 |
Harley Quinn thinks that this article looks kinda boring, eh? Why not put some categories there to spice it up? Help by adding new categories to the article! |
 |
This Article Contains Spoilers -
WARNING: This article contains major spoilers. If you do not wish to know vital information on plot / character elements in a story, you may not wish to read beyond this warning: We hold no responsibility for any negative effects these facts may have on your enjoyment of said media should you continue. That is all. |
Team Star are the secondary antagonists in the 2022 video games Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet. They are a club of rebellious students from Naranja/Uva Academy who initially are believed to be composed of delinquents and bullies and cause trouble for regular students and the academy's faculty.
In reality, they are a club formed by victims of bullying at the school who planned to fight back against their wrong-doers, but due to the extremist measures they took to accomplish their goals, they were framed as the aggressors in the incident and labeled as bullies because of it.
Biography[]
Background[]
A year and a half prior to the events of the game, Naranja/Uva Academy was struggling with major issues with bullying, as many students were victims of bullying on a daily basis. A girl named Penny came up with the idea to create a club dedicated to rallying victims of bullying to stand up and fight back against their aggressors, but due to her timid socially awkward nature, she opted to act clandestine under the name "Cassiopeia" and communicate with students by hacking their phones to make phone calls that could not be traced back to her.
Cassiopeia contacted five students, Giacomo, Mela, Atticus, Ortega, and Eri, and invited them to lead her plans to fight back against their bullies and serve as the bosses of her organization, which would be named "Team Star". Each of the five bosses contributed different talents to form Team Star and build forts across the Paldea region to serve as their base of operations and refugee camps for victims of bullying. Team Star quickly gathered popularity among the students, many students who suffered from bullying and other forms of injustice joined and rallied alongside the five bosses under Cassiopeia's direction.
The efforts of the five bosses led to the creation of the Starmobiles, specialized vehicles powered by a Pokémon named Revavroom which they would use in battle should conflict with bullies escalate to such a degree. The school bullies were all too intimidated by Team Star and all surrendered before any actual fighting had to occur. While it seemed like a victory for Team Star, due to the circumstances of the incident Team Star looked like they were the bullies in the eyes of the school staff, not helped by the fact that all the actual bullies dropped out of the Academy after the incident making Team Star look more like the aggressors.
Cassiopeia contacted the at-the-time Director Harrington in private and explained the situation, offering to take all the blame for the fiasco so that her friends wouldn't have to be punished. The director agreed, but the incident was such a large scale that most of the academy's staff also stepped down and covered up the incident, also covering up any evidence that would clear Team Star's name once the new staff was established. With no other alternative, Cassiopeia tried to convince the bosses to dismantle Team Star, but none of the bosses could do so as they had come to see Team Star as their friends and respected Cassiopeia too much even if none of them knew her identity.
Penny was forced to return to her home region of Galar for a year and a half as part of the agreement she made with director Harrington, under the coverup that she was studying overseas. Without Cassiopeia to lead them and the entire school turning against them, each of the Team Star bosses decided to barricade themselves in their bases, opting to skip school and scare off any invaders until Cassiopeia returned.
Starfall Street[]
When the player character was on their way to Naranja/Uva academy for their first day in school they ran into Penny, who had just recently returned to the academy, being pestered by Team Star grunts trying to pressure her into joining the team (unaware that she's their top leader). The player interfered and defeated the grunts forcing them to back down. Director Clavell witnessed the incident and decided to declare that all students associated with Team Star would be expelled if they didn't disband soon. The incident also gave Penny the idea that if she can't convince the leaders to step down on her own, she could force them to do so by manipulating the player into attacking each of the Team Star forts and defeating the leaders, as doing so would dismantle the forts and force the bosses to return to school. Using her Cassiopeia alias, Penny hacked the player's phone and introduced them to "Operation Starfall", her plan to defeat Team Star which the player reluctantly agreed to. Director Clavell happened to be in the same room and overheard the conversation between Cassiopeia and the player.
Once the player reaches the first Team Star base they are contacted by Cassiopeia to explain how Operation Starfall would work by having the player challenge and defeat each of the bosses, when they do the bosses would have to give up their position and by extension, all their followers would also have to step down. At the same time, a student naming himself "Clive" (obviously Director Clavell in disguise) approached the player and Cassiopeia, volunteering to assist in Operation Starfall. Cassiopeia, despite distrusting "Clive," allowed him to join the operation.
Over the course of the game the player must challenge each of the five Team Star Bases, the challenge requires them to do a raid battle and defeat 30 of Team Star's Pokémon to gain permission to challenge the boss of the base. The Team squad bosses each challenge the player using their usual Pokémon team, when the bosses' team is defeated they continue the battle via their Starmobile, which functions as a boss fight style battle. Once the Starmobile is destroyed, the squad boss is officially defeated. After each victory over a Team squad boss, the player is shown a flashback of how the bosses met and slowly pieces together the truth that Team Star were the victims of bullying rather than the bullies. "Clive" would also confront the defeated boss personally and question their motives to gain further insight behind Team Star's actions, but every time the bosses reinforced their belief that their boss would return and insist that Team Star are their valued friends. After each victory Penny approaches the player, claiming that she too had been hired by "Cassiopeia" to participate in Operation Starfall, and rewards the player with LP and a helpful amount of items.
Once the five Bosses were defeated, Cassiopeia revealed that she was, in fact, the leader of Team Star, and admitted to her plan to disband the team to save them from being kicked out. She apologized to the player and Clive for manipulating them for her goal but also requested the player to meet Cassiopeia at the Academy during the night to confront them face to face, as the final step to destroy Team Star should be for Cassiopeia to also be defeated. When the player returned to the academy intending to meet Cassiopeia they are stopped by Clive, who finally reveals himself to be Director Clavell. Clavell claimed that he was Cassiopeia and challenged the player to a battle.
Upon defeating Clavell, he admitted to lying about being Cassiopeia, and explained that his "Clive" persona was his means to learn more about Team Star as he wanted to deal with them personally, but after learning the truth behind the team's circumstances, he wanted to be the one who faces Cassiopeia and felt an ordinary student should not be burdened with dealing with such a complicated situation, but now felt confident the player should be able to handle it. At nighttime, the real Cassiopeia approached the player and Clavell who was in his Clive disguise once again, revealing herself to be Penny. Penny stated she was ready to take any punishment on behalf of Team Star once they are disbanded, but also warned the player that they had to defeat her in a battle and that she would not hold back in the slightest. Ultimately the player would be victorious over Penny, Penny was satisfied with the outcome but still sad that the Team Star she put so much work and effort into would have to be shut down even if it was to save them.
At that moment Clive revealed himself to be Director Clavell to Penny, much to her surprise, and also revealed that he had arranged for the five bosses to come meet Penny in person. Penny expected the bosses to hate her for backstabbing them, instead, all the bosses were fully supportive of her after learning that Operation Starfall's entire purpose was to save them from expulsion, and insisted that Team Star is what motivated them to become better people and stand up to injustice in the first place. Clavell also explained that now that he had the full context behind what happened a year and a half ago, apologized to Team Star and declared that no one would be expelled and Team Star would be allowed to continue operating. Clavell, however, still pointed out that Team Star had broken many school rules in their activities, and decided that their best punishment would be for Team Star to be repurposed into the "Star Training Club"; over the course of Operation Starfall Clavell witnessed Team Star's battling processes and was repeatedly impressed by their variety of other talents, so he wanted Team Star to become a club officially endorsed by Naranja/Uva academy dedicated to teaching and sharing their skills with the rest of the students. This came to the delight of Penny and the rest of the bosses.
The following day Penny and the player were called to Clavell's office to discuss the events of the prior night with Clavell and the Academy's chairwoman Geeta. Penny admitted that the LP she had been using to pay the player for their services during Operation Starfall had been obtained illegally by hacking into the academy's servers, Penny felt she should be punished for this, instead, Geeta praised Penny's hacking expertise, and suggested she should do volunteer work for the academy. After the meeting, Penny thanked the player for everything they did and for saving Team Star.
Post-Game[]
During the post-game, the player can visit the Team Star bases which have now been repurposed into Star Training Camps and can challenge the squad bosses to rematches. Penny can also be found around the Academy checking on each of the Star Bosses making small steps to readjust to their school lives and deal with the students who still think they're delinquents, only for Penny to be surprised each time the Star Bosses are able to navigate reintegrating into the school on their own.
Indigo Disk[]
After completing the DLC, Eri and Giacomo can be found to the left of the academy entrance lobby talking by a bookshelf. They were found wearing their normal school uniforms rather than their Team Star gear, making them difficult for the player to recognize at first. They talked to the player about how the other Star Bosses worried about falling behind in their studies and might repeat the school year, so they suggested the player to assist in a private tutoring session.
Once at the classroom, the player must first take a quick detour up to the schoolyard to find Mela by the vegetable patch, once all the bosses are gathered the player participate in the tutoring session helping each of the bosses figure out why they're struggling with a given subject at school, some help them find motivation to finish their studies.
Once the scene is completed– including a brief appearance from Penny – the player is gifted with all the parts of the Team Star outfit, including two variations on the uniform, and the Hasta La Vistar! Emote.
Known Members[]
Leaders[]
- Cassiopeia - Big Boss of Team Star. She's an introvert who wished to stand up against bullies and other types of aggressors at Naranja / Uva Academy, but due to her lack of confidence and poor social skills prefers to operate from behind the scenes by spying on people and hacking their phones to communicate with them.
Bosses[]
- Giacomo - Boss of the Segin Squad. He's an aspiring DJ who was the Student Council president but was kicked out and made an outcast due to his overly strict rules, He wrote Team Star's code of conduct and composed all their music themes,
- Mela - Boss of the Schedar Squad. She was once the popular girl at school until other girls started getting jealous and bullied her, causing her to adopt a mean punk attitude to defend herself. She shows a liking for art and is a motivational speaker for Team Star.
- Atticus - Boss of the Navi Squad. He's a ninja cosplayer who was bullied for his eccentric ninja-like ways of talking. He designed each of the Star Bosses' costumes and wants to become a fashion designer.
- Ortega - Boss of the Ruchbah Squad. He's the heir of a wealthy appraisal company who was bullied due to being perceived as a rich spoiled brat, because of it he hates being offered help on anything as he sees it as being talked down to. Ortega shows talent at engineering and is the creator of the Starmobiles.
- Eri - Boss of the Caph Squad. A fan of pro-wrestling who despite her tall size is a soft kind person. A girl named Carmine spread fake rumors about Eri to turn all other girls in class against her, only for the girls to then turn against Carmine later too. She teaches Team Star members self-defense.
Grunts[]
- Carmen - Member of the Caph Squad. She's the one who smeared Eri's reputation out of jealousy only for her own reputation to also be tarnished by unjust rumors, resulting in Carmine also joining Team Star and becoming a close friend of Eri.
Trivia[]
- Team Star continues the trend in later Pokémon games where the antagonistic team showcased in promotional material, rather than being straightforward evil organizations that aim to take over the world by abusing a given Legendary Pokemon, are more street level thugs who have more sympathetic reasons for their actions and end the game on good terms with the player character, while also serving as red-herrings who antagonize the player early in the game before the true antagonist of the story is revealed later.
- Furthermore Team Star isn't actually evil in the first place, but rather victims who were wrongfully framed for an incident and labeled as thugs because of it. Additionally, their antagonistic behavior towards the player comes more out of self-defense rather than malice, as the player is technically the one attacking them. Furthermore, the game ends with the player being the one who solves Team Star's main conflict and helps them achieve their goals once the player realizes the truth behind their circumstances.
- Team Star's catchphrase "Hasta la vistar!" is a pun on the phrase "See you later!", which translates in Spanish to "Hasta la vista!", a quote used in the Terminator series.
- The soundtracks that play when battling Team Star members and bosses is diagetic. In-universe, these themes were composed by Giacomo and play from speakers spread around the Star Bases and Starmobiles.
- Team Star's leaders are named after the Cassiopeia constellation, with each of the squad bosses named after the major stars of the constellation, while the top boss is named after the constellation itself.
- Ironically, in Greek mythology Cassiopeia is described as a vain arrogant goddess, while Penny the Cassiopeia of Team Star is a shy introvert girl.
- When looking at the game's world map, the location of each Team Star Base forms the shape of the Cassiopeia constellation.
Gallery[]
