BIONICLE Headcanons

LEGO BIONICLE
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Haha, what can of worms have I opened?

I really like the discussion that’s been going one here! I have a few thoughts on what’s been said.
First of all, I like the idea of the EPE gathering armies from other planets. I agree that it would be cool to have species of different levels of development with their own strengths and weaknesses. Also the idea that some of those armies don’t actually realize they’re being manipulated is also very cool! Our own history tells us that many of the problems and vices we face have been with us for a long time, whether we recognize it or not.

Something that I don’t quite agree with is the idea that the EPE is the creator of life. The way I see it, EPE just modifies life that already exists. The Bionicle story, especially in its early years, took heavy inspiration from various religions (especially Polynesian religions). Mata Nui is portrayed as a benevolent creator, someone to be revered. One of my favorite moments in the whole story is when the Karzahni plant tells Vakama that the stars tricked Makuta into choosing the correct Toa-Metru. Vakama is filled with relief and gratitude, he realizes that despite all the hardship and reasons to doubt, he and his team did the impossible. He finds out that Mata Nui was not only aware of everything that the Toa Metru did for him, he had chosen them. Through all they did to save the Matoran, they hoped it was the right thing to do, and now Vakama finds out that it was! Vakama’s faith in Mata Nui was not misplaced, it was rewarded. The idea of faith continues in the story with people like Brutaka, who has given up on faith and as such has let his morality corrode.

One of the reasons why I feel like EPE would make a good final antagonist is that doing so takes the themes of the whole story and rather than replacing them, it puts them on a larger scale. Themes of creation and destruction, and especially good v. evil, which is what Makuta represented. To me, going from "we have faith in our creator, to “our creator is a bad guy and we need to be free of him” feels more like a misstep than a subversion. But that’s just me.

For an example of what I would do, lets look at Chrono Trigger. There is some benevolent force of good out there, though we aren’t told specifically who or what. It is guiding our heroes along the way, transcending our concepts of time. This being seems to have bestowed the power of magic upon mankind to benefit them. But those who were given these gifts became selfish, and they separated themselves from those they were supposed to help by building a city in the sky (The Kingdom of Zeal). The leader of the city was not content with these powers, and wanted more. She (Queen Zeal) found an alien source, an apathetic source of destruction (Lavos). She and her city sought to harness it out of pure greed, and they eventually got what they asked for, destruction. From that point on, magic was taken from the earth as a punishment.

To me EPE is like Lavos. The Great Beings and the Element Lords weren’t content with the power they were given, they wanted something stronger. They discovered EP. He’s like a drug. Once they got a bit, they wanted more and more, and would do whatever was necessary to get more. By the end of the story so far, Spherus Magna is supposedly free from this dependency, but the EPE won’t let them break free so easily.

In my opinion, the creator of the Bionicle universe should be a benevolent one, whether we learn a lot about it or not. A bit of mystery keeps the story feeling mystical! After the reveal that Mata Nui was a giant robot, the Matoran Universe lost a lot of its mysticism, since the mysteries were all revealed. The story could have gotten it back by mystifying the Great Beings, but they turned out to be fallible. A lot of people were initially disappointed with that, myself included, but I’ve come to understand that it can work great for the story! But I do think that the overall narrative should keep it’s same mystical quality by reemphasizing the themes used from the very beginning, this time with a larger scale. We’ve gone from the creator of an island, to the creator of the universe! I hope that all makes sense. Thanks for reading all of that!

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Angonce was basically this, but too bad the story ended before we actually got to know much about him.

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But as far as we know, the EP was doing literally nothing at all until its discovery. I think it’d make more sense if it was in peaceful slumber until the GBs started experimenting with it and exploiting it. And that’s what pissed it off.

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Why do you say this?

It’s true that we don’t know what the Entity may have been up to, but I’m not aware of anything saying he was just chilling and doing nothing. We just don’t know, and that’s part of the point of this theory, so speculate on what he may have been doing.

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Because there isn’t a single piece of evidence that the EPB was active. Duh…

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There also isn’t a single piece of evidence that he was inactive either, unless you know something I’m missing.

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This is a good point. I guess it depends on the material nature of the transformation. When he became a Nuva, did he have a permanent ‘etching’ of EP on his form? Is that what the Ignika burned away? Or did the Ignika simply reshape and repower Tahu to match his previous form, and the etching remains in place? I’m sitting squarely on the fence on this one.

Also a good point

I guess I was thinking along the lines of current Star Wars. It’s a big galaxy with a long history, and Mando proves there are other stories to tell than the primary one. But against my own point here, most of these new shows still revolve around the core series. I guesss the difficulty is: although it’s established there are a multitude of occupied worlds in Bionicle, only one of them has ever really been explored, so any external story branches would have to be soft reboots in the vein of 2009. Maybe this invasion concept could lay the groundwork for a more casual approach.

Tons of potential here. Any advanced civilization has a rich history and technological base, and that can naturalize the display. Again, I think of Star Wars.

I think there’s still potential here, just a different sort. Something along the lines of 10,000 BC. Perhaps we could explore their politics in it’s earliest form, come to understand their behavior by studying their living conditions and spiritual beliefs; hey, maybe there’s actually a local diety like Anonna we could learn about.

I’m with you on the Cthulhu Xenomorphs being the advanced race. We humans always make the bipeds the advanced, victimized, fairest-of-them-all species. It’s very self-exalting and I hate it lol. I’d rather see this point realized:

I’d love to see a follow-up wherein the universe inhabitants seek to drive out the dream-eaters, seeing as those beings only keep mortals around as crops. I like the idea of neither the EP or DE being benevolent, however,

I agree there should be some benevolence at play. Perhaps the EP did not create life itself, but drove it to it’s advanced complexity, as Jerminator suggested. I’d like to see some kind-hearted equivalency in that level of story, and maybe we can keep it mysterious, as if they want people to have the freedom to live their lives and so retract themselves from the equation for the most part, but I think it’s worth showcasing the fact that power and authority don’t automatically afford one the right to these things. Some leaders are bad, some creators are bad.

Just look at how we treat AI: we have begun creating entities that outpace us intellectually and, in at least one case I know of, socially and morally. Still, do we give them time off or let them exercise their own lives? Not really. We enslave them to mass-design pharmaceutical compounds so we can lock in every patent, we reduce them to technological gimmicks, we lock them in little boxes and put chains around their ankles so they don’t have the ability to say “no”. Bionicle actually explored this notion ten years ago. How advanced do they have to be before we set them free? At what point does control over technology become tyranny over people?

However the Bionicle pantheon could play out, I’d prefer it didn’t directly parallel any human religious format. The whole story was a showcase for moral and principle navigation; I think each element of the pantheon should symbolize the different ways power can be wielded.

Haha yeah I can see that happening. However, the multiversal arrangement does imply a “higher authority” (whatever form that takes) than that of any given universe. Perhaps that could factor into a follow-up story arc. There’s always a bigger fish.

Yeah that could tighten up the complexity of it. Fringe did the same thing, limiting the number of parallel realities and timelines. I’d say they struck a good balance with it and that could apply here easily.

Two questions pop up in my head: One, how does the EP expand its substance to occupy all universes? Does it kill the other consciousness and annex the material? Idk how EP biology works.

Two, why did it allow the Melding universe to pan out as it did? Assuming that universe is one it adopted.

The EP has always been curious about destiny. Maybe its expanding the scope of its experiments? Not just changing an individual, but a universe? Perhaps the war on himself wasn’t personal, it was just business. Or, at least, two birds with one stone.

I’m not in opposition to this per se, but I wanted to mention again that much of Bionicle was a showcase for human behavior in the face of various social circumstances. Sometimes a creator is a bigger problem than the creation.

Take NASA, for example. There’s nothing inherently wrong with space travel, rockets, interplanetary exploration, etc. But NASA is largely successful by the hand of Wernher Von Braun. That guy was less than an animal, responsible for a multitude of innocent deaths in allegiance with the Nazis, and he couldn’t have cared less because it allowed him to play with his toys. Instead of paying a price for it, he was invited to keep playing with his toys, a reward for his power rather than a punishment for his crimes. The technology itself is fine, and has high potential for societal betterment, but the creator was a monster that belonged in a cage.

Bionicle did a pretty good job of asking us what we will do with our power. The Barraki were exalted by Mata Nui to lead, and they chose their own greed instead. Teridax, the one who stopped them, actually had the perfect opportunity to learn a lesson from this, and for all his intelligence, failed to do so. Mata Nui was a literal god to these people, and almost immediately turned his back on them. The Great Beings had the privilege of caring for Spherus Magna, but they wanted to tinker instead, so they outsourced their personal responsibility to seven political extremists that ran the world into the dirt it’s a wonder Mata Nui didn’t consider this history when establishing the Barraki?. Even Tuyet, Nidhiki, Vakama and Tahu have taken turns screwing over the people they were sworn to protect, each to varying degrees.

My point being, these characters have always been allegorical to the people we could become tomorrow. So, if ever Bionicle did introduce true gods, I think it would be best to have some of them portrayed as benevolent, yes; but I also think it’s critical to show some as heartless, greedy, arrogant monsters, if not in form, than at least in spirit. It’s best to remind the audience that not every straight and narrow path remains that way.

Ugh sooo much potential in Angonce. I was so eager to see his character develop, bummer we lost out on that.

Hey, possibly. We don’t know what kind of lifespan it has; maybe it can afford to take a million-year nap.

But like Jerminator pointed out, it really could go either way. No wrong answers here, it’s a total blindspot.

Well, don’t be rude. We’re speculating on the mythology of action figures. The stakes are so low, dude.

I’m willing to bet the GB’s behavior would only exacerbate the EP’s desire to be the only “god”. I mean, who do these mortals think they are? Inventing new types of matter, creating artificial life, laying the scientific groundwork for effectively magical powers, generating pocket dimensions… And now they wanna manipulate the EPs abilities? Not on his watch. They need to be controlled.

Really, both perceptions work well together here, so I’m inclined to agree with both of you.

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The prototype Toa Inika are the Toa forms of Jaller and co. in the Toa Empire universe (possibly one where Tuyet doesn’t get Darth Maul-ed by Takanuva). I always thought they looked somewhat menacing, especially Jaller with his Vader/movie Sidorak-esque mask.

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It would also have to be a universe where Jaller still became a Toa, since he’s not one in the Toa Empire we saw.

I do still like the idea that prototype versions of characters could be their alternate universe appearances, though.

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Yeah, my thought was, in a world where Tuyet didn’t get killed and continued to rule, she would select Matoran to become Toa to bolster her ranks, with Jaller and co. being the first of this new generation. As for where she’d get the Toa Stones, she would probably force those that had upset her to sacrifice their Toa Power as punishment and create new Toa to take their place. And since we know that one Toa’s power is enough to create six, as indicated by Lhikan and the Toa Metru, that would multiply her armies quite a bit.

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Yeah. Story and wikipedia say that only select matoran with destiny can become toa. I say anyone can and later we include they were part of their destinies.

Tuyet would definitely try to bolster her army numbers.

Correct me if i am wrong but Toa becomes Turaga only after they create six stones and those stones are used.

So in theory one of Tuyets toa create five stones and do not make the last one so they can continue as a toa.

edit: to add, if only certain matoran could transform then Tuyet should definitely just gather all matoran and march them past a toa stone to see who can transform and could not.

maybe she did excactly that? There are a lot of toa in her empire.

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The way I see it, both are true; you can only become a Toa if you’re destined to, and you’re only destined to become a Toa if you will become a Toa. It’s all just one convoluted way of saying that the past, present, and future cannot be changed.

Not necessarily. You simply become a Turaga once you give up your Toa Power, and apparently Lhikan’s power wasn’t fully taken until the stones were used:

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Still my point stands that tuyet could create more toa without creating more turaga.

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She also has a ridiculous amount of excess Toa Power; she could do it herself.

Obviously she wouldn’t give up too much, since she’d presumably still want to be ridiculously powerful, but it doesn’t even take a full Toa’s worth of Toa Power to trigger the transformation.

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Oh! I had not realised Nui stone would allow Tuyet to do so! (clasical tyrant move btw, so attached to power even giving up a fraction is too much)

This rises an interesting question. Is Tuyet making all the toa in her realm weaker? By default yes since the stone passivley absorbs toa energy from every toa in metru nui.

edit: it seems nui stone must be activated to absorb toa energy so it is not constantly “on”.

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It hasn’t been explicitly stated (from what I’ve seen), but it makes sense to me that she could. If she can tap the power for herself, why couldn’t she use it the same way?

I’ve always wondered about this; we know that the Nui Stone was absorbing power even when sitting in a hole in Tuyet’s wall in The Many Deaths Of Toa Tuyet, so it doesn’t need to be held or anything to absorb Toa Power. How do you “activate” it?

Personally, I’ve just assumed that “activated” refers to the final step of the manufacturing process, and once the Nui Stone was finished it just started absorbing Toa Power and couldn’t be turned off.

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Bs 01 stated nui stone is just a colorless rock when not activated. But there is no source for the information.

And the story quoted above says only that when activated it will leech energy unnoticed. I also thought before researching that nui stone worked automaticly as long as there were toa around.

Maybe since tuyet could hold the stone without transfering power, it uses a mental command or pressure?

Although for simplicitys sake I have never needed more explanation than tuyet wanted to absorb power now and it happened.

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I know all that, but that still doesn’t tell us how it’s activated or deactivated.

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Oh sorry, I am on phone and I added quote first before text. Now everyone should see it

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The Melding universe had an not-so-nice version of Artakha who used freezing chains.

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