The 1st Shadow

It's a tough choice, for sure. As far as the Master sets go, they tended to be pretty basic and more or less identical all the way across the board, with a few exceptions. Lewa, for example, looks good, but his gearbox is positioned higher up and restricts a lot of his head movement. Onua, on the other hand, has the most variety in his build, allowing for his huge shoulders and heavy weapon. If I had to pick solely from the Master sets, I'd say go with Onua. The Uniters are a whole other ball game. Each one has the same basic features, but the torso and limb designs offer a lot of variety. Gali with her asymmetrical design, Kopaka, Pohatu, and Lewa with variations of articulated shoulders, the latter of which also has a very unique lower leg design, Onua's neat weapon and shoulder design, and Tahu's excessive use of gold, there's a lot going for these guys. To top it all off, they have the ability to combine with their respective elemental creatures, which makes them look even better (well, most of the time, right Pohatu?). For the Uniters, I'd say the best build goes to either Lewa or Kopaka, from what I remember. IF you plan on getting the matching creature, I personally love the way Tahu combines with Ikir. Second place goes to Onua and Terak, with the Creature of Earth adding to Onua's already broad shoulders and filling in the otherwise narrow torso on a previously bulky character. Lewa and Uxar rank next, followed by Kopaka/Melum, Gali/Akida, and lastly, Pohatu/Ketar. With this batch, Kopaka and his creature, Melum, come as a single pack, so if you want to go for value and get both Toa and creature in one smooth motion, Kopaka and Melum is the way to go. But for an individual Toa, Lewa is the most interesting design while Tahu and Gali are the more eye-catching as a finished product. TL:DR-- Masters are mostly the same, so go for Onua; Uniters are each fairly unique, but Tahu looks good, Kopaka comes with his creature, and Lewa is the most unique of the builds.

Photos don't work, but cool to know.

Not counting duplicates, according to my checklist, I have 270 Bionicle sets. If we do count duplicates, probably closer to 285.

Great. Now you need to build the rest of Onua and set him up as the ultimate display. Excellent work!

Some of those examples are under different circumstances. When Nuparu made a fist of dirt, he wasn't creating the earth with his power. He was manipulating pre-existing dirt. When Hahli generates water from her weapon, it would be fused with lightning. In the Matoro example, there's nothing to say there was no lightning when he froze Umbra's cave. It's likely that he used existing moisture in the cave (caves tend to be kinda damp, in case you've never been in one), so he would have simply dropped the temperature and froze the water that was already there. Or, he generated the ice really quickly and the lightning dissipated before it could harm Umbra. The other answer is that Greg may have just forgotten that particular detail every once in a while.

I always thought it was the other way. You see, when the Mata were turned into Nuva, they gained extra armor. They later replaced that armor with the Adaptive Armor, which in its default form just replicated whet the Nuva already looked like. When Tahu was devolved into a Mata again, the AA compensated and filled in the gaps and made him look somewhat different from his original form. Might just be me, but I like to think that makes more sense.

Now that's odd if it works for one of you but not the other. Shadow, are you on mobile? Either way I added another link that should direct to the same page, just a different URL. Laptop. Both links say "Welcome to Master Inika's profile! Unfortunately, there's nothing to see here." EDIT: I tried making an account on there to see if that helps. There's still nothing in either link. EDIT2: Also tried on my phone. Doesn't work there, either. In fact, the mobile version thinks you don't exist as a user, so I don't know what the deal is.

You linked to your profile, which has nothing on it.

You're close. The powers of those six Rahkshi were more the antithesis of the Principles that the Matoran lived by. These Principles were elaborated on in MNOG2, and were derived from aspects of the Three Virtues. They were: Ga-Koro: Purity, which is derived from Unity Le-Koro: Faith, which is derived from a combination of Unity and Duty Ta-Koro: Courage, which is derived from Duty Onu-Koro: Prosperity, which is derived from a combination of Duty and Destiny Ko-Koro: Peace, which is derived from Destiny Po-Koro: Creation, which is derived from a combination of Unity and Destiny However, because of the nature of the Principles, not all of them match up. For example, Purity's (Ga-Koro) enemy is Poison, which is Lerahk. Faith's (Le-Koro) enemy is Fragmentation, which is Panrahk's power. So, the Rahkshi powers are the reverse of the Matoran Principles, but the color's of each don't always match up. It's an interesting coincidence that the three that don't match up are also the first three Rahkshi Teridax unleashed upon the island, while the second batch are perfect matches for the respective villages.

I work at a place that deals heavily in used LEGO if you still need some help, I think I could be of service on the specifics.

I don't think there was ever any contradiction about it. Federation of Fear gives us the full backstory (Spiriah giving them their powers and basically screwing over the whole race, branding him a failure). Island of Doom didn't go into it much, and Legacy of Evil may have mentioned the Skakdi War or said that the Piraka specifically got their weapons and training from the Dark Hunters. One source may have mentioned that the Skakdi had no idea where their powers came from, since Spiriah tried to keep what he was doing a secret. Not contradiction--just approaching different aspects of the situation from different points of view.

I've always headcanon'd that the GB's must've had prototypes. Really, if they had to build a prototype of the GSR, then surely they had prototypes of the things that keep the GSR running. I doubt they would have made many, though, since they would probably be trying to conserve resources for the construction of the official Matoran race. Although, the Av-Matoran are considered to be prototypes of all subsequent Matoran types. So, who knows at that point?

Personally, I'd like to think it's more a clan color. But, since they don't even have names unless they earn one, and they're bred solely for the purpose of being soldiers, I doubt clans would even exist. Denoting rank is probably more likely. I can't imagine what else it would be, aside from the out-of-canon explanation of "blame the set designers."

My first point has already been brought up: The Mata were using the Suva to store their masks. Some Toa have access to a Suva which serves as a sort of armory for them, but they primarily store masks, but they are implied to have a limited storage space, like a hard drive, and can only store a few masks at a time (we've seen the Mata's Suvas store 5 Great and 6 Noble at a time, since the 6th Great mask was on the Toa's face at any given time, but we can assume they could hold at least 12). Next is the mask-making thing. Bear in mind, not all Ta-Matoran in Metru Nui were mask-makers. Most made tools or parts for machines that other Matoran would use throughout the city. Vakama was one of only a select few that made masks on a regular basis. So, there wasn't necessarily a vast surplus of Kanohi floating around. And since Metru Nui did trade with other islands, it's likely that other Toa or mask-wearing beings in the universe often ordered shipments of Great Kanohi from there, which the Mask-makers would have spent hours, if not days, perfecting before sending the finished product on its way.

I vaguely recall someone asking Greg about that years ago, and I'm pretty sure the answer was yes. If they all had armories of weapons and such, it would make sense for them to make use of different Kanohi from time to time.

I'm definitely interested in some of the masks and krana. If you can get pictures of those, I can let you know which ones I'm looking for.

If I had to pick from the six primary elements, either Air or Stone, but most likely Stone. Otherwise, I'm gonna have to stick with Light. Sure, I'd have to be wary of Makuta wanting me assassinated all the time, but it'd be cool. And I'be be wearing a Kakama. Not like the color scheme matters, because Matoran and Toa of Light can manipulate the way light reflects off of them so I can be whatever color I want whenever I want.

Let's see. I like food, preferably meat. Long walks on the beach, movies, and.... Oh, not that kind of matchmaking? Nevermind. As far as parts go, I have an vast arsenal. In addition to having tons of sets and loose parts at home, I work at a place called Bricks & Minifigs, which deals primarily in used LEGO products. I've got a whole table of Bionicle/Technic parts there (and six other tables of assorted System and whatever else), as well as a few bins of backstock I can go through if need be, so lack of parts should not be an issue. Finding them in all that mess, well... When I really got into MOCing back in 2010, the best I could do was variations of sets, but since then, I've worked my way up to more complex builds and even won a few prizes at conventions for a few of them. I would describe my building style as "Good-looking, but also sturdy enough to pose and handle without too much care." Lately, I've been inspired to do revamps of some old favorites, so if you like doing revamps or reimaginings of sets, I'm totally up for it. I haven't uploaded pictures of a lot of my recent stuff to anything. If you're interested, let me know, and I'll provide a few examples of my work.

I considered the Skrall, but kinda forgot about the masses of Dark Hunters and other races in the MU. To be fair, now the Order of Mata Nui is out in the open, and they might be more willing to get involved and help keep the bad guys at bay. I'm sure at some point, more Toa would be needed, but for what, I cannot say.

That's actually a really good question, one I don't think has been brought up before (not to my knowledge, anyway). Well, the elemental powers of Toa would be one advantage. Sure, Spherus Magna has been restored, but that doesn't mean all the Agori cities and towns are back to their former glory. The Matoran would be able to make quick work of that, but Toa would be much better, having the ability to summon just the right rocks from the ground, reshape the layers of sediment to provide a good spot to lay down a foundation, help locate and dig up wells, etc. But, would the Matoran/Toa want to be used as a labor force? Probably not. So, is there a use for them? Yes. Are they necessary? No. Now that they no longer need to worry about the integrity of the Matoran Universe, I don't think there is any reason for any more to become Toa. Sure, there might be a small handful out there that are destined to transform, because you never know when a little civil war might break out some time in the distant future. But in general? No, I really don't think so. Having never thought about it this way before, I don't know what else to say.

Now, that's an interesting concept for a contest. I might enter this one, assuming I can find someone willing to put up with me for it.

Excellent finale! Beautiful work, as always. What else can I say but "I'm bummed there's nothing more for you to spoof at the moment?"

It actually has been addressed before, though not in great detail. A Kaita Kanohi will remain as long as the Kaita is formed. Once the Kaita splits up, so does the mask, separate or not. So, if someone else were to wear it while it was still "fused," it would just explode into its component masks. The other end of that question is harder to answer. If a Kaita were to swap masks with someone else, then whatever normal mask it was wearing would probably just fall off when the Kaita split. Lastly, yeah. The Spear of Fusion can indeed split up a Kaita.

You know, I always wondered about that in MNOG. Didn't make a lick of sense. This would explain a few things. Excellent chapter!

What glorious madness have I stumbled upon? A sheer delight, it would seem! The bit about the Bohrok-Kal was hilarious. Also, Vorahk's "Dude, kinda my thing," bit was wonderful. Excellent work. Can't wait to see where this goes next.