Genesis Wave

The Genesis Wave is a reality time-shift stopper that is caused by Chaos Energy from the Chaos Emeralds in the Sonic the Hedgehog comics published by Archie Comics. First introduced in Sonic the Hedgehog #225, it was used to change the world to fit Dr. Eggman's plans, specifically Operation: Clean Sweep.

When used, it can "restart" a dimension by rewriting the dimension's timeline to better fit the user's benefits. The Genesis Wave has so far been used twice; both of those times affected Mobius, while the other affected the world of 20XX, which was Mega Man's world.

Functions
By using Chaos Energy to power it, the Genesis Wave has the ability to rewrite the very timeline of a dimension based on the alterations programmed into the Genesis Wave. This gives the user of the Genesis Wave the means of rearranging the time and space of the dimension that which the Genesis Wave was released upon, effectively allowing the user to create an entirely new timeline. This includes reshaping the physical side of reality, creating, altering or erasing locations and societies, and even rewriting the history of the dimension itself, from the past, all the way to the future. It can also change living beings themselves, such as altering their appearances, history and give them new memories to fit their new lives. To people affected by the Genesis Wave, they will retain no apparent memories of the reality that used to be, and to them, the new form of the reality that they reside in will always have been the way it had been rewritten into. When activated, the Genesis Wave causes the world around someone to seemingly fade away into a white void, before establishing the new reality.

Besides rewriting the reality of the intended dimension, the Genesis Wave can as well rewrite the reality of dimensions that are adjacent to the dimension in question, like soap bubbles; in other words, if another dimension lies close enough to dimension that is about to be rewritten by the Genesis Wave, it would cause the adjacent dimension's reality to be rewritten as well, like a chain reaction. For example, the first time the Genesis Wave was launched, it sent Julie-Su back to the Twilight Cage, which appears as a pocket dimension to the Prime Zone, and the second time was used, it rewrote the Sol Zone as well when it rewrote the Prime Zone. This presumably serves to prevent any dimensional paradoxes in the new reality.

The time-space altering effects of the Genesis Wave does not disappear immediately after a reality has been rewritten, but will linger for an unspecified amount of time afterwards. As such, the disturbances in space-time created from the Genesis Wave can be detected by the people in the newly rewritten reality, even if it occurred in the new reality's past, as seen when Silver registered the effects from his time.

Limitations
Despite its seemingly omnipotent abilities, the Genesis Wave's capabilities are limited to how many Chaos Emeralds that are used to charge it. With just one Chaos Emerald, the Genesis Wave can still rewrite history and reshape universes, but only to a limited extent, meaning the Genesis Wave will only be able to tweak the timeline and bend the occasional rules of the world. Likewise, with only one Chaos Emerald, the Genesis Wave cannot erase living beings or their spirits, meaning that it cannot be used to remove people from the new timeline as if they never existed. With all seven Chaos Emeralds charging it, however, the Genesis Wave has no limitation to it, meaning it can be used to rebuild everything down to the tiniest detail in any way desired and erase creatures and their spirits completely from existence.

Another limitation to the Genesis Wave seen when powered by one Chaos Emerald is that it cannot completely erase others' memories of the former reality, but rather lay them dormant or inaccessible by normal means. As such, people affected by the Genesis Wave can experience flashbacks of their lives in the former reality if triggered by the right circumstances, and can even in some cases regain most of their old memories, if given enough time. For most people who are able to maintain a dormant recollection of their old memories, however, only seem to get the strange sense that things around them seem different, or think they are suffering from amnesia. Space-time disruptions from Chaos Control, however, can also restore a person's former memories. It is unknown if that limitation can be bypassed when powered by all seven Chaos Emeralds.

A far more devastating side-effect of the Genesis Wave is that it releases excess energies that can have terrible consequences on the reality in question. During Operation: Clean Sweep, the excess energies cause unnatural and dangerous weather phenomenon and planet-wide earthquakes to occur on Mobius, making the planet tear itself apart. It also caused the dimensional stability of Mobius Prime to degrade exponentially, threatening the entire dimension to have a total time-space collapse, unless the new reality's timeline was cemented before it reached a certain point or it was restored to normal. Similar events happened after the Super Genesis Wave released and partially undone, but on a much grander scale, with the planet's continents coming apart and the planet's crust being blown apart.

Development
The idea for the concept of the Genesis Wave was developed by Dr. Eggman during his recovery from insanity. Theorizing that the reason he could never defeat Sonic was due to the blue hedgehog having become the embodiment of chaos due to having absorbed large amounts of Chaos Energy over the years, and therefore a constant inconsistency that he could never predict, the doctor planned Operation: Clean Sweep to counter-act Sonic's chaos factor, with the Genesis Wave being the key element. The plan of Operation: Clean Sweep was to alter the fabric of the Prime Zone's reality with the Gensis Wave to remove the Chaos Energy Sonic had absorbed over the years, thereby eliminating Sonic's chaos factor and allowing Eggman to finally beat Sonic. After escaping from New Mobotropolis, during the events of the Iron Dominion's takeover, Eggman and his lackey, Snively Robotnik began to develop the Genesis Wave.

Operation: Clean Sweep
After escaping New Mobotropolis, Eggman and Snively went to the Special Zone in order to receive a Chaos Emerald, which Chaos Energy was needed to make the Genesis Wave fully operational. After one of Feist's challenges, they were successful upon receiving the blue Chaos Emerald. Soon after, Eggman put the Chaos Emerald into his Chaos Emerald Chamber in the Death Egg Mark 2 to charge the Genesis Wave, and the ship began to launch.

When the Death Egg Mark 2 appeared over New Mobotropolis, the Knothole Freedom Fighters, Ixis Naugus and his apprentice, Geoffrey St. John, attempted to stop Eggman, though they were unaware about the Genesis Wave and the doctor's plans with it. Despite their attempts, however, Sonic was distracted by a new rebuilt Silver Sonic and Sally Acorn was shot down by a gun turret before they could stop Eggman. When the Genesis Wave was fully charged, the doctor activated the Genesis Wave with the Cosmic Reset Button, thus initiating Operation: Clean Sweep. (StH #223, #224, #225)

Using the Genesis Wave, Eggman rewrote the entire Prime Zone and its history, with everyone and everything included, thus erasing all of the Freedom Fighter's progress for more than the past decade and altering their history. This resulted in a changed, simpler and defenseless Mobius that was easy to exploit, allowing Eggman and Snively to quickly take over various regions and territories without much interference. However, the changes the Genesis Wave had brought upon the Prime Zone created dimensional disturbances as the dimension fought desperately to undo the Genesis Wave's effects, and was threatening to have a total time-space collapse. Eggman, however, had planned to end the dimentional disturbances, and, at the same time, achieve global dominance with his World Roboticizer, which would centement the Genesis Wave's alteration to the Prime Zone, and leave the doctor with a planet full of Robian slaves.

Much to the misfortune of Eggman, however, Sonic, Sally, Tails, Antoine and Boomer mananged to find each other and decided to band together to fight Eggman's tyranny, despite having their memories altered by the Genesis Wave, leaving Operation: Clean Sweep in jeopardy. Also, since Eggman and Snively also had their memories altered by the Genesis Wave, the two of them were initally slow in the process of preparing the World Roboticizer.

During the climax of Super Sonic and Eggman's battle onboard the Death Egg Mark 2, the negative effects of the Genesis Wave had reached the point where Mobius was only moments away from breaking apart, with entire dimension following suit. After disabling Eggman's Egg Destroyer Battlesuit, Super Sonic tapped into all the Chaos Energy available in the Death Egg Mark 2, and used it to induce a powerful Chaos Control to restore reality to its previous state and undo the effects of the Genesis Wave on the Prime Zone.

In the end, Sonic was able to undo the Genesis Wave, and even created a temporal transition that rewound the Prime Zone back 10 seconds, allowing him to save Sally before she was killed. However, the after effects of the Genesis Wave still left its impact on the dimension, such as reawakening the merged spirits inside Ixis Naugus, leaving half of Mobius's population vulnerable to roboticization once more, and sending the blue Chaos Emerald into another dimension.

Worlds Collide
When Dr. Albert W. Wily discovered the blue Chaos Emerald, which had arrived in his dimension at the Lanfront Ruins after the first Genesis Wave, he came into contact with Eggman. After a brief clash of egos, the two doctors decided to come together as partners in an effort to help each other take over their world, and to get rid of each nemesis, namely Sonic and Mega Man. To this end, the Genesis Wave became a part of their plan.

After constructing the Wily Egg in the Skull Egg Zone, Drs. Eggman and Wily activated the Genesis Wave from within the Wily Egg and unleashed it on both Mobius and the Earth in the year 20XX, rewritting both worlds to benefit their plan, such as establishing a bridge between their worlds (which is accessible through the Interdimensional Gateway) and altering the memories of their enemies. Additionally, by activating the Genesis Wave inside the Skull Egg Zone, the two doctors escaped the Genesis Wave's effects, leaving them with all memories of the old realities, but also having the memories of the realities created by the Genesis Wave.

While the Genesis Wave was successful in rewritting both realities and giving Eggman and Wily the upper hand, it had also scattered the six remaining Chaos Emeralds across both worlds, which were essential to the doctors' plan. As Metal Sonic and Bass had to accompany each other to collect the Chaos Emeralds and track the blue heroes, Drs. Eggman and Wily created the Roboticized Masters which were able to freely switch between the dimensions rewritten by the Genesis Wave.

Eventually, the Roboticized Masters were successful in bringing all six Chaos Emeralds to Drs. Eggman and Wily, who then promptly placed them in the Genesis Reactor, planning to have the Chaos Emeralds charge the Genesis Wave with enough power to unleash a "Super Genesis Wave", a Genesis Wave without limitations that would allow the doctors to rewrite all of reality down to the tiniest detail, erase Sonic and Mega Man from existence, and turn the doctors themselves into gods.

At the time where Sonic and Mega Man were captured inside the Wily Egg by Drs. Eggman and Wily, the Genesis Reactor had finished charging, and the doctors were ready to unleash their Super Genesis Wave upon their universes. Suddenly, however, Knuckles and Proto Man launched a surprise attack, forcing Eggman and Wily to protect the Genesis Chamber with the Egg-Wily Machine X, until the Super Genesis Wave was launched. Despite Dr. Light's attempts, he was unable to stop the Super Genesis Wave manually, and the Super Genesis Wave was unleashed. With its release, the Super Genesis Wave began to rewrite the Prime Zone and Mega Man's dimension and turning the Skull Egg Zone into a space-like void with view over the respective realities. At the time the Super Genesis Wave was done rewriting the universes, Super Sonic and Super Armor Mega Man planned to undo the Super Genesis Wave's effect with Chaos Control. However, while Super Armor Mega Man was able to use Chaos Control to restore his own universe, Super Sonic was not so fortunate, as Eggman's interference caused a distortion in Sonic's restoration of the Prime Zone.

As a result of Eggman's inference, the entire multiverse involved with the Prime Zone collapsed in upon itself and was then recreated, creating an entirely different timeline for the Prime Zone. Even the molecular make-up of reality was changed to match the new histories. As another side-effect, the excess energy from the Super Genesis Wave was applied to Nicole and Mobius itself. For Nicole, these energies scrambled up her system, but allowed her to restore the memories of the old timeline for a limited number of people. For Mobius, however, the overwhelming amount of excess energy from the Super Genesis Wave was too much for the fragile planet to bear, resulting in the planet breaking into pieces.

Trivia

 * Given that Super Sonic was able to restore Mobius Prime to normal by inducing Chaos Control, it might suggest that the Genesis Wave is simply a refined version of Chaos Control.
 * The Genesis Wave may reference the Sega Genesis due to its name.