The Egg Fleet is an enormous armada of airborne battleships manned by Dr. Eggman's numerous robot minions. There are many different battleship types, each one carrying an immense amount of firepower and robots to help Dr. Eggman achieve his goal of world domination. The Egg Fleet has made several appearances in the Sonic the Hedgehog video games and in the Archie and IDW Sonic comics.
Game history[]
Sonic Heroes[]
The Egg Fleet made its debut in Sonic Heroes. Dr. Eggman had planned to use the fleet to conquer the world but he was imprisoned by Metal Sonic who assumed the doctor's identity and took control of the fleet himself. With Eggman's resources at his command, Metal Sonic decided to lure Sonic and his friends into a trap and arranged for his enemies to meet him aboard the Final Fortress, the fleet's flagship.
The Egg Fleet and Final Fortress serve as the last two stages of the game, with Teams Sonic, Rose, Dark and Chaotix each having to fight their way through armies of robots and smashing through the fleet's many defenses. After fighting their way across several battleships (some of which blew themselves up trying to kill such small targets) and defeating the Egg Emperor mecha, the heroes faced Neo Metal Sonic, who transformed into the Metal Overlord. Team Sonic used the Chaos Emeralds to turn into their Super forms and battled Metal Overlord, defeating him with Team Blast attacks. Although the Egg Fleet lost several ships, Eggman would quickly build new ones.
Shadow the Hedgehog[]
When the aliens known as the Black Arms invaded Earth, Dr. Eggman mobilized his Egg Fleet (referred to as the Eggman Fleet in this game) to fight off the invaders. His motives were entirely selfish, of course, as he couldn't conquer the world if the aliens beat him to it. In Shadow the Hedgehog, Eggman's fleet lacks the variety of ship designs that it once had. Most of the ships looked identical, resembling large orange boats with dome-shaped gun turrets that fired huge explosive shells. Only the fleet's flagship stood apart from the others, being considerably larger and carrying several gun turrets on its underside.
Eggman commanded the fleet to attack the Black Arms' flying fortress in the game's Sky Troops stage. In this stage, Shadow the Hedgehog has three choices:
- Assist the Black Arms by destroying Eggman's ships using the fortress' weapons.
- Help Dr. Eggman by sabotaging the fortress' power sources.
- Ignore the conflict between the two sides and grab the Chaos Emerald at the end of the level.
Sonic Unleashed[]
In the opening movie for Sonic Unleashed, Dr. Eggman has mobilised a large fleet of ships in orbit. However, these ships are merely part of an elaborate deception to lure Sonic into a trap. Sonic boards Eggman's flagship (somehow) and the doctor commands his army of Egg Fighters to attack. Sonic avoids all of the ship's gun batteries and destroys all of the Badniks easily, but then Eggman attacks in a large humanoid mecha. He grabs Sonic in a giant metal hand, but Sonic uses the seven Chaos Emeralds to turn into Super Sonic.
Super Sonic destroys Eggman's mech and the doctor flees in his Egg Mobile toward a satellite. Sonic flies after Eggman and destroys several of the fleet's ships before he corners Eggman onboard the satellite. Eggman feigns surrender and Sonic lets his guard down, giving Eggman the chance to activate a trap that holds Sonic inside an energy barrier. Sonic's Chaos power is drained from him and the Chaos Emeralds have all their energy absorbed. However, the energy transfer somehow causes Sonic to transform into the Werehog form he takes during the game's night stages. The energy from the Emeralds powers the satellite's main weapon - the Dark Chaos Cannon - which Eggman fires upon the planet below, breaking it apart and releasing the ancient Dark Gaia monster from within the planet's core. After fracturing the planet, Eggman decompresses the chamber and the Chaos Emeralds and Sonic are sucked out into space and plummet down to the planet.
Sonic Forces[]
During the events of this game, the Eggman Empire succeeded in conquering 99% of the planet. Eggman's military might included a substantial fleet of aerial and spaceworthy battleships which, much like all of Eggman's technology in the game, sported a far more militaristic aesthetic than in previous appearances. These vessels were armed with a multitude of laser cannons and missiles and were crewed by numerous Badniks.
Egg Fleets appeared in the backgrounds of numerous stages in the game. Numerous ships can be seen docked at the Chemical Plant spaceport and more still can be seen patrolling the airspace around the Death Egg in the Egg Gate stage. During the final battle at the Eggman Empire Fortress, the Egg Fleet can be seen in the skies in each outdoor stage engaging the Resistance air fleet, which itself consists of the same types of ships Eggman uses but flies the white and blue colours of the Resistance instead of the Eggman Empire's crimson and yellow. The fleet defending the fortress is believed to have been completely destroyed by the battle's end.
Sonic Frontiers[]
Although the Egg Fleet makes no appearance during Sonic Frontiers, it is confirmed to still exist in some form. After Dr. Eggman escapes from Cyber Space, he learns that the malevolent entity known as The End has also escaped. He states that he will mobilise the Egg Fleet to engage The End, though Sage tells him that even the full might of the fleet won't be enough to stop the cosmic abomination. Ultimately, The End is defeated by Sonic using both the power of the Chaos Emeralds and Cyber Space itself.
Comic history[]
Archie Comics[]
The Egg Fleet made its first appearance in Sonic the Hedgehog Issue #164. After months of secretly constructing this massive armada, Dr. Eggman first deployed the Egg Fleet when the evil sorcerers Mammoth Mogul and Ixis Naugus fought against the Freedom Fighters over control of the Source of All, the last remnants of which existed in the form of the Crown of Acorns and the Sword of Acorns. Both relics were destroyed in the battle but Mogul was prepared to continue fighting using his own sorcery, until Dr. Eggman arrived with his fleet and bombarded the area. Mogul and his forces appeared to have been obliterated by the barrage, but had actually been teleported to the Egg Grape Chamber in New Megaopolis. With this act, Eggman removed two dangerous threats and had demonstrated to the Freedom Fighters just how little their resistance mattered to him. The doctor was capable of wiping them all out then and there, but found their struggles to be entertaining and so let them live.
In Sonic Issue #169, the Egg Fleet was hastily mobilized to deal with the threat of A.D.A.M., Dr. Eggman's rogue sentient virus. A.D.A.M. had amassed all of the Chaos Emeralds throughout the universe and had absorbed their power to battle Super Sonic. After being weakened by Sonic's attack and by the will of his host body Tommy Turtle, A.D.A.M. was unable to defend himself when the Egg Fleet unleashed its full firepower on him, completely annihilating him.
The Egg Fleet would appear again throughout Issues #175 - #177. Dr. Eggman had grown tired of playing around with the Freedom Fighters and decided to put an end to their long game by invading and destroying Knothole. Knothole City was completely levelled and its citizens were all captured and taken to the Egg Vineyard in New Megaopolis, but Sonic and NICOLE devised a plan to rescue them by using Eggman's teleporter technology against him. When Sonic, Tails and Knuckles liberated Knothole's citizens from the Egg Grapes, Eggman went after them in his Egg Beater battlesuit and tried to teleport them back to the Vineyard. However, NICOLE had tapped into the doctor's teleport system and reprogrammed it to transport everyone to the abandoned nanite city, which NICOLE had also taken control of and remade it into New Mobotropolis. The Egg Fleet was mobilised again to attack the city, but the city was protected by an impenetrable barrier. After Dr. Eggman was defeated by Sonic and friends, the fleet retreated back to New Megaopolis.
In Issues #182 and 183, Mobius was threatened by the return of the demi-god Enerjak, who had been reborn in the body of Knuckles the Echidna. Whilst Enerjak was distracted fighting Sonic, the Egg Fleet attacked and transported Enerjak to the Egg Vineyard where a specially modified Egg Grape was waiting for him. Enerjak would not be contained, however, and managed to break free, destroying not only the Egg Vineyard but most of New Megaopolis as well. Eggman's entire Badnik horde was wiped out by Enerjak's attack and the Egg Fleet was also destroyed when the demi-god turned the fleet's firepower back at it.
IDW Publishing[]
The Egg Fleet made its first appearance in IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog Issue #6. Following Dr. Eggman's disappearance after his last battle against Sonic during the War, Metal Sonic, having had his Neo Metal upgrades restored, assumed command of the Eggman Empire's remaining forces, including the Egg Fleet. Disguising himself as Eggman, Metal intended to conquer the world in the doctor's name.
In Issue #7, Sonic the Hedgehog infiltrated the Egg Fleet flagship and battled Neo Metal Sonic. Neo Metal commanded his Badniks to open fire on the Tornado, only to see that Sonic had destroyed all of the turrets. Regardless of the damage, Neo considered himself to be the victor of the battle as he knew that Eggman was alive while Sonic knew nothing of his plans. With this, Neo commanded his troops to stay on course to rendezvous with the rest of the Egg Fleet at Angel Island.
In Issues # 9-12, the Egg Fleet opened fired upon a Resistance shuttle that was approaching Angel Island. Despite being able to destroy the vessel, all its passengers managed to evacuate in time. The Egg Fleet vessels on Angel Island's artificial wing units then came under attack by Sonic's allies, including Burning Blaze, who sought to break the fleet's control over the island. Tails hijacked one of the ships of the Egg Fleet and would ram the battleship into the Master Overlord, crippling the robotic monster and giving Knuckles the opportunity to remove the Master Overlord's power source, the Master Emerald. The battleship subsequently crashed on Angel Island, though Tails made it out of it alive.
Despite dealing with the "notoriously weird" Eggman tech, Tails eventually got the Egg Fleet battleship he had crashed into Master Overlord up and running again, although he had his doubts that it could land safely. With it, Tails got everyone on board the battleship off Angel Island. Meanwhile, Metal's fleet had been demolished by Burning Blaze and Metal himself had been defeated and rendered offline.
Ship variants[]
Sonic Heroes[]
- Mako gunship - The smallest of the Egg Fleet's ships look like large red fish. They each carry a battery of gun turrets.
- Sawfish battleship - Huge battleships resembling sawfish that even have saw-blade noses on their bows. The saw-blade is supposedly a runway for Falco robots and other fighters to take off from and each side is lined with gun turrets. The control centers of these battleships are protected by E-2000 robots.
- Manta Ray - Manta ray carriers are only seen in Sonic Heroes' cutscenes and do not appear in the game's Egg Fleet stage. Their exact capabilities are unknown.
- Final Fortress - The flagship of the Egg Fleet and the final stage of Sonic Heroes. This ship is one of the largest that Dr. Eggman has ever built and is armed with countless missile turrets and heavy laser cannons. From a birds-eye view, the Final Fortress appears to be a small city carried on the back of a giant flying whale. The ship's bridge is located atop a large spire that resembles Dr. Eggman's face. When Metal Sonic transformed into his Metal Madness form, he summoned a bolt of lightning that blew the spire apart and used the debris from the spire to build his new body.
Shadow the Hedgehog[]
In Shadow the Hedgehog, the Egg Fleet contained a much less diverse selection of battleship than in Sonic Heroes, with basically only two types of ships appearing.
- Minor Battleships - The most commonly seen battleships of the Egg Fleet in Shadow the Hedgehog. These battleships are very similar to the Mako shark gunships from Sonic Heroes, sharing similar designs. They have a primarily red colour scheme with stripes of yellow across the side. The battleships have a more streamlined design, thus they lack any passageway across the ship and have only one row of cannons, unlike the Mako shark gunships. The size of each of these ships differ between each other.
- Central Battleship - The central battleship of the Eggman Fleet in Shadow the Hedgehog and the largest seen so far. In terms of shape, this massive battleship resembles the Egg Carrier from Sonic Adventure, but with a more stream-like shape. It sports a red and yellow colour scheme and is heavily armoured. At the bottom of the ship, there are large turrets that can fire massive explosive shells.
Sonic Unleashed[]
In Sonic Unleashed, the layout of this Egg Fleet was very similar to the one in Shadow the Hedgehog, with only few types of battleships present and not in incredibly large numbers. This time, however, its ships had a smoother design and possessed a greater number of armaments.
- Minor Battleships - The most commonly seen battleships of the Egg Fleet in Sonic Unleashed. These grey battleships had vaguely the same shape as the Mako shark gunships from Sonic Heroes, but lacked the ship stabilizers and their bridges were raised on a platform of their own with a satellite dish on top. They also featured several more gun turrets and cannons.
- Central Battleship - The central battleship of the Egg Fleet in Sonic Unleashed and the largest seen so far. This red battleship was basically a much larger version of the minor battleships with extra large engines and was much more heavily armed and had an army of Egg Fighters at Eggman's disposal.
Sonic Forces[]
In Sonic Forces, the layout of this Egg Fleet only had three types of battleships present, but in incredibly large numbers. This time, its ships had a smoother design and possessed many more armaments. Their designs also greatly resembled those they had in Sonic Unleashed.
- Minor Battleships - The most commonly seen battleships of the Egg Fleet in Sonic Forces. These battleships had vaguely the same shape as the Mako shark gunships from Sonic Heroes.
- Major Battleships - The major battleships of the Egg Fleet in Sonic Forces. These battleships had vaguely the same shape as the massive battleship in Shadow the Hedgehog but lacks in a more stream-like shape.
- Central Battleship - The central battleship of the Egg Fleet in Sonic Forces.
Other Eggman ships[]
Dr. Eggman has built many different airships and spaceships during his evil career. While not considered part of the Egg Fleet, all together they make up a fleet that flies under Eggman's command. These Eggman ships are listed below.
- Wing Fortress
- Death Egg
- Flying Battery
- Egg Carrier
- EggFort 1
- EggFort 2
- Crimson Egg
- Egg Cauldron
- Grand Egg Imperial