So Greg said that a Nova Blast outside the GSR would potentially be an extinction-level event, potentially enough to destroy a planet outright, but there are "safeguards" inside the GSR to contain the power.
The question I have is whether the GSR actually makes the Nova weaker, or if the GSR, the structures within it, and the inhabitants are simply built different. Like, have Toa been able to withstand world-ending levels of power this entire time? Did Icarax take an apocalypse to the face and walk it off?
Because if so I kinda understand why the GBs made Marendar.
I keep jumping back and forth between what parts of them I feel like building.
currently working mainly on the main wings (the long greebled tubes on the left) but who knows how long that'll last until I move on to the tail or the upper arms or maybe finally finish the abs section Artakha damn it.
Also holy Karz this thing is maybe 55% done and he's already fast approaching being my new largest model.
For context, my current and about to be previous largest model is this AU Icarax. And for him I specifically inflated the parts usage on the wings to make sure he outperforms what I think was the previous record holder in the 1.0 version of the very same character I'm currently redoing.
For my DnD campaign I decided to create a world where Mata Nui went to sleep during the Great Cataclysm, but Teridax also failed into trying to possess the Great Spirit Robot, killing himself in the process. The Three Remaining Toa Metru tried to fight off the Brotherhood when it started to do military campaigns all over the universe to conquer it, but they were helpless against all of the Makutas. When Metru Nui was conquered, Icarax knew that Vakama received various visions from Mata Nui, so he decided to use his heat visions on his eyes to stop them (It only got worse and now he only sees the visions about god). Vakama was so injured in the fight against Icarax that he had to replace various bodyparts with old ones in his forge. He lives in the ruins of the Great Forge, when Vahki, Exo-Toa and Rahkshi try to arrest him, the whole district is left in flames. He still makes masks for anyone he can, but he continues to mutter about Mata Nui and how 'God is trapped in a golden basket in the hands of a devil".
I know these maps are italian but if you have any questions feel free to ask.
What if we reimagined all of the other non-Teridax Makuta as eldritch horrors, just as Teridax was initially presented in the early years of Bionicle? What if we used each Makuta as a prompt of sorts; What if THEY were the big villain terrorizing an island, their individual name unknown so they’re just THE Makuta to the local Toa and Matoran? Make each one feel worthy of the title of Makuta, with their depictions in Karda Nui being akin to physical, humanoid avatars meant to interact with others, just as the scheming Teridax is like for the vortex from MNOG?
Like for example, Chirox! You have this swarm of spiders known as the Visorak, led by one massive spider, known as Makuta. The Visorak mutate their victims, before dragging them back to their master.
Makuta is a spider-like entity that emerges from a cave, using his spindly limbs to grapple with and analyze his victims... Potentially drawing upon them for inspiration, before tearing and prying them apart into their base pieces, adding them to his massive collection. From these recycled parts, Makuta creates more Visorak, or dreaded Rahi creatures that wreak havoc on the ecosystem. Like Makuta, they are poison, destruction incarnate; They always inherit his twisted spirit that destroys.
That’s all Makuta does, even when he does create; He inevitably just destroys. Instead of coming up with new things on his own, he relies on Fate to mutate the living into something random, hoping chance will eventually grant him a working design for Makuta to copy. You could say Makuta has no real ideas of his own, and is a gambler, a parasite, betting something will come along for him to take.
But isn’t destruction the same as creation, isn’t destroying his victims necessary to make things? That’s where the imagery of the spider comes into play; Its long, spindly limbs? They’re fingers. Makuta is not just a spider, he is a hand; The same hand that reaches into the parts bin to make new creations, plays with MoCs before tearing them apart to make something new. Just as Teridax represents the parts bin, Chirox is the builder’s hand, like in the Lego Movie, or Super Smash Bros.
Each Visorak is like a hand of its own, grabbing victims, reassembling them randomly with mutation. Dragging them back to Chirox, whose hand motif is also inspired from the fact that he is the only Makuta who can fully control his Shadow Hand. And Makuta’s spider-like form? It’s attached to something much, MUCH bigger... It is not just a hand metaphorically, it is a literal hand and when Makuta’s lair collapses around him, it reveals the massive figure he is attached to; His whole, true self, a titan more resembling the Chirox we are familiar with.
The others are different angles and facets to approach the myth, the legend of the Makuta; Different re-imaginings, just as people came up with their own G3 and their own take on Makuta. Just like the Makuta contest we had for G2. Vamprah can represent the animalistic side of Makuta; The raging, kicking, screaming beast he was once described as by Vakama. The apex predator, for if his minions are the Rahi beasts, he is the greatest of them all.
Or Bitil! A temporal entity, haunted by his past selves, constantly summoned by his future self. Always going through different iterations, just as a MoC is frequently edited, redone, rebuilt; You can track his transformation, his evolution across his many selves; Makuta represents the existential horror of the timeline, of the way things change. A ghost of the past, and also a vision of the future. If the Vahi is central to the tale of Bionicle as the Mask of Time, what about Makuta as someone who constantly exploits and distorts this force?
Those are some of my initial ideas. Makuta needn’t always be this faceless force of nature, they can be a humanized figure, like Krika, who can be a sympathetic, tragic villain doomed by the narrative, consigned to his role and aware of it as part of a meta discussion; Miserix is the mighty dragon our knights must slay; The Makuta of Stelt, a land of merchants and commerce, the all-consuming force of corporatism that stifles creativity, or a bargaining devil. Gorast is a fanatical priestess hoping to bring in a new age, Mutran the quintessential mad scientist who played god and flew too close to the sun in his obsession.
Spiriah is a corrupt lord seething over his failures, who transformed and resents his people the Skakdi and must be rebelled against; Tridax is a multiversal collector providing commentary on adaptations; The Vortixx hope to harness the ultimate weapon that is Antroz; Kojol is the arcane keeper of knowledge like Lucifer, who stole the Light of enlightenment from the land of thinkers and is burned for it; And Icarax? A completely straightforward dark lord to conquer, as he always intended to be. Each plays the role of Makuta, as the final villain, the ultimate evil who started this conflict, whom our protagonists must rise to eventually vanquish.
Advent ends before Christmas, obviously, but it feels weird to do an Advent thing and then do nothing on Christmas, so today's the finale.
This is what Bionicle is to me--no, not Icarax. I mean a cool Bionicle that's not complete: used LEGO that I've lucked into, that I've been building up. I'm one piece short (kind of a significant one), so he's using the silver Hau, which looks fairly nice, I think.
Will I ever get the Kraakhan? Don't know. I don't think I'll buy it intentionally, but we'll see.
