Matoran's purpose?

If the matoran did not know that they were in a giant robot, what were they meant to do inside of it? A page on Biosector01 says that the matoran were supposed to maintain the great spirit robot, but they wouldn’t really be able to do this if they didn’t know that there was a robot to maintain in the first place.

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I’m fairly certain their purpose was to serve butter

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I think they just maintained it without realizing that they were inside of a giant robot.

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Basically as @ELE109 said it: the Matoran just did whatever they were programmed/meant to do. There are also some behaviors and beliefs in place that serve as a failsafe from not doing what they were programmed/meant to do. Probably.

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Take a look at Metru Nui. Pretty much all that the matoran did there was carve stuff, make disks, work in the archives, etc. I don’t really see how this contributes to the robot, but okay.
Okay, I believe I am allowed to ask follow up questions. So, if one of Mata Nui’s powers is “internal maintenance,” (according to BS01 and the bionicle wiki) then why does he need the matoran?

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Metru Nui was the robot’s brain. The work the Matoran were doing there kept the brain functioning. Same in the other parts of the body.

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And to answer the follow-up – the human brain has a great deal of control over the health of the body. But you still need red blood cells, white blood cells, other organs, to keep it healthy. The brain can’t do it all by itself.

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They just did what they did, and it MAGICALLY contributed to Mata Nui’s health. Also what Greg said.

Well, unless you know the details of Mata Nui’s construction and operations, there is no way for you to know in what way what the Matoran were doing was contributing to its operation. For that matter, no one knows why we have an appendix, but we do … odds are someday we will find out it actually matters at some point in our lives. Since we’re not planning to publish detailed schematics and operating instructions for the robot, you have to just take our words that the work the Matoran were doing mattered.

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Little aside, we actually do have a consensus on what the Appendix does, it helps maintain bacteria populations in the gut. Nothing absolutely necessary unless you have a gut bacteria population collapse, but helpful nonetheless.

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I see it like this:

Ta-Metru creates objects to aid work, like the ribosomes in a cell, but on a grander scale.

Ga-Metru teaches Matoran how to do their tasks properly.

Ko-Metru and Onu-Metru are new memories and archived memories, respectively.

Po-Metru is Mata Nui’s creativity.

and Le-Metru is equivalent to the neurons, providing a network for everything.

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