The Iron Toa

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.

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.

 

 

 

 

The GBs had already programmed the destiny system to do something about him, probably without realizing it at the time, but he was supposed to help reform Spherus Magna. There was really nothing further that Velika could have done for that. However, he may have been subtly working behind the scenes in ways we haven't heard of to set the stage for Mata Nui's victory there, once he realized Makuta had gone haywire (in the sense of not following his programming as intended).

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.

 

 

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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.

 

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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.

Edit: Silly me, that isn't necessary, the Piraka, Nidhiki and Krekka can be DH hired by the BoM.

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.

their armor colors do not correspond to their elements.

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?

Maybe we could track this back to the Red Star malfunction.

 

Perhaps when Mata Nui learned that his workers that worked on more dangerous tasks weren't coming back, he created tougher "Matoran" to do the dirty work. It was mentioned that Zaktann worked in a dangerous Protodermis mine.

While he did create species to fulfill different roles, I don't think he could have replaced the Matoran.

I think it's likely they were already colored and he gave them powers based on that.

 

Of course, it's possible they gained colors after being granted powers. If they really were all the same color before, they were probably silver.

Maybe gold and gunmetal too, because some of the Piraka had those colors. And gray - Nektann was blue and gray.

This matches up very well with a question I proposed in the "Skakdi Elements" topic - did Spiriah give Skakdi their Elemental association as well as their powers, or did he give them powers based on a pre-existing Elemental affliation/coloration? Obviously, both options have their respective support - I'm leaning towards the former, though, due to both the coincidence mentioned above and a few other factors.

Do we have any evidence either way?

Of course, this begs the question. What were the Skakdi intended for anyway?

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.

Well, even in today's world wars are fought with infantry. They could have had airplanes, cars, and computers. Especially with the GBs to invent them. Then the war and the Shattering destroyed everything.

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.

Now that makes sense. I wonder if it was also because they were focused on surviving/staying alive, so they didn't have much time to put towards inventing new things. That, or they were completely relient on the GBs for their technology, which might work a bit better with your theory.

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.

Well, they purify the liquid protodermis, and it's still liquid then. I'm not sure how exactly they purify it. Anyways, then they send it to Ta-Metru where it's superheated, forming molten protodermis. Then this is sent to the diskmaking areas, and rapid cooling is apparently what actually makes it become solid (if you let it cool normally it will apparently remain liquid at room temp).

 

I theorized in my cyberclay topic that this is a code function in the particles; that it's programmed to sense that rapid cooling as the trigger for the solid version.

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?

 

Oh. My bad, I knew something about the island wasn't Protodermis since the Toa Metru had a hard time adjusting.

 

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.

 

I agree with bones on most of this, but I will play devil's advocate here: in LOMN, Teridax was seen controlling the MU directly (or at least the ground, by raising huge pillars everywhere). This was later confirmed to be an entirely learned ability, and some have theorized that the simple knowledge that the MU is artificial can allow this (as in the Matrix series). Velika demonstrated no use of these powers, though he potentially could have. This is relatively easily explained away because he had no reason to do so, though.

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.

The GBs had already programmed the destiny system to do something about him, probably without realizing it at the time, but he was supposed to help reform Spherus Magna. There was really nothing further that Velika could have done for that. However, he may have been subtly working behind the scenes in ways we haven't heard of to set the stage for Mata Nui's victory there, once he realized Makuta had gone haywire (in the sense of not following his programming as intended).

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.

Hope you don't mind I answered what I could.

-How did the Toa acquire noble masks? Were they given or did they find them?

I'm not positive but I'm pretty sure they found them like they found the Great masks. Hopefully someone else can back me up or correct me on this.

-When did they get the Makoki Stones?

Again, not certain about this one, but I'm pretty sure the Turaga gave them to the Toa when it was time to enter Mangaia. Unless they sent them on a scavenger hunt for them, too, but I don't remember reading about that.

-Is there any canon explanation that Greg can come up with (even on the spot) for the use of the words Tohunga and Koronan, the descent into the Suva to get the golden mask, the Mana Ko in the Mangaia in Legend of Mata Nui (video game)?

Koronan would just mean 'villager', I guess, so I don't see any reason to consider it non-canon.

-How come the 2001 storyline is so messed up from all the different sources (MNOG, Tale of the Toa, LoMN video game, Comics)?

Cathy Hapka wrote the books then, and Greg wasn't involved in MNOG, so that would explain some of it.

-Why was there a floating golden Hau in Onu-Koro?

Greg might not know this, because he wasn't involved in MNOG.

-How come Ka is a Kahu in MNOG but a regular Gukko in MoL?

Again, Greg wasn't involved in MNOG. But are you sure the Gukko in MoL was meant to be the same bird?

 

It doesn't get mixed with anything, so 'pure' protodermis isn't the best term for it, but I get what you're saying.

We don't know that for sure. One theory is that the matter-mimicking forms actually bond with molecules of the type of matter in question.

I never thought of that. If they're large molecules or artificial cell-like building blocks, I suppose there could be room for the natural molecules they emulate in them.

Even under my cyberclay theory, though, the term is appropriate as it refers to a "pure" state of coding.

Right, I was just thinking of purity in terms of being part of a compound or mixture with non-protodermic substances, which as you just pointed out, might actually be used to differentiate the types.

'Protowater' is its default form, without any extra qualities programmed into it, right?

Well, I think so. That default form has both the liquid and solid (at room temp) versions, though, and both have been referred to as "protodermis" as a special type. Although the solid form is created by a special rapid heating and cooling, which may make it a bit less "pure" in a different way.

 

Possibly that is what the MNOG2 reference refers to; they might mine it in liquid form but heatcool it to solid. Or, that might be a secondary mining procedure to find solid pure proto.

 

Now that I think of it, they turn 'pure' protowater into that 'pure' metal by putting it in a centrifuge or something like that, right? Maybe protowater is a solution that contains the pure protometal that can be filtered out? Or maybe it's not really something so simple.

It doesn't get mixed with anything, so 'pure' protodermis isn't the best term for it, but I get what you're saying. 'Protowater' is its default form, without any extra qualities programmed into it, right? The mined protodermis wasn't called nuggets but in the MNOLG2 there's this. So I guess that's something like the protowater, except in stone or metallic form instead of liquid for some reason.

In Legends of Metru Nui, the term 'Sea of Protodermis' was used twice. The first time it referred to the simulated waves in the Coliseum made by the moving stone pillars, and the second time it was <LargeHam>the real Sea of... Pro...to...dermis</LargeHam> as Makuta called it. But almost everything in the Matoran Universe (everything except the air, I think) is made of protodermis. So why call it that? It's almost like calling the real-life ocean the Sea of Matter.

And in the Mata Nui Online Game, there was a similar situation with the valuable substance the Onu-Matoran mined being called protodermis. But everything they mined would have been some sort of protodermis, right? So are these cases instances of poor translation from Matoran to real languages, or did the characters actually call it that?

While we're on the subject, why do you think the makers of Bionicle named it protodermis? It means something like 'first skin', so did they just make that up because it sounds cool or is it actually supposed to mean something? Maybe it refers to how it makes up the outermost layer of Mata Nui's body and/or the beings inside it.

Whoops, looks like the title was too long. I meant for the end to say "bad translation?".

Are you asking about the Pit mutagen? If so, you should specify. And those are questions I'd also like to know the answers to, so good thinking.