âHow long have you been working on the storage system?â
âIâve been with it since its inception, actually, so that would beâohâseveral years now. My partner, a Kantonian named Bill, and I went to Celadon University together, and one day, he shared the original prototype of the system with me. Back then, it had a text-based interface and was nearly unnavigable, and I told him that under no circumstances could he release something like that to you poor trainers. He invited me to help him develop the system further, and I gave it a proper GUI and cleaned up his code a bit. The system saw a worldwide release only a few months after that.â
âOoh, that sounds like a lot of hard work! Can you share what challenges you faced in implementing it?â
âWell, it was hard at first to convince people to want it in the first place!â
âYeah. Itâs a great idea, and the general public thinks so now, of course, but how do you explain it to people who have no background in quantum mechanics, engineering, or digital physics? I canât tell you how many times my partner and I have had to convince others that the system is perfectly safe, that PokĂ©mon donât feel a thing when theyâre transferred, that itâs impossible to delete or modify PokĂ©mon as they pass through the system, and so on and so forth. If you can think of a question regarding whether or not PokĂ©mon would be harmed as they pass through the system, Iâve had to answer it at least 10 times.
âAnd that isnât even getting into the financial aspect of it. I wonât go into too many details about that for fear of boring you, but let me just say that convincing people to invest in putting a PC in every PokĂ©mon Center turned out to be far, far more complicated than figuring out a way to turn living creatures into electricity and data.â
âHuh, I didnât know that! But hey, since weâre on the subject⊠Iâm sure Iâm not the only one wondering this, but how does it all work? You know, the process of storing PokĂ©mon?â
âOh, I canât tell you all the details, partly because some of it is a trade secret and partly because the full explanation may take more time than youâd probably like. Whenever any of usâBill, myself, or the other administrators, I meanâwhenever weâre asked this, we often compare it to a telephone. Basically, a telephone works by converting the sound of your voice into electrical pulses, sending those through a wire as electricity or through the air as radio waves, and converting those pulses back into your voice on the other end. The storage system works in a similar manner. The matter converter breaks down a PokĂ© Ball, draws it into the digital matrix, and sends it into our cloud-based system until you specify a destination whenever you withdraw a PokĂ©mon. Thereâs a bit more to it than that, but then weâd have to get into the nature of PokĂ©mon and how itâs possible for them to perceive their surroundings, even in an electro-digital state such as the one they assume inside a PokĂ© Ball, and that gets a bit messy.â
âIt all sounds so complex and fascinating. Iâm sure I speak for everyone when I say that I couldnât imagine being a trainer without the storage system! Is there anything you want to say to all the trainers out there whose lives have been made easier because of your work?â
âMuch of what we do isnât for you; itâs because of you. So the first thing Iâd like to do is thank our users, not only for using the system but also for going out, exploring the world, and discovering new and exciting things. In turn, you inspire us to create and explore, and with your help, we come that much closer to understanding the PokĂ©mon we share the world with. And with that said, second, never stop being curious. Keep exploring, and keep befriending the people and PokĂ©mon you meet.â
Lanetteâs dialogue was written by @bills-pokedex! Her blog is this awesome project where she writes PokĂ©dex entries as the PokĂ©mon researchers Bill and Lanette, and it also doubles as a platform for trainers to ask for advice! There was no one else I wouldâve considered for writing the Lanette conversation, and after reading this, Iâm sure you all see why. Be sure to check her blog out! :)