20 years of Starcraft

IGN has posted an interview with Chris Metzen and Sam Didier.

Some of this stuff isn't probably new to many of you but here's the shorter version:

Kerrigan was never conceived to be a villain in Sc1 nor was redemption ever a possibility for her in BW. Her role in the narrative was to represent a "loss for the hero" and to help personify the Zerg.

The UED were to have a bigger role in BW, culminating with the Zerg invading Earth. The UED were going to be "a really big theme that was going to define the Starcraft franchise" but the "grand plan got walked back" for unspecified reasons.

Apparently, the idea of bringing in fourth franchise power during the development of Sc2 made less sense over time.

The way Tassadar sacrifices himself was not pre-planned. That end cinematic was created last and the only one to reflect the written story whilst in all other cinematics, the story was written and/or changed to reflect them.

At one point in the early stages of development, the Protoss were more insectoid and Zerg-like in appearance.


Personal commentary:

The UED thing would've been interesting had they gone ahead with that, given how poor the concept of the UED were implemented in BW (they are summarily introduced out of nowhere, have some apparent impact and lasting consequence only to have it actually have no consequence or their actions nullified so completely by the end that one could easily forget that they even existed).

The fourth power being considered "making less sense" is odd considering the Hybrids were specifically created as sequelbait and a likely fourth power. This probably explains why the Hybrids feel so anemic in the end product of Sc2.

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He pitched versions of the Dark Templar Dragoon for both Brood War and the N64 version of Starcraft. He created concept art for it and every time, it was scrapped. But in Starcraft II, the Dark Templar Dragoon became the Stalker and actually made it into the game. “Good ideas don’t die,” Didier says with a smile. “They just go into the sequel done ten years later.”

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Dark templar dragoons isn't that good of an idea imo. From a universe perspective it's alright but from a gameplay perspective it's just redundant if you're going to basically give it almost the same functionalities as a regular dragoon(minus the blink).

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But over the years, his opinion of Kerrigan and villains in general began to change. “The redemption of villains became near and dear to me. I loved that idea,” Metzen explains. He prominently explored this theme in Warcraft with both Arthas and Illidan. “Kerrigan was the heart and soul of it. The wicked Queen of Blades was not who she was. She never had a chance to be herself. She was always manipulated by one power or another.”

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lol. Well, even if he has a hard-on for redemptions, there's no excuse for how poorly it was done.

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The wicked Queen of Blades was not who she was. She never had a chance to be herself. She was always manipulated by one power or another.”

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lol. Well, even if he has a hard-on for redemptions, there's no excuse for how poorly it was done.

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I love character development and change, especially in a universe of shades of grey. But to say "The wicked Queen of Blades was not who she was," is false. That's the whole point of redemption (see: Motherfucking Zuko). If you're going to say, "Well, yes, I did those things in the past, but that was actually somebody else," you're shucking off responsibility of your actions, which is the opposite of redemption. The Queen of Blades and Sarah Kerrigan are two facets of the same entity -- or, at least, they should have been.

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Originally Posted by Visions of Khas

I love character development and change, especially in a universe of shades of grey. But to say "The wicked Queen of Blades was not who she was," is false. That's the whole point of redemption (see: Motherfucking Zuko). If you're going to say, "Well, yes, I did those things in the past, but that was actually somebody else," you're shucking off responsibility of your actions, which is the opposite of redemption. The Queen of Blades and Sarah Kerrigan are two facets of the same entity -- or, at least, they should have been.

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This. Her memory loss was one of my top ten disappointments with the SC2 story. Though I'll admit that the only real redemption I ever wanted with Kerrigan is that she realizes what she's done, but is unable to return to humanity, and ultimately dies.

As for the UED, I'm glad that they never got that big. I think that in any form they're ultimately a distraction from other characters/factions and bringing Earth into the mix means making Starcraft less original. Mengsk's Dominion, the Umojans, or the Kel-Morian Combine could have served the purpose that the UED ultimately did.

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Originally Posted by sandwich_bird

lol. Well, even if he has a hard-on for redemptions, there's no excuse for how poorly it was done.

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Plenty of people I've spoken to said they wanted redemption after the events of BW, and most of their ideas I remember turned out better compared to SC2. Blizzard should have redone the whole HotS storyline

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Originally Posted by Nissa

This. Her memory loss was one of my top ten disappointments with the SC2 story. Though I'll admit that the only real redemption I ever wanted with Kerrigan is that she realizes what she's done, but is unable to return to humanity, and ultimately dies.

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The whole memory loss is exactly the reason I didn't put it in my fic back then. I felt it was too convienent, and in any case that in itself won't absolve anything. A person's actions does that, which Blizzard didn't do for HotS because they didn't understand how to develop her. Now, if in the near future they decide to try this again from WoL onwards and make HotS's story non-canon, I'll look at it again. That I expect will probably happen in 90 years or so.

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Though I'll admit that the only real redemption I ever wanted with Kerrigan is that she realizes what she's done, but is unable to return to humanity, and ultimately dies.

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I agree. Any other kind of redemption would have been hard to pull off after brood war and that's the real problem. Speaking of Zuko, in Avatar, you always see a bit of his softer side or at least a glimpse of potential. This isn't the case with Kerrigan. She's only ever shown as pure evil. To make a believable redemption, you'd need something hard to hit her in the face. They tried to do at the end of WoL. And honestly, if you forget the artifact bs, the mind control and whatever other fluff they stuck up in there, it's not that bad. Taken in isolation, it goes something like this:

Raynor and co lunch a suicide mission on Kerrigan. They manage to beat her up somehow. Raynor's holding a gun against her head, but, he can't bring himself to do it. He blames himself for what she became and at that moment realize that despite everything, he still has hope that maybe inside of the monster there is still the girl he loved. Tychus doesn't care for that bs and goes for the kill. Raynor tries to stop him but can only do so by shooting the guy(doesn't necessarily kill him). Witnessing at which length Raynor would go to save her, she regains some of her humanity.

I honestly can live with that story piece in isolation. It's really everything else around it that makes it hard imo.

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Witnessing at which length Raynor would go to save her, she regains some of her humanity.

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Or that could just push her further. She could be well aware of all the cruel shit she's done, and then to have Raynor defend the horrors she's committed could make her feel disgust towards him. I would have loved it if she had just stood up, laughed in his face, recounted how many millions she's killed, and then say something about how he's defending it all, and how that makes him just as monstrous, if not more so.

Honestly, I just wanted to see the characters fucking break. I guess Game of Thrones has ruined me.

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Originally Posted by Visions of Khas

Or that could just push her further. She could be well aware of all the cruel shit she's done, and then to have Raynor defend the horrors she's committed could make her feel disgust towards him. I would have loved it if she had just stood up, laughed in his face, recounted how many millions she's killed, and then say something about how he's defending it all, and how that makes him just as monstrous, if not more so.

Honestly, I just wanted to see the characters fucking break. I guess Game of Thrones has ruined me.

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In some ways that already happened in BW during Fenix's death, VoK. It was a shame they had to forget the whole thing in WoL.

How is Kerrigan's arc in Sc2 considered a redemption story when one considers the Queen of Blades as not being Kerrigan and that baseline Kerrigan was always good? Sc2 can't seem to decide whether Kerrigan and the Queen of Blades were the same/share the same responsibility for their actions because on one hand, if they were one and the same it badly wants to make a redemption story and throw in all the drama/angst associated with that; and on the other, it wants to distance the Queen of Blades from Kerrigan because the former's actions are only redeemable in a morally acceptable way if she died. And that can't happen because Kerrigan is the designated hero. It's weird how Kerrigan would feel shame for her actions and want to atone for them when she's confused and can't remember exactly what she did (because of denial or genuine amnesia?) but yet is able to eventually remember controlling the Zerg...

I discussed about the potential incongruity/incompatibility of a deinfested Kerrigan seeking to be good but the need of the next story to be Zerg focused prior to HotS coming out. It's a pity HotS vindicated me.

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Originally Posted by Nissa

Though I'll admit that the only real redemption I ever wanted with Kerrigan is that she realizes what she's done, but is unable to return to humanity, and ultimately dies.

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There is another way to do a redemption story and it doesn't have to be necessarily mean "being good" again or "balancing the scales". In keeping with the tone of the original Sc1, a dark redemption would've been a nice alternate solution.

Like I said above, I realised the incompatibility of having Kerrigan being good again despite the next story after WoL being about Zerg even before HotS came out and I figured a solution that could work as a character piece for Kerrigan, explore her deinfested state a bit but still ultimately be about Zerg and be a redemption story of a sort. In this hypothetical, alternate HotS I would have the first third explore her intent to kill Mengsk and expore her skills and the ruthlessness as an assassin. This leads to her doing morally questionable things that ultimately alienate and revulse Raynor such that when she finally kills Mengsk in the first third of the story, she realises that she has always been a monster and will always be alone. This then leads her to go back to the Zerg via her own choice. If she is to be a monster inside, she'll be a monster on the outside as well, at least she'll be at home within the darkness and embrace it at last. The remaining two-thirds would then be her re-integration back into the Swarm and the growing threat of Duran/Narud against the Zerg which ends with his defeat.

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Originally Posted by Nissa

As for the UED, I'm glad that they never got that big. I think that in any form they're ultimately a distraction from other characters/factions and bringing Earth into the mix means making Starcraft less original. Mengsk's Dominion, the Umojans, or the Kel-Morian Combine could have served the purpose that the UED ultimately did.

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I'm mixed about this. BW could've easily replaced the UED with the Dominion as you said and that would've been fine, but the thing is the UED was included, so one has to account for that and make sure there is consequence of their inclusion. In retrospect, they probably should've "gone home" in regard to the UED given how they came and went like a fart in the wind because they didn't "go hard" enough with the inclusion of the UED.

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Originally Posted by sandwich_bird

Raynor and co lunch a suicide mission on Kerrigan. They manage to beat her up somehow. Raynor's holding a gun against her head, but, he can't bring himself to do it. He blames himself for what she became and at that moment realize that despite everything, he still has hope that maybe inside of the monster there is still the girl he loved. Tychus doesn't care for that bs and goes for the kill. Raynor tries to stop him but can only do so by shooting the guy(doesn't necessarily kill him). Witnessing at which length Raynor would go to save her, she regains some of her humanity.

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I like this ending much better, however, it would need reworking earlier in the campaign in order for us to foreshadow this or foster some doubt as to which direction he'll go. As it is, from the very beginning of WoL, Raynor has lost his edge and will to kill Kerrigan judging by his pining over her picture and guilt dreams such that when Valerian arrives to conveniently hand him the way to cut this Gordian knot of his, it's clear to everyone in-universe and out (if wasn't abundantly clear beforehand) that Raynor was always going to Char to save Kerrigan, not kill her.

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Originally Posted by Nissa

This. Her memory loss was one of my top ten disappointments with the SC2 story. Though I'll admit that the only real redemption I ever wanted with Kerrigan is that she realizes what she's done, but is unable to return to humanity, and ultimately dies.

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You know Nissa, that actually got me thinking: was that your plan for your Another World fic?

I didn't really plan that story out that far, which was probably one reason why it didn't work out. True story: Another World was "based" on the album Another World by Paul Oakenfold. I would literally listen to the cds and then decide what happened in the plot based on the cds.

Heh, at one point I was considering killing Raynor. He would have either died or been in a coma.

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Originally Posted by Nissa

I didn't really plan that story out that far, which was probably one reason why it didn't work out. True story: Another World was "based" on the album Another World by Paul Oakenfold. I would literally listen to the cds and then decide what happened in the plot based on the cds.

Heh, at one point I was considering killing Raynor. He would have either died or been in a coma.

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Oh that would have been nothing new. I had considered killing him off myself after HotS's storyline, if nothing else than to see how long Kerrigan could last without him.

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Originally Posted by Turalyon

Kerrigan was never conceived to be a villain in Sc1 nor was redemption ever a possibility for her in BW. Her role in the narrative was to represent a "loss for the hero" and to help personify the Zerg.

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The Zerg already had personalities in the form of cer-- screw it. As I have said many times before, I think the Zerg story is a complete waste.

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The UED were to have a bigger role in BW, culminating with the Zerg invading Earth. The UED were going to be "a really big theme that was going to define the Starcraft franchise" but the "grand plan got walked back" for unspecified reasons.

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It is a good thing my rip-off story went straight to the bugs invading Earth, rather than wasting words on explaining that the colonies were cut off from Earth then later revealing they really weren't.

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Apparently, the idea of bringing in fourth franchise power during the development of Sc2 made less sense over time.

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It always has made little sense. SC was originally intended to be a three-way conflict, at least before the writers kept diluting the themes and forgetting what they wrote. That's why my rip-off combined the protoss and xel'naga into one species.

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The way Tassadar sacrifices himself was not pre-planned. That end cinematic was created last and the only one to reflect the written story whilst in all other cinematics, the story was written and/or changed to reflect them.

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I was wondering why Enumerate decided to keep him alive. Honestly it makes more sense to keep him alive and have him found the twilight templar or whatever. Artanis is basically a bargain bin Tassadar anyway. You could change him to literally Tassadar and it would make no difference.

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At one point in the early stages of development, the Protoss were more insectoid and Zerg-like in appearance.

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That's too bad they scrapped it. I never really thought the humanoid design was particularly original or plausible, especially if they were supposed to have "purity of form" or whatever it was.

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Artanis is basically a bargain bin Tassadar anyway. You could change him to literally Tassadar and it would make no difference.

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...A bold, rash, noble person is the literal equivalent of a young, inexperienced wannabe who only has his position because everyone better than him is dead? Okay...

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Originally Posted by Mislagnissa

The Zerg already had personalities in the form of cer-- screw it. As I have said many times before, I think the Zerg story is a complete waste.

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It was meant to try to change them to become something else. You really think if Blizzard allowed you to write the whole SC2 storyline everyone on the planet would agree with you?

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Originally Posted by Nissa

...A bold, rash, noble person is the literal equivalent of a young, inexperienced wannabe who only has his position because everyone better than him is dead? Okay...

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It would certainly fit with Blizzard's overall quality of writing by that point, but that isn't what I mean. Something a lot of people forget is that Tassadar's original biography is completely different than how he is portrayed by current canon.

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Originally Posted by SC1 Manual

Fenix
Protoss, age 397
Templar
Praetor of the Protoss Defense Forces
Fenix rose up through the Templar ranks alongside his friend Tassadar. He is both cunning and powerful and has fought against the enemies of the Protoss in countless battles. Capable of strong empathy and tremendous rage, Fenix has long been one of Tassadar’s greatest supporters. Fenix is distrustful of Aldaris and the Judicator caste, and thus relies only upon the honor of his fellow Templar warriors and his own unparalleled skill in the theater of battle.

Tassadar
Protoss, age 356
High Templar
Executor of the Koprulu Expedition
Tassadar exemplifies the growing rift within Protoss society. Born into a new generation that looks ahead to a dynamic future, Tassadar is frustrated by the stoic view that his elders hold of the past. Tassadar feels that the unbending nature of the Protoss and their inability to re-evaluate ancient traditions will be the doom of his race. Fascinated by the power and mysticism of the renegade Dark Templar caste, Tassadar hopes to find someway to bridge the gap between these exiles and his masters.

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Originally Posted by BW Manual

Artanis
Protoss, Age 262
High Templar
Praetor of the Protoss Defense Forces
Artanis is the youngest Protoss to achieve the coveted rank of Praetor. Despite his youth and relative lack of experience, he is a bold and dynamic leader. Although Artanis was a strong believer of the former Conclave and the destiny of the Protoss, he still harbors a deep respect and admiration for Tassadar and the Tribal unification for which he fought. Artanis hopes to become as great a hero as Tassadar...a hope that may lead the young warrior to forsake his better judgment in his search for glory.

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Artanis is the youngest to achieve the rank of Praetor (although what this really means is never explained) yet only about a century younger than Tassadar, and since Protoss can live for thousand years or something this difference is not that great relatively speaking. Tassadar is actually a young dude and part of a new generation with newfangled beliefs.

Another oddity is that these biographies foreshadow future plot points that were never picked up. For example, Tass' bio implies he is contact with (or at least searching for) the nerazim before the expedition arrives, while Art's bio foreshadows him making a huge tactical mistake... which he never does?

I have mostly given up on criticizing SC in favor of making a rip-off which recycles interesting plot points from the original which were forgotten by the sequels. The Protoss schism is a plot point that I think was terribly under-explored and badly handled in canon.

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Originally Posted by ragnarok

It was meant to try to change them to become something else. You really think if Blizzard allowed you to write the whole SC2 storyline everyone on the planet would agree with you?

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I never would have bothered to write it. BW had already radically altered the setting by killing off the Conclave, killing off the cerebrates, and introducing Earth and Duran as new factions. It no longer had the philosophical conflicts that made the original interesting. Pretty much every installment is basically a completely different story with completely different themes which make no sense as part of a cohesive universe, shoehorned into the same brand to make money for Blizz.

Most old school fans want to see BW2, but I am even older school and prefer Enumerate's take on things even though that is an obscure and unpopular opinion. I am so old school that I prefer super obscure elements of SC's development like the Protoss originally being non-humanoid; even before I learned that from the interview, I wished they had not looked so humanoid.

I have since given up on criticizing all the parts of SC that I do not like in favor of discussing a SC clone which recycles all the stuff I found interesting about the original that was forgotten during development and in the sequels. Stuff like cerebrates, judicators, non-humanoid protoss, cyberpunk terrans, protoss empire's client races, the zerg as the big bad, etc.

I hope I have made my viewpoints clear. I do not wish to repeat myself in the future.

From the article:

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"they did end up linking the two races as both creations of the Xel’ Naga in Starcraft II."

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Or, you know, in the manual of the first StarCraft.

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Originally Posted by Equiliari

From the article:

Or, you know, in the manual of the first StarCraft.

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Yeah but they didn't have to make it so that Amon was the one who did all the uplifting. Even if they HAD to put that point in there, what they could have done was this:

The SC1 manual said that when the Xel'Naga began to depart Aiur, the Protoss weren't happy about this and rebelled. Hundreds of Xel'Naga were killed in the process, what what Blizzard could have said what was the Protoss ended up killing all the Xel'Naga loyal to the cycle they had been dedicated to, which meant the ones that survived were all the ones loyal to Amon.

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Originally Posted by Mislagnissa

Another oddity is that these biographies foreshadow future plot points that were never picked up. For example, Tass' bio implies he is contact with (or at least searching for) the nerazim before the expedition arrives

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Actually, not necessarily. Manual's bios sometimes incorporate some important events that happen to the characters within the game itself. For instance, Raynor's bio mentions him defecting to the Sons of Korhal. Thus, Tassadar seeking to bridge the gap between his people and the Dark Templar may refer to the events that happen after his meeting with Zeratul on Char and up to Aldaris and the Executor arriving to arrest him. Of course, he has probably already started to lean towards that before the expedition.

The Artanis thing doesn't have to be foreshadowing, it's rather just describing his character. Forsaking his better judgement may also refer to him working with Kerrigan against the Renegade Zerg and becoming too trusting of her.

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Originally Posted by Mislagnissa

The Zerg already had personalities in the form of cer-- screw it.

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The only cerebrate to have "personality" was Zasz and that was only selectively because it was railing specifically against Kerrigan seemingly having free reign. Without this foreign element that was Kerrigan, it's hard to fathom what conflict or personality would arise without feeling conceited in what is otherwise a unified Swarm. Daggoth, who is pretty dull personality-wise (I don't mean this with negative connotations mind you - I like Daggoth the way he is) and the Overmind, with it's droll affectation, are "boring" characters to most people.

Besides, I'm just splaining the thought processes Metzen had at the time as to why Kerrigan was ultimately used in narrative as she was. It seemingly was for utilitarian purposes at the time and not much else.

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Originally Posted by Mislagnissa

It is a good thing my rip-off story went straight to the bugs invading Earth, rather than wasting words on explaining that the colonies were cut off from Earth then later revealing they really weren't.

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Eh, details. I see the value of introducing Earth in BW as being "necessary" to make the Terrans viable/continue as one of the three-way conflicts, given how the Terrans are roflstomped and clearly outmatched in SC1. Mengsk may be the new ruler of the Terrans and "all-important" in that regard - but there's not much left of them by then so it's kinda unrealistic for a three-way to keep going after Sc1. Granted this was not how Earth was actually implemented in BW though; they were instead made ultimately superfluous... which was even worse.

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Originally Posted by Mislagnissa

It always has made little sense. SC was originally intended to be a three-way conflict, at least before the writers kept diluting the themes and forgetting what they wrote. That's why my rip-off combined the protoss and xel'naga into one species.

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My use of "apparently" was me commenting on the irony of Blizz themselves saying that a 4th power made little sense and yet they continued with this Hybrid/Xel'Naga path - albeit half-heartedly it seems because only the last third of the trilogy was about them ultimately anyway. It's a complete mess anyway - they obviously had no idea what direction to take the story in.

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Originally Posted by ragnarok

Yeah but they didn't have to make it so that Amon was the one who did all the uplifting. Even if they HAD to put that point in there, what they could have done was this:

The SC1 manual said that when the Xel'Naga began to depart Aiur, the Protoss weren't happy about this and rebelled. Hundreds of Xel'Naga were killed in the process, what what Blizzard could have said what was the Protoss ended up killing all the Xel'Naga loyal to the cycle they had been dedicated to, which meant the ones that survived were all the ones loyal to Amon.

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That was retconned so the Protoss were in the stone age at the time. The wiki is not reliable because it attempts to reconcile all iterations of canon even though the writers clearly had no idea what they were doing and retconned everything.

I find it impossible to believe Amon was the leader of anything. He only wins and loses because the narrative says so. His plans make no sense. I have seen better writing in children's cartoons.

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Originally Posted by Mislagnissa

That was retconned so the Protoss were in the stone age at the time. The wiki is not reliable because it attempts to reconcile all iterations of canon even though the writers clearly had no idea what they were doing and retconned everything.

I find it impossible to believe Amon was the leader of anything. He only wins and loses because the narrative says so. His plans make no sense. I have seen better writing in children's cartoons.

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It was trying to take the lores from SC1 and SC2 and combine them. That's my plan as well once it's time I write another SC fanfic. Now yes they'll have to be retcons, but I'll keep those minimal.

Having said that I did wish they had tried to explain Amon's past better.

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Originally Posted by ragnarok

It was trying to take the lores from SC1 and SC2 and combine them. That's my plan as well once it's time I write another SC fanfic. Now yes they'll have to be retcons, but I'll keep those minimal.

Having said that I did wish they had tried to explain Amon's past better.

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Combining the lore would require extensive rewriting since most of the SC1 plot points make no sense in the context of SC2. In fact, several SC1 plot points make no sense in the context of BW. If Earth was going to show up and be invaded by the Zerg, why did the SC1 manual waste several paragraphs explaining than K-sec was completely cut off? The plot of SC2 is terrible on its own merits even without comparing it to SC1.

You are better off writing a original setting that liberally rips-off the basic plot outline of SC, like I am doing. I have the benefit of hindsight and an appreciation for good writing.

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Originally Posted by Mislagnissa

Combining the lore would require extensive rewriting since most of the SC1 plot points make no sense in the context of SC2. In fact, several SC1 plot points make no sense in the context of BW. If Earth was going to show up and be invaded by the Zerg, why did the SC1 manual waste several paragraphs explaining than K-sec was completely cut off? The plot of SC2 is terrible on its own merits even without comparing it to SC1.

You are better off writing a original setting that liberally rips-off the basic plot outline of SC, like I am doing. I have the benefit of hindsight and an appreciation for good writing.

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To me, for all the retcons, I didn't feel the SC2 lore retconned things out of proportion that there's no way to mix it with the SC1 lore. Remember, I got into the whole SC universe from the SC2 lore (I didn't dive deeply into it all until almost a year after WoL was out).

You can say that's an utter waste to look at it from the SC2 lore POV, but not all of us invested that much into the SC universe and not in that sense. Having said that I hadn't been too happy for HotS's lore as it forgot things stated from WoL, or interpreted them in the wrong way.

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Originally Posted by ragnarok

You can say that's an utter waste to look at it from the SC2 lore POV, but not all of us invested that much into the SC universe and not in that sense. Having said that I hadn't been too happy for HotS's lore as it forgot things stated from WoL, or interpreted them in the wrong way.

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I said SC2 is bad on its own merits, without comparing it to SC1. Most other SC2 fans fully acknowledge this.

I did not get into the lore until a couple years ago, and I still came to the conclusion that it was marred by bad writing. Watching WoL made me cringe and I had no clue who Raynor even was. The franchise needs rebooting if it is to have a viable future.

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Originally Posted by ragnarok

To me, for all the retcons, I didn't feel the SC2 lore retconned things out of proportion that there's no way to mix it with the SC1 lore. Remember, I got into the whole SC universe from the SC2 lore (I didn't dive deeply into it all until almost a year after WoL was out).

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If SC1 was remade as a prequel to SC2, it would bear little resemblance to the original. To add insult to injury, it would probably be inconsistent with the plot of SC2 (which is inconsistent with itself, of course).

Among other things, the Zerg immortality has been retconned in an interview with Dustin Browder where he states Kerry will keep resurrecting unless all her bases are destroyed. This completely invalidates the plot of episodes 2 and 3. Furthermore, cerebrates have more or less been retconned out of existence in favor of abathur, brood mothers and pack leaders. The only mention of the word "cerebrate" is in the recap intro of LotV, and no explanation is given to what a cerebrate is.

So here's my attempt at predicting Blizzard's idiot thought processes for the plot of a remake for consistency with SC2:

Episode 1 consists entirely of Mengsk being a cackling villain who betrays Kerry and Ray because he is evil.

In Episode 2, the Zerg cast and motivations would be unrecognizable. The Overmind would be explaining how he intends to betray the idiot Amon, take control of the hybrids, and conquer the universe or something. Kerry wholeheartedly endorses this plan and all the other bland and unmemorable Zerg characters fawn over her because the writers masturbate to Kerry.

In Episode 3, the judicators would be portrayed as idiots at the mercy of the Zerg until Tass and the dark Templar save the day.

I think Brood War would probably be retconned out of continuity because it contributes absolutely nothing and is poorly written drek. Even the recap intro video of LotV sums up the entirety of BW in a sentence or two, which makes it obvious the writers do not give a crap about it. Here's my attempt at Blizzard's idiotic remake:

BW is reduced to a few missions of DLC, where Kerry teams up with Raynor and Zeratul to fight some new villains named the UED for no logical reason before flying away and twiddling their thumbs for four effing years.

EDIT: In case it is not obvious, I have very good reasons for pursuing a reboot of the franchise. The writing of BW and SC2 is just awful.

EDIT: To refresh my memory I looked up the video for the LotV story so far, and sure enough the writers butchered the plot of the original SC/BW.

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For nearly 300 years, humans thought they were alone in the Koprulu sector. / They were wrong. / The zerg emerged, seeking to consume all in their path. / And before long the protoss, a highly advanced alien race, began wiping out infested worlds, burning zerg and terran alike. / A three-way war… unlike anything humanity had ever faced… / …erupted almost overnight.

All the while… a human civil war raged. / Marshal Jim Raynor vowed to oppose the corrupt dictator Arcturus Mengsk for the betrayal of the woman he loved… Sarah Kerrigan.

Kerrigan: Uh, boys? How about that evac?

Raynor: Damn you, Arcturus! Don't do this.

Mengsk: It's done. Helmsman, signal the fleet and take us out of orbit. Now!

Kerrigan, a loyal operative, was left to die at the hands of the zerg. / But the zerg had other plans. / They transformed her… and unleashed her psionic power upon the Koprulu sector… / …searching for their real objective… / The protoss homeworld of Aiur.

The protoss were unaware of this danger… and slow to respond. / Their rulers, the Conclave, had dispatched Executor Artanis to hunt for Tassadar… / …a commander who had refused to wipe out infested terran worlds.

They crossed paths with a dark templar mystic, whose kind was considered heretics by the Conclave. / Through great effort, Zeratul convinced Tassadar and Artanis that he was not their enemy. / Together they rallied more protoss from both factions against the zerg. / Despite the Conclave’s fury, they achieved significant victories against the Swarm.

But when Zeratul struck down one of the Overmind’s Cerebrates… / …his own mind was left vulnerable. / From his thoughts, the Overmind gleaned Aiur’s true location… / …and the Swarm descended upon the protoss homeworld… / …with all their might and fry.

It was Tassadar who kept the templar from extinction that day. / Using the power of both the templar and the dark templar… / He sacrificed himself to kill the Overmind.

Aiur was lost. / …but Artanis led the survivors to the dark templar’s homeworld of Shakuras. / Old prejudices were set aside. / The templar were now in the dark templar’s debt.

Without the Overmind, the swarm fractured. / Kerrigan sought control of all the zerg… / …even enlisting the aid of old friends and enemies like Raynor, Mensk, and Zeratul.

Once her rule was uncontested… / The Queen of Blades betrayed them all… / Billions of humans and protoss were killed. / The zerg stood unchallenged, but to the relief of all… / The war seemed to end there.

Zeratul suspected the zerg had fallen under the control of dark forces. / He uncovered prophecies stating that an ancient entity, Amon… / …was attempting to merge protoss and zerg life forms into an unholy hybrid. / And that this evil might already have control… / …of Kerrigan and her power.

It was during this time that Executor Artanis, hailed as a hero… / …was made leader of both the templar and the dark templar. / As Hierarch, Artanis united both factions… / …and promised to one day reclaim the glory they had lost on Aiur.

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This "story so far" suggests the terran civil war was between Raynor and Mengsk, rather than between the Confederacy and the rebels. It reorders key events (e.g. placing Zasz's death after Zeratul meets with Artanis) and outright ignores the greater context in which these events took place. The brood war is relegated to nothing more than a footnote that makes no sense in this context.

So when I say that Blizzard would completely butcher the story of SC1/BW if remaking it as a consistent prequel to SC2, I was being charitable. They butchered it even worse than my initial suggestion.

I don't understand the cerebrate wipe. It was part of stone agreement between Blizzard and Games Workshop to distinguish the zerg and Tyranids, something to do with the Norn Queens. But Brood Mothers only resemble the Tyranid Norn Queens even more, not less, than Cerebrates.

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Originally Posted by Mislagnissa

EDIT: In case it is not obvious, I have very good reasons for pursuing a reboot of the franchise. The writing of BW and SC2 is just awful.

EDIT: To refresh my memory I looked up the video for the LotV story so far, and sure enough the writers butchered the plot of the original SC/BW.

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I felt LotV was their attempt to try to remedy the problems in HotS, so I gave them that. If only they had been smarter with HotS.

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Originally Posted by Visions of Khas

I don't understand the cerebrate wipe. It was part of stone agreement between Blizzard and Games Workshop to distinguish the zerg and Tyranids, something to do with the Norn Queens. But Brood Mothers only resemble the Tyranid Norn Queens even more, not less, than Cerebrates.

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I do not understand it either. Nothing about that makes any sense.

The relevant similarity between the tyranids and zerg in this context is that both have hive fleets or broods named after monsters from Earth mythology: hive fleet leviathan versus the leviathan brood, for example. Blizzard did not change that, and actually created more similarities as you said.

Cerebrates are copies of the brain bugs from Starship Troopers. The tyranids have "synapse creatures" in the form of warriors and hive tyrants, but the zerg analogue are the overlords and queens. Even the primal zerg pack leaders are closer to the tyranid synapse creatures than the brain bugs. The brood mothers resemble both the tyranid norn queens and the alpha concept art of more insectoid protoss, and have no resemblance to brain bugs.

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Originally Posted by ragnarok

I felt LotV was their attempt to try to remedy the problems in HotS, so I gave them that. If only they had been smarter with HotS.

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Which problems? From where I am standing LotV did not fix anything and only created more problems.

Considering the disproportionate popularity of minor characters like Tychus, Abathur and Alarak, the fans of SC never wanted the bland hero narrative we got. They seemingly wanted a bunch of anti-heroes and outright villains as the protagonists.

Every installment of the series has essentially been a completely new story shoehorned into the brand, mutilating the lore in the process. Every single sequel has gone out of its way to sabotage the conflict of its predecessor and pointlessly rewrite the motivations and histories of its factions.

In SC1 the zerg attacked the terrans with the intent to weaponize their latent psychic powers as a trump card against the protoss. While this plot point was seemingly forgotten in the game, the zerg still intended to assimilate the protoss and take over the universe.

In BW, the zerg's intent to assimilate the protoss is completely forgotten in favor of making them Kerry's personal army in her cartoonish evil overlord quest. The addition of Duran's hybrid plot suggests that the zerg's motive to assimilate the protoss was forgotten or retconned away.

In SC2, the zerg's original intent to assimilate the protoss is retconned as being impossible and then the writers contradict themselves by introducing hybrids. There is no logical difference between an assimilated protoss and a hybrid: either zerg and protoss genes are compatible or they are not, but you cannot have it both ways.

The entire social structure and history of the protoss is tossed aside: their history is retconned so that all their achievements occur after the aeon of strife, they are retconned from being in a renaissance to being generic space elves declining because Tolkien did it first, their thousand world empire is reduced to a single planet in the K-sec, their tribal traditions are forgotten, their explicit ethnic diversity is replaced by pallid clones, their caste system is abolished, etc.

The SC lore is not salvageable. There is nowhere to go from here. The only sequel we got was Nova and the Niadra comic, and those felt blatantly artificial. There is no logical reason for the three races to ever interact.

The zerg no longer want to assimilate everything and could not if they did. As of SC2 human genes are completely worthless to the zerg (in contrast to SC1 alpha where those genes were key to the war effort) and protoss cannot be assimilated because plot contrivance (in contrast to SC1 where the zerg intended to assimilate the protoss to become perfect). In fact they have absolutely no purpose to exist beyond eating garbage like the primal zerg do.

Terrans have no reason to interact with the protoss. The beta website suggested that terrans were jealous of the bountiful worlds claimed by the protoss, but as of SC2 the protoss only hold Aiur which is located in the K-sec. They no longer have a reason to wage civil war because Mengsk was the only evil person to ever exist. Gag me with a spork!

The protoss have permanent peace because they severed their telepathic internet, which was superfluous anyway since they were unhappy with it or something similarly stupid. They cannot reproduce anymore and are slowly going extinct or something, but who cares about that? The writers will probably forget it later.

I can only imagine how Blizzard will put together Starcraft 3, if they ever do.

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It's a complete mess anyway - they obviously had no idea what direction to take the story in.

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Metzen sounded like he did have a very clear idea of what he wanted but man, he or the team gotta stop changing their minds all the time. I guess this is just a consequence of the long development time that they always go through. No wonder they're going for a hands off approach with Overwatch.

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Originally Posted by sandwich_bird

Metzen sounded like he did have a very clear idea of what he wanted but man, he or the team gotta stop changing their minds all the time. I guess this is just a consequence of the long development time that they always go through. No wonder they're going for a hands off approach with Overwatch.

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Hence why I still believe they had the idea and didn't know how to execute it. Now, if they chose to do SC2 again, it'd be interesting to see if they would learn something

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Originally Posted by sandwich_bird

Metzen sounded like he did have a very clear idea of what he wanted but man, he or the team gotta stop changing their minds all the time.

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Metzen only had a very clear and myopic idea of but one aspect (the Raynor and Kerrigan thing) for the sequel, even though the sequelbait in BW/reason for a sequel to even exist was the Hybrids. Sc2's story is confused since doesn't know which one of these it wants to serve best.

If you attempt to summarise the story as a trilogy, it's difficult because the first two-thirds are about Terran matters or rather, two specific Terrans. Irrespective of ones tastes, this makes you think the whole sequel is about those Terrans/Terran affairs. The last third is completely detached from the first two (and somewhat unnecessary from a certain perspective) but is considered the climax of the "trilogy" even though it hardly features any of the two Terrans it was focused so heavily on in the previous installments. The Epilogue is evidence of the aimlessness of Sc2s narrative since it's a contrived attempt to link the three installments together. It feels unearned because the Terran aspects were so disparate from the Hybrid threat - a threat that was ultimately less dangerous and powerful than Mengsk because it could be defeated in one installment, while Mengsk needed two.

The dissonance is huge because if you followed Sc2 on from BW (as you would considering it's supposed to be experienced sequentially), the Hybrids were/should be the reason and focus of the sequel - and yet it seemingly wasn't. To this day, I still have no idea what the core story of the Sc2 trilogy is really about. :D

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Originally Posted by sandwich_bird

No wonder they're going for a hands off approach with Overwatch.

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I don't play Overwatch but I think the reason it benefits because there is no concrete big-picture story (that's revealed yet at any rate). Everything about that universe so far is about world-building - there is no narrative as such. It works because there's a great deal of variety in the characters and backgrounds. Although there probably is a concrete history behind it all, not everyone knows it and nor is it that important. This opens it up to interpretation and allows people to invest in the parts of the "story" (if one could call it that) that they're interested in.

The lesson to be learned from this is that galactic war narratives need to be outlined in advance. Each installment of Starcraft was written on the fly by a different writing team, none of whom cared about consistency. As such, they do not feel cohesive. Each one retcons the events of the previous installments and has a completely different theme. What makes this really frustrating for me personally is that others fans I talk with either do not recognize this or do not care. Most of you guys seem to prefer a Brood War 2, even though BW is inconsistent with SC1 and has massive plot holes which only make sense if Duran is mind-controlling most of the cast to make blatantly stupid decisions (although even that still does not make sense, see my analysis below).

I prefer the reboot outlined in Enumerate, which prioritizes the SC1 manual lore. Yet whenever I tried to get people interested in Enumerate, most of them disliked it because it disregards the queen of blades plot. When I suggested making an original IP that liberally imitates Enumerate (along with my own additions), the response was universally positive. Go figure.

But back to Brood War's plot holes. The plot only happens because of deus ex machinas and characters acting like idiots.

Duran infiltrates Kerry’s inner circle and Kerry brainwashes Raszagal, off-screen, with no explanation, and no point in time that they could have reasonably done those things. Aldaris suspects this, but instead of bringing his concerns to Zeratul and Artanis he starts a civil war. Just when he is about to spill the beans, Kerry shows up unannounced and everyone just stands frozen as she rides in on an overlord, unloads her lurkers, and kills him in the middle of a conversation. Despite this unprovoked act of murder and declaration of war, the protoss merely break their alliance and let her leave unchallenged rather than realizing she killed Aldaris to keep some dangerous secret and interrogating or killing her right then and there.

DuGalle hangs onto Duran’s every word, despite previous stating he hates traitors, against the advice of his childhood friend Alexei. Duran openly betrays Alexei in front of countless witnesses and recording devices, but nobody but Alexei and his forces notice this. DuGalle decides to assassinate Alexei at Duran’s request even though in a realistic world the worst Alexei would get is a court martial or a strongly worded letter of disagreement. Then Alexei uses his last breath to speak a paragraph or two, and then DuGalle realizes Duran was manipulating him the whole time.

Zeratul and Raynor and Mengsk join forces with Kerry, despite no evidence that the UED is any more dangerous than the Dominion and every reason to believe Kerry and the Zerg need to be destroyed.

Brood War does not even make sense if Duran actually is mind controlling everyone, since his mind control has inconsistent effectiveness. He was able to turn DuGalle against his childhood friend, yet unable to stop him from employing the psi-disruptor. Since his mind control is inconsistent, it is impossible to determine which side Duran wanted to win. He was able to control both DuGalle and Kerry with ease, and yet he played them against each other rather than picking one side and conquering the sector with the zerg.

Brood War is also inconsistent about the UED. The SC1 manual took great pains to explain that K-sec was utterly cut off from Earth, then the BW manual spends its first several paragraphs undoing all of that, rendering the SC1 manual backstory pointless. In Heroes of the Storm, this is further retconned so that K-sec was always a colony in contact with Earth. The SC1 manual explained that the UPL were basically Nazis, and Kerry invokes this as a justification for Raynor to side with her. The problem with this is that 1) even Nazis are still better than the zerg that want to eat everyone and 2) the eugenics plot point has seemingly been retconned away since the UED employs the same cyborgs, mutants, criminals, and psychics found in K-sec forces, along with introducing battlefield medics (which is a pretty un-Nazi-like thing to do).

So I am completely mystified as to why anyone would ever want a Brood War 2. Both BW and SC2 have garbage narratives riddled with plot holes; at least in that regard they make perfect sense as part of the same series. It feels to me that everyone who likes BW and wants a “real” sequel is blinded by nostalgia, because that is the only way I can imagine that anyone would let BW’s plot holes slide.

What would even happen in a Brood War 2 that did not already happen in SC2? The Queen of Blades already killed most of the surviving terrans and protoss at the end of BW. The only possible conflict in the sequel would be QoB’s zerg fighting Duran’s hybrids, and regardless of who wins the terrans and protoss would lose. Why would anyone want that? Sure, SC1 was dark and gritty, but it wasn’t pointlessly nihilistic.

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Metzen only had a very clear and myopic idea of but one aspect (the Raynor and Kerrigan thing) for the sequel

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There were other plot points he wanted to do as well iirc. I remember him saying he wanted the Terran campaign to be about dethroning Mengsk, the protoss campaign about uniting the different protoss clans(inspired by feudal Japan) and for the zerg to be about Kerrigan gaining more power and finishing Raynor's fight. The Xel Naga and Hybrid plot would slowly build up over the 2 first campaigns and really start in the final protoss story. That was always the plan ever since he first opened his mouth about the story in ~2008. But in any case, you'd be probably right in saying that these other ideas didn't seem really clear compared to the Raynor angle. I was wrong in saying they changed their mind too much though.

I tried googling for that interview that I reference above but couldn't find it. I did find this funny bit though :) :

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Finally, Metzen answered a question that's on most fans' minds about the big reveal this weekend: was it the right decision to split the games up? Metzen thinks it was. "As a fictional event," he said, "we can make it like the coolest science fiction thing ever seen in a videogame. Did I just say that?" he asked, and the crowd in attendance applauded. "The freedom is amazing. And you guys are really going to see it. This stuff that we're doing now, Diablo 3 and Starcraft II, is easily the best stuff we've ever done as a virtual experience... Warcraft III doesn't even rate as a Saturday morning cartoon to the themes we're dealing with in these games. I think it's great, and I hope you all agree when it comes out.

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The problem was not that they changed their minds too much or that they didn't take the time to outline the big pieces. It's really just that they couldn't look objectively at what they were writing.

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Originally Posted by sandwich_bird

The problem was not that they changed their minds too much or that they didn't take the time to outline the big pieces. It's really just that they couldn't look objectively at what they were writing.

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I always thought they tried compromising too much, hoping it'd satisfy everyone, but it didn't satisfy anyone in the end.

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Originally Posted by ragnarok

I always thought they tried compromising too much, hoping it'd satisfy everyone, but it didn't satisfy anyone in the end.

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I used to think that too but there was yet another interview with Metzen a while back that confirmed that this was not the case. This one I might be able to find (EDIT: huh nope, can't find it anymore...).

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Originally Posted by sandwich_bird

I used to think that too but there was yet another interview with Metzen a while back that confirmed that this was not the case. This one I might be able to find (EDIT: huh nope, can't find it anymore...).

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Interesting. Out of curiosity, do you remember which year that interview took place?

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Originally Posted by Mislagnissa

Most of you guys seem to prefer a Brood War 2, even though BW is inconsistent with SC1 and has massive plot holes which only make sense if Duran is mind-controlling most of the cast to make blatantly stupid decisions (although even that still does not make sense, see my analysis below).

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Thing is, the apparent inconsistency between Sc1 and BW you mention is not really a issue because it doesn't really break immersion that much. At the least, it has a reasonable continuity of what came before. That's why some of us suggest a "BW2", because that would be more continuous with what came before unlike what Sc2 turned to be or what your revisionist take in Enumerate would be.

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Originally Posted by Mislagnissa

I prefer the reboot outlined in Enumerate, which prioritizes the SC1 manual lore.

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Oh, really? I had no idea at all! :p:rolleyes::p:rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Mislagnissa

Yet whenever I tried to get people interested in Enumerate, most of them disliked it because it disregards the queen of blades plot. When I suggested making an original IP that liberally imitates Enumerate (along with my own additions), the response was universally positive. Go figure.

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No, people had an issue because you originally claimed Enumerate to being Starcraft while it really ain't. Like it or not, Kerrigan/QOB is part of Starcrafts story, so any discussion of Starcrafts story has to include her. It then follows from this that people don't have an issue when you suggested Enumerate was not Starcraft but something of your own devising. Figured!

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Originally Posted by Mislagnissa

What would even happen in a Brood War 2 that did not already happen in SC2? The Queen of Blades already killed most of the surviving terrans and protoss at the end of BW. The only possible conflict in the sequel would be QoB’s zerg fighting Duran’s hybrids, and regardless of who wins the terrans and protoss would lose. Why would anyone want that? Sure, SC1 was dark and gritty, but it wasn’t pointlessly nihilistic.

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This is partially why I thought Sc's story had ended with BW at the time and why I didn't really want a sequel nor think it was necessary. There was really only one direction it could "realistically" go and you've outlined it pretty much here. Any sequel derived from there that could involve the other two races would only reek of contrivance. Whilst the Hybrids have the the potential to weaken the Zerg enough to even the playing field again, it'd still smack of convenience because the Hybrid threat will have to focus exclusively against the Zerg in order for the even-playing field to comeback because the other two can't beat the Zerg in their BW state, so they surely can't beat the Hybrids either. Also, given that the hybrids are supposed to be a threat to all, they'd have to introduce more Doylist conceits to try and disguise why the hybrids don't crush all three races equally.

I'm one of the rare few who, back in the day, didn't actually want a sequel to BW. It's probably around the time my disdain for sequelitis started growing, too.

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Originally Posted by sandwich_bird

I remember him saying he wanted the Terran campaign to be about dethroning Mengsk, the protoss campaign about uniting the different protoss clans(inspired by feudal Japan) and for the zerg to be about Kerrigan gaining more power and finishing Raynor's fight.

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Hmmm, seems like a rehash of BW though since the UED dethroned Mengsk, the Protoss were becoming more unified with their dark brethren and the Zerg campaign was about Kerrigan gaining more power and finished Raynor's story arc, too.

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Originally Posted by sandwich_bird

The Xel Naga and Hybrid plot would slowly build up over the 2 first campaigns and really start in the final protoss story. That was always the plan ever since he first opened his mouth about the story in ~2008. But in any case, you'd be probably right in saying that these other ideas didn't seem really clear compared to the Raynor angle. I was wrong in saying they changed their mind too much though.

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The Hybrid plot didn't build up at all. They were considered tangential and just side-missions in the first two installments. Even in HotS, where the reinfestation of Kerrigan and Skygeirr arc were supposed to be about the Hybrid plot were not but more to do with Kerrigan's revenge plot against the Dominion/Mengsk.

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Originally Posted by sandwich_bird

The problem was not that they changed their minds too much or that they didn't take the time to outline the big pieces. It's really just that they couldn't look objectively at what they were writing.

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Heh, that quote from Metzen sure does seem like a clear case of HUTA (head up their arses). :p

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Originally Posted by sandwich_bird

the Terran campaign to be about dethroning Mengsk

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There are so many problems with forcing Mengsk into the role of villain. Why is he considered the villain in the first place? Because Raynor has a personal vendetta against him, despite many extenuating factors and their complicated history together.

The Confederacy committed genocide against Korhal. They killed more people than Hitler and Stalin combined. It is understandable that Mengsk wanted revenge. The problem is that 1) he is not the only villain here and 2) the genuinely villainous acts he committed are ignored to focus on his supposed betrayal of Kerry. This despite the fact that the rebels knew the zerg were tracking her ever since she explained how psi-emitters worked. Even if she was evacuated, the zerg would have intercepted the dropship anyway.

Mengsk, and by extension Kerry and Raynor, deliberately and knowingly lured the zerg to Antiga Prime and Tarsonis, resulting in the deaths of billions of innocent people. The purpose of this was to overthrow the Confederacy, but in the end the rebels were no different. Objectively speaking, Raynor is just as much a villain as Mengsk. He made no attempt to stop Mengsk from committing genocide twice. All he cared about was his stupid crush on Kerry, so I hope that genocidal asshole sucks cocks in hell.

Not to mention that Mengsk was considered a good guy in BW despite the UED being obviously heroes and the zerg obviously the threat. This is because 1) the UED's eugenics was seemingly retconned, and 2) there was no way that Raynor being an uneducated hick would know about their crimes from centuries past.

Lastly, there is the problem of logistics and the world building being clearly fake that destroys my suspension of disbelief. In every game the terrans suffer crippling losses, but these are ignored in the subsequent campaigns. In SC1 the zerg ate 90% of the terran population, so there was barely anything for Mengsk to rule. In BW this is ignored, but most of the terran population is eaten by the zerg again. In WoL, this is again ignored. Etc. Realistically, Mengsk should not have ruled much of anything, much less need to be dethroned.

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Originally Posted by sandwich_bird

the protoss campaign about uniting the different protoss clans(inspired by feudal Japan)

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That sounds genuinely interesting. Unfortunately it has several problems.

1) There is no setup for this in the previous campaigns. SC1 only had a civil war between the orthodox khala and the dark templar's allies, while BW only had Aldaris' idiotic insurrection (did any of his followers even know why they were fighting?). Even so, I could accept a hand wave that the tribes fractured in the wake of the great war due to the zerg waging electronic warfare against the khala or something.

2) While the SC1 manual explains that the protoss tribes had distinct cultures and skin tones, this is never brought up in the games. Because of that, Blizzard generally portrayed the protoss as physically homogenous zombies in artwork and EU materials even before LotV. Even the intro of LotV completely glosses over (or outright retcons) their history by calling the Aiur culture "templar" and their rulers "the conclave," with no words given to explain the greater context.

3) Even ignoring the retcons and supposing that this campaign did incorporate the SC1 manual tribe descriptions, Blizzard is a bunch of incompetent morons who could never possibly do this story justice.

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Originally Posted by sandwich_bird

the zerg to be about Kerrigan gaining more power and finishing Raynor's fight

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The problem with this is... ugh, where do I begin? The motivations of the zerg have completely changed in every installment. In SC1 they were the big bads who wanted to create hybrids and conquer the universe. In BW they were kerry's pets who helped her kill everyone for no sane reason, while Duran became the big bad evil guy who wanted to create hybrids and conquer the universe. In HotS they were just slaves to whoever was commanding them at the time, whether that be Kerry, Duran or the primal pack leaders.

Kerry has equally inconsistent motivations and no stable characterization. In SC1 she was fanatically devoted to the zerg cause and was obsessed with becoming a better killing machine, to the point that the unstable Zasz (he is literally called "unstable" in his bio) mistook her obsession for disloyalty (at least until the QoB novel rewrote her as trying to usurp him). In BW, she is suddenly an evil overlord with charisma and the ability to suck the intelligence out of her foes. In SC2, she is trying to finish Raynor's quest to overthrow Mengsk?

Kerry is not a character. She is several different characters with the same name and face.

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Originally Posted by sandwich_bird

The Xel Naga and Hybrid plot would slowly build up over the 2 first campaigns and really start in the final protoss story.

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As I said before, every installment of the franchise has essentially been a completely different story that only pays lip service to the previous ones.

The xel'naga/hybrid plot exists solely to introduce a new big bad and displace the original role of the zerg. There is no good reason for any writer to do this unless, like Metzen, they are an idiot who cannot remember what they wrote. The zerg were already plenty sufficient to be the big bads forever. Turning them into heroes (except for the obviously evil primal zerg) is just stupid and destroys what originally made them interesting. This is an RTS where you can embrace your destructive side guilt-free!

The xel'naga/hybrid villains were bland and uninteresting. The zerg were awesome because they were not simply the big bads out to eat everyone: they had alien yet reasonable motivations (achieve perfection) and they were a playable faction. BW and SC2 pissed all over that.

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Originally Posted by sandwich_bird

these other ideas didn't seem really clear compared to the Raynor angle.

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That's putting it mildly. There was no support for a Raynor/Kerry romance in SC1 or BW. This idea originated entirely from the fanfics written at the time.

In fact, when you read the novels it becomes really creepy. When Raynor and Kerry first met, he was aroused by her and then she called him a pig. When he learned she was psychic, his thoughts immediately shifted to his son. Or, to put it in the simplest possible terms, Raynor was sexually attracted to a woman who reminded him of his son, giving his thoughts clear incestuous overtones.

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Originally Posted by sandwich_bird

The problem was not that they changed their minds too much or that they didn't take the time to outline the big pieces. It's really just that they couldn't look objectively at what they were writing.

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It is a truism that talentless hacks have no awareness of their own incompetence. Metzen is a competent artist, but a really shitty writer. The rest of the writing team makes him look like Shakespeare.

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Originally Posted by Turalyon

Thing is, the apparent inconsistency between Sc1 and BW you mention is not really a issue because it doesn't really break immersion that much. At the least, it has a reasonable continuity of what came before.

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On its own merits, the plot of BW is riddled with plot holes and relies on the characters acting like idiots in order to work. It would break the immersion of any reasonable viewer who is not blinded by nostalgia or a child too young to understand the plot holes. Quick show of hands: how many here played it as a child? *raises hand*

As a sequel to SC1, it makes no sense because it retcons the motivations of the Zerg, introduces new villains out of the woodwork in contradiction to SC1 lore, and pointlessly changes the characterization of returning characters (especially Kerry). It is not a reasonable continuation of what came before, unless you consider blatant retcons as reasonable and I certainly do not.

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Originally Posted by Turalyon

That's why some of us suggest a "BW2", because that would be more continuous with what came before unlike what Sc2 turned to be or what your revisionist take in Enumerate would be.

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SC2 is as consistent with BW as BW is with SC1. Blizzard's writing has always been poor and people finally noticed in SC2 only because it had a much bigger budget to work with.

Your statement about BW being more consistent than EN is arbitrary and hypocritical. Every installment of the franchise has been largely inconsistent with its predecessors, but you guys only care about consistency with BW because you feel a nostalgic yearning for it. Enumerate's revisionist take is intended to be consistent with the SC lore introduced in the manual (or even earlier in development) before Metzen assumed full creative control, so claiming it is inconsistent because it does not agree with the inconsistencies introduced by Metzen himself is disingenuous.

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Originally Posted by Turalyon

No, people had an issue because you originally claimed Enumerate to being Starcraft while it really ain't. Like it or not, Kerrigan/QOB is part of Starcrafts story, so any discussion of Starcrafts story has to include her. It then follows from this that people don't have an issue when you suggested Enumerate was not Starcraft but something of your own devising. Figured!

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As I said before, SC lore has changed dramatically through development and sequels.

You guys arbitrarily decided that Starcraft revolves around QoB due to your nostalgia goggles and nothing will sway you from that, straggling the franchise in the process and preventing it from ever growing into anything more (as shown in the licensed expansions, which devised their own original stories in the same universe, showing that SC could have been so much more). At that point, calling it "Starcraft" is disingenuous because it is not about a war among the stars. To be accurate, the franchise should really be named "Tabula Rasa" because it is about the adventures of Kerry the bipolar schizophrenic whose primary character trait is literally a lack of identity according to her effing Wikipedia page.

Enumerate took cues from the manual and other sources from SC's development. Those sources took priority when it developed a plot bible based on that because that was the only iteration of the lore that was particularly consistent with its own backstory and themes. EN developed with the intent of creating a backdrop that could support a variety of narratives rather than being strangled by the writer's sexual fetish for QoB.

The Adventures of Kerry and Enumerate are both equally valid interpretations of what Starcraft should be, since both of them are completely undeserving of the name "Starcraft." Because all the stories involving QoB have never been particularly good, I have a bias in favor of EN. That you guys accepted EN without complaint as an alternative to Starcraft after a simple brand name change... that is one of the the most asinine, anal-retentive, OCD things I have seen, but I would be a hypocrite if I said I never did the same.

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Originally Posted by Turalyon

I'm one of the rare few who, back in the day, didn't actually want a sequel to BW. It's probably around the time my disdain for sequelitis started growing, too.

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I really think the healthiest choice for the franchise is a reboot. We need Starcraft to go back to being about dark and gritty warfare among the stars, not retarded space demons and cartoonish evil overlords.