Ten years after the failed Solaris Project, the villainous scientist Dr. Iblis was bound to the soul of Princess Elise through a Chaos Emerald and Mephiles was contained within a relic called the Scepter of Darkness. Before the two sinister forces could threaten anyone, they were both sealed away. The experiment ended in disaster and the minuscule flame that was Solaris erupted, creating two separate beings: Iblis the Flames of Disaster, and Mephiles the Dark. Ten years before the events of Sonic '06, the Duke of the kingdom of Soleanna headed the Solaris Project, an experiment into temporal manipulation through the study of the super-dimensional phenomenon known as the Flame of Hope, or Solaris as it was otherwise known.
