Nicole the Holo-Lynx

NICOLE, also known as Nicole, is a fictional, sentient, portable computer from the Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon series ("SatAM") and Sonic the Hedgehog comic books, owned by Princess Sally Acorn. Her voice is provided by Kath Soucie, the same voice actress who portrays Sally.

NICOLE bears a resemblance to the tricorders seen in Star Trek: The Next Generation and serves a similar function, though she is more versatile. In the cartoon, Sally carries NICOLE attached to one of her boots, even after she gets her vest later on in the series. In the Archie comics, Sally has been shown carrying her via a retractable shoulder strap attached to NICOLE (à la the Star Trek: The Original Series' tricorders), though was shown carrying her in a special pouch in a belt around her waist in issue #159 and on a clip attached to her boot in #225.

In both the cartoon and the comic, NICOLE's size will occasionally vary dramatically from one appearance to the next, being the size of a book and then appearing to be the size of present-day cellular phones, though it appears to be an artistic goof as none of the characters have ever commented about this or given a canonical explanation for it.

NICOLE has grown envious of Sally and her organic body over the years. On occasion, she has taken holographic form, able to walk, touch, and interact in ways that she is unable to normally. Her appearance in this mode is a female lynx with brown fur, green eyes, black hair, clad in a purple toga. Fans question whether this animal form was a bit of a joke, since NICOLE is a handheld computer, and the Atari "Lynx" was a handheld game system.

TV series
NICOLE's origin was never explained in detail in the series, although in the SatAM episode "Drood Henge", Uncle Chuck mentions that Sally's father King Acorn programmed NICOLE. She is highly technical in her speech, frustrating Sonic with her constant technobabble, to the point where he nearly shakes her apart in the SatAM episode "The Void"; This forces her to adapt by using slang terms and speaking in a manner similar to Sonic himself. She continues speaking in this manner to Sonic for the rest of the series, which aggravates Sally.

NICOLE was present in almost every episode of the SatAM cartoon; however, in the pilot episode "Heads or Tails", Sally used a large, bulky, yellow computer on wheels instead. This machine had the same voice and analytical traits as NICOLE.

In comparison to the Archie Comics, NICOLE can seem to be more of an object and less of a character in SatAM. The little personality she has is quite simple, though the way she talks with Sonic using slang and some signs of free will and emotions near the end of the series give her traits of a character.

Origins/possible future
According to the comics, NICOLE is from a possible future, designed and created by Rotor and sent back in time by Queen Sally and King Sonic (an ontological paradox). Because she was from the future, NICOLE is designed with a firewall to prevent the Freedom Fighters from learning about the future, which the present day Rotor attempts to crack without success. Also noted is the fact that the future Rotor created NICOLE as a request from Queen Sally, whose own version of NICOLE had been destroyed in the final battle with Robotnik.

Present day
Having been sent from the future, NICOLE fulfilled much the same role as she did in SatAM. However, that role changes after a chemical accident causes NICOLE and Sally to switch bodies for a temporary period, allowing NICOLE to discover what it feels like to be a true living being. After the effects reverse themselves, NICOLE attempts to create an organic body in the form of a lynx, but is forced to turn off the program before long, as it consumes too much power. NICOLE continues to use her Mobian form as an on-screen icon.

NICOLE, among other characters with robotic parts, is invaded with Eggman's nanites. They appear to have an intelligence-gathering purpose, as they can transmit all data they acquire directly to Eggman, and were used by A.D.A.M. to take control of her and all the other characters infected by them. though the effects on NICOLE didn't seem to be any worse than disabling her while she attempted to purge the nanites from her system. She later assisted Shadow the Hedgehog in reading the information on a disk that served as the diary of Professor Gerald Robotnik. Shadow, with Sonic by his side, was transmitted into the disk's database to meet NICOLE in her holographic form. In addition to developing a personality, NICOLE has also become friendly to other members of the Freedom Fighters and Chaotix. This was shown during Espio the Chameleon's infiltration of the fallen Golden Hive Colony on behalf of his friend Charmy Bee. NICOLE, his only "companion", assisted him in downloading information from Dr. Robotnik's computer database.

During the attack on Knothole, NICOLE was buried in the rubble of Freedom Fighter HQ and thus not captured along with most of the Freedom Fighters. She then helped Sonic rescue all those captive in the Egg Grapes by teleporting them to the redesigned Nanite City, which she has dubbed New Mobotropolis. This served as an added bonus to NICOLE, as the holo-matrices set up throughout the city allowed her to maintain her holographic form at all times. NICOLE has also apparently become the artificial intelligence in control of the city's defenses, which unfortunately forces her to deactivate her holographic form in order to provide more power to the shields. With Robotnik defeated for the time being after the Freedom Fighters and Chaotix destroyed his Egg Beater battle armor, NICOLE found a new set of problems on the inside: Tails' parents Amadeus and Rosemary Prower contending with Sally's brother Elias Acorn. The Prowers' quest for reform and Elias' determination not to let the monarchy be dissolved brought the Kingdom to the edge of civil war, until NICOLE helped Sally stop a duel between Elias and Amadeus. She then looked on as Sally mediated a peaceful settlement between the two, bringing the Kingdom of Acorn a new form of government in the process.

NICOLE then worked with Sally to try and contact allies against the threat of Enerjak, an old enemy of Knuckles the Echidna's who had been brought back thanks to the Dark Legion scientist Dr. Finitevus. Sending a probe to Angel Island, she watched with Sally, Knuckles' girlfriend Julie-Su, and Dimitri the Echidna-the original Enerjak-as the Dingo Regime was toppled, the Dark Legion restored to their normal Echidna forms, and all the Echidnas were sent to the city of Albion. However, Enerjak objected to her spying and crushed her probe, and then demonstrated his sheer power by passing right through New Mobotropolis' defensive shield. She was then treated to a disturbing rhetoric of Knuckles' vision for the future, one that involved eradicating all technology on Mobius-even that which had given her life. Of all the Freedom Fighters, NICOLE suffered the worst in the ensuing battle, as the conflicting energies of both Enerjak and the arriving Shadow wrought tremendous damage on the city and by extension her virtual body. While at the time she had trouble maintaining her form, she was eventually able to restore the city.

Later, NICOLE attempted to stop Sonic and Ash the Mongoose from apparent theft of the grey Chaos Emerald; because the lives of Tails, Mighty and Mina were in danger (thanks to Mammoth Mogul, they were being used as leverage), they weren't able to explain their actions immediately. When the emerald was given to Mogul, he dismissed Nicole with a wave of his hand. She was not damaged; rather, he simply stopped her from manifesting until he left.

During the invasion of the Suppression Squad, NICOLE had managed to keep the goal post leading to Moebius open until Boomer manually shut them down, trapping Sonic and Scourge.

Later, an invasion of New Mobotropolis by the Iron Dominion to take control of the city is stopped by NICOLE. NICOLE warns the Iron Dominion, the Iron King, the Iron Queen and Snively that they are trespassing. Iron Queen uses her technomagic to take control of NICOLE and she changes into Iron NICOLE. Iron NICOLE opens up the city to the Iron Dominion upon the Iron Queen's command and blocks the city from the outside world. Sonic, Tails, Sally and Monkey Khan use the Tornado to escape from the city to Freedom HQ, in which Tails transports Sally and Sonic in the mainframe of the city in an attempt to take back control of NICOLE. The Iron Queen oversees this and tries to stop them. Sonic attacking the Iron Queen is stopped by Iron NICOLE who has possessed abilities that easily matched Sonic's due to her control of the digital world. Sally uses her hacking skills to build a firewall around Iron NICOLE that would interrupt the Iron Queen's control in secret, while Sonic takes care of the Iron Queen herself. Sally succeeds in returning NICOLE back to normal, but NICOLE informs her that the Iron Dominion would be too strong to handle by themselves. NICOLE, at Sally's suggestion, decides to play as a double agent for the Freedom Fighters and turn New Mobotropolis' nanites against the Iron Dominion when the time is right, and to also inform the group of the Iron Dominion's plans.

After Sonic, Sally, Tails, and Monkey Khan returned from the Dragon Kingdom, NICOLE exposed herself and started fighting the Iron Queen during the liberation of New Mobotropolis. During the fight the Iron Queen took control of a large number of Nanites and used them to craft a giant Dragon, though NICOLE managed to keep control of the rest of the city.

After the liberation of the city NICOLE assisted Rotor by making him a combat suit. She has been under massive amounts of suspicion ever since the Iron Dominion's occupation and was last seen exciting Mina Mongoose's Concert crying due to the anti-NICOLE and Nanite Music being played.

Alternate origin
The recently published Sonic Archives Volume 5 graphic novel featured a lost never before seen story which featured a different origin for NICOLE. In the story, Robotnik has restored the Universalamander robot to once again attack the Freedom Fighters. While trying to figure out a way to stop it, Sally pulls out a box shaped device called "Nicole 7000", saying that she "ordered" it and "it just came yesterday". This unpublished story was in the early comedic style that the series had, before taking on a more serious tone similar to the Saturday morning cartoon. Thus, this introduction for NICOLE was little more then a simple joke with little regard for serious continuity.

Personality
In the cartoon, NICOLE's personality was logical and to-the-point, and she seemed lacking in personality. However, after an incident in which she and Sonic went looking for Sally together, she began speaking in a manner similar to Sonic. Despite this, she still was rather emotionless although she does by the end of the series have more emotion and much more free will. This is most noticeable in doomsday where she comments on how Sonic's nagging is stressing her out.

Archie's NICOLE was similar to the SatAM NICOLE at first, having not really been designed for sentience. As time went on, she became more lifelike, most notably developing a sense of humor. This is shown in her tendency to give Sonic little jolts of electricity when he tries to use her, and in her mocking smugness at Rotor's failure to breach the firewall set in place by his own future self. For all of that, she remains a loyal member of the Freedom Fighters, having helped save Sally and the others from fates such as Roboticization.

Following the accident in which she switched bodies with Sally, NICOLE underwent a major change in outlook. Having experienced the wonders of having an actual body, she began to desire one for herself. Sadly, her dreams did not seem likely to be realized in the near future, given that she doesn't have the power to maintain the body she created for herself. NICOLE remained hopeful, especially given that one of the things she experienced while in Sally's body was the love that her owner feels for Sonic despite their breakup. For at least a brief period after this incident, NICOLE even considered Sonic a "very attractive Hedgehog." In addition, NICOLE has become somewhat philosophical, having developed the opinion that Robotnik creates robots to replace the family that he lacks. Ultimately, she was able to sustain a full-time holographic being after Sonic and the rest of the Kingdom of Acorn were relocated to New Mobotropolis. As a result, she has become more confident in herself, even challenging Robotnik to his face after he was defeated in his first attack on the new city.

As Iron NICOLE, she is loyal to the Iron Queen and obeys her every command, no matter who else is hurt. She is also known to protect her master, in the case of stopping Sonic from attacking the Iron Queen. However, due to later actions taken by the Freedom Fighters, NICOLE regains control of herself and reverts back to her original personality.

Abilities
As a computer, NICOLE possesses a variety of abilities. In her handheld form, she can interface with other mechanical systems, allowing her to access and download information or even provide the Freedom Fighters with control over various unfriendly technologies. This has been used in both SatAM and Archie, the former usually involving NICOLE being used to download data from Robotnik's mainframe. NICOLE's computer incarnation also comes equipped with a low power laser, which can be used to cut through metal.

In her holographic form, NICOLE has a range of other abilities. Like any real Mobian, she has fully functional limbs and the use of several senses-the latter may not include taste, since NICOLE's holographic self doesn't actually eat. However, she also retains many of her computer abilities, and it is quite possible that her Mobian form has attributes of speed or strength superior to those of a biological being. After taking control of Nanite City and reshaping it into New Mobotropolis, she becomes the control program for the computerized city, making her virtually omnipotent within the limited area. Her new abilities in this point, aside from being able to project her holographic body continuously, include control of all the energy shields and the power to teleport individuals from one area of the city to another, such as she did in re-imprisoning Mammoth Mogul, Ixis Naugus, Nack the Weasel, Bean the Dynamite, and Bark the Polar Bear. She also has the ability to almost immediately repair any damage sustained to the city and create new structures on a whim (e.g. causing a wall to form between Amadeus Prower and Elias Acorn to halt their duel), as well as direct control over devices created in the city such as spy probes, but these come at a cost as the destruction of such devices causes her pain. For all of her abilities, she refuses to put the New Mobotropolis nanites to use as a weapon.

Romance
As a newly created sentient artificial intelligence, NICOLE is still refining the emotions that true Mobians have. Because of this, she has not truly displayed any romantic feelings towards any characters. The one exception was during and shortly after her brief time in Sally's body, in which she briefly shared Sally's deep-if at the time unexpressed-feelings for Sonic. She was almost overcome by the emotions while still in Sally's body, and once back in her own body remarked to Sonic that he was "a very appealing Hedgehog."

Trivia

 * In Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, there is a device called the Med Emitter which bares a striking resemblance to NICOLE's computer form.
 * In the TV series Sonic the Hedgehog, NICOLE's voice is deeper than Sally's voice.