Pokemorph History

While Pokemorphs have only existed for four decades - a relatively short time - they’ve made quite a mark on the world! Pokemorphs have a complicated, and oftentimes bleak, history, but they are working towards a brighter future.

Below is a detailed guide on the origin of Pokemorphs and their society within Pokemorph MUSH. All dates listed are IC (so: 28 years in the future from current real-world year).

Where did Pokemorphs come from?

Early in the twenty-first century, Team Rocket’s science division began Project Armageddon. In short, this project involved infusing human DNA into Pokémon, turning them into Pokemorphs in the hope of creating super-soldier “perfect agents.” This process became known as The Change.

The process itself was a painful metamorphosis, taking well over a week to complete in full. The first Pokemorphs were treated poorly, essentially tortured and enslaved in an attempt to mold them into the supersoldiers Rocket desired. Eventually the majority of Pokemorphs were able to escape after uniting and rising up against their captors, ultimately coming to settle on Prism Island. These first Pokemorphs became known as the First Generation.

Despite the resulting war, Team Rocket would not be deterred for decades and continued to operate on Prism Island, creating more Pokemorphs that became known as Second Generation.

Since Rocket’s initial creation of Pokemorphs, others have accessed the technology, with the most well-known being Team Plasma and the Unovan Pokemorphs.

To date, Team Plasma’s Prism Island division is the only known facility still creating Pokemorphs; this current generation is known as the Liberated Pokemorphs.

Extensive information on each generation may be read at Generations.

See the extensive history of Prism Island and Pokemorph history at the Timeline.

Prism Life Before

Prism Island has gone through a tumultuous history in the last century. Starting at an economic crash in 2009 (OOC: 1981) that left the island nearly abandoned by its original human residents, the island became repopulated with the arrival of the first wave of First Generation Pokemorphs. Later, the island established a whole new society with the addition of the Second Generation morphs, while Team Rocket was a prevalent intrusion upon the island’s daily life. Later, the Unovan morphs joined the present Pokemorph society; now in more recent years, a slow but steady trickle of Liberated morphs add to the population, in addition to the Freebirths.

When the first Pokemorphs arrived on Prism Island, they faced the uphill battle of shaping the derelict city into something livable again. With few of the First Gen morphs having the skills needed to refurbish buildings, they relied heavily on Kanto government assistance to eke through the early years and shape their new home into something somewhat livable. Even more daunting: They faced the task of building an entire society from scratch, and the early years were a strange mishmash of Pokémon instinct and a society cobbled together from imitation of memories of life with humans.

With the eventual accumulation of the majority of Pokemorphs on Prism Island, Team Rocket swooped in to establish a foothold and attempt to take back what they considered their rightful property. Having families and friends ripped apart by various Rocket schemes was the norm for much of the 2020s to 2040 (OOC: 1992 to 2012). Every morph who lived on Prism Island during the ‘Rocket Years’ knew of at least one person who disappeared under unusual or mysterious circumstances. Skirmishes were many and often, sometimes culminating in large-scale events that resulted in massive property damage and loss of life.

Hydra, a vigilante group that arose in 2030, fought against Team Rocket for a decade before abruptly dissolving in 2040 (OOC: 2002 to 2012).

The Pokemorph Intelligence Agency (or “PIA”) was established as a judicial force early in the Island’s repopulation. At the start, the PIA operated under imitations of human police forces. Over time, the PIA grew to become more of a do-gooder guild: a truly altruistic organization focused on aiding citizens (including criminals!) rather than punishment.

It seemed out of nowhere when a whole slew of heretofore unknown morphs were discovered in Unova in December 2030 (OOC: 2002)! A complicated series of years eventually led to them being shipped off to join the Pokemorphs already established on Prism Island in 2039 (OOC: 2011). These Unovan morphs were very different from the Rocket-made morphs: Unovans were created to rule a new world. They were skilled and resourceful, and many had built lives for themselves in their few years of freedom before coming to Prism. It resulted in a sudden influx of career-capable morphs who didn’t carry the baggage of the camps, the war, or the fear and oppression of Team Rocket.

With the arrival of the Unovan morphs, it wasn’t long before Team Plasma followed in their wake. Plasma agents came to help the Unovan morphs settle into their new lives, and assist the struggling Prism Island with establishing a socialist government. However, upon arrival they initially faced complaints and even protests from citizens fearing they were a whole new Team Rocket; this resulted in the destruction of the original Plasma HQ. Plasma finally won over the island’s residents by establishing themselves as part of the National Health Service alongside the eventual fall of Team Rocket.

Prism Life Now

With the removal of Team Rocket from Prism Island, things have been looking better every day for the island’s residents.

The Prism government has since become its own entity, no longer reliant on Kanto for ongoing support; the government is socialist, as established during Reginald Yamakaze’s Governorship. Together with Plasma, the government manages to offer various public services and provide housing and healthcare to its citizens.

Foreign relations are nearly the best they’ve ever been since Pokemorphs were created: easy access between Prism and the Alolan Islands, special concessions allowed for morphs to visit Unova and Kalos, and the possibility of improved relations with many other regions.

Prism’s borders are wide open to tourists, inviting a multitude of humans and Pokémon from all around the world to visit as they please. Tourism is a thriving industry on Prism Island, and humans have become a common sight in recent years.

In addition, a number of cottage industries have grown on the island, and the economy of Prism Island is steadily climbing.

However, many morphs still mutter resentment of humans - able to come and go as they please, while morphs are bound to the island with little prospects of leaving for any more than a holiday in select regions. Crime remains an ongoing backbone for many who’ve never known a life otherwise (especially loyal Rocket agents, displaced by Rocket’s destruction in 2042 (OOC: 2014)). Scratch hard enough, and you can find the seedy underbelly of Prism, swept deep below the smiles and easy-going life of the modern morph.

Team Rocket’s Internment Camps and the Pokemorph War

Content Warning: This section contains discussion of fictional internment camps and all that entails, such as physical and psychological abuse, torture, and death. Read on with caution.

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While long since demolished now, the Pokemorph Camps have had a lasting impact on the lives of First Generation morphs, and the earliest of the Freebirths. The Camps were constructed on a cluster of islands to the south of Kanto, and established in 2009 (OOC: 1981). Each island was dominated by a large, central training facility, which also held the barracks for human Rocket agents. Surrounding each facility were a series of six buildings, and outside of those were makeshift huts that housed the Pokemorphs. The organization of Pokemorphs was under constant revision, and Pokemorphs were frequently moved from hut to hut, and even island to island.

Training of First Gens was brutal and inhumane, focused on shaping them into battle-ready supersoldier agents as fast as possible. The first thing all Pokemorphs were taught was human language (generally Japanese and/or English); generally via a lot of shouting and beating the morph until they forced themselves to speak coherently.

After that, each Pokemorph was trained differently, to suit the specializations Rocket chose for them - common specializations were combat, assassination, espionage, hacking, and demolitions. They were constantly under the threat of brutal punishment for failure. All Pokemorphs were subjected to combat training, which consisted mostly of violent cockfights with other Pokemorphs, often paired with beatings labeled as ‘endurance training.’ Even the least combative of First Gens was forced to learn battle prowess.

Food was a bland but nutritious gruel served once per day, and sleep was often restricted for many morphs in an attempt to keep them malleable via sheer exhaustion.

Most First Gen Pokemorphs are loath to talk of the camps, but few can go a day without remembering them.

Given the cruel treatment First Gen morphs were subjected to, it’s no surprise they eventually turned against their captors. Singular acts of rebellion inevitably happened here and there over the years. A notable incident in 2011 (OOC: 1983) is when Aquana, a Vaporeon-Morph, managed to escape the camps entirely and flee to the Kanto mainland.

Eventually, enough morphs began to rebel that they started to organize and fight back in groups. By 2015 (OOC: 1987), Aquana managed to make contact with the international Pokemon Master, Ash Ketchum. With his assistance, Aquana revealed the Pokemorphs and their plight to the Indigo League.

Moved by Aquana’s story, the Elites of the Indigo League launched an attack on the central complex of the Pokemorph camps in June 2016 (OOC: 1988). Many Pokemorphs took advantage of the confusion to rise against their captors, and a war began, with morphs and Pokémon fighting on both sides. This war would later be known as the Pokemorph War.

By July 2017 (OOC: 1989), Team Rocket was facing imminent defeat, and resorted to bombing the chain of islands before abandoning them entirely. Untold numbers of Pokemorphs and Rocket agents alike were killed in the devastation. The surviving Pokemorphs scrambled to evacuate the islands, scattering across Kanto, Johto, and even farther lands in the resulting chaos.