Want to feel old? Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire are nearly 13 years old. Red and Blue are nearly 20! But despite all that time we're just now unveiling lore that could answer some of the franchise's longest kept secrets. *Game Theory Theme* Hello Internet! Welcome to Game Theory where I'm not going to "Raichu" a love song, I'm gonna write "Mew" a theory that has a "Chansy" of not being too "Farfetch'd". Sorry. Enough puns. I'll keep my big "Meowth" shut. This opening joke was reaaaaaally Onix-septable. You still here after that terrible opening? Great, thanks for sticking around. Pokemon! I don't know what it is, but all of you out there just can't get enough of these little guys. And at first, I was ready to gloss over the release of the newest installments (Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire) as just shameless re-release cash grabs of the original GameBoy Advanced games which, let's be honest, they are. But, what I didn't expect were these games including new bits of post-game content that would rock the foundations of the Pokemon world and, after copious amounts of therapy in the intervening year since the my last Pokemaaans video, I figured it was time to dip my toe back in the Pika-pool for a theory that's sure to put the Griseous Orb on your Origin Form Giratina If you know what I mean. ;) And if you don't *know what I mean* don't worry. I think probably about 98% of people watching this video probably didn't get that. I-I-I don't either, honestly. I-I just say these things. So this earth-shattering bit of post game content is known as the Delta Episode. And be wary, as there be spoilers ahead. Basically, you team up with an all-new trainer named Zinnia, last in her line of ancient Pokemon dragon worshippers, to save the world from an asteroid on a collision course with the planet. Along the way, you encounter the mysterious alien Pokemon, Deoxys, and the all-new Mega Evolved form of Rayquaza. And, yes, for those of you not keeping up with the series, there are now Mega Evolutions, which are powered by the bond between trainer and Pokemon. And if you're thinking that sounds a lot like Digimon, then you're thinking something everyone else realized back in 1999. But here's why I'm doing my 8th video on the franchise. (Outside of the fact that you guys requested it.) I believe the Delta Episode has given us the key to finally answering some of your longest held questions about the series and also gives rise to a whole new line of questions regarding the nature of the two different versions of each generation. You know, Red and Blue. Gold and Silver. Ruby and Sapphire. And so on. What if it's not just a ploy to convince you to buy two games when you should only really need to buy only one? Well, obviously it is a ploy to get you to buy two games... But, I'm talking about from a lore perspective here. What if there's an in-game reason the two versions are similar, yet different? Hold on to your Pokeballs Aroma Lady because these games are set in different dimensions. You didn't mishear me. I said dimensions. As in different planes of existence. Let me explain. Normally, when people talk about these sorts of complex concepts, they start with a cat and a man named Schrodinger. But since it's Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire season, let's replace this boring old Austrian physicist with one-time Pokemon champion and all around cool guy: Steven Stone. And instead of a lame, non-powered cat, let's replace it with this cat-like Pokemon: Skitty. Wait a minute. Skitty? Like, Kitty, but with an S in front. And it's a cat... Oh my gosh! Well played, Game Freak, well played. Anyway, let's talk about the classic quantum physics thought experiment: Steven Stone's Skitty. Try saying that one three times fast. It's time to get metaphysical. First, imagine that Steven Stone is standing there in the Pokemon Stadium and that his weird little Skitty is just sitting there inside a Pokeball on his belt. Next, imagine that, unbeknownst to both of them, the Pokeball Skitty is sitting in has faulty wiring, which could possibly result in the Skitty being dead. Awwww, poor little guy. Now, this is where it starts to get weird because quantum physics is just bizarre. Imagine that, while Skitty lies unobserved within the Pokeball, that actually means he's in a superstate of being both alive and dead at the same time. 'Cause we don't know which he is until the moment Steven Stone says, "I choose you!" The Pokeball opens and we get our answer to the question. Now you quantum physicists in the room might be asking yourselves, "How can Skitty possibly be in two states at once, and then how can they collapse into one, and what determines which one he assumes?" Well, my little would-be Pokemon masters, the truth is... no one really knows for sure, but there are a few commonly discussed theories... String theories! Thanks for observing! No? A little science joke? Nah, whatever. The theory we just discussed is called the Copenhagen Interpretation. That in observing the Skitty, we collapse the two possible outcomes to one true outcome: Skitty being either alive or dead. But another theory is that that collapse never happens, that there's a universe for each possibility: one where Skitty pops out and is alive, and another where it's sadly a bit more than fainted. This is known as the many worlds interpretation, and if you're a true loyal Theorist, you might remember this episode I did -YIKES- a little over two years ago about how the Zelda timeline is wrong, where I explain that every situation with multiple outcomes creates an entirely new parallel universe. Well, that's one way to explain Steven Stone's Skitty, too. But now, instead of just one Pokemon's life hanging in the balance, imagine it was a significant percentage of the total Pokemon population on the planet, which leads us back to the franchise's lore. According to Pokemon X and Y, 3000 years before the events of the game there was a trainer named AZ who lived in the Kalos region with his beloved flower-bearing fairy Pokemon, Floette. Unfortunately for both of them, a war suddenly broke out in the region, and the Floette was called upon to fight. Sadly, Floette was killed in battle, and AZ was devastated. AZ went crazy trying to build a machine that would bring his Floette back from the grave. And, in that process, somehow developed the ability to live forever. I don't know... It's a theory for another day. What's even crazier, though, is that he eventually succeeds. But by now, he's so maniacally deranged about ending the war at any cost that he configures the machine to power itself on the lives of Pokemon. Millions of Pokemon are killed to bring Floette back, and the whole awful series of events is so earth-shattering that the trauma of all these deaths combined with the energy of AZ's weapon to irradiate some weird Stonehenge-like rock things outside of Geosenge town. Hah! Geosenge. Stonehenge. Again. Well played, Game Freak. Truly stellar work with these creative names. But here's where Steven Stone's quantum Skitty matters. Imagine that, in this case, the faulty wire in Skitty's ball is the same as AZ's giant death machine, and that the two different possibilities, AZ firing the weapon or AZ not firing the weapon, have created two separate universes: one where irradiated stones filled with the spirits of dead Pokemon enable Mega Evolution, where your favorite Pokemon temporarily get even bigger and more powerful, and a second where Mega Evolution doesn't exist because the weapon was never fired and millions of Pokemon never died. Suddenly, you get the most brilliant retcon ever: an explanation for why some games in the franchise feature Mega Evolution and some don't. Now, I would be skeptical, too. I mean, this is waaaay too complicated for a kids' game. Except that it isn't. The games actually support this theory. Fast forward to Omega Ruby or Alpha Sapphire during the Delta Episode. In case you missed it the first time because you were still trying to figure out that super esoteric Giratina joke, an asteroid 6 miles across, the same size as the one that probably killed the dinosaurs, is on a collision course with Earth. Mr. Stone, Steven Stone's father and head of the Devon Corporation, explains that his company has harnessed the same energy AZ created with his weapon to power many of the high-tech gadgets that appear throughout the Pokemon world, including one that's about to help you save the world by tearing a hole through reality and opening a portal to another dimension for the asteroid to fly away through. Yeaaaaaahh. This is, uh, still a game about capturing cute little pocket animals and having them slap each other around, right? Anyway, seems like a great plan, right? Rip open a dimensional rift. Bada-bing, bada boom. Asteroid crisis over. Easy-squeezy, lemon-peazy. Enter Zinnia, weird dragon girl descended from... ancient protectors of old or something... doesn't really matter. Her hidden ancient dragon knowledge warns that in this other dimension there is a planet just like yours, but different somehow... And sending the asteroid to them will just destroy their planet instead of yours. Here're some quotes. That is an impressive machine. Snap your fingers, the asteroid vanishes and we all live happily ever after? Ahahahahahah! Indeed! It's like that former Champ said. This thing is the best hope we have of saving this planet and everything on it. But you know, it could also be the worst tragedy imaginable for some other world and everything on it. My people know it. From generation to generation, we pass along the lore about the distortions in the world borne by the Mega Evolution mechanism. And about the existence of another world, which we have long observed to be just like this one and yet not the same... That's right. A Hoenn region that's almost exactly like this one we live in. Filled with Pokemon and people like us. A world where maybe the evolution of Pokemon took a slightly different path, where Mega Evolution is unknown... A world where that war 3000 years ago... never happened. A world where the ultimate weapon was never even built. End quote. This is pretty heavy stuff. It's also stuff that seems to imply that our Mega Evolution theory is correct. The 3DS Pokemon games, Pokemon X and Y, and Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire are set on a different timeline, a different dimension than the other games in the series, which also rather conveniently explains why Mega Evolution never existed as a gameplay feature until now. Using the many worlds interpretation, Game Freak has created the ultimate retcon. And, while that's pretty impressive in its own right, I know you, and I know you're still not quite satisfied because that's not what I originally set out to prove. So, how does this translate to the different versions being set in alternate dimensions? Well, look at what we've learned. In the world of Pokemon, the many worlds theory seems to be a fact. Different versions of reality are definitely created whenever events have multiple possible outcomes, leaving a bunch of really similar universes to float around in the ether with little differences between them, like say which Pokemon are available on any given route. Or maybe which legendary Pokemon the criminal syndicate has chosen to be a part of their master plan. Or the name of Professor Oak's human turd of a grandson. All different universes, differentiated by different titles. But we can take it one step further. That rift creating device had a name. It was called, get this, a "Link Cable". And while the opening of this episode may have made me feel like Father Time, I'm sure at least some of you out there watching in the audience can remember, or at least have heard about a time before wireless communications technology. When us Pokemon fans had to buy a device that would physically link our GameBoys together. When we wanted to battle or trade. A device that was called a "Link Cable". Why is this a big deal? Well, we can extrapolate that not only are Red and Blue, Gold and Silver, and so on different tellings of the same basic story set in parallel universes, but that in fact each copy of each game is in fact its own universe, too. And that these link cables actually physically connect them via rifts in time and space. Want to trade or battle with a friend? Well, doing that spreads new Pokemon from one dimension to the next, and that's not even where it ends. There's even a scientist in the game who explains that the Devon Corporation casually uses this technology all the time in devices that people use every day. He only mentions those overused warp panels, but think about all the different, bizarre things this could explain. I mean, this is a civilization that can travel through any possible reality. What else could you do? Well, how about impossible references to real-world pop culture? Like when Ash references the Minnesota Vikings in the Pokemon movie. I didn't know vikings still existed. They mostly live in Minnesota. Maybe he really has heard of them. How 'bout PC and Pokeball technology? Well shoot, if we could just rip holes in time and space, what if these devices use pocket dimensions? What if that's the real reason they're called Pocket Monsters in the first place? It might even explain Devon Corporation's uncannily creepy new reference for Omanyte and Omastar. Don't tell me you didn't notice all the new symbols hanging around their headquarters these days. Now we know it's literally possible that they visited the Twitch Plays Pokemon universe and learned about Lord Helix himself. And what about that mysterious ghost girl from Pokemon X and Y who says you're not the one, and then vanishes? We might be witnessing a super-creepy rendezvous between two inter-dimensional travelers. And finally, what if Diglett's mysterious missing feet exist in another dimension? In Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Red/Blue Rescue Team, Diglett says his feet feel like they're floating in air. Okay, so, maybe I'm getting a bit carried away. But then again, what if I'm not? Maybe Pokemon has always been about other dimensions and the beautiful idea of connecting your little world with someone else's. Or, maybe it's just something they didn't think about until they realized that fans were asking too many questions. But regardless, who knew that Pikachu would be giving you a little lesson in quantum physics? But hey, that's just a theory! A Game Theory! Thanks for watching! Let's cut to the chase. You like snacks, I like snacks. You like free things, I like free things. Get the best of all worlds by clicking the link in the description, or typing in naturebox.com/matpat into the address bar and get yourself some free food sent directly to your door via the Naturebox delivery service. This month, I'm dining on chocolate banana chips, coconut date energy bites (for those late-night Game Theory sessions), and dark coacoa nom-noms, which are so named because when you eat them, you go nom-nom-nom-nom-nom! Like Pac-Man, but eating dark cocoa instead of weird, white pellet things. Let this be the universe where you get to indulge in some free snacks delivered directly to your door, and let that other universe you just remain hungry and sad that he didn't click the link in the description. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to do research on a game that isn't as complicated as Pokemon. I wonder how Metal Gear Solid is doing these days...
Also, Archie/Maxie says something along the lines of "just think, in another world I could have done this" (referring to Maxie/Archie reviving groudon/kyogre)
Now we have an explanation for old GB(C) games dying when the battery died: the quantum-universe technology-magic was used for so long that somebody managed to break it and wipe out the universe
We all know that the only reason Devon corp. has pictures of omanyte is because of TPP.
I cannot stress enough how happy I am to know that there's somebody who's played the Steins;Gate VN apart from me (see music at Schrödinger's cat/string theory).
Having watched the most recent episode. Matt how would you theorize that the pokedex has the information about monsters from both/all dimensions?
First, I'll start by saying I was more of a FF6 guy and only played Chrono Trigger once, so it's possible that folks are going to jump in here with a "Duh, I knew that!" but...
So I was watching this Pokemon Multiverse video when the background music struck me.
http://youtu.be/Mkm-U7Myh0E?t=5m30s
Right at the 5:30 mark a song starts playing that I know I've heard before. One that I've heard A LOT. I pretty quickly place it as part of a "Thug Mix" track that a DJ friend of mine put together that I've listened to like a hundred times, and after some quick scanning and searching I found that it is Wiz Khalifa Never Been Part 2.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phWoiyfA8ls
So I'd heard it on the Wiz track first and it stuck with me because it's a pretty sick beat. Only after hearing in this Pokemon video and then tracking it down did I find out it's the Chrono Trigger Secret of the Forest track.
Uh, so that's it. Besides Matt Pat laying down the Theories, he also clued me in on some Chrono Trigger music.
I haven't finished oras yet, will this video spoil anything from those games for me?
There's actually even more evidence for this from the Pokemon anime. In the 37th episode of the X and Y series Ash Ketchum actually travels to an alternate reality. There he actually meets alternate versions of himself and his companions, who look the same but act quite different (Ash is a crybaby, Team Rocket are well renound heroes...) And while it's true that that's the anime and not the games, it's possible that the anime is yet another separate Pokemon dimension.