Thormen

Yes, but I didn't mean them becoming Shadow Skakdi willingly, but accidentally. Apparently Roodaka mostly focussed on the emotions of anger and aggression to develop Shadow powers, you don't have to tell a Skakdi to do that, they do it willingly.

Toa Smoke Monster makes a good point about Skakdi of Light: if the Brotherhood was so worried about a Toa of Light ever existing, I doubt that one of them would purposefully give Elemental Powers of light to a Skakdi. But theoretically a Skakdi of Light would be very moral yet very violent. I imagine they'd get angry very quickly at any injustice or evil they saw and would be the first to join the fight against it. Skakdi of Shadow would be downright nasty. Edit: Although one question that comes to mind is: if it's possible for a Skakdi to drain their light by doing immoral things and become Skakdi of Shadow, why didn't this happen to any of the Skakdi we met? They don't seem to have done much good in their lives...

I think the biggest part of this discussion is over anyway, so creating a new topic for it doesn't make so much sense to me anymore now. If I'd been told a few days ago to either create a topic for it or drop it, then I would've created a new topic but now I would just drop it (especially because of the alternatives Regitnui mentioned and the point T1 made about the Makuta evolving). At this point the only thing I have to say anymore is that the number of Kraata in the cave in 2003 was not 'just a few hundred' or 'three or four', but it was actually thousands. In the scene we're talking about on page 13 of Comic 13 Rise of the Rahkshi Whenua says so:

That's a good point, I hadn't thought of it. That makes it a lot more difficult to compare the two methods since we now have less indication of the expendability of the Kraata. It applies to both methods actually: it wouldn't just be more difficult to create Kraata/Rahkshi of Rahi Control, but it would also be more difficult to create Kraata to infect a lot of Kanohi, meaning the Makuta would probably have to get their own hands dirty. The only mention of Rahkshi before the evolution appears to be the war between the Makuta and the Barraki and an outburst by Miserix while he was being deposed. The Mutran Chronicles don't seem to give any indication as to how big the Rahkshi armies were that they amassed at that time, so it's difficult to tell whether that would be more difficult than infecting tons of mask by yourself (or with the help of a couple of Kraata, but not the thousands we saw in 2003). So I can see a pre-evolution Makuta deciding to add Kanohi to the Rahi just so he could have an extra way to control them. That just leaves the question of whether the Makuta were the ones to decide it in the first place, since the Great Beings already created Rahi before the Makuta were there. One of them is apparently a "creature that resembles a Tarakava in size and shape, only with multiple flippers and the ability to fire Ice beams from its eyes", which seems to imply that it was wearing a Kanohi (since Tarakava do). The other First Rahi are however described so vaguely that we can't possibly guess if they wore Kanohi or not, so we can't draw that many conclusions based on that either. So I'm gonna say that even though it's likely the Krana's ability to latch onto faces was created to repatriate any wandering Rahi, there are multiple possible reasons for why the Rahi were given Kanohi. Edit: Woops, missed both of your posts. OK, but doesn't that actually give him an incentive to use his Kraata of Rahi Control? We don't know whether the infected masks have the kind of autopilot you're talking about, but the Kraata definitely do: the Kraata themselves. At the higher stages these are intelligent enough, and at the lower stages they aren't controlled directly by the Makuta anyway. And I was always under the impression that the Makuta didn't just start his infected Rahi assault right before the Toa Mata arrived, but that he was infecting and controlling Rahi throughout the entire Dark Time. We know that some rahi have slots for Kanohi (Muaka, Nui-Jaga), while others don't (Kikanalo, Lohrak). What if there's more of a reason to this? In the beginning, the Makuta would have had a tough time with creating kraata, as I said, so they may have gone with the masked Rahi feature then, to provide them with a means to control large quantities of creatures from a distance. Later, though, when they evolved, and kraata-creation was made easier, they could have left out the Kanohi option in favor of mass-producing the kraata and Rahkshi. See? Few kraata=Lots of masked beasts Lot's of kraata=few masked beasts This opens up another topic: timeline for when Rahi were produced. This would suggest that the Rahi we saw in 2001/02/03-era were made before the Makuta evolved, and any other sets we got were of creatures produced after the evolution to antidermis, when Rahkshi of Rahi Control would have been easier to produce. Plausible? It's a good theory, but I must still add the caveat that what I said at the start of this post applies here as well: it's easier to use the infected masks if you have lots of Kraata, because then you can infect lots of masks. I myself was thinking that the Makuta sometimes didn't feel like keeping to the tradition of creating Rahi that can be easily taken over by Krana, since they weren't the Great Beings so they weren't as concerned about the purpose of the Bohrok etc.

How do you get that from what I said? I know he knew what he was doing, he had been planning it for tens of thousands of years. All I'm arguing is that it doesn't make sense for the Brotherhood of the Makuta to go out of their way to create Kanohi on the Rahi specifically so they could control them, if they already had a way of controlling them. You're arguing that it's so much easier for them with the infected masks, but I'm showing you why it isn't. It's only marginally easier at best, both ways have their pros and cons. It's as if he had two cars, and they are both equally useful. If he needed to drive somewhere, he could use either car, doesn't really matter which. But what I'm asking is: why did he bother to buy that second car? He already had the first one, why would he need two? I didn't say he'd make it impossible for the Matoran to return to Metru Nui... How did you get that out of what I said? What's out of place about a Makuta using his Rahi Control power or creating Rahkshi of Rahi Control? Find a way to separate an infected mask from a dangerous Rahi and it's powerless against the Matoran. In the example you mention the Makuta could've easily given the Rahkshi another Rahkshi bodyguard (of a different type). That again doubles the number of Kraata in my example, but we're still nowhere near the actual number of Kraata seen in 2003.

On the BionicleSector01 pages of those species (and the unnamed species page for the Barraki) it says they were created by Mata Nui, while it says on the page of the Red Star that it was created before Mata Nui was created. Therefore those species must have been created after the Red Star was created. BS01 doesn't give the sources for the fact that these races were created by Mata Nui, so I can't give you those either. The source for the Red Star is here.

If the Makuta was worried about losing his Kraata, he should've made Rahkshi armor for them. The fact that he didn't and just let the Turaga capture them shows us how expendable these Kraata really are. And the higher level Kraata I am talking about would've had a large Rahi protect them if they were discovered, even a stage 4 Kraata knows to latch onto a Rahi and drive it into a rage when in danger. Whoever is skilled enough to squish the Kraata at that moment should have no problem knocking off infected Kanohi, so what I am talking about should actually be harder to defend against by Matoran and Toa. But I'll humor you: let's say the Makuta didn't create just 12 Kraata (6 per Koro and 6 per Toa), but in addition to those 12 he created 30 to guard every great mask and 30 to guard every noble mask, making the total 72. He added 28 more Kraata just to have spares, cause you can never be sure, making it an even 100. Then he created Rahkshi armor for all of them, which requires an additional 100 Kraata, making the total number of Kraata he created 200, just to be completely covered on the Island of Mata Nui (having a much more solid control than he actually had in 2001). If he created that many Kraata, he'd still have created significantly less Kraata than the thousands that the Turaga managed to capture according to Whenua, so it really wouldn't be as difficult as you guys think it would be. Yeah he probably mixed the methods a little bit in actual canon, but I was arguing that it's a stretch to argue that the Makuta would've specifically gone out of their way to give the Rahi Kanohi masks so that they could control them later on if they already had the power to control them in the first place. What you said about concentration makes sense, but we don't know the Rahi Control power requires more concentration than the infected Kanohi do. When Greg was asked why the Makuta used infected Kanohi instead of Kraata powers, he said their range was greater, he didn't mention anything about concentration. Yeah that's what I'm thinking: the Krana could be used to herd the Rahi peacefully back into the Matoran Universe, and that's probably why they made them able to latch onto 'Kanohi slots' in the first place. The discussion you're having doesn't have anything to do with the original topic, but it's apparently not the same discussion as the one I'm having. I'm saying the Krana-on-face feature was probably created by the Great Beings to do exactly what the OP is suggesting. What year which set was introduced has nothing to do with that. If you're gonna ask Greg for clarification, then be sure to present all the arguments from every side in this topic to give him a full picture of what the context is, that way he can make a better decision.

I've also read the entire topic and I haven't seen any reasonable answer, but you're free to point at one if you see one. What do you mean? The Makuta doesn't have to follow his Kraata around... And the Kraata themselves can use their Rahi minions for transport (the Kraata Variations page specifically says that about stage 4 Kraata of Rahi Control). No I wasn't talking about sets, I mean only 12 Kraata were needed in-story: one for each Koro and one for each Toa. There's no need to have your Rahi hang out near a mask if none of the Toa is in the neighborhood to try and collect it. The Rahi only ever needed to harrass the vicinity of the six Koro and the six Toa, except during the siege of Kini Nui, when all Rahi amassed there. There was never any need for more than 12 Kraata of Rahi Control.

But that applies to many sapient species as well: Skakdi, Vortixx, all the Barraki's species... And they do get revived.

No he isn't, he's saying a completely irrelevant point is relevant. I covered all of that before. Kraata were clearly very expendable for the Makuta, otherwise he would've outfitted them with Rahkshi armor instead of letting the vast majority of them get caught by the Turaga. In the case of the 2001 storyline only 12 Rahkshi of Rahi Control at stage 6 would be needed at all, that's nothing for the Makuta and certainly a lot less than the amount of Kraata he actually had slithering around the Island of Mata Nui, meaning he would in fact use up less Antidermis than he did in the canon story. And on top of that, without my theory we still have no reasonable answer as to why Krana can take over other beings. That's possible, but how likely is it that their Kraata power would stop working? It's not like they were using a machine to control the Rahi and the machine could break down, it's an actual power belonging to the Makuta themselves. The infected Kanohi method is actually the one that's prone to breaking: the Kanohi can be removed or purified, which nullifies the Makuta's control over the Rahi. (In fact what you said about the Rahi stopping its attack and going about its biz is what canonically happened in 2001 every time the Rahi's masks got knocked off ) You don't have to follow him around if you can have your Kraata follow him around. Edit: That's a third possibility indeed, and I find that a lot more likely than the idea that the Makuta added Kanohi to control the Rahi. What it has going for it particularly is that it explains why there are so many Rahi without Kanohi.

I see, didn't know that. Weird, this discussion seems to me to be the entire reason the Red Star's reviving mechanism was there in the first place (conserving finite resources). Incidentally, the quote I linked to precedes the earliest quote you linked to by about ten months (it was actually among the first info about the Red Star we had), so it would seem he forgot that as well. But that doesn't change the fact he made the decision you linked to, of course.

You're missing the point. Just forget about 2001, you agree with me that during the time when Makuta were creating Rahi about 90 000 years ago, they had the Kraata power of Rahi Control, right? So how does it make sense for them to create another method for them to control Rahi (the Rahi's Kanohi masks that they could infect).

No, he said they can be over here:

How's about the Red Star revives those Rahi that were eaten? Of course you would think their bodies would be beyond repair after they were eaten, but that's supposing a digestive tract resembling that of real animals, and we haven't seen a digestive tract like that in canon. I could see a Muaka killing a Gukko with its bite, swallowing the Gukko whole and draining all of its energy in its stomach, after which the Gukko's body is teleported out of there by the Red Star. Same goes obviously for any biomechanical fish that were eaten by the Matoran, except it requires less assumptions since we already know the Matoran don't chew their food anyway. The Makuta would still have to replace any Rahi that died after the Red Star broke of course, but it provides an explanation for why the Makuta would make predatory Rahi if those were going to cause trouble for them: they didn't originally anticipate the trouble, and when the trouble arrived it was already too late, the Muaka had already been created.

If that's your only point then I have to say again: irrelevant. I was arguing it doesn't make sense for the Makuta to add Kanohi to the Rahi just so they can control them if they already had the Kraata power to control them. It doesn't matter at all what year the story team introduced the Kraata powers, it's a canon fact that the Makuta had those powers. If that wasn't the context in which you were speaking when you posted what you posted, then you're the one who's taking what I said out of context.

I never said that. I know you can't explain something with a concept until you have this concept, that's not what I'm saying at all. The Makuta had the power to create Kraata of Rahi Control during the Dark Time, that is a fact. It doesn't matter that the story team in real life only came up with this idea when they were planning 2003, the canonical fact is that the Makuta during the Dark Time had the power to create Kraata and to use the 42 Kraata powers. It sounds like people think I don't know how 2001 went. I do know that, I was already a fan back then and I remember very well that there were Rahi wearing infected Kanohi and that there was no mention of Kraata, Rahkshi or their powers until two years later. But that doesn't change the fact that the Makuta had these powers in-story at the time the Toa were collecting their masks. Cheesy said "If the story team didn't think of Kraata and their powers until 2003, then there's no way Teridax could have used them in-story two years earlier.", which directly contradicts the fact that the Makuta did use Kraata during the 2001 saga to infect the Kraata. It doesn't matter that we weren't in real life informed of that until two years later, in-story the Makuta used the Kraata at that time, which proves he had the capability to use Kraata.

Huh? Of course he could. The fact that the story team hadn't thought of Kraata at the time we saw the infected Rahi saga doesn't mean that in-story the Kraata didn't exist during that saga. We know there were Rahkshi around during the Metru Nui saga, which precedes the infected Rahi saga in-story, so we know that Kraata already existed during that time. By your logic the Kraata couldn't have infected the Kanohi in 2001 either, since the Kraata sets were only released in 2003. But we know that the Kraata did infect those Kanohi since Whenua explicitly said so. Your logic also makes the Metru Nui saga impossible, since the Turaga sets came before the Toa Metru sets therefore the Turaga couldn't have originally been the Toa Metru. Same goes for the Core War: the sets of all those warriors that fought there weren't released until 2009, so the Core War can't possibly have happened before the rest of the BIONICLE saga, even though we know it did. I'm not saying the Makuta consciously were creating Rahi so they could be controlled by Bohrok, I'm saying that that could be how the tradition of creating Rahi with Kanohi started. The Great Beings created the first Rahi, it's very well possible that the Makuta were working off those examples and created Rahi with Kanohi because that's how the Great Beings did it. Another possibility is that Mata Nui told them to do so, since he probably gave some instructions regarding their duty of creating Rahi. Also I don't think they need to know the full purpose of the Bohrok to know that the Bohrok have Krana that can control Kanohi bearers. Vakama knew that as well, as did basically everyone on Metru Nui, and they definitely didn't know the true purpose of the Bohrok and the true nature of the Matoran Universe. (And again: I don't think the Rahi were supposed to help with cleansing the Island of Mata Nui, I think they were supposed to just go back into the MU.)

How is this relevant? I know the set designers didn't have the 42 Rahkshi powers in the back of their heads when they were designing the 2001 Rahi sets. I was saying that, in-story, the Brotherhood of Makuta would have known that they were capable of Rahi Control already when they were designing their Rahi, making it a little redundant to add Kanohi just so they could have another way of controlling Rahi. My point was the Krana's power of controlling Kanohi bearers when on the Kanohi slot was probably created so the Bohrok could herd the Rahi back into the Matoran Universe, and that is entirely related to the OP's question. There's no need for the Bohrok to use the Rahi to demolish the Island of Mata Nui, all they need to do is repatriate the Rahi. The Bohrok themselves, when operating together, are extremely capable of demolishing the Island of Mata Nui, they really don't need any Rahi to help them out. That's a good point. I was assuming the Krana need to attach to the Kanohi slots since that's what the sets do and because of their similarity with infected Kanohi. We know Muaka can be controlled via the thing on their shoulder, because that's where the infected Kanohi were put, so it seems reasonable to me that Krana would control them in the same place. But it's true we don't know that for sure.

I see, didn't know about that quote I still think it's less likely the Makuta would've specifically gone out of their way to create yet another method for them to control Rahi, even if the method could cover situations that they couldn't cover with their Rahi Control power. But it's definitely not impossible. You're again assuming low-level Kraata. A stage 6 Kraata of Rahi Control has absolute control over every Rahi in the near area, so it could easily operate alone.

Sure, but I was always under the impression that it took a lot shorter than 1000 years (although I don't know whether we've been given any figures about this). Why would he need to stop it right away? Or are you talking about Makuta controlling Rahi in general, throughout all of history? I can see the logic behind it, but I wonder why a Makuta in such a case wouldn't just use their own Rahi Control power. Of course it can be argued that the Brotherhood anticipated that there might be a situation where they would need to be able to control Rahi directly without being in range to use their Rahi Control power, but it's seem a stretch to me given the fact that we don't (as far as I know) actually know whether the range of the infected Kanohi is greater than that of the Makuta's Rahi Control power. Yeah I also think the Makuta were used to creating their Rahi so they could wear Kanohi, but that still begs the question where the tradition started. I'm thinking that not only are Krana capable of controlling Rahi, but that that's the whole reason why Krana can replace Kanohi and why certain Rahi wear Kanohi in the first place.

Yes, Cheesy Mac N Cheese pointed that out as well, but I don't see why it's a problem that the control is less direct. The Rahi were just there to harass the Matoran and Toa, the Makuta could easily have left that to the Kraata. And since we're talking about high-level Kraata anyway: at stage 5 Kraata know the Makuta's will and at stage 6 they are constantly in communication with him. Doesn't seem like anything could go wrong there.

Well, maybe indeed, but it seems very unlikely to me. The fact that person A is in general more powerful than person B doesn't mean that person A is better at everything that person B can do. For example if person A is better at playing football than person B, that doesn't mean person A is necessarily faster than person B, even though that's an important skill in football. In BIONICLE terms, the Makuta is more powerful than Tahu, but that doesn't mean the Makuta has better control over the element of fire. Good point. Going over the Kraata Variations page on BionicleSector01, I'd say the first two stages of Rahi Control are pretty useless, but starting with stage 3 the Kraata are useful for the Makuta's 2001 plan. Interestingly, the Kraata of Insect Control are significantly more powerful (I'd say starting at stage 2) and they play a role here as well. I think we can assume the Makuta at least had the power level of a level 6 Kraata (but probably a higher power level), which means he was capable of summoning insects from all over the Island of Mata Nui to fight for him, controlling every Rahi in the near area and controlling an entire hive of Nui-Rama. Yes it temporarily weakens the Makuta, but I don't think it weakens him to such an extent that it would actually be a problem. In fact, Kraata seem to be very expendable: when the Turaga were capturing most of them, the Makuta apparently preferred making new ones instead of outfitting the ones he had with Rahkshi armor so the Turaga couldn't catch them anymore. And when you say 'a ton of Kraata', that figure isn't comparable to the 'tons of masks' they had to infect, since you need many more infected masks to control the same amount of Rahi that a few high-level Kraata could control. In fact, I would argue the Makuta needed only 12 level 6 Kraata of Rahi Control at all: one for each Koro and one for each Toa. He certainly had ample opportunity to develop those in the 1000 years they were on the Island of Mata Nui. Sure, but how is that relevant? That doesn't give the Makuta an incentive to put Kanohi masks on Rahi.

That's not what I meant, I meant the Makuta could've used his Kraata of Rahi Control to control the Rahi on the Island of Mata Nui in 2001, and that this option was available for the Makuta species in general. So I don't think it's likely they would've felt the need to specifically add 'infected mask slots' to control them if they already had the power to control them. That's true, although I'm wondering why the Great Beings would outfit the Great Spirit Robot with an amplifier for the Kraata-control power if Mata Nui doesn't make Kraata anyway. It could of course be in anticipation of the Makuta's destiny of taking over the GSR, but then it still seems to be useless regarding the actual job that the Makuta was supposed to perform (reforming Spherus Magna), which again begs the question why the Great Beings would've built such a feature in the GSR. Really? Didn't know that. In that case the question is of course where these Makuta were kept (how close to the battlefield), but since we already know that the Makuta was capable of controlling Kraata all over the Island of Mata Nui, we basically know he could've used that to control the Rahi in 2001. Of course the Makuta might want to be able to control Rahi in other situations as well, but in actuality we don't know what the range of their Kraata-controlling power or their infected-Rahi-controlling power is. Well that's why I suggested the Bohrok could return the Rahi to the Matoran Universe that way. What you say is possible as well, but I think the Bohrok themselves are much more capable of bulldozing the landscape than Rahi (they were certainly described that way in 2002!). I think it's also possible the Rahi are able to wear Kanohi because the Makuta could outfit them with infected Kanohi, but that still leaves the above questions unexplained and leaves us with the question why the Krana are able to control Kanohi-bearers. If we say however that the Krana and the Kanohi-bearing Rahi are essentially 'made' for each other, we can fix all of that together, so that seems more likely to me.

I think that power's dependent on range. If a Makuta infects a Kanohi, they can control a Rahi from pretty much wherever, True, but that's where Kraata come in. As we saw in 2003, the Makuta was perfectly capable of having his Kraata move all over the Island of Mata Nui. In 2010 he was even capable of controlling Rahkshi down on Bara Magna while his Antidermis was all the way up in the head of the Great Spirit Robot.

The Makuta already had a power of Rahi Control, why would they go out of their way to create another option for them to control the Rahi? And a less effective option as well, since not every Rahi wears Kanohi. Well if they followed their mission correctly they should chase the Rahi back into the Matoran Universe, since that's where they were in the 'before-time'. But we don't know if their AI was sophisticated enough to account for that.