#but kopaka just has that special something

[maspers]

Bionicle is weird yall

Okay so let's talk Bionicle. The Lego action figures with surprisingly deep lore and themes, and basically one of the coolest things to ever exist. You either love Bionicle or have not read Bionicle.

Who's your favorite? Mine has got to be Kopaka. For various reasons, including his general competence throughout the whole story. He's just pretty rad.

Now, you might be surprised I like Kopaka, since all things considered he's kind of a prick. He snarks at basically everything that enters his line of sight, and largely acts kind of stuck up due to his (admittedly justified) belief that he's the smartest person around. He spends the entire story fed up with everything else. He is completely and utterly convinced that he is the only sane person in the entire universe, and that nothing in the entirety of Mata Nui is behaving in a logical and rational way.

But see, here's the thing: all of that bluster about being the only rational thing around is complete bullcrap and lies, and here's why:

Kopaka, like all the original six Toa, is an amnesiac. He popped out of a magic canister in the ground and basically has no backstory to speak of since before he woke up he essentially didn't exist. And we know he's not a possible exception to this since, unlike the other Toa, he's the one we actually see it happen to. He has legit no idea who he is until Nuju tells him. What this means is simple: KOPAKA HAS NO FRAME OF REFERENCE. You can't judge something to be insane if you have not experienced sanity. Nothing is "irrational" in the abstract, you need context. Most people have extremely well-developed context obtained by living, but since Kopaka had not yet lived until he woke up he has NONE OF THAT.

And even if he did, he'd still be a massive hypocrite. Sure, the Matoran society and the Makuta are kind of weird, but Kopaka is a TOA, and Toa are a whole new kettle of craziness. Kopaka is a magic space warrior robot with the power to control the very concept of THIS STUFF IS COLD. His face is a magic mask that grants him X-ray vision and then gets even more powers later on. He can physically combine with other Toa to create a weird mega fusion Toa. Heck, after his first upgrade his primary weapon was skis. SKIS. He basically shapeshifts into a new body every time he goes somewhere else. And, as noted before, he legit just popped out of the ground one day, which makes him and his sibling Toa objectively weirder than all other Toa ever, since all the rest are transformed Matoran. Kopaka's entire existence is really freaking weird. He has no legs to stand on in his "I am the only rational being in the universe" belief. So where the heck did he get it from?

The simple answer: Mata Nui himself. When designing the Toa to act as a sort of internal anti-virus for all the weird garbage in his system, Mata Nui decided "You know what let's make the Ice one a prick who thinks he's sane" and somehow that idea perpetuated to the very end of the design process. The only reason Kopaka has to deal with everything else seeming completely bonkers to him is because Mata Nui, massive benevolent Troll that he is, *made him that way*. I bet when Kopaka finally made it to Bara Magna he was probably internally extremely relieved, because now he could judge the Agori by comparing them to the Matoran and vice versa instead of judging the Matoran on no actual justification whatsoever.

TLDR Kopaka is my favorite Bionicle because the entire premise of his personality is absurd and he probably spent the entire plot trying to internally justify it. Also ice powers go brrrrr

[tiredspacedragon]

BIONICLE Retrospective

2002: The Bohrok Swarms

Part 1.2: To Trap a Tahnok

The biggest problem with 2002 as a story year is that it is extremely repetitive. There's a fair amount of media to cover, but a great deal of it is going to be an utter slog to get through, because it's just telling the exact same story as everything else. So when something like this comic comes along, with its own unique story, it is a breath of fresh air.

I really like this comic. Which surprised me, because I didn't really pay much mind to it before. I knew I liked it well enough, but I didn't realize just how much I liked it until rereading it just now. The plainly stated time skip right at the start already makes me quite happy, and it just keeps going up from there.

Plotwise, it is admittedly nothing special. Gali and Pohatu execute a plan to trap a group of Tahnok (notably more than a single squad of 8, which is disappointingly inconsistent) and take their Krana, and that's pretty much it. Well, at least the title is accurate.

But I'm not really expecting any great showing in the plot department from a single comic, that's more something to be spread out across multiple issues. What I do expect to see, and where this comic shines, is in its character work. We get a couple snippets from the Bohrok's perspective, showing their nature as nigh-unstoppable drones, and even a small section from the Bahrag, giving us our first hint that there is a greater will behind the swarms.

The Toa have a good showing too, giving us more of that delightful teamwork that I love love love to see. I hadn't really noticed before, but all of the Toa put in an appearance in this issue, however brief. Gali and Pohatu are the main focus, an unusual duo that we rarely get to see working together, so points for that. Onua shows up for the one panel above, only mentioned in passing, but confirming his involvement with the plan and further showing how skilled the Toa have become in coordinating their efforts, which is cemented by Kopaka also being involved, and his later appearance when he relays his findings on the nature of the Krana to Tahu.

Speaking of Tahu, while he is not really the focus of this issue, I find him to be the most fascinating part of it. He's living up to his 2001 characterization, now taken a step further. He's once again giving a rousing speech, but to the Ta-Matoran this time, in which he declares them as mighty as any Toa because of the strength and courage in their hearts, which is just...yeeeeessss. Original-characterization Tahu continues to rule. Rousing speeches over temper tantrums any day, and it's clear he's come to value the Matoran more since his days of overlooking them to the point of mild disdain (though that was something that was added retroactively by Tale of the Toa, so ehhh...) Plus it's nice to see him and Kopaka getting along. Kopaka even calls him "my friend," and that's just warm and good and I love it.

Moving on, Tahu is also on the cover, having seemingly been cornered by a squad of Tahnok and having his mask replaced by a Krana Xa. This scene is never described in any canon material, but it is referred to briefly in 2003, making its depiction here, and in various commercials, and the panel below showing a Lehvak Va carrying Tahu's Hau officially canon, to some degree anyway. I do wish we had actually gotten to see this event in detail, but I appreciate that even though we never did, we do at least know that it happened.

On a side note, going forward, the Krana Xa will appear on quite a few Matoran faces, which has always bothered the heck out of me, because the lore suggests that each Bohrok Swarm has only one Xa as the swarm commander, so logically, that commander should only eject its Krana as either a last resort, or to take control of an obstacle it deems a more suitable commander for the swarm. Unlike pretty much every other instance we see of an ejected Xa, this one actually makes sense. Toa Tahu, Master of Fire, would of course make a far better swarm commander for the Tahnok than any Bohrok, so it's clear to see why they'd try to stick a Xa on his face. Certainly far more than the two Lehvak Xa we will later see on Le-Matoran...

On the topic of Lehvak Krana, though, this issue of course ends with our first look a Krana'd Lewa. Nothing happens with him in this issue, but this is part of why the little nod to time passing is so important. We don't know how long Lewa was in that Rama hive wearing his Infected Kanohi, but given his brief moment of clarity, the fact that he'd already finished collecting all his Kanohi by that point, and that the event didn't seem to leave any lasting effects on him, I think it's pretty safe to assume it wasn't that long. Here, though, we can definitively say that Lewa has been wearing this Krana for at least a week. No wonder the scars it leaves will run so much deeper.

I don't know if I'll be able to keep blasting through these, so further updates to the retrospective may be more spaced out, but it feels good to get back to it. I had let it sit for too long, and even just doing a little feels good. Can't have anyone thinking I'm just blowing hot air when I talk about continuing it. But yeah, don't expect them to come rapid fire.

Although I've already done two comics in one day, so who the heck knows. Just don't expect consistency, let's go with that :P

Next up: Into the Nest

[whiteheartlight]

Wrote a bit of an intro for my au where the Toa Mata are made into Toa Hagah for different Makuta. don't know if I'll go anywhere with it but figured I'd type it up. Krika-centric. enjoy

.

In the time before time...

That's how Matoran start their stories, right?

Gathered friends, listen again. In the time before time...

What? What was there? A Great Spirit? A Toa?

All their stories sound the same, in his opinion. Toa-heroes and Matoran-heroes and the Great Spirit watching, benevolent, over all of it.

Those are not how his stories go. In the time before time... he wonders when the Great Spirit stopped watching. It must have been recently, he supposes, but then again he thinks this bitterness has been festering in Teridax's heart for a long time.

The stories, after all, are not about Makuta. The stories are about Toa. Or at least the ones that Matoran tell.

Then again, who really gives a fuck?

(All of them do. That's the big secret. Krika, for all he speaks of unknowable destinies, is pretty sure that this could all have been avoided if Teridax was a little bit less glory-hungry. But ah, well. What does he know?)

“He won't really try anything,” he tells Antroz, on a day where they are out on the sea, and the ship rocks beneath their steady feet, and they know each other as brothers. “He wouldn't really challenge Miserix or whisper about plots against the Great Spirit. He's all talk.”

Antroz just looks at him. His eyes are deeply crimson. Fire is life and destruction. He shrugs.

“I think he will, Krika,” Antroz answers. “I think he will, in fact, try something.”

That is all it takes. Hearing it from Antroz's mouth, Krika knows it to be true.

“Well,” he says. “I guess we start finding our place in the new order.”

Antroz snorts.

“What?” says Krika.

“By the Spirits,” says Antroz, with a voice that says he is well aware of his own irony. “I tell you a coup is coming and your first instinct is to start re-assessing your political standing?”

“Well, are you going to do anything about it?” Krika returns, standing straighter, turning his whole body towards him.

Antroz says nothing. He is devouring a pear. It turns grey beneath his claws. He drops it overboard and watches it fall into the water and disappear from view.

“Yes, a new order is coming,” says Krika, turning back to the horizon. “But both Teridax and Miserix are foes with whom I have no desire to be involved. I'll keep my mouth shut, and if you're wise, you'll do the same. All I want is to be left on my island to build my Rahi in piece. I do not wish to be either a pawn to Teridax or protective fodder for Miserix's already over-developed sense of power. Let them fight things out on their own. We will still be standing, my brother, as we always have been.”

Antroz squints out at the sun. “And if it doesn't end up like that?”

“How else could it end up?”

Antroz shrugs again.

“I just think,” he says, “that someday – well. Someday we might be called upon to fight battles we would not otherwise have fought. And on that day, Krika, I wonder if you won't wish you had chosen a side you believed in.”

Krika gazes at him. Antroz look out at the sky. The birds are circling overhead.

“You're so full of shit,” says Krika abruptly, and it makes Antroz laugh.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” He rolls his eyes and turns around to pick up another pear, digging his claws into the ripe body of the fruit and letting the juice run out. “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

“Hey, what's this about Teridax finding those Toa Mata that are meant to guard the Spirit?” adds Antroz, almost thoughtlessly.

“Don't know,” answers Krika, shrugging his shoulders. “Apparently they're waiting for the day he needs them. But you know Teridax. Probably has his own plans.”

“Yeah,” laughs Antroz. “Yeah, probably does. Oh, look, Tarakava! They're new in this part of the world – that's how you know they're a hardy species, migrating to new places...”

Those short sentences are all they speak of the Toa Mata at that time and, what's more, all they bother to think of them. They don't much care. They were not, then, enemies of the Great Spirit. And Kopaka, Tahu, Gali, Lewa, Onua, and Pohatu – the names meant nothing to them.

But they would.

That's how the stories go, right? That's what they're about. Toa.

Krika will watch it happen. He does not intend, at the time, to be a part of the story.

The rope of his destiny, however, is already closing around his white throat.

--------------

Krika hears the news of Miserix's death two weeks later. He knows then that he was wrong. Teridax was not all bark and no bite. Teridax bit.

Krika says nothing. Miserix is not the only Makuta who dies that week. He suspects that the ones who join him are the ones who asked too loudly: “Who did this?”

He knows. They all know.

But these are days of survival for the Makuta, and Krika is a survivor, so he keeps his goddamn mouth shut, and rises quietly through the ranks of Teridax's Brotherhood.

And when the calls for better protection come, Teridax offers one solution to his five closest allies, and suddenly those names - Tahu, Gali, Onua, Lewa, Pohatu, and Kopaka - mean something.

----------------

“I don't want one,” says Krika, and, at the time, he expects that to be the end of the matter.

Antroz looks up at him. His eyes are irritated. Krika crosses his arms over his chest and looks right back.

“Krika,” Antroz begins.

“It's stupid,” says Krika. “What the hell do I need a single Toa for? Maybe it made sense when Miserix and Teridax took teams. At least they might be able to actually take out a couple threats to them - not that Miserix's little team did him any good in the end. But one lone Toa? It's not going to be able to protect me from anything I can't already protect myself from.”

“Krika, I'm quite busy here,” says Antroz, turning back to his latest creation. “Can't you just do what you're told for once? You should be pleased. My pair is already entertaining. They spar all day and the red one yells every time he speaks.”

“I don't want one,” repeats Krika, feeling the small, feathery protrusions on the back of his spine raise with irritation. “I don't need one. It's asinine. I'm going home to my work and I wish to be left alone.”

Antroz looks up at him again. In these days, he is a sight to behold. Clean red colors with sweeping black lines, his mask painted with soft, noble markings, his body strong and tall and sure of itself.

Back in these days, they have nothing to fear. The present is thousands of years away. Today, they are young, and the Swamp has not changed them. And hatred and cruelty and despair – well. These are things that have only begun to change them.

Antroz turns back to his Rahi, stroking its stomach as he takes a sample from its side. “Krika, let's not pretend to be fools. Not you and I. We both know that this is not about protection. They are status symbols. You are rising in the ranks of the Makuta, my brother. Now that you have inherited your new country, you are almost as powerful and respected as I. And so, while Miserix and Teridax take six each for themselves, I take two, and you, like some of our other siblings – ”

“Fools the lot of them,” snarls Krika.

“Take one,” says Antroz coolly. “Take one like you were told. Because with each Toa we make into a Hagah, the more the Matoran come to see us as greater than the Toa. We are becoming, Krika, the most powerful species in creation. And these Toa are special. That is why Teridax had them dug from the ocean. Take one. Just the one. Command a legend and watch as the Matoran transfer their love for the Toa to their love for you.”

“I don't care,” says Krika, “about the love of the goddamn Matoran.”

“Then you are not playing the game right today, brother,” answers Antroz quietly, tinkering with his Rahi, his eyes already distracted by his passion for his creation. “That's not like you. Don't be foolish. Go. I've had enough of you... and I am technically in charge of you, aren't I, Krika?”

He digs his claws into the wall for a second, aching to say more. Aching to protest. He doesn't take orders from anyone but Miserix himself. Or Teridax now, he supposes.

But Antroz is right.

Krika is someone who is learning how to play these games right.

So he does what he always does: he takes what comes at him and he lies in wait.

Just for now. Just for now. He lies in wait.

“Fine,” he says, stalking out of the room. “But I don't want one. I'm not going to be nice to it.”

“Noted,” answers Antroz, already forgetting what they were talking about as he loses himself in his experimentation and building. Ah, he is a creature of passion in these days, and he does not know the taste of real fear.

Krika wanders into the other room, where silver canisters await him in silence, still as dead things.

He brushes condensation from the surface of the one closest at hand. The sleeping face of a Toa Mata looks back at him.

No, check that.

Not a Toa Mata. Not now. Not anymore.

“Looks like you and I are stuck with each other,” murmurs Krika, releasing the lid of the tomb where this Toa has slept for thousands of years, disturbed only by Teridax's command. “Wake up, then, Toa Hagah.”

And Mata Kopaka opens his eyes.

[theirlesserchronicles]

Testimony from the Battle of Le-Koro

I’ve been watching my latest visitor for an hour now. He’s a Toa of Air and he wears a Miru; he’s not Lewa, though, this turns out to just be a coincidence. He hasn’t told me his name, but he has told me he was a veteran of the Toa-Dark Hunter War, and a survivor of a raid into Vortixx from a few centuries ago. He was stationed there, though he still won’t tell me what secret mission he had there. Maybe he’ll never tell me. And he lost his left arm in the Battle of Le-Koro, which is not that great a loss compared to the hundreds of fighters who lost their lives that day, going up against the Rahkshi unleashed upon them.

Finally, he turns to me to speak, and I begin jotting down what he says now which I shall immortalize later.

I was part of the wave that served as support for Toa Takanuva. The plan we had been told to follow centered around how we’d first be sending a wave of Matoran in Boxors since they’d be targets more than anything. They wouldn’t be in danger, though; the next step of the battle strategy was for those Matoran to use a special switch installed under the seat of their Boxors so they would be launched up into the air and out of danger as the army of Rahkshi inevitably got caught up in attacking the now-empty metallic carcasses. But he who controlled the troops of Rahkshi, the dreaded Makuta, he showed just how much of a worthy opponent and strategist he was. We felt a gust of wind fly across the battlefield, and the switches under the Boxor seats became oxidized. The Matoran who tried to flip them open couldn’t, and they remained imprisoned in the cockpit as they were killed. At least it was quick, the Rahkshi used disintegration powers.

The trick in our battle plan, then, worked against us, ironically. We couldn’t see through  the onslaught of air, so we assumed the plan had worked and that the Matoran had been launched to safety, and so we pushed ahead with all of our might. This second wave consisted of about twenty of us Toa led by Toa Takanuva, a dozen tamed Rahi natural to the fauna of Mata Nui proper, and shoulder-mounted disk launchers that our good marksmen Matoran carried.

And you never noticed, in all honesty, that there was something odd about the Boxor plan?

No. As far as we could tell, the plan worked. Our orders were to wait a few seconds until we heard the chorus of switches clicking and then that we should launch into the action. I can’t speak for the other ones, but I assumed that the pilots had been launched into the air and were able to find places to land. We didn’t hear any screams, any warnings. It makes me think Makuta might have redirected the air in order to change the acoustics of the field. Maybe something was being kept from us, is something I always thought during those battles; the Makuta and his minions could read and control minds, so who was to stop them from using our own fighters and strategies against us? You could take off our masks, now we had other treasures in our minds.

We pushed ahead. We didn’t look back. This is how we had been trained as Toa at the outset of the Great Darkness, and this is how we had later trained the various Matoran who joined our ranks. You might follow the code of Kopaka, but our strategies called for swift action, not based on thought, but on disorienting our enemies. And we were incredibly effective at this, since those few seconds in which Makuta’s orders were sent to the minds of his minions were the perfect moments to strike. So no, I never would have been able to tell.

The Rahkshi blazed past the Boxor graveyard pretty quickly, and half the Toa were tackled to the ground. Red eyes lit impossibly bright and half of my comrades vanished. Now I heard the screams of fear, but they were coming from in front of me and behind me, and I realized, almost calmly, that we were about to be massacred. As a Toa, you prepare to die. I’ve joked that this is one of the later parts of our training, that our destiny includes this big asterisk that reminds us that we didn’t have the choice to be in a line of work with a high mortality rate.

So what went wrong?

I learned what my priorities were.

Here the Toa again paused. I let him stay like this, knowing that in those silences the speaker most feels the need to burst open with what they want to say. It wasn’t an hour this time, but he took the better part of fifteen minutes to resume his telling of the battle.

Toa Takanuva is a hero. His tales are told everywhere, and I could see he showed heroism in every battle. He would give up everything, even for the most insignificant of creatures. And he almost did that during the battle. A Toa of Water’s concentrated attack knocked down a Po-Matoran and a Rahkshi, and the Rahkhshi got up faster than the Matoran. And I saw, as did Toa Takanuva, the creature preparing to fire its lazer at the unfortunate victim. I knew what was going to happen because heroes will always act the same way. Toa Takanuva leapt to where the Matoran was. He was spreading himself wide, making himself, and not the Matoran, the target. But Toa Takanuva, on purely tactical terms, was infinitely more important to us all. So I beat him there. I pushed Toa Takanuva to the side, out of harm’s way. The beam struck the Matoran. And because I hadn’t been fast enough, also my arm.

I can see your face. I know you told me you’d remain impartial and non-judgmental, but it’s fine if you’re judging me. I know I was a coward. Many Toa are. It’s why so many of you all seem to be taken aback when a Toa turns evil or turns a failure, because even we’re conditioned to never entertain the notion that we also have our own failings. But we do. I do. So I saved Toa Takanuva and lost an arm, and a soldier, in the process. Judge me.

He was quiet again, and finally accepted the food I offered him. He spoke a bit more of some other fights, of his experience using elemental abilities, and then he set off. I can’t remember if he thanked me. But as I expected, when I asked him where he was going, he would not tell me. Maybe he never could.

[kopakaskoolkompanion]

In defense of the "Inika Build"

And the "Piraka Build," under the cut

OkayactuallyIDKhowtodothatonmobileorevenifIcanohwell

How the Inika were different:

The build was new

Jaller and Matoro were trans (take that as you will)

Hahli and Kongu had marbling

2Chainz was BLO & PDG/"Gun"

Nuparu had claws and a shouldercanon

How the Barraki were different:

Carapar's the only one who uses the Inika Build

How the Mahri were different:

Matoro was a hunchback

No one else had Kongu's torso

Uhh Nuparu had... weird legs?

Jaller had crabs

How the Makuta were different:

Antroz... wasn't really unique

Chirox had triple arms

Vamprah didn't even have legs

Mutran is not special

Krika's on stilts

Gorast... um.. is just unique-lookkng, but the build kinda sucks

Bitil's... yellow?

How the Nuva were different:

Kopaka has wings

Lewa has jets

Oh, I guess someone else does have Kongu's torso

Gali... silver? Waffle? Idk.

Onua............. ummmmmm......

Ignika? Well he... has Ignika?

How the Glatorian were different:

Gresh is nothing special

Malum is just Carapar

Strakk's bent

Skrall's also bent

Vorox is just backwards Matoro

Tarixxxxxxxxxxx.......... I got nothing.

Kiina's definitely got something going

Mata Nui is nothing special, I'll be honest

Ackar? You mean Toa Inika Ackar?

Vastus is a snake

Stronius is just Malum

Gelu is just weird. Why are his limbs med. blue?

How the Piraka are different:

The build was new

They're not, they're honestly clones. Let's move on.

Yes, that includes Vezon.

How the Barraki were different:

Kalmah's the only one who uses the Piraka Build

How the Mahri are different:

Hahli has... wings? Fins? Personal flotation devices?

How Lesovikk's different:

He has armour I guess

How the Mahri are different

Hewkii's the only one who uses it

How the Nuva are different:

Tahu has rockets

How the Glatorian are different:

Literally no one uses the Piraka build. How odd.

Well, that should be it. Did I miss any? Let me know!