Pokémon: Rise of the Rockets

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

"Every story has two sides, typically the "good" side and the "evil" side. In Rise of the Rockets, you have a choice -- will you tell the story from Team Liberty's point of view, in their efforts to liberate the world from Team Rocket's reign? Or will you fight for the Rockets, seeking to crush rebellion and remake the world in your view?"

Pokémon: Rise of the Rockets is an RPG hosted on BZ Power.

Twenty years after the Black and White arc, Team Rocket has risen to power once more -- and under new leadership, has taken control over the regions of Kanto, Johto, Hoenn and Sinnoh. In response to this, a rebellion group called Team Liberty is formed, opposing Team Rocket's forceful reign. A war soon breaks out, with more and more people and groups becoming a part of the conflict.

Currently holds the record as the longest Pokémon RPG in BZ Power's history.


Tropes used in Pokémon: Rise of the Rockets include:
  • Anime Hair: Ohohoho... yes.
  • And I Must Scream: The former inhabitants of Azalea Town, thanks to the Unown.
  • Anyone Can Die
  • Author Appeal: Comes in spades with the players.
    • For examples from Parugi, the RPG's "author"/creator: The majority of his characters wear clothing that is either black, white or both in color and have brown hair. There is also a recurring theme of four with his influence on the game -- four primary characters, four Shadow Admins, four Shadowed Man agents, four Team Rocket-controlled regions, Team Liberty operating from Four Island, etc...
  • Author Avatar: In a few cases, to varying degrees.
  • Authority Equals Asskicking: Played very, very straight; the leaders of the various organizations have been said to be the most powerful members of said organizations. Even then, Ford didn't believe that a combined effort by his and three other organizations would be enough to take over Kanto, solely because of Shadow Admin Sleight's presence there.
  • Berserk Button: Oh so many.
  • Chess Motif: Team Plasma's ranking system.
  • Child Soldiers: Played straight for the primary factions for a number of reasons, not the least of which being player preference; a large number of the named characters tend to be anywhere from their early to late teens.
  • The Chosen Ones: Evan Tierra, Seth Vicen and Kilm Prizak, to an extent, for the Sinnoh Dragons. Subverted in that they are more like caretakers and spreaders of the word than actual protectors.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Done intentionally with Dan the Mad. Unfortunately, it strayed quickly into Troll territory, causing the character to eventually be shelved.
    • The Darkrai called Seven could also be considered this, though to a lesser extent.
  • Conservation of Ninjutsu: Happens all too often -- even when the Game Master specifically tells people not to treat Mooks like a field of grass.
  • Darker and Edgier
  • Dark Is Not Evil: Blackskull, one of the leaders of the primary protagonist group, is a Dark-Type specialist.
  • Demonic Possession: Implied with the jogger who completely obliterated Lavaridge City's remains.
  • Disney Death: Done with Jayron Aaron at one point; done again later, and more surprisingly, with Blackskull.
  • Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: By now, it's impossible to count how many times certain people have had to be told this.
  • Eldritch Abomination: Several, all of them beings of massive power, some from other dimensions, and most of them finding the idea of causing mass death and destruction to be a bit too enjoyable. The Unown and the Ancient Darkrai (with the possible exception of Nine) stand out in particular.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Cruel as they might be, the Shadow Admins all have families and care deeply for their Pokémon.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Sure, Team Rocket forcibly rook control of the Kanto regions, but they would never stoop to the wanton killings of random civilians that they're so often accused of. Corrupt politicians, on the other hand...
  • Fantasy Pantheon: A number of Legendary Pokémon are seen as this; however, with the exception of Arceus and a select few others, their powers are generally overplayed by the populace.
  • Fate Worse Than Death: The Ancient Darkrai (with the exception of Nine,) sealed away in various locations with the intent for them to never again see the light of day.
    • Searcher being forced into a dimension full of nothingness, doomed to die alone, also qualifies.
  • Five-Bad Band: Arguably several, with the most prominent formed by the Shadow Admins.
  • God Moders: Unfortunately happens from time to time. Caused a bit of an out of game Wham! Episode when the Game Master posted a rather... heated message making his views clear on people doing as much after the forums came back online and god-modding became something of a common sight.
  • Gotta Catch Em All: Surprisingly averted, given the source material. Justified in-game; even before Team Rocket destroyed Team Liberty's computer mainframe, it was stated that neither team had enough processing power to keep track of more than twenty Pokémon for all of the tens of thousands of trainers within each faction.
  • Humanoid Abomination: Feral Tierra. The guy takes a bit too much joy in killing people...
    • And new to the board, "Mr. Rage" from Ecruteak City. So much so that almost every Legendary Pokémon loses all sensibility upon nearing him.
  • Instant Awesome, Just Add Dragons
  • Left Hanging: Many, many stories and characters have simply vanished off of the face of the earth as a result of player abandonment. See Unreliable Narrator below.
  • Lethal Harmless Powers: Due to the mechanics of the game, attacks can be used in a lot more ways than they could elsewhere. That Telekinesis attack? Not So Harmless here.
  • Loads and Loads of Characters
  • Luke, You Are My Father: Shade/Damien Vicens to Seth Vicens.
  • Mission Control: Done by Team Liberty, and to a lesser extent by the Shadowed Man.
  • Ominous Multiple Screens: As used by John Ford and Sleight.
  • One Steve Limit: Totally averted. To elaborate, there are two Kyles, three Johns, three Ethans (two whose last names start with "W,") two Scotts, three Zack/Zach/Zacs, at least two Wills... The list goes on.
  • Parental Issues: Numerous.
  • Pokémon-Speak: Both played straight (by most regular Pokémon) and averted (by virtually every Legendary Pokémon.)
  • Rule of Three: Team Liberty is led by three people at a time. There are also the numerous groups of three Legendary Pokémon thanks to the source material.
  • Running Gag: A rather dark example: If your name references the color green in any way, shape, or form, take warning -- you will probably die.
  • Sanity Slippage: Seems to be a gradual case with Kyle Eston, what with the random appearances of the black-haired boy that only he seems to be able to see. The injury he received during the attack on Four Island coupled with depression caused partially by his apparent Parental Abandonment seems to have played a part in it.
  • Shapeshifting: Reyna Draynes. As well as virtually any other Zorua/Zoroark, with varying degrees of their ability to keep a solid state.
  • Skilled but Naive: A very large number of player characters, most of them in their teens. One would think that in the face of nine elite enemy agents -- including an Executive of said enemy group -- smirking at and down-talking said elites would not be seen as a good idea.
  • Self-Destruct Mechanism: Possessed by all of the Team Rocket main bases. Only Purgatory's has been used at this point, to stop Eight and Three from gaining possession of any critical Rocket information.
  • The Adjectival Man: The Shadowed Man/ John Ford.
  • The Group: The Searchers.
  • Theme Naming: Very common, and in varying forms.
    • The original Shadow Admins' code names are all terms from Poker, while the code names of the leaders of Team Liberty all consist of a color + a noun, I.E. Goldhawk, Silvermind, Blackskull.
    • Additionally, the ten Ancient Darkrai are named in descending order from highest power level to lowest, with |Sombra being Ten.
    • John Ford and his operatives are all named after United States presidents.
  • The Musical: At one point, Parugi played a minor prank on the players by decreeing that in-character posts would have to be written in the style of a musical. Hilarity ensued.
    • Invoked with the first fight against Sombra on top of Mt. Coronet.
  • The Wiki Rule: Rise of the Rockets Wiki.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Every player character at one point or another.
  • Unreliable Narrator: Actually Unreliable Players. For one reason or another, a large number of players have disappeared over the course of the game, leaving their characters -- and in some cases, several fairly large plots -- totally unresolved, along with forcing some non-player characters into a frozen state. As of late, Game Master Parugi has been working to resolve several of these plots.
  • Unstoppable Rage: Unsurprisingly, Mr. Rage.
  • War Fic: Basically.
  • You Can Turn Back: Sonja offers this to Kyle when she begins to notice his strange behavior in Nuvema Town. He declines, stating that he isn't about to turn back when he had just arrived in Unova.