Pokémath Chapter 11: Breadth of Brain, a pokémon fanfic

Chapter 11 – Breadth of Brain

Only one bit of content was cut from this chapter. The rest is pretty important.

Just before going to bed that night, Ex's brain prepared 5 things to send to Professor Oak.

1. It composed a brief description of how to test for Natures using Berry Flavors, wrote out this morning's results, then labeled the document 'Taste Testing'.

It could do this safely because the Natures of Ex's team impact all 5 Stats at least once. For each of the 5 Flavors, therefore, there is at least 1 example of a pokémon 'liking' or 'disliking' it. This also meant there was an example of either a positive or negative boost for each of the 5 Flavors/Stats. And since Ex's party members were now at levels where their Natures began significantly impacting their Stats, his brain could claim that it had simply extrapolated which Berries, Flavors, and Natures were associated with which Stats by looking at their summary pages and pointing out the outliers.

That was the hope, anyway. The excuse.

2. Next, it made a simple Berry/Flavor/Stat/Contest/Color chart:

Cheri/Spicy/Attack/Cool/Red
Aspear/Sour/Defense/Tough/Yellow
Chesto/Dry/Sp. Atk/Beauty/Blue
Rawst/Bitter/Sp. Def/Clever/Green
Pecha/Sweet/Speed/Cute/Pink

It had thrown in the Contest and Color categories for the sake of completeness.

3. It then made a Pokémon Nature chart.

The Natures in italics were the ones that came without a Flavor preference and without any impact on Stats. Each could have been placed anywhere on the diagonal – the Serious nature doesn't interact with Speed any more than Quirky does, even though it's in the Speed row/column – so this was just one of...

5! (five factorial) = 5*4*3*2*1 = 120

...120 different possible arrangements. Ex's brain made sure to include this in a footnote.

4. As per Professor Oak's request, it typed out the 'Flawless Victory maximizing instructions' it had given to Ex.

It included the Bite/Flinch tactic it used today and the Fake-Out/Flinch combo it would be using tomorrow, even though neither had been part of the original instructions. It made sure to mention that these strategies had not been used in the battles Professor Oak had seen before lunch. Those had all been the product of Optimal Oran usage, though really almost all of their Flawless Victories so far were thanks to Oran, even the later ones. His brain also included its new and improved training algorithm, which was essentially a combination of strategies 1 and 2 from Experience Efficiency.

5. Finally, it opened a new manual entry, titled it "Evidence of Speedy Sapience", started a recording, then returned control to Ex.

* Like I said a few chapters ago, formatting a Nature table on ff(d)net isn't easy. The ~ and – are just for spacing, for the most part. Fanfiction automatically removes multiple spaces in a row, so I couldn't just do it the easy way. I hope it's clear enough.

Testing Translations

Ex's Pokédex recorded his Meowth performing various non-battle actions in response to human-language commands. Charmander followed a few orders too, having achieved the beginnings of sapience right at the end of the day.

It was a bit dark, so the lighting wasn't perfect, but Charmander's tail helped. His brain suggested lowering her to 1/3 HP to activate Blaze and get a bigger tail flame, and thus more light, but he told his brain he would find a way to lower it to a third of its Health if it didn't shut up. His brain then made a different suggestion, and this one he could actually use.

"Oh Leaf," he called in an overly kind tone of voice. He didn't pause the recording, since this part was important for the researchers to see. "My lovely traveling companion, who also happens to be a Pokémon Translator. Could I borrow your talent for a moment?"

Amber rolled her eyes. "Why?" she asked in an extremely annoyed tone as she sprayed a Repel over her tent.

"I need your help to run a test."

"No, I mean why should I help you?"

Oh, right, he remembered. She's angry with me. Whoops.

"I'll... give you a Nugget?" he said eventually, after thinking through various bribes. It pained him to make the offer, but so long as this discovery earned him five thousand pokédollars or more, he'd be turning a profit.

"No," Amber said flippantly. "I don't think that's enough."

After a rapid-fire calculation which predicted that this discovery was probably worth at least thirty thousand, his brain took control of his lips. "How about two?"

There was a long pause.

"Fine," Amber sighed, very heavily. "What test?"

Well, Ex thought. That's ONE hurdle.

"I'm going to whisper a simple sentence into my pokémon's ear, where you can't hear. Then my pokémon will tell you that sentence where I can't hear, and then you'll say it loud enough for the recording to pick it up."

Eyebrows furrowed, Amber asked "Why?" again.

"So I can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that my pokémon actually can speak in sentences." And so the people who see this can be sure that you're not just making things up when you 'translate' what they say. And so I can be sure too, come to think of it. Knowing better than to speak those thoughts aloud, he instead allowed, "If what you say matches up with what I said, even though you didn't hear me say it, that proves my team heard it, understood it, and spoke it themselves."

Though come to think of it, the researchers might just accuse him and Amber of setting up which sentences they were going to say in advance... or accuse them of passing notes in some other way... or they might accuse Ex of being a Translator too... or they might accuse Amber of being Psychic and reading Ex's mind for the sentence. He knew there were human Psychics, because that was listed among the 'specialist' Trainers alongside Breeders, Rangers, and Scientists... but perhaps the article only meant they specialized in training Psychic types, not being Psychic...

He'd have to look into it.

Regardless, he couldn't come up with a better experimental test given their current resources, so he decided not to worry about it too much. If his test was contested, so be it. They could probably prove Amber's Translator skills and his own team's sapience some other way if that happened. There were Pokélabs in each major city, and if Professor Oak asked him to head to Viridian's lab, he would. He'd still make it to Viridian well before the ordinary two-week threshold, so he'd still be able to prove the extraordinary-ness of the situation even if this first proof was rejected.

Getting back to the here and now, Amber didn't look like she understood the reasons behind the experimental set-up at all, even after he explained them. "Umm... Okay, I guess." But so long as she understood the set-up itself, it didn't matter.

When Ex and Amber were done playing pokémon telephone (which itself had no hiccups, except afterwards where Ex had trouble parting with his Nuggets, though he did manage to force his hand open in the end), his brain packaged the video and the earlier sapience theories together and labeled the file 'Speedy Sapience'.

Ex's End-of-the-Day Emails

When his brain declared the research package complete, Ex put ProfessorSamuelOak(a)pokéweb(d)net into the address bar and started typing.

Hi Professor Oak,

I examined two more pokémon-related subjects today.

First, at breakfast, I tested for Stat-affecting Natures using Berry Flavors. I forgot to record that session, but I transcribed the theory and the results.

Second... you might find this hard to believe, but my pokémon reached the point where they could understand human language after lunch. Keep in mind that I only caught Meowth the morning before yesterday, and you already know when I got Charmander. Amber (who is a Pokémon Translator, by the way, did you know that?) helped me learn that this milestone coincides with the moment they start using complete sentences in their own language. I made sure to record evidence to back up my claims and came up with a few theories about why it happened so quickly, but the theories themselves are mostly guesswork. They might serve as good starting points for any true scientific research, or they might not.

All the relevant information for both of these subjects can be found in files attached to this email, and I also submitted the Flawless Victory instructions you requested. On a related note, I'd like to coin the name of my communication technique: 'Pokéspeaking', since 'Pokéspeech' is the existing name of pokémon language.

I also have a few questions.

First, should I be trying to complete the Pokédex? That is, trying to 'catch them all'? You didn't mention it, so I thought I would ask.

Would I even be able to catch them all, or would the pokémon Release themselves from Capture before I could collect every species in Kanto? Would they be lonely if they stayed in the PC all the time? Would they be confined, even if they became sapient?

I met a sapient Pikachu today that I think might have been confined in a Pokéball, which itself could have been confined to a small space, meaning he couldn't release himself despite his sapience. Can the 'release themselves' feature be bypassed if the ball itself is trapped? Am I wrong about that? Because that would be a big problem if it exists. Pikachu didn't like Pokéballs and that was the best guess I could come up with.

By the way, do you know the odds of a Wild pokémon being Shiny?

Good Night,
Pokémon Trainer Ex

That last question was tacked on by his brain, not him. His brain was also, at the moment, not-so-silently cursing the fact that Ex hadn't asked his own question about 'confinement bypassing pokémon sapience' earlier in the day. It might have helped to distract Professor Oak from the multiplier research that his brain might have been able to nab itself. Assuming Professor Oak was doing multiplier research.

Ex mentally shrugged. It was hard to walk and type. That's why I kept the message I wrote short.

You didn't have trouble with the Exploring Experience recording when you were walking earlier in the morning, his brain argued.

Walking and talking is different from walking and typing, Ex argued back. And editing an existing document with one hand is easier than typing new ones. That's why the body of the email to Professor Oak just said "I've spent the morning Exploring Experience. Can you review my work?" If it was easy to type more, I would have.

Ex hit Send_ on the current email.

Fine, his brain grumbled.

He would have been asleep only a few minutes after that, his pokémon having already fallen asleep around him, but he had one last thing to do.

Good Evening Ex, began the response email from Professor Oak.

In very rare circumstances, a Pokémon might learn a Move earlier than usual during times of high stress. There often needs to be external stimuli as well, like an Ice pokémon learning Blizzard when it is threatened during a hailstorm, or an Electric Pokémon learning Discharge when an outside source has overcharged its body... or learning Thunder during a thunderstorm.

Keep in mind that this and the two techniques you mentioned are the known methods by which pokémon can learn Moves early. Though to be precise, it is not 'Move Reminders' who teach Moves to pokémon prior to the level they would naturally learn them, but 'Move Maniacs' specifically. 'Move Reminders' only teach Egg Moves and Moves that have been forgotten after visiting 'Move Deleters'. And to round out the Move Specialists, since we're on the subject anyway, 'Move Tutors' teach unusual Moves, like Mimic, not the ordinarily learned ones.

In any case, there may be more methods of learning Moves early that we've yet to discover. Pokémon is an ever-expanding field of study.

Regarding your second question on multipliers, I've provided a link to an article that should answer it.

I should also like to mention that I spent this afternoon following your example. The 'Close Call' multiplier – the inverse of the Flawless multiplier – multiplies Experience gains by 1.7.

See? interrupted his brain. We could have PREVENTED that if you'd distracted him, then we could have figured out Close Calls by OURSELVES and earned ₽40,000, just like Flawless Victories.

Maybe, maybe not, Ex thought, and continued reading.

Since I thought it was rather unfair for you to earn nothing after providing the inspiration for this discovery, I have added a small bit of compensation to your account.

Sincerely,
Prof. Samuel Oak

A quick check of his account showed the 'inspiration' reward to be ₽4,000.

There, thought Ex. Happy?

No, his brain huffed. Read: "SMALL bit of compensation."

I'd say 10% is generous, Ex thought. Besides, there are still other multipliers.

Ex returned his attention to Oak's email, clicked the hyperlink at the bottom, and beheld a list titled "Known Experience Boosters". The multipliers hadn't been updated to include today's discoveries, but then, raw numbers weren't included anyway.

There were eight known ways to increase Experience gains:

1. Flawless Victories – Massive Boost
2. Type Disadvantage – Variable Boost, from Medium to Major to Massive
3. Close Calls – Medium-Large Boost
4. Trainer Battles – Medium Boost
5. Traded Pokémon – Medium Boost (Medium-Large from International OTs)
6. High Affection – Minor Boost
7. Status Condition – Minor Boost
8a. Strong Experience O-Power – Major Boost (lasts 3 minutes, or until end of a battle begun before the timer ends.)
8b. Medium Experience O-Power – Medium Boost (lasts 5 minutes, or until end of battle.)
8c. Weak Experience O-Power – Minor Boost (lasts 10 minutes, or until end of battle.)

His brain absorbed it all like sponge, and Ex powered down the Pokédex when it said it was done Downloading the data.

Thus, his brain intoned importantly, are Charmander's battles explained. It all makes sense now.

Huh? Ex yawned.

Charmander fought Squirtle at a 'Type Disadvantage'. That battle only needed another x2 for the 500 Experience to make sense. A 'Massive Boost' is x2.5 and a 'Medium Boost' is x1.5, so a 'Major Boost' in between would naturally be x2. 'Strong Experience O-Power' is also listed as a 'Major Boost', and that's the only thing in the games which can provide a x2 boost. Therefore, Major Boost = x2, and since 'Type Disadvantage' can sometimes be a Major Boost, that's what happened.

Ah, Ex thought coherently. He closed his Pokédex and reached behind his head to put it away into his makeshift pillow (i.e. backpack).

And Charmander got a x1.7 boost from her 'Close Call' with Pikachu, his brain continued. That battle wasn't EXACTLY double the expected Experience, it was x2.04 – which is what you get when you multiply 1.7 and 1.2 together – meaning she got a x1.7 boost for being on low health and a x1.2 boost from her 'Status Condition' of being Paralyzed. The other 'Minor Boosts' also match up with the x1.2 multipliers from the games.

'K, Ex thought, closing his eyes.

But it seems they don't know about Lucky Eggs or the Unevolved bonus, his brain continued. And the Variable Boost of Type Disadvantages is...

Its words after that blurred into obscurity as Ex lost consciousness.

That was how Ex learned that his brain could keep on going, even if he wasn't paying attention to it, and even if he was asleep.

Outsourcing Obstacles 2

Samuel Oak checked his emails often: once in the morning, once at lunch, once at dinner, and once before going to bed. He also checked them when he was waiting for an experiment to run its course, or when he was expecting an important email and his Pokédex chimed, or during minor emergencies where email was the preferred method of communication.

That night, long after he had closed down the lab and just before he was about to go to bed, he received another email from Ex describing another set of research. In a brief moment of brilliance, he decided to outsource it to a colleague of his who was attempting to better study nocturnal pokémon, and who was therefore in the process of accommodating his sleep schedule accordingly.

Sam redirected the email from cleveruseofgamemechanics(a)pokéweb(d)net to DrBlaineFuji(a)pokéweb(d)net then closed his laptop and prepared to sleep.

Multiplier Money

Later that same night, Brain still wanted to do some things before it powered down.

But it knew Ex wouldn't be happy if it had to take him out of sleep mode to do them. Brain's best bet was to see if it could do the actions it needed to perform on its own.

To accomplish its goals, Ex's brain would have to use Ex's body without his help or awareness. Brain didn't know if this was possible, but...

The boy's arm jerked outward, then upward, then behind the boy's head.

When Brain was focusing on a single limb, it could get a decent amount of dexterity. Or maybe it could only get good dexterity with the parts that let it interface with technology, like Ex's fingers, since it wasn't very good at controlling the rest of Ex's arm... still, it could get decent control over the whole thing when it only focused on one limb at a time. 4 limbs at the same time? No thanks. 2 is more like it. 3 at the very most.

Ex's fingers twisted around the flap, opened the pocket containing the Pokédex, navigated by feel alone, eventually brought the Pokédex in front of Ex's face, and turned it on.

The glow of illumination, visible through Ex's closed eyelids, let Brain know that it had been successful so far. Then it mentally prepared itself. This would be the difficult part.

One of Ex's eyes slightly cracked open, the very narrow tunnel of vision focusing on the screen.

Brain felt Ex's consciousness stir at the light, but not wake, and it quickly dimmed the screen to the lowest brightness setting. After that, it decided to opt for speed instead of stealth.

Brain opened the last email from Professor Oak, hit 'reply', then typed as quickly as possible.

My own guess for the major & minor exp boosts are x2 and x1.2

Lv 5 pokémon v lv 5 squirtle in trainer battle should yield 100 exp
Charmander's battle against squirtle rewarded 500 exp
100*2.5(fv)*2(disadv)=500

Lv 9 pokémon v lv 8 pikachu in trainer battle should yield 179 exp
Charmander's battle against Pikachu rewarded 365 exp
179*1.7(cc)*1.2(sc)~365

Summary

minor boost = x1.2
medium boost = x1.5
medium-large boost = x1.7
major boost = x2
massive boost = x2.5

-Ex

Send_

It had been tempted to sign the email 'Ex's Brain', or even 'Ex the Pokémon Polymath', but it had resisted the urge. Plus, it was in a hurry.

Brain was silently praying that Professor Oak had stopped doing multiplier calculations after 'Close Calls' and everything else was still up for grabs. Alternatively, the Professor might not have gotten much further than Close Calls before turning in for the night. With any luck, Brain had just nabbed at least one additional multiplier.

Hopefully Professor Oak – who was accustomed to having vast amounts of data at his fingertips – wouldn't notice anything odd about 'Ex' knowing how much those two battles should have yielded in the first place. The Pokémon Professor had to have a good number of unmodified Starter battles by now. Even if he didn't, Brain could probably excuse that knowledge away – something like 'I saw a different Trainer battle with that outcome a long time ago and I have a photographic memory' should work.

But even if it meant risking a slew of difficult questions, Brain was going to get that discovery money.

After all, many of these multipliers were completely new to it, so it could genuinely say that some of them were discoveries, not just foreknowledge. Brain hadn't had enough context before seeing the list – the multipliers hadn't been "solvable" until that moment – but now that they were solvable, it could get the money.

It knew what the unmodified Experience values should have been, but you can't calculate something if you don't know the cause. The 'Status Condition' multiplier, for example, was something it couldn't have known without being told it existed, or without seeing enough battles won while a pokémon had a Status Condition versus battles where no Status Conditions were had.

Now that Brain knew what Oak knew about multipliers, they were finally on a level playing field. And brain wanted to win. And it didn't care if others would call its foreknowledge "cheating", either. Winning was winning.

The Variable Boost in particular, rewarded from fighting at a Type Disadvantage, had caught its attention as a money-making avenue of discovery in the future, one which it hadn't fully solved yet. Brain could probably earn even more money if it could work out the exact details, which it couldn't imagine were as simple as the name might imply.

# (Cut Content: Brain's very long and rambling theories about the variable boost.)

And if Lucky Eggs and the Enevolved Bonus weren't already known, it could afford to wait as long as it needed before nabbing those two as well.

Brain nodded to itself, quickly checked the 'Summary' pages of the pokémon nuzzled up against Ex's body, then shut down the Pokédex completely and returned it to the bag-pillow.

Before Brain 'used Rest' so it could 'Recover', so to speak – of all the different ways of saying 'go to sleep' and 'relax', it liked those ones the most, though 'shut itself down' and 'recharge its batteries' were close seconds – it noticed a flash of light which briefly illuminated the inside of Amber's tent.

A selfie, it realized almost instantly. If a Pokédex can record video, it can probably take photos. With a bit of Naughtiness, it mused, I wonder why Amber would be checking her Pokédex at THIS time of night. What kind of weirdo does THAT?

Jokes aside, it was rather tired. The last things Ex's brain knew before closing Ex's cracked eye and losing all coherency were the open stars above, the cool night air, and the sounds of wilderness.

Same as last time, the chapter is effectively over. So t' all you easily bored readers, go on, git! The lotta 'ya!

Still here? Don't worry, my fellow Mathicans, this'll scare 'em off.

Modified Gen V Exp Gain Algorithm (i.e. the algorithm used by Pokémath)

Exp = {(a*b*L/5s)*[(2L+10)^2.5]/[(L+oL+10)^2.5]+1}*t*e*f*p*y*v*sc
where oL = the level of the opponent, y = Type (Dis)advantage, v = Flawless Victory/Close Call/Fainted, sc = Status Condition, and where the other variables are same as from the previous algorithm

You want to see more math and numbers and variables?

Thought not! Shoo! Scram! Off my lawn! Good riddance, I say. Harrumph!

...

They gone?

Good.

Now that we got the yungun's good and scared off and it's just us older farts... below is more cut content. Boring to some, interesting to others, optional to all, mandatory to none.

# Type Troubles

At a guess, fighting at a Type Disadvantage provided a 'variable boost' because Typing is weird. And inconsistent.

Brain mused about the problem for a while.

Would a Dragon Type, being vulnerable to other Dragon Types, get an Experience boost after Fainting another Dragon Type? Or would the fact that the enemy is also vulnerable to their attacks cancel it out? Would Ghost vs. Ghost, the other Type that was Super-Effective against itself, work the same way as Dragon vs. Dragon? Did that count as fighting at a Disadvantage?

A Fire Type beating a Water Type triggered the boost even when no Fire or Water Type Moves had been used, so the baseline seemed to be based on the pokémon's Typing, not the Typing of the Moves they used in battle. Was x2 the standard multiplier when your pokémon had a standard x2 weakness to the opponent's Type and the opponent had the standard, matching 50% Resistance to your Type?

Did it only take primary Typing into account, or secondary Typing as well? There were many pokémon with dual Types. If a pokémon had a x4 weakness to an opponent, like the Fire and Flying Charizard facing off against the Rock and Flying Aerodactyl, did that result in a Massive Boost as opposed to a Major one? If the Rock Type was also Ground, like all non-fossil Rock Types in Kanto, would the multiplier count Ground as Super-Effective against Fire or not-at-all-effective against Flying? What if the Rock Type was dual Water Type instead of dual Ground, like the other two Kanto fossils? Would the Water half only count as a normal x2 effectiveness against Fire and be outweighed by Rock's x4 effectiveness against both Fire and Flying? Or would it push the multiplier even higher than the x4 weakness to Rock? Assuming the x4 weakness Type Disadvantage multiplier was higher than the x2 weakness multiplier in the first place, of course.

What about cases where the enemy's Type Resisted yours, but wasn't Super-Effective against yours, like his Normal Meowth versus Brock's Rock Types? Or worse, versus a Rock and Steel type, neither of which would be Super Effective against Normal, but both of which Resisted Normal. What about cases where the enemy was Super Effective against you, but you were still normally effective against them, like Meowth versus Fighting Types? Surely that was still fighting at a disadvantage, but was it as much of a disadvantage as Fire versus Water?

What about Type Immunities, like Ground versus Flying? What about Type Immunities where the enemy was also Super Effective against you, like Electric versus Ground? Or immunities where neither Type effects the other, like Normal versus Ghost... was Normal at a disadvantage because it didn't affect Ghost, or was it at an advantage because Ghost didn't effect it?

Did fighting at a Type advantage have the opposite effect as fighting at a disadvantage? Did it result in a negative impact, an Experience divider, because it was easier? Or did it result in a positive Experience boost because it was the smart thing to do? Or did it just not effect Experience at all?

None of these questions had immediate answers, to Brain's chagrin.

The multiplier list provided by Oak hadn't gone into any details, and it specifically covered Experience boosts, not detriments. Brain knew there were such things as Experience-diminishing O-Powers in the main games and the article hadn't talked about those either, just the boosting powers.

Maybe Experience Dampeners and the Variable Boost should be the next things it explores, whenever Ex gets around to the Routes with variable enemy Typings, and whenever he gets a PSS (Player Search System) or PokéNav Plus or C-Gear or whatever O-Power device exists in this region. That would also be something to look into, since it would provide the Affection Experience boost.

Maybe Brain could also have Ex ask Amber to have her Bulbasaur Faint a few Pidgey, then request to see her Experience values afterward, just to confirm the standard Type Disadvantage boost was x2. Or maybe it should just ask to see all her Experience values, period...

This would have slowed the pacing to a crawl if I included it, and it probably won't be necessary in the long run since I can just use battles to explain how it actually works. Brain essentially just listed many if not most of the potential ways the variable boost could work, without going into exact numbers. The section's still canon, like the other cut content, but you can probably see why I didn't include it in the main story as is. The last three paragraphs are the most immediately important parts, but it's not like setting up those plot points in advance is strictly necessary when I can always just have them happen.