[Game thread] Skull Ruins Pokerole

[Iron]

"I'd love to see those Pokemon, Nathan. I have plenty of yardspace."

"The devices send a manual request to me personally, which I have to fulfill using my admin privileges. But yes I could be a conduit for you to your PC Storage system. Swap any Pokemon, including held items."

Whatever kind of time skip this is, to the yard!

"Let me grab those pokemon from the PC real quick, I'll be right back."

Once Nathan's grabbed the pokemon in question (plus two more), it's time to show them off to Bill! (while Shiva's not around, ideally)

"I've got some TMs to teach two of them, and the third...well, he's...special.  I'll explain that when I get to him.  So, here goes..."

In summary, the pokemon are:
- Ray, who Nathan will teach the Psychic TM to after thanking the 'saur for his help back at Ancestor Cave
- Delta? Tropius, who Nathan will teach the Stealth Rock TM to (Nathan makes sure to warn Bill to give her plenty of space and try not to annoy her).  If it's still raining, Forthright also comes out to use Sunny Day again.  Nathan still wants to get off on the right foot with the sauropod, so hopefully she appreciates the gift...
- Orthros (who's just generally happy to meet a new friend!  *bark bark!*  *wag wag*)

How do Ray and D?-Tropius react to their new TM moves, and what kinds of questions does Bill have for Nathan about the three pokemon?



Back inside at the present time:

Nathan thinks for a moment...

"Hmmmm...alright, I'll field test it for ya.  It does sound really, really, useful, and it would probably minimize a lot of risk if it works.  Though it does make me wonder...if you can develop something like this to work as a time travel thing, what's stopping you from developing something similar that works in the present day?  Being able to conduct long distance trades any time, anywhere, or access the Pokemon Storage System from anywhere would be incredibly handy in general."

He shrugs.  "Just a thought, I suppose."

Ray accepts the Psychic TM as his fair due. Whenever Nathan works with him, or chooses him in battle, or gives him a good Held Item or new move, Ray accepts it as minor worship/honor. 

Tropius is first and foremost interested in the sunlight suddenly pouring down, but you get the feeling she will be really really excited to actually use that move in battle. She kind of has an instinct to do that, but didn't have the capability up until now.

"Wow, amazing Delta Pokemon! Some don't like 'em, but I love 'em! It took a while to make the PC system recognize them properly. They could be stored safely, but if you had a Delta and a similar Pokemon it would sometimes deliver the wrong one. That's all sorted out now, and we're even working on some tech to improve it. My newest app will be able to identify type, moves, and predict evolutions for mutated Pokemon, and most importantly, identify what exactly the mutation is. For example, we can tell if your Tropius is truly a Delta, or some other mutation. Call me in two days and I think it will be ready for beta testers."

Bill isn't afraid of Orthros (or Tropius, who is more dangerous at this point). Tropius stays quite calm while in the presence of Bill.

"I know a little known fact about Primal Bulbasaur. They were one of the first off-type species cataloged in modern times, as you probably know, but they were also one of the first Primal Pokemon to appear to humans, historically. The First Technical Society treated them as totems! All the big cities had a family of Primal Bulbasaur, Ivysaur, and Venusaur if they were lucky. They'd live in the center of town on a special plinth for ceremonies, or in a sacred cave, or maybe deep in the woods where it was considered lucky to come across one. Neat, eh?"



"The biggest problem with the portable system is it is trade-only. The PC system is not conducting a trade at all when it accepts a Pokemon for storage. It's a big difference from an engineering standpoint. Pokemon trading machines have been around since the days of the Kings, whereas the first PC deserving of the name was built in 1841 - the Analytical Engine. It could only store first stage Pokemon of small size and low power. That was in the days when an MSC capture web was expensive and Pokeballs hadn't been invented yet, so the combination of inferior non-MSC Apricorns holding crude MSC capture webs and a very low-memory PC resulted in a terrible storage system. It filled up most of Stair City, haha!"

"You can think of the portable trader as being akin to a switchboard, while the PC is like a modern cell phone. I'm the switchboard operator: I have to manually approve a trade, and only I can do it because I have admin privileges, and I can only do it to your specific devices because they are hard-coded with your encrypted hash function specifying your OT. Honestly, the security on these things is terrible. Don't let anyone shady know you have them, and keep them powered down when you're not using them. If someone steals this device, it's as good as them having your fingerprint and Trainer Card."

"That said, I'll definitely use any data I get from you and Shiva to engineer the next gen of PC. We'll have to see what the future has in store for us!"

At that very moment, coincidentally right as he says the word "Future" to Nathan, all of you except Terra experience a brief lurch in which you have a glimpse of an unadulterated bayfront farm. Then you're back, and Nathan can tell Bill didn't notice he was gone.