Everyone is saying that the professor is grinding the Pokémon into candy, but consider the following:
• The professor frantically running around with assistants, inspecting hundreds of thousands of pidgeys a day, getting bitten and screeched at while they try to figure out if this pidgey has been tagged yet so they release them back to track their migration
• Panicked interns trying to scoop the ekanses back into their tank because theyre freaking out the rattatas
• Three caterpies climbed into a vent and evolved into metapods that are too far in to reach so six underpaid college students are trying to dismantle ductwork
• Theres a big door marked “KEEP OUT” because a dozen oddish evolved into a squad of Vileplumes and until they stop releasing stun spores the entire room is just off limits
• Hundreds of researchers running on red bull and determination trying to tag and examine all the Pokemon but having to turn off the machine every once in a while to the discontent of trainers who are all getting a “Sorry, the servers are currently down” message at LEAST twice a day
• “GPS not found” flashes while returning a big group and suddenly Florida has been gifted 6,000 mankeys right in the middle of Epcot
• Someone in the back room up to their waist in stale dog treats with a bunch of little stamps. They sigh deeply at how gullible Pokemon trainers are that they think these things actually do anything other than excite the Pokemon so much they evolve
• Actual science professor surrounded by chaos and interns and a budget just too small
Pokedexes have always been biological survey equipment, and this? Right here? Is largely how actual biology surveys work- you catch and release LARGE numbers of the species you’re studying, as large as you can afford, sometimes keeping them in the lab for observation first. Also if they were running on the average funding of a US university/public bio lab, this would explain… basically everything about the app.
It Also explains why the professor is like HERES SOME POKEBALLS CATCH EM HERES SOME TEAMS FOR FRIENDLY COMPETITION GOGOGO and then vanishes. If he’s running a whole survey on his own he’s probably running on sheer determination and sleeping on his office couch.
If his office couch is even visible anymore.
At this point some of the cleverer pokemon have been hired on as well as well. Imagine an Alakazam working as bonafide translator for the scientists and pokemon, since psychic pokemon have telepathy to properly convey thoughts to the humans who can’t understand pokespeak.
And what if that Alakazam worked its way up from a little lonely Abra who stayed only because the scientists there were really sweet and it wanted to help out. Imagine that little Abra teleporting around the building, delivering coffee and mail to even the most isolated researchers.
This is the Pokemon content I signed up for
Oh my gosh. We’re not gangsters. We’re grad students.
