[An-chan]

But I like to overthink stuff... ;_; I think it's quite a lot of fun to ponder something that has no true relevance to anything. Overthinking human rights, for example, only gets me frustrated, because there really are no solutions. Thinking stuff like this, however, is much more irrelevant for world peace and peace of mind I like thinking, but I'll go nuts if I just read books about Hiroshima and war in general and think about things that I can do nothing about.

So, back to unserious business.

First of all I have to remind myself and maybe others that we, in real world, do not have Pokéballs or anything like them, as you all know (if you don't, call your nearest mental institution as soon as possible). So, it is quite possible that the technology of Pokéballs, unknown for us, has some covenient features in it. After all, cloning in Pokemonverse apparently isn't that much of a problem, and they have their nifty Pokédexes, which apparently can recognise any Pokémon stored on its database by only having its sensor pointed at the creatures. it might have something to do with genes, for example (I'm all for genes!), but how this works isn't exactly the main point here (although it might be fun to try and think about something that'd work. I love scifi and I love writing scifi!).

The point is it does work.
The gene technology would make it possible for the ball to store a "genetic fingerprint" in its memory, or something like that. Judging by the fact Pokéballs can only be used once, I would assume the things have very little memory and no reset button (my god, they're going to drown in used Pokéballs sooner or later... That'd make a good fic. Rivers and forests are so full of used Pokéballs you just can't get around anymore). It would also register the fact the Pokémon did not break free the first time it got into the ball and thus mark the Pokémon as a captured one. It maybe even sends the information to some trainer database super server.

Spoiler:

I'm starting to think that the utter stupidity of Pokéballs that can only be used once is simply a conspiracy of the Pokéball manufacturers. They want to sell a lot of balls, so they make them terribly impractical. I mean, would it be that hard to put a reset button in the thing? Would it? Or would it be so hard to make Pokéball Refresh Machines (PRM) that you can use to reset your Pokéballs if you pay some amount of money?

And then, to stir up some more conversation: how does that exchange machine they use in the St. Anne episode work? How does it change the information from one ball to another?
Besides, I thought the man would be evil and keep Ash's Butterfree so that he would have had to fight to get his Pokémon back...

Oh, and also, didn't Ash just let his Pokémon free by letting them go? He did nothing with the Pokéballs, right? Then again, maybe he just hopes they'll be back one day and keeps their empty Pokéballs.

Again, this is something that will never reach a conclusion, but that's not even the point of this conversation, now, is it?

Also, Xanthine: Have you seen all the episodes? How can you know even their names? Or are you looking those names up as you go? Just curious...