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The Overlanders are creatures that appear in the Sonic the Hedgehog comic series and its spin-offs published by Archie Comics. They are a slightly-mutated race of humans on Mobius, and a by-product of the Xorda's Gene Bombs following the aliens' attack on the planet. They tend to be aggressive in nature and have strong feelings of xenophobia towards Mobians. Overlanders are also known to exist in other Zones in the multiverse aside from the Prime Zone.
Description
Appearance
Overlanders share almost the same anatomy as humans'. Unlike humans though, most Overlanders only have four fingers and toes.[1] However, Dr. Eggman, Snively, Gerald Robotnik, Maria Robotnik, Hope Kintobor, Abraham Tower, and the Iron Queen were among several Overlanders to have five instead of four. Another key difference is that Overlanders have different hair colors such as: blue, red, yellow, pink, green, etc. These differences was eventually dropped from the series, with Overlanders and Humans eventually becoming virtually indistinguishable.
Characteristics and culture
Overlanders are most commonly confused as humans due to their physical similarities. However, the two species have many differences, both physically and mentally. Unlike humans, who are generally friendly and accepting of Mobians, Overlanders usually hold grudges, and in some cases feelings of outright speciesism, towards them. There are, however, a few Overlanders who did not dislike Mobians, including Nate Morgan, Maria Robotnik, and Hope Kintobor.
The Overlanders do not share the Mobians' consideration for the environment. While the Kingdom of Acorn deliberately remained in a pre-industrial state to preserve the planet's environment and nature, the Overlanders pursued the use of fossil fuels, resulting in massive pollution in their cities.
Powers and abilities
Mental and intellect
Overlanders are capable of great feats of intelligence, their general level of technology appearing to exceed that of the contemporary humans of Station Square by the time of the great war, although it took them thousands of years to rediscover the scientific knowledge lost by their human ancestors following the Xorda's invasion of Earth. Some Overlander scientists, such as Nate Morgan and Dr. Robotnik, have vast technical knowledge and are capable of designing technologies which is not only greatly innovative, but makes use of concepts which are entirely new to them. One such example would be Nate Morgan quickly learning how to generate power rings from chaos energy.
Overlanders also have mystical capabilities in magitek, although they looked down on this practice strongly, as the technomages had been disbanded before the Great War. Notably, they lack the ability to harness the power of a chaos emerald naturally. Just like their Human counterparts, one has never been seen attempting to do so, either.
Physical
Overlanders generally have a better capacity to defend themselves than base humans. How much of this is due to their more militaristic society, or is inherent to them, is unclear, the comparison is made more difficult by the fact that the Humans usually avoid fighting entirely. Overlander soldiers have a uniformly muscular physique, in contrast to humans, who have a more diverse range of builds, and fight on equal terms with Mobian troops. They aren't as prone to impressive feats of acrobatics as Mobians, possibly due to their larger stature. Dr. Robotnik is perhaps the most superhuman of any Overlander, being able to personally go up against Sonic the Hedgehog.
Some Overlanders, namely Paladin, can shoot with incredible precision, Overlanders are overall more skilled with firearms and rely on them to a much greater extent than the anti-gun Mobians.
It follows that Overlanders, lacking one digit on their hands, would find tasks that require fine hand dexterity, such as sowing or painting more difficult than a Human or a Mobian. The loss of a finger possibly symbolizes that they are a pragmatic race which doesn't bother with such things. (Although the out-of-universe explaination is that it was a way to explain the discrepancy in digit count due to artists drawing characters with an inconsistent number of fingers).
History
Xorda Attack
- See also: Xorda Attack on Earth
Prior to becoming Mobius, the Earth's dominant inhabitants were humans. During the early 21st century however, the scientist Ivan Kintobor provoked the alien species known as the Xorda by capturing their ambassador and dissecting it. As a result, the Xorda bombarded the planet with Gene Bombs, which were supposed to wipe out the human race and maintain the rest of the planet's environment as it was at the time.[2] However, the Gene Bombs instead mutated most of the human population, creating Overlanders.[3]
Early History and Development
Some time after the Xorda attack, the Overlanders were still a barbaric species. The Mobian; Alexander Acorn, attempted to integrate them into his all-species society of Mobotropolis, but their aggressive tendencies made it too dangerous.
Unlike their Mobian counterparts, who wished to preserve the environment and therefore remained locked in the medieval age for centuries, the Overlanders hit the industrial age and later the atomic age, developing their capital city of Megapolis in the North-Western hemisphere.
War with the Mobians
Between 3220 and 3225, the Overlanders and the Mobians fought in the Great War. While the Overlanders were initially defeating their medieval Mobian foes with relative ease, the tide turned when the Overlander scientist Julian Kintobor joined the Mobians and provided them with tactical information, battle strategies and technology. The Great War ultimately and abruptly ended after a sword duel between King Max and the Overlander's leader, the Overlord. An agreement was made by each side that they would surrender should they lose. When King Max defeated the Overlord, he honored his word, surrendering.
Mobius and Beyond
Filled with shame and guilt over their unexplainable loss, most of the Overlanders of Megapolis, led by Julian's brother; Colin Kintobor, created two spaceships and fled the planet in search of their own world (this ultimately saved them, as Dr. Robotnik sent legions of SWATbots to conquer the city after he seized power in Mobotropolis). After nearly 11 years of searching, they were unable to locate a hospitable world, and were forced to return to Mobius.
Some Overlanders remained on Mobius, with Abraham Tower leading numerous families to immigrate to the United Federation due to his involvement with the Heritage Project, while others remained within their resource starved cities, unaware that Julian Kintobor was the evil Dr. Robotnik.
Betrayal and Move
Upon returning to Mobius, the Overlanders found themselves welcomed to the city of Robotropolis by Dr. Eggman, an alternative-dimensional version of the now-deceased Julian Kintobor (aka Dr. Robotnik). Unbeknownst to them, Robotropolis was filled with deadly radioactive poison, which Eggman was immune to due to his robotic body. Eggman planned to keep the Overlanders ignorant of this until they were forced to undergo roboticization in order to become cured. However, the citizens of Knothole became aware of the deadly radiation and warned the Overlanders, who decided to leave the city before it was too late.
Shortly after this, the Mobians relocated the surviving Overlanders to the human city of Station Square, as the physical and cultural differences between them would make it impossible to share Knothole with them. Since then, the Overlanders were cured of their radiation poisoning. The Overlanders had not shown any form of xenophobia towards the humans, maybe due to respect for them; for inviting them into their society and not noticing their differences.
After the second Genesis Wave, and following the Super Genesis Wave, the Overlanders were presumably erased from existence or simply morphed into becoming humans instead.
List of known Overlanders
From Mobius
From Mobius (future version)
From Light Mobius
From Dark Mobius
From the Multiverse
References
- ↑ Sonic the Hedgehog #80, "If Wishes Were Acorns"
- ↑ Sonic the Hedgehog #125, "Sonic Adventure 2.5: Omega"
- ↑ Sonic the Hedgehog #148, "The Good, The Bad & The Unknown Part 3: Genesis"
External links
- Overlanders at Mobius Encyclopaedia, the Archie Sonic wiki.