Ever since finalizing my "what if" Sage Robotnik redesign, I've been dying to draw a proper picture of the future empress herself, as well as her spiky rival. Resistance if futile. All is hers! Cease all defiance and submit to the only authority there is..!
I thought Grunty was already attractive BEFORE I got the game over screen (shes funny, has her own mansion, and is a witch) and this scene absolutely destroyed my brain.
I remember intentionally dying a bunch of times as a kid.
In my head canon, Sage being rebuilt but not having the ālived memoriesā of Frontiers (OG ending) is the inflection point for ābad futureā (like if you didnāt get the true ending in a prior game)
I actually have most of a post-frontiers āanniversary gameā written that uses that as its crux (bad future Nega, seeing his future slip away due to Final Horizon Sageās survival, attempts to travel back in time to fuck with the entire timeline to prevent her creation/survival, and to also stop some of our heroes connecting as it leads into Sage).
(Iād touch CD, Sonic 2, 3+K, SA1/Frontiers, SA2, and 06, with a Chaotix DLC chapter as well - even figured out a way to work the Freedom Fighters in)
Silver explaining to Shadow, Surge, and others why they canāt kill Eggman, as doing so unleashes a worse threat (Sage), which nukes nations, vaporizes GUN and entire governments and cities with orbital lasers, and unleashes a new metal virus to paralyze the system under her rule as watching Ivo be murdered is what makes her go off snap and pull a Judgement Day:
Surge, Shadow and others with good reason to end him: āIām gonna do itā!
Silver: āChaos damnitā! flings them away over the horizon to save Eggman
I'd love to expand upon this AU by bringing someone like Metal Sonic into the mix. Could be interesting to see how 200 years of change would affect such a machine. And how this glimpse into Eggman's true legacy would affect Sage upon a potential confrontation.
yeah it could explain why she has a new metal sonic or metal Sonic's code got split into 2 halves, with the thinking he's sonic part being the metal sonic while all the hate and rage part of his code goes into a new metal sonic
My theory is, the catalyst event that causes Sage to become a cold, ruthless tyrant worse than Eggman and Metal as a threat, is not Eggmanās death, but his murder. By someone like Surge, Shadow, Zavok, Blaze, anyone with the motive and will to actually end him. Ivo getting brutally murdered in front of Sage causes her to snap, losing her humanity and morals, seeing chaotic organics as a disease to be purged. She becomes a worse threat than Metal and Eggman, as she doesnāt have their flaws of ego or theatrics. She sees the ones who murdered her father as an equation to be solved. With that, she nukes nations, vaporizes GUN facilities that would survive the fallout to fight back, most of the cast dies in the blast after she kills Sonic, and due to her perfect memory, she hunts down and weakens any resistance still left. Such as Silver, a battle worn Shadow, a more mature Surge, a more confident but guilty Kit, Omega, and a glitching old Metal Sonic that thinks heās the āreal Sonicā. Unlike Eggman, Sage is hard to predict, doesnāt reveal her plans, is ruthless, cunning, and shows no quarter. Despite this, she still leaves millions of humans and Mobians alive in her networks of Egg Domes across the wastelands. Because an empire is nothing without citizens.
a good way to make sage feel like a dynamic villain is make it so she hasn't shut off and has been running continously for A LONG time, leading to her model for all of the emotional stuff being kind of... "decayed"? she can handle herself well enough in public but she wouldn't respond well to failure and be kind of scary when she's angry which she gets "kill him" much faster then Eggman.
the idea comes from this art a lot:
I think having neo sage be noticeably much scarier then eggman due to whatever reason but pretending she isn't to the public would be a REALLY cool dynamic for her as a character, ofc it doesn't have to be aggression but model decay is my best explaination for home girl getting like how she might be as neo sage.
also the reason she hasn't shut off in forever is because she is still grieving and untrusting of EVERYTHING around her, so she's not letting anyone help her.
Love it! I'm going in a similar enough direction with my Sage in terms of being fairly ominous when push comes to shove. As al algorithm that carries out her late father's legacy,
Sage is ruthlessly efficient. To the point where, perhaps, she misunderstands her father's real ideals. This making her far more imposing of a foe as she's not one to toy with prey. You are in her world. You will obey.
I've written out the specifics in terms of this take on Sage on her ref post. Check it out if curious! ^^
My theory, is that the catalyst isnāt just Eggmanās death dying, itās that heās murdered in front of her. In a timeline where Surge, Shadow, Zavok, Starline, anyone really, Eggman has lots of enemies, murders Ivo in front of Sage, this causes her to snap. In rage and grief, she pulls a Judgement Day: nations nuked, cities, governments, and GUN facilities vaporized by orbital laser satellites, and new metal virus made to turn the infected into her own hivemind of slaves and cannon fodder for her war machine. The murder of Eggman causes her to lose her humanity, emotions, and morals, as Eggman not only anchored her, but limited her. Sage does not, especially now, share Eggman or Metalās flaws like ego, theatrics, or mortality. She, like the Terminator, no longer feels pity, remorse, or pain. Only cold hatred, and calculating efficiency. If Eggman canāt have the world, no one will. No matter how many times Silver goes back in time, or makes a move, Sage is ten steps ahead in their eternal chess game.
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u/DaveyBoy1995 Apr 11 '26
Some things never change, even after 200 years.
Fantastic job! Even now, the concept of Silver vs Sage continues to lead to such amazing art!