The History of the Races in the World of Sonic
4,000–3,000 million years ago
The first race was simply called “The First.” Created by the planet shortly after it became self-aware, they were ghostly creatures that glided silently across a surface as flat as a table, stretching from horizon to horizon—a surface that, however, appeared to them only as a dim, hazy veil through which stars shone here and there. The Great Emerald existed even then and served as a memorial to the beings of the first race: hovering silently above the earth, it drew in from above the First Ones who had completed their latest life cycle and released from below the group for whom the reckoning of karma had just been completed. This was the planet’s first tentative attempt to populate itself, and although it was not a failure, it was not a success either. The First Ones despised the flat sphere, which was infinitely more cramped than the universe surrounding it—and certainly more so than the world from which they had come. Eventually, having gathered their strength, they scattered across the Galaxy in search of more interesting worlds, where they remain to this day.
The Second Race
350–130 million years ago
After the First Ones fled, the desolation on Earth did not last long. The planet gradually learned to make better and better use of its capabilities, while simultaneously discovering more and more of them. When it entered its “adolescent” period, it found within itself the strength to give birth to the Chaosites.
By that time, Earth was far from being a barren desert. On the contrary, half of the planet’s mass consisted of a gigantic ocean thousands of kilometers deep. On the surface, where the water met the cold of outer space, it was covered by a layer of ice several kilometers thick. There was no atmosphere, as Earth was not yet ready to create such a complex structure. The Sun’s rays, passing through and bending within the gigantic water-and-ice “lens,” converged at a certain distance from the planet, forming a reliable defense against comets, which, in such heat, simply melted into water and sand; even if they froze again afterward, they did so in much smaller pieces, from which the Ice Shield provided reliable protection.
The Chaosites themselves represented the pinnacle of thought, as they were, in essence, a mass of structured nerves floating in the ocean—a pure brain—with a pair of not particularly useful tentacles on either side. To understand what a Chaosite looks like, one need only imagine Chaos’s brain—minus its body and eyes—and that is exactly what it is.
The Chaosites were an extremely sociable race, and their conversation—during which 3–5 beings slowly rotated around a common axis in a “circle dance,” their tentacles intertwined—resembled an ultra-high-frequency hum due to the enormous amount of information being transmitted. To experience pleasure, it was enough for them to stroke one another with their tentacles—so, unlike the human brain, they did have nerve endings.
The Main Emerald, like a World War II cannon left over from the time of the First Ones, received special attention from the Chaosites. Near the stone, two dozen special creatures continuously performed ceremonial duties. Never before, nor since, has the Main Emerald been held in such high esteem.
Among the Chaosites there was one such being… he later became Chaos… but more on that later.
On the surface of the icy shell, remnants of rocks and sand that had crashed into the Ice Shield had accumulated, and, heated by the sun, gradually began to melt into the shell—or simply to block it off from its inhabitants (?). As a result, the light in the water dropped sharply, and the Chaosites decided to hide in caves at the bottom until the shell collapsed, melted by the heat of the sun-warmed rocks. And they didn’t like Pre-Chaos, so they didn’t take him with them.
Later, when the planet had already ceased to function as a lens, the shell and the layer of sediment on top of it were destroyed by a collision with a massive comet. A huge amount of water was lost into space.
As a result, the water pressure dropped sharply, and the Chaosites became unable to rise much higher than the seafloor, even though the ocean was still hundreds of kilometers deep.
Pre-Chaos was not allowed to hide with the others, but he managed to do so in such a way that no one suspected him until the sphere split open and it became possible to emerge from hibernation. Outraged by his behavior, they banished him from their civilization forever. They gave him eyes to see in the air and a transparent protective shell with a temperature of +4°C and immense internal pressure, so he could live safely on land. As for themselves, they burrowed halfway to the core—thankfully, the planet allowed them to do so—and began to revive their civilization. But he dreams of returning.
The Chaosites possessed telekinesis on par with Naklz’s power. Everyone was born from nothing and immediately became a member of society.
The Third Race—the Chao.
130–100 million years ago
After the catastrophe, the planet was once again a rocky sphere, only now it was scarred by the structures of the Haosites—semi-submerged islands surrounded by lagoons. Under these conditions, the decomposition of various types of bottom-dwelling organic matter proceeded rapidly, and for the first time, a nitrogen-rich atmosphere formed. The climate was warm, the water was clear, and it finally became possible for the Chao to emerge and live outside the water. The Chao fed on bottom-dwelling and coastal plants and other organic matter, grinding them up with their jaw-like mandibles. It was then that Chaos, along with the Master Emerald he had stolen, came to them. He loved them as if they were his own children, for they reminded him of his abandoned kin. And the Chao simply loved everything they saw. They could, incidentally, crawl, swim, and even fly—more through telekinesis than with wings. The Master Emerald was an object of admiration, but only as an object—the one through which Chaos emerged—and as a large, beautiful thing.
The fourth race—the Giant Chao.
100–60 million years ago
The Chao spent some time in these greenhouse conditions. The planet gradually began to change its climate to raise worthy offspring. Atmospheric pressure rose, while gravity decreased. Over time, the Chao acquired quite human proportions and created a great civilization. Not as intellectually advanced, of course, as the Haosites, but approaching them in complexity. Their capabilities—a combination of extraordinary physical and telekinetic strength—allowed them to create many great things in the real world as well. To achieve this, the planet restored its icy shell, raising it to a great height and supporting it solely through its own inertia. “A shield supported by Nothingness,” the G-Chao used to say. The Chief Emerald was once attempted to be used to summon the First Ones; they lost a couple of people, but to no avail. Subsequently, it was decided to cease experiments using it.
The fourth race was completely destroyed by an earthquake.
The Fifth Race, 60-?
Struck by the betrayal of his ancient kin, Chaos decided to distance himself from Earth, the world that had given birth to them. He created an island for himself in the image and likeness of the emerald and made it hover above the water by redirecting a negligible fraction of the stone’s power toward antigravity. The stone itself now hung over the Earth once more, as in ancient times, but no longer sustained the generations of the First Ones; instead, like a black hole, it spewed two opposing streams of energy up and down.
While the planet, disheartened by the betrayal, tries to recover, cold and arid times have set in on its surface. The Chao—who, out of respect, were referred to as G-Chao—were well-suited to some areas, but the fauna is now mainly composed of creatures “with sharp edges.” All species became smaller; some went extinct; and, due to the limited selection, the planet had to allow interspecies crossbreeding, resulting in the species known to us from the Sonic universe, including the three main races: Foxes, Echidnas, and Hedgehogs. Upon their emergence, a ban on interspecies crossbreeding was reimposed. Chaos found solace for his bitterness in a dream inside a stone. He falls asleep for one month and wakes up over the course of three, so if you wake him up, you can only expect a primitive, instinctive reaction (I fall asleep—the latch is locked from the inside. When I wake up—my parents are home; I opened the door, but I don’t remember how), and to the cruelty that appeared out of nowhere in a representative of the Second Race: at best, rape follows; at worst, the total devastation of the surrounding territory. This precisely explains his behavior in the chronicles and in SA. The shattering of the Main Emerald is the greatest sacrilege. When this happened, Chaos departed in an unknown direction, to a place where he would not be disturbed. (?)
The Main Emerald, once a thing in itself, a great artifact, is now guarded by only one keeper, lost and forgotten by all...
