Thormen

Yeah, but that would have been a lot easier if the Toa Mata were just faced with the Rahi as they were in 2001. Don't forget the Mata were thinking in 2001 that they were going down to Mangaia to defeat Makuta and thereby awaken Mata Nui. Picture this: the Toa Mata gathered all their Kanohi, managed to overcome the Rahi, ventured down into the Makuta's lair and finally managed to defeat him. They would return back to the surface of Mata Nui in triumph, everybody would think the Makuta was gone and the Turaga would probably figure out that the Mata had to at least go down to Metru Nui to awaken Mata Nui, so they'd tell everybody about Metru Nui and return there. Then Dume would tell them Mata Nui was dying and you'd get the Ignition story arc where Matoro would die to revive Mata Nui and the Makuta would meanwhile take his place in the Core Processor. Then the Toa Mata, still thinking the Makuta had been vanquished, could go down to Karda Nui to wake Mata Nui up in the Codrex, and then... [insert picture of stars taking the shape of a Kraahkan ] Really the only reason it didn't go down that way was because Mata Nui wasn't quite close enough to death at the end of 2001, meaning the Makuta had clearly not made the Rahi threat big enough. I don't think it would look like he was throwing the fight if a Toa of magnetism was actually too powerful for him. That would make his fake defeat all the more realistic IMO. The Matoran have eyes too, if they see a Toa of magnetism knocking the masks off Rahi by simply waving his hand around like he's some kind of Jedi they'd assume this Toa would be really powerful, making it all the more realistic that this Toa would defeat the Makuta. In any case, I agree the Makuta would probably come up with another threat such as the one Regitnui mentioned, or he might have even summoned organic Rahi ('cause I'm not liking the odds of a Toa of magnetism or iron against the Ancient Sea Behemoth). Edit: Fixed smiley.

I have not been asked to do that, for reasons that I think will become clear after NYCC. As far as I know, that's the only hard evidence in favor of a story reboot, albeit quite substantial. I don't think that Greg is allowed to confirm particulars, so I don't think he would have given any more specific information (though as answers on Bionicle 2015 go, this is pretty specific.) If that doesn't indicate a reboot, I'm not sure what it does. Actually, that's a strong evidence for a continuation which cans/retcons the serial plot. I'm going to have to agree with Quisoves here. I think, Fishers, you're interpreting Greg's quote as saying "I have been asked not to do that" instead of "I have not been asked to do that". You're right that if it's a reboot nobody in the story team would care whether Greg would finish the serials or not (as long as he doesn't do it in the faces of new fans who might get confused and turn away from BIONICLE), but that is exactly why they wouldn't bother asking Greg to continue doing the serials. If they had actually asked him not to do it, it would be likely they wouldn't want him to create content that would only be canon for a short while and then be retconned, basically only serving to tick the old fans off. But they didn't ask him not to do it, they didn't ask him anything. As far as I know, Greg is technically allowed to continue the serials if he wants to, he was allowed to do so in 2010 when he wrote the last few chapters he wrote after Journey's End and TLG never told him he had to stop. He just got busy with his actual job (writing for Ninjago and Hero Factory etc.) and his personal life, and now he's not really "in" the story anymore so it'll be difficult for him to pick up where he left. The sentence Irafa found on the official site further indicates a reboot. If you change one word ("Okoto" into "Mata Nui") you get a description of 2001. That's doesn't change the fact that it's still extremely vague of course, Okoto could easily be an island on Spherus Magna and whoever the elemental heroes are might have ended up there at some point in the future, but it's still evidence for a reboot.

I was just rereading 2001 comics, and the intro to Comic #2 might be interpreted quite literally now: The part about him walking the world isn't actually canon anymore (I think Greg said at one point Mata Nui was hovering above Aqua Magna studying aquatic life, but somewhere else that he was on his way back to Bara Magna and fell from the sky), but I think it's quite possible it was envisioned this way in the earliest story bibles.

That's a good point. I don't know if we ever saw Tahu specifically doing that (unless you're referring to the video of Tahu fighting Jala at the start of MNOLG?) but in Comic #1 'The coming of the Toa' Kopaka basically picks up his sword, walks a while and then coats Matoro's feet with a layer of ice after he spots him using his Kanohi Akaku. He is surprised about his power ("Interesting. The power is in me. The sword is but the focus.") so I guess that supports the event memory vs. procedural memory split. I actually think it's the other way round: you'd expect the Makuta to be smart enough to think up a threat that would keep the Toa Mata busy long enough, but he already failed to do that in the storyline, did he? The Rahi were overpowered too quickly, so he sent the Bohrok after them, who were also overpowered too quickly, so he finally sent the Rahkshi. If there had been a Toa of magnetism among them, they'd probably have overpowered them even more quickly (a Toa of magnetism/iron could telekinetically move Cahdok to one side of the island and Gahdok to the other, right? And force the Bohrok to fire their Krana nowhere in particular?), but then the Makuta would probably have had even more tricks up his metaphorical sleeve.

For Kanohi that would probably be best yeah, but I can see a Toa of iron opting to destroy weapons instead of having them fly around and giving the enemy the ability to recover them, especially when the enemy doesn't bear a Kanohi and the first option is therefore out of the question. It's possible many weapons and Kanohi somehow have energies inside of them that would be released this way though... That could be too dangerous for the Toa Code. Actually I think a Toa of iron with enough concentration to focus on the Protodermis atoms themselves could even disable such a magnetic field entire, but that might be too difficult for the average Toa. I recall a similar discussion years ago where we decided a Toa of gravity could technically bend light by focusing his powers on the photons alone, but the concept would likely be too complicated for any Toa of gravity to master. Yeah a Toa of magnetism should be able to do that much more easily. However the Toa Mata had to learn to control their powers in 2001, I think a Toa Mata of magnetism would have trouble focusing his power on the Kanohi of the Rahi alone while making sure his own Kanohi remained unaffected. But he'd have a lot less trouble doing so than the examples I mentioned above about Toa of iron controlling magnetism and Toa of gravity controlling light, so I think a Toa Mata of magnetism would be able to learn that trick during the 2001 saga, yes.

Lol, I don't mind people "ganging up on me " It's simply a discussion. The thing is, the definition my professors explained to me is a lot more consistent than what Wikipedia says and what the articles you found seem to be using. Wikipedia defines language death the way I explained it, but basically says language can be "dead" without having experienced language "death". On top of that, the difference between a dead language and a living language becomes exceedingly blurry that way. Is English as it was spoken 100 years ago dead? Because it's not exactly the same as English as it is spoken today: a small amount of language change has occurred. I think most people however would say no, it is not dead because it's English. So I'll say Lucina's original point about Latin being dead was a fair point in light of the different definitions of the term "dead language", but I think the one I was taught makes more sense. Edit: Agreed.

Latin being dead is a common misconception, that's why you get that result when you google it and that's why everybody else here thinks it is. Linguists don't consider gradual language change to be a form of language death since it's impossible to pinpoint language death that way, and therefore impossible to classify languages as alive or dead. Edit: They said it was a common misconception, so I really don't think I misheard them. It might be that there is disagreement within the scientific community about the terminology however and that they failed to mention that... That wouldn't actually be the first time they failed to mention disagreement on scientific issues at my university. So I'll concede that some linguists probably consider ancestral languages dead languages as well.

They're different, but that difference doesn't apply here. An extinct language is a language that is both dead and has left no real traces, no writing, no recordings of how it was spoken, and can therefore not be researched and never revitalized (which happened with Hebrew). I see Wikipedia features different explanations of the terms than the ones I posted, but what I wrote is what my professors told me during my bachelor Linguistics. Wikipedia can be wrong, I trust my professors more when it comes to their field of expertise.

No it's not. Language death happens when the last native speaker of a language dies and the language is replaced by another language in the language community. That didn't happen with Latin, Latin gradually developed into Italian, Spanish French etc. That doesn't mean people who speak Spanish actually speak Latin, but it does mean that they speak a descendant from Latin and therefore Latin is not dead. No you shouldn't speak some ancient form of German, but that doesn't mean Old German is dead. Old German developed into Modern German. Well I strongly disagree but I think we're straying off topic again. If you want to discuss this you can PM me.

When was the last time anyone other than the Maori activists complained about anyone using their language in their intellectual property? That's not actually how it works. Latin is not dead since the romance languages descend from it. And on top of that is is the liturgical language of the Catholic Church, many hymns are sung in Latin because of the significance it has to the Catholic Church.

I think you're on to something here... The way Toa of iron have always been explained is that they're technically capable of destroying their opponents' armor and thereby killing them, but that the Toa Code prevents them from doing so. In other words they're actually really powerful, but morally obligated to limit their powers significantly. But that doesn't apply to Kanohi or in fact Toa Tools or weapons. As far as I can tell, a Toa of iron should be able to destroy anyone's Kanohi or weapons without any moral reservations.

Latin is the language of the Catholic Church, so simply saying "It's dead so no one cares." isn't really a valid argument. And while it is true that the terms purposefully taken from a foreign language were taken from Latin, a lot of terms in the entire series were also identical to words in other foreign languages without TLG actually intending to base them on these languages. As I said previously, "Stelt" is an example from my native language, but there are many more terms like that. "Velika" means "big" in many languages spoken in the Balkan area of Europe, "Kazi" is the Persian version of the Arabic "Qadi", meaning a judge in an Islamic court, I know people called "Hakan" or "Idris", "Tanma" is Georgian for "tree trunk"... Need I go on?

Hmmm, I wonder why sets that have been designed over a year ago have suddenly popped up a couple of months before the official release of every past year of BIONICLE, just in time to build a hype? (Not implying anything about the legality of sharing leaked info here, only officially released content should be featured on BZPower) BIONICLE is no stranger to using foreign words either, even after the Maori controversy. Many of the Matoran introduced in MNOLG II had Finnish names ("Pakastaa", "Arktinen"), "Stelt" roughly means "puts" (as in "he puts something on the table") in my native language (Dutch) and 2009 terms like "Aqua Magna" were clearly taken from Latin, knowingly and without hesitation. The rule that names couldn't mean something in any other language (which is insanely restrictive considering there are about 7000 languages spoken on Earth today, each with tens of thousands of words) really only ever applied to Maori and other Polynesian languages, since the ones who complained about it were Maori. So even if "Okoto" sound like something Japanese or means something in English (I'm also wondering where those definitions come from actually), I'm sure it's no problem.

Could liquid protodermis count as water? Well I guess combining them would make mutagen and they are different to some degree, but you get the point. Wait... what happens when magma mixes with molten protodermis? Actually the mutagen wasn't created when Aqua Magna's ocean waters came into contact with Liquid Protodermis, it was created when the ocean waters came into contact with the energies radiated from various sources in the Great Spirit Robot, such as Karda Nui. So I see no reason to believe Molten Protodermis and magma would have some kind of reaction together, they'd probably just mix. I'd say the question whether a Toa of Earth or a Toa of Stone could control Molten Protodermis first of all depends on what kind of Molten Protodermis it is: is it molten Solid Protodermis, molten Metallic Protodermis or something else? In case of the former we should ask whether a Toa of Earth or a Toa of Stone could control it, but in case of the latter we should actually ask whether a Toa of Iron could. And that brings this discussion neatly back on topic IMO BS01's page on Protodermis says: In other words, Molten Protodermis is made from Purified Liquid Protodermis (insert quote from Greg about real world physics not applying here ) and then turned into Metallic Protodermis. So it would make sense that both a Toa of Iron and a Toa of Water could control Molten Protodermis, if Toa could control their element while it's in a different chemical state. I doubt this is the case, since we actually have two elements that represent the same element in a different chemical state: ice and water (another pairing is air and plasma). Toa of water have never been shown to have control over ice in any way, and the only thing Toa of ice can do with water is freeze it (which one could argue falls into the category "creating their element"). The two elements are clearly intended to be separate, so I'm gonna say that by the same logic Molten Protodermis should be separate from Metallic Protodermis.

HUGE like on the name of the island, IMO it's much better than Spherus Magna, Artidax or in fact anything we've seen in the last years of the previous run. Right, from a linguistic point of view what's important is: 1) Syllables shouldn't end in consonants (so by extension, words shouldn't end in them either). 2) Syllables shouldn't start with more than one consonant, except when it's "k", "t" or "p" followed by "r". (EDIT: "wh" and "ng" are also possible since they are single consonant sounds, albeit written with two letters) 3) Don't use "q", "x", "y" or "c". 4) try to use "a", "k" and "t" a lot. With those rules you end up with words that sound very 2001-y IMO: Hekala, Tukoni, Kruadu, Baikata... (NOT: Hekla, Stukoni, Quacu, Baiktyx...) "Nui" means "great" in Maori, Hawaiian and many other Polynesian languages (Rapa Nui, that's Easter Island ). They probably want to avoid using any of the leftover words from 2001 that were based on such languages (as a matter of fact that also includes "Toa", "Turaga" and the names of most 2001 characters, so I'm not counting on those names returning either).

Oh yes. Christian Faber (I think it was him) was the guy that dreamed up the idea. There were a lot more hints as well, right from the start. There were promotional images showing the island of Mata Nui and an infected Hau merging into one face, symbolizing the two supposed brothers. In MNOLG the Onu-Koronans actually mined so deeply into the island they reached the hull of the Great Spirit Robot, it was referenced to as an "impenetrable rock layer". The initial videos detailing the legend in Amaja Nui (you know, with the stones in the sand) also showed how the Matoran stones moved on top of Mata Nui's face after he fell down and sank into the sand, symbolizing how the Matoran actually settled on his face on the island of Mata Nui.

Well, yeah, but Hewkii isn't actually a hammer is he? A lot of 2001 names meant something in Maori or Hawaiian etc., but the OP's point was that the island of Mata Nui was actually covering the Great Spirit Robot's face, which was hinted at in the name.

Okay, I get that you don't like that part of the Yesterday Quest and that's OK. If we can't discuss this without going into the nature of gender identity and derailing the topic then let's not discuss it. Let me rephrase my original point here: Apparently some people want to change some characters' genders in their "headcanon", they can have reasons for this that I will not go into. For similar reasons, I feel like changing the gender of characters is changing the character in a significant way without adequate storyline explanation, which is why I agree with Axilus that TLG shouldn't change existing characters' gender but instead create more new female characters. Therefore, my answer to the OP's question is "No."

Ok, I can't say I understand 100% what you're implying but I do have an idea, and I definitely understand the part about not derailing the thread. So let's not talk about the specifics of what gender should imply in the Matoran Universe: the Great Beings decided after Toa Orde to make all Ce-Matoran/Toa/Turaga female. We don't have to talk about the reason they had for doing this or whether it was justified etc. Instead I would like to point out that they did in fact change the gender of all subsequent Ce-Matoran. How is this possible if there isn't some kind of concept of gender other than being a simple label? Apparently it's not as simple as just referring to Ce-Matoran as "she" instead of "he", Orde clearly states that all subsequent Ce-Matoran were made female, implying that there is some kind of switch inside the Matoran's AI that is set to "male" or "female". (I'm not trying to exclude anyone here or make any kind of point on the nature of gender, I'm simply drawing a conclusion from storyline sources as to how the AI of Matoran works, which does not necessarily resemble that of humans, but also not necessarily doesn't) Edit: I see Lucina ninja'd me: Lucina, that was definitely not what I was trying to say. I was simply going by what storyline sources tell us. I'm not going to explain exactly what I have to say on this subject on BZP, but if you want to discuss this subject with me, PM me and we can discuss it via E-mail or something.

It was indeed noticed before, along with Ihu meaning "nose", Mangai meaning "mouth", Naho meaning "eye"... Although the only words for which I can verify this translation at the moment are Nui and Ihu, Mata apparently means "eye" or "raw" in Maori... Anyway, it was noticed before, but apparently none of us took the hint and figured out it was actually the face of Mata Nui until 2008

No it's not. Every time Greg has been asked about the significance of gender without sexual reproduction in the MU, he's stated that female characters in the MU are female because they have a female personality. In fact, the significance gender has regarding a being's personality was made very clear in chapter #2 of the Yesterday Quest when Orde's origin story was featured: there was a problem with his personality, namely his temper, and the Great Beings decided to avoid that problem in the future by making the rest of his kind female.

My thoughts exactly. I am all for creating new characters with female genders, but altering the ones that I've come to know as male is not what I want at all. Tamaru is male. Onua is male. They were created male, so they should stay male. I'm not trying to attack anyone's fun with headcanoning, but making new female characters is the path that I find much more easier. Agree 100%. Gender in the Matoran Universe is essentially a basic aspect of personality and nothing more, I don't want to see characters changing their personality just like that. If the story team should change a character's gender and act like the character just basically keeps the same personality, they'd essentially reduce the entire notion of gender in the Matoran Universe to a simple label. LOL, I was 13 and I did more or less the same For me all the Ga-Matoran AND all the other Matoran wearing a Kaukau were female. Not the ones wearing a Rau or a Huna though, just the Kaukau. The Huna was male for me since I knew Vakama was male, and the Rau just basically looks like a bald guy with a beard I initially also though Vamprah was female, so he is still kinda feminine in my mind. I was gone for four years, then I come back and there's suddenly a "head canon" hype going on I don't understand what's so special about it either, to me there's basically two kinds of storyline: (1) the official canon and (2) your own imagination. Take Vamprah for example, as I said earlier in this post I initially thought he was female. That was my own imagination obviously, since he's male in the official canon. So when I found out he was male and what his personality was like, the "I think he's female" idea got relegated to the back of my mind and I accepted he was male. I kinda view it like a misconception I had. If I want to continue with a storyline in which he is female, that's not in any way canon for me, that's simply using my imagination. I understand that people enjoy using their own imagination and not just follow the storyline, but I don't consider that a special kind of canon. People use their own imaginative storylines here all the time, in the BZP library, Artwork etc. People are also free to use their own imagination when they play with sets or simply imagine the BIONICLE storyline in a different way. I just don't see how it's a special kind of canon if you do so.

Can't say I agree, after all they weren't mutated by Roodaka in a fair fight. We don't know exactly how Gaaki, Pouks, Bomonga and Kualus got captured and mutated, but Norik and Iruini were hit in the back when they were running away. That's not a matter of power, you can defeat anyone by hitting them in the back as they're fleeing. The Toa Metru challenged the Makuta and imprisoned him in a Toa seal, then they got themselves knocked out and mutated by the Visorak. Roodaka was the viceroy of the Visorak army, she was a lot more powerful than her minions, so even if you argue the Hagah are elite Toa and imprisoning the Makuta takes less power than reducing him to the size of a Turaga I still think it's a similar situation. The Visorak army itself should also be accounted for. There's no way the Toa Hordika could have taken on Roodaka and her army, which is what the Hagah would have had to do. However, when Vakama dismissed the Visorak and Roodaka was alone, the Hordika just combined their elemental powers and knocked her out. If she had wanted to turn them into Rahaga as well, she could have done so while the Metru were still imprisoned in their cocoons at the start of Web of Shadows, they were completely powerless, but she wanted their Elemental Powers.

Actually TLG didn't seem to feel the need to explain why Gresh, the Skrall and Takanuva were built differently as Stars (and assuming Nektann and the Rahkshi of Laser Vision are supposed to look like the Piraka and the Rahkshi of 2003, you can extend that argument to them as well), so I don't think they were trying to force an excuse for Tahu's appearance out of the story. I think it's more likely the Ignika devolving him to his Mata form was an excuse to feature Tahu Mata among the Stars. I'm pretty sure NotS was making a joke there

What's more, it wasn't even an accidental glitch: Velika made the MUans develop sapience. He's been plotting against his fellow Great Beings since even before the Shattering. Add to that that he had a hand in creating the Element Lords, who are pretty much to blame for the Core War, I'm pretty sure you can shift at least part of the blame for most bad things that happened on Velika, with the notable exception of everything that happened in 2009 on Bara Magna. Edit: This next part isn't really directed at Regitnui anymore, but rather at the OP and the discussion in general. That wasn't clear before. And I think TLR does pay sufficient attention to Mata Nui's guilt, the movie basically starts off with him saying he neglected his people and allowed an evil being to take control. As has been pointed out, he subsequently defeated the Makuta, restored Spherus Magna and let his life energies sweep across the planet. This is specifically portrayed as him atoning for his past mistakes: The stuff about him affecting the way Strakk, Tuma and the Skrall were portrayed in TLR can obviously not be blamed on the character of Mata Nui himself. It actually sounds like you're saying TLR would have been better without Mata Nui, but that would problematic given the big picture of the BIONICLE storyline.