Well, candypop buds are believed to yield onions when mature, but what if it was like bees? If they fail to get polinized, they become a flarlic. If they succeed its an onion!
I like that, I was thinking similarly. In my head they are like the between stage of the onion. they are between a candypop bud and a normal onion waiting to mature perhaps
The theory of TVE overwhelmed onion is discarded in the full gane because it can hold up to 10 different pikmin, i suggest that it tries to hold more than it can hold.
I personally think they're immature onions or ones that lost all their pikmin or too many and couldn't get enough nutrients from pellets and beasts being brought to them by the pikmin rather than a very old onion being worn out by time
I'd view them as being immature onions that couldn't get enough nutrients from their pikmin, either due to an extinction occurring and them not having enough nutrients to produce a new sprout...or due to just there not being anything to get the nutrients from (no beasts, nectar or pellets) so the lack of nutrients leads the immature onion to die off, its colouration becoming a pale greenish-yellow and it constantly sputtering trying to produce sprouts but despite it being dead, it still serves a use in the life cycle...since it can be absorbed by onions giving them a massive surge of nutrients which boosts the internalized production and allows them to let out more sprouts into the open
@@xxmension04xx47 yeah sounds right. I think the time for pikmin 4 is when pikmin onions have just created the next generation of onions which is why there are so many wild pikmin around and flaric bulbs
the fact that it more resembles a plant that's still growing rather than a plant that's dying makes me think it might be an onion that "missed it's chance" so to speak for whatever reason it just never managed to spit out a pikmin and so it's like a plant bulb with nothing to bring it energy in excess to fully develop a stunted onion of sorts
would explain why it increases the amount of Pikmin on the field, it gives working onions enough nutrients to produce more pikmin, letting them put on more of a risk and release more pikmin
mhm, that idea is backed up when flarlics produce nectar and spicy spray after the limit reaches 100 (meaning the amount cannot increase at that point)
Or maybe it's an onion that still hasn't had it's chance and has either the option to eventually be it's own onion or an existing onion to give them a boost
I've always held the idea that pikmin, candypop buds and onions are all the same lifeform just in different stages of maturity. Onions produce pikmin to gather nutrients to produce even more pikmin > pikmin that get left in the ground for an extended duration eventually grow into candypop buds> candypop buds use pikmin of other onions to cross pollinate> the candy pop bud withdraws it's flower and produces an onion that will eventually uproot itself to continue the process. Farlics may just be the middle ground between candypop buds and onions, they're not strong enough to start producing pikmin on their own but they can still support newly developed onions with their ability to increase the cap
In the real world, plants have something called "alternation of generations" where the same species takes two forms, sporophyte and gametophyte: sporophytes reproduce asexually producing male and female gametophytes, and the male and female gametophytes reproduce sexually to produce a sporophyte. That might also help explain why pikmin look so different from onions dispite clearly being the same species.
I doubt its a dead onion, but its a great theory! It feels more possible for them to be immature onions, or misformed onions. Like, when a onion is made (via the candypop bud route) it turns into a flarlic. The flarlic then spends a long time learning the pikmin theyre making, by creating pikmin inside and recreating the same one to perfect the pikmin. Its an odd idea, but it feels more right to me. Awesome theory though!
I agree with this personally, but I think one issue is color. Why would a candy pop bud, which has a specific color, grow into a generic pale flarlic, before growing another color? I think it makes more sense for it to be somehow malnourished or malformed, so that a red candy pop bud typically grows directly to a red onion for example
To me the part that sticks out reminds me of when an allium bulb begins to sprout. I think its why the "fruit" of the farlic is pale, but the top is greenish, it's using itself to germinate new life and is serving a different function than the regular onion, but I definitely agree, I think they are different states of the same thing
I always saw them as Onions that are too young, but them being instead Onions that are too old also make sense. With your theory, the Flarlic inside of the cave where you discover Ice Pikmin could be the old Onion of those Ice Pikmin. I also wonder how is that the Pikmin end up being wiped out back to being just 5 of their types after reproducing to the hundreds or thousands. We have only actually seen that happened in 2 and in 3, where in 3 even the Winged and Blue Pikmin might as well be completely extinct, so I wonder what happened. Plus, in Pikmin 3's case, thanks to the existence of Olimar's Assignment, either several Onions of each color existed at the same time, or the Onion got split somehow with all Blue and Winged perishing. It most likely is the former though, because Olimar's Assigment happens at the same time of the main adventure, and I don't think that the same Onion was traveling back and forth between Olimar and the Koppaites.
I personally think the pikmin don't survive very well without captains to command them either getting eaten/killed by beasts or dying to hazards or not getting to the onion at the end of the day when Olimar and co. are away. In pikmin 2 it did seems like the pikmin were just sleeping inside the onion according to the ship before you called them. Also keep in mind pikmin don't have a means to toss themselves without a leader so they become a lot more vulnerable to bigger enemies unless winged pikmin are around
@@zacharyweaver276 I'm pretty sure the good ending of Pikmin 1 implies that thanks to Olimar they've learned to survive on their own. Also, they jump to the Bulborb in that same ending, meaning that they don't need to be thrown by someone else to latch on to an enemy
@@JoziGlitzh I will say the pikmin have gotten much better at surviving on their own though since we've seen wild pikmin in 2 and now underground pikmin in 4 which you think would be the most dangerous environment for pikmin without a captain
They don't look dead though. They're still moving, and they even have the appearance of a bulb or garlic just starting to grow, with the green tint at the top.
@@lasercraft32 im talking about the onion being functionally dead. It cannot Work anymore therefore its a dead onion, like something that runs out of batteries, its considered dead
They are very clearly related, but the piklopedia says that its not an onion. They likely do come to exist from the same source as onions, but I'm almost certain that they are not the same
I think that the flarlics might be the opposite and are developing Pikmin, the problem with your theory is that there would be no way to make more onion if they all fuse together, but if the flarlic was the developing stage that would make more sense, that would explain why the ones we see are buried, why the colored onions we find are not active until we fuse them (because they just finished developing), why there are multiple onions designs/types across the Pikmin series, and how Pikmin can survive if their species depends on something that could get stuck or destroyed
@@xxmension04xx47 What they mean by that is if onions fused together and then would turn into flarlics after fusing too much then there would be no way to reproduce more onions since that means onions would die with no way of making more of itself.
You’ve convinced me. The flarlics always had visual similarities to the onions, and they’re apart of the same family. In Pikmin 4 we’ll definitely learn more about these things and with the evidence you brought up in this video, they have to be some sort of dead onions BTW love the thumbnail design!
The only real issue with this theory is the scientific names that were revealed for the pikmin and their adjacent species - and the onions and flarlics are different species. They're not even in the same family! (Onions being Lillium pikminporta and flarlic being Bulbus lillium). Which, frankly, makes their relationship even more complicated. Maybe the flarlic is another "prey" or producer species, much like the pellet posies, that the pikmin simply feed on?
Also, for the scientic name sources, I personally pulled them from the pikmin wiki. However, I'm 90% sure they pulled the names from the Japanese site Pikmin Garden. That, or maybe the game itself (as I didn't unlock the piklopedia in the demo myself)
(apologies for all the comments, UA-cam is refusing to let me edit my comment) I made a mistake when I said they were not in the same family - they very well may be. It's the genus that is different. Though, I feel my point stands over-all. (and as an extra fun fact, the pikmin are a separate genus from the onions too - they're all Pikminidae! And each type is its own species, which I won't list here for sake of space. Makes all of this even more complex sense the onions and pikmin are now two symbiotic species to the point one is able to reproduce for the other.)
I personally think that the Onions are actually a sort of Queen Pikmin. Let me explain. You know how sometimes, a female worker bee may become a queen bee if raised correctly, and this changes their biology? And you know how queen bees are basically only there to make more bees? Well, I think Onions are actually something similar. Perhaps it’s a 1 in a million for a pikmin to have a special mutation that activates a gene that makes it grow into an Onion instead of a regular pikmin. Regular pikmin are gender less and cannot produce children, but an Onion, despite being unable to move, is large enough to produce pikmin. When pikmin carry something back, the onion literally eats it, and then uses those nutrients to make pikmin seeds.
Or... It's major gender differences. Like the candypops, onions, and flarlics are all female and our Pikmen are all male. That would explain why the onions can create pikmin. I'm also thinking that the flowered pikmin are used to create more onions. Maybe it makes a root that grows into moe onions.
@@danielthecake8617that's my headcanon as well, since Pikmins are clearly partly inspired by ants. Onions are basically queen ants but even more specialized, and flarlics might be alates created by other onions to breed. It would explain why they actively seek to be absorbed by an Onion
In the real world, plants have something called "alternation of generations" where the same species takes two forms, sporophyte and gametophyte: sporophytes reproduce asexually producing male and female gametophytes, and the male and female gametophytes reproduce sexually to produce a sporophyte. That might also help explain why pikmin look so different from onions dispite clearly being the same species.
While I’m not entirely sure if I agree with the theory or not, I do have an additional detail for the “malnourished” idea: When a Pikmin type goes “extinct” (though this could simply mean extinct in the local or reachable area, shown by the red onion in Pikmin 2) the onion produces a seed of said type, either immediately or the following day. In the case of Louie and the red Onion, this could simply be a spare seed, as we don’t know why an Onion goes “dormant” in the first place, however; this would not explain where an Onion gets a seed when it has already spit out a spare, assuming it keeps one. My idea to add on to yours is that it uses its own nutrients in a way that is harmful to itself, seeing as when a pellet is given to an onion after an extinction, it still spits out the normal, expected amount. Of course, it prefers not to do this, which is perhaps even why it goes dormant until approached in the first place unless it knows there is something able to continue its lifespan.
I think its not necessarily an onion that’s dead, so much as its an onion that’s reproducing. One of the ways irl aliums (garlic, onions, etc.) reproduce is by dividing at the bulb. This would make sense with your theory too- if an onion has too many types, maybe it undergoes a division process as a flarlic to divide into new onions with only one type of pikmin.
I think it's more akin to a younger stage of onion. In a kind of Eeveelution matter, a growing onion needs very specific stimuli to grow into a given type of Onion, while having a lack of any particular stimuli results in a flarlic. The question of how onions propogate is the big question, but apropos of no solid evidence, I assume there's a definite lifespan of a viable onion. When one nears death, it might lift off and scatter seeds to the wind, possiblly by cannabalizing internal Pikmin to form Onion seeds. Thus, a successful "colony" is capable of producing many more Onion seeds, increasing the chance more colonies are successful in the future. The instinct of Pikmin to follow orders of a Captain or leader figure may be an evolutionary trait to make mass propogation more robust, and the bad ending if P1 (and possibly in P4) shows what would happen in the scenario where a colony's leader dies.
You know... I always had this theory that the master (as well as its uni-type variants) onion from pikmin 3 onwards came from a queen candypop bud, while regular onions came from colored candypop buds, which themselves sprout from pikmin left behind in the ground for far too long
That does explain the Onions redesigns the Onions die and the Pikmin find a new more developed and adapted version of an Onion this also ties with the type limit.
I now have a new head canon where purples, whites, and ice pikmin all had onions at one point, but those onions went extinct forcing them to rely on the flowers to keep themselves from extinction
What if the onions are only able to produce a low number of pikmin to start with because olimin and the other captmins are using other onions to fill out the regular 100 limit
Could consider it the other way around: Perhaps Farlics are newborn onions yet to fully sprout, and the fact theres so many wild pikmin is simply the result of a lot of Farlics sprouting. And the fact it absorbs into older "Mature" onions to allow more Pikmin on the field could be the onions rejuvinating themselves from a fresher source of energy. And if Farlics are a play on words for "Garlic", then it would make sense because Garlic itself in the bulb is a plant full of nutrients that can sustain itself with it's own source. And it also makes sense as a nutrient for Onions to allow more Pikmin in the world at once.
I…have a theory. You know those onions that were in the good ending of pikmin 1 like the black, pink etc. maybe it’s those onions but the pikmin type of that onion have gone extinct.
when i was a kid i used to think pikmin that overwintered in the ground unplucked they would begin to mature and become a candypop bud. and after a few years of that they would grow a bulb and become onions. flarlic seems to be a much more reasonable transition. if you look at the newer candy pop designs they have pikmin like leaves at the base. maybe it spends time underground growing, which would also explain why flarlic have green tips, they're still photosynthetic as they collect nutrients. and analyze the environment, in a marshy wet area they would grow blues and if they grow in a forest that burns often they would become reds etc. that could help explain why onions always end up nearby their effective element, but flarlic seem to be immature onions, rather than dead onions. but i like your theory too.
A quick conjecture I am having right now is that it goes: large quantities of a pikmin type are eaten -> the monster excretes the pikmin corpses which act as a seed -> then an onion grows at the site -> the pikmin dig the onion out of the ground -> the pikmin start feeding the onion and riding the onion during the night -> glow pikmin fertilize the soil with the corpses from the creatures -> the onion starts producing pikmin -> the onion ages into a flalic -> the pikmin carry the flalic to another onion to allow more pikmin to be active at once -> newly activated pikmin get eaten so the cycle repeats
I like to think that if a candy pop bud matures it becomes an onion and leaves behind a flaric seed that is why we mostly see them buried. an alternate theory is that they are onions waiting for the right stimuli to turn into an onion. like a flarlic exposed to fire becomes a red onion and one in water becomes a blue onion. maybe pikmin 5 we get brown pikmin and they can merge with dirt and use it to build
My guess is that it's an alternative evolutionary pathway for the onion (just like the different Bulborbs are different species/families/etc), and that it's similar enough that it can act as a pseudo-onion but didn't evolve all the onion's specializations but, tbh, it being an immature/malformed/chemically-exhausted/old onion is pretty interesting too
I’d assume they just thought well let’s just make a better onion. My head cannon is that it’s just a sibling to the onion. Just having a different look at maybe some different features
I think you’re right, but I don’t think it takes that many onions to make a flaric because if it did, then there would be a rapidly declining amount of onions, since it requires seven to make a flaric and then nine to make an optimal onion. However, my alternative to this idea is simply that if any onion dies at any number of pikmin or onions, then it will become a flaric a good example is in Pikmin three the blue onion is on the verge of death when we find it according to the logs.
I like the dark lifecycle that this may imply, but I also suspect that Nintendo might not want that to be canon, but hey have you seen some of the dark Pokémon dex entries?
I don't think it's so much dead onion so much as an unripe onion,like if it was left buried a few more years or something it would mature into a ripe onion.
I think the flarlic is a different type of onion as in the piklopedia they are also part of the candypop family meaning they could just be another kind of onion that evolved to lose legs and get nutrients from the dirt they can be stuck in.
Instead of overworking, I feel like the reason for most Onion death is time. Why do you think we don't see any Master Onions with every colour everywhere?
I believe that the Flarlics might actually be a juvenile Onion. Or it could be a diverging species of the onion. Like given enough time there could be Onions that fly and there's the Flarlics that can go underground.
I believe the Flalic is a premature onion and the reason why it keep doing that weird thing it does is because its trying to create its first pikmin and this could also explain why it is scenically every time you find one its partially buried
Personally this is what I think. The Onion is both a nest and the Queen for Pikmin. Think about Ants. The Onion starves itself initially in hopes that the young workers would eventually grow up to and harvest food that can be returned to the Onion in order to produce more and more until an army can be properly managed. Perhaps a Flarlic is an Onion that lost its own Pikmin and couldn't get the energy required to produce anymore. It is essentially dried up, it can no longer produce anything and is worthless on its own. Thus requiring it to join an Onion in order to become fed to produce its own Pikmin. Take this like Ant Queens joining nests in order to become a Supercolony! The only difference between Pikmin behavior and Ant behavior is ants are absolutely loyal to the Queen and lack intelligence. Meanwhile, Pikmin clearly are smart and as a result, they act more independently rather than like a hivemind that the Ants have. In essence, their own intelligence works against them... at least until the Captains arrive and take charge of the Pikmin like a sort of Commander.
i think the onions looked better in pikmin 1 and 2 where they were more solid and kind of mechanichal-looking, and didn't fuse together. the goopy-look of pikmen 3 and 4 that has them blend into one never sat right with me.
Meh. i suppose if an Onion (Somehow) Manages to Survive Managing Seven Types at once, I suppose it forms a cocoon around itself for a day to develop a strong crystalized shell and Armour. Thus, the Onions from Pikmin 3.
my personal theory is this: onions are very clearly living things. they move on their own, their piklopedia entry states that they have muscular structures on the inside, and they definitely have some form of sentience as they *willingly* follow the S.S. Beagle back to home base. i imagine that onions and pikmin have a symbiotic relationship. the onion breeds new pikmin and gives them shelter, and in return the pikmin go off and retrieve nutrients to bring back to the onion, and the onion uses these nutrients to both feed itself, and make new pikmin. a flarlic is basically a starved onion. the lack of nutrients, whether it be caused by the environment not bearing any, or the onion losing all its pikmin, caused the onion to be deprived of food, and thus lose its plump shape and vivid color. the shape of the flarlic is just the onion's outer flesh caving in to more tightly wrap around its inner structure. as the onion, now flarlic now lacks any energy to move, it tucks in its legs and goes into a sorta hibernation state. it becomes completely inactive, aside from the sputtering motion it does, which side note: i believe the fluttering of the petals that all onions and flarlics do is their way of respiration, flarlics just sputter when doing so because theyre so weak. once in this hibernation state, the flarlics rest to preserve what nutrients are left in them, and they allow other onions to use them to gain extra nutrients.
Honestly i dont think its dead, i think its just going onto its next life stage. I theorize that they were indeed old onions, but are growing to become burgeoning spiderworts. If you look at the top of the burgeoning spiderworts it looks like the petals of flarlic/onions, but with extra petals and a lot of berries. Those berries look a lot like miniature unbloomed onions. Both onions and garlic(mostly garlic species) create "seed" garlics like this where they flower, which are basically just miniature versions of garlic bulbs. And just like how garlic can be propagated by either division of the garlic bulb, or by planting the mini seed bulbs it makes, i feel like the onioj lifecycle probably has divergent reproduction methods as well. And the ultra spicy berries are just a separate form of the same plant.
I think it's just an old onion. It probably produced Candypop seeds, sent its pikmin out with the seeds to distribute them, and then degraded into a glorified nutrient bulb that pikmin would ostensibly carry to an onion to feed its growth.
Theres one problem. its the part where he says if the oinion does to many flalics it turns nto one. but problem is is that its stated that when you reach your maximun amount of pikmin ( 100 ) that any extra flarlics consumed get turned to nutrients. so that part doesnt make sense.
I think that the Pikmin 4 Onions may be polymorphic, occasionally producing Flarics instead of reproductive Onions. This could be to make sure that the maximum amount of Pikmin on the surface scales with the size of the colony so not all of them die at once.
i think flarlics are a type of onion made to fule onions like te flood lakes from halo it flood for flood to eat flarlics are onions for onions to eat!! made from dead candypop buds when they go under ground they emerge as flarlics
Theory flarlics appear once a candy popbud that has been used it starts eating its self as to servive causing that popping up bit to appear and that animation it does most likely means it is trying to reproduce but can't and late is consumed by a onion making more sprouts that bloom into candypop buds that will either turn into an onion or be used and turn into a flarlic
my theory is the candy pop buds grow into flarlic and then onions. my reason is the little sticking out top of the flarlic looks like a candypop bud that was closed/shut so maybe they bud up when growing so i belive its a young/immature onion in the middle of becoming an onion. (ps. whatever color the candy pop bud is the color the onion will be. when flarlic grow the color slowly flushes the flarlic and grows into the round onion shape) great theory of it being dead! but i belive its a half stage between onions and candypop buds as it looks like its a closed candypop bud itself
PIKMIN 4 SPOILERS!!!! This has been disproven by the full game. When an onion gets to 100 pikmin limit, it instead turns the flarlic into nutrients (nectar and spicy spray) for the pikmin. And with the onion now being able to have all 8 types of pikmin, the first part has also been disproven. To me, a flarlic reminds me of a plant that hasnt fully grown. Maybe thats whqt the flarlic is? Who knows
I think this may be more of a mutation rather than a life cycle, as the game states the onion limits how many Pikmin can be out at a time to prevent high losses, but as we progress and gain more Pikmin we also gain flarlics to increase Pikmin deployment amounts, it's possible that they mutated into the flarlics and new onion both for survival and as a result of growth, due to the increased types of Pikmin in the world, the fact there are so many onion types could also be a reason for the mutation as the solo onions would need lower caps as they have less to despense, where as the merged are capable of higher caps to fit their higher population's strength
There literally are over 7 onions in the ending of Pikmin 1, and even if we dont obtain them in game purple and white onions could definetly exist just not in the gameloop due to balance. Or prehaps they even went fully extinct. We still have blue, red, yellow, rock, winged, orange and green. We do even see the white and purple ones with all those said colours too
What if it’s an onion that went through too many pikmin extinctions therefore it used up too much energy trying to prevent its pikmin from going extinct EDIT: it would also explain why we don't have a pikmin type for each color onion we see in the first games good ending
only one problem to that theory apparently (according to olimar) they will try to get eaten so theyc an't be dead maybe it's just a younger onion or another type that is just made to let the onion let more pikmins out
I like to think that the Pikmin 1 and 2 onions are older onions than Pikman 4 onions. The onion from the first two games appears like wooden models, especially in the "legs" of the onion, and perhaps the mamuta painted those patterns on the onions or it was the other way around. Plus, Pikmin 1 and 2 onions kinda look like farlic, kinda. Meanwhile, I feel like Pikmin 4 onions are how they should have been the entire time as it looks like something alive and young. Depending on how purple and white pikmin are implemented and how they function in game is when I decide if the devs will add their own onions, it is possible that its not gonning to happen but it could still happen. And I have no idea where Pikmin 3 onions go, I mean, these onions look like organic cyborgs or cyborgs with organic implants instead of tech implants.
Well, candypop buds are believed to yield onions when mature, but what if it was like bees? If they fail to get polinized, they become a flarlic. If they succeed its an onion!
I like this one
I like that, I was thinking similarly. In my head they are like the between stage of the onion. they are between a candypop bud and a normal onion waiting to mature perhaps
pollinated you mean
yeah and candypop buds *DO* grow naturally, maybe that's why there are white and purple onions now?
The theory of TVE overwhelmed onion is discarded in the full gane because it can hold up to 10 different pikmin, i suggest that it tries to hold more than it can hold.
I personally think they're immature onions or ones that lost all their pikmin or too many and couldn't get enough nutrients from pellets and beasts being brought to them by the pikmin rather than a very old onion being worn out by time
I agree, they seem more underdeveloped than old.
I'd view them as being immature onions that couldn't get enough nutrients from their pikmin, either due to an extinction occurring and them not having enough nutrients to produce a new sprout...or due to just there not being anything to get the nutrients from (no beasts, nectar or pellets)
so the lack of nutrients leads the immature onion to die off, its colouration becoming a pale greenish-yellow and it constantly sputtering trying to produce sprouts
but despite it being dead, it still serves a use in the life cycle...since it can be absorbed by onions giving them a massive surge of nutrients which boosts the internalized production and allows them to let out more sprouts into the open
@@xxmension04xx47 yeah sounds right. I think the time for pikmin 4 is when pikmin onions have just created the next generation of onions which is why there are so many wild pikmin around and flaric bulbs
@@xxmension04xx47 Makes sense to me
I agree, since they look similar to premature onions and garlic.
Well, they are both in the candypop family...
the fact that it more resembles a plant that's still growing rather than a plant that's dying makes me think it might be an onion that "missed it's chance" so to speak
for whatever reason it just never managed to spit out a pikmin and so it's like a plant bulb with nothing to bring it energy in excess to fully develop
a stunted onion of sorts
would explain why it increases the amount of Pikmin on the field, it gives working onions enough nutrients to produce more pikmin, letting them put on more of a risk and release more pikmin
mhm, that idea is backed up when flarlics produce nectar and spicy spray after the limit reaches 100 (meaning the amount cannot increase at that point)
Or maybe it's an onion that still hasn't had it's chance and has either the option to eventually be it's own onion or an existing onion to give them a boost
then why would there be so many? like so many dead ones it makes no sense
I've always held the idea that pikmin, candypop buds and onions are all the same lifeform just in different stages of maturity. Onions produce pikmin to gather nutrients to produce even more pikmin > pikmin that get left in the ground for an extended duration eventually grow into candypop buds> candypop buds use pikmin of other onions to cross pollinate> the candy pop bud withdraws it's flower and produces an onion that will eventually uproot itself to continue the process. Farlics may just be the middle ground between candypop buds and onions, they're not strong enough to start producing pikmin on their own but they can still support newly developed onions with their ability to increase the cap
In the real world, plants have something called "alternation of generations" where the same species takes two forms, sporophyte and gametophyte: sporophytes reproduce asexually producing male and female gametophytes, and the male and female gametophytes reproduce sexually to produce a sporophyte. That might also help explain why pikmin look so different from onions dispite clearly being the same species.
I think that flarlics are simply candypop buds that never got pollinated, they still grow the bulb but there is nothing inside to proeuce the pikmin
I doubt its a dead onion, but its a great theory! It feels more possible for them to be immature onions, or misformed onions. Like, when a onion is made (via the candypop bud route) it turns into a flarlic. The flarlic then spends a long time learning the pikmin theyre making, by creating pikmin inside and recreating the same one to perfect the pikmin. Its an odd idea, but it feels more right to me. Awesome theory though!
Great idea, and thanks!
@@WigwamMan
What do flarlics and onions taste like?
@@the_blue_jay_raptorgarlics and onions
You know i always wanted to take a bite out of the red onion
I agree with this personally, but I think one issue is color. Why would a candy pop bud, which has a specific color, grow into a generic pale flarlic, before growing another color? I think it makes more sense for it to be somehow malnourished or malformed, so that a red candy pop bud typically grows directly to a red onion for example
To me the part that sticks out reminds me of when an allium bulb begins to sprout. I think its why the "fruit" of the farlic is pale, but the top is greenish, it's using itself to germinate new life and is serving a different function than the regular onion, but I definitely agree, I think they are different states of the same thing
Onion dies, turns into a Flarlic, gets buried in ground, blooms into a Candypop Bud
I always saw them as Onions that are too young, but them being instead Onions that are too old also make sense. With your theory, the Flarlic inside of the cave where you discover Ice Pikmin could be the old Onion of those Ice Pikmin.
I also wonder how is that the Pikmin end up being wiped out back to being just 5 of their types after reproducing to the hundreds or thousands. We have only actually seen that happened in 2 and in 3, where in 3 even the Winged and Blue Pikmin might as well be completely extinct, so I wonder what happened.
Plus, in Pikmin 3's case, thanks to the existence of Olimar's Assignment, either several Onions of each color existed at the same time, or the Onion got split somehow with all Blue and Winged perishing. It most likely is the former though, because Olimar's Assigment happens at the same time of the main adventure, and I don't think that the same Onion was traveling back and forth between Olimar and the Koppaites.
I personally think the pikmin don't survive very well without captains to command them either getting eaten/killed by beasts or dying to hazards or not getting to the onion at the end of the day when Olimar and co. are away. In pikmin 2 it did seems like the pikmin were just sleeping inside the onion according to the ship before you called them. Also keep in mind pikmin don't have a means to toss themselves without a leader so they become a lot more vulnerable to bigger enemies unless winged pikmin are around
@@zacharyweaver276 I'm pretty sure the good ending of Pikmin 1 implies that thanks to Olimar they've learned to survive on their own. Also, they jump to the Bulborb in that same ending, meaning that they don't need to be thrown by someone else to latch on to an enemy
@@JoziGlitzh yeah but I'm talking enemies like the snagret and bug eyed crawmad.
@@JoziGlitzh I will say the pikmin have gotten much better at surviving on their own though since we've seen wild pikmin in 2 and now underground pikmin in 4 which you think would be the most dangerous environment for pikmin without a captain
@@zacharyweaver276 Well, yellow Pikmin can probably reach those jumping
flarlic could be a pre mature onion, because you also find the red onion buried implying that it grew there
I'll like to think they're the frute from the candypop flowers but in an inmature state, the mature ones are the aftual onions
They don't look dead though. They're still moving, and they even have the appearance of a bulb or garlic just starting to grow, with the green tint at the top.
they look very dead to me. collin himself even describes them as "pale"
@@WigwamMan They're still moving though... dead things don't move.
Pale doesn't mean dead. They look more old/malformed than dead.
@@lasercraft32 im talking about the onion being functionally dead. It cannot Work anymore therefore its a dead onion, like something that runs out of batteries, its considered dead
@@lasercraft32 It's having a death spasm. Simple
They are very clearly related, but the piklopedia says that its not an onion. They likely do come to exist from the same source as onions, but I'm almost certain that they are not the same
I think that the flarlics might be the opposite and are developing Pikmin, the problem with your theory is that there would be no way to make more onion if they all fuse together, but if the flarlic was the developing stage that would make more sense, that would explain why the ones we see are buried, why the colored onions we find are not active until we fuse them (because they just finished developing), why there are multiple onions designs/types across the Pikmin series, and how Pikmin can survive if their species depends on something that could get stuck or destroyed
you said "no way to make more onion if they all fuse together", you do know that there's multiple red onions, multiple blue onions, etc
@@xxmension04xx47 What they mean by that is if onions fused together and then would turn into flarlics after fusing too much then there would be no way to reproduce more onions since that means onions would die with no way of making more of itself.
You’ve convinced me. The flarlics always had visual similarities to the onions, and they’re apart of the same family. In Pikmin 4 we’ll definitely learn more about these things and with the evidence you brought up in this video, they have to be some sort of dead onions
BTW love the thumbnail design!
Thankyou! i see you noticed i took a page out of your book for the thumb lol, i apologise
@@WigwamMan nah man no need to apologize, i'm a sucker for good Graphic Design :)
The only real issue with this theory is the scientific names that were revealed for the pikmin and their adjacent species - and the onions and flarlics are different species. They're not even in the same family! (Onions being Lillium pikminporta and flarlic being Bulbus lillium). Which, frankly, makes their relationship even more complicated. Maybe the flarlic is another "prey" or producer species, much like the pellet posies, that the pikmin simply feed on?
Also, for the scientic name sources, I personally pulled them from the pikmin wiki. However, I'm 90% sure they pulled the names from the Japanese site Pikmin Garden. That, or maybe the game itself (as I didn't unlock the piklopedia in the demo myself)
(apologies for all the comments, UA-cam is refusing to let me edit my comment)
I made a mistake when I said they were not in the same family - they very well may be. It's the genus that is different. Though, I feel my point stands over-all. (and as an extra fun fact, the pikmin are a separate genus from the onions too - they're all Pikminidae! And each type is its own species, which I won't list here for sake of space. Makes all of this even more complex sense the onions and pikmin are now two symbiotic species to the point one is able to reproduce for the other.)
Maybe it's a convergent evolution situation... either that or the Flarlics evolved to mimic Pikmin onions for some reason. I dunno.
I personally think that the Onions are actually a sort of Queen Pikmin. Let me explain. You know how sometimes, a female worker bee may become a queen bee if raised correctly, and this changes their biology? And you know how queen bees are basically only there to make more bees? Well, I think Onions are actually something similar. Perhaps it’s a 1 in a million for a pikmin to have a special mutation that activates a gene that makes it grow into an Onion instead of a regular pikmin. Regular pikmin are gender less and cannot produce children, but an Onion, despite being unable to move, is large enough to produce pikmin. When pikmin carry something back, the onion literally eats it, and then uses those nutrients to make pikmin seeds.
Or...
It's major gender differences. Like the candypops, onions, and flarlics are all female and our Pikmen are all male. That would explain why the onions can create pikmin. I'm also thinking that the flowered pikmin are used to create more onions. Maybe it makes a root that grows into moe onions.
@@danielthecake8617that's my headcanon as well, since Pikmins are clearly partly inspired by ants. Onions are basically queen ants but even more specialized, and flarlics might be alates created by other onions to breed. It would explain why they actively seek to be absorbed by an Onion
In the real world, plants have something called "alternation of generations" where the same species takes two forms, sporophyte and gametophyte: sporophytes reproduce asexually producing male and female gametophytes, and the male and female gametophytes reproduce sexually to produce a sporophyte. That might also help explain why pikmin look so different from onions dispite clearly being the same species.
@@danielthecake8617I’ve always thought that there is female pikmin but only a few will ever become candy pops or onions
While I’m not entirely sure if I agree with the theory or not, I do have an additional detail for the “malnourished” idea:
When a Pikmin type goes “extinct” (though this could simply mean extinct in the local or reachable area, shown by the red onion in Pikmin 2) the onion produces a seed of said type, either immediately or the following day. In the case of Louie and the red Onion, this could simply be a spare seed, as we don’t know why an Onion goes “dormant” in the first place, however; this would not explain where an Onion gets a seed when it has already spit out a spare, assuming it keeps one. My idea to add on to yours is that it uses its own nutrients in a way that is harmful to itself, seeing as when a pellet is given to an onion after an extinction, it still spits out the normal, expected amount. Of course, it prefers not to do this, which is perhaps even why it goes dormant until approached in the first place unless it knows there is something able to continue its lifespan.
I think its not necessarily an onion that’s dead, so much as its an onion that’s reproducing.
One of the ways irl aliums (garlic, onions, etc.) reproduce is by dividing at the bulb. This would make sense with your theory too- if an onion has too many types, maybe it undergoes a division process as a flarlic to divide into new onions with only one type of pikmin.
I think it's more akin to a younger stage of onion. In a kind of Eeveelution matter, a growing onion needs very specific stimuli to grow into a given type of Onion, while having a lack of any particular stimuli results in a flarlic. The question of how onions propogate is the big question, but apropos of no solid evidence, I assume there's a definite lifespan of a viable onion. When one nears death, it might lift off and scatter seeds to the wind, possiblly by cannabalizing internal Pikmin to form Onion seeds. Thus, a successful "colony" is capable of producing many more Onion seeds, increasing the chance more colonies are successful in the future.
The instinct of Pikmin to follow orders of a Captain or leader figure may be an evolutionary trait to make mass propogation more robust, and the bad ending if P1 (and possibly in P4) shows what would happen in the scenario where a colony's leader dies.
You know... I always had this theory that the master (as well as its uni-type variants) onion from pikmin 3 onwards came from a queen candypop bud, while regular onions came from colored candypop buds, which themselves sprout from pikmin left behind in the ground for far too long
That does explain the Onions redesigns the Onions die and the Pikmin find a new more developed and adapted version of an Onion this also ties with the type limit.
I think this is true, and I hope the full game will talk more about lore with these flarlics
That would be very exciting
Candypop flower > onion > flarlic > seeds for new flowers
I like this idea better
Flarlic -> Onion -> Pikmin production
-> Candypop Bud -> Pikmin production
Onion and garlic being similar but the inside being different a onion has layers and a garlic has pieces
And we dont know what the inside of the onion or flarlic look lile and if they even work after what they are named after
I assumed that they were just baby onions, not fully grown.
I now have a new head canon where purples, whites, and ice pikmin all had onions at one point, but those onions went extinct forcing them to rely on the flowers to keep themselves from extinction
What if the onions are only able to produce a low number of pikmin to start with because olimin and the other captmins are using other onions to fill out the regular 100 limit
Could consider it the other way around:
Perhaps Farlics are newborn onions yet to fully sprout, and the fact theres so many wild pikmin is simply the result of a lot of Farlics sprouting. And the fact it absorbs into older "Mature" onions to allow more Pikmin on the field could be the onions rejuvinating themselves from a fresher source of energy.
And if Farlics are a play on words for "Garlic", then it would make sense because Garlic itself in the bulb is a plant full of nutrients that can sustain itself with it's own source. And it also makes sense as a nutrient for Onions to allow more Pikmin in the world at once.
I…have a theory. You know those onions that were in the good ending of pikmin 1 like the black, pink etc. maybe it’s those onions but the pikmin type of that onion have gone extinct.
when i was a kid i used to think pikmin that overwintered in the ground unplucked they would begin to mature and become a candypop bud. and after a few years of that they would grow a bulb and become onions. flarlic seems to be a much more reasonable transition. if you look at the newer candy pop designs they have pikmin like leaves at the base. maybe it spends time underground growing, which would also explain why flarlic have green tips, they're still photosynthetic as they collect nutrients. and analyze the environment, in a marshy wet area they would grow blues and if they grow in a forest that burns often they would become reds etc. that could help explain why onions always end up nearby their effective element, but flarlic seem to be immature onions, rather than dead onions.
but i like your theory too.
A quick conjecture I am having right now is that it goes:
large quantities of a pikmin type are eaten
-> the monster excretes the pikmin corpses which act as a seed
-> then an onion grows at the site
-> the pikmin dig the onion out of the ground
-> the pikmin start feeding the onion and riding the onion during the night
-> glow pikmin fertilize the soil with the corpses from the creatures
-> the onion starts producing pikmin
-> the onion ages into a flalic
-> the pikmin carry the flalic to another onion to allow more pikmin to be active at once
-> newly activated pikmin get eaten so the cycle repeats
This is damn awesome actually!!
@@WigwamMan thank you but it does create a chicken and the egg scenario with pikmin and onions
its an intereesting theory but it makes more sense to me if a flarlic was a young onion
I'd just say that they're a different species, part of the Pikmin family, but a different species that Olimar named based off of garlic.
I like to think that if a candy pop bud matures it becomes an onion and leaves behind a flaric seed that is why we mostly see them buried. an alternate theory is that they are onions waiting for the right stimuli to turn into an onion. like a flarlic exposed to fire becomes a red onion and one in water becomes a blue onion. maybe pikmin 5 we get brown pikmin and they can merge with dirt and use it to build
Some people think a Flarlic is a failed union.
My theory is that its growing and because we dig it out of the dirt with our pikmin it can no longer thrive as an onion
Good idea!
My guess is that it's an alternative evolutionary pathway for the onion (just like the different Bulborbs are different species/families/etc), and that it's similar enough that it can act as a pseudo-onion but didn't evolve all the onion's specializations
but, tbh, it being an immature/malformed/chemically-exhausted/old onion is pretty interesting too
Good point
Cool theory. I think it is just an onion that got too old to produce pikmin.
I’d assume they just thought well let’s just make a better onion. My head cannon is that it’s just a sibling to the onion. Just having a different look at maybe some different features
Really cool theory! Nice video
Thankyou pie!!
I think you’re right, but I don’t think it takes that many onions to make a flaric because if it did, then there would be a rapidly declining amount of onions, since it requires seven to make a flaric and then nine to make an optimal onion. However, my alternative to this idea is simply that if any onion dies at any number of pikmin or onions, then it will become a flaric a good example is in Pikmin three the blue onion is on the verge of death when we find it according to the logs.
I like the dark lifecycle that this may imply, but I also suspect that Nintendo might not want that to be canon, but hey have you seen some of the dark Pokémon dex entries?
Also worth thinking that maybe this is why onions evolved (between Pikmin 3 and 4) into limiting the number of Pikmin that can be outside.
@AxoKesillOSC your wrong
I don't think it's so much dead onion so much as an unripe onion,like if it was left buried a few more years or something it would mature into a ripe onion.
One thing you are lacking in this theory is how onions are even made
They are confirmed to be made through candypop buds i believe
I think the flarlic is a different type of onion as in the piklopedia they are also part of the candypop family meaning they could just be another kind of onion that evolved to lose legs and get nutrients from the dirt they can be stuck in.
It being part of the family can also prove my theory!
Babe wake up new headcanon just dropped
This woude explain why the onions change desigen in the games (my theory is it changes to upgrade its power)
Instead of overworking, I feel like the reason for most Onion death is time. Why do you think we don't see any Master Onions with every colour everywhere?
I believe that the Flarlics might actually be a juvenile Onion. Or it could be a diverging species of the onion. Like given enough time there could be Onions that fly and there's the Flarlics that can go underground.
Smart!
They gotta put the pikmin out their misery at this point
On top of this, we also see duplicate onions in the actual game, which we also absorb into our own onion. Pretty cool!
I believe the Flalic is a premature onion and the reason why it keep doing that weird thing it does is because its trying to create its first pikmin and this could also explain why it is scenically every time you find one its partially buried
Hope people will hack the game, adding thousands of flaric bulbs breaking the pikmin limit
i'd love to see this omg
Im really interested weather we can go over 100 Pikmin!
@@WigwamManwe can't
Idk if it truly is a dead Onion, it might be sort of in the same family in game though since it is garlic
This is actually a really good theory this should be a thing in pikminology
Ha thankyou very much!
that might explain that pikmin 1/2 3 and 4 looks different
Personally this is what I think.
The Onion is both a nest and the Queen for Pikmin.
Think about Ants. The Onion starves itself initially in hopes that the young workers would eventually grow up to and harvest food that can be returned to the Onion in order to produce more and more until an army can be properly managed.
Perhaps a Flarlic is an Onion that lost its own Pikmin and couldn't get the energy required to produce anymore. It is essentially dried up, it can no longer produce anything and is worthless on its own. Thus requiring it to join an Onion in order to become fed to produce its own Pikmin. Take this like Ant Queens joining nests in order to become a Supercolony!
The only difference between Pikmin behavior and Ant behavior is ants are absolutely loyal to the Queen and lack intelligence. Meanwhile, Pikmin clearly are smart and as a result, they act more independently rather than like a hivemind that the Ants have. In essence, their own intelligence works against them... at least until the Captains arrive and take charge of the Pikmin like a sort of Commander.
i think the onions looked better in pikmin 1 and 2 where they were more solid and kind of mechanichal-looking, and didn't fuse together. the goopy-look of pikmen 3 and 4 that has them blend into one never sat right with me.
I love all of em equally i think their design has managed to be so different yet always been good
Maybe those are the onions that have been changing throughout the series
Like the onions from Pikmin one Pikmin two, and Pikmin three
onions are most likely evolving throughout the games, or could even just be different species
Meh. i suppose if an Onion (Somehow) Manages to Survive Managing Seven Types at once, I suppose it forms a cocoon around itself for a day to develop a strong crystalized shell and Armour. Thus, the Onions from Pikmin 3.
my personal theory is this:
onions are very clearly living things. they move on their own, their piklopedia entry states that they have muscular structures on the inside, and they definitely have some form of sentience as they *willingly* follow the S.S. Beagle back to home base.
i imagine that onions and pikmin have a symbiotic relationship. the onion breeds new pikmin and gives them shelter, and in return the pikmin go off and retrieve nutrients to bring back to the onion, and the onion uses these nutrients to both feed itself, and make new pikmin.
a flarlic is basically a starved onion. the lack of nutrients, whether it be caused by the environment not bearing any, or the onion losing all its pikmin, caused the onion to be deprived of food, and thus lose its plump shape and vivid color. the shape of the flarlic is just the onion's outer flesh caving in to more tightly wrap around its inner structure.
as the onion, now flarlic now lacks any energy to move, it tucks in its legs and goes into a sorta hibernation state. it becomes completely inactive, aside from the sputtering motion it does, which side note: i believe the fluttering of the petals that all onions and flarlics do is their way of respiration, flarlics just sputter when doing so because theyre so weak. once in this hibernation state, the flarlics rest to preserve what nutrients are left in them, and they allow other onions to use them to gain extra nutrients.
This dose make sense as in the game there are mitiple onions
Honestly i dont think its dead, i think its just going onto its next life stage. I theorize that they were indeed old onions, but are growing to become burgeoning spiderworts. If you look at the top of the burgeoning spiderworts it looks like the petals of flarlic/onions, but with extra petals and a lot of berries. Those berries look a lot like miniature unbloomed onions.
Both onions and garlic(mostly garlic species) create "seed" garlics like this where they flower, which are basically just miniature versions of garlic bulbs. And just like how garlic can be propagated by either division of the garlic bulb, or by planting the mini seed bulbs it makes, i feel like the onioj lifecycle probably has divergent reproduction methods as well. And the ultra spicy berries are just a separate form of the same plant.
I think it's just an old onion. It probably produced Candypop seeds, sent its pikmin out with the seeds to distribute them, and then degraded into a glorified nutrient bulb that pikmin would ostensibly carry to an onion to feed its growth.
Theres one problem. its the part where he says if the oinion does to many flalics it turns nto one. but problem is is that its stated that when you reach your maximun amount of pikmin ( 100 ) that any extra flarlics consumed get turned to nutrients. so that part doesnt make sense.
And after too many itself will die and turn into one, it makes sense
my own guess is that a flarlic simply has *to much* energy but no pikmin to give it to while a normal onion was capable of produsing pikmin
If you look in the pikolopedia and look at both of their species they are both the candypop bud…
there's my evidence regarding them being related!
Every onion has an emergency seed right? What about an onion that runs out? Maybe that’s why it’s sputtering?
Great idea!!
I think that the Pikmin 4 Onions may be polymorphic, occasionally producing Flarics instead of reproductive Onions. This could be to make sure that the maximum amount of Pikmin on the surface scales with the size of the colony so not all of them die at once.
i think flarlics are a type of onion
made to fule onions like te flood lakes from halo it flood for flood to eat flarlics are onions for onions to eat!! made from dead candypop buds when they go under ground they emerge as flarlics
Nice idea!
I always þrought þey were a juvenile Onion!
Flarlic is probably a dead onion, I guess.
Theory flarlics appear once a candy popbud that has been used it starts eating its self as to servive causing that popping up bit to appear and that animation it does most likely means it is trying to reproduce but can't and late is consumed by a onion making more sprouts that bloom into candypop buds that will either turn into an onion or be used and turn into a flarlic
my theory is the candy pop buds grow into flarlic and then onions. my reason is the little sticking out top of the flarlic looks like a candypop bud that was closed/shut so maybe they bud up when growing so i belive its a young/immature onion in the middle of becoming an onion. (ps. whatever color the candy pop bud is the color the onion will be. when flarlic grow the color slowly flushes the flarlic and grows into the round onion shape) great theory of it being dead! but i belive its a half stage between onions and candypop buds as it looks like its a closed candypop bud itself
I hoped that the second onions would have made like 1 pik-carry+1 5 pik-carry = 3 and so on
Literally what does this mean?
If you have a pellet possy that takes 1 pikmin and provides 2 more then with a extra onion it would be 3 pikmin
PIKMIN 4 SPOILERS!!!!
This has been disproven by the full game. When an onion gets to 100 pikmin limit, it instead turns the flarlic into nutrients (nectar and spicy spray) for the pikmin. And with the onion now being able to have all 8 types of pikmin, the first part has also been disproven. To me, a flarlic reminds me of a plant that hasnt fully grown. Maybe thats whqt the flarlic is? Who knows
Oh hey cool a heart
So… like this?
Candy pop bud
V
Onion
V
Flarlic
I guess so!
feel it would work better if the flarlic was the first stage, then depending on nutrients it would become candypop or onion
Needs more Candypop
Very good theory, don’t know why Flarlic is split into 7 sections when there are 8 Onion types
💙
I think this may be more of a mutation rather than a life cycle, as the game states the onion limits how many Pikmin can be out at a time to prevent high losses, but as we progress and gain more Pikmin we also gain flarlics to increase Pikmin deployment amounts, it's possible that they mutated into the flarlics and new onion both for survival and as a result of growth, due to the increased types of Pikmin in the world, the fact there are so many onion types could also be a reason for the mutation as the solo onions would need lower caps as they have less to despense, where as the merged are capable of higher caps to fit their higher population's strength
so what I'm hearing is that the pikmin population resets at the beginning of each installment is bc their onions died
It could be seen as that yeah!
Garlic and onions
Lore of The Vicious Cycle of The Onion. | Pikmin 4 Theory momentum 100
Theres comfirmed to be 8 Onions now so this theory is kind of unbalanced, but I can see it
If white and purples don’t have an onion this theory falls apart since there aren’t 7 onions.
There literally are over 7 onions in the ending of Pikmin 1, and even if we dont obtain them in game purple and white onions could definetly exist just not in the gameloop due to balance. Or prehaps they even went fully extinct. We still have blue, red, yellow, rock, winged, orange and green. We do even see the white and purple ones with all those said colours too
@@WigwamMan well now they do, not explain about lore because no spoilers
In my headcanon there just male onion counterparts like how does the onions whom internally fertilize them
i like that actually!
I think they’re onions that don’t have a Pikmin type yet
good thinking!!
They should have been called the "Offioff"
why
@@just_call_me_leo If they are dead onions, then that's why
I thought Flarlics were Onions but not fully grown.
thats a good theory
What onions practice cannibalism? 😨
there are dupes of some onions too, you get 20 pikmin if that color in that case
yeah probably!
What if it’s an onion that went through too many pikmin extinctions therefore it used up too much energy trying to prevent its pikmin from going extinct
EDIT: it would also explain why we don't have a pikmin type for each color onion we see in the first games good ending
That definetly could check out!
only one problem to that theory
apparently (according to olimar) they will try to get eaten so theyc an't be dead maybe it's just a younger onion or another type that is just made to let the onion let more pikmins out
My man said Thlarlic and thegments
PIKMIN FOUR HAS OFFICIALLY RELEASED ON NINTENDO SWITCH,GET IT ONLINE NOW
I think it is an user developed oinion because it is
Huuh?
@@WigwamMan Mis type under not user
I wonder if a onion evo hold more onions and farlics but how
Welp, this is going on the Iceberg
I like to think that the Pikmin 1 and 2 onions are older onions than Pikman 4 onions. The onion from the first two games appears like wooden models, especially in the "legs" of the onion, and perhaps the mamuta painted those patterns on the onions or it was the other way around. Plus, Pikmin 1 and 2 onions kinda look like farlic, kinda. Meanwhile, I feel like Pikmin 4 onions are how they should have been the entire time as it looks like something alive and young. Depending on how purple and white pikmin are implemented and how they function in game is when I decide if the devs will add their own onions, it is possible that its not gonning to happen but it could still happen.
And I have no idea where Pikmin 3 onions go, I mean, these onions look like organic cyborgs or cyborgs with organic implants instead of tech implants.
Do remember that they are different species
So are candypops and they are directly linked to the onion cycle