Commentary for August 22, 2019:

When I wrote the script to this chapter, I intended for Knuckles to have to fight his way out of the ARK and steal a shuttle. But then I had to ask myself, can Knuckles fly a spacecraft? Of course he can’t. (Remember when he tried to in Sonic Adventure 2 and ended up crashing it? Granted, he was fighting over the controls with Sonic and Tails, but I still doubt he has any space pilot skills.) So I had to contrive a reason why the shuttle’s autopilot had already been set for Angel Island and all he’d have to do is press “go”. I couldn’t come up with a scene that I was satisfied with, though, so I went back and revised the final pages of the chapter completely, to have this scene, in which Sora-Ya willingly allows Knuckles to leave with the Master Emerald, as a gesture of good faith that she hopes will make him rethink his assessment of the Echidna Empire so far. Moreover, as Horatio has already concluded, his research has hit a bit of a roadblock anyway, and he’ll need access to the Temple of Chaos to continue now, so it’s really no skin of his nose to let Knuckles take it back there now, is it?