2023’s final Vision of the Great Beings update—and final Myths and Legacy update—is here!

But first–one final story chapter to round out the year, first published here on Mask of Destiny…

LORD OF ELEMENTS

Written by Jeff Douglas, Nicrophorus, and the Visions team
Directed, Produced, and Sound Designed by Maks Dudek
Narrator: Maks Dudek
Elder Sister – Kathy Pfautsch
Element Lord of Fire – Talon Sims
Element Lord of Ice – Sigma
Element Lord of Rock – Sigma
Element Lord of Sand – TK Stapleton
Element Lord of Jungle – TK Stapleton
Element Lord of Water – Maks Dudek

Wondering who the Elder Sister might be? Check out The Yesterday Quest Chapter 10 to get a hint.

This chapter represents the final piece of a long journey! As many of you may remember from 8/10, we are looking for people interested in joining our team, and with this last piece of the story released, we are now ready to bring those who have volunteered on! We will reach out to you soon.

Greg Meetings

Additionally, now that our continuations of The Powers That Be and The Yesterday Quest are complete, we can also now share our meetings with Greg–including the one where he revealed his never-before-seen intentions for the Great Beings’ hidden location and the destination of the Yesterday Questers! Check out the videos below or see our transcripts of the major lore reveal!

Gonel: At one point, you mentioned [TYQ] was going to end taking the team to the place where the Toa were created, hence the title, 'Yesterday Quest.' [...] I was curious what that facility would be like by the time they get there--what it would, what sort of stuff would be there, what sorts of exhibits might they find--if you had anything in mind for that.
Greg: In terms of the Great Beings--
Gonel: Yeah, exactly. Wherever--
Greg: Well, the way the Great Beings basically work is, think of it if you took Einstein and Ben Franklin and Robert Oppenheimer and all those guys and threw them all together, and these are people who tend to do things because they can without thinking whether they should. So there are experiments they've done there that are enormously destructive. There are experiments they've done there that have failed that are still shambling around. It's a science museum gone berserk.
Gonel: Gotcha, okay. Do you know what sorts of experiments there might be, or if it would be just...
Greg: No. Nope.
Gonel: Okay, makes sense.
Greg: I would have come up with them when I needed them.
Gonel: Okay... In terms of the Great Beings, at one point you mentioned that you knew where they were going to be, and--someone asked you, 'Do you know where the Great Beings are,' and you were like, 'Yeah, but I'm not going to disclose it at this time.' I was wondering if, now that it's been ten or so years since they asked that question and you answered that, I was wondering if you would be willing to share that so that we could--
Greg: Well, I think that the original plan for 2010, at least my plan, was to get them off the planet.
Gonel: Yeah?
Greg: And the planet they were gonna go to with the robot dinosaurs was going to be where the Great Beings were.
Gonel: I see.
Greg: I love robot dinosaurs.
Gonel: Yeah?
Greg: And I never got to work them into anything.
Gonel: What were your plans for those? As far as--would it have been like a sapient species that could like talk and intellectual, or would it have been just animals--
Greg: No, no. They were just gonna be beasts. They were probably going to be techno-organic. Things that were evolved by the Great Beings.
Gonel: Okay.
Greg: Because if the Great Beings touch it, it pretty much gets fucked up. That's basically how things work.
Gonel: Since that planet kind of got turned into Bota Magna, would the Great Beings then have been on Bota Magna?
Greg: Yes.
Gonel: Gotcha. Is there any particular place on the planet where they would have been? Like the northern frost or the jungle region or the iron tribe/rock tribe area?
Greg: I'm thinking lost city in a jungle. Great place to stick mad scientists.
Gonel: Yeah. And what would that place have been like?
Greg: Dunno.
Gonel: Gotcha. Good to know! Good to know! This will be very useful. So it would have been somewhere completely lost to time, even to the people that live in the jungle.
Greg: Yes. Yeah. My guess is it's cloaked.
Gonel: Gotcha. Cool. That will be very cool to explore! Very Indiana Jones-y I imagine. Going back and exploring this ruined city and uncovering these lost beings. Do you know when in the storyline they would have been discovered? Or would it have been relatively soon?
Greg: I don't think I would have revealed them in 2010. I would have revealed them in 2011 for the last of the three movies.
Gonel: Okay. What about in terms of the modern storyline now that the movies are no longer a factor? Would they have been a story or two after Yesterday Quest or would they have been pretty soon, maybe even in that story?
Greg: I think I would have held off for a while because they're such a big reveal. There would have been a lot I could have done in terms of build-up before I revealed them because that's such a big huge reveal that you don't wanna rush that.

Unfortunately, our January meeting with Greg contained a number of personal details that Greg said he wasn’t comfortable sharing. He has given us permission to share the above segment, as well as some other lore-oriented ones which we will share once the relevant stories are released.

Our full summer meeting with Greg involved no personal details and pertained almost exclusively to VotGB and 8/10/23, so we can share it in full.

Section Reorganization

When we first opened the section on the Myths and Legacy site that would host the Vision of the Great Beings content, we had no idea just how much the section would balloon. Not only has it come to contain the works of the project as it pierces the future of the BIONICLE legend, but it has also assumed a role in hosting M&L’s efforts to organize or expand the series of BIONICLE story serials. Under the banner of the BIONICLE Destinies, the site now hosts definitive reading experiences for the 2007, 2008, and Reign of Shadows serialized stories. Now as readers have tried to follow the story leading up to the Vision of the Great Being continuation, the organization proved to be confusing and messy.

But starting today, each work has been thoroughly reorganized. Today, this part of the site is now divided into seven sections, relating to the seven entries in the BIONICLE Destinies series. Broadly speaking, these relate to the following stories:

Destinies 1 – To be revealed
Destinies 2: Into the Darkness – Toa Nuva Missions (or Toa Nuva Blog), Annals of Icarax, Into the Darkness, Dreams of Destruction
Destinies 3: Across Worlds and Waves – Federation of Fear, Trials of the Toa (Takanuva’s adventure)
Destinies 4: Destiny War – Destiny War, Dwellers in Darkness, Brothers in Arms
Destinies 5: Reign of Shadows Part 1 – Reign of Shadows, Reign of Shadows – The Untold Stories, Takanuva’s Blog excerpts
Destinies 6: Reign of Shadows Part 2 – Reign of Shadows, Reign of Shadows – The Untold Stories, Journey’s End excerpts
Destinies 7: In Makuta’s Wake – Vision of the Great Beings content

Moreover, this week’s update also includes three story fragments from the second Destinies now featured apart from the greater compilation — a fanon scene of Into The Darkness that fills a plot hole and connects its continuity with the BIONICLE Legends, a version of the Annals of Icarax that’s inverted to be told entirely in the third person, and an version of The Toa Nuva Blog called the Toa Nuva Missions where the original first person chapters are told in the third person and the original third person ninth chapter is written as a journal entry. As Above So Below and Lord of Elements are now featured on the site now that we have reached the point in the timeline where the former takes place. Federation of Fear and Trials of Takanuva (our compiled adventures of Takanuva) are now combined as the second Destinies entry, Across Worlds and Waves, and our Trials of Takanuva chapter featuring an upgraded, more adult recounting of the Journey of Takanuva has been published as a separate entity. We’ve also added an all-new fanon chapter for Federation of Fear to connect it to BL10 and fix a major plot hole between the two.

Finally, in addition to this reorganization and in honor of this year’s releases of our editions of The Yesterday Quest, The Powers That Be, As Above So Below, and Lord of Elements, we have updated the project’s logo with the above emblem of Spherus Magna reunited.

Credits

Although we are now expanding the Visions team to include our new volunteers, we couldn’t have made it this far without the work of everyone involved up until now. A great amount of hard work has gone into all this, and for that we can thank our team:

Writers & Rewriters:
Jeff Douglas (LotD 3, TYQ, TPTB, LoE, AASB)
Reese Bagshaw (TPTB 6, 8)
JSLBrowning (LotD)
Sigma (LotD)
Nicrophora (TYQ 5, TPTB 12, LoE)
BobTheDoctor27 (TYQ 5, 7, 8)
Essenger (AASB inspiration)

Creatives and Proofreaders:
Wolk
HahliNuva
LostHead
Wyatt Porter
Lehari
Maks Dudek
Vahkiti

Other Contributors:
Aikuru
JMMB
Lei
Swert
Jeremii
Maxim
Minirigby
Planetperson
Rizzo Kicks

And thank you all for enjoying this work and keeping up with it! We’ve seen all of you who have commented here, joined our Discord, or followed our Twitter, and all of your engagement has made this all so worthwhile! We’re so thrilled with all that we’ve accomplished, and we hope to continue bringing fun content as the legend of the BIONICLE marches on.

M&L will be back to releasing non-VotGB content on Tuesdays in 2024!

Have a Happy New Year.