Saturn: The Commander Left with a Leaderless Team Galactic

Four Commanders run Team Galactic, and he's the one who outlives it. Saturn serves Cyrus alongside Mars, Jupiter and Charon, and he carries out orders without ever questioning them, convinced that his boss will lead the world to its rebirth. When that boss disappears, he doesn't look for a replacement: he takes the job himself, then changes the agenda.

Contents

• One rank, one boss, four Pokémon
• A bomb to drain a lake
• The only Commander left
• In the anime, the first face of Team Galactic
• In the manga, the engineer who refuses to go outside
• A ransom, a bomb, and a round trip to the Distortion World
• Saturn at a glance
• Frequently Asked Questions

One rank, one boss, four Pokémon

Team Galactic is built around four Commanders under the authority of a single man. Saturn shares that rank with Mars, Jupiter and Charon, and his loyalty to Cyrus is unconditional: orders are there to be received, not discussed.

What sets him apart from his colleagues isn't how strongly he believes, but where that belief comes from. He buys into the project because his boss buys into it, not because he came up with the theory himself — a distinction that will carry its full weight the day the boss vanishes.

In the field, the game's battles give him four Pokémon: Bronzor, Toxicroak, Kadabra and Golbat. These are the Pokémon he uses to block the player's path, before opening it up again by letting slip one piece of information too many.

A bomb to drain a lake

The first encounter comes too late to prevent anything: Saturn has already drained Lake Valor with a Galactic bomb. The operation wasn't aimed at the lake itself, but at access to Valor Cavern, home of Azelf.

The Legendary spirit is the target, and it isn't the only one at stake. To wrest the lake guardians back from the organization, the player has to make their way into Team Galactic HQ in Veilstone City, where the group stores the spoils of its expeditions.

The second battle takes place there, and it yields more than a victory. Saturn reveals the next step of the plan there: Mount Coronet, which sends the player toward the story's climax.

💥 Azelf and the lake guardians have their own section: see the Legendary Pokémon.

The only Commander left

At Spear Pillar, where everything is decided, Saturn is absent. So he takes no part in the climax, and yet what's left of it falls to him.

With the boss gone, he takes over the group — which shouldn't be read as a long-held ambition: his three colleagues have vanished, and they only turn up again at Stark Mountain, in Platinum.

Then he does what nobody expected from a Team Galactic Commander. Having realized how extreme he had been, he softens the group's line and steers it for good toward what Team Galactic claimed to be after: a new source of energy.

In the anime, the first face of Team Galactic

He's the one who brings the organization onto the screen. No member of the group's leadership appears in the anime before him, and his first move is to outsource to Team Rocket the theft of the Adamant Orb, an artifact tied to the myth of Dialga. The operation fails.

What comes next keeps him very busy: retrieving the Spear Key from beneath the Solaceon Ruins, stealing meteorites from Veilstone City — they'll be used to build Mars's machines — then seizing both orbs, the Adamant and the Lustrous, in an operation that mobilizes the entire group, boss included. He then sets off, with Charon at his side, to find the portal at Spear Pillar that opens onto the worlds of Palkia and Dialga, and provides cover while the three lake guardians are abducted by Pokémon Hunter J.

His last decision is the most interesting one. When his boss plunges into the world he has just created, Saturn holds Mars back instead of letting her follow: he has understood that this universe would be open to no one but its creator. Once arrested, he tells Jupiter that they've been abandoned, and ends up admitting, resigned, that the adventure is over.

Two follow-ups revisit him after the fact. The Pokémon Generations series leaves him at headquarters, trying to reach his vanished boss in the Distortion World, then obeying when Cyrus tells him to stop looking for him. In The Arceus Chronicles special arc, he has rebuilt the organization and gotten his hands on a Heatran, whose energy is meant to power an Arceus Plate long enough to open a passage to the world where his boss ended up.

In the manga, the engineer who refuses to go outside

The manga adaptation gives him a trade rather than a rank. There, Saturn is the organization's explosives expert and the designer of its machines, drones included, and he's the one who builds the Galactic Bomb from the ground up. Cyrus gives him free rein over the finances, on the condition that he finds the money himself.

He takes full advantage of it to stay put. Lazy, he directs Pokémon and Grunts remotely through a screen, and when a trip truly can't be avoided, he climbs into a flying machine rather than walk.

The rest of the portrait is less flattering: cautious and calculating, but also childish, deeply vindictive, unable to take a defeat or a humiliation, and quick to lose his temper. He presents himself as the keeper of the rules and breaks them whenever it suits him — and gets along all the worse with Mars because their personalities clash on every point.

A ransom, a bomb, and a round trip to the Distortion World

To fund the project, he opts for kidnapping: target the Berlitz heiress, track her down through her two bodyguards, Paka and Uji, since he doesn't have a single photo of her, and demand a ransom of one and a half billion just to leave himself some margin. The duo beats him at the Lost Tower; he later takes his revenge in Veilstone City with an energy detonator, then gets punished by Cyrus for using it without permission.

At Lake Valor, the method finally pays off. His Octillery takes Pearl down underwater, the bomb goes off and Azelf is captured — a chance for this thoroughly homebound Commander to admit that the field, seen up close, sometimes holds surprises.

The ending plays out in two stages. At Spear Pillar, he battles Roark and Fantina until his machine gives out; then, having discovered in Eterna City that Charon had been using the group's resources for his own ends, he takes Jupiter and Mars to the Distortion World and crosses swords there with Mira and her Alakazam. Cyrus then disbands Team Galactic and takes his Commanders with him: the last we see of him is a smile.

Saturn at a glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• Who is Saturn in Pokémon?
  He's one of Team Galactic's four Commanders, along with Mars, Jupiter and Charon. He serves Cyrus and carries out his orders without ever questioning them, convinced that his boss will lead the world to its rebirth.
• Where do you battle Saturn in the games?
  Twice. First at Lake Valor, which he drained with a Galactic bomb to reach Valor Cavern and capture Azelf there, then at Team Galactic HQ in Veilstone City, where his defeat reveals the next step of the plan: Mount Coronet.
• What happens to Saturn after Cyrus disappears?
  He takes over what's left of Team Galactic. Aware that he went too far, he softens the group's policy and turns it for good toward the search for a new source of energy.
• Which Pokémon does Saturn use?
  His team is made up of Bronzor, Toxicroak, Kadabra and Golbat. In the manga, he battles with a Croagunk that later evolves into Toxicroak, an Abra and an Octillery.
• What is his role in the manga?
  In the manga, he's the organization's explosives expert and the designer of its devices, drones included. He builds the Galactic Bomb, finds funding for the project and prefers to give orders remotely rather than go into the field.

In short

Saturn never had a project of his own. He carried out orders, raised money, built things — and the closest he comes to a personal initiative is going back to look for that boss, in the manga as in the anime follow-ups. He ends up doubting the man before he doubts the project, which sets him apart from a fanatic and explains why he's the only one still standing at the end. The games then grant him what they deny his three colleagues: an organization in his hands and the right to change its direction. The manager turned out to be the only one to draw a conclusion.