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Hello all. I've recently been playing through Ultra Moon, and got to the Ultra Necrozma fight the other day. There is something on that subject which has been on my mind for quite some time, that I can't really make heads or tails of, and that battle brought my questions back up to the surface. USUM have been out for some time now and I feel as though most people have digested them, but before the next games roll around, I'd like to collect some thoughts about this.
So, it's pretty commonly thought that Ultra Necrozma - the big, luminescent, dreadfully powerful form of Necrozma that we see during the climax of the story - is the very same appearance that Necrozma bore in the distant past, before it was exploited and wounded by the people of Ultra Megalopolis. Its "true form," to put it simply - what the Ultra Recon Squad tell us was once revered by their ancestors as "the Blinding One." And this is certainly easy enough to assume based on the presentation in the games alone... after all, it's a giant dragon made of white-hot light that radiates auras of great power. "The Blinding One" is a most appropriate epithet for such a creature. Indeed, I myself finished up USUM the first time with this very impression in mind.
But there are some pieces of evidence I came across later that caused me to doubt that impression. But let me first lay out what I believe to be the basic, linear history of Necrozma according to a handful of scattered in-game quotes.
Phyco: Our Ultra Megalopolis was once a world filled with light... Necrozma was called the Blinding One, and it gave us all the energy we needed. And in fact, we were not the only ones who basked in its light. It traveled even to the distant world of Alola by passing through the Ultra Wormholes!
Soliera: But...our ancestors grew too greedy, and they caused Necrozma to lose a part of its body. And this in turn made Necrozma run wild... Help it if you can. We beg you...
Dulse: So this is Tapu Village! We will need to investigate it quite thoroughly. According to the records we have left to us, it seems that this is where Necrozma battled against the tapu when it came to Alola long ago, hungering for its light. It may be the case that the power which came pouring out of the Ultra Wormhole at that time is what changes Pokémon's regular moves into Z-Moves. Such theories have been suggested... Our ancestors were greedy, and they sought to control all of Necrozma's light... But what was the result of all that? They only hurt Necrozma, making it lose a part of itself and causing it to run wild and steal all the light it could find!
Hidden library document: The pillager of light descended from the sky and shrouded the world in darkness. The pillager took from us the beast that devours the sun/calls the moon, using the beast as its own Dusk Mane/Dawn Wings. A youth and the guardians together used the stones to summon the light once more. The beast that devours the sun was freed/parted from the pillager of light, and the darkness was banished from Alola.
Kukui: Sure! A long, long time ago, Alola was cloaked in darkness, yeah... But people say that's when Alola's people and Pokémon blasted all that darkness away with light! And they also say that was why people started gathering Z-Crystals, and that custom turned into the island challenge.
Soliera: Before our ancestors were forced to contain it, Necrozma emitted powerful light... That light is what you call auras!
So let's combine these accounts. Long ago, Necrozma shared its light with the people of Ultra Megalopolis. Those people eventually became greedy and tried to control all of Necrozma's light, but in doing so, they hurt Necrozma and made it "lose a part of its body," at which point it began to run wild, and stole the light from Ultra Megalopolis, plunging it into darkness. Necrozma then ran away to Alola, thirsting for even more light, and fused itself with Solgaleo/Lunala. It did battle against the tapu, but they combined their power with that of a youth using "the stones" (I'll come to that) and broke Necrozma's fusion, thereby returning the light to Alola and driving Necrozma away. In Alola, this is the point at which people began to gather Z-Crystals, and as for Necrozma, it seems to have been banished back to Ultra Megalopolis, where the people "were forced to contain it" and suspended it in Megalo Tower in order to keep Necrozma from rampaging even further.
Pretty simple so far, yeah? And in the present time of the games, we are told that Megalo Tower's power is beginning to wane after many long years of containing Necrozma, and that Necrozma will soon break free and return to Alola in another attempt to consume its light. This comes to pass, and Necrozma again fuses itself with Solgaleo/Lunala, and then flees to Ultra Megalopolis after a brief skirmish. We're told that the light Necrozma has stolen from another will allow it to regain its "true power," but since Necrozma is in a "broken form," it can't control that light and will only suffer even more. We can clearly see that it is pained atop Megalo Tower, and it seems to reach a breaking point, at which its prism brain ejects from Solgaleo/Lunala's head and erupts with light, forming Ultra Necrozma.
But that's what I'd like to talk about. Was what we saw there really Necrozma's true form? Or was it perhaps a form that Necrozma was never meant to take?
That might sound strange, but there is some evidence that I think seems to support that impression. The first and most important of which is a quote from the games' director, Kazumasa Iwao, which he provided in an interview that was included with the official strategy guide for USUM...
Iwao: I dug into the original setting in my own mind, reconstructed it, and gave Necrozma, Solgaleo, and Lunala this deep relationship. Necrozma can control light, but it cannot create light. So it has a strong desire to steal the light from Solgaleo and Lunala, which both possess their own light. These three are always struggling against one another in Ultra Space. Necrozma might steal the light of the others and flee, then Solgaleo and Lunala might give chase and take the light back — and on and on it would go. They had always lived this way, but the balance of this relationship among them was thrown off due to the interference of the Ultra Recon Squad in Necrozma’s world and the people living in Alola, like the protagonist. As a result — and even though it really only ever needed a small amount of energy — Necrozma comes to gain a huge amount of energy, beyond what Necrozma itself anticipated, when it captures Solgaleo or Lunala. And because of gaining this excessive amount of energy, Necrozma goes berserk. That is what we call "Ultra Necrozma." And we wanted to depict the drama of the hero encountering this Ultra Necrozma at the climax of the story. It was the actions of people that made Necrozma run amok, but in the end, it will be caught by the player and join them as an ally. Thanks to that, Necrozma will become able to draw forth its own true power once again and be able to accompany the player on their island challenge, without needing to target the lives of Solgaleo or Lunala. We wanted to illustrate how the relationship between Necrozma, Solgaleo, and Lunala, which had been destroyed in the past, is forged again by the hero’s actions and the balance of the world is restored.
This quote, to me, seems to describe a relationship that is quite complex and very different from what we were shown in the games, where the relationship between Necrozma and Cosmog's evolutions seemed to fall upon mere coincidence (they create/draw in light, which just so happens to be what Necrozma needs after it lost its own light...). Here, it seems as though they had "always" been embroiled in a sort of perpetual predator/prey relationship. Furthermore, it seems that Necrozma and the Cosmog line are the only Pokémon that can willfully open Ultra Wormholes, and indeed, they both share many traits with the Ultra Beasts despite not being explicitly classified as UBs themselves (the games continually beat around the bush whenever it comes to their UB status).
That alone would seem to resolve some lingering vagueries about them... like why are they the only ones that can open Ultra Wormholes at will? (They need to be able to in order to chase each other through Ultra Space.) And why do Solgaleo and Lunala engage in a salmon-like reproductive ritual wherein they "swim upstream" to an entirely different world which serves as the cradle for their offspring? (Presumably, they want to keep it safe from Necrozma by not dragging the young Cosmog along with them through Ultra Space). And on Necrozma's end, perhaps once it has stolen the light from either of the two, it flees to a world where it can hide from them for a time, and as a byproduct of having consumed their light, it refracts some of it as Z-Power auras which benefit the local lifeforms, such as the Ultra Megalopolitans. Dulse, in Ultra Moon, mentions that Necrozma also shared its light with many other worlds throughout Ultra Space, and I've always taken that line to suggest that it gave light to the UB worlds - I would argue that there must be *something* unifying all of the UBs, because otherwise it begs the question of how beings on totally different planets could all develop with one specific Ability (Beast Boost), prime number-oriented stats, and metallic echoes in their cries - especially considering that those latter two traits are shared with Solgaleo, Lunala, and Necrozma. If those three are constantly chasing each other around Ultra Space and swapping each others' light around, then of course the different UB worlds might become exposed to the same energy. Additionally, this would explain why the UBs still generate Totem auras even when we encounter them on their homeworlds - Totem auras are confirmed at one point to be the light of Necrozma that drifted into Alola through the wormholes, and the UBs have the same ability to concentrate that light around themselves as an aura. So if their worlds are filled with Necrozma's light, then it stands to reason...
But I must say that I find it hard to envision the relationship described by Iwao above as something that unfolds between Solgaleo, Lunala, and the big light dragon that is Ultra Necrozma. It just seems fairly incongruous, for a being of such power and radiant light, to have to pursue these other, weaker beings of light in order to sustain itself. And what would happen to it when Solgaleo and Lunala "took the light back"? Would the light that composes its body dissipate? It is perhaps easy to assume so, but that sounds a lot like what we know would eventually happen to Necrozma on Ultra Megalopolis, and it seems strange to me to suggest that Necrozma would have been reduced to a "broken" form multiple times.
With that in mind, there is Iwao's mention of "Ultra Necrozma" being Necrozma's "berserk" state that occurs as a result of its overconsumption of light from Solgaleo or Lunala. Is he trying to say that Ultra Necrozma is some kind of new, supercharged form that even Necrozma didn't expect to achieve when it fused with Cosmog's evolutions? There is more evidence that supports this, on the official site:
Ultra Necrozma's bio: Ultra Necrozma is a further transformation of Dusk Mane Necrozma or Dawn Wings Necrozma, the forms that Necrozma takes when it captures Solgaleo or Lunala. It is a new form that even Necrozma had never taken until now. It has been discovered for the first time in the form of this dragon brimming with light.
"A new form that even Necrozma had never taken until now." "Discovered for the first time." Hmm. Now, not to jump the gun - it is possible that these lines are meant to be read as metafictional, as in, Necrozma had never taken this form until now, in the games Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, rather than saying Necrozma had never taken this form until the events of Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. Perhaps they didn't want to spoil Necrozma's lore, about having once lived as Ultra Necrozma until it was wounded by the Megalopolitans. But I looked at all of the other Pokémon bios on the site, and all of them were written from an in-universe perspective, describing the natural behavior or qualities of the Pokémon in question. Except, perhaps, for Naganadel, which notes that it is the first Ultra Beast to have been found to evolve - which may be true within the story, unless the plot-reveal of Cosmog being a suspected UB is meant to be taken at face value. In which case, perhaps they are also just protecting that spoiler... but given how the USUM site freely spoils other SM plot developments such as Solgaleo and Lunala evolving from Cosmog, I have my doubts, especially since it still isn't totally clear as to whether or not Cosmog and its evolutions are truly considered UBs anyway.
There is another piece of evidence, albeit a small one. Ultra Necrozma's Pokédex entry in Ultra Sun...
Pokédex: This is its form when it has absorbed overwhelming light energy. It fires laser beams from all over its body.
But again, there is some frustrating room for ambiguity here. Is it saying that Ultra Necrozma is a form that Necrozma takes only upon absorbing "overwhelming" light energy, and that the form wouldn't exist in any other circumstance? Or is this written in the context of Necrozma's already fundamentally altered existence... as in, the only way it can take this form nowadays, after being broken, is by absorbing overwhelming energy? To put it another way, hypothetically, would Ultra Necrozma have had a different Pokédex entry if it were documented in the distant past, when it was a complete being?
Speaking of Necrozma being an "incomplete being." We're told a number of times that it "lost a part of its body" when the Megalopolitans tried to control its light. But what body part was this? My first thought that that it was simply, well, the light - the stuff that makes up the draconic body as Ultra Necrozma, leaving behind the armor pieces to assemble into the darker Necrozma that we've always known. But there is a scene in the post-game, in which Kukui and Lillie posit a theory about the origin of Z-Crystals and Sparkling Stones, which could suggest differently.
Kukui: It all starts with your Z-Power Ring, yeah, forged from the Sparkling Stone you got straight from Tapu Koko! When you use your Z-Crystals, it brings you and your Pokémon together!
Lillie: Yes, it seems that some sort of invisible bond is created between a Trainer and their Pokémon.
Kukui: Yeah, a Trainer sends their physical and mental energy, and their Pokémon are surrounded by an aura!
Lillie: So, what is it that allows a Trainer to send their power to a Pokémon?
Kukui: Yeah, it's that Z-Power Ring, made from a refined Sparkling Stone, that changes a Trainer's power into light and gives their Pokémon an aura!
Lillie: Then there is the light pouring into Alola from the Ultra Wormhole that Solgaleo/Lunala opened up...
Kukui: That's an important point! Could Sparkling Stones have also come through the Ultra Wormhole and landed here in Alola?
Lillie: Long, long ago, Necrozma lost part of its body -- at least that's what the Ultra Recon Squad said.
Kukui: If you combine my theory with what we've heard from the Ultra Recon Squad...
Lillie: The Sparkling Stones themselves might be that part of Necrozma's body that it lost! If that's the case, then Necrozma... When it's with you, [player], it can get back that part of itself that was once lost.
Kukui: It might just be a theory, but you are one awesome Trainer, [player]!
Lillie: And Necrozma, in its own way, is an awesome Pokémon! Hee!
Kukui: I heard about it from Colress, yeah... He told me you can give Solgaleo/Lunala's light to Necrozma!
Lillie: Yes, and then Necrozma can change back into that brilliant form!
Kukui: I've heard old stories about how Necrozma was driven back by the light, but maybe people were just giving it the light it needed.
This dialogue here is what made me think that maybe the "part of its body" that Necrozma lost wasn't just the light-dragon part of Ultra Necrozma, but rather, that Necrozma once had a whole body composed of the crystalline material that forms Ultra Necrozma's face, breastplate, and limbs. (Not that Pokémon isn't above some kind of bizarro science in which light can turn into stones - indeed, the in-bag item descriptions for the Z-Crystals say that they are a "crystallized form" of Z-Power, but I doubt that Game Freak intended for us to have an item description, of all things, in mind when parsing this scene, and I would say that Kukui seems to be talking about the stones coming through the wormholes as physical objects, not light.) Perhaps this other form was more on the power level of Solgaleo and Lunala rather than far exceeding it... maybe it had the standard 680 BST, and by fusing with Solgaleo or Lunala in modern times, Necrozma recoups that loss by using them to "fill in" for the missing part of its body. And perhaps this earlier form was one in which the pieces that Necrozma's concept art labels as its "arm(s)" were indeed still the arms, and its "tail" was actually a tail.
Essentially, I am wondering if it is possible that Necrozma once had a form "between" the broken form that we normally see, and the extremely powerful Ultra Necrozma that we see when it takes in too much light. Perhaps that was Necrozma's true form, and in that form, it could steadily and safely control the small amount of light that it needed to take from Solgaleo and Lunala (I must admit that I do find the idea of a prism creature being the predator of two creatures that are sources of light to be fairly clever), and whenever it was in possession of this light, it would shine and radiate auras. It would have done this on many worlds, which influenced the growth of the UBs. Until one day, it was sharing these auras with the people of Ultra Megalopolis, and they tried to take all of its light. They wounded it, and caused its body to shatter, with the larger remaining pieces assembling into the regular Necrozma we know in order to protect its prism brain, while the other fragments fell through the wormhole that Necrozma opened into Alola after stealing the light from Megalopolis, and landed upon Alolan soil to be harnessed as a weapon by that youth mentioned in the hidden library text. This makes sense - the banishment of darkness from ancient Alola is said by Kukui to be the point at which people began collecting Z-Crystals. If Sparkling Stones and Z-Crystals are the fragments of Necrozma's body, and they came along with Necrozma at this time, then of course that's why people would start collecting them then. It doesn't have to disregard Iwao's characterization of the trio, which makes them all feel like a proper trio, in my opinion, and it doesn't have to disregard the information from Necrozma's bio on the official site. All very neat, all very elegant, I would say... except for one problem, which is some potentially contradictory dialogue from the games. After defeating Ultra Necrozma, Phyco and Dulse say these lines...
Phyco: Necrozma took on that brilliant form once again and became Ultra Necrozma, thanks to you all. But now... Necrozma has lost its light once more and appears to have fled to Alola.
Dulse: The Necrozma that you managed to quiet... Yes, you might call it Ultra Necrozma. It shone with such blinding light, as it used to, only to lose that light all over again...
Dulse's dialogue is a bit more flexible, as he seems to be coining the term "Ultra Necrozma" on the spot, and merely says that it shone with blinding light *as* it used to, which could just be comparative. But Phyco's line is pretty difficult to read as saying anything other than "Necrozma used to be in that form, and just took it on once again." I've considered that maybe "that brilliant form" it "took on once again" may simply be referring to the prism brain that was filled with light, since he does follow that with "and became" Ultra Necrozma, but that feels like a stretch compared to the more straightforward reading.
I suppose it's possible that the modern Ultra Recon Squad may not have ever actually seen a depiction of what Necrozma looked like in the ancient past, and therefore just assume that Ultra Necrozma is it, but it seems like something should have been mentioned about that if that were the case. And... there's a part of me that can't shake the feeling, that Ultra Necrozma is what we're supposed to have in mind when they talk about "the Blinding One." As I said at the beginning of this piece, it's a very appropriate descriptor. You see a giant dragon made of photons, you're told it was once called "the Blinding One"... it's not hard to connect those dots.
So. If you've actually managed to read this all the way to the end, I thank you for your time and your patience, and I ask, what are your thoughts? Do you find the evidence I've compiled to be persuasive? Did Necrozma once have an unseen, "true" form, with Ultra Necrozma being some kind of overcharged form that happened by accident? Did they pull another "original dragon" on us? Or do you think that "Ultra Necrozma" is pretty clearly the "Blinding One" that's talked about, and I'm just massively overthinking everything? Please let me know!
So, it's pretty commonly thought that Ultra Necrozma - the big, luminescent, dreadfully powerful form of Necrozma that we see during the climax of the story - is the very same appearance that Necrozma bore in the distant past, before it was exploited and wounded by the people of Ultra Megalopolis. Its "true form," to put it simply - what the Ultra Recon Squad tell us was once revered by their ancestors as "the Blinding One." And this is certainly easy enough to assume based on the presentation in the games alone... after all, it's a giant dragon made of white-hot light that radiates auras of great power. "The Blinding One" is a most appropriate epithet for such a creature. Indeed, I myself finished up USUM the first time with this very impression in mind.
But there are some pieces of evidence I came across later that caused me to doubt that impression. But let me first lay out what I believe to be the basic, linear history of Necrozma according to a handful of scattered in-game quotes.
Phyco: Our Ultra Megalopolis was once a world filled with light... Necrozma was called the Blinding One, and it gave us all the energy we needed. And in fact, we were not the only ones who basked in its light. It traveled even to the distant world of Alola by passing through the Ultra Wormholes!
Soliera: But...our ancestors grew too greedy, and they caused Necrozma to lose a part of its body. And this in turn made Necrozma run wild... Help it if you can. We beg you...
Dulse: So this is Tapu Village! We will need to investigate it quite thoroughly. According to the records we have left to us, it seems that this is where Necrozma battled against the tapu when it came to Alola long ago, hungering for its light. It may be the case that the power which came pouring out of the Ultra Wormhole at that time is what changes Pokémon's regular moves into Z-Moves. Such theories have been suggested... Our ancestors were greedy, and they sought to control all of Necrozma's light... But what was the result of all that? They only hurt Necrozma, making it lose a part of itself and causing it to run wild and steal all the light it could find!
Hidden library document: The pillager of light descended from the sky and shrouded the world in darkness. The pillager took from us the beast that devours the sun/calls the moon, using the beast as its own Dusk Mane/Dawn Wings. A youth and the guardians together used the stones to summon the light once more. The beast that devours the sun was freed/parted from the pillager of light, and the darkness was banished from Alola.
Kukui: Sure! A long, long time ago, Alola was cloaked in darkness, yeah... But people say that's when Alola's people and Pokémon blasted all that darkness away with light! And they also say that was why people started gathering Z-Crystals, and that custom turned into the island challenge.
Soliera: Before our ancestors were forced to contain it, Necrozma emitted powerful light... That light is what you call auras!
So let's combine these accounts. Long ago, Necrozma shared its light with the people of Ultra Megalopolis. Those people eventually became greedy and tried to control all of Necrozma's light, but in doing so, they hurt Necrozma and made it "lose a part of its body," at which point it began to run wild, and stole the light from Ultra Megalopolis, plunging it into darkness. Necrozma then ran away to Alola, thirsting for even more light, and fused itself with Solgaleo/Lunala. It did battle against the tapu, but they combined their power with that of a youth using "the stones" (I'll come to that) and broke Necrozma's fusion, thereby returning the light to Alola and driving Necrozma away. In Alola, this is the point at which people began to gather Z-Crystals, and as for Necrozma, it seems to have been banished back to Ultra Megalopolis, where the people "were forced to contain it" and suspended it in Megalo Tower in order to keep Necrozma from rampaging even further.
Pretty simple so far, yeah? And in the present time of the games, we are told that Megalo Tower's power is beginning to wane after many long years of containing Necrozma, and that Necrozma will soon break free and return to Alola in another attempt to consume its light. This comes to pass, and Necrozma again fuses itself with Solgaleo/Lunala, and then flees to Ultra Megalopolis after a brief skirmish. We're told that the light Necrozma has stolen from another will allow it to regain its "true power," but since Necrozma is in a "broken form," it can't control that light and will only suffer even more. We can clearly see that it is pained atop Megalo Tower, and it seems to reach a breaking point, at which its prism brain ejects from Solgaleo/Lunala's head and erupts with light, forming Ultra Necrozma.
But that's what I'd like to talk about. Was what we saw there really Necrozma's true form? Or was it perhaps a form that Necrozma was never meant to take?
That might sound strange, but there is some evidence that I think seems to support that impression. The first and most important of which is a quote from the games' director, Kazumasa Iwao, which he provided in an interview that was included with the official strategy guide for USUM...
Iwao: I dug into the original setting in my own mind, reconstructed it, and gave Necrozma, Solgaleo, and Lunala this deep relationship. Necrozma can control light, but it cannot create light. So it has a strong desire to steal the light from Solgaleo and Lunala, which both possess their own light. These three are always struggling against one another in Ultra Space. Necrozma might steal the light of the others and flee, then Solgaleo and Lunala might give chase and take the light back — and on and on it would go. They had always lived this way, but the balance of this relationship among them was thrown off due to the interference of the Ultra Recon Squad in Necrozma’s world and the people living in Alola, like the protagonist. As a result — and even though it really only ever needed a small amount of energy — Necrozma comes to gain a huge amount of energy, beyond what Necrozma itself anticipated, when it captures Solgaleo or Lunala. And because of gaining this excessive amount of energy, Necrozma goes berserk. That is what we call "Ultra Necrozma." And we wanted to depict the drama of the hero encountering this Ultra Necrozma at the climax of the story. It was the actions of people that made Necrozma run amok, but in the end, it will be caught by the player and join them as an ally. Thanks to that, Necrozma will become able to draw forth its own true power once again and be able to accompany the player on their island challenge, without needing to target the lives of Solgaleo or Lunala. We wanted to illustrate how the relationship between Necrozma, Solgaleo, and Lunala, which had been destroyed in the past, is forged again by the hero’s actions and the balance of the world is restored.
This quote, to me, seems to describe a relationship that is quite complex and very different from what we were shown in the games, where the relationship between Necrozma and Cosmog's evolutions seemed to fall upon mere coincidence (they create/draw in light, which just so happens to be what Necrozma needs after it lost its own light...). Here, it seems as though they had "always" been embroiled in a sort of perpetual predator/prey relationship. Furthermore, it seems that Necrozma and the Cosmog line are the only Pokémon that can willfully open Ultra Wormholes, and indeed, they both share many traits with the Ultra Beasts despite not being explicitly classified as UBs themselves (the games continually beat around the bush whenever it comes to their UB status).
That alone would seem to resolve some lingering vagueries about them... like why are they the only ones that can open Ultra Wormholes at will? (They need to be able to in order to chase each other through Ultra Space.) And why do Solgaleo and Lunala engage in a salmon-like reproductive ritual wherein they "swim upstream" to an entirely different world which serves as the cradle for their offspring? (Presumably, they want to keep it safe from Necrozma by not dragging the young Cosmog along with them through Ultra Space). And on Necrozma's end, perhaps once it has stolen the light from either of the two, it flees to a world where it can hide from them for a time, and as a byproduct of having consumed their light, it refracts some of it as Z-Power auras which benefit the local lifeforms, such as the Ultra Megalopolitans. Dulse, in Ultra Moon, mentions that Necrozma also shared its light with many other worlds throughout Ultra Space, and I've always taken that line to suggest that it gave light to the UB worlds - I would argue that there must be *something* unifying all of the UBs, because otherwise it begs the question of how beings on totally different planets could all develop with one specific Ability (Beast Boost), prime number-oriented stats, and metallic echoes in their cries - especially considering that those latter two traits are shared with Solgaleo, Lunala, and Necrozma. If those three are constantly chasing each other around Ultra Space and swapping each others' light around, then of course the different UB worlds might become exposed to the same energy. Additionally, this would explain why the UBs still generate Totem auras even when we encounter them on their homeworlds - Totem auras are confirmed at one point to be the light of Necrozma that drifted into Alola through the wormholes, and the UBs have the same ability to concentrate that light around themselves as an aura. So if their worlds are filled with Necrozma's light, then it stands to reason...
But I must say that I find it hard to envision the relationship described by Iwao above as something that unfolds between Solgaleo, Lunala, and the big light dragon that is Ultra Necrozma. It just seems fairly incongruous, for a being of such power and radiant light, to have to pursue these other, weaker beings of light in order to sustain itself. And what would happen to it when Solgaleo and Lunala "took the light back"? Would the light that composes its body dissipate? It is perhaps easy to assume so, but that sounds a lot like what we know would eventually happen to Necrozma on Ultra Megalopolis, and it seems strange to me to suggest that Necrozma would have been reduced to a "broken" form multiple times.
With that in mind, there is Iwao's mention of "Ultra Necrozma" being Necrozma's "berserk" state that occurs as a result of its overconsumption of light from Solgaleo or Lunala. Is he trying to say that Ultra Necrozma is some kind of new, supercharged form that even Necrozma didn't expect to achieve when it fused with Cosmog's evolutions? There is more evidence that supports this, on the official site:
Ultra Necrozma's bio: Ultra Necrozma is a further transformation of Dusk Mane Necrozma or Dawn Wings Necrozma, the forms that Necrozma takes when it captures Solgaleo or Lunala. It is a new form that even Necrozma had never taken until now. It has been discovered for the first time in the form of this dragon brimming with light.
"A new form that even Necrozma had never taken until now." "Discovered for the first time." Hmm. Now, not to jump the gun - it is possible that these lines are meant to be read as metafictional, as in, Necrozma had never taken this form until now, in the games Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, rather than saying Necrozma had never taken this form until the events of Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. Perhaps they didn't want to spoil Necrozma's lore, about having once lived as Ultra Necrozma until it was wounded by the Megalopolitans. But I looked at all of the other Pokémon bios on the site, and all of them were written from an in-universe perspective, describing the natural behavior or qualities of the Pokémon in question. Except, perhaps, for Naganadel, which notes that it is the first Ultra Beast to have been found to evolve - which may be true within the story, unless the plot-reveal of Cosmog being a suspected UB is meant to be taken at face value. In which case, perhaps they are also just protecting that spoiler... but given how the USUM site freely spoils other SM plot developments such as Solgaleo and Lunala evolving from Cosmog, I have my doubts, especially since it still isn't totally clear as to whether or not Cosmog and its evolutions are truly considered UBs anyway.
There is another piece of evidence, albeit a small one. Ultra Necrozma's Pokédex entry in Ultra Sun...
Pokédex: This is its form when it has absorbed overwhelming light energy. It fires laser beams from all over its body.
But again, there is some frustrating room for ambiguity here. Is it saying that Ultra Necrozma is a form that Necrozma takes only upon absorbing "overwhelming" light energy, and that the form wouldn't exist in any other circumstance? Or is this written in the context of Necrozma's already fundamentally altered existence... as in, the only way it can take this form nowadays, after being broken, is by absorbing overwhelming energy? To put it another way, hypothetically, would Ultra Necrozma have had a different Pokédex entry if it were documented in the distant past, when it was a complete being?
Speaking of Necrozma being an "incomplete being." We're told a number of times that it "lost a part of its body" when the Megalopolitans tried to control its light. But what body part was this? My first thought that that it was simply, well, the light - the stuff that makes up the draconic body as Ultra Necrozma, leaving behind the armor pieces to assemble into the darker Necrozma that we've always known. But there is a scene in the post-game, in which Kukui and Lillie posit a theory about the origin of Z-Crystals and Sparkling Stones, which could suggest differently.
Kukui: It all starts with your Z-Power Ring, yeah, forged from the Sparkling Stone you got straight from Tapu Koko! When you use your Z-Crystals, it brings you and your Pokémon together!
Lillie: Yes, it seems that some sort of invisible bond is created between a Trainer and their Pokémon.
Kukui: Yeah, a Trainer sends their physical and mental energy, and their Pokémon are surrounded by an aura!
Lillie: So, what is it that allows a Trainer to send their power to a Pokémon?
Kukui: Yeah, it's that Z-Power Ring, made from a refined Sparkling Stone, that changes a Trainer's power into light and gives their Pokémon an aura!
Lillie: Then there is the light pouring into Alola from the Ultra Wormhole that Solgaleo/Lunala opened up...
Kukui: That's an important point! Could Sparkling Stones have also come through the Ultra Wormhole and landed here in Alola?
Lillie: Long, long ago, Necrozma lost part of its body -- at least that's what the Ultra Recon Squad said.
Kukui: If you combine my theory with what we've heard from the Ultra Recon Squad...
Lillie: The Sparkling Stones themselves might be that part of Necrozma's body that it lost! If that's the case, then Necrozma... When it's with you, [player], it can get back that part of itself that was once lost.
Kukui: It might just be a theory, but you are one awesome Trainer, [player]!
Lillie: And Necrozma, in its own way, is an awesome Pokémon! Hee!
Kukui: I heard about it from Colress, yeah... He told me you can give Solgaleo/Lunala's light to Necrozma!
Lillie: Yes, and then Necrozma can change back into that brilliant form!
Kukui: I've heard old stories about how Necrozma was driven back by the light, but maybe people were just giving it the light it needed.
This dialogue here is what made me think that maybe the "part of its body" that Necrozma lost wasn't just the light-dragon part of Ultra Necrozma, but rather, that Necrozma once had a whole body composed of the crystalline material that forms Ultra Necrozma's face, breastplate, and limbs. (Not that Pokémon isn't above some kind of bizarro science in which light can turn into stones - indeed, the in-bag item descriptions for the Z-Crystals say that they are a "crystallized form" of Z-Power, but I doubt that Game Freak intended for us to have an item description, of all things, in mind when parsing this scene, and I would say that Kukui seems to be talking about the stones coming through the wormholes as physical objects, not light.) Perhaps this other form was more on the power level of Solgaleo and Lunala rather than far exceeding it... maybe it had the standard 680 BST, and by fusing with Solgaleo or Lunala in modern times, Necrozma recoups that loss by using them to "fill in" for the missing part of its body. And perhaps this earlier form was one in which the pieces that Necrozma's concept art labels as its "arm(s)" were indeed still the arms, and its "tail" was actually a tail.
Essentially, I am wondering if it is possible that Necrozma once had a form "between" the broken form that we normally see, and the extremely powerful Ultra Necrozma that we see when it takes in too much light. Perhaps that was Necrozma's true form, and in that form, it could steadily and safely control the small amount of light that it needed to take from Solgaleo and Lunala (I must admit that I do find the idea of a prism creature being the predator of two creatures that are sources of light to be fairly clever), and whenever it was in possession of this light, it would shine and radiate auras. It would have done this on many worlds, which influenced the growth of the UBs. Until one day, it was sharing these auras with the people of Ultra Megalopolis, and they tried to take all of its light. They wounded it, and caused its body to shatter, with the larger remaining pieces assembling into the regular Necrozma we know in order to protect its prism brain, while the other fragments fell through the wormhole that Necrozma opened into Alola after stealing the light from Megalopolis, and landed upon Alolan soil to be harnessed as a weapon by that youth mentioned in the hidden library text. This makes sense - the banishment of darkness from ancient Alola is said by Kukui to be the point at which people began collecting Z-Crystals. If Sparkling Stones and Z-Crystals are the fragments of Necrozma's body, and they came along with Necrozma at this time, then of course that's why people would start collecting them then. It doesn't have to disregard Iwao's characterization of the trio, which makes them all feel like a proper trio, in my opinion, and it doesn't have to disregard the information from Necrozma's bio on the official site. All very neat, all very elegant, I would say... except for one problem, which is some potentially contradictory dialogue from the games. After defeating Ultra Necrozma, Phyco and Dulse say these lines...
Phyco: Necrozma took on that brilliant form once again and became Ultra Necrozma, thanks to you all. But now... Necrozma has lost its light once more and appears to have fled to Alola.
Dulse: The Necrozma that you managed to quiet... Yes, you might call it Ultra Necrozma. It shone with such blinding light, as it used to, only to lose that light all over again...
Dulse's dialogue is a bit more flexible, as he seems to be coining the term "Ultra Necrozma" on the spot, and merely says that it shone with blinding light *as* it used to, which could just be comparative. But Phyco's line is pretty difficult to read as saying anything other than "Necrozma used to be in that form, and just took it on once again." I've considered that maybe "that brilliant form" it "took on once again" may simply be referring to the prism brain that was filled with light, since he does follow that with "and became" Ultra Necrozma, but that feels like a stretch compared to the more straightforward reading.
I suppose it's possible that the modern Ultra Recon Squad may not have ever actually seen a depiction of what Necrozma looked like in the ancient past, and therefore just assume that Ultra Necrozma is it, but it seems like something should have been mentioned about that if that were the case. And... there's a part of me that can't shake the feeling, that Ultra Necrozma is what we're supposed to have in mind when they talk about "the Blinding One." As I said at the beginning of this piece, it's a very appropriate descriptor. You see a giant dragon made of photons, you're told it was once called "the Blinding One"... it's not hard to connect those dots.
So. If you've actually managed to read this all the way to the end, I thank you for your time and your patience, and I ask, what are your thoughts? Do you find the evidence I've compiled to be persuasive? Did Necrozma once have an unseen, "true" form, with Ultra Necrozma being some kind of overcharged form that happened by accident? Did they pull another "original dragon" on us? Or do you think that "Ultra Necrozma" is pretty clearly the "Blinding One" that's talked about, and I'm just massively overthinking everything? Please let me know!