Can Kraata choose not to Infect Kanohi? (and other infection Q's)

Ask Ask Greg
1

A few questions about Kraata and Infected Kanohi.

Kraata are known to be able to infect Kanohi masks by physically touching them (and thereby make that Kanohi’s wearer susceptible to the will of the Matuta who created that Kraata), but I was wondering if they could choose not to. I imagine lower-level Kraata would always infect a mask based on instinct, but:

  1. If, say, a Level 7 (Shadow Kraata) touched a Kanohi, could it choose not to infect it if it thought not doing so would be more useful to its objectives? Or would “choosing not to infect it” necessarily involve just not touching the mask?

  2. Does a Makuta who is controlling an Infected Kanohi wearer have to do anything to dominate their will? So do they have to focus on making the wearer do what they want, or can they just leave “mental instructions”, and the infection of the mask alone is what suppresses the wearer’s will? Lewa was able to momentarily regain awareness whilst still wearing an infected mask, so was that just him using his willpower, or was it the mask being disrupted by being knocked by Onua?

  3. Can Makuta infect other Makuta’s masks? Does it have any effect, and, if so, to what extent? Is it just something that would give them an edge on dominating the mind of a fellow Makuta, or would it outright work like it would for a Toa or Matoran?

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  1. I don’t see kraata as having that sort of ability to make decisions. Remember that they are basically parts of a Makuta’s substance. They do his/her will. They aren’t intended to be independent thinkers.

  2. The infection of the mask essentially forms a connection between the being wearing it and the Makuta. So the Makuta does not have to actively focus on each and every being wearing one of his infected masks.

  3. No. If that were possible, Teridax most likely would have done it.

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Follow up on 1) if the Makuta’s will is for the Kraata to not infect masks, but the Kraata was, say, place on a mask by someone else, would it infect the mask or would the mask not be infected?

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4

I should have elaborated/recapped about the canon Shadow Kraata/7th Stage Kraata, which according to BS01 are “the most intelligent of the Kraata stages, having intelligence on par with that of a Matoran or Toa; they are even capable of speaking the Matoran language.”

I had often thought a Shadow Kraata might make an interesting character for this reason.

This is why I ask whether an intelligent Kraata like that could choose not to infect a Kanohi if they saw some benefit to not doing so, especially because Shadow Kraata are also said to “gain the ability to infect masks from a distance of up to 100 yards, though this power is nullified if they are inside a Rahkshi or otherwise restrained”.

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There’s intelligence and then there’s independent will. We have never defined seventh stage kraata as being autonomous entities capable of making moral or tactical decisions. I doubt a Makuta would want something like that which might countermand his/her orders.

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