4. What are some major events in the history of your world?
The biggest non-canon historical events established in TQftL are the two times there was a portal between the Pokémon world and the animal world, i.e. ours. The ancestors of Pokémon world humans came there thousands of years ago through a naturally occurring portal from the animal world; the Pokémon world was inhabited only by Pokémon at the time. Much later, 874 years before the start of the fic, Pokémon world scientists managed to discover the existence of the animal world, and eventually create an artificial portal to it, reestablishing cultural exchange between the two worlds. This is why Pokémon world humans are so similar to our humans. This is also why the Pokémon world has mundane animals, imported from our world. However, they are very rare and exist mostly in captivity.
The animal world, unfortunately, was later destroyed in an all-out nuclear war, though millions of refugees managed to escape to the utopian Pokémon world before everything went boom. My fourteen-year-old self's worldbuilding was something. I have doubts that I will keep all of this in the vague future QftL rewrite; the animal world, probably, but I doubt I will include the edgy nuclear war.
Historical events in the Morphicverse are something I'd like to keep vague for the most part. The creation of the Pokémorphs, ten years before the bulk of the story, is pretty major international news but hardly a historical watershed moment. Probably the most interesting actual set-in-stone history is that they have a version of Christianity, so something vaguely resembling the basic history of Christianity happened (and thus also Judaism, although at least in the current version of the story it doesn't exactly come up).
5. Who are some famous people and pokémon in your world?
The QftLverse has characters from the games and anime exist - notably, Ash Ketchum, who is thirty-seven years old, has a fifteen-year-old son named Alan with an unnamed wife, and is an international celebrity known to have encountered a ton of legendary Pokémon, etc. I kind of doubt he will actually appear on-screen in the QftL rewrite (but his son is a major character), but he's in a couple chapters of the current version along with his Pikachu, and a couple other Pokémon he's had in the anime get namedropped (with some of the leads' Pokémon being related to them for no good reason; another element likely to be excised from the next revision).
The gym leaders of the Ouen region, of course, are well-known there; they are:
- Rick, emotionally unstable orphan who clones and mind-controls legendary Pokémon to fight children with them (I was incredibly twelve)
- Christopher, absolute nothing of a Steel-type gym leader with a shiny Scizor and a "mirrors and blinding light so nobody can see anything" gimmick
- Mitch, mysterious cape-wearing expert on poisons found half-dead in a desert after a Pokémon sting that should have killed him
- Marge, elegant Hoennian double battle Water-type lover
- Flora, ill-tempered Grass-type user who is dying to inform you that her name is a coincidence and she despises perfumes
- Sparky, resolutely cheerful orphan Electric-type specialist and restaurant owner who is dying to host your birthday party and is besties with his town's Nurse Joy
- Carl, ruthless intimidating resolute skeptic and Fire-type user who thinks Pokémon battles belong in natural environments, i.e. down in the crater of an active volcano
- Diana, descendant of her city's legendary Flying-type user hero Danielle Acaria, who crudely converted the Flying-type gym to a Dark-type one with a maze puzzle in her edgy teenage rebellion
Also, a Hitmonchan known as Fury is the world's first Pokémon with a trainer license as his own trainer, who then becomes an author writing about his experiences. Most Pokémon think he's pretty weird for wanting to do all the weird human stuff.
Most of the Morphicverse's public figures are once again left ambiguous, but the ones that have some relevance to the fic are:
- David Ambrose, geneticist, outspoken atheist provocateur and the main genius behind the Pokémorphs, who is also a deeply miserable alcoholic trashfire of a human being.
- The [Church of Holy Truth] (to be renamed in the rewrite), an extremist family cult of the Westboro Baptist Church variety; they do stuff like picketing funerals or protesting in front of the Pokémorphs' personal homes. Has been led by the same patriarch (not yet named) for most of its existence, before his equally fanatical son Isaac takes over shortly before the main bulk of the story. He is supported by his younger brother Jacob, who is more withdrawn and cynical and is a Psychic Pokémon trainer. They are both pretty screwed-up people in different ways thanks to the whole raised in a toxic abusive cult thing. (They are getting a lot more development in the rewrite than they got in the original).
6. What do pokémon families and relationships look like in your world?
In the QftLverse, that depends heavily on the Pokémon species; they all have their own different cultures, many of them very offputting to humans.
The most developed Pokémon culture in the fic is that of Scyther, who live in swarms of a few dozen individuals. They don't really have a concept of a
family, but they do have a concept of a
mother and
father who are simply two individuals who take formal responsibility for ensuring a hatchling is fed and safe, usually but not always the biological parents. They have some pair-bonding instincts but a philosophy that largely revolves around suppressing such feelings, and either way don't really do jealousy or exclusivity.
Meanwhile, the Letaligon (a fakemon) are ruled by shinies, who have a segregation distorter gene that makes all of their offspring shiny; the shiny leader of a herd basically has absolute authority over everything, an overriding choice of mate, and their shiny children must either leave the herd to found their own or challenge their parent in a fight. It's pretty horrible and dystopian.
Many other Pokémon, though, just have cute healthy relationships and families. I promise.
In the Morphicverse, Pokémon are animalistic and largely behave similarly to their animal counterparts. People breed them, they don't really care.
7. How do money and the economy work in your world?
In the QftLverse, essential trainer services are free and provided by the government, and common supplies are cheap and subsidized. As training is practically a rite of passage, it's socially very important for it to be accessible to all kids once they turn ten, should they and their parents wish to. Human health care is also free and considered a right. By the time of the fic trainer gadgets have basically all been combined into one in the Pokédex, which also functions as a credit card and ID.
In general, human society in this world is fairly utopian, has a strong welfare system and minimal poverty. The deuteragonist is from a poor family, but they weren't starving or struggling with basic needs, just had to budget carefully.
Pokémon don't use money or have an economy. Some species probably do trading and bartering to some degree, but for the most part Pokémon think money is a weird human thing and don't care or think about it. There's nothing in principle stopping a Pokémon from owning money (Fury the Hitmonchan does), but in general they just aren't interested. Leave the humans' weird human things to the humans.
The Morphicverse is once again just a close real-world analogue, and the Poké-US is heavily capitalist like the real US. Training supplies and training in general is subsidized to a significant degree to make it affordable for the median family, but there are definitely many families that can't afford it, which is Just Too Bad
