ACBob's ZimZam - Blog

Solving the Billion Lions vs. All 898 Pokémon

2021-05-06 ◦ 10 Minute read

Flying types are a simple one. They need to land and/or get close to attack the lions, at which point the wave of lions will pile upon each other to reach them. Easy, done. The Lion Ladder will prevail.

- Wesley Henshaw

Let's get things out of the way, with what people usually mean when they bring up the lions vs. Pokémon debate, There's no limits or logic. The Pokémon win. Thank you, goodbye.

However, as a firm believer in the lions, I don't quite think that's fair. See, while the lions have the advantage in numbers, the Pokémon have super powers. Let's get 10 blokes to fight one superman. It just doesn't work. However, if we level the playing field by applying some ground rules, the outcome could be different. First off, these lions are wild. You simply can't train one billion lions. Consequently, the Pokémon must also be wild (And we're ignoring Pokémon that only evolve through trading, and can therefore only exist in trained states). Besides, you can only train 6 of them and good luck getting anything good out of that.

So, one billion wild lions vs. all 898 wild Pokémon. Additionally, we're going to say that all of the lions are the same species. Therefore, the Pokémon cannot include variants such as Alolan or different colours. They only get their first iteration. Looking at you, spinda. These lions are bog-standard, and have no conflicting canon, and therefore the Pokémon must also only use logic from the game. None of this anime nonsense, you weeb. Pokédex¹ entries only, and other flavour text included in the libraries or what-have-you. These Pokémon must also, for the sake of the fight and themselves, act in the following ways; 1) Kill the lions & 2) Self-preservation - The Pokémon cannot act suicidally. Unfortunately, this makes Voltorb a bouncy ball.

Pokémon can only learn up to 4 abilities. The abilities they come with would have to be the abilities these Pokémon have. I'm ignoring this to give the Pokémon some chance, but take this into consideration, as if it's the case, the Lions win unconditionally. Additionally, I'm ignoring any effects the Pokémon have (Such as intimidation), it simply doesn't apply in a 1 vs. 1,000,000,0000 fight such as this.

Pokémon also have a limited amount of times they can use moves, If I weren't fair, I would just let them be and say the Pokémon eventually die because of running out of ways to fight back. Instead, as the fair person I am, the Pokémon can rest to recover move PP. Flying Pokémon cannot rest in the sky, they must be on solid ground to do so - so no giving piggy backs. Also, resting just constitutes sleeping, so it's about 8-10 hours depending on how many moves were used.

Let's start by breaking down some common tactics. Both from the lions' supporters, and the Pokémon fans.

• "Arceus/God will just delete the lions, lol!"
  It's bold of you to assume that they'll think of that. Think about it. Has Arceus deleted reality to get out of fighting you? No? Then shut up.
  Besides, I don't see a "Destroy the fucking universe" move in Arceus' pool.
  "myeh myeh It'll delete the lions, not the universe" - Ok, and? I still don't see "Delete opponent" in Arceus' move pool.
• "Jirachi will wish away the lions!"
  Will it, now? Jirachi only gets to grant wishes for one week per 1,000 years. You're assuming that this fight coincides with that. It doesn't, by the way, it was last week and would've applied but there was scheduling issues. This also means that Jirachi is asleep.
• "Darkrai/Gardevoir just put them into the void/a black-hole"
  Ok cool, Darkrai has maybe put a lion to sleep, and maybe put some lions next to it to sleep, as accuracy is only 50%. Good for darkrai.
  Gardevoir has spaghettified themselves. Suicidal, they cannot use that move.
• "The lion ladders will get the flying Pokémon!"
  Lion ladders are illogical.
  Lion hills, on the other hand...² but even then, it can't get that high.

Next, let's define the battlefield. It's going to need enough space to store 1 billion lions, and also be flat. With those parameters, the fight takes place in Salar de Uyuni... But it's a superfluous definition, so instead of picking a point on earth, I'm just going to say this fight takes place on an infinitely big flat plane of grass, dirt, and rock underneath. It's not infinite in depth, however. It's about 4,000km deep, which is roughly half the diameter of the earth³.

Lastly, let's just get some of these out the way;

• The Pokémon and Lions are split between male/female equally. Genderless Pokémon aren't included in this count. 500 Million male lions, 500 Million female lions, 390 Male Pokémon and 390 Female Pokémon. This is chosen randomly as it doesn't matter in most cases.
• The Lions and Pokémon are placed in a rectangle with random order.

Let's start fighting!

Within the first microseconds, Magcargo's immense body heat⁴ causes a large area around it to instantly vaporise.... Alright, fine, Marcargo is now only as hot as magma, or roughly 2192 F (1473.15 Kelvin).

In the first minutes or so, Marcargo, along with Charmander, Charmeleon, Charizard, Ponyta, Rapidash, Marowak, Magmar, Moltres, Cyndaquil, Quilava, Typhlosion, Slugma, Camerupt, Chimchar, Monferno, Infernape, Magmortar, Emboar, Chandelure, Litleo, Pyroar, Carkoal and Coalossal all set the grass and plant pokémon near them on fire. (and this is only Pokémon that visibly have fire in their sprites)!
This fire should logically rage on, but I'm going to say that it doesn't, and simply kill a quarter of all grass type Pokémon. Choosing randomly, Say goodbye to Snivy, Jumpluff, Chesnaught, Shroomish, Kartana, Roserade, Albomasnow, Zarude, Cacutrne, Ferrothorn, Trevenant, Lurantis, Rillaboom, Servine, Tsareena, Sunkern, Steenee, Treecko, Tapu Bulu, Deerling, Grovyle, Rowlet, Roselia, Appletun, Gogoat, Vileplume and Cacnea.

This might seem unfair, but if a tree burns, a tree burns.

The lions just sit there, Looking around. They're all on alert as they've gone from doing lion things to doing... well, they're not quite sure. Many of them can only see more lions that seem to go on forever. In the distance, some of them see a big up draft of fire. Plenty of them start fighting the lions near them for the mates that are close by. Many lions just start having violent lion sex - not all of it straight.

After a while, Arceus gets quite pissed at the lack of progress and uses Hypnosis to rally the Pokémon to start fighting the lions. Giratina, much like at the start of existence, gets rather annoyed at being controlled by Arceus, and attempts to rebel by using immense force. This doesn't go well, as now Arceus and Giratina are locking arms and fighting each other. All of the other Pokémon largely listen to Arceus' request. Not Ditto, However, who misinterprets the request and turns into a lion, only to be murdered by Duraludon. Snorlax and Jirachi are asleep, and don't really care enough to fight. The dark Pokémon are immune to this request (By proxy of being immune to psychic), and just sort of stand there, confused as to why all the Pokémon around them are suddenly sprinting.

Finally, some Pokémon reach the lions. The lions look at the Pokémon, confused, before retaliating to the damage they're receiving. Sevinper, Tyranitar and Zeraora are the first to attack some lions. Zeraora is able to kill some lions by inducing a medical procedure known as a heart attack with its' electricity, but eventually, the amount of bites it has received from the lions is too much and it dies. Sevinper's just a snake so the lions kill it.

Tyranitar's an interesting case here, as according to the Gold Pokédex, "Its body can’t be harmed by any sort of attack, so it is very eager to make challenges against enemies.". Additionally, according to the Omega Ruby / Alpha Sapphire Pokédex, "Tyranitar is so overwhelmingly powerful, it can bring down a whole mountain to make its nest.". Tyranitar is attacked by many lions, however, it simply stomps through the large crowd unhindered, causing much damage to the terrain and killing many lions. Eventually, a lion scratches its' horn and it dies.

By the time any of the fish pokémon reach the lions, the lions are quite hungry and just eat the fish. Before Wailmer can charge up its' flood ability, multiple lions pick away at it. Plenty of pokémon are killed as collateral from Giratina and Arceus' fight. Arceus commands most of the other legendaries to aid it, Except for the dark type legendaries, which take the side of Giratina.

Above the Pokémon a very strong thunderstorm begins to form, as all of the water Pokémon that can, have attempted to make it rain. This thunderstorm becomes violent quickly, many metal Pokémon getting K.O'd by lightning bolts. Some Pokémon, such as that of fire, simply die from the water. Grass type Pokémon (those that are still with us) get a small buff from the rain. Pokémon that can have also tried to use Sandstorm. Ultimately, all of the Pokémon that can cause arena effects have done so, and they're all in effect at once, multiplied by the amount of Pokémon that could cast it. There is a violent flurry of weather centred on the Pokémon, defying all laws. This coalesces into a violent Tornado (due to the hot and cold air that has suddenly manifested), picking up Pokémon and Lions as it heads towards the centre of the Lion mass. On the other side of the lions, It's also a gruesome scene. Lions are bathed in blood from the other lions they have murdered in competition for a mate, those who are still living are, well, mating. They have felt earthquakes and various other phenomena, but they don't care, and continue to mate.

Arceus and Giratina have started to work themselves to the bone. All of the other legendaries are dead⁵. They are the remaining legendary Pokémon, and are still fighting. Giratina attempts to play chicken with Arceus, but gets too close to the vortex of weather monstrosities and gets flung into it. Arceus is the remaining legendary, but cannot fight in its' current state. All of its' moves PP are expended, and it lands to rest and recover. The swirling vortex of weather tears through the Lions. It slowly grows in size and power as it does so, and by the time a Lion has enough free room to run away, it's too late and it is absorbed. Many of the fast Pokémon ran as far away as possible from the storm when it was originally forming. Only Barraskewda, Dragapult, Electrode and Ninjask are successful due to their immense speed.

At the end of the first half-hour:

• All of the Teleporting Pokémon (that are still alive pre-storm and aren't legendary) are still alive.
• Arceus is still alive, and the only usefully alive legendary.
• 60-90% of all the lions are still alive.

Conclusion

Arceus, after recovering, restarts reality and the events of Pokémon start. Should Arceus have died, Nobody would have won as they would all have died either due to malnutrition, dehydration, or the giant thunder-tornado-fire-sand-storm.

Who would've thought, putting godlike being against a silly amount of regular beings results in nobody winning. Really makes you think.