Results of the Crimson Mirelands Archaeological Survey Project (CMASP)

[I was playing Legends: Arceus, but then after I finished exploring the Crimson Mirelands I dropped everything for, like, a week to perform an archaeological survey and write up the results in the style of an actual academic publication. Was this a good idea? No, obviously not, but I did it and here it is.]

Although the Galaxy Expedition Team’s understanding of the contemporary ecology, geography and society of the Hisui region has advanced dramatically in the short time since the expedition’s arrival here, the region’s ancient past is still largely an enigma. This is largely because no branch of the GET is explicitly dedicated to historical and cultural research. These tend to fall by default within the broad and somewhat nebulous responsibilities of the Survey Corps, as the branch whose members most often interact with Hisui’s indigenous peoples, the Diamond and Pearl Clans. In the interests of pursuing cultural research more actively, and at the recommendation of Survey Corps recruits assigned to the Crimson Mirelands of southeast Hisui, who had encountered several ancient “ruins” while exploring, the GET commissioned members of the Corps to identify sites of archaeological interest throughout the Mirelands and evaluate sites for possible future excavation by a joint crew drawn from the Survey and Construction Corps.

In a break with usual practice in survey archaeology, project staff were not instructed to catalogue surface finds. This is owing to the annoying propensity of the Hisui region’s characteristic dimensional anomalies to deposit artefact fragments of varying ages seemingly at random across the landscape. The resulting archaeological “noise” makes it extremely difficult to extract a meaningful chronology of human settlement from survey data using the standard methods of survey archaeology. Accordingly, the survey has focused primarily on mapping architectural remains that are visible from the surface, as well as features of the landscape that may be artificial in origin. This report discusses four major sites identified by the survey – the Gapejaw Bog Complex, Solaceon Ruins, Brava Arena and Shrouded Ruins – as well as the general characteristics of earth and stone archaeological features observed throughout the Crimson Mirelands.

This survey would not have been possible without the cooperation and guidance of numerous members of the indigenous Diamond and Pearl Clans, particularly Diamond Clan Warden Arezu, Pearl Clan Warden Calaba and Diamond Clan chieftain Adaman, all of whom have freely shared their knowledge and expertise with project staff. Staff also wish to acknowledge the contributions of numerous Pokémon recruited individually by members of the Survey Corps, as well as, and particularly, the regular invaluable aid of the “noble” Pokémon known as Wyrdeer and Ursaluna.

Full survey map. Green: beaten earth paths, ramps or earthworks. Bright red: standing or fallen marble columns. Dark red: masonry walls. Purple: marble arches. Yellow: stone paving. Orange: stone tablets and plaques. Blue: other stone features. Magenta: subterranean structure. Light blue: anomalous column. Teal: contemporary wooden architecture.

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Let’s Talk About Legends: Arceus (part 2 of Some Number)

Last time I checked in, I was about to try to do… something… about the enraged “noble” Pokémon, Kleavor, the Pearl Clan’s “lord of the woods.” Professor Laventon’s plan is to leverage the player character’s incredible skill at throwing $#!t by mashing some of Kleavor’s favourite foods into throwable clumps, which will in some way achieve something good, probably.

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Let’s Talk About Legends: Arceus (part 1 of Some Number)

listen, it’s been a mere week since this game came out and I started playing yesterday; that qualifies as punctual for me

For the benefit of anyone who hasn’t decided yet whether they want to buy this game, here are some thoroughly de-spoilered opinions:

It’s very different; it’s quite unlike the traditional Pokémon formula. Follows Pokémon Go and Let’s Go Pikachu/Eevee in putting the emphasis on catching and releasing a lot of Pokémon to progress; follows Sword and Shield in putting the human characters and their motivations front-and-centre a bit more than previous titles. A lot more open-world-action-game-y than Sword and Shield ever tried to be. Cares a great deal about Pokémon’s exploration/discovery themes. Sometimes Pokémon try to murder you. Battles with other trainers are not completely absent, but so far a very minor aspect of the game, appropriately enough given its premise and setting; it’s mostly about wild Pokémon. So far I like it; the characters are great, the new Pokédex system is great, the environments (both natural and human) are very pretty if you care about that. I mean, I have to reserve full judgement until… well, if my previous record on Pokémon games is anything to go by, until about 10 years have passed and I’ve played it all the way through multiple times, but yeah, so far it seems good.

Also, while playing this game, I was watching an episode of House, M.D. (episode 8.8) in which the title character remarks – out of nowhere and to the utter bafflement of everyone else in the room – that “Arceus created a universe with three states of matter.” It’s totally in-character; House spends a lot of time playing video games and he enjoys saying cryptic things just to mess with people; I just thought it was a fun coincidence that I’d never seen that particular episode before and happened to watch it during my first day with Legends: Arceus.

Anyway, this concludes my not-a-review; from this point on, HERE BE SPOILERS (but only for what I’ve played so far, which is honestly not that much, so unless you’re observing absolute blackout protocol it’s probably fine). Let’s talk about the first… chunk… of this game, and some things I thought about it.

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[Yes, I know it’s January] asks:

Is there a Pokémon version of Christmas? Is there, like, Arceus-mas or Arce-easter where people celebrate Arceus instead of Jesus? I’m pretty sure there was a winter festival about gifts or something in the anime.

Well, the Kanto series of the anime had a literal Christmas episode – like, they met Santa Claus and everything. So the easy answer is yes, Christmas exists, takes place during the northern hemisphere’s winter and is associated with gift-giving. Therefore, Jesus, St. Nicholas of Myra and the Christian faith all exist, therefore the Roman Empire existed and the date of Christmas was fixed at December 25^th at some point during the reign of Constantine I in the 4^th century (probably by the logic of that date being nine months after Passover, which was thought to be the date of Jesus’ conception, which in turn means that both Egypt and the Jewish people exist); in addition, if the birth of Jesus was a significant event we have to assume that his death was likewise significant and that Easter therefore also exists… and so on.

I said that was the “easy” answer, didn’t I…?

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hugh_donnetono asks:

What’s your opinion on the Beta Sinnoh Pokemon? (especially arceus)

I’m not sure I have an opinion on them, or feel I need to. I mean, a lot of them are placeholders, right? Many of the leaked sprites are just… clearly unfinished; that’s what a beta is. Arceus especially; people meme on beta Arceus, but it seems pretty clear to me that no one ever planned for it to go into the finished game looking anything like that (likewise Rotom). They knew they wanted Arceus to exist, and they had a rough idea what they wanted it to look like, but they hadn’t finalised the design or done proper sprites yet. The only Pokémon that seem to me like they had a genuinely different design in the leaked beta materials – not just unfinished art – are Rampardos, maybe Hippowdon, Lumineon, Lickilicky (back sprite only), Togekiss and the Garchomp line, and most of them… well, yeah, they just kinda look like first drafts of the Pokémon that they are. Beta Rampardos seems a bit less naturalistic, maybe a touch more manic? Beta Togekiss has shades of Latias and Latios, and I do think it looks pretty cool, but I’m not sure it works as an evolution from Togepi and Togetic. Beta Gible, Gabite and Garchomp have different colour palettes and are… I guess my instinct is maybe a bit simpler, a bit more gen I-II-like? They’re fine, I suppose; I think the final designs are more visually interesting.

The one thing I do think is kind of interesting is the mystery Pokémon, Kimairan, that seems to have occupied Giratina’s slot, whose sprite is clearly a draft but looks like a kind of six-legged griffin thing. My guess is, Game Freak knew they were going to have another legendary Pokémon in that slot, but hadn’t quite figured out what the third piece of Space/Time/??? ought to be, or what role they wanted this Pokémon to have in the mythology of Sinnoh. Even the final release of Diamond and Pearl is, in my opinion, pretty noncommittal about what Giratina actually represents (compared to, say, Rayquaza in Ruby and Sapphire or Kyurem in Black and White), so I honestly wonder how much, if any, of Giratina’s role in Platinum was sketched out in advance. Kimairan might have represented… dreams, maybe, or the world, or life, or a fixed point of reference within space-time. Maybe at this stage of the beta they didn’t even know they wanted this mystery Pokémon to be part of a trio with Dialga and Palkia yet, and it was just something completely different. The point is, I think they probably ditched Kimairan and created Giratina because something clicked about the way they wanted to tell the story of generation IV, and they realised that the Pokémon they’d made wasn’t right for the role they needed.

[This question was promoted to the front of the queue because the submitter is supporting me on Patreon! If you enjoy my writing and like getting my answers to cosmic dilemmas like this one – or just think I deserve something nice for my work – consider visiting https://www.patreon.com/pokemaniacal and signing up!]

hugh_donnetono asks:

So how much of the mythological capabilities of a given legendary Pokémon DO we actually believe in, anyway? (If you can’t get into that question there, get into it here! I’m curious!)

ohhhhhhhh boy

so… what I was alluding to there is that I would eventually like to do a series on legendary Pokémon, where I look at everything we know about each of them (core games, TV show, movies, even spinoff games and the TCG) and decide “well, what actually are this Pokémon’s powers and how does it fit into the world?” And in particular, I would like to take seriously the idea that characters in the games and anime don’t know the truth either. Because I’m not convinced Arceus created the universe, and I’m not convinced Kyogre created the oceans, and I’m not convinced Yveltal can destroy all life on earth, and I’m certainly not convinced that Mew is the ancestor of all Pokémon. As far as I’m concerned, all we know is that there are people who, rightly or wrongly, believe those things. But there isn’t a simple answer to this question, because… well, that word “given” is important. The answer’s not the same for all of them, because we don’t have the same information about all of them. And I don’t even mean, like, some of them have appeared in a larger number of movies or episodes of the TV show; I mean in-universe the sources and reliability of the information are not the same. Like, in Arceus and the Jewel of Life, the unreliability of history and legend is a theme of the story; in my opinion, that movie kind of invites us to disbelieve stuff the characters tell us about Arceus, in a way that isn’t really the case for, say, Manaphy’s role in Pokémon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea, which seems pretty clear-cut (although the nature of the titular Temple is less so). You kinda have to look at everything we know about each one – or at least each duo/trio/quartet. And the truth is, I don’t know when I’m going to be able to do that properly. My schtick is the Pokémon reviews and, wouldn’t you know it, there’s gonna be a whole bunch of them that need doing in about two months, and I feel like more people care about those. You can see why I might be interested in maybe coming up with a shorter format for them.

Ty asks:

Have you seen this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVO8QrGAPHs) Battle Royale of Legendary Pokemon yet? If not, congrats! Now you have!

Anyway, the question is: Which Legendary Pokemon do you think would most likely win in a Battle Royale scenario where Pokedex Entries are assumed to be true (i.e. do you agree with the video), and also in a scenario where they aren’t true (because the Pokedex really doesn’t seem like a reliable source of information) and you’re just using their in-game combat capabilities?

…I think I might love this

But yeah, to answer the question… well, I don’t think I need to agree with the video for it to be great, because it’s supposed to be funny and not, like, a watertight argument for a position in a “who would win” debate. But let’s talk about it anyway.

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N asks:

Do you think there is a case for objectuve morality exsisting in the Pokémon world given that a literal creator god exsists?

I think I reject the premises of the question, which is something I have a bad habit of doing and try not to do, but sometimes I’m just too stubborn and argumentative to avoid it.

‘cause, like, 1) most people alive on Earth today would say “but a literal creator god does exist in the real world,” and that hasn’t solved the problem for us, 2) some people who don’t believe in a supreme being still think that morality is objective anyway, and believe you can discover moral truths through scientific means, and 3) apart from anything else, I’m not convinced that Arceus is a literal creator god – just that some people in the Pokémon world have claimed that it is, which to my mind is not conclusive proof of anything (and this is something I used to be willing to accept but have become steadily more and more sceptical of in the years I’ve been writing for this blog).

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Type: Null and Silvally

Remember when you first encountered this Pokémon? Just wandering around Akala Island, minding your own business, when suddenly the lead guitarist of a My Chemical Romance cover band challenges you to a battle, enters some kind of drug-induced seizure-trance, and sends out what is clearly about six different Pokémon, stitched together by the bastard child of Victor Frankenstein and Josef Mengele. That first appearance makes quite an impact; it’s clear from the start that Gladion is an important character mixed up with some grade-A X-files $#!t, and that his partner Pokémon is not a typical Alolan species. In fact, it’s an artificial creature designed by the Aether Foundation, the antagonists (more or less) of Sun and Moon, with a very specific purpose in mind. Continue reading “Type: Null and Silvally” →

Ty asks:

I’m familiar with your thoughts on how the games try and paint Mew as the ancestor of Pokemon and how backwards their logic is claiming it’s due to Mew having the DNA of all Pokemon. That, as you’ve pointed out multiple times, is not how ancestry works.

I wanted to share with you an idea I’ve had about how I’d handle the Mew situation and what your thoughts about it are. For me, since Mew is the only Pokemon barring Ditto that can learn transform, I really like the idea that Mew could be the ancestor of all Pokemon, or at least the Mew species. In how I’d handle it, Mew would be #1 in the Pokedex and would be the original Pokemon that could change shape at will. As the curious creatures as they are, mews explored endlessly, tackling any environmental challenges by changing shape into the various Pokemon species we’re familiar with to suit that environment. Over time, those mew who grew older and decide to settle in their areas in whatever shape they were in, over thousands of years, lost the ability to transform and remained in that shape as whatever new species they were. Because so few environments are comfortable for Mew’s natural form, and/or so few mew continued to travel endlessly, modern day mews are fairly rare, hence their legendary status. This would really help explain a lot of artificial Pokemon since the mew that originally became that species took on an artificial form for one reason or another somewhere down the line, rather than Pokemon like Klinklang, Electrode, and Klefki existing and being able to breed in some degree for no particular reason.

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