Talk:Psionics
In the Toa Nuva Blog, we watch Gali Nuva use a Water Nova Blast to defeat Icarax, and she claims that she's not simply releasing all of her power, but "summoning every last bit of moisture in the air for hundreds of kios around." Is this charge-up necessary to perform a Blast, or did she simply do this because she'd used up some of her energy fighting and needed a recharge before she could do it? I'm asking this on the Psionics page because if the charge-up is necessary, yet Toa of Psionics can't absorb psionic energy, that would imply to me that a Psionics Nova Blast is a)impossible, b)significantly weaker than any other Nova Blast, or c)weakens the user a lot more than the user of any other Nova Blast, possibly to the point of knocking the user unconscious.
On top of all that, what would a Psionics Nova Blast do? Would it telekinetically send everything within range flying away from the user, or would it attack the minds of everyone in range? Or perhaps it would do both, knocking out and damaging the minds of those in range while telekinetically blasting everything away from the user at the same time? I don't expect concrete answers since we've only ever met one other Toa of Psionics, and he's never used a Nova Blast or even brought it up. --ZeroPath (talk)
- I have a feeling the question of what a Psionics Nova blast would do was brought up to Greg at some point, but you'd have to search some archives to find what the answer was.
- My guess would be that it's a little bit of both of those things? In order to maximize the potential of her Nova Blast, she absorbed as much water energy as she could. Remember, Toa can't absorb infinite amounts of energy; they have to discharge before it puts too much strain on their bodies, like Vakama vs the Fire Entity. So even if Gali was theoretically able to exceed 100% capacity, however briefly, the actual difference in terms of output was likely not all that different, and it wouldn't/shouldn't be something a Toa does every time anyway.
- There's also the possibility that she didn't necessarily absorb the energy, but manipulated it into a beneficial position to make her Nova Blast easier to perform. In which case, a Toa of Psionics would probably be able to do the same. -- Dorek Talk
20:44, 9 January 2016 (CET)
- wasn't it stated somewhere that psionics toa can't do nova blasts? (The preceding unsigned comment was made by Intelligence4)
I don't believe such a thing was ever stated. The only time we've had a question of "wait, can they do Nova Blasts?" was when Mutran released a huge Shadow Blast in Karda Nui. And the definition of a Nova Blast is the release of all of a Toa's elemental energy at once: the outward form which this takes is unknown for any and every case except Gali blast. What we know about this is that prior to to the release of her power, she absorbed all the moisture within as far a raidus as she could "reach," and then a tidal wave leveled a whole island. A tidal wave Gali could not control. What does this mean for a Psionic's Nova Blast? What the effect it has will not be under the control of the Toa once they hit the "go button," but that they may be able to "reach around" and make mental contact with as many things as possible to enhance the effect of the blast. ζox• Histories 
Rahkshi of Illusion
"Shimmers in and out of sight as it moves." "Can project an image of itself across a short distance to confuse enemies." "Camouflages itself inside of a false image." "Has the ability to create simple moving illusions in the nearby area." "Has the power to project a realistic moving image." "Can create and control multiple realistic illusions anywhere within sight." All the descriptions of the Kraata power sound like optical illusions, not mental illusions. Doesn't this power belong on the element of light if anything? ~ Wolk (talk) 03:40, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
- Further more; the Mahiki is also described as making optical illusions: "The Kanohi Mahiki is the Mask of Illusion. The Great version allows its user to create optical illusions and to shapeshift into another form.[BEU, p. 81]" ~ Wolk (talk) 09:54, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
- By any chance, Greg always said that the Makuta's illusions are mental, while the Mahiki's are optical. In the Time Trap the TSO says that Makuta tends to play with others' minds (hence he creates mental illusions). And throughout the book, Makuta's illusion over Vakama is described as a mental illusion.— Surel—Nuva (Talk) 12:46, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
- I think they're more or less the same thing. an "optical illusion" doesn't necessarily equate with creating a hologram. think of real world magicians: they use optical illusions to fool the audience, but they aren't projecting holograms or anything. in the case of psionics powers, or makuta's illusion powers, i think they can manifest as a trick of the light, but they are not limited to that, and they primarily affect a target's mind, or rather their mind's perception of reality.
- On a somewhat tangentially related note, Greg was demonstrated to not be totally correct about the mask of illusion - he said it doesn't allow bona fide shapeshifting, but it does. i think we can chalk that up to a forgetcon, but that's a whole separate issue. Intelligence4 (talk) 00:30, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
Original post
I have found the original blog post — Surel—Nuva (Talk) 06:56, 8 October 2020 (UTC)
Secondary Colours
Do we maybe want to add a source for blue being the primary colour, and gold being secondary?
Because, right now, the source only states "blue and gold" without making the distinction.
Gold was confirmed to be secondary in this post:
https://greg.thegreatarchives.com/2008-2010/page268#post10708
But that information remains uncited on BS01
The Jerminator (talk) 11:49, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
Illusion References
According to the page on Illusion, it's not entirely true that illusions are a sub-power of Psionics. Should we change, clarify, or remove these references in the "Users" section, or should we leave it as is? I know that if I had never seen the remark on the Illusion page, I wouldn't have known this. 𝙗𝙮 𝙒𝙖𝙙𝙙𝙡𝙚𝙯 23:10, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
- I see no reason to change them. The Illusion page specifies well enough that some forms of illusion are psionic in nature and some aren't. The users listed here are all psionic-users. - Toa Jala Converse 23:24, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
Psionics on SM Beings
As I briefly mentioned on my user talk page, the fact that Psionics works on SM beings seems to contradict at least the Komau not working on SM beings. Again, you could say that these answers themselves are not contradictory, that the mask simply has an additional limitation that elementary Psionics does not, but the reasoning of the two answers directly contradict each other. Greg says the Komau wouldn't work because Glatorian don't have AI [1], but that Psionics works in spite of them not having AI [2]. Before anyone suggests that this should simply be a case of earlier quote trumping later quote, the latter answer also uses some weird logic. For example:
- "The BIONICLE beings are not robots, they are bio-mechanical, and perceived differences in how our minds work and their minds work is really being seen through the lens of Earth science. In addition, it has never been stated one way or the other if the brain of a BIONICLE being is organic or not, in the same way their lungs are organic."
This would only be relevant to mention if MU and SM brains were both organic, allowing Psionics to work. But even in this answer, Greg leaves open the ambiguity. Is he implicitly confirming their minds to be organic? If not, then why is it relevant? Either he is saying their minds are organic, or this is just an argument from silence.
- "Nope, because just as the Vision is based on the brain patterns of Wonder Man, the AI of Matoran is based on the brain patterns of Agori, as that was what the GBs had to work with."
My knowledge of Marvel is only surface level, but going off of the fandom (ugh) wiki, there's no mention of Vision having psionic abilities such as telepathy or mind control, let alone that he could use them on regular people. Maybe someone more knowledgeable than me on Marvel can prove me wrong (even then, if Greg wants to say that Earth science doesn't apply to Bionicle, why should Marvel science apply to Bionicle?), but as it stands, I don't see how this reasoning is relevant either.
Now, I do understand that, regardless of why Psionics works on SM minds, it seems to do so anyway, based on TYQ. While that is admittedly hard to argue against, it still feels strange. It's also interesting that, while MU Psionics would work on SM beings, SM Psionics wouldn't work on MU beings [3]. It's ironic that Psionics is giving me a headache. EDIT: My head hurts even more now. Dag (talk) 17:38, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
- Maybe MU inhabitants can sense and read SM minds, but they can't control them? Mind control works by influencing AI, which doesn't really make sense considering that it has no effect on machines in the BIONICLE universe. Maybe telepathy corresponds to the organic portion of the brain?
- Vision doesn't have any psionic powers. Could Greg be saying that MU psionics-users can influence SM minds because their brain patterns are similar? It's hard to follow him here. Can Professor X control Vision even though he's a robot because his mind is modeled after Wonder Man? If so your second link would make sense, but the third one wouldn't. It's quite a paradox. - Toa Jala Converse 02:48, 28 May 2024 (UTC)