~::The OFFICIAL Poliwager Chatterbox V.3::~

[NovariusHaze]

In a time before time,
Bionicle was first released in 2001. Before Bionicle there was series such as Roboriders and Throwbots. Basic series tho some of it was recycled into Bionicle. I think Roboriders and Throwbots fell in the same universe, since they look the same except Roboriders were robotic vehicles and Throwbots where robots with disks. They had different environments like Lava, Water, Ice, Electricity, City, and Rock.
The planet was, I’d assumed, artificially separated into these biomes, in a beach ball like pattern.
The biomes and discs were recycled for Bionicles. Bionicle executed the idea way better. They simply lived on an island with different natural biomes, instead of the crazy planet thing throwbots did. Bionicles invented the concept of Power Masks. Each mask had its own power. It was pretty cool and the masks had great designs. They looked both tribal and robotic inspired. They were simplistic, compared to future mask designs, which I felt was better.
The masks allowed the products to have a collectable aspect to them. You get one mask per character but you can get more by buying variety packs (unfortunately as a kid I didn’t collect masks as I only cared about the characters) there was 6 masks for each Toa, and each Toa was represented by a different colour that matches their element, resulting in 36 different masks you could collect. On top of that there was silver and gold versions of the mask that can only be obtained by the variety packs resulting in 12 additional masks to collect. That’s not all. There were also Turaga with their own unique masks and colours, adding another 36 masks to collect. Lastly there was a rare mask, kanohi vahi, the great mask of time, that can be found in variety packs. Fun fact, kanohi vahi was actually the first mask designed by lego and was Tahu’s
Original mask before being swapped out with his more iconic mask. Other unique masks, mainly just colours you can’t get in other sets, were obtainable in Rahi sets. Rahi were the animal equivalent in Bionicle universe. All Bionicles had masks as it was also part of battling.
Bionicles were originally a Technic series. Technic focuses on more Technic builds hense the name. The pieces were designed for more mechanic sets with moving parts such as cranes and such. Because of this Bionicles started out with mechanical functions such as gears in the figure that when you turn on one, allowed the arm to swing. This combined with masks that can be hit and fall off, allowed people to battle with their Bionicles. It is kinda of cool tho I personally preferred poseability over a mechanical function as old Bionicles, especially Gen 1 Bionicles, has very little poseability. They couldn’t move their heads, knees or elbows. Hip joints and shoulder joints where awkwardly designed. Other than that they were great.
My favourite part of the Gen 1 Bionicles was that they were Organic robotic organisms that lived in primitive life style. Basically robots living in the Stone Age. The contrast was amazing and really resonated with the background of the sets. Also, despite being robots, they had magic, kind of. Basically they had fictional material that can be associated with magic but is kind of treated in a scientific way. Basically they have this stuff called protodermis which is the material all Bionicles are made of, instead of like carbon or something. Energized-Protodermis is like the magical equivalent that can transform or mutate anyone or anything that touches it, but it’s based on destiny or something. If you aren’t destined for anything, it just kills you. It’s kinda of weird. So yeah because of this material, it’s why solid metal masks can grant you power and why Toas can control an element. It’s way cooler than just robots with guns. Bionicles were actually more close combat based with only their elemental powers possibly granting them long range attacks. Like I said, even tho Bionicle has magical fictional material, they treat the world in a more scientific way more or less. One character is even an inventor that builds contraptions to help protect villages from enemies.
Bionicles do have a spiritual side tho. They worship a deity known as Mata Nui. Fun Fact, Toa’s were originally depicted as Gods in the Bionicle lore and Matoran (normal little villagers) feared and worship them or else they would kill them. This was changed thankfully so Toa’s wouldn’t be seen as selfish beings, only Noble Hero’s that serve to protect.
The big baddy was known as Makuta (Retconned later to be Teridax or The Makuta, which I thought was dumb). Makuta was a powerful being known to be the brother of Mata Nui. He was jealous of the worship Mata Nui received from the Matorans and cursed him to sleep forever. After, Makuta used his evil elemental of Shadow, to attack the Island of Mata Nui. He use his power to enslave Rahi, Summon the Bohrok, and attack with his sons that he craft from his own flesh, the Rahkahi.
Bohrok were cool beetle like creatures. Their body’s were mechanical but they had a brain. These brains were basically living masks known as Krana. There was 8 kinds I think and 6 different colours so yeah they did variety bags of these. Even then, the Bohrok you got had a random Krana. They were supposed to be one of many Bohrok as they lived in nests and hatched to swarm the island. They had a feature in which you can fling the Krana which in the lore they do so to attach to Bionicles faces after they have knocked their mask off. They would then take over their body. Krana were small and rubber so to fight in the Bohrok head so they can’t be knocked off by arm swinging action, which is probably to reflect the difficulty to beat a posed Bionicle.
Bohrok had six elements like the Toa except Air was replaced with Acid. After the defeat of the Bohrok Queens, which were giant dragons, the Toas fell into Energized-Protodermis which enhanced them from Toa Mata into Toa Nuva. as Toa Nuva they have silver armour, Larger, fancy smooth masks. The masks didn’t have any sharp edges and most had no holes except for the eyes. They had more textured surface. It’s hard to describe. Instead of being flat, they had more curves and indentations in the design of the masks. The idea is that these masks are supposed to be different and more powerful. Personally I liked the old mask designs better. Kanohi Nuva have the same powers except boosted and can be shared with local Toa. Kanohi Kakama had the power of super speed. Kanohi Kakama Nuva had the power of super speed and can speed up the user’s molecules to phase through objects.
Toa Nuva also received new weapons. Most had one. Pohatu only had a rock because he was the Bionicle that kicked lol. Each received dual silver weapons, each with a second functionality.
Tahu’s dual lava blades can function as a lava board.
Pohatus claws can be combined into a ball in which he can kick again.
Gali’s axes turn to flippers, Kopaka’s spears into skis, Onua’s into into trends, Lewas turn into wings kind of.
It’s kind of neat.
After this, six new Bohrok called the Bohrok-Kal set out on a mission to awaken the Bohrok Queens. These Bohrok were silver and had different elements and different Krana powers. Interesting enough, there is 8 krana and are randomized again even tho, lore wise, there is only 6 Bohrok-Kal, but I guess technically more Bohrok-Kal could be made and removing 2 Krana from the series would be weird.
After their defeat, Makutas sons were released. The Rahkahi were humanoid worm like creatures that we’re controlled by a worm like Kraata inside. Each held a duel sided staff that was used to focus their evil powers.
Instead of the Toa elementals they had dark ones such as Fear, Anger, and Disintegration.
This came to be as Matoran Takua found the Kanohi Avohkii. The Great Mask of Light. Together with his best friend Jaller, they set out to find the seventh Toa. After Jaller’s death to a Rahkshi, Takua put on the Kanohi Avohkii and became Takanuva, Toa of Light. With his new power he challenged Makuta, resulting them faking in a pool of Energized-Protodermis fusing them into the being known as Takutanuva. Takutanuva kept Takanuva’s personality and helped the Toa, Turaga, and Matoran escape Makuta’s lair. Takutanuva used his life force to resurrect Jaller but died in the process. Using the power of deus ex machina, the Toa resurrected Takanuva.
Now the sets for Takanuva and Makuta were the first to use soft plastic masks with a cross axel piece inside of hard plastic and a stud. Because of this they do not fall off so you can’t really battle with with the arm swinging action.
This became the norm for future sets, which kinda sucked, but probably changed due to complaints of masks falling off all the time or easily losing masks. They even designed a new skull for Bionicles, which unfortunately weren’t compatible with kranas.
For some reason too, the new Bionicles changed colours. Red, Blue, and Green were darker, and Brown was lighter. My only guess would be those coloured plastic were maybe cheaper to make. I don’t know.
Disks form Throwbots returned with the McDonalds promo sets. The last time McDonalds actually had actual lego in their happy meals. They were simple little matoran that can bendable arms that can throw a disk that had the mask of their respective Toa on it.
Gen 2 of Bionicle brought back disks called Kanoka disks. They had powers and a power level. They can be combined and created into masks, basically giving the origins of Kanohi masks. Gen 2 Bionicle was set in the past when yeh the Turaga were Toa. They lived on an Island city called Metru Nui. Basically undoing the whole cool contrast of the Stone Age thing in Mata Nui in Gen 1.
This told the origins of Kanohi Vahi and some other stuff.
After this point Bionicle got weird and eventually became trash by retconning everything. There was some cool sets tho personally, the designs and the concept of collecting masks in the gen 1 of Bionicle was the best and I’m sadden I was too young to appreciate it more.
There was a Bionicle reboot. Don’t talk about the Bionicle reboot.

[Oshi]

I really liked it when Hazey talked about Bionicles for a looooooooong time.

Seriously though, I have never played or really know Bionicles, but this does sound pretty cool. Spent a good time reading this. Wild guess here, garbage reboot?

[I love squirtle line]

Ha Ha Ha Ha!
Oshi after seeing a wall of text and scrolling down and seeing your post it just made me laugh!

[Icefox101]

Ah yes, Bionicles. My brother was obsessed with them back in the day.

Uh... remember Mighty Beanz anyone?

[Oshi]

I have no brain for I don't remember.
Side note, I am about halfway done with the "reference"
Better nigerundayo before anyone says anything. (And while I still have it in my clipboard)

[I love squirtle line]

By the way... D & D.
Weren't we talking about that?

[NovariusHaze]

I remember the commercials for Mighty Beanz and seeing them at stores but I never got any. I think they were too ugly so I never bothered getting any.

[Icefox101]

Zoopals, (most of) everybody knows it

[I love squirtle line]

were we or were we not talking about D & D?!?

[Icefox101]

Sure we can continue talking about D&D

I was thinking about making up a campaign for us to play, or we could do a preset campaign anyone else has. I found a Pokemon Mystery Dungeon campaign once, so we could play that too. If we do it sometime, wanna join?