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Sample Sidebar Module

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The Sonic Bible
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Sonic the Hedgehog Bible header

Introduction

1. Introduction
2. The Sonic Myth
2.1. The Sonic Story
3. Sonic the Hedgehog Bible - Draft 1
4. Sonic the Hedgehog Bible - Draft 2
The "Sonic the Hedgehog Bible" was written up in late 1991 by Sega of America to explain the origins of Sonic the Hedgehog, what his background is, and what his powers are. There are currently two draft versions of the bible, Draft 1 and Draft 2. These draft versions also told potential licensees on how to use and display Sonic the Hedgehog and the Sonic logo on items such as clothing, action figures, or school binders.

The Sonic Myth

By far the most important section of the Sonic Bible is The Sonic Myth, the background story and mythos of our beloved blue hedgehog. It tells of how he was born in the early 21st century in the small fictional town of Hardly, Nebraska, and had several siblings along with his first encounter with Dr. Kintobor.

You can download the whole story in one single PDF file:

The Sonic Story

For those that cannot download or view the files for any reason, I have the text listed below:

Sonny Hedgehog was born on earth in the early 21st century, in the town of Hardly, Nebraska, population 1,226. He and his mother and five sisters live underneath a scraggly hedge beside the local burger joint, and subsist on burger scraps, milkshakes, and the occasional slug or bug that crawls their way. They are a poor but happy family. Unfortunately, Sonny's dad died when Sonny was just a few days old, after falling into a gurgling, festering vat of toxic waste dumped in a nearby pond.

Mama Hedgehog does her best to keep Dad's memory alive, however, regaling the kids with stories of his goodness, resourcefulness, and great agility.

"He was the fastest hedge-runner this town has ever seen!" she exclaimed as her family enjoyed tea and mealworms in front of a roaring fire. "I hope all of you will take after him," she said wistfully as she cast a loving eye upon Sonny. Sonny looked up at the framed photo of his father which stood proudly on the mantel. The firelight cast strange yet comforting shadows on the earthen walls and ceiling of the burrow. All at once, the face in the picture seemed to snuffle and wink.

"Did you see that, Mom? Dad winked at me! He's counting on me to be somebody great! Did you see, Mom, did you SEE?" said Sonny, jumping up and down excitedly.

"Sssshh," honey. "I'm suire that wherever he is in Hedge Heaven, your father is looking down on us all and sends us his love." She gathered the dinner plates and smiled gently at her son. Never had terribly good eyesight, she thouht to herself. And yet, there was something special about her son. Something she couldn't quite put her paw on…

There was something special about Sonny. Many something specials, as a matter of fact. During the firts summer of his life, Sonny grew handsom and clever, with thick, bushy brown quills, a headstrong personality, and a rambunctious sense of humour. His favorite trick was to frequent the local bowling alley and curl up in the ball return, awaiting the grasp of an unsuspecting bowler. "Yeeooww!" the bowler would yell, and the whole team would crack up at the practical joke.

And sometimes, Sonny would change his tactic. He would curl up ever so tightly and stay perfectly still as the bowler tossed him down the alley. At the last moment, right before he hit the head pin, Sonny would uncurl and scamper away, routing the bowler's perfect score.

Although he loved playing practical jokes on people, Sonny also loved people. While making the rounds for juicy tidbits and gossip, he would drop in on the ladies of the local quilting circle to offer a convenient pin or needle from his ample, portable supply. He spent the summer frolicking in the town park with the other children, donating quills so they could scribble designs in the sandbox. In time, he noticed that his playmates drew the same pattern over and over again while pointing at him: SONNY. In this fashion, over a few weeks, Sonny learned to read and write. He was some hedgehog!

But more important than anything else he did, Sonny ran the hedges. Every night, while everyone else slept, Sonny sprinted from one end to the other of the long hedge outside the burgerjoint. Sometimes he ran so fast that the world rushed by in a blur. He loved the feeling. Pure exhileration — a feeling like a dream — that he could fly up from the ground and do great things.

One day, his dream began to come true. After downing a particularly big, greasy late dinner, the coach of Hardly's track team stepped out the door of the burger joint and started walking toward his car. When he glanced toward the hedge, he could scarcely believe his eyes, and wondered if he hadn't consumed one Whopping Beef Glopper too many. A blue streak darted in and out of th elong hedgerow, streaking from one end to the other. The coach drew out his stopwatch and tried to clock the object. "Impossible," he muttered to himself. "He's too fast to clock." This creature was the fastest runner he had ever seen!

In no time at all Sonny was on the team, competing in local, then regional track tournaments. And as the summer days lengthened, so did the line of trophies Sonny brought back home to line the burrow. The whole town was proud of him. The coach began talking about Sonny as an Olympic hopeful. And then Nature, and his mother, called.

"Sonny, I know you want to be a great runner, and you will be some day! But first, you need to rest a bit. Don't you feel the chill in the air? It's nearly Fall. Soon it will be time to — "

" — Hibernate, Mom? Gee whiz, I don't have time to hibernate! Can't I keep practicing all winter?" he pleaded.

But mom was adamant. Concerned that practice all year 'round during his first year of life would permanently stunt Sonny's growth, she insisted. She prepared the burrow for the long winter, lining Sonny's chamber with soft, dry leaves and pine needles. The coach and olympic stardom would have to wait until spring.

All over town, the mercury shrank lower and lower, hunching down in a thick finger of silver. Farmers put up their corn and oats. Families canned summer produce. And the Hedgehog family withdrew from the light of day, safely ensconced in the burrow. Sonny read a comic book and listened to the rattle of brittle hedge branches whipped about by the wind. He felt fat and content from a meal of candied apples that the townspeople had generously invited him to take home from their Halloween party. He chuckled as he remembered carrying back an entire bushel on his back, neatly skewered on his quills.

Then suddenly, he had an idea.

"There's really no reason why i have to stay here sleeping all winter! I can just tunnel over a few feet and pop up on the far edge of the hedge. Mom'll never miss me!" he thouht, pleased at this stroke of cleverness. And so he began to tunnel. He tunneled five, then ten minutes, all the while thinking of the great track contests he would win in the Spring. As he counted his victories, his digging became more and more enthusiastic. And he grew more and more tired. "Just a short nap," he thought, "and then I'll tunnel upwards." So he curled up for a brief snooze.

One hour passed. Then one day. Succumbing to natural instinct, Sonny drifted deep into hibernation, beyond alpha, beyond beta, beyond even delta waves. He felt peaceful and secure. The quiet was wonderful. But like most peaceful times in the twenty-first century, it didn't last long.

"Whhirrrrrrrrrr. Clunk. Clunk. Whirrrrrrrrr. Zip! Whirrrrrrrrrrr." The earth above him shoock. The ground grew warm and then hot. Sonny awakened dreanched in sweat and shaking. But not from fear. Everything around him was shaking. He looked up at the ceiling of his small cave and saw the earth churning. Zow! Time to clear outta here, he thouht, digging furiously to escape whatever it was that was plunging toward him. Quick, quick, quick, he panted — I must survive! And then he felt something — a rusty pipe just large enough to squeeze through. He scrambled through the pipe, his toes clattering on the metal. After what seemed innumerable twists and turns, he saw the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. Relieved, he ran toward it and tumbled head over heels out of the pipe and into an immense room.

"Well, well, look who we have here! Erinaceus europaeus!"

A trim, kindly, mustachioed man bent over Sonny. Sonny had been called many things in his life, but never something to strange as this.

"All you allright?" the man asked. "Wait a minute — silly of me — let me aim the LinguaScrambler'Um at you and see what you've got to say!"

Sonny was too dazed to protest as the man wheeled over an odd looking contraption that was somehow shaped like all the letters in the alphabet mashed up together. He pointed it at Sonny.

"My name's not "Aceeus" — it's Sonny! And what's happening out there underground!" Sonny heard himself squeak in an accusing tone of voice. He had never spoken human before.

"Oh that. So sorry it disturbed you! That's my Cogwinder Retractable Particulant Corer. I'm using it to dig for emeralds. Found six. Looking for the seventh. Then my work'll be done!" the man explained, smiling and speaking very quickly. He seemed to have a lot on his mind and few wordsto waste. He had already returend to an enormous control panel at the far end of the room, where red and green lights danced and ribbons of paper spewed from a printer.

Sonny was too amazed to say anything more. It was obvious this man was some sort of genius, or totally wack-o, or perhaps both. Sonny trotted across the gleaming floor of the lab, marvelling at the dazzling array of contraptions lined up along the walls, atop counters, and piled high on shelves.

"What are you doing with all this stuff? Who are you?" Sonny demanded, stamping his foot with impatience. The magnificence of the lab had not put a damper on his boldness.

"Curiosity! How I love curiosity! You have the makings of a top notch scientist if only you can hold on to this admirable quality!" the man proclaimed, now giving over his full attention to Sonny. "My name, see here — " he pointed to the tag on the lape of his starchy white labcoat — "is Dr. Ovi Kintobor. You can call me Dr. K. And my mission, my friend, is to save the planet from destruction. And for now, that is all you need to know. Unless, of course, you can help me find The Gray Emerald."

The Gray Emerald? Six other emeralds? Saving the planet? During the long months of winter, with a diligence that nearlly matched the intensity of Kintobor's experiments, Sonny drew out some of th estories behind these seemingly disparate topics.

Kintobor, Sonny learned, was a brilliant nutro-biologist and former team leader of the government's controversial Nuvolution research. The goal of the research was to somehow reverse the effects of accumulated centuries of pollution and restore Earth to its natural, pristine state. The Nuvolution team of biologists, physicists, botanists, and astronomers worked assiduously towards this goal for fifteen years. THen, on the verge of a breakthrough concerning the structure and behavior of free radical subatomic particles, funding for the work was cut. With tehir project doomed to oblivion, the scientists scattered. Many team members took lucrative positions in private industry. Others went mad with frustration.

But Kintobor abhorred such resignation to one's fate. Instead of bailing out, he sabotaged the government's security system and moved the lab — lock, stock, and barrel — to a former radioactive dumping site in northern Nebraska, several miles away from Hardly. He figured he had selected the perfect site: what better place to test his solution than underneath the nation's most notorious, top-secret toxic wasteland.

All things natural, all creatures left untouched and uncontrolled by humans — this summed up Kintobor's concept of the beautiful and the sublime. And as an extension of this passionate philosophy, besides working to save the planet, Kintobor had another goal: to rescue any poisoned or struggling animal he managed to find in the course of his excavations. Dozens of bunnies, squirrels, ducks, and even baby piglets were among the regular group of guests residing in lab. All were welcome to spend time gaining strength, resting, and eating Kintobor's excellent cooking. When fully recovered, they were encouraged to return to the wild. During this particularly severe winter, the animals were only too happy to remain in the lab until spring, a fact that was very good news for Sonny. Day after day he delighted in making friends and playing games with the other animals, and even teaching several how to read and write. When Kintobor noticed Sonny's academic skills, a light flashed on above his head.

"Sonny," he said, "vacation's over! A mind is a terrible thing to waste. Henceforth and forthwith, I'm making you my assistant. That is, if you accept, of course," he added. Sonny was thrilled at the prospect. Because although Sonny had never known his father, Kintobor reminded him of the kind face in the photograph.

The days flew by, with Sonny by Dr. K.'s side almost constantly. Sonny learned computer science, from building small, portable computers to programming the mainframe. He learned about physics — the old laws as well as a few new theories set forth by Dr. K. His curiousity was boundless, and led him into every part of Kintobor's lab as he documented the results of each experiment. As the lab was vast, Sonny soon took to running at top speeds to perform all his duties. How odd, he thought, to find himself gradually replacing dreams of Olympic glory with a dedication to science and helping the other animals.

Still, he knew he'd never be a nerd like Dr. K. So partly for relaxation, and partly for Dr. K.'s amusement, he logged in several hours a day on the supersonic treadmill that Kintobor had built for him. Slowly, Sonny built his speed to 200, 400, then 761 m.p.h — the speed of sound. THen, impossibly, he crossed all known limits of accelleration and began running at the speed of light. Alarmed, Kintobor tried to slow the treadmill. Although he managed to gain control of the machine and bring his friend's velocity down slowly, a change had overcome Sonny. Instead of his unexceptional grayish-brown color, most of his body had turned cobalt blue, and his quills stood straight back in a stiff mohawk.

"My word!" exclaimed Kintobor, who struggled to comprehend what had just happened. "I think you've gone blue from the Advanced Non-Concussive Cobalt Effect!" he said, helping Sonny from the treadmill.

"186 thousand miles per second! You're so fast, we should call you Sonic. SuperSonic, even. How do you like that!" he cried, dancing around the lab like a demented pixie.

"Yeah, I like that!" answered Sonny. "From now on, my name is Sonic! Now watch how fast I can help you get your work done!"

Sonny did speed up the pace and success of Kintobor's experiments. But with all his mental and physical agility, he was unable to find The Gray Emerald, let alone understand why Kintobor was so frantic over it. What's the point to finding another emerald when we've already got six perfectly good ones, he wondered to himself. That very same day, he stumbled upon the answer. Running through a part of the lab that was still a bit unfamiliar, he tripped over a thick mass of wires. That's strange, he thouht, Dr. K.'s always so tidy with his equipment. He followed the cords and cables to a small room he hadn't ever been in before. There, in the center of the room, stood a large machine comprised nearly totally of slender gold rings. The gold surfaces looked as though they had been crafted and polished with great care.

"Ah, I see you've found the Reverse Quantum BioFormulator. Excellent!" said Dr. K., who had hurried over to Sonic's side.

"Why didn't you tell me about this thing? And what do yuo use it for?" asked Sonic. He felt a bit hurt that Dr. K. had kept the machine a secret from him and fairly bristled with impatience.

"Did you ever ask about it?" Dr. K. couuntered. "No! But now you are, so now you'll have your answer. But it's a long story, so let's have a bit of lunch," he suggested, pulling a few hardboiled eggs and muffins from a lunchbag he had stuffed in his pocket.

They pulled up chairs around the Reverse Quantum BioFormulator and began to eat. As usual, Sonic gulped down his meal in a flash. He was an old pro at fast food. Kintobor set a half-eaten egg on the counter near the machine and pulled a heavy iron key from his labcoat pocket. He walked over to a tall, lead-encased cabinet in the corner of the room, unlocked its door, and drew out a black velvet bag.

"These are the emeralds I told you about, Sonic" he said, carefully placing each on the black velvet.

They were truly incredible. Deep, brilliant colors with perfect, tiffany-cut shapes. Each must have weighed nearly a pound.

"They're perfect. Cut them myself," Kintobor boasted. "They contain a microlytic copy of all the intert energy of every gross and disgusting impulse or deed done by humans since the beginning of time," he continued.

Sonic gulped. "You mean they're evil?"

"Yes. Evil and highly unstable. Pure, chaotic energy," Kintobor sighed. "I transmorphed the chaos of the world into the emeralds, using the RQBF. Now ht eonly remaining thing to do is stabilize them with The Gray Emerald. Until we find The Gray Emerald, we're treading on very thin ice! If all the emeralds are disturbed, in theory, they will double the amount of evil in the world. Stabilized, they will rid the world of evil and pollution. That done, I plan to launch them into space where they can harm no one," he said.

Sonic's eyes grew wide. So this is why Kintobor was always in a rush. He was holding the fate of the world in his hands, reflected in the sparkling surfaces of the six emeralds. Dr. K. noticed the expression on Sonic's face.

"Don't worry," he said. "There arent' many forces that will push these beauties over the edge. The only problem I k now of, I guard against by keeping them in this lead cabinet. That problem is, of course — " he didn't have to finish his sentence.

"Radiation!" screamed Sonic, staring up at the computer screen on the wall.

The next few moments brought unspeakable panic and confusion. The monitor glowed red with a display of the impending wave of radiation that had somehow penetrated the Earth's surface and was heading straight for the lab. Kintobor scrambled off to stuff the emeralds back in the bag. Sonic raced to the lead cabinet and flung open its doors but in doing so, jostled the RQBF. Kintobor lunged for the cabinet, lost his balance, and spilled the emeralds onto the floor. The RQBF turned on a cast a weird, sickly beam of light first on Dr. K., then on the emeralds, then on the half-eaten egg on the counter top. Sonic took shelter in the cabinet and reached for Kintobor's arm to drag him inside.

Then everything stopped.

There was no explosion, no shattered bits of glass or twisted metal. Just silence. Sonic awakened in the pitch black of the lead cabinet. Dr. Kintobor was not inside with him. Sonic struggled to open the door, and peeped out cautiously — in perhaps theonly cautious act of his life. There lay Kintobor, sprawled across the floor of the lab. But now, he looked different. Hideous. Quite… round, with no muscle tone. His labcoat now stretched tight across his enormous girth, his arms were spread wide, distended by the buckets of flesh encumbering his frame. But the most alarming transformation was not in his physical person, itw as in a small significant detail that Sonic had by now mostly taken for granted. The name on Kintobor's lapel pin was different. Sonic stared at it in shock.

"Dr. Ivo Robotnik" was his dear friend's new name.

Then Sonic understood everything.

Moments passed. It's difficult to say how long Sonic stood staring down at his friend. He realized he had to try to rescue his animal buddies and leave the lab — in a hurry! If what he thouht had happened had reallyhappened, Kintobor had absorbed the evil of the Chaos Emeralds as well as the disgusting shape of the hardboiled egg. He would awaken as the vilest, most evil personality on the face of the Earth, set to strike out at anything in path.

Kintobor, or shall we say Robotnik, stirred.

"What are you gawking at, you ugly thing! Stand still so I can rip your quills out and turn you into an armadillo-bot!" Robotnik growled.

Sonic jumped back adn rushed out of the room to the main lab. Scampering at the speed of light, he had just enough time to grab a PC and race towards his friends' quarters. But by remote control, Robotnik had already sealed the door to the animal habitat. Sonic bolted out the back door to the lab, then remebered the RQBF. He ran back to grab as many golden rings as he could. Then Sonic scampered away at the speed of light, Robotnik's curses echoing behind him.

Sonic the Hedgehog Bible - Draft 1

The first draft was written on June 24, 1991, roughly coinciding with the relase of Sonic the Hedgehog for the Sega Genesis. This draft not only contains the Sonic the Hedgehog origin story, but it also contains the instructions on how potential licensees will handle Sonic the Hedgehog and his logo.

Sonic the Hedgehog Bible - Draft 2

The first draft was also written on June 24, 1991, most likely as a reply to a question between the different divisions of Sega, as a clairification of the first Draft

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