Cyrus Profile

Within the games, there is only so much detail about Cyrus that is revealed. This page is a collection of facts known about him, bolstered by quotes.

Areas of interest

Space: This is sort of obvious considering the theming of Team Galactic. Despite the fact that their whole schtick is researching 'cosmic energy', the space theming is unnecessary. However, he

Genetics: Indirectly revealed. In Platinum, he asks the player if they know what genes are and then provides a child-friendly explanation of the structure of DNA. He also compares the structure of the world to a double helix (and does so twice in the Japanese version).

Machines: Both the old lady in Sunyshore and Cyrus's grandfather mention that his childhood interest was to play with machines. Two of the books that his grandfather has are titled "Machines and Their Construction" and "The Mechanism of Perfection." This aspect of him is downplayed as an adult. It's not clear which kinds of machines he worked with - was he interested in mechanical, electrical, or electronic systems? It is mentioned in the games that Cyrus developed the technology to extract the missing text from the placque in Eterna City. Assuming he did it entirely himself, this suggests he has some knowledge of software. A grunt also mentions that Cyrus developed the bomb for blowing up Lake Valor. What 'developed' means is unclear - he may have just come up with the design, or he may have done much of the work himself. It suggests some knowledge of chemistry and physics on his part.

Origin myths: Cyrus is interested in accounts of how the world came to be, and in both D/P and Pt, this is how he introduces himself to the player. There is no indication that he has any interest in the human side of origin myths and what they reveal about people; he is interested solely in what they reveal to him about the actual creation of the world.

Philosophy of mind: Cyrus has clearly spent a lot of time developing a personal theory of how the human spirit/heart ('kokoro' in Japanese) is the source of imperfection and strife. His grandfather also has books titled "Mind and Matter" and "The Presence of Spirit."

Biography

We know little about Cyrus’s family. We only know that he grew up in Sunyshore City. The primary source for this is the old lady who lives in Sunyshore who explicitly says:

“A long time ago, there was a boy named Cyrus who lived here. He seemed to shun others, and he preferred the company of machines. He was a brilliant student, I recall. I often wonder what became of him.”

Because of this information (Cyrus grew up in Sunyshore and loved machines), we know the old man in Platinum on 228 is talking about Cyrus:

“Old man: "That Badge... It's from Sunyshore's Gym? You've been to that port town, then... Would... Would you lend an ear to this old man's talk? No... I shouldn't burden you with this. My grandson grew up in that city by the sea. Worn down by trying to live up to his parents' expectations, he found refuge in tinkering with machines. I wonder even now if I should have taken him in and raised him myself. Though I'm not certain if that would have been a good choice or not... I don't think anyone could say. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said any of this to you..."

From these two, we know a few things about how Cyrus grew up:

- Cyrus liked machines. - Cyrus did not have any friends. The English says he ‘shunned’ people, but the Japanese clarifies that he simply didn’t have friends, without putting the blame on any party: “Come to think of it… long ago, there was a child named Akagi. He didn’t associate with anyone, and spent all his time playing with machines… He was very good at studying, but I wonder— what kind of way did he grow up, I wonder?” - Cyrus’s parents expected a lot from him. - These expectations ‘wore him down’ - The expectations ‘wearing him down’ has a causal relationship to him playing with machines - Cyrus’s grandfather thinks the situation was bad enough that he should have intervened and become Cyrus’s primary guardian, and feels guilty that he did not.

This suggests that the situation was not just ‘studying a lot’ but that something else was happening. Unfortunately, this is never specified or alluded to in the games.

Let’s look now at the other major event of young Cyrus’s life - Rotom.

This episode is touching because it shows that, as isolated as he was, boy Cyrus was capable of forming bonds. This is the only account we have of him having any sort of friend as a child. He experienced the loss of his dear friend not once, but twice. Surely this only served to deepen his conviction that emotions and bonds were just a waste of time, a path to suffering. Happiness is fleeting and not to be trusted.

Other than the leak info on his adolescence, we don’t know much else about Cyrus’s life until he becomes an adult - he is 27 by the time the game begins.

The order of events from this point on becomes hard to discern since we only have the events of the game to go by, and what Team Galactic is up to is not always visible.

- Cyrus is the boss of Team Galactic - Team Galactic has a headquarters in Veilstone - Team galactic has a base in Eterna City - He has three commanders. In Platinum, Charon is implied to have joined recently enough that Mars forgets that he's one of the commanders. - They are close to completing their plan by the time you face them

LEAK INFO:

The leak fills in details of Cyrus’s youth. However, it is not known how much of this carried over to the games. It is noticeable that the Rotom story is not included at all. As such, I would not consider this to be canon information. At the same time, it’s clear that the games hinted at some of the stuff here (emotional neglect from parents), so it’s worth taking a look at, if only as a historical case study of Cyrus’s life.

“Born as the eldest son into a wealthy family in the Sinnoh region. Though both parents worked, he was given everything he wanted. But his parents fought often —an ordinary occurrence. He was expected to be perfect. Cyrus hated the fact that he wasn't perfect, and over time, began to despise others as well (a perfectionist and reclusive).

Without communicating with his neglectful parents, he became immersed in scientific machinery, which he adored. Lacking meaningful human connections, he eventually lost his emotions. He was exceptionally intelligent. However, his logical, precise way of thinking didn't attract people to him. When Cyrus turned ten, he was mocked for the first time. This unresolved anger and ambition set him on a path toward a mechanized, scientific world (a break from his reclusive nature). At the same time, his anger led him to start using people to achieve his goals, fueling his desire for power to become a ruler of machines.”

This paints a fuller picture of his childhood world. Let’s recap and integrate it into what we know about him:

The chain of events here is much clearer than the blurry one implied by Platinum - Cyrus grew up emotionally neglected in an unstable household. He was highly intelligent and rationally minded, but he didn’t have the skills to be able to socialize with other children. He grew up with essentially no mirroring from adults or peers. Being humiliated by peers angered him and stirred him to immerse himself in a mechanistic worldview where inner lives don’t matter.

There was one moment where he found approval from his parents, though.

“As a child, Cyrus admired the vastness of the universe, the galaxy filled with dreams and hope. At night, with a telescope in hand, he looked up at the countless stars in the sky, It made him feel good-secure. He even dreamed of becoming an astronaut. One day, he confessed this dream to his parents. For the first and only time, they praised him. It became his only fond memorya smile shared by his family, the first and last happy memory. Despite his hatred for his parents, that childhood fascination unconsciously led him to name his organization "Galactic."”

Cyrus loved space as well as machines He felt secure looking at space and the vastness of the universe He dreamed of becoming an astronaut His parents praised him for wanting to be an astronaut This is the ONLY time they praised him He hated his parents His enduring love for space led him to name the organization Galactic

The leaks also elaborate on his adolescence, which is otherwise untouched by any media:

He began selling scientific equipment to raise funds for his ambitions. Cyrus believed that when people die, they cease to exist-everything becomes nothing. Since everything eventually returns to nothingness, he thought it didn't matter what one did; nothing would change. To him, all living beings were merely cellular matter, with brains functioning through electrical signals. Emotions, therefore, were meaningless. This reflected a complete denial of spirit, religion, and gods. At 15, Cyrus formed an organization built on a meritocratic worldview, one where people were only tools to be used. This marked the birth of the Galactic Team.

He apparently began selling scientific (!) equipment as a teenager (!) to raise money for his ambitions. Insane.

We have also an elaboration of his mechanistic worldview (why this wasn’t in the previous section, I don’t know): he didn’t believe in an afterlife, he thought that life was just a temporary organization of electricity, and we were just cells and electricity. Emotions don’t matter. (My interpretation - they don’t matter because they are just temporary chemical signals and we all die anyway.)

He then founded team galactic at 15. (Whether this is true or not in the final games, it has been retconned since 2021 when Legends: Arceus was released and the Galaxy Expedition Team is the predecessor to Team Galactic. In the Japanese both are Gingadan.)

He sold scientific equipment before or around age 15 to make money He adopted a materialist and mechanistic worldview that rejected concepts of spirit He founded Team Galactic at 15 Team Galactic was ‘meritocratic’ Team Galactic members were ‘only tools to be used’

“Driven by ambition, Cyrus expanded the organization. Fearing that others might understand his true intentions, he wore a mask to hide his emotions, using anger as his primary expression. Few knew what lay behind the mask. The leaders of the Galactic Team, each named after stars, were allowed to meet with him. Currently, the team had three leaders:

Mars, a 22-year-old woman Jupiter, a 24-year-old woman Saturn, a 25-year-old man These three were drawn to Cyrus's ideology and pledged their loyalty to him. Cyrus called himself the "Man of the Sun, believing he could make the world revolve around him.”

Cyrus hid his emotions and only ever expressed anger (consistent with what we see in the games; but what emotions is he hiding? Cyrus was afraid that others would understand his true intentions Few people understood him Only the leaders of the Galactic team were allowed to meet with him The commanders were attracted to his ideology Cyrus called himself ‘man of the sun’ (did he change his name?) Cyrus wanted to make the world revolve around him

The plot diverges wildly from here, so I won’t go on. Regardless of how much of this made it into the final games (and I think a lot changed), this is a fascinating view into what was on the writers’ minds as they developed him. It was clear they saw a throughline between his emotional neglect/isolation and ensuing mechanistic worldview. It is also interesting to see the origins of his eventual fixation with ‘perfection’ or ‘completion’ - he held himself to incredibly high standards and became frustrated when other people didn’t measure up to them.

There are other interesting bits implied, such as his parents fighting. If his parents argued in front of him and he never received any emotional validation from them and his peers didn’t connect with him, then he had no real model for emotions as things that could be affirming or bonding. This connects to him in the game seeming confused as to why you do something out of compassion, and to thinking that people are only fooling themselves into thinking they’re happy. He can’t fathom actually being happy with how he was raised.

His breakdown in Platinum where he furiously names his own ‘ugly’ emotions could also tie in to his parents, if part of their standards for him involved never showing any ‘ugly’ emotions. He doesn’t call the emotions irrational; he calls them ‘ugly’, suggesting a moral judgment. He could also have observed how other people’s emotions led them to do harmful things (like his parents fighting with each other in front of him; a stressful event for a child).

In short, the leaks expand his childhood from “isolated kid with tiger parents who played with machines" to “child who never received any positive model for handling emotions and coped by suppressing.” More ominously, he internalized from his parents a view that people should be perfect, and came to look on others with contempt when they were imperfect. (You can imagine tons of ways in which he found this - people peeing on the seats in bathrooms, people forgetting to do their part in a group assignment, people forgetting to study for exams, etc.)

What is the significance of the machines? Machines react predictably. If a machine fails, there is an explanation for it, and you can be competent enough to find out. Machines reward persistence, intelligence, and the ability to think in terms of cause and effect. For someone as cut off from socializing as Cyrus was, this must have been a safe place where he got rewards for his competence. Socializing with humans is messy - they can lie about their intentions, they can omit what they really want, they may not even know what they want, they can fail to communicate, they can want to hurt you, they can not care about you. Communicating well requires tolerance for indeterminacy and accepting that you cannot control the outcome of conversation. You cannot obsessively grind your way into becoming a master socializer. Most children learn to socialize beginning with their parents, and then peers, learning through trial-and-error and the occasional correction from adults. Due to his isolation and neglectful parents, Cyrus had none of that, and so was unprepared when he had to interact with other children. (The chaos from his parents fighting may have also led him to seek safety in repetitive domains.) He also had a temperament that was inclined towards precision, something that was rewarded in his machine-play and punished by other kids.

"Machines and Their Construction" "The Mechanism of Perfection"... "Mind and Matter" "The Presence of Spirit"... "Beyond Time and Space" "What is the Space-Time Continuum?" ... "Space and Galaxies" "The Beginning of Space"...