult to control at times as the biolizard continued to grow at an exponential rate it required an enormous life support system powered by the chaos drives just in order to sustain its own life eventually an entire specialized room was created just to help the biolizard live this room curiously contained an altar for the master emerald likely another result of gerald's research on the echidna tribe and chaos emeralds it was most likely supposed to be a way to neutralize the beast power in case it went on a destructive rampage this was a very dangerous and unpredictable creature that they had on their hands so the biolizard experiments were eventually abandoned and it was sealed into this specialized room word may or may not have leaked out to gun about the details of this experiment including all the potential danger it possessed after all complaints from internal staff about feasibility of this project and even the safety of their own lives were making their way all around the ark but meanwhile gerald would take what he learned from the biolizard experiments and begin work on a new ultimate life form hoping to remove the flaws that plagued his first prototype it's here that gerald must have found some new inspiration because his idea for this next experiment would take a much different direction instead of basing this next life form on some enormous reptilian he would downsize to something a lot more streamlined it's heavily implied that gerald did some additional research at this point this time on angel island itself for more clues on the perfect vessel for the ultimate life form it's highly probable that gerald found the ancient mural in hidden palace zone the one from sonic 3 and knuckles that foretells the events of doomsday zone depicting the battle between an enormous evil entity and a supercharged hedgehog obviously a reference to dr eggman and supersonic's battle at the end of the game so gerald got to work and eventually the ultimate life form was born modeled after this supercharged hedgehog from the mural shadow the hedgehog the ultimate life form shadow was both very similar and dissimilar to the biolizard first he possessed immortality and many of the same chaos control-inducing abilities as his predecessor but unlike the biolizard shadow did not need machinery in order to live he was perfectly capable of functioning completing tasks and making decisions on his own on top of this he was incredibly strong agile intelligent and fast but possibly most importantly his soul was based off of maria's you see gerald was still very skeptical about the united federation's true intentions with project shadow in the case something were to go wrong and shadow would end up being used as a weapon he had faith that modeling shadow's soul after maria would lead shadow to the correct moral choices in the end shadow quickly became acquainted with many of the people living on the ark including maria herself who he would become very attached to the two would naturally spend a lot of time together as maria's condition kept her pretty rooted to certain rooms and shadow had plenty of downtime during his time living on the ark they would often have deep philosophical conversations with one another shadow had doubts about his true purpose in life but maria was always there to assure him that things would be okay their conversations and time spent together meant everything to shadow but in many ways they both felt trapped inside of the ark and wanted to do their best to help the people back on the surface have a better future both shadow and maria longed to visit the earth together they made a promise that when maria was better and shadow was finished with gerald's experiments they one day would meanwhile on earth gun was getting nervous about the potential dangers and costs of project shadow word about the dangerous experiments with the biolizard had leaked out to them after all and not only were they worried about this monstrosity that they created they were worried about this information finding itself in the hands of the public gun and the united federation did not want the public to know about these experiments they were conducting up on the ark so they made the executive decision to put a stop to gerald's experiments however it wasn't as simple as asking the team to cease their work they had to ensure everyone on the ark would remain silent about project shadow and there was only one way they could guarantee this the ultimate life form was nearly complete and just as gerald put the finishing touches on his life's work the space colony arc was invaded by a swarm of gun soldiers everyone on board the ark was to be executed everyone except for gerald and shadow gunn's plan was simple destroy all evidence of project shadow including anyone that knew of its existence and falsely blame it on an experiment gone wrong an accident caused by gerald robotnik all while taking the ultimate life form for themselves with their plan in motion gun began to slaughter all of the scientists on board of the ark during the attack gerald entrusted and instructed maria to take shadow and leave the ark via an escape pod they would make their way but a group of gun soldiers intercepted them and maria would end up getting hit by a bullet shadow would take out this group of soldiers and the two limped the rest of their way to the escape pods maria mortally injured used the last of her strength to activate the escape pod for shadow and give him her final words [Music] on that please give them a chance to be happy shadow i know you can do it [Music] completely traumatized shadow was then ejected from the ark down to earth never to see his beloved maria again all on the ark were killed that day and gerald was taken into custody and placed on prison island he had gotten word from gun that one of the escape pods had ejected obviously this meant that maria and shadow had escaped right but eventually he would learn that maria was one of the names on the list of those who perished on the ark and after learning of his granddaughter's death gerald would never be the same meanwhile gunn managed to track down the escape pod and gain possession of shadow they put him in a state of suspended animation and secured him deep inside of their facilities where he would remain dormant for years gerald would then be forced to continue his work on project shadow this time under much more strict supervision from gun but the idea of losing maria would strike him with incredible grief and eventually gerald would go insane during his continued work on project shadow he would scribble formulas on his cell wall this would be the beginning of his plan to exact revenge on the world for what they took away from him even under heavy gun supervision gerald somehow managed to work under their noses and create a doomsday program scripted to cause the space colony arc to collide and destroy the earth once all seven chaos emeralds were placed into the ark's eclipse cannon the eclipse cannon was a weapon attached to the ark with the original intent to destroy celestial objects posing a threat to earth but gerald had now modified it to be used against earth he then altered shadow's mind to carry out this plan to bring all seven chaos emeralds to the ark upon being reawakened he even reprogrammed the biolizard as a fail-safe to ensure this plan was saw through until the very end all of the pieces were now in place and gerald's plan to exact revenge on humanity was set up to play out completely on its own gun would eventually become suspicious and decide to completely stop all work relating to project shadow and rather than having gerald sit around as a potential danger the last thing for them to do was to get rid of the one final remnant of these ungodly experiments gerald himself gerald robotnik was sentenced to execution by firing squad gun would finally put an end to project shadow or so they thought the events of sonic adventure 2 lead to gerald's plan unfolding exactly how he imagined shadow is reawakened by eggman the chaos emeralds are placed into the eclipse cannon and the ark begins its collision towards earth however one thing gerald didn't account for was shadow's soul remember it was modeled after maria and in the end shadow remembers his promise to her to give humanity a chance the earth that they both long to visit together rather than destroy it shadow remembers his promise to maria and chooses to protect it [Music] [Applause] [Music] with the ark only mere seconds away from colliding with the earth shadow uses the last of his energy to warp the ark via chaos control off of its collision course shadow would sacrifice himself in the end to protect humanity keeping his promise to the one person who meant everything to him there are many additional details to project shadow from games after sonic adventure 2 that i purposely left out frankly i think a lot of it takes away from the impact of the original story and some of it even goes as far as to retcon certain things that were already established so to keep the integrity of the original story intact i'm deciding to keep it strictly confined to the events of sonic adventure 2 and ended at that i highly encourage people to play sonic adventure 2 and try to follow along with this plot it requires some piecing together as the way that the game explains it is somewhat fragmented but in my opinion it's one of the greatest plot lines in all of sonic history [Music] hey everyone thank you so much for making it to the end of this video if you like what you saw leave a like and subscribe for more content such as this in the comments below let me know what you think of project shadow and to take that discussion even further beyond make sure to join our community discord i'll leave the link to that in the description and finally you know i gotta thank my amazing channel members you all absolutely rock and are the number one reason i'm able to keep doing this whole youtube thing on a weekly basis if you would also like to become a channel member for only two dollars along with getting some pretty awesome perks press the join button beneath this video or the channel membership link in the description for more details and with all that being said i hope everyone has a fantastic day peace [Applause] [Music]