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Solaris and Chaos were both active around the same time, since the ruins in Dusty Desert seem around the same style as the ruins of Angel Island, and we see depictions of a gryphon with the sun being worshipped, which I assume is Solaris seeing as he can change form.

We also know Solaris was once free and wasn't always a flame, since there's the ancient artifact of the Scepter of Darkness which looks like his Phase 2 form with pinned wings. How else would they have known of that?

So Solaris was sealed away for a long time as a flame, so he wouldn't have any way to learn about the emeralds at that point, though he uses them as Mephiles right after being freed from the scepter. He wouldn't have learned about their uses that quickly, or declared them powerful enough to hide during The End Of The World.

So he had to have learned about them long in the past, right? And they existed on Angel Island at that time, correct?

* Mephiles voice * IBLIS!!!!!!!!!

Warning: This theory may contain spoilers and might be long, clunky, and out of order. Read at own risk and after familiarizing yourself with the story.

Sonic 06 is one of those games that could’ve been great but not enough time and effort was put into it, thus being regarded as one of the worst games and hated so much by much of the video game community it has given Sonic a bad name and almost everyone makes fun of how bad the game and Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. But there are a few of us who try to look past the glitchy gameplay and awkward cutscenes to the lore and coolness. I being one of those people saying “Sonic 06 wasn’t that bad!”

Part of that reason is because of the main villian, Mephiles the Dark. Now many people in the community can agree Mephiles was one of the greatest, darkest villain’\s out there and no other Sonic Villain can quite live up to that name after. But I’m not here to talk about how awesome or frightening Mephiles is… I’m here to talk about why Mephiles possibly became a villain.

Its easy to chalk up villains as always evil, but almost every villain has a backstory. Mephiles’s begins a bit before what Sonic 06 refers to as “The Solaris Project”. Basically the King of Soliana who had lost his wife wanted the power to go back in time to save her from said death and return her to him and his daughter. To do that- he looked to the kingdom’s sun god, Solaris, an eternally lit candle with time eating and traveling powers. However, instead of worshipping or praying to the candle or honoring it- the kind gets a bunch of scientists to separate its consciences from the flames and essentially force it into two separate entities!

After the project blows up in their face, the two entities (Mephiles and Iblis) try to escape. Shadow and Silver (who have come from a different timeline) already know who they are and what they cause to happen in the future and thus try to stop them. HOWEVER-  Mephiles appears to be slightly confused on why someone’s trying to stop him and what the heck is going on. So to briefly recap- a long, honored deity was suddenly ripped in two by humanity and sealed away by a random hedgehog for oh say… 10 years alone with his thoughts and missing the other half of him? 

Mephiles is regarded as the consciousness of Solaris, possibly meaning his distaste for humanity came from the Solaris project. And it would appear this isn’t the first time this tramatic situation happened for Solaris. Mephiles had given himself his own identity separate from Solaris which either he himself came up with after 10 years of unjust, kind of Terminator like punishment, or the King of Solaria came up with. After the Solaris project incident, the King knew how to seal both entities and prevent them from escaping. A little suspicious, don’t you think?

Going back to when we first meet evil Mephiles, he quickly recognizes Shadow and gives him the same fate (or what he calls the same fate) Shadow gave him- “A one way ticket to oblivion”. However this oblivion is really just Silver and Blaze’s timeline where he appears to tag along to as well, possibly glimpsing into Shadow’s past along the way and trying to avoid the over used line “ You’re not so different you and I.” 

Or/and this may tell us that Mephiles is able to see through time and what he may have called oblivion to Shadow may’ve been the future he was dreaded to witness while sealed away in the Scepter of Darkness (the thing Shadow sealed him up in). Mephiles’s goal now is to reunite with Iblis before this terrible future where Iblis is out of control and probably angry too after being sealed away and then suddenly broken free after the seal (Princess Elise of Soliana) was destroyed (on the timeline Sonic can’t save Elise from Eggman’s ship crashing).

Returning to Mephiles and Shadow, Mephiles tries to get Shadow to join him after Shadow refuses to return to his timeline to confront Mephiles zdhsxhfd64do- go watch Shadow’s Story on it. I told you too much already!!! So anyway, Mephiles who had originally wanted to punish Shadow for his imprisonment probably took a glimpse into Shadow’s past and future (probably for manipulation purposes like with Silver and Blaze whom he’s already sent back in time).

Shadow asks if he ruined the world and Mephiles’s response is “The answer is yes and no. Perhaps its better to show you…” and basically shows Shadow his future. It feels out of place but what if Mephiles is trying to relate Shadow’s goals to his own. Shadow’s life was destroyed by humanity who had also sealed him away for being too powerful and harming someone close to him (Maria). However, Mephiles might be emphasizing more on the sealed part and wanting to take revenge on humanity being indirectly responsible to all the things that happened to him. He’s mirroring Shadow’s past. He’s the mirror of Shadow.

In fact, the scene where Mephiles basically does what he wanted Silver and Blaze to do, it’s basically retelling Shadow’s story in a way where Maria lives and Shadow dies!

But enough of those correlations. People mention the story revolves more around Shadow as Mephiles and Sonic only indirectly see each other about 2-3 times (usually without the other’s awareness) while Mephiles literally copied Shadow’s look. But compared to Shadow, Mephiles is still a child in a sense where he hasn’t been able to move on from his past hence his elaborate scheme to change it. Shadow however has. So when Mephiles tells him, “Let’s teach this foolish world of humanity a lesson. “ “You have every right to want justice!” Shadow tells him, “ That’s absurd. Whatever it is you want to do, you can do alone.” Shadow has forgiven humanity and moved past how humanity sealed him off and is willing to fight them again if they betray him again (as he later decides when faced with the idea one of his friends might be the one to seal him up) (dang! so much lore to unpack).

Mephiles refuses to forgive humanity for essentially destroying him and torturing the two halves of Solarsis by sealing them away. Mephiles doesn’t want to just destroy the world- he wants to be whole again. He makes that very clear when he tells Iblis, “At last… I’ll be able to join with you.” He couldn’t properly become whole because of what the king of Soleana did to him. He blames all of humanity for him and Solaris’s pain and suffering, similar to how Shadow blamed the world for taking Maria away. Except Mephiles/ Solaris doesn’t feel its his purpose to end all of existence… he wants to because humanity and time essentially hurt him.

It kind of makes Sonic 06 the “what if” situation of Sonic Adventure 2 or Shadow the Hedgehog like “what if Shadow never forgave humanity and destroyed everything?” It was a little unclear why Mephiles did what he did, but I think it all makes sense now. Now whether or not Mephiles/ Solaris got what he deserved in the end depends. Solaris was possibly suffering at the whim of the king who just wanted his wife back so the only solution to the time period Sonic and Elise were would be to essentially stop her father from ever touching the candle. But then again, Mephiles shares a similar story with Shadow and if people at any point in time were able to talk sense into Mephiles, maybe they could have found a way to help him…? If you made it this far, tell me what you think.