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What Differentiates Glatorian And Great Beings


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So, Greg having revealed in his Q/A topic that the Great Beings are actually of the Glatorian species (which, for me at least, was a massive disappointment), I began wondering what set the two groups, meaning the regular inferior Glatorian and the Great Beings, apart.

 

It is clear that not every Glatorian is on the level of the Great Beings, since if that were the case the whole pre-MU story as well as the 2009-2010 story would have been infinitely different. None of the Glatorian we meet in the story ever display a particularly high level of intelligence, definitely not on the level of the GBs (since they are wallowing in dirt and sand, after all).

 

So, what, are the GBs a genetic 1% who were born with a mutation that made them significantly smarter? Were they bred that way? Was it eugenics? Cybernetic modification? Are they simply the "übermensch" equivalent of the Glatorian? Maybe they are a separate tribe of a different "element" (many elements in Bionicle aren't actual elements, hence air-quotes), like Knowledge or something? Are they a completely distinct sub-species with several different traits setting them apart from the more common Glatorian archetype?

 

Honestly, I really think making the GBs Glatorian was a bad, bad idea. It completely takes away the air of mystery about them that made them enigmatic and interesting. Now they're just Glatorian nerds instead of these mythic, incomprehensible beings. 

 

What do you all think?

 

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Now they're just Glatorian nerds instead of these mythic, incomprehensible beings.

Sometimes being a nerd means being incomprehensible to everybody else.  So maybe the GBs were the Glatorian equivalent of nerds.  Maybe they had the Glatorian equivalent of autism, maybe they preferred to think instead of fight.  Maybe creation was their outlet, and knowing from experience autists' struggles to express themselves, they poured everything they had into that outlet.  There's still a lot of room for maybes.  That's just my personal theory.

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I already figured this and made it as such in my A Rude Awakening project (which seeks to redo Spherus Magna history to better flesh it out, as well as other stuff). Apologies If i am not affected one bit. Here's basically what I have, excuse the length but i think it's worth it.


In my lore, the Great Beings are of a group of agori/'glatorian' that split off from the main single agori settlement of pseudo-historical mythic times (the land being Geneteira) and trekked to far away lands as the tribe/nation called the Larfeia. The Larfeia settled far before and farther away from other agori that would later venture from their single settlement civilization as colonists and adventurers, eventually settling in a huge valley in the great mountainous north of Bara Magna, really an extremely large canyon that makes the Grand Canyon look like a blemish. They started out enjoying their new home, but found that an ancient evil that lived in the giant mountain-scape to their east (or rather underneath it). By it's influence, it possessed one of their own and told them of their position, and she must feed on dreams and memories. They kept sending scouts into the mountains but it was too large and impossible to find this entity. After a while, instead of resisting, they opted to negotiate with her, and every other year sent a handful of their own into the mountains as a sacrifice, where they would become under her spell and walk to her dwelling. This would continue for more than a thousand years, the Larfeia having hatred for this demon but not being able to do anything on it. Their shamans would foretell how heaven's light would harvested and used to defeat this darkness.

In a great war against shadow raging to the south of the great mountains and a host of living darkness collectives (natural antidermis) came down from outer space to help their planetary allies (the event being called the Black Rain), followed a glowing mass of silvery agents of light (natural/energized protodermis), who's touch immediately enacts the will of the Primordial Potter (this will being Destiny). The Black Rain was repelled by a mighty legendary green skrall from Bota Magna at the cost of his life, so the glowing mercury questioned if they should still go to the planet as their purpose for war was cut short. They felt the wordless words and continued on their course uninterrupted.They found themselves fulfilling a destiny they were not aware of, but that the Larfeia had long prophesied, and so rained upon the canyon-valley changing the land and it's denizens. Blessed by the Silver Rain as it was called, they became empowered with psionic abilities, the shamans having more power due to them already being in touch with their spiritual energy (tao, chi, whatever you wanna call it). Finally seeing their chance to free themselves of the evil entity named Annona they united their whole population, women and children included, and the shamans used their abilities to find the path to the dream devourer. To dissuade them from this foolishness, the weakest minds of their people had their will taken from them by Annona and turned against them in animalistic fashion. No choice, they reluctantly ended the immediate threat and the nightmare only began, for Annona decided to play their game and allow them to come. Down they went into the mighty peaks and down below, the cave path being labyrinthine, and most certainly would have all died to getting lost and starvation if not for their powers.

They eventually found their destination: a huge cavern chamber with small pointed jutting cliffs and rock columns, the bones of there fallen at the ground below of the giant lit-less orb of red light, ethereal eyes-shifting upon her star-surface, and flesh-bare dark crimson tentacle arms with small bony thorns covering the arms slithering out of the light of the bone-chilling, evil ball of light. The shamans took their positions began to focus their power as the celestial monster ill-spake horrid words in her crystal-crushing speech, and the warriors and civilians used their lives as a mass wall of flesh to fight their foe's appendages and and shield their only hope from harm. They all fought bravely, but by the time the shamans had finished their violent chanting exercises of mental noble neons to drain her power entirely, all of their nation had been slaughtered in goresome brutality by her crimson arms, only the shamans living, less than 20 Larfeia in-total. The creature was not slain and slept away into the crag cracks of of the under-mountain, but in that moment the shamans did not care and wept for their nation. But they were also found to be further empowered by the minds and imaginations of the many through the eons. They emerged from the abominable tomb as gods among men, went back to their empty strange homeland, and had the need to create, make what they had filling their minds and put them into their vacant valley. In centuries times they leaped through technological progression, and hearing about non-stop warfare to the deserts and arid lands to their south-east past the great mountains they revealed themselves to the world, and at once all were impressed and bowed before them except the religious sects that would thrive underground society for the next thousand years, naming them the Gods of Knowledge, otherwise known as the Great Beings.

As time went on, they would slowly abandon their roots, and replace parts of themselves with nanotechnological augmentations, a couple even removing limbs, but they had to be careful for their power comes from their physical being, and removing or changing too much would weaken them. Their generous selflessness had morphed into egotistical selfishness, and they grew tired of their given responsibilities and made hasty replacements to lead the overarching culture groups of the world under elemental divisions. You know the rest, how the super-powered kings had become self-obsessed and thought of themselves like-gods, the fascists needing only one thing to embrace planet-wide destruction. so those Element Lords, adopted children and heirs of the Great Beings, became known as the Gods of War/Death, and disenchanted the world's peoples abandoned the Elder Cult post-World's End-Pyre, The Shattering, and went to new and old ways. Hence, 'Great Beings' and 'Element Lords' became slurs rather then titles of reverence.

 

Edited by Iaredios the Hip Historian
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I just pretend that part of the canon doesn't exist (especially since it all came out in the few months of the last year, it seemed), and revert to my head-canon: that the GB's are foreign to the planet of Spherus Magna, and hop from planet to planet trying experiments and improving the lives of the inhabitants of those worlds.

 

However, if I were to guess at a canonized-canon reason, I would say it would probably have 2 factors:

 

1. Evolution. We know in the Bionicle universe, evolution can happen to individuals, not just species. This happens to the Vorox, for instance, who evolve on Bara Magna to become fierce beasts in order to survive in their harsh environment. It's possible then that, as Iaredios speculates, that they separated themselves and lived a different lifestyle, and this led them to become "different" in intellectual abilites, and perhaps in other ways we don't understand (and probably never will). 

 

2. The encounter with Anonna. Anonna, the Dream-Eater, became oeverwhelmed when she tried to feast on the minds of the GB's, because their minds were too unique and imaginative...too "Wierd" for her, and this led her to retreat, ending the Dreamless Plague.

It's possible though that this encounter, perhaps having merely touched the mind of the strange Dream-Eater, that something about them changed as a result too. This could have further set them apart.

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I just pretend that part of the canon doesn't exist (especially since it all came out in the few months of the last year, it seemed), and revert to my head-canon: that the GB's are foreign to the planet of Spherus Magna, and hop from planet to planet trying experiments and improving the lives of the inhabitants of those worlds.

This is going to be my head-canon as well. I'm really not a fan of the Great Beings being of the Glatorian species, but I guess it is what it is.

 

As for what made them different from regular Glatorian, maybe they were exposed to Energized Protodermis, and that's what made them 'Great Beings.' I think that the idea that they were just naturally different makes sense as well. These would just be two of my guesses, as I don't recall all of the lore revealed in the 2009 and 2010 stories, so my knowledge of them is a little fuzzy. :P

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My personal canon is that the Great Beings are actually humans and are a group of like minded individuals who escaped the ongoing interstellar war between human nations and settled on Spherus Magna, sort of enslaving the native population and then doing experiments on them.

 

This is a lot like Takametru007's idea but a tad bit more specific. I also think that LEGO might actually have done this when the time arose to tie into their whole imagination and the power of the mind thing.

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This is something he's been alluding to for a while, but it kind of makes sense based on what he's been telling us.  Yes, it's a bit of a let down that these ethereal old god type characters turned out to be just regular dudes, but hear me out.

 

In the human world, you've got a large variety of humans with different skills and abilities.  If your only experience of humans was MMA fighters, of course you'd have trouble believing that we'd painted masterpieces, travelled to the moon, split the atom, and found a way to put whipped cream into an aerosol can.

 

These are creatures that surely must live for MILLIONS of years.  Where 100 000 years is a fairly long amount of time, but nowhere near an entire lifespan.  In this amount of time, humans went from stabbing mammoths with spears to playing on smartphones.  So it is totally plausible that you'd have this differentiation in roles for the Glatorian species.

 

Whether or not you like it is a separate issue.  Please stay tuned for Generation 3.

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Side note, where is said Greg QA topic? Didn't realize we were still getting occasional bits of canon, now I'm curious.

It's on the Lego Message Boards.

 

Or at least, it will be until they are shut down.

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My guess is that great beings are creators that are like non mechanical but they were skilled in tampering with both magic and technology.

 

However most of them are probably gods and prefer not to manifest in a body others can freely see. Gods never really age but they also ruined society (after they lost control of the Elemental Lords behaviour) because of their curiosity and passion for experimenting.

That's what makes them so unique they choose not to be seen but they are right behind us observating us until they deem the time is right to stop hiding.

 

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Side note, where is said Greg QA topic? Didn't realize we were still getting occasional bits of canon, now I'm curious.

It's on the Lego Message Boards.

 

Or at least, it will be until they are shut down.

 

It's there a compendium of the new canon tidbits? 'cuz I don't much wanna scroll through pages and pages of "what's the difference between earth and rock".

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I would have preferred them to human if they had to be some existing species. They could have made a whole "humans/kids are master builders, YOU are a master builder" kind of thing they did in the Lego movie.

I would have actually hated them connecting Bionicle with the real world and make the GB's human. Honestly, it would have ruined the mysticism for me, and especially mixing this whole 'you, the player, are the great being!' thing would have made it even worse.

 

As far as I'm concerned, I would have preferred either 1) their true nature never being revealed, thus they remain enigmatic and mysterious or 2) make them the progenitor bio-mechanical species who naturally evolved to be both organic and mechanical, and tried to perfect themselves by creating new life in their own image.

 

:kakama:

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:kakama: Stone rocks :kakama:

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Honestly, I think the "Great Beings as humans" idea could have worked if it was handled with extreme caution and if it wasn't declared earlier that they weren't. After all, their whole gimmick of being not very powerful in of themselves but incredibly creative fits humanity pretty well. I think I wouldn't preferred a huge retcon like that to having them just be Glatorian, though.

 

My biggest problem is that having the GBs be Glatorian meshes poorly with the fact that they appointed other Glatorian to be the Element Lords. If the Great Beings are another species, it would make sense they woudln't understand the Glatorian well enough to make a mistake like giving some of them too much power. If they're the same species, the GBs really should have seen the Core War coming.

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If the Great Beings are another species, it would make sense they woudln't understand the Glatorian well enough to make a mistake like giving some of them too much power. If they're the same species, the GBs really should have seen the Core War coming.

Because people of the same species here in Earthland have never made poor leadership choices at all whatsoever, and they've especially never made poor choices that lead to pointless conflict.

 

*coughs violently*

 

You don't need to be a different species to not understand how others of your own species work. I can attest to this personally.

 

Tbh I'm perfectly fine with having the Great Beings be Glatorian. It's fairly common in fantasy works to have certain races or groups of humans be considered extremely advanced, mystical, powerful, etc. etc. and not have any of that power or mysticism be ruined just by the fact that they're of the same species.

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6 years since G1 ended, and Greg is still making controversial canonizations that no one in the fandom actually likes?

 

Some things never change.

i personally like this one, but that aside, you're dead on

 

You don't need to be a different species to not understand how others of your own species work. I can attest to this personally.

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  • 5 weeks later...

I prefer to think that the Great Beings are an entirely separate species, or that even if they're related to the Glatorian, they're so far beyond them that you can't really compare the two anymore. Again, it's hard to take this seriously when G1 has effectively been dead for so long; it's kind of like I stopped paying attention to what J.K. Rowling has to say about the Potterverse not long after Deathly Hallows.

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Are you proposing that the Great Beings are the "Charles Xaviers" of the Glatorian, in a sense?

 

As for the human thing, LEGO actually had a hard time making the first movie because most of the studios wanted the plot to involve a human kid getting transported to Mata Nui, something LEGO was not having. And I don't bother with headcanons: they're never going to be canon no matter how much you want them to be, and I'm reading the story to read the story, not to argue with it.

 

However, I will say that it was pretty silly to keep us in the dark for over 6 years that the Great beings were members of a species that we had already seen.

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The less you care about Greg's canon the happier your headcanon will be 

 

Except I'm perfectly happy caring about Greg's canon and not caring about/having headcanons. It's kind of like Star wars fans who deny the existence of the prequels/sequels/EU etc.

 

I realize I'm in a very tiny minority with this, but still.

 

 

Or at least, it will be until they are shut down.

 

We could start a massive Wayback Machine project. We'll finish way before they're taken down...right?

Edited by Cheesy Mac n Cheese
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The less you care about Greg's canon the happier your headcanon will be 

 

Except I'm perfectly happy caring about Greg's canon and not caring about/having headcanons. It's kind of like Star wars fans who deny the existence of the prequels/sequels/EU etc.

 

I realize I'm in a very tiny minority with this, but still.

 

 

Or at least, it will be until they are shut down.

 

We could start a massive Wayback Machine project. We'll finish way before they're taken down...right?

 

It looks like someone (or several) is already working on preserving the Chat with Greg Topic so we all should be good here. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

I was honestly very pleased to learn that they were just Glatorian who became advanced scientists. It would feel weird and too "godly" if they were some kind of higher being. I like the idea that, at the end of the day, Bionicle's story started out with just some normal people, who, through their own creativity, (which is what Lego's supposed to be all about) engineered the vast and wonderful place that is the Matoran Universe.

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I honestly like the idea of the Glatorian and Great Beings not having any meaningful biological separation. In fact, I wouldn't even mind if they were super-smart Agori instead. Honestly I feel like it's kind of obnoxious how often in Bionicle character traits align more with race/species than with culture, and kind of gets uncomfortably close to the early to mid 20th century idea of "scientific racism" which was used to justify all kinds of real-world atrocities. I would've liked to see this idea deconstructed more often within Bionicle — I'd have loved to meet a compassionate Vortixx, a peaceful Skakdi, etc. Granted, there were occasional characters who did break the mold in one way or another, like Tamaru.

 

The idea that ordinary people brought up in an isolated community of super-scientists might rise to great intellectual heights is not quite as offensive as the idea of race-based personality traits on its surface, although even that could do with some deconstruction to reinforce that such a society would still have plenty of flaws of its own.

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Huh. Well, I guess it does make some sense, all things considered. Still, a bit anti-climactic. I'd have preferred they just never revealed what the Great Beings were. Kind of make them something beyond our comprehension, ya know?

 

I guess my biggest issue is, why have so much build up and mystery about them if the answer was about as basic as it can get? They've been at least hinted at from the very beginning, they're the only thing that's remained a mystery longer than Mata Nui himself. Seems kinda strange to me that they'd build up these mysterious "others" that wield god-like abilities for all those years, then just say, "They're just the same people as the characters you saw a few years ago, just really smart." Like, why hide it for so long, then?

 

Also, I'm not sure how that origin would work with the whole Velika thing. Did he just upload his consciousness into a Matoran body or what?

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  • 2 weeks later...

My Theory:

 

The Great Beings were, in ancient times, a part of the Glatorian species, but diverged like the Skrall. This offshoot carried a mutation that reacted to Annona's mental abilities, granting them intelligence and creativity beyond any other being on Spherus Magna. This allowed them to build Clarke-tech, and rise to power as the Scientist-Kings of Spherus Magna, until they grew tired of bureaucracy, and created the Element Lords to take over the "King" part of the Great Beings' title. Then the Core War happens and you know the rest.

 

On another note, my headcanon is that the Turaga were created in the image of the Great Beings, seeing as the Matoran were based off the Agori and the Toa the Glatorian.

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My Theory:

 

The Great Beings were, in ancient times, a part of the Glatorian species, but diverged like the Skrall. This offshoot carried a mutation that reacted to Annona's mental abilities, granting them intelligence and creativity beyond any other being on Spherus Magna. This allowed them to build Clarke-tech, and rise to power as the Scientist-Kings of Spherus Magna, until they grew tired of bureaucracy, and created the Element Lords to take over the "King" part of the Great Beings' title. Then the Core War happens and you know the rest.

 

On another note, my headcanon is that the Turaga were created in the image of the Great Beings, seeing as the Matoran were based off the Agori and the Toa the Glatorian.

Ooh, I like it.

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That touch with the Turaga is neat, yes.  Although it strikes me as a bit odd that the Great Beings would design their evolutionary representatives as what happens when Toa lose their phenomenal cosmic powers.  Ah, well, the wisdom's more important, I guess.  :P

 

I'm ambivalent-to-mildly-pleased on the idea of Great Beings being empowered Glatorian.  To be honest, on some level I always kinda figured that they were just normal guys with extraordinary universe-breaking powers.  At the very least, it fits with how, for all their power, they kept making very mundane mistakes when working their wonders, and it reflects how the average Toa is hewed from the stock of Matoran commoners.

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I hear about this just now.

 

I for one like the idea. The Great Beings being the Übermenschen among the Glatorian is one of the very few, if not the only satisfactory explanation for me that doesn't rely on a vague and undefined "god species" origin. Instead, the exceptionally smart are the gods.

 

I dig it. Bravo, Greg.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

According to BS01, the Great Beings were essentially a bunch of "Glatorian" inventors that Annona attempted to feed off of and drive mad, only for pretty much the exact opposite to happen, which effectively supercharged their creativity by draining her, hence why she was in hiding until her appearance in Sahmad's Tale. From the way both pages were written, the event in question appears to have been a total fluke.

So yeah, Takametru's second hypothesis basically hit the nail on the head.

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