Faller’s Field Guide 5
December 25th, 2022.
Tohoku Region, Juntoku Highland
The Machop Line and their relation with Hominids
Akari’s grandfather is an interesting man, with a rich history. He’s a grandfather, so he knows a fair bit about the invention of the modern pokéball in 1925. Before that, apricorn balls were a luxury of crafters and the upper class, as most manufactured products were produced by hand and while industrial technology has existed for half a millennium in some regions, being able to cultivate the space and room for factories was fraught with difficulties. Certain machine tools hadn’t been invented yet with pokémon taking up the role instead.
In fact the invention of the modern pokéball in 1925 kickstarted the moving assembly line, allowing technology to rapidly outpace the borderline cuckoolander technology artisanal-industrial hybrid that had sustained the Old World nations, with the New World catching up incredibly quickly even if took them an extra decade or two.
Anyways, what’s important is that he led me to an encounter with a certain species of humanoid pokémon, allowing me a good glimpse at what it would be like to see another human species. The machop line along with many other species lie within the Hominidae, the Great Apes of this world just as in mine, though with a far greater diversity with at least 30 species, though some could be considered subspecies like the North Altaian elemental chimps.
The hominids were once split into at least six genera, Pongo, Gorilla, Pan, Fascinus and Homo remain valid while Similis has been recently classified as a wastebasket taxon due to recent breakthroughs in genetic analysis, split into several genera.
The machop line specifically are classified as Paranthropus musculus, making up the genus alongside timburr, Paranthropus constris, and makuhita, Paranthropus palmis and meditite, Paranthropus mentis, having split off from the line that led to humans around twenty four million years ago, though in terms of genetics, they share about 99.1% of their DNA with humans, which makes sense based on their genus and how even small differences in the genome can reflect massive changes in phenotype.
Pawniard, throh and sawk are among the most primitive falling under the Orrorin genus (acutis, rufis, and caerulis) respectively, having split some thirty million years ago, and only sharing about 98.9% of their DNA with humans (A Juniper 2012, “Phylogenetic Studies of the Hominids”), very slightly more than Pongo (chimchar, pansage, pansear, panpour).
The original Similis genus still exists but with a small species count, having diverged around ten million years ago when the earliest variant of humanity exploded onto the scene, which includes gothita, Mr. Mime, tyrogue, and charcadet, who share about 99.2% of their DNA with humans, and likely interbred with the members of Homo during that nebulous fossil-poor time period.
Which leaves the last genus of Hominidae, Homo itself, as the australopithecus line seems to have left no direct living relatives, though some genomic studies indicate sableye may in fact be a surviving member that took on a troglodyte lifestyle, and in fact may be indicative of the ancestors of Homo… which is completely alien in terms of evolutionary history, and the amount of time between a hairy plains cousin of sableye and something basically human seems practically instant… on the orders of decades or centuries instead of hundreds of millenia.
And while evolution in this world is fast for pokémon, there are definitely limits when it comes to something as drastically ‘unnatural’ to this world as material humans are from the semi-energy beings known as pokémon. Regardless Homo crashed into the scene as archaic humans, something similar to Homo erectus or Homo ergaster, largely distinguished by having a thick skull, prominent supraorbital vision, and a lack of a prominent chin, with a modern brain size of 1200-1400 cubic centimeters, and were behaviorally modern for… about thirty times the length that my species has even existed.
Laven just casually mentioning that there’s a ruin in Sinnoh that’s ten million years old really broke my brain. Regardless Homo arrived on the scene, diversifying over millions of years before meeting back together, never quite forming into a separate line… with two major exceptions, the jynx and ralts line can both be considered members of the human family in terms of genetics, having diverged fairly recently, with the human-jynx split officially ending the archaic human chronospecies around two million years ago.
Jynx is classified as Homo suave, their evolution coinciding with the sudden disappearance and collapse of that archaic human chronospecies that left ruins across the entirety of Asu, with the early jynx line emerging in that time period and sharing 99.5% of their DNA with humanity. Interestingly enough this coincides with the rapid onset of the Ice Age that led to the extinction of tyrantrum and the rise of the modern charizard.
The same pattern repeats with the rapid speciation of ralts, Homo sensus appeared around 20,000 years ago, which coincided with the collapse of another super-ancient civilization which left traces across Europa and share about 99.8% of their DNA with humans.
I share about 99.84% DNA with the humans of this world, which isn’t far off from the usual .1% difference between individuals but still a bit concerning. Now anyone reading my insane rambling is going to question the importance of this massive tangent I’m sure but it is relevant.
As I’ve mentioned in other entries, pokémon can be divided into thirteen groupings along with three special groupings, with each Egg Group lining up when it comes to incubation, nesting habits, trade-offs between quantity and quality in terms of offspring number and the composition and structure of an egg. Grass eggs for example might look more like seeds and need to be planted, Mineral eggs are made out of rock, crystal or metal, and Amorphous eggs have a structure like a living stress ball.
From what I’ve read of genetic studies, while being in the same Egg Group does not guarantee reproductive viability, it does narrow the gap, and it shows a firm pattern, every time a human super-ancient civilization falls, a species in the hominid group either diversifies by taking in small influxes of human genetics or a new species arises from within humanity. Here are examples.
Six million years ago, another collapse, machop officially arrived on the scene, followed by timburr and meditite half a million years later. Four million years ago, same shit different day, sawk and throh appear in the fossil record. Two million years ago, jynx evolved from the archaic survivors of the collapse, and the other line became modern humans (A Juniper 2017)
Nine hundred thousand years ago, another human empire goes kaput and the tyrogue line pops up from a now extinct Similis species, the Mr. Mime species suddenly appeared around four hundred thousand years ago, from a now sunken torterra island that was killed by the civilization resting on its back, with some old myths about being ‘transformed into the form of their servants, laid low by the raging soul of the dead land’.
Creepy if true. As mentioned, the ralts line appears around twenty thousand years ago with the collapse of the peoples that created the baltoy line, known only as the people of ‘Hy-Rule’ who existed for a span of about one hundred thousand years, less a single civilization and more a spectrum of semi-contiguous successor states who would rise and fall on regular intervals, with thousand year gaps being a frequent occurrence, before finally disappearing with the permanent sinking of their homeland into the Europan southern sea.
It took Sojourner hours to gather the dozens of studies, and hours more for some of my online lessons to set in when it comes to understanding scientific terminology. But it’s a clear pattern that whenever humanity becomes… ‘stressed’ as a species, they seem to pick themselves back up by shacking up with their close relatives, leading to interbreeding not dissimilar to what happens to polar and grizzly bears when they share the same range. It seems to be a survival mechanism when populations drop too low or become fragmented, strengthening the species as a whole.
Honestly it might explain why the fuck humans here are so insanely tough and healthy even without aura. I just don’t have a lot of physical strength or toughness or resistance to increase with aura. It’s important to mention this as machop as a species are of course very human-like, and share a number of traits due to that history.
Traits I can see whenever I see a machop or machoke break into a sweat, or see them walk bipedally. Their ancestors were habitual suspension climbers, more like fighting-type bipedal apes, and rather small, about the size of well… a machop. But humans passed onto them a number of useful genes both biological and cultural, in this case they inherited many hundreds of genetic variants that influence height, skeletal growth, and muscle growth which went into overdrive once applied into the more flexible platform of a pokémon. Myostatin-related muscle hypertrophy is one of them.
Their species is fascinating, their stratum corneum is interlaced with carbon-silicate, increasing their tensile strength immensely (I tested it with a hammer), and keeping it appropriately stiff, while their dermis is laced with a composite of graphene and hexagonal boron nitride, flexible, strong, and able to absorb an incredible amount of heat, facilitating their ability to sweat, which was again introduced into their gene pool by humans.
It gave them the basic building blocks for their ‘heat pipe’ system of heating and cooling, their outer skin is tough and covered in channels that focus vapor from their boiling sweat glands, as their hypertrophied supersonic muscles generate an absurd amount of heat. I saw one literally covered in steam when he threw a punch that turned a two hundred ton boulder into powder!
Machop average about 1 to 1.2 meters tall, and are nowhere as muscular, with a thin but strong frame and humanoid gait, and an oval head with three gray crests anchoring their jaw muscles to let them eat tough plant matter and flesh, also inherited from humans.
Machoke are about just under 1.5 to 1.8 meters tall and built like tanks, weighing between 72 and 115 kilograms, they are dense, and their muscles are so powerful even their vaunted missile-proof skin needs pre-stretched folds that make up the red lines on their skin so they don’t ‘rupture it’. Their jaw has pulled outwards slightly to make room for the muscles of a machamp’s massive skull, some type of physiological adaptation for their odd evolution requirements.
There was only a simple machamp among the group as observed, a seven foot individual who was measured at 200 kilograms, and was at least a six-star monster. He was built like a Greek statue, with two wide toes on each foot, and five fingered hands with fingers as thick as a third of my hand, skull filled in with his evolution, and even more power in his control.
It’s terrifying and yet incredibly impressive. They fill a niche similar to humans in being persistence predators, never ever stopping until their prey is down. Though their hunting parties involve a lot of crashing through rock walls and running through trees. They use a multitude of tools to train themselves, and even ask for help from other species that can use Gravity like clefairy in exchange for finding them things they need.
They’re a lot like us… and yet not, like staring at a funhouse mirror, where they look kinda silly, but not too unnerving or uncanny. Akari seemed confused by my questions on that.
----------------------------------------
December 27th, 2022.
Tohoku Region, Juntoku Highland
Mineralia and Ghosts, Domains of Life and Afterlife
Today I had an interesting encounter with the geodude line as a clan of their species decided today was the day to harass the town like a couple of jackasses. It didn’t take long to run them off so I didn’t manage to see much in terms of anatomy, but I did get a cell sample because I was curious, and it gives me an excuse to speak about the more exotic pokémon that live alongside normal organics. This passage is closer to rambling, and analysis of others research as was the December 25th entry, more an essay. Apologies for any confusion there.
Pokémon and Life as a whole run the entire gamut of taxonomic ranks and orders, and at least for organics can be split into two or three domains, Archaea, Eukarya and Bacteria. But as proven by the more rocky types of this world… Life in this world is a bit more biologically interesting.
But we’ll have to go way back to near the very beginning, on Earth this would go back to the RNA World, when self-replicating RNA molecules proliferated before the evolution of DNA and proteins, on this world it goes back to whatever the fuck Mew did to bring life into existence, though it does seem to have been a gradual process of trial and error and the natural emergence of complex self-replicating molecules.
Regardless, at the pre-dawn of life there were self-replicating bundles of matter and energy contained within membranes of mixed-enantiomer lipid molecules, like a soap bubble full of random viral-esque squishy things. That’s the story (well with just matter) on Earth but in the World of Pokémon, the mineral bodies of rock types pose a problem due to literally being made out of stone, and I mean the ones like geodude where even their eyes are structured of crystal and mineral matter, specifically silicon microstructures specialized in light collection and focusing as in (Oak 1998 “Eye Structure Analysis of Petra volumena)
The current hypothesis is that those early bundles of genetic information were split into ‘two’ lines, the organics, soap bubbles in the primordial soup, and the inorganics clad in polyoxometalate membranes that could select and separate necessary chemicals. (A Juniper 2010).
The Pokémon RNA World would eventually give way to the RNP world, after millions of years of evolution, as RNA strands began to synthesize peptides which would eventually become proteins, and in that early stage of gene transfer and complex processes of life, there came a simple composite organism that would become the last universal common ancestor of all material life, with all the genetic machinery to build either a fatty lipid membrane or one made of metals like aluminum oxide, iron, titanium, chromium, magnesium or even tungsten.
This four billion year old or more superspecies would swiftly split into the four domains of Archaea, Eukarya, Bacteria and Mineralia, the organics would keep some of the machinery for processing metals and minerals, allowing for the evolution of highly exotic life forms and the potential to evolve into Rock, Ground and Steel types in pokémon.
Which is where I can explain that the evidence (Laven 2011) suggests ‘aura’ also plays a vital role in the evolution of the Types, as that energy can be used to ease, catalyze and augment the processes of life. Type Genes as a whole developed at the very base of the tree of life, as cells learned to exploit all energy and matter (Amaranth 2013, “The Mew-RKS Hypothesis”) mediated through the font of life itself. I very much meant it when I said self-replicating bundles of matter and energy.
Though it seems most cellular life was and is largely Typeless, and only developed a bias towards certain waveforms as they met with the right pressures and evolutionary factors, high temperature beget Fire, the evolution of photosynthesis beget Grass energies and so on.
Honestly if I didn’t know any better, based on some of the data it kinda sounds like the universe wasn’t completely defined at the time, still settling into layers of logic and natural structure, geological records (Stone 1982) show a chaotic whirl of every shifting conditions, like light, land, sea and sky were sort of mingling into a single swirl of chaos instead of being defined yet. They suggest continents apparently rose and sank in days, oceans rained down and boiled away in the same amount of time, the atmosphere would apparently sink into the ground, and lots of weird signs that give me a headache just to think about, like the fact there are signs the early Memory (ghost realm) and Ildathach were one of the layers overlapping with one another, based on how some land masses were baked with fairy, dark and ghost energy, creating many of the Forbidden Zones on the planet.
It was those eldritch conditions that paved the development of Type Genes, and the evolution of Mineralia as a clade, adapting to the massive pressures of the planet’s crust and mantle. They developed an exotic carbon-silicon biochemistry from a carbon-based one, their cells becoming a diamond hard lattice of carbon-silicon with an inorganic membrane of metals.
The cells of the Mineralia are matrices of carbon and silicon (Oak 1990), like the frustule of a diatom but even deeper, reinforcing the cytoskeleton into sealed chambers and compartments, and subtle silicone polymers are used to retain their flexibility while their muscles can work in different ways, from flexible silicone structures to liquid crystal elastomers. The use of crystal lattices appears to be among the most primitive and more primal features of Mineralia as a domain.
Based on the study of certain primitive pokémon species and numerous lesser pokémon species and microorganisms (Takeshi 1986), the earliest members of the domain would have been similar in cell structure to cryogonal (Glacies hexagonum) and vanillite (Glacies nix), with the ancestral organism being a carbon-silicon lattice cell which adapted to extreme cold by using a mix of unusual proteins and salt compounds to allow water to shift into a vitrification state without suffering ill effects, likely due to aura increasing the durability and extending the chemical regime of organic compounds.
Aura is the key factor in maintaining the structure, stability, and viability of extremely exotic biochemistry, essentially acting as a field of structural integrity or able to block dangerous external forces depending on which is most effective. If you can’t tell, that is the split between physical defensive Toughness and special defensive Resistance.
Aterui has some solid lectures on a rather important aspect of biochemistry on this planet, the fact that metaphysical energy whether through witchcraft, sorcery or other shaping of energies can be used to effect changes in substances through Alchemy. At the lowest levels it can extract one thing from another, iron from ore, water from a tree, little things we can do with tech. Alchemy can do more than that however, the creation of extraordinary substances beyond technology. Turning wood into wood stronger than steel and able to produce nutritious sap when soaked in water, or a metal that can absorb, store and release large amounts of kinetic energy.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
In the case of Mineralia and their silicon rich chemistry susceptible to water, they have an answer in water-glass, an alchemical material that is a water-silicate fluid, an exotic variant of a Sodium silicate solution able to facilitate biochemistry. (Oak 2004)
The cells of Mineralia are essentially inorganic DNA-operated nanomachines, and looking at them through a microscope only increased that sentiment for me. Their cells are often shaped like a dodecahedron with twelve pseudopods extending outwards with up to four degrees of freedom. This along with their rich use of metals in their chemistry allows for the generation and control of certain energies beyond just the advanced bioelectric signaling layer of organics, using a combination of mechanical linkage through conductive carbon-silicon structures and remote electromagnetic fields to share both information and energy, something like piezoelectricity used in tandem with magnetic fields to encourage growth and differentiation of their mineral biology.
It does explain how they have a nervous system, they’re just made of networked crystal, more like a circuit board than a living organism. Rock, Ground and Steel and even Ice types of the known species native to the solar system are all products of this single celled superspecies able to switch between a membrane of two kinds of phospholipids and polyoxometalates.
As I’m looking at the cell of a geodude (thank you Sojourner), I can’t help but feel delight at what has to be a truly alien form of life, able to function through the impossible physics of this world… which brings me to the last domain of life, one with a tumultuous history of comparable complexity to study of viruses, in terms of what is ‘Life’ and ‘Nonlife’?
Spiritualia, the ‘domain’ of ghosts, the phantoms and entities native to the Ghost World, one of the countless layers of What Is. Beings that for centuries could be given no classification, far too spiritual, far too strange and impossible existences to be understood by humans. From my research, their classification in the Tree of Life has proven difficult due to literally being an example of spontaneous generation, a defunct theory from Earth about life being able to arise from nonliving matter easily and frequently. Though recent research (Constantine 2013) and some of my recent forays into aura might lead to a potential explanation not dissimilar to the theorized origin of some viruses.
One of the more fundamental aspects of this world’s biology as mentioned with Mineralia is the existence of aura as a force that can be channeled, stored and modified by any form of life, since it is the Life Force that permeates creation.
The truth (Laven 2016) is that biology here is half flesh and half spiritual, adapted to the unusual energies that exist within the Living Spirit of Reality, with aura breaking so many laws of physics it isn’t even funny. Pokéballs work by tapping into the natural ability for them to hide within any natural sphere allied with their type, converting their mass into aura to ‘shrink’ in size. Minimize is a combat form of this defensive ability, designed for the rigors and complexities of battle rather than the equivalent of tardigrade cryptobiosis.
In this matter-energy matrix, pokémon aura patterns are far closer to the alternate realities which are the origin and conduits of the various flavors of aura, and by using the dimensional twisting of the pokéball’s shell, it creates the pocket reality that allows modern pokéballs the ability to store a pokémon in far more comfortable and luxurious conditions than the earliest apricot balls. One theory suggests aura itself extends from a higher reality, which is why pokémon energy matrices have exotic effects on physics. (Burnet 2017)
Aura from my perspective, or well Infinity Energy based on its ability to freely and cleanly shift back and forth between matter and energy seems to be essentially a ‘stem-cell’ of reality itself, a Power that can be shaped into whatever you need with the right pattern and movement, and in pokémon it makes up much of their body… which is where things become interesting for my insane ramblings.
Infinity energy is the baseline, an infinitely flexible metaphysical substance able to take any other of shapes and patterns… that sounds a lot like an incredible backbone for self replicating organisms doesn’t it? And it also makes me think of semi-organisms like viruses, little packets of DNA or RNA instructions within a protein coat. But their exact origin is unclear, perhaps they were tiny cells that parasitized larger cells, gradually degenerating to the point of losing all the genes needed to function as independent organism, or they evolved from escaped bits of DNA or RNA, either plasmids or transposons (jumping genes) becoming parasites of cellular life to survive. The third hypothesis is that viruses are a relic of the RNA World, co-evolving and being dependent on cells since they evolved sometime in the Hadean period, between four and four point four billion years ago.
It’s uncertain when life first arose even with molecular clock data, and Mew doesn't seem to give easy to interpret firsthand accounts. I wonder if it’s the equivalent of trying to remember your babyhood, since Mew is the Kami of New Species, and life needs to exist for that.
Regardless, all life today arose from some primordial form into which life was first breathed. And with life… comes death. Aura is many things, some say the will of the universe, the life and death of all things, an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the universe together.
Aura doesn’t cease to exist when physical life ends, it is simply transformed into a new state, continuing to hold onto the imperatives and behaviors of what once lived, surviving as a new entity, able to self regulate, reproduce and organize through the ultimate flexibility of aura to organize and be shaped into intelligent machinery. (Yung 2008, “Holographic Theory of Ghosts”) The question then is how ghosts connect to the tree of Life, and why are most pokèmon beings of matter and energy instead of just energy alone? Well I’ll be trying to guess at it here, based on what I know about viral entities and about how ghosts form and function.
Aura and Type Energy are closely linked, and while the studies I’ve seen often link Type Energy with the mitochondria lying in pokémon cells… the fact humans can use Typed aura without that… makes me suspect a ‘correlation is not causation’ problem.
Aura is a spiritual energy, able to perform all the aspects of biology with no to little matter at all. And yet there are limitations when it comes to being pure energy if you’re not a being of unspeakable power and might. (Constantine 2007, “Limitations of Auric Species”) Aura can be divided into a framework of at least eighteen delineations, being incredibly malleable and able to take on different states, each Type is one phase state and one wavelength pattern range, with some being higher energy than others, much like the entire gamut of the electromagnetic spectrum (Laven 2008).
Ghost energies are a high energy state, and among the most suitable energies to use as a scaffold for aura-based life, and since Ghost is tied to more bestial and basal behaviors and emotion, they will have the easiest time… escaping from the confines of material life, just as viruses may have escaped as bits of RNA and DNA from larger organisms, learning how to coat themselves in proteins to survive. Like such viruses, ghosts couldn’t have existed first without that imperative to live being instilled in energy. They co-evolved, adapting to their own environments, acting as a vine wrapping around the Tree of Life rather than being a true separate branch.
Ghosts can’t exist without Life, and Life can’t exist without an Echo. Ghosts are beings of almost entirely metaphysical energy, and there is a cost with that as cited earlier. All pokémon are spiritual entities, beings of magic, mystery and nature, but to live in this world they must have physical matter holding it together, without it… they aren’t quite as Real, as solid from what research and literature going back ten thousand years says, with each providing different strengths and benefits and weaknesses. Auric Types like Fairy, Psychic, Ghost, Electric and Fire are mostly auric, and that has drawbacks.
The simplest way to describe it is that living beings are energy within a physical form, while pokémon are those who can transform back into energy or live as energy. But what works for one does not necessarily work for the other depending on how much or how little matter they have. How bound they are to a physical body changes how they react to different things, malevolent ghosts are affected by salt and fairies are stung and injured by cold iron and metal. Each energy has its place in shaping the world, and while some of my hypotheses are just guesses, learning about aura is giving me valuable data.
As well as learning how ghosts form and reproduce, spawning from emotions and lingering conscience energies, the remnants of life adapting to a new niche into something not alive as we know it, it makes the comparison to viruses far more apt.
----------------------------------------
December 29th, 2022
Tohoku Region, Juntoku Highland
Weavile
This is a short entry… Akari had a birthday today, we celebrated it with a quick little thing, with her grandpa and aunt.
Her dad never showed.
That was fine.
The temperature today was measured at 23F, enough for a wet slurry of snow, and not much else, and I’ve noted the local terrain as being mountainous though flattened by the activity of people and pokémon.
Instead we had to deal with a weavile attempting to steal eggs, and I remember witnessing it clearly in the dark, in person it reminded me much of a mustelid, like a bipedal weasel-cat. She had gleaming intelligent ruby eyes, with a crest of bristly red hair, and a mane of red fur around her neck, with long dextrous arms ending in massive claws, with a semi-humanoid body covered in fur black as night.
Weavile are an interesting species, members of mammalian group known as mustelids, classified as Mustela vila and most closely related to the buisel line of all species (A Juniper 2007, “Genetic Analysis of Mustela vila)
The Pressure she emitted was intense apparently, but I didn’t feel a thing. She was about 1.07 meters tall and 32 kilograms in mass and she wasn’t alone. She had been a distraction, for an attack from the side from a more robust weavile with a scar along his chin and lighter fur, with a height of 1.3 meters and a body mass of 62 kilograms.
Weavile are excellent pack hunters, able to sustain hierarchical social groups with up to 130 members, and communicate through written and spoken language. (Westwood 1999) They proved as much even with just a pack of six, I was able to witness incredibly complex social behavior and group tactics. A combination of distraction, intimidation and precise strength and special power strikes, moving in a coordinated spatial orientation to switch between offense and defense seamlessly.
Happy proved to be an excellent counter from Akari, especially when I suggested a suitable tactic to counter them, using a combination of an electric field to create hydrogen and oxygen gas from the ice and setting the snowstorm on fire. That tactic proved crippling, damaging their group cohesion, and forcing them to flee.
----------------------------------------
December 31st, 2022
Tohoku Region, outer Apakotan, Juntoku Highlands
Braviary
Another short entry, as our aura training is finally going to pick up with Akari’s birthday behind us along with all the little stuff from visiting. Regardless it is 12:37PM, with clear weather and a temperature of about 28F. So cold as balls.
I decided to take a step out of the town of Apakotan, walking for approximately three miles. I was able to observe a group of braviary flying overhead without disturbing them. They’re incredible piscivorous hunters able to spot prey from four kilometers away, allowing them to catch prey like magikarp and white-striped basculin, and it's clear the mountains are rich with food based on the luster of their feathers and their size and power.
It was a group of three, each of them slightly different. A large female, observed as being approximately 1.8 meters tall with a body length of 3.3 meters, a body mass of 70 kilograms, and a wingspan of 6.6 meters. Unique features included a darker mane of feathers, closer to light gray, a dimmer red coat and scars along her hooked beak.
A small male was also observed with a height of 1.4 meters, a body length of 2.5 meters, a body mass of 36 kilograms and a wingspan of 5 meters. His unique features were a proportionally larger mane, brighter colors, and odd geometric patterns on his legs.
The third individual was another female of average size, height of 1.5 meters, 2.75 meters long, and a body mass of 42 kilograms. Which for some trainers might be confused due to their use of old pokédex entries confirming the rufflet line as a monosex species. Which some species of pokémon are, as some species like kangaskhan can have children of the father’s species so a need for two sexes is… unnecessary.
The rufflet line is not that, the rarity of the female half of the species is due to a misinformation campaign from Ghetsis of all people, who in his secret campaign for power ordered agents to remove the species from Unova to remove the eyes and ears of the Swords of Justice, who often uses the brave birds as scouts and agents. A mix of a flood of erroneous papers, paying off of regulators and League officials and hunting of the female population led to an undocumented decline in their numbers, leading to their borderline extinction in the region, and was later repurposed as another tool to manipulate Natural Harmonia Gropius, documented in a paper in the months following. (A Juniper, “Reassessment of Haliaeetus patrius, uncovering of a monstrous Misinformation Campaign).
I’ll be honest… the fact the murder of an entire people was essentially undocumented for several decades made me feel sick. My own pokémon ended up having to pull me out of the funk from reading something so… unrepentantly evil. To him… they were just in the way, like crushing an ant hill with a boulder.
Moving on.
They seem to have a playful side surprisingly, riding on unsteady thermals so they can get thrown around for fun rather than hunting or mere movement. They also made a series of loud calls, a mix of screeching and honking thrown out with incredible complexity. I could more or less pick up hints of grammar and and syllables within their repertoire of sounds.
The females seemed to be… teasing the male from my perspective, laughing and doing odd things like brushing wing to wing to fluster the poor guy. I also observed their hunting, involving diving and extending their talons to grip onto helpless magikarp.
Not much to say besides ‘I saw a big bird!’ But it’s still nice to write down.
----------------------------------------
Laven pinched the bridge of her nose as she video chatted with Brandy, who looked nervous but generally happy to see her, especially after sending her copies of her field notes, observations and period essays summarizing her perspective.
She’s a bit nervous but she’s got spirit.
“So tell me, what is the basic checklist when it comes to safe and ethical Pokémon Experimentation?”
Brandy’s eyes focused on her nose, not quite looking her in the eyes. “1, will it cause harm to a human or pokémon? 2, will it damage potential relationships between the pokémon and humans?” Laven noted a flat tone, nose flaring slightly and suspected that she thought it was obvious that needed to be a factor. “3, does it violate a trainer’s duty of care when it comes to their pokémon?”
“Correct.” Laven replied with a warm grin. “I can tell you’ve been taking your online classes to heart.”
“Your world is a lot more strict when it comes to research on living beings, even domestic ones, I’d like to know those rules for myself.” Laven’s smile wavered at the implications in her words.
Brandy’s world seemed so much… darker than their own in most cases, more violence, more day to day tragedies, wearing them down bit by bit. And from what Sophia had gotten, that fact had caused a lot of unease when it came to locating her reality. Some suggested that perhaps it was best that the world was never found, that it was best that Brandy never be given a chance to go home at all, that even attempting it would bring their world under threat.
Former champion Selene had shut down all of those attempts by being the only trainer in the world with access to the power of Lunala, and the other option in the Solgaleo of Elio was quite literally her neighbor and close friend.
Sophia moved on before her rage would show on her face. “So have you been working on any experiments? I know you’ve mostly been doing observations so far, and your perspective is fascinating but I imagine you have been doing other research, as I’m sure you know the scientific method correct?”
“You’re asking?” Brandy narrowed her eyes, muttered something incomprehensible and continued. “Step one of the scientific method, ask a question: how does a pokémon sustain super-human mobility without damaging the environment?” She lifted a finger with a toothy smile, and Laven just smiled back as she bounced on the tip of her toes. “Step two was research, the pokédex was useful for this, though many of those studies are old and don’t take into account the existence of aura. Observation has been useful as well, as it appears their movement defies certain physical laws when it comes to friction. Step three is my hypothesis: pokémon achieve superhuman mobility by channeling aura into the ground to alter its properties.”
“Is that so? How did you test it?” Laven was curious, aura scanners on the scale of the pokédex are a recent phenomenon, along with its other sensors.
“Having access to a high grade scientific pokédex scope,” was Brandy’s reply, nose wrinkling with her snort. “The Panoptes module has a range of subsystems to measure all kinds of properties down to even the metaphysical delineations of Type Energy. The used subsystems for the experiment are the auric waveform module, the tribometer, and material strength testing module, emitting a projection of energy bombardment capable of measuring the needed data for a test, which is step 4.”
“And what was the test and its result?” Laven had some idea of what it could be, it was her field but most of her field was closer to physics and she couldn’t measure or do every little test, her work was on understanding the behavior, physics and properties of Type Energy.
“The test was simple, have multiple subjects accelerate to their maximum speeds and measure their aura, and the properties of the ground under their feet before and after they accelerate. The test accounted for several means of movement, running, sliding, and hopping. Which leaves the fifth step to analyze the data and see if it supports the hypothesis.”
“Does it?”
Brandy grinned, holding her hands in front of her, before clasping them together. “The aura sensor picked up deliberate channeling of aura into the ground, and a notable increase in both tensile and compressive strength while the coefficient of friction was picked up by the tribometer and material strength tester module. It’s not a unique measurement, just more precise due to better tools, I can’t imagine having to do it manually.” She cleared her throat, and Laven leaned forward to hear what her apprentice had to say. “A human sprinter at their peak in my world can induce about several hundred kilopascals of ground pressure, Mirko I’ve measured at a peak of 200 megapascals.” She rubbed her chin with a slow blink. “More than sufficient to reduce concrete to powder. The scans indicate aura is used to reinforce their surroundings, as well as increase the coefficient of friction to compensate for the incredibly brief contact period between ground and foot.”
The professor just smirked. So she was taking my teachings to heart, good.
“What kind of behavior did you note?”
“As mentioned I measured three movement techniques involving aura, running is basic reinforcement and friction force increase, but the act of doing so needs to take into account the varying resistances of ground materials, ice is different from gravel which is different from sand and so on. Interesting data to note, sliding is something I’ve noted with moves like Quick Attack, quick scans indicate they can reduce friction towards the front of their foot and increase it toward the back or vice versa to glide on relatively smooth surfaces. I wonder if that would be useful for learning Extreme Speed… Anyways, hopping of course involves similar forces and relies on the same aura-reinforcement technique.”
Laven clapped her hands to get Brandy’s attention. “Not bad, it seems you’ve done well in tackling your questions scientifically. You’ve even made some novel discoveries.”
Brandy perked up. “Really? I would think aura scanners would have measured this stuff years ago.”
“In the case of aura channeling, absolutely,” Laven admitted with a shrug of her shoulders under her lab coat. “But measuring pokémon at top speed is incredibly difficult for most researchers and a recipe for breaking equipment. We had theories and tantalizing hints but replication was… difficult so it was left by the wayside. You asked a question, researched and made a hypothesis and ran a test, and proved that hypothesis, and if you have a good sample size…”
“Thirty, I asked a few locals for help. Akari as well.” Brandy said with a lopsided grin.
“I suggest you get on writing your research paper little lady,” Laven enjoyed the look of dread on Brandy’s face. “Hey you’re the one who wanted more out of being a Lab Trainer, the standard trainer-professor relationship is you get money and room and board for your friends and doors opened, and we get to poke and prod them within reason, and ask for your assistance in our research. But no… you want to do your own science, and that needs a lot of work. Besides, haven’t you filled up your journal with hundreds of pages of observation?”
“Fair enough.”
Laven shook her head with an affectionate look. “Regardless, your experiment has proven interesting, and if you’re being serious about documenting aura, write it down and experiment with it. I want to see what you can do.”
“I-I will… I’ll do my best.” Brandy’s determination burned bright, practically shining through the screen.
Laven just smiled.