Metal Sonic – Continued Preparation
I’m sure the bulk of the crew is already aware of situation on hand after our second encounter with the unit known as Metal Sonic. Upon his defeat, he released a transmission to a place he verbalized as “central”. It is a likely assumption to make that our encounters with him as such have not yet come to end. From this realization we draw two priorities. First, we must better prepare ourselves to fight again, for the obvious reasons. Second, we must track his efforts as quickly as possible. The longer he is left to his own antics, the more time he has to further develop and leech resources in the dark.
There are a couple important observations of initial note:
- Nothing remotely similar as this unit has been encountered within Void forces, nor encountered anywhere on Marshalship ventures. It is a safe assumption to make that he is not linked to the Void in anyway.
- After Dr. Gyldenstierne’s efforts, we’ve found that the unit upon its displacement in our observatory was already damaged and has had most of its memory banks corrupted in some form. Its likely that its actions strive mostly out of self-preservation and confusion, though it does seem to exhibit harsh functions as a result (lightly put, hostility).
With these notes there are some important thoughts that could be inferred. First, without any affiliation to the Marshalship or Void, its extremely unlikely it has any capabilities of dimensional jump. Due to this fact, its easy to assume wherever its ‘central’ is, its on this dimension. Because of that fact, its also extremely likely that this is its first venture in this dimension after being brought by our dimensional attractor. Therefore, ‘central’ must also be fairly close, relatively speaking, something that it created within the confines of the travel from the time of our first encounter to our second. This brings into perspective some important heuristics to mind to our continued scanning efforts.
We should limit our scanning time to cover only areas that overlap as many of these confines as possible:
- Maximum range of Metal Sonic’s transmissitors. Despite our inability to trace the signal after the encounter, we still got a solid reading on what it was, and have a general idea on how far this type of signal could travel in a radius before it would ‘fizzle out’.
- The approximate location of where Metal Sonic first ported to escape from us when he was aboard the Blaze, confined by the radius of his travel speed plotted against the time between our first and second encounter. While he may seem ‘fast’ from an infantry perspective, he is no space-going vessel in terms of warp mechanics.
- Focus sweeps on areas not within the vicinity of Marshalship platforms. It would be an oddity for him to be within the area of such a platform and not have already taken its resources, before or after our second encounter.
With that said, lets get into details surrounding Metal Sonic himself. As requested, I’ve spent the time since the encounter developing a functioning simulation of Metal Sonic in every form we’ve encountered him in thus far, his super-self inclusive in this mix. While perhaps avoidable now that we’ve stolen yet another Chaos Emerald, its a safer assumption to make that we’ll have to deal with this again. This simulation will be readily accessible upon the Captain’s request.
As we’ve seen after two repeated encounters now, Metal sonic has several impressive features that lead to two modes of engagement, his normal and overloaded (‘Super’) form when he taps into a suitable source of power. Lets break down what we’ve seen of this normal form thus far.
- The way his armor has been reinforced has left him strengthened against most standard rounds of ammunition as well as being resilient against an average melee strike.
- Even with proper force in a melee strike, Metal Sonic seems built around the idea of close range combat. As noticeable from the diagram, his joint breaks are at uneven, rather irregular areas that give him a subtle and effective force behind his swings that are complimented by his overwhelming thruster-core. He does not need a variety of approaches or fancy techniques when he can rely on this speed.
- To compensate for his small size, and to compliment his heavy power usage, Metal Sonic is capable of absorbing a wide variety of energies and using them to his own advantage. We’ve seen him drain straight from generators and storage systems as well as directly from weaponry. This in turn cuts down on what options are available for truly penetrating his armor, as the cheap alternative to AP rounds would be stronger beam rifle variants. This also makes using any vehicles against him a liability as well.
- Lastly, Metal Sonic has a basic implementation of spell reflection. This ability centers on a device within his palms, acting as a mirror against sources that directly target his person. He is still susceptible to area effects. However, it should also be noted that physical manifestations of magical origin (a magically created lightning bolt, for example), is still likely to be absorbed through his standard means.
Three primary methods of destruction present themselves as such. Armor Penetrating and Thermite rounds strike well, area manifest magical attacks, and a good old fashioned wallop (given the appropriately backing force or shredding capability to be worthy of the effort) are these three. As seen by our last encounter, we did quite well on his initial approach, tearing him apart from range through overwhelming numbers when there was simply too much fire too avoid on his close in. The other two options in turn are riskier. Area manifestations, if they do not complete the task so to speak, are likely to give him a chance to close the gap between us and him via a confusion element (dust kicked up from a fireball, etc). And lastly, toe-to-toe melee is just plain risky (if not fatal) given the force he can put behind his swings. Given the fact that we already had a working strategy that doesn’t need to incorporate unnecessary risk, I’d present a plan like the following in case of a prolonged exposure.
- Fire at will: I believe that speaks for itself. I would like to stress that, given the usual composition of our group work (especially against a foe like this), there should be little desire to close any distance between him and us as melee combatant. Melee will bide their time and allow the suppressive fire to commence without getting in the way.
- Defend and retreat: When Metal Sonic does finally make his approach, melee will immediately intercept to draw attention while the ranged circle to a new position of an open line. Don’t mistake the intention here melee – your goal is to fend off risk at all costs in your efforts. If his attention is to you, I suspect you’ll be doing little more than defending yourself while the rest make their retreat until he tries to turn from you, in which case you make him pay for it and redraw the aggression.
- Cover melee escape: With his focus and limbs tied to direct combat, it should be safe to begin a spell cast to cover a melee retreat by this point without it being reflected. Something to freeze him in place, temporarily blind his sensors, root him down – anything. It doesn’t have to be flashy or lengthy, it just needs to get the job done.
- Rinse and repeat: With the melee having swung to rejoin the rest, the effective means of damage output can continue their barrage without risk.
An encounter roughly outlined by this plan plays to the strengths of each member of the team, hopefully preventing the necessity for injuries like those sustained last time due to improper formation. In truth, this also covers a couple possible changes. Should Metal Sonic see fit to attack in trickier fashion, such as that spin-up maneuver we’ve seen a couple times now, only those capable of dealing with this (or even preventing this) will be in close, and any magical barriers can be spread amongst the formation of the ranged combatants to ensure some line of defense and also ensures them of being at maximum distance for their own evasive maneuvers. This same theory holds true should Metal Sonic decide to alter his specification in any means to include projectile weaponry that we have not yet seen.
But even that doesn’t solve our main problem, does it? The truth of Metal Sonic’s danger is revealed when he activates his Super form. It isn’t an understatement to say that, while in this state, he could truly tear someone to shreds before one might be able to utter a hint of protest.
When he chooses to do so (with an appropriate source available), Metal Sonic will temporarily increase the output of his engine core by an extreme fold by force-feeding an energy source to it until that source is used dry. In turn, all of his systems’ output increases just the same. One can observe what implications this holds by watching the retrieved security footage – his speed, strength, and even armor capacity reach frighteningly deadly levels. Its almost safer to assume hes ‘invincible’ while devouring energy in such a way, though to claim that would be naive and incorrect. If anything, despite his boosted defenses, its far likelier a means of stripping energy from him at a time of increased engine usage would be brutally effective. Trouble is, as said, that’s easier said than done.
The base thought there is to, of course, ‘play it safe’. We only have to outlast his energy supply to reach victory, just as we have each time prior and taking victory over his normal form. Trouble with that is that while in this form, he is extremely deadly to each and every one of us. I’ll be readily accepting discussion of how to deal with this while writing out some of my initial thoughts, so please feel free to contact me.