So, a question as I construct my Alt-Canon is: do I keep the Matoran Rebuild? You know, the in-canon reason to explain the different appearances of the Matoran from the MNOG era and the MoL era. The rebuild is actually more important than I give it credit for: it establishes some important precedents about the Matoran’s abilities to be modified, which is obviously relevant come Karzahni and Voya Nui. Perhaps the more entertaining consequence is that it establishes Vakama (and the other Turaga? It seems to be a Vakama thing, but… is it?) as a better Matoran-modder than Artahka’s brother! It does seem a bit implausible, though, that, working with leftover Bohrok bits outside the infrastructure of the MU, this was as easy as it was.
In determining what to do with this, the first rule of my alt-canon needs to be remembered: make it possible to “play” with different sets of the same character at the same time: i.e. play with Tahu and Tahu Nuva together. The ripples of that decision are obviously either going to take me into ever-deeper nonsense or further from the Official Canon—or both.
But do I actually want to have two Jallers (a Jala and a Jaller) kicking around? I haven’t actually decided yet, which is why I think there’s a couple instances in my ficlets so far of being inconsistent with the spellings, but I’m kind of coming around to the opinion that it’s not a big deal. Here are the characters that actually get two appearances:
Kongu, Onepu, and Nuparu only appear as McToran, while Takua, Hafu, Hahli, and Kopeke only appear as MoLtoran. The four who duplicate do not do so in an significant manner: i.e. no changed masks, no changed colours—just the pieces used and thus the corresponding scale. And if you think of the “all Toa are actually about the same size” rule, then you can think of McToran as the Mata-scaled version and the MoLtoran as the Inika-scaled. And the distinction isn’t so severe that you can’t play with them all together. Indeed, I like the idea of some bodily diversity among the Matoran community—sure, they’re all built, but they’re also modifiable, as this whole topic demonstrates, and they’ve had centuries, even millennia, to undergo those modifications.
Sidebar: the funny thing about MoL to me is that although they made new sets to match the movie, the MoLtoran don’t actually look that much like the movie renderings of them!
One consequence of this is that I don’t have to keep any idea that the Matoran evacuated from Metru Nui are physically shrunken, which—good. That also only ever really made sense to me as a justification for changed toy design. That the Matoran lost their memories of Metru Nui is a core part of the story (well, a part you’d really have to change things to write around), but the physical change is so unimportant the movies don’t need it at all! And I’m fine with following their lead in this particular matter.
Mind you, the real reason for my ruling here is that I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if I’d had duplicate Jallers in 2003 or so, that one of them would have quickly become “some other Ta-Matoran.” I’m not sure which would have been de-Jallered, though it seems a safe bet to say I’d have kept him as the McToran build, which is cuter and even then held greater nostalgia for me. (It’s also more amusing to have the super-serious and competent Captain of the Guard be the smallest build possible.) Of course, strictly going off sets, Takua now becomes the big (clumsy?) best bud of tiny-Jaller, but that has its own humour. It’s also the case that if I got two Mc-Jallers, that one would likely lose his mask and turn into a Mc-Takua.
None of this ever happened with the Toa, though: the Mata and the Nuva, the Inika and the Mahri—even the Metru/Turaga/Hordika got to interact with themselves, because they were all excitingly different. McToran to MoLtoran, however: not that different.
