Dawn of Humanity
The origin of the human species is one of the biggest mysteries in the franchise, yet unsolved to a large degree. As we learn in “Sinnoh Folk Story 3” [シンオウ むかしばなし — その3], humanity was originally one and the same with Pokémon.
ENG:
There once were Pokémon that became very close to humans. There once were humans and Pokémon that ate together at the same table. It was a time when there existed no differences to distinguish the two.
JPN:
ひとと けっこんした ポケモンがいたポケモンと けっこんした ひとがいたむかしは ひとも ポケモンもおなじだったから ふつうのことだった
There were Pokémon who married humans. There were humans who married Pokémon. Long ago, humans and Pokémon were the same, so that was the norm.
Despite the English claiming Pokémon and humans “ate together at the same table”, this is actually a censorship to the more explicit assertion the two actually married with each other — something the localization team evidently found problematic for a kids’ game.
Of course, the actual text is also a poetic rendition: marriage is a human contract, the story referring to a period people and Pokémon were so close to each other they were able to intermingle and produce fertile offspring — they were in the same Egg Group, you may say. That “was the norm”, as the two realities were the same in every aspect.
This is a notion the Hiker in Canalave City is well aware of, again the translation hiding the implication of interspecies weddings.
ENG:
“People and Pokémon, too, were but the same presence. As I understand it, people and Pokémon shared the spirit and awareness. They should have understood and accepted each other then.
Because they shared the same spirit, people and Pokémon intermingled. People took the place of Pokémon, and the opposite also held true.”
JPN:
ポケモンも ひとも おなじ そんざい だった…… つまり おなじ こころを もち おなじ かんがえかたを して わかりあっていた はずなんですよー ひとと ポケモンは！ そう！
おなじ こころを もつから ひとと ポケモンが いれかわったり ポケモンと けっこん したんですよー
“Pokémon and humans were the same existence… In other words, Pokémon and humans possessed the same Spirit and the same way of thinking, and they should have understood each other!
Humans and Pokémon had the same Spirit, and they took the place of one another. And with Pokémon we married.”
The general idea seems to be the Spirit of Pokémon and the Spirit of humanity were once a single entity, yet to be divided in halves. This is consistent in what we established as the core mechanism behind the universe birth, everything already existing in an intermingled chaos with the Original One slowly separating its components, giving them individuality in order for them to exist in the world as their own.
According both to ancient texts and Pokédex entries, the moment Pokémon and humans diverged is to trace back to the Lake Trio’s birth. As we saw in our analysis of the Original Story, the Egg in which the three Legendary Pokémon originally resided arrived on Earth long before its actual hatching, allowing the Spirit in its broader sense to spread, and life to arose on the planet.
The moment described as Uxie, Mesprit, and Azelf birth is, however, undeniably successive: as this is when humans gained self-awareness, marking the emergence of their own distinctive Spirit. This was firstly settled with Uxie’s Pearl Pokédex entry, stating it was its “emergence” [ユクシーの 誕生, “Uxie’s birth”] to bestow intelligence to humans.
It is said that its emergence gave humans the intelligence to improve their quality of life.
Although the Pokédex never referenced the “birth” of the other two in regard of the time they granted their blessing to humanity, Uxie sharing intelligence is also described as the moment it “flew” among men — the same also applying for Mesprit’s emotions and Azelf’s willpower, strongly suggesting for the three events to be contemporaneous.
When Uxie flew, people gained the ability to solve problems. It was the birth of knowledge.
When Mesprit flew, people learned the joy and sadness of living. It was the birth of emotions.
When Azelf flew, people gained the determination to do things. It was the birth of willpower.
This was later explicitly confirmed by Legends: Arceus, with Old Verse 6 having all three Pokémon enriching humanity at the moment of their birth.
ENG:
When that Pokémon was born, intelligence bloomed among us, enriching all our morrows.
When that Pokémon was born, emotions bloomed among us, giving us joy and sorrows.
When that Pokémon was born, willpower bloomed among us to act and not to wallow.
JPN:
その ポケモンが うまれてちしきが ひろがりわたしたちは ゆたかに なった
その ポケモンが うまれてかんじょうが めばえわたしたちは よろこび かなしんだ
その ポケモンが うまれてわたしたちは なにかを けついしこうどう するように なった……
When that Pokémon was born, Knowledge spread out. We became enriched.
When that Pokémon was born, Emotions sprouted. We were happy, and we were sad.
When that Pokémon was born, we got the Will to do something. We started to act…
When they were born, the three guardians shared particular aspects of the Spirit to humanity. Uxie is addressed in its descriptions as “The Being of Knowledge” [知識の神, God of Knowledge], conceding intelligence to mankind, allowing them to solve the problems they had to face in the harsh primitive world and highly improving their quality of life.
When Uxie flew, people gained the ability to solve problems. It was the birth of knowledge.
According to some sources, this Pokémon provided people with the intelligence necessary to solve various problems.
Mesprit is “The Being of Emotions” [感情の神, God of Emotions], gifting humans the ability to feel joy and happiness, but also sorrow and pain. A true awakening of the heart, the sentiments people were now able to feel maybe leading to the first myths and stories to be passed along to get a sense of both comfort and fear for the mighty deities of the world.
Known as “The Being of Emotion.” It taught humans the nobility of sorrow, pain, and joy.
This Pokémon is said to have endowed the human heart with emotions, such as sorrow and joy.
Finally, Azelf got the tile of “The Being of Willpower” [意思の神, God of Will], granting the determination to face difficulties and to keep moving forward — an innate instinct for self-preservation that allowed humans to always fight back to the hostilities of a world in which they were among the weakest.
When Azelf flew, people gained the determination to do things. It was the birth of willpower.
Pokémon is said to have endowed humans with the determination needed to face any of life’s difficulties.
Knowledge, Emotions, and Willpower are the three aspects of the Spirit that shaped humanity in the form we see to these days. But while the Old Verse 6 keeps the subject vague, the Pokédex is clear in stating “humans” received those gifts. This means lifeforms akin to men actually managed to develop before the Lake Trio’s birth, their emergence only giving them consciousness of themselves and of the world around them, effectively making them sentient.
This is when the narrative gets blurred at best, since we don’t really know anything significant about this transitional state. Having established Pokémon and men were once the same thing, it’s entirely possible these “humans” the entries are referring to were none other than a particular species of the former — which would mean at that point they had the characteristics shared by all Pokémon, from a Type to the ability to learn moves.
If the development of these proto-humans was a natural byproduct of evolution by natural selection, or if external forces intervened in a more direct way, is anyone’s guess. Indeed, the notion of an organism adapting to the environment by losing every kind of elemental power seems rather unusual, to which we have to add these folks didn’t have intellect of any kind, were incapable of feeling emotions, and didn’t possess the will to live: the primitive era of the world basically crawled with hollow husks in humanoid shape. In this light, the particular sympathy the Lake Trio showed towards mankind appears more as a response to their inadequacy than a reward for some unspecified accomplishment.
So, humanity originating from a curse of some unknown nature — countered by the guardians with the share of Knowledge, Emotions, and Willpower — is definitely on the table of possibilities, but it remains an interesting thought yet unproven by anything in the games. After all, the Spirit of mankind was present in the vortex of chaos since the very beginning, and we already explored how it was the actual prime mover for the Original One to obtain individuality. Maybe, the design that led to the path of men was sketched by men themselves.
The timeframe of this event is also uncertain. As we noticed in the previous article, the hatching of the Lake Trio’s Egg also brought to the birth of Regigigas from the Earth’s core, meaning the two occurrences must have taken place around the same time — we suggested the Colossal Pokémon may have served as some sort of test-run for the later Spirit infusion, mirroring Hebrew ancient traditions.
However, this doesn’t really help with our reconstruction: if anything, it confirms real-life chronology isn’t paralleled in this particular case, the Homo genus emerging about two million years ago while continental drift taking place since the Earth’s first geological periods. Odds are, the truth lies somewhen in between.
More modern iterations do hint to full-fledged human civilizations existing millions of years ago, coherently with the idea humans emerged in more ancient times compared to our history, while the lands moving due to a Pokémon rather than a natural phenomenon allows us to depict an era in which continents stood still. So, in the lack of clearer evidences, the best approximation we can provide is both Regigigas and mankind had to emerge an unspecified number of millions of years before the current era.
With the giant golem rearranging the continents in the current positions, the regions of the world assumed a topography more similar to what we see today. This period, marking humanity’s true dawn, is described in the first half of “Sinnoh Region’s Mythology” [シンオウちほうの しんわ]:
ENG:
Long ago, when Sinnoh had just been made, Pokémon and humans led separate lives. That is not to say they did not help each other. No, indeed they did. They supplied each other with goods, and supported each other.
JPN:
むかし シンオウが できたときポケモンと ひとはおたがいに ものを おくりものを おくられ ささえあっていた
Long ago, when Sinnoh was made, Pokémon and humans exchanged things to each other, and they supported one another.
The legend speaks of a time humans and Pokémon were already different beings, yet it was “when Sinnoh was made”. This can’t possibly refer to the first stages of the planet in which Mt. Coronet emerged, as mankind will arise only much later: then, the place just having been formed must refer to its status of “region” in the most proper sense — meaning, when Regigigas shaped its current borders.
The setting described gives us a small glimpse on the first stages of humanity, an era from which no historical sources were preserved to modern scholars’ current knowledge. Despite being separate, Pokémon and men still shared a strong connection, helping each other mutually and even trading goods with one another. Echoes of this ancient past persisted until most advanced civilizations, as a similar version of the same myth can be read at the beginning of Old Verse 19:
ENG:
When first this land was formed, man and ‘mon lived happily, sharing all that they could see, by kind acts born and warmed.
JPN:
昔 この地ができたときポケモンと人はお互いにものを送り送られ支えあっていた
Long ago, when this land was made, Pokémon and humans exchanged things to each other, and they supported one another.
In short, the boundaries between Pokémon and humans were still blurred to a degree, as they were still able to understand each other. Their Spirits, while divided, retained memories of the time they were united. Indeed, in “Sinnoh Folk Story 2” [シンオウ むかしばなし — その2] we can read of a Pokémon being able to take a human shape. The roles are reversed compared to the common norm, with Pokémon habiting villages and men sleeping in forests.
ENG:
There lived a Pokémon in a forest. In the forest, the Pokémon shed its hide to sleep as a human. Awakened, the human dons the Pokémon hide to roam villages.
JPN:
もりのなかで くらすポケモンが いたもりのなかで ポケモンは かわをぬぎひとにもどっては ねむりまた ポケモンの かわをまといむらに やってくるのだった
Inside the forest, there was a Pokémon. Inside the forest, the Pokémon peeled off its skin. Reborn as a human, it slept. And it came back to the village wearing the Pokémon skin again.
This shows the two realities were still confounded when the first small villages were settled. Possibly, not every proto-human managed to diversify at the same time, the Lake Trio’s gift either serving as the basis for a slower evolutive process or not having permeated all men equally. By the way, this was ancient history even for long-forgotten civilizations: humanity will grow more and more independent from Pokémon, the two worlds eventually setting apart from each other.
Shaping the Borders
Before digging deeper on humanity’s first days in the long course of history, we have to get a closer look at the setting they inhabited. The Sinnoh region — or by whatever name people called it at first — already witnessed the formation of some important structures in the age before continental drift.
We already discussed the implication of Mt. Coronet being present since the first stages of the planet’s life, as the mountain is in superimposition with the Hall of Origin, serving as a cornerstone for the whole universe. This is also something mirrored by its original name: テンガン山 [Mount Tengan] derives from 天冠, the “celestial crown” wore by great kings mainly of Buddhist traditions. What we didn’t dwell on before is the actual geology of the place.
The Origin Ore presents exclusively here, which we have proposed being fragments of the Original One’s body sent on Earth along the spear which modeled the mount in primordial times, grants the whole area with a peculiar characteristic. According to Old Verse 16, the divine mineral generates a strong magnetic field permeating the region:
ENG:
Heaven’s crown, nearest to almighty Sinnoh… Power of almighty Sinnoh, gather as stone at heaven’s mount. Stone, let your power flow — distort and bend the world around you.
JPN:
天の山シンオウさまに近い場所シンオウさまの力天の山に集い 石となる石 力を放ちあたりの磁界をひねる
Mountain of Heaven, the place close to Almighty Sinnoh. The power of Almighty Sinnoh gathers on the Mountain of Heaven, and becomes stone. The stone emits power, and it distorts the magnetic field around.
While localization completely omits the object of the distortion, the poem makes actually pretty clear that stones made out of the Original One’s power gathered on Mt. Coronet — which is to say, the Origin Ore — are able to blend the “magnetic field” [磁界] around the mountain. This is why Magneton and Nosepass can only evolve in Coronet’s proximity, the Pokédex stating since Generation IV they need to be bathed by the special flux in order to change their forms.
It evolved from exposure to a special magnetic field. Three units generate magnetism.
The only known deposit of Origin Ore is the Primeval Grotto [太古の洞穴, Primeval Cave], situated in the central section of Coronet Highlands [天冠の山麓, Coronet Foothills]. This is an extremely ancient site, traces of life dating back at least to 100 million years ago judging by the Rampardos and Bastiodon fossils we can find on the second floor — which likely tells us the small forest outside was a much larger jungle in the middle of Cretaceous.
It lived in jungles around 100 million years ago. Its skull is as hard as iron.
Coherently with the ore magnetic properties, the Primeval Grotto is the only place in the entire franchise we can find a wild Probopass. Things are a bit different for Magnezone: we can see them flying across the sky of various locations of Coronet Highlands, but contrary to their cousins their pre-evolution are nowhere to be found in Hisui outside of space-time distortions. The Magnet Pokémon are apparently more malleable than Nosepass, and Arceus being more involved in material affairs evidently enhanced the magnetic field to a point Magnemite and Magneton were able to skip their evolutive growth up to their last stage.
Something often overlooked about Mt. Coronet is that, just as the real-life Nipesotsu-Maruyama Volcanic Group it is based on, the mountain originally had volcanic activity. In Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, Steven Stone’s house in Mossdeep City has schalstein from the Sinnohan peak among the various samples in the Champion’s collection. This is a volcanic rock, usually formed during the Devonian period [419.2 ± 3.2–358.9 ± 0.4 Ma] following effusive eruptions — as testified by its basaltic composition.
The effusive nature of Mt. Coronet eruptions is coherent with the presence of obsidian in the south-western area of the region, namely the Obsidian Fieldlands [黒曜の原野, Obsidian Fields]. It’s worth noticing the volcanic glass is felsic in nature, opposed to the schalstein mafic composition, showing how the magma inside the chamber changed its chemistry over time, slowly shifting from alkalic to acidic and vice versa. This shouldn’t come as a surprise since, like its real-world counterpart, Coronet’s structure is that of a stratovolcano.
These are volcanoes with a mixed activity, going through phases of frequent effusive, less destructive eruptions up until one or more heavily explosive bursts — giving to the mountain the characteristic conic shape, the numerous lava flows occurred in the course of millions of years also tested by the many layers we can see in Coronet Highlands map.
As far as we can infer from contextual evidences, an effusive period during Devonian led to the formation of schalstein, followed by a more destructive phase of explosivity in the successive Carboniferous [358.9 ± 0.4–298.9 ± 0.15 Ma]. In our world, this is when the Carboniferous Rainforest Collapse (CRC) occurred, a minor extinction event that saw the mass disappearance of the coal forests which covered most of the Earth back then, caused both by climate change and intense volcanic activities.
The coal accumulated from their decaying serves as one of the main sources of the fossil fuel on the planet, and with the Oreburgh Museum confirming the process of its formation being analogous in the Pokémon World, similar events probably happened in its distant past too. Only, the deadwood formed after the CRC slowly accumulated in deposits transported by rivers and it will be only much later in time — when Regigigas will move the continents — that the right conditions of pressure will be meet for its actual formation.
“In a time long before history, vegetative matter was swept along by rain and rivers. It came to be buried under the ground.”
“The buried plant matter was forced ever deeper under the ground due to tremors and fissures caused by the shifting landmasses.”
“Deep under the ground, the plant matter was subjected to heavy pressure and the heat of magma. It gradually turned into coal.”
A small water stream can indeed be seen in the map of Hisui flowing southeast from Mt. Coronet, only to interrupt abruptly on a smaller mountain range. But the course of rivers can change by a lot even in a short amount of time, millions of years is enough to imagine it once reached the future Oreburgh.
The period stretching from the start of Permian to the end of Jurassic [298.9 ± 0.15–145.0 Ma] was probably characterized by a return of the effusive activity, the magma being now more acidic after the Carboniferous blast serving as a good explanation for the sudden appearance of obsidian. The Obsidian Fieldlands likely formed during this era, and we know they have to be successive to the CRC as the coal deposits will be covered by what in Hisui are the Obsidian Falls [黒曜の滝, Obsidian Falls] around which Oreburgh will be later established.
While some explosive eruptions may have still occurred in this long timeframe, up to now we don’t have any evidence for them. During Cretaceous [145.0–66.0 Ma] the small forest outside Primeval Grotto must’ve been a large jungle in which Cranidos and Shieldon could proliferate, meaning no devastating events happened directly before. At the end of this period we have the mass extinction event which in our world brought an end to the reign of non-avian dinosaurs, the ancient reptiles having mostly disappeared in the Pokémon World too pointing out to a similar destiny.
Regardless of its actual causes, be it a meteor or the action of unknown forces, a successive volcanic explosion is coherent with a cataclysmic scenario and with Mt. Coronet activity cycles. In one, final great eruption the jungle at the mountain’s slope was reduced to cinders, a Rampardos and a Bastiodon inside the Primeval Grotto having evidently succumbed due to volcanic ashes making the air in the cave unbreathable. After this, we have no apparent records of Mt. Coronet erupting until much later in history, suggesting it went dormant after its long-lasting activity.
An interesting thing to note is none of the Lake Trio members can’t learn Ancient Power. This げんしのちから [Primeval Power] strikes the opponent with “prehistoric power”, the in-battle animation often showing rocks and fossils rising from the lower strati to hit the target.
Pokémon able to learn this move usually developed in ancient times, but it’s not always a reliable indicator: creatures which surely emerged only after the Egg’s hatching — Regigigas and Bronzor being obvious examples — can still learn Ancient Power naturally, showing how its usage is more related to some sort of connection with the planet’s stratigraphy than to the species actual ancientness. If so, the Lake Trio likely didn’t develop the ability to channel this energy because they grew isolated from the rest of the world, slumbering in their lakes and never witnessing the ages going by.
This actually backs up the idea the Egg hatched sometime after its arrival on Earth, since the three lakes formed after specific geological processes in the primordial era — and the guardians didn’t add Ancient Power to their movepool in the period up to their formation, something that can be explained if they were still inside their ark up until that point.
More specifically, both Lake Verity [シンジ湖, Lake Sentiment] and Lake Valor [リッシ湖, Lake Resolve] are of volcanic origins as their real-life counterparts, water filling craters left from huge eruptions in the past. Volo alludes to the possibility the latter’s depression may have also been carved out by a clash between Pokémon, and while an ancient Heatran may be involved, Groudon and Kyogre better fit the idea of a fight between more creatures.
“They say this lake actually used to be a volcano. Then it erupted, leaving a huge crater that filled with water. And so Lake Verity was born.”
“Do you know about Lake Valor? It’s said to have been formed by a volcanic eruption, much like Lake Verity. Though there are other theories that say it was carved out in the midst of a Pokémon battle.”
Indeed, while Verity and Valor may have been shaped by the land emissary’s Eruption, Lake Acuity [エイチ湖, Lake Wisdom] contains traces of seawater like its real counterpart — probably a pit filled by the ocean beast’s powerful water attacks.
“Here we are: Lake Acuity! You know, I’ve been told it actually contains seawater as well. Nobody knows why, though — it could be a fluke or geography, or perhaps it’s connected to a Pokémon somehow.”
Uxie, Mesprit, and Azelf choose the newly formed lakes as their homes. This wasn’t just out of desire of isolation: the Willpower Pokémon entry in Diamond confirms they continuously sleep on their bottoms in order to “keep the world in balance”. In short, they serve as pillars of the world, their long-lasting slumber is what effectively links Time and Space together, in according to the power the old myths assign them. It’s even possible to suggest the reason the three stayed in their Egg for so long was to play this exact purpose, only the rise of proto-humans in need of guidance made their emergence necessary.
[…] It sleeps at the bottom of a lake to keep the world in balance.
The trio effectively sleeps on the bottom of the lakes, the caves we can access to catch them being either closed to people considered unworthy in Legends: Arceus, or completely absent in Generation IV — they appear on the map only after the bomb in Lake Valor explodes, also showing how the three Legendary Pokémon are strictly connected to one another and respond when one is disturbed.
“Th-that cave — it just… appeared from nowhere! Is that the Arc Phone the professor was going on about?”
“The Pokémon of the three lakes are connected somehow. Thanks to Saturn’s grandstanding at Lake Valor, a cavern appeared here. It was the cavern where the Pokémon Mesprit slept. Mesprit appeared, too, probably to go help its friends.”
Such connection is also why the water pattern in each cave is a sketch of the Sinnoh region, with the other lakes being highlighted in their correct positions.
This isn’t to say they aren’t free to move. According to Mesprit Pearl entry, the Pokémon is able to project away from its body, hovering over the waters in soul alone. Despite localization calling it “spirit”, this is a different concept that the capitalized homonym: the original term used is 魂 [tamashī, “soul”], more often referring to the actual souls of which ghosts are manifestation.
Although it slumbers at the bottom of the lake, its spirit is said to leave its body and flitter on the water surface.
So, while the Lake Trio true body lingers in the abyssal depths, at any time their essences can leave them to interact with the outside world. If the one we can encounter in the games are just their souls or their real body is more debatable, but since they aren’t Ghost Type and Lake Valor was effectively blown up without any trace of a sleeping corpse of Azelf, it seems more likely the three just temporary leave their positions during particular crisis.
Fast forwarding of some millions of years, when Regigigas emerged from the Earth’s core it started to move the continental masses originally expanded by Groudon, and to arrange them in their current location. The reason for this is unknown, but if the titan was really the “power to make lands” described in Sinnoh’s Myth like we previously hypothesized, then that was the “purpose” it was serving since its creation. Between this and the crafting of other beings in its image, it seems Regigigas possesses an innate sense of creativity, and as a great artist it desired to share its work with the whole world.
Mythology has the golem pulling the continents with gargantuan ropes, even though Laventon feels skeptical about the credibility of this claim. It is true we never witness these primordial tools, and their mention may have been merely a poetic interpretation of the Colossal Pokémon enormous strength.
According to legend, Regigigas pulled landmasses together and bound them with rope to create the continent of Hisui. Though I have my doubts, the story could well contain a shred of truth.
Odds are, in order for the entire landmass on the planet to have been moved, more than one specimen was required. Even if we don’t consider canonical the Ten’i event distribution, Regigigas in Sinnoh and Unova are resting in different sites, clearly being different individuals, to which we also have to add the one used by Palmer — out of simplicity, we can think Argenta borrows her specimen form the Tower Tycoon. Everything points out to the core’s fecundation to have resulted in a multiple birth.
In any case, the process surely started in Sinnoh, and if the Lake Trio was responsible for the golems creation it makes sense they resurfaced near the lakes. This is because Adaman refers to a version of the myth in which Regigigas moves the “southern lands” specifically, confirming Hisui to be in the far northward of the Pangea — while this doesn’t mean some lands weren’t brought even furthest north by the Legendary Pokémon.
“This door here — well, they say behind it sleeps a Pokémon so great it could tow around the entirety of the continents that lie to the south.”
This was actually the case for the Battle Zone. While we can’t see it on the Hisui map, the sub-region existed since the most ancient past, as testified by ruins on Route 228. Then, the reason it’s absent from Legends: Arceus is the same why we can’t see Kalos from Hoenn or Galar despite the regions being at swimming distance from each other, or why the Newmoon Island and the Flower Paradise are absent from charts of modern Sinnoh until they get unlocked by the player — being inaccessible areas in the games, they are simply not shown as irrelevant from a gameplay perspective.
This was further suggested by the game official website, with the notion Hisuian Braviary arrives in the region from somewhere farther north: the Battle Zone serving perfectly the purpose; as far as the narrative is concerned, the area was simply uncharted back then.
When Rufflet in the Hisui region evolve, they become Hisuian Braviary. In the winter, this Pokémon flies in from somewhere farther north.
Indeed, Diamond and Pearl confirm the Stark Mountain [ハードマウンテン, Hard Mountain] dates back to when Sinnoh was made by space and time intertwined, a similar locution used in Sinnoh Region’s Mythology referencing the period Regigigas shaped the region’s borders — the “melding of time and space” further stretching the connection between the golem and the Lake Trio. Originally, the newly generated tectonic movements made magma resurface and stagnate in a pool, the primordial energy permeating the ancient world causing the birth of the Legendary Pokémon Heatran.
“Let me tell you about the volcano named Stark Mountain. That volcano dates to when Sinnoh was made by the melding of time and space. Fiery lava spilled out and pooled, and then it turned into a Pokémon. […]”
“Heatran… So there was such a Pokémon? Did it come to be when Sinnoh was created?”
First tribes of humans in the Battle Zone used the Magma Stone [かざんのおきいし, Volcano Stone] to keep the incandescent beast under control. This artifact “formed when boulders melted in intensely hot magma, then hardened”, serving as a catalyst for the Lava Dome Pokémon to manifest. Heatran and the stone share the same origin, in all likelihood the former being a mere manifestation of the latter, a husk of sentient lava protecting the magmatic core. To underline again the identity between the Legendary and the volcano, it’s stated Heatran “became” the Stark Mountain over time, probably after numerous yet controlled eruptions which slowly formed its structure.
“[…] It’s said the Magma Stone was used to keep the Pokémon under control. Over time, the Pokémon turned into the volcano, according to legend.”
Ancient humans seemed well aware on the mechanisms behind the Magma Stone, effectively keeping Heatran at bay and prospering in the hostile environment of the Battle Zone. The reason of this is probably experience: according to its Pokédex entry, the Heatran we can catch in Hisui originated from the boiling magma within Mt. Coronet — tracing its birth in a much more ancient period than the Stark Mountain specimen, when the peak in the region’s center was still a vivid volcano. The mountain may have been dormant, but humans still had to face the fury of the Legendary Pokémon since their very first days, and when a new Magma Stone appeared in the north it was promptly secured to avoid uncontrolled destruction.
Stories tell of this Pokémon being birthed from the boiling magma within Mount Coronet. Its molten-steel body holds many mysteries.
People living around Mt. Coronet during this mythical era likely witnessed a world filled with divine, the Lava Dome being just a lesser incarnation. With the events involving Palkia’s supposed rebellion being imprinted in people’s minds up until modern Hisui, and the Red Chain being forgotten history even for an ancient Sinnohan, the god of Space likely went rouge during this period of ancient harmony. Then, if our reconstruction is correct, Arceus was still awoke too when humans firstly arose.
[Cogita referring to the Red Chain] “I know the old words and what they bid us do. How true they are isn’t mine to know. And regardless of their truth, I am bound to pass them on. How callous of my ancestors–to leave their legends to their children without a single thought for the hardship it would cause them! But…here we are.”
If the first men ever interacted with the Alpha Pokémon directly is ultimately unclear, but as we’re about to explore numerous copies of the Plates were likely retrieved for the first time by these super-ancient clans — the non-uniqueness of the artifacts was something demonstrable since Diamond and Pearl, as doubles can be excavated in the Underground. The lives of people intermingled with the divine mysteries of creation, Pokémon and humans living in peace, separate yet following the same path. But after the all-encompassing deity disappeared from the world of livings, that transcendent sentiment started to fade, and reality became less pleasant.
The First Civilizations
The first humans were surely struck by a sense of reverence in front of Regigigas, witnessing directly the drifting of lands. The process surely took a while even with multiple specimens working together. As we’ve already addressed in the first article, the Sinnoh’s Myth uses a continuous tense — suggesting the process was still ongoing when humans became advanced enough to write down stories.
With the definitive separation of the two Spirits, the mythical era in which Pokémon and humans changed goods with one another came to an end, and mankind was thrown in a world full of hostilities. When Arceus retired in the Hall of Origin, it was Regigigas who took the role as protector and master for the young species — maybe driven by a sense of sympathy towards other beings born out of the Lake Trio.
It’s in this context the Legendary Titans were crafted. According to the Pokédex, the three golems were created by Regigigas using different materials. The timeframe for this event is nebulous: we know they weren’t made all at the same time, Registeel being activated only 10.000 years ago, at the end of the Ice Age during which Regice lived.
It is said to have made Pokémon that look like itself from a special ice mountain, rocks, and magma.
A cut description from Pokémon Shield places the continental drift only after the Titans were brought to life, but this is inconsistent with the notion people and Pokémon lived in harmony when Sinnoh had just been made — something that can’t be possibly applied to the unwelcoming world of the Ice Age.
さまざまな 材料で ポケモンを 作ってから 大陸を 現在の 場所に 移動させたと いわれる
It is said that after making Pokémon from various materials, it moved the continents to their current location.
More plausibly, the drift took a span of time so large that the creation of golems partially overlapped: while Sinnoh’s borders were surely defined before, other regions may have been outlined only much later — contextually, the Regigigas in Galar the description is referring to may have made its progeny before moving the island to its current position. Another cut description from Pokémon Sword does affirm myths around the Legendary Titans flourished all over the world, but nowhere it’s implied they arose all at the same time.
自分の 姿に 似せて ポケモンを 作った 伝説が 世界中に 残されている
There are legends all over the world about [Regigigas] making Pokémon in its own image.
Regardless of details, Regirock was probably the first of the colossus’ creations. As Hoenn inscriptions in the Sealed Chamber confirm, the Legendary Titans played a crucial role in humanity’s history, to a point ancient humans considered their own existence something to thanks the golems for. The reason Regigigas originally shaped the three titans, then, was probably to help humanity in their troubled race for survival.
ENG:
Living our lives in this cave, we had prospered. Everything was from the help of Pokémon.
JPN:
私たちはこの穴で暮らし生活し、そして生きてきた。全てはポケモンのおかげだ。
In this hole we have lived our lives, thus existing. It’s all thanks to the Pokémon.
Regirock’s body is composed by numerous rocks, the Pokédex making clear they are both from different places and different times — the Hard Stone we can pick in its Generation IV temple probably one of many kinds. The Pokémon can repair itself using external materials, and the fact some of its components can be found in inner layers of the planet affirms its ancientness. Even if a precise date is never confirmed, the Stone Age perfectly fits its nature.
Regirock’s body is composed entirely of rocks. Recently, a study made the startling discovery that the rocks were all unearthed from different locations.
The same rocks that form its body have been found in ground layers around the world.
[…] If this Pokémon’s body is damaged in battle, it is said to seek out suitable rocks on its own to repair itself.
People in a Paleolithic-like setting surely had it rough in a world filled with elemental monsters at every corner, a rock giant who taught them the basics of stone working and crafting must’ve looked like a divine emissary. Indeed, we know a period known as “Stone Age” existed in the Pokémon World thanks to Growlithe entry from Ultra Moon. The flame hound was in fact domesticated back then, their bones having been excavated from ruins of that era.
It has lived alongside humans since ages ago. Its bones have been found in excavations of ruins from the Stone Age.
The implication “ruins” from a period so distant in time can be found means the slow transition from a nomadic to sedentary lifestyle was already starting. From the perspective of a hunter-gathering tribe, structures may have originally been built for one of two reasons: as temporary shelters settled to exploit the environment until the wildlife was worn out and it was time to move in a new place; and for funerary purpose. The Emotions bestowed by Mesprit had awakened sensations never felt before, empathy and an unease fear of death surely among the ones that directed mankind in its first steps towards later cultures. And apparently, the bond between humans and Growlithe was so strong the latter bones were buried too.
These were probably the Puppy Pokémon we’re all used to since Kanto, as the Hisuian Form is described as a later adaptation. Their reputation during the Stone Age is obvious considering both the loyalty and their elemental powers. Fire was of primary importance back then, keeping feral beasts at bay, lighting up the surrounding at night, and more importantly cook meat. Possibly, domestication of Growlithe was what led to the discovery of fire as viable resource in the first place.
Heat became a vital tool indeed when the Ice Age struck the whole globe. A glaciation was firstly mentioned in Generation III, confirming Regice was made during this period out of ice in the South Pole — evidently still attached to the original supercontinent back then. The material is said to be impossible to melt, its chamber in Platinum containing Never-Melt Ice — more properly とけないこおり, “non-melting ice” — heavily suggesting the item and the golem’s body are one and the same in composition.
Its body is made of ice from the ice age. It controls frigid air of -328 degrees Fahrenheit.
Its entire body is made of Antarctic ice. After extensive studies, researchers believe the ice was formed during an ice age.
Research revealed that its body is made of the same kind of ice that is found at the South Pole.
This Pokémon’s body is made of solid ice. It’s said that Regice was born beneath thick ice in the ice age.
It is said to have slept in a glacier for thousands of years. Its body can’t be melted, even by magma.
If Regirock taught humans to work with minerals, then the titan of ice must’ve provided a similar help in a frozen environment, and the primary need for people living in the extreme cold can’t be anything else than heat. Ice can be used to preserve high temperatures after all, igloos being the obvious example. But it’s also possible first, thick clothes were weaved in this epoch, the giant fauna inhabiting the mountains serving as the perfect pool to gain tons of fur from.
According to Mamoswine Pokédex entries, the mammoths flourished during the Ice Age, only to meet a rapid decline when temperatures started to rise again. People back then were well aware of their existence, and likely hunted them for their meat and for the warm coats they could craft with their hair. Cave painting dating back to 10’000 years ago have been found depicting the Twin Tusk Pokémon, showing the deep respect these people held for the fruits nature offered them.
It flourished worldwide during the ice age but its population declined when the masses of ice began to dwindle.
This Pokémon can be spotted in wall paintings from as far back as 10,000 years ago. For a while, it was thought to have gone extinct.
Among the unusually big creatures than inhabited Sinnoh during the glaciation, Avalugg were probably the most frightening. According to Volo, there was a time these Pokémon reached gargantuan proportions, up above 30 meters in height. And according to its description, the Eternal Ice the Lord of the Tundra feeds on is composed by fragments of one of these older specimens, the fact we can only find them on Avalugg’s Legacy [クレベース氷塊, Avalugg’s Iceblock] reveals the place is nothing but the corpse of a massive Iceberg Pokémon.
“What’s more, apparently the Avalugg of old could be up to a hundred feet tall. Doesn’t that seem a bit too big to take on?”
Eternal Ice: A type of ice beloved by the Lord of the Tundra, Avalugg. This ice is said to be fragments of ancient Avalugg that lived long ago.
Paintings of Mamoswine weren’t, however, the first works of art to have ever being produced. Excluding Paldea unusually advanced first civilization, the primacy goes to Baltoy. Those clay dolls are more accurately どぐう, dogū, small clay figurines crafted in Japan during the Jōmon period [14,000–400 BC]. The Pokémon World actually move the dates even furthest back in time, as Claydol are firstly made around 20’000 years ago.
Claydol is an enigma that appeared from a clay statue made by an ancient civilization dating back 20,000 years. This Pokémon shoots beams from both its hands.
The purpose of dogū is object of debate among scholars. They may have been effigies for specific people, hosting the power to direct diseases or misfortunes from the subject to the doll, but they also often presented exaggerated breasts and hips, making the balance tip to their role as symbols of fertility and abundance. In the context of the Pokémon World, it makes sense to see the Baltoy at least as figurines to favor the harvesting: the fact they’re based specifically on the shakōkidogū [遮光器土偶, “goggle-eyed dogū”], a later name given due to the resemblance of its eyes to Inuit snow goggles, is a clever recontextualization of a real-life coincidence, here framed in the wider picture of the Ice Age.
Descriptions of Mamoswine confirm the worldwide glaciation lasted until 10’000 years ago at least, but as we’ll later address this was probably around its end. While the specifics can reasonably shift between the fictional and the real chronology, the period seems to mirror the Würm glaciation of our world, occurring approximately between 115'000 to 11'700 years ago. For now, we’ll leave for a future article speculation on the causes of the climate shift, as up to Generation IV no concrete hints are ever provided, but its supposed timeframe would place Baltoy and Claydol origins during the perpetual winter.
A frozen one was dug up from soil dating back 10,000 years. It woke up to much amazement.
A frozen Mamoswine was dug from ice dating back 10,000 years. This Pokémon has been around a long, long, long time.
In a world covered by snow, it’s only natural people would start pray the gods for a better harvest, and while agriculture may have not been developed by many groups of primitive humans yet, the times when fruits and herbs naturally grew in abundance rapidly became but a distant memory. Of course, the dogū culture was way more prominent in the region from which it originated, their design being based on the unknown alien entity that visited Hoenn in ancient times — but this is also the a matter for its own analysis.
However, the Clay Doll Pokémon did spread to the rest of the world eventually, Baltoy even joining Mamoswine on the rock paintings, far both in time and space from the cities of more developed societies in which they were also depicted. Sinnoh was no exception: using the Poké Radar on Route 206, it’s revealed Baltoy hide in the surroundings. With no apparent ruins observable in modern days and the impossibility to check the area in Hisui, those people likely protected from the icy winds settling inside the Wayward Cave.
Depictions of Pokémon similar to Baltoy have been found on the walls of caves where primitive humans lived.
While we have a homonymous toponym in Legends: Arceus, it can’t possibly be the same place. This 迷いの洞窟 [“Cave of Hesitation”] is on the opposite slope of Mt. Coronet, being roughly located in the unexplorable north of Route 210. One of the cavern entrances is faced towards a small river directly communicating with the North Sea, the course then tilting eastward as we see in the map of the Ancient Retreat. The torrent is still partially present in modern charts, only it doesn’t directly flow into the sea anymore, probably after the Lonely Spring [離れ湧水, Solitary Spring] dried out. The portion along the retreat is also absent, the course interrupted by mountains leaving only a small lake at its southern edge visible on Sinnoh’s map.
Geographically speaking, the two Wayward Caves are at the very opposite sides of the mountain, making impossible their overlapping. Jumping out of the frame story, the reason for this is likely because developers didn’t manage to design enough areas to make the whole Sinnoh explorable in its past iteration. For instance, the entire section around the left slope of Mr. Coronet is completely unexplorable in Hisui — leaving out a large portion of the original map.
The workaround for this problem was to create small surrogate zones to quote the original places, even though there’s no narrative cohesiveness between these various locations. And so, the Heartwood shares OST and design elements with the Eterna Forest, despite corresponding to Route 221. Floaro Gardens is a clear nod to Floaroma Town, despite being southern Jubilife. And Wayward Cave was thrown on the other side of the region, carrying the labyrinthic layout, the oppressive darkness, and the characteristic presence of Gible. But to considering these more than simple references to otherwise absent areas is made impossible by their actual placement on the map.
In-universe, the two caves may share a name just because of their intricate path. Following the train of thought the grotto on Route 206 may have been the original home of the clan which crafted the Baltoy right outside, signs of human presence are indeed observable. All kinds of Shards can be found inside, those being “fragments of some sort of implement made long ago”. Given how both their Underground sprites and their Legends: Arceus artworks matches the ones of the Plates of the same color, the implication is those ancient items were either actual Plates which have now lost their elemental powers, or some faithful reproductions.
The presence of a Shard in a map is not indicative of a specific time period, but it does tell some old civilization was present nearby, unless it’s clear the object has been brought there more recently, like for those we can pick in Team Galactic Eterna Building, Team Galactic HQ, and Fuego Ironworks: the owner tells us working with ores from Mt. Coronet often leads to the discovery of such artifacts — it is indeed possible to dig for them in the Underground, which is also why a Yellow Shard is present in Oreburgh City near the mining section.
“My ironworks makes iron by removing impurities from iron ore. In the process we find a variety of colored shards.”
For those in Wayward Cave, they probably belong to a super-ancient past. While it’s true Celestica was well aware of the place, as testified by the Bronzor on Route 206 and inside the cavern, no construction from that period can be spotted: it’s a site the Sinnohans have explored, rather than colonized. This is coherent with the idea these ancient people retired inside during the Ice Age, the Stardust inside possibly a nod to the fell god that made their clay dolls alive in the first place.
Be it as it may, the Ice Age eventually met its end, temperature rising up again and the Mamoswine population falling down. The reason was probably an intense period of volcanic eruptions: as Registeel Pokédex notes, the golem only emerged from the planet mantle 10’000 years ago despite having been crafted before, a violent explosion from below being a good possible reason why.
It’s rumored that this Pokémon was born deep underground in the planet’s mantle and that it emerged onto the surface 10,000 years ago.
Indeed, Black 2 and White 2 confirmed the Iron Pokémon has been made with “magma”, the fact it rested below the crust before being activated means Regigigas travelled all the way to the underground in order to get the sheer material. This was necessary because the molten substance wasn’t picked at random: as multiple entries states, it was primarily composed of extraterrestrial metal.
“The protectors were born out of rock, ice, and magma…”
The metal composing its body is thought to be a curious substance that is not of this earth.
This meteoric iron is likely the same of the Metal Coat. We can find the evolutive item inside the Sinnoh’s Registeel chamber, and Legends: Arceus equally describes it as “a special metallic coating that is simultaneously strong and flexible”, same properties shared by the titan. So, the coat is made of a metal arrived from outer space probably inside a meteor, its malleability serving as the perfect basis for one of the Colossal Pokémon works of art.
Registeel’s body is made of a strange material that is flexible enough to stretch and shrink but also more durable than any metal.
Regigigas had the idea to make an iron golem well before its emergence from the planet’s lower strati. Another description confirms Registeel has been compressed inside the mantle for more than a thousand of years, meaning it firstly crafted either in the middle of the Ice Age or even before. This is consistent with what we know of the Metal Coat: while the item we use has been artificially refined, it takes around one hundred years for an Onix to evolve into Steelix naturally, sheer pressure being a defining factor to increase the hardness.
[Registeel] Tempered by pressure underground over tens of thousands of years, its body cannot be scratched.
[Steelix] It is said that if an Onix lives for over 100 years, its composition changes to become diamond-like.
Its body has been compressed deep under the ground. As a result, it is even harder than a diamond.
The intense volcanic season that took place around 10’000 years ago heated the whole planet and made most of the ice melt, but also made Registeel arise from its underground dome, tempered by millennia of hard pressure. The reasons for the worldwide eruptions are never really made clear, but in the context of Sinnoh it’s implied the Stark Mountain erupted at some point.
According to Battle Zone old folklore, removing the Magma Stone from its location will make Heatran goes rampant, and the mountain will erupt. The fact this legend was passed down means people of the past were well aware of the disaster that stealing the artifact may cause: they probably experienced themselves. And while it’s possible part of this knowledge comes from the specimen on Mt. Coronet, the mainland volcano hadn’t really erupted since the most distant prehistory, and the actual functioning of the stone was crossing the boundaries of mythology even for the ancient tribes guarding it for hundred of thousands of years.
“The Magma Stone. Moving this is said to awaken the Pokémon Heatran. The old tales say that its awakening, it will make Stark Mountain erupt.”
If Stark Mountain is what brought the Ice Age to an end, then the people guarding the Magma Stone are to blame. The relic was secured since the most ancient of times, but why? Were the old tales telling the truth? Will the mountain really scream and vomit rivers of flames if its supposed heart is removed? And would that be really that bad, in a world perpetually covered in ice? These intrusive thoughts were probably developing in the mind of whoever was responsible for removing the Magma Stone from its proper place, awakening Heatran in all its former glory.
We don’t really know how damaging the eruption was for people living nearby, but the environment likely changed a lot. The Battle Zone in Platinum has an exclusive rock texture, way darker in color than the usual, hinting to a volcanic origin. If that’s true, then it’s possible the entire area massively enlarged relatively recently, the solidified lava becoming the hard foundation of future Routes from 225 to 230.
Of course, the Magma Stone still stands in its place even in modern days, meaning the balance was eventually restored. Humans managed to understood their sins and the mountain was quelled, but damage was done already. Climate was affected permanently, the effusive type of this eruption is coherent both with formation of new lavic bedrock and the absence of cinders that would lower the temperatures on the long run, rather than rising them. Stark Mountain is a stratovolcano too, meaning it has mixed activity, and smaller and controlled explosive eruptions in successive times may explain the ashes on Route 227.
With the situation stabilized and Registeel on the surface, people could again prosper. Contrary to the other titans, we don’t have an official name for the age started after the glaciation. Being an “Iron Age” or a more generic “Metal Age”, what the golem brought among humanity was likely the art of metallurgy, a considerable upgrade from the stone tools used until then.
The main beneficiaries of the three titans’ gifts were evidently the tribes in the northern region of Sinnoh, as testified by the three small temples built in their honor. These don’t seem to have been conceived as prisons like in Hoenn: each presents a statue depicting a generic titan, which “seems to exude power”. Interacting with it, we can hear the voices of the ancients imprinted in the stone through unspecified magical means, revealing us the true secret of the shrine will only manifest if we have Regigigas in our team and we are considered strong enough.
It’s a statue of a Pokémon. It seems to exude power… From somewhere, something spoke out. “The human in the company of our Master, pay heed… Become stronger you must. So much the others cannot but notice.”
“With our Master, upon every lighted tile you must tread.”
These people refer to the Colossal Pokémon as their “master”, confirming they deeply revere it. After completing the little puzzle lighting the tiles on the floor corresponding with the golem’s pattern, an “indescribable power” starts to exude form the statue, starting a battle with the respective titan. The mechanism behind this is unclear, as the statue remains intact after the fight ends, meaning the Pokémon is not actual sculpture. More likely, the strong entity is summoned via a teleportation mechanism, only activated if someone demonstrates themselves worthy.
The convoluted system was, in other words, a precautionary measure so that only those accepted by Regigigas could obtain audience with one of its creations. It’s a procedure incredibly complex for a primitive culture, which very likely entered in an entirely new stage of civilization: if temples were built, then the transition to a more sedimentary lifestyle had reached its end for a while, and if only priest-like figures had the right to meet the three titans in their new homes, then the seed of social division had been already planted.
The location of the three shrines gave us a good indication of the political expansion of this ancient civilization. The Iceberg Ruins are the most centralized, having being built inside the northern slope of Mt. Coronet, near the exit of Route 216. This is no surprise considering a much larger temple will be soon erected in Alabaster Icelands [純白の凍土, Pure White Tundra], and the former existence of ancient architectures in the area is also confirmed by the presence of a Blue Shard on Route 217, where maybe a now completely vanished settlement once towered equally distant from the two places of worship.
The Rock Peak Ruins were carved in a grotto on Route 228, confirming these people were able to traverse the sea and eventually reached the Battle Zone, maybe in search of the cause of the devastating phenomenon that marked the end of the previous era. Since the myths of the Magma Stone were carried over in modern times, the endemic tribes did not completely perish with the eruption, meaning the two people actively interacted with one another. Maybe, this is why Regirock decided to remain there, offering its help to a less advanced civilization — its role was over in a culture able to work with metals.
Still, many villages were settled in the Battle Zone by the two clans, as tested by numerous Shards all around the place: a Red one in the Survival Area, a Green one on Route 225, a Yellow one on Route 227, and a Blue one on Route 230. It must’ve been truly a flourishing society in the ancient world, despite having left so little behind. The various ethnic groups probably mixed together, and with their relatively isolated position contacts with the mainland probably became less and less frequent. Since traditions from the time are still vivid, it doesn’t seem their history ended in tragedy: they just remained in their little corner of the world for millennia, the memory of their glorious past slowing fading to legend as time went by, until the small population remained had to welcome the modern urbanization from beyond the sea.
Paying our attention to the opposite side of the region, we can find the Iron Ruins in a secret chamber of the Iron Island. After people learned the wonders of metals, it’s no wonder they started to search a good place to mine them. While in contemporary times iron is mainly extracted from Mt. Coronet, as Fuego Fireworks map description confirms us, the method probably requires more refined technologies: the ancient needed an easily accessible site of raw material to forge their tools with, and the small island in the Western Sea fit perfectly the profile.
The ironworks refines iron ore mined from Mt. Coronet to make iron and to manufacture mechanical parts.
Despite its original name being 鋼鉄島 [“Steel Island”], localization adapting it with “iron” was probably for the best in the moment it’s just “ore” [鉱石] that’s extracted here, steel requiring further refinement to be obtained. The place was used as a mine even in much more recent days, like modern barrels and elevators inside make clear, and that’s probably the operation the map alludes to. The ancient civilization that first set their feet here was sensible enough to not exploit the resource completely, maybe guided in the process by Registeel — the fact the golem reached the small island once again demonstrate the navigation skills this culture possessed.
Inside the island are remnants of an iron ore mining operation from the past.
As this was merely a mining center, it’s unlikely a group eventually diverged from the main civilization like in the Battle Zone. A small settlement to run the operations surely existed, as shown by the presence of both Yellow and Red Shards inside it, but people there either worked to death or returned home with a fortune in their pockets.
The most important and iconic building of the super-ancient civilization obviously remains the Snowpoint Temple [キッサキ神殿, Temple of the Point]. The once massive construction, situated on the far north of Alabaster Icelands, was most certainly built in this period: while it was surely known by Celestica, which even added one of its tablets on a wall on the first floor, Regigigas is nowhere to be found in their written myths, and dedicating a temple larger than the one on top of Mt. Coronet to a minor figure of the pantheon seems absurd enough to disregard the option. Moreover, the internal architecture is completely different from anything we’ve seen from Celestica, the looks of the columns on the outside bearing only some resemblances may point out to the fact they served as an inspiration for the future civilization.
While it’s possible a smaller shrine existed from the start to worship the Colossal Pokémon, the temple was likely built as an enormous tomb. While the nuance isn’t present in Diamond and Pearl and in their remakes, the Regigigas we can find in Platinum is at level 1, showing how the titan lost all its forces at some point and froze like a statue. And unless they transported a massive, immovable colossus with the weight of 420.0 kg all the way in Snowpoint and then decided the brightest solution was to move it five floors below sea level across as many flights of stairs, the implication is the temple was built around the extinguished Regigigas.
The reason for the shut-down is never really spoken by the games, but the anime does give its version on the matter, which is surprisingly coherent with some clues of environmental storytelling we can observe in the Generation IV titles. This is the myth passed down in Snowpoint according to DP129:
Once after a volcano violently erupted, the Snowpoint Forest, rich in natural resources and beauty, was transformed into a sea of flowing lava.
Then, out of a bright blue light, Regigigas appeared. Along with Regirock, Regice, and Registeel.
Together, the four of them halted the volcano’s eruption, thus saving Snowpoint City from destruction.
Later Regigigas transformed itself into a stone of life and fell into a deep sleep, while in order to protect Regigigas, the legend says that Regice, Regirock, and Registeel transformed into three guardian pillars made of the basic elements of rock, ice, and steel.
According to the anime, a volcano has erupted at some point, turning the “Snowpoint Forest” into a river of lava. Assuming this forest was somewhere between Route 216 and 217, the Stark Mountain can’t possibly be pointed out as the culprit: the eruption was coming from the south, leaving only Mt. Coronet as a viable option.
As far as we know, the mountain was sleeping since its last eruption during the Cretaceous, but the recent turmoil caused by the volcano in the Battle Zone may have put something in motion. If people in the mainland were still guarding a Magma Stone, they surely let their guard down when the ancient Heatran of Mt. Coronet awakened after millions of years, raging with incandescent torrents of lava.
The notion of a more recent explosion of Sinnoh’s central mountain is coherent with the evolutive history of its fauna. According to Laventon, Hisuian Lilligant assumed their peculiar form after lives spent on the snowy mountains, but this notion seems incompatible with its modern distribution: the Spinning Pokémon is found exclusively on Crimson Mirelands [紅蓮の湿地, Crimson Wetlands], never stepping foot on more mountainous areas like Coronet Highlands or Alabaster Icelands. If the Professor is correct, at some point something must’ve pushed pre-existing populations of Lilligant up north, only to return back south when the right conditions ceased: what better fits the profile than lava temporary melting the ice on Mt. Coronet, creating a more hospitable environment for a Grass Type Pokémon once the new bedrock solidified?
I suspect that its well-developed legs are the result of a life spent on mountains covered in deep snow. The scent it exudes from its flower crown heartens those in proximity.
The Gible family also probably came into play in this scenario. Pearl Pokédex entry makes the case for the Land Shark Pokémon to have been originally from a “tropical land” [熱帯の土地], wich later games describe as “much hotter than Alola”; in other words, they only arrived in Sinnoh after a long migration, possibly passing through Almia’s desertic and volcanic areas in which they are found to these days.
It once lived in the tropics. To avoid the cold, it lives in caves warmed by geothermal heat.
Its original home is an area much hotter than Alola. If you’re planning to live with one, your heating bill will soar.
What esle could’ve led these warm-climate-creatures to move in a snowy region, if not a general rise of temperatures caused by a volcanic eruption? Indeed, Legends: Arceus still has all the three sharks inhabiting Avalanche Slopes, coherently with the lava flowing up to the north, while Gabite are found in Platinum Victory Road — which we’re about to learn had a volcanic origin.
To be fair, the original migration could trace back to more ancient eruptions, although the population in Alabaster Icelands that will disappear in the present does hint at least to inner movements after the more recent occurrence. This seems to be suggested by the presence of Gible in both Wayward Caves — and we know at least the one in the west to be more ancient. Possibly, the labyrinthine layouts characteristic of both sites were excavated by the Pokémon themselves; the Pokédex claims they do dig horizontal nests in order to repair from the cold:
It nests in small, horizontal holes in cave walls. It pounces to catch prey that stray too close.
If a large city actually existed south Lake Acuity, it was most likely destroyed by the eruption, survivors running in fear as north as they could. This is when Regigigas and the three Legendary Titans supposedly intervened, engaging a battle against the Lava Dome Pokémon and pushing back its Magma Storms. The golems emerged victorious, the beast of fire quelled for good, and the people that Regigigas had seen taking their first steps up until building a prosperous civilization were saved. But the battle had drained it of all its power, and at last the Spirit slipped outside its body.
Of course, the anime takes some liberty in its narration, the notion Regigigas can “appear out of a blue light” was completely made up — albeit it could be an interesting way to contextualize the teleportation mechanisms installed on the titans three chambers. At the same time, Regirock, Regice, and Registeel turning into guarding pillars is a reinterpretation of the animated product, but it may have been based on a detail developers may have passed to the writing team.
The chamber Regigigas rests in Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum does, in fact, present elements from each of the Legendary Titans. There are brown rocks — although most have been moved to the floor above — grey boulders to represent metal, and more importantly ice all over the floor, like it melted only to solidify a second time from a pool of water. If the three golems fought Heatran alongside their master, they most likely lost: Regice un-meltable body met its match among the flames of Mt. Coronet incarnation, while Regirock and Registeel were reduced to pieces.
In this perspective, the inscription the ancients left on Regigigas body was more a of a hope that their master would awake if reunited with its lost children, rather than a contrived safety measurement. Indeed, with their main city destroyed, they had to rebuild everything back from scratch, so venture across the sea to retrieve the Regirock and Registeel still alive was an impossible task.
A body of rock. A body of ice. A body of steel.
When gather those three together, the king will appear.
This reconstruction is undoubtedly questionable with how much it relies on the animated product, but keeping the two canons as strictly separate isn’t among Game Freak main priorities — and as it explains some oddities presented in the game while offering a coherent picture, it’s the best we can came up with the limited amount of information we have.
Whatever the specifics really are, people of the ancient civilization built the Snowpoint Temple in honor of their deceased master — the underground excavation being successive makes easier to digest the notion Regigigas was actually moved five floors below, if they dug under its feet before the structure was finalized. Something extremely important to note is that these people weren’t left out of guidance in their work: like there were two different sets of titans, a second Regigigas was present in Sinnoh as well.
The Snowpoint Temple we can explore in Legends: Arceus has some striking differences compared to its modern counterpart. For instance, it has upper floors: the entrance gate remained the same to the smallest detail, meaning the structure has not sunk underground in the timespan between the two games — more probably, any floor above the first collapsed, the stairs leading upstairs walled, and the former corridor now leading only to an icy dead end.
Second of all, the position of the Regigigas chamber doesn’t match. In Legends: Arceus, the stairs leading to the Colossal Pokémon are situated past the central golem statue we see even in the modern version. This section has also been bricked up, now the entrance to the floors below situated on its right. The stairs then follow the opposite direction compared to those in Hisui, arriving to the bottom on the fifth floor opposed to the four flights we have to take in order to reach the end in the past.
With Regigigas sealing door also being absent in Generation IV and working on a completely unprecedented mechanism, and the Pokémon not showing any sign of fatigue in Legends: Arceus, we can conclude with a certain degree of confidence two different Regigigas originally habited the Snowpoint Temple — the path to the one we catch in modern Sinnoh still being undiscovered in Hisui, maybe purposefully blocked by the original builders in the fear someone in the future might have defiled their slumbering god.
The second Regigigas is the one carrying the Blank Plate, and the specimen both the Hero of Celestica and our character in Legends: Arceus interact with — the fact the artifact goes missing in modern times is yet another hint to the difference between the two colossi. The ancient civilization knowledge of Plates is evident when we noticed the Regigigas door we see in Hisui can only be opened with the Stone Plate, the Iron Plate, and the Icicle Plate — confirming they possessed those four at least.
Since the titan beyond it was active at the time the seal was constructed, this was probably yet another trial to demonstrate you belonged to the religious elite which could have a direct audience with Regigigas, not much different than what we saw with the other three’s temples.
As we’ll learn in a future article, Plates were firstly engraved during the times of Celestica. From this notion, we can deduce which artifact we can find in Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum is the same of Legends: Arceus, and which on the contrary is a different copy. In Generation IV only eight different inscriptions were present, not associated to any specific Plate. This changed with the Hisuian game, as now every single item has its own specific prayer engraved on it.
More specifically, the Flame, Splash, Meadow, Icicle, Earth, Mind, Draco and Dread Plates all bear the lore we can read since the first Sinnoh’s iterations. Given all the rest was completely lost, we have to conclude the remaining Plates we can find scattered across the region to be from a different set.
Among these, the Stone Plate can be found on Mt. Coronet, coherent with the notion the ancient civilization possessed it. And while the original Icicle Plate could be the one retrieved by the Hero and later engraved, making it impossible for us to trace back its original location, it’s interesting to note the Iron Plate is found on the Iron Island. This means after the eruption people eventually managed to get back on their old mining site: the Heatran disaster was far from scoring the killing blow.
The first Regigigas was, however, never awoken. This could be the result of a genuine struggle in returning to the isolated Battle Zone and retrieve Regirock, but who knows: maybe the martyr colossus who saved humanity was a more convenient story to tell, rather than having another divine being walking the streets. It is in the human nature to seek control after all, something difficult to obtain when higher powers come into play so directly. Even if willingly, the second great titan was kept isolated from the public after all.
The fate of the second Regigigas after our character catches it in Legends: Arceus is unknown, but its former home being inaccessible in the present makes hard to believe it ever returned there to stay. Then, this is in all likelihood the same specimen much later caught by Palmer, whose origin before the game could’ve only be imagined.
Among the other missing Plates, we can extrapolate little from their majority. The Zap Plate and the Sky Plate in Sunyshore City and outside the Pokémon League were probably brought there later, and no evidence of super-ancient cultures can be found where the Fist Plate and the Toxic Plate linger either — Route 215 and the Great Marsh respectively.
The Insect Plate is an interesting case to discuss: it’s found right outside the Old Chateau, and while it’s possible it was just a collector’s item like the Dread Plate inside, that being the case it would be a rather weird asset to thrown out the window. A Green Shard can indeed be found in Eterna Forest, suggesting the ancient civilization settled around here too — if they were aware of the Plate in the wood’s heart is up to speculation. And thinking about it, the idea makes sense in the moment these people had to build a harbor in order to sail for the Iron Island: the western coast of Eterna being the nearest point on land from the isle would perfectly serve the occasion for a small seaside village to be established.
The last Plate makes the case for an important observation: while it’s true the North was basically unified under the ancient civilization flag, this doesn’t mean the rest of the region was uninhabited. Other than the Baltoy culture, another important sign of developed society can be seen in Hearthome City, specifically in Amity Square. According to a resident NPC, the place is currently owned by Mr. Backlot along with the Pokémon Mansion, but people from a long-forgotten past settled their homes there way before him.
“The owner of Amity Square also owns the Pokémon Mansion!”
The rock huts on the upper section of the square are shaped after hoodoos, natural spires of rock formed after a slow process of erosion, and the act of carving them to make houses is also inspired by a real-life practice in ancient Cappadocia. Their unusual architecture and the assertion they are ruins form long ago, rule out a possible Celestica settlement: these people likely lived in the age before, at least partially in parallel with the Legendary Titans civilization. While that’s the amount of information we could infer from Diamond and Pearl, Platinum added a noticeable quirk to the place: the huts have now warping properties.
Entering one of the houses makes us teleport inside another, and no apparent technological device was installed inside. Indeed, the implication seems to be the phenomenon to be entirely natural: hidden beyond the warping net we can retrieve a Spooky Plate, affirming the culture connection to the Distortion World. If Giratina had bestowed one of its Plates to this tribe, it’s only natural Space and Time stop working properly inside their residences.
We can’t really see the site in Legends: Arceus, Hearthome being approximately placed near the mountains left to Crimson Mirelands. Generally speaking, placing the actual locations of future towns out of borders seems to be a trick to have more freedom in the map design used by developers more than once, considering even Celestic Town itself should be just right below Coronet Highlands. Regardless, we can’t unfortunately inspect the ruins from a new angle, so that’s the amount of information we can currently get from these mysterious people — maybe the first in all history to have had a contact with the Renegade Pokémon.
Last tribe we have to focus on are the people living in Cobalt Coastlands [群青の海岸, Ultramarine Coast], more specifically the ones who gathered around Firespit Island [火吹き島, Fireblowing Island]. Like for the Heartwood or Wayward Cave, this is yet another “surrogate area” added out of the impossibility to show the actual place from the previous games. The isle is obviously reminiscent of Stark Mountain, even sharing its OST in its inner grotto, but after our reconstruction it should be clear how impossible would it be for a history-filled place like the Battle Zone to just emerge out of thin air after our adventure in Hisui.
The small volcano is instead situated approximately where the Pokémon League stands today, coherently with its inspiration: Kunashir Island has in fact a volcanic origin, the waterfall we see in the games probably a nod to the Mendeleyeva caldera lake. In other words, the mountain eventually ceased its activities, allowing rainwater to fill the old crater.
Moreover, the Heatran living inside the island is not from Stark Mountain, as this is the specimen Laventon refers to when stating it was born in Mt. Coronet. After having lost against Regigigas, the beast clearly never returned to its cradle — marking its official extinction as a volcano. Maybe in an attempt to regain forces, maybe out of simple fear after its defeat, the Legendary Pokémon retired on a little island in the Eastern Sea, and a new fire mountain was lit.
People living nearby didn’t take much to notice, and they apparently started to revere their new guest. The name of the Lava Dome Sanctum [火口の祠, Crater Shrine] in which Heatran resides betrays its religious purpose, but contrary to similar locations the characteristic columns of Celestica architecture are nowhere to be found inside it. More plausibly, the cult was far more ancient: in the absence of a proper Magma Stone, lost who knows where during the last incident, the clans of Cobalt Coastlands started to gift all kinds of offerings to the deity of magma. The Hero will find the Iron Plate here after all, and in the lack of better options it’s possible the Flame Plate was originally there too.
This also tells us the coasts likely presented some form of volcanic activities even before Heatran made them its den, probably the reason the place was chosen in the first place. The official website for Hisuian Growlithe confirms these Pokémon to be extremely territorial and distrustful towards humans, as they lived apart from them for a long time. The fact the Hero tamed an Arcanine in its regional variant means the adaptation happened somewhen between the Stone Age and the time people settled in Cobalt Coastlands for the first time; combined with Laventon’s assertion they developed rock-like fur as a response to the volcanic environment they lived in, this settles the matter on the area’s endogenous processes .
Hisuian Growlithe are highly vigilant and tend to be seen watching over their territory in pairs. Apparently, they have lived apart from humans for a long time and are unused to being around people. Building trust with a Hisuian Growlithe takes time.
They patrol their territory in pairs. I believe the igneous rock components in the fur of this species are the result of volcanic activity in its habitat.
Regardless, things seems to have worked out for the best, the Lava Dome hasn’t shown any signs of violence from its new hideout. Both Celestica and the Galaxy Team will eventually face it in their quests to the Hall of Origin, and its whereabouts after we manage to catch it in Legends: Arceus remains unknown. But it’s worth noticing Palmer has a Heatran too other than a Regigigas, and who’s better than the Tower Tycoon to quell the former king of the Pokémon League?
With this, we’ve reached the end of our analysis. The Sinnoh of old was a region full of different cultures and people, and we’ve probably only scratched to surface of this lost and distant world. The Legendary Titans civilization towered over the north for thousands of years, many other clans managed to left their mark in history. Probably none of them could’ve imagined how the world was about to change so drastically, with the advent of a tribe among which a visionary man was about to appear: the Hero who challenged God, and won.