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Original Reason for the Island(s)?


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So, the island of Mata Nui, and its reason for existing, has puzzled me for a while now. The given reason of "camouflage" seems weird to me for several reasons:

 

1) As many have pointed out before me, it seems like Mata Nui would need to hide more than his face, and would be pretty conspicuous no matter what.

 

2) The island is modeled after Metru Nui, including different regional climates. Why do this? If no one was intended to ever live on the Island, why would it have the six distinct regions? Wouldn't that make it more conspicuous (the opposite of its goal of camouflage)? I'd also like to mention a quote from the beginning of Maze of Shadows: "He [Nuju] was at a loss to explain the varied terrains and climates present on this island. It was almost as if the island had evolved with the needs of the Matoran in mind."

 

3) The other islands that were considered during the conceptual stage. Of the other considered islands, we know there were fingertip islands, and possibly (according to Alastair Swinnerton) islands on the Robot's knees. If these were intended to be camouflage, why fingertip islands? Is that really that important to camouflage rather than, say, the torso?

 

I think that the original reason for the islands, when the Bionicle story was being put together, was as a refuge for the Matoran. Basically, the emergency systems of the Robot would work like this: if something goes wrong, and the Robot crashes, the Toa Mata are deployed to fix the problem. Once the Robot has landed, islands form over wherever the problem(s) is/are occurring (in the case of the virus Makuta gave Mata Nui, this would be the head), maintaining a similar structure to whatever "islands" are inside the robot at that location (in this case, Metru Nui). This way, the Matoran in that area have somewhere safe to retreat to, and the Toa Mata have a place to land and enter the Robot where the problem is. The Matoran can inform the Toa of what's going on, the Toa can go in and fix the issue, and then the Matoran return home, the Bohrok are deployed, and the Robot leaves.

 

One more thing that I think supports this idea: the Red Star's emergency Toa-creating system. As I understand it, this system has 3 criteria: 1) Matoran are somewhere they aren't supposed to be, outside the Robot; 2) these Matoran are in need of Toa, and 3) there are Matoran in this location that are destined to become Toa. This is what happened on Voya Nui, with Jaller, Nuparu, Hahli, Hewkii, Kongu, and Matoro.

 

Well, what about those 1000 years that the same 6 Matoran spent on Mata Nui, terrorized by Makuta and waiting for the arrival of Toa? It seems like those same 3 criteria should be met: outside the robot, in need of Toa, and there are Matoran destined to be Toa. So why didn't the Red Star take action?

 

Because the Matoran were meant to be on Mata Nui. Voya Nui was never meant to be outside the Robot at all; it broke out. But Mata Nui was created intentionally, as a refuge for the Matoran. One of the conditions for the Red Star system therefore was not met: Matoran being where they shouldn't be.

 

Anyways, that went on longer than I thought it would. Thoughts?

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1. Not sure what your question is. Seems more like a statement, as he would definitely need to disguise his feet--which are huge, by the way. :P

 

2. Under normal circumstances, the island would have been generated to match the climate and flora of the planet it had landed on. In this case, a) there was none--it was all ocean, and b) MN didn't trigger the camouflage system this time--he was knocked unconscious by the Makuta Virus and the system activated on its own, going a bit haywire in the process. We later learn that some of the EP used to generate the island leaked into caves and tunnels, as discovered by the Toa Metru and Toa Mata/Nuva.

 

3. We're not sure what their thinking was. Realistically, most of the Robot's body would need to be covered, as the chest and toes would likely stick out as far as (if not farther than) the face.

 

As to the rest of your theory, I think I get what you're saying, but the first paragraph makes it sound like you don't know why the island exists on his face to begin with. The Kini Nui and the Great Telescope are parts of his system, deployed whenever MN lands on a planet. The island is generated to cover up those bits, and slow down any trespassers. Remember, the head is more important, as it would have more access points to the inside, and would need to be protected. The feet and fingertips might not be so available, and so weren't considered for that.

 

On the Matoran and Red Star thing, bear in mind that the Toa Mata were supposed to go to Metru Nui first, if something went wrong. Even if the Matoran were never on the island, the Toa would still have to go through it and reach Metru Nui to begin the tasks of reawakening Mata Nui. The Toa were always destined to be there at some point or another, so that might have registered in the RS' systems as "Toa will be there--don't make any new ones." See what I'm saying?

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First off, I want to put it out there that I disregard the Great Spirit Robot's (GSR) 'official size' and prefer the original continent-sized stature, thus will be going off of that.

 

1) I like to think that only the face was covered because it was the only part above the water. Had other parts been within easy visibility they would have been camouflaged as well. People need to remember that the sea floor is not flat, it is much more mountainous and ragged than the surface (don't quote me on that).  His head probably rested on some sort of submerged continental shelf, giving the titan a hard pillow for his bed rock. I also think the GSR has kinetic dampeners, and possibly some way to softly bury himself below the ground on a continental-level, the island of Mata-Nui being a plateau. The GSR also crashed, creating a man-shaped crater on the planet surface with probably only some of the kinetic dampeners active at the time of the Great Cataclysm.

 

2) Officially, there is no given reason. I find it interesting, however, that the substance seemingly creates the various environments with the matoran in mind as it correlates with my version of energized protodermis: fallen angelic beings materialized in it's visible state and seek to work for their wrongdoings at the beginning of time by eternally serving their creator, which they do by being a proxy of their creator's will via physical contact (transforming or destroying according to fate). I wonder if some people at Lego had similar ideas but purposefully let things be unexplained so as to not alienate potential customers.

 

3) Like I said in '1)', if other parts were easily visible they would have been camouflaged.

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2) Officially, there is no given reason. 

Except for that time when we were given an official reason. :P

 

As I pointed out in my post (and this came from Greg, I realize I forgot to mention), we were told that the GSR's systems scan the planet he's landing on and generate the island to match the natural features present on the surface, such as terrain and flora, so that any passersby will think nothing of it. In the most recent circumstances, that wasn't the case. MN didn't have time to scan the planet (which wouldn't have mattered anyway, since it was all ocean), and so the EP system used to generate the camouflage island went haywire and did a little of everything, resulting in the separate climates and terrains that conveniently matched the Matoran's needs.

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2) Officially, there is no given reason. 

Except for that time when we were given an official reason. :P

 

As I pointed out in my post (and this came from Greg, I realize I forgot to mention), we were told that the GSR's systems scan the planet he's landing on and generate the island to match the natural features present on the surface, such as terrain and flora, so that any passersby will think nothing of it. In the most recent circumstances, that wasn't the case. MN didn't have time to scan the planet (which wouldn't have mattered anyway, since it was all ocean), and so the EP system used to generate the camouflage island went haywire and did a little of everything, resulting in the separate climates and terrains that conveniently matched the Matoran's needs.

 

My reference was towards the creation of six distinct environment, which fit perfectly for the matoran that were about to colonize it; Thus, enter the next thing I said. I am sorry I did not specify what I was referring to. *holds hand out for forgiveness, Dawn Ape Planet-style*

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I find it rather cool that Mata-Nui's strange topography was an event of being "artificially created."  Mata-Nui did follow a few natural rules (Mount Ihu looked like a former volcano; which makes since because the Mangai volcano was right next to it; replicating the movement of real volcanic hot spots. With high enough altitude, it makes sense that there was snow on Mount Ihu. Onu-Koro looks like it was under a volcanic rock flow from the inactive Mount Ihu volcano. Le-Wahi and Ga-Wahi are perfect topographical matches to real tropical islands. The only odd ball environment is Po-Wahi; which there has no reason to be a big desert so close to tropical areas...)

 

So for a malfunctioning robot; the environments were extremely well crafted.

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I think what you're saying, if I'm reading it right (I had to read it twice to get this :P) is that the six regions may be at least somewhat intentional.

 

I think that's fair as a theory, as long as you realize it would be a general contingency that isn't specifically about crashing -- since as T1S said, we know the camouflage triggered accidentally in that event. However, that doesn't prove they never thought of Matoran going up there in case they needed to. Maybe Mata Nui technically should have triggered it on purpose but was too busy falling into a coma. :P (Plus he hadn't been paying attention to his insides for a long time.)

 

On the other hand, it may have just been "because they can" as far as the island design went. Either is valid. They didn't necessarily need to plan for Matoran to ever live long-term out there so their comfort in environment preference didn't need to be the reason for the regions.

 

 

As for camouflaging the rest, how do we know they didn't? There was some rock in Mahri Nui, so I suspect they did, unless that somehow got there accidentally, perhaps fragments of Mata Nui settling after Voya Nui blasted out. Either way, in air you can see a huge shape across a distance far, far better than underwater, so it isn't a big priority for the underwater parts. (Keep in mind it's generally thought he cloaks while landing and taking off, but saves power with physical camouflage while landed.)

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I never liked the explanation of "Camouflage system" since it's not a very practical sort of camo, and could have just as easily been "rock formed on top of him because he's been sitting in the ocean for ages and is basically a buried relic by now" it feels to me an example of the need for fine details that wasn't really ever asked for in later bionicle. :t

 

 

As for camouflaging the rest, how do we know they didn't? There was some rock in Mahri Nui, so I suspect they did, unless that somehow got there accidentally, perhaps fragments of Mata Nui settling after Voya Nui blasted out. Either way, in air you can see a huge shape across a distance far, far better than underwater, so it isn't a big priority for the underwater parts. (Keep in mind it's generally thought he cloaks while landing and taking off, but saves power with physical camouflage while landed.)

 

mahri nui was... a chunk fo voya nui? the rock around it is from the Voya-Nui volcano?

 

and the  rock around that i'm preeeetty sure is just AM's natural surface, it has one of those.

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I never liked the explanation of "Camouflage system" since it's not a very practical sort of camo, and could have just as easily been "rock formed on top of him because he's been sitting in the ocean for ages and is basically a buried relic by now" it feels to me an example of the need for fine details that wasn't really ever asked for in later bionicle. :t

Except that he hadn't been sitting there for ages when the Matoran emerged to live on Mata Nui the island. He'd pretty much just crashed at that point.

 

 

As for camouflaging the rest, how do we know they didn't? There was some rock in Mahri Nui, so I suspect they did, unless that somehow got there accidentally, perhaps fragments of Mata Nui settling after Voya Nui blasted out. Either way, in air you can see a huge shape across a distance far, far better than underwater, so it isn't a big priority for the underwater parts. (Keep in mind it's generally thought he cloaks while landing and taking off, but saves power with physical camouflage while landed.)

 

mahri nui was... a chunk fo voya nui? the rock around it is from the Voya-Nui volcano?

 

and the  rock around that i'm preeeetty sure is just AM's natural surface, it has one of those.

 

Yes, Mahri Nui was originally a settlement on a chunk of rock formed from the volcanic flow of Mt. Valmai. Though we aren't sure of what the area around that chunk of rock on the ocean floor was. It could have been natural AM oceanic terrain, or it could have been GSR skin with some camo. I'd think it would be a combination of both, since they were near the Pit as well as the gash in the GSR that Voya Nui was blasted through.

 

Come to think of it, I hope the camo system worked somewhat like we were told it did, because then it could have partly sealed the hole in the GSR, which must have been MASSIVE for Voya Nui to get through, letting in an astonishing amount of water that I'm surprised filled so little of Karda Nui in the space of 1,000 years.

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I never liked the explanation of "Camouflage system" since it's not a very practical sort of camo, and could have just as easily been "rock formed on top of him because he's been sitting in the ocean for ages and is basically a buried relic by now" it feels to me an example of the need for fine details that wasn't really ever asked for in later bionicle. :t

Except that he hadn't been sitting there for ages when the Matoran emerged to live on Mata Nui the island. He'd pretty much just crashed at that point.

 

 

Yeah that's.. literally the plot hole, that's what i'm talking about and why it feels shoddy or forced. :0

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Come to think of it, I hope the camo system worked somewhat like we were told it did, because then it could have partly sealed the hole in the GSR, which must have been MASSIVE for Voya Nui to get through, letting in an astonishing amount of water that I'm surprised filled so little of Karda Nui in the space of 1,000 years.

I'm pretty sure the running theory on this is that Voya Nui was much smaller than the way that map depicted it. 

 

Also, I'm pretty sure the chaotic nature of the island is because Mata Nui crashed and the Matoran needed to live on the island. If Mata Nui had the presence of mind to fool Makuta's Toa Metru selection, then he might have been able to select "Matoran-habitable island" on his camo setting as well. 

 

Normally the island would match the surrounding areas, not be so eccentric.

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3. We're not sure what their thinking was. Realistically, most of the Robot's body would need to be covered, as the chest and toes would likely stick out as far as (if not farther than) the face.

...As long as the GSR landed on its back. Maybe it had systems to ensure that it did to protect the inhabitants (because the Great Beings could never have enough fail-safes...).

 

 

 

Come to think of it, I hope the camo system worked somewhat like we were told it did, because then it could have partly sealed the hole in the GSR, which must have been MASSIVE for Voya Nui to get through, letting in an astonishing amount of water that I'm surprised filled so little of Karda Nui in the space of 1,000 years.

If Mata Nui had the presence of mind to fool Makuta's Toa Metru selection, then he might have been able to select "Matoran-habitable island" on his camo setting as well.

If I remember correctly, it was the Order of Mata Nui that fooled Makuta, not Mata Nui himself.

 

Thinking about it right now, perhaps the camo-system was partly designed to create environments on the surface of the robot based on the main inhabitants of the island domes directly below them. Thus there were six environments for each of the six types of Matoran on Metru Nui. This way, if that particular dome were flooded or otherwise compromised, its inhabitants could flee beyond the stars to an island tailored to their specific needs.

 

 

Finally, another question that's more-or-less related. From what I understand, Bohrok nests are focused entirely in the head of the GSR. But if that's so, how do camouflaged parts of the rest of the body get cleaned. There can't be nests reaching all the way down there; there isn't enough room in the GSR for that many Av-Matoran, especially when basically no one knows about them. Would the Bohrok travel down along the inside of the GSR?

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3. We're not sure what their thinking was. Realistically, most of the Robot's body would need to be covered, as the chest and toes would likely stick out as far as (if not farther than) the face.

...As long as the GSR landed on its back. Maybe it had systems to ensure that it did to protect the inhabitants (because the Great Beings could never have enough fail-safes...).

 

 

Well, it could have gone either way with the GC, but otherwise, the GSR was meant to land back-down. Likely, it never had a need to land the other way.

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3. We're not sure what their thinking was. Realistically, most of the Robot's body would need to be covered, as the chest and toes would likely stick out as far as (if not farther than) the face.

...As long as the GSR landed on its back. Maybe it had systems to ensure that it did to protect the inhabitants (because the Great Beings could never have enough fail-safes...).

 

 

 

Come to think of it, I hope the camo system worked somewhat like we were told it did, because then it could have partly sealed the hole in the GSR, which must have been MASSIVE for Voya Nui to get through, letting in an astonishing amount of water that I'm surprised filled so little of Karda Nui in the space of 1,000 years.

If Mata Nui had the presence of mind to fool Makuta's Toa Metru selection, then he might have been able to select "Matoran-habitable island" on his camo setting as well.

If I remember correctly, it was the Order of Mata Nui that fooled Makuta, not Mata Nui himself.

 

Mata Nui enlisted the Order to plant false evidence of destiny, but he himself altered the stars to fool Makuta himself, something beyond the Order's control. 

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