The world of generation 1 Pokemon has recently gone through a massive war.

"Before the player character faces Lt. Surge in a gym battle, he shouts "Hey kid! What do you think you're doing here? You won't live long in combat! That's for sure! I tell you what kid, electric Pokémon saved me during the war!". This statement flatly acknowledges that there was a recent war, and that Lt. Surge is a veteran of the aforementioned war."Lt. Surge's description is "The Lightning American", meaning is at the very least an American citizen. Moreover, his typical outfit is very reminiscent of an American camouflage uniform, which means he at some point had served in the US military. Comparison is here (pay close attention to the pants): http://cdn.bulbagarden.net...http://i00.i.aliimg.com...This means that it is entirely possible that the war that Surge is referring to is one of the major wars America was involved in, such as the Vietnam or Korean war. And since America or some form of it exists in the Pokémon universe as proven by Surge's description, it is also possible that the America in this universe has Pokémon, among which are the electric Pokémon that Surge is referring to in his quote. Or, it is entirely possible that the war he is referring to happened a rather long time ago, as he never says that the war he is talking about happened recently. For example, some old war veterans still refer to WW2 as "the war". Same with the Vietnam and Korean War. However, none of those wars are even close to recent, and as such the war Surge is referring to does not have to be recent either.Surge is also not a very young man. His age is never officially given, but after some searching I have found that at least according to the anime he is in his early thirties. Meaning that the war could have happened at least 10 years in the past and he would still be within recruitment age, and 10 years is definitely not recent. Here is the website for his age: http://www.absoluteanime.com..."The majority of the people you encounter throughout Gen 1 are all children, elderly, or in crime. This supports the idea that a massive war had taken place, as a large war would have forced the Kanto government to draft all able bodied citizens to assist in wartime, as children and the elderly are not able to fight in combat, and criminals would have resisted drafting efforts. This is why your and your rival's father is not present throughout the game."Middle aged men are actually rather commonplace in Kanto. Because ages are unknown, we can only really go by appearance, but for this debate that will have to be good enough. All the hikers in the game are middle aged, and hikers are rather common (and incredibly annoying). All biker gang members certainly look very middle aged. All the scientists in Oak's lab also look rather middle aged. The move deleter looks middle aged. Mr Psychic from Saffron city is definitely middle aged (he's balding in FireRed/LeafGreen, and has a sort of stubble in RBY). All fisherman look middle aged. Koga, Bruno, and Lance are all also probably around the late thirties to early forties (hell, Koga has a preteen/teenage daughter). The list goes on. The fact remains that middle aged people are really not that uncommon. You just see young children more often simply because middle aged people have better things to do than sit around in grass all day and wait for unsuspecting trainers.But even if there were literally no middle aged people in Kanto, this still wouldn't prove anything because no country in at least our world history has ever mainly targeted middle aged men for army recruitment. The main targets are typically teenagers to young men, as these people are the most impulsive, physically fit, and gullible demographic of people, and are thus perfect candidates for soldiers. Think WW1, WW2, Mao's Culture Revolution, the Bolshevik Revolution, etc. All of these conflicts had a very high number of young men serving, not middle aged men who are likely to develop a hernia while attempting to slip into a trench.Besides, if the war really was as massive as my opponent makes it seem, no country in the right mind would exclusively hire men for the war effort. There would be factories everywhere, with women, if not on the front lines, working in those factories. War production or remnants of it would be everywhere in the form of military bases, drafting posts, factories, training facilities, army outposts, airfields, etc. But we see none of that in Kanto at all, in fact, Kanto's layout is really quite benign, with absolutely no sign whatsoever of any sort of military production or encampments."In almost every city in the game, there is a hospital, a training facility, and no entertainment related buildings. This is because when a nation faces a massive threat, they will try to focus all of their resources on the military required buildings (like a military training facility and hospitals), and strip away funding from unnecessary projects (like entertainment related buildings). The fact that only certain buildings are present throughout Kanto cities supports the idea of a massive war." This is really an issue of game development, as putting a bunch of movie theaters and race tracks and sports fields all over the place would be really over the top for a Pokémon game. However, even if that were irrelevant, there is still one major source of entertainment in the Pokémon universe, which is also one of the most infuriating: The Game Corner. The Game Corner is really quite lavish, and even has a completely separate building where people can claim prizes. And these prizes are some of the most valuable things ever to exist in Pokémon, as the TM provided there are sold nowhere else in the game and the Pokémon sold there are either incredibly rare or do not exist anywhere else. This shows that an immense amount of money is going into this gambling facility, certainly not a sign of a recent war, at least not one as expensive as my opponent makes it seem.There is also a rather expensive looking museum in Pewter City, the Pewter Museum of Science. This would have most likely been closed down a while ago if the war was happening, and even if the war was already over because war reparations still need to be paid.Overall, there is really no evidence for any sort of war. If we look at all the available regions up to now, none of them show any signs of conflict whatsoever, that is, bombed buildings, rubble, charring, craters, etc. All of them look rather peaceful in fact, which is really uncharacteristic of war. It is possible that Kanto went to war with some unreleased region, but until that unreleased region is revealed, we cannot assume that it exists.Some pictures of the various middle aged dudes I was talking about earlierhttps://docs.google.com...