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bonesiii

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  1. bonesiii
    Today marks the third theory to recieve this award, so I thought this would be a good time to post a blog entry about it. The following is what is posted in the topic for any theory that wins this new award:

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------



    Disclaimer: The Gold Key to Nongu Award does not certify theory accuracy. The sponsor of the Gold Key to Nongu Award does not neccessarily endorse and/or oppose said theory. The sponsor of the Gold Key to Nongu Award remains ignorant of the exact meaning of the word "Nongu." The originator of the term "Nongu" may or may not be insane. Not available in some domes, void where prohibited.

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Key to Nongu award is something I've been meaning to create in some form for years, as far back as when Ninjo was still active, but I never got around to it. Recently I decided again to make it, but for a while there were no theories that struck me as really qualifying (though I don't catch every theory, to be fair).

    However, in the past two weeks S&T has burst to life again, and really right now it feels like just about everything is coming together in theories. They might not end up being right, but they are still great theories (and a few have proven at least partly right!). So they deserve some sort of formal recognition. As such, this award has now been formed, and will be awarded to whomever I see fit in the future as well.

    If you haven't already read the topics, check out the blog sidebar list of winners!


    Please use comments in this blog entry to nominate theories for this award, post questions, comments, etc.
  2. bonesiii
    Hey yall, still undead.
     
    So, just thought I should let yall know wuzzup with me and stuff. The whole downtime thing threw most of my plans out the window. I had planned to work on an updated version of The Map of Mata Nui, tying up loose ends, but that got delayed by a lot of work being required by me to get us back up on the new forum, and now that we're back I've got plenty else to do like the contests and stuff.
     
    I did have time to finish the next BP epic, Endless Blue, however, and hope to get posting it before the new year.
     
    It turned out to be by far my longest and most complex work. It's split into Five Parts, each ten chapters long, with a rough average of sixteen pages in Word per chapter, plus prologue and epilogue. Its main protagonist is of course Bhukasa, the reptilian sea captain, as previously announced, and also has four other main threads, including Lewa. In addition, each Part has at least one extra side protagonist for the duration of its ten chapters, so it's sort of a series of short epics instead of just one epic (though I'll use one topic for it ). PLUS a handful of side-character POVs where plot calls for it.
     
    Included in the story is a new science fiction concept with a nod towards LOST; you'll have to read to find out what, though.
     
    Also got a fair way into the next story, which is now titled The Perfect Cage, whose main protagonist is Onua. I'll go almost the opposite route here; it will have only three Protagonists, including Kopaka, and the Ko-fisherwoman Nijire. No other POV sections at all.
     
    After that I'll post what I'm probably now going to title "Falling Sun" -- the single-protagonist story that's already written which I've mentioned. I've been debating what to do with it now that I've compressed the plans for the remainder of the Paracosmos, because the protagonist sees Kuambu in it, and now that's too soon to reveal their appearance. I think I've got a simple solution to edit in, though, which makes sense based on precedent in EB.
     
    Also tried out a month membership on LEGO Universe, loved it.
     
    Details (quoted from PM to Gatanui for his list of BZP members playing):
     
    Might as well include my brother's in this (Ojhilom), although the arrangement on the table of who is who's main doesn't really fit for us. I paid for a month membership last month, and plan to get a six month starting in mid-December, but he has a free-to-play under his LEGO ID we both use too. Anyways:
     
    BZP name: bonesiii
    Minifigs:
    bonesiii (my main, when membership is on) -- Assembly
    FriendlyPlasmaFoghorn (Ojhilom's main, when membership is on) -- Sentinel
    Parallelodox -- Paradox
    Radventurer -- Venture League
    Overbuild, paying
     
    BZP name: Ojhilom
    Minifig name: AdeptCurlyPixel (main) -- overbuild, free
     
    As bonesiii I typically wear orange, faction colors and my fave. With white as the helmet. Just before it ran out I got my Summoner's Valiant cape and the Skull helmet, plus the Valiant weapons for Assembly (I especially like the sawblades one). I also like to include purple to match the Maelstrom staff when collecting items, and I've got one of the Ninjago rice hats and the Thought Hood (the purple one with the spear attack). So if you see anybody looking like that it's probably me.
     
    Also have a public property on the Block Yard, called the Skull Star Vale. Check it out; it's got a few original MOCs and is based around a Maelstrom-themed mystery riddle. Stromlings to fight too. (You have to be a member to type the riddle answer, though.)
     
    Before membership ran out I bought a bunch of bricks for my plans for a cool property for Parallelodox, and I've tested the plans in LDD. Will have a bunch of original MOCs, based on a theme from Crux Prime, Maelstrom related. You'll have to wait to see what it is. (Probably won't get it done until after the new year.)
     
    Anywho, back to BZP updates, for those curious:
     
    -S&T Contest -- unless I find unexpected problems with this I plan to treat the current poll results as final. It's just been too long to remake them, and they were up for a good amount of time. But don't take that as a final answer, per se; I need to look through it.
     
    -Shard Moons Contest -- Will continue this soonishish, where we left off. Entries already in will still be in, and I'll allow another few months or so for entries. It's unofficial so there's no rush, so yeah.
     
    -New rules in Art -- we're still working on some of the details as far as all four art forums go, though, so patience is asked there. But yeah, for now, Gen. Art and Kits has some changes to check out. (Yall probably already know though. Just for the record. )
     
    -BRC -- I had gotten a lot of work on remaking this done, and then a step in the updating erased it, and I just haven't gotten back to it. Regardless, the old content is all still there on the archived forum. It'll get copied over eventually.
     
    -Story Squad -- As far as we know, we're still in operation, so we can consider new requests. However, we're waiting to move farther on old or new requests until we know Greg's intentions for the team now. Stand by on that.
     
    -Multiverse Cipher Chronicles -- The next episode is written, and it appears the guest writer will be available to post it (if not, one of the leaders will). First I will need to do some art for it, but then hopefully we can get it up soon.
     
    -Other Multiverse Stuff -- We need a new Discussion topic, story links topic, etc. I know. On the to-do list. Also, last I heard, Freewebs (or "Webs" now) was nuking all of their wikis, including ours. I have a saved backup of it, but not sure what/if we'll do anything like it again.
     
    -Dreaded Real Life -- For my paper delivery job, I need to update our maps very badly for various reasons, which I intend to do this week, so sorry but that will delay everything.
     
    -Paracosmos in General -- I am strongly considering eventually/soonishishishishish starting to repost all my old stories, reformatted. When I started out I used massive paragraphs, very hard to read, for example, and various other things could be improved. I'll also likely repost the collection topic when I launch EB, but really not sure at this time when that might be. And yes, I'm aware the link to the Map of Mata Nui isn't working; if my plans to publish a finalized version take too long, I may make an old one available again soon.
     
    -Vain hopes to soonishishishishishishish open an avatar shop -- Since I'm moderating the forum now, I thought I'd give it a whirl since I often get requests anyways. We'll see. Won't be possible at least until several months into 2012. (And of course we all know the world will end soon then anyways. Because neutrinos will suddenly mutate and cook the planet's core. ) In the meantime my own av seems to be gone, so one more thing for the to-do list, sigh. (I'm a little unclear how to fix it, too... I don't see it in the control panel...)
     
    -LOST -- own all episodes now. Including the New Man in Charge bonus chapter, which previously I had no idea existed. Not much to it, but what's there is cool. I especially liked the Mobisodes and the "Mysteries of the Universe", lol. Plus, Ojh and I had a theory about "Mother" that is essentially confirmed with a wink wink in the Commentary to Across the Sea. Awesome. (That she was a smoke monster. Notice she didn't speak before Man in Black killed her...)
     
    And now I'm wondering... shouldn't Jack be a smoke monster now too???
     
    Had a theory about the flash-sideways too, that maybe what it seemed to be and what it seemed to later be revealed to be are one and the same. Maybe it IS an alternate timeline, but when the main characters died their minds were sent into their alternate selves; what would have happened if the island had been sunk because of the nuke in Dharma times. Maybe their minds were then guiding events so they'd find each other, and after that they moved on due to the main-timeline island's power. Anywhen, probably nothing new, but yeah.
     
    -Other important stuff I've probably forgotten -- remind me.
  5. bonesiii

    Rule 1: Listen Fairly

    By bonesiii,

    How to Disagree Well: Rule 1: Listen Fairly

    Recently I posted a short blog entry summing up four rules for how best to share opinions and disagree with other opinions in a positive, constructive way. I said that I didn't in that entry want to get wordy (one of the rules is about brevity, after all), but I do want to back up my views on these rules. So over the coming weeks or months () I will be doing four entries specifically expanding on the reasons for each of the rules.

    The four rules are:


    How to Disagree Well

    1 Listen fairly
    2 Avoid negative labels
    3 Be concise
    4 Speak your mind


    Today I'll look at Rule 1.

    Important points are bolded for optional skimming.




    Listening fairly seems like such an obvious thing -- but I see so often in debates/discussions that people don't really, truly make sure they're understanding the other person's words for what they meant. They often waste a lot of time and words arguing about it, but in the end it turns out they both already agree anyways, they simply weren't paying enough attention to understand that.



    We also tend to enter discussions with the idea that we want to communicate our point of view so everybody else understands it, because we feel it's very important -- because it is, after all, our view.

    But we often tend to forget the importance of understanding where the other person is coming from too, giving them the same honor we expect of others. Different people aren't naturally identical in their talents, focuses, tastes, experiences, etc. So often I see people assuming everybody else has the same starting point of them, smacking their heads against a wall when if they put themselves in the other person's shoes, they would have no trouble communicating.




    A worse mistake is to realize the other person is different, but sound judgemental, or even consciously believe they're "worse" than you because they're not the same.

    It's the age old mistake of discriminating against the different -- but it can apply to more than just the few things society tells us about like race or gender. It can apply even to specific opinions.

    That's not to say that different opinions are necessarily right -- yes, opinions CAN be wrong -- but I find it's much more likely that you'll convince someone to change their mind if they don't feel you're insulting them for having their own opinion. And maybe you'll discover it's more of a taste thing, so they're actually right to look at the world their way, for themselves.

    Judgementalism is also often wrong because we simply don't know everything.

    We may think we know that someone is "worse" than us because they don't have something we have, like knowledge of something, etc. And in some cases, maybe that's true. But I've seen countless situations where the judgemental person is actually the ignorant one, and by being judgemental, they cut themselves off from finding out what the other person knows. Also often we assume they are doing something wrong just because it isn't what we would do, without realizing that other people with their own talents, actually have a duty to use their own talents in their own best ways, not to try to mimic someone else whose talents they don't have.

    Have you ever heard the figure of speech, "I don't understand" used while condemning someone?

    It's pretty common in today's society, and you've probably used it yourself. I would submit that it's more than just a figure of speech, though, and it may indicate a very bad mindset. That if you don't understand someone, you have the right to condemn them. Think about it -- shouldn't it be the other way around? If you really don't understand, then how can you dare to use a judgemental tone?

    (And again, you can never be totally certain you understand, and judgementalism is IMO always wrong, but that's another debate.)

    I think that figure of speech started out with good intentions -- "I disagree with you but I don't understand your opinion fully so I can't be confident of this." In that tone, it can be conciliatory, but so often people don't at all mean it in kindness.



    Again, this is not to say others can't be wrong, or be failing to listen fairly to you. Certainly we can all make mistakes.

    But before we can really "judge", we need to be careful about making sure we understand the other person.

    In the vast majority of cases, I find there to be no serious disagreement in the end when this is done. And when there is, both sides understand the other far better, and walk away with the experience being much more pleasant, thus more likely for both to change their minds to the truth, whatever it is.




    Another thing is that, if you're not a good listener, people are going to pick up on that, and avoid telling you things, even things you might need to know or that might make you happier or whatever.

    I know a lot of people like that, and they simply go through life completely unaware of a sort of sub-realm to reality, full of beneficial things, serious things, sad things, happy things, interesting things, etc. all because they are really bad at listening. It's often like watching Muggles from Harry Potter -- and yes, it's often laughable at their expense. Not that making fun of people is good or anything, but sometimes it's just impossible not to laugh lol. (It's also often very sad...) If you don't listen well, you may find that's you.

    But if you simply listen, people tell you all kinds of things naturally, usually with no hesitation, and you'll find a whole 'nother vivid world underneath the blurry fog of the bland one the "bad listeners" see.






    Now what do I mean by fairly?

    Well, it's hard to pin that down. I think a big part of it is, if you have even the slightest doubt as to whether you actually understood what they meant, don't get huffy, don't go all "are you saying I'm evil??!?" or the like. Simply remain calm and friendly and ask them if they could explain more clearly what they meant. If they don't respond, think objectively about what they probably really did mean -- continue to avoid the temptation just to assume the worst (or the best for that matter; be realistic).

    Reacting to uncertainty with paranoia, in most situations of conversation (especially in person where anger can lead to fists, or on websites like this where flaming gets you banned ), usually just knocks the whole debate off-balance, so you can never recover the atmosphere of calm and friendly discussion you had earlier. And it's usually based on nothing substantial, but the other person then gets miffed that you dared to accuse them of saying such a thing, and now both of you are riled and not in a mood to work together anymore.

    Is it a fair concern that they MIGHT have meant to insult you? Sure, but it's best to keep it to yourself. Because if it isn't true, reacting with paranoia kinda makes the accusation true later to some extent. (More about this under Rule 2 later.)




    Fairly also means you extend to them the same rights you claim for yourself.

    Most novices at conversation enter with the intent of convincing others of their own point of view, for example, yet they contradict themselves by also going in with the stubborn idea of refusing to be convinced of others' points of view, even if the others show that they should be convinced.

    Well, if you aren't going to listen, don't expect anyone else to either.

    That doesn't mean you flipflip like a leaf everytime somebody seems to show proof that they're right. Often in debates we don't know the right things to say to defend our point of view, so we might seem like the "loser", but later we'll realize what we should have said. So don't just go "oh I was wrong" at every opportunity.

    Still, consider their reasoning. Don't ignore it. Think it through.

    If you're truly doing that fairly, you'll probably know it.





    Perhaps the coolest benefit to listening fairly is that often you will subconsciously motivate the other person to actually make your argument for you!

    I have had the awesome experience of this many times, especially recently as I've tried harder to listen. I will be trying to convince someone of a point they originally seemed to miss, but I do it in just the right way so that I don't make the actual point -- I lead them to make it for me. It's hard to explain how to do it exactly, it's more of an intuitive thing, but I have noticed what method never works.

    You might assume that the fastest way to get someone to see your point of view is to simply state it outright, give the reasons why, and just in general "speech at them." (Let's call this "Approach A".)

    With some people, sure, that works great. And in situations like writing an in-depth blog entry like this, an article, even posts to some extent, that's valid. But what I've often found lately is that with personalities who tend to be more confrontational by nature, that is actually the slowest method.

    When they understand right away clearly what your opinion is, they tend to play the role of Mr. Contrarian and take the opposite view -- they might not actually believe what they're saying, but they just can't help it. The urge to debate and disagree is in some personalities very strong (I know because that is how I naturally am; I've always been the one to want to go against the crowd, never with, and I recognize it in many online and in real life too... I think you of whom this is true know who you are ).

    But when you focus more on listening to them, asking them to explain what they believe, you basically force them to go on record saying things that you agree with, more times than not.

    So the approach of listening first provides more common ground from which you can then extrapolate the truth in the matters that they do go on record disagreeing with. (Whether that truth is on their side or yours is another matter, though, and of course two people can agree about something and both can be wrong.)



    More than once I have tried debating the same issue with the very same person, separated over time, but in two different ways.

    When I try it as "explain myself clearly first and then listen", they side against Opinion X, but when I try it as "listen to them first and then speak", the very same person will say they believe in and defend Opinion X. Often they seem unaware that they've moved around to saying just what I was arguing for; they do it with that same controntational attitude, so they seemingly think they're disagreeing with me.

    But then, once they're on record saying it, I can move in with agreement and explain clearly why they were right to say that. After that, they can't backtrack without clearly contradicting themselves, and most won't.




    Unfortunately, the method required to make this work is exactly the wrong method for the vast majority of others, who may misunderstand your initial questioning as actually supporting exactly what you don't agree with.

    This is especially difficult in a forum debate like the many that go on here on BZPower -- if Person A sees you using Approach A, it works for them, but if Person B sees it, it "taints the argument" so that you can't try Approach B on them either, and you've basically lost Person B. You'll still win the majority and win overall, but you will fail to convince everybody. This should not happen -- everybody should at all times be willing to fairly consider the truth regardless of the approach to get there, but that is, I guess, simply human nature.

    So personally I greatly prefer one-on-one conversations if it's possible. In real life, I rarely speak up in groups of three or more, for this and other reasons. This is especially true on more controversial (read: emotionally charged) discussions, of course. Maybe it can be done, but I haven't yet learned how so yeah.

    I should also note that forums (or larger groups in real life) have another great advantage. When you do get the other person to go on record saying something you believe is true, and you can move in with agreement, the social pressure of knowing everybody is watching helps prevent them from trying to wiggle out of it. So in some situations overall I think a public conversation can be best, but not universally.

    Often once I do this, I am met with mysterious silence by the 'contrarian' for a while.

    This seems to be a good indication they've either consciously or subconsciously realized they contradicted themselves and made your argument for you, meaning you've won that debate, but don't expect them to acknowledge it. Pride can be hard to swallow for any of us, unfortunately; few people seem to have learned the powerful skill of being able to admit they're wrong. If they do, that's a great honor rarely earned, so be sure to let them know you appreciate it!

    And don't go assuming you're right just because they fell silent either; it's possible something in Dreaded Real Life came up or whatnot. Absence of an opposing argument being given doesn't prove the original argument true, per se.




    Another downside is simply that there seems to be NO quick way to convince people with this mindset.

    I've always sorta hoped there was a way to rapidly convince anyone if a truth is well-established enough, and in some areas of life that does seem to hold true. Maybe it is true and I'm just still ignorant of that too, I dunno. But with the more contrarian point of view, convincing them of the truth you know seems like a time-consuming, lengthy process. So for them, the fastest way to convince them seems to be to begin strongly with listening fairly, and hope for this neato switcharound effect.





    The upside to this downside, though, is that it seems that over time, it doesn't matter much if a contrarian person has seen you use Approach A (fully explaining) in the distant past.

    Whether through forgetfulness, subconscious planting or frog-in-the-pan repetition effect, or just the time it may take to get over prideful stubbornness when proven wrong, I've found that people I worried were lost because they went on record as a contrarian against Approach A seem just as likely to side with Approach B. All it took was time. This is a lot slower than going out of your way to listen and ask them to elaborate, but at least it's good news in the end.

    (Even I have caught myself taking a long time to come around on things, heh, which I suppose shouldn't surprise me since I am contrarian by nature. On the other hand, after objective analysis the crowd really does seem to be wrong most of the time. XD So a certain healthy amount of reluctance to "flipflop" may actually be wise. *shrugs*)

    And keep in mind Rule 4: Speak your mind.

    I'll have a lot more to say on this when I do that entry, but for now it's enough to point out that even if it will take time for them to admit you're right, if you don't tell them your opinion, you'll just be wasting all that time. Best to start early, basically. So don't misunderstand -- I'm NOT saying you should keep any part of your opinion secret or anything, and obviously don't misrepresent yourself. (At least I hope that's obvious. )

    What I am saying is that we should try to understand the other person and personalize how we speak to them in ways that are best for them, respecting their individuality.




    Now, all of these approaches have the potential to be abused to support opinions that aren't actually the truth. I like to think that the truth usually wins in the end, but it's a concern worth noting. I think the "fairly" part comes in there. Any abuse of tactics -- supporting a knowingly false opinion -- is not, by defination, fair, so would break this rule.





    Finally, the temptation might be to condemn those who require more listening to than others, but I ask instead that we be patient with it and try to understand why it's best to start with listening. After all, as much as I think it unwise and even a bit silly to pretend you believe something you don't just to be contrary, I myself am prone to that temptation. For me, due to basically luck in encountering the right information, it helped me realize we should be focused on finding the truth.

    But the opposite way of thinking can lead to that too or can also lead to naivete, and we shouldn't condemn each other for being different. Instead, we should encourage truth-seeking in debate, regardless of personality, and kindness.

    And who is to say that there isn't a contrarian in everybody? I don't know yet, but my running theory is that listening first is the wise course of action with everybody. Again, it's not always possible (someone has to speak first, or nothing is spoken; see Rule #4), but it should be our goal.

    So it is for that reason that I place listening fairly as Rule #1 -- and I do mean it as Step #1.

    Listen... then speak.



    Next up I'll look at Rule 2: Avoid negative labels. Comment/question/disagree/etc. here.
  6. bonesiii
    ------------THIS ENTRY BROUGHT TO YOU BY------------



    ----------------------------------------------------

    Moar uppdaytz:EMC#7: Shard Moons -- go and post! Your task? Describe the elemental moons of the EM planet Clysmax. We'd previously had this as an open question in the Discussion topic, but now we've turned it into a separate mini-contest. Go!

    Why Bionicle's Return is Likely -- GD essay topic. Go read and take it to heart! Bionicle is actually quite likely to return! Just not right now.

    Taxes be done yay bye now on to "more important" things lol...

    In case you're wondering, about my LDD Bionicle contest, yes, both the new HF pieces and the existing LU mode are now allowed for it. Seriously go there and maketh stuff, there's literally zero entries so far!
  7. bonesiii
    Updates:
     
    1) Go check out Swert's latest "bonus" Multiverse story, The Unauthorized Biography Of Toa Pumaa! This is an "episode 4.5" of sorts but it doesn't really spoiler anything from Cipher Chronicles, so check it out even if you haven't read those! It's been a fun project to work with Swert on, and we hope you guys like it.
     
     
    2) Taxes are taxing. Yeah.
     
    3) I've got Endless Blue almost totally written. Just the final few chapters of the end showdown to write. I think yall'll like it.
     
    4) I've come up with a concept for a new computer game, which I've made several preliminary graphics for (minus shading/lighting). It will be very much like MNOG 1, click-through screens and stuff -- it's always felt disappointing to me we never got a game very similar to that, and from the fan works I've seen most seem to be more like MNOG 2, which is fine but they're slower with more chores. However this will have a lot more battles, including early on, if I pull it off.
     
    I do not plan to tie this into any other stories. It'll standalone in a self-contained setting taking place in the distant future on the restored Spherus Magna, but with completely new characters and species and everything, without relying on much if anything from old story. I want this, ideally, to do a lot of what MNOG did and thrust the player into a whole new world -- definately Bionicle, but so new as to feel very mysterious. It will work totally in a major canon gap that I doubt will ever get filled -- you'll see why just from the title when I'm ready to reveal it. So basically it "could" be canon, except there are no sets, heh.
     
    I plan to make this in Gamemaker most likely, unlike all the past games me and Ojhilom have made. It'll be heavily quality-graphic and gameplay-battle oriented, with minimal chores or speeches, just enough to add interest along the way. I want to focus on the fun factor and cool imagery factor as much as possible. Ojhilom probably won't have time for the coding but I've done enough code tests to know pretty sure I can do it myself, the hard part will mostly be making all the graphics, which I'll be doing in Powerpoint -- this won't be pixel art as I'm planning. It should appear much more like MNOG's art.
     
    So yeah, I dun' wanna reveal more at this time but there's some heads up to tease it. After taxes are done I want to finish EB, and then work heavily on this.
     
     
    5) Just to confirm, I haven't forgotten about Unseen, got the final two chapters planned but not written, and many apologies for the huge delay. But right now the final chapters probably need to involve something the BSS is actually discussing right now and given that I have other things to do, I think I'll most likely wait to see if anything is done with that canonically before I go ahead with my version of it.
     
     
    EDIT:
     
    6) Oh yes I knew I forgot something I was gonna post here lol. I have untracked all my tracked blogs, bar none. I finally realized that I keep having to go past them all to look at pages 2 and 3 to see other blogs, when now blog activity is slow enough there's no need, I can just untrack them all and see them right on page 1. I might be crazy but it seems to be working, heh.
  8. bonesiii

    Rule 3: Be Concise

    By bonesiii,

    How to Disagree Well: Rule 3: Be Concise

    Continuing my explanation of how to disagree well, today I'll look at rule 3. I know, it might seem so obvious there's no point in elaborating -- but there's a very important point here that might not seem obvious from a first glance that I think many BZPers need to hear.

    To restate, the four rules are:

    How to Disagree Well

    1 Listen fairly
    2 Avoid negative labels
    3 Be concise
    4 Speak your mind

    Important points are bolded for optional skimming.




    Let's jump right into the less obvious point first.

    And that is the issue of semantics.

    Many times I have encountered people who try to argue their perspective by picking out a key word in an opponent's argument, and nitpicking it to death, trying to argue to redefine it unnaturally, etc. But at the end of the day, they miss that the opponent was simply using the obvious, plain-English definition of the word. They spend a ton of words to really, in the end, just restate the exact same concept but with tons more words, and to try to enforce an awkward ban on using plain English.

    Bad idear.

    Instead, we should try to relax and read people's posts for how they probably obviously mean them, and almost take it on ourselves as a moral that we try to use and appreciate Plain English with a Capital P and E. If you're unsure how they meant it, ask, etc.


    That said, there IS such a thing as a poor word choice.

    But just to use two examples from recent topics (names shall not be included here), someone seemed to try to argue how to define down the exact details of the words "MOCability" and someone else did the same for the word "poseability". They came across as trying to arbitrarily ban some concepts from counting, so that others couldn't use those words to describe those concepts, based on their own personally preferred emphasis on other concepts.

    Neither are exactly normal English words. But if you relax and just ask "what do they mean by that?" you can intuitively understand what they meant by them.

    And word definitions are determined by usage anyways -- any dictionary will usually list multiple meanings for any given word, for example, and new develop all the time.

    What these members really meant was to simply say "I don't care personally as much about those aspects of MOCability or poseability; I focus more on these other aspects" and then list them. That could concisely get the point across without appearing to be argumentative.

    I don't blame those members for missing this. Instead I try to explain in this entry what the better way would have been. =D

    And the point is, in the end they spent many more words to say what could have been said with a few. Making walls of text.

    The elaborations were interesting -- don't get me wrong. There's nothing super wrong with this as long as everybody is civil and in the end they all realize what I just said up there. At the very least it can generate more posts, lol.

    But in practice, most people don't end up realizing that in the discussion and this is a good way for things to get antagonistic fast. People really don't like it when someone not only disagrees (which is their right), but appears to be trying to take even their own words away from them. It feels unfair to them, and for good reason, and many people don't know how to react to it. So they get angry.

    So avoid it yeah?



    Now -- you're probably shouting at the screen right now, "but bones, but bones, professors hate plain English? Should I be super concise and use only Plain English words in my term paper due tomorrow?"

    Well... yes and no.

    Frankly, a lot of teachers/professors have an attitude about the English language that isn't logical. They have an emotional desire to preserve "Standard Proper [read fancy-schancy ] English." And they loathe casual tones in papers.

    That said, it's their class.

    Let's just say I didn't get on the Dean's List at my college and get almost all As by putting this philosophy of mine into practice in school. That matters, so if you want the grade, do it their way.

    Also, there's something understandable and easy to sympathize with about someone wanting to preserve the variation of English they personally love.

    I put it in terms of dying languages. It's sad that knowledge of these languages is dying out and there's something admirable in someone who wants to preserve knowledge of it. That could be important for many reasons besides just cultural enrichment (okay, not really much enrichment in Professorspeak... but that's my bias maybe). At the very least, knowledge of past languages, dialects, or Standard Proper versions can help go back and understand things written in history, etc.

    Plus even I agree with Profersorspeak folks about certain rules of grammar which when violated make for harder-to-understand communication or just silly looking mistakes. (Like "there" versus "their" or using the apostrophe s when you mean plural.) There's something to be said for professionalism even while using Plain English.



    All that said, I do hope that one day Plain English will be embraced as Standard Proper English, along with a well-educated understanding of the benefit of immediately embracing the ongoing crafting of newer and better words and uses of words. While simultaneously documenting past incarnations of all speech and people learning old words just for variety, etc. The internet and computers are making that closer to a reality even as I type, heh.




    Beyond focusing on using Plain English (where currently appropriate, like on BZP posts where it's just casual discussion ), you can also be concise by being careful not to just repeat the same idea over and over.

    (Unless, possibly, you see that in discussion people missed that point, for example; it can be useful to repeat just that idea again, taking it out of all the other distracting points you'd previously raised.)

    I for example have a really bad habit (yeah, I know you know ) of saying the same idea three different ways throughout a post. Usually 'cuz I'm just typing on the fly and I kinda forgot I'd said it lol. And in my mind I DO think of many different ways to word it -- and that's good. But at the end of the day, often it's better to pick the most effective one and cut the rest, versus showing people multiple facets of it (though that has its uses ) and losing them due to Wallotextitis.


    Another very helpful idea is to watch your paragraph lengths and the "meter" of them. Paragraphs beyond four lines get very hard for human eyes to read. Break them up.

    Also, the occasional one-liner paragraph or nearly so makes posts much easier to read. And feel concise.


    Often what I do is I write a post, then I first go back and ask "does this paragraph have Wallotextitis? Yes, cut it up." Then I'll notice "hey, now the whole post seems long." And since it's now split up, it's easier for ME to see where I've repeated myself, and which wording I like best. Then I cut. Reorganize to improve the logicoemotive flow of it, and cut it so both the paragraphs AND the overall length are short. Ish.

    For spoken equivalent, it's basically something you gotta learn as you gain experience, how to do a mental equivalent of this before you speak. Develop an intuitive sense of the most concise ways to say things -- that'll help ALL your communication.



    And if you're still saying "But you've said HOW to be concise, now WHY?" at this point... that's basically it. Wallotextitis.

    It's a Plain English made-up word that describes the reason. Get it? 'Cuz I'm not gonna bother using it to explain it further.

    ------------THIS ENTRY BROUGHT TO YOU BY------------

  9. bonesiii

    Transillumination

    By bonesiii,

    So, making poetry is fun and it's been a while since I've done any on my blog. But this turned out to be more of poetic prose. Technically I believe it's considered a "short short story." Anyways, enjoy, and you get extra points if you figure out what the title means.
     
     
    Transillumination
     
    Last in line at grocery checkout, shortest line open but short isn't the word. Running late.
     
    First in line's an old lady moving very slow. Very doesn't cut it. Extremely. Many groceries. Unloading slow. Tick.
     
    I comment quietly, to the man ahead of me who just calmly checked his watch. Tock.
     
    He doesn't face me. Doesn't seem at first to hear me.
     
    Then he says, just loud enough that I can hear but the old woman cannot, just one word.
     
    "Transillumination," he says.
     
    "What?" I ask.
     
    "Transillumination, around the fifteenth circling up behind and about twenty... seven? Yes, twenty-seven and seventeen. Plus negative one... no, never mind that last bit. Definately twenty-seven and seventeen. Hamburger... No, cheeseburger with lettuce, onions, and a calculator."
     
    So he's insane. He looks a little dirty, wears a big gray overcoat, never used a razor apparently. The watch looks cheaper now. A bum. The cart, he'd probably brought in with him and would take with him too. I should've kept my mouth shut.
     
    He glances back at me as if to make sure I'm listening. I try to look like I'm not.
     
    The bum holds out his hands and types in the air, staring silently at me for a moment.
     
    "Case in point," he says. "After about four... maybe five, maybe three or a million, you say that... Well, let's recompose..." He continues to stare at my face as he speaks, keeps typing the air. "There's a knock at the door. Doorbell rings if you have one. It doesn't if you don't. You put down the cheeseburger. You answer the door."
     
    He nods to himself and mercifully turns forward again, watching the old lady, but he just keeps on talking to himself, won't quit. "Yes, twenty-seven and seventeen, I'm sure of it." Drops his hands to his size and acts normal except for his moving mouth.
     
    "If you had a screen door, it's gone. You don't see it even if you have one of those windows in your door, until you've swung the door wide open. It's an eye. A giant eye, much bigger than your door. You can't tell if, like the eye of Sauron, it's unlidded or lidded, except that it never blinks. You can't tell if it's a right eye or a left eye. You see no hint of a nose, an eyebrow, or anything except the eye. It's pressed up so close to the doorframe you cannot see around it."
     
    The old woman finally starts paying her bill. Fumbling through her purse slowly.
     
    "The eye is made of metallic wood. Yes, I said metallic wood. The circle of color around the pupil is blue -- not a human blue but a dark, pure blue with no hint of depth or texture -- just the solid color blue. The pupil... The pupil is black. Jet black, pitch black, these are not the right words. Pure black. No light reflects off the pupil. It pulls in everything. Red, green, blue, heat... even cold, though it doesn't affect the room's temperature itself."
     
    The man appears to shudder. "The eye stares directly at your eyes... or seemingly between your eyes and a little above, at your forehead. It never blinks. It just watches."
     
    The bum waves a hand. "You reach out to close the door, hand shaking. But the door explodes into splinters at your touch. As if it had been sliced and diced, invisibly, and restacked there just waiting for you to knock it off balance. It even seemed like the pieces were springloaded. Looking down in the rubble you see little metal coils here and there, and you wonder how you never saw them before. Through the wood. Or whatever material your door is made of."
     
    The bum backs up a step, bumping my cart. Steps back forward, apologizing under his breath.
     
    "You back away. But the eye advances. Crumbling through your walls, ceiling, floor. It moves forward through your house. You turn and run. Glance back. It's following, demolishing your house on the way."
     
    The old lady finally finishes paying and leaves.
     
    The bum walks forward and starts unloading his groceries.
     
    But he keeps talking, at the same volume. I can tell the clerk can hear, but tries not to look like it. The man keeps glancing back to make sure I'm listening... or to make sure the clerk knows who he's talking to, perhaps.
     
    I try to look small.
     
    "You retreat to the farthest room, and the eye moves forward, destroying everything. The hardest materials, the strongest metals, all of it crumbles. At the widest parts of your house, you look back hoping to see lids or a nose with this giant eye, but the metallic wood part just seems to stretch beyond all of it. When you try to go towards your back door it angles around and blocks that way too. Finally you reach the last corner of your house and the eye bears down on you."
     
    The man gets out his wallet.
     
    "You close your eyes. Then open them."
     
    Hands the clerk some money.
     
    "The eye is gone. Your house is fine."
     
    Signs the receipt. I can't help it -- I look, but it's illegible.
     
    "The next day, you're walking casually along and some kid bumps into you, then runs away apologizing. There's nobody else on the street. You didn't see his face, or really notice even how he was dressed. He turns a corner and he's gone."
     
    The bum pulls away and I start unloading my groceries. Waiting for the bum to leave so I can comment on him to the clerk. The clerk appears to feel the same way.
     
    But the bum doesn't leave. He walks forward a few paces, and raises his voice just enough that I can still hear him over the crinkle and thumps of the groceries.
     
    "Later when you try to pull out your wallet, you find out it's gone, and you immediately realize the kid was a pickpocket. But there were no witnesses, or so it would seem."
     
    Finally the bum starts moving, but he turns one last time to add, "You know better."
     
    And he leaves.
     
    "What a weirdo," I mutter.
     
    The clerk smiles. "Twenty-seven and seventeen," the clerk says.
     
    I stare. "What?"
     
    "That's what it comes to."
     
    "Oh. Right."
     
    I feel for my wallet, suddenly afraid it's gone. Sigh in relief. It's still there.
  10. bonesiii
    How to Disagree Well: Rule 2: Avoid negative labels

    Continuing the elaboration on my simple four-rule theory on effective disagreement, today I'll look at Rule 2.

    This is one that I think a lot of people could really use a better understanding of and to seriously experiment with putting it into practice. It's probably the most radically unusual concept in these four rules, and since I've tried using it almost universally about a year ago the results have been profoundly positive so I really hope people read this, if nothing else.

    To restate, the four rules are:

    How to Disagree Well

    1 Listen fairly
    2 Avoid negative labels
    3 Be concise
    4 Speak your mind

    Important points are bolded for optional skimming.


    Okay, so what do I mean by "negative labels"?

    Obviously, direct flaming would count under that. Flaming is essentially extremely negative labelling of someone or their actions without merit. A synonym is insulting. The problem is, different people, even experts on the concept of insulting, have different ideas about exactly where the line is drawn -- so everybody arbitrarily draws the line in different places.

    This causes all kinds of trouble beyond the problems with the insults themselves; this disagreement about where the line is.

    One thing most people agree on (which this rule actually challenges to some extent) is the idea that you can negatively label someone or an action without it being a clear insult.


    However, in my experience, true as that might be, when I strive to always try to find more positive ways to word things (i.e. a mistake instead of an evil action, or dislike / disagree with instead of hate), the results are almost always better.

    More on why I think this is in a moment, but first a caution.

    Notice that I said "avoid".



    Avoid does not mean "never label anything as a negative." There is a serious danger to just going around pretending everything's okay when it isn't. The stock example is, if you see a kid about to eat poison, it isn't harmful to label that action as bad (and try to stop the kid from eating it). If the kid really eats the poison, something bad really will happen even if people were to oddly try to label it positively. The loving person would of course want to stop that.

    There thus has to be some line where something really is a negative.


    But... that said, what if we usually misjudge where that line is? Most examples are murkier than the kid with poison case.

    One negative we should all be able to agree on is that all humans are capable of making mistakes and misjudgements. And we all have, at least if we've lived long enough to be reading this.

    So my advice is for all of us to increasingly challenge our own thinking, asking ourselves, "is this negative label I'm using here really judging the line in the best way?" Don't let pride force you into a rut where you have to continue on as you did before, or always defend whatever you've said before just because you've said it or you fear you might look bad if you admit you did something right (I've said a lot more about this in the past; it's what I call "The Confidence Trap").



    Another important concept to remember is the difference between the realms of objective facts and morals -- and the subjective realms of personal taste.

    Something subjective can honestly feel "very bad" to someone. But we often make an understandable slip-up by wrongly assuming that means (per se ) that it's also morally or objectively wrong. (I.e. "LEGO should change this because I personally dislike it" which ignores that other people have their own tastes too. Honestly right now I think BZP mostly has this lesson learned well, though -- but from time to time newer members and the like can use a reminder. )

    This rule would argue strongly against using such harsh negative labels, even for things we personally dislike. This can have benefits to the self -- it causes you to dwell less on negativity and have a more open mind. You might even find that the thing you thought about "hating" but now merely "dislike" is actually growing on you!



    But more to the point, you might actually 'hate' it, but people reading your posts (hearing you speak, etc.) might misunderstand and think you are hating anyone who has that personal taste. So it's best to use more sensitive words like "dislike."

    I know. I know. That feels so wrong to many people for various reasons. So many times I've run into people who basically look at this as downright silly, saying (for example) "I just dislike that toy" when you feel like you hate it. And it can be hard to change from being very negative to being very positive overnight. People I consider close friends just detest having to be polite. And I respect that attitude. I get it. I've been there.

    So I cannot in good conscience tell everybody you absolutely must do this "right now" or even ever per se. I don't know everything; maybe there's a time or a place (or a speaker ) for it.

    I just know that for me, when I don't follow this rule well I have concluded that I myself suffer, and I spread suffering to others... who are then much more likely to feel negatively and not friendly towards me, thus I end up suffering twice over. I am ashamed how often I have pushed people away on here who I admire, just by using so many negative labels in disagreeing with them. I sometimes almost wish I had gone around trying to agree with everyone just so I wouldn't lose them as friends (tried that too though and it usually just lets the bad ideas and emotions fester and worsen; more on that for Rule #4 with scientific backup ). It still torments me, because I see scars of my past failures still around despite my trying hard to reform my actions.

    So think about it, yeah?

    In any event, this rule is vague for a reason -- "avoid", but avoid however much you feel comfortable with, for now.




    About drawing the line somewhere, I've concluded from experience that the line (of what is negative that should be avoided, not what to call flaming per se, to be clear) is basically twofold: 1) Things your taste cause you to dislike, using gentle words in describing your dislike, and 2) Things you think are harmful to someone else as a moral mistake, using wordings that make that important distinction clear; that it's a mistake, unwise, etc. rather than evil or whatnot.

    Yes, there are things that are evil. That line's easy to draw in fiction, for example; there's no harm in saying "Makuta was evil; Greg confirmed it". But in real life... basically we're not telepathic and in most cases I now believe it's better to avoid calling it evil. The reason is, using a negative label like that on someone who's too far gone to come back makes sense... but it's so hard to know who can come back from evil and who cannot, yeah? You might be unwittingly making evil more likely to get worse or at least continue by appearing to imply someone can't reform from it.

    (Obviously, if you're in a life or death situation, that is generally different... although caution is often important there too. But a soldier deciding whether an enemy will shoot first if the soldier doesn't is different from the vast majority of other human experiences, where there's really no reason you MUST leap to the negative judgements.)

    Also, there is a very real, but little known psychological phenomenon in which by labelling something negative (usually with the intent of saying "hey, you're doing something wrong, fix it"), you can actaully MAKE it true, even if it wasn't, or at least solidify its truth.

    In other words, the person you're talking to often reacts -- even if subconsciously -- "So I'm [insert negative label here], am I? Okay. I'm fine with what I am, so I'm [insert label again]. And I'll stubbornly stick to it without even considering that I MIGHT be wrong."

    I like to call this "painting."

    It's called that often in common parlance, but people usually miss what it implies. Just like if you took a paintbrush and slapped paint on someone -- the paint would stick -- by applying that label, you can very easily do the opposite of trying to remove the label. You don't remove paint by adding more of the same paint.




    Just two more major points left.

    I have noticed soooo many times that someone who goes around using negative labels to try to at least make others see why they have their perspective -- if not convince others to agree with them -- fail miserably at convincing anyone. I've often wondered why this is -- and I've suffered it myself of course -- and I think I finally get it.

    It basically has two causes. One emotional, one logical.

    Point number one -- when people see you behaving so negatively (sometimes even while trying to argue for positive things!), subconsciously they think "this guy is miserable. I don't want to be like that. So I will disagree."


    Now that's not logical. That's not necessarily good "truthseeking." BUT it's a real psychological phenomenon, and fighting it is like fighting nature, yanno?


    But in this case, it actually has a logical grounding.

    Point two: The logical fallacy of Ad Hominem. Logic actually teaches that negatively labeling something does not logically argue for the labeler's conclusion. Now, caution: this doesn't necessarily mean the conclusion is wrong, merely that the reasoning used to reach it is wrong. There could be other reasoning all the people involved are missing that would prove the same conclusion.

    But when people see a logically invalid argument -- even when they aren't well educated in logic; these principles are built into the human psyche -- they're a lot less likely to agree with your conclusion even if their concern is logic rather than emotion.



    So here's where I end up with this. I do NOT tell you that this is necessarily the best way or say "do this."

    Instead I'd like yall to think of it like a challenge or an experiment. Try it! See if it works for you! And try it ever increasingly so, over a long time. Don't give up on it if it doesn't seem to be working right away -- it could be you're just not being quite positive enough. I betcha it can work for anybody.



    Comment thoughts (FTR, no mentioning of specific people involved in examples of such mistakes, okay?), questions, concerns, etc. Next entry on being concise probably will be up next week. Already have it written.

    ------------THIS ENTRY BROUGHT TO YOU BY------------

  11. bonesiii
    So, in the interests of this blog not being entirely dead, I'm launching another blog contest.

    This one will be very simple, with rules designed already into the program LEGO Digital Designer 4. I love using this program and watching the upload gallery, but Bionicle MOCs are rarely made with it. Of course, it doesn't have many Bionicle pieces, but what about something like a Playsets location? There's all kinds of possibilities.

    So for this contest, you are charged to use LDD4 to make Bionicle locations, nonstandard beings (example: Morbuzahk, who didn't have the typical Bionicle pieces style), objects, vehicles, etc.

    This is, like all my other MOC contests, a Bionicle Paracosmos contest; so the winning MOCs will be used in future fanfics of mine in that series.

    Rules:

    1) Yes, you must use the current version of LDD (version 4; download here).

    2) I'm allowing two separate categories -- in the Standard Category you must use standard mode, so only pieces/colors that may be uploaded to the LDD gallery (the ones backgrounded in green). In the LEGO Universe Category use LU mode to have many more pieces and wider color ranges, but cannot upload to the gallery. Please say which category each entry is in.

    3) Please no "normal Bionicle beings" -- I've had plenty of these already winning previous contests, most of whom I haven't used yet. So no beings that would normally be MOCed with Bionicle pieces, but I won't make this an absolute rule per se.

    4) You may use locations or beings from the official story, or if you follow my fanfics you could work from descriptions there (you could even use illustrations I've made, etc.) Or you could make up your own stuff but be aware it might be more difficult for me to work these into stories, so simpler may be better for that.

    5) Please when you enter, first state what type of MOC it is -- i.e. location, object, being, etc. as well as the name of what the MOC is (ex: if it's a location like Kini-Nui say that name). I'm not going to bother with fancy entries forms, though.

    6) You may enter as many as you like in here.

    7) Please post at least one screencap of the MOC. (And if you could make sure the image is not huge, that'd be nice. ) FTR, the best screencaps aren't left in the design mode, but viewed in the mode with the background images at strategic angles, the blue background of building guide mode, or the white background as in the images uploaded to the gallery. And be sure to put the pic on brickshelf or the like rather than trying to direct link if you go with the gallery pic.



    Also, I would greatly prefer if yall would upload the MOCs to the gallery and include a link to your own member gallery (the closest thing it seems to allow to linking to specific MOCs) so that I could download the file, but this is NOT a rule. (It's often difficult to do this with big MOCs, etc. and I wouldn't want to discourage entering if you don't have time for this.) If that doesn't work, you may alternatively email me the file directly at bonesiii@gmail.com (but please only do this if the gallery method doesn't work). Being able to look at the file 3-dimensionally can help in judging winners, though it isn't necessary per se.

    (Note: Your gallery here means the public side, not the "my gallery" button; once any MOC of yours is approved for public (this usually takes about a day), then click it, and click your member name. The link that appears in your address bar then is the link I mean.)

    Entry period begins now and closes July 1 2011, at midnight EST.


    Judging notes:

    Weight will be given to cleverness of design. Try to shy away from the plain stacked rectangle bricks designs (not a rule ). I don't require that the MOC hold up well in plastic form to win, although that will help (and I can tell ). Yes, mini-scale is fine (ex: the Hau statue in the banner here could see a mini-scale stone statue and the mouth could be a door entrance to some important location).
  12. bonesiii
    Today the Bones Blog brings you an exclusive interview over the phone with the Cheif Minion of Evil Lord Survurlode--the sole architect of BZP's doom, or so he hopes. Yes, that's right, the Cheif Evil Clock himself has agreed to do an interview! He's graciously provided images to act as visual aids for his propoganda comments. No idea how he got the pics to go over the phone. Read on...



    bones: Well, thanks for your, um... time, Evil Clock. Why don't you begin by introducing yourself for those who aren't aware of you?

    Evil Clock: Not aware of me? Are you kidding me? Everybody knows me--or at least they know one of my millions upon billions of relatives. I am Evil Clock. Lord Survurlode invented me as part of his ongoing quest to disrupt BZP members' lives. He can raise his floods to swamp the server, but a guy needs his rest, ya know? So he can't be on all the time. Well, I, Evil Clock, pick up the slack by constantly reminding people that they need to be elsewhere, doing some important thing, to distract them from BZP. Here you can see my photo:



    bones: You look quite spooky.

    Evil Clock: I am spooky. Or at least I think so... it's not like I'm scared of myself or anything!

    bones: I didn't mean to imply that... So, moving on, why do you think Survurlode is obsessed with harming BZP?

    Evil Clock: "Obsessed"? That's such a strong word. It's really more of a hobby.

    bones: Really?

    Evil Clock: Well, he's lived thousands of years, being a brother of Sauron and all. He has lotsa time on his hands. Get it? Time! Ha ha!

    bones: Riiiight. So, moving right along... When did Survurlode come up with the idea for Clocks?

    Evil Clock: Well, that's an interesting story, actually. You see, the first clocks were actually invented by the Great Beings in ancient times. They were called water clocks, and since Survurlode has power over water, they drew his attention. He set his human and goblin slaves to work building a more advanced version, and soon came up with this prototype clock:



    bones: Looks complicated.

    Evil Clock: Sure was. He got the idea for the clockwork mechanisms from Vahki. He couldn't get the EVIL needed with this, however, so finally he "borrowed" a Vahki from Makuta when he was disguised as that Doom fellow.

    bones: It's "Doomah."

    Evil Clock: Whatever. Anyways, with much modification and power from... something... he was able to build me! The Chief of the Evil Clocks.

    bones: What was the "something"?

    Evil Clock: Sorry, that information is classified.

    bones: ...So you singlehandedly rule over all clocks in the world?

    Evil Clock: Well, brilliant as I am, we needed more clocks with their own evil minds. So we stole a Vahki production facility (Survurlode had to personally carry it out of Metru Nui), and began making tons and tons of clocks, and sent them out into the world. Here you can see a slave inside a Clock Production HQ, and here you can see a poor old woman paying homage to a Vaulted House Clock. Here's my personal favorite, a man enslaved by a "Clockcuff."

    bones: *glances nervously at his wrist* That's interesting. What's the story behind "clockcuffs"?

    Evil Clock: They were inspired by a magical device in ancient times that you can see in this photo of a genie--these magical beings were often enslaved by golden cuffs. Survurlode had his own prototype versions made, like this one:



    bones:

    Evil Clock: Yes, tremble! Millions of people are cuffed by these magical devices, which, again, have a mind all of their own, just like me.

    bones: Okay, I'm officially spooked and all, but these clocks seem easy enough to defeat. A hammer would do nicely...

    Evil Clock: Thought of that, have an answer. We needed more than just cuffs and Vaulted House Clocks, sure. We needed an army. Remember that image of the slave in the Clock HQ?

    bones: Yep...

    Evil Clock: He was building what was known as a Grand Elite Clock. A soldier with great power. Here you can see one of the armies of these clocks:



    bones: Okay, but an army needs organization, leaders. Do you have those as well?

    Evil Clock: Indeed we do. Here you can see a Royal Clock in his palace, surrounded by slaves:



    bones: Oy. I note that they are all elderly, though, with one exception. What about the millions of people who don't wear clockcuffs and who are able-bodied! I think we have room for an uprising here!

    Evil Clock: Dream on, skeleton dude. For that, Survurlode invented the Overlord Clock species. Here you can see one of them, my Uncle Benny:



    bones: B-but... i-i-it's not fair!

    Evil Clock: Evil is as evil does.

    bones: Okay, but what about computers? Nowadays we have computers. BZP runs on computers. Haven't we taken over technology for our own purposes, and left these mechanical things behind?

    Evil Clock: Click this pic, buster: Digital Clock. But see, ultimately, everything, from ovens (food sources) to cars (transportation) is ruled by one of my brethren. Even BZP is enslaved:



    bones:

    Evil Clock: Yes, nothing can stop us. We are a horde to rival the Visorak or the Bohrok. Toa? Psshh. Wimps. Under my fellow Evil Clocks, Lord Survurlode will conquer the entire planet!

    bones: Okay, but Lord Survurlode has one weakness, right?

    Evil Clock: Maybe...

    bones: Sauron had his One Telephone Ring. It was tossed into Mount Doom.

    Evil Clock: Mount Doomah.

    bones: Right... Survurlode has said that his own version, the One Refresh, is immune to that. But surely something else can destroy it. A nuke, perhaps? Tossing it in the sun?

    Evil Clock: Oh, look at the time! bones, don't you have some modding to do? A contest to run? An RPG to work on? Yes, yes, I think this interview has run long enough. Let me just leave you with this one image. It's me, in all my towering Overlord Chief glory, as Lord Survurlode summons his flood to swamp BZP's server.



    Evil Clock: And before you even think it--yes, I'm waterproof.

    bones: Darn.

    Evil Clock: *hangs up phone*
  13. bonesiii

    Importance Of Faves

    By bonesiii,

    I wasn't planning to do a blog entry today, but someone recently posted a topic in which they expressed an opinion about types of topics that was so flagrantly, disturbingly (to me anyways ) wrong, and enough people actually agreed with it that I felt I might as well copypaste my post to here in the hopes that maybe one or two others might read it.
     
    Member's name removed in this version; it's the idea that I want to attack (and utterly eradicate ), not the member.
     
    Please learn this, love this, live this. Methinks it's important.
     

     
    Also, this might seem obscure to us fans, but I imagine LEGO could find such topics immensely valuable in seeing what we like and don't like -- and seeing such a topic on the HTL would make finding them that much more convenient for them. Thus it is easier for them to see our feedback, and listen to it, which is something the very same members complaining about this always give lip service to, so yeah. (And yes, that can still be true for Bionicle topics, because aspects of it we liked can help with similar lines like HF.)
  14. bonesiii
    Hey, for those fans of my fanfic series, the Bionicle Paracosmos, I figure it's about time I let you know what my plans for the future are, since I haven't finished the series yet, and obviously the end of official Bionicle and subsequent lessening of BZP activity matter to it.
     
    I still plan to continue it, but to shorten the number of stories I had in mind. Basically, I now plan to have only three main Sagas, each with roughly the same number of episodes.
     
    And really, even had Bionicle not ended, I now believe this would have been the right course of action anyways. A big part of the reason I even started this was I always felt 2001's huge story potential was wasted on very little story officially (that plus I wanted to make my own parallel dimension mystery to center it on). I've been kind of dreading entering the later years because I've never been certain how much I should condense or how long I should drag it out to be consistent with the previous pacing when compared to canon story.
     
    This way I think I'll actually be pleasing fans of 2001 more than spending long, tedious amounts of time in the later years. I will instead focus only on the best of the best from those years from the canon.
     
    All the stories currently published up till Twisted Island (not counting the Bonus Series) are the first Saga. It's known as the "Hidden Enemy" Saga (or insert the secret name of that enemy if you've read the stories ). That seriously expanded on 2001, and includes a bit of 2002. (Plus it was beefed up with things from other years we later learned in the canon like Metru Nui, the BOM, etc.)
     
    The next Saga's name has been long announced; the Kuambu Saga. Basically I plan to seriously condense the official timeline into this, including everything from mid-2002 up till 2007. The Kuambu are an enemy about which pretty much only their name is known originally, except that also they are enemies of the surface of the planet, not the underground domes. 2004-2005 as flashbacks I intend to seriously condense and tell alongside present-day story taking place on the surface, and then of course 2006 went right back to the surface.
     
    My original plans would have ended the Kuambu Saga sometime in 2003, and then basically I would have stuffed in a few filler Saga Enemies that I really wasn't all that eager to tell anyways.
     
    Instead, I will go right to the final Saga, the main enemies of which I absolutely love and have been bursting at the seams to get to. That will encompass 2008 to the end of Bionicle, probably focusing more on the MU than the canon did in 2009, although it will be involved.
     
     
    Plus, I do plan to (hopefully) finish the existing plans for the Bonus Series, which takes place roughly during 2006-2007, and involves many of the domes and story elements related to Metru Nui. So there's already good reason not to drag out the 04-06 stories in the main series anyways.
     
    As for Tales of the Ri-Rali, I do still hope to make short story versions of that sometime, but no idea when.
     
    And I hope to at least finish the Altacosmos Chronicle story I have currently started. What I'll do with the series from then, end or continue and if so how much, I really have no idea at this point.
  15. bonesiii
    So, I felt like finally making LGD topics for some of my LDD creations. Go and post and stuff.
     
    These are actually only my three most recent MOCs. I might do topics for some of my best older stuff too at some point. Other angles provided in the topics.
     
    Hatman vs. Fogman

     
    Wooden Sailing Ship

     
    Edited for Fogman V2.
    Edited again for Hatman V2 (from advice by MechaFizz).
  16. bonesiii

    Quick Update

    By bonesiii,

    So this will be a really boring blog entry just to apologize for how long it's been since I've posted one, and to say don't worry I'm still alive and yeah.
     
    For those that are wondering, the current plan for ATYU2 is to go right to polls as soon as the Wildlife polls are done (those were just launched by TN ). I've run out of time to commit to reading all the entries, but my judges assure me the remaining ones are clear of any major issues. If any minor ones show up in a winner we can deal with it later, etc.
     
    Main reason I'm slow lately is I've been working like crazy on insane brainstorms for my non-Bionicle fiction, had to get as much of it written or notes taken as possible due to my horrible memory. But I think I'm at a good stopping point now and am trying to get back to Bionicle stuff more.
  17. bonesiii
    So, I'm a little late in seeing this, but I just found out I am one of the winners in the Lego Digital Designer 4.0 contest. Whee!
     
    The announcement page is here, and here's the download page. I'm cited by name there (they mispelled it, but everybody mispells my name anyways so whatever ).
     
    If you open the program, my Giant Unicycle is shown as the third of the top three models! I've seen lotsa people upload modifications of that in the Gallery already, which is awesome.
     
    Then if you go into the Vehicles subpage, my 2-Way Buggy made it too. Nobody in the gallery seems to like that one lol. (Although it does have the most advanced Step One wheel system, and some of the vehicles might be using it and I didn't notice. )
     
    Congrats to the other winners. (I dunno if any of the others are BZPers.)
     
    And if you've never tried out LDD, do so -- it's very fun IMO.
  18. bonesiii

    How To Disagree Well

    By bonesiii,

    Yo yo yall.

    Longtime readers of my blog might recall I have admitted that I have a problem with being condescending when disagreeing, and that I'm trying to improve. Well, I have something to report.

    I'm still struggling to find the right words to describe it, but I think at last I know what "it" is. I've tried to put it into a very concise list of "rules." I'll list them by themselves first.


    How to Disagree Well

    1 Listen fairly
    2 Avoid negative labels
    3 Be concise
    4 Speak your mind

    (If you like acronyms to help remember, "LABS".)


    I don't want to do a giant blog entry today, but I do have more to say about these, so instead I'm going to expand on each of the four rules in seperate blog entries to come.

    Obviously, when dealing with people, nothing is simple. These might not work in all situations, and there's a lot more I could add (much of it I've already repeated often though). But I've come to believe that if we all embrace and truly live out these four simple rules, the rest will flow naturally and we'll all be able to have a better community experience.

    And if you're wondering, yes, this is somewhat sparked by recent BZP events over the last year or so; these are four very important principles I have seen barely anyone saying much, and I feel it's time for a reminder. On the other hand, I've found them to work well in all walks of life whereever I have a disagreement, so, try it out regardless!

    At this point, I'm really in the "trying this" stage, but so far it seems to be working enough that I felt it was time to speak up.

    Perhaps more importantly, I've collected scientific research, psychological principles, and sound logic to back these things up. Stay tuned for more in-depth looks at these things.
  19. bonesiii
    Okay, so I've been reading a lot of debates about the end of Bionicle, HF, etc. lately and it all gave me a completely random, insane idea. I have no idea where to take it so for now I'm just throwing it out there.
     
    The Bionicle storyline IS continuing. Now, this idea can't fix the desire many have for the return of the comics, more movies, or anything like that. But let's face it, it's extremely rare for an "ended" story, especially based on sets, to continue. So we do have more story.
     
    What we don't have is sets.
     
    However, many people have pointed out that we DO have sets. HF is so similar to Bionicle, often using old Bionicle pieces, that setwise it is almost as if Bionicle had continued (though obviously there are differences). But they don't match actual Bionicle characters of known identity (although kids could pretend the Heroes and Villains were Toa and Makuta or whonot if they felt like it).
     
    And we can also MOC from them. But MOCs aren't "official."
     
    The idea? What if somehow instructions were made as to how to make standardized MOCs, using HF pieces, to build current Bionicle characters? How and by who, I dunno, but wanted to throw that out there for yall to chew on.
     
    EDIT: To be clear, I'm NOT talking about by LEGO, but by a fansite like BZP or some such thing, for those fans who wish Bionicle could continue (who are mostly on here only).
  20. bonesiii

    Bohrok Kool Results

    By bonesiii,

    Welcome to the Results for the Bohrok Kool contest!

    NOTE: Due to time constraints, from now on I will not include extensive comments with blog contest results. I wish I could, but if I try, I'll never get them, or anything else, finished. Also, in the blog entry results, I won't include honorable mentions; only the single top place winner for each Kal. However, those, and non-winners, are included in the downloadable Powerpoint file.

    Slideshow Results Download

    The Honorable Mentions may be briefly featured as stages in a mutation from the original Kal shapes to these six winning shapes, as explained on the first slide of the above.


    by Carakki





    by Rhunn




    by ~Legoman~




    by ~~Zarkan~~




    by Millennium




    by Shadow Destroyer



    Congrats to the winners!
  22. bonesiii

    Blue Results

    By bonesiii,

    It took a long time, but we finally have the results of the Blue MOCs contest ready. This contest asked the members to post old or new MOCs that used the color scheme blue mostly.

    Winning MOCs would either get featured in the upcoming Bionicle Paracosmos epic Endless Blue, about a sea quest by Bhukasa to solve the mystery of a ship-based enemy on Mata Nui that seems to know deep mysteries about the Paracosmos Matoran Universe. Many may also get used in a later story, since blue characters are more common in the Paracosmos than other colors (BTW, the reason for that could now be easily deduced from recent revelations, if anyone wants to get kudos for guessing right ).

    Originally we said the top four MOCs would get major featuring in Endless Blue; we have expanded that to six. In this blog entry, I will show only the winners, including the top six but also some other MOCs, plus brief mention of a handful of honorable mentions.

    The results were originally written as a Powerpoint file, which is available for your viewing here. In the slideshow, since this contest had such quality, we have decided to honorably mention every single non-winning MOC! So view the slideshow for the rest of the honorable mentions. (The HMs I'm including here in the actual blog entry are the ones I plan currently to actually have much importance.) All the bios of the HMs are only in the slideshow.

    I will start with the top six winners. We had two categories; Second Chances (old MOCs), and New MOCs.

    Several of the bios are edited, including some of the names, species type, and moral type when Ojhilom and I deemed it necessary (especially, of course, for those the enterer left open for interpretation). If you want to know what is original text and what is added by us, see the Powerpoint file. Host comments were included in the powerpoint file, unless in brackets here.


    Second Chances Top 3

    These three MOCs are guaranteed major plot relevance and feature time in Endless Blue.

    1st Place!
    Member: Distorted
    Entry name: Knife-Tail

    Species: Shvontuk (uk as in book)
    Moral Type: Troubled hero

    Knife-Tail is the nickname of this troubled centauroid hero on a small chain of islands dominated by an underwater Tarakava Nest. He’s one of several members of this fairly weak, humble species that has joined their heroic defense force, using Kuamor Spheres to defend against the Tarakava.

    He has been a member of this team for a long time, and he’s seen many of his fellows die at the hands of these beasts. Wild Tarakava are dangerous enough as it is, but these Tarakava are now all infected by Makuta’s evil influence. They are the same Tarakava that Makuta sent against Mata Nui Island often. Knife-Tail, or Udmijok as he’s called by his civilian friends in their native language (Ud rhymes with good, and the “j” is only a slightly pronounced “eej” sound, so it sounds a bit like Udmyok), blames himself for some of their deaths. But beyond this, bouts of intense sadness come over him sometimes. The only thing that really distracts him from the sadness is the adrenaline of battle or practice sparring.

    The power of all their Kuamor is called simply “Destiny”. They have inborn powers to sense destiny and alter it slightly. Similar to Rhotuka launchers, their launchers generate soulsong orbs with this power. The launchers use a secret method that the Kuambu also use to activate the inherent powers of Kuamor spheres (which normally do nothing except store copies of soulsongs), which is their greatest secret. Not known how they got it.

    Recently, Knife-Tail was captured by the Kuambu and imprisoned in one of their Hunting Pens.

    Host Comments: Knife-Tail is a brilliant MOC. He’s not even up to the average size of the MOCs entered in this contest -- although there were several tiny entries smaller than him – yet he is our top pick due to, quite simply, brilliant use of the pieces that are there. Cohesive, unique color scheme, something beyond mere humanoid (he’s centauroid, in my terminology), good use of “emotive building” that makes him look at the same time humble and yet strong, and the Bionicle symbol on the ammo is a nice touch.

    What really did it for me is that this is a System Fusion MOC, but you wouldn’t know it at first glance. Other than the chest piece, the other pieces blend so well into the Bionicle style that it might take an expert on official sets to know they aren’t Bionicle pieces. When you look closer, you can spot some familiar System pieces, though – and the chest piece works too. This is the type of limb building that MOCers call “custom”, and it uses the tire technic that’s become a tradition in that style well. And, although this image doesn’t show it very well, the knife-tail of the character’s nickname gives him a cool, almost scorpion-like look.

    Finally, the mask completes the set aspect of this that is why it’s a winner. The mask of light gives it an expression that fits what little story aspect Distorted included; troubled hero. Storywise, there wasn’t much detail, but the idea was cool enough it didn’t hurt the MOC’s ranking any, and to be clear, we judged mainly on MOC quality anyways. I mixed this character/species with a location Ojhilom and I had invented in 2001 planned to be a major locale in Endless Blue, and took the power idea from the logo symbol, and went from there for the bio I generated for him.

    [unfortunately, this is the only image of him; I am trying to include multiple images of the best MOCs.]


    2nd Place!
    Member: Primus
    Entry name: Cap'n Gar-Korr




    Species: A mutant Vortixx
    Moral Type: Villian

    After being horribly mutated as a young Vortixx, Gar-Korr left the Island of Xia to begin his career as a pirate. He is the Captain of the flying ship The Apax, and is known for his skills with his sword.

    The mutation was done by Oracle Industries, the famous company of the Oru-Vortixx. Gar-Korr was not an Oru-Vortixx, and was brought into the experiments against his will. Via unknown techniques, his essence was altered to share some of the “essence parameters”, as he remembers his captors calling them, of a Bohrok Va.

    As such, he has a strange, subconsious mental link with the Bohrok Swarms, which haunts him in his nightmares, but doesn’t otherwise seem to give him any advantage or disadvantage in terms of his physical or mental abilities. One disadvantage does plague him, however – he lost the ability to speak or make any sounds. He is just as intelligent, and communicates with his crew via a form of sign language he has invented, but to strangers he must either have a translator, or use other methods to communicate. He can understand Matoran language just fine, and write it.

    In recent years, he found an open sun-hole, and began pirating the Endless Ocean.

    Host Comments: Picking the best of Primus’s three entries was difficult. We loved all three of his MOCs, but the brilliant story helped this one win out; plus we felt it a cooler looking and more cohesive MOC than the other two (which were both robots with little to no story bio). That was the easy part, but deciding between this or Wolf Rahi for the Number Two spot for this category was much harder.

    In fact, we liked both MOCs so well, plus we had the same problem in the other category, we decided to expand the number of top winners to six, so three per category. That problem out of the way, we selected Captain Gar-Korr about half for the MOC and half for the story. Gar-Korr is different enough from a humanoid to make us very happy with it, although to be clear, humanoids were not ruled out for this contest. He’s also, however, a good example of a semi-humanoid done right. The limbs, torso, head, and hands and feet flow perfectly together, despite using what can often seem like wackily different styles of pieces.

    For example, the blue pieces from the Bohrok handshields on the head and shoulders compared with the blue technic pieces on the arm have fairly different textures, but they’re used in a “descending order” of styles from elegant to practical. This effect is also carried down the torso and legs as blue become black… and then there is a larger blue piece on the feet to balance it out. This is near perfection in both color scheme tactics and texture tactics. And, the end result is, in my view, a character that feels like a pirate captain of an airship. Hard to explain, but it extremely works. In this case, the dark blue parts don’t quite work for me, but it’s okay.

    Also, storywise, MOC fitting it or not, the idea of an airship captain villain, plus the Vortixx origin story, struck as one of the best story inclusions in the whole contest (though a few others compete). It’s not, granted, the most original concept ever, but combined in the way it is, I freakin’ like it. And that was enough. In my bio, I expanded on the short paragraph that was included, mostly just adding detail. Part of what’s in there is a major hint to some Paracosmos mysteries, though, which I plan for Endless Blue to first hint at. The Va part we added is, of course, inspired by the obviously Va-like head here, and partly just because EB takes place during the Bohrok story.


    3rd Place!
    Member: xccj
    Entry name: Wolf Rahi


    Species: Rahi
    Moral Type: Beast

    Highly intelligent Rahi, the wolves live in large packs, usually headed by an alpha male or female. They rely on their strength and sharp teeth, but are also very cunning. Many experienced beings have fallen victim to a wolf ambush before. There was a pack of these wolf Rahi in Le-Wahi, but some may have been displaced overtime.

    Host Comments: After sorting all the other members’ entries fully into win or “lose” statuses, this was the best remaining MOC in this category besides Knife-Tail and Gar-Korr, in our opinion. Now, we did feel that there were one or two better MOCs originally entered in this category, but all of them were dropped into the Honorable Mention status by an even better MOC by the people who made them. So, all that aside, this is still one of our top five or so favorites of the MOCs in this category.

    It wins third place because of, on the plus side, it’s the best use of pieces to create the coolest look of the remaining winning MOCs in this category, we felt. The contrast of dark blue and normal blue looks striking, and the specific pieces of the limbs, tail, rib cage area, and jaws look awesome. Also of course it wins points for us for not being humanoid at all.

    On the other hand, it wins this place behind the other two MOCs for a number of reasons.

    Firstly, I don’t quite like most of the head. It’s alright, and the jaw, like I said, looks nice. But the chin piece, the Toa foot at the neck, and top of the head look clumsy to me. It does succeed in creating a wolflike head, though, so it was good enough. Another set nitpick is more of a technicality that maybe is unfair of us to bring up, since this is a fictional Rahi – but technically according to normal dog/wolf anatomy, the elbow and knee joints of the front and back legs are backwards. I don’t mind it at all with the back legs – an awesome alien animal look there, but the front legs’s knee appearance instead of elbow gives me an impression of this creature’s running style that is frankly quite silly.

    Still, who says a top predator can’t look silly, as long as he takes the prey down? It could also contribute to the alien feel, so whatever. Didn’t hurt it too much. Also, it does appear that on this MOC, the front legs –could- bend like an elbow. More importantly for why it’s only third, as a mere animal without much extra given to it, we’re kinda limited in what story role we can use for it, so this knocked it down below Gar-Korr. But, it really doesn’t matter, ‘cuzza the whole six top winners decision. It should get just about as much story role as the other five top winners, in Endless Blue. There’s a particular chain of islands where we can make great use of them, plus they can get cameos in Le-Wahi.





    New MOCs Top 3

    These three MOCs are guaranteed major plot relevance and feature time in Endless Blue.


    1st Place!
    Member: Ultimate_Kardas
    Entry name: The Krulak






    Species: Rahi
    Moral Type: Beast

    A vicious amphibious fish creature, the Kuambu found it while searching for more beings to capture on a far away island. It was one of the smaller ones they found and they thought it would be amusing to have it as a guard dog so to speak. It now guards the bases of the islands and will try to rip apart any boat or being who comes by. Strangely, it will not attack the Kuambu when they come by. It can breathe air and water, but is very sluggish and slow on land.

    Host Comments: Wow.

    Wow.

    Wow.

    … Wow. Can you tell I’m impressed?

    This is pretty much the epitome of a perfect MOC, IMO/IMT. The heavy use of the glowblue contrasts well with the darker blue, the shape is unique but familiar (a big thing I always loved about Rahi), the story gets heavily into the world I put forward for the contest in a way that will be very useful for me… it’s all good. I’m sure I could think of a negative if I sat here staring at it for hours… Hey, I just might stare at it for hours…

    [i love it so much, I "put it" underwater as an art pic for Endless Blue. ]






    2nd Place!
    Member: LORDS_tekneon
    Entry name: Azh’yuuros, Guardian of the Sapphire Vault





    Species: Giant Glatorian
    Moral Type: Noble guardian, good, but desperate

    A lone Guardian guarding a very important, secret treasure. He's noble and moral, but works alone. He's suspicious and only trusts himself...

    Was sorted by the Kuambu into the Darkminds half of a Hunting Pen by accident, and is furious over the insult. Desperate to return to the “Sapphire Vault”. Wields Blue Fire, the only being other than Hujo known to do so.

    A mysterious incident in the Core War enlarged him, and made him seek this Sapphire Vault, to become its guardian. It ended up on Aqua Magna after the Shattering. Has an energy pack to store swords.

    Host Comments: This is a great custom, very fitting, I felt, with the style of several Glatorian such as Strakk with the shoulders, and a nice take on a helmet-less Glatorian. And the Blue Flames are a nice touch. The choice of weapons is good. It’s pretty much all good.

    We took some big liberties in adding to the story of this guy, since he fit so well in concept and appearance with some Paracosmos secrets, and because L_t had left some parts up in the air. And, I really don’t have much else to say – I think the pics pretty much speak for themselves as to how cool this guy is.

    A few nitpicks – the feet could have been more inventive, depending on what pieces were available. The color scheme stops contrasting below the knees, which seems a bit off, but on the other hand, it could also be seen as boots, perhaps. A helmet may have been desirable, but I really think it works as is there. So… basically I bring these up purely to be objective; I don’t really mind them. Ojh likes the feet, BTW.




    3rd Place!
    Member: Potu
    Entry name: R’yn



    Species: Matoran
    Moral Type: Questionable, possibly leaning very very slightly to good.

    R’yn is a fierce mercenary specializing in stealthy assassinations and dirty jobs. She will do almost anything for the right price and is currently working with the Kuambu. She is cold and clever, but respectful and is extremely resilient, completely determined to complete a mission. It is not known where she came from, but it is known she washed up on a beach in Kuambu territory, somewhat altered by an unknown mutagen.

    She has no memory of her past, not even her real name, and without purpose, resorted to bounty hunting. She has many skills in survival, marksmanship, and can wield a sword. She carries two SHP (Super-heated plasma) Pistols and a Model 49 SHP rifle.

    Host Comments: Another custom, this one small and pretty simple. Now, in this case, I must confess we biased towards storyline slightly. The next three MOCs were about on the same level of quality in technical terms, and are even in our tastes a bit cooler looking. But, we did NOT want to be biased against this one just because it was small. It’s probably the perfect example of a simple custom Matoran.

    And, in story purposes, the next three weren’t as useful for us in Endless Blue. Since we upped the number of guaranteed-featuring in each category from two to three, this worked perfectly, and this character is actually the first of these contest winners to be featured in the story – right in the prologue, although not by name yet there. R’yn will be essentially the public face of the staying-hidden main antagonist of the story, leading the Kuambu’s opposition to Bhukasa’s attempts to discover their secrets.

    We’ve also added a secret backstory that she has forgotten that is tied in with one of the most important mysteries in the Paracosmos. That, I plan to only hint at in EB.

    Potu entered three MOCs, and we chose this of the three mainly for story reasons. His two other MOCs were also excellent customs, with excellent stories, which we do intend to cameo, but they were designed to go together, and we felt the best solution to avoid that problem was to go with this. Besides, this way we get a major character, not a side character.



    Second Chances Other Winners

    These MOCs will get fairly major featuring either in Endless Blue or in future Paracosmos story.

    4th Place
    Member: Bitter Cold
    Entry name: Blue

    Species: A Dark Hunter; Blue is her agent codename
    Moral Type: Questionable

    Blue is a Dark Hunter whose native island is far away from Odina in one of the Paracosmos Matoran Universe’s many underground domes. She joined the evil organization in a typical way, for the adventure – and had no moral qualms.

    But when she was immediately hired by a secretive being to venture up onto the surface ocean to seek out the secrets of the Kuambu, she realized she could not stomach the moral ambivalence being a Dark Hunter requires. So ever since, she has been wandering from island to island, trying to survive… and stay far away from her former boss, The Shadowed One… or the one who hired her.

    But she is not to be trusted – she still clings to some of her old tactics when she thinks she must.

    Host Comments: Lemme get the “bad” news out of the way first. I was sliiiiightly disappointed that, after we selected out the multiple-entries-per-member the way we wanted them, this MOC was the best we could pick for fourth. It was much, much harder to pick the top few winners in the New MOCs category than here. But, if you think about it, this is really just the reverse of our last contest like this. In the Beasts MOC contest, the vast majority of good entries were in the 2nd Chances category, not many New MOCs. This time, it’s simply reversed. And that’s fine.

    If you notice, none of that is really about this MOC, though. Now, true, it’s a humanoid, but again, we tried not to weigh too heavily based on that in this contest, and besides, it has wings. Also, the swords create a sort of single-claw, “ice-pick” look that goes well with the wings giving it an almost creatureesque look. Not really sure why the feet had to be cut off in this pic, but the rest of the MOC is high-quality, and overall creates a really cool Dark Hunter.

    I especially like the heavy use of tubes here. They create a very detail-beneath-armor look, like a car that has only half its engine coverings, which is an awesome style, and very fitting of Bionicle. On the downside, most of the pieces aren’t used in very original ways. The upturned mask, creating the impression of a new mask or face, is a style I use a lot in my own MOCs, though, so although it might not be the most brilliant head style, it’s very Paracosmos, and at least it’s something unique, yeah?

    Storywise, very little was given, so for the bio I added, I pretty much expanded on what was given, as well as using this character to fill a role that will fit into the EB plot background well. I also have another important background role in mind to be revealed later.

    Overall, if you want a guide to how to do a mostly humanoid Bionicle MOC without getting too obsessive about radical originality or size, this MOC fills that role. This is what I imagine the LEGO set designers have in mind for the sorts of MOCs a target audience member would make (although they don’t often MOC, but I mean with the mostly snap-together easy style that uses pieces pretty much in the obvious ways only; the originality comes in the overall style and shape). And even better, it is the first MOC in any of my blog contests that has so well created that details-between-armor biomechanical look, and that is awesome.


    5th Place
    Member: -Zaxvo-
    Entry name: Sikara

    Species: Lariska's species.
    Moral Type: Dark Hunter. Ruthless. Evil

    A ruthless, determined dark hunter who will stop at nothing to get what she wants. Was fused with a Zatth at one point, can now summon rahi within a limited distance. Can also control them. Has limited control over the "poison" power.

    Host Comments: Sikara is another good example of the Bionicle target audience style of MOC, mostly using snap-together pieces. This MOC doesn’t add anything as innovative as the detail-under-armor style of Blue, but it’s still a very cool looking MOC. I don’t plan to use it in Endless Blue, but it will be a nice addition to some future Paracosmos story.

    Specifically, the head style, weapon, extra limbs, and Toa-foot leg armor are my favorite parts. The color scheme is very cool too, although I would personally prefer it lose the black pieces so there’d only be three colors (but there’s very few of those and the shapes look good, so I’m sure black was all that was available).

    The thick torso design with the double Nuva armor pieces, combined with the thick up to thin legs, combined with the other four thinner limbs, creates a very cool “tree” style. Makes the character look “planted firmly” on the ground, like it’d be hard to knock it over. Also, the wide shoulder style combined with the double-Nuva makes it look like a “strong man”, so on both counts plus those nasty-looking extra limbs, this looks like a formidable enemy.

    Storywise, it’s decent. We’ll find roles. Could even get very fun with the Rahi-summoning ability. My writing style can take that concept and go crazy with it. Plenty of other stories worked better for EB, though, so yeah.


    6th Place
    Member: Valenti
    Entry name: (Bi)Polar (Shark)Ray [We're calling it Sharkray; pic below is top view.]

    Species: Ocean-dwelling predator
    Moral Type: Beast

    Having been in Aqua Magna’s oceans before even the Shattering, sharks and rays underwent a mutual mutation, of some unknown type. This created the shark-ray. These evolved predators are highly intelligent and they know how to work together to take down their largest prey.

    Host Comments: I’ve mentioned many times before that in these contests, we are aware of many different styles of MOCing, and all are valid. We try to judge them all equally. This MOC is a good example of what I like to think of as the 2001 Extra Rahi style. There’s a mix of very structural, non-stylish functional pieces combined in clever ways to create a cool impression of a shape (such as 2001 Ruki fish), and here and there a more stylish piece such as the Bohrok shields and Nuju Hordika tools (reminds me especially of the Maha goats).

    This style is probably my least favorite, but because we judge as objectively as we know how to here, its clever use of pieces, complexity, and cool impression of a shape made it a winner.

    On the downside, if I got my hands on this MOC and had a fair range of extra pieces of the right color available, I’d balance out the metalblue pieces in the middle (top view) with a bit more white, also filling in gaps around those pieces, and also add a biiiiiit more metalblue on the thin part of the tail. And as cool as they are, I might go without the blue Pahrak shields in the middle of the MOC – the color just feels out of place to me. I realize that several minor pieces used it, probably unavoidably, and I didn’t mind that, but that big exception clashes IMO.

    All that aside, picture this thing coming at you from undersea – it would be a terrifying sight. In a way, I almost think its style flaws (or what strike me as flaws in my tastes) make it cooler because it creates that monstrous machine-beast look that if you met one in real life, would be disturbing as well as cool. (Or at least you could call it cool if you were safe from its jaws. ) Also, it’s hard to spot, but there’s a lower-jaw combined with a mandible effect in the mouth area, which I love.

    Storywise, again as a creature there isn’t all thaaat much we can do with it, but it works for EB, and the origin mystery will tie in nicely with something we’ve been planning. Note that in the Paracosmos, we’re gonna call it the Sharkray, no dash.


    7th Place
    Member: Dwight Schrute
    Entry name: Rembathsis

    Species: ?
    Moral Type: Hero

    Rembathsis has boisterous and friendly personality (think Alex Louis Armstrong from FMA). He is incredibly strong, exceeding both Krekka and Makuta in raw power. He can control water in all states of matter and influence the behavior of Rahi.
    He does not believe in the use of conventional weapons such as swords and spears however in times of extreme danger he will take up his orange shield.

    He has recently come to Voya Nui, after living on a strange undiscovered island somewhere between Voya Nui and Mata Nui.

    Host Comments: It’s Bones Blog colors! Wheee!

    That aside, this is a clever MOC. The best parts IMO are the double-Nuva-shoulder head, and the sort of Faun leg style. I especially love the view with the orange shield. Mostly blue with a sparing use of orange, and the hunchback “strong Faun” with a lizardlike head is a very original combination of features that you wouldn’t expect to flow well together, but it does, IMO.

    As far as style goes, I would classify this as a rare type of MOC that I only know to describe as “Old School Bionicle.” All the piece shapes come from 2001-2003 with a few exceptions, and it uses the detail-in-limbs but not fully custom style that I associate with the sorts of MOCs that were most common back when I first joined in 2003. Turaga head, Rahkshi back, Bohrok limbs, etc. There are very few “snap-together” pieces in this; the shape is formed by combining many smaller parts in clever ways. Hence it is a winner.

    On the negative side, we felt this and the Sharkray were about equal and not quite up to the quality of the first five winners in 2nd Chances category. I’ve gone back and forth and back and forth on which of the two to rank higher, but ultimately decided that the Sharkray was overall a more clever use of the “imply shapes” style that Bionicle used so much with things like Ruki, while this was, again, a bit more of a typical MOC.

    Specifically, I would have improved the hip and lower arm parts, and while the lower leg design is clever albeit hard to make out, I would have opted for something more coherent and without the light blue pieces. And while this is admittedly sheer bias, I really prefer longer arms normally. To me, a hero with short arms is going to be very limited and looks a bit silly. If you imagine the legs stretched up to full height, the arms would look even shorter. To be fair though, a lot of people see things the opposite way, and why should there not be a hero with certain limitations? So none of these things were enough for it not to win.

    Storywise, in terms of powers and fighting style, this is the best perhaps in the whole contest.

    Now, because 1) we have so many characters in EB already and 2) I liked the pic of him next to Axonn (), we’ve decided that he not be in Endless Blue. Although our characters will be going around Voya Nui, we don’t plan for any of them to actually go there during this story. Voya Nui will play a flashback role in the story that comes after EB that’s already written (the title I’ve recently decided for it is Falling Sun, although that’s still tentative)… and then in the story after that which focuses on Onua (untitled so far), it would make sense to go here. Since Rembathsis was clearly not on VN in the Falling Sun flashback, which is just a few days before the present, we’ll say he went there just in the last days (yes, we’ll have a reason for the timing.)


    8th Place
    Member: Bfahome
    Entry name: Slugg

    Species: Whatever
    Moral Type: Uh… it's a slug… that's poisonous? ._.

    Host Comments: Of a handful of tiny MOCs entered in this contest, this is the only one we picked as a winner. Why? Well, let’s back up for a second.

    Among the myriad MOCing styles, there is a definite style of MOCing that goes purposefully small. In typical MOC contests, especially BBC, these MOCs do not win. Why? Because typically voters go for the most complex MOCs, which is usually either a heavily custom normal sized MOC, or a titan. But, in my opinion, the purposeful small MOC style is perfectly valid, and while I can’t fairly compare it with more complex MOCs, it deserves at least some recognition.

    This MOC is the winner of the tiny ones in here, for most brilliant use of pieces. I mean, just look at the thing. Even without the construction pic (conveniently included too), it’s clearly innovative. The wrench pieces inside further back this up. Now, I could whine about the four colors, but one of those is eye-color which IMO shouldn’t count, and really, with so few pieces, color schemes aren’t that relevant, so I didn’t mind that.

    Other than that, not much else to say setwise. Storywise, really nothing was included that helps us out, and we couldn’t think of anything. So yeah. It’s a slug.




    New MOCs Other Winners

    These MOCs will get fairly major featuring either in Endless Blue or in future Paracosmos story.

    4th Place
    Member: ~~Zarkan~~
    Entry name: Nagurr Turtle (Rahi species)


    The Nagurr Turtle is a rare being, in that it can safely stay in the mutagenic sands around Kriitunga Island for extremely long periods of time.

    By observing it, the Kriitunga have found that by floating on the surface of the sands, the Nagurr Turtle manages to avoid the ill effects of the mutagens. Its shell is incredibly buoyant, which has led some Kriitunga to create rafts with abandoned ones, for use in the river and occasionally along the coast.

    They are not actually immune to the sands, so if a wind gusts, they could be affected, but only very rarely because their shells are immune. They have good sensory instincts and quickly retreat into their shells at the slightest wind.

    Host Comments: Canister lid worked into MOC. Freaky cool feet. Contrasting style of head making it very turtlesque. And cool overall shape. This MOC has everything! Again, we had to rank 3-4 by story use to use in Endless Blue in the end, because all four MOCs are just so good, which is why judging this category was haaaard, man! But I ain’t complainin’!

    There is a bit of room for improvement here, mainly the head could be cooler. But, it’s using a style that’s perfectly valid in Bionicle, established by many 2001 Rahi, the Turaga’s bodies (obviously), etc. So that’s minor. Zarkan entered three MOCs all of which were also good. We chose this because it’s a more inventive MOC. Also, one of the others was another humanoid, and the other was very small. The use of the canister is the best part of this IMO.



    5th Place
    Member: Veq?
    Entry name: Torkax

    Species: Whatever
    Moral Type: A guardian of sorts. So, I think questionable.

    He guards... something. I'll let you decide if it wins. Torkax is a confused soul who seems to be a fusion of a mostly robotic biomechanical being from the Matoran Universe, and a fleshy biomechical being native to Aqua Magna’s islands. He does not remember his origins, but he knows one thing.

    He must guard the Memory Stone.

    He’s never actually seen this, but he believes it to be an artifact in the caves of the small, mostly barren island he now lives on. He believes the stone has the power to restore lost memories – a common affliction in the Paracosmos – but at a terrible cost. None may use it, he insists – not even himself. Especially not… visitors…

    Host Comments: A Sah-Hweet nonsymmetrical MOC. Again, this MOC was chosen partly for storyline reasons. He ranks lower than the turtle because he is, after all, just another humanoid, albeit a very distinctive one. This MOC accomplishes the biomechanical look well, and the layered shoulder armor on the robo-arm is a nice touch too. Reminds me of the long-nose spy on Tattoine in Star Wars. I like how in the close-up view on the head, there’s a particular bump built into the piece that resembles an eye in the way the piece is used.

    He too will have a major use in Endless Blue, although not with all that much total story time as far as I have planned. As you might guess if you know that the main character has lost his memories, this guy will be a major obstacle earlyish in the plot. As you see, I ironically also used the memory loss feature in his bio (since Veq left room for interpretation). Memory loss is a very common phenomenon in my fanfic universe, even more so than in canon – and yes, there’s a reason. This guy will be step one in finding that reason, though it won’t be found in EB. He could easily play a role in future BP story.

    Not much to say in the way of criticism.



    6th Place
    Member: Blue Diamond
    Entry name: Haywire

    (tail pic)
    Species: Techno-organic virus
    Moral Type: Villian

    Haywire, is a microscopic, techno-organic virus, that invades biomechanical beings. Once in the system, he fuses with the mind, gaining complete control of the victim's mind and body. Haywire is extremely calculating with a vast intelligence beyond normal beings. This massive intellect allows for superb calculation abilities, extremely enhanced memory, and advancedunderstanding of mechanical engineering, bio-engineering, and other applied sciences. Haywire was originally created to better civilization, but his hunger for power & knowledge led him to commit dark experiments & crime.

    Since Haywire is unable to perform anything significant with his small size, he must find hosts. He invades the body through water. Once inside, he leaks chemicals in the brain which slowly absorb life energy. After the host's body is no longer usable, he absorbs the chemicals with the new life force. If repeated periodically, it basically grants him immortality as long as he can find new host bodies and keep the host alive.

    Note: the draining of the life force does not kill the host, but leaves them in a coma. Often permanent.

    Host Comments: Brilliance. This is the fourth of the four MOCs we had trouble ranking, and I put it here because, as brilliant as it is, you do have to admit it’s a simple MOC compared to the other ones. But it’s a very nice concept that will probably play a big story role in EB.

    I don’t have much else to say about it. It’s awesome, and it speaks for itself.



    7th Place
    Member: Kayru
    Entry name: Data Sora

    Species: Unidentifiable - unknown technology.
    Moral Type: Hero

    A shifty fellow - he appears to be looking for his friends. An error in an extremely distant world led him to be transported to this new world, and his physical composure was turned into a projection built entirely out of data. As this is a technology completely unknown to the world of Bionicle, few can grasp exactly what this means.

    Sora is good-natured and will help whoever he meets in need - but his ultimate goal is to find out how he got here, and how he can escape and return back to his normal self.

    His weapon is called the Keyblade, but no one knows what exactly its power is - it can only be called and used by Sora.
    Unbeknownst to him and most others, his appearance here was tied in with a deep secret about the Paracosmos, but in what some see as a minor way.

    Host Comments: A very cool Fusion MOC between Bionicle and System pieces. Kayru entered two other MOCs, and we chose this one for being a better MOC than the undersea creature MOC, and the other wolflike MOC was too similar for our purposes to the wolf MOC ranking 3rd in the Second Chances category. Plus, this one fits in our story better. However, we don’t plan to use him in Endless Blue. Not yet sure where we will use him, but his bio fits in perfectly with a major Paracosmos secret, so he’ll be important!

    He ranks down here mainly for being humanoid and because there were just so many awesome MOCs in this category.



    8th Place
    Member: Toa Bors
    Entry name: Johke (pronounced JAH-kah)

    Species: from Stelt
    Moral Type: Questionable. (Will fight heroes or villains.)

    Johke (pronounced more or less JAH-kah) is purely a fighter. He worked on Stelt under a relatively unknown smith, and at the end of his apprenticeship, he was allowed to forge himself a weapon to take with him (his master knew he never would have stayed as a smith). He ended up forging twin "hooks," as he calls them.

    He has no desire to be either good or evil (the mix of gunmetal vs. silver armor is supposed to symbolize this). His skill in fighting is all that matters to him. One thing is for sure: he hates feeling hunted. And he will do anything to get back at his captors. His constant urge to fight makes others extremely wary of him.

    The Kuambu captured him via their random “reach out and grab” teleportation Kuamor sphere power, and imprisoned him on one of the Chain Islands. He has tried everything to escape or fight back when the Kuambu come, but failed always.

    Host Comments: A fairly simple MOC, but it’s well-made. I especially like the tools. He will play a medium role in Endless Blue. The torso design is pretty nice. The limbs leave a lot to be desired, at least compared with the previous winners, so that’s why it ranks here. But again, that’s okay – for the simple snap-together style, this is an exceptional MOC.

    Specifically, the Pohatu Nuva claw pieces on the back of the legs seem out of place to me. There are no such gaps in the construction of the rest of him, not counting the tools. Perhaps if they could have been flipped around, but they may not have fit that way.

    9th Place
    Member: Maxilos.Bolso
    Entry name: Heria (Mutant)

    Species: female mutant repaired matoran
    Moral Type: Beast

    Strong. Agressive. Can fly short distances. Still intelligent, this mutant Voyatoran is trapped in the Lightminds half of a Kuambu Hunting Pen. But don’t let her good morals deceive you; she’s a beast now, and she can get very angry very fast.

    Host Comments: Two versions of this character were entered – one was a Matoran, and one was this mutant. The mutant is far more interesting, and is a complex and definitely monstrous “Rahi” MOC. I especially like the “antlers” on the head. The wings are a bit incoherent and may have been better left off, but that’s okay. We have a use for her in EB.


    10th Place
    Member: Kanohi Zatth
    Entry name: Kwadrika

    Species: ?
    Moral Type: Villain

    An unknown remain of a failed experiment of the Great Beings, Kwadrika tried to earn respect in many lands for millennia. Its appearance made all shudder at him, making it hate all living creatures. Was a General in the army of the Barakki. Escaped soon after, never to be seen again.

    Left vowing to make all creatures that shunned him suffer. Has four arms, which can be used to climb walls or as front legs. Bulky and not too silent, but very powerful. Seems to work for Kuambu.

    Host Comments: Probably the worst of the winners we chose. But we like it. It’s clearly of the “snap-together” style, not a more traditional MOC. What it has going for it is being the only four-armed guy, and looking like a cyclops. I heart cyclopses. (Well, apparently six-armed, but yeah.) Will have a very minor role, not sure if it will be in EB or not, but probably. Might get a somewhat expanded role in the story two after EB.



    Honorable Mentions

    These are only a few of the non-winning MOCs we commented on in the Powerpoint file; these are the ones likely to get cameos either in Endless Blue or in future Paracosmos story. Here I am only mentioning them and summarizing my comments; full bios and comments in the slideshow.

    Old:

    Gahlok Va by Distorted. We will either just use this as the BP version of Va, or as a special Blue-only type of Va; we haven't decided yet.

    Pulsar by Primus. We'll use it as a crewmember on (our version of ) Gar-Korr's airship.

    "Lavabot" by Primus. We plan to use this robot to tie in with a location we invented in 2001, and also ties in with one of these other MOCs by in a secret way (one of the top six). ("Lavabot" is what we're calling it, probably to be a nickname given it by observers who do not understand what it is for.)

    Meeka (Rahi species) by Kayru. We plan to cameo this species here and there in EB.

    Iza Wolf Rahi by Kayru. We will probably use this as an important leader of the Wolf Rahi of xccj's 3rd Place winning (old) MOC.

    Heria (Matoran) by Maxilos.Bolso. We will use this in Bhukasa's flashbacks as the non-beast-mutated version of the beast character who is later involved in the present-day EB story.

    New:

    Krutuska by Zarkan. We'll cameo her somewhere; a mutant Kriitunga.

    Crazolga Slug by Zarkan. As his bio said, we will use the slime of this slug as what causes the power-dampening effect of the Kuambu prisons' wooden fences.

    Ekieigo and Razor Cat by Potu. We plan to have an island inhabited by these guys where Bhukasa will go.

    Mytaht the intelligent Cyaho Crab by the Bionicle Hamster. We are saying this Rahi species (before this one was mutated to become smart) is related to our Fawa crabs.
  23. bonesiii
    Multiverse updates:
    We have picked the guest writer for Episode 5 of the EM Cipher Chronicles! 

    Congratulations, TakanuvaC01, and thanks to Takuta-Nui for doing an excellent job in running the volunteering topic! For those that are curious, we have provided a basic impetus for this episode and some details, even a few secrets, TnC01 can use. But the vast majority of it will be totally up to him, and I can't wait to see what he comes up with.
     
    To those that didn't make it this time, many of your submissions were excellent and you guys have great potential for future guest writing opportunities! Lemme tell you, choosing wasn't easy!
     

    I'm nearing the end of the writing for Episode 4. The "grand finale" is about to happen, and it's coming along quite nicely. If all goes as I expect, you will see it begin to be posted in the Epics forum well before the end of September.  
    I can now confirm that Episode 4 will be roughly 20 chapters, over twice the length of the average normal CC episode. In addition to its main plot, it is also a major "pulling-together" episode of plot threads from the first three episodes, and establishing major basics such as Team Cipher's headquarters, so the stage will be clearly set for the episodes to come.
     

    In contest news, if you're wondering where the Denizens, Tyrants, and Vehicles PDFs are, basically I am waiting till I've got Episode four's "final" draft done before I get to that. Also, Tyrants will likely not get a PDF only for that, but will be put off for a Sapient Species guide later. Whether we will actually do a contest and what the nature of that contest might be for other species, hasn't yet been decided.  
    Episode 4 also uses several winning entries from the Weapons and Denizens contests, which were completed before I began writing, and the latter half of the episode even includes some entries from Tyrants and Vehicles.
     
    Also, the next EM contest will indeed be about Wildlife as we've speculated in the discussion topic before.
    Bionicle Story Squad updates:The most important thing I'd like to bring to your attention is the Canonisation Blacklist topic. Essentially, we're asking, what things do you NOT want canonized? 
    I had something along these lines planned even before the BSS was formed, but no clear idea where to go with it. Even now, we want to caution that it is just for interest -- we can't impose anything on Greg, but we do think it will be helpful to know what you guys think about this.
     

    We've also got some polls just started. There is the simple Sundial Hours suggestion.  
    We have a suggestion about masks for Makuta, with two current polls: Makuta Masks 1: Icarax And Tridax and Makuta Masks 2: Kojol And Stelty. Tiebreakers if necessary for this are planned, and the final choices will be polled yes/no to see if people agree with it.
     
    Edit: Just launched, a topic about the mask for Toa Naho. Most popular suggestions (from existing masks) will then be polled.
     

    Some internal changes are underway, as Tilius has announced here. Storyline & Theories updates:The main Bionicle story has ended. S&T's pinning space is cluttered. Other stuff. I don't feel like announcing details yet, but basically a whole slew of streamlining stuff will be happening soon to adapt S&T better to today. Yarr. 

    I am sorry, but Memoirs of the Dead is officially delayed. I shouldn't have tried to do two short story contests that close together in the first place. In order to properly judge ATYU2 with all I've got going on, it's going to take more time, period. But still working as fast as reasonable.
  25. bonesiii
    A while ago we asked you guys to invent names for a secret character in Cipher Chronicles Episode 4. We decided to use several of the names for characters in the episode, and now we are ready to announce the results. Thanks for the suggestions!
     
    Here are the results, and see the note in bold for another related opportunity to help us out.
     
    Arrik Xell
    A two-part name; Arrik is by Kini Hawkeye and Xell by LukaRhotuka.
    This is the secret character.
     
    Regnius
    By Lewa Krom
    A Toa of Air on Alarist. Right forearm replaced with an Earth Claw (from the Weapons contest). Affiliation I'll keep secret for now.
     
    Tarko
    By Shadow Destroyer
    A Tuma-level Skrall of Shadow Honor clan on Barrawahi. A lower-level military group leader.
     
    Sulmiris
    by Skrilax
    Female Tyrant, Lady of a small town in Duke Mokuun's territory on Tanuuk. See here for a short bio, under Lesser Tyrants.
     
    NOTE: You have an opportunity to help pick her power (from the 12 standards just announced in the Tyrants Results topic). See here for my request in the Discussion Topic and some minor spoilers from Episode 4.
     
    Zereldar
    By Skrilax
    Female Turaga of Silver, leader of Tribe Rapid Spirits on Atohune. Ally of Turaga Xata of neighboring Tribe Echostone (M'konglii's tribe). See here for information about her and her tribe.
     
    Zakar and Mualma
    By Zaveno and Lewa Krom
    Two Matoran of Lava, the founders of the secret unnamed slave refugee organization (formerly known as Broken Limpet) on Tanuuk. Zakar is male and Mualma is female; the Lava element is one of only a few naturally bi-gender EM elements. They are often referred to in code as the Two Lava Rocks. Most organization helpers never meet them, but they are a legend, and even just hearing of their advice in your own predicaments, passed on by Gadget or in-person messengers, is considered a great honor.
     
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