Questions in the BIONICLE universe that I'm yet to have the answer

[powerjala]

There are some questions that I'm yet to have answers to in the Bionicle story.

 

1.What is the average lifespan of a matoran? (Would the matoran be considered the "children" of Bionicle?)

 

2.What would happen if Takunuva removed his mask?

 

3.What parts of the anatomy of an average Bionicle character be living or machanical? Do they have living brains or A.I. ?

[Katuko]

1. The average is thousands of years. Takua/Takanuva is the oldest in existence, and as we can clearly see he's not even feeling old yet.

 

2. Takanuva, like any other Toa, is physically weakened when his mask is removed. He will not turn back into a Matoran, if that's what you're asking, for the transformation into a Toa is one-way and permanent once triggered. Takanuva has even taken his mask off twice: Once to stick it on Makuta's face in the novelization of Mask of Light, and then again to do the same with Takua from the Toa Empire alternate universe.

 

3. We know that the lungs and muscles are organic, and we assume their brains are likely organic as well. Matoran were originally AI, but quickly developed into full sentient beings. An organic brain could very well be the reason for this, as a purely technological program is unlikely to change its "base code." Apart from this, pretty much all of a Matoran's body parts are mechanical.

Edited March 16, 2014 by Katuko

[The 1st Shadow]

2. Takanuva, like any other Toa, is physically weakened when his mask is removed. He will not turn back into a Matoran, if that's what you're asking, for the transformation into a Toa is one-way and permanent once triggered. Takanuva has even taken his mask off twice: Once to stick it on Makuta's face in the novelization of Mask of Light, and then again to do the same with Takua from the Toa Empire alternate universe.

Three times. You'll recall that he switched to the Suletu that Hewkii found on the journey to Karzahni.

 

Other than that, yeah. We only know what Katuko pointed out. We have no idea exactly what the Great Beings stuffed into the heads of their creations.

 

[JAG18]

3. We know that the lungs and muscles are organic, and we assume their brains are likely organic as well. Matoran were originally AI, but quickly developed into full sentient beings. An organic brain could very well be the reason for this, as a purely technological program is unlikely to change its "base code." Apart from this, pretty much all of a Matoran's body parts are mechanical.

You presume too much.

 

Q) How much of a Bionicle's body is mechanical?

A) Well, the only parts we know are organic at this point are the lungs and the muscle/connecting tissue. Beyond that, nothing else organic has been established in story to my knowledge

Link

 

Q) But their [MU people’s] brain is also organic, right?

A) It has never been stated anywhere that their brain is organic.

Link

 

Q) Is it possible that their brains are at least partially organic?

A) I don't want to say flat-out no, but that is how I lean.

Link

 

Other than that, Katuko hit the nail right on the head. Of course, these Greg quotes are not necessarily definitive, but it's something to keep in mind.

Edited March 16, 2014 by JAG18

[Katuko]

You presume too much.

We have to assume precisely because it has not been confirmed one way or the other. If it was we wouldn't be assuming, we would know. Greg has leanings that it is mechanical, but he does obviously not want to confirm it, which leaves the question still open. There is some evidence for organic brains, particularly that they call Krana - which are entirely organic - "brains", while purely robotic beings are not counted as self-aware or reasonable compared to bio-mechs.

[Matoro Zeliph]

 

 

1.What is the average lifespan of a matoran? (Would the matoran be considered the "children" of Bionicle?)

 

My inference would be that the average matoran's lifespan would be the same as a human's lifespan, but 10x. Like what? The average lifespan for a human would be 70 to 80 years? Well, with a matoran, I would assume it would be 80,000 years for them. Who knows, I could be wrong. But that is my lore.

[JAG18]

 

You presume too much.

We have to assume precisely because it has not been confirmed one way or the other. If it was we wouldn't be assuming, we would know. Greg has leanings that it is mechanical, but he does obviously not want to confirm it, which leaves the question still open. There is some evidence for organic brains, particularly that they call Krana - which are entirely organic - "brains", while purely robotic beings are not counted as self-aware or reasonable compared to bio-mechs.

 

Well, first that was just a Star Wars joke. But yeah you made some great assumptions; I agree with you that the question is still open and that there is some evidence to support organic brains.

[Azani]

1. The average age is thousands of years. Takua/ Takanuva is the oldest in existence, and as we can clearly see, he's not even feeling old yet.

Though this is definitely canon, it's really strange to think that Tren Krom, Karzahni, and Artakha are all approximately the same age, if not younger, than Takua. Tren Krom was probably made first, but Karzahni and Artakha could have been made after the first Matoran, since Matoran were the most important and populous race of the MU.

[Katuko]

Though this is definitely canon, it's really strange to think that Tren Krom, Karzahni, and Artakha are all approximately the same age, if not younger, than Takua.

I agree, I was surprised when I learned that Takua was really the first Matoran ever. MU beings don't really age the same we do, though, so if you start out with a certain personality as a Matoran you are unlikely to change much unless everything around you also changes. Takua seemed like a different person after he became a Toa, and the experiences he's had since have affected him. Plus, he was mind-wiped, so he only has the last 1000 years in his head. During those 1000 years he was stuck on a tropical island with a somewhat simple way of life. After becoming a Toa, he's been forced to face evil and death on a more frequent basis. It makes sense that Arthaka, who's been observing wars and other proceedings in the universe his entire life, is a different guy than the Matoran who's been isolated from the worst of the conflicts.

 

I wonder how Takua and Jaller were doing back on Metru Nui during the civil war. They were obviously not among the troublesome Matoran locked into the Archives Massacre, but events like that should make an impression on anyone capable of remembering them.

[bonesiii]

We used to conclude the average minimum Matoran (and Agori etc.) lifespan was 100,000 (plus) years, since Takua is older than that.

 

But recently Greg has allowed for the unconfirmed possibility that Red Star revivals may undo aging damage. So, unless we could know for sure that Takua never died and was revived and sent back, he could be a little younger. Other Greg quotes on that are unclear; some say the RS Sendback teleporter "never" worked right, others allow that it might have broken much later. However, we have no confirmation Takua ever died, so I would still put 100,000+ as most likely, perhaps as much as 200,000 easily.

 

And no, Matoran are not children. Though for the ones destined to be Toa, their lifecycle (physically) imitates a human lifecycle; start out small, grow to full height, then shrink some (Bionicle even "translates" Turaga as "elder" -- but it doesn't mean it in a literal sense as it has nothing to do with aging).

[Katuko]

Matoran are dwarves. They work hard, forge nice things, live underground and look pretty much alike except their choice of mask and colors. Plus, their women look almost like the men.

 

So yeah, dwarves, not children.

Edited March 16, 2014 by Katuko

[Matoro Zeliph]

Matoran are dwarves. They work hard, forge nice things, live underground and look pretty much alike except their choice of mask and colors. Plus, their women look almost like the men.

 

So yeah, dwarves, not children.

Ha ha! Then what are the Toa resemble to by? Super Dwarves, if they eat a mushroom?

[ALVIS]

 

Though this is definitely canon, it's really strange to think that Tren Krom, Karzahni, and Artakha are all approximately the same age, if not younger, than Takua.

I agree, I was surprised when I learned that Takua was really the first Matoran ever.

 

Frankly, I always thought that was just a stupid idea. Somebody in the Official Greg Discussion just up and asked him one day, "Hey, can you canonize that Takua was the first Matoran ever created?" for some no-good reason. I didn't have a problem with fans running ideas by Greg if they cleared up loose ends or filled in missing information, but this was entirely unnecessary, and I opposed it from the start. No, no, no, no, no. /rant.

 

God, it raises my blood pressure just thinking about it. What a stupid idea. D:<

[bonesiii]

Any particular reason you would see it that way, AB? It really doesn't matter -- if their lifespans are that long, why not one character be the oldest and not another?

 

I hadn't heard that about how it entered the canon, but that really is irrelevant. Everything else in canon is come up with in the same sort of way, just happens to be by different people.

[ALVIS]

I know I'm overreacting here, but it bothers me chiefly because Takua always acted like one of the youngest Matoran, which is the last thing I would expect from someone over 100,000 years old.

 

For that matter, it also really bothers me that the organic natives of Spherus Magna live for that long and longer, and that the entire BIONICLE saga takes place in the span of relatively, what, 10 years? That doesn't sound right for a sci-fi/fantasy/superhero epic of this magnitude. BIONICLE always inspired awe and hinted that there were untold stories of "ages past", and ~10 years =/= "untold ages". (Plus, it just bothers me that any organic animal would have a lifespan exceeding 50,000 friggin' years.) And no, saying "Spherus Magna years are just really, really short" doesn't help anything.

 

My solution to all this has been to just headcanon it all away, of course. Ackar, Tarix, Vastus, Raanu, etc. had some sort of "immortality device" implanted in them by the GBs to extend their natural lifespans. The "youngsters" who haven't been specified as Core War combatants/witnesses (Gresh, Kiina, most of the Agori, etc.) were all born after that. (Yes, I know Kiina was officially stated to be a Core War veteran. I'm not hearing it.) That would allow Spherus Magnans to live a natural lifespan (I'm not too picky, though -- they're sorta reptilian, so 10,000 years seems like a good maximum) and avoid retconning all of Ackar and company's exploits during the Core War.

 

Anyway. I know I'm blowing my top off at a detail of a fictional world (and that I'm using way too many parentheses while doing so), but forgive me for venting some steam. On the whole, I adore BIONICLE, but the ultra-long lifespans have always been the most annoying thing about it.

[Katuko]

Ha ha! Then what are the Toa resemble to by? Super Dwarves, if they eat a mushroom?

Tall, uses magic, are kinda ancient and in tune with nature. They are elves.

 

 

Frankly, I always thought that was just a stupid idea. Somebody in the Official Greg Discussion just up and asked him one day, "Hey, can you canonize that Takua was the first Matoran ever created?" for some no-good reason. I didn't have a problem with fans running ideas by Greg if they cleared up loose ends or filled in missing information, but this was entirely unnecessary, and I opposed it from the start. No, no, no, no, no. /rant.

 

God, it raises my blood pressure just thinking about it. What a stupid idea. D:<

I wholeheartedly agree, actually. Sometimes Greg seemed too reluctant to canonize things that would simply the story - such as one shared EE type for the Toa's internal storage after it's been converted - while at other times he'd seem very willing to canonize minutia that didn't really need to be.

 

In this case, there was really no reason for Takua to be special in yet another way, and his curious and youthful behavior doesn't seem fit for what we consider the oldest beings around.

 

While I disagree with just headcanoning away the lifespans of beings on Spherus Magna, I agree that their age seems... unnecessary. Beyond keeping characters from dying when their Toa friends age, it doesn't do much beyond make things like their culture seem a bit iffy. People fighting for scraps in a post-apocalyptic world generally doesn't live for thousands of years. And if they do, then they're not really struggling for survival, one might say.

 

Any particular reason you would see it that way, AB? It really doesn't matter -- if their lifespans are that long, why not one character be the oldest and not another?

 

I hadn't heard that about how it entered the canon, but that really is irrelevant. Everything else in canon is come up with in the same sort of way, just happens to be by different people.

To be fair, the suggestions of a random person on the street is generally less fit for a story/movie/game concept than those of educated or at least older/more experienced writers. We see this in the later serials, and it's often dragged up: With less pre-planning and focus spent on the writing, the quality decreases. Greg's books - such as the scene were Matoro dies, and Journey's End - is nicely written. The serials he has admitted to coming up with on the spot whenever he writes a new chapter.

 

It stands to reason that we prefer the thought-out parts of the story over the "let's toss it in" parts of the story, right? IF you take a suggestion immediately and throw it in, then you may pass up other possibilities that you may think of after actually pondering the topic.

Edited March 16, 2014 by Katuko

[bonesiii]

Takua always acted like one of the youngest Matoran

Three huge problems with this:

 

1) There are immature old people, as well as childlike, etc. Age never guarantees maturity; it depends on a person's choices, etc.

 

2) He'd just lost all his memories in an apparent total mindwipe, a thousand years after the others.

 

3) He was having trouble fitting in due to having a different personality, especially being more adventurous, and not being actually of the element he thought he was.

 

But even characters like Taipu seem naive and childlike to us, and his memories went back a thousand years. Clearly for Matoran it's not an automatic connection between age and acting super mature/wise. They aren't humans, after all (and it was aimed at kids).

 

Ackar, Tarix, Vastus, Raanu, etc. had some sort of "immortality device" implanted in them by the GBs to extend their natural lifespans.

Their implants almost certainly do extend the lifespans.

 

There are ways genetics could account for a lifespan that long. Ours would have trouble with it because it works by "shoelace endcap decay" if you will; with each cell division the protective telomeres lose one unit. So for 100,000 units, that would be a really huge spaghetti noodle telomere. But this is only a problem if you assume their lifespans are capped by telomere length. Not necessarily. It may be they have short telomeres (if they even have DNA at all) with a constant repair mechanism, and gradual decay to the repair mechanism is what puts the age on.

 

It's even possible there's a long counting system where a relatively short section just stores numbers with multiple digits like an odometer, and at certain intervals one number is added, so just like we can store "1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1" as "11", it could have vast countdown potential, far higher than 100,000. Though a possible problem with this explanation is it sounds less like decay and more like they're programmed to die eventually. Still another possibility is just that really tiny non-healing damage adds up over time, whether "genetic" or not.

 

It stands to reason that we prefer the thought-out parts of the story over the "let's toss it in" parts of the story, right? IF you take a suggestion immediately and throw it in, then you may pass up other possibilities that you may think of after actually pondering the topic.

Only if you assume the intuition plays no role and forget that it is actually "smarter" than the merely linear conscious thought.

 

You might not understand why it makes sense for Takua to be that old, but to the wise, the first reaction should be open-minded curiosity about how that might be, and applying critical thinking not just to finding ways it might not work but also to ways it might work. You won't have a fair range of possibilities to choose from if you reject valid options for superficial reasons with a bias toward negativity or whatever. Ultimately, you can continue to not understand how it works and yet it can be so all the same. There are countless parts of real life that humanity didn't understand why they were that way for most of history and some even now we still don't -- yet they still are that way.

Edited March 16, 2014 by bonesiii

[Katuko]

Only if you assume the intuition plays no role and forget that it is actually "smarter" than the merely linear conscious thought.

 

You might not understand why it makes sense for Takua to be that old, but to the wise, the first reaction should be open-minded curiosity about how that might be, and applying critical thinking not just to finding ways it might not work but also to ways it might work. You won't have a fair range of possibilities to choose from if you reject valid options for superficial reasons with a bias toward negativity or whatever. Ultimately, you can continue to not understand how it works and yet it can be so all the same. There are countless parts of real life that humanity didn't understand why they were that way for most of history and some even now we still don't -- yet they still are that way.

I wholly recognize that age does not equal personality. I also still find this tidbit an unnecessary addition to Takua's story, as it does not add anything to the character and makes no difference after he was mind-wiped. Pointless details are often nice sprinkling in fictional works, but they can also be needless clutter. I've dealt with both during my education, and one thing I've learned is that though one intuition can be right, another can just as easily be wrong. It's opinion and emotion, all of it, no matter what types of story you like, but recognize that: Liking one part of a story never forces anyone to like all parts of a story, and if you don't like it you don't like it.

 

Frankly, bones, I always see you trying to argue against opinions that one position is not necessarily wrong - and that is true - but you seem to disregard pretty much any negative opinion, using words such as "should", "wise" and "understand" in a way that comes off as condescending. Having an opinion of dislike towards the way a story is structured rather than swallowing it blindly does not make one dumb, or imply that one haven't given any thought as to why the dislike is present - giving critique is a very valid form of applying intellect by analyzing a work and commenting on what is good or bad about it.

 

Good writers, they structure a story in a way that appeals to a broad amount of people - or at least to the people who enjoy the genre you are writing in. The fantasy/sci-fi mix that is BIONICLE wouldn't appeal to those who only like realistic settings, for example. The people on this forum already agree that we like BIONICLE as a whole. Many of us, though, are still able to see its faults, and some of those faults near the end were definitely the serials' tendency to incorporate way too many loose plot threads, and furthermore the inclusion of countless random facts and events that most of the fanbase would never even hear about due to not following BS01 slavishly like the truly die-hard fans do.

 

The canonization of things due to random PMs from fans is one thing that can feel annoying to some. I have seen critique of BZP in other places, due to the members here having a direct PM line to Greg, and thus pestering him constantly to canonize stuff. People felt that plot should be left to more than just the whims of some youngsters (no offense) on one fan site. For example: Take a random location on Mata Nui. How many names were re-used as characters only because a single person went "hey, Greg, can you canonize this as a Toa name" and he went "eh, sure"? How many details are most of us still unaware of due to the latest question-asking topic running hundreds of pages long? How many of these details can Greg even keep track of anymore, if he goes to continue the main story online at some point? He's contradicted himself before, he'll likely do it again, and while answering questions is cool canonizing absolutely everything makes for a very messy setting, plot and character biography.

[bonesiii]

Frankly, bones, I always see you trying to argue against opinions that one position is not necessarily wrong - and that is true - but you seem to disregard pretty much any negative opinion, using words such as "should", "wise" and "understand" in a way that comes off as condescending. Having an opinion of dislike towards the way a story is structured rather than swallowing it blindly does not make one dumb

Sigh. Why is it that people always do this to me, yet I do not see you objecting to things like this?

 

I always thought that was just a stupid idea.

This is not condescending?

 

I hope AB did not intend to insult others (and AB, thanks for clarifying, BTW -- yes, forgiven ); that is why I tried to go about it a little more subtly than an outright warning. Point is, a rule against being condescending only has value if it is applied universally, rather than giving free passes to people you happen to agree with tastewise.

 

When I challenge you to think more clearly, the purpose is the opposite of being condescending but rather to help you improve! Basically, do not put personal stock in whether your own ideas are correct or faulty, so that it is easy for you to acknowledge when you had a bad idea without that implying that you personally are put down, and recognize that changing your mind to become more right is better. Make sense? A healthy discussion forum is never helped by the kinds of "shut down discussion" reaction you just gave here. Just as it's okay for him to post his opinion, discussion is helped when others then post their opinions about that, etc. and an exchange of ideas is accomplished. (And it's especially unfair to imply that the discussion can only shut down just after opinions you happen to agree with were posted. )

 

It is also continually puzzling (though really I know why it happens) when people accuse me of only accepting positive views, when you yourself have seen me accept valid criticisms all the time. But I do not treat them in an unwise manner that lets it make me upset, which misses the point of entertainment. Seeing a difference between how I react to them and how you do, does not prove yours is better and mine worse; no, this is something that I do think some of you could learn to improve on, for your own sake. This is all supposed to be for fun (though other good results are great too). (And to be clear, if someone is just "blowing off steam" that's not so bad either, just don't take that stuff so seriously, yeah? )

 

 

As for whether the detail is pointless -- evidently Greg does not agree, or he would not have canonized it. That appears to be the fallacy of an unproveable absolute negative which has similar problems along the lines of what I said in the previous post; just because you don't see the point doesn't mean there is none. For one thing, it simply gives us an idea of how far back in history a popular character exists. Given that this is a story geared toward roleplaying and fan fiction potential and the like, this makes sense.

 

Overall the point is that you can't just stop with single-level critical thinking.

 

If you don't just accept things intuitively and easily as most fans do, and want to get thinking analytically, that's great, but it's a big job, and if you want to do it right, you have to move on to then apply critical thinking to the first criticisms. And so on and so forth. The great thing about the intuition is that it's already doing all that stuff for you, just using parallel processing and doing it in the subconscious realm rather than the slow, linear conscious.

 

Also, keep in mind that just as intuition can be wrong, so can conscious thought -- in fact the conscious (not to be confused with conscience) tends to be wrong more often. The problems in both cases are the same; use of unsound logic (whether conscious or subconscious). And insensitivity toward others' different preferences can be a major problem too.

[Katuko]

Sigh. Why is it that people always do this to me, yet I do not see you objecting to things like this?

 

I always thought that was just a stupid idea.

This is not condescending?

 

It is an opinion much like any other, and it is somewhat condescending, but calling an idea stupid does not call the person stupid. What I object to is not the negative aspect, so much as what feels like a comment about the other person's wisdom. Having an idea hacked apart is normal for writers, I've come to expect that. I am very much used to strong words being tossed around in a writer's environment to no ill effect. Hacking on the rushed serials also does not preclude liking Greg for the much more well-written books, as I've mentioned. Scathing critique of a work can be done while still keeping the author in the clear, so long as the work is not bad for the sole reason that the author is bad (in which case you would attack the author directly, but it's not really relevant here).

 

I usually argue both ways. I am usually the guy who questions another's reason and asks why they think like they do. But among peers - such as on this forum; and with you, bones, I have no ill will towards you - I am also capable of shrugging and recognizing an opinion for an opinion. Like, why don't I like peanut butter? In one way I can say I find it dry and tasteless, but in another way I then just bring up the question of why I find it too dry and others don't. And in that case the answer is just that I'm wired that way. I can't help it.

 

Same way, I can recognize different angles to the "Takua is the oldest?" reasoning, but I still end up with the one that says "yeah, that tidbit is pretty pointless".

 

 

Just as it's okay for him to post his opinion, discussion is helped when others then post their opinions about that, etc. and an exchange of ideas is accomplished. (And it's especially unfair to imply that the discussion can only shut down just after opinions you happen to agree with were posted. )

I know you're almost like a referee on this forum, bones, and that you just want everyone to get along. It just crops up a lot that you apparently try to push down one way of arguing while the way you do it appears rather presumptuous on its own. Disagreeing - mostly by having strong ideas about how the work of fiction is written, on this forum - is a natural part of discussing.

 

I do not want discussions to be "shut down", but I want people to be allowed to have their opinions and argue for them, without being called unwise or even being told that they don't understand (or don't want to understand!) their opponent's point. As said: We can be perfectly capable of recognizing different points of view while still holding a strong opinion towards which one is "best". That does not make a person unwise or incapable of understanding, which is what your post seems to hint at.

 

Especially:

You might not understand why it makes sense for Takua to be that old, but to the wise, the first reaction should be open-minded curiosity about how that might be

What is that, if not calling me unwise for holding an opinion about Takua's age? I already said in a different topic that personalities in the MU seldom change due to their somewhat static way of life, and I recognize that old people can be curious, so my understanding of the potential way age works in the MU is not the main problem. The problem is more that Takua the character is suddenly shoveled into even more of a "special" position than he needs to have, and in some ways it makes the old and wise characters (Arthaka, Tren Krom, etc) somewhat less special by no longer being "the first". My viewpoint is usually not just the faithful fan I was as a kid, it is also the somewhat older writer who recognizes tropes and story structure; and that one wants some good reasons rather than just "it is like this now".

 

It is also continually puzzling (though really I know why it happens) when people accuse me of only accepting positive views, when you yourself have seen me accept valid criticisms all the time. But I do not treat them in an unwise manner that lets it make me upset, which misses the point of entertainment.

Most people who post online, no matter how much their post is full-caps and sprinkled with angry emotes, are more likely to be a dude sipping Cola in his recliner chair. I can get upset, as you put it, by people, but I have never been upset by an actual S&T topic subject. Even my use of italics there is a coldly calculated effect for emphasis in the sentence, it is not actual intense emotion.

 

Seeing a difference between how I react to them and how you do, does not prove yours is better and mine worse; no, this is something that I do think some of you could learn to improve on, for your own sake.

See, there it is again, in that last sentence. "Improve for your own sake", as if we haven't been fine up until now, and as if there is a direct problem with using an opinion with a somewhat strong wording. I usually have no problem with people saying something is "stupid" or similar in an argument, because I recognize that arguments are opinions and if I happen to agree with it I don't need further reasoning. On other occasions, the argument really is utterly stupid, but the person does not need to be unintelligent, merely uneducated on the subject. Missing facts. Asking for further reasoning behind the conclusion is perfectly fine when you don't agree, and I have done that myself on many occasions. But please stop wording your responses in such a way that you appear to belittle the intelligence of the speaker; that is the only problem I have in these situations.

 

You can tear down arguments as much as you like, the issue I have is the way you word it - as if it is unwise, unintelligent, misunderstanding. Negative bile to you, perhaps, but it is bile I have thought about and concluded to be my feelings on the subject. It's fiction, and done for fun, and sometimes accepting that fiction can be both stupid and ridiculous is the best conclusion.

 

 

As for whether the detail is pointless -- evidently Greg does not agree, or he would not have canonized it. That appears to be the fallacy of an unproveable absolute negative which has similar problems along the lines of what I said in the previous post; just because you don't see the point doesn't mean there is none. For one thing, it simply gives us an idea of how far back in history a popular character exists. Given that this is a story geared toward roleplaying and fan fiction potential and the like, this makes sense.

Look at the Transformers wiki - another series that is heavily merchandise-driven, with tons of tiny details nobody cares about and with some truly bizarre plot decisions being made along the way. The fans revel in it on the wiki. Most of the image captions are jokes (such as the dramatic moment of Galvatron appearing being captioned "Bwaaaaah! Kneepad of Dooooom!" in reference to his silly armor design) and the rest of the wiki is often tongue-in-cheek linking to articles such as "Megatron then recruits a whole new set of tiny robots instead of his established elite warriors" being linked to the article "To Sell Toys".

 

I have no problem in tearing up BIONICLE in the same way, and I do hold the opinion that many things we know from the story does not make sense mostly because it was done to sell toys. And in the same vein, over-cluttering the narrative and the background material makes the series very convoluted and somewhat hard to follow. I don't want BIONICLE to go the same way as Transformers and Star Wars Expanded Universe has gone, which is why I usually comment negatively on the more pointless bits.

 

Overall the point is that you can't just stop with single-level critical thinking.

There is multi-level critical thinking at work, bones. As I said above I disagree with Takua being the oldest because it's pointless both from a story point of view and from a character point of view. The story is not affect in the slightest, he is still special as a Toa of Light. The character can't remember any of his own past. Others took explicit steps to ensure no one else knew either.

 

If you don't just accept things intuitively and easily as most fans do, and want to get thinking analytically, that's great, but it's a big job, and if you want to do it right, you have to move on to then apply critical thinking to the first criticisms. And so on and so forth. The great thing about the intuition is that it's already doing all that stuff for you, just using parallel processing and doing it in the subconscious realm rather than the slow, linear conscious.

 

Also, keep in mind that just as intuition can be wrong, so can conscious thought -- in fact the conscious (not to be confused with conscience) tends to be wrong more often. The problems in both cases are the same; use of unsound logic (whether conscious or subconscious). And insensitivity toward others' different preferences can be a major problem too.

Eh, intuition is pretty much a wildcard. People acting on intuition has made fatal errors in their line of work, just as people have made success through intuition. Ditto for logic which happened to be based on the wrong facts. Relying on one or the other is bad, yes. It's rather irrelevant here, though, because both logic and intuition and looking at the fact from different angles still ends in my opinion that canonizing every little bit of fact can be, well, rushed and pointless in an already bloated fiction series.

 

Takua's story is pretty much set, with the important bits being the island and his time as a Toa. We probably have many other gaps to fill in with silly pointless detail, rather than keep piling things into Takua now.

 

 

 

EDIT: I also try not to use smileys too much, I guess that makes me crass. A misplaced smiley can be just as bad as the lack of one, though.

Edited March 17, 2014 by Katuko

[Chro]

 

1. The average age is thousands of years. Takua/ Takanuva is the oldest in existence, and as we can clearly see, he's not even feeling old yet.

Though this is definitely canon, it's really strange to think that Tren Krom, Karzahni, and Artakha are all approximately the same age, if not younger, than Takua. Tren Krom was probably made first, but Karzahni and Artakha could have been made after the first Matoran, since Matoran were the most important and populous race of the MU.

This could relate to the OP asking about Matoran being the "children": while I don't quite think they're children, of course, perhaps they... age slower? Which could explain how Takua was very young and somewhat immature despite being the same age as the wiser and more experienced TK, Karz, etc.

[fishers64]

Takua's age is an irrelevant and pointless detail. Him being the oldest is irrelevant to anything.

Logically, I think the Great Beings would have made a Matoran first when they made the MU, over some specialized being such as Artahka. It's pretty clear that the day-to-day maintenance worker prototype would be made first. If the Matoran didn't work, the Great Spirit robot universe wouldn't work. If the Great Spirit robot universe wouldn't work, there would be no universe for Artahka to work and create in.

After all, when you design something, you start from the ground up. You build the thing, test it to see if it works, fix it if it doesn't, test it again, etc. It makes sense to work from the essentials (in this case, Matoran), and add the fancy stuff (Artahka) later.

But why Takua as opposed to Random Av-Matoran #1? Pointless. However, it's easier to say "Takua" to all the "Who was the first Matoran?" questions, and have the Bs01 people put it up there so the question stops being asked, then it is to say "it was some Av-Matoran" and then get all the questions: "Was it someone we know? Does he have a name? Will he ever get a name?" and on and on and on... .

Then everyone later accuses Greg of taking the easy way out instead of leaving it a mystery, making a choice about some irrelevant item and calling it pointless to do so. But wouldn't not deciding also not have a point? Why not decide? It's irrelevant and pointless...why not?

But since it is irrelevant and pointless, why does arguing about this have a point? If it's pointless, why are we wasting bandwidth arguing about it? (This confuses me.) Does it really matter if Takua or Random Av-Matoran #1 came off the production line first? Isn't that truly irrelevant to the story at hand, seeing that he was memwiped twice and no longer remembers? Why Takua? No reason. Why not Takua? No reason.

 

At least, not that I can see.

* * *
To the rest of the debate (this is an IMO message; I probably shouldn't have this here, but I can't resist...):

1) People have a right to dislike stuff. As one wise person put it: "it is not an [error] to stop liking."

2) Accusing someone of being condescending puts you at the risk of being condescending yourself (How can you be certain that they were, and not being cold?), thus creating a death spiral - stick to logic IMO. Further, a person's condescension or lack thereof does not validate or invalidate any logical points they might be making.

(It is hurtful though - I have to say I was with you Kat, pounding the table and yelling "Yeah!" for a few seconds. But I don't think bones is really trying to be condescending, and I really try to look past that anyway.

Also, funny thing I've found. If you look past the condescension and evaluate things based on logic, after awhile the condescension stops. It works on here and it works in real life. Just a thought.)

 

3)

 

Only if you assume the intuition plays no role and forget that it is actually "smarter" than the merely linear conscious thought.

This topic IMO deserves one massive . I'm confused - I think you might be referring to the idea that intuition helps us understand this story better? I really don't want to take this one too far out of context of the story realm, where it might be true, and into a bunch of other realms where it is most certainly not true...programming, for example, where I've had single sparks of intuitive error add several hours of work to what could have been easy.

 

EDIT: This feels like a "playing moderator" post, so I tried to tone it down a little, but it still comes off wrong. I'm sorry if this comes off that way, as this was not my intent.

Edited March 17, 2014 by fishers64

[Azani]

Matoran are dwarves. They work hard, forge nice things, live underground and look pretty much alike except their choice of mask and colors. Plus, their women look almost like the men.

 

So yeah, dwarves, not children.

This is exactly what they are. We should show this analogy to every single person who ever asks about Matoran in this forum.

[bonesiii]

Katuko, you're really overthinking it. The point is simply that since this is entertainment, it is wise to try to find ways to enjoy it for what it is, even if your tastes happen not to be aligned with it. So if someone appears by how they chose to word something to be missing that and letting it get them actually upset (that's what he said), then challenging them on that in a way that seems geared toward their personality can help them. Apparently it worked for him, and he has already apologized for that, so please stop bringing it up again, okay? I do expect you to respect my authority here and not to try to play armchair moderator. It wasn't directed at you, so you need not worry about it. That said, I'll try to clarify a bit, but we should try to stay on-topic, okay?

 

And yes, if saying that a person lacks wisdom on something (lacks ideas that would help them more) has to be condescending rather than constructive criticism, then calling an idea stupid by definition has to share the same problem, especially since the latter implies mental deficiency while the former just depends on life experiences, etc. But you clearly missed my point; it was simply to try to make sure he wasn't taking it too seriously, and he answered satisfactorily. (Really, my main point was that if somebody is going to insist something is a bad idea, it's perfectly natural to ask them to give reasons why they think that rather than just say it with strong emotion. He gave them and I explained flaws with the reasoning. Instead of complaining about my approach, it would be better if you limited your reply to discussing those reasons etc.)

Especially:

Quote

You might not understand why it makes sense for Takua to be that old, but to the wise, the first reaction should be open-minded curiosity about how that might be

What is that, if not calling me unwise for holding an opinion about Takua's age?

A better reaction here would be to simply ask why I believe that to be so. And I said clearly that it's the idea that is unwise, and that people should dissociate themselves from ideas they have whether bad or good. Re-read the post if you missed it; I'm not gonna repeat. Anyways, it almost sounds like you're having an emotional reaction that is making it harder for you to see that the answer to why I say that is implied right in this quote. You said, correctly, that having a range of possibilities to consider is best for picking the right one (what I call the "imagine all possibilities" principle of truthseeking). So my point was that to have a good population of ideas to consider, top priority (because this is entertainment and achieving positive emotional reactions is the goal ) is to try to find ways to make it work.

 

Point is, don't begin with ways to nitpick problems with it and miss easy-to-find explanations for why it does work. You see the problem if somebody does that? (Basically, no matter what is done, then, somebody would always be looking for problems first.) First make sure you have thought through how it could work. Then, second, think about ways it might not, and then let your mind debate back and forth which makes more sense. That's the best way to figure out which approach really is best, no?

 

And that can affect whether it appeals to you; even if you have a taste that naturally doesn't like it as much as others, understanding why something makes sense (or just some sense even if it still wasn't the best choice) can help minimize the dislike which should be the goal.

 

[Or if you like, the simple reply is, what, then, is calling a decision of Greg's stupid, but calling him stupid? You're applying this standard inconsistently, apparently.]

 

The problem is more that Takua the character is suddenly shoveled into even more of a "special" position than he needs to have

This may be "need fallacy". Like I said when this tangent started, does it really matter? He needs to start living at some point -- why would he need to start after others? Somebody has to go first, no? It makes sense, as we learn this world was built by GBs for a purpose and get flashbacks to before it, that we find out who went first. Who it happens to be is somewhat immaterial. Though it makes sense the oldest might be the one sent to Metru Nui later.

 

Nothing in entertainment is necessarily needed, but it was clearly wanted (by two people at least lol), and I haven't seen a lot of people saying they dislike it since then. And it makes sense, so it's fine to have.

 

Keep in mind too it wasn't, as far as I know, actually in the story anyways, it's more comparable to the countless trivia details we got in other sources like the reference books or other Greg reveals. Many story franchises do that. Whether that's good or bad I'm still unsure how I feel about it, but it's certainly valid.

 

 

Anywho, out of time for more now, sorry.... May edit this post soonish.

 

[Edit: To clarify the above, what I mean by "does it matter" is, does this apparent desire to force certain characters to have a 'quota' of "specialness" -- and not go over the quota -- matter? That's an out-story standard, and if it overrides clear in-story logic, it's probably not wise. I would advise learning not to look at it that way. It's not really good practice for real life, for example. It's better to judge things neutrally, perhaps be aware of when one character is being more unusual than others, but I wouldn't personally have a taste-reaction either way to that. Such things would not be done in-story as contests; a Great Being doesn't make him first in order to make him special. So treating it that way just feels unnatural.]

 

 

It's fiction, and done for fun, and sometimes accepting that fiction can be both stupid and ridiculous is the best conclusion.

Yes, sometimes, but that doesn't prove this is an instance of that. If you see an idea as stupid incorrectly, then that claim shouldn't be accepted blindly. If you think it's worthy of ridicule, remember than anything can be ridiculed, so that really is irrelevant. (And nothing wrong with some lighthearted ridicule in a comedy environment. I've done some of that myself on my blog lol.) But insisting on staying in an upset mode and ignoring valid reasons that the negative conclusion isn't best is really not wise; that's the point.

 

There is multi-level critical thinking at work, bones. As I said above I disagree with Takua being the oldest because it's pointless both from a story point of view and from a character point of view. The story is not affect in the slightest, he is still special as a Toa of Light.

Sure it's affected. Now we know when he started. And we seem to get a clue as to why he happened to be the one put in Metru Nui. That gives insight into somebody's character, even if not his in story-present, though it certainly gives fans a direction to imagine for his early years, character-wise. I found no reason, when I was telling his story, to see this as unhelpful in establishing my version of his character, for example.

 

If anything, I found it worse that I didn't know when others started. When I chose to feature Vakama, for example, I had to do so with a grain of salt (for a canon-fit story; irrelevant for some kinds of fan fiction though) that he might very well be much younger than the era where I first put him. Generally knowing such things is better than not.

 

My main point is, do not assume there wasn't multi-level thinking that went into why it was accepted too.

 

Let's trace this back. First, in 2008, they needed Matoran. They chose Av-Matoran, which makes sense because Takua as Toa of Light was one. They have to have a tribe somewhere (we don't "need" to see it but neither did we need any of the story; it makes sense we would, and was wanted, so it's good). Since all the Matoran in that year for various story reasons would be of that element, it was helpful to have it be a both-gender element.

 

Since others aren't, makes sense to have that be the first element (or the last, but that's a fifty-fifty chance, and generally Bionicle's genre puts early stuff to be revealed later in-story, so first). And it's the Matoran Universe and was constructed (at least in part) by Matoran, so clearly the oldest character should be a Matoran. So, now we've got at least one way to approach the idea that it should be either Takua or one of the 2008 Av-Matoran (or an unnamed character, perhaps one that became a Bohrok, etc.).

 

Makes sense it would be one destined to be a Toa and last all this time (not available to be Bohrok). Of all the Av-Matoran, who do we know for sure was destined to be a Toa?

 

Takua.

 

In fact he was the first Toa of Light. All this stuff would be destined, so it makes perfect sense that he would be the first one. It's not pointless -- you just didn't want to think this through apparently. But Greg would have had these factors and maybe more in mind when he accepted that. He didn't lay them all out clearly for you, but fans at the time were generally aware of them.

 

 

Eh, intuition is pretty much a wildcard.

You're throwing the baby out with the bathwater -- and not throwing out a different baby that's just as much a[n apparent] wildcard -- conscious analysis (if not more so, like I said). What is a wildcard is fallacious thinking, whether conscious or subconscious, and having false premises or missing lines of reasoning that are warranted, etc. The conscious suffers from this just as much as the subconscious -- really, more.

 

Intuition in somebody's mind who doesn't know enough or is falling for fallacies will be a wildcard, but so will conscious thought, and the latter will take longer to even get close to the right answer. (We're talking ideas here more than taste, of course; see my blog entry about two kinds of opinion, if anybody reading this hasn't seen that and wants to know more, under Best Of link in sig.) You can also learn to train your intuition as I have to also feed you up the crucial steps in the logical thinking so your conscious can also understand how it arrived at the conclusion and see why it's sound.

 

If you approach fiction with this approach, and begin with a "bias" toward first making sure you think of ways to make it work, chances are your tastes will be better pleased too, not as many as other people perhaps, but we all have a taste to like things we understand better. (Plus, we can all have a taste to some degree to even enjoy not understanding things as mystery! But that varies.) This is how Bionicle is intended to be taken, so it makes sense to advise fans to try it as top priority. (Generally all fiction is meant this way, of course.)

 

If instead you always start out looking for the negative, then feeling more negative will tend to be the result more often. Make sense? Not that you shouldn't consider the negative, but take it with a salt shaker.

 

 

both logic and intuition

It appears you're operating on a common misconception (although it's somewhat semantic but I find it useful to make how I define the terms clear because there's an important lesson here that some miss), but one I implied the flaw with in the previous posts you apparently missed. The opposite of intuition is not logic. Intuition is subconscious translinear (web-style) thought (logic or illogic), and the opposite is conscious thought (linear, and again, both logic and illogic). Emotion also gets mixed up in both of them.

 

Logic is the study of (or as you used it here, the use of) reliable ways to extrapolate from known truths to other necessary truths. Unreliable versions (illogic; fallacious thinking) lead to unreliable conclusions (often false ones, sometimes true ones by accident).

 

Intuition is subconscious thought that feeds the conclusion alone to the conscious (the conclusion is then experienced as the conscience). It can be logical. Generally it does a better job of it even in the untrained than the conscious does, due to having more processing power. But its downside is that (if you lack training in programming it to feed those to you too) the conscious can't analyze the steps to get there. But this is why critical thinking to find them comes into play, and why it's important not to fail to try to find them. Anywho, longo tello.

 

 

The (understandable) misconception usually is that conscious thought = logic and everything else is 'feelings' (which depending on semantics is a valid way to label it but only if you understand this doesn't make the intuition emotion; Star Wars uses the terms in this way for example which is okay, but tends not to be as clear to many people -- I even used a similar term in this post... see if you can spot it lol). But it is thorough conscious logic that tells us that this is not literally so and risks major errors being made by thinking oneself "smart" while actually thinking less than others, by ignoring a more powerful thought tool we all have; the subconscious analysis abilities called intuition.

 

In fact, the study of logic generally researches thought processes that happen naturally more in the subconscious than conscious. That study can help remove all error if you write out an entire process (or think it through consciously) to spot any fallacies or false premises, and such study occurs mostly in the conscious, but the subject of the study is usually the intuition. :-) Little known fact. :-P

 

(Actually for me as an experienced logician, now I don't need to do most of it directly in the conscious anymore. But to a student, while learning logic, it's in the conscious. It's like learning how to do an acrobatic move, and after practice gaining "muscle memory" of it. Literally like that -- same neurological process.)

 

I'm confused - I think you might be referring to the idea that intuition helps us understand this story better?

I was replying to a claim that Greg hadn't thought it through enough; my point is he may have thought it through more than the complainer, and possibly more in the subconscious than conscious. Of the two, I would trust the guy who knows almost everything about the story to have a better intuitive (thought through) idea than a fan who might have missed some things, etc.

Edited March 17, 2014 by bonesiii

[Katuko]

Katuko, you're really overthinking it.

play armchair moderator.

it almost sounds like you're having an emotional reaction that is making it harder for you to see that the answer

Point is, don't begin with ways to nitpick problems with it and miss easy-to-find explanations for why it does work.

But insisting on staying in an upset mode and ignoring valid reasons that the negative conclusion isn't best is really not wise; that's the point.

You can also learn to train your intuition as I have to also feed you up the crucial steps in the logical thinking so your conscious can also understand how it arrived at the conclusion and see why it's sound.

You are still doing it; just a tip.

 

I am not trying to be a moderator here, what would that even accomplish? I am talking to a moderator, essentially, trying to tell you that your way of arguing usually appears to me a bit offensive, due to the way you tell us to wisen up and see things from all angles etc. when we are already trying to doing that - just slap your facts on the table and let us see what you actually think, then, if you have information that could change our opinion. Little point in saying we have failed to consider something and then not providing that point to consider.

 

Just to mention it: I have read parts of your blog, both "We are all smart", "Taste Reset Bars Excerise" and a few other entries. I like them. I have already gone through the same thing with BIONICLE many times, in fact: When the Toa transformed into forms I found "ugly", when Metru Nui was introduced and changed the colors of sets, when the Visorak crawled out and mutated everything, etc. I always found the new things facinating and cool, even right into Bara Magna - a reboot I did not want. But all these changes that I adapt to still have to be compared to what came before, and there are still aspects of them I don't like. Can't change the fundamental taste, no matter ow much I try to look at it from a "neutral" point of view.

 

For example: I do not like Pohatu Nuva's design. I think he looks like a deformed troll, and his new claws only get in the way of his "running legs" set design. I found his movie design much better. It is a matter of taste, but it is not invalid and it can not always be changed. No matter how much I want to like Pohatu's new design (he's always been one of my favorite Toa), I find his new mask utterly "bleh". I still think Pohatu is cool, and I liked it when he used his claws to pin Turahk to a wall. But in set form, and in general application of his new tools, I find him a bit limited and ugly still. I just can't get to like his Nuva-form design elements.

 

Now that I have mentioned that I do agree with you a lot, bones! (<3): Your blog posts also illuminate the fact that you are aware that some people can act arrogant because of their percieved intellect, and I believe that as smart as we are we still (both of us) fall into the habit of perhaps placing ourselves as smarter and better than the other. At least, that is what we do when we argue the way we do.

 

I believe you are a blue-eyed idealist who tries to force his ways of discussing, a looming precense in the S&T forum who seems to deconstruct any negative opinion just because it is negative... and then throw in a few remarks - that are easy to read as condenceding - about how the person needs to see things from a different angle.

 

You believe I am an overly negative person who clings to opinions based on overly-critical personal taste, and who uses a narrow mindset to protest against your superior reason/logic/intuition/fact-checking/writing skill/I dunno anymore. The quotes above shows your way of assuming; the quotes you pick from my posts shows my way of assuming. I will agree to disagree as far as the actual on-topic discussion goes, but I as mentioned I do get peeved not from arguments themselves, but from your apparent way of placing remarks about others.

 

You're throwing the baby out with the bathwater -- and not throwing out a different baby that's just as much a wildcard -- conscious analysis (if not more so, like I said). What is a wildcard is fallacious thinking, whether conscious or subconscious.

I tried to say that any single way of thinking can be be correct or fallacious, in different situations.

 

In this case you might for instance be unaware of the fact that only one of the babies is a demon-spawn, and that throwing it out with the bathwater while keeping the other could really be the best solution. Who knows? The obvious solution is not always the best solution. In this case we have no babies, though, so sadly we cannot conclude our argument by just tossing them and seeing which goes *thud* and which turns into a bat-winged monstrosity.

 

To allude to your blog post again: Positive thinking does not solve everything. Negative feedback helps shape what becomes positive feedback in the future. One should never purge every negative emotion; it leads to what one might call apathetic bliss (where you gobble up anything a writer throws at you as a dog would eat table scraps), and a failure to recognize what might be better off improved. You should never give in to negative reactions and start slamming your fist into the keyboard, but rather use them to fuel your creative spirit and... eh, writing 5 pages for a forum reply so that you can prove your superiority to a forum-goer you don't really know. Kinda hypocritical of me, I know. But I am not slamming keys or actually feeling much at all, I am just excited by writing so many words.

 

Point is, I think we need a bit of negative to help us create the better positive.

 

 

Let's trace this back. First, in 2008, they needed Matoran. They chose Av-Matoran, which makes sense because Takua as Toa of Light was one. They have to have a tribe somewhere (we don't "need" to see it but neither did we need any of the story; it makes sense we would, and was wanted, so it's good). Since all the Matoran in that year for various story reasons would be of that element, it was helpful to have it be a both-gender element.

 

Since others aren't, makes sense to have that be the first element (or the last, but that's a fifty-fifty chance, and generally Bionicle's genre puts early stuff to be revealed later in-story, so first). And it's the Matoran Universe and was constructed (at least in part) by Matoran, so clearly the oldest character should be a Matoran. So, now we've got at least one way to approach the idea that it should be either Takua or one of the 2008 Av-Matoran (or an unnamed character, perhaps one that became a Bohrok, etc.).

 

Makes sense it would be one destined to be a Toa and last all this time (not available to be Bohrok). Of all the Av-Matoran, who do we know for sure was destined to be a Toa?

 

Takua.

 

In fact he was the first Toa of Light. All this stuff would be destined, so it makes perfect sense that he would be the first one. It's not pointless -- you just didn't want to think this through apparently. But Greg would have had these factors and maybe more in mind when he accepted that. He didn't lay them all out clearly for you, but fans at the time were generally aware of them.

I agree, for the most part. See, there you are starting to use my line of thinking. "In 2008, they needed Matoran". This is analyzing the situation from a writer's point of view. I agree that from a writer's point of view, sticking the main characters into everything makes some sense. They are already special, why not make them more special?

 

And yet, justifying it with the in-character reasoning of "he's oldest, let's use him as the Toa" does not necessarily ring true to all ears; at least not mine.

 

I'd find a better argument to be that Takua is simply a main character who thus gets special treatment when it comes to applying trivia - and he was the main character of MNOG, the first touch point for many fans of the series. In that way, he is the "oldest" character by virtue of being the first you ever encounter on the island. More meta-knowledge, sure, but I believe that out-of-story information is more important here.

 

Though it makes sense the oldest might be the one sent to Metru Nui later.

Yes, it does, and I did consider this angle after reading Takua/Takanuva's story section on BS01 yet again, back when it was revealed. But I find that it also makes sense to have one of the Av-Matoran that turned into Bohrok be the oldest, since they'd need a test run for that as well, and sacrificing an older model for a test run is somewhat better than giving the older one with a vital task. Making the oldest Matoran the super-destined one is actually somewhat bad, for unless the Matoran species was 100% finished in design at this point there may still be changes needed or messed up systems to adjust.

 

But my main point, too, is more about all the "throw it in" facts this story gets than it is about Takua being the oldest per se. As we are pretty much all agreeing upon, the tidbit is almost pointless anyhow. I don't like the way stories usually do this, when the story has a hundred named side characters that could serve to be more than they are now, compared to main characters who get all the glory anyways.

 

I would advise learning not to look at it that way. It's not really good practice for real life, for example. It's better to judge things neutrally, perhaps be aware of when one character is being more unusual than others, but I wouldn't personally have a taste-reaction either way to that. Such things would not be done in-story as contests; a Great Being doesn't make him first in order to make him special. So treating it that way just feels unnatural.

But if he wasn't made special because he was first, then where does that place your argument just above, that it makes sense he's the Toa of Light and on Metru Nui because he was first and oldest?

 

I usually judge things independently - and as said I am often one of the more open ones in my circles - but considering that BIONICLE has been a merchandise-driven story for most of its run it can be pretty obvious at times that set character = story trivia magnet. Nothing wrong with this, I agree with you there, but to go off the Bohrok mention above the first Matoran created is also just as likely to have been dismantled for research at some point, or having been killed during the Cataclysm, or having failed to be relocated from Karda Nui. Tanma turned into a Toa of Light too in an alternate universe; evidently it does not need to be Takua that is the main focus any more than another established character.

 

None of our opinions are best or worst, but recognize that the existence of one line of reasoning (First Matoran --> Special Toa --> Special destiny) is not necessarily trumping another (First Matoran --> Test platform --> Bohrok transformation).

 

Judging stories from the writer's point of view as well as the characters' is frankly necessary to explain many aspects of merchandise-driven storylines, precisely because real life issues (set sales and fandom reaction) crops up in the narrative as convoluted plots. This little story fact may not quite qualify for that moniker, but disregarding the importance of the audience recognizing what you are doing and acting on it would not be good for a series like BIONICLE. Many fans have voiced strong opinions one way or other about the story but the most thought-out ones have been mostly agreed upon as good (such as Matoro's sacrifice). The less thought-out ones (the plots forced by sets, the later serials and arguably certain aspects of the movies) have gotten more critique, so we see a pattern.

 

To go off on a tangent; you know that typical movie scene we once discussed, where the hero is defeated and the villain spends 5 minutes preparing to kill them? I believe we both agreed back then that it was a bad way to frame a scene, but why? It worked the first time it was done that way in cinema. It had tension. But now, it has been overused. It is an instantly recognizable plot element that is only surprising when it is subverted.

 

Analyzing a movie filled with tropes, cliches and well-know genre elements will pretty much force us to use the knowledge we already have in order to judge that movie, because it is in our head and will tell us "we've seen this before". The same way, BIONICLE is to me a work that I - intuitively, if you will - read with my writing half as well as my reader half and thus judge based on what I think of given story elements I have heard/not heard before.

 

And to build further on Transformers: Is there any reason for Megatron to go off an grab random tiny bots from space instead of using his elite warriors to invade? No. But he does it anyways, because they are the next line of toys. Similarly, is there a definite reason why Takua must be the first Matoran? No, not really. It could easily be Tanma or maybe Radiak, since he was a hero among Av-Matoran. But Takua is now the oldest, and I figure the reasoning is primarily because he's an already-special main character who's got a lot of spotlight.

 

 

If anything, I found it worse that I didn't know when others started. When I chose to feature Vakama, for example, I had to do so with a grain of salt (for a canon-fit story; irrelevant for some kinds of fan fiction though) that he might very well be much younger than the era where I first put him. Generally knowing such things is better than not.

You know how Legolas shows up in The Hobbit trilogy despite never appearing in the original book? Half the fans like seeing him again, the other half dislike that the story of the book was broken. Choosing when and where is up to the writer, of course, but starting their story "prematurely" or changing it midways can cause some issues with those who's seen the "official" source version.

 

One could just not mention Vakama's age at all, for it does not matter when he is already thousands of years old and with age disconnected from his state of being. It would be a trivial piece of info that as one German film director told me during a workshop "the audience does not care for such things. If it is a small detail, it is useless, and should only be used as the faintest of scene filling. If it is big, they will think about its significance and then be either distratced or disappointed if it fails to show up. We are making movies and stories, not a real biography."

 

Of course, his opinions on the matter are extreme in some ways, but if you're already writing a full retelling of the story I'd advise you to use mostly the bazillion facts we do know, rather than try to establish new backstories for characters who never had or needed one. The plot of 2004/2005 is Vakama's backstory in BIONICLE. It's how he became important, compared to a few thousand years before, when he was a guy no audience member could really care about.

 

I was replying to a claim that Greg hadn't thought it through enough; my point is he may have thought it through more than the complainer, and possibly more in the subconscious than conscious. Of the two, I would trust the guy who knows almost everything about the story to have a better intuitive (thought through) idea than a fan who might have missed some things, etc.

That is my very reasoning for not going "sure, why not" on every fan-given idea that rolls up in a PM, because fans do not always have the full view of everything, and it can easily cause contradictions and a cluttered narrative along with making other fans (such as me) grumble a bit. There has been confusion in the past, and many times in recent times Greg answered questions with "I don't remember, I'd have to go check".

 

If you approach fiction with this approach, and begin with a "bias" toward first making sure you think of ways to make it work, chances are your tastes will be better pleased too, not as many as other people perhaps, but we all have a taste to like things we understand better.

I believe that is why I did not particularly enjoy the reveal that Takua was the first - because despite the reasons that may lead to it working in one way, I find that it could just as well have gone a different way.

 

You may have noticed I even dragged in Bohrok transformation up there, another story element I would honestly just scrap if it was up to me, but that I still accept and use as part of story discussions. Again: Disliking a story element does not mean I haven't thought about why I dislike it and how it makes sense. I just don't like the conclusion of why it makes sense.

 

 

If I have made any spelling errrs above, I apologize. I started derping on which paragraph I was even on after a while. And to restate: No hard feelings, bones. No ill will towards you or anyone as a person. Your overly positive nature just irks my inner writer into providing more reasons for critique.

 

Now, off to play Borderlands 2 and completely forget I wrote this or even disagreed with someone until the inevitable reply ticks into my inbox sometime tomorrow. :3

[bonesiii]

I'm only going to reply to four major weaknesses (to the "how to do discussion" etc. stuff) in your latest post because it is largely off-topic.

 

You are still doing it; just a tip.

Yes I am -- I'm telling you that you appeared to have a bad idea or approach. It's constructive criticism; part of that does include being honest that something is bad. But notice I originally didn't even go there with some of it; I only described what was "wise" at one point, and you took even that as condescending (implying the wrong alternative is unwise... which it... is...).

 

There's a danger here of using such complaints as a cheat to distract from valid reasons an idea was bad.

 

You are coming across that way; look at the massive multi-quotes of "emotionally negative sounding" things you put at the start of your post. It definitely comes across as wanting merely to focus on superficial emotions instead of logic. If someone has a bad idea, it's good for someone to say something like "that's a bad idea, and here's why." By no means is "you insulted me by insinuating I form bad ideas because I'm bad!" a fair response; it looks like a way to distract the discussion from the reasons the idea was bad and emotionally imply it's okay for a bad idea to remain in order to avoid any risk at all of those calling it out as bad looking like they may be insulting.

 

Basically, we don't have to walk on eggshells. I just wanted to make sure AB wasn't taking his negativity too seriously, and he clarified that he wasn't (and focus on reasons... which he gave ). That's all that really needed said on that. (For his sake, apparently... but you seem to have needed more said, so I'm trying to help you too now. ) After that, focus on the reasons and if they really make sense or not. (I'm saying that's better advice, for future discussions. For one thing, it makes posts WAY shorter lol.)

 

I believe you are a blue-eyed idealist

Wrong -- I'm a "take opportunities to help improvement"-ist. I think we all probably are here. Don't you? Why create strawmen descriptions of others that they aren't?

 

Positive thinking does not solve everything.

This is perfectly true, and irrelevant; I made it clear (at the very start for example of my previous post) why in this case positive thinking should be a higher priority.

 

Of course, depends on what you mean by "positive". Trying to remain wallowing in negative emotions is not necessarily ever a good idea. It's more about making sure you have the right way to minimize them -- to avoid just brushing real problems under the rug to get false positivism, and at the same time, not demanding a story perpetually get pulled this way and that in a never-ending tug of war between opposing fan preferences in an attempt to make everybody perfectly happy (which is impossible).

 

Point is, I think we need a bit of negative to help us create the better positive.

And you are failing to be consistent with this when you continually attack my own "bits of negative." How can you not see the inconsistency? (Admittedly I only skimmed; short on time, I did catch you said something like this. But point is, why not just admit "okay, I see how what I said was inconsistent" and move on?)

 

Now, I've said enough on this, and I'm going to ignore the other parts of your post that continue along this path. If you want more of my response on it, please take it to a PM. Okay? (I also don't have time for random huge philosophical discussions this week. Just calm down and re-read what I said already without being paranoid about it and you'll probably see what I meant just fine on your own.)

 

On-topic:

 

I agree, for the most part. See, there you are starting to use my line of thinking. "In 2008, they needed Matoran". This is analyzing the situation from a writer's point of view. I agree that from a writer's point of view, sticking the main characters into everything makes some sense. They are already special, why not make them more special?

My point is that we all have to take into account that due to the set-based needs of the story (and just "you have to have a story if you continue the story") perspective, that is a good root to build from that you were apparently missing. That doesn't mean that the things extrapolated from there need to (either pro or con) be judged by out of story factors (if this is what you were implying). If that makes any sense.

 

And yet, justifying it with the in-character reasoning of "he's oldest, let's use him as the Toa" does not necessarily ring true to all ears; at least not mine.

I'd find a better argument to be that Takua is simply a main character who thus gets special treatment when it comes to applying trivia - and he was the main character of MNOG, the first touch point for many fans of the series. In that way, he is the "oldest" character by virtue of being the first you ever encounter on the island. More meta-knowledge, sure, but I believe that out-of-story information is more important here.

Hm... The first part you put in quote marks, do you mean as the GBs' thinking? (To describe what you thought I meant? I'll clarify just in case in a moment, though.) Or the story team / Greg's thinking? If the latter, it would be inverted; he's the Toa, let's use him as the oldest. I ask because the second paragraph treats it clearly as authorial thinking rather than the Great Beings. Wanna make sure I'm understanding you right.

 

In-story, what I had in mind was that the Great Beings would have already had the Matoran --> Toa --> Turaga system planned when they made the first Matoran, so it's logical that the first one made would be destined. It's also logical that this would be someone they wanted as a contingency (clearly implied in basic principle by "Builder") to be Toa-ized if something bad happened (too much "darkness"). Since they started with Av, that makes sense. Later, Mata Nui or the Order might have been aware of this as their motivation for putting that one in Metru Nui, or at least they may have just thought it fitting to put the oldest one there (had to pick someone, after all).

 

I did consider this angle after reading Takua/Takanuva's story section on BS01 yet again, back when it was revealed. But I find that it also makes sense to have one of the Av-Matoran that turned into Bohrok be the oldest, since they'd need a test run for that as well, and sacrificing an older model for a test run is somewhat better than giving the older one with a vital task.

Very plausible.

 

Making the oldest Matoran the super-destined one is actually somewhat bad, for unless the Matoran species was 100% finished in design at this point there may still be changes needed or messed up systems to adjust.

Except that the transformation to Toa could get rid of any minor flaws they hadn't noticed, just as much as to Bohrok. But this could admittedly play a role for ensuring he stayed alive all that time as a Matoran (but this gets into the question of adaptive destiny; if he died, destiny could just replace that role with another destined Av-Matoran). Of course, if it was a serious mental flaw, it would probably be noticed right away and fixed or replaced, and if physical, he could rebuild himself to handle it.

 

But my main point, too, is more about all the "throw it in" facts this story gets

Unless you're going to say Greg should entirely refuse to throw in bonus factoids at all, though, where do you draw the line? The line you and AB seemed to choose here was "we personally don't like this one and/or don't understand it and feel we need to understand it." But there are countless other things he's thrown in that the same people don't necessarily complain about, so taste can't be the dividing line (since it's subjective anyways).

 

I personally prefer to entirely leave off (well, almost ) outside factoids in my own style, but then what I write has a different purpose from the canon Bionicle story that has as one of its goals worldbuilding on the side. As long as it's clearly part of Bionicle's intentional rules that bonus worldbuilding is valid, specific examples of it (usually) are generally okay.

 

I do think Greg has made mistakes in how he goes about some of his answers, but by and large it has been beneficial to the fan community. Certainly S&T has thrived on that food. So has our fanfic community. And keep in mind that the "randomly saying yes to fan suggestions" thing was something he, too, later realized was problematic and the Story Squad was, for a while, there to help solve it. We're disbanded now due to things that happened with Greg later, but even since then he did at least once rely on a poll too (with opportunities to point out flaws in the idea, etc.) with the remaining Matoran elemental traits. Since then most of his answers have come only from him, and he's even tended to be more hesitant to call something final at first, giving people chances to point out flaws in the LEGO.com topic etc.

 

So... to an extent, dead horse.

 

But still, it's important to keep in mind that the actual storyline arc itself is not the only goal in Bionicle; giving the fans the worldbuilding clarity they want is another goal. So if out-story motives are valid, "I want Takua to be oldest!!11!1" may actually be a better thing to appeal to than "I want Takua not to become too special", as silly as it might sound to older fans.

 

As we are pretty much all agreeing upon, the tidbit is almost pointless anyhow.

I'm not convinced of that. I think knowing when in relation to the skeleton framework of history we were already given major characters came into being is a single point that has much more weight than most of the rest of these factors. That alone makes it worth it. Doesn't mean he had to be the oldest, but there's already many reasons that he probably would be.

 

At the very least, he would probably have been one of the nearly oldest. So changing this wouldn't really make much of an impact on the story, if the change remains consistent with the facts I mentioned like that Av-Matoran came first, etc. (Of course, he could have come as late as just before the Time Slip, but that seems really unlikely.)

 

But if he wasn't made special because he was first

That's not what I said. The Great Beings would not make the first Matoran with the intent of "this guy will be special later because of his destiny, and we want to maximize his specialness, so we'll make him first."

 

It makes him special (though in a fairly trivial way that frankly you as a fan may be putting much more importance on than in-story would be the case, per se), but as a side effect, not the main goal. That was my point.

 

It's more likely that they already had the Matoran to Toa idea in mind and just made one of those first because that was fresh on their minds, and later added to it with non-destined Matoran just to boost the worker population total. They would probably think of destined Matoran as "normal" at first and later realize there was no need to have everybody able to become Toa. Especially when they started to make the Bohrok; both transformed into a different AI, but Matoran to Toa was more basic to the species so makes sense it would come first. Actually, Matoran who don't transform at all would be a third type that probably came last (in other elements).

 

 

To go off on a tangent; you know that typical movie scene we once discussed, where the hero is defeated and the villain spends 5 minutes preparing to kill them? I believe we both agreed back then that it was a bad way to frame a scene, but why?

Well, to be clear, there are times I have felt it makes sense. The basic justification which is probably how the trope started made sense -- the villain wants the hero to know why he's about to die, or the villain wants to make sure the hero suffers etc. -- in other words, a single branch of explanations which can be summed up as "the villain has emotional needs that he has to satisfy before killing the hero". I can like it when it does seem to fit that (of course, taste can interfere with how it comes across to each person... anywho). What I prefer is to find ways to avoid it like the plague because it has in many cases turned simply into a cheat to keep the hero alive longer than is plausible.

 

*reads on to find out why this was brought up*

 

*doesn't see it...*

 

*hopes his clarification might help anyways?*

 

You know how Legolas shows up in The Hobbit trilogy despite never appearing in the original book? Half the fans like seeing him again, the other half dislike that the story of the book was broken.

I'm not sure why we're on these tangents, but I'll bite. I highly doubt a full half had any problems with Legolas being in the Hobbit. He almost certainly would have been there. Tolkien just hadn't invented him yet at the time. I'm sure most people realize that, even if it might not seem that way due to Vocal Complainer Effect.

 

One could just not mention Vakama's age at all, for it does not matter when he is already thousands of years old and with age disconnected from his state of being. It would be a trivial piece of info that as one German film director told me during a workshop "the audience does not care for such things. If it is a small detail, it is useless, and should only be used as the faintest of scene filling. If it is big, they will think about its significance and then be either distratced or disappointed if it fails to show up. We are making movies and stories, not a real biography."

This only applies to what actually makes it into the stories themselves, not to bonus "reference" material or extras thrown out by the author to those who asked (and therefore cared). (Of course, if I cared that much I could have tried to ask on LEGO.com but nah. ) As long as we all accept the premise that it's okay for Greg to answer questions, and most people generally have for ten+ years, then anything fans wonder about is fair game.

 

That doesn't speak to what the specific answer should or should not be, though.

 

Vakama's backstory in BIONICLE. It's how he became important, compared to a few thousand years before, when he was a guy no audience member could really care about.

?? Why should not we care about him in hypothetical/fanfic stories taking place before 2004 plot? Seems kinda non sequitur IMO.

 

 

Quote

I was replying to a claim that Greg hadn't thought it through enough; my point is he may have thought it through more than the complainer, and possibly more in the subconscious than conscious. Of the two, I would trust the guy who knows almost everything about the story to have a better intuitive (thought through) idea than a fan who might have missed some things, etc.

That is my very reasoning for not going "sure, why not" on every fan-given idea that rolls up in a PM, because fans do not always have the full view of everything, and it can easily cause contradictions and a cluttered narrative along with making other fans (such as me) grumble a bit. There has been confusion in the past, and many times in recent times Greg answered questions with "I don't remember, I'd have to go check".

Well, let me be clear -- the way Greg words things in his answers often is one of the things I disagree with about his approach. I wouldn't phrase it that way. But my point still stands -- since he is confirming it, the trust in the guy who knows more of the story than any fan is still well-placed. The questioner doesn't necessarily know, but that's why he asks.

 

Of course, I know what Greg means by it; I can "translate" his casual wording into more philosphically, logically accurate ways of wording it. Actually, I only disagree in the sense of not being how I would put it, even -- for an answer given to a young kid, Greg's style is probably best. That's why he gets paid to do this stuff and I don't. Anyways, my point is, don't get distracted by his tone which can give the impression he doesn't know what he's talking about, when really he likely does.

 

Yes, he forgets stuff all the time. But I do for even my own stories; I get that. Even so he is more reliable most of the time. Especially because he can have things in mind for directions he might actually take the story in light of these factoids (in ways that then would clearly be relevant), when that isn't an option for us. Actually, sometimes it is with canonizing story contests lol! (Which reminds me of my lateness on Memoirs....... >_>)

 

To paraphrase the old saying, "He has forgotten more than we'll ever know."

 

You may have noticed I even dragged in Bohrok transformation up there, another story element I would honestly just scrap if it was up to me

Noted.

 

(Personally I'm still trying to figure out how I feel about the Av-to-Bohrok thing. I liked the original reveal because it confirmed that Nuparu theory. It is creepy... but then it might make sense the GBs would do it since they didn't think they were making fully sapient beings... But then, they did intend partial sapience, Greg said... so it's "partial murder"? But then, these are the guys that made Baterra. So at least it's consistent with their history. Anyways, I think it was kind of supposed to be creepy and questionable anyways.)

Edited March 17, 2014 by bonesiii

[Katuko]

 

Point is, I think we need a bit of negative to help us create the better positive.

And you are failing to be consistent with this when you continually attack my own "bits of negative." How can you not see the inconsistency? (Admittedly I only skimmed; short on time, I did catch you said something like this. But point is, why not just admit "okay, I see how what I said was inconsistent" and move on?)

 

Well, the inconsistency mostly comes from not being opposed to negativism so much as a specific negativism, I'd say. In this case, something in your post triggered it. In my line of work problems are usually solved individually, by picking apart a situation. No matter how much we speak about seeing the whole and applying more than one type of argument, I am a person mostly wired to do work in small/medium-sized packages. You might find me praising one part of your post while tearing another through a meat grinder; I'm sorry if that makes me seem internally inconsistent.

 

It's just that when I switch between agreeing and disagreeing with you in different parts of a post, it gets complex. Furthermore, the post editor shows 10 lines at a time and little more.

 

In any case, I'll just drop it. I shouldn't spend too much time on this either, just as I should not waste any more of your time on an argument when I suppose we'd both be jolly good friends were we to actually meet. We think in a lot of the same ways, it seems.

 

Hm... The first part you put in quote marks, do you mean as the GBs' thinking? (To describe what you thought I meant? I'll clarify just in case in a moment, though.) Or the story team / Greg's thinking? If the latter, it would be inverted; he's the Toa, let's use him as the oldest. I ask because the second paragraph treats it clearly as authorial thinking rather than the Great Beings. Wanna make sure I'm understanding you right.

I should have been more clear on that, yes. I meant the first quotation marks to be a supposed GB's thinking, and the rest to be the story team's thinking.

 

In-story, what I had in mind was that the Great Beings would have already had the Matoran --> Toa --> Turaga system planned when they made the first Matoran, so it's logical that the first one made would be destined. It's also logical that this would be someone they wanted as a contingency (clearly implied in basic principle by "Builder") to be Toa-ized if something bad happened (too much "darkness").

I agree, it makes sense. From my own point of view, though, if I were there to test the Toa system I would insist on actually pulling the switch on the Matoran and transform him right away. At the very least, some test runs would have to be done. For that reason I could almost imagine Helryx to have been the first Matoran-turned-Toa, were it not for the alternate (confirmed) explanation that she was created directly as the first Toa. Then we'd have a GB go "we need to turn this short guy into this tall version" and then we'd have them start stuffing transformative functions into a Matoran shell.

 

Wording it as "Takua is the first (surviving) Matoran created with Toa energy in him" rings better to me than just "Takua is the first Matoran - ever" for this reason. Testing the Toa transformation system should have entailed at least one test run to be declared a success, I imagine.

 

Except that the transformation to Toa could get rid of any minor flaws they hadn't noticed, just as much as to Bohrok.

Almost - turning into a Bohrok would leave just a robotic shell, not a still-living being who could potentially malfunction. And if they are not flicking the Toa switch right away, it's an uncertainty walking around. That said, they likely have complex instruments for predicting the results of the transformation (though nothing beats field testing).

 

 

 

But my main point, too, is more about all the "throw it in" facts this story gets

Unless you're going to say Greg should entirely refuse to throw in bonus factoids at all, though, where do you draw the line? The line you and AB seemed to choose here was "we personally don't like this one and/or don't understand it and feel we need to understand it." But there are countless other things he's thrown in that the same people don't necessarily complain about, so taste can't be the dividing line (since it's subjective anyways).

 

You could say although I both like and dislike many parts of BIONICLE, I prefer them to come straight from official sources. I kinda wish Greg hadn't been alone in answering questions, thought that is mostly for the sake of variety and panel approval when it comes to ideas.

 

I do think Greg has made mistakes in how he goes about some of his answers, but by and large it has been beneficial to the fan community.

I fully agree.

 

At the very least, he would probably have been one of the nearly oldest. So changing this wouldn't really make much of an impact on the story, if the change remains consistent with the facts I mentioned like that Av-Matoran came first, etc. (Of course, he could have come as late as just before the Time Slip, but that seems really unlikely.)

"No one remembers the second place."

 

That's not what I said. The Great Beings would not make the first Matoran with the intent of "this guy will be special later because of his destiny, and we want to maximize his specialness, so we'll make him first."

 

It makes him special (though in a fairly trivial way that frankly you as a fan may be putting much more importance on than in-story would be the case, per se), but as a side effect, not the main goal. That was my point.

From the in-character point of view, I did mean the same as you, though I probably worded myself badly again. It does make sense to stick more and more features into the first (prototype?) you had, until you had tested all you had wanted to test.

 

It's more likely that they already had the Matoran to Toa idea in mind and just made one of those first because that was fresh on their minds, and later added to it with non-destined Matoran just to boost the worker population total. They would probably think of destined Matoran as "normal" at first and later realize there was no need to have everybody able to become Toa. Especially when they started to make the Bohrok; both transformed into a different AI, but Matoran to Toa was more basic to the species so makes sense it would come first. Actually, Matoran who don't transform at all would be a third type that probably came last (in other elements).

I'd see it sort of like this: You make the Matoran --> Toa feature first, but then you leave it out of any model that does not explicitly need it. The Matoran and Toa-destined Matoran would thus be made first, with Bohrok the third. Would be a bit funny if Bohrok-destined Av-Matoran were the "scraps" that were better off as pure robots rather than biomechs.

 

*reads on to find out why this was brought up*

I brought it up as an example of a recognizable element which the audience will pick up on and react to it - and in that way analyzing the story from the writer's point of view is very important, because you can spot when someone is doing it right (by putting their own spin on it or working it into the characterization of the villain, perhaps his hesitance to actually kill), and when someone is trying to milk a cliche by having villain wait for no reason.

 

I'm not sure why we're on these tangents, but I'll bite. I highly doubt a full half had any problems with Legolas being in the Hobbit. He almost certainly would have been there. Tolkien just hadn't invented him yet at the time. I'm sure most people realize that, even if it might not seem that way due to Vocal Complainer Effect.

Vocal Praise Effect has been a thing as well, though admittedly on fewer occasions.

 

This only applies to what actually makes it into the stories themselves, not to bonus "reference" material or extras thrown out by the author to those who asked (and therefore cared). (Of course, if I cared that much I could have tried to ask on LEGO.com but nah. ) As long as we all accept the premise that it's okay for Greg to answer questions, and most people generally have for ten+ years, then anything fans wonder about is fair game.

Well, let me be clear -- the way Greg words things in his answers often is one of the things I disagree with about his approach. I wouldn't phrase it that way. But my point still stands -- since he is confirming it, the trust in the guy who knows more of the story than any fan is still well-placed. The questioner doesn't necessarily know, but that's why he asks.

True. Often the questions are asked in a leading way though, by including a suggestion right off the bat. Perhaps that is what I have disliked the most without really picking up on it.

 

?? Why should not we care about him in hypothetical/fanfic stories taking place before 2004 plot? Seems kinda non sequitur IMO.

I meant more from a main story point of view -- including more details about Vakama's Matoran life would not really add anything to him that we don't already know. Fanfics are free to do whatever they want, even change his character entirely if it makes for a good read.

 

Of course, I know what Greg means by it; I can "translate" his casual wording into more philosphically, logically accurate ways of wording it. Actually, I only disagree in the sense of not being how I would put it, even -- for an answer given to a young kid, Greg's style is probably best.

I have found myself rewording some of his responses in my head. He can be kinda... blunt? At the same time, I have defended that in a previous topic, since I know Greg has hundreds of questions to answer and can't possibly devote half a page to each.

 

(Personally I'm still trying to figure out how I feel about the Av-to-Bohrok thing. I liked the original reveal because it confirmed that Nuparu theory. It is creepy... but then it might make sense the GBs would do it since they didn't think they were making fully sapient beings... But then, they did intend partial sapience, Greg said... so it's "partial murder"? But then, these are the guys that made Baterra. So at least it's consistent with their history. Anyways, I think it was kind of supposed to be creepy and questionable anyways.)

Me and Silverglass (I believe) got a grisly satisfaction from describing the potential creepiness of it, by having Bohrok essentially be undead Av-Matoran. We also brought up the nice and gruesome potential of Exo-Toa being made from actual dismantled Toa, but that was more to joke about it.

 

The GBs are scientists. There are people in real life who are adamant about an artificial brain - no matter how exact of a copy it could be to a human's - should never be considered "true" life. If you consider your creation to be a programmed machine and nothing more (Angonce evidently did not know that their biomechs were fully intelligent beings until he saw them back on Spherus Magna), it makes sense that you would have no qualms about programming in a transformation routine that kills the bot by eliminating its main process and exchanging it for another.

[bonesiii]

How your post above starts out is a good answer. Thank you.

 

From my own point of view, though, if I were there to test the Toa system I would insist on actually pulling the switch on the Matoran and transform him right away. At the very least, some test runs would have to be done. For that reason I could almost imagine Helryx to have been the first Matoran-turned-Toa, were it not for the alternate (confirmed) explanation that she was created directly as the first Toa.

Yeah, I figured you'd bring this up, but didn't mention it preemptively 'cuz da post were longo. My guess is they first wanted to test that Toa work at all, and were confident enough in the transformation system they didn't feel it needed tested (yet). After all, if a character works just fine as a Matoran, but Toa don't work, seems inefficient to risk ruining him through transformation to something untested.

 

(Actually, I wonder, along these lines, if at least one Bohrok was tested this way first too? So maybe at least one Bohrok was never an Av-Matoran. Maybe.)

 

Testing the Toa transformation system should have entailed at least one test run to be declared a success, I imagine.

Keep in mind, though, that if it failed, it would be no big loss to the system; they could just have new Toa be made like Helryx was. The transformation itself may not have been something they thought of as a major hurdle to test; after all, it's just "switch out the code for Matoran and insert the code for Toa." Makes sense to first test both codes, and then later worry about testing a switch between them.

 

This gets kind of circular either way you go with it. So either approach would probably be valid -- and along the lines of fishers' point, thus there's probably no clear grounds to say the way Greg picked has any actual in-story problems. (Though I don't agree with her wording that accepted the premise of "pointless".)

 

The Matoran and Toa-destined Matoran would thus be made first, with Bohrok the third.

The apparent problem with this is that the Av-Matoran came first, and it seems that every Av-Matoran not destined to be a Toa is destined to (if needed) be a Bohrok (although I'm not 100% sure of this part of it). So, totally non-transforming Matoran probably have to come third.

 

Would be a bit funny if Bohrok-destined Av-Matoran were the "scraps" that were better off as pure robots rather than biomechs.

Could be. At least some of them. I mean, could have been, had Takua not been oldest. Of course, it's possible Takua did have problems and they just got fixed at some point so he could survive. The GBs didn't necessarily think through everything perfectly.

 

True. Often the questions are asked in a leading way though, by including a suggestion right off the bat. Perhaps that is what I have disliked the most without really picking up on it.

Agreed there. Greg does have a tendency to tend to accept things phrased in a certain way that if phrased differently he wouldn't. But hey, he's human. Most people in general do have that flaw, a fact that manipulators take full advantage of. But I think most people only end up 'manipulating' Greg by accident themselves; I doubt there's anything nefarious about their motives usually.

 

In other words, the main problem here is not necessarily that he biases toward accepting ideas phrased positively, but only that he may bias against ones phrased negatively (not sure that's the best way to word it though... hopefully you know what I mean). Or "phrased clumsily" or something. Then again, such phrasing could even be a valid subconscious warning flag that the person asking the question might not think it fully good deep down. I dunno, this kinda stuff fascinates me but again getting a bit off-topic... >_> Takua... Lifespans... yeeah.....

 

I meant more from a main story point of view -- including more details about Vakama's Matoran life would not really add anything to him that we don't already know. Fanfics are free to do whatever they want, even change his character entirely if it makes for a good read.

I think you're clear on this now from other parts of your post, but FTR -- that's all well and good, until you sit down and try to write an intentionally canon-fitting story. And Bionicle has clearly always encouraged this sort of thing. Even in the original comics, there were those insets explaining all the mask powers, rather than waiting to show them in-story. That encourages fans to imagine their own roleplaying or whatever with it working the way LEGO established. It isn't necessary but it can be more satisfying.

 

And personally, I have always found that intentionally changing things is more satisfying when I know what it is I'm changing, too. It helps avoid the impression that you think you're filling in a gap that might close the 'wrong way' on you later, something that many early fanfics on here ran into, to the disappointment of some authors. This leads to the principle that whether you're changing something or trying to be canon-fitting, it's best to know what the canon thing is before you do anything with it; otherwise avoid it.

 

Of course, then there's the "I don't want a canon form for Helryx so I can pretend my version is canon" thing which I get too.

 

Anyways... these derned tangents keep popping up! We need a tangent mower...

Edited March 18, 2014 by bonesiii

[fishers64]

FTR, here is the orginal quote.

1. Was Takua THE first Matoran to be created?
1) Yes, I am okay with that

I don't see any "leadingness" or manipulation in the question. It seems to be real straight-up. Greg doesn't enthusiastically grab on to it, either, he just says okay.

This gets kind of circular either way you go with it. So either approach would probably be valid -- and along the lines of fishers' point, thus there's probably no clear grounds to say the way Greg picked has any actual in-story problems. (Though I don't agree with her wording that accepted the premise of "pointless".)

Yarr. What I was trying to get at there was "if the you buy the reasoning that naming Takua as the first is pointless, then wouldn't him not being named as the first also be pointless too?"

But I know that wasn't clear.

 

I'm confused - I think you might be referring to the idea that intuition helps us understand this story better?

I was replying to a claim that Greg hadn't thought it through enough; my point is he may have thought it through more than the complainer, and possibly more in the subconscious than conscious. Of the two, I would trust the guy who knows almost everything about the story to have a better intuitive (thought through) idea than a fan who might have missed some things, etc.

 

Agreed.

To the rest of it, I think that Takua being the first Matoran can still work: *ducks to avoid machine gun fire*

To the Bohrok test objection: it's also possible that they didn't think of the Bohrok until later. Wouldn't the GBs think of the robot's power/inner workings before designing the specifics of the camoflage system?

I like to think of this as testing a method of fixing SM. They decide they want a giant robot, so the first thing is they analyze the prototype bot and what went wrong...eventually they decide they need Matoran. So they build one, and it works. It's a piece of the puzzle. Then they see need for this thing, and that thing, and then they make those. Then they sent it to the quality-control GB who installed 3,245 failsafes.

The other thing is that Takua might be the first successful proto-Matoran made. Perhaps there were some before, but they never saw the light of day. That happens with any sort of trial-and-error type stuff/complex inventions. They might have added the "super-destined" hardware after the "success" point had been reached. This is how I see it.

A variant: They might have made Takua first, and then broke Random Av-Matoran #2 and #3 on the Toa-transforming expieriment. That way, if they break/transform into a gruesome monster, they could abandon that experiment and proceed on with Matoran manufacture. It makes sense to preserve one functioning thing in case the next experiment wrecks it. Yeah?

After all, there was not really any "giant robot building intuition" going around, at least of these orders of complexity. They would have to resort to slow linear conscious thought, testing their theories slowly and checking for errors, I think. Time was of the essence, and they didn't have time to remake their Matoran prototype should their second experiment bomb.

Edited March 18, 2014 by fishers64

[bonesiii]

To the Bohrok test objection: it's also possible that they didn't think of the Bohrok until later. Wouldn't the GBs think of the robot's power/inner workings before designing the specifics of the camoflage system?

That makes sense. Maybe they originally planned to send Av-Matoran out every time with some kind of tools to clear the island, then later realized that had obvious flaws, and belatedly transformed most of the ones they'd made for it into a design better suited to island-clearing?

 

I'd think they would have at least had to have a working idea of how they'd do it by the time the construction began, though.

 

A variant: They might have made Takua first, and then broke Random Av-Matoran #2 and #3 on the Toa-transforming expieriment. That way, if they break/transform into a gruesome monster, they could abandon that experiment and proceed on with Matoran manufacture. It makes sense to preserve one functioning thing in case the next experiment wrecks it. Yeah?

I agree with the last sentence, but I honestly doubt it ever broke. I think it's more like they made a large population of Matoran before testing it, since at first they just needed construction workers, not heroes per se, and then much later tested it for whoever was the first transformation-origin Toa, and it worked. Reason is that if they did try it and it broke as you say, wouldn't then then go on to immediately test it until one worked and the first Toa would have been an Av-Toa?

 

I suppose they might go "eh, let's put this off till later", make Helryx etc. and then get back to it though. (On the "they weren't necessarily perfectly organized" principle.) But they seem to have already gotten transformations down, though this is admittedly not protodermic, with the Element Lords. I think transformations were just like kindergarten to them and testing it at all didn't seem necessary.

 

Though I'd have to look up who was the first transformed-from-Matoran Toa, was this before the GBs left the MU? And of course, the physical transformation with the ELs worked, but the transformation proved very unwise. And likeisay, that's not even protodermis, so yeah. But they could have tested transformations in general with simpler things like masks (like the transformation from Great to Noble like what happens on a Toa-to-Turaga's face), and then with the Av-to-Bohrok and been convinced it was working the same in all cases so figured it didn't need specific testing right away for Matoran-to-Toa. Mayhaps?

[fishers64]

 

To the Bohrok test objection: it's also possible that they didn't think of the Bohrok until later. Wouldn't the GBs think of the robot's power/inner workings before designing the specifics of the camoflage system?

That makes sense. Maybe they originally planned to send Av-Matoran out every time with some kind of tools to clear the island, then later realized that had obvious flaws, and belatedly transformed most of the ones they'd made for it into a design better suited to island-clearing?

 

I'd think they would have at least had to have a working idea of how they'd do it by the time the construction began, though.

 

Another thing that occured to me was that they made all of the elements independently - Matoran, Toa, and Bohrok - and then realized that it was easier to make more Matoran and transform them into Toa or Bohrok than to just make more Toa and more Bohrok. This seems consistant with the Mata/Helryx being created as Toa.

 

The transformation thing strikes me as a kind of "self-heal" system in case Toa or Bohrok are killed/destroyed facing some grave threat or other.

 

A variant: They might have made Takua first, and then broke Random Av-Matoran #2 and #3 on the Toa-transforming expieriment. That way, if they break/transform into a gruesome monster, they could abandon that experiment and proceed on with Matoran manufacture. It makes sense to preserve one functioning thing in case the next experiment wrecks it. Yeah?

I agree with the last sentence, but I honestly doubt it ever broke. I think it's more like they made a large population of Matoran before testing it, since at first they just needed construction workers, not heroes per se, and then much later tested it for whoever was the first transformation-origin Toa, and it worked. Reason is that if they did try it and it broke as you say, wouldn't then then go on to immediately test it until one worked and the first Toa would have been an Av-Toa?

 

I suppose they might go "eh, let's put this off till later", make Helryx etc. and then get back to it though. (On the "they weren't necessarily perfectly organized" principle.) But they seem to have already gotten transformations down, though this is admittedly not protodermic, with the Element Lords. I think transformations were just like kindergarten to them and testing it at all didn't seem necessary.

 

Though I'd have to look up who was the first transformed-from-Matoran Toa, was this before the GBs left the MU? And of course, the physical transformation with the ELs worked, but the transformation proved very unwise. And likeisay, that's not even protodermis, so yeah. But they could have tested transformations in general with simpler things like masks (like the transformation from Great to Noble like what happens on a Toa-to-Turaga's face), and then with the Av-to-Bohrok and been convinced it was working the same in all cases so figured it didn't need specific testing right away for Matoran-to-Toa. Mayhaps?

I think the first transformed-from-Matoran-Toa was Lesovikk's team. According to BS01, they were transformed before Mata Nui awakened, so it's possible that the GBs could have observed.

 

The only problem I have with your reasoning is that "How would they know it worked for certain?". Did they build a failsafe for that? The possibility exists, I suppose, that they were working with a known transformative agent, that they were certain would transform what they wanted. Sounds like EP. But I think the old "all destined Matoran have EP in them" sounds like a stretch, because one mistake = a bunch of destroyed Matoran. It also sort of nulls the importance of TE (although it could trigger a mechanism, etc, but I think it's more). Perhaps the TE charges up some protodermis to make it act like EP, transforming the Matoran. Some Matoran would have this "special transforming proto" and others don't, along with the destined Matoran's TE reserve. But that's another tangent...

[Takhamavahu]

The Great Beings considered the matoran's brains to be Artificial Intelligence, but they were so complex that certainly the lines between whether you would call them mechanical or organic were blurred.

 

We have seen them have thoughts and feelings and be real people all the way through the story, something which the Great Beings didn't anticipate. Near the end of Bionicle's run, when Marendar was about to be introduced, one of the Great Beings was wondering to himself about whether the inhabitants of Mata Nui's body were truly sentient, living things. Evidently the planned story was going to explore that, with the inevitable moral being something asimovian about how they are real life forms with minds and souls despite being created arificially.