It is not the power of Copperajah and Coalossal, or even the smokestacks of Weezing, that is the primary local symbol of Galar's industrial revolution, but the tiny, unremarkable Eldegoss. Not only did Eldegoss cotton replace Wooloo wool in the first of Galar's great textile mills, but Eldegoss were frequent visitors there, where they served as a mix of mascot, beloved pet, distraction from the drudgery of work, and occasional pillow for when the hours were longer than the workers' bodies could bear.
Yet Jumpluff convert sunlight to usable cotton at a far higher rate than Eldegoss, and with less need for maintenance of the soil, as they can drift on the wind. With the dawn of steamships, it became far cheaper to import Jumpluff cotton from overseas, and live Eldegoss were banned from the mills – which became the catalyst for the first wave of strikes in Galar's history.
Far too much has been written on the Eldegoss strikes to adequately summarize here, and the debate remains a live one in Galarian historiography. Some have seen it as a case of people pushed to the brink unwilling to lose the only thing that made life bearable, some as a case of solidarity with the poor working conditions of Jumpluff growers, or as hostility to global trade, as many textile workers once lived on now-abandoned Eldegoss farms. One controversial theory (for Eldegoss today are hailed of working-class heroes) offers a different explanation for the strikes, alleging it was their presence which prevented them from happening sooner – for Eldegoss spores, despite their nutritional value in many pokemon, have a mild (or, in battle, not so mild) calming and soporific effect.
Whether a labor symbol or a company pokemon, Eldegoss would never again be absent from Galar's factories – regardless of what they made!