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Fan Theory: Like Ogres and Onions, the Matoran Universe has Layers

This theory has been rattling around in my head for some time, I might make a Knowledge Tower video about it someday, but I’m not certain if its a good fit, given its more of a theory than anything where I actually do some science in it. Maybe you all can let me know if this is a good video idea in the notes?

Anyway, the crux of this theory is something to try to explain how all of this:

Actually fits into the body of the GSR.

This is a long post, so I’ll put the rest under the cut.

We already know from Greg quotes that the MU map isn’t really to scale, its more to show the rough position of the islands rather than their actual relative size compared to one another, hence why Odina is so large, and why Voya Nui seems to take up most of the southern continent despite being described as being relatively small in story.

But even using this as a guide for placement only, it still doesn’t really gel with the actual layout of the Great Spirit Robot, with everything in the torso area having to be squished up into the upper torso given the empty space in the abdomen.

This is further compounded by this image, which places the giant vortex in the endless ocean that leads to the great waterfall in the middle of the chest of the GSR, once again placing both the southern continent and Karda Nui squarely in the upper torso:

I’ve seen more than a few fan maps of the MU that try to address this problem, but all the ones that I have seen have never quite been satisfying to me, they make the southern continent especially far too small than what the storyline suggests it should be in order to get everything to fit.

But my solution, which I don’t think I’ve seen elsewhere before, came to me when I remembered that Karda Nui was in a dome that was underneath the southern continent - it was on a separate layer. And, well, Karda Nui can be on a separate layer, why not other sections of the MU as well?

That thought let me to making these maps of how I think the MU could possibly be laid out:

As you can see, from this layered approach, not only can you fit everything in nicely, but you can also keep the continents large without having to compromise to make them fit in. It even allows for additional domes that could house some of the other locations / smaller islands that are mentioned in the story that are not included in the official map. I did also play around with the size of each island compared to the offical map, given Greg already confirmed that the sizes on it were not accurate and so I could maximise the liveable land area of the MU.

I also used the fact that Greg has confirmed that ways to get into Karda Nui are via portals (with the canon one known being near the southern continent and also being where Destral moved itself to during the Karda Nui arc) to get around the issues not only of travel between layers, but also of travel between the head, torso and limbs without having to mess around with relative positions of those places moving when the robot moves its joints. The way I figure it, if the portal took up the entire sea gate tunnel width, then it could be entirely possible that the inhabitants weren’t aware they were going through a portal at all, it could just look like a regular tunnel to them, leading to the MU map from the inhabitants perspective I included here too.

I’ve tried to include as many canon compliant details into these maps as I could (e.g. connections between the torso and arms at multiple points to explain the routes taken by the Federation of Fear, room in Artakha and Xia’s domes for the islands they used to share them with before they were destroyed, the position of the pit being based both on proximity to Daxia but also on the placement of Mahri Nui in the Faber concept art above etc.), but I may have missed some details, so do let me know if you spot any.

I could also potentially use these maps in the future to work out things like total land area of the MU for the Faber and Farshtey sizes given I can determine the area a pixel represents in each, so these could be quite useful to Knowledge Tower videos in the future, but first I’d like to get some peer review on the core ideas from the wider fandom here on Tumblr.

What do you think of the maps and the idea behind them?

Ive always wondered how the ninja fund their massive mechs and just day to day lives without real jobs

My personal theory is that they are running off of jay’s inheritance money

Side note what if the administration storm the monastery for not paying their bills

Consequences be damned i want actions

i think frog and toad are gay lovers actually they should change the title

Me on my way to kill a hydra without ever realizing it was a hydra because the first thing i tried was stabbing it in the heart

Was ninjago an attempt at a bionicle reboot? Something that tried to get at the essence of why bionicle was so popular and worked? The thing that made bionicle so successful was its flavorful characters and deep worldbuilding but on top of that ninjago also has the

Gang of color coded heros with elemental powers

Collection of golden mcguffens that unlock their true powers

A dark lord to defeat who dips out to cause lots more problems later with his new reptilian army

during the arc with the reptilian army a child is revealed to be the chosen one and is magically aged up and has the powers of light

Rahkshi sketch

Here’s some Hero Factory Prototypes.

I got the images from someone in the Duckbricks Discord server.

I am on a roll

Fangs, Steel and Stolen Honour

Illustrations for one of the new SCURRY! adventures from Stout Stoat Press, now available on backerkit! If you ever wanted to play as a little woodland animal getting into big, big trouble, I highly reccommend this system and these stories!