Quisoves Potoo

I imagine that in the case of temporary curses (e.g. Metus) the Ignika charges the cursed being with a certain amount of life energy upon which the transformation is dependent, like freezing memory metal. Once the energy is expended, the curse ends. For permanent curses (e.g. the imprisoned Great Being or the Toa Mahri) the Ignika outright changes the being's physical or mental makeup.

Some interesting miscellany:

So: The Mask of Mutation cannot change one's fundamental element.

It can, however, undo Hordika mutations.

Rahkshi of Fire or Ice Resistance do not have or cannot have their body temperatures at the level that they did or could in Kraata Form. Presumably, this means that after power level one this power behaves in a much different fashion. Rather odd.

Also rather odd: Greg seems to be saying that Kaita Kanohi Powers are an actual combination of the three mask powers involved, as opposed to simply having access to all three. This seems to contradict the general understanding, which I had, and which BS01 certainly does, that the latter was true.

A Kanohi with the power to weaken others (which made from a weakness disk) is probably possible.

Picture this: You are an unquestionably evil bad guy (or good guy, it doesn't matter, but I think bad guy is more likely), and you have an enemy that you want destroyed so he can never return to the MU. Unfortunately, killing him doesn't work, since he will just come back, and you've already killed him once, so disintegrating him doesn't work either. You just want this fighting to be over, and this person just stay dead.

Was the Red Star intended to revive everyone in the Matoran Universe? People seem to assume this, but I have never seen any official confirmation on the matter. If anything, Greg's analogy about blood cells in the body seemed to suggest that the Red Star was designed to revive members of a population that had grown too small to be self-sustaining. It seems to me that if the Red Star did revive everyone, and operated for at least 20,000 years (Gaardus was mutated over 80,000 years ago, according to BS01, though I assume that this still means "about") then the cessation of its primary function would have been marked as a major historical event, "Death's Triumph," or some such thing.

I hadn't thought of that before, but fog makes complete sense, provided the Protocairns breath fire (which, given their model, seems to be the case. I doubt that's a tongue )

Interestingly enough, BS01 claims that "even the Vahki on Metru Nui had little success against [the Protocairns.]" I don't know where it got this information, but since BS01 is usually reliable, I think we can take it on good faith that the Vahki were invented at the time of the invasion.

Would they really have a vantage point? There's a considerable amount of water in between the Ta- and Ga- and Po- and Ga-. Even if a Ta-Matoran happened to see it though, would his interest disrupt the focus of a work-absorbed overachieving mask maker?

 

Also consider this map, which places Vakama's foundry on the opposite side of the map from the Ga-Metru coast.

What Vakama saw is irrelevant. What matters is whether or not news of the coastlines destruction reached the general populace at the time. I think that it likely did, given that tall buildings were, I think, fairly common in Metru Nui. Also, the island is about 21 miles wide, which makes it all the more feasible that the coastline's absence would have been noticed by multiple persons.

As for if it's the entire coastline, Greg would have to be asked to be sure, but I'd presume not, because statistically it would be odd for them to destroy all of one region's coast but not even a little of either of the neighboring regions.

You have a point. Though it is possible that Dume ordered the bridges to other Metrus destroyed, in which case the Protocairns might have decided to focus on the land they could reach most easily rather than re-enter the water. It does seem something of a stretch though.

 

On the other hand, the wholesale destruction of the Ga-Metru coastline and of the Great Temple is a very different matter. I'm not certain that that could be covered up. I imagine that word of the invasion would have spread too quickly for Dume to do so.

Like I implied in the first post, it would actually be pretty easy. Keep in mind this probably happened (due to the "centuries" line) after the invention of Vahki (though we don't actually know exactly when that was). The way I pictured when I wrote this part of the first post is, as soon as it became clear how dangerous these things were, all the Matoran would be evacuated from the coast, and Vahki instead handled the fighting, reporting directly to Dume. So, he could witness the land thing, without any Matoran witnessing it. It would then be entirely his choice whether to reveal it to them or not.

 

The only reason the Matoran would have to see this is if they were being asked to fight the protocairns or at least monitor them, and I suspect Dume would instead want to keep them safe. Even if Vahki weren't yet invented, he'd probably be hoping to call upon the Makuta or Toa (if this was before the Toa Mangai came) from other lands, rather than risk Matoran lives. So by the time they all up and died, IMO it's likely no Matoran would be watching, if you think about it.

 

For the same basic reason no Matoran witnessed Nidhiki's betrayal, in fact. They weren't hanging around watching the battle; they were kept away from the main danger.

 

EDIT: Factor in airships, and it seems almost certain that the destruction of the coastline would have been noticed by someone not working directly for Dume.

Maybe, but most airships are automated. Unless they were ordered to monitor them, I doubt that would be the case. And how do you know the people ordered to monitor this (or who might have witnessed it on their own) weren't sworn by Dume to secrecy? Just because somebody sees it doesn't mean Vakama hears about it. Probably either way they would report to Dume first to tell him the disturbing but useful news about the land, and then he could order them not to tell anyone.

 

Really, without only a thousand Matoran on that huge island, even without evacuation orders it's hypothetically possible no Matoran would happen to witness the actual attack, at least if it occurred swiftly enough. With an evacuation, it's easy.

 

I see your point about airships, and I agree with most of your other ones. However, the way that Metru Nui is arranged, the coastline of Ga-Metru is potentially visible from Ta-Metru, Po-Metru, and the center of the city. As shown here. If Makuta truly means that the entire coastline was destroyed, then it seems likely that multiple persons with enough of a vantage point would have noticed its absence.

Except that their not telling the Matoran about a traitor Toa seems to add evidence to the idea that Dume might not have told the Matoran about the Protocairns becoming the land they rebuilt on either. Looks to me like we've got no reliable evidence either way.

However, Nidhiki's betrayal was very easy to cover up. He disappeared at the end of a war. A statement declaring him dead was perfectly believable. On the other hand, the wholesale destruction of the Ga-Metru coastline and of the Great Temple is a very different matter. I'm not certain that that could be covered up. I imagine that word of the invasion would have spread too quickly for Dume to do so.

EDIT: Factor in airships, and it seems almost certain that the destruction of the coastline would have been noticed by someone not working directly for Dume.

It's worth noting that these quotes are actually from the end of Mystery of Metru Nui. Onewa mentions that Ahkmou called the monster Nidhiki in between the two quotes.

 

However, this might explain it:

 

6) Do the Matoran know about Nidhiki's betrayel?

 

Greg: No. Telling Matoran, "Hey, a Toa went evil:" would undermine confidence in all Toa, everywhere, so they were never told

 

This certainly helps explain even further why no-one but Lhikan would even consider Nidhiki's true identity. Nonetheless, Nidhiki's disapperence had to be explained somehow, presumably by a false proclamation of his death. And anyone who had been alive when Nidhiki came to Metru Nui would certainly have remembered him, given that he was one of Metru Nui's first permanent Toa team. Normally, I would think this would place a firm limit on Vakama's age, but as I said before, his initial encounter with Nidhiki seems to have been so traumatic that he forgot seeing Krekka or was too shocked to notice him. So it looks like we're stuck with the Protocairn incident as any sort of reliable evidence of his age.

In the beginning, Vakama was a pretty shy and introverted guy. I've always thought he just kept to Ta-metru doing his own little thing, ignoring quite a bit of what went on outside his home, which could explain his lack of knowledge.

Even if that was the case, it seems unlikely that he would never have heard of Toa Nidhiki if he lived on the island at the same time. That would be like Tiribomba not knowing who Lewa is.

In the absence of any line saying "Vakama didn't understand why Lhikan said this 'Nidhiki' was once a brother", I wouldn't read anything into those as certain. It could just be the narrator inserting a secrecy principle and hiding Vakama's awareness of Nidhiki's identity from the reader. Then the later book could be taken as revealing (by strong implication) that indeed Vakama did realize who Nidhiki was, since he didn't have any thoughts about this being confusing or surprising. In fact it's probably likely that everybody knew Nidhiki was a DH and had a different form now, since he would have been going on missions in that form throughout the MU, and Greg has said that word tends to travel fast in the MU.

The problem here is that the book's narration in scenes featuring Ahkmou and Nidhiki together refers to the latter by name. This happens both before and after the passage I cited. This presumably is supposed to suggest that Ahkmou is familiar with Nidhiki, whereas Vakama is not. In fact, having looked at Trial by Fire since I last posted, I see that the Toa Metru indicate in their dialogue that they don't know Nidhiki's identity:

"And you think one of the Matoran betrayed the others?" asked Nuju. "What about that four-legged monster and his friend? Couldn't they be behind all of this?"

Vakama hesitated. Nokama leaned over and said, "Go ahead, Vakama. Tell us."

"I've seen the four-legged one before," Vakama said quietly.

And two pages later:

"Our job has just begun," said Nokama. "If Ahkmou has betrayed Metru Nui, he is a danger to us all, and so is that Nidhiki."

Even Nokama, who is confirmed via "The Many Deaths of Toa Tuyet" to have been alive at the time of Nidhiki's residence in Metru Nui (and acquainted with Tuyet, no less,) doesn't wittingly mention the treacherous Toa of Air directly. So the name "Nidhiki" was certainly not enough to make one seriously think "He's a treacherous ex-Toa Mangai." Vakama, however, has heard enough to make the connection had he known of Nidhiki beforehand. However, it's also possible that the experience was so traumatic that he forgot what he heard. After all, he seemed to have forgotten seeing Krekka.

You've put together a commendable compendium, Bonesii. Thanks.

I found my copy of Adventures #4. This is, I think, the passage we've been looking for:

"Some of us take our duty seriously, Nidhiki," growled Lhikan. Then he turned to Vakama, gestured to the package, and whispered, "Keep it safe. Get to the Great Temple."

Nidhiki raised his claws. "This time your farewell will be forever, brother."

"You lost the right to call me brother long ago," said Lhikan.

Anyone observing this who knew that a member of the Toa Mangai had been called "Nidhiki" would almost certainly understand what Lhikan and Nidhiki are saying. However, Mystery of Metru Nui indicates, as fishers64 pointed out, that Vakama was unaware of Nidhiki's identity:

Vakama, Ta-Metru's most skilled mask maker and the new Toa of Fire, looked down at his new form. It was hard to believe that this new power had been granted to him. He remembered the city's protector Toa Lhikan, giving him a powerful artifact called a Toa stone and a map to a spot in the Great Temple. Then Lhikan was captured by two strange creatures, one a four-legged foe and the other huge and powerful.

Nidhiki's name doesn't seem important to Vakama. When he is referred to again, four pages later, he is called only "a four-legged creature," "that figure," and "this being."

While there are a number of possible reasons for Vakama not remembering a Toa whom he had shared an island with for about 1,500 years, it seems likeliest that he is simply too young to remember him.

It could be possible that he simply faded into the background to be forgotten.

But he was a member of the Toa Mangai, a resident of Metru Nui, and had been so for about 1,500 years. His absence would surely have been noticed.

Or it could have been barely a blip on his radar to begin with. He was a Ta-Matoran toolmaker or maskmaker at the time, and the portrayal of those is that they tend to be absorbed in their jobs.

The attack destroyed the Great Temple, which was a popular tourist destination. I imagine that the destruction of such a landmark, plus the fear generated by the unchecked invasion, would stick in the minds of the populace.

Now I need to dig up my copy of the Legends of Metru Nui book to reread Vakama's initial reaction to Nidhiki. That might help in determining whether or not he lived through the Toa-Dark Hunter War. Granted, he wouldn't be likely to leap to the conclusion that an insectoid monster is actually a former member of the Toa Mangai, as opposed to sharing the same name (however rare an occurrence that might be in the Matoran Universe.) However, since Lhikan clearly recognized him, that might make Vakama wonder. It seems to me odd that he would have known of Toa Nidhiki and not reacted to someone else who is familiar with Lhikan sharing that name.

This also brings up the question of how Nidhiki's fate was dealt with publicly. On one hand, the Toa were victorious, so morale would not be a crucial problem. Nonetheless, it would be quite a shock to the populace of Metru Nui for one of their protectors to betray them, so it might be desirable for Dume to declare him dead in the war, thus avoiding making the Matoran suspicious of the Toa.

 

 

Except for the color question someone brought up. I think that might go under the "Matoran become their mental image of a Toa" rule. So if Jaller thought that Great Haus on Toa were red (and why not, he was around Tahu), then his Hau would turn red.

Probably so. Let's keep in mind we already know the masks can change color. Vakama's Matoran mask was painted orangey-red, became dark red upon Toaization, and then bright orange on Turaga-ization. The paint was likely destroyed in the original transformation. The question is if and why the mask actually would change color (we don't know that it's a neccessity, just that it happens).

It's odd that you bring up Vakama though, because the Toa of Fire he knew (Lhikan) had a gold mask. I guess he could have been around for awhile and seen other fire Toa with red masks and concluded that was the norm, perhaps?

.

Though it's perfectly possible that Lhikan's golden armor and golden mask were marks of honor forged from special metal like those of the Toa Hagah. The Mangai were a special team, after all.

Darn -- I was rooting for FTL. Ah well. Still salvageable due to the huge travel time. Fascinating that there were other inhabited planets in the same system. I wonder if that's what that Mata Nui Saga image with multiple planets was meant to portray?

 

It would certainly explain why the GBs got the idea to explore space in the first place; they might have used telescopes to observe evidence of life on other planets in their same system. Then the travel to other systems would be more plausible.

And let's not forget Atakus' blades.

Your points about most of Greg's favorites are accurate. However, your analysis of Vezon is not. It is true that he was carried off by Zyglak and sent on two suicide missions. However, he survives all of this. That in itself is incredibly lucky. Furthermore, with regards to the Olmak-fusing and meeting the mad GB, Vezon doesn't seem particularly inconvenienced by that. He doesn't have much of a plan, so they could hardly be considered setbacks. If anything, each of these was a gift that dropped in his lap: with the power of the Olmak at his command, he's one of the most powerful beings around, and with a mad GB for an ally, he's more dangerous than ever.

 

I agree with everything else, however.

Fair enough. I suppose I should have thought Vezon's exploits over some more. The only point over which I disagree still is the first suicide mission. Most of the group survived, so his luck there wasn't exclusive to him.

Greg's favourites. Unfortunately.

Can you give some examples? I see no particular way in which this is the case. Let's start with his favorite three: Kopaka, Vezon, and Teridax. Kopaka may not have been chronically unlucky, but was he anymore lucky than Tahu, Onua, Pohatu, or Gali? Nor would I say that Vezon was constantly lucky. Let's see: He is fused to a spider and thus forced to guard the Mask of Life. He travels down the stone cord and is captured by Zyglak, only to be rescued and captured by the Order Mata Nui, for whom he is made to perform two highly dangerous missions. He then winds up fused to a Kanohi Olmak, a walking dimensional gateway with no control over his own power. Finally he is employed by a mad Great Being to aid in somehow lifting a curse of the Ignika. This last one does admittedly give him an opportunity to at least shut down his Olmak, but I would hardly call it a stroke of luck.

As for Teridax, he had his fair share of luck, but again, was he anyhow luckier than the heroes who brought about his defeat?

Now, for Greg's other favorites:

Greg's favorite Dark Hunter, Lariska: Not really. She accidentally causes her organization to lose the Toa-Dark Hunter War. She requires a mechanical arm because of being punished by the Shadowed One. She gets recruited into a highly dangerous mission to recover Makuta Miserix. The only real stroke of luck on her part that I can think of is here rescue from Exo-Toa at the hands of Onua.

Greg's favorite Matoran of 2007, Sarda: His luck seems to balances itself out. He is captured by Pridak and thrown to Takea sharks... Only to be rescued by Lesovikk... Only to be mutated into a water breather and menaced by Karzahni...Only for he, Lesovikk, and Idris to defeat Karzahni (who'd had his mind ravaged by Makuta.)

Greg's favorite Piraka, Zaktann: Being a mutant who can't be killed by the Shadowed One's disintegration beams is lucky. Being a pawn of Makuta is not. Nor is being turned into a sea-snake by mutagenic waters. Yes, he survived Makuta's shattering of his water-globe, but only due to the aforementioned luck of being a mutant.

Greg's favorite Baraki, Takadox: His luck doesn't seem better than that of his compatriots. Sure, he was hired by the Order for a mission none of the others, save Carapar, were, but this was more for his abilities and personality. Yes, he used said mission as a means of escape, but the other surviving Baraki got to lead armies, and keep them.

Greg's favorite Phantoka Makuta, Mutran: I can't see how he is luckier than the other Makuta. On the contrary, it was his chancing upon Icarax's fight with Gorast and Vamprah that ensured that he was killed in an energy storm.

Greg's favorite Mistika, Krika: He was mutated by swamp waters, resulting in him loosing many of his powers and requiring heat to remain tangible. Together with Icarax, he almost stopped the Plan, but the latter was killed thanks to the inopportune arrival of Mutran. Krika was then killed by Gorast. Not a particularly lucky fellow.

I simply don't see this exceptional abundance of luck that Greg's favorites purportedly have.

From Sahmad's Tale:

And Thornax fruit might taste like boiled Skopio meat, and the Great Beings might be handing out gift baskets of implants, but I wasn't ready to believe that either.

An implant makes sense. After all, if the Great Beings can make biomechanical creatures and masks with telepathy and dimensional-abilities, it seems plausible that they might make implants which can do the same.

This begs the question of whether or not Rahi Control is merely a very powerful form of low-level mind control.

Thanks, QP. Here's those actual quotes (please remember, folks, to post the quotes, not just links, so there's at least one other copy of the quote in case something were to go wrong with the LEGO.com topic):

 

Q: In order to someone from MU being revived in RS how much of their body is needed ? Is it like most of it, or some major parts like head or is a chunk of armor enough?

 

A: At least their head, because you need to be able to download their AI

 

Q: And what if just the head is destroyed and the rest of body was undamaged?

 

A: Then the only way to do it would be if the being had died before and there was some record they could work from, but then you would have had a big memory gap in the returned being

This answers some of what's said to be unknown in the firstpost, but I don't have time to review & edit it right now.

Thanks Bonesii. Sorry about not putting the quotes there in the first place. I shall not make that mistake again.

The story is well written, if not exceptionally so. It fares well enough until the Toa reach Spherus Magna, when the sense of reality fades. It's not that the quality of what is written decrease, for the most part, but that not enough is written, resulting in the reality of the story suddenly feeling shoddy, like a dream. As I implied above, there is an area in which the quality of the writing does decrease: Gresh's dialogue. To him, the Toa are strange biomechanical beings to whom he must explain the wholesale extermination of their universe's population, and yet he does so as if he is discussing something much more mundane and commonplace. This detaches the reader from the story.

All in all, an interesting side-step, though I don't see how it can be satisfactorily resolved in five chapters. The last one will need to be astounding.

Also, a bit of a nitpick, but the Great Beings were well aware of their creations sentience. The word you are looking for is "sapience."

Finally, I would like to address this in regards to the canon of Bionicle. You state that you "thought the Spherus Magna Alternate Universe wasn't an accurate depiction of what would have happened had Mata Nui completed his mission, so I set out to write one myself." However, the whole story seems to rest on a flawed understanding of Marendar's function. "The Yesterday Quest" makes it quite clear:

During the Core War, the Great Beings had unleashed a “doomsday weapon” that came to be called “baterra.” Their role was to end the war by force by eliminating any armed combatant they encountered. Once it became inevitable that the Shattering would happen, the Great Beings tried to use their failsafe to shut the baterra down. It failed, and the baterra remained active to this day.

That failure made them think about how much power each Toa would have. If something went wrong upon Mata Nui’s return, and the Toa were unleashed, the Agori would stand no chance against them. Suppose the Toa went bad? Suppose they wanted to conquer this new world? If so, then once again Spherus Magna would be in mortal danger as a result of the Great Beings’ actions. That could not be allowed to happen.

They had little time, but they put it to good use, designing and building a new creation. It existed for one purpose, and one alone: to destroy Toa. The Great Beings believed no single Toa, or team of Toa, could hope to stand against it. It was christened Marendar, an Agori word meaning “salvation,” and placed in a vault.

Angonce knew the abrupt appearance of so many Toa on Spherus Magna might well activate Marendar. He hurried to the vault, but too late – the living weapon had already smashed its way through three feet of metallic protodermis and was gone. It would carry out its programming and kill any and every Toa on the planet.

Your story has him cleaning up the Matoran universe, which he certainly was never intended to do.

Another question: When does this story take place for Takanuva? Presumably, he's the Core Universe version. He seems to have lived through Makuta's takeover.

And another: How does Mata Nui repair Spherus Magna in this universe? After all, Teridax is dead, and the second robot of Mata Nui's model was never built, unlike in the "Spherus Magna Alternate Universe." How does he achieve this without communicating with the inhabitants of Spherus Magna and consequently revealing his sapience?

In conclusion, your story is an admirable and intriguing attempt, albeit with one considerable narrative flaw and rather poor characterization on Gresh's part.. However, I am confident that you can overcome these problems. I look forward to seeing how it ends. Best of luck.

Teridax killed the Karda Nui Makuta because he knows that they would oppose him if they figured out that they got set up.

That seems somewhat circular. They were set up to be killed because Teridax did not want them to discover that he had set them up to be killed?

He killed them because he saw them as potential threats to his universal supremacy. If he could overthrow Mata Nui, one of them might do the same to him.

That definition also applies to alt. Teridax, as you've noticed, which is why I find it very hard to swallow Greg's definition of him as a "good guy". The way I see him, he's a Teridax who's already got a pretty comfy position of power in his home world and gets plenty of respect and admiration. The main difference is that alt. Teridax seems to actually care, at least a little bit, about the imbalance of light and shadow in the core dimension. In that way, he's slightly more moral than our Teridax, since he's technically trying to help the core dimension. That he goes about that plan by killing people, though... that's where he and I have to disagree.

I think there's more to his morality than that. While he may not be up to the standards of the Toa Code, he seems to genuinely care about unity, duty, and destiny, three things that the Core Universe Teridax had little regard for. As for the Takanuva, they were threatening his life. Perhaps it's not a good thing that he's matter-of-fact about killing them, but is he really showing an outright disregard for life?

I think that this exchange from "Reign of Shadows" is telling:

"If they died, maybe it was a mercy," said Teridax. "Maybe they are better off not seeing what their universe has come to."

"Now you sound like our Teridax," said Mazeka. "I guess you two aren't as far apart as I'd like to think."

Teridax shook his head. "A turn to the left instead of the right, a wound received or avoided, rising from slumber an hour too early or too late ... these are the little things lifetimes hinge on, Mazeka. Your Teridax took a step on a path that circumstances allowed me to avoid. If circumstances had been different, who knows?"

"Meaning that if you took control of this universe instead of him ...?"

"I might be just as wicked," Teridax answered. "It is always a possibility."

He resembles the Core Universe Teridax in some aspects of his personality, but he seems to think himself rather different morally. He read Vultraz's mind, and has talked with Mazeka, so he likely knows a lot about his counterpart. So he has an idea of what the Core Teridax is like, and he seems to think that he's not as wicked. Perhaps he has deluded himself, but I think it's worth something.

 

I'm not certain whether this is new information or not, but I haven't seen it anywhere else.

Greg has recently given some clarification on the Red Star's functions. For a being to be revived, his AI needs to be downloadable, requiring his brain (Greg says head, but unless MU brains cannot be separated from their heads, I assume that he is referring to the brain) the first time he dies. If he dies again, and a sufficient record exists from his previous revival, he may be revived sine brain, albeit with a gap in memory. Confirmed via pages 309 and 311, fourteenth and eighth posts from the top, respectively.

So basically headshot means dead for real.

 

Unless the killed being has already been killed and revived.

So for a majority of characters, yes.

I wonder, which characters were killed in such a way that their brains were not intact? *Checks BS01*

Let's see: All who have been disintegrated or similarly killed: Possibly Lesovikk's team, Carapar, Ancient, the Matoran slaves who were knocked into Valmai, possibly Guardian (depending on whether or not Teridax crushed him underground.) I'm probably missing quite a few.

I'm not certain whether this is new information or not, but I haven't seen it anywhere else.

Greg has recently given some clarification on the Red Star's functions. For a being to be revived, his AI needs to be downloadable, requiring his brain (Greg says head, but unless MU brains cannot be separated from their heads, I assume that he is referring to the brain) the first time he dies. If he dies again, and a sufficient record exists from his previous revival, he may be revived sine brain, albeit with a gap in memory. Confirmed via pages 309 and 311, fourteenth and eighth posts from the top, respectively.