Video games tend to lend themselves quite well to outlandish fan theories, whether it's Mario actually being a clone or the infamous Mass Effect 'Indoctrination Theory', fans love to speculate about possible interpretations of their favorite series. The more popular the franchise, the more active minds to come up with these hypotheses — and that's why Pokemon has so many to its name.

We've all heard the story of Gary's Raticate dying ahead of Lavender Town in the original games, not to mention the many alleged ways of obtaining Mew. However, a new postulation by the minds at The Game Theorists would seem to have broader implications for the whole series — be warned, SPOILERS for Pokemon X & Y and the recently released Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire follow.

The crux of the theory is that the Pokemon universe is in fact a...wait for it...multiverse (an endless number of parallel realities existing in tandem). A major piece of evidence for such a theory comes in the new content added in Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire; specifically, a post-game quest that sees the player teaming with a mysterious woman called Zinnia to prevent an asteroid from causing a global catastrophe.

At first, the plan is to use a technological gizmo to tear a hole in the very fabric of the universe that the asteroid can pass through safely. However, Zinnia warns against this, suggesting that the asteroid will simply hit another dimension's version of the planet — strongly implied to be that of the original Ruby & Sapphire released for the Game Boy Advance, as it's stated to be a world unaware of Mega Evolutions.

It's a clever explanation of the rather sudden appearance of Mega Evolutions into Pokemon lore — with The Game Theorists describing it as "the ultimate ret-con." However, this thought process can be continued one step farther; if we're being told that alternate dimensions are a reality within the Pokemon universe, perhaps that's the reason that each entry in the series comes in at least two flavors?

This may seem like idle speculation, but there's an intriguing bit of evidence to back it up; the aforementioned technological gizmo intended to deliver the asteroid to another universe is called the 'Link Cable'. Longtime fans of the series will recall such a cable being used to allow Pokemon to be swapped between players in the oldest Game Boy iterations of the franchise.

All in all, it seems like there's a lot more to this theory than most similar assertions. It's a remarkably deft and subversive bit of world-building from a series that's often criticized for retreading the same story beats. The concept of the multiverse might never be addressed again in actual games, but there's enough groundwork here for Pokemon fans to be discussing this theory for quite some time.

What do you think of the theory? Does it seem plausible given the developers' sense of humor and playful hints, or just a load of old bull-Krabby? Let us know in the comments below.

Source: The Game Theorists