Okotan tribe discussion

[Toa Jaton]

  Something that I started to wonder about:the Okotan villagers are divided by tribe,but seem to all be part of the same species and can make new villagers.So what would happen if,say,a jungle villager married an earth villager?Where would they live?What would their kids be like?Would this be culturally acceptable?

 

  Another thing I wondered about,are the Okotans dependent on their masks to stay out of a coma like the toa?If so,how soon after birth are they given baby masks?

 

Discus. 

[Pohaturon]

As interesting as this topic is, I'm afraid we have far too little information about Okotoan social structures, customs and anatomy to be able to do anythign beyond wild speculation.

 

As for elemental hybrids, it would be pretty cool if they popped up eventually. However things can be taken further - what if two hybrids procreate? Eventually you'd have someone who has parts from all six elements.

 

But sticking to mixes of just two. We don't know what connection Okotoans have to their respective element beyond color. Is it affinity like Matoran had in G1? Weak powers? Nothing at all?

 

Maybe the villagers aren't even divided by element - biologically they're all identical. They just have settlements in various regions and have chosen clothes which are best adapted to the environment.

 

Once could cite physical differences in the protector sets, but then I'm pretty sure Narmoto and Izotor have elbows in the canon. Even the protectors have no elemental powers, they just have guns (not sure about this, possibly wrong).

 

But, if they do have elemental affinity/powers, would a mix of two villagers produce offspring with control over both elements, or over a third, new element halfway between the two?

 

Where does this put the three beasts of the 2016 summer wave, each of whom are obviously cross-breeds of two of the six main elements?

 

What was Ekimu's and Makuta's element? Did they even have one? Are they even the same species as the Okotoan villagers? After all, if we say that yes, they are Okotoan villagers biologically, and all that gold is just armor, then Ekimu is either ice or water, and Makuta is earth.

 

But they're brothers.

 

In all honesty, chances are the story team never planned on this aspect, nor do they intend to flesh it out later on. But right now, there are too many unknowns.

 

[Lyichir]

Something that I started to wonder about:the Okotan villagers are divided by tribe,but seem to all be part of the same species and can make new villagers.So what would happen if,say,a jungle villager married an earth villager?Where would they live?What would their kids be like?Would this be culturally acceptable?

 

  Another thing I wondered about,are the Okotans dependent on their masks to stay out of a coma like the toa?If so,how soon after birth are they given baby masks?

 

Discus.

In terms of relationships between villagers of different elements, it probably was a more common thing pre-cataclysm. The artificial separation of the villages seems to have mostly taken place afterward, mostly due to the now more extreme climates of the various regions—villagers of the regions' respective villages were simply better adapted to those extreme conditions, and with the more secure cities taken by Skull Spiders and other villains, there were few safe areas that could easily accommodate multiple types of villagers. That's not to say that it'd be impossible, but it'd certainly be a much less secure environment in which to raise a family.

 

And on that note, I doubt we'll ever get many specifics about reproduction and what it means for unions of different elements, but I would guess that it might be a similar case to Avatar: The Last Airbender—children could have either one of the parents' elements, but not both. That would explain the lack of variation in the mostly single-element tribes and is consistent with the principle that no mask can share more than one element.

 

Alternatively, since villagers might not be born with masks, it could just be that their element is shaped over the course of their lives by the mask they're given after birth. Again, this would explain the consistency of the single-element villages, since without mask makers the villages would mostly be passing down the same masks throughout the generations, and it'd make sense for those villages to stick with the masks that grant their inhabitants the greatest resistance to their region's elemental extremes.

Edited May 30, 2016 by Lyichir

[MrSciFiGuy]

Yea, from what I gathered is that they are all the same, but their looks adapt to their setting. There doesn't seem to be elemental affinities or weaknesses here, like Ta-matoran being resistant to heat.

[Toa Jaxus]

I think the largest difference in the tribes is the sensor tail on Vizuna, the Protector of Jungle, and we don't know if that if that is a unique trait or something common to the whole tribe. So it seems likely that if two villagers of different tribes had a child, it would just be another villager.

 

Now, the question of what tribe they would belong to is an interesting anthropological problem. We just don't know enough to answer it. We don't know if Okotians are Patriarchal or Matriarchal, or if gender has no role in society, espicially with the roles of individuals in marriage and the dominance in traditional systems of power.

[Archon~]

The cross breeder children are taken away and left in the mountains due to their nature for Unrak to devour them, and the parents are bannished as well.

Defeinitely not, but maybe they just pick and chose which village they want to stay in. I like to think the armor they have gives them the elemental residtance rather than their bodies.