Introducing Pokémon to different regions

[Manchee]

Introducing Pokémon to different regions

(realized yesterday that it was ten years to the day that I joined these forums... lol)

Anyway! Lately I've been wanting to get back into fic writing because it used to be a fun, easy way for me to practice my writing skills and not stress too much about creating a story. As I am trying to brainstorm ideas and plan them out, I'm running into the issue of having Pokémon in regions that they are not native to. As newer regions are released, it adds more diversity to what Pokémon can be used across different fics, and I'm always fascinated to see how different Pokémon can interact in regions that they are not from.

The problem I'm running into, though, is being able to include Pokémon in the wild where they are not native. It's all good and fun to give your main character a starting Pokémon from a region that is far away, but as they progress in the story and interact with the region they live in, how can it make sense for other Pokémon to be present?

My first idea was having some kind of initiative or organization of scientists that introduce Pokémon to new regions and monitor them carefully to see if they would be able to 1) survive, 2) not become invasive to other Pokémon species, and 3) not destroy the ecosystem/environment they are introduced to. This could be like introducing Sewaddle to Viridian Forest or Pancham to Granite Cave. I know in the real world, it's a horrible idea to try introducing a new species to an environment where they do not live naturally (whether it's a way to control another population or study them in any way) because this can really screw with an ecosystem, but I wasn't sure if that is something forgivable in the Pokémon world.

The only other idea I can think of is trainers who travel between regions and either end up releasing a Pokémon, having one run away, breeding it in a new region, and having species be introduced that way, but I think that opens the door to a lot more issues around random Pokémon ending up in areas they do not belong or fit in. What do you all think? What are good, reliable ways that make sense for non-native Pokémon to be living in new areas across different regions?

 

[Cutlerine]

I think the deliberate introduction of non-native species is probably not something that makes sense for scientists in the pokémon world to be doing, but I think there are plenty of other ways to get around something like that! For instance, new species of pokémon entering a region naturally is entirely canonical -- in BW2, Juniper and Bianca mention that they're studying a bunch of species that weren't in Unova at the time of BW that have since established populations there. Quite often, the third game in each generation introduces a bunch of new species to the region in question, so it seems like populations of pokémon are naturally quite mobile. Sometimes climatic shifts caused by legendaries change the ecosystem as well, like when new pokémon appear in Hoenn in ORAS after Groudon/Kyogre has been defeated. So if you really want a species in a region, you can easily argue that it's just migrated there.

Other than that, there's nothing stopping you from adding locations to a region that aren't in the game. For example, Johto and Kanto appear to be on a big plateau that extends further north than the in-game maps show -- you could quite easily add pokémon that don't appear in the games' representation of those regions to whatever you want to imagine is up there in the north. I'm currently writing a fic in which the protagonist has a noivern, despite never having left Johto, and that's the trick I've used to get around that; she just went north into some made-up mountains and found her partner there. Lots of other regions seem to spill over the borders of the map, too: Unova is part of a landmass that extends to the north and west; Kalos is clearly only the northern part of France, meaning there's plenty to the south and east; Sinnoh and Hoenn are clearly surrounded by various islands that could have all kinds of pokémon lurking on them. Plus of course there's a lot of empty space in between the various routes in the games; if you wanted to add locations in there with different species, there'd be no canonical contradiction.

There's also accidental introduction, as you mentioned originally, and finally there's the option of just ignoring canon and saying "eh, whatever, they're just here now." Like, with the exception of a few pokémon that only really make sense in their original locations -- sigilyph are strongly tied to the ruined city in the desert in Unova, for instance, and Alolan subspecies are obviously restricted to Alola -- you could just add pokémon in wherever and I don't think anyone could really fault you for it, so long as you made some kind of gesture towards explaining their presence. Canon is there to be manipulated, after all.

 

[Kutie Pie]

That's an interesting idea that I don't think enough people are touching upon, and while it appears to be a concept the franchise has been looking into more these last few games, they're not bringing complete attention to it. But funnily enough, this appears to be the backstory behind Alola, given how heavily influenced it is by the Hawaiian islands which have had its own share of invasive species throwing the ecosystem off-balance. There's a Game Theory video theorizing that Pokémon are being driven to extinction in the Alola region because of this, which I think could be of some help. You could also look up on how invasive species from discarded exotic pets are threatening the Everglades for further inspiration, or even look into the Africanized bees since you brought up the concept of Bug Pokémon.

 

[The Teller]

I don't know if this will help any, but back when I was writing Happenings Between Goals, I used the "no explanation; that's just how this AU Sinnoh region's Pokemon distribution looks like" excuse Cutlerine described above. I just used whatever Pokemon I wanted (and gym leaders too, but that's a different thing) and no one ever raised an issue with me. In my case, it probably helped that I wasn't just using the most popular Pokemon exclusively (Shelmet! Skitty! Pinsir!), and was already doing so many things differently (different gym leaders! Gyms and routes out of order! Retconning ghost types out of existence!) that a Geodude appearing near Jubilife City wasn't going to break immersion too badly.

 

[Crystal]

I didn't bother too much on this issue either. Because in my fic, human characters travel between and came from different regions, so for handheld pokemons of trainers, I just let them have whatever pokemon as long as it looks appropriate to the character's trainer level and personality. For wild pokemons, as long as it is appropriate to the habitat, for example fire-type pokemon resides around volcanic area, then I won't care too much.

So to sum it up, "Nah, these pokemons just happened to live in here" is the reason.

 

[Manchee]

First off, I love how varying all of these replies are. It's neat to see how everyone chooses to go about their explanation for including other Pokémon in different areas/regions.

I think the deliberate introduction of non-native species is probably not something that makes sense for scientists in the pokémon world to be doing, but I think there are plenty of other ways to get around something like that! For instance, new species of pokémon entering a region naturally is entirely canonical -- in BW2, Juniper and Bianca mention that they're studying a bunch of species that weren't in Unova at the time of BW that have since established populations there. Quite often, the third game in each generation introduces a bunch of new species to the region in question, so it seems like populations of pokémon are naturally quite mobile. Sometimes climatic shifts caused by legendaries change the ecosystem as well, like when new pokémon appear in Hoenn in ORAS after Groudon/Kyogre has been defeated. So if you really want a species in a region, you can easily argue that it's just migrated there.

I totally forgot about the canonical explanations they use in game (mainly because I never played through BW2 and didn't pay attention as well during ORAS lol), but I like that a lot. It makes it feel more reasonable, and I think it can be used in meaningful ways when it comes to this idea I'm working on. The natural migration of Pokémon from one region or area to another can cause all kinds if trouble that requires environmentalists/scientists to intervene.

Other than that, there's nothing stopping you from adding locations to a region that aren't in the game. For example, Johto and Kanto appear to be on a big plateau that extends further north than the in-game maps show -- you could quite easily add pokémon that don't appear in the games' representation of those regions to whatever you want to imagine is up there in the north. I'm currently writing a fic in which the protagonist has a noivern, despite never having left Johto, and that's the trick I've used to get around that; she just went north into some made-up mountains and found her partner there. Lots of other regions seem to spill over the borders of the map, too: Unova is part of a landmass that extends to the north and west; Kalos is clearly only the northern part of France, meaning there's plenty to the south and east; Sinnoh and Hoenn are clearly surrounded by various islands that could have all kinds of pokémon lurking on them. Plus of course there's a lot of empty space in between the various routes in the games; if you wanted to add locations in there with different species, there'd be no canonical contradiction.

I did like the use of this in what I've read by you, especially in Kanto and Johto. With both regions being on a plateau area it adds a good bit of land to explore beyond. What I'm writing is set in Hoenn, so it's a little trickier (the islands around the ocean make sense, especially with the mirage spots from ORAS) since where I needed the "new" Pokémon was in the mainland areas. However, when talking about this with a friend of mine (who actually went to school for environmental sustainability, ha!) she mentioned zoos being easy ways to bring species that really don't make sense into different regions, which totally made me remember that I have my main character living near the Safari Zone and even had him working there in his backstory, so the one Pokémon that gave me trouble introducing can totally be brought in through the Safari Zone without it even seeming odd!

That's an interesting idea that I don't think enough people are touching upon, and while it appears to be a concept the franchise has been looking into more these last few games, they're not bringing complete attention to it. But funnily enough, this appears to be the backstory behind Alola, given how heavily influenced it is by the Hawaiian islands which have had its own share of invasive species throwing the ecosystem off-balance. There's a Game Theory video theorizing that Pokémon are being driven to extinction in the Alola region because of this, which I think could be of some help. You could also look up on how invasive species from discarded exotic pets are threatening the Everglades for further inspiration, or even look into the Africanized bees since you brought up the concept of Bug Pokémon.

Thank you for those sources! They really help, honestly. I've read about a few invasive species through researching for this fic that this topic pertains to, but getting examples of others is useful. Alola and its species play a bigger role in my ideas here, especially since Hoenn is probably the closest to Alola in terms of weather and tropicalness. Invasive species really do a number on island areas, it's so crazy how much they can mess up their ecosystems! Bermuda has a history of introducing one species after the next that kept becoming invasive and not solving their issues, lol.

There's also accidental introduction, as you mentioned originally, and finally there's the option of just ignoring canon and saying "eh, whatever, they're just here now." Like, with the exception of a few pokémon that only really make sense in their original locations -- sigilyph are strongly tied to the ruined city in the desert in Unova, for instance, and Alolan subspecies are obviously restricted to Alola -- you could just add pokémon in wherever and I don't think anyone could really fault you for it, so long as you made some kind of gesture towards explaining their presence. Canon is there to be manipulated, after all.

I don't know if this will help any, but back when I was writing Happenings Between Goals, I used the "no explanation; that's just how this AU Sinnoh region's Pokemon distribution looks like" excuse Cutlerine described above. I just used whatever Pokemon I wanted (and gym leaders too, but that's a different thing) and no one ever raised an issue with me. In my case, it probably helped that I wasn't just using the most popular Pokemon exclusively (Shelmet! Skitty! Pinsir!), and was already doing so many things differently (different gym leaders! Gyms and routes out of order! Retconning ghost types out of existence!) that a Geodude appearing near Jubilife City wasn't going to break immersion too badly.

I didn't bother too much on this issue either. Because in my fic, human characters travel between and came from different regions, so for handheld pokemons of trainers, I just let them have whatever pokemon as long as it looks appropriate to the character's trainer level and personality. For wild pokemons, as long as it is appropriate to the habitat, for example fire-type pokemon resides around volcanic area, then I won't care too much.

So to sum it up, "Nah, these pokemons just happened to live in here" is the reason.

I like these ideas of just rolling with having new Pokémon in areas "just because," and even with trying to make them have some kind of logical reason for being there, I like knowing that multiple people share the belief that it's okay to have them show up without needing explanation as long as it doesn't "break immersion too badly," as Teller said. I'm sure there will be a time when I need to use that excuse, and knowing it's acceptable to a point is reassuring.