As I lie awake at 5:45 AM, I ponder Regigigas.
Regigigas created inorganic automotons in its image, using stone, ice, metal and/or magma, electricity, and crystalized dragon energy. But what are Regigigas's origins? Is it organic? It's still got that weird seven-dot robot face. What are those colored things? Are they also eyes? Why do they flash with the seven dots in its intro animation? Why are its seven dots so vertical, like seriously what kind of a face is that?
- Origins & Organic: If we want an easy answer about who made Regigigas, we could just say Arceus. While Arceus created the Pokemon World, it probably has so much power it can't exactly sculp it to its desired form. It needed a third party, a tool, that it can command & leave the shaping of the landmasses to. Thus, it created Regigigas from the same earth it would move; so yes it's also organic (though filled with godly energy which is why its Normal-type instead of Ground which would have given it some significant weaknesses which might hamper its job).
But outside an Arceus explanation that would fall into sorta "conspiracy" theory that it was made my an ancient advanced civilization for some other purpose (while it could certainly still be tasked to moving landmasses, it would now be to the benefit of the ancient civilization than just following Arceus's will to make the planet habitable).
Or, maybe combine them, maybe there was an "original" Regigigas created by Arceus which made the Pokemon World as it is, but once done it fused back into the world (new theory: all of Sinnoh is the remains of this original Regigigas); then, based on the legends and possibly finding accessible leftovers of its power, some ancient civilizations created their onw mock-up of Regigigas (it being Normal-type as it has lost much of its elemental power); because of this it could be why Regigigas creates the original Titan Trio to try and give it the ability to move landmasses again.
As you can see, there's a lot to consider and we may never know cause it's likely lost history that doesn't matter in the long run (and GF aren't interested or they just want it to remain a simple story).
- Colored Rings/Plates: I think they're supposed to be "plates" (as in a general term for a flat circle disc, not the dishware you eat food off from) than "rings".
Anyway the plate's colors relate to the original Titan Trio: Regirock, Regice, and Registeel; that can't just be coincidence. Sticking with just the theories I presented, if it was made by Arceus the plates could serve two purposes: it allows it to easily create any member of the Titan Trio (and control them) and maybe even acts as a sort of "mode" it can enter depending on the environment it's in (like if pushing an icy landmass, it can enter "Ice Mode" and its body will change in various ways to adapt to the cold, snow, and ice; these modes will not give it any major battle advantage, or since it's done with its job it may have just lost this functionality).
If solely by an ancient civilization, well honestly same purpose.
It's for the ancient civilizations based it on the legend where the plates may have been needed in order to even operate, and though it could also be used to create & control the Titan Trio that'll probably be the extent to what it would do in this scenario.
As for why they glow along with the dots, well it would have likely glowed when using a that certain plate color; but outside of that could just be doing a maintenance check on it, sort of like a printer flashing all of its lights when turn on.
- Oblong Dot Pattern: Well, a question to consider: considering Regigigas is the boss of the Titan Trio, should we only be looking at its dots just being the seven on its middle yellow adornment OR should we also be including the plates which would give it 13 dots. What would be the significance of that? I don't know. Yeah, this one is gonna be a big question mark from me. The problem here is I think the dot patterns are just what looked good, there really is no deeper meaning behind them; they semi-relate to the braille puzzles linked to them (which was done to reference them being based on the Golem of Prague of Jewish mythology).
If you want me to try and BS something: Regirock's dots are in a shape of layers of bedrock; Regice's in a shape of an ice crystal; Registeel's is a hexagon which is a shape often seen in nature because of the strong bonds they can make; Regieleki's could be a few things like a circuit, wire/cable, or representing transmission or electrical signals; Regidrago's could be in the shape of a dragon's claw, head, or a dragon with its wings spread; and finally Regigigas, being the boss controlling them, it's dot pattern could be so different is because maybe it represents an antenna or wand in which it sends and receives messages to the other Titans.
The dots are kind of problematic, because the consensus seemed to be that they represented the three Hoenn Regis... which makes one question why it doesn't have dots representing the other two.
Regieleki and Regidrago really do throw a wrench into theories as now you gotta explain them. The easiest way to explain them away would be simply that for however long Regigigas existed it only needed the powers of the original three Titans. But then, possibly because it sees how civilization is changing the world and has calculated where this human progression is going, a few thousand years ago decided to make some new Titans that would be useful (an electric one for technology, a dragon one maybe for magic or harnessing prehistoric power). Though, if their oddity and dex descriptions are anything to go by, they're possibly not complete or Regigigas ambitions for them fell short due to not being familiar with their elements like it is with the original three.
Though, while the above explanation is fine enough to explain them lacking representation in Regigigas' design, it doesn't answer why they're now suddenly needed to at least activate the Regigigas in Galar. Now, could just be a quirk with Galar's Regigigas and it being hidden in a Dynamax Lair. However, if there's a future game which has a Regigigas that needs all five we now have a lore problem. If I was GF, I wouldn't make Regieleki and Regidrago needed to awaken Regigigas, INSTEAD I would make them needed to gain access to one member of the original trio. Like a quick idea is you first get Regirock, you take it to ruins that are revealed to be Regigigas' workshop and use its rock mending ability to repair either a stone or electricity or stone of dragon energy. Once you do it enters a machine and out comes either a Regieleki or Regidrago. You can use the Regieleki to power machinery inside metallic ruins where Registeel is, or you can use Regidrago to use its dragon flames to melt away magical ice in an icy ruin where Regice is. You could then use Regirock & Registeel/Regice to then be able to activate a backdoor to the ruins which gets you Regice/Registeel who then are used to awaken Regigigas. OR, if they want them all to be obtainable in one game, while you still need Regirock first you need to explore halfway into the metallic ruins and icy ruins to get the parts needed to build both Regieleki and Regidrago. Or an idea which uses all of them is that Regieleki and Regidrago aren't needed to awaken Regigigas directly, but they are needed to open the passage that leads to where Regigigas lays dormant.
I've never taken the dots on the centre yellow piece of its body to be its face but I suppose they could be, or at least the top four are the eyes and the bottom three are (the equivalent of) its mouth and nose, but with such deliberately non-human biology it's probably not meant to be that clear.
It's certainly not like a head that humans and most animals have but I would say at the very least it likely contains the sensory "organs" it uses to "see", "hear", and/or whatever it senses to interact with the world around it. While attacking it probably wouldn't be as effective with a "normal" head, I'd imagine notable damage to it would affect its operational capability to an extent.
Well, most if not all of the legendary Pokemon in Sinnoh seem to serve some sort of function. Cresselia mitigates Darkrai's nightmare powers, Shaymin is the physical manifestation of gratitude, the lake trio embody knowledge, emotion, and willpower. Heatran controls volcanoes.
So what does Regigigas do? Its appearance in the movie has it preventing a glacier from crashing into a town, and in the manga it only stirs itself when there's an impending disaster. Might it have been created by Arceus to serve as a sort of warden or ranger, preventing or mitigating the effect of natural disasters, and created the other Regi species in turn to act as aids to humanity? That's the vibe I've always sort of gotten from Regigigas. It wasn't created by people, it was created for them.
I would say Shaymin's purpose is more than just being physical gratitude as it has the power to absorb pollution and grow fields of flowers.
Also I'm not sure if Heatran really has a "purpose". Sure it can cause its volcano lair to erupt, but so can some other Pokemon so it's not a unique ability (as horrifying as that implies upon thinking about it). Heatran always felt it was more of a creature of happenstance, like it doesn't exist to control volcanoes but rather it exists as a result of a volcanic eruption or some other thing (like maybe a death of a volcano, Heatran arising out of the remains as a retainer of what residual power was left).
Also, we know what Regigigas does: it moves landmasses which formed the continents and mountains (among other features or a planet too). That's its main purpose anyway, it's job seems mostly done so it could have settled into a sentry role, naturally awakening when it sense a disturbance in nature. Though it being made to serve people I'm a little iffy on if we're going it was made by Arceus. Now if it was made by people that would be an entirely different story.
I think more accurately, newly introduced mechanics are very jank with stuff like this. Even as late as Gen 6, we've got the "newly discovered" Fairy type.
XY's treatment of the Fairy Type is so funny, I get they needed to make sure old fans knew what was up with the big new thing but c'mon ya'll we already went through this stupid rodeo! You can't be doing that!
In my own headcanon I have a "time ripple" theory where whenever something "new" comes into being that Arceus (whether it created it or not, I'd imagine it would still be aware of something coming into existence) would then carefully send out a "time ripple" which would place these new things naturally into the past so that they've always been a thing; then the present would correct itself with these new additions to the past so that it doesn't seem strange that a few years ago we were treating this "established" thing as a new discovery.
Now depending on the "thing" it would likely take more consideration of how it's placed in the past. Like new Moves are probably a snap to add, but introduction to new major things like Abilities or new Types probably takes a considerable amount of effort to not mess up their past application. This would mean that, for a certain amount of time, the new thing would be treated as something just discovered until it can be placed properly in the past and the present can correct itself. Now, it would have to correct itself in a way that it makes sense people became fascinated with it, like it was a strange fad, but by next gen the time ripple would be done so the new thing is now commonplace and no one sees it as something that didn't exist before, because by their adjusted perspective its always been there.
"Boy it sure is weird that after setting foot in Kalos my Gardevoir just face-tanked that Garchomp's Outrage instead of crumpling over instantly."
Magnemite family: Hey, the same thing happened to us. We went to Johto and suddenly we're immune to Poison and fire REALLY hurts now.
And I can only imagine what some Gen I and II Pokemon thought when they were suddenly given Abilities.
I am going to say that no they did not base the detective mongoose on donald trump even remotely start to finish
Gotta side with
R_N on this one, I'd be more willing to bet Gumshoos being more based on Dick Tracy, possibly Detective Gumshoe from the Ace Attorney series (note Gumshoos looks to have a small beard which Trump doesn't have but Gumshoe does) and just in general the grizzled detective archetype before Trump.
Only reason its said to resemble Trump is the hair looking kind of plastic-y. Would like to see the design notes for it explaining what they were going for with that, I think maybe they were going for, maybe a sad attempt to make a naturally looking deerstalker to reference Sherlock Holmes?
