For the Manas and Mana-Ko, which Makuta do you think created them? Being an absolute brute force machine sounds very Icarax, but their obedience to their masters also reminds me of Antroz...
This is a great question! I haven't gotten one for quite some time, so thank you for such a fun puzzler to think over!
I'm actually going to have to credit their creation either to Kojol or to an unknown Makuta based on what little we know about them.
Manas
>Amphibious
>Powered up by heat
>Super Strong
>Love violence, even against each other
>Worked for the Makuta and Karzahni
Mana Ko
>Incredibly intelligent for a rahi, able to create mental shields
>Powerful, destructive, hair-trigger for anything that moves
>Secretly trained by The Order to work for them
While you're right that some of their traits point to Icarax or Antrox, its three traits that really get me thinking that these guys were made by an unknown Makuta very early in the Mata Nui universe's timeline.
>Amphibious (able to live on water or land) is the trait that has me thinking Makuto Kojol had a hand in this. Kojol was the marine rahi expert after all.
>Worked for the Makuta and Karzahni. This is the biggie for me. Karzahni closed his kingdom off pretty early on in the timeline and cannonically had no freaking clue what had gone one outside his land while he was away. If he had Manas as guards in his realm, he got them pretty much at the start of the universe.
This argument works really well for Kojol since he was the Makuta of Artakha. If he knew where that island was, he probably knew where Karzahni was too.
However, there were a lot more Makuta before Teridax's purge. And before everyone who knew where Artakha was located, were murdered. So we really can't rule out any of the early unknown Brotherhood members.
>The Order being able to train these things into being loyal spies. This is honestly the most glaring thing to me. In no way can you tell me these guys magically rounded these things up, trained them to be loyal, and to mentally shield themselves, all without the Makuta noticing. No freaking way.
Unless one of the Makuta wanted them to be able to do that. Perhaps one of the 5 Makuta that ultimately sided with Miserix, or another unnamed good-aligned Makuta knew what the others could become and wanted them watched. This whole thing screams of a backdoor deal with The Order to make sure there was a means to watch and strike at the Brotherhood from the inside.
That's my take on it, but I'd love to see what everyone else thinks. Thanks again @cantankerouscanuck for the cool ask!
In Legacy of Evil, it’s mentioned that the Brotherhood of Makuta claimed the Manas crabs were just a ‘hint’ of the true power to come; This is of course revealed to be the Mana Ko, guarding Mangaia.
This is cool and all, but it’s also hilarious to me because it implies the Makuta were hyping up their next level of crab development. As if the Brotherhood held some sort of tech demo but for animals and showed off the Manas to an impressed crowd, only for the Brotherhood speaker to add, with a wink, that this was just a hint of what was to come. Cue the crab investors applauding at this news.
The Piraka infiltrated Mangaia hoping to access Makuta’s treasures. They found the Mana Ko there, not because they were just guarding the treasures; But because they were one of them! Still in development and not yet revealed to the public, and the Piraka got a first look at them. Maybe they should’ve invested their profits in corporate espionage instead... Maybe Teridax influenced them to go to find the Mask of Life; Not just because his future body needed it, but he also didn’t want the Piraka spilling the news to competitors and messing with the Brotherhood’s crab stocks.
This also implies that in their quest to achieve the ultimate crab, the Makuta went through multiple design iterations and the Manas were just one of them; Which means it’s possible the Ussal were a previous version that was released for mass sale. Just one step in the same direction, the Manas another step later down that path; That path towards the Ultimate Crab, the greatest power in the universe! After all, Icarax (who believes in power and brute strength over all) did try to take over the Matoran Universe via conventional conquest, using an army of Manas to do so. He was only stopped by Teridax going BUT THE PLAN, and also because Teri presumably didn’t want his future body infested with crabs.
(That’s right the Manas are an STD metaphor, just as Makuta is for cancer. 2001 ends with the white blood cells fighting an STD and then cancer.)
I appreciate that Bionicle, both its writers and characters, recognize and hype up the power of crab, with the Manas being final bosses and the strongest Rahi, dreaded by all. It seems both Bionicle and the Makuta recognize crabs as the pinnacle of life and evolution; The Philosopher’s Stone of Rahi creation! They crave the true destiny that is carcinization.
I managed to get all of the Rahi I’ve made into one scene and render them. There’s 43 in total. Just under two months ago I had finally made all the parts for the Nui-Rama...wow
Here’s all the infected Kanohi Masks I’ve made so far. It felt a bit lazy to copy the masks so I made each mask unique. That lead to 6 transparent blue Rurus and 4 yellow Komaus... This is probably all I’ll do, I’ve made all the Rahi and Lewa is the only Toa to get an infected mask. It was fun to do them though.
I was thinking of doing a render with all the things I’d made at the end but my computer could barely handle this so there’s no way I’m going to add 18 more models.
I infected their masks so now these 3 are done. I felt that the Mana Ko looked odd without some sort of eye light so I gave the two faces holding the Komaus brains and lit them up.
The mythical beasts of folklore and legend. The term Rahi is not an idle one, not just merely assigned to any regular species of beast, not even ones as fearsome as the Tarakava or Kane-Ra. The designation of Rahi is a special status, reserved only for the most select, elite, and revered creatures of Okotan legend.
The term Rahi roughly translates to ‘Legendary Beast’, and likewise the assigning of the name is kept to the definition. In real-world terms Rahi is not unlike the usage of the word Cryptid, although the comparisons are certainly not one-to-one, and Rahi possesses a more sacred connotation to itself.
The term refers to mythical creatures, usually of unique or incredibly exclusive status, that possess extraordinary power, meaning, and/or relevance. Due to being facets of legend, the status of all Rahi and whether or not some, if any, actually exist was a disputed fact.
In reality, many of these Rahi, predictably, did exist and very much lived up to the legend. They roamed Okoto’s wilds, unnoticed from mainstream society, although the Great Cataclysm did wound quite a few Rahi and even killed some. Still, the mythic creatures continued to operate with even greater anonymity following the scattering of the Okotans, and when the Skull Spiders boxed them into the Mega-Villages, this only increased their status as myth.
However, the Rahi weren’t entirely spared by the Skull Spiders, either. On Makuta’s orders, Fenrakk seized a few, and some were even indoctrinated to the Brotherhood’s side, their allegiance not always voluntary. The rest managed to avoid the Brotherhood of Makuta, either ignored or too difficult to capture.
However, in the case of Umarak the Hunter, the Rahi were respectable quarry to be preserved. Knowing full and well that unleashing The Darkness Below would utterly decimate Okoto and slaughter most, if not all of its life, Umarak nevertheless had an appreciation for nature. He decided that not all of it deserved to die for his freedom and propagation, so instead he vowed to spare some forms of life and let them exist under his planned Reign of Shadows. With his packs of Shadow Traps, Umarak, between ambushes of the Elemental Deities, led hunts to preserve various specimens, with the majority of his time and effort directed towards capturing the Rahi. Whenever a Rahi was captured, Umarak would use his powers of Shadow Travel to transport them to The Darkness Below, where the Rahi would be contained in a state of perpetual stasis until later released following the razing of Okoto.
As the Brotherhood-Okotan Wars began to coalesce into a greater conflict, some of the Rahi became involved. The majority of their presence came about following the Battle of the City of the Mask Makers, in which Umarak and his packs became involved with the Brotherhood of Makuta. As part of their alliance, the Brotherhood assisted Umarak in capturing and preserving various other Rahi specimens for him to contain in The Darkness Below. Threatened, a large number of them emerged, some allying with the Okotans, others with the Brotherhood of Makuta, and others forging their own paths. Additionally, Umarak provided many of the Rahi he’d captured and used them as war beasts against the Okotans in his alliance with Makuta, and many of them were able to be freed from his control as a result in said conflicts.
Following Makuta’s possession of Umarak and his subsequent demise, Umarak’s spirit was laid dormant within the Mask of Shadows and contained in a maximum security prison vault. While some of the Rahi he summoned from The Darkness Below have since been freed, others remained trapped in the shadows. The Okotans have since gathered to discuss ways of possibly freeing these lost Rahi, with the help of the legendary shapeshifter Krahka.
Many Rahi include (but are not limited to);
-Tahtorak, a rampaging Kaiju in constant search of an enigmatic answer to an unknown question;
-Kardas, a dragon who lays deep within the flames of the Region of Fire;
-Krahka, the master shapeshifter of whom no one knows the full extent of her powers, not even Krahka herself;
-Red Serpent, an incredibly fast reptile with fusing bolts, controlled by Makuta during the Skull Spider Wars but later freed as a close ally of the Okotans;
-Nui-Jaga, the King of Scorpions granted power by the Miracle Fruit;
-Tarakava Nui, the dreaded amalgam of wasted fish deaths and their grudges;
-Fader Bull, a constantly moving, teleporting beast;
-The Sand Tarakava, an unusual specimen of Tarakava that burrows through the sands of the Motara Desert and may or may not be the last of an extinct breed;
-Phase Dragon, a charging reptile capable of passing through physical matter;
-Catapult Scorpion, a deputy to the Nui-Jaga that can summon volcanic boulders to hurl at enemies;
-Kane-Ra Demon, a bull-headed amalgamation of various other beasts that roams the Labyrinth of Deception, lost and eternally chasing after unfortunate visitors who get trapped as well;
-Crystal Serpents, four crystalline beings that can refract light and Ekimu’s first failed experiments at Homunculi;
-Gate Guardian, a clever, dimunitive creature that hides behind the power of illusion and projection;
-Great Temple Squid, a colossal kraken that lurks in the Region of Water’s depths;
-Rock Lion, the legendary feline of impenetrable hide with a mane that can super-heat;
-Kirikori Nui, the prehistoric swarm of all-devouring locusts, awakened by Makuta;
-Manas Crabs, a pair of titanic crustaceans said to have dwelled on the original Okotan island prior to the sealing of Umarak, possessing legendary power far beyond that of any demigod;
-Mana Ko, described as the ultimate guardian;
-Protocairns, unusual, apocalyptic heralds of destruction and rebirth;
-Parakrekks, amphibious creatures that feed off the destruction of the Protocairns;
-Sand Screamers, unseen yet heard cryptids of the Motara Desert, who shriek at night and leave behind unusual tracks and disemboweled carcasses;
-Tunneler, an assimilating reptile that can assume the properties of materials it comes into contact with;
-Subterranean Worms, giant and tentacled with flexible spines, spotted by Okotan Miners in the Region of Earth’s darkest tunnels;
Now this is what an ultimate guardian of Makuta should look like. Made by combining the two Manas figures together, the Mana Ko is everything I wish the Manas were: tall, intimidating, and a real threat to the heroes.
Rumoured in Matoran legend to be the true final guardians of Makuta’s lair, the Mana Ko, for whatever reason, were never seen or mentioned in any of 2001’s official story material, with one exception. One was planned to appear in the canceled Legend of Mata Nui video game, at the very least in a cutscene. However, because that game was canceled, all we got was a clip in which it appears and is immediately thrown off a cliff by the Toa Kaita. Ouch.
Unfortunately, the Rahi’s build is about as empty as its story relevance in 01. The Mana KO is primarily constructed with the two motor pieces of the Manas, one on top of the other. The two are connected through the use of a number of Technic beams and…well that’s about it, really. The Mana Ko’s greatest weakness as a set is how monstrously gappy it is. There is nothing solid about this beast’s middle at all; it looks more like a skeleton of a long-dead beast than a living, breathing, biomechanical creature bent on blowing your head off. So yeah, that kinda sucks.
But I don’t want to talk about what this set does wrong, I want to talk about what it does right, because there’s plenty. For all that the build is gappy and hollower than my laughter at my dad’s puns, the shape it creates is exactly what I wish the Manas were instead of crabby low-riders. The Mana Ko retains its remote-controlled treads and striking claws, except now the claws are actual pincers that open and shut with the function! I will never understand why the Manas didn’t have something similar, but I’m glad to see the problem rectified here.
The creature itself is also much taller than the Manas, able to actually reach a Toa’s face and have a properly imposing silhouette.
Its head is also spectacular, sporting a solid build, vicious jaws, a bestial nose and large eyes made from the Manas’ yellow Komau. I don’t have a problem with the Manas’ faces, but this head is just great.
Throw in a cohesive, if somewhat bland colour scheme, and you have yourself one awesome Makuta-beast. Oh, and the head can be folded down into the chest like the Tarakava’s snouts. So that’s something.
If I haven’t made it obvious enough, I thoroughly enjoy the Mana Ko. I acknowledge that its build is not perfect, and would seriously benefit from some filling out, but I love it anyway. It takes the problems I had with the Manas and does away with them, replacing them with what I think should have been the stock set to begin with. Though let me be clear, I don't really dislike the Manas, build-wise. What bothers me about them is that they don't seem quite fitting for the role of Makuta's guardians, whereas this beasty truly looks the part. I only wish we’d seen more of this beauty.
Wow. I wish the Toa Kaita could move like that in set form :P
Also, eyyyy, Mana Ko. I'm pretty sure you don't show up in any 2001 story material, how ya doin'? Not that you do anything here, but it's nice to see you anyway.
