In a situation where cal hadn't of joined team meteor, he would of resided on top of the volcano(i think?) and him being there i feel would have warned off team meteor from trying to set up a pulse there(or at the very least he would have told kiki, which i assume would have led to them getting help), thus resulting in Team meteor setting their sights on somewhere else. Because from the look of it, a pulse machine doesn't seem to have the mobility of an iphone charger(obviously speculation) and would seem to take time to set up. If cal wasn't on the volcano, then yeah, things probably would have gone relatively the same, or most likely even worse.