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Secret Great Being in The Kingdom?


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First, a recap: Velika was a Po-Matoran whose consciousness was secretly replaced by that a renegade Great Being who wanted to witness firsthand how the Matoran Universe operated, while keeping up to date on Bara Magna and Bota Magna via contacts loyal to him, including Atakus and Kabrua. He's also the one who gave all the beings in the Great Spirit Robot full independent intelligence. Where the story left off, he was revealed to be a political extremist and aspired to conquer Spherus Magna.

 

"The Kingdom" was a short story published exclusively online that takes place during Takanuva's interdimensional travels of 2008. Matoro failed to save Mata Nui, the Great Spirit died, and the survivors emigrated up to the island of Mata Nui. Takanuva sacrifices his Toa energy to create a new team of Toa and becomes a Turaga, leader of the ruling council of the Kingdom of the Great Spirit.

 

Now, one of the aforementioned new Toa was Velika, the team's Toa of Stone. That's the problem: Greg has since stated that since Velika has the mind of a Great Being rather than a Matoran, any potential to become a Toa he may have had would have been erased. He added that the same Great Being did in fact infiltrate the MU in this alternate reality, but, since Velika was able to become a Toa, he must have uploaded his consciousness into someone else.

 

So, it doesn't really matter in terms of overall story, but who do you think Velika replaced in the Kingdom Alternate Universe? When Greg initially held a contest to guess who the GB was possessing, popular votes included Helryx and Kapura. However, Helryx is on the ruling council alongside Takanuva, which casts doubt on her, and it couldn't possibly be Kapura, because he also becomes a Toa. Greg has also said it was likely a Matoran of Metru Nui.

 

Any other ideas?

Edited by Cheesy Mac n Cheese

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Huh. Didn't know about Greg's statements regarding Toa Velika not being the Great Being in the Kingdom. Does that contradict this quote? (Source)
 

Was Velika in the Kingdom Alternate Universe also a Great Being?
 
Yes


I guess it's possible Greg was saying that the Great Being we know as Velika still existed as a GB in the Kingdom, just in a different body? Seems weird to answer that question so succinctly if that's what he meant, though.

Edited by TuragaNuva
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Hmm, I distinctly remember Greg saying Velika can’t become a Toa. Time for some digging.

 

Edit: https://greg.thegreatarchives.com/2013-2017/page898

 

In the second post here, he says that Velika can’t become a Toa, but he doesn’t explain why. Time for more digging.

Edited by Cheesy Mac n Cheese

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Hmm, I distinctly remember Greg saying Velika can’t become a Toa. Time for some digging.

Edit: https://greg.thegreatarchives.com/2013-2017/page898

In the second post here, he says that Velika can’t become a Toa, but he doesn’t explain why. Time for more digging.

Later down on that page he does say that Matoran are predestined to become Toa via predetermined programming, and since Velika's conciousness isnt a true Matoran AI he couldnt have that destiny.

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Hmm, I distinctly remember Greg saying Velika can’t become a Toa. Time for some digging.

Edit: https://greg.thegreatarchives.com/2013-2017/page898

In the second post here, he says that Velika can’t become a Toa, but he doesn’t explain why. Time for more digging.

Later down on that page he does say that Matoran are predestined to become Toa via predetermined programming, and since Velika's conciousness isnt a true Matoran AI he couldnt have that destiny.

 

 

Sorry, I was at work, and I didn't really have time to look further.

 

So, I guess my original question still stands.

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There was nearly a 5 year gap between the first answer and the second. Greg likely forgot he said Velika couldn't be a Toa, and his thinking back in 2012 was probably that Velika wasn't a Great Being in the alternate universe. That's all there is to it, I'm guessing.

 

Seriously, the instances of Greg forgetting stuff just keep stacking up, the more and more people do research. He hasn't written any piece of Bionicle fiction for 8 years, and his current job requires him to keep straight of other canons like Ninjago. It's unsurprising that his knowledge of his Bionicle stories, some of which were never completed, is a bit rusty.

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There was nearly a 5 year gap between the first answer and the second. Greg likely forgot he said Velika couldn't be a Toa, and his thinking back in 2012 was probably that Velika wasn't a Great Being in the alternate universe. That's all there is to it, I'm guessing.

 

Seriously, the instances of Greg forgetting stuff just keep stacking up, the more and more people do research. He hasn't written any piece of Bionicle fiction for 8 years, and his current job requires him to keep straight of other canons like Ninjago. It's unsurprising that his knowledge of his Bionicle stories, some of which were never completed, is a bit rusty.

 

This.

 

Let us first of all remember that when Greg wrote The Kingdom he had no idea that he was going to make Velika into a Great Being, so I think the best approach here is to forget Velika's real identity and regard him only as the brilliant if eccentric Matoran we met in 2006.

 

I would also point out that the identity of the Great Being who infiltrated the MU was never revealed in-story... only after the serials stopped did Greg say that he had planned for that Great Being to be Velika. Because of this, I personally don't actually regard that detail as fully-fledged canon (and I urge you all to do the same) and in my prequel epic to The Kingdom, End of a Universe, Birth of a Kingdom, I've ignored it completely.

 

That said, if you really want to take Velika's identity as a Great Being into consideration, I'd say that he must have become a Toa, in both body (as we see in The Kingdom) and mind (the mind belonging to a Great Being, that is). If he had transferred himself into a new body, then the new Toa Velika would have reverted to his original personality, which would have probably caused some serious inconsistencies in his behavior (that personality must have after all been almost nonexistent, since the Great Being possessed him from the very beginning).

Of course, the Great Being might have found a solution, such as editing his memory so as to make him remember what happened the previous 100 000 years without however letting him know that everything he did wasn't guided by his own consciousness, but by that of a Great Being.

Another possibility is that the possession wasn't as complete as we imagine: the Matoran and Great Being personality might have coexisted within Velika, with the Matoran personality guiding Velika's day-to-day actions and the Great Being's remaining in the background, observing and emerging only in those flashes of brilliance which Velika often displayed. If this hypothesis were true, in the main reality the Great Being personality overrode the Matoran one completely after arriving on Spherus Magna (which would help to explain Velika's radical change in personality), while in the Kingdom it might have been transferred rather harmlessly.

 

However, the simplest solution is to go with Greg's quote saying the alternate Velika was a Great Being. He became a Toa and went on with his life, never revealing his true identity because he felt no need to do so. Issues such as the potential to become a Toa, which is just another way of saying Destiny, can be evaded quite easily, since we never fully understood how they worked (for instance, does the fact that Velika, or Tanma, or Kapura, became Toa in the Kingdom universe mean they are destined to become Toa in the main one as well? If not, did their Destiny change when the Kingdom universe split from the main one and why?) and there was never any evidence that a mind swap would hinder the process (the only hint to this might be the fact that Tren Krom, while in Lewa's body, could not use his powers).

I still like the idea of the dormant Great Being personality, since it would somewhat lessen the inconsistencies surrounding the Velika-Great Being revelation and would spare us having to retrospectively justify every trait of Velika's (who certainly wouldn't strike me as a mass murderer or power-hungry entity from what we saw of him in 2006) as an act.

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Meh, I’m not one to argue with canon (I’m probably alone there). If a Matoran’s latent Toa power is stored mentally, and Velika erased the Matoran’s mind, the Toa power is gone, and the original Velika, for all intents and purposes, is dead.

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Meh, I’m not one to argue with canon (I’m probably alone there). If a Matoran’s latent Toa power is stored mentally, and Velika erased the Matoran’s mind, the Toa power is gone, and the original Velika, for all intents and purposes, is dead.

 

Yes, but as far as I know the only evidence of latent Toa power being stored mentally is a GregF retcon that came after BIONICLE was over and we all know that those retcons are often flawed.

 

In addition, if it's as you say, then I don't see how Velika could have become a Toa in the alternate universe (the Toa Power being gone). Or are you implying that the alternate Velika was never possessed by the Great Being? If that's the case, then something else is caused into question: the mechanism that creates alternate universes. I always believed that alternate universes come into being as different outcomes of a particular event (in this specific case, Matoro's sacrifice); thus, before this event takes place, there's no difference between them and the main universe.

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You’ve got me there. In that case, Matoro failing to save Mata Nui couldn’t have been what originally created the alternate timeline. It’s also been mentioned that time flows faster in that universe, which would have nothing to do with Matoro either, though what could cause that, I have no idea.

 

Maybe Velika choosing someone else is what actually created it. Who knows?

Edited by Cheesy Mac n Cheese

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I mean, the answer is obviously just "Greg forgot", but I'd like to point out that Greg's AU stories seem to diverge from the main timeline earlier than the events in the story would have you believe.  (Or at least this is how I personally reconcile the massive plot holes!)

 

For example, Takua couldn't become a Toa in the Toa Empire timeline.  But Takua was the first Matoran ever made!  Even though that timeline ostensibly diverged when Tuyet took over the world, it seems to have actually diverged at the creation of Takua.  Similarly here, the Kingdom timeline must've diverged when Velika didn't become a secret Great Being.

 

Or maybe he was a Great Being the whole time and didn't tell anyone because it'd be super awkward.

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For example, Takua couldn't become a Toa in the Toa Empire timeline. But Takua was the first Matoran ever made! Even though that timeline ostensibly diverged when Tuyet took over the world, it seems to have actually diverged at the creation of Takua.

I thought of that too.

 

Back to Greg saying that it’s probably a Matoran from Metru Nui, that got me thinking: is it reasonable to think that mainstream timeline Velika was originally from Metru Nui? Before being sent to Karzahni, I mean. If the Kingdom’s secret Great Being thought Metru Nui was important enough to “settle into,” the mainstream timeline GB would probably at least consider it.

 

(And maybe the Toa Empire’s GB was Takua, thus explaining why he couldn’t become a Toa! Though I always thought that was because the Avohkii’s Toa energy was used up.)

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I mean, the information that he's a Toa now came from another character, right? Meaning that, if Velika were just keeping up the disguise and pretending to be a Toa, nobody would know, right? There, problem solved--it's still a ruse.

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I mean, the information that he's a Toa now came from another character, right? Meaning that, if Velika were just keeping up the disguise and pretending to be a Toa, nobody would know, right? There, problem solved--it's still a ruse.

 

Then how does he fool people into thinking he's a Toa?

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  • 2 weeks later...

Maybe he could transfer his mind into other machines, kind of like how makuta could possess others. The GB could have "left" Velikas body long enough to undergo Toa transformation, then returned.

I think Velika’s spirit was erased rather than left dormant, though.

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