The New Robotnik Empire is the name announced by the legions of Badniks who invaded Mobius in Sonic the Comic Online Issue 250. While indeed commanded by Doctor Robotnik, this so-called empire is merely a proxy dictatorship controlled from behind the scenes by the Drakon Empire. The Drakons invaded Mobius in order to take control of the Chaos Emeralds, with the aid of the criminal underworld of Mobius, meanwhile letting the crazed doctor keep the planet as his personal plaything, which would probably destroy it. The NRE has yet to achieve total domination of Mobius as the people are resisting in far greater numbers than they ever were during RBR, forming many brand new teams of Freedom Fighters. However, Robotnik's resources are nigh-limitless and his robot armies tireless, so the resistance is not expected to last. To make things even worse, a variety of other, independent nasties lurk Mobius, who make things even harder for the resistance. Many of these new robots were derived from Sonic 4 and Sonic Adventure, forming a sort of “fourth generation” of badniks “ (if one includes the Miracle Planet and Flickie’s Island series’s, that makes them generations six and seven) for the heroes to be pitted against. Thankfully, Sonic was able to blast Robotnik with his own Chaos-powered weapon, making him disappear, with Sonic and Tails assuming that he fled while they weren't looking, which later proved to be true. Sonic's reputation was also restored via footage of him defeating the Drakons.