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Master Emerald

From Sonic Retro

Revision as of 23:28, 9 May 2010 by RGamer2009 (talk | contribs) (Sonic 3 & Knuckles)
The Master Emerald on Angel Island's Emerald Shrine in Sonic Adventure.
The Master Emerald (top, center) and Super Emeralds in Hidden Palace Zone's Emerald Shrine.
The servers are the 7 Chaos Emeralds. Chaos is power, enriched by the heart. The controller is the one who unifies the Chaos.

Tikal, in Sonic Adventure

The Master Emerald is a massive, mysterious gem, held on Angel Island and guarded by Knuckles the Echidna. It is possibly the single most powerful object in the Sonic universe, and as such has been embroiled in numerous plots by Doctor Robotnik and other villains seeking to harness the crystal for their own nefarious ends.

The green jewel's principal effect is to control or negate the energies of the Chaos Emeralds (being the "controller" mentioned in Tikal's incantation). But on top of this it is also an artefact of awesome potency in its own right, able to levitate continents, power giant lasers, open dimensional wormholes, and more.

General

Little is known about the origin of the Master Emerald except that it resided in a shrine in Mystic Ruins for an unspecified amount of time. After the first Perfect Chaos cataclysm, Angel Island was blasted out of the surface, with the shrine attached. Four thousand years later, the Island and the Emerald is guarded only by the hermetic Knuckles the Echidna.

It was the backlash from Tikal sealing Chaos inside the Master Emerald which formed Angel Island, and it is the Master Emerald's energy which keeps the Island afloat in the sky.

Role in the Story

The Master Emerald first appeared in Sonic & Knuckles, where it was stolen by Dr. Robotnik in his bid to take over the world.

The scene originally thought that the green emerald in the Sonic 2 version of HPZ was the Master Emerald, but the interview with Craig Stitt revealed it was supposedly nothing more than a breakable block.

The Master Emerald, as it appears in S3K

Sonic 3 & Knuckles

The Master Emerald's part in the game includes being stolen by Doctor Eggman, being used to power the Death Egg, allow Mecha Sonic to achieve his Super form, and eventually being restored to Angel Island.

Sonic Adventure

The Master Emerald appeared again in Sonic Adventure for the Sega Dreamcast, where it was again shown keeping Angel Island afloat. The emerald also held within it the ancient monster known as Chaos. In the game, it was shattered by a mysterious force, causing Angel Island to fall, and Chaos and Tikal to escape the jewel's confines. Knuckles spends the game tracking down the scattered shards of the Master Emerald, butting heads with Sonic and unwittingly aiding Eggman in his pursuit of the Chaos Emeralds. All the pieces of the Master Emerald are eventually recovered, though Angel Island cannot rise for long without Chaos sealed inside.

An additional power of the Master Emerald is showcased in the course of the game; A nearly complete Master Emerald shows Knuckles where its remaining shards are (aboard the first Egg Carrier) after Knuckles audiably ponders where they could be. The source of this vision and the Master Emerald's apparent omnipresent knowledge are not revealed.

Sonic Adventure 2

The Master Emerald was again a source of contention as Knuckles fought with Rouge the Bat for possession of it. Eggman tried to steal it again while they were distracted, but Knuckles voluntarily shattered the Emerald in order to keep it out of his hands. Knuckles and Rouge then set off separately to gather the shards of the emerald for their own reasons. Once all the shards are recollected and the Master Emerald is made whole again, it is used to negate the destructive powers of the Chaos Emeralds in Cannon's Core.

Sonic Advance 3

The Master Emerald (or a similar look-alike) is found in the zone Altar Emerald, and the fight against Altar Emerald's second boss takes place at the base of its shrine. The Master Emerald apparently has the ability to reunite the seven separated pieces of the planet, reversing the effects of Dr. Eggman's worldwide Chaos Control. This is seen at the end of the game's bad ending (and presumably also occurs by the conclusion of the good ending).

Sonic Rivals

The disappearance of the Master Emerald is the primary reason for Knuckles's involvement in both Sonic Rivals games. In the original, Knuckles' episode reveals that the game takes place almost entirely on Angel Island's future form, renamed Onyx Island in the future. It is also revealed that the Master Emerald is a transcendent object, existing simultaneously in all timelines. Its disappearance from the future caused its disappearance in all timelines.

Sonic Rivals 2

The emerald goes missing once again in Sonic Rivals 2, forcing Knuckles' hand in the story. The situation also causes the team up of Knuckles with Rouge, much to his chagrin. At the end of the game, the heroes find they were in possession of the jewel the entire time. It was sealed within the Chaos Emerald detector they stole from Eggman Nega.

Sonic Chronicles: TDB

Imperator Ix of the Nocturnus Clan echidnas initiates an intricate scheme in order to capture the Master Emerald and use its power to open a wormhole to the Twilight Cage, where his civilization has been imprisoned by Argus. Manipulating the link which the Chaos Emeralds share with their Master, Procurator Shade pulls Angel Island over Eggman's Metropolis, before Ix steals the Emerald from the Shrine, sending the Island plummeting into the city.

Sonic and friends travel into the Cage to recover the Master Emerald from the Nocturne, and manage to bring it back through the portal.

Guardians

Contrary to popular belief, the emeralds were not protected by echidnas originally, but by Chaos, a water like being that protected both these emeralds and the Chao that lived there.

Tikal found Chaos and the Chao in her ancient echidna family. She loved them and cared for them, but her father found out about them and wanted the power of the chaos emeralds for himself. He attacked the emeralds and tried to steal them for himself, but Chaos absorbed the power of the Emeralds and became Perfect Chaos, before Tikal appealed to the Master Emerald to seal Chaos away inside it, sealing herself in the process. We know this because Tikal's spirit is of the age when she was sealed, which is the age at which her father attacked the emerald. The Perfect Chaos catastrophy almost totally obliterated the Knuckles Clan, and the backlash from the event hoisted Angel Island into the sky. The Chao lived on and bred, however.

This is the point at which the echidnas took over in protecting the emeralds. Knuckles is the echidna that protects them in the time of the current Sonic the Hedgehog timeline, and, for most of his life, believed himself to be the last of his race (at least in the Sonic Team storyline; adaptions like the American Sonic comics have more echidnas in existence). The game canon finally took a leaf out of Archie's book in Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, with the introduction of the Nocturnus.

Other Continuities

Archie

In the Archie Comics, the Brotherhood of Guardians is a group of echidnas in charge of protecting Angel Island. Knuckles is a descendant from these male echidnas, and is now guardian of the island, doing what his ancestors have done for quite a bit of time. The Archie continuity has the Angel Island echidnas as protectors of a distinct set of Chaos Emeralds, which are amalgamated into the Master Emerald as part of a plan to combat Mammoth Mogul in issue 56.

Fleetway

In Fleetway's Sonic the Comic, the history of the Emeralds is expanded considerably, though some points contradict the storyline of the games. The Grey Emerald is said to be the most powerful of the seven, and has the ability to control the energy of the other Emeralds. However, the Master Emerald can still over-rule its power. The original form of the seven Emeralds were what is now known as the Super Emeralds. They were taken from Angel Island by persons unknown (though it was probably Dr. Ovi Kintobor, the original form of Dr. Ivo Robotnik) and began to lose their power, reverting to the small emeralds that are familiar to all the Sonic games. Dr. Kintobor planned to use the Emeralds as a storage device to contain all the negative energy in the world, but a freak accident infused him with pure chaos energy and turned him into Sonic's lifelong antagonist.

In the Fleetway comics (and contrary to Sonic Adventure), there is no positive energy in the Emeralds; only chaos energy. The Emeralds absorb chaos energy through contact, draining the victim and growing more instable. In contrast to this, Sonic absorbs chaos energy, which is why he is the only one (storyline-wise) who is able to harness their power and transform into Super Sonic. The only way to stop the transfer of chaos energy to and from the Emeralds is to keep them at a cold temperature. In the comic, Super Sonic was an insane, all-powerful version of Sonic created when he absorbs too much chaos energy and goes out of control.

It is also implied that it was the Emeralds which created the Special Stages in order to protect themselves from Dr. Robotnik. The comics also claim that the seven original Emeralds were split into fourteen - the emeralds from Sonic 2 and Sonic 3 respectively. These Emeralds were then fused back into seven in the comics. However, this is never proven or implied in the games.

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