The Development of the Rebellion - The Co-Writer’s Perspective
Written by Jacob Berkley:
I first came onto the Sonic SatAM RPG project in late 2019. Reggie had been deep into production of what would become the demo for the game, and I found a video showcasing it on his channel. I commented saying I was a writer and was willing to help, and after sending me his email and later his Discord, I ended up becoming co-head writer of the game.
When I first came on board, Reggie had a rough idea for the story of the game, which included a group of characters known as “The Rebellion”.
They were meant to be an older group of Freedom Fighter adjacent characters, who claimed to be part of the King’s royal guards. They would specifically show their true colors later on, claiming the Freedom Fighters didn’t know as much as they did, and specifically would later take over and turn Knothole into sort of a military base. The reveal of what they were truly planning and who they are is a spoiler, but even then, this was the basic idea for these characters which Reggie had in mind when he first started making the game.
When I was brought on board, this was about as far as Reggie had come along in developing them. He had only actually created one member of the group, their leader, a lion named Leo (later renamed to Leon), and even then, their personalities and how they related to one another had not been developed. Reggie’s initial concept art of Leon can be seen here:
So, when I started to write what would become the first outline for the game, I ended up creating 2 out of the 4 members of the Rebellion, and helped develop Leon and the other new addition to the team further as well.
Logan was the first member of the Rebellion I had created. I was always a big fan of how SatAM loosely adapted characters from the original Sonic the Hedgehog SoA story bible, which it was very strictly based on before the characters were completely reworked by Len Janson and Bruce and Reed Shelley. Sally Acorn was developed into the princess character Princess Sally Acorn, Johnny Lightfoot became Bunnie Rabbot, Joe Sushi became Rotor Walrus, etc. So, in the spirit of that, I very loosely adapted one of the original SoA Sonic story bible characters, Porker Lewis, into this pig character known as “Logan Porker”.
From the beginning, she was intended to be the tech-y/inventor member of the team, to sorta parallel Rotor, and she was supposed to be a bit of a snarky/snobby know it all type character. While starting off a bit as a jerk, she’d mellow out and turn out to be more of a shy dork. I originally did a very rough sketch of this character, which can seen here:
We ended up realizing that through these characters, we were making a few parallels to the Freedom Fighters of SatAM. Leon ended up being a parallel with B (the Forgotten leader, which I’ll delve into the creation of another time) along with Sally herself, while Logan was a parallel to Rotor (and later Tails, but we’ll get to that later). Because of this, we decided to go onwards and continue with this theme for some other characters.
The character “Ivan” was created next. Ivan ended up as sorta hybrid parallel of both Antoine and Bunnie, being a jackal who was both the strong member of the team, while also being a much more level headed and confident character compared to Antoine. This character was not conceived of by either me or Reggie, but by RobertCo11, who pitched the idea of a Jackal character and later did the first design of him:
We realized that Sea3on had actually introduced Jackal characters of their own in chapter 5, so tried to remain faithful to how they appeared in the comic as well.
He was named Ivan by me as a reference to Ivan Drago from Rocky 4. We decided to go for a Russian name because it’d help parallel Antoine a bit by having a foreign name and nationality, like how Antoine was French.
Next up was a sketch I did of a female Hawk character member of the Rebellion, who was unnamed for a while, but eventually we decided on the name Fleet, as a tribute to the Fleetway Sonic comics. She was intended to be a rival to Sonic, even faster than him, who was INCREDIBLY smug about it. Having a rival seemed like such a fun idea. Here’s the original sketch I did of her:
We were still a decent way off from implementing these characters in the game, as they weren't planned to make their debut until episode 2, and we hadn't even properly started writing episode 1 at this point, I was still working on the outline for the game.
Due to this, many plans we originally had for the Rebellion ended up changing during this time.
One big change that occurred was the overall designs. My original sketches for Logan and Fleet were rough, to say the least, as I'm not a trained artist. There were numerous issues with the designs in hindsight, but that's not entirely important. What is important is that some people in our Discord server ended up really liking the characters and made their own fanart of them.
I remember opening the server and seeing Frostdrop1's fanart of the character Fleet, as seen here:
I IMMEDIATELY fell in love with this design and the way he drew her. She felt so much more like an actual SatAM character, and the playful expressiveness added so much to her design and personality. And admittedly, it made way more sense for her to also be wearing a royal guard uniform like the rest of the cast, rather than going the Sally route. Because of this, I asked if we could use his design for the final game, which he happily agreed to. He'd then go on to make a few more art pieces, notably this unfinished piece of the entire Rebellion team:
Additionally, when it was finally time to implement the characters into the game, sprites of course ended up being created as well. I’m unsure who exactly did what, but the sprites came out amazing, each of them really capturing the characters. I especially loved Fleet and Logan’s, they were very fun and expressive. One detail the sprites did differently was that, for Fleet, her wings ended up being completely blue and coming out from her back, separate from the arm wings her design was drawn with by both me and Frostdrop1. I assume this was simply easier to convey in the sprite:
However, her wings would become one of the inconsistent aspects of her design. Notably, in the cover art for “Return to Iron Lock”, illustrated by Ink Pants, she was given her arm wings, and in the cover art for “Past, Present, & Future”, she similarly had arm wings, although now with even her hands being replaced by small feathers.
Eventually, we realized we desperately needed some character portraits for the characters, especially with episode 4 coming up which would feature a playable Logan. AmeixaRoxa would end up doing the character portrait for her, which ended up looking very good:
But again, she was gonna be the only one of the Rebellion to really change and grow, the rest were gonna be pretty overly villainous and heartless throughout the entire game.
You can actually still see a little bit of this in the third episode, with Fleet referring to the Freedom Fighters as younger and less experienced, implying she and the others, aside from Logan, are older. Her and Ivan's height were also made taller from the other characters for this reason too, to show they were visibly adults.
However, while writing dialogue for this episode, we ended up adding a section where, if Sally goes to her bed and falls asleep, she'd wake up later at night. Because of this, we added a ton of interactions to this section of the game, and one of those ended up being Ivan and Fleet in their hut.
While thinking and writing up possible dialogue sections, two things happened. One, I created a section where the two fight over who gets what bed, acting a bit immature, and moreso like a brother and sister. And two, I added a bit that shows how Fleet actually does really care about Logan and is protective of her like a big sister.
I ended up loving this little scene so much that it led to me completely overhauling all of my plans for the Rebellion as characters.
The idea came that we could further parallel the Freedom Fighters with the Rebellion… not just with the characters having superficial similarities, but in how they compare as families.
The Freedom Fighters in many ways are a bit of a family unit. Sonic and Sally are basically parenting Tails, with Bunnie acting as an aunt, Rotor acting as a wiser and more mature older brother to the entire team, and Antoine… well, Antoine is Antoine lol. So, we wanted to parallel this with the Rebellion.
Ivan and Fleet, while still being older than Logan, were both made only a tad bit older than her, and specifically, they viewed each other as family and genuinely cared about each other.
We always had plans for Logan to have a tragic backstory for how she was found, but that ended up spreading to the other characters as well. Leon found Ivan, then Fleet, and then Logan, in the wreckage of their homes either after the great war, or after Robotnik took over. Leon was basically their father, with them being his adopted children which he has hardened and trained into his own soldiers. They all come from a similarly terrible place, and because of that, the three of them share a bond. And while the shot itself was cut from the most recent episode, I wrote that both Ivan and Fleet found Logan when she was younger, locked in one of Robotnik's cells, and comforted her and saved her, with them falling in love with her as a younger sister, which was also meant to parallel how Sonic found Tails. Hopefully the scene can be restored in either a directors cut of an episode, or possibly in one of the final three episodes.
Basically, Ivan and Fleet went from fully evil and irredeemable people to very loving and caring siblings, even if they often act like jerks.
Because of this, lots of ideas from the original outline which further cemented how terrible they were were dropped, and instead, I felt we now needed to really add in some redeeming moments to these characters.
Episode 5 ended up being the perfect opportunity for this. Originally I wanted to have playable levels with Sonic, Sally, Ivan, and Fleet, but due to time crunch for SAGE (which we didn't even make so whoops lol), the sections were instead turned into cutscenes.
I really wanted to show Fleet and Ivan really showing their carelessness and jackass-tendencies, with them only going to help find Tails because Logan asked them to, once again showing how they care for her enough to even defy Leon, and then barely even trying when they get to Boulder Bay, to the point where even Sonic gets frustrated. This culminates in them throwing a bomb to destroy a horde of Swatbots, not thinking about how it potentially could've killed Tails. Me and Reggie actually went back and forth on this scene, because he felt it was maybe a bit too dark, but I felt it was really important, so pushed for its inclusion. Having Sonic snap, talking almost like Sally, because his little brother could've been killed felt like such a powerful moment for Sonic, showing how much he cares for Tails, even giving Fleet and Ivan pause, before he runs off angrily.
This also led to some nice development between both her and Sonic, with them both apologizing for what they both said previously, but with Fleet saying he had nothing to apologize for.
This of course leads to them interacting with Leon again, scolding them for disobeying him, and hinting that they some ulterior motives for being there… but in the end, they still protect Logan, even when it leads to Leon losing a dash of respect for them, and it ends with them going on to hug Logan, as a family, paralleling not only the end of the story Sally reads, but also paralleling when Sonic first met Tails.
Again, this was never the original plan. But as I've worked on Sonic Satam RPG, I've realized that your initial ideas aren't always your best ideas. We've picked at that original 50 page outline I made, ripping out huge sections, expanding other sections, and have been creating all new stuff, and almost always for the best.
The Rebellion have become so much more since their creation. From only a very loose idea in Reggie's head, to a broken, yet still loving family, I love how the Rebellion have developed so far and changed throughout our time working on the game… and I look forward to the rest of you seeing how their story progresses in the future!
I first came onto the Sonic SatAM RPG project in late 2019. Reggie had been deep into production of what would become the demo for the game, and I found a video showcasing it on his channel. I commented saying I was a writer and was willing to help, and after sending me his email and later his Discord, I ended up becoming co-head writer of the game.
When I first came on board, Reggie had a rough idea for the story of the game, which included a group of characters known as “The Rebellion”.
They were meant to be an older group of Freedom Fighter adjacent characters, who claimed to be part of the King’s royal guards. They would specifically show their true colors later on, claiming the Freedom Fighters didn’t know as much as they did, and specifically would later take over and turn Knothole into sort of a military base. The reveal of what they were truly planning and who they are is a spoiler, but even then, this was the basic idea for these characters which Reggie had in mind when he first started making the game.
When I was brought on board, this was about as far as Reggie had come along in developing them. He had only actually created one member of the group, their leader, a lion named Leo (later renamed to Leon), and even then, their personalities and how they related to one another had not been developed. Reggie’s initial concept art of Leon can be seen here:
So, when I started to write what would become the first outline for the game, I ended up creating 2 out of the 4 members of the Rebellion, and helped develop Leon and the other new addition to the team further as well.
Logan was the first member of the Rebellion I had created. I was always a big fan of how SatAM loosely adapted characters from the original Sonic the Hedgehog SoA story bible, which it was very strictly based on before the characters were completely reworked by Len Janson and Bruce and Reed Shelley. Sally Acorn was developed into the princess character Princess Sally Acorn, Johnny Lightfoot became Bunnie Rabbot, Joe Sushi became Rotor Walrus, etc. So, in the spirit of that, I very loosely adapted one of the original SoA Sonic story bible characters, Porker Lewis, into this pig character known as “Logan Porker”.
From the beginning, she was intended to be the tech-y/inventor member of the team, to sorta parallel Rotor, and she was supposed to be a bit of a snarky/snobby know it all type character. While starting off a bit as a jerk, she’d mellow out and turn out to be more of a shy dork. I originally did a very rough sketch of this character, which can seen here:
We ended up realizing that through these characters, we were making a few parallels to the Freedom Fighters of SatAM. Leon ended up being a parallel with B (the Forgotten leader, which I’ll delve into the creation of another time) along with Sally herself, while Logan was a parallel to Rotor (and later Tails, but we’ll get to that later). Because of this, we decided to go onwards and continue with this theme for some other characters.
The character “Ivan” was created next. Ivan ended up as sorta hybrid parallel of both Antoine and Bunnie, being a jackal who was both the strong member of the team, while also being a much more level headed and confident character compared to Antoine. This character was not conceived of by either me or Reggie, but by RobertCo11, who pitched the idea of a Jackal character and later did the first design of him:
We realized that Sea3on had actually introduced Jackal characters of their own in chapter 5, so tried to remain faithful to how they appeared in the comic as well.
He was named Ivan by me as a reference to Ivan Drago from Rocky 4. We decided to go for a Russian name because it’d help parallel Antoine a bit by having a foreign name and nationality, like how Antoine was French.
Next up was a sketch I did of a female Hawk character member of the Rebellion, who was unnamed for a while, but eventually we decided on the name Fleet, as a tribute to the Fleetway Sonic comics. She was intended to be a rival to Sonic, even faster than him, who was INCREDIBLY smug about it. Having a rival seemed like such a fun idea. Here’s the original sketch I did of her:
We were still a decent way off from implementing these characters in the game, as they weren't planned to make their debut until episode 2, and we hadn't even properly started writing episode 1 at this point, I was still working on the outline for the game.
Due to this, many plans we originally had for the Rebellion ended up changing during this time.
One big change that occurred was the overall designs. My original sketches for Logan and Fleet were rough, to say the least, as I'm not a trained artist. There were numerous issues with the designs in hindsight, but that's not entirely important. What is important is that some people in our Discord server ended up really liking the characters and made their own fanart of them.
I remember opening the server and seeing Frostdrop1's fanart of the character Fleet, as seen here:
I IMMEDIATELY fell in love with this design and the way he drew her. She felt so much more like an actual SatAM character, and the playful expressiveness added so much to her design and personality. And admittedly, it made way more sense for her to also be wearing a royal guard uniform like the rest of the cast, rather than going the Sally route. Because of this, I asked if we could use his design for the final game, which he happily agreed to. He'd then go on to make a few more art pieces, notably this unfinished piece of the entire Rebellion team:
His take on these characters were amazing and really influenced the look of the eventual sprites of the characters. Ivan also took on a less aggressive and more Spock like “logical approach” awkward approach based on how this image drew him. I really loved Frostdrop1’s take on these characters, and he ended up contributing a lot of concept art and sprites to the game.
Additionally, when it was finally time to implement the characters into the game, sprites of course ended up being created as well. I’m unsure who exactly did what, but the sprites came out amazing, each of them really capturing the characters. I especially loved Fleet and Logan’s, they were very fun and expressive. One detail the sprites did differently was that, for Fleet, her wings ended up being completely blue and coming out from her back, separate from the arm wings her design was drawn with by both me and Frostdrop1. I assume this was simply easier to convey in the sprite:
However, her wings would become one of the inconsistent aspects of her design. Notably, in the cover art for “Return to Iron Lock”, illustrated by Ink Pants, she was given her arm wings, and in the cover art for “Past, Present, & Future”, she similarly had arm wings, although now with even her hands being replaced by small feathers.
Eventually, we realized we desperately needed some character portraits for the characters, especially with episode 4 coming up which would feature a playable Logan. AmeixaRoxa would end up doing the character portrait for her, which ended up looking very good:
JayFoxFire also provided some portrait WIPs for Fleet and Ivan, the former of which I really liked.
Amexia would additionally provide some additional takes on Ivan’s possible portrait, along with a slight redesign for Fleet. The former turned out very good! Though for Fleet, while we thought it was a good alternate take on her design, we ended up feeling it felt like too much of a drastic redesign too late into the game.
Story wise, again, I won't get too deep into spoilers, but originally, Logan was not only gonna be the only teenager of the group, but also the only one to have “redeeming” qualities. Me and Reggie started fleshing out the story more, and developed Logan's story and development a lot, really highlighting the development, thanks in big part to her relationship with Rotor, which went from a simple friendship to a slightly more romantic bond. This was developed very heavily in the episode “Gearhead”, and while in hindsight I would like to overhaul that episode for a potential director’s cut of the game, I feel Logan’s development is still very strong even in the currently released version of the episode.
But again, she was gonna be the only one of the Rebellion to really change and grow, the rest were gonna be pretty overly villainous and heartless throughout the entire game.
You can actually still see a little bit of this in the third episode, with Fleet referring to the Freedom Fighters as younger and less experienced, implying she and the others, aside from Logan, are older. Her and Ivan's height were also made taller from the other characters for this reason too, to show they were visibly adults.
However, while writing dialogue for this episode, we ended up adding a section where, if Sally goes to her bed and falls asleep, she'd wake up later at night. Because of this, we added a ton of interactions to this section of the game, and one of those ended up being Ivan and Fleet in their hut.
While thinking and writing up possible dialogue sections, two things happened. One, I created a section where the two fight over who gets what bed, acting a bit immature, and moreso like a brother and sister. And two, I added a bit that shows how Fleet actually does really care about Logan and is protective of her like a big sister.
I ended up loving this little scene so much that it led to me completely overhauling all of my plans for the Rebellion as characters.
The idea came that we could further parallel the Freedom Fighters with the Rebellion… not just with the characters having superficial similarities, but in how they compare as families.
The Freedom Fighters in many ways are a bit of a family unit. Sonic and Sally are basically parenting Tails, with Bunnie acting as an aunt, Rotor acting as a wiser and more mature older brother to the entire team, and Antoine… well, Antoine is Antoine lol. So, we wanted to parallel this with the Rebellion.
Ivan and Fleet, while still being older than Logan, were both made only a tad bit older than her, and specifically, they viewed each other as family and genuinely cared about each other.
We always had plans for Logan to have a tragic backstory for how she was found, but that ended up spreading to the other characters as well. Leon found Ivan, then Fleet, and then Logan, in the wreckage of their homes either after the great war, or after Robotnik took over. Leon was basically their father, with them being his adopted children which he has hardened and trained into his own soldiers. They all come from a similarly terrible place, and because of that, the three of them share a bond. And while the shot itself was cut from the most recent episode, I wrote that both Ivan and Fleet found Logan when she was younger, locked in one of Robotnik's cells, and comforted her and saved her, with them falling in love with her as a younger sister, which was also meant to parallel how Sonic found Tails. Hopefully the scene can be restored in either a directors cut of an episode, or possibly in one of the final three episodes.
Basically, Ivan and Fleet went from fully evil and irredeemable people to very loving and caring siblings, even if they often act like jerks.
Because of this, lots of ideas from the original outline which further cemented how terrible they were were dropped, and instead, I felt we now needed to really add in some redeeming moments to these characters.
Episode 5 ended up being the perfect opportunity for this. Originally I wanted to have playable levels with Sonic, Sally, Ivan, and Fleet, but due to time crunch for SAGE (which we didn't even make so whoops lol), the sections were instead turned into cutscenes.
I really wanted to show Fleet and Ivan really showing their carelessness and jackass-tendencies, with them only going to help find Tails because Logan asked them to, once again showing how they care for her enough to even defy Leon, and then barely even trying when they get to Boulder Bay, to the point where even Sonic gets frustrated. This culminates in them throwing a bomb to destroy a horde of Swatbots, not thinking about how it potentially could've killed Tails. Me and Reggie actually went back and forth on this scene, because he felt it was maybe a bit too dark, but I felt it was really important, so pushed for its inclusion. Having Sonic snap, talking almost like Sally, because his little brother could've been killed felt like such a powerful moment for Sonic, showing how much he cares for Tails, even giving Fleet and Ivan pause, before he runs off angrily.
This eventually leads to them finding him staring off in a cave, where we learn about how Sonic and Tails first met. I always wanted to write this scene, cause I felt it was so strange we never saw this in the actual show. Him describing how Tails was all alone, how everything was taken from him, just like himself, and how Sonic cheered him up by offering him to take him home and be his brother, was not only very heartwarming on its own, but also was very important for Fleet and Ivan to hear… because as mentioned, they felt the same about Logan, and leads to them realizing they should actually really try to help.
This was the last scene I originally wrote for Ivan and Fleet. I mainly focused on these while Reggie focused on the Tails, Baby T, and B storyline stuff. But he offered to let me do a final pass on the ending scene/epilogue.
Originally, after Tails made his wish, it simply cut to later, with Sally reading Tails the final part of the story.
But I felt this ending was missing something… while it did complete Tails' story, it did not complete or finish the story of Ivan and Fleet. Even if they say they want to help, it feels hollow when they didn't actually do anything.
So, I wrote a rewrite draft where after making the wish, Tails was injured by using the Light of Mobius, left unconscious in the cave, with the others having no idea what to do. Fleet would then come up with the idea for Sonic to use his power ring to heal him, using B as a conduit to transfer the power to him, healing him in the process.
But Reggie shot this down since it felt a bit tacked on, and more importantly, Fleet and Ivan weren't really the ones to save Tails, it was Sonic and B. All they did was Ivan setting him on a stone and Fleet coming up with a plan. In retrospect, he was definitely right.
But I still really felt them having a redemption moment was important, so, I came up with the final idea… specifically, Fleet reveals herself to actually be the Rebellions medic, with her using his medical knowledge to determine he's not only still alive, but also to help heal him, with Ivan eagerly helping by carrying Tails off to a place where Fleet can get to doctoring.
Fleet being a medic was never the plan originally, but it seemed like such an obvious and good idea. It explains her role in the Rebellion outside of just being their air taxi, and it makes sense that when it's mainly always just the four of them, of course one of their team would be a medic for when they got hurt. It also shows there's a lot more to Fleet than originally thought, showing she's not just a snarky speed obsessed bird gal, but also a very intelligent and skilled medic. Much like the other three members, she had a very important role on the team.
It also completed both of their arcs. They originally only took the mission because Logan asked them, and even then, they didn't care. They didn't care about anyone except themselves… but this shows them doing something for someone else, not because they were asked to or because they benefited from it, but because it was simply the right thing to do, and they couldn't let a kid die when they had a chance to help.
This was the last scene I originally wrote for Ivan and Fleet. I mainly focused on these while Reggie focused on the Tails, Baby T, and B storyline stuff. But he offered to let me do a final pass on the ending scene/epilogue.
Originally, after Tails made his wish, it simply cut to later, with Sally reading Tails the final part of the story.
But I felt this ending was missing something… while it did complete Tails' story, it did not complete or finish the story of Ivan and Fleet. Even if they say they want to help, it feels hollow when they didn't actually do anything.
So, I wrote a rewrite draft where after making the wish, Tails was injured by using the Light of Mobius, left unconscious in the cave, with the others having no idea what to do. Fleet would then come up with the idea for Sonic to use his power ring to heal him, using B as a conduit to transfer the power to him, healing him in the process.
But Reggie shot this down since it felt a bit tacked on, and more importantly, Fleet and Ivan weren't really the ones to save Tails, it was Sonic and B. All they did was Ivan setting him on a stone and Fleet coming up with a plan. In retrospect, he was definitely right.
But I still really felt them having a redemption moment was important, so, I came up with the final idea… specifically, Fleet reveals herself to actually be the Rebellions medic, with her using his medical knowledge to determine he's not only still alive, but also to help heal him, with Ivan eagerly helping by carrying Tails off to a place where Fleet can get to doctoring.
Fleet being a medic was never the plan originally, but it seemed like such an obvious and good idea. It explains her role in the Rebellion outside of just being their air taxi, and it makes sense that when it's mainly always just the four of them, of course one of their team would be a medic for when they got hurt. It also shows there's a lot more to Fleet than originally thought, showing she's not just a snarky speed obsessed bird gal, but also a very intelligent and skilled medic. Much like the other three members, she had a very important role on the team.
It also completed both of their arcs. They originally only took the mission because Logan asked them, and even then, they didn't care. They didn't care about anyone except themselves… but this shows them doing something for someone else, not because they were asked to or because they benefited from it, but because it was simply the right thing to do, and they couldn't let a kid die when they had a chance to help.
This also led to some nice development between both her and Sonic, with them both apologizing for what they both said previously, but with Fleet saying he had nothing to apologize for.
This of course leads to them interacting with Leon again, scolding them for disobeying him, and hinting that they some ulterior motives for being there… but in the end, they still protect Logan, even when it leads to Leon losing a dash of respect for them, and it ends with them going on to hug Logan, as a family, paralleling not only the end of the story Sally reads, but also paralleling when Sonic first met Tails.
Again, this was never the original plan. But as I've worked on Sonic Satam RPG, I've realized that your initial ideas aren't always your best ideas. We've picked at that original 50 page outline I made, ripping out huge sections, expanding other sections, and have been creating all new stuff, and almost always for the best.
The Rebellion have become so much more since their creation. From only a very loose idea in Reggie's head, to a broken, yet still loving family, I love how the Rebellion have developed so far and changed throughout our time working on the game… and I look forward to the rest of you seeing how their story progresses in the future!
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