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Mata Nui: much shorter than we thought


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So, after a post I made in a thread discussing the size of the Red Star, I got to thinking about the actual size of the Great Spirit Robot. I always thought that 40 million feet seemed excessive for the height, and I've just realized I may have been right. Here's my train of thought:

 

1. BS01 confirms the Island of Mata Nui to be 303.91 miles from north to south. Mata Nui's face is about the same size, maybe a little smaller; let's call it 300 miles even.

 

2. As any art teacher can tell you, a human being is about 7.5 times the height of their face.

 

3. Now, Mata Nui has fairly humanlike proportions, but his head is a little bit small for him, so let's round that 7.5 up to 9. Or even 10, I'll be generous here (and make the math a little easier).

 

4. If Mata Nui's face is 300 miles, his overall height is then about 3000 miles. In feet, that's 15,840,000 -- less than half of the figure we were given in 2008.

EDIT: And watching the Mata Nui Rising video again, I think I may have overestimated the size of his face under the island -- it seems like the island covered his face with a fair amount of room to spare, and the peninsulas on the northern and southern tips had no face under them at all, so I think I will take my final estimate down to an even 15 million feet. Seems reasonable enough.

 

EDIT x2: Thanks to this image that bonesiii pointed out, I've learned that the head:body ratio is in fact 1:12. Given that, I revised my final estimate again. Mata Nui's face, being apparently the size of the island sans northern and southern peninsulas, is probably about 280 miles. 280x12=3360 miles total, just under 18 million feet.

 

I've discounted the image's argument for retaining the 40 million height because, as SPIRIT pointed out, it still conflicts with the hints we were given starting in '01 -- for instance, the Mangai volcano being thus named because "Mangai" is the Maori word for "mouth" -- and yet, in the above image, the volcano is nowhere near the GSR's mouth.

 

If this is true, we wil have to re-estimate the sizes of the Red Star and Spherus Magna as well. What are your thoughts on this?

Edited by Junkbot Master of Trash
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We have had a big long discussion (#85 onward) about the size of Aqua Magna and Spherus Magna in another topic. Based on the size of Mata Nui and his appearance in this image, we calculated that Aqua Magna has a radius of 1.09*105 km, about 100 times the radius of Earth which has a radius of only 6.37*103 km! Combining that information with this image, we found that Spherus Magna is about seven times that size (or seventy times the radius of Jupiter)!

 

After getting such astronomical numbers, the implications have been discussed for pages (even now). I'm going to recommend that everyone look at this before we go much further off course! Really great find!

Edited by RahiSpeak
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Huh. Well now I know that if I ever decide to build a GSR to scale with the sets it wouldn't be as ridiculously impossible as I thought. :P Still impossible, but not as severely. :P

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Bear in mind, we were given information on the island's dimensions back in '02/'03/'04, while the robot's height was confirmed to be 40 million feet much more recently. Greg did also say that the story team had the robot figured out completely from the beginning, so I'm assuming that the 40 million mark has had the longest standing relevancy.

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I remember doing similar calculations myself when the giant robot was first revealed.  The only way I've been able to reconcile this is by assuming that either

 

A) The story team got the math wrong

B) Mata Nui has an exceptionally disproportionate head for his body

 

A lot of this reminds me of doing any sort of math involving the Harry Potter series (only 8 Gryffindors in Harry's year, but 1000 students in the school???), and unless you want a headache, you just have to suspend your disbelief.

 

Mata Nui's official 40 million feet height is about the diameter of the Earth, which is quite literally an astronomical height.  3000 miles is roughly the height of North America and certainly a value that makes more sense in terms of the story.  (Just think about the distances between things or what an Earth-sized robot would look like standing on a planet).  Due to how this 40 million feet was sort of revealed off screen as an approximate number (which may easily have been misremembered), I'm thinking the dimensions based on the height of the island of Mata Nui are the more plausible figure.

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:o Everything I've ever known is a lie!

 

 

Mata Nui's official 40 million feet height is about the diameter of the Earth, which is quite literally an astronomical height.  3000 miles is roughly the height of North America and certainly a value that makes more sense in terms of the story.  (Just think about the distances between things or what an Earth-sized robot would look like standing on a planet).  Due to how this 40 million feet was sort of revealed off screen as an approximate number (which may easily have been misremembered), I'm thinking the dimensions based on the height of the island of Mata Nui are the more plausible figure.

 

Makes perfect sense. 40 million feet could have just been a random "large" number to provide a sense of theoretical scale but not exactly a scientific approximation. Same can be said about the figures for the island of Mata Nui's length.

 

Regardless, some interesting stuff!

 

-NotS

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 (going back to the aforementioned Red Star Topic) Geeze, look what I started. :lol:

 

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I remember doing similar calculations myself when the giant robot was first revealed.  The only way I've been able to reconcile this is by assuming that either

 

A) The story team got the math wrong

B) Mata Nui has an exceptionally disproportionate head for his body

 

A lot of this reminds me of doing any sort of math involving the Harry Potter series (only 8 Gryffindors in Harry's year, but 1000 students in the school???), and unless you want a headache, you just have to suspend your disbelief.

 

Mata Nui's official 40 million feet height is about the diameter of the Earth, which is quite literally an astronomical height.  3000 miles is roughly the height of North America and certainly a value that makes more sense in terms of the story.  (Just think about the distances between things or what an Earth-sized robot would look like standing on a planet).  Due to how this 40 million feet was sort of revealed off screen as an approximate number (which may easily have been misremembered), I'm thinking the dimensions based on the height of the island of Mata Nui are the more plausible figure.

 

I always disliked how large Mata Nui was described as being, and I always ignored that and made him the height of North America; now lo and behold, as my dislike was subconsciously justified, thanks mathematics!. Now, by North America, do you also include Greenland and Central America?

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Looking back at my calculations in the other topic here, I realize now that the number I used for Mata Nui's height was incorrect. I couldn't find the information on BS01 and so used the number I remembered hearing in 2008 (80 million feet), but apparently my memory failed me.

 

I can redo the calculations using the new information (or someone else can if they're really eager, since the procedure is all laid out in the post). First though, I'm going to try finding a more accurate number for the radio of head size to body size. That shouldn't be difficult with all the canon art we've got.

 

-Letagi

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 (going back to the aforementioned Red Star Topic) Geeze, look what I started. :lol:

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

I remember doing similar calculations myself when the giant robot was first revealed.  The only way I've been able to reconcile this is by assuming that either

 

A) The story team got the math wrong

B) Mata Nui has an exceptionally disproportionate head for his body

 

A lot of this reminds me of doing any sort of math involving the Harry Potter series (only 8 Gryffindors in Harry's year, but 1000 students in the school???), and unless you want a headache, you just have to suspend your disbelief.

 

Mata Nui's official 40 million feet height is about the diameter of the Earth, which is quite literally an astronomical height.  3000 miles is roughly the height of North America and certainly a value that makes more sense in terms of the story.  (Just think about the distances between things or what an Earth-sized robot would look like standing on a planet).  Due to how this 40 million feet was sort of revealed off screen as an approximate number (which may easily have been misremembered), I'm thinking the dimensions based on the height of the island of Mata Nui are the more plausible figure.

 

I always disliked how large Mata Nui was described as being, and I always ignored that and made him the height of North America; now lo and behold, as my dislike was subconsciously justified, thanks mathematics!. Now, by North America, do you also include Greenland and Central America?

It's a rough distance from the bottom of Central America to the top of Canada.  (Check out this site for a visual representation)

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This isn't the first time this idea has been brought up, however, as I showed in this image, the size of the island and the giant actually do fit if you simply assume the island doesn't cover the whole face; meaning only the nose area actually pokes above the water to need camouflage:

 

http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/bonesiii/Bionicle/MUdomesmap/test_myth_robot_island_size.png

 

And having the sunholes be closer together, basically the tear ducts of the eyes instead of the pupils, actually fits Metru Nui's sky/dome setup far better.

 

So, no need to retcon the giant's size. And if you did, to fit the Mata Nui island size, you'd only actually halve the robot, leaving it still incredibly huge, so not satisfying desires to (for some reason :P) make it less "excessive". (Based on what criteria, incidentally? How big does a humanoid shapeship designed to Reform a shattering megaplanet have to be? How do you know it's not on the small side for that? Given that it wasn't powerful enough to do it quite on its own, and needed a second giant to help, I'd say that's the safer guess, actually.)

 

I wouldn't mind a retcon that merely halved it, just for the sake of making the island easier to understand, but anything below that is probably not wise.

 

 

Note that the giant's head to height ratio is 12, not 8 as with humans. There's absolutely no reason it should use the human ratio, and this helps create the "majestically, unimaginably huge" feeling. =)

 

Speaking of that, there's another problem with shrinking Mata Nui (even down to half) -- he has to have two "continents" inside his torso. Making him no larger than America would seriously stretch that. And shrinking his proportions would only worsen the problem, by the way. Now, to be fair, there's a problem the other way; if you increase the island's size, it approaches continent size itself (it's already pretty big as-is), but as shown in the above image, there's actually no need to do that. Of course, the definition of "continent" could be different, but it's a "translation" intended for human audiences, so it's probably meant to be on the larger size.

 

BTW, almost certainly the giant's size that was picked was picked randomly. But, that doesn't mean that the size should be shrunk, especially not based on a feeling of it being hard to grasp, as many who argue against the size seem to be basing it on -- that feeling was actually the whole point. :)

Edited by bonesiii
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What bothers me most about the 40 million feet number is how large Aqua Magna, Spherus Magna, et al. would have to be.  Can you even have a solid planet with a radius 70x that of Jupiter?  I mean, they certainly aren't all gas giants, but you'd think they'd have to be, based on those sizes...

 

Although maybe we shouldn't expect the planets to obey ordinary rules of physics as we understand them anyway-- after all, the perfect three-way split of Spherus Magna might only be possible if we suspend ordinary cosmology and astronomy, and once we've done that, supermassive planets are perfectly fine.  But that makes the setting almost completely alien, when we lose even the possibility of existing in a similar sort of universe, and I personally don't find that appealing.

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We have had a big long discussion (#85 onward) about the size of Aqua Magna and Spherus Magna in another topic. Based on the size of Mata Nui and his appearance in this image, we calculated that Aqua Magna has a radius of 1.09*105 km, about 100 times the radius of Earth which has a radius of only 6.37*103 km! Combining that information with this image, we found that Spherus Magna is about seven times that size (or seventy times the radius of Jupiter)!

 

After getting such astronomical numbers, the implications have been discussed for pages (even now). I'm going to recommend that everyone look at this before we go much further off course! Really great find!

Oh, I trust the accuracy of your calculations -- but I'm assuming that you were working off the assumption that the GSR was 40 million feet tall? If so, that's why they'd need recalculating.

 

 

Bear in mind, we were given information on the island's dimensions back in '02/'03/'04, while the robot's height was confirmed to be 40 million feet much more recently. Greg did also say that the story team had the robot figured out completely from the beginning, so I'm assuming that the 40 million mark has had the longest standing relevancy.

See, I'm inclined to believe that this means that the size of the island of Mata Nui is the more accurate figure, given that we got the island's dimensions in official story materials in 2001, whereas the 40 million thing was more of an off-the-cuff behind-the-scenes tidbit that got thrown randomly at us.

 

 

Looking back at my calculations in the other topic here, I realize now that the number I used for Mata Nui's height was incorrect. I couldn't find the information on BS01 and so used the number I remembered hearing in 2008 (80 million feet), but apparently my memory failed me.

 

I can redo the calculations using the new information (or someone else can if they're really eager, since the procedure is all laid out in the post). First though, I'm going to try finding a more accurate number for the radio of head size to body size. That shouldn't be difficult with all the canon art we've got.

 

-Letagi

So wait, are you saying we've been overestimating the size of Spherus Magna by like 500%? :o

 

 

 

(going back to the aforementioned Red Star Topic) Geeze, look what I started. :lol:

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

I remember doing similar calculations myself when the giant robot was first revealed.  The only way I've been able to reconcile this is by assuming that either

 

A) The story team got the math wrong

B) Mata Nui has an exceptionally disproportionate head for his body

 

A lot of this reminds me of doing any sort of math involving the Harry Potter series (only 8 Gryffindors in Harry's year, but 1000 students in the school???), and unless you want a headache, you just have to suspend your disbelief.

 

Mata Nui's official 40 million feet height is about the diameter of the Earth, which is quite literally an astronomical height.  3000 miles is roughly the height of North America and certainly a value that makes more sense in terms of the story.  (Just think about the distances between things or what an Earth-sized robot would look like standing on a planet).  Due to how this 40 million feet was sort of revealed off screen as an approximate number (which may easily have been misremembered), I'm thinking the dimensions based on the height of the island of Mata Nui are the more plausible figure.

 

I always disliked how large Mata Nui was described as being, and I always ignored that and made him the height of North America; now lo and behold, as my dislike was subconsciously justified, thanks mathematics!. Now, by North America, do you also include Greenland and Central America?

 

It's a rough distance from the bottom of Central America to the top of Canada.  (Check out this site for a visual representation)

 

It's also like 100 or so miles more than than the width of the continental U.S., from the east coast to California (sorry to be America-centric here, that's just the reference that makes the most sense to me :P)

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What bothers me most about the 40 million feet number is how large Aqua Magna, Spherus Magna, et al. would have to be.  Can you even have a solid planet with a radius 70x that of Jupiter?

First, we don't know how big it is, only that it's larger than Earth (recently confirmed by Greg), and does officially have more gravity. This issue (plus animation portrayals) is why I theorized a long time ago that something about the megaplanets' cores made them absorb any gravitons over a certain level (about Earth level), probably as a result of transformation by contact with the energized protodermis cores. This would 1) make sense, 2) be freaky awesomesauce, and 3) make gravity on Aqua Magna the same as Spherus Magna, despite it being much smaller (so animation portrayals as everything being Earth gravity work), and 4) mean the megaplanets could be truly mega, having gobs of real estate for future population growth. :)

 

Unfortunately, somebody tried to ask Greg about this, did a bad job, and he "canonized a no" to any kind of gravity leveling effect (in giving the answer mentioned above). So, we're left to assume many images are artistic license and that we don't have any actual way to estimate the size. (Fan attempts notwithstanding. :P) Or, ignore that one answer and go with my theory anyways, or something like it. :lol:

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Bear in mind, we were given information on the island's dimensions back in '02/'03/'04, while the robot's height was confirmed to be 40 million feet much more recently. Greg did also say that the story team had the robot figured out completely from the beginning, so I'm assuming that the 40 million mark has had the longest standing relevancy.

See, I'm inclined to believe that this means that the size of the island of Mata Nui is the more accurate figure, given that we got the island's dimensions in official story materials in 2001, whereas the 40 million thing was more of an off-the-cuff behind-the-scenes tidbit that got thrown randomly at us.

I don't think you read that right.

 

They had the whole of the robot figured out back when the line first began, meaning that the island's dimensions would have followed after. The dimensions for the island, if you recall, came from a page in the magazine. The GSR was described multiple times in-story as being 40 million feet tall.

 

So, if 40 million was figured out at the beginning of the line, and was still used later on, then that's all the more reason to accept that as an answer, because that's the measurement that has lasted longer and had far more significance.

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What bothers me most about the 40 million feet number is how large Aqua Magna, Spherus Magna, et al. would have to be.  Can you even have a solid planet with a radius 70x that of Jupiter?

First, we don't know how big it is, only that it's larger than Earth (recently confirmed by Greg), and does officially have more gravity. This issue (plus animation portrayals) is why I theorized a long time ago that something about the megaplanets' cores made them absorb any gravitons over a certain level (about Earth level), probably as a result of transformation by contact with the energized protodermis cores. This would 1) make sense, 2) be freaky awesomesauce, and 3) make gravity on Aqua Magna the same as Spherus Magna, despite it being much smaller (so animation portrayals as everything being Earth gravity work), and 4) mean the megaplanets could be truly mega, having gobs of real estate for future population growth. :)

 

Unfortunately, somebody tried to ask Greg about this, did a bad job, and he "canonized a no" to any kind of gravity leveling effect (in giving the answer mentioned above). So, we're left to assume many images are artistic license and that we don't have any actual way to estimate the size. (Fan attempts notwithstanding. :P) Or, ignore that one answer and go with my theory anyways, or something like it. :lol:

 

See, the physics are fine with me -- I can totally buy the EP-graviton thing. The issue I have with the planet's size is the fact that travel was not an insurmountable obstacle. Based on the level of tech we saw in '09 -- animal mounts and crumbling motor vehicles that probably couldn't break 60mph -- it should have taken decades to get anywhere, if the planet is indeed the size of Jupiter.

 

So really, this thread isn't actually about reducing the size of the GSR -- it's about reducing the size of Spherus Magna itself, given that the planet's size has been estimated based on the size of the robots. Thanks for dragging that out of me :P

 

 

 

 

Bear in mind, we were given information on the island's dimensions back in '02/'03/'04, while the robot's height was confirmed to be 40 million feet much more recently. Greg did also say that the story team had the robot figured out completely from the beginning, so I'm assuming that the 40 million mark has had the longest standing relevancy.

See, I'm inclined to believe that this means that the size of the island of Mata Nui is the more accurate figure, given that we got the island's dimensions in official story materials in 2001, whereas the 40 million thing was more of an off-the-cuff behind-the-scenes tidbit that got thrown randomly at us.

 

I don't think you read that right.

 

They had the whole of the robot figured out back when the line first began, meaning that the island's dimensions would have followed after. The dimensions for the island, if you recall, came from a page in the magazine. The GSR was described multiple times in-story as being 40 million feet tall.

 

So, if 40 million was figured out at the beginning of the line, and was still used later on, then that's all the more reason to accept that as an answer, because that's the measurement that has lasted longer and had far more significance.

 

I'm not sure why you say that the 40 million feet has been around longer -- if you're right, then both measurements have been around since the beginning. Which takes us right back to square one in terms of conflicting measurements.

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Bear in mind, we were given information on the island's dimensions back in '02/'03/'04, while the robot's height was confirmed to be 40 million feet much more recently. Greg did also say that the story team had the robot figured out completely from the beginning, so I'm assuming that the 40 million mark has had the longest standing relevancy.

See, I'm inclined to believe that this means that the size of the island of Mata Nui is the more accurate figure, given that we got the island's dimensions in official story materials in 2001, whereas the 40 million thing was more of an off-the-cuff behind-the-scenes tidbit that got thrown randomly at us.

 

I don't think you read that right.

 

They had the whole of the robot figured out back when the line first began, meaning that the island's dimensions would have followed after. The dimensions for the island, if you recall, came from a page in the magazine. The GSR was described multiple times in-story as being 40 million feet tall.

 

So, if 40 million was figured out at the beginning of the line, and was still used later on, then that's all the more reason to accept that as an answer, because that's the measurement that has lasted longer and had far more significance.

 

I'm not sure why you say that the 40 million feet has been around longer -- if you're right, then both measurements have been around since the beginning. Which takes us right back to square one in terms of conflicting measurements.

 

In the original story plan, I think it must have been that the island covered Mata Nui's face 1:1, based on all the place names that use the Maori words for body parts (Tiro = eyes, Ihu = nose, Mangai = mouth, Mata = face).

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^Exactly, and now I'm starting to recall in-story instances of the 40 million measurement, but I'm pretty sure they didn't start until after Greg confirmed the height as 40 million feet here; knowing Greg, it's probably just an impressive-sounding number he chose at random. And remember that Greg was not part of the story team in 2001

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Bear in mind, we were given information on the island's dimensions back in '02/'03/'04, while the robot's height was confirmed to be 40 million feet much more recently. Greg did also say that the story team had the robot figured out completely from the beginning, so I'm assuming that the 40 million mark has had the longest standing relevancy.

 

See, I'm inclined to believe that this means that the size of the island of Mata Nui is the more accurate figure, given that we got the island's dimensions in official story materials in 2001, whereas the 40 million thing was more of an off-the-cuff behind-the-scenes tidbit that got thrown randomly at us.

I don't think you read that right.

 

They had the whole of the robot figured out back when the line first began, meaning that the island's dimensions would have followed after. The dimensions for the island, if you recall, came from a page in the magazine. The GSR was described multiple times in-story as being 40 million feet tall.

 

So, if 40 million was figured out at the beginning of the line, and was still used later on, then that's all the more reason to accept that as an answer, because that's the measurement that has lasted longer and had far more significance.

I'm not sure why you say that the 40 million feet has been around longer -- if you're right, then both measurements have been around since the beginning. Which takes us right back to square one in terms of conflicting measurements.

In the original story plan, I think it must have been that the island covered Mata Nui's face 1:1, based on all the place names that use the Maori words for body parts (Tiro = eyes, Ihu = nose, Mangai = mouth, Mata = face).
Whoa! Hey! Do you think they planned the whole "giant robot" thing from the beginning? That would be awesome! Actually, how did you know the translations for those words; did you just decide to randomly look them up or did you know them? Brilliant observation anyway.
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Whoa! Hey! Do you think they planned the whole "giant robot" thing from the beginning? That would be awesome! Actually, how did you know the translations for those words; did you just decide to randomly look them up or did you know them? Brilliant observation anyway.

 

They did. Greg confirmed multiple times over that one of the earliest parts of the story ever developed was the giant robot.

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Looking back at my calculations in the other topic here, I realize now that the number I used for Mata Nui's height was incorrect. I couldn't find the information on BS01 and so used the number I remembered hearing in 2008 (80 million feet), but apparently my memory failed me.

 

I can redo the calculations using the new information (or someone else can if they're really eager, since the procedure is all laid out in the post). First though, I'm going to try finding a more accurate number for the radio of head size to body size. That shouldn't be difficult with all the canon art we've got.

 

-Letagi

So wait, are you saying we've been overestimating the size of Spherus Magna by like 500%? :o

 

Well, 200% from my mistake, and however much more depending on what we determine Mata Nui's true size to be. So yes, I definitely overestimated it. :P

 

 

What bothers me most about the 40 million feet number is how large Aqua Magna, Spherus Magna, et al. would have to be.  Can you even have a solid planet with a radius 70x that of Jupiter?

First, we don't know how big it is, only that it's larger than Earth (recently confirmed by Greg), and does officially have more gravity. This issue (plus animation portrayals) is why I theorized a long time ago that something about the megaplanets' cores made them absorb any gravitons over a certain level (about Earth level), probably as a result of transformation by contact with the energized protodermis cores. This would 1) make sense, 2) be freaky awesomesauce, and 3) make gravity on Aqua Magna the same as Spherus Magna, despite it being much smaller (so animation portrayals as everything being Earth gravity work), and 4) mean the megaplanets could be truly mega, having gobs of real estate for future population growth. :)

 

Unfortunately, somebody tried to ask Greg about this, did a bad job, and he "canonized a no" to any kind of gravity leveling effect (in giving the answer mentioned above). So, we're left to assume many images are artistic license and that we don't have any actual way to estimate the size. (Fan attempts notwithstanding. :P) Or, ignore that one answer and go with my theory anyways, or something like it. :lol:

 

I've been thinking about the problem of having solid planets with huge radii. Since matter becomes more condensed closer to the core of a planet, at some point, the core reaches critical density and collapses into a black hole. We'd need a really big planet for that to happen, and I'd have to do some calculations to see whether we're anywhere near that point with the numbers I found for Spherus Magna, but I wouldn't be too surprised. Of course, first we have to find a reasonable height for Mata Nui and then I have to revise those numbers, because I started off with an incorrect value.

 

Also, we actually don't need any sort of gravity corrections or cancelling effects to equalize the gravity on all three planets. As long as there's a careful balance maintained between mass and radius, gravity will stay the same, despite the smaller size. It's all about the ratios. The numbers I found maintained the proper ratios for gravity on SM, AM and BotaM, but the densities turned out to be too small. There's a chance, though, that with a smaller value for Mata Nui's height, the densities will work out.

 

-Letagi

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Looking back at my calculations in the other topic here, I realize now that the number I used for Mata Nui's height was incorrect. I couldn't find the information on BS01 and so used the number I remembered hearing in 2008 (80 million feet), but apparently my memory failed me.

 

I can redo the calculations using the new information (or someone else can if they're really eager, since the procedure is all laid out in the post). First though, I'm going to try finding a more accurate number for the radio of head size to body size. That shouldn't be difficult with all the canon art we've got.

 

-Letagi

So wait, are you saying we've been overestimating the size of Spherus Magna by like 500%? :o

 

Well, 200% from my mistake, and however much more depending on what we determine Mata Nui's true size to be. So yes, I definitely overestimated it. :P

 

200% if we assume the GSR is 40 million feet tall, but if it is only 18-20 million feet tall (as I have come to conclude based on bones pointing out that its head:body ratio is 1:12 rather than 1:10), that's still 1/4 of your original figure of 80 million. So most likely around 400%

 

 

 

 

What bothers me most about the 40 million feet number is how large Aqua Magna, Spherus Magna, et al. would have to be.  Can you even have a solid planet with a radius 70x that of Jupiter?

First, we don't know how big it is, only that it's larger than Earth (recently confirmed by Greg), and does officially have more gravity. This issue (plus animation portrayals) is why I theorized a long time ago that something about the megaplanets' cores made them absorb any gravitons over a certain level (about Earth level), probably as a result of transformation by contact with the energized protodermis cores. This would 1) make sense, 2) be freaky awesomesauce, and 3) make gravity on Aqua Magna the same as Spherus Magna, despite it being much smaller (so animation portrayals as everything being Earth gravity work), and 4) mean the megaplanets could be truly mega, having gobs of real estate for future population growth. :)

 

Unfortunately, somebody tried to ask Greg about this, did a bad job, and he "canonized a no" to any kind of gravity leveling effect (in giving the answer mentioned above). So, we're left to assume many images are artistic license and that we don't have any actual way to estimate the size. (Fan attempts notwithstanding. :P) Or, ignore that one answer and go with my theory anyways, or something like it. :lol:

 

I've been thinking about the problem of having solid planets with huge radii. Since matter becomes more condensed closer to the core of a planet, at some point, the core reaches critical density and collapses into a black hole. We'd need a really big planet for that to happen, and I'd have to do some calculations to see whether we're anywhere near that point with the numbers I found for Spherus Magna, but I wouldn't be too surprised. Of course, first we have to find a reasonable height for Mata Nui and then I have to revise those numbers, because I started off with an incorrect value.

 

Also, we actually don't need any sort of gravity corrections or cancelling effects to equalize the gravity on all three planets. As long as there's a careful balance maintained between mass and radius, gravity will stay the same, despite the smaller size. It's all about the ratios. The numbers I found maintained the proper ratios for gravity on SM, AM and BotaM, but the densities turned out to be too small. There's a chance, though, that with a smaller value for Mata Nui's height, the densities will work out.

 

But wouldn't that mean that Aqua Magna and Bota Magna were structurally more stable as moons than as part of Spherus Magna, being so dense on their own?

Furthermore, if the gravity is the same on Bara Magna, Aqua Magna, and Bota Magna for reasons related to density rather than EP, wouldn't there be a significant increase in gravity when all three merge?

And if Bara Magna was only as dense as moons less than 25% its size, would it even have enough gravity to hold itself together?

 

To be fair, I'm no physicist, so there's probably some perfectly reasonable explanation I'm overlooking, but I don't think we can really make it work without the EP being a factor.

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What bothers me most about the 40 million feet number is how large Aqua Magna, Spherus Magna, et al. would have to be.  Can you even have a solid planet with a radius 70x that of Jupiter?

First, we don't know how big it is, only that it's larger than Earth (recently confirmed by Greg), and does officially have more gravity. This issue (plus animation portrayals) is why I theorized a long time ago that something about the megaplanets' cores made them absorb any gravitons over a certain level (about Earth level), probably as a result of transformation by contact with the energized protodermis cores. This would 1) make sense, 2) be freaky awesomesauce, and 3) make gravity on Aqua Magna the same as Spherus Magna, despite it being much smaller (so animation portrayals as everything being Earth gravity work), and 4) mean the megaplanets could be truly mega, having gobs of real estate for future population growth. :)

 

Unfortunately, somebody tried to ask Greg about this, did a bad job, and he "canonized a no" to any kind of gravity leveling effect (in giving the answer mentioned above). So, we're left to assume many images are artistic license and that we don't have any actual way to estimate the size. (Fan attempts notwithstanding. :P) Or, ignore that one answer and go with my theory anyways, or something like it. :lol:

 

 

I'm going to guess it's like 6 times the size of Earth (Diameter of Spherus Magna). Bara Magna is clearly the largest part of the three but based off what we see I'd say Aqua Magna as a planet was twice Earth size and Bota Magna ending up as earth sized. It was always shown smaller than the other two.

 

Gravity wise I'm gonna agree energized protodermis has something to do with it.

 

 

What bothers me most about the 40 million feet number is how large Aqua Magna, Spherus Magna, et al. would have to be.  Can you even have a solid planet with a radius 70x that of Jupiter?

First, we don't know how big it is, only that it's larger than Earth (recently confirmed by Greg), and does officially have more gravity. This issue (plus animation portrayals) is why I theorized a long time ago that something about the megaplanets' cores made them absorb any gravitons over a certain level (about Earth level), probably as a result of transformation by contact with the energized protodermis cores. This would 1) make sense, 2) be freaky awesomesauce, and 3) make gravity on Aqua Magna the same as Spherus Magna, despite it being much smaller (so animation portrayals as everything being Earth gravity work), and 4) mean the megaplanets could be truly mega, having gobs of real estate for future population growth. :)

 

Unfortunately, somebody tried to ask Greg about this, did a bad job, and he "canonized a no" to any kind of gravity leveling effect (in giving the answer mentioned above). So, we're left to assume many images are artistic license and that we don't have any actual way to estimate the size. (Fan attempts notwithstanding. :P) Or, ignore that one answer and go with my theory anyways, or something like it. :lol:

 

See, the physics are fine with me -- I can totally buy the EP-graviton thing. The issue I have with the planet's size is the fact that travel was not an insurmountable obstacle. Based on the level of tech we saw in '09 -- animal mounts and crumbling motor vehicles that probably couldn't break 60mph -- it should have taken decades to get anywhere, if the planet is indeed the size of Jupiter.

 

So really, this thread isn't actually about reducing the size of the GSR -- it's about reducing the size of Spherus Magna itself, given that the planet's size has been estimated based on the size of the robots. Thanks for dragging that out of me :P

 

Yeah I doubt its Gas Giant size but if it were caravans would never work. Far too slow and far too small to be of use.

 

Brings to mind a solution I plan to have in my collab. (Where the distance is more reasonable like I said above to Bones. ^_^ )

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Based on the level of tech we saw in '09 -- animal mounts and crumbling motor vehicles that probably couldn't break 60mph -- it should have taken decades to get anywhere, if the planet is indeed the size of Jupiter.

I incorporated this in Part 1 of my retelling (first 10 chapters taking place before and during Core War), with some journeys taking multiple years. If you think about it, this isn't a problem -- it's an awesome concept, of a world that even with tech like ours (roughly, for vehicles, probably), journeys could take comparable amounts of time to pre-vehicle cross-continental travel on Earth. :) Stories about journeys that take so much time can be fun.

 

For the 2009-10 storyline, one simple fact makes the short travel times work -- after the Shattering, the Agori made their villages near the pieces of the fallen prototype giant.

 

That means the 2009 villages likely are a (comparably) short distance from each other. :)

 

The canon didn't really make this clear, but since the official Bara Magna map doesn't give scale in relation to the northern and southern polar craters, the region shown on the map could be any relative size to Bara Magna, so it works whether it's Jupiter-sized or just three times the size of Earth or something. And since resources became much more scarce with the loss of the heavily forested northern region and the ocean to the south (likely dramatically affecting the water cycle of Bara Magna), it makes sense they would congregate around something like these pieces, which served as shelters, and the smaller forest of Tesara, etc.

 

 

 

reducing the size of Spherus Magna itself

 

Thing is, we have no official size to reduce. So far it's been left up to fan interpretation -- and that might be for the best. :)

 

 

I've been thinking about the problem of having solid planets with huge radii. Since matter becomes more condensed closer to the core of a planet, at some point, the core reaches critical density and collapses into a black hole. We'd need a really big planet for that to happen, and I'd have to do some calculations to see whether we're anywhere near that point with the numbers

 

I'd be interested in that.

 

On the one hand, even Jupiter-sized is still nowhere near the size of a star eligible for singularity collapse. On the other, stars are gas (plasma really), not solid matter. However, I don't think it's actually meant to be as big as Jupiter canonically, and if we do interpret it that way, we already need gravity absorption or something to account for behavior of objects on the surface.

 

 

Of course, first we have to find a reasonable height for Mata Nui and then I have to revise those numbers, because I started off with an incorrect value.

 

I'd suggest just starting by taking a typical rock planet composition of Jupiter's volume and seeing where that falls on the black-hole-candidate scale. :)

 

 

Also, we actually don't need any sort of gravity corrections or cancelling effects to equalize the gravity on all three planets. As long as there's a careful balance maintained between mass and radius, gravity will stay the same, despite the smaller size. It's all about the ratios.

 

Well, that gets into some very shaky territory. IMO this isn't likely the way to go, though it's an interesting topic. The most straightforward interpretation of the canon is that the surface gravity ("prior to" or without any cancelling/absorbing) of the fragments is less than the total SM, and there's no convenient "just right" setups of rock densities. (And for the two "moons", much less.)

 

So, most likely either SM is small compared to Jupiter, and animation portrayals just use artistic license (as we would retroactively see it) to ignore how things would behave under increased gravity (but not too extreme), or gravity simply works differently somehow or another.

 

 

But wouldn't that mean that Aqua Magna and Bota Magna were structurally more stable as moons than as part of Spherus Magna, being so dense on their own?

Furthermore, if the gravity is the same on Bara Magna, Aqua Magna, and Bota Magna for reasons related to density rather than EP, wouldn't there be a significant increase in gravity when all three merge?

 

Yeah, and since this started out by taking the art as definite, it ends up being self-contradictory, because at least one image from the MNS shows the moons fitting in their craters. Plus the kind of rapid density collapse you'd need to get the moons working would probably kill the Bota Magna inhabitants.

 

All of this is more of why I think the best solution was the simplest one -- any gravity over a certain level is absorbed/cancelled. Explains all of these things in one sweep, and doesn't even require any modification to physics itself -- just a power (of gravity nulling), which isn't weird for Bionicle at all.

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The thing is, however you want to leave planet sizes up to interpretation, we've still got some facts about a giant robot fight that took place with both robots standing on the surface of the planet, in which it's pretty clear that they're on a fairly level plane relative to their sizes and not balancing on opposite sides of an exercise ball.

 

Gravity-nullification of some kind might be the only way to save the massive planet sizes we need once we accept the 40 million number-- although turning Spherus Magna into a supermassive chunk of rock held to together with EP is, at least for me personally, less attractive than just accepting that the GSR isn't as tall as the earth is around; I'd rather the entire story not take place in a setting that's on such a hyper-inflated scale , and I'd be more comfortable ignoring one number than trying to warp everything in order to fit the number.

 

The problem with gravity-nullification is that, well... does EP always do that?  We haven't seen any evidence of it doing so anyplace else in the story, and just inventing a power that it has (especially if Greg wouldn't even agree to it) seems like just as much of a handwave as "a wizard did it!"  You'd like to believe, wouldn't you, that somewhere down the line EP would make sense, and wouldn't just remain this haphazard collection of powers and abilities that fit whatever the plot needs it to do.  This hypothesis puts additional stress on an already-nearly-broken concept.

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I incorporated this in Part 1 of my retelling (first 10 chapters taking place before and during Core War), with some journeys taking multiple years. If you think about it, this isn't a problem -- it's an awesome concept, of a world that even with tech like ours (roughly, for vehicles, probably), journeys could take comparable amounts of time to pre-vehicle cross-continental travel on Earth. :) Stories about journeys that take so much time can be fun.

And that's why I actually found the scale of the planet and the robot believable in your retelling (ten years to get from the Ice Tribe capital back to the Great Beings' tower? or was it less? idr). Sadly, the '09 story did not do that. If it had, I would have had no cause to make this thread in the first place :P

 

 

For the 2009-10 storyline, one simple fact makes the short travel times work -- after the Shattering, the Agori made their villages near the pieces of the fallen prototype giant.

 

That means the 2009 villages likely are a (comparably) short distance from each other. :)

I mean, comparatively, yes, but the prototype was still thousands of miles tall, and given how far apart some of the parts were scattered, it should take a journey of multiple months at least to get between some of them. The '09 storyline seemed to take place over a matter of weeks. Heck, there was nothing in TLR to suggest that the film's events didn't take place in a matter of days. There was precious little indication of time passing.

 

 

The canon didn't really make this clear, but since the official Bara Magna map doesn't give scale in relation to the northern and southern polar craters, the region shown on the map could be any relative size to Bara Magna, so it works whether it's Jupiter-sized or just three times the size of Earth or something. And since resources became much more scarce with the loss of the heavily forested northern region and the ocean to the south (likely dramatically affecting the water cycle of Bara Magna), it makes sense they would congregate around something like these pieces, which served as shelters, and the smaller forest of Tesara, etc.

We can at least estimate the area based on the size of the prototype robot and its scattered parts.

 

 

 

But wouldn't that mean that Aqua Magna and Bota Magna were structurally more stable as moons than as part of Spherus Magna, being so dense on their own?

Furthermore, if the gravity is the same on Bara Magna, Aqua Magna, and Bota Magna for reasons related to density rather than EP, wouldn't there be a significant increase in gravity when all three merge?

Yeah, and since this started out by taking the art as definite, it ends up being self-contradictory, because at least one image from the MNS shows the moons fitting in their craters. Plus the kind of rapid density collapse you'd need to get the moons working would probably kill the Bota Magna inhabitants.

 

All of this is more of why I think the best solution was the simplest one -- any gravity over a certain level is absorbed/cancelled. Explains all of these things in one sweep, and doesn't even require any modification to physics itself -- just a power (of gravity nulling), which isn't weird for Bionicle at all.

 

I absolutely agree, which is why I had to raise those questions in the first place :P

 

 

The thing is, however you want to leave planet sizes up to interpretation, we've still got some facts about a giant robot fight that took place with both robots standing on the surface of the planet, in which it's pretty clear that they're on a fairly level plane relative to their sizes and not balancing on opposite sizes of an exercise ball.

 

Gravity-nullification of some kind might be the only way to save the massive planet sizes we need once we accept the 40 million number-- although turning Spherus Magna into a supermassive chunk of rock held to together with EP is, at least for me personally, less attractive than just accepting that the GSR isn't as tall as the earth is around; I'd rather the entire story not take place in a setting that's on such a hyper-inflated scale , and I'd be more comfortable ignoring one number than trying to warp everything in order to fit the number.

I'm right on board with that last bit. Honestly, I'm pretty sure you could fit the MU into a robot as tall as the width of Australia. Then SM would only need to be like 2-4 times Earth-size, at least. I always figured the robots were probably big enough to just see the planet's curve, but not so big for it to affect their footing or anything like that. Somebody feel free to check the math on my random estimates :P

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The thing is, however you want to leave planet sizes up to interpretation, we've still got some facts about a giant robot fight that took place with both robots standing on the surface of the planet, in which it's pretty clear that they're on a fairly level plane

The part I bolded is just an assumption, though, that art we were shown is definitely canon for the sizes. It's unlikely the artists were concerned with these things when they drew those, or that the story team worried about them either. That's why I'm saying I don't think we should be making too much of artwork. Yes, I take it that way in my own personal headcanon (esp. for the retelling, which uses the gravity absorption thing), but canonically, we don't have anything clear.

 

Yet, anyways. :P (Except that SM is bigger than Earth and has more surface gravity.)

 

The problem with gravity-nullification is that, well... does EP always do that?  We haven't seen any evidence of it doing so anyplace else in the story,

Yes we have -- because the theory was that it transformed the rock around it (and transforming or destroying is what it does :)) to grant that power to it. What the results of transformations are follow almost no predictable patterns other than "what destiny needs to happen". In fact, since the EP didn't burn through all that rock just because it touched it, Karzahni-plant-style, it basically had to transform it somehow. And since it's also confirmed that the planet is larger, Ockham's Razor makes this the most likely theory (prior to Greg's denying the badly-worded version of it somebody threw at him) of what the transformation did. :)

 

Doesn't mean it had to be done, but yeah.

 

I'd be more comfortable ignoring one number than trying to warp everything in order to fit the number.

It's just not that simple -- because much of the story has been shaped around that number intentionally. :) It's best to try, first, to take every canon fact, and see how they can fit together, and only if they absolutely can't, take something out. And if you do, then you still can't just assume that just ignoring that one thing makes it all work. You have to consider downsides of that, too. And as I've pointed out here (some of it just for starters), there's several problems with ignoring that number in favor of something significantly shorter.

 

So, really you have to warp a lot of things to try to ignore it. :P

 

You would have to suggest a workable solution to at least, for example, there being "continents" in his chest, and that Mata Nui was called a "big" island, and even halving the giant to have his face fit under there leaves him massive, especially at the depicted 12-head-height ratio. If you change that ratio, you lose the feeling of his being unimaginably vast that that adds too... and you begin to see how your solution warps things just as much if not more. :)

 

By contrast... gravity weirdness. One simple idea, no real "warping everything." :)

 

I mean, comparatively, yes, but the prototype was still thousands of miles tall, and given how far apart some of the parts were scattered

Here we go again -- you're correct on the height (although it was a little shorter than the main giant), but we don't actually know how far apart the pieces were. All we have to say that (far as I have found anyways) is art. And this is actually one of the things where the art is inconsistent depending on the media. Incidentally, so is the giant's height related to atmospheres in some cases, or at least depicted cloud levels (though admittedly clouds come at different levels naturally).

 

Most likely the pieces are essentially right next to each other. They aren't seriously damaged, apparently, so they probably just "fell apart", rather than being blasted far away from each other or the like.

 

And we do have to keep in mind that those vehicles, and in some cases steeds (of alien animal species, on a world with several biological advantages over ours like multi-millenial lifespans), do cut down on the travel times. I suspect most of it is just that Greg forgot about this detail, and was used to writing stories taking place on islands, but the point is, expecting journeys of much more time than depicted actually doesn't fit. They may be a little short, but still close enough to work. Especially when we consider that they would have well-worn "highway" paths between the villages by now.

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I mean, I'd always assumed that the prototype "exploding" essentially meant "fell over and broke into pieces," since a literal explosion that large would probably have launched parts into space and done significantly more damage to the planet.

 

I'll assume for a minute that the GSR really is 40 million feet/7600 miles tall, so let's say the prototype is an even 7000 miles, with similar proportions. Its head would then be almost 600 miles. Unless the parts of the robot barely moved when they broke off, that head is probably at least several hundred miles away from the nearest other part. Likewise for the rest. So that's still multiple days by steed, and that's only from one robot part to another -- the city won't necessarily be at the corner of the giant arm nearest to you.

 

So I was exaggerating when I said months, as a result of not thinking through my estimates. That's still big enough I think it would have merited a mention :P

 

I'm perfectly willing to accept the planet size based on those figures, though, but I think I'm still sticking to 18 million feet for the GSR height, mostly based on the geographical naming choices that SPIRIT pointed out earlier.

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I mean, I'd always assumed that the prototype "exploding" essentially meant "fell over and broke into pieces," since a literal explosion that large would probably have launched parts into space and done significantly more damage to the planet.

 

I'll assume for a minute that the GSR really is 40 million feet/7600 miles tall, so let's say the prototype is an even 7000 miles, with similar proportions. Its head would then be almost 600 miles. Unless the parts of the robot barely moved when they broke off, that head is probably at least several hundred miles away from the nearest other part. Likewise for the rest. So that's still multiple days by steed, and that's only from one robot part to another -- the city won't necessarily be at the corner of the giant arm nearest to you.

Uh, no. The Prototype Robot was said to be something like 2/3 the size of the GSR. That would make it just over 5000 miles tall. Might want to check your sources first. ;)

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I mean, I'd always assumed that the prototype "exploding" essentially meant "fell over and broke into pieces," since a literal explosion that large would probably have launched parts into space and done significantly more damage to the planet.

 

I'll assume for a minute that the GSR really is 40 million feet/7600 miles tall, so let's say the prototype is an even 7000 miles, with similar proportions. Its head would then be almost 600 miles. Unless the parts of the robot barely moved when they broke off, that head is probably at least several hundred miles away from the nearest other part. Likewise for the rest. So that's still multiple days by steed, and that's only from one robot part to another -- the city won't necessarily be at the corner of the giant arm nearest to you.

Uh, no. The Prototype Robot was said to be something like 2/3 the size of the GSR. That would make it just over 5000 miles tall. Might want to check your sources first. ;)

 

Not trying to derail this train of thought but I realized something. Two other well known sci-fantasy series have a even greater scale problem. Unicron from TransFormers would dwarf the GSR seeing as he is large enough to consume gas giants but both are atoms compared to (this is just for sillyness at this point since anime rarely follows physics.  :D ) the galaxy sized mechs from Gurren Laggan. I can hardly see the use of a mech that big but I only know of it through a friend who watched the series so I may be mistaken on the size there. But Unicron works in a Sci-fantasy series and all. It's not too hard to imagine a bot as huge. Your scale just needs to be put into proportion and art is not always accurate. There is a tv trope about writers not being good at scale for a reason.  :P

 

I'm going to stick with a middel giant planet. One like several times the size of Earth. But thats more head cannon and collab thought.

 

One more thing with the Great Beings involved "a wizard did it." Is as true as we can get. The science they understood was great enough to synthesize a metal that could ruin a world an have it be usefull all the time.

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Here's a question, though. When we talk months or years, we mean our time. But how long would the day and year be on a spherus magna planet? If the planet is larger, the days could be much longer, and ditto for the year.

:r: :e: :g: :i: :t: :n: :u: :i:

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I really wish everyone would stop trying to play join the dots with Gen 1 and Gen 2 though,it seems there's a couple new threads everyday and often they're duplicates of already existing conversations! Or simply parallel them with a slightly new 'twist'! Gen 2 is NEW, it is NOT Gen 1 and it is NOT a continuation. Outside of the characters we already have I personally don't want to see ANY old characters return. I think it will cheapen the whole experience to those of us familiar with the original line...

 

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I mean, I'd always assumed that the prototype "exploding" essentially meant "fell over and broke into pieces," since a literal explosion that large would probably have launched parts into space and done significantly more damage to the planet.

 

I'll assume for a minute that the GSR really is 40 million feet/7600 miles tall, so let's say the prototype is an even 7000 miles, with similar proportions. Its head would then be almost 600 miles. Unless the parts of the robot barely moved when they broke off, that head is probably at least several hundred miles away from the nearest other part. Likewise for the rest. So that's still multiple days by steed, and that's only from one robot part to another -- the city won't necessarily be at the corner of the giant arm nearest to you.

Uh, no. The Prototype Robot was said to be something like 2/3 the size of the GSR. That would make it just over 5000 miles tall. Might want to check your sources first. ;)

 

I was basing my guess off their depiction in the comics, wherein the GSR appeared to me to be about head-and0shoulders above the prototype. If, in canon, the GSR is 7575 miles tall with a head:body ratio of 1:12, its head is 631 miles, and thus it would be a little over 631 miles taller than the prototype. I was not aware that the height of the latter had been confirmed; if it happened in-story, I must have forgotten in the intervening years, as numbers do not stick in my head the same way images do.

 

But regardless of whether it's 5000 miles or 7000 miles, my points still stands ;)

 

 

Here's a question, though. When we talk months or years, we mean our time. But how long would the day and year be on a spherus magna planet? If the planet is larger, the days could be much longer, and ditto for the year.

I recall hearing a headcanon that a "year" in Bionicle could be equivalent to a month for us -- so Mata Nui's 100,000 year mission would have been about 8.3 thousand years of our time.

 

I'm not sure how I feel about years in Bionicle being longer, though. The near-astronomical timespans we have are already hard enough for me to wrap my head around :P

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The thing is, however you want to leave planet sizes up to interpretation, we've still got some facts about a giant robot fight that took place with both robots standing on the surface of the planet, in which it's pretty clear that they're on a fairly level plane

The part I bolded is just an assumption, though, that art we were shown is definitely canon for the sizes. It's unlikely the artists were concerned with these things when they drew those, or that the story team worried about them either. That's why I'm saying I don't think we should be making too much of artwork. Yes, I take it that way in my own personal headcanon (esp. for the retelling, which uses the gravity absorption thing), but canonically, we don't have anything clear.

 

Yet, anyways. :P (Except that SM is bigger than Earth and has more surface gravity.)

 

The problem with gravity-nullification is that, well... does EP always do that?  We haven't seen any evidence of it doing so anyplace else in the story,

Yes we have -- because the theory was that it transformed the rock around it (and transforming or destroying is what it does :)) to grant that power to it. What the results of transformations are follow almost no predictable patterns other than "what destiny needs to happen". In fact, since the EP didn't burn through all that rock just because it touched it, Karzahni-plant-style, it basically had to transform it somehow. And since it's also confirmed that the planet is larger, Ockham's Razor makes this the most likely theory (prior to Greg's denying the badly-worded version of it somebody threw at him) of what the transformation did. :)

 

Doesn't mean it had to be done, but yeah.

 

I'd be more comfortable ignoring one number than trying to warp everything in order to fit the number.

It's just not that simple -- because much of the story has been shaped around that number intentionally. :) It's best to try, first, to take every canon fact, and see how they can fit together, and only if they absolutely can't, take something out. And if you do, then you still can't just assume that just ignoring that one thing makes it all work. You have to consider downsides of that, too. And as I've pointed out here (some of it just for starters), there's several problems with ignoring that number in favor of something significantly shorter.

 

So, really you have to warp a lot of things to try to ignore it. :P

 

You would have to suggest a workable solution to at least, for example, there being "continents" in his chest, and that Mata Nui was called a "big" island, and even halving the giant to have his face fit under there leaves him massive, especially at the depicted 12-head-height ratio. If you change that ratio, you lose the feeling of his being unimaginably vast that that adds too... and you begin to see how your solution warps things just as much if not more. :)

 

By contrast... gravity weirdness. One simple idea, no real "warping everything." :)

Ah, fair, but for the EP to transform the rock of a planet so that the rock nullifies gravity... well, it'd have to somehow be the destiny of the rock, or EP would have to do so deliberately, and there'd need to be a planet-creation process in which the planet starts out at a reasonable, gravitationally-allowable size, and somehow grows as the EP in its core starts to imbibe the closest level of rock with that power.... so it would be very strange to imagine Spherus Magna actually coming into existence in the first place. :P

 

Definitely not an assumption of mine that the robots were battling on a reasonable level plane, though... I mean look at the images, check out all the story material we've got and there's every indication that they are not carefully balancing on an oversized beach ball.  If that artwork isn't relatively canon, what is? :P

 

Also not at all clear on what aspects of the story are fundamental to the 40 million feet number?  We can still have a tremendously huge Great Spirit Robot that isn't so tremendously huge that it'd have to wrap itself completely around the earth to sit down on it, and every element of the story would still make perfect sense.  We get reasonably-sized planets, don't need to postulate extra weird stuff for EP to do, and don't need to figure out how such massive planets came to be through some weird combination of existing astrophysics and a convoluted involvement of EP.  Whereas, if you were to ignore the 40 million feet number, what elements of canon exactly would be warped?  Ah, the continents might be slightly smaller?  The island of Mata Nui would be... well, exactly the same size, we could just fit more of the giant's face under it? :P

 

:smilelehvak:

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Everything is some kind of a plot, man.

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Here's a question, though. When we talk months or years, we mean our time. But how long would the day and year be on a spherus magna planet? If the planet is larger, the days could be much longer, and ditto for the year.

I recall hearing a headcanon that a "year" in Bionicle could be equivalent to a month for us -- so Mata Nui's 100,000 year mission would have been about 8.3 thousand years of our time.

 

I'm not sure how I feel about years in Bionicle being longer, though. The near-astronomical timespans we have are already hard enough for me to wrap my head around :P

 

 

Greg has been fairly adamant about 1year being '1 year'. So as to avoid questions about the length of a year :(

It is believed that an SM day is 36 hours, based on the sun diel from 01. Whether this means SM days are longer or hours are shorter remains a mystery. I attempted to ask Greg once on the lego message boards but he brushed it off saying he made a year equal a year to avoid questions about the length if a year. Now I think about it, I presume he ment time in general.

Edited by northmarch
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Ah, fair, but for the EP to transform the rock of a planet so that the rock nullifies gravity... well, it'd have to somehow be the destiny of the rock, or EP would have to do so deliberately, and there'd need to be a planet-creation process in which the planet starts out at a reasonable, gravitationally-allowable size, and somehow grows as the EP in its core starts to imbibe the closest level of rock with that power.... so it would be very strange to imagine Spherus Magna actually coming into existence in the first place. :P

Well, given that EP is a living entity, I just figure it can do whatever it wants. If it wants to grow its planet to an absurdly large size, I see no reason it couldn't.

 

 

Definitely not an assumption of mine that the robots were battling on a reasonable level plane, though... I mean look at the images, check out all the story material we've got and there's every indication that they are not carefully balancing on an oversized beach ball. If that artwork isn't relatively canon, what is? :P

Well they're not balancing on a beach ball, but there's no reason to assume the curve of the planet isn't noticeable for them.

 

 

Also not at all clear on what aspects of the story are fundamental to the 40 million feet number? We can still have a tremendously huge Great Spirit Robot that isn't so tremendously huge that it'd have to wrap itself completely around the earth to sit down on it, and every element of the story would still make perfect sense. We get reasonably-sized planets, don't need to postulate extra weird stuff for EP to do, and don't need to figure out how such massive planets came to be through some weird combination of existing astrophysics and a convoluted involvement of EP. Whereas, if you were to ignore the 40 million feet number, what elements of canon exactly would be warped? Ah, the continents might be slightly smaller? The island of Mata Nui would be... well, exactly the same size, we could just fit more of the giant's face under it? :P

This precisely. Like I said earlier, the MU could fit into an Australia-sized robot with no change to the story.

 

 

Greg has been fairly adamant about 1year being '1 year'. So as to avoid questions about the length of a year :(

It is believed that an SM day is 36 hours, based on the sun diel from 01. Whether this means SM days are longer or hours are shorter remains a mystery. I attempted to ask Greg once on the lego message boards but he brushed it off saying he made a year equal a year to avoid questions about the length if a year. Now I think about it, I presume he ment time in general.

I'd forgotten about the sundial thing, thanks for jogging my memory. So I guess that could settle the question of years...except that Greg is also the one who gave us the "40 million feet tall" thing, and here we are in a thread that attempts to disregard that entirely :P

Edited by Junkbot Master of Trash

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