Wow, a lot of people seem to think I was implying that Lego planned this all along. I had better clarify: this theory in no way proposes an intentional pattern by Lego. It's completely in-story, like Tolkien's Matoran dictionary, and I recognize that the reason Lego stuck with the Inika build was because it was the most versatile and resusable torso structure to date. Just to clear that up . But anyways... [/defensive] I totally forgot about the Hagah, which is a mistake seeing as they're actually the earliest (unmutated) Toa we have in set form besides Jovan. Let's see... The earliest date BSO1 lists for any of the Toa Hagah is for Norik, "sometime before 7,000 years ago," helping Varian on the Northern Continent in No One gets Left Behind (which is, again, fan content, so we can't judge Lego's intent with this, but I'm not trying to.) This was before Norik was selected as a Hagah for his merit in combat by the BoM. Working backwards from this, I would assume Norik became a Toa between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago, leaving him around 5 to 18 thousand years to prove himself as an exceptional Toa in the eyes of the BoM before they recruited him as Teridax' personal guardian. (Do those numbers sound reasonable?) That's at least 4/5 of the way through the history of the MU before he became a Toa, more than enough time for the standard form of Toa to go from Inika/Original to Metru/Hagah, at least in the northern regions of the universe. And of all the Metru gearbox builds we saw, none looked closer to the Inika build than the Hagah, with their chestplates (although those are probably more beacause they're Hagah), Rahkshi/Vahki leg pieces, and Metru leg pieces as arms rather than Metru lower arm pieces. So I'd say the Hagah are good examples of the transistion, 'missing links,' if you will, from Original to Metru build. However, the Hagah might be an issue to the regional variations theory. [from BS01, emphasis mine.] The two Hagah we've seen were fairly alike in build. Of course, Norik is shorter, but other than that they're practically clones. We can't see canon images of the other Toa Hagah, unfortunately, so we can't judge how varied they are. Maybe of all of them Norik and Iruini looked the most alike, and some of the others would have had the theorized more rugged builds of the Northern Continent. (Or Stars builds .) So they aren't very good evidence against or for the regional variations theory. Well, I would say that since Lesovikk and Jovan became Toa before Lhikan, Norik, and Iruini, they're the ones closer to the ancient standard, regardless how many later Toa had Metru builds. The standardization of the Metru build in later years could be a result of some very sucessful and heroic Metru build Toa long ago inspiring a great many Matoran (or something). No, I forgot about him - sorry about that! Even though he was fan-made, he's canon. If I didn't count him because of that, I couldn't count Nikila either. Still, he only became a Toa, like, a year ago? He's not much evidence for the Inika build being the Original build. But he does support the regional variations theory, given his unique build and homeland on the Northern Continent. Where was it said that the Toa Mata deteriorated in their canisters? Even if that was the case, I'd think whoever made the Toa Canisters (likely either Artakha or the Great Beings) would design them so the Toa wouldn't deteriorate, especially since part of the Toa Mata's function was to stay there for an indefinite amount of time. That's from BS01. (Maybe someday I'll figure out how to get it to say that in the box.) Well, only for the first couple thousand years of MU history. After that, different Matoran' (Matoran's? Matorans'? What the Karz is the possesive of Matoran?) perceptions of how a Toa should look would begin to vary the build more and more. Check out the bloodline theory for more; that topic inspired me to this. Oh, and don't this theory can't kill anything for Gen 2. The new Toa are more varied than anything we've ever seen. Anyways, I hope my ideas make sense, and I'm not just seeing what I want to see here?