20 KiB
[RST] Pokemon: The Origin of Species, Chapter 46: Interlude VII - Connections
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Author: u/DaystarEld Pokémon Professor*
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URL: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9794740/46/Pokemon-The-Origin-of-Species
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Score: 76
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Created: 2017-08-01T09:25:17
Post:
Comments:
u/CarVac [+12] (5 hours later)
I take it our ninja here is Janine...
u/DaystarEld [+12] Pokémon Professor (11 hours later)
Who knows? Might be some other female ninja with a vendetta against Silph ;)
u/ketura [+6] Organizer (15 hours later)
My brother thought it was Mewtwo until it started talking about Fuscia partway through. Which is a shame. NEED MOAR MEWTWO.
u/ZeroNihilist [+8] (22 hours later)
Since it seems unlikely that Laura is preternaturally psychic without training, the psychic who's giving Laura advance warning (by way of emotional hints) of Silph's plans could be Mewtwo, or Janine, or a transcendental intellect ascended from Red's future psyche projecting itself back in time to prevent a catastrophe. But probably not the last one.
u/StrategicSarcasm [+6] Chaos Legion (8 days later)
I read it as Laura sensing Silph's illegally-hired psychic as they tried to read her mind/emotions, not anyone trying to explicitly give her advance warning. We know she's sensitive, at least, not necessarily psychic.
u/DaystarEld [+12] Pokémon Professor (a minute later)
Hey everyone, welcome back! For those that missed it, I've added Red's Goal Factoring sheet to my site, if you want to check out a (realistically sloppy) example of one of the ways goal factoring can look. If you have any questions about it, feel free to ask!
Next month I'm headed to London to teach a few classes at the European Summer Program in Rationality, which is very exciting. It's also very time consuming, as I'm leaving on August 14th and my return flight is on September 1st. As a result, be prepared for the next chapter to be published either a little earlier than usual if I manage to get it done ahead of schedule, or a little later if I manage to spend my whole birthday unconscious or in the air.
Hope you enjoy the chapter, and all feedback welcome as usual! Also quick shout out to /u/MarsFilms, who has continued to make audio episodes of the story on Soundcloud!
u/royishere [+12] (a day later)
I'm really appreciating how the science/battling/journalism focus among the three main characters isn't just a way to differentiate their goals, but three prongs of the shit that is currently going down in the Pokemon world.
Science = Mewtwo (PSYCHIC science, no less!) Battling = the legendary birds (also... you know, possible criminal activity in Celadon/Saffron/Viridian) Journalism = the Silph conspiracy, which is evidently being majorly fleshed out from the games. Can't wait to see what's actually going on. Surely it has to be bigger than development of the Master Ball?
Anyway, people have probably noticed this already, but it only really clicked for me this chapter as I saw the journalism theme really take off and become its own thing separate from Leaf so... well done!
u/tokol [+15] The Greater Good (a day later)
Yeah, after the scene with Leaf talking to Aiko's dad last chapter, I think the themes really hit home for me. When I was walking home, I had a really strong sense of empathy with DaystarEld because I think the trio of Red/Blue/Leaf personalities and motivations map to different aspects of myself (and presumably him).
- Red is the part that's most inwardly focused. He values intellect, reason, and self-discipline. He's most concerned about building and maintaining an accurate model of the world.
- Blue is the part that's most presentation focused. He's ambitious and values composure. He wants to make an impact on the world around him in a way that can scale. I really like how he intentionally pursues developing his leadership skills.
- Leaf is the part that's the most outwardly focused. She has a strong moral compass and sense of personal integrity. She does her best to understand the motivations of others and help those around her.
Also, my current fan theory is that Leaf will become a ghost-type trainer.
- Red is the psychic-trainer. He has a pair of abra. As a psychic, he's best equipped to train them. Thematically, his quest for science revolves around the rational/intellectual part of the mind.
- Blue is the dark-trainer. He's dark. He has a shiftry. Thematically, he's maintains an unreadable, unflinching composure under pressure and isn't afraid to make hard choices.
- We have some hints that the psychic/ghost-type split is along the lines of conscious thought vs emotional intelligence (or, take your pick: INT vs WIS, IQ vs EQ, Sp.Atk vs Atk). This lines up well with Leaf's character.
- The current chapter lays a lot the groundwork. Leaf can use her freedom of action, relative anonymity, and developing journalism powers to help Laura out of her predicament with Silph Co.
- Canon heavily associates ghosts with Lavender Town. The same city where Laura sent one of her assistants to look into a missing scientist working on some secret Silph project...
- In canon, ghost-types can't be perceived until the protagonist acquires a newly invented Silph Co. device (the Silph Scope).
- A pretty universal (including in canon) theme of ghosts is calming a vengeful spirit to put it to rest. Leaf is well equipped to create that kind of deep, healing emotional connections with pokemon.
- Think of all the ways Leaf can munchkin ghost-type pokemon to help her journalism! (Or, at least, help her counter the psychic-types that Giovanni likes to use).
u/DaystarEld [+9] Pokémon Professor (a day later)
Don't want to comment on anything that might be spoilers, but just wanted to say <3 to your assessment of the characters :)
u/tokol [+3] The Greater Good (2 days later)
Thank you! That means a lot to me. :)
u/sidhe3141 [+3] (9 days later)
I was thinking Leaf might be a latent aura-user, since her being fighting-type would complete a type cycle.
u/The_Magus_199 [+3] Ankh-Morpork City Watch (4 days later)
I'm gonna be honest, I'm really hoping that at some point Leaf's gonna be sent a message containing encrypted files and a warning to keep it secret, keep it safe, but if Laura Verres suddenly disappears to make sure it gets out.
u/Grasmel [+9] (58 minutes later)
It seems that neighbor never did call the police. Or did you just skip over where Laura went back and talked to him?
u/None [+10] (an hour later)
[deleted]
u/Grasmel [+6] (an hour later)
You're right. I read the section twice, and somehow missed it both times.
u/DerSaidin [+7] (3 hours later)
I also missed it on my initial read, then went back to understand, found it, and continued.
If readers are frequently missing that exchange it may be worth adding more emphasis.
u/DaystarEld [+2] Pokémon Professor (15 hours later)
Done :)
u/KnickersInAKnit [+2] (a day later)
I too only noticed that on reread.
u/SometimesATroll [+8] (4 hours later)
Possible typo: The line where we find out what happened with Aiko seems to have been deleted.
On another note, it's good to see other researchers making breakthroughs related to this typing problem. It shows that Red is at least partially on the right track. It does mean he needs to work fast if he wants anything interesting named after himself.
u/DaystarEld [+6] Pokémon Professor (11 hours later)
Not sure what you mean by deleted, I purposefully never included anything about Aiko :)
u/DCarrier [+4] (16 hours later)
I think he's jokingly saying that he wished he found out what happened with Aiko.
u/DaystarEld [+2] Pokémon Professor (16 hours later)
Yeah, I thought of that after replying, but wasn't sure.
u/A_Common_Hero [+8] (13 hours later)
Its minor, and possibly authorial intent, but when Laura contemplated that someone was able to sneak into her apartment despite previous belief that this was not possible, concluded the place might be bugged, and then further decided her cellphone was safe because it was with her on the night of the breakin my immediate reaction was to say, "No, that's not necessarily right."
There's zero reason to conclude that this is the first time someone snuck into her apartment (bear in mind this wasn't a break in, they could easily have left without leaving obvious evidence behind if that had been their intent). I mean, I guess with the obvious caveat of, "Unless Laura is constantly inside her apartment at all other times," but that seems unlikely (less unlikely is that she never leaves her phone behind when she leaves, but that's not the thought she had that I'm criticizing). Sure, there's no evidence that they did sneak in before now, but given the extremely cloak and dagger nature of the informant, if you're going to be paranoid about them bugging you there's no reason not to go all the way and assign some probability that they pre-bugged the place, and therefore possibly the phone as well. After all, they may have wanted to listen in and confirm as well as possible that Laura really is what they think she is, and that's if you assume they're as benign as they seem (which to be clear, isn't really all that benign in the first place).
u/DaystarEld [+5] Pokémon Professor (18 hours later)
You're definitely right that if Janine was in fact inclined to monitor her, her phone should be suspect as well, but Laura considers it safe in large part because it's always on her person: the only way it could be bugged is if Janine snuck in while Laura was asleep or in the shower and did it then, which she doesn't consider due to a failure of imagination.
u/DCarrier [+6] (16 hours later)
She really should have been more clear about that password. Did it include spaces? Capitalization? Was that the word six or the numeral?
u/DaystarEld [+7] Pokémon Professor (16 hours later)
Heh, I figured it was implied that if they're not mentioned they're not relevant :)
u/None [+4] (a day later)
[deleted]
u/DaystarEld [+3] Pokémon Professor (a day later)
That would be cool! Might be worth making a post in Friday's off-topic thread, since few people might read this comment now that the post's a few days old :)
I'm glad you enjoyed the interlude overall, but yeah I'm hoping people aren't getting too impatient with how separated most of them still are from the trio's plot. And yeah I actually cut a scene with Dom and just summarized it because it felt like it was slowing the chapter down too much, but maybe I can edit some form of it back in later.
u/The_Magus_199 [+6] Ankh-Morpork City Watch (4 days later)
For what it's worth, maybe it's just because I'm the sort of reader who's happy for an adventure to just go on forever (I still kinda think HPMoR could have been just fine as a perpetual series with the core message just being "let's learn about rationality in a fun way!"), but I like the way Red, Blue, and Leaf's Pokémon adventure is the primary focus with interludes mostly giving us a picture of plot things to come. I can't help but think that if all the people complaining about the pace got their way and each city or route was just summarized in a chapter I'd enjoy this a lot less!
u/DaystarEld [+2] Pokémon Professor (8 days later)
Glad to hear it :)
u/DaystarEld [+4] Pokémon Professor (a minute later)
Typo thread!
u/Bulletprof97 [+5] The Emperor's Text-to-Speech Device (5 hours later)
"and now you guy show up to bully me"
u/DaystarEld [+2] Pokémon Professor (11 hours later)
Fixed, thanks!
u/KnickersInAKnit [+2] (10 hours later)
"accomplish that would benefit me on net,"
I actually don't know what you were trying to say here, but it didn't make sense.
u/DaystarEld [+2] Pokémon Professor (11 hours later)
"On net" meaning in total, at the end of the day, articles of that kind would not benefit him. Does that help, or were you just not familiar with the phrase?
u/KnickersInAKnit [+2] (11 hours later)
Oh, like net profit. I've always seen it paired with a category, never on its own. I interpreted it as slang for Internet and got very confused. TIL, thanks.
u/DaystarEld [+2] Pokémon Professor (11 hours later)
No problem!
u/tokol [+2] The Greater Good (12 hours later)
She glares at the officer, who stars blandly back.
stars -> stares
u/DaystarEld [+3] Pokémon Professor (15 hours later)
Fixed!
u/A_Common_Hero [+2] (13 hours later)
"He demeanor is still affable"
u/DaystarEld [+2] Pokémon Professor (15 hours later)
Fixed, thanks!
u/Icare0 [+4] (2 days later)
So, a Tangela? I was under the impression that Pokemon like Growlithe, Houndour, Luxio, and other canine Pokemon would be better suited for guarding and self-defense, specially with the access to stuff like Howl, Intimidate, Thunder Wave, Roar, and whatnot, but I guess a grass type offers more non-lethal firepower in the Powders, and Tangela does have access to Wrap.
u/DaystarEld [+3] Pokémon Professor (2 days later)
Also tangrowth is a defensive beast if built properly :)
u/Icare0 [+2] (3 days later)
Wait, tangrowth is known in OoS universe? You have to level up a tangela that knows Ancient Power to evolve it. If they didn't know that Gyarados was Flying-type, do they know about Ancient Power evolution? In the games, Tangela from Kanto can't learn Ancient Power.
What brings up the question, what about the trade evolutions, the item trade evolutions, and evolutions that require specific locations, such as Magnezone, and Leafeon? Do they exist and function exactly like in game? People know that they exist? What about Nincada? Shiny pokemon? That weird slowpoke anime evolution that requires a shellder?
Ugh, Too many questions.
u/DaystarEld [+6] Pokémon Professor (3 days later)
Actually the Tangela in Kanto from HG/SS can learn it, and since that's the most modern version of Kanto that exists, that's my baseline for adaptation :)
That aside though, a lot of that nonsensical stuff they added in for the later generations to justify why the pokemon introduced earlier didn't evolve are clearly game conceits that I'm okay with dropping if they don't make sense, but I'll be making the decisions on an individual basis for the most part.
Like, I don't care what the canon games say, Eevee evolutions all work off stones. There's literally a type of evolutionary stone for every Eevee type. If there are alternative ways to evolve them, great, but the stones are going to work too (especially since they won't work as just "touch them with a stone" like in the games and anime)
u/xamueljones [+3] My arch-enemy is entropy (6 hours later)
Quick question to recap, what justification in the story if any was given to permit children younger than 18 to be trainers and handle wild creatures who could kill them easily?
u/DaystarEld [+19] Pokémon Professor (11 hours later)
So my options on this were basically to either retcon canon (games, manga, and shows) and make all trainers in the world 18+, or try to rationalize the world as presented, despite upgrading its dangers to a realistic level.
I ultimately decided on the latter for a couple reasons: first, because I think it adds a lot to the themes of the story to make the pokemon journey one of childhood ambition and adventure, and second because I think that the pokemon world has sufficient history to justify their children being different from our own.
I go over this a bit in the FAQ on my site, but the short version is that I think 12 year olds in the pokemon world are going to be, on average, at least a standard deviation more intelligent and mature than those in our world, and certainly more than those raised in a modern, developed country. Red and his friends are gifted youngsters even by their own world's standards, which is why they got their trainer licenses so young, and they still travel in a group to help increase safety. On top of that, CoRRNet is such a universal presence to help improve safety further.
At the end of the day, the in-universe reason for why kids are allowed to train monsters is that in-universe they need kids to, and expect kids to. Their world went through thousands of years of dark ages where humanity survived by the skin of its teeth against these monsters, and over time learned to domesticate and train them. Their history is full of stories of heroes who, at a young age, managed to capture and raise dangerous pokemon that they then used for their villages/towns/tribes' safety.
With the advance of the world's technology, both in capturing pokemon and in training them, I don't see why they would shift to suddenly having lower expectations of their children. In a sense that's what we've done in our world, but that's because we don't have pressures on society not to. Their world is still one of an existential struggle against monsters, and they need as many soldiers ready to defend against them as they can get, as quickly as they can get them.
Does that make sense?
u/jldew [+3] (14 hours later)
I'm getting a V for Vendetta feel from this chapter. Also. I have a theory about who or what the ninja is.
u/tokol [+5] The Greater Good (a day later)
"You're definitely right that if Janine was in fact inclined to monitor her..." [emphasis added] -DaystarEld, a.k.a. the author
I still read the whole chapter wishfully thinking she was actually an escaped cyborg Mewtwo acting like an awkward teenager.
u/DaystarEld [+8] Pokémon Professor (a day later)
I continue to be amused by readers hypothesizing that Mewtwo is, for some reason, pretending to be random teenage girls running around Kanto (or puppeteering them) for various reasons ranging from Revenge to Espionage to Learning the True Meaning of Friendship.
u/Ibbot [+4] (8 days later)
Revenge and Espionage are the True Meaning of Friendship! Silly Mewtwo...
u/StrategicSarcasm [+3] Chaos Legion (8 days later)
Acting?
u/tokol [+3] The Greater Good (8 days later)
Yep. If we ignore the author confirmation, the story could, technically... still pivot towards a big reveal where Mewtwo has multiple fake personas that it has either stolen or constructed, and it's on a crusade of justice after which the plot shifts to having Mewtwo play the Atlas-Shrugged role and R/B/L have to take down a self-aggrandizing, ideologically pure Mewtwo using only reason and good sense.
(^ ... or possibly a side story (omake) or writing prompt)
u/StrategicSarcasm [+3] Chaos Legion (8 days later)
I was more saying that, assuming a handful of extra years passed since the timeskip in chapter 28, and Mewtwo still struggled with direct human interactions, Mewtwo would be an awkward teenager, rather than merely acting like one.
u/rhaps0dy4 [+2] (a day later)
Whenever I read CoRRNet, I think of the Computing Research Repository. https://arxiv.org/corr/home
u/DaystarEld [+3] Pokémon Professor (a day later)
Apparently there's something called a Correlational Neural Network called CorrNet oo! I did my best to come up with an acronym that fit, but I guess it's inevitable that others out there have used it before for other things :)
u/None [+3] (an hour later)
[deleted]
u/leniadolbap [+14] (3 hours later)
"Laura turns back to a third woman, who has a bellsprout wrapped tight around her shoulders and neck, a warrant in one hand, and a pair of handcuffs in the other."