Hocotate

Hocotate is Captain Olimar's home planet.

The name "Hocotate" comes from Nintendo Japan's headquarters' street address, 11-1 Kamitoba hokotate-cho. From what can be seen, at least part of the planet is desert-like, though the President notes a location known as the "Hocotate Swamp". The planet shows some signs of flora growing on its surface, including vegetables (Pikpik carrots for example). When viewed from space, the planet itself is purple-coloured and possesses a set of two intersecting planetary rings. Hocotate Freight appears to be in or near a built-up area, which suggests that at least some of Hocotate may be densely populated.

In the opening scene of Pikmin 2, Hocotate can be seen with two neighboring planetoids, likely moons. An incredibly bright star can be seen behind Hocotate, possibly a sun, indicating that it most likely exists in a different star system to ours. Stars are visible from the surface during the daytime, indicating a thin atmosphere. In a possible reference to urban Japan, a building resembling a capsule hotel is shown.

Hocotatian people are around 2cm (3/4 in.) tall, about the size of a nickel. It it uncertain what sort of gas they breathe as a means of respiration, though oxygen gas is known to be extremely poisonous to them; Olimar and Louie must protect themselves while on the Planet of the Pikmin by wearing a spacesuit. Because of this, there must be little or no oxygen in the planet's atmosphere.

The technology is very advanced, as minuscule Gluon particles have been utilized (evidenced by the Gluon Drive part in Pikmin 1) and even a source of endless energy (the Eternal Fuel Dynamo).

The currency of Hocotate is the Poko, a small type of coin that resembles those from the Super Mario series. Items from the Pikmin Planet are considered extremely rare treasures, and can be worth a particularly large amount of Pokos, many of which helped Olimar and Louie pay off their company's debt of 10,100 Pokos. (In comparison, 100 Pokos is more than a year's salary for the President of Hocotate Freight.)

Hocotate is a densely populated planet, a center in galactic trade. It consists of many districts in Living, Trade, Business and Government.

Formation and Early Geological History
It may seem surprising, but Hocotate formed out of the same proto solar system in which the Planet of the Pikmin (Earth) formed. Hocotate was one of the many so-called "protoplanets" that orbited the star at the center of the developing solar system. It began to form when the ring of material was just about to disappear, yet extremely rapidly managed to collect all this material into a planet between the size of the third largest terrestrial planet (Mars) and Earth.

Hocotate had a highly unstable orbit; something similar to a comet. It passed too close to its parent star during perihelion (closest to its parent star) and was flung out of the solar system, into the dark depths of space. It wandered some several hundred light-years over the course of about five million years before being accepted into another solar system, except this one was almost finished developing.

It passed through the gaseous region of the system and acquired an atmosphere and various liquids, then entered the terrestrial region where it grew some more. The development of these terrestrial planets finished and Hocotate then captured two protoplanest which became its moons. By passing through the outer regions, the gas giants that would later form would not be as big as the ones in the solar system it was previously in. However, it settled in the habitable zone, so life would form if the right conditions were met.

The entire planet underwent a melting phase, and all the liquids were evaporated into the atmosphere during this time, causing a the atmosphere to thicken significantly. Several millions years passed and the planet cooled, with heavy elements at the core and lighter elements at the top, similar in structure to Earth. A thin, brittle crust formed over the worldwide magma ocean. It was still very hot though, and primitive volcanoes formed, releasing heat. While it was cooling, the crust thickened.

Tens of millions of years passed and finally the atmosphere could dump all the water onto land. Oceans of mostly water mixed with traces of other elements was the primary component of the newly formed oceans. Over 95% of the crust was covered with this early form of water; volcanoes barely poked through the surface of the oceans. The planet remained this way for fifty million years, until the right kind of magma could form to create continents.