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Knuckles Clan

From Sonic Retro

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Knuckles Clan
Members: Knuckles the Echidna, Pachacamac, Tikal, Various unnamed echidnas
Chief Pachacamac, flanked by Knuckles Clan warriors in Sonic X.

The Knuckles Clan was an ancient echidna civilization, of which Knuckles the Echidna is the final descendant. Thriving as a powerful tribe three thousand years before Sonic's time[1], the Knuckles Clan's downfall served as a major plot point in Sonic Adventure.

Conception

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History

Sonic the Hedgehog 3

There was a legend inscribed on a ring Sonic the Hedgehog finds. It says that there was once an ancient civilization that lived in paradise but meddled in powers beyond their ken. Their civilization was wiped out overnight, and the gods took their land into the sky.[2][3]

Sonic Adventure

Life is always changing, and is never permanent. But our prosperity will never end.

— A gravely mistaken Knuckles Clan citizen, Sonic Adventure

Wanting to expand the tribe, Pachacamac set covetous eyes upon the Chaos Emeralds, which he believed were keys to the Knuckles Clan's growth. Despite the pleas of his daughter Tikal, Pachacamac assaulted the emerald shrine - an act which more than any other defined the course of history in Sonic's world. The shrine's guardian, Chaos, was so enraged by Pachacamac's indiscriminate slaughter of the Chao that he transformed into Perfect Chaos with the power of the emeralds, and lay total waste to the Knuckles Clan. Their civilization was wiped out almost overnight, and the energy backlash from the Master Emerald threw Angel Island into the air.

The few survivors of the Knuckles Clan that remained after Perfect Chaos' attack went into terminal decline over the ensuing centuries. Knuckles is the very last member of the once-great civilization.

Sonic Frontiers

Knuckles explored Angel Island to learn more about the history of his people. Wondering who built the shrine to the emeralds, and where did they go? He found ruins of different echidna tribes, and remnants of some group that came before. Turns out Sky Sanctuary Zone contains a Cyber Space Portal that was left behind by the Ancients.[4] This group of aliens visited the Mystic Ruins before the echidnas, and the spiny anteaters formed the Knuckles Clan where the last remaining Ancients used to be before evolving into a new species, the Chao.[5][6]

Non-canon game appearances

Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood

The Knuckles Clan seems to have been a fairly peaceful society until close to the end of its existence; the Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood manual states that "...the planet's dominant Echidna race had been blessed with centuries of peace"Media:SonicChronicles DS UK manual.pdf[7]. They built the great stone pyramid cities in Mystic Ruins, close to the shrine of the mysterious Chao and their Master Emerald. At some point, Chieftain Pachacamac inherited the leadership of the tribe from his mother, and while initially a compassionate ruler, the death of his wife turned Pachacamac into a hard-hearted warmonger. The tribe expanded hawkishly, conquering neighbouring nations and fighting a protracted conflict against the Nocturnus Clan, another ancient echidna civilization led by Imperator Ix.

With the Knuckles Clan obliterated, the Nocturnus were able to colonise almost all of the ancient world, before they were expunged from history by their own cataclysm: the Argus Event.

In other media

Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie comics)

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Sonic the Comic

Tikal and her clan in Sonic the Comic
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Sonic X

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Sonic the Hedgehog (film series)

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References