emily

I checked with the BMPeople, and it sounds like its on the agenda for next week.

You can read all the books over here. The interact with the serials a bit, but you could totally read through the books all the way and then go back to the serials to fill in the blanks, if you aren't able to find a list anywhere. Nothing beyond what you've listed is considered fully canon, but there's definitely other stuff out there that might be worth your time. A lot of folks say the Mata Nui online game is the definitive Bionicle experience.

Thank you! I think you're right that they probably definitely intended for all of Makuta to be pulled into the Shadow Realm in Journey to One. But I figured since Gali had that body/mind separation thing going on, that might be a fun angle to jump off of as a 'what if.'

I feel like Umarak was super underused as a character in Journey to One. Some weird ancient deer spirit that's working for Makuta for some reason? That's really darn cool! But how did he come to work for Makuta? Why? I wish they had gone into more detail about how the whole situation came about. So, uh, that's what I wanted to do with this story. Enjoy I guess! No More Shadows Stillness hung in the air like a sound of its own. The far-off lapping of waves against the shore were the only echoes of things once heard. No bird called out, no leaves rustled in the wind. The jungle held its breath, and waited. An age passed. Was it safe? Slowly, timorously, the creature inched from its refuge in the brush. Gently, silently, it set its foottip into the open. Minutes passed. Nothing. It was safe. The creature scuttled into the open, its translucent insectoid wings shimmering as rays of light gently bounced off of it. A breeze floated through the clearing. Birds began once again to sing. The creature buzzed up to the branches of a tall tree and began inspecting the fruit. A bolt of darkness shot out of nowhere, striking the creature and sending it tumbling back to earth. Before it could recover, another bolt struck it, then another. A towering, antlered figure grew out of the shadow of a tree, moving quickly toward its prey. A shift in the wind. A change in the trees. A root snaked into the Hunter’s path unnoticed, catching his clawed foot and sending him face first into the ground. The creature, already freed from the dark energy it had been struck by, flew at impossible speed to the furthest reaches of the jungle, far away from the danger. So close. Umarak sat and stared at the spot the creature had lay prone moments before. So close. It had been this way for so long. Six Creatures of the elements to hunt, one Hunter to track them. But every time – every time – he was outsmarted in the end. After a long while, he rose. He wandered the shadows aimlessly, as he often did on days like these. Had this always been his life? Had he fought in futility since the dawn of time? Umarak could no longer recall his own past. All he knew was the hunt – tiresome and endless. There had been a shift. He had felt it from within the island. Six new bearers of the elements had fallen from the stars. They had reclaimed the ancient city built upon the Creatures’ sacred Light temple. Okotans from all over were migrating to the site. Umarak knew that it was only a matter of time before the new elemental avatars sought out the old ones – the Creatures. And together, they would be unstoppable. After countless ages, Umarak was finally running out of time. So consumed was he by these thoughts that he did not sense the fault in the earth on his path. The ground suddenly gave way beneath his feet, sending him sliding into a hidden cave. Above, earth continued to fall, opening up a wide hole that cast dim light onto the sight that lay before him. Grand, angular arches and pillars carved an entryway into the rock. A light shone out from a square window carved above the entrance. It looked like a tomb, but Umarak had no memory of this place. He approached the sealed doorway and seeped inside as a shadow. The golden light from the window was discernable in here too, if only barely. He followed it deeper into the labyrinth. Gaunt hallways stretched deep into the earth, until finally, Umarak came to a chamber housing the source of the light - a tarnished sarcophagus. It was carved with the visage of a horned, glowering mask of worn gold. The grave was surrounded by masks and other riches – vases, cogs and pistons, rare crystals. Mounted on the wall was a hammer that shone dim purple. As Umarak approached the sarcophagus, a voice emanated from the walls. Umarak… Shadow Hunter… your time is running out... Umarak started. He had not sensed the presence of another spirit here. He still did not. And yet, the voice persisted. There is still time. YOU still have time. But if you are to capture the Creatures, you will need my power. “I need no power but my own!” Umarak snarled. “You know nothing of me!” I know EVERYTHING about you. Umarak, the lone shadow in a realm of light. You have forgotten your past. You have forgotten your home. “I have forgotten nothing!” The words were hollow. He began to step back, unnerved by this intelligence that knew so much more than it should. There is a Realm of Shadow. Parallel to this Realm you now dwell in. It was your home. It could be again. A Shadow Realm? The Hunter’s mind was reeling. Memories – vague, incomplete – of a happier world, a happier life, trickled into recollection. He needed more. “What do you want? How do I get to this Shadow Realm? Who are you?” Once, I forged a mask of unparalleled power. It could open a gate between the realms. But the mask was shattered by my traitorous brother. He separated my body from my spirit. My body is here, buried safely away by my faithful followers. But my spirit is caught loose, trapped in the Shadow Realm with no body to give it shape. And so I haunt this tomb, waiting for the one who will resurrect me. “You want your body back. And in return, you will grant me passage to the Shadow Realm?” I will do you better. To be freed, my old mask must first be returned to my body. The Mask of Control. It has been hidden away by the Elemental Creatures. You must capture them, and force them to grant you a vision of the mask’s location. Something flickered in the corner of Umarak’s eye. He looked to the back of the room. Out of a vase, a formless blob of matter floated to him. It began to twist and harden into a metallic shape. A great snapping trap, legs sprouting from its base. It crackled with energy at its sharp jaws, then abruptly melted away, shooting rapidly towards Umarak. With a blink, the energy was gone, leaving nothing but a small gaping maw on the Hunter’s chest. My gift to you. Now you may summon the traps wherever you wish. They will hold the Creatures, and keep them from escaping you. Find them. Find my mask. Bring it to me. Then all will be as it should. --- As he departed, Umarak noticed the name carved above the arched entrance: Makuta. It was not a name he knew. But so many Okotans had come and gone through the millennia. He did not trust this Makuta, but he did not need to. Now that the spirit had recklessly imparted on him the location of its Mask of Control, and the tools he needed to reach it, it would be trivial to claim the mask for himself. He would finally capture the Creatures. He would take control of the Makuta with its own mask, forcing it to reveal the locations of the shattered parts of the gate-opening mask. Then he would be free of this wretched life on the island. He would return to the Shadow Realm. Home. He tested his new powers. His bow now cast the mobile traps, small but powerful. Snapping open and shut with eagerness, they scuttled quickly across the tangled jungle floor and latched powerfully onto roots and branches. They would be enough. It was time to set out to hunt. One last time.

I actually played this. Its nothing to write home about; you just run around a roblox-y city with a roblox-y model of the hero factory in the middle, collect six randomly spawned thingies, and you win. I think you could shoot the opposing team and it respawned you at some spawn point. Teams were made up entirely of voltixes and stringers.

There's definitely a bit of pahrak shield in there too, but it does look like they might have based it on the symbol. I wouldn't read too much into it; they probably just needed a shield design and took inspiration from something that was the right shape. Makes it 'bionicle-y' and stuff.

Awesome! Never knew about those Heroes demo cds. Didn't get 'em with Lego magazine in the US. Thanks for compiling everything for download.

Really great to have this resource, thanks so much! Do you have any plans to implement a search feature? It'd help a lot with digging out specific quotes.

Backlot was made by Templar before much was finalized about Takua, so he has that early color scheme and goes by the pre-Takua name they used to identify the MNOG protagonist.

Nice! Super cool to see this, looking forward to anything else you dig up.

Hey, these are really spiffy! Thanks for putting them together.

As far as I know the individual Mistika videos were only ever embedded in that flash object on the Bionicle.com homepage - the Wayback archive doesn't play it correctly and even if it did I'm not sure how you'd go about locating the actual video.

Tony did the commercials (and then shorts) 2006-on, excepting the piraka who had their own unique "hip" dude to narrate. 2001-5 had a different guy that I know I've heard the name of before but can't remember for the life of me. The glatorian commercials also had a unique narrator, but it went back to Tony for Glatorian Legends.

If you use any of the download versions of the game, the issue with the flute shouldn't present itself. I don't actually know why that is, but there you go.

Nah, he didn't. That's, uh, kind of what I said. He does get mentioned in the Mask of Light ones, but no actual appearances.

Worth noting, that matoran being Kapura was a retcon by Greg because fans asked him. The comic itself just presents it as a random villager. His colors don't match at all. Bionicle: the Game actually says the matoran is Takua, lol. Obviously it isn't supposed to be him though.

Does the loss of posts/content due to the 'dataclysm' account for that? Maybe. I don't remember what time period exactly the dataclysm covered but I guess it would mean Wayback would have had significantly less time to archive certain topics. Actual edit: Thanks to the link in Toatapio's doc I could pull up this! So yeah, 2007. I guess the big thing I was thinking of was the second version.

Huh, was it really 07? I thought it was 08 but it might be that it just took til then for me to see it. Never been much of an S&T dude. fake edit: I'm able to find a few wrong theories well into 2008, but unfortunately WayBack's coverage of the S&T forum index cuts off at the end of June and doesn't pick up again until December, after the reveal. So either not everyone was taking the theory seriously (maybe that's possible, I remember it being really groundbreaking though), or it got posted in that time period without coverage and got buried by 2009 theories by December. Also, that video mentioned in the big red notice in the second link is this one that kind of threw the whole game, and I feel like I remember that coming out before the theory was posted. idk

The Metru were what the comics were based on. Upon review, it looked like Nokama and Whenua had slightly different builds than the others. The only image I could find with those two was a group shot with the rest, with Krekka looming over them. http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/bonesiii/Bionicle/prototype_krekka.bmp He was symmetrical at some point, it seems. Biosector says that's Krekka without a source but it's just as (if not more) likely that it's a Vahki mockup, especially considering a Vahki is what's there in the final image. This is a pretty complete archive of prototypes we have pictures of. None of the stuff you're asking for is in there I don't think, unfortunately.

The simplified (one-color) nature of the print, and just the fact that nothing like this has really come up before afaik, makes me think this is probably from some kind of bootleg. Without more info it's impossible to say for sure, I think.

Hopefully someone has an .apk saved somewhere, but the best I can point you toward is a download of the original version of the game for desktop. Because it's an outdated version, it doesn't have any of the stuff with the Mask Makers City and the gameplay is a little different. But it's something at least!

Kinda, but when you consider they were released June '01 in the US it makes more sense that they would keep them on shelves until the Nuva debuted mid-02. Part of the pitch for the Bohrok, in fact, was that they complimented the existing sets instead of replacing them.

way ahead of you, pal

Thanks to the Bionicle team for putting this together and thanks BZP for hosting it! Really nice tribute to the line and its creators' dedication.

I had the hardcovers of both, but they were both from eBay. I wasn't able to save up enough money for Makuta's guide before it sold out on Shop at Home. While the hardcovers are nice, what I do like about the softcovers was that they matched the proportions of the previous guides from Scholastic and fit with them quite well on a shelf - props to Papercutz for that.