[Theory] Is Ditto really a failed clone of Mew?

[Leo the Lion]

I know how everyone says that Ditto is supposed to be a failed Mew clone, but... is that really true?

I mean, if it is indeed a failed clone, why are there so many of them? Why didn't Team Rocket just destroy them and continue with their research? Yeah, it is possible that some of them could have escaped and duplicated themselves or something weird like that, but they are experiments. They shouldn't have been able to survive out of the laboratory, since they shouldn't know how to hunt other Pokémon, what plants are edible, etc etc etc.

This is my theory: when the Team Rocket got some of Mew's DNA, they started experimenting with it. After discovering it had traits that were similar to other Pokémon's DNA, they tried to use that to their advantage. And that's how Ditto was born.
A Pokémon that can imitate others. Not just Pokémon, but objects and people. Imagine how useful would that be! Spying, stealing, killing... The perfect Pokémon for a criminal organization like Team Rocket.
But, after discovering what Team Rocket had been doing, professor Oak (or maybe Elm, both, or the Team Rocket scientists; who knows) tried to make Dittos adapt to the wild, and act as if they had always been there. He (or they) made some Pokédex entries for them, talked to the Elite 4 and other important people, and then everything was solved. Yay.

What do you think?

 

[Cerberus87]

Team Rocket, in theory, was never involved with Mew. At least in the game canon. It's unknown who engineered Mewtwo from Mew's DNA.

 

[bobandbill]

I propose a different theory - Ditto was never created by TR (or whoever made Mewtwo depending on which canon you're looking at) as a byproduct of Mew. Rather, it existed before (maybe naturally, maybe as an earlier creation? That I leave to you to decide. =p They are based on existing RL organisms however) and was merely used for research or attempts at making Mewtwo.

That would explain why you can find them in the lab in RBY/FRLG, and why you see them in the wild too in other regions - they already naturally exist, they were just harvested in that area for the studies on creating Mewtwo.

 

[Mister Coffee]

My belief on the Ditto and Mew situation, is that, it's not that Ditto was genetically engineered from Mew, I think that Ditto's are similar to Mew in appearance and other physical and genetic features because Mew is the "Prometheus" of the Pokemon (The original ancient pokemon that all other pokemon derive from genetically) and Ditto has the genetic structure to be all pokemon. It's a shape shifting primordial ooze. If Mew is built as the genetic "Prometheus" of all pokemon, and Ditto is capable of holding all pokemon DNA, although Ditto is not a Mew it has a lot of the physical characteristics of a Mew, especially the genetic characteristics.

However what makes the pokemon different, is that Mew is the Ancient super pokemon, who happened to have the ability to transform. If we think that every pokemon has the genetic structure that proves that the unifying ancient ancestor is Mew, we could assume that every pokemon is a Mew that more or less evolved into niche environments or developed niche characteristics. A Ditto would be just like any other pokemon in this aspect, although its growth over a long period of time, was focused around the ability to transform. Being able to transform as an adaptive characteristic requires that the pokemon could not have any distinguishing features from other pokemon. Ditto must be able to retain all of that genetic information, without carrying any distinguishable features that would reveal it not to be the pokemon that it has transformed into, which means that if the base of all pokemon genetics is Mew and Ditto can not have any distinguishing genetic features that would disturb its ability, than it must retain the genetic structure of the one pokemon that is closest to doing that which is Mew.

I feel like my explanation went in a weird loop there. What I'm trying to say is that Mew is the beginning of Pokemon Genetics, it is the ancient genetic ancestor of all pokemon. Ditto is a normal pokemon with Mew as its ancestor, but Ditto capitalizes on retaining all genetic information and then transforming into any pokemon. If all pokemon are ancestors to Mew, then that means all pokemon genetically have the "potential" to be a Mew. If Ditto has all the pokemon DNA, then it would makes sense that its dormant shape would be incredibly similar to the genetic material that is most frequent within its body. Since all pokemon share Mew's DNA in common and nothing else, then Mew's features would be the most distinguishable characteristics within a Ditto.
The fact that Ditto only specializes in the transformation aspect of a Mew's capabilities, means that it would only retain the genetic information it would require to satisfy that one capability. Thus Ditto is more visually and physically apparent that it is related to Mew, but honestly, it's probably as closely related to a Mew as just about any other pokemon.

Hope that makes sense. :/

 

[Splash]

Masuda already explained that every pokemon is unique and that Ditto is not Mew's clone.. Mew's clone is MewTwo.. I'll share the link as a reference but I'm too lazy.. I'll just Splash around.. Don't mind me.. Splash Splash Splash

 

[Limbo]

My belief on the Ditto and Mew situation, is that, it's not that Ditto was genetically engineered from Mew, I think that Ditto's are similar to Mew in appearance and other physical and genetic features because Mew is the "Prometheus" of the Pokemon (The original ancient pokemon that all other pokemon derive from genetically) and Ditto has the genetic structure to be all pokemon. It's a shape shifting primordial ooze. If Mew is built as the genetic "Prometheus" of all pokemon, and Ditto is capable of holding all pokemon DNA, although Ditto is not a Mew it has a lot of the physical characteristics of a Mew, especially the genetic characteristics.

However what makes the pokemon different, is that Mew is the Ancient super pokemon, who happened to have the ability to transform. If we think that every pokemon has the genetic structure that proves that the unifying ancient ancestor is Mew, we could assume that every pokemon is a Mew that more or less evolved into niche environments or developed niche characteristics. A Ditto would be just like any other pokemon in this aspect, although its growth over a long period of time, was focused around the ability to transform. Being able to transform as an adaptive characteristic requires that the pokemon could not have any distinguishing features from other pokemon. Ditto must be able to retain all of that genetic information, without carrying any distinguishable features that would reveal it not to be the pokemon that it has transformed into, which means that if the base of all pokemon genetics is Mew and Ditto can not have any distinguishing genetic features that would disturb its ability, than it must retain the genetic structure of the one pokemon that is closest to doing that which is Mew.

I feel like my explanation went in a weird loop there. What I'm trying to say is that Mew is the beginning of Pokemon Genetics, it is the ancient genetic ancestor of all pokemon. Ditto is a normal pokemon with Mew as its ancestor, but Ditto capitalizes on retaining all genetic information and then transforming into any pokemon. If all pokemon are ancestors to Mew, then that means all pokemon genetically have the "potential" to be a Mew. If Ditto has all the pokemon DNA, then it would makes sense that its dormant shape would be incredibly similar to the genetic material that is most frequent within its body. Since all pokemon share Mew's DNA in common and nothing else, then Mew's features would be the most distinguishable characteristics within a Ditto.
The fact that Ditto only specializes in the transformation aspect of a Mew's capabilities, means that it would only retain the genetic information it would require to satisfy that one capability. Thus Ditto is more visually and physically apparent that it is related to Mew, but honestly, it's probably as closely related to a Mew as just about any other pokemon.

Hope that makes sense. :/

That actually makes a lot of sense. I never thought about it that way!

It would also explain why Team Rocket (or whoever) would be researching Ditto in their attempts to create Mewtwo; since its genetic structure is so similar to Mew's, it makes good.. reference material, for lack of a better term. By studying Ditto, they could find out more about how Mew's genes work.

In fact, when you think about it this way, Ditto is probably one of the oldest species of Pokemon in existence. It likely evolved from a group of Mew that relied primarily on their Transforming ability to survive in the wild. Those who were better at Transforming were probably the ones who had less of an original body. The more your genes are geared towards transforming into something else, the better you'd be at it, but as a consequence you wouldn't have such a solid original form. Through natural selection and mutation, the most successful Mew would be the ones with progressively crappier original bodies, until eventually you get Ditto, a creature whose entire body is more dedicated to transforming than keeping a proper form intact. But when you think about it, a Pokemon that retained Mew's ability to transform would be insanely successful in the wild. It can transform into anything, after all. So it's probably been around since the days of Mew itself. It would be more ancient than any of the Fossil Pokemon that the Poke-archeologists are always raving about. ;p

Heh, but that's all speculation of course~ This is Pokemon after all, so that might be too realistic, but it's a fun thought nonetheless.

 

[rollerman3]

Well, I would rather not put this theory to shame, so I will try to come up with some explanations.

If ditto is a clone of mew, that means that team rocket or whoever is still making dittos today. You can find infinite dittos in the wild, so that means someone would have to be creating them constantly, hoping that one of them turns out to be a mewtwo. Now let's go back to red/blue, or firered/leafgreen. You have been a pain in the butt to team rocket every single time they even remotely mention their existence in any city ever. Now, when they've finally created mewtwo, it breaks out. They likely would plan on recapturing it, but surprise surprise, you get to it first. Wow, that sucks for team rocket. This also explains why we see another mewtwo in x and y, suggesting that some kind of group is still constantly making dittos, or perhaps dittos have just learned how to duplicate.

That is the best I can explain it without doing any research, and research is just too time consuming. If anyone disagrees with me, hey, that's fine. Just throwing a theory out there for you to enjoy, and if you don't enjoy it, then that's fine with me.