Did some amateur digging: An overview of the original plan for BIONICLE’s story

[Zestanor]

I read some blogs recently that suggested that Bionicle’s internal lore was substantially retconned some time after 2001, which is packed with early installment weirdness, but that fragments of the original plan (much more than just Mata Nui = big robot) were retained throughout. A while ago Greg revealed “what was planned from the beginning” but this has to be taken with a grain of salt because he was just the comics guy during the first two years and wasn’t in on everything.

 

The Tohunga (using the launch terminology) were not supposed to be the inhabitants of Mata Nui: the Great Beings were.

 

The Turaga thought awakening Mata Nui was a good thing, and they summoned the Toa to do it, but they didn’t know that it would destroy their home. The Great Beings (who were originally inside the Mata Nui robot-ship; their planet actually blew up) intended to colonize the surface after the biomechanical Tohunga prepared it for them.

 

It seems originally the Turaga were not “keeping secrets” (retcon from 2004) but honestly shared all of their info with the Tohunga. The Bohrok were the necessary first step in Mata Nui awakening because they had to clean the island off his face (this bit of original lore was retained, in 2007).

 

Makuta coopted the whole thing. The Tohunga went to the surface but never really cultivated it like they were supposed to. Because Makuta wiped their memories of their purpose. That was the cataclysm: the Tohunga memory (as in computer memory) wipe. Mata Nui did not crash into the water planet; he landed properly and “turned off” properly. The Turaga gained some scrambled version of memories at the six kini and at Kini-Nui, which they shared with the Tohunga. You can see the computer/robot analogy. Kini-Nui, the local Kini, the Haka dance (later changed to Takara), Papu and Rangi (later generalized as “Great Beings”), Toa, Mata Nui, and Makuta. To the Tohunga and Turaga, these things were basically a religion (the names were taken from Polynesian/Maori religion/culture to underline this), but each was actually a vital part of their programming that they got mixed up, some more than others:

 

Their reverance toward the Great Beings, of whom they remembered the chiefs’ names, Papu and Rangi, was basically left intact. Makuta couldn’t wipe this part of their memory because it was absolutely essential to their identity. In the release version of MNOG Jala spoke of Papu and Rangi choosing the location of Ta-Koro. They revered their creators; they just forgot what they were supposed to be accomplishing for them.

 

The Haka Dance was probably something like a defrag program. The Turaga turned it into a religious thing but it still basically served its purpose. Or maybe the religious undertones in their programming were fully intended by the Papu and Rangi and the other GBs?

 

The Turaga were certainly not ex-Toa or ex-Matoran. The Tohunga weren’t a race per se; they were individually crafted robots, and there weren’t that many of them. MNOG Ga-Koro was the actual size of Ga-Koro; they didn’t scale it down for size limitations or anything. It was just that small. There were 12-20 Tohunga per village. They were weakened by Makuta at the same time he wiped their memories, so they were unfit to prepare the island for the GBs and presumably go get them from Metru Nui when they were done.

 

The Toa Mata (the only Toa) were never supposed to be separated from the Turaga and Tohunga. The Turaga’s legends spoke of the absence of the Toa as a great mystery and an error, if you will, and it was. The Turaga apparently didn’t realize they could use the Toa Stones to summon the Toa until soon before they actually did it. Maybe Makuta realized they were really close to destroying the island, which is why he had ramped up the Rahi attacks in the time right before the Toa arrive, to prevent the Tohunga from getting any closer to summoning the Tia.

 

They worshipped Mata Nui because he was their world. This is pretty reasonable and probably is intact from before Makuta’s meddling.

 

Makuta. Who is Makuta? He was a virus in Mata Nui; a parasite. Perhaps he was a villain from the GBs old planet who snuck in their Noah’s Ark. Why does Makuta, more a spirit than a person, want to prevent the Toa from arriving? He rather likes his comfortable place in Mangaia. He doesn’t want the GBs to go to the surface and presumably find and punish him. But he definitely doesn’t want Mata Nui to awaken, because he likes the island. Who wouldn’t like the island? It was not an accident (later canon); it was, as originally called very frequently, a tropical paradise. It was supposed to be the future location of a great new civilization.

 

Perhaps, at first, Makuta preferred the Tohunga/Turaga/Toa/Rahi to their GB creators, so he coopted the plan and basically gave them total freedom on the island without having to worry about doing their real duty (building and infrastructure, basically—how mundane!). But since they started to worship Mata Nui and not him (a mention of Makuta probably was not in their programming at all), he lost interest in them besides occasionally toying with them. The Turaga, through broken communication with the GBs through the local Kinis realized Makuta was very much a “virus” if you will, so they made him into a Satan for their religion. The Turaga communicated with the GBs at the Kinis (I picture it like the GBs are shooting mini CDs up into the kinis and the Turaga are loading them) but since their programming was significantly scrambled, it mostly did not work and the Turaga misinterpreted these experiences as spiritual instead of technological.

 

Anyway, since Makuta recognized the Tohunga got it into their heads that they should defeat him by summoning the Toa and awakening Mata Nui (something the GBs definitely did NOT want), he swiped the Toa Stones as soon as he realized the Turaga had finally figured out how to use the Toa stones to summon them. Makuta doesn’t have a problem with the Toa per se. Waking Mata Nui is just one of their abilities. They were probably supposed to help the Tohunga build up the island, actually, they just never got summoned properly. But Makuta opposed them because the Turaga immediately fed them the line that they needed to awaken Mata-Nui; that that was their “destiny” (they were wrong). The Kanohi were not scattered over the island by the Toa Metru. Presumably they had some other purpose in being in exactly the locations they were in.

 

This sets us up for the 2001 story. The GBA game, the PC game, and MNOG represent the earliest stratum of Bionicle. The Toa are like deities more so than youthful soldiers. They seatch out their masks alone. The teamwork thing, which became the super-theme for Bionicle, really only came in once they started working on the movie. You can quote me

on this. UDD was made up for Mask of Light.

 

Greg’s comics, actually, were initially pushing the limits of the story bible at the time. Today we see the comics as the purest canon, but in them, he invented the idea of the Toa working together. Originally it was supposed to be each Toa and his/her Turaga working closely together, which is evident in lots of renderings from 2001. He also made them more human, though not to the extent of MoL and its lead-in novel series, Chonicles. In the PC game you get all the masks (Great and Noble) solo.

 

In the original bible, reflected in MNOG and the card game, the Toa receive golden masks and Makoki stones from their Suvas, after collecting all of the kanohi. As mentioned by Matau in MNOG, the golden masks are a key for becoming Kaita. They are not a permanent power up. This is evident in 2002 rendering which show them fighting Bohrok with their normal colored masks.

 

Once they got all the masks and stored them at the Suva, they could call on the them at will. The Golden Masks were not a power up at all, so they didn’t bother to wear them all the time even after they unlocked them (evident in the PC game and MNOG). They arrived at Kini Nui and activated them because they knew they would need them to go Kaita. The Chronicles books reflect an internal retcon about the golden masks and generally reflect that massive internal retcon that had occures by the time MoL rolled around.

 

Under the temple, they become Kaita in the Kaita chambers (and this is the only place it is possible to do so). Notably, early descriptions of Kini Nui list the big head thing that the Turaga were always shown standing on as the location the Turaga learn to become Turaga Nui. The fact that this never happens in 2001 is, I think, not evidence of change of plans: it’s intentional.

 

Anyway, the Kaita make very short work of the Manas in that randomly technological looking corridor. Then their fusion broke; either they exhausted the power up, or Makuta broke it. And the golden masks were now exhausted as well (in MNOG they keep the golden masks after the fusion breaks, and this represents a compromise with the final plans for 2002). They defeat the Shadow Toa one by one, no “teamwork” (see the PC game dialogue files). There is no fight with Makuta himself in the PC game because the Shadow Toa were manifestations of Makuta. Templar omitted the Shadow Toa fight and made up the Tohunga Makuta (they said so on their blog) in order to make the final chapter on MNOG less violent, basically.

 

Originally (see PC game cutscene), the Toa return to the middle of the Temple and activate the obelisk which shoots up a beam of light, and the Tohunga all rejoice. That was them attempting to awaken Mata Nui! It didn’t quite work, presumably because Makuta really hadn’t been defeated. And perhaps because the seventh Toa and the Turaga Nui weren’t there. But, what comes immediately after in the cutscene? The Bohrok awaken. The Bohrok were triggered by the Toa attempting to run the doomsday program and make Mata Nui go back into space.

 

The Bohrok were anti-Tohunga, and the GBs made them from the same stuff. While the Tohunga were supposed to cultivate the surface and prepare it as a civilization for the GBs to inhabit, the Bohrok were supposed to clear off the surface of the Mata Nui robot, in the doomsday case that they needed to wake up Mata Nui and leave for another planet.

 

Canon 2002 is basically unchanged from the original plan. The Toa (though not with gold masks) fight against Bohrok to collect their krana and use them inside the hive to shut down the Bohrok, basically. 2002 kind of looks like filler unless you recognize that the Bohrok being triggered is totally the Toa/Turaga’s fault.

 

I don’t know that the Nuva power up was always planned. I’m inclined to say no.

 

Bohrok kal were “filler,” and Greg admitted this. The movie was a big deal and its development is, besides the Maori lawsuits and the PC game failing, responsible for the most changes to internal lore, shifting Bionicle away from science fiction and toward fantasy.

 

However, the seventh Toa bit was planned from the startup, and it was always Takua. This is foreshadowed by Vakama at the start of MNOG, and in several places in MNOG, actually.

 

The original plan seems to have been that they do actually awaken Mata Nui with the seventh Toa, but Makuta immediately uses the nuclear option and kills Mata Nui, or seriously infects his programming so he starts to die. Anyway, the good guys at this point happen upon Metru Nui. Faber’s original art for it shows it as a bizarre place. Not a permanent home of the Tohunga, but strange, alien, and underground. Maybe this was slightly retained with the Morbuzahk.

 

Anyway, the good guys go there (and this is where it diverges entirely from what we got) they find the Great Beings. The Great Beings ask if the surface is ready, but quickly realize the good guys have no idea about anything and in horror realize they tried to awaken Mata Nui twice, and they privately are thankful that Makuta prevented them. Though if this had all pamned out, they still would not reveal that Mata Nui was a giant robot.

 

Perhaps there was some battle in Metru Nui against Makuta planned, or perhaps there was a flashback arc, but not involving the Toa Metru.

 

But Mata Nui is dying, so the Toa go to the power plant heart of Mata Nui. Somewhere in here, Mata Nui dies for real. Makuta probably didn’t intend for him to actually die. The Toa activate something in the Core, intending only to revive Mata Nui. Or maybe they wanted to awaken him too, since that’s what the Turaga always said was their destiny. But the GBs who gave them this mission only intended to revive him. Perhaps they could have merely saved him from death if he hadn’t died yet. But since he was dead, reviving him also entailed waking him up.

 

So Mata Nui wakes up, and stands up, and destroys the Island. (Sad.) The Bohrok weren’t triggered because he was booted back up through hacking, basically. So he has a very rocky experience getting his head through the island. Makuta, recognizing the island is toast, goes to plan B, which is take over the world. So he takes over the Mata Nui robot during the “island blocking my head” confusion and ejects Mata Nui. He’s progressed as a villain fron devious to truly evil. 

 

Next would have begun “book four” of the original seven book story.

 

Based on Faber’s art, there is another giant robot.

 

So I’ll take a guess at books four through seven

 

Four: Toa versus Makuta as the universe

 

Five: Toa search for Mata Nui somewhere.

 

Six: Mata Nui finds another giant robot and beats the heck out of Makuta, then resumes his original body. The robots are not “piloted” by Matoran. The entire point of the Tohunga was to cultivate the surface.

 

Seven: Denoument. Mata Nui returns to the water planet and says goodbye to the Tohunga and GBs. Not because he is leaving forever, but because he is supposed to be asleep. He lays down and the island re-forms. The Tohunga, powered up (or maybe this happened a while ago) recreate Mata-Nui’s civilization bigger and better than before in preparation for the GBs. This is similar to how the Agori and Matoran integrate in the final canon, though remember there are very few Tohunga, and there are no other species inside the Mata Nui robot besides they because the robot did not need anyone inside of him to operate. The GBs then come to the surface and the Biological Chronicle is complete.

 

I’m sure I’ve blatantly missed stuff at some point so I’d appreciate your feedback.