PutYaGunsOn

Question about Plasma.

I understand that the EM was created before a lot of the secondary Matoran element colors and prefixes were canonized.  But the canon version (Su-Matoran, orange and white) and EM versions (Io-Matoran, rust-colored) of Plasma Matoran are completely different.  It seems like for some types of Matoran, both the canon and EM prefixes are interchangeable, but I see nothing for Plasma.  They're still just Io.

Let's say I made up my own Toa of Plasma for the canon universe (called himself a Su-Matoran, is white and orange), and I'm thinking of making an EM version of him too.  Can the canon color scheme still fit into the EM, or would I have to redesign the EM version to fit the original description?

Not trying to complain here, I just wanna know how this all works.

Not sure if this is the right place to discuss this, but I felt that this would be pretty interesting to discuss.

We've seen uncommon but possible colors for the main six types of Matoran.  We've seen Onu-Matoran with tan, purple, and even orange bits on them.  Ta-Matoran can have black as a primary armor color.  Ko-Matoran can have dark grey parts and masks, as long as there's white somewhere on them.  Hahli has been green and blue before.

What about secondary Matoran?  They all have one or two colors assigned to them, but what about some other colors that still just outside of that range?

Like, for example, Su-Matoran are orange and white.  Could they have red parts too?  That still goes with the whole heat thing they've got going on, but the white offsets any chance of them being mistaken for Ta-Matoran.

Both Fa-Matoran and De-Matoran have a black and grey color scheme, which could also be an Onu-Matoran.  Could they also have purple/orange/whatever parts?

Seems like Fe-Matoran got it good in this regard.  They can be anywhere from grey, gold, and burnt orange!

With the mention Nuparu was involved in the creation of Hero Factory that reminds me of my own headcannon there, that after thousands of years of peace on Spehrus Magna the Matoran/Agori eventually developed spaceflight and contacted the rest of the Universe. While I don't think Nuparu was the originator of the idea of the Hero Factory group, I think his experience with the Vahki gave him the ability to be hired onto Hero Factory briefly as a technical adviser. I imagine he transferred some of his Toa skills and mentality into the final programming of the Hero robots. It would explain why Hero Factory robots mimic the team/elemental base of a Toa team, if one imagines that was the inspiration for the project. 

I was thinking of this too, since the Heroes have English names and all.  Plus, I really do like the idea of Bionicle races exploring space.  Maybe they landed on Earth.

Whatever it may be, it still sticks in my head that the Hero Factory was built by Bionicle people, and Nuparu was at the very least one of the top dogs in its creation.  In my head, he was already a Turaga when it happened, because I like the image of a wise old Turaga overseeing a factory like this.

Furthermore, if one considers the Quintessons, it's not improbable that they would come across some form of protodermis in their voyages throughout the universe. As shown in G1 of Transformers, there are actually several sentient species, and they interact quite often. Perhaps some Great Beings were involved? Ah well, those are my two cents.

Assuming you're going by the G1 Transformers cartoon from the '80s (in which it clearly shows that the Quintessons created the Cybertronian race), let's also say the Quintessons and Great Forerunner Beings (who may or may not be related to the Xel'naga) knew of each other to some capacity.  But yeah, let's say the Quintessons got a bit of a helping hand from the possibly-Xel'naga-related Great Forerunner Beings, who might have supplied them with some protodermis.

Actually, the Quintessons' first attempts to create life were called "Trans-Organics".  That is, beings that were partially mechanical and partially organic.  That sounds a little familiar...

Perhaps the maybe/maybe-not-Xel'naga Great Forerunner Beings took the idea of "Trans-Organics" from their good buddies, the Quintessons, and decided to improve on it (since the Quintessons' Trans-Organics were failures and basically big dumb destructive monsters), resulting in the biomechanical races we all know and love.  Maybe the original Trans-Organics themselves inspired some of the more dangerous Rahi species.

We are onto something here, guys.  I really think we could make a coherent crossover world from this.  What else could fit here?

We got:

• G1 Bionicle: Given.
• G2 Bionicle: The result of some really unoriginal Great Beings trying to satisfy their addiction to creating stuff after the great success that was the Matoran Universe.
• Throwbots/Slizers: In-universe inspiration for Bionicle races,
• Roboriders: In-universe inspiration for Bionicle races.
• Hero Factory: Successors to G1 Bionicle both in and out-of-universe.
• Transformers: Inspiration for Mata Nui Robot and biomechanical beings.  On the other hand, Transformers may be at least partially made of protodermis as Cap'n Puma said.  GBs and Quintessons might know of each other.
• Halo: Assume GBs and Forerunners are the same, or at least closely related.
• Starcraft (maybe): The Xel'naga may or may not be related to the Great Forerunner Beings, since Toa Doublebee says that they're not interchangeable.
• Dead or Alive/Ninja Gaiden shared universe: Not related to Bionicle at all, but I'll throw those this in anyway by way of Halo.  DOA4 had a Spartan-II as a playable character, AND Halo has a "Hayabusa" armor that's clearly modeled after Ryu's ninja suit, so yeah.

Chiaki Tani (Shinken Green) from Samurai Sentai Shinkenger.  It can also be Mike (Green Ranger) from Power Rangers Samurai, but since I love Shinkenger and hate Power Rangers Samurai, I'd rather take it as the former.

I once recall seeing a statement somewhere on BZpower, possibly from GregF himself, that whenever Bionicle fanfics are written, they are set an alternate universe, rather than the main universe.  So in my personal Bionicle universe, what you are about to read is exactly how it happened.

Here goes: The Throwbot and Roborider planets were visited by the Great Beings before or during Mata Nui's creation.  They studied Throwbot and/or Roborider robot technology and applied it when creating the Matoran and other G1 Bionicle species.  At some point, while Mata Nui was doing his space exploration thing, he came across these planets again and studied them for whatever reason.

The G1 story as we know it all happened, and centuries, even millennia passed.  The G1 species have probably expanded.  Some brilliant inventors, likely under the wing of good old Turaga Nuparu, created the Hero Factory, or were at the very least involved in its creation.  The heroes themselves are based on Matoran and Agori schematics, but with powers based on those of Toa.  If we wanna get a little more meta with connections between alternate universes, we can also say that they were inspired by The Melding universe's Toa; they're small like the core universe's Matoran, but still have Toa powers.  Powerful, but agile and mobile.

The Great Beings eventually needed to satisfy their addiction to creating things somehow.  So in a fit of nostalgia for the good ol' days, they decided to make more bonkles by making Okoto and/or its inhabitants.  Since the Great Being who lead the Okoto development team was really unoriginal, they just recycled the names and (almost) personalities from the Toa Mata.

I hope I'm not the only one who still remembers what "BURN STUFF!" and "Cuppa Joe" mean.

I miss those.

Also, Avatar/Sig shops were fun little things.  Even when I wasn't requesting stuff, it was still cool scrolling through them to see what kinds of things people came up with.

If I recall correctly, the Matoran knew that islands were contained within domes and that each dome was linked to other domes. They likely also noticed that the domes' relative positions to one another occasionally changed (such as, unbeknownst to them, when the robot moved its arms) so I imagine cartography was mostly done on a dome-by-dome basis rather than a full universe map.

Oh, okay, that makes sense.  That's pretty much the position that we, the fans, were in before 2010 when the big reveal happened.  We just knew that they were domes connected to each other.

I guess anything that isn't separated by a robot joint is a dome.  (Like the head is the Metru Nui dome, the chest and abdomen are two domes with the Northern and Southern Continents respectively plus the other islands, each arm is split into the upper arm and forearm dome, etc.)

I'm back into bonkle lore, so I'm just wondering this.

It seems like Teridax has always been fully aware of the robot, since his plan has always revolved around it.

But who else would know?  Would any Matoran have any clue that they're all inside a giant robot?  I saw that they built the robot in the dark so that they wouldn't know what exactly they were building, and certain dangerous Rahi exist to keep curious Matoran out of the robot's more vital parts.

In 100,000 years, I'm sure at least some cartographers have mapped the entire robot, especially considering that intercontinental trade is a thing in the Matoran Universe.  Surely someone would notice that it's in the shape of a person.

What about any other species/people?  The other Makuta?  Artakha?  Karzahni?  The Shadowed One?  Any of the OoMN?  Tiribomba?  Would they know?

I only ever experienced '01-'05, and '10 (everything in between was sort of a time where I tried to distance myself from my childhood interests, including Bionicle), so I'll count from those.  From most to least out of those is '01, '10, '03, '04, '02, '05.

2001 is my favorite, partly because of nostalgia, and partly because MNOLG's version still holds up.  It really gets to the heart of Bionicle and what the Toa are all about: Mask powers, elemental powers, and teamwork.

2010 is second because we finally get to see the two "brothers" that I've heard about since the very beginning finally duke it out...AS GIANT PLANET-SIZED ROBOTS!  That year was at the tail end of my mecha anime phase, and Gurren Lagann was pretty fresh in my mind, so I loved it.

2003 is third largely because of nostalgia, but I also liked the impact it had on both me and Bionicle.  I was the biggest Bionicle nut in my entire school, so I still remember the hype of seeing Takanuva beat Makuta in the movie.  Also, it opened up Metru Nui.

2004's next because I really did like watching Vakama and Lhikan tag-team Teridax, and the use of the Vahi was pretty cool.  The only thing I would've liked to see more was more involvement from the other Toa Metru.

2002's so low because while I liked the Bohrok saga, it just wasn't as big of a deal to me personally as the others.  The Exo-Toa were a really cool idea, but I quickly forgot about them.

2005 is just my least favorite year altogether, and the movie was easily the worst of the first three movies (I have yet to see the 2009 movie).  Also "alright, who fired the tickle spinner?"

Granted, But they had a very low budget for them and they ended up looking like Rahaga.

 

I wish they made Voriki a real set.

It exists...but LEGO decided never to make a Voriki set, so some backwater Chinese bootleg toy factory did it instead.  The plastic is weaker than the lime pieces from 2007, and it's all lead-painted.

I wish Soul Calibur 6 would come out already, and and it's universally praised to be better than all of the other ones.

I'm wearing a dark grey Batman shirt.

I thought that it was a sole tropical island in the middle of a sea like the Pacific Ocean on the planet that all Lego lines were set in. Also the term 'rahi' only applied to the monsters of the first year, and Makuta made them by throwing certain animals in a cauldron of dark power that mutated them into monsters.

Reminds me of how I used to think that Mata Nui was supposed to be on Earth.

EDIT: Also, just remembered one, though this is more my friend's fault than mine.  We used to think that the ball joint on the Toa Mata's chests was their power source/core.  I didn't own Gali yet, so we never really took her chest socket piece in mind.

Just for fun, I'm gonna try to do characters whose colors don't match their ring.

Yeah, Teridax would definitely be Orange, and I like Takanuva as a Blue.

I feel like just about any heroic Toa can be Green, though I'm actually having the easiest time picturing Lhikan.  Guy was a bad...donkey.  Yeah.  Even as a Turaga, he had absolutely no fear whatsoever, throwing himself in front of a Shadow Hand just to save his friend and successor.

Speaking of Vakama, I can definitely see him being a Blue, at least as a Turaga (though I can see him being one as a Toa as well).  He knew how to instill hope into the Matoran through his encouragement and stories.  But I think he'd look pretty good in Indigo too.  He'd even get another cool staff to go with it!

EDIT: Accidentally pressed Enter too early, so if anyone saw this with only 3 words, that's why.

 

Reposting one from the last topic like this

 

Oh, I remember a really weird one.

 

I used to think all of the 2001 Toa masks were for different Toa. The first part of their name, the elemental prefix, determined the color, and the second part determined the shape. So I thought there was a whole legion of Toa like Gahu, a Toa with the blue Hau, or Popaka, the Toa with the brown Akaku.

 

 

I was weird.

 

Weird.  Would they look like recolors of existing Toa, or what?  (Like, would "Popaka" be a brown Kopaka, regular ol' Pohatu but with an Akaku, or something different altogether?)

And what about a Toa with a Pakari?  Let's say you had a Toa with a red Pakari.  Would that be Tanua, or Taa?  (since "Onu" is the entire prefix, leaving only the "a")  "Tanua" sounds so much better, but with your little naming scheme, "Taa" fits more.

I'm old school, so I voted Mata Nui.

I think I'd most likely be comfortable in either Ga-Koro or Onu-Koro, or maybe Ko-Koro to a slightly lesser extent.

I wouldn't even mind setting up my own little hut on Ta-Wahi Beach!  I just don't think I could live inside a volcano, so Ta-Koro's out.

In 2006, I thought Axonn and Brutaka were brothers for some reason. 

In a poetic sense, they are, so you're not really wrong.  (Brothers-in-arms)

I think I may have had the whole Air/Jungle misconception too, so G2 Lewa would've fit into my childhood pretty well.  Though it's cool that they did introduce Jungle as an element later on.

No bootleg sets near me besides a lot of knock-off Lego minifigures

Oh yeah, another staple of Chinatown gift shops, AKA the only places where I can find knockoff toys in America anymore.  They always have minifigs of Marvel and DC heroes that come with little stands.

didn't someone already make a topic like this?

Last time I saw one of these, it was months ago, likely well past the bump/revival timespan.

I even dug through the last few pages and didn't find it, so I decided to make a new one.  If I'm wrong and that one's still alive, we can go ahead and move it there.  If not,t hat's exactly what this is for.

What kinds of misconceptions did you and/or your friends have about Bionicle when you were kids?  Here are some of mine.

Obligatory thinking that they were robots when I first saw them.

My friend and I both thought that Lewa Mata's hand could shoot vines out of it.  (It looks more like a gun barrel compared to Tahu and Pohatu's hands, and since he lived in a jungle, we came up with that.)

I used to think that MNOLG was about a human (i.e. you) who was taken to Mata Nui, mainly because it was entirely in first person, the character you were playing as was completely ignorant of Matoran culture, and they don't show that you're playing as Takua until the very end.

I used to think that Roboriders were motorbikes for the Toa or something.

My friend used to think that if the Toa Nuva's masks came off, they'd revert back to Toa Mata.

I think at some point, I just thought the Toa Mata could transform into the Nuva at will, like turning into a Super Saiyan (I watched a lot of anime as a kid, hence why I thought it worked like that).

Really, since the Bionicle worlds are so disconnected from the likes of Earth, I like to think Bionicle could take place in literally any universe and it would still work.

In any universe I've ever created (fanfic or original), I say a version of Spherus Magna exists in all of them (whether it's the main one, The Melding version, Toa Empire, etc), whether or not it has any bearing on the story whatsoever (which it usually doesn't).

I'm not a part of the fandom or really familiar with it at all but I know a lot of fans of Bionicle are also fans of Transformers so the whole Cyberton aspect of it could mesh nicely with Bionicle.

 

Other than that? Really Bionicle takes place on a small number of worlds and no one knows what's happening out there. My head canon would be that Slizers and Robo Riders (but not Hero Factory because it sucks and doesn't fit and believe me I gave it a chance I wanted it to be the next Bionicle) exist in the Bionicle Universe on other planets as sort of "foot prints" of the Great Beings as they were traveling throughout the universe and leaving their marks on worlds.

 

But if you mean staying close to what we already know of Bionicle then I guess I can't say I really know. It's so unique that it's no wonder the fan community has been this loyal to it and stuck around for this long, and it's why I think it deserves to keep coming back because it was a work of fiction that did things no others did and still has so many more opportunities for brilliance based on what it is.

I've seen a headcanon that the Mata Nui robot is somehow connected to Primus and/or Unicron.  Maybe the Great Beings are familiar with Cybertronian legends and got inspired.  I like it.  And I've always shared your Throwbots/Roboriders headcanon.

Bionicle meets Halo perhaps? The actions of the Great Beings are suspiciously similar to the Forerunners in Halo.

The Forerunners built ridiculously huge things, Halo rings the diameter of the moon, Dyson Spheres as large as planets, 'The Ark' a flower petals like structure capable of surrounding a planet completely in its middle ring space. All of these builds notably had continents and landmasses which mimicked real worlds. The systems of these worlds where entirely maintained by robots! By those standards of construction the Great Spirit Robot would actually be a SMALL project. The inclusion of landmasses and robot workers within the GSR is also another Forerunner trademark.

I've also seen this headcanon, saying that the Forerunners and Great Beings are one and the same.  Some versions say they're also related to (if not the same as) the Xel'naga from StarCraft.  Maybe one is an offshoot of the other(s), or maybe they're just three different names for the same group.

So let's try and put these together just for fun.  The Xel'naga/Forerunners/Great Beings (however they may be related) created the Matoran with inspiration from the Agori, Glatorian, Throwbots/Slizers, and Roboriders.  The Mata Nui robot is inspired by the Cybertronian legends of Primus and Unicron, being a robot that houses an entire world (just like how Primus is Cybertron in most versions).  All that results in Bionicle.

I've also seen a headcanon that Nuparu created the Hero Factory as a sort of continuation of the dying Matoran/Toa species, and I accept that because I'm weird like that.

And another one that G2's world is the Great Beings' second attempt to do their thing, and that their Toa have the same names as the G1 Toa Mata because they're just really unoriginal.

So that potentially puts StarCraft, Halo, Transformers, Throwbots, Roboriders, and Hero Factory in the same universe as both Bionicles.

First choice for all of them.  As a kid, I figured, that's how they said them in the movies, so I'll call them that.

Though before the movies came out I called Lewa "Leh-WAH" and Onewa "oh-NAY-wah".

 

I'm still a little confused as to why Lewa has those gun barrel-looking things when Tahu and Pohatu just have regular plus rods.

The impression I got was that it was supposed to repent long hands and thicker fingers, to more easily grasp to Le-Koro's trees and vines; just like how most simians do.

 

Fair enough.  I guess Lewa just has bigger/stronger fingers.  New headcanon: Le-Matoran typically have strong grip/hands for climbing trees.

2003.

I did get Bionicle toys in 2001, but I didn't really get into the story until 2002.  But 2003 was probably my favorite year because at the time, I actually had other friends who liked Bionicle, I got to share hype and play Bionicle with them, we were all hyped for MoL before it came out, the Rahkshi are still some of my favorite sets ever, and I joined BZP that year.

All that, and the old Bionicle site was still up, so I got to enjoy all the stuff from 2001-2002 (MNOG, Flash animations, etc.) while hyping for 2003, and eventually 2004.  I slowly started dropping off in 2005, and completely did in 2006, and between 2008 to now, I'd sort of drop back in from time to time to check on the fandom and see what kinds of crazy stuff the story has now.

They're just really big hands.  Though unlike Tahu's and Pohatu's, Lewa's "fingers" looked like gun barrels, so for a while, I was convinced he had a gun arm.  Then my friend somehow convinced me that they shot out vines like Bulbasaur, so I played with that in mind too.

I'm still a little confused as to why Lewa has those gun barrel-looking things when Tahu and Pohatu just have regular plus rods.