Theory of Digimon evolution over time and Unique Digimon.

[Samtheweebo]

So when looking through some digimon profiles on Wikimon I find that some profiles are written that say how a digimon came to be. Sometimes they were built, or came from a spesific program or hacker. Sometimes digimon came about from battling so much their flesh fell off. These describe a situations that often sound different from the process of digimon evolution from one form to another. Some digimon sound like they were created as is, or created form a set of experiences that would not likely occur more than once. I feel that some digimon are created as is, some are built. Some are created when an individual digimon goes through it's own unique and personal process. Compounding this idea that digimon as a whole have naturally evolved over time is the existence of supposedly ancient digimon that have passed traits down through time.

I think that most if not all current digimon were at one time unique individuals that were either created as is or molded through unique or special experiences into a different form. Once that digimon forms or dies I think it's data is somewhat saved and shared. Like once a digimon went through the process of battling until all it's flesh came off and was the original SkullGreymon, then once it died and it's data was reformated, that form became available for other digimon to tap into and download when evolving.

Basically I think that in rare cases unique digimon can be formed, but then their forms join into a "pool" of data that digimon can tap into and take the form of if they meet the right requirements and have initial data that is close enough.

So that's just my headcannon theory about how new Digimon forms can come to be and evolve over lengths of time. If anyone has any thoughts to add or information to support or deny this theory I'd be happy to discuss it

 

[SparkGold]

the thing about your theory is that you are probably wrong if talking about the entire franchise as a whole but also correct in a philosophical, meta way.
There are Digimon profiles that state that Digimon can evolve without the stereotypical all at once drastic change in appearance and abilities we see in the games, anime, and card game. One great example of this is Machinedramon whose entire concept from its appearance to its abilities is that it's composed of parts from all of the cyborg Digimon at the time it debuted. Machinedramon, as its profiles describes, was neither a sudden transformation or a real change in abilities as it was built from preexisting parts and adopts the moves of the cyborg Digimon such as Metal Mamemon's Psycho Blaster and Metal Greymon's Trident Arm. Now adding on the theory that after the first Machinedramon is built others can naturally evolve to it, that not only can work very naturally within an original story but it can also be given to a countless number of preexisting stories and games and not only leave those preexisting products entirely intact as they are, but help tie them together with the profile for Machinedramon.
However, we then reach the flaws in this which is that, while we have reason to want and make this connection as we desire consistency and cohesion, there's no proof that this is the case and there's the general issue of trying to make a rule that works across all of the many different Digimon universes and stories. We've had universes where Digimon levels and attributes are entirely missing, a universe where Digimon are yokai and other fantasy creatures who date back to the earliest recorded human history and are using the internet as a medium to give themselves form, and a universe where there weren't even Digimon and instead Appmon.
But then you have an argument of "what if a Digimon being made in one universe allows it to come into existence as an evolution in another universe?" such as how Burst Evolutions required Digisoul in Tamers but the Story games has it available as a normal evolution or how the Legendary Warriors required human hosts in Frontier but now Digimon can evolve into them normally in other universes. In a meta way it's kinda true, just not in a lore way. The original Agunimon was made entirely to be a human hybrid in one universe and later popped up in other universes as a standard evolution because of the fans of the original Agunimon and the first Burst Modes did reach that form strictly because of the concept of Digisoul yet in other universes, it shows up as an evolution because those rules are no longer relevant.

Anyways I went on a tangent out of boredom and tiredness and I feel like I didn't word this very well or make any good points, but the truth is that Digimon has no rules or consistency and it's purposefully designed in a way where you can make your own Digimon original stories any way you want, the profiles are mostly treated as idea templates and not rules as stories go against them all the time. Because of this, it's hard to give the franchise rules in hindsight that will work because it's kind of a chaotic mess lol. I really want to see you make a story with this concept, though, as I like it a lot and I'm a fan of seeing people take the profiles more literally as I find those kinds of stories more interesting

 

[Kotekuma]

It's crazy that you posted this! Earlier this week I had pretty much the same thoughts. @SparkGold's idea about BanchoLilimon in the headcanon thread is what prompted it. I even drafted a post about it but held off on sharing to give ppl a break from me. lol

I think very much along the same lines as you, @Samtheweebo.I thought to refer to the occurrence as "REGISTRATION". I imagine that it's overseen primarily by Yggdrasil. So if a Royal Knight were to be destroyed Yggdrasil can decide not to Register it to keep the identity of the Royal Knights intact. or for any other reason.

Witchelny: Wizarmon comes from this alternate digital world yet multiple Rookie digimon form the digital world proper can digivolve into Wizarmon. This can be explained through registration. One Wizarmon enter the digital world from Witchelny. It goes through it's life as the only Wizarmon. When it dies Yggdrasil registers it so that other digimon can assume this form.

Digimon Frontier: When the Ancient Spirits failed in battle, the bypassed registration and instead sealed their power into the 20 spirits. Interestingly, Yggdrasil does not play a role in this series.

It's the meta interpretation that I like. The various Yggdrasils conducting registration within their respective digital worlds works as an excellent stand-in for the creators (of video games, anime, etc) designing their respective branches of the digimon franchise world.

Why would Patamon be able Digimon in Digimon World 3 but not in other media? Because Yggdrasil didn't register it to be such... (the developers of the game didn't find it appropriate for whatever reason).
Why would those "lost digimon" be exclusive to the manga or exclusive to a particular videogame and then forgotten by the franchise? Because their Yggdrasil never registered their existence.

As a general concept of the Digital World, it fits very well! It goes in tandem with Digimon being reborn as digitama.

 

[Theigno]

Basically I think that in rare cases unique digimon can be formed, but then their forms join into a "pool" of data that digimon can tap into and take the form of if they meet the right requirements and have initial data that is close enough.

This is a fairly common theory that pops up from time to time in various "strengths" so to speak. Sometimes the "sharing" is theorized to apply to specific continuities, sometimes it's a more multiversal approach.

The closest we have to a canonical confirmation (of at least the weaker variants) is the plot of Digimon Story: Lost Evolution. The game confirms confirms that for at least one type of Digital World the ability to evolve into specific species is indeed tied to a central shared information repository. A big point of the game is piecing this central system back together. However as far as I know the game does not explain how new information is introduced into this evolutionary database.

The crux of this theory is that it ends up predicting the existence of Digimon in a transitional stage which have not yet "qualified" as a separate species. This is not something we have really seen. Most Digimon we see have the "typical" appearance of their species, variations are usually very minimal and nowhere near as drastic as to give a sense of mutation.
You could argue that such "transitional" Digimon might exist in the profile canon alone, but even when we get narratives that are closely tied to it, such as the Chronicle-X and general V-Pet backstories, Evolution is portrayed as taking place instantaneously like usual, so at the very least transitional evolution is not the norm even there.

About Kotekuma's interpretation: Personally I wouldn't connect it to Yggdrasil though. In part because plenty (if not the majority) of Digimon continuities don't include Yggdrasil in the first place, and also because if Yggdrasil was in control about who could evolve into what he could have completely prevented the entire story of the X-Digimon from happening on a system level.

the truth is that Digimon has no rules or consistency

I think that statement is completely false. It's like saying that the contents of a basket containing apples and lego bricks is beyond human understanding because lego bricks and apples are so different that the average thing in the basket is an impossible and nonsensical thing, something indescribable.
But of course that is a stupid thing to say. After all we have adequate descriptions of both Legos and apples.
It's the same with Digimon. Digimon as a franchise is not senseless, it is atomistic. Each part can be described with very reasonable exactness and consistency, you just have to know where to draw the lines between different parts. And as soon as you have accurately described all of the parts you have described the whole; If there is no complex interplay between many of the different parts... that just makes the job easier, not harder. Most people that claim that the franchise is inherently nonsensical are led to this conclusion by their own skewed perspectives.

Case in point, the opening post only cites material from the profiles, which would suggest that it is mainly concerned with the canon as described in the profiles. That it might not be true for other random continuities (which seems to be your main point) is pretty much irrelevant, as it was never meant to apply to them in the first place.

 

[Kotekuma]

Thanks for sharing those previous discussions! The one from 2014 I do actually remember reading back then. I was expecting to see a comment from myself actually. But I guess I wasn't posting at the time.

I was hoping that the franchise would explore such a concept. I never had the pleasure to play Lost Evolution so I'm happy to hear about that thread.

 

[miru]

I agree with this, but with one addendum. Some species don’t seem to persevere as much as others, while others shift between standard levels and their own specialized ones. Perhaps the computer takes a while to register species and make them avaliable, not always succeeding? Would explain what became of species like Lykamon.

 

[Samtheweebo]

It's been nice reading all the thoughts and additions to the idea! Thanks! I kind of see the Digimentals and spirits as an evolution code pulled out of the pool and condensed into an object. It's interesting to see that the same evolution data can make different unique digimon when used by different digimon, the example being the different digimon that use the digimentals. Evolution code in objects is also present in Digimon World, but there it just evolves any digimon into another specific digimon with no variations.

 

[miru]

It's been nice reading all the thoughts and additions to the idea! Thanks! I kind of see the Digimentals and spirits as an evolution code pulled out of the pool and condensed into an object. It's interesting to see that the same evolution data can make different unique digimon when used by different digimon, the example being the different digimon that use the digimentals. Evolution code in objects is also present in Digimon World, but there it just evolves any digimon into another specific digimon with no variations.

See also the Master Tags from Pendulum X.

 

[Yamato-san]

It's been nice reading all the thoughts and additions to the idea! Thanks! I kind of see the Digimentals and spirits as an evolution code pulled out of the pool and condensed into an object. It's interesting to see that the same evolution data can make different unique digimon when used by different digimon, the example being the different digimon that use the digimentals. Evolution code in objects is also present in Digimon World, but there it just evolves any digimon into another specific digimon with no variations.

Since you mention that, I do find it pretty amusing how in Cyber Sleuth, the Digimentals and Spirits are treated as key items, rather than consumable items or forcibly equipped items or anything of the sort. I guess it was done that way because it's a lot more convenient from a gameplay standpoint, but I also can't help but picture the hackers are copy/pasting these items into the Digimon's coding whenever they need to be used.

 

[Da_Duke2000]

The one that bothers me the most is Gargoylemon. It is quite obviously a Devidramon whose evil has been contained, bound, or surpressed. That they just said "Nope, let's make his tail blue and he's now an Armor evolution for Veemon + Light" is very bothersome for me. I stand by that it was clearly a Digimon design from the cutting room floor that was repurposed (Ponchomon is another example, that should have been a re-color variant, like NiseDrimogemon, or SnowGoburimon).

But my own headcanon is such that Gargoylemon can only be created through the binding of a Devidramon. But I could let that go. I don't mind your idea that once the 'template' for that Digimon has been made available within any given Digital World that it could in-theory be made available as a Digivolution pathway, but we're all just talking about our pet fan-theories anwyays. But Gargoylemon has no business being an Armor Digimon when all other Angel/Devil (or elemental recolors like Wizardmon/Sorcerimon) parallels are of the same Level. Grrr...

 

[VanChizzle]

It's crazy that you posted this! Earlier this week I had pretty much the same thoughts. @SparkGold's idea about BanchoLilimon in the headcanon thread is what prompted it. I even drafted a post about it but held off on sharing to give ppl a break from me. lol

I think very much along the same lines as you, @Samtheweebo.I thought to refer to the occurrence as "REGISTRATION". I imagine that it's overseen primarily by Yggdrasil. So if a Royal Knight were to be destroyed Yggdrasil can decide not to Register it to keep the identity of the Royal Knights intact. or for any other reason.

Witchelny: Wizarmon comes from this alternate digital world yet multiple Rookie digimon form the digital world proper can digivolve into Wizarmon. This can be explained through registration. One Wizarmon enter the digital world from Witchelny. It goes through it's life as the only Wizarmon. When it dies Yggdrasil registers it so that other digimon can assume this form.

Digimon Frontier: When the Ancient Spirits failed in battle, the bypassed registration and instead sealed their power into the 20 spirits. Interestingly, Yggdrasil does not play a role in this series.

It's the meta interpretation that I like. The various Yggdrasils conducting registration within their respective digital worlds works as an excellent stand-in for the creators (of video games, anime, etc) designing their respective branches of the digimon franchise world.

Why would Patamon be able Digimon in Digimon World 3 but not in other media? Because Yggdrasil didn't register it to be such... (the developers of the game didn't find it appropriate for whatever reason).
Why would those "lost digimon" be exclusive to the manga or exclusive to a particular videogame and then forgotten by the franchise? Because their Yggdrasil never registered their existence.

As a general concept of the Digital World, it fits very well! It goes in tandem with Digimon being reborn as digitama.

I also subscribe to this theory of registration in some unseen metaphysical database somewhere. Nanimon is another example of an outsider coming to the Digital World and being integrated as a regular Digimon. Presumably, if a Digimon were to travel to the Tamagotchi Planet or any other Digital World where lifeforms can adapt and evolve throughout their lives (i.e what we'd call V-Pets), something similar would also occur. Though because they're now in a different dimension, their appearance might change somewhat due to differences in rendering (if that's the right term).

I agree with this, but with one addendum. Some species don’t seem to persevere as much as others, while others shift between standard levels and their own specialized ones. Perhaps the computer takes a while to register species and make them avaliable, not always succeeding? Would explain what became of species like Lykamon.

If one subscribes to the theory put out in one of those old threads that Theigno linked to (about new Digimon forms requiring a certain amount of time before being registered in the system), that's one possible explanation for why we haven't seen the likes of Lykamon or its brethren in any other continuity outside of V-Tamer. It might have been defeated too soon for its template to be saved by Yggdrasil or whatever host computer looks over V-Tamer's Digital World.

The one that bothers me the most is Gargoylemon. It is quite obviously a Devidramon whose evil has been contained, bound, or surpressed. That they just said "Nope, let's make his tail blue and he's now an Armor evolution for Veemon + Light" is very bothersome for me. I stand by that it was clearly a Digimon design from the cutting room floor that was repurposed (Ponchomon is another example, that should have been a re-color variant, like NiseDrimogemon, or SnowGoburimon).

But my own headcanon is such that Gargoylemon can only be created through the binding of a Devidramon. But I could let that go. I don't mind your idea that once the 'template' for that Digimon has been made available within any given Digital World that it could in-theory be made available as a Digivolution pathway, but we're all just talking about our pet fan-theories anwyays. But Gargoylemon has no business being an Armor Digimon when all other Angel/Devil (or elemental recolors like Wizardmon/Sorcerimon) parallels are of the same Level. Grrr...

I've always thought that Gargoylemon and Devidramon should be linked; the similarities between the two are just too obvious. Heck, the latter have been shown coming to life like actual gargoyles in Adventure before too...

Count me surprised that they aren't variations of each other and have no connections such as Slide Evolution or whatever.