According to BS01, it says that Marendar can adapt to and resist Toa elemental power and then defeat them with specialized weaponry. But it doesn’t say more than “it is a living and sapient weapon” (not an actual quote from BS01), and offers no other information on its other abilities.
Marendar was obviously designed to eliminate Toa, and Matoran by extension once they become Toa. Since Marendar is impervious to elemental power, what would it take for Marendar to be destroyed?
That’s a interesting topic. The only thing we know about Marendar is that it is a terminator-like machine with the unique purpose of killing all Toa on Spherus Magna. However, we don’t know what means is it willing to take in order to achieve that goal. If Glatorians, Agori or Matoran try to defend a Toa, will the Marendar kill them, or will try to avoid it at all cost, due to its programming as a Salvation machine? Also, I asked Greg some time ago if Marendar would recognize Ackar, Kiina and Gresh as Toa, and he replied it wouldn’t, so that’s another interesting approach to defeat Marendar.
I personally like the idea of turning greatest strenght into a weakness.
If Marendar repels/is immune to elemental powers, Toa can channel elemental energy to ground, Marendar will fall through it since he now repels it, toa will stop and Marendar is imprisoned since ground is now just regular earth.
I’d assume a few meters of rock is nothing to a being who burst through a metal door but still it would be interesting and buy some time.
Galidor
Marendar must be weak to hydraulic presses.
I don’t know about ‘destroy’ but I like the idea that they would be defeated by receiving the same software patch the Matoran got from Velika, develop full sapience and have a crisis of morality upon realising their mission is flawed and irrelevant since the Toa aren’t actually a threat.
It’s corny, sure. But with the establishment of the ‘awakening’ in lore and the introduction of a faction who never received the patch (Kestora) it feels the most natural rout for Marendar’s story to go.
Probably being overpowered by something/someone that doesn’t rely on elemental/elemental-based attacks. Since Greg confirmed that beings made out of Protodermis are bullet-proof, this rolls out shooting Maredar until it dies as a valid tactic (as well as sniping it from afar). Therefore the only option left is pure melee damage. No swords, no axes, no pickaxes. Just pure punching power.
So… it’s either weaponised hydraulic press or TF2 Soldier
However, if Marednar cannot adapt to exposions (which I doubt since explosions generate heat and that may count as Fire-based attack I think?) then all the ways to kill it expand a little bit…
Marendar already possesses full sapience:
(I do agree, though, that Marendar being an actual character, rather than just a Toa-killer, would be a great direction for the story)
I really like this idea. It is unique and in line with the surrounding story threads.
Not necessarily the same level as the MU residents do. There are levels to sapience in MU. Everyone is an artificial being, but sapient individuals are still distinguished from drones and robots like Vahki or Exo-Toa. Same goes for Rahi.
When it comes to sapient beings (above robots and most Rahi) there are two levels: pre- and post-awakening. We all know post-awakening had the full range of emotions minus romantic love, but we must not forget even the pre-awakening beings were still sapient, just with restricted emotions - everyone was super focused on their jobs with very little extra stuff. They behaved like the usual trope of characters trained from young age to rid themselves of unnecessary emotions etc.
Marendar was not around for the awakening software update, nor is it likely that he was one of the beings already made with the software like Artakha, Karzahni, Helryx or Takua because all of those were early creations and Marendar was made last second before launch. Also, someone like Marendar would benefit from not having emotions like compassion considering his role.
Great Beings would definitely made him with only level 1 sapience.
That is why I like @Northmarch’s idea. It ties in the main leverage Velika was planning to use on MU residents, and utilize it as means to “defeat” Marendar. I think it’s a brilliant solution. It also follows the whole narrative of growing beyond your programming, which the story was going to dive into had the serials continued.
In my headcanon the method of giving sapience to MU inhabitants is contagious. Marendar might have level one sapience but after he meets one of the inhabitants it will spread to him also and he will begin to develope more of a critical thinking.
In my head canon Umbra became sentient as the first toa team arrived to his lair. He came to see his programmed instructions as honorbound mission and continued to do so with vigilance. There is not that much character development when one is stuck in a cave.
Interesting idea. After thinking about it though, I would have to point out a counter-argument: Kestora aboard the Red Star did not “catch” the update despite constantly comming into very close contact with multiple level 2 sapient beings. This would imply the awakening hapenned all at once instead of some gradual or continuous mechanism, and was isolated to GSR.
Or the Kestora, as they also live in a pocket dimension, may be somehow immune to this. Also, they are made to work as hive-mind drones, so this “patch” would not benefit them.
I am talking about Kestora on Red Star, which are different from the ones in the pocket dimension.
How do we know they didn’t?
I am not against it being simultaneous in the universe and red star. It is a head canon afterall but how does kestora prove the virus was not contaegous?
The kestora seem to be very simple minded and cruel but maybe they just are simpleminded and cruel beings. Like Krekka’s species or airwatcher.
Edit: I personally believe Krekka might not represent his entire species. I believe most of his species are not as stupid as him. They have regular intelligence. Krekka is most likely much more stronger than average member of his species and as per trope, a complete idiot.
Marendar would be destroyed by the combined efforts of Vezon, Click, and Buckethead (the Skrall from the cancelled fifth movie).
My initial thought here is that it is a being, not a machine, you would be killing it, not destroying it…
One idea I had was that Velika would use it as a pawn, have it be a threat to the Toa, and then betray it, walk in with the solution to killing it, and be hailed as a hero. We know Velika wants the Toa Nuva on his side to gain the trust of the Matoran.
As for what counts as an elemental attack when it comes to el. resistance - heavily doubt explosions count as fire elemental. It’s been explained before that if Pohatu was fighting a Zyglak, and threw a rock from the environment at it, that would deal more damage than if Pohatu shot a newly created rock at it. However, I don’t think it would make the rock act as if intangible.
Thanks to Greg’s insight:
Q: Do Kestora know that the MU inhabitances are sentient? I would think not, since they were not origionally designed to be sentient, and it could also explain why the Kestora don’t feel remorse for the beings they “dissected”.
A: You are forgetting that Kestora were not part of Velika’s Awakening. They are focused on one thing: doing their jobs. And they can’t do that with the teleporter not working. So their focus becomes trying to figure out why it is not working. Like the chips in your computer, they do not have feelings for the other bits of machinery. They have a job to do.
Now if the update were contagious, surely the beings who have the most intimate knowledge of, and contact with the brains and minds of the “awakened” MU members would be poised to catch it. Their daily job is literarly to: repair their bodies, dissect them, download consciousness between brains, check for their intactness and functionality, and nurse the patients into workable state (or forever, after the RS breakdown).
If Velika designed the update to spread throughout the population like a contagion, it would have to employ a much more robust mechanism for doing so, in the day to day routines of the nanotech workers. The ones who are much less susceptible to making those kinds of contacts than Kestora.
In short the awakening update would have to be designed to infect beings with susceptibility level 5, and yet it did not infect Kestora with susceptibility level 1000.
This is the problem with BS01. It is still being updated. I have seen kestora page multiple times and never saw it was updated with info of Kestora being unawakened.
Same with Marendar. For 10 years, Marendar does not have elemental powers. Since 2021 it has had them or could have them based on ambigeous quote made years ago. Not to mention every quote since says “idk” what marendars powers are.
Well yeah. Would you rather have it missing information or presenting information that is inaccurate?
Make no mistake, it has been a long time since I trusted BS01, but the reasons for that are a bit more complex.
I remembered this quote from the days of Chat with Greg Farshtey and I recall reading it in the real time as it was posted. That said, the reference to this quote was added immediately after this occured (august 2014), so it is not the case of of retroactive addition after many years.
In any case it is for the reasons stated in my previous post that I think the Awakening was a single MU-isolated event.