Theory of Incense Breeding

This is purely my own speculation, despite its 'scientific' presentation. Don't interpret any of it as proven fact.

Many have wondered how come some Pokémon's eggs will hatch into different forms if they bring a certain type of incense with them to the Day-Care where they breed. But this, like all other things, has an explanation.

Those Pokémon have adapted to be capable of hatching at two distinct levels of maturity: one where the offspring is born underdeveloped and frail but able to learn extra techniques that it can retain throughout its life ("baby Pokémon"), and one where the offspring is born in a much more developed, almost-adult form but misses out on the techniques in question. In the wild, Pokémon living in peaceful and plentiful environments would benefit from having their offspring hatch in a less developed form that left them ultimately capable of a broader variety of moves, whereas in harsher, more stressful conditions the baby Pokémon's inability to fend for itself would become a liability. The faster developmental process that results in more mature young is thus triggered by stress-related hormones in the mother's body prior to laying the egg.

Enter Pokémon trainers. Trained Pokémon take part in challenging battles almost every day, and though there is little real risk at hand when a trainer will heal their injuries, the frequent fighting nonetheless causes heightened levels of these hormones and leads to their offspring normally hatching in an adult form. Even simply living near human settlements and routes, where they may be challenged by trainers, often triggers faster development, leading to many baby Pokémon being rare in the wild. Meanwhile, in peaceful places with abundant food and few predators, these Pokémon will usually have less developed offspring en masse. Some species and populations have a higher threshold for inducing the faster development process, however, and are thus more common in their baby form on human routes, and moreover sometimes young baby Pokémon born farther from the traveled path stray into human-populated areas.

This caused problems for Pokémon breeders for many years, as they found themselves unable to breed these elusive baby Pokémon in captivity. However, eventually Hoenn scientists made the breakthrough discovery that certain smells could work wonders to relax Pokémon of particular species even to the point of letting them have less developed offspring, and it wasn't long before expert breeders began to experiment with capturing these smells in incense and giving them to their Pokémon to reduce their stress levels before breeding them. These experiments were a resounding success, and it wasn't long before trainers could buy commercial incense for every known species of Pokémon with divergent breeding paths.

Page last modified August 12 2016 at 22:34 GMT