What was the Red Star *originally* supposed to be?

Ask
1

My question is a little more concerned with the ‘real life’ development of the Bionicle story rather than the in-universe lore.

I might be wrong about the (irl) timeline here, as I am going back and looking at a 20 year old story. But here’s my understanding:

  • The Red Star first appeared in MNOG (2001)
  • The Red Star later created the Toa Inika when Jaller and co. were en route to Voya Nui (2006)
  • After the toyline’s end, The Red Star appeared again in Greg Farshtey’s online serials where it was revealed it was a space station that could revive the dead (2010+?)

So there’s at minimum a nine-year gap between its first appearance and the in-lore revelations of its true purpose. That‘s quite the gap, and I imagine lots of changing of hands behind the scenes in terms of creative direction. Therefore I doubt “zombie revival machine” was the vision in its MNOG debut, and am thus curious if there is any information on what the original intent of the Red Star’s lore might have been.

5 Likes
2

I believe it was simply one of those things left better completely unexplained. greg simply wanted it for that purpose, and now it is a space station. but as one of the many unexplained details of the island of mata nui, simply to make it feel alive. not much of an answer, but the most probable to me

5 Likes
3

Gordon Klimes of Templar Studios has claimed that “One of the many spoilers from the Bionicle Bible was that the red comet visible through the beach telescope was an orbiting mothership of some sort”. Although the two story bibles for 2001 that have surfaced so far (Draft 1, Draft 3) don’t make any mention of the red star.

Before the revelations about the star’s teleportation/revival abilities, Greg Farshtey said that the Red Star exists to aid Mata Nui in takeoff from planets. In a forum post that no longer exists he claimed that this aspect was planned from the beginning. The idea of there being life inside the star, and its revival abilities, were later revelations thought up by him and not planned from the beginning.

2 Likes