Chaos Emerald
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A Chaos Emerald is a mystic item that appears in the Sonic the Hedgehog video games, allowing the holder of all seven of them to transform into a "super" form. Each emerald is composed of positive and negative charged materials which make them an everlasting source of energy and allow them to float. This energy also makes their possessors faster than normal.
Sonic and Knuckles only use the positive charged part of the emerald to transform, which is demonstrated by Sonic at the end of Sonic Adventure. Knuckles has only been able to transform in Sonic & Knuckles and Sonic 3 & Knuckles. Tails was also able to attain a super form with the use of both the Chaos Emeralds and the Super Emeralds in Sonic 3 & Knuckles.
The Chaos Emeralds can be anywhere, usually located in a Special Stage. Even alone, their power is unmatched by anything else in the universe; however, their power can be halted at any time by the Master Emerald.
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Game Appearances
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In Sonic the Hedgehog, there were only 6 Chaos Emeralds located in 2D rotating Special Stages, and Sonic could not become Super Sonic. Sonic had to collect them all to keep Eggman from using them to take over the world Sonic 2 was the first game to introduce all 7, in pseudo-3D Special Stages where Sonic and Tails continuously run forward down a half pipe. In Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles, the 7 emeralds are located in pseudo-3D special stages that rotate entirely when you turn. You must collect all the Blue Spheres located in the stage to earn the Emerald.
The Chaos Emeralds appear as plot points in Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2. In Sonic Adventure, the Chaos Emeralds were collected by Dr. Eggman in order to feed Chaos, a water beast that changed form every time it received a Chaos Emerald. With all 7 it became Perfect Chaos, and used all of the negative energy in the emeralds before dropping them onto the ground. Sonic then picked all 7 up and used the positive energy to become Super Sonic and defeat Perfect Chaos.
In Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic and Shadow had the ability to use the Chaos Emeralds to "Chaos Control": alter time and space to teleport or freeze time. Interestingly, Sonic at one point uses the Chaos Control ability with a fake emerald, hinting at some untold power. Shadow collected the Emeralds for Dr. Eggman to power the ARK, at which point Biolizard took over the station. Biolizard became FinalHazard, and then Sonic and Shadow had to team up and use the Chaos Emeralds (it is believed Sonic used the positive energy and Shadow used the negative, but no proof has been given) to become Super and defeat FinalHazard. This is the only game where, in the character's "Super" form, picking up rings is not necessary - though they are depleted over time, the character not being currently played is allegedly picking up rings while the other fights.
Super Emeralds
The Super Emeralds are a set of 7 emeralds which made their first and only appearance in Sonic 3 & Knuckles. After beating the final boss of Sonic the Hedgehog 3, the player goes on to the second game, which features an additional set of emeralds in Special Stages very similar to the ones in the previous game. Getting all 14 emeralds (from both games) enables Sonic to transform into Hyper Sonic, Tails to transform into Super Tails, and Knuckles to transform into Hyper Knuckles (Hyper Sonic and Knuckles have special attacks and are faster than Super Sonic or Knuckles). You can't transform into your super form while obtaining the Super Emeralds, even if you have all 7 Chaos Emeralds already (the Chaos Emeralds are powered down by the Master Emerald, the Super Emeralds fuse with the Chaos Emeralds when you get them).
Master Emerald
The Master Emerald is a large, green emerald depicted in the Sonic the Hedgehog video game series.
Origin
Little is known about the origin of the Master Emerald except that it resided in a shrine on Angel Island for an unspecified amount of time, guarded by Knuckles the Echidna.
Purpose
The Master Emerald contains an immeasurable amount of power which is used to keep Angel Island afloat in the sky. The emerald also possesses the ability to negate the effects of the Chaos Emerald. When all seven Chaos Emeralds come together without the time to get used to each others presence they cause "Chaos-Control", and when "Chaos-Control" happens the Master Emerald is the only thing that prevent it.
Role in the Story
The Master Emerald first appeared in Sonic the Hedgehog 3, where it was stolen by Doctor Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik in his bid to take over the world.
It was brought back in Sonic & Knuckles, an expansion pack for Sonic the Hedgehog 3 that allowed you to play as Knuckles, and included several new levels.
Sonic 3 & Knuckles
Its part in the game includes being stolen by Doctor Eggman, being used to power the robotic Metal Sonic, 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 and an echidna girl called Tikal. In the game, it was shattered by a mysterious force, causing Angel Island to fall.
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 pieces had been collected they were reformed by Knuckles. When ARK started to be fall (due to an automatic system for when the seven Chaos Emeralds were gathered in the centeral control room), Knuckles used the Master Emerald to try (and fail to) stop the disaster in the Eclipse Cannon's Core, which resembled the Emerald Shrine on Angel Island.
Size Despute in Sonic Adventure Series
The Master Emerald's size and shape seems to change over time. It's most definately bigger than Knuckles in Sonic Adventure, but about the same size in Sonic Adventure 2 (some even suggest the Emerald stretches at the end of Sonic Adventure). Then, after Knuckles restores it at the end of Sonic Adventure 2, he pulls it out of his person to explain how to use it to stop the ARK from pumelling to Earth. It's about the size of his hand now. The two games also have a slight color difference - Sonic Adventure features a more opaque, darker green, while Sonic Adventure 2 features a clearer, lighter green.
The Master Emerald in the Archie Comic
The Brotherhood are a series of echidnas handed the task of protecting the 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 island was originally kept afloat by Chaos Emeralds (though when Knuckles became guardian, there was only 1 left) Eventually, the Master Emerald was created by the fusion of 14 Chaos Emeralds.
Eventually, a being called Mammoth Mogul, while trying to take the Master Emerald for himself, becomes trapped inside of the emerald as a spirit (Issue #56, January 1998, “Immortality Is Forever - Life Is Finite”). He is later set free when Eggman and Chaos 0 shatter the Master Emerald for energy (Issue #80, December 1999, "Land Fall").
Guardians
Contrary to popular belief, the emeralds weren't 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 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 probably the only echidna left (In the Sonic Team storyline, other official Sega continuities like the American Sonic comics have more echidnas in existence).
It is not known if the island was afloat in the time of Tikal. The geography of the island in the past and present seems to indicate that it wasn't afloat in the time of Tikal, as the Emerald shrine was directly connected to the Echidna city in the past, but now they're separate. It's possible the floating island was created when Perfect Chaos arose before Tikal sealed him. If this is true, the reason it does float high in the sky is most likely in order to protect the emerald from invaders who might try to steal it (like Dr. Eggman eventually did).
In the Archie Comics storyline, Knuckles is the latest in a long line of Master Emerald protectors, known as the Brotherhood of Guardians.
Emerald Colours
In the original Sonic the Hedgehog, the emeralds were blue, yellow, red, green, pink and grey. A seventh, purple emerald then materialised in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 with no explanation (the UK fiction, see below, attempted to explain this by saying that Dr. Kintobor had not discovered the seventh emerald prior to the first game, but in said fiction, the seventh emerald was the grey emerald). In Sonic the Hedgehog 3, the pink emerald was replaced with a light blue one, and the yellow emerald became distinctly more orange. In the Sonic the Hedgehog comic series by Archie Comics, white and silver are standard colours for emeralds from pocket zones, although this may have more to do with the nature of the zone than the emerald itself.
Chaos Emeralds in the Comics
In Fleetway's Sonic the Comic, the history of the Emeralds is expanded considerably, though some points contradict the storyline of the games. These events were not related chronologically, but this document shall list them as such.
The story of the Chaos Emeralds begins in Mobius's distant past, during the war between the Echidna race, and the Drakon Empire. Seeking vessels for their unstable, newly developed energy source, dubbed "chaos," the Drakons raided the Echidna's emerald mines, and infused eight of the emeralds with the chaos. Exposure to the emeralds mutated a Drakon into the creature known as Chaos, who was sealed away by the Echidnas. The Echidnas then appointed Knuckles to guard the emeralds.
What follows is undocumented. The Echidna race mysteriously vanished, Knuckles was apparently put into some form of stasis, and the power of six of the emeralds was divided, creating another set of six. These six emeralds came to be littered across Mobius.
When the kindly scientist, Doctor Ovi Kintobor, began his plan to rid Mobius of all negative energy, he sought out a vessel that could contain such power. He located the six emeralds, which were, of course, highly suited to containing such energy, and planned to transfer into them the negative energy he had collected using his Retro-Orbital Chaos Compressor (ROCC), a machine comprised of golden rings. Requiring a seventh emerald to stabilise the transfer, Kintobor and his friend, Sonic the Hedgehog, searched for one to no avail. Eventually, Kintobor believed that he had developed a way to transfer the energy without the seventh emerald - but just before he was about to do so, he became distracted by a rotten egg, and tripped on a cable, slamming the ROCC's control panel with his hand and causing an explosion that bathed him in chaos energy, transforming him into Doctor Ivo Robotnik.
Robotnik gathered up the six emeralds, and put them in sub-orbital space warps to keep their power out of Sonic's hands. But, of course, when Sonic successfully thwarted Robotnik's first attempt to take over Mobius, he also reclaimed the emeralds. Bringing them together in his underground base, another facet of their power was revealed - unstable, if brought together, the emeralds would radiate chaos energy, and create a spatial warp that thrust them into the alternate dimension called the Special Zone. This first warp turned Sonic into Super Sonic for the first time, and discoloured the emeralds, each one taking on a different colour - red, yellow, green, pink, blue and purple (the comic often portrays the pink emerald as orange).
During Robotnik's second attempt to conquer Mobius, Sonic used Star Posts to enter the Special Zone and reclaim the emeralds. Subsequently, he kept them in the Frozen Zone, where the sub-zero temperatures rendered them inactive, preventing the spatial warp. When they were stolen by Captain Plunder and his Sky Pirates, the emeralds absorbed the pirates' evil, so Sonic had no trouble in reclaiming them, keeping them in a refrigerated box at his headquarters.
When Doctor Robotnik encountered Knuckles the Echidna, he claimed Sonic had stolen the emeralds, and Knuckles was able to reclaim them, reintegrating them with the other six on the Floating Island. Robotnik had developed a control device that would take the place of the seventh emerald - the grey emerald - and allow him to control the chaos energy, but Knuckles had the grey emerald in his possession, using it to stop Robotnik.
The seven emeralds were returned to the Hidden Palace Zone on the Floating Island, where, along with the largest emerald, the Master Emerald, they regained their full power and returned to their original, large size. Doctor Robotnik sought to use the Master Emerald as the power core for his new Death Egg, but his plans were thwarted by Sonic and Knuckles.
The emeralds were able to subsequently remain safe on the Floating Island, bar some attempts by Doctor Robotnik to steal them. When Robotnik's assistant Grimer unleashed the Chaos creature, which headed straight for the Floating Island, and absorbed the blue emerald into itself. Knuckles was forced to jettison the remaining emeralds, and without their power, the Floating Island crashed to Mobius and sank into the ocean. Doctor Robotnik - by this point suicidally insane - gathered the emeralds to draw Chaos and Sonic to his lab, where they would all die together, but Chaos was stopped and the emeralds were saved.