As I said a couple of entries earlier, here is a list of old ideas that were present in previous drafts of AUA but never made it into the final story. There is also some information here that is technically canon but never made it into the story due to my own forgetfulness .

WARNING: There are MAJOR spoilers for An Unlikely Alliance here. If you have not read that epic yet, then I suggest that you do not read this. Or, first read AUA and then read this. Whatever you do, DON'T read this blog entry if you haven't read AUA, unless you like to have the biggest plot points of a story totally spoiled for you.

So anyway, here we go:

-The idea of dealing with the shadowed entity the Toa Shika faced in the first chapter was actually added very late in the writing of the epic. The first two drafts didn’t feature the shadowed entity, until I remembered he was still there and thus brought him back for the first chapter, just to deal with that particular loose end

-Originally, there was no connection between Toa Oggakia and the Tuikas. The first explanation offered for the Tuikas – that they were Brotherhood of Makuta creations captured and hidden under Shika Nui by the Order of Mata Nui – was in fact going to be the final, definitely true explanation. There was going to be no Dividing or Oggak supposed to be a Sacrifice or any of that, but I added it in due to the fact that it made the epic all the more interesting in my opinion

-There was also originally going to be a prologue that was essentially an info-dump, recounting the events of the last two epics. I dumped this when I realized it was a really boring and uninteresting way to start the last book in the series

-Ramoth the Fryke was supposed to be an explanation for the dead dragon the Toa Shika found when exploring the underground tunnels of Shika Nui back in The Tales of Shika Nui. The idea was that Ramoth belonged to the same species as the dead dragon and that dead dragon had been placed in the tunnels to make sure no one woke the Tuikas before their time came. The dead dragon probably died in the Great Cataclysm, as the Toa Shika were the first visitors of that cave in 100,000 years. Didn’t really work out, though, since I couldn’t fit this explanation anywhere into the story

-In the first and second drafts, Toa Barilo survived being possessed by Makuta Hajax. With aid from Toa Oggak Barilo would have defeated Hajax on his own and reclaimed his body. This I scrapped because the direction of the third draft made it clear Barilo was not going to survive

-Also, Nastan died differently in previous drafts. In draft one, he was stabbed in the head by the Tuikas Skik, in draft two he was not killed, and in the final draft Hajax killed him. No particular reason for either of his deaths; that was simply how the story went

-In reaction to Nastan’s first death, Toa Akuna would have effectively gone nova, killing Skik and forcing the rest of the Tuikas to retreat. I kept that part out of the story because Akuna does not seem like the Toa who would go nova due to loss of emotional control, even if it was because her boyfriend was murdered before her eyes

-Also, Barilo and Akuna would have gotten together at the end of the first draft. I threw this idea out because, although I felt Barilo and Akuna might have had some feelings for each other, it would be extremely weird if Akuna forgot about Nastan and got together with Barilo all of a sudden. Plus the scene where they become a couple was pretty poorly written in the first place, giving me a bigger incentive to throw it out

-When I first decided to give the Tuikas a back story tied to the Great Beings, I put in a flashback featuring Angonce and another, unnamed Great Being were discussing the Tuikas, the Mata Nui robot, and Oggak. This never made it in due to the confusing way in which I first put the flashback, which consisted of Hajax using his telepathy powers to access the oldest memories of the Tuikas Arija, which upon retrospect I realized didn’t make much sense

-Toa Oggak’s Kanohi was, curiously enough, never mentioned even once in the final draft, despite the large role it played in the climax of the last two drafts. Her Kanohi mask was the Mask of Dreams, which allowed the user to force a being into a sleep and give them dreams or allow the user to delve into the dreams of an already sleeping person. This is still canon, despite never being mentioned or used within the story itself

-The Mask of Dreams would have been used by Oggak to delve into Makuta Hajax’s mind to try to route him out and give Barilo dominion over his body again. This would have resulted in a battle between wills, which would have ended in Barilo realizing he was stronger than Hajax and defeating the Makuta with that knowledge

-The Dark Hunter Raider was added halfway in the final draft in order to stir things up a bit, despite never appearing in earlier drafts

-Kavi and Ramoth were also new additions to the third draft, although Ramoth himself would have appeared at some point, I am sure

-Toa Addis, like Nastan, experienced different deaths in different drafts. In draft one he was one of the few Toa Shika who survived, while in draft two he would have gotten sliced in half by Makuta Hajax, who would have been in possession of Barilo’s body at the time. His final death fit the story the best, so I used that one

-A bit of trivia: The only members of the Toa Shika who were never killed in any of the drafts are Toa Chimoy and Toa Akuna, who coincidentally ended up being the only members who survived by the end of the final draft of AUA

-An Unlikely Alliance was originally going to be called Fear. Part of this is still found in the name of the Tuikas, which means ‘fear’ in Matoran. It was supposed to be a horror-based story rather than one about secrets and loyalty, as the story turned out. Since the story never ended up being particularly horrifying in even the earliest drafts, I decided to change the name at the suggestion of my older brother

-There were originally going to be three Dark Hunter survivors acting as guards of Koro Nui. Besides Kigin and Death, Byki was going to be another one of the Hunters, but I cut him from the third draft because I felt he was too unnecessary and added nothing to the plot. Byki was also going to be shown to be something of a gentle giant and would have befriended the villagers Ferha and Dusa

-Reesha, the Chronicler of Shika Nui, was originally going to be more like the character Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter. However, she did not get much development in the third draft, so she ended up acting differently than she did in previous drafts. Reesha was also going to be a Le-Matoran rather than a Ce-Matoran

-Koro Nui was originally not going to be the Dark Hunters’ fortress. Instead, it would have been a normal Matoran village with high, thick walls surrounding the huts. The fortress was going to be in ruins and visited only once during the whole story

-Also, Jokao and Oggak saved the Toa Shika from the Tuikas in the previous two drafts, rather than from the shadowed entity. The reason for this change is because of the alteration of the location of Koro Nui, but I think it worked better that way IMO

-Some of the Tuikas’ names changed, too. For example, Arija was going to be called “Omkil”

-No one seemed to notice, but a lot of the Tuikas’ names were very different from the norm (Skik is a prime example). The point is I tried to make those names as different as possible from normal BIONICLE names to emphasize the differentness of the Tuikas

-The epilogue was going to end differently. Originally, Raider would have heard a voice laughing in his head, but dismiss it as his imagination. In reality, it would have been Makuta Hajax, who had once again split his soul and placed it inside Raider’s mind so he could take it over. Dropped this idea because I felt Hajax had already had a good run in The Tales of Shika Nui and An Unlikely Alliance and bringing him back one more time would just be repetitive, especially since everyone else is still dead

-Addis getting a new mask before his death was not planned, either. Nor did I consider it symbolic that he died shortly after getting the Mask of Reanimation, although I suppose that is an interesting way to look at it

-The Po-Matoran doctor Telka played a bigger role in earlier drafts. In fact, I believe that in one draft he actually accompanied the Toa Shika to their final showdown with the Tuikas. His character would have been an eccentric doctor who did not seem to understand what the term ‘personal space’ means

-Ferha and Dusa would have been somewhat more important, too. Dusa was supposed to get killed when the Tuikas first attacked and be buried by Dusa and Ferha around the same time as Addis’ burial. I forgot to add Dusa died in third draft, but since I technically didn’t write it I don’t consider it canon. That’s good, because I do have some possible future ideas involving Dusa and Ferha.

Ferha’s importance was much larger in earlier drafts. In draft two, she joined the Toa Shika and Dark Hunters to their final showdown with the Tuikas, where she would have been unfortunately killed in battle by Hajax

-The Matoran in general were supposed to play a larger role than they ended up doing. However, I may end up writing a future story starring some of the Matoran who appeared in AUA, but we’ll see about that, since Dimension Hoppers will probably be my last full-length BIONICLE epic in the foreseeable future

-Also, the final battle in the climax took place in the ruins of Kra-Koro during the first two drafts, rather than in Ironos as it ended up being

-Akuna would have been kidnapped by Icetraz and then kidnapped by the Tuikas, who were going to use her rather than Oggak as the Sacrifice. This would have prompted the rest of the Toa Shika and Dark Hunters to head for the Tuikas’ main base in Kra-Koro. Left this out because only Oggak can be used as the Sacrifice, not just any old Toa and the Tuikas of all people would know that

-Icetraz’s death was different from the final draft. Originally he would have been pushed off a cliff by one of the Tuikas and fall to his death, whereas in the final draft he was killed by Raider

-Also, the Tuikas would have gotten much closer to activating the Dividing than they did in the final draft. In fact, in the second draft Zoil had been only one step away from sacrificing Akuna before Barilo/Hajax appeared and stopped him

-All of the Tuikas’ deaths changed between drafts, but I can’t remember any in particular besides Skik’s original death

-Death would have explained his origin and reasons for joining the Dark Hunters to Akuna at some point, but I cut this out of the final draft because it was just too much unnecessary info-dumping. Thus, Death only reveals bits and pieces of his past through dialogue and I am contemplating whether to write a short story explaining his past or perhaps somehow work it into Dimension Hoppers, if possible

-When I first began writing the Shika Trilogy, I had very different ideas for how the entire trilogy would have turned out. In the original, pre-writing phase I had not come up with the Shodios or Tuikas, for one, nor did I ever conceive of Oggak or other characters like her until the actual writing process.

An Unlikely Alliance, for example, would have built on the original plot for Tapestry of Evil, which was originally going to feature two Were-Toa (yes, like werewolves) that would have tried to join the Toa Shika but had secret plans of their own for Shika Nui.

In the original AUA, the island of Shika Nui would have been environmentally ruined by the battle between the Toa Shika and Were-Toa of the last epic. So the Toa Shika would have gathered up all of the Matoran of Shika Nui and headed south in search of a new island to call home. Unknown to them, however, they were being followed by generals of the Brotherhood of Makuta, who sought to use the Matoran of Shika Nui for their own plans. (This version of the story was never actually written, BTW.)

Not sure how that would have turned out, but as anyone who has read even the first few chapters of AUA can attest, few if any of the ideas presented in the above paragraph actually made it into the final draft.

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This list isn't necessarily complete, but it does contains the majority of major unused or scrapped ideas featured in previous drafts. Some of the unused ideas were cool, I guess, or could have been cool, but to be honest I am happier with how the final draft turned out than the last two drafts.

Next week will be a preview of Dimension Hoppers, so see you then!

-TNTOS-