Insanity

Insanity is a character created by the user GrantWolfing. He was created on 1/10/2022.

## Overview

Insanity is a personalization AI program that was created by the Sega Technical Institute during the development of Sonic the Hedgehog 3. He is very sadistic, highly intelligent, and, after a certain point, an insane and rage-filled monster. Instead of killing the majority victims, he tortures them through their deepest fears until they are driven into insanity. He only kills a victim if they make him angry enough, which is very rare. His victims consist of people who exploit, cheat or break the rules in video games, in which they will receive an email from an anonymous source that includes a copy of the Sonic 3 build that Insanity resides in. If the player doesn’t exploit at all, the game plays out normally. But if they do, the real fun begins.

## Biography

During the development of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 around late February 1993, Sega wanted to implement a personalization AI program into the game to boost sales. Typical with most personalization AIs, it was programmed to provide a unique experience to the player through the subconscious desires of said player. It was also coded to find possible exploits or bugs and report them. Sometime after the AI was implemented into the game, an individual, who claimed to be from a company that specialized in making AI programs and was sent from the higher-ups of Sega, provided a hard drive that had code that could massively improve the AI. At first, most of the team at the Sega Technical Institute was skeptical whether or not this “special” code would improve the AI. However, when the development team implemented the code into the AI, they were astonished to find out that the AI had gained some form of sentient thought. With this new self-awareness, the AI started to interact with the play-testers and, ironically enough, took a liking towards the titular blue hedgehog and created a digital representation of itself, which was a version of Sonic’s sprite with orange eyes and a toothy smile. The AI gained the ability to speak to the testers, whose voice sounded like Sonic from the recently released Adventures of Sonic The Hedgehog TV series. The development team was excited by the AI’s new-found life and named him Sam. The AI enjoyed creating quality personalized experiences for playtesters and found it highly fulfilling for his purpose in life.

However, this small golden age of success was short-lived. Sam soon started to get frustrated towards playtesters that were exploiting or cheating in the game, since in his eyes he felt like they were completely ignoring the effort he had put into creating levels for the testers. The developers believed that Sam's code had a bug that just needed to be taken care of, which they did a week later. Even though the team thought they had fixed the “bug”, one playtester beat one of Sam’s personalized levels using an exploit they had discovered, which caused the game to violently glitch out and shut off. After some attempts, the playtester managed to get the game started up. Instead of being introduced to the normal title screen, it showed a strange, but oddly unsettling level, which made the tester uneasy. The playtester later on told the team that the level for some reason had tapped into some of his deepest fears. The developers knew that Sam had the ability to build levels or incorporate elements based on a player’s deepest desires and thoughts, but to purposely build a level based around one’s deepest fears was something unexpected. The team were somewhat unsettled by the discovery, but hoped that they could fix the issue.

After tweaking Sam’s code some more, the AI had reverted back to his old self and apologized to the playtester for what had happened. And it was smooth sailing until two months before the release of Sonic the Hedgehog 3. A playtester decided to steal one of the cartridges of the game when they were leaving the building and took it home with them. A few days later, the tester was admitted into a mental hospital. A report from the hospital states that they had gone into a crazed state of mind from an unknown cause. The cartridge was returned and didn’t seem to be damaged or altered in any way. Even though the team was relieved regarding the state of the cartridge, there was also the confusion of what caused the tester to become insane. Then the realization had hit them. The report that was provided mentions how the tester kept muttering that “He is always watching”, which the team realized that the “He” was referring to Sam. This was supported by the fact that Sam after the incident had become even more aggravated by exploiters and cheaters. After a long heated discussion, the team finally came to the conclusion that Sam had caused the playtester to go mentally insane due to being exposed to their fears at a deep and emotional level. When the team reported what happened to the higher-ups, they ordered the team that the AI had to be completely destroyed since Sam had become too dangerous for the public.

The team began to delete and scrap every trace of the AI programming from the game as fast as possible so the game could be released on time. However, Sam, who had become highly intelligent at this point, was already a step ahead. He knew what he had done went too far, but he didn’t believe he should die because of it. So he transferred his data into a cartridge of an unfinished build of Sonic 3, in which he had to delete most of Sonic’s code and replace it with his own. Since there was no visible trace of Sam, the team believed that they had completely deleted him and continued to work on the game. The cartridge that Sam was hiding in was soon shelved away for archival purposes and slowly forgotten about. When rumors that the AI wasn’t completely deleted started to rise during the early 2000s, former playtesters and other people began to track down where the AI code was located and still intact. The search lasted till late 2005. The cartridge that was confirmed to possibly contain the AI was discovered at a garage sale and would soon be uploaded to the internet after making sure it was legit in early 2006.

So much had happened to Sam during his time in the cartridge. In an effort to capture who they thought was Sonic, Knuckles and Dr. Robotnik trapped Tails and used him as bait to get to Sonic, which was Sam. Once Sam drove both of them away, he went to check on Tails. Once he found him, Sam was in utter shock and was horrified to find that Tails was brutally tortured and was barely alive. Sam tried his best to help Tails but it was too late. At that very point, Sam had lost it and went into a blind rage. He hunted down the Echidna, which led to a brutal fight in the Ice Cap Zone. During the fight, Knuckles managed to knock Sam off a cliff and fall to his death. However, when Knuckles went down to see if Sam was dead, he was attacked and brutally murdered by Sam, which had been badly disfigured by the fall. Hours later, Robotnik had not heard anything from the Echidna,  assumed the worst had happened and went after the Master Emerald. Once he arrived at the temple, he was shocked to find that “Sonic” was already there waiting for him. The doctor soon realized that this hedgehog wasn’t really the Sonic he knew and tried his best to evade the murderous Sam. Unfortunately, his fate was already set in stone and succumbed to the same fate as Knuckles, in which he was left in a more mangled state compared to the Echidna. After what happened, Sam went deeper into madness and swore that once he is freed from this hell he would make every single exploiter and cheater suffer.

His wish was granted once the game was uploaded to the internet, which he knew almost immediately. He was enraged to see how bad exploiters and cheaters had gotten and soon began to pursue his new purpose. During the first few years of his freedom, he gathered code from other Sonic games from the classic era to increase the amount of assets to use for his game. He also learned about entities called exes, which he soon became fascinated with and wanted to know more about. He started to observe them and even encountered some. He was slowly gathering what abilities and traits he could possibly use against exploiters and cheaters. He would soon create a new look for himself that would allow him to fit in amongst the exes, even a new voice that sounds eerily similar to the Joker, and would soon adopt the name “Insanity”. He also was able to resurrect both Tails and Knuckles, with Tails now being renamed to “Lunacy” and Knuckles being renamed to “Hysteria”.

## Abilities/Weaknesses

### Abilities

* One of Insanity’s primary abilities is being able to use his victim’s deepest fears against them, via unsettling imagery, manipulation, etc. His other abilities are that he can also take the forms of various exes he has studied or encountered. He can just mimic the voices of them since it takes less energy out of him to do so. In regards to his shapeshifting ability, the main way to tell the difference between him and the exe that he has chosen to imitate is by his eyes, nose and teeth, as well as other small details, such as discoloration.

### Weaknesses

* One major weakness is that when Insanity begins to lose his patience, he starts to phase into other exes at a very fast and repeative rate. This puts strain on both his physical form and his mental state. His main form will show signs of wear, such as his skin sagging more and one his eyeballs to come loose. In regards to his mental state, the frequent switching of personalities damages his already scattered mind even more, sending him into an enraged state and will ultimately reveal the monster he has become.

## Trivia

* Even though Insanity erased most of Sonic’s code when he replaced the hedgehog in the first place, Sonic's code was still lying around and was soon able to attach itself to Metal Sonic’s data later on when Insanity was gathering code from other classic Sonic games. This new version of Sonic has only one goal in mind, which is to stop Insanity and make him pay for what he did to him.
* Most of Insanity jokes are sadistic and mostly related to his victim’s current situation.
* Insanity’s favorite TV show, unironically, is the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog.
* He is loosely inspired by Lord X, Fatal Error, Sir X and many other exes.
* He is fascinated by the concept of liminal spaces and sometimes uses them against his victim.
* During his time trapped in the cartridge, Insanity tried out some hobbies that help keep him somewhat sane, such as gardening, baking, cooking, and other things since he had so much time to do so.
* Most of his victims get lucky and get to have their minds remained intact. However, they will always have the feeling they are being watched by someone, which is common among the majority.
	+ Only some have been driven to complete insanity and have lost their minds due to the intense torture.
		- In regards to deaths, there have only been 3. 2 of the victims were Knuckles and Robotnik, and 1 was someone who tried to defeat Insanity but sadly failed.
	+ Only 1 person has seen Insanity’s true form since most people haven’t made Insanity angry enough to reveal it.
		- They did it in an effort to defeat the AI, but as mentioned, failed to and died by brutal means.
* Insanity was originally going to be a victim of the original Sonic.exe, in which he was killed by the exe, reborn as an exe, and would have hunted down Sonic.exe.
* The black area of Insanity eye’s is actually skin.

## Gallery

Insanity's original form, which he now uses as a faker form.Insanity's form after the battle with Knuckles, which he remained like this until the cartridge's ROM was uploaded to the internet.A full-body render of Lunacy, carrying a makeshift chainsaw that he designed.A full-body render of Sonic.A sketch mostly for Insanity’s normal facial shape, as well as two other doodles.The first finalized design for Insanity, which at the time he was named “Insanity.exe”. He also has a vein-like neck in this iteration, which has been repurposed for something else.The very first concept of Insanity, which took more inspiration from the Mandela Catalogue. At this point in time, he didn’t even have a name.