Dark Gaia

**Dark Gaia** (ダークガイア, *Dāku Gaia*) is one of the main antagonists in the *Sonic the Hedgehog* series. It is a primordial hyper energy organism from the dawn of time and the incarnation of darkness, night and destruction. Since its birth, Dark Gaia has been in an eternal conflict with Light Gaia, where they maintain a cycle of destruction and rebirth of the planet.

In the present day, Dark Gaia was awoken prematurely by one of the alliances of Dr. Eggman and Skarr-Face, who planned to harness Dark Gaia for their own means or purposes, which caused it to break apart and scatter across the world. After being reassembled, Dark Gaia attempted to destroy the world, but was defeated again and returned to dormancy by Sonic the Hedgehog and Light Gaia, restoring its cycle.

"*The abomination grows strong on the negative energies of the world, sleeping within its core for millennia in wait...*"

—Gaia Manuscripts, 4:11.

## Appearance & Biography

*Voice actor:* Not Known (English), Not Known (Japanese), Not Known (French), Not Known (Italian), Not Known (German), Not Known (Hungarian), Not Known (Finnish), Not Known (Korean), Not Known (Polish), Not Known (Romanian), Not Known (Russian), Not Known (Serbian), Not Known (Swedish), Not Known (European Spanish), Not Known (Latin American Spanish), Not Known (Brazilian Portuguese), Not Known (European Portuguese)

### Appearance

Dark Gaia is an gargantuan creature of such size that it makes Sonic seem like a grain of sand by comparison. Its true appearance depends on its state of completion.

In its true state, Dark Gaia has the body of a snake with a thin torso, six thin arms, long neon-blue claws, scaly shoulders, and neon blue fins on its back that run up to its neck. It has a wide head with the corners of its jagged mouth extending far outside its body, and on the middle lies a central face (split by its mouth) that resembles a reptile with four horns. Inside its mouth are hundreds of tongues which give way to seven aligned green eyes; three smaller ones on the side and one large in the middle. It also has two long tongues hanging out from each side of its central eye. Finally, it emits purple energy from its head, giving it the appearance of a Mohawk, and has seven purple energy tentacles whose ends resemble snakes with Mohawks and a green eye in their mouths.

In its incomplete form, Dark Gaia's large mouth closes up, leaving it central face complete and functional with white eyes and a glowing mouth. It also lacks its four lower arms and its energy tentacles, whose ends have become whisps, have moved up on its back. When nearing maturity, Dark Gaia's immature form gains a green eye on its forehead and over each corner of its true mouth.

* Hair Color: N/A
* Skin Color: Brown, neon blue
* Eye Color: White, Green
* Age: Not Known
* Height: Not Known
* Weight: Not Known

## Personality

Dark Gaia is best likened to an innate and malevolent force of nature. Most of the time, it shows little more than the mindset of a hostile and abominable beast that attacks anyone in its way, and seemingly lacks any form of consciousness or wisdom. Existing for the sole purpose of destroying the world, Dark Gaia is driven only by its singular instinct to bring the end of the world, not showing any reasons, regrets or thoughts about its actions.

Despite its bestial behavior, Dark Gaia appears to be a sapient being to some extent. It showed cunning in battle, like planning an attack that Chip could not figure out, and choose to extract its fragments from Sonic before continuing its assault. At times, it would also make body movements indicating a mocking laugh.

## Powers and Abilities

Dark Gaia is one of the most powerful beings in the *Sonic* series, arguably only second to Solaris. At the peak of its power, Dark Gaia is strong enough to injure a Super State with sheer force alone. Additionally, it could fight Super Sonic to the point where Sonic fainted from exhaustion, something no one has been capable of, while taking on Light Gaia, a being who is supposedly at the same level of power as itself.

As the sole reason for its existence, Dark Gaia has the natural ability to break an entire planet into pieces, though elements such as gravity, atmosphere and sea levels are still maintained on the planet fragments. Due to its immense size, Dark Gaia has incredible physical strength; in its immature form, it can lift masses weighting potentially hundreds of tons with one hand and throw them effortlessly. Even in its immature form, Dark Gaia has great durability and endurance, withstanding a series of pummeling from the Gaia Colossus and still continue to fight and resist. Additionally, Dark Gaia has impressive heat resistance as it can touch molten magma without being burned.

Dark Gaia is entirely composed of energy which is sinister, dark, corruptive and apparently limitless. It has demonstrated complete control of its energy, even ripping out its energy from Sonic the Werehog by will alone. Energy fragments from Dark Gaia can form various destructive monsters with a number of powers such as possession, and mutate beings or the environment into corrupted creatures. As revealed by Eggman, its energies can also power machinery, such as the Egg Dragoon. Dark Gaia can harness its power to project extremely powerful energy blasts; it can shoot beams from its mouth or as concentrated points around its body, or create small energy orbs that home onto enemies.

Dark Gaia can manipulate darkness on a global scale. It can unleash a well of darkness that can envelop an entire planet. This, in turn, can bring it into total darkness and eventually extinguish all life on it. It can also draw power from the negative energies of the world to empower itself and help it mature. Additionally, it can also manipulate emotional energy, allowing it to gain strength from the negative emotions manifested by the people on the planet as well, such as hatred and sadness.

As a being of darkness, and therefore one of the eternal forces alongside light, Dark Gaia is completely immortal and can therefore never truly be destroyed, as its presence is needed to preserve the world's balance.

### Miscellaneous Skills

#### Perfect Dark Gaia

*Main article:* *Perfect Dark Gaia*
When reaching full physical maturity, Dark Gaia transforms into **Perfect Dark Gaia**, Dark Gaia's actual form. In this state, Dark Gaia is at the peak of its power, making it so strong that the combined strength of Super Sonic and the Gaia Colossus was required to defeat it. Additionally, Dark Gaia gains the ability to manipulate its energies in a much more refined way, allowing it to form energy durable shields. Its will mind is increased to points where it lifts massive objects through telekinesis, in addition to maintaining better control over its energy blasts.

### Weaknesses

Dark Gaia's only known weak spots are its various green eyes which are highly sensitive to damage. Also, when in its immature state, it can only use its powers on a basic level and it can lose focus when charging its energy blasts if attacked.

## History

### Past

Dark Gaia was born in the beginning of time as the counterpart to Light Gaia. When the planet came into existence, Dark Gaia and Light Gaia took residence on the planet, which Dark Gaia sought to destroy per its purpose. In opposition to that, Light Gaia sought to protect the planet from Dark Gaia. Thus began an endless conflict between the two entities, forming a continuous cycle of destruction and rebirth of the earth over the eons. In this cycle, Dark Gaia would incubate in the earth's core for millions of years, gathering negative energy from the world to mature while sleeping. It would then awaken during the time of awakening as Perfect Dark Gaia and break the planet apart before trying to destroying it. Each time, however, Dark Gaia would be defeated by Light Gaia, who would rebuild the world and return Dark Gaia to dormancy, thus restarting the cycle.

Some tens of thousands of years ago, Dark Gaia had just finished another cycle with Light Gaia and had returned to the planet's core to grow strong enough for the next confrontation.

## Notes & Trivia

* The name Gaia is derived from an ancient Greek goddess, who was the personification of the Earth. (A previous Sonic villain, Chaos, was also named after a Greek god.) Although named after a goddess, Dark Gaia is occasional referred to as male.
* Dark Gaia resembles the second form of the final boss in the game *Terranigma*. In fact, the final boss in *Terranigma* is also called "Dark Gaia."
* The monsters that are made of Dark Gaia's essence somewhat resemble the Heartless.

Dark Gaia appears to be able to change the composition of its skin. In the cutscene when it transforms from Dark Gaia to Perfect Dark Gaia, its skin appears to be stretchy but firm, while the skin on the opposite side of its body appears to be brittle.

* Dark Gaia seems to change size throughout the course of *Sonic Unleashed*. When it is first awakened, it is large enough to put one hand on either side of the planet, yet during the final fight, it is noticeably smaller and fits inside the planet with plenty of extra space in the planet's core. This is probably due to Dark Gaia's mass being spread out and incomplete, as SA-55 states later on.
* Perfect Dark Gaia is the largest final boss in the series to date, being the size of a large continent.
* Dark Gaia is the only boss in *Sonic Unleashed* with "Dark" as a prefix that is fought with normal Sonic.
* All of the bosses in the game with a Dark prefix resemble elements:
	+ Dark Gaia Phoenix - Fire
	+ Dark Moray - Ice
	+ Dark Guardian - Thunder
	+ Dark Gaia - Earth
* Dark Gaia appears to have a resemblance to Iblis. Dark Gaia has shadowy dark minions like Iblis has fiery minions, and they both have a desire to destroy the world.