Wisp


 * For the Badnik, see Whisp.

Wisps (ウィスプ) are a fictional extraterrestrial alien race from the Sonic the Hedgehog series. A diminutive, yet playful and powerful race, the Wisps originate from Planet Wisp, but can also be found on other planets in the universe. They are naturally able to generate Hyper-go-on, a powerful source of energy, inside them which can be harnessed for a variety purposes and grant different Color Powers depending on the type of Wisps.

In gameplay, the Wisps can give Sonic different Color Powers to help him in the game's levels, which can be used once the player collects a Wisp from a Wisp Capsule.

Since their debut in Sonic Colors, the Wisps have become a staple in the Sonic the Hedgehog series, having appeared in the subsequent main Sonic the Hedgehog video games since their introduction, and, as according to Takashi Iizuka, the Wisp powers will be a standard gameplay feature for future Sonic the Hedgehog games.

Anatomy
The Wisps are similar in overall appearance and motion to underwater cephalopods, such as squids, wih their bodies being made of Hyper-go-on. Regular Wisps come in fourteen known natural variants, each with their own unique skin color, body shape and number of eyes (ranging from one to three). However, regular Wisps all share certain common physical characteristics, such as having a single head with no mouth, three tentacles stemming from the bottom of their head, and are not much taller than half a meter. The Nega-Wisps, however, while having a head with three tentacles and same size as regular Wisps, lack any eyes and possess wide mouths with sharp teeth.

Mother Wisp is a type of unique Wisp that is different from regular Wisps in appearance. She is foremost much bigger and taller, standing almost eight meters tall, and also resembles more that of a jellyfish, with four very long tentacles.

Characteristics and Culture
The Wisps are an halcyon and social species, and are as much sentient beings as the dominant races on Earth, such as humans. While each type of Wisp tend to lean towards certain personality characteristics, the Wisps are overall peaceful, playful, non-hostile and friendly of nature, and enjoys spending most of their time playing with others.

The Wisps seemingly appear to possess no form of technology and only have an extremely minimal level of urbanized civilization, such as simple tree slides. Instead, the Wisps live a simple and naturalistic lifestyle that is completely in harmony with the nature of their homeworld.

The Wisps have their own unique verbal language that they use to communicate between themselves with, which comes off as an incomprehensible, warbling sound.

Powers and Abilities
Though small and harmless of nature, the Wisps are an extremely powerful race when working together. All Wisps are able to float in midair at will, which serve as their main method for movements.

Each Wisp has the natural ability to to generate and store Hyper-go-on, an extremely powerful energy source that is said to be greater that those of the Chaos Emeralds, inside their own bodies, which is their life source. Each type of Wisp generates it own unique version of this energy, with each variant having its own effects.

When combining their collective Hyper-go-on when cooperating as a whole, the Wisps are capable of unbelievable feats, such as carrying objects through levitation, move at nearly unreachable speeds, undo the mutation on Nega-Wisps, restrain and extinguish black holes made from negative Hyper-go-on, and even teleport objects the size of planets over incredible distances. On their own, regular types of Wisps can enter the body of other beings, as if they are intangible, and lend their Hyper-go-on to the being in question, granting different special powers called Color Powers, with the type of power depends on the Wisp's type.

Origin
While much of the Wisp race's past is unclear, it is known that all Wisps originate from one progenitor Wisp, known as Mother Wisp. This single Wisp gave life to all the individual types of Wisp and raised them as her children. The Wisps then came to live on Planet Wisp, a small planet created by Mother Wisp as well, which served as their homeworld, though the Wisps eventually also emigrated to populate other planets and areas of space, such as Sweet Mountain, Starlight Carnival, Aquarium Park and Asteroid Coaster.

Enslavement
A short time prior to the events of Sonic Colors, the Wisp race came under attack by Doctor Eggman and his forces. The doctor (whom the Wisps refer to as Baldy Nosehair), having discovered that the Wisps' Hyper-go-on power could be used by him to create a Mind Control Ray that would let him enslave Earth, managed to kidnap the entire population of Wisp on their planets by dragging their entire homeworlds to Earth with his tractor beam generators, and chained them to the Tropical Resort to make Dr. Eggman's Incredible Interstellar Amusement Park, leaving the Wisps trapped in the space above Earth.

With their homeworlds no longer safe, the Wisps were overrun by Eggman's forces, and they were scattered all over Dr. Eggman's Incredible Interstellar Amusement Park in the following frenzy. The Wisps were then slowly, but steadily, captured by Eggman's forces. so they could be drained of their Hyper-go-on in the doctor's base on Asteroid Coaster, to create fuel for Eggman's global Mind Control Cannon. The process of harvesting of Hyper-go-on from the Wisps, however, created a new sub-breed of Wisps called Nega-Wisps, a violent type of Wisps that were forced to carry out Eggman's plans.

In the Nintendo DS version of Sonic Colors, it is revealed that Mother Wisp was captured and drained of her Hyper-go-on as well, transforming her into the Nega-Mother Wisp. However, the Nega-Mother Wisp was too unruly to be controlled. She eventually managed to escape captivity and went into hiding.

Sonic Colors
At the beginning of Sonic Colors, countless members of the Wisp race had been captured in Wisp Capsules and thousands of Nega-Wisps had been created. Fortunately for the Wisps, Sonic the Hedgehog and Miles "Tails" Prower arrived at Dr. Eggman's Incredible Interstellar Amusement Park to foil whatever evil plan they thought Eggman was up to. When Yacker and a Cyan Wisp were about to be captured by Orbot and Cubot, Sonic managed to save the two Wisps, before the Cyan Wisp granted Sonic his first Color Power.

After having been saved by Sonic, Yacker came into contact with Sonic and Tails, with Tails attempting to turn his Miles Electric into an translator for the Wisps' language, while Sonic went out to rescue more Wisps and discover Eggman's plans. When Tails had his translator more or less ready, Yacker informed the two heroes of what was happening to the Wisps, while pleading them to save them, to which Sonic and Tails agreed to.

Sonic, Tails and Yacker began traveling across the trapped homeworlds for the Wisps. looking for clues to Eggman's plan and how to free the Wisps, all the while freeing any Wisps they met along the way. In turn, the Wisps aided Sonic in his quest by granting him new Color Powers. After inadvertently destroying two tractor beam generators that kept two of the kidnapped Wisp worlds trapped, Sonic learned from Yacker that destroying all the generators would cut Eggman off from the Wisps, thus allowing the Wisps to escape captivity and go back home with their worlds.

After discovering the factory in the Asteroid Coaster that produced Nega-Wisps, Sonic managed to destroy the generator and free the trapped planet, ensuring that no more Nega-Wisps could be created.

After all five tractor beam generators were destroyed, the Wisps regrouped in Tropical Resort where they met up with Sonic and Tails, now celebrating their freedom and expressing their gratitude to Sonic and Tails for saving them. As soon as the Tropical Resort began to implode due to a black hole created from Eggman's malfunctioning Mind Control Cannon, however, the Wisps quickly escaped.

When Sonic was later caught in the Hyper-go-on induced black hole, Yacker and a small group of Wisps managed to save Sonic's life and bring him back to Earth, while the rest of the Wisp race joined their powers together to keep the black hole from expanding. Yacker and his friends then joined their kind in returning all the Nega-Wisps to normal and in extinguishing the black hole, before it could destroy the Earth. Yacker and few more Wisps then quickly returned to Earth and exchanged some heartfelt farewell to Sonic and Tails, before rejoined the rest of the Wisp race, as they all returned the kidnapped planets to their original place in the universe.

In the Nintendo DS version of Sonic Colors, the Nega-Mother Wisp appeared and went on a rampage after Dr. Eggman's Incredible Interstellar Amusement Park was destroyed. Fortunately, she was stopped by Sonic, who used the Chaos Emeralds to become Super Sonic, and was returned to normal.

Sonic Generations
In Sonic Generations, Wisps appear in both Acts of Planet Wisp/Tropical Resort, which is the last stage. On the console and PC versions, the only playable Wisps are the Orange Wisps (Modern Sonic only) and Pink Wisps (Classic Sonic only). In the 3DS version, the only Wisps that are playable are the Cyan Wisps (Modern Sonic only) and the Red Wisps (Classic Sonic only). Both Wisps are used in almost the exact same way as they were in the original Wii/DS version. White Wisps also make a cameo in the opening of Planet Wisp.

Sonic Lost World
Wisps return in Sonic Lost World. So far, only the Cyan Wisp, Orange Wisp, Pink Wisp, Red Wisp, Yellow Wisp, and the Green Wisp are confirmed to be returning. New Wisps include the Indigo Wisp, which allows Sonic to transform into the Indigo Asteroid, the Crimson Wisp which transforms Sonic into the Crimson Eagle,  the Magenta Wisp which transforms Sonic into the Magenta Rhythm, the Ivory Wisp which transforms Sonic into the Ivory Lightning, the Black Wisp which transforms Sonic into the Black Bomb, and the Gray Wisp which transforms Sonic into the Gray Quake.

Trivia

 * In the Nintendo Wii version of Sonic Colors, the Wisps are only referred to by their true name in the Hint Rings and once by Tails in a cutscene: everyone else simply refers to them as aliens.
 * The Red and the Violet Wisps are not shown in the announcement trailer. This is most likely due to the fact that those two Wisps are only exclusive to the Nintendo DS version.
 * On the cover of the Wii version of Sonic Colors, the Blue, Green, Purple, and Pink Wisps are shown. On the Nintendo DS cover they are replaced with the version exclusive Red Wisp and Violet Wisp.
 * Despite being only exclusive to the Wii version, the Blue, Green and Pink Wisps appear in a few cutscenes from the Nintendo DS version and in the final cutscene in the Wii version Red Wisps and Violet Wisps are seen.
 * According to Cubot, the Wisps "smell good".
 * The Purple Wisp is the only Wisp that doesn't appear in the Sonic Simulator.
 * Since White Wisps spawn from badniks occasionally, it can be assumed that the White Wisps captured by Eggman were used as a power source for some of the enemy robots.
 * The Violet Wisp is not present in the Sonic Colors comic adaptation in Archie Sonic the Hedgehog Issue 219.
 * According to Dr. Eggman in a deleted voice clip, the Wisps' Hyper-Go-On power is even more powerful than the Chaos Energy. As Chaos Energy and Hyper-Go-On have never been compared, this has never been officially confirmed. Furthermore, Sonic was able to defeat and purify the Nega-Mother Wisp using the Chaos Emeralds.
 * In Sonic Colors, certain Wisps allow Sonic to use abilities similar to past abilities that he was able to do in past games on his own. For example, the Green Wisp allows Sonic to do the Light Speed Dash, and the Pink Wisp allows Sonic to perform the Spin Dash.
 * The Wisps reappeared in Sonic Generations in the Planet Wisp stage, but only the Orange and Pink Wisps are usable in PS3/Xbox 360/PC Version, while the Nintendo 3DS uses Tropical Resort and the Cyan Laser and Red Burst. Also, in the PS3/Xbox 360/PC version, White Wisps make cameos at the beginning of both Classic and Modern Planet Wisp.
 * The Blue Cube is similar to the P-switch from the Mario franchise, as both change collectibles (rings or coins) into walkable surfaces (cubes or blocks) and vice-versa.
 * The only time they appear to speak English is in the cutscene "A New Sonic Legend Begins" when Yacker is telling other Wisps about Sonic (Nintendo DS version only). However, this might be in Wisp language translated into English for the player, as Tails is not there.
 * The Purple, Violet and Black Wisps are the only Wisps without eyes.