I actually base it more off of the other tech available in the setting, specifically the PC and warp tiles. The fact that mons and items are stored in a computer implies that they are capable of being converted to/from data, while the warp tiles have me thinking of the Star Trek transporter, which also used energy conversion.
-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
-
Congrats to the winners of the 2023 Smog Awards!
SPOILERS! Mysteries and Conspiracies of Pokemon
- Thread starter stage7_4
- Start date
To be fair as of gen 3 they do have the red/white light thing going on as well. The anime probably did do the light thing because its easier to animate, though, and then it just stuck.
I'd say its probably meant as an abstraction of the process but considering this series that is probably also literal, and the light is literally an innate Pokemon's power to change shape. The light is generally accompanied by the Pokemon growing/shrinking out of/into the ball.
I'd say its probably meant as an abstraction of the process but considering this series that is probably also literal, and the light is literally an innate Pokemon's power to change shape. The light is generally accompanied by the Pokemon growing/shrinking out of/into the ball.
It's silly cause they keep using wishy-washy language. "Theorized". "Think". "Believed". Nothing concrete, if they say anything definite they have to then mention the source is vague. And the main is they keep emphasizing it. The Galarian Birds aren't treated as their own trio, they're treated as a mystery connected to the Legendary Birds. "Why do they look different"? "Are they a variant or just happen to look alike"? Meanwhile their opening cutscene shows them eating the fruit of a tree which has relation to the Dynamax phenomenon. Um, why not explore that side of the mystery? The tree seems pretty odd, and the fact that it grows fruit which seems to be able to alter a Pokemon's being upon eating it I think would yield some answers about the birds if we had focused the mystery on it. But no, instead it's just used as a set piece and then a joke Dynamax battle.
The main problem is pretty much a problem the Legendary Pokemon have been having recently: special status. The reason scientists can't definitely confirm whether the Legendary Birds and Galarian Birds are related is because they can't get their hands on any. They're ~Legendary~ Pokemon, not just anyone can catch them. Now please ignore all the trainers who in the past have caught one, especially the NPCs. Their Battle Facility teams don't exist in canon, why would you think it does? And even if a NPC is definitely shown having a Legendary, well I guess science is just not interested in examining that Legendary at the moment. Or we got to keep it a secret. Like it's one thing if the Legendary doesn't want to be examined, like I imagine the Island Guardians to be a bit fickle and not want to be bothered, but as long as you're not hurting them I think most Legendaries under a trainer's control would be "yeah, sure, whatever".
If we go by that pre-release booklet for Gen I, it was originally thought that the Pokemon just shrank when they went into a Poke Ball. Back in Gen I the only thing we saw in the games was puffs of smoke when a Poke Ball is thrown (whether to capture or releasing a Pokemon) and the Pokemon sliding off screen in a certain direction otherwise (sliding to the side if recalled or down if knocked out). As Karxrida pointed out, it was this explanation that was used in the Adventure and other Pokemon Manga at that time.
In comes the anime, and while showing a Pokemon changing size isn't impossible, it would be more costly. So instead, being the Pokemon World is more hi-tech, they took the shortcut that the Pokemon aren't changing size but rather being converted into energy. Now all they need to do to show a Pokemon being put into its Poke Ball is a red line from the Poke Ball and the last frame of the Pokemon just turning into a red silhouette before vanishing. Simple, cost effective, and in my opinion much better of an idea. (FUN FACT: This is pretty much the reason Star Trek has transporters, cheaper to just do a fade in & out effect than making a shuttle craft model fly to and from the starship/planet/space thing)
Shrinking/Enlarging to the extent they would need to with a Poke Ball would also be an example of advance technology. If they stuck to the Pokemon changing size thing the PC and Teleporters could easily be explained away. For the Transporters it's only a momentary transfer done at the speed of light, and it could also not be mass-to-energy but a bending/folding of space which only looks like a flash of light. The PC actually connects to a physical storage system somewhere and Poke Balls are just being transported to and from it, likely having automated systems to make sure things are orderly.
Heck, the anime that seemingly how PC storage works. Professor Oak stores all Kanto trainers Pokemon in his lab (he at least has all of Ash's and Gary's) and Pokemon Centers keep Poke Balls physically on shelves until their trainers come and pick them up.
QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
Because the other trainers in the Battle Facilities are top-level trainers, equally or moreso skilled than the player at Champion level. There's no reason that they wouldn't be able to meet and capture legendaries, especially in light of things like Latias' dex entry referring to it living in "herds".
And when facility bosses canonically use legendaries, there's even less reason to say that minor NPCs can't or wouldn't. One NPC outside the World Tournament building in B2W2 makes reference to using Lunar Dance in battle "on rare occasions" which might be just as simple as her occasionally using it via Sketch or Metronome but in context seems more like a wink to the audience to say "yep, I have a Cresselia." Steven is shown to have some sort of friendship/affinity with the Lati species in ORAS. Less serious examples include an NPC in Alola who exclaims that he just got a Mewtwo via a Wonder Trade, though this one is more Rule of Funny than anything else (and I guess also clues the player in that they can trade legendaries if they so choose).
As for why scientists don't know about the bird trio - it's inconsistent, but in their debut generation legendaries are often afforded an air of mystery and uniqueness. None of the Alola legendaries are used in the Battle Tree; Uxie, Mesprit, and Azelf aren't used in the Gen IV Frontier or Subway; the Johto trio aren't used in the Battle Tower in Gen II. The story they wanted to tell around the bird trio is that they're unknown; if they're included in future generations, they might be less fabled.
But why do you assume this is the case for all legendaries? In the case of the Regi species, for example, it's pretty much confirmed that they have been studied:
Regirock
Regirock's body is composed entirely of rocks. Recently, a study made the startling discovery that the rocks were all unearthed from different locations. (Sapphire dex entry)
It is entirely composed of rocks with no sign of a brain or heart. It is a mystery even to modern scientists. (FRLG dex entry)
Regice
Its entire body is made of Antarctic ice. After extensive studies, researchers believe the ice was formed during an ice age. (Emerald dex entry)
Having a legendary isn't something you'd expect most people (particularly serious trainers) to shout loudly about, but Drayden's comment in Gen V that "if a Pokemon didn't want to be with a human, it would simply leave" cause me to think that in the event that a legendary Pokemon partners with a human it's pretty much at the Pokemon's discretion, as in the case of Noland and Articuno in the anime. The fact that in-game they're part of your team like any other is just gameplay and story segregation. So it is perfectly plausible to me that many legendaries simply do not want to be studied and that anyone who pushed their luck too much by trying would find themselves very quickly abandoned.
And research almost certainly is ongoing on some of them, but research is slow. Think how little progress gets made even on topics we know a lot about. If the Galarian bird trio are a relatively recent sight (even if "recent" here means the last 40 or 50 years) then yes, it's plausible that little would still be known beyond the observations and stories that typify legendaries.
The real takeaway from this is that Antarctica apparently exists in Pokémon. (Also, today I learned that the "Regirock has no organs" entry that TheJWittz reacted to in his Crown Tundra video was recycled.)
Also I think it is pretty reasonable to just sort of ignore most of the player captures and stuff like battle facilities as quasi-non-canon
Shoutouts to Laventon, the one professor probably canonically get to research every single legend in Hisui with little to no questions asked.
Complete aside here, but when is the last time Pokeballs were depicted as being able to shrink for storage purposes. Then anime used to do it all the time, but I had a small realization that they just don't do that any more. And then started to think how the games generally don't show them shrinking ever, always showing them at about full size. I wonder when that got retired in the anime?
Shoutouts to Laventon, the one professor probably canonically get to research every single legend in Hisui with little to no questions asked.
The information in the entry isn't new, as shown above, but the entry itself is unique.
Complete aside here, but when is the last time Pokeballs were depicted as being able to shrink for storage purposes. Then anime used to do it all the time, but I had a small realization that they just don't do that any more. And then started to think how the games generally don't show them shrinking ever, always showing them at about full size. I wonder when that got retired in the anime?
QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
Well yeah, the Pokemon world is Earth. As evidenced by the symmetry of referenced historical events like the Iron Age and the moon landing.
It's just that on this version of Earth France is called Kalos, Britain is called Galar, and the USA may or may not exist but the states within it we know better as Hawaii and Arizona are called Alola and Orre. Real-world locations referenced have been replaced or updated with their Pokemon world counterparts as time has gone on: an explicit reference to Mt Everest in early instalments was changed to "the world's highest mountain" in the remake. In the unlikely event that we get a Pokemon game set in a region based off of China or Nepal the Everest equivalent will most probably be renamed something different, much in the same way as Mt Fuji's in-universe equivalent is Mt Silver or the Isle of Man is called the Isle of Armour.
You have probably seen my SWSH Dex Entry Flow Chart posted several times now, the fruit of a lot of misplaced, still-ongoing labor.
Said ongoing labor has dug in and done all the Paldea Pokedex pokemon and the reason I'm posting about it here can best be described as another flow chart
This is full of such bizarre decisions:
I don't think you can even blame this on development issues, which is just a crutch to lean on, since by & large the weirdness is contained to Gens 2 & 5. If there were scattered new entries in all gens 1-5 (Shellos excluded, it has a reason even if like basculin it could have reused entries from the Alola games), that'd be one thing, but...nope!
At least with Lapras in SWSH, it was effectively an isolated case, so I could float the theory of "scrapped regional form". Can't do that here, not really; there's way too many cases!
Something to chew on, I guess!
Said ongoing labor has dug in and done all the Paldea Pokedex pokemon and the reason I'm posting about it here can best be described as another flow chart
This is full of such bizarre decisions:
- Alright so first of all, most forms aren't actually viewable in the Paldea Pokedex. The most glaring examples are Galarian Meowth & Johto Wooper, since those are AVAILABLE in the game as it is. But you might write that off as wanting consistency with Perrserker & Quagsire not getting entries. But this reasoning doesn't explain why all the regional other forms are in the same boat! EXCEPT for original Tauros, who reuses an old entry. ALSO? Cap Pikachu got new entries.
- If you start digging across generations at Pokemon who didn't get new entries, you might spy a lot of Hisui Form pokemon. That's weird in its own right, but would be consistent, except Qwilfish got a new entry?? Basculin is also odd; you can blame it on always being one form or the other (likely why the Shellos & Deerling lines have new entries, for the record), but USUM has entries it can reuse right there for just this situation.
- Likewise you'll notice that Girafarig, Stantler, the Teddiursa line, Pawniard lines got new entries probably since those all got new evolutions in LA or now, but then there's the glaring exceptions of Dunsparce, the Mankey line and Scyther.
- Putting those aside, there's still random Pokemon in gen 2 & 5 who did & didn't get new ones. Why did the Gothita line get new entries, but not the Tynamo line? Why did the Hoppip line get new entries, but not the Mareep line?
- Spoink needs a quick lead up: Since Leaf Green there's been a habit of occasionally bringing back an old entry and slightly tweaking it. Just a little bit most of the time, like to add a "the" or an "a" or replace a word with a similar word. For example Combee's HGSS entry says "honey" but the SV entry says "nectar" but is otherwise unchanged; it's clearly the same one.
Spoinks' Scarlet entry is this: Spoink will die if it stops bouncing. The pearl on its head amplifies its psychic powers.
Spoinks' FRLG entry is this: It apparently dies if it stops bouncing about. It carries a pearl from Clamperl on its head.
It's the same information, presented similarly, but it's so rewritten (presumably to work around the Clamperl) you have to wonder why they didnt just use the DP entry. For the record, the violet entry is just from BW2.
I don't think you can even blame this on development issues, which is just a crutch to lean on, since by & large the weirdness is contained to Gens 2 & 5. If there were scattered new entries in all gens 1-5 (Shellos excluded, it has a reason even if like basculin it could have reused entries from the Alola games), that'd be one thing, but...nope!
At least with Lapras in SWSH, it was effectively an isolated case, so I could float the theory of "scrapped regional form". Can't do that here, not really; there's way too many cases!
Something to chew on, I guess!
So coming back to this real quick
I was messing around with the Garchomp that flies around the crater of paldea and...this thing has entirely unique battle animations just for its flight mode, that you will only ever see if you seek out the flying Garchomp to fight.
I thought that, since it can't be used with the unique animation while on water (other Pokemon, such as Jigglypuff, can), that maybe it just landed then went into battle mode but no it has animations for getting hit and doing attacks and everything.
Then I noticed that, when you first send it out over water it starts in the flight mode, just for a second, and then transitions to the floatie.
How bizarre
Um wait where I can find this flying Garchomp?
I need.... proof of footage
Edit: okay here's the photo I found
But I don't know which area it resides
It's literally on the crater's edges, it's also where you can find Magnezone flying around. I think I found it around East Province, but it also might just be a random spawn?
XY003, when James catches Inkay:
If I had to guess, since this isn't a thing in the games (and something hard to replicate with merchandise), they probably started downplaying the shrinking/growing by just not showing it. It's still a thing, and if like with the Inkay catch scene they keep the trainer's body on full screen they'll show them taking the small ball off the belt and growing it, but otherwise happens off screen and we just skip to the trainer holding the full size ball. Why all instances of Poke Balls are full size could be explained away in several ways: it puts less stress on the Pokemon in the ball, full size is the default and shrinking is only a short term thing if carrying it around on a belt or harness for that size, trainers just prefer keeping the ball full size to show respect for their Pokemon, etc..
We sort of have cases of this:
- Raichu's dex entry used to say it was able to knock out an Indian Elephant with its shock, Legends: Arceus than had Laventon say Raichu's shock is strong enough to knock out a Copperajah.
- Lt. Surge's original title was "The Lightning American". This was before Gen V. In the next game where his title would be seen, Let's Go, it was changed to "The Lightning Lieutenant". Also someone in BW2's Pokemon World Tournament wonders if Lt. Surge is from Unova.
Yeah, something similar happened with me, but with Charizard. I decided to try it out in the Cinderace Tera Raid, when the battle started it was standing on the ground. Cinderace than knocks it out, and the next time I sent it out it was suddenly flying and fighting while flying! Is there something which determines this?
For a while, I've theorised that the reason why Gardevoir et al weren't in the human-like egg group until gen 8 is because they're made of Pure Ethereal Grace, whereas the human-likes are more fleshy, but Jynx being in it from the start kind of contradicts that. (Its N64 fainting animation shows it collapsing into itself like its "skin" is a void.) Either way, I'm almost certain they made all the egg group changes they did in gen 8 because people complained about them enough for The Pokémon Company's forum-skimming interns to notice... though that begs the question as to why they didn't retcon Nidorina/queen being unable to breed, since it's not like they've stuck with everything else from the 1996 guidebook.
I assume the ball size thing isn't in the games (or most materials) just because they were meant to effectively be capsules. The anime probably came up with it just as a matter of "we need to store these somewhere, probably". And that button is so tantalizing to press and have it do something so they might've liked it for aesthetic animation reasons.
With Charizard I'm guessing it as just a glitch, since I don't think Pokemon normally switch between their animations like that in battle.
Until know I didn't even know they redid any of the egg groups in Gen 8. There could be other reasons why, maybe concerns about breeding in a limited dex who knows, but there's only a handful of lines that got the change (Bergmite, Ralts, Trapinch, Hawlucha) and all of them are base game. The Nidorans probably didn't get changed because they were DLC and whatever ideas/reasons they had for the original changes were probably not on their mind with the new batch.
Breeding mechanics are needlessly obscure. I remember the first Bulbapedia page I ever read was the one for the Field egg group because someone linked to it on a forum, and it blew my mind.
agree w this. every pokemon should be able to fuck every other pokemon and i'm not joking!!!
At the very least something the Pokedex should tell you which I don't think it does. Though it should also be something you're also alerted to when you put a Pokemon is a Daycare/Nursery or now have a picnic:
They do, they just don't produce Eggs if not in the same Egg Group and it's not a male/female pairing or one of the parents is a Ditto.
I don't think a single game gives one iota of a whiff of a hint as to how breeding works outside of "male + female = baby", let alone the benefits of using it. This is compounded by the obfuscation of the DV/IV system, so the whole thing seems like bloat to pad out Dex completion unless you go digging into the nitty gritty.
I think Game Freak was trying to lean into the social interaction aspect that made the franchise explode into popularity by withholding the information, meaning players would need to test and talk to each other to discover how breeding works. But I cannot fathom why they thought it was a good idea when literal spreadsheets need to be made to track all this stuff. I'm pretty sure a ton of people only found out about egg groups and moves via guide books.
QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
The problem with this, especially really early on before the Internet was fully a thing (I'm talking Gen I and II here and early Gen III) is that you also got all manner of nonsense rumours and fake information, like Mew being under the truck or Bill's secret garden or there being special button combinations that would guarantee capture if done at the right moment.
And so much actual legit stuff got lost in that babble. I knew that Mew existed in the games and so obviously you somehow could get it, but it was a long time before I discovered that the truck rumour wasn't actually true. If you'd told me about the actual Mew Glitch I'd have had no clue whether you were making it up or not. Yes there was deliberate fakery but I remember some of my friends who played Pokemon at the time arguing completely sincerely that no, Mewthree was real or that Pikablu did exist because they'd heard about it and fully believed it.
Even on the actual websites that existed at the time, so much of the information was garbled and confused and many sites did list information that was plain untrue. (Anyone remember GameWinners.com? It's gone now but I used to visit it a lot back in the day.)
Now, was this completely a bad thing? I'd say no. The excitement and the mystery around the early games is something absolutely unimaginable now because hackers can strip down the code of any new release and any confusing mechanics like evolving Galarian Yamask will be figured out and exposed in detail within about 48 hours. There are whole communities dedicated to working out the precise mechanics of the Safari Zone or Mantine Surfing who can tell you for certain "this is how you maximise your points" rather than your friend telling you the method that worked for him one time when catching a Chansey. When you consider just how complex many aspects of the earlier games were, it's ludicrous that anyone could figure it out without the resource we enjoy today. But just look at how many things are still getting discovered for the first time in the older games, even now.
For a more Watsonian take, breeding (at least the system we interact with in-game with Eggs and the Day Care) is a relatively new phenomenon, given that the egg Mr. Pokemon discovers in GSC is a revolutionary development. You could chalk this up to awkward lore implementation of a new mechanic, but taken textually + all other flavor text for Eggs + the absence of eggs and breeding in PLA, I think it’s safe to say that breeding is A. a relatively new and poorly-understood phenomenon in-world and B. something different, but not entirely distinct from, reproduction in the wild.
With that in mind, the obtuseness of breeding makes a bit more sense - but only a bit. Like previously discussed, it was definitely in part to promote conversation and/or sell guidebooks, but it’s justified in-world by breeding being uncharted territory as far as in-world science goes. Given the flavor text in X and Y about eggs being more akin to cradles than actual eggs, there’s even more evidence that breeding in captivity and reproduction in the wild are very distinct phenomenons.
With that in mind, the obtuseness of breeding makes a bit more sense - but only a bit. Like previously discussed, it was definitely in part to promote conversation and/or sell guidebooks, but it’s justified in-world by breeding being uncharted territory as far as in-world science goes. Given the flavor text in X and Y about eggs being more akin to cradles than actual eggs, there’s even more evidence that breeding in captivity and reproduction in the wild are very distinct phenomenons.
Last edited:
Honestly it is odd that despite all the attempts at disclosure of mechanics (while still retaining some abstraction) over the years, they don't ever like..talk about egg groups to what I can recall. Like even abstractly? Like going "oh you know water types tend to be able to produce eggs with each other but not with bugs" or whatever. It feels like it'd be easy to just talk about it even if they really didn't want them listed somewhere.
Guidebook quip aside it genuinely feels like a blind spot they don't really consider because it's so ingrained in the fan consciousness. Which is saying something when SV is out here giving exact numeric values for Shiny encounters, damage multipliers, and even the masuda method!
I think the only Pokemon games that do anything with this are Pokemon Stadium 2 and Pokedex 3D. Even Pokemon Home doesn't do this even though the Mobile version is meant to emulate a Pokedex.
Guidebook quip aside it genuinely feels like a blind spot they don't really consider because it's so ingrained in the fan consciousness. Which is saying something when SV is out here giving exact numeric values for Shiny encounters, damage multipliers, and even the masuda method!
I think the only Pokemon games that do anything with this are Pokemon Stadium 2 and Pokedex 3D. Even Pokemon Home doesn't do this even though the Mobile version is meant to emulate a Pokedex.
