Tahu92

If it's below ground, Onua controls it.

If it's above ground, Pohatu controls it.

But in all seriousness, Earth is much looser than stone, which is hard and solid. Earth is more fluid.

Probably the fact that Mata Nui turned out to be a giant robot with an entire world contained inside, oceans, islands, undersea caverns and all.

That they live in a giant robot!

GSR Mata Nui vs Unicron, anyone?

Note to self; send that one to Screw Attack.

But in all seriousness, it did come across as weird to me as well that the whole Matoran Universe was in fact Mata Nui's body. Now, if they had made Mata Nui as a gaint robot who had been sent to that planet to build the Matoran on the behalf of the Great Beings then I wouldn't have minded.

I still think that the whole "the GSR is only several hundred kilometers less than the diameter of the Earth" is way too much though; a height that equals roughly 12,000 km is gargantuan to the point where I wonder how the thing holds itself together and doesn't fall apart under its own gravitic pull. From an engineering perspective it's held together with spit, wishes, and prayer (then again, that last one might just do it, considering Unity is one of their three main values at the core of their belief system). If Mata Nui had been roughly, say 10 kilometers tall (which is 10,000 meters, or 32,808.4, feet tall), giant but by no means the size of a planet, then it would have made more sense, IMHO, but having it so big that it dwarfs all but the final two forms of the titular mecha of the anime Tengen Toppa Gurren Laggan is a bit much unless the Great Beings did in fact envision Mata Nui to fight off a cosmic-scale threat.

PS: The Earth's atmosphere is roughly 100 km in height. If the GSR was even just 10 km tall, it'd stand 1/10th of the way to SPACE.

The Red Star.

I like it's enigmatic presence in the early years, but it's later uses utterly confused me and at times got under my skin. What a strange plot device it became.

The alternate universes with Takanuva, while interesting, seemed to jump about too much just for the sake of utilising the Olmak in some fashion. 

The next would be my love/hate relationship with the revelation of Mata Nui being a giant robot. I like the idea, and I like where they were going with the idea, but I feel its execution in the end was underwhelming. It felt like it was somehow competing for attention with the Spherus Magna Glatorian shenanigans. 

As best as I can remember on the spot, those are the points that gripe with me the most.

I like the Red Star, to be honest, and actually am one of the few that liked the idea that it was normally able to rebuild the dead, which would make sense as a tie-in to Bionicle and Lego being a building toy which is meant to be built, then rebuilt.

My thought on an alternate story of the Red Star is for it to have been a sort of "recording device" that kept track of, and recorded, the memories of every living thing that Mata Nui had ever built. Upon death, their minds would be taken in by the Red Star and become a part of it, sort of like an afterlife, where they would effectively exist with a portion of Mata Nui's spirit in a state similar to Nirvana.

That's the primary retcon idea.

The second one is that the Red Star would do the same as the original but with a twist; the individual's soul WOULD be taken in by the Red Star and their memories recorded. If they led a decent life by the principles of Unity, Duty, and Destiny, then they'd be allowed to stay. If not, their spirits would be sent back to the island below, put into new bodies (which were remotely built by the Red Star), and thus reincarnated into forms that would allow them to start over again. Upon learning the principles of Unity, Duty, and Destiny, and their following death, they'd go back to the Red Star for good where they could then access the memories of their past lives and learn from the experience.

Again, this is drawing on the notion of Buddhist and Hindu reincarnation and enlightenment.

I also had the idea of Turaga, certain Toa, other beings, and Chroniclers, especially, being able to tap into the Red Star's data banks to learn VERY SMALL FRAGMENTS of the wisdom of others in order to help others along the way.

We've run into this problem before, to my knowledge the scale of both the GSR and Spherus Magna had been scaled down, first I think the projected size of Spherus Magna was about 10 or maybe even 100 times larger than Jupiter, I don't exactly recall which, but it was gargantuanly absurdly large for ANY terrestrial (meaning rocky) planet, even when compared to more so recent Exoplanet discoveries, I believe one of the largest ones found was around the size of Jupiter, but to my understanding, just getting to that diameter is pretty much the physical scientific limit for rocky worlds to get to, gas planets are of course different, but that's regardless.

 

Than I believe both the GSR and Spherus Magna were scaled down, Spherus Magna down to about the size of Jupiter, and the GSR to about the size of Pluto, which is about the same area of land as the whole of Russia.

 

Now, on a slightly different note, within a project I am a part of, which is a continuation project, I and the main head of the project through our own independant work came to about the same more rational conclusions for the scale of both the GSR and Spherus Magna, my measurement for Spherus Magna came out to be 1.42 or so Earth Masses, which makes it a bit larger than the earth as well as a bit wider, and the GSR around the size of the Canadian territory of Nunavut. It makes it that the GSR is reasonably sized, and Spherus Magna too is reasonably sized. The whole notion of the GSR not being viewable from space, and that Spherus Magna is ten or more times the size of Jupiter is utterly absurd and scientifically and physically impossible, it's just too big.

Assuming a planetary diameter of 14,000 km and a planetary mass of 1.42 Earth Masses, I calculated the surface gravity of the planet of Spherus Magna to be at around 11.549 m/s^2

Formula: g = (G * M)/r^2

G == Gravitational Constant of 6.673 * 10^(-11) == 0.00000000006673

M == Mass of Planet (kilograms)

r == planetary radius (meters) == assumed 7000000 meters

with one Earth Mass being equal to 5.972 × 10^(24) kg

or (5972000000000000000000000) kg

Spherus Magna mass == 5972000000000000000000000 * 1.42 == 8480240000000000000000000 kg

radius == 7000000 meters

radius squared == 49000000000000 meters

ergo:

(0.00000000006673 * 8480240000000000000000000) / 49000000000000) == 11.548702351020408163265306122449

or

~= 11.549 m/s^2

or roughly 1.177 times the gravitational acceleration on Earth's surface.

(addendum: technically it's -11.549 m/s^2, just like Earth's is technically -9.81 m/s^2 as you fall toward the planet, not away from it)

I weigh 120 pounds. That's ~= 54.43 kilos.

So on Spherus Magna with a gravity of 1.177 times that of Earth I'd have the same mass but would weigh roughly 64.07 kilos, or 141.25 pounds.

It'd be like carrying a bowling ball in each hand and would be rather uncomfortable but at least it wouldn't be bone-breakingly intense like a terrestrial planet that's larger than a gas giant.

Just wanted to get the math out of the way.

In terms of scale though:

Still makes me wonder just how much material the GSR took to build and exactly how they managed to do it. I know that theoretically one can live indefinitely in Bionicle (Makuta in their natural gaseous state did not age, as other beings also did not, and the ones who did die of natural causes took hundreds of thousands of years to do so) but still, how long does it take to build a machine that huge?

But now that's another question entirely (and opens up a whole slew of questions about the GSR).

So here's what I just thought as bit of fridge logic/fridge horror.

In the last few comics of the G1 storyline, we see the Great Spirit robot, piloted by Terdiax, face off against Mata Nui in the prototype GSR (great spirit robot). These two machines are prominent figures in the Bara Magna skyline but do not completely dominate it, as we see in the comics.

Please remember that Mata Nui's original body, the GSR, stands at 40 million feet tall. That's a little less than the DIAMETER OF THE EARTH.

The prototype GSR is only slightly shorter, which stands at around 75% or 3/4 of the diameter OF THE EARTH.

And yet the prototype robot, even when fully assembled, is not even visible from SPACE when viewed from Bara Magna's orbit.

One big question here:

JUST

HOW

BIG

is Bara Magna?

And what of the reformed Spherus Magna, which is slightly bigger and DENSER due to having absorbed the mass of its moons?

If these massive, planet-sized machines are SMALL in comparison to the planet, just how big is this world?

I'd speculate it's even bigger than the IRL gas giant planet Jupiter.

And even more importantly, Spherus Magna is a rocky planet like Earth instead of a gas giant like Jupiter, ergo, it has a higher density and higher mass which lead to an even further increased gravity strength.

That said...

WHAT EXACTLY IS THE SPECIFIC GRAVITY on the surface of this planet?

Just how strong and durable is protodermis if it can stand up to gravitic stress that's so ridiculously high?

If you're gonna make the argument that the planet is hollow, well then how is it holding itself together and not collapsing into a smaller, more compact form?

I can take a stab at these, hopefully not repeating too much of what has already been said:

 

1. The short answer is: we've never been told. My own thought is that since they do not require krana to function like the Bohrok do, they were probably created in a different way. I would assume that they were simply constructed by the Great Beings/Bahrag, rather than metamorphosed from Matoran.

 

2. The Updated Encyclopedia has some of these answers. In the earliest days of the MU, the Great Beings used some unspecified process to bring the first Matoran into being. This process resulted in "leavings" which the Great Beings hoped they could use to create the first krana. They exposed these "leavings" to energized protodermis, and although some of it did turn into krana, the rest of it turned into Zyglak. Then the Great Beings created the Bahrag to take over the job of creating krana forever after. It's never been said if the Bahrag used the same exact materials and process as the Great Beings to create krana, although it would explain why there was so much energized protodermis in the Bohrok nests (the same EP that transformed the Toa Nuva).

 

3. Bohrok Va are not alive -- at least as far as the Matoran know. The Updated Encyclopedia actually says this explicitly, mentioning that when the Ta-Matoran realized that Tahnok Va were not living creatures, they diverted a lava stream to melt some of them.

 

4. Never been explored, but all of those are good points. I'm sure people have asked Greg about this multiple times, but I don't remember what he said ATM.

In response to point 1 and 2 though, it could very well be that the Bohrok Va were made from other dead Av-Matoran, as it was never specified how or what they were made out of. Also, the primary Bohrok are not alive (anymore) either; they too are completely mechanical despite being made from dead Av-Matoran remains. Despite their origins, the body of a Bohrok, sans Krana, is just an unintelligent automaton with no onboard AI, save for a rudimentary command function for if the Krana is removed.

Bohrok Va... I still don't know.

As goes how Krana are made, well, it could be that when an Av-Matoran dies, the rest of them (the fleshy bits) are what become these "leavings" that are then mutated into Krana.

This part of the story is so old though and the people who wrote it aren't even thinking about it anymore, let alone answering questions about it. I guess we just have to try to fill in the blanks as best as possible.

Superb animation. It kind of takes the old interpretation of Gali's character and blends it with the G2 interpretation. This all works very well, as well as giving Maku and Kotu more personality on top of it. You even brought the Ga-Kini temple into this, and did some world-building and character development at the same time.

What I don't get is why they kept the Tarakava as a pet, to be honest. It was amusing though, and definitely useful for getting out of being stuck at sea with no boat.

What was really funny was seeing how the others reacted to Kotu and Maku's antics, especialy Marka's annoyance of having them go blasting through her shipyard (again). The rag getting stuck to her mask with a quick puff of a sigh making the bottom end flap was a small touch that did a lot for that scene.

You added so much personality and character to all of Ga-Koro that you didn't see in the MNOLG I or even MNOLG II.

Very nice.

One thing I'd very much like to know is whether you got ahold of the flash assets that were made for the Mata Nui Online Game (and if so, how) or you PAINSTAKINGLY recreated them. I ask because ever since I saw these animations I've wanted to make my own, and ever since I was given a copy of Flash as a gift several years ago I've had the means, just not the know-how of how to either make a PERFECT COPY of each bit of the old animations, or where to download the assets for them.

The short answer to all of your questions is that we ain't got no clue. The reason you didn't find any info is because these details, for some reason, were never expanded upon. For all we know the Krana were made by dipping Av-Matoran brains into the magic goop, though I'd say dipping their masks may make more sense since the Krana are mask-like. 

 

I'd assume that logically the creation of Bohrok-Va would be identical to the creation of Bohrok, and that they are entirely non-sentient automatons. Why use dead Matoran instead of just making robots like in so many other cases is beyond me, but the same can be asked about the Bokrok themselves. (Also, why give them such an obvious weak-point with the Krana? Other robots in the Bionicle lore can do without such gimmicks.)

 

Finally, I kinda doubt that the Bohrok being dead Matoran was established when the Boxors were designed and thought up to be made of dead Bohrok, but either way, it was likely a case of the designers sneaking past a bit of dark body-horror the Lego censors who wouldn't dig into the lore deep enough to make the terrifying connection that the Matoran fought dead Matoran with double dead Matoran. 

 

One would think though that they'd eventually find out, after perhaps the reunification of Spherus Magna, the destruction of the Matoran Universe, and the dismantlement of its wreckage to build new villages and new machinery to make new Matoran and so on.

It's more like one of those things I speculate they found out far in the future. My speculation is that if/when the Onu-Matoran who built and piloted Boxors found out what Bohrok really are would react with horror and disgust that they used the body parts of those of their own kind to build weapons to fight mutant versions of their own kind.

As goes the Bohrok Va, my thought is that they might also be Av-Matoran who were mutated post-mortum into a different kind of Bohrok meant to act as a repair/servitor unit to the rest of the swarm to maintain the robotic shells of the Bohrok and carry/replace the Krana that controlled them (which gives me a rather amusing fanfic idea about two matoran trying to take in an accidentally awakened Bohrok Va as pet, post-Matoran Universe, with hilarious consequences as it runs about, confused, trying to slap Krana on the faces of anyone it can find).

Also, side note here: Bohrok Va; "Va" is "Av" backwards, as in "Av-Matoran", and Av-Matoran become Bohrok.

Probably a fluke but I can't help but notice.

On another note, and another bit of credit for my "Krana-are-Av-Matoran-brains" hypothesis; when Av-Matoran are alive as Av-Matoran, they can link themselves to Toa or Makuta (possibly more species as well), and give them access to new knowledge and their own powers, which come from from within their mind, spirit, and inner abilities. Krana can latch onto the face of a Toa or anyone who wears a mask and can mind-control them whilst giving said host a new set of powers based around what Krana is stuck to their head. Krana also hold the consciousness guiding each Bohrok. This makes me think, again, that Krana are the mutated brains of dead Av-Matoran that have been exposed to energized protodermis.

I have a few questions regarding Bohrok that I never really got the answer to.

I know the Bohrok, the actual machines, were built from the bodies of dead Av-Matoran who underwent a metamorphosis into Bohrok upon their death.

That explains the origin of the machines.

As goes the Bohrok Va, I have no idea if it's the same story with them or if they're something different completely. I don't think it was ever explained how the swarm's little maintenance workers were built.

So, question one:

Where do Bohrok Va come from? Needless to say that, over time, they'd be damaged or destroyed and would need repair or replacement. A way to make more more Bohrok exists, so there should also, theoretically, be a way to make more Bohrok Va, and it'd be necessary for the swarm to do so as Bohrok Va are the ones who maintained and repaired the standard Bohrok and replaced damaged or lost Krana should a Bohrok be struck down, or launch its Krana towards a target, miss or not.

Next up, The Bahrag make Krana, but from what and how?

Question 2:

How do Bahrag make Krana?

Originally I thought they might have laid them in eggs and then they'd hatch (I always though that Krana were similar to face-huggers from the "Alien" movie franchise, and the Bahrag similar in function, but not appearance, to a Queen Xenomorph), afterward they'd be carried away by Bohrok Va to awaiting Bohrok, but I'm not entirely sure.

Another thought I had was that they were made from the brains of dead Av-Matoran; their bodies became Bohrok, and their brains became Krana.

After that, I read on the Bionicle wiki that they make Krana by dipping something (which I don't think was ever specified) into vats of energized protodermis, but I don't think this was expanded upon. I went back to speculating that it was indeed the brain of a dead Av-Matoran, but I still found no clarification.

Question 3:

Back to the Bohrok Va again, I know they're not controlled by a Krana. That said, are they alive in any respect? Are they merely robots like the Vahki, or are they alive in a rudimentary sense and have an instinct-based intelligence, like most Rahi?

Question 4:

And this is more speculation but it always struck me as, "Oh no; if they found out about this, they're gonna feel horrible over it."

What would happen, if it didn't already, what did the Matoran who used Boxor power armor units against the Bohrok, especially Nuparu who designed and built the Boxor units from destroyed Bohrok, think when they found out all Bohrok, and thus all their Boxor units, are made from dead Matoran?

This is one of those "fridge horror" moments that didn't strike me as something to ponder over at first until I remembered that the Boxor units were made from Bohrok...

...which are made from dead Av-Matoran.

Effectively imagine this; alien robots show up and try to destroy your home town. Then you destroy a few and make weapons out of their broken wrecks. Then you find out that ALL OF THESE alien machines used to be people who were turned into these things after they died; perhaps some of them used to be people that you personally knew.

Imagine if you had built something like a lightstone rifle out of one of these broken alien robots to fight against the rest...

...only to find out that said weapon you built used to be part of your best friend's arm.

That's all the questions I have for now regarding Bohrok. If someone can help me answer these, I'd appreciate it.

 

 

 

The line would draw a lot of mystical and cultural references from ancient mythologies from around the world.

 

Base idea; this is set in the same universe as, well IRL life.

 

EVERYTHING FROM HERE UNTIL OTHERWISE NOTED IS UNKNOWN TO THE MATORAN:

 

Future humanity sends an FTL-equipped spacecraft with terraforming nanobots on board to a distant alien planet that's completely covered in water, has two moons, and orbits a very young star. The ship has seven drones on board that oversee command functions to the nanobot swarms and a probe to deploy said swarms.

 

 

 

Wait, you want humans to be involved? Why? Part of the beauty of Bionicle is that it takes place entirely separate from anything even remotely related to humans. It's an entirely alien world whose inhabitants are only human in that they have emotions we can relate to. Also, they're humanoid. Point is, adding human-related anything to Bionicle is a bad idea. If you like it, and you wanna chalk up your own G3 fanfic based on that premise, then fine; but that's still sucking out a huge part of what makes Bionicle...well, Bionicle.

 

It would be, upon its reveal, a more realistic way to explain where they came from. The one thing I don't get about the Great Beings in the G1 storyline is this; where did THEY come from originally? They were highly-advanced Glatorian, and I know Glatorian are MOSTLY biological and the inhabitants of Spherus Magna, but did they evolve there and then afterward cybernetically augment themselves, or did something else build them and then stick them on that planet in the Solis Magna star system?

With this method of Mata Nui, Makuta, and the resulting Matoran, Rahi, and other creations of theirs being the result of a future-Earth's terraforming and colonization mission in space, it'd make a more clear-cut origin story for everyone, and would also allow the kids who play with the toys a way to feel like they have a connection to the story in a roundabout way; future humans built the ship that built Bionicle, and they're building Bionicle characters with their Lego sets. It'd possibly make it more relate-able to the target audience as well as giving a clear cut answer, when it's revealed, as to where everything in this story's universe came from.

I was thinking of something like this recently.

Here's the concept that I have for a sort of semi-hard reboot. Spoiler is for wall-of-text warning.

As goes basic stuff (without a wall of text) :

1: Gender diversity, which means that there are an equal mix of male and female matoran across all elements and villages.

2: At least some hint/mention of families and the Matoran being able to procreate to an extent (by saying something vague like, "this heirloom was passed down through my family for generations" which just implies what's going on).

3: Tons of world building and character development, or better yet, world building that drives character development and thus intern drives future world building in a reciprocating loop for as long as the story runs.

4: GET THE NAMING CONVENTIONS STRAIGHT (to avoid future lawsuits, and to make the names sound like they come from the same language and not tons of different ones like they did the first go-round: my advice: use words from a DEAD LANGUAGE, which are legally considered, in most areas, something akin to public domain).

5: Have the mysteries gradually be revealed by the actions of the characters. Let this drive part of the world building and storytelling.

6: Avoid one-dimensional/mary-sue/"shallowly-written" characters. People are complex. To be liked by people, characters must also be complex. Good guys are good but not flawless. Bad guys do bad things but sometimes for good reasons.

7: Avoid a deus-ex-machina (no pun intended) situation where something arises out of nothing simply to resolve a plot hole. Coincidences happen but usually not to the point where they can suddenly resolve everything or save the day.

8: Tying into the last few points: to bring depth to things the heroes, the Toa, MUST OCCASIONALLY LOSE A BATTLE. This goes along with "Good guys are good but not flawless". By all means, have the Toa win most of the time, but don't have so complete in their victories that the bad guys look like pushovers. To cement the fact that the villains are legitimate threats, the heroes must occasionally lose and lose in a big way at times to show just how dire the situation is that literal HEROES are required to save the day and not just things that the common people can do themselves.

9: Giant robots are fine as long as you remember the scale you're working on: a 40-million foot tall robot (which is only slightly smaller than the IRL DIAMETER OF THE EARTH) is only okay if the scale of everything escalates to the COSMIC LEVEL and beyond, such as in stories like manga/anime series "Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann", which does, in its second season, escalate to the grand cosmic scale to the point where robots bigger than literal GALAXIES are required to save the day from a cosmic-scale threat. Stuff that takes place on only one or two planets warrants something of a smaller scale, which can still be massive, perhaps the size of a skyscraper, or even the size of a whole city, but not really much bigger.

The definition of Rahi got needlessly fuzzy from 2004 onwards with all that Krahka/Tahtorak/Keetongu stuff. I kinda see how the Tahtorak can be considered a Rahi (kind of like how some myths and fantasy works feature sentient and intelligent dragons who are still generally referred to as animals) but when you have humanoid beings with obvious sentience and intelligence, categorizing them as Rahi seemed... silly. 

 

But based on this, to answer your question, theoretically the mind of a Rahi could possess any magnitude of complexity, as seemingly that does not factor into classification.

 

How actually did the whole story of the Toa Hordika possibly learning Rahi language go over with the fan base? I remember it as being interesting, the whole Hordika arc. I don't remember what everyone else thought though.

My thoughts is that Rahi is not defined by intelligence but by origin - Viruses being put into Liquid protodermis and these forming the Rahi. Also I imagine certain mask have the ability to affect intelligent rahi, like the Faxon and the Zatth.

Origin might be a part of it considering how, officially, "Rahi" means "not us" in the Matoran language.

The big reason I ask is because I had a thought of a character for a fanfic who voluntarily becomes a Hordika to have a better connection with the wildlife of the world (and by "voluntarily", I mean "effectively pokes a Visorak with a stick"). I was going to have them be able to learn and speak to various Rahi (especially the Gukko bird, which I was going to make somewhat humorous, as apparently, as Kualus said to Nuju, the word "Gukko" is a misnomer in the tongue of flying Rahi; it's not the bird's species' name, it's an insult directed at them).

There are a lot of similarities between the two, just like there are a ton of similarities between Bionicle and Horizon: Zero Dawn (which may as well have been called "Rahi Hunter"). There are always similarities between some stories as some share common elements, especially when they come from the same cultural source material(s).

In general, in G1, Rahi were seen as little more than biomechanical animal life.

They had instinctual, maybe emotion-based, reasoning at best when it comes to their minds.

The bionicle wiki says the following:

"The Rahi were the diverse, wide-spread fauna of the Matoran Universe, and biomechanical creatures composed of organic and inorganic protodermis. The word "Rahi" literally translated to "not us" in the Matoran language, although it was more commonly translated to mean, quite simply, "wildlife". Rahi were generally considered to be possessed of a lower intellectual level than that of the sapient species, acting primarily on instinct and out of a desire for basic biological needs such as shelter and sustenance."

But then as we got into Metru Nui's storyline we hear of Nuju learning the language of the flying Rahi of the Matoran Universe during his time as a Toa Hordika, and being half rahi at the time himself he was in a position to do so.

In the second movie we also see Nokama, during her time as a Toa Metru, use her mask of translation to have a telepathic conversation with a herd of Kikanalo, who reveal themselves to be somewhat simple-minded (describing Toa as merely "tall Matoran", and expressing little other desire than to see their territory left unharmed, or rather "the beauty of the herdlands" left intact) but still understanding enough of the world around them and of the people of that world to have concepts of both, and a concepts of beauty, aesthetics, and intelligence, and due to their memory of others passing through their territory in the past, perhaps a rudimentary concept of time as well.

There was at least three instances of Rahi that could full-out speak and understand (either through spoken word or telepathy) the Matoran language, this being the Tahtorak, Keetongu, and Krahka. Others may also exist.

That said, if some have a "language" of their own and others could full-out talk, could some types of Rahi (as in all members of a specific species of Rahi, not just specific individuals), within the context of G1 canon, actually be sentient/sapient creatures?