Alright, this blog entry will explain the inspirations behind the choices of which power to assign to which (previously Unknown) official mask shape. For those that don't know what I'm talking, click here. Greg approved these seventeen powers (eleven of them written originally for the Expanded Multiverse, where they also use the official shapes) to be canon.

Several people have wondered what the inspirations were, and so I'll just put it all in one place. This isn't necessarily including everything I had thought of at the time; I feel as if I've forgotten a few of the reasons (but then I always assume I've forgotten tons of things, knowing me ), but here we go anyways.

Also definitions on the powers and some comments related to that included. Note, there's a few things I am planning to probably run by Greg, and a few other things I'm not sure about, highlighted in blue. More thoughts on these issues from members are requested.

Vulture -- many reasons inspired this power and choice of appearance. Especially, the obvious vulture-like shape of Vultraz's mask, which probably originally inspired Vultraz's name. And the name itself. Also, as an evil power, it is fitting to be the shape an evil Matoran like him would choose.

The name of Vulture for the power is chosen as vultures are the best poetic comparison to what the power does -- absorbing escaping energies of the dead -- a new naming pattern from what we've seen with the more bland choices of past masks.

Is an evil power. Does not kill directly, but since you are most strengthened by absorbing the energies of someone who just died, it's seen as a mask that tempts you to kill in battle instead of following the Toa code, so Toa refuse to wear it.

Untranslation (probably to be renamed Incomprehension) -- The mouth area of this mouth formed a jagged, irregular shape, taken here to be symbolic of scrambling speech. The mask scrambles speech of targets. It can also scramble written notes; for example if an enemy sees a powerful messenger going by carrying a tablet note, someone the enemy dares not actually fight, they can remotely scramble the note just by being in range, without needing to fight the messenger. Also can scramble historical records and the like, but can be nulled by a Rau (making the Rau more tactically useful). Also an evil power.

Adaptation -- the mask resembles the style of a Rahkshi or Kraata, and Adaptation is inspired directly by the Rahkshi power of changing the body to fit the environment.

Sensory Aptitude -- the "airplane pilot goggles" and "cat whiskers" appearance of this mask inspired this power, which increases vision, hearing, smell, touch, and taste. across the board, but not as much as Akaku (for example), would increase vision specifically.

Aging -- the "sagging eyes" appearance of this mask inspired the power of aging (basically weaker version of Voporak's power). This was the main mask that inspired the power instead of the power being invented first and assigned to a shape. It also inspired the idea of using these Unknown mask shapes (which previously had been tossed around as a possible contest idea, which didn't go anywhere), and asking Greg if they could be the official powers of these (already official) mask shapes. Evil power.

Undeath -- the black eyes appearance of this mask and the deathly appearance of it partly inspired this power -- also, a topic in S&T at the time about the (supposed) lack of Undeath as a Bionicle theme partly inspired it too. (I had pointed out that Undeath was there as a theme, just not explicitly stated.)

Of course, it must be noted that in the original image, it was a Matoran who was wearing a Matoran version of the mask, so unless Karzahni did something strange to that Matoran (which is quite possible; maybe even activating the mask power so this particular Matoran is actually Undead in some way; he IS known to alter physics, after all), the black eyes there are probably just that Matoran's way of mimicking the appearance of an undead wearer of the actual powered mask. Perhaps symbolic to how the Matoran feels trapped in Karzahni's land.

The actual powered mask charges up energy by sapping some of your life energy while you wear it. Then, if you die while wearing the mask, the mask animates your body to continue doing what you would have wanted for a while. Amount of time you spend wearing it while alive determines time of undeath. However, as wearing it weakens you while alive most beings do not wear it in battle, and only wear it for short times while they are safe, then would try to switch to it if they were about to die. Sometimes considered an evil power, or just taboo or too risky.

Conjuring -- the nebulous, mysterious appearance of this mask inspired this power, as well as the fact that Matoran language is programming language. This mask has no inherent power, except to obey specific, weakness-included directions for how to generate a very temporary power. It has the most drawbacks of any of these powers, though, including one added by Greg himself -- if you word the directions wrong, a power backlash can have horrible effects on your mind. As such this mask is even less used than Undeath.

Fusion -- the Y-shape on the front of this mask represents two (or more) beings becoming fused into one in a Kaita-like Fusion. Mask forces Kaita-ization, even with enemies. Example use is to merge with an enemy when you're in a place where they have the upper ground, and control the Fusion to walk to a place where you have the upper ground.

Rebounding -- this is one of the more traditionally arbitrary shape and power matchups of these new powers, but the smooth roundish shape of the mask reminded me both of a basketball and a little of a basketball backboard. Bionicle is known for its arbitrary mask shape choices, so this is by no means inconstistent with precedent, but I do prefer a stronger inspiration for power/shape matches. However, on the grounds that it is how it is in Bionicle, this was gone with in order to be realistic. Power makes your projectiles bounce right back to you, assuming they don't shatter or explode.

Biomechanics -- the wide mouth of this mask appears to possibly actually swivel open and closed, and the texture reminded me of machinery. Plus, the unique eye-hole shape gives a more robotic impression of the wearer than most masks. Power lets you strengthen your mechanical parts, weaken enemy mechanical parts, control simple robotics, and even have a robotic version of telepathy with more complex robots (these you cannot control, though).

Absorption -- this mask matchup is pretty much totally arbitrary. Of the remaining official shapes in the Unknown Kanohi section on BS01, this was the only one left that I felt had a good enough or clearly-defined enough shape to assign a power, and the only power left to assign of the 30 we established for the Multiverse (obviously the was the last one assigned). The ridges on the side could be seen as representing a power being absorbed, though. And if anyone can think of other symbolic or whatever reasons to attach, feel free to suggest.

Right now the power is intended to be a temporary version of Vezon's power; absorbing the powers of those in close proximity. It has been pointed out, though, that it is very similar to Pouks's power, which lets him study a power in use and mimick it. As I understand it, his can work even at distant range, while not being as quick to copy the power, but this only works at close range and copies it faster.

However, perhaps it should be proposed to actually say this IS Pouks's power? So this would be the mask he wears. Not much detail about this one was established in the bio that was written when I got Greg's approval for it.

Noble Miru, Noble Shelek, Noble Jutlin, Noble Avsa -- the obvious similarity between these masks and the Great counterparts worn by the Toa/Makuta these Av/Shadow Matoran inspired the choices for these masks.

Greg will probably be asked soon to approve to say that shortly after the three Shadow Matoran became that, the Makuta forced them to wear evil-shape masks, since the Makuta don't like good masks, so these would NOT be their originals. Otherwise it wouldn't make sense no matter what was said, unless someone can think of a better alternative (and I still haven't asked him; hoping for more feedback on this first ). If they wore these masks before being corrupted, begs the question why good Av-Matoran would wear evil mask shapes. If they had other powers and wore them previously, begs the question of why they look so similar to the Makuta masks, even more so, arguably, than the Av-Matoran three.

In the case of the Miru, the similarity to the original Kanohi Miru, the 2002/3 Nuva version, and to the 2008 adaptive Nuva version, is obvious.

Noble Kakama -- This is less obviously similar to the 2008 Great Kakama, since that had a clear visor as the top part. However, the lower parts are shaped very similarly. Also, the overall effect including the top part is very similar to the original Great Kakama.

Noble Akaku -- This one is the least like its Great counterpart. Here we must remember that the 2001 Noble masks and their 2004 Great counterparts established officially that Noble and Great shapes could look quite different from each other. However, the adaptive version of the Great Akaku from 2008 IS more similar to this still. It could be theorized that the adaptive shape is actually inspired by the Noble shape in the story.

Also, it must be remembered that the visors in Kopaka's Akaku are probably addons; the actual Akaku power does not require visors. For example, Nuju's 2004 Matatu looked very little like its Noble version due to the visor, but if you remove the visor (which was confirmed to be an addon), it would look much more like the Noble Matatu. Apply the same principle here, and the Noble Akaku doesn't look totally alien from its Great counterpart.

Also, to be consistent with the other five Av/Shadow Matoran power matchup strategy, it makes sense to keep this.

With the three Av-Matoran, it has been pointed out that it seems an unlikely coincidence that the three Nuva, Lewa, Pohatu, and Kopaka would just happen to team up with Matoran who have Noble versions of their masks. However, if other powers had been chosen, the problem would remain -- it would be even more unlikely that they would team up with Matoran whose masks just happen to be so obviously similar to them, and yet not actually have related powers. So this criticism nulls itself out, really.

Also, this phenomenon has come in from set design since 2001, and it has never stopped anything before. Why, we might ask, did the 2001 Mctoran just happen to have only the same mask shapes as the Toa and Turaga of that year? Obviously, anybody who understands the nature of Bionicle knows that is a set design issue, not a storyline one, that is really unavoidable. And in my opinion, attempts to explain away those sorts of things would really seem cheap, and get old being repeated year after year; it's better just to be left unexplained.

And, that covers all 17 of the new powers.