bonesiii

Well, Rahkshi don't seem to be great at thinking in more subtle ways like Makuta can -- they're kind of like blunt blades. They smash and destroy. With some strategy, yeah, but Makuta can be much cleverer in their strategy as to how they use the Rahi being controlled. Also, in 2003's use, the Toa had already shown they could handle Rahi reasonably well. Having a Rahkshi who's otherwise mostly powerless (other than physical power, flying, and infecting masks possibly, and maybe something else I'm forgetting lol) wouldn't be much better, especially if you take away all Kraata's ability to infect masks. But again, how is this relevant to Krana? We need to keep it connected to that or take it to another topic. Krana can IMO probably control any mind -- whether they normally have masks or not. Aliens wouldn't be expected to have masks.

That's true -- and given the way the Makuta do it, I can see a case here. But then it also makes sense that something like it should be needed for things mostly made of metal, pistons, etc. And fishers' population limiting point makes sense too, plus, would they normally need replacement much anyways? You can fix most of the problems with your argument, but seemingly it all ends up turning into the same pattern as real life -- you could take out the lifespans to make them need replaced more often, but how far can we really change it before being biomechanical at all becomes a problem? How it is (aside from the specific virus-reshaping-liquid method of making more) fits naturally with being machines with some muscle in them and so forth. Wouldn't they notice without any use of their powers if a particular type was being sighted less often? (Of course, they might let that kind go extinct and opt for a replacement that wasn't so weak, but yeah.) If birds were dying in serious numbers, I would be able to tell there were less birds around. (And probably somebody would be finding the bodies, especially with metal skeletons! Although not so much if they sink in the sea. ) Edit: And we're talking about people eating them, right? So it makes sense they wouldn't have special difficulty learning about it if Matoran took it as acceptable to eat Rahi. It's not like a Rahi disappearing from the middle of the Silver Sea and the skeleton sinking with nobody the wiser.

And I figured you'd say that. I kinda like the idea of a world that works differently, though, especially since they're artificial (and always seemed to be; they looked robotic). Why not expand our horizons by having a story about a fictional world where things work differently than here? I like having "food for thought" about problems to solve that aren't necessarily true here (though if we had biomechanical inventions like that, we might have to solve similar problems, and maybe someday we WILL!). And they DO reproduce in a sense... by Makuta making more.

True, but that's where Kraata come in. Where Kraata normally come in is infecting the masks left preemptively on Rahi, other than in forming Rahkshi. Kraata, being sluglike, aren't great to have around warriors to use Rahi Control power on Rahi to use as weapons. Especially since the Kraata can only have one power, so they'd need other Kraata to defend that Kraata. When one Kraata of any power can infect any Rahi's mask and have that Rahi work as Makuta's puppet while nestled safe in some distant cave. I had to skim a lot of what came after, because most of it seems to be off-topic. This is about Krana, not Kraata. It seems like you're trying to drive at a simplified version of the story, which is great, but mask infection is consistent with the nature of antidermis, so it makes sense the Makuta would invent this usage and since they make Rahi, include masks on many as another option, and mask infection was definitely imagined in 2001 -- I don't know that Rahkshi were. The purpose for the invention of Rahkshi was to have more cool sets, and Kraata for the disabling option for that round of sets which was still a big theme at the time, etc. (And which was started by the masks!) The story had to work with all of those things.

Quote I do remember that Greg once said that the Ko-Matoran would eat Muaka. I don't have the source on me, but it might be somewhere back in this topic. I suppose that the Rahi had something about them that allowed the Matoran to absorb them. Maybe it was in the viruses? Hm... I don't recall such a quote. Are you sure you're not thinking of something like him saying that Muaka eat meat? (And associating it with Ko because a Muaka was used in a famous Ko-Wahi animation in MNOG?) Because I do recall a quote like that. He might also have changed his mind. Quote it's been shown beings need energy to keep living, even in bionicle's world, so the logical conclusion is matoran hunt the rahi and eat the flesh parts, a simple solution that doesn't even need explaining to make sense. If you throw a massive "might" in there, I would agree, but it isn't logical to make such a huge jump. There are other factors to consider like morals they might have against it, or that their creators might have had in designing their limitations. (Seems like Greg's going more down the latter route.) And there's a huge practical problem -- Rahi get replaced by Makuta making more directly. Before Makuta were known to be evil, that would be rather annoying to have Matoran ignoring easy technological and vegetable sources of energy to absorb energy from meat. After they were evil, maybe it would seem like the Makuta don't care, but the Matoran would probably think many Rahi made before that reveal were important for ecosystem balance and making them go extinct if the Makuta weren't going to do their jobs would be bad. On Mata Nui Island, probably none were replaced at all, so they would presumably not want to eat any of them even though the technological sources of energy were gone -- at least, not if that ecosystem balance thing resulted in fruit or other plant matter being more stable. (They might if the Rahi were just eating all the plants that would grow just fine without them indefinitely... but it still doesn't fit their personalities to see them as wanting to make the local populations go extinct!) As to what comes after, let's stay on-topic -- we're talking about eating fish because of that Greg quote, not rehashing the complexities of protodermis in general. We have the whole forum for topics on that. (And short answer is you're both probably right to an extent. )

I don't think it would make sense to limit the Krana's effectiveness because one major reason to design Bohrok that way is in case aliens find the island and don't get scared off. (A nonlethal option to deal with them, even if they might be absorbed permanently into the swarm to preserve secrecy.) That would seem to me to fall apart if even Rahi ('alien' but native to the same giant the Bohrok are carried in) could foil this. Of course, Lewa was able to foil it himself, but it seems to me that's through strength of mind, and Rahi would more likely be even weaker minds. Unless it's a type without much of a mind to control (a plot device that was used at one point in-story I believe). So maybe some alien island invaders could break the control (but probably after going back to the nests and the giant leaving their planet), but Rahi? Doubt it.

Doesn't matter -- they're portrayed as biomechanical because being made out of pieces like that was the animators' way to show that. I was under the impression they were Ruki though, because the set version was kinda ugly and they probably wanted them to look more like how they imagined Ruki would "really look". Might be able to test this by looking through graphics from the game and if there's a different fish that's clearly more like Ruki, it would be something else. (BS01 wouldn't call them Ruki without direct confirmation either way.)

No no, I'm talking about whether Ruki were canonically sold for eating, not anything the sets matter for. (Not whether they're biomechanical -- absolutely they are.) About "ate" -- the Matoran's normal method is called "eating" informally often. That's about how they eat, not whether they eat. (Doesn't work in normal English, but that's because we define "eat" in normal English based on how we eat which definitely isn't their way. ) It's also possible a Ruki was being sold for reasons other than eating -- maybe it was found dead and somebody figured those cavedwellers might want a Ruki's metal skeleton to hang on a wall somewhere just for the novelty or whatever. Though that's hard to square with those organic-looking fish at the same stand, and what the Matoran's saying.

In MNOG, anyways...

A version of this is an old idea -- that protodermis is nanites. Greg turned that down. At one point later he said it was a molecule. But his recent answers have seemed to forget that and now he says he doesn't know what it was (and the answer about it being a molecule seems to have been lost as it was a post to the old forum, not a PM). I based the idea of my current main protodermis theory on the idea that it's a very advanced molecule that uses some principles from nano-engineering, without technically being a nanite. As you've worded this, though, it sounds like you're actually bringing up a new (or little-discussed or maybe forgotten by me ) idea? That maybe instead of protodermis being nanites that there could be nanites in addition to protodermis? That sculpt it basically? That might be possible (and a non-nano version of this seems confirmed with Makuta viruses specifically).

Nothing's off there -- he is LEGO's resident expert on Bionicle Gen 1, and it makes sense for Gen 2, which is inspired by Gen 1 and has some allusions to it, to show him what they're planning, if for no other reason than to avoid his giving erroneous answers about it or the like, and/or as thanks for what he brought to Bionicle. It does open up a window for him to give positive suggestions, but that doesn't mean he chose or was expected to use it. Quite possibly it wasn't allowed, I dunno. (Or "not involved" might not be intended to say he didn't offer some suggestions, but just means that the main planning came from others, or he didn't have any actual authority over it. Always remember Greg summarizes and "rounds up" to give a short answer most of the time. If somebody wants more detail on a short answer, his approach seems to be to let them go ahead and ask that question later. So, if you wanna know things like "did you offer any suggestions?" -- ask him. Of course, maybe he'll opt not to answer, dunno. )

Problem with this question is there's no clear meaning of "over". Are you saying Toa shouldn't have power over their element? How then can they be Toa? It's a bit like asking, "Is somebody with a gun overpowered in an ammo shop?" If by "over" you simply mean "are they more effective than usual in that situation?" the answer is yes. If you mean "is there some logical reason they shouldn't be?" the answer is obviously no.

Moving to BD...

Actually it makes 2.97 senses. *ahem* Why doesn't it make sense? (I don't really know much about it, but curious whatcha mean. ) As for canon, MNOG1 was definitely said to be "canon unless contradicted elsewhere" by Greg. Since MNOG2 was a direct continuation, that probably applies there too, although off the top of my head I don't recall that being specifically confirmed. But since the main character was given the nod of becoming a Toa, it seems unimaginable that it isn't (semi-)canon.

A few standard answers: 1) Well, "the Before Time" (which is a different thing) means clearly the time before the great memory loss (shortly after the Great Cataclysm). In that case, "before" is just the label used for that era, like we could say "the War Time came before the Peace time", and then comparatively say "the time before the peace time." 2) "The time before time" may be a version of the above, that just drops the identifier for the current time too, so it means "the era before this era." 3) Probably most likely is that both versions carry a connotation of "before your memories" so it's something more than just a shortened version of a generalized time indicator -- in this case it means something obviously tied to them. And it could even be a carryover from a saying in the past meaning something more like "before most people today remember" (since some MU inhabitants did die and get replaced). The Mata Nui islanders (namely the Turaga) would then be repurposing it in a slightly more literal way. 4) And then the "before Vahi forging" idea, but there seems to be no connection between these two things in-story or as far as I recall in out-story revelations. A while back I had the impression that "the Before Time" may be used more, but I might have that backwards due to evil memory.

I'd use new characters and make it roughly equal, or better yet (to obey the realism rule of statistics) varying from team to team so the average is equal.

Well I can't speak for how Sailor meant it, only what my understanding of it was, and I'd stand by that -- and more importantly, how the member who originally came up with the idea thought of it shouldn't prevent a version of that idea from being accepted if it's a good idea and the issues with it are still minimal compared to the issues of doing nothing or doing most other things etc. Picking apart their exact word choice doesn't seem like a good use of time, you know? Absolutely they can. Avoiding it is actually very difficult. I've missed some things in my retelling that I added that I didn't think were a problem that readers pointed out some obscure factoid that was -- and in general it's meant to "reword" major parts of the plot. The same principle would apply even down to an attempt at adding nothing at all (so no equivalent of the non-canon thread driving my retelling), because, for one thing, different words may carry different connotations. And this is actually a good example of where a rewording could easily add the gender when it wasn't specified in the original. No, "official" is a valid synonym for canon. Yes, it can mean other things, but when referring to issues of canonicity it can mean the same thing. (Canon can also mean different things; we can speak of "canon within MNOG" meaning the intent of the animators instead of the story team, though it's rarely used for other uses than "main-story canon"; mainly fanfic-focused "canon". But "official" is usually used as a synonym of canon anyways.) Eh... All translations are official. Calling the information in them official (at least in normal parlance) implies too much -- that every bit of it was individually checked. As pointed out already, that's not at all a reasonable assumption, especially given the time limits they had when putting these things out (both original and not). You can validly use the word that way, but that's not how I meant it or how it's normally used. Bit of advice for the future -- when you can tell how somebody meant something, it's usually better to recognize the definition of the words they were using, rather than try to impose your own definition upon them, because words do have multiple meanings and usage varies. You seem to have understood what I meant since you were able to say that I didn't mean it how you would use it, so that should usually be enough. (I don't really mind it as I like discussing language. But it saves time to avoid it and makes conversations more friendly to others who aren't into those tangents... also you will avoid stating things as facts that are then shown not to be...) The other versions aren't some sort of 'lesser media' from an objective point of view. One can prefer having a version retconned over the other because of subjective preferences, but nothing more. Hmm... two responses: 1) How does this answer my question in this quote? Do you get that point or not? I don't know how to take this answer about that -- it looks to be discussing something else. 2) More advice -- try to avoid universal negatives. I don't really even want to go down that tangent here since we're already on one, but it seems highly questionable at best. It looks like what I put in the quote shows an objective difference that already disproved the universal negative in your reply...

I don't know if Sailor knew about the translation. I didn't know about either before that. It wouldn't be fair to expect everybody to know what is said in every version of something. Finding out that it was published in a source does hurt the reasoning (hence this case not being ideal), but the fact remains that a rewording (whether in the same language or not) isn't on the same level as an original published wording in the terms Sailor was focusing on of oft-published facts versus little-published or not published. Just like an author wouldn't normally worry that much about contradicting any translation or same-language rewording as they adapt their story series by themselves, the same should apply to changes proposed by fans. Right? By definition it is -- that isn't disputable. Different words are used to try to convey the same ideas -- that's a rewording. (Whether the words are within the same language or not.) Different book, yes (like multiple sources in the same language are different "books" (or comics, animations, etc.) -- but "just as official" is where the problem comes in. A translation adding information means information might be added that isn't canon (same with a same-language rewording, and that happened all the time in Bionicle, esp. 2008 sources). This isn't a good example of that, since Plasma's gender as male happens to be canon, but it would be the Hasty Generalization fallacy to go from that to the assumption that all information added by translations would also be official. You're on the right track here. All you need to add to it is one more thing -- which is completely reasonable -- that there's also a distinction between an original work and rewordings/translation. If it was present in the original, it would be present in the wording that all translations and other rewordings work from. Surely it isn't difficult to see how that can have an effect? NS, you're right we should stay focused here, but FTR, the topic starter did mention this subject as one example of things seen as impossible from Greg's rule. I forget now how the part of that we're now discussing came up but I'll give the benefit of the doubt that it was related to the topic, and for my part putting the answer in the topic where a question was raised makes the answer more likely to be seen by people wondering that question when they read it. Extensive discussion of all the details of that example (or others) would be best elsewhere though. I could do some topic surgery to move sub-discussions, but as they're tied into posts commenting about other things in this topic in some cases and that's a lot of work, it's better usually to leave it where it came up. And no, things aren't always best with "everything about subject A in topic A" because a particular major idea brought up in a reply or late reply in the topic might get less discussion than it deserves versus if it's in a fresh topic or an early reply in one that it's also related to. That's why we allow "tangential" topics in most cases. This one appears to be tangential to multiple recent topics. (Converging tangents? )

First of all, I'm an English major, I know a thing or two about what is and isn't an "abuse of language." English allows for describing a container of things by the same traits as the things inside. Now, I don't know why you say that, though you give this as the apparent reason: This is true, but doesn't change what I said -- that that fact wasn't stated in the original version. Language isn't really the point here -- technically somebody else could make a rephrasing in English of the original canon story, and LEGO could "approve" it, and it wouldn't be canon either (or "as canon"). And in a sense that did happen; there were multiple English sources for some things, and usually one over the other was canon when there was a disagreement. Currently, the translation is canon on this (remember we ARE asking for a retcon, but one that minimizes changes in actual published works). If it's retconned, the translation will be retconned on that detail, but the original won't. Nobody disputes that, maxim. Keep in mind what the proposal is -- that the change minimizes published contradictions. Repeating things that aren't relevant to that doesn't make a case against it. I'm guessing your concern is some may be minimizing the importance of non-English languages. If so, that's a fair concern and people need to be careful not to. But the same principles would apply in any work translated from any language. If a translation adds information, that is not the canon wording of the original, because the original didn't include that information -- even if the information IS canon in the "background" at the time. *reads on to see that IS your concern* The problem with this is, again, the translation adds information. Your wording of this forgets that the original in this case happened to be in English. And I already pointed out to you that it IS about the canon published works and NOT the English ones for the sake of being English -- notice that it's you who disagreed with that, not us. By wording this this way, you're forcing your idea into our mouths, the strawman fallacy. Not a good thing to be doing... But again, it IS less than ideal. I'm not asking you to say there's no issue here -- but you should acknowledge IMO that there's less of an issue than if an original source had said it, regardless of the language of that source. That might work... (Your math after this sounds wrong, and we don't know the percent of minor elements to major, do we? But it would help. I'd also like it selfishly since my retelling has a male Matoran of Plasma, heh. Personally I would support changing them all, but that's very unlikely.) I had a feeling this misconception was behind this. No -- "more recent = less canon" has not been extended indefinitely into the past. While Bionicle was still going, many things were retconned later on further thought. The rule is for answers given after Bionicle was over. In some cases the earlier will stand, yes, but that isn't absolute, and normally before it was the later that stood. And contradictions aren't always as simple as one source saying X and another saying not-X. Sometimes there's premises in one source that you have to think about a bit to get to the not-X. If those are more "built-in" to Bionicle, even if later, the later will probably stand.

Catching inconsistencies (for example) is difficult to think of on the fly -- you have to review things usually to catch them. Keep in mind nobody's trying to retcon 99.99somethingblahblahblah % of the story -- we're talking about the rare instances like GSR size where some issues have been recently brought up that hadn't been spotted before, and proposals have been brought up that hadn't been before like Sailor's idea. (I'm not saying his agreeing to those changes is or is not likely... but we also already have cases where he did retcon a tiny amount of things after establishing the rule, so we know he didn't mean it absolutely, and the quote I edited in up there clearly states there could be exceptions.) And if he had yet thought of something that needed a retcon, he probably would have already retconned it. Right. Point is, that's something, so "retcons are impossible" isn't what he meant. I think the giant robot's size is the best example here right now -- I've followed many topics about it, and the issue about ocean size was never brought up. Before then, it looked like the giant's size worked (just barely, but that was a good thing as it was meant to be virtually unimaginable). We'd all failed to imagine it before that point, but now that it's been brought up, the pro-shrinking side is gaining support, including mine. We don't yet know if Greg cares about issues like that (I'd be very cautious there), but point is, one of the two examples you mentioned near the start of your first post here very much has a 'can't imagine at this point' feature about it, yanno? There's nothing inconsistent about these two things. Including an "except" is how you tell people that your rule isn't absolute. Not exactly only in the case of forgetting -- keep in mind that a retcon is going to have to have a much stronger reason to be done than filling in a gap, and this rule helps reinforce that. But usually when something is changed, the problem that's being fixed is the fault of forgetting in the first place! (An inconsistency happens because the author forgot something else, right?) We're not talking about forgetcons holding but things like changing the giant's official size after careful analysis and review. Keep in mind that allowing exceptions gives a way to fix mistakes even with retconning. If he thinks he's got a handle on all the related canon and tries to fix a mistake with a retcon, but later somebody points out something that was still missed, the retcon can be changed too. (Cue endless retcon of retcon of retcon jokes lol.) Obviously it becomes astronomically more difficult the more is established (part of why it should be exremely rare, and "outsourcing" the analysis to some extent to fans who can provide more perspectives is wise), but the point is that it makes sense to allow for exceptions.

They can be uploaded to brickshelf.

What else would he mean? (With the caution that my wording isn't meant to cover all cases there. )

Greg says that he made the rule to stop retcons, Whoa there. Read it again and bold a different part. Actually two parts, the second being the key. Avoiding forgetcons does exactly that -- it keeps the amount of retcons small by avoiding accidental retcons. It's really very simple -- if Greg is clearly aware of previous canon when he retcons something and especially points out why it's being changed (such as to fix a contradiction that was noticed), the retcon stands. If instead it looks like he just forget something said before, this rule applies. To take it universally is to ignore that obvious difference between the two possibilities. Why would Greg want to ban the ability to fix logical errors or glaring omissions that are later found in the earlier story and the like? And how can a rule designed to limit the amount of retcons be an absolute rule against all of them? But yes, that depends on his word choice and our understanding of him based on the past -- if by some strange chance he did mean he thinks the time to cut off all changes has come, the way to prove it is to ask him if he meant that. (It's also seriously questionable to try to use a rule established by a person to say that same person can't do what the rule would allegedly ban -- couldn't he just change the rule later?) To be clear, that doesn't mean Greg will suddenly want to retcon things, even when the retcon would be popular. Retconning is generally avoided anyways. My point is to take this as a universal is not warranted. Edit: I thought of a way to possibly resolve this simply -- search "retcon" in that topic. The search feature is clunky... but I did find this: So the conventional understanding of the rule is right -- it's in the context of forgetcons, and it isn't absolute. (And not wanting to retcon left and right is normal to stories BTW and is nothing new here for Greg! What's new is Bionicle's been over for a while and he's forgetting more.)

maxim, as I understood it, the proposal was not based on the idea that "we don't know the canon gender of that element" but rather "the canon published works did not specify it, so retconning it avoids messes that others wouldn't." Still less than ideal from that translation, but you need to keep in mind that the translator could have been aware that it was currently canon. The translation still is not canon, though, because the canon work as originally produced didn't mention it (or so I'm being told ). This "approved by LEGO" thing doesn't work here, because the people approving it weren't likely looking for details like this (and who knows if/how-many actually could read the translation anyways?), and LEGO produced many clearly non canon things anyways. (And semi-canon ones.)

Really? It's the same program, so it should work. If you want, you can send me the file and I'll send it back to you moved down. Or maybe my explanation wasn't clear on how to do it?