BZ Power

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(Taken from BZPower's own history page)

"BZPower.com was the result of months of planning between the two largest unofficial Bionicle sites on the web -- Kanohi-Power.com and BZcommunity.com. The four administrators of BZPower worked very closely together to merge the two sites together, and on July 20, 2002 BZPower was born. The birth of BZPower.com was only made possible by the success of the two sites the came together to create it.

"Prior to the creation of BZPower.com, Jon was the founder and Administrator of BZCommunity.com while Rich and Kelly also served administrative roles. Over at Kanohi-Power.com, Mike was the founder, while Rich and Kelly were staff members. Somewhere around May 2002 we decided that since all four administrators work together so well, we should combine our sites and work together to bring one giant BIONICLE news, reference, and discussion site to the BIONICLE fan base. Two months later that decision led to the creation of BZPower.com, the largest unofficial BIONICLE site on the web."

BZPower is still^[when?] the largest BIONICLE fan site, having over 45,000 members, with its numbers growing daily. Fans can discuss anything from the sets themselves to the storyline. There are forums for Fan Art, Fan Fiction, RPGs, and even Fan Games. Building contests are held on a roughly monthly basis with writing and art contests on a less frequent basis.

Of particular note is BIONICLE writer Greg Farshtey's close relationship with the site. Mr. Farshtey has an account on the site and used to answer any question members send his way (though some met an inevitable Shrug of God). He isn't active nowadays, though -- his private life and the passing of a new policy keep him from getting into contact with the fans.

Tropes used in BZ Power include:

• And Now for Something Completely Different: the forum Completely Off Topic
• Apocalypse How: In early 2009, a server error caused everything posted on BZPower posted from Sept. 2008 to March 2009 to vanish, and there was much angsting. The event has become known as the Great Dataclysm, punning on the BIONICLE apocalypse, the Great Cataclysm.
  • The site has also been down for most of spring and summer 2011. The old forums can still be accessed, but are in a read-only state.
• April Fools' Day: There's usually some sort of prank, some more elaborate than others.
  • One of the most interesting was April Fools 2010, where it was apparent that the staff had split, and were fighting over who would take control of the forums. One of the Administrators was banned, and the discussion topic turned into a roleplay thread as different subforums and groups of members announced their allegiance to one administrator or another. It could be pretty well compared to the War Of The Roses, but with raving fanboys instead of knights.
  • It was made even better by the fact that after 2 days and nights of an intense forum-wide civil war, one of the admins put a stop to it with an amazing speech and turned the entire thread into a hippie-filled, sandbox-sitting, enemies-turned-friends singalong of Let it Be.
• Ban on Politics: Any topics remotely relating to politics or religion are always locked, reasoning that it's a kids' forum. This also applies to some subjects that aren't overtly political or religious, as the result is usually the same.
  • Except when the mods do it, of course.
• Contest Winner Cameo: There have been lots of contests concerning minor aspects of canon, from designs for minor characters to weapon designs.
• Fan Art: Has its own forum. Has many examples of Sturgeon's Law (both sides)
• Fanfic: A few forums are devoted to them, broken down into Epics (chapter stories), Short Stories (one chapter), and Comedies, as well as a Comics forum. As always, Sturgeon's Law.
  • Some members have become downright famous through their stories. At least one, member Lady Kopaka, is reworking her much acclaimed story, Glitch in the System, into an original novel with plans to publish it.
  • Many members are well known in the community for their stories. Occasionally referred to as the "Library Demigods." When one such writer, Inferna Firesword, opened a thread for collections of her stories, it reached #2 on the Most Unique Member Posts list for the day. The only time a Library thread ever did so. Inferna was stunned.
  • The Comics forum is mainly composed of Sprite Comics, featuring artwork from "kits" made in a different forum. Sturgeon's Law indeed applies, but the amount of good ones possibly exceeds 10%, and sprite comic making is practically a subculture. There are traditionally drawn comics, and even flash movies, which are in there mainly due to being related to a comic series.
• Fan Film: Two rather large movie endeavors making movies about various portions of Canon are currently deep in Development Hell. The original project, Quest of the Toa, went through several phases of "existence", but for now, it seemingly settled into another "no visible progress" state. The other, titled The Next Generation, is only slowly crawling along. Neither's advancements can be tracked on BZP currently.
• First Post: Averted, the words "first to post" is actually filtered to say "Nobody cares about me. I need attention so I wanted to be annoying."
• Flame War: Averted. Flame once, and you get a warning. Flame enough, and you get banned.
• Forum Pecking Order: Describes BZ Power to a tee. From GregF to the administrators (notably Black Six) to the moderators to the newbies.
• Most Fanfic Writers Are Girls: averted, seeing as Bionicle caters to younger boys. For all appearances, there are roughly the same amount of both genders in any of the Fan Fiction forums.
• Newb: Considering how long the franchise has run, there are a number of Newbs running around the forums. However, BZPower is very accommodating towards new members, having a section devoted entirely to new members' Q&A.
• Original Character: Most members' avatars, most Fan Fics' characters, and most MOCs (My Own Creations), which leads to...
  • Loads and Loads of Characters: It's not uncommon for fans to create entire islands with their own Toa team (six on average), a counsel of Turaga, and a Matoran population. In fact, stories built entirely around Canon characters are extremely hard to find.
  • It's a pretty common trend in the Library forums for an Epic(multi chapter story) to start out primarily focused on Canon characters, and then switch the focus to the Original ones more gradually. Of course, some of the Original Characters are so recognized that one can start with them, and then switch to yet more original characters, and get the same effect.
• Promoted Fanboy: Kelly Mc Kiernan, once an administrator/webmaster for the site, was temporarily hired by LEGO (the makers of BIONICLE) in 2007 to serve as webmaster for the official BIONICLE site while the then-current webmaster was on maternity leave. Even after the main webmaster returned to work in 2009, he stayed on at LEGO as the toy line's co-webmaster. Has since been moved to other projects, away from BIONICLE.
• Real Men Wear Pink: Purple is a very popular color. When polled on whether or not they'd buy a purple Hero Factory set, 95% of the voters, nearly 600 members, said "yes".
• RPG: The BZPRPG is one of the largest and longest running RPGs on the web. There is also a full forum of user-created RPGs.
• Sailor Earth: Making a Fan Character/Fan Location is made incredibly easy by the fact that most of the Matoran Universe/Bara Magna has been described just enough, by the fact that very little has been seen in story, and by the fact that the world's internal laws are very well defined.
• There Should Be a Law: 50% of the members gave themselves signatures of gay kissing to annoy the other 50%. The 50% who didn't assumed there was a rule against it. There wasn't.
  • (Somehow, the fact that many BZP members have parents who would nix BZP for them if they ever saw those pics didn't occur to anyone.)
    • Actually, it was brought up several times, but the staff reasoned that that was the parents' problem.
      • Which brings us back to the Double Standard trope.
• The Shepherd: Most of the staff functions as Shepherds.
  • In the Storyline and Theories forum, bonesiii, the forum leader, will occasionally drop into a topic with an incredibly logical (if long-winded) post that will often put any flaming to a rather abrupt halt.
• Sure Why Not: A surprising amount of Canon has come from suggestions made by BZPower members.
  • However, some fans complain about this, reason being how the author does nothing but please the fans instead of writing a story on his own.
• Squee: The reaction at large when it was announced Michael Dorn, a.k.a. Worf would be voicing Mata Nui in The Legend Reborn.
• Troll: An incredible amount, although it does take more effort to do so here thanks to the heavy word filter.
• Word of God: Greg Farshtey kept in close contact with the fandom via BZPower's PM system. Members could ask him questions about pretty much anything, and sometimes he would reveal tidbits of info there before they were made public. He hasn't posted for a very long time now, though.