Plot Summary
Hey there. I've placed the Plot Summary in its own page over here.
Plot Analysis
Okay. First, this video:(Years ago, there was a YTP about Robotnik from AOSTH going "Why is my space station flying through space? Why? Why? WHYYYYYYYYYYY????" that then just goes on forever. This is gone now, but let us always remember it. And then watch this mostly similar but without music version.)
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/23FSMUMzLUc (Old video was at the ID of lSNeL0QYfqo but that's long gone now. Also I'm not embedding it since I half wonder if that annoys people who make these. Oh well.)
Now that you get the idea, here's my futile attempt to distill sense from madness.
The plot, seen both through the lens of the present day while retaining as much old flavor as possible, consists of the following:
First, Denon. Denon is the leader of the Quest Hunters, a group of 1000 invincible Quester-killing Master Chief wannabes who have been reactivated to kill the Questers. They did it once 1000 years ago, and have returned to do it again. The only means to stop this incredible evil is apparently to use the help of the ancient city of Ordoth and Shaun Teron/Tenor. Meier Link also served this Denon, and Denon was apparently a ghost due to unknown reasons.
Second, the Quester Hunters then became Apocalypse group and allied with a vast amount of people. Denon, Metal Sonic, Aribar, Robotnik Hologram, Kefka, Zio, a brainwashed Alys, Andross, Nightmare Hand, to name a few. They all had fancy masks (well, some of them did) and they had a massive fleet, bent on taking over the world. With the help of Denon's 1000 Quest Hunters, some invincible androids, and later a satellite, they were poised to take over until a Smithysat was used to blast them and their satellite into deep space. (Though many of their members had defected before this happened, so they persisted as an annoyance for a while after this defeat.
Third, Charles Magellean/Locos Docos was bent on creating some sort of weird "Lunaris Ferranium" or similar on some islands by Grape Garden. This would be the main celebration right before he left for good for his home world, to the Second Moon. He never succeeded since everyone kept getting in his way, stopping him from finding the White Emerald until towards the very end. He enlisted the help of Doopliss and Ricky Koopa and Bob/Ivo Robotnik Hologram to do this. He also had some pretension to being the "master of order" but it never went anywhere. He also simultaneously tried to take over the world, but that also went nowhere. He allied with Ivan Robotnik to try and explore Saga--that also went nowhere. In fact everything to do with him went nowhere.
Fourth, there was Yurie's homeworld, Saga. It was no longer taken over by Smithy due to the defeat of Smithy by the Questers in Season 2. Thus the Questers were able to return and request the help of at least 5-6 of its Masters in their struggles against the Quester Hunters/Apocalypse group/eventually The Void. However, Yurie's OOC inability to GM many sessions meant that this plot never finished and was prematurely abandoned. The implications of the new group that had taken over as the villains of Saga (Trinity Group) were never explored, nor was the evil implications of the Charm Lord Zozma ever explored. The Questers left and never returned to this place.
Fifth, there were the alignment legends. There were temples of many names and alignments everywhere and all the artifacts of Nintendus were needed to fix them. Everyone wanted a piece of them--Zio, the evil Aribar, Charles Magellean, The Void, a made-up analogue of The Void named Sha'fol, Eldorado/Wolfman... in the end they all wanted to rewrite the world in their own images with these temples. The Void eventually tired of these temples though, and blew them all up when they failed to suit his purposes. There were swords of light, dark, and order, and even a pan of light, but most of these were fake and absorbed by a later plot thread.
Sixth, there was Eldorado/Wolfman and Alys. Alys was a leftover from the old days who realized the world had gone insane and tried desperately to make it sane by threatening to kill all the crazies and trying to drag the Questers to the Holo Tomb. But this failed and she vanished with no explanation. Meanwhile Eldorado/Wolfman ALSO warned about this same theme, starting out as some sort of Void-analogue before he regained his senses and explained that the Questers were being used. At one point Eldorado and his Fighter Remote shenanigans were poised to defeat the Questers/attack people, but they fell apart so ridiculously that he was forgotten as a threat, then replaced with the actual OOC Wolfman playing regular old Wolfman.
Seventh was The Void himself. He was the hole in reality mentioned in previous seasons. He knew everything, he was unstoppable. He was powered by any object that warped reality--including Charles' cheating and the Doublers and Transformers. He used Ivan Robotnik as his main host, and in turn Ivan controlled Metal Sonic and many other sub-villains that kept showing up in the plot, and he also had a hand in Eldorado, the alignment temples and even a fake Sword of Darkness. Ultimately he destroyed all the other plots that got in his way and won, even though he was destroyed. He had corroded Nintendus into "Nintopia" and installed Ivan Robotnik as his proxy.
Eigth... as my mind slowly melts... was the "Final Rush", the failed attempt to do away with The Void by collecting an increasingly improbably array of relics thrown across so many realms it read more like a laundry list of what the GMs liked than any real plot. The Questers never finished this collectathon as The Void short-circuited it in disgust and GAVE the relics to Ivan to trick the Questers into forgetting this. Though in the end this whole thing was determined to be The Void's trap anyway.
Ninth would be Grunty and Doopliss and WACKO. Doopliss was a smooth operator who became so powerful as to exceed most anyone's power. He did what he felt like, constantly betraying everyone (even Locos/Charles) until he joined WACKO, in which case he helped Grunty's disparate collection of maniacs (Wario, Waluigi and Klungo) get a good start on their evil plans (to be continued in Season 4).
Other madness is laced through this season, including evil kung-fu ladies and lions that breathed smoke. Aribar being evil over and over again, weird non sequitors about biblical swords, Smithy returning for no reason, and Charles building a flying fortress that he immediately abandoned for no reason. Oh, and SIMBER, who was the constantly-side-switching AI that was supposed to be Ivan/The Void's control system (but in the end turned out to be on nobody's side except his own.) Oh, and Zero appeared for no reason and didn't do much of anything important. Mack also did a bunch of nothing, and there were at least 4 different variations of Phantom/Ely and at least 5 of Metal Sonic.
In the end, it came out as one huge hot mess. Nothing made any sense because at least nine plots and probably more than that were all in play all at once with no real quality control. Depending on how stupid I was feeling a session could be meh, great, or so bizarrely stupid even I would overwrite it immediately in the next session. Words were thrown around, and there was never any real decision as to what was the real villain until the very end. Even then, it went everywhere, and an entire plotline involving an endless armada of ships summoned from all the worlds ever and the X-Zone opening up fully was never really explained or dealt with.
There is really no way to justify it. This was basically the Dark Ages of SSQ come back again. When I originally took over SSQ, see, I just GMed random nonsense all the time. Nick had made me stick to... sane plots... in Season 2, but then he left for too long and my stupidity corrupted everything, and then Yurie tried to work with it and went AWOL, so this mess occurred. Nick's Final Rush plot was too little, too late, and it was all eaten in madness.
I'm amazed that I even got as much sense as seen above out... but I guess it DOES make some insane sense. It's just too much going on at once--it has to be separated out to make sense. Still it's stupid and poorly written. I would never do this again, not even in future plots of SSQ--as much as some parts of it were interesting, basically anything I did here was too dumb to bear repeating.
It's still not as bad as the stagnation that killed SSQ late in SSQ 1, but it comes close. The madness even lost many of my players and can be seen by the sheer emptiness and/or reusing of Aribar and Charles for practically every session at one point. It has little redeeming value and doesn't resolve much of anything--pretty much everything in this Season ends up continuing as if Ivan had done nothing at all.
I make one final canon note. This Season is the transition from the relatively "sane" oldschool to my "insane" period. Until Season 5, no sense is made again. Season 4 is one huge illogical block of madness, not exactly the same but basically the same. I question whether it will ever make sense to even log that season...
Another note--in the current overall plot of SSQ, the future Questers went back in time to the end of this time and averted Ivan Robotnik's victory and filled in the plot hole power behind The Void--it was a bit late, but this averted everything past this Season while also destroying The Void for good. Well, mostly.
Ivan Robotnik would later go mad and finally be destroyed by a much more saavy set of Questers in Cycle 1--he deserved it, given he was The Void's proxy. Tridus was erased for not being real, and the Transformers defied the destruction that had supposedly happened to them. Charles came back, Denon continued to attack, the Androids the Gentlemen made kept appearing and even most of the Apocalypse group came back. Meanwhile, nobody ever went to Saga again. So this season really doesn't mean anything at all to the main canon of SSQ. It's just an example of bad writing that was ultimately ignored or rewritten elsewhere. It's kinda silly that I logged it to begin with--but, well, you have to remember stupidity, lest you repeat it again.
That's about all there is to say about this mess, anyway.
Word Map (Made by Wordle)
The first funny pattern is "Get back Metal like now." It doesn't mean anything, but this is basically a symbol of how wacky the season is. Aribar, Locos and Metal Man are the stars of this Season, with Razor, Yurie, Robotnik, Garrick and Sonic taking a back seat. And then a few people out in the nosebleed seats, like... The Void himself? Wow. The Void didn't even really star in the Season that was supposedly all about him. Go figure.
Not much else to say here, except that there were so many characters that most of this word map is all characters. You can easily pick out the TRUE main characters of the season this way--mostly because the actual logs, story, and cast listing are just a massive clutter that don't fully represent what is important in this wacky season...
Top 10% Logs of this Season
Given this season really sucks, it inspired me to start a new feature: the Top 10% of the season. Read these logs to get an idea of what the best this season has to offer is... and then you can basically skip the rest. They suck. Starting off with number three, we have...Number 3: Chapter 99: Ironic Paradise
In this log, Metal Man runs from ghost children. It is also a surprising inclusion, given originally I had planned on excluding all Saga logs from my storyline logs. As a result, Yurie has at least one lasting contribution to SSQ's history: Metal Man's bizarre fear of children and happiness. Not much else comes to mind, but I'm sure it's worth a glancing read--which is more than I can say for much else this season.
Number 2: Chapter 114: Attack of the Aribar Army
This log is special, for two reasons. First, Locos gets shot down after trying to offer a ham to a robot. Then four Aribars attack everyone at once, and the Questers just... laugh. It's hilarious. Also in this log, the Apocalypse Group gets blasted away, Robotnik is revealed as a fake, and a crazy number pad zaps people. What's not to like?
Number 1: Chapter 111: Saga of Silliness
This one is the easy top pick for me. It includes a prototype of Anthon Tark, who would become a major character in another game I ran, then appear in SSQ^2 and Alsa. It also gave birth to the meme about a Wall-eyed Waluigi, due to a critical roll and a crit failure causing one laser eye to zap Locos and the other to zap the wall. It also has the infamous scene in which Waluigi and Robotnik crash a Mario Party 2 minigame just to attack Locos. Did I mention the Anthon Tark prototype blows up Locos? And Nanite Metal Sonic, a character also from my other game, shows up! I mean... there's just so much in this one. If you read only one Season 3 log... read THIS one.
A final note: I could have rounded up to have 4 chapters, but there are literally NO other logs left in this Season really worth listing. It's that ridiculous. Oh well.
Cast (In Order of Appearance)
Just a heads up, I kinda went through this quickly due to the mindboggling hordes of characters in this season. It was just too many for me to be thorough. Sorry.Ricky - Magellean Military - Passive-Aggressive Butler
Locos Docos/Charles Magellean - Magellean Military Leader - Insane Annoyance
Metal Sonic - SIMBER System - Continual Menace
Yurie - Quester - Hapless Saga Immigrant
Razor - Quester - Out of the Loop
Metal Man - Quester Leader - Gloriously Insane
Garrick - Quester - That Guy Off To The Side
Professor Oak - Stadium Staff - Still has those Coins
Smash Dex - Stadium Tool - Constantly used
Dr. Light - Stadium Staff - Wallflower
Aribar - Quester - Neverending Alignment Flip-Flopper
Toads - Civillians - Innocent Victims
Deloth - Quester - Knows only two things: Slice, and Dice.
QH Leader/Soldiers/Whatever - Apocalypse Group - Whatever
Shaun Tenor/Teron - Atlantean or other ancient Thing - MAGICAL PLOT GUY SEEN TWICE, THEN NEVER AGAIN
Gujin Hisaki - Quester??? - The guy who appeared in a space ship, then vanished forever
Gibby - Quester - Wielder of the One Holy Frying Pan
Denon - Apocalypse Group Bum/Leader - The Ghost of Worthlessness
Meier Link - Apocalypse Group - The Recurring Vampire Guy
Panzer - Quester - Lost in Bubbles
Mewtwo - Stadium Staff - Outraged over Master Balls
Digifanatic - Quester - The Guy Who Does Nothing
Copii-Razor - retseuQ - pooL eth fo tuO
The Doorman - Apocalypse Group - Warpy Trickmeister
Dimitrius - Quester - Five-second appearance
Joel - Stadium Tool - The Only Talking Dex
Suru - Aribar's Familiar - Sadly, does not talk
MTA - Stadium Tool - Why is it Talking???
Fox - Smasher - Constantly doing Useless Things
Peppy - Smasher - Stuck in any scene Fox is
Slippy - Smasher - Ditto
Falco - Smasher - Ditto Ditto
Random Venomian Officer - Apocalypse Group - Hilarious name, Never Seen Again
Violet - Apocalypse Group - No Sense of Tactics
Alys - Quester - I'LL SMASH YOU GOOD WITH THIS EMERALD
Armadillo - Holo Tomb Thing - Time to Run This Joke Into The Ground!!!
Farmer Zombie - Past Enemy - HOLO ROOM, RIGHT GUYZ
Nidokings - Past Enemy - YEAHHHHHHH
Green Man 1 - ??? - Don't even bother asking me
Green Man 2 - ??? - Ditto
Girderman - X-Zone Thing - Stupid Nonsense I made Up
Ruvyn - Apocalypse Group - Fatal Weakness: Defenestration
Shawn - God Only Knows - Wolfman's brother, or horrible hallucination?
Sword of Darkness - ??? - We never Know why it talks
Knuckles - Smasher? - Gullable and Confused
Frying Pan - Sword of Light? - We Never Know
Bowser - Apocalypse Group - Poorly Defined, rarely Seen
Ganondorf - Apocalypse Group - Defeated by his own Weapon
Dr. Ivo Robotnik ? - ??? - Is he on his own side? Nobody knows
Meta Knight - Smasher - Meh
Mario - Smasher - Guy chased by Space Ships
Eldorado - Apocalypse Group - Stupid Maniac
SA-X2 - Apocalypse Group - Silent and Unused
Mack the Repairman - Stadium Staff - More secret Lairs than Batman
Phantom - Magellean Military - More clones
PhantomII - Magellean Military - Clone OF a Clone
Smithy - Magellean Military - Always A Head
Sonic - Smasher - Kinda lost in all this
Phantom III - Magellean Military - Form of: Wacky Sword!
Wolfman - Quester - Inelegance Chip'd
Zio - Apocalypse Group - Lost in the Confusion
soursurfer - Quester - Unimpressed by this Nonsense
Lehi/Doopliss/Erwin/Whatever - Magellean Military/WACKO - Unstable Antagonist
Luigi - Smasher - I forget what he was doing here
Roufas - Saga Lord - One of those guys
Annie - Saga Lord - Are you Okay?
Liza - Saga Person - Background person
James Prower - Saga Person - Never bothered to meet his son on-screen
Tingle - ??? - Apparently Craves Evil
Blue - Saga Lord - Master of FetchQuestery
Kylin - Saga Lord - Master of Ghost Children
Spyke - Quester - Another Quick Cameo
Ivan Robotnik - SIMBER System Overlord - Deceptive pawn of The Void
Shadow - Apocalypse Group - Always Angry
Blackmask - Apocalypse Group - Masked Darkness
Whitemask - Apocalypse Group - Snooty and Useless
Deoxys - Apocalypse Group - Inferiority Complex
Gargoyles - Apocalypse Group - Winged Plot Holes
Andross - Apocalypse Group - Pathetic Lego Man
Waluigi - WACKO - Wall-Eyed Pie-throwing Maniac
Wario - WACKO - Greedy, fat, slow and useless
Kefka - Apocalypse Group - The Master of Annoying Dreams
King K. Rool - Apocalypse Group? - Mostly a Tool
Grunty - WACKO - The Defiant Witch of the Enemy Switch
DeDeDe - Something - One-off cameo
G&W - Smasher - Item Seller
Dracula - ??? - Just kind of... there
Tempus - Saga Lord - Time Rewinder
Zozma - Saga Lord - Charmingly AWOL
Obsidios - Saga Lord - Mysterious
Jeff Maxwell - Magellean Military - Several-time loser
The Void - Master of the X-Zone - King of the Satellite Hill
Orlando Florida - ??? - Back for more
Ruffian - Saga Person - Meh
Gen - Saga Lord - Yurie's Ex
Azure - Quester - New Guy
Thnikkaman - ??? - Some kind of old reference
Obnoxious Rich Lady - ??? - Weak to exploding dryers
Ticketmaster - ??? - Prison Warden in disguise
Xaos - Quester - One or two-session wonder
Zero - Quester - Gets so lost he misses most of the end of the season
Bug Catcher - ??? - Doesn't know what a Reploid is
Pikachu - ??? - Defeated easily
Rocketgrunt - ??? - Card Players Guild
Metal Man Hologram - SIMBER System - Not a Real Maniac
Sigma - ??? - Some sort of hologram
Wolfman Hologram - SIMBER System - More holograms
Police - GUN Police - Protectors of order
Dr. Donez - NC Maniac - Protector of DISorder
Tony - Ex-GUN Police - Traitor
Pilot - GUN Military Officer - Prototype Anthon Tark
Tails - Saga Person - Never does get to meet his father...
E Li Three - ??? - Master of Pie Ceremonies
Impa - ??? - I forget
Chibi Tigress Gundam - Quester - Doesn't Know what the Hell Is Going On
Ragamuffin - Quester - Not much better at knowing things than CTG
Baton - ??? - Why is this talking???
R-50 Series - Robotnik Robots - Locos-killers
Numberpad - Robotnik Robot - Ha ha ha ha ha
Razorbot - Robotnik Robot - Not as Ultimate as you'd Think
Metal Aribar - Robotnik Robot - Kinda Wooden... er Metal
Slytock Aribar - Quester Hunter - That annoying guy that never stops showing up
Sumner - ??? - HE'S STILL HERE TO ANNOUNCE THINGS
Goron - ??? - Shopkeeper
SIMBER - SIMBER System Backbone - Crispy on, Crispy off. Crispy on, Crispy off.
E. Gadd - SIMBER System Creator - Never Considers Consequences EVER
Saria - Sage of the Forest - Knows a lot about Gargoyles
Voltorb - Pokemon - *Explodes*
Dr. Mario - Stadium Staff - Klepomaniac
Magnus - Apocalypse Group - Another re-hire from Quester Hunters
ZETA - Godmode-based Locos abomination - BAH
Samus - Smasher - Around mostly to Guess at Things
P.S.I.M. - SIMBER System - Weak Warner
Machine Made Zio - Magellean Military - Loyal Sub-Commandant
Zodius - Crazy Maniac - Balances Self by being Defeated
Wily - Quester Enemy - Escapes yet again
Indalaceo - Dark Ages Enemy - Is Outraged no one takes him Seriously
Jesse - Team Rocket Member - Is still after Pikachu
James - Team Rocket Member - Useless
Meowth - Team Rocket Member - Is right
Lachronikus - Dark Ages Enemy - As Meaningless as always
Wobuffet - Team Rocket Member - WOBBBBBUFFFFEEEETTTT!
MM Digi - Quester Hunter - Back to lose again!
SA-X - Enemy - Back for more
Skyhigh - Quester?? - Still a Nutcase
Tridus - Doubler Clone - Host of Evil
Golden Warrior - Locos BS - More nonsense
Bob, Lord of Electric Death - Magellean Military - The True Colors of Ivo (well, the one you see a lot in this season... maybe)
Princess Peach - Smasher - Hapless Bystander... NOT
Kamek - Villain - Confused
Lord Crump - Villain - Randomly Appears
Klungo - WACKO - HURTSSSS YOU LOTSSSS
Midget - WACKO - Utility Grunt Leader
Garbage - WACKO - Garbage in, Garbage garbage garbage garbage!
Locke - Quester - Yet Another Flash In The Pan
Kazooie - Hero - Wants to see Locos Burn
Banjo - Hero - Wants to get out of here
Mumbo Jumbo - Hero - Wants a new Wand
Pat - Quester - Repeating Everything for the second time
Krung - ??? - I don't even want to guess what his problem is
Narrative Guy - NC Maniac - One of the last appearances of these NC People
ShyGuy King - Void Test Thingy - Let me pull a lever
Joe - Void Test Thingy - Thief of the Submerged Shop
Zess T - Void Test Thingy - Really, Really Mad!
Ghosts - Void Test Thingy - Evil land stealers
General - Void Test Thingy - Defenders of the Evil Waters
Culex - Void Host - Another Victim of Quester Stupidity
VG - Quester - Back again, for little reason
Link - Smasher - Took all Season to show up
Captain Falcon - Smasher - Ditto
Conclusion
This was easily the worst Season I logged that was actually a main SSQ Season. Seasons 12 and 13, well, okay. They were too short. They were sort of aborted before they even began. But THIS? This was just the worst madness I've ever read. It's like the Dark Age of SSQ returned for an entire Season. There really isn't much to redeem it. That it has over 300 characters in it only makes it obvious that I had no clue who was the main character, and basically... I have to say this was just... yucky.It was the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog for SSQ... only AOSTH was better. Yeah. That's my final line on this log. Thanks for either reading this or skimming it at lightspeed--because I spent WAY TOO MUCH TIME WRITING THIS SUMMARY. Argh. Well, let's hope Season 6 and more are better!