(NOTE: The following IS NOT A HOAX. That which you are about to read is true and accurate information, and is to the best of my knowledge the full truth behind the original story as explained by various sources. The following passages come from authenticated sources.)
Yes. I might as well admit it here and now: The Sonic Wind was not an
original idea of mine. Unlike HYBRID, Battery
and all my other stuff (which, even with the copyright characters, are original
plots derived from my evil head), this story was......(Go
ahead, gasp)....adapted.
Which I'm sure raises another question for those reading: Where the hell did
you get this story? Honestly? It couldn't have come from a better source
than Sonic Team itself - and, according to some, from Naoto Ohshima. It is a
piece of Sonic dogma which has existed for a decade - an undeveloped piece, a
relatively unknown piece that no one knows of (save for SEGA purists), but a
piece nonetheless. If I ever brought the fic to the
attention of Sonic Team, they may actually stand up and give a look; it from
that type of authentic source that the original story comes from. (Or not.)
The Original Sonic Wind
The original story that The Sonic Wind comes from was perceived as a
three-part story, back during the days when Sonic was being developed, or
sometime after the first Sonic game came out. However,
it is indicated by the sources that have found the story that this has been
around since the early times of Sonic. It is generally called "The Garnet
story", though normally it only implies to the very first story of the arc
(Scott Garnet's story). According to the theory of one fan, Psxphile,
the episode guide seems to go as such:
Episode 1: Mary Grannet, Chuck Yeager, Sherry
story
Episode 2: Freelance camera woman Meg story
Episode 3: The "adapted" Sonic background which became the basis for
the games
The way I was originally made aware that the story even existed was through
several posts at The Mobius Forum, where various
translated Sonic the Hedgehog texts were being discussed, as were theories to
go behind the original Sonic stories (which are somewhat heavily edited for
Americans). At one point, one fan, Project Blue Gale, posted this, from the Sonic
Adventure 2/SLE Sonic 10th Anniversary Box Set Booklet:
"There are three Sonic episodes, which were
talked about since the initial stage of development, evolving in three
different worlds. One of them, the fairy tale version, is introduced
below."
"Mary Grannet is a well known fairy tale writer
during the 20th century, but only few people know that her husband was a pilot
in the Airforce. Her husband's hair was always
sharp-ended up straight because of his helmet. So Mary said to him teasingly,
"Your hair looks just like a hedgehog."
There was a daughter between them named Sherry. But most of the time her father
was flying in the air, so she had very few chances to meet with her father. Not
to make her daughter feel lonely, Mary used to let Sherry hear a fairy tale. A
fairy tale which is about "SONIC: the Hedgehog who runs faster than
sound."
As time goes by, the world of the fairy tale has spread rapidly. An adventure
at the world of wonder, a mystic jungle, a stormy ocean, the ancient city, the lost continent…Sonic's
activity has pushed forward. Wherever Sonic finds the bad guy, he immediately
appears by his boastful speed to help people. Story of the hedgehog, who has a
mind of justice, wisdom and courage, has eased up her loneliness very well.
Sherry was especially about the story of love between Sonic and his girlfriend,
because her mother seems to be very young and beautiful when her story comes to
the point. Later on, Sherry will realize that her mother's fairy tale was a true
story."
However, according to Psxphile several posts later: "Sonic
Team seems to have left that "episode" in the closet, as they don't
use it as a reference at all (according to the text, they only talked about
it)." More speculation on that later.
Anyways, Psx also notes that the above story is an
abridged version, and he posts the original Garnet story(ies) in its known entirety:
The Background Story: Sonic's Origin.
Mary Garnet was a popular writer of children's books in the U.S.
during the 1940's. Her Husband was a test pilot for the U.S.
Air Force. His secret project was code named "Blue Gale" who's goal was to produce the first plane that would break
the sound barrier. Mary affectionately nick-named her husband
"Hedgehog" because of the way his hair always struck straight up when
he took off his flight helmet. The nickname stuck and it inspired Mary to
decorate his leather flight jacket with a blue cartoon mascot. Since her
husband was so busy flying for the Air Force, Mary had to fill in for him
raising their only daughter Sherry. Mary would spend the afternoons making up
stories to tell Sherry and her friends. Oddly enough, it would always seem that
a hedgehog would be the hero of the story. "Sonic" the hedgehog had
many fantastic adventures usually protecting innocent people and little animals
from evil men.
Sherry used to love hearing these stories and Mary used to love telling them to
lots of children for many years (these stories and their characters were used
as the basis for the Sonic video games from Sega. SEE:
The Game Story).
In 1947, Chuck Yeager (also a test pilot for the U.S.
Air Force) became the first man to break the sound barrier to become the
"fastest man alive". But a little known incident took place earlier
on the same day that has been lost in the record books, eclipsed by the
historic event. Another pilot called Hedgehog had set out to break the same
record but with tragically different results. His ill-fated jet plane was
rocketing towards the speed record when it suddenly started to vibrate
violently and then exploded in a tremendous fireball! Nobody seems to remember
the real name of the brave pilot, but old-timers around the airport still
remember the emblem of Sonic the blue hedgehog......
(The story then shifts to "episode 2", Meg's story.)
About forty years later, a freelance camera woman named Meg came to town on an
assignment to cover an upcoming Air Show. As she stopped for lunch, she decided
to browse through an interesting looking Antique shop near the airport. Inside
she discovered a very dusty old leather flight jacket with the emblem of a
strange character and the letters S-O-N-I-C on the back. She tried to decide if
this character was a lion, a cat, or some other strange animal. But something
drew her to it and she instantly liked it a lot. She tried it on and the
shopkeeper couldn't help but notice:
"Say Lady..... looks like that Jacket is just
your size! Do you like it?"
"Why yes! It's great! It's a little dirty but.......do you know what this
word SONIC means? It sounds strangely familiar. Like I've heard it
before....."
"Well, I guess it's probably the name of that funny-lookin
critter on the back."
"Sonic.. yes Sonic!...
Oh I remember, he is SONIC THE HEDGEHOG! I used to hear the stories from an old
neighbor lady when I was a little girl. He's a little hedgehog that can run
faster than sound!"
Meg laughed out loud as the rush of childhood memories poured back to her. She
dusted off the old jacket, eagerly paid for it, and she giggled to herself as
she wore it out of the store. This immediately became a favorite possession and
she wore it everywhere. She could not explain the strange sensation she felt
when she was wearing this jacket, but something made her feel quite comfortable
and safe with it on.
Upon arriving at the Air Show, Meg started taking pictures of all the vintage
aircraft. At one point during the show, a group of old WW2 planes were doing a
low-level formation fly-by when suddenly one of the planes veered off and fell
to the ground! In the panic of the following explosion, Meg found herself
surrounded by fire. She tried to escape but became disoriented as all she could
see was a wall of flame. Suddenly a hand reached out and grabbed her just as
she was passing out from the intense heat. As she slipped into unconsciousness,
all she could see was a strange blue form and she felt the sensation of
tremendous acceleration.
Meg woke up staring at the ceiling of a hospital room. She was a little singed
and badly shaken, but not really hurt. "Have I been dreaming?" she
asked herself. Her nurse told her that she had been found unconscious lying on
a grassy hill miles from the airport. No one could explain how she got there,
but her jacket had been burned and Meg noticed that the emblem had disappeared!
Could it be? She had this strange idea that somehow Sonic must have saved her,
but she stopped short of saying anything because she didn't want to sound
crazy. Even though it seemed impossible, all she could say was "I don't
know.....".
Later, as she developed the pictures in the camera of the last moments of the
Air Show, Meg's heart stopped as the last exposure came into view. It showed
the blurred image of a large pair of red shoes with a white stripe.....
SONIC!!!
Was it really him? What other explanation? She was confused....but it seemed so
real! A moment later, she gasped with excitement at the thought of seeing him
again.
The Game Story: (adapted from the Sonic Stories of Mary Garnet)
Sonic was born on a small island called Christmas Island.
But his love for adventure called him away and he has visited so many different
places on Earth that he doesn't really have a place he considers to be home. The Sonic stories center around his favorite group of islands
including South Island (Sonic 1), Westside Island (Sonic 2), and Angel Island (Sonic 3). The first Sonic Story is located on South
Island which is quite beautiful. This island is known for
the curious fact that it floats around in the ocean. That is why it can not be
found on any map. Sonic is fond of sitting on it's
beach in his beach chair, wearing sunglasses, and listening to cool rock music.
Sonic loves to sing in his own rock band, and enjoys being with his friends,
but he is just as happy to be alone.
Sonic would be very happy enjoying his own pastimes were it not for the
constant intrusions of his arch rival Dr. Robotnik
(also sometimes known as Eggman because of his round
shape). The evil doctor seems to have an endless supply of fiendish plots to
take over the world, but Sonic seems to always find a way to frustrate his
plans and keep him at bay. This has given Sonic somewhat of a celebrity status
with the local inhabitants and he is loved by all as much as Robotnik is hated by all.
Westside Island
is a very ancient island with plenty of treasures and ancient ruins. It is also
said to contain a small supply of a very powerful natural crystals called
"Chaos Emeralds". These multi-colored emeralds have tremendous energy
and could be used to create the most powerful nuclear bombs and laser weapons
if they fell into the wrong hands. Legend says that they exist here, but nobody
can remember actually seeing them. The reason for this is that the Chaos
Emeralds exist in a _different dimension_ and no one has yet been able to find
a way to actually possess them.
One day, Dr. Robotnik heard the stories of the Chaos
Emeralds and he vowed to do whatever it took to acquire them for his own evil
purposes. He, and his henchmen, built a huge fortress where he made robots of
many types and sent them off to find the Chaos Emeralds. Sonic stood up in
defiance of Robotnik's troops and kicked them all
back into the fortress telling them never to come out again. But the evil
doctor had other plans. as he sulked away, he vowed
that he would find the Chaos Emeralds, and he would get his revenge on Sonic
the Hedgehog.
A short time later, Sonic made an amazing discovery. His friends had all
disappeared! Robotnik had been capturing all of the
defenseless animals in the countryside and had changed them into robots! Dr. Robotnik was converting Sonic's
friends into slaves and now only Sonic to save them! Can Sonic do it? Will Robotnik succeed in his quest for the emeralds while
exacting his revenge on Sonic? Can Sonic subdue the hoards of robot animals
without hurting his friends inside? Will Robotnik
take over the _whole world_?
So begins the video game saga of Sonic the Hedgehog......
And that is, as far as it can be discerned, the ORIGINAL Sonic origin
story. The preceding has been confirmed as being a part of the "Sonic the
Hedgehog Technical Files", which was translated by the Sega Technical
Institute (STI), a now defunct American subcompany of
Sega quite some time ago. It was also shown by another translator big smile on
another forum. Who actually managed to get the translations from STI, however,
is still unknown.
And now you are saying, "Well, Cooki, that's all
fine and dandy. But if this is really the origin story, why isn't it so well
known to the Sonic fans?" I feel, for certain
obvious reasons, that it would be prudent to explain how it is possible for a
fan writer to write something based on a story that is almost as elusive as the
Holy Grail. Several possibilities come up:
-The original intention of the story as relating to the games' popularity
-The introduction of the "universes"
-The falling out between Naoto Ohshima and Yuji Naka and Sega's financial
troubles in the mid-90's
First is the games' popularity, and how the Garnet story is related to it.
According to Pepperidge of GHZ, the foremost theory surrounding the Garnet
story was that it was intended to be made into a movie, or into a series of
movies a la a trilogy. There was an obvious intention for it to be the origins
of Sonic, albeit an alternate universe of the real world-type story, to cash in
on the huge popularity of Sonic in the early 1990's. However, the big reasons
for it not being realized are mentioned below.
Next, the split dogma between SEGA of America/Europe and SEGA of Japan allowed
the introduction of various different storylines to emerge across the Pacific.
Even now, categorizing characters, places and events between the original game
stories (which were not faithful to the Japanese version until the Sonic
Adventure seires), a new Japanese series called Sonic
X (which is an "alternate universe" of the games), two
American-made Saturday morning cartoons (Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog
and the more beloved and popular Sonic the Hedgehog, also called "SatAM") the Archie comic book (based off of SatAM), several American-made Sonic games which did not
follow the original storyline or were based off of the shows, and even a
British comic book which followed the original story least of all. The various
"universes" have been embraced and loathed by fans alike, and few can
always tell the difference between where the story takes place (Mobius or Earth?) or who Sonic's "girl" is (Amy? Sally? Fiona? Mina? Tails? You pimp, Sonic!).
Last, and perhaps more important, is the internal problems that Sega and Sonic
Team were experiencing which most likely cancelled the possibility of creating
the Garnet story as a movie series. Naoto Ohshima - who was the backbone behind
most of the early Sonic stories, as well as the most likely writer of the
Garnet story - would quit Sonic Team sometime around 1999 due to various
control and creative issues with Yuji Naka, the head of Sonic Team. This
departure, along with the financial troubles that Sega began to experience, no
doubt lessened the chance of working the story to reality until there was
practically no chance at all.
The Adaptation
There are many differences, too many differences to count, that I made in The
Sonic Wind. The major ones, of course, were to bring a more historically
accurate landscape to the stories and to give the characters much more depth.
Therefore, because Blue Gale was a government officiated project according to
the Sonic Team story, and Yeager's project was the only supersonic project in
existence that was actually controlled by the government (as Bell
was the only official contractor for the Army's supersonic jet), it would have
been utterly folly for there to be two rivaling projects. Plus, to ignore the
effects of World War II would also be a negative because it would be impossible
to find someone who wasn't deeply affected by it, and as a pilot Scott would
have seen action.
Scott? Huh?
I figured that to just do a story on the flight would be completely flat. As a
result, the adaptation also turned into a character study of Scott, which isn't
such a bad thing considering we are talking about the man who would be Sonic.
The reason I picked Scott is because "John" is too plain, and in fact
the Scott sounded much better on the tongue with Garnet. That, and during
character development, my older sister's friend Scott Burgess was over every
Thursday night for morning classes in our nearby city, Utica.
He was also the basis for which Scott's character design comes from (yes, his
hair was like that).
But you didn't come to hear about Scott. You want to know about the real
XS-1.
The True Story of the XS-1 - Abridged
The real story is very long, and (despite what I write otherwise) a little more
boring.
In the 1940s, various countries had been searching for a way to prefect a jet
that would go faster than the speed of sound. By the middle of World War II,
there were two front runners - Britain
and the United States.
However, it was very dangerous, and in fact, several pilots in the British
Royal Air Force had died trying to get past the "wall of air" (as the
sound barrier was called). After the death of famed aviator Geoffrey de
Havilland in 1944, Britain
officially abandoned their projects, and it was left to various American
contractors to solve the "supersonic problem".
In 1946, Bell Company's government contracted supersonic jet project, by then
the most advanced of all and the only one endorsed by the military, was
completely taken over by the US
government and labeled as top-priority and top secret. It originally retained
most of its original members, including a civilian pilot named Chalmers Goodlin, but he was cut when he asked to be paid more as
they got closer to Mach 1.0 and the danger escalated. They then brought in
salaried Army pilots from Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio to do the work, and
assigned them to a top secret airfield at Edwards AFB near Muroc
Dry Lake (also called Muroc), which is located in the
Mojave Desert, over an hour north of Los Angeles. The primary was Captain Chuck
Yeager, the secondary was Lieutenant Robert Hoover.
Captain Jack Ridley was appointed the project head, as well as the main
engineer, while Colonel Albert Boyd was the overseer of the project for the
Army and the head to which the crew reported to. Other than Boyd, there were
hardly any other high-ranking Army officials, and the men were mostly left to
their own devices, which included going to a nearby off-base bar called Pancho Barnes.
Though there were some turbulence problems, it was through several engineering
modifications that these problems were ultimately conquered and the tests ran
fairly smoothly. The final test was on October
14, 1947, where Yeager broke the sound barrier at 1.06 Mach.
However, one thing about the flight that was hidden until afterwards was that
Yeager had suffered an injury from a horse accident two days prior to the
historical flight. He had broken several ribs after he fell off, and he
cleverly managed to hide the wound by having his ribs taped up to stifle the
pain, as going to the Army doctors would have cancelled his chances of flying.
That was most likely the most injury that anyone on the project had received,
with the possible exception of Hoover,
who ended up in a plane accident that resulted in his being cut as secondary
(this, however, could not be elaborated on with the information that was
researched). No deaths occurred during the American projects.
It is also an interesting note that, in XS-1, the X is the model name of the
jet, while the S meant "supersonic". The 1 meant the jet version that
was being used (as in it was the 1st usable version of the jet). The S was
dropped after Mach 1.0 was reached. (Hence it could inspire something like
"Sonic X", perhaps?)
Anyways, that is the end of my thrilling guide to how everything came about. If
you have any questions, or you want me to add something, feel free to e-mail me
at Dr Papirini10839@aol.com.
Enjoy.
Also, I'd like to thank the following site for their information:
The GHZ
ChuckYeager.Com
National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics
Astronautix.Com
AcePilots.Com
Smithsonian National Air and Space Musuem
Sonic HQ
Chuck Yeager and the Bell X-1
Bell X-1
Another Bell X-1 page
Battle of Salerno
Mach 1.0 and Beyond
USAF Air Divisions
There are many, many other people I'd also like to thank, including Scott Burgess, all my online beta readers and my family, for being quizzical about exactly what I was up to.
Again, this was a great experience, and I hope all of you enjoyed it as much as I did!
-Cooki,
October 1st, 2003;
November 24th, 2003