Headscratchers / Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon

• Does Photon Geyser ignore abilities like Sunsteel Strike and Moongeist Beam do? Because when I battled Ultra Necrozma, my Golem was at full health and had Sturdy, yet Photon Geyser OHKO'd (I had the Lax Incense, which turned out to matter for that). I didn't see anything on Serebii on Photon Geyser negating abilities, unless there's something else that Ultra Necrozma has along those lines.
  • Indeed it does, its just not listed in the official description in the game. And Serebii's attack dex does now state the move ignores abilities.
• Why does the player have to fight Ultra Necrozma? If Ultra Necrozma is Necrozma's original form, wouldn't it be better to just leave it that way?
  • Probably because Necrozma's true form can only be obtained by fusing with Solgaleo/Lunala or steal a world's light. At least that's what I think.
    • But then why didn't the Ultra Recon Squad fuse Necrozma with their Solgaleo/Lunala?
    • Exploiting and hurting Necrozma even though it just wanted to help is what got their people into their current predicament to begin with. The Ultra Recon Squad probably wanted to find a way to restore Necrozma without having to resort to a method like sacrificing their Solgaleo/Lunala to it. Remember that when Necrozma fuses with either of them, it completely overrides their will. It’s not clear if Solgaleo/Lunala are still conscious when fused, but either way, that would be a pretty terrible thing to do to what appear to be their helpful steeds. Besides that, it doesn’t seem as though Necrozma could truly reclaim its form permanently anyway - when it tried to do it by absorbing Nebby, it just hurt itself more, and even with the addition of the N-Solarizer/N-Lunarizer and the Z-Ring with Ultranecrozium Z to stabilize everything, it can only maintain the form for the duration of a battle.
  • Even in its Ultra state Necrozma was still crazed from its past injury. Its stated that due to this injury it cannot control the light it feeds on, and thus despite it being so hungry feeding only causes it more pain. In other words fusing with Solgaleo/Lunala on its own would not help Necrozma.
  • For that matter, what happened to their Furfrou? You see it for all of one battle, and then it's gone forever. Did they release it so they can raise Poipole? Do they just like Poipole more?
    • The Furfrou just struck me as a proof-of-concept battle on their end; could they reliably wield Alola Pokémon if they had to? Once that was answered, they returned to using a Pokémon they were more familiar with.
  • Because Necrozma had absorbed Nebby. (Of course, this is without considering no one had any idea if defeating Ultra Necrozma would bring Nebby back, but still...
• If the Ultra Recon Squad had Solgaleo/Lunala all along, why didn't they use them in battle? Or use them to restore Necrozma's light?
  • Its stated their people do not capture or command pokemon in battles, the Ultra Recon Squad only learning how to do so after arriving in Alola. Their arrangement with their Solgaleo/Lunala seems to be only having it help them travel to other worlds. Indeed they state they lack the power to command Solgaleo/Lunala in battle.
    • In fact, Soliera explicitly tells you in Ultra Moon, right before you head to Ultra Megalopolis, that they can't battle with their Solgaleo.
• Why did Lusamine still have the frozen Pokemon? In the originals, it was part of her Nihilego drug addiction, but that element wasn't part of the Ultra games. It's just kinda...there, and never spoken of again.
  • Actually, while its easy to miss, there is still a Aether Foundation employee who explains that they are working to restore the frozen pokemon to their previous state. She's the one in the lab who gives you the Soul Dew and other items. As for Lusamine's motivation for it in this version, it still seems to have stemmed from her issues regarding being abandoned by others and wanting to control those close to her. This version of Lusamine is more stable but she still has issues.
    • At least the same issues that led to the creation of Type:Null too. The only difference between them is that the toxins made one more selfish while the absence gave the other one very flimsy reasons to do what she did.
  • Maybe it was also to help justify that she wasn't using the PC - thus she wouldn't know of Poké Pelago. After all, her desire for control came from a result of Mohn going missing, then Lillie & Gladion running away. If she used Pelago instead, she'd have seen Mohn.
  • Even in the originals, Lusamine only got infected by Nihilego venom after she actually arrived in Ultra Space and interacted with their swarm. All of her actions prior to that were her own choices, coloured by grief over Mohn. That's why, even after Nebby purifies her of all the Nihilego venom, Lillie mentions that she's still having trouble understanding why her actions during the game were wrong.
• Once you get to Paniola Town Hau says he got his Z-Ring after he made it through Hala's Grand Trial, implying he managed to beat Hala on the first try this time(as opposed to losing but still being considered good enough in the originals). Yet every other bit of dialogue referencing it all but says he lost. So what did he mean earlier?
  • Perhaps, given that in this game Hau is more aware of his shortcomings as a trainer he recognizes that Hala takes it easy on him in battles, and considers his win a loss since Hala didn't go all out against him.
• When the trainer arrives at the Ultra Forest, they encounter trainers who speak in Japanese. Despite this, the text isn't rendered in a way for the player to understand what is being said, implying that the player character — who is from Kanto, which in Pokemon is Japan — also doesn't understand what is being said. They can't have been in Alola so long they've forgotten their own language.
  • Considering this is literally an alternate universe, who says that's actual Japanese? Maybe it's a Starfish Language that happens to sound like Japanese-sounding gibberish.
  • Remember, there are 4 regions based off of Japan(or at least parts of it): Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, and Sinnoh. So they could just be speaking Johtonian, Hoennian, or Sinnohish Japanese.
  • Here's another question: What do the trainers even say? Why does one of them speak English (the first one you meet) but the rest don't?
• One of the Seven Mysteries involves reading a book at the Trainers' School's second floor. It turns out to be a prank made by a Drifloon, taking advantage of an attempt at making a horror story book, but this raises a few questions. Who wrote the book? Was it Drifloon? Did Drifloon take the book to the school? Or Drifloon merely found the book and found it convenient? No matter the question, they all end on Drifloon being able to read (if not outright write) books for humans... which still doesn't answer anything.
  • We see from another of the mysteries (this one involving Hypno), that pokemon with illusion-creating abilities can create surprisingly complex and realistic scenarios involving humans, either through imitation of them, observing them, or reading their thoughts. So it is possible that the Drifloon thought up the book's scenario and fed it into our character's mind, making them think they were reading it when they weren't. We see with the Gastly as well that Ghost type pranks often involve messing with a person's perception.
• While everyone else in Rainbow Rocket having a legendary makes sense since their plans revolved around capturing that Pokémon, why does Giovanni have Mewtwo? Team Rocket's evil plans were fairly mundane compared to all the other teams. They were basically just racketeering, extorting, committing Pokémon Cruelty, and mild ecoterrorism. (Then to Take Over the World using Pokémon) When did Mewtwo come into this? Was there something explained in some kind of supplementary material that this is a different Giovanni whose goal was to capture Mewtwo?
  • It was probably mostly just a reference to the anime, where Giovanni funded Mewtwo's creation and considered himself its owner. Even if in the games Giovanni had nothing to do with Mewtwo's creation though, him having it still makes some sense. Team Rocket's motto is that all pokemon exist for the sake of Team Rocket, and getting control of the most powerful pokemon to originate from Kanto (Mewtwo) could be seen as a natural expression of this motto.
  • If one pays attention to several points in the original Blue and Red games, an argument can be made that, while Team Rocket being behind its creation is not stated, capturing Mewtwo is one of their goals (or at least the ones Giovanni had a hand in). In the first encounter with Giovanni, he drops a Silph Scope, an item used for detecting (therefore enabling the capture of) Ghost Pokémon, which have a type advantage over Psychic Pokémon (well, reportedly anyway). And the next time you meet him he's attacking Silph Co., and upon his defeat the owner gives you the Master Ball Team Rocket was looking for, an item capable of catching any Pokémon. While the evidence is circumstantial, it seems that most of the actions of Team Rocket during the course of Red and Blue were for the purposes of capturing Mewtwo. Even when you factor in the locations you first encounter Team Rocket (at three different points in the vicinity of Cerulean City: Mt. Moon, Trainer Bridge, and the Dig Man's House) there seems to be a tenuous-at-best but still present connection to Mewtwo.
  • A lot more credence can be lent to the above theory if one takes into account the various additions/clarifications given to TR's takeover of Silph in the Lets Go games. Namely, in addition to wanting access to the prototype Master Ball, they are stated to want to force Silph scientists to use research stolen by TR to "create" powerful pokemon for TR. This research is implied to have been taken from records left by Dr. Fuji and his team from when they created Mewtwo.
• There's a person who will tell you which region any of your Pokemon are from. Does he mention Orre by name if you bring him a Pokemon from Colosseum or its sequel?
  • No, the person doesn't mention that the Pokémon in question comes from Orre, and thus, no special background when taking photos at any photo club will appear.
• There's an NPC at Hau'oli City's pier who tells you that you should take a ship to travel from island to island, because riding on a Pokémon will tire them out. Did he forget about Mantine Surf, which is really popular?
  • Or the Ride Charizards for that matter. It could simply be he is referring to regular pokemon, rather than those specially raised or trained for transport.
• Why exactly is Numel/Camerupt the only Pokémon with a Mega Evolution not obtainable between the two games (besides event-exclusive Diancie)? Considering that you're able to catch even the starters than can Mega Evolve, the fact that every other Pokémon with a Mega Evolution is in the game except for them seems rather random and odd.
• If Totem Stickers are meant for Trainers to follow on their island challenge, why are some stowed away in obscure locations where the captains KNOW people won't find them easily?
  • Some of them may have been moved by Team Skull members (though mostly they put them at their headquarters), but keep in mind that the Trial Captains don't intend for trainers to find every sticker (its Oak who tasks you with doing that), so they may hide some in obscure places just for a lark.
• Is that really how the game classifies light years going through the Ultra Warp Ride? One light year is 5.88 trillion miles or so, and if you can reach over 2,000 in over a minute, then the spatial dimension that Solgaleo/Lunala travels through must not be that wide.
  • Realistic scale was probably not a priority for the developers. It would be best to apply the MST3K Mantra to this one.
• It's stated that some time in the distant past, some civilization tried to take more light from Necrozma than ever before and ended up literally breaking it. One of the only things shown to alleviate its rampage is giving it light from your Z-Ring (or Z-Crystals; can't remember the exact wording). Additionally, it's said that both the Totem Auras and Z-Powers in general all came from Necrozma's power leaking across dimensions into Alola. Given that Necrozma is kinda crystalline-looking, are the Z-Crystals actually shattered pieces of Necrozma's original body?
  • That is one theory (rather explicitly stated in a postgame scene with Kukui), though it is also indicated that its body breaking happened before it went to Alola centuries ago (though its not entirely clear to me what the precise order of events were). Also my understanding wasn't that the people of Ultra Megalopolis tried to take more light than before, but rather that they tried to take control of Necrozma itself so they could take its energy whenever they wanted. Presumably quite a struggle occurred, and whatever they did to try to control Necrozma caused it to "lose part of its body." What happened to that part afterward is unclear. Perhaps that part fell through dimensions and scattered across Alola, but its also indicated that Necrozma's power scattered across Alola came there during a visit it paid to the islands, presumably before or after it lost this part (presumably after since it had to be driven away), not at the same time since it lost that part in a different dimension. Perhaps they were two different events though, the "light" of Necrozma pouring from the wormholes touched various now sacred sites and enabled pokemon to become totem pokemon, while its broken body part scattering at a different time became/created the Z-crystals or the ore used for Z-power rings.
• Ultra Warp Ride. Even if I accept that through some freak of natur...al selection the same kinds of Pokemon in the "regular" world came to exist on a world thousands of lightyears away, how in the name of Arceus is a PC system designed regionally able to receive a Pokemon's data from that distance at all, let alone nearly instantaneously?
  • Its heavily implied that at least some of the other worlds are parallel universes (Guzzlord's world seems to be an alternate Hau'oli city that is part of a pokemon world that was ruined by a power plant accident), much like the parallel worlds the various Rainbow Rocket leaders came from, explaining why they can have the same sorts of pokemon. As for how data can be transferred, perhaps the portals make them effectively much closer, or its just a gameplay mechanic so that you don't have to always have room in your party if you want to catch something.
• Why does Cyrus stores Dialga/Palkia in a master ball despite knowing that it locks it's power and thus would prevent him from achieving his goal?
  • What do you mean "locks its power"?
• Why do all of the team leaders store their Pokemon in master balls? It makes sense for Giovanni but it makes no sense for the other bosses.
  • They come from alternate worlds where they won in their Team schemes in some way. Perhaps the Master balls were their win condition?

• what’s up with the abandoned thrifty megamart?
  • Care to elaborate?
  • The Abandoned Thrifty Megamart was built on lands sacred to Tapu Bulu, and he destroyed it in a fit of rage.

• "The president will not awaken for some time. I have used the power of that Ultra Beast to make her sleep... And when she awakens next, she will be a loyal servant to my will!" Giovanni, during the Rainbow Rocket thing. What Ultra Beast is he talking about? Nihilego and Pheromosa don't have anything that could put her to sleep, Xurkitree and Blacaphaelon don't have anything you could swing as controllling people like Nihilego's toxins or Pheromosa's pheromones, is there another Ultra Beast that never gets brought up again? Bad translation? Playing loosely with what Hypnosis can do? Playing loosely with what Nihilego or Pheromosa can do?
  • Colress mentions that Necrozma's power was involved in the appearance of the Rocket Castle and the RR leaders. This is probably what Giovanni is talking about. It's not that Necrozma itself has an ability that involves brainwashing; instead, Giovanni has found a way to use its raw power as fuel for some kind of technology that does the job.
• So Festival Plaza is actually a virtual-reality computer simulation, as we see when Sophocles restarts the system after Team Rainbow Rocket takes over. Okay. But what about all the things you can do in Festival Plaza that have real effects outside? It makes sense that trading Pokémon would be possible, as it's already well-established in the series that Pokémon can be stored and transported as data.^note In-universe, I mean — in the real world they're always data, no question about that. Battling makes sense too, as battling never occurs in Festival Plaza except with online/facility rules, which happen to be exactly the limitations you'd expect a simulated battle to have.^note As in, it doesn't actually affect anything outside the battle — Pokémon leave the battle with their HP and status exactly as it was before the battle, no experience is gained, Bag items are inaccessible, etc. What doesn't make sense is all the facilities, which do have those types of lasting effects. Things like the lottery/item shops can be Hand Waved as just having the items you win/buy sent to you instead of literally obtaining them from the shops, like in real life. Dyeing your clothes, that you're either wearing or (presumably, since you can change at any store) carrying in your Bag, doesn't make much sense. Neither does letting your Pokémon exercise and gain actual EVs, or gaining levels at the Rare Kitchen, etc. If a VR simulation really can do all those things in the Pokémon universe, there's a lot of untapped potential there.