The Iron Toa

Diverge means deviate or extend in a different direction. In the case of the alternate universes, it's when the timeline diverges at a critical point, for example in the Kingdom when Matoro had to use the Mask of Life.

I'm pretty sure Angonce is a decent person and even Velika doesn't consider himself evil. I think the GBs are quite amoral but most or all of them feel responsible in some way for Spherus Magna and is people.

I meant an alternate universe split off from the main one from some particular event having a different outcome, like the Kingdom and Toa Empire universes.

I think any non-canon situation that doesn't involve crossovers with other settings or real life could theoretically be a divergent universe.

You should rephrase your first question, it doesn't make much sense. To become Turaga, Toa need to both complete their destinies as Toa and deplete all of their Toa Power/Toa Energy. That's a special sort of energy only Toa have that can be used to transform destined Matoran into Toa, as well as heal beings, and I think guide Toa canisters.

Good point. We've seen that Aqua Magna water isn't toxic to Rahi.

On the islands Mata Nui and Voya Nui, sure, but it wouldn't do any good if the rainwater was undrinkable. That would contaminate uncovered protowater sources too.

Well, Greg said it doesn't normally rain in the MU, so if there are enough springs and wells to provide drinking water inside the Matoran Universe, maybe it's the same for the island of Mata Nui.

Well, Greg said Velika inhabited the MU as a passive observer, and I don't think that could include manipulating/guiding Teridax into taking over the universe.

We still need to make a rule system, and I haven't worked on it for a long time. If you have any ideas, let me know. D&D stands for Dungeons and Dragons, a famous RPG rule system and collection of thematically linked settings.

BS01 describes the tech as 'alien to Bara Magna' and says the swords 'were found in a weapons cache near what the Skrall believed to be a Baterra encampment'. So I'd guess they're either the Great Beings' work or leftover tech from the Core War era or earlier. Speaking of which, do they do anything special except glow? Maybe they used to have special powers but ran out of charge - I believe that was the case with a lot of weapons from the Core War.

That could be. So now I'm not sure either way if they could drink regular water. Hm. I just suggested that the protodermic seawater had metallic components, but upon checking BS01 I saw that it's actually the refined version that has metallic traits. It's the stuff that's magnetized to form the chutes in Metru Nui. When it's heated, it turns into something like molten metal. It's already liquid, so that's an odd behavior. Before it reaches that point, I wonder if it boils like regular water, and if all protodermic freshwater does that or just the sort of water they prepare specially in Metru Nui. I have a feeling Bonesiii's cyberclay theory would have a neat explanation for this.

Maybe he knew Teridax still had to take over for the reformation to happen even though he was evil. I don't think he really needed to do anything to make sure that happened, though, and anyway he couldn't have influenced something so major and still been a passive observer. Maybe he didn't care if Mata Nui's mission was completed, and just wanted to see for himself. It would make sense for him make a little exception to his life of non-interference to help ensure Mata Nui was saved, after all the Matoran Universe was his adopted home. I just thought of an analogy (though it might be unnecessary, I'll say it anyway): you might go to a stadium to watch a sports game, but whether or not you care about which team wins, you would care if the stadium caught fire during the game. Or maybe the GBs, once they saw that Teridax went rogue, decided that he would have to take over to banish Mata Nui to SM so he could awaken the prototype robot. As such, Velika went along with Teridax's plan to make sure that SM was reformed. ///////// What makes you think the other GB's were aware of anything going on in MN? Velika sunk off into MN without the knowledge of the other GBs so i think everything was Velika's call and not that of the GBs as a group. ---------------------------------------- Well, if the insane GB's powers were any indication, the GBs can sense through time and across dimensions. Or they can wander around the known universe while psionically cloaked. And they would want to know what was going on with the giant repair machine for their planet to make sure it actually worked. I agree with you that any decisions Velika made were probably his own call. But the thing is, Velika didn't try to stop Teridax's plan - in fact, he helped out the Toa Inika who unwittingly ended up aiding Teridax. It's pretty clear that Velika wanted the robot to succeed. How much he knew about the plan is anyone's guess, but I don't think he was fooled. He knew that Teridax was supposed to take command, and he knew that he had gone bad. He knew that the Great Spirit was dying, thanks to the resident Toa in town who told him. He also knew that Teridax needed the Great Spirit to be alive to take over. He might have put three and four together. We never see Velika as a member of Teridax's resistance either. The reason I gave might be why. Hmm. I never thought the GBs would actually be monitoring the robot from afar. It does make sense though, I mean scientists at NASA can't see into alternate universes but they still keep track of their space probes. There must have been some things they'd need to be in the MU to observe of course, or Velika wouldn't have needed to live there to satisfy his curiosity (unless he just wanted to live as a Matoran). And as I said, whether or not he wanted Teridax's plan to succeed, it makes sense that he'd want the Mask of Life to be used.

Except the Dark Hunters and the Makuta were at war... because Teridax killed Nidhiki and Krekka. But since they're still alive in this universe... it all fits.

Are you sure? BS01 lists the Zaktan as a Skakdi of Air, Vezok and Nektann of Skakdi of Water, etc. I'm pretty sure that's accurate. And Thok, Reidak, and Vezok have elementally themed weapons - an ice gun, a drill, and a harpoon respectively.

But they do. We just don't know if they had those elements before Spiriah mutated them.

Weren't Nidhiki and Krekka in it too?

While he did create species to fulfill different roles, I don't think he could have replaced the Matoran. Maybe gold and gunmetal too, because some of the Piraka had those colors. And gray - Nektann was blue and gray.

Do we have any evidence either way? I've always thought that Skakdi were meant to assist the Toa in the event of a major catastrophe - Skakdi are shown to be immensely strong by nature, so they could aid in manual labor where the Toa do more of the precision work. Nektann wondered the same thing when he learned Mata Nui was a machine. I think someone asked Greg but the answer given was something unhelpful like 'it hasn't been revealed' or 'it's not important to the story'. Do we know Skakdi were strong before they got mutated? A lot of biomechanical beings are very strong, anyway. I wondered if Zakaz might have contained a deposit of valuable materials meant to be mined over the course of Mata Nui's mission to keep the rest of the world supplied. But think I just thought of that because Zaktan used to be a miner, so it would be a silly assumption to make.

They could have had powerless elemental affiliations, like the Matoran, or no natural elemental affiliation, like most species. I was wondering this too, and posted the question in the Ask Greg topic.

I thought they relied on water from underground or meltwater from Mount Ihu. I also think there was a lake on Voya Nui that was important because it was their only source of fresh protowater. But then Voya Nui had ice too - maybe that was too dangerous to harvest.

Good point. And we know they had vehicles with advanced weaponry. It just seemed to me if they did have other such things, they would have been mentioned. I'd say a bit of both. A lot of Agori must have died during the Shattering, so if they had scholars and scientists a lot of them would have been lost. And because they're so busy just trying to stay alive, they can't do much more than scavenge what's left.

If it is a solution, then the particles that get turned into the metal could be the equivalent of the salt in real seawater. But if they could get pure protodermis from water, that leaves the question of why there were miners. I'd guess that although pure proto could be given certain properties, some properties are impossible or very difficult to attain from the base form, and so it would be easier to mine existing sources of those kinds of protodermis. Since we had an official protodermis topic, do you think you'll make a new one? Yeah, it's probably the water you're thinking of. I don't think MU beings can drink Spherus Magna water, and anyway they couldn't think drink (derp typo ) the seawater. I'm pretty sure they can consume Spherus Magna creatures and plants just as well as protodermic ones.

Ah, so my Matrix analogy from last week wasn't so far off after all! That also came up in the topic about the nature of the GBs - the question of just how much of their powers are simply the ability to manipulate their creations. Maybe he knew Teridax still had to take over for the reformation to happen even though he was evil. I don't think he really needed to do anything to make sure that happened, though, and anyway he couldn't have influenced something so major and still been a passive observer. Maybe he didn't care if Mata Nui's mission was completed, and just wanted to see for himself. It would make sense for him make a little exception to his life of non-interference to help ensure Mata Nui was saved, after all the Matoran Universe was his adopted home. I just thought of an analogy (though it might be unnecessary, I'll say it anyway): you might go to a stadium to watch a sports game, but whether or not you care about which team wins, you would care if the stadium caught fire during the game.

Well, the environment of it was shaped by that EP leak. The island itself was part of Mata Nui's camouflage system, so in both cases, it was made of protodermis. Just the seawater and some of the creatures were of Aqua Magna and so not made of protodermis.