The Background The Second Ice Age struck sometime around the year 2200. As stated, all but one animal perished. Over the next 500 years, the animals somehow repopulated the entire world (I'm not about to get into divine intervention). As they repopulated, they developed conflicting morals and goals and eventually broke into two major groups. The larger group, Mechorp (pronounced Mek-core), believed that animals only existed as slaves and the few whom they deemed powerful enough, as the masters. The much smaller group, known only as Salvation, consists of the characters you've met so far along with some others whom you haven't met yet. They feel that all animals should be free to choose their own paths in life and that no animal, no matter how wretched, deserves slavery. The two groups are at war, though Salvation is badly losing. Mechorp has adversely affected each member of Salvation in some way, except for Shade, whose story will be told later in this page, and Sonic, as he's been frozen for five hundred years. The Main Characters Salvation Sonic We should all know his back story by now...mainly because the first comic explained it all. Contrary to the title of the comic, his name is NOT "Soniica". I just felt "Supersonic Sonic" was a bit redundant. And hey, if it bothers you that badly, you can just call it Triple-S or SSS. Shade Shade is the green-striped hedgehog bearing a striking resemblance to Shadow in both name and color. He's the former leader of Mechorp's Deforestation Branch. He was kicked out of Mechorp after having a disagreement with his colleagues and joined Salvation soon after that. Since he and his squad were all major causes of deforestation, Mechorp modified all of them to best serve their needs. Shade can now expel fire from his hands and cause blazes wherever he walks. Salvation is still looking for a useful way to use Shade's powers. He has a heavy ransom on his head and has been labelled as a traitor to Mechorp. If any member of Mechorp manages to capture him, he or she will immediately be promoted to hold a spot in The Mastery. Sugar Sonic Advance 2 players will recognize her almost instantly as Cream with a visor over her eyes. Mechorp's Nuclear Warfare Branch permanently blinded her very early in the war, so Bleu invented her silver visor as a way to bring together impulses from her four working senses to form a limited visual image of her surroundings...sort of a radar sense, like in Daredevil. Despite her obvious handicap, Sugar is still a potent fighter. She is also the primary and most skilled medic of Salvation. Bleu (pronounced Blew) Nearly everyone who has played a decent Sonic game recently should recognize her as Rouge without wings. In an unfortunate event during the later stages of the war, Bleu got in the way of Mechorp's Logging Branch and, as both punishment and revenge, had her wings sliced off and nearly died of blood loss. Fortunately, Sugar and her understudy found Bleu and managed to bring her back to camp and heal her wounds. Convinced that she is no longer fit to fight, Bleu has declared herself the main strategist and inventor of the legion. Mechorp Dianté (pronounced Dee-ahn-tay) He is the former leader of Mechorp's Deforestation Branch, Shade's old position. He is highly inexperienced, having been a mere slave before Shade's discharge, but is devoted towards his cause. He wants every animal on Earth to feel the pain, suffering, and humiliation he once felt, but he would like it no more if he could be the one to finally capture Shade and bring him into slavery or death. The ransom on Shade's head means nothing to Diante. Years of oppression and maltreatment by Shade has built up Diante's rage so that he will stop at nothing to capture Shade once he learns Shade's location. Unfortunately, his goal was cut short in the middle of the first Corpus, where he confronted Shade in battle and, even though he struck several critical blows, eventually succumbed to the lethal power of Shade's fire and died. Ecchus (pronounced Eck-us) He was the leader of Mechorp's Logging Branch and the one responsible for cutting off Bleu's wings and nearly killing her. As I have mentioned, this was partially an act of revenge. Ecchus and Bleu were the best of friends before the war began. When the time came to choose sides, obviously Ecchus chose Mechorp and Bleu chose Salvation. Ecchus saw this as an insult of the highest degree and had been waiting all his life until he would see Bleu again. After reporting his revenge to The Almighty, he was immediately promoted to the fifth member of The Mastery. His title is officially Lord Ecchus, but his thirst for power is driving him mad. He desires to be promoted to Majesty (the highest title, below The Almighty) so much that he will stop at nothing to eliminate every last member of Salvation. The Almighty Little is known about The Almighty except for the fact that he is the leader of the entire Mechorp movement. His flunkies, if you will, are the six members of The Mastery, ranked in order of loyalty and importance. They are listed further down in this post. He hates Salvation with a burning furious passion, but he will rarely make an appearance to crush his opposition himself, though both Mechorp and Salvation know he could easily do that. Minor Characters Salvation Ajax Ajax was the second Salvation member to ever be injured by the forces of Mechorp. He always fought side-by-side with Kohn, until Mechorp killed Kohn and severely handicapped Ajax. Sugar was not as skilled a medic as she is now, so she and Spice could do very little to assist in reattaching Ajax's tail. Despite his flying capability being taken from him, armed with one of Kohn's swords, Ajax has avenged his partner and leader a hundredfold. The sword he wields in battle is the one held by Kohn when he was slain. Ajax believes the spirit of Kohn entered this sword and thus he carries out his rage against Mechorp through it. Korr Korr and his brother Kohn are the only two originally "pure" hedgehogs who are also members of Salvation. Though Kohn has, once again, died in battle, Korr still lives a handicapped life "thanks" to Mechorp. He was captured shortly before Kohn was killed. While he did not meet the same fate as his brother, Mechorp's Mental Branch managed to erase all memory of Kohn teaching Korr a number of latent skills, one of which was unparalleled speed. Once again, a member of Mechorp benefitted from this. Eschere, leader of the Mental Branch, was somewhat hesitantly promoted to hold the sixth spot in The Mastery. Currently, Korr is the leader of Salvation. He also pilots the low-tech aircraft which Aster stole from Mechorp's Docking Bay. Aster Aster was Kohn's girlfriend before he perished. Fearing for her safety, Kohn left her at camp while he went to fight. Aster lent him her weapon so that he may fight better. However, Kohn became overconfident in his abilities and left Aster's mallet in the woods surrounding the battlefield, going into battle only with his sword. We know what happened to him. When news was brought to Aster of his death, she asked if he had the hammer on his corpse. Ajax told her that he never even brought it to the battlefield. This utterly crushed her and an intense hatred towards both Kohn and Korr emerged in her personality. She often refuses to do tasks if Korr asks her, but will immediately go off if another member asks. She holds a special friendship with Ajax for reasons unknown to anybody but the two of them. She is in charge of espionage and theft of Mechorp supplies and vehicles. She will not fight, however, because of the deed committed against her so many years ago. Paroc He is the last free echidna on the face of the planet. Knowing this fact, he fights with a passion unknown to even The Almighty to free every last slave. In an attempt to liberate the slaves under Mechorp's Digging Branch, all echidnas, the leader (Undin) caught him and made him a slave. The slaves of the Digging Branch were given mechanical arms, and Paroc was not spared from this fate. After reporting this to The Almighty, Undin was moved to the leader of another branch (which isn't important just yet) and a new leader was assigned. This leader was, somewhat ironically, Shade. Shade was moved from his more pretentious position as leader of the Deforestation Branch to leader of this Branch after taking pity on his subjects and secretly freeing them all. Shade took pity on these echidnas as well and freed them, too, though much less discreetly. This sparked the aforementioned disagreement which got him kicked out of Mechorp. Eventually, all the former captives of both freed Branches were recaptured...except for Paroc. He had long since fled to an undisclosed location, where Salvation discovered him once again and let him back into the group despite his headstrongedness. Eld, Ramsey, Tifone These three are former slaves of Dianté, until he was terminated by Shade in the middle of the first Corpus. Now, they serve as scouts and bodyguards for Salvation. Eld is the brown fox, Ramsey the blue echidna, and Tifone the pink echidna. Of the three, Ramsey is the boldest and will often lead the squad in dispatches. Eld is the most cunning, but also the weakest physically. Tifone is the happy medium of the three, but is very seclusive and often keeps to herself. Mechorp Eschere Eschere, as previously mentioned, was the former leader of Mechorp's Mental Branch. After a great deal of begging and kissing up, Sir Eschere was promoted two ranks in The Mastery to Overlord Eschere. That's probably the most you'll hear of him. He possesses a sabre made of solid gold, often regarded as the strongest weapon in the land, but he rarely uses it and would rather simply sit at his position of power and oversee the others. Undin Now the branch to which Undin was promoted is important. You'll remember from earlier about how Sugar became blind. This was somewhat obviously the work of Undin in his new position as leader of the Nuclear Warfare Branch. Sugar had the unfortunate luck of peering out of Salvation's camp as Undin set off a nuclear bomb at the end of the forest behind Mechorp's fortresses in an effort to find and wipe out Salvation. Fortunately, the explosion was at the other end of the forest from where Salvation was stationed so all Sugar suffered was permanent blindness rather than a slow death due to radiation poisoning. Convinced that he had indeed wiped out Salvation, he reported his victory to The Almighty who immediately promoted Undin to the first spot in The Mastery. Sadly for Majesty Undin, it soon became obvious that Salvation was in fact very much alive. Rather than killing Majesty Undin, The Almighty took slight pity (in his first and only piteous act in the war's history) and simply demoted him to the sixth and last spot in The Mastery. He is satisfied with this position, as he knows that if he screws up one more time, The Almighty will, almost literally, kill him thirteen times in a row. Other Information Salvation This is a list of the ten most important members of Salvation, in no particular order. A purple number signifies a female and a blue signifies a male. 1) Kohn (deceased; former leader of Salvation) (pronounced Cone) 2) Korr (current leader of Salvation; Kohn's brother) (pronounced Core) 3) Sugar (primary medic) 4) Spice (secondary medic; Sugar's assistant and sister) 5) Bleu (primary strategist) 6) Shade (primary fighter) 7) Ajax (secondary fighter) 8) Paroc (tertiary fighter) (pronounced Pah-rowk) 9) Aster (espionage and theft) (pronounced Ah-stair) 10) Sonic (recently discovered) Both Salvation and Mechorp have their own forms of currency. Salvation uses berrals. One berral is roughly equivalent to three dollars. The currency isn't that important, though. I was just explaining it to clarify Shade's comment in comic three, panel one. Mechorp The members of The Mastery, ordered by ranking, are as follows. They are all male, as Mechorp sees female animals, as most other animals, as being fit only for slavery. 1) Majesty Ordox 2) Champion Ithril (pronounced Ee-thrill) 3) Master Aun (pronounced Own) 4) Overlord Eschere (pronounced Es-ker-ee) 5) Lord Ecchus 6) Sir Undin (pronounced Oon-deen) Both Salvation and Mechorp have their own forms of currency. Mechorp uses talists. Due to overproduction, one talist is roughly equivalent to fifteen cents. The currency isn't that important, though. I was just explaining it to clarify Shade's comment in comic three, panel one. The leaders of every Branch, every member of The Mastery, and even The Almighty himself are hedgehogs. That should explain Shade's comment in comic two, panel two. The important Branches of Mechorp (meaning the ones you should remember) are as follows. The leaders aren't important unless I signify them, and even then, they've already been mentioned, so you don't have any new names to learn. Deforestation Branch (formerly led by Shade, currently led by Diante) Logging Branch (formerly led by Lord Ecchus) Control Branch (in charge of controlling the slaves) Exploration and Espionage Branch (in charge of locating Salvation's camp(s) and spying on Salvation once the camp(s) are found)