ALVIS

I don't believe Greg has ever stated for what purpose Artakha made the symbols, but I quite like your idea - that he was trying to ensure the Bahrag could eventually be freed. Perhaps he never foresaw that the theft of the symbols would cause the Nuva to lose their powers entirely.

I'd like him to answer the last element he was going to introduce: Void.

 

Also anything about the Marrendar. Is it humanoid or a beast?

I'm not sure where you heard this, but he was never planning to introduce Void. That was a fan-proposed element popular with some fans on BZP, but it never made it to Greg. Psionics was the first, last, and only element he canonized, and he's stated many times since then that he has no interest in introducing more elements.

There was one last element to be introduced but never was: Void.

Not quite true. IIRC, the Void element was a theory proposed by a well-known BZPer (I can't for the life of me remember who). It was inspired by Makuta's famous "I am nothing" monologue in the MNOG. The theory was that Makuta was that, since shadow doesn't technically exist - it's just the absence of light - Makuta was originally intended to have powers over nothingness, or Void. A variation on the concept proposed Void as a True Neutral element, to balance out Light and Shadow. However, the Void element was never brought to Greg, or if it was, he didn't approve it.

I'm not confident in my recollection of the details here, but what I do know is that Void was not Greg's idea. It originated on BZP.

Oh, and I guess I'd better provide my fair share of trivia. Here goes:

• The three winners of the 2015 Mask Maker Challenge were drawn into an illustration of Ekimu in his forge. What you might not have noticed is that two of them also have a cameo in Episode 3 of The Journey to One: hanging above the door to the Temple of Light. Their creators must be very proud.

Maybe the G2 Vahi was the top half of the MoUP. We will never know.

We'll never know exactly what it is, but we know it's not that. The graphic novels show that the Mask of Time existed long before Makuta made the Mask of Ultimate Power. We also know from other story sources that the Mask of Time remained intact for 1000 years after Makuta's betrayal, as the Protectors used it to summon the Toa. This means it can't be the Mask of Ultimate Power, because

So, while we don't know the exact origins of the Mask of Time, that option at least is ruled out.

But Kraata-Kal and the Bohrok-Kal were both mutated by the same substance, as stated in BIONICLE: Dark Hunters. It makes sense for them to both be referred to as "Kal". "Hordika" is a better term for mutants affected by the venom, a substance distinct from whatever the Kal substance was. Let's not overcomplicate things.

Put me down for Umarak. Guy's got style.

 

I doubt that they will go into their origins

Nah, this is Bionicle. Everything gets explained eventually. 

 

Nah, this is G2 Bionicle. There's no reason to believe it will abide by its predecessor's rules and principles.

 

I always took it that Spherus Magna was actually at one point our Earth. With a distant future perspective of how our world would change after events of transcendence. The Great Beings actually being the first self aware AIs we created.

 

Someone get Alvis up in this.

 

 

Xenoblade Chronicles, anyone? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

You called?

A recent quote from Greg on the "Chat with Greg Farshtey" thread has caused something of a stir. In the quote, Greg says, "I don't really believe in redeeming characters, Orion. I believe a good villain is a villain for a reason, and they are not just going to suddenly turn good. They may do good things, but it will be out of their own self-interest, not because they have suddenly become virtuous."

This discussion is already starting to fill up the Official Greg Compendium, but there are a lot of interesting things to say about it, so I think we should move it over here into its own topic. The most obvious point of discussion would be, is Greg right? Are redemption stories inherently "unrealistic", or do people have the potential for drastic change?

I disagree. I don't think anyone is too far gone for a moral epiphany. It takes a serious push to change a person's outlook, even by a small degree, but it's still possible. I know this just from my (comparatively short) experience. I've made slow but steady progress over the past four years, but it took a near-fatal tragedy to spur my development of empathy and emotional bonds with my friends.

Enough about me. The point I'm interested in discussing is one raised by the person who asked Greg this ill-fated question: what would it take to redeem some of BIONICLE's villains? The OP cited the Barraki and Makuta Miserix as potential candidates for redemption, but I'm interested in hearing about any and all villains' possibilities. What would it take to redeem Ahkmou? Vezok? And if anyone's really ambitious: what would it take to redeem Makuta Teridax?

Both of the above discussion points, and any additional ones related to the subject, are welcome here. I think this is a very interesting discussion to have.

First off, toa kopaka4372 and Rahkshi Lalonde are correct -- this isn't going to happen. We have no governing body that could enforce a blanket ban on canonization. The only way it'll stop is if Greg stops taking questions himself, and that's up to him.

But in a hypothetical scenario in which we could do this, should we ban G1 canonization? I haven't voted yet, because my opinion on the subject has recently changed, and I want to wait a bit and see if it sticks. But at the moment, I would say yes. A few weeks ago, I would have stated that canonization is a great avenue for tying up loose ends and clarifying details of G1. But since then, I've only seen minor and trivial canonizations proposed, nothing really brilliant. I've realized that, like SPIRIT said, all of this can be accomplished more easily and more elegantly in fan works: short stories, animations, roleplaying blogs (shameless plug: dark-hunters-inc.tumblr.com), you name it. As we get further into G2, canonizing minor details of G1 becomes less and less important.

It's not that G1 is dead, or that it was perfect and untouchable. It's just no longer being told by LEGO. It's being told by the fans. 

I always saw Hakann/Vezok as a one-way, extremely unhealthy ship, in which all of Hakann's backstabbings were just terrible attempts at flirting with Vezok.

Pairings I don't ship:

• Jaller/Hahli ended in 2006. They were cute in 2003, but the spark was gone by the time they left Metru Nui.
• Any of the Toa Nuva ships. I'm sorry, but their relationships are much more meaningful as platonic brother/sister bonds.

Other than that, I shipped all the normal ones. Macku/Hewkii, Kiina/Mata Nui, Sahmad/unnamed love interest, Teridax/himself, etc.

Way back in 2001, when I was a wee little one, my first thought upon learning that Gali was the only girl was "That's not fair". For a few years after that, I just ruled that Lewa and Kopaka (and Wairuha, by extension) were also female.

Unfortunately, after getting more invested in official storyline, I couldn't maintain that head canon. But if I had the chance to change things for a new story, I'd go with my gut and switch those two.

Perhaps, then, BS01 will just exercise its editor's discretion and not mention this answer. 

Greg seems a lot more open to the idea of biomechanical romance nowadays...

 

 

Well, it turns out the fanabse is taking that and running with it as far as confirmation goes.

 

Just to be absolutely clear - Are you saying it'd merely be interesting to see if Matoran observation will have any affect on them? Or that Matoran can now love as an Agori or a human can?

 

(I figure it's the former, but people love to read into things so I just wanna make sure)

That kind of a behavioral shift is not going to happen in weeks or months. What I am saying is that they are going to have a new emotion and new relationships to observe. It might just be something they find interesting, or it might be something someone down the line tries to emulate. If you assume their AI allows them to learn behavior, will they learn this one? I don't know. But it is not something that is going to happen right away.

Full steam ahead, shippers.

Also, some wise guy pointed out that Pahrak-Kal's fate doesn't make sense:

 

 

1 Could a great being modify powers that work only on MU beings to work on organic beings as well?

 

2 According to the wiki Pahrak Kal melted to the core of Aqua Magna and died, but it doesn't have a core or magama, since its just a chunk of Aqua Magna, so is it possible that Pahrak Kal is just stuck in a VERY deep hole

 

3 Can Arthaka make more great disks, and by extension more masks of time?

 

4 can Piraka form natural kaita?

1) Not sure. I tend to think not in all cases, maybe in some.

2) If there is no core, then he went out the other side and quite possibly died in space.

 

3) If he had the raw materials, one would assume so. But from a story perspective, I would never have added more than one Vahi, it unbalances the story.

 

4) Can they? Maybe. Would they? No.

Anyway, I thought that he busted up LoSS pretty badly - they flipped it over on its back, and usually doing that means death for most insects. Also, they didn't drive it off a cliff, they smashed a part of a rock bridge using a hammer. I thought that would bury the LoSS under a ton of rock, in addition to the spine-snapping fall on its side.

Obligatory nitpick: spiders are arachnids, not insects. It's a separate class of arthropod. Of course, given that the LoSS and the Skull Spiders have the wrong number of legs, and that it's BIONICLE, Earth taxonomy really has no bearing here.

Back when the episode first came out, the prevailing interpretation that I saw was that "United, but not one" was a warning against trying to combine the elements like Makuta did. In other words, it's better to be part of a team than to try and put all of the power into one person.

 

Therefore, we have a too large a robot for our planet, Watson. Therefore, we either have to shrink our bot or grow the planet. I prefer the "grow the planet" theorem because I like my giant robots to be giant robots, prefer the bonesiii formerly amazing gravity absorption theory because I'm lazy, resist change, and put little stock in LMB Greg who has also said other things I don't agree with. But that's all my taste (still). But it is backed up by Greg himself who said that previous answers take precedent, the 40 million was a previous answer, that wins. End of problem.

 

But if you take Greg's interpretations of gravity to be canon, then Bara Magna can only be slightly larger than Earth size, which means that having a 40 million foot tall robot land on its surface and engage in combat with a 27 million foot tall robot is a fundamental impossibility. We have two canon "facts" that are at odds with each other. That's why I go back to precedent. But it gives that "foot in the door" to the taste to shrink the robot. That taste is immovable obstacle - I'm not going to suddenly make you like the 40 million foot tall robot, no?

 

I figured that nobody would listen to me anyway because everyone wants to shrink the robot. Or at least, a strong majority. And as long as the taste barrier exists, the true voice of reason will always fall on deaf ears. (Just like in Cat in the Hat with the fish.)

 

Okay, first off, this is bonesiii levels of condescending. Please don't try to paint yourself as "the true voice of reason" besieged by the thoughtless masses. Those of us who support a smaller size for the robot do because of our reasoning, not despite it.

Also, here's something that nobody seems to have suggested so far: Greg's own rule discounts the 40 million foot figure. That answer was given long, long after Christian Faber depicted the size of the robot in his concept art. You may argue that concept art isn't canon, but there is nothing to suggest that the story team or visual artists changed their mind between 2000 and 2008 -- only that Greg gave an answer that didn't match up to the model the animators were using as a reference.

 

... Solving the Mata Nui Rising issue isn't reason enough to change the size?

Why not?

Because sizing down the robot create issues for medias where the 40 millions feet size is mentionned - Reign of Shadows at least. Plus, other sizes are depicted in other medias - comics, like I said before - so why this size more than others?

 

A mere mention of the robot being unreasonably huge is less of an issue than a visual depiction of the robot being a more reasonable size. Literary media can be easily modified or ignored. Visual media, not so much.

SailorQuaoar said it best:

(Emphasis mine.)

Hey, would you look at that -- I can bold things, too.

This is an old piece of preview animation made for fun to showcase the size relation between Mata Nui and Earth, given that a Toa was 2,3 meter high. Thak you Ghost for your great sense of humour through all the years of 3D production.

Seems to me that showcasing the actual size of the Great Spirit Robot was the entire point of this video. The "fun" and "sense of humor" comments refer to the silly way in which the animator chose to show those proportions, but they do not in any way invalidate the information presented. Deal with it.

It was there since the beginning? I feel betrayed, while also wanting to give kudos to the Bionicle team.

Choose "impressed" over "betrayed". It's less stressful.

The Kanohi Nuva were hideous, and the Adaptive Armor was too dull and grey for my tastes. As for 2001 and 2015... I have to admit that 2015's Toa are more interesting sets, and are probably more fun to play with, but they can't compete with my nostalgia. I have to go with the original ​Toa Mata.

So it's just about untraceable, then? Lovely.

BIONICLESector01 member Du7734 recently made a series of edits on BS01 stating that Spherus Magna and the Matoran Universe have 36 hours in a day. I remember when the BIONICLE Story Squad considered bringing this fan theory to Greg, but I don't remember if it was ever canonized.

If anyone (ie. fishers64) remembers when or if this idea was canonized, and can provide a source, then I'll let Du7734's edits stand. If not, they will have to be reversed.

BZPower (and BIONICLESector01, which is very closely affiliated) are the most prominent and officially endorsed BIONICLE fan sites, but that doesn't mean there aren't others out there. I've seen plenty of BIONICLE fans on Tumblr who don't appear to be active or have an account on BZPower, and there are pockets of BIONICLE fans on other sites like EuroBricks and YouTube (although there appear to be many unsavory individuals in that particular BIONICLE community).