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From Mata Nui to Metru Nui


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Something that doesn't make sense to me is that in the movies, they take boats to mata nui and back but when I research things like this on the wiki and look at maps... Mata nui is ABOVE metru nui. I don't understand this. If mata nui is above metru nui does that mean that metru nui is in a cave? Or does it mean that metru nui overgrown with wildlife creating mata nui? I don't understand.

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This is a very common question that's been answered numerous times. I don't have time now to get too detailed, but suffice to say, there are (and in some cases were) a number of cave routes that meander from the edge of Metru Nui's dome up to the top of the dome, which is Mata Nui. Boats are used to cross the Silver Sea inside the dome, between Metru Nui and the lower ends of these cave routes.

 

Plus there was the sunhole that airships were once brought through.

 

It got quite a bit more complex in practice but this is the basic idea. :)

Edited by bonesiii

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Metru Nui is inside Mata Nui's head. The island of Mata Nui is on Mata Nui's face.
Ok I just watched the ending to web of shadows so I know that now. However there are multiple questions that rise from this as well. If it's inside mata nui's head then how is there a day and night cycle? Giant lights inside his head? Also in the end of the mask of light it shows takanuva lighting the path to metru nui which is seemingly... Across some sort of body of water (or protodermis, whatever). So the place hali jala and takanuva where standing were they in the head but not on metru nui just looking from some tower?
This is a very common question that's been answered numerous times. I don't have time now to get too detailed, but suffice to say, there are (and in some cases were) a number of cave routes that meander from the edge of Metru Nui's dome up to the top of the dome, which is Mata Nui. Boats are used to cross the Silver Sea inside the dome, between Metru Nui and the lower ends of these cave routes. Plus there was the sunhole that airships were once brought through. It got quite a bit more complex in practice but this is the basic idea. :)
Wow thanks for a fast reply! This really sums it up good! But is the giant hole the light source? And how do they not know they are in.. well a giant cave basically. Edited by bonesiii
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Again my apologies for answering quick without much detail, but I'll try to get the basic answers up real quick:

 

1) The ceiling of the dome has an illusion of stars, and two sunholes that are in Mata Nui's eyes. The whole thing bends light so the "suns" seem to rise and set.

 

2) Takanuva was standing on a ledge where the Silver Sea met the dome (called the Great Barrier by Matoran in ancient times, who didn't realize it's a dome).

 

3) Before the Great Cataclysm, only the Mangaia route existed, apparently, and it had that heavy door that blocked it off. So nobody other than the Makuta and Tren Krom (maybe the Order?) had a chance to know.

The Destiny of Bionicle (chronological retelling of Bionicle original series, 9 PDFs of 10 chapters each on Google Drive)Part 1 - Warring with Fate | Part 2 - Year of Change | Part 3 - The Exploration Trap | Part 4 - Rise of the Warlords | Part 5 - A Busy Matoran | Part 6 - The Dark Time | Part 7 - Proving Grounds | Part 8 - A Rude Awakening | Part 9 - The Battle of Giants

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No offense, but I don't think a couple of things said here are actually right.

 

Plus there was the sunhole that airships were once brought through.

 

 

From the Web of Shadows novelization:

 

Aftershocks from Makuta's earthquake had widened the gap in the Great Barrier, and Vakama believed new tunnels might be found leading to the surface.

 

It seems from this that the airships didn't fly through the sunhole, but rather through Great Barrier tunnels wide enough to admit them.

 

 

3) Before the Great Cataclysm, only the Mangaia route existed, apparently, and it had that heavy door that blocked it off. So nobody other than the Makuta and Tren Krom (maybe the Order?) had a chance to know.

 

I don't know about the knowing-not knowing part (perhaps no one ever bothered to see what was beyond the Great Barrier), but we actually know the other tunnels were already there, since they were needed even before the Great Cataclysm for the Bohrok to reach the surface. And they could already be reached from Metru Nui, since we know there was a small Bohrok Nest below the Archives (and so a way for the Bohrok to reach Mata Nui from there must have existed) and Mavrah and his Rahi did the same trip the Toa Metru did years before the Great Cataclysm.

Of course, it might be that the exit to those tunnels was sealed when the robot was flying through space, and opened only when the island on his face came into being (which could explain why Mavrah thought the tunnels led nowhere).

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Metru Nui is inside Mata Nui's head. The island of Mata Nui is on Mata Nui's face.

Ok I just watched the ending to web of shadows so I know that now. However there are multiple questions that rise from this as well. If it's inside mata nui's head then how is there a day and night cycle? Giant lights inside his head? Also in the end of the mask of light it shows takanuva lighting the path to metru nui which is seemingly... Across some sort of body of water (or protodermis, whatever). So the place hali jala and takanuva where standing were they in the head but not on metru nui just looking from some tower?

This is a very common question that's been answered numerous times. I don't have time now to get too detailed, but suffice to say, there are (and in some cases were) a number of cave routes that meander from the edge of Metru Nui's dome up to the top of the dome, which is Mata Nui. Boats are used to cross the Silver Sea inside the dome, between Metru Nui and the lower ends of these cave routes. Plus there was the sunhole that airships were once brought through. It got quite a bit more complex in practice but this is the basic idea. :)

Wow thanks for a fast reply! This really sums it up good! But is the giant hole the light source? And how do they not know they are in.. well a giant cave basically.

 

The Matoran knew they were in a dome; people have exited it for the other domes, such as where the other islands were.

 

Exiting the dome and heading out of Mata Nui's head wasn't something people knew about though. They didn't know their universe was a giant robot.

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Welp.

Okay, so I reread Voyage of Fear and Maze of Shadows to try to get some light on this matter: Voyage of Fear: Photo%20Mar%2016%2C%2011%2020%2012%20PM.jpg (1)

The voyage of the Lhikan had followed a pretty straight and level course so far.

(2)

The Lhikan drifted aimlessly down the river.

(3)

The Toa of Fire was asking himself the same question. He had taken so many twists and turns he was not at all sure he could find his way back to the other Toa.

Vakama led the team through the tunnels and back to the transport. While the others got on board, Matau flew ahead to scout. He returned in a matter of moments with a rare piece of good news. “All open-clear ahead” he reported. “This tributary bypasses the lake and the Rahi beasts and feeds back into the river.”

So this was the part I had completely forgotten about. Those twisting tunnels. Now I don’t know why the Kralhi would bother to drag something uphill through water; my guess is that they didn’t. Also, none of the Rahi escaped the lake to the ocean above, which suggests that the waterway there at the end of the lake was a steep upward sloping ramp that poured the water into the lake. How the transport got to the tributary and which way the maze of tunnels went – lateral or up is an open question. I believe the tunnels slope up because that’s where the Toa Metru ultimately went, Toa Vakama stopped on a rocky ledge to aim down at the Krahli which were behind him, and there is no mention in the book of the Vahki transport having to swim upriver (although the possibility isn’t ruled out that the tunnels are lateral). Said tributary could join back in on the Metru side of the lake where Matau turned left and got burned. :) (4)

Matau turned the transport and for the first time they saw the island that would be their new home.

* * * Also, the tunnels leading up to Marvah’s “lake” were flooded after a certain point; there are carvings on the walls to indicate that at one point the tunnel was not flooded. I imagine Marvah fled there before it was flooded, taking the Rahi with their tanks full of water. Later, when the tunnel did flood, Marvah either let them loose or they broke loose. Maze of Shadows: According to page 27 of the book, my previous visualization in this topic is off; the Bohrok canisters and the EP pool are both in the same room. The EP pool in Makuta’s lair later could have been over this area, but regardless of the source, if the EP was dissolving the substance around it to the point where it was trickling through the roof, a trickle could have turned into a flood due to further dissolution of the area surrounding the source. Of course, that doesn’t explain how Toa Vakama could walk back that way after Time Trap without getting flooded out or how the Matoran get back that way later, so I guess that’s out. Also, Takua went into the Bohrok nest area before without seeing any EP. One thing that could help resolve this is the fact that the tunnels are repeatedly referred to as having a floor. The leaking EP here could have eaten through the floor below the MoS tunnel, collecting below in that huge reservoir that the old classic heroes took a bath in. The idea hinges on the idea that the Bohrok canisters would be stacked up over several levels of tunnel, with the Makuta Lair on top and to the side of the Bohrok nests under Mata Nui, hence the considerable slide – below the nests – to the EP reservoir below. What do you all think of this?

 

I did a Greg hunt on "airships" and "sun hole" with no luck. It's a repeated bonesiii assertion, and it has logical backup :P, but no Greg confirmation as far as I can find.

Edited by fishers64
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No offense, but I don't think a couple of things said here are actually right.

Quote

Plus there was the sunhole that airships were once brought through.

From the Web of Shadows novelization:

Quote

Aftershocks from Makuta's earthquake had widened the gap in the Great Barrier, and Vakama believed new tunnels might be found leading to the surface.

It seems from this that the airships didn't fly through the sunhole, but rather through Great Barrier tunnels wide enough to admit them.

 

This is what the long answer would entail if I had had time at the time. :P Greg confirmed they flew up through the sunhole under Ko-Wahi. It seems that what is seen in WoS is the beginning of a search to find a way up for the (huge) airships, but that they failed (unsurprising), and later thought of the sunholes. This is the explanation I give in my history retelling.

 

In the movie version of this scene, what is shown is the airships heading into a land-based hole that appears virtually identical (if not) to the land-based one at the end of LoMN (which in the books was a river, not a land route), but the Toa would have known this was sealed so that makes no sense.

 

In the book version, it merely states that the Toa were going to search for a new tunnel (and that's what they found, but not, it turned out, through the Great Barrier as in the edge of the dome). As far as I could find, the books nowhere say what the results of that search were; for that we have to go to Greg quotes, and it is (or used to be :P) common knowledge that he said the answer was the sunhole. [Edit: See clarification later, though.]

 

Yes, it's all clumsily complicated... on the other hand, it is realistic that they wouldn't know exactly where to go at first. I imagine that at some point they'd be frustrated over not finding any tunnels huge enough and someone would look up at the sun and say, "Hey, how can that sun be real since there's an island up there?" and then they'd check it out and it works. Plus, seeing the "lids" slide across them (and fail partway for one of them) would be a dead giveaway.

 

Still, unfortunate that Greg never managed to make this clear in actual story. Obviously that's why this confusion keeps coming up.

 

I don't know about the knowing-not knowing part (perhaps no one ever bothered to see what was beyond the Great Barrier), but we actually know the other tunnels were already there, since they were needed even before the Great Cataclysm for the Bohrok to reach the surface. And they could already be reached from Metru Nui, since we know there was a small Bohrok Nest below the Archives (and so a way for the Bohrok to reach Mata Nui from there must have existed)

This appears to have been part of the Mangaia route. The Bohrok could have dealt with the door if extras were needed. We know the river route opened due to the cataclysm, at least. The Maze of Shadows route may have been open before, but it's uncertain. Also, keep in mind the end of MNOG showed a transit system of horizontal tunnels, apparently between different nests, and the surface, so all the higher-up nests were connected. But these all were probably locked off from the dome realms by the Mangaia door (or other doors) for security purposes (both to keep the Matoran in and to keep aliens out).

 

 

Mavrah and his Rahi did the same trip the Toa Metru did years before the Great Cataclysm.

That's not possible -- not the entire trip anyways. That river was coming from real water from Aqua Magna, but prior to that, the giant robot was flying through space, not on Aqua Magna. That opening at least definitely didn't come until the GC. However, Mavrah did live in that cavern lake before then, so presumably it got some water (protowater) from the Silver Sea. The realwater river just added to it.

 

Of course, it might be that the exit to those tunnels was sealed when the robot was flying through space, and opened only when the island on his face came into being (which could explain why Mavrah thought the tunnels led nowhere).

Right; that's what I meant by "not open", just didn't have time to write the long version. And it's not "might" in this case, but more like, "almost certainly" -- if it was open, then that river would be starting and stopping all the time, and more to the point, First Rahi would be escaping on a number of alien worlds. At least the smaller ones. And Mavrah obviously would have realized something odd was going on with that river and investigated. So the river could not have been there at all.

 

Again, the Maze of Shadows one might have been open but it still seems unlikely. What we know about that one is that there are a number of openings on the Great Barrier side (hence the maze), but they all apparently met up to one major tunnel on the surface, and that might have been a GC effect.

 

The Matoran knew they were in a dome; people have exited it for the other domes, such as where the other islands were.

As far as I know, that's just an assumption that goes beyond the evidence. What they did definitely know was that Metru Nui was surrounded by a mysterious Great Barrier, with sea gates, and tunnels to other similar circular (or other shapes) seas. They probably knew there were caves in the Great Barrier.

 

But they probably didn't know it was actually a dome.

 

Possible (especially if the skies of the other lands looked different, as has been brought up in past topics, but then we don't know what they might imagine beyond a dome to explain this), but in any case, they certainly did not know they were inside a giant robot. The point of the sky illusion and fake skies elsewhere was partly to keep them fooled and think they were inside some kind of "normal" realm (and not having lived on a planet's surface, they probably just assumed Great Barriers are normal).

 

My interpretation is that they believed that they were inside various "celestial domes" but that these were out of the reach of airships and the like so they did not try to fly through them. So technically they might believe it to be a dome but not a manufactured one, more of a mystical/magical dome that was possibly incorporeal and the like. (In Metru Nui's case there's actually some truth to that since the stars were illusions, but in the other domes they were lightstones.)

 

This was probably (IMO) reinforced with a pervasive myth taught by the Great Beings themselves (so it would be believed naively) that flying to the top of the Great Barrier could be dangerous or something, implying there is a top that just fades out of view thanks to the celestial dome appearing there.

 

I thought the domes were just big pieces of rock tl the Matoran, or too wide for the Matoran to reaalise they were domes.

Right; that appears to be the case. I imagine the "models" of the world would have flat-topped mesas as the land between the Great Barriers (Vakama might have believed that was where they were headed, and only later realized it was off by several miles), with incorporeal energy domes covering the circular gaps over the seas.

 

Might even have been a variety of myths about what those lands were like. Maybe many believed them to be the realm of the dead and if you went there you would die -- that would explain why nobody wanted to go there. But Vakama would probably interpret his vision as telling him that myth at least was false, and it would be a (relatively) safe haven.

 

 

I did a Greg hunt on "airships" and "sun hole" with no luck. It's a repeated bonesiii assertion, and it has logical backup :P, but no Greg confirmation as far as I can find.

It does seem BS01 is now assuming it wasn't the sun-holes. I'd like to see the quote again myself to make sure it wasn't just a theory that for whatever reason Greg chose to let go uncorrected over the many years that he was active (seems unlikely...). My guess is either you didn't get the right search terms, or he said it in a post rather than a PM, and those are now gone. But fair's fair -- let's call this "what bones thinks he remembers"... and "bones has an awful memory so grab that salt shaker". :P

 

 

BTW, you got me curious enough to look for the quotes myself, and re: "why didn't they figure it out", here's one from Greg of note:

 

40. If the Metruans had airships, why didn't they ever go through one of the "holes" leading to Mata-Nui? [/b] Big difference between having aircraft and having a "space program."

 

Well, in continued searches, Greg is careful to state that the hole under Ko-Wahi wasn't entirely covered at first; ice only covered it later. Why would he do this unless the airships went up through it?

 

Really not sure what search terms to use, though.

 

Here's an interesting one from just after MOL:

 

3B.) How are the rest of the Matoran going to get past that door now? Well, we know there has to be some opening to the surface, because there is sunlight coming down to the new island. So my guess is that the Toa will have to find an alternative way in.

Paranoid theory might say the whole longstanding interpretation was based on that... but I doubt it...

 

This one might be where it all started:

 

4. How many passages from Mata Nui to Metru Nui are currently known? So far I can think of three. Takanuva illuminated a sea route from the gate in Makuta's lair. The Toa Metru took a sea route (a different one?) through a gap in the Great Barrier that emerged in the underwater cave that Nokama sent Gali into in Tales of the Masks. (Presumably that one is now closed off due to Mavrah's wild Rahi.) And the Toa Metru went toward Metru Nui through a labyrinth of Makuta's tunnels in Maze of Shadows. How did they get from the tunnels to the island? 4) By boat -- which they had to build when they got there, which is how Book 7 starts. How, when they had nothing that would float, says you? Never underestimate the dark twists of a BIONICLE story, says I. As for how many passages there are ... potentially quite a few. There are the ones you mentioned, plus who knows how many other Bohrok tunnels that lead up to the surface. In addition, if you had an airship that could handle the altitude and could get past other challenges (like water and ice), you could fly up through the suns if you had to.

Note: I.... think this is Greg speaking, given the format. It really doesn't sound like how he normally talks though. This is apparently in response to Galigee, and I post right after it commenting on it. I dunno, but either way, it doesn't totally confirm it, it's just an idea.

 

That's all I've found so far.

 

I'm fine with amending the stock answer to say "apparently" they flew through the Ko-Wahi sunhole, but it's the only explanation I'd be comfortable with as far as I can tell given all the problems with flying massive airships through narrow tunnels (which were always portrayed as far too small for them before). And it was common knowledge on the old forums and Greg never corrected it, even though he did post corrections and follow many topics.

Edited by bonesiii

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  • 2 weeks later...

Actually it was specifically mentioned (by Greg or whoever I forget) that that was true "unless you had a way to deal with the ice", and obviously having Nuju along was the way they dealt with it. :)

 

Edit: Here it is; it's the last quote in my above post:

 

if you had an airship that could handle the altitude and could get past other challenges (like water and ice), you could fly up through the suns if you had to.

 

They also had Nokama aboard to handle any water issues (but not sure why he brought that up).

Edited by bonesiii

The Destiny of Bionicle (chronological retelling of Bionicle original series, 9 PDFs of 10 chapters each on Google Drive)Part 1 - Warring with Fate | Part 2 - Year of Change | Part 3 - The Exploration Trap | Part 4 - Rise of the Warlords | Part 5 - A Busy Matoran | Part 6 - The Dark Time | Part 7 - Proving Grounds | Part 8 - A Rude Awakening | Part 9 - The Battle of Giants

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Water vapor condenses at high altitude, impeding visibility and making the airship heavier.

That's what I was thinking (and that would of course be what later freezes as you go higher), but it occurred to me there's also water over one sunhole and ice (later) over another, though the water one has a lid too etc.

The Destiny of Bionicle (chronological retelling of Bionicle original series, 9 PDFs of 10 chapters each on Google Drive)Part 1 - Warring with Fate | Part 2 - Year of Change | Part 3 - The Exploration Trap | Part 4 - Rise of the Warlords | Part 5 - A Busy Matoran | Part 6 - The Dark Time | Part 7 - Proving Grounds | Part 8 - A Rude Awakening | Part 9 - The Battle of Giants

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