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For those unfamiliar with it, the Earth Tribe is the eighth tribe of Spherus Magna, a tribe of farmers and nature lovers native to the Bota Magna region, whose Element Lord was the secret mastermind behind the Core War. If you've literally never heard of such a group before, don't worry, you didn't somehow miss something while you were reading the story. Because the Earth Tribe also... doesn't exist. Sort of.

The Spherus Magna Earth Tribe is unique among nearly all characters, factions, and entities in the BIONICLE story, for having the distinction of not appearing a single time in any and all published story material, nor even being alluded to or suggested to exist in any capacity. Were you to read the entire Biological Chronicle as we know it, front to back, you would find not a single mention of this Earth Tribe within its pages. Instead, the Earth Tribe, at least in its current form, hails entirely from the world of the LEGO Message Boards, and its long-running Chat with Greg Farshtey topic.

Origins

Though actually, before we get into Greg-talk, there is a little bit of history to cover first. While the idea of the Earth Tribe came straight from the message boards, the notion of an Earth Tribe of Spherus and Bara Magna has existed since we made the jump to the planet itself, way back in 2009.

This handy image from the Faber Files shows us that way back in the concept stages for 2009, Earth and Sand described the same element, which would go on to be represented by the Sand Tribe. And while the Sand Tribe would never be called the Earth Tribe in any official story material, several product descriptions and other marketing material for the Zesk and Vorox sets described them as members of the Earth Tribe, so the idea that Earth and Sand were indeed the same element under different names is clearly one that had some hold within LEGO. More similar to Stone being called Rock on Bara Magna than to Air being replaced by Jungle.

However, within the bounds of the story itself, Sand and Earth would be treated as different elements, at least by Greg Farshtey, who, when asked, consistently held that Sand was distinct from Earth (and Stone, for that matter), and never wrote any scenes of Earth (or Stone) users directly controlling sand, nor of any Sand users... at all, actually. His stated reason for this choice is that too many young fans would be confused about sand's connection to one of the other two, and so he avoided writing any scenes that could cause such confusion. Which if you ask me is a gross underestimation of the audience for which he was writing, but I digress.

Even once Sand was locked in as the name of Bara Magna's sixth tribe, the name "Earth Tribe" still did not fully disappear. It would continue to be used as a placeholder, this time for the "plagued tribe" that would go on to be officially called the Iron Tribe. Apparently one instance of this placeholder name being used actually made it into one of Raanu's dialogue lines in Glatorian Arena, though I can't confirm this. I only ever played the second one and can't find any footage or transcript of the dialogue online.

*EDIT: Downloaded the game to check for myself and found the line. It looks more to me like this is actually another instance of Earth corresponding to Sand, but the term Sand Tribe is also used in this game, even by Raanu himself, so it's hard to say. Could also be a misnomer for the Rock Tribe, though again, he does also mention the Rock Tribe. So it could be an early reference to the Iron Tribe, though I'm inclined to think not, since they're long gone by the time this game is meant to take place. Seems to me like it's just an error.*

The most prominent use of Earth Tribe as a placeholder though, was in Greg Farshtey's screen treatment for the canceled fifth BIONICLE movie. This movie would have featured Mata Nui, Ackar, and Kiina traveling to the Valley of the Maze, wherein they would have encountered several colourful characters, including one by the name of Tera, a con artist from the Earth Tribe (re: Iron) who was one of the few survivors of his tribe and who had been trapped in the maze for some thousands of years. Greg released this treatment in December of 2009, following the announcement of BIONICLE's cancellation, around which point in time he also routinely denied the existence of any Agori tribes beyond the main six and Iron on Spherus Magna, banishing the possibility of a real Earth Tribe entering the bounds of what the fandom at large considered "canon."

Or so it seemed. Years later, in 2014, Greg was still answering fan questions about BIONICLE, and one fan, presumably not knowing about his earlier statements on the matter, asked if there were other tribes on Spherus Magna that we had not yet encountered or heard about, or if others may have existed in the past, to which Greg replied, for the first time, "Yes."

As you might expect, Greg's answer excited many, the prospect of new lore (or the chance to get the credit for canonizing new lore) working certain fans into a frenzy. Soon after, Greg was asked about his old screen treatment, and if the mysterious Earth Tribe mentioned therein could be one of these other tribes, distinct from its status as a stand-in for Iron, which Greg went on to confirm. Furthermore he provided additional detail on them, their territory in Bota Magna, their culture as farmers, their brown and black armour colours, and their choice to not participate in the Core War due to fear that it would harm the planet. He also confirmed the existence of a seventh Element Lord, the Element Lord of Earth, leader of the Earth Tribe. Swiftly, wiki articles were created, information was added, canon was expanded. A good day for lore chasers.

Complications and Contradictions

This is the moment when the Earth Tribe began to go from a curiosity, to a snowballing headache. Because you see, dear reader, none of that should have happened.

By this point, Greg Farshtey had been answering fan questions for years, and he had established something of a system. A rule to account for the inevitable occasions when his memory would fail and he'd mess up. Answer a question he'd been asked before differently than he had previously, just get something wrong, etc. The rule he gave to those folks on BS01 and BZP was essentially that if he ever said anything that contradicted established canon, in either published material, which always took precedence, or his own earlier message board posts, the earlier answer was to be treated as the correct one. He wanted to make as few retcons as possible, particularly accidental ones. Though he did leave open the possibility for the extremely rare exception when he would directly address a contradiction with an intentional retcon. (As in, he was aware he was contradicting past canon and chose deliberately to overwrite it, which he usually only did with his own work and answers. Changing his mind on whether or not Rahi could be revived on the Red Star, for example)

The Earth Tribe, however, was not a case of an intentional retcon, it was a case of oversight. So caught up were people in the excitement over their reveal and "canonization," that it was forgotten that Greg himself had previously stated that no other tribes existed on Spherus Magna, certainly none with their own Element Lords and who were in contact with the others enough to be aware of the Core War, even if they did choose not to participate. This fact alone should have been enough to derail the discussion of this new Earth Tribe, but the books, serials, and other media too raised contradictions. Mentions of Spherus Magna's six tribes (after the destruction of Iron) and six Element Lords who ruled them, are not uncommon, and while it's easy enough to wriggle past the narration (it's never explicitly said there are only six, just that there are six), some dialogue is a little harder to justify. Particularly from the Element Lord of Jungle in Riddle of the Great Beings, wherein he describes how he and "five of [his] brothers" came to be transformed into the Element Lords, and in the thoughts of the Great Being Angonce in the prologue of Journey's End, who again recalls the creation of only six Element Lords, and names them: Fire, Ice, Water, Jungle, Rock, and Sand. No Earth. None of these would have been too hard to handwave away with a simple retcon, any mentions of six should be seven and include Earth, etc, however Greg never did so, as he was not reminded of his previous answers or of the inconsistencies with the text, so it's impossible to say if he would have, or if he would have backtracked to hold to established canon.

In 2017, some users finally noticed this breach of procedure, and as a result, took drastic action. The BS01 pages for the Earth Tribe and the Element Lord of Earth were deleted. Not just marked non-canon. Deleted. Fully. They were scrubbed from the site entirely. They are gone. Having not been there at the time, I can't say if this was a unilateral decision on the part of a handful of users, but from the discussion I have seen, it does seem like there was some process to it, it wasn't just spontaneous. It certainly was contentious though, and personally I can understand why. Canon or not, that was the most detailed addition to the world of BIONICLE since the final serials. It feels like the sort of thing that should at least be recorded.

The deletion of the pages and the reasoning behind it were brought to Greg's attention, and he objected, doubling down on his stance on the canonicity of the Earth Tribe, and even expanding on their backstory to give a reason why they had never before been mentioned. He wrote that the Earth Tribe's connection to Spherus Magna's underground led them to being the first to discover Energized Protodermis. The Element Lord of Earth considered claiming it in the name of herself and her tribe, but being more subtle and crafty than the other Element Lords, chose to instead wait for the substance to reach the surface, and when it did, she quietly urged the others to try to claim it, spurring them on into war. Publicly, the Earth Tribe denounced the Core War, on the grounds of pacifism and concern for the effects of the war on the planet. But behind the scenes, they sowed discord between the other tribes, undermining all attempts at peace and prolonging the war as long as possible. The Element Lord of Earth's plan was to let the other Lords and their tribes exhaust themselves. They would fight their battles and deplete their resources, until their armies were all weak and ready to be broken, at which point she and her tribe would sweep in, thus far untouched by the war, with a freshly built up army, to seize control of the spring and achieve absolute dominance over the world. Unfortunately for the Earth Tribe's plans for world domination, the Shattering would come before they could have their chance. The majority of the Earth Tribe was trapped in their home territory on what was now the moon of Bota Magna, and both there and on Bara Magna, their treachery was uncovered. It became accepted wisdom that the Earth Tribe was to blame for entire war, and they were effectively banished from Agori society. So thoroughly excised that none even spoke of them (hence why we had never heard of them before).

With this wealth of new information and affirmation from Greg, the Earth Tribe and Element Lord of Earth pages were recreated, and still exist to this day. However, debates continued. Word of Greg so often brings as much confusion as it clears away.

The explanation of the Earth Tribe's cultural exile was clearly Greg's attempt to reconcile all the contradictions in regard to why they had never been mentioned before this point, and it does work in some regard. Certainly explains why no Agori or Glatorian ever mentioned them. However, it leaves several other questions unanswered, or at least without a satisfying answer.

Sure, the Agori and Glatorian do not speak of the Earth Tribe, but what about the Element Lords? They've been separated from their tribes since the end of the war, so would they even know of the Earth Tribe's role in it? And even if they did, would they care? Enough for the Lord of Jungle to exclude the Lord of Earth from his account of their creation? The other six still hate each other and continue warring against each other even now; would the discovery that their conflict was seven-way rather than six really elicit such outrage in them, or would they just consider their sister another rival and carry on trying to kill each other?

And what about Angonce, who blamed himself and his fellow Great Beings for not preventing the Core War, more than any of the tribes or even the Element Lords for starting it? Would he also join in excluding the Earth Tribe from history, even in his own thoughts?

On the topic of blame, we already have instances of the Agori and Glatorian laying blame for the Core War on the Great Beings, about whom they also don't like to speak, but still will in some cases, and certainly still acknowledge in their past. The Agori essentially considering the Earth Tribe dead to them and refusing to speak of them does make for a potentially interesting insight into their cultural practices, but if both groups were blamed, why are the Great Beings still discussed in any capacity? Was the Earth Tribe's treachery seen as worse somehow? Maybe because it was deliberate manipulation while the Great Beings simply failed in their task as rulers?

Another issue is the Cavern of Elements beneath Tajun. Some theorize this laboratory of the Great Beings to be the place where the Element Lords were created, but it only has six chambers. Greg's answers about whether or not the Element Lords were created here have been inconsistent, he initially said he didn't think it was the case, but later said it would make sense, then doubled down on the latter statement when asked about it in relation to the Element Lord of Earth. He said there was nothing saying the Element Lords were all transformed at the same time, and that they may have been created in shifts, with the Lord of Earth's chamber being re-used later for one of the others. Hence, six chambers, seven Element Lords. One chamber was used twice. Is that an explanation? Well, yes. Is it a very good one? No, not really. Why not just have seven chambers? Or, if they can be re-programmed with different elements, why have multiple chambers at all? Now, if the Cavern of Elements is not where the Element Lords came to be, then this is somewhat of a moot point. There would only need to be seven chambers if they had to correspond to seven Lords, but if they're unrelated, then that connection is irrelevant. It still begs the question why there are six chambers corresponding to six out of seven tribes though. Maybe because these are the elements present in the Bara Magna region, and Earth is only really a Bota Magna thing? I question the notion that Water has a stronger presence in the desert than Earth, but we're looking for any explanation we can here.

Tomfoolery

So, what happens when a wiki that prides itself on remaining as up-to-date and to-the-letter accurate to canon as possible is presented with an element of story created years after the series' end, that creates more questions than answers, debatably breaks the code of conduct in regards to what should be considered canon, but does come with clear intent from the writer that it should be counted as part of the official story? Well they fight about it, of course.

The discussion section of the Earth Tribe page is quite the read. It's actually mostly one guy repeatedly pushing for the re-removal of the pages again and again (he opened the topic 4 separate times, twice in 2021, with the second time dropping off and then getting a second wind in 2022, once later in 2022, and then again in 2025), and getting really heated when people tried explaining to him that not being satisfied with the explanations given does not a plot hole make, and that contradictions and things going unexplained are not the same thing. Even attempting to force the decision through a few times, despite multiple community votes on the subject being held, all of which he lost. Credit to him, his determination is impressive, and he did eventually come around to the belief that the pages shouldn't be deleted, just marked non-canon, just took a while. And his persistence was somewhat rewarded. The pages for the Earth Tribe and the Element Lord of Earth now bear a banner at the top marking them as "disputed canon," similar to others that exist for pages whose content is considered non-canon or semi-canon. As far as I know, they are the only two pages on the entire BS01 wiki to have this banner.

The root of the issue, and the broader talking point beyond this one specific guy's damage, seems to be an inability, or an unwillingness, to interpret the spirit of the law, not just the letter. Yes, Greg said to prioritize earlier answers and published material over his newer answers, and that he didn't want to make a ton of retcons. Yes, he did say that he wanted to make sure the new lore he wrote for the Earth Tribe didn't contradict established canon, and no, he was not fully successful in that effort. Does all that mean that the Earth Tribe should be expunged from record or declared non-canon because it fails to pass muster? No, no it doesn't. Because doing so would ignore the obvious intent behind Greg's actions. He objected to the pages' initial deletion, and tried to justify the Earth Tribe's place in canon. He failed to account for some details, yes, or provided unsatisfying explanations for the inconsistencies, but, at the point in time this was all taking place (2017 onward), that is not grounds to apply the earlier answers rule, which exists to prevent forgetcons and mistakes, not deliberate additions to the story. If his change in answer had been caught and brought to his attention back in 2014? Then okay, that would have been the time to apply it. But years down the road, with a whole backstory written in attempt to preserve the change? By that point, the ship has sailed.

Personal Thoughts

For my part, I'm of two minds in regards to all of this. My opinion differs depending on whether we're discussing the Earth Tribe itself, or its status as "canon" and whether BS01 should treat it as such.

On the one hand, as I said above, I do think Greg Farshtey's intent in all of this matters. Whether he did so elegantly or not, he made a concerted effort to fit the Earth Tribe into the BIONICLE story. He did address, or attempt to address, the inconsistencies when they were brought to his attention, and even though I think his explanations have a lot of holes in them, they are sufficient. Something being illogical or weird doesn't make it a plot hole after all. So I do 100% think the Earth Tribe and Element Lord of Earth pages should remain on BS01. Hell I would say they belong there even if they were declared non-canon, at the very least as an archive. Even if not technically part of the core BIONICLE story, they are a noteworthy part of its history. And I think the "disputed canon" status is fine, I do think they deserve it, given... everything. But if you asked me to decide one way or the other, I would say, at least based on BS01's policies, they are canon and should be treated as such. Like it or not, they do not technically break the rules.

On the other hand, I don't think any of this should have happened at all. I think that Greg's initial change of tune should have been caught when it first happened, and this whole saga should have been nipped in the bud before it was written and he got attached to it. I honestly think the Earth Tribe is more trouble than it's worth and the story as a whole benefits from its exclusion. Their entire backstory, interesting though it may be, exists for the sole reason of shoehorning in this entire extra tribe to a story that was already complete without them, and it grates because it was not designed to fit. I'm all for secrets and hidden lore coming to light, but when that happens it should make things click into place. With the Earth Tribe, the opposite is true. They need justification, instead of providing explanation. Cut them out and everything smooths back out. The Element Lord of Jungle and Angonce's lines go back to making sense. The Cavern of Elements having six chambers goes back to making sense. Without the Earth Tribe, things click. With them, they clunk.

The fact they come whole-cloth from the LEGO Message Boards does not help their case with me either. Such a massive addition to the world that doesn't exist anywhere within the actual text doesn't sit well with me. There are some other characters and story details that we only have via Word of Greg and never appear in the actual text, but they at least have some reference to them somewhere in there, or the implication of their existence. Take the Toa Mangai for example. It's not written in any book anywhere that one of Lhikan's teammates was named Naho, or that one of the members was a Toa of The Green, or even that they were called the Toa Mangai. All of these come from message board posts and fan suggestions. But we do have the Mangai Volcano and Naho Bay. We do know Lhikan's team had more members than the three we get to meet. So there's room for these additions. They enrich the story and its world by shedding light on things we knew existed but knew very little about. Meanwhile the Earth Tribe has none of that basis, and all it adds to the BIONICLE universe is itself, really.

That said, I do like the backstory for the Earth Tribe. The Element Lord of Earth's machinations are interesting, her discovery of Energized Protodermis before the others because it came from underground makes sense, and hey, it's really nice to have at least one of the Element Lords confirmed to be female. I do think it would be a shame to throw all of that out.

So, if it was up to me, I'd just take the Earth Tribe's whole backstory, and fold it into the Sand Tribe. That, in my opinion, would do away with all the problems, while keeping all the benefits, and even adding new ones. We stay capped at a nice even six tribes and Element Lords, so all lines to do with that are consistent, and there's no issue with the Cavern of Elements. The Element Lord of Sand is the only other one to have ever been said to be female (inconsistently, but we'll take it), so that's a clean fit, and also it would give her some personality, since she currently has none, having never appeared in anything outside of purely visual cameos in All Our Sins Remembered. The backstory does have to be tweaked a bit because the Sand Tribe did fight in the war, but we don't hear much about them, just of one skirmish they lost to the Ice Tribe, so it wouldn't take much to say that instead of abstaining from the war entirely, the Sand Tribe did participate, but mostly for show, still biding their time and undermining peace efforts. Then when the war was over and their manipulation came to light, that could play into the Sand Tribe being so reviled on Bara Magna. They were pushed out into the wastelands and excluded from the new social system not just for their bestial appearances, but also for their role in orchestrating and prolonging the war.

And finally, it could remove the notion of Sand being its own independent Element, fusing it with Earth like it was initially envisioned to be. Personally I think G2 actually made the right call by putting sand under the purview of Stone, but since there are Element Lords for both Sand and Rock (and the existence of those two is not in question), that doesn't work in G1. So the next best thing is taking the Pokémon approach and putting Sand in with Earth as one united ground element. The Zesk and Vorox are already burrowers, so adding a further subterranean connection to them fits nicely. And even in regards to the MU, tan/beige is already in the Onu-Matoran colour palette, and here's a fun fact, Onepū means "sand" in Māori. So the connection already exists. Plus I like the idea that Sand is how the element of Earth manifests in a primarily desert environment like Bara Magna, which was the biggest part of Spherus Magna even before the Shattering.

Essentially, I like the story of the Earth Tribe. I think the work Greg put into them is worthy of recognition and record. I just don't think the notion of adding and eighth tribe and seventh Element Lord, at least in the way Greg went about it, works in the story's favour. Too messy for too little benefit.

Conclusion and Invitation to Discussion

I think the Earth Tribe makes for a fascinating little twofold case study into both (a part of) the BIONICLE Fandom's relationship with canon, and the writing notion of Kill Your Darlings. On the fandom side, the bizarre amount of power accorded to one writer who was meant to be part of a larger story team, and the inconsistent waffling between prioritizing author intent over what makes sense and ignoring it entirely to obsessively stick to rules that aren't suited to being applied in every situation. And on the writing side, a solid, compelling narrative in isolation, but one that really never should have been written, and that requires the pre-existing story to warp around it to fit it in, yet the writer fought for its inclusion anyway.

In the end I think it all comes down to a matter of control. An artist afforded too much, by an audience too obsessed with it.

Okay. This post got away from me a little bit. Believe it or not, it was supposed to be a relatively small little write-up of what the Earth Tribe is and why it's weird that could act as a springboard for discussion. Turns out I had a lot more to say.

So, those of you who made it all the way to the end of this impromptu essay, thank you for reading, and for sticking with me through the rambling. That invitation to discussion is still open, by the way. I went on for ages, but I'd still love to hear other people's thoughts on this weird part of BIONICLE too.