Brickonicle Piraka [Character] [Story] [Pitch]

The TTV Channel Brickonicle
1

So, the Piraka were great. They were the first wave of villain canister sets to have personality, and the lore benefited greatly from it. I feel that Piraka would be a great way to pay homage to the original series, but not as skakdi, so a few tweaks are in order.

“Welcome to to the Piraka Rehabilitation Center! Recieve much needed repairs and reprogramming, to help keep you running at top notch!” PRC is actually an asylum. This was made for the broken/insane matoran to be sent as a sort of Karzahni in the way G1 used it. The broken matoran were fixed, but the insane ones would be kept for rehabilitation. There were seven, however, that had been driven to such madness that any and all attempts for rehabilitation were futile, and often ended in the doctor needing treatment himself. These seven are as follows.

Hakann: A Mangaian known for his violent tendencies. While not stupid, he was not the brightest light in Mangaia. He enjoys having power, but above all, loves heat in a way that is obsessive even for Mangaians… Imprisoned for proclaiming himself as Tahu, and injuring several matoran who disagreed.

Vezok: A Nahoan who has descended to animalistic intelligence as a result of Vezon’s experiments. Imprisoned for inability to function in ordinary society and for attacking several matoran on his “first” trip outside.

Vezon: An Ihuan who was known for HER dangerous experiments with matoran efficiency. Known to put her results before her guinea pigs, several matoran have met their untimely ends at her hand. Remained undiscovered until Vezok’s incident. Imprisoned for her work and her death toll.

Avak: A Motaran weapons dealer. Dealt with shifty matoran and even rumored to be involved with the Brotherhood of Makuta. Not much is known about him, and he seems to hold silent for now. Imprisoned for a random attack, some suggest he was possessed, but he hasn’t been the same since.

Zaktan (changed): A Kanaean zoologist who specializes with bugs. Stung by an insect that made her delirious. She seems far more aware, but also off her rocker. Imprisoned for attempting to summon Makuta.

Thok: An Ihuan who practices dark magic, specifically illusions. He enjoys planning, and is kept under maximum security due to his powers and intellect. Imprisoned after another Ihuan discovered his practices.

Reidak: A Tironan whose perspective constantly shifts from the past, present and future. A result of Vezon’s experiments. Reidak was driven mad by his newfound powers. Imprisoned for bashing his head through a wall in a futile attempt to lose his powers, and injuring the matoran who attempted to restrain him.

This is just background information for the piraka, and doesn’t actually need to be used.

Story: The Rahkshi recieve a quest from Makuta, and are told the Piraka will help them on their quest. The Rahkshi break them out, and the piraka act as minions and scientists, and in the case of Reidak, an Oracle. When they join in servitude, spikes grow from their shoulders. These spikes are symbols of their new strength and power given to them from Makuta, but also a symbol of their enslavement.

Appearance: Since the piraka are matoran, albeit insane, they share many similarities. The main differences are the harnesses, which are printed on their torsos, and their spikes, which are a new element, or a reuse of the nexo knights Element used on some of the monsters.
The heads are modified too, their eyes are all disoriented, and their mouths are broken, giving them the impression of teeth. Their bodies are also dented and scratched in numerous places, as a result of them not caring about upkeep.
Here are some concepts, I am not an artist, but I think this gets the idea across.

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If there are any questions, or if this contradicts something recognized as canon, please let me know!

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Looks pretty good! Not a big fan of the faces, though, I must say. Other than that, good job!

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Thanks! Honestly, I’m not either. If anyone has an idea for making them look insane without making them look silly, please let me know!

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stop genderbending things. all of you. Stop it now

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5

No zakta,
Zaktan is perfectly fine name, there’s no need to change it.

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That was another thing. I wasn’t sure about making any of the piraka female, since all of them were male initially, but I feel like with the new backstory, that would make more sense.

I agree, I just changed it for the sake of having a second female, and Zaktan didn’t sound as feminine. (Neither does Vezon come to think of it) It can be changed back.

I understand aversion to changing the piraka, but please let me emphasize that these are entirely new characters that only slightly overlap with the original. They mostly only share names, a few also share characteristics, but they are mainly new characters with a reference to G1.

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I really like what you have so far, I’m just confused on the fact that they have powers… Is this a result of Vezon’s experiments, or something else? Maybe they discover special corrupt kanohi on the black market while the rest are hidden in the vaults? I also feel that if Vezok and Vezon are not to be related I’m any way, you may want to change the name, I feel they are too similar. You could change Vezon’s to be more feminine to solve this. The whole female thing is fine, G1 shouldn’t influence every little thing. I actually like the two piraka that you chose to change, their characters could match the genders very well. Also, I don’t feel like the personalities are very defined in this. Little bits and pieces are thrown in there, but not enough to really tell who they are. Maybe a bit more detailed backstory (maybe the Matorans who imprison them are important). Also, what Nexo Knight element are you talking about? Just curious. I think this is a very good start, and I’m excited to see what else comes from this pitch.

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This guy’s shoulder armor.

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I didn’t go too in depth because the Piraka are supposed to be the underlings, with the Rahkshi being more powerful/important. My original concept was that they got powers from Makuta after being released, but only Reidak and Vezok actually had powers. Maybe for simplicity’s sake, Vezon hosted an experiment, all the others came, and something went wrong causing them to go insane and develop violent tendencies, but to also get powers. What do you guys think?

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Ok, I see now. I thought these guys and gals were supposed to be the main villains of a set wave or two. Also, fun little trivia, that armor piece first came out in 2013 in three Hobbit sets. I love it.

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I also feel Thok must have gotten his abilities from somewhere, whether it was a book of Karzahni’s he found that teaches him some Great Being stuff, or an experiment gives him powers that only look like magic, or something. Also, how did Vezon do this in secrecy? She literally seems to kidnap Matoran, do experiments, and nobody notices? And how does she get her lab equipment? Was she a scientist before? And are the Piraka a gang again, or a team, or something like a bunch of random people who escape jail together? Do they have a leader, because judging from the stories, I think Vezon should at least technically be the leader, being the most sinister and crazy with no mutation that twisted her mind?

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I guess they could be either a wave 2 villain group or underlings, they could work either way. I’d imagine that Vezon would be the leader, but they wouldn’t be a gang like in G1. My idea is that the Rahkshi broke them out, or they broke out on their own, and were promised a place in Makuta’s kingdom if they helped. They accept, but Makuta actually “enslaves” them, forcing them to help. From this aggreement, they gain strength and elemental powers beyond a matoran, but not quite a Toa’s ability.
Also, Zakta is Zaktan now. Whether or not Zaktan (or any of them) is female is still up for debate

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I am pretty sure that the Pirakah were already in Brikonicle. They were dark hunters.

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I’ll have to look into that.

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They aren’t even skadi anymore. You can’t make such drastic changes to characters from previous bionicle generations. This warps characters so much that it might as well just introduce new characters with similar attributes. I know this is supposed to be different form G1 but If you’re going to call back to old characters, you should at least make sure they have enough in common with their original versions.

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The cast have stated that they don’t want to introduce too many new species, like G1 ended up doing with the sets alone, and that’s not taking the Hunters into account.

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That is basically in an essence what I tried to do.
From what I’ve gathered from the Brickonicle project thus far, it seems that we are aiming for less sentient races than what G1 has to offer. I created matoran with a similar idea in mind, (Bad guys, insane, violent,) but I can get where everyone is coming from. Honestly, If I didn’t come up with this, I probably would dislike it. What I tried to do was create characters that could be used in the current lore without changing a ton of things from the G3 Canon. If skakdi were introduced, then a relationship with the matoran, a backstory, and an overall new design have to be made, not to mention the very different personalities of the original Piraka. However, I do think in retrospect that I may have taken a few too many creative liberties with this one. :wink:

TL;DR, I tried to create piraka without using skakdi so it would fit better into the current story.

Also, I didn’t see any canon discussion of the Piraka on the MB, it could totally be in an episode of Brainstorm that I haven’t watched though.

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I disagree entirely. I don’t believe you’ve noticed that the Mata have the same name of protectors, have different personalities, one with a different gender entirely, and were Matoran before Toa with backstories. I don’t think making Skakdi Matoran is that big of a change. Look back to the Takua debate for more information.

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Oh I could rant about that make no mistake. I honestly despise the direction that this project has taken and find that Brickonicle has lost most of the spirit of bionicle, but every now and then I see an entry that I can’t ignore. Not all change is bad but not all the changes made are good. I feel like generally too many things are being shoehorned into G3 without much thought of how the G3 universe as a whole could expand.

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I see why you’d be mad, but TTV has already discussed this. If they wanted to make this story G1, they would have just read off a book about G1. I feel that Brainstorm is a way to tell a new story. An old one would be boring. So, I do not mind this as much.

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I certainly agree that the story should be different. But if you’re going to take so many characters and plot points from G1 and completely change most of them to the point where only their names are the same, you might as well just make new characters instead.

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I feel that if you choose a character, change everything but the name, the only reason you should not name it that name is if the character does not match the other character to such a degree that it could be named anything (which is basically none of these characters that TTV has changed), or if you have another character the name would work much better for. But I guess, no one will get their way, as my favorite character in all of Bionicle G1 has just been made into a sushi flavor.