[quote=Marik]You know, I don’t think they ever bring it up in the show, but what happens to Pokémon whose trainers had died? Would they willingly obey anyone after the fact?
[/quote]

I read a fic in which a Pokemon was unable to escape from its Pokeball after their trainer died in the wilderness and remained there until the stored data corrupted [s]and a missingNO. reference happened[/s]. When Ash lost his Pokeballs in one of the early episodes, though, Pikachu was able to just shake them and call the names of the contained Pokemon and they appeared.

I like the idea of distributing the remaining Pokemon, though. Nice one.