NickonAquaMagna

What about the 89 years later part?

In the second chapter one of the logs is dated 2166 while the other Toa logs are dated 6122. And voima's logs seem to be 89 years in the future. Whoops! I got the 6 and the 2 mixed up, there! Oh man... could you point out the instance where that happened? And yeah, sorry. These dates are so hard to keep up with.

No, it's just that the Caelumian calendar was started waaaaaaay before the Matoran's new calender. Their society goes back a long time before the Matoran settled here.

Chapter 3- Skakdi is online. http://nickinamerica.deviantart.com/art/Bionicle-Nova-Orbis-JtC-Chapter-3-Skakdi-632290840 Guess who's back! Haha! Yeah, I wasn't sure how to handle this reveal, and we're still pretty early in this particular story, but at least now we get a glimpse of what's happening on Piras' side. We get to see his face, and we get to see Vezon's face, which was reeeeally fun to draw. I wanted to give him a feel, so that's what's with the gold tooth and the weird ridges on his lips being drawn as earrings. Also, I hereby decree that everyone reading this MUST use Mark Hamill's Joker voice in their heads for Vezon's dialog. Like... I dunno, around the time of Return of The Joker, not quite as gravely as he is lately. Also, in case anyone's forgotten, Seers are Matoran (and animals) who are essentially walking cameras the Caelumiens use to spy on the other former M.U. residents, the Seers themselves usually being unaware. But how the heck did Vezon get here? What's with those scars on the back of his head? And just how LONG has he been here? Speculate in the comments below! The answers to this mystery will be revealed in time, but not for a while. Also, what do you think of Pruinae as a name? That's it for today. Feedback is greatly appreciated.

As long as the new limb armor has holes for texture add ons (which is does) I'm cool with it. It seems to be made for larger figures with long limbs that most of the shells can't cover up enough.

I added something about the naming "system" of Bionicle a few posts back, if you guys missed it.

This is something that's always been interesting to me. In the early years, keeping up with the names was pretty easy because they all originated from a select few languages, Maori with a bit of Finnish sprinkled around, so you heard a lot of similar sounds in many of the names. They had a sort of consistency and rhythm, the way the languages in Tolkien's works do. Just like elf names sound soft and sweet, dwarf names sound bombastic and musical, and orc names sound gutteral and harsh, making them all fairly distinct and easier to remember than a lot of languages and names in other fantasy worlds are, the "language" of Bionicle felt (or rather, was) real and distinct enough that if you could remember one name, you could remember a lot of similar names of the Matoran villagers and stuff. It was a tightly knit little language that worked. You knew that "nui" meant something important because it appeared in several names. Vakama and Nokama were easy to remember because you could tell they were of the same tongue. Kopaka and Kopeke (pronounced Koh-peek) have completely different sounds but are easy to remember because they're spelled similarly. It's like a sort of poetry. Then it got out of hand. Sure, a few of the names were probably made up from the beginning, but in the later years, they started pulling lots of names out of their butts. Names like "Miserix" or Destral felt like made up fantasy names, and the "language" of Bionicle just got less coherent and felt more of a mish mash of several at least partially fictional languages. Consistency was thrown out the window, making the names that much harder for kids (and their parents) to remember. In 2009, they tried to recapture that early feel by narrowing their focus to one language and making Bara Magna's language derivative of latin, which I've sort of tried to continue with many of the names in my story, so good on them for finding that kind of restraint and consistency again. Not sure where I'm going with this. It's just something I've thought about more than once, because I love the "art" of language. When I heard the Protectors' names... it took me a while to latch onto them, because they didn't feel very consistent to me. They reminded me of that period in G1 where, as we've established, things got out of control. I've had a much easier time remembering the Creatures' names because they're short, simple to say, and sound like they all come from a select few languages, possibly one. Consistency is key.

Aw, dangit, he took the video down. I've missed the whole thing.

I still want to make the Makuta combiner, but I won't have the money for the doubles needed for another week, and I don't want to destroy these characters. Hopefully when I go to Toys R Us they'll still have the sets, there. I hear Bionicle's basically being purged across the country. Good luck to you all.

I dunno, I think there have been quite a few new original properties in the past several years. 2013 had Legends of Chima and Galaxy Squad. 2014 had Ultra Agents and Mixels. 2015 had Bionicle and Elves. 2016 has Nexo Knights. So yes, this is an off year in terms of having only one new original IP… but that might be to make up for the fact that so many IPs (City, Ninjago, Friends, Elves, Mixels, and Bionicle) continued from previous years. You might not consider all of these examples "comparable to Bionicle", of course, but all things considered the LEGO Group probably doesn't WANT all of their original IPs to be comparable to Bionicle — they want to differentiate their properties as much as possible so they cast as wide a net as possible. Furthermore, licensed products only make up roughly a third of the LEGO Group's business, and that's been the case for over a decade. While LEGO may be acquiring a wider range of licenses than in the past, particularly considering things like Dimensions and Ideas allowing them to use licenses without building entire themes around them, they aren't making up a substantially larger part of the company's market share than in the past. I knew Chima and Mixels would be brought up. That was years ago, though, and I'm not sure I can count Bionicle as a new theme, even if everything about it was made to feel new. I don't have any "beef," with lego city, I like Ninjago, I think friends is all right though I think Elves is superior. The difference with themes like Galaxy Squad and Ultra Agents is they were kind of short lived, and I don't mind seeing lego experiment with stuff like that that's just around for a little while to keep things diverse and ever-changing. All these evergreen themes are nice, but it leaves less room for fresh, new ideas to come along. I think there is a niche to be filled with something that could replace Bionicle, not something exactly like it, just something with a similar sense of adventure an' all that. Ninjago's filled that niche to an extent, I'd say, even though it's a system theme. In fact, part of me wonders if G2 would've fared better AS a system theme, since that seems to be what kids want nowadays more than anything else. I dunno. The only thing that bugs me about the licensed themes is how they seem to get top billing at times, like lego wants THAT to be the first thing kids see when they walk into the lego aisle, or at least retailers do. There is a section of the market of kids that are only interested in seeing lego's representation of existing characters and properties they already like, and don't care at all about Ninjago or City or Fiends or whatever. It might not be a big chunk of the market, but I do see it being catered to as a priority sometimes, and I'd be lying if I said that sort of marketing didn't bother me. I've always seen lego as "That company that takes you to amazing new places you never knew you wanted to go to and makes you imagine things," first and foremost, not "That company that makes things you already know about and already knew you wanted." And I'm not even saying that latter is what lego has become, or anything cynical like that. But that does seem to be the image that's being presented.

Ugh, that comic... there are so many things wrong with most of my older work, both in terms of the art and pacing, I can't look at it without feeling some level of shame, Now. I think Metroid Revival is the point where my work finally started getting decent. Also, that will be addressed in later chapters.

I just want to see some new themes that aren't licensed, and could be comparable to Bionicle. Nexo Knights and Elves are the first original properties they've released in a while. And of course, I just wanna see a new constraction theme. The idea of "the brick-filled future!" as TTV put it where lego only ever makes system sets (And some technic on the side) is just depressing to me.

Chapter 2 is online, guys. >> http://nickinamerica.deviantart.com/art/Bionicle-Nova-Orbis-JtC-Chapter-2-Perspectives-629875679 This chapter is a little shorter than the last one. We hear things from a few more perspectives this time, but none of them have that much to tell us that Venti didn't already. As such, there aren't as many illustrations this time. Still, this and the next chapter were some of my favorites to write. Chapter 3 will take this story to new places... literally. Feedback is appreciated. Like, really.

Going to try to have chapter two online in a couple of days. Anyone remember this? http://nickinamerica.deviantart.com/art/Bionicle-The-Sky-of-Nova-Orbis-499429547 So yeah, just where exactly Nova Orbis IS is something I've wanted to touch upon for a while. All I've revealed so far is that its home galaxy is currently colliding with another one. One idea I had is that the Solis Magna system is in the Andromeda galaxy, which will eventually merge with ours, and Nova Orbis is in... well, this one, the Milky Way galaxy. I dunno if I'm gonna go down that route, though. I'm sure there are a few who LOVE the idea of Bionicle characters meeting modern day humans like them, but I've always thought that sort of story would be poison. Saronicle's "Brutaka's Game" is a good take on the idea, though, where humans get teleported to Aqua Magna. What I really don't like is the Toa coming to our earth, and interacting with us in the society we have now. The closest Nova Orbis would ever come to that is if it's, like, hundreds of millions of years from now, and Caelum is really the reformed Pangea Ultima or something like that. The great beings are not human, and neither is the species native to Nova Orbis, more like some other species that rose up and took our place after we became extinct. I did contemplate hinting that at some earlier point in their evolutionary history, they may've had nipples and functioning mammaries, but have since lost that trait and become less mammal-like... which would SORT of hint that these are some bizarre, extremely distant descendants of humans, but again, I'm not sure I like that idea, now. I'm not really sure what the nature of Nova Orbis and its people should be. They just sort of exist. Of course I know how the story is going to play out, I'm just talking about subtext, the background stuff, "What does it meeean?" I just felt like being transparent with you guys about this.

They're already here. *evil grin*

Aaaaaaaaand we're back! The Journey to Caelum has begun! More illustrations >> http://nickinamerica.deviantart.com/art/Bionicle-Nova-Orbis-Journey-to-Caelum-Chapter-1-627088509 Text >> http://sta.sh/020qukn0o17m All Chapters of Journey to Caelum >> http://nickinamerica.deviantart.com/gallery/59955907/Devious-Folder Nova Orbis general >> http://nickinamerica.deviantart.com/gallery/47149391/Bionicle-Nova-Orbis Hopefully this format will make things easier on myself and viewers in the future. One of my favorite things about Amnesia- The Dark Descent is picking up Daniel's journal entries, along with writings from various other characters written down over hundreds of years, and piecing together this big layered mystery. It's really gripping stuff, and I was always on the lookout for more journals. This is the feel I'm going to give the first few chapters of this story. It's mostly going to be Voima recovering various accounts of the Manibus' last days (Venti's is the longest and most fleshed out), piecing together what happened, and then we'll move on to see where the Toa Miro and the Matoran have ended up. That's it for today! Enjoy.

Hope-filled words.

Smiley face Bionicle Transformers.

This part has been weighing on my mind, too. One can hope that maybe lego will be inclined to think "Clearly, we dropped the ball that time, and it's not the line itself that's to blame," but... that's probably wishful thinking. I've said this already, but I'm DEFINITELY going to do my part and continue Nova Orbis, now.

There probably won't be. Insulting the intelligence of kids and reducing their interests to them being "too different" is ridiculous and flatly untrue. Many kids still enjoy buying toys, hence why Lego, Hasbro, Mattel, and the like are able to stay in business. Especially with building toys, Lego's more successful now than ever. The problem isn't with the kids, it's that Lego, albeit barely, marketed generally uninteresting sets. If anything, kids are MORE likely to want these kind of toys now seeing how mainstream they've become thanks to things like The Lego Movie. When you don't put in the creativity people know and love from a franchise, it causes disinterest. That's why G1's final years led to sales decline, the sets grew uninteresting and were the same sets every year, which led to less and less people being interested and willing to buy. Also, to say that the new sets are better than most of the Toa in G1 is not only too opinionated, but when you consider sales numbers and how long they lasted with those Toa, is also untrue. G1 gave us fresh, new Toa designs every new arc (or even year, when you count 2004, 2005, and 2006) until after 2006. People want new designs, not recolored, rehashed ones. G2 gave us, essentially, glorified Hero Factory with added gear functions, which weren't fast paced and a lot of the time limited posability or prevented it's own use by interfering with armor plating (such as 2015 Tahu's shoulder armor). G2's failure was a lack of interest and faith from Lego, they didn't put a team of people who truly had a vision for the franchise and they didn't even believe in it enough to market it anywhere aside from the internet. Journey to One not only was a mini-series, but essentially it was a CG web show followup to the 2D web show from the year prior, that was barely advertised. Compare that to Nexo Knights, which came out after and immediately was promoted and given it's own full fledged television series on Cartoon Network. They had faith in Nexo Knights and it showed. If they truly cared about Bionicle G2, it would've been given to people who knew what to do with it and would've been promoted like Nexo Knights and Ninjago had. But it didn't, and this cancellation only solidifies it. I'm not saying kids don't like building toys. I'm saying they're drawn to CERTAIN building toys. There has been a huge, huge push for system sets in recent years, which I at least partially attribute to the success of The Lego Movie, and Ninjago before that. I'm also not saying kids are stupid. I'm saying their interests are different. From the sound of it, the Star Wars constraction figures are selling pretty well. Yet aside from the standouts like Darth Vader and General Grievous, I can't say the construction of most of the other figures is quite as inspired as this years' Toa. I think it should be pretty clear that kids are buying THOSE sets because they have an attachment to those characters. Imagine you're a little kid in December, or January, who just watched The Force Awakens in the theater. Now imagine you're in toys r us or wal mart the next day. Who are you gonna wanna get? Your favorite character(s) from the movie you just saw, or some weird robot things you've probably never seen before, these characters that you don't know, but your big brother talks about them sometimes because he bought similar things as a kid? I think Bionicle is just a hard sell for the kids of today, for various reasons. I'm not saying it's the kids' fault, it's like how they USED to play with rocking horses, or a can and a stick. The world is always changing, and so those markets change. I strongly disagree that G2's designs are lazy. I think they are miles better than most Hero Factory sets. Like, I don't think the comparison is even fair. Sure, they use a lot of the same pieces, but they use them in interesting WAYS... which is what lego is ultimately all about. Taking a few seemingly basic elements, and making something special out of them. And yeah, getting completely new builds (Metru, Piraka, what have you) each year was nice early on, but they increasingly became essentially clones of each other. Given that lego seems to be unwilling to create an entire new building system each year, I think they've utilized CCBS, and technic mixed in, pretty well.

I honestly think this year's sets are better than MOST of the Toa we got in G1. They have such an intense elemental, almost spiritual feel that I wish more of them could've conveyed back in the day. I don't think Bionicle G2's failure has anything to do with the sets' quality, but rather its inability to reach the kids of this day and age. They're just too different from us, with their ipads an' such. ....and yes, I attribute that largely to the rather lukewarm promotion last year.

I think it's just that most kids don't care much for original constraction themes these days. It's probably a hard sell for them. A few things. First of all, when LEGO was developing G1 Bionicle in 1999 and 2000, they did not have any clue that in three or four years they would be on the brink of bankruptcy. Obviously, they knew that the company's record of double-digit sales growth year to year had stopped in 1993, and that in 1998 the company had reported its first ever financial loss, which they wrongly blamed on kids having short attention spans and wanting instant gratification. But as early as 1999 they were back to being profitable. They had just launched the highly successful LEGO Star Wars theme and hired new management that successfully increased sales and promised to double them by 2005. The LEGO Group fully believed they were in the midst of a turnaround. Even as late as 2002, LEGO thought they were on the up-and-up. It's therefore difficult to argue that Bionicle G1's success from the outset was driven by financial desperation. It wasn't until 2003 that LEGO had any idea what a predicament their new innovation-driven corporate mindset had gotten them into. Second, with the kind of assumption you're making, you'd think no successful company could ever hope to create a successful toyline or IP. But even just looking at LEGO, there's plenty of evidence that isn't true. In 2008, when LEGO began developing Ninjago, they had already greatly recovered from their crisis years of 2003 and 2004 and managed to make a yearly profit of over two billion DKK (over 300 million USD in today's money). Not only did they have the continued success of LEGO Star Wars propping them up, but LEGO City was also carrying them higher and higher each year. And yet, when Ninjago launched in 2011 it sold better than any previous launch of a new LEGO product line — including Bionicle. By your argument, this should not have been possible, because a LEGO theme's success or failure hinges on how much they care about it, and how much they care on it hinges on how desperate they are financially. But clearly, it happened. For what it's worth, I've met several of the people involved with the Bionicle reboot. There's no denying that they cared profoundly about making it the best it could be. You might prefer to imagine that because you didn't like it, the people making it didn't care or try hard enough. You'd be wrong. Well all this might be true, but G2 was still cancelled after two years. That's the facts, so clearly they didn't try or care hard enough. Maybe kids just weren't very responsive to the new line 'cause they're too different from us. Firefly was a good show that the people behind it cared for a lot. It didn't even get a full season before it was cancelled. Market don't care how much you love what you made. It'll live and die on what people are into at the moment, along with a host other things. When people tell you that they've seen the great efforts the designers sunk into the products they put out and you just respond with "can't be, got cancelled" then it shows that you don't understand how many factors go into determining what's successful. Another poor comparison. Firefly was a relatively expensive CGI-heavy show at a time where those were few and far between. Fox put money into the show and when there wasn't an immediate return inflow they canned it. Visual media is incredibly expensive and with something of that degree you can't just throw that kind of money away because the people making it and a few fans liked it. Lego, on the other hand, has dozens of themes that, while surely expensive, make their money back enough that Lego is certainly in the position where they can take risks without bankrupting themselves. But they're a business and don't really care about BIONICLE as a real IP, so they treated it as such. I guess with the explosion of Ninjago and The Lego Movie shaping the tastes of today's kids, lego's all about their system sets, nowadays. The only reason their Star Wars figures are selling okay is probably because of the Star Wars part.

Wait... your younger siblings like Bionicle? Huh. Just hearing that is weird. I thought kids had no interest in constraction these days, not unless it's their favorite Star Wars characters or something like that.

They basically squeezed what was going to be 2017's entire story into the last seven or so minutes of episode 4. Oh, what could've been.

I don't think there IS a "next." If G2 has tanked so badly that they felt they had no other option than to cancel it a year early, I don't expect them to have the enthusiasm to create another original constraction theme to replace it. Aside from tie-ins like Star Wars, I think constraction might be dying. Maybe today's kids just don't like action figures?