Unregistered Runaway: Beta

A former slave on the run from the law, Beta found refuge on the dead moon of Necra Minor… out of the frying pan, into the fire.

Beta is a character from the final chapter of the Cyclic Plane Storyline: Our Skies Unified, which is so far removed from its origins as Bionicle fanfiction it may as well be its own thing.

Beta is a spheroid. His species were created aeons ago to be slaves for an advanced alien race, which has since disappeared. Bereft of masters, but with an in-built need to serve, most spheroids exist as slaves of other species on other worlds, or live on vast migrant server colonies travelling the stars between civilisations.

A spheroid’s body is completely spherical and has a surface like a screen that is able to display lights and moving images. Several complicated biomechanical systems lie within, including a brain, central capacitor, eight sets of vocal chords, hundreds of metres of nerve cables and a ring-like structure that allows the spheroid to hover and project telekinetic constructs.

Spheroids have three genders. Anionics like Beta generally have a more pragmatic mindset than the Cationics do. There are also Neutral spheroids which are massive in size and spend much of their time creating babies. All three genders create or are assigned robotic bodies which are controlled through a combination of telekinesis and nerve cables ejected through a pore on their surface.

Beta was born to the neutral spheroid MATRIARCH in Kathaman Mine, an asteroid mining facility in the Drakus System. He and his mother were owned by Kias Therrick, a very wealthy Akonian merchant who owned multiple asteroids. Beta was assigned to an administrative office position.

Due to their philosophy of servitude as the ultimate goal in life, the concept of freedom is different for spheroids than it is for other species. They define it as “owning themselves”, and therefore a softly spoken but radical (by Spheroid standards) organisation called The Vibrant Eye works to literally make this so. MATRIARCH and most of her children, Beta included, were members.

Kias’ daughter, Diyanna, was persuaded to “free” Beta after he told her about the Vibrant Eye. She did this by declaring him “free”, not really understanding the difference in mindset. Confused, and bolstered by some money sent his way, Beta left the mine.

Seeing this as an escaping slave who needed collaring, an akonian named Diaphamus pursued Beta, who panicked and went for an escape vessel, only to be pursued further, with the akonian tailing behind in another vessel. Fleeing him, Beta made his way at speed to the nearest moon, and crash-landed.

This nearest moon was Necra Minor, once the capital of e’Lekaia’s Chronodermis mining trade, corrupted by the formation of a metal known as Deathsteel within the moon’s crust that had time-altering properties. Thus, the moon became unstable as time fluctuated across various regions of its surface, and its guardian spirit was killed. The inhabitants became destabilised as well, driven mad by Time Sickness.

Crash-landing on the moon and spending some time repairing his body, only to be pursued by a Deathsteel-addled Diaphamus even further, Beta was saved by a strange sniper living on the moon called Jihahli who seemed unaffected by the fluctuations. The two encountered Voro and Vera at the Earthlord’s Plateu, and from there started trying to find a way home…





At this point, I’m not sure how to continue their role in the storyline. It’s not completed, but I have a vague plan to write it up as a proper serial at some point.

Beta as a MOC is, yep, you guessed it, more than 5 years old.

The Spheroids kinda go hand in hand with Shadowgear6335’s Bytes. They’re incorporated into the e’Lekaian lore, and the colours of the spheroids’ emotional states is based off the colours and roles of the different bytes. That said, totally my idea first and Shadowgear stoled it ololololololol

The stickers came from Thunder.

I have made other spheroids and bytes, but only MATRIARCH and Beta are really characters in the Cyclic Plane Storyline

Most spheroids who are members of the Vibrant Eye have names that are symbols or letters from other cultures. “Beta” doesn’t signify any particular rank in anything. It’s just the symbol he chose.

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Love the changing eye colors and the overall aesthetic.

Reminds me a lot of Professor Honeycut from the 2007 TMNT show.

Looks really nice!

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I am in love with the look of this thing

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very nice and computery :slight_smile:

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I like the interchangeable Zamor Spheres. It really changes the whole mood of the character. :smile:

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TBH, I always wondered if G1 BIONICLE itself would eventually go that route, growing so far removed from the concept that it turned into something else. Then G1 got canceled, and HF did that for us!

Anyway, this is a great MOC–it perfectly captures the “robotic slave” look. It looks like a droid I’d be perfectly capable of seeing in Star Wars, which is awesome, and the stickers are used nicely. The build itself is simple but ingenious, and really helps to establish the theme of the character. The changing eye color is also a nice touch.

Great work, as always!

This is really good. The eye changing effect and the story behind it is really cool.

I look at this and i think: “what is this?”. Never have i seen something like this! nice job

I really love the look of this, the changeable eye being a really cool feature. BTW his head kinda reminds me of a series of MOCs made by Shadowgear6335 a couple years ago.

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I love it and all, but it isn’t really… BIONICLE-ish? It could do great as a normal figure that isn’t related to BIONICLE.

Looks pretty cool!

I knew this guy was a byte from the moment I saw that Zamor eye. Good job!

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Ah yes, this brings back fond memories of lurking on MOCPages

I feel like the bytes, due to their simplicity, age extremely well.

Like the backstory and the model looks cool. Loved how you put those Zamor Spheres to use

I really like the aesthetic of the MOC

That head is 10/01.

~W12~

I knew they reminded me of the bytes. Fantastic MOC.

Interestingly Groovy MOC man. I really like the build, but I question it’s stability. I also really like the head! Oh the head man…

The stability is quite good. His joints are all pretty stiff and he’s not very heavy, so he holds up okay even with the smaller feet.

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Okay then that’s what i was worried about. Groovy MOC man.