Cyberspace

“That’s not where we’re going. That’s not where we need to be. You’re here… it’s okay. Everything will be okay.” - Amy illusion, Sonic Runaways: FORGOTTEN

## Cyberspace

### Inhabitants

The entire cast

Cyberspace is a fictional dimension in the Sonic Runaways series. It is a digital network that catalogues the memories of everybody who makes contact with it, trapping them in an endless loop of their lives up to that point. It is the dimension in which all of the Sonic Runaways stories are presented in, save for a select few instances where Sonic and some others are able to break out of the simulations and into their real world.

## Characters With Access to Cyberspace

Though anybody can be backed up to Cyberspace and regenerated as digital ghosts from memory, only a select few are able to truly experience Cyberspace. These individuals include...

* Sonic the Hedgehog
* Metal Sonic (debatably)
* Big the Cat
* Sage
* Amy of the Roses
* Hermit Koco
* Yari
* Shadow the Hedgehog
* Gerald Robotnik

## Tactics

Cyberspace often generates reruns of its prisoners' most pivotal moments in life, cutting away the fat and tedium of everyday life. This keeps the prisoner from wanting to ever leave, or wake up. When a Cyberspace user begins to wake up, Cyberspace will go into lockdown mode. This causes the normally perfect simulations to falter, either becoming horrifying, abstract, uncomfortably sweet, or otherwise inaccurate.

## Access Methods

Cyberspace is conventionally accessed during the REM sleep of someone already exposed to Cyber Energy. This effect can be forced through means of physical trauma or containment within a Titan or special pod. Cyberspace may also go from virtual reality to augmented reality during sleep paralysis. The Cyberspace databases can also be accessed by artificial life if they interact with a Cyberspace Portal, however, organic life will be rejected by the portals if they try to use one in this way. Metal Sonic and Shadow are special cases. Despite being artificial, they are able to access Cyberspace in their own unique ways. For Metal, he uses Cyberspace to view other people's memories and biodata. Gerald Robotnik allowed Shadow to view tampered Cyberspace simulations that warped Maria's words and manipulate Shadow. The initial discovery of Cyberspace was likely one of the many factors that led Gerald to spiral into insanity.

## Pocket Dimensions

### Better Place

Better Place is a sub-dimension formed when Sonic overwhelms the processor of Cyberspace. Instead of trapping him in the past, Better Place allows him to have anything he wants, even showing him visions of an ideal future.

In End of the Road, Sage uses an altered Better Place to try and bait Sonic into staying with her in the perfect reality forever. Better Place is destroyed when Super Sonic rejects it and destroys Sage.

### REDSPACE

REDSPACE was a version of Cyberspace exclusive to Sonic's brain. Corrupted by an overflow of RED-CODE and fueled by the power of the Chaos Emeralds, REDSPACE was a much more effective version of Cyberspace minus any semblance of accuracy left in the dimension at that point. A violent and abrasive hellscape of made-up memories, REDSPACE is only the worst of Cyberspace at all times.

## In the Original Series

Cyber Space in its current form was introduced in Sonic Frontiers. Created by the Ancients to archive their memories and very essences, it also serves as a series of traditional Sonic levels to break up the main gameplay, the Open Zone islands.

## Trivia

* Cyberspace in Sonic Runaways actually predates the Cyber Space seen in Sonic Frontiers. Though later expanded in COPIED and FORGOTTEN to mirror its official counterpart, there were already certain parallels such as Cyberspace being a database Metal Sonic uses to view Sonic's memories all the way back in WANTED.
* The scene of Sonic running through a Cyberspace simulation of Planet Wisp in FORGOTTEN mirrors the first two trailers of Sonic Frontiers.
* Cyberspace in Sonic Runaways is similar to HEADSPACE and sometimes the BLACKSPACE(s) from OMORI.