14 KiB
Pokemon: The Origin of Species Chapter 21 - Sample Bias
-
Author: u/DaystarEld Pokémon Professor*
-
URL: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9794740/21/Pokemon-The-Origin-of-Species
-
Score: 31
-
Created: 2015-07-01T05:56:53
Post:
Comments:
u/Anakiri [+9] (2 hours later)
Of course, in the real world, we know that pokemon are intelligently designed! I'm curious to see where that line of inquiry goes in your world, especially considering baffling things like voltorb, trubbish, cryogonal, lunatone, and every ghost pokemon. Girafarig's nerves and the mentioned transitional species point to biological evolution in spite of those ridiculous things - this world isn't going to give up its secrets easily, if at all! That was my first worry for your story, and I admit I've kept a bit of doubt about that even when Red wasn't right immediately. I think that after Red's musings here, I'm completely on board now.
I hope we get to see what Brock thinks of the whole museum business, if he is indeed involved. I imagine Red wants to know too if it isn't too awkward to bring up, with whatever he's doing with Blue. I can't think of how you could write Brock as anything other than a creationist strawman at this point, but I'm sure you'll surprise me. You haven't written an idiot yet.
It did seem a little strange to me that Dr. Brenner was so nice to some random kid pestering other visitors, and not even about sciency paleontological stuff. I might understand the behind-the-scenes tour better if she met Red instead of Leaf, or if Dr. Brenner was shown to know Leaf's connections... It's not unbelievable - She works at a museum, of course she loves doing outreach stuff! - but this is several times now that authority figures have acted unusually inclusive for our heroes. As a trend, that makes me raise an eyebrow.
I'm quite enjoying this story so far!
u/None [+6] (6 hours later)
I can't think of how you could write Brock as anything other than a creationist strawman at this point, but I'm sure you'll surprise me. You haven't written an idiot yet.
In the Pokémon world, creationism has more evidence going for it than it does in reality.
u/Anakiri [+4] (7 hours later)
Absolutely, but Brock is being accused of blocking mainstream science from being taught, in service to a minority perspective more informed by tradition than evidence.
u/None [+6] (13 hours later)
Unfortunately, people like that very much exist, and they aren't fringe nutcases nobody listens to either.
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (11 hours later)
That was my first worry for your story, and I admit I've kept a bit of doubt about that even when Red wasn't right immediately. I think that after Red's musings here, I'm completely on board now.
Glad to hear it :) Do keep on your toes though, so you can point out if I slip up!
but this is several times now that authority figures have acted unusually inclusive for our heroes. As a trend, that makes me raise an eyebrow.
Mind helping me remember the other ones? Other than Professor Oak obviously, there was the guy at the first House in Viridian who helped Red after he pestered/persuaded him a bit, maybe? Or am I misinterpreting what you mean by inclusive?
u/Anakiri [+3] (12 hours later)
Those, and the rangers involving the kids extensively during the event with the beedrill, and running into 8-badges rival-to-famous-dragon-trainer Donovan and petting his skarmory, and Red getting a personal response from Giovanni, one of the most famous people around. No single event is out of place, but there is a definite trend of having fantastic luck getting high-status people to humor them.
The only exceptions I recall off the top of my head are Blue getting blown off during an emergency, and Blue getting confronted about his Shiftry. Since those both happen to Blue, it just feels like he's not in Red and Leaf's good luck bubble.
u/DaystarEld [+3] Pokémon Professor (14 hours later)
Ahh I see. The Rangers actually have SOP to include any willing nearby trainers in operations, but if you'll recall they excluded them from any of the planning. Donovan was just being friendly, but Giovanni sending a response, however short, was definitely a highlight for Red... and may or may not have something to do with him name-dropping Oak.
Blue definitely has been having a rougher time of things socially, but then, he does have higher social ambitions and lower social graces. I'll keep an eye out though to ensure I'm not being too hard on him disproportionately to the others :)
u/DerSaidin [+5] (7 hours later)
Red admires the path of the helix spiral from an inch away, musing over whether the clue to some god lies somewhere in its curves, perhaps one of order and chaos, his gaze following the loops up right down left, up right down left, up right down left...
Was hoping to read...
Hold on a second, what is that? Someone had scratched "praise helix" into the glass of the display case. Red had no idea what that was about, but he frowned at the idea of someone vandalising the exhibit.
And continuing...
"Red!"
u/DaystarEld [+4] Pokémon Professor (11 hours later)
Haha. I figured that might be too on the nose, but I'm sure some other TPP references will sneak their way in at some point :)
u/AmeteurOpinions [+7] Finally, everyone was working together. (a day later)
Here's my theory as to the diversity of Pokemon, after thinking about it for five seconds: Pokemon evolve to be different from other species of Pokemon. This is why the more time goes on, the whackier they become as the Blind Idiot Gods grow more and more desperate for ideas.
I have no idea how this would function in practice.
u/DaystarEld [+6] Pokémon Professor (2 days later)
Of course! It's all a sim that they keep releasing new version for and have to make new pokemon for!
(This is not actually the solution I have in mind, but probably will always make the most sense :P)
u/None [+5] (2 hours later)
Typical Blue
Also, Helix Fossil incoming!
u/daydev [+5] (10 hours later)
I notice that their fossil record seems to be a lot shorter than ours. Even if you count only from Cambrian explosion, ours is almost almost twice as long. And for cyanobacteria there's fossils basically since the beginning of geology.
So if their oldest fossils are really only 300 mil. years old, including cyanobacteria and everything, that would be a meta-evidence in favor of panspermia, because their life would be awfully recent, and the evolution awfully accelerated by our standards. Of course, in universe they have no way of knowing that.
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (11 hours later)
Uh oh, it looks like I might have been unclear in my writing: to set the record straight, the pokemon world's fossil record goes back as far as ours does, I just didn't mention that explicitly. Would you mind telling me what part or parts of the story read as otherwise?
u/daydev [+2] (11 hours later)
he finds himself wandering into one of the last ones across from the 300 million year stratum.
And then one paragraph over, writing on the wall:
Here, near the beginning of the fossil record,
In our world, 300 mil. is not the beginning, but more like the middle (Mesozoic era starts at ~250 mil.)
u/DaystarEld [+2] Pokémon Professor (11 hours later)
Ahhh, I see: I should have clarified that the exhibits are not evenly spaced out by age, so that the first hundred million years might have multiple rooms devoted to them, and after that each stretch of time becomes smaller. I'll fix that now, thanks!
u/liamash3 [+3] Mizu (9 hours later)
Hmm. Remind me why Blue battling Brock was a bad thing again?
Was nice to see Red trying to analyse how pokemon came about, as well as the mention of money issues. You never really encounter that in the games and anime, of course :)
u/DaystarEld [+6] Pokémon Professor (12 hours later)
I might have done a bad job establishing the expectation, but they predicted spending a week or so at Pewter before Blue fought his way through the lower trainers and challenged Brock :)
u/None [+2] (10 hours later)
I think Red wanted to be present for the battle? Maybe he wanted to see Brock's moves before trying to best the gym leader himself?
u/jgf1123 [+3] (5 days later)
Hi, I just did an archive binge of your story. I'm liking it! It's like the trio are trying to figure out how to survive in a RPG where they wandered out of the tutorial zone too early.
The one thing that distracts me is the inversion of Red Oni, Blue Oni, especially since Red picked up the Fire pokemon and Blue picked up the Water pokemon in that their personalities seem to be the opposite of the symbolism.
u/DaystarEld [+3] Pokémon Professor (5 days later)
Hey there, glad you're enjoying it! And yes, that's something of a deliberate subversion of the trope :)
u/DaystarEld [+2] Pokémon Professor (19 seconds later)
Hey all, welcome back! Quick note about pokemon nativity, as I've had a few people ask this before:
The criterion I've used so far is the latest generation that includes Kanto, which is Heartgold and Soulsilver. Any pokemon that appear on a route in Kanto in those games are what might be found in the story, including obviously their evolutions, which I believe are largely excluded from the games for balance reasons and design restrictions.
Keep the comments, questions and feedback coming, and enjoy!
u/Sailor_Vulcan [+2] Champion of Justice and Reason (13 hours later)
Awesome! I recently recommended this story to my biology instructor and he's going to read it!
Also, why are the main characters (or at least Red) so mature for their age? They seem like adults, rather than 11 year olds. Does it have something to do with how they're taught to survive independently from such an early age so aren't sheltered so much? Combine that with Red's psychically suppressed trauma from his father's death, and maybe that explains why he seems psychologically more like an adult than a child? Although it still seems weird to me...I'm half expecting there to eventually be a reveal for Red like the one in HPMOR where Harry wasn't REALLY mentally an eleven year old, but rather a magic brain-clone of an adult Tom Riddle with memories erased. There IS a reasonable explanation for why Red doesn't act like a child, right?
u/Anakiri [+10] (13 hours later)
Actually, they all act similarly to smart children I know. They know a surprising amount of stuff, and they can be surprisingly good at employing strategies they've learned, but they're also distinctly immature. Red takes a lot of things personally when he shouldn't, he hasn't quite mastered the art of empathy, and he tends to assume that everyone sees things his way by default.
This jumped out to me most strongly in chapter 14, when Red is asking to test his spinarak's attack on Blue. Blue declines, and Red gets angry at him in a way that is classically childish. He's the viewpoint character, so he can justify some of what he does, but he is totally a kid.
u/DaystarEld [+5] Pokémon Professor (15 hours later)
Thanks, glad you're enjoying it so much! Do let me know what they think if they get around to it :)
As for the intelligence/maturity thing, in addition to what /u/Anakiri said (I do try to keep the characters at least somewhat normally childlike) you're kind of correct too: in the pokemon world people tend to be just baseline smarter and more mature, because of selective pressures and cultural differences, which is why kids go on pokemon journeys at such young ages (though usually in groups). I'll probably expand on this a bit more in the next author note, since it's something that comes up often.
u/jgf1123 [+2] (5 days later)
I was just at a family reunion with my nieces and 2nd cousins. I literally asked my eldest niece what she was doing this summer to achieve her goal of eventually becoming a professional violinist (reply: she isn't doing anything besides the usual practicing and lessons). Very very few real 11-year old would be able to figure how to achieve their world-changing ambition and would instead be distracted by a television program involving princesses, the device the simulations are played on, or whatever seems fun in the moment.
u/DaystarEld [+2] Pokémon Professor (5 days later)
True, but even with a higher baseline of maturity and intelligence, very few children in my pokemon world are allowed to go on pokemon journeys so young :) Red, Blue and Leaf are all fairly gifted.
u/4t0m [+1] Chaos Legion (23 minutes later)
Yay, an update!
Some notes:
"and the earliest specimen show many of the same features as them" -> technically wrong (them should be they), but really I think you should just rework this part of the sentence.
"specie" -> I think "species" is the singular and the plural form.
"by many human's standards of beauty anyway" -> "many humans' standards" or "many human standards"
"Why not read him what your review of the museum?" -> "read him your review..." or "what your review... says"
"I can give them the head's up" -> I think it's "heads up".
I can't wait for the next chapter.
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (an hour later)
Fixed, thanks a lot!
u/daydev [+1] (10 hours later)
A couple more typos:
He wonders if she should tell Leaf right away,
Lefa leads him
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (11 hours later)
Fixed, thanks!