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Poll: Size the Mata Nui robot


How big do you like dem giant robotz?  

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Works of fiction still have to abide by maintaining suspension of disbelief

 

Yes, and what breaks it varies for different people. Most people when they see a story about elemental powers and the like seem to easily recognize that things that may feel impossible in our world are supposed to be "at home" in this one, and don't overthink it.

 

There's always a few who do have to think about it, though... and sometimes actually do find legitimate problems. ^_^

 

 

bonkles physics is the worst catch-all "now i don't have to worry about an actual explanation or acknowledge this is unbelievable" thing to ever happen

 

Not totally sure, but it looks like you're saying you're using the strawman version of this, where "it's fiction, therefore it's possible." That's not the argument -- it's more like since it's fiction we can't just assume that it doesn't work. :)

 

 

You didn't actually provide a source on that so I can only assume it's an excuse to place the onus of unbelievable things on the reader

 

Er... Do you realize you just told us that you consider OK to assume things? :blink:

 

I don't have the quote handy -- if you want to find it (and if it was by PM instead of post, not sure), it should be in fishers' archive. You can search through it if you wish, but it's common knowledge.

 

 

No, it wasn't. Nobody actually rebutted it.

 

Then I'm confused. Could you elaborate on how it was not covered already? Have you read the other recent topics on this subject, BTW? (I'm not going to type up the same answer or dig it up if this keeps coming up like once a week with still-open topics on the same thing. :P)

 

 

This is seriously the most condescending, patronizing, and insulting thing you've ever said.

 

Dina... I was replying to somebody who argued against thinking. I'm sorry if the joking tone wasn't clear -- it can be lost on the internet sometimes, admittedly, but it's not fair to say that advising thought is condescending in response to somebody who was actually advising against the necessity of it. (I ALSO said that fans don't NEED to think this through. It's just that it's healthy to try to do so. :) And it is.)

 

And it's just an honest reaction to seeing people apparently (but maybe it's just perception?) trying to hold Bionicle to a high standard but at the same time saying "don't think about this criticism too much". I really don't understand that, and it's puzzling, and honestly a bit frustrating that it keeps happening over and over.

 

Isn't it possible this is actually a problem that needs fixing in others' approaches? Criticism is supposed to be constructive, after all, and if it is a problem, bringing it to their attention (even if clumsily? >_<) can help them, just as (I would hope) the criticism of Bionicle is aimed at improving it. :)

 

I say this because I can't help but notice that often the same person who is posting a criticism quite harshly (with words like "ridiculous" etc.) will act as if the slightest hint that they might have made even a little mistake is an offensive thought.

 

Can you see how that is... at least a bit puzzling? :)

 

Edit: To be clear, I get how it happens. People just want to get their perspective across, and hyperbole about the negatives they perceive feels, to many, like a good way to do it. The problem is they often forget that they're doing this in a place where there may be (and usually are) people who did like the thing they're criticizing. People tend not to consider others' perspectives... and while that's natural, it's also something that's best improved. :)

Edited by bonesiii
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so how can the mata nui robot fit metru nui and all the other islands inside of it if the toa mata live on just its face? maybe he has a really tiny face?

 

wait did someone tell us to "think a little" when they, themselves, refuse to do any critical thinking?

Edited by Tentalones
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I can't even begin to comprehend how big a 40 million foot robot would be.

 

I can't even begin to comprehend a 40 million foot robot fighting another giant robot while not crushing/deafening/killing the thousands of normal-sized Glatorian, Agori, Toa, and others on the battlefield so very close to where these robots are shuffling around.

 

A smaller size would be a lot more believable. I understand a whole universe is meant to be kept in this thing, and I can believe that on its own, but it's utterly implausible when it lands on a planet and barely does any harm to it or its inhabitants.

 

The 2010 story year needed a rewrite or two.

Edited by TheSkeletonMan939
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Not totally sure, but it looks like you're saying you're using the strawman version of this, where "it's fiction, therefore it's possible." That's not the argument -- it's more like since it's fiction we can't just assume that it doesn't work. :)

 

 

I don't see a difference between the two approaches, honestly. Both are used to shut down discussion of things by suggesting, since it's fiction, that means arguments of plausibility don't actually apply. Example: if I say "ice doesn't actually sink", and your response is "maybe it just doesn't use our physics" instead of "maybe the author slipped up", it's being used as a catchall to explain things away instead of actually approaching them from a critical mindset.

 

Er... Do you realize you just told us that you consider OK to assume things? :blink:

 

Yes, me saying "I can only assume" to one thing is pretty much me saying "you can assume everything", you got me.

 

Then I'm confused. Could you elaborate on how it was not covered already? Have you read the other recent topics on this subject, BTW? (I'm not going to type up the same answer or dig it up if this keeps coming up like once a week with still-open topics on the same thing. :P)

 

It wasn't covered because nobody actually rebutted it. I've seen absolutely nobody say anything on the matter that could be considered an honest-to-god rebuttal of the idea of large scale being cheapened when applied to everything.

 

The one topic I saw was far more concerned with in-universe plausibility than actual audience response, and started talking about gravity thrusters or something. The issue was being overcomplicated imo.

 

Dina... I was replying to somebody who argued against thinking. 

 

That is an extreme oversimplification of their point, which is possibly where your tactless reply came from. Their point was that, in order to even begin to see a robot of that size as not breaking suspension of disbelief, math is apparently required, which isn't usually how stories work. This isn't a crusade against all thinking, it's trying to acknowledge where an author's role ends and where the reader's begins. If making even the barest sense of something requires a suspiciously large amount of effort, then some would argue the author has not put enough thought into that aspect, instead leaving it to the audience to clean up.

 

Maybe that's the kind of story you like, but it's not the kind I like. I'd rather analyze the things that matter (theme, character development, etc.) than have to try and make up for a robot that broke my suspension of disbelief by being too big.

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I don't see a difference between the two approaches, honestly. Both are used to shut down discussion of things

Not at all. :) Actually usually the most enjoyable and interesting discussions happen in topics where people get that fiction can explore the unknown and have things that even the authors don't know how they might be possible/plausible. :)

 

The difference is that "we don't know, therefore it works" would be fallacious, but the other is saying that it's also fallacious to say "we don't know, therefore it doesn't work." Make any sense? :shrugs:

 

Basically the point is that our not knowing goes both ways.

 

It wasn't covered because nobody actually rebutted it. I've seen absolutely nobody say anything on the matter that could be considered an honest-to-god rebuttal of the idea of large scale being cheapened when applied to everything.

 

The one topic I saw was far more concerned with in-universe plausibility than actual audience response, and started talking about gravity thrusters or something. The issue was being overcomplicated imo.

Agreed to the last part. To the first, I'm not sure, but it sounds like you didn't catch that it seems the very large interpretation of the planets was turned down canonically, so SM actually isn't much larger than Earth (confirmed to be larger, but also nothing special happening to gravity, so not much larger). So, the bot is the only really noticeably huge thing. The idea of a somewhat larger planet is nothing new or unusual.

 

 

That is an extreme oversimplification of their point

Actually, looking back, I thought I used the "joke" emote there, but apparently it was the smile... anyways, I guess I don't blame you for taking it how you did. :( But try to not leap to negative assumptions about people, okay? Things never go well when people do that. We're here to have friendly but constructive discussions, not assume the worst in people.

 

(And I stated the more nuanced version of what they seemed to mean in other places, so to take just the joke out of context wouldn't be fair... but likeisay, my bad that it wasn't clearly a joke, and probably not wisely placed. :( )

 

I think the reason I put the smile there was meant to be the "in a hurry" version of making it clear that yes, even having to think to understand some things can be healthy (but that it's a moot point in this case since I don't think most fans were expected to think the size of the giant through). Although admittedly sometimes I just go "eh, not in the mood" and skip fiction like that. :shrugs: I think there's a balance and it also depends on a lot on the type of thinking and each fan's preferences.

 

 

Tent, that's one of the concept art pieces Christian Faber revealed a long time ago on his blog. :) I linked to it in the other currently active topic. :) It shows that the early concept of the giant was indeed to be smaller (and was going to curl up into a ball in space). Both of these concepts were scrapped for the final version, which is larger and doesn't curl up. :)

Edited by bonesiii
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Agreed to the last part. To the first, I'm not sure, but it sounds like you didn't catch that it seems the very large interpretation of the planets was turned down canonically, so SM actually isn't much larger than Earth (confirmed to be larger, but also nothing special happening to gravity, so not much larger). So, the bot is the only really noticeably huge thing. The idea of a somewhat larger planet is nothing new or unusual.

 

Well, see, now we have an issue with the fact that Mata Nui can no longer lay down on Aqua Magna. Like, it's physically impossible. Even invoking bonkles physics, it's even more suspension of disbelief breaking now.

 

I didn't give a minimum diameter of Neptune as hyperbole. There really is a lower limit defined by the curvature of the planet.

 

Now we're right back to the robot's size just plain not working.

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well the poll says about half of the voters think the robot is unreasonably big but i still dont think theres any real good size for this thing to be so gosh darn huge

like it needs to be huge for what it is, but comparatively it doesnt make sense for it to be so huge and like why would you write a story where an entire 'universe' is inside of one robot that was made on a planet? when its the size of a planet?

 

like i just dont like this discussion its making me not like the story no matter which side i chose (i didnt vote i hit null)

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I'm still going with the idea that Aqua Magna is the size of Earth and that there's enough room for Mata Nui to lay down on an Earth-sized ocean planet. 40 million feet is less than a third of Earth's circumference (that's approx. 40 million pi feet), so the idea that it's too big for Aqua Magna and its feet would dangle off of it is rather silly IMO. 

 

Further, according to this, 1,321.3 earths can fit in Jupiter. If AM is Earth-size, Bara Magna is probably the size of two Earths, leaving the whole of SM about five Earths in size. So it's much smaller than Jupiter. 

 

But whatevers, most of this will probably fall on deaf ears. 

 

I didn't intend to host the bonesiiiwars part 10,000 in here. I'm not sure what is under dispute - bones even said that he would be okay with shrinking the bot, so I'm not sure where these outrageous statements are coming from. I don't think anyone is blindly advocating turning your brain off and going "la-te-da don't think screw physics". Even I who is naturally tempted to do that has faced enough negative consequences and people calling me out on that to know better.

 

I'll say that I prefer the canon size, but I'm used to my preferences being different from the majority by now. Hopefully I can allocate for the majority of people being differently minded on this in a couple of decisions that I have to make in the future. I support efforts to speak to Greg and clarify his thoughts on the matter and not tripping over people's toes. :shrugs: 

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I'm still going with the idea that Aqua Magna is the size of Earth and that there's enough room for Mata Nui to lay down on an Earth-sized ocean planet. 40 million feet is less than a third of Earth's circumference (that's approx. 40 million pi feet), so the idea that it's too big for Aqua Magna and its feet would dangle off of it is rather silly IMO. 

 

I still think that's a bit of a curve to the robot that doesn't really align with any canon interpretations of his rising. that's a 120 degree curve. That would be fairly noticeable.

 

I'm not sure what is under dispute - bones even said that he would be okay with shrinking the bot, so I'm not sure where these outrageous statements are coming from.

 

Really? Because this:

 

I say that we should FIRST look for simpler solutions that change things less dramatically, and only appeal to big "universe-shrinking" approaches as a last resort.

 

 

seemed pretty unambiguously against it unless it was what he personally deemed "absolutely necessary".

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Oof, I can't believe this topic spawned such a long debate. It seems plainly obvious to me that the robot was ludicrously oversized, and that it should've been much smaller to not stretch disbelief like an object approaching an event horizon. Many writers have no sense of scale, and the 40 million foot robot demonstrated Greg fell in that camp too.

 

Dina, I wish I had your patience for continuing debates like this. It's also unfortunate that the last panel of the comic in your signature is way too applicable here...

 

~B~

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Until someone can name me an irl rocky planet that's bigger enough than Earth, I'll vote for a smaller size. I just can't imagine Mata Nui's head to be so big yet his brain only be big enough in comparison to house a thousand Matoran.

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This is why I said 40 million feet sounds like a "insert huge number here". Of course, I don't get why the GSR size is such a sticking point. It's a big robot, people. How big it is doesn't really matter.

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Elemental Rahi in Gen2, anyone? A write-up for an initial video for a G2 plot

 

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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74oZB58.png?1

 

I cobbled together a quick diagram to examine the plausibility of the GSR landing on a planet as wide as it is tall.

 

The first interpretation was assuming the diameter applied to the planet without water, which resulted in a fairly noticeable curve (that doesn't align with canon representations of the rising) and some fairly thick sea to cover it, especially those huge honking feet.

 

Then, however, I remembered that that's not how we measure the diameter of planets; Earth's diameter includes its oceans, and gas giants are measured to their outest layers, so actually, such a planet would reach the GSR's height including seas. This second interpretation is portrayed on the bottom, and results in an even more noticeable curve to the robot that honestly looks fairly awkward. (And the sea-to-rock ratio of this planet would need to be even greater than the previous one.)

 

This isn't HARD PROOF of implausibility in any way but honestly to me this looks rather ridiculous. I especially think this wouldn't work insofar as actually going to planets with continents, and this doesn't even account for the fact that he's laying on a sphere, not a cylinder; it's entirely possible what would stick out is not his toes after all, but his shoulders!

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This is why I said 40 million feet sounds like a "insert huge number here". Of course, I don't get why the GSR size is such a sticking point. It's a big robot, people. How big it is doesn't really matter.

 

I think a lot of the argument is that, in scale and comparison to everything else, when you make something this massive in fiction and have it interacting with planets and the denizens on those planets, then the size does matter because a scale the planet itself cannot support or would create massive change in the environment/ecosystem if introduced (and doesn't in the canon) is jarring and takes the reader out of the immersive aspect of the story.

 

Essentially it's bad writing.

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Wow this has got nuts. I'm glad there are still a few people with enough patience for logical debate here but it seems to me it's just going to go on like this forever.

 

Bonesii, with respect you're no longer debating anything rather than just ignoring any arguments against your own personal beliefs while claiming 'bonkles physics', 'works of fiction' and 'intentionally mind-boggling'. All of this is made much worse by your 'retcon everything BUT the size of the GSR' statements. The fact that the robot is too big for the tiny amount of matoran inside (not sure where you got your number from but I don't recall ever hearing about millions of inhabitants if you could clarify) is a real issue. One of many which have been raised which you manage to sidestep, derail or otherwise ignore. Your solution is 'add more matoran and keep the same size' thus changing a HUGE amount of things within the Matoran universe. While the opposing suggestion is 'make the GSR smaller' which would change only the sizes of our celestial bodies and the robot itself, all in much more believable and MANAGABLE ways. The reason that's in caps is so you don't immediately respond with your 'it's meant to be unbelievable' defence. Is it meant to be unmanageable too? Did it really take the tribes on Spherus Magna 7 million years to travel from one side of their planet to the other? And yes I know you think that's speculation too but we'll get to that later... The robot being so big introduces dozens of plotholes and other various issues that you're happy to 'edit away' but you do everything you can to argue in favour of keeping the 40million foot size, despite claiming yourself it should be half that size?

 

Which brings us neatly onto another point which is REALLY bugging me about many of your responses to Dino and also to my own. I gave approximate dimensions for the Magna planets based on OFFICIAL CANON artwork. You're immediate response was that this artwork was NOT canon? So are we to believe then that ONLY Greg has the power to unquestionably shape the Bionicle universe in ridiculous ways? Christian Faber should be ignored when he draws something logical which contradicts Greg's nonsense? Seriously man, the rising of the GSR was in a major motion picture. It was pretty much the pinnacle of Bionicle storytelling after so many years in development (even if the story wasn't great) It cannot be logically argued that a major scene from this movie is less canon than a random number chosen by one man when he didn't think he was going to be called on it. As far as Greg knew, 40 million feet would be fine, he didn't know there would be a succession of ever larger planets to fit into the maths. When they made the movie, they knew that already! So they made the robot smaller! It was lying flat on it's back in an ocean deeper than it was thick. When it stood up, the clouds reached up past it's waist. Let's not forget the prototype robot too, you know the one that was manhandled across the desert by tiny fleshy lifeforms? You try moving something that big with nothing more than ropes and manpower, I don' care how many friends you have it's not possible! The real point here though is that you're placing Greg on a pedestal as usual and claiming that he knows better than everyone else ever involved with Bionicle just because he was the first hand that material such as this went through. You're claiming that all artistic representations (notably OFFICIAL ones) should be ignored unless they strictly adhere to what Greg said word by word. How about we ignore Greg for once and go with the hundreds of other people working on the movie who realised 40 million feet wouldn't work? 

 

I can't be bothered fielding any more logical arguments here myself as I've seen so many others do so and be ignored. This topic is no longer a bigger vs smaller debate but a Bonesii vs anyone who disagrees... In all of your recent posts you've done nothing but spin people's own comments against them, claim your 'rules of Greg and Bonkles physics' and otherwise belittle the members trying to make a logical argument against your personal theories. Your posts are often patronising and you hide behind a swathe of emoticons for some reason. Possibly to conceal the fact that your own argument is nothing more than thinly veiled denial based on unwavering support of a man who once said a number...

 

I find it very interesting too that all the posts made in response to you have a substantial amount of support while your own... Well, not so much so. Perhaps you should consider rethinking the tone in which you write future challenges? Also, including some actual evidence in your posts might be a good way to go, rather than just relying on Greg and physics to get you out of everything. Also, please stop using the word 'debunked' to mean 'I said it was wrong so we don't need to talk about it anymore'. It's incredibly self-serving.

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Tent, I agree, but the point is, we should be careful about rethinking it, and look for the simplest ways to change it first -- and sizing down the world of our characters (something that could affect almost all of the history of Bionicle's story) is a dramatic change.

Basically, this is a canonization proposal.

And we've all agreed before that it's best to talk those out amongst fans and think of possible downsides first. Right? This shouldn't get an exemption.


I do think it's worth thinking about, since Greg seems to have turned down the megaplanet... then again, he also said it's larger, and without knowing how much larger, or average ocean depth on Bionicle planets, etc. can we rule that it fits?

I think where we really need to be starting is in calculating 'felt' surface gravity on planets of various slightly larger sizes than Earth, and looking up where the limit is thought to get unbearable.


Dina, the thing is, AM is entirely ocean, with no land surfacing at all. That means it can be basically as deep as the authors want it to be. (And gravity didn't necessarily even its rock/earth out to a perfect sphere after the Shattering either; there might be a deeper side.)

Other alien worlds with both land and deep enough oceans are much more of a stretch, to be sure (esp. if they're like SM, which had a relatively small ocean compared to its land's surface area), but we can't really judge by AM. That also means SM's former ocean had to be oddly deep... but can we absolutely rule that out?

Basically, we need more information.


Dina, yes, I'm against leaping to the conclusion of sizing it down before making sure such a proposal is actually necessary. Notice your image only considers a planet smaller than what Greg seems to have said that the typical Bionicle alien world is. That may be accurate to AM (and if it looks silly... it was a crash landing -- it wasn't meant to be elegant :P), but what about a larger planet, and a bot sized down to no smaller than half, for example?

 

 

 

Edit:

 

Munty, point by point real quick:

-Munty, analyzing arguments to see if they work or not isn't ignoring them. You want a quality story, right? Shouldn't the criticisms of it be held to a standard of quality too?

-The idea that the robot can be too big for the number of inhabitants has been covered already. Calling it a fact doesn't make it so. Why would there be a rule that you have to have a certain amount of people per unit area inside?

-But I'm not sure what the official number is, so I didn't mention any; I presumed for sake of argument that it is indeed small. Fishers mentioned a millions number, not me. Given that she's the expert on Greg quotes, I'm inclined to trust her memory on that. :shrugs: All I recall for sure is there's a lot more outside Metru Nui, and it's thought that it might have more automation than other places (being tied into the brain), so probably has less room for inhabitants, although I'd say many thousands more could be fit in a few residential skyscrapers if they'd wanted.

(And there's evidence the original plan was to have many more, but it was apparently scrapped due to the small Mata Nui villages, ergo to get the number down, many must die. It was probably viewed as too dark for the target audience. This has been gone over in more detail in past topics.)


-I don't recall saying anything about adding more Matoran?

-See, that assumption that changing the size of the giant has no downsides to consider is what I'm talking about as a problem. Take the example of travel times. If we imagine they used fast boats or took a little longer, we change one tiny part of the story. But if we change the entire setting of all (MU) history, we should think much more carefully about what that might and might not affect. The one change is temporary and small, the other enormous.

Running out of time now, so less detail from now on...

-Yes, I know the point of many's goals here is to, as I often put it, "tame" the giant. And that's okay. :P (Although completely taming it would be contrary to the unimaginably vast feeling -- do you not agree? So we should look for ways, if it shrinks at all, to keep it on the larger side, if possible, no?) But the cautions and downsides need to be considered carefully.

-We don't have any stories of SM inhabitants doing a "walk around the world" thing, or how long it would take.

-Yes, there are downsides (possible plotholes) to having it big that need considered (and many have been for years). Seriously, we get that, there's no need to keep acting like you need to prove it. :P

(I don't blame you though. I'm sure you've run into people who actually are biased against a particular idea and may tend to assume it's true of anybody disagreeing with you. But for one thing, I disagree with the pro-keeping-current-size side where they make bad arguments too, and for another, I'm not sure why the size of a giant in a story would something anybody would want to have a bias about either way. :P)

-Yes, the artwork showing the planet that much bigger is non-canon (about that detail itself). Why is that so hard to accept? There's other art that shows all the bodies in question as potato-shaped -- do you assume that has to be canon too?

It's not my idea -- I'm just passing on what Greg said. I was a fan of the much larger interpretation (with a gravity absorption theory, but dead horse is dead) that the art portrays, but my liking it doesn't make it canon, nor does it being in LEGO-produced art. It's hardly the first time something LEGO put out was deemed non-canon. (Or semi-canon; even MNOG was called that.)

-Nobody said the concept version should be ignored. I think the fact that there's such a version already "mathed out" is a huge plus for the pro-shrinking side. :) (And concept stuff is often better IMO than what is later chosen, especially Faber's work. I don't really have a preference either way on this one, but I can see the appeal.)

You're probably reacting to the point that it isn't the currently canon one, which was only brought up because somebody seemed to think it was. Faber mentioned this in his most recent blog entry, probably to help avoid that misconception in the future. ^_^

-I don't know what the point of your TLR argument is. That's also one that portrayed the moons as potatoes. But I have pointed out before that the TLR version (from a clip I saw online more recently, anyways; I don't recall from when I had gotten the movie from the library) doesn't make the island to giant ratio clear, so that one actually works with the canon size, versus the Ghost version which has the giant about halved or so.

-The main theory on moving the prototype pieces is that either they have antigravity generators themselves, or the Agori were given tools that do. Just pulling it with ropes as the art seems to show (though either of the above option would then allow pulling by ropes) makes no sense, I agree. And I've pointed that out before.

-Sigh. I already pointed out that a number being canon doesn't mean it's the wisest. Please stop putting words in my mouth.

-Yes, I agree I evidently picked the wrong tone earlier, but it wasn't intended how you're portraying it -- it was casual and relaxed as normal discussion on BZP usually is. Yes, a different tone is appropriate when dealing with members who have a strong emotional attachment to a particular view, but I honestly didn't realize some fans had reached that stage about the size of a giant in a story about toys. :P (But I guess I can see why they would. :shrugs:) There's been a trend of some common and repeated misconceptions in the past topics, but not this kind of approach. It may be because it's a poll, not sure.

Yeah, you're right, being loose with words like debunking and strawman and such may be a bit unfair. :( My bad. :)

(That said, please remember such things go for the rest of you too. We all need to be careful; that goes for both 'sides'.)

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

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Let's everyone take a deep breath here. Remember this is a kids toy line with a story wrapped around it. A story that was not created (as far as I'm aware) with any scientific advisory or consultation. So just because something is 'canon' doesn't mean it has to make sense to everyone, especially if you put a little scientific rigor behind it. That doesn't change the fact that it's 'canon' though, and for better or worse it's the official word on the subject.

 

That said, I think it's certainly a topic worthy of discussion, but let's do it in a respectful manner and not tell people they aren't thinking or can't possibly be right or any of the other similar comments I've seen here.

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This is why I said 40 million feet sounds like a "insert huge number here". Of course, I don't get why the GSR size is such a sticking point. It's a big robot, people. How big it is doesn't really matter.

I think a lot of the argument is that, in scale and comparison to everything else, when you make something this massive in fiction and have it interacting with planets and the denizens on those planets, then the size does matter because a scale the planet itself cannot support or would create massive change in the environment/ecosystem if introduced (and doesn't in the canon) is jarring and takes the reader out of the immersive aspect of the story.

 

Essentially it's bad writing.

Wait, we got the robot portrayed many times in many different forms of media by many different people. Then we have the head writer throw out a random big number because he was asked for one, and the fandom starts tearing at the number because it doesn't match hundreds of images of varying quality that ignore exact measurements in favour of 'it looks really huge'? Does anybody else see the problem here?

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

Elemental Rahi in Gen2, anyone? A write-up for an initial video for a G2 plot

 

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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As unpopular as it seems to be, I'm in favor of keeping the robot 40 millions feet high.

 

My first reason for this hasn't anything to do with the story, but rather with the timing. This 40 millions feet thing has been around for 7 years, and was introduced when there was many more people caring about BIONICLE. Adding things to the Gen 1 canon isn't a problem to me, but changing how things were defined? I am not a fan of retcons.

 

I also think the robot height make sense when you think about the thickness of the robot, especially around the head. With Bohrok nests, the maze of shadows, enough "atmosphere" space to allow meteorological phenomenon, Metru Nui, the Archives, a big layer of rock, the Core Processor and then the back armor of the robot, I can totally see a 2 millions feet thick GSR.

 

Given its number of inhabitants and how much "protowater" there is in the MU, the area within the MU doesn't seem overly big (basing myself on the ratio of Faber concept, I took 8 millions feet for width; it gave me 320 000 000 000 000 sq ft including seas - around 2/3 the area of Asia).

 

Just for the record, one of the quotes where Greg said there is millions of Matoran in the MU:

 

 

 

1. Can any being in the bionicle universe wear a kanohi if the wanted to?

1) Wear, or use?

 

1. use

 

1) No. There are millions of beings in the BIONICLE universe -- the Matoran -- who wear masks every day but can't use them. Using a Mask of Power requires a mental discipline that not everyone has or can have.

 

I do not think its construction would be a big problem; the GBs created the Mask of Creation, that can create things out of thin air if the user know how to create them, they probably used a similar technology to create the robot.

 

To sum up what I'm trying to express, I think the GSR make sense as an independant system. But I agree there's a problem with its portrayal compared to Spherus Magna/Bara Magna/Aqua Magna/Bota Magna, especially in art and in 2010. Then, no real ratio or anything was given - to my knowledge - so that's pretty much a question of perception. And given we know Spherus Magna isn't a rocky planet like Earth - given EP and Shatterring - that's pretty much impossible to evaluate its density or its size or anything about it as a celestial object.

 

Let's not forget the prototype robot too, you know the one that was manhandled across the desert by tiny fleshy lifeforms? You try moving something that big with nothing more than ropes and manpower, I don' care how many friends you have it's not possible!

Even though I agree with you about how ridiculous this idea was, I must say it would remain ridiculous even if the prototype was shrunken down 100 times. Something to make that more believable would be good, but shrinking down sizes doesn't help, I think.
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Keep in mind that if Star Trek fans had, as a group, said, "No point in talking about this anymore, it's never going to come back," it never WOULD have come back.

-- Greg Farshtey

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I still think that's a bit of a curve to the robot that doesn't really align with any canon interpretations of his rising. that's a 120 degree curve. That would be fairly noticeable.

I think that has to do with the artistic interpretation of the robot's awakening (which could be erroneous/artistic license) then with actual story implausibility.

 

74oZB58.png?1

 

I cobbled together a quick diagram to examine the plausibility of the GSR landing on a planet as wide as it is tall.

 

The first interpretation was assuming the diameter applied to the planet without water, which resulted in a fairly noticeable curve (that doesn't align with canon representations of the rising) and some fairly thick sea to cover it, especially those huge honking feet.

 

Then, however, I remembered that that's not how we measure the diameter of planets; Earth's diameter includes its oceans, and gas giants are measured to their outest layers, so actually, such a planet would reach the GSR's height including seas. This second interpretation is portrayed on the bottom, and results in an even more noticeable curve to the robot that honestly looks fairly awkward. (And the sea-to-rock ratio of this planet would need to be even greater than the previous one.)

 

This isn't HARD PROOF of implausibility in any way but honestly to me this looks rather ridiculous. I especially think this wouldn't work insofar as actually going to planets with continents, and this doesn't even account for the fact that he's laying on a sphere, not a cylinder; it's entirely possible what would stick out is not his toes after all, but his shoulders!

Personally, my first reaction to seeing that was "if it's a sphere, that would be more area for him to lay out in" but no matter what the angle, you could still draw that circle.

 

I'm still not sure how you get the feet or shoulders "sticking out" though. Even if the bot was 130 million feet tall, it would wrap around the planet because of gravity (and probably break in half as a result, but anyway). This is not saying that I consider 130 million feet to be a reasonable robot size - if that were the canon size, I'd be the first to stand up and claim that as ridiculous, because that is.

 

 

I say that we should FIRST look for simpler solutions that change things less dramatically, and only appeal to big "universe-shrinking" approaches as a last resort.

 

 

seemed pretty unambiguously against it unless it was what he personally deemed "absolutely necessary".

 

 

Anywho, to the poll -- I voted how it is, because the other option isn't specific enough to vote for reasonably. I don't mind shrinking it down to about half (though preferably less), but an open-ended question could be taken to support "ridiculous" ( :P) -ly small sizes.

bones other post that he posted in the middle was even more clear on this subject.

 

But just so we're clear, it seems to me that bonesiii doesn't take issue as much with people's tastes as much as their debate approach.

 

What I read the post you quoted as is "I'd like to see some people talk about how the size of the giant can work, instead of denouncing it and claiming it can't". You're 100% correct that it's a personal taste...but it has very little to do with giant robot sizes.

 

It's a taste for "positive solution thinking". It's "you got a problem, you fix it" type thinking, which is good for small things. You want that pizza, you order it. You have homework, you do it. You want to write that novel, ya do it. Got obstacles? Who cares about those! If you really want to do it, you will succeed, because of the power of positive thinking!

 

Right.

 

Therefore, we have a too large a robot for our planet, Watson. Therefore, we either have to shrink our bot or grow the planet. I prefer the "grow the planet" theorem because I like my giant robots to be giant robots, prefer the bonesiii formerly amazing gravity absorption theory because I'm lazy, resist change, and put little stock in LMB Greg who has also said other things I don't agree with. But that's all my taste (still). But it is backed up by Greg himself who said that previous answers take precedent, the 40 million was a previous answer, that wins. End of problem.

 

But if you take Greg's interpretations of gravity to be canon, then Bara Magna can only be slightly larger than Earth size, which means that having a 40 million foot tall robot land on its surface and engage in combat with a 27 million foot tall robot is a fundamental impossibility. We have two canon "facts" that are at odds with each other. That's why I go back to precedent. But it gives that "foot in the door" to the taste to shrink the robot. That taste is immovable obstacle - I'm not going to suddenly make you like the 40 million foot tall robot, no?

 

Inevitably, positive thinking fails when it runs into immovable obstacles. Persistence allows a being to go around said immovable obstacles, but it usually involves sacrificing your personal tastes or finding a new method that you didn't see before. Therefore, it is better to allocate for the possibility that your personal tastes might be run over at the beginning of the debate, rather than the end. 

 

Which, ironically, was what I was trying to do with this poll - allocate for different personal tastes. 

 

I also get where that taste comes from - bones is a writer himself, ya know. All of this is accusing Greg (fairly, if you throw the LMB Greg answer in there) of not thinking things though. bones (and frankly, if I'm honest, I myself) would prefer that people actually think through his work of writing and think up cool explanations for how his story could work instead of claiming "it's impossible!" and calling him an idiot, it seems.

 

(I could care less about being called an idiot, honestly. I'm not a physicist. If someone complained about something in my writing that was wrong, I'd research it, and if I'm right and the person just can't accept it, so turns the world, and if I'm wrong, I fix it. Rather easy with author answers, which is what we're arguing about, but anyway.)

 

With that said, this really is impossible...so yarr. (Unless, like I said, you use precedent and kick LMB Greg to the curb.)

 

tl:dr - bones prefers to approach this in a different way than I and some others approach this. Yeesh.

 

Basically, this is a canonization proposal.

Just to be clear, I wasn't intending that, just to measure people's personal taste.

 

If you want to solve this using the method outlined in said post, I welcome it. But you're probably going to need a different topic for it - this topic wasn't intended to solve the problem, just take the tastes of the population. *sigh*

 

At least I now have a detailed record of your personal tastes on the subject. :P

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I still think that's a bit of a curve to the robot that doesn't really align with any canon interpretations of his rising. that's a 120 degree curve. That would be fairly noticeable.

I think that has to do with the artistic interpretation of the robot's awakening (which could be erroneous/artistic license) then with actual story implausibility.
 

74oZB58.png?1
 
I cobbled together a quick diagram to examine the plausibility of the GSR landing on a planet as wide as it is tall.
 
The first interpretation was assuming the diameter applied to the planet without water, which resulted in a fairly noticeable curve (that doesn't align with canon representations of the rising) and some fairly thick sea to cover it, especially those huge honking feet.
 
Then, however, I remembered that that's not how we measure the diameter of planets; Earth's diameter includes its oceans, and gas giants are measured to their outest layers, so actually, such a planet would reach the GSR's height including seas. This second interpretation is portrayed on the bottom, and results in an even more noticeable curve to the robot that honestly looks fairly awkward. (And the sea-to-rock ratio of this planet would need to be even greater than the previous one.)
 
This isn't HARD PROOF of implausibility in any way but honestly to me this looks rather ridiculous. I especially think this wouldn't work insofar as actually going to planets with continents, and this doesn't even account for the fact that he's laying on a sphere, not a cylinder; it's entirely possible what would stick out is not his toes after all, but his shoulders!

Personally, my first reaction to seeing that was "if it's a sphere, that would be more area for him to lay out in" but no matter what the angle, you could still draw that circle.

I'm still not sure how you get the feet or shoulders "sticking out" though. Even if the bot was 130 million feet tall, it would wrap around the planet because of gravity (and probably break in half as a result, but anyway). This is not saying that I consider 130 million feet to be a reasonable robot size - if that were the canon size, I'd be the first to stand up and claim that as ridiculous, because that is.
 

 

I say that we should FIRST look for simpler solutions that change things less dramatically, and only appeal to big "universe-shrinking" approaches as a last resort.

 
 
seemed pretty unambiguously against it unless it was what he personally deemed "absolutely necessary".

 

 

Anywho, to the poll -- I voted how it is, because the other option isn't specific enough to vote for reasonably. I don't mind shrinking it down to about half (though preferably less), but an open-ended question could be taken to support "ridiculous" ( :P) -ly small sizes.

bones other post that he posted in the middle was even more clear on this subject.
 
But just so we're clear, it seems to me that bonesiii doesn't take issue as much with people's tastes as much as their debate approach.
 
What I read the post you quoted as is "I'd like to see some people talk about how the size of the giant can work, instead of denouncing it and claiming it can't". You're 100% correct that it's a personal taste...but it has very little to do with giant robot sizes.
 
It's a taste for "positive solution thinking". It's "you got a problem, you fix it" type thinking, which is good for small things. You want that pizza, you order it. You have homework, you do it. You want to write that novel, ya do it. Got obstacles? Who cares about those! If you really want to do it, you will succeed, because of the power of positive thinking!
 
Right.
 
Therefore, we have a too large a robot for our planet, Watson. Therefore, we either have to shrink our bot or grow the planet. I prefer the "grow the planet" theorem because I like my giant robots to be giant robots, prefer the bonesiii formerly amazing gravity absorption theory because I'm lazy, resist change, and put little stock in LMB Greg who has also said other things I don't agree with. But that's all my taste (still). But it is backed up by Greg himself who said that previous answers take precedent, the 40 million was a previous answer, that wins. End of problem.
 
But if you take Greg's interpretations of gravity to be canon, then Bara Magna can only be slightly larger than Earth size, which means that having a 40 million foot tall robot land on its surface and engage in combat with a 27 million foot tall robot is a fundamental impossibility. We have two canon "facts" that are at odds with each other. That's why I go back to precedent. But it gives that "foot in the door" to the taste to shrink the robot. That taste is immovable obstacle - I'm not going to suddenly make you like the 40 million foot tall robot, no?
 
Inevitably, positive thinking fails when it runs into immovable obstacles. Persistence allows a being to go around said immovable obstacles, but it usually involves sacrificing your personal tastes or finding a new method that you didn't see before. Therefore, it is better to allocate for the possibility that your personal tastes might be run over at the beginning of the debate, rather than the end. 
 
Which, ironically, was what I was trying to do with this poll - allocate for different personal tastes. 
 
I also get where that taste comes from - bones is a writer himself, ya know. All of this is accusing Greg (fairly, if you throw the LMB Greg answer in there) of not thinking things though. bones (and frankly, if I'm honest, I myself) would prefer that people actually think through his work of writing and think up cool explanations for how his story could work instead of claiming "it's impossible!" and calling him an idiot, it seems.
 
(I could care less about being called an idiot, honestly. I'm not a physicist. If someone complained about something in my writing that was wrong, I'd research it, and if I'm right and the person just can't accept it, so turns the world, and if I'm wrong, I fix it. Rather easy with author answers, which is what we're arguing about, but anyway.)
 
With that said, this really is impossible...so yarr. (Unless, like I said, you use precedent and kick LMB Greg to the curb.)

tl:dr - bones prefers to approach this in a different way than I and some others approach this. Yeesh.
 

Basically, this is a canonization proposal.

Just to be clear, I wasn't intending that, just to measure people's personal taste.

If you want to solve this using the method outlined in said post, I welcome it. But you're probably going to need a different topic for it - this topic wasn't intended to solve the problem, just take the tastes of the population. *sigh*

 

At least I now have a detailed record of your personal tastes on the subject. :P

 

 

Out of that entire thing, I only had one question:

 

What does tl:dr mean? I see it all the time here, and I can never figure out what it means.

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A RUDE AWAKENING - A Spherus Magna redo | Tzais-Kuluu  |  Pushing Back The Tide  |  Last Words  |  Black Coronation  | Blue Man Bound | Visions of Thasos   ن

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Both Faber's concept art and the 2008 Mata Nui Rising animation show the robot at about 3150 kilometers (about 10,334,645.68489583 ft.) if we assume that those videos show the island of Mata Nui at it's canon size (489.09 km x 243.86 km).

Faber's concept art is non canon (and has no further bearing in this discussion), but it is a bit harder to ignore the Mata Nui Rising video.  This isn't just a debate about trying to replace a canon number with one that the fans prefer; this is a confict between two canon sources.  We have a few options:

  1. Leave this an unsolved mystery.  (resolved by headcanon)
  2. Change Greg's number to about 10.3 million feet.  (with Greg's permission)
  3. Change the canon size the island of Mata Nui to cover Greg's larger robot.  (with Greg's permission)
  4. Declare the 2008 video non canon (by saying that the island DID NOT fully cover the robot's face).  (with Greg's permission)

As much as I don't like option number one, it does seem to be the most likely, as all of the others require input from Greg.  
Option number 2 seems to me to be the easiest, but will leave chapters one and four of Reign of Shadows in an ugly semi-canon state.
As was mentioned above, Changing the size of the island will bring up another batch of logic problems.
Option number 4 bothers me for two reasons.  Reason one is that it would be quite a poor camouflage if it didn't.  Reason two is that Metru Nui would be like a pea inside of Mata Nui's head.  

Another thing to consider in defense of the smaller size of 3150 km is that it is still ludicrously big, so the shock value isn't lost.  

Edited by N.S.M.8
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Another thing to consider in defense of the smaller size of 3150 km is that it is still ludicrously big, so the shock value isn't lost.  

 

this is exactly what i've been thinking this whole time, like, to us humans, 50ft is a pretty tall giant, so, since GSR is literally no matter what at least quad-digit-feet tall, there's no way it'll ever not be "mind-bogglingly huge" compared to human and toa alike. :0

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bnnrimg1.pngbnnrimg2.pngbnnrimg3.pngbnnrimg4.pngbnnrimg5.pngbnnrimg8.png

 

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What I read the post you quoted as is "I'd like to see some people talk about how the size of the giant can work, instead of denouncing it and claiming it can't". You're 100% correct that it's a personal taste...but it has very little to do with giant robot sizes.

 

It's a taste for "positive solution thinking". It's "you got a problem, you fix it" type thinking, which is good for small things. You want that pizza, you order it. You have homework, you do it. You want to write that novel, ya do it. Got obstacles? Who cares about those! If you really want to do it, you will succeed, because of the power of positive thinking!

 

 

There's a difference between that kind of thinking in problem solving in real life vs. that kind of problem solving to absolve an author of doing something ridiculous. The thinking of exploring every possible explanation (ignoring the fact it assumes people who are against the size of the robot have done little to no thinking on the subject as opposed to the oh-so-thoughtful apologists) is the kind of mindset that lead to people still claiming frog DNA somehow gave Jurassic Park dinosaurs thick, leathery scales and slit pupils, despite frogs having neither characteristic.

 

You shouldn't jump the gun on calling something inconceivable, but you also shouldn't stretch for any explanation, no matter how far-fetched or overcomplicated, to excuse sloppy writing.

 

edit: Oh yeah, and also, unless metallic protodermis has some kind of magical extreme of flexibility and elasticity (which I'm putting a damper on here because last time we ascribed god-like powers to protodermis it essentially became a debate win button), we probably have to choose between gravity pulling the shoulders down and cracking the robot's chest down the middle (first person to mention the Voya Nui thing here gets a smack on the hand) or the shoulders not being pulled down and sticking out.

 

I don't think there could be joints that relieve the stress, either, considering last I checked, there was a dome in there; if the chest can fold down the middle, the island inside would crack in half.

Edited by Dina Saruyama
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Out of that entire thing, I only had one question:

 

What does tl:dr mean? I see it all the time here, and I can never figure out what it means.

Too long, don't read. 

 

You shouldn't jump the gun on calling something inconceivable, but you also shouldn't stretch for any explanation, no matter how far-fetched or overcomplicated, to excuse sloppy writing.

This isn't sloppy writing. The 40 million foot number was revealed out of story to the denizens of BZPower. In the actual story itself, there was no size given for the bot. Now you can argue that it was a poor choice all the same, but whether the robot was 40 million feet or 10 million feet matters little to this story. Point is that it was huge.

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Out of that entire thing, I only had one question:

 

What does tl:dr mean? I see it all the time here, and I can never figure out what it means.

Too long, don't read. 

 

You shouldn't jump the gun on calling something inconceivable, but you also shouldn't stretch for any explanation, no matter how far-fetched or overcomplicated, to excuse sloppy writing.

This isn't sloppy writing. The 40 million foot number was revealed out of story to the denizens of BZPower. In the actual story itself, there was no size given for the bot. Now you can argue that it was a poor choice all the same, but whether the robot was 40 million feet or 10 million feet matters little to this story. Point is that it was huge.

 

Thanks. :D

 

+1 thou.

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You shouldn't jump the gun on calling something inconceivable, but you also shouldn't stretch for any explanation, no matter how far-fetched or overcomplicated, to excuse sloppy writing.

This isn't sloppy writing. The 40 million foot number was revealed out of story to the denizens of BZPower. In the actual story itself, there was no size given for the bot. Now you can argue that it was a poor choice all the same, but whether the robot was 40 million feet or 10 million feet matters little to this story. Point is that it was huge.

 

 

 

...When was the last time that you read Reign of Shadows?  
Chapeter 1:

 

Here, a group named the Great Beings had built a 40 million foot tall mechanical being they namedMakuta. Unfortunately, his brother, Mata Nui, was plotting a rebellion against him.

Chapter 4:

 

Makuta Teridax, in the huge robotic body that once belonged to Mata Nui, surveyed the world he stood upon. There was nothing but water for as far as the eye could see – and when one is 40 million feet tall, reflected Makuta, one can see quite far.

(Both quotes copied from BS01's copy of Reign of Shadows)
 

Edited by N.S.M.8
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Booker, see, here's the thing -- what was accomplished was fun -- talking about a story we enjoy is supposed to be that :) -- and mental exercise. This didn't used to be a subject that anybody got upset about. I can see why it has, and apologize for my part on that. :( But I don't see the time of having fun talking about a great story as a waste. I've learned a LOT from it. ^_^

 

That said, I agree sizing the robot down now that the planet has been confirmed [sorta] smaller could be good. I think the ocean depth thing is a serious issue this time (kinda odd that it wasn't brought up before, as far as I recall, but ah well). Dina, well spotted. :) (Although for SM's ocean depth, not AM as such per se, though the two are related, obviously. And yeah, should have been clearer about that before, but I was in a crazy hurry. >_<) Can we just agree on that and move on? I really don't have time for anything more on it now. :shrugs:

 

If people want to go for a smaller bot and propose it to Greg, I would support it, as I've said for a long time. :) [Edit: the supporting the possibility, I mean. Anywho.] And this poll helps show that evidently it's a popular idea now.

Edited by bonesiii
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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 decided to look up the size of the Mata Nui island.

 

357 kio * 1.37 km/kio = 489 km = 489000 m

 

40 * 106 feet = 1.2 * 107 m

 

489000/(120*106) = 0.04 = 4% of the robot's total size

 

EDIT: Had to recheck the math.

 

Now, before I concluded that it was 0.00004=0.004%, which would be even more ridiculous, but the point still stands:

If Mata Nui's head is 4% of his body height, that means his proportions are way off.

 

Edit again: An illustration of my point.

pIA39Wb.png

 

Surprisingly, at least the head is on roughly the right order of magnitude, I guess?

Edited by Maphrox: Toa of Polygons

I make stuff sometimes.

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I didn't answer this as I'm not sure what you mean by it. Matters to what, for example? And I don't recall making a big deal out of author's intention. The quote you put where you said that seemed to be really stretching to get that out of what I said.

 

I would say author's intention matters for... knowing the... author's intention? :P

 

Which is usually something fans of that author's work are curious about. So... kinda puzzling you seem to be suggesting otherwise. :shrugs:

 

Basic reason most arguments against it don't work -- it's supposed to be "mind-bogglingly huge." So being "ridiculous" is generally a good thing in this case.

 

So, what you've said here is that:  1. The author intended the size to be "mind-bogglingly huge" (a term that shows up in criticisms of the size as being unrealistic).  2.  Therefore, it is good that the size is "ridiculous" (another word that shows up in these criticisms).  The only way we can really get from 1 to 2 is by also having another premise:  If the author intends something, then it is good.  I'm asking why we should accept that premise.

 

Now, as for why I'm suggesting that the author's intention might not matter here, it's twofold:  1.  the idea of the intentional fallacy in literary criticism (so just saying "usually fans of a work are interested in the author's intention" is not a sufficient reason to decide whether criticisms against the work "don't work" simply because they criticize an aspect of the work that was intended); and 2.  you yourself have now said that knowing the author's intention is only good for knowing the author's intention (i.e., unless you have some other application for this knowledge, it has no bearing on the current discussion).

 

 

I didn't mean to say that the size of the robot is necessarily nonsensical.

 

Okay, that's a step in the right direction. :)

 

 

What I'm saying is that if we treat the author's intention as solely determining whether something is "true" within a work of fiction

 

Lemme pause you right there. This was brought up, at least in the other topic, because people (Sailor, and then Alvis) [Edit: well, "seemed to mistake" or didn't word it clearly enough anyways] a conceptual portrayal for the canon size against Greg's size, forgetting that Greg was put in charge of the canon. Like I said there, that doesn't mean Greg's canon answer is the wisest one. It just means that it's the currently canon one and if people think they have a better idea, they should bring it up with him and not pretend their idea is canon. :)

 

Or, just have headcanon. :shrugs:

 

First of all, that is not a "step in the right direction."  My original comment was intended to show the logical conclusion of your faith in the author's intention; if I had meant to say that the size of the robot was necessarily nonsensical, I'd not have written "something" in the original comment.

 

I wasn't reading the other topic, so my comment was a direct response to the reasoning in your statement "Basic reason most arguments against it don't work -- it's supposed to be "mind-bogglingly huge." So being "ridiculous" is generally a good thing in this case."

 

I'm also critical of this whole concept of "canon" especially as it relates to asking direct questions of Greg Farshtey.  If he were to say "Gali is blue" in one book, then "Gali is not blue" in another book, then there is simply a contradiction and one of those things needs to be non-canon.  We know that there is a contradiction without even asking Greg.  And if we look through every other book, and they all describe Gali as being some shade of blue or another, then we'd probably reasonably assume that the statement "Gali is not blue" was simply wrong--an error.

 

Anyway, it seems to me that people in this topic have been simply looking for contradictions in the canon, and occasionally proposing alternatives to the size of the robot, which alternatives are made in light of the other statements in the text of BIONICLE.

 

 

I'm still not convinced that:  a) it was really intended that people need to do tons of math to understand BIONICLE

 

Never said everybody does. I was presuming it goes without saying that we all know most fans just see cool toys on the shelf and say "HEY ELEMENTAL BLASTERS!" (and giant robots). I'm talking to the people who chose to try to do some math to make a criticism. If you're gonna do it, do it right, yanno?

 

Besides, isn't this just an admission that the critic's math probably doesn't work out?

 

What is the point in making a criticism if the criticism's logic/math/plausibility doesn't have to be held to the high standards that even making a criticism implies Bionicle should be held to?

 

I don't get this. Yet it happens in almost every topic where somebody complains and others point out flaws in their reasoning. People... think a little. Seriously, it's good for you. :)

 

I realize that you never said everybody has to do math to understand BIONICLE.  I never thought or implied that you had said that.  But you did say that "BIONICLE was intended to take some work to understand."

 

This is not an admission that the critic's math doesn't fly.  It's an alternative perspective for looking at this problem, one in which the critic didn't ever need to do any math.

 

The standards of logic/math/plausibility can be the same in fiction as in real life, except for the fact that in fiction two propositions can be contradictory.  In real life, two sentences can be contradictory, but two propositions cannot.  In real-life science, we generally address contradictory sentences by determining whether our observations are flawed or by gathering more data.  We take Greg's statements as perfectly and truly representing the facts of the world of BIONICLE, so there is no way that our observations can be flawed (and the story is over, so there is no more data to be gathered), so if two of his statements are contradictory, then the world of BIONICLE must have two contradictory true propositions.  Since BIONICLE is fiction, this is possible.  But if we don't want to have such a contradiction, then we have two new options:  1. accept that there is a contradiction; or 2. reject one of the hypotheses based on some criterion (here, posters have used relative physical implausibility, which I suppose works as well as anything for this case).

 

~ BioGio

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"You're a scientist? The proposal you make violates parsimony; it introduces extra unknowns without proof for them. One might as well say unicorns power it."

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BG, thanks for clarifying. :) I don't have much to add, but to the first part, I was talking about the phenomenon of matters of taste making things (aside from issues of plausibility) that are liked by some also disliked by others, and often strongly opposite for the things that are most liked by some. Basically, the same things that one may see as "awesome" based on preference, another can see as "ridiculous." (And bad arguments can often be generated on both sides in favor of their POV.)

But that is all a moot point if there's even one legitimate plausibility issue, which it now appears with the smaller planet there is, the ocean depth (for SM, esp. if you enlarge the planet; higher gravity should make it flatter, so this may be an unresolvable problem other than by shrinking the giant). That changes everything. :)


As for trying to solve the issue without even the critic needing to do math, that's a fair point, and I've made similar points before. I was directing that more at people who had been trying to make more complex arguments, though saying it in reply to you, now that I see you didn't mean to support that per se, wasn't the best idea. -_-

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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I suspended my disbelief pretty high for that 40 million feet statistic, but after seeing the new Faber Files images (and video) I feel like the original size makes more sense in proportion to an Earth-like planet (seriously, how big would Spherus Magna/Bara Magna/Aqua Magna have to be?) while still being ENORMOUS. I really like that.

 

-NotS

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I might be missing something, but shrinking the robot down because of ocean depth doesn't solve the problem.

 

If I got the proportions right, a 3150 km tall robot would be around 400 km thick. The deepest part of ocean on Earth is Mariana Trench, and it only go as deep as 11 km. If we keep the same proportion, a 11 km thick robot would be around 80 km tall - which would not work for something with islands inside.

Keep in mind that if Star Trek fans had, as a group, said, "No point in talking about this anymore, it's never going to come back," it never WOULD have come back.

-- Greg Farshtey

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I might be missing something, but shrinking the robot down because of ocean depth doesn't solve the problem.

 

If I got the proportions right, a 3150 km tall robot would be around 400 km thick. The deepest part of ocean on Earth is Mariana Trench, and it only go as deep as 11 km. If we keep the same proportion, a 11 km thick robot would be around 80 km tall - which would not work for something with islands inside.

Hm...

 

It would come closer, though, no?

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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