Thursday, March 13, 2014

Pokémon Lore: Silph Co.

Okay, let’s get started, Pokémon. and there is no more important part of Pokémon lore than...Silph Co.

I Just realized the logo is two halves of a Pokéball



Yes, Silph Company,best known for being the ones responsible for the the Pokéball as well as the PokéGear (at least in Gen IV) and Prototypes such as the Silph Scope and Master Ball. both  still in very limited Beta, making Silph look a lot like a Pokémon World version of Google
Don't be Dark-Type



It seems to be generally accepted that they produce almost everything you can buy in game including things like Potions and TMs.
Silph also Produces home appliances, as demonstrated by Rotom’s room in Pokemon HGSS
All this is relatively common knowledge for a Pokéfan, but it raises some questions. Is Silph Co. the only company that produces these items? do they hold some sort of PokéPatent on them? Devon Co. in Hoenn seems to also make Pokéballs as well, maybe those are just their variations like the Timer Ball and Luxury Ball? Or is Devon a subsidiary of Silph? Are they the ones who run the Pokéball Factory in the Kalos Region?

Question Two, Can Silph Co. be trusted? when we run into them in Gen I, they'd been forced into serving Team Rocket, after Team Rocket has been defeated, has Silph managed to remain uncorrupted again, or are they now building doomsday devices for Team Flare or Galactic? This company makes Everything, hardly a comforting notion to remember it was co-opted by the mafia once. A company that big being anything but upstanding in it business practice is a frightening thought

Makes for Great TV though...  

Question Three, Will we see more of Silph Company? I hope so, but outside of remakes, revisiting Kanto seems unlikely, and despite clearly being an international company, new Pokemon games tend to focus on what new things a region can offer, rather than ties to the old ones.

If anyone has any Information, Theories, or Corrections about Silph Co. I'd be glad to hear them, thanks for Reading.

Introduction To: Magic the Gathering

Welcome to the first in the "Introduction To: ______" series, where i will talk about the world and story of a game, disregarding anything about how to play, this is a strictly Flavor-based primer to the world and story of a game, in this case, Magic: The Gathering:
Not the stock logo colors, but I like orange



most official introductions to the mythology go something Like this:

You are a planeswalker. In the vast Multiverse, only you and your kind know of the countless worlds beyond your own. You have seen realities that would make a mundane wizard cower in awe. You have laid eyes upon the Blind Eternities. You are an iconoclast with an arsenal of sorcery at your command. Your gift drives you to seek out Magical knowledge, to test your limits, to forge your destiny.
(From Wizards.Com)

Okay, that's technically true, but it's also trying to shove a very complex concept, built on through out dozens of books and hundreds upon thousands of Flavor texts, into a single blurb, so, you play as a planeswalker?, let's hold off on that bit for now.


"That's okay, We'll wait"

Everything in M:TG takes place in the Multiverse(Called Dominia in older materials), a collection of universes called "Planes" and, between them, the "Blind Eternities" a formless chaotic void of aether. At the "center" of the Multiverse is Dominaria, which, when it was introduced, was the closest to a classic fantasy world you'll find in Magic, Dominiaria is the "Nexus" of the Multiverse, meaning whatever happens there affects the rest of the Multiverse. Why? Because the writers needed a way to raise the stakes.
You guys just have to be the center of everything!

Some planes hold entire cosmoses in them, others just one planet, and others still hold flat worlds spanning to infinity or inverted world on the inside of spheres. laws of physics are not the same everywhere so every form of world exists somewhere out there in the Eternities. (I plan on exploring each plane in more detail in future posts.)

"It's so beauti--OH GOD IA! IA! CTHULU PHTAGN"


What is the same everywhere (well, almost everywhere) is Mana the energy used to do magic, to cast spells, craft artifacts and summon creatures, it comes in five colors and flows from the landscape. White, which is the color of holiness,valor,angels,peace and so on is naturally produced by plains. Green, the color of growth, nature, savagery and life flows from Forests. Red Mana, representing anger, fire, lightning, destruction and speed flows from Mountains. Black is the color of death, madness, evil, corruption,shadows and sickness, it flows from Swamps. and Blue is the color that represents knowledge, order, water, inspiration and so on flows from Islands. Mana can be drawn from your surroundings or from the memory or bond of a location far away, even across the Blind Eternities 


Environmental Energy 

Most inhabitants of most Planes know nothing of the Multiverse, they go about their lives on one world oblivious to the rest, but some, a very, very, rare few, are born with a "spark" which through some traumatic event might ignite turning them into a Planeswalker, A Godlike, near immortal being capable of taking any shape, survive any attack, and seemingly learn any spell, even capable of createing entire Planes.

"Awesome!"  you might say/think "i get to play as one of those?" Nope.

See, on Dominaria, the Apocalypse happened, like 4 times.



Let's just say this world is...accident prone

By the last time, Time it's self was ripping apart, and to save it, some planeswalkers sacrificed their sparks, permanently rewriting what a planeswalker is. now they are just very powerful, preternaturally talented mages capable of traversing the planes. and seeing as some planes had developed artificial plansewalking technology, that last part is of varying usefulness.  

While most Characters can be be discussed in posts dedicated to their Plane, two Villains should probably be touched on:

Nicol Bolas, is a Dragon Planeswalker, he is a super genius and last of his kind, he's had numerous evil plans, but currently, his schtick is trying to regain the power he had before the nature of the planeswalker spark was changed


Honestly, I though he was taller


and Phyrexia, an Artificial Plane created by a long dead Planeswalker, it's like an inter-dimensional  cross between The Borg, The Cybermen, Daleks, Zombies, The Flood from Halo, The Flood from Doctor Who, Nazis and the average 1950's American's idea of Soviet Russia. With a Doctrine as convoluted and sinister as you might expect from that blend, i'll have to dedicate a post to it at some point.

I feel, despite not having a mouth, this one speaks for it's self.


That generally covers, on the grandest scale the Multiverse of Magic: The Gathering, I look forward to talking about specific Planes in More detail in future posts, If you have Information, Theories, or Corrections about Magic:The Gathering, let me know.



Welcome to Lore Blast

So, Games....


I’ve been playing TCGs and CCGs for longer than I can remember, and I have always loved them, like a lot of people i started by collecting Pokemon cards, but i quickly decided that when it came to that franchise was better on video game consoles than on cardboard.
Not what meant, but that too.


Thankfully I was already into Magic the Gathering by then and with those decisions I quickly branched out into games both analog and digital.

The two branches intersect and loop back into each other sometimes... 
This may be strange, but I care more about the lore and mythology than the gameplay, so while most Game blogs (that I’ve seen) mainly post about the mechanics and strategy, I plan to take the opposite route. You can look forward to posts about the characters, legends and locales of games, rather than the controls or strategy. (all that is very important too, but not what i am the most enthusiastic about, besides the market is saturated)

I Had trouble finding a humorous picture to encapsulate
 the above paragraph, so as per internet custom, have a cat
as for the name, it was the first lore-related title not already taken.