What other ways could the xel'naga been drawn like?

[Mislagnissa]

The canonical appearance of the xel'naga are squid-like creatures (similar to the void thrashers, who are implied to be related) that would easily fit among the zerg armies. (The same applies to the hybrids.)

Prior to the canonical depiction, xel'naga were often imagined by fans as looking identical to the protoss. I have no idea why. Indeed, the Dark Voice looked like a protoss (or a mouthless hybrid?) before it was given the squid form.

What other ways do you think the xel'naga could be drawn to make them look distinct?

I have a few suggestions to start with:


They looked really weird and abstract (https://www.deviantart.com/gnareffotsirk/art/Xel-Nagan-Consular-648665041), but in a way that suggests the protoss modeled their clothing after them.
The xel'naga were actually tiny squids which wore the sarcophagi (https://www.deviantart.com/3dchae/art/Starcraft2-XelNaga-Sarcophagus-571490116)and robots (https://www.deviantart.com/moofart-moof/art/StarCraft-2-XelNaga-Sentinel-576316292)from SC2 as mobile suits, similar to the Daleks from Doctor Who.
The xel'naga looked like adorable, cuddly stuffed animals with creepy, soulless eyes (https://78.media.tumblr.com/c9d35b592e8ff9ca31b2bc8c846dd7c9/tumblr_p73vriiIJc1x6plgko1_500.gif).
Like the elder things (http://lovecraft.wikia.com/wiki/File:Screenshot_20171014-182755.jpg) or flying polyps (http://marcocaradonna.blogspot.com/2010/10/hpl-lab-challenge.html) from the work of H.P. Lovecraft.
They looked like surreal entities that would not be out of place as the villains of a Japanese scifi or fantasy anime. Things like anatomy resembling sculpture rather than flesh, multiple arms held in poses reminiscent of Hindu deities, a lack of a distinct head, lifeless masks instead of actual faces, numerous eyes in strange places, bodies composed of platonic polyhedrons, immense sizes, each one having a unique form, holding meetings while floating in gigantic voids, etc.
They resemble the various sphinxes, angels and so forth of ancient Middle Eastern and Renaissance art. These can get very weird, like having multiple heads from different animals, feathered wings, scorpion tails, wheels covered in eyes, lion-headed snakes made of fire and other weird surreal patchwork anatomy.
They resemble demons from Judeo-Christian mythology, particularly the surreal and horrifying artwork of Hieronymus Bosch.
Like the Vorlons from Babylon 5, their appearance varies depending on who is looking at them. They have no true form.
Their forms are so grotesque and horrifying that anyone who looks at them goes insane, turns to stone, dies, their eyeballs explode, or something similarly horrible. Even recordings have the same effect. Thus, nobody knows what they actually looked like.

[sandwich_bird]

They looked really weird and abstract, but in a way that suggests the protoss modeled their clothing after them.

Really like that look. Nice job Gna!

Eons ago I drew this (https://orig00.deviantart.net/ddaf/f/2009/045/1/5/158eb5fe2b4a18b365e9f572e80bc8a6.jpg)

based on this (https://i.imgur.com/kksfcr8.png)

I don't really like the idea of them being some sort of insectoid/warcraft Naga hybrid but that's how my 16(?) year old self interpreted that weird statue thing. Speaking of which, if this statue is not supposed to be a Xel Naga then I really wonder what it's supposed to be. Could be a broken Protoss bust but the head is too forward imo.

[Mislagnissa]

Really like that look. Nice job Gna!

Eons ago I drew this (https://orig00.deviantart.net/ddaf/f/2009/045/1/5/158eb5fe2b4a18b365e9f572e80bc8a6.jpg)

based on this (https://i.imgur.com/kksfcr8.png)

I don't really like the idea of them being some sort of insectoid/warcraft Naga hybrid but that's how my 16(?) year old self interpreted that weird statue thing. Speaking of which, if this statue is not supposed to be a Xel Naga then I really wonder what it's supposed to be. Could be a broken Protoss bust but the head is too forward imo.

That was how the protoss looked before they were redesigned. I suspect the terrain might be an easter egg. Do you have the redraw from the remaster?

[ragnarok]

Really like that look. Nice job Gna!

Eons ago I drew this (https://orig00.deviantart.net/ddaf/f/2009/045/1/5/158eb5fe2b4a18b365e9f572e80bc8a6.jpg)

based on this (https://i.imgur.com/kksfcr8.png)

I don't really like the idea of them being some sort of insectoid/warcraft Naga hybrid but that's how my 16(?) year old self interpreted that weird statue thing. Speaking of which, if this statue is not supposed to be a Xel Naga then I really wonder what it's supposed to be. Could be a broken Protoss bust but the head is too forward imo.

Looks quite good for your drawing, sandwich bird. Picture doesn't seem to convey power, I guess I always felt the Xel'Naga should have had that sense in them

[Mislagnissa]

Looks quite good for your drawing, sandwich bird. Picture doesn't seem to convey power, I guess I always felt the Xel'Naga should have had that sense in them

I never got that impression. They were scientists who plotted over millions of years, but their creations clearly surpassed them. It is not clear if they even knew how to fight, considering the protoss and zerg assaults encountered little to no resistance.

[Visions of Khas]

I'm not terribly disappointed by the Xel'Naga design that we got, but the Hybrids seemed to be lacking in creativity. You can't tell me, from the "thousands" (Metzen's own words) of iterations and concepts Blizzard went through, the Reaver and Destroyer were the best they could come up with.

Before SC2, I always imagined the Xel'Naga and Hybrids both to have strong aquatic features, something like the Ceph from Crysis (https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/crysiswiki/images/6/6b/Unarmored_alien.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20090620225746). I also had this idea that the creation of Dragoons was originally inspired by the 'Naga themselves as these fusions of technology and organic components (https://cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/000/011/258/large/SpaceGhoul.jpg?1475458331) -- not necessarily scary, but definitely unsettling in aspect.

Naturally, with "Naga" in their name, I also leaned towards snakelike and multiarmed designs:

https://pre00.deviantart.net/a9a6/th/pre/f/2012/318/a/c/drake_by_conceptualmachina-d5kz3dt.jpg

https://cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/001/741/990/large/justine-malcontento-alien-leviathan-concept-sketch.jpg?1452074800

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/1d/96/25/1d962595109ab9e5f139a0f6bb003913.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/50/a9/d8/50a9d8b00d9ea9bd41579d8ac54b89a7.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/2c/50/ae/2c50ae40c1711e44ff69ce77b04f39ab.jpg

Or statuesque and angelic, in the trippy-weird Biblical sense:

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/47/8a/b9/478ab9a3bc718e593cbe4b42536d84cd.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/db/f6/e8/dbf6e8858e2cbc83ccc7f7b796dfd876.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/48/8d/ba/488dba9bc751ff21482490de84c5fd77.jpg

https://78.media.tumblr.com/7967ed9327df1eddbc6764398c74cc34/tumblr_noo6lbT68s1qkbpm3o1_1280.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/03/95/36/0395369a7bc413390f67ddb383042502.jpg

And the downright Lovecraftian:

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/63/67/a2/6367a2ba5d785bdc4b29261d424df8fa.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/99/41/14/9941145bcfd0000e9045a989c922ccbf.jpg


As for the Hybrids, I thought of a lot of directions. But I favored something reminiscent of both and neither, otherworldly and beautiful yet implacable and faceless:

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/de/2c/19/de2c19af3e95f8a428131a4e6afb2f1c.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/89/a8/d3/89a8d33e5c6eef71dae8d60d19f40f26.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/97/25/64/972564b999d7db0f0115d2c411114d90.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/63/53/c8/6353c86fabc25665a002f54b61ffce6d.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/a9/c0/33/a9c03332b97452b821a3df84d48f7e2d.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/cc/4c/6a/cc4c6a51818d92df9eb20eff0d82580a.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/ca/b1/37/cab1375a0ccb9dab50579a46cef078e1.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/c4/6e/14/c46e14e6dbe6a7fb44ebebd80e9d09e9.jpg

Finally, in the heyday of Blizzforums, there was a popular theory that stated the Hybrids would be fungal in nature -- filamintous and layered or polypous -- a creature that could reconfigure itself on a whim:

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/48/55/b7/4855b7519b8a365e3009e84e7b1a69cd.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/74/30/ac/7430aca878257acde7d05fa95c37fe4a.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/62/a8/2e/62a82ebf8a8bd27832b365a7076e735f.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ba/54/63/ba546356892c2a03e5363d0be2cbc5f2.jpg



Instead... what we got we something designed by a 10-day-old DevinatArt account. :\ The Hybrid Nemesis came the closest to what I envisioned, with the Thrasher a distant second.

Speaking of the Thrasher, if Amon could summon those things from the Void, then what was the point of the Hybrids??

[Mislagnissa]

Speaking of the Thrasher, if Amon could summon those things from the Void, then what was the point of the Hybrids??
The missions needed a gimmick and the writers were not about to let consistency stand in their way.

(Personally I thought the thrashers would have made the perfect new generation graphical update for cerebrates given their Cthulhu design. In my imaginary remake of SC1 you would fight them in boss battles with BFGs rather than whacking at gooey buildings with a tiny ineffectual laser sword.)

[Visions of Khas]

The missions needed a gimmick and the writers were not about to let consistency stand in their way.

Eh, I thought they could have been Hybrids corrupted by the Void and sent back into realspace. Of course, if it's so easy for Amon to create portals between here and there, then what was stopping him from stepping foot into the material universe? -_-

[Nissa]

Wow, Blizzforum's old concept as fungal hybrids really works for me. Given Protoss do that whole photosynthesis thing, and the Zerg reconfigure themselves, fungus is pretty much the best blend of the two.

Lol, y'all's Xel'Naga are super artistic. Mine were much more mundane and boring. For one thing, they had hands, not fins or anything like that. The XN are scientists, so they need dexterity and control to do what they do. I've always imagined that the XN were humanlike, consumed food and water, and aren't as tall as Protoss. Thing is, if the Protoss were meant to be the perfect race, why would a race that is perfect bother to create its own version of perfect? Judging from what happened with the Protoss and Zerg, it's clear that the XN didn't have as well-defined a conception of what it means to be perfect, and thus they are seeking perfection by what they create. They're using their science to create creatures that lack the flaws that exist within their own kind. The Protoss are an artistic expression of what the XN idealize, and the Zerg represent adaptability to all circumstances.

Long story short, the Xel'Naga were over-idealized scientists playing God, and the more things went on, the less idealistic they became. They aren't super-powerful (except through technology and knowledge) and are perhaps only a bit stronger than regular humans.

[Mislagnissa]

Eh, I thought they could have been Hybrids corrupted by the Void and sent back into realspace. Of course, if it's so easy for Amon to create portals between here and there, then what was stopping him from stepping foot into the material universe? -_-

The writers needed Amon to be in the Void for the final confrontation when he would be defeated by a deus ex machina, critical thought be damned.

Since you seem adamant on derailing this thread, I will nip this in the bud with a long-winded explanation right now. The plots of BW and SC2 do not make sense and cannot be adequately explained. That is what you get for trying to write sequels to a game where the main antagonist was set up as a galactic space monster only to be killed at the end by deus ex machina.

In BW, the plot falls apart upon cursory inspection.

Episode 4 has numerous plot holes. The protoss were previously established as using warp gates to transport their buildings and armies to other planets, yet they are reliant on a xel'naga warp gate to evacuate to Shakuras. You would expect them to just connect to the dark templar psionic matrix, which they clearly have since they can teleport their units and bases, but this does not happen. Somehow they are able to evacuate millions of protoss in what appears to be a few hours through a really tiny gate, when it would take New York City weeks to evacuate by land, sea and air without bottlenecks (https://www.quora.com/How-long-would-it-take-for-governments-to-evacuate-cities-the-size-of-New-York-and-Tokyo-in-the-case-of-an-emergency?share=1). When they arrive at Shakuras, the zerg are already waiting for them, having followed them through the same gate, when there was no possible time in which the zerg could have prepared for their arrival. Then the local xel'naga temple inexplicably has the ability to kill zerg despite being built long before the zerg existed, but it inexplicably requires two specific crystals to activate and for no apparent reason these crystals are located on two random planets far away. Then Kerry shows up and the protoss trust her despite having mind reading powers which should make it obvious she is psychotically insane or deliberately concealing her thoughts. Then Kerry brainwashes Raszagal despite having no time in which to do so. When Aldaris discovers this, without any evidence besides irregularities in Raszagal's behavior he should not notice since he only just met her, he decides to start a rebellion rather than tell the other protoss leaders they have been compromised. The other khalai refugees go along with Aldaris' rebellion despite having no reason to rebel other than him telling them to since he clearly did not tell them why he was rebelling. When Aldaris is finally captured and tells the other protoss leaders, Kerry shows up and kills him in front of everyone else. This assassination takes several minutes for her to arrive by overlord with four lurkers, during which nobody else reacts to her presence or tries to stop her clear offensive. Instead of immediately attacking and killing her for what is clearly an act of war by any stretch of the imagination, the protoss leaders tell her to go away and never return. She only survives because Metzen needed her to survive despite this looking clearly ridiculous and unrealistic.

Episode 5 has far fewer plot holes. The first is that the UED are a clear retcon. The manual established that ATLAS got lost, but through what I can only describe as space magic the UPL was able to keep track of the Koprulu sector for centuries. When the zerg and protoss show up, it takes the UED only a couple of months at most to send a fleet when it took ATLAS 30-60 years to travel there and ATLAS was completely blind and lost in warp at the time. The invasion goes well, since Koprulu was just decimated by the zerg and protoss. When Duran joins the UED, DuGalle states that he does not trust traitors then goes on to obey everything Duran says over the advise of his childhood friend Stukov. Duran betrays the UED in a very public fashion that everybody should have noticed since the fleet is composed of many thousands of people working together. DuGalle then trusts and obeys Duran despite the clear evidence known to thousands of witnesses. When Stukov is revealed to have disobeyed orders in order to study an anti-zerg weapon, DuGalle obeys Duran when Duran suggests assassinating Stukov. Since Stukov is a childhood friend of DuGalle, DuGalle should have no reason to suspect Stukov of anything but the best of intentions. Furthermore, this sort of disobedience with the complicity of many thousands of other personnel in the fleet should merit a court martial and an investigation by the standards of any sane military, not immediate execution. When Duran shoots Stukov, Stukov lives long enough to talk to DuGalle over the radio and reveal that Duran was manipulating them to whole. Despite thoughtlessly obeying Duran previously, DuGalle believes Stukov and decides to use the anti-zerg weapon himself. This proves instrumental to capturing the Overmind, proving Stukov's concerns right.

Episode 6 is when the plot holes and inconsistencies come to a head. The protoss and Koprulu terrans decide to trust Kerrigan when she asks them for help to stop the UED, despite having every reason to not trust her (she just betrayed them!) and every reason to trust the UED. The UED clearly do not practice eugenics since they use ghosts and the same tech Koprulu does; just open a dialogue with them and they would probably be happy to form an alliance with the protoss. Furthermore, it would be a terrible idea to attack the UED since their fleet only represents a tiny fraction of their full forces back on Earth who would no doubt seek revenge a couple of months later with a bigger fleet. When Kerry's foolish allies succeed in killing the Overmind (again), she immediately betrays them. This is doubly silly since they previously talked to each other about how they knew she would do something like this, then when it finally happens they act all surprised and are unable to mount an offensive when you would expect them to have already prepared for this. Furthermore, Kerry takes control of all zerg in the sector instantly after the death of the Overmind when in fact the Overmind was reliant on innumerable cerebrates to coordinate the broods and they were not all killed off at the time. After the death of the Overmind the cerebrates should have immediately starting killing everything they perceived as a threat to themselves, including Kerry's zerg. Furthermore, the creation of a new Overmind and the cerebrates' stated reliance on its existence raises numerous questions about how the zerg hive mind works. How can the Overmind be a bodiless entity and a giant brain at the same time, aside from a deus ex machina to kill it at the end of SC1 which is immediately undone by resurrecting it in BW? Why do the cerebrates need the Overmind to keep existing but all the other zerg do not? How did Daggoth know how to create a new Overmind? Why is Kerry able to take control of millions of zerg when she was created specifically for combat against the protoss and control is only exerted by breeds with the gigantic brains necessary to manage all those minions?

When SC2 rolls around, the plot holes and inconsistencies only intensify. In addition to the retcons and other inconsistencies with SC1 and BW, SC2 has numerous plot holes and inconsistencies with regard to itself. It was clearly being made up at the writers went along and it really shows. Prophecies and plans are mentioned, but the plot does not make any sense as the result of planning by anyone. Mengsk sent Tychus to kill Kerry when she was vulnerable, but there was no possible way for Mengsk to know this would happen. Overmind infested Kerry with the intent that she would kill Amon, yet this required her to visit Zerus for cleansing; there was no way for the Overmind to know she would do this. If Kerry could disobey Amon by taking a dip to cleanse herself of his control, why did the Overmind not take a dip itself to remove the constraints and then kill Amon? If the xel'naga could predict the future to such a degree that they could write prophecies that could not be defied, then how come they did not kill Amon before he killed them? Why did Amon even bother trying when the prophecy said he would die and there was nothing he could do to stop it? If the Overmind was a good guy all along, despite having the same vicious hunger as all other primal zerg, what would he have done without Amon's interference? Why did Raynor choose between the false dichotomy of helping or attacking the protoss when they wanted to purify an infested planet, when he could have just lied to them that he would take care of it when he would actually help Hanson make a cure? When the protoss find time to purify infested planets when they were still dealing with their own problems at the time? How did Raynor's plans even work when they usually relied on the Dominion lacking even the most basic security or communications in general? Where did the Dominion get the population boost and manufacturing capabilities to bounce back from the losses of the Great War and Brood War within a couple of years? Why did Kerry replace the zerg hierarchy when she was controlled by Amon and thus it would make more sense to retain the hierarchy that served him? Why did the zerg even have brood wars when they were all controlled by Amon? Why did the Overmind not tell the cerebrates of his plans to make Kerry the new leader? Why did he make her the leader when she was still under Amon's control?

It is obvious that the writers were making things up as they went along rather than planning anything in advance. Thus, the story makes no sense even with retcons taken into account. Furthermore, every installment of the franchise has rehashed the same basic plot involving terran rebels, protoss schisms, and a galactic space monster controlling the zerg.

With that out of the way, may we please get back to the original topic?

[Mislagnissa]

Wow, Blizzforum's old concept as fungal hybrids really works for me. Given Protoss do that whole photosynthesis thing, and the Zerg reconfigure themselves, fungus is pretty much the best blend of the two.The photosynthesis is actually a retcon, and a pointless one at that. In the original manual the protoss were stated to be hunter-gatherers in ancient times, now their units rely on pylons for power (presumably including nutrition since it serves the same purpose as Terran supply, which includes both ammo and food).

Fungi are neither plants nor animals nor a blend of the two. They are more closely related to animals than to plants. Fungi are heterotrophs, like animals, that decompose organic material for sustenance. They are reliant on plants to survive, like animals. Lichens are fungi which host colonies of symbiotic algae to make themselves autotrophs.

Fungi do not make sense as being midway between photosynthesis and self-modification. That is a non-sequitur.

In fact, the zerg creep is in all likelihood photosynthetic since it serves as the source of all zerg nutrition.

[Nissa]

Photosynthesis isn't a retcon. It was there from the beginning.

I know it was not. I was there.

[sandwich_bird]

That was how the protoss looked before they were redesigned. I suspect the terrain might be an easter egg. Do you have the redraw from the remaster?

I took a screenshot

https://i.imgur.com/U6NLIWe.jpg



Definitely a serpent like creature. It does remind me a bit of the original protoss design. Also looks like an hydralisk I guess but it wouldn't make much sense to have statues of hydralisks.


I'm not terribly disappointed by the Xel'Naga design that we got, but the Hybrids seemed to be lacking in creativity. You can't tell me, from the "thousands" (Metzen's own words) of iterations and concepts Blizzard went through, the Reaver and Destroyer were the best they could come up with.

I agree. It's not horrible but it's kinda meh. I remember wanting the hybrids to look like the Drej from Titan. The Xel Naga could also have looked liked that imo.

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/monster/images/9/95/Drej_drone.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20170525065406


https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/villains/images/2/21/The_Drej_Queen.gif/revision/latest?cb=20150729025909

I'm still stuck on this idea that they should have an energy/electric look but I do fancy this look quite a bit VoK


https://i.pinimg.com/564x/48/55/b7/4855b7519b8a365e3009e84e7b1a69cd.jpg

It has the energy aesthetic AND the more biological feel. Plus, it looks creepy/disgusting which would make sense considering that Zeratul was horrified by the sight of the hybrids.

[Nissa]

I love that picture too. Dang, that looks cool.

Honestly, though, all I really wanted in a hybrid look was something with some thought into it. Not a creature that just happens to have different Protoss/Zerg characteristics Lego'd onto each other.

[Mislagnissa]

The statues definitely look distinct. They lack arms and have exposed ribcages on their backs. I wonder what they were supposed to be. There are similarly weird but very different statues in the twilight world tileset. See here: http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h109/mneox/Terrain10.jpg

Also... The concept of the hybrids was nonsensical. The zerg originally wanted to assimilate the protoss, and by extension all zerg are genetic hybrids. Then BW acts like this was never the zerg’s plan at all and that the hybrids are solely the intent of some 4th race.

[ragnarok]

I never got that impression. They were scientists who plotted over millions of years, but their creations clearly surpassed them. It is not clear if they even knew how to fight, considering the protoss and zerg assaults encountered little to no resistance.

I'm not sure that's what the SC1 manual implied for no resistance. Even the zerg assault on them at Zerus didn't make it seem they were completely defenseless

[Mislagnissa]

I'm not sure that's what the SC1 manual implied for no resistance. Even the zerg assault on them at Zerus didn't make it seem they were completely defenseless

The protoss killed many of them with ease and no apparent losses. The zerg sacrificed billions in hours to breach the hulls of their vessels. Clearly the xel’naga are not a violent species and unprepared for war against intelligent threats.

[ragnarok]

The protoss killed many of them with ease and no apparent losses. The zerg sacrificed billions in hours to breach the hulls of their vessels. Clearly the xel’naga are not a violent species and unprepared for war against intelligent threats.

In the case of the zerg, hardly anyone was prepared. In that regard it's why so many liked the Overmind as a villain via the SC1 lore, showing that the Xel'Naga underestimated their own creation, compared to the SC2 lore where it was just Amon's puppet. Still, I work with what was given to me....

[Visions of Khas]

Speaking of Amon, exactly how was he resurrected by Duran? If Xel'Naga are thrust back into the Void, then hasn't he just been chilling for several millennia since Zerus? Or was dead in the Void too, and literally brought back to life? If the latter, what's to prevent him from coming back AGAIN?

[Turalyon]

Speaking of Amon, exactly how was he resurrected by Duran? If Xel'Naga are thrust back into the Void, then hasn't he just been chilling for several millennia since Zerus? Or was dead in the Void too, and literally brought back to life? If the latter, what's to prevent him from coming back AGAIN?

I wouldn't sidetrack if I were you. You know how Misla has a condition and is easily triggered - especially when it comes to any Sc2 stuff. :D:p

Here's some short answers for you though: retcon, maybe, maybe and retcon.

[Mislagnissa]

In the case of the zerg, hardly anyone was prepared. In that regard it's why so many liked the Overmind as a villain via the SC1 lore, showing that the Xel'Naga underestimated their own creation, compared to the SC2 lore where it was just Amon's puppet. Still, I work with what was given to me....Unprepared? Sacrificing billions of minions as ammunition does not suggest the xel'naga were unprepared, it suggests that their ships had really strong hulls. Furthermore, they were not prepared when the protoss attacked either despite having fair warning. Although the xel'naga escaped, hundreds of them were killed in the initial volley and at least one of their ships crashed.

The xel'naga are millions of years old and have likely seen the coming and going of countless intelligent civilizations and wars. It is unbelievable that they would not be prepared for combat unless their basic psychology is pacifistic. That itself implies that, I don't know, they never needed to worry about predators, chase down prey or compete with their own kind for mates.

In any event, this discussion is purely academic and contributes nothing of practical value. The xel'naga were intended as a generic cliche banal scifi plot device to justify the existence of and war between the zerg and protoss, not as characters to be explored. (Hence why exploring the xel'naga was the point at which the series went downhill fast.)


Speaking of Amon, exactly how was he resurrected by Duran? If Xel'Naga are thrust back into the Void, then hasn't he just been chilling for several millennia since Zerus? Or was dead in the Void too, and literally brought back to life? If the latter, what's to prevent him from coming back AGAIN?The writers made the plot up as they went along and never tried to be consistent or logical. If you check the wiki explanations (and somehow ignore all the obvious inconsistencies and retcons that render the explanations nonsensical), you will notice that most of the citations point to interviews and Q&As where the writers explained the plot holes. I am pretty sure the writers never actually thought ahead to write a cohesive story and made up rationalizations when the community prompted them for an explanation.

These are the same guys who explicitly called Kerry a demigoddess in order to explain how she could take over for the Overmind, and who stated her surviving hatcheries would constantly resurrect her in contradiction of how resurrection worked in SC1/BW.


I wouldn't sidetrack if I were you. You know how Misla has a condition and is easily triggered - especially when it comes to any Sc2 stuff. :D:p

Here's some short answers for you though: retcon, maybe, maybe and retcon.I gave up trying to understand Blizzard's mind long ago.

[ragnarok]

Unprepared? Sacrificing billions of minions as ammunition does not suggest the xel'naga were unprepared, it suggests that their ships had really strong hulls. Furthermore, they were not prepared when the protoss attacked either despite having fair warning. Although the xel'naga escaped, hundreds of them were killed in the initial volley and at least one of their ships crashed.


Tell me something: via the SC1 manual, did it ever give a SPECIFIC amount of time that passed before the Xel'Naga concluded their experimentation with the Protoss went too far?


Speaking of Amon, exactly how was he resurrected by Duran? If Xel'Naga are thrust back into the Void, then hasn't he just been chilling for several millennia since Zerus? Or was dead in the Void too, and literally brought back to life? If the latter, what's to prevent him from coming back AGAIN?

This goes all the way back to the thread I made over 2 years ago: my theory was that the Void energies are harmful to the Xel'Naga as well. For all we know, the Xel'Naga that won the battle at Zerus imprisoned Amon in a specific location believing that the harmful Void energies would kill him. This then explained Ouros's role in all this: Amon took Ouros with him and slowly drained his essence over a period of time in order to keep himself alive. This would then be consistent with what Ouros said to Kerrigan in "The Essence of Eternity" mission, that may the last of his essence give her the strength necessary to beat Amon.


I wouldn't sidetrack if I were you. You know how Misla has a condition and is easily triggered - especially when it comes to any Sc2 stuff. :D:p

Here's some short answers for you though: retcon, maybe, maybe and retcon.

And here I thought you'd ask him to look here:

http://sclegacy.com/forums/showthread.php?16368-Could-the-Hybrid-Production-Have-Been-Around-Way-Longer-Than-We-All-Thought

[Turalyon]

And here I thought you'd ask him to look here:

http://sclegacy.com/forums/showthread.php?16368-Could-the-Hybrid-Production-Have-Been-Around-Way-Longer-Than-We-All-Thought

I like my answers better. They're more concise and accurate. :p

[ragnarok]

I like my answers better. They're more concise and accurate. :p

You only said the whole retcon thing. You might as well have just told Mislag that the whole Blizzard team injected themselves with 10 billion syringes of crack into their bloodstream before they began work on the SC2 storyline, hence the inconsistency problems.

[Mislagnissa]

Tell me something: via the SC1 manual, did it ever give a SPECIFIC amount of time that passed before the Xel'Naga concluded their experimentation with the Protoss went too far?The manual states "The Protoss civilisation spread across the face of Aiur within only a few thousand years, eventually culminating with the warring Tribes settling under a centralised rule", "As months passed on Aiur, the Protoss began to shy from their Xel’Naga teachers, and each Tribe cultivated wild and unsubstantiated rumours of their creator’s supposed treachery", "Many hundreds of Xel’Naga were murdered by the raging Protoss, who only decades before had worshipped them as gods", and "The Xel’Naga fended off the Protoss’ reckless attack and sorrowfully launched the greater number of their massive ships into the trackless void beyond Aiur."

Timescales given in the manual are highly questionable and often inconsistent, but the basic gist is that political revolutions take a lot of time in the game setting just like they do in reality. In any event, the xel'naga are clearly not omnipotent space gods and their purely defensive capabilities clearly cannot nullify the protoss weapons used at the time. While most of the xel'naga ships escaped, a minority were felled and their crews murdered by the protoss.

[ragnarok]

The manual states "The Protoss civilisation spread across the face of Aiur within only a few thousand years, eventually culminating with the warring Tribes settling under a centralised rule", "As months passed on Aiur, the Protoss began to shy from their Xel’Naga teachers, and each Tribe cultivated wild and unsubstantiated rumours of their creator’s supposed treachery", "Many hundreds of Xel’Naga were murdered by the raging Protoss, who only decades before had worshipped them as gods", and "The Xel’Naga fended off the Protoss’ reckless attack and sorrowfully launched the greater number of their massive ships into the trackless void beyond Aiur."

Timescales given in the manual are highly questionable and often inconsistent, but the basic gist is that political revolutions take a lot of time in the game setting just like they do in reality. In any event, the xel'naga are clearly not omnipotent space gods and their purely defensive capabilities clearly cannot nullify the protoss weapons used at the time. While most of the xel'naga ships escaped, a minority were felled and their crews murdered by the protoss.

I know about the hundreds of Xel'Naga killed by the Protoss when they abandoned the experiment. It proved the Xel'Naga were far from all-powerful, but it never really stated the Protoss casualties. You can't just say what the manual says implied they were defenseless.

You can argue otherwise, but this at least would prove (via the SC2 lore) that the Xel'Naga's actions at Zerus achieved SOMETHING

[Mislagnissa]

I know about the hundreds of Xel'Naga killed by the Protoss when they abandoned the experiment. It proved the Xel'Naga were far from all-powerful, but it never really stated the Protoss casualties. You can't just say what the manual says implied they were defenseless.

You can argue otherwise, but this at least would prove (via the SC2 lore) that the Xel'Naga's actions at Zerus achieved SOMETHING

Only zerg casualties are ever mentioned. If the protoss suffered casualties, it was not enough to merit a mention in the backstory. I seriously doubt they suffered anything noteworthy, since they most likely attacked the worldships with orbital weapons from thousands of kilometers away rather than throwing infantry and piloted vehicles at the hulls.

Why do you keep trying to defend SC2's story? Even if it was not a cash-grabbing sequel filled with pointless retcons, the story is still bad on its own (lack of) merit and is riddled with countless plot holes. Every else has discussed that at length (and still does). If you really like SC2's story, this is the wrong forum for you.

[ragnarok]

Why do you keep trying to defend SC2's story? Even if it was not a cash-grabbing sequel filled with pointless retcons, the story is still bad on its own (lack of) merit and is riddled with countless plot holes. Every else has discussed that at length (and still does). If you really like SC2's story, this is the wrong forum for you.

Because I take what is given, not just endlessly bash it (and I saw the plothole problems well before you joined).

And considering what you've been saying would be trying to imply that there's not a single person on the planet who didn't see the SC2 storyline was a failure in every way possible.......

Put it this way: even back when I talked to the people on the battlenet forums, some of them still tried to tell me they never insisted that the only "success" of the SC2 storyline was Blizzard failed everything

[Mislagnissa]

Because I take what is given, not just endlessly bash it (and I saw the plothole problems well before you joined).

And considering what you've been saying would be trying to imply that there's not a single person on the planet who didn't see the SC2 storyline was a failure in every way possible.......

Put it this way: even back when I talked to the people on the battlenet forums, some of them still tried to tell me they never insisted that the only "success" of the SC2 storyline was Blizzard failed everything

Blizzard cannot fail to meet a goal they never set. They set out to make a profitable esport, not a coherent story. They succeeded at what they intended.

The vast majority of people who play are not interested in the story at all. They don’t care for it. They just play the game part.

The only thing that failed were the expectations of people who didn’t know any better. I got into SC after LotV came out. After appraising the franchise from the beginning I concluded that the story has always been mediocre at best and jumped the shark multiple times.

To put it succinctly, none of the characters behave consistently based on their assumed motivations (if they have any). They never have. Most of the time characters are just levers to move the plot forward when it would not work out realistically. SC2’s bigger budget just made it more obvious that Blizzard is bad at writing believable characters and plots.

In SC1, Raynor knowingly assists in genocide halfway through the first campaign. He wasn’t a diehard member of the SoK, he was a wanted criminal (unjustly so) serving vigilante justice up to that point. The sudden genocide should have been a deal breaker if he was intended to be the hero, but he accepts it with only meager claims to the contrary. He only rebels when fellow war criminal Kerry is left to die with along with her billions of victims. This makes him look callous and petty, heavily contrasting when he was first introduced as a helpful vigilante rescuing civilians from hostile aliens.

A reboot could fix these problems by writing characters with consistent motivations and behavior rather than forcing them to arbitrarily act in service of the writer’s desired plot. If the characters acted consistently, nay, believably then the events of the games never would have happened. Amon would have been aborted in the womb with a laser spear when the xel’naga used their prophecy powers to foresee his betrayal.

[ragnarok]

This was something I had felt after WoL was out, before Blizzard released ANY info for HotS: that they had the mentality of "Oh everyone is only in it for the multiplayer, so we can make a crap story and no one would notice."

Personally I didn't feel WoL's storyline was crap, it was only HotS that make things really bad

[Turalyon]

In SC1, Raynor knowingly assists in genocide halfway through the first campaign. He wasn’t a diehard member of the SoK, he was a wanted criminal (unjustly so) serving vigilante justice up to that point. The sudden genocide should have been a deal breaker if he was intended to be the hero, but he accepts it with only meager claims to the contrary. He only rebels when fellow war criminal Kerry is left to die with along with her billions of victims. This makes him look callous and petty, heavily contrasting when he was first introduced as a helpful vigilante rescuing civilians from hostile aliens.

This criticism is something I've mentioned before but I've used it mainly to counter the notion that others think Raynor should be seen as the good guy/hero. In part, this little tid-bit is what contributes to how brilliantly grey Starcraft was/is and is not exactly a problem in regard to character consistency/development. It is actually consistent with the general Terran mentality and theme of humans doing things under the veil of some greater good/morality when they're only really doing it for personal or selfish reasons.

[Mislagnissa]

This criticism is something I've mentioned before but I've used it mainly to counter the notion that others think Raynor should be seen as the good guy/hero. In part, this little tid-bit is what contributes to how brilliantly grey Starcraft was/is and is not exactly a problem in regard to character consistency/development. It is actually consistent with the general Terran mentality and theme of humans doing things under the veil of some greater good/morality when they're only really doing it for personal or selfish reasons.

It is not consistent with Raynor’s previous characterization. He was introduced as a compassionate marshal rescuing civilians, so it makes no sense he would willfully condemn an entire planet. That is a 180 degree change.

[Turalyon]

It is not consistent with Raynor’s previous characterization. He was introduced as a compassionate marshal rescuing civilians, so it makes no sense he would willfully condemn an entire planet. That is a 180 degree change.

Kerrigan is also introduced as being a kind, compassionate person (even though she's an assassin) and is more vocal in her resistance than Raynor in the use of the Psi emitter but she acquiesces to their use, too. We explain away the incredulity of that by saying she has unerring faith in Mengsk. Raynor is no different in this respect since he explains away his reservations by putting his faith in Kerrigan's decision to continue with Mengsk's plan (ie: the convo just before the New Gettysburg mission starts).

You also have to consider that Raynor already made a partial moral concession earlier at Antiga, where a Psi Emitter was used to effectively "condemn the entire planet" as well. Mengsk masks the dubiousness of its use at Antiga as a way to teach the Confeds a lesson, as an act of revenge for the loss of Mar-Sara (which was consumed by Zerg that was supposedly lured there by the Confeds) and a means to escape from the clutches of the Confeds. Yet Raynor doesn't bat any eyelid at all there nor scream "think of the children!!!" at the time, does he?

[Mislagnissa]

Kerrigan is also introduced as being a kind, compassionate person (even though she's an assassin) and is more vocal in her resistance than Raynor in the use of the Psi emitter but she acquiesces to their use, too. We explain away the incredulity of that by saying she has unerring faith in Mengsk. Raynor is no different in this respect since he explains away his reservations by putting his faith in Kerrigan's decision to continue with Mengsk's plan (ie: the convo just before the New Gettysburg mission starts).

You also have to consider that Raynor already made a partial moral concession earlier at Antiga, where a Psi Emitter was used to effectively "condemn the entire planet" as well. Mengsk masks the dubiousness of its use at Antiga as a way to teach the Confeds a lesson, as an act of revenge for the loss of Mar-Sara (which was consumed by Zerg that was supposedly lured there by the Confeds) and a means to escape from the clutches of the Confeds. Yet Raynor doesn't bat any eyelid at all there nor scream "think of the children!!!" at the time, does he?

That is precisely my point. Raynor should be complaining about all the innocents that will die since the only reason he even joined the SoK was because he was falsely imprisoned after doing what he thought was in the best interests of protecting civilians. It makes no sense he would suddenly compromise those same principles for the sake of revenge that he is not emotionally invested in. Remember that his family is dead (or presumed dead) at this point due to sheer bad luck, so the only joy in his life comes from saving people. He is not pathologically obsessed with tearing down the Confederacy like Kerry and Mengsk are.

[Mislagnissa]

Actually, I made a mistake. Raynor was seeming not informed of the psi-emitter planted on Antiga Prime, which was framed as a private mission between Mengsk and Kerry. When he is informed of the psi-emitters on Tarsonis, he calls Mengsk out for it. Despite this, Raynor seemingly harbors hope that disaster can be averted (which is the only way I can imagine he would stay on rather than rebel immediately). When his hopes evaporate, then he rebels against Mengsk. His characterization is consistent.

[Gradius]

Yeah Antiga was shady but still seemed like a military target. I think they were hoping Tarsonis would have been the same. Like maybe they'd have used the emitters to lure the zerg away or something.

[ragnarok]

Yeah Antiga was shady but still seemed like a military target. I think they were hoping Tarsonis would have been the same. Like maybe they'd have used the emitters to lure the zerg away or something.

It's possible Raynor didn't understand just how much Zerg would be lured in via an emitter. Sure he disliked using the zerg this way, but perhaps he felt this was considered acceptable if it's only against a small military outpost, hence why he let it go in the aftermath of Antiga (but before the events of Tarsonis)

[Turalyon]

That is precisely my point. Raynor should be complaining about all the innocents that will die since the only reason he even joined the SoK was because he was falsely imprisoned after doing what he thought was in the best interests of protecting civilians. It makes no sense he would suddenly compromise those same principles for the sake of revenge that he is not emotionally invested in.

But Raynor is emotionally invested in it at some level. He still believed that Mengsk was out for the greater good then and buys into his reasoning that the Confeds were the ones responsible for destroying his world of Mar-Sara. In that moment on Antiga, he can't and doesn't fathom the consequence of the psi-emitter being used because he's in immediate danger and that it's more important that the cause survives to resist the Confeds and their more morally bankrupt actions. You think Raynor is a guy with such strong moral conviction that he would rather die himself/leave in a huff (not that he's got anywhere else to go whilst being assaulted by the Confeds) just because the only option left is to use something that could kill other people? You think Raynor is some incorruptible paragon of virtue forevermore just because we saw him protecting some people the first time we see him, which he was assigned/responsible to do anyway because he's an officer of the law?


Raynor was seeming not informed of the psi-emitter planted on Antiga Prime, which was framed as a private mission between Mengsk and Kerry.

Incorrect, I'm afraid. Look at the briefing for The Trump Card again. Mengsk advises Raynor of the Confeds using psi-emitters to lure Zerg into isolated containment areas like Mar-Sara, condemns the evil that the Confeds committed and proposes to justly use the same tactic against them in order to escape their clutches.

[Mislagnissa]

Yeah Antiga was shady but still seemed like a military target. I think they were hoping Tarsonis would have been the same. Like maybe they'd have used the emitters to lure the zerg away or something.


It's possible Raynor didn't understand just how much Zerg would be lured in via an emitter. Sure he disliked using the zerg this way, but perhaps he felt this was considered acceptable if it's only against a small military outpost, hence why he let it go in the aftermath of Antiga (but before the events of Tarsonis)

Yes, I suspect that Raynor simply did not know that the zerg would overrun Antiga Prime. The deleted missions further mitigate the damages by having the protoss aid in evacuation efforts. According to the Revelations short story, Tass helped evacuate Mar Sara too.

Actually, what annoys me more is that the protoss did not play a bigger role in the campaign and that their contributions were cut. The manual foreshadowed a protoss schism over the terrans' fate, but this was only ever shown in the obscure Insurrection expansion. Then Rebel Yell ends with the Koprulu War over by writer fiat with the zerg easily beating the protoss off-screen (despite the manual establishing they have superior tech and should logically win every battle, with the zerg's superior numbers providing no advantage) and then leaving the terrans alone (despite the manual establishing that they don't leave survivors and strip the biospheres from planets).

Before Tura launches into another dissertation about red herrings or whatever, I have to make it clear now that I do not like the plot that we got and no argument will sway me. It does not match the story I imagined after reading the manual. There are numerous inconsistencies compared to the manual which push the game plot on a trajectory that does not match my expectations.

The manual left the events and outcome of the Koprulu War undefined. Based on the information in the manual (and interviews with Metzen and Samwise), events like the fall of the Confederacy or even the successful assimilation of terrans was not planned at the time. Based on the set up in the manual, the plot I expect from a first game would involve the factions we were told: the pirate militias would fight the confederacy, the protoss would suffer a schism and possibly the interference of dark templar, and the zerg would try to harvest terrans without producing any assimilated terran breeds yet. The Confederate experiments on zerg are not foreshadowed at all unless you read the old Starcraft website, but I find them to be intriguing enough to accept at face value since the manual never gave a time frame for the zerg scouts (and the decade mentioned in the novels feel fairly believable, more so than a shorter time period).

But the final game neatly severs or ignores those plot threads by the end of the first act in favor of the foreshadowed zerg/protoss war that would have been better served in a later game with a budget for new units and such. We never see the protoss fight over the fate of the terrans, except in Insurrection. The dark templar are introduced as a convenient plot device to defeat the zerg because they easily defeat the protoss off-screen, even though in the original manual this wasn't remotely necessary since the zerg were way out of their league. The determinant is either ignored or redefined to introduce an infested terran hero unit that doesn't contribute much to the story, since the budget seemingly did not allow for assimilated terrans to be added to the zerg army despite the manual foreshadowing that.

The final game just is not what I wanted. It does not fit my expectations from reading the manual. It tries to do too much in too small a space. It neglects many plot hooks from the manual. It contradicts key plot points from the manual. It sabotages the foundation for sequels by neatly solving all the conflicts introduced by the manual, despite those conflicts being written as long-term material that could support a long-running franchise rather than plot of the week material. The licensed expansions Insurrection and Retribution show off how much you could do with the original manual alone.

The first game in the franchise should not have resolved any of the conflicts introduced in the manual. It should have just served as an introduction to the Koprulu War that would serve as the backdrop for the franchise. It should have showcased the plot hooks introduced in the manual, such as the three pirate militias fighting the confederacy (without overthrowing it yet), the schism between the protoss over the terrans' fate, and the interplay between the zerg broods as they sought to harvest terrans. Concepts like dark templar and assimilated terrans and so forth could be saved for future installments, since at the very least the research and development of breeds with a terran core genus (not necessarily limited to footsoldiers, could also include creep colony mutations, superweapons, other mutations and such) would mark the point at which the zerg could hope to stand against the full might of the protoss. The dark templar, IMO, work very well as allies to the terrans fighting off protoss genocide given the dark templar were subject to a pogrom themselves.

But I digress...

[ragnarok]

Again this goes all the way back to what the details about the psi emitter were. From "The Trump Card" briefing, it seemed Kerrigan only knew the emitter could lure zerg, not how many. Sure, Mengsk said it was a Confederate weapons test, but no one said if the test would spiral out of control or not.

[Turalyon]

The first game in the franchise should not have resolved any of the conflicts introduced in the manual.

So you're advocating for nothing much to happen in the game? Why even bother making a game story when all you need is the manual? Having a game story that purposefully moves like molasses and doesn't cover much ground in the hope that they'd get time later to finally get around to those conflicts in sequel number 6 is a lot to ask for/ride things on, if anyone even still cares at all after the first one.

[Mislagnissa]

So you're advocating for nothing much to happen in the game? Why even bother making a game story when all you need is the manual? Having a game story that purposefully moves like molasses and doesn't cover much ground in the hope that they'd get time later to finally get around to those conflicts in sequel number 6 is a lot to ask for/ride things on, if anyone even still cares at all after the first one.

Tura, please stop arguing that they could not do this in 1998. I am talking about a hypothetical reboot made with the benefit of hindsight and foresight. The reboot goes back to basics and plans to use the setting as a backdrop for a multimedia franchise. Therefore, my assumptions make sense in that context. They do not make sense in the 1998 context you are arguing. Your line of discussion is not productive with respect to mine. Please stop arguing from your context of 1998 and start engaging with my context of a hypothetical reboot. Please never argue from the 1998 context ever again because I am never interested in engaging with that.

I do not know how I can make it clearer to you.

[ragnarok]

Tura, please stop arguing that they could not do this in 1998. I am talking about a hypothetical reboot made with the benefit of hindsight and foresight. The reboot goes back to basics and plans to use the setting as a backdrop for a multimedia franchise. Therefore, my assumptions make sense in that context. They do not make sense in the 1998 context you are arguing. Your line of discussion is not productive with respect to mine. Please stop arguing from your context of 1998 and start engaging with my context of a hypothetical reboot. Please never argue from the 1998 context ever again because I am never interested in engaging with that.

I do not know how I can make it clearer to you.

Your problem is that you hate the SC2 storyline so much that you feel the only "success" Blizzard had in it was they failed EVERYTHING, hence why it's necessary to reboot the whole franchise. It's not necessary for that, they only needed to redo things in HotS, and then try tying a few things up via LotV

[Turalyon]

Tura, please stop arguing that they could not do this in 1998.

That's easy for me to do because all you have to do is to stop taking the perspective that I'm arguing from "1998" then with that post. The questions I raised there are still valid since it hinges on people caring enough about the manual to want to go into the depth you're proposing.

How are you not going to get bogged down into what amounts to minutiae/details that people may or may not care about? What constitutes as progress in your reboot narrative? What's part 1 of your narrative? Where does part 1 end? What stuff is going to be covered in that and is it really that important to go into certain details if all of it's just mood setting with nothing of significance happening the whole time? Is it really going to feel important enough to some grander narrative if we go into this detail? Is it all gonna join up and when - part 3, 7, 12? What makes people care enough to get through all that before the actual conflict of the three races begins? It's all well and good for you to say what "should" have happened based on the manual but how does this form an engaging long-term narrative? Wouldn't this stuff be better covered with books than a game story? Some people just don't want to sweat the details to get to the good stuff.

[Mislagnissa]

Your problem is that you hate the SC2 storyline so much that you feel the only "success" Blizzard had in it was they failed EVERYTHING, hence why it's necessary to reboot the whole franchise. It's not necessary for that, they only needed to redo things in HotS, and then try tying a few things up via LotV

The games suffer from a terrible case of sequelitis, as Tura has already explained. The original game was written as a self-contained narrative that sequels could never hope to match. For god's sake, it ended with the death of a villain who planned to literally eat all life in the universe and was the leader of one of the three playable sides. Of course no sequel could ever hope to compare and any sequel to that would only get worse!

The Queen of Blades was a Saturday morning cartoon villain who just wanted to take over and kill billions of people because the writer said so. Even the nazis and the taliban had more depth as villains, since they literally believed they were the good guys. Likewise, Amon just wants to kill everyone because the writer needs to force the three races to become friends and make peace at the end.

Not only that, but the SC1 final game narrative did not do nearly as much with its premise as it could have. Numerous plot points from the manual were forgotten or twisted beyond recognition. Rewriting the plot of HotS and LotV to be less stupid does not fix those problems because the franchise jumped the shark back in SC1 when it turned Mengsk and Kerry into caricature supervillains and killed off the vastly more intriguing and sympathetic Overmind.

The foundation does not support sequels because the protoss and zerg have been twisted into washed-up has-beens with nothing to distinguish them from the terrans and have absolutely no goals, desires or motivations of their own. They are nothing more than marionettes moving to the whim of the writers playing second fiddle to the terrans.

The only way to fix this is to reboot the franchise back to basics and go from there with the benefit of hindsight.


That's easy for me to do because all you have to do is to stop taking the perspective that I'm arguing from "1998" then with that post. The questions I raised there are still valid since it hinges on people caring enough about the manual to want to go into the depth you're proposing.

How are you not going to get bogged down into what amounts to minutiae/details that people may or may not care about? What constitutes as progress in your reboot narrative? What's part 1 of your narrative? Where does part 1 end? What stuff is going to be covered in that and is it really that important to go into certain details if all of it's just mood setting with nothing of significance happening the whole time? Is it really going to feel important enough to some grander narrative if we go into this detail? Is it all gonna join up and when - part 3, 7, 12? What makes people care enough to get through all that before the actual conflict of the three races begins? It's all well and good for you to say what "should" have happened based on the manual but how does this form an engaging long-term narrative? Wouldn't this stuff be better covered with books than a game story? Some people just don't want to sweat the details to get to the good stuff.
These complaints are completely baseless. You can level them at every work of fiction that has ever existed. Just look at the setting of any long-running tabletop game or video game franchise if you want refutations. Warhammer 40k, Traveler, Shadowrun, Halo, blah blah blah.

"Get to the good stuff"? Starcraft does not need a narrative universe, it is just meant to provide the illusion of depth to what is otherwise a recreational strategy video game. It only appeals to people who care about that sort of thing, who form a small minority among starcraft fans. The gameplay ultimately comes first, and the story is just built around that.

The narrative universe we currently have is garbage. If we want to have the protoss, terrans, zerg and variations thereof fighting and allying with each other, then there are so many better ways to frame that.

I posted some fanfiction (https://archiveofourown.org/series/1084767) set in a rebooted setting. It will probably take me years to finish since I am not being paid to write/rewrite it and I suffer writer's block all the time, but those are my tentative forays. Feel free to constructively criticize them or whatever, I am sure that would be helpful in improving my writing or something.

[ragnarok]

The games suffer from a terrible case of sequelitis, as Tura has already explained. The original game was written as a self-contained narrative that sequels could never hope to match. For god's sake, it ended with the death of a villain who planned to literally eat all life in the universe and was the leader of one of the three playable sides. Of course no sequel could ever hope to compare and any sequel to that would only get worse!

The Queen of Blades was a Saturday morning cartoon villain who just wanted to take over and kill billions of people because the writer said so. Even the nazis and the taliban had more depth as villains, since they literally believed they were the good guys. Likewise, Amon just wants to kill everyone because the writer needs to force the three races to become friends and make peace at the end.

Not only that, but the SC1 final game narrative did not do nearly as much with its premise as it could have. Numerous plot points from the manual were forgotten or twisted beyond recognition. Rewriting the plot of HotS and LotV to be less stupid does not fix those problems because the franchise jumped the shark back in SC1 when it turned Mengsk and Kerry into caricature supervillains and killed off the vastly more intriguing and sympathetic Overmind.

The foundation does not support sequels because the protoss and zerg have been twisted into washed-up has-beens with nothing to distinguish them from the terrans and have absolutely no goals, desires or motivations of their own. They are nothing more than marionettes moving to the whim of the writers playing second fiddle to the terrans.

The only way to fix this is to reboot the franchise back to basics and go from there with the benefit of hindsight.


Speak for yourself. I've said enough on the Kerrigan topic, but if you really must know why I'm still sympathetic towards her, let's just say I have personal experience (not in the exact way) when it comes to people who are TOO sadistic without even knowing it. Believe me, that WILL inevitably cause hatred towards the world.

For the 3 races coming together to deal with Amon (and since you mentioned the Nazis), you'd remember that the alliance against the Nazis was never an idealistic one. Hell you could remove the Russians from the equation completely and there were plenty of tension problems amongst the Western allies. Bottom line is that you have to work with people you dislike, and even those you believe might betray you in the end. Having said that however, I felt it was a flaw for what happened at Ulnar. If nothing else I had at least expected Artanis to demand answers from Kerrigan as to what would happen in victory (given she had said the same thing in BW and look how that turned out)

[Mislagnissa]

Speak for yourself. I've said enough on the Kerrigan topic, but if you really must know why I'm still sympathetic towards her, let's just say I have personal experience (not in the exact way) when it comes to people who are TOO sadistic without even knowing it. Believe me, that WILL inevitably cause hatred towards the world.I knew sociopaths too. They made my life hell. But that is besides the point. In SC1 and BW, the QoB is nothing more than a caricature that does whatever the plot requires. The Overmind had a reasonable justification for its actions. QoB and Amon do not.


For the 3 races coming together to deal with Amon (and since you mentioned the Nazis), you'd remember that the alliance against the Nazis was never an idealistic one. Hell you could remove the Russians from the equation completely and there were plenty of tension problems amongst the Western allies. Bottom line is that you have to work with people you dislike, and even those you believe might betray you in the end. Having said that however, I felt it was a flaw for what happened at Ulnar. If nothing else I had at least expected Artanis to demand answers from Kerrigan as to what would happen in victory (given she had said the same thing in BW and look how that turned out)

You are trying to retroactively justify the awful plot of SC2 rather than working forward from first principles. The comparison to the Allies breaks down because the Allies were all human beings. The protoss and zerg are aliens with very different physiology and psychology compared to human beings, and the entire purpose of SC2 was to destroy those differences (https://electriccartilage.wordpress.com/2012/02/09/the-fall-of-starcraft-2s-story/) as part of its terrible ham-fisted WC3 knock-off.

While I can understand the terrans and protoss allying for the greater good, the entire shtick of the zerg is that they eat people. Their entire purpose for existing is to eat everything that is not themselves. Every single aspect of their biology is geared towards making them more efficient killing machines or apparatuses to support an endless war machine. They evolved from the ground up (literally!) for the sole purpose of waging war on the entire universe.

Amon is an absolutely terrible villain whose sole purpose was to force the three races to make peace even though this makes no sense. The writers force the narrative universe to move towards their desired outcome regardless of whether it would make logical sense. Anything that gets in the way of the writers is either ignored or retconned.

Your entire position is build on sand. Somehow you recognize that SC2 is absurd and yet you refuse to abandon it.

You said you write fanfiction, yes? What have you written? Why is it so important that you use the SC2 as a foundation rather than ignoring it? Does using SC2 lead to a better story than not using it? How? If you wrote a story that rebooted to basics, would it be better or worse? Why?

I can tell you right now that I have already contemplated those questions and the answers are what lead me to abandoning the narrative of the games in favor of a reboot. I simply could not tell a good story given the restriction of canon and the logically inconsistent nature of the lore. I crave order and structure, so I cannot stand things which are utterly devoid of rationality.

[sandwich_bird]

"Get to the good stuff"? Starcraft does not need a narrative universe, it is just meant to provide the illusion of depth to what is otherwise a recreational strategy video game. It only appeals to people who care about that sort of thing, who form a small minority among starcraft fans. The gameplay ultimately comes first, and the story is just built around that.


No, just no... Starcraft doesn't "need" a narrative universe but it can certainly have one and the one it has isn't just a meaningless backdrop to gameplay. It's integral to the experience of the single player campaign. It's far from being an after thought and I really don't see why you would even think that. Maybe in South Korea nobody cares, but in the western world, the story definitely has/had a significant number of players interested. Enough to warrant Blizzard spending a lot of $ on the campaign anyways.

Honestly, the last thing I want is for Starcraft to get the overwatch treatment. I'd rather they continue a bad story than give us a remake without a campaign but with your perfect vision of a backdrop. That's all because the campaign is pretty fun even if it's stupid.

[Mislagnissa]

No, just no... Starcraft doesn't "need" a narrative universe but it can certainly have one and the one it has isn't just a meaningless backdrop to gameplay. It's integral to the experience of the single player campaign. It's far from being an after thought and I really don't see why you would even think that. Maybe in South Korea nobody cares, but in the western world, the story definitely has/had a significant number of players interested. Enough to warrant Blizzard spending a lot of $ on the campaign anyways.

Honestly, the last thing I want is for Starcraft to get the overwatch treatment. I'd rather they continue a bad story than give us a remake without a campaign but with your perfect vision of a backdrop. That's all because the campaign is pretty fun even if it's stupid.

That is not even remotely what I said. Seriously, I talked about how Enumerate exemplifies pretty much everything I wanted for months. Did none of that sink in? You just turned me into a strawman.

I would happily welcome the Overwatch treatment because it is the only thing Blizzard is good at and it would give me endless freedom to explore the themes I wanted to in fanfiction without jerks on fanfiction.net telling me I got their stupid lore wrong.

Most of the SC2 money comes from the Co-Op, not the campaign. That is why they stopped making campaign DLC. The vast majority of starcraft fans have no interest in the lore, the vast majority of discussion is about the game mechanics and so forth. Visit the subreddit or blizzard forums? Everything is about the competitive scene. Almost nobody cares about the lore.

Talking to you guys is extremely frustrating, but I will try to avoid blowing up. To put it in simple terms, this is what I believe:

The canon is bad, restrictive, convoluted, irrational, etc
The canon has an atrocious stranglehold on creativity and sanity
The narrative needs to be rebooted for reasons of sanity
The original manual lays out many interesting plot hooks
Enumerate provides some pointers for how to lay out a unified timeline
The timeline is supposed to be a support for a sandbox setting
The idea is to provide a platform to writers to do whatever they want with very few limits
I really do not like exploring the timeline past the point at which the manual assumptions cease to apply
Major events like the fall of the Confederacy would require a lot of work to explain the aftermath
The zerg successfully acquiring the determinant would result in another conflict
This other conflict would not involve the terrans at all, not without tormented mental gymnastics
Since the premise is the three races fighting, I prefer to avoid exploring the zerg's invasion of the protoss galactic empire
That said, I still treat that as part of the overall timeline for those who desire it



If you have difficulty understanding my argument, then please ask for clarification.

[Gradius]

Major events like the fall of the Confederacy would require a lot of work to explain the aftermath


So basically you’re advocating and think everyone else should get on board with a story where the status quo doesn’t change and pretty much nothing significant happens?

[sandwich_bird]

That is not even remotely what I said. Seriously, I talked about how Enumerate exemplifies pretty much everything I wanted for months. Did none of that sink in? You just turned me into a strawman.

Right, so you didn't say that


Starcraft does not need a narrative universe, it is just meant to provide the illusion of depth to what is otherwise a recreational strategy video game.

or that


It only appeals to people who care about that sort of thing, who form a small minority among starcraft fans.

So obviously it would make no sense for me to argue that the story is more than a backdrop or that there is a significant portion of people that enjoy the campaign. :rolleyes:


Most of the SC2 money comes from the Co-Op, not the campaign. That is why they stopped making campaign DLC. The vast majority of starcraft fans have no interest in the lore, the vast majority of discussion is about the game mechanics and so forth. Visit the subreddit or blizzard forums? Everything is about the competitive scene. Almost nobody cares about the lore.


The competitive scene continuously has new things to talk about. That's not the case for lore fans.

Profits from a badly reviewed SP story DLC(something that is known to not sell to well in the industry to begin with) after a trilogy that had a weak story are obviously going to be overshadowed by the cheap to produce cosmetics and co-op items. I can guarantee you that if they'd make a starcraft 3 without a campaign, there would be an uproar in the west.



And yes, we all know what you want by now, no need to repeat it every 5 post you make.

[Mislagnissa]

So basically you’re advocating and think everyone else should get on board with a story where the status quo doesn’t change and pretty much nothing significant happens?
Blizzard clearly showed they cannot maintain continuity.

But no.

I propose introducing a timeline consisting of multiple eras with defined start points, end points, and spatial locations. Each era would effectively be its own status quo.

I prefer to explore only the eras prior to the fall of the Confederacy, because Blizzard didn’t butcher that period into stupidity and because the manual only covers that period.

The manual lore never had provisions for the Confederacy actually falling. Metzen said in interview he only came up with that well into development, along with QoB and the invasion of Aiur. Those were never actually planned by the time the manual lore and game mechanics had stabilized.

The final plot of SC1 was literally an afterthought. That is why it has multiple inconsistencies with the manual and fails to explore key plot hooks. That is why we never got assimilated terran units until SC2 (although the Aberration is actually a complete contradiction of the determinant, and for that matter contradicts the entire zerg MO. The entire reason they hunt new species is because they cannot spontaneously induce that level of change to the breeds they have.)

[Mislagnissa]

Right, so you didn't say that



or that



So obviously it would make no sense for me to argue that the story is more than a backdrop or that there is a significant portion of people that enjoy the campaign. :rolleyes:



The competitive scene continuously has new things to talk about. That's not the case for lore fans.

Profits from a badly reviewed SP story DLC(something that is known to not sell to well in the industry to begin with) after a trilogy that had a weak story are obviously going to be overshadowed by the cheap to produce cosmetics and co-op items. I can guarantee you that if they'd make a starcraft 3 without a campaign, there would be an uproar in the west.



And yes, we all know what you want by now, no need to repeat it every 5 post you make.you misunderstood me.

I can guarantee that SC3 will be just as divisive as its predecessor and have a nonsensical plot.

SC3 will undoubtedly do some or all of the following:

Make retcons that produce irreconcilable contradictions in the lore

Completely change the backstory and motives of major characters and factions

Introduced new villains from nowhere

Introduced new major organizations from nowhere

Ignore the military and civilians losses in past conflicts

Ruin the characterization beloved characters

Be a complete abomination according to fans of SC2, much less SC1

Rely on plot holes, deus ex machinas and idiot plots for everything

Consign previously important organizations to obscurity

Completely rewrite the metaphysics of the universe again

Display obvious signs that the writers had no familiarity with previous games

Will introduce the UED as the main antagonist

Will forget about the UED again in favor of something else

Will destroy the UED again and reduce them to an obscure footnote

Introduce time travel as a deus ex machina to do whatever the plot requires

Will introduce a conpletely new faction nobody had ever heard of as the main antagonist

Bring back the xel’naga as the main antagonist

Resurrect the Overmind again

Create infinite clones of the Overmind

Retcon the Overmind into a xel’naga

Retcon the protoss and/or terrans into genetic descendants of xel’naga

Retcon the xel’naga into protoss a la the dark voice portrait

Retcon the xel’naga into humans

Resurrect dead characters with cloning, mind uploading, time travel, literal magic or some other plot device

Introduce a massive protoss population that never existed previously

Reintroduce the determinant from the SC1 despite other retcons

Constantly argue with itself about whether terrans and protoss are truly capable with zerg or not

Will introduce infested/assimilated protoss and inconsistently treat them as either the same or different from hybrids

Will destroy Earth to show off the power of the new antagonist

Will invalidate all the major events and plot points of previous games with retcons

Turn heroes into villains and villains into heroes

Introduce new protoss factions that never existed previously, but stubbornly refuse to call them tribes

Introduce new protoss tribes out of nowhere

Introduce new dark templar and forged tribes out of nowhere

Introduce new dark protoss messiahs that are not Ulrezaj

Introduce new factions of zerg that are not primal, corrupted or feral

Introduce a new zerg leadership caste that isn’t cerebrate, brood mommy or pack leader

Introduce a new protoss caste

Introduce new broods of zerg

Introduce previously forgotten pirate militias, tribes, and broods a la how WoW brings back obscure lore for minor quests

Reform the Confederacy, Protoss Empire, Zerg Swarm without explanation

Overthrow the Dominion

Turn the protoss/terran/zerg into villains

Rebuild the khala without explanation or forget it was ever gone

Contradict previous retcons or overwrite them with new retcons

Introduce Kerry, Raynor, Valerian, Fenix, Alarak, or any other named character as the main antagonist

Introduce a string of main antagonists who get shanked like bitches in their initial appearance

Retcon Amon into a good guy who was trying to stop a greater threat, a la Sargeras in WoW

Completely change Amon’s motives

Completely change the Overmind’s motives

Turn the dark templar into villains

Turn the forged into heroes

Rewrite Alarak and Nova as love interests, butchering their previous characterization

Rewrite the xel’naga as always evil

Rewrite Ouros as the bad sheep

Introduce a fourth race but not really

Place Earth in the Koprulu sector, a shuttle ride from Aiur

Depict characters casually traveling across the galaxy, as if distance is meaningless

Depict characters casually traveling between numerous galaxies instantly

Introduced a terrible hackneyed irrational conflict

Introduce a logical conflict only to ruin it

Contradict themselves within the same game

Have characters act in unbelievable ways that look cool until you think about them logically

Structure missions around gimmicks that make no sense as part of a coherent story

Introduce numerous obvious false dichotomies

Rely on insane troll logic for character decisions

Have characters act on information from the future that they cannot possibly know

Write prophecies predicting the future with perfect accuracy

Have characters write prophecies depicting their own deaths, which they will fail to stop

Write prophecies depicting the villain will be shanked by deus ex machina, which the villain will make no attempt to avoid

Depicting characters with contradictory and inconsistent power levels depending on the current situations

Events will occur due to writer fiat rather than logical cause and effect

Alarak and Nova will have a kid who will age up to teenager in one week

John Raynor will be introduced at an impossible teenage (he was born ~2494 ish?) and be paired up with Alarak and Nova’s kid

The events of Starcraft Evolution, Shadow Wars, Scavengers will be ignored/contradicted or rewritten due to the writers not bothering to read it

Niadra will evolve into the Overmind, then immediately get shanked

Cerebrates will be resurrected with inexplicable immunity to dark templar

The events of the game will be unpredictable by fans because the writers do not care for logic

A twilight path combining khala/void will be introduced

A new psychic power source unrelated to void or khala will be introduced

Another parallel universe of psychic space goo separate from warp space or void will be introduced

Void will be conflated with warp space

Outer space will be conflated with void

Outer space will be a new psychic power source called “space”

All dead zerg will be revealed as still having ghosts in the void or the “cosmic energy” plane a la the xel’naga

All the dead xel’naga will be resurrected without explanation, then shanked without explanation

Amon will be the main character

Raynor and Kerry will be the main character

Etc

[Gradius]

Blizzard clearly showed they cannot maintain continuity.

But no.

I propose introducing a timeline consisting of multiple eras with defined start points, end points, and spatial locations. Each era would effectively be its own status quo.

I prefer to explore only the eras prior to the fall of the Confederacy, because Blizzard didn’t butcher that period into stupidity and because the manual only covers that period.

The manual lore never had provisions for the Confederacy actually falling. Metzen said in interview he only came up with that well into development, along with QoB and the invasion of Aiur. Those were never actually planned by the time the manual lore and game mechanics had stabilized.

The final plot of SC1 was literally an afterthought. That is why it has multiple inconsistencies with the manual and fails to explore key plot hooks. That is why we never got assimilated terran units until SC2 (although the Aberration is actually a complete contradiction of the determinant, and for that matter contradicts the entire zerg MO. The entire reason they hunt new species is because they cannot spontaneously induce that level of change to the breeds they have.)
I'm not onboard with any of that knowing that what you consider a plot hole almost always boils down to some plot event not turning out how you liked. What about any of those events is inconsistent with the manual? The manual is a backdrop. Assimilated terran units were never promised. The determinant was about the Overmind's lack of confidence in engaging the protoss, not some definite promise to have assimilated terran units (it's not).

SC1 already has defined eras. I don't get it.

[ragnarok]

I hope you know some of the points you listed as predictions for SC3 would be considered too ludicrous even for the developers, Mislag.....

[Turalyon]

These complaints are completely baseless. You can level them at every work of fiction that has ever existed. Just look at the setting of any long-running tabletop game or video game franchise if you want refutations. Warhammer 40k, Traveler, Shadowrun, Halo, blah blah blah.

You see complaints where I'm just asking questions. You're the one trying to justify the reboot/remake of the entire narrative, so how are you going to make me (let alone others) care about this new narrative?

You cite other works, but if you do that I might as well just partake of those instead if all you're really saying is you're just going to ape those.


"Get to the good stuff"? Starcraft does not need a narrative universe, it is just meant to provide the illusion of depth to what is otherwise a recreational strategy video game. It only appeals to people who care about that sort of thing, who form a small minority among starcraft fans. The gameplay ultimately comes first, and the story is just built around that.

I can't help but think you're being disingenuous here. You go on and on about the importance of rebooting the narrative but then go on to dismiss narrative as being worthless and nobody caring about it when I poke your position a little bit. You've just self-defeated your own aim and purpose of going into such depth in making a narrative reboot. Thank goodness you're not asking anyone to invest in this because you're doing a terrible job of pitching it. :D

[Mislagnissa]

I'm not onboard with any of that knowing that what you consider a plot hole almost always boils down to some plot event not turning out how you liked. What about any of those events is inconsistent with the manual? The manual is a backdrop. Assimilated terran units were never promised. The determinant was about the Overmind's lack of confidence in engaging the protoss, not some definite promise to have assimilated terran units (it's not).

SC1 already has defined eras. I don't get it.I didn’t necessarily consider those plot holes. I just thought Metzen did a bad job of writing a game plot based on the manual. He never met my expectations. Insurrection did a better job with its story (not an amazing job, but a better one) even if the map design was terribly amateur.


I hope you know some of the points you listed as predictions for SC3 would be considered too ludicrous even for the developers, Mislag.....People thought the same until SC2 came out. Considering the plot of WoW, anything is possible no matter how outlandish.


You see complaints where I'm just asking questions. You're the one trying to justify the reboot/remake of the entire narrative, so how are you going to make me (let alone others) care about this new narrative?

You cite other works, but if you do that I might as well just partake of those instead if all you're really saying is you're just going to ape those.



I can't help but think you're being disingenuous here. You go on and on about the importance of rebooting the narrative but then go on to dismiss narrative as being worthless and nobody caring about it when I poke your position a little bit. You've just self-defeated your own aim and purpose of going into such depth in making a narrative reboot. Thank goodness you're not asking anyone to invest in this because you're doing a terrible job of pitching it. :D

We went over this hundreds of times. I already tried to convince you to care over the past year. I mentioned Insurrection. I linked Enumerate. I listed plot outlines. I wrote fanfiction. Nothing has worked.

There’s nothing wrong with the Overwatch treatment. At least the Blizzard writers found something they are finally good at.

[ragnarok]

People thought the same until SC2 came out. Considering the plot of WoW, anything is possible no matter how outlandish.


And what exactly is WoW's plot? (Since I never got into the WC universe)

[Mislagnissa]

And what exactly is WoW's plot? (Since I never got into the WC universe)

The first game is the series was about orcs from a dying planet trying to conquer the human kingdom through a magic wormhole.

As of the latest WoW expansion, the story is about... honestly it is so far removed as to be completely beyond my capacity to care about. The king of the demons, who commands a bazillion galaxies’ worth of demons, is fighting against sentient black holes, which convert all planets they touch into more black holes, by destroying every planet in the universe. Or something like that.

Blizzard has been steadily forcing Starcraft onto the same path. Originally it was about the evil zerg trying to eat the terrans for dinner and the protoss for desert. Now it is about space gods trying to stop other space gods from destroying the universe.

I don’t understand how you cannot find fault with that. Blizzard doesn’t understand how to write engaging plots. Raising the stakes beyond the bounds of sanity does not make the story better.

[ragnarok]

Blizzard has been steadily forcing Starcraft onto the same path. Originally it was about the evil zerg trying to eat the terrans for dinner and the protoss for desert. Now it is about space gods trying to stop other space gods from destroying the universe.

I don’t understand how you cannot find fault with that. Blizzard doesn’t understand how to write engaging plots. Raising the stakes beyond the bounds of sanity does not make the story better.

Admittedly in the aftermath of WoL there were a lot of people who weren't too happy that the game was trying to imply that the Overmind was not the bloodthirsty monster SC1 portrayed him as. Given what the SC1 manual said, it certainly wasn't what I had been expecting.

To have the whole "space gods" introduced, again, I feel it was just Blizzard's way to find a way to put the Xel'Naga into the picture.

[Mislagnissa]

Admittedly in the aftermath of WoL there were a lot of people who weren't too happy that the game was trying to imply that the Overmind was not the bloodthirsty monster SC1 portrayed him as. Given what the SC1 manual said, it certainly wasn't what I had been expecting.

To have the whole "space gods" introduced, again, I feel it was just Blizzard's way to find a way to put the Xel'Naga into the picture.

They never needed the xel'naga to return. The xel'naga were just a plot device to explain the origins and relation of the zerg and protoss. The backstory could have been written without them. In fact, if the backstory had been written without them then I think the story would have gone in a completely different direction that may or may not have been better than what we got. Or, more cynically, Blizzard would have retconned them into the story if the zerg and protoss had previously been established as independent.

I should probably get back to writing my reboot narrative fanfiction rather than constantly criticizing Blizzard. Feel free to critique what little I published so far, maybe make suggestions as to where the plot should go. I have an outline sketched out for the major events on the small scale and the sector scale, but the nitty gritty isn't set in stone and I've already veered off my outline and had to edit it more than a few times.

[ragnarok]

As I said, I'd have accepted it just fine for the Xel'Naga to return via flashbacks. A lot of people I talked to back on the battlenet forums said they'd accept that, as long as there's no PHYSICAL appearance for the Xel'Naga to return. Even making Duran a Xel'Naga in the epilogue was something I didn't want. Amon and Duran could have both been enemies to the Xel'Naga and that's it. Then, you could have had them use Xel'Naga tech for their own selfish goals.

[Mislagnissa]

As I said, I'd have accepted it just fine for the Xel'Naga to return via flashbacks. A lot of people I talked to back on the battlenet forums said they'd accept that, as long as there's no PHYSICAL appearance for the Xel'Naga to return. Even making Duran a Xel'Naga in the epilogue was something I didn't want. Amon and Duran could have both been enemies to the Xel'Naga and that's it. Then, you could have had them use Xel'Naga tech for their own selfish goals.

I always felt that adding a 4th race was a distraction from the premise of the three races fighting each other and themselves. The UED and evil xel'naga were never anything more than a ham-fisted excuse for the three races to team up against them even though that violates the basic premise and discards the original grey morality. I can accept alliances on a case-by-case basis, but not as the main conflict of the franchise.

[ragnarok]

For the BW, I initially felt that Blizzard introduced the UED in BW (ignoring Kerrigan's goal for ruling over the zerg) as a means to drag out Mengsk's rule over the Dominion because of his sheer dumb luck he was able to stay on the throne (as a new enemy forced others to push him to the back burner)

[Visions of Khas]

To get things back on track: Anthony Jones was an illustrator hired on by Blizzard several years ago and contributed concept art for the Protoss-Zerg Hybrids. He published his sketches on ArtStation just yesterday. Have a look:

https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/012/144/403/large/anthony-jones-superhybrid-thumbs-v3.jpg?1533248324

https://cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/012/144/416/large/anthony-jones-superhyprid-thumbs-v1.jpg?1533248353

https://cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/012/144/408/large/anthony-jones-superhybrid-thumbs-v5.jpg?1533248341

[drakolobo]

great work

[Gradius]

That looks amazing...

[Turalyon]

One of them looks like the Sc2 Queen. Which concept came first?

[Visions of Khas]

One of them looks like the Sc2 Queen. Which concept came first?
I'd say the queen. I don't think they expanded on the hybrid concepts until after the main three were cemented.

[Robear]

All of these are concepts he did for Legacy of the Void. He already had the hybrids and all unit designs from the previous expansions to draw on.

He also is the guy who did the LotV cinematic zealot, high templar and archon armor concepts.

[Visions of Khas]

All of these are concepts he did for Legacy of the Void. He already had the hybrids and all unit designs from the previous expansions to draw on.

Wait a minute, what? So what you're saying is Blizzard considered improving the Hybrid design leading up to LotV, had their artists crank out fantastic concepts, then went "Naww, let's roll with what we've got!"

What. The hell.

[Nolanstar]

Found some interesting concept art in the old WoL artbook.
Didn't think the Cobra, Hercules Tank and several other things had actual art, but apparently they do.

[Robear]

Wait a minute, what? So what you're saying is Blizzard considered improving the Hybrid design leading up to LotV, had their artists crank out fantastic concepts, then went "Naww, let's roll with what we've got!"

What. The hell.

I mean, they did design a bunch of new Hybrid units for LotV. The dominators, those flying ones, etc. And they made a cutscene model of the hybrid reaver, so could have been looking at potential new details there. idk

[Visions of Khas]

The only new hybrid concept for LotV was the airborne Nemesis. Amon's form is a modified Reaver, and Dominators are simply Destroyers with widgets.

[Mislagnissa]

I still think my idea that the xel'naga actually looked like adorable stuffed animals is the best idea, precisely because it actively defies the audience's expectations of them as off-brand protoss. It gives them a distinct visual aesthetic from the zerg and protoss, since cute and furry is the opposite of those. It explains why the protoss and zerg beat them at combat too.

[Gradius]

I still think my idea that the xel'naga actually looked like adorable stuffed animals is the best idea, precisely because it actively defies the audience's expectations of them as off-brand protoss. It gives them a distinct visual aesthetic from the zerg and protoss, since cute and furry is the opposite of those. It explains why the protoss and zerg beat them at combat too.
Stop... :P

[Visions of Khas]

I still think my idea that the xel'naga actually looked like adorable stuffed animals is the best idea, precisely because it actively defies the audience's expectations of them as off-brand protoss. It gives them a distinct visual aesthetic from the zerg and protoss, since cute and furry is the opposite of those. It explains why the protoss and zerg beat them at combat too.

Subversion for subversion’s sake, narrative be damned. Okay, Rian Johnson.

[Mislagnissa]

Stop... :P


Subversion for subversion’s sake, narrative be damned. Okay, Rian Johnson.

Watch Puella Magi Madoka Magica if you do not believe me.

[Visions of Khas]

I have. Kyubey did nothing wrong.

[Mislagnissa]

I have. Kyubey did nothing wrong.

(Try not to spoil anything. The series thrives on surprises.) Did you see the third movie? I got flashbacks to that episode of Grim Adventures titled “My Fair Mandy.”

It totally fits the xel’naga narrative before Metzen lost his marbles.

[ragnarok]

I still think my idea that the xel'naga actually looked like adorable stuffed animals is the best idea, precisely because it actively defies the audience's expectations of them as off-brand protoss. It gives them a distinct visual aesthetic from the zerg and protoss, since cute and furry is the opposite of those. It explains why the protoss and zerg beat them at combat too.

*Facepalm* You've been looking at telletubbies for too long....

[Mislagnissa]

*Facepalm* You've been looking at telletubbies for too long....

You are unable to comprehend of aliens that do not look like the product of focus group testing based on what appeals to teenage boys. There is no reason why the xel'naga could not have been green feathered bird people (https://www.deviantart.com/zimonini/art/ANIMORPHS-RACES-Arn-Chadoo-138006928), purple furry cat people (http://zulies-doodles.tumblr.com/post/157209451037/after-noticing-the-lack-of-female-galra-in), tiny bug-eyed frog people (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Galvan), etc other than you being biased because you think that is totally uncool or whatever shallow reason you came up with.

Scientifically plausible aliens can look very freakish, nothing like zerg or protoss. Look at the art of Nemo Ramjet (https://www.deviantart.com/nemo-ramjet) or Alex Rie (https://www.deviantart.com/abiogenisis)s for starters.

[sandwich_bird]

It depends what you're going for aesthetically. If we're talking about the somewhat photo-realistic grim look of SC1, an Ewok look doesn't fit at all for the Xel-Naga.

Starcraft is also not a universe that try to surprise you visually. The look of objects fit the theme of what the object is. The Xel-Naga are a highly advanced civilization. When you think of them, you might think of ancient and "grandeur". So the look should fit that expectation. If they were fluffy cats, you'd just think "lol wtf" instead of "wow!". The universe is already enough of a joke, the last thing I want is for a reboot to make it worse.

[Mislagnissa]

It depends what you're going for aesthetically. If we're talking about the somewhat photo-realistic grim look of SC1, an Ewok look doesn't fit at all for the Xel-Naga.

Starcraft is also not a universe that try to surprise you visually. The look of objects fit the theme of what the object is. The Xel-Naga are a highly advanced civilization. When you think of them, you might think of ancient and "grandeur". So the look should fit that expectation. If they were fluffy cats, you'd just think "lol wtf" instead of "wow!". The universe is already enough of a joke, the last thing I want is for a reboot to make it worse.

The naga were peaceful scientists who got their asses handed to them by their vicious creations. That doesn’t make me think they would look ostentatious (which is already the protoss’ shtick). They were worshiped as gods by people who didn’t know better, but that doesn’t mean they were absurdly vain, egotistical and fabulously dressed like the goa’uld from Stargate. Prior to all the retcons about their magical temples and gates, they sounded like textbook mad scientists.

Something like this looks better for conveying the mad scientist angle: http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?191633-rendering-Keyshot&p=1207167&viewfull=1#post1207167

[sandwich_bird]

I'm on-board with that look and the argument. Very nice! Really capture the alien frail mad scientist aesthetic. Would just change the skull to be less humanoid. If we'd keep the temples and what not, I'd change the suit to be more cubic and a bit more pretentious. Either that or change the temples to be more like something from H R Giger.

[ragnarok]

You are unable to comprehend of aliens that do not look like the product of focus group testing based on what appeals to teenage boys. There is no reason why the xel'naga could not have been green feathered bird people (https://www.deviantart.com/zimonini/art/ANIMORPHS-RACES-Arn-Chadoo-138006928), purple furry cat people (http://zulies-doodles.tumblr.com/post/157209451037/after-noticing-the-lack-of-female-galra-in), tiny bug-eyed frog people (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Galvan), etc other than you being biased because you think that is totally uncool or whatever shallow reason you came up with.

Scientifically plausible aliens can look very freakish, nothing like zerg or protoss. Look at the art of Nemo Ramjet (https://www.deviantart.com/nemo-ramjet) or Alex Rie (https://www.deviantart.com/abiogenisis)s for starters.

You don't know that for certain. You're acting like they MUST be make to look freakish. I don't think even back in SC1 they were trying to imply that

[Mislagnissa]

You don't know that for certain. You're acting like they MUST be make to look freakish. I don't think even back in SC1 they were trying to imply that

There is a difference between freakish, scientifically plausible, and blatantly unrealistic. The species the zerg breeds are derived from seem scientifically plausible, whereas the protoss are not scientifically plausible and seem straight out of Star Trek or Star Wars.

The manual did not imply anything at all about the xel'naga's appearance, except that it was probably very unfamiliar to us because they traveled from another galaxy and had probably dramatically altered their appearance with their genetic technology. The idea that they looked like protoss, even though that makes no sense, originates from fanfiction.

The xel'naga building sprites made up for Brood War clearly look like they belong to a different game, and the temple and gate have completely different aesthetics that make no sense as part of the same civilization. (Realistically civilizations do not use the same aesthetic for everything, but this is a strategy video game where every structure and unit needs to be immediately identifiable as part of a unified force.)

[ragnarok]

There is a difference between freakish, scientifically plausible, and blatantly unrealistic. The species the zerg breeds are derived from seem scientifically plausible, whereas the protoss are not scientifically plausible and seem straight out of Star Trek or Star Wars.

The manual did not imply anything at all about the xel'naga's appearance, except that it was probably very unfamiliar to us because they traveled from another galaxy and had probably dramatically altered their appearance with their genetic technology. The idea that they looked like protoss, even though that makes no sense, originates from fanfiction.

The xel'naga building sprites made up for Brood War clearly look like they belong to a different game, and the temple and gate have completely different aesthetics that make no sense as part of the same civilization. (Realistically civilizations do not use the same aesthetic for everything, but this is a strategy video game where every structure and unit needs to be immediately identifiable as part of a unified force.)

Blatantly unrealistic varies from person to person. And in the end this is what separates us from the criticism of the whole thing.