Ah Hero Factory, BIONICLE's over hated younger brother.

Did this set have any role in the HF story? I know the pilot never showed up in the TV specials but I feel like they used this ship at some point.

I also seem to remember this having a function to grab onto the canisters (HERO Pods) of the smaller sets to carry them around, but maybe I just made that up when I was little to make it cooler.

Edit: just checked the other images, it can hold the HERO Pods! I love it when LEGO adds playability to the box!

That ship looks like somebody dropped it.

Let the Bionicle lore commence!

No wait... this is Hero Factory. Hmmm, we got any diehard fans here to give us some backstory on this thing? I mean, I know that each year had a theme, but I'm not sure it had much of an overarching story. I know there were comics and there was a show, so I'm probably wrong, but you know, this thing is pretty weird. Probably because it's from the first wave, but still, I mean, it's Hero Factory.

I was never plussed by Hero Factory, but every now and then, they'd release a really cool villain or antagonist, and I thought, what a great villain to attack my Lego city and have my Lego Justice League fight. With this first batch, I thought, Meltdown looked so menacing and evil that, yep, he'd make a great giant robot (well, relative to minifigures) to attack the city.

This ship appears throughout the show. It is the main transport of the hero factory squad. I grew up with hero factory instead of bionicle, so I remember how cool this was to me as a kid.

The pilot's head sticks outside of the the, uh, windshield frame? Seems like a safety problem.

My brothers were big fans back in the day. Had the DVDs and all (they were particularly interested in the Brain Attack line). So, I do have a little understanding of the lore, which leads to one question...

Weren’t these ships a little, you know... bigger? I mean, in the ads (AKA direct to DVD films), they were relative in size to an LAAT Gunship from Star Wars.

I guess the feature of holding Hero pods was a suitable compromise though.

Maybe Hero Factory should be the theme to represent Lego's 90th anniversary!

If you think that's silly, then that's essentially the same to me as people suggesting Bionicle should represent Lego for the 90th. :P

Hero Factory gets a lot of undeserved hate for the simple fact that it replaced Bionicle. As much as I loved Bionicle, going on hiatus was the right move. The story had become too complicated to be accessible to new customers but they still needed to sell constraction products. The first wave may have been a little half baked, but once Hero Factory found its footing it had a lot to offer. It gave us some amazing figures (2283 is a particular standout) and brought us a plethora of new parts, including the amazing CCBS system which is probably LEGO’s best innovation of the 2010s. If it weren’t for the success of Ninjago, I would point to Hero Factory as the best in-house theme of the decade.

@GSR_MataNui said:
"Ah Hero Factory, BIONICLE's over hated younger brother.

Did this set have any role in the HF story? I know the pilot never showed up in the TV specials but I feel like they used this ship at some point.

I also seem to remember this having a function to grab onto the canisters (HERO Pods) of the smaller sets to carry them around, but maybe I just made that up when I was little to make it cooler.

Edit: just checked the other images, it can hold the HERO Pods! I love it when LEGO adds playability to the box!"

Since you asked for it, here is the entire backstory of the Dropships and their role in the Hero Factory story:

Drop Ships come in several sizes. One is a single manned vehicle, which carries a normal sized Hero Pod. A larger vehicle is also flown, which is capable of holding entire teams of Heroes and the larger Hero Pods. The vehicles come with a hyperdrive system that allows for fast inter-galactic travel, as well as the ability for in the larger models the cockpit to split apart by itself and speed away.

Drop Ships are equipped with an H4-Force Launcher and use a laser sighting system to find their targets. The pilot is protected by a cockpit vario-field, and there is a holding bay underneath the ship to accommodate a Hero Pod, so that they can be transported and deployed for missions.

The Drop Ships have a small tractor beam equipped on them.

Drop Ships were created by the Hero Factory to aid heroes. They are equipped with the ability to transition in hyperspace. They were used by Thresher and Preston Stormer when they captured Voltix, Stormer and Jimi Stringer used a Drop Ship to go to a mining colony where they recovered XT4. XT4 then stole it and sent it to Asteroid J-54 where he was chased by Heroes in another Drop Ship. Black Phantom had his own stolen one, and he escaped with Speeda Demon and Splitface while XT4 escaped with Voltix and Toxic Reapa. Stormer's Drop Ship was almost destroyed, but he and Stringer were saved by Thresher in his own Drop Ship.

Thresher's team took a Drop Ship on their mission to New Stellac City. However, Von Ness stole this ship and used it to flee the area when he grew too afraid of the impending threat. Stringer docked a Drop Ship with a freighter to face Core Hunter, who ended up stealing the ship. It was taken over remotely by Hero Factory and Core Hunter was piloted to Makuhero City where he was apprehended.

The Alpha 1 Team frequently used the Drop Ships during their encounters with Von Nebula's gang. They chased down XPlode and Rotor in one, and launched a Hero Pod from it, tricking the villains into attacking that while they safely landed the ship. On mission to stop Corroder, Natalie Breez used the Drop Ship to evacuate workers from the construction site, then returned, leading Corroder to believe another team was arriving to face him. William Furno piloted the ship, using the opportunity to dodge between asteroids, he was called to Mekron City for an emergency, but rushed it back to the Hero Factory after Meltdown infected Preston Stormer. The other Heroes of the Alpha Team used a ship to acquire a cure from the planetoid Lunar Tratix. Several ships were used to dispatch the Heroes to New Stellac city for a final stand against Von Nebula and his crew.

A Drop Ship, used by one of the designated Hero Factory Pilots, was once used against Vapor, providing cover for Dunkan Bulk while Furno drove his Furno Bike to assist.

Stormer, Breez, Furno, and Surge took a Drop Ship to a refueling station besieged by Fire Lord. They attempted to use the ship to evacuate the civilians, but were cornered by Fire Lord. Surge drew fire away, and the Heroes escaped with the station workers.

Professor Aldous Witch once used a Drop Ship to fly to the planet Quatros as part of his plot to mine the Quaza stone from the planet's core. Daniel Rocka later flew a Drop Ship down to Quatros to investigate a distress call from the Professor. After reports of trouble on the jungle planet, a group of Alpha 1 members consisting of William Furno, Preston Stormer, Dunkan B