Plot speculation

[Thunderflare]

Thought it would be a good idea to have a thread speculating on the plot of the game. I'll give my thoughts first.

You are a new arrival to the Alola, a region that has no formal Pokemon League. They have applied to join the world-wide league several times but were constantly denied. Many residents blame the Kanto branch, believing them to be jealous of the Alola forms of Kanto Pokemon.

After you have a run in with Tapu Koko, Proffessor Kukui gives you a starter and asks you to help him gather data on the newly discovered Z-moves. Hala takes Tapu Koko's appearance as a sign that they must once again apply for membership into the Pokemon League. He tasks you and Hau with challenging the other three Kahunas in preparation for the test with the Pokemon League rep. Lillie travels the islands as well, but just to help Kukui's research.

Before leaving the first island, you have a run in with Team Skull. Guzma, angry at the island Kahunas and Pokemon League for denying them claims that they will pay. It takes a long time for anyone to take him seriously, as he is well known for drama. After defeating three of the Kahunas, you find that Guzma intends to summon Solgaleo or Lunala (depending on the version you picked) and will use the Pokemon to destroy the islands. You capture the legendary and defeat him.

After that, you challenge Hala and thereby pass the island challenge. Lillie then reveals that she is a representative of the Pokemon League and challenges you to a battle. With your victory, she names you the first champion of Alola and tasks you with establishing the gyms.

Delta episode:
Establishing the gyms is not as simple as you'd think. The island captains are pragmatic choices, while the Kahunas become the Elite Four. However, that still leaves four openings that you have to fill. As you search for suitable canidates, you hear that Guzma has broken out of jail and is looking for what he calls "core forms". When you find where he's hiding, he reveals that his true plan was to put Alola in enough danger to cause Zygarde to take its complete form so he could capture it. Since the "pesky champion" thwarted that plan, he tries to force the issue using Z-crystals. After thwarting him once again, you establish the eight gyms of Alola and reign as champion.

But hey, that's just a theory...

 

[Pinkie-Dawn]

This comment I found interests me:

Comment I found:

">yfw Lillie is Lysandre's daughter and she wants to finish what he started
>She uses Team Skull and how they couldn't become trial captains as an example to justify her father's ideals."

According to a PokeBeach rumor from July 30th, Lillie plays a big part of the story and Zygarde's presence, which means she will be using Zygarde to continue Lysandre's plan. And Team Skull will have a Heel Face Turn and help you to stop her by finding Solgaleo/Lunala to face off Zygarde.

 

[Rivvon]

Team Skull may very well be complex than they seem at first glance, but I can't help but feel their "goal" is going to be rather low-key compared to the evil teams we've had in the past. I kind of hope that their plans do not involve Solgaleo/Lunala, but rather those legendaries become involved after something outside of everyone's control happens. Although, if the legendaries are antagonistic by nature, that could be a really cool spin on the traditional formula, too. Somehow, though, I doubt it, based on the footage we saw of them in one of the very first trailers, appearing just like any other legendary about to be caught.

Here's something I really hope to see happen, though:

Everyone has such a huge focus on Lillie, and rightfully so: the website lists her and only her as "important to the plot." But there are other characters who can surprise us, too. If Team Skull is driven by bitterness at not being able to become captains... Yes, it's petty, but it gives them a kind of underdog vibe, too. What other character can take advantage of this to drive their development?

The answer is Hau. Right now all we know about him is that he's a chill, happy-go-lucky kinda guy who likes food. A character you really wouldn't take seriously and gives off vibes similar to the poorly-received "friends" of XY. I kept thinking back to how he picks the starter that's weak to yours, and how I can't help but shake the feeling that the reason for that is so Game Freak can make the games even easier. But what if there's another reason for it? What if he starts off all happy and fine with losing all the time, but then after encountering Team Skull feels sympathy for them? He knows what it's like to be the loser. He could identify with their cause... And join them.

Trying to convince Team Skull that they should let go of their grudge will become even more important to the player because now their dear friend has joined them. And if something were to happen that the good guys and Team Skull had to team up, it would be super awesome to join forces with Hau again after having to fight him as an enemy. Even if you never convince all of Team Skull to "join the good side," convincing Hau to leave them would be a very unique plot element, constitute a lot to his own character development, and would likely culminate in a really epic moment.

Also I don't trust that Rotom PokéDex. He's probably gonna get power-hungry and try to take over Alola. Also Lillie is probably a robot. What if there are tons of Lillies and they all join forces to bring their Rotom leader closer to fulfilling his draconian goals?

 

[Mister Coffee]

I legitimately have no assumptions of what the plot will be for the game. It's actually interesting that I can't really have any theories on the plot, because I see way too many divergent plot points revealed that i can't really paste any of them to create any one theorized linear plot.

What I mean is, all the information revealed to us currently that seem to be "significant plot points" don't appear to completely fit together yet. In fact I feel like some plot points we have seen almost directly make other plot points almost nonsensical or at least the appearance of being red herrings.

Lillie, what do we know about her. She's important to the plot. That's it. I want to believe she's a red herring. So basically this character has been shoved into my face shouting at the top of it's lungs "LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME! I'M SUPER CRAZY IMPORTANT! PAY ATTENTION TO ME!", but they wont reveal anything else. So I ask, why is GF forcing this character on me? Yes, I do feel like she is being forced on to me, and I kind of don't enjoy that.
All I can say is, the plot has to revolve around this character in some way, or she is a massive distraction used to hide something completely different. I also do NOT think that Lillie is an antagonist in the game.

A majority of the pokemon are based on endangered animals. I almost feel like the pokemon designers went way out of their way to set up the concept of "endangered" pokemon species. I feel like this must be some relevant point to the plot and I do think we'll see some dialogue and events in the game that will be about these pokemon being rare or in danger of extinction or something along those lines.

Team Skull, this team is so weird to me. They don't appear to be an over the top "Let's blow up the world!" kind of team upon first glance. They seriously just look like a bunch of thugs to me, but I find it interesting that (IMO) the Team leader looks like he might be made out to be a total psychopath, which gives the possibility that yeah he might be crazy enough to steal a Legendary and blow up the world. I just can't tell with these guys, their outfits, combined with their actions and poses, plus their apparently crazy looking leader, I seriously have a hard time drawing other revealed plot points to this team based on what I know currently.

The Legendary pokemon don't really reveal to much about the overall plot either. Yes they have distinct environmental purposes but I can't really see their connection to being used by most of the revealed characters especially Team Skull. There's always the in your face plot convenience of being evil and wanting a powerful pokemon for the sake of being more powerful, but I really think there is something deeper going on with the legendary pokemon and we just haven't been revealed that information yet.

The trials and recruiting island leaders doesn't seem to tie in either. Why do we need to do this? We've gotten the impression that a Legendary met our character for some reason. We know that the islands are ruled by Kahunas. We know about totem pokemon. So we know about all these various things that all must somehow tie in to our character needing to do the trials and recruiting, but I don't see the definable "this is why" concept that ties all of these varying points together.

There are a bunch of other things that have me totally puzzled over the plot of this game, but I think I will just wait for my answers when the game is released. It's hard for me to recall but I can definitely say that I had a pretty solid concept of what generation 3 and 4 were about before they came out (generations 1+2 I played when I was a youngster). I will say that generation 5 was a huge curveball, but I feel like that most of the plot points that were revealed before it's release did fit together well. I did not follow or play generation 6. However I really do feel like despite how close we are to Sun and Moon's release, the plot is still a complete and total mystery.