Danska: Shadow Master

I'd have to go for All Great masks in Turaga colours All Great masks in Tohunga colours All Great masks in Metru colours Basically, Great masks in every colour! Although my true #1 would be all Great masks in a gold colour that actually looks gold.

I don't think so. I'm only running off vague memories of old Greg Q&As about Kanoka and mask-making here, so I could be misremembering. From what I recall, Kanoka Disks can be combined to create new powers and (I assume) melted down and reforged, but if a Kanohi is damaged (and trying to melt it down/fuse it with another mask would definitely count as damage) it loses its power. The exception to this is legendary masks which, when damaged, cause their power to leak out. There are potentially ways to do it. The Golden Kanohi the Toa Mata wore prove that Kanohi with multiple powers can exist, but I expect only Artakha knows how to do this. As you say, Toa Kaita wear Kanohi combining 3 powers. I suppose a Toa might be able to wear a Kaita's Kanohi, although it's possible they wouldn't be able to use it and it would return to 3 separate masks when the Kaita unfused. There are also things like the Spear of Fusion or Roodaka's mutation Rhotuka that seem to be able to merge things in ways that would otherwise be impossible, so there could easily be a way to do it. The most common way of having access to multiple Mask powers is a Toa Suva. It's not possible to use multiple Kanohi at the same time (but even the Gold Kanohi don't allow this), but any Toa with a Suva could collect masks and have instant access to them when needed. There are also a lot of tools, weapons etc. out there with powers, so if a Toa really wanted two Kanohi powers at once e.g. shielding and flight, they could wear a Hau and get a weapon/tool that allowed them to fly.

I'll have been here...18 years this year, I think? (I'm almost a BZP adult!) Old habits die hard, I guess. It's hard to let something go, even this far on, when it had such a profound influence on me when I was growing up. I was on this site while Bionicle was running through all my teenage years and this was my main hub of internet activity for much of it. And being a reclusive introvert who likes gaming, shiny spaceships and playing with LEGO, that was a fair chunk of my time. Maybe I'll leave for good one day. But as long as this place is here, I'll probably keep poking my head in from time to time.

5/5 that's where you're wrong!

Honestly, it really sucked. I'd been with it right from the start and for most of G1's 10 years it was one of, if not the, biggest thing I was into. The story, the characters, the lore, the sets, the huge world with all is mysteries, all of it had been a part of my life for a decade, and then suddenly it was over. Bionicle was (of course) the reason I joined BZPower, and that was my first experience of an online forum or an online community of any kind. I was very active for a number of years getting involved in fan fics, MOCs, theories, RPGs, kits - lots of stuff. As a result, Bionicle was my first real introduction to writing, pixel art and game design. This site was the first place where I got to discuss and share ideas about something I cared about with people outside my usual circle of friends (none of whom were ever into it as much as I was). I made a lot of good friends here, some of which I'm still in contact with today and a huge number of great experiences through my teenage years can be traced back to this site. I'm not sure I can overstate the impact Bionicle had on my life in so many ways, so yeah. Seeing it end was rough. I still poke around at my kits sometimes or come up with (and occasionally write) story ideas, so even now I'm not sure I've really let it go. Gen 2 got me very excited, but was never a patch on the original. It lacked both the mystery of the early days and the intricate storytelling of the later years and while I can honestly say I like CCBS as a system, I feel the sets could have been better. It was fun and I was sad when it was cancelled, but there's a lot about it I wish had been better. I was nowhere near as invested in it as I was the original line (which I suppose, as a busy adult with many important things to do, I was never going to be even if it had been exceptional).

Honestly, no. The thing to remember about Bionicle is that it wasn't just another LEGO theme. It wasn't just the first time LEGO had tried to create a full story to go with a theme. It was a huge multimedia project told through video games, online content, comics, CDs packaged with sets later expanding into animations, films, books...the sheer amount of ambition poured into it was astonishing and unlike anything LEGO had ever done before. Their advertising campaign was enormous too with constant, large features in the LEGO Magazine (not to mention the free comic), skateboarding, Mcdonalds Happy Meal sets, they were pushing it incredibly hard. Even the sets were something brand new - a whole new type of LEGO. We'd had Slizers and Roboriders before that, but Bionicle took everything good about those themes and made them new, different and completely its own. Bionicle was a huge thing for the LEGO company to try and do, not least because it was financially struggling. A huge amount of work went into the worldbuilding and how it was portrayed that I'm not convinced LEGO has even attempted since. Unless LEGO are willing to put that much effort and energy into a revival and truly make Bionicle something new and special again, no reboot will be as good. And if LEGO are going to put that much effort into anything, I doubt it will be into a 20 year old twice-cancelled franchise.

I found the 2006 Matoran particularly disappointing in that regard because they didn't even have any pieces in new colours. I didn't see the point in buying sets I already had the pieces to build. Personally I could list almost any playset or vehicle as a least favourite set. The playsets just never appealed to me and I enjoyed building/playing with characters, so the most the vehicles would ever be were extra parts for MOCs. But if I put playsets and vehicles aside...I guess Kongu Mahri is as good a contender as any. He was the 4th Toa of Air set in a row to have a dark and dull colour scheme while other Toa were getting more interesting colours thrown into the mix, and he was so absurdly wide/short he just looked ridiculous. And no melee weapon? I'll pass. They also released Lesovikk in the same year and while I know the Lime pieces were cursed he looked much, much cooler than Kongu Mahri.

A few months back I spent far too much getting hold of the 2017 Toa + creatures. Those things are not cheap, but I have no regrets.

I'm honestly flattered, thank you! It's really nice that people remember that (and it's just possible I'm still working on it a little - but sssh!) Posing them became their main play feature, definitely. I really loved the Phantoka line, for example, and I did quite like the Makuta's feature of dropping a bunch of tiny leeches on a poor, unsuspecting Toa, but nothing would ever be quite as fun as the 01-03 sets where they were completely built around the idea of knocking each other's masks off. The number of times I'd get my Toa to fight each other and get a clean hit on the other's mask, or making the Bohrok/Rahi hit them square in the face and seeing that little piece of plastic fly off - it was very fun and very satisfying! I only had to get a couple of replacement axes for Lewa because I kept making him hit things too hard... I think the launchers did get better over the years. Saying that the Rhotuka spinners, oddly, were one of my favourites, I think because they were built into the set rather than being something enormous the Toa had to carry. Zamor launchers were fine, but the multi-shot addition for the Inika was huge and annoying. The squid launchers were useless and the Cordak blasters the most egregious in terms of being ridiculously oversized, making each set feel like they existed solely to carry this gun rather than being cool in themselves (which is why Jaller Mahri is the coolest because he gets a crab to do it for him). The Midak Skyblasters were fun, powerful and not too intrusive (though I'm still annoyed Kopaka didn't get a proper weapon). The Nynrah Ghost Blasters, like the Cordak Blasters, dominated the sets too much and weren't nearly as fun. Then the Thornax Launchers...I actually liked those (even if, again, they stopped a characters having a proper weapon. Poor Mata Nui). They were very small, not too intrusive and looked more like Bionicle parts than most of the launchers. They also came up with a game to be played with them, so they were at least trying a bit harder on the playability side that time. Thank you for reading my early morning ramblings on sets and launchers. I shall now leave everyone in peace, be a responsible adult and go to work. No, I don't like it either.

Even during its original run, I would get nostalgic for a number of different things. I'd say 2005 was when nostalgia started to hit as I began to miss things like the MNOLG, collectables and the Bohrok/Bohrok Kal web animations. From 2006 I began to miss the original bright colours instead of the Metru hues. In 2007 I sorely missed the days when new sets meant a new type of build, new limb pieces and a new mechanic beyond launchers. A lot of the sets from 2006 onwards looked great, but were less fun to play with because the primary play feature was a cumbersome or barely functional launcher instead of some aspect of the set itself. I think what I really began to feel nostalgic for in the later years was the innocent charm of the early days. The stories felt more mythological and grand. Rather than fighting an overpowered group of stereotypically evil thieves or angry squabbling sea creatures for the ultimate plot device, the heroes were often pitted against the forces of nature itself - deadly wildlife, the elements themselves and all the traps and terrors they faced when collecting their masks - all masterminded by a sinister presence that seemed to be the very personification of evil. Now that it's ended I doubt I'll ever stop being nostalgic for Bionicle. It was a huge part of my life as I was growing up and nothing's ever quite replaced that (though my wallet is certainly happier).

I believe that's one of the many areas where the MNOLG differs from canon (which is a shame as I usually prefer the MNOLG version of things to whatever replaces them). It's just there to make it clear which mask power they're using. If I was to ignore canon and try to explain why their masks still change shape, I'd say it's the difference between the mask changing shape when they use its power, and them having to change masks before using the power. So for regular masks, the process would be Change mask Activate new mask power For gold masks, it would be Activate different mask power Mask shape changes

That might be possible, assuming they know for certain of a Matoran that's destined to become a Toa. Otherwise they're just putting that power into a random Matoran where I assume it wouldn't do anything at all (except possibly make them glow), unless they came into contact with another Matoran who was destined to be a Toa. I'm liking the potential story possibilities of literally anything potentially being a Toa Stone.

Aside from looking cool, their power is having the abilities of all six of their Great Kanohi (Shielding, Vision, Water-breathing, Levitation, Speed and Strength) in a single mask. They can still only use one power at a time, but it means they no longer need to switch masks if they want to use a different power. It's a small advantage, but even a small amount of time saved can be hugely useful in the right circumstances.

According to the Avohkii page on Biosector01, the Avohkii was charged with Toa power so acted like a Toa Stone, making that a 'normal' transformation. How or why this was the case, who knows? It makes me wonder if other objects can be charged with Toa power, or whether it's only Toa stones and special objects like the Avohkii.

Thanks for the answers (and sources) everyone! You are better researchers than I. It's definitely one of the more interesting bits of lore that got canonised. I have a feeling it was floating around for a long time before that happened, and it was so popular it snuck its way into the collective understanding of how things work.