marked in red.

Caveat -- Ruins: No explanation currently exists for apparently ancient ruins which feature apparently ancient Pokemon. Submitted by supermonkeyjoe

and that's because gasoline is a thing of the past.

Johto/Hoenn/Sinnoh/Kanto = Japan. In the wake of the devastation it revived its spiritual roots.Unova = Previously the Eastern half of the United States. After the war in which the western half was devastated (now known as "Orre"), it was Newly re-United - hence the name, Unova.Orre = blasted to pieces, the Western United States is a lawless place and not recognized as a civilized country by the now-withdrawn Unova. Shelters which were constructed underground became known as The Under and are now ruled entirely by the paramilitary organization Cipher.Kalos (X + Y region) = France. We don't know much about it or how hard it was hit. Team Flare/Flair is the first organization that shows no signs of being paramilitary, but this could be the simple resurgence of organized crime that existed pre-war.----Theory Base: The events of RBY take place less than 10 years after the end of World War Three; all subsequent games in the same universe.Architecture: Obviously Pokemon were genetically engineered as insanely powerful weapons and assistants to battlefield personnel, akin to organic robots (some, like Magnemite, are literal robots). The war they fought in was so devastating that much of society was lost and the world had to be rebuilt with cheap portable housing technology, hence why the architecture is so cutesy and blocky. Examples of more detailed architecture are easily explained by either being older structures (that survived the war), newer structures (built decades after the war), or non-existent. The most detailed and elaborate architecture in Pokemon games is seen in Orre, which was never rebuilt in the first place; its government abandoned it to Cipher from the get-go, hoping to starve them out, but they underestimated Cipher's resources.Vehicles: There are two forms of artificial transport in Pokemon: subways and ships. Ships can be powered by steam, so there's no problem here. Likewise, subways can be powered by Electric pokemon. However, almost no planes or cars are ever seen,because a lot of them were destroyed. Gas clearly exists and is used semifrequently, because otherwise the planes at Mistralton and the Bikers in RBY couldn't happen. (thx Kurgan, supermonkeyjoe) Wes's motorcycle unexplainably hovers, though, which means it couldn't possibly run on gas.Battles: The Pokemon weapons were all sentient so it was decided to be unethical to put them down and they instead used them to help rebuild society, and also as pets. Pokeballs aren't necessary for trainers, they actually just link to the Pokemon captured by them and function as power limiters to keep them from killing or maiming other Pokemon or trainers with their ridiculous destructive force. Otherwise, no one would trust the task of Pokemon training to mere children. Pokemon are made to battle because competition is an intrinsic necessity to their growth cycle. Pokemon that do not compete do not realize their growth cycles and become stunted (in a pre-evolved form). This is why Gyms are a prominent institution, and why many cities are built entirely around the existence of a Gym. They are essential to the continued health of Pokemon, on which society now relies.The Conspiracy: Professor Oak is aware of the war and almost every Pokemon that was created. He didn't give you the Pokedex to discover new species, he was really instructing you to take inventory and find out which species went extinct during the war. That's why Oak has studied Pokemon his whole life but "his" Pokedex is empty. Oak, Birch, Fennel and all the other Pokemon researchers have tree-based names because they are all part of a conspiracy. They're older than they look, and their tree monikers both disguise their names (the creation of Pokemon killed millions, so many are considered war criminals) and are indicative of their pact to re-grow society. Celebi and Dialga can control time, so it would not be unreasonable for Oak and co. to be two or three hundred years old.Poke'rus: It's a Pokemon in and of itself; how could it be anything else, since it's a virus that has only beneficial effects on the host? The difference is that it's microscopic, and engineered from a virus; it's too small to target a single unit with a Pokeball, so it can't be caught. It was developed during the war and deliberately spread within its own ranks to increase the growth of Pokemon (possibly as a counter to whatever side developed the Shadow Pokemon process).Population: The early Pokemon games (R/B/Y) feature many children, adult women, and elderly men, but almost no adult men. The only significantly large population of adult men can be found in the Evil Teams (more on that later), implying an event that greatly reduced this population. Lt. Surge is a military veteran who survived (and traps his gym, because he's paranoid as all hell; probably the only reason he survived in the first place). The reason for this rampant destruction is simple: Pokemon are really, really overpowered. Groudon, for instance, can intensify sunlight to the point that it *dries up the sea,* while Kyogre can produce enough rainfall to submerge entire continents. Dialga distorts Time itself. The power scale we're dealing with here is clear; apocalyptic destruction was inevitable.Evil Teams: Offshoots of the military all. All wear uniforms, have a fairly standardized selection of Pokemon, and follow in a strict hierarchy. Rocket, Aqua, Magma, Snagem, Cipher, and Galactic all follow this convention - as does Ghetsis's offshoot of Team Plasma, but not it's original incarnation. The reason for this is simple: He's actively avoiding the appearance of modern combat troops by dressing as medieval knights, which are perceived as less threatening and more in line with the heroism he outwardly cultivates. When his facade breaks, he jumps right back to paramilitary looks. Team Flair/Flare appears to be an exception (we know little about them thus far but it's quite conceivable for them to break from this trend, as it takes place long after R/B/Y and therefore after the War.) The most likely reason to make the switch from military to criminal organization was that they feared persecution for their crimes.Shadow Pokemon: A particularly brutal form of conditioning designed to train Pokemon for war. Snagem/Cipher adapted it from methods that were used during the war, as it's a good method of quickly turning Pokemon into soldiers, but doesn't allow them to progress in their normal life cycle and also makes them vicious.Psychics/Seers: It's entirely possible that the presence of Psychic pokemon influences Psychic abilities in humans. In Saffron City, there are a number of genuine psychics, but they're almost nonexistent elsewhere. However, the female deuteragonist of Pokemon Colosseum may have these powers as well, since she can *see* Shadow Pokemon. She'd have to be psychic, since the Shadow Pokemon state is purely a mental one (see above); she's reading their minds or she is sensitive to their aggressive behavior. These powers are not fully understood or explored in this theory, anymore than they would be in real life (no one can give you the facts and specifics of ESP, for instance).The "Dark-Type": Descended from Pokemon types bred for aggression and opportunism. They refer not to physical darkness but merely to brutal and dirty fighting techniques. However, when trained properly they are no more hostile than any other type (in the same way that a well-trained Pit Bull makes as good a pet as a Labrador Retriever). In Japan it's referred to as the "Evil" type, implying a predilection for violence or cruelty. Most supernaturally "dark" techniques are Ghost-Type, not Dark-Type. This follows with the above; Psychics are weak to Dark-types because they are more sensitive to their aggressive behavior, and therefore their mental defenses don't function as well; they can't accurately grasp the mind of their targets because their violent thoughts prohibit that, in the same way that a hand could not grasp a sea urchin.Ghosts: This is unclear. Ghosts clearly would have no DNA to alter and should normally not be able to reproduce, but Ghost-Type pokemon can, in fact, produce more of themselves. It's possible that the Ghost-Type is merely a designation assigned because of a superficial resemblance to ghosts. It follows that this type might have been created as shock troops, infiltrators or psych-warfare specialists. The one ghost-related event that *cannot* be disputed is the Lavender Tower incident in R/B/Y, so it's almost certain that true ghosts exist in the Pokemon universe; however, it's also possible that Ghost-Type Pokemon are distinct from true ghosts. Psychics are weak to Ghost types for completely different reasons as Dark-Types; they genuinely fear their ghostly presences, rather than being repulsed by aggression.Joys and Jennies: The Nurse Joys and Officer Jennies are clones derived from a famously skilled battlefield nurse and a military policewoman which were developed when the human population began to dwindle. They do, however, genuinely believe that they are sisters; they're raised as a family and trained extensively through subconscious learning techniques to be amazing nurses/policewomen. It's quite possible that they are genetically augmented, in the same way as Pokemon, to be natural partners for Pokemon, but there's no basis for this other than their odd hair coloration, which does in fact occur in other denizens of the Pokemon world. These appearances may in fact simply have been chosen because the (overwhelmingly young) population responded better to it in R/B/Y.Origins and Myths: Pokemon were derived from common animals; in Kabuto and Omanyte's case, they were derived from prehistoric ones. They were being restored on Cinnabar from old schematics because Cinnabar had been a war factory, but Mewtwo was an attempt at an illegal new species, so government agents burned down the Pokemon Mansion to try to prevent it. The legendaries aren't really legendary, they're just superweapons; too intelligent or powerful for the Pokeballs to restrain, and they can't reproduce because only one of them was created. Their control mechanisms were lost during the war and they're too strong/elusive to kill, so the government propagates the "legendary" myth to keep people from going after them. Only Red and The Evil Teams are crazy enough to try. Much of the lore in the common Pokedex is deliberate misinformation and legend akin to what you might find on a disreputable web page; a professional-grade Pokedex might display more accurate/useful info, but none of the characters thus far have those, as they've all been children (or in Wes's case, a common thug). The lore is often outlandish and would never be believed in an educated society - but very few surviving humans in the Pokemon universe have a conventional education (the conspiratorial Professors being some of the few, and they're not talking)!Why Genetic Engineering?: Think of this as an "Intelligent Design" theory; not that Pokemon were created by a higher being, but by humans. It seems unlikely that their design would have occurred naturally. Most of them make sounds that are literally their own name. Why would Pokemon do this? Simply to announce their names to make them more easily controlled by their trainers. In this way, the soldier who is given the Pokemon instantly knows how to issue a command to it. There is no rational reason that a Pokemon would speak a word in a human-sounding language, unless it was taught (or designed) to do so. Likewise, Pokemon based off ice cream (Vanilluxe) or knights (Escavalier) or ghosts ( all Ghost-Types) seem highly unlikely - unless their design was influenced by humans as we know them.Military Roles: Many pokemon have virtually *no* reason to exist EXCEPT for military application. Why would a Rotom be designed to possess common electrical equipment? Infiltration and disruption, of course! Poison-types like Koffing and Weezing are obviously bioweapons. An entire class of Electric-types may have been produced simply to power generators. Regirock/Regice/Registeel don't even resemble organic beings so much as golems or machines, and gathering them is the key to unlock the colossus Regigigas, who was surely designed as one country's superweapon, or perhaps a joint project by three countries.----Discuss.