I know, it could be obvious and a silly question, but did the TSO cut down Lariska’s left arm because she lost the Toa-Dark Hunter War or because of something else?
In-story, Lariska had both arms before the war erupted and still had when it ended, and we only saw her with the mechanical arm after the war ended, but I don’t want to add this information to Lariska’s BIONICLEsector01 page without permission and confirmation.
BIOSector already says this is why she lost her arm, and does give a citation for it, although I wrote that book so long ago that I would have to go back and look to see if I specifically stated losing her arm was her punishment. I would be surprised if I did, since LEGO would have had a hard time approving something like that.
I don’t think BS01 is correct in this case. The second encyclopedia says that at some point between Hakann and Vezok’s recruitment and the Toa-Dark Hunter War, Lariska angered the Shadowed One and lost her arm as punishment.
As far as I can tell, Greg just strongly implied that she lost her arm as punishment. From “Time Trap” Chapter 2 (https://wallofhistory.com/read/?id=437):
Lariska laughed sharply. “You know better than that.” She jumped from a standing start into the rafters, executed a series of complicated gymnastic tricks, and then did a perfect dismount to land in front of her leader. The Shadowed One could not help but be a little amazed at her fluid skill, considering that her left arm was completely mechanical.
“Reporting,” she said, making no effort to hide her sarcasm.
“The Toa?”
“Dead.”
“The Turaga?”
“Fled.”
“The payment?”
“In the vault.”
“ All of it?” the Shadowed One asked pointedly.
Lariska glanced at her mechanical arm, then back at the ruler of the Dark Hunters. “ All of it. I remember my lessons well, Shadowed One, especially the painful ones.”
The Shadowed One smiled. “I find it hard to believe even you could eliminate an experienced Toa so quickly. Tell me the tale.”
To me the glances made clearly imply that her mechanical arm is the result of a “painful lesson”, probably from TSO.
That quote is clearly implying that Lariska tried to keep a cut of the reward (or at least did not return it all) from a previous job, and was punished for it.