This may not entirely agree with posted canon, and all of this is suggestion on story points, presumably for post year three storylines. Also please understand that I am not an artist, the crude drawings I made were neither filled with effort nor in some cases colored to any extent, leaving them drawn in simple pencil, with more confusing boundaries due to this.
So, while I had been thinking over the idea of how I would want you guys to implement a Metru Nui in G3 I came across a post about someones Original Character Boom-Yan they wanted to implement. It was there that the person (Titled Mr_Emoticon) proposed their idea for a collection of rocks floating in the stratosphere with a more high tech civilization.
I quickly took in this idea thinking it in and apply it to the idea of Metru Nui I originally had, where it would have remained underground. Dubbed in my head the City Below. This idea focussed on there being another team of Toa, with other powers. However as it was stated by the TTV cast the most Toa they would do at a time was Seven I reorganized and rebuilt the idea. Now here is the pitch:
Once long ago during the great cataclysm many of the sky islands were knocked upwards as the gods waged war against each other. The Matoran on these islands over time began to lose their minor elemental abilities, to compensate for this they began to develop their technology. Over the ages the Matoran became more and more reliant on technology, the past of the island below faded into myth alongside the ideas of Toa. The matoran’s adaption with technology led to a difference in armor design, instead of just green armor their armor was multiple different colors and styles.
The Toa of Strato-City(Working Title) are not truly Toa, instead being Technologically Enhanced Matoran (TEM). Instead of their powers matching that of the toa they have similar yet different elemental powers. The current list of powers I’m working with is:
Plasma: White and Red/Orange (Azure)
Gravity: Purple and Grey/Black (See Pictures Below)
Magnetism Grey and Silver
Sonics: Silver and Grey (Maybe some Magenta)
Psionics (Maybe?): Gold and Blue
Unknown:
Each power instead of being mystically granted by the Elemental Spirits would be provided by technology. Despite the fact that it is technology there would only be six/five TEMs.
Now here is where the pitch splits into two options:
Option A: The Strato-City is more like what we expected from the introduction of Metru Nui, an authoritarian state where the Matoran are forced to work by brutal force. This would make some of the main villains or at least the henchmen Vahki.
Option 1A: The TEM are supporting the current dictatorship being the elite who control cities. The Toa Nuva/Mata arrive to face off with the TEMs and are forced into a battle which turns into a stalemate the Toa spend the remaining time in the city fighting the TEMs and the Authoritarian Regime
Option2A: The TEM are fighting the regime, and consider themselves Toa. Instead of being side characters they become the main characters of their year. This would however put the Toa Mata off to the Side, and would cause a rather odd switch from the characters people have grown to know.
Option B: The world above is a collection of many warring states, squabbling over resources, the TEM each serve a side, and are either eventually united as a team to create peace, or are defeated by the Toa Mata and are then forced to unite, to save everyone from the ancient Vahki war machines that have activated and plan to destroy everything.
Option C: This is an interesting option. Instead of having the story take place in Strato-City it would be a war between Strato-City and the people of the island, the TEM and Toa would fight on the Toa’s turf, and the TEM would be severely weakened by the lack of support from their own forces in Strato-City.
I can see the promise of Options A and C. Option B I felt I needed to include due to its connection to the original post that was made by Mr_Emoticon, I give full credit for the idea of it being a city based in the Stratosphere to him, along with option B, which was heavily created by him, I added in a bit about the Vahki and TEM.
There are some crude drawings for reference on the design I thought up for the Strato-City if Option B is not chosen. I apologize for the awful way this is written I am new to this forum, and basically all forums, I hope this gathers some response and is noted on the podcast if not that’s fine I mean, this is there thing, they can do as they wish.
