Thread: The Rise of Silph - Commentary

The Rise of Silph is set in the now historical world of the United States from 1967 to 1999, and is partially a story about the discovery of Pokémon, as well as an exposition of the technological and cultural developments that happened in that time, based on the research that I've done about it. The events of the world happen along with the discovery of Pokémon, and add background to the story. Along with that, some of the world's events will be influenced by the story, and eventually, the world will become entirely fictional, completely unbased in the events of the real world.

This commentary will run one post per chapter, similarly to the fic itself. There are many spoilers in here, exposing my intentions of the fic. If you wish to make your own inferences as to what the fic is talking about, please refrain from reading.

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Donovan himself was born in 1952, in "Bayesia Town", in an unspecified state. Bayesia Town is named after Thomas Bayes, the mathematician who inspired Bayesian filtering. All the other towns and cities that are named in the Pokémon fashion in this story are also named after notable mathematicians. Goldback City is named after Goldbach, and Airdows Town is named after Erdos. Even Donovan's address, 144 Penrose Drive, is named after a mathematician - Sir Roger Penrose, who discovered infinite aperiodic tilings, now named Penrose tilings after him. However, this is anachronistic, as Penrose only discovered the tilings in 1974, seven years after this chapter takes place.

The hippies in Chapter 1 were protesting against the war in Vietnam. By then, the United States was nearing its peak involvement in the Vietnam War, and were making the loudest protests.

The computer was also starting to gain traction by this time, although they were still using large circuit boards and building-sized units (albeit a step up from the vacuum tubes of the early 1950's). What Donovan had said about the stock markets not being runnable on computers was definitely true - a single person's data on the stock market would take up at least 50 to 60 bytes per trade, and data was commonly measured in the kilobytes back then. A single building-sized computer contained perhaps at most a few billion bytes of data - nowhere near enough to have all those poor floor traders' transactions recorded. Today, of course, that is no longer a problem, as a few billion bytes of data would fit onto a device the size of a fingernail.

Colour television only began to become widespread in the 1960's. Donovan, being in a relatively isolated neighbourhood, would not have as much access to this technology. 1967 was near cutting-edge for technologies such as these.

Computers, by then, had already been brought to the general public's attention, but Donovan was fascinated by these things, as he grew up in an environment where they did not exist. The general public, as well, considered computers a thing of business; something that would never be used in the home. Such a magazine article that would propose something as sensational as putting computers in the common American household would definitely be something very futuristic, if not almost in the realm of fantasy.

Donovan's concerns about global cooling are somewhat premature relative to the general public - the movement against global cooling (not global warming, mind you; that came later) did not start until the early 1970's, about four or five years later.

By 1967, the moon landing project had only started, and their first mission, retroactively called Apollo 1, ended in a launch failure and the death of three astronauts. It was not until Apollo 7, over a year later, that men were successfully sent into space by the US in the hopes of reaching the moon.

The "July 21, 1968" prediction is entirely fictional; it was simply a reference to the "May 21, 2011" prediction that came 43 years later :3

The Pokémon that Old Ernie was babbling about are Charizard, Magneton, and Alakazam respectively. Of course, when it's 1967, being alive for both world wars isn't really much of an achievement. (You'd only have to be 49 years old for it to be true.)
The butterfly the size of a small dog was a Butterfree. The crow wearing a hat was a Murkrow. And, of course, the yellow mouse-like creature that was frightened by Donovan... Pikachu.

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There will be more commentary placed here as the chapters fill up.

This story starts right at the beginning of the Summer of Love. I found that coincidentally appropriate, because it provides a good initial setting for the story.

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The ads that Donovan sees in Chapter 2 are indicative of what products had been new at that time. Donovan is somewhat of an outcast, not into all that "hippie" stuff, and so shares the same conservative viewpoints as his parents. The birth control ad is for a special pill that would allow the woman to be barren for a month. These pills had been developed and first released to the public in 1960, and were gaining traction in the later sixties with the hippie generation.

The "Toke, not coke!" ad is based on the increasing usage of marijuana everywhere, and the fact that usage of cocaine was still prevalent until it started becoming controlled in the 1970s. By then, the health risks of cocaine had already been studied and released to the public, but it led to much more violent effects than cannabis did.

Now, I'll admit that when I said the part about the wheat crop, I didn't check to see whether wheat actually grew in Michigan or not. Turns out they do grow it in small numbers, so I'm okay.

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The lump that forms in Donovan's throat in Chapter 3 during the police interview is actually more of a concern for the poor beast, even if it was already dead. He had, of course, heard all kinds of grisly tales about what happened at those laboratories, and he couldn't imagine wanting even mutant insect cadavers going there to become mutilated even further, because they were still animals, right? They were still living beings.

1967 happens to be Canada's centennial year, but that was simply a coincidence. 1967 holds a lot of significance to me, as it is the year my mother was born. It also happened to be a good year to put Donovan in originally, as by 1990, he would be the perfect age for inventing the Pokéball, at least after a bunch of other inventions.

The Americans celebrating Canada's 100th is completely fictional, but perhaps not unheard of. Again, the cannabis leaf comes into all this, as it looks at least somewhat like the maple leaf.

At the time, Expo 67 was the largest exposition in the world. The strange structure that Donovan saw was a real construction for the Expo 67, called Habitat 67. It is a very strange-looking structure that, from a distance, looks more like a gigantic urban sculpture than an actual residence space. There are still people who live there today.

The pavilion that explores the new physics of that time did not exist in reality, but it sets the stage for Donovan to start researching these things when he got home.

Poutine was also a relatively new dish at the time - having been invented just ten years earlier. A large plate today would cost about four or five dollars, which was equivalent to about fifty cents in the late 1960's.

The psychedelic experience that Donovan underwent after putting the LSD on his tongue was aided in part by the spores that the Bulbasaur was automatically releasing, which contain dimethyltryptamine.

I hadn't researched it at the time, but the word "like" used as a particle in speech was actually around back then.

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If it is unacceptable to put each chapter's commentary in a single post due to consecutive posting, please tell me.

The Pokémon in this story will only be the ones that do not already resemble real animals in shape and size. So animals such as Pidgey and Zigzagoon will not feature as prominently.

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Chapter 4 is a much more accelerated view of the time, which will be the modus operandi for most of the transition periods within the story.

The Bayesian Filter is named after a Bayesian filter, a type of spam filtering that depends on the probability of words occurring. It's just a pun.

The stuff that happens on the last scene occur right on the closing day of Expo 67, although that's mostly a coincidence. Silph's realization that he does not want to kill or exterminate these creatures is partly due to his LSD experience in Montréal. This tendency to be a keeper will continue on into the 70's, when he becomes an adult.

The florist could not simply dial 9-1-1, as that service did not exist in the USA until 1968, about a year later.

Eventually, the Pokémon outbreak near the Great Lakes will make international news.

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This fic also seeks to exhibit the concerns that people faced about the future back in the past times, times that most of us never actually lived in.

Chapter 5 depicts a Halloween scene where people were trick-or-treating. They really would have been doing stuff like that during those times. And yes, some of them, just like they do today, have objections to them. The hippies going around giving flowers was a fabrication of mine, but

Now that the "Pokémon Problem" is more widespread, it becomes an area of major political interest as well as just neighbourhoods trying to get rid of a few pests. As a result, the hippies also pick up on it, and they quickly take sides, the "straight society", of people over 30, are trying to exterminate Pokémon, while the hippies are trying to preserve them, and "get in touch with them".