Meltan — Fake Ditto-Induced Myth, or...

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Just Meltan.

Since I breathlessly gave coverage to the new Pokémon of the week back in the pre-release era of Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon, I must give coverage to the newest-discovered member of the Pokémon biosphere: Meltan. Meltan is the Hex Nut Pokémon. It's really small, the size of a Diglett.

Meltan is a Steel-type Mythical Pokémon, meaning it's an event-exclusive Pokémon that you can't catch outside of the event. You probably won't see it in-game, either. But it'll get a movie.

Speaking of a movie, here's a trailer that The Pokémon Company International released about Meltan, featuring Kanto's Professor Oak, and... Professor Willow from somewhere in Pokémon GO land.

(Professor Oak and Professor Willow have a weird and complicated relationship that I won't try to tangentially describe in detail.)

For some strange reason, people still play Pokémon GO, and over the weekend they identified the appearance of Meltan. It turns out those were all Ditto posing as Meltan, so it seems to me that Meltan itself has yet to be actually discovered.

As far as I'm concerned, the idea that Meltan has been “discovered” is FAKE NEWS, since a real Meltan has yet to be seen, and Professor Oak is already known of Meltan's existence from “an ancient text” he once read. Wouldn't this ancient civilisation be the discoverers of Meltan? What if an even more ancient civilisation discovered Meltan before that one? What if Meltan will be re-discovered in a thousand years from now, when that future civilisation will consider Professor Oak's civilisation to be an ancient civilisation?

Anyway, for all the Professors know, Meltan doesn't actually exist in the present era, and a group of Ditto came across the ancient text that Professor Oak once read and transformed into Meltan based on the ancient text and its picture.

Ditto can look at a drawing from an ancient text or book and transform into it, you know. (If it's smart.)

Meltan, so you know, is made of liquid metal and a hexagonal nut on top. Ditto should be able to handle Transforming into that easily, since some wild Ditto hold the special item, Metal Powder. Seems to be just the kind of thing that would support transforming into a metal Pokémon.

Regardless of if Meltan actually exists or if it's a FAKE NEWS myth made by a band of wild Ditto, I like its concept. I have no idea if it's part of Generation VII or the new Generation VIII that we should be getting in 2019. Since it's a Mythical Pokémon we won't see much of either way, that detail doesn't really matter now.

Meltan will somehow be incorporated into the Pokémon: Let's Go games by connectivity with Pokémon GO, which makes it a double non-starter for me. FAKE NEWS myths for fake Pokémon games? Fake discoveries from fake Pokémon professors for fake disguises?


What do you think of Meltan? How many other Pokémon discoveries are really just Ditto? Is this why Ditto has been holding Metal Powder for nearly two decades? Does someone with more knowledge of Professor Willow care to characterise his relationship with Professor Oak? Could you take that discovery and civilisation discussion and apply it to other things, too? Should Ludwig save that question for two weeks from yesterday?


Meltan is actually real, and it evolves, too, into a freak named Melmetal. But it being Mythical? I don't know about that...