E-101 Beta

Sonic Heroes (Mentioned)

Sonic Rivals (Collector Card)

**E-101 Beta** (Ｅ－１０１＂ベータ＂ *E-101 "Bēta"*?), or **E101*β***, is a character that appears in the *Sonic the Hedgehog* series. He was the first animal-powered E-100 Series robot created by Dr. Eggman. Initially intended to serve onboard the Egg Carrier, Beta lost the position to his "younger brother" E-102 Gamma. As such, he was discarded by Eggman and upgraded into E-101 Mark II.

## Appearance

E-101 Beta was a humanoid robot colored in black and white. He possessed no neck, his head and torso coming together in an almost ellipsoid shape. His torso was black with a wide and white vertical stribe down the middle, and possessed a head light with a hexagonal gray frame on the right side. He also had gray mufflers surrounding the pelvis area, and had the number "101" painted in white on the right of his large vertical stripe and the left side of his rear. His head meanwhile was small and platform-like with a yellow shade and green cylindrical eyes. He also had a Jet Booster hovering behind his neck.

Beta's shoulders were black vertical cylinders. Attached to each of them were Beta's arms, which were long and designed with two joints; each of Beta's forearms were designed as black gun barrels. Also, Beta's upper arms were black, while the parts between his upper arms and forearms were gray. Beta also possessed two long and inverted legs with five points of articulation and large, black feet with two sharp toes and roller wheels on the heels. The upper sections of his legs in particular were black while the rest of them were gray, except from his calves, which were thick and black.

## History

E-101 Beta was created by Dr. Eggman as the first of the doctor's E-100 Series robots, with a grey-feathered bird serving as his power source. While Beta went to the Final Egg shooting range to practice, Eggman finished constructing Beta's younger brother E-102 Gamma.

Shortly after Gamma's test-run, Beta was summoned by Eggman and was pitted against Gamma to decide which of them would get a position among the crew onboard Dr. Eggman's Egg Carrier. Despite having the odds in his favor, Beta was defeated by Gamma. Not beaten in spirit however, Beta mutely appealed to his creator to still come along. Interested, Eggman eventually allowed Beta the privilege on the grounds that they could "always use a spare set of parts".

Having been regarded obsolete, Beta was relegated to an Egg Carrier robotics lab. There, Beta underwent a torturous remodeling operation into the more powerful E-101 Mark II where he was physically dismembered and his old limbs were discarded on the floor while mechanical arms worked on him. In the midst of this process, Gamma stumbled into the lab and saw the operations on Beta. This horrible sight served as the breaking point for Gamma that set him on the road to apostasy, eventually making him betray Dr. Eggman and delete him from his master registration.

Eventually, E-101 Mark II was finished and escaped from the Egg Carrier, but was soon confronted by Gamma, as a part of the former's crusade to "free" his brothers from Eggman's control. E-101 Mark II was destroyed, but not before fatally wounding Gamma as well. This still succeeded in carrying out Gamma's goal and allowed the birds inside the two robots to fly away together.

## Other game appearances

### *Sonic Heroes*e

Both Beta and Gamma are mentioned in *Sonic Heroes*; when Team Dark gets an E Rank; if E-123 Omega gets the highest score of the three teammates he will say "*I couldn't even beat Gamma or Beta*".

## Sonic Rivals

In *Sonic Rivals*, Beta appears as one of the collectable cards.

## Personality

A silent robot, Beta behaved overall emotionless, but possessed a degree of free will and autonomy. Beta was best defined by his loyalty to Dr. Eggman, whom it only sought to please, as per its directive. As such, it followed Eggman's orders without question. Most noticeably, Beta showed somewhat of a determined spirit; after being defeated by E-102 Gamma and losing his place onboard the Egg Carrier, Beta chose to plead for a chance to come along with Eggman anyway.

## Powers and abilities

Being a model in Dr. Eggman's E-100 series, Beta was built for combat. According to Dr. Eggman, Beta was even more advanced and powerful than E-102 Gamma was.[1][2]

Beta was re-equipped with small twin cannons ﬁtted to each arm that could fire powerful missiles. He also possessed a Jet Booster that enabled him to slowly hover through the air for a safe landing. Additionally, as shown by his design, Beta could change his body frame when crouching down which let him roll on a set of wheels behind his feet to increase his speed.

## Trivia

* Beta is the only E-series robot to lack yellow cuffs on his limbs, featuring uniform silver cuffs throughout his entire design. Despite this, his head remained yellow in color up until his Mark II upgrade, where it became uniform silver with the rest of his colors.
* Beta is one of two E-Series robots in *Sonic Adventure* to receive a physical Level-Up Item (the other being Zeta). The remaining E-Series, including Gamma, only received enhanced arm cannons (and a Jet Booster).
* Although he does not have a functional forearm due to his missile upgrade, a mirror reflection of what would have been Beta's original forearm appears on his front skirt plate. This is due to the fact the reflection is an actual painted image within Beta's texture, which was repurposed from Gamma's textures.
* Strangely, any time Beta is seen in the ending shots found in the credits of Gamma's story mode in the Dreamcast version of *Sonic Adventure*, he does not feature his jet booster or twin arm cannons, appearing as a black version of E-102 disregarding his specific numbering and lack of targeting sight. Similarly, when found in the middle of his reconstruction, Gamma looks down and sees Beta's discarded parts on the ground, oddly including his standard arm blaster rather than his twin arm cannons.