Master Inika

Beautiful. I love characters who you can't tell exactly where their eyes are, as well as equally organic and mechanical creations. I personally find white and green such a difficult color combination to make work, but I approve of it here. It looks like it was once a fully mechanized robot with growths taking over its head and arms. I am not sure if that was your intended backstory, but I appreciate it as a form of storytelling told in a single image. This is to say nothing of all the amazingly complex building techniques used. The longer I look at it and notice surprising pieces worked into the design, such as the Aero Slicers in the feet, the more impressed I am.

Welcome to the review topic for my new story, On the Run: A Hero Factory Story. This is my first attempt at HF fanfiction. Let me know what you think below, and expect weekly updates.

This idea came to me based on my reading of the fifth book in the Hero Factory Secret Mission series, Mirror World. It will definitely be a different and perhaps more realistic interpretation of Hero Factory. I welcome any comments and constructive criticism. On the Run: A Hero Factory Story Chapter 1 Gregory Wane glanced over his shoulder, doing his best to not look like he was glancing over his shoulder. Makuhero City was one of the busiest population centers in the galaxy, which gave him the advantage, at least for now. He shared the walkway with hundreds of robots, dozens of whom matched his rough size and build. The problem was what he had that all those other bots didn't: a sizeable "H" built directly into his torso. At the moment, a brown cloak draped over him hid the insignia from view. Fabric-based clothing was a rarity among the robotic populace of Makuhero City, though. Of the crowd of about 2,000 that filled the plaza and surrounding walkways, only a small handful wore anything resembling his cloak. In the center of the city, a massive tower arrogantly displayed the same "H" symbol: the Assembly Tower of Hero Factory. Excited schoolbots waited in line for guided tours of the facility, while screaming fans pushed and shoved for just a chance to see Stormer or Valor. "Hero Factory," came the voice of Mr. Akiyama Makuro, booming from a state-of-the-art sound system. "We build Heroes." Lies, thought Wane bitterly. Heroes cannot be built. Lifeforms can be build, that much Wane would agree. But a Hero was a specific type of being, and no amount of artificial intelligence or proper coding could make a Hero where one was not meant to be. Wane remembered vividly his first day off the assembly line, those few months ago. To other beings, it might not have been a particularly long stretch of time, but to him it was his entire life. He had sat in class with a group of other rookies, listening to the instructions of their teacher, a veteran Hero named Richard Fuse. "When you're up against monsters, space pirates, whatever," the instructor was saying, "you might be scared." As he spoke, holographic images of some of the galactic criminals already locked up by Hero Factory flashed before them. "The citizens around you will definitely be. It's up to you to put up a brave front, until you really aren't scared." Another rookie, Von Ness, meekly raised his hand. "Excuse me, Mr. Fuse," he asked. "How will we know when to stay and fight, and when to escape and get help?" The black-armored Hero was braver than Wane. Wane never would have been bold enough to ask a question like that, even if he was thinking it. If Fuse respected Von Ness' question, he did not show it. Instead, his hover-podium floated uncomfortably close to the rookie. Since Heroes were all built the same size and did not biologically grow, Fuse was physically no taller than Von Ness, but his hover-podium kept him far above the young bot. "We're Hero Factory," was all the instructor had to say. "We are the help." *** Less than a month later was the now-infamous "New Stellac City incident." On the surface, to the public, it was nothing but another successful mission. Team Leader Thresher and especially rookie Preston Stormer received formal commendations from Mr. Makuro himself. Von Ness, though, was nowhere mentioned in the press releases. In fact, no one in Makuhero City even mentioned Von Ness after that. While the battle against the drone was publicly a stunning success, it was an open secret that something had gone wrong. All rookie classes were doubled, with particular emphasis placed on duty, discipline, and sacrifice. It was at that point that Wane realized something about himself: he did not want to be a Hero. He realized, even as he thought the words, what a petulant child they made him sound like, but it was the truth. While no official account of what happened to Von Ness existed, Wane had put together this much: Von Ness wanted nothing more than to live to see another day. That, in Wane's opinion, was nothing to be ashamed of. When the criminal Von Nebula appeared, Hero Factory at first tried to deny it was the same Von Ness. It was to no avail, though, and Makuro quietly stopped trying to convince the public otherwise. Von Ness was an aberration, a single Hero gone wrong, Makuro emphasized. It had never happened before; and Makuro was especially firm on this point, it would never happen again. After that, the curriculum at Hero Factory changed again. This time, their evaluations were more psychological in nature. New scenarios were loaded into the Training Sphere: A supernova is about to engulf the entire system. Do you take the Hero Craft and flee, or stay to save more civilians? You witness an innocent construction bot being followed by a strange figure. Do you follow, or ignore it? Wane made a decision. He was going to his instructor to tell him how he felt. The galaxy did not just need tough robots with powerful weapons. Wane could be an inventor, or a musician. Choices that maybe Von Ness could have made, were he not forced into a role that he did not want. It was pure dumb luck that another rookie, Petunia Fall, came to the same conclusion as he did. Fall shared her plan with him the day before she went to the instructor's office to voice her concerns. Wane agreed to wait for Fall to tell him how it went before he arranged his own meeting. Fall went into the office, and that was the last Wane saw of her. *** It was not just her. Other rookies began disappearing, and Wane knew they were the ones who had the same kind of reservations. They were not selfish or evil. They did not choose to be built by Hero Factory and forced to fight whoever some uncaring Mission Manager decided they should. Let the galaxy save itself, Wane decided. If he did not look out for himself, he realized, no one would. In truth, Wane only stopped by the Assembly Tower to see it one last time. Through underground channels, and in exchange for a small fortune in credits, he had obtained passage on a ship to the frontier worlds. It would be easy for a bot like him to disappear out there and never be heard from again. He was not going to become a violent criminal. He was no more a villain than he was a Hero. He wished it was the kind of choice those like Makuro would understand, but deep in his CPU, he knew it wasn't. Wane made his way to the spaceport. If he did not know better, he would say a few of his fellow passengers in line looked just as nervous as he did. Maybe all of them had secrets. His was that he was built to do something he did not want to do; it did not matter to him what everyone else's were. Taking one last look at the tower he was built in, Wane displayed his forged credentials and boarded the ship. Review Topic

So, are you going to email them to ask for concept art?

I'll probably be purchasing the guide book next, it looks like there are several cheap eBay listings for it for cheap. I'd really like to get Secret Mission #2 and fill out the collection, but that one's still more expensive for some reason.

The Shadowed One's real name. We really screwed that one up by being so salty about Teridax.

So, I'm pretty sure that, by the time the actual sets are released, both Greg's stories and any combiner/alternate model builds had to be finalized, so it wouldn't really be practical for all of them to be included in-story. You will notice that Protodax appear in one of the 2006 books but not in the corresponding comic scene. This is probably because it was easier for LEGO to have Greg write an extra segment featuring them than it would be to have more comic pages drawn and colored. But furthermore, Greg didn't personally decide things like how many books there would be, or how long they are. That probably came from corporate, with Greg having to work within that framework. Thus, he wouldn't necessarily know if he'd have time to properly conclude all his story arcs. I don't think your comparison of Makuro and the Great Beings holds up. IMO, one of the big messages of BIONICLE is that the Great Beings were arrogant and thought their intelligence gave them a pass to do whatever they wanted. Notice that the only people who really like or respect the GBs are their creations, who never actually met them. The inhabitants of Spherus Magna, some of whom might have actually met them in person, have nothing but contempt for the GBs. We as the audience are led to believe that the Spherus Magnans' opinion of the GBs is the more accurate one. But even more than that, the GBs are not implied to be as directly involved in their creations' personalities as Makuro is. Taking Nidhiki as an example, since he became a Toa on the Tren Krom Peninsula (where "heroes had to strike from the shadows, or they did not last long"), that probably played a bigger role in his betrayal than anything the Great Beings did. Nidhiki ultimately betrayed Lhikan because he didn't trust Lhikan, because he didn't trust anyone. In that sense, Nidhiki is a profoundly tragic figure. In contrast, the Heroes are implied to basically come into existence with their personalities already fully formed. What should HF have done with Von Ness and Core Hunter? Are there any protocols to try to identify future traitors? If they did have a way of knowing, what would Makuro do with them? Should they be terminated? After creating a Hero, does Hero Factory have the moral right to terminate their existence? Do HF view their Heroes as living beings, or as hardware, Mr. Makuro's property? Who determines what "good" is? Who determines what counts as a "crime"? In the Ordeal of Fire episode, we see that summoning Hero Factory requires nothing more than pressing a button. What's the process for getting one of those buttons installed? This kind of surface-level view of good vs. evil works just fine for the Saturday-morning-cartoon-level of seriousness the TV episodes go for, but Greg is a better writer than that. Had the Secret Mission series progressed further, I think the Galactic Conspiracy would have developed into something analogous to the Separatists from Star Wars, originally a well-meaning group that eventually got co-opted by villains, the original founders ultimately sidelined.

I voted for Kaukau. It's been 20 years, for Mata Nui's sake. Death of the author, I say. I just looked at the new pictures on BS01, and they just don't look like those characters to me.

This is beautiful.

Equal parts steampunk and weirdly adorable. I love it. Are the eye stalks supposed to imply that this is a type of living Rahi? Or are they just something cosmetic put on to imitate Ussal?

Lesovikk using dirty tactics to get close to a Makuta is a cool idea for a story, but as is this chapter/introduction is pretty short, and the spelling/punctuation errors are noticeable. With another proofread, this would be an intriguing introduction.

I've already given my preliminary thoughts on this book in a blog post, where I discuss the funny and ridiculous implications of the Citadel universe. Here, I'll dive more into what this book implies and represents for the Hero Factory franchise as a whole. The Hapaka in the room is Mirror World's similarity to the BIONICLE story serial Dark Mirror (they even have confusingly similar names). Since The One, Rick and Morty, and the MCU, alternate universes seem to be everywhere. They offer an interesting look at established characters in scenarios that the main storylines can't tackle. In that respect, the Multiverse allows for something almost like, paradoxically enough, canon fanfiction. Hero Factory, in my opinion, doesn't do enough to earn this distinction. I have seen every episode of the TV show and read most of the previous Hero Factory Secret Mission books, and HF doesn't rise to anywhere near the level deserving this kind of introspection. At this point in the books, I still feel as if I am getting to know Furno and the rest of Alpha Team as characters, so seeing what they would be like in another reality simply does not interest me that much. This brings me to another issue with the story I have. The Mirror World story is topical. As we learned in the last book, there exists a Galactic Conspiracy that wants to eliminate Hero Factory; this book shows us a world where Hero Factory indeed doesn't exist. However, it is noteworthy that the ruler of the Mirror World dystopia is Von Nebula--a former Hero. The Galactic Conspiracy has a point. If the books are to be believed, Hero Factory is the most powerful faction in the galaxy, and it's entirely a private enterprise seemingly controlled by one being. Von Nebula's choice to flee from his first mission is exclusively framed as a moral failing on his part, and I really don't think that's fair. Hero Factory creates sentient beings with personalities. One of them, Von Ness, didn't want to be a Hero, which is perfectly valid. The fact that he tried to flee and leave his leader to die (it would have been more impactful if Thresher actually did die, IMO) is obviously not ideal, but no one's asking the real questions of just why Von Ness, despite lacking any real desire or ability, was put in a real combat scenario anyway. Is this standard Hero Factory operating procedure? Did Hero Factory change its training or how it makes Heroes in any way in response to this? In Mirror World, the alternate Akiyama Makuro and Stormer both treat Von Nebula with unrestrained contempt, even though, I would say, Mr. Makuro is equally responsible for creating Von Ness and putting him in that situation. IIRC, Hero Factory began when Mr. Makuro "saw a need for heroes in the galaxy" or something like that. So little is actually given to explain exactly why he felt that way. (In fact, a big flaw with HF is that, unlike the Turaga from BIONICLE G1, Mr. Makuro seems to exist only to be a wise old mentor who spouts exposition. Sensei Wu and King Mathias, past LEGO mentor figures, were like Turaga Vakama in that I could fully believe they had their own equally exciting lives and adventures while young. Mr. Makuro is basically the LEGO equivalent of Elon Musk, and Hero Factory is basically what would happen if he set up his own private police force.) Mr. Makuro, were his character treated with more introspection, could have been much like Eldon Tyrell from Blade Runner. Does he regret making Von Ness? Just how bad was the galaxy before HF? The book's writing style is good in the same way the previous HF books and BIONICLE books were good. Greg Farshtey excels at describing settings and doing comic book-style banter. In this book in particular, I would not be surprised if Greg knew HF was on its way out and was simply having fun with this one. I LOVE the way the Galactic Conspiracy works. Greg makes you really feel Stormer's frustration at not knowing who they are. Among HF's many unresolved plot threads, this is the one that I really think had potential to become an interesting story. I am also interested in how the Galactic Conspiracy would interact with the unseen enemies behind the "Villain Factory" plot alluded to in Breakout. Despite thinking HF is definitely a step down in terms of quality from BIONICLE, I must say I am sad there are no further Secret Mission books to read, and I regret waiting so long to read them. If you have interest in HF, or if you are nostalgic for Greg's writing style with BIONICLE, you might enjoy them.

What is this?

I can believe Visorak were the best-selling single wave of BIONICLE sets. The Visorak are pretty great, none of them are noticeably worse than the others, they look awesome all in a row, and there were plenty of combiner models to incentivize collecting them all. Plus, they came out in a movie year, while the Bohrok didn't.

Wait till you hear about Skeletor, Shredder, Megatron, Voldemort, Palpatine, Mordred, Thanos, Darkseid, or Maleficent. (My point is that none of the traits you identified are unique to Makuta or even to LEGO. Megalomania, imposing height, black armor/clothing, and use of enslaved servants are all common tropes surrounding antagonists.)

I will post a full review when I've finished the book, but so far, HFSM #5 is, intentionally or not, the funniest piece of HF media. One of the villains is punished because, in upside-down "evil is good" world, not robbing a bank when you have the chance to is a crime. The logical implications of this universe just make me laugh. The villain (I think it was Toxic Reapa) make it sound like an inconvenience, because he already robbed that bank twice that week and was tired. I'm not going to defend the Rise of the Rookies TV episodes as anything great, but Von Nebula had some gravitas to him. There's zero implication that, if he wins, the galaxy will turn into this Pythonesque bureaucratic state. It recasts a lot of Von Nebula's previous characterization to make him, if we take this premise seriously, ridiculously immature. Von Nebula doesn't really hate Stormer or anything, he hates an extremely abstract, watered-down idea of "heroism." It's funny to imagine how this universe function, like why banks even exist if robbing them is legally mandated. That being said, it's not a bad book. I was tempted to write, "Greg isn't even trying at this point," but that's not true. Some parts of the book, like describing Von Nebula's black-hole-corrupted body, are genuinely good and right up there with peak BIONICLE. It's more like, Greg is having fun. I feel like it was an open secret that HF wasn't going to be on shelves much longer, so no one was giving Greg much oversight on the Secret Mission books so Greg just pushed the envelope to see what Denmark would let him get away with. Stuff like this makes me wish the Secret Mission series did continue, just to see how surreal it would have gotten.

It basically comes down to money. Unlike a movie, which you only have to make once, even a short season of a TV show is a serious financial commitment. BIONICLE was an experiment, and I think the spectacular failure that was Galidor made LEGO afraid to put too much money in one property. By the time LEGO did feel confident enough to commit to a TV show, BIONICLE was old news. Trying to make a BIONICLE TV show in 2008 would have required a pretty serious reboot of the plot, which would have risked alienating old fans without enough of a chance of pulling new people in. I'm not surprised their TV budget went to Ninjago.

IMO, white and lime green is the hardest color combination to make work, but it looks fitting here, sterile and police-like. The brick-build head is very nice. The lower legs are my favorite part, they look like heavy-duty cold weather boots and I think the model would benefit from more of that aesthetic throughout, maybe with more tubing. The arms look a little wonky, I am so used to seeing that piece used as an arm that it feels a little weird seeing it used as a shoulder.

A very cute and well-made model, I especially like the yellow axles and use of the HF weapons. I also thought they looked like smaller versions of Vahki staffs.

This guy looks awesome. Is this one of the biomechanical dinosaurs on Bota Magna?

This looks awesome and terrifying. There are so many interesting parts used here, but specifically the canister lid being incorporated is excellent.

Hard to say. I think a lot of Vakama's visions don't necessarily make sense to him until after the fact. I am fairly certain that the Turaga and Makuta both believed that Takua was the Herald, subverting Jaller's feeling that they erroneously thought it was him and he was being dragged on an adventure for nothing. However, in a double subversion, Jaller really was the Herald, and Takua was the Seventh Toa he was heralding.

An excellent story. Ever since Mask of Life, I have found the relationship between Po-Koro and Onu-Koro interesting. Their elements are so similar, it would have been easy for LEGO to essentially treat them as interchangeable, but the film and MNOG both succeeded in giving each village its own unique identity, and you have as well. A few minor issues stuck out for me. The first one was Onewa referring to Po-Metru so casually. I could accept them talking about Metru Nui when they are alone in a private chamber, but as written I imagined the Matoran were still within earshot. I would find it most believable, however, to assume that the Turaga had some kind of rule against mentioning Metru Nui in any way unless it was absolutely necessary. I also found the way that the rules of Kolhii were incorporated, word-for-word from the BS01 page, a little unwieldly and unnatural. It also feels unrealistic to me that all of the major rules of Kolhii were determined in its very first game, with apparently zero new rules needing to be added after that. It would have been sufficient to maybe have one rule added during the game, with the implication being that more were added in future games. It is not that the story needed trimming (for it is already very short), but it would have allowed more time for more interactions between Onewa and Whenua, where are the story's highlight. Or, more time could have been given to the other Matoran characters. It seems a missed opportunity to me that Huki was the only Matoran mentioned by name. Were Hafu and Onepu playing? Was Taipu the Onu-Koro goalkeeper who could not react fast enough? (I also could not help but wonder, are Onu-Matoran players at a disadvantage since they are so sensitive to sunlight?) Additionally, there are two versions of Kolhii in canon: written texts (the encyclopedias and video game rules) say the game ends when one team reaches a predetermined score, but in MNOG II, the game lasts for a set amount of time and whoever has more points at the end wins. I feel that your story would have made more sense if the latter rule was used in stead of the former; as written, since the game seems to run longer than expected, this implies that both teams were not as good as the Turaga anticipated. Plus, if the game were by time, it would make Huki's headbutt more climactic, as a last-minute goal, or ending a tense overtime session. Admittedly, I have not read "The Referee," so perhaps some of my criticisms are not present in that story. There is much to like here, especially in your descriptions of character interactions. Your descriptions of the environments are also excellent, from the unpleasant brightness of the sun from the POV of the Onu-Matoran to the description of the (somewhat lackluster) first Kolhii field. It is just a small handful of minor nitpicks that I feel hold it back from greatness.

I've been binging the series again, introducing it to my friend for the first time. He's heavily into anime like Sailor Moon so it feels so natural for him to watch MLP, I was always surprised he didn't get into it when it was on the air. He loves it and agrees he should have gotten into it sooner, it's so weird but also refreshing enjoying the show with someone. I still have absolutely no idea of anything G5-related except that (apparently) it is now canceled. I still have three full seasons of FiM to catch up on, then perhaps I'll check it out.

Hello, I have recently completed the third and fourth books in the Hero Factory Secret Mission series, Collision Course and Robot Rampage. Being Greg Farshtey's most notable contribution to Hero Factory, they bring to Hero Factory much of what made his BIONICLE writing so good. The characters feel more real and fleshed-out than they ever do in the TV show or comics, and the concepts and locations the books deal with just feel more mature. At the same time, it feels like Greg had little oversight in writing them. The books only tangentially tie into the main story, and there was only one part (when Furno's sword and shield were mentioned) that I was actually reminded of their toy forms. Aside from basic things like color, Greg doesn't describe the actual characters who exist as sets very deeply. He is more interested in describing the non-set characters or environments, which are described very well. Really, if I were reading them without knowing what the toys looked like, I would image much more human-looking or cyborg entities. It is strange to think that these books took much of the energy from Greg that would have gone to BIONICLE had that series continued. It feels like a last hurray of sorts for Greg's gift for action-adventure. The characters brood much like Vakama Hordika or Sahmad. Greg's writing almost chafes against the more kid-friendly direction HF as a whole went in, and I can find most of the books online for cheap, so it seems like the target demographic did not gobble these up the way that we consumed BIONICLE. It is unfortunate, because they really are interesting and well-written books. I am awaiting the arrival of #5, even though I already know it ends on a cliffhanger and the Galactic Conspiracy storyline goes unresolved. Based on 3 and 4, I would recommend buying these books. Especially now that Greg is no longer with LEGO, they offer a historic glimpse into a time period I would say began in earnest in 2004, when lines like Alpha Team Mission: Deep Freeze and Knights' Kingdom II were introduced alongside BIONICLE as LEGO's color-coded heroes fighting ultimate evil. If you grew up around that time, you will find the Secret Mission stories rewarding to read and nostalgia-inducing for the end of an age.