I’ve got a little fan theory concerning where—at least from the World-Of-Pokémon’s perspective—Pokémon come from. Like, how they come about, where they come from, how new kinds of Pokémon are made, etc.
The TL;DR version of my theory is that there is a kind of Ditto—a PRIME Ditto, or Primitto—which forms the basis of ALL new Pokémon. The way it forms new Pokémon is that, as a way to survive and hide from predators, it permanently emulates something in its environment which it thinks may help it hide better. However, it doesn’t really hide it from humans, as their odd, bizarre and strange caricatures of nature and humanity stick out like a sore thumb.
Here’s the theory in full (via a graphic I made for 4chan):
But it’s still a work in progress; this page will contain all my little notes about it. Y’all are welcome to participate with it as well, if you have an idea to add to it. I want to try to keep this as realistic as possible, with scientific plausibility being more important than trying to account for all the things Pokémon are said to do according to their Pokédex entries (like Charizard’s ability to melt boulders, Entei being born out of volcanos, etc). Of course, SOME stretches of “scientific plausibility” will be necessary, but it would still have to make logical sense—such as if there is a creature made out of metal it makes sense that it has the capability to consume metals, break it down and use it to form its body just like we break down and use the matter from the foods we consume to help build our bodies.
And… there we are!
4 Comments
This Primitto Theory is excellent. I wonder if there is any correlation to the theory that Mew (Listed as the NEW SPECIES Pokemon) and Ditto are related. It may be that Mew IS the Primitto and we don’t see any in the wild due to the fact that their population continually (On what seems a 3 year cycle) shifts into new and permanent forms.
Many Professors currently think that Mew is the progenitor of all Pokemon. These same minds believe that Mew is from outer space. This lends credence to the thought that the Primitto generated ALL Pokemon due to the large number coming from space.
I have been thinking of the necessity of mass/energy conversion when a Primitto takes on a form. It has been noted by many involved with Pokemon that Mews do not transform into the targeted Pokemon fully. I postulate that this is because they do not have enough energy to do so. Lets assume a Primitto has a large density that it can convert between mass/energy when taking on a permanent form. For simple Pokemon such as Rattata or Pidgy the energy is sufficient to create multiple copies from one Primitto, allowing for breeding to take place through standard procedures. The egg groupings postulated by Breeders then become more like energy wells as seen in chemistry.
We might choose to consider Mew and Ditto the same species with only one of them able to give birth, but never to their own species. These may be the remainders of a Primitto’s transformation, should it have any energy left. The ratio of Ditto to Mew would be extremely large during these transformations, leading to the rarity of Mew and commonality of Ditto. It may even be that excess energy from simple species is channeled into Mew and from stronger species into Dittos.
I would love to continue the discussion at some point, I need to think of the subject of Legnedaries, multiple Primitto pairing for transformation, breeding outside energy wells and why Arceus exists. Did a god create Primittos, where a large group quickly copied it to survive?
Regards,
Pokemon Professor Black
I really need to update this concept one of these days. One, to account for any ideas or questions tossed around in the years since making this, such as this reddit post, and two, to incorporate similar ideas and concepts from The Thing movies and “The Things” short story
Some key points to cover include:
* genome sequencing which determined that Tsepallagotes are definitely from this planet and therefore share a common ancestor with all other life
* the idea of finding some kind of Tsepallagote “family tree” is nearly pointless as Tsepallagotes can (in their Primitto form) take on the appearance of anything they want, therefore a Pokémon in the form of a crab does not necessarily mean that both it and ANOTHER Pokémon in the form of a crab descended from a common crab-ish Pokémon ancestor. I mean, it MIGHT have, just that that is no guarantee.
* That said, a BETTER indication of determining common ancestry is Egg Group; while a Primitto can take the form of whatever it chooses and its descendants are locked into that form, since it still uses DNA to encode its form, the normal processes of natural selection and (actual) evolution means that that DNA can change over time and therefore new forms of Pokémon can come about.
* I guess I should also cover this concept… as in, how a Pokémon species can come into being. Like, imagine we have a Tsepallagote in the shape of a mouse. This could happen, either from a Primitto locking itself directly into that form of a mouse, or because a Primitto locked itself into a form of something else, and over time and (proper) evolution, it finally came into that particular form of a mouse.
* I should cover the advantages and disadvantages of “locking itself into a form” or not. Like, why not be ALL forms to be the best animal it can be? Well, part of it has to do with general environmental factors (a form with wheels will not exactly survive well in a rocky terrain) and therefore the environment forces Primittos into narrowing down what forms are most useful. Secondly, the Primitto’s form choices are more like tools in its tool box… but if you dont know what tools are useful and/or how to tell your descendants this info, then what’s the point? Locking a form in allows their offspring to be born with all the necessary tools in their toolbox, instead of being born as a Primitto and having to learn everything all over again. In a certain way it’s kind of like genetic memory, in that locking a form in allows the lessons that one primitto learned to be passed down across its offspring by virtue of having a form that is best suited for the environment. Finally, locking in a form then allows for better refinement over the generations. A Pokémon can have a certain form, either because a Primitto chose that or because it came about after generations of tinkering; the difference is that the former is the decision of a single Primitto while the latter is after centuries of refinement… basically, the ends may be the same, but the means are totally different. It is therefore more advantageous for a Primitto to lock in a form for its environment as early as possible to ensure its offspring have the best chances of survival, instead of remaining as Primitto and EVERY offspring and their offspring having to learn everything about surviving on their own and NOT being able to pass their wisdom and experience onto its offspring.
The reason to include elements from The Thing is that it seems to be similar to how I expect Primittos to work: its able to study foreign DNA and incorporate it into it’s own structure so that it knows how to mimic others. That said I wont make Tsepallagotes not nearly as horrific as The Thing, as Tsepallagotes wont be taking over any hosts, but simply reading its DNA and knowing what to copy from it, leaving the “host” to remain free and not-dead.
It may be that certain Primitto colonies have dats on hundreds of different lifeforms through this process and can therefore choose any combination of forms, or even invent new kinds of forms, all in order to lock in the best form for its survival in a particular environment. For example, a Primitto colony inside a large clocktower might utilize certain geometric forms in order to appear as a “gear” in order to hide inside the clock tower, and one of the forms it could utilize is one that can produce strong acids which they can use to break down metallic objects in order to incorporate those metals into it’s own structure. Of course a Pokémon that can do that might be considered more of a pest than anything, so perhaps metallic bait traps could be set to make sure those Pokémon are at least not eating away at the extremely heavy and precise metal elements of the clock tower.
This may also imply that Tsepallagotes have some rudimentary intelligence and creative problem solving capabilities… namely, how to create new forms based on their environment even if there is no DNA it can incorporate into itself to support that form. Again, with the form of a gear, since no animal exactly is a gear, let alone metallic, it clearly has some ability to not only produce it’s own metallic shapes but also “eat” metal in order for it to have it to have the metal to repurpose into its body form. Since no animal DNA seems to have this capability, it likely had to repurpose whatever information it had for its purposes (ie maybe stomach acid was strengthened to be able to break down and absorb metals), and this ability seems to show a degree of intelligence and creative thinking.
Now that said, it might means that any Pokémon is a Steel-type had intelligence ancestors in order to lock in such a form… but perhaps once it was locked in, they didnt need to be so smart anymore. Therefore, I would argue that there is a good chance that a Steel/Psychic-type Pokémon is a relatively young Pokémon, having only recently locked into its current form, while other non-Psychic Steel-types are much older. In fact, the more “animalistic” and “primitive” it is, the greater chance of it being a VERY old Pokémon species, as clearly (proper) evolution to suit its environment naturally selected brawn over brains, and whatever intelligence its Primitto-ancestors had fell to the wayside when its descendants evolved in an environment that didn’t need it (or, worse, it became a hindrance). Of course this is all just a generalization; a Steel/Psychic Pokémon might be a very old species as natural selection reinforced the species’ need to remain smart. Alternatively, it’s possible that a purely by chance change in a Pokémon species DNA allowed it to digest metals and incorporate it into its system, therefore it never made a deliberate choice to become a Steel-type and therefore was never Steel/Psychic-type to begin with. All of this is conjecture.
Anyways, these are all the various elements and ideas that I need to include in any update to the Primitto theory.
I’ve done some work on this as well – check this out for my best guesses on the subject:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FNVHup1sv2zH0f9umHDwGiJb6oSPzF5L5I-544baaMI/edit?usp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SkXFuBTvm9YENqnVdN4wvIEfEvjG-_Jj2tzIjzNxfdU/edit?usp=sharing
Oh boy, more material! (Not being sarcastic, lol) Thanks, once I get some free time I’ll start cracking further on this idea.