How to twist the Newverse premise: Arceus

Recently, I made a blog post about what the Newverse would be like if it followed canon, followed shortly by a thread about the idea of a pseudo-reboot.

Now, the idea has evolved into something that takes the general premise of the Newverse - Arceus sends the Pokémon to Equus and transforms the humans - and goes its own way with it. I don't want to be accused of ripping it off, though, so what could I do differently?

One thing that came to mind was tweaking Arceus. In A New World, A New Way, Arceus is the first character to appear, explains his entire modus operandi to Celestia early on, can be visited by mortals at any time, and plays an active role in the story.

This hypothetical 'verse, which I like to call the Renewedverse, would have episodic stories, like the Lunaverse. A plot point in the first story could be figuring out the mystery of what caused the Pokémon to appear, and right at the end, it turns out to be Arceus.

As for how Renewed Arceus would be characterised, I was thinking that he could be a far more morally-grey character. Transforming people against their will is unethical, and perhaps an Equus native could call Arceus out for this. He could also be condescending to the former humans, with a "you'd better be thankful" sort of attitude. He can revert the transformations, but he's stubborn and doesn't want to.

Why did he have to send his creations to another world? Because he thought the people of Equus could set an example for them. Unfortunately, Equus is a lot less peaceful than it seems at first glance.

A theme of the Renewedverse could be making the most of an unusual circumstance that was forced upon you.