Planetperson

I included it there as foreshadowing, since it doesn't actually say anything specific about what happened, just that something has gone horribly wrong. I feel like this doesn't really spoil anything, since the ending of Destiny War already suggests that victory may be an illusion. I'm open to moving it if other people agree it should be later, though. I liked it that way.

We all do. But it's wishful thinking at best.

For starters, get rid of story-breaking alternate universes. Ugh.

What were they thinking with the squid launchers... I mean, I really want to know how that design meeting went. Designer 1: I made a new launcher. Designer 2: What does it shoot? Designer 1: Squids. Designer 2: How does it work? Designer 1: ** Puts rubber squid in launcher, pulls back, lets go. Squid head gets stuck. Squid goes nowhere. Designer tries again five more times. Squid flops onto the floor. ** Designer 2: It's perfect. Ship it.

I actually hadn't seen it either until someone mentioned it here! I assume that stanza refers to Voya Nui being "divided" from the MU, and how "cutting" the Cord will allow it to return. Right, and the "darkness" presumably refers to the Pit, aka black water. The poem looks great. I still like the longer names better, but I was thinking about the title "Venom" for Book 5, and "Mutation" might work better. Especially since that's a theme in BA6. I think "Sacrifice" is bit too spoilery for Book 7.

Congrats on making the front page! On the topic of all this Ignition stuff... another thing you might include is the poem from Piraka.com near the beginning of Book 6. That actually turned out to be a pretty important teaser. About the title "Ignition" -- I know that, behind the scenes, it was originally meant to refer to the Toa Inika/Mahri's mission to revive Mata Nui, before the story team moved the awakening of Mata Nui up to 08. However, after the fact, I always thought it was still meant to apply to the Toa Nuva's awakening of Mata Nui. After all, the comics were still titled "Ignition" for that year, and the narration of the final battle animation also seems to indicate this. The new ending of Book 8 is really good. Hm, I see your point about the single-word names and not wanting to be too specific. The other side of the argument is that if they aren't specific enough, there isn't much point in naming the books. The other extreme is not to name them at all (just call them Book 1, Book2, etc.). My rule of thumb is that if a title could just as easily be applied to another book, then it doesn't work. Opinions on names: 2. I don't like "Makuta's Revenge," since Makuta doesn't even appear in the book. I think it also spoils the fact that he makes a resurgence later. "What Lurks Below" could easily apply to several other books. "Secret of the Swarms" is not bad. 3. I'm partial to "Mask of Light." It's the most obvious choice. I also like "The Seventh Toa." I don't think it spoils too much. If you want something else, how about "Sons of Makuta"? That's arguably even more spoilery though. 5. Could also be called "The Great Rescue," but that doesn't fit the dark tone. For one-word titles, in place of Hordika I would suggest something like "Beasts," "Mutation," or "Ruin." 7. I think referring to the Pit is the most descriptive option, so I still like "Prisoners of the Pit." I think "Ignition" is slippery because it was used for the whole 06-08 comic series. It's the same reason that "Mask of Life" doesn't work for any of the books. 8. I don't like "The Final Battle"; it's too generic and not even accurate. "Destiny War" is also generic. I would be pretty happy with "The Rising." Other ideas: "The Core of the Universe," "Shadows in the Sky," etc.

Ok, I haven't re-read them in a while, so I'll take your word for it Comic 1 is good at the beginning Ok Fair enough. My personal preference is not to make up new names but to use what exists to the best effect possible.

Nice! Quick comments: Moving Secret of Certavus later is probably for the bestHard to say without seeing it first, but the Crossing sounds like an excellent thing to start things off withIs there a way you could put some Skrall chapters in the middle of Crossing, for variety's sake? I don't remember if the chronology works or not. I like it when you switch between different sources in the other books; it reads more like a novel then.I think not putting Skrall Ch. 1 directly after Comic 1 is a missed opportunityI think it's better to spread out Makuta's Diary if possible, assuming the chronology allows it. I would recommend pairing them up with the chapters of Reign and Takanuva's Blog that are scattered elsewhere; I think that would make good use of those thematic shifts.Can't believe I didn't think of this before -- do you want to include stuff from the Mata Nui Saga slideshow too? I don't think many other sources talk about his mission through space very much. For example, the parts that talk about his mission might work well after All Our Sins Remembered.Also, did you want to keep the current titles for the books? They seem a bit generic to me. But, that's just my personal opinion, of course. It also seems strange that "Hordika" is the only non-English word used as a title. If it were up to me, I'd pick more specific (if unimaginative) names: Quest for the Masks The Bohrok Swarms Mask of Light City of Legends Web of Shadows Island of Doom Prisoners of the Pit Ignition Journey's End EpilogueActually, it might be a fun exercise to compile the taglines for the various story years and see if they can be shown tastefully somewhere. You know, like "If you wake one, you wake them all," "surrender or run," and so on. Not "the gang is on the loose" though. Please not that. ...thoughts on including the Piraka rap lyrics as a chapter in Book 6?

Woah, that was fast! Thank you for all the hard work you put into this. Edit: Thank you for replacing "mercury" with "protodermis" in MoL.

I agree, from what I remember, they have a lot of introspection which is not written anywhere else. The Makuta diary entries would be a good addition. @Toatapio Nuva, would you be willing to release the text of the books you typed up in a word doc somewhere?

This is so much better. 2009 is a tricky one, because as the story progressed more and more, we learned about events further and further back in time. That was true about the story at large scale too. Also, I had exactly the same thought about Secret of Certavus, but I'm not sure where to put it. Since Berix and Gresh are introduced in comic 1, putting Certavus after comic 1 with the caption "Earlier" might work... but the transition from comic 1 to Empire 1 works so well... If you just put something before Certavus so that it's not the very first thing to introduce Bara Magna, that would be great. I thought some of the text from the website might help, but I don't think it flows that well. https://web.archive.org/web/20090311164821/http://bionicle.lego.com:80/en-US/story/mistika/baramagna.aspx Did you include any of the diary entries from Mata Nui's Guide to Bara Magna or Makuta's Guide to the Universe? Mata Nui's first diary entry would be great, since it shows him still traveling through space, which is where 2008 left off.

Really brings back that 2001 vibe.

I'd buy that.

Thanks for the update! Book 1, p. 5: Missing period: "I must turn back" I bet the clone stamp tool would help with covering the page numbers.

I did like the Kal. I understand the gripes about the sets being clones, but I thought their exotic powers and the drama of the Toa Nuva losing their own powers were very interesting. The ending of that little arc was a nice twist.

Hey, planetperson, would you mind sharing some links to the archives where you've found these summaries? Thank you! Sure. http://web.archive.org/web/20091201112928/http://bionicle.lego.com:80/en-us/story/mistika/1matanui.aspx FYI, the "fouth" typo is in the Search for the Mask of Light, under the panel where Whenua says "Go to Ga-Metru and find the fouth Makoki stone!" I'm pretty sure that's a typo in the original. The missing period is where Vakama says, "No, it is far more than that It is... a reminder."

It's the scene where Jala's broken mask is replaced with Lhikan's, so it should be "Jala." Shoot, wish I'd known. That's why those pages look so good. Did they give you PDFs? The animations have more detail. Take the incident with Pohatu Nuva and the Mahi, for example.Decadence might work at the beginning of 2010, too. I'd prefer The Exile's Tale be moved away from the beginning too. Can you color over the page numbers in the Level 3 readers? Also, the lines caused by the spine of the book don't look good. Can I suggest covering it with a black or white bar, separating them like panels in a comic? Book 9, pp. 246 and 256 are blank. It might be appropriate to include some of the story summaries from bionicle.com. The fall of Tajun comes to mind. I don't think the actual battle is described anywhere else.

A word doc just containing the original text of the novels would be perfect! To be honest, I don't have anything specific in mind for them yet, but I work with computers and text for a living. I can think of a couple fun applications: you could use it to make a program that generates text that sounds like Greg's writing style, or try to summarize the novels automatically. The possibilities are endless, the hard part is just getting the words into the computer. Nice, looks good. I encourage you to include it. It's a nice teaser for the next book. Revealing the existence of past Toa through the intro to Mystery of Metru Nui takes away all of its intended impact. Woah, I never noticed there was an extra panel in Volume 1. That's interesting! I checked, and it doesn't look like the digital versions include that panel. Maybe you could Photoshop the lightness and contrast of the scan a bit so it looks less jarring. (Sorry to hold you to such high standards, but you set the bar so high. ) Ah, so you replaced "Jaller" with "Jala," "Pewku" with "Puku" and so on? I remember seeing "Jaller" used at the end of LoMN. Should that have been changed to Jala? Well, it was written in 2006. In real life, we didn't explore the time between 2005 and 2001 until after 2005 was done. However, it does include Matoran characters from MNOG2, so that makes it flow sort of nicely. Otherwise, it just seems randomly tacked on to the end of 2003 for no reason. If it's at the end of 2005, then at least it sort of goes in chronological order as we work our way back to the present. Also, I'm surprised at how amazingly good of an intro "Hope" is to 2006. I was never a big fan of the story, but here it works pretty well. Just throwing something out there. I know there's not a lot of text to work with. Ok Never mind, you included it. Sorry, I skimmed through this pretty quickly. On this note, do you have scans of the 2004 Lunchables comics by chance? The ones currently available are so bad... Ok I'm not familiar with the Comixology releases. What are those? It's good. It might be possible to trim down the number of panels in some places. Would you consider including the Templar flash animations for 2002? One crazy idea is to put the Core War stuff in middle of the Legend Reborn, right after one of the scenes where the Glatorian are disparaging the Great Beings. I encourage you to move Skrall later. Unlike other story years, I think 2009 needs to start in the present day, since 2008 was left on a cliffhanger.Something I randomly noticed in "No One Gets Left Behind"... can you use the word "grizzled" to describe a Toa? It refers to having gray hair...

WOW I'm just starting to look through the PDFs. Everything looks really clean and thoughtfully organized. I love the chapter logos! The text and comics are beautifully interwoven. I'm almost afraid to ask, but how long did it take Toatapio Nuva to type up the chapter books? Also, would he consider releasing those texts in a format that's easy to read into a program, like a word document or HTML file? PDF is okay but not ideal. That would be an invaluable resource. Where did you get those beautiful scans of Challenge of the Rahi? EDIT: Typo on Book 3, p. 127: "she arrives a set of stairs" -> "she arrives at a set of stairs" EDIT: Did you mean to leave out the last page of comic 15 at the end of Book 3? The iconic "You are not the first Toa" scene has been left out. I think it works much better if you leave it in. Editing as I find more things... The comic scan on p. 87 of Book 1 is a bit dark and blurry. Couldn't you use the PDF from the From the Vaults CD?The way you combined the telling of the transformation of the Toa Metru is clever. FYI, the two intro scenes with Kapura, then Ahkmou and Nidhiki, come after Toa Lhikan's capture chronologically. But maybe you did that intentionally for the sake of flow. Oh, and thank you for replacing "kolhii" with "akilini." If you want to be super correct, I think akilini is supposed to be lower case.Would it make more sense to move "Tentacles" to the end of 2005?Idea for an alternate version: The "original" version of the 2001 story. That is, the Toa get their golden masks from their suva as shown in MNOG and the card game, and the Toa Kaita vs. Manas battle takes place as shown in the Legend of Mata Nui game. Possibly incorporate the text from the Quest for the Masks story cards.Page 120 of Book 2 is blank.Wow, you even edited the numbers in the comic titles? FYI, the end of Enemies of Metru Nui still says "End Chapter Four."Could you somehow incorporate the extra promo pages from comic 8, seen here?Book 4, p. 163: Could you clip off the yellow box with the blurb about graphic novel 4?Book 5, bottom of p. 41: Missing period.General comment on the comics from the first series: It looks like you scanned these from the graphic novels. Were you aware that comic 1-27 have good quality PDFs? Did you have a reason for not using them?Oh boy, I just got to the Search for the Mask of Light panels. Brilliant!Book 5, p. 216: fouth -> fourthBook 6, p. 216: Wrong font.Book 6, p. 218: Just call me 'Grey'" <- the double quote is the wrong way. There are more errors like this in the chapter.Book 7, p. 13: Should "Now" be bold?I don't think "Decadence" should be first in Book 9. It reveals way too much about the history of Bara Magna and Spherus Magna too early in the story. I think a better place would be just after All Our Sins Remembered. I also think Fall and Rise of the Skrall should go somewhere around the first time the baterra are mentioned in Empire of the Skrall. Sigh... I didn't want to sleep tonight anyway... Thank you tremendously for all of the hard work you poured into this!

I agree with pretty much everything you said. The 05 playsets are okay. They have some neat functions, really cool recolors (gold and silver Toa Mata heads!), and I like the modular system of the buildings. Those things were smart. The 06 and 07 playsets, on the other hand, are disasters design-wise. Do any of the creatures actually look like anything? It's usually just a mess of legs, tentacles, zamor spheres, and Takanuva staffs. I totally agree about the Rode and Olmak masks. I mean, using Rode masks as catapult scoops? That's almost as bad as giving Makuta Avohkii hands. Overall, I wish LEGO had converted their bid on playsets into more effort on the constraction sets.

I've got it in a couple different copies of "The Legend of Mata Nui" booklet. The totem part is mentioned offhand in the description of the Kanohi, and the ice skating was either in Nokama or Nuju's bio. I'd offer some pictures, but I'm afraid I won't have access to my lego stuff again until december. What is "The Legend of Mata Nui" booklet?

Oh yeah, I remember those bios! They were also in the story booklet that came with the quest for the masks theme decks, alongside some other early material that mentioned stuff like nuju and nokama ice skating together on lake naho in the winter, and the toa having totems for their masks instead of the suva shrines. It's weird that all that info was considered official enough to publish at one point, only to be quietly set aside and retconned not too much later. Things like that and Greg mentioning recently that the original story bible had the toa do some kind of dance whenever they found a mask really make me wish we knew more about the earlier stages of Bionicle's development. I have the QftM card booklets, but I've never heard about the skating and totem stuff. Where did that come from? Reminds me of the world design for BIONICLE: The Game.

I think the question is why he was forgiven after the sell of infected Kodan Balls. The Turaga probably forgave his actions on Metru Nui because they thought he had lost his memories of them (or perhaps because they didn't think them serious enough to warrant banishment; Ahkmou, did, albeit reluctantly, tell them where to find the Po-Metru Great Disk and he did form the Matoran Nui to help them in the Great Furnace). We don't know much about Ahkmou's activities in the following 1000 years. At some point, he tried to swindle Matoran by selling them "lucky Ghekula", but Turaga Onewa probably decided that this wasn't serious enough to warrant banishment. According to BS01, Onewa eventually realized that Ahkmou knew about Metru Nui and sternly told him not to reveal anything. To be honest, I can't find evidence of this in any storyline source; in any case, we don't know the extent of Ahkmou's knowledge (remember, he did lose his memories; what he knew of Metru Nui was revealed to him by Makuta, whose account most likely contained more lies than truth), nor if Onewa realized just how much information Ahkmou possessed (was he aware, for instance, of his actions during the search for the Great Disks? Onewa probably wasn't sure and neither are we, since we don't know whether Makuta told him about it). Ahkmou's true allegiance became clear only after the sale of the infected Kolhii balls. He disappeared for some time after that ("Gone fishing", apparently), but later chose to return. The real question is why he wasn't banished after this. Maybe, as Vakama said, the Turaga wanted to keep an eye on him, or else Ahkmou managed to convince them that he regretted what he had done and was no longer in league with Makuta (again, it might be true; the fact that he didn't misbehave again until Makuta took over the MU and named him leader of Metru Nui might imply that, after the Kolhii ball sale, he lost contact with the master of shadows for some time). I don't think there was any reason to banish him after the tales of Metru Nui were told. Some Matoran might have demanded it, but nothing had really changed; the Turaga had remembered his actions in Metru Nui all along and undoubtedly took them into account when deciding not to banish him after the infected Kolhii ball sale; the only difference between before and after the recounting of the tales of Metru Nui was that more people were aware of Ahkmou's treachery. Welp, that pretty much answers it, eh? I seem to remember the stuff about Onewa warning Ahkmou not to reveal information about Metru Nui coming from the OGD.

Hm, I don't remember them being there, but maybe I missed it. Does anyone else remember seeing them on bionicle.com?

This is something I've been curious about for a long time. We know that each type of kraata for the six Rahkshi released as 2003 sets has its own name: Kraata-Za, Kraata-Xi, Kraata-Ul, etc. As far as I know, the BIONICLE Encyclopedia is the only official source that lists these names. However, I remember that BS01, in its pre-wiki days, listed these names long before the encyclopedia came out. My question is, where did we actually first learn the names of the kraata?