Exercise 01: Establishing the Status Quo

As for the Crystal, Rag, remember the char mission where they steal the crystal from the cerebrates? I have to recheck on that to be 100%
For Aiur as a hub of sorts, I think I've read that somewhere in the manual. Again, will have to recheck.

As for Purity of essence, I'm for the capacity for communal existence in a spiritual level. Essence, or spirit, or drive. To have the ability to be "one" while maintaining individuality. It's like having a single overall goal, while the members act in their own capacity and talent. But then make that as a driving urge. Like a soul direction or something. It's hard to explain.

Each member would maintain autonomy, but are driven by a single purpose, like music with different instruments in an orchestral ensemble. The Zerg in some way would kind of reflect this, but in a course manner.

The Zerg maintain autonomy in their members, but only in a lower form of the idea (i.e. traverse a path from a to b; how to chop a target.) The Zerg are kind of machines directed by a single AI, where each one is given protocols within any set of conditions, to fulfill certain parameters of a given directive.

Purity of Essence in its highest form can be described as an intuitive knowing of what is best for all members of the species, where each member is predisposed to attain certain goals that would serve their highest aspirations as a community of beings. All for everyone, everyone is all.

I can't put it to words any better than that, but that's how I see Purity of Essence is. Perfect in spirit, indivisible, whole. Binding the many to fulfill the expression of the whole. Yet the whole is in the many, and each of the many expresses the whole.

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Originally Posted by Visions of Khas

One question I have, the zerg purity of essence. For our purposes, will that be the overmind, the hivemind, or some other quality?

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Hivemind. The xel'naga abandoned the protoss due to their conflict of essence (loss of the khala and rise of individualism). I think the khala was meant to be the protoss' purity of essence.

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Originally Posted by Turalyon

Ah, I remember the days when speculation was rampant. My particular fanon was that the Overmind was tapping into the psionic matrix and using the Khaydarin crystal in order to connect to the extended Swarm that had spread far across the galaxy looking for the Protoss. Essentially, that the Zerg force we see in Sc1 was but an expeditionary force and that tapping into Aiur would allow it to connect the greater Overmind network and be a beacon, calling all other Zerg far and wide to the K sector.

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That's actually awesome. I always considered the full might of the swarm to vastly outnumber the expeditionary force that initially rolls through Koprulu and that the Khalai vs. Swarm was a titanic battle of epic proportions. The protoss and zerg were once the most powerful, but now the UED seems like it should be at the top.

If the extended Zerg swarm converges on the K sector like that, it would be another parallel with the impending threat of the Tyranid hive fleets.

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Originally Posted by Visions of Khas

One question I have, the zerg purity of essence. For our purposes, will that be the overmind, the hivemind, or some other quality?

And if the zerg swarm is too big for the OM to control, wouldn't he just make more cerebrates?

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The swarm was never too big for the Overmind to control. He created Cerebrates to make his job easier.

I'm willing to bet even if Kerrigan found a way to prevent the swarm from fracturing in the event she was defeated, she would have created the broodmothers anyway just to make her job easier. It's just the same principle.

Right, Rag. I thought people were implying the swarm stretched through out the galaxy and the Overmind needed Aiur to call out to them.

So will Kerrigan be creating or retaining Cerebrates, relying on Brood Queens, increasing individual minion intelligence, or use a mix of all these control strategies?

I can see Kerrigan exploring different options with experimental broods. That might also confuse her enemies' perception of the state of the swarm.

Here's some of my thoughts on the first sequence:

1. (after BW) Kerrigan is unrepentant, yet feels a deep hole inside her, all the while feeling a sense of urgency, danger. She's being torn apart inside, physically and mentally.

2. She goes into hibernation, the broods on char as well. The cerebrate is slowly degenerating, and goes into hibernation as well. The rest of the broods scattered across the K-Sector is left to their own devices. Terrans and protoss deal with them only when necessary. Keeping them on their toes and in check.

3. While in deep slumber, Kerrigan's human part is accusing her, making her see what she's done. It's like having done something wrong and the cold sweats and sleepless sleep settling in, punishing, correcting, keeping one sane. Conscience keeping itself intact.

4. Duran's hybrid attacks and destroys the char broods. Weakened and without proper nourishment, the broods on char were inefficient, and few. The massive number of Zerg could easily rip through the terran worlds in years just to maintain their form and strength.

5. Her near death facing the true form of Duran (think Nyarlathotep), led her to where Raynor is working as a civilian merc group hired by a former magistrate to protect his colony's supply caravans from pirates. With her is a small number of zerg, enough to hold off a battalion.

6. Raynor miraculously drags a stolen nuclear bomb into the belly of the down beast unharmed, while the Zerg brood just hovered around to protect Kerrigan's living transport, and other terrans were being strangely simply pushed away or dragged away from getting close. Within the beast is Kerrigan, wounded, seemingly repentant. "I was wrong Jim", and she'd let Raynor blow her to pieces, but think of all the men outside. Their wives, children.

Raynor would have done it, but kerrigan pushes it away. Instead she gives him his gun. Raynor starts shooting ripping her carapace and flesh, but it's not enough. She falls down, severely weakened, and says, "I would been dead Jim, they were all over me, but I thought if I could only see you one last time. So I kept fighting." Raynor isn't listening anymore, Kerrigan has no more cards to draw.

Raynor's comm comes to life amidst this discussion, "Uh, Jimmy, the Dominion is right above us. I knew that magistrate of yours was working for them. Get out of there buddy."

And a lot of shooting.

Finally, warfield and his crew cuts through and enters the chamber. Kerrigan struggles to stand, and lunges forward, but she shouldn't. Warfield's crew opens up their ghostbuster-esque weapons, putting kerrigan down. The electric tendrils seem to attach to kerrigan alone.

Warfield: " You did good work here today, son. What's your name?"

Raynor: "What do Mengsk want with her?"

Warfield: "None of my business, and certainly none of yours. I do my job, and get my pay. But don't worry, you and your crew here will be rich by sundown. Uh, Mr..?"

Raynor: "It doesn't matter. Just give these folks what Mengsk owes."


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From the above, I'm leaning towards Kerrigan forced to revive the swarm and restructure it accordingly due to events. As a reaction rather than preemptive action.

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Originally Posted by Visions of Khas

If the extended Zerg swarm converges on the K sector like that, it would be another parallel with the impending threat of the Tyranid hive fleets.

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Funny thing about that. At the time, Starcraft got me into WH40K (weird I know) so I didn't realise my fanon then was ripping that off until later.

Still, I figured that if the Overmind was having difficulty finding the Protoss and/or building up strength for this confrontation, I'd imagine it would have sent "feelers" far afield whilst still going in the direction toward the Protoss. What with space being so vast and all, I thought that Overmind would have limits in its control of its minions (since it's established it uses cerebrates to help it afterall) over such distances and would have to partition itself to do so. It seemed like a methodical thing for the Overmind to do, plus, I liked the idea of considering the Overmind as not being just one singular entity. Afterall, even though some broods numbered in the millions (they were in the low millions if not thousands in some cases), I still felt that this was too small for a galactic swarm that had been building up strength for this confrontation, especially considering all the time it took to get there, too.

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Originally Posted by Visions of Khas

So will Kerrigan be creating or retaining Cerebrates, relying on Brood Queens, increasing individual minion intelligence, or use a mix of all these control strategies?

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Brood Queens are functionally Cerebrates anyway, right? The distinction between the two is hardly noteworthy unless Kerrigan's creations do not actually permit her to have full control over the Swarm nor that they follow her one agenda. It would be interesting to see how such a thing could turn out.

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Originally Posted by Visions of Khas

I can see Kerrigan exploring different options with experimental broods. That might also confuse her enemies' perception of the state of the swarm.

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So can I. It really depends on how she had planned to evolve the swarm and everything, we don't know the details.

Does she have the ability though, to evolve the swarm?

It seems Kerrigan has to coerce cerebrates to serve her through force. She treats tge swarm like a dictatorship rather than a super organism. Considering her psychology, I think she would she clamp down on the broods at first, but slowly realize her folly and allow them to evolve different control strategies. Maybe her dormancy in Gna's storyline is in part to see how the swarm changes without her constant interference. But I have a hard time believing she would leave herself vulnerable like that.