THIS IS MY HEADCANON (Pokemon G2 talk)

[swordianmaster]

(3:26:10 AM) swordianmaster: BUT YES BASICALLY KANTO HAS FALLEN APART
(3:26:51 AM) xyzzysqrl: This place needs the strong dictatorial hand-wing of Lou Gia. I must conquer this land. It is my ambition.
(3:28:59 AM) swordianmaster: The grinding is a bit obnoxious! But really, the game loses all its narrative.
(3:29:13 AM) swordianmaster: However, what is there suggests things that would lend to interesting fanfic.
(3:29:33 AM) xyzzysqrl: Well, that's okay then.
(3:30:26 AM) swordianmaster: I like the mentality that, since Red was crowned champion at the end of the first gen and Team Rocket was (supposedly) disbanded, a few things happened.
(3:30:54 AM) swordianmaster: One, the eighth gym needed a leader. Rival Character/Gary/Blue/whatev stepped in. This much is canon.
(3:31:25 AM) xyzzysqrl: There's also Koga, who somehow irritated his way into the Elite Four and dumped a teenage girl who appears to be related to him in his old gym.
(3:31:33 AM) swordianmaster: She's his daughter.
(3:32:03 AM) xyzzysqrl: Allegedly. *cross arms* She may be a robot he built when he realized he was a -terrible person and no one would go near him-.
(3:32:08 AM) xyzzysqrl: ...I hate Koga.
(3:32:10 AM) swordianmaster: Point.
(3:32:29 AM) swordianmaster: Thing is? They never say what happens to a champion who beats the old champion.
(3:32:39 AM) swordianmaster: And yet, Lance is there as if nothing happened in Gen 1.
(3:34:10 AM) xyzzysqrl: I'm pretty sure either Main Character G1 Version stepped down to go on a cave-finding mission, or Lance just finally beat him again, so he went off to grind forever.
(3:34:20 AM) swordianmaster: (Gen4 suggests that the new Champ takes over for the old one, but since Dawn still had things to do - ie the Sinnoh Pokedex - and was too young still, Cynthia held the seat pro-tempore)
(3:34:23 AM) swordianmaster: And...
(3:34:28 AM) swordianmaster: I go with that. Kind of.
(3:34:31 AM) swordianmaster: My speculation, as of such, ties into the very minimal RBY post-game.
(3:35:33 AM) swordianmaster: Red found Mewtwo. Something about that encounter broke him enough that he just... disappeared. He hadn't been very social to begin with, being that he was the archetype for Ash - someone who invariably found more friendship in pokemon than in other humans - but now he had no reason to be social at /all/.
(3:36:54 AM) xyzzysqrl: So he's not so much training as he's been thrusting his fists at the air and going "SCIENCE! BAH!" for the last two/three years.
(3:37:24 AM) swordianmaster: Not really training. Just. Existing. Hermits don't train, after all.
(3:37:58 AM) swordianmaster: Lance stepped in, naturally, to take back over. However, between Lance busying himself in Johto with Neo Team Rocket and Red gone - and the E4, it should be noted, being total douchebag jerkoffs - Kanto fell into ABSOLUTE shit. The one person who was powerful enough to make a difference AND gave a damn, Blue, did what he could, but ultimately couldn't do the whole job himself.
(3:38:47 AM) xyzzysqrl: So basically the whole thing is falling apart because the infrastructure fell in thanks to rampant pokemon battling.
(3:40:12 AM) swordianmaster: Yes.
(3:40:22 AM) swordianmaster: And Mew is sitting on the sidelines with that memetic Light Yagami face.