When It's 2001 and You Find the Mask of Time

Because we remember we were meant to get a game with this thing packed in with it...

To make a long history lesson short, LEGO tried to keep staying relevant damnit with the inhouse LEGO Media company launching Game Boy Advance AND PC games to help the BIONICLE line start with a bang, with it presumably serving as the central storytelling piece. Unfortunately, something involving budgets, bugs and time constraints happened, and the game got cancelled, leaving 2001 BIONICLE to be carried only by the GBA game, a trio of comics with LEGO Mania Magazine, some flash game by some guys named after a specific kind of knight from the Crusade era, and a retroactively-published novel in 2003 that missed the good stuff from said flash game because the author had a crappy computer.

What's relevant here is that the good old Vahi mask of time was going to be packed in with the game as another incentive for the kiddies to beg their parents for the game, like the Infomaniac figure and Brickster keychain in the first two LEGO Island games, respectively. Naturally, with the game's cancellation, the Vahi was left in a void of uncertain release, showing up in odd distributions at LEGO shops, the all-but-forgotten Proto Squad mailing list, and one brief thing with Walgreens in early 2002 before popping up randomly with the Bohrok Kal storyline and a full-on plot role and redistribution in 2004.

What little information we have about how The Legend of Mata Nui means we don't really know the Vahi's relevance to the game beyond the pack-in thing, but there seems to be enough indication that the mask would be among those collected and used. I ask all BIONICLE fans who actually are familiar with what the heck I'm blabbering on about to consider what it would be like if this game did come out and this was the Vahi's first starring role. If the mask showed up as just one of many, only with the cool gimmick of time manipulation, would it have ended up as part of the Toa's arsenal throughout the Mata Nui years and beyond? Would it have received the "no overuse clause" of being really freaking difficult to control, threatening the fabric of time itself if destroyed, and be part of the trinity of legendary Kanohi of the Matoran Universe? Would it still have the same origin as it did in 2004, and would it see more use as the Toa Nuva and their allies fought to awaken the Great Spirit? 

Oh, and yeah, WE HAVE (set accurate) TOA MATA MODELS FOR GMOD! AND THE VAHI! AND A WHOLE BUNCH OF STUFF I'M TOO LAZY TO MAKE PRETTY PICTURES FOR! I blame life.