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So I highly doubt that the great beings just whipped Toa Helryx out of nowhere and created her right without having ever made any prototype Toa (Proto-Toa as I call them) so what do you guys think the Proto-Toa would have been like if we saw them in Bionicle cannon, or do you think that they never made any prototypes because they where just that darn good? Also, do you think that the Kestora (Which are basically prototype Matoran) could become Proto-Toa and/or that Proto-Toa could become Proto-Turaga? I'm very curious as to what the rest of the Bionicle community thinks about this, feel free to be overly specific.

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I've always headcanon'd that the GB's must've had prototypes. Really, if they had to build a prototype of the GSR, then surely they had prototypes of the things that keep the GSR running. I doubt they would have made many, though, since they would probably be trying to conserve resources for the construction of the official Matoran race.

Although, the Av-Matoran are considered to be prototypes of all subsequent Matoran types. So, who knows at that point?
 

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Helryx and the Toa Mata are very old Toa. This is the reason for the Toa Mata having drastically different body types than later Toa. i gues it could be said that the first few Toa were protoypes themselves, then.

 

EDIT: The Element Lords. The Toa were based partially on them, and they were also a creation of the Great Beings. The GBs learned from them (they were too powerful), and applied this knowledge to the Toa.

Edited by Cheesy Mac n Cheese
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The physical aspects of the Toa were mainly based on Glatorian, and their powers were toned-down versions of what the Element Lords possessed (in the cases of those elements which even had lords), so they had a model and a prototype. Running the risk of oversimplification, I don't think you need a long prototyping process of mashing together the concepts of a Glatorian and a weak Element Lord. 

 

But as mentioned above, Helryx and the Mata may well count as the prototypes themselves. 

 

While I've quit writing it due to a lack of readership and time, my epic here on BZP began to delve into the initial phase of the Toa development process a bit, which I planned to expand upon. 

 

:kakama:

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I don't think there would have been. As people said, they seemed based on the glatorian and element lords. I've always suspected though that maybe the skakdi were failed toa. They don't seem to provide any function to Mata nui (unlike other things), and they're similar in strength to Toa, and are capable of using element powers (albeit only together). I think the element use of skakdi may have been meant as the great beings stressing the unity aspect. Maybe they were too violent though and abandoned for current model of Toa. No supporting evidence, but just always something I thought was so crazy and out there, it could be true.

Canonically though, I think it's implied that helyrx is the prototype Toa. I don't think Toa Mata qualify, since weren't they created by Artakha (not the great beings much later?

 

Edit: Nevermind, I forgot that it was implied that Makuta Spiriah gave them their powers. It never specified what powers however, so I still think it might be interesting if he only gave them secondary powers such as avak's cage ability, or vision powers. They may have had element powers all along, or maybe the great beings sealed their toa powers and spiriah just unlocked them

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I like to headcanon that the members of the Hand of Artakha (Axonn, Hydraxon, Shadow Stealer, etc.) might have been prototypes of the Toa - though really more just the GBs trying out different physical builds and power types with an eye more towards experimentation than creating a direct predecessor. Unlike most species which are confirmed as having been created either by the GBs or Mata Nui, we know next to nothing about the origins of the members of the Hand, including whether they are members of species or single creations. To boot, they appeared very early in the history of the universe when Matoran were pretty much the only species living and working inside the GSR. To my memory, any characters other than the Matoran that existed that early on were one-offs themselves (Artakha and Karzahnni, Then Krom, Umbra), save for maybe the Zyglak and/or krana if they were around by then. Though there's no hard evidence, it seemed like a fun and interesting idea to say that the members of the Hand were one-off experiments and predecessors to Helryx, the pinnacle of the creative process, who all decided to band together and make something of themselves as they had far more power than any other beings existing at that time inside the GSR. 

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I don’t know that the Hand actually predates the existence of Toa, only that Toa were not organized teams with an established code prior to the Hand’s disbanding.

 

As for Skakdi, there was actually a big controversy 10+ years ago about when they got their powers. Island of Doom, Legacy of Evil and World, and maybe Federation of Fear, had contradicting origins of their powers, if I recall correctly.

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I don’t know that the Hand actually predates the existence of Toa, only that Toa were not organized teams with an established code prior to the Hand’s disbanding.

 

As for Skakdi, there was actually a big controversy 10+ years ago about when they got their powers. Island of Doom, Legacy of Evil and World, and maybe Federation of Fear, had contradicting origins of their powers, if I recall correctly.

I don't think there was ever any contradiction about it. Federation of Fear gives us the full backstory (Spiriah giving them their powers and basically screwing over the whole race, branding him a failure). Island of Doom didn't go into it much, and Legacy of Evil may have mentioned the Skakdi War or said that the Piraka specifically got their weapons and training from the Dark Hunters. One source may have mentioned that the Skakdi had no idea where their powers came from, since Spiriah tried to keep what he was doing a secret.

 

Not contradiction--just approaching different aspects of the situation from different points of view.

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No, there was definitely something. Avak tells the Toa Nuva that he joined the Dark Hunters and TSO sent him the the Brotherhood, and that’s where he got his prison-making power. Later sources, specifically World, state that the Skakdi were a powerless, and a peaceful, though unfriendly, race before Spiriah tampered with them, and this would have been befor he was a Dark Hunter. I think the whole thing was retconned as “Avak lied.”

Edited by Cheesy Mac n Cheese

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I think the whole thing was retconned as “Avak lied.”

HOW DARE YOU! https://goo.gl/images/Lh4Ly9

Does that look like the face of a liar?

 

Back to my headcanon that skakdi were protoypes for Toa, I feel like regardless of how talented spiriah may have been, I don't think you can systematically give an entire race power if they didn't have the potential for it already (I feel like that's harder than say creating a new species). Even if it's just the vision based powers and elements (so not counting extra stuff), I feel like they had some potential. Similarly, I have the headcanon that Velika (who is probably the current smartest being in the MU) was likely an average or below average great being. (How else would no GB notice him disappear coincidentally at the same time as the GSR came to be?) Since I don't think he's that smart, I find it hard to believe he invented the device used to disrupt Toa energy at the end of the storyline...I feel like he just remembered or adapted something some other GB used. Again, totally headcanon, but I like to think that skakdi were proto-toa, it didn't work out, GB sealed their powers, and spiriah (believing he gave them power) just turned the switch back on.

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Yeah, you can find it here (they claim it was Dark Destiny, but I could swear it was Island of Doom).

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't understand why it wasn't possible to just say that Avak was only given his prison-creating power by the BoM, and already had the rest of his powers from Spiriah's experiments. Avak only says that they gave him the prison power.

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Yeah, you can find it here (they claim it was Dark Destiny, but I could swear it was Island of Doom).

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't understand why it wasn't possible to just say that Avak was only given his prison-creating power by the BoM, and already had the rest of his powers from Spiriah's experiments. Avak only says that they gave him the prison power.

Because Avak joined the Dark Hunters after Spiriah’s experiment. The Skakdi weren’t violent before that.

 

It’s really just a case of Greg forgetting Avak said that when the Spiriah thing was decided, and then coming up with a cheesy “lie” retcon.

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Yeah, you can find it here (they claim it was Dark Destiny, but I could swear it was Island of Doom).

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't understand why it wasn't possible to just say that Avak was only given his prison-creating power by the BoM, and already had the rest of his powers from Spiriah's experiments. Avak only says that they gave him the prison power.

 

Because Avak joined the Dark Hunters after Spiriah’s experiment. The Skakdi weren’t violent before that.

 

It’s really just a case of Greg forgetting Avak said that when the Spiriah thing was decided, and then coming up with a cheesy “lie” retcon.

 

Sorry, maybe I should've phrased that differently. Why could Avak not have been sent to the BoM to be given further powers after joining the Dark Hunters, separate from what Spiriah did? So the order of events would be:

 

- Spiriah experiments on the Skakdi as a whole, giving them all (including Avak) elemental and vision powers

- Avak joins the Dark Hunters as a jailer, using normal prisons/cells. His only powers are his elemental stone powers and his X-ray/telescopic vision

- The Shadowed One decides Avak isn't a good enough jailer, and sends Avak to the BoM for further experimentation to give him the prison power

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Sorry, maybe I should've phrased that differently. Why could Avak not have been sent to the BoM to be given further powers after joining the Dark Hunters, separate from what Spiriah did? So the order of events would be:- Spiriah experiments on the Skakdi as a whole, giving them all (including Avak) elemental and vision powers- Avak joins the Dark Hunters as a jailer, using normal prisons/cells. His only powers are his elemental stone powers and his X-ray/telescopic vision- The Shadowed One decides Avak isn't a good enough jailer, and sends Avak to the BoM for further experimentation to give him the prison power

The only questionable part about that to me is that all the piraka have a unique power aside from elemental and vision powers. I mean vezok can still powers, reidak can't be beat the same way twice, even zaktan had something special since ignoring the prottite thing caused by the shadowed one blasting husband molecules apart, he somehow had the ability to survive the blast (something no one ever did). It sounds weird to me that all of them (not knowing each other at all) indepentally all underwent extra training/altering.
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It’s confirmed that Nektann also has a third (as-of-yet unrevealed) power, and he had nothing to do with the Piraka.

Exactly, I just meant that it sounds too coincidental that 6 random skakdi all underwent extra mutation and all coincentally ended up on the same team. Plus I don't think Nektann would be the type to cozy up to the Brotherhood of Makuta...you know, until they were the universe, so where did his powers come from? So I feel like all skakdi just auto have access to a third (seemingly random) ability.

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I think that just goes back to Spiriah giving all Skakdi all their powers at the same time (though I’m not a huge fan of Zaktan’s “nature” saving him from TSO’s eye beams).

 

EDIT: BS01 says that Mata Nui created the Skakdi, rather than the GBs. Anyone have a source for this?

 

Anyway, this is pretty off-topic now.

Edited by Cheesy Mac n Cheese

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Yeah, so back to proto-toa. Looking at Shadow stealer's biography again, it says he was a hero long before Toa were created. So the Hand was a thing before Toa formed teams, but i don't think it was necessarily a thing before Toa themselves. But Shadow stealer was for sure a hero before Toa exitsed, and he has some tie to elemental power since he can travel through shadows. I'm liking the thought of him as a potential proto-toa more now.

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I suppose it is a bit of a logical jump, but I figured since Helryx was the first Toa and she was a member of the Hand that it was fair to assume the Hand existed before other Toa did. And yeah I think that between Shadow Stealer's elemental powers, Axonn's brute strength and energy manipulation, and Hydraxon's mastery of weaponry and commitment to Duty that one can imagine the building blocks of what would become the Toa. I just think it's a fun idea that gives more weight to those characters' backstories and to the significance of the Hand in the early ages of the MU.

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But did they even really need prototypes? The Toa were based on their own (Glatorian) physiology and many of their other creations had elemental powers, and by that time they also had the whole "creating biomechanical lifeforms" thing down. Even if there existed prototype Toa who then remained in the GSR, they were likely too similar to 1.0 Toa that the distinction couldn't be made.

 

 

On a side note, this thread really makes me want to build a Toa based on a crash-test dummy called "Protoa"

 

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But did they even really need prototypes?

 

:kakama:

Logically, I think no. They didn't need protoypes. But we saw protoypes for a bit of their work. I mean since matoran were based on abori and had no extra powers, they shouldn't have needed protoypes there. But we saw the zyglak, which were a huge failure. So if they couldn't even manage to make matoran first time around, I feel like something more complicated like a Toa should have failed the first time around. At the same time, they did experiment a lot with Toa. We saw that the first Toa of psionics they were still tweaking things. I know I'm full of headcanons that are completely worthless without proof, but I like the thought of things connecting, so heres another headcanon...the Toa inika looked very different from any Toa ever. They got this way by being zapped by energy from the red star. But how did the red star have the design and framework to build them up? I always thought it would be interesting if their body type was a stored prototype in the computer. Also I like this idea because the inika we're skinny and fragile (as I imagine a prototype of a sentient robot might be).
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Actually, things tend to be big, bulky and blocky when first invented (like the Toa Mata, which is also a real-world example in the field of buildable action figures).

I thought that the Mata we're bulky because of armor? I figured the skeleton was smaller and more fragile on inika, but had less armor and muscle. Plus the Mata were the only Toa not originating by the great beings weren't they? So the Toa Mata might also look that way because they were the only ones built by Artakha?

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Actually, things tend to be big, bulky and blocky when first invented (like the Toa Mata, which is also a real-world example in the field of buildable action figures).

 

But compared to later Toa, the Mata were tiny and lean 

 

Like, compare a mata limb to any later limbs. Their legs were always 1 unit thick, and the Inika lower leg pieces were huge compared to that. 

 

:kakama:

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Actually, things tend to be big, bulky and blocky when first invented (like the Toa Mata, which is also a real-world example in the field of buildable action figures).

 

 

But compared to later Toa, the Mata were tiny and lean 

 

Like, compare a mata limb to any later limbs. Their legs were always 1 unit thick, and the Inika lower leg pieces were huge compared to that. 

 

:kakama:

Didn't they retcon the skinny limbs as their muscle getting eaten away while they we floating in the ocean for millennia?

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Actually, things tend to be big, bulky and blocky when first invented (like the Toa Mata, which is also a real-world example in the field of buildable action figures).

But compared to later Toa, the Mata were tiny and lean

 

Like, compare a mata limb to any later limbs. Their legs were always 1 unit thick, and the Inika lower leg pieces were huge compared to that.

 

:kakama:

Look at their boxy torsos, hands and feet. The Inika and so on had more realistic proportions and joints. The Toa Mata didn’t even have knees (set-wise), and their limbs don’t even look like they could bend properly. Yet at the same time, they appear to be inadequately armored at the shoulders, etc. Edited by Cheesy Mac n Cheese

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Actually, things tend to be big, bulky and blocky when first invented (like the Toa Mata, which is also a real-world example in the field of buildable action figures).

 

But compared to later Toa, the Mata were tiny and lean 

 

Like, compare a mata limb to any later limbs. Their legs were always 1 unit thick, and the Inika lower leg pieces were huge compared to that. 

 

:kakama:

Didn't they retcon the skinny limbs as their muscle getting eaten away while they we floating in the ocean for millennia?

 

 

I think we're unfairly neglecting to take into account that the Mata were set-wise much younger than any of the later Toa. If we go with the sets TOO much, we'd be led to believe that the Toa Mata were lacking in the locomotive department and were very non-agile. However, the canon seems to indicate that the Mata were very competent Toa, no less competent than any other team. They aren't described as being clumsy in any stories either. I think we just need to believe that the joints are to be imagined and that their proportions may have been slightly different in the canon.

 

THAT ALL BEING SAID: I like the idea of the Mata being sort of a prototype Toa. It does help explain why they look so different, and it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to assert that the reason they were capable of becoming Nuva and rising beyond the level of normal Toa is because of a dormant mechanism stored within them based on the idea that everything would run on energized protodermis, since they were created on a planet in which this was the case and were made for a universe in which this was the case. 

 

BUT if we're gonna let imagination really take over, I've liked to think that Throwbots were an ancient attempt at Toa, perhaps a 0% organic one at that. I don't know, it just felt wrong having such bionicle-ish figures as Throwbots lying around and then not using them somehow in the Bionicle story, so I thought "what the heck?"

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Regarding the Toa Mata; let's not forget that their design was retconned to be in line with the Bionicle Stars sets.

 

As for the topic itself; this is a very interesting idea. I would love to see a prequel or a spinoff about a group of Proto-Toa. Let the fan-fictioning commence!

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Regarding the Toa Mata; let's not forget that their design was retconned to be in line with the Bionicle Stars sets.

 

I always thought it was the other way. 

You see, when the Mata were turned into Nuva, they gained extra armor. They later replaced that armor with the Adaptive Armor, which in its default form just replicated whet the Nuva already looked like. When Tahu was devolved into a Mata again, the AA compensated and filled in the gaps and made him look somewhat different from his original form.

 

Might just be me, but I like to think that makes more sense.

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