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The Matoran Civil War and Racism in Metru-Nui


Mampt

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I was on the Matoran Civil War page on BS01, and I noticed something about the sides. Po-Metru, Le-Metru, and Ko-Metru aligned together, while Ta-Metru, Onu-Metru, and Ga-Metru formed the other alliance. Going forward another 80,000 years or so, the Toa Metru emerge. From the outset, Onewa and Matau strongly disliked Vakama, while Nokama strongly favored him. Whenua leaned slightly towards Vakama, while Nuju leaned slightly away from him. This is exactly how the Matoran Civil War turned out, and this points to island-wide racism between the Metru, because these disagreements between the Toa started as soon as they met, which points to them being predisposed to these opinions. Thoughts on this? Other instances of this sort?

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Hmm...I wasn't around much in 2004 so I can't verify that all that drama happened among the Toa Metru, but I see no reason to doubt that it did.

 

Anyway, I think you might just over-thinking this, since the '04 storyline was written about four years before we had any hard facts about the "War".

 

Of course, I have sometimes wondered, how much effect the "War" had on both later Metru Nui and by extension Mata Nui, like whether any

prejudices (like the ones you seem to be suggesting) evolved among the Matoran.

 

Interesting.

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I do think you're on to something very interesting. I find it likely that GregF assigned the alignments of each Metru based on the Toa Metru's rivalries (whether intentionally or subconsciously). However, he probably didn't put too much thought into it, and almost certainly didn't bother to look at it from a "historical" viewpoint. That's the job of the fans. :P

 

It is a really intriguing theory, though. If I were ever to write a fic taking place on Metru Nui, I would definitely play up some tensions along those lines. After all, without going into too much politics, a civil war can have a very divisive and polarizing effect on a civilization, even generations after the fact. ;)

 

@ JAG18: I don't think civil-war tensions would have had any effect on Mata Nui society. The Matoran had their memories completely wiped, and the Turaga had come to respect each other and function as a team. There's no reason in Karzahni they'd have arbitrarily spread prejudice and dislike of the other koros among the Matoran.

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Meta-perspective - it was the other way around. Greg probably based the factions of the Civil War off the way everyone acted to Vakama.

 

Besides, you can't really say that it was "racism". More of the fact that the Metru were pretty much loners and passive-aggressive maniacs who barely managed to band together and save the world.

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@Angel Bob: forgot about the Mind Wipe for a second there so I guess your right.

 

 

Meta-perspective - it was the other way around. Greg probably based the factions of the Civil War off the way everyone acted to Vakama.

 

Besides, you can't really say that it was "racism". More of the fact that the Metru were pretty much loners and passive-aggressive maniacs who barely managed to band together and save the world.

 

I think that pretty much hits the nail on the head. (The first part, not the second one, although that could work too.)

Edited by JAG18

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It isn't necessarily that the Metru bore prejudices because of the war. Each element tends to go along with certain personality traits, and each Metru has its own traits as well. Some of these go together better than others. A prime example would be Ko- and Onu- Metrus. They did not get along because each saw the future/past as more important. This definitely affected Nuju and Whenua's initial disagreements, and it probably factored into why Ko- and Onu- Metru took different sides during the war.

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I think we all know that the concept of the civil war came after the Metru-nui saga was written in real life.

However, for the sake of it, this theory is VERY likely for the in-universe timeline, in which the war happened around 80 000 years before

the matoran saga.

 

So, If someone would re-write the Bionicle saga in chronological order, I think the civil war could very well explain why the Toa Metru, as soon as

they met, had some kind of conflictual relations. After all, just think about how Onewa was rough to Vakama on the very first time he met him.

 

Anyway, considering what the Toa Metru did and how they were when they became Turaga, I think it's more likely to say that the metru had

prejudices toward each other and got over it by learning to work as a team, beyond the whole ethenic issue, than saying they were simply a bunch of weirdos.

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I have to agree with those who are saying it's more likely that there was already some kind of underlying disagreement and this led to both the war and to their later differences, not that the war caused those differences. Think about it -- you don't just go to war on a whim and then later think of being angry (or whatever) at the other side, although it certainly may deepen such divides.

 

Now since this is obviously something my retelling had to deal with (at least since I chose to assume these characters were even alive at the time -- which I don't know that we know), I'm going to do something I haven't yet done and use spoiler tags. Don't read if you don't want to know yet how my story handles it (just the basic idea though, there's still plenty I'm not spoiling). :)

 

 

 

You're also assuming these particular characters agreed with the war or gave into the antagonistic sentiments. But as I was writing my story, it felt far more true to them to have them be working together across the sides to end what was patently obviously an entirely stupid endeavor, helping give early hints to why these six would later become heroes. Although it is not quite that simple and I do agree there may be some truth to this, but what I'm saying is, you probably have it backwards. Most likely the war brought them closer together, especially the end of the war, and these differences were just the natural personality clashes that were just coming out more now that they were starting to work directly together.

 

 

 

Some other things to keep in mind. Your characterization of who was for/against who sounds good at first glance, but there are some problems with it. The two primary enemies of the war were Ta and Po, yet Onewa and Vakama spent a lot of time working together when the Toa paired off (keeping their eyes on Nuhrii and Ahkmou). Onewa's distrust of Vakama probably had a lot more to do with his apparently being a little nuts when he had his visions, and it was often more of friendly teasing than actual antagonism. In the Visorak Saga, Vakama seemed to equally snap at Nokama, supposedly his closest ally, as any of the others (prior to capture by the Vissies). Le was versus Ta and Ga, yet it was Matau who was able to convince Vakama to return from the "dark side", and he "had a crush on" (officially wanted to be close friends with) Nokama.

Edited by bonesiii
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@Angel Bob: forgot about the Time Wipe for a second there so I guess your right.

 

You're forgetting more than the Time Slip. In the Time Slip, MU inhabitants only lost the memories of what occurred during that time. But the Matoran of Metru Nui had all of their memories completely wiped when they were placed in the Matoran Spheres by Makuta. When on the island of Mata Nui, no Matoran had any memory or knowledge of Metru Nui, and so the old factions lingering from the Matoran Civil War would have had no effect on their lives.

Also, SarracenianKaijin speaks the truth. XD

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@Angel Bob: forgot about the Time Wipe for a second there so I guess your right.

 

You're forgetting more than the Time Slip. In the Time Slip, MU inhabitants only lost the memories of what occurred during that time. But the Matoran of Metru Nui had all of their memories completely wiped when they were placed in the Matoran Spheres by Makuta. When on the island of Mata Nui, no Matoran had any memory or knowledge of Metru Nui, and so the old factions lingering from the Matoran Civil War would have had no effect on their lives.

Sorry, my brain kind of come up with a cross between the Time Slip and the Mind Wipe, but yeah, you're right.

 

I guess I really should run by BS01 more often before posting here.

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In real life, it was almost certainly the other way around, as Fabulous Sunshine says. In universe, though, the rivalries between the Toa Metru could certainly have been influenced by the Matoran Civil War. We can be almost certain that Vakama, Whenua, Matua, Nuju, Nokama, and Whenua all fought in or at least participated in the war, unless one or more of them were traveling or living away from Metru Nui at the time. However, there's no mention anywhere in the canon that any of the soon-to-be Toa Metru ever lived away from Metru Nui as Matoran.

It's also good to remember that arguing and disliking one another is by no means unique to the Toa Metru, as the Toa Mata/Toa Nuva were seen arguing amongst themselves constantly on Mata Nui. Vakama and Tahu had very different personalities (ditto for Onewa and Pohatu), but the arguing and taking sides remained and occasionally even the alliances seemed similar, yet none of the Toa Mata/Toa Nua had ever been Matoran, nor had any of them lived on Metru Nui before Takanuva rediscovered it.

EDIT: I just remembered that new Matoran were able to come into being while in Metru Nui, which puts my argument that Vakama, Whenua, Matau, Nuju, Nokama, and Whenua were all in Metru Nui during the civil war period in serious jeopardy. It's possible that none of them were yet alive, or only some of them were. If they were, though, I'd be surprised if such a close similarity is a coincidence, especially considering how ould disagreements and rivalries tend to stick with humans for years, even decades in the context of entire nations. Eighty thousand years wouldn't seem as long for a Matoran as it would for us, because they live for so much longer.

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Some other things to keep in mind. Your characterization of who was for/against who sounds good at first glance, but there are some problems with it. The two primary enemies of the war were Ta and Po, yet Onewa and Vakama spent a lot of time working together when the Toa paired off (keeping their eyes on Nuhrii and Ahkmou). Onewa's distrust of Vakama probably had a lot more to do with his apparently being a little nuts when he had his visions, and it was often more of friendly teasing than actual antagonism. In the Visorak Saga, Vakama seemed to equally snap at Nokama, supposedly his closest ally, as any of the others (prior to capture by the Vissies). Le was versus Ta and Ga, yet it was Matau who was able to convince Vakama to return from the "dark side", and he "had a crush on" (officially wanted to be close friends with) Nokama.

I don't think Onewa's comments were "friendly teasing," Onewa seemed to actually hate Vakama. Matau was the more friendly one to Vakama. Plus, during the Great Rescue, racial prejudices probably faded away when the Toa realized that all six of them were saving all the Matoran and couldn't afford to be biased toward their own kind.

 

As for the theory, I support it.

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I don't think Onewa's comments were "friendly teasing," Onewa seemed to actually hate Vakama.

Interesting take. I'd say it's definitely a major stretch to say he literally hated him. Matoran (and Toa... especially Matoran destined to be Toa) are generally good guys; while Ahkmou might perhaps stoop to hate, it's unlikely for the others. Even there, Ahkmou was somewhat forced along by the Dark Hunters in what he did. Anyways, I did say "often" -- I don't mean that there wasn't sometimes a very serious note to Onewa's comments. (But note that often they were somewhat legitimate concerns, or they could have appeared so to him.)

 

Is there anything in particular you interpret as hateful? Nothing's coming to mind offhand... Besides, like I said, they actually worked together a bit more closely than the others, unlikely if your interpretation were correct.

 

As for friendly teasing... friendly might be a bit of a stretch at first, but for lack of a better word.

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I don't think Onewa's comments were "friendly teasing," Onewa seemed to actually hate Vakama.

Interesting take. I'd say it's definitely a major stretch to say he literally hated him. Matoran (and Toa... especially Matoran destined to be Toa) are generally good guys; while Ahkmou might perhaps stoop to hate, it's unlikely for the others. Even there, Ahkmou was somewhat forced along by the Dark Hunters in what he did. Anyways, I did say "often" -- I don't mean that there wasn't sometimes a very serious note to Onewa's comments. (But note that often they were somewhat legitimate concerns, or they could have appeared so to him.)

 

Is there anything in particular you interpret as hateful? Nothing's coming to mind offhand... Besides, like I said, they actually worked together a bit more closely than the others, unlikely if your interpretation were correct.

 

As for friendly teasing... friendly might be a bit of a stretch at first, but for lack of a better word.

 

 

Just within the second movie, Onewa's very first words to (and about) Vakama are "some stranger than others" with a mean nudge, then he dismisses Vakama's vision as (roughly) "smelting cooking his head", and after the search for the Great Discs is agreed, he snaps "I'm doing this for Lhikan, no-one else" the last part of which sounds like a refusal to show any loyalty to Vakama.

 

It's worth noting that Vakama isn't the only one he's unpleasant to; he later brands Nuju and Whenua "a Ko-Matoran big brain and an Onu-Matoran stockboy", sniggers and jeers at them whilst they try the tasks Lhikan sets, and stereotypes Ko-Matoran as incapable of practical work. It's only when he congratulates Whenua for breaking through to the island's surface that he seems to be 'redeemed'.

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I don't think Onewa's comments were "friendly teasing," Onewa seemed to actually hate Vakama.

Interesting take. I'd say it's definitely a major stretch to say he literally hated him. Matoran (and Toa... especially Matoran destined to be Toa) are generally good guys; while Ahkmou might perhaps stoop to hate, it's unlikely for the others. Even there, Ahkmou was somewhat forced along by the Dark Hunters in what he did. Anyways, I did say "often" -- I don't mean that there wasn't sometimes a very serious note to Onewa's comments. (But note that often they were somewhat legitimate concerns, or they could have appeared so to him.)

 

Is there anything in particular you interpret as hateful? Nothing's coming to mind offhand... Besides, like I said, they actually worked together a bit more closely than the others, unlikely if your interpretation were correct.

 

As for friendly teasing... friendly might be a bit of a stretch at first, but for lack of a better word.

 

 

Just within the second movie, Onewa's very first words to (and about) Vakama are "some stranger than others" with a mean nudge, then he dismisses Vakama's vision as (roughly) "smelting cooking his head", and after the search for the Great Discs is agreed, he snaps "I'm doing this for Lhikan, no-one else" the last part of which sounds like a refusal to show any loyalty to Vakama.

 

It's worth noting that Vakama isn't the only one he's unpleasant to; he later brands Nuju and Whenua "a Ko-Matoran big brain and an Onu-Matoran stockboy", sniggers and jeers at them whilst they try the tasks Lhikan sets, and stereotypes Ko-Matoran as incapable of practical work. It's only when he congratulates Whenua for breaking through to the island's surface that he seems to be 'redeemed'.

 

Indeed, I was thinking mostly of the movie. It's mostly his delivery more than the words themselves that make him seem like kind of a bully. He does seem to criticize anyone he's around, but it's mostly toward Vakama. Keep in mind that the Civil War started between the Po- and Ta-Matoran.

 

In finding the Great Disks, Vakama paired with Onewa because he chose to set the teams based on the Great Disk codes (619 and 429, 339 and 159, and 279 and 589). In Trial by Fire, he acknowledges in his narration that it was a bad idea. He and Onewa get the job done mostly because, it seems, they were too busy dealing with Nuhrii and Ahkmou to get too angry at each other.

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He does seem to criticize anyone he's around, but it's mostly toward Vakama. Keep in mind that the Civil War started between the Po- and Ta-Matoran.

Vakama was also the only one who started dancing around wildly and dodging invisible disks right away after they were being Toa-ized. It seems clear his reaction to him as team leader has a lot more to do with that. There's clearly some "racial" connotations to it though (I haven't mentioned it yet, but I'm not sure this is the right term for it... but I know what those using it here mean by it so whatever). I'm just not sure the premise that the war worsened such feelings in these specific characters is more reasonable than the opposite if anything.

 

In Trial by Fire, he acknowledges in his narration that it was a bad idea. He and Onewa get the job done mostly because, it seems, they were too busy dealing with Nuhrii and Ahkmou to get too angry at each other.

This seems more like the opposite of a prejudice, but an actual personality clash that he only starts to really notice due to experience working with Onewa. Prejudice usually works the other way around -- they start out trying hard not to work together but if circumstances force them to, they find out they can get along after all. (Of course, you could argue they were both trying to get over it and found out neither was ready... but I don't think anything so serious was what LEGO meant to portray. Most of their issues were more about feeling thrust into the role of Toa unexpectedly.)

 

And speaking of Nuhrii and Ahkmou, each matching-element Toa seems to be more angry at the Matoran of their own element than each other.

 

I'm not saying inter-element strain isn't part of this, though. A lot depends on what in fact these particular characters' roles were in the war, whether they supported it or opposed it, etc. and we just don't know. I get the strong impression that all Matoran honestly believe in equality, and their negative attitudes toward those of different elements is more about tending to have different personalities that they acknowledge means they won't tend to get along quite as well, rather than actually feeding a philosophy of genuine inferiority or hate. Very different things (and a strong case can be made that nobody who falls for the latter will really be a good guy so probably couldn't be a Toa, etc.).

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You all forget that in Trial by Fire Vakama saves Onewa's life (or tries to) twice. Once when Onewa is falling off the sculpture, Vakama does a warm updraft to slow his fall, and when the two nearly end up fried in the protodermis reclamation yard, Vakama absorbs the heat into himself to save both of them.

 

Of course, you could argue that the second thing was saving Vakama's own life too, but if he was really prejudiced he wouldn't have done that; he would have kicked Onewa into the flames and engaged that rocket pack of his and flown away.

 

As for Onewa's snide comments, that's just Onewa. He was established in every appearance to be sarcastic and insulting. Notice also that he doesn't badmouth all Ta-Matoran, which would indicate a stereotype, but Vakama specifically. He seems to take the "if it can't be seen, touched, and hit with a hammer, then it doesn't exist" philosophy, (I think that was an actual quote) as opposed to Vakama's belief in visions and legends. It's personal.

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The "hit it with a hammer" line is from Onewa, speaking generally of all Po-Matoran carvers.

 

If there is prejudice, it's probably mostly subconscious. It's hard to say anything for sure with so little details of the war.

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The two primary enemies of the war were Ta and Po, yet Onewa and Vakama spent a lot of time working together when the Toa paired off (keeping their eyes on Nuhrii and Ahkmou).

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that the specific instance you're referring to was because they "drew disks" to decide who works with who. In fact, neither seemed very happy with the arrangement.

 

Now, this could just be the fact that all the Toa Metru were... standoffish, shall we say. However I do like a little social insight in my sci fi, so to have a theory like this is quite intriguing.

 

 

(As to your fanfiction idea of the six of them aiding in ending the war, that seems a little far-fetched; in canon, it's heavily implied and even outright stated a couple of times that Makuta chose the six of them because they were the LEAST likely candidates to him to be Toa. If the war he knew about featured them in any way heroically, he would turn up his nose and look for someone worse, no matter WHAT Mata Nui planted in his mind.)

 

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As to your fanfiction idea of the six of them aiding in ending the war, that seems a little far-fetched; in canon, it's heavily implied and even outright stated a couple of times that Makuta chose the six of them because they were the LEAST likely candidates to him to be Toa.

This was a double-feint. Makuta was manipulated to choose them, precisely because they were the best candidates. He simply did not know this; it was one of the instances of good guys deceiving bad guys. :) Don't worry, my story accounts for this. You gotta realize, a basic rule in Bionicle's story was that the right people for the job are given that destiny.

 

The alternative could work; the challenges could help them overcome that problem, but again, this is all speculation and paints an alternate story we didn't get. For that to really work, 2004 would have had to have this be a major focus. As it is, the idea that they opposed the war is not entirely necessary, but neither is it unlikely either. The canon really gives us no clear direction on it one way or the other. Like I said, wasn't something I really planned intentionally but when I got to that point, using the Arena Method as I do, it was clear that it felt right; the characters 'wrote themselves' that way. :) By no means does that make the alternatives invalid for different fanfics. ^_^

 

 

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As to your fanfiction idea of the six of them aiding in ending the war, that seems a little far-fetched; in canon, it's heavily implied and even outright stated a couple of times that Makuta chose the six of them because they were the LEAST likely candidates to him to be Toa.

This was a double-feint. Makuta was manipulated to choose them, precisely because they were the best candidates. He simply did not know this; it was one of the instances of good guys deceiving bad guys. :) Don't worry, my story accounts for this. You gotta realize, a basic rule in Bionicle's story was that the right people for the job are given that destiny.

 

The alternative could work; the challenges could help them overcome that problem, but again, this is all speculation and paints an alternate story we didn't get. For that to really work, 2004 would have had to have this be a major focus. As it is, the idea that they opposed the war is not entirely necessary, but neither is it unlikely either. The canon really gives us no clear direction on it one way or the other. Like I said, wasn't something I really planned intentionally but when I got to that point, using the Arena Method as I do, it was clear that it felt right; the characters 'wrote themselves' that way. :) By no means does that make the alternatives invalid for different fanfics. ^_^

I agree with Octodad; if they were war heroes as Matoran, Makuta wouldn't have picked them. The reason the Order/Mata Nui's deception worked was because it's so easy to believe the six wouldn't make good heroes. Them having a role in ending the war would have contradicted that idea and taken the subtly away from the deception plot.

 

 

Edited by bonesiii
Can we stick with the spoiler tags for this, please? I know it isn't strictly in S&T rules, but I only mentioned what I did say because I could put it in the spoiler tags. I hope you guys don't mind me editing the tags in here. :) -bones
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Is it really right to assume that just because someone is a war hero that that means their famous? Plenty of heroes in wars still manage to fade into semi-obscurity...if they attain it in the first place.

Especially over tens of thousands of years.

 

Did bones really say that they were war heroes, though? I thought he was calling them peacemakers, which traditionally get zip in terms of recognition. (Granted, there are some famous exceptions to this, but I can name more war heroes off the top of my head than peacemakers. :shrugs:)

 

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Is it really right to assume that just because someone is a war hero that that means their famous? Plenty of heroes in wars still manage to fade into semi-obscurity...if they attain it in the first place.


He isn't presuming that they were necessarily famous, only that they did a good deed by helping to end the war. Since Teridax was the Makuta of Metru Nui, he likely would have had a record of how the future Toa Metru aided in ending the war.(Interestingly, he became Makuta of Metru Nui almost immediately after the war ended) Even f they weren't famous, then Teridax and Turaga Dume probably remembered the important part that they had played in the war.

When one considers the number of Matoran in Metru Nui, it's even more likely that they may have been well know. There were only 1,000 Matoran living in Metru Nui during the events of the Legends of Metru Nui arc; assuming that each Metru had roughly the same population, there were approximately 168 in each, and a human could feasibly know every Matoran in the entire city. If Matoran are the same way, the future Toa Metru may have been very famous.

 

Edited by bonesiii

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And now you know why I normally just say "I have something on this in my retelling I can't yet say" instead of giving even a bit of the spoilers -- because then you guys just keep asking what the rest of the spoilers are to figure out if it makes sense, and pretty soon there's nothing left of the story. :P Why don't we just wait for when I post those chapters and the readers can judge for themselves if they like it? In any event, I already finished writing it long before this theory was suggested, so I didn't have the benefit of considering this idea anyways, and it's too late to change the entire direction of that part of my story, as it had a lasting effect on the protagonist etc.

 

Again, yall can prefer a different interpretation of their role in the civil war if you like -- we have absolutely no clear official evidence either way, so treating one as definitely better than another isn't warranted.

 

I can say that none of the points raised so far are relevant to how I portrayed it. :) But I can't explain why not yet without giving it away. There were several canon mistakes made in some of your posts and things you didn't consider that would have been unavoidably factors, but again, if I correct those errors in reasoning here you'll know the larger spoilers.

 

Oh well. I'll just hope somebody else catches them and points them out, but I shall neither confirm nor deny if those are the ones I mean. :P

 

Edit: Also, I took the liberty of putting spoiler tags in the posts that repeated what I had said in spoiler tags. However, obviously it's not a rule that they have to be used as it's just my silly little fanfic, and if someone objects to me doing that, please feel free to remove it. I just hoped to save time instead of having to PM you all asking you if you would please edit them in, etc. Awkward. :P

Edited by bonesiii

The Destiny of Bionicle (chronological retelling of Bionicle original series, 9 PDFs of 10 chapters each on Google Drive)Part 1 - Warring with Fate | Part 2 - Year of Change | Part 3 - The Exploration Trap | Part 4 - Rise of the Warlords | Part 5 - A Busy Matoran | Part 6 - The Dark Time | Part 7 - Proving Grounds | Part 8 - A Rude Awakening | Part 9 - The Battle of Giants

My Bionicle Fanfiction  (Google Drive folder, eventually planned to have PDFs of all of it)

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Is it really right to assume that just because someone is a war hero that that means their famous? Plenty of heroes in wars still manage to fade into semi-obscurity...if they attain it in the first place.

They don't have to be war heroes and they don't even have to be famous for their involvement to make Makuta second-guess his reasons for picking them. If they helped in the war in a way that seemed heroic, especially since it was a war Teridax himself presumably knows a lot about as he ended it, then he would have ignored what Mata Nui planted in his head in favor of much rowdier, much less fitting Matoran.

 

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Again, Octodad -- what isn't spoilers for me to point out is that the people who become Toa are good guys, and this includes the Toa Metru. Makuta was fooled into manipulating them to be chosen. It's really that simple; so this cannot in any way prove that they had to be supporters of the Matoran Civil War, which in any case was very ancient by that time so that it was likely not even on the radar screen of current events. :) To say that he wouldn't have fallen for the manipulation is speculation that runs against the evidence we have, which is that he did -- and picked good guys, because it turned out that they really did have the destiny to be those Toa.

 

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The Destiny of Bionicle (chronological retelling of Bionicle original series, 9 PDFs of 10 chapters each on Google Drive)Part 1 - Warring with Fate | Part 2 - Year of Change | Part 3 - The Exploration Trap | Part 4 - Rise of the Warlords | Part 5 - A Busy Matoran | Part 6 - The Dark Time | Part 7 - Proving Grounds | Part 8 - A Rude Awakening | Part 9 - The Battle of Giants

My Bionicle Fanfiction  (Google Drive folder, eventually planned to have PDFs of all of it)

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[strange brain digression]

And now you know why I normally just say "I have something on this in my retelling I can't yet say" instead of giving even a bit of the spoilers -- because then you guys just keep asking what the rest of the spoilers are to figure out if it makes sense, and pretty soon there's nothing left of the story. :P Why don't we just wait for when I post those chapters and the readers can judge for themselves if they like it? In any event, I already finished writing it long before this theory was suggested, so I didn't have the benefit of considering this idea anyways, and it's too late to change the entire direction of that part of my story, as it had a lasting effect on the protagonist etc.


At this point, I could say of the S&T forum "Here we dissect, question, criticize, refer to, and otherwise discuss every detail related to the Bionicle universe's lore and story." :P Throw any tidbit of information to this place and it's a feeding, theorizing, and discussing frenzy. It also forms a mind-set of its own over time, up to the point where anything, regardless of what it is, is automatically evaluated before we realize the human aspect of it and try to be courteous to the authors of said story.

But I suspect you already knew that.

Edit: Also, I took the liberty of putting spoiler tags in the posts that repeated what I had said in spoiler tags. However, obviously it's not a rule that they have to be used as it's just my silly little fanfic, and if someone objects to me doing that, please feel free to remove it. I just hoped to save time instead of having to PM you all asking you if you would please edit them in, etc. Awkward. :P

At this point, I'm starting to feel that the entire discussion is "down the drain" in a way. For some reason, the whole spoiler thing (the content inside the spoilers, NOT the note over the tags) feels like a huge distraction which has gotten us, to a degree, off-topic. Bugs me. I apologize for not using spoiler tags in my post, as I understand the need for courtesy, but still... :(.

In any case, I'm trying to evaluate this whole thing in terms of the actual official story as opposed to the possible integrity of a fanfic (a different story), and my brain is seizing up.

I could say a lot more here, but I'll some it up by saying that I try to understand both viewpoints - both the theorist and the writer - but I've never tried to write a retelling of all Bionicle history, so I've never really had this problem and don't know what it's like. (If I was going to write a retelling of all Bionicle history, though, I wouldn't say that I was going to write one until I actually showed up with it! :P Totally different mindset.)

 

[/digression]

Anyway...getting back on topic...

Theory: It's possible that all of the Metru contributed to ending the war without knowing that were working together to end the war. They have just been "anti-war", or just concerned about it, and took actions towards ending the war without knowing that the others contributed,or how much they contributed, or who contributed to what.

For example, say that Vakama is a toolmaker at the time, and refuses to make weapons for the battlefront. Matoran without weapons have trouble fighting, so they get bored. Suddenly this crazy Le-Matoran who happens to be named Matau shows up and asks if anyone wants to do a chute race. (or just a race in general, if chutes weren't invented yet)

Elsewhere, Whenua sends a bunch of archivists on a search for an ultamate weapon that doesn't exist, while Nuju makes a self-fulfilling prediction of peace. Onewa might do a thing similar to Vakama, Nokama something else, etc. And so on. None of them would know that they all helped end the war, or who the other people are, just what happened.

Edited by fishers64
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Suddenly this crazy Le-Matoran who happens to be named Matau shows up and asks if anyone wants to do a chute race. (or just a race in general, if chutes weren't invented yet)

 

For the record, it was not. According to BS01, the chute system was invented just after Dume became the Turaga of Metru Nui, while there was a different Turaga during the war.

 

Edited by Master Inika
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[strange brain digression]

And now you know why I normally just say "I have something on this in my retelling I can't yet say" instead of giving even a bit of the spoilers -- because then you guys just keep asking what the rest of the spoilers are to figure out if it makes sense, and pretty soon there's nothing left of the story. :P Why don't we just wait for when I post those chapters and the readers can judge for themselves if they like it? In any event, I already finished writing it long before this theory was suggested, so I didn't have the benefit of considering this idea anyways, and it's too late to change the entire direction of that part of my story, as it had a lasting effect on the protagonist etc.

At this point, I could say of the S&T forum "Here we dissect, question, criticize, refer to, and otherwise discuss every detail related to the Bionicle universe's lore and story." :P Throw any tidbit of information to this place and it's a feeding, theorizing, and discussing frenzy. It also forms a mind-set of its own over time, up to the point where anything, regardless of what it is, is automatically evaluated before we realize the human aspect of it and try to be courteous to the authors of said story.

 

But I suspect you already knew that.

 

Edit: Also, I took the liberty of putting spoiler tags in the posts that repeated what I had said in spoiler tags. However, obviously it's not a rule that they have to be used as it's just my silly little fanfic, and if someone objects to me doing that, please feel free to remove it. I just hoped to save time instead of having to PM you all asking you if you would please edit them in, etc. Awkward. :P

At this point, I'm starting to feel that the entire discussion is "down the drain" in a way. For some reason, the whole spoiler thing (the content inside the spoilers, NOT the note over the tags) feels like a huge distraction which has gotten us, to a degree, off-topic. Bugs me. I apologize for not using spoiler tags in my post, as I understand the need for courtesy, but still... :(.

 

In any case, I'm trying to evaluate this whole thing in terms of the actual official story as opposed to the possible integrity of a fanfic (a different story), and my brain is seizing up.

 

I could say a lot more here, but I'll some it up by saying that I try to understand both viewpoints - both the theorist and the writer - but I've never tried to write a retelling of all Bionicle history, so I've never really had this problem and don't know what it's like. (If I was going to write a retelling of all Bionicle history, though, I wouldn't say that I was going to write one until I actually showed up with it! :P Totally different mindset.)

 

[/digression]

 

Anyway...getting back on topic...

 

Theory: It's possible that all of the Metru contributed to ending the war without knowing that were working together to end the war. They have just been "anti-war", or just concerned about it, and took actions towards ending the war without knowing that the others contributed,or how much they contributed, or who contributed to what.

 

For example, say that Vakama is a toolmaker at the time, and refuses to make weapons for the battlefront. Matoran without weapons have trouble fighting, so they get bored. Suddenly this crazy Le-Matoran who happens to be named Matau shows up and asks if anyone wants to do a chute race. (or just a race in general, if chutes weren't invented yet)

 

Elsewhere, Whenua sends a bunch of archivists on a search for an ultamate weapon that doesn't exist, while Nuju makes a self-fulfilling prediction of peace. Onewa might do a thing similar to Vakama, Nokama something else, etc. And so on. None of them would know that they all helped end the war, or who the other people are, just what happened.

 

 

Thing is, the Metru Matoran didn't end the war. That was Teridax's doing entirely. Up until he intervened, the whole matter just kept escalating, even when it became clear that the warring was endangering the Great Spirit's health.

 

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Anyway...getting back on topic...


Theory: It's possible that all of the Metru contributed to ending the war without knowing that were working together to end the war. They have just been "anti-war", or just concerned about it, and took actions towards ending the war without knowing that the others contributed,or how much they contributed, or who contributed to what.

For example, say that Vakama is a toolmaker at the time, and refuses to make weapons for the battlefront. Matoran without weapons have trouble fighting, so they get bored. Suddenly this crazy Le-Matoran who happens to be named Matau shows up and asks if anyone wants to do a chute race. (or just a race in general, if chutes weren't invented yet)

Elsewhere, Whenua sends a bunch of archivists on a search for an ultamate weapon that doesn't exist, while Nuju makes a self-fulfilling prediction of peace. Onewa might do a thing similar to Vakama, Nokama something else, etc. And so on. None of them would know that they all helped end the war, or who the other people are, just what happened.

 

Thing is, the Metru Matoran didn't end the war. That was Teridax's doing entirely. Up until he intervened, the whole matter just kept escalating, even when it became clear that the warring was endangering the Great Spirit's health.

 

Actually, we don't know what really ended the war. Teridax did intervene, but Mutran Chronicles implies that the intervention might have done more harm than good.

 

 

 

Miserix ordered his lieutenant to step in and stop the fighting. By this time, that particular Makuta was already contemplating the overthrow of the Great Spirit Mata Nui, so no doubt he saw this as an opportunity to show how well the Makuta could impose order. Unfortunately, his solution was to seal large numbers of the opposing armies in the Archives and unleash the exhibits on them. It was, needless to say, quite a mess to clean up later. And it did nothing to inspire great love for the Brotherhood in the hearts of the Matoran, though they certainly behaved themselves afterwards.

 

What happened to the war leaders, we do not know. Possibly they were spirited off as the Barraki had been, to parts unknown. But from that time on, Miserix decided that each of us would be assigned a particular region to watch over.

 

Note that it doesn't say, exactly, that Teridax's intervention ended the war. The war leaders were probably killed or imprisoned by the Order, or maybe they just disappeared back into Matoran life. I hadn't considered the theory, but what if...

 

The Toa Metru were actually the war leaders? It wouldn't take too much, just a few disguises and fake names. Vakama, peaceful mask-maker by day = creepy war leader by night? Eh...not sure that it makes sense with the his character.

 

Or the Great Disk Matoran could fit the bill for war leaders, assuming that the war leaders just faded into obscurity and stayed in the city.

 

 

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*rubs temples* Perhaps the war gave Teridax enough of a headache that he wasn't thinking straight when he picked them...

 

 

Erm, to the supposed racism issue: I honestly think it was a coincidence that the Toa Metru had little rivalries or whatever that mirrored that of the Matoran Civil War (or vice vera). As Angel Bob said, wether or not it was done intentionally, the story peeps probably didn't put much thought into it. If there is something to it, it's most likely just a simple personality thing. It's probably easier for the Ta-Matoran to warm up to Ga-Matoran because the latter is more patient with them; the down-to-earth Onu-Matoran are probably the second most likely to get along with Ta-Matoran, as they seem more forgiving; and honestly, Onu- and Ga-Matoran are probably the most compatible out of all six. What puzzles me is the other alliance, because I really can't find any reason why they'd get along (with Le/Ko being the most amusing alliance, IMO). *shrug*

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Not to rain on your parade fishers, but it's been confirmed that the Matoran war leaders were, in fact, banished to the Pit.

No worries. Not the first wrong theory I've had here. :)

Also, I'll back that up - there is a Greg answer that confirms it:

6. what happened to the matoran civil war leaders?

6) They went sent to the Pit and most likely died during the escape.

Edited by fishers64
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If the matoran were truly self aware and thought like humans, there was bound to be at least some racism between metrus.

 

Same reason racism still exists in the real world.

Edited by PyroLizard Prime

 

           

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