| Philip Hacker wrote:
| >
| > has anybody given thought to the history of the Pokemon world? How did
| > the Pokemon League come about? How were pokeballs invented? and so on.
|
| I actually was thinking on that for a SM/Pokemon crossover that I may or
| may not write.
|

<Snip the history>

| ..
| So, what do you think?  (And no, I *don't* work for Nintendo; that last
| bit just suggested itself spontaneously...)

Interesting... but can it be done WITHOUT dragging some other series in?
Though it certainly explains the opening shot, with Mew and Mewtwo shooting
through space...

Hmm... beta version of my own theory on the subject.

Mew can likely be called the mother of all pokemon, as she or her line
(depending on how you look at it) were the alleged originators of everything
else. Unless my script of the Pokemon movie was totally mistranslated.

At any rate... some time back, Mew (or _a_ Mew) descended to earth, whether
in exile or as part of an exploratory team, we may never know. This Mew
brought with him/her/it an energy source, a means of converting natural
energy of all types into raw power. One of the tanks ruptured on impact,
sending this source into the environment and effectively dashing any hope
the Mew may have had of returning to wherever it came from. Some of the
native flora and fauna took in miniscule amounts of this source, all their
bodies could hold at the time, and changed. Drastically. The new energy
source made previously impossible feats, like motile plants or huge
bioelectric energy fields, for example, attainable. Some of the energy
leaked into the ground in trace amounts, producing the Thunder, Leaf, Moon,
and other types of Stones. In some places, the energy concentrated more,
enabling the microorganisms in the rock to join into massive colonial life,
producing what were essentially mobile rocks. Other portions of this energy
leaked into deposits of silicon or petrified wood, inhospitable to even
microbial life, but quite capable of being crafted into artificial life,
like the Mr. Mimes and Magnemites. The energy also infused into colonies of
airborne and water-borne bacteria, (Gastlys and Grimers, respectively) in
addition to the more standard birds, fish, land animals, and plants.
Humanity, or at least human precursors, were in large part not in the crash
zone; those few who were became Primeapes and Mankeys.

Pokemon of all sorts quickly grew and spread across the lands, stymied only,
perhaps, by oceans. Pokemon quickly filled every niche in the local
ecosystem, forcing most of the normal fauna to leave or undergo losing
battles for food, water, and shelter. The local flora, however, remained
largely unchanged, because of the much more readily available energy source
(sunlight) and the less competitive nature of most of the plant Pokemon.

The Pokemon themselves changed over time. Creatures of a similar origin
which had been infused with different amounts of energy, or which adapted to
use their existing energy more efficiently - or which came across a natural
deposit of energy in the form of a Stone - would take on sometimes radically
different forms as a result of the increased access to energy. Sometimes
this change came over long periods of time; other times the change hit with
the onset of increased hormonal activity, happening near-instantly.

And then, humanity entered the picture, development finally reaching the
areas where Pokemon roamed. Several recluses and/or ancient civilizations
had already made contact with many types of Pokemon... industrial society,
however, was none too compatible with the existence of creatures powerful
enough to tear down a power plant or factory within minutes. It is only
recently that society has been able to adapt to the presence of Pokemon and
integrate them into everyday life... sometimes as pets, sometimes as
workers, sometimes as entertainers... and sometimes as fighters. More rural
communities acquired a strange resonance with many Pokemon, developing
family-to-herd relations almost instantly.

Of course, not all Pokemon are friendly. Some did not forget their earlier
feral instincts and attacked human settlements. Domesticated Pokemon were
the only line of defense, until the Pokeball was discovered. This ball, an
odd mix of science and magic, has its roots in the earlier days of Pokemon
research where the energy created by a Pokemon was shunted into different
applications... two of these applications being the bending of spacetime to
create dimensional pockets and a strange sort of subconscious resonance to
create an image of "home" from a Pokemon's ancestral memory. A Pokeball uses
its Pokemon as a natural power plant to produce both of these effects. The
problem lies in getting past the initial surge of energy when the Pokemon
realizes it's been caught, before the illusion of home settles in.
Capacitors are built into Pokeballs to guard against this; however, the
nature of the pocket dimension makes it impossible for the capacitors to
exceed a certain maximum surface area. Thus, finer materials and finer
circuit boards must substitute for bulk quantities, making the sort of
Pokeball needed to contain a rare and powerful Pokemon expensive indeed.
Rumors abound of a prototype Pokeball, designed to use shifted-wavelength
Pokemon energy to neutralize and contain ANY type and strength of Pokemon,
but this prototype, if it exists, is not as yet available to the public.

Once Pokeballs became commercially available, some of the more adventurous
elements of society went out into the wild bearing Pokeballs and bringing
back strange creatures, sometimes for exhibition, sometimes to use as a
family pet. The original Pokemon league was likely an explorer's club of
sorts, the original Pokedex likely bound notebooks or diaries. It is not
know at which point children became involved in the capturing and training
of Pokemon; possibly sometime after the Pokedex, a derivative of the palmtop
computer, was invented and patented, and the wilderness explored to the
point that even "wild" Pokemon were fairly non-belligerent.

But, whenever it happened, the Pokemon League and the various Pokemon
centers and gymnasiums now form a major part of society, giving thousands
upon thousands of children a single Pokemon, the means to care for it, and
the dreams of one day being able to be the greatest in the world.

Well, that's my take on it, anyway.

--G. Falconar