Classic LEGO: Bionicle History - Part 2
Posted by SprinkleOtter,
Continuing our series of articles on the history of LEGO Bionicle, the first half of the 2003 story:
The second season of Bionicle brought about multiple story revelations, alongside new opponents for the Toa.
Immediately following the Mata's defeat of the Bahrag, the queens of the Bohrok swarms, the ground began to shake, and the Toa found themselves separated and plunging into tubes full of Energized Protodermis. Then they emerged, the Toa Mata were transformed into more powerful beings, which Tahu proclaimed to be Toa Nuva. The Nuva's elemental powers were increased, as were their Mask powers. Unfortunately, so was their pride. The Toa Nuva decided that an alliance was no longer necessary, and returned to their Koros to repair the damage done by the Swarm.
Upon the Toa's return, they discovered that a strange stone tablet with the Toa's symbol had appeared at each Toa Suva. Shortly after the tablets appeared, six strange, Bohrok-like beings breached the Suva's defenses and stole the tablets, and with them, the Toa Nuva's Elemental Powers. Robbed of their powers, the Toa were left in dangerous situations that their elemental powers would have easily let them overcome. After barly surviving encounters with there elements, the Toa reunited, and began tracking down the creatures. The two groups clashed in Po-Wahi, with the creatures revealing 
themselves to be the Bohrak Kal, a special team tasked with locating and freeing the Queens of the swarm. The Toa Nuva denied that the Bahrag still lived, and upon goading from the Kal, attacked. The battle was brief, with the Toa Nuva being left unconscious, and the Kal continuing their search. Upon waking, Toa were initially confused by the Kal's assertion that the Queens were still alive, but quickly came to the conclusion that the Bahrag were merely trapped underground. The Toa split into two teams (curiously, not into teams that could form Wiruha and Akakmi, the Toa's Kaita forms), one team following the Kal and attempting to slow them down, the other searching for the Bahrag. While the Toa followed the Kal, the searched for the Kanohi Nuva masks scattered across the island (though they are only seen to be used on about two occasions, and never after 2003...).
The Kal continued to scour the island for any clue to the Bahrag's location, occasionally fighting the Toa and Matoran if they got in the way of the search. On numerous occasions the Toa Nuva and Matoran managed to entrap disable, or force the Kal to retreat. Unfortunately, these victories were short-lived, and came with the discovery that the Bohrak Va were serving the Kal, delivering replacement Krana Kal when the Toa managed to remove them (why the Nuva didn't just take the Kal's armor and hide it is beyond me... Some things just make too much sense for a good story, I suppose ;)).
While the Toa Nuva were scouring the island for their hidden Kanohi, Tahu, Gali, and Kopaka traveled into a valley, where three masks were hidden. It was suggested that Makuta had a presence there, and started an avalanche to defeat the Toa. The Toa managed to escape the trap, and retrieve the masks, 
though another trap awaited them the moment the masks were removed from their places. The ground gave out, and the Toa plunged into a cavern below. From a side tunnel, the rest of the Toa arrived, along with Turaga Vakama (why they were there wasn't explained). A deafening roar shook the cavern a moment later, and Vakama explained that it was the Rahi Nui- a special Rahi bred to hunt Toa. The Rahi Nui possessed characteristics of the major Rahi, and proved to be an unbeatable opponent for the Toa Nuva, who refused to work together. After several failed attack of the Rahi Nui, Vakama ordered the Toa to fall back to the tunnel, and activated his Mask of Concealment. Vakama began to taunt the beast, reminding it that he had trapped it in these tunnels years ago. As the Rahi Nui closed in on Vakama, he deactivated his mask. The Rahi Nui charged, and Vakama dove out of the way, as the Rahi Nui rammed its horns into the cavern wall. The force of the impact was so great that the Rahi Nui was unable to remove its horns from the wall, though Vakama warned that it eventually would. The Toa left the cavern with a greater sense of unity, along with the last of their masks.
The climax of the Borahk Kal struggle came at the same place it started: the Bohrok nest. The Swarms were telepathically called back to their nests by the Bahrag, in preparation for their release. The Kal arrived before the Toa, and burned a hole through the rock blocking the cave entrance. As the Toa followed the Kal through the tunnel, a plan was formed: The Toa would try to reach the Exo-Toa armor that they abandoned during their battle with the Bahrag. Because they didn't have their elemental powers anyway, the Exo-Toa wouldn't hinder them in combat this time. As the Nuva reached the final cavern where the Bahrag were imprisoned, they discovered something remarkable – the Exo-Toa were already defending the cavern against the Bohrak Kal. By the time the Toa could intervene, the Exo-Toa were destroyed, and the Kal were moments from placing the Toa's symbols into the Nuva Cube. If the Bohrak Kal placed the symbols into the Nuva Cube, the Toa's elemental powers would combine, unlocking the Toa Seal on the Bahrag's prison, freeing them. If the Bahrag were freed, the Swarm would again rampage across Mata Nui, and the Toa would be powerless to stop them.
All hope seemed lost, but the Toa refused to admit defeat. Tahu shocked everyone when he donned a new mask – The Vahi, the Legendary Mask of Time- and called upon its power to slow time around the Kal, and stop them from unlocking the Queens. Just as time began to slow around the Kal, the Krana Kal changed from gold to silver, and began to project a forcefield around the Kal, protecting them from all harm, though they still moved incredibly slowly from the Vahi's power. As the Toa Symbols slowly moved into place, the power necessary to use the Vahi threatened to overwhelm Tahu. If Tahu lost 
control of the Vahi, time would collapse, leading one great big paradox (fortunately for the story writers and fans, that didn't happen). At that moment, Gali devised a plan. At her urging, Tahu deactivated the Vahi and joined the rest of the Toa Nuva in urging his elemental powers to flow into the Bohrok Kal. With their new powers, the Kal proclaimed themselves to be greater than the Swarm, and refused to free the Bahrag. Within moments, the Kal's powers had turned against them. Tahnok Kal was trapped within a field of electricity, Lehvak Kal was propelled through the stone above the cavern and then into the sky above Mata Nui, [black Bohrok] was crushed into a miniature black hole, and so on. In the end, the Kal were defeated by their pride.
The Bohrok Kal and Toa Nuva sets were basically remakes of previous sets, with the Bohrok Kal's only difference being their coloring and shields. The Toa Nuva were significantly different from their previous forms, and the set designers took steps to make sure that each was unique (which was basically forgotten for the next three years' sets...). The models weren't all perfect (Onua had better hope he doesn't get an itch on his nose- he wouldn't be able to reach!), but for the most part they were great, and cost the same as the smaller Toa Mata. However, the Bohrok Kal sets did not perform well, and almost single-shieldedly killed Bionicle.
Keep watching for the second half of 2003's story!
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13 comments on this article
Whoa, that's a very cool and in-depth look at the story! Well done!
Boy, those Bohrok Kal sets were evil; Bionicle saved LEGO in '03, so if the Bohrok killed it... none of us would be here.
EDIT: Your "black Bohrok" is Nuhvak Kal. Might want to change that.
Since I started with Bionicle in 2006, I didn't have an in-depth look at the story on what happened on the previous years (I only knew the main plots, not so much the smaller stuff), so this was a good read.
Looking forward to the next part!!
Awesome, keep it up!
@ PicnicBasketSam
Thanks! :D
In more ways than one. :P
Whoops- I meant to look that one up- I must've forgot. :P Unfortunately, I don't think I can edit it- one of the staff here would have to .
@ ToaTaruho.
And I'm happy to provide the story. :)
Thanks, legobob!
Such amazing sets the Kal where…
I have a really odd problem with stories like this - my brain stumbles when it tries to read the names of the characters and races. I'm not sure if that's the right way to explain it, but I seem to spend more time trying to make sense of the syllables and how the names should sound, than actually taking in the story. Halfway through and I realise I have no recollection of what I've read and I'm still tripping over the names.
I had the same issue when trying to read Lord of the Rings the first time around. It was only after seeing the first movie and hearing most of the names aloud that I could actually enjoy the books. Drives me crazy.
@aleydita I know exactly what you're talking about. I read the Lord of the Rings at a fairly young age (I was maybe ten or eleven years old? I forget exactly), but in hindsight I KNOW I wasn't fully comprehending what I was reading because my mind would just glaze over certain portions. To be honest, I kind of wonder how many non-BIONICLE fans will really learn a lot from these kinds of articles, since it is such a glut of information, and all of it loaded up with jargon.
I think this comic is somewhat pertinent: http://xkcd.com/483/
Thankfully, the new BIONICLE seems to be adopting a much more user-friendly approach. Names like Tahu, Gali, Pohatu, etc. are still there, but the sets give them names like "Tahu - Master of Fire" so that even if you don't know the character or the story you still have a sense of who the character is. And things that don't NEED specific names generally don't have them. The monsters the Toa faced aren't "Visorak Boggarak" or "Nui-Rama" or "Vahki Rorzakh", they are "Skull Spiders" (identified by color, like "green skull spiders" and "silver skull spiders") and their leader, the "Lord of Skull Spiders".
There is a village of fire in the new story, but it's not called "Ta-Koro", it's called "the Village of Fire". It is in the region of fire, which is likewise called "the Region of Fire", not "Ta-Wahi". Tahu's mask isn't the Kanohi Hau, it is just "the Mask of Fire". Granted, some people have a separate issue with that, since in the original story Tahu's mask was the Mask of Shielding, but that's just one more way the BIONICLE team seems to be trying to make things more digestible — in the new story, characters' special powers are all connected with their elements, rather than just superpowers that are sometimes so arbitrary they seem like they've been drawn from a hat.
The new BIONICLE website recently updated with a lot more story information. If you want to give it a taste, maybe watch these two videos and see if they're more your speed: http://www.lego.com/en-us/bionicle/videos/
@ aleydita.
I know what you mean- I tried to keep names out of it as much as possible, but here's a very handy tip for Bionicle: Learn your prefixes. :P "Ta" for Fire, and so on. Unfortunately, later in the theme that isn't possible, but it can be handy just to search "Vahki" or whatever it is into Brickset in a separate tab- that way you can just look up the name in a flash. :)
This article is doing a wonderful job of helping me understand the convoluted Bionicle story line--thank you so much! While I doubt I'll ever become deeply involved in this theme, it's good to know, in general terms, what's going on in it. And from time to time it has produced parts that make great additions to an architectural project as art deco- style ornamentation or such-like. (Working Bionicle parts into a classic Lego project is one of my pet thought-experiments!)
I love it!
Back in the day I was quite the folower, I knew a lot about Bionicle, thanks to the bionicle wiki. However, I've never seen it written so seemless like this. You've done a great job on that!
Brickset needs a tumblr account