What kind of retcons do you think will justify the plot of StarCraft 3?

[Mislagnissa]

Tl;dr Much as how StarCraft 2 retconned the entire backstory of StarCraft 1, I fully expect that StarCraft 3 will retcon the entire backstory of StarCraft 2. What do you suppose the writers would come up with to justify whatever the plot of StarCraft 3 would be?

Longer version: This was originally a reply to a post in another thread, but I thought it was tangential enough to spin off into a new thread.


For now. I'm still hoping sometime in the future they'll get back to Ulrezaj and why he named the Aiur protoss he converted as Tal'darim too, and how much Ulrezaj knew about Amon, and so on.

There's no actual way to continue the StarCraft story. The magical happily ever after ending resulted in everyone sitting around a campfire singing kumbaya. This despite the fact that the Protoss murdered billions of people when they glassed dozens of worlds, the Zerg are biologically hardwired to eat everything that is not them, and Terrans have been in a constant state of war since they came to exist.

Even if the story were continued somehow, probably by repeatedly resurrecting and killing Amon/Overmind/whoever, it would be a waste of time. The story has always been embarrassingly bad and can only get worse from here. The Protoss and Zerg are bland and boring; they exist solely to support the human characters. Even if they had actual personalities they would amount to no more than funny looking humans because the bad writing destroyed everything that previously set them apart (the Khala and the Overmind).

Furthermore, StarCraft 3 would undoubtedly retcon everything yet again. Blizzard has already shown they don't care about continuity at all, what with retconning the Terran population so that suffering several years of constant apocalyptic war makes no dent in their economy. I wouldn't be surprised if SC3 resurrects the Overmind and the Khala without explanation, introduces a new antagonist out of nowhere (who is retconned into always existing), introduces time travel, or otherwise renders the setting unrecognizable.

What they definitely will not do is go off on some random tangent with the primal zerg or taldarim (http://www.gamersdecide.com/pc-game-news/starcraft-3-will-there-ever-be-one) just because Raynor and Kerry's story arc is over, because the last thing Blizzard cares about is continuity. The Taldarim and Primals are boring and unpopular. Raynor and Kerry are the main characters, because StarCraft was retconned into being all about these two sociopathic, mass-murdering deranged lovebirds. So of course StarCraft 3 will revolve around them, or more accurately completely new characters who happen to share their names and likenesses (since Blizzard cannot write consistent characters).

[Gradius]

Taldarim are actually pretty damn popular. That's why the war chest has Tal'Darim protoss units and why the co-op Alarak commander is killing it. They even threw him into Novert Ops for fan service.

I hate the primals, but the Dehaka co-op commander is doing well too. :/

Anyway, I can think of a dozen plotlines for potential conflict, but the universe is forever tainted IMHO.

[ragnarok]

Taldarim are actually pretty damn popular. That's why the war chest has Tal'Darim protoss units and why the co-op Alarak commander is killing it. They even threw him into Novert Ops for fan service.

I hate the primals, but the Dehaka co-op commander is doing well too. :/

Anyway, I can think of a dozen plotlines for potential conflict, but the universe is forever tainted IMHO.

Then go to Blizzard and tell them to just redo the whole SC2 trilogy, Gradius.

Dehaka in coop is good, but in terms of the game itself he could have been better, I disliked his constant essence obsession

[drakolobo]

Tl;dr Much as how StarCraft 2 retconned the entire backstory of StarCraft 1, I fully expect that StarCraft 3 will retcon the entire backstory of StarCraft 2. What do you suppose the writers would come up with to justify whatever the plot of StarCraft 3 would be?

Longer version: This was originally a reply to a post in another thread, but I thought it was tangential enough to spin off into a new thread.

There's no actual way to continue the StarCraft story. The magical happily ever after ending resulted in everyone sitting around a campfire singing kumbaya. This despite the fact that the Protoss murdered billions of people when they glassed dozens of worlds, the Zerg are biologically hardwired to eat everything that is not them, and Terrans have been in a constant state of war since they came to exist.

Even if the story were continued somehow, probably by repeatedly resurrecting and killing Amon/Overmind/whoever, it would be a waste of time. The story has always been embarrassingly bad and can only get worse from here. The Protoss and Zerg are bland and boring; they exist solely to support the human characters. Even if they had actual personalities they would amount to no more than funny looking humans because the bad writing destroyed everything that previously set them apart (the Khala and the Overmind).

.

because ypur supposed ending singing kumbaya is far from the real thing, end starcraft 2 raised a cold war essentiary, factions officially in truce, with sub factions here and there do not agree. nova is an extremist independent paramilitary group by its leader, Alarak cares much for the presence so any action against him brings a multiplied response, really exaggerated and nothing diplomatic. stukov is a lord of the deads or we know what to expect, dehaka is now king of zerus and really do not know to wait for him if he plans to make hunts galactic level, terrans are already fractioned enough, the rest of the protoss are a the defensive, niadra hates the protoss by inheritance, abathur the last vestige of the original zerg acts out of sight of zagara, while she is playing to obey what mommy kerrigan says

[Mislagnissa]

Taldarim are actually pretty damn popular. That's why the war chest has Tal'Darim protoss units and why the co-op Alarak commander is killing it. They even threw him into Novert Ops for fan service.

I hate the primals, but the Dehaka co-op commander is doing well too. :/

Anyway, I can think of a dozen plotlines for potential conflict, but the universe is forever tainted IMHO.Then Alarak and Dehaka will be the main characters of their respective campaigns. They will probably have their personalities rewritten into bipolar psychopaths.

With retcons, you don’t need to think about the logic and implications of your plot. I fully expect SC3 to follow identical structure to SC1 and SC2. The conflict of the campaigns will be called either the Third Great War or the Second End War. In the terran campaign we rebel against the evil empire (confederacy, dominion, xel’naga) using a deus ex machina (psi-emitter, enslaved zerg, xel’naga artifact), in the zerg campaign we try to conquer our enemies (aiur, koprulu, mengsk) but get constantly sidetracked by side missions (chrysalis, civil war, enslavers, etc), and in the protoss campaign we fight off the zerg by killing their space satan leader (overmind, feral zerg, amon) with a deus ex machina (twilight templar, xel’naga temple, xel’naga essence).

Kerry gets infested again, Raynor rebels against the newest evil empire, whatever. Their love story will be the main focus of the plot, again.

Maybe, I don’t know, another race is introduced as the enemies/allies/creators/children/whatever of the xel’naga and become the new villains or something.

All the damage caused by the previous wars is ignored as if it never happened. The Terran and Protoss infrastructure and economies, if not fully functional, are retconned to even higher numbers than before. Like, I don’t know, Chau Sara is now covered in a giant megacity, Aiur has giant golden rings built around it for docking ships, and the new Zerg home world is a planet-sized hive.

The Khala is either brought back with a cheap explanation about nerve cord grafting, the harm caused by its absence is ignored, or its importance/existence is replaced or retconned away.

It doesn’t matter if previous characters were killed off, since they can easily be resurrected by zerg infestation, purifier mind uploads, xel’naga space magic, etc. Several characters have died at least once, such as Stukov, Fenix, Amon, the Overmind, the Cerebrates… If Kerrigan was retconned with the power of resurrection, then there’s no reason why the Overmind and the Cerebrates cannot too. They could even be retconned with a special power that lets them ignore the dark Templar attack too, it could be retconned to being temporary, or it could work like Amon so that the Zerg cannot be permanently killed except in the Void by a xel’naga.

I would not be surprised if they resurrected the Overmind again to be the new big bad evil guy and retconned Amon into a good guy who was trying to stop the Zerg from eating everyone but ended up being mind-controlled by the Overmind and blah blah blah the Sargeras and Eredar fiasco all over again. They might even pull a Frozen Throne and make the Overmind an inherited position that must always rule the Zerg. The bizarre thing is that such retcons would actually return the Overmind to the status it had in SC1.



Then go to Blizzard and tell them to just redo the whole SC2 trilogy, Gradius.The story problems date back to StarCraft 1 when Metzen rewrote the Zerg campaign to include an extended Kerrigan cameo. Everything after the first set of campaigns was sloppily made up on the fly. This is why I switched to Enumerate as a framework for building stories, since it outlines the major phases and political ramifications of a full-scale galactic war from beginning to end; the intention is that this backdrop would support any number of custom campaigns in any period.

Custom campaigns based on canon typically go on bizarre tangents, rehash canon, or rewrite the rules. For example, there are at least two or three campaigns which resurrect and then immediately kill the Overmind. Another campaign makes the purifiers/mobius/whoever into the new big bad and disposes of them just as quickly. By far my favorite is the poorly translated Polish custom campaign "Proditor," which pretty much throws canon rules out the window in order to tell its story. It depicts a whole faction of infested Protoss (or at least, infestation succeeding on the first try with no preparation), Zerg betraying Zerg despite being united by the Overmind, and other impossible events.


Dehaka in coop is good, but in terms of the game itself he could have been better, I disliked his constant essence obsessionSpeaking of which, I fully expect the primal zerg, the definition of essence, etc to be retconned yet again.


because ypur supposed ending singing kumbaya is far from the real thing, end starcraft 2 raised a cold war essentiary, factions officially in truce, with sub factions here and there do not agree. nova is an extremist independent paramilitary group by its leader, Alarak cares much for the presence so any action against him brings a multiplied response, really exaggerated and nothing diplomatic. stukov is a lord of the dead or we know what to expect, dehaka is now king of zerus and really do not know to wait for him if he plans to make hunts galactic level, terrans are already fractioned enough, the rest of the protoss are a the defensive, niadra hates the protoss by inheritance, abathur the last vestige of the original zerg acts out of sight of zagara, while she is playing to obey what mommy kerrigan saysStarCraft Evolution showed that six years went by without a single war, even though the six years before that had no less than four or five wars. Even if what you say is true, I fully expect Blizzard will forget all about it and pull something out of their ass that involves loads and loads of retcons and another space satan who is responsible for the previous space satans.

[Visions of Khas]

By far my favorite is the poorly translated Polish custom campaign "Proditor," which pretty much throws canon rules out the window in order to tell its story.

Looks like somebody hasn't played the Antioch Chronicles (https://www.sc2mapster.com/projects/antioch-chronicles-remastered) or Odyssey (https://www.sc2mapster.com/projects/starcraft-2-odyssey-campaign).

[Mislagnissa]

Looks like somebody hasn't played the Antioch Chronicles (https://www.sc2mapster.com/projects/antioch-chronicles-remastered) or Odyssey (https://www.sc2mapster.com/projects/starcraft-2-odyssey-campaign).

You forgot Flame Knives (http://www.samods.org/starcraft/flame_knives). The Kharnikhan Empire were Tal'darim before it was fashionable.

Also, I just wrote a satirical passage of what might pass for background lore in a hypothetical StarCraft 3 exposition section. The frightening thing is that this doesn't sound all that far-fetched, despite my attempt to be clearly absurdist. Let me know what you think.

The Story So Far, of StarCraft 3

In the beginning, the xel’naga created the universe. They created the zerg in the Zerus Galaxy and the protoss in the Aiur Galaxy with the intent that the two races would eventually merge and become the next generation of xel’naga, like sperm fertilizing ova. However, the xel’naga Amon discovered that the zerg were evil and would eventually assimilate the universe in pursuit of perfection. He tried to stop them, but they infested and consumed him. Then, using his knowledge, they killed and ate all the other xel’naga. With their new infinite power, they went on to conquer billions of galaxies before sending a token fleet to eat the newly discovered Koprulu galaxy ruled by the Protoss Empire and finally achieve their fabled perfection.

Meanwhile, enclaves of Protoss in other galaxies formed their own great Empire billions of years ago. From these Protoss descended numerous colonies. During the Aeon of Strife, a multi-galactic war lasting billions of years, many colonies forgot their origins and believed themselves alone in the universe. The Koprulu Empire, ruling the Koprulu Galaxy, was one such empire. The Zerg, however, remained unaware of the Protoss Empires at large.

The control brain of the Koprulu expeditionary fleet, the Overmind, was killed and defeated by the twilight Templar Tassadar. This left the swarms in the Koprulu galaxy feral and easy prey. The Overmind’s daughter, Kerrigan, swiftly took command and tried to continue her father’s goal. Then the xel’naga Duran, who escaped the great devouring, appeared and deceived her into helping him make Zerg/Protoss hybrids who would destroy the Zerg.

Using the ancient psychic magic of the xel’naga, Duran resurrected Amon free of Zerg control. Amon used his psychic magic to enslave the Protoss and Zerg, with the intention of creating an army of hybrids to defeat the Zerg who ruled the universe outside the Koprulu galaxy. However, he did not know that the Overmind could see the future and had already planned Amon’s demise.

Amon and Duran were killed, allowing the Koprulu galaxy to return to its previously peaceful ways. Since the Overmind was dead, the Zerg in the Koprulu galaxy forgot their mission and, having little in the way of independent thought, decided to retreat into a life of silent contemplation.

Concerned by the fact that billions of years passed without a peep from the Koprulu galaxy, the Zerg Emperor has sent another Overmind to investigate the Koprulu galaxy. Meanwhile, the Protoss Empire has discovered numerous Zerg creatures exploring the borders of their rule and sent fleets to investigate. One such fleet arrives in the Koprulu galaxy…

[Visions of Khas]

Well, I think we legit have a myriad of ways to create a StarCraft III. We know nothing about the UED or the inner workings of the Umojan Protectorate. The Tal'Darim and Primal Zerg may be the keys for a successful fusion of Protoss and Zerg. Some Ta'Darim still have nerve cords, so perhaps they can learn how to tap the Khala. Between Dehaka's Packs, Stukov's Infested, and Zagara's semi-independent Broods, the Zerg are highly fractured and can go in any direction. Killing Arcturus Mengsk cannot undo decades of systemic corruption. The Daelaam have becomes just as much individuals as terrans. The Purifiers contain unknown centuries of knowledge, experience and perspectives. And there are still things to learn about the Void and the Xel'Naga's origins.

I think there is a treasure trove of possibilities. But I'm just as pessimistic as any of you about Blizzard's ability to harness and focus that potential.

[Mislagnissa]

Well, I think we legit have a myriad of ways to create a StarCraft III. We know nothing about the UED or the inner workings of the Umojan Protectorate. The Tal'Darim and Primal Zerg may be the keys for a successful fusion of Protoss and Zerg. Some Ta'Darim still have nerve cords, so perhaps they can learn how to tap the Khala. Between Dehaka's Packs, Stukov's Infested, and Zagara's semi-independent Broods, the Zerg are highly fractured and can go in any direction. Killing Arcturus Mengsk cannot undo decades of systemic corruption. The Daelaam have becomes just as much individuals as terrans. The Purifiers contain unknown centuries of knowledge, experience and perspectives. And there are still things to learn about the Void and the Xel'Naga's origins.

I think there is a treasure trove of possibilities. But I'm just as pessimistic as any of you about Blizzard's ability to harness and focus that potential.

To be honest, all of those suggestions sound really boring compared to my satirical epic space opera. I can see why retcons are so attractive to Blizzard. Without the UED and Duran and Amon coming out of left field, you never could have continued the plot of StarCraft 1. Same thing here.

EDIT: I am being sarcastic. The problem is that you are thinking about logically following existing plot threads, whereas Blizzard is thinking about what would make for an epic story. Therefore, StarCraft 3 is obligated to shoehorn yet another galactic apocalypse. This requires making up a new faction from nowhere because the existing factions cannot do that.

[Turalyon]

Sc3 literally could be anything and it'd be "justified". The retcons and how they were used, set a precedent that just about anything can happen and nothing, not even the games internal history (recent or otherwise), can be taken for granted. It's at the point where I won't even bat an eyelid now if it were "revealed" that Xel'Naga are some time-travelling, future descendent of Terrans or whatever other outlandish idea that anyone else can come up with.

For all the quirks in BW and Sc1 story, there was always a feeling of verisimilitude, consequence and finality to some of the things that were happening there that we just don't get in Sc2. The retcons, amongst other things, in SC2 make it seem like things just happen for the sake of happening or worse, that there's obvious authorial intervention going on. All of this breaks one's immersion into that story. Not only that, any sense of tension that can be mustered seems manufactured rather than being naturally emergent such that while the stakes are definitely bigger and should carry weight, they ultimately ring hollow and false. Part of it is also due to the hyper-inflated importance of the old named characters and the grandiosity of having to revolve stories around such "big name" characters. That people were more interested in "unimportant" side characters like Tychus, Abathur and Alarak makes me wonder at how differently the story would've turned out and been received if it focused on building up new characters as the leads.

After Sc2, I have no interest in Sc3 in terms of its "main" story any more. They'll probably tap into a villain that's less esoteric and will garner more nostalgia pangs (looks at UED) or they might actually make the Protoss, in some form (Tal'darim?), the antagonist this time. Either way, I won't care for it since it'd still reek of "sequel for the sake of sequel" no matter how long it takes before it is eventually released. It's funny in a way since I was one of a very rare few who actually didn't want a sequel and was cynical of Sc2 right from the get-go way back when. I was hoping that I wasn't going to be vindicated - but alas, it was not to be. Still, whilst I've never read the EU novels (and still most likely won't), I'm still interested in the universe and the smaller things that can happen within it like those short stories and tangents that had nothing to do with the core/original game characters and story. In terms of "story", I felt they were actually the best thing that ever came close to capturing that old Starcraft feel throughout this entire time.

[Gradius]

Sc3 literally could be anything and it'd be "justified". The retcons and how they were used, set a precedent that just about anything can happen and nothing, not even the games internal history (recent or otherwise), can be taken for granted.
/thread]

[ragnarok]

Speaking of which, I fully expect the primal zerg, the definition of essence, etc to be retconned yet again.


So do I, but mainly because they didn't try to explain too much about them in HotS. It was a shame Kerrigan didn't ask Zurvan a bit more about the primal's history before Amon arrived and all that.

[ragnarok]

In the beginning, the xel’naga created the universe. They created the zerg in the Zerus Galaxy and the protoss in the Aiur Galaxy with the intent that the two races would eventually merge and become the next generation of xel’naga, like sperm fertilizing ova. However, the xel’naga Amon discovered that the zerg were evil and would eventually assimilate the universe in pursuit of perfection. He tried to stop them, but they infested and consumed him. Then, using his knowledge, they killed and ate all the other xel’naga. With their new infinite power, they went on to conquer billions of galaxies before sending a token fleet to eat the newly discovered Koprulu galaxy ruled by the Protoss Empire and finally achieve their fabled perfection.

Meanwhile, enclaves of Protoss in other galaxies formed their own great Empire billions of years ago. From these Protoss descended numerous colonies. During the Aeon of Strife, a multi-galactic war lasting billions of years, many colonies forgot their origins and believed themselves alone in the universe. The Koprulu Empire, ruling the Koprulu Galaxy, was one such empire. The Zerg, however, remained unaware of the Protoss Empires at large.

The control brain of the Koprulu expeditionary fleet, the Overmind, was killed and defeated by the twilight Templar Tassadar. This left the swarms in the Koprulu galaxy feral and easy prey. The Overmind’s daughter, Kerrigan, swiftly took command and tried to continue her father’s goal. Then the xel’naga Duran, who escaped the great devouring, appeared and deceived her into helping him make Zerg/Protoss hybrids who would destroy the Zerg.

Using the ancient psychic magic of the xel’naga, Duran resurrected Amon free of Zerg control. Amon used his psychic magic to enslave the Protoss and Zerg, with the intention of creating an army of hybrids to defeat the Zerg who ruled the universe outside the Koprulu galaxy. However, he did not know that the Overmind could see the future and had already planned Amon’s demise.

Amon and Duran were killed, allowing the Koprulu galaxy to return to its previously peaceful ways. Since the Overmind was dead, the Zerg in the Koprulu galaxy forgot their mission and, having little in the way of independent thought, decided to retreat into a life of silent contemplation.

Concerned by the fact that billions of years passed without a peep from the Koprulu galaxy, the Zerg Emperor has sent another Overmind to investigate the Koprulu galaxy. Meanwhile, the Protoss Empire has discovered numerous Zerg creatures exploring the borders of their rule and sent fleets to investigate. One such fleet arrives in the Koprulu galaxy…



I wouldn't bother going that far. There was nothing to say the Xel'Naga created the universe in SC1 or the SC2 lore. Personally I doubt they'd really decide to go that far. Though then again, you could argue this somewhat happened in HotS, given how much they forgot what happened in the WoL storyline.

Again, this is why I still believe Blizzard made the whole SC2 story based off the assumption "Oh everyone is only in it for the multiplayer, so no one will even notice if we make retcons in the campaign."

[Visions of Khas]

That's probably accurate, Rag. Blizzard sees their stories as being very malleable; it's all about making up excuses to sell products. If anyone expects the same amount of passion in Blizzard's stoey telling as, say, Valve treated its IPs in the past (emphasis on past), then they're fooling themselves.

I wouldn't be surprised if the next big retcon involves linking the various universes once inhabited by the Xel'Naga, leading to some roundabout story that concludes with humanity being the lynch pin of the Xel'Naga's genesis and continued existence. Just look at WarCraft to see into Starcraft's future.

[Zoar]

So what does everyone think of the new short 3 part comic from the Warchest?
Seems like they didn't completely forget about Niadra and some things seem to be heating up in the DMZ.

[Visions of Khas]

So what does everyone think of the new short 3 part comic from the Warchest?
Seems like they didn't completely forget about Niadra and some things seem to be heating up in the DMZ.

I'm lost. What's going on?

EDIT Whoops, never mind, found it (https://comic.starcraft2.com/en-us/shadow-wars-part-1)!

[ragnarok]

That's probably accurate, Rag. Blizzard sees their stories as being very malleable; it's all about making up excuses to sell products. If anyone expects the same amount of passion in Blizzard's stoey telling as, say, Valve treated its IPs in the past (emphasis on past), then they're fooling themselves.

I wouldn't be surprised if the next big retcon involves linking the various universes once inhabited by the Xel'Naga, leading to some roundabout story that concludes with humanity being the lynch pin of the Xel'Naga's genesis and continued existence. Just look at WarCraft to see into Starcraft's future.

I never got into the WC universe, Vok. Just give me the gist of it.

[Mislagnissa]

Sc3 literally could be anything and it'd be "justified". The retcons and how they were used, set a precedent that just about anything can happen and nothing, not even the games internal history (recent or otherwise), can be taken for granted. It's at the point where I won't even bat an eyelid now if it were "revealed" that Xel'Naga are some time-travelling, future descendent of Terrans or whatever other outlandish idea that anyone else can come up with.

For all the quirks in BW and Sc1 story, there was always a feeling of verisimilitude, consequence and finality to some of the things that were happening there that we just don't get in Sc2. The retcons, amongst other things, in SC2 make it seem like things just happen for the sake of happening or worse, that there's obvious authorial intervention going on. All of this breaks one's immersion into that story. Not only that, any sense of tension that can be mustered seems manufactured rather than being naturally emergent such that while the stakes are definitely bigger and should carry weight, they ultimately ring hollow and false. Part of it is also due to the hyper-inflated importance of the old named characters and the grandiosity of having to revolve stories around such "big name" characters. That people were more interested in "unimportant" side characters like Tychus, Abathur and Alarak makes me wonder at how differently the story would've turned out and been received if it focused on building up new characters as the leads.

After Sc2, I have no interest in Sc3 in terms of its "main" story any more. They'll probably tap into a villain that's less esoteric and will garner more nostalgia pangs (looks at UED) or they might actually make the Protoss, in some form (Tal'darim?), the antagonist this time. Either way, I won't care for it since it'd still reek of "sequel for the sake of sequel" no matter how long it takes before it is eventually released. It's funny in a way since I was one of a very rare few who actually didn't want a sequel and was cynical of Sc2 right from the get-go way back when. I was hoping that I wasn't going to be vindicated - but alas, it was not to be. Still, whilst I've never read the EU novels (and still most likely won't), I'm still interested in the universe and the smaller things that can happen within it like those short stories and tangents that had nothing to do with the core/original game characters and story. In terms of "story", I felt they were actually the best thing that ever came close to capturing that old Starcraft feel throughout this entire time.
You hit on the nail on head with what I think StarCraft did wrong. I definitely think StarCraft would have been better as a backdrop for space opera stories rather than literally forcing the universe to revolve around Jim and Kerry. The Insurrection expansion showed that you could write interesting campaigns taking place on single planets during the Zerg invasion of the Koprulu sector.

The really neat thing about Insurrection is that it has many identical plot points to SC1, but generally executes them better. For example, the Confederacy and Judicators actually do villainous things to earn their villain label. The Protoss politics had shades of Game of Thrones even. I would be way more interested in more stories like that.

The reason why characters like Alarak and Dehaka are popular is because they are clearly villainous but still protagonists. Dehaka and Abathur ironically follow largely the same values as the pre-Kerry Zerg did, being obsessed with achieving perfection. Alarak is probably the best way to portray evil dark templar who justify judicator paranoia.

[Turalyon]

I definitely think StarCraft would have been better as a backdrop for space opera stories rather than literally forcing the universe to revolve around Jim and Kerry.

Too true. It's weird but, in Sc1, even though the story was following named characters, it never felt to me that "Starcraft" was/revolved about them in particular or specifically. Back then, no character seemed so important in an out-of-universe way (sure, the in-universe characters would like to heap importance on specific other characters but that doesn't mean they actually are important or important as much as they think or like them to be)/ protected by plot armour that they couldn't potentially and untimely meet death around the corner due to a mistake, a miscalculation or misjudgement. Afterall, even the most godlike character that was present in Sc1, the Overmind, proved to be fallible in the end through no fault of its own.


The reason why characters like Alarak and Dehaka are popular is because they are clearly villainous but still protagonists. Dehaka and Abathur ironically follow largely the same values as the pre-Kerry Zerg did, being obsessed with achieving perfection. Alarak is probably the best way to portray evil dark templar who justify judicator paranoia.

Not so sure about Dehaka. He sure is...uh, "different" but he's doesn't really become much than a one-note "hat" and he's used more as plot device than anything else (to resolve another conveniently introduced plot device).

I think Alarak, Tychus and even Abathur are popular not because they're villainous but because those characters hearken back to the dirty, the griminess that was Starcraft. They're the brutally honest, "cut-the-shit" types that you would expect to see in that universe. They stand out in Sc2 because they don't seem to really belong in the fantastical and artificial universe that Sc2 sets them up in.

[Mislagnissa]

Too true. It's weird but, in Sc1, even though the story was following named characters, it never felt to me that "Starcraft" was/revolved about them in particular or specifically. Back then, no character seemed so important in an out-of-universe way (sure, the in-universe characters would like to heap importance on specific other characters but that doesn't mean they actually are important or important as much as they think or like them to be)/ protected by plot armour that they couldn't potentially and untimely meet death around the corner due to a mistake, a miscalculation or misjudgement. Afterall, even the most godlike character that was present in Sc1, the Overmind, proved to be fallible in the end through no fault of its own. If you have the time, I would suggest reading Enumerate (https://acidiccook.deviantart.com/art/Starcraft-Enumerate-Document-1-532219442). We all had ideas for fixing StarCraft, but Enumerate is probably the most detailed treatment ever written. I was really glad I found it, because it executed a lot of my similar ideas a lot more elegantly.


Not so sure about Dehaka. He sure is...uh, "different" but he's doesn't really become much than a one-note "hat" and he's used more as plot device than anything else (to resolve another conveniently introduced plot device).

I think Alarak, Tychus and even Abathur are popular not because they're villainous but because those characters hearken back to the dirty, the griminess that was Starcraft. They're the brutally honest, "cut-the-shit" types that you would expect to see in that universe. They stand out in Sc2 because they don't seem to really belong in the fantastical and artificial universe that Sc2 sets them up in.Yeah, that's more accurate than what I said.

[ragnarok]

Too true. It's weird but, in Sc1, even though the story was following named characters, it never felt to me that "Starcraft" was/revolved about them in particular or specifically. Back then, no character seemed so important in an out-of-universe way (sure, the in-universe characters would like to heap importance on specific other characters but that doesn't mean they actually are important or important as much as they think or like them to be)/ protected by plot armour that they couldn't potentially and untimely meet death around the corner due to a mistake, a miscalculation or misjudgement. Afterall, even the most godlike character that was present in Sc1, the Overmind, proved to be fallible in the end through no fault of its own.


No character was supposed to feel important because the storyline wasn't intended to centered around a single person. In BW they tried to change this a bit due to Kerrigan wanting control of the swarm, and that's fine. However by the time of SC2 they should have only stressed her importance via WoL and that's it, mainly because she was the only symbol of control for the swarm. Once she was defeated on Char, there was no need to stress single character importance anymore

[Zoar]

On the planet Adena, in the demilitarized zone between the Terran Dominion and Daelaam territory, a group of Dominion marines (including a psionic named Elms) and mercenaries were sent to salvage jorium crystals from a abandoned mining outpost. In reality the marines were going to keep the jorium for themselves and sell it on the black market. The Daelaam under Admiral Urun watched the terrans skeptically, but allowed them on the planet. The salvage team below took the crates, but soon found zerg under the Niadra Brood in the base, which quickly attacked them.[3]

The marines defended themselves, and Broodmother Niadra revealed she had been waiting on the planet for a long time for terrans to expand her brood, in order to fight the protoss. Niadra planted a larva into the commander just as Kerrigan did on the Daelaam Ark, and allowed her to escape on a dropship. Meanwhile, she turned her attention to Elms, who she recognized as a psionic. Urun's carrier meanwhile shot down the dropship as it was escaping the atmosphere.[4]

Enraged, Captain Hogarth fired on Urun's carrier, and Urun deployed his forces, though it broke the treaty the Daelaam had with the Terran Dominion. Urun then lead a team down to the surface, and fought the zerg around Elms. Together they beat back the zerg, and Urun soon turned on the terrans, but Elms psionically communicated with him, convincing the admiral to join forces to fight off Niadra's zerg.

A quick synopsis of the 3 parts of the comic available so far. Copied from starcraft.wikia.com

[ragnarok]

That'll probably be minor. Niadra's brood isn't that strong yet, you know

[Visions of Khas]

Yeah, I totally see Niadra's brood getting destroyed by the end of this comic. It's just to tie up loose ends.

[ragnarok]

Yeah, I totally see Niadra's brood getting destroyed by the end of this comic. It's just to tie up loose ends.

Did they announce a release date for part 4 yet? Because I can't remember....

[Mislagnissa]

I recently thought up some ideas for SC3 expansion/DLC (since it will likely use SC2 engine).

Since it's standard practice to forget existing plot threads and introduce new factions out of nowhere, I expect SC3 will do the same.

New factions:

Galaxy Federation: a Terran empire which rules Earth and other planets. They send fleets to K-sec to put the uppity colonists back in their place. (UED is completely forgotten.)

Locust Crusade: Another Zerg Swarm which split off after leaving Zerus millions of years ago. They want to eat everyone. Their dialogue is ripped off from the reapers in Mass Effect. (Overmind and Kerry are forgotten.)

Something Something Theocracy: Another Protoss empire which split off from Aiur millions of years. They have their own Khala. They want to kill all infidels or something. Their dialogue is ripped off from the Imperium of Man in Warhammer 40k.

Hybrids/Void thrashers/xel'naga: a space demon race always that existed and have nothing to do with Zerg or Protoss. Tal'darim summon them with black magic, but they are otherwise canon-fodder. (Amon is forgotten. Taldarim are Sith lords who worship the dark side.)

Does that sound accurate? It's difficult to tell because I have to turn my brain off.

[ragnarok]

I recently thought up some ideas for SC3 expansion/DLC (since it will likely use SC2 engine).

Since it's standard practice to forget existing plot threads and introduce new factions out of nowhere, I expect SC3 will do the same.

New factions:

Galaxy Federation: a Terran empire which rules Earth and other planets. They send fleets to K-sec to put the uppity colonists back in their place. (UED is completely forgotten.)

Locust Crusade: Another Zerg Swarm which split off after leaving Zerus millions of years ago. They want to eat everyone. Their dialogue is ripped off from the reapers in Mass Effect. (Overmind and Kerry are forgotten.)

Something Something Theocracy: Another Protoss empire which split off from Aiur millions of years. They have their own Khala. They want to kill all infidels or something. Their dialogue is ripped off from the Imperium of Man in Warhammer 40k.

Hybrids/Void thrashers/xel'naga: a space demon race always that existed and have nothing to do with Zerg or Protoss. Tal'darim summon them with black magic, but they are otherwise canon-fodder. (Amon is forgotten. Taldarim are Sith lords who worship the dark side.)

Does that sound accurate? It's difficult to tell because I have to turn my brain off.

I'll just take the Void thrashers part in the last one. The Xel'Naga can appear in flashbacks and that's enough. It would be interesting to see more of the thrashers as they're also native Void creatures, would like to see how they interacted....

[Turalyon]

"Taking the piss" there I see, Misla. I think I'll just stick to WH40K thank you very much. Lol

[sandwich_bird]

Well, looking at what they're now doing with WoW.. both the alliance and the horde joined forces to fuck over one of the biggest bad guy in the franchise. Yet, the new xpac is about reviving the conflict between the alliance and the horde. Their main reason for going all out war on each other is because of a misunderstanding that could literally be solved instantly if the leaders of both factions weren't too retarded to spend 5 minutes to talk to each other. Wow has always been stupid but this is just an all new level of it.

Anyways, I'm saying this because if wow is the blueprint, I bet they'll want to restart the good old TvPvZ in the unlikely sc3. They won't introduce a new big baddie. How they'll make it happen? I'm not sure what they'll retcon for it. Maybe Valerian(who's basically Anduin) will blame Artanis for something and this will result in a war at the simplest inconvenience and then zagara will jump in because why not? Or worst, maybe they'll want a 2 faction war... Dehaka, Alarak, Nova(the horde) vs Zagara, artanis, Valerian(the alliance).

[Nissa]

What I want from SC3 is a complete retcon. Forget SC2 ever happened, and continue as appropriate from SC1.

Actually, what should have happened is a second expansion set for SC1, going Zerg->Toss-> Terran. This would involve a "soft" ending, where the main antagonisms are settled, but all three races are still at odds and violence can/will be provoked in the future. The Zerg would be weakened to a point to where they have to bide their time, the 'Toss would be dealing with their own issues, and the Terrans would have their own factional issues. Thus, that would create the opportunity for future games to be primarily human, and open to smaller stories (ie SC:Ghost and the like). Also, Terrans need to have more importance in the story. Most of the big issues in Starcraft have to do with Protoss and Zerg, making Terrans more or less interlopers in situations far beyond them. As much as this perspective could be interesting, in practice it produces things like the set of UED Terran missions, where hapless humans fight among themselves with minimal impact on the long term story. In short, human missions shouldn't feel like stale interruptions from the big stuff going on with the other races.

[Mislagnissa]

I noticed something rather bizarre while looking over the retconned prehistory. I am not sure whether it was intended by the writers or not, but the fact that the xel'naga got their asses handed to them by the primordial protoss and zerg does not change even after the xel'naga are retconned into space gods that personally tear worlds apart. In fact, their wimpiness is exaggerated into absurdity.

The Protoss are retconned to having stone age tools yet still able to build a galactic empire and kill space gods.

The Zerg are retconned to eating essence, which means that when they consumed the xel'naga over Zerus they became xel'naga. The Overmind (and cerebrates, assuming they weren't just forgotten out of existence like the UED) are presumably still alive in the void with all the powers of the xel'naga.

So it would be fully supported by canon to have the Overmind return in SC3 as the new big bad evil guy xel'naga. Only now he's considered a hero because he wants to make everyone into immortal Zerg rather than kill everyone. Maybe he uses his space god powers to restore the Khala as a gesture of good faith or something. Now the status quo is restored.

[Turalyon]

The Zerg are retconned to eating essence, which means that when they consumed the xel'naga over Zerus they became xel'naga. The Overmind (and cerebrates, assuming they weren't just forgotten out of existence like the UED) are presumably still alive in the void with all the powers of the xel'naga.

Only the Primal Zerg eat essence and become what they eat. The hivemind Zerg don't and it was they that defeated the Xel'Naga. It's presumed that hivemind Zerg couldn't assimilate Xel'Naga then for the same reason they can't assimilate Protoss - through retcon. ;)

What's more alarming is that if the Cycle retcon means the Xel'Naga are beings of great change (retconned purity of essence) and great psionic power (retconned purity of form) and that the Overmind couldn't assimilate them or Protoss even then because of said psionic power, why is Kerrigan the supposed answer? Terran psionics are supposedly weak enough to allow such infestation/assimilation but wouldn't that mean she doesn't technically have "great psionic power"/retconned purity of form? How is she able to become a Xel'Naga then?

[ragnarok]

Only the Primal Zerg eat essence and become what they eat. The hivemind Zerg don't and it was they that defeated the Xel'Naga. It's presumed that hivemind Zerg couldn't assimilate Xel'Naga then for the same reason they can't assimilate Protoss - through retcon. ;)

What's more alarming is that if the Cycle retcon means the Xel'Naga are beings of great change (retconned purity of essence) and great psionic power (retconned purity of form) and that the Overmind couldn't assimilate them or Protoss even then because of said psionic power, why is Kerrigan the supposed answer? Terran psionics are supposedly weak enough to allow such infestation/assimilation but wouldn't that mean she doesn't technically have "great psionic power"/retconned purity of form? How is she able to become a Xel'Naga then?

I keep telling you Tura, the whole ascension process we saw in the epilogue was merely Ouros pulling some strings. I'm willing to bet that's probably not the normal way to ascend in the first place, and was out of desperation, not SOP.

[Mislagnissa]

Only the Primal Zerg eat essence and become what they eat. The hivemind Zerg don't and it was they that defeated the Xel'Naga. It's presumed that hivemind Zerg couldn't assimilate Xel'Naga then for the same reason they can't assimilate Protoss - through retcon. ;)

What's more alarming is that if the Cycle retcon means the Xel'Naga are beings of great change (retconned purity of essence) and great psionic power (retconned purity of form) and that the Overmind couldn't assimilate them or Protoss even then because of said psionic power, why is Kerrigan the supposed answer? Terran psionics are supposedly weak enough to allow such infestation/assimilation but wouldn't that mean she doesn't technically have "great psionic power"/retconned purity of form? How is she able to become a Xel'Naga then?

That makes no sense. Amon chose the Zerg because they could eat essence. That's the definition of purity of essence (as of SC2). If the Zerg lost that, they'd no longer have purity of essence.

Then again, this is the same Amon who needed Terran labs to make hybrids. Even though that makes no sense.

[ragnarok]

That makes no sense. Amon chose the Zerg because they could eat essence. That's the definition of purity of essence (as of SC2). If the Zerg lost that, they'd no longer have purity of essence.

Then again, this is the same Amon who needed Terran labs to make hybrids. Even though that makes no sense.

He didn't actually NEED the terran labs, that was more of an alternative after the end of BW and the swarm's control was lost.

[Turalyon]

I keep telling you Tura, the whole ascension process we saw in the epilogue was merely Ouros pulling some strings. I'm willing to bet that's probably not the normal way to ascend in the first place, and was out of desperation, not SOP.

You may have something there since we do know that Ouros uses deceit to get what he wants and is a confirmed liar.


That makes no sense. Amon chose the Zerg because they could eat essence. That's the definition of purity of essence (as of SC2). If the Zerg lost that, they'd no longer have purity of essence.

Then again, this is the same Amon who needed Terran labs to make hybrids. Even though that makes no sense.

Keep in mind that Amon turned the Primal/"True" Zerg into Hivemind Zerg as a way to corrupt that purity, so as to stop the Endless Cycle from occurring naturally. The Hivemind Zerg is implied to not really have purity of essence because they're not true Zerg (like the Primals supposedly are). I'm guessing that this "interference from Amon" in the initial development of the Zerg and Protoss is the "real" reason why the Zerg can't assimilate Protoss. This then begs the question of why Amon needs to even have them all exterminated later when he so thoroughly sabotaged the cycle right from the beginning. See how this HotS retcon totally craps on and confuses what the initial setup was?

[ragnarok]

You may have something there since we do know that Ouros uses deceit to get what he wants and is a confirmed liar.



All he wanted from what we know is for the cycle to continue, but so far no one really sees any benefit for the whole thing.


Keep in mind that Amon turned the Primal/"True" Zerg into Hivemind Zerg as a way to corrupt that purity, so as to stop the Endless Cycle from occurring naturally. The Hivemind Zerg is implied to not really have purity of essence because they're not true Zerg (like the Primals supposedly are). I'm guessing that this "interference from Amon" in the initial development of the Zerg and Protoss is the "real" reason why the Zerg can't assimilate Protoss. This then begs the question of why Amon needs to even have them all exterminated later when he so thoroughly sabotaged the cycle right from the beginning. See how this HotS retcon totally craps on and confuses what the initial setup was?

You don't know that for the Hivemind Zerg. Remember according to the SC1 manual, the only part Amon played in the whole uplifting was because Zerus's environment was too harsh for the Zerg (who were nothing but parasites then) to survive. After that, he simply allowed them to evolve on their own. Essence is genetic material, and I'm unsure if messing with their minds to bind them to the hive mind counts as corrupting the purity. Of course, if you say that meddling with a guy's brain to obey certain things it doesn't want to qualifies as messing with the genetics in the brain itself, or something like that, then by all means it'd count.

The whole interference with the Zerg isn't the reason they can't assimilate Protoss. Remember, by the time Amon was still on Zerus binding them to the hive mind, the Aeon of Strife was still active on Aiur, BEFORE Khas used the Khala to end it. That means had the Zerg attacked Aiur BEFORE Khas's actions, the Protoss would have been vulnerable to assimilation. Even if Amon knew someday the Khala would eventually be rediscovered, it's not like he knew when that day would be.

[Nissa]

Um...according to the SC1 manual, Amon doesn't exist.

[ragnarok]

Um...according to the SC1 manual, Amon doesn't exist.

I'm merely trying to put the SC1 lore and SC2 lore together, despite the contradictions. It's better than what I heard back then on the Blizzard forums, which basically all just come down to "Blizzard was too damn stupid."

Now yes there's grounds to that claim, but still....

[Nissa]

Blizzard does have problems with storytelling. You can't mesh SC1 with SC2 because Blizzard themselves didn't do it. They just did whatever they wanted gameplaywise and slathered it with generic silliness for a story. You can't debate these kinds of details because it's pretty clear Blizzard never did so themselves.

Give it up, man. SC2 is nothing to SC1.

[Nolanstar]

Just because blizzard has issues doesn't mean we cannot try to fix them, its the way to create a semi-coherent mess rather then giving up and ranting to anyone who tries to.

[ragnarok]

Blizzard does have problems with storytelling. You can't mesh SC1 with SC2 because Blizzard themselves didn't do it. They just did whatever they wanted gameplaywise and slathered it with generic silliness for a story. You can't debate these kinds of details because it's pretty clear Blizzard never did so themselves.

Give it up, man. SC2 is nothing to SC1.

I got into the storyline via the SC2 lore, as I was not interested back then when SC1 came out all those years ago. I'm not going to simply say it's better just to scrap the whole thing (and no time travel either just to make SC2 irrelevant). Of course, if Blizzard does do that for SC3, that's their choice.

[Turalyon]

You don't know that for the Hivemind Zerg.

Course I do. HotS spells it out for me.


Remember according to the SC1 manual, the only part Amon played in the whole uplifting was because Zerus's environment was too harsh for the Zerg (who were nothing but parasites then) to survive.

Wrong. The Xel'Naga also gave them the Overmind. In Sc2, it's retconned that the Xel'Naga is Amon, so therefore he gave them the Overmind for a reason. Given that Amon's ultimate motivation is to stop the cycle, it is more than reasonable to suggest that the implementation of the Overmind into the Zerg is a means to carry out his motivation.


The whole interference with the Zerg isn't the reason they can't assimilate Protoss. Remember, by the time Amon was still on Zerus binding them to the hive mind, the Aeon of Strife was still active on Aiur, BEFORE Khas used the Khala to end it. That means had the Zerg attacked Aiur BEFORE Khas's actions, the Protoss would have been vulnerable to assimilation. Even if Amon knew someday the Khala would eventually be rediscovered, it's not like he knew when that day would be.

This is also wrong. Protoss who are not part of the Khala are essentially using void energy to power their psionics - Protoss who use void energy are also immune to infestation or assimilation. We know this because the Dark Templar - being essentially a continuation of those Protoss who fought during the Aeon of Strife - are also immune to assimilation or infestation..

[Mislagnissa]

I'm merely trying to put the SC1 lore and SC2 lore together, despite the contradictions. It's better than what I heard back then on the Blizzard forums, which basically all just come down to "Blizzard was too damn stupid."

Now yes there's grounds to that claim, but still....


Just because blizzard has issues doesn't mean we cannot try to fix them, its the way to create a semi-coherent mess rather then giving up and ranting to anyone who tries to.

The retcons are irreconcilable. The wiki attempts to reconcile them, but the end result is a mess full of plot holes. Here are some examples:
The Protoss were able to kill space gods and fight a galactic war despite being limited to stone age technology.
Amon was able to take over the Khala, even though it was never a hive mind but a simple telepathic internet. The game does not bother to explain how this is possible, or even how the Khala is supposed to work.
Duran spent millions of years doing nothing, then suddenly starts making hybrids after the Overmind died. In WoL, Duran needs Raynor to acquire the artifacts, but does not tell his taldarim followers to just hand them over. His assumed identities (all 2 of them) are palindromes: Duran and Narud.
The 4-year gap between SC and SC2 where nothing happens.
The Overmind sought out the humans because their psychic potential was necessary to fight the Protoss, but never actually acquired this psychic potential and fought the Protoss anyway.
The Overmind infested Kerrigan to give the Zerg a ruler free of Amon's influence, but his required her to be deinfested and infested by the primal spawning pool. There's no possible way the Overmind planned that--oh wait, a chick with dreads and wings appears in the prophecy engravings from millions of years ago!
Despite living for millions of years and consuming countless worlds, it never occurred to the Overmind to create something like broodmothers, despite them being superior to cerebrates in every way (e.g. able to function without the Overmind, able to move and defend themselves).
There's little functional difference between the Overmind and Amon, as both desire to remake the universe in their own image. Despite this, the Overmind and the Zerg are played up as heroes like the orcs in Warcraft, even though their original portrayal is more interesting.


SC2 has a stupid plot even without being a sequel. Why would you want to keep any of the idiocy it introduces?


I got into the storyline via the SC2 lore, as I was not interested back then when SC1 came out all those years ago. I'm not going to simply say it's better just to scrap the whole thing (and no time travel either just to make SC2 irrelevant). Of course, if Blizzard does do that for SC3, that's their choice.Then I have a question for you: how would you describe the Zerg? What are their motivations and culture? What makes them fundamentally different from Terrans and Protoss? What justifies a war between them and the Terrans and/or Protoss?

In SC1 pre-BW, they had an alien culture which valued the pursuit of perfection. They sought to consume the universe and remake it in their image. They were ruled by a hierarchy of hive minds, each of which specialized in pursuing a specific goal that benefited the whole. Their ruling class, the Overmind and his Cerebrates, spoke in a sophisticated manner reminiscent of the Old Testament and Shakespeare. They started the conflict in the K-sec by invading the human and protoss worlds in pursuit of their lofty ambitions. This sort of thinking is ingrained into their genome, such that even if the existing hierarchy were uprooted it would be replaced with clones.

In SC2, the Zerg have no ambition or self-awareness. Abathur supposedly values continuous evolution, but is a meat robot with no personality. Izsha is another meat robot whose purpose is to state the obvious and tell the other commanders what they already know. The primal pack leaders have no desires other than to fill their stomachs and refuse to shut up about their precious "essence." Niadra wants to destroy the Protoss because that was the last order given by her mother, regardless of how it benefits herself or serves any higher purpose. Zagara just does whatever Kerry tells her to. The other brood mothers have no goals beyond immediate survival and spend all of their time twiddling their thumbs until the plot comes along. They were never anything more than tools for Kerry to fulfill her personal vendetta.

Even if you were introduced through the SC2 lore, that does not change the fact that it is stupid. Lots of people introduced through the SC2 lore think that the plot is stupid. I was introduced through the SC1 lore, and I fully acknowledge that the original campaigns are quite lacking.

[Nissa]

Just because blizzard has issues doesn't mean we cannot try to fix them, its the way to create a semi-coherent mess rather then giving up and ranting to anyone who tries to.

Then we are essentially doing Blizzard's work for them. I don't mind fixing a plothole with logical fanon, but to reconcile what Blizzard probably never intended to be reconciled is purely absurd.

[ragnarok]

Wrong. The Xel'Naga also gave them the Overmind. In Sc2, it's retconned that the Xel'Naga is Amon, so therefore he gave them the Overmind for a reason. Given that Amon's ultimate motivation is to stop the cycle, it is more than reasonable to suggest that the implementation of the Overmind into the Zerg is a means to carry out his motivation.


I'm trying to blend the two lores together. And don't say "that's impossible because there's too many contradictions." In LotV at least they made an attempt to try to explain things.


This is also wrong. Protoss who are not part of the Khala are essentially using void energy to power their psionics - Protoss who use void energy are also immune to infestation or assimilation. We know this because the Dark Templar - being essentially a continuation of those Protoss who fought during the Aeon of Strife - are also immune to assimilation or infestation..

And where was the evidence that they were using the Void to power the psionics? I don't recall any evidence of that happening in the Aeon of Strife.


Then we are essentially doing Blizzard's work for them. I don't mind fixing a plothole with logical fanon, but to reconcile what Blizzard probably never intended to be reconciled is purely absurd.

This was the whole reason why Stratos told me that even if I won't see what he and others see about the flaws, the fact still stands I'm paying way more attention to detail and made a way better effort to try to tie the lores together than Blizzard ever did.

[ragnarok]

The retcons are irreconcilable. The wiki attempts to reconcile them, but the end result is a mess full of plot holes. Here are some examples:
The Protoss were able to kill space gods and fight a galactic war despite being limited to stone age technology.
Amon was able to take over the Khala, even though it was never a hive mind but a simple telepathic internet. The game does not bother to explain how this is possible, or even how the Khala is supposed to work.
Duran spent millions of years doing nothing, then suddenly starts making hybrids after the Overmind died. In WoL, Duran needs Raynor to acquire the artifacts, but does not tell his taldarim followers to just hand them over. His assumed identities (all 2 of them) are palindromes: Duran and Narud.
The 4-year gap between SC and SC2 where nothing happens.
The Overmind sought out the humans because their psychic potential was necessary to fight the Protoss, but never actually acquired this psychic potential and fought the Protoss anyway.
The Overmind infested Kerrigan to give the Zerg a ruler free of Amon's influence, but his required her to be deinfested and infested by the primal spawning pool. There's no possible way the Overmind planned that--oh wait, a chick with dreads and wings appears in the prophecy engravings from millions of years ago!
Despite living for millions of years and consuming countless worlds, it never occurred to the Overmind to create something like broodmothers, despite them being superior to cerebrates in every way (e.g. able to function without the Overmind, able to move and defend themselves).
There's little functional difference between the Overmind and Amon, as both desire to remake the universe in their own image. Despite this, the Overmind and the Zerg are played up as heroes like the orcs in Warcraft, even though their original portrayal is more interesting.


SC2 has a stupid plot even without being a sequel. Why would you want to keep any of the idiocy it introduces?


I wouldn't say Duran didn't command the Tal'darim to hand it over. It's a shame Blizzard didn't explain that, but I'm willing to bet it could be because Duran wanted to test Raynor: to see how far he's willing to go to get something (and it wasn't even about Kerrigan at the beginning, it was about his rebellion).

The DT Saga, along with the Spectre rebellion did happen, it's just that the terrazine wasn't really explained in the latter and Blizzard wasted the potential for the Tal'darim in the former as the Aiur Tal'darim didn't serve Amon.

The 4 years of quiet was something explained at the end of BW because of Kerrigan's premonition. Now yes none of us knew what that really meant back then. Personally before SC2 was revealed I had expected to be the UED's plan for revenge of something, since she too didn't know about the hybrid.

The Overmind's actions in going for the terrans in psionic potential was achieved in Kerrigan. Of course I didn't understand why the moment he learned where Aiur was he just went for it, unless something in Zeratul's memories showed that the Protoss people were too divided amongst themselves or something, and so the Overmind felt he could strike without the need for psionic potential.

I'm not convinced the carving at Ulnar was actually as old as you think. For all we know Ouros only made it very recently or something. Plus I don't think the Overmind knew that infesting Kerrigan would subject her to Amon's influence. In addition Blizzard made it clear the Overmind only did this to ensure the survival of the swarm. He didn't care if Amon killed everyone else. Therefore, if her strategy is to use the swarm to kill everyone in order for the zerg to grow strong enough to defeat Amon, that was fine from the Overmind's POV.

[ragnarok]

Then I have a question for you: how would you describe the Zerg? What are their motivations and culture? What makes them fundamentally different from Terrans and Protoss? What justifies a war between them and the Terrans and/or Protoss?

In SC1 pre-BW, they had an alien culture which valued the pursuit of perfection. They sought to consume the universe and remake it in their image. They were ruled by a hierarchy of hive minds, each of which specialized in pursuing a specific goal that benefited the whole. Their ruling class, the Overmind and his Cerebrates, spoke in a sophisticated manner reminiscent of the Old Testament and Shakespeare. They started the conflict in the K-sec by invading the human and protoss worlds in pursuit of their lofty ambitions. This sort of thinking is ingrained into their genome, such that even if the existing hierarchy were uprooted it would be replaced with clones.

In SC2, the Zerg have no ambition or self-awareness. Abathur supposedly values continuous evolution, but is a meat robot with no personality. Izsha is another meat robot whose purpose is to state the obvious and tell the other commanders what they already know. The primal pack leaders have no desires other than to fill their stomachs and refuse to shut up about their precious "essence." Niadra wants to destroy the Protoss because that was the last order given by her mother, regardless of how it benefits herself or serves any higher purpose. Zagara just does whatever Kerry tells her to. The other brood mothers have no goals beyond immediate survival and spend all of their time twiddling their thumbs until the plot comes along. They were never anything more than tools for Kerry to fulfill her personal vendetta.

Even if you were introduced through the SC2 lore, that does not change the fact that it is stupid. Lots of people introduced through the SC2 lore think that the plot is stupid. I was introduced through the SC1 lore, and I fully acknowledge that the original campaigns are quite lacking.

Now, as for the description of the zerg prior to the Xel'Naga on Zerus, the point is according to the SC1 manual was that the planet was too harsh an environment for them to survive. Therefore, I don't think they actually HAD a culture, as they were too busy for survival, which didn't happen until the Xel'Naga's arrival.

The whole perfection might not have been something the Zerg originally intended for. It's somewhat like the case with the Tal'darim: their culture and society was based off of brutality simply because of Amon's presence for so long (since they had been loyal to Amon even before he reached Zerus). Therefore, it's possible that even the primal zerg were affected by this, despite the fact that Amon couldn't control them.

If we use the SC1 lore, it was because the Xel'Naga didn't want the Zerg to fracture like what happened to the Protoss on Aiur, hence the need for the hive mind. But it was also necessary to ensure the hive mind wasn't some numbed out robot, thus the need to give the Overmind sentience. In SC2 it was explained this thinking genome was something Amon programmed into them so he could create a host body. He needed them focused on the task at hand, it's nothing more that programming a biological computer.

Now, moving to the SC2 lore, Niadra's goal for killing Protoss was the way the hive mind works. If you're stronger than the other person, you don't have to obey. As for WHY you have to obey the order, this I felt could be explained via the SC1 lore, when the Overmind said no Zerg could stray from his will. That means he didn't have to actually explain his reason for the cerebrates to obey, and it was the same with Kerrigan in SC2, prior to giving the broodmothers more independence and all that. Having said that however I DO feel Blizzard shouldn't have been this inflexible. This is nothing more than the concept of "blind obedience without conscience," something frowned upon today.

As for the whole vendetta process, this is what happens when your whole life you're only exposed to the worst humanity has to offer. I know because I have some experience of just that. The bottom line is this is exactly the reason why it wasn't until almost the very end of HotS that Kerrigan began to see the Dominion people and military as possibly something more than just a homogeneous mass of zombies.

[Turalyon]

I'm trying to blend the two lores together.

I know that and incorporated that in my previous response, which is why I still say you are wrong. Amon gave the Overmind to the Zerg according to the additive retcons in Sc2.


And where was the evidence that they were using the Void to power the psionics? I don't recall any evidence of that happening in the Aeon of Strife.

If you're looking to integrate Sc1 and Sc2 lore then you can't ignore the information the manual gives you then, right? Well, it says in the manual that it was a legend that "greater landmasses were devastated" by the AoS Protoss. Given the later retcons specify the Protoss in that age were actually of stone-age technology, the only explanation is that the description I mentioned earlier is indeed false/apocryphal (since it is a "legend") or that they used psionic power to wrought such devastation. Now, you may say that it is unclear that Protoss had indeed psionic powers in that age (although they had a psychic link - which may not be the same thing as psionic powers) to begin with because it's never actually stated they do have such powers in the manual. However, Sc2 confirms that they did have psionic powers from the start because they have "purity of form" from the very beginning (as it says in the manual) and that this actually means "great psionic power" (as retconned in LotV).

Given that later retcons say that all Protoss who become disconnected from the psychic link/Khala automatically draw from the Void to fuel their psionics and that there is never any mention of them losing their purity of form/great psionic power during the Aeon of Strife, the logical inference to all this is that the Protoss who lost their connection to the psychic link during the Aeon of Strife must have been using Void for their psionics, unless stated otherwise.


The Overmind's actions in going for the terrans in psionic potential was achieved in Kerrigan. Of course I didn't understand why the moment he learned where Aiur was he just went for it, unless something in Zeratul's memories showed that the Protoss people were too divided amongst themselves or something, and so the Overmind felt he could strike without the need for psionic potential.

You don't understand why the Overmind invaded when it learned the location of Aiur? Well, ask yourself this question. Would the Overmind have invaded if it did not have the psionic potential/Kerrigan? The answer is an obvious no in the sense that Kerrigan is the direct cause for the Overmind to find Aiur (via attracting Zeratul and then killing Zasz, forming a mind-link where information was shared) so it wouldn't even be in the position to invade it in the first place. So, ask yourself a slightly different question: What would it take for the Overmind to invade Aiur if it knew Aiurs specific location right from the start? The answer would depend on if it achieved its goal of obtaining its psionic potential/determinant. Did it have this psionic potential/determinant at its disposal? Yes. So, summing all those answers together, the reason why the Overmind invaded Aiur (when it found it) was because it already had the psionic potential/determinant and it had presumed from that point of obtaining this psionic potential/determinant that anything it would do from thereonin would amount to eventual and total Zerg victory.

[ragnarok]

I know that and incorporated that in my previous response, which is why I still say you are wrong. Amon gave the Overmind to the Zerg according to the additive retcons in Sc2.


Yes, something people then wondered why didn't Amon just tell the Overmind where Aiur was. But then, according to the DT Saga Twilight, the work on the zerg wasn't exactly finished.


Given that later retcons say that all Protoss who become disconnected from the psychic link/Khala automatically draw from the Void to fuel their psionics and that there is never any mention of them losing their purity of form/great psionic power during the Aeon of Strife, the logical inference to all this is that the Protoss who lost their connection to the psychic link during the Aeon of Strife must have been using Void for their psionics, unless stated otherwise.

Blending the two lores means one has to be taken over the other in case of contradictions. This is why I still believe that due to Amon's uplifting, the whole "purity of form" wasn't exactly as "pure" as you'd have liked, due to Amon's taint (despite at that point he wasn't actually trying to corrupt them). In addition I'm not convinced just because they didn't have the Khala it automatically meant they were using the Void. The later lore did say if you disconnect from the Khala, the Void will embrace you, but that didn't mean this holds true back during the AoS. That they used psionics back then I always believed they had to have developed something of their own.

Otherwise, you might as well say that EVERY possible psionic power, regardless of which species it comes from, has to originate from the Void (in the absence of the Khala).


Would the Overmind have invaded if it did not have the psionic potential/Kerrigan? The answer is an obvious no in the sense that Kerrigan is the direct cause for the Overmind to find Aiur (via attracting Zeratul and then killing Zasz, forming a mind-link where information was shared) so it wouldn't even be in the position to invade it in the first place. So, ask yourself a slightly different question: What would it take for the Overmind to invade Aiur if it knew Aiurs specific location right from the start? The answer would depend on if it achieved its goal of obtaining its psionic potential/determinant. Did it have this psionic potential/determinant at its disposal? Yes. So, summing all those answers together, the reason why the Overmind invaded Aiur (when it found it) was because it already had the psionic potential/determinant and it had presumed from that point of obtaining this psionic potential/determinant that anything it would do from thereonin would amount to eventual and total Zerg victory.

And how was the Overmind supposed to know Kerrigan's psionic enmanations from the chrysalis would draw Zeratul to Char in the first place? For that matter, how did it even know Kerrigan would enmanate those signals in the first place while in the chrysalis? It obviously couldn't have, this was all a matter of luck. Now, regarding the whole psionic potential determinant, it certainly achieved a MEASURE of it, but I'm not convinced it achieved it COMPLETELY. After all, in HotS (assuming you went to Kaldir AFTER Zerus) Kerrigan clearly admitted that even with the primal transformation she was still no match for the Golden Armada if she didn't have the swarm.

In that regard I feel that if the Overmind went for Aiur the moment it found it was possibly because he felt he could harness Kerrigan's psionic potential in order to create other agents just as deadly as her (though this would take time). And to a small degree, a part of me feels this could have been part of his work with the Khaydarin crystals when he manifested himself on Aiur (had Tassadar not killed him).

[Mislagnissa]

Typing this on my phone, so not much time for detail.

Blending the lore is ridiculous. Pick one version and stick with it, and completely rewrite everything that disagrees with it. BW and SC2 lore is needlessly convoluted and full of plot holes. Simplifying it would end up creating something identical to just using SC1 canon. So go back the basics and work from there. Don't try to justify Metzen's stupid.

Even in the original manual, the Zerg knew where Aiur was because Tassadar took deep space probes back to Aiur, so we immediately get a massive contradiction.

Kerry adds little to the plot, so kill her off to give Raynor some angst. Now give the Zerg a psychic army instead that fulfills the same role as QoB by sending psychic dreams and razor storms and shit.

Don't introduce the UED, Duran, Amon, Defenders of Man or other repetitive shit. Keep the Zerg the villains for ever and ever, because that's the only role that's interesting for them. There's only so much you can do with giant space bugs. Making them into space hippies is parody level silly.

[Gradius]

Agree, blending the lore is stupid. Have one consistent lore that makes sense instead.

[ragnarok]

Typing this on my phone, so not much time for detail.

Blending the lore is ridiculous. Pick one version and stick with it, and completely rewrite everything that disagrees with it. BW and SC2 lore is needlessly convoluted and full of plot holes. Simplifying it would end up creating something identical to just using SC1 canon. So go back the basics and work from there. Don't try to justify Metzen's stupid.

Even in the original manual, the Zerg knew where Aiur was because Tassadar took deep space probes back to Aiur, so we immediately get a massive contradiction.

Kerry adds little to the plot, so kill her off to give Raynor some angst. Now give the Zerg a psychic army instead that fulfills the same role as QoB by sending psychic dreams and razor storms and shit.

Don't introduce the UED, Duran, Amon, Defenders of Man or other repetitive shit. Keep the Zerg the villains for ever and ever, because that's the only role that's interesting for them. There's only so much you can do with giant space bugs. Making them into space hippies is parody level silly.

I'll have to check that part again in the manual with the deep space probes, forgot about that one.

As for keeping the zerg as the villains, you should know the concept of "Once a villain, always a villain" doesn't always apply. Then no one ever learns anything.

[Turalyon]

Blending the two lores means one has to be taken over the other in case of contradictions.

That's ridiculous. If you are to consider blending the lore, the baseline assumption for this to even occur is that everything that's been given has to be taken at face value and that there are no contradictions. If one has to cherry-pick which one is right because there's actual inconsistency, this makes your position of trying to blend the lore pointless.


This is why I still believe that due to Amon's uplifting, the whole "purity of form" wasn't exactly as "pure" as you'd have liked, due to Amon's taint (despite at that point he wasn't actually trying to corrupt them).

The Protoss naturally evolved with purity of form/great psionic power. The Xel'Naga (in the manual)/ Amon (as retconned in Sc2) found the Protoss with this trait inherently. Their interference with the Protoss only included influencing their cultural development by making themselves known and, as Sc2 additively retcons later, corrupting their psychic link.


In addition I'm not convinced just because they didn't have the Khala it automatically meant they were using the Void. The later lore did say if you disconnect from the Khala, the Void will embrace you, but that didn't mean this holds true back during the AoS. That they used psionics back then I always believed they had to have developed something of their own.

See, this is the problem of you trying to blend the lore. YOU cherrypick/choose to ignore lore that doesn't fit with your headcanon and the way you've done it is completely arbitrary (using an argument from ignorance no less). If the retcon lore says that all Protoss are automatically embraced by the Void if they disconnect from the Khala, you can't just arbitrarily choose when this happens in order to suit your needs/argument.


Otherwise, you might as well say that EVERY possible psionic power, regardless of which species it comes from, has to originate from the Void (in the absence of the Khala).

No, that piece of lore only pertains to Protoss. What you've stated above is a gross and unfounded generalisation.


And how was the Overmind supposed to know Kerrigan's psionic enmanations from the chrysalis would draw Zeratul to Char in the first place? For that matter, how did it even know Kerrigan would enmanate those signals in the first place while in the chrysalis? It obviously couldn't have, this was all a matter of luck. Now, regarding the whole psionic potential determinant, it certainly achieved a MEASURE of it, but I'm not convinced it achieved it COMPLETELY. After all, in HotS (assuming you went to Kaldir AFTER Zerus) Kerrigan clearly admitted that even with the primal transformation she was still no match for the Golden Armada if she didn't have the swarm.

Irrelevent to what I was talking about. I know that the Overmind isn't actually omniscient but that doesn't mean it can't be prone to overconfidence and hubris. The Overmind only invades Aiur because it has the determinant in its possession and this gives it the confidence to battle the Protoss directly. Without it, it would supposedly still fear the Protoss enough to not engage them directly even if it did know of Aiurs exact location right from the beginning (as one should suspect I suppose if they got the location from the Xel'Naga).


Even in the original manual, the Zerg knew where Aiur was because Tassadar took deep space probes back to Aiur, so we immediately get a massive contradiction.

You don't think that Tassadar would've disabled its telemetry before bringing it to Aiur? He already surmised they were deep space probes before capturing one, so you'd think that a military leader would know the importance of intel and its denial from a potential and unknown threat.

[ragnarok]

See, this is the problem of you trying to blend the lore. YOU cherrypick/choose to ignore lore that doesn't fit with your headcanon and the way you've done it is completely arbitrary (using an argument from ignorance no less). If the retcon lore says that all Protoss are automatically embraced by the Void if they disconnect from the Khala, you can't just arbitrarily choose when this happens in order to suit your needs/argument.


But this was AFTER the Khala link was reestablished. You don't know if this holds true BEFORE Khas rediscovered the link.


Irrelevent to what I was talking about. I know that the Overmind isn't actually omniscient but that doesn't mean it can't be prone to overconfidence and hubris. The Overmind only invades Aiur because it has the determinant in its possession and this gives it the confidence to battle the Protoss directly. Without it, it would supposedly still fear the Protoss enough to not engage them directly even if it did know of Aiurs exact location right from the beginning (as one should suspect I suppose if they got the location from the Xel'Naga).

For getting the location from the Xel'Naga, if we use the SC2 lore, I felt it's possible that because Amon's work on the zerg wasn't finished (According to Twilight), it's possible that he never got a chance to tell the Overmind where Aiur was before being forced into the Void, and he couldn't communicate with the Overmind from there.


The Protoss naturally evolved with purity of form/great psionic power. The Xel'Naga (in the manual)/ Amon (as retconned in Sc2) found the Protoss with this trait inherently. Their interference with the Protoss only included influencing their cultural development by making themselves known and, as Sc2 additively retcons later, corrupting their psychic link.

The Protoss merely had the ability to HOLD psionic power prior to the Xel'Naga's arrival on Aiur. The whole psychic link corruption I didn't consider much of a retcon because there was no evidence to suggest the Xel'Naga couldn't do it (though you could argue that back then the Khala was only a discipline, unless Amon reprogrammed it or something).


That's ridiculous. If you are to consider blending the lore, the baseline assumption for this to even occur is that everything that's been given has to be taken at face value and that there are no contradictions. If one has to cherry-pick which one is right because there's actual inconsistency, this makes your position of trying to blend the lore pointless.

This is exactly the problem I faced with those on the battlenet forums: that every time there's an inconsistency problem, they just go "Because Blizzard is too damn stupid." Fine if that's what they want, but all they do is complain on the matter and never actually contribute to try to see what Blizzard was trying to get at. Now Nissa did say trying to blend the lore this way means we'd be doing Blizzard's work for them, but it's better than just complaining all the time.

Look at it this way: for other game sequels where you saw contradictions in the sequel's lore when compared to the original, did you automatically just jump to the conclusion "Well there's contradictions here, so that must mean the sequel is comprised completely of BS and therefore doesn't really count as a story at all"?

[Turalyon]

But this was AFTER the Khala link was reestablished. You don't know if this holds true BEFORE Khas rediscovered the link.

That argument from ignorance is actually a meaningless distinction since it's established the Protoss have purity of form/great psionic power from the beginning. If they don't get it from the Khala/psychic link, they get it from the Void. Heck, this isn't even my personal opinion/subjective take on it - I'm using the very lore that's been given.


The Protoss merely had the ability to HOLD psionic power prior to the Xel'Naga's arrival on Aiur.

That's a meaningless distinction unless you mean that the Protoss never had purity of form. If they never had purity of form, that's an inconsistency and there are supposed to be no inconsistencies if one is in the position of melding the lore as a means to make sense of it.


Look at it this way: for other game sequels where you saw contradictions in the sequel's lore when compared to the original, did you automatically just jump to the conclusion "Well there's contradictions here, so that must mean the sequel is comprised completely of BS and therefore doesn't really count as a story at all"?

At the end of the day, all fiction is BS and "made up". The difference between good and bad fiction is whether it sufficiently builds up an appropriate willing suspension of disbelief/illusion of depth and verisimilitude. In other words, if the fiction feels more reasonable in an in-universe/Watsonian way (through things like good world-building), then it's less likely for people to criticise and point out the fiction being overtly driven by out-of-universe/Doylist reasons even though all fiction driven by out-of-universe/Doylist reasons in truth.

Sc2s sticks out most glaringly and is immersion breaking because while the intent of this new lore is to smooth over apparent inconsistencies, it's very obvious that it's trying to do so rather than it feeling like it's a natural and plausible development within that fictional universe. That and it raises more questions than it answers (like making more apparent inconsistencies) makes it worse.

[ragnarok]

That's a meaningless distinction unless you mean that the Protoss never had purity of form. If they never had purity of form, that's an inconsistency and there are supposed to be no inconsistencies if one is in the position of melding the lore as a means to make sense of it.


The whole "purity of form" was merely from the Xel'Naga's POV. Plus if we're to use the SC1 lore, it merely meant extremely well physical traits. That in itself can be open to interpretation as to what SPECIFICALLY it really meant. Again, I didn't think this was considered a retcon in SC2's lore, though you can argue that Blizzard abused the vagueness/interpretation of it all.

It's also the reason why I'm not convinced the whole ascension we saw at the end of the Epilogue was/would be permanent. If nothing else I believe Ouros WOULD have agreed with Amon's view that giving Kerrigan that power over an indefinite period wouldn't have been smart.


That argument from ignorance is actually a meaningless distinction since it's established the Protoss have purity of form/great psionic power from the beginning. If they don't get it from the Khala/psychic link, they get it from the Void. Heck, this isn't even my personal opinion/subjective take on it - I'm using the very lore that's been given.

Then tell me (and I don't care which lore you use): do you believe the Void is the origin where ALL psionic abilities came from? Because using the SC2 lore, it was the Xel'Naga that allowed planets to eventually give life in the universe. Since their power was from the Void....


Sc2s sticks out most glaringly and is immersion breaking because while the intent of this new lore is to smooth over apparent inconsistencies, it's very obvious that it's trying to do so rather than it feeling like it's a natural and plausible development within that fictional universe. That and it raises more questions than it answers (like making more apparent inconsistencies) makes it worse.

I personally felt they did try to answer some of the Qs back from SC1 and BW, except they didn't know how to do it scientifically, so they went in the metaphysical direction. To a lot of people (and I agree with some of their views), this was nothing more than a cheap excuse to say all the Qs have the same answer: "Deus Ex Machina."

[Turalyon]

The whole "purity of form" was merely from the Xel'Naga's POV. Plus if we're to use the SC1 lore, it merely meant extremely well physical traits. That in itself can be open to interpretation as to what SPECIFICALLY it really meant. Again, I didn't think this was considered a retcon in SC2's lore, though you can argue that Blizzard abused the vagueness/interpretation of it all.

Now, you're just trying to obfuscate things by saying "it's complicated and this gives me the right to interpret it whatever way I want". You can't bring up a set of standards ("melding the lore"), which I'm holding you up against with my responses, and then bail on them as soon as I test them. You're essentially defeating your own position that you initially set up.

The manual says purity of form was just physical traits and Sc2 "corrects" it by saying it's to do with great psionic power/potential. If you're melding the lore, it's a combination of both but it's clear they had purity of form from the start. You can't just now flip around and say it's whatever because it was from an unreliable POV and therefore should be something to be questioned by the audience member. All this information is exposition from an omniscient narrator to give the work any grounding. If you're advocating for basic, expositional information being up to question, there's no point in investing in it because it's all just potentially changeable at any time. This is part of the reason why Sc2 is so bad - it sets the precedent that nothing you know is solid, so what's the point in caring? It's essentially the writer admitting they're making things up.


Then tell me (and I don't care which lore you use): do you believe the Void is the origin where ALL psionic abilities came from?

Please stop trying to change the subject with non sequiturs. I don't care about "ALL" psionics because it is not relevant to the current topic we are discussing. We are talking about Protoss psionics and only Protoss psionics in this very instance.

[ragnarok]

All this information is exposition from an omniscient narrator to give the work any grounding. If you're advocating for basic, expositional information being up to question, there's no point in investing in it because it's all just potentially changeable at any time. This is part of the reason why Sc2 is so bad - it sets the precedent that nothing you know is solid, so what's the point in caring? It's essentially the writer admitting they're making things up.


You and I both know some of the lore in SC1 and BW was INTENTIONALLY left vague. It's possible Blizzard did it back then in order to give them room for a better interpretation later on in the future. What you and others feel is bad is because Blizzard did not interpret it in the way you thought they would, and didn't look at the details carefully enough (I'll agree on the latter point). However it was Blizzard's intent to try to tie things up and to reveal the picture in the sequel, which means (unless they intended to make SC3, I'll give it another 90 years or so before they think about it) what was left vague in SC1/BW MUST be interpreted in some way, even if it's not in the way fans wanted it.

There were certainly interpretations I felt just didn't work out either, of course.

[Mislagnissa]

That's ridiculous. If you are to consider blending the lore, the baseline assumption for this to even occur is that everything that's been given has to be taken at face value and that there are no contradictions. If one has to cherry-pick which one is right because there's actual inconsistency, this makes your position of trying to blend the lore pointless.



The Protoss naturally evolved with purity of form/great psionic power. The Xel'Naga (in the manual)/ Amon (as retconned in Sc2) found the Protoss with this trait inherently. Their interference with the Protoss only included influencing their cultural development by making themselves known and, as Sc2 additively retcons later, corrupting their psychic link.



See, this is the problem of you trying to blend the lore. YOU cherrypick/choose to ignore lore that doesn't fit with your headcanon and the way you've done it is completely arbitrary (using an argument from ignorance no less). If the retcon lore says that all Protoss are automatically embraced by the Void if they disconnect from the Khala, you can't just arbitrarily choose when this happens in order to suit your needs/argument.



No, that piece of lore only pertains to Protoss. What you've stated above is a gross and unfounded generalisation.



Irrelevent to what I was talking about. I know that the Overmind isn't actually omniscient but that doesn't mean it can't be prone to overconfidence and hubris. The Overmind only invades Aiur because it has the determinant in its possession and this gives it the confidence to battle the Protoss directly. Without it, it would supposedly still fear the Protoss enough to not engage them directly even if it did know of Aiurs exact location right from the beginning (as one should suspect I suppose if they got the location from the Xel'Naga).



You don't think that Tassadar would've disabled its telemetry before bringing it to Aiur? He already surmised they were deep space probes before capturing one, so you'd think that a military leader would know the importance of intel and its denial from a potential and unknown threat.
The Zerg still had numerous probes on the edge of Protoss space. They knew where the empire's borders were, and had in fact crossed them (since the K-sec is inside Protoss space, apparently on the frontier). Space telescopes, like the "witness" postulated by Gradius, would allow the Zerg to determine things like atmospheric composition and continents and so forth. They would know loads about the empire's movements from watching them. The Zerg apparently have FTL connection to their probes, so they would be aware if any were captured or lost. The Protoss do not possess psychic disruptor technology or they would have used it against the Zerg or each other. Which they logically should have, but whatever. Jamming the telemetry of a couple of probes doesn't solve the other problems.

In fact, combined with the Confederacy's rapid development of psychic warfare, Tassadar capturing probes may have contributed to the Zerg invaders going berserk at the end of 2499 despite spending the previous decade almost lazily expanding.

[ragnarok]

Please stop trying to change the subject with non sequiturs. I don't care about "ALL" psionics because it is not relevant to the current topic we are discussing. We are talking about Protoss psionics and only Protoss psionics in this very instance.

You're making it sound like it has to originate from the Void because the Xel'Naga (via SC2 lore) had allowed Aiur to eventually support life, and that's how the Protoss were born (through indirect interference). Therefore, EVERY trait they possessed came from the Void itself because of the Xel'Naga.

[Turalyon]

What you and others feel is bad is because Blizzard did not interpret it in the way you thought they would, and didn't look at the details carefully enough

Please don't generalise and presume what others interpretations are since you do this all the time and are invariably wrong. That you reply with non sequiturs to my posts clearly shows you're not comprehending what my posts are about most of the time.


The Zerg still had numerous probes on the edge of Protoss space. They knew where the empire's borders were, and had in fact crossed them (since the K-sec is inside Protoss space, apparently on the frontier). Space telescopes, like the "witness" postulated by Gradius, would allow the Zerg to determine things like atmospheric composition and continents and so forth. They would know loads about the empire's movements from watching them. The Zerg apparently have FTL connection to their probes, so they would be aware if any were captured or lost. The Protoss do not possess psychic disruptor technology or they would have used it against the Zerg or each other. Which they logically should have, but whatever. Jamming the telemetry of a couple of probes doesn't solve the other problems.

In fact, combined with the Confederacy's rapid development of psychic warfare, Tassadar capturing probes may have contributed to the Zerg invaders going berserk at the end of 2499 despite spending the previous decade almost lazily expanding.

Some nice fridge logic you got there but the point you made originally only specifically mentioned the Zerg probe being brought to Aiur as being the problem behind why the Overmind doesn't seem to know where Aiur is. There could be just as many other reasons for why the Overmind couldn't find Aiur (if that was indeed a problem to begin with), such as the Protoss having counter-measures against scans like a psionic distortion field across their region of space that confuse Zerg scans/ can't be penetrated. Or that the Overmind isn't as competent as it makes itself out to be. It did lose afterall by miscalculating the Protoss' ability to fight back against it as well as the worth of its determinant. It seems like you're now going out of your way to reinforce a contradiction that you'd prefer to see. Not that I mind one way or another.


You're making it sound like it has to originate from the Void because the Xel'Naga (via SC2 lore) had allowed Aiur to eventually support life, and that's how the Protoss were born (through indirect interference). Therefore, EVERY trait they possessed came from the Void itself because of the Xel'Naga.

No, that's not what I'm saying. The Protoss had purity of form/great psionic potential and the psychic link (which is now apparently interchangeable with the word "Khala" at all times even though it was only called that when Khas rediscovered the psychic link much later on) before they were discovered by the Xel'Naga/Amon, so they weren't drawing from the Void then. But because they still have purity of form/great psionic potential even when wilfully or physically disconnected from the psychic link/Khala, it stands to reason that this purity of form/great psionic potential is sustained from another source. The EU apparently considers this to be the Void. You have, so far, said nothing remotely near enough to even counter this position.

[Mislagnissa]

Some nice fridge logic you got there but the point you made originally only specifically mentioned the Zerg probe being brought to Aiur as being the problem behind why the Overmind doesn't seem to know where Aiur is. There could be just as many other reasons for why the Overmind couldn't find Aiur (if that was indeed a problem to begin with), such as the Protoss having counter-measures against scans like a psionic distortion field across their region of space that confuse Zerg scans/ can't be penetrated. Or that the Overmind isn't as competent as it makes itself out to be. It did lose afterall by miscalculating the Protoss' ability to fight back against it as well as the worth of its determinant. It seems like you're now going out of your way to reinforce a contradiction that you'd prefer to see. Not that I mind one way or another. Like many other things, I would chalk it up to Metzen rewriting the script without thinking it through. A much better explanation that could have been offered was that the Zerg did not have sufficient military intelligence about the Protoss' defenses, nor did they have a weapon that could stand up to the Protoss as of their last recorded contact with the xel'naga. The dark templar have knowledge of Protoss' defenses and how to avoid them, so Zeratul leaking that intel is a worst case scenario that sped up the Zerg time table by decades or more.


The Protoss had purity of form/great psionic potential and the psychic link (which is now apparently interchangeable with the word "Khala" at all times even though it was only called that when Khas rediscovered the psychic link much later on) The psychic link did not have a proper name before then. Well, I suppose in-setting it had a name but we were never told what it was so all we have is "Khala", which also refers to the religion built around it and the vaguely USA Constitution-styled caste system. I entertained the idea of adding conjunctions to clarify the meanings.

[Turalyon]

A much better explanation that could have been offered was that the Zerg did not have sufficient military intelligence about the Protoss' defenses, nor did they have a weapon that could stand up to the Protoss as of their last recorded contact with the xel'naga. The dark templar have knowledge of Protoss' defenses and how to avoid them, so Zeratul leaking that intel is a worst case scenario that sped up the Zerg time table by decades or more.

That's kinda what happened though. When the Protoss captured the probes, the Zerg did not have its determinant at that stage, so even if the Overmind knew the location of Aiur then, it wouldn't have attacked given that it feared such a conflict without this trump card. The mind-meld with Zeratul later on revealed all his secrets to the Overmind apparently, which probably included that there were no Dark Templar on Aiur and/or that mainline Protoss on Aiur would do anything to keep the Dark Templar out. It also probably allowed the Overmind to overcome any remaining fear (supposedly) of them. Who knows...

[Mislagnissa]

That's kinda what happened though. When the Protoss captured the probes, the Zerg did not have its determinant at that stage, so even if the Overmind knew the location of Aiur then, it wouldn't have attacked given that it feared such a conflict without this trump card. The mind-meld with Zeratul later on revealed all his secrets to the Overmind apparently, which probably included that there were no Dark Templar on Aiur and/or that mainline Protoss on Aiur would do anything to keep the Dark Templar out. It also probably allowed the Overmind to overcome any remaining fear (supposedly) of them. Who knows...

The original idea was that the Protoss were an existential threat to the Zerg who needed a miraculous determinant simply to stand against them on an equal playing field, as opposed to the ineffectual losers they became in the games. You can justify the writing all you want, but I think the story we got is inferior to the story we could have had.

Retribution mocks the cerebrates' immortality by depicting Khalai and Terran forces investigating Aridas temporarily killing or subduing cerebrates left and right to successfully destabilize Zerg coordination. The story is pretty bland and generic, but I really liked that it still portrayed the Zerg as vulnerable without a deus ex machina.

In fact, I am really surprised the Protoss had not already killed cerebrates before Tassadar contacted them (Retribution's retcons notwithstanding). The Conclave's statement about winning their offense against the Zerg prior to the civil war makes no sense if killing them is as ineffectual as was portrayed. Either the Conclave was delusional, or the Protoss and Zerg fought on an equal playing field and their moronic decision to fight a civil war is what allowed the Zerg to win.

[ragnarok]

No, that's not what I'm saying. The Protoss had purity of form/great psionic potential and the psychic link (which is now apparently interchangeable with the word "Khala" at all times even though it was only called that when Khas rediscovered the psychic link much later on) before they were discovered by the Xel'Naga/Amon, so they weren't drawing from the Void then. But because they still have purity of form/great psionic potential even when wilfully or physically disconnected from the psychic link/Khala, it stands to reason that this purity of form/great psionic potential is sustained from another source. The EU apparently considers this to be the Void. You have, so far, said nothing remotely near enough to even counter this position.

Until LotV, it was never stated that the Void was actually another dimension unto itself. Sure it was another source, but until LotV they never explained in detail just what the Void really was. I felt that (prior to LotV) that the psionic potential if the Khala is FORCIBLY SEVERED would be the Void because the lore said if you're disconnected from the Khala that way, the Void would embrace the Protoss. But for those who did not yet embrace it (remember it wasn't until LotV that Rohana said that you're in the Khala upon birth), the psionic potential could have been something else.

Remember, before their exile, the Nerazim didn't embrace the Khala, but they also didn't sever their chords. I'll have to read the book again, but because their chords weren't cut, it wasn't FORCED severing. Furthermore, the Void is supposed to give psionic powers untold of to the Nerazim, yet they had nothing of the sort back then. Unless, of course, you just want to argue they just didn't understand how to effectively use the Void power.

[ragnarok]

In fact, I am really surprised the Protoss had not already killed cerebrates before Tassadar contacted them (Retribution's retcons notwithstanding). The Conclave's statement about winning their offense against the Zerg prior to the civil war makes no sense if killing them is as ineffectual as was portrayed. Either the Conclave was delusional, or the Protoss and Zerg fought on an equal playing field and their moronic decision to fight a civil war is what allowed the Zerg to win.

They were too arrogant. I think it was in the DT Saga Part 2: Shadow Hunters, they they had specifically said they knew everything, and the other Protoss people just had to follow what they told them to do.

This we saw at the beginning of "Eye of the Storm,", when Aldaris told Tassadar that the Conclave witnessed the events of Zeratul killing the Cerebrates and that they did not revive, proving the Conclave's methods had indeed been incorrect. We also saw this at the end of "The Trial of Tassadar," where Zeratul confronted Aldaris by saying that they were blind and couldn't see the fall ahead of them, that all they've succeeded in doing is play into the Overmind's hands

[Turalyon]

The original idea was that the Protoss were an existential threat to the Zerg who needed a miraculous determinant simply to stand against them on an equal playing field, as opposed to the ineffectual losers they became in the games. You can justify the writing all you want, but I think the story we got is inferior to the story we could have had.

I'm not the one that's doing the justifying here though... As I've laid out to you before, it's not an objective fact that the Protoss are an existential threat to the Zerg such that they can't win without a miraculous determinant, but you seem intent on keeping your misinterpretation of the stated lore in the manual.

This premise is a derivation of the Overmind's subjective fear - not an objective fact given by an omniscient narrator. The omnisicent narrator of the manual stipulates that the determinant and it's supposed effect is a subjective want of the Overmind, not an objective be-all/end-all scenario.


In fact, I am really surprised the Protoss had not already killed cerebrates before Tassadar contacted them (Retribution's retcons notwithstanding). The Conclave's statement about winning their offense against the Zerg prior to the civil war makes no sense if killing them is as ineffectual as was portrayed. Either the Conclave was delusional, or the Protoss and Zerg fought on an equal playing field and their moronic decision to fight a civil war is what allowed the Zerg to win.

I don't understand where you'd get the interpretation that the Protoss "are ineffectual losers" in Sc1 because this is only really apparent in BW (and you don't need me to elaborate there I'm sure).

The Conclave are of the belief that the Zerg are not endless (which is true), and the Overmind knows this too (otherwise, it wouldn't fear them to begin with). This works well for them because in a straight up fight, the Protoss can kill many times their number in Zerg in such exchanges. Sure this doesn't mean necessarily inform on their ability to hold ground that was taken, but the Protoss are shown to be able to take the fight to the Zerg successfully. If they can kill the Zerg forces - which they can and has been demonstrated in the first three Protoss missions of the The Fall - they have no need to invest resources and great risk into targeting cerebrates because a cerebrate is useless if you can just as easily wipe away its forces. That's where Aldaris/Conclace is coming from - Aldaris exclamation of overcoming the entire Zerg Swarm with the might and fury that is their heritage is not just bragging/delusion, it's rooted in actual possibility.

And yes, the civil war is the reason why the Protoss began losing against the Zerg. It's easy for us to claim it as moronic now because we are looking at it in retrospect/hindsight and because we know what eventually happens (it's much like how people misinterpret how the Overmind going to Aiur is considered "moronic" and that it must be "suicidal" because it eventually died, when they don't realise that if the Zerg did actually win, it would've been lauded instead as a brilliant strategic choice or that the Protoss instead are "moronic". Go figure). Thing is, it's only really moronic if one is ignorant of the identity and culture of the Protoss, which is rooted in their history. Sure, one can say the game needed to exposit this in the game and not rely on outside/presumed knowledge, but one then has to consider brevity/momentum of the narrative, the respect of the audience members intelligence and whether that this would even be justified in-universe given that the player character is a Protoss and should know about their own history if anything...

Sure, the civil war may have been started by Aldaris in his initial hunt for Tassadar, but it was Tassadar who perpetuated it and was the one to almost bring the Protoss to its knees when he and his colleagues undermined and destroyed the very system that was currently keeping the Zerg at bay. This is one of the things that make Sc1 so great - no-one was dirt-free and heroic, not even the designated hero Tassadar (or Raynor for that matter).

This particular aspect of the Protoss is important since it also continues a theme present across all Sc1 campaigns: in that the greatest enemy is more often themselves than any other external influence. For the Protoss, it is ingrained in their history which comes back to haunt them both literally and metaphorically. It's most overt for the Terrans in Rebel Yell because it's in their very nature and that its main concern is Terran conflict above all else. It's very subtle for the Zerg because it relates to the hubris of the Overmind and is only realised/appreiciated after you re-examine the events of how it eventually got defeated. It was, ironically, through its desire for a determinant (the very thing it thought would assure ultimate victory for the Zerg) that started it and led to its eventual downfall.


I felt that (prior to LotV) that the psionic potential if the Khala is FORCIBLY SEVERED would be the Void because the lore said if you're disconnected from the Khala that way, the Void would embrace the Protoss. But for those who did not yet embrace it (remember it wasn't until LotV that Rohana said that you're in the Khala upon birth), the psionic potential could have been something else.

But LotV "answers" this problem through the Tal'Darim. They are supposed to represent, like the Dark Templar before them, the ancestors of those who wilfully turned away from the psychic link/Khala. They still have their nerve cords but are not part of the Khala, draw their power from the Void are still pure of form/have great psionic potential.

Your insistence on their being a meaningful distinction with or without having nerve cords does not discredit the notion that a) Protoss, of any kind, have purity of form/great psionic potential at all times and b) draw their psionic power by default in only two ways. The idea of a third way/source could exist but there's no point in speculating about its existence or impact because one cannot prove its existence or influence with the information at hand.

[ragnarok]

But LotV "answers" this problem through the Tal'Darim. They are supposed to represent, like the Dark Templar before them, the ancestors of those who wilfully turned away from the psychic link/Khala. They still have their nerve cords but are not part of the Khala, draw their power from the Void are still pure of form/have great psionic potential.

Your insistence on their being a meaningful distinction with or without having nerve cords does not discredit the notion that a) Protoss, of any kind, have purity of form/great psionic potential at all times and b) draw their psionic power by default in only two ways. The idea of a third way/source could exist but there's no point in speculating about its existence or impact because one cannot prove its existence or influence with the information at hand.

I'm unsure with the Tal'darim it provides the answer due to the terrazine factor. Given that Void Shades could enter in terrazine fogs and Alarak made it clear that it lets them peer beyond the veil, along with the fact that the Keystone reacts to it, it means terrazine is a substance from the Void.

LotV did NOT answer just when Amon introduced terrazine to the Tal'darim, or for even the origins on the matter. I felt that in the beginning, it's possible the Tal'darim didn't have any void-based powers, but Amon eventually gave it to them by infusing them with power through his means of controlling parts of the Void, and then later via terrazine.

[Turalyon]

^ You're woefully missing the point and this still doesn't proven that a third source of psionic power for Protoss exists since you are nowhere near refuting the two notions listed.

[ragnarok]

^ You're woefully missing the point and this still doesn't proven that a third source of psionic power for Protoss exists since you are nowhere near refuting the two notions listed.

Look at it this way: for the Tal'darim, if Amon did not introduce the terrazine to them and all, do you really believe it proves the Void would still embrace them anyway?

[Mislagnissa]

The Conclave are of the belief that the Zerg are not endless (which is true), and the Overmind knows this too (otherwise, it wouldn't fear them to begin with). This works well for them because in a straight up fight, the Protoss can kill many times their number in Zerg in such exchanges. Sure this doesn't mean necessarily inform on their ability to hold ground that was taken, but the Protoss are shown to be able to take the fight to the Zerg successfully. If they can kill the Zerg forces - which they can and has been demonstrated in the first three Protoss missions of the The Fall - they have no need to invest resources and great risk into targeting cerebrates because a cerebrate is useless if you can just as easily wipe away its forces. That's where Aldaris/Conclace is coming from - Aldaris exclamation of overcoming the entire Zerg Swarm with the might and fury that is their heritage is not just bragging/delusion, it's rooted in actual possibility.Even if they did not know the significance of cerebrates, which is nonsense because those things produce massive amounts of psychic waves, they should have killed at least one at some point before Tassadar told them the cerebrates were significant. It's just common sense, like targeting pylons. Of course, I dislike the inquisition subplot because it is really boring so I would like some way to obviate it entirely.

[ragnarok]

Even if they did not know the significance of cerebrates, which is nonsense because those things produce massive amounts of psychic waves, they should have killed at least one at some point before Tassadar told them the cerebrates were significant. It's just common sense, like targeting pylons. Of course, I dislike the inquisition subplot because it is really boring so I would like some way to obviate it entirely.

Would they really have known back then during their arrogance? As far as the Conclave saw it (before Tassadar told them), the Cerebrates would have been nothing but mindless fat worms.

[Turalyon]

Even if they did not know the significance of cerebrates, which is nonsense because those things produce massive amounts of psychic waves, they should have killed at least one at some point before Tassadar told them the cerebrates were significant. It's just common sense, like targeting pylons. Of course, I dislike the inquisition subplot because it is really boring so I would like some way to obviate it entirely.

That's a lot of assumptions to make given that your position is from a god-like observer with privileged knowledge and hindsight looking in at the whole affair. You can't expect everyone to be genre savvy and have the same knowledge as the audience member. There's a reason dramatic irony exists - it gives us verisimilitude for that universe whilst at the same time providing a "wink" to the audience from the writer that is indiscernible to anyone in-universe.

Also, what do you mean by "inquisition subplot"? Do you mean all the Protoss civil war stuff? If so, I'm sorry to say that this is really what the Protoss are all about. Their history is all about this and it informs the current story that unfolds and why they do the things they do in the game. It's all thematically consistent at least.

[Mislagnissa]

That's a lot of assumptions to make given that your position is from a god-like observer with privileged knowledge and hindsight looking in at the whole affair. You can't expect everyone to be genre savvy and have the same knowledge as the audience member. There's a reason dramatic irony exists - it gives us verisimilitude for that universe whilst at the same time providing a "wink" to the audience from the writer that is indiscernible to anyone in-universe.

It's not from a position of a god-like observer. Have you ever studied real tactics, strategy or logistics? The stuff that even the most detailed strategy games gloss over? One of the things armies do in war is attack their enemies' logistics, like supply lines and communications. Even if the Protoss have never seen a cerebrate before, they will pick up the massive amounts of psychic waves the bugs are producing and deduce that those are communication nodes. The templar will be logically inclined to attack them in order to disrupt Zerg logistics. That's just common sense for any real military.


Also, what do you mean by "inquisition subplot"? Do you mean all the Protoss civil war stuff? If so, I'm sorry to say that this is really what the Protoss are all about. Their history is all about this and it informs the current story that unfolds and why they do the things they do in the game. It's all thematically consistent at least.I mean the hunt for Tassadar. It just drags on and on.

[Turalyon]

It's not from a position of a god-like observer. Have you ever studied real tactics, strategy or logistics? The stuff that even the most detailed strategy games gloss over? One of the things armies do in war is attack their enemies' logistics, like supply lines and communications. Even if the Protoss have never seen a cerebrate before, they will pick up the massive amounts of psychic waves the bugs are producing and deduce that those are communication nodes. The templar will be logically inclined to attack them in order to disrupt Zerg logistics. That's just common sense for any real military.

I can easily counter that by saying the Overmind was probably aware of this same possibility and reduced the psychic waves of its cerebrates so they couldn't be detected. I'm certain it's (and its cerebrates) capable of tactics, strategy and logistics, too.

Like I said, your coming from a privileged position of knowledge... and a very specific biased one at that, it seems.

[Mislagnissa]

I can easily counter that by saying the Overmind was probably aware of this same possibility and reduced the psychic waves of its cerebrates so they couldn't be detected. I'm certain it's (and its cerebrates) capable of tactics, strategy and logistics, too.

Like I said, your coming from a privileged position of knowledge... and a very specific biased one at that, it seems.Now you're just pulling technobabble out of your ass to justify the Protoss never attacking cerebrates before Tassadar told them, even though they do exactly that in Retribution with no problems (and Blizzard previously authorized the campaign). There's problems with your asspull: if that was the case, the Protoss never should have detected Kerry and Tassadar never should have learned the cerebrates lead the broods. Psychic waves have always behaved in a consistent manner similar to light waves. The sort of stealth you're talking about is not possible with light waves, and renders most of the psychic technology in Starcraft invalid. Terran missile turrets use psychic waves to detect cloaked targets, for example.

tl;dr It's not possible to cloak radio towers, so your explanation is false.

EDIT: Sorry, if I come off as abrasive. I really admire your dedication to justifying what I perceive as sins in the storytelling of Starcraft. At some point, however, these explanations start opening cans of worms that erode the foundation of the games' setting. One of the most important rules of writing is to stay consistent, otherwise the audience will lose their suspension of disbelief. The idea that the Zerg can hide their psychic transmissions opens a huge can of worms, and is never seen in the games.

[ragnarok]

It's not from a position of a god-like observer. Have you ever studied real tactics, strategy or logistics? The stuff that even the most detailed strategy games gloss over? One of the things armies do in war is attack their enemies' logistics, like supply lines and communications. Even if the Protoss have never seen a cerebrate before, they will pick up the massive amounts of psychic waves the bugs are producing and deduce that those are communication nodes. The templar will be logically inclined to attack them in order to disrupt Zerg logistics. That's just common sense for any real military.


Tell me something: did you feel that was the Protoss' initial impression of the zerg? Because it seemed to me that they never saw them as nothing more than mindless animals. To them, due to the sheer numbers, the swarm never really had a tactic beyond just sending wave after wave of cannon fodder until the enemy is overwhelmed. All that means is during the initial stages, the Protoss would have known someone at the very top of the command chain is giving these orders, but that "someone" felt he didn't really NEED a strategy since the swarm's numbers would pwn everything anyway. It seemed only after the Aiur invasion did they see otherwise.

[Mislagnissa]

Tell me something: did you feel that was the Protoss' initial impression of the zerg? Because it seemed to me that they never saw them as nothing more than mindless animals. To them, due to the sheer numbers, the swarm never really had a tactic beyond just sending wave after wave of cannon fodder until the enemy is overwhelmed. All that means is during the initial stages, the Protoss would have known someone at the very top of the command chain is giving these orders, but that "someone" felt he didn't really NEED a strategy since the swarm's numbers would pwn everything anyway. It seemed only after the Aiur invasion did they see otherwise.

The Zerg cannot field their numbers without raw materials to make minions. That's an example of logistics. Insurrection depicted Syndrea sending forces to interfere with Zerg resource harvesting to prevent them from replacing their losses. This has direct consequences later in the campaign.

I'm astonished that the third-party expansions, as under budgeted as they were, have a better grasp of logistics than the official campaign did and don't rely on constant deus ex machina. It lends that extra bit of realism.

[ragnarok]

The Zerg cannot field their numbers without raw materials to make minions. That's an example of logistics. Insurrection depicted Syndrea sending forces to interfere with Zerg resource harvesting to prevent them from replacing their losses. This has direct consequences later in the campaign.

I'm astonished that the third-party expansions, as under budgeted as they were, have a better grasp of logistics than the official campaign did and don't rely on constant deus ex machina. It lends that extra bit of realism.

I never played or looked at the lore of Insurrection, what happened in there?

[Mislagnissa]

I never played or looked at the lore of Insurrection, what happened in there?

It loosely rehashed the major plot points of SC1 with better execution than Metzen. The title "Insurrection" is the theme of the campaigns: each one of them revolves around an insurrection. The script writer clearly worked hard on it, even if the budget was nonexistent and the map maker had no idea what they were doing. The initial release suffered from numerous game-breaking bugs, but the recently remastered version on MODDB has fixed all the bugs and restored some cut dialogue. The voice acting is entertaining all by itself.



Getting back to the original topic, I just spent over an hour typing a premise for a soft reboot of Starcraft. It's titled Starcraft 3 because it loosely follows after Starcraft 2, but it takes numerous liberties with canon in order to rehash the plot of Starcraft 1 (I based it on the timeline linked in my sig). I also included as many dropped plot threads from the EU as I could remember.

Here we go: (incoming big-ass wall of text)

Episode X: Long Live the Fighters!
In the year 2512 or something the Koprulu sector is once again invaded by two mysterious and advanced alien races, the Zerg and the Protoss. The Zerg, lead by the Overmind (recently morphed from a random larva, which contain the genomes of all Zerg breeds) and his commanders including Zagara, Abathur, Dehaka, and Stukov, are intent on assimilating Terran psychic potential as part of their intended goal to defeat and consume the Protoss in their quest for perfection. (They are waging war against the UED offscreen, who lack the psychic potential they need but have to be exterminated for trying to enslave the Zerg the last time; the UED are never mentioned again and presumed eaten.) This attracts the attention of the Protoss’ Khala Empire (who are magically restored to pre-SC1 status quo and expanded into a galactic civilization of hundreds of worlds and trillions of inhabitants, including alien client states like Star Trek or Star Wars), who send the Golden Armada under Executor Artanis (with his nerve cords repaired with surgery, waving away the restoration of the khala) to purify the Terran worlds. The Terran Dominion under Emperor Valerian makes clumsy attempts to restore order, but only succeed in making things worse. The Golden Armada falls into a civil war between those factions that want to purify the Terran worlds and those that wish to save the Terrans. Fringe cults that worship the Zerg begin popping up, which savvy Zerg commanders take advantage of. In a few memorable cases, Zerg broods are driven insane (whether through deliberate psychic warfare or complete accidents) and temporarily turn against the Swarm and/or ally with isolated Protoss and Terrans. The Defenders of Man, under General Carolina Davis and ex-ghost Nova Terra, take advantage of the chaos to foment revolt on Dominion worlds. When Mar Sara is invaded, the Defenders offer their assistance. Raynor, the local leader, accepts their assistance but comes into conflict with the Dominion and is arrested. Raynor is freed by the Defenders, who assist in the evacuation of Mar Sara. However, Raynor’s wife Sarah is left behind and dies when the Protoss purify the planet. Raynor joins the Defenders to get revenge on the Dominion for their incompetence and the Protoss for killing his friends and family. Carolina grows increasingly unhinged as the war progresses, much to the distress of Raynor and Nova. The Defenders deploy psi-emitters to lure the Zerg to Dominion core worlds, crippling the Dominion and allowing Davis to seize control and form the Terran Alliance with the Umojan Protectorate and Kel-Morian Combine joining as client states. Nova is left to die on Korhal when the Zerg consume the planet, convincing Raynor to split and form his own rebel group.

Episode XI: The Nightmare Begins
Having captured millions of psychics, most of the Zerg broods retreat to remote, isolated hive worlds to begin their experiments. A number of broods are left behind to exterminate the remaining Terran population. The Terran Alliance begins deploying anti-Zerg weaponry with the aid of Umojan scientists, all of them secretly intent on exploiting the Zerg for their own purposes. However, the Umojans are secretly funding rebel groups like Raynor’s Raiders, as their democratic sensibilities disagree with the Alliance’s military junta. Most of the Golden Armada has been recalled in disgrace, though some remnants continue to fight the Zerg. The taldarim/nerazim/whatever start trickling in, investigating the origin of the Zerg’s deep space probes and seeking to test their mettle against these new aliens. Isolated groups of Protoss begin to experiment with controlling the Zerg using khala or void technology, mimicking the Terrans. Ulrezaj and his taldarim/nerazim/whatever followers form alliances with pirates like Alan Schezar, and plot to control the Zerg in order to destroy the khalai. The Zerg’s gruesome experiments produce massive psychic emissions, attracting the attention of Protoss warbands. Nova reappears, having been rescued by Alarak, and the two of them develop a bizarre romance to lighten up the oppressive bleakness. Artanis shows up too. Alarak manages to kill one of the Zerg commanders, who are supposed to be immortal. This sends the Zerg into a hissy fit, as the Overmind has temporarily gone silent and the now feral brood must be exterminated. It is revealed that the Zerg commander was actually winning the duel against Alarak and had started raping his mind before Alarak used a forbidden psionic storm technique that destroyed everything for miles around. Alarak only survived because a void pylon recalled him at the last second. Alarak had loads of military intel about the Empire’s defenses and other logistics, which is now known to the Zerg. After testing their new experiments and expelling the Protoss forces from the hive worlds, the Zerg launch numerous invasions fleets into Protoss space. These fleets generally fall into a handful of directives: assault khala worlds to harvest khydarin crystals for use in psychic warfare, assaulting capital worlds like Aiur which have the densest concentration of psi matrix nodes, assaulting the void user enclaves to prevent them from killing Zerg commanders, and investigating ancient ruins left by the super advanced Protoss Empire that existed before the Aeon of Strife to prevent them from falling into Terran or Protoss hands. One excavations awakens the Purifiers, an ancient race of psychic robots who were sealed away during the Aeon of Strife. The Purifiers have numerous tombs scattered across many worlds, and all of them begin to awaken. The goal of the Purifiers is unknown, possibly variable, but they appear to be hostile to all other races. Creative use of khydarin crystals allows enterprising Terrans, Zerg and Protoss to hack into and take command of groups of Purifiers. While Raynor is fighting the Alliance and the occasional Zerg infestation, he meets and falls in love with Ariel Hanson, who is developing a cure for Zerg infestation. During a fight with the Zerg, Raynor meets his now adult son John “Johnny” Raynor (from his first marriage to Lydia Raynor, read the wiki), who has been alive and infested since the fall of the Confederacy and is now one of the Zerg commanders. Johnny takes some time to gloat and explain that he is utterly loyal to the Zerg cause, while Raynor vows to save his son.

Episode XII: Beyond the Void
While the Zerg invasion of the Koprulu sector and Protoss space is ongoing, Alarak and Artanis try to alert the Khala Empire. The Empire is having none of it and starts a civil war, blaming the void users for all the horrible things that have happened to the Protoss over the course of their history. While those complaints turn out to be entirely accurate, as shown in flashbacks, this is the wrong time to seek revenge for old grievances. While the Protoss and Zerg were equally matched (due to the Zerg’s assimilation of Terran psychic potential and distribution into a variety of new breeds, otherwise the Protoss would wipe the floor with them), this civil war tips the balance in the favor of the Zerg. Some Protoss fall into despair and surrender to the Zerg, allowing themselves to be infested and creating a new faction: the “corrupted templar.” This turns out to be a mistake, as the corrupted templar are not fully integrated into the hive mind and turn against the other broods at the worst possible time. After reconciling (not really, but they put aside their differences when the cost becomes clear), the khala and void users make a last ditch assault on the Zerg. They kill several commanders, sending the Overmind into a coma and leaving it vulnerable to assault. Artanis, having trained with Alarak and become some fabled twilight messiah, sacrifices his life to charge his carrier with void and khala magic then crashes into the Overmind’s avatar on Aiur’s surface. Unbeknownst to them, the corrupted templar were instrumental to keeping Zerg forces occupied and unable to shoot it down; nonetheless, the corrupted templar are still hunted down and forced to flee into space. While this does not kill the Overmind, since it was never alive to begin with (hence “avatar”), this does cause brain damage to the Zerg that fractures their hive mind hierarchy and makes them far less dangerous in the long run.

Episode XIII: Death and Rebirth
The Zerg immediately turn on each other, seeking to claim the title of Overmind for themselves. The fracturing of the hive mind hierarchy vastly increases the success rates of the various attempts to enslave Zerg broods, which were very unreliable before then. The Umojan Protectorate and Kel-Morian Combine, emboldened by their newly enslaved broods, openly war against the Alliance. Their use of Zerg proves to be unpopular amongst the Terran populace, who have previously suffered grievously at the claws of these monsters. The Protoss void users at large, who were previously unaware of the Zerg, send expeditions to the Koprulu sector to investigate the origins of the Zerg that attacked them. Ulrezaj open instigates war against the Khala, attracting most of the corrupted templar, many void users and even some khalai to his banner. Hybrids start appearing on battlefields, mostly as cannon fodder: they are Zerg organisms derived from Protoss genes, but they are imperfect and the Zerg view them as failures, mere stepping stones in the quest for perfection. (BTW, Zerg queens contain Protoss genes, explaining their dreadlocks and mouthless chins.) John Raynor flees to the Koprulu sector to avoid falling to the Protoss or Zerg, and ends being captured by the Umojans with the help of Raynor. Raynor desperately wants to cure his son, but this proves impossible: John has a Zerg larva fused to his spine like one of the harnesses from the Falling Skies TV show. The harness expresses the genes of cerebrates, allowing him to command his own brood. The harness is integrated to his nervous system to such a degree that attempting to surgically remove it or cure the infestation will kill him. However, the Umojans have recently made inroads with the Protoss, and use loaned psychic warfare tech to render Johnny docile and compliant, much to Raynor’s distress. While experimenting with controlling Zerg, the facility is attacked by the Alliance, who intend to capture Raynor. Johnny reveals that he faked being docile and turns the captured Zerg on the Umojans and Alliance forces alike. Alliance forces capture Raynor, and he is later executed on live television. Johnny uncharacteristically displays human emotions (specifically sadness and anger) and vows revenge on the Alliance. Through a combination of skill and blind luck, Johnny assembles a motley crew of misfits and monsters to assist him in assaulting Korhal. Broadcasting live, he feeds a screaming Carolina Davis to a pack of Zerglings and then starts infesting the terrified populace. He tells them not to fear, because being Zerg is fun (he speaks from experience, having been infested since the age of five). The Brood Wars end when the Overmind returns and reunites the Zerg. Its goal has shifted slightly: rather than desiring perfection, it now desires survival due to the threat posed by the Terrans and Protoss. The Terrans and Protoss finally start to set aside their deep-seated motivations for war in order to resist the Zerg’s galactic apocalypse.

Episode XIV and beyond
At this point, we should probably stop making direct sequels and start making prequels and midquels and stuff. When the universe is always doomed, it loses its impact. As Tura said before, sequelitis is a thing.

[ragnarok]

Getting back to the original topic, I just spent over an hour typing a premise for a soft reboot of Starcraft. It's titled Starcraft 3 because it loosely follows after Starcraft 2, but it takes numerous liberties with canon in order to rehash the plot of Starcraft 1 (I based it on the timeline linked in my sig). I also included as many dropped plot threads from the EU as I could remember.


Before I read it, first tell me why did you make it follow the events of SC2, since you've been saying all this time that SC2's storyline was utter BS

[Turalyon]

Now you're just pulling technobabble out of your ass to justify the Protoss never attacking cerebrates before Tassadar told them, even though they do exactly that in Retribution with no problems (and Blizzard previously authorized the campaign).

Just as you're using technobabble to justify why the Protoss should have known about and killed cerebrates (and in justifying why the Overmind shouldn't be able to protect its cerebrates from being psionically sensed - even if it's questionable that they can be at all) can't before even the lay audience member can even fathom that even being a possibility at the time. You can't justify you're own position by using information that wasn't available at the time. As I said, you're using privileged information and your position of superior knowledge of that fictional universe to justify something that is unreasonable to assume at the time of that thing happening in-universe.


There's problems with your asspull

Oh, without a doubt. I never assume my positions are fool-proof. You should do the same - your arguments will be better for it.


EDIT: Sorry, if I come off as abrasive. I really admire your dedication to justifying what I perceive as sins in the storytelling of Starcraft. At some point, however, these explanations start opening cans of worms that erode the foundation of the games' setting. One of the most important rules of writing is to stay consistent, otherwise the audience will lose their suspension of disbelief. The idea that the Zerg can hide their psychic transmissions opens a huge can of worms, and is never seen in the games.

Oh, I don't take offense. I say the following with no negative connotation attached nor intended, but I know that your personal bias is strong when it comes to certain things in Sc and it clearly shows. I'm just holding up a mirror to it.

The story in Sc1 is actually quite consistent with the manual than you would think or like to believe. This current issue with Protoss being able to detect cerebrates is an unfounded assumption (if perhaps reasonable... to a degree) on your part alone just as much as my counter to it is, hand-wavey though it may be.

The difference is that you tend to generalise it as being a big problem that is obvious (or rather should be obvious according to you) and of such great import that it needs fixing. It isn't either because it's really not that important to the momentum of the plot nor does it break the given plot. It's narrative conceit and fridge logic at worst but then again, what piece of fiction created is without either of those things? At some point there has to be some suspension of disbelief, it's just that the story just has to make you willing enough to do so. I believe Sc1 does enough to achieve this.

[Mislagnissa]

Before I read it, first tell me why did you make it follow the events of SC2, since you've been saying all this time that SC2's storyline was utter BS

A few reasons: that was the original topic of this thread, Blizzard is unlikely to do a hard reboot what with WoL going F2P, and it is a sequel in name only due to the extensive liberties taken with canon. The first paragraph resets everything to SC1 status quo on the flimsiest of pretenses to cash in on nostalgia.

[ragnarok]

A few reasons: that was the original topic of this thread, Blizzard is unlikely to do a hard reboot what with WoL going F2P, and it is a sequel in name only due to the extensive liberties taken with canon. The first paragraph resets everything to SC1 status quo on the flimsiest of pretenses to cash in on nostalgia.

Figures. I try to take what I got, but in the aftermath of WoL's release the one thing I was displeased RIGHT off the bat was how the whole campaign centered on one person. That's not how warfare works. If it's only a small battle, THEN I'd be willing to accept (however reluctantly), but not a whole war, especially not an invasion of that magnitude.

[Nissa]

Hm....if by this thread we're talking about what Blizzard would do to make a sequel to Starcraft.....I'm not sure they can at all. Probably at most they'll make another mission set or two ala the Nova missions, and then maybe twenty years down the road, when turnover has changed a good portion of the workers, they'll try something completely different.

...I don't like speculating that route. The only good outcome for that is if people of our love for SC1 come back and make a worthy sequel. In which case we're better off imagining something we like, and sticking with it.

[Mislagnissa]

I am really amazed how lazy everyone is. Blizzard is never going to write interesting stories for Starcraft, so I would like to be able to play custom campaigns or read fanfiction that scratches that itch. I don't care about it being non-canon or not reaching lots of people, I only care about my personal entertainment. I want to see custom campaigns and fanfics exploring the scenarios suggested in my sig, which are impossible in canon because Raynor/Kerry is literally the center of the universe. I want to see campaigns where the dark templar fight off invading Zerg who have magical knowledge of their whereabouts, the Zerg attempt to exterminate the Terrans, the Umojans use Zerg against the Dominion for the sake of democracy, and so forth. Those scenarios are precluded in canon.

[Gradius]

I am really amazed how lazy everyone is. Blizzard is never going to write interesting stories for Starcraft, so I would like to be able to play custom campaigns or read fanfiction that scratches that itch. I don't care about it being non-canon or not reaching lots of people, I only care about my personal entertainment. I want to see custom campaigns and fanfics exploring the scenarios suggested in my sig, which are impossible in canon because Raynor/Kerry is literally the center of the universe. I want to see campaigns where the dark templar fight off invading Zerg who have magical knowledge of their whereabouts, the Zerg attempt to exterminate the Terrans, the Umojans use Zerg against the Dominion for the sake of democracy, and so forth. Those scenarios are precluded in canon.
Go ahead lol. Nothing's stopping you from making these campaigns. All you need is countless man-hours to learn new skills and do a bunch of work. :P

[Mislagnissa]

Go ahead lol. Nothing's stopping you from making these campaigns. All you need is countless man-hours to learn new skills and do a bunch of work. :P

I am currently drafting fanfiction and scripts for campaigns. I have been for the last year. I have rewritten the same fifty thousand word novel a half-dozen times. I am relearning yet another mapping tool after years of playing games with mapping tools. Reading or playing my own work is not entertaining, especially not after the millionth time. It is actively painful.

I would like to see others showing the same initiative or maybe a little support now and then? I mean, if map making is too hard for the poor fans, why not try writing a book? I am writing a whole series and have set my goal at a million words. At 50k words a book, that means I only have to write twenty novels to meet my goal.

[Gradius]

I am currently drafting fanfiction and scripts for campaigns. I have been for the last year. I have rewritten the same fifty thousand word novel a half-dozen times. I am relearning yet another mapping tool after years of playing games with mapping tools. Reading or playing my own work is not entertaining, especially not after the millionth time. It is actively painful.

I would like to see others showing the same initiative or maybe a little support now and then? I mean, if map making is too hard for the poor fans, why not try writing a book? I am writing a whole series and have set my goal at a million words. At 50k words a book, that means I only have to write twenty novels to meet my goal.
Fanficiton.net is bloated with StarCraft entries. Map-making on the other hand is difficult and time-consuming, especially for people who have day jobs.

Anybody can write fanfiction. Producing and actually releasing a finished campaign in SC2 on the other hand seems pretty rare. There's still good stuff out there though.

[Nissa]

Chill out with calling us lazy, okay? We're just really cynical because we've been through all of this before. Many of us here have written fanfiction, I was a former participant in a SC mod, many were mapmakers, some are still making art (both 3D and 2D), and we've been discussing this for a long time now. You appear to be in a fresher stage of the fandom than we are. I'm writing stuff right now, but it's my own thing, and not something I'm keen to share at the moment.

Also, you appear to be angry at us for not going by the "canon" as presented in your sig. Uh, fanon is still fanon. Probably we have fanons that greatly differ from yours.

[Turalyon]

I am really amazed how lazy everyone is. Blizzard is never going to write interesting stories for Starcraft, so I would like to be able to play custom campaigns or read fanfiction that scratches that itch. I don't care about it being non-canon or not reaching lots of people, I only care about my personal entertainment. I want to see custom campaigns and fanfics exploring the scenarios suggested in my sig, which are impossible in canon because Raynor/Kerry is literally the center of the universe. I want to see campaigns where the dark templar fight off invading Zerg who have magical knowledge of their whereabouts, the Zerg attempt to exterminate the Terrans, the Umojans use Zerg against the Dominion for the sake of democracy, and so forth. Those scenarios are precluded in canon.

Translation: "I'm not enjoying this so I demand that others must make stuff that I like. It's other peoples fault if I'm not gratified."

Your sense of entitlement is astounding! You must have been one hell of an annoying kid growing up. :p

[Mislagnissa]

Fanficiton.net is bloated with StarCraft entries. Map-making on the other hand is difficult and time-consuming, especially for people who have day jobs.

Anybody can write fanfiction. Producing and actually releasing a finished campaign in SC2 on the other hand seems pretty rare. There's still good stuff out there though.You are not alone. I too work a day job. I decided to use SCR tools because they seem a lot easier for the simplistic stories I want to start with. I will apply SC2 when I cannot work within those limitations.

FF.net is where I publish. It is a bit disheartening when the most popular Starcraft stories are "some kid on a fantasy world controls the Zerg" or "Kerry makes a baby by stealing Jimmy's DNA." The Starcraft category is extremely anemic compared to other categories I frequent like Game of Thrones and Voltron: Legendary Defender (which is a remake of an 80s series). So I am probably going to be the first person to write an archaeology, invasion, etc, fic.


Chill out with calling us lazy, okay? We're just really cynical because we've been through all of this before. Many of us here have written fanfiction, I was a former participant in a SC mod, many were mapmakers, some are still making art (both 3D and 2D), and we've been discussing this for a long time now. You appear to be in a fresher stage of the fandom than we are. I'm writing stuff right now, but it's my own thing, and not something I'm keen to share at the moment.

Also, you appear to be angry at us for not going by the "canon" as presented in your sig. Uh, fanon is still fanon. Probably we have fanons that greatly differ from yours.Sorry for insulting you, I was excluding writers and mappers from that statement. Yes, I am very new to all this since I only got back into Starcraft last year after a decade-and-a-half hiatus. I must still be experiencing the seven stages of grief. Probably stuck on anger, lol. Not toward you, never you guys, but toward Blizzard and Metzen. If that was not already obvious.

I get the impression no one has actually read the link in my signature. You cannot say it differs greatly from your own imagination unless you read it for yourself. I posted another thread where you could read an abridged summary. Check it out and answer if it cannot fit your imagination.

I, for one, think it can easily account for the majority of custom campaigns. If you pretend that names like Kerry and Raynor are extremely common.


Translation: "I'm not enjoying this so I demand that others must make stuff that I like. It's other peoples fault if I'm not gratified."

Your sense of entitlement is astounding! You must have been one hell of an annoying kid growing up. :pLol! Isn't everyone? I'll have you know that 14 year old me was banned from a half-dozen forums, IIRC.

I cannot "demand" anything. I can only beg helplessly and hope someone is listening. I love you guys because at heart we all want the same thing: throttling Blizz, and enjoying a good Starcraft plot.

I have tried some interesting campaigns, like Subjection and Origins. I checked out the custom campaign initiative. Now I ran out of things to do besides write twenty books to assuage my bitterness towards Blizz.

[ragnarok]

Fanficiton.net is bloated with StarCraft entries.

I take it this means you didn't pay attention to the site in 2013, Gradius. After HotS came out, SC activity there collapsed.

[ragnarok]

Your sense of entitlement is astounding! You must have been one hell of an annoying kid growing up. :p

This is the Age of Entitlement, Tura. Naturally this tends to have serious consequences, as well as harsh responses.

Let's just say back when I lived in Phoenix, AZ I witnessed WAY too many cases of children in my neighborhood who were physically beaten by their own family members for such "entitlement" speeches. The reason behind it: "The only entitlement you get is being entitled to have your face in the mud, your head under my boot."

Not exactly the best way to hammer a message home....

[Sheliek]

Just to add my two cents: they probably will bring back the Khala if it takes place a few hundred years later, but only for younger protoss characters --- nerve cords are genetic, chopping them off doesn't remove them from newborn, post-End War protoss.

That said, they'll probably just do a "five years later..." thing, which renders that fact moot.

[Nissa]

...And the Khala will be back anyway. :D

[Turalyon]

Even if it was made canon and confirmed fact that the Khala is no longer possible or accessible in any form in the future, that doesn't stop them from just retconning it back in whenever it suited at any time. Nothing's "permanent" in Sc anymore.

[ragnarok]

...And the Khala will be back anyway. :D

Not the one you want. Still, it'd be interesting to see what the new Khala would be like, and the details to its creation

[drakolobo]

...And the Khala will be back anyway. :D

Although I really agree with the reasoning of the legacy of void of the blindness that can bring, the khala, I hope it comes back

[ragnarok]

Although I really agree with the reasoning of the legacy of void of the blindness that can bring, the khala, I hope it comes back

If not then I expect a LOT of protoss lore stories to show how they're coping with the Khala's loss and everything.

[DonnyZeDoof]

StarCraft 3 Retcon:

Valerian Mengsk realises he loved his father all along. He becomes evil and hunts down Raynor and Kerrigan for revenge. Valerian will be the big baddie of StarCraft 3 and Blizzard will give him all sorts of cheesey lines to try and make him look more threatening than the Overmind but they'll fail miserably.

[ragnarok]

StarCraft 3 Retcon:

Valerian Mengsk realises he loved his father all along. He becomes evil and hunts down Raynor and Kerrigan for revenge. Valerian will be the big baddie of StarCraft 3 and Blizzard will give him all sorts of cheesey lines to try and make him look more threatening than the Overmind but they'll fail miserably.

Then it'd be a waste of a character. Valerian made his debut since the DT Saga Part 1 back in May 2007. If you do that the fans would say "You've had all these years to develop him and the best you can do is turn him into his father's knock-off?"

[DonnyZeDoof]

All of Blizzard's villains are knockoffs at this point.

I can't remember the last time Blizzard created an original villain.

[ragnarok]

All of Blizzard's villains are knockoffs at this point.

I can't remember the last time Blizzard created an original villain.

You know what I mean....

[sandwich_bird]

StarCraft 3 Retcon:

Valerian Mengsk realises he loved his father all along. He becomes evil and hunts down Raynor and Kerrigan for revenge. Valerian will be the big baddie of StarCraft 3 and Blizzard will give him all sorts of cheesey lines to try and make him look more threatening than the Overmind but they'll fail miserably.

I can't believe Blizzard would be crazy enough to bring back Raynor and Kerrigan. But, I also have a feeling Valerian will turn evil or at least do questionable things.

[DonnyZeDoof]

I can't believe Blizzard would be crazy enough to bring back Raynor and Kerrigan.

Do you follow WoW? Blizzard has pretty much brought back every character from the WarCraft series, even the ones that seemingly got conclusions to their stories.

Personally I think Blizzard has lost a lot of its creativity in recent years and that's why they keep recycling their characters instead of making itneresting new ones.

[Nissa]

I think Sandwich is onto something. As much as I can see Raynor coming back (since we're not clear what happened to him, we're not clear if he can't come back), it wouldn't be generally a good idea storywise.

Honestly, I don't think I can be into a Starcraft where SC2 is canon. It just ruins everything. Um...um...well, if they ever bring back SC: Ghost I think it could work as a primarily Terran story.

As an RTS with all three races....uh....the hybrids take over the Zerg, and the Zerg become basically renegades/a faction within hybrid hierarchy. The Protoss return to the Khala and police it from hybrid interference, using DT techniques -- oh, and they figure out how to let DTs join the Khala with artificial nerve cords. The Terrans will get access to this technology, allowing them to fight psychic wars. They fight with the Protoss because the 'Toss are unhappy with this turn of events. The hybrids take advantage of everybody's drama to quietly put themselves in control of the K Sector and create psionic dampeners that prevent people from using their psi powers at optimum levels.

I dunno.

[ragnarok]

I can't believe Blizzard would be crazy enough to bring back Raynor and Kerrigan. But, I also have a feeling Valerian will turn evil or at least do questionable things.

I believe the latter will follow with Valerian. This was addressed since the Evolution book, that there's those who feel as Valerian hasn't exactly had to go through a war (since the one against Amon didn't count), we still don't know what such a conflict will bring out of him

[sandwich_bird]

Do you follow WoW? Blizzard has pretty much brought back every character from the WarCraft series, even the ones that seemingly got conclusions to their stories.

Personally I think Blizzard has lost a lot of its creativity in recent years and that's why they keep recycling their characters instead of making itneresting new ones.

No worries, I'm well aware of all the past and latest travesties in WoW. I just think it would be pretty stupid at this point but that's not to say that I don't think Blizz is capable of doing it...

I agree about Blizz's creativity. It's quite pathetic but many kids find it appealing somehow. I watched those latest Overwatch shorts and couldn't believe that some people could feel anything other than cringiness. Basically, Blizzard goes over the top but still think they're as deep as Shakespeare.

[ragnarok]

No worries, I'm well aware of all the past and latest travesties in WoW. I just think it would be pretty stupid at this point but that's not to say that I don't think Blizz is capable of doing it...

I agree about Blizz's creativity. It's quite pathetic but many kids find it appealing somehow. I watched those latest Overwatch shorts and couldn't believe that some people could feel anything other than cringiness. Basically, Blizzard goes over the top but still think they're as deep as Shakespeare.

What's so cringy about Overwatch? (Since I never paid any attention to it)

[Gradius]

What's so cringy about Overwatch? (Since I never paid any attention to it)
He literally explained it in what you quoted:

"I watched those latest Overwatch shorts and couldn't believe that some people could feel anything other than cringiness. Basically, Blizzard goes over the top but still think they're as deep as Shakespeare."

[drakolobo]

I think someone got too bitter, blizzard has done a great job in transmitting emotions most of the cinematics through shocking images and expressive characters ... experience is lost with that feeling of narrative "superiority",.....;) Shakespeare is not the big deal . I am more of the style of cervantes;)

[Gradius]

I think someone got too bitter, blizzard has done a great job in transmitting emotions most of the cinematics through shocking images and expressive characters ... experience is lost with that feeling of narrative "superiority",.....;) Shakespeare is not the big deal . I am more of the style of cervantes;)
Let’s be honest, there’s pretty much nothing Blizzard can release that you wouldn’t support.

[sandwich_bird]

I think someone got too bitter, blizzard has done a great job in transmitting emotions most of the cinematics through shocking images and expressive characters ... experience is lost with that feeling of narrative "superiority",.....;) Shakespeare is not the big deal . I am more of the style of cervantes;)

Meh, maybe I am getting old and feel like I've seen it all. But the screenplay is so cliche to me... I'm sure I'd like it if I was 12.From a visual perspective, it's great as always because Blizzard has the best artists in the industry.

[ragnarok]

Let’s be honest, there’s pretty much nothing Blizzard can release that you wouldn’t support.

And what will Blizzard release that you WOULD support, Gradius? (Aside from a reboot of the whole series)

[drakolobo]

Let’s be honest, there’s pretty much nothing Blizzard can release that you wouldn’t support.

warcraft has always seemed inferior to tolkien material I like more his sobriety in lord of rings, diablo 2 was great in his narrative, but diablo iii was disappointing
especially the reaper of souls the story does not go anywhere, people when I see diablo iii , and I see them as all you complains that starcraft lacks a layer of dirt and sinister tone , you complain too much diablo fans must have suffered more

and although I got bored of overwatch game play, but the cinematica has memeorables moments

the cinematic of heroes of storm have been the most devoid of souls except for the first
* but what can you expect blizard has been honest about it
http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/cjsycqedhisw60dzduyw.jpg

and as for starcraft 2 I liked it, I just felt, that the budget ended when we arrived at the epilogue, I guess that's why we did not see immortal and dragons models in cinematic style in legacy, the three stories I liked with their differentiated motivations from the protagonists, with own aesthetics and it was only more boring to play heart of the swarm ,. point minus the absence of a hybrid army and xelnagas constructs armies. I saw better "metamorph" the alternative option of the race that can replaced primals but just as I have become accustomed to the zerg dinosaurs, I hoped that the zerg would be a mixture between zagara and abathur in heart of swarm after of legacy it does not bother me this turn of the race in starcraft evolution tjis leave any interesting

[Turalyon]

^ I think the issue is not whether there's good or bad moments because there's definitely both in Sc1 and Sc2, but whether one has enough moments to be fondly remembered/remembered for good reasons.

Since Sc1 was relatively small so the good bits that were there outshone the bad. Sc2 was much larger and had more bits that didn't work, were repetitious or unnecessary that it overshadowed any of the good bits. As such, Sc1 is more fondly remembered because it was concise and hit the feels more readily because of that whereas Sc2 had more sound and fury and the only thing memorable about it was the stuff that was or was not happening, not the feels.

[ragnarok]

Since Sc1 was relatively small so the good bits that were there outshone the bad. Sc2 was much larger and had more bits that didn't work, were repetitious or unnecessary that it overshadowed any of the good bits. As such, Sc1 is more fondly remembered because it was concise and hit the feels more readily because of that whereas Sc2 had more sound and fury and the only thing memorable about it was the stuff that was or was not happening, not the feels.

For WoL it made sense to drag it out a bit longer because Blizzard made it clear that Raynor was largely lost throughout the campaign as to what he was supposed to do, HotS and LotV should have been much more focused.

[Turalyon]

For WoL it made sense to drag it out a bit longer because Blizzard made it clear that Raynor was largely lost throughout the campaign as to what he was supposed to do, HotS and LotV should have been much more focused.

Raynor was only "lost" at the very beginning of the campaign really - he quickly found purpose again in fighting the Dominion and looking for artifacts. The majority of WoL was meandering and unfocused for a story that could easily be told in 10 missions at most - and that's being generous. It's why Blizz rightly decided to shorten the number of missions in order to give it some actual momentum and adequate pacing.

As a result, HotS and LotV are much more focused than WoL ever was. It's just that now that the story was structurally ok, it opens you up to realise how the content that's there wasn't really worth the time spent on it. There's literally nothing new we don't already know about the characters apart from superficial changes. Raynor is still the good hero guy in the end even though they try/fail to make him more anti-heroish, Kerrigan is still an entitled bitch even though they try to make her more good/human and Artanis is a stoic, leader hero that doesn't seem to change.

[Gradius]

Artanis is pretty much the paragon of change in LoTV.

[KaiserStratosTygo]

-The meme that SC2 was entirely Raynor's drunken hallucination, he no longer factors into the story
-Kerrigan choked on mineral ore and died
-Popular characters like Alarak, Tychus and Abathur still exist and are quite relevant
-The Xel'Naga's importance diminishes to near 0, since they can't seem to be done correctly without going down Medieval fantasy land territory.
-Make Artanis something other than a generic good guy
-Stop having the Protoss find old technology underneath their feet to use as military units, sick of that shit.
-Have a good reason for why a faction is in power instead of a magical instant authority button
-No endgame team ups

With this done SC3 should be great, give me cash for my brilliant never before seen string of ideas.

[sandwich_bird]

For WoL it made sense to drag it out a bit longer because Blizzard made it clear that Raynor was largely lost throughout the campaign as to what he was supposed to do, HotS and LotV should have been much more focused.

According to some really old dev logs, it looks like the original idea for WoL was to be kinda like Mass Effect where you don't necessarily have a clear path to where you're going even though there's a main story underneath. You can hop on random planets and whatever you want(in a RTS kind of way). At least that was my understanding. We got some of that but they changed their mind during development I guess. The result is that WoL was less focused than HotS and LotV.

[ragnarok]

According to some really old dev logs, it looks like the original idea for WoL was to be kinda like Mass Effect where you don't necessarily have a clear path to where you're going even though there's a main story underneath. You can hop on random planets and whatever you want(in a RTS kind of way). At least that was my understanding. We got some of that but they changed their mind during development I guess. The result is that WoL was less focused than HotS and LotV.

The point was that for WoL it was justified to drag things out. All you have to do is remember the quotes they were saying after Media Blitz. If you did NOT locate the secret documents, then the convo with Matt on the bridge would be different.

Basically Raynor would admit he'd have to put the rebellion on hold for a while because the swarm invasion was still in effect. But until Valerian told him what the artifact might do, it's not like he knew how he was supposed to stop the swarm, hence until the aftermath of "Supernova," Raynor remained lost in direction.

[ragnarok]

-The meme that SC2 was entirely Raynor's drunken hallucination, he no longer factors into the story
-Kerrigan choked on mineral ore and died
-Popular characters like Alarak, Tychus and Abathur still exist and are quite relevant
-The Xel'Naga's importance diminishes to near 0, since they can't seem to be done correctly without going down Medieval fantasy land territory.
-Make Artanis something other than a generic good guy
-Stop having the Protoss find old technology underneath their feet to use as military units, sick of that shit.
-Have a good reason for why a faction is in power instead of a magical instant authority button
-No endgame team ups

With this done SC3 should be great, give me cash for my brilliant never before seen string of ideas.

*facepalm* And here I thought you dislike it back then on the battlenet forums when I said it would end with the drunken crack hobo, Stratos.

I would still keep the Xel'Naga around at least via flashbacks so we can see more of their works and stuff, maybe see what can be used in the future.

The endgame teamups are vital when it comes to stopping a greater enemy. This isn't an ideal universe, you have to work with people you don't like and don't know if you can trust. It's not like Raynor trusted Valerian when he agreed to the alliance with him to invade Char in WoL. Kerrigan's version of merely beating those into submission to force them to join the swarm was obviously a folly though, personally I had at least expected Artanis to tell Kerrigan that he wouldn't sink to such a level in the aftermath of the Ulnar missions in LotV.

[KaiserStratosTygo]

"The endgame teamups are vital when it comes to stopping a greater enemy. "

No, it isn't, and two just don't write a scenario that forces the "common enemy" trope.


" This isn't an ideal universe, you have to work with people you don't like and don't know if you can trust. "

That was hardly demonstrated in SC2 where everyone was BEST BUDDIES :D at the end praising the great god Kerri-sue.

And besides an a non-ideal universe, there'd be dozens to hundreds of factions that are fighting eachother, it would rarely turn into "everybody teams up to fight X"

[ragnarok]

"
That was hardly demonstrated in SC2 where everyone was BEST BUDDIES :D at the end praising the great god Kerri-sue.

And besides an a non-ideal universe, there'd be dozens to hundreds of factions that are fighting eachother, it would rarely turn into "everybody teams up to fight X"

Usually no, unless a villain strong enough forces them to. Ironically, that was something many people (including myself) had expected to happen after BW, before any info was out on SC2, that because of how BW ended, Kerrigan foolishly united all the terran factions together to fight her to ensure their own survival

[Turalyon]

Artanis is pretty much the paragon of change in LoTV.

He is the architect of change within the Protoss society for sure but I was talking more about his character not really changing beyond the initially presented archetype. He's obviously changed from his earnest and naive BW incarnation but we don't see that transition in the games because in LotV he starts off being a stoic leader guy and... remains that way all the way to the end. Sure, that's not a bad thing necessarily but for a story that's supposed to be about "character" (or what Blizz intended it to be at any rate), Artanis is pretty devoid of it.


The point was that for WoL it was justified to drag things out. All you have to do is remember the quotes they were saying after Media Blitz. If you did NOT locate the secret documents, then the convo with Matt on the bridge would be different.

Basically Raynor would admit he'd have to put the rebellion on hold for a while because the swarm invasion was still in effect. But until Valerian told him what the artifact might do, it's not like he knew how he was supposed to stop the swarm, hence until the aftermath of "Supernova," Raynor remained lost in direction.

There's no justification to drag things out in WoL and Raynor isn't lost in direction. It's clear that he had renewed his efforts against the Dominion in the very first few missions and his raiding for supplies/artifacts thereafter is in support of this venture. The Zerg are easily forgotten as being the real threat he should be giving his attention to given that the vast majority of WoL is about Raynor's attention being fixated on the Dominion.

If anything, the shift to focus on the Zerg is the derailment of the story in WoL. Were it not for the sudden appearance of these artifacts and their hidden role together, we wouldn't have the sudden reappearance of the Zerg after 4 years of quiet from them and the subsequent lurch in direction and eventual contrived coincidence of deinfesting Kerrigan in the ending. Raynor would have then be "free" to continue on within his fight against Mengsk and see him toppled instead of actually having no effect despite spending nearly three-quarters of the game on this very task (I include the artifact missions as being part of the Dominion plot in this particular context since they were ostensibly being pilfered in the first place to fund his rebellion against Mengsk).

[ragnarok]

If anything, the shift to focus on the Zerg is the derailment of the story in WoL. Were it not for the sudden appearance of these artifacts and their hidden role together, we wouldn't have the sudden reappearance of the Zerg after 4 years of quiet from them and the subsequent lurch in direction and eventual contrived coincidence of deinfesting Kerrigan in the ending. Raynor would have then be "free" to continue on within his fight against Mengsk and see him toppled instead of actually having no effect despite spending nearly three-quarters of the game on this very task (I include the artifact missions as being part of the Dominion plot in this particular context since they were ostensibly being pilfered in the first place to fund his rebellion against Mengsk).

The years of hiding was due to a greater threat or something, BW's ending explained this in a very vague way. Granted none of us really expected this silence right after BW was released as it didn't make sense.

Either way, assuming the swarm hadn't been silent, Raynor wouldn't have been as free to topple the Dominion as you think. The fact still remained that by the end of the BW, the Dominion people didn't know what really happened on Tarsonis.

[Gradius]

I liked LoTV Artanis. I think he’s a good example of an interesting static character. His resilience and good attitude were endearing. Nobody took it on the chin more than him and he got back up every time. He was brutal and annhilated his enemies with the full power of the Protoss but still managed to fight honorably unlike Kerrigan.

[ragnarok]

I liked LoTV Artanis. I think he’s a good example of an interesting static character. His resilience and good attitude were endearing. Nobody took it on the chin more than him and he got back up every time. He was brutal and annhilated his enemies with the full power of the Protoss but still managed to fight honorably unlike Kerrigan.

In a way Gradius, this was why a part of me DID agree with you back then on the battlenet forums when you were trying to predict LotV's ending, and you said the moment Amon was beaten Zeratul would just slit Kerrigan's throat and say "Raszagal sends her regards."

The whole honor system is only intended for a for who has a moral code in return, and since you continue to insist her had no moral grounds.... (now granted I certainly felt her morality was VERY seriously lacking too)

[Nissa]

I liked LoTV Artanis. I think he’s a good example of an interesting static character. His resilience and good attitude were endearing. Nobody took it on the chin more than him and he got back up every time. He was brutal and annhilated his enemies with the full power of the Protoss but still managed to fight honorably unlike Kerrigan.

I object to your statement only because it's "Artanis." The SC2 incarnation seems to have just about nothing to do with the BW incarnation, which pisses me off. Now, if you like what they did with him in SC2, I could respect that if the character had a different name. That's it. A name swap and I would be fine with everything. Well, not everything, but everything related to the character.

Honestly, I don't like how Artanis' leadership was presented in LotV. He was just a newbie who was doubted by Aldaris and guided to some extent by Zeratul. He wasn't ready for such a big leadership role, and it makes more sense for him to be part of a military council, with separate civilian leadership.

[ragnarok]

Honestly, I don't like how Artanis' leadership was presented in LotV. He was just a newbie who was doubted by Aldaris and guided to some extent by Zeratul. He wasn't ready for such a big leadership role, and it makes more sense for him to be part of a military council, with separate civilian leadership.

Recall in the short story Artanis: Sacrifice that he originally didn't want this role, as his role was intended to be that of a templar. It just shows the Conclave's influence during Aiur's days, where Templar are largely not allowed such positions of leadership

[Turalyon]

I object to your statement only because it's "Artanis." The SC2 incarnation seems to have just about nothing to do with the BW incarnation, which pisses me off. Now, if you like what they did with him in SC2, I could respect that if the character had a different name. That's it. A name swap and I would be fine with everything. Well, not everything, but everything related to the character.

Honestly, I don't like how Artanis' leadership was presented in LotV. He was just a newbie who was doubted by Aldaris and guided to some extent by Zeratul. He wasn't ready for such a big leadership role, and it makes more sense for him to be part of a military council, with separate civilian leadership.

Didn't you know that "4 years passed" explains every single change and non-change from Sc1/BW to Sc2?

[ragnarok]

Didn't you know that "4 years passed" explains every single change and non-change from Sc1/BW to Sc2?

You said it was more due to a completely new writers team, from what I recall (I'll have to look again)

[Nissa]

Didn't you know that "4 years passed" explains every single change and non-change from Sc1/BW to Sc2?

It's just bad writing all around. Not only should we have been shown some sort of transition, but also it oversimplifies everything to give the Protoss only one leader. At least the original had the decency to state that the Conclave consisted of many people.

[Gradius]

I object to your statement only because it's "Artanis." The SC2 incarnation seems to have just about nothing to do with the BW incarnation, which pisses me off. Now, if you like what they did with him in SC2, I could respect that if the character had a different name. That's it. A name swap and I would be fine with everything. Well, not everything, but everything related to the character.

Honestly, I don't like how Artanis' leadership was presented in LotV. He was just a newbie who was doubted by Aldaris and guided to some extent by Zeratul. He wasn't ready for such a big leadership role, and it makes more sense for him to be part of a military council, with separate civilian leadership.
Meh. I've seen fan campaigns before SC2 came out that had him as the leader of the Protoss. That's pretty much the status quo in BW anyway during the battle of Omega, what with Zeratul having run off and him taking charge. He was a young upstart that was seen as too inexperienced for his rank literally the whole time.

[Turalyon]

It's just bad writing all around. Not only should we have been shown some sort of transition, but also it oversimplifies everything to give the Protoss only one leader. At least the original had the decency to state that the Conclave consisted of many people.

Yeah, I kinda subtly implied all this with my statement. ;)

There are some higher-up Protoss in this Daelaam like Selendis and the Dark Templar Vorazun but you can't really tell since they're put on the wayside (by being mind-controlled by Amon) as in the case of the former or have so little impact to the story and largely non-entities in the case of the latter that they're easily forgotten. I literally just now had to go looking for Vorazun's name because I had forgotten!

[sandwich_bird]

It's just bad writing all around. Not only should we have been shown some sort of transition, but also it oversimplifies everything to give the Protoss only one leader.

Doesn't help that he looks nothing like his BW self. I get that he had to dress up but even morphologically it's a different entity all together.

[Gradius]

My biggest pet peeve is the voice. Artanis had such memorable vocal effects in BW, with his pronounced long echo/delay. I got the effects kind of close in Subjection and I’m a rank amateur. They didn’t even try. They’re just like it “fuck it, we need effects for generic Protoss guy #4 and we’re on a deadline so go whip something up in 5 minutes”.

In fact, they really didn’t give a crap about replicating any of the voices in SC2, like at all. This is especially jarring with the “Overmind”. When he came on in my first play through I was just like “who the fuck is talking and what is this crusty ball doing?”. Fenix was especially embarrassing. Artanis says “His voice, his thoughts, his very presence. He describes memories we shared with such vivid recollection. Every instinct I have tells me this is my friend”

Uhm, no bruh. Unless you happened to be friends with Optimus Prime too, this guy sounds absolutely nothing like your friend.

[sandwich_bird]

lol nope, Blizzard really don't care about these kind of details. Just like when Metzen passed on Glynnis to do Kerrigan because he had a huge boner for Tricia Helfer.

kinda unrelated but imo the entire sound department really dropped the ball in sc2. Not sure what happened, they usually have decent sound in blizz games(hearthstone for example is pretty good in that regard) but everything just sounds so weak in SC2. SC1 had somehow better sound production in 98 than sc2 12 years later.

[ragnarok]

It's just bad writing all around. Not only should we have been shown some sort of transition, but also it oversimplifies everything to give the Protoss only one leader. At least the original had the decency to state that the Conclave consisted of many people.

This was why there was the Artanis: Sacrifice comic

[Turalyon]

Talking about voices, didn't I hear somewhere that they weren't even considering bringing back Robert Clotworthy for Raynor in SC2 way back when? I wasn't sure then if the voice actor they had intended wasn't good enough or if it was because of fan outrage.

Looking back at it now, I kinda wish they didn't bring back Clotworthy for Sc2 just to illustrate how Raynor from Sc2 is so removed from Sc1's version that it's almost a different/rebooted character. It sort of makes me glad now that Glynnis Talken didn't voice Kerrigan in Sc2. Her take on the character was that there wasn't any romantic involvement with Raynor and Kerrigan (and that's something considering she's a romance author!) and this wouldn't have gelled with what the Sc2 plot laid out for that character.

Makes me wonder though whether other named characters from Sc1/BW would've been better received or the writing be considered more forgivable/favourable in Sc2 if they were capable of reproducing/using the original voices - looking at Zeratul especially here.

[sandwich_bird]

Yeah they had someone else for Raynor at first. I thought the new guy's voice matched way better with Raynor's new look but for the sake of consistency, I'm glad Clotworthy came back. But, then again, if they weren't gonna keep Glynnis, they should have changed Clotworthy too. I still don't understand this decision. Clotworthy's voice was never really that good to begin with but on the other hand, Glynnis was a very good actress.. So if I had to change one of them, it would definitely have been Raynor. In then end we got the worst of both. Clotworthy's performance wasn't too great in SC2 imo and of course Tricia sounded like an emotionless robot.

Oh well, at least we got some other good voice actors like Alarak, Tychus, Mira, etc.

[ragnarok]

lol nope, Blizzard really don't care about these kind of details. Just like when Metzen passed on Glynnis to do Kerrigan because he had a huge boner for Tricia Helfer.

kinda unrelated but imo the entire sound department really dropped the ball in sc2. Not sure what happened, they usually have decent sound in blizz games(hearthstone for example is pretty good in that regard) but everything just sounds so weak in SC2. SC1 had somehow better sound production in 98 than sc2 12 years later.

Weak as in how? I didn't feel the sound sucked in the SC2 games....

[sandwich_bird]

Weak as in how? I didn't feel the sound sucked in the SC2 games....

Well listen to the SC1 marine attack and then to the SC2 marine attack. One sounds like an actual full automatic while the other one sounds like an automatic nerf gun. There's not enough boom, bass, power to it in SC2. Listen to the hydralisk attack. In SC1, it's sounds like the spines are ripping through flesh while in sc2 it sounds like someone is shooting needles out of a blowgun. The zergling in SC2 literally makes fart noises, etc. It just doesn't sound good. They're not abysmal so most people that aren't audiophile won't care but I'm sure that anyone who is somewhat more into music/sound will agree with me that SC2 sound isn't good. I'm more anal about these kind of things because I have some musical background. In fact, I remember a lot of hate towards the sound in the beta forums.

Music outside of campaign wasn't too great either(I like the campaign music though, particularly love some of LotV pieces). Terran was alright but god did I hate the Zerg and Protoss music. Thank god for the option that allow you to play SC1 music. That's more subjective though.

[Turalyon]

Yeah they had someone else for Raynor at first. I thought the new guy's voice matched way better with Raynor's new look but for the sake of consistency, I'm glad Clotworthy came back. But, then again, if they weren't gonna keep Glynnis, they should have changed Clotworthy too. I still don't understand this decision. Clotworthy's voice was never really that good to begin with but on the other hand, Glynnis was a very good actress.. So if I had to change one of them, it would definitely have been Raynor.

I know the real reasons are as simple as Metzen just wanting to work with Tricia Helfer and that Clotworthy, along with Harper's Mengsk, was there just to fill the nostalgia quotient. But, if I were to go for a less cynical take, I'm guessing it's because Raynor's voice is more distinctly natural (even though the Southern inflection is laid on a bit thick) and hard to change without nostalgia getting in the way considering he's the main character of the first chapter of a long-awaited sequel. Kerrigan's voice, for the most part, was largely taken up by the QoB role which was filtered/altered slightly to make her more Zergy, so probably they thought it wasn't as memorable or that people wouldn't notice the difference since they'd be modifying it anyway. Her limited role in WoL would've given some time for people to start getting used to the voice, what little there was of it, before her own entry a couple years later.


In then end we got the worst of both. Clotworthy's performance wasn't too great in SC2 imo and of course Tricia sounded like an emotionless robot.

The performances are probably more to the crappy script they had to work with than the fault of the voices/actors themselves though.

[ragnarok]

Music outside of campaign wasn't too great either(I like the campaign music though, particularly love some of LotV pieces). Terran was alright but god did I hate the Zerg and Protoss music. Thank god for the option that allow you to play SC1 music. That's more subjective though.

I didn't really pay too much to the music in LotV, was more trying to piece together things in lore.

[sandwich_bird]

But, if I were to go for a less cynical take, I'm guessing it's because Raynor's voice is more distinctly natural (even though the Southern inflection is laid on a bit thick) and hard to change without nostalgia getting in the way considering he's the main character of the first chapter of a long-awaited sequel.

I would agree with that.




The performances are probably more to the crappy script they had to work with than the fault of the voices/actors themselves though.

That, I disagree with. A good voice actor can make a stale script interesting. From what I remember, Alarak had mostly typical villain one-dimensional lines but the actor's performance is so good that you actually like the character. Honestly, change the voice actor and Alarak would quickly go from a fan's new favorite to another nonsensical sc2 add-on.

Of course, there's only so much that can be done when the script is abysmal. I'm not sure anyone could have made zeratul not sound senile with the lines he had... But Kerrigan wasn't that bad. She actually had lines similar to Alarak; the typical villain stuff. But Tricia just has no emotion in delivering them. She speaks the lines like an omnipotent robot or something. The lines are delivered slowly and at a constant pace while she tries to have a deeper angry voice. In contrast, BW Kerrigan is more the sassy kind. But anyways, I get that 4 years and a 100 retcons can justify anything but the performance is just not interesting.

[Gradius]

I thought Alarak had good lines. He says arrogant shit that’s funny.

[ragnarok]

I thought Alarak had good lines. He says arrogant shit that’s funny.

I expect that out of all Tal'darim. Once Blizzard gives us another Tal'darim character to associate with, you'll be saying the same thing.

[drakolobo]

yes alarak makes it sound like being a villain is great

It's fun to see such an arrogant character be charismatic, and I liked how he contained a bit with Artanis, he seemed to respect him
the attitude of alrark is very common at least in the ascendants, his first ascendancy jianara, also makes public statements that want to kill him in the future and expect it to be a challenge
while the lower chains element looks like fanatics of the highest links, which says the infantry of supplicants of alarak

[ragnarok]

yes alarak makes it sound like being a villain is great

It's fun to see such an arrogant character be charismatic, and I liked how he contained a bit with Artanis, he seemed to respect him
the attitude of alrark is very common at least in the ascendants, his first ascendancy jianara, also makes public statements that want to kill him in the future and expect it to be a challenge
while the lower chains element looks like fanatics of the highest links, which says the infantry of supplicants of alarak

Personally I felt Alarak found it amusing to see Artanis be brought down to such a position. If that's the case, it would be at least somewhat consistent with SC1's Protoss mentality: they were too arrogant in thinking they knew everything

[Turalyon]

A good voice actor can make a stale script interesting. From what I remember, Alarak had mostly typical villain one-dimensional lines but the actor's performance is so good that you actually like the character. Honestly, change the voice actor and Alarak would quickly go from a fan's new favorite to another nonsensical sc2 add-on.

The context he's written into is important as well. Alarak stands out because he's the only Protoss character with any inherent affectation written into it and has more selfish/less noble goals than all the other Protoss characters. He's memorable because he's not like what you'd expect a Protoss to be like, much in the way how Fenix in Sc1 is appreciated.

Also, all the LotV Protoss characters are less memorable in general because they're archetype characters that are written around the specific role they inhabit and seemingly only for the story that takes place. Artanis is the designated hero leader protagonist guy - so he never deviates from one. Karax is the helpful tech/engineer guy who provides exposition - which he never deviates from doing. Rohana is the stubborn, traditionalist who opposes the leader guy for no real good reason beyond what the plot needs of her - when she does change, her story arc ends and we never hear anything of consequence from her ever again. Vorazun is... just kinda there to support Artanis and nothing else. "Fenix" is not so much a character but a blatant nostalgia pull since it's in-name only/an informed trait and there's nothing in the script that elicits/evokes the original Fenix in any way beyond expository (we want you to recall the good feelings you had of Fenix and transplant them onto this other character because we're saying this is Fenix). The character development of "Fenix" realising he's "not Fenix" loses most of its steam when you're hardly convinced it's Fenix in the first place.

In contrast, Alarak feels like a character that can go on existing outside of the given story in LotV. He has a life and motivations going beyond "saving the universe" or "for the greater good of the majority".


Of course, there's only so much that can be done when the script is abysmal. I'm not sure anyone could have made zeratul not sound senile with the lines he had...

That's saying something when they had the very experienced voice actor, Fred Tatasciore providing the voice. Still, can you even imagine the original voice of the late Jack Ritschel saying some of what Zeratul says in Sc2? I shudder at the thought.


But Kerrigan wasn't that bad. She actually had lines similar to Alarak; the typical villain stuff. But Tricia just has no emotion in delivering them.

Really? Kerrigan was only overtly villainous in WoL and there wasn't really much of her there anyway to gauge the performance. Since she's supposedly still under some sway from Amon then (though she says she was not in HotS, so who knows...), maybe that lack of emotion in delivery was supposed to be that way. She also seemed kinda fatalistic and "down" in her confrontation with Zeratul, too, which could explain the lack of emotion. In HotS, this trend kinda continues when she's rendered into an emo what with being informed of Raynor being executed and all. You know how it is with emos and how they contrarily display less emotions.

I'd rather blame the script, direction and editing than the performer in this case. Tricia was probably doing what she was being told to do.

[Gradius]

The character development of "Fenix" realising he's "not Fenix" loses most of its steam when you're hardly convinced it's Fenix in the first place.
Savage af

[ragnarok]

Really? Kerrigan was only overtly villainous in WoL and there wasn't really much of her there anyway to gauge the performance. Since she's supposedly still under some sway from Amon then (though she says she was not in HotS, so who knows...), maybe that lack of emotion in delivery was supposed to be that way. She also seemed kinda fatalistic and "down" in her confrontation with Zeratul, too, which could explain the lack of emotion. In HotS, this trend kinda continues when she's rendered into an emo what with being informed of Raynor being executed and all. You know how it is with emos and how they contrarily display less emotions.

I'd rather blame the script, direction and editing than the performer in this case. Tricia was probably doing what she was being told to do.

And where exactly did it say Tricia was even considering protesting against what the script said?

[KaiserStratosTygo]

I liked LoTV Artanis. I think he’s a good example of an interesting static character. His resilience and good attitude were endearing. Nobody took it on the chin more than him and he got back up every time. He was brutal and annhilated his enemies with the full power of the Protoss but still managed to fight honorably unlike Kerrigan.

Eh, Artanis was too bland for me, and he wasn't the most interesting character in BW either.

I do like his optimisim though (weird as I am a pessimist by nature)

[ragnarok]

Eh, Artanis was too bland for me, and he wasn't the most interesting character in BW either.

I do like his optimisim though (weird as I am a pessimist by nature)

Is that the reason why you started off by looking at all the negative aspects of SC2 without bothering to look at the other side?

[KaiserStratosTygo]

Is that the reason why you started off by looking at all the negative aspects of SC2 without bothering to look at the other side?

Rag, I was a SC2 defender before you were a twinkle in your father's eye, I WAS the other side, mate.

[Gradius]

^— can confirm, used to argue with you back in the day

[ragnarok]

Rag, I was a SC2 defender before you were a twinkle in your father's eye, I WAS the other side, mate.

Sorry it's just been a while since I've been back to the battlenet forums

[ragnarok]

^— can confirm, used to argue with you back in the day

Well I wasn't on the battlenet forums before WoL was out, Gradius. Was this the case all the way back then too?

[KaiserStratosTygo]

^— can confirm, used to argue with you back in the day

See, Rag, proof.

you can look it up on the SC2 forums i'm sure.

Ragpls.

[ragnarok]

See, Rag, proof.

you can look it up on the SC2 forums i'm sure.

Ragpls.

Someday. I'll return there.

[sandwich_bird]

Started playing Total War Warhammer during the holidays and now I know the only real direction this crappy story can take: a self made one. If you're unfamiliar with TWW; the main campaign is played by choosing a faction and then being pitted in a pre-defined world/scenario where your actions and RNG define how the future plays out. There are some scripted things meant to push the story in specific directions too but it's still your story. Can't have bad writing if Blizzard doesn't write anything :D The great thing about this is that you wouldn't need to retcon anything. The world as it is after SC2 is actually VERY well setup to make something like this interesting. There's a ton of different factions now and I personally find them interesting on a surface level.

[Mislagnissa]

So we've gone back to complaining about SC2? Writers forgot what they wrote, changed their minds, turned over, blah blah. The mistake/retcon that always annoyed me the most was the narrative decay the Zerg went through way back in SC1, much less what they went through in BW and SC2.

In the manual it was neatly explained that the Zerg originally started the Great War because they needed to assimilate the Terrans to build a weapon so they could assimilate the Protoss.

This was forgotten in the actual game in favor of Queen of Blades, who is superfluous to the actual invasion, completely overwriting the previously established rules of the Zerg (don't give me any crap about doylist/watsonian).
In SC2 Abathur states that Terran genes are inferior, rendering the entire plot of the series nonsensical. Why did they invade and infest Terrans at all?


In the manual it was neatly explained that the Protoss kickstarted the Great War because they followed Zerg space probes to Koprulu. The Zerg already knew the boundaries of Protoss space and the approximate location of Aiur, and they had watched for a while.

In the actual game, this is forgotten in favor of the Zerg being unable to find and invade Aiur despite having probes on the surface of Aiur at that time and no other barriers to the invasion.
We know the probes were still canon because they were used to explain why the Khalis crystal was on Char in BW. This contradicts the above point in a clear plot hole.


In the manual it was neatly explained that the Protoss had a massive empire covering an eighth of the galaxy. We know they still have it because it is referenced in later installments. In the actual games, the plot suffers from an absurd case of small world syndrome where a half-dozen planets (Korhal, Char, Aiur, Shakuras) are the only locations in the entire galaxy of any significance. The Protoss only ever live on Aiur, the Zerg only ever invade Aiur, Alan Schezar only ever visits Aiur and Shakuras, etc.

This all creates massive plot holes.

Without the Zerg needing to assimilate the Terrans there was no reason for them to ever interact. With the Zerg needing to assimilate the Terrans, there is no way Kerry would be given particular significance.
Without the probes, the Protoss would never have visit the Koprulu sector. With the probes, there was no way for the Zerg not to know the location of Aiur.
Without their massive Empire, there was no way the Protoss would even know the Koprulu sector existed. With their massive empire, there is no possible way that Aiur would be the only place that the characters ever visit.


To add insult to injury, the existence of the new Zerg commanders like Zagara, Dehaka, Kerry and Abathur renders the entire concept of cerebrates pointless. Why did the Overmind create cerebrates if their function could be fulfilled even better by something smaller, mobile and able to defend itself? The plot of SC2 never once mentions cerebrates, even in appropriate backstory (e.g. Overmind flashbacks, Stukov's origin, Tiamat cameo), so it seems safe to say they were retconned out of existence. I have talked to people who played SC2 and they honestly had no idea the cerebrates ever existed.

Retconning the cerebrates out of existence creates even more plot holes. If the Overmind ruled the Zerg alone (in contradiction to the manual, which explained that cerebrates were integral to basic efficiency), then this renders the plot of SC1 nonsensical because killing the cerebrates was a key plot point! How did the Overmind learn of Aiur if not from Zeratul when Zasz was killed? If there was no Daggoth, then who lead the "Renegade Swarm" against the Protoss, UED and Kerry? If there were no cerebrates, who created the second Overmind? If there was no second Overmind, then how did the UED take control of the Zerg? (To be fair, SC2 actually makes more sense if jumping straight from SC1, at least as far as the Terrans are concerned. The writers seem to have ignored large swathes of the plot.)

The entire subplot about the Zerg's freedom is completely nonsensical, given everything that was explained about them before then.

The primal Zerg, who are the only free Zerg, accomplished absolutely nothing of note.
The Overmind, who is psychologically no different than any individual primal Zerg, build the greatest locust horde the galaxy had ever seen and effortlessly outplayed space gods who could personally tear planets apart.
Whether free or in a hive mind, the Zerg are not good guys and their default behavior will always lead them to eat the Terrans and Protoss to better themselves.


The wiki attempts to create a logical chronology of the series, but you can very clearly see that this is doomed to failure. Their summaries of the plot are full of redundancies, contradictions, convolutions, clumsiness, idiocy and general nonsense. My personal favorites are the mess of retcons to the Overmind's motives and behavior (https://starcraftiitroubles.wordpress.com/2014/03/23/the-problems-with-the-zerg-part-two-the-overmind/) that make no sense even in context.

If the Overmind planned to use the primal spawning pool to free itself by creating an agent and bathing them in the pool, why did it not send any minion or even itself right then and there?
Why did it need to spend millions of years consuming countless species until it found Kerry, when the retcons that make Zerg commanders like Kerry even possible mean that any minion would do?


The retcon that most human psychics lose their powers after infestation, except Kerry because she's literally a demigodess according to one Q&A session (http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/7994699/starcraft-ii-creative-development-qa-part-7-12-3-2012), become pointless in both the original plot and in the face of further retcons.

If the Zerg needed human psychics to defeat the Protoss, then human psychics being incompatible would result in the Protoss exterminating the Zerg very quick.
If the Zerg didn't need human psychics then, again, the Koprulu detour was completely pointless.
Kerry clearly had no problem making the broodmothers into powerful psychics, so humans (and cerebrates, as mentioned before) become even more pointless. Why did the Overmind not create them before, to replace the cerebrates that were retconned out of existence? It clearly had no problem creating Abathur even though his existence is pointless when cerebrates exist and he was apparently lying about being feral without a leader (since going feral does not make intelligent Zerg into animals, and he rebelled in the horrible Evolution novel).


There is no way to make a logical chronology of this series without going full on Warcraft Chronicle, which rewrites the entire plot of the Warcraft series so that it makes a lick of sense. Speaking of which... remember Ashbringer, the fire counterpart to Frostmourne? That is literally a fanfic plot (http://archive.is/SAg7q).

If someone at Blizzard wrote a Starcraft Chronicle to untangle the mess of retcons, then they have a huge endeavor ahead of them. The plot of Warcraft made logical sense most of the time. The plot of Starcraft does not. Any semblance of logic has been destroyed by the overwhelming weight of recursive retcons.

My brain hurts.

[ragnarok]

Can't have bad writing if Blizzard doesn't write anything :D The great thing about this is that you wouldn't need to retcon anything. The world as it is after SC2 is actually VERY well setup to make something like this interesting. There's a ton of different factions now and I personally find them interesting on a surface level.

Actually they have, if you've read Shadow Wars....

[Turalyon]

In the manual it was neatly explained that the Zerg originally started the Great War because they needed to assimilate the Terrans to build a weapon so they could assimilate the Protoss.

This was forgotten in the actual game in favor of Queen of Blades, who is superfluous to the actual invasion, completely overwriting the previously established rules of the Zerg (don't give me any crap about doylist/watsonian).

The Zerg goal of finding a psionic counter to the Protoss in the Terran (their "determinant") was not "forgotten". It's just that this counter happened to be Kerrigan, irrespective if you like it or not.

Granted that her exclusion at the end of the Overmind campaign is odd and without proper explanation due to the focus on that character for the majority of the campaign; the invasion of Aiur does not physically require Kerrigan in order to happen nor is it destined that she must appear at all major engagements with the Protoss. That it's shown that the "determinant" isn't technically required for the Zerg to successfully engage the Protoss is interesting because it's a subversion of expectation from the backstory setup of the plot device/conceit that is the "determinant".


In the manual it was neatly explained that the Protoss kickstarted the Great War because they followed Zerg space probes to Koprulu. The Zerg already knew the boundaries of Protoss space and the approximate location of Aiur, and they had watched for a while.

In the actual game, this is forgotten in favor of the Zerg being unable to find and invade Aiur despite having probes on the surface of Aiur at that time and no other barriers to the invasion.

Without the probes, the Protoss would never have visit the Koprulu sector. With the probes, there was no way for the Zerg not to know the location of Aiur.

It's not that contradictory or implausible. This is easily explained away as either Tassadar disabling telemetry on the probes (unless you assume the Protoss are stupid for allowing the probes to continue transmitting intel despite knowing they were deep space probes when bringing them to Aiur), that Protoss have nullification fields/defences to stop the probes from transmitting, the Zerg probes not having FTL wireless transmission due to their simplistic nature. That the Zerg apparently can't find Aiur means that one or more of those (or some other) excuses is true because otherwise the Zerg indeed would've went straight to Aiur if that was their immediate intent and had no other restrictions imposed on them.

Also, who's to say that the Zerg were only holding back just because they didn't know where Aiur was? We don't know what other information it gained, but the Overmind probably thought that with this new information at hand, the timing was right to make a decisive tactical move against the Protoss. At that particular time, it had some extra knowledge about the Protoss, the element of surprise and it had it's determinant in hand - the Overmind was confident in its ability to engage the Protoss full scale now. It's easy to say that the Overmind's decisions were dumb in retrospect because we ultimately know it lost, but if it had ultimately won in the end, then this would've most likely been lauded as a strategic genius instead.


In the manual it was neatly explained that the Protoss had a massive empire covering an eighth of the galaxy.

It's actually only an eighth of the former Xel'Nagan worlds, not the galaxy.


In the actual games, the plot suffers from an absurd case of small world syndrome where a half-dozen planets (Korhal, Char, Aiur, Shakuras) are the only locations in the entire galaxy of any significance. The Protoss only ever live on Aiur, the Zerg only ever invade Aiur, Alan Schezar only ever visits Aiur and Shakuras, etc.

It's because the plot revolves around these three races clashing in a focal point called the Koprulu Sector. It's also because the writers decided to tell the story from a select number of characters not from a broad general view. The smaller scale also helps narrative economy and pacing. It's not as if they had the luxury then to cater to every piece of lore fluff afterall.

I must admit that the scale has always been somewhat inconsistent though its tended to be on the smaller side mostly since the Terran colonies, of which there were only 13, were all in the same system. Each Zerg brood only numbered in the low millions at most (the biggest, Tiamat, only being 6.5 million)... even though there's a direct contradiction in the game where it states billions were lured to Tarsonis. The Protoss, with their hundreds of worlds as stated in the manual, would most likely and realistically handle the Zerg and Terran without raising a sweat. I guess that's why they had to fight amongst themselves so that the other races would have a chance against them. :p


Without the Zerg needing to assimilate the Terrans there was no reason for them to ever interact. With the Zerg needing to assimilate the Terrans, there is no way Kerry would be given particular significance.

You failed to qualify the former. Just because the goal to assimilate the psionic potential of Terrans just happens to be resolved with the assimilation of one psionic Terran doesn't disqualify the initial intent of them looking for psionic-potential in Terrans.


Without their massive Empire, there was no way the Protoss would even know the Koprulu sector existed.

Aiur is actually located in the Koprulu Sector.

[ragnarok]

Aiur is actually located in the Koprulu Sector.

You know I just realized, back in the SC1 lore, did the protoss people even know the sector they were in was called Koprulu?

[Mislagnissa]

Tura, I love hearing your arguments, but I pretty much have to disagree with everything you say. To put it simply, the writing is inconsistent because the writers kept forgetting what they wrote and making stuff up as they went along. The events of the first game, much less the expansion, directly contradict what the manual tells us. The game's story was never intended to be consistent with the manual, because Metzen changed things up without bothering to remain consistent. Your attempts to rationalize the plot only reveals how sloppy it is.

I gave individual replies below, but here is the summation of Metzen's retcons to the premise.

Original version: Zerg learn location of Protoss empire (including Aiur) from eating the xel'naga. They know the Protoss are too powerful to fight at that time so they send out countless probes, consume countless planets, and spend millennia searching for a determinant. They find this determinant in the Terrans, who live on the borders of Protoss space. However, the Protoss discover some of the probes (which apparently have FTL communication, since they knew of humanity) and follow them back to the Koprulu sector. The Confederacy deploys psi-emitters, which attract Zerg in massive numbers for some reason (Terrans believe it mimics command signals, but in truth it's a giant dinner bell). Shortly thereafter Tassadar decides to glass Chau Sara, kickstarting the Great War. (It is also possible that the Zerg's sudden surge in activity was provoked when they realized the Protoss had discovered their probes, since according to Rebel Yell and Liberty's Crusade a decade passed since their discovery by the Confederacy before the Zerg fleets mobilized.)

Metzen version: Zerg have been searching for Aiur for millennia without success, despite eating the xel'naga who visited it and having countless probes in Protoss space that get picked up by Firstborn and Nerazim. They invade Koprulu for no apparent reason, as humans offer nothing of value to them. Zerg are blindly attracted by psi-emitters, which are like catnip. Protoss appear out of nowhere and start glassing planets. Zerg decimate the core worlds, then both alien races suddenly leave. The Zerg waste time with a chrysalis on Char that ultimately serves no purpose besides luring the Protoss for the narrative purpose of revealing the location of Aiur. As soon as they learn the location of Aiur they invade immediately and decimate the populace.

SC2 version: The xel'naga/amon/whatever send the Zerg out specifically to destroy the Protoss, but moronically forgot to tell the Zerg where Aiur was. (In earlier drafts the xel'naga were all evil, but in the final game only amon's faction was evil. Well, it is called amon's faction but amon and duran are too stupid and self-sabotaging to find their way out of a paper bag, much less lead a rebellion.) There is no logical reason for them to invade Koprulu, except because that was part of the premise before Metzen screwed it all up.

The Metzen version is clumsy and meandering in comparison to the logical simplicity of the original. You can argue that it makes logical sense all you want (which I contest), but that does not change the fact that it is clumsy and meandering.

I share Gradius' sentiment that canon is dead to me, since continuous retcons have rendered it unrecognizable and nonsensical.


The Zerg goal of finding a psionic counter to the Protoss in the Terran (their "determinant") was not "forgotten". It's just that this counter happened to be Kerrigan, irrespective if you like it or not.That is not true. What happened was that Metzen forgot what he (or Phinney) wrote and decided to shoehorn Kerrigan into the plot. Remember, Metzen is the dude who originally envisioned SC as "space vampires." You can read about it in a Polygon interview (https://www.polygon.com/2015/11/6/9670176/starcraft-2-future-history-dlc-blizzard).

Kerrigan was not the determinant. She was Metzen's badly written starcraft fanfiction. She contributes nothing to the plot (https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/9532689/) and is actively detrimental to the Zerg (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12618357/9/Birth-of-a-Queen).

Abathur outright states that Terran genes are inferior, and the only Terran-derived strain is the non-psychic aberration/abomination. The concept of the "determinant" was retconned out of existence. To add insult to injury, Terrans are incompatible with the Zerg and are driven insane by infestation (destroying any psychic powers they had if they did).

Kerry was only compatible because of author fiat, in addition to being the most powerful psychic in the universe: literally, the Confederacy had to rewrite the scale for measuring psychic powers because she was so powerful. As a human she was level 10 (the highest possible psychic level), and as a zerg she was 11-12. These numbers are meaningless: she is and always was the most powerful psychic in the universe, even above the Protoss. She was even better than the Overmind, since she did not need cerebrates to control the Swarm (all this is literally stated in one of the Q&As).

Gag me with a spork.


Granted that her exclusion at the end of the Overmind campaign is odd and without proper explanation due to the focus on that character for the majority of the campaign; the invasion of Aiur does not physically require Kerrigan in order to happen nor is it destined that she must appear at all major engagements with the Protoss. That it's shown that the "determinant" isn't technically required for the Zerg to successfully engage the Protoss is interesting because it's a subversion of expectation from the backstory setup of the plot device/conceit that is the "determinant".It was never a subversion. Yet again, the writers just forgot what they wrote. Metzen and later writers always intended Kerrigan to be the main character, a Mary Sue and general plot device. She lacks consistent character development (https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/12511877/) and one Q&A session (http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/7994699/starcraft-ii-creative-development-qa-part-7-12-3-2012) literally calls her a "demigoddess."

Her sudden disappearance may be due to the campaign having multiple drafts and her inclusion was haphazardly forced into earlier missions while leaving the last two untouched. The campaigns are littered with relics of previous drafts, like the whole fiasco with the CIC (http://starcraft.wikia.com/index.php?title=Confederate_Intelligence_Corps) (e.g. Nova Squadron (http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Nova_Squadron), Project Bellwood (http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Project_Bellwood), Cerberus Recon (http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Cerberus_Recon_Squad)). Ironically the beta gives much better context than the game does, further detailing what the manual only mentions in broad strokes (e.g. Executor Andinunn (http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Andinunn) and Judicator Nuun-Min (http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Nuun-Min) observing Terran activity on the borders of the Empire shortly before the Great War).


It's not that contradictory or implausible. This is easily explained away as either Tassadar disabling telemetry on the probes (unless you assume the Protoss are stupid for allowing the probes to continue transmitting intel despite knowing they were deep space probes when bringing them to Aiur), that Protoss have nullification fields/defences to stop the probes from transmitting, the Zerg probes not having FTL wireless transmission due to their simplistic nature. That the Zerg apparently can't find Aiur means that one or more of those (or some other) excuses is true because otherwise the Zerg indeed would've went straight to Aiur if that was their immediate intent and had no other restrictions imposed on them.

The probes apparently do have FTL communication, since all the probes recovered are aware of humanity even if they are nowhere near the Koprulu sector. The Zerg in general have FTL telepathy, since the Overmind (and Kerry, according to the SC2 manual) "maintains a constant psionic link with its servants" and only needs overlords to "issue commands on an individual level." By contrast, the Khala needs psi-link spires (http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Psi-link_spire) to communicate over long distances.

The protoss do not have any space magic "nullification fields" that does whatever deus ex machina this situation needs. If they did, they would have used it during the wars. The sad fact is only the Terrans built devices that could jam Zerg telepathy (http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Psi_disrupter) or disrupt Protoss shields (http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/EMP), and these work along the same lines as radio jamming and electromagnetic pulses in real life.

Even if the probes lost telemetry, the Zerg still had numerous space probes observing the Protoss for a while. Space is extremely huge, and there were apparently enough probes spread around that many bands of both the Firstborn and the Nerazim were able to find them and track them to Koprulu. I would not be surprised if the Zerg had giant space telescopes like the Witness in Gradius' Origins campaign. There is no way that the Zerg would not know where Aiur is.

Furthermore, Enslavers casually mentions that pirate lord Alan Schezar visited Aiur to steal some Khaydarin crystals and kidnap Protoss templars in a span of a few weeks at most. As a canonical side story, this sets the alarming precedent that finding and traveling to planets in the SC universe is trivially easy. (This contradicts the statement in the manual that the Zerg required 60 years to mobilize their forces for the invasion of Koprulu.)

Again, the original story was that the Zerg knew where Aiur was but needed a weapon against the Protoss. Metzen forgot this and instead had the Zerg searching for Aiur for a while, but otherwise having parity with the Protoss. This creates plot holes because the premise of the game was built on the former. If the Zerg are just searching for Aiur, there is no reason for them to interact with the Terrans.


Also, who's to say that the Zerg were only holding back just because they didn't know where Aiur was? We don't know what other information it gained, but the Overmind probably thought that with this new information at hand, the timing was right to make a decisive tactical move against the Protoss. At that particular time, it had some extra knowledge about the Protoss, the element of surprise and it had it's determinant in hand - the Overmind was confident in its ability to engage the Protoss full scale now. It's easy to say that the Overmind's decisions were dumb in retrospect because we ultimately know it lost, but if it had ultimately won in the end, then this would've most likely been lauded as a strategic genius instead.
See my answer above. Metzen's changes removed the concept of the determinant in favor of the Zerg searching for Aiur, which creates plot holes as I mentioned above. The two premises are irreconcilable, despite your torturous lines of logic trying to justify the contrary. Not to mention that scales of time and space throughout the series are wildly inconsistent even before retcons.


It's actually only an eighth of the former Xel'Nagan worlds, not the galaxy.
According to the manual, the Xel'naga "ruled over thousands of worlds in the galaxy, tens of millions of years ago." Later, the Protoss
"succeeded in reclaiming an eighth of the worlds." This gives us ~250-1125 Protoss worlds out of ~2000-9000 xel'naga worlds (Source link for calcs (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/starcraft-source-thread.230914/page-2#post-8397962)). Those numbers are still huge.


It's because the plot revolves around these three races clashing in a focal point called the Koprulu Sector. It's also because the writers decided to tell the story from a select number of characters not from a broad general view. The smaller scale also helps narrative economy and pacing. It's not as if they had the luxury then to cater to every piece of lore fluff afterall.That is not what my complaint is about. The problem is that the main storyline was treated as the only story of consequence, rather than one story out of many. While the original SC trilogy campaign and the licensed campaigns Insurrection and Retribution were pretty good at giving the feeling the characters are insignificant in the grand scheme and taking advantage of circumstances to raise their influence, later episodes and campaigns treat Raynor, Kerry and Tassadar/Artanis as mythic heroes who single-handedly save the universe. That is my problem, not having a non-omniscient POV. Tvtropes calls this "main characters do everything (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheMainCharactersDoEverything)" and "it's a small world after all (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ItsASmallWorldAfterAll)."


I must admit that the scale has always been somewhat inconsistent though its tended to be on the smaller side mostly since the Terran colonies, of which there were only 13, were all in the same system. Each Zerg brood only numbered in the low millions at most (the biggest, Tiamat, only being 6.5 million)... even though there's a direct contradiction in the game where it states billions were lured to Tarsonis. The Protoss, with their hundreds of worlds as stated in the manual, would most likely and realistically handle the Zerg and Terran without raising a sweat. I guess that's why they had to fight amongst themselves so that the other races would have a chance against them. :pAnd how. In the actual game the Protoss empire has been retconned so that Aiur and Shakuras are the only inhabited planets, aside from research labs and worthless colonies on a handful of others. This is an irreconcilable contradiction, and it isn't even portrayed consistently since other sources still act as though the galactic empire is a thing.



You failed to qualify the former. Just because the goal to assimilate the psionic potential of Terrans just happens to be resolved with the assimilation of one psionic Terran doesn't disqualify the initial intent of them looking for psionic-potential in Terrans.It's absurd and silly for the Zerg to get all they need from one data point. In real life genetic diversity is hugely important, while the Zerg backstory mentions them consuming entire planets to get a handful of useful traits. Metzen simply forgot the manual backstory and decided to bring in Kerry Sue simply because he wanted to keep her around rather than having her die off-screen.


Aiur is actually located in the Koprulu Sector.That is clearly a retcon and a clear example of the "small world syndrome" I mentioned before. According to the original manual, "[the Overmind's] deepspace probes had relayed the location and vital statistics of a race that occupied a series of nondescript worlds, right under the shadow of the Protoss," "The Protoss bore silent witness to the portentous arrival of Humanity to their edge of space," "The Terrans had succeeded in building up rudimentary colonies on over a dozen worlds within the Protoss’ borders," and "Tassadar led his command ship, the Gantrithor, and an escort of massive Protoss warships towards the Terran sector of Koprulu."

Aiur is most likely located at or near the astrogeographic center of Protoss space. Protoss space is most likely many hundreds or thousands of light years in extent. The Koprulu sector is clearly on the frontier of Protoss space, within their borders but under their shadow.

[sandwich_bird]

Original version: Zerg learn location of Protoss empire (including Aiur) from eating the xel'naga. They know the Protoss are too powerful to fight at that time so they send out countless probes, consume countless planets, and spend millennia searching for a determinant. They find this determinant in the Terrans, who live on the borders of Protoss space. However, the Protoss discover some of the probes (which apparently have FTL communication, since they knew of humanity) and follow them back to the Koprulu sector. The Confederacy deploys psi-emitters, which attract Zerg in massive numbers for some reason (Terrans believe it mimics command signals, but in truth it's a giant dinner bell). Shortly thereafter Tassadar decides to glass Chau Sara, kickstarting the Great War. (It is also possible that the Zerg's sudden surge in activity was provoked when they realized the Protoss had discovered their probes, since according to Rebel Yell and Liberty's Crusade a decade passed since their discovery by the Confederacy before the Zerg fleets mobilized.)

This version isn't too good to be honest. Just because you suddenly have access to psi-powers doesn't make you able to go toe to toe with a race that has access to planet destroying weaponry. Unless these new psi-powers are capable of rendering useless Protoss technology or somehow creating weapons of equal strength, it's far fetched to think it would make any difference. And to be honest, even if it would do these things, it would feel really forced.

I prefer the idea that the Zerg just didn't know where Aiur was. I had a long discussion with Tura about this. The idea is that, for ZvP to not be totally one-sided in favor of Protoss at a macro level, the following needs to be true:

-If the protoss are to have access to space magic level of technology as demonstrated in the game and if the Zerg must rely on a centralization of power known as the Overmind then

1-The overmind must be immortal and it's location must either be unknown or he does not need a physical manifestation
2-The zerg must be stronger than the protoss whenever they launch an attack on a static target. A static target is any base of operation that can't easily change position.
3-The protoss must have their center of power(Aiur) hidden from the zerg.

If the overmind is not immortal then the Protoss could just teleport on top of him and kill him. If it is immortal but is not hidden, then they can form a "prison" around it and constantly blow it up for eternity. If the zergs are not stronger than the protoss when fighting a static target, then they could never successfully invade Aiur or any Protoss world and if they can't do that then they could never destabilize the protoss enough to win. If they're stronger and they know where Aiur is, then they could just invade it and win.

So yeah, by having Aiur unknown, you make the rest possible. For everything to make neat sense, the need for psi-powers could have been a strategy to find the location of Aiur. Kerrigan could have been a tool to connect to protoss psi which would reveal Aiur. Something like that maybe...



Remember, Metzen is the dude who originally envisioned SC as "space vampires."

Now that you say this, if I'd have to imagine what a space vampire look like, it would probably kinda look like Kerrigan.

[ragnarok]

Now that you say this, if I'd have to imagine what a space vampire look like, it would probably kinda look like Kerrigan.

You could have said that throughout BW, but then it makes you wonder what her actions would have been post BW if Blizzard said they'd do the SC2 storyline all over again....

[Turalyon]

Tura, I love hearing your arguments, but I pretty much have to disagree with everything you say.

Good! Wouldn't be very interesting if we agreed with each other all the time. Keep in mind whilst going through what I wrote, that I'm not looking to argue with you. I'm just testing the strength of your arguments.


To put it simply, the writing is inconsistent because the writers kept forgetting what they wrote and making stuff up as they went along.

I'll grant you this but all fiction at the end of the day is really "making stuff up as they went along". You're fooling yourself if you think any piece of work ever created was fully formed and sprang from the mind of its creator complete. The trick with writing good fiction is building enough of an illusion of depth to entail willing suspension of disbelief. While the quotient of what's considered "enough" varies for each person, Sc1 has enough of it to not be considered a "complete mess".


Original version: Zerg learn location of Protoss empire (including Aiur) from eating the xel'naga. They know the Protoss are too powerful to fight at that time so they send out countless probes, consume countless planets, and spend millennia searching for a determinant. They find this determinant in the Terrans, who live on the borders of Protoss space. However, the Protoss discover some of the probes (which apparently have FTL communication, since they knew of humanity) and follow them back to the Koprulu sector. The Confederacy deploys psi-emitters, which attract Zerg in massive numbers for some reason (Terrans believe it mimics command signals, but in truth it's a giant dinner bell). Shortly thereafter Tassadar decides to glass Chau Sara, kickstarting the Great War. (It is also possible that the Zerg's sudden surge in activity was provoked when they realized the Protoss had discovered their probes, since according to Rebel Yell and Liberty's Crusade a decade passed since their discovery by the Confederacy before the Zerg fleets mobilized.)

The Overmind only fears the Protoss might in psionics not that they're "too powerful to fight". It's never stated that the Zerg can't actually stand up to them in a fight if forced to - one potentially (and incorrectly) assumes it to be because the manual is telling you what the Overmind is feeling. The Zerg responding in massive numbers to a magnified terran psionic signal (the psi emitter) would speak of the desperation/motivation the Overmind may have been feeling in order to quickly acquire this "determinant" against the Protoss.


Metzen version: Zerg have been searching for Aiur for millennia without success, despite eating the xel'naga who visited it and having countless probes in Protoss space that get picked up by Firstborn and Nerazim. They invade Koprulu for no apparent reason, as humans offer nothing of value to them. Zerg are blindly attracted by psi-emitters, which are like catnip. Protoss appear out of nowhere and start glassing planets. Zerg decimate the core worlds, then both alien races suddenly leave. The Zerg waste time with a chrysalis on Char that ultimately serves no purpose besides luring the Protoss for the narrative purpose of revealing the location of Aiur. As soon as they learn the location of Aiur they invade immediately and decimate the populace.

I'm having difficulty parsing this relative to the "original version" above. It seems to me you're assuming the "original version" as to be what's in the manual and "Metzen version" as to what's in the game, yes? I'm not sure how you qualify/justify that distinction but it also seems to me you're separating out suppositions you like and don't like but categorising them as "original version" (which carries the implication of "better"/"what I like") or "Metzen version" ("what I don't like"). For example, I don't know how you can assume that the Overmind having difficulty finding Aiur can be attributed to Metzen or that not knowing the location of it was the only thing stopping the Overmind from attacking the Protoss. The Zerg invade the Terrans for two reasons: to look for Terran psionics and to allow its attempts be thwarted by the Protoss so the Overmind can observe them. It is possible that "blind attraction" you see as fulfilling both those two reasons.

Since Kerrigan is later revealed to be the determinant (psionic terran) it was looking for, one cannot disregard the focus of watching over the Chrysalis as a "waste of time" because it would be nonsensical if it didn't. The whole purpose was to find the psionic human and integrate it into the Zerg, so of course we're going to see that integration process when the perspective is shifted to the Zerg at the time they captured their determinant. The determinant is pet project for the Overmind to assuage its own fear of the Protoss - it achieves this, so it's free to think on other matters. The coincidence of having learned some intimate information about its Protoss foes through the permanent death of one of its subordinates was then put to good use because it also had its trump card if need be. The Overmind made a tactical decision based on the information at hand.


SC2 version: The xel'naga/amon/whatever send the Zerg out specifically to destroy the Protoss, but moronically forgot to tell the Zerg where Aiur was. (In earlier drafts the xel'naga were all evil, but in the final game only amon's faction was evil. Well, it is called amon's faction but amon and duran are too stupid and self-sabotaging to find their way out of a paper bag, much less lead a rebellion.) There is no logical reason for them to invade Koprulu, except because that was part of the premise before Metzen screwed it all up.

No defence from me regarding this...


I share Gradius' sentiment that canon is dead to me, since continuous retcons have rendered it unrecognizable and nonsensical.

It's even worse, the universe is also meaningless as well now.


That is not true.

Kerrigan was not the determinant.

Denial by providing anecdotes about supposed intents of the author is not a sufficient rebuttal since I'm talking about the in-universe setup in this instance, not out-of universe ones (valid though they be in another context). The in-universe setup of the manual has the determinant as being the psionic potential of Terrans, but it doesn't specify/dictate that it has to be of a particular form or that it has to be several Terrans with psionic potential. Kerrigan can serve as the determinant because she has psionic potential and is a Terran. In-universe, that the determinant does turns out to be Kerrigan is coincidental (contrived as it is from an out-of-universe perspective because all such story beats in fiction are contrived from an out-of-universe perspective) and due to circumstances outside of their control.


Abathur outright states that Terran genes are inferior, and the only Terran-derived strain is the non-psychic aberration/abomination.

So what? The Overmind already knew the Terrans were a frail and short-lived species. It only wanted the psionic potential from them, not the other traits.


It was never a subversion.

Sure, it may never have been an intended subversion but that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that it can be seen objectively as a subversion of expectations.


The probes apparently do have FTL communication, since all the probes recovered are aware of humanity even if they are nowhere near the Koprulu sector.

It can be assumed that way sure, but the Overmind could've sent those probes out in advance ages before (the manual actually states this: "As they progressed, the Overmind sent out numerous deep-space probes that scouted ahead of the swarm, searching for new worlds to plunder".) and is only receiving information about it now. There's no specific mention when the probe that found the Terrans was released afterall. There is no mention of time spent or the capabilities of the probes either, so supposing their transmissions are FTL is only one option not the definitive one. Who knows, the probes could've hard a short transmission range and needed time to travel/close the distance in order to relay the information it found or the speed of transmission could've been slower than FTL thereby taking a long time to reach the Overmind. Really all we have is one sentence to go off of: "One of its deep space probes had relayed the location and vital statistics of a race that occupied a series of nondescript worlds, right under the shadow of the Protoss", which can be pretty broadly interpreted.


The protoss do not have any space magic "nullification fields" that does whatever deus ex machina this situation needs. If they did, they would have used it during the wars.

You have to be careful with this one since the Protoss hold the most "magic-related" abilities of all the 3 races, so them having no nullification fields (or some oddly named sci-fi/pseudo science "technology") is actually something that should be unexpected. Afterall, you've already accepted the possibility of the magic FTL psionic link in a lesser race (Zerg), why is some stealth field so suddenly unrealistic with the most technologically advanced alien race in that universe? If you really want to get anal about the ludicrousness of space related sci-fi wars, you should rail against the fact that conventional ground based warfare wouldn't even be realistically an option to consider since weaponised use of FTL capabilities would trump everything (I have done this).


Even if the probes lost telemetry, the Zerg still had numerous space probes observing the Protoss for a while. Space is extremely huge, and there were apparently enough probes spread around that many bands of both the Firstborn and the Nerazim were able to find them and track them to Koprulu. I would not be surprised if the Zerg had giant space telescopes like the Witness in Gradius' Origins campaign. There is no way that the Zerg would not know where Aiur is.

Now you're making things up to support your confirmation bias that the Zerg should know the location of Aiur at all times or that it's easy to find/navigate. Also, one shouldn't underestimate the capabilities of the Protoss which you also seem to be doing. Do you assume the Protoss don't and can't surveil their own space - given they're the most advanced alien species there? Do you assume the Tassadar is stupid to allow the possibility of the probes to transmit data while it brings them to Aiur? Come on, now!


Furthermore, Enslavers casually mentions that pirate lord Alan Schezar visited Aiur to steal some Khaydarin crystals and kidnap Protoss templars in a span of a few weeks at most. As a canonical side story, this sets the alarming precedent that finding and traveling to planets in the SC universe is trivially easy. (This contradicts the statement in the manual that the Zerg required 60 years to mobilize their forces for the invasion of Koprulu.)

Seems like you're cherry-picking which parts of the game and which parts of the manual are appropriate for your position. How do I to know which parts of the manual/game you're going to stick with/deem relevant?


Again, the original story was that the Zerg knew where Aiur was but needed a weapon against the Protoss. Metzen forgot this and instead had the Zerg searching for Aiur for a while, but otherwise having parity with the Protoss. This creates plot holes because the premise of the game was built on the former. If the Zerg are just searching for Aiur, there is no reason for them to interact with the Terrans.

There's some latitude here. The manual states original story is that the Overmind knew where the Protoss were generally. It never states it knows where Aiur is specifically, only that the Protoss "lived near the galaxy's fringe" (which is very broad definition when it comes to space). Also where it states "The Zerg left the lifeless, burning world of Zerus and laid waste to every planet they found along their path towards the Protoss Homeworld", one should note that Zerus is named so, but Aiur isn't! It's just "the Protoss Homeworld". The audience know it to be Aiur but it's unclear if the Overmind knows this to be the case (apparently it wasn't as the game then goes on to reveal).

The Overmind did not need a weapon objectively in order to fight the Protoss, it wanted/desired one to assuage its fear of fighting them. This was resolved off-screen when it found Kerrigan at Tarsonis. All that was left then was to cultivate the weapon it had found and next, where to assault the Protoss.


According to the manual, the Xel'naga "ruled over thousands of worlds in the galaxy, tens of millions of years ago." Later, the Protoss
"succeeded in reclaiming an eighth of the worlds." This gives us ~250-1125 Protoss worlds out of ~2000-9000 xel'naga worlds (Source link for calcs (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/starcraft-source-thread.230914/page-2#post-8397962)). Those numbers are still huge.

I didn't doubt that. I was just correcting you on specific wording/making light that you were using hyperbole.


That is not what my complaint is about. The problem is that the main storyline was treated as the only story of consequence, rather than one story out of many. While the original SC trilogy campaign and the licensed campaigns Insurrection and Retribution were pretty good at giving the feeling the characters are insignificant in the grand scheme and taking advantage of circumstances to raise their influence, later episodes and campaigns treat Raynor, Kerry and Tassadar/Artanis as mythic heroes who single-handedly save the universe. That is my problem, not having a non-omniscient POV. Tvtropes calls this "main characters do everything (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheMainCharactersDoEverything)" and "it's a small world after all (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ItsASmallWorldAfterAll)."

Fair enough. Though keep in mind that Starcraft's story is fondly memorable for the most part because of the characters presented in the game itself. I mean, who else remembers the manual and Insurrection and Retribution campaigns aside from those hardcore fans, hmm?

And how. In the actual game the Protoss empire has been retconned so that Aiur and Shakuras are the only inhabited planets, aside from research labs and worthless colonies on a handful of others. This is an irreconcilable contradiction, and it isn't even portrayed consistently since other sources still act as though the galactic empire is a thing.


It's absurd and silly for the Zerg to get all they need from one data point. In real life genetic diversity is hugely important, while the Zerg backstory mentions them consuming entire planets to get a handful of useful traits. Metzen simply forgot the manual backstory and decided to bring in Kerry Sue simply because he wanted to keep her around rather than having her die off-screen.

I hear you but conservation of detail is a very real and important thing in storytelling. This is only but one example of this.

I suspect that Kerrigan's inclusion in the Zerg campaign wasn't purely for Mary Sue purposes though (if it was at all). They admitted they had trouble breaking the Zerg portion of the story and it shows because by their very nature and unity, the Zerg characters don't lend themselves well to a conventional narrative. Her inclusion in it was a good idea because it allowed a Terran touchstone and voice to bridge the stories together (especially given how short they were). Why create a whole new unrecognisable Terran character or only just refer to psionic Terrans generally in the Zerg campaign when you have a ready character that conveniently fits the Zerg conceit/plot device of wanting to get a psionic Terran? It's a no-brainer really.


That is clearly a retcon and a clear example of the "small world syndrome" I mentioned before.

I could scarely believe it myself but alas (http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/game/planet/). And that's with Sc2 actually attempting to expand the universe from its smaller origins by having more planets and the Terran colonies actually being in different systems (rather than being in one as originally mentioned in the manual). Maybe they just expanded the definitional area of what the Koprulu Sector meant or generalised it for the entire region that Starcraft universe covers. :confused:

[Mislagnissa]

This version isn't too good to be honest. Just because you suddenly have access to psi-powers doesn't make you able to go toe to toe with a race that has access to planet destroying weaponry. Unless these new psi-powers are capable of rendering useless Protoss technology or somehow creating weapons of equal strength, it's far fetched to think it would make any difference. And to be honest, even if it would do these things, it would feel really forced.
You may feel it is forced, but this is exactly what happens in the EN chronology. The battlefields are Protoss planets, which might explain why the Protoss are not spamming their fleet of death stars. The Zerg go through a long process of R&D to create new psychic weapons precisely to counter the Protoss warriors and tech.

The invasion only begins after the Zerg acquire key military intel that gives them the details of the Protoss empire's strength, coordinates, defenses and so forth from the Nerazim who spent a millenium figuring out the best ways to move freely through Protoss space while remaining hidden; perhaps the Protoss would have won if the Zerg lacked that intel, but this gives the Zerg a huge initial advantage against the Protoss since the Zerg can prepare for the Templar armies and bypass planetary defenses.

The Zerg harvest khydarin crystals from the Protoss worlds specifically to assist in their psychic/electronic warfare against the Psi Matrix. The Overmind embeds a massive proxy into Aiur's crust to interface with the Psi Matrix, and similar strategies are used elsewhere.


I'm having difficulty parsing this relative to the "original version" above. It seems to me you're assuming the "original version" as to be what's in the manual and "Metzen version" as to what's in the game, yes? I'm not sure how you qualify/justify that distinction but it also seems to me you're separating out suppositions you like and don't like but categorising them as "original version" (which carries the implication of "better"/"what I like") or "Metzen version" ("what I don't like"). Yes, I am biased against everything having to do with Metzen. I prefer the EN chronology over the canon as a matter of opinion.

[Nissa]

You're gonna try and debate Tura's massive posts? *salues Mislag and runs away*