Stalker Lore Question

[Visions of Khas]

So the lore would seem to imply that a Stalker shell is possessed by the spirit of a dead dark templar. However, the portrait clearly shows a living, breathing protoss head tacked onto the chassis.

What gives?

[Nissa]

Zombie? Maybe the dead corpse of a DT is matched up with an available spirit?

Or maybe the Protoss saw the Terran adjutant and thought that they could do it better.

[ragnarok]

Or maybe the Protoss saw the Terran adjutant and thought that they could do it better.

If that's true it finally showed the protoss showing some change for once by somewhat trying to copy a terran idea, instead of just believing their methods are always best

[sandwich_bird]

The wiki says


While dragoons were piloted by crippled protoss warriors, the stalker is controlled by the shadow-essence of a Dark Templar warrior fused into a metal body.[2] Nerazim who control stalkers undergo this process voluntarily,[3] said process involving a Void-powered ritual[1] which fuses their shadow essence to the machine.

It doesn't say that the machine has to be purely mechanical; just that the shadow essence was fused with it. It doesn't necessarily mean that they are dead either. It's probably just a convoluted way to say that the dt has been cybernetically and irreversibly augmented. Alternatively, the head could be synthetic despite its organic look. It's kinda interesting to see that some official or past art renditions of the unit seems to be purely mechanical though. I'm guessing this was debated internally.

Good catch either way. Another lore misstep for the records!

[Turalyon]

I think the more pertinent question is why is there even an exposed head (artificial or alive) on the Stalker chassis at all? Surely, the cybernetic/technological aspects of the chassis itself it would cover any sensory capabilities and be placed more appropriately/effectively along the chassis. It's not as if it needs to eat or talk which it can't because they have no mouths anyway and that Protoss communicate psionically. What other purpose does it serve beyond being an obvious target-able weakpoint?

[Visions of Khas]

From what I'm reading, it seems dragoons have a difficult time integrating themselves into society after their transplantation. I'm guessing the dark templar, being individualistic, would place some emphasis on an individual retaining their place in society. So, even if they're mechanical, the bust and arms would assist with this psychologically.

[Turalyon]

^ I suppose that could explain why Immortals to seem have faces/heads on them, too, given they're supposed to replace/be an upgrade to Dragoons. Still, it's kinda weird that such a high minded and psionic species (who's identity you'd think would transcend/be beyond their physical forms) would concern itself with a slight cosmetic/physical detail as including a head. I mean, why does it have to be a visible "head" specifically? If it's an "individual" thing, why does every Stalker have a head and not some other random physical or cosmetic detail instead? It seems more like a uniformity/conformity type choice/decision than an individualistic one to me.

[drakolobo]

I think it's something you should not interpret literally
http://giphygifs.s3.amazonaws.com/media/1x3tGWeGeG9oY/giphy.gif

[ragnarok]

From what I'm reading, it seems dragoons have a difficult time integrating themselves into society after their transplantation. I'm guessing the dark templar, being individualistic, would place some emphasis on an individual retaining their place in society. So, even if they're mechanical, the bust and arms would assist with this psychologically.

Why would they have a different time with the integration? The Dragoons are still templar, after all, just in a metallic exoskeleton. Unless the Khalai feel that to fall in battle is considered a disgrace.

[Visions of Khas]

Dragoons are clearly an expy of dreadnoughts from WarHammer 40K, which have a difficult time integrating into society themselves, as revered as they are. Stalkers, on the other hand, are just protoss wraithguards. It's probably reflective of khalai and nerazim ideals more than anything.

[ragnarok]

Dragoons are clearly an expy of dreadnoughts from WarHammer 40K, which have a difficult time integrating into society themselves, as revered as they are. Stalkers, on the other hand, are just protoss wraithguards. It's probably reflective of khalai and nerazim ideals more than anything.

I thought the Khalai ideals for the dragoon is they're just templar who fell in battle and are given a 2nd chance

[Turalyon]

Dragoons are clearly an expy of dreadnoughts from WarHammer 40K, which have a difficult time integrating into society themselves, as revered as they are. Stalkers, on the other hand, are just protoss wraithguards. It's probably reflective of khalai and nerazim ideals more than anything.

Careful there VoK, you're likely gonna trigger someone by calling out Starcraft being an expy of anything in WH40K. :p Protoss are space elves/Eldar expys!

[Visions of Khas]

Well it's clear dragoons embody dreads. In play style, protoss are more akin to Astartes, though they retain the Eldar aesthetic. I guess that makes dark templar thematically equivalent to Exodites. And the TalDarim are struggling so hard to be Dark eldar it physically hurts. (Let's put spikes everywhere and let's steal EVERYTHING!!1)

[ragnarok]

Well it's clear dragoons embody dreads. In play style, protoss are more akin to Astartes, though they retain the Eldar aesthetic. I guess that makes dark templar thematically equivalent to Exodites. And the TalDarim are struggling so hard to be Dark eldar it physically hurts. (Let's put spikes everywhere and let's steal EVERYTHING!!1)

I hope you know I didn't mind the Tal'darim's pilfering....

[Mislagnissa]

The newly introduced ihan-rii (https://starcraft.fandom.com/wiki/Ihan-rii_(protoss)) immortal variant (https://starcraft.fandom.com/wiki/Immortal#Design) is literally a corpse in a sarcophagus with guns mounted on.

I always thought the protoss dragoon and its variants did not make all that much sense. The protoss are clearly advanced enough to resurrect the dead from mind uploads with some kind of, I don't know, a "death-warp system (http://gurpsstarcraft.wikidot.com/protoss-integrated-components)" like the cylons in the 2004 Battlestar Galactica series. Furthermore, that would better reconcile the teleport death retcon (http://www.sclegacy.com/index.php/editorials/12-speculation/296-the-animation-of-death) and the protoss' casual battlelust versus their limited population. The templar would not fear death because they could not die: their souls would be resurrected in robotic shells or cloned bodies.

[ragnarok]

I wasn't too happy about the ihan-rii variant. If they wanted to augment the immortal exoskeleton with xel'naga tech, that's fine with me, but don't make the fallen templar in the exoskeleton as a corpse. At least the nerazim got their version right by keeping their warrior close to, but not in actual death

[Mislagnissa]

I wasn't too happy about the ihan-rii variant. If they wanted to augment the immortal exoskeleton with xel'naga tech, that's fine with me, but don't make the fallen templar in the exoskeleton as a corpse. At least the nerazim got their version right by keeping their warrior close to, but not in actual death

The stalker doesn’t do that. Its creation involves removing the pilot’s soul (“shadow essence”) and putting it in a robot. Somehow.

I had some ideas for making them distinct in my AU.

[Visions of Khas]

Ihan rii? That's new.

*looks into it*

*reads*

Sooo... Tal-Darim. Got it.

[ragnarok]

Ihan rii? That's new.

*looks into it*

*reads*

Sooo... Tal-Darim. Got it.

So far, VoK. We don't know if they're be as vicious or more. If SC3 ever comes out (give it a few decades), we'll get to learn about them.

[Mislagnissa]

Ihan rii? That's new.

*looks into it*

*reads*

Sooo... Tal-Darim. Got it.Taldarim with magic runes that repel heretics, mechs piloted by reanimated corpses, void crystals bound to every child at birth then forged into a weapon, knowledge of xel’naga tech lost by everyone else, stasis tombs scattered across the sector, self-styled inheritors of the xel’naga (like the forgotten SC1 manual protoss), etc.

Also the protoss empire never extended beyond koprulu. Those details in the SC1 manual about hundreds maybe thousands of worlds across an eighth of the galaxy are seemingly retconned out of existence. How the hell are these washed out has-beens considered a galactic power?

This is your typical special snowflake bullshit with an extra helping of ignoring the lore despite a bloody wiki keeping track for you. Did an intern write this?

Seriously, it took me all of ten seconds to decide they were cooler as mad scientists who ignored the Conclave’s ban on abusing xel’naga tech. They have a khala based on creepy void crystals, because science! That makes far more sense for self-styled inheritors of the xel’naga legacy IMO.

Also, the Cerberus zerg should totally have existed since before the first contact war. It’s not a stretch for the Confederacy to pull that creepy cyber surgery shit while in power.


So far, VoK. We don't know if they're be as vicious or more. If SC3 ever comes out (give it a few decades), we'll get to learn about them.

You really believe that? You sweet summer child.

[Visions of Khas]

void crystals bound to every child at birth then forged into a weapon
What? So you'll have to elaborate on this one.

And did they forget that "Ihan Rii" was one of the names addressed to the Xel'Naga, and not a Protoss faction? Or does that mean this cult faction are literally calling themselves Xel'Naga?

[Turalyon]

The newly introduced ihan-rii (https://starcraft.fandom.com/wiki/Ihan-rii_(protoss)) immortal variant (https://starcraft.fandom.com/wiki/Immortal#Design) is literally a corpse in a sarcophagus with guns mounted on.

Haha, I can't even conceive of why such a thing would ever exist. At least Stalkers and Dragoons have a rationale behind their design and that whatever occupies the machine (be it an actual person or a "spirit") has some inherent value to the functioning of that machine. I mean, what does the corpse actually do/provide for the machine? How is the corpse a critical component of the machines function and what makes having a corpse inside it different to another identical-looking computer/AI controlled machine with no corpse in it? I don't know about anyone else, but I can't stop laughing at how nonsensical this concept is.


I always thought the protoss dragoon and its variants did not make all that much sense. The protoss are clearly advanced enough to resurrect the dead from mind uploads with some kind of, I don't know, a "death-warp system (http://gurpsstarcraft.wikidot.com/protoss-integrated-components)" like the cylons in the 2004 Battlestar Galactica series. Furthermore, that would better reconcile the teleport death retcon (http://www.sclegacy.com/index.php/editorials/12-speculation/296-the-animation-of-death) and the protoss' casual battlelust versus their limited population. The templar would not fear death because they could not die: their souls would be resurrected in robotic shells or cloned bodies.

I'm guessing the reason why it isn't like this is because they did try it at one point and they eventually became what the Purifiers were (cue AI/robot rebellion)...

[ragnarok]

You really believe that? You sweet summer child.

I'm not in the mood for this today, Mislag. A family member of mine just passed away a few hours ago.

[Visions of Khas]

My condolences, Rag. Take care of yourself first and foremost, otherwise you'll wear yourself so thin you won't be of use to anyone else. You come first.

[ragnarok]

My condolences, Rag. Take care of yourself first and foremost, otherwise you'll wear yourself so thin you won't be of use to anyone else. You come first.

She was the only member in my family who didn't treat me via brutality, hence why I had to reach out to others here on forums.

[drakolobo]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6AdJZMSrzU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6AdJZMSrzU
I interpret this new faction as a very primitive version of the protoss, well as a way of thinking closer to the protoss before being abandoned by the Xelnagas has had access to a very advanced technology, and merely manages it because it is very intuitive but does not fully understand it, so interpret as divine, something like the mechanicum cult in W40k,so it presents highly ritualistic and superstitious behavior beyond what is seen even in the Taldarim

[Mislagnissa]

What? So you'll have to elaborate on this one.

It says this in the dark templar unit re-skin (https://starcraft.fandom.com/wiki/Skins):

Early in their training, Ihan-rii protoss are bound to a void crystal that resonates with a unique psionic signature. Once they reach adulthood, this crystal is sharpened into a deadly spearpoint.

A crystal attuned to you from a young age sounds like a fascinating custom for a culture to practice, but unfortunately Blizzard isn't cut out for writing cultures. I already came up with a bunch of ways to make the ihanrii cool and distinct, like giving them mad science, a void-based khala, and so forth. Unfortunately Blizzard couldn't be bothered to do the same.


And did they forget that "Ihan Rii" was one of the names addressed to the Xel'Naga, and not a Protoss faction? Or does that mean this cult faction are literally calling themselves Xel'Naga?Their backstory (https://starcraft.fandom.com/wiki/Ihan-rii) is that they believe themselves to be the rightful descendants of the xel'naga. In other words, their backstory is a bizarre mishmash of khalai and taldarim. As is the standard for Blizzard, the current writers have no idea what the previous writers wrote or don't care and are making stuff up.

I find this extremely frustrating because it strips away interesting aspects from current factions to showcase new factions, rather than putting in effort to make the existing factions more interesting.

In the SC1 manual draft of the lore, or at least what I can piece together given that there are still huge vagueness and inconsistencies there, is that the Protoss Empire is a galactic power, owning countless worlds across maybe an eighth of the galaxy or whatever the scales are really vague. Their religion is seemingly this alien atheistic ancestor worship that to some degree vilifies the mythical xel'naga while at the same time claiming their mantle as guardians of the galaxy. The text is annoyingly vague about really important concepts.

Blizzard never really put that much detail into the existing factions much less keep track of what little they did write. The protoss history and tribal bios gave you broad strokes, but you never really got a detailed feel for what it was actually like to live in their society. The information was vague and scattered rather than planned out with maps and so forth. So I do not find it that surprising that Blizzard forgets pretty much everything on a regular basis.


Haha, I can't even conceive of why such a thing would ever exist. At least Stalkers and Dragoons have a rationale behind their design and that whatever occupies the machine (be it an actual person or a "spirit") has some inherent value to the functioning of that machine. I mean, what does the corpse actually do/provide for the machine? How is the corpse a critical component of the machines function and what makes having a corpse inside it different to another identical-looking computer/AI controlled machine with no corpse in it? I don't know about anyone else, but I can't stop laughing at how nonsensical this concept is.
One of my ideas for a revision of the ihanrii (as part of a SC AU in general) is that they don't practice the great stewardship. Instead, they believe all living things are their playthings in order to emulate the mythical xel'naga.

I came up with the idea that the ihanrii are creepy mad scientists who practice Lovecraft-style necromancy and reanimation techniques. Where the protoss empire just stores souls in the khala and downloads them into robotic walkers and clones, the ihanrii reanimate corpses and plug them into mechs.

In general I thought the dragoon/stalker/whatever backstory was highly questionable. The protoss (and humans, and zerg) clearly have the technology for feasible mind uploading and resurrecting people as clones, much less replace limbs with cyborg implants or regrown flesh, but never actually do so except in a few rare instances like Fenix and Stukov.

I understand that giving characters resurrection can destroy tension, but not if everybody has that same capability. At that point, it becomes an exercise in wearing your opponent down. Resurrection is pointless if your army is destroyed.

Anyway, I'm having difficulty justifying robotic walkers with injured people inside if medical technology can fix them. It makes sense in Warhammer because they don't understand how their own tech works and it is only used for exceptional circumstances since Astartes can regenerate or get cyborg replacements and Eldar only do it for the literally dead souls stored in spirit stones, but it doesn't make sense in Starcraft since reverse engineering is used all the time.


I'm guessing the reason why it isn't like this is because they did try it at one point and they eventually became what the Purifiers were (cue AI/robot rebellion)...According to the development history of the dragoon, it was originally intended to be a wholly robotic unit. In fact, the protoss were originally intended to be a robotic race before this was changed.

I never liked the purifier backstory. There are countless books on Earth that explore these sorts of scenarios. Real life AI researchers constantly discuss the dangers of AI and how we should avoid it. The behavior regarding the purifiers makes the Conclave look really stupid. There's no reason why purifiers cannot be respected as the resurrected dead (at least until they get downloaded into clones).

Furthermore, the protoss look really incompetent in terms of tech knowhow. Apparently they're advanced enough to do all sorts of crazy stuff, but their medicine cannot replace limbs at all? Are they cargo culting everything even worse than the Adeptus Mechanicus?

I dislike the new protoss backstory because it doesn't make any sense and is just plain lame. I liked them better in the SC1 manual when they actually knew how their own tech worked, were even more advanced than the xel'naga, and weren't dying space elves long past their prime. I liked the blooming civilization aspect because it subverted genre expectations of space elves being dying has-beens.

Also, having a big empire makes it much easier to justify having lots of inhabited protoss planets to use as battlefields. In canon their numbers are completely inconsistent since they're supposed to be dying out yet have arbitrarily endless armies and colonies. If they were a huge empire of thriving people, then it would make sense to have arbitrarily vast reserves.


I interpret this new faction as a very primitive version of the protoss, well as a way of thinking closer to the protoss before being abandoned by the Xelnagas has had access to a very advanced technology, and merely manages it because it is very intuitive but does not fully understand it, so interpret as divine, something like the mechanicum cult in W40k,so it presents highly ritualistic and superstitious behavior beyond what is seen even in the TaldarimThis completely retcons everything about their backstory in the SC1 manual. Back then they not only knew how their own tech worked (or reverse engineered), but they advanced even further than the xel'naga using what they were taught.

The current canon protoss are already cargo culting and have no idea how to replicate their own tech. Somehow. It's inconsistent because other times they do invent new tech so I have no idea what's going on. This isn't a good way to distinguish the ihanrii, either.

The ihanrii being cargo cultists wouldn't make sense if they never lost their knowledge due to the Aeon of Strife like the other protoss did. Yet their skin lore makes them out to be literal space elves with magic runes and golems and whathaveyou.

If I wasn't already highly critical of protoss lore, then this would be the breaking point for me. The ihanrii are a conceptual mess that mix bits and pieces of other protoss factions seemingly in complete ignorance of how the other factions work. At several points they are described as using literal magic, like runes and golems.

[Visions of Khas]

It says this in the dark templar unit re-skin:

Huh.


Golden Age Warp Prism:
Ancient Templar warp prisms featured a distinctive crystal lattice that would sometimes reflect the neural patterns of the warriors they transport.

What!? They didn't EXIST until the second great war! D:

I'm sorry, but the Golden Age skin set is probably the single laziest reskin set I've ever seen...

[Mislagnissa]

Huh.



What!? They didn't EXIST until the second great war! D:

I'm sorry, but the Golden Age skin set is probably the single laziest reskin set I've ever seen...

I noticed that the ihanrii and golden age skins suggest that almost all protoss units existed in the distant past. It’s a clear contradiction but this is Blizzard.

I’m working on AU proposals and I reconciled this by stating that the first age empire already discovered everything and the current protoss have reverse engineered that or developed identical applications independently.

[ragnarok]

I noticed that the ihanrii and golden age skins suggest that almost all protoss units existed in the distant past. It’s a clear contradiction but this is Blizzard.

I’m working on AU proposals and I reconciled this by stating that the first age empire already discovered everything and the current protoss have reverse engineered that or developed identical applications independently.

What have you got so far for the AU ideas?

[Turalyon]

In general I thought the dragoon/stalker/whatever backstory was highly questionable. The protoss (and humans, and zerg) clearly have the technology for feasible mind uploading and resurrecting people as clones, much less replace limbs with cyborg implants or regrown flesh, but never actually do so except in a few rare instances like Fenix and Stukov.

Yeah well, it's a slippery slope when it comes to "highly advanced alien sci-fi tech" in general. The Protoss can easily weaponise warp speed and their teleporting tech to render any sort of military engagement meaningless and yet they don't.


Anyway, I'm having difficulty justifying robotic walkers with injured people inside if medical technology can fix them.

I dunno. That robotic walkers with injured people inside exist suggest that their medical technology can't fix them even though one can presume they should/could based on their technological prowess. It's kinda similar to the issue as to why Zealots exist at all and utilise melee attacks when the Protoss have much more efficient and practical technological solutions for distance killing at their disposal. Really, one can question why any of the known Protoss units are what they are/exist as they do, since one can always and easily presume a better option due to their supposed advanced technological capabilities.


I never liked the purifier backstory. There are countless books on Earth that explore these sorts of scenarios. Real life AI researchers constantly discuss the dangers of AI and how we should avoid it. The behavior regarding the purifiers makes the Conclave look really stupid. There's no reason why purifiers cannot be respected as the resurrected dead (at least until they get downloaded into clones).

Eh, the post Aeon of Strife Protoss were understandably concerned about threats to their new way of life that they rejected their own kin for not following their new tenets to the extent of murderously hunting them down when given any opportunity. The Protoss are not enlightened beings/beyond reproach.


Furthermore, the protoss look really incompetent in terms of tech knowhow. Apparently they're advanced enough to do all sorts of crazy stuff, but their medicine cannot replace limbs at all?

That's more a limitation of the authors mind than anything else, which is one of the reason I generally am wary of the "super-advanced alien that can teach us humies a few things" trope because authors (being the limited beings that we are) always have a crappy sense of scope and scale.

[drakolobo]

I noticed that the ihanrii and golden age skins suggest that almost all protoss units existed in the distant past. It’s a clear contradiction but this is Blizzard.

I’m working on AU proposals and I reconciled this by stating that the first age empire already discovered everything and the current protoss have reverse engineered that or developed identical applications independently.

not really, golden age skin does not speak of the golden age if as the protoss imitate the prefall art with more emphasis applying it in every detail.

As for the new lost tribe, it will only be explained by a phenomenon of imitation, and in cases such as the immortal where imitating when it is a funeral activity that must be traditional, a more forced application would be convergent technology evolution.

[Mislagnissa]

What have you got so far for the AU ideas?

I published a public prospectus: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vTaKOc58_Qi1TRUGW5CU_qspWf9t-qHp76KQyy0RMR2aKT4XRGGXOqlkI9f_eWsYjlDbTO4vR2XW0lo/pub

It hasn't been updated in a couple of months, but I plan on adding a bunch of new ideas I had in the interim.


Yeah well, it's a slippery slope when it comes to "highly advanced alien sci-fi tech" in general. The Protoss can easily weaponise warp speed and their teleporting tech to render any sort of military engagement meaningless and yet they don't.



I dunno. That robotic walkers with injured people inside exist suggest that their medical technology can't fix them even though one can presume they should/could based on their technological prowess. It's kinda similar to the issue as to why Zealots exist at all and utilise melee attacks when the Protoss have much more efficient and practical technological solutions for distance killing at their disposal. Really, one can question why any of the known Protoss units are what they are/exist as they do, since one can always and easily presume a better option due to their supposed advanced technological capabilities.



Eh, the post Aeon of Strife Protoss were understandably concerned about threats to their new way of life that they rejected their own kin for not following their new tenets to the extent of murderously hunting them down when given any opportunity. The Protoss are not enlightened beings/beyond reproach.



That's more a limitation of the authors mind than anything else, which is one of the reason I generally am wary of the "super-advanced alien that can teach us humies a few things" trope because authors (being the limited beings that we are) always have a crappy sense of scope and scale.Yes, well...

I decided to use more reasonable explanations instead.

The Conclave did not mistreat the purifiers, since the purifiers were connected to the khala. Instead, they decided to place them in reserve due to ethical concerns. But when the first contact war starts kicking in high gear, the conservative faction decides to deploy them.

The protoss run on the warp-death explanation I linked earlier. When protoss die, they generally burst into flames, disintegrate, or whatever. I'm not exactly sure why, but it has something to do with their weird psychic biology. The combustion might even power the memory transmission or something. The khala may resurrect their personalities in clones or robots, so they don't fear death.

Dragoons are not a permanent solution, but are used to keep soldiers on the battlefield until they can be fixed later. However, the Order of the Dragoon is one of the many religious warrior orders among protoss society. They decide to remain permanently within dragoons in order to provide support to the zealots, despite their psychic powers/cyborg implants/medical capabilities/etc being able to repair their bodies.

In fact, there's an even more militant order that deliberately mutilate themselves and pilot dragoons. This sort of practices skirts the Great Stewardship, which has prohibitions against transhumanism (transalienism?). The stalkers are a similar order, since their creation process involves extreme though undefined self-mutilation. Naturally, the elective dragoons/stalkers are quite common among the bloodthirsty taldarim tribes.

Protoss can also leave corpses behind, but I still haven't been able to work out a consistent explanation for what circumstances leave corpses behind. The protoss equivalent of adrenaline? The manner of death? How long it takes to die?


not really, golden age skin does not speak of the golden age if as the protoss imitate the prefall art with more emphasis applying it in every detail.

As for the new lost tribe, it will only be explained by a phenomenon of imitation, and in cases such as the immortal where imitating when it is a funeral activity that must be traditional, a more forced application would be convergent technology evolution.But it is a contradiction. The skin lore states that warp prisms existed in ancient times. The ihanrii have deployed units in mass that they logically shouldn't have the time to prepare since they were awakened only recently. It also doesn't make sense for the ihanrii to have such detailed knowledge without being noticed acquiring it in the first place.

Therefore, to avoid potential headaches I just use the blanket explanation of reverse engineering first age protoss tech for everything.

[ragnarok]

I'll look at the document in time then

[sandwich_bird]

Protoss can also leave corpses behind, but I still haven't been able to work out a consistent explanation for what circumstances leave corpses behind. The protoss equivalent of adrenaline? The manner of death? How long it takes to die?

Idk why you want them to leave corpses behind sometime but how about their psi energy level upon death? The psi could be held by the body. When a protoss is fatally wounded, the physical cage cannot hold the energy any longer so it burst into flame. Protoss of lower psi level don't release enough energy for combustion. Whether the corpse explodes or not could also be affected by the surrounding environment. The body inside a dragoon, for example, would not burst because the mechanical part slow down the release of energy. Something like that should be fluid enough to explain most situation you might want.

[Mislagnissa]

Idk why you want them to leave corpses behind sometime but how about their psi energy level upon death? The psi could be held by the body. When a protoss is fatally wounded, the physical cage cannot hold the energy any longer so it burst into flame. Protoss of lower psi level don't release enough energy for combustion. Whether the corpse explodes or not could also be affected by the surrounding environment. The body inside a dragoon, for example, would not burst because the mechanical part slow down the release of energy. Something like that should be fluid enough to explain most situation you might want.

The only reason why I wanted to have corpses was so that I could justify protoss tombs and the ihanrii death cult's reanimated corpses piloting dragoons. Otherwise they aren't important.

[ragnarok]

Idk why you want them to leave corpses behind sometime but how about their psi energy level upon death? The psi could be held by the body. When a protoss is fatally wounded, the physical cage cannot hold the energy any longer so it burst into flame. Protoss of lower psi level don't release enough energy for combustion. Whether the corpse explodes or not could also be affected by the surrounding environment. The body inside a dragoon, for example, would not burst because the mechanical part slow down the release of energy. Something like that should be fluid enough to explain most situation you might want.

Look at both SC1 and 2, zealots still combust upon death. You'd think their psi levels would be too low for that.

[Visions of Khas]

The only thing I can think of is a parallel with the God Emperor of 40K. Though his body is dead, his mentality and psychic power are confined to his body by the Golden Throne. Perhaps the Ihan Rii have similar technology. Dark Templar lore also holds that one's psychic potential increases the closer they are to death.

[sandwich_bird]

Look at both SC1 and 2, zealots still combust upon death. You'd think their psi levels would be too low for that.

Are you familiar with the energy levels from Dragon Ball Z? Basically everything has ki energy and that amount of energy can vary moment to moment based on many factors. Even someone of base low energy level can increase his power level dramatically when he's pissed off. You could use that same kind of logic with psi (and there's many indication lore wise that it works the same way or is equivalent for all intent and purposes). So, going back to your comment, even if a zealot normally would have a lower base psi level, during combat, and especially before death, his psi level could be really high as he's going all out. Similarly, a Protoss with high psi level who was fatally wounded but did not die immediately could have the time to make peace with himself and lower his psi level which would prevent combustion.

I kinda like the idea anyways. You could say that, culturally, bursting into flame is a honorable death for a Protoss because their psi is readily given back to nature while leaving a corpse behind hinder the process. I'm not sure how that latter idea would fit with the dragoon though or with the "making peace with himself" part..

[ragnarok]

I never bothered with the DBZ universe, sandwich bird

[Visions of Khas]

Actually, Sandwich, I really like that idea. It would explain why Lasarra died a bloody death, but Templar combust. If there is a physiological component to psionics, it could be a response to accelerated metabolism, aggression, cortisol levels, etc. Moreover, the concept of the "cleansing flame" is often referenced by protoss, so this may be some oblique reference to a warrior's death.

However, as someone noted earlier, a zealot was slain in the Retaking Aiur cinematic, issuing forth blue flame but leaving behind a body.

We also need to come up with a reason why Zeratul got dusted instead of combusted. Did Amon collect all the infinity stones? XD

[Mislagnissa]

The only thing I can think of is a parallel with the God Emperor of 40K. Though his body is dead, his mentality and psychic power are confined to his body by the Golden Throne. Perhaps the Ihan Rii have similar technology. Dark Templar lore also holds that one's psychic potential increases the closer they are to death.The fact that the ihanrii dragoon skin still has the moving portrait suggests that the corpses are indeed reanimated (which really messes with the already messy protoss lore, but whatever). Considering the fantasy-esque tone of the ihanrii skin lore, I think the author intended them to be literally magical.

I too entertained the idea that protoss wouldn't decompose in the same way as humans. Their corpses could be reanimated to whatever purpose, maybe even resurrection.


Are you familiar with the energy levels from Dragon Ball Z? Basically everything has ki energy and that amount of energy can vary moment to moment based on many factors. Even someone of base low energy level can increase his power level dramatically when he's pissed off. You could use that same kind of logic with psi (and there's many indication lore wise that it works the same way or is equivalent for all intent and purposes). So, going back to your comment, even if a zealot normally would have a lower base psi level, during combat, and especially before death, his psi level could be really high as he's going all out. Similarly, a Protoss with high psi level who was fatally wounded but did not die immediately could have the time to make peace with himself and lower his psi level which would prevent combustion.

I kinda like the idea anyways. You could say that, culturally, bursting into flame is a honorable death for a Protoss because their psi is readily given back to nature while leaving a corpse behind hinder the process. I'm not sure how that latter idea would fit with the dragoon though or with the "making peace with himself" part..So they explode due to adrenaline rush?

I just thought of something else. Maybe the flame death ensures that their final memories are sent to the khala, using the energy produced to boost the transmission. While connection with the khala means that your memories are always stored somewhere, they aren't necessarily up to date. The flame death ensures that there aren't any pesky existential questions about whether a resurrected soul is the same or a copy. If the body doesn't explode, then it needs to be recovered and reanimated to pilot a dragoon.

Or maybe it takes different lengths of time for a protoss body to disintegrate. A violent adrenaline-fueled death results in a fairly quick combustion, but less violent less hyped deaths take cause a slower reaction. The bodies eventually disintegrate, but if recovered they may be embalmed or reanimated to halt the psychic decomposition process.

Since zealots and high templar have different death animations in SC1 (not sure about SC2), then the death animation may be affected by psychic training. The templar have many different warrior orders, with the zealot and high templar being examples of specific orders. The zealot training focuses on martial power, making them like adeptus astartes, so upon death they burst into flames. The high templar training focuses on military support, so upon death they produce a brief flash and ghostly image.

Having a combination of training, willpower and emotional state play a role would make it fairly easy to explain a diversity of death animations.

The article on the teleport retcon has a few ideas. (http://www.sclegacy.com/index.php/editorials/12-speculation/296-the-animation-of-death)


I would prefer something simple and universal though. An intuitive explanation like the exploding indicating the release of the "soul"/psi to the khala/void should be easy to apply. The appearance and duration would be affected by training, willpower and emotional state at death. Protoss who are crippled but not killed may be teleported away to be placed into dragoons to keep fighting until medicine repairs them later, or elect to permanently join the dragoon order.

Protoss who die and return to the khala continue existing as bodiless "souls" or AI accessible via the Templar Archives by Preservers. They may be resurrected in robots or clones as circumstances permit or require. However, there are a whole host of ethical and existential issues involved that I won't mention here, but suffice to say the protoss have many different schools of thought regarding the afterlife and these have differing degrees of political influence.

The in-game animation represents death. The protoss do teleport their crippled warriors back to havens, but this is not represented in-game. The animation for teleportation is the same for all applications, that shimmering wormhole animation IIRC. So regarding the teleport death retcon, we have our cake and eat it too with gameplay and story segregation.

From there, we could make additional postulates:


Protoss who die peacefully or unexpectedly might release their "soul" (really a shorthand for data bursts) without the corresponding bodily destruction, and these bodies may be interred in tombs.

Alternately, bodies always decompose unless preserved through some means and the protoss don't have tombs. This therefore ignores the statements in the dark templar trilogy about the protoss having to worrying about burying their dead.

Protoss may learn to resist physical death through sheer willpower in a manner alien to human biology. This would leave a "corpse" behind (again, not represented in-game) that may be teleported elsewhere and reanimated.

At this point in time, only the ihanrii are known to practice the techniques that produce living corpses. Their death cult is all sorts of weird.



These two explanations are independent, so we can have ihanrii's animated corpses without positing that all protoss leave corpses behind. Perhaps the ihanrii are unique in maintaining tombs? Would be a way to make them more distinct without complicating the already messy protoss lore (i.e. only the dark templar trilogy mentions protoss corpses, whereas the games always depict them exploding).

Another reason to have protoss corpses might be for plots involving attacks on protoss tombs. I remember a couple of missions in Emperor: Battle for Dune that involved the tleilaxu pilfering sardukar tombs to use the genetic material in ghola clones. For example, terrans and zerg might raid the tombs to acquire protoss tissue for experimentation. Or create horrible protoss zombies with forbidden technology? Sounds like something the ihanrii would do to boost their forces and inspire fear in their enemies.

[Mislagnissa]

Actually, Sandwich, I really like that idea. It would explain why Lasarra died a bloody death, but Templar combust. If there is a physiological component to psionics, it could be a response to accelerated metabolism, aggression, cortisol levels, etc. Moreover, the concept of the "cleansing flame" is often referenced by protoss, so this may be some oblique reference to a warrior's death.

However, as someone noted earlier, a zealot was slain in the Retaking Aiur cinematic, issuing forth blue flame but leaving behind a body.

We also need to come up with a reason why Zeratul got dusted instead of combusted. Did Amon collect all the infinity stones? XD

Sorry, I missed your post when I last replied.

The deaths of Lasarra, Retaking Aiur zealot, and Zeratul need to be reconciled. Does anybody have pictures of the various death animations so we can compare them? My memory seems to be failing me.

What instances is the "cleansing flame" mentioned? Maybe we could world build some simple religious terminology? The wiki mentions "seven winds (https://starcraft.fandom.com/wiki/Seven_Winds)" as a forgotten bit of lore from the 1998 website.

I will wait until further responses before revising my hypothesis from last post.

[ragnarok]

We also need to come up with a reason why Zeratul got dusted instead of combusted. Did Amon collect all the infinity stones? XD

If that happened don't you think Blizzard would have been able to correct the contradictions via the SC2 lore?

[drakolobo]

Blizzard has long since said that the animation of blue flames was simple teleportation, why are you discussing that?

[ragnarok]

Blizzard has long since said that the animation of blue flames was simple teleportation, why are you discussing that?

You happen to remember exactly which year was that? Was it before we got ANY info on SC2?

[drakolobo]

- - - Updated - - -


You happen to remember exactly which year was that? Was it before we got ANY info on SC2?


StarCraft II Q&A batches/26 Karune. 2007-01-22


Do Protoss warriors actually die? What is the blue flash when they die?[/b]

In the chaos of the battlefield, Protoss warriors fight with tremendous power and grace, but even so, they can be mortally wounded. Then the Protoss' foes often bear witness to a startling sight: the injured Protoss disappears in a bright flash of light. Such a vision has caused primitive races to quail in superstitious fear, and yet it has no supernatural cause. On the contrary, it is merely the result of teleportation, which is one of the chief strengths of Protoss technology. Protoss warriors typically have teleport mechanisms built into their armor. If the warrior is sufficiently injured, a properly functioning mechanism will automatically teleport the body to the nearest safe haven.

A Protoss warrior who is badly injured but still living may be placed in a dragoon--or latterly an immortal--shell to continue to fight. This is the choice of the individual warrior. Some warriors elect to shoulder the burden of remaining among the living instead of joining the sum of Protoss lives embodied in the Khala. It is worthy of note that the lives of individual Protoss that have passed into the Khala are no longer coherent entities, and the Protoss cannot speak with their dead per se. However, there are memories and strands of experience that can be accessed. Only the most skilled Protoss preservers can locate and follow specific desired strands of knowledge. The tremendous value of preservers comes from the fact that they carry within themselves and can access the sum total of Protoss experience at an individual level.

[ragnarok]

I see. Didn't know about that.

[Visions of Khas]

Blizzard has long since said that the animation of blue flames was simple teleportation, why are you discussing that?


We're discussing it because the opening cinematic depicts a zealot's body (https://youtu.be/M_XwzBMTJaM?t=83) collapsing to the ground while blue energy erupts from his body. You can see the zealot fall to his knees and slump to the side after the blue fire dissipates.

[Mislagnissa]

Okay, so I checked out the different death animations. I’m typing on my phone so I cannot link video or image.

Zealot (SC1): burst into bright blue flames
High templar (SC1): release blue burst, brief afterimage
Dark templar (SC1): burst into dark grey flames
Link: http://www.sclegacy.com/index.php/editorials/12-speculation/296-the-animation-of-death

Lasarra: release blue burst, explode into purple bloody mess. Link: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LXax9PSG9A0

Zealot (cinematic): release blue burst, body slumps dead. Link: https://youtu.be/M_XwzBMTJaM?t=83

Zeratul: slowly crumble into dark grey ash, releasing ghost at same time(?)

Okay, so it seems that the “giving up the ghost” bit and the “disintegrating” bit are not the same thing. I think I can work with that.

So new revised explanation:

Protoss who die release their, uh, “souls” or whatever in a burst of flames. This leaves a body behind, which may or may not disintegrate in a separate process.

In the game, all bodies vanish, so that may be chalked up to gameplay and story segregation. No help from that.

So the only bit that needs explaining is what causes the corpse to disintegrate.

If protoss leave corpses naturally, then they would require a psychic/tech means of cremating the bodies. It’s easy to assume suits might be designed with self-destruct or are teleported to mortuaries.

If protoss corpses disintegrate naturally, then they would need a means of preserving the body. It’s easy to assume that chemical, psychic, or technological means may be used to preserve.

[ragnarok]

You sure you want to count Lasarra for that? She DID get a parasite implanted into her after all....

[Mislagnissa]

You sure you want to count Lasarra for that? She DID get a parasite implanted into her after all....

She left a body behind as she gave up the ghost (you can see the blue burst as she dies), the body exploded from the inside and sprayed blood everywhere.

As I said, the only question now is whether protoss bodies naturally disintegrate or not, how quickly, and why.

The dark templar trilogy and the ihanrii dragoon lore are the only instances I remember that mention protoss leave behind corpses that are buried.

(It’s entirely possible that Blizzard simply isn’t being consistent as they are wont.)

It is possible that only nerazim rapidly disintegrate upon death, whereas khalai and ihanrii do not. You could try to spin this as playing into the “proximity to death strengthens void powers” belief behind the nerazim dragoon variant. Thematic parallel and all that.

[drakolobo]

We're discussing it because the opening cinematic depicts a zealot's body (https://youtu.be/M_XwzBMTJaM?t=83) collapsing to the ground while blue energy erupts from his body. You can see the zealot fall to his knees and slump to the side after the blue fire dissipates.

this has three possible epxlications
1 is just the beginning of teleportation,o teleporter after it falls to the ground such as the nerazim in the rescue of Karax

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_c0CZmBIGI
2 the teleportation system failed this was already addressed by Q&A the rest simply cannot be used by the protoss
3 the artist was not clearly soaked with the lore and failed to represent this, as it seems to omit the highly explosive property of the baneling that explains its origin or that flew a solid rock fortress and a small sample was equivalent to a grenade



This completely retcons everything about their backstory in the SC1 manual. Back then they not only knew how their own tech worked (or reverse engineered), but they advanced even further than the xel'naga using what they were taught.
at no point does the manual address the protoss technological degree in fact at this stage they were acting dogmatically treating the Xelnagas as gods, which says they are in a primitive state wquivalent to human antiquity and this tribe expressed a culturally frozen society in time but using Xelnaga technology


The current canon protoss are already cargo culting and have no idea how to replicate their own tech. Somehow. It's inconsistent because other times they do invent new tech so I have no idea what's going on. This isn't a good way to distinguish the ihanrii, either.
the current protoss have developed conventional scientific method technology and not only using xelnagas artifacts as a relic like the khas tribe, and the loss of dragon technology was not lost by not compression but the centralization and ritualization transition from a protos to a shell


The ihanrii being cargo cultists wouldn't make sense if they never lost their knowledge due to the Aeon of Strife like the other protoss did. Yet their skin lore makes them out to be literal space elves with magic runes and golems and whathaveyou.
a technological setback of the protoss was never signaled in superstition to chase away their gods when khas have unified the protoss this can already passed from the bronze age to star navigators studying their teachers not gods


If I wasn't already highly critical of protoss lore, then this would be the breaking point for me. The ihanrii are a conceptual mess that mix bits and pieces of other protoss factions seemingly in complete ignorance of how the other factions work. At several points they are described as using literal magic, like runes and golems.

already at this point only uses Xelnaga technology and this for a terra is magic, however, the Aiur protoss are understood to some extent by this example is the analogy of karax that Xelnaga technology is what protos technology is for Terran or the superior mental ability to observe the patterns observed in the literature or when artanis is to read a story without any apparent written language or observe the natural pattern xelnaga different from the Golden ratio in plants in starcraft: evolution, certainly the chimpaces do not understand a smart phone but intuitively can handle something similar is what ihanrii were exposed before submitting to their orphan status to have access to very advanced technology that intimately uses but from a primitive perspective not very different from the first time they saw even xelnaga


Okay, so I checked out the different death animations. I’m typing on my phone so I cannot link video or image.

Zealot (SC1): burst into bright blue flames
High templar (SC1): release blue burst, brief afterimage
Dark templar (SC1): burst into dark grey flames
Link: http://www.sclegacy.com/index.php/editorials/12-speculation/296-the-animation-of-death

Lasarra: release blue burst, explode into purple bloody mess. Link: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LXax9PSG9A0

Zealot (cinematic): release blue burst, body slumps dead. Link: https://youtu.be/M_XwzBMTJaM?t=83

Zeratul: slowly crumble into dark grey ash, releasing ghost at same time(?)

Okay, so it seems that the “giving up the ghost” bit and the “disintegrating” bit are not the same thing. I think I can work with that.

So new revised explanation:

Protoss who die release their, uh, “souls” or whatever in a burst of flames. This leaves a body behind, which may or may not disintegrate in a separate process.

In the game, all bodies vanish, so that may be chalked up to gameplay and story segregation. No help from that.

So the only bit that needs explaining is what causes the corpse to disintegrate.

If protoss leave corpses naturally, then they would require a psychic/tech means of cremating the bodies. It’s easy to assume suits might be designed with self-destruct or are teleported to mortuaries.

If protoss corpses disintegrate naturally, then they would need a means of preserving the body. It’s easy to assume that chemical, psychic, or technological means may be used to preserve.
well, because teletransportation is the official explanation, in the case of zeratul the Nerazim has mentioned in dialogues that they merge with the vacuum so that zeratul spraying should be devised in relation to the void dimension

[Mislagnissa]

The teleportation is an unnecessary retcon introduced in a 2007 Q&A. It is mentioned nowhere else that I could find, not in the games or the fiction. I doubt the rest of Blizzard got the memo. Furthermore, the animation of death specifically and the animation of teleportation in every other context are completely different. So this retcon may be safely ignored by us for the purposes of discussion, since Blizzard certainly seems to ignore it.

When protoss die, their bodies "give up the ghost" as the idiom goes. We can literally see this visually in their death animations (including cinematics) except that of Zeratul, which may be waived away by his prolonged act of dying and dramatic effect.

The only question is what happens to the bodies afterward, since the explanations are all over the place.

In the games, the sprites/models of all corpses quickly fade away as is standard for video games (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EverythingFades), so that can't explain it.

I haven't checked against other fiction depicting protoss deaths (I assume it isn't depicted consistently), but the dark templar trilogy and the ihanrii skin lore mentioned that protoss left corpses behind that are subjected to funerary rites. However, this contradicts the depiction of Zeratul's body rapidly disintegrating upon death.

I'd need more death animations and descriptions of death in the fiction to get a full comparison, but what little I have right now shows that the lore doesn't depict the rate of protoss decomposition consistently. Sometimes they leave corpses for burial and sometimes they rapidly disintegrate, and we have no explanation how or why.

[Visions of Khas]

Zeratul's death isn't entirely unique. The one other disintegration-in-death I know of was Ma'lash's death at the hands out Alarak. Perhaps having their bodies infused with so much corrupted void energy led to that disintegrating?

[drakolobo]

The teleportation is an unnecessary retcon introduced in a 2007 Q&A. It is mentioned nowhere else that I could find, not in the games or the fiction. I doubt the rest of Blizzard got the memo. Furthermore, the animation of death specifically and the animation of teleportation in every other context are completely different. So this retcon may be safely ignored by us for the purposes of discussion, since Blizzard certainly seems to ignore it.

When protoss die, their bodies "give up the ghost" as the idiom goes. We can literally see this visually in their death animations (including cinematics) except that of Zeratul, which may be waived away by his prolonged act of dying and dramatic effect.

The only question is what happens to the bodies afterward, since the explanations are all over the place.

In the games, the sprites/models of all corpses quickly fade away as is standard for video games (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EverythingFades), so that can't explain it.

I haven't checked against other fiction depicting protoss deaths (I assume it isn't depicted consistently), but the dark templar trilogy and the ihanrii skin lore mentioned that protoss left corpses behind that are subjected to funerary rites. However, this contradicts the depiction of Zeratul's body rapidly disintegrating upon death.

I'd need more death animations and descriptions of death in the fiction to get a full comparison, but what little I have right now shows that the lore doesn't depict the rate of protoss decomposition consistently. Sometimes they leave corpses for burial and sometimes they rapidly disintegrate, and we have no explanation how or why.

This is not a retcon because in principle it was never explained the idea of the burning protoss was a fancanon stimulated by an animation
2 has not been ignored since teleportation when injured have been mentioned in the latest technical manual, a compendium of information on factions, the field manual. We have already seen how a Nerazim was taken during the rescue of Karax, and as I said the death of Zeratul maybe can attend to another nature of void energy at the time of death, "the union with the shadows" that is mentioned so much

both his ability of a master to disintegrate to be part of an archon and the beliefs of joining the void in death, is an obvious homage of Kenobi uses a special technique to join the force but now from the religious feelings nerazim that would be to join void

. why are there bodies? because the devices fail, that is why Blizard saw it necessary to add that, despite zerg manage to have access to protoss corpses, the zerg are unable to process their DNA, consistently

[sandwich_bird]

The teleportation is an unnecessary retcon introduced in a 2007 Q&A. It is mentioned nowhere else that I could find, not in the games or the fiction. I doubt the rest of Blizzard got the memo. Furthermore, the animation of death specifically and the animation of teleportation in every other context are completely different. So this retcon may be safely ignored by us for the purposes of discussion, since Blizzard certainly seems to ignore it.


In response to Drak, post-2007 material that misla linked seems clear to me in it's intent to show that there is a "soul release" and it isn't just a malfunctioning teleportation. And I mean, sure you can say that the artistS didn't understand the lore enough but, like misla says, maybe the Q&A guy didn't get it either :p If anything, we can possibly assume that the retcon has been retconned or, at the very least, both the "soul release" and the "teleport malfunction" coexist in the current state of canon.

Following up on the soul, psi/ki idea and with zeratul's death, here's another "what if": Protoss naturally possess psi energy flowing inside them, high level at that. Naturally, Protoss conscience resides inside the confines of their biological constructs (brain?) and use the kind of signals you would expect out of any terrestrial animal. But, part of their brain also transfers information through psi(Terran ghosts also developed a lower form of this ability). With higher training, a Protoss can develop the ability to solely rely on the psi to manifest his conscience. As an initiate rely more and more on psi, his internal biology can transform to the point where the outside skin is only a facade held together by the psi inside. This is in fact, what an archon is, a being of pure psi with a physical facade. This explains why zergs cannot just sequence the dna of a protoss because a protoss doesn't just rely on dna to encode what makes them special. Maybe the magic crystals from SC1 were some sort of philosopher stone for the psi/material world?

Moving on, the thing about psi is that it can be converted to void energy. A dark templar, uses the same biological processes that a templar would use for his psi but instead, transforms the psi into void. The fact that these 2 type of energies are compatible is demonstrated by the fact that a dt can merge with a ht. Now, I'm kinda fuzzy with the whole regular void vs corrupted void (which I believe corrupted comes from Amon's dimension while regular void comes from another dimension?) but we could say that the same kind of process took place and so most of the internal contraptions became void or corrupted void. Death destabilize the"void glue" which then leads to disintegration. Void is more inert to the outside environment so its release does not generally lead to a combustion like psi. We could also say that, usually, a dt could not transfer a large amount of internal process to void without merging with another dt. But, corrupted energy allow for higher concentration or something.

Might be a bit convoluted lol but can't help it with all the space-magic stuff that's in that universe

[ragnarok]

Zeratul's death isn't entirely unique. The one other disintegration-in-death I know of was Ma'lash's death at the hands out Alarak. Perhaps having their bodies infused with so much corrupted void energy led to that disintegrating?

Yeah I didn't exactly get that part via Ma'lash's death. The pit is supposed to lead all the way to Slayn's core, so it'd make sense for him to evaporate AFTER being kicked into the pit, not DURING the kicking. Maybe Alarak used some sort of weird void energy kinetic blast?

[Mislagnissa]

In response to Drak, post-2007 material that misla linked seems clear to me in it's intent to show that there is a "soul release" and it isn't just a malfunctioning teleportation. And I mean, sure you can say that the artistS didn't understand the lore enough but, like misla says, maybe the Q&A guy didn't get it either :p If anything, we can possibly assume that the retcon has been retconned or, at the very least, both the "soul release" and the "teleport malfunction" coexist in the current state of canon. The teleportation is only mentioned in supplementary sources like the technical manual. The games depict the death animation as literal death. Blizzard has a history of inconsistencies like this.

I haven't memorized the entirety of the lore, but I can name a few egregious inconsistencies. Perhaps the one I dislike the most is "the determinant" plot hook that was mentioned in the SC1 manual but never followed up on. At least, it was never followed up in a way that satisfied me but others devised all sorts of convoluted rationalizations when the simple truth was that Metzen made things up as he went along without regard for consistency or future plots.

I highly doubt that Blizzard would have killed off the Confederacy, Conclave, and Overmind in SC1 if they had known that Starcraft would become a hugely profitable franchise. But I digress.

Anyway, the SC1 manual explained that the zerg wanted to consume terran psychic potential to weaponize against the protoss. The protoss had amazing reality-warping psychic powers augmented by their technology and the zerg couldn't compete with that in a galactic war. The details were vague but the overall message was that the zerg need to devour humanity and develop weapons, otherwise they would ultimately be destroyed by the protoss even if the protoss suffered massive losses as well.

The game did not follow up on any of this and it's quite obvious that between the time that part of the manual was written and the game script was written that Metzen had completely changed his mind. Either that or the lore was added haphazardly to make the game feel cooler without Metzen thinking through the implications of those things written.

Instead of harvesting many humans, since psychic genes were distributed throughout the population, the zerg hunted Kerry specifically and withdrew from the sector after they got her. The same amount of importance as the determinant was placed on this single individual to literally messianic levels, which contradicted the zerg's previously established modus operandi of swarm tactics and programmed personalities. Then Kerry was sent to deal with the dark templar instead of the aiur protoss, and the last two zerg missions forgot about her despite her plot taking up all the preceding missions. It's like the last two missions were pasted from a separate campaign, which I suspect was the case.

Also, the importance placed on the determinant in the manual as a means to counter the protoss' superiority was discarded. Instead, the protoss were inherently weak against the zerg. The protoss were so weak, in fact, that they would be curbstomped. In order to prevent the zerg from curbstomping, Metzen then introduced the concept of cerebrate immortality and it being broken by dark templar magic.

I could go on but I will stop there. I've seen tons of rationalizations but I never found them convincing. Either Metzen rewrote the plot several times and lost coherence in the process or added a bunch of pointless trivia that contradicted his intended plot. In any case, none of the plot contrivances introduced (zerg jesus, dark templar magic) would have been needed if Metzen had followed the plot hook about the determinant in the first place and hadn't felt the need to destroy every government to sabotage sequels.

While I'm frustrated that Blizzard is so bad at plotting, the fact that the games are badly plotted is something I have long accepted. What makes me genuinely upset is when fanboys make all sorts of unnecessary excuses for the bad plotting with the ulterior motive of justifying the status quo and their irrational twenty-years-old obsession with the Raynor/Kerry/Mengsk plot at the expense of everything else composing the franchise. It's dishonest for fanboys to argue that isn't their motive when it clearly is. And I wouldn't even be upset with that attitude if it didn't strangle the creative potential of the IP.

Blizz killed off Raynor, Kerry and Mengsk in order to provide freedom for new plots. Like the comics that came with the warchests depicting the rise of Niadra and Ihan-rii. They should have done this twenty years ago but better late than never, I suppose.

Metzen screwed up the lore so thoroughly that fanboys are still obsessed with Raynor, Kerry, and Mengsk after twenty years of mediocrity. As far as those fanboys are concerned, the Starcraft universe doesn't exist outside of Kerry and her two ex-boyfriends. I think that is a complete waste of the franchise and it makes me really dislike the fanboy community.

I mean, it's okay for you guys to like Raynor, Kerry, and Mengsk, but you shouldn't have to pretend that SC1 is scripture. There are so many other ways it could have been plotted with the same characters, and avoid Metzen's bad writing at the same time. I'm current working on an AU with that premise, even. I'm not writing Raynor, Kerry, and Mengsk out of existence, but I'm not giving them mary sue/gary stu control over the setting when that's unnecessary and would strangle the creative potential of the setting.

I never liked the "great man theory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory)" because it's complete nonsense used to justify European imperialism, but Starcraft exaggerated it to outright comical degrees. Not that this is remotely unusual for scifi, especially the franchise's original Warhammer 40,000 inspiration (although Warhammer 40,000 sabotages the great man theory by having scales so large that their achievements don't matter much), but Starcraft holds a special place in my heart for trying and failing to give personality to a tyranid expy.

But I digress. Moving back to the protoss death thing...



Following up on the soul, psi/ki idea and with zeratul's death, here's another "what if": Protoss naturally possess psi energy flowing inside them, high level at that. Naturally, Protoss conscience resides inside the confines of their biological constructs (brain?) and use the kind of signals you would expect out of any terrestrial animal. But, part of their brain also transfers information through psi(Terran ghosts also developed a lower form of this ability). With higher training, a Protoss can develop the ability to solely rely on the psi to manifest his conscience. As an initiate rely more and more on psi, his internal biology can transform to the point where the outside skin is only a facade held together by the psi inside. This is in fact, what an archon is, a being of pure psi with a physical facade. This explains why zergs cannot just sequence the dna of a protoss because a protoss doesn't just rely on dna to encode what makes them special. Maybe the magic crystals from SC1 were some sort of philosopher stone for the psi/material world?Elsewhere I entertained the idea that the protoss' purity of form means that they existed somewhere between mere mortals and scifi energy beings. The archons would represent the next stage of their evolution as the xel'naga originally desired. Although subsequent retcons that archons are unstable wrecks that, but it could be reconciled by claiming further experimentation is necessary to create stable archons. Ulrezaj's seven-fold dark archon form might be a successful experiment of that kind, although it raises the question of why the protoss haven't previously experimented with archons composed of more than two individuals. (For example, the Heptcraft SC2 mod has a dark templar tech tree in which "void archons" are identical to SC1/SC2 archons except formed by fusing two dark templar, but BW-style dark archons are formed by fusing two void archons.)

Your suggestion about protoss not using nucleic acid is genius. They have enough biological components to support being eaten by zerg parasites, but the zerg physically can't touch their genetic medium because it is so alien. That's a great way to give more weight to the determinant plot hook if it's still relevant, and you could even recycle hybrids (which here would be failed or debased fusions) created by terrans as supporting evidence for the determinant's importance (if interpreting the determinant as transhuman/tech potential in general and not just psychic powers; Gradius' origins custom campaign script suggested that zerg could study alien tech to get ideas for breeding new adaptations).

As for the magic crystals, I (and others maybe) always figured that the reason the zerg planted a Starship Troopers-style Behemecoatyl on Aiur (the Overmind may have come out years earlier, but it's basically Behemcoatyl) was to hijack the psi matrix for electronic warfare and preparation for assimilation. ToxicDefiler/AcidicCook suggested that electronic warfare in that vein undertaken by many broods could have played a major role in the zerg/protoss galactic war that never happened in canon.



Moving on, the thing about psi is that it can be converted to void energy. A dark templar, uses the same biological processes that a templar would use for his psi but instead, transforms the psi into void. The fact that these 2 type of energies are compatible is demonstrated by the fact that a dt can merge with a ht. Now, I'm kinda fuzzy with the whole regular void vs corrupted void (which I believe corrupted comes from Amon's dimension while regular void comes from another dimension?) but we could say that the same kind of process took place and so most of the internal contraptions became void or corrupted void. Death destabilize the"void glue" which then leads to disintegration. Void is more inert to the outside environment so its release does not generally lead to a combustion like psi. We could also say that, usually, a dt could not transfer a large amount of internal process to void without merging with another dt. But, corrupted energy allow for higher concentration or something.

Might be a bit convoluted lol but can't help it with all the space-magic stuff that's in that universe

Blizzard never explains how psychic powers work or why the distinction is important, except for vague bits and pieces in supplementary materials. I couldn't understand anything without referencing either the fandom wiki or Leovaunt's starcraft tabletop rpg rules that systematized things.

I had to delve into fanfiction territory myself to get a sense of how things worked. Long story short, I imagined the taldarim as more or less literal sith lords and dark eldar. They draw their power from the dark side of the void with their negative emotions, and avoid the psychological consequences of lacking a khala by absorbing the agony of other creatures.

I'm assuming here that protoss natively have a khala between tribe members, and that Khas merely rediscovered how to expand it to encompasses all tribes everywhere. Blizzard is inconsistent on this, naturally. SC2 seemingly claims khala is Amon's mind control and celebrates the protoss destroying it. The backstory of Khas in SC1 manual makes it clear that he was only recreating the link that existed in the first age, and implies that the intratribal khala still existed during the Aeon of Strife because all the violence was racially motivated. The dark templar trilogy's rendition of Khas' backstory seemingly claims that even the intratribal khala was gone (which somehow resulted in the protoss literally going crazy because the khala creates euphoria or something? I didn't really understand it due to all the retcons), which makes no sense since by their own logic this means the tribes should be butchering themselves and not just other tribes.

The tal'darim (and for that matter the ihan-rii) being distinguished by never submitting to the khala makes no sense because the khala existed during the first age too. At least in the dark templar trilogy they made sense because they actively rejected the khala using drugs. Different authors interpreting the same thing in completely different ways led to the messy inconsistent lore.

But I digress, again...

I never understood the distinction between different types of psychic energy. Sounds more like a bland fantasy novel convention. From what little I still remember learning in college, energy is energy and it doesn't have ice cream flavors like fantasy magic does. I always figured that the different paths of studying psychic powers merely affected how they worked (e.g. dark templar find it easy to personally cloak and teleport, whereas high templar needed bulky arbiters and other tech to do the same), not that they were analogous to magic ice cream flavors. The common fantasy/scifi convention of throwing around the words "energy" and "energies" makes no sense if you know what energy actually is. There's no such thing as pure energy, because energy is a property of matter.

Like, whenever the bridge crew or other lore bits say they have "detected energy", what they should really be saying is that they have detected infrared radiation, visible light, gamma rays, alpha particles, or whatever spectrum or particles they detected. Like, the backstory of terrazine being found in proximity to "void energy" makes no sense, since real scientists don't talk like that. I don't anybody even outside of technical fields talks like that. When was the last time you heard anybody outside a bland fantasy or scifi novel used the word "energy" to describe a physical thing or sensation that would be better described in other terms? It makes sense for metaphorical non-technical descriptions like "we felt this energy between us," but I've never heard something saying "I feel a dark energy" unless they were a phony psychic.

As far as we are led to believe, in the Starcraft universe the concept of psychic powers is a phenomenon that may be scientifically verified and weaponized, so using the same terminology as phony psychics and modern snake oil salesmen is nonsensical. We're led to believe that psychic powers produce psychic radiation that behaves in a similar way to the electromagnetic spectrum, so detection should detect psychic radiation, psion particles, or whatever and not some undefined energy. That's not how scientists in real life describe their findings so it really breaks my suspension of disbelief as someone who reads popular science publications (they're often sensationalist, but the terminology doesn't read like something out of generic fantasy/scifi).

Look at the opening of Xenosaga Episode I in which technicians spout meaningless technobabble:

Woglinde Employee 3: Detecting a large-scale spatial distortion ahead of us! An enormous mass is gating out!
Moriyama: Impossible! We're still outside the column area! That's…
Woglinde Employee 3: The U.M.N. geodesic structure is being breached!
Woglinde Employee 4: The target…it appears to be interacting with the U.M.N. somehow!
Moriyama: It's being hacked?! That's possible?! Massive gravity fluctuations! Surface anomalies forming in space-time!
Woglinde Employee 3: Impossible! That defies all laws of physics!
Woglinde Employee 5: Computing mass – the numbers are completely inconsistent! I can't get a clear reading! Whatever it is, it's huge!
Woglinde Employee 6: The amplitude… …the hell? It's like a tidal wave!! The readings are increasing! It's entering normal space! Captain!!

I know it's pure nonsense, but the syntax and vocabulary still feels vastly more realistic than the fantasy novel nonsense in Starcraft.

[drakolobo]

In response to Drak, post-2007 material that misla linked seems clear to me in it's intent to show that there is a "soul release" and it isn't just a malfunctioning teleportation. And I mean, sure you can say that the artistS didn't understand the lore enough but, like misla says, maybe the Q&A guy didn't get it either :p If anything, we can possibly assume that the retcon has been retconned or, at the very least, both the "soul release" and the "teleport malfunction" coexist in the current state of canon.


This series of Q&A was created to reach the points in lore and it adds that sometimes teletransport fails covering the case of the intro XD also this is the case that it is not only in technical data we see representation of this:

remembering a case that Zealot teleported is from the Khastiana that after being injured begins to be teleported and later it is placed in an immortal
https://i.imgur.com/eXfiZLS.jpg
effect very similar to the video of the centurion in the rescue of Karax


https://youtu.be/Qoltko7t8pg?t=11


As for the magic crystals, I (and others maybe) always figured that the reason the zerg planted a Starship Troopers-style Behemecoatyl on Aiur (the Overmind may have come out years earlier, but it's basically Behemcoatyl) was to hijack the psi matrix for electronic warfare and preparation for assimilation. ToxicDefiler/AcidicCook suggested that electronic warfare in that vein undertaken by many broods could have played a major role in the zerg/protoss galactic war that never happened in canon.


Well, I think there are quite a few indications of this in LoV and the classic Zerg campaign basically Amon takes advantage of everything that overmind achieves and the corruption emanates from the corpse of his great traitor


Blizzard never explains how psychic powers work or why the distinction is important, except for vague bits and pieces in supplementary materials. I couldn't understand anything without referencing either the fandom wiki or Leovaunt's starcraft tabletop rpg rules that systematized things.
a quite solid interpretation can be reached with the information in the khala manual is a very specific psychic form of the protoss, it is said that the protoss are emanating energy continuously when working in a gestal is feed back to very high levels whose maximum warlike representation was the psi storms and being used as the main energy source this allows a collective accumulation of energy as if it were our oil. basically the khala has an internal biological source
As a void energy, it is an external source, that is, it is the manipulation of the energy of space and with the SC2 its similarity has been achieved with the concept of warp in w40k

I had to delve into fanfiction territory myself to get a sense of how things worked. Long story short, I imagined the taldarim as more or less literal sith lords and dark eldar. They draw their power from the dark side of the void with their negative emotions, and avoid the psychological consequences of lacking a khala by absorbing the agony of other creatures.
the Taldarim ideologically if they are Sith but their energy management is the same as the Nerazim, but not limited by moral code and enhanced with the use of drugs to access control of this dimension


I'm assuming here that protoss natively have a khala between tribe members, and that Khas merely rediscovered how to expand it to encompasses all tribes everywhere. Blizzard is inconsistent on this, naturally. SC2 seemingly claims khala is Amon's mind control and celebrates the protoss destroying it. The backstory of Khas in SC1 manual makes it clear that he was only recreating the link that existed in the first age, and implies that the intratribal khala still existed during the Aeon of Strife because all the violence was racially motivated. The dark templar trilogy's rendition of Khas' backstory seemingly claims that even the intratribal khala was gone (which somehow resulted in the protoss literally going crazy because the khala creates euphoria or something? I didn't really understand it due to all the retcons), which makes no sense since by their own logic this means the tribes should be butchering themselves and not just other tribes.
the phenomenon speaks of the fact that the protoss became individulist, this would lead to the protoss being only able to organize themselves directly as we did that while maintaining a strong value of the individuality we are still quite anchored to the family structures and we see people outside of this as competitors or threats creating tribal wars equivalent to our wars

the absence of the khala is quite generalized if existed on a smaller scale, an expanded form had would have been easily conjectured, while experience of khas was a catharsis / epiphany by contacting the khandary crystals when their energy is absorbed very similarly theories of artifacts in Starcraft 2

The tal'darim (and for that matter the ihan-rii) being distinguished by never submitting to the khala makes no sense because the khala existed during the first age too. At least in the dark templar trilogy they made sense because they actively rejected the khala using drugs. Different authors interpreting the same thing in completely different ways led to the messy inconsistent lore.
When the protoss forgot their pre khala psionic ties, they had no support, it was their own selfishness that generated their isolation, which generated the separation of the species, examples never accessed the Khala, even though the Nerazim cut their neuronal appendixes, they were already separated from the khala, and the mutilation was only a symbolic act and that makes a permanent process, the Taldarim culturally kept hiding their minds and emotions as a sign of strength, both ALarak (taldarim) and Mohandar (nerazim) in their respective short stories how they hide their "weaknesses" blocking their minds

[Turalyon]

Moving on, the thing about psi is that it can be converted to void energy. A dark templar, uses the same biological processes that a templar would use for his psi but instead, transforms the psi into void. The fact that these 2 type of energies are compatible is demonstrated by the fact that a dt can merge with a ht. Now, I'm kinda fuzzy with the whole regular void vs corrupted void (which I believe corrupted comes from Amon's dimension while regular void comes from another dimension?) but we could say that the same kind of process took place and so most of the internal contraptions became void or corrupted void. Death destabilize the"void glue" which then leads to disintegration. Void is more inert to the outside environment so its release does not generally lead to a combustion like psi. We could also say that, usually, a dt could not transfer a large amount of internal process to void without merging with another dt. But, corrupted energy allow for higher concentration or something.

This doesn't explain why regular DT still burst into blue flame when they "die" though (as shown in-game).

[Mislagnissa]

This doesn't explain why regular DT still burst into blue flame when they "die" though (as shown in-game).

Now that you mention it, the flame color in SC2 depends on the player’s team color. In the fluff, that seemingly correlates with the character’s eye color. Khalai burst into blue flames, Taldarim into red, etc.

[ragnarok]

Now that you mention it, the flame color in SC2 depends on the player’s team color. In the fluff, that seemingly correlates with the character’s eye color. Khalai burst into blue flames, Taldarim into red, etc.

Are you sure that's not just a gameplay mechanic? And didn't the Tal'darim also burst into blue flames as well back in WoL?

[Visions of Khas]

A brief digression from the current discussion, but I totally forgot about the high detail mission screen depicting Zeratul with a pair of stalkers. Considering the metal and proportions (their heads are distinctly larger than Zeratul's), I'd say Stalkers are 100% mechanical.

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/starcraft/images/1/1f/Stalker_Zeratul-SC2-LotV_Cncpt.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20151119220430

[Visions of Khas]

I'm assuming here that protoss natively have a khala between tribe members, and that Khas merely rediscovered how to expand it to encompasses all tribes everywhere.

From what I've been able to gather, the protoss have an empathic, communal link that exists at an instinctual level; it's probably an autonomic process. Amon wanted to use this as his means of controlling the protoss, but protoss's connection to this communal link was not as intimate or strong as the zerg's hive mind. Khas inadvertently "perfected" it by conceiving the mental training to raise this instinctual link to a conscious level, thereby creating the Khala; what was once autonomic is now somatic, comparable to how real world monks are allegedly able to control their body temperature or heart rate. As a side effect, the Aiur protoss's psychic powers were brought under control by imposing centuries of discipline into this psychic gestalt.

Though they followed Amon for millennia, the Tal'Darim never had the mental training to create their own Khala. Moreover, their communal link was deadened by theit habitual use of terrazine, ultimately making them worthless to Amon's plans. (The Tal'Darim, at least in the Dark Templar Trilogy, held particular animosity towards the Nerazim, I'm guessing because they were resistant to Amon. It is ironic, then, that the Tal'Darim were just as useless, necessitating Ma'lash's propaganda to keep them in line.)



hat little I still remember learning in college, energy is energy and it doesn't have ice cream flavors like fantasy magic does.


Quantum mechanics flavors, anyone? :p



I always figured that the different paths of studying psychic powers merely affected how they worked.


I'm of the opinion that you're ultimately correct, and the differences in technique are cultural and separate schools of thought. Upon leaving Aiur, the Dark Templar severed their nerve cords, breaking themselves from their species' wellspring of power within the communal link. To fuel themselves, they turned to the Void. The Void's energies may be more harmful and "willful" because Amon has corrupted them over the millenia, necessitating the Dark Templar make sparing use of them. The Khala, on the other hand, is a psychic gestalt that has been disciplined over the course of centuries.

The original manual implies the Void is dangerous for some nebulous, unnamed reason. I suppose Amon was the retconned reason for this. As such, tapping into the Void is dangerous, so even the Dark Templar do so with great caution. I guess only the Tal'Darim are allowed by Amon to use the Void unscathed, allowing them greater power at the expense of insanity (in Nyon's case) or burning out like a star.

I can only guess that, like a transformer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHVh0KwG_0k), protoss release something like an arc flash on death, ionizing the air in a tremendous burst, with their innate energies no longer under control by cellular/mental processes. Zeratul's and Malash's (https://youtu.be/9Yl-VU1PzvA?t=1123)disintegration must be a byproduct of the Void's "entropic" nature;


Particle disruptors [...] call upon the training of the dark templar pilot to fire lethal blasts of entropic Void energy. Each shot destabilizes matter at a fundamental level, and ultimately tears it apart by disintegrating its atomic composition.

I just have to wonder what exactly "entropic" means in this case. Thermal entropy is the natural byproduct of thermodynamic processes. Does the Void have a temporal component that leaches away at the potential and kinetic energy of a system? Or is it informational entropy, altering the inherent data of a system to result in disorder? I suppose given the scenario the two interpretations are essentially analogous.

[Mislagnissa]

Are you sure that's not just a gameplay mechanic? And didn't the Tal'darim also burst into blue flames as well back in WoL?The WoL protoss including tal'darim burst into flames of the color of their unit's game player. This has been the case since SC2 was first released.

In WoL, the tal'darim were generic protoss fanatics who took their name from a faction introduced in the dark templar trilogy of novels. The writers of the game clearly didn't read them in detail since all the cameos are cosmetic in nature.

It was only in LotV that the tal'darim were retconned into their own ethnic group. This creates plot holes since there are clearly tal'darim who aren't related to the Slayn tribe, but whatever.


A brief digression from the current discussion, but I totally forgot about the high detail mission screen depicting Zeratul with a pair of stalkers. Considering the metal and proportions (their heads are distinctly larger than Zeratul's), I'd say Stalkers are 100% mechanical. I don't know if we can say anything for certain. They might be bio-engineered or something. All we know is that they are created by converting a protoss volunteer in some unknown but seemingly irreversible fashion.


From what I've been able to gather, the protoss have an empathic, communal link that exists at an instinctual level; it's probably an autonomic process. Amon wanted to use this as his means of controlling the protoss, but protoss's connection to this communal link was not as intimate or strong as the zerg's hive mind. Khas inadvertently "perfected" it by conceiving the mental training to raise this instinctual link to a conscious level, thereby creating the Khala; what was once autonomic is now somatic, comparable to how real world monks are allegedly able to control their body temperature or heart rate. As a side effect, the Aiur protoss's psychic powers were brought under control by imposing centuries of discipline into this psychic gestalt.

Though they followed Amon for millennia, the Tal'Darim never had the mental training to create their own Khala. Moreover, their communal link was deadened by theit habitual use of terrazine, ultimately making them worthless to Amon's plans. (The Tal'Darim, at least in the Dark Templar Trilogy, held particular animosity towards the Nerazim, I'm guessing because they were resistant to Amon. It is ironic, then, that the Tal'Darim were just as useless, necessitating Ma'lash's propaganda to keep them in line.)
Blizzard has never given a consistent explanation, so all we can do is speculate. I think trying to rationalize Blizzard's inconsistent world building is pointless since they clearly have no idea what they're doing.

The dark templar trilogy has flashbacks to Khas life when he was working on the khala, and I don't think they fit with your explanation. The author seemingly operated on their own self-contained logic, as with most Starcraft stories. Khas explained that the lack of the khala made the protoss literally crazy and, combined with their resentment of the xel'naga, resulted in racial warfare.

However, I was inspired to rethink how I'd previously imagined the khala. The protoss tribes evolve to used khala for efficient communication. The lost empire of the first age expanded that to cover their entire species. The aeon of strife happened in part because the tribes withdrew from the civilization-wide khala.

It is reasonable to assume that, since the khala is natural to the protoss species, a protoss severed from the khala will suffer harmful effects like insanity. By extension, the lost civilization's tribes got used to the intertribal khala and suffered harmful side effects from withdrawing from it, but not as much as losing khala completely. The racial warfare during the aeon may be seen in part as a coping mechanism for some psychological hole they don't understand.

So when Khas restored the intertribal khala, this hole was filled and the protoss people felt much better. I don't know what else to compare it to besides that feeling humans get when they "find religion."

This interpretation of the khala is much more charitable than the canon (which equates destroying the khala to freedom) and makes the Conclave's paranoid behavior seem sensible in context. The nerazim are an outlier and most protoss severed from khala turn out like the tal'darim... as seen when Ulrezaj's converts literally become tal'darim.

I don't believe that it makes any sense to assume protoss psychology works like that of humans on any level. Removing the intratribal khala would, I imagine, result in families attacking themselves rather than the protoss acting like humans and identifying with their tribes. They had the khala for millions of years, so it sounds silly to assume they can operate fine without it on any level.

That's like saying that all humans can operate just fine with brain lesions that cause aphasia. Some forms of aphasia result in you being unable to identify faces, so you literally can't tell people apart from one another even if you've known them all your life. If all humans suddenly suffered from that form of aphasia, then our civilization would immediately collapse unless we switched entirely to communication that didn't rely on having a face. Which is obviously infeasible.

Removing all trace of khala is easily comparable to removing vital chunks of a person's mental faculties. Saying the protoss can get along just fine like humans destroys the entire point of making them aliens in the first place. If they're just funny-looking humans, then they should literally be written as humans with some modifications.



I'm of the opinion that you're ultimately correct, and the differences in technique are cultural and separate schools of thought. Upon leaving Aiur, the Dark Templar severed their nerve cords, breaking themselves from their species' wellspring of power within the communal link. To fuel themselves, they turned to the Void. The Void's energies may be more harmful and "willful" because Amon has corrupted them over the millenia, necessitating the Dark Templar make sparing use of them. The Khala, on the other hand, is a psychic gestalt that has been disciplined over the course of centuries.

The original manual implies the Void is dangerous for some nebulous, unnamed reason. I suppose Amon was the retconned reason for this. As such, tapping into the Void is dangerous, so even the Dark Templar do so with great caution. I guess only the Tal'Darim are allowed by Amon to use the Void unscathed, allowing them greater power at the expense of insanity (in Nyon's case) or burning out like a star.

I can only guess that, like a transformer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHVh0KwG_0k), protoss release something like an arc flash on death, ionizing the air in a tremendous burst, with their innate energies no longer under control by cellular/mental processes. Zeratul's and Malash's (https://youtu.be/9Yl-VU1PzvA?t=1123)disintegration must be a byproduct of the Void's "entropic" nature;



I just have to wonder what exactly "entropic" means in this case. Thermal entropy is the natural byproduct of thermodynamic processes. Does the Void have a temporal component that leaches away at the potential and kinetic energy of a system? Or is it informational entropy, altering the inherent data of a system to result in disorder? I suppose given the scenario the two interpretations are essentially analogous.
Back during the development of the Starcraft alpha, the protoss promo on the '97 website made a big deal about Moorcockian-style order and chaos. They considered themselves defenders of order from chaos, with chaos presumably represented by the zerg. Maybe the void was tied with chaos at some point in development, since the original meaning of the Greek chaos is "void." Perhaps the reason why void is dangerous is due to its chaotic behavior or something. Entropy and chaos are related in real physics jargon.

When the nerazim elected to sever themselves (which probably happened gradually through safety testing experiments rather than immediately), they had to develop new sciences to survive their new conditions since they lacked the khala's fortitude (e.g. the khalai are adaptable to harsh conditions and are apparently the strongest/fastest race in the galaxy, seemingly even to the degree of surviving in volcanic, freezing, and outer space conditions with little to no apparent life support if the game sprites/models are remotely accurate). The dark archons were a result of some experiments and are considered quite monstrous. We can only imagine what else happened during the other experiments over the centuries.

The expanded universe mentions "Naraza (https://starcraft.fandom.com/wiki/Naraza)" as a nerazim who tried to experiment and died horribly. It's easy to imagine many others just like her.

[ragnarok]

It was only in LotV that the tal'darim were retconned into their own ethnic group. This creates plot holes since there are clearly tal'darim who aren't related to the Slayn tribe, but whatever.


I didn't think that was the case, though as of right now Blizzard still hasn't really explained just WHY the WoL Tal'darim faction didn't just hand Duran the artifact pieces if he commanded the Tal'darim all along....

[Mislagnissa]

I didn't think that was the case, though as of right now Blizzard still hasn't really explained just WHY the WoL Tal'darim faction didn't just hand Duran the artifact pieces if he commanded the Tal'darim all along....

Because Blizzard has always been making the plot as they went along without any pre-planning or regard for consistency with past events.

The WoL tal'darim were created to justify fighting protoss during the campaign, because a mandate in every SC campaign is that you fight every race at least once to showcase the game's capabilities. Since Raynor was friends with the protoss for contrived reasons, the writers took the name of a fanatical cult from the dark templar trilogy and spun it into a generic cult to create obstacles in the game.

I always thought the simplest way to explain the plot holes was to say that there were multiple tal'darim tribes with different beliefs. So some of them wouldn't answer to Duran, or even act against him, such as those Raynor fought. Naturally, Blizzard apparently never entertained that idea.

[Visions of Khas]

I didn't think that was the case, though as of right now Blizzard still hasn't really explained just WHY the WoL Tal'darim faction didn't just hand Duran the artifact pieces if he commanded the Tal'darim all along....


Alarak explained it (read: retconned) that Executor Nyon and his forces were sent to harvest terrazine, and were driven insane by it. So apparently they cut ties with the main Tal'darim body and went rogue, I guess?



I always thought the simplest way to explain the plot holes was to say that there were multiple tal'darim tribes with different beliefs

Culture and world building? In my starcrafts? Never! -_-

Honestly, they need to go ahead and make a remastered edition where they tie these things up with added dialog and a streamlined story.

[ragnarok]

Because Blizzard has always been making the plot as they went along without any pre-planning or regard for consistency with past events.

The WoL tal'darim were created to justify fighting protoss during the campaign, because a mandate in every SC campaign is that you fight every race at least once to showcase the game's capabilities. Since Raynor was friends with the protoss for contrived reasons, the writers took the name of a fanatical cult from the dark templar trilogy and spun it into a generic cult to create obstacles in the game.

I always thought the simplest way to explain the plot holes was to say that there were multiple tal'darim tribes with different beliefs. So some of them wouldn't answer to Duran, or even act against him, such as those Raynor fought. Naturally, Blizzard apparently never entertained that idea.

Pffft, this is just your explanation for everything: because Blizzard is so damn stupid. At the very least try to come up with a better reasoning.

[Visions of Khas]

Pffft, this is just your explanation for everything: because Blizzard is so damn stupid. At the very least try to come up with a better reasoning.

I mean, Misla's probably right in this instance. The Tal'Darim of WoL act against the wishes of Narud in WoL, then are suddenly his servants in HotS, and are completely transformed in LotV into DEldar expies. That's classic Making Shit Up As You Go.TM


Khas explained that the lack of the khala made the protoss literally crazy and, combined with their resentment of the xel'naga, resulted in racial warfare.


We know this is false, given that Dark Templar do not succumb to madness; the Aiur-based Tal'Darim did not lose their sanity when their communal link was severed by Sundrop; and the Daelaam's stability post-Amon. Of course, Khas and co. may perceive the heightened sense of individuality as insanity in the context of their society and culture, even though it's not a true case of clinical mental illness or psychosis.

[Mislagnissa]

Speaking of... I am working on an AU proposal. I re-characterized the ihanrii as mad scientists rather than taldarim clones. The taldarim view of xel’naga is entirely mythical, whereas the ihanrii actually met and learned from them. Hence the mad scientist preoccupation.

For example, their “animated stone” is an engineered coral/lichen.

They aren’t happy about the first contact war.

[Visions of Khas]

For example, their “animated stone” is an engineered coral/lichen.

*shrug* I just assumed it was the same material as the Keystone, and was likewise a type of programmable matter whose true form was in some implicate order or quantum non-local hidden variables; or perhaps its mechanical systems are sealed away in an extrusion into the void, with the stone itself being but a small fraction extending into material space, like a tesseract.

But I see you're taking the Yuuzhan Vong route. 😆

[Mislagnissa]

*shrug* I just assumed it was the same material as the Keystone, and was likewise a type of programmable matter whose true form was in some implicate order or quantum non-local hidden variables; or perhaps its mechanical systems are sealed away in an extrusion into the void, with the stone itself being but a small fraction extending into material space, like a tesseract.

But I see you're taking the Yuuzhan Vong route. 😆

It can still be both. Rather than manufacturing the animated stone, they use the coral/lichen to grow it.

The mad scientist thing is meant to make them culturally distinct and emphasize their emulation of the xel'naga, because otherwise their fluff is mostly redundant to both the khalai and the tal'darim.

The khalai protoss empire believed themselves the inheritors of the xel'naga's legacy, but their attitude toward the xel'naga was... mixed? Just read the backstory:


Khas, gathering many young Protoss together, was able to teach the new generation of warriors how to access their latent psychic bond. These young ones, suddenly free to distance themselves from the horrendous strife around them, were able to see clearly that the conflict of their race was folly. They believed that the Xel’Naga had been right to abandon them and that because their racial essence had been corrupted by the rise of ego, they were indeed a failed creation. They maintained, however, that because their inherent failure was not of their own doing, the inner conflict of the Protoss and racial turmoil was baseless and hollow.


In keeping with the strict codes of the Khala, the Protoss took upon themselves the burden of the Dae’Uhl, or ‘Great Stewardship’. Following the ancient traditions of the Xel’Naga, the Dae’Uhl called for the Protoss to protect and safeguard the lesser races that lived under their shadow. Unlike their predecessors, however, the Protoss refused to manipulate or interfere in the evolutionary processes of the lesser races under their protection. Ever vigilant against xenomorphic threats, the Protoss kept a close watch over their unsuspecting wards.


The Shelak Tribe was the Tribe closest to the ancient Xel’Naga race. Therefore, they were appointed by the Judicator to study and protect the powerful Khaydarin Crystals that empower the awesome technologies of the Protoss. The Shelak, intrigued by the legacy of the Xel’Naga, continuously study their ancient texts. Although the Judicator have banned all Xel’Naga teachings, the Shelak are still allowed access to the archives. The Judicator hope that the Shelak can unravel the mysteries of the Xel’Naga and thus expand their knowledge through the Khala.

The xel'naga were right to abandon the protoss as a failure, but their failure was the xel'naga's fault to begin with (apparently?). The Empire took up the mantle of the xel'naga as stewards, yet prohibited the same level of genetic and social manipulation. The Conclave banned all xel'naga teachings, allowing only the Shelak's librarians to study and reverse-engineer them.

That's basically the sum of the Conclave's beliefs, but you wouldn't know it from all the other fiction depicting them as cargo cultists who worship the xel'naga.

Meanwhile, the tal'darim are generic psychotic warrior race pirate dudes who mindlessly worship the xel'naga without apparently knowing anything about them. It isn't clear if they worship xel'naga in general or just Amon, since their fluff says both at different points.

I find it really strange that the ihanrii seemingly behave like cargo cultists in some instances, like putting literal magic runes on their tech and believing that fighting really good will get them a place in the afterlife. That feels far more appropriate for the tal'darim to do.

Especially given other tal'darim lore bits. The slayers (stalker) only became such because they loved fighting so much; although this means they cannot advance the Chain of Ascension, but apparently they don't care anymore. The vanguard (dragoon/immortal) are considered disgraced for either failing to die in battle or failing to win.

So I think it would make sense to take the cargo cultist elements from the ihanrii and move them to the tal'darim. It would give more color to the tal'darim anyway if they placed runes on their tech to repel heretics and indicate their faith, and to fight hard because they believe it guarantees a place for them in the afterlife.

The ihanrii could be more agnostic, atheist, or even autotheist. They consider themselves the inheritors of the xel'naga legacy like the Empire does, but aren't restricted by the Great Stewardship. Quite the opposite, they like to experiment on other species just like the xel'naga did.



For that matter... I doubt even Blizzard knows what the xel'naga are supposed to be anymore, since different contexts treat them completely differently and sources contradict on basic details. The wiki just copies the backstory from the decades old manual, adding tiny clarifications that these scientist xel'naga were Amon's followers because Rohana said so in LotV. At the same time, Rohana says everything she knows is literally myth. Myth that the protoss apparently knew forever but was never revealed until LotV.

Whatever. It seems pretty clear to me that, in-universe and out-of-universe, nobody actually knows the deal with the xel'naga. They're a plot device of the worst kind. But I digress.

I spun all that into my AU proposal's depiction of the Conclave's belief system. The protoss have at best fragmentary records of the first age, so they don't have concrete facts. Religious tribes, like the tal'darim, believe that the xel'naga are literal space gods who live forever in heaven or whatever. Atheist tribes believe that the xel'naga were aliens who uplifted the protoss and/or their own genetic ancestors.

The Conclave is technically atheist (they engage in ancestor worship but that's not the same thing since the Khala is literally a technological afterlife) and believes the xel'naga are mythologized versions of their own ancestors. They're factually wrong, as the xel'naga were actually aliens, but it's a reasonable conclusion based on what little they do know. The zerg are the only ones who know the xel'naga were aliens, because the zerg exterminated the xel'naga.

I'm ignoring the infinite cycle nonsense because it adds nothing of value but only creates needless confusion. The zerg want to eat the protoss to achieve perfection and conquer the universe, and that's all you need to care about.

The nerazim are questionably agnostic. They don't know anything about the xel'naga so they believe worshiping them is pointless, but they suspect that horrible Lovecraftian mythos deities exist in the dark energy of outer space. The Voice in the Darkness (https://starcraft.fandom.com/wiki/Voice_in_the_Darkness_(entity)) is one example. Too spooky for me!

[drakolobo]

The khalai protoss empire believed themselves the inheritors of the xel'naga's legacy, but their attitude toward the xel'naga was... mixed? Just read the backstory:


The xel'naga were right to abandon the protoss as a failure, but their failure was the xel'naga's fault to begin with (apparently?). The Empire took up the mantle of the xel'naga as stewards, yet prohibited the same level of genetic and social manipulation. The Conclave banned all xel'naga teachings, allowing only the Shelak's librarians to study and reverse-engineer them.

That's basically the sum of the Conclave's beliefs, but you wouldn't know it from all the other fiction depicting them as cargo cultists who worship the xel'naga.


The Khalai vision is that the xelnagas are alien forerunners, and such that they surpassed their cult as divinities that are critical to retake their philosophy and avoid doing the same in a role of race protectors who now take their place as protected by being primitive


Meanwhile, the tal'darim are generic psychotic warrior race pirate dudes who mindlessly worship the xel'naga without apparently knowing anything about them. It isn't clear if they worship xel'naga in general or just Amon, since their fluff says both at different points.
they are not psychotic believe in the philosophy of power with a Darwinian nature, they believe that ascends by force in fact their worship is exclusive to AMon because the idea of the first ascendant is to be below Amon and in the interpretation of Alarak AMon is just one more step to the divinity, a paropiated analogy could be that the followers of Khas are Athens while the Taldarim are a Spartan culture that as a single value the ability to be warlike, arts and other things of the most sophisticated cultures things of weak people


I find it really strange that the ihanrii seemingly behave like cargo cultists in some instances, like putting literal magic runes on their tech and believing that fighting really good will get them a place in the afterlife. That feels far more appropriate for the tal'darim to do.
since they consider their home tyrador iX they could suffer isolation when migrating in a warp gate to another planet when the relations with the Xelnagas were quite positive, (basically the name of the tribe is a name that the protoss of Aiur give to the Xelnagas) and they did not experience events like the Aeon of Strife but even the isolation of the demystification of the Xelnagas and consider them divine, and likewise they demigods


Especially given other tal'darim lore bits. The slayers (stalker) only became such because they loved fighting so much; although this means they cannot advance the Chain of Ascension, but apparently they don't care anymore. The vanguard (dragoon/immortal) are considered disgraced for either failing to die in battle or failing to win.
very spartan

I mean, Misla's probably right in this instance. The Tal'Darim of WoL act against the wishes of Narud in WoL, then are suddenly his servants in HotS, and are completely transformed in LotV into DEldar expies. That's classic Making Shit Up As You Go.TM





in legacy or void they argue that basically Amon doesn't care about the Taldarim, he has watched them chase their tail for millennia celebrating it when they die while they think that amon was celebrating the force, that there is conflict where they die does not present any inconvenience, it is also mentioned that in realms Amon doesn't care about time basically who is impatient with his return is -narud

[ragnarok]

Especially given other tal'darim lore bits. The slayers (stalker) only became such because they loved fighting so much; although this means they cannot advance the Chain of Ascension, but apparently they don't care anymore. The vanguard (dragoon/immortal) are considered disgraced for either failing to die in battle or failing to win.


You don't know that. The skin lore merely said not all ta'darim seek ascension, and would rather sharpen their killing skills.

[Mislagnissa]

The Khalai vision is that the xelnagas are alien forerunners, and such that they surpassed their cult as divinities that are critical to retake their philosophy and avoid doing the same in a role of race protectors who now take their place as protected by being primitive


they are not psychotic believe in the philosophy of power with a Darwinian nature, they believe that ascends by force in fact their worship is exclusive to AMos because the idea of the first ascendant is to be below Amon and in the interpretation of Alarak AMon is just one more step to the divinity, a paropiated analogy could be that the followers of Khas are attentive while the Taldarim are a Spartan culture that as a single value the ability to be warlike and arts and other things of the most sophisticated cultures things weak people


since they consider their home tyrador iX they could suffer isolation when migrating in a warp gate to another planet when the relations with the Xelnagas were quite positive, (basically the name of the tribe is a name that the proti of Aiur give to the Xelnagas) and they did not experience events like the Aeon of Strife but even the isolation of the demystification of the Xelnagas and consider them divine, and likewise demigods

very spartan


in legacy or void they argue that basically Amon doesn't care about the Taldarim, he has watched them chase their tail for millennia celebrating it when they die while they think that amon was celebrating the force, that there is conflict where they die does not present any inconvenience, it is also mentioned that in realms Amon doesn't care about time basically who is impatient with his return is -narud

The messiness of the canon lore is the reason why I prefer to devise an alternate universe where I may clean things up to make a modicum of sense and remain consistent.

Amon is a pretty poorly written villain. The Overmind was much more interesting. Despite being a galactic space monster, the Overmind was not malicious or cruel. It displayed virtues like compassion and devotion toward its children. Its motive was reasonable.

[ragnarok]

Which once again is just you saying to just smash the whole thing and start over because you don't want to make any attempt to clarify it up

[Mislagnissa]

Which once again is just you saying to just smash the whole thing and start over because you don't want to make any attempt to clarify it up

Recycling all the factions, like Confederacy, Dominion, UED, Ihanrii, Protoss Empire, etc to coexist is hardly smashing everything. Sometimes a reboot can be a good thing for an IP, particularly if the continuity has become so convoluted and unwieldy that nobody even knows what is going on anymore.



Also, Blizzard has clarified it many times. The fandom wiki has extensive explanations of just about everything. That still does not solve the irreconcilable contradictions and plot holes brought about by the rewrites during development and the retcons between sources.

Every attempt to rationalize these irreconcilable contradictions only introduces more problems elsewhere, hence why I label them irreconcilable. Fanboys have to rely on doublethink and handwaves because there is no rational way to explain it while maintaining the same series of events.



For example, the zerg's initial invasion of Koprulu is chock full of plot holes because Metzen was making things up as he went with zero regard for consistency and then retconning everything later.

The zerg discovered the terrans decades ago and subtly invaded Koprulu for years before starting open warfare. The Confederacy deployed psi-emitters, causing the zerg to congregate on those emitters. Why did the zerg do that?

Well, the zerg were in the sector to assimilate the terrans because of their potential for purity of form to weaponize against the protoss. The implication is that the zerg will attempt to exterminate humanity, just as they did to every other species they encountered because that's their shtick. Terran genes lead to all sorts of weird results like the aberration and the changeling that have never been explained. This ultimately goes back to the terrans engaging in rampant transhumanism.

But following the emitters makes no sense. The zerg would know it's all a trap since they historically used the same ploy themselves. It would be more efficient to harvest human population centers and process them for useful genes. Sending large forces to investigate emitters is strategic stupidity. We know that the organized zerg aren't mindlessly attracted to emitters because the emitters are never used after episode 1 except to attract feral zerg, because if they were then it would be a viable strategy against them. But even this isn't consistent, since in Speed of Darkness they divert forces from the assault on Mar Sara City to investigate a random psi-emitter and this gives the Magistrate time to evacuate.

But Metzen immediately forgets all that and has the zerg abandon everything to focus entirely on Kerry, and then abandon the conflict against the terrans once they have her. The reason for this is because if they continued their assault, the Dominion would be destroyed. Because Metzen gave the zerg arbitrarily infinite resources, turning them into a plot device. Since the zerg are now a plot device, Metzen needs to shoehorn more plot devices to explain how they are defeated, like only the dark templar killing their leaders. I believe SC2 retcons this as Kerry being infested to assassinate Amon, which is nonsensical but it actually does make some degree of sense: they were never interested in the terrans per se, but in creating a new generation of xel'naga to kill Amon by finding another species with purity of form. Given that Ouros could sent Zeratul psychic visions through the Overmind's corpse, one could posit that Overmind and Ouros were collaborating all along. Or something like that, I'm rationalizing here because Metzen clearly had no idea what he was doing.

Then Metzen forgets what he just wrote again, and decides that the real reason the zerg were in Koprulu was because they were looking for Aiur. Which he later tries to paper over by claiming Amon's programming forced them to invade. Despite having all the knowledge of the xel'naga, and deep space probes actively monitoring protoss space (and these probes led the empire and nerazim to terran space in the first place), and being told to go there specifically by Amon, the zerg cannot find Aiur. The moment they find it they invade immediately, so the detour to terran space was completely superfluous until the later retcon that it was done ultimately as a plot against Amon.

Although considering that Amon/Duran kept the tal'darim around without the khala despite intending the khala specifically as a mind-control mechanism and spending millions of years doing nothing when he could trivially finish his plans by taking some tal'darim to Zerus and fusing them with the Overmind, I'm guessing that Amon/Duran was severely retarded and kept making blatantly stupid mistakes that sabotaged his own plans.



Many other people have pointed out the plot holes that resulted from Metzen making things up as he went along without regard for consistency. The plot of SC1 relies entirely on plot contrivances, although it's remembered most fondly because nobody acts blatantly stupid. The plot of BW is more controversial, since the characters often act in blatantly stupid ways to allow the plot to advance and the plot contrivances are much more obvious. Pretty much everyone agrees that SC2 is blatantly stupid on every level since the poor writing is so painfully obvious.

I'm not interested in rationalizing Metzen's bad writing. It simply isn't possible to do that, at least not without making everything needlessly convoluted and impossible to keep track of. That's the whole problem with making things up on the fly without regard for consistency. That's what happened to Warcraft and everybody knows it and we make a game of mocking the nonsensical lore.

I want to write a new plot that makes sense from the start and isn't needlessly complicated. I prefer a simple premise like "terrans have their own complex politics as we can relate to, the zerg invade koprulu to assimilate terrans for planned war against protoss, the protoss get involved anyway and things spiral out of control from there." While liberally recycling everything I find remotely interesting from the official continuity, like the cerberus zerg and the ihanrii.

I actually found the ihanrii so interesting that I recycled them into my alternate continuity proposal as mad scientists who the protoss empire provoked into war, while moving their cargo cult aspects to the tal'darim to give them more color because I think the tal'darim can be interesting. I've probably given more though to tal'darim culture than Blizzard ever has.



I don't understand why you are so obsessed with trying to justify Metzen's bad writing. Almost nobody else is interested in doing that, and for good reason. There are more people who want SC2 to be rewritten from the ground up, or even for BW to be rewritten to plug its plot holes.

What is it that you like about Starcraft? For me, it's the aesthetics, politics, blah blah. The sorts of things that I can easily recycle into a reboot. What about Starcraft do you like that can or cannot be recycled into a reboot?

You said you liked Kerry, right? While I dislike using the zerg as a plot device who obey anyone holding their leash, I am open to the idea of recycling QoB as a zerg avatar. I don't think redemption makes much sense because someone who is infested clearly isn't the same person anymore, I am open to the idea of Kerry being partly de-infested (becoming what lore calls a "mutate") and allowed to pursue a character arc where she lives in fear of the zerg. Like Ripley 8 or Seven of Nine.

[ragnarok]

Not everything is meant to explained in a 100% rational manner.


I mean, Misla's probably right in this instance. The Tal'Darim of WoL act against the wishes of Narud in WoL, then are suddenly his servants in HotS, and are completely transformed in LotV into DEldar expies. That's classic Making Shit Up As You Go.TM


I keep telling you, Blizzard simply didn't tell us the reason why the WoL Tal'darim wouldn't hand the keystone pieces to Duran. It wouldn't surprise me if Duran was actually testing Raynor or something.....

[Visions of Khas]

It wouldn't surprise me if Duran was actually testing Raynor or something.....
Dude, we were given the "reason": Alarak stated that Nyon had gone insane from harvesting terrazine. The writers didn't consider from the outset the overarching story where the Tal'Darim were concerned.

[ragnarok]

Dude, we were given the "reason": Alarak stated that Nyon had gone insane from harvesting terrazine. The writers didn't consider from the outset the overarching story where the Tal'Darim were concerned.

You think that happened with all his followers as well?

[Visions of Khas]

You think that happened with all his followers as well?

Potentially. Also keep in mind the Chain of Ascension, which would retroactively explain Nyon's force's continued loyalty to him. These Tal'Darim may have even been "exiled" from the main body, stripped of their black-and-red standard, and are attempting to regain lost honor through their post (but this is pure conjecture).

[ragnarok]

Potentially. Also keep in mind the Chain of Ascension, which would retroactively explain Nyon's force's continued loyalty to him. These Tal'Darim may have even been "exiled" from the main body, stripped of their black-and-red standard, and are attempting to regain lost honor through their post (but this is pure conjecture).

Possibly. If they want to expand the lore, perhaps we could get to learn a bit more on terrazine as well. For example, it's possible that Nyon wasn't insane by the time he and his troops were sent to guard the artifact pieces. However, the terrazine composition on Bel'Shir was different from than on Slayn, and had a different effect, and THAT is what drove him insane.

[Visions of Khas]

the terrazine composition on Bel'Shir was different from than on Slayn, and had a different effect, and THAT is what drove him insane.


I wonder about that. It's stated that Terrazine is a gas that comes from the Void, so I'd think its composition would be homogenous regardless of its origins. Of course, it could have some interaction with the local fauna and flora of a location. It's also produced from Jarban Gliders, which makes me wonder whether these creatures actually originate from the Void, or somehow have some psionic sensitivity that allows them to produce Terrazine.

[ragnarok]

I didn't think it really came from the gliders. More like they got exposed to them, and the terrazine got into their system and then somehow used it as a reproduction center or something.

[Mislagnissa]

Not everything is meant to explained in a 100% rational manner.You are deflecting criticism. Rationality is a key foundation of meaningful conflict. The conflict in SC does not stand up to scrutiny because it operates on Metzen's author fiat rather than an organic exploration of the premises. Its over-reliance on plot contrivances for all major plot points is not a good thing.


Potentially. Also keep in mind the Chain of Ascension, which would retroactively explain Nyon's force's continued loyalty to him. These Tal'Darim may have even been "exiled" from the main body, stripped of their black-and-red standard, and are attempting to regain lost honor through their post (but this is pure conjecture).A recurring problem with the SC story is that the writers ignore the existence of people outside the main cast, so characters bring their armies with them without any difficulty. Like Duke convincing Alpha Squadron to defect to the Sons of Korhal after they rescue him from the zerg, even though this is treason and Confederate marines are brainwashed for loyalty to the Confederacy. That this scenario is even possible makes the Confederacy look impossibly incompetent, especially considering all the evil stuff they pulled off prior without a hitch like the mass brainwashing, nuking population centers, poisoning the fringe worlds with "cholera" to conceal zerg activity, testing all toddlers for psychic powers and kidnapping candidates for the Ghost Program, etc.


I wonder about that. It's stated that Terrazine is a gas that comes from the Void, so I'd think its composition would be homogenous regardless of its origins. Of course, it could have some interaction with the local fauna and flora of a location. It's also produced from Jarban Gliders, which makes me wonder whether these creatures actually originate from the Void, or somehow have some psionic sensitivity that allows them to produce Terrazine.It's space magic technobabble that Blizzard pulled out of nowhere. It doesn't make sense and isn't supposed to.

[ragnarok]

It's space magic technobabble that Blizzard pulled out of nowhere. It doesn't make sense and isn't supposed to.

Once again this is just another one of your "Everything in terms of SC lore is BS." Makes me really wonder how many people would look at it from your POV if you won't give the slightest thought to another.

[Mislagnissa]

Once again this is just another one of your "Everything in terms of SC lore is BS." Makes me really wonder how many people would look at it from your POV if you won't give the slightest thought to another.

It's an exotic space drug with mutagenic effects on living things, and isn't the first such drug to appear in the lore (jorium is another). We don't need to know more than that.

[ragnarok]

So you think. Terrazine has enough lore to expand on and to give more story. Jorium on the other hand could use more explaining though.

[Mislagnissa]

So you think. Terrazine has enough lore to expand on and to give more story. Jorium on the other hand could use more explaining though.

Sure, why not?



Earlier in this thread I mentioned the animation of death teleport retcon. As I previously explained the retcon itself seems to be ignored by the games and is apparently only mentioned in the Field Manual. However, the game does have an "emergency recall" ability that works like the retcon claims, except that it uses the generic teleport animation used by all "recall (https://starcraft.fandom.com/wiki/Recall)" abilities including "mass recall", "strategic recall," etc.

[ragnarok]

Hence why I want to see if more comics or something will talk on the jorium factor.

[Mislagnissa]

Hence why I want to see if more comics or something will talk on the jorium factor.

Unlikely. Blizzard probably forgot about it like they did all the other stuff they forgot about. There is no shortage of lore bits that appear once and never get referenced again despite having ramifications for the setting as a whole. Activision seemingly put Starcraft on backburner indefinitely, with only limited legacy support remaining.

[ragnarok]

Maybe, but jorium was still briefly mentioned in Shadow Wars, I'll wait it out.

[Mislagnissa]

Maybe, but jorium was still briefly mentioned in Shadow Wars, I'll wait it out.

It's a technobabble explanation for things that the writer used in a throwaway line. There's zero reason to explore its metaphysical relevance, entire history of discovery, or whatever. That's like suddenly going into a long tangent on humanity's history with Vitamin C and scurvy.

[ragnarok]

For you it's technobabble. If we follow that logic then anything even remotely related in the realm of fantasy should all be tossed in the trash can, since all those ideas are pulled out of thin air and therefore have no logic behind it.

[Mislagnissa]

For you it's technobabble. If we follow that logic then anything even remotely related in the realm of fantasy should all be tossed in the trash can, since all those ideas are pulled out of thin air and therefore have no logic behind it.

Did you even read the part where I said it makes about as much sense as a tangent on the history of Vitamin C and scurvy?

[ragnarok]

Did you even read the part where I said it makes about as much sense as a tangent on the history of Vitamin C and scurvy?

When official news reports tell us Vitamin C can produce psionic powers, I'll look back at this.

[Mislagnissa]

When official news reports tell us Vitamin C can produce psionic powers, I'll look back at this.

We already have a wiki page: https://starcraft.fandom.com/wiki/Jorium

The terrans created a drug from jorium, terrazine and God knows what else to induce/boost psychic abilities. What more do you want?

[ragnarok]

We already have a wiki page: https://starcraft.fandom.com/wiki/Jorium

The terrans created a drug from jorium, terrazine and God knows what else to induce/boost psychic abilities. What more do you want?

The details of it, considering the terrans knew squat about the void and it's been speculated that terrazine came from it.