There’s no basis to this claim at all lmao
these are just two different possibilities that happens after Egg Reverie Zone: Sonic gets sent back to Angel Island and starts Mania Plus or Sonic gets sent to the Modern Timeline, where he’s featured in Forces and comes back for Mania Adventures. There is way too much evidence that goes against your argument
In the Sonic Mania manual it says in the prologue part that space time suddenly wrapped around them, catapulting them all to Green Hill Zone which means that the Green Hill that appears in Sonic Mania is the real one
Even if we go with this, it's proof that it doesn't just have the power to send Sonic and friends through space, but also time. As such, it sending Sonic and friends to Stardust Speedway and finding a functioning Metal Sonic there simply means that they were sent back to the events of Sonic CD to relive the encounter with Metal Sonic. This would also mean that Green Hill, Chemical Plant, etc. all take place during the times of the original games they come from as well.
This isn’t true either. If it sent them back to the events of CD, then Eggman would be there with the laser and the fight would take place in either the Good Future or the Bad Future, which isn’t what happened in Mania. They were sent to Stardust Speedway’s Past (it’s worth noting that Little Planet has a different form of Time Travel than we’ve seen with things like the Time Eater) and time traveled to its Present. Metal is in Stardust Speedway’s Present here, so it doesn’t make sense in the slightest for this to be the CD encounter, especially since Amy isn’t here
Eggman was there, he just didn't use the laser. He gave Metal the Ruby instead. It could be an implication that the Ruby traveled with Sonic and friends into Stardust Speedway and was later found by Eggman, or it could be that Eggman also traveled to Stardust Speedway and contacted his other self to change plans since the original plan trashed Metal. Either way, it seems as though plans were altered a bit due to the Ruby's involvement. As for Amy, you answered this yourself. She was being held captive in Bad Future Stardust Speedway, which isn't where the fight takes place. As such, her rescue would still be at the hands of CD Sonic.
this does not make sense as Chezi mentioned the Battle in Mania takes place in the present while the one in Cd happens in the Future
It makes sense if you put together the Mania manual with the mechanics explained in Forces. To go to a location, the Ruby sends you through space and time. To fight an enemy, it creates illusions. As such, the timeline of events makes sense as follows: Sonic and friends are sent back to past Stardust Speedway by the Ruby, and then use a Future sign to return to CD's present, where they meet a Phantom Ruby illusion Metal Sonic and fight it, then are sent to Sonic 3's Hydrocity by the Ruby. At some point even further into the future in the "Bad Future" events from CD, CD Sonic fights the real Metal Sonic and rescues Amy.
Yeah, this is just grasping at straws at this point
Not really. If anything, there's far more evidence for Metal Sonic being a time clone or Ruby illusion than being the real deal from Sonic's present. The game gives us no reason to believe Metal is "real" based on what both Mania and Forces teach us about the Ruby.
What Mania tells us about the Ruby is that it can teleport characters to different areas, it can power up certain characters, and it can create pocket dimensions. What Forces tells us about the Ruby is that it can power up certain characters, create pocket dimensions, and create illusions.
Mania shows the Ruby as being used to travel across time and space, as a power source, and potentially to create illusions.
You forget that in Metal’s other return story, Sonic 4, he’s been left on Stardust Speedway and had repaired himself. We also know he’s fully functional and in the middle of his upgrade process because the fight during Generations happens in the same landscape as his intro cutscene from Sonic 4. If we go to the Classic timeline, Metal should still be there because there has been no alterations to his story. Therefore, he’s still fully functional and able to communicate with Eggman when he makes contact with him in Press Garden. This is that outside context you were missing
In Sonic 4, Metal Sonic is barely functioning and can't even stand properly until Eggman repairs him properly. In Generations, Metal Sonic is a time clone. Sonic is being sent back to the fight against Metal Sonic by the Time Eater's power. As such, your outside context doesn't work.
Time clones aren’t things that exist, so I don’t know where you got that notion. Even then, look at how Metal gets repaired in Sonic 4: Eggman shows up through a communication device and powers him up at Stardust Speedway. Classic Eggman could have easily been doing the same technique in Mania and then teleport himself over there. If that’s not the case, then it’s extremely possible that he was repaired during Generations. The Death Egg Robot and Egg Dragoon boss fights very obviously don’t go the same way that they did in Sonic 2 and Unleashed respectively, so that’s just the Eggman’s piloting these mechs again, which is backed up even further when you realize that the Death Egg Robot is way bigger and uses a new design from Modern Eggman. Back on Metal, they could have repaired him at Stardust Speedway at an earlier point in time (So this is not the Sonic 4 Metal Sonic) so that he could face Classic Sonic. This is why he has different attack patterns. Despite him being defeated, he could still have been repaired but then left behind once again due to the Eggman’s being trapped in white space at the end of the game. Once he’s back in his timeline, Classic Eggman locates the Phantom Ruby (which I believe is an artifact left behind by the Time Eater, which also explains why it wasn’t there in the Solaris and Modern Timelines), uses it multiple times until we get to Press Garden where we see him telling Metal Sonic to get ready to fight Sonic and possibly doing the upgrade/repair technique from Sonic 4, and then hand him the Ruby in the middle of the fight to power him up.
Time clones are a really simple concept. If you get in a time machine and travel back to yesterday, the you that you encounter there is a time clone of yourself. That is to say, any version of any living thing or object that exists alongside another version of itself from another time is a time clone. The Metal Sonic that appears in Generations is a time clone of the one from CD, because Sonic is being sent back to the time and place he originally battled Metal Sonic to relive that fight. Generations time travel is a little weird though in that the changes made to time aren't permanent, and time is fixed by Sonic running through the time that he's sent to.
Eggman was only able to repair Metal in Sonic 4 because Little Planet was making it's close pass with Earth at the time, making it accessible. It's unclear whether Little Planet is doing this again in Mania or not due to the Ruby's involvement, but since Eggman already has access to the Ruby why would he go out of his way of repairing Metal when he can use the Ruby to create Metal Sonic illusions that are just as good as the original?
It's explained near the end of Generations that Eggman went back in time and teamed up with his past self before kidnapping the Sonic's and their friends. The times and locations of the Eggman rematches are the same as the originals, but Eggman has altered time and the two Eggmen are repiloting their mechs. This is undone by the two Sonic's defeating them. So yes, while these are rematches for both Sonic and Eggman, the time and place is still the same as the original fights, and everything gets fixed after Sonic wins anyway. In regards to Metal, it's just a time clone of the same Metal from CD, except Sonic fights him instead of races him, which also gets undone after Sonic wins and history is restored to how it should be.
There would have been no need, the Eggmen had access to time travel through the Time Eater's power. Why go to the trouble of repairing Metal when they can use the Time Eater to send Sonic back to the time and place he encountered Metal before?
The only way Metal would even be in fighting condition for Eggman to contact with that device would be if Little Planet had already returned by this point for Eggman to repair. While this is technically possible, as pointed out earlier in this post it would be far less effort for Eggman to simply just use the Ruby to generate an illusionary copy of Metal just as good as the original instead.
With this logic, Classic Sonic is a time clone, right? This means that alternate versions and Time Clones are one and the same. “Fixing time” because of Sonic’s speed isn’t fixing time itself, rather just restoring the areas that have turned static, similar to the characters you encounter in Generations
Little Planet is close by because Eggman rebuilds Metallic Madness. There’s not much argument there. Creating illusions of the original Metal Sonic would not be as efficient as the original because the original has that drive to be better than Sonic
Again, this is all false because the Death Egg Robot is fought in a different part of the Death Egg (an elevator) and the Egg Dragoon is fought in a circuit either in or close to Eggmanland. History doesn’t get restored by winning these fights since we know for a fact that Shadow and Silver’s fights are actual rematches for the Chaos Emeralds. The only one that doesn’t follow this same rule is Chaos, but that’s just Station Square being plucked out of its timeline
Because then they would also be meddling with his plan in CD that could be successful if they’re able to gain full control of the Time Eater. If they get Metal from before his fight in CD, then there’s a chance that Sonic can’t be defeated in CD after their supposed success in Generations
As states earlier, an illusion wouldn’t have the same drive. It’s being directly controlled by Eggman who is actually less determined to defeat Sonic than Metal Sonic is
Kinda. Classic Sonic in Generations is a time clone of Modern Sonic from the past, until he isn't anymore due to making decisions and learning things that change his course of history moving forward. He became his own distinct individual from Modern Sonic at this point, which makes them different in Mania and Forces.
We do see Little Planet nearby Lava Reef, but it's unclear whether this is the real Little Planet or a copy of it made by the Ruby. Ultimately it's a moot point however, because making illusionary copies is incredibly easy with the Ruby. The illusions are just like the originals in every way. The Zavok illusion in Forces still has his personality for example. As such, the illusionary Metal Sonic would still have the same drive to be better than Sonic that the original had.
The Eggmen altered time. Yes, the locations are a bit different, but it's still during the events of the original games that these rematches take place. It's just versions of history where Eggman never lost, which get undone by Sonic winning the fights.
The Eggmen created versions of history in which they never lost. The Sonic's travel through these histories, and through their running and fighting time and space is restored to what it's meant to be. As such, by defeating Metal Sonic in Generations, Classic Sonic restored the fight back into what it should have been during CD.
In reality Eggman could not create a copy of Metal Sonic with the Phantom Ruby that was as strong as the original