Thread: Role of Genetics

I think the 3rd game will be Z, no matter the theme. Either that or A. It will be obvious when the other legendary is released. Unless GF messes up the pattern again. They could do something completely different again. They could make a legendary quartet instead of a trio. That would be interesting and would probably make for good games. Anyone else's thoughts?

I believe the main reason why you can't breed legendaries is because of gameplay reasons than anything else. It's simply to prevent players from quickly breeding an entire army of them and win easily. From an in-game perspective, I think legendaries breed just like any other Pokemon, just not in captivity, and just because humans have never discovered an egg from any of them doesn't rule out the possibility of the existence of them either.

I also think legendaries actually have gender, except maybe unique species and probably some other exceptions, but the in-game reason why the majority of them are labeled as genderless is because humans simply don't know them or the knowledge of them are so small or something. But, eh, I honestly don't get the concept of legendaries being genderless in general. If Heatran received the oh-so-rare male-or-female treatment then why can't they give that to other legendaries as well? I guess a reason is so that players doesn't get either a female or a male Lugia, or example, but instead a Lugia, though you can still just soft reset if you don't want a female Lugia or whatever.

The majority of speaking legendaries in the anime/movies tend to have male voices, which kind of makes me wonder why they couldn't just let those be male and give them a 50/50 gender ratio in the games too (or let Arceus be male-only, or something). People will see them as male if they have male voices, or female if they have female voices, so why not? Or maybe they just acquired a male or female voice to use telepathically, but if they associate themselves with a certain gender already, then why can't they just have a gender from the beginning?

I just find it a bit... I don't know, useless? I can understand the reasons behind it, but at the same time I think I'd be more realistic for them to have genders, too.

They'll probably make Xerneas and Yveltal genderless like all the other legendaries, and they won't revise the others either, but I guess one can dream.

Originally Posted by Angela-Samshi

I believe the main reason why you can't breed legendaries is because of gameplay reasons than anything else. It's simply to prevent players from quickly breeding an entire army of them and win easily. From an in-game perspective, I think legendaries breed just like any other Pokemon, just not in captivity, and just because humans have never discovered an egg from any of them doesn't rule out the possibility of the existence of them either.

I also think legendaries actually have gender, except maybe unique species and probably some other exceptions, but the in-game reason why the majority of them are labeled as genderless is because humans simply don't know them or the knowledge of them are so small or something. But, eh, I honestly don't get the concept of legendaries being genderless in general. If Heatran received the oh-so-rare male-or-female treatment then why can't they give that to other legendaries as well? I guess a reason is so that players doesn't get either a female or a male Lugia, or example, but instead a Lugia, though you can still just soft reset if you don't want a female Lugia or whatever.

The majority of speaking legendaries in the anime/movies tend to have male voices, which kind of makes me wonder why they couldn't just let those be male and give them a 50/50 gender ratio in the games too (or let Arceus be male-only, or something). People will see them as male if they have male voices, or female if they have female voices, so why not? Or maybe they just acquired a male or female voice to use telepathically, but if they associate themselves with a certain gender already, then why can't they just have a gender from the beginning?

I just find it a bit... I don't know, useless? I can understand the reasons behind it, but at the same time I think I'd be more realistic for them to have genders, too.

They'll probably make Xerneas and Yveltal genderless like all the other legendaries, and they won't revise the others either, but I guess one can dream.

Of a certainty some Legendaries can breed--Lugia and Manaphy being the obvious ones-- but I find it hard to believe that the "god" Legendaries (i.e creation trio, Tao trio, weather trio, Arceus, lake guardians) could reproduce as they were made, not born, and in the case of the creation trio I don't think it would be a good idea to have several time/space/antimatter gods running around at the same time.
Ditto for Mew, as canonically speaking there's only one left.
Ultimately a lot of the Legendaries are genderless, not just to stop players from breeding them (although I'm sure that was the original reason) but because assigning them a gender wouldn't make much sense. Take Arceus for example. If it truly is the Original God, the first in the universe, then it can't have a gender because at the time of its creation there were no genders, no chromosomes, etc. The same for the creation and lake trios.

My original point was not that I actually wanted Xerneas to have a female gender--as you said, people would just breed hundreds of Xerneas and hand them out--but that I was surprised that they gave the female chromosome Legendary (if indeed it is chromosomes) a male design. Yes, he could be a reindeer, but as he is standing in what looks to be a deciduous forest and has the antler structure of a red deer, it seems a bit unlikely. Likewise as someone mentioned above birds don't even have X and Y chromosomes, although lack of realism has never stopped Pokemon before.

A final speculation--what if Xerneas and Yveltal, being the representatives of X and Y, combine to give birth to the third member of their trio? A bird-deer...think of the possibilities...

Originally Posted by AmmyDragonair

A final speculation--what if Xerneas and Yveltal, being the representatives of X and Y, combine to give birth to the third member of their trio? A bird-deer...think of the possibilities...

I think GF knows better because most fans disliked the Black Kyurem and White Kyurem. I'm thinking Xerneas=land, Yveltal=sky, Z?=Sea. Also the legendaries, like most others, will probably just be genderless.

Originally Posted by epicparker

I think GF knows better because most fans disliked the Black Kyurem and White Kyurem. I'm thinking Xerneas=land, Yveltal=sky, Z?=Sea. Also the legendaries, like most others, will probably just be genderless.

Didn't we kind of have a land/sea/sky theme with Gen III? I agree that Xerneas and Yveltal will probably be genderless like most other legendaries...maybe the villain team will be related to genetics in some way. It would be cool if the DNA Splicers made a return, but eh, probably not going to happen. :P

Originally Posted by epicparker

Originally Posted by AmmyDragonair

A final speculation--what if Xerneas and Yveltal, being the representatives of X and Y, combine to give birth to the third member of their trio? A bird-deer...think of the possibilities...

I think GF knows better because most fans disliked the Black Kyurem and White Kyurem..

Oh, that's not what I mean--I mean that one of them lays an egg that hatches into the third Legendary, or something...

Another thing pointing to a DNA-centric game is the presence of Eevee, who already has a pokedex entry talking about how its DNA changes.

Also, if this is going to be a thing... let's not forget the DNA POKEMON, Deoxys.

Originally Posted by AmmyDragonair

Originally Posted by epicparker

Originally Posted by AmmyDragonair

A final speculation--what if Xerneas and Yveltal, being the representatives of X and Y, combine to give birth to the third member of their trio? A bird-deer...think of the possibilities...

I think GF knows better because most fans disliked the Black Kyurem and White Kyurem..

Oh, that's not what I mean--I mean that one of them lays an egg that hatches into the third Legendary, or something...

I know, but I don't think the concept of 2 pokemon in one is very popuplar as far as the games go. Its a cool concept, but it wasn't implemented very well

Originally Posted by AmmyDragonair

Originally Posted by Angela-Samshi

I believe the main reason why you can't breed legendaries is because of gameplay reasons than anything else. It's simply to prevent players from quickly breeding an entire army of them and win easily. From an in-game perspective, I think legendaries breed just like any other Pokemon, just not in captivity, and just because humans have never discovered an egg from any of them doesn't rule out the possibility of the existence of them either.

I also think legendaries actually have gender, except maybe unique species and probably some other exceptions, but the in-game reason why the majority of them are labeled as genderless is because humans simply don't know them or the knowledge of them are so small or something. But, eh, I honestly don't get the concept of legendaries being genderless in general. If Heatran received the oh-so-rare male-or-female treatment then why can't they give that to other legendaries as well? I guess a reason is so that players doesn't get either a female or a male Lugia, or example, but instead a Lugia, though you can still just soft reset if you don't want a female Lugia or whatever.

The majority of speaking legendaries in the anime/movies tend to have male voices, which kind of makes me wonder why they couldn't just let those be male and give them a 50/50 gender ratio in the games too (or let Arceus be male-only, or something). People will see them as male if they have male voices, or female if they have female voices, so why not? Or maybe they just acquired a male or female voice to use telepathically, but if they associate themselves with a certain gender already, then why can't they just have a gender from the beginning?

I just find it a bit... I don't know, useless? I can understand the reasons behind it, but at the same time I think I'd be more realistic for them to have genders, too.

They'll probably make Xerneas and Yveltal genderless like all the other legendaries, and they won't revise the others either, but I guess one can dream.

Of a certainty some Legendaries can breed--Lugia and Manaphy being the obvious ones-- but I find it hard to believe that the "god" Legendaries (i.e creation trio, Tao trio, weather trio, Arceus, lake guardians) could reproduce as they were made, not born, and in the case of the creation trio I don't think it would be a good idea to have several time/space/antimatter gods running around at the same time.
Ditto for Mew, as canonically speaking there's only one left.
Ultimately a lot of the Legendaries are genderless, not just to stop players from breeding them (although I'm sure that was the original reason) but because assigning them a gender wouldn't make much sense. Take Arceus for example. If it truly is the Original God, the first in the universe, then it can't have a gender because at the time of its creation there were no genders, no chromosomes, etc. The same for the creation and lake trios.

My original point was not that I actually wanted Xerneas to have a female gender--as you said, people would just breed hundreds of Xerneas and hand them out--but that I was surprised that they gave the female chromosome Legendary (if indeed it is chromosomes) a male design. Yes, he could be a reindeer, but as he is standing in what looks to be a deciduous forest and has the antler structure of a red deer, it seems a bit unlikely. Likewise as someone mentioned above birds don't even have X and Y chromosomes, although lack of realism has never stopped Pokemon before.

A final speculation--what if Xerneas and Yveltal, being the representatives of X and Y, combine to give birth to the third member of their trio? A bird-deer...think of the possibilities...

I think the only Legendary Pokemon that are unique are Mewtwo and Arceus. Let me dig through canon on this:

The Mew they created Mewtwo from died in captivity but another one can be found on Faraway Island. Ergo, there's more than one Mew in the games. There's definitely more than one Mew in the anime. We see Legendary Birds being hatched in Pokemon Snap, ergo they must reproduce. There was a baby Lugia in the anime. I don't think there's any evidence that there's more than one Ho-Oh. It's hard to tell if there's more than one Celebi or just the same individual at many points in time. In the anime, there's more than one set of Legendary Beasts. There's definitely multiples of the Regis - they're scattered in temples throughout pretty much in every region. I don't see any evidence that Groudon, Kyogre, and Rayquaza have multiple individuals. Ditto Jirachi. We've seen multiple Deoxys several times. Multiple Latios and Latias. The Lake Guardians may be unique.

Now, Dialga, Palkia, and Giratina were unique. But Arceus can make more and does so in its HeartGold SoulSilver event. Since it also made the Lake Trio, it can probably make more of them as well. Multiple Darkrai definitely exist in the anime. No multiple Cresselia have ever shown up. We know for a fact that Heatran, Manaphy, and Phione reproduce. And that there are multiple Shaymin. No dupes of Victini. Keldeo had parents, so the Musketeer gang reproduce. Kami Trio might be unique. The Tao Dragon Trio appear to be unique, but the entity they split from might not be. Finally, Meloretta doesn't seem to have any lore supporting multiples of it. And there are multiple Genesect in the anime.

I still want to say that only Mewtwo and Arceus are one individual species. But you could make arguments for Ho-Oh, Celebi, Groudon, Kyogre, Rayquaza, Jirachi, Cresselia, Victini, Rerisham, Kyurem, Zerkrom, Landorus, Thunderus, Meloretta, and Tornadus are also singular individuals as well.

I definitely feel that X and Y will draw from genetics in its plot. It would be a good change away from the religious nonsense that fans have taken out of context since Gen 4.

Originally Posted by AmmyDragonair

but I find it hard to believe that the "god" Legendaries (i.e creation trio, Tao trio, weather trio, Arceus, lake guardians) could reproduce as they were made, not born, and in the case of the creation trio I don't think it would be a good idea to have several time/space/antimatter gods running around at the same time.

I don't find it hard to believe. I could go on about why I feel Arceus is a god in legend only (which I'll say was noted at each and every turn), but even in the "creation event", Arceus made/summoned an egg which then hatched into the trio member of your choice, and we all know where Eggs come from.

Oh man, even in Pokemon, I'm an atheist.

What I'd like to see.

*Questioning the ethics of using clones
*Cloned pokémon being used in a mirror-match
*Existencial crisis
*Questioning of free-will/magic in a world bound by science

In B2W2, Bianca says: 'By the way, [Cedric Juniper] is researching Pokémon distribution and biology!'

I can see him being involved in X and Y much in the same way, if not more, than Oak was in GSC/HGSS. They both have similar attitudes towards the player, so seeing Cedric appear briefly in XY, and maybe giving a little backstory like he did in BW, seems possible.

Well, in regards to the "Evil Team"...

Basically, expanding on Colress' research (he wouldn't be involved directly, given his apparent morality change), the new Evil Team have a "DNA" theme, and seek to unlock the full potential of a Pokemon...to do this, however, they literally "synch" with their Pokemon using artificial means. I don't mean FUSION, but they use some device that allows them to fully control their Pokemon with their mind, basically making the Pokemon's power their own. This would contrast the touted "bonding" feature, as the player on the other hand naturally would synch with their Pokemon through heart-felt bonding and friendship.

The whole team would have a scientist appearance, with cool lab coats and such...and then there'd be Four Admins with names beginning with G,C,A, and T, referencing nucleobases.

With breeding, I'd like to see the Pokemon Status Screen have a new page showing the Pokemon's Mother and Father, if it was bred. At the very least the Species but, if there's space to do it, perhaps also showing the moves that the parents passed down. You know, that way you could see what the parents of traded Pokemon were.

Maybe, to avoid this whole "light/mystic/love" type thing they could make the main legendaries Fire and Grass. Pokemon Z would be a Water type, as it would be some sort of sea serpent, and W could be an Electric type or Psychic type.

maybe they where the origin of all walking and winged pokemon and the third one is the origin of all water creature.

i've also read some theory that xerneas adn yveltal both have an exclusive item that when use on them exchanges their color and type like if xerneas is ice/steel type and yveltal is fire/dark type when the item is used xerneas become red and fire/steel type then yveltal become ice/dark type (not saying that this would be their type)