Are Dragoons "Realistic?"

[Visions of Khas]

I was reading an article on Phys Org about new treatments for encouraging a patient's body to accept bone transplants. We have such advanced medical technology now it's ridiculous; viral vector therapy, prosthetics with haptic feedback, cloning and regeneration, neutral circuitry, etc.

Why, then, don't the protoss treat their wounded with technology that far surpasses our own? Do zealots accept so many grafts and prosthetics over the years that, by the final time they've fallen in battle, they're little more than a brain in a shell anyways? Is that why the central hub of a dragoon is so small -- because there's nothing left but a head?

Also, as a side note-- do we know what that spinning device is under their chassis?

[Robear]

I'm happy with cyborg zealots- imo the ones with the zealot leg upgrades should have 100% robotic legs already, no reason why one who lost an arm or something wouldn't get a prosthetic arm.

That said, then it kind of doesn't make sense that critically injured zealots are never placed in zealot-shaped Purifier-style robot bodies.

For the spinning thing, I would just make up some technobabble, like it 'stabilizes or grounds the photonic field' or something.

[Visions of Khas]

I kinda wonder if the rotating thing is the result of gameplay changes between alpha and beta stages. We see that the Goliaths have an extra chain gun on the underside. Heroes of the Storm gave Fenix a rapid fire blaster, but removed the rotating thing entirety.

[sandwich_bird]

Do zealots accept so many grafts and prosthetics over the years that, by the final time they've fallen in battle, they're little more than a brain in a shell anyways? Is that why the central hub of a dragoon is so small -- because there's nothing left but a head?

If we refer to the immortal portrait, it seems like they still have most of their body. I'd assume that it would be the same for dragoons in most cases. Plus, most other protoss that you see in the games appear to have their full body. Possible reasons off the top of my head:

-It's an honor to fall in battle and having a crippled body is a badge of honor. Therefore, Protoss willingly refuse to have their body regenerated.
-A fallen protoss has the choice to have his body healed OR get transplanted into a killing machine that is tactically superior in many situations. Some chose the latter.
-Protoss, being "perfect", have a body that is a lot more complicated than humans and recovery, even with the best tech that can be offered, is a long/hard process. On the other hand, being transplanted in a dragoon is fast/simple.

[Gradius]

Could be a cultural thing. Growing new Protoss body parts could be seen as a taboo desecration.

[Turalyon]

Could be a cultural thing. Growing new Protoss body parts could be seen as a taboo desecration.


It's an honor to fall in battle and having a crippled body is a badge of honor. Therefore, Protoss willingly refuse to have their body regenerated.

This. Protoss are all about tradition, honour and pride. It's definitely a cultural reason if anything else. It'd also explain why such a high tech race who can and should exclusively deliver death from afar with frickin laser beams and mind powers would even bother to have their core infantry force engage in melee combat, which is the most risky and least efficient method of engaging in combat.

[Visions of Khas]

I find it incredible the protoss don't have some form of high-precision long ranged option for surgical strikes. As much as the Elite's honor bound culture influenced the Covenant military, their forces still used snipers. There has to be some equivalent available to the protoss.

What, do High Templar look through a scope and make them enemy's head pop?

[Gradius]

I find it incredible the protoss don't have some form of high-precision long ranged option for surgical strikes. As much as the Elite's honor bound culture influenced the Covenant military, their forces still used snipers. There has to be some equivalent available to the protoss.

What, do High Templar look through a scope and make them enemy's head pop?
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=invisible+protis+sniper&amp=true

[Visions of Khas]

I meant the Khalai and you know it. :rolleyes:

[ragnarok]

Why, then, don't the protoss treat their wounded with technology that far surpasses our own? Do zealots accept so many grafts and prosthetics over the years that, by the final time they've fallen in battle, they're little more than a brain in a shell anyways? Is that why the central hub of a dragoon is so small -- because there's nothing left but a head?


It's probably just their warrior's code in a warped way: you give them something to fight in via their warrior spirit, that is all

[Mislagnissa]

Thinking from a plausible world building perspective, I would say that the reasons are complicated and messy.

Is the dragoon the only option for crippled warriors? Do the protoss not have bionics or artificial limbs or whatever? I see two options overall:

Option 1: As sandwich says, protoss can have their bodies repaired or replaced with bionics, but choose not to for cultural, tactical or time-sensitive reasons.
Option 2: as visions says, dragons are the end result of warriors constantly upgrading themselves with cybernetics after suffering injuries in battle. Protoss medicine may have simply chosen to advance in bionics for convenience, leaving biological repairs behind.


Speaking of which, this leads me into the teleport death retcon from SC2. It makes them look like hypocritical cowards if they claim to give their lives but in actually are teleported away at the last second. As with the dragoon rationale, I have considered two solutions for this that make it fit their warrior-poet culture:

Option 1: Protoss may be resuscitated from clinical death after a much, much longer period of time than humans can. So in actually, the protoss teleport their fresh corpses off the battlefield and resuscitate them. Because of the decomposition, it may be easier to place them in what are essentially mobile cryogenic coffins equipped with guns.
Option 2: Protoss actually do burst into flames (or fall apart, boil away, disintegrate, crystallize, etc) when they die. However, at the same time this reaction is used to power a psychic signal which uploads their mind to the Khala (similar to cylon resurrection in the 2003-2007 Battlestar Galactica series). From there, their mind may be downloaded into a cloned body or a robotic/cyborg shell of some kind. (I assume, for budgetary reasons, the protoss forces in the games are much less diverse than in the lore.)


Or some combination thereof, or something like that, whatever. Honestly, this is by far the least difficult of the problems with the Starcraft lore.

[ragnarok]

You know if they chose option 2, it could lead to the reason as to why they eventually created the purifiers to begin with

[Mislagnissa]

You know if they chose option 2, it could lead to the reason as to why they eventually created the purifiers to begin with
You would think so, wouldn't you?

Blizzard's execution of the purifiers is mind-numbingly stupid, like most of their writing. If the protoss are resurrecting their dead in robot bodies, would would they NOT treat them as the resurrected dead? We could have explored an interesting avenue of protoss culture where death is not feared like it is for humans, but no! Instead we got the lame ridiculously human robot war cliche that has appeared a bazillion times already in scifi. Even Necron-style undead Egyptian conquerors in space would have been more creative (since it isn't common enough to have become a cliche).

[Gradius]

Obviously the Protoss view them as copies (which they are), not resurrections, which makes your idea sound kinda dumb. The Purifier arc was actually good, no clue what you’re talking about.

[Mislagnissa]

Obviously the Protoss view them as copies (which they are), not resurrections, which makes your idea sound kinda dumb. The Purifier arc was actually good, no clue what you’re talking about.

We, modern day humans, are having numerous arguments about the ethics of AI. We write cyberpunk fiction exploring the possibilities, including whether a copy qualifies as a person. We have real arguments over whether it is moral to create an AI with human intelligence that is literally programmed to enjoy being enslaved. In fact, since there is no evidence of an afterlife, we have arguments over whether a copy of a dead person is them or not. Many cyberpunk settings actually consider it perfectly moral to murder people as long as they have a backup, even if the backup is a few hours (or days) out of date.

If the protoss' Khala functions as a afterlife, since it allows them to speak with their dead and potentially download them into new bodies (I'm ignoring the retcons), why would they not consider a Khala backup of a dead person to be that person? As far as their civilization is concerned, the afterlife is a real place governed by their sciences and not subject to the philosophical quandaries humans deal with.

It is, quite frankly, utterly unbelievable that the protoss are somehow smart enough to clone whole personalities yet stupid enough to think it makes perfect sense to enslave said clones. We humans, despite being vastly less advanced, are smart enough to realize that enslaving something with a personality and equal intelligence to us is obviously a stupid idea. We write television shows about that!

The only time I have ever seen this done smartly in fiction is in an episode of Black Mirror. In one episode they clone people's mind in order to create personalized butlers for smart houses. Obviously, the clones do not want to be slaves. Do you know how the programmers convince them to? They torture them until they either acquiescence or go insane. To add insult to injury, the insane AIs are then sold to MMOs to be used as extras in virtual battlefields. (This is meant to be social commentary.)

Either the protoss treat their AIs respectfully or they torture them into submission. Anything else is too stupid for any "advanced" civilization to resort to. Heck, even "primitive" civilizations realize that slaves have to be broken in before they will serve.

[Visions of Khas]

Keep in mind the Judicators' treatment of protoss from other castes; Aldaris looked down upon and scoffed at Tassadar and Fenix. He even treated Fenix' apparent death at Antioch as little more than a nuisance, as if it were his whole duty to die. Even look at Rohana's treatment of Karax. So it is a very small leap indeed from this to understanding the Judicators' treatment of Purifiers as mindless automatons. And who knows how the Purifiers were "marketed"; perhaps the Conclave insisted the Purifiers be described to Templar as automatons with advanced emotion imitation subroutines.

The protoss have an interesting relationship with death; it is the natural and aspired-to end state of Templar (so on this regard Templar and Tal'Darim are very similar), and yet the society in general seems obsessed with immortality and life after death.

[Mislagnissa]

Keep in mind the Judicators' treatment of protoss from other castes; Aldaris looked down upon and scoffed at Tassadar and Fenix. He even treated Fenix' apparent death at Antioch as little more than a nuisance, as if it were his whole duty to die. Even look at Rohana's treatment of Karax. So it is a very small leap indeed from this to understanding the Judicators' treatment of Purifiers as mindless automatons. And who knows how the Purifiers were "marketed"; perhaps the Conclave insisted the Purifiers be described to Templar as automatons with advanced emotion imitation subroutines.

The protoss have an interesting relationship with death; it is the natural and aspired-to end state of Templar (so on this regard Templar and Tal'Darim are very similar), and yet the society in general seems obsessed with immortality and life after death.

The judicator's flagrant disregard for their own people does not make much sense if the Khala forces protoss to feel each other's pain (that is why it ended the Aeon of Strife and ushered world peace impossible for humans). The writers clearly forgot how the Khala was supposed to work.

Honestly, why do you guys keep analyzing Blizzard's writing when it clearly does not make sense?

[Gradius]

We, modern day humans, are having numerous arguments about the ethics of AI. We write cyberpunk fiction exploring the possibilities, including whether a copy qualifies as a person. We have real arguments over whether it is moral to create an AI with human intelligence that is literally programmed to enjoy being enslaved.
Which is what happened in the game.

In fact, since there is no evidence of an afterlife, we have arguments over whether a copy of a dead person is them or not. Many cyberpunk settings actually consider it perfectly moral to murder people as long as they have a backup, even if the backup is a few hours (or days) out of date.
Cool. This has nothing to do with the protoss. Copying a person and having it really be "you" requires 100% quantum fidelity. The protoss have not achieved this.


If the protoss' Khala functions as a afterlife, since it allows them to speak with their dead and potentially download them into new bodies (I'm ignoring the retcons), why would they not consider a Khala backup of a dead person to be that person? As far as their civilization is concerned, the afterlife is a real place governed by their sciences and not subject to the philosophical quandaries humans deal with.
The concept of death would have no meaning/weight if that's how it actually worked, which would be dumb. Personally, I'm kinda glad they retconned that (or at least pulled back on it).


It is, quite frankly, utterly unbelievable that the protoss are somehow smart enough to clone whole personalities yet stupid enough to think it makes perfect sense to enslave said clones. We humans, despite being vastly less advanced, are smart enough to realize that enslaving something with a personality and equal intelligence to us is obviously a stupid idea. We write television shows about that!All we know is that they were viewed as tools and not afforded the same respect as Templar, which they didn't like so they began a robot uprising. And then the Conclave said "ok, this won't work, shut down the program." Frankly, the Conclave didn't seem to treat the Templar much better. Judicators are arrogant, which causes them to do stupid shit, but that's kind of the whole point.

It's going to be a boring remake of SC1 you've got where nothing bad ever happens because everyone is hyper-intelligent. <_<

Literally though, you can't fathom a scenario where smart leaders make bad decisions because they're detached from events and out-of-touch? Really?


The only time I have ever seen this done smartly in fiction is in an episode of Black Mirror. In one episode they clone people's mind in order to create personalized butlers for smart houses. Obviously, the clones do not want to be slaves. Do you know how the programmers convince them to? They torture them until they either acquiescence or go insane. To add insult to injury, the insane AIs are then sold to MMOs to be used as extras in virtual battlefields. (This is meant to be social commentary.)
Yeah I've seen that one, it's pretty messed up. A good episode, but not realistic. If I knew there was a clone of me being tortured out there somewhere, I'd never consent to be cloned and I'd do my best to rescue it. :P


Either the protoss treat their AIs respectfully or they torture them into submission. Anything else is too stupid for any "advanced" civilization to resort to. Heck, even "primitive" civilizations realize that slaves have to be broken in before they will serve.
No, those are not the only options. I can think of 10 more off the top of my head. -_-


The judicator's flagrant disregard for their own people does not make much sense if the Khala forces protoss to feel each other's pain (that is why it ended the Aeon of Strife and ushered world peace impossible for humans). The writers clearly forgot how the Khala was supposed to work.
Obviously, it doesn't work that way. It's not even implied to work that way in the manual... If it did, the judicators wouldn't have attacked the rogues. The level of immersion in the khala seems to be up to the individual protoss (which is how the Sargas try to resist its effects).

If it worked that way period, that would be dumb. Say goodbye to any PvP in the campaign. Just no.


Honestly, why do you guys keep analyzing Blizzard's writing when it clearly does not make sense?
I don't know, why do you push your misinterpretations & fanon as fact all the time? It's annoying that I've always tried to put thought and lack of bias into my criticisms of Metzen, but you seem to think you're entitled to make up random unsupported fanon and use that as fuel for the fire when it inevitably clashes with canon.

[Turalyon]

If the protoss are resurrecting their dead in robot bodies, would would they NOT treat them as the resurrected dead?

Simple. It's because recreation and resurrection are not the same thing nor would it ever be considered as such. It's made clear that the entity that initially defines itself as Fenix in LotV is a recreation based on stored data, not a resurrection. Even if it weren't for the fact they were in robot bodies, you can still make a copy of someone down to the minutest physical and mental detail but no-one will ever agree it is the same thing as the original. The copy will always be a copy and therefore, somewhat lesser when compared to the original. Of course, if one didn't know the copy was a copy in the first place, all bets are off but since Protoss are aware they have the technology to make copies of each other using stored memories and data, they'd always consider copies/clones as not really being the original thing (or, in this case, a continuation/resurrection of the original being it represents). It also depends on whether mainstream Protoss consider their technology prowess as being able to literally recreate the soul with these copies. I somehow doubt that they do.

[ragnarok]

You would think so, wouldn't you?

Blizzard's execution of the purifiers is mind-numbingly stupid, like most of their writing. If the protoss are resurrecting their dead in robot bodies, would would they NOT treat them as the resurrected dead? We could have explored an interesting avenue of protoss culture where death is not feared like it is for humans, but no! Instead we got the lame ridiculously human robot war cliche that has appeared a bazillion times already in scifi. Even Necron-style undead Egyptian conquerors in space would have been more creative (since it isn't common enough to have become a cliche).

Once again this just shows you think the only success they had with it all was they failed EVERYTHING

[Mislagnissa]

Which is what happened in the game.That still makes the protoss look like idiots for not realizing that treating intelligent beings like property might be a bad idea long before they made that mistake.


Copying a person and having it really be "you" requires 100% quantum fidelity. The protoss have not achieved this.A wonderful philosophical debate, but would people really care in practice? If my family died and I was offered a perfect replication, I would not care about quantum fidelity and neither would the clones. I take what I can get.



The concept of death would have no meaning/weight if that's how it actually worked, which would be dumb. Personally, I'm kinda glad they retconned that (or at least pulled back on it).That would not take the meaning out of death. If it did then nobody would enjoy cyberpunk fiction. A society where the afterlife was a real thing and the dead could be revived would be a fascinating thing to explore. It also makes the protoss less like the funny-looking humans they are now. I expect them to not be funny-looking humans and that the writers actually think about how having a forced empathy network and other amazing technology would affect their behavior.


All we know is that they were viewed as tools and not afforded the same respect as Templar, which they didn't like so they began a robot uprising. And then the Conclave said "ok, this won't work, shut down the program." Frankly, the Conclave didn't seem to treat the Templar much better. Judicators are arrogant, which causes them to do stupid shit, but that's kind of the whole point.The judicators are way too stupid to make sense. I would expect that behavior from USA politicians because humans are not connected to an empathy network, but if the judicators are connected to an empathy network which forms the foundation of their civilization, their constant obvious stupidity really should not happen. The writing contrives to make them look like bumbling morons rather than giving them any nuance or believable justification.


It's going to be a boring remake of SC1 you've got where nothing bad ever happens because everyone is hyper-intelligent. <_<I am not demanding that the protoss be hyper-intelligent. I only only expect them to be at least as smart as the audience.


Literally though, you can't fathom a scenario where smart leaders make bad decisions because they're detached from events and out-of-touch? Really?Because the Khala exists and it is the foundation of their civilization. The entire point of having the damn thing is to make them distinct in psychology and behavior from humans, such as their impossible world peace. If they are just humans playing a D&D LARP, then they should be replaced by actual humans. If the judicators have always acted like asshats who alienate everyone else, then the Khala's peace should never have been possible. Unless they are genuinely sympathetic to the plights and causes of the templar and khalai, the other castes would have revolted and killed them long ago. Considering that the Aeon of Strife supposedly lasted for millions of years or thousands of generations or whatever and peace was impossible until the Khala was instituted, I think it is safe to say that protoss feel emotions and hold grudges orders of magnitude more strongly than humans do and that they will not tolerate the same blatant idiocy in their politics that humans do.



Yeah I've seen that one, it's pretty messed up. A good episode, but not realistic. If I knew there was a clone of me being tortured out there somewhere, I'd never consent to be cloned and I'd do my best to rescue it. :PYet you accept the protoss are too damn stupid to realize the same thing?



No, those are not the only options. I can think of 10 more off the top of my head. -_-Like what? And yes, it has to sound like something we the genre savvy audience would think sensible rather than the idiotic drivel that Blizzard shits out.



Obviously, it doesn't work that way. It's not even implied to work that way in the manual... If it did, the judicators wouldn't have attacked the rogues. The level of immersion in the khala seems to be up to the individual protoss (which is how the Sargas try to resist its effects). The rogues were not part of the Khala, so the judicators did not feel their pain. Furthermore, the Sargas entry does not specifically imply the Khala has "immersion levels," only that they do something to resist its influence on them. We do not really receive an explanation, but I would think the Khala works like the Tumblr hive mind and the Sargas resist it by more strongly embracing their cultural heritage or something. Trying to reduce immersion in the Khala would definitely be considered a crime.


If it worked that way period, that would be dumb. Say goodbye to any PvP in the campaign. Just no.The protoss are not the zerg. The protoss clearly have the ability to manipulate how the Khala works given how much they studied it and it is nowhere as strong as the Overmind, so you are blowing things out of proportion. Furthermore, Tassadar goes against your claim by surrendering because he feels the suffering of his enemies.



I don't know, why do you push your misinterpretations & fanon as fact all the time? It's annoying that I've always tried to put thought and lack of bias into my criticisms of Metzen, but you seem to think you're entitled to make up random unsupported fanon and use that as fuel for the fire when it inevitably clashes with canon.Because canon really is that stupid.


Simple. It's because recreation and resurrection are not the same thing nor would it ever be considered as such. It's made clear that the entity that initially defines itself as Fenix in LotV is a recreation based on stored data, not a resurrection. Even if it weren't for the fact they were in robot bodies, you can still make a copy of someone down to the minutest physical and mental detail but no-one will ever agree it is the same thing as the original. The copy will always be a copy and therefore, somewhat lesser when compared to the original. Of course, if one didn't know the copy was a copy in the first place, all bets are off but since Protoss are aware they have the technology to make copies of each other using stored memories and data, they'd always consider copies/clones as not really being the original thing (or, in this case, a continuation/resurrection of the original being it represents). It also depends on whether mainstream Protoss consider their technology prowess as being able to literally recreate the soul with these copies. I somehow doubt that they do.I am pretty sure the copy itself and everyone who interacts with it will contest this. A copy of a living person would be an identical twin. Honestly, it makes social, economic, military, etc sense to copy people as many times as needed. A brilliant scientist could be everywhere their services are required, while dead relatives could be replaced with perfect duplicates. Funerals would be happy celebrations since the deceased would exist forever within the Khala and return to fight in times of need. Society would be fascinatingly alien compared to our own. The dark side would be that such a society would have a horrifyingly casual attitude towards death, considering people expendable as long as copies exist elsewhere.

[Gradius]

Sorry, I still don’t buy your fan hypotheses. Start going off only what it says in the game/manual, and then your arguments might begin to make sense. Where is controlling immersion in the Khala “definitely a crime”? Obviously the Judicator don’t feel the same compassion as Tassadar. What if a doctor is treating a patient in severe pain? The doctor can’t tone back his pain levels he’s getting from the patient? This is stupid. And again, your ridiculous fanon would not allow for any PvP.

The protoss cannot create perfect duplicates. And even if they could only then is it "up for debate" whether it’s a “resurrection”. Everything in SC has been a copy.

Also, go replay LoTV because I don’t think you get the Purifier arc. The clones were not tortured, they were treated as tools/slaves who would continue doing what their source personalities did in life, and then shut down after the Conclave found out that wasn't going to work. Comparing this to the black mirror episode is nonsensical. Nothing like that happened.


Because canon really is that stupid.
So far all you’ve demonstrated is that you don’t understand canon. I say go back and play it again.

[Visions of Khas]

If my family died and I was offered a perfect replication, I would not care about quantum fidelity and neither would the clones. I take what I can get.

... Mm, yeah, I'm gonna be That Guy for a minute.

I lost my family when I was younger -- mom, dad, aunts and uncles and cousins. The whole shebang.

Do I want a replication of them? I can't say that I do. Because I know it wouldn't be them. You can replicate and simulate as much as you want, but the qualia of the originals' experience is gone, forever.

Ask yourself, how long would you keep your simulations around? What would be done with them once you grow beyond them? (And don't question that you won't -- we all grow beyond family to varying degrees.)

Imagine, using Star Trek technology, a transporter malfunction replicated, to the quark, your best friend. Is the replication your best friend too? Is he his own person? Should he be used as a simple backup by you or his family? Would you feel nothing if the original were lost? This is getting into some Ship of Theseus shit here.

Now imagine that transporter malfunction was actually engineered by you in anticipation of your friend dying. Was this to preserve your friend for his sake-- or was it just to make yourself feel better?

I know some of the things in Starcraft are a little silly, but I like to speculate how these stories played out. When considering the Purifiers, you see an abused and boring trope. I like to wonder how they got to this point. Remember, there are no new stories under the sun, its all about execution and how you arrive at your solutions.

[Mislagnissa]

Sorry, I still don’t buy your fan hypotheses. Start going off only what it says in the game/manual, and then your arguments might begin to make sense. Where is controlling immersion in the Khala “definitely a crime”? Obviously the Judicator don’t feel the same compassion as Tassadar. What if a doctor is treating a patient in severe pain? The doctor can’t tone back his pain levels he’s getting from the patient? This is stupid. And again, your ridiculous fanon would not allow for any PvP.I cannot debate with you if you constantly misrepresent my argument.

The judicators are complete morons and Metzen contrived them as villains. Full stop. If I was writing fiction from their perspective, I could not justify them pulling the same shit they do in canon without writing them as literal retards. I can write sanctimonious, god knows I am sanctimonious myself, but I cannot write someone who is blatantly stupid and genre blind given my own education and experience with human psychology, politics and the world building of xenobiology.

If we want evil, stupid politicians, we already have humans. That their shtick. The entire shtick of the protoss is that their forced empathy network is supposed to get them past the problems humans face due to racism and sexism. It makes absolutely no sense that the judicators would act like the alt-right.

I actually tried to write a genocidal, arrogant judicator as a main character. Then the context kicked in. He did not exist in a vacuum: he had a childhood, family, peers, an empathy network that forced him to not be a racist sexist asshole or feel terrible embarrassment and guilt whenever he threw a tantrum. I wrote a character, not a caricature, so I ultimately founding myself sympathetic towards his views given that I had to devise all the justifications myself despite not sharing the same views.

I wrote his enemies with the same level of depth, so everyone was sympathetic and had reasonable justifications despite fighting each other. That is called good writing, and it is something that Blizzard seems incapable of. So I discount Blizzard fiction on principle.


The protoss cannot create perfect duplicates. And even if they could only then is it "up for debate" whether it’s a “resurrection”. Everything in SC has been a copy.The canon is inconsistent garbage written by people who are somehow smart enough to understand C++ yet stupid enough not to understand basic concepts like good writing, cause and effect, critical thinking, blah blah blah.

I have read enough philosophical debates and cyberpunk fiction that I do not care about the philosophy and I do not expect people living it out to care. The Khala lets you speak with and resurrect the dead, as well as clone people who are still alive. This is not a matter of philosophy, this is a practical application of their technology which should render their society unrecognizable from our own. The protoss should be treating resurrection with the same (lack of) respect as we treat contraception and gay marriage.


Also, go replay LoTV because I don’t think you get the Purifier arc. The clones were not tortured, they were treated as tools/slaves who would continue doing what their source personalities did in life, and then shut down after the Conclave found out that wasn't going to work. Comparing this to the black mirror episode is nonsensical. Nothing like that happened.Again, you completely misread everything I said. I said the purifier arc was garbage because it relies on everyone acting like idiots, and that Black Mirror had a much more sensible take on the same concept that did not require everyone to act like idiots.


So far all you’ve demonstrated is that you don’t understand canon. I say go back and play it again.I refuse to play that garbage. It makes me physically ill.

There are so many contradictions in canon that I simply cannot take the franchise the least bit seriously. It is a clusterfuck of stupid from beginning to end.


I know some of the things in Starcraft are a little silly, but I like to speculate how these stories played out. When considering the Purifiers, you see an abused and boring trope. I like to wonder how they got to this point. Remember, there are no new stories under the sun, its all about execution and how you arrive at your solutions.Starcraft has terrible execution. The narrative falls apart under even the most cursory examination. Cause and effect literally does not exist in Starcraft. Events never happen because of cause and effect, but because the author says so regardless of the circumstances or whether it contradicts past or future events. There is no logic anywhere.

Starcraft cannot maintain consistency for even the most basic and forgettable of details. One source says it is impossible to communicate with zerg, another says it is possible but painful, a third says it is trivially easy. One source says that modifying genetics destroys psionics, we get multiple examples that contradict. One source says that humans are incompatible with infestation, we get multiple examples that contradict. One source claims that xel'naga are omnipotent immortal space gods, we get many examples that contradict this.

Since Starcraft canon is literally irrational and the writers clearly don't give a damn about logic or believably, I can say whatever the heck I want about it and be true. I prefer to simply rely on logic, because logic is amazing.

[sandwich_bird]

The judicators are way too stupid to make sense. I would expect that behavior from USA politicians because humans are not connected to an empathy network, but if the judicators are connected to an empathy network which forms the foundation of their civilization, their constant obvious stupidity really should not happen. The writing contrives to make them look like bumbling morons rather than giving them any nuance or believable justification.

The wiki page states the following:


The depth of the link varied according to personal choice. Generally it was difficult to be fully immersed in a state of unity all the time. Members of the Templar and Judicator Castes immersed themselves deeply several times per day, along with many Khalai, "nourishing" themselves through the rich contact and emerging refreshed and invigorated.[3] The linkage provided by the Khala was not just mental, but emotional as well, and as a result, Khalai found it difficult (though not impossible) to hate one another.[18] The nectar of the plant alavash was often used to strengthen a protoss's connection to the Khala.[19]

So lore does state that Protoss can feel each others but also that this is not something that is happening at all time and it is also something that happens at different levels and can be controlled.

In any case, it's not because you know how a person feel that you can't hurt that person. If you want an example, since you watched Black Mirror, it's like that doctor that gets off on the pain of others. In the case of the judicators, it's just a question of traditions. They are so stuck in their belief system that even feeling the pain of others doesn't stop them from making decision that will result in more pain. I wouldn't necessarily call that stupidity. Different morale is more like it. They believe they are doing the right thing even if, by other standards, it is clearly wrong.

Regarding the purifiers, you seem to think that the copies are coming from the Khala but that is not the case as far as I know. From the wiki:


Khalai "entered" the Khala upon death but did not remain as complete or coherent entities.[3] Their last thoughts were automatically gained by protoss in close proximity to the deceased.[23] Rather, the Khala contained "resonances" of deceased Khalai, that remain long after the respective protoss's death.[24]

We can infer from this that the process to make a purifier/copy requires a living Protoss. The objective of the purifier program was not to create tech like in Altered Carbon where you digitize your mind and can upload it to new bodies or in the cloud or whatever. The objective was to create weapons. It is possible that, even if they could create Altered Carbon tech, they wouldn't use it simply because of the Khala religion. There's already a sort of after-life for this race and they pride themselves in their death through battle.. so it makes total sense that they wouldn't want such a technology.


The canon is inconsistent garbage written by people who are somehow smart enough to understand C++ yet stupid enough not to understand basic concepts like good writing, cause and effect, critical thinking, blah blah blah.

I prefer to simply rely on logic, because logic is amazing.

Nah dude, if you'd use logic, you'd know that it's a logical fallacy to claim that if someone is good at something "complex", then that person must be good at something that you claim is less complex. And anyways, Metzen doesn't code as far as I know which I guess would make him look even worse in your eyes since that would mean he's incompetent at his own claimed expertise.. But anyways, you get too emotional about this, relax.

[Gradius]

The judicators are complete morons and Metzen contrived them as villains. Full stop.
Not really considering they apologize to the player and join his side during the last SC mission.


If we want evil, stupid politicians, we already have humans. That their shtick.
No. You haven't demonstrated that at all and only came to this conclusion because you have erroneous assumptions about how the khala works. Prove that it works the way you say it does, or just quit talking about it.


I have read enough philosophical debates and cyberpunk fiction that I do not care about the philosophy and I do not expect people living it out to care. The Khala lets you speak with and resurrect the dead, as well as clone people who are still alive. This is not a matter of philosophy, this is a practical application of their technology which should render their society unrecognizable from our own. The protoss should be treating resurrection with the same (lack of) respect as we treat contraception and gay marriage.
You basically start every debate with a preconceived flawed notion of how things "should" be and get annoyed when that's not how it works in StarCraft. Go away.


Again, you completely misread everything I said. I said the purifier arc was garbage because it relies on everyone acting like idiots, and that Black Mirror had a much more sensible take on the same concept that did not require everyone to act like idiots.
Except you've utterly failed to demonstrate how given that your whole premise was based on some rampant bullshit about them literally resurrecting their dead. Like, what the hell are you even talking about? Did you actually play the game? The black mirror episode didn't make that much sense as we just established. Nobody is going to let one of their clones get tortured. <_<


I refuse to play that garbage. It makes me physically ill.
Yeah, well you need to. You seem to be confused on a lot of topics in canon. I don't know what it is, but your reading comprehension skills cannot be this bad.


Since Starcraft canon is literally irrational and the writers clearly don't give a damn about logic or believably, I can say whatever the heck I want about it and be true. I prefer to simply rely on logic, because logic is amazing.
You're delusional. If you applied even some basic logic we wouldn't be having these drawn-out debates. Most of your points just basically boil down to whiny nonsense:

Abusing AIs in black mirror makes sense and is the paragon of good writing.
Abusing AIs in StarCraft doesn't make sense and is the paragon of crap writing.

Great "logic". I'm really frickin' impressed. All you've proven is you're insanely biased.


The wiki page states the following:

So lore does state that Protoss can feel each others but also that this is not something that is happening at all time and it is also something that happens at different levels and can be controlled.
But Sandwich, Mags want to criticize the SC2 lore while simultaneously not taking the SC2 lore/retcons into account. Quoting facts from the wiki makes that kinda hard, don't you think? :P

[Visions of Khas]

Kinda wondering why Misla is a "fan" of Starcraft at all.

I feel like he wants a backdrop for his own fiction -- which isn't a bad thing. A genocidal judicator? What's this about?

[Mislagnissa]

The wiki page states the following:

The wiki is full of unlabeled retcons and other inconsistencies. The most consistent source we have is the original manual.

Also the statement about them being nourished and refreshed by the khala contradicts them being photosynthetic. Them being photosynthetic contradicts the statement that tribal bloodlines have different skin tones, as photosynthesis requires a specific color which varies according to the local light source.

Honestly, I think them being literally nourished by the psychic internet is far more interesting and evocative than unscientific photosynthesis. I have been having loads of fun imagining what Khala withdrawal is like.

See... I have been thinking about the nature of the khala, specifically the short range pack communication. I believe that during the nadir of the Aeon that the pack-range khala still existed, but the long-range khala did not. Khas reintroduced the long-range khala, which requires things like psi-link spires to allow inter-tribal communications. Yadda yadda. Anyway, the tal'darim do not have even this due to their consumption of sundrop. In fact, tal'darim need to continually consume sundrop or their khala sense will develop and this is a bad thing. See, the khala sense provided by the nerve cords is supposed to receive signals from other nearby protoss, so isolating a protoss will cause them to go insane due to sensory deprivation solitary confinement mumbo jumbo. The only way to prevent this is by consuming sundrop. Both the nerazim and tal'darim are actually practicing an unnatural culture rather than preserving the culture of their ancestors, leading to them acting much more like humans than protoss.


So lore does state that Protoss can feel each others but also that this is not something that is happening at all time and it is also something that happens at different levels and can be controlled.Ignoring retcons, I would think this was implied when the original manual stated the protoss studied "meta-neural" sciences and turned off the proto-khala. That does not mean the Sargas use those methods (i.e. something like sundrop, not alavash), as there would most likely be laws against trying to break from the khala. Therefore, the Sargas might use some other means to protect their culture and I would be fascinated by an exploration of that.


In any case, it's not because you know how a person feel that you can't hurt that person. If you want an example, since you watched Black Mirror, it's like that doctor that gets off on the pain of others. In the case of the judicators, it's just a question of traditions. They are so stuck in their belief system that even feeling the pain of others doesn't stop them from making decision that will result in more pain. I wouldn't necessarily call that stupidity. Different morale is more like it. They believe they are doing the right thing even if, by other standards, it is clearly wrong.You would not know that from playing Starcraft, since it does nothing to make the judicator sympathetic or believable. The narrative contrives to make them into caricatures. That is precisely the sort of stuff I wrote about when I tried to make the judicators look sympathetic and of at least average intelligence.

See, Episode 3 did nothing to make Aldaris' actions look remotely sane. When I had to explain their motivations and make their Nazi-esque pogrom look justifiable, I basically wrote that during the Aeon of Strife the protoss were so advanced and immoral that they used their god-like power to turn the hell of their ancient religions into reality. In hell, nobody could ever die or stop suffering even if their body was atomized. In my world, Aldaris thinks it is justified to commit genocide because he fears the nerazim will literally send his people to hell. While we the audience know his fears are unfounded concerning the nerazim, we now know that the ancient protoss were advanced enough to create hell itself and that the tal'darim would probably be happy to bring it back.


Regarding the purifiers, you seem to think that the copies are coming from the Khala but that is not the case as far as I know. From the wiki:Again, canon is full of retcons and other inconsistencies. I have read a lot of cyberpunk and I can conclude that there is no logical reason why the protoss cannot use their technology to create an afterlife. They have advanced computers and easy neural interfaces, so there is no reason why they cannot regularly backup their personalities to iCloud and render death an inconvenience rather than a permanent end. In fact, they actually do that but misuse the technology.


We can infer from this that the process to make a purifier/copy requires a living Protoss. The objective of the purifier program was not to create tech like in Altered Carbon where you digitize your mind and can upload it to new bodies or in the cloud or whatever. The objective was to create weapons. It is possible that, even if they could create Altered Carbon tech, they wouldn't use it simply because of the Khala religion. There's already a sort of after-life for this race and they pride themselves in their death through battle.. so it makes total sense that they wouldn't want such a technology.I find your rebuttal a weak justification of the status quo. Starcraft is bland, banal, cliche and unbelievable. I prefer to explore something new, interesting, thought-provoking and believable.


Nah dude, if you'd use logic, you'd know that it's a logical fallacy to claim that if someone is good at something "complex", then that person must be good at something that you claim is less complex. And anyways, Metzen doesn't code as far as I know which I guess would make him look even worse in your eyes since that would mean he's incompetent at his own claimed expertise.. But anyways, you get too emotional about this, relax.Yes, I am terribly irrational.

[Gradius]

Also the statement about them being nourished and refreshed by the khala contradicts them being photosynthetic.
Again, how are your reading comprehension skills this bad? You really don't get that those two statements aren't talking about the same thing?

[Visions of Khas]

Immersing one's self in the khala may fulfill the same physiological needs as sleep. Maybe the meditative practice helps clear away adenosine, a natural byproduct of the brain's metabolism.

[ragnarok]

Kinda wondering why Misla is a "fan" of Starcraft at all.

I feel like he wants a backdrop for his own fiction -- which isn't a bad thing. A genocidal judicator? What's this about?

He's here merely to point out the flaws, since even SC1 and BW had its share, though I feel he's pushing it too far.

[sandwich_bird]

The wiki is full of unlabeled retcons and other inconsistencies. The most consistent source we have is the original manual.

But Sandwich, Mags want to criticize the SC2 lore while simultaneously not taking the SC2 lore/retcons into account. Quoting facts from the wiki makes that kinda hard, don't you think? :P

Righttttt, silly me :rolleyes:


Also the statement about them being nourished and refreshed by the khala contradicts them being photosynthetic.

There can be multiple ways to be nourished and refreshed. Not much of a hard contradiction.


Honestly, I think them being literally nourished by the psychic internet is far more interesting and evocative than unscientific photosynthesis. I have been having loads of fun imagining what Khala withdrawal is like.

I agree, I prefer this idea as well. I do think photosynthesis is unnecessary and just add problems.


You would not know that from playing Starcraft, since it does nothing to make the judicator sympathetic or believable. The narrative contrives to make them into caricatures. That is precisely the sort of stuff I wrote about when I tried to make the judicators look sympathetic and of at least average intelligence.

See, Episode 3 did nothing to make Aldaris' actions look remotely sane. When I had to explain their motivations and make their Nazi-esque pogrom look justifiable, I basically wrote that during the Aeon of Strife the protoss were so advanced and immoral that they used their god-like power to turn the hell of their ancient religions into reality. In hell, nobody could ever die or stop suffering even if their body was atomized. In my world, Aldaris thinks it is justified to commit genocide because he fears the nerazim will literally send his people to hell. While we the audience know his fears are unfounded concerning the nerazim, we now know that the ancient protoss were advanced enough to create hell itself and that the tal'darim would probably be happy to bring it back.


Good luck trying to insert all your justifications in ~15 lines of mission briefing. Can't really blame the writers here. The medium was far more limited and had other considerations as well.

Your fanon is kinda cool though.


I find your rebuttal a weak justification of the status quo. Starcraft is bland, banal, cliche and unbelievable. I prefer to explore something new, interesting, thought-provoking and believable.

How is it weak? Do you think it doesn't fit the lore or do you mean it's weak in the sense that you don't like it?

Starcraft can't be that bland to you if you come shitpost on a fan site. Otherwise, really don't know what you're doing here. You're sadomaso?


Yes, I am terribly irrational.

Honestly not sure if this is acceptance or sarcasm.

[Mislagnissa]

I am extremely bitter, I admit that. Starcraft had a great premise for a multimedia franchise in the manual but the games botched that premise in execution.

This all stems from one problem: that SC1 had a ridiculously cramped narrative that glossed over a galactic war and neatly severed all the plot threads introduced by the manual. You could have made a dozen games exploring the events occurring during Rebel Yell alone. Defeating the Overmind was the sort of thing you would save for the end of the franchise, not the beginning. So unsurprisingly the following games had nonsensical plots full of retcons and contrivances.

But this is the wrong thread to discuss that so I will stop myself now.

[Visions of Khas]

I mean, it definitely seems like you have narrative ideas for the universe. You could share your ideas for something like a parallel universe in which your story takes place, like Alternity. I wouldn't mind hearing more about this judicator of yours.

[Turalyon]

I am pretty sure the copy itself and everyone who interacts with it will contest this. A copy of a living person would be an identical twin.

The impression that they're the same thing will potentially hold until they're told it's a copy... then doubt can start on both sides.


This all stems from one problem: that SC1 had a ridiculously cramped narrative that glossed over a galactic war and neatly severed all the plot threads introduced by the manual. You could have made a dozen games exploring the events occurring during Rebel Yell alone. Defeating the Overmind was the sort of thing you would save for the end of the franchise, not the beginning. So unsurprisingly the following games had nonsensical plots full of retcons and contrivances.

I'd say the problem stems from you assuming that the first game at the time was always going to be successful enough to become a franchise. Back then, the developers sure would've liked the surety of knowing it would've gone gangbusters but they didn't, so they put everything on the table to get the best thing out at the time in case they don't get another chance and it shows. Sc1 is complete in that it had a setup, a story that continued from that premise and a well-paced and engaging plot that wrapped everything up neatly in the end, which is all one can really hope to get with any new IP. It didn't need to be continued and that's awesome if the game didn't do well. But... it did do well, so continuation/sequels were a no-brainer. "Luckily", they put in sequel-bait to justify churning out more.

[Mislagnissa]

I mean, it definitely seems like you have narrative ideas for the universe. You could share your ideas for something like a parallel universe in which your story takes place, like Alternity. I wouldn't mind hearing more about this judicator of yours.I made a thread (http://sclegacy.com/forums/showthread.php?16569-Reboot-the-franchise-What-direction-would-you-go/page11) for that already.


I'd say the problem stems from you assuming that the first game at the time was always going to be successful enough to become a franchise. Back then, the developers sure would've liked the surety of knowing it would've gone gangbusters but they didn't, so they put everything on the table to get the best thing out at the time in case they don't get another chance and it shows. Sc1 is complete in that it had a setup, a story that continued from that premise and a well-paced and engaging plot that wrapped everything up neatly in the end, which is all one can really hope to get with any new IP. It didn't need to be continued and that's awesome if the game didn't do well. But... it did do well, so continuation/sequels were a no-brainer. "Luckily", they put in sequel-bait to justify churning out more.That is precisely the problem. Starcraft was never intended to have sequels, so it suffered from a terrible case of sequelitis that turned it into an unrecognizable mess. It needs a reboot that does a better job with the original premise given by the manual. Which I made a thread about.

Hindsight is 20/20 and all that.

[Turalyon]

Starcraft was never intended to have sequels, so it suffered from a terrible case of sequelitis that turned it into an unrecognizable mess.

Sequelitis isn't a direct consequence of the first iteration being complete in and of itself, it's a direct consequence of the first iteration being successful and the developers wanting to wring more money from that IP. Course, that's not to say that sequelitis is going to be a given for every successful first iteration.


It needs a reboot that does a better job with the original premise given by the manual.

The expansion/sequels maybe but Sc1 doesn't really need it since the game is concordant with the manual at a basic level, it did well and it is fondly remembered - asking for even more consistent details and minutiae is a privilege that was yet to be earned nor expected at the time. No-one is really clamouring for a reboot of Sc1, except you.

[Mislagnissa]

The expansion/sequels maybe but Sc1 doesn't really need it since the game is concordant with the manual at a basic level, it did well and it is fondly remembered - asking for even more consistent details and minutiae is a privilege that was yet to be earned nor expected at the time. No-one is really clamouring for a reboot of Sc1, except you.”At the time?” I don’t give a flying fuck. The franchise is shit now.

Nostalgia blinds your ability to appraise SC1. SC1 was a pretty piss poor implementation of the manual. Barely any of the factions explained in the manual showed up due to the ridiculous levels of shoehorning. So they were written out of the story going forward, and Metzen replaced them with shit.

There is no good way to continue the existing story since the writers constantly shot themselves in the foot. Among other things, the moral relativity and history that made the factions interesting and instigated an indefinite conflict is completely gone in favor of an absurd Disney ending. The UED would just be a rehash of Amon where everyone teams up to stop them just because, since Blizzard is terrible at writing. It cannot be salvaged.

It is best to reboot the franchise in order to remove all those obstacles to a decent, believable story driven by politics rather than writer fiat.

[Gradius]

It’s obviously your favorite sci fi game since you spend all this time talking about it. You could be on some Warhammer forum, but nope. :p

[Turalyon]

”At the time?” I don’t give a flying fuck. The franchise is shit now.

Then limit your criticism to what happened now rather than rely on presumption of past things as being some conspiratorial misdeed/ad hominem. You may sound a bit more credible if you do so.


Nostalgia blinds your ability to appraise SC1. SC1 was a pretty piss poor implementation of the manual.

Oh, I bow to the authority of your forthrightness. You declare with such conviction that I am compelled to agree! :rolleyes:

Wait a sec, lemme have a go: "Your negative bias blinds your ability to appraise Sc1. Sc1 was an adequate implementation of the manual". Huh, who'd a thought that another opinion could be so easily countered by another opinion? Wowee :rolleyes::p:rolleyes::p


Barely any of the factions explained in the manual showed up due to the ridiculous levels of shoehorning. So they were written out of the story going forward, and Metzen replaced them with shit.

Yeah, you don't seem to understand the core reason for fluff and world-building. It's not meant to be a signpost/checklist for things to occur in the story, it's to build the illusion of verisimilitude and complexity in what is ostensibly a small fictional universe. Homeworlds manual has a tonne of information on factions, history and lore that don't show up in the game either. Oh noes, this must mean there was some Machiavellian conspiracy to write that stuff out according to Misla logic. :rolleyes:


There is no good way to continue the existing story since the writers constantly shot themselves in the foot.

I'm okay with that. Sc1 wasn't perfect and serviceable at the worst but I'm happy with what I got. I didn't really want the story to continue past BW nor did I think it needed it back then either. Sc2 ended up vindicating that opinion in the end. So, I guess that means there's no more Sc for me then. Boohoo.


It is best to reboot the franchise in order to remove all those obstacles to a decent, believable story driven by politics rather than writer fiat.

Meh. Reboots are just another form in which sequelitis to take root. It's just an excuse to mine what nostalgia one has of an IP and to capitalise on an existing fan base in order to garner interest, attention and most of all, money. Also, all stories are driven by writer fiat. Some are just better at hiding it or using it to their advantage than others.

[Mislagnissa]

I am whining again. I apologize. Starcraft is indeed my favorite franchise and thinking about its treatment by Blizzard constantly sends me into apoplectic fits.

I am bowing out of this topic and urge you to steer it back on track. Have a nice day.

[ragnarok]

I'm okay with that. Sc1 wasn't perfect and serviceable at the worst but I'm happy with what I got. I didn't really want the story to continue past BW nor did I think it needed it back then either. Sc2 ended up vindicating that opinion in the end. So, I guess that means there's no more Sc for me then. Boohoo.


That surprises me, Tura. Assuming in the future they decided to remake the SC2 storyline and make the current SC2 story non-canon and asked you for some ideas, you wouldn't bother giving any at all?

[Nissa]

I'd say the problem stems from you assuming that the first game at the time was always going to be successful enough to become a franchise. Back then, the developers sure would've liked the surety of knowing it would've gone gangbusters but they didn't, so they put everything on the table to get the best thing out at the time in case they don't get another chance and it shows. Sc1 is complete in that it had a setup, a story that continued from that premise and a well-paced and engaging plot that wrapped everything up neatly in the end, which is all one can really hope to get with any new IP. It didn't need to be continued and that's awesome if the game didn't do well. But... it did do well, so continuation/sequels were a no-brainer. "Luckily", they put in sequel-bait to justify churning out more.

Ideally, there should have been a second expansion set, released in 1999 or 2000, which would end the arc. If you think about it, SC and BW are two-thirds of the traditional three act structure, where act 1 is the setup, act 2 is where everything goes wrong and the story is at its darkest point, and act 3 is where everything works out. So what we should have had is a wrap up that brings things to a neutral state, then SC:Ghost the first person shooter. Honestly, ending things at BW is kind of like ending the original Star Wars trilogy right after The Empire Strikes Back.

Then again, I would have been okay spending the rest of my life imagining SC2 in my head. Those post-BW days were honestly wonderful. I miss them.

[Turalyon]

That surprises me, Tura. Assuming in the future they decided to remake the SC2 storyline and make the current SC2 story non-canon and asked you for some ideas, you wouldn't bother giving any at all?

Yep.


Ideally, there should have been a second expansion set, released in 1999 or 2000, which would end the arc. If you think about it, SC and BW are two-thirds of the traditional three act structure, where act 1 is the setup, act 2 is where everything goes wrong and the story is at its darkest point, and act 3 is where everything works out.

Eh, SC alone easily fulfills that 3 act structure you're talking about. BW was hardly necessary since it, too, kinda aped SC's three act structure in that it had a mostly superfluous setup first act, a second act that ended up where the main antagonist was in a seemingly unassailable lead, and a third act that resolved everything (it's just in SC, it was a typically good/happy end whereas in BW, it was an atypical for the time bad/depressing end). Another entry after BW evoking this same setup and resolving everything in a good/happy way again would be even less necessary since Sc1 already did this first all on its own. I would hardly call SC as being "setup" or a natural first part of a story trilogy.

Also, the sequel hooks for both Sc1 (Kerrigan) and BW (Hybrid) were kinda just disconnected loose-ends that didn't really need nor beg for resolution since you could excise them and the storylines would still be fulfilling and complete. It's interesting to note that these throwaway mentions then become hyper-inflated in their importance and role in their respective sequels (BW is a "sequel" in the sense that it chronologically continues/comes after the previous entry) to justify the focus on them. Just another sign of sequelitis....


Honestly, ending things at BW is kind of like ending the original Star Wars trilogy right after The Empire Strikes Back.

Yeah, then we got Return of the Jedi... yay? Lol, I suppose one can equate the disappointment of that with what we got (Sc2) as the ending for Sc?

[Mislagnissa]

I know I said I would bow out, but you guys have continued on this tangent.

I agree with Turalyon that SC1 does not lend itself well to sequels and that the sequels all rehash the same narrative structure (and I have said so many times). I know SC2 gets a bad rep, but SC1 and BW are not paragons of good writing. BW is full of plot holes (as I have gone over many times).

SC1 has its own flaws that are typically ignored by fans. The campaigns are largely disjointed from one another aside from cameos and setting up plot points for following campaigns. The terran campaign is superfluous to the following campaigns and is only necessary to explain where the terran characters came from; on the positive side, it stands alone as far as stories go. The zerg campaign does not even try to make its plot or characters stand alone; it meanders and serves only to segue into the protoss campaign. The protoss campaign is utterly opaque unless you read the manual to explain the context, whereas the previous two campaigns were easy to get into (this is not my personal complaint, but I saw it come up a lot from people who played the game but lacked the manual, and they didn't even know how the terrans got to Koprulu... this is unbelievably common for some reason).

Overall, it is obvious that SC1 had put a fair amount of thought into plotting the terran campaign and then spent far less time and effort on the zerg and protoss campaigns since they feel far less coherent in comparison. Judging by the shared structures, I suspect that there was a mandate each campaign would feature installation and space platform tilesets, fight each of the three races, and possibly other things I cannot recall. While the terran campaign wove these into its narrative very well, the zerg and protoss campaigns feel forced, meandering and random in their mission structure. Part of this I would attribute to the alien campaigns being forced to be sequels and feature the same characters, but even then the structural choices are far sloppier than they could be with more effort. The end result is that the zerg and protoss campaigns feel more like filler and padding, at least compared to the preceding terran campaign.

A key mistake is that Rebel Yell neatly ties up it story by the end, which forces the following campaigns to shoehorn new conflicts and narratives that are much weaker when the manual had already foreshadowed the terran sympathizer movement among the protoss which would only have been relevant during the war in the Koprulu sector. The zerg campaign is entirely filler that just sets up the Overmind's demise, whereas the protoss campaign is utterly unconnected from the narrative of the terran campaign aside from cameos.

The underlying narrative problem is that the overarching story does not have a coherent point to it. I would say that the point of Starcraft was exploring a shared set of themes like freedom versus control, unity versus diversity, etc that fit the established politics, but the game story loses sight of this after Rebel Yell. The writer got bogged down in things like sloppily adhering to the mandates I mentioned, trying to shoehorn cameos when that was wholly unnecessary, and performing contradictory actions like neatly severing major plot threads while simultaneously trying to write a shared plot across otherwise unconnected campaigns that would benefit from not severing said plot threads.

Compare this to the plot of Insurrection. While not stellar and full of questionable writing choices (and hilarious voice acting), it is much more coherently plotted than the base campaign. It hits all of the same highlights as the base campaign but executes them in a far more organic fashion. It is a decent example of how to write a story about the first contact war that showcases the essential features of the Starcraft setting, assuming you play the remastered version which fixes all the bugs and adds redacted dialogue.

If Starcraft were produced in 2018, in the era of planned sequels and modern interfaces and blah blah, I highly doubt it would turn out the way it did in 1998. The writers probably would have done more to make each campaign stand out, tied the plot together with far more care, introduced major recurring characters (particularly memorable zerg characters) for the inevitable sequels, and probably closed on an open-ended ending rather than killing the main antagonist of the franchise immediately. At least, if Blizzard’s handling of Starcraft 2 is anything to go by.

[Turalyon]

I know SC2 gets a bad rep, but SC1 and BW are not paragons of good writing.

No-one has ever seriously claimed that they are. I don't know why you'd (or the Sc2 defenders who use this very same argument) presume this.


SC1 has its own flaws that are typically ignored by fans.

There's a reason for this. It's simply because "First Installment Wins (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FirstInstallmentWins)". With a new IP, there's no expectations and one's more prone to forgiving foibles in the story. There's just enough world-building and things left open in SC to invest and compel someone through the story the first time around. Sure, after some time you may experience fridge logic about certain things, but what story in all existence is ever immune to this? I think that part of what makes a good story "good" are ones those that can mask or delay their apparent fridge logic whilst your experiencing that story. "Bad" stories are those that fail to invest you into that fiction such that the inherent flaws and fridge logic are seemingly glaring right at you as you're experiencing the story.


Judging by the shared structures, I suspect that there was a mandate each campaign would feature installation and space platform tilesets, fight each of the three races, and possibly other things I cannot recall.

I think this is more apparent in Sc2 and BW to a lesser extent than it is in Sc1. Most of the missions in Sc are gimmick free, and changes in tilesets within each campaign are kept fairly minimal or are in-line with the current plot progression unlike in BW where one can be on a different planet on the very next mission.

The issue of forcing of each race to fight the other and even themselves is an expected conceit to be sure, but it feels less forced/mostly justified. For the most part, Rebel Yell is about Terrans fighting other Terrans where the Zerg and the limited use of the Protoss are used as a plot device in service of that. The Protoss inclusion in Rebel Yell is gimmicky and sticks out but it's important in setting up later plot developments. In Overmind, the Zerg start off going through what's left of the Terrans but are largely focused against the Protoss for the most part. The Zerg vs Zerg is a gimmicky inclusion, but that is important in showing us how the Zerg can be defeated. The story of The Fall is less about the Protoss vs Zerg than it is about Protoss vs Protoss and that's because it's informed by the manual backstory of the Protoss race. The Protoss engage the Zerg in an obligatory way because the Zerg forced the issue in the first place, but the Zerg aren't really the focus. There are no forced Protoss vs Terran engagements in that campaign (the incident with Duke can be easily sidestepped/not triggered) either.


The underlying narrative problem is that the overarching story does not have a coherent point to it.

The point of the story is to have the three races engage each other by exploring the nature of each of the races through a focused lens. That's it. The story isn't supposed to be a thesis or musing on grand themes even though there are bits of this to add flavour/foster the illusion of depth to some of the goings-on in the story.


If Starcraft were produced in 2018, in the era of planned sequels and modern interfaces and blah blah, I highly doubt it would turn out the way it did in 1998.

Well, duh... It's kind of needless to say that it was a product of its time but it seems like I do need to point that out. :p


The writers probably would have done more to make each campaign stand out, tied the plot together with far more care, introduced major recurring characters (particularly memorable zerg characters) for the inevitable sequels, and probably closed on an open-ended ending rather than killing the main antagonist of the franchise immediately. At least, if Blizzard’s handling of Starcraft 2 is anything to go by.

It's interesting that you mentioned Sc2 here because I'm pretty sure that all those sensibilities you've mentioned were thought to be genuinely incorporated into what we have now as Sc2. As much as we tend to criticise Sc2 for its failings, I do believe that the developers actually had all of this in mind and thought they were doing all of this stuff. To be fair, even though the effectiveness of each is prone to subjective bias Sc2 did actually do all this stuff (they dedicated time to make entries for each race, they tied the plot together with this growing Hybrid threat, introduced some memorable characters in each entry and kept it's first entry, WoL, open ended rather than killing the main antagonist immediately) and yet the story still turned out to be pretty hackneyed in the end anyway. It's much sadder to think that they genuinely tried and failed, which is why us fans like to instead rage and say they did all this shit on purpose and that they're all just hacks. :D

[Nissa]

Eh, SC alone easily fulfills that 3 act structure you're talking about. BW was hardly necessary since it, too, kinda aped SC's three act structure in that it had a mostly superfluous setup first act, a second act that ended up where the main antagonist was in a seemingly unassailable lead, and a third act that resolved everything (it's just in SC, it was a typically good/happy end whereas in BW, it was an atypical for the time bad/depressing end). Another entry after BW evoking this same setup and resolving everything in a good/happy way again would be even less necessary since Sc1 already did this first all on its own. I would hardly call SC as being "setup" or a natural first part of a story trilogy.

Ah, I wasn't quite sure where you were drawing the line. I was thinking you meant after SC, but I didn't want to assume. Anyway, no, I respectfully disagree that SC vanilla could have stood on its own. Its third act did not resolve everything I mean, it would have been okay imo (similar to me being okay with things ending after BW), but the Protoss still have a pile of unresolved issues, the Terran-Protoss issues haven't been worked out, and clearly, to judge by the inclusion of Kerrigan, they always intended a sequel. Or rather, a world, a place they could draw from to create games well into the future, rather like Command and Conquer...only that didn't work out for them, for reasons I assume had to do with turnover, and the post 2000 entropic state that is California-based writing.

Also, don't misread me. I didn't say the story should have a happy ending, I said that it should have an ending, one where most of the main plot threads are wrapped up, for better or worse, and the universe can get to a neutral setup for later games. Come on, man, I've mentioned this before.

I wouldn't call vanilla a start for a trilogy either, I'd call it Blizzard's attempt to create a space world for future video games. The only reason I say "trilogy" is because with SC and BW together, having a second expansion pack is better than simply creating a sequel with better graphics. If there had been no BW, the story flow would be better to go straight into an advanced sequel. That, and Blizz went with SC Ghost, thus creating the big gap to SC2 as it is now. In other words, my use of the term "trilogy" is really more a matter of a hindsight scenario than anything Blizzard intended from the get go.



Also, the sequel hooks for both Sc1 (Kerrigan) and BW (Hybrid) were kinda just disconnected loose-ends that didn't really need nor beg for resolution since you could excise them and the storylines would still be fulfilling and complete. It's interesting to note that these throwaway mentions then become hyper-inflated in their importance and role in their respective sequels (BW is a "sequel" in the sense that it chronologically continues/comes after the previous entry) to justify the focus on them. Just another sign of sequelitis....

You're acting like it wasn't inevitable that SC would get a sequel. It's pretty clear that Blizzard wanted to create a new world setting for their games. That, and no, SC would not have been fulfilling and complete. There's still DT/Khala drama, Mengsk is still a tyrant who wants to pwn everybody, and the Zerg were not fully destroyed. I the fan would not have been pleased if the story ended there. Only in hindsight am I okay with ending things with BW, and that's primarily because I remember those happy times before SC2, when the Starcraft community was alive and theorizing happily. Ending with BW's end of second act climax is surprisingly fun, because it leaves the ending open to the fans.



Yeah, then we got Return of the Jedi... yay? Lol, I suppose one can equate the disappointment of that with what we got (Sc2) as the ending for Sc?

Gag. Lol, my entire argument is that we never got Starcraft's Return of the Jedi. It's like we went straight from Empire to The Last Jedi.

[ragnarok]

I'm surprised by you, Tura. I thought you would have wanted the SC series to continue even if they made SC2's story non-canon and remade the trilogy

[Turalyon]

Anyway, no, I respectfully disagree that SC vanilla could have stood on its own. Its third act did not resolve everything I mean, it would have been okay imo (similar to me being okay with things ending after BW), but the Protoss still have a pile of unresolved issues, the Terran-Protoss issues haven't been worked out, and clearly, to judge by the inclusion of Kerrigan, they always intended a sequel.

All those things you mentioned are definitely sequel bait and "excuses" for a sequel, but they are hardly necessary to get a complete picture of what Sc was about. What's resolved is the premise of these factions engaging each other, fighting to a natural end point and getting to an equilibrium of sorts. That you feel "it's ok" for it to not continue (from both the end of Sc and the end of BW) means that there was enough resolution/that there's an adequate conclusion.


Or rather, a world, a place they could draw from to create games well into the future, rather like Command and Conquer...only that didn't work out for them, for reasons I assume had to do with turnover, and the post 2000 entropic state that is California-based writing.

Oh, C&C! I feel the same way about that as I do Sc. The first C&C doesn't have a typical ending where everything is closed off, but there's enough resolution at the end of each of the factions campaigns to make the story effectively complete. With GDI, Nod is effectively destroyed with the death of Kane. With Nod, GDI is effectively "destroyed" or at least neutered in its capability to oppose Nod due to sabotage eroding their support. The sequel follow on from GDI victory and they do that by undoing the very thing that conclusive ended the first game: reviving Kane!

As such, Tiberian Sun feels far removed from C&C as a sequel in terms due to it's heavier leaning on science-fiction and its associated tropes. Whereas the first was more grounded with its portrayal of modern warfare and politics whilst the near-future and sci-fi elements being somewhat cursory, Tiberian Sun goes hardcore into its more fantastical sci-fi elements and visions of dystopia. It kinda mirrors how Sc turned out ironically.


Also, don't misread me. I didn't say the story should have a happy ending, I said that it should have an ending, one where most of the main plot threads are wrapped up, for better or worse, and the universe can get to a neutral setup for later games.

Huh? I wasn't intimating that you felt stories should have "happy" endings. Having a happy/unhappy ending is largely irrelevent as long as that ending seems naturally built toward it/within context/not forced. Having the proposed third entry in Sc2 having an ending to "resolve everything (of immediate significance)" usually falls into the camp of it being a "happy" ending generally and that's kinda superfluous since Sc1 already kinda did that. Even if this third entry were instead to "resolve everything (of immediate significance)" in an unhappy manner, that too is superfluous since BW did that already. I was more denying your claim that Sc1 didn't have an ending like you just described in the above quote. I was saying that Sc1 does indeed have that ending as described in that above quote.


You're acting like it wasn't inevitable that SC would get a sequel.

Of course. I doubt that this is what the developers thought at the time when creating the game (they had to scrap and restart everything since the initial make of it was derided as Warcraft in Space). Sure, they would've liked to think it was going to become successful enough to make sequels but I reckon they were all there just to try and make an awesome product as if this was their one and only chance.


That, and no, SC would not have been fulfilling and complete. There's still DT/Khala drama, Mengsk is still a tyrant who wants to pwn everybody, and the Zerg were not fully destroyed. I the fan would not have been pleased if the story ended there.

I meant fulfilling and complete in that the story it presents (which, in a reductionist way, is not much more than "baddies come and then are defeated") is resolved. The rest are non-crucial (albeit interesting) details/fluff.


Ending with BW's end of second act climax is surprisingly fun, because it leaves the ending open to the fans.

I feel the opposite is true. Sc1's ending is a lot more open than BWs since the Zerg defeat, whilst definitive, is not complete. BW feels more like a definitive and conclusive end because of the massive change in status quo that Omega depicts and how the Zerg are constantly portrayed as being OP despite "supposedly" being at their weakest. Most stories end with the status quo shifting seemingly irreversibly in a specific direction (whether that be the hero/good guys vanquishing the villain/bad guys and obtaining a seemingly unassailable position) and BW ends with Kerrigan in such a demonstrative dominant position whilst displaying intent on eventually taking everything, that the only conclusion one can realistically draw is that everyone besides the Zerg are fucked. The only way to stop this is to employ artifice/plot device - lo and behold this is what Sc2 does to justify the existence of a sequel (by having her literally do nothing up until it is required for her to only so that a plot device can then handle her shortly thereafter).


Lol, my entire argument is that we never got Starcraft's Return of the Jedi. It's like we went straight from Empire to The Last Jedi.

I take it that your reference to The Last Jedi is in regard to it being seen by the majority (or what seems like) as the shittest SWs movie ever? :D

I was jokingly referring to the idea/concept of Sc2 as being supposed to be Starcrafts ROTJ in that ROTJ was considered the most deficient entry of the trilogy at the time.


I'm surprised by you, Tura. I thought you would have wanted the SC series to continue even if they made SC2's story non-canon and remade the trilogy

Shows what you know about me, huh. I've always had an ambivalence toward the idea of a Sc sequel ever since BW was released and have said so several times.

[Mislagnissa]

I think this is more apparent in Sc2 and BW to a lesser extent than it is in Sc1. Most of the missions in Sc are gimmick free, and changes in tilesets within each campaign are kept fairly minimal or are in-line with the current plot progression unlike in BW where one can be on a different planet on the very next mission.
The point of the story is to have the three races engage each other by exploring the nature of each of the races through a focused lens. That's it. The story isn't supposed to be a thesis or musing on grand themes even though there are bits of this to add flavour/foster the illusion of depth to some of the goings-on in the story.

To write a good story composed of multiple episodes showing different perspectives, the episodes should not only contribute to the overarching narrative but also stand on their own with strong plots. SC1 may follow a logical A to B progression, but that is not the same as telling a satisfying story. Episode 1 has a solid progression from beginning to end, but Episodes 2 and 3 do not. They meander, insert filler, and generally feel like the writer did not know what to do with them other than adhere to the tileset mandates, tie into the attached cinematics (which were composed separately from the script), and tie together inter-episode plot points. I am sure this could have been done well, but the result we got feels sloppy.

(In fact, episode 1 did not tie into most of its cinematics besides the last one depicting the rise of the Dominion. Episodes 2 and 3 tried to tie very closely into all of their cinematics, and I suspect that played a key role in why they feel far less organic than episode 1. The Amerigo mission is a very obvious example of weakly justified filler intended solely to connect with the associated cinematic and showcase the installation tileset.)


Ah, I wasn't quite sure where you were drawing the line. I was thinking you meant after SC, but I didn't want to assume. Anyway, no, I respectfully disagree that SC vanilla could have stood on its own. Its third act did not resolve everything I mean, it would have been okay imo (similar to me being okay with things ending after BW), but the Protoss still have a pile of unresolved issues, the Terran-Protoss issues haven't been worked out, and clearly, to judge by the inclusion of Kerrigan, they always intended a sequel. Or rather, a world, a place they could draw from to create games well into the future, rather like Command and Conquer...only that didn't work out for them, for reasons I assume had to do with turnover, and the post 2000 entropic state that is California-based writing. SC1 did not leave potential sequels much to work with. The backstory was carefully contrived to to pit the three races against one another and themselves, but the plot of SC1 neatly destroys those justifications.

Since the determinant plot never paid off (barring ad hoc rationalizations that Kerry was it or that it never existed or whatever don't bring it up it isn't worth it to go on another stupid tangent), there is no reason for the zerg and protoss to enter terran space and war with the terrans. The entire point of the determinant was to justify the three races fighting, and now it is gone and you cannot replace it without looking stupid (as shown by the sequels). Terrans still have plenty of reasons to fight each other since the Dominion has not resolved the long-standing issues that turned the Umojan Protectorate, Sons of Korhal and Kel-Morian Combine against the Confederacy.

The Overmind was set up as a galactic space monster that wanted nothing less than to devour the universe. It was killed off, robbing the zerg of their whole shtick and reason to exist. Replacing it with Kerry sabotaged the entire shtick of the zerg and set off their degeneration into slaves and hippies. Immediately resurrecting it or replacing it with a knock-off feels cheap and defeats the point of killing it off in the first place. The Overmind either should never had been killed off or, better yet, it should have been established as an inherent part of the zerg so that the series can never end unless the zerg are all destroyed (similar to the grave mind in Halo, the brethren moons in Dead Space, etc).

The protoss actually had several valid reasons to fight each other but these were either quickly resolved or ignored. The manual established that the protoss would come into conflict over the fate of the terrans during the zerg invasion, with callous exterminators on one side and terran sympathizers on the other. Aside from writer fiat forcing Raynor and Tass to become best friends (despite the history of genocide, Raynor and friends having better things to do with their time, Kerry's forced presence as the zerg hero because Metzen thought she was pretty when this contradicts the zerg's previously established modus operandi, etc), this conflict was never explored outside the obscure licensed expansion Insurrection. The conflict between the khalai and dark templar plays some role but it is largely glossed over and the judicator's whiny reasoning for ignoring the zerg threat to wage civil war is never adequately explained and comes off as writer fiat to make them the unambiguous villains. (Compare this to Syndrea from Insurrection, who is basically a female version of Judge Dredd.)


I'm surprised by you, Tura. I thought you would have wanted the SC series to continue even if they made SC2's story non-canon and remade the trilogyAs I said, SC and BW did not leave a strong foundation to work with. SC1 sabotaged any attempts at sequels by neatly severing key plot threats (like the justifications for war in the first place!), and BW had a nonsensical plot which introduced pointless retcons, massive plot holes, and inexplicable plot devices that further sabotaged potential sequels.

That is why I advocate that a reboot start over from the First Contact War and use that as the basis for the franchise, as introduced in the manual, rather than sabotaging themselves by killing the Confederacy, Overmind and Conclave who drive all the major conflicts. I am not saying you cannot advance the timeline, but for something like this it makes more sense to plan the franchise as a series of wars with a definite beginning and end to set anthologies within rather than making things up as you go along and focusing on a tiny cast of literal galactic heroes.

[ragnarok]

Shows what you know about me, huh. I've always had an ambivalence toward the idea of a Sc sequel ever since BW was released and have said so several times.

And yet you've also implied about how the SC2 trilogy should be made non-canon and remade. Interesting.

[Turalyon]

To write a good story composed of multiple episodes showing different perspectives, the episodes should not only contribute to the overarching narrative but also stand on their own with strong plots.

Depends on what one qualifies as "good". Most people tend to think WoL is the best story of Sc2 when it really has the most confused, meandering narrative and a weak plot that is driven by artifice when compared to the later two. There was obviously something that was satisfying/"good" in that story for people to judge it more favourably.


SC1 did not leave potential sequels much to work with. The backstory was carefully contrived to to pit the three races against one another and themselves, but the plot of SC1 neatly destroys those justifications.

This implies that the story was written to have a resolution/no intent to have sequels.


Since the determinant plot never paid off (barring ad hoc rationalizations that Kerry was it or that it never existed or whatever don't bring it up it isn't worth it to go on another stupid tangent), there is no reason for the zerg and protoss to enter terran space and war with the terrans.

Why does the determinant plot not paying off somehow cancel the initial intent and motivation of going there in the first place? What's important about the determinant is not the objective thing (whatever shape it's supposed to take) itself, but the motivation it instills in the Overmind to take action/invade Terran space. Anyhow, the determinant plot never paying off should actually be a good thing since if it ever is achieved, then the Zerg will well and truly have no further motivation to focus their efforts on them.


The Overmind was set up as a galactic space monster that wanted nothing less than to devour the universe. It was killed off, robbing the zerg of their whole shtick and reason to exist.

Which is partly why Sc1, as a story, is resolved/can be seen as fully complete/not needing a sequel.


The Overmind either should never had been killed off or, better yet, it should have been established as an inherent part of the zerg so that the series can never end unless the zerg are all destroyed (similar to the grave mind in Halo, the brethren moons in Dead Space, etc).

This brings me back to my back-in-the-day fanon theory of the Overmind not actually being killed on Aiur. I had thought the Overmind was not restricted being in one-body given that it was bodiless and what was actually destroyed in Sc1 and BW was just one (of many) large control node that allowed the Zerg to connect and communicate over vast interstellar distances in some huge network (with the Overmind being the network/cloud rather than some single entity contained in a body). My fanon reason for why it landed on Aiur was to act like a beacon to rally all the other Zerg that were spread out looking for Protoss or finding other races to assimilate to this point.


The protoss actually had several valid reasons to fight each other but these were either quickly resolved or ignored. The manual established that the protoss would come into conflict over the fate of the terrans during the zerg invasion, with callous exterminators on one side and terran sympathizers on the other.

It's hard for the Protoss to fight each other because in the current state we see them in, they've got the Khala (as a doctrine) and their adherence to it that stops such conflict. The character of Tassadar encapsulates both the inner Protos conflict because he is one of those callous exterminators that then chooses to become a Terran sympathiser and the outer Protoss conflict, as he willingly sets aside the mandates of the Khala, consorts with the ancestors of those who were responsible for almost bringing their whole race to the brink of annihilation and incites back an age-old civil war that the majority of Protoss have never really recovered from (as the subsequent emergence of and adherence to the Khala, whilst a solution to their predicament at the time, was just a reactionary response to them trying to suppress the rise of individual ego - the cause and motivation for continuing the Aeon of Strife in the first place).


The conflict between the khalai and dark templar plays some role but it is largely glossed over and the judicator's whiny reasoning for ignoring the zerg threat to wage civil war is never adequately explained and comes off as writer fiat to make them the unambiguous villains.

Aldaris may be an antagonist but he's hardly an unambiguous villain. Part of why Sc1 is so often recognised as being "grey", is that the heroes or villains presented are anything but simply just that. The game actually gives no reason for us to doubt Aldaris' POV - he's fully justified in his convictions despite his manner. When it's said that Protoss feel they can handle the Zerg and go off to search for Tass, we have nothing to suggest that the Protoss are not so we have to take the narration at its word. Sure, there was no significant advantageous consequence of killing the cerebrate but that they were able to engage the Zerg and attack a well-defended target with force of arms proves the Protoss are more than capable of fighting the Zerg. Sure, a named character died in a recent conflict but that's hardly anything to go by since there are other Protoss with names too who have died in other battles that we don't know about. Sure, they lost a region they recently took over, but war often does have a lot of back and forth in its progress.


And yet you've also implied about how the SC2 trilogy should be made non-canon and remade. Interesting.

It could also be because you misinterpret and presume incorrect things about people intent. You are known for doing this.

[ragnarok]

It could also be because you misinterpret and presume incorrect things about people intent. You are known for doing this.

Considering all the times you've pointed out to all the problems in the SC2 lore, I see little reason you'd just want the whole thing to end it right there

[Turalyon]

I see little reason you'd just want the whole thing to end it right there

You've just proven my previous point. Pointing out problems in the story of Sc2 could also just as easily mean that I didn't want the continuation of the story in the first place.

[Nissa]

All those things you mentioned are definitely sequel bait and "excuses" for a sequel, but they are hardly necessary to get a complete picture of what Sc was about. What's resolved is the premise of these factions engaging each other, fighting to a natural end point and getting to an equilibrium of sorts. That you feel "it's ok" for it to not continue (from both the end of Sc and the end of BW) means that there was enough resolution/that there's an adequate conclusion.

No, no it's not. Emotions do as they please. If it had ended right there, my past self would have been furious that there was no sequel (as would all the fans at the time). The only, ONLY reason I am okay with it is because SC2 was a pile of garbage, and I prefer having no SC2 to the SC2 we got. Emotions are irrelevant to the objective facts of storytelling. The story wasn't told. My emotions are simply compensating for the disappointment of SC2, much in the same way a person might cope with a disappointment in life. Just because a person copes doesn't mean the disappointment didn't happen.




Oh, C&C! I feel the same way about that as I do Sc. The first C&C doesn't have a typical ending where everything is closed off, but there's enough resolution at the end of each of the factions campaigns to make the story effectively complete. With GDI, Nod is effectively destroyed with the death of Kane. With Nod, GDI is effectively "destroyed" or at least neutered in its capability to oppose Nod due to sabotage eroding their support. The sequel follow on from GDI victory and they do that by undoing the very thing that conclusive ended the first game: reviving Kane!

As such, Tiberian Sun feels far removed from C&C as a sequel in terms due to it's heavier leaning on science-fiction and its associated tropes. Whereas the first was more grounded with its portrayal of modern warfare and politics whilst the near-future and sci-fi elements being somewhat cursory, Tiberian Sun goes hardcore into its more fantastical sci-fi elements and visions of dystopia. It kinda mirrors how Sc turned out ironically.

Ha, I don't know if it "mirrors" Starcraft as much as it too is another casualty of the failure state of mainstream media writing. Star Trek, Star Wars, Star Fox, Doctor Who, and probably dozens of things I don't even know about have all gone through similar things. I think it has something to do with a consistent insistence on pandering to a new, imaginary market, rather than trying to keep a consistent feel in the franchise.



Huh? I wasn't intimating that you felt stories should have "happy" endings. Having a happy/unhappy ending is largely irrelevent as long as that ending seems naturally built toward it/within context/not forced. Having the proposed third entry in Sc2 having an ending to "resolve everything (of immediate significance)" usually falls into the camp of it being a "happy" ending generally and that's kinda superfluous since Sc1 already kinda did that. Even if this third entry were instead to "resolve everything (of immediate significance)" in an unhappy manner, that too is superfluous since BW did that already. I was more denying your claim that Sc1 didn't have an ending like you just described in the above quote. I was saying that Sc1 does indeed have that ending as described in that above quote.

Well, you said "happy" ending, so I thought that was what you meant. In any case, no, BW didn't resolve crap. It made things worse. The Protoss are still struggling to survive, and Khalai vs DT tension is on the rise from Aldaris' somewhat justified rebellion and its causes. Mengsk's empire is in chaos (even assuming he was still able to have an empire) and the UED are now players in the game who could potentially come to do more mischief. Raynor is in a vengeful state, Mengsk is too, and Kerrigan has basically pissed off everybody. And of course the hybrids/Duran. The only "resolution" the game offers is Kerrigan's choice to rest and wait, which is really either her being suspicious of Duran or going through feelings of regret. The thing about this choice is that at any time she can choose to end her rest and fight.

If you think that BW resolved the story...well...I'll just respectfully leave that sentence unfinished. :D

Anyway, I'm happy (read: coping) with leaving things at BW, well, because they left things unfinished at such a point of high tension. Us fans could theorize about it all day. Good times...good times...



Of course. I doubt that this is what the developers thought at the time when creating the game (they had to scrap and restart everything since the initial make of it was derided as Warcraft in Space). Sure, they would've liked to think it was going to become successful enough to make sequels but I reckon they were all there just to try and make an awesome product as if this was their one and only chance.

I don't know, you're kinda assuming a lot on their motivations. Of course a gaming company wants to make a franchise. It's pretty obvious with all the effort they made. That, and I remember reading somewhere that they wanted a change after Warcraft/Diablo.



I meant fulfilling and complete in that the story it presents (which, in a reductionist way, is not much more than "baddies come and then are defeated") is resolved. The rest are non-crucial (albeit interesting) details/fluff.

Mengsk being a crazyhead tyrant who would rather see his homeworld burned than ruled by anyone else is "fluff"? Protoss national tensions being unresolved is "fluff"? The fact that humanity still hates the Protoss for blowing up their planets is "fluff"? (And no, Raynor's Raiders doesn't count because it's just a small faction)

You'se a crazy boy. Jus crazy!



I feel the opposite is true. Sc1's ending is a lot more open than BWs since the Zerg defeat, whilst definitive, is not complete. BW feels more like a definitive and conclusive end because of the massive change in status quo that Omega depicts and how the Zerg are constantly portrayed as being OP despite "supposedly" being at their weakest. Most stories end with the status quo shifting seemingly irreversibly in a specific direction (whether that be the hero/good guys vanquishing the villain/bad guys and obtaining a seemingly unassailable position) and BW ends with Kerrigan in such a demonstrative dominant position whilst displaying intent on eventually taking everything, that the only conclusion one can realistically draw is that everyone besides the Zerg are fucked. The only way to stop this is to employ artifice/plot device - lo and behold this is what Sc2 does to justify the existence of a sequel (by having her literally do nothing up until it is required for her to only so that a plot device can then handle her shortly thereafter).

If you feel that vanilla was more open-ended than BW, okay. Sure, why not? You appear to mean that vanilla could have gone in any direction at that point, and well, that's true. But the thing is, that's also true of every story -- the earlier a point in a story, the more options that given story has to do various wild and crazy things that become impossible later. This is because the further a story goes along, the more choices the story will have made, and the more it has to keep up with the consequences of those choices. In short, a story will always be narrower at the end than at the beginning. It's why shows like Lost or X Files always add mystery on top of mystery without actually resolving anything. It's because they know that the more they answer the mystery, the fewer options they have and the less tension they have.

But all good stories have to end, and they have to resolve their problems. Otherwise they end up with stupid, unsatisfying endings like Lost, or become alternate universe nightmares like comic book incarnations. There was always going to be a point in the story where the Zerg are dominant. They are the least rational, relatable race, the one most bent on conquering and pwning all. Therefore, the highest state of tension exists when the Zerg are dominant. That's why I call BW the second act of a greater trilogy. BW ends at the darkest point, much like The Empire Strikes Back.

Also, though, the Zerg are not at their strongest in BW. Kerrigan is not as super powerful and dominant as you seem to think. I'm going to post a thread about this later, so I'm not going to go into it here, but the base idea is that Kerri got her dominance through trickery, and using other people's forces to do what she could not do for herself.



I take it that your reference to The Last Jedi is in regard to it being seen by the majority (or what seems like) as the shittest SWs movie ever? :D

I was jokingly referring to the idea/concept of Sc2 as being supposed to be Starcrafts ROTJ in that ROTJ was considered the most deficient entry of the trilogy at the time.

Yeah, I know. Um, I haven't seen it yet (I absolutely do not wish to give that franchise any money at this point), but I've seen/heard enough reviews to know that they utterly trashed the characters and plot. Just like SC2.

Why can't we have nice things anymore?



Shows what you know about me, huh. I've always had an ambivalence toward the idea of a Sc sequel ever since BW was released and have said so several times.

I never claimed to know you. Anyways, I'm just saying that I prefer no sequel to SC2, but I prefer a good sequel to both.

[ragnarok]

You've just proven my previous point. Pointing out problems in the story of Sc2 could also just as easily mean that I didn't want the continuation of the story in the first place.

Then did you even see Blizzard was trying to leave room for a sequel at the end of BW?

[Visions of Khas]

Then did you even see Blizzard was trying to leave room for a sequel at the end of BW?

Welllll... given that Kerrigan, in her victory, sensed a growing darkness over the horizon...

Yeah, Blizzard wanted that sequel.

[ragnarok]

Welllll... given that Kerrigan, in her victory, sensed a growing darkness over the horizon...

Yeah, Blizzard wanted that sequel.

Unless Blizzard expected the players simply to draw the conclusion she was only hallucinating

[Turalyon]

Emotions are irrelevant to the objective facts of storytelling. The story wasn't told.

I agree with the former but not the latter, especially when considering the former. Objectively, the story in Sc1 did what it set out to do. Sure, the story could go on, but it doesn't really need to. Endings to a story doesn't always imply that the fictional universe that it is set up in just disappears nor that one should feel it to be ok for it to just disappear at that end, they just mean that the current story set in that universe has finished.


Star Trek, Star Wars, Star Fox, Doctor Who, and probably dozens of things I don't even know about have all gone through similar things. I think it has something to do with a consistent insistence on pandering to a new, imaginary market, rather than trying to keep a consistent feel in the franchise.

Of these, Doctor Who is probably the most resilient and adaptive to changes, pandering and modernisation. Whilst most of these fictional universes are a product of the specific time in which they were made, part of Doctor Who's flexibility is in the in-built artifice of it being made into a product of any specific time.


In any case, no, BW didn't resolve crap. It made things worse.

But that is still a resolution/an ending. Just like what I said about it being irrelevent that endings are happy/unhappy, being "worse" as you say is also irrelevent.

BW's story, on a broad level, is about Kerrigan's ascent and by it's end, this story resolves that premise. It goes one further than Sc1 though in that the ending is far more conclusive and definitive in that it establishes what appears to be a permanent change in status quo - that the Zerg are the undisputed winners and in an unassailable lead position. Nothing short of contrivance could justify a "realistic" continuation in which the Zerg do not come out on top. This is why BW feels like the end because anything else would just feel like either personal/subjective fancy, authorial intent or an excuse to continue for the sake of continuing/sequelitis. Course, I'm not denying your right for personal/subjective fancy to continue it (as I have been prone to doing that, too) but that is a different matter cos I'm talking about it on an objective level.


I don't know, you're kinda assuming a lot on their motivations. Of course a gaming company wants to make a franchise. It's pretty obvious with all the effort they made. That, and I remember reading somewhere that they wanted a change after Warcraft/Diablo.

If you've read anything about the development of Sc, it was troubled from the get-go. It was basically a reskinned Warcraft II when they first announced it and it got harsh initial reviews which led them to go back to the drawing board and redesign the thing from scratch. Even then, progress was slow and it was delayed multiple times. I'm pretty definite that all they were concentrating on at the time was making the game as good as it can be and hoping that their work was good enough to pass muster. The thoughts/presumptions of it going to be an instant hit and going on to generate sequels would've been secondary if not far from their minds when creating it at the time, I'd wager.


Mengsk being a crazyhead tyrant who would rather see his homeworld burned than ruled by anyone else is "fluff"? Protoss national tensions being unresolved is "fluff"? The fact that humanity still hates the Protoss for blowing up their planets is "fluff"? (And no, Raynor's Raiders doesn't count because it's just a small faction)

You'se a crazy boy. Jus crazy!

Hey, I did say they were interesting! I was being bluntly objective there. I know this may be hard for you... :D


If you feel that vanilla was more open-ended than BW, okay. Sure, why not? You appear to mean that vanilla could have gone in any direction at that point, and well, that's true. But the thing is, that's also true of every story -- the earlier a point in a story, the more options that given story has to do various wild and crazy things that become impossible later.

Yeah, but Sc1 is not and should not be thought of as the "beginning" of something (ie: a trilogy or many other expanded works). It should be seen as an isolated piece of work and in that it holds up (it don't mean its perfect now though, as some others will try to misconstrue this as).

Sc1 is more open-ended in that the status quo is back to normal and the sides being equalised to a degree albeit with massive damage incurred by all, but the story that it set out to tell is still complete in that the premise of the three side meeting each other and fighting to a standstill is achieved. Like I said earlier, you can even render the story of Sc even more simply as "baddies come and then they are defeated" and the story does indeed conclude as stated.


But all good stories have to end, and they have to resolve their problems.

Sc1 does this on a broad level. The "problem" you speak of in the isolated story of Sc is the existential threat of the Zerg. This problem is satisfactorily resolved with the death of the Overmind.


There was always going to be a point in the story where the Zerg are dominant. They are the least rational, relatable race, the one most bent on conquering and pwning all. Therefore, the highest state of tension exists when the Zerg are dominant. That's why I call BW the second act of a greater trilogy. BW ends at the darkest point, much like The Empire Strikes Back.

Yeah, but this already happened in Sc1. We have the Overmind campaign where it ends with the Overmind gloating that it's going to soon achieve its goal of obtaining enough power so that all will feel the wrath of the eternal Swarm!

In BW, the Zerg are not so much dominant insofar that it's Kerrigan who is dominant. Kerrigan's motivations are more understandable (she seeks power over others so that others cannot hold power over her), if not relatable or rational than the "true" Zerg (as represented by the Overmind). I get where Misla comes from in this regard in that the Zerg are not really Zerg anymore in BW though I'm not as militant in that sentiment as he is.


Also, though, the Zerg are not at their strongest in BW. Kerrigan is not as super powerful and dominant as you seem to think.

Nowhere in BW does it suggest any of this. The Zerg being apparently feral/weak is hearsay as all other indications say otherwise. Despite supposedly being weaker without the Overmind, they are able to become active threats on Shakuras (the home of the only true threat to the Zerg at the time), can reform the Overmind at will and still need a plot-device/Psi Disruptor to weaken them further.

Kerrigan is powerful as the author dictates in that she gets off scot free with her schemes and exibits levels of OPness in strategic warfare that rival the OPness of the feral Zerg on Shakuras culminating in the crowning achievement of the battle depicted in Omega.


Yeah, I know. Um, I haven't seen it yet (I absolutely do not wish to give that franchise any money at this point), but I've seen/heard enough reviews to know that they utterly trashed the characters and plot. Just like SC2.

Strangely enough, I'm one of those filthy outliers that actually didn't mind TLJ. I kind of inwardly grinned at all the subversion of expectation taking place in the movie and thought how funny the uproar would be from the fans when they saw it.


I never claimed to know you. Anyways, I'm just saying that I prefer no sequel to SC2, but I prefer a good sequel to both.

You're responding to a reply that was intended for Rag.



Then did you even see Blizzard was trying to leave room for a sequel at the end of BW?

You obviously haven't been following my posts before you make presumptions of me since I clearly acknowledged there were sequel hooks a couple of posts before (#44) and after (#49) your initial response (#48).

[Nissa]

I agree with the former but not the latter, especially when considering the former. Objectively, the story in Sc1 did what it set out to do. Sure, the story could go on, but it doesn't really need to. Endings to a story doesn't always imply that the fictional universe that it is set up in just disappears nor that one should feel it to be ok for it to just disappear at that end, they just mean that the current story set in that universe has finished.

Bear in mind that I was responding to your statement that claimed my emotional response was the basis for confirming that the story ended properly at SC1. The story hadn't finished, and whether or not I am okay with that fact has no bearing on the fact that the story wasn't finished.



Of these, Doctor Who is probably the most resilient and adaptive to changes, pandering and modernisation. Whilst most of these fictional universes are a product of the specific time in which they were made, part of Doctor Who's flexibility is in the in-built artifice of it being made into a product of any specific time.

All I'm saying is that DW is one of those shows that got ruined by the modern obsession of stating the writer's beliefs/being jokey rather than telling a good story.


But that is still a resolution/an ending. Just like what I said about it being irrelevent that endings are happy/unhappy, being "worse" as you say is also irrelevent.

You do know what I'm talking about, right? "Ending" as in an end to the current storylines, not "ending" as in the place where the writing stopped. Also, "worse" was not a statement of the quality of the ending, but a comment on the state of the K Sector -- there's tension in every single direction, nothing at all is resolved. If the end of BW is a real ending, then Star Wars could have just stopped at the end of The Empire Strikes Back, according to your logic, and everything would have been fine. Or LOTR could have stopped at the Two Towers. Or any given novelist could stop their story 2/3 of the way through.

The true end of a story is where the tensions are resolved to some degree to the point where the conflict between protagonist and antagonist can no longer continue. The protagonist is the one who propels the story by having goals, and the antagonist is the one who gets in the way of those goals. So long as the protagonist has goals and the ability/will to try for them and the antagonist has reason to stop those goals and has the ability/will to try and stop them, then the story isn't really over. Yes, Starcraft has many protagonists and antagonists, but the fact of the matter is, all of them still have the ability to act, and given that the survival of the races is what's at stake, and the survival of all races is threatened, then there is no rational, logical way of calling BW an ending.


BW's story, on a broad level, is about Kerrigan's ascent and by it's end, this story resolves that premise. It goes one further than Sc1 though in that the ending is far more conclusive and definitive in that it establishes what appears to be a permanent change in status quo - that the Zerg are the undisputed winners and in an unassailable lead position. Nothing short of contrivance could justify a "realistic" continuation in which the Zerg do not come out on top. This is why BW feels like the end because anything else would just feel like either personal/subjective fancy, authorial intent or an excuse to continue for the sake of continuing/sequelitis. Course, I'm not denying your right for personal/subjective fancy to continue it (as I have been prone to doing that, too) but that is a different matter cos I'm talking about it on an objective level.

I am not stating subjective feeling. It is an objective fact that at the end of BW Mengsk is driven by revenge and dominance, Raynor is driven by revenge, Kerrigan's rule over the Zerg is threatened by revenge/hybrids, the Protoss are on the brink of both internal and outer disaster, the hybrids are a massive wild card that can do anything, and we still don't know what Duran is capable of. All of these sources of tension are objective proof that the story isn't over. Unless, again, you think that LOTR could have ended with Sam trying and failing to save Frodo from the orcs that have captured him.



If you've read anything about the development of Sc, it was troubled from the get-go. It was basically a reskinned Warcraft II when they first announced it and it got harsh initial reviews which led them to go back to the drawing board and redesign the thing from scratch. Even then, progress was slow and it was delayed multiple times. I'm pretty definite that all they were concentrating on at the time was making the game as good as it can be and hoping that their work was good enough to pass muster. The thoughts/presumptions of it going to be an instant hit and going on to generate sequels would've been secondary if not far from their minds when creating it at the time, I'd wager.

Yeah, but no. The fact that they even tried proved that they wanted to. After all, they'd been pretty tired of working on Warcraft (as I've read) and wanting to do something different. Also, "I'd wager" is no basis for an objective argument. Saying that a concept is "far from their minds" of a large group of people with an inevitable variety of opinions is reaching. You can't know that for sure, and even if some of them weren't thinking of creating a world, it's only logical of any gaming company to want to produce a game-bearing franchise, because that means they get future work/profits. Speaking as someone who has been through business classes, you don't get to have a successful business if you're only thinking about the right now.




Hey, I did say they were interesting! I was being bluntly objective there. I know this may be hard for you... :D

Oh please, Mr. "The Story Ended at BW." There was plenty of tension left, plenty of untold stories left. Again, just because you call yourself objective, doesn't mean you are. :P



Yeah, but Sc1 is not and should not be thought of as the "beginning" of something (ie: a trilogy or many other expanded works). It should be seen as an isolated piece of work and in that it holds up (it don't mean its perfect now though, as some others will try to misconstrue this as).

Sc1 is more open-ended in that the status quo is back to normal and the sides being equalised to a degree albeit with massive damage incurred by all, but the story that it set out to tell is still complete in that the premise of the three side meeting each other and fighting to a standstill is achieved. Like I said earlier, you can even render the story of Sc even more simply as "baddies come and then they are defeated" and the story does indeed conclude as stated.

Uh, technically speaking it should be thought of as both a stand alone and a part one. Yeah sure, some books have planned-in sequels, but many good one part stories are ripe for sequels. That, and because there are sequels now, we do have to think about how it led into the others.




Sc1 does this on a broad level. The "problem" you speak of in the isolated story of Sc is the existential threat of the Zerg. This problem is satisfactorily resolved with the death of the Overmind.

Ah yes, because a feral, all-conquering, multi-world holding race with sentient blob cerebrates who have already gotten some Khaydarin crystals automatically disappears if the big baddie is gone. I didn't know you were such a big fan of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. :D



Yeah, but this already happened in Sc1. We have the Overmind campaign where it ends with the Overmind gloating that it's going to soon achieve its goal of obtaining enough power so that all will feel the wrath of the eternal Swarm!

In BW, the Zerg are not so much dominant insofar that it's Kerrigan who is dominant. Kerrigan's motivations are more understandable (she seeks power over others so that others cannot hold power over her), if not relatable or rational than the "true" Zerg (as represented by the Overmind). I get where Misla comes from in this regard in that the Zerg are not really Zerg anymore in BW though I'm not as militant in that sentiment as he is.

Well, you have to bear in mind that in SC1 the Zerg were dominating the Protoss, not everybody. Granted, them taking Aiur probably would have had really bad consequences for everyone, but that was just Aiur at that point.

Hm...maybe you have a point with that, I don't know. That's really the inherent trouble with the Zerg as a race -- they are a reflection of whoever happens to be leading them at the time. As much as you say the Zerg are basically Kerrigan in BW, the Zerg are basically the Overmind in SC1, if you think about it. Beasts aren't really in charge of their own fate. That's one of those topics that can be taken in many different ways, and in a proper ending to the SC1 story arcs, the Zerg would go from Kerrigan's to some other, hopefully interesting state.




Nowhere in BW does it suggest any of this. The Zerg being apparently feral/weak is hearsay as all other indications say otherwise. Despite supposedly being weaker without the Overmind, they are able to become active threats on Shakuras (the home of the only true threat to the Zerg at the time), can reform the Overmind at will and still need a plot-device/Psi Disruptor to weaken them further.

Yeah sure, they're "active threats", but that doesn't mean that they're the be-all, end all. And the fact that people can even make a psi distruptor to take over the junior Overmind basically proves that the Zerg weren't all that.

But uh, sorry, I misspoke. I meant primarily to say that Kerrigan specifically wasn't the invincible person many here have claimed she was. I didn't mean to refer to all the Zerg in general.


Kerrigan is powerful as the author dictates in that she gets off scot free with her schemes and exibits levels of OPness in strategic warfare that rival the OPness of the feral Zerg on Shakuras culminating in the crowning achievement of the battle depicted in Omega.

She is not OP. She tricked other people into fighting for her, weakening all factions in the process. In the Protoss missions, all she does (as far as using her own forces goes) is pick up some Zerg on Char to help the 'Toss get the Khalis, fight by herself to get the Uraj, and use a few Zerg to kill Aldaris, because Zer and Artie have already done the bulk of the work for her. She basically just put the minimal amount of effort in to insure that her desires were the ultimate outcome. She then allowed the Protoss to destroy the Zerg on Shakuras, because those Zerg are her rivals.

In the Terran missions, she allows the UED to weaken Mengsk and gets Duran to manipulate the UED into stupid things (and not to mention, fails to stop the UED from getting the psi disruptor). She might have used some Zerg to cover Raynor and Fenix's escape, but there is no proof that those (or at least some of them) weren't other, non-affiliated Zerg factions. Given her need for the psi emitters in the Zerg missions, it's a fair likelihood that this is the case. Kerri then throws some forces at the UED at the end of the Terran missions, but this appears to be done for dramatic effect, and possibly represents her failure to stop them from getting the Overmind.

In the Zerg missions, Kerri gets Raynor, Fenix, and Mengsk to do her dirty work, uses psi emitters instead of her own abilities to gain more Zerg, and thus retakes a Korhal that was already previously weakened by the UED. She uses Zeratul to destroy the Overmind in the hands of a weakened UED. Her primary personal achievements are killing some scientists and killing her own allies, and killing some stray Protoss. Then of course, you have the fight at the end against the three allies she had previously weakened. That, to me, was her only real achievement. She fought long and hard...but remember where she fought. On Char. With homefield advantage, on a world the Zerg and no other race was adapted to, against weakened foes. And as much as she pretended to Mengsk's face that she was confident, right before she came on, she was panicking because Duran picked up and left and she wasn't ready for an invasion.

Kerri didn't conquer the entire K Sector. She gained control of the Zerg, weakened her enemies, and managed to survive an attack that could have put an end to everything right there. There are still human and Protoss planets out there. There are still people who hate her. As much as her pause was motivated by her emotions, Kerri's Zerg half surely would have realized that the Zerg too need time to recoup the cost of her conquest.




Strangely enough, I'm one of those filthy outliers that actually didn't mind TLJ. I kind of inwardly grinned at all the subversion of expectation taking

Lol, that's not fan enjoyment, that's troll enjoyment. Hey, if that's how you get your kicks. :D It's fine. I too don't care all that much about Star Wars, except as a reflection of the state of writing in general.



You obviously haven't been following my posts before you make presumptions of me since I clearly acknowledged there were sequel hooks a couple of posts before (#44) and after (#49) your initial response (#48).

Boy does sir like to assume. I did see that you mentioned "sequel hooks." My argument is that the game has more than sequel hooks, but a real level of tension that required its questions to be answered.

[Turalyon]

The story hadn't finished, and whether or not I am okay with that fact has no bearing on the fact that the story wasn't finished.

You keep saying that the story wasn't told without saying what or how it wasn't told. You're effectively saying that Sc1 had no story because it was incomplete, which has no basis in reality.


All I'm saying is that DW is one of those shows that got ruined by the modern obsession of stating the writer's beliefs/being jokey rather than telling a good story.

I wouldn't say "ruined" since it's always moving with and adapting to the times - it's the reason why it's lasted so long. Also, you can't really peg DW as one thing or another because it's all these things at different times. At it's core, it's a show about adventure and wonder and it still manages to capture this.


"Ending" as in an end to the current storylines, not "ending" as in the place where the writing stopped.

There was an end to the storyline - everyone got trashed and Kerrigan came out on top. The story was about Kerrigan's ascent and it was resolved when she got to the top. The writing didn't just stop midway through a build-up or climax. There was no cliffhanger. The future was made clear from that point such that it was unnecessary to continue the story further.


If the end of BW is a real ending, then Star Wars could have just stopped at the end of The Empire Strikes Back, according to your logic, and everything would have been fine. Or LOTR could have stopped at the Two Towers. Or any given novelist could stop their story 2/3 of the way through.

Hmmm. We clarified that Sc1 was not the first of a series nor that can we presume it at the time, so how can you then presume BW to be a second part of a series, or rather specifically a trilogy? Because there's now two entries, you can surmise it must end on a third one? Why not a fourth or tenth or a hundredth? How and where do you draw the line? I look at stories first as standalone - to literally see if it can stand alone. If this story happens to be a sequel, I can then see if there's justified continuance but I never take this above the story being able to standalone by itself. Unless it's telegraphed ubiquitously throughout the story, nowhere would I expect a story to be purposefully incomplete/needing another story to complete it which is what you're saying BW is and that's not just true. BW's story is very simple - it's about Kerrigan and how she goads everyone into a position of power - and it fulfills this to a tee. The consequences of which being more definitive and conclusive than even Sc1.


The true end of a story is where the tensions are resolved to some degree to the point where the conflict between protagonist and antagonist can no longer continue. The protagonist is the one who propels the story by having goals, and the antagonist is the one who gets in the way of those goals. So long as the protagonist has goals and the ability/will to try for them and the antagonist has reason to stop those goals and has the ability/will to try and stop them, then the story isn't really over. Yes, Starcraft has many protagonists and antagonists, but the fact of the matter is, all of them still have the ability to act, and given that the survival of the races is what's at stake, and the survival of all races is threatened, then there is no rational, logical way of calling BW an ending.

In BW, the main protagonist is Kerrigan because everything about BW swirls around and dovetails back to her (for good or ill). The antagonists just happen to be everyone else. The story of BW is complete.


It is an objective fact that at the end of BW Mengsk is driven by revenge and dominance, Raynor is driven by revenge, Kerrigan's rule over the Zerg is threatened by revenge/hybrids, the Protoss are on the brink of both internal and outer disaster, the hybrids are a massive wild card that can do anything, and we still don't know what Duran is capable of.

All these are tangential to the story that BW presents. The Protoss were hardly relevant to BW and could be ignored altogether except for being roflstomped further by Zerg that are supposed to be weaker than before. There purpose was only to strengthen Kerrigan. Mengsk, and Raynor can scheme and fume as much as they want - they can't really contest against Kerrigan. The Hybrids/Duran are a non-entity in their importance to the story that is BW as they are only relevent as a blatant and secret sequel hook which can be excised without one being none the wiser. Nothing short of artifice (which the Hybrids are - and purposefully inserted to bait a sequel since that is their only true role) can justify a continuance from BW that doesn't have Kerrigan just kill everyone before they can do anything against here.


Also, "I'd wager" is no basis for an objective argument.

Duh, I said that specifically because I wasn't stating that as an objective argument. I also said "pretty definite" which suggests I was making an opinion there.


Uh, technically speaking it should be thought of as both a stand alone and a part one. Yeah sure, some books have planned-in sequels, but many good one part stories are ripe for sequels.

Most sequels are really only necessary on an economic level. They're rarely necessary on a creative level since they thrive on nostalgia, familiarity and pandering to the base. Just because something was good the first time around, doesn't mean it will be a second time


Well, you have to bear in mind that in SC1 the Zerg were dominating the Protoss, not everybody.

If the greatest race that stands the best chance of fighting them are being dominated, it may just as well be "everybody".


That's really the inherent trouble with the Zerg as a race -- they are a reflection of whoever happens to be leading them at the time. As much as you say the Zerg are basically Kerrigan in BW, the Zerg are basically the Overmind in SC1, if you think about it.

Not quite. I don't see Kerrigan as a Zerg but a troubled human using the Zerg for her own ends. The Zerg lost their identity with the death of the Overmind, so they're nothing in BW except a plot device to be fought over and controlled.


Yeah sure, they're "active threats", but that doesn't mean that they're the be-all, end all. And the fact that people can even make a psi distruptor to take over the junior Overmind basically proves that the Zerg weren't all that.

You sure? Feral/unco-ordinated cerebrates are able to successfully lay siege and overcome a world that is teeming with the only weakness the Zerg ever knew (DTs) and yet can't be gotten rid of without a magical superweapon. Why couldn't just Dark Templar use tactics on these supposedly feral cerebrates to kill them? Z managed to do it on the Zerg staging world of Char without too much trouble. As to the Psi Disruptor, it should be unnecessary as the Zerg are supposed to be already unco-ordinated and weak, even with a baby Overmind but nope, need a super weapon for that, too. :rolleyes:


She is not OP.

She is OP via author conceit. All her plans go off without a hitch and rely on people being stupid and doing nothing/having no contingencies against her. Why do they let her escape after she confesses and gloats to the Protoss after she murders Aldaris? Why is Mengsk lampshading the possibility of her treachery yet have no plans of his own and then be actually surprised later when she betrays him? That the Zerg are weak in their feral state only being hearsay didn't help either.


In the Zerg missions, Kerri gets Raynor, Fenix, and Mengsk to do her dirty work, uses psi emitters instead of her own abilities to gain more Zerg, and thus retakes a Korhal that was already previously weakened by the UED. She uses Zeratul to destroy the Overmind in the hands of a weakened UED. Her primary personal achievements are killing some scientists and killing her own allies, and killing some stray Protoss.

The Protoss are decimated on Shakuras following their narrow escape with a magic temple and she further brings ruin by destroying a power centre on their planet afterward and by mopping up the rescue force sent to retrieve their matriarch. It's such a blow that the Protoss can only show up in force right at the end. She beats the Protoss force that is eventually mustered against her - heaven knows how long it took for the Protoss to get that up and what it cost them to do so. The Protoss have lost their matriarch and have suffered a blow physically and to their morale. She is now in a greater position of strength than the Protoss since they can't regenerate like the Zerg.

She destroys the UED by using Mengsk's and Raynor and then killing all their forces as well after that. She has a distinct advantage over Mengsk's and Raynor's forces. She then eventually beats the remaining UED force that is bolstered by the captured neo-Overmind and its Zerg through pure force. The UED force is the strongest remaining force at the time. She then goes on to beat them even when 3-on-1.


Then of course, you have the fight at the end against the three allies she had previously weakened. That, to me, was her only real achievement. She fought long and hard...but remember where she fought. On Char. With homefield advantage, on a world the Zerg and no other race was adapted to, against weakened foes.

Most of her forces were still on Char. She was able to best the mightiest armies her enemies could throw at her at the time, with just a small force. That's OP.

[QUOTE=Nissa;207053]Lol, that's not fan enjoyment, that's troll enjoyment. Hey, if that's how you get your kicks. :D It's fine. I too don't care all that much about Star Wars, except as a reflection of the state of writing in general.

Schadenfreude was only a small part. I actually enjoyed the subversions taking place because it was something different and unexpected from a SW movie.

[Mislagnissa]

Depends on what one qualifies as "good". Most people tend to think WoL is the best story of Sc2 when it really has the most confused, meandering narrative and a weak plot that is driven by artifice when compared to the later two. There was obviously something that was satisfying/"good" in that story for people to judge it more favourably. I am pretty sure that may be attributed to the way the minor characters are written. While Raynor and Mengsk are not particularly believable, everyone else is.


This implies that the story was written to have a resolution/no intent to have sequels. It doesn't matter if SC1 was never intended to have sequels. It does now, they suffered sequelitis, a reboot is the cure. I have explained this many, many times already.


Why does the determinant plot not paying off somehow cancel the initial intent and motivation of going there in the first place? What's important about the determinant is not the objective thing (whatever shape it's supposed to take) itself, but the motivation it instills in the Overmind to take action/invade Terran space. Anyhow, the determinant plot never paying off should actually be a good thing since if it ever is achieved, then the Zerg will well and truly have no further motivation to focus their efforts on them.Not true. The manual states that the zerg eradicate those species they have no use for and that they eat the biospheres of entire planets to fuel their war machine. They will never let humanity rest easy until every human is infested or dead and every habitable world has been stripped of biomass.


This brings me back to my back-in-the-day fanon theory of the Overmind not actually being killed on Aiur. I had thought the Overmind was not restricted being in one-body given that it was bodiless and what was actually destroyed in Sc1 and BW was just one (of many) large control node that allowed the Zerg to connect and communicate over vast interstellar distances in some huge network (with the Overmind being the network/cloud rather than some single entity contained in a body). My fanon reason for why it landed on Aiur was to act like a beacon to rally all the other Zerg that were spread out looking for Protoss or finding other races to assimilate to this point.Great story, bro! (That is not sarcastic by the way. I am serious that this makes way more sense than canon. I have used similar ideas in my notes.)


It's hard for the Protoss to fight each other because in the current state we see them in, they've got the Khala (as a doctrine) and their adherence to it that stops such conflict. The Khala is not a hive mind any more than tumblr is. The protoss can fight each other if they have sufficient reason.


Aldaris may be an antagonist but he's hardly an unambiguous villain. Part of why Sc1 is so often recognised as being "grey", is that the heroes or villains presented are anything but simply just that. The game actually gives no reason for us to doubt Aldaris' POV - he's fully justified in his convictions despite his manner. I do not think his characterization was executed very well. I thought Syndrea from Insurrection was a lot more interesting in her execution, and not just because the voice acting was hammier in general.

[ragnarok]

It doesn't matter if SC1 was never intended to have sequels. It does now, they suffered sequelitis, a reboot is the cure. I have explained this many, many times already.


And I keep telling you while there were certainly problems with the whole prophecy problem it didn't make the whole SC2 storyline utter BS. Now if Blizzard changes their mind and does reboot the whole thing, that's fine too, but you're not going to change their minds for them

[Turalyon]

I am pretty sure that may be attributed to the way the minor characters are written. While Raynor and Mengsk are not particularly believable, everyone else is.

Eh, the characters themselves are pretty bland and cardboard archetypes: Swann, the dependable engineer guy; Stetmann, the silly mad scientist guy; Horner, the all-business, straight-arrow guy; Hansen the damsel in distress and Tosh, the cool dark (both physically and metaphorically) guy. I think what sold it was that, despite the cheesiness of a few, some of the cinematics did pack some quality drama in them. There were great one-shots but they were all kinda isolated and didn't cohere to an overriding narrative.


It doesn't matter if SC1 was never intended to have sequels. It does now, they suffered sequelitis, a reboot is the cure.

Nah, the cure is to just let it die. Just like Sc1 was never intended to have sequels and suffers sequelitis when a sequel is made, Sc1 doesn't really need a reboot either since it's adequate as it is. Rebootitis is starting to become a thing these days, too, you know.


Not true. The manual states that the zerg eradicate those species they have no use for and that they eat the biospheres of entire planets to fuel their war machine. They will never let humanity rest easy until every human is infested or dead and every habitable world has been stripped of biomass.

In terms of priority, that's low tier. The determinant is only important as a step to assist the Zerg assimilate the Protoss (it's current and main goal). Once they have that, they won't bother wasting any more energy and time fighting the otherwise worthless and useless Terrans since they can now and rather go straight for the main prize, the Protoss, instead. Mind you, that's not to say they won't wipe them out later/eventually...


Great story, bro! (That is not sarcastic by the way. I am serious that this makes way more sense than canon. I have used similar ideas in my notes.)

Thanks. It was mainly motivated by my wanting the Zerg to stay the way they always are (since I thought they had the strongest identity as race compared to the others). It helps explain why it was done only when it discovered the location of Aiur and makes the choice of exposing itself seem less frivolous. I'm a little divided about the idea now though since the Zerg can't really change with Overmind still there since the race is largely complete and inert in terms of trying to develop them. Having it die does open the Zerg up to some new possibilities - like evolving on its own without a single overriding will. This is what my idea of what BW should've been more about - how the Zerg adapt with the loss of the Overmind and away from needing this connection (which will allow them to remain disconnected if the Zerg Overmind ever found its way back - yay for Zerg factions). You could have them justifiably fighting each other now without the Overmind and you could even still have Kerrigan there in a much diminished role, controlling her own circle of Zerg for her own ends. I remember kind of wishing that the threat that Kerrigan was musing over at the end of BW, was perhaps the idea of the Overmind Zerg finding its way back because of the beacon idea I mentioned did succeed in calling the extended Zerg Swarm despite its short-lived connection to the network.


The Khala is not a hive mind any more than tumblr is. The protoss can fight each other if they have sufficient reason.

I said it's difficult for them not impossible. The Aeon of Strife was started because they could choose to go away from the Psi-link. The Protoss can still choose to opt out of the Khala, but they do so at the risk and knowledge of potentially inciting another Aeon of Strife. This informs their sense of community but also their general stubbornness, resistance to change and religious-like adherence to the Khala. It's because they willingly choose to be part of the Khala for fear of the alternative leading to another Aeon of Strife that makes it hard to justify Protoss vs Protoss unless it's against DT - those who choose to be outside and are the embodiment of those that started the Aeon of Strife.


I do not think his characterization was executed very well.

To each their own. His character is supposed to be the unlikeable arsehole (which is harder to pull off effectively than the likeable arsehole) but he is understandable in his motivation and actions. Better yet, he even undergoes some character development at the end of Sc1 where he is genuinely contrite after being shown the error of his ways. Let's not talk about how he is in BW though....

[Mislagnissa]

And I keep telling you while there were certainly problems with the whole prophecy problem it didn't make the whole SC2 storyline utter BS. Now if Blizzard changes their mind and does reboot the whole thing, that's fine too, but you're not going to change their minds for themPretty much everyone who thinks it over agrees the SC2 story is terrible, even people who otherwise like the game and do not compare it to SC1. It is full of plot holes, cliches, idiot plots, and general bad writing.

If Starcraft 3 does happen, the amount of retcons Blizzard makes to it would be so great that it might as well be a reboot. Just look at what they did to Warcraft: it started out as orcs from another planet invading the human kingdom, and now the most recent entry is about Satan and Lucifier's fleet of death stars fighting Galactus and Hellstar Remina. I wish I was joking, but that is an accurate summation of modern Warcraft lore.

I seriously doubt the UED will be the main antagonist of SC3, and even if they are I fully expect that they will be retconned into the pawns of another surviving xel'naga who is set up to be an even bigger threat than Amon ever was. Or, I don't know, everything will be yet again retconned so that the xel'naga were actually the pawns of an older race, fighting with demons, creations of the protoss/zerg rather than the other way around, or something else similarly absurd and unnecessary that pulls the IP even further from its roots.


Nah, the cure is to just let it die. Just like Sc1 was never intended to have sequels and suffers sequelitis when a sequel is made, Sc1 doesn't really need a reboot either since it's adequate as it is. Rebootitis is starting to become a thing these days, too, you know.Not true. The Voltron reboot is awesome. It suffers some from being made for a general audience rather than an older audience, but it hearkens back to the halcyon days when animation could tell mature storylines.

[Nissa]

You keep saying that the story wasn't told without saying what or how it wasn't told. You're effectively saying that Sc1 had no story because it was incomplete, which has no basis in reality.

Holy crap, Tura, learn to read context! The only reason I brought up emotions is because you used an emotional statement of mine to support your false logic that my emotion proved that vanilla had a proper ending. This is a conversation, so the posts I put relate to one another. I'm not just saying random crap in every post!



I wouldn't say "ruined" since it's always moving with and adapting to the times - it's the reason why it's lasted so long. Also, you can't really peg DW as one thing or another because it's all these things at different times. At it's core, it's a show about adventure and wonder and it still manages to capture this.

Theoretically, this is true. However, the writing has really gotten bad of late, and the misandry of the show is a real turn-off.


There was an end to the storyline - everyone got trashed and Kerrigan came out on top. The story was about Kerrigan's ascent and it was resolved when she got to the top. The writing didn't just stop midway through a build-up or climax. There was no cliffhanger. The future was made clear from that point such that it was unnecessary to continue the story further.

No cliffhanger? The Protoss factions being in turmoil isn't a cliffhanger? Kerrigan destroying the UED expedition force, and thus provoking Earth isn't a cliffhanger? Mengsk and Raynor swearing revenge isn't a cliffhanger? The HYBRIDS aren't a cliffhanger?

I can't really continue this discussion if you are this disconnected to reality.

[ragnarok]

Pretty much everyone who thinks it over agrees the SC2 story is terrible, even people who otherwise like the game and do not compare it to SC1. It is full of plot holes, cliches, idiot plots, and general bad writing.

If Starcraft 3 does happen, the amount of retcons Blizzard makes to it would be so great that it might as well be a reboot. Just look at what they did to Warcraft: it started out as orcs from another planet invading the human kingdom, and now the most recent entry is about Satan and Lucifier's fleet of death stars fighting Galactus and Hellstar Remina. I wish I was joking, but that is an accurate summation of modern Warcraft lore.

I seriously doubt the UED will be the main antagonist of SC3, and even if they are I fully expect that they will be retconned into the pawns of another surviving xel'naga who is set up to be an even bigger threat than Amon ever was. Or, I don't know, everything will be yet again retconned so that the xel'naga were actually the pawns of an older race, fighting with demons, creations of the protoss/zerg rather than the other way around, or something else similarly absurd and unnecessary that pulls the IP even further from its roots.


For the die hard fans you can argue that, for those who didn't invest so much in it, I agree they'd say there's plot hole problems, but they won't be so extreme. As for what you said about WC, I wouldn't know because I never got into that universe.

[Turalyon]

Holy crap, Tura, learn to read context! The only reason I brought up emotions is because you used an emotional statement of mine to support your false logic that my emotion proved that vanilla had a proper ending. This is a conversation, so the posts I put relate to one another. I'm not just saying random crap in every post!

Ok then, where is your non-emotional statement/evidence that supports your position that the story is not complete/not have a proper ending? I've already stated my position without using emotion to say that the story has a proper ending, whereas you've yet to do the same. The only thing you've mentioned in support of the notion that Sc1 doesn't have a proper ending is because stuff/the characters can still go on and that there are sequel hooks, which don't really have a bearing because they're not necessary to comprehend/understand the story that has already been laid out for us.


However, the writing has really gotten bad of late, and the misandry of the show is a real turn-off.

You speaking of the recent/Capaldi's era here? I dunno, DW's writing is generally all-over the place (just look at the originals) because the stories are often written by different people/anthological in nature but I didn't mind the recent era because the actor behind the 12th (or 13th if you want to get picky about the lore) had a lot more skill and gravitas to carry it than the previous one (Smith) - who was admittedly a good doctor but was straddled with stories that didn't really stretch the actor or were embroiled with plot shenanigans/plots being "too clever and a half".


No cliffhanger?

Yes, in relation to the story that BW was telling. It's not left hanging that Kerrigan's ascension is questionable or doubtable. You're taking my statement of having no cliffhanger out of its context.


The Protoss factions being in turmoil isn't a cliffhanger?

Nope. They were hardly present (as in their presence wasn't necessary or their story could be excised altogether) in the story of BW and weren't really relevant beyond being a stepping stone for Kerrigan's ascension. BW ends with them being massively weakened even more than before Sc1, so their future is grim at best since Kerrigan is going to make sure she'll never let anyone oppose her again. Due to how curbstomped they are throughout BW, there's no suspense about the possibility of Protoss surviving (beyond plot artifice to save them) because they are doomed.


Kerrigan destroying the UED expedition force, and thus provoking Earth isn't a cliffhanger?

Nope, the UED presence was completely wiped out leaving no-one to contact Earth about its demise. It says so in the epilogue text. This is one of the bad things about the UED implementation in the story. Unlike the Zerg who made an impact despite their defeat in Sc1, the UED leave no legacy of their passing after BW concludes. The one thing of note they did do is erased (dethroning Mengsk) because Sc2 makes Mengsk emperor again and the Dominion is unscathed like it was before the UED came. It's as if we can ignore or forget the UED ever existed really.


Mengsk and Raynor swearing revenge isn't a cliffhanger?

Only to ultimately die horribly at Kerrigans hands if they ever tried most likely (unless we have artifice to save the day - or rather an artifact to be precise). Not much of a cliffhanger.


The HYBRIDS aren't a cliffhanger?

They are a secret that is only known right near the end if at all and don't really count as being part of the story that BW tells (which is about Kerrigan's ascension) nor does it have any bearing on the story it tells either. They're just there as a blatant sequel hook/ excuse for a sequel.

[sandwich_bird]

Technically speaking, if you go by the definition of cliffhanger which is how Tura wants to approach it, the only real sort of cliffhanger there is in BW is that last sentence in the epilogue talking about Kerrigan feeling "something" and how she'll eventually resume the war. In all honesty, it's hardly one. So I guess I'd agree that there is no real cliffhanger but there are definitely many points of interest that could warrant a sequel or a spin-off such as the one mentioned by Nissa. Whether you believe that they're enough to make another game well that's completely subjective.


I'm not sure I like these ideas that the story must be told in specific ways or with specific types of endings. It doesn't matter as long as it's generally entertaining. Unless we want to start talking about maximizing entertainment for a target audience...

[Mislagnissa]

I agree with Tura that the sequels were generally unnecessary since the original clearly was not written with sequels in mind. A sequel hook was present, but the narrative was effectively over with and any sequels would be inferior since the story ended with the destruction of a potentially universe-ending villain.

That is why I advocate for a reboot of the story that returns to the roots of the franchise as a three-sided battle royal. Instead of bland fights between good and evil for the fate of the universe every single week, focus on the morally ambiguous motivations of the factions and how this organically brings them into conflict. The zerg invade as part of their plan, the protoss try to stop them, the terrans are caught in the middle, consciences are tested, allies and enemies are made, and the story is an anthology series about the commanders that organize the battles against a backdrop of interstellar war.

Writing is not rocket science.

[ragnarok]

Writing is not rocket science.

No, but it's impossible to satisfy everyone. Put it this way Mislagnissa: let's pretend Blizzard allowed you to write your version of SC2 after the events of BW. You really think you'd produce a story so great that NO ONE on the planet will give any criticism towards it?

[Turalyon]

So I guess I'd agree that there is no real cliffhanger but there are definitely many points of interest that could warrant a sequel or a spin-off such as the one mentioned by Nissa.

My point was not about denying that sequels and spin-offs are possible, just that the story can be seen as satisfactorily whole/complete/resolved with all that we did get.


I'm not sure I like these ideas that the story must be told in specific ways or with specific types of endings.

That's not what I'm getting at with Nissa though. She denies that the story in Sc1 can be considered complete, whereas I disagree and was trying to explain how it could be seen that way due to how it's told.

[Mislagnissa]

No, but it's impossible to satisfy everyone. Put it this way Mislagnissa: let's pretend Blizzard allowed you to write your version of SC2 after the events of BW. You really think you'd produce a story so great that NO ONE on the planet will give any criticism towards it?

Of course not. Firstly, nobody is perfect and I am sure that even if my story was free of retcons and plot holes then somebody would find some kind of fault with it. Secondly, I would not have written a plot for SC2 because the foundation is shot and a reboot going back to basics is the only thing that I would enjoy.

The problem is that Blizzard is just bad at writing. They never plan their plots in advance, they never adhere to consistent rules, and they never think about how events would rationally work out. They just make things up as they go along and hope nobody will notice the glaring plot holes and characters acting like lunatics.

The story of Starcraft simply does not make sense due to a lack of internal consistency and there is no possible way to rationalize it, especially if you start from first principles.

Amon's backstory simply makes no sense.

Blizzard expects us to believe that the xel'naga never had any internal conflict until suddenly in this cycle when Amon built an entire cult around himself.
Amon tries to break the infinite cycle by making it happen faster rather than killing the xel'naga and erasing the universe, which is the exact same insane troll logic used by the reapers in Mass Effect who prevent robot wars by starting robot wars.
The xel'naga wrote a prophecy, with murals and visions and everything, predicting that Amon would kill them then Kerry would kill him. They do absolutely nothing to stop him and Amon never once realizes that following the prophecy leading to his own death is a bad idea.
Amon suffers the same problem as Kerry in BW, in that all of his accomplishments are due entirely to writer fiat rather than any actual work on his part.
Amon just stole his shtick from the Overmind, but the Overmind was a better villain because he had rational motivations.
There is no actual explanation for how Amon killed all the other xel'naga despite them all being immortal and capable of single-handedly tearing planets apart, he just does.
There is no explanation for what happened to Amon's followers other than Duran, they just stop existing off-screen. In fact, after reading the wiki I've concluded that they were actually made up by the writers in interviews to fill the plot holes afflicting the plot.
Much like the Overmind, Amon is defeated by a cheap deus ex machina rather than any work on the part of the writers.
There is no logic to Amon's death and resurrection. The explanation we get contradicts the explanation of how xel'naga immortality works: xel'naga actually exist in the void and their bodies in our universe are just projections. There is no point at which Amon should have been dead, and if he was then it would be permanent.
Kerry breaks the infinite cycle by fulfilling and continuing it. For no apparent reason, the new generation of xel'naga depicted in the Evolution novel have none of the traditional xel'naga powers. In fact, most of them are killed off even though logically their souls in the void should be unharmed.
Amon has the ability to control anyone connected to the Khala, even though that makes no sense. The khala is just high bandwidth telepathy with a limited range, and it isn't a hive mind because the protoss are not engineered that way like the zerg are (even then, the zerg hive mind has an IFF system which prevents just any telepath from hijacking it). Even if we use the really stupid excuse that his emotions are so strong that the protoss cannot help but empathize with him over their own self-preservation, what is he using to ensure that the khala is being broadcast across the galaxy? The range is so short that the Field Manual explicitly states that protoss ships have to be lined with multiple relay points to let the crew communicate. Logically speaking, if Amon can broadcast the khala across the galaxy then he should just be able to use dark archon mind control on everyone in the galaxy at once and win instantly.


I really do not understand how you can just ignore these problems just because SC2 was your first introduction to the narrative universe. SC2 was basically my first introduction too because I don't really remember playing SC1 as a kid and even then I still dismiss the entirety of the games as inferior to the story I imagined after reading the SC1 manual two decades after it was written. The lore is pointlessly convoluted and the wiki pages sound like the delusional ravings of a madman.

[sandwich_bird]

That's not what I'm getting at with Nissa though. She denies that the story in Sc1 can be considered complete, whereas I disagree and was trying to explain how it could be seen that way due to how it's told.

Yeah I got that but I was going back to when Nissa said SC +BW would have been better of if it followed a 3 act structure . Even if we assume that BW was incomplete, it's not necessarily a bad thing. For example, if you imagine an Indiana Jones ending where, after killing the bad guy and saving the day, he leaves to go find some new lost treasure or whatever, I think the majority of people wouldn't feel dissatisfied with such an ending even if there's never a sequel that flesh out the story of the bait. Normalcy in that universe includes constant random adventures. I guess for the bait to be satisfying, it needs to not bring new expectations.

If we go back to BW, the hybrids definitely bring in new expectations so I wouldn't consider this a "good incomplete ending". They and Duran are a huge breakaway from the expected new normalcy of the universe. The only saving grace of this plot line is that it's hidden in a secret mission. This greatly lessen the impact of it. It's like when movies put their baits after the credits.

[ragnarok]

I really do not understand how you can just ignore these problems just because SC2 was your first introduction to the narrative universe. SC2 was basically my first introduction too because I don't really remember playing SC1 as a kid and even then I still dismiss the entirety of the games as inferior to the story I imagined after reading the SC1 manual two decades after it was written. The lore is pointlessly convoluted and the wiki pages sound like the delusional ravings of a madman.

I'm not a die hard SC fan. I may have played SC1 and BW before SC2, but I was young and wasn't interested in RTS games (well, technically still am not, but you get my point). I didn't really invest much into it. Even after WoL was out I still didn't. It was only after speaking with some people online for what should happen after WoL (this was before any info for HotS was out) that I thought about writing my own fic, and as I began writing it, I had to look at the SC wiki for lore info and realized the universe was much deeper than I thought. Only then did I begin to invest more into it (but it's still not hardcore).

This goes back to what I was speaking to GNA on: that if you only got deeper into the universe via the SC2 lore and THEN looked back at SC1 and BW, you may not be as critical of the SC2 storyline.

And besides I take what was given unless it goes COMPLETELY whack (like what happened in Tiberium Twilight)

[Mislagnissa]

I'm not a die hard SC fan. I may have played SC1 and BW before SC2, but I was young and wasn't interested in RTS games (well, technically still am not, but you get my point). I didn't really invest much into it. Even after WoL was out I still didn't. It was only after speaking with some people online for what should happen after WoL (this was before any info for HotS was out) that I thought about writing my own fic, and as I began writing it, I had to look at the SC wiki for lore info and realized the universe was much deeper than I thought. Only then did I begin to invest more into it (but it's still not hardcore).

This goes back to what I was speaking to GNA on: that if you only got deeper into the universe via the SC2 lore and THEN looked back at SC1 and BW, you may not be as critical of the SC2 storyline.

And besides I take what was given unless it goes COMPLETELY whack (like what happened in Tiberium Twilight)

SC2 is absurd even without being compared to SC1. I thought it was absurd long before comparing it to its predecessors. I am critical of the writing because it is bad. It is full of plot holes, inconsistencies, idiot plots, deus ex machina, lack of basic logic and all the other hallmarks of bad writing.

It astounds me that you are unable to recognize bad writing. If you want to write, you need to be able to recognize bad writing. Otherwise your writing will make the same mistakes.

Tell me, if you had to rewrite the story from the very beginning so that everything is consistent with the latest retcons, then do you think events would have turned out remotely the same?

Short answer: no, they wouldn’t.

The xel’naga wrote a prophecy explaining that Amon would rebel and kill them all. They decorated their own tomb with murals depicting him killing them in the future. How does that make any sense at all? Why would you ever think any of it makes sense?

The story falls apart the moment you try to think how anything fits together. If you really believe the story makes sense, then explain to me Amon actions prior to the Great War in excruciating detail from his own perspective without contradicting the nonsensical backstory given by the game and while remaining perfectly logically consistent.

[ragnarok]

Tell me, if you had to rewrite the story from the very beginning so that everything is consistent with the latest retcons, then do you think events would have turned out remotely the same?

Short answer: no, they wouldn’t.

The xel’naga wrote a prophecy explaining that Amon would rebel and kill them all. They decorated their own tomb with murals depicting him killing them in the future. How does that make any sense at all? Why would you ever think any of it makes sense?


As I see it back in SC1 Blizzard didn't really want to explain the Xel'Naga because they were supposed to be extinct, but there might have been those who wanted to know more about them by SC2. Personally I felt they could have appeared via flashbacks and that's enough or something like that.

As for the murals on their tomb, let's just it's their way of getting others to eventually figure out what happened, and the threat Amon posed. Unfortunately, that didn't explain how they were supposed to stop Amon. In fact the only reason we got some more info out of it all was because Rohana refused to server her chords for so long.

Now, on the whole bad writing part, Blizzard made inconsistency problems, I knew that since HotS. I merely trying to piece together what they wrote and fill in the gaps as best I can (though this should have been their job). For the whole "your writing will make the same mistakes," every fic will inevitably be flawed in some way. You can make it as consistent as you want, but ultimately there will be people who'd see there were things you didn't explain in your fic.

If you think that qualifies as "Deus Ex Machina" BS....

[Turalyon]

Yeah I got that but I was going back to when Nissa said SC +BW would have been better of if it followed a 3 act structure . Even if we assume that BW was incomplete, it's not necessarily a bad thing. For example, if you imagine an Indiana Jones ending where, after killing the bad guy and saving the day, he leaves to go find some new lost treasure or whatever, I think the majority of people wouldn't feel dissatisfied with such an ending even if there's never a sequel that flesh out the story of the bait. Normalcy in that universe includes constant random adventures. I guess for the bait to be satisfying, it needs to not bring new expectations.

If we go back to BW, the hybrids definitely bring in new expectations so I wouldn't consider this a "good incomplete ending". They and Duran are a huge breakaway from the expected new normalcy of the universe. The only saving grace of this plot line is that it's hidden in a secret mission. This greatly lessen the impact of it. It's like when movies put their baits after the credits.

I dunno. Given how the status quo is clearly shifted toward how (over)powerful the Zerg are depicted as in the end of BW where not even a team-up can defeat them, any realistic/natural continuation from this is dire and pointless... unless some new expectation (like the hybrids) is introduced to balance things out again. By being forced to do that, it'd feel more and more enmeshed in sequelitis - the need to continue for the sake of continuing/to pander the fanbase/to get to a "preferred" ending - rather than a natural sequel.

[drakolobo]

I always saw a portrait of nostalgia addicts in void legacy, you are the ones who cling to the glorified past Aiur or Khala
every time Artanis talks about not clinging, I imagine he speaks to you, "everything to cling to an ideal, maybe irretrievable" "Aiur is our past, but will it be our future?" "Rohana free from the past and enter this new era"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqE-aJPcTmk

what was the thread theme?:rolleyes:

[Gradius]

If we're nostalgia addicts, why do we think Covert Ops > LoTV > WoL > HoTS? The order the games came out has nothing to do with their quality. Obviously you don't understand how nostalgia works. I can be nostalgic for a cartoon I watched when I was a kid and recognize that the writing sucks; something you seem to be incapable of doing to SC2 due to...what? Fanboyism?

[Turalyon]

Eh, when you think about it, the appeal of and the conceit for any sequel, prequel or reboot is the author preying/capitalising on the nostalgia of some aspect that came originally/first/before.


I always saw a portrait of nostalgia addicts in void legacy, you are the ones who cling to the glorified past Aiur or Khala
every time Artanis talks about not clinging, I imagine he speaks to you, "everything to cling to an ideal, maybe irretrievable" "Aiur is our past, but will it be our future?" "Rohana free from the past and enter this new era"

Yeah, I am kinda nostalgic for the days when SC was more creatively interesting and open to interpretation rather than having its themes brow-beaten into me like it is now. Sucks to me I guess. :p

[Mislagnissa]

If we're nostalgia addicts, why do we think Covert Ops > LoTV > WoL > HoTS? The order the games came out has nothing to do with their quality. Obviously you don't understand how nostalgia works. I can be nostalgic for a cartoon I watched when I was a kid and recognize that the writing sucks; something you seem to be incapable of doing to SC2 due to...what? Fanboyism?


Eh, when you think about it, the appeal of and the conceit for any sequel, prequel or reboot is the author preying/capitalising on the nostalgia of some aspect that came originally/first/before.



Yeah, I am kinda nostalgic for the days when SC was more creatively interesting and open to interpretation rather than having its themes brow-beaten into me like it is now. Sucks to me I guess. :p

When I first played SC1 years and years ago I never noticed the bad writing, but as an adult being effectively introduced to the series for the first time I can easily notice the bad writing afflicting the games from their genesis. I am not going to say am I not blinded by nostalgia, but I am humble enough to admit that the franchise has always had writing problems. The manual provided a decent basis for an IP, pretty bare bones but serviceable, expandable and more importantly open-ended to support a multimedia anthology franchise in the military scifi genre (similar to the 40k that it ripped off, but much less crazy, smaller scale and political drama focused). It boggles my mind that each of the games butchered everything that preceded it and destroyed what potential the original premise had for a deep and believable narrative universe.

Only the licensed expansions Insurrection and Retribution really explored the potential of StarCraft as an anthology franchise, and the lack of budget and experience is painfully obvious. I still wonder what they could have been in better hands.

[drakolobo]

If we're nostalgia addicts, why do we think Covert Ops > LoTV > WoL > HoTS? The order the games came out has nothing to do with their quality. Obviously you don't understand how nostalgia works. I can be nostalgic for a cartoon I watched when I was a kid and recognize that the writing sucks; something you seem to be incapable of doing to SC2 due to...what? Fanboyism?

in reality it is very easy to explain covert ops , it was the narrative and structure more similar to the narrative of original starcraft specifically to the narrative (aspect already indicated by you), activating nostalgic sensors, legacy of void delo would be in the number one of Your list of jeje;).covers ops was good but it was not to put it on a pedestal.
Fanboyism?
starcraft 2 missed opportunities, there are plot holes yes, are bad writing? this is more reduced to subjective criteria I have simply observed that people reject because they expected the same feeeling dark and cynical universe,and perpetuation of concepts, while each campaign in sc 2 offered a different perspective to the original
*that the terran campaign offers an cowboy adventure narrative of the tragic past hero redeemed fought against adversity ending with the hero walking towards the sun, the zerg campaign a story of revenge (I emphasize emotionally the perpetual debate villain kerrigan does not deserve redemption offers that some people seem to lack the experience of different types of personalities and the psychological impact of past dependency experiences (I have seen people who miss the conduct of raynor or kerrigan when toxic relationships show the high tolerance of people to couples that do not suit them))you do not have to think if it's fair or not the story ends when the bad end bites the dustas raw as life. the campaign protoss an experience of an epic a epopeya mortals against gods , that exactly emphasizes questioning the past even the most sublime believes that it can be a lie that they avoid change. each of them are valid experiences.


The main mistake is not being able to understand that different types of narratives can exist in the same universe as well as a comedy and tragedy can be contextualized in real life a raw history and a compelling story both can coincide. an intimate story and an ahistory about the nature of the universe, the universe of starcraft is not to marry a style as a director as snyder has a way of telling other directors account in another way, without the difference they do bad writing only different, and the anchoring in archetype of the past limits the analysis of the frames
I remember that the previous talk about how the dragons worked was very interesting:cool:

[Gradius]

Yes, I get the themes of the games and they're still sub-par. Raynor and Kerrigan getting whatever they want is childish. Maybe SC1 was darker, but at least it had an aspect of realism that adults could relate to, unlike SC2 with dragonball z battles, Gods fighting each other and Raynor (the most honest man in the universe according to Metzen) being in love with the person who murdered his best friend and billions of other people. It's embarrassing that this came from a AAA game studio.

I'd say the aspects of SC2 where they tried to appeal to nostalgia were among some of the worst:
- Replacing the Dominion every game as the top dogs when they should have been defeated and another faction taken their place was stupid.
- Bringing back Tassadar and then retconning that as a lie by Ouros ended up being stupid.
- Bringing back Stukov was cringeworthy. Everyone was confused by his presence.
- Bringing up the Overmind and bringing back the Primals instead of making something new just pissed everyone off because the whole manual ended up getting retconned, not to mention that Dehaka ended up being a terrible character.

Fenix and re-using the psi emitters was good or at least had nothing wrong with it, but Blizzard appears to have kept replacing the writing staff until they got better towards the end. I felt zero nostalgia with Fenix, Artanis, Tassadar, The Overmind, Kerrigan or Zeratul. They look, sound, and act nothing like the characters they were based on, but ok.


there are plot holes yes, are bad writing? this is more reduced to subjective criteria
Translation: Blizzard please take my money.

Would love to hear what your "objective criteria" are, which so far boil down to having a narrative type/theme. Which means basically every story is good according to you. Which implies you would gobble up pretty much anything Blizzard excretes because you can't tell the difference between professional writing and hot garbage.

Nostalgia is a feeling. Fanboyism is mostly a bias.

[Turalyon]

*that the terran campaign offers an cowboy adventure narrative of the tragic past hero redeemed fought against adversity ending with the hero walking towards the sun

There is definitely adventure in WoL's campaign, but there's no real plot or narrative. It arbitrarily starts with Raynor who is down and out after four years "struggling" against Mengsk only to miraculously turn things around and then some all because he got angry at Mengsk calling him a criminal on TV. He then goes about doing odd jobs (in which his war against the Dominion/Mengsk ultimately turns out to be as well) and is then handed "redemption" through a plot device when he wasn't really looking, expecting nor asking for it. The only important plot missions are the artifact ones (since they lead to the ending where Kerrigan is deinfested) and they're nothing more but a shopping list of chores with no real story or thematic weight behind them.

[sandwich_bird]

, it was the narrative and structure more similar to the narrative of original starcraft specifically to the narrative (aspect already indicated by you), activating nostalgic sensors

Starcraft 2 is good in a saturday morning cartoon kind of way sure. It delivers the kind of stuff you would want out of this type of entertainment. That doesn't make it quality writing though. It's like if a fancy restaurant chain suddenly started serving you McDonald. Yeah I like the cheeseburger but I was expecting filet mignon and you can't convince me that the burger is of a higher culinary caliber than what we had before. It's not nostalgia goggle, it's being offered something that we didn't want branded under the same name.

[Mislagnissa]

I heard someone else put it this way: instead of focusing on the world they built and its potential for storytelling (http://www.milsf.com/), the writers of Starcraft chose to make it a soap opera focused entirely on Kerry (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlackHoleSue) and the people relevant to her.

[ragnarok]

I heard someone else put it this way: instead of focusing on the world they built and its potential for storytelling (http://www.milsf.com/), the writers of Starcraft chose to make it a soap opera focused entirely on Kerry (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlackHoleSue) and the people relevant to her.

Because there were those who wanted redemption for her. I've read the SC fanfics on that topic LONG before Blizzard even started thinking about the SC2 storyline. If only they knew how to properly implement the whole concept.

[Mislagnissa]

Because there were those who wanted redemption for her. I've read the SC fanfics on that topic LONG before Blizzard even started thinking about the SC2 storyline. If only they knew how to properly implement the whole concept.

The person I was paraphrasing, as well as myself, were not talking about "redemption." How did you ever get that impression? We were discussing how QoB took over the franchise from her introduction in Episode 2 onward and how this was a bad thing. Redemption arcs are irrelevant because she was always a poorly written character.

Let me rephrase my last post so that you do not misinterpret it again: Blizzard built an expansive setting for military scifi stories. They had three sub-galactic empires fighting for the fate of the galaxy and it was a great opportunity. Rather than continuing in the vein of a political drama and gritty war narrative and so forth... they decided to focus on a psychotic Mary Sue literally written as an afterthought and force the narrative of the entire setting to contort around her at the expense of everything else that was vastly more interesting. They killed off the Overmind so she could take over. They killed off the UED to show off how cool she was. They handed her a deus ex machina so she could defeat the next generic bad guy. All of that was bad writing.

It should not be possible for you to misunderstand anything I say anymore since I spent the past year waxing poetic about how much I hate QoB since her birth and how I think the franchise should be rebooted back to basics without her in it. The franchise is called StarCraft, not The Adventures of Kerry. If you want to write Kerry-centric fanfiction then make a new franchise solely about her rather than turn StarCraft into a farce. StarCraft should be a military scifi political drama about three races fighting for morally grey reasons, not a romantic comedy soap opera about a cartoonish supervillain and her equally cartoonish boyfriend.

[Gradius]

They’re not really fighting over the galaxy though, just a small section of space. The UPL was way more “galactic” than all the races combined.

[Mislagnissa]

They’re not really fighting over the galaxy though, just a small section of space. The UPL was way more “galactic” than all the races combined.

The zerg and protoss were galactic powers prior to retcons. The zerg stripped the biospheres of countless planets and the protoss claimed many hundreds of worlds. The UPL had no stated territories beyond the solar system until they were retconned into colonizing Koprulu deliberately.

[Gradius]

The zerg didn't stay at each planet though, they just went in a straight line to the k-sector. All the broods combined in the manual didn't even add up to 15 million. The protoss conquered hundreds of worlds "in their corner of the galaxy" but that might not even be enough to conquer a whole star cluster (of which our galaxy has like 150). And the Protoss watched over each planet per the Dae'Uhl, so it's not like they had a thriving civilization on each one.

You could easily argue that the conflict in StarCraft all takes place within one star cluster, which is impressive but not exactly "galactic". Yeah, the UPL could have been wracked by war and never expanded, but the manual didn't exactly imply that. Instead the Koprulu terrans built up giant empires from three UPL seed ships, which implies that the UPL population and empire was pretty scary in comparison by that point and could have actually been "galactic" or at least far more numerous than the zerg or protoss (15 million zerg is kind of a joke; we have 7 billion humans).

[ragnarok]

It should not be possible for you to misunderstand anything I say anymore since I spent the past year waxing poetic about how much I hate QoB since her birth and how I think the franchise should be rebooted back to basics without her in it. The franchise is called StarCraft, not The Adventures of Kerry. If you want to write Kerry-centric fanfiction then make a new franchise solely about her rather than turn StarCraft into a farce. StarCraft should be a military scifi political drama about three races fighting for morally grey reasons, not a romantic comedy soap opera about a cartoonish supervillain and her equally cartoonish boyfriend.

You might as well have spent the last year saying how since SC1 everything had been so crappy the developers should be locked in the insane asylum for doing a job that drug ridden monkeys could do better. Some of us are not as critical.

[Mislagnissa]

The zerg didn't stay at each planet though, they just went in a straight line to the k-sector. All the broods combined in the manual didn't even add up to 15 million. The protoss conquered hundreds of worlds "in their corner of the galaxy" but that might not even be enough to conquer a whole star cluster (of which our galaxy has like 150). And the Protoss watched over each planet per the Dae'Uhl, so it's not like they had a thriving civilization on each one.

You could easily argue that the conflict in StarCraft all takes place within one star cluster, which is impressive but not exactly "galactic". Yeah, the UPL could have been wracked by war and never expanded, but the manual didn't exactly imply that. Instead the Koprulu terrans built up giant empires from three UPL seed ships, which implies that the UPL population and empire was pretty scary in comparison by that point and could have actually been "galactic" or at least far more numerous than the zerg or protoss (15 million zerg is kind of a joke; we have 7 billion humans).

Those calculations are narratively absurd and contradict other parts of the manual.

The zerg consumed countless planets for countless millennia before making a beeline to Koprulu once their probes found humans. The protoss claimed an 8th of the many thousands of worlds across the galaxy supposedly once claimed by the xel’naga. “Corner” in this context implies they claim at least one contiguous quadrant of the galaxy, not some tiny obscure fiefdom.

The military organizations listed in the manual were not intended to represent the entirety of their civilizations. The zerg used many billions of warriors as ammunition against the xel’naga ships. The protoss obviously had far more than six tribes.

Furthermore, the population numbers are not consistent between different sources. In the manual Koprulu was limited to a single star system of over a dozen colonized planets, a la Battlestar Galactica.

[Gradius]

Those calculations are narratively absurd and contradict other parts of the manual.
No, you’re confused or misinterpreting the manual as usual. I’m just quoting basic astronomy and numbers from the manual.


The zerg consumed countless planets for countless millennia before making a beeline to Koprulu once their probes found humans. The protoss claimed an 8th of the many thousands of worlds across the galaxy supposedly once claimed by the xel’naga. “Corner” in this context implies they claim at least one contiguous quadrant of the galaxy, not some tiny obscure fiefdom.
What is this quadrant stuff? That’s not from the manual. The protoss have hundreds of worlds, which is a medium sized star cluster. It could be spread out over more than one, but that’s less likely and wouldn’t make as much sense.


The military organizations listed in the manual were not intended to represent the entirety of their civilizations. The zerg used many billions of warriors as ammunition against the xel’naga ships. The protoss obviously had far more than six tribes.
Wat? Where is this from? You can’t just make stuff up... :rolleyes:

“Billions” of Zerg are from SC1, but the manual paints a different picture.


Furthermore, the population numbers are not consistent between different sources. In the manual Koprulu was limited to a single star system of over a dozen colonized planets, a la Battlestar Galactica.
Theres nothing to imply it was like BSG. The stars in BSG were insanely close. In SC, the colonies were isolated until they developed warp drives. I feel like you’re confusing star system and solar system.

[drakolobo]

the manual specifies that the main broods, nothing omits other secondary that as already stated there are many cerebrates that do not deserve a name, and the billions comes from the death counter of the UED in broodwar in char after death in prevous wars(AIur tarsonis for exmples)

[Mislagnissa]

No, you’re confused or misinterpreting the manual as usual. I’m just quoting basic astronomy and numbers from the manual. Please stop saying this. I am not confused and I am not misinterpreting the manual. I have always interpreted the manual more or less literally even though I think the numbers have always been questionable. I have drawn conclusions and made predictions based on the manual, such as that the zerg's intent is to assimilate humans into psyolisks or whatever just like they do for other species they consume. You personally disagree with everything I say for reasons that mystify me.


What is this quadrant stuff? That’s not from the manual. The protoss have hundreds of worlds, which is a medium sized star cluster. It could be spread out over more than one, but that’s less likely and wouldn’t make as much sense.

Here are the relevant quotes from the manual:

"Although only fragmented documentation remains, ancient Protoss texts speak of a highly advanced race that ruled over thousands of worlds in the galaxy, tens of millions of years ago. "

"Over the course of only a few hundred years, the Protoss conquered hundreds of worlds within their corner of the galaxy, and spread the fruits of their great civilisation to many of the more advanced races that they encountered. All in all, the Protoss inadvertently succeeded in reclaiming an eighth of the worlds once presided over by the Xel’Naga."

"But, much like the Xel’Naga many millennia before, the Protoss kept their presence hidden from the lesser races in their care. Many hundreds of species grew and thrived on the various worlds within their space, never knowing that they were secretly guarded from on high."

So it is reasonable to assume they hold at least a thousand worlds (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/starcraft-source-thread.230914/page-2#post-8397962).

There is no reason to assume that all these planets are right next to each other. Since the protoss have FTL, they can skip all the boring distance between their holdings. It is entirely possible that most of the space they officially claim is unexplored. If you take "their corner of the galaxy" literally, then it could easily refer to a quadrant of the galaxy.

However, the single most telling statement is "hundreds of species". Based on the context, I assume these are meant to be intelligent species at the very least capable of language. Assuming that intelligent species are rare since we rarely see any, then that means the protoss empire extends across at least many thousands of habitable worlds much less uninhabitable worlds.

In any event, the exact numbers are not important and I doubt the author really thought them through. The intent is that the protoss hold a massive galactic empire and are the most powerful civilization in the galaxy.


Wat? Where is this from? You can’t just make stuff up... :rolleyes:

“Billions” of Zerg are from SC1, but the manual paints a different picture.

The manual states "Although there is very little known about the different Broods that comprise the Zerg Swarms, some Terran scientists have attempted to document and classify a few of the larger Broods that have ransacked their colonies." The six broods listed in the manual do not represent the entirety of zerg forces.

The zerg burned through countless worlds (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/starcraft-source-thread.230914/page-2#post-8398101) over countless millennia, stripping them of all resources. At the very least, it means the swarms are arbitrarily large or beyond the ability of human minds to keep track of.

The exact numbers are not important and I doubt the author thought them through. The intent is that the zerg are a galactic power that could rival the protoss if not for their inferior military. Why is their military inferior? Because the protoss may warp reality using their psychic powers and technology. The zerg need to assimilate a race with similar potential, like humans, before they can stand a chance.


Theres nothing to imply it was like BSG. The stars in BSG were insanely close. In SC, the colonies were isolated until they developed warp drives. I feel like you’re confusing star system and solar system.

The manual states: "Eventually, the warp-drive engines of the four supercarriers reached critical meltdown. After twenty-eight years of warp travel, the huge ships emerged into real space near the edge of a habitable star system. Some 60,000 light years from the Earth, their engines destroyed and their life-support batteries nearly exhausted, the ships engaged their emergency protocols and plummeted towards the nearest habitable worlds in the system."

The Confederacy, Umojans and Morians were originally located in the same system. It is not stated if the system has one star or multiple stars, but that distinction is academic. However, the naming schemes of several planets in manual (Tyrador IX, Dylar IV) suggests that terrans have colonized multiple systems. I suspect that this is a mistake due to poor proofreading (since the author's ideas clearly changed over the course of development), and that the three power blocs are meant to be in separate systems.

BSG had the twelve colonies based in a multi-star system.

[Gradius]

I have drawn conclusions and made predictions based on the manual, such as that the zerg's intent is to assimilate humans into psyolisks or whatever just like they do for other species they consume.
But you can't treat a predication like that as fact, which you do.


So it is reasonable to assume they hold at least a thousand worlds (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/starcraft-source-thread.230914/page-2#post-8397962).
No. It says right there how many they have:

"the Protoss conquered hundreds of worlds "

If the Xel'Naga would have about 10000 worlds (thousands), then the protoss have about 1200 (hundreds). The manual is pretty consistent about this. Nowhere does it say the protoss have thousands. If the Protoss had thousands, it would have said so, and it would have said the Xel'Naga have tens of thousands. But it doesn't.


There is no reason to assume that all these planets are right next to each other.
I never said they are.


Since the protoss have FTL, they can skip all the boring distance between their holdings. It is entirely possible that most of the space they officially claim is unexplored. If you take "their corner of the galaxy" literally, then it could easily refer to a quadrant of the galaxy.
Yeah, it could. It could also be in a single star cluster. But you're the one who keeps saying the protoss are "galactic" so you need to provide evidence. Merely saying "they could" is not evidence of anything. And even if they were spread out so far apart, they still don't actually control the worlds in between and therefore still aren't anywhere near "galactic". So I really don't get your logic here.


However, the single most telling statement is "hundreds of species". Based on the context, I assume these are meant to be intelligent species at the very least capable of language. Assuming that intelligent species are rare since we rarely see any, then that means the protoss empire extends across at least many thousands of habitable worlds much less uninhabitable worlds.
wtf?

- why are you assuming they're all intelligent? It doesn't say so anywhere. Stop inserting words that don't exist into the manual.
- Earth has millions of species. You can't use this figure to extrapolate the number of planets...


The intent is that the protoss hold a massive galactic empire and are the most powerful civilization in the galaxy.
A star cluster can contain thousands of planets, so no, it could very well be (and is more likely) that the protoss only hold a single star cluster and the UPL controls more planets than they do. The manual doesn't even actually mention other colonies with cities/civilizations on them; all it says is that the protoss watch other species in secret. There's no proof of this "galactic protoss empire" in the manual.


The manual states "Although there is very little known about the different Broods that comprise the Zerg Swarms, some Terran scientists have attempted to document and classify a few of the larger Broods that have ransacked their colonies." The six broods listed in the manual do not represent the entirety of zerg forces.
Except that if Fenris and Baelrog brood with it's 5000 & 6000 zerg is one of the "larger broods" then that's pretty damn small and not really helping your case or implying that the zerg are "galactic"...


The zerg burned through countless worlds (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/starcraft-source-thread.230914/page-2#post-8398101) over countless millennia, stripping them of all resources. At the very least, it means the swarms are arbitrarily large or beyond the ability of human minds to keep track of.
1. ShadowArchon is not a valid source. Quote me the manual only since that's what your bible is.
2. The manual says the terrans consume the resources of a whole planet. Doesn't say that about the zerg.
3. No it does not mean that. It means they've been invading planets for a long time. The manual implies the swarm all moved together as one instead of lingering at each conquered planet.


The exact numbers are not important and I doubt the author thought them through. The intent is that the zerg are a galactic power that could rival the protoss if not for their inferior military.
You haven't proven that they're galactic at all though, just that the zerg traveled across the galaxy over thousands of years. What makes you think the author didn't think the numbers through? They seem to make sense to everyone but you.


The manual states: "Eventually, the warp-drive engines of the four supercarriers reached critical meltdown. After twenty-eight years of warp travel, the huge ships emerged into real space near the edge of a habitable star system. Some 60,000 light years from the Earth, their engines destroyed and their life-support batteries nearly exhausted, the ships engaged their emergency protocols and plummeted towards the nearest habitable worlds in the system."

The Confederacy, Umojans and Morians were originally located in the same system. It is not stated if the system has one star or multiple stars, but that distinction is academic. However, the naming schemes of several planets in manual (Tyrador IX, Dylar IV) suggests that terrans have colonized multiple systems. I suspect that this is a mistake due to poor proofreading (since the author's ideas clearly changed over the course of development), and that the three power blocs are meant to be in separate systems.

BSG had the twelve colonies based in a multi-star system.
I mean, they can be a light year apart and have multiple stars in the system, but that's not exactly helping your case. It just makes the Koprulu terrans look like a joke compared to the zerg and protoss, and definitely nowhere near "galactic".

You're saying the manual set the stage for this giant galactic never-ending war, except that if that's the case the Koprulu terrans wouldn't even be in the game.

[drakolobo]

Except that if Fenris and Baelrog brood with it's 5000 & 6000 zerg is one of the "larger broods" then that's pretty damn small and not really helping your case or implying that the zerg are "galactic"...


no "Tiamat is the largest and most powerful Brood within the extended Swarm". powwith 6.5 million fenris and baelrog are brood specialist
and the point is that there are many more brood than those mentioned in the manual that would equate to elite forces with specific paper and discounted that the numbers of cerebrate or brood was determined and at least another 5 minors are mentioned and thus remains open the existence of many moreerful Brood within the extended Swarm."
there are more unknown strangers in addition to the 6 mentioned in the manual

[Gradius]

no "Tiamat is the largest and most powerful Brood within the extended Swarm". powwith 6.5 million fenris and baelrog are brood specialist
and the point is that there are many more brood than those mentioned in the manual that would equate to elite forces with specific paper and discounted that the numbers of cerebrate or brood was determined and at least another 5 minors are mentioned and thus remains open the existence of many moreerful Brood within the extended Swarm."
there are more unknown strangers in addition to the 6 mentioned in the manual
Ok? I never said there weren't more. The point is that the manual says the broods listed are some of the largest (ones with only 5000). Yeah, there could be more, but even if there's a hundred more Tiamat broods the zerg still wouldn't have a billion, let alone billions (just going off the manual).

[Turalyon]

I have always interpreted the manual more or less literally even though I think the numbers have always been questionable.

Isn't this just an admission that you interpret things that support your preference (confirmation bias) though? Grad does have a point. You question the numbers (low millions at most for the apparently largest brood) of the Zerg broods because it doesn't meet your preference for the Zerg being a "galactic power" whilst on the other hand, don't doubt that the number (hundreds) of worlds that the Protoss conquered doesn't necessarily mean they are a "galactic power" (they could just watch them or left them to their original inhabitants as part of their Dae'Uhl but considered them as part of their territory, afterall) because you prefer to see the Protoss' feats as being something that only a "galactic power" can do.

[Mislagnissa]

Isn't this just an admission that you interpret things that support your preference (confirmation bias) though? Grad does have a point. You question the numbers (low millions at most for the apparently largest brood) of the Zerg broods because it doesn't meet your preference for the Zerg being a "galactic power" whilst on the other hand, don't doubt that the number (hundreds) of worlds that the Protoss conquered doesn't necessarily mean they are a "galactic power" (they could just watch them or left them to their original inhabitants as part of their Dae'Uhl but considered them as part of their territory, afterall) because you prefer to see the Protoss' feats as being something that only a "galactic power" can do.

We are all biased if that be the case. The manual is annoyingly vague and sometimes inconsistent, which isn’t helped by the inconsistencies and retcons introduced by the games and expanded universe materials. I interpret things differently from Gradius, but that doesn’t make him more right.

I certainly have difficulty articulating myself. Long story short, I interpret the zerg and protoss as galactic powers who sent token forces to Koprulu sector.

[Gradius]

You’re in a rough spot though because I feel like you want SC to be like WH40k and it’s clearly not.

[Turalyon]

Long story short, I interpret the zerg and protoss as galactic powers who sent token forces to Koprulu sector.

Ok then, if we consider this you have to consider Grads other point. How would you reconcile this interpretation with the continued existence of the Terrans and maintenance of this three-way tussle when the Terrans are not a "galactic power"? The manual seems to position the Terrans as being the weakest and most limited in terms of power and scope, so we can't use any vagueness of the manual to even interpret the Terrans as being a galactic power. It's all easy and good to say their tenacity will see them through, but if you're trying to do an "honest" interpretation of what you have in the manual, then that's an "unrealistic" handwave just like any other established conceit that's been contrived to have them engage each other on the first place. The Zerg will never be able to capture any psionics from the Terrans/gain their determinant because if they do, by your interpretation, they'd be "realistically" wiped out and easily done so. The manual may suggest a three-way war but it doesn't necessarily suggest that they're equal or that the status-quo will/should be maintained.

[Mislagnissa]

You’re in a rough spot though because I feel like you want SC to be like WH40k and it’s clearly not.

I do not think I ever wanted that. WH40K has a ridiculous scale where countless planets are lost due to rounding errors in the bureaucratic process. StarCraft was always much smaller. I like having the Koprulu wars be a smaller scale thing with dozens of worlds in the balance rather than millions because that is impossible for my limited mind to comprehend.

That said, StarCraft has always maintained a pretense of galactic significance even if the execution ended up botching that by making single characters or planets responsible for the fate of the observable universe. On the '96 website the terrans and protoss were both implied to hold large territories. The terrans, for example, held Earth, Tau Ceti and the Koprulu sector.

The SC1 manual had a much smaller scale of "over a dozen" planets in the Koprulu "sector". The three terran homeworlds of Umoja, Moria and Tarsonis were located in the same star system. The naming of some planets with Roman numerals suggested that either this system had multiple stars or that the terrans expanded to nearby systems.

But back to another point I had which you have not addressed to my satisfaction: why do you think the zerg would not create new breeds derived from terran genes? How else do you think they would make use of the determinant?

I made that assumption based on the zerg's past behavior. When they encounter new species with useful traits, they assimilate those traits. This can range from the species' basic body plan being used as a chassis (which is what the "core genus" refers to) or splicing useful traits into existing breeds. Not only that, but the zerg selectively breed their creations to maximize their potential. Obviously they cannot create new traits on demand this way otherwise they would never assimilate other species to acquire new traits, but as we know from domesticating and breeding animals on Earth this can create dramatic changes in gross anatomy (e.g. compare the Chihuahua with the Saint Bernard).

For example, during development of SC2 the infestor, swarm host and blightbringer all derived from the same development path. The blightbringer model was the one reworked into the infestor and swarm host models. You can see a clear resemblance.

Therefore, it stands to reason that the zerg would apply the same experimentation to the terrans. There are loads of possibilities for this: e.g. breeds with a terran core genus, breeds with terran genes added to a different core genus, or breeds created by conjoining multiple terrans for that extra bit of body horror.


Ok then, if we consider this you have to consider Grads other point. How would you reconcile this interpretation with the continued existence of the Terrans and maintenance of this three-way tussle when the Terrans are not a "galactic power"? The manual seems to position the Terrans as being the weakest and most limited in terms of power and scope, so we can't use any vagueness of the manual to even interpret the Terrans as being a galactic power. It's all easy and good to say their tenacity will see them through, but if you're trying to do an "honest" interpretation of what you have in the manual, then that's an "unrealistic" handwave just like any other established conceit that's been contrived to have them engage each other on the first place. The Zerg will never be able to capture any psionics from the Terrans/gain their determinant because if they do, by your interpretation, they'd be "realistically" wiped out and easily done so. The manual may suggest a three-way war but it doesn't necessarily suggest that they're equal or that the status-quo will/should be maintained.

Yes, the Koprulu war is contrived and always has been. What matters is whether you can convince the audience to suspend disbelief with sufficiently palatable reasoning.

The forces present in the Koprulu sector are contrived to be roughly balanced against one another as in game play, barring plot powers like psi-disruptors and the carriers' planet-glassing laser. If the terrans got their act together, they could repel the alien threat (this is stated in the Liberty's Crusade novel).

The zerg and protoss are not going to invest undue amounts of resources in this conflict. The conflict with the terrans is not a real war to them: it is a harvest or pest control.

The narrative has always flip-flopped over how seriously the protoss empire took the threat of the zerg prior to the invasion of Aiur, but we can assume this is considered pest control as far as their civilization is concerned. The terran sympathizer faction dragged the conflict out by forcing the templar to fight the zerg conventionally so that the terrans may be protected. The callous purifier faction made things worse when judicators like Syndrea decided to start a civil war that weakened their forces against the zerg and terrans.

The zerg are going to focus on acquiring the determinant, but after getting it they are not suddenly going to dedicate their resources to exterminating the terrans. Most of their resources will be focused on preparing the swarms to invade the protoss empire. The games and expanded universe may have trivialized the time it takes for them to research and develop new weapons (Shadow of the Xel'naga depicted the zerg infesting a domestic dog and then mass cloning it into an army of what were essentially banelings within what could not have been more than a few days), but for the purposes of storytelling we can assume the time is whatever we need to tell a good story of how they made their new weapons. Whatever broods remain to continue the harvest of Koprulu's biospheres will not be those of strategic importance.

[Turalyon]

The forces present in the Koprulu sector are contrived to be roughly balanced against one another as in game play, barring plot powers like psi-disruptors and the carriers' planet-glassing laser. If the terrans got their act together, they could repel the alien threat (this is stated in the Liberty's Crusade novel).

Aren't you basing it solely on the manual though? If you were, the Terrans were never contrived, implied nor suggested to be anywhere near a level playing field with either the Zerg or the Protoss. If the Zerg and Protoss are assumed galactic powers, the K-sector Terrans cannot also be assumed to be the same. They're isolated, have fewer numbers and nowhere near the raw power as any of the two, as suggested by the manual.


The zerg and protoss are not going to invest undue amounts of resources in this conflict. The conflict with the terrans is not a real war to them: it is a harvest or pest control.

That's because both of those races know they can curbstomp the Terrans at any time. It kinda undermines the whole "3 equal sides battling each other" shtick you're supposedly aiming for doesn't it?


The narrative has always flip-flopped over how seriously the protoss empire took the threat of the zerg prior to the invasion of Aiur, but we can assume this is considered pest control as far as their civilization is concerned. The terran sympathizer faction dragged the conflict out by forcing the templar to fight the zerg conventionally so that the terrans may be protected. The callous purifier faction made things worse when judicators like Syndrea decided to start a civil war that weakened their forces against the zerg and terrans.

I agree with the first point about the Protoss' estimation of the threat the Zerg posed. Not sure about your reimagining/rebooting of New Gettysburg as the Terrans "forcing" the Protoss templar to fight the Zerg though, since I can't imagine the Terrans having any influence of any kind on the Protoss based on what we get solely from the manual. It makes more sense if there was a defector in this callous purifier faction as represented in the Sc1 we did get in the form of bleeding-heart, Tassadar. I'm also not sure about foisting the blame of the civil war on the Judicators as it renders it too simplistically and not so different from what we did get (afterall, you do view Aldaris as nothing more than two-bit villain - which I disagree on). I've always liked to consider Tassadar as the reason for why the Protoss are in such a pickle as they become are in Sc1. If he had followed orders from the get-go, the Zerg could've (not would've mind you) been more manageable as in the Zerg may never have had enough time to find their determinant due to their infestation of Terran worlds be speedily responded to with purification fire. Tassadar was the one to then enlist the DT, a cultural sore-spot that has never healed, and bring them back at a time of an unprecedent crisis (an alien invasion of their world!), so it's really he that started the civil war if anything. Can one still consider Tass a "hero" if all he really did was just fix up the mess that he himself had a part in creating?


The zerg are going to focus on acquiring the determinant, but after getting it they are not suddenly going to dedicate their resources to exterminating the terrans. Most of their resources will be focused on preparing the swarms to invade the protoss empire.

I used this very same argument to counter a previous position you stated in another thread in which you denied the very same thing you're saying now because the Zerg would further "purify the strains" by destroying the now useless race they encountered after acquiring what they wanted from them. Sounds like you're back-flipping... :confused:

[Mislagnissa]

You misunderstood a few of my points.

The forces currently present in Koprulu are balanced against one another as in gameplay. Gameplay trumps lore. Consider the Vietnam war, where the USA lost against an inferior force despite having nukes at the time. Same principle applies here. There may be extreme decadence and arrogance inhibiting otherwise competent leaders.

By “terran sympathizer” I mean the protoss who sympathize with the terrans, e.g. Tassadar and Andraxxus. You are parsing the grammar wrong and I don’t know how to better articulate it. Maybe if we spoke Latin...

I don’t like how the narrative shrunk the scale so that one person was key to a entire empire’s conflict. War is more complicated than that, but history books have to condense things. The writing of that whole plot definitely could have used more work.

The zerg will still have broods exterminating the terrans, but it won’t be the important conflict. We don’t spend our military budget on pest control or mining, after all.

[Gradius]

why do you think the zerg would not create new breeds derived from terran genes? How else do you think they would make use of the determinant?
It could be integrated to every Zerg strain instead of making a new breed specifically. It could be used for a battlefield commander like Kerrigan to cripple enemy morale.

But infested humans were never promised in the manual. The only thing the manual said was that the Overmind was afraid of the protoss military and there are other ways to get around it. Looking for Terran psychics is just an excuse for the races to meet up.

[Turalyon]

The forces currently present in Koprulu are balanced against one another as in gameplay. Gameplay trumps lore.

Thought you were invoking gameplay-story/lore segregation given that most of your grief with Sc1 is in regard to the story/setup not matching between the manual and the story in the game.


Consider the Vietnam war, where the USA lost against an inferior force despite having nukes at the time. Same principle applies here. There may be extreme decadence and arrogance inhibiting otherwise competent leaders.

Not really an appropriate analogy since it's such a broad generalisation you're making here. The Terrans are not at a home advantage, are exposed and have no awareness of their enemy along with their general inferiority as a fighting force and limited number compared to their alien opponents. The aliens/superior force also have no compunction in using their superweapons against the Terran either. Sure the Protoss may have an internal pressure that could mitigate the use of such weapons (eg: in the case of mutinous elements within the army like Tassadar) but that's only one element. The Protoss didn't have domestic pressure or general incompetency affecting their capabilities until that mutinous element (ie: Tassadar) reared itself. As to the Zerg, they are even less likely to be defeated by decadence or arrogance (unlike the Overmind's pursuit of its determinant in Sc1 - which was an act of hubris that ultimately contributed to its defeat) if their task was simply to wipe out the Terrans.


By “terran sympathizer” I mean the protoss who sympathize with the terrans, e.g. Tassadar and Andraxxus.

Definitely my bad here.


I don’t like how the narrative shrunk the scale so that one person was key to a entire empire’s conflict. War is more complicated than that, but history books have to condense things. The writing of that whole plot definitely could have used more work.

Thing is, we're talking about story and narratives. Unfortunately, you have to focus it on single characters if you want the narrative to have momentum and to be engaging. A story without a protagonist is not much of a story since it'll all just be about stuff in general. Sure, you can focus on smaller stories of generals/individuals in a single battle in that war (which I wouldn't mind) but then it wouldn't address appropriately address the big things the manual hints at. I dunno, it seems like you want to address the "big things" the manual hints at but not directly address/sideskirt them at the same time.


The zerg will still have broods exterminating the terrans, but it won’t be the important conflict. We don’t spend our military budget on pest control or mining, after all.

But that's part of the issue of you wanting it to be an equal three-way war at all times. If the Terran aren't important or that the Zerg have acquired what they want from the Terrans, it's not exactly an equal three-way war anymore. It's pointless having the Terrans involved at all if they contribute nothing else but being pests (if they're even that) that can really just be ignored.

[ragnarok]

It could be integrated to every Zerg strain instead of making a new breed specifically. It could be used for a battlefield commander like Kerrigan to cripple enemy morale.

But infested humans were never promised in the manual. The only thing the manual said was that the Overmind was afraid of the protoss military and there are other ways to get around it. Looking for Terran psychics is just an excuse for the races to meet up.

I thought the Overmind merely wanted to assimilate human psionics because it was like a stop-gap solution (since assimilating the protoss didn't seem to work just yet)

[Mislagnissa]

But infested humans were never promised in the manual. The only thing the manual said was that the Overmind was afraid of the protoss military and there are other ways to get around it. Looking for Terran psychics is just an excuse for the races to meet up.

I have always said the determinant was an excuse for the three races to fight. That does not mean it should be treated as a red herring. I feel like you are rationalizing discarding the idea of assimilated terran armies because you feel like being contrary. If I am wrong then I apologize, but that is the impression I get from your resistance.


It could be integrated to every Zerg strain instead of making a new breed specifically.

Why would the zerg need to integrate those genes into every breed? The zerg specialize. Even space survivability, according to a Q&A about it, is not automatic to all zerg. Not all zerg are aquatic either. I think that makes sense. By comparison, we don't design tanks to fly and swim and walk.

Even in canon, we only had overseers with human genes deliberately added and those were not even psychic. The canon cannot decide if SC2 queens have protoss genes. The aberrations are a random mutation that makes little sense even by the standards of zerg "Science!".


It could be integrated to every Zerg strain instead of making a new breed specifically. It could be used for a battlefield commander like Kerrigan to cripple enemy morale.

The zerg already have battlefield commanders. They are called overlords, queens and cerebrates, not to mention others that might exist that we have not seen. The reason why they need humans has nothing to do with commanding and I think that is a silly idea and should be prohibited by humans having tiny brains in comparison. As I have always speculated, I thought the reason why humans were necessary was because they had more telekinesis in their brains pound-for-pound. Power output does not translate to the computational output necessary to manage armies, as shown by the fact that batteries and CPUs are structured completely differently. I doubt a human being would be able to manage more than a handful of zerglings at the most before they lose focus.

Morale? The Baelrog brood already specializes in terrorism and they use genuinely frightening tactics like public exhibitions of brutal violence, cannibalism, etc. A succubus with a boob-job and high-heels who talks like a cartoon character with an inferiority/superiority complex is going to inspire scorn and derision. I doubt Gorn would need Kerry for anything other than sexual fetishes.


Thought you were invoking gameplay-story/lore segregation given that most of your grief with Sc1 is in regard to the story/setup not matching between the manual and the story in the game.



Not really an appropriate analogy since it's such a broad generalisation you're making here. The Terrans are not at a home advantage, are exposed and have no awareness of their enemy along with their general inferiority as a fighting force and limited number compared to their alien opponents. The aliens/superior force also have no compunction in using their superweapons against the Terran either. Sure the Protoss may have an internal pressure that could mitigate the use of such weapons (eg: in the case of mutinous elements within the army like Tassadar) but that's only one element. The Protoss didn't have domestic pressure or general incompetency affecting their capabilities until that mutinous element (ie: Tassadar) reared itself. As to the Zerg, they are even less likely to be defeated by decadence or arrogance (unlike the Overmind's pursuit of its determinant in Sc1 - which was an act of hubris that ultimately contributed to its defeat) if their task was simply to wipe out the Terrans.



Definitely my bad here.



Thing is, we're talking about story and narratives. Unfortunately, you have to focus it on single characters if you want the narrative to have momentum and to be engaging. A story without a protagonist is not much of a story since it'll all just be about stuff in general. Sure, you can focus on smaller stories of generals/individuals in a single battle in that war (which I wouldn't mind) but then it wouldn't address appropriately address the big things the manual hints at. I dunno, it seems like you want to address the "big things" the manual hints at but not directly address/sideskirt them at the same time.



But that's part of the issue of you wanting it to be an equal three-way war at all times. If the Terran aren't important or that the Zerg have acquired what they want from the Terrans, it's not exactly an equal three-way war anymore. It's pointless having the Terrans involved at all if they contribute nothing else but being pests (if they're even that) that can really just be ignored.

Again, I seem to have difficulty articulating my point. I prefer to treat the setting as a sandbox for anthology stories. I believe we can have people fighting and stuff going on the background, but we should not focus on single characters who are given literal demigod power to control the narrative of the entire setting. If "big points" as you see them are addressed, they should be addressed from many different perspectives on small scales to show the proper degree of realistic complexity.

The Insurrection campaign is my go-to example of this.

[drakolobo]

- Bringing back Tassadar and then retconning that as a lie by Ouros ended up being stupid.
tassadar returning was a logic explanation, the khala are memories coelctive too thanks to the energy of the void , Tasadar could be the first to be able to maintain personal sun instead of being only a group of memories even if he had died in the conquest of Aiur with the destruction of khala and the psionic matrix, although I liked seeing Ouros was a missed opportunity


- Bringing back Stukov was cringeworthy. Everyone was confused by his presence.
why? he had already been resurrected in sc 1 and it had been established that nanosuero ceased to function or be a viable cure, it was slow to reappear


- Bringing up the Overmind and bringing back the Primals instead of making something new just pissed everyone off because the whole manual ended up getting retconned, not to mention that Dehaka ended up being a terrible character.

I agree that it can be tackled better but the result is not a catastrophe

[ragnarok]

tassadar returning was a logic explanation, the khala are memories coelctive too thanks to the energy of the void , Tasadar could be the first to be able to maintain personal sun instead of being only a group of memories even if he had died in the conquest of Aiur with the destruction of khala and the psionic matrix, although I liked seeing Ouros was a missed opportunity


Was that the same concept behind why there were still protoss that believed Adun was still alive?

[Turalyon]

tassadar returning was a logic explanation, the khala are memories coelctive too thanks to the energy of the void , Tasadar could be the first to be able to maintain personal sun instead of being only a group of memories even if he had died in the conquest of Aiur with the destruction of khala and the psionic matrix, although I liked seeing Ouros was a missed opportunity

There was no obvious or reasonable in-universe explanation for Tassadar's reappearance at the time. It was a plot hole. One either had to resort to fanon explanation that can never really be objectively justified (like you have) or fallback to out-of-universe reasons (ie: the writers wanted to make what he said have weight and to have a shameless nostalgia pull/cameo) which breaks immersion and feels unsatisfactory. It being revealed to be actually Ouros resolves the plot hole/is the in-universe explanation but by then nobody really cared because they realised how contrived the story was way before then anyway.


why? he had already been resurrected in sc 1 and it had been established that nanosuero ceased to function or be a viable cure, it was slow to reappear

That depends on whether you played the Starcraft 64 version and got to the secret mission, otherwise, most people wouldn't have known that this happened.

[ragnarok]

That depends on whether you played the Starcraft 64 version and got to the secret mission, otherwise, most people wouldn't have known that this happened.

How many people you know played the SC 64 version? Because most people I asked only knew its existence and that's it.