There was a discussion on Reddit quite a while ago about making individual projects based on Bionicle, but not within the Bionicle universe so they can be released independently of Lego, in part as a result of the Bionicle: Masks Of Power incidents. I guess I've been doing a bit of that. I've never been fully comfortable writing fully Bionicle fiction tbh, something doesn't jive about it for me, so I've never produced a proper fanfic work that wasn't "Bionicle, but a bit weird".
I'm working them into the Pick-n-Mix Comix universe, though, slowly and a little at a time. It's weird, because I keep wanting to write about Bionicle species like Matoran and Vortixx because the names are so similar (Bionicle's lore-crafting has always been a direct influence on my own, especially now that I'm working with alien fantasy races like the Dragoreans, Dreenok, Braxanites, Rusidrans, Byrennians, etc...), but I have to refer back to my own, original species and concepts for it because it's not set in the Great Spirit Robot or on any of the exterior planets at all.
And obviously, I don't own Bionicle, so I wouldn't be able to fully market or brand any of it at all, or publish it as my own thing whatsoever.
Getting across exactly what I want to achieve with it is the hardest part; making it similar enough that it gives me the same vibes, but differentiated enough that it has its own identity. In large part because of its origins as a toyline's gimmick story, I'll never fully be able to replicate large swaths of the spirit of the lore, but I still like working it in where I can with my own thing.
I'm working on a storyline at the moment about a pair of Mechosians called Tumohl and Hepni, and I think that's the best introduction to this branch of the Pick-n-Mix Comix world because they're the most "Matoran-like", and Mechos Megrod where they were created is in many ways inspired by Metru Nui and the industrial vibes of the GSR as a whole.
If you're interested, I have some lore-dumps about the world of Mechos Megrod under the cut, because there's not much else to do with it at the moment. I've been working hard on polishing up chapters for the webserials Sable's Journey, Grace Morgan & The Offering Of Markor, and the upcoming Common Grounds: The Graveyard Café as part of @grimshawcycle today, and I guess lore-dumping about worldbuilding is how I relax.
Also, it's 810nicle Day and, since I don't have anything genuinely Bionicle to contribute, I might as well do this instead. (Most of the core ideas were me trying to retroactively adapt what was supposed to be an AU for Bionicle fanfics based around a set of Great Being OCs representing the six core elements of Metru Nui and Mata Nui anyway, and I could never figure out how that worked in Bionicle terms, so I figured — why not bring them into the Pick-n-Mix Comix fold instead?)
Mechos Megrod is a city built by and for Mechosians. Like Metru Nui, it's an industrial, urban center where every Mechosian is separated by specific "type" and given a specific role to play and purpose in the ongoing functions of the city, although their types are only partially elemental in the way we're familiar with from the Matoran Universe. Also, like the Great Spirit Robot, Mechos Megrod is spaceborne — it is functionally an artificial asteroid, a star station built to contain the city of the Mechosians and everything they need to sustain themselves in the harshness of the Chasm of Stars, the "secondary world" space opera/alien fantasy setting for some corners of the Pick-n-Mix Comix universe beyond the Other Realms (where story cycles like @grimshawcycle are set).
It's not the only spaceborne colony in the Chasm, but it's the only one populated by Mechosians, who are ultimately a very specific type of socialoid; artificial beings that can either spawn naturally from in-universe lucidite crystals becoming the seed crystals for biogenetic crystal particles called georine or be spawned artificially in "lattice tanks", as in the case of the Mechosians by default. In either case, georine comprises their interlacing bodies and joints, supplemented by handcrafted fabrics and dermorium armor (or sometimes argosium, if they're desperate or not allied with Mechos Megrod for one reason or another), and it's from these lattice tanks at Mechos Megrod that new Mechosian-native socialoids are born.
The complex and function of Mechos Megrod was originally assembled by a socialoid called Karu-Nisi, remembered today as an ancient heroic figure, a mythological idea who brought naturally-spawned socialoids together from across the Chasm for the purpose of creating one singular world where all socialoids could belong. The Chasm is a world of flesh and breath and blood and torment, where aliens of all species fight and battle each other, and in this world, crystalline beings like socialoids are thought of more like resources than as distinct beings of their own — in building Mechos Megrod and the Mechosian society, Karu-Nisi sought to give the Chasm's socialoids a sense of belonging and internal respect for themselves, away from the fleshiness and inherent organicness of the worlds they more than likely spawned on.
For instance, Khofu — an Olmopran socialoid, born on a desert world surrounded by Olmopra's native humans, the elephantine Lephrall, and constant remnants of the once-king, the Dragorean lord Balurkar. Few other socialoids were known to Olmopra at the time, and Khofu became assistant to Balurkar, but in time, the world moved on. Mechosians — and all socialoids — live as long as natural crystals otherwise do, so long as their lattice bodies stay intact, so Khofu outlived countless generations of Olmoprans and Lephrall, and personally witnessed the fall of King Balurkar in the dragon's final days.
Mechos Megrod gave Khofu a home, if he wanted one — where he wouldn't have to witness the flesh-strewn wither and die, but instead be surrounded by the crystalline matrices of his own fellow socialoid kind.
But there are more. To construct the Mechosian society, Karu-Nisi chose six crucial socialoids, the Silastra Maheri, to lead the six Mechosian "types" to which all Mechosians are assigned, as well as watch over the six regions the city would ultimately be divided into:
Silastra Bohdoh, of the Boh-Mechosians, who function as cleaners and custodians of Mechos Megrod, and call the Closets of Bohdoh their home in Boh-Nisi.
Silastra Akantai, of the Ak-Mechosians, who keep the knowledge and lore not just of their own socialoid history but of the Chasm of Stars as a whole, sequestered as they are in the Libraries of Akantai in Ak-Nisi.
Silastra Nihua, of the Ni-Mechosians, who work in the Nihua Power Cores at the heart of the city, and keep the mechanical engines and drives of the city alive from Ni-Nisi.
Silastra Mataku, of the Mat-Mechosians, who build, rebuild, and maintain all a socialoid might see in Mechos Megrod, and are all members of the mobile Mataku Building Society, headquartered in Mat-Nisi.
Silastra Ivahai, of the Iva-Mechosians, who watch the stars for visions of the future, and visit with fellow socialoids at the Parlors of the Future in Iva-Nisi to fortune-tell as they wish.
Silastra Kanoha, of the Ka-Mechosians, who craft and forge the dermorium armor each Mechosian wears, working all day in the Kanoha Armorwells in Ka-Nisi.
These six, the Silastra Maheri, are one of the more obvious areas of Bionicle influence, as they're actually a direct inclusion/adaptation of the six Great Beings from my aforementioned themed AU. In fact, using my experience from crafting the Mechosians, I can probably translate them back into a more-functional, "official" Bionicle AU and explore that side of them just as well; but in any case, I do have some concern over their inclusion into Mechosian lore, as the names were directly taken from either Bionicle stuff proper, or, in the case of Akantai and Ivahai (and, I think, Nihua), @outofgloom's Matoric Language work because they were supposed to represent specific Great Beings who, in this AU, were responsible for specific aspects of the Great Spirit Robot:
Bohdoh created the Bohrok and was associated with the Onu-Matoran of Metru-Nui.
Ivahai was a seer who foresaw the Great Cataclysm and called for various failsafes such as the Bohrok to be created (becoming associated with the Ko-Matoran and the Knowledge Towers of Ko-Metru along the way).
Mataku was the designer of the Great Spirit Robot and creator of the Matoran overall, in turn giving his name to the idea of the Great Spirit Mata Nui and becoming patron of the Po‐Matoran and the carvers of Po-Metru.
Nihua was the creator of the Red Star, where Matoran are created and which once served as a power source for the Great Spirit Robot in this AU until it's torn out during the Great Cataclysm; as an engineer, Nihua became patron of the engineers of Le-Metru and the Le-Matoran overall.
Akantai, the keeper of history and knowledge. As with the Mechosian version, this Great Being original concept was the first known chronicler, who wrote down Ivahai's prophecies, recorded the designs of his fellow Great Beings, and became patron of the teachers of Ga-Metru and the Ga-Matoran overall.
Kanoha, creator of the Kanohi masks worn by Mataku's Matoran, as well as the kanoka discs thrown in Metru-Nui. As such, Kanoha became the patron of the Ta-Matoran forgers of Ta-Metru, like Vakama would one day become.
I never quite figured out what to do with them in this AU, and I ended up with about three different fan-universes for my various Bionicle lore and storylines over time, so I'll admit they're a bit of an awkward inclusion. Especially in the cases of Kanoha and Bohdoh, whose names are so directly drawn from preexisting Bionicle lore from Lego themselves (the Bohrok and the Kanohi/kanoka discs) that they basically make no sense at all when separated from their origins this much.
So, I might change them for Mechosians. I might not. They're minor players in the main Mechosian storylines anyway, but crucial for establishing the divisions and purposes of Mechosian society in general. Also, if @outofgloom turns out not to be comfortable with me co-opting some of their Matoric words for a project that isn't even Bionicle-related anymore, it's probably best to change them than leave them as they are; I haven't asked, as this is the first time I'm posting about this lore outside of my original fan-blog where I made a few posts regarding the AU several years ago, quite a different theme over there than here...
In any case, individual Mechosian stories are fun to plot out. I have a Bionicle OC named Toa Sozonis from one fic meant to explore the idea, whom I've adapted as a Braxanite socialoid who gets destroyed by a Braxanite human named Arzel Toron (who then impersonates Sozonis as a "fake Sozonis"); Sozonis is then "reborn" in Mechos Megrod, as the lattice-keepers known as Kesran are able to pull the residual consciousnesses of fallen socialoids from throughout the Chasm of Stars to Mechos Megrod and "resurrect" them there in brand new bodies spawned for the purpose of rendering them new members of the Mechosian society.
And there's Tumohl and Hepni, as I mentioned. Tumohl is a Mechosian of Knowledge who discovers Hepni was resurrected from an Olmopran socialoid, which is strange because it was believed that Khofu was the only known Olmopran socialoid, and so Tumohl goes on a semi-illicit quest to figure out what the heck is actually going on and what happened to Hepni before her resurrection in Mechos Megrod.
I've already included a set of Bionicle MOCs I made once upon a time, for a currently-unproduced story called The Ghosts Of Desolation, into Pick-n-Mix Comix lore in the earliest webserial I started working on, Escape To Prolune, where they're known as the Desolators and consist of the animal-themed "protocoids" Vespulis, Azurea, Tamulon, Varanus, Sarctis, and Atraxis the Acromanther (but I need to adjust the narrative and retcon the lore from that one, in order to explain the current idea that naturally-spawning socialoids often take themes from the environment they spawn in, which wasn't even close to being an idea when I started working on Escape To Prolune earlier this year).
I think this all has a lot of potential, and still needs a lot of work, but info-dumping helps and pleases me greatly! Even if this wasn't completely Bionicle-related, I'm happy to post about something Bionicle inspired me to make, and reference some of my once-intended Bionicle projects (Adventures Of Toa Sozonis and Ghosts Of Desolation, respectively) along the way.
Check out my AO3 page for Pick-n-Mix Comix, maybe follow some of my story cycle blogs like @braxaniterising or @grimshawcycle if you want (or my original Bionicle fan-blog @inthetimebeforetime), and leave a like or comment if you wanna learn more, if you like piña coladas, or if you wanna pal around in the universe/liked the lore you learned.
Especially if you were able to get through this massive, massive essay about the whole thing. 😆
In theory, this is three potential designs for our first set of Mechosian stars, for "Hepni's Awakening" — two Knowledge-Workers and an Armorforger.
Hepni, our star; her friend, Tumohl, the deuteragonist; and Pireke, a troubled Armorforger who gets involved with Hepni because of reasons.
Their descriptions in the narrative may differ a bit, but it's just one version of an idea for these. I'm sure others might have different ideas for what's best here.
I thought it would be fun to go into some of the episode outlines/issue descriptions I have so far for my Bionicle-inspired "lit-com" (literary comix) series, which I've taken to calling Mechosian Tales. Check my #mechosians tag for more on the idea; they're crystal-based members of a race called socialoids, who live in the Chasm of Stars and the Other Realms within the Pick-n-Mix Comix universe, and have recently been seeing themselves "resurrected" as members of a culture called Mechosians, in the constructed asteroid-city Mechos Megrod.
Along the way, there's Mechosian drama, appearances from other Pick-n-Mix characters and races from other sections of the universe, and unwrapping the mysteries of the Mechosians' origins as a culture and the ultimate purpose for their existence and resurrections in the first place.
I have about 16 issues outlined, or at least initially self-pitched to myself, and almost 1000 words of the first issue — Mechosian Tales #1, which will contain a story called "Hepni's Awakening", synopsisified and outlined below — written, so I'm making good enough progress to consider this a go-ahead for myself, creatively speaking. When they'll actually be written is anyone's guess, but I'm definitely stimulated enough and intrigued enough by the ideas to wanna put more time toward it in the future.
Spoilers below if you wanna totally avoid all details from the stories if they come out, or for when they come out, but if you wanna know what this show is all about, do read below and ahead under the cut.
Warning: These are all between T and M on AO3 where they'll be published initially, so 18+ is probably a strong recommendation here. There's nothing especially explicit or NSFW, but it's very personal, dark, horrific fiction and references to assault, body damage, bad ends, and other twists of fate and cruelty abound here. Plus, cannibalism. Yay.
(I mean, that stuff was usually okay for Scholastic Bionicle and Animorphs novels somehow, so I guess it's really just in how you present it and who's reading it at the time.)
Mechosian Tales #1
"Hepni's Awakening"
A socialoid named Hepni wakes up in a new crystalline body in the city of Mechos Megrod. A fellow Mechosian of Knowledge, the Ak-Mechosian Tumohl, tells her she's a Mechosian now, and gets her equipped with armor from the Kanoha Armorwells, and ingratiates her into their industrial society, but her memories of her life before — a life as an independent socialoid in the desert world of Olmopra, as one of the only other Olmopran socialoids in known existence — cause trouble for herself, for her new friend Tumohl, and Tumohl's friend Pireke, who becomes caught in the middle of it all.
Mechosian Tales #2
"The Crystal Killer"
Kaulvyst is an Iva-Mechosian whose skill with the future made him capable for a job no Mechosian should ever have: "reclaiming" specific socialoids from throughout the Chasm of Stars so that they can be resurrected at Mechos Megrod.
Only one other he's met knows what his life is like: the Bevran bounty-hunter — and human organic — Detrona Lang.
Mechosian Tales #3
"Shells Of The Underworld"
Bellogian freighter pilot Nal Brodo makes regular shipments of dermorium precursor so that the Mechosians can craft their armor in peace. This time, however, he gets caught up in the illicit underworld of the casteless, "glitchy" Mechosians known as the Jeyu-Wherati: Cade, Desona, and Taanen, who pull him into a shady deal he never wanted to be any part of.
Mechosian Tales #4
"The Devil In The Details"
Eight-foot-tall Devolan woman Sayalin is trapped as a stowaway in the underground levels of Mechos Megrod, surviving for her life on whatever organic material she can find in the abandoned tunnels below. When the Mechosians' protocoid enforcerers, the Marbaki, raid her hideout, Sayalin and her reptilian Dreenok friend, Abhaban Min, must find a way to escape Mechos Megrod with their lives and consciousnesses intact.
Mechosian Tales #5
"Divers In The Dark"
The Divers of the Deep — an obscure hero team from the Kingdom of Inglenook — show up in Mechos Megrod and become wrapped up in the affairs of the Jeyu-Wherati. The Divers want to bring a Mechosian back to Inglenook and study its chemical makeup, as there is a disease dissolving the crystals of Inglenook's own, non-Mechosian socialoids; along the way, they're forced to help the Jeyu-Wherati plan a heist in exchange for one of their clan accompanying the Divers back to Inglenook to help the socialoids there where they can.
Mechosian Tales #6
"Under The Emerald Star"
Karu-Nisi tells the gathered Silastra Maheri — eight spiritual leaders who watch over the eight major districts of Mechos Megrod — of his origin story on the planet Sol Viridis IV, orbitting a green sun infected by the chloroplasm of an ancient comet.
Mechosian Tales #7
"God Or No God"
The Jeyu-Wherati move against Karu-Nisi's control over the mechanical enforcers known as Marbaki; however, ex-Jeyu member Dusyra seeks to use a sample of the crystal virus accidentally left behind by the Divers of the Deep during their trip from Inglenook to infect the Forebearer Karu-Nisi's crystal matrix and destroy him altogether.
The radical plan leaves the Jeyu-Wherati's central trinity — Cade, Desona, and Taanen — with the difficult choice of choosing their goals in the most extreme way possible, or the life and existence of Karu-Nisi, whom they see as an oppressor from whom they're desperately trying to be free.
Mechosian Tales #8
"Sojourner Of The Stars"
The angel Suraphel tells his story of how he found Karu-Nisi, lost in the stars after his exodus from Sol Viridis IV, and how the two of them founded Mechos Megrod and the Silastra Maheri together.
Mechosian Tales #9
"Kretarix & Azeska"
Kretarix and Azeska never fit into Mechosian society. That's not about to change when Kretarix is elected the Kural of the Marbaki as Karu-Nisi must take a step back from the role, leaving his friend Azeska to turn to her friend Duhyamo for help and companionship during a rough time in her life.
Mechosian Tales #10
"Kaulvyst, Of The Flame"
Kaulvyst replaces his armor with the chloroplasmic upgrades of the Emerald Flame, on-loan from Karu-Nisi, seeking to make up for his life as a hunter. However, when he loses control over the sickly green new abilities, the galactic emergency service force known as the Stellar Meridian — powered by chloroplasm's rival force, the light-based astroplasm — steps in and haul Kaulvyst into their custody, causing controversy and conflict between the Galactic Prospect and the people of Mechos Megrod.
Mechosian Tales #11
"Kakouma The Sojourner"
Kakouma is an Urgoi Sojourner, escaping the persecution against his people by the Dragoreans, Devolans, Ectotherians, Protocosms, and more. When Kakouma stumbles upon evidence of an ancient socialoid burial site belonging to the Bonsar people, he realizes they might be progenitors of modern cultures like the Mechosians and the Deseeri, and relates his story to a Byrennian named Palamistos, who sells Kakouma out to the Realm of Sin for the sake of additional resources for his monastery on a moon called Pelgo.
All this right as the ancient Bonsar called Dohar Lauki rises, a lich-like crystal from the now-disturbed burial site, to seek vengeance and create a new world of Bonsar dominance in the Chasm...
Mechosian Tales #12
"The Tribes Of Goloka"
A Mechosian researcher named Rorega goes to the island of Goloka, where there's a faction of socialoids who might be interested in joining the Mechosians in their facility. However, the Golokans hide a nasty secret about the consumption of other socialoids, and although some in the tribe seek to change that, Rorega becomes caught in their trap and seeks escape from an alien race made from the very same crystals as his own body and that of everyone else he grew up around in Mechos Megrod.
Mechosian Tales #13
"The Armor"
After a symbiotic member of an alien race known as the Clemnon arrives at Mechos Megrod, Kanoha Armorforger Bommarach accidentally forges the symbiotic lifeform into a suit of armor which begins to seduce Bommarach and infect his own life, consciousness, and crystal matrix in whatever way it can.
Mechosian Tales #14
"The Truth"
Ardoh, a member of the Jeyu-Wherati, discovers clues suggesting that the Silastra Maheri — Akantai, Bohdoh, Ivahai, Kanoha, Matatu, and Nihua, plus the twin enforcers, the Kesran and the Paianat — were actually the ones to provide Karu-Nisi with the plans and inspiration for Mechos Megrod, rather than the other way around, and did so for the sole purpose of seizing control over all socialoid life in the universe through their use of the resurrections at the Consciousness Reclamations Facility, as well as hunters like Kaulvyst and the heretofore-unseen warrior Galtak.
Horrified, Ardoh seeks to transfer the information to his friends in the Jeyu-Wherati, but is caught by the Paianat — guardian of the Underground Warehouse — and destroyed before he can ever make headway with his plans.
Mechosian Tales #15
"The Mechosian Of Morishima"
A socialoid named Sensoh wakes up in the Other Realm known as the Infinite Forest, where the Morishima Corporation employs its organic people from birth and Morishima's neighbor, the People's Republic of Tamarac, seems obsessed with neverending construction projects. The only socialoid there, Sensoh is regardless accepted as a paid employee of the Morishima Corporation and put to work as a terminal technician in Tamarac.
One day, while resolving a technical issue on a job-site there, Sensoh puts other skills to work resolving a conflict between the elven tribe called the Orkad and the human Tamaracker workers on-site — in the process, meeting with Inglish Royal Protectors Merit Man, Dr Connector, and Mother Mancer — and earning himself a potential commission as a Royal Protector in the Kingdom, should he ever desire to accept it.
Mechosian Tales #16
"Horror & Future"
Kanoha Armorforger Uedja is tricked by Kaipa's Girls — the Ivahai Oracles Gula, Gura, and Amuma — into a horrifying experience with a Ralakane, a bear-like feraloid which haunts the worlds they grow on. Uedja's friend Quiryen comforts her in the aftermath and seeks vengeance on Kaipa's Girls, but is caught by the Marbaki and exiled by the Silastra Maheri as a result.
Following this, the Jeyu-Wherati recruit Quiryen and set their sights on his friend Uedja too, only for the Silastra Maheri to start manipulating Uedja toward a personal cause of their own: as a potential replacement for the spirit of Karu-Nisi, worked into every operational corner and cranny of Mechos Megrod, should the Silastra Maheri ever desire to make him depart from Mechos Megrod and seek a replacement for whatever reason they might want that...
