The Second Robotnik War, also known as the Eggman War, is a major conflict that takes place in Archie Comics' Sonic the Hedgehog series. Not long after Sonic and the Freedom Fighters had won the First Robotnik War, a counterpart of Dr. Robotnik from another dimension had arrived on Mobius Prime and usurped his deceased predecessor's territories and started his conquest of Mobius all over again.
History[]
Prelude to war[]
Robo-Robotnik, an alternate version of Dr. Robotnik from the future, had been defeated in his own dimension and was imprisoned aboard an orbital satellite. However, his chance to take revenge arose when he discovered a piece of a super-powerful robotic weapon called the Giant Borg. The Giant Borg originated from another parallel dimension and had at one point appeared on Mobius Prime, but had been disassembled by an army of Sonics gathered from across the multiverse and its pieces scattered across multiple realities. One such piece had appeared in Robo-Robotnik's dimension and he was able to retrieve it and refashion it into a new body for himself. Restored, Robo-Robotnik finally took his revenge against his version of Sonic, launching numerous weapons of mass destruction that annihilated Mobotropolis and virtually all life on Mobius.
With Mobius reduced to lifeless ruins, Robo-Robotnik had nothing left to do in this dimension. He would later learn that his counterpart from Mobius Prime (whom he had met years before due to an incident involving E.V.E.) had been defeated and killed, and so decided to travel to Mobius Prime to take his place, both to fill the void left in his life and in Sonic Prime's. When he transported himself to Mobius Prime, he brought several satellites with him and used them to cause a number of strange events on the planet's surface, including a jailbreak at the Devil's Gulag and releasing his predecessor's nephew and lackey Snively, and also broadcasting a video autobiography of Robotnik Prime over King Maximillian's speech. He finally caught Sonic's attention when he abducted Mobius' entire Robian population, including Sonic's own family, and reprogrammed into his new slave labour force.
Robo-Robotnik
The Knothole Freedom Fighters would manage to trace the source of all the recent abnormal activity on Mobius to a satellite in orbit and were able to repair an old space shuttle to travel there. Upon arrival, they were greeted by what appeared to be their old foe Dr. Robotnik and his army of upgraded SWATbots. Sonic fought against Robotnik one-on-one inside the satellite's factory and during the fight Robotnik's cape got caught in a conveyor belt, pulling him under a corrosive chemical spray. The Freedom Fighters are shocked to see that Robotnik is actually Robo-Robotnik once his disguise is melted off by the acid. The roboticized tyrant briefly manages to capture the heroes and gloats over his triumph as an army of Shadowbots have transported down to Mobotropolis to recapture the city. However, his plan falls apart when Sonic and friends are released by the treacherous Snively, and Sonic's parents reveal that they have retained their free will thanks to a pair of Power Ring wedding bands Sonic had given them for their anniversary. They help the Freedom Fighters escape and sabotage Robo-Robotnik's satellite, which explodes once the heroes are away. Robo-Robotnik is seemingly destroyed, but his digital consciousness merely transfers to a new body stored beneath his base in Robotropolis. Thus, Robo-Robotnik is from then on known as Dr. Eggman and the Second Robotnik War officially begins.
Early days of the war[]
After claiming Robotropolis as his own, Dr. Eggman was quick to assume control of most of his Prime counterpart's old territories. His computer banks also contained the coordinates of Knothole, the Freedom Fighters' secret hideaway, but before he could establish control of the city his main computer had been sabotaged by Princess Sally and Snively, who had planted a virus into the mainframe that would prevent Eggman from downloading the coordinates into his own machine memory. While he could not attack Knothole directly, Eggman still had an army of Shadowbots and a roboticized workforce under his command.
Many events took place in a short time following Eggman's arrival. The doctor would discover the ancient monster known as Chaos and attempt to take control of it (which backfired horribly), he would also release Shadow the Hedgehog from a G.U.N. stronghold, fool a group of Overlanders (humans) into moving into Robotropolis and be reunited with his Prime predecessor's family (whom he tried to Roboticize). He would also lose Robotropolis when it was destroyed by nuclear missiles launched from Station Square and would be de-roboticized by the aliens known as the Bem. Following his own restoration to flesh and blood, Eggman would also lose his Robian slaves when the Bem de-roboticized all of Mobius.
Not long after Eggman established his new power base in New Megaopolis, Mobius was invaded by an alien race known as the Xorda, who intended to destroy the entire planet. Eggman was forced into an agreement with the Kingdom of Acorn, who promised to lend him Sonic's assistance in activating the massive Gigabot Prime robot provided that the doctor gave up half his global territories. Of course, he would go back on his word, but it would be for naught when the Xorda deployed their own superweapon, the Quantum Dial. Only Sonic was fast enough to reverse the Quantum Dial without any mechanical aid and so he sacrificed himself to destroy the device and save Mobius from annihilation. Sonic was catapulted across the universe by the reversal of the Dial, but Mobius believed him to be dead. Dr. Eggman celebrated his arch enemy's demise and immediately stepped up his global operations, waging all-out war against the Kingdom of Acorn and the United Federation. The Eggman Empire had arisen...
Full-scale war[]
While Sonic was away in space, the Freedom Fighters were at a great disadvantage without their champion to rally behind. The Eggman Empire continued gaining ground and Dr. Eggman built new terrible war machines and new types of Badniks to replace his outdated SWATbot forces.
A year after the Xorda invasion, Sonic returned to Mobius to find that Knothole had grown from a little hidden village into the new capital city of the Acorn Kingdom. With their greatest hero returned, the Freedom Fighters rallied once more and the Kingdom rejoiced as they once again had cause for hope. Of course, Dr. Eggman was outraged that Sonic was still alive and stepped up security across all of his facilities, turning his attention to creating new weapons to attack Sonic directly.
Eggman gloats over Sonic's defeat
It would later become apparent that the war was only lasting as long as it was because Eggman allowed it so. Despite a number of setbacks and issues with traitors within his own territory, the doctor still had the advantage with countless robot minions and a wider expanse of territory under his control. The time came when he decided to bring the war games to an end and deployed his new Egg Fleet to attack Knothole and burn the whole city to the ground. Knothole's entire population was captured and taken to Eggman's city where they were to be turned into fuel by the doctor's horrific Egg Grapes and Eggman himself fought against Sonic and defeated him with his new Egg Beater battle-suit. Instead of killing his nemesis, Eggman allowed Sonic to live so that he could suffer the eternal humiliation of losing their battle and the war. This decision, however, would soon cost Eggman dearly.
While Eggman had managed to capture most of Knothole's population, he wouldn't keep them for long. He had let Sonic live and missed four other critical targets: Knuckles the Echidna, Amy Rose, Miles "Tails" Prower and Sally's pocket-computer NICOLE. The five devised a plan to strike back against Eggman: using Tails' technological talents and NICOLE's hacking capability, the team managed to storm New Megaopolis and break into the Egg Vineyard where the captive Mobians were being held. While Sonic, Knuckles and Amy freed the prisoners from the Egg Grapes, Tails and NICOLE reprogrammed the teleportation system Eggman had used to capture everyone. After that, NICOLE's AI was uploaded to the empty Nanite City that A.D.A.M. had created before its destruction. She spread her program into every nanite in the city and used them to rebuild it to suit the needs of the Knothole citizens, creating the new Acorn capital of New Mobotropolis.
As Eggman pursued the escapees with the Egg Beater, he fired on them with teleporter beams believing that they would transported back to the Egg Grapes. However, he would soon realise he had just sent his prisoners to their new home in the reconstructed nanite complex, which was now fully powered and protected from any direct assault from the Egg Fleet. Sonic then challenged Eggman to a rematch, but this time he was backed up by his friends. While the Egg Beater was perfectly suited to counter Sonic's moves, it was unable to withstand a combined attack by so many Freedom Fighters at once. Sonic and his friends tore the Egg Beater apart and Dr. Eggman fled the scene when he was rescued by an Egg Flapper, cursing Sonic and promising revenge.
The Enerjak Crisis[]
Shortly after the founding of New Mobotropolis, the Freedom Fighters were contacted by Dimitri, former Grandmaster of the Dark Legion. Dimitri had been missing for some time and revealed that he had escaped from the clutches of maniacal Echidna scientist and mage, Dr. Finitevus. According to Dimitri, Finitevus had ressurrected the all-powerful Echidna demigod Enerjak. As the Freedom Fighters soon discovered, Dimitri was telling the truth. Enerjak appeared in New Mobotropolis after having cleansed Angel Island of all technology and scattering the Dingo Regime and Dark Legion. Sonic, with the help of Shadow the Hedgehog as well, attacked Enerjak but was easily overpowered, but not before knocking his helmet off. It was revealed that Knuckles, guardian of Angel Island and longtime friend of Sonic's, was now the host for Enerjak's spirit.
Dr. Eggman surprised the Freedom Fighters and Enerjak with a sudden attack from the Egg Fleet and succeeded in capturing Enerjak and transporting him to the Egg Vineyard where he was to have his energy drained by the Egg Grapes. Eggman thought he had everything under control, but this was not the case. Enerjak was too powerful for the Egg Grapes to contain for long and he broke free, swiftly and brutally retaliating by levelling most of New Megaopolis, destroying the Egg Fleet and wiping out Dr. Eggman's entire Badnik army.
The Enerjak Crisis would be resolved thanks to Sonic and Locke - Knuckles' father - interrupting a procedure by Dr. Finitevus to repower Enerjak with the Master Emerald. Enerjak was defeated and Knuckles restored to normal, but at the cost of his father's life. Dr. Finitevus also managed to escape, but the danger had passed. While the Freedom Fighters and the Republic of Acorn came away from the crisis relatively unscathed, the Dingo Regime had lost its leader, the Dark Legion had been stripped of its cybernetics and the Eggman Empire had been severely crippled. This would lead to the Dark Legion forging an alliance with Dr. Eggman, who outfitted the Legionnaires with new bionics in exchange for their service to him as his new army.
The Siege of New Megaopolis[]
With Dr. Eggman's forces depleted, the Freedom Fighters were able to go on the offensive and launch a siege against the doctor's last remaining stronghold, the EggDome. At this point, Eggman's psychological state was brought into question. Having lost so much in so little time due in part to Enerjak but mostly due to Sonic, Eggman's last grip on sanity was starting to slip and he began making poor command decisions and tactical blunders as a result, essentially setting himself up to fail. With the few resources he had left, he built a number of new mechs which he intended to pilot into battle against Sonic and destroy him once and for all. Meanwhile, his traitorous nephew Snively was once again plotting against him, this time secretly confiding with a mysterious cohort who intended to usurp the Eggman Empire from the doctor's control.
The time came for the Freedom Fighters to make their final push and put an end to Dr. Eggman once and for all. Sonic was able to breach the EggDome's defences and confronted the doctor and his new mecha, the Egg Tarantula. As the two arch-enemies fought, Sonic continued to tease and insult Eggman, pushing the doctor ever closer to breaking point. And then it happened: Sonic destroyed the Egg Tarantula and knocked Eggman clear of the machine. As Sonic gloated over his victory, Dr. Eggman finally snapped and flew into a psychotic rage, attacking Sonic like a rabid animal before collapsing into an exhausted heap. Snively then appeared and told Sonic that he would care for his insane uncle while the Freedom Fighters were free to declare victory and go home and celebrate.
When the Freedom Fighters left, Snively had Eggman locked up in a padded cell and he and the Dark Egg Legion welcomed the Iron Queen to New Megaopolis. The Iron Queen and Snively had been conspiring to overthrow Eggman ever since the Enerjak Crisis and had allowed Sonic and his friends to do the dirty work for them. With the Queen now in command of the Eggman Empire, things were set to change.
The Iron Dominion[]
Regina Ferrum, the Iron Queen
The Iron Queen's ninja forces from the Dragon Kingdom soon occupied New Megaopolis and she and Snively began plotting their conquest of the Republic of Acorn, who were still celebrating their recent victory. The Iron Dominion's rise to power also caused some dissent among the Freedom Fighters as Espio the Chameleon, a member of the Chaotix Team, abandoned his comrades all of a sudden to join his fellow chameleons in the Shinobi Clan, one of the Four Houses of the Iron Dominion. Though the FF lost one ally, they gained another in the form of the cyborg warrior Monkey Khan, who informed them of the Eggman Empire's change in leadership.
Over time, the Iron Dominion launched a number of incursions into the Republic's territory, but all of these assaults failed. Not only were they failing to gain ground, but Dr. Eggman, still in the throes of psychosis, managed to escape from his cell and stole one of his own mechs from the EggDome in order to hunt down Sonic. Sure enough, he found Sonic in the forest and attacked, only for Tails to disable his Egg Tortoise and the FF to take him prisoner.
Some time after Eggman's capture, the Iron Queen launched a new offensive against New Mobotropolis, this time aware that the city was comprised of nanites. With her techno-magic, she was able to take control of the entire city and its AI NICOLE. Under the Queen's influence, NICOLE manipulated every structure in the city to the Queen's will, imprisoning the entire population. Only Sonic, Tails, Sally and Monkey Khan managed to escape and used a Digitizer device at Freedom HQ to enter the virtual world in an attempt to free NICOLE from the Iron Queen's control. They succeeded, but NICOLE had to maintain the illusion of being the Queen's puppet until Sonic and Sally could devise a means of defeating her.
Sonic, Tails, Sally and Khan left New Mobotropolis for several weeks as they travelled across the Dragon Kingdom, the Iron Dominion's native land. While there, they visited each of the four ninja clans that made up the Dominion's armies and managed to convince the leaders of each clan to disassociate themselves from the Iron Queen. After meeting with each of the Four Houses, Sonic and co. returned to New Mobotropolis to assist the remaining Freedom Fighters in disrupting the Queen's occupation. They informed the Queen's ninja warriors that their respective clans had broken away from the Iron Dominion and so the ninjas lowered their arms and returned to the Dragon Kingdom. Even the Dark Egg Legion turned against the Queen now that they were outnumbered and Sonic was able to defeat her easily without any minions backing her up.
As the Freedom Fighters were busy retaking the city, Dr. Eggman was able to reason himself back to a semblance of sanity and tried to convince Snively to release him. Snively refused at first, but as the Iron Dominion forces retreated from the city, he panicked and went scurrying back to his uncle's side. Eggman and Snively then took a Legion saucer back to the EggDome in order to plan for the doctor's revenge.
Rise of the Death Egg[]
With the Iron Dominion dissolved, Dr. Eggman resumed command of the Dark Egg Legion and resumed work on his greatest undertaking. What the Freedom Fighters were unaware of was that the EggDome was not merely a bunker but in fact a new Death Egg battle fortress disguised as a simple building while the doctor finished its construction. Eggman hid in the base's lowest levels for weeks completing this project while Sonic and Tails made regular incursions hoping to find him, but their searches continuously came up empty.
Meanwhile, the Republic of Acorn was still reeling from the Iron Dominion's occupation. Tensions were running high and the citizens of New Mobotropolis were afraid that their benefactor and guardian NICOLE had become a danger to all of them. The malevolent wizard Ixis Naugus had picked up on the fears of the people and weaved his sorcery to further aggitate the populace, using the people's fears to his advantage. Naugus had long ago set a plan in motion to place himself on the throne of the Acorn Kingdom through manipulating two of its past kings and by elevating the emotions of the frightened population and proving himself in battle against Sonic, he succeeded in winning the people's confidence and was crowned king.
Dr. Eggman soon completed his work on the Death Egg and acquired a Chaos Emerald to power it. With a new mobile fortress, new weapons and new Badniks at his command, Eggman launched the Death Egg (flattening what was left of New Megaopolis in the process) and launched an attack on New Mobotropolis. In the ensuing battle, Sonic and Sally boarded the battle-station, only for Sally to be fatally wounded by internal defences. This was undone, however, when Dr. Eggman activated his ultimate weapon: the Genesis Wave.
Genesis[]
While imprisoned in New Mobotropolis, Eggman had theorised that Sonic was always able to defeat his plans due to an unforseeable "chaos factor". Having been exposed to large amounts of Chaos energy for so long, Sonic had become a living embodiment of Chaos, thus Robotnik's perfectly ordered, precisely planned schemes would always be doomed to fail. To counter this Chaos factor, Eggman devised the Genesis Wave: a device that utilised Chaos energy in order to completely reshape reality. When the Death Egg attacked New Mobotropolis, Eggman activated the Genesis Wave, producing a blinding flash of white light that enveloped the entire planet Mobius.
Using the Death Egg's weapon, Dr. Eggman managed to alter reality, nullifying all of the Freedom Fighters' progress for more than the past decade. This resulted in a changed and defenseless Mobius that was easy to exploit. In this new reality, Eggman and Snively quickly took control of various untamed regions and territories by establishing bases and factories in them. They also started capturing large numbers of the different Mobini species everywhere they went, and placed them inside Eggman's Badnik robots as power sources.
However, Eggman and Snively had both been affected by the weapon as well and lost their memories, unsure of what their plan had been or even the purpose behind the Death Egg. All they could remember was that whatever they did before had severely drained the battle station of its power reserves, and it would take time for it to be recharged, even with the Chaos Emeralds they somehow gathered. Eventually they began to remember the old reality they changed, which was the cause for the numerous dimensional disturbances they were experiencing, but Eggman remained confident his "robotizing" weapon would secure both space-time and his victory once fired.
Besides these setbacks, there was one other problem that would prove fatal to Robotnik's plans—Sonic had been brought into this new world as well, along with a few of the other Freedom Fighters, though suffering the same amnesia effect like the doctor and Snively. As Sonic ran through the Green Hill Zone, he felt as though he had blanked out for a second, which was the sudden disruption in reality, but still saved the captured animals of the zone from Snively in a natural fashion. Sonic then freed Sally, "Boomer", and Antoine "DePardieu", whom he had no memory of meeting before, and the four heroes joined forces to find the source of the animal kidnappings, as well as the weird tremors that were occurring. After encountering Robotnik in the Marble Zone, they traced him back through the Labyrinth Zone to the Scrap Brain Zone, where the Freedom Fighters supposedly defeated the doctor. Robotnik survived however, and began to recall his past with Sonic as part of some great "logic puzzle", for which he attempted to work out an answer.
Afterwards, Sonic introduced the his "new" friends to his sidekick Tails, who joined the group as they traveled through the Chemical Plant Zone in order to take down Robotnik's support and leave him powerless. The group slowly made progress though, and Sonic realized that their plan would take forever. After experiencing a sudden flashback of memories from the old reality, he and Tails decided to leave the group to confront Eggman head on while Sally, Boomer, and Antoine navigated the Oil Ocean Zone alone and cut off his fuel supplies. After encountering Robotnik in the Metropolis Zone, Sonic began to remember more memories from another past. Robotnik acknowledged Sonic was beginning to remember the "other reality", and then fled in his shuttle to the Death Egg. Sonic gave chase and flew up to Robotnik's escape shuttle in Tails' Tornado, just managing to grab on in time to hitch a ride.
Sonic vs. Egg Destroyer
Once onboard the Death Egg, Sonic saw the planet appeared to be shaking itself apart. Robotnik confirmed this, explaining Mobius' true reality was fighting back to restore itself from the one he created, but that "robotizing" the planet would be able to stop it. While fighting Sonic in his Giant Mech, Dr. Eggman explained he realized that in that reality, Sonic would always stop him, so the Chaos factor should be eliminated if he changed reality, and Sonic would not be able to win. However, even after the dimensional change, Robotnik still found himself being confronted by Sonic, intent on ruining his plans. During Eggman's ranting, Sonic attempted to fight back, but was overpowered by the mech and about to be crushed. As the doctor mentioned the Death Egg was powered by the seven Chaos Emeralds, Sonic then grabbed a power line and turned into Super Sonic by absorbing the energy in it, saving himself at the last minute. With space-time breaking down rapidly, Super Sonic quickly defeated Dr. Eggman's mech and absorbed as much Chaos energy as possible from the exposed wires, and then performed Chaos Control to restore reality. This resulted in the white-out effect occurring once again as the alternate Mobius vanished away into nothingness.
Back to reality[]
After Super Sonic used Chaos Control, reality returned to the way it was with vital seconds to spare, allowing Sonic to prevent what would have been Sally's death before the Genesis Wave was activated. The heroes then made it to the centre of the Death Egg where they discovered another terrifying superweapon: a Roboticizer capable of affecting the entire planet in one blast, turning every organic life-form on Mobius into one of Robotnik's mechanical slaves and destroying all pre-existing electronic machinery. Sally and NICOLE attempted to stop the World Roboticizer from firing, but there was insufficient time to break through its security programs and Sonic was fighting for his life against Silver Sonic and Metal Sonic at once. In the end, Sally was able to cause the device to backfire on itself, destroying it but roboticizing the only life-form in close proximity to it: Sally herself.
Sonic survived his battle against his robot doubles but was terrified to find that Sally had been turned into a robot whilst sabotaging the World Roboticizer. Now bent to Eggman's will, Sally grabbed Sonic (who wouldn't fight back against her) and dropped him out of a waste disposal hatch. Though the Death Egg had suffered damage, it was still powerful enough to destroy New Mobotropolis, except for one minor detail: the Chaos Emerald in the Death Egg's core had disappeared, which meant that the flying fortress had to fall back on conventional fuels for power. Eggman ordered a retreat to refuel the Death Egg, but left behind a "gift" for the Freedom Fighters: a strange Badnik disguised as a simple toy, the Tails Doll.
Terror of the Death Egg[]
Even without the Chaos Emerald fuelling it, the Death Egg was still Eggman's deadliest weapon to date. With his mobile fortress, Eggman began launching spontaneous attacks on various territories in the Republic of Acorn, and thanks to the treachery of the Republic's new king Naugus, the Freedom Fighters were forced to disband. However, Naugus did not hold absolute power and was forced to put up with the Acorn Council, who allowed the formation of two new teams, one to defend New Mobotropolis and the other to pursue the Death Egg and interfere with Dr. Eggman's operations. Meanwhile, the exiled former king Elias Acorn met with retired Secret Service director Harvey Who and together they formed a group of Secret Freedom Fighters that would serve to undermine Naugus' rule.
As the Death Egg's rampage continued, Team Fighters - led by Sonic - continuously pursued the flying fortress and rushed in to protect any innocent towns from Robotnik's Badniks. They hounded the doctor across the Northamer continent, through the Mysterious Cat Country, all the way to the Southern Tundra. It was at the Tundra that Team Fighters joined forces with the Arctic Freedom Fighters and Silver the Hedgehog in an operation to save the roboticized Sally. The operation appeared to succeed as Sally was disabled, but moments before then, Eggman had restored the Genesis Wave thanks to the assistance of a mysterious ally from another dimension. He then activated the reconfigured Genesis Wave, leading to an event that threatened the existence of not only Mobius, but another plane of reality altogether.
When worlds collide[]
See the page Worlds Collide.
Shattered World[]
When Super Sonic attempted to restore reality with his Chaos Control, Dr. Eggman interrupted him by attacking him, breaking Sonic's concentration and disrupting the Chaos Control. As a result, Mobius' history was drastically altered. Many events played out quite differently than they had in the original timeline and several people and places were changed whereas others ceased to exist. Only a select few individuals recalled the history of their lives from the previous reality and those memories would eventually fade.
The most significant after-effect of the disrupted Chaos Control was the widespread fracturing of the planet's crust which caused it to break apart. The fragments of the planet should have hurtled into space, yet remained in close proximity to the planet's core due to the presence of an unidentified mystical energy. Though the shattered planet retained an atmosphere and gravity, the broken continents left portions of the population divided and disrupted.
While the Freedom Fighters worked around the clock saving lives and trying to restore a semblance of peace, Dr. Eggman found himself largely benefiting from the fallout of his meddling with reality. While the Eggman Empire was fractured, Eggman found himself commanding a larger army and had gained new territories. His forces consisted not only of hordes of Badniks but also a new Egg Army consisting of many "cyberized" Mobian soldiers.