Headscratchers / Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM)

Headscratchers in Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM).

• So, does anyone actually live in Robotropolis? You never really see anyone walking around the streets except for Swat Bots. If there aren't any people walking the streets, what's the point? I mean, I guess is supposed to show how desolate the place has gotten, but what's the point of having all these streets if they're not even populated? Why hasn't Robotnik destroyed the streets and build more bases?
  • It's populated solely by robots, as Robotnik's plan seems to be to turn the entire planet’s population into his robot slaves. It's less a city with streets than it is one big machine.
• So it seems that Robotnik knows that the Freedom Fighters live in the woods. Well, why hasn't he decided to just bomb the entire forest? Robotnik has shown numerous times how little he cares for wildlife, so, why not bomb the forest and possibly kill your worst enemy, especially when you were essentially going to destroy them, anyway?
  • Every time he tries that, the Freedom Fighters get wind of it and stop the plan.
    • In fact, he did try something like that in the pilot episode, using a swarm of buzz bombers to carry chemical bombs that would destroy the trees & reveal Knothole's location, & the freedom fighters managed to stop him. It can be assumed any and all prior & subsequent attempts using more conventional explosives have ended the same way more or less.
  • It's also possible that Mobius doesn't actually have the materials needed to make conventional explosives in large numbers. It's similar to Earth, but it's pretty different, as well.
  • Or, possibly, it's a matter of ego. He doesn't just want to rule Mobius, he wants to WIN. To see the last vestiges of opposition broken before him, so that he can say "I win".
  • Easier explanation: its implied heavily that pretty much, Robotropolis is surrounded by forest, which goes for miles in all directions. He might literally not have the resources to defoliate all of it (maybe he wasted them all in that pilot episode).
• In Blast To The Past, it's established for the most part that the time travel's of the closed loop type, as major details such as Robotnik's mechanized arm existed in episodes prior to Sonic's meddling with the past. This would mean that Sonic saw his own older self during his days shortly prior to Robotnik's coup. And this whole shebang happened at a point where for most characters this was one of the most important and memorable events in their lives: Young Sonic saw his uncle getting roboticized, Robotnik got afflicted with a roboticized arm, and both Bunnie and Antoine were about to be sent to their doom. Why does no one realize or reference this? Sonic in particular fails at remembering and predicting the actions of the older self that he's incarnating during the episode.
  • Because Blast To The Past isn't a closed loop. The ending where it's revealed that they saved Rosie proves this. In the original timeline, she was captured before the start of the series. Things in the original timeline probably happened very similarly, but Sonic and Sally's presence changed things subtly. For example, their past selves were never captured in the original timeline, but here they were, forcing Sonic and Sal to save themselves, probably resulting in Snively going bald and Robotnik getting a robo-arm earlier than originally.
• In Blast from the Past, Young Antoine already speaks English with a French accent. How can he possibly retain that accent as an adult, if he's been speaking English with all of his peer for most of his life and French (as far as we can see) with absolutely no one? Is it some kind of conscious choice, like Schwartzenegger's Austrian accent is today?
  • Perhaps it's to remind himself of the French Partisans that he's a Spiritual Successor of? Despite France's unfortunate reputation (and indeed, his own cowardly personality), without the French rebel cells, Europe would have been doomed; as are the Freedom Fighters worse off without him. Somehow.
    • I wouldn't say Europe would've been doomed, but the French Resistance did some good work in WWII. Antoine seems to be a kinda weird mashup of multiple things associated with the French. Even the coat he wears resembles a Napoleonic Era officer's coat. The accent is just part of it.
• What does SatAM even mean?
  • It means Saturday Morning. It was called that to differentiate it from the other Sonic cartoon from DiC at the time, Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog.
• Due to the series ending so quickly, we never got a chance to find this out, but, can Sally handle Power Rings too? We did see her and Sonic handle the equivalent of 10,000 power rings, so, Sally handling one on her own should be a piece of cake.
  • Sonic himself says that only he can use the rings' power, because Uncle Chuck explicitly made them for him.
  • Although as one is used to temporarily snap a roboticized Chuck out of his evil programming, perhaps they are only tuned to Hedgehog DNA. Antoine tries to use one himself as part of a plan to capture Robotnik and woo Sally; it fails quite severely.
• How do Robotnik and Snively eat? Destroying the water and plants is actually a dumb idea. Robotnik may look like a robot, but he is still a human. How does he keep himself and his nephew alive without food and water?
  • They probably have enough stockpiled to keep themselves alive, either that or Robotnik created some type of machine to create food for them.
    • Or he eats the sentient animals.
• Since Robotnik has access to roboticization technology how come he never de-roboticized his arm?
  • He might either like the roboticized arm or simply can't. The Freedom Fighters have trouble with deroboticization efforts even with copying the machine entirely, and, since the machine wasn't designed by Robotnik himself, Robotnik might not have ever figured out how to reverse the effects of the roboticizer.
• How was Antoine ever a palace guard? He was just a child when Robotnik launched his insurrection like the rest of the Freedom Fighters. By the time he was old enough to have even been a cadet the old government was long gone.
  • Maybe they train 'em really young. It also could be a title he gives himself as he's taken the task of protecting the last living member of the Royal family.
• One thing I noticed upon rewatching the series is that the Freedom Fighters don't seem to have communicators (walkie-talkies, etc). It's not until the last episode when Sally uses NICOLE to try and communicate with the other Freedom Fighter groups. You'd think given their line of work, a communication device would be handy, and something Rotor could easily put together.
  • Wireless could be detected and the position of the signal could be triangulated. Searching for signals is something that Robotnik clearly would not miss in his plans.
• How and when Tails came to Knothole is never explained. He and his family are neither seen nor mentioned in "Back to the Past". He's ten in this timeline, so he was born roughly around the time Robotnik took over, so presumably not long afterwards.
• So the reason why the freedom fighters haven't used more extreme methods to stop Robotnik such as blowing up his factories is because they're worked by robotisced mobians, many of which include family & friends of the freedom fighters, and they don't want to risk harming them in case the process can be reversed and Robotnik seemingly knows this. So why doesn't he use them as troops instead of the SWA Tbots? It would be a great psychological weapon to use against the FF as they'd probably have a harder time fighting & possibly even destroying what are essentially their own people, plus friends & family.
  • Most likely because robotisiced mobians aren't exactly very capable of operating autonomously and required even more supervision than SWA Tbots. Without direct orders what exactly to do, they would just stand down & do nothing.
• How does Sonic wear his backpack without perforating it with his quills? And how is he able to do his spin attack while wearing it without it getting in the way or getting destroyed?
• Why doesn't Robotnik just ask a Roboticized resident of Knothole where it is?
  • My assumption is that while Knothole's existence may be known,its location is known to only a select few,meaning the Royal Family and those in its inner circle. In the show and the comics,the future Freedom Fighters are taken there by Sally's nursemaid Rosie (and,in the comics,Rosie's cousin and Sally's tutor Julayla). Knothole is also one of the safe spots considered for Queen Alicia during the war with the Overlanders,but it was unavaliable for reasons no longer remembered. Even if Robotnik questioned one of the subservient Robians,chances are they wouldn't know the answer.
• How did King Acorn have a list of various Freedom Fighters teams in "The Void"? He had been there since Robotnik exiled him, which was before this one's conquest of Mobotropolis. There wouldn't have been any Freedom Fighters at that point.
  • It was explained by Nagus, that from the Void someone could observe everything that happens on Mobius. So king simply observed and collected data.
• So why did they have an In Name Only version of Floating Island in the second season without Knuckles? And how were they going to handle this one's planned debut in season 3, when they already established that this continuity's Floating Island was unrelated to him?
• Sonic is always referred to as the "leader" of the Freedom Fighters when someone introduces him but he never seems to be in charge. Shouldn't Sally be the leader, since pretty much everything operational comes from her? Seems like they call him that just because it's his show.
  • Sonic is the field leader, as he's the boldest and shrewdest of the bunch (as least before his Flanderisation in season 2). We see him leading leading the others on occasions, like at the beginning of Sonic Racer, where he was "showing the pipes" to Sally and Bunnie. Sally is more a Smart Girl and lowkey Strategist.
• This is something that always confused me about the ending and what was apparently planned afterwards. Now, yes, I know they confirmed those red eyes at the end belong to Naugus... but the thing is, those red eyes look nothing like Naugus' and in fact they actually looke like Sonic's conjoined eyes, just with a glowing red color. For the longest time I just assumed it was actually them teasing Metal Sonic making an appearance as a new villain because that just seemed like the most obvious assumption... but no, it's apparently Naugus according to the writers. My question is... you think they actually planned to include Metal Sonic but for one reason or another they changed their minds? Or did the writers just say it was Naugus to stop fans from asking about what the 3rd Season was gonna be like?

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