DR RYLAND GRACE // pokémon
two pokémon teams for our one dr ryland grace!
one is based on canon, and one is a sort of 'what-if' wherein he never ended up on the hail mary.
in canon...
...i don't think he would've had a type specialty, or even very many pokémon before he was sent up. i imagine his focus was always more on research than actually training pokémon himself... until the petrova taskforce and the hail mary, where suddenly he would've encountered pokémon he would've otherwise only ever read about.
thievul i like to think he would've grown up with--we've all collectively decided foxes are grace's thing, after all. not a lot of lore here; i just like the idea of his first partner being a nickit, and it growing up with him. i think it would've been a late bloomer, only evolving into thievul around the time he asks to be part of the petrova taskforce.
reuniclus he would've met in undergrad as a solosis, and they've been together ever since. i like to imagine it evolved into reuniclus around the time he finished his phd, as if they were growing and learning together. it just fits so perfectly.
solrock is pretty self-explanatory; it's an extraterrestrial pokémon that looks like the sun. however, i did find in it's pokédex entries that "on sunny days, groups of solrock line up facing the sun and absorb its light" and that they release intense light and heat, which felt thematically perfect regarding the petrova line and astrophage... and since we're talking about the petrova line here, i imagine this one to be shiny.
metang was the closest thing i could find to armando/the nannybot, and i thought it was fitting; grace felt intimidated by armando at first, which suits metang being a little dangerous and alien-looking, but soon grew accustomed to and almost companionable with it. i think it's probably quite a stern, mission-focused pokémon, having been assigned there by dr. lamai and focused solely on caring for the comatose hail mary crew, but that it loosens up as it grows closer to grace. after moving into the biodome on erid, it finally evolves into metagross--the eridians LOVE this.
beheeyem he has a complicated relationship with, because it was originally stratt's--she sent it up on the hail mary to mess with grace's memories so he didn't sabotage the mission (as per its pokédex entries). on the one hand, he resents it for the distress the memory loss caused him, and because it reminds him of stratt and that's a can of worms in and of itself... but at the same time, he sympathises with it; both of them were sent up without any say in the matter, after all, and stratt being willing to send her own partner to space shows her commitment to solving the astrophage crisis, no matter the cost. it also fit the space theme perfectly as the literal 'alien' pokémon; i like to think it came to earth during roswell (as suggested in elgyem's pokédex entries), and was hidden away in area 51 until the petrova taskforce came together.
and last, but by no means least... we have boldore as our beloved rocky. i like to imagine erid as a planet of almost exclusively rock-types; many (like rocky) are from the roggenrola line, but i can also imagine nosepass, regirock, naclstack, stakataka... you get the idea. i'd imagine they're more advanced than earth's pokémon, and have their own societies etc—so he'd still be grace's equal, and they wouldn't have a typical 'trainer-pokémon' relationship. i think he'd evolve into a gigalith once he and grace return to erid, as if he's 'traded' decades away from home in exchange for all his new knowledge and experiences while in space.
but in another life, if he'd never ended up on the hail mary...
...i think he'd have been a normal-type specialist, seeing how he's just a normal guy. lots of cute and cuddly, first-stage pokémon; they're great with kids (i think he'd get them involved in class a lot), and we know he's a bit of a 'head in the clouds' dreamer himself. pokémon that aren't quite grown up would suit him, i think.
nickit shares much of its reasoning with thievul from the other team; i like to think that in this universe, since grace never went up and never experienced all he did (while also staying as a teacher, necessitating 'kid-friendly' pokémon), nickit likewise chose not to evolve.
helioptile is a cute first-stage pokémon, and it fit his astronomy vibe while keeping with the normal-type theme. can definitely see him bringing it to class when he's teaching about renewable energy.
cyclizar is more utilitarian than anything else; we know he cycles to work (in the movie, anyway--though i didn't read otherwise in the book), and it's a normal-type. not much else to say, though i think as a scientist he'd have a lot of thoughts on its evolution and the possibility of it being a 'missing link' between koraidon and miraidon.
teddiursa, like helioptile, checks the boxes for being cute, first-stage normal types with an astronomy theme.
porygon is more a relic of his academia days, which i deliberately steered away given how in this universe, he made a point of stepping away from that life and never went back. nevertheless, porygon's been his buddy since his university days; it helped him with research and experiments, and now with marking and classroom practicals. also, i think, symbolic of how he never totally left research behind; he just made teaching a priority.
finally, i was torn between whismur and castform. whismur is representative of his tearfulness (and, i'd argue, cowardice), and the soundwave practical we see at the start of the movie--it's also cute and cuddly, so would fit right in. castform, however, i think he'd be fascinated by from a science perspective given how it responds on a cellular level to weather and climate; i also found the pokédex entries about its molecules 'recently being found to be just like water' absolutely hysterical, given that we're talking about dr ryland 'the goldilocks zone is for idiots' grace here. i'm a castform hater though, which is largely why i was torn.