Cold, artificial, recycled air circulated throughout the League Executive Meeting hall and it was breathed in by men of all walks of life. Standing up and at the center of the table was the President of the Tournament Comittee.
"The League Committee has been grappling with this decision for some time. Hello, Will," said the President
"I'm sorry I'm late," apologized the elite four member. He quickly took his seat at the table.
"The League Comittee has been committed to making decisions that are in the best interest of the Pokemon League. As such, we've committed ourselves to certain values and certain principles about training pokemon and we've picked these elite four members here as well as our champion to outwardly express our commitment to these principles. Despite, and sometimes, in spite of this, we have to make decisions on what is practical for us and the survival of the league. We've been keeping tabs on all of the scientific developments that have been coming out and we've looked at how they can effect the doings of this league. Let me first make three things clear," declared the president.
"First, this league exists as a way to give organization, structure, and stability to the way people train pokemon. Second, that the actions of this league change the way that people catch and train pokemon. Third, that people often catch, train, and raise pokemon for the recognition of the league."
"I think that this is pretty clear. Several years ago, we realized that we had to change the way official league battles were done. We couldn't just let people beat the insides out of each other and give victory to whoever came out on top. It favored powerful people or rather powerful pokemon and it gave them a disproportionate amount of recognition. Things couldn't go on like this. Our equilibrium was upset. We couldn't stop this. We had to divert attention away from the strongest people and the strongest pokemon. We created restrictions. We placed restrictions on the way that people could battle and the pokemon that they could battle with. We messed with everything. The number of pokemon, the species of pokemon, the moves you could use, how many pokemon you could use sleep or freeze on all kinds of things.
"I still don't think it's enough. We still are not stable. This year, dozens of people walked away from this league competition disappointed and infuriated at their defeats and I imagine several will quit pokemon entirely. I'm sure you saw or heard about our runner up, Marlow, trashing a poor girl's pikachu, clefairy, and charmeleon. This tells us that we have a problem. We've got to fill the gap between the strong and the weak. We need not only some restrictions on pokemon and strategy, we need restrictions on people."
"What do you mean?!" demanded Bruno.
"There's got to be balance on the playing field," returned the President.
"How can this be? Pokemon is about training and raising and the growth and development of humans and pokemon together. The gap in the strength of trainers reflects their different levels of commitment and determination. You can't expect this process to always fit neatly and comfortably into a league battle arena," argued Bruno.
"Master Bruno perhaps underestimates the effects and influences of what's hard-wired and genetic about all of the pokemon as well as the psychological makeup of the trainers. But he is very much correct in saying that there is a complex relationship between the two and it's one that does not always fit neatly into our competitions," said the league's Silph representative.
"The both of you are quite correct. Your observations are indeed correct. Master Bruno, I think that you ought to know that these qualities you speak of don't really reflect in a league battle perfectly anyway. Luck and circumstance blur and distort that reflection. No genetics can compensate for physical conditioning and strategy. Let me tell all of you where I am going with all of this. All of the ethics and values of training pokemon have indeed given some order and understanding to the trainers governed by the league, but our understanding is incomplete without some of the science behind all of it. To be honest, I still don't know whether nature or nurture is more important in pokemon, but I think it would be foolish to endorse only one aspect of all of this. We should, and I plan to, control both. Only by controlling both factors will we gain stability," asserted the President.
"How do you propose to do that?"
As I mentioned earlier. We place restrictions on people, or rather divide them into groups, classes. Strong people like fighting strong people and weak people like wining every once in a while. This is definitely something that we need to discuss more, but the premise is absolutely essential. We need to establish an equilibrium," said the President.
"How are we going to establish this equilibrium?" asked Will.
"It's going to take some doing and some extensive use of the media, but it can be done, we'll just have to be extremely careful. We need to get everyone where they are comfortable and that may have to mean assigning pokemon. For the time being, we need to build up an image of insurmountability. We need to make it impossible for the league to be defeated. Once the trainers of the league become an impenetrable road block, even the best trainers will then turn their attentions towards fighting other people and then we can concentrate on our divisions."
"How do you plan to make us invincible?" asked Koga.
"For that we're going to need all of the help we can get. Silph Company is figuring out the mechanics and inner workings of pokemon, from the genetic structures on down to getting a more accurate way of measuring base move power and getting the strength of pokemon converted into statistics. Every discovery gets fed into simulation programs which makes it more accurate and correspond more to real life. They've got people round the clock working and testing and strategizing with this program. As the two mesh, we'll get a better idea of how to improve our skills. In addition to this, Silph is starting to make more and more of what was once theoretical into something real and usable," continued the President.
"I can't say that I'm convinced that we should do this," said Lance.
"I agree," Bruno added.
"This is going to be a process and it will take some time. We're going to hear as many sides to this as we can before we finalize this decision."
"Let me get this straight. You want to eliminate free choice of pokemon in order to create a stable competitive environment?" asked Will.
"Pretty much. If you really sit down and look at what the 'Pokemon Experience' has to offer, you'll find all kinds of neat things like trust, leadership, friendship, love, and new experiences and it goes on. It's a terrible thing to say, but you can still get a lot of what pokemon has to offer without these things. The one thing that you can't get rid of is a stable environment. We've got to hold everything together and I wouldn't be sticking my neck out to tell you all of this if I didn't think it was important. I don't know if we can keep up with everything new that's coming up. The league is of itself no master of the sciences. What we can do is insulate ourselves and the people we deal with from all of this," stated the President.
"Don't we have to adapt to the outside world?" inquired Lance.
"Not necessarily. We only have to adapt to the world if we want to include the world in what we do. We don't have to do that. We can make our own little world. A new world," replied the President.
"The League Committee has been grappling with this decision for some time. Hello, Will," said the President
"I'm sorry I'm late," apologized the elite four member. He quickly took his seat at the table.
"The League Comittee has been committed to making decisions that are in the best interest of the Pokemon League. As such, we've committed ourselves to certain values and certain principles about training pokemon and we've picked these elite four members here as well as our champion to outwardly express our commitment to these principles. Despite, and sometimes, in spite of this, we have to make decisions on what is practical for us and the survival of the league. We've been keeping tabs on all of the scientific developments that have been coming out and we've looked at how they can effect the doings of this league. Let me first make three things clear," declared the president.
"First, this league exists as a way to give organization, structure, and stability to the way people train pokemon. Second, that the actions of this league change the way that people catch and train pokemon. Third, that people often catch, train, and raise pokemon for the recognition of the league."
"I think that this is pretty clear. Several years ago, we realized that we had to change the way official league battles were done. We couldn't just let people beat the insides out of each other and give victory to whoever came out on top. It favored powerful people or rather powerful pokemon and it gave them a disproportionate amount of recognition. Things couldn't go on like this. Our equilibrium was upset. We couldn't stop this. We had to divert attention away from the strongest people and the strongest pokemon. We created restrictions. We placed restrictions on the way that people could battle and the pokemon that they could battle with. We messed with everything. The number of pokemon, the species of pokemon, the moves you could use, how many pokemon you could use sleep or freeze on all kinds of things.
"I still don't think it's enough. We still are not stable. This year, dozens of people walked away from this league competition disappointed and infuriated at their defeats and I imagine several will quit pokemon entirely. I'm sure you saw or heard about our runner up, Marlow, trashing a poor girl's pikachu, clefairy, and charmeleon. This tells us that we have a problem. We've got to fill the gap between the strong and the weak. We need not only some restrictions on pokemon and strategy, we need restrictions on people."
"What do you mean?!" demanded Bruno.
"There's got to be balance on the playing field," returned the President.
"How can this be? Pokemon is about training and raising and the growth and development of humans and pokemon together. The gap in the strength of trainers reflects their different levels of commitment and determination. You can't expect this process to always fit neatly and comfortably into a league battle arena," argued Bruno.
"Master Bruno perhaps underestimates the effects and influences of what's hard-wired and genetic about all of the pokemon as well as the psychological makeup of the trainers. But he is very much correct in saying that there is a complex relationship between the two and it's one that does not always fit neatly into our competitions," said the league's Silph representative.
"The both of you are quite correct. Your observations are indeed correct. Master Bruno, I think that you ought to know that these qualities you speak of don't really reflect in a league battle perfectly anyway. Luck and circumstance blur and distort that reflection. No genetics can compensate for physical conditioning and strategy. Let me tell all of you where I am going with all of this. All of the ethics and values of training pokemon have indeed given some order and understanding to the trainers governed by the league, but our understanding is incomplete without some of the science behind all of it. To be honest, I still don't know whether nature or nurture is more important in pokemon, but I think it would be foolish to endorse only one aspect of all of this. We should, and I plan to, control both. Only by controlling both factors will we gain stability," asserted the President.
"How do you propose to do that?"
As I mentioned earlier. We place restrictions on people, or rather divide them into groups, classes. Strong people like fighting strong people and weak people like wining every once in a while. This is definitely something that we need to discuss more, but the premise is absolutely essential. We need to establish an equilibrium," said the President.
"How are we going to establish this equilibrium?" asked Will.
"It's going to take some doing and some extensive use of the media, but it can be done, we'll just have to be extremely careful. We need to get everyone where they are comfortable and that may have to mean assigning pokemon. For the time being, we need to build up an image of insurmountability. We need to make it impossible for the league to be defeated. Once the trainers of the league become an impenetrable road block, even the best trainers will then turn their attentions towards fighting other people and then we can concentrate on our divisions."
"How do you plan to make us invincible?" asked Koga.
"For that we're going to need all of the help we can get. Silph Company is figuring out the mechanics and inner workings of pokemon, from the genetic structures on down to getting a more accurate way of measuring base move power and getting the strength of pokemon converted into statistics. Every discovery gets fed into simulation programs which makes it more accurate and correspond more to real life. They've got people round the clock working and testing and strategizing with this program. As the two mesh, we'll get a better idea of how to improve our skills. In addition to this, Silph is starting to make more and more of what was once theoretical into something real and usable," continued the President.
"I can't say that I'm convinced that we should do this," said Lance.
"I agree," Bruno added.
"This is going to be a process and it will take some time. We're going to hear as many sides to this as we can before we finalize this decision."
"Let me get this straight. You want to eliminate free choice of pokemon in order to create a stable competitive environment?" asked Will.
"Pretty much. If you really sit down and look at what the 'Pokemon Experience' has to offer, you'll find all kinds of neat things like trust, leadership, friendship, love, and new experiences and it goes on. It's a terrible thing to say, but you can still get a lot of what pokemon has to offer without these things. The one thing that you can't get rid of is a stable environment. We've got to hold everything together and I wouldn't be sticking my neck out to tell you all of this if I didn't think it was important. I don't know if we can keep up with everything new that's coming up. The league is of itself no master of the sciences. What we can do is insulate ourselves and the people we deal with from all of this," stated the President.
"Don't we have to adapt to the outside world?" inquired Lance.
"Not necessarily. We only have to adapt to the world if we want to include the world in what we do. We don't have to do that. We can make our own little world. A new world," replied the President.