Then, according to legend, a god of the skies came from the heavens, brought back to life part of this civilization, and placed the Master Emerald, along with the land around it, into the sky, forming what we now know as Angel Island. And by no means was this a small amount of land. With over 12 zones, Angel Island is HUGE. It houses all of the traditional animals (minus Picky), as well as a wide variety of interesting areas to explore, none of which are known better than Knuckles the Echidna, the last known remnant of the ancient race, and self-proclaimed guardian of the island, and the Master Emerald.

Though the Master Emerald keeps the island afloat, it has been forced into the ocean before when it served as the crash site for Eggman's Death Egg. The Master Emerald also cannot seem to keep the island up when it is in contact with the 7 Chaos Emeralds...

The worlds first Benoulli spherical space-colony Ark was built many years ago, housing some of the worlds finest minds who travelled into space to the most advanced research centre of its kind. One of these was Professor Gerald and his granddaughter, Maria. He made contact with the Black Comet and with Black Dooms help created the Ultimate Life Form; Shadow. However, not trusting Black Doom he also began construction of a powerful weapon; the Eclipse Cannon.

Unfortunately due to the Professors work G.U.N. stormed the space colony, killing whoever they couldn’t capture. Maria was among the lists of the dead, a fact that drove Professor Gerald mad, programming the Space Colony to crash into earth. He left the Biolizard, the prototype ultimate life form to make sure this happened and programmed Shadow to take the Chaos Emeralds there.

Shadow realised that his mind had been tampered with and with Sonic stopped it from crashing into the planet. The ARK was saved and when the Black Arms invaded Shadow returned to it to take control of the Eclipse Cannon. With it he opened fire on the Black Comet and destroyed them forever.

Perhaps the strangest quirk about South Island is how it is constantly moving from area to area in the ocean, and thus can never appear on any map of the world. It was because of this movement that the mystical Chaos Emeralds drifted endlessly through a torison along this border of time and space. That is until Dr. Eggman discovered their secret, and attempted to obtain them by building his base, the Scrap Brain Zone, in the center of the island.

One last note would be that in Sonic & Tails, it was said that the island required the Chaos Emeralds to support its vitality, otherwise it would sink into the ocean. It's hard to say whether this is true, but because the Chaos Emeralds have long since been seperated from South Island, it can probably be disregraded.

It is said that long ago, these people used the power of 7 magical stones to build a powerful (and clearly Roman-esque) society. But of course, this power followed only in greed, and those stupid people started fighting over control of the stones. Of course, the gods (or what is said to be the gods) weren't too pleased with this, so they took these stones away from the people, and hid them where they would never be found.

Westside Island is relatively small with about 8 zones, but houses some unique animals (Locky, Wocky, Becky, Tocky, and an unidentified rat) as well as the native animals found on South Island (minus Picky. Man, I miss that little guy...). Westside Island was also the home to everyone's favorite trademark sidekick, Tails! Even with all the mystery and adventure still hiding in the island, Sonic and co. have never seemed to have decided to make a trip back there, and sadly, probably never will.