MNOG Chronicle – Chapter III – Sky Father Rangi and Earth Mother Papu

The original legend of Bionicle 

Before we start digging for clues about the existence of the Great Beings within MNOG I want to introduce you to the deepest and most obscure pieces of lore, the kind that will completely flip your perception of what Bionicle is and will explain why I love 2001-2003 so much; I'll be referring in this to the investigative work by Maku from BZP, I really recommend you to read the entire text. I, personally, downloaded it, printed it out, bound it in Technic pieces and now pray to it every night in front of a shrine dedicated to 2001-2003.

MNOG Chronicle – Chapter II – The Hidden 7th Tribe

А word from the creators

Let’s first ask the guys from Templar Games (the studio that gave us both installments of MNOG and the 2002-2004 animations) what for info about what tribe this is and where it came from. 

MNOG Chronicle – Chapter I – Lhii the Surfer

Instead of the preamble 

I would like to dedicate the first article of this series to who perhaps might be the most mysterious Tohunga on the entirety of Mata Nui. He is not known by a lot of people, but his history kept on changing, twisting and turning throughout the entirety of G1 and even after its cancellation. While some of us were buying Piraka and forcing our parents to purchase battery pack after battery pack for some godforsaken purpose, the true fans were reading the small tidbits released about this mysterious character. And today, we will walk down their lonely road and become a bit more informed as a result. 

MNOG Chronicle. Prologue

I’ll say it right away without complicated introductions – it's all because of Maku aka The Shadow Emperor. This guy with his document “Early & Unused Story Concepts in Bionicle” showed me the other side of the Bionicle, the one that I always dreamed about and which I always tried to comprehend, considering the fascinating concept-arts by Christian Faber. This is a document that I highly recommend checking out before reading my articles. Since Maku and I accidentally found out about each other, thanks to Peri, we share with each other the finds of the original story. The resulting symbiosis is very important to me, and I sincerely hope that these articles will also infect someone with the idea of ​​an early Bionicle.

MNOG. The game that many fans rightly consider the best media in the history of the franchise. And I also love this little piece of art madly. But this block of articles will be devoted not so much to the game itself as to the secrets that it hides. MNOG for me is not a reason, but an occasion to tell about the very original lore from the Story Bible, written by Alastair Swinnerton and Bob Thompson. Many people stereotypically believe that the early Bionicle was a naive tale and nothing more. To some extent, yes, since it is still the backdrop for the sale of toys, and we need to keep it in mind all the time. But we also cannot ignore the fact that Bob Thompson with his famous Seven Books of Bionicle wanted to create a complex and large world in which its study prevails over the narrative. Everything was built around the idea of ​​the Big Secret and was strung on it by a huge number of small details and secrets. It is hard to deny that the 2001–2003 Bionicle made a strong bet precisely on the atmosphere of mystery and the fact that “everything is not so simple here”.

2001–2003 was the first book among the cycles of Bob Thompson, and it is logical that this book was to lay the foundation for the subsequent disclosure of the world. We were shown a huge number of strange and incomprehensible things, many of which, after Thompson left the company in 2005, were not justified, but forgotten or repelled. And in this block in each article I will take one of the elements of the game and carefully examine it with the help of Kanohi Akaku, extracting for you a grain after grain of an untold story.

B4 & L8R

When I sometimes look at my Toa Lewa figure next to a laptop on my desk, I often try to look at myself ironically. Some bearded guy with glasses is sitting right now alone in the room and is publishing his first post for a blog dedicated to the deepest lore, invented to sell toys for 7–12 years old children. And the worst thing is that such blogs over the past years have managed to spawn in a great number. I.e. people really need it. I would understand if one was such a crazy reflective graybeard, but it really worries me that these days it has become a standard. We begin to endow things with too much far-fetched meaning that no one has ever planned to invest in them, because this is just a toy that you need to sell with a beautiful wrapping. Or not really?

Creativity is an extremely interesting thing. Especially when it comes to a large commercial project in which many people are involved. How to keep a fraction of creativity and author's vision in the production flow and conveyor of soulless products? The question is fair, but nevertheless, the creators of LEGO BIONICLE managed to invest in their brainchild an understanding of reality, an attitude to life and simply things that are important and dear to them. Everyone did it in their own way and even more subconsciously, because they simply love their job and are surrendered to it to the fullest.

The magic of creative concepts and ideas lies in the fact that they are like a virus that is transferred from victim to victim, conquering an increasing number of minds. People are inspired by each other's work, forming an endless circle. Needless to say, Bionicle inspires me, given that the blog is for our like-minded people? However, I would not say that this blog is a product of creativity, not at all. I myself am a man of the creative profession, but this blog and its future content are more an attempt to study the creative processes within the Bionicle project, an attempt to understand the people who created Bionicle, and also an attempt to draw certain conclusions for themselves and those around them. It sounds rather vaguely and even sentimental, but this is what this blog is about. 

The main content of the blog will be articles, or rather, various blocks of articles, each of which will gradually bring me and you closer to understanding the philosophy of the Biological Chronicle not only as a product of a company or a franchise, but as a set of creative ideas and belief system that brought this product to life. There is a long way to go, so I advise you to bring along a stack of comics and interchangeable underwear. It's time to end this confused lump of thoughts, we set off.