Elite Overlord LeSabre™
On that 'Non stop road'
- 9,895
- Posts
- 16
- Years
- Age 98
- Shimoda City
- Seen May 7, 2024
A/N: So this is, what, my first fan fiction project since the Get-Together last year? Anyway, this piece was partially inspired by my 51,203rd run through Leaf Green, partially inspired by the presence of a Poke Ball Factory in X/Y, and partially inspired by a recent debate elsewhere about who the most tragic character in Pokemon is.
An Open Letter to the President of Silph Company.
Greetings,
You probably don't know who I am, and I will confess I have not met you in person. To you, I was probably little more than a name on a payroll. But my name is Taylor Morris. I am writing this so that I may expose the truth behind Silph's facade of respectability, and bring to light the truth about what goes on behind closed doors.
I was born and raised in Kanto, having been raised on Cinnabar Island. Back in my youth, both research facilities on the island were in full operation – what is now known as the Pokemon Mansion was destroyed when I was about fifteen years old. My father worked in that facility and my mother was employed by the facility that currently specializes in Pokemon fossil research. So you could say that research runs in our family's blood. My father, in fact, worked alongside Blaine and the esteemed Dr. Fuji with the Mewtwo Project. I would often tag along with him whenever school was not in session, so from a young age, I gained an appreciation and respect for the hard work involved in research. So much so, in fact, that I made it my career. I graduated from the Kanto Institute of Technology in Celadon, and was hired by Silph almost immediately after graduation.
My first decade and a half working with the company was mostly without incident – I enjoyed my work, and we made numerous important developments, including the "high-performance" Ultra Ball and the innovative Vs. Seeker. We also helped Professor Oak with creating the Pokedex, mostly developing the technology that the device used. I also met my now ex-wife, Jessica, during this time, and we had two lovely children.
And then came Team Rocket.
The mayor of Lavender Town commissioned us to design a device to unveil the identity of wayward ghosts that were haunting Lavender Tower. Allegedly, the ghosts began to appear after an incident involving Team Rocket slaughtering a Marowak. As it happened, one of the scientists on our research team owned a few Ghost-type Pokemon, and that helped us develop the Silph Scope in record time. But on his way to deliver the tool to Lavender's mayor, our courier was mugged by Team Rocket and the device stolen. We never did recover it, but the mayor later contacted us to inform us that the ghost problem had been dealt with, so I surmise that someone obtained the Silph Scope from Team Rocket and used it to solve the ghost mystery in the tower.
About this time, Team Rocket stormed Saffron and took over the company's main headquarters. But let me back up a bit.
The Master Ball project was going on at the same time as the Silph Scope project. I was not involved in that device's development, but I made what seemed at the time to be an innocuous comment to a scientist who was working on it.
"Do you suppose this new Master Ball will finally solve the issue with the high failure rates of the Poke Balls currently on the market?"
Now, I'm a researcher. I spend most of my days in the lab, so I honestly don't get out much. But even so, it's impossible to do any sort of errands or go anywhere around town without overhearing trainers complaining about how they wasted some number of Poke Balls trying to capture a Pokemon, or even how a Pokemon slipped through their grasp because they had used up their entire stock on hand. Many times, I've heard the complaint, "Why can't they just make a ball that captures without fail?" And yes, I've wondered to myself, "Why can't we? With all of our vast resources and technology and brainpower, why does perfecting a simple capturing device constantly remain beyond our ability to produce?"
Even in my youth, decades ago, this was a complaint often brought up by my friends who were getting their starts as trainers. This has been a well-known, longstanding issue that should have been resolved long ago. And my kids were getting about the age where they were considering becoming trainers, and if there were any way to spare them the frustration and need to waste money on ineffective equipment, I would certainly have supported it.
So you could say that I was hopeful that the Master Ball would become a mass-produced reality, to make the lives of trainers much easier. But, and I should have known this in retrospect, my opinion was in conflict with those of the higher-ups in Silph.
Soon after making my comment, I was called into a meeting by my supervisor, Dr. Brent Davis. He informed me that, following the Silph Scope development, that I would be transferred to Silph's Tiksi Branch in Siberia. I was understandably very upset and shocked by this news, but Dr. Davis would not let me plead my case or tell me the reasoning behind this decision. I mean, what was I to do? I was a faithful employee. I had a beautiful wife and two young children. A family man like me couldn't suddenly be expected to uproot his family and move to the most remote, barren part of Russia! I knew Jessica wouldn't approve and would not hesitate to leave me if I were to be transferred.
So, when Team Rocket took over, they gave employees an opportunity to defect to their side. I agreed to do so, knowing that I had nothing to lose – if I didn't, I would lose my family and everything I knew. A few other scientists also agreed to join Team Rocket's cause, although I don't know if any of them were in the same boat as I was regarding an impending transfer to Tiksi.
You know what happened next. That girl came in, defeated all of Team Rocket (myself included) and she saved Silph from a hostile takeover by the Rockets. I even voiced my frustration at my situation to her. Even though she handily defeated me, after the battle, she told me, "I'm sorry that they're sending you off to that place. I'd probably feel just as angry and betrayed if something like that ever happened to me."
After that, all Silph employees who defected were given an option: Voluntarily be transferred to Tiksi or face criminal prosecution. I had to make a decision, and obviously choosing to be transferred to remote Siberia would be the lesser of two evils in my situation. So the inevitable happened. Jessica divorced me (I didn't fight for custody of our children because I was not about to subject them to the conditions I would be facing) and I lost everything I had worked for.
Life is hard here. This branch is a community unto itself. And not a very pleasant community, either. Out here, we're completely isolated and constantly freezing. The food is horrible. They have armed guards and bloodthirsty, vicious dog Pokemon ensuring that we stay put, and even if we were to make it past them, we would most likely freeze to death before making it back to civilization. We have nothing to keep ourselves entertained except for the menial tasks we're assigned to do. And there are brutal beatings if we don't do said tasks or don't do them well enough or fast enough. It's like a prison camp. It's literally what hell would be like if it did freeze over.
But it's funny. What I lost in relationships and material possessions, I gained in knowledge and insight into how your company really operates. You see, I know now.
Tiksi is where Silph sends its "problem" employees before they can blow any whistles or raise any red flags.
How did I become a problem employee? Not for disciplinary reasons (you can bring up my employee file and see that for yourself.) Not because I didn't get along with other employees. No, I'm willing to bet that one comment I made about the Master Ball is the whole reason I'm typing this from Siberia instead of Saffron.
I've talked with other employees who've been shipped off here. And they sure do have interesting tales to tell.
One researcher told me, "We could have easily mass-produced fail-proof Poke Balls years ago. At worst, they would cost a half of a cent more to produce than a base-model Poke Ball. But we were instructed by our superiors not to."
A former employee of the financial department provided further insight. "Each year I worked there, anywhere between 65-90% of the company's profits were driven by Poke Ball sales. And anyone can tell you that a majority of those sales were for Poke Balls that failed to capture the target Pokemon. Therefore, logically, producing Master Balls en masse would cut deeply into company profits. So, the decision was made to keep the ineffective, outdated models of Poke Balls in production. It's a matter of greed. Pure and simple. Per unit, Master Balls would not be much less profitable than other models. But they would be selling a lot less of them. That's what would eat into profits."
Another employee put it simply: "The frustration of trainers is Silph's profit."
A recent newcomer to our branch reported this news: "Recently there was an operation headed up by the Pokemon League to expose the shady company, Omni, that was running the Marts and Centers. News reports tried to paint Silph as an innocent party forced to produce inferior goods at Omni's demand. When I tried to bring to light the fact that Silph was doing this long before Omni came along, guess where I ended up?"
Communication is near impossible from this place. I know my fellow "transferred" colleagues have tried to send out letters in the past, but based on what I heard from our newest arrival, Silph's sterling reputation remains intact. I don't know what will happen to my letter. I don't know if you have people inspecting and filtering mail (it wouldn't surprise me in the least considering the level of influence your company has.) Regardless, I am writing this and sending it out in the hopes it ends up in the hands of someone who will use it to expose the truth. It's time to stop production of potions that only heal a minimal amount of health. It's time to stop manufacturing Poke Balls that are designed to fail. There is no reason, save one, that Master Balls can't be mass produced and available to everyone.
That one reason is greed.
From Russia With Disgust,
Taylor Morris
An Open Letter to the President of Silph Company.
Greetings,
You probably don't know who I am, and I will confess I have not met you in person. To you, I was probably little more than a name on a payroll. But my name is Taylor Morris. I am writing this so that I may expose the truth behind Silph's facade of respectability, and bring to light the truth about what goes on behind closed doors.
I was born and raised in Kanto, having been raised on Cinnabar Island. Back in my youth, both research facilities on the island were in full operation – what is now known as the Pokemon Mansion was destroyed when I was about fifteen years old. My father worked in that facility and my mother was employed by the facility that currently specializes in Pokemon fossil research. So you could say that research runs in our family's blood. My father, in fact, worked alongside Blaine and the esteemed Dr. Fuji with the Mewtwo Project. I would often tag along with him whenever school was not in session, so from a young age, I gained an appreciation and respect for the hard work involved in research. So much so, in fact, that I made it my career. I graduated from the Kanto Institute of Technology in Celadon, and was hired by Silph almost immediately after graduation.
My first decade and a half working with the company was mostly without incident – I enjoyed my work, and we made numerous important developments, including the "high-performance" Ultra Ball and the innovative Vs. Seeker. We also helped Professor Oak with creating the Pokedex, mostly developing the technology that the device used. I also met my now ex-wife, Jessica, during this time, and we had two lovely children.
And then came Team Rocket.
The mayor of Lavender Town commissioned us to design a device to unveil the identity of wayward ghosts that were haunting Lavender Tower. Allegedly, the ghosts began to appear after an incident involving Team Rocket slaughtering a Marowak. As it happened, one of the scientists on our research team owned a few Ghost-type Pokemon, and that helped us develop the Silph Scope in record time. But on his way to deliver the tool to Lavender's mayor, our courier was mugged by Team Rocket and the device stolen. We never did recover it, but the mayor later contacted us to inform us that the ghost problem had been dealt with, so I surmise that someone obtained the Silph Scope from Team Rocket and used it to solve the ghost mystery in the tower.
About this time, Team Rocket stormed Saffron and took over the company's main headquarters. But let me back up a bit.
The Master Ball project was going on at the same time as the Silph Scope project. I was not involved in that device's development, but I made what seemed at the time to be an innocuous comment to a scientist who was working on it.
"Do you suppose this new Master Ball will finally solve the issue with the high failure rates of the Poke Balls currently on the market?"
Now, I'm a researcher. I spend most of my days in the lab, so I honestly don't get out much. But even so, it's impossible to do any sort of errands or go anywhere around town without overhearing trainers complaining about how they wasted some number of Poke Balls trying to capture a Pokemon, or even how a Pokemon slipped through their grasp because they had used up their entire stock on hand. Many times, I've heard the complaint, "Why can't they just make a ball that captures without fail?" And yes, I've wondered to myself, "Why can't we? With all of our vast resources and technology and brainpower, why does perfecting a simple capturing device constantly remain beyond our ability to produce?"
Even in my youth, decades ago, this was a complaint often brought up by my friends who were getting their starts as trainers. This has been a well-known, longstanding issue that should have been resolved long ago. And my kids were getting about the age where they were considering becoming trainers, and if there were any way to spare them the frustration and need to waste money on ineffective equipment, I would certainly have supported it.
So you could say that I was hopeful that the Master Ball would become a mass-produced reality, to make the lives of trainers much easier. But, and I should have known this in retrospect, my opinion was in conflict with those of the higher-ups in Silph.
Soon after making my comment, I was called into a meeting by my supervisor, Dr. Brent Davis. He informed me that, following the Silph Scope development, that I would be transferred to Silph's Tiksi Branch in Siberia. I was understandably very upset and shocked by this news, but Dr. Davis would not let me plead my case or tell me the reasoning behind this decision. I mean, what was I to do? I was a faithful employee. I had a beautiful wife and two young children. A family man like me couldn't suddenly be expected to uproot his family and move to the most remote, barren part of Russia! I knew Jessica wouldn't approve and would not hesitate to leave me if I were to be transferred.
So, when Team Rocket took over, they gave employees an opportunity to defect to their side. I agreed to do so, knowing that I had nothing to lose – if I didn't, I would lose my family and everything I knew. A few other scientists also agreed to join Team Rocket's cause, although I don't know if any of them were in the same boat as I was regarding an impending transfer to Tiksi.
You know what happened next. That girl came in, defeated all of Team Rocket (myself included) and she saved Silph from a hostile takeover by the Rockets. I even voiced my frustration at my situation to her. Even though she handily defeated me, after the battle, she told me, "I'm sorry that they're sending you off to that place. I'd probably feel just as angry and betrayed if something like that ever happened to me."
After that, all Silph employees who defected were given an option: Voluntarily be transferred to Tiksi or face criminal prosecution. I had to make a decision, and obviously choosing to be transferred to remote Siberia would be the lesser of two evils in my situation. So the inevitable happened. Jessica divorced me (I didn't fight for custody of our children because I was not about to subject them to the conditions I would be facing) and I lost everything I had worked for.
Life is hard here. This branch is a community unto itself. And not a very pleasant community, either. Out here, we're completely isolated and constantly freezing. The food is horrible. They have armed guards and bloodthirsty, vicious dog Pokemon ensuring that we stay put, and even if we were to make it past them, we would most likely freeze to death before making it back to civilization. We have nothing to keep ourselves entertained except for the menial tasks we're assigned to do. And there are brutal beatings if we don't do said tasks or don't do them well enough or fast enough. It's like a prison camp. It's literally what hell would be like if it did freeze over.
But it's funny. What I lost in relationships and material possessions, I gained in knowledge and insight into how your company really operates. You see, I know now.
Tiksi is where Silph sends its "problem" employees before they can blow any whistles or raise any red flags.
How did I become a problem employee? Not for disciplinary reasons (you can bring up my employee file and see that for yourself.) Not because I didn't get along with other employees. No, I'm willing to bet that one comment I made about the Master Ball is the whole reason I'm typing this from Siberia instead of Saffron.
I've talked with other employees who've been shipped off here. And they sure do have interesting tales to tell.
One researcher told me, "We could have easily mass-produced fail-proof Poke Balls years ago. At worst, they would cost a half of a cent more to produce than a base-model Poke Ball. But we were instructed by our superiors not to."
A former employee of the financial department provided further insight. "Each year I worked there, anywhere between 65-90% of the company's profits were driven by Poke Ball sales. And anyone can tell you that a majority of those sales were for Poke Balls that failed to capture the target Pokemon. Therefore, logically, producing Master Balls en masse would cut deeply into company profits. So, the decision was made to keep the ineffective, outdated models of Poke Balls in production. It's a matter of greed. Pure and simple. Per unit, Master Balls would not be much less profitable than other models. But they would be selling a lot less of them. That's what would eat into profits."
Another employee put it simply: "The frustration of trainers is Silph's profit."
A recent newcomer to our branch reported this news: "Recently there was an operation headed up by the Pokemon League to expose the shady company, Omni, that was running the Marts and Centers. News reports tried to paint Silph as an innocent party forced to produce inferior goods at Omni's demand. When I tried to bring to light the fact that Silph was doing this long before Omni came along, guess where I ended up?"
Communication is near impossible from this place. I know my fellow "transferred" colleagues have tried to send out letters in the past, but based on what I heard from our newest arrival, Silph's sterling reputation remains intact. I don't know what will happen to my letter. I don't know if you have people inspecting and filtering mail (it wouldn't surprise me in the least considering the level of influence your company has.) Regardless, I am writing this and sending it out in the hopes it ends up in the hands of someone who will use it to expose the truth. It's time to stop production of potions that only heal a minimal amount of health. It's time to stop manufacturing Poke Balls that are designed to fail. There is no reason, save one, that Master Balls can't be mass produced and available to everyone.
That one reason is greed.
From Russia With Disgust,
Taylor Morris