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bonesiii

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Everything posted by bonesiii

  1. Please do not post in topics that have been inactive for 60 or more days. Revived topic closed.
  2. Somehow i feel the last thing this new Bionicle needs to take cues from is the old one's constant need to make more and more near-identical species. It's one thing to have variety like the Skakdi (brutish war-goblins) and the Makuta (Anti-Toa) but Bionicle had so many humanshape mask-wearing tall guys it'd be like if DnD introduced a new player race that had all the abilities and traits of elfs but called them "Alfs". Agreed, but the main problem with Gen 1 about species was the plausibility issue of there being so many defined species within the MU. Stories like Star Wars don't have that problem as "any number" is to be expected, and G2 seems to be portraying multiple habitable worlds from the start, albeit moons or some similar relationship to the one Okoto is on. (And we only know of one island on that world, so yeah.) But I was thinking more that they might not fall into defined species anyways, like Lychir said. Having no requirement for species would have fit well with the biomechanical nature of G1 too. Not sure if that applies here; some theories go that they're organic here (and skeletons would by generic default evidence that, but the mechanical parts of biomechanical beings were called skeletons in G1). But it's a route they could go, especially if they go with the appearance of 2001 as robots.
  3. G1 had any number of species, and G2 shows both Ekimu and Makuta looking like tall beings that aren't Toa, so could be anything. There's no apparent implication that there are only villagers, protectors, and Toa in this world.
  4. Lychir, the problem with having one topic for it (an official topic), is it would give the appearance of endorsing such theories. People are bound to have those kinds of theories, in pretty much any return of anything, ever. It's like, it'll occasionally rain. It's human nature, like rain is the nature of weather. Oh well. Just take it as an unfortunate side effect of what is a good thing -- that IT'S BACK!! Everything has pros and cons, yanno? (Like rain of course having benefits... the analogy kinda breaks down though but yeah.)
  5. I think this line summarizes what I think is the flaw in this reasoning: While we can't assume G2 is taking all its cues from G1, Makuta seeming to be a non-factor until the "shocking reveal" was a commonly used theme back then. I wouldn't take this as anything other than that in this case, mainly because they went out of their way to clearly establish him as the bad guy that started these events rolling. Of course, maybe he isn't awake! That's a valid route to take too -- but that also wouldn't disprove his being the main bad guy. Somebody else could be trying to awaken him, and then he'll resume his role. In short... wait and see.
  6. I always saw that as the set designers being a bit dyslexic (not literally though) and not really worrying about things like that. Nuju's was on the other side too; for him it didn't matter, but just randomly throwing a visor on his face at all looked like they just assumed Ko Toa were supposed to have visors because Kopaka did. Of course, they might have intentionally switched sides at the time to make it clearer he wasn't Kopaka... but avoiding a visor in the first place would have done that. And the visor was originally supposed to be connected to the power. Now a visor was on a mask that moves things with the mind. So basically that seemed wonky enough that when Kopaka's own visor switched sides, wasn't surprising. Was kinda like how photos are often flipped, and people don't necessarily notice. So instead of a photo being flipped, an entire set was flipped. In-story it seems as far as I recall that they treated as if the flip didn't happen, so I'd say this is probably a reasonable way to look at it -- "pretend it's on the other side." It also might not be that hard to switch back and forth. Shouldn't assume it would be.
  7. Basically she needed them to be both alive and psychologically hindered enough to unwittingly help free Makuta. Just altering their powers but not their minds would be riskier. There would be other ways to do that, probably, but Visorak are the obvious choice given the situation. Probably helps keep them appeased too.
  8. I have possible issues with these, though unsure: 1) Aren't those protodermic? Of course, it might not have been stated specifically, so yeah. But these seem very unlikely. 2) I've seen the Makuta as being made pretty much right off the bat in the MU's history, although to be fair my own retelling has them coming fairly late and shows Ehlek's species coming before them. But I don't picture there being specific prototypes to the Makuta, since they had such a unique origin. However, it does make sense they might test the powers, so in a very loose sense, early protodermic species could be used to test a few features of the Makuta. But this wouldn't actually help condense the species list. Only objection here is Brutaka with his extra arms. Of course, we don't know those are inherent to his species, but I'm going to treat it as a rule that this won't factor in what I say here, since it could apply to just about anything; so without specific evidence of a mutation, treat it as a separate species. I also personally like to call them Steltians... no real reason though, and yours does make more sense. I would like to see more effort applied to having more people added to this one. He's pretty much your generic brute type, appearance-wise, and probably a lot of beings like other DH could work for that, I'd think? I don't recall enough about the next Stelt entry to comment, but noting to self to look at it more closely; I can think of issues but they're probably irrelevant so I won't waste time typing them at the moment... For the Barraki specifically, in my retelling I treated them as the same species (these four), in part because there was at least some kind of set representation I could repurpose to be their pre-mutation forms (the playset minifigs), and it looked basically the same. Although I don't think I actually said they were the same, and Takadox is clearly distinct, but they could be subspecies, or just take Takadox alone out of the group. Interesting association of Tobduk and Pridak. It made me scratch my head at first, but given your argument in the descrption here (implied argument ), it makes sense. (And I seem to recall that island was in Pridak's territory. If not, I'd say no.) Interesting... I don't recall enough about Triglax... *wants to look it up later...*
  9. It might be new in terms of his wording it as certain. It's not new in the sense that he told us he leans toward seeing them as relatives of the Glatorian (and we know they have hair) -- but he had previously, as far as I know at the moment, refrained from giving a definite answer. As for "neutral" being a cheap answer, again I'd say the fact that Greg's answers are usually very short comes into play here. He doesn't say Velika had no disagreements, and I'd think being neutral implies he almost certainly did (plus his actions!) -- Greg just wasn't commenting on those details. You could ask about that specifically if you wanna know more; that's how Greg usually does things. He also might not be answering the "especially with Angonce" part. When a question asks two things in one, Greg often ignores the more specific one and answers only the general. He's done that to plenty of my own questions, heh, and I've seen it to a lot of others. I'd call that up in the air unless he's asked specifically if Velika had more disagreement with Angonce than others, etc. Notice his answer talks only about the GBs as a whole, as it's worded. (But I dunno if we know how much Angonce differs from the others anyways.)
  10. Sorry, it's simply a fan misconception that they don't have feelings. Every portrayal of them before the full sapience update happened showed them with fairly normal feelings. Sapience isn't needed to have feelings (and they had partial sapience anyways) -- look at animals like dogs. If anything, many dogs seem to have less ability to calm themselves than humans. And we wouldn't expect them not to, except if we presume the GBs weren't that good at making AI (which would be possible, of course, but not the route LEGO decided to go) -- feelings help beings / fictional AI react better to typical situations. A sense of fear, for example, can (when used properly) make a being take a threat more seriously and focus more on stopping it. And really, any calm calculating equivalent that will have the same results will be pretty much indistinguishable from emotion to observers, so could be fairly called feelings anyways.
  11. I think both the rule about forgetcons and the fact that Greg's answers are usually very short and not meant to cover every angle apply here.
  12. They might not be fired the same as the sets. That spinning pressure mechanism works great in little plastic things -- would it work with metal, etc. going far enough? I dunno. It might actually be a crossbow, though until that post by Makaru you just linked to I've never heard anybody suggest it (and as far as I know he is incorrect to suggest this interpretation is fact). Vakama's launcher is shaped the way it is for the jetpack rockets function, not to give space for a string. I'm pretty sure the inspiration was from frisbee throwing, so it's meant as a mechanical version of a hand throwing a frisbee; any resemblance to a crossbow is probably coincidence, but could be used anyways. Regardless, some mechanical pushing equivalent to a crossbow, without an actual string (perhaps a spring instead or something) may be what it would use in-story if it had been thought out, as the disk might fly farther that way.
  13. That quote is: This isn't news, but quoting it because we have a rule/guideline to not just link these but post the quote, in case something goes wrong at the LEGO side of the link in the future. Please remember this next time. Also, it's best to link directly to the post, not just the page. Do that by clicking "Highlight" in the "Options" button on the post and copying the URL from address bar (not intuitive, I know ).
  14. Doesn't follow, although it's unfathomable that his brain isn't different somehow since he makes people go insane from mental contact. And is a tad bit larger than most beings, so probably his brain is, if he even has a distinct brain. But anywho, problem with this reasoning is it forgets that the rule about the RS sounds more like it requires a mechanical part of some kind that TK lacks. (Or simply requires they have metal parts at all and something sorts them out if they don't... for some reason...) Previous theories have focused on the heartlight or something thereabouts as a likely candidate. It could be in the brain too while the rest of the brain is organic or a mix in general. We simply don't know because it was never established, and trying to guess at it through other established things isn't going to work because they weren't chosen to fit a particular version of what the brains are. Again, doesn't follow. They might, or might not, we don't know.
  15. I dunno why people are saying yes -- even if protodermis isn't toxic to Agori, why would we expect it to be compatible? It might be like eating plastic. While Matoran can probably absorb energy from any lifeform, and apparently the energification equivalent in them and others could work with normal matter too (re: recent topic establishing that Barakki physically ate Aqua Magna sea creatures), I highly doubt it works in reverse. Natural beings of normal matter, cells, etc. should, you'd think, not be able to digest protodermis. However, they could always get some kind of technological implant to enable it.
  16. If you think about it, Mind Control brings Unity, while Repulsion can be seen as symbolizing its opposite. I take it that way -- a cultural statement more so than literal immorality. Also, why is the Ignika in that image? At first I thought it was saying the Ignika controls minds (it might, I forget ). And anyway, I've never heard it said to be about the shape of the mask...
  17. Storywise, absolutely. I'll admit I was hesitant about the sets, but only for color-scheme-related issues. The set designs themselves are much more attractive, personally. I haven't wanted to actually buy any HF sets, but now even though I really have no room, I want to actually buy some of the new Bionicle sets. Of course, being a Bionicle fan first undoubtedly is involved with these preferences.
  18. You've convinced me there were active carnivores. But to this last bit, it looks like it's assuming Makuta didn't replace them. Do we know that? We do know he was watching the island intensely. My reasoning earlier was even if the Matoran could eat Rahi, if they know Makuta is responsible for replacing them, I doubt they'd want to annoy him by making him do it more often. Plus since he's their enemy I doubt they'd even want to at that point. It seems to me that still stands. [i see you went on to mention they might replace them. Anywho. Of course, they might not know the Makuta are responsible for it, esp. if they need that food, so the Turaga would decide not to tell them. ] Well, they presumably wanted some Rahi to actually attack Matoran or others after they turned evil, and carnivorous behavior makes them better fit to that. Some Rahi were commissioned by the League as war beasts, and given their portrayal in a flashback, that probably means they wanted them likely to kill too (though herbivores can kill of course). Even before they turned evil, Rahi were to keep Matoran, etc. away from areas where they weren't allowed, and predation might have been part of that, since the GBs did not know the Matoran would be fully sapient. Incidentally, do we know Makuta had to be directly involved in making more of a Rahi type after it was invented, fully tested, and a final version chosen? They make them with viruses; maybe they have a way to make a type of virus reproduce in the liquid proto pool assigned for that type of Rahi? So if the pool is refilled, another Rahi is made? If governed by a smart enough computer hooked into some kind of population monitoring system, they wouldn't need to be involved after finalizing the design, if so.
  19. Not quite. I mentioned it's loosely related, as we don't know for an absolute fact that Krana could do just as well taking over Rahi without the mask-connecting spots. I gave examples of why. I have been going back and forth between whether I should give notice that the tangent has gone on long enough though, since it's such a thin connection. I've decided that for now I'm not going to, but can we still wrap it up? Or if you feel strongly enough about it Thormen, you can go ahead and make another topic even though I'm not demanding it. You might find people are less resistant to it if they aren't always thinking "it's off-topic" in the back of their heads. After the post I've quoted a part of above, I ran out of time to read every word. Skimmed some. Hope yall have been behaving. On-topic: I think, like I said in my last post, the problem with your reasoning Thormen is that it is aiming to lessen the variations on the theme of control, yet Bionicle's goal was to increase them. Whether you think the timing of when they thought of Kraata is relevant or not, Bionicle still wasn't trying to keep this one limited to just one version of control, and for reasons that made sense at the time. And more to the point, in-story the Makuta are scientists and variety would seem to be likely as part of their personalities since they have so many powers and are tasked with creating so many different types of Rahi. In the real world we do try to make variations on themes, often with only very subtle differences, just to get a little advantage over another design. Sometimes multiple variations are found to be useful for different situations and are both used. While that doesn't make for a simple story, it seems unavoidable to me that if it was a real universe, variations like this of some sort would happen. That, I think, is the issue I was sensing with your reasoning; while you're speaking in-story, you're still aiming for something that looks more fitting to an out-of-story goal; keeping the story very simple. Therefore both in-story and out-story things are relevant, and IMO the strictly in-story reasoning is the one that only supports having the wider variation. (And an official reason has been given; the range issue, which remains with both Kraata and Rahkshi, though it's lessened by them.) Sorry if any of that is redundant with what yall have said above.
  20. Speaking for myself at least, I never said that; I said we don't know that they were, but we do know mask infection was.
  21. Did they eat them physically like Rahi? Matoran can "eat" the AM creatures (I presume) by absorbing energy, so could the Barraki's eating be like the Matoran's, since they're sapient MU beings too? (I have no idea, I don't recall this either way.)
  22. Pretty nice! I like the style, esp. the lava. Lava isn't that easy to do well -- and having a range of colors in the glow plus reasonably placed solidifying pieces on top is the way to do it well. Looks pretty liquid too. The others are pretty good as well. I could easily see this going in a canon guide or the like. Incidentally, for those of us silly folks who don't have time or memory to read the Matoran speech, could you slap together another version with the translations?
  23. I agree with most of the rest of this post (see below), but to this part, the Krana is the only organic part to eat, and if you're flinging it at certain Rahi like Muaka, with huge gaping mouths... yeah, see the issue? That's why I pointed out that aliens (sapient, so you'd think stronger-minded than Rahi) wouldn't be expected to wear masks. So IMO masks are probably irrelevant to Krana being able to control Rahi. What matters is they have minds (the ones we're talking about anyways). Unless of course the Krana design doesn't account for something in the Rahi design because Rahi were assumed to not become a problem here. It would help them grip the Rahi, though, to have a faceslike spot. But masks are held on magnetically, not necessarily to something that a Krana can easily grip by normal means. Which actually brings up the question of how reliable their face-clamping is. No, but it needs to be kept in mind that what's in the story happened for out-of-story reasons too, not only in-story. As long as you do keep that mind, it's fine to think of alternate versions, just remember it isn't necessarily a good replacement for what was done unless it takes into account the other factors. I didn't get that impression. I thought it was clear you were speaking only in-story, but you were commenting on things that seem to have clearly been influenced a lot by some out-story factors. That has nothing to do with how much you do or don't know about 2001. But by the same token, if it ended up not making sense it shouldn't be excused by virtue of out-of-story factors -- and notice the Greg answer that was posted doesn't do that; it brings up a reasonable in-story factor that makes it work. (Sometimes they can't be salvaged, though, and Greg will have to point to the fact that people who can make mistakes made the story to promote a toy etc.) Anyways, I always saw the Rahi Control power as an intentional allusion back to the infected masks, not something to be taken as competition with it. I think it was more about keeping the theme in the story without doing the same old same old specific method from year to year. Same basic reason 2006 did the infection theme in a different way, Krana could control minds too, Vahki had a version of it, etc.
  24. Except purely organic creatures have been around in the story alongside the biomechanical ones since 2001, working (at the time presumably, now confirmed) pretty much just like real life (albeit probably also with longer lifespans). Much more likely they designed TECHNIC sets and wanted them to seem metallic and came up with the idea of biomechanical creatures as a result (probably connected to the founding analogy of the giant robot being a human dying of cancer), and then figured it would seem more naturally for those ones to need replaced rather than have biological reproduction due to the metal components being difficult to imagine as growing. I don't know how common it is, but some Rahi eat Rahi, yes. They were being replaced for most of history, though. I dunno about the last thousand years, but the Makuta were pretending to be good up until the GC, at least as far as Metru Nui knew. (Some people and undoubtedly regions had figured it out, like the Rahaga, though.) More interesting is how any survived on Mata Nui considering there were Muaka, for example. I don't know if Greg ever weighed in on this, but they could be more like bears; omnivores eating usually the plants. Presumably Makuta weren't supposed to be making strict carnivores, although they probably did later on. But this doesn't help make Matoran eating them work anyways -- if anything it makes it more of a problem if they do. My guess as to inside the MU is the other Makuta and maybe Teridax too were still replacing them since they did want to rule over the world rather than just upset everything, but unsure (and it probably doesn't apply to Mata Nui). Anyways, on Mata Nui they had other food sources that weren't vegetable-only since it was in the ocean of Aqua Magna, so it makes more sense to me they would limit their eating to those creatures, which do reproduce normally. Actually, that's probably the solution to Mata Nui -- a lot of them weren't free there. In the MU, they were, but were probably being replaced. On Mata Nui, weren't most Muaka infected? Makuta probably doesn't want them messing up the ecosystem, so might force them to eat the vegetable side of a bear-style omnivorous diet rather than meat. (BTW, I'm presuming in all of this that the protodermic Rahi can't physically digest meat from the Aqua Magna creatures. Correct if wrong. )
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