Nato G

Going by the picture of the very melted Vezon he posted... no.

That's not that weird. People in real life are often lazy in the same way, rounding up or down to the number that's easiest to say in casual conversation. Saying that something happened "two thousand years ago" is a lot quicker than saying it happened "one thousand, nine hundred and seventy-five years ago".

Sci-Fi writers have no sense of scale.

I never liked how tiny the original Turaga sets were. The Turaga in movies were generally shown to be a little larger than the Matoran, whereas even the taller Turaga sets were still much scrawnier than any of the Matoran sets. The Dume set showcases this better, using the same build as the Metrutoran, but with Bohrok limb pieces to make it a tiny bit taller and stockier.

OOC: Apologies for not following this up sooner, I got sidetracked with other things and forgot. IC: Vazaria – Hanaloi As was so often the case, Vazaria hadn’t thought this through. She’d thought about the path she would take across the island, the order in which she’d light the fires to ensure she wouldn’t be caught up or cut off by her own flames. She’d thought about what she would do if anyone tried to stop her, or if she spotted survivors fleeing through the forest. And she’d thought long and hard about the devastation she would cause, imagined the plume of smoke so vast and dark it would be seen all across the archipelago when dawn broke. Now that she’d finished lighting up the last two locations Caana had suggested, Vazaria realised what she hadn’t thought about was the trip back. Even circling wide to fly over the ocean and follow the shoreline of the island, she couldn’t escape the chaos she’d caused. The harsh glow of firelight was near-blinding in the darkness of the night, limiting how far she could see. The roaring inferno had completely transformed the landscape, utterly erasing what few landmarks she’d learned to recognise in his brief time on the island. The very air shimmered with the haze of heat as smoke and cinders swirled around her, making her eyes sting and her throat burn. When she thought she’d travelled far enough she veered away from the seaside and cut back across the sizzling treetops in what she hoped was the direction of the fortress. Sweat clung to her like a second skin as the sweltering heat rose and roiled around her. She bobbed haphazardly up and down as she flew, fighting a losing battle against her growing fatigue and faltering focus. She blinked blearily against the blinding brightness below, coughing on smoke as she searched desperately for familiar shapes amidst the devastation. Shapes shifted and swirled in the flames, mesmerising but meaningless. She should have found the fortress by now, surely? Had she gone too far? Drifted in the wrong direction? Her leg snagged a sizzling branch as she coasted too low for a moment, and a cry equal parts pain and surprise wrung itself from her as she flew upwards again. She couldn’t keep this up much longer. Maybe she’d be better off turning back and taking her chances in the ocean? Or perhaps- Fiery light suddenly gave way to blank blackness so swiftly she thought she’d mistakenly closed her eyes mid-flight. She slowed down and circled, rubbing at her eyes and blinking rapidly until her vision adjusted enough for her to recognise the familiar shapes and textures of the fortress below. Breathing a sigh of relief she flew lower over the courtyard, deactivating her mask and dropping down into the well, reactivating it for a moment as she neared the bottom to slow her descent to a safe speed. She splashed down into the water, not caring in the moment how old and grimy it likely was, caring only for the refreshing chill of the liquid against her skin. It was only the squirming of the kraata on her shoulders – none too appreciative of being suddenly submerged – that stirred her to clamber up out of the water and make her way into the tunnel. The others were likely already down here somewhere, or soon would be. Come daybreak, the servants of Zataka would be the only beings left living on Hanaloi. @a goose @Keeper of Kraata @Mel

Not necessarily. Rahkshi are costly to create, since Makuta have to use some of their own antidermis to create a Kraata, and it takes two Kraata to make a single functioning Rahkshi. Kraata also start off very weak and only grow in strength with time and experience (and only those with a random, rare mutation can get to Shadow Kraata level). Given the amount of time and resources it takes to make a powerful Rahkshi, it's probably quicker and easier to construct some robots or brew up some ravenous rahi. Even Teridax sent several waves of other servants at the people of Mata Nui before deploying his Rahkshi, and even then he only sent out a handful of them despite having had centuries to make as many as he wanted. In answer to the original question, I did some skimming and found some examples in lore than give a good indicator of the variety of troops Makuta used, and how they liked to use them. From a flashback scene to the day of the Barraki's defeat: "Pridak and the others joined him to view a shocking scene. A massive army had suddenly appeared from the north and slammed into the legions. The attackers were Toa, Exo-Toa machines, Rahkshi, and Rahi beasts, an invading force tens of thousands strong. Unprepared to mount a defense, the Barraki’s legions were falling like stone walls before a Kikanalo stampede." From Piraka flashbacks to the Dark Hunter-Makuta war: "Reidak was a happy Dark Hunter. He had been posted to the south wall of a Dark Hunter fortress for the last day and a half. His orders were simple: Anyone or anything that tried to get over the wall was to be crushed, stomped, flattened, and otherwise discouraged from trying it again. So far, he had gotten to practice his favorite hobby – destruction – on a squad of Rahkshi, one suit of Exo-Toa armor running on automatic, and a dozen Rahi wearing infected Kanohi masks that controlled their actions." "Dark Hunters flooded to the walls to defend the fortress, but the scene quickly devolved into chaos. Visorak Oohnorak used their power of mimicry to shout out contradictory orders in the voices of Zaktan, Ancient, and even the Shadowed One. Vohtarak made berserker charges at the base of the walls, trying to punch holes in the stone. Boggarak scaled the walls, launching their spinners and turning defenders to dust."

Amazing work. It's crazy to see how dedicated fans are to finding new ways to explore the story, even after all this time.

Try this topic for more info:

From what I recall, the Brotherhood Of Makuta mainly used Exo-Toa suits and Visorak. They probably had other rahi species they used sometimes, and after Shadow Leeches were invented they might have used Shadow Matoran on occasion. Prior to the war, they likely hired Dark Hunters to do their dirty work as well.

I've never seen a build so big it makes that upsized mask look too small for it. Amazing work.

I don't have a problem with the serials themselves. For the most part they were pretty decent, and helped fill in a lot of the blanks left in the story. The serials themselves aren't the reason Bionicle got complicated. The fact that the serials were necessary was the reason. Because Bionicle insisted on switching settings every year or two we were constantly getting entire new casts of villains and villagers, sometimes entire new factions, whose stories were left unresolved when the story moved on to the next location. Hence the need for the serials to help continue those narratives. Just imagine how many more questions Greg would have been asked if the serials had never existed.

A big problem with Bionicle was the sheer number of different things you had to read to get the full story. The comics, books, serials, games, and podcasts all told pieces of the story, and you needed to catch up on all of them to get the full picture, which was a big barrier for entry for new fans. The movies gloss over and condense a lot of stuff, and are actually pretty poor representations of the story, but for a lot of casual fans, the movies were all they knew. A lot of modern Lego themes have a TV series of some kind, with the books and comics not being as essential to understanding the main storyline. I think if Bionicle had gone that route it would've been far easier for new fans to catch up on everything. I also agree that rampant Greg canonisation has been an issue for a long time. To my mind, it speaks to a certain degree of entitlement from some fans, who felt that their headcanon or theory was so perfect and important that it needed to be forced on everyone. Given that Greg was just one part of a wider story team, I also feel that fans - especially those who maintain BS01 - have been too quick to take everything he says as gospel. If you track down the original source of some of the stuff he's "canonised", anything he said anything vaguely positive about has been taken as fact, even when all he said was something non-committal like "makes sense". On top of that, I think it's fair to say that Greg's memory of Bionicle seems to be pretty terrible, as there's many instances on BS01 of him contradicting himself or past canon. From a narrative perspective, I would have removed the whole Barraki and League Of Six Kingdoms storyline. It added a whole 100,000 backstory that had to be retconned into the timeline, and weakened Teridax as a villain by making the Barraki the inspiration for his plan, instead of it being his own idea. The idea of a bunch of powerless schmucks somehow ruling a universe of super-powered beings for any period of time is laughable, and letting them freely conquer and kill makes Mata Nui look even more cruel and complacent in hindsight. 2007 could have easily reused the Piraka as villains and given them new mutated forms, as they were the first villain team to have some real characterisation to them, and their story was largely left unfinished due to the sudden switch to the new setting. Personally I also would've dropped characters like Artakha and the Order Of Mata Nui. Having all of these ultra-powerful beings around who'd always teleport in out of nowhere in the nick of time to save the heroes and/or lecture them on what they're doing wrong took a lot of agency away from the people who were supposed to be the protagonists.

It seems pretty clear that these are the same thing. The Mask Of Destiny announcement came first, and then the Tiktok guy, the Facebook guy, or both, have misunderstood the nature of that announcement. I actually hadn't heard about this before now. Between the GWP set, Cryoshell getting in on Essenger's recent song, that concept artist guy talking about the 2007 and 2008 waves, Christopher Gaze participating in the Bionicle Day stream, Christian Faber delving into early G2 plans, and now Greg consulting on a fanfic project, this has been Bionicle's biggest year since 2016. It's pretty exciting seeing all of the enthusiasm people still have for this weird, wacky story even after all these years.

A lot of beings who are part of the Dark Hunters are outcasts, mutants, or one-of-a-kind beings. They didn't fit in with the rest of MU society before, and they certainly won't now after all of the crimes they've committed. I'd expect them to close ranks and bolster their forces with other outsiders and exiles like the Barraki and Skrall. Anyone stupid enough to step out of line and challenge The Shadowed One is likely just going to get disintegrated.

Having multiple different mediums all depicting slightly different versions of the story is one of the biggest problems Bionicle had. Having to catch up the movies, animations, comics, novels, guides, blogs, story serials, and podcasts in order to get the full understanding of the franchise was a massive barrier to entry. Given their limited nature, the movies and comics had to cut or condense a lot of things. So generally speaking, the novels are considered the main version of canon, as they contained the most detail. In the example you give, Tahu's mask being poisoned appears in both the movie and the novel, so the comics are the outlier and should be disregarded (at least as they relate to that specific detail). The clever folks at BS01 have spent a lot of time creating Saga Guides and Timelines that try to organise and unify all of the slightly different versions of events into a clear order, while also weeding out contradictory details.

Absolutely agreed. The whole of Bionicle is a 100,000 year narrative about repairing one broken planet. And while there were vague mentions of Mata Nui observing other worlds and civilisations, there's nothing to suggest that anything he encountered was technologically advanced in any way (certainly not advanced enough to notice a giant robot landing on their planets). To retroactively say that the entire Bionicle storyline actually unfolded in a universe that is densely inhabited by other advanced civilisations, where humans and aliens exist, and robot police travel from planet to planet with ease, makes the whole Bionicle story feel weirdly small and inconsequential, and a lot less unique.

I think they said this bracket is just for the canister price-point villains. Titan sets will probably be in a future poll.

Very nice. I still have the Arkahna I bought from Shapeways years ago when Click first released it. Really cool to see that design still getting attention even now.

I would imagine there's plenty of stuff we never officially saw. As an easy example, if a Mask Of Gravity exists, then it stands to reason that Masks must exist for all of the other elements.

I feel like you've kind of answered your own question here already. Some helmets are shown to have mouthguards. There is no evidence that Kanohi do. The Ignika is an exception since it's known to shapeshift, and was clearly functioning as a helmet on Bara Magna.

I missed this when it first released, but spent a few hours marathoning the whole thing this morning. I really loved how it all came together. It’s clear a lot of thought went into the politics, history, and worldbuilding of Volara Nui, with the mixed villages, the different types of guard groups, etc. I love the way you’ve put a fresh spin on a lot of classic ideas, and brought together new and old threats. You chose a really intriguing time period to play with as well. With how much focus was given to the Toa Metru in canon, there’s so much we don’t know about what happened with the rest of the universe in the aftermath of the Great Cataclysm. And even though this story was mostly about one group of heroes on one island, it was great getting little hints about the bigger picture as well, with the Makuta in-fighting and brief glimpses of what the Order’s been up to. My only criticism overall is that the ending felt a little too quick. Before Kulu got teleported away from the main battle against the combined Matoran defenders it sounded like things were pretty much at an impasse. And then after Vortidax’s defeat we jump forward to wrapping things up with no explanation to how that battle was resolved and what became of the combatants (aside from Kulu and the Kra-Matoran later taken by the OoMN). Obviously we know that the day was won, but even a throwaway line or two about what turned the tide would have helped make it feel a little less jarring. On that note, I loved the villains most of all. So many of Bionicle’s baddies were teams of bickering egotists or just hammy caricatures of villainy, but both of the main antagonists of this story feel much more fleshed-out. Vortidax’s motivations are meaningful and make sense, and he presents himself as someone who views himself as a hero committing necessary evils, even showing remorse at times. And while he does a lot of awful things, I couldn’t help but feel bad for Kulu throughout the story as well; he comes across as a victim of circumstances who was taken in by the wrong role model, and has now gone too far to ever come back from it. I definitely found myself rooting for the two of them at times, especially for Kulu during the fight against Victus, and for Vortidax when it looked like he was going to escape through the rift at the end.

IC: Avinus - Tajun Streets "More times than I can count," she chuckled, "The way I see it, lottsa folks dream of bein' a Glatorian. Most just aint brave enough ta try. But once the crowd and competition gets people's blood pumpin' and the alcohol and spice gets involved, all that fear's forgotten. Along with common sense." @Emzee

BS01. I chased down the citations just now to make sure it wasn't someone taking liberties with minor feats, but both examples are pretty clear-cut. In Maze Of Shadows, Onewa causes an entity made of rock to crumble to dust, then reforms the remains back into a solid boulder. And in the Toa Nuva Blog Pohatu causes every stone in TSO's fortress to turn to dust. The various stages of Kraata powers listed in Makuta's Guide to the Universe make several mentions of Rahkshi/Kraata of Magnetism being able to manipulate rock to an extent.

IC: Gayle - Precipere Gayle, who the writer definitely hadn't forgotten about had been waiting quietly while the others conversed. She wasn't normally one to hold her tongue, but political negotiations were far from her forte, and she still felt like she was treading on soft enough sand as-is, being the only Agori in the group. The only Agori until the Ash Agori had signed on, at least. But they were a medic, making them significantly more useful than Gayle herself, who contributed little more than "driver with no vehicle" and "has an axe". Still, she didn't want to be sent back to Vulcanus after already coming this far. Best to keep quiet and not make a nuisance of herself, lest she give Teuris an excuse to send her packing. She followed the Fire Glatorian back outside, waiting for the others to join them.

Oh boy, this is going to be a tricky one. In a lot of ways the Toa were far easier to judge, because their builds and abilities were all very samey, making it easier to choose standouts. But the villains have a lot more variety in personalities, powers, and designs, especially in the later years when the line started moving away from clone builds. I'm going to throw out a tentative prediction that the Barraki, Mistika, and Phantoka villains will have more staying power as the rounds progress, owing to their more in-depth characterisations and unique designs. But the Bohrok and Rahkshi have the power of nostalgia on their side, so we'll see how things pan out.