Toatapio Nuva

Interestingly, back in 2002 we were told that the silver Kanohi represented fusions of three ordinary Kanohi, whereas the golden masks were fusions of six. It wasn't until later that fans started to see the silver masks as not-worn Kanohi. Understandable really, since it makes much more sense that way and we never had any "lesser versions" of the golden Kanohi in story.

I can buy Whenua's, Nuju's and Matau's tools being transformed into their badges of office, but I don't get why Onewa's hammer is considered to have been transformed from his proto pitons (which share no functional similarities). As a Matoran, he used a hammer identical to the one he held as a Turaga, just like Vakama and Nokama did with their own tools, so it would make a lot more sense for him to also use his old Matoran tool. Has it ever been explicitly stated anywhere that his tools just transformed into the hammer?

Thank you very much for compiling these! I do have a question about the Rahi Beasts PDF, though. It seems like part of the words throughout the guide have disappeared. Is this an error on my end, the book's, or during scanning?

The Rahi Beasts PDF is actually the version hosted on Biomedia project, so I had no part in making it. Could you mention the pages that have this problem though? What device are you using to view the PDF?

What's the story behind the Synopsis book? I have never heard of it prior to this topic.

I only know that it was shared by a person who used to work at Lego as an intern or something like that. Apparently the synopsis was shared with people along with the style guide, and served as a sort of introduction to the story for potential business partners of Lego, like companies that were interested in cooperating with them. I don't know for certain though.

My scans of Mata Nui's Guide to Bara Magna are available here. They're not the best quality, but I'll scan the whole thing at a higher DPI and make a nice PDF soon.

That is awesome, thank you! When you've made the PDF, I'll add it to the list.

In that case I think you should get rid of the sub-bullets. Not sure what the alternative should be though...

And as for the game links, well, you could just put a link to MNOG at the first MNOG walkthrough chapter. For example. I don't know if linking MNOG would even work that well in the end, I was just making an example of what the QR codes could be used for. For other games it's less complicated, since they don't span an entire story year like MNOG does.

 

I did consider game links, but I'm not really sure where they would go.

At least for MNOG, the version on Templar's own website would be fitting. For other games, I suppose the Biomedia project would be the best place to link to.

The new layout is an improvement. One suggestion though: for those books that do have the QR codes, remove the spaces between the lines. They look a bit inflated with the extra space between the different versions.

...oh my.

I wasn't expecting this.

While I have nothing against the QR codes, the main post looks like a nightmare with all the different editions now. For a new reader, it's probably quite a daunting sight, since they won't have a clear idea on where to click. I really feel sorry for you too, having to keep track of all of them.

As for the inclusion of the QR codes, it opens up a plethora of ideas (which is both exciting and terrifying). You could link to games like the MNOG or The Legend Continues, to the promo animations of individual characters, audio tracks and serial podcasts... heck, you could even link to promotional websites or archived versions of bionicle.com.

The nice thing about these codes though is that they're relatively unintrusive, just existing on the side without interrupting the reading experience unless the reader really wants to see the associated media. So it's definitely a nifty little addition overall.

 

Are you aware that this exists?

 

The website itself looks cool, and I suppose it does offer an alternative to reading the story in a PDF. With regards to transcripting the books though, I highly recommend you check the link, cause all the books are already transcripted there, so you definitely won't need to do it yourself. Saves you hours upon hours of work.

I am aware that Biological Chronicle exists, yes, and I think it's really awesome. But I feel that hosting the story on the web has certain advantages. For starters, you don't need to download a huge PDF to read it. You can just visit the website from any computer, tablet, or phone, and you're ready to go. A website can also host forms of media that a PDF can't, such as videos, Flash animations (which I'm gonna convert to video), and the podcasts.

 

With regards to using TuragaNuva's transcripts of the novels: Yeah, I've thought about it, but I'd feel kinda bad about taking advantage of their hours and hours of work. Plus, I'm pretty sure Biological Chronicles contains several edits to the text of the novels, and I'd prefer that Wall of History host them in their original form.

 

With regards to the other forms of media, it sounds like there's a bit of an overlap with the Biomedia Project... not that there's anything wrong with having the media on multiple websites.

There are indeed some edits in the Biological Chronicle Collection, but those have been kept to a minimum, and the text would still serve as a good template for you to start from. Having transcripted the books myself (and later lent to the compilation project), I can guarantee that it's not a pleasant process. I would also be willing to offer the original transcripts to you, although those are full of small errors that have been fixed in the collection.

I wouldn't be too concerned about "stealing" someone else's work in this case, since the end result is going to be the same.

Are you aware that this exists?

The website itself looks cool, and I suppose it does offer an alternative to reading the story in a PDF. With regards to transcripting the books though, I highly recommend you check the link, cause all the books are already transcripted there, so you definitely won't need to do it yourself. Saves you hours upon hours of work.

 

Fixed a passage that had been changed in the first chapter of Book 1 (right after "Near it he saw several components lying in the sand"): in the original text, Tahu finds his sword in two pieces, but the compilation text had been modified to say it was just one piece (Toatapio, did you do this? I don't remember making this change).

I have no memory of making such a change, but it's certainly likely that it was my fault, considering that the book type-ups came from me. Perhaps I was somehow bothered by the sword being in two pieces? I really have no idea at this point...

Awesome, congrats!

You wouldn't happen to have an extra 473, would you? Been looking for that one for quite a while.

I ordered a copy of Mata Nui's Guide to Bara Magna a few days ago, so I could provide pictures of that once it arrives.

That would be fantastic!

Update: A transcripted word version of Metru Nui - City of Legends has now been uploaded!

If you want to be really thorough, there’s also those two “Unmasked” books for the first two movies as well as The Legend Reborn Guide (for which scans have recently been shared). Plus the Style Guide.

Good idea, I've uploaded the TLR guide and the available style guides. As for the Unmasked books, I unfortunately don't have them, but hopefully someone will be able to provide scans of those.

This is great. I've been waiting for someone to digitalize the Rahi Beasts guide for ages.

 

The first edition of the Encyclopedia is no great loss, I'd say. True, it might be interesting to compare it with its successor, but basically all the information of the first edition is in the Encylopedia Updated.

 

I have all the guides you are missing. I really don't have the time to transcribe them, though, at least not in the near future. Eventually, I suppose I could get around to it, if someone else doesn't do it first.

You could just take pictures of the book pages and share those, and others could then aid with the transcription. Having the pages themselves is the important first step - transcription itself takes a lot of time.

been working on a story update for biomedia and part of that is adding the books - i think ive sourced most of these from them same places you have, but i also seem to have found dark hunters somewhere. enjoy!

That is fantastic, thank you for sharing! I'll add it to the list.

A lot of Bionicle media has become available online recently, but I noticed that the guide books have been conspicuously absent in this regard. That's why I decided to start creating digital copies of some of them. The goal is not only to provide PDF's of the guide books to preserve them, but also to convert the text of each of them into word documents. This text might even be used someday to compile an ultimate Bionicle guide of sorts, who knows.
 
I can't do all of this myself though, since it takes a lot of time, and I don't own all of the guides. If you have any of the missing guide books or are interested in helping with the scanning or transcription process, it would be greatly appreciated!
 
The Official Guide to Bionicle (2003)
PDF
Word
 
Unmasked (2003)
Book missing
 
Metru Nui - City of Legends (2004)
PDF
Word
 
Unmasked 2 (2004)
Book missing
 
Rahi Beasts (2005)
PDF

Word
 
Encyclopedia (2005)
Book missing
 
Dark Hunters (2006)

PDF

(Word version in process of being transcripted)
 
Encyclopedia Updated (2007)
PDF
(Word version in process of being transcripted)
 
World (2007)
PDF
 
Makuta's Guide to the Universe (2008)
PDF
Word
 
Mata Nui's Guide to Bara Magna (2009)
(PDF under construction)
 
The Legend Reborn Official Movie Guide (2009)
PDF
 
Style Guides & behind-the-scenes material
Bionicle Style Guide 2003
Bionicle Synopsis 2003
Excerpts from the Bionicle Manual of Style 2004
Bionicle section in Brick by Brick (incomplete)

I was using the chapter numbers from the text-only version, without realizing they were different from the other versions... sorry for the confusion.

By the way, in "He walked on toward the outskirts of the treetop town" the "He" should probably be changed to Onua, since it would be the start of a new chapter.

I have to say I like Planetperson's idea the best. It would mean minimal editing of the source material, while removing the contradiction. Of course, it would also make chapter 10 really short, but that could be amended by combining chapters 10 and 11 and placing it after New Invention Saves Onu-Koro (I think that order would make the most sense). That would mean a lot of editing, which is probably a pain to do, but I suppose leaving the chapters separate wouldn't be THAT bad either.

EDIT: Ninja'd.

I don't think it would be necessary to omit the part about Onua being worried. Surely he could already be concerned at that point, but only upon discovering the mask become aware of actual danger?

Thank you for sharing them! I've been curious about the content of this book for years.

Any chance those scans could be made public?

I'm not contesting that, my point is that whatever story ideas he would've introduced, they would never have reached a conclusion. Sooner or later Greg would stop writing the serials, and then the story would be left in the middle of, for example, the civil war you mentioned.

In all honesty, it's very doubtful the loose ends in the serials would ever have been resolved even if the serials continued longer than they did. Or rather, some things would've been resolved, but a dozen other plot threads would've been opened and left unfinished. Greg didn't plan anything ahead with the serials, and just kept going according to his whim. Contrary to what has been stated here, nothing was actually "hinted at", because Greg had no idea where he would take the stories he was writing. That inevitably makes any future "revelations" less impactful, since we would know them to be spur-of-the-moment decisions.

You're better off ignoring most of the serials.

 

"a giant wave that she had called forth only a moment before" - This contradicts Makuta's Revenge, where it's shown that Gali was trying to calm naturally-forming tides. I've changed 'had called forth' to 'could have stopped'

I'll just point out here that the text is actually from the Style Guide, not Makuta's Revenge. But the change you made is good.

By the way, I have one thing to point out from book 1:

Page 11: “So this is what I am meant to do”, she thought. “I am here to command the seas. But for what purpose?” - should be in italics

This topic has links to a ton of old Bionicle games that fans put up.

 

And previously, Tren Krom had spoken out loud, not telepathically (the sound of his voice is referenced).

In that case there's a story contradiction in Reign of Shadows, cause Lewa is only able to speak telepathically when he's in Tren Krom's body.

By the way, here are the errors I mentioned I found in Book 1:

Page 3: "for the Toa did appear on the shore of the island" - "shore" should be "shores"

Page 4: "Why - can't - I - REMEMBER?" He howled - "He" should not be capitalized, even though it is in the original text

Page 8: "It was me!" Lewa breathed in amazement. "I did it. The wind answers to me!" - the three indicated parts should be in italics

Page 9: "Dig, pull scrape, push. Dig, pull scrape, push." - should be in italics

Just a few replies:

Teridax detecting Alt-Teridax - This seems excusable to me: Teridax becomes aware of Alt-Teridax, then sends minions to find him. Then when they find Mazeka and Alt-Terry and Terry's made aware of their location, he confronts them

It makes sense from a story perspective, yes, but less so from a narrative perspective.

Tren Krom's bold/italics "thoughts" - This seems very intentional on Greg's part, and we haven't seen him use telepathy for words before this (only normal speech), so it's not inconsistent with anything prior.

Actually, telepathy for words has been used many times, including with the Morbuzakh. However, quotation marks seem to have been used in those cases. Therefore it would create consistency to change the Tren Krom exchanges to be the same, especially since that's how his communication is handled in the 2008 serials. My point being that since this is the only time boldened letters are used anywhere in the compilation, it sticks out really akwardly.