How I've reconstructed the entire ranger system for pokemon <3 also - the reason everyone knows so much about pokemon while we know next to nothing about all the animals is because the pokemon world is a monolanguage world, which means that there are no secondary languages, so any school that in our dr would be giving a secondary language class now just give pokebiology instead.
How the Rangers work
To be a Pokémon Ranger, you need to be given a Ranger Recognition Certificate, kind of like a diploma. There's three ways to do so. You can apply to a normal Ranger school after middle school/high school, depending on school and program, which is the most common way. You can apply to a Ranger Finishing school which doesn't have any age restrictions, but is slightly shorter than regular Ranger school, and can only certificate you in one category - unlike the regular graduates that are considered to be on par with the other categories that aren't their own based on their education, ie the normal school graduates can use their ceritifcate to work as any given category, and even switch later on. Or you can take the GRCE (General Ranger Certification Exam), which gives you the certification to work under an established Ranger. However, if you do so, you'll need reference letters from a Mechanic or Operator to work as any sort of field ranger, and the exams are mostly for people that want to exclusively work as researchers or strategists. The following explanation and experience is based on the regular schooling route.
The Rangers are split into categories, all training the same for the first few years and then splitting off into their fields based on what position they want. The two distinctions are the Active agents and the Passive agents. The Passive agents are Mechanics, Operators; and the Active agents are Responders, Field Rangers and Agents. Responders, Field Rangers, Agents and Mechanics are then split off into their own respective sub categories.
The mechanics are the technical part. They're split into two, Techno and Bio, and they act as pokemon researchs of sorts. Techno mechanics are technology and innovation focused, researching man made fields to further develop assistance for the Rangers, and Bio mechanics are more inline with traditional Pokémon professors, only more involved and a LOT likely to do field work (for example, the "professor" from Pokémon snap is a Bio Mechanic, and employs people who are the same.)
The Operators are simple- they run strategy and intelligence in pre-established bases. They're more analysts and strategists, and typically don't do field work. They oversee assignments, assist Agents on missions and make sure everything runs smoothly. Also, management of the interregional board is run by Operators, and they're generally always the managers at bases.
The responders are EMTs, paramedics and, well, first responders. Respondsrs get divided into two categories; stationary and deployed. The stationary responders are stationed in towns to be the first responders in any emergency. They work closely with field rangers, and don't move from their stations, being one of the two subcategories of active agents that can generally plant roots in terms of the towns they stay in, and the only subcategory of active agents that aren't required to stay on shift. While they don't have shifts, but they're always on call. The second subcategory is deployed responders. They're almost never stationary, and based on analysis from operators, can be re-stationed weeks or even days after the first assignment. A lot of them don't have stable houses, in fact, and either stay in the bases they're assigned to, or go for nonstaionary housing like vans.
The field Rangers are the most common and well known category. They get divided into two: land and sea. Comparibly, they act like the coast guard and forest Rangers at their core, but following the five pillars, ensuring safety of people and pokemon and keeping peace. They are NOT cops - they do NOT have arresting power, nor is it their duty to safeguard personal interest. What they DO help with though is man made and natural disasters and problems alike. Sea Rangers are situated in either coastal towns or for trouble concerning sea pokemon and ships, on floating bases, similar to housing boats. And Land Rangers are situated in towns, on shift in bases. Depending on shiftload, both types of Rangers might choose to live in base or switch to more permanent housing.
Lastly, agents. This is the category I'm training for, and so is Jackie - and this is the category dad is. We're all training for/are in the deployed subcategory. Agents are generally the "everything else" of Pokémon Rangers. We're the ones that get sent for big threats, and for long intelligence missions. We're the ones that go undercover, escort people, and attend duties. That being said, we're also the smallest of the categories. We're divided into two: intelligence agents and deployed agents. Intelligence agents are agents that take one specific kind of mission, and mingle with folks from all over the world to get information to the operators. They move entirely depending on what area operators need knowledge from, and usually take on many different names. They also make up about 3/4ths of all agents. The second (and final) category is the deployed agents. We -essentially- do everything else. The Rangers from the movies that get assigned missions, the ones that track legendaries, go undercover, take down operations, act as bodyguards: it's us. Which sounds fun until you realize it's both grueling work, and means we have no guarantee for anything. Stability, security, protection, nothing. But still, I wouldn't trade it for the world.
Rangers don't serve a government and they get their money through a unionized understanding between the different regions. They're a multinational network which means that every Ranger base in every single region works under the same name, and they're all controlled by the original jurisdictions. That's why we get to have the Central jurisdiction and the four divisions of ranger school jurisdictions. Thus the specifically provided ranger documents like passports are the only ones that can allow you to travel without restrictions from region to region.
Governments of different regions, if they want to have the protection of the Rangers, (and trust me that they do) have to put aside a specific amount of money for the Rangers to fund us. However, they don't get a say in what we're doing and how we're doing it, because we are multiregional. If and only if all of them can agree on a specific rule that they'd like us to follow then we'll take it to our own board. But yeah we are paid for by the different regions but we don't work for them. There's nothing they can do about us which makes us different from cops and Healthcare professionals.
Ranger community
Being a ranger can actually be very lonely. Because of the nature of the way we're stationed only mechanics and operators can guarantee that they're not just gonna up and move, and even the people that generally stay in the same places like stationary responders or land rangers tend to just be expected to drop everything and then just get on shift or get on call. A lot of Rangers will actually only have relationships (familial, platonic or romantic) with other Rangers, not just out of preference but out of happenstance. So if you're not into that whole, like, "we're family and we're all we can guarantee to have" kind of vibe; you're gonna be very, very lonely as a ranger. On the other hand, Rangers as a community is incredibly tight-knit and if you're a ranger or you know a ranger and you need something, a flash of a badge will usually get you anything that you need. The main motivation behind this being; we as rangers, we have to look after one another and help each other. It's part of our code, our system.
Any big general security risk within a region (things like huge cruise ships or tournaments - anything that require a lot of Pokémon and people to be in one spot) generally tend to be required to have at least one or two rangers either field rangers or first responders on board. This means that Rangers or anybody connected to the ranger network can know about any events that are going on through the network itself. If you need to be at any of these events (and this is interregional, so in any region at all) or if you need something from an event, if you show up there and you explain yourself, show your badge and tell them "Hey I'm a ranger by the way" you'll probably get what you need.
The schools and jurisdictions
There are five main schools and five jurisdictions (a jurisdiction being a predetermined area and the schools in that area that operate under their respective main schools) and the five jurisdictions represent the 5 pillars of the rangers (the four supporting pillars and the central pillar which in itself is unity). The four supporting pillars are freedom, innovation, protection, cooperation (innovation used to be intelligence but was later reshaped and innovation encapsulates intelligence in fact that jurisdiction is known as the "operators and mechanics jurisdiction". Cooperation used to be known as collaboration.) and the main pillar is unity.
The jurisdictions are divided into 5 based on the location compared to the first school (given its interregional) there's the Central jurisdiction, the East, the West, the South and the North.
The oldest school, the first one founded and the longest pre-established one is the Central school and jurisdiction. It represents the main pillar because unity is the first and foremost pillar of the Rangers, and the other jurisdictions were founded around them. The rest is innovation to the South, protection to the North, freedom to the East and cooperation to the west.
General notes
Unless you go to one of the 5 main schools then you're just gonna get randomly assigned a station based on personal accomplishment anyways, and if you do go to one of the 5 main schools your jurisdiction really only gives you a chance to choose whether or not you want to go with that pillar as a foundation.
When a single schools children are standing next other children from their own jurisdiction it's easy to tell the schools apart because their uniforms all have different variations and it looks different enough, (different patterns, slightly different logos, different cuts, etc) but when you put the children from schools under different jurisdictions together you can pretty much tell who's from where because the jurisdictions all have independent color schemes and general guidelines for their uniforms.
The tournament
What is referred to as the tournament arc/the tournament is this pre established competition between the 5 jurisdictions and the champion schools of said jurisdictions in this 4 tier tournament to see which jurisdiction has the single team of highest performing rangers of that year, between students who are a year or two from seniority, depending on school.
It has four rounds - the first being a series of tests within each jurisdiction to find their champions, followed by three rounds: the first round is the preliminaries which eliminates 2 schools, the semifinals and the finals.
In the eliminary rounds each school competes against the other 4 in this all for one type of battle of skill, and this round - because it's called the preliminaries- it has more general knowledge and essentially tests all the chosen champions of the chosen schools on their ranger skills. This is the action part of everything, where you're going against the other schools to show that you know what you're doing on field and you're going to be the best agents that you can be.
After this, the 3 schools that have the highest scores are taken to the semi finals in which they compete in a knowledge competition in a sort of acadeca to show that they are the best technical and academical wise as well. This is where the teams expand, because the preliminary rounds (to of keep the number of competitors small in field) is just the chosen duo teams, and when the schools going to the semifinals are picked, they bring out an operator and mechanic duo to help the chosen ranger duo. In the preliminaries it's ten people and then in the semifinals it's twelve people competing and then in the finals it's supposed to be the final two schools with eight people. One exception is if in the semifinals all three schools or the last two schools get the same score; in which case everybody moves on to the finals round.
In the finals round it's back to the original equation where you're on field and all three groups are given the same scenario - whoever does the best in said scenario wins. This again is made for the four person groups; the mechanic, the operator and then the ranger duo.
The mechanic is given time with the operator to run intelligence; get the stats, run some strategies and give the Rangers the tools that they need, and then the Rangers take over in the second part of the finals and use the given tools and information to carry the teams to victory.
The schools are judged on both what the Rangers themselves end up doing in a stressful, emergency situation and what the strategy team does in the first round, and how they help within the second part with real time information and assistance.
Tournament Arc
For the tournament arc, every jurisdiction fights/competes with and within itself before the main tournament,and then it's once the champion schools are picked, those schools get sent to the tournament.
The schools use this rivalry to keep their students focused and on board; because you know, when the exams are coming and you want your students to give it their all you're not just going to be like "oh, like, work hard to be the best rangers that you can be someday!!" because, you know, these are children... and those are exams....
So of course like they'll be the best rangers they can but they're not gonna work that hard for school if there's no incentive to do so; but if you're like "okay guys we need to work extra hard to beat those other schools!!" then children are going to eat that shit up, so the jurisdictions "fight amongst each other" and then the jurisdictions all "fight against each other" in the main tournament. They're all "against each other" but it is, for the most part, and especially for the children, all fun and games, because at the end of the day they're all going to be Rangers and once you graduate from school jurisdiction doesn't really matter.
When you're fighting against people in the same jurisdiction during the initial phase of the tournament you're all going against the other schools and it's very much of a school VS school thing because you're all trying to be, for example, THE school from the East to partake in the general tournament. But once the actual tournament begins, everybody in that jurisdiction is going to become one body because at that point you as the easterners, for example, are fighting against the other four jurisdictions to be the best one.
The East and the West, they have some variations when it comes to which schools they're sending to the main tournament. Every few years one of the smaller schools will end up winning in the jurisdictions own tournament and then getting to go to the main one because the East and the West's schools were established as the main schools within their own jurisdictions later on; but for the most part, most likely it's just going to be the 5 main schools in the final tournament. (people obviously work against that every year there's always some amount of "we're going to be the big school haha you guys are going down" but like it's the same thing)
With our year it's also the same thing, except the teachers up north with the protection are way too old headed and the teacher down south with innovation are way too like "forward thinking" to the point where the southerners and the northerners are both sort of not thinking of the Rangers as people but more like things too like used to be the best, thus going against the pillars and risking the integrity of the schools.
Because the Eastern West are not as structurally sound within their jurisdiction they tend to lose the first round and going forward it's just me and Jackie as the Central pillars reps. It's us, the northerners and the southerners going into the semifinals and the finals.
The thing is our teachers in the central are not allowed to be biased because we are the oldest ranger school - which means that we are also the Judges. On top of training us they have to keep the entire tournament rolling basically. This has been, by the way, a very very big reason why for years now it's always been down to the southerners or the northerners - because until this point the Central pillar aka us have been so goddamn focused on keeping everything afloat and the entire thing going to really focus on the tournament itself. This year because my dad trained both Jackie and I as rangers and helped our little team of four separately from our teachers we were able to finally stand a chance.
This also means that our teachers have to be very very unbiased while the other teachers get to fuck around and find out with their students and there is actually a lot of cheating going around that we just aren't aware of or we just can't be aware, being spread too thin too regulate the other schools too closely. Nothing crazy, but it definitely gives the other schools an unfair advantage against us.
The board of Rangers
The interregional board has 10 seats, two for each main category. For categories that have subcategories, both subcategories must be represented at all times.
The schools that win the tournament - their jurisdiction is generally the spearhead for that year within the board, so to the students it's all fun and games, but to the teachers it's a lot more important. If your jurisdiction wins, then for the entire year you're the leader in the board and the southerners want this because they want to make more innovation with more tech and lean more on tech than on Pokémon and the northerners want this because they want to stop this steamrolling of technology. They're both wrong because, like; yes we need more technology and the northerners are wrong in the aspect that they want to stop innovation altogether and that is impossible because innovation and forward thinking is a core pillar in itself. But the Southerners are also wrong because they want to keep going forward without any brakes or any checks and this greatly endangers people which goes against ALSO a course pillar that is protection because protection also includes Rangers themselves so it's very important that (and they didn't explain this part to us when we were training) the central wins so we can enforce some regulations before it gets out of hand.
When the Central jurisdiction is the spearhead within the board, they have the power to make proposals that can only be challenged by another Central spearhead - which means that the other four pillars that aren't the main pillar can all challenge the rules made by the others in the previous years, but the Central jurisdiction (because we're the main pillar) have that special power when it comes to ruling within the board we can sort of be like "uh no actually you're not making this stupid ass rule" and only the Central jurisdiction again can challenge that.
These are all original btw!! This was all in my voice notes which were then VERY painfully transcribed, polished and compiled by yours truly I love my pokemon Rangers dr. This is like. Maybe 1/3rds of everything I have, including me and my friends, my so, my dad, my homelife, pokemon etc. @itsangelicasworld here you go queen it's a LONGG one (almost 3.5k words) but I hope you enjoyed <3 I also have a playlist for this dr and a "meet me in my dr" edit if you wanna see
