I love Silver the Hedgehog as a character(notably his 06 counterpart, not really his idw character unfortunately) and I think that’s kinda obvious because of my love for Dragon Ball and Trunks, but MAN does Sega screw his story up.
Like, they took a lot from Trunks in DBZ, and that’s fine, I love the idea of Trunks as a character, but they literally left out the most important plot line that keeps Trunks’ story from being paradoxical: he’s from another timeline. That’s why the cell saga is still able to make logical sense most of the time (at least, compared to 06 and other games/comics with Silver). But Sega just kinda dropped this part.
Maybe they didn’t want to just blatantly copy DBZ? If that was the reason, I’d get it, but Trunks’ being from another timeline literally avoids SO many problems DBZ could have had with time travel (that Sonic still NOTABLY has).
Like, is Silver’s world just in a perpetual ever changing apocalypse? He’s come back at least twice in the main continuity because of big apocalyptic reasons. Does that mean after his world was saved after forces, it just immediately switched to being in the Eggman (and later metal virus) apocalypse? Time is linear. It’s not like his world grows alongside Sonic’s. If something happens in the main continuity, then it has already happened for Silver’s world. So is his world just always on the brink of death? Idk if this is understandable but I tried my best lol. Other people have explained it better than me.
They’re all just very confusing plot points that can be easily fixed by “When he goes back in time he goes to another timeline” OR “Silver just never tells people why he came to the past or what the future is like so nothing is spoiled and the timeline isn’t broken”