Well, this is possibly the most insane piece of BIONICLE related science I’ve done so far, so buckle up.
A Nova Blast is the most powerful ability a Toa has, where they unleash their full reserve of elemental energy in one massive destructive blast, the effects of which vary depending upon the element of the Toa in question. I got the idea that I might be able to actually calculate the level of that energy and I’m happy to say that I succeeded, and oh boy is it ridiculously large.
I decided to use a Toa of Iron’s Nova Blast as the basis of my calculation for the below reasons:
- Iron is a very specific substance that exists in the real world with a known density etc., making it a lot easier use in the calculations.
- It was really between Iron and Water for this, as the other options either didn’t have real world equivalent (e.g., Psionics) or had too many variations (e.g., different kinds of Stone would have different properties that would affect the numbers).
- Iron is denser that the other options like Water and so would theoretically take more energy to create the same volume of it. Given that I am looking for a value for the amount of elemental energy contained in a Nova blast, Iron made sense to go with for this reason.
- Initially, I thought each Toa would have the same level of elemental energy, with the less dense physical elements meaning their blast radius would be wider than the denser ones. However, this led to some … interesting … conclusions for more energy-based elements such as Fire and Light – see below for more details.
- Iron is one of the elements that we have a very specific answer for what its Nova Blast does, thanks to the following Greg Quote:
- “What would Nova Blasts of Stone, Earth and Iron do? Would it just like shatter all of the stone, earth, or iron in the area? Or would Earth cause massive earthquakes?
Actually, it would cover everything for miles and miles around with rock, earth or iron” - Official Greg Dialogue | Page 306
- “What would Nova Blasts of Stone, Earth and Iron do? Would it just like shatter all of the stone, earth, or iron in the area? Or would Earth cause massive earthquakes?
From a different Greg Quote, we know that the blast radius of a Nova Blast would extend beyond the borders of Metru-Nui if it was set off there (Official Greg Dialogue | Page 5), but let’s be conservative and say that it would be as large as the City. Metru-Nui canonically has a length of 47.6 Kio, which works out as being 65.212km. So, lets make the blast create a circle around the Toa creating it that has a diameter of 65.212km.
Given that the Greg quote above states that the blast “covers everything for miles and miles around with … iron” let’s also say that the blast creates a layer of iron 1cm thick over everything within that distance (this may seem like a very small thickness, but trust me, with the numbers we are getting to in a moment, it’s really not).
For fun, let’s say that Toa Zaria has found a nice open plain on the Northern Continent somewhere and sets off his Nova Blast because someone bet him he couldn’t beat the Matoran Universe record for the creation of the largest ever Kanoka Disk. Within seconds, a disk with a diameter of 65.212km (radius 32.606km or 32606m) and 1cm (or 0.01m) thickness is created all around him. This would actually be a very wide but very short cylinder, whose volume can be worked out using the below equation:
V = πr^2h
Volume = π x radius of the circle squared x height of the cylinder
Volume = π x (32606^2) x 0.01
Volume = 33,399,881.13m^3
The density of Iron is 7,800kgm^3, using this fact, the volume above and the equation below we can figure out the mass of the cylinder:
Mass = Density x Volume
Mass = 7,800 x 33,399,881.13
Mass = 2.605190728x10^11kg
(Or 2.6x10^11kg rounded to two decimal places)
To give some context to that number, Blue Whales, the largest animal to ever live on the Earth, have a mass of around 150,000kg. this disk of Iron Zaria just created has the equivalent mass of 1,736,794 Blue Whales!
But we aren’t done yet, we still need to work out how much elemental energy it took to make that disk. The disk of Iron was created in that instant by the Nova blast after all, with the elemental energy of Zaria being converted directly into the mass of the Iron. Energy and mass are directly related, as described in what is most likely the most famous equation of all time:
E = MC^2
Energy (measured in Joules) = Mass (Measured in Kilograms) x the speed of light squared (measured in metres per second)
The speed of light is a very, very large number (299,792,458 metres per second) and we are multiplying our mass number by it. It takes a stupendous amount of energy to be converted into mass. This is going to get big, very, very fast.
E = MC^2
Energy = (2.605190728x10^11) x (299,792,458^2)
Energy = 2.341428658x10^28 Joules
(Or 2.34x10^28 Joules rounded to two decimal places)
That is a very, very big number. That is a 2 followed by 28 zeros.
To give you some context of how much energy that is, Tsar Bomba, the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated, had a blast energy of approximately 209x10^15 joules. A Nova Blast is 1.12x10^11 times more powerful that Tsar Bomba (that is a 1 with 11 zeroes after it). A Nova Blast is 112 billion times as powerful as the largest ever nuclear device ever detonated.
To put it another way, our Sun puts out approximately 3.8x10^26 Joules per second. The Nova Blast we just calculated was created from an elemental energy reserve equivalent to the energy output of the ENTIRE SUN for 60.66 seconds – just over a whole minute!!
It is insane how much elemental energy a Toa must contain in order to create matter out of energy like they do. But if we assume that all Toa have the same amount of elemental energy at their disposal, that’s when things start to get really dangerous. What would happen if a Toa of Light or Fire, whose element is energy based rather than matter based, were to go Nova?
Remember, the energy of a single Nova Blast is 112 billion times more powerful than the largest nuclear bomb ever made. If all of that energy were to go into one single blast of light or heat, you can say goodbye to life on whatever planet the Toa went Nova on, along with a sizeable chunk of the planet itself.
Hopefully the Great Beings has the sense to limit the elemental energy of the energy-based elements like Fire and Light to a more reasonable level, because if they didn’t… well, I can certainly see why they created Marendar.
As if you annoy a Toa of Light enough, they have the power to destroy worlds.
RahiWatching
