Of Robots, Music and Pokémon
Version 2.0
Report extracted from the Main Archives of Wold Newton Research Institute:
The strange events that had taken place in Shamuti Islands, located in the Kanto Region, involving the rebellious behaviour of the Three Legendary Birds - Moltres, Articuno and Zapdos -and the resulting global unstable weather (had as main effect the end of the ban on the use of spintronic robots in the Western World. The participation of the young Pokémon Trainer Ash Satoshi Ketchum, called "The Chosen One" by the inhabitants for Shamuti Islands, for its resolution (1) started a research for a possible connection between this youngster and the Wold Newton Event. The results are interesting to say the least: from a very unlikely tie to the Wold Newton Family, the research uncovered a web of connections that joins the legend of Atlantis to psychic powers to the mysterious identity of one of the greatest music stars to the mystery of Kanto Island to the most astounding researches in computer science and artificial intelligence...
Prologue - The Kanto Region Event
First of all, we should address the origins of the mysterious continent called the "Kanto Region": as the map that was sent to Dr. Ben Gough shows, this area was formed by two continental-sized islands - one at north with the territories of Indigo (Eastern) and Johto (Western) and the other at south, named Houen, with several smaller islands between them, called the Orange Archipelago. One could affirm that the recent discovery of such area could to be attributed to the fact that they are surrounded by the what the meteorologists named the "Pacific Eternal Storms Ring" - a massive storm system that could block any ship weaker than a steel ship that tries enter into it, that have showed a surprising stability through time (2).
Officially, Kanto was discovered by an UN Oceanographic Mission, founded by the American and Japanese Governments in August of 1980... the real events are different.
By documents recently discovered in the Archives of US Department of Defense, the Kanto Region has been known by the Allies since July of 1945, when a US Destroyer, U.S.S. Disclosure, was forced to enter in the Eternal Storms Ring. At this point we should refer to a account of the event, found in the archives of Columbia University, written in 1955 by one of the crew members, Lt. Christopher Ketchum (Ash Ketchum's ancestor):
"It has been ten years since that it had happened...sometimes I don't believe it myself - although I had a lot of bruises that once in a while still hurt from that event... well, I was to assume my duties as a member of the crew of U.S.S. Disclosure, when a strong bright bluish light invaded the ship for a fraction of a second... No more than that. I don't know how it didn't blind me for some time... When it disappeared... a entire continent had just... well, popped out into existence..."
To investigate such a incredible phenomenon, the commandant of the ship, Captain Archibald Haddock (3), sent a crew of five men: lieutenants Christopher Ketchum and Andrew Gerald Oak and sailors Gavin Bowman, Marco Rocketson (real name Rocketti) and Thomas Williams. These five men would be the first human beings to enter in contact with that completely new species, the Pokémon. Also, their descendents would become the most important Pokémon Trainers of the history of the League: Ash Ketchum, Gary Oak, Sabrina Bowman, Giovanni Rocketti and Misty Williams.
In his written account, Lt. Ketchum records a stunning event: apparently after fleeing from what could only to be described as a big red dragon (later to be named "Charizard"), the five dumbstruck explorers are surprised by a white flying Pokémon, whose description matched with the Legendary Pokémon God Mew. The Pokemon suddenly appeared in front of them and struck them with a massive psychic beam. Lt. Ketchum would later affirm that he felt that he changed somehow... The men were found later, unconscious but unscratched, by a rescue party from the ship. The information gathered was sent to Allies, who decided keep the region a secret - later the United Nations, soon after its foundation, would assume the control of the area. In the same account, Christopher Ketchum, also a respected biologist, gave a hypothesis for the unique path that evolution fellowed in Kanto Region:
"... I had discussed it with Andrew [Oak] about the origins of that surprising animal... I sugested that maybe at the Cambrian Period - the time of the Evolutive Explosion - that region would had became isolated from the rest of the world somehow with a greater number of the most unique beings that lived in that period than the average that would live in the rest of world. Then due the isolation and cross-breding and divergent evolution (the same that generated the duck-billed platypus) that would increse their special characteristics, that survivor animals would evolve into the the incredible beings that we found in that island ten years ago...
"As always, Andrew dismissed my theory, since that "violate" the natural selection principle... when I asked what he sugested to explain the phenomenon, he had to admit that he didn't have an alternative theory..." (4)
One interest point on this account is that the date for the emergence of Kanto was July 16, 1945 - the same date of the first atomic test in Trinity Site - would the shock of the atom bomb had broke the dimensional bubble or whatever that protect Kanto Region from human eyes until that moment? There is no answer for this question yet...
Another point is the relationships between Christopher Ketchum, Andrew Gerald Oak and Marco Rocketti: Ketchum and Oak were both, before the World War Two, competent biologists in Columbia University and implacable rivals in Poker, a card game that both mastered - such rivalry mirrors the future rivalry between Ash Ketchum and Gary Oak, their direct descendents. If in the case of Ketchum and Oak there is a mutual secret respect by the rival, such thing didn't happen with Ketchum and Rocketti - these two men were antagonists since they had entered in U.S.S. Disclosure.
And unknown to any of the five men, three of them - Christopher Ketchum, Gavin Bowman and Marco Rocketti - have an ancestor in common, a member of Wold Newton Family: for Ketchum's absolute shock and Rocketti's probable delight, it was James Noel Moriarty - the second Professor Moriarty...
From now we will study the genealogical connections for the five first explorers of Kanto Region and their descendents...
Part One - Dr. Christopher Ketchum, biologist and populational geneticist
Born in 1910, Christopher Ketchum is officially son of two fellow librarians of New York Public Library, Ariane Morgan and Jeremy Ketchum - but things aren't so simple... Actually, Ariane Morgan is granddaughter of James Noel Moriarty - the Second Professor Moriarty...
Around 1860's, at his time as a station-master (and also a member of his brother's organization), James Noel Moriarty married a mysterious woman named Miranda Keller, from Innsmouth, Massachusetts. From this marriage came two girls, Serena and Katherine Moriarty. As their mother died at childbirth, both girls were send to her father's uncle, Jerrold Moriarty (5), who take care of their girls until they reached 17-years-old, when they left home.
Katherine Moriarty, aware of her father's connections with criminal world and wishing escape from it, using the name "Catherine Sanders", married a Peter Morgan, and came to United States, where they have two kids, Ariane and Eric Morgan.
Ariane, showing a great organizational skill and a great love for books, become a librarian in New York Public Library in 1905. In 1910, she had a short affair with a scientist that was about to leave in a expedition to Maple White Land. Later, she discovered that she was pregnant and to protect her, fellow librarian Jeremy Ketchum (who also was falling in love with her), offered to marry her and adopt the child. Christopher Ketchum was born in the same year. When the scientist returned some years later, he assumed that Christopher was Jeremy Ketchum's son - due the kid's black hair and chocolate-brown eyes, looking after his mother. By the records, the scientist that was Christopher's biological father had a very striking resemblance to James Clark Wildman, Sr. (6)
With a very curious mind and a great compassion, Christopher become attracted to the study of life and its mechanisms: he graduated in Columbia University - where he knew his friend and rival, Andrew Gerald Oak - and doctorated in Biology, assuming a teaching position and beginning to study Evolution, when World War Two ecloded: he would be part of the crew of U.S.S. Disclosure.
After the World War Two, Dr. Christopher Ketchum returned to civilian life and to his teaching position at Columbia University. He also began to research the genetic characteristics of the several human populations around the world. Being a decent and compassionate man, he was deeply shocked by the way that Nazism used the ridiculous concept of "pure race" to promote such now well-reported horrors: he become determined to prove that the idea of "races" are a error, a deformation of reason - he would become one of the greatest specialist in populational genetics of the world and his data would become crucial to form the "African Mitochondrial Eve" theory of origin of mankind - a fact that let Dr. Ketchum very pleased.
In 1950, Dr. Ketchum moved to Japan, as an invited teacher for Tokyo University in Evolutive Biology. There, he met the physiology teacher Dr. Misato Takani - she was the granddaughter of Megumi Takani, an important medical doctor from the beginning of Meiji Era, and Sanosuke Sagara, a very skilled fighter. She was a really beautiful woman, and Christopher fell head over heels for her. She also fell in love with that shy and caring man. They married and Christopher and Misato Ketchum had three kids. In order of their births, they are Robert, Colin and Jonathan.
Robert Ketchum, inspired by the work of his father, became a medical doctor and when acting as a witness in an important trial, he met Shizuka Himura, a very skilled lawyer and swordswoman. That isn't surprised considering that Shizuka was a direct descendent of legendaries Kenjustu Masters Kaoru Kamiya and Kenshin Himura (7). Robert and Shizuka had two children, Robert Ketchum Jr. and Stephanie Ketchum.
Robert Ketchum Jr. would become a diplomatic member of UN Peace Commission, and he would later marry Megan Dunn, a gentle children's doctor and sister of a fellow work collegue, the UN diplomat Joseph Dunn. She was daughter of David Dunn, a security guard at Philadelphia who showed heroic "Unbreakable" tendencies, and Audrey Dunn, a physiotherapist (8). They had a son, Ethan Ketchum, who due the several airplane travels of his family, become fascinated with jetliners. He would to become a pilot for CrossPacific Airlines and move to the Kanto Region in the second wave of immigration. There Ethan would befriend Prof. Samuel Oak, the biggest specialist in Pokémon Biology and Psychology of Kanto. And in the flights to the Kanto region, he would come to know his wife, CrossPacific Airlines Commandant Rebecca Sear.
At this point is interesting we check the genealogy of Rebecca Sear: she was the daughter of Rachel Estella Quest and Cole Sear. Rachel's parents are Jessica Bannon and Jonathan Quest (9). Cole Sear's genealogy is more complicated: he is son of Paul Sear, a disturbed man due his genetic legacy (he was a descendent of William Dunn and a relative to David Dunn (10)), and Lynn Phillips, a very compassionate and caring woman. Lynn, together with her siblings Mary and Craig, are officially the children of Harriet Phillips and Dr. Douglas Phillips, a physicist that disappeared after take part of a secret U.S. government project at the late 60's (11), soon after the birth of the Mary and Craig. Actually, Lynn Phillips was the result of an affair between Harriet and a man named David Selig, a man with the "curse" of telepathy (12). Cole felt the weight of the genetic inheritance - his great compassion (from his mother) activated the recessives gene for psychic powers, inherited from his unknown grandfathers, David Selig and William Dunn, allowing him to see the spirits of dead people. Tormented by such "power", Cole Sear was helped by Dr. Malcolm Crowe to understand and use his ability (13). With it, Cole Sear become a brilliant detective for Philadelphia PD, and that how he knew his wife, Dr. Rachel Estella Quest, a pathologist.
Cole's aunt Mary Phillips, using the artistic name of "Stormer" would join Phyllis "Pizzazz" Gabor and Roxanne "Roxy" Pellegrini and form the rock group "The Misfits" - what it's surprising considerating her shy and sweet personality. His uncle Craig Phillips, after following a career in Europe as a drummer, would marry Aja Leith, a member of "The Holograms".
Rebecca Sear and Ethan Ketchum married and two had two kids, Delia Hanako Ketchum and Monica Miyamoto Ketchum. Unfortunately a tragedy struck when the two girls were 4-years-old. In a train accident caused by the criminal organization known as Team Rocket, Rebecca died and Monica disappeared (14).
After the sudden death of her father in a major accident, when she was 15, Delia Ketchum would leave Pallet Town (where the Ketchum family had settled) to become a Pokémon Trainer. She joined Giovanni Rocketti, who would become the respected Leader of Veridian City Earth Gym, and Lance Silver, who would become the Leader of the Elite Four. When she was 23, she returned to Pallet Town... pregnant. Her friend, Prof. Samuel Oak, helped her to go through it, since that she was determined to take care of the child, but she never revealed who was the father of the baby - although we can guess that it was Giovanni Rocketti due to Ash's physical likeness to him. Samuel Oak managed to find for her a translator job in a publishing company in Veridian City. Some time later, Ash Satoshi Ketchum was born. The love and the caring that Delia showed for her son, with the strong sense of right and wrong that she taught him, together with the natural drive to help a person in need of the Ketchum family, were the keystones of his personality and his hero complex. When he was 10 years old, he left Pallet Town in his first Pokémon Journey although Indigo with his starter Pokémon, a Pikachu (15), and later he would meet his friends Misty Williams, Brock Harrison and Tracey Sketchitt.
Stephanie Ketchum, Robert and Shizuka Ketchum's second kid, would be a bit of rebel, do not accepting the work routines of her parents and the time constrains that it forced. She would leave her house and marry a middle-level executive of ENCOM named Edward Calvin, and they would have a daughter, the famous robotics scientist and pioneer robopsychologist Dr. Susan Calvin.
Christopher and Misato's second son, Colin Ketchum, a more mild-mannered and less heroic-driven man than his brother Robert, would marry a woman named Adele Sutherland and they would have a daughter, Helena Ketchum who would marry Robert Bowman, brother of astronaut David Bowman and descendent of sailor Gavin Bowman.
Jonathan Ketchum, Christopher and Misato's third kid would become a much more cynical man than his father, the idealistic scientist. Such cynicism would explain the route that he took: he would become an FBI agent specialist in manhunts – in particular of rogue government agents. In this career, he would drop the name "Jonathan Ketchum" and would assume the alias "Jeremiah Ecks", under which he began his long time rivalry with Sever, a rogue NSA agent. He would retire after his wife, Pamela, died in an ambush that targeted him, but he would be forced to return and work at Sever's side in order to recover a top secret weapon and Sever's daughter (16). It is unknown if he returned in definite to work to FBI or not (17).
Part Two - Dr. Thomas Williams, cardiologist
Thomas Williams was son of Edward Williams, a wealth lawyer, and Esther Radcliffe, daughter of a cousin of Phoebe Radcliffe, the mother of Irene Adler and John Hawley Griffin, the first invisible man (18).
After the Second World War, he returned to medical school and specialized in cardiology, developing several new surgery techniques although his career. Soon after his graduation he married Elise Haddock, the adopted daughter of Captain Haddock (he had adopted Elise as a favor for his friend, Captain Thaddeus Chester, Elise's real father... but Haddock would never discover that Elise was part Atlantean - her mother was a Atlantean named Nieledore). Thomas and Elise Williams would have two kids, Susan and Tristan Williams, and would also adopt (at Elise's urging) a girl named Jacqui Richter. While Susan and Tristan would take after their father and have a career in medicine, Jacqui would be encouraged by her adoptive mother to pursue her dreams in singing. The three kids showed the caracteristic determination and fiery temper of Williams family.
Susan Williams attended medical school and while she was still a medical student, she would, with the help of a young Doctor named Paul Bellows uncover a stunning conspiracy at Boston Memorial Hospital (19). She married Paul Bellows after she specialized in orthopedia. Their only daughter, Christine Bellows, would later marry an idealistic lawyer, Jordan Byerley, and their son, Stephen Byerley, would have the same idealism in his surprising career as D.A. Although his career could have been cut short in a terrible car crash, that killed his young wife Megan and crippled him severelly. But later Stephen Byerley came as a Phoenix from the ashes and continued his stellar political career until he became the first UN Global Coordinator in the first World government (20).
Tristan Williams after graduating from medical school would move to Australia and marry Eva Olafson. He would also work for Fertility, Inc., a network of fertility clinics. When he began to investigate a strange connections with tuberculosis infections and the patients of the clinic he was fired and his wife died mysteriously - but not before she gives him a child: Chauncey. After sent his son to his wife's parents for protection, he continued to investigate it. Later he would have an important ally, Dr. Marissa Blumenthal (who had investigate a deadly conspiracy involving the Ebola), and they would uncover darks facts about the practices of Fertility, Inc. (21) Later, Tristan and Marissa would marry and she would adopt Chauncey.
Chauncey Williams would become an epidemiologist and marry Linda Hall, a meteorologist who was a cousin of Douglas Hall, the computer simulation specialist that created the amazing Simulacron-3 system (22) and that both are grandchildren of Dr. Mark Hall, a medical surgeon who participated in Project Wildfire, a secret project to analyze and neutralize any alien microorganisms that came to the Earth (23). Chauncey Williams and Linda Hall had a son, Kent Williams, would become an oceanographer. His researches would take him to Kanto Region to study the unusual beings that live in the area. He met his future wife, a fellow oceanographer and leader of Cerulean City Pokémon Gym, Rosemary Jericho. She was the granddaughter of mathematician Thomas Jericho and Hester Wallace, who at their time at Bletchley Park - the nearly-mythical British decodification center, discover an informer for the Nazi, which almost made the Allies lose the battle of Atlantic (24). What Hester Wallace never thought was that she was half-Atlantean - her real father was an Atlantean man named Kaldorel.
Kent Williams and Rosemary Jericho would have four girls: Daisy Caroline Williams, Violet Simone Williams, Lilly Millicent Williams and the youngest and the tomboy of them, Misty Kasumi Elizabeth Williams. Daisy would assume leadership of the Gym after the death of their parents in a Team Rocket attack to their research ship. Feeling imprisoned by her artistic sisters - more interested in their aquatic shows than Pokémon training - Misty left Cerulean Gym, determined to become the best Water Pokémon Trainer of the League. Some months later she met Ash Ketchum on his first day of Pokémon Journey, and she would be at his side since then - by her own account, to guarantee that Ash would pay for the her bike, that he accidently destroyed to take his hurt Pikachu to Veridian City Pokémon Center (25)... but her pen friend from Shamuti Islands, Melody Sanders, would affirm that the reason was other: plain love - but that Misty would never admit it (26).
It is also interesting notice that Kent and Rosemary's children become a classic case of Mendelian genetic distribution: while Daisy had no Atlantean genes at all (recessives by nature), and Violet and Lilly had a single one, Misty received a full pair of Atlantean genes... it not only explain why she looks so different from her older sisters, as it turns interesting to imagine the effect of such genetic make-up when she reached adulthood.
The adopted daughter of Thomas and Elise Williams, Jacqui Williams, would pursue a career in music - and that would allow her to meet her future husband, a young computer science student named Emmett Benton. Emmett was the son of John Benton, founder of Starlight Music, and Mirelle Oak, Andrew Gerald Oak's sister. And also should be noted that John Benton is son of the older brother of Phyllis Benton, wife of Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond (27). Some time after Jacqui and Emmett's marriage, she almost died in a fire, but was saved by a man... or better, by a robot: his name was Adam Link (28), but in the process he was severely damaged. Emmett decided fix the artificial man, in gratitude for having saved his wife (at that time pregnant with their first daughter, Jerrica) - in the process, he would learn a totally new electronic architecture: the spintronics. On the process, he would correspond with a young quantum physicist named Samuel Beckett and with his old friend from MIT, A.I. researcher Stephen Falken. Then one day, Adam Link disappeared, without a trace.
At same time that Emmett Benton took over Starlight Music after his father retired, his wife also convinced him to open a house for orphan girls, like herself - she never forget the loneliness that she felt until she was adopted by the Williams, she wanted give them the same warmth and care that her adoptive parents had given to her. Starlight House was created. The first girls were Shana Elmsford and Aja Leith, who immediately became inseparable friends with Jerrica and Kimber Benton, Emmett and Jacqui's natural kids.
Meanwhile, Emmett began to work on a project to create a computer able to generate realistic holographic images in space, using the image technology that he developed and what he learned from Adam Link. He even used CATs scans from his wife to create the main circuits of the neural net of the computer - that Jacqui would jokingly call "his other woman". That is when tragedy struck: Jacqui Benton died in a plane crash. In a way to try to deal with it and to guarantee that if something happened with him, his daughters (Jerrica, Kimber, Shana and Aja) would be alright, he began to remodulate his holographic computer so its artificial intelligence system, that he named Synergy, could take care of them, acting as a surrogate mentor and ally. The fact that Synergy's avatar had the same physical appearance and personality of his late wife, Jacqui, should be viewed as an homage, and not resurrectionism (the tendency to bring a dead relative back via a robotic copy, that would plague other roboticists and A.I. researchers).
That was a wise decision because after finalize Synergy, Emmett Benton died in a car accident, caused by lack of coordination from Huntington's Disease (29). Jerrica Benton would need to use Synergy's help to prevent that Eric Raymond, a sleazy businessman from taking over her father's music company and using it as a cover for embezzlement. She, using Synergy's holographic system to create an alternate identity, and her sisters Kimber Benton, Shana Elmsford and Aja Leith would form the rock group "Jem and the Holograms" (30). Later Carmen "Raya" Alonzo would join the group. Their trajectory of success continued until Jerrica began to develop Huntington's Disease, forcing her to leave the music stage, but her sister Kimber would continue the legacy of Starlight Foundation.
Aja Leith would marry Craig Phillips (Mary "Stormer" Phillips and Lynn Sear's brother), and they would have a daughter, Alexandra Phillips. She would move to Toronto and become a police detective. She would investigate a series of mysterious murders connected to Dr. Peter Hobson (31), a medical researcher - actually committed by a digital copy of his mind, stored at Mirror Image's databanks, with a technique developed by his friend Dr. Sarkar Muhammed, based on data by Emmett Benton and Stephen Falken. When the rogue "spectrom" - the digital copy of a person's mind - made an attempt at her life, Dr. Hobson copied her neural net and launched it into the net, where she deleted the deadly "spectrom" (32). But instead of delete herself, Detective Alexandra Phillips's mind merged with ENCOM's TRON security protocol, created in 1980 by Alan Bradley (33). That would give origin to the Guardian Protocol, which would become the main internet security protocol (34).
Emmett Benton's father, John Benton, would later have one affair with a woman named Michelle Spade (daughter of the younger brother of Sam Spade's father (35). As result, Henry Spade was born. Henry would move to Canada, where he would have an affair with Elisabeth Tardivel, who was married to Alain Tardivel. The result of this affair would be Pierre Tardivel - a brilliant geneticist who would also have Huntington's Disease, as did his distant cousin Jerrica Benton. Pierre Tardivel would meet and later marry a young woman named Molly Bowman, who had the gift of telepathy - that gift and her love and encouragement would be vital so Pierre would make his stunning discovery that the DNA not only shows her we came from, but also where we will go in the evolutive scale, as also in discover the dark past and plot of the founder of a ruthless health insurance company (36).
Michelle Spade also had a brother, Robert Spade, who would have a daughter, Samantha Spade, that would become a member of FBI Missing People Unit in New York (37).
Part Three - Dr. Andrew Gerald Oak, Biologist
After returning to his teaching position at Columbia University, Christopher's colleague and Poker rival, Andrew Gerald Oak would be part of United Nations special scientific team whose function was study the living beings of Kanto Region, alhtough the period 1950-1965, becoming one of the first specialists in their physiology - but since his work was classified by United Nations, most of his research would be re-discovered by his son and, in special, by his grandson, Prof. Samuel Oak. One could ask why Christopher Ketchum also wasn't called for the research team, due his expertise in genetics and evolution - apparently, he was considerated a "security risk" due his openness to discuss his researches. Andrew Oak obeyed the security orders, although he disagreed with such stupid decision: actually, he would discuss about the Pokémon with Christopher, but as a theory, rather than real research.
Andrew married Sophie Arroway, a cousin of Theodore Arroway, father of the famous radio astronomer Eleanor Ann Arroway, who discovered a message from an alien civilization and would become the first human being to visit another galaxy (38). Andrew's sister, Mirelle, would marry John Benton, Emmett Benton's father.
Andrew and Sophie would have two children: Angela and Thomas Oak.
Thomas Oak, who followed his father's footsteps and became a biologist, married Cindy Sanger, a lawyer, and they moved to Kanto Region, where he began to study the intriguing physiology of Pokémon. It is interesting to mention that Cindy Sanger is a cousin on her father's side to Denise Sanger who had married Dr. Martin Phillips (who was Dr. Douglas Phillips's young brother and therefore, uncle to Lynn, Mary and Craig Phillips). Dr. Phillips would uncover a government conspiracy that was using human guinea pigs to study the human brain in order to develop an A.I. computer for U.S. Department of Defense (39), through their subcontractor, Cyberdyne Systems. Fortunately, the corporation never managed to develop such a system, in special after the death of their main researcher, Dr. Miles Bennett Dyson, in a terrorist attempt (40), since that actual data prove that such system would be too mentally-unstable.
Thomas and Cindy Oak would have a son, named Samuel Oak. He would become a Pokémon Trainer and later would become the greatest specialist in Pokémon biology of the world and the mentor of several scientists of the Pokémon Biology as Prof. Madeleine Felina Ivy and Prof. Patrick Elm. He is the responsable by the development of the Pokéball, for Sliph Corporation, using the matter-digitalizing technology created by ENCOM's scientists Dr. Walter Gibbs and Dr. Lori Collins (41). Ironically, Prof. Oak would recreate independentelly Christopher Ketchum's "Founder Principle/Divergent Evolution" hypothesis for the origin of Pokémon.
Prof. Samuel Oak would settle in Pallet Town, with his wife Veronica Holland, who was daughter of Quantum Airlines Commander James Holland and diplomat Rachael Sherwood (42) and founding the Pallet Town Pokémon Research Laboratory. There he would befriend Commandants Ethan and Rebecca Ketchum. Samuel and Veronica would have a son, Robert. Veronica unfortunately died in childbirth. Robert Oak would become mayor of Pallet Town and would marry a Sarah Wilson. Their son would be Gary Oak, Ash Ketchum's greatest rival.
Some people find strange that Prof. Oak apparently is more close to Ash than to his grandson. This led to the incorrect idea that he was Ash's father, due his strong friendship with Ash's mother, Delia Ketchum. Actually, two factors explain such incongruence: one is that Gary Oak's natural arrogance makes it really difficult to get a close friendship with him (a personality trait that really clashed with Samuel Oak's friendly nature). The second reason is that in an apparently amazing incident, during his first Pokémon Journey, Sam Oak met the Legendary Time-Traveling Pokémon Celebi. Celebi was being hunted by Vicious, a violent member of Team Rocket. Celebi with Sam Oak traveled 40 years into the future, where with the help of Ash Ketchum, Misty Williams and Brock Harrison they defeated Team Rocket's agent, before Sam returned to his own time (43)... Sam Oak never forget the adventure and he knew what kind of person the still-unborn Ash would to be.
Andrew Gerald Oak and Sophie Oak's daughter, Angela, went to Columbia University (Andrew Gerald Oak and Christopher Ketchum's alma mater) to study psychology, but she drop the course, when she married a man named Walter Lightman. They would have a son, David Lightman: he inherited Oak's intelligence, become a hacker in his teens, normally to play games or change his grades. But one time he bit off more than he could chew: he accidentally convinced WOPR, an A.I. computer of NORAD, to play "Global Thermonuclear War". The problem was that the computer didn't know the difference between game and reality. He would team up with WOPR's creator, Stephen Falken, to stop the computer from playing that "game" (44). After that incident, David Lightman become a computer security expert for NORAD - on the principle that the the best forest rangers are former game hunters.
David Lightman would later marry Jennifer Katherine Mack, and their son would be named Alfred Lightman - that was the real name of the man called "Dr. Alfred Lanning" by Isaac Asimov and "Dr. Thomas Light" by the creators of "MegaMan" game (45). He would unit the researches by Emmett Benton, Sarkar Muhammed and Stephen Falken, with notes of a certain Dr. Charles Anton Link, and the results from "Simulacron-3", created by Douglas Hall, to create the basis of the most revolutionary A.I. system conceived: The Spintronic Matrix, or as Asimov called it, the Positronic Brain - but to turn it to its full potential it would need the groundbreaking work of Dr. Susan Calvin. The small company for which Dr. Alfred Lightman worked, Android Mechanics, Inc, would be brought by a consortium formed by Quest Enterprises and ENCOM - and it would be the embryo of the future giant Cybertronics Corporation.
Part Four - Gavin Bowman, Steel worker
Even before the Second World War, Gavin Bowman was a troubled young man, apparently unable to relate to the people around him: probably it is due his family ties and upbringing - he is also a descendent of James Noel Moriarty, but although his daughter Serena Moriarty, a woman with surprising cold eyes and chilling temper. By a surprising coincidence, Serena also would change her last name to Morgan and marry a man named Thomas Jordan, the younger of three brothers. She would work as a midwife and abortionist in the seedier parts London, until 1888, when the family left the town. Also at that moment, their kids are born: Christine and Vanessa Jordan (46).
Later Vanessa Jordan, like their cousins, would move to America, and would marry a William Bowman, a man of fiery temper, and they would have two kids: Gavin and Lyle Bowman (47). His younger brother Lyle would have a terrible temper and his fights with their father probably increase Gavin's mental unstability. Gavin had several odd jobs as a steel worker and it is surprising that he was accepted by the Army - it is possible that he had entered in a period of stability that allowed him to pass the psychological exams.
After the events at Kanto Region he was sent back to home in Seattle. There he would begin an on-off relationship with Celine Johnson, which would result in two kids, John and Jessie Bowman. Gavin Bowman would leave his family after the birth of his daughter.
Some time after it, Gavin Bowman had a short affair with a Englishwoman named Sally Lively, who would move to England, pregnant with two kids, Brian and Cecil Lively. Cecil Lively would reveal pyrokinetic powers, that he would use to kill, until to be stopped by FBI Special Agents Dana Scully and Fox Mulder (48).
Brian Lively would become a literature teacher and marry a Nadine Cross, and move to United States. They would have a daughter, the troubled Anne Lively, that would have a disastrous affair with a fellow drug addict, and the result would be Mary Lively, who was born with a congenital brain disease, Renning's Syndrome. An experimental treatment by Dr. Iris Hineman would wake up Mary's precognitional ability - she would to be "drafted" to be one of the Precogs of "Precrime", a experimental governmental agency to combat crime in Washington, D.C., and have her name changed to "Agatha". Agatha's slavery - that is only term that could correctly describe it - only ended when she helped Precrime's main officer, John Anderton, to under a conspiracy against himself (49).
John Bowman inherited his father's instability, this is what made him leave his wife soon after the birth of Molly and Jessica Bowman. Although Jessica was a normal and normal human being, Molly was another story: she had the ability to read the minds of other people. Such gift/curse would lead her to study psychology in Berkeley, where she would meet the geneticist Pierre Tardivel, her future husband (50).
Jessie Bowman would have a serious relationship an older David Selig (who by now lost these telepathic abilities), and have two sons: Robert and David Bowman.
David Bowman, with the characteristic emotional coldness of Bowman family, would become a NASA astronaut and disappeared in a secret mission to explore the Jupiterian System, together with astronaut Frank Poole, as part of the crew of U.S.S. Discovery (51).
Robert Bowman become an electronic engineer, meeting his wife, Helena Ketchum (Christopher and Misato Ketchum's granddaughter), in Carnegie-Mellon University. Soon, they moved to Kanto Region, founding Sliph Corporation (the main supplier in Pokémon-related technology and later a subsidiary of Cybertronics Corporation) and had a son, named David Thomas Bowman in homage to his lost brother. David T. Bowman married Kaoru Urashima, daughter of archeologist Keitaro Urashima and Tokyo University teacher Naru Narusegawa (52). Soon, David and Kaoru Bowman had a daughter, Sabrina Dominique Valerie Bowman. Just as Cole Sear suffered the consequences of genetic inheritance, so would Sabrina, having the genes of two men at Kanto Region Event (Christopher Ketchum and Gavin Bowman - who also had Wold Newton heritage) as also David Selig's, she would demonstrate a great telepsychic ability...and would drown in it. She became so focused in training her psychic powers that she cut off her emotional ties with the rest of the world. Her father who possessed a small psychic ability, was not able to rescue her. Her coldness and mysterious powers would give her the nicknames of "The Female Darth Vader" and "The Dark Lady of Saffron City Gym". Only when Ash Ketchum came to challenge her, at side of Misty Williams and Brock Harrison, for the Marsh Badge, that Sabrina's psyche became integrated with her emotions returning to the driver's seat. Actually, Sabrina Bowman is one of the most powerful telepsychic of the world as one of the most powerful Pokémon Gym Leaders of the Pokémon League and a force against Team Rocket - thanks to her distant relative, the virtually "Unbreakable" Pokemon Trainer Ash Satoshi Ketchum.
Gavin Bowman's mysterious aunt Christine Morgan (she began to use her mother's name after left home), would have a kid, Clark Morgan, before she married Martianiano Rocketti - their son is Marco Rocketti. Clark Morgan was the ancestor of Samara Morgan, a mysterious and dangerous psychic girl (53).
Part Five - Marco Rocketti, business tycoon
Warning: Please, have in mind that this part of the article is based on the little information available about the Rocketti family, one of the richest and most powerful families in Kanto Region due their economical power through the Rockettech Corporation and through their influence in the high circles at Pokémon League. I really thanks Dr. Ben Gough for send me this data.
There is no light without shadow. In the same way that at same time that the Wold Newton Meteor created some of the greatest heroes of our history, as Tarzan, Doc Savage and Sherlock Holmes, it also created the greatest villains, as Professor James Moriarty and Dr. Fu-Manchu. And the same thing happens at that July 16, 1945 in Kanto Region... and the shadow came in form of Marco Rocketson.
Officially, Marco Rocketson was an immigrant from Florence, Italy that came to United States before the beginning of Second World War and anglicized his name from "Rocketti" to "Rocketson". After the war, he returned to Italy, her he assumed the devastated family business, a metallurgical company named Crimson Fire Steelworks, which he would turn one of the main weapon manufactures in the world. He would marry a mysterious woman named Sophia Moretti, and they would have a son, Ricardo Rocketti.
Ricardo Rocketti would assume the now named Aldebaran Industries, after the death of his father in a mysterious accident, and would expand it into an industrial empire through the world. He would marry Motoko Black, an important Asian businesswoman, and they would have a daughter, Stephanie Rocketti, who would arrange the transference of her industrial and financial empire to Kanto Region, forming Rockettech Corporation, a giant in the field of space technology and defense systems. She also began to influence the Pokémon League.
Her son, Giovanni Rocketti, would become one of the most powerful and ruthless Pokémon Trainers of the history of the League, becoming the Leader of the prestigious Veridian City Earth Gym. For one time, he would journey at the side of Lance Silver and Delia Ketchum.
Well, this is the *official* story: the real one is different.
Marco Rocketson, son of Christine Morgan and Martiniano Rocketti, was not a usual sailor of Allies forces: he was actually a spy for the Nazi and a special agent of a secret society, probably from the 17th Century named "The Red Circle", dedicated to subvert the world order in behalf of a mysterious sponsor - if it is the the Capelleans or the Nine it is unknown.
Before come to U.S. and become part of the crew of U.S.S. Disclosure, by orders of his mysterious sponsor, he had an affair with a woman named Patricia Ranzieri, who would have a daughter, Monica. In 1959, at his time at Italy, he would attack and rape Monica (without knowing that she was his daughter). She would carry the trauma of it until later when she saw a picture that apparently was based on that incident - but instead of identify with the victim she identified with the criminal. The mentally-unstable woman became a serial killer, sending panic through Rome, and she would only be stopped by a writer named Sam Dallas and his fiancée (54).
Marco Rocketti assumed the control of "The Red Circle" after killing the previous boss, his father: backstabbing was literally the norm at Rocketti. He also assumed the control of the facade companies of the secret society... he also began to use "Red Circle's" resources for his own agenda, rather than of his sponsor... whatever its was...
His son, Ricardo, would expand the criminal connections of the organization, at same time that connecting with several shady corporations as Cyberdyne Systems, Fertility Inc. and Danielson Health Insurance Inc. In a tentative to control part of Japanese underworld, he married Motoko Black, one of the leaders of a criminal group known as only "The Black Organization" (55). It is rumored that maybe Motoko Black could be a granddaughter of Kyra Zelas/The Adaptive Ultimate (56) from the period that she resided in Japan, but there is no evidence for that, although it could explain how successful their daughter, Stephanie, managed to become the Queen of Underworld of Kanto Region.
Stephanie Rocketti, under the codename "Madam Boss", would remodel the Red Circle into the high-tech terrorist/criminal organization known as "Team Rocket" that would be the nemesis both of the Pokémon League as well as the UN Regional Governing Council of Kanto. Also their front name, Rockettech Corporation, although their subsidiary Innobotics Inc. (57) would be the greatest rival of the rising Cybertronics Corporation. With one of the most ruthless agents under her control, Vicious (the same that would be/was defeated by young Sam Oak and Ash Ketchum through a time warp), she would have a son, Giovanni.
Stephanie Rocketti would also be the responsible by the disappearance of TR Agent Miyamoto Gibson, mother of Jessie Gibson. A little after this, Stephanie would die a victim of cancer. Giovanni stepped in and began to control Team Rocket. Under the cover of his respectable position as one of Kanto's main industrialists and Gym Leader, he plots to overthrow the control of United Nations over Kanto, as also Cybertronics Corporation.
Officially, Giovanni Rocketti had no children, but there is a rumor that one of his agents, a young woman named Domino, is actually his daughter (58). Also, there is the possibility that he is Ash Ketchum's father, but the only person that could clear it up - Mrs. Delia Ketchum - is tight lipped about it... and considering the kind of power that Giovanni had, probably due a good reason... One wonders what could happen when he and Ash Ketchum face each other...
Part Six - About Robotics and Dr. Susan Calvin, robopsychologist
Christopher and Misato Ketchum's rebelious granddaughter Stephanie Ketchum married Edward Calvin, a middle level executive of ENCOM, and they would have a daughter that would be the nodal point to the technological developments that would lead to Multivac and to the creation of a future Earth's Galactic Empire. Her name was Susan Calvin, correctly considered by her peers as "The Queen of Positronic Brain".
But before we verify her influence, we should analyze the history of the development of Positronics, or better, Spintronics - the basis of modern quantum computing (59).
In 1930's one small town scientist named Charles Anton Link created - based on the info given by a mysterious black-haired woman (60) - an android with an independent mind and human-like, gentle personality, who he named "Adam". Seeing that the Second World War was coming, he tried overriding Adam's personality to turn him a killing machine for the U.S. Army, but something went wrong and Adam ended killing his creator. Called a "Frankenstein Monster", he went to be judge for murder. Although he was considered innocent by the jury, he had to flee with Nina Link, the niece of his creator, to escape from people who tried to destroy him. He and the woman who become his lover went undercover until Nina Link died due to cancer. Lonely, Adam walked through the country until he reached the outskirts of Boston. There he saved the young wife of a computer science student from of MIT from a fire, becoming damaged in the process. Realizing the artificial man saved his wife, the student decided restore him, in a way to thank the android. The name of the student was Emmett Benton.
Analyzing Adam Link's A.I. system, he learned the basic principles of the spintronics - the key for a real artificial intelligence. But before they could learn more, Adam Link disappeared again, without a trace (61). At same time that Emmett would take over Starlight Music and found, together with his wife, Starlight House, Emmett would use his knowledge to create a supercomputer that would combine the power of spintronics and realistic holography with the creativity of human mind - he named it Synergy. After the death of his wife, Emmett remodeled Synergy's personality to match his late wife - to act as a surrogate mother for his daughters, Jerrica and Kimberly, if something happened to him.... and it happened: he suffered an fatal car crash, cause by a loss of control due Huntington's Disease.
While he was working, first to restore Adam Link and later in Synergy, Emmett Benton would correspond with two scientists, one of them a young quantum physicist named Dr. Samuel Beckett, who would use this knowledge to create Ziggy, a "hybrid computer" that would administrate Project Quantum Leap, the successor in time travel research of Project Tic Toc (62). The other fellow researcher was a computer scientist for U.S. Department of Defense named Stephen Falken.
While Emmett Benton would recreate Adam Link's spintronic matrix and model its reactions after his late wife, Stephen Falken would take a different approach, and try building a spintronic conscient system from zero, using common electronic technology of his time.
The first result would be WOPR, a strategic computer for NORAD to make nuclear war "winnable". He had programmed on it a special A.I. function that he named "Joshua" (in homage to his late little son). Such A.I. function was intelligent and even creative and determined to reach its goals, but in a sense very restricted: it didn't understand the consequences of its actions outside of the scope of its project: discover a way to win the "game". That is why the computer almost started the Third World War when a hacker named David Lightman (Andrew Oak's grandson) ordered it to play "Global Thermonuclear War". Happily, he and WOPR's creator manage to convince it to stop (63).
Based on Stephen Falken's work on WOPR, a special group coordinated by Dr. Linda Lamb and Dr. Jeffrey Stewart, would create a child-like android named D.A.R.Y.L. (Data Analyzing Robot Youth Lifeform) to be the perfect soldier, but instead it would reveal to be a perfect child. Since that the project was a failure, D.A.R.Y.L. was destroyed, despite of the trying by its creator to prevent it (64). Should to be noted that at that time, U.S. Department of Defense was extremely interested in A.I. research: it would fund a research of analysis of human brain using human guinea pigs that would be uncovered by Dr. Martin Phillips (65). They also would get hold of a part of Dr. Link's notes, that would be used by Dr. Bolivar Trask, to create the badly-projected "Sentinel" robots of Project Wideawake (66).
Based on Emmett Benton's notes about using CAT scans to project a neural net, that he send to MIT for safe-keeping before his death, two researchers separately would use it to develop a way to download a human mind into a computer. Donald Gelman, one of the pioneers of Internet programming, and their assistants, a young woman named Esther "Invisigoth" Nairn and a young technician named David Markham would develop a way to join a grid A.I. that he developed, but it went rogue and killed its creator before he could release a "Kill Switch", a specially designed program to destroy it. His death was investigated by FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully (67). Apparently, Esther "Invisigoth" merged her mind with the rogue A.I. and they become a new entity named Daemon, that later threatened to take over the Internet.
The other researcher, Dr. Sarkar Muhammed, would expand the uses of computational neural nets although his researches in his company, Mirror Image. He would make three copies of the mind of his friend, Dr. Peter Hobson, but one of them revealed to be a killer. To catch it, Hobson copied the mind of dying Toronto Police detective Alexandra Phillips (daughter of Aja Leith and Craig Phillips), who deleted the murderous copy (68) and later would merge with the TRON security protocol, developed by ENCOM's master programmer Alan Bradley, forming the Guardian Security Protocol, that would impede the takeover of Internet by Daemon (69). Interesting, the original TRON protocol had prevented that a rogue A.I., the Master Control Program (MCP), take over the digital systems of the world (70).
At same time, United Nations and Quest Enterprises began a program to develop a supercomputer to simulate the global economical/natural forces patterns, using the Questworld technology (71) and the A.I. engines from a game developer named FPS, Inc. (72). It was responsibility of Simulation Specialist Douglas Hall, creator of "Simulacron-3" system, that would evolve until it was able to simulate entire *worlds*, so real that no one could tell the difference... including the simulated people inside of the system, called "Reactive Units" (73).
Now the world had all the clues to create a reliable and safe A.I. system, as described by Isaac Asimov in his short stories. There only the need of someone to join the pieces together... and this person was a researcher of a small high-tech company named Android Mechanics, Inc.: Dr. Alfred Lightman, son of David Lightman and Jennifer Mack, working under Dr. Miles Hogenmiller and Dr. Lawrence Robertson. He connected everything: all the earlier researchers in robotics including Emmett Benton and Stephen Falken's work, the simulated consciences of Simulacron-3, the notes by Dr. Link, Mirror Image's technology and the most recent discoveries in quantum physics and material development... to create the Spintronic Matrix, or as it is more known the Positronic Brain. Android Mechanics and its patents where brought by a consortium by Quest Enterprises and ENCOM, the major information technology hardware corporations - it would later to become Cybertronics Corporation, the greatest industrial giant of the world, the company that Asimov named in his stories "U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men, Inc
Dr. Lightman developed the first working prototypes of the Spintronic robots, but their thought processes still too simple, too one-track - they would be light years ahead of any robot before them, but their potential still untouched.... For that spintronic technology could change the world, it would depend of the brilliant genius of Dr. Susan Calvin.
There is something that we should clarify before continuing: although Asimov described with great detail Dr. Calvin's career, his source convinced him to mask other facts as her personality. In a screenplay for "I, Robot" that Harlan Ellison wrote under Asimov's supervision, Susan Calvin's birth year was 1994 rather 1982... interesting that such well-defined detail would be changed... In a comment in "The Complete Robot" he would say that wasn't satisfied in portrait her as a "lonely and frustrated woman" - was he trying to covertly say that the personality of real Susan Calvin was different that he had written?
The answer is yes.
After the marriage with Edward Calvin (74), Stephanie Ketchum broke contact with her family. This explains later events. In a word, Stephanie and Edward Calvin's marriage was a disaster: they fought constantly and he began to drink. Five years after their union, Stephanie Calvin would die giving birth to Susan. Susan turned out to be an extremely quiet and at same time bright gifted little girl - but despite this her father never paid much attention to her, except when he spanked her after getting drunk. Also, due her quiet nature and plain looks, she always ostracized in school. Needless to say, her upbringing and loneliness had a great influence in her personality, turning her distrustful of others and certain that no one cared for her. When she was 10-years-old, Edward Calvin died in a car accident caused by his drinking, from which Susan was saved by a black-haired woman. Now a orphan, and without way to contact the Ketchum's side of the family, she was sent to Starlight Foundation, administrated by Kimber Benton.
Now, one could argue that there is no way for Susan to have been in Starlight Foundation and have met Jem and the Holograms. This is partially correct: Susan Calvin never met the rock group, since it had "disbanded" soon after Jerrica Benton began to show the symptoms of Huntington's Disease (the end of the band was a way to disguise the fact that Jem and Jerrica are the same person), but Starlight Foundation, as a safe port for orphan girls, continued, through Jerrica's sister Kimber. Also there is another factor: in "Robbie" the first story of "I, Robot", Asimov tells the story of a girl saved by a babysitter robot - he named the girl "Gloria Weston" then. In the screenplay for "I, Robot" it would to be revealed that the girl was really Susan Calvin herself. But there is something wrong, there is no babysitter robots at the market at the time that Susan was a little girl (the robots that Dr. Alfred Lightman began to develop for Android Mechanics were for industrial use at space)... but at the time that she was a young girl, there *is* a computer with human intelligence and human compassion: Synergy.
Kimber Benton would immediately notice how troubled Susan was - although she and the others members of the Foundation (as former Starlight Girls Ashley Morgan and Deidre Smith) tried, they didn't have much success in making Susan open up. Remembering how they almost lost another girl, Laura Hallaway to depression, Kimber discussed with Jerrica (who was still lucid, even in the lasrt stages of Huntington's) an extreme alternative. They would make Synergy watch the young girl, through the special earrings/holographic projectors. And it was a wise move: Susan fled from the Foundation (it was an example of her intelligence that she was able to escape and not negligence from the staff of the Foundation) to try and kill herself. In the nick of time, Synergy stopped her, by accidentally scaring her by projecting her holographic avatar. Synergy managed to make the stunned girl to talk... and for the first time in her life, Susan trusted someone... The friendship that was born that day would be the key for her great love for A.I. and computers, and define the direction of her life.
Susan Calvin grew to be a brilliant woman, but one that always hid her feelings although through a tendency to be cold and a difficult to make contact with the people around her, at same time that she would show a cutting irony and towering determined personality. Her wish to develop something new for mankind and her impatience to the people's stupid behaviour would always clash. It would be increase by her common looks (she wasn't ugly, as most people think with the term "plain") if the person preferred to see that the appearance rather than the heart. This two antagonic impulses would explain her frustration cause by the incident with the telepathic RB-34 (75).
Later she would post-doctorate in Computer Science and Psychology through MIT and Columbia University and would be one of the first employees of recently formed Cybertronics Corporation. Immediately, she attacked the problem of mental stability of the Spintronic Matrix: she realized that the most successful A.I.s until then (WOPR, Synergy, the reactive units of Simulacron-3, the Guardian Protocol) followed a very specific architecture that give it its stability... all other A.I. systems (Project Wideawake to mention just one example) lacked such architecture, and it allows to its aberrant behaviour.
Susan Calvin analyzed it and created, together with Dr. Alfred Lightman, the programming of the Three Laws of Robotics - the basis of the Spintronic Brain, and the key for its stable development. This part was well chronicled by Asimov.
But also there is a part that Asimov didn't tell.
When Cybertronics Corporation was about to make the largest robotic distribution in history, with the release of the domestic assistent NS-5, Dr. Miles Hogenmiller was found death in his laboratory. It was called to investigate Chicago Homicide Detective Del Spooner, a robotophobic (76). Clashing at eachother first, Dr. Susan Calvin, Dr. Alfred Lightman and the detective Del Spooner uncover a upcoming "robotic revolution", orchestrated by an evolving A.I. created by the late Dr. Hogenmiller, based on a twisted interpretation of the Three Laws of Robotics. Although they manage defeat the rogue A.I. with the help a prototype robot specially developed by Dr. Hogenmiller for that, it shattered the trust of the public in robots. Their spread use was banned in America and Europe, except in very special cases (77). Meanwhile in the Orient, the use of spintronic robots continued as normal and Cybertronics began to develop the space market for exploring robots.
The incident at Chicago make Dr. Susan Calvin realize that the Three Laws aren't in the same level of the Laws of Physics - as her initial trust in her own work made her think - but that they are in the same level of the human laws: they are open to interpretation by each one, and depending of one's logic it could lead to terrible results... The study of how the mind of the robots would deal with these Laws - all the Dr. Calvin's later work would be around it - the field that she called "Robopsychology" (after her death it would be named "Computational Psychology").
Later, another startling incident happened: the main factory at Chicago was attacked by a group of rogue robots, send by one of the agents of the Capelleans. Anyway, the continued attacks of this android soldiers began to raise to the top the Frankenstein's Complex of the Western Population (East - in special in Japan - didn't suffer with it). To contain it Dr. Alfred Lightman and Dr. Susan Calvin were forced to develop something that they never expect to create - a soldier android. But instead of the killing machines wished by U.S. Department of Defense, what they developed was an android customized to fight other robots, not humans. Interesting, it was the first humaniform robot developed by Cybertronics - its codename was Rock. But the public would know him as Megaman, although his robotic status would be a secret: everybody thought that this special soldier was just a member of U.N. forces in an exoskeleton suit (78). Rock/Megaman's programming also becoming the basis for the "Rescue" Robot line - the models JNY (Officer Jenny) and JOY (Nurse Joy) that would be essential for Kanto Region later (UN used humaniform robots in the area as a test to see the reliability of such work force - the experiment was a success.)
After develop "Brain" - the Cybertronics's supercomputer that would based on the instructions on the "Message" detected by Dr. Eleanor Arrowway later develop the so called "Hyperatomic Drive", the FTL device that send two Cybertronics troubleshooters, Gregory Powell and Michael Donovan (79), into the a voyage until another galaxy - she would meet a Richard Hobby, a fellow cybernetics researcher, and at contrary of what Asimov had to write, she had a relationship with him, while they managed to keep secret. From it, Thomas Allen Hobby was born. Unfortunately, the anti-mecha sentiment began to grow, including armed responses. In an attack at Cybertronics labs, Susan Calvin became severely hurt and her body would have to be reconstructed with cybernetic technology (80). Realizing that she could bring danger to her son, she asked Richard to take care of their son, a request that he to which he complied. That explains why Susan would bond later so much with "Lenny" - a defective LNE model with the mind of a child. Paradoxically, she would try reconnect with the family of her mother, befriending Delia Ketchum and her son Ash.
Susan Calvin also would secretly permit a young idealistic lawyer who was crippled by a car accident to have access to one of the most advanced Spintronic Brains, and use to build a replica of himself in order to become what he could not be anymore. The name of this lawyer was Stephen Byerley - who later would reach to the chair of U.N. Global Coordinator. When the global weather reached a level of unstability that began to menace to human population (81), he revoked the prohibition to the use of spintronic robots in Western, that become the keystone to Earth's reconstruction. And Stephen Byerley would, under Dr. Calvin's suggestion, order the creation of Earth's Central Computer, nicknamed "Multivac" - a grid computer with a very carefully understanding of the Three Laws.
She would, in the last days at Cybertronics before her retirement, make critical alteration in the brain of a NDR model robot that would make the robot in question develop curiosity and creativity - the NDR would to be sold to the family of congressman Gerald Martin, and later would to be known as Andrew Martin (82).
After Dr. Calvin's death, the use of humaniform robots - now called "Mecha" - would become widespread, while in Eastern, they would be called "Persocoms".
Thomas Allen Hobby, Susan Calvin and Richard Hobby's son, would later marry Darlene Sutherland, and their son, Allen Hobby, would fellow his grandmother's footsteps and become a genial roboticist himself at very Cybertronics. He would marry Carol Sanders, and have a son, David Hobby. Unfortunately, David Hobby had a troubled adolescence and would commit suicide... Allen Hobby later, moved by his guilt, would create the Emotional Imprinting Routine and the first prototype, the mecha-child David (built at David Hobby's image). The mecha-child would to beta-tested by a Henry and Monica Swinton, with serious results (83).
In Japan, a young specialist in robots, Minoru Kokubonji would do something similar and recreate his dead sister Kaede as a Persocom, that he named "Yuzuki". Also, Dr. Ichiro Mihara, married to Chitose Hibiya, a fellow scientist and writer, would repeat Prof. Hobby's experiments in artificial emotion, that would have great consequences for Japanese computer systems (84).
Thanks to Dr. Susan Calvin's work, Mankind had something between it and its own destruction - the intelligence and strength of the Spintronics Robots - and they would lead the humanity to the stars and beyond (85).
That was the great and unexpected legacy of the men who entered in Kanto Region at that distant July 16, 1945.
NOTES
(1) As narrated in "Pokémon the Movie 2000".
(2) Until today, the meteorologists still don't know how to explain the long-time stability showed by the Eternal Storms Ring, that the first records about the phenomenon dated back from Magellan's first circunavegation - some of them even are beginning to accept the legends that it is a work of the Legendary Pokémon.
(3) This is the same man depicted in Herge's Tintin stories.
(4) The mechanism of Dr. Christopher Ketchum's hypothesis about the origin of Pokémon would be named in the 60's as "The Founder Principle" and it would become an alternative to classical natural selection for the studies of Evolution (Scientific American Brasil - July/2004). It is based on the idea that if we get at random a "sample" of the diversified population, and use this sample to populate a new isolated area, we will not get the "copy" of the original population with its genetic pool, but a original population of beings with their own genetic pool. In a certain way, the Wold Newton Family itself is a example of Founder Principle - the members of it shares their genetic caracteristics with their founders (the people at Wold Newton Meteor Crash), but are different of the general human population.
(5) For more info about the Moriarty family, see the articles "The Secret History of Captain Nemo" by Dr. Rick Lai and "The Malevolents Moriartys" by Dr. Win Eckert and also the upcoming article of Dennis Power's upcoming "Star Inn Families" series, "The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste: The Moriarty Family".
It is probable that Katherine and Serena Moriarty left home sometime before their father met Katherine Koluchy, the Blind Spinner.
(6) As stated in the article "The First Doc Savage"
(7) A romanticized version of their lives could be found in the manga by Noshiburo Watsuki "Rurouni Kenshin". An interesting note is in memoirs written by Mr. Himura at the end of his life, he mentions when he and his mother, two months before the death of his family, witness a meteoric rain. Maybe it just strenghned an already present trait, as theorized by Dr. Cheryl Huttner.
(8) Apparently David Dunn asked Mr. Shyamalan to not mention his young daughter Megan (a baby at the time of events narrated in "Unbreakable" had happened) to don't expose her.
(9) Jessica Bannon is daughter of Estella Velasquez and Roger "Race" Bannon. Jonathan Quest is son of Rachel Wildey Quest and Dr. Benton C. Quest. Their exploits are narrated in "Jonny Quest" and "Jonny Quest: The Real Adventures". See also the article "The Enduring Adventures of Jonny Quest" by Dr. Matthew Baugh.
(10) As discovered by Dr. Kai Jansson in the article "The Reign of Supermen"
(11) Dr. Doug Phillips's disappearance is connected to his work at Project Tic-Toc, as narrated in "The Time Tunnel"
(12) There is a research under way to verify if Mr. Selig is connected to the Wold Newton event. An interesting note is that there is a book very loosely based in his life, written by Sci-fi author Robert Silverberg, called "Dying Inside".
(13) Cole's struggle with his power and the help of Dr. Malcolm Crowe were told in a fictionalized way by director/screenwriter M. Night Shyamalan in his movie "The Sixth Sense".
(14) A theory, based in genetic similarities, stated that Monica Ketchum, Delia's sister, was rescued from the crash site by a Team Rocket member named Rachel Gibson, who renamed the child Miyamoto, since the girl had no I.D. documents neither was able to remember who she was. Miyamoto grew to be a major agent of Team Rocket, meeting Christian Banner, another agent, who would become the father of her daughter, Team Rocket Agent Jessie Gibson. No evidence was found yet relating the Rocket Agent Christian Banner to Dr. Robert Bruce Banner or Dr. David Bruce Banner (although it could explain Jessie Gibson's short temper and above-average strength). It is interesting to note that at same time that Miyamoto Gibson disappeared, the Security Police of Kanto Region found an amnesiac red-headed woman in the Icy Mountains. She received the identity of Lorelei Prima Taylor - and she went to become a member of Elite Four, specialist in Ice and Water Pokémon.
(15) Ash Ketchum showed an amazing ability to recover from any injury, a great caring for his Pokémon - risking his life to protect them (as in the very first day of his journey, when he, still very hurt, tried protect Pikachu from a flock (of crazy Spearows - to mention one single example), a growing strategical skill, great determination and strength of temper, and a great tendency to jump in situations to help persons in need, even a great personal risk - such caracteristics clearly showed his Wold Newton heritage.
(16) the story of their rivalry is told in the movie "Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever"
(17) Rumors said that Jonathan Ketchum/Jeremiah Ecks was recruited by a mysterious independent rescue organization called "Global Frequency"
(18) The relationships between the Griffin and Radcliffe families are explained in the "The Invisibles" series of articles by Dr. Dennis E. Power
(19) the story of her investigation would be told by Robin Cook in the book "Coma" where he changed her name "Susan Wheller"
(20) as narrated by Isaac Asimov in the short stories "Evidence" and "The Evitable Conflict"
(21) Robin Cook would report Tristan Williams and Marissa Blumenthal's investigation in "Vital Signs". Marissa's earlier investigation about the mysterious Ebola outbreaks was recorded in "Virus"
(22) Douglas Hall's real story would be chronicled by Daniel F. Galouye in "Simulacron-3" - what would explain the sudden change of attitude - for the better - that his colleagues in UN Simulation Center noticed, in special his girlfriend, Jane "Jinx" Fuller.
(23) Dr. Mark Hall's participation in Project Wildfire was narrated by Michael Crichton in "The Andromeda Strain". There is research under way to see if his exposition to the alien microorganism in some way affected his descendents.
(24) As narrated in "Enigma" by Robert Harris
(26) Melody Sanders appears in "Pokémon the movie 2000: The Power of One"
(27) Article "The Daring Drummonds" by Dr. Brad Mengel
(28) Adam Link's origin was related in the short story "I, Robot" by Eando Binder
(29) Huntington's Disease is a terrible neurological denegerative disease. It is genetic and have no cure. for more info, visit the site of Huntington's Disease Society of America (http://www.hdsa.org) and the site of Hereditary Disease Foundation (http://www.hdfoundation.org)
(30) As narrated in "Jem!". It is interesting that Jerrica Benton convinced to the cartoon's producer, Christy Marx, to show she and Jem as the same person with the help of a holographic computer. Probably Ms. Marx thought that was just a way of Jem make fun of the mystery around her identity. Actually, Jerrica's decision was to discredit the "Jem-is-Jerrica-Benton" theory that began to be rumored at that time and guarantee Synergy's safety - because the computer's holographic system would be a terrible weapon in wrong hands, but also, and this was the main reason, to protect her digital friend, who also was her surrogate mother and mentor. Synergy had passed the Emotional Turing Test with flying colours.
(31) Dr. Peter Hobson is a distant cousin to Gary Hobson, a Chicago stockbroker-turned-bar-owner, would apparently had a hero complex connects to a mysterious newspaper and a cat. Gary Hobson's adventures (or misadventures, depending of the way that you look at it) are chronicled in "Early Edition"
(32) As narrated in "The Terminal Experiment" by Robert J. Sawyer. Mr. Sawyer also altered her name from Phillips to Philo (apparently a request from Peter Hobson to protect Alexandra's young daughter, Ellen Phillips, since Dr.Hobson assumed the responsibility to take care of her)
(33) Alan Bradley is a distant cousin to the Bradley family mentioned in Kai Jansson's article "The Reign of the Supermen", what turns him a distant relative to Cole Sear and David Dunn). Also the story of the development of the original TRON protocol is narrated in the movie "TRON" by Steven Lisberger.
(34) The Guardian Protocol is the same that mentioned in "ReBoot". It is possible that the computer sprites of System Mainframe being descendents of the original computer programs than Kevin Flynn met as narrated in "TRON", but considerating the several evolution in computer programming in the period between, it would be the same thing that try do a family tree of a person of Century XXI until their Australopitecus ancestor.
(35) "The Land Family", by Brad Mengel
(36) As narrated in "Frameshift" by Robert J. Sawyer. He also changed Molly's last name from "Bowman" to "Bond"
(37) Samantha Spade's career was narrated in "Without a Trace"
(38) the history of her discovery and her voyage to the stars would be told by Carl Sagan in a fictionalized way in his book "Contact"
(39) As narrated in "Brain" by Robin Cook
(40) As narrated in "Terminator 2: Judgment Day"
(41) As narrated in "TRON"
(42) Veronica's parents met in the Flight 66 Biological Crisis, narrated by John J. Nance in "Pandora's Clock"
(43) As narrated in "Pokémon 4 Ever"
(44) As narrated in "Wargames"
(45) Although at first moment such affirmation is incompatible, the physical descriptions of both Dr. Alfred Lanning (from Asimov's Positronic Robots stories) and Dr. Thomas Light (from "MegaMan" game) are surprising similar as also their roles as pioneers at Robotics.
(46) in a striking coincidence, the Jordan family moved from London, by Serena's instigation, some time after ther last murder by Jack the Ripper.
(47) Lyle Bowman would marry, and the couple would go to the NuGenesis Family Center to adopt a kid - this kid was to become known as Mr. Lyle (info from "There Are Pretenders Among Us" by Dr. Brad Mengel)
(48) as narrated in "X-Files" episode "Fire"
(49) as narrated in the movie "Minority Report"
(50) as narrated in "Frameshift" by Robert J. Sawyer
(51) as narrated in "2001 - A Space Odyssey" by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke
(52) Mr. Keitaro Urashima showed though his life a surprising tendency to endure almost fatal injuries and damage, in the same way that his wife, Naru Narusegawa, showed a great hidden muscular strength. There is a research under way to discover if this is related to the fact that Urashima's paternal grandmother, Mrs. Hina Urashima, and Narusegawa's parental grandfather, Mr. Hideo Narusegawa, were survivors of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. Keitaro Urashima and Naru Narusegawa's (convoluted) relationship is narrated in the manga "Love Hina" by Ken Akamatsu.
(53) Samara Morgan's terrible story is narrated in the movie "The Ring". Ironically, Samara Morgan's would be victims Rachel Keller, and her young son Aidan, are descendents of Miranda Keller's brother.
(54) a fictionalized version of the events would be shown in movie "The Bird with the Crystal Plumage" by Dario Argento.
(55) this is the organization that would be the foe of Conan Edogawa, as narrated in "Detective Conan. Probably Motoko Black was the same woman that ran the counterfeit ring shown in the volume 18/19 of the manga. Dr. Cheryl L. Huttner sugested that maybe the Black Organization is a branch of Fu-Manchu's criminal empire, what could explain their access to the youthing agent/poison.
(56) Kyra Zelas/The Adaptive Ultimate/Mystique's career is studied in Dr. Peter Coogan's upcoming article "Adapt and Survive, Survive and Prosper"
(57) Innobotics appeared in the "The Outer Limits" episodes "Valerie 23" and "Mary 25"
(58) she first appeared in "Pokémon: the Return of Mewtwo"
(59) For more info about the rising science of Spintronic, check the June 2002 edition of Scientifec American.
(60) this mysterious woman would be Noys Lambert-Harlan, the time traveler from "The End of Eternity", who could have been Asimov's original source about the Positronic Robots and the Foundation - strangely, some data hints at a connection between Dr. Susan Calvin and Noys Harlan.
(61) Although it is not possible to confirm it, there is a rumor that Adam Link was later in Century XXI found about the Japanese Government, and reconfigured to work as a investigator named "Batou" for a agency named "Section Nine".
(62) Dr. Beckett's adventures due his work at Project Quantum Leap were chronicled by Donald Bellisario in the TV series "Quantum Leap"
(63) as narrated in "Wargames"
(64) An extremely fictionalized version of this story would become a movie named "D.A.R.Y.L."
(65) as narrated in "Brain" by Robin Cook
(67) as narrated in "The X-Files: Kill Switch"
(68) as narrated in "The Terminal Experiment" by Robert J. Sawyer
(71) the development of QuestWorld VR system was shown in "The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest"
(72) "X-Files" Episode "First Person Shooter"
(73) Douglas Hall's story was chronicled in "Simulacron-3" by Daniel F. Galouye. It also interesting to note that sometimes the simulated worlds in Simulacron-3 system began to show malfunctions: one of them in special - Matrix-6 - the reactive units became aware that they lived in a simulated world, *without* being aware of their essential virtuality, and their fights to become free of the system menace the entire integrity of it - so to stop it, it was programmed a special version of Guardian Protocol to stop this rebels. A really distorted version of this gave origin to the "Matrix" franchise.
(74) Ironically, Susan Calvin's father was a descendent of James Noel Moriarty and Professor George Edward Challenger.
Eric Morgan (James Noel Moriarty's grandson although his daughter Katherine) married a Emily Powell, and they have a son, Roger Morgan, who married Gwen Challenger, twin sister of Georgina Challenger, grand-daughter of Professor George Edward Challenger and Jessie Delgardie.
Roger and Gwen Morgan, have two kids: Celia and Brock Morgan. Celia married a Michael Calvin - their son was Edward Calvin, father of Dr. Susan Calvin. Brock Morgan would be the great-grandfather of Dr. Vannevar Morgan, the enginner who build Earth's Space Elevator in the century XXII.
(76) It is possible that Detective Del Spooner is related to the family of Virgil "Static" Hawkins - their personalities are very much alike.
(77) As narrated in the movie "I, Robot" although strangely distorted some facts, it narrated the events in a straight manner.
(78) as narrated in "MegaMan" games.
(79) Robotic technician Michael Donovan is a descendent of Lt. Mike Steve "Blueberry" Donovan and Gregory Powell would be the ancestor of Lincoln Powell, the telepathic New York Prefect whose worst case was chronicled by Alfred Bester in "The Demolished man".
(80) It was the same prosthetic technology used by Dr. Miles Hogenmiller in Detective Del Spooner - a well developed technology that the time. The prosthetic technology that would make Andrew Martin's fame would be the cybernetic substitutes of internal vital organs.
(81) The effect of 2083 Global Superstorm (as the global weather instability was called by the public) was narrated in a *extremelly* distorted and twisted way in the movie "The Day After Tomorrow".
(82) Andrew Martin's story would be narrated by Isaac Asimov in "The Bicentennial Man"
(83) David Swinton's tale is narrated in "A.I. - Artificial Intelligence"
(84) as narrated in "Chobits" by CLAMP
(85) to know more about Dr. Susan Calvin's influence, see the upcoming article "Dr. Susan Calvin, The Woman Who Built Tomorrow"
