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The Passage of Time in the GSR


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Is there any canon information on how the inhabitants of the Great Spirit Robot marked the passage of time?

Obviously the island of Mata Nui was able to see the sun over Aqua Magna and if I remember correctly the GSR's "eyes" functioned as the sun/suns of Metru Nui, but I can't find any information on the rest of the spheres.

I'm writing a story on Lesovikk, whose home island is part of one of Mata Nui's "legs" and I was trying to figure out how to explain day and night.

I think I read in the BIONICLE Encyclopedia or BIOSector01 that the canisters were lit by lightstones fixed to the ceilings of the domes. This makes sense, but I haven't found anything that says if the lightstones were turned on and off to mark day and night. Or if they rose and set or just turned on and off statically.

Does anyone have any theories on this? Or has Greg said anything on this topic?

My theory is that since the GSR's systems were able to regulate gravity and other phenomena, it would make sense for the Core Processor could regulate the "sun" and "stars" of individual domes.

Last thought, there's that whole thing with the sundial, why would sundials exist in the universe if they didn't have a sun or some kind of moving light source?

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The only real info on time in the GSR is that they had 36-hour days - 18 hours of daylight, 18 of night - and it's very much up for debate whether those "hours" equate to the same period of time that an hour is in our universe. BS01 includes this lovely disclaimer:  

Quote

Because the BIONICLE story is a collection of in-universe Matoran texts that have been translated for our use, there are instances of words or phrases occurring in the narrative that are not canonical and would not actually have been used in the world. These are rough approximations of what the characters or narrator may have said, and if they contradict the larger canon, they should not be taken literally. In reality, these may be instances of the real-world author taking liberties with descriptions or including references to things they enjoy.

During the translation process, in-text Matoran measurements are often converted into real-world units. Because of this, it is possible that Matoran also have their own system of time, and that it has been been translated for our convenience, much like the length measurement system in some instances. However, no such system has been established.

Given the vague, unspecified nature of things, I'd argue that you're free to come up with whatever you want that best fits the narrative of your planned story. 

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Greg has kind of answered this: https://greg.thegreatarchives.com/2008-2010/page306#post12237-line1-9

From his description, it sounds like the inside of each dome is lined with many, many lightstones, which glow brightly enough during the day to create the illusion of an evenly bright sky, and during the night fade to a soft glow so they resemble stars.

 

As for the sundial, it was made by the Great Beings and wasn't actually meant to be used to tell the time - it was for pointing the way to the Codrex (presumably there to aid the Toa Mata in their mission when/if Mata Nui went offline).

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