What ate your thoughts on the PC storage system? How do the Pokemon inside feel? Are they just set into a hibernation-like state until switched out, or are they fully conscious while inside?
I don’t have any personal experience with the PC storage system. And quite frankly I have no desire to have any. Much like Poké Balls, I just have a visceral distaste for them personally.
Talking to Pokémon who have had the experience…apparently it’s a bit different from being in a Poké Ball. In a Poké Ball there’s still some small degree of conscious awareness and control; it’s kind of like they’re dreaming, but in a light sleep state that keeps them aware that something’s going on outside. In the PC, it’s like they’re in suspended animation - they have no cognizance of the world around them, they’re pretty much fully immersed in a dream state. There’s not a real sense of time passing or anything, just a simulated world of their mind’s creation.
Pokémon apparently don’t age while in the PC system. That doesn’t surprise me - they’ve essentially been converted to another type of existence which isn’t really that affected by time. Not that they’re terribly affected by aging in the first place, but still, it’s kinda creepy knowing that you could essentially be a year younger just by staying in the PC. However…staying in the PC that long could have seriously detrimental psychological effects, including an inability to readjust to the real world. This plagued the PC system in the early days, and it was the famous Bill who came up with the solution that revolutionized the system and made it viable for mass use. System administrators execute a program that basically refreshes Pokémon daily; the contents of the program are beyond me, but supposedly it makes Pokémon actually conscious for a few seconds while still remaining data on the PC. Pokémon aren’t aware of this happening, but they gain brief awareness about the outside world, which means when they finally are woken up for real they don’t have a lengthy readjustment process. The program runs automatically, so even if the administrator is incapacitated in some way, it won’t harm the Pokémon in the system. It all sounds kinda crazy to me, but it works, so…
Despite this, it’s still considered bad form to leave a Pokémon in storage for too long without outside access. There’s a system in place where Pokémon are released by the administrator for a day every month to spend outside in the real world. Some trainers may also choose to set up local systems which allow someone they know and trust to hold on to their Pokémon outside the storage system while they aren’t in active use, which I think would be a better idea overall.
I don’t know this for a fact, but I’ve heard rumors that, should there ever be some sort of apocalypse-level scenario, the PC system has an emergency catastrophic release system - essentially, the system would destroy itself to release every Pokémon stored in there. I’m not sure how much this is real as opposed to trying to alleviate the concerns of people using the system - it sounds pretty impossible to me, personally. But I hope it’s true.
