Solaris

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This article deals with the transcendental life form and final boss of Sonic '06, known as "Solaris", or the Flame of Hope. For details about the scientific research programme conducted by the city-state of Soleanna in an effort to harness Solaris' power, please see The Solaris Project

Solaris is the most powerful beings to appear in the (canon) series so far as it took three Super Hedgehogs to defeat him. Even then they couldn't actually destroy Solaris (as Solaris by this point is effectively omnipotent and immortal) so ultimately they did the next best thing: they destroyed his core which leaves him alive but powerless (as he can't control his body). Solaris was a god of time and the super-dimensional sun god of Soleanna seen in Sonic the Hedgehog, who also looks similar to Perfect Chaos. Solaris initially existed as a flame which was worshiped by the citizens of Soleanna. The Duke of Soleanna led the Solaris Project experiments in the hopes of using its time control powers to allow humanity to correct its past sins (and also to allow himself and his young daughter, Princess Elise, to see Elise's deceased mother once again). However, during one such experiment Solaris became unstable and split into two forms - Iblis, the raw power, and Mephiles, the conscious mind. Mephiles was sealed into an artifact known as the "Scepter of Darkness" whilst the Duke was forced to seal Iblis inside of Elise's soul. Before dying from wounds caused by the accident, he told his daughter to grow up to be a strong queen who would never cry as doing so would destroy the seal on Iblis.

After killing Sonic, Mephiles was quick to rejoin with his counterpart, once again forming their complete form of Solaris. Plunging the world into darkness he prepared to devour time itself. Before he could achieve this, he was defeated by a combined assault from Super Sonic, Super Shadow and Super Silver. His defeat spirited Elise and Sonic back to before the fateful experiment. After some contemplation, Elise chose to blow out the tiny flame that would become Solaris and thus change history by erasing his corporeal form from existence.

During the battle with the three super form hedgehogs, Solaris attacked shooting out meteors and firing a large laser that can hit its enemies from any distance. He increases the number of meteors and laser he fires in his second form (he can fire out 6-14 lasers). Solaris is one of the few bosses in the series whose attacks take rings away from Super Form characters, and the only boss that doesn't use different attacks when it changes to a different form. Another power Solaris has is during the "End of the World" level (where the characters are trying to revive Sonic) is to create massive orb-like "eyes" that suck in anything around them, including enemies the characters encounter. Touching the eye results in instant death, regardless of rings or even an invincibility power-up. He also has red eyes that he uses to hurl objects at his enemies. To top it off he has an almost impenetrable shield that can only be bypassed by certain attacks at certain times.

[edit] Trivia

• Solaris is the second boss who can do any actual damage to a super form. Each of his attacks cost Sonic, Shadow, and Silver 10 rings.
• Solaris, at least in its second form, looks remarkably like part of the crest of Hyrule from the Legend of Zelda series.
• Mephiles and Iblis are the pieces to Solaris, who is a sun god. That technically doesn't make sense because Mephiles' name and one of his signature abilities are based on Mephistopheles and Legion, respectively (who are demons) and Iblis' name comes from the Arabic Quran and is the name of Satan. Both names have something to do with Satan, Hell, or demons. This could potentially be a reference to the Aztec sun god, who apparently needed human blood to rise every day. (In other words, the reason why the Aztecs engaged in human sacrifice)
• After Elise blew out the flame and time rebooted, they were still celebrating the Festival of Sun which is a a festival celebrating Solaris, who was erased from the timeline by Elise (However, that could be easily explained as the flame of Solaris was actually a "host" of sorts for Solaris and not Solaris itself, which would make sense, as if one tries to take Solaris as literally just being a flame, then he would be almost 30 years old at the time of the Solaris project, which is not enough to make it an eternal sun-god).
• When Elise blows out the flame and time resets, the Solaris Project ceased to exists, so Elise's father wouldn't have died and would've been at the Festival of the Sun (Though there's also the chance that he may have died of natural causes).
• Solaris is the first final boss to take three Super Form Hedgehogs to defeat, and there has yet to be another boss to be as powerful. The closest Final Boss to match Solaris' power is Dark Gaia as it took Super Sonic and Gaia Colossus to beat Dark Gaia. On the other hand, though less powerful obviously by canon, Metal Overlord took a total of 12 characters, 3 super (though not all Hedgehogs,) to defeat.