(This is for @tybaxel! Thank you for being so unbelievably patient!)
Outside of battle, pokémon play a crucial role in the workings of many major industries, to the point that they are essential in maintaining a cohesive society. Used in the military, in the police, for rescue purposes, and as service animals, there are few modern societies that can operate without the input of pokémon. Some examples of their usages are as follows:
Police forces across the world use pokémon for an array of purposes. Herdiers, houndooms and manectrics make for common police dogs, but growlithes are the most favoured across all regions, owing to their combination of strength, good temperament and intelligence. They are loyal pokémon, well domesticated and easy to train, so are favoured in most service industries. Growlithes trained for police operations will often be adopted by the army after they evolve, as arcanines are too large to be used in domestic law enforcement and are better suited to combat.
Kalosian police officers are known to use slurpuffs when investigating crime scenes, as these pokémon are able to smell and seek out specific cadavers from up to a mile away. They have the ability to differentiate between the subtleties of certain smells in a way that other species cannot - where a human might smell two corpses and think of them as bearing the same scent, slurpuffs would be able to classify them as completely different to one another. This makes them unsuitable for detecting general scents; it is difficult to train them to seek out simply ‘blood’ or ‘cadavers’, as they cannot locate them on a blanket basis. More often than not, growlithes or mightyenas will be used to find initial traces of bodily remains, which slurpuffs will then track in a more individualised manner.
Gardevoirs are sometimes used during police questioning, so as to determine the general mindset of whomever is being interviewed. Their sensitivity to human emotion makes it possible for them to detect unease or apprehension in the person being questioned, which means they can alert officers to the distress of the interviewee or even act as roundabout lie detectors. Naturally, they are not infallible, and some interviewees control their emotions well enough that gardevoirs notice nothing unusual about them, but they can be useful as a starting point.
Although they can be used for defensive and scouting purposes, military pokémon are the only kind that can legally be trained to kill. Arcanines are typically used in the army due to their strength, speed and obedience, and will be assigned to individual soldiers to ensure that a loyal partnership develops between them. Although commercial battle is thought to have developed from the use of pokémon in military battle, contemporary army pokémon are trained in a very different way to those in the battle industry. Their moves are honed to hit harder, their practical skills are refined, and they are generally better equipped to survive independently. A retired military pokémon is never permitted to take part in commercial battle tournaments, due to worry that they will overstep legal boundaries and permanently injure their opponents, if unintentionally.
Arcanines are the face of the Japanese military and the most commonly used in combat, but swamperts are favoured in marshland terrains where fire-types face natural disadvantages. Kalosian armies are known to use lucarios in certain cases, due to their intelligence and loyalty to humans, and luxrays, pyroars, manectrics and jolteons are favoured across all regions. The most important factor in choosing military pokémon, many would argue, is how willing that pokémon is to lay down its life, and how able it is to hurt humans on command. If it can do that, it is likely to be suitable.
That said, a large proportion of military pokémon are used for purposes outside of combat. Rhyhorns are sometimes trained to carry medical supplies and seek out the injured, as their thick armour makes them largely impervious to bullets and projectiles. Audino often accompany army doctors. Gardevoirs are sometimes used for defensive purposes, to shroud soldiers in protective barriers during altercations, but delphoxes tend to be preferred for this purpose, as they are more willing to attack as well as defend, giving them dual currency. Absols can also be assigned to accompany large parties of soldiers, given their sensitivity to impending danger and ability to act as a warning system, but are never suited to actual fighting owing to their skittish natures.
The rumour is that the Unovan military has started experimenting with zoroarks, training them to cast illusions and mimic the appearance of opposing soldiers. The belief is that, if they can be tutored appropriately, they may be able to infiltrate enemy ranks and attack them from within, clearing the pathway for home soldiers.
Pokémon play an essential role in the rehabilitation and aid of people with mental and physical illnesses, serving both practical and therapeutic purposes. Munnas, which are often gifted to small children to prevent their having nightmares, are now commonly administered to PTSD sufferers for the same purpose. Gardevoirs, which are able to detect nuances in a person’s mood, are suitable companions for those with chronic depression, as they can sense the onset of a depressive episode and prepare for it accordingly. With proper training, they can learn to make basic food and do household tasks that the person is incapable of, caring for their owner until they emerge from the episode and are better able to look after themselves.
There is a large body of research supporting the usefulness of gardevoirs as companions to those with depression, schizophrenia, anxiety and numerous other mental disorders, with studies linking them to reduced relapse rates, greater compliance with medication, higher self-reported well-being, and steadier long-term recovery. However, training gardevoirs for the purpose of medical service is expensive and time-consuming, so they aren’t as frequently used as would be ideal.
Experimental research into training chatots for speech therapy is also underway, but far from conclusive. The thought is that, depending on chatots’ ability to actually understand the language they mimic, they may be able to fill in occasional words for a person with a stammer or stutter. There is debate as to whether this would be feasible, or indeed appropriate (some believe that this could hinder a person’s likelihood to overcome their speech disorder), but it remains an area of interest.
Generally, the role of pokémon for physical aid is better established. Herdiers, growlithes, umbreons and a number of other quadruped species are suited to being guide and hearing animals, with umbreon particularly favoured due to the fact that it has quiet temperament and is at no risk of evolving (so can be used in the long term).
Natus are favoured sevice pokémon for those with early symptoms of motor neurone disease and other similar conditions. By training these pokémon to detect nuances in muscle movement, natus can use telekinesis to compensate for an individual’s bodily weakness; they assert just enough control over a person’s limbs to allow them to grip things and move as they wish. Service natus are trained to remain on their owner’s shoulder, and can act swiftly enough that there is very little delay between the said owner’s movements, making it far easier for them to live independently. That said, as essential as natus are to those in the early stages of the illness, they are only useful up to a point; they are unable to compensate for the later, more incapacitating symptoms. Research into the subject remains ongoing.
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