Voriki: Toa of Energy

[w.i.p. If you have information about the exact origin of Voriki, please post in the comments]

About

Toa Voriki also known as Voriki Toa of Energy is a fake Character from LEGO's Bionicle toy line. He was a photoshop of two existing Bionicle characters with some color and other editing.

Origin

Voriki is a photoshop of promotional materiel of Toa Tahu. His face is covered up with a purple Pakari Mask from Toa Onua morphed into a star shape with lightning bolts added on the side. This mask is sometimes given the name "Kanohi Gaaha". Various other parts are changed to a purple color as well. He is also frequently seen with a weapon resembling Tahu's firesword, but with lightning bolts at the end and colored purple. This weapon is sometimes referred to as a lightning staff.

It is thought that Toa Vorki originated in 2001 on BZPower (then known as BZCommunity ) ^[2]. However, due to a large data loss on the site, most of the threads predating 2015 have been lost. The oldest know surviving reference to Toa Voriki was by Neoseeker guest user "- Voriki -" in a Bionicle add on story thread ^[1]. The user posted an image of Toa Voriki with accompanying text reading "Out of the sky, the 7th Toa descended. Wearing Kanohi Gaaha, Voriki the Toa of Energy used his lightning staff to destroy all the Nui-Rama." ^[1]

Spread

On February 1st, 2002 a webpage was created for Toa Voriki on archimatrix.com ^[3] claiming that Voriki was from a lost city on the Island of Mata-Nui known a "Vo-Koro" and that "Using the special powers of his Kanohi mask, and his mighty weapon, he would return to Mata Nui, and not rest until the wrong had been undone, and the remnants of the lost tribe were reunited, to take their rightful place as the rulers over the Tohunga. To rebuild their great civilization."

In 2014 and 2015, when LEGO confirmed Bionicle was to come back into production, Voriki began to be referenced again. This was also slightly helped by the fact that Toa Onua, the one whose mask Voriki's was based on, happened to have purple in the set. Also, due to the advent of 3D Printing a version of Voriki's mask and weapon were created by BZPower user Maphrox ^[5] to take advantage of this new technology so that people would be able to create their own Voriki. These parts are currently available for purchase on shapeways.com ^[4]

Various Examples

External References