The Purpose of the Visorak

[TERIDAX941]

So everyone knows about the Visorak. The Stealers of Life, the Poisonous Scourge... created by Chirox on the Island of Visorak, named for the new species of Rahi. Later Gorast used the Heart of the Visorak to collect them all together and she made them into an organized horde. They then became the main backbone of the Brotherhood's army, along the Rahkshi, with Sidorak and Roodaka at their head. They traveled from island to island conquering anything in their path and cocooning any Rahi they came across. It was said that every single Rahi in Metru Nui was only there because they were running from the hordes.

 

So my question is: what was the purpose of the hordes really? What did the Brotherhood see in the Visorak mutating and putting to sleep the very Rahi that the Makuta had created? Was that a part of the Plan, where Teridax thought that the Rahi could be put to better use if they were mutated and/or cocooned away until they were reawakened like he was planning with the Matoran? Or was it just the nature of spiders to seek prey and capture it, whether in the wild or not?

Edited July 14, 2014 by Iron_Man5

[bonesiii]

That's an interesting idea. Maybe under the original plan, to wipe the Matoran's memories, he would unleash the mutant Rahi in a lot of places and blame them on others, like Mata Nui, and/or Toa. I doubt it would be a matter of the mutants all being more useful for productive purposes, since as far as I know, they had no control over the nature of the mutations, though he might have been experimenting to only let free ones that would fit in.

 

If neither of those work, it might just be a rebellion against the original purpose of the Makuta -- their making Rahi that did fit into the life the Great Beings intended isn't necessarily something the Makuta liked, just because they were the ones who made most of them. They were following orders at the time.

[boston100]

I think the makuta made them as a backup plan, so incase the "plan" went wrong they could say "do what we say or we will invade your home with giant spiders who are going to eat or mutate all of you"

[Click]

I thought it was just supposed to be a super-weapon. Rather than having armies with Rahi mounts coming against you, you could just slip through, cocoon them, and have them more worried about the fact they've just been mutated and are losing their minds rather than fighting. Just seeing what they did to Metru Nui, I can imagine it being pretty bad when focused on a population. Even if they don't get mutated themselves, the horror of the webs everywhere and mutant Rahi all over would make me agree to just about any kind of surrender.

[fishers64]

It's probably so the Rahi didn't threaten the new world order. In addition, Visorak-mutated Rahi tend to be nastier so they could be used to scare Matoran populations into submission. 

[Loading...]

I thought it was all supposed to be a diversion.

 

I think I remember the Rahaga talking about how there was a time when people didn't know that the Visorak were a part of the Brotherhood, and that they assumed Roodaka and Sidorak were the ones in charge. Later, the Toa Hagah realized it was Makuta who was really pulling the strings, but by then they were mutated and unable to really do anything about it.

 

The way I saw it was that while Makuta and the Brotherhood were plotting to take over the universe shortly following the Great Cataclysm, they needed something to keep peoples' attentions away from their doings. So they took a group of relatively powerful and semi-intelligent rahi, turned them into a hoard, gave them to a pair of their underlings, and let them play the "bad-guy" part for a while.

 

Matoran and Toa alike were so busy worrying about and dealing with a hoard of mutation inducing spiders slowly advancing through the universe to notice whatever small actions the Brotherhood was taking as it set up for the "big finale" when the Great Spirit fell asleep. This also let the Brotherhood play the "good-guy" role at times by destroying a group of Visorak every so often, yet not enough to actually stall the invasion of the hoard as a whole. This could continue to paint the Brotherhood as protectors of the Matoran.

 

Once the Brotherhood was outed as the real villains following Makuta's betrayal of Mata-Nui, the hoard was sent to Metru-Nui to secure his body, and the rest of the universe was already in the Brotherhood's control, so the hoard was no longer needed as a conquest machine at that time.

 

That's only the headcanon I've come up with though, so take it with a grain of salt, there's bound to be canon that proves me wrong. 

 

EDIT:

 

The comic I was thinking of was "Shadow Play".

 

Kualus and Bomonga are discussing when they saw the Visorak Horde attacking an island and realized who was really in charge of the Horde. They are about to tell Whenua and Nuju who it was when a group of Visorak attack through the air vents. It's assumed that they were going to say "The Makuta" since I think the exact line it: "The Ma-"

Edited July 15, 2014 by Loading...

[NuvaTube]

I always imagined them as Chirox's attempt at a series of cheap, but effective military assest. Basically designed to be very good at killing and good at causing cause, which is what the mutation would be for. I imagine it got popular with the other Makuta and he made more, and they eventually decided to make it a big part of their military. I don't think it was really planned from the start to be for the military, or to be part of Teridax's plan.

[John Smith]

Perhaps Makuta just wanted an army of giant spiders for villainous purposes, and let them hunt as an easy way to keep them loyal. Though I doubt this would have been the only reason to keep them around, knowing Teridax and his multi-layered plans. I guess that's where everyone else's ideas come in.

[TERIDAX941]

Then raises the question... who made the Heart of the Visorak? Gorast was the first to use it, but did Chirox make it, or did they "convince" Artahka to create it?

[fishers64]

There's no information in the Greg Dialogues or BS01 on it. It's still open for speculation/theory/Greg asking.