There are two instances that I can find in BIONICLE media where the way the islands are placed in the Matoran Universe contradicts a story element due to the fact that everything is inside a giant robot. I could be wrong and have a poor understanding of the map and how it lines up with the Great Spirit Robot or I misread some things, in which case I would be happy to be proven wrong.
In Federation of Fear, the gang sails from Zakaz down south to Tren Krom’s Island, then they sail directly from there to Artidax… even though Tren Krom’s island is in the robot’s forearm and Artidax is in the robot’s thigh. Wouldn’t it be impossible for them to make a straight shot from one island to then other without going outside the universe walls? The story reads like they sail on the open ocean the entire time, but my understanding is that all the islands are enclosed inside domes throughout the interior of the robot’s body that are only accessible by sea gates, so how could they possibly go from its forearm to its thigh directly?
Similarly, Greg F insinuated that Makuta Chirox governed a region that included the island of Visorak and Keetongu’s home island, but again, one of them is in the forearm and the other is in the thigh, so it’s the same problem. It makes no sense to have a region with islands that are only accessible to each other by going all the way up north to the shoulder and then all the way back down south.
So my question is- has this ever been brought up or addressed at all?
I don’t think the islands can be in the robot’s arms.
For one thing, Brutaka states that the team will be armed “when they get close”. Now, maybe this was in reference to the original plan to meet at the island near the southern continent, but then when Botar is killed, trinuma (who can’t teleport) stores the weapons “at the first place he came to” before returning to Daxia. And the team sails from Zakaz southward, when they would have had to go north to get to the shoulder if TK’s island was in the arm. Also, if the islands are in the arm, then anyone who went to the western islands would have to sail past Artakha, without finding it somehow.
“There were two island chains, one in the far east and one in the far west, constituted of islands in varying degrees of settlement and public awareness. Each chain was situated in one of the Great Spirit’s arms.
Artakha and Tren Krom’s Island were located in the western island chain in the Great Spirit’s right arm.”
This is particularly interesting, because it suggests that perhaps some people could have known there was an island there, just not that that island was Artakha’s island.
One thing worth noting is that it’s possible one of these regions was originally assigned to another Makuta, that Makuta died, and the island was reassigned to Chirox. This is a thing confirmed to have happened: Krika took over Zakaz when Spiriah went into exile.
In addition to what @Willess12 Willis said above, Greg has also stated that the given map of the universe isn’t super accurate, though that doesn’t fully explain what you’ve pointed out.