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If the Red Star had never malfunctioned


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What would have happened if the Red Star had never malfunctioned? I am wondering mainly due to curiosity, but I am also considering featuring such a situation in a fanfic, so I want your opinions.

 

I'll start with what we know. Beings killed in the Matoran Universe would have been revived and repaired on the Red Star, then promptly sent back down to continue their duties. (According to some of Greg's answers, they would have reappeared somewhere distant from the site of their death.) Only the utter destruction of a body could prevent the person from returning to life.

 
Obviously, execution and murder would be of no use to anyone, unless they had powers of disintegration. (Note that the Shadowed One and all Makuta have that power, so the Dark Hunters and the Brotherhood would be fully capable of permanently killing people.)
 
It's possible that the Toa Code would be changed, as well, since killing would no longer have such an emotional weight. This one is of particular interest to me.
 
Finally, just for fun, the concept that got me thinking on this: Reidak might figure out how to game the system. If the Red Star repaired him after every death, his body would adapt to resist whatever had killed him. Thus, as long as he avoided being disintegrated, he could develop an immunity to drowning, decapitation, and any other methods of execution.
 
What do all of you think? How might the history of the MU have changed, for better or for worse?
 
(I understand there's a rule against "What If" topics. However, since we don't have a lot to talk about these days, I am hoping that we can get an interesting discussion out of this idea.)
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"You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant."
-- Harlan Ellison

 

 

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Obviously, execution and murder would be of no use to anyone

This assumes that everyone that is killed is resurrected by the Red Star. Greg has stated that those considered vital to the functioning of Mata Nui are revived. He has also stated that a person's brain (or an imprint thereof) is required. Put those two statements together and you get the following conclusion: The Red Star exists to preserve personae considered vital to the functioning of the Matoran Universe. Now, this alone means that those who died in ways that sufficiently damaged their brains were not revived. All you would have needed to do to be assured of your foes permanent demise would be to savage his head. Not a difficult task given the technology available in the MU.

 

Furthermore, I believe that the Red Star is very selective in whom it revives. Because, from what we can tell, no one in the MU noticed when it stopped sending persons back. The Order of Mata Nui doesn't mention it in the World Guide, and Pohatu and Kopaka seemed unaware such an event prior when the Kestora informed them of it. I believe that if the Red Star had never malfunctioned, only a few select murders would be anymore difficult.

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Yes, the Red Star is selective. It didn't beam up the alt-Tuyet, since its universe already had one (or used to) and didn't beam up Zyglak because they had no useful purpose. Also, I think Reidak's immunities are only temporary.

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Only the utter destruction of a body could prevent the person from returning to life.

 
Obviously, execution and murder would be of no use to anyone, unless they had powers of disintegration.
Hm... what he said recently was, if the brain was destroyed. This wording made me wonder -- does the brain have to be disintegrated or the equivalent? If not, maybe just smashing it would work. A really gruesome thought lol... But yeah...
 
It's possible that the Toa Code would be changed, as well, since killing would no longer have such an emotional weight. This one is of particular interest to me.

Au contraire -- imprison a villain, and you get them off the streets. Kill a villain, and you're effectively just setting them loose in some random place.

 

It miiiight happen, but I highly doubt it. More likely as somebody has theorized before, that early knowledge, largely now forgotten, of the RS might be why both the Code exists (part of why) and why the Pit exists.

 

I understand there's a rule against "What If" topics.

No; now listed under allowed topic types:

 

* "What if" (alternate events and theorizing on their results) topics -- used to be banned due to too many, but now allowed again to encourage more discussion. Although we should still try to stick relatively close to what we can reasonably extrapolate; in-depth storytelling about alternate scenarios are usually better made into a fanfic story in the Library.

 

This assumes that everyone that is killed is resurrected by the Red Star. Greg has stated that those considered vital to the functioning of Mata Nui are revived... I believe that the Red Star is very selective in whom it revives.

But he also said that is everybody (that belongs in the MU). He didn't say that, to my knowledge, in order to limit the number of those revived to some smaller set than the total inhabitants (other than Rahi), but to explain why the revival system happens. And this misconception has come up before and gotten that answer. Of course, it's my memory, but pretty sure. :P

 

In other words, it's the very opposite of selective, with a few exceptions outside the "sapient being belonging to the MU" category.

 

Because, from what we can tell, no one in the MU noticed when it stopped sending persons back.

We don't know that. In part because we still don't know for sure when it stopped working. But assuming it stopped just after Gaardus' last visit as it seems, there's two basic options -- first, that people noticed and that the reader hasn't been told (Greg always said there were things everybody in the MU knew but that the reader didn't, so you couldn't assume that if the reader isn't told it the people don't know it), or that people didn't actually notice about the revival system itself. The latter is possible due to the random sendback locations, and it's also possible deaths were fairly rare before "modern" times.

 

The Order of Mata Nui doesn't mention it in the World Guide

That could be because it wasn't relevant anymore; a matter of MU history rather than island-specific history, and could alternatively be because it was such common knowledge it didn't need stated (or common to the Order at least), or that they didn't want anybody to find it out just because they find some other Order records, etc. (the top secret explanation :P).

 

and Pohatu and Kopaka seemed unaware such an event prior when the Kestora informed them of it.

It's quite possible the Toa Mata were never told about it, but if they were, this was after their memory loss. I think for Kopaka some of it might have been coming back; I'm foggy on that bit. But it wouldn't be surprising if he didn't remember everything. It's quite possible if they were to return now to the Turaga, Whenua might mention an old legend about it like he did once about the Visorak. I kind of doubt it, but we can't rule it out at this point.

 

In any event, invoking RS selective revivals beyond what's been confirmed isn't necessary to explain them not knowing it at all ever, and seems dubious as to whether that's even helpful, as some revivals would still happen to be heard about.

 

Also, I think Reidak's immunities are only temporary.

I was under the impression they weren't. *checks BS01*

 

He had the power to acclimate to his opponent's powers after every fight, therefore he could not be defeated the same way twice.

I suppose it's possible to interpret that as "in the same battle", but still...

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Why does everything in BIONICLE always malfunction?!?!?!?

 

I was thinking about that too. Red Star, Toa Mata canisters (Am I missing other malfunction ?)... 

 

Which is funny because as much as everything seems to malfunction, there's a lot of failsafes too, like the Ignika, The Toa Mata, The Toa Inika, The Bohrok-Kal, and the Avohkii.  :P

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I was thinking about that too. Red Star, Toa Mata canisters (Am I missing other malfunction ?)...

Hm... I'm not sure that malfunctions are all that common, really, not sure what gave PrismWind that impression, although Greg mentioned that a lot of things break down, I think, in one of the original RS quotes.

 

But easy answer would be... stuff breaks. In this universe or that. :P Really, a lot of stuff tends to last crazy-long in Bionicle lol.

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

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I was thinking about that too. Red Star, Toa Mata canisters (Am I missing other malfunction ?)...

Hm... I'm not sure that malfunctions are all that common, really, not sure what gave PrismWind that impression, although Greg mentioned that a lot of things break down, I think, in one of the original RS quotes.

 

But easy answer would be... stuff breaks. In this universe or that. :P Really, a lot of stuff tends to last crazy-long in Bionicle lol.

 

 

But the overall impression is that things broke for the plot to continue. Like, if the Toa Mata canisters hadn't broken, Mata Nui would be awakaned very early.

 

If the Red Star hadn't broken... well I can't even imagine.

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Why does everything in BIONICLE always malfunction?!?!?!?

 

I was thinking about that too. Red Star, Toa Mata canisters (Am I missing other malfunction ?)... 

 

If you want to count Toa Vakama's brain and Karzanhi not being able to do his job, I have four. 

 

But still, four glitches in 100,000 years would indicate that this universe has a pretty low glitch rate. 

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Might be worth clarifying that the RS is a case of the repair workers "breaking", really (or maybe never working right); presumably stuff both in the RS and MU is breaking down way more often than that, but usually gets fixed. That's why you have repair crews, after all. But for whatever reason, they weren't able to figure out how to fix the Sendback.

 

That doesn't change that it was done for plot reasons, sure, but that's not inherently a bad thing, since it's realistic. (And the entire Bionicle universe exists to have a plot anyways... and the plot to sell sets, so...)

 

If you had things never breaking for plot reasons... well, it's possible if there's a really good reason for it (like crazy healing abilities for Matoran, Agori, etc. :P), but that would be the thing you'd think would seem odd, not breakdowns. We should expect some "quota" of stuff to malfunction. 'Cuz that's what stuff does.

 

And I highly doubt Makuta would have let the Toa awaken Mata Nui without some other thing happening to delay them (as I'm pretty sure he needed the switch to happen when Mata Nui died, which took a thousand years). You have to look past "it's for plot" type thinking and ask "what are the in-story reasons, and do they make sense?" or at least try to theorize some. In this case, a malfunction apparently "happened" (or so we think :P) to help Makuta, but had it not, surely he could find some way to get what he wanted anyways.

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

My Bionicle Fanfiction  (Google Drive folder, eventually planned to have PDFs of all of it)

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Why does everything in BIONICLE always malfunction?!?!?!?

 

I was thinking about that too. Red Star, Toa Mata canisters (Am I missing other malfunction ?)... 

 

If you want to count Toa Vakama's brain and Karzanhi not being able to do his job, I have four. 

 

But still, four glitches in 100,000 years would indicate that this universe has a pretty low glitch rate. 

 

Could we add the Matoran Civil War as a glitch too ? That "glitch" was pretty fatal.

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Could we add the Matoran Civil War as a glitch too ? That "glitch" was pretty fatal.

Actually, no, because that's probably the result of sapience among the MU beings, which (as far as we know) was the result of intentional meddling by Velika, not a glitch. 

 

Although, if I wish to go with the theory I'm about to quote, the sapience "glitch" could have caused the repair workers to go insane, thereby making neither "thing that went wrong" a true "malfunction". 

 

Might be worth clarifying that the RS is a case of the repair workers "breaking", really (or maybe never working right); presumably stuff both in the RS and MU is breaking down way more often than that, but usually gets fixed. That's why you have repair crews, after all. But for whatever reason, they weren't able to figure out how to fix the Sendback.

That is, if the Sendback teleporters aren't in the MU. :P

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Not necessarily. There could be other things that would go wrong. :P

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

My Bionicle Fanfiction  (Google Drive folder, eventually planned to have PDFs of all of it)

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