"Every story has two sides, typically the "good" side and the "evil" side. In Rise of the Rockets, you have a choice — will you tell the story from Team Liberty's point of view, in their efforts to liberate the world from Team Rocket's reign? Or will you fight for the Rockets, seeking to crush rebellion and remake the world in your view?"
Pokémon: Rise of the Rockets
is an RPG hosted on BZPower.
Twenty years after the Black and White arc, Team Rocket has risen to power once more — and under new leadership, has taken control over the regions of Kanto, Johto, Hoenn and Sinnoh. In response to this, a rebellion group called Team Liberty is formed, opposing Team Rocket's forceful reign. A war soon breaks out, with more and more people and groups becoming a part of the conflict.
Currently holds the record as the longest Pokémon RPG in BZPower's history.
Pokémon: Rise of the Rockets contains examples of:
- Aborted Arc: The unfortunate result of various players leaving the game. Cal Riggs's attempt to infiltrate Bounty's sect of Team Rocket, for instance, ended soon after it began due to his player vanishing, and thus was never followed up on in-story.
- In editing the Rise of the Rockets Wiki, however, Parugi has worked to fill in the gaps wherever he can, so this has been averted in a number of cases.
- Action Girl: Numerous, and on all sides! Joker, Bluefalcon, Sonja Baron, Olivia Seaton, Jenny Hakuda, Lafoyae Belrose, Jamie Arthur, Ellen Burks, and Esen Windred are just a few that immediately come to mind.
- Action Mom: Joker, Ace, Eileen Alaric, and Cassie Mikazuki are all examples.
- Also present in the form of its villainous counterpart with characters like Quincy Adams and Madison Hayes.
- Action Survivor: Present in some characters' backstories, but primarily shown during Hannah Wright's attack on Celadon City, where the majority of the combatants were the citizens of said city who were forced to fight to survive the incident.
- Adaptation Expansion: In massive amounts, owing to the world-building on all fronts—from new backstories for various Legendary Pokémon to entire political factions stemming from original-franchise groups.
- Affably Evil: A few villains.
- James Pierce, who never talks down to anyone without justification.
- Nine, if one considers him to be evil.
- Affirmative Action Girl: At least for Parugi, part of the reason why characters like Esen, Victoire, and Eileen—and almost entirely why Sonja—were all introduced.
- Sonja, in particular, was added so that the Manaphy Mission would not solely involve Joker on the heroes' side and so that a bit of competence could be handed back to the (very small) female-Liberty population, especially since that plot was an immediate follow-up to the ill-fated Attack on Paradise plot line which saw recently-promoted Silvermind pick up the Idiot Ball in full force.
- After Action Patch Up: Happens on occasion, when circumstances result in minor wounds to the trainers themselves. One such instance was Kyle Eston tending to a bloody nose after a confrontation with Ryan Hikari in Cerulean.
- Alas, Poor Villain
- Though his status as a villain depends on interpretation, Nine's defeat and—by now pretty apparent—death was a very sobering moment.
- The Sins have actually tended to elicit this reaction during their defeats. Gluttony, in particular, prompted this.
- All There in the Manual: Between the Rise of the Rockets Wiki,
Word of God, the side stories topic, and this very page, there is a lot of information that one might not necessarily pick up without doing a bit of outside-the-game research. - All Your Base Are Belong to Us
- The first large-scale battle in the game was Team Rocket's invasion of Four Island, against Team Liberty. Notably, this was the battle where one of Team Liberty's first major casualties occurred: Bluefalcon, one of their three leaders.
- Much later, Quincy Adams led an assault against Havoc, the main headquarters of Team Magma. Almost the entire organization was killed in the attack.
- Anime Hair: Naturally present, given the source material.
- And I Must Scream: The former inhabitants of Azalea Town, thanks to the Unown.
- Anyone Can Die: The casualty list in Rise of the Rockets is very high on almost all sides. Giovanni, Bluefalcon, Ace, Buzz, Carl Sandrock, Maxie, Archie, Ash Ketchum, Flint, Tate, Liza, Searcher... The list goes on and on.
- Artifact Title: "Rise of the Rockets" refers to the initial rise of Team Rocket into a multiple-region-spanning government power, and not necessarily to the conflicts that followed. As a result, while Team Rocket is still relevant, the title could be seen as unrelated to current events.
- Author Appeal: Comes in spades with the players.
- For examples from Parugi, the RPG's "author"/creator: There is a recurring theme of four with his influence on the game — four primary characters, four Shadow Admins, four Shadowed Man agents, four Team Rocket-controlled regions, Team Liberty operating from Four Island, etc...
- Author Avatar: In a few cases, to varying degrees.
- Authority Equals Asskicking: Played very, very straight; the leaders of the various organizations have been said to be the most powerful members of said organizations. Even then, Ford didn't believe that a combined effort by his and three other organizations would be enough to take over Kanto, solely because of Shadow Admin Sleight's presence there.
- Berserk Button: Oh so many.
- Play around with the dimensional fabric, and Nine will not hesitate to curb-stomp you.
- Big Bad: The story started out with Sleight as the primary Big Bad, but over time evolved into a...
- Big Bad Ensemble: Consisting of:
- The four Shadow Admins—Sleight, Joker, Ace, and Bounty—for the first arc, though they all eventually took a Heel–Face Turn (with the exception of Ace, who was Killed Off for Real early in the story.)
- Sombra, the leader of the Ancient Darkrai, a group of Darkrai so powerful that in ancient times they managed to almost usurp Arceus himself. Later defeated along with his followers, after three years real-time of slowly taking over Hoenn and Sinnoh.
- John Ford, a terrorist and mastermind who effectively organized his own takeover of Hoenn alongside countless attacks on various characters and groups. Along with his four Agents, he has effectively taken over as the Big Bad of the story.
- The Seven Deadly Sins, trainers who were somehow corrupted by the Ancients during their takeover of Hoenn and Sinnoh, although the Sins do not appear to bear any relation to the Ancients in terms of motives. While they act independently of each other and thus could be considered to share the status of Big Bad with each other (lower on the totem than Ford), Sloth appears to be the leader of the group itself, or at least the most powerful.
- Big Bad Ensemble: Consisting of:
- Brick Joke: On the way to confront Hayes in Coeur Tower, players Alku, Konuju, and Blade discussed what song would best represent the tone of the situation. One page later, after the fight had actually begun, Parugi provided his own suggestion.
- Chess Motif: Team Plasma's ranking system.
- Child Soldiers: Played straight for the primary factions for a number of reasons, not the least of which being player preference; a large number of the named characters tend to be anywhere from their early to late teens.
- The Chosen Ones: Evan Tierra, Seth Vicen and Kilm Prizak, to an extent, for the Sinnoh Dragons. Subverted in that they are more like caretakers and spreaders of the word than actual protectors.
- Cloud Cuckoolander: Done intentionally with Dan the Mad. Unfortunately, it strayed quickly into Troll territory, causing the character to eventually be shelved.
- The Darkrai called Seven could also be considered this, though to a lesser extent.
- Samuel Freeman also qualifies.
- Conservation of Ninjutsu: Happens all too often — even when the Game Master specifically tells people not to treat Mooks like a field of grass.
- Darker and Edgier
- Dark Is Not Evil: Blackskull, one of the leaders of the primary protagonist group, is a Dark-Type specialist.
- Demonic Possession: Implied with the jogger who completely obliterated Lavaridge City's remains. Later confirmed when it was revealed that this was, in fact, Sloth of the Seven Deadly Sins.
- Disney Death: Done with Jayron Aaron at one point; done again later, and more surprisingly, with Blackskull.
- Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: By now, it's impossible to count how many times certain people have had to be told this.
- Downer Ending: The Unova Arc, in which about a third of the region was destroyed and those responsible got away virtually unhindered, leaving those player characters involved to take the blame.
- Eldritch Abomination: Several, all of them beings of massive power, some from other dimensions, and most of them finding the idea of causing mass death and destruction to be a bit too enjoyable. The Unown and the Ancient Darkrai (with the possible exception of Nine) stand out in particular.
- Epic Fail: Ray ended up getting no sleep one night due to being unable to locate his assigned room in the Alamo.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Cruel as they might be, the Shadow Admins all have families and care deeply for their Pokémon.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Sure, Team Rocket forcibly rook control of the Kanto regions, but they would never stoop to the wanton killings of random civilians that they're so often accused of. Corrupt politicians, on the other hand...
- Fantasy Pantheon: A number of Legendary Pokémon are seen as this; however, with the exception of Arceus and a select few others, their powers are generally overplayed by the populace.
- Fate Worse than Death: The Ancient Darkrai (with the exception of Nine,) sealed away in various locations with the intent for them to never again see the light of day. Not that it sticks.
- Searcher being forced into a dimension full of nothingness, doomed to die alone, also qualifies.
- God Moders: Unfortunately happens from time to time. Caused a bit of an out of game Wham Episode when the Game Master posted a rather... heated message making his views clear on people doing as much after the forums came back online and god-modding became something of a common sight.
- Gotta Catch Them All: Surprisingly averted, given the source material. Justified in-game; even before Team Rocket destroyed Team Liberty's computer mainframe, it was stated that neither team had enough processing power to keep track of more than twenty Pokémon for all of the tens of thousands of trainers within each faction.
- Humanoid Abomination: Feral Tierra. The guy takes a bit too much joy in killing people...
- And new to the board, "Mr. Rage"—or rather, Wrath—from Ecruteak City. So much so that Legendary Pokémon lose all sensibility upon nearing him.
- Really, this applies to all of the Seven Deadly Sins trainers.
- Left Hanging: Many, many stories and characters have simply vanished off of the face of the earth as a result of player abandonment. See Unreliable Narrator below.
- Lethal Harmless Powers: Due to the mechanics of the game, attacks can be used in a lot more ways than they could elsewhere.
- Luke, You Are My Father: Shade/Damien Vicens to Seth Vicens.
- Mission Control: Done by Team Liberty, and to a lesser extent by the Shadowed Man.
- Ominous Multiple Screens: As used by John Ford and Sleight.
- One-Steve Limit: Totally averted. To elaborate, there are two Kyles, three Johns, three Ethans (two whose last names start with "W,") two Scotts, three Zack/Zach/Zacs, at least two Wills... The list goes on.
- Parental Issues: Numerous.
- Pokémon Speak: Both played straight (by most regular Pokémon) and averted (by virtually every Legendary Pokémon.)
- The Rest Shall Pass: Happens during the finale of the Ford plot, with the large group of trainers breaking up into smaller groups to deal with Ford's "Children."
- Rule of Three: Team Liberty is led by three people at a time. There are also the numerous groups of three Legendary Pokémon thanks to the source material.
- Running Gag: A rather dark example: If your name references the color green in any way, shape, or form, take warning — you will probably die.
- Sanity Slippage: Seems to be a gradual case with Kyle Eston, what with the random appearances of the black-haired boy that only he seems to be able to see. The injury he received during the attack on Four Island coupled with depression caused partially by his apparent Parental Abandonment seems to have played a part in it.
- Self-Destruct Mechanism: Possessed by all of the Team Rocket main bases. Only Purgatory's has been used at this point, to stop Eight and Three from gaining possession of any critical Rocket information.
- Shapeshifting: Reyna Draynes, as well as virtually any other Zorua/Zoroark, with varying degrees of their ability to keep a solid state.
- Shout-Out: Numerous, as seen here.
- Significant Anagram: The Sins, though usually referred to by their nicknames, have "real" names as well; some of these names can be rearranged to spell a synonym or other word related to the sin they embody.
- Skilled, but Naive: A very large number of player characters, most of them in their teens. One would think that in the face of nine elite enemy agents — including an Executive of said enemy group — smirking at and down-talking said elites would not be seen as a good idea.
- Storming the Castle
- Done twice by Team Liberty against Team Rocket's Hoenn base. Neither went particularly well.
- After one too many random attacks by Soil Colossus, Inc., Sleight personally led a raid against their main headquarters, completely wiping them out in the process.
- Ho-Oh took the fight against the Searchers straight to their base of operations after multiple attempts by them to capture it. They, too, were completely destroyed.
- The Two Island strike team, going to take down John Ford
- The Adjectival Man: The Shadowed Man/John Ford.
- The Group: The Searchers.
- Theme Naming: Very common, and in varying forms.
- The original Shadow Admins' code names are all terms from Poker, while the code names of the leaders of Team Liberty all consist of a color + a noun, I.E. Goldhawk, Silvermind, Blackskull.
- Additionally, the ten Ancient Darkrai are named in descending order from highest power level to lowest, with Sombra being Ten.
- John Ford and his operatives are all named after United States presidents.
- Don't forget the two Arthurs and their "Knights of the Round"
- In the most recent arc, a team of trainers based on the Seven Deadly Sins has appeared as major antagonists; unlike the previous examples, however, they literally embody the Sin they're nicknamed after.
- The Musical: At one point, Parugi played a minor prank on the players by decreeing that in-character posts would have to be written in the style of a musical. Hilarity ensued.
- Invoked with the first fight against Sombra on top of Mt. Coronet.
- Has become something of a Discredited Trope amongst the player base after being invoked heavily in the Black Kyurem battle.
- Took a Level in Badass: Every player character at one point or another.
- Unreliable Narrator: Actually Unreliable Players. For one reason or another, a large number of players have disappeared over the course of the game, leaving their characters — and in some cases, several fairly large plots — totally unresolved, along with forcing some non-player characters into a frozen state. As of late, Game Master Parugi has been working to resolve several of these plots.
- You Can Turn Back: Sonja offers this to Kyle when she begins to notice his strange behavior in Nuvema Town. He declines, stating that he isn't about to turn back when he had just arrived in Unova.
