(Discussion) Where no Pokémon has gone before...

[Fig]

I've been thinking lately about fanfic genres lately, and more, about what Barb told me about the pokémon genre writign itself out, and something very odd struck me.

Dark pokémon fanfiction are common. Fantasy fanfiction, pretty common. "Pure" SCience fiction pokémon genre are not too unknown (thinking here of older fics like Love and Sacrifice, or that fic - the Omega Mutation I think the title was - I saw on FF.net. Mystery, romance, etc - these all have had their place.

But one variant of pokémon that I have almost never seen is this one : Pokémon in space. Sure, it may sound odd at first - it did to me - but then, what about the potential? What strange form of pokémon would develop in deep space? Pokémon versions of mynocks? Space slugs? (to steal from SW at first) What about the pokémon version of Mars? The Moon, etc?

And gym battles - can you imagine the kind of screwed up gym environments one could have in space? A ice volcano on one of Saturne's moon? The edge of the solar corona? The eye of Jupiter's great storm? What about gravity, how would the gravity on the moon (let alone the zero-G deep space environment) affect pokémon battling?

Just something I was thinking on (though to be fair, space WILL feature in Ambition's Debt later parts)...

What do you guys think? any ideas for pokémon in space? Any other idea for fanfic genres that have NOT been used (or very little used) yet?

 

[Barb]

I've read a few fics that involved Pokémon in space, notably BenRG's rewrite of the Clefairy episode (where the Clefairies stole items to add to their rocketship), but mostly they were derivative of science fiction stories.

We know they can teleport between cities, but could you teleport a Pokéball between planets? What about galaxies?

What if you were battling in space, say in the atmosphere above another planet, and a wormhole opened up?

We know some Pokémon came from space (Clefairy, Deoxys), but what about others? What characteristics would they have? Magmar can live inside an active volcano, so theoretically Fire Types could survive on Mercury and other hot planets. Ice Types could presumably survive or adapt to live on Pluto or other colder planets.

What kind of materials would be required to build a Gym on, say, Venus? The atmosphere is sulfuric acid, poisonous and deadly to humans. Outdoor battling would be impossible. I like the concepts of ice volcanoes as sites for potential battles or Gyms.

What about a skill test: obliterating asteroids with Hyper Beam? Using an asteroid belt as a Rock Field?

How would the League develop in space? How many badges would be required to compete in the Space League (for lack of a better name)? What would they be: star-shaped, planet-shaped or something entirely different?

All this makes me want to read Ray Bradbury's stories.

 

[Fig]

And beyond that - you could keep the story down to the Solar System level, you could go up to sector of the galaxy, or something like the quadrants in trek, with many diverses system - you could even go as far as to have separate galaxies if you want.

And what is there on these planets?

Space has been called the final frontier. I think that it's a fitting name for what it is for pokémon fanfiction :-D

 

[Roses Ablaze]

I once thought of an idea about there being a prison camp on the moon (after all, we don't know *exactly* how advanced the pokemon world's technology is, so they could have colonized their moon by now) for mining moonstones. The Elite Four got sent there for their crimes (this idea was based on Special, now). Clefairy and Clefable lived there...

Although maybe that idea just came from just thinking how hot manga!Lance would be without his shirt on digging for moonstones.

 

[Fig]

That's another idea - what kind of elemental stones would be found out there in space? What kind of evolutionary effect? Would the radiation from different stars influence evolution in new, unseen before ways?

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

I think space would be interesting, but I don't want to see a whole flood of space fics. They, like anything else, would get extremely boring.

Besides, it has a high potential for mess-ups. Look at how much Hollywood and the average sci-fi writer get wrong--imagine it in the hands of a twelve-year-old.

 

[tyger]

(groans) evolutionary stones from space is one of the worst ideas out there in my opinion. It was a novel idea originally - creation of new pokemon by writers. But, after every Tom, dick, and harry created a blazeon and a gnatix, It got pretty old.

SO, while introducing sci-fihead on into pokemon would be interesting, there woudl have to be a good way to go about it. Do we set it in the distant future, or is this an appolo 13-esque situation?

 

[Fig]

It doesn't matter if they mess up. Fanfiction is not about science - it's about adventure.

And I don't think a flood would be good - but kick-starting a new genre could have awesome effects for the fandom as a whole.

And Tyger - as far as distant future goes...for people whose technology is already ahead of us by far (pokéball, and MANY of the TR gadgets), is high-level space travel REALLY far off (they already have low-end space techs, ie shuttles and the like)? I can see them setting up space colonies on earth orbit on a short basis...going further might require more time, but how much more time?

 

[tyger]

In a way, yes. it is correct to say that even if they have pokeball technology, which i don't really find that advanced, it's barely more advanced than us, I don't think they'd have space-travel technology. having shuttles and havintg high speed travel ships for travel between planets, and the capability to settle there is quite hard to maintain and create. TO bring reality into a fantasy driven topic. =P

 

[Roses Ablaze]

(groans) evolutionary stones from space is one of the worst ideas out there in my opinion. It was a novel idea originally - creation of new pokemon by writers. But, after every Tom, dick, and harry created a blazeon and a gnatix, It got pretty old.

SO, while introducing sci-fihead on into pokemon would be interesting, there woudl have to be a good way to go about it. Do we set it in the distant future, or is this an appolo 13-esque situation?

Well, my idea was more focused on the concept of a labor camp on the moon...

 

[tyger]

Well, my idea was more focused on the concept of a labor camp on the moon...

still having a camp on a separate planet with life support systemas and material strong enough and durable enough to withstand external pressures.

in a side note: wysiwyg is fucking annoying with it's random colour changes when used in firefox.

 

[Fig]

Technology sometime does include breakthroughs. Sure, space travel and colonization won't become a mainstream thing during Ash's youth (at least not without some sever circumstances forcing it to become so), but I could see it beginning to develop beyond the shuttle level a few years after Hoenn easily.

We are talking about a civ that is in several domain ahead of ours (genetic engineering, miniaturization technology (pokéballs), teleportation, etc).

 

[Zhen Lin]

"Pure" SCience fiction pokémon genre are not too unknown (thinking here of older fics like Love and Sacrifice, or that fic - the Omega Mutation I think the title was - I saw on FF.net.

I liked Omega Mutation. But it never really struck me as completed.

Pokémon in space. Hmmm. Will Alakazam be used for site-to-site transport? Or will their foresight be used to navigate Hyperspace?

 

[Barb]

I believe that Joshua finally completed "Omega Mutation."

And reading Zhen's comment made me think of one legendary in particular: Celebi. What about time travel back to the Big Bang?