SPOILERS! Mysteries and Conspiracies of Pokemon

Picking up on what Pikachu315111 said, pretty much all the transportation we see is either mass transit or freight/commercial. It stands to reason that a pokemon based society with quick flying on the nearest pidgey and perdominet pedestrian focus would only have need for either mass transit or freight.

Except the taxi system, that's needed because even pokemon get confused by Lumiose city.

Found some interesting dummied-out content while reading. It's interesting to see what get's cut because it gives a better picture of what goes through the developers' heads.

Like, did you know that there was a cut ability called Cacophony? It existed only in GenIII and was cut come GenIV despite no pokemon having it. It showed up on a pokemon card for Exploud so it's thought that it was to replace Soundproof on the Whismur line.

If hacked onto a pokemon it's identical to soundproof, but some theorize it was actually meant to have the opposite effect (powering up sound moves like Bug Buzz and Hyper Voice, like a sound version of the Iron Fist ability). But since it was cut this is all speculation. It could be that either they didn't feel there were enough attacking sound moves to deserve a boost, or that having Soundproof under a different name was just silly. Not that it stopped them with Insomnia and Vital Spirit.
Punk Rock finally came out.
 
:ss/Hatterene: :ss/Grimmsnarl:
The Hatterene and Grimmsnarl lines feel like they were suppose to be version exclusives, with Hatterene being in Shield and Grimmsnarl in Sword. They're found in similar areas (Motostoke Outskirts, Glimwood Tangle, Lake of Outrage), there's a trade in Stow-on-Side that gives the hypothetical other version exclusive, they're counterpart lines like Reuniclus and Gothithelle, who are version exclusives, and their G-Maxs were version exclusive in Wild Area events.
 

ScraftyIsTheBest

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:ss/Hatterene: :ss/Grimmsnarl:
The Hatterene and Grimmsnarl lines feel like they were suppose to be version exclusives, with Hatterene being in Shield and Grimmsnarl in Sword. They're found in similar areas (Motostoke Outskirts, Glimwood Tangle, Lake of Outrage), there's a trade in Stow-on-Side that gives the hypothetical other version exclusive, they're counterpart lines like Reuniclus and Gothithelle, who are version exclusives, and their G-Maxs were version exclusive in Wild Area events.
They're also gender-locked with Hatterene being female only and Grimmsnarl being male only, much like Mandibuzz and Braviary.

But yeah, I initially assumed these two would be version exclusive when more about them was leaked, but was surprised when I was told that they weren't.
 

Pikachu315111

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:ss/Hatterene: :ss/Grimmsnarl:
The Hatterene and Grimmsnarl lines feel like they were suppose to be version exclusives, with Hatterene being in Shield and Grimmsnarl in Sword. They're found in similar areas (Motostoke Outskirts, Glimwood Tangle, Lake of Outrage), there's a trade in Stow-on-Side that gives the hypothetical other version exclusive, they're counterpart lines like Reuniclus and Gothithelle, who are version exclusives, and their G-Maxs were version exclusive in Wild Area events.
My guess was maybe that was the intent HOWEVER they then thought of doing that funny little skit in Glimwood Tangle where you light up a mushroom and a Impidimp just saunters over to you to start a battle. It's just feels like something a Impidimp would do and not a Hatenna, but wouldn't be fair for one version to have to have both and the other only one, so they decided to just have both in the game.

"But, Game Director, if we do that then the only Gen VIII Pokemon who would be version exclusive would be Applin's evolutions which you just need the other version's apple to get, Fossil parts, Indeedee's genders, the Galarain Variants & Evolutions for Farfetch'd and Corsola, and the Wolf Hero duo. There would be no completely separate com mon families from the new generation"

Hmm... give me a list of the one-offs we're putting in. *Looks through* Cramorant no. Falinks no. Hey, the ice cube penguin and the stonehenge mon, we doing anything special with them? No? Good, make them version exclusives.

"But, Stonjourner is appearing early on Route 4 and Eiscue is appearing later on Route 9."

Find a new neutral place for them, a mountainy snow area, think the last Route we have planned is like that? Yeah, Put them on Route 10.

"Actually in the past we've had asymmetric distribution. Like in Alola we had Turtonator on Blush Mountain and Drampa on Mount Lanakila so we can keep them..."

Well that decision was made my another game director for another game. I'M the one making the decision now for THIS game and I want both version exclusives to be in the same location.

"... We could just keep the Impidimp family and Hatenna family version exclusive..."

THE SAUNTER ANIMATION ISN'T FUNNY IF IT'S NOT IMPIDIMP!... I make good and rational decisions.
 

Pikachu315111

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You know that feeling when you're just looking through the National Dex, doing some other activity, and then when looking over a Pokemon a realization comes to you:

So I never thought about where the extra loose skin on Scraggy and Scrafty came from, but it then suddenly dawn on me:

  • Scraggy: It's loose skin is the same color of the top of its head, yet the bottom jaw and it's body is a lighter yellow, which means it's loose skin was likely the covering for its body and lower jaw before peeling off (wonder why the top of its head never peeled).
  • Scrafty: With that in mind, Scrafty's "hood" was likely its old head skin and the "pants" being from the body much like Scraggy.

(And now YOU can't unsee it... unless you already did and are probably now thinking "you JUST realized that?")
 
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Their Pokédex entries (at least in Gen 5) more-or-less spell this out for us. To wit, Scraggy’s Black entry is:

“Its skin has a rubbery elasticity, so it can reduce damage by defensively pulling its skin up to its neck.”

And Scrafty’s BW2 entry is:

“It pulls up its shed skin to protect itself while it kicks. The bigger the crest, the more respected it is.”

I’m more surprised to learn that Scrafty apparently has acid spit... yet it doesn’t learn Acid or Acid Spray, and the closest we get is Sludge Bomb... via TM.My bad Scrafty has been able to learn Acid Spray since USUM... through breeding.
 

Celever

i am town
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You know that feeling when you're just looking through the National Dex, doing some other activity, and then when looking over a Pokemon a realization comes to you:

So I never thought about where the extra loose skin on Scraggy and Scrafty came from, but it then suddenly dawn on me:

  • Scraggy: It's loose skin is the same color of the top of its head, yet the bottom jaw and it's body is a lighter yellow, which means it's loose skin was likely the covering for its body and lower jaw before peeling off (wonder why the top of its head never peeled).
  • Scrafty: With that in mind, Scrafty's "hood" was likely its old head skin and the "pants" being from the body much like Scraggy.

(And now YOU can't unsee it... unless you already did and are probably now thinking "you JUST realized that?")
Yeah, Scraggy and Scrafty have always been the shining counterargument to the "Pokémon shouldn't wear clothes!!!!!" argument, because it's so well done and makes perfect sense. Lizards do shed their skin, as Tman says they even get the Shed Skin ability, and the evolution from Scraggy to Scrafty where the non-shedded skin actually gets darker and tanned from being exposed to the sunlight is great attention to detail. Plus, as you noted, they completely justified Scrafty getting the hood because it's clearly the skin that covered most of Scraggy's head before its head grew upon evolution, shedding it. Also notable is that with all of the "Pokémon shouldn't wear clothes!!!!!" hysteria that surfaces every now and again, I don't think I've ever seen Scrafty's very human mohawk criticised, probably because many lizards do have head crests and so fashioning it into a mohawk is seen as “natural enough” by fans. To my knowledge there isn’t a lizard where its head crest is a different colour to its head, but there probably is one.

The fact that it's canon that humans take fashion tips from Pokémon does make me love ruffians in the Pokémon World even more, though. The image of rebellious teenagers seeing these lizards trundling around with loose skin around their ankles and going "yoooo that's hard, let's do that too" and then sagging their pants is nothing short of hilarious. Although thinking about it, did Team Skull ever use this family? If not that's a huge missed opportunity.
Their Pokédex entries (at least in Gen 5) more-or-less spell this out for us. To wit, Scraggy’s Black entry is:

“Its skin has a rubbery elasticity, so it can reduce damage by defensively pulling its skin up to its neck.”

And Scrafty’s BW2 entry is:

“It pulls up its shed skin to protect itself while it kicks. The bigger the crest, the more respected it is.”

I’m more surprised to learn that Scrafty apparently has acid spit... yet it doesn’t learn Acid or Acid Spray, and the closest we get is Sludge Bomb... via TM.
To be fair, the Dex entry is that Scrafty has "acidic" spit, not literally "acid" spit. A lemon is acidic, but it doesn't corrode metal (Acid is called Corrosive Liquid in Japanese). It's just a reference to how hooligans spit in the streets.

In Generation XXVIII when "Spit" is introduced as a move because Game Freak ran out of other things creatures can do to fight, I'm sure Scrafty will learn it.
 
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Their Pokédex entries (at least in Gen 5) more-or-less spell this out for us. To wit, Scraggy’s Black entry is:

“Its skin has a rubbery elasticity, so it can reduce damage by defensively pulling its skin up to its neck.”

And Scrafty’s BW2 entry is:

“It pulls up its shed skin to protect itself while it kicks. The bigger the crest, the more respected it is.”

I’m more surprised to learn that Scrafty apparently has acid spit... yet it doesn’t learn Acid or Acid Spray, and the closest we get is Sludge Bomb... via TM.My bad Scrafty has been able to learn Acid Spray since USUM... through breeding.
No, the point is that the entries don't state where exactly the shed skin comes from. And since it has the same color as their heads, then it's shed head skin.
 

ScraftyIsTheBest

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No, the point is that the entries don't state where exactly the shed skin comes from. And since it has the same color as their heads, then it's shed head skin.
I think in this case it's really a matter of putting two and two together. It's not directly stated but when you look at it closely it becomes quite clear that that's the source of the shed skin.




general reminder that scrafty looks really weird with the hood on
Nah bud, it looks cooler with the hood off but with the hood on it still looks fine, if anything it fits the ruffian/delinquent vibe it's got going for it, looks pretty shady with that hood on :pimp:
 

QuentinQuonce

formerly green_typhlosion
All the recent talk about DP remakes has reminded me of something I've always found curious. When the player first encounters Team Galactic, Professor Rowan remarks that "...when Pokémon evolve, they seem to release some type of energy... However, I believe that it's a mystic power far beyond our control. But Team Galactic seems to be studying that power's potential. They want to know if it can be used as energy for something..."

But this, as far as I remember (granted, it's been a good few years since I played either Platinum or DP) goes nowhere. The climax of the game involves Team Galactic creating a Red Chain from the lake trio and using it to summon Dialga/Palkia. Nothing to do with Pokemon evolution, since, like all legendary Pokemon at that point, none of those Pokemon evolve.

This is also the first and only discussion of evolutionary energy being a discrete power that could potentially be used for something. Other games seem to infer that evolution is a natural process akin to human development (though later, more outlandish evolutions such as Shelmet and Karrablast's armour-swap, and Type:Null's helmet breaking, do play with this concept a bit). The way it was set up, I imagined some sort of battery farm where loads of weak Pokemon were forced to evolve and the energy was used to power some sort of generator (now, how cool would THAT have been?) but as I said, as far as I can remember, nothing like this is ever so much as hinted at.

Was this an early plot concept that filtered through to the final game? Who knows.
 
The thing with Galactic is they really are researching various other ways to gather a bunch of power. It's why Mars was collecting power from the wind valley power plant and I think it's related to why they were randomly stealing Pokemon in Eterna (can't remember if it was for evolution power purposes or cosmic power purposes, though).

It's even their "public facing" persona, looking for power sources, I think.
 

Pikachu315111

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All the recent talk about DP remakes has reminded me of something I've always found curious. When the player first encounters Team Galactic, Professor Rowan remarks that "...when Pokémon evolve, they seem to release some type of energy... However, I believe that it's a mystic power far beyond our control. But Team Galactic seems to be studying that power's potential. They want to know if it can be used as energy for something..."

But this, as far as I remember (granted, it's been a good few years since I played either Platinum or DP) goes nowhere. The climax of the game involves Team Galactic creating a Red Chain from the lake trio and using it to summon Dialga/Palkia. Nothing to do with Pokemon evolution, since, like all legendary Pokemon at that point, none of those Pokemon evolve.

(...)

Was this an early plot concept that filtered through to the final game? Who knows.
It's a blink and you'll miss it thing; discovering a new energy source was Team Galactic's cover story. As revealed in Rowan's dialogue, Team Galactic are a know group further shown by having their HQ out in the open in Veilstone City that anyone can enter and talk with the receptionist. While the player's first and usually only experience with Team Plasma are them attacking people and stealing things, most of the public just sees them as strange scientists claiming to be finding new kind of energy. Also in Platinum, after the events of Spear Pillar, you can even find Saturn in the basement lab of the HQ and, after discussing what Cyrus's true goal was and realized he misled all of Team Galactic, will say "Perhaps we should really be searching for new sources of energy. Instead of lying about it through our commercials".

If I had to guess why Rowan mentioned the thing about "evolution energy", could be that was one of their cover stories and, being Rowan's research is about Pokemon Evolution, probably read up on a research paper or at least news article about it.

It was either meant to be a red herring or, if it was originally part of the plot, was a dropped thread but left in as it still went along with the cover story they had Galactic using.

EDIT: Shedinj'd, but still got some more things to say:

Though this is an interesting thing to be reminded about. Sure, in DP this went nowhere, but 2 gens later we got Mega Evolution. Then we got Z-Moves and now Dynamax/Gigantamax, all said to be powerful forms of energy and at least two which involve the Pokemon going through some pseudo-evolution. Heck, even if Rowan writes Megas and Gigantamax as form changes, there still plenty of new evolution methods to keep him bust (curious what he thinks about the way you evolve Milcery...).
 

QuentinQuonce

formerly green_typhlosion
It's a blink and you'll miss it thing; discovering a new energy source was Team Galactic's cover story. As revealed in Rowan's dialogue, Team Galactic are a know group further shown by having their HQ out in the open in Veilstone City that anyone can enter and talk with the receptionist. While the player's first and usually only experience with Team Plasma are them attacking people and stealing things, most of the public just sees them as strange scientists claiming to be finding new kind of energy. Also in Platinum, after the events of Spear Pillar, you can even find Saturn in the basement lab of the HQ and, after discussing what Cyrus's true goal was and realized he misled all of Team Galactic, will say "Perhaps we should really be searching for new sources of energy. Instead of lying about it through our commercials".

If I had to guess why Rowan mentioned the thing about "evolution energy", could be that was one of their cover stories and, being Rowan's research is about Pokemon Evolution, probably read up on a research paper or at least news article about it.

It was either meant to be a red herring or, if it was originally part of the plot, was a dropped thread but left in as it still went along with the cover story they had Galactic using.
Yeah, perhaps. It feels to me like it should have led into something since it's called out so specifically but maybe it legitimately was intended as a red herring.

I think that's one of ORAS' better rewrites, actually; the villainous team's initial plan is using the Meteorite at Mt. Chimney and then they drop that and say "this plan is a non-starter, we have a new avenue of research" and move onto finding Groudon/Kyogre. Whereas in the originals it's just sort of... there, and it's not clear why they were wasting time at Mt. Chimney when they could have been doing the Seafloor Cavern plan all along. (Well, in RS at least - Emerald changed things up for the better.)


The thing with Galactic is they really are researching various other ways to gather a bunch of power. It's why Mars was collecting power from the wind valley power plant and I think it's related to why they were randomly stealing Pokemon in Eterna (can't remember if it was for evolution power purposes or cosmic power purposes, though).

It's even their "public facing" persona, looking for power sources, I think.

Sure, and I think it would feel less incongruous if not for the way the game specifically drops the evolution thing as one of the first things we learn about them; it implies that this will be significant later but it just isn't. No-one else (again as far as I remember) references it. The Valley Windworks plan has a role in the plot - this doesn't. If it was just about setting up their cover, Rowan could have just said "There are many kinds of energy in this world. You know, I study Pokemon evolution. Pokemon release energy when they evolve. Team Galactic seems interested in harnessing new forms of energy. Could that be one of the forms of energy they intend to use?"

I think what makes it stand out to me is that it almost feels as though it was put in because Prof Rowan needed to have a specific area of Pokemon to specialise in and the writers said "what's not been done yet? Evolution!" There's a similar exchange later in the game where Rowan speculates about Pokemon evolution and draws attention to the fact that legendary Pokemon don't evolve. And this is mildly interesting (since it's the first time the games make note of this) but again, it doesn't go anywhere. No grand conclusions are drawn from this fact. And the fact that three generations later we did get legendaries and mythicals that can evolve underscores how meaningless a distinction that was in the first place.
 
I think what makes it stand out to me is that it almost feels as though it was put in because Prof Rowan needed to have a specific area of Pokemon to specialise in and the writers said "what's not been done yet? Evolution!" There's a similar exchange later in the game where Rowan speculates about Pokemon evolution and draws attention to the fact that legendary Pokemon don't evolve. And this is mildly interesting (since it's the first time the games make note of this) but again, it doesn't go anywhere. No grand conclusions are drawn from this fact. And the fact that three generations later we did get legendaries and mythicals that can evolve underscores how meaningless a distinction that was in the first place.
I mean...yeah probably? Rowan's a little more involved than the other professors, so its a nice way to put in flavor text for what he focuses on. Juniper does similarly: she mentions Klink is relatively recent addition to the landscape but that also doesnt go anywhere because it's not meant to. Just a fun "world of Pokemon" type deal. If Elm were more involved I imagine he'd bring up a lot more egg research.


It'll be fun to see, if a DP remake does happen, how they tweak his dialog. I really liked how Elm went from "wow!! a pokemon egg!!! this is incredible, mr pokemon!" to "oh...another pokemon egg.....thanks, mr pokemon".
 

Pikachu315111

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There's a similar exchange later in the game where Rowan speculates about Pokemon evolution and draws attention to the fact that legendary Pokemon don't evolve.

Cosmog: Hey Kubfu, want to ruin an old man's career?
Kubfu: Yeah, let's go see how big we can blow his mind.

I mean...yeah probably? Rowan's a little more involved than the other professors, so its a nice way to put in flavor text for what he focuses on. Juniper does similarly: she mentions Klink is relatively recent addition to the landscape but that also doesnt go anywhere because it's not meant to. Just a fun "world of Pokemon" type deal. If Elm were more involved I imagine he'd bring up a lot more egg research.
Would be neat if they let you talk with the Professors and have you tell them a little bit about their work and theories/discoveries (or they have a book/computer). Off the top of my head I do know if you look around Magnolia's lab in SwSh you can find some notes on Dynamax.

It'll be fun to see, if a DP remake does happen, how they tweak his dialog. I really liked how Elm went from "wow!! a pokemon egg!!! this is incredible, mr pokemon!" to "oh...another pokemon egg.....thanks, mr pokemon".
Lol, to be fair, Elm does say he doesn't recognize the Togepi Egg being native to Johto, so he didn't completely shrug it off.
 
Rowan, and a number of scientists, would probably enjoy theories getting upended since it'd mean theres still more to discover.

Cosmog's interesting since the fact it evolves is something that's not really widely known. Even after referencing the library no one fully grasped that Cosmog would become Solgaleo/Lunala until it happened.
Kubfu into Urshifu's been around longer in-universe of course, but, hey that's just how the series goes.

if I had to guess that line will be tweaked to something simple like "It was once thought no legendary Pokemon evolved! Even seemingly "Complete" beings still have room to grow" but it'd be neat if he talked more about it, maybe in the post game or something. I agree in-game research is a fun topic; I really liked Burnett's lab because it had all kinds of references to other dimensions throughout the series.
At the very least we'll probably get a little mega evolution mention: Rowan was Sycamore's mentor when he was younger.
 

Pikachu315111

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if I had to guess that line will be tweaked to something simple like "It was once thought no legendary Pokemon evolved! Even seemingly "Complete" beings still have room to grow" but it'd be neat if he talked more about it, maybe in the post game or something.
Actually looking through what Rowan said again, they actually don't need to change anything as they could just have him strictly referring to Legendaries that don't evolve:

Rowan said:
"Hm! Everyone's here finally. <player>, everyone, listen. You may forgotten it already, but I study the evolution of Pokémon. But the more I study, the more mysteries appear and multiply. Pokémon that evolve, and those that don't... What makes them different from each other? Do those that are immature as living beings evolve to once more mature? If so, what do we make of the legendary Pokémon that don't evolve? Are we to assume that the legendary Pokémon are complete as creatures? This is where you three come in. In the tree lakes of Sinnoh, there are said to be mirage Pokémon. If we can obtain data on them, it may shed some light on how the process of Pokémon evolution works. I need help from each one of you on this grand undertaking. Help me find these Pokémon that are considered to be mirages."
He doesn't say Legendaries don't evolve, he just refers to the legendary that don't evolve. Granted, for all he knows there's no Legendary that evolve (unless they want to throw in a small line referencing Kubfu), but the line actually doesn't need to be changed.

Though reading that again it does raise some questions. Um, Professor, why would the Lake Trio have anything to do with how evolution works? I would get interest in Dialga and Palkia, but the Lake Trio are more about spirituality stuff. You can certainly stretch Emotions, Knowledge, and Willpower to having connections with evolution, but I don't think they would reveal anything about the process.

Also, Legendaries aren't the only Pokemon who don't have evolutionary families, plenty of com mon who are alone on their family tree.

At the very least we'll probably get a little mega evolution mention: Rowan was Sycamore's mentor when he was younger.
Oh, didn't remember that! Hm, maybe if they do a remake we'll get to see a young Professor Sycamore as Rowan's assistant just before he graduates to Professor. Let's Go retcon Archer and Mina into the story of Gen I, could do the same for the mainline games.
 

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