The Great Overmind Roulette

[DarthYam]

the terrans and protoss worked together in eye of the storm? why couldn't the T, P, and Z work together against the fallen one? Maybe the armageddon mission in Utter Darkness, only now there's a real chance of winning

[hack59]

So if 'working your agenda' disqualifies you from being a villain, why do you call the Dark Voice a villain?

Because it's a cartoonish invention that comes out of nowhere (no pun intended) and is introduced for the sole purpose of being an antagonist, and a perfect and unquestionable antagonist at that. (Unless she was a misunderstood victim, of course.)

In general, a "villain" is just a writing technique: It's a simplistic way of introducing adversity and conflict, and usually unambiguously clear-cut as the antagonist. Ain't nobody getting the "Vengence of the Void" expansion where we get to play as little voidlings and your command center is a black hole or something.

I mean, universal genocide of all sentient life seems pretty unambiguously evil to me.

Yes, yes, the Dark Void is evil, no doubt. It's just a silly cartoon, that's what I don't like about it and don't want it to blunder into the StarCraft universe.

Right, and the Overmind didn't engineer a situation where Raynor and Valerian would find a Xel'Naga artefact to deinfest Kerrigan either, so why bring it up?

Well, you're right, for now we don't know how much we're supposed to take as a grand plan and how much is coincidence. But it's all been said before by now, so check those older posts again. Basically, Tassadar's ghost says that the overmind was "courageous" and essentially left Kerrigan as an attempt to save the situation. But Kerrigan is never shown to be in control of anything or even say anything remotely intelligent, quite on the contrary, what with her embracing the end and all. So if the overmind thought that Kerrigan would have a chance and doing something useful, then we're left with a plot that works only because of an extreme coincidence of very implausible events: Kerrigan apparently has no idea what she's supposed to do, and the only reason that Zeratul and Raynor know is because [insert previous posts: prophecy, ghosts, convenient artifacts, etc. etc.]

I thought you'd agreed that there wasn't a cunning plan to the Overmind's actions either? If there was, what was it?

Alright, so it wasn't a cunning plan, granted. But as I said above, what WoL did turn out to be was an extremely unlikely chain of implausible events. If the overmind only sort of gave the Kerrigan idea a shot because it was the best he could do, then this doesn't pay off anywhere in WoL at all, because nobody is aware of this. So the fact that despite everyone's ignorance and considerable opposition interests, Kerrigan still ends up in a position where she can fulfill the overmind's hopes at salvation just comes unexpected and unmerited.

So maybe it's not the overmind's roulette, but a Reader's Roulette or something, if that makes sense.

the terrans and protoss worked together in eye of the storm? why couldn't the T, P, and Z work together against the fallen one? Maybe the armageddon mission in Utter Darkness, only now there's a real chance of winning

They could, but it'd be bloody boring, it's been done to death, and it'd just be complete creative bankruptcy. Why bother with a campaign at all if you have nothing interesting to tell? Just make it an online only arena game. It'll still be good.

I was talking about the Overmind, actually :P. And to be honest, it was either death or a fate that would make death look like a blessing, so yeah. I think the Overmind is evil.

Wait, I misunderstood you, too. Again, the overmind is a huge threat for the Terrans and Protoss alike and certainly deserves being fought with the toughest means available. But he's not "evil" in the Disney sense of just being a bastard because the story needs an antagonist. The Zerg have goals and drives that are part of their nature and fit with their backstory, and they generally make for a believable party in the Koprulu sector and in the narrative universe as a whole. The very fact that their goals go counter the Terran's need for survival is what drives the story, but such is exactly the purpose of good writing: Establish several factions whose interests create conflict. I still wouldn't call the Zerg malevolent or "evil" (such a juvenile word anyway). I'm sure they would claim they're doing a good thing, and we simply don't have any models for ethics between different sentient species. Hostile, territorial, aggressive, yes. Evil? Leave that for Austin Powers.

(If you will, Mengsk is probably more clearly "evil" than the Zerg; in SC1 he craves personal power at the expense of people who trust him, and we have the whole "see the sector burn" thing. Because we have a good understanding of human values, we can see his desire to burn his fellow humans if he cannot rule them as something malevolent.)

[FanaticTemplar]

Because it's a cartoonish invention that comes out of nowhere (no pun intended) and is introduced for the sole purpose of being an antagonist, and a perfect and unquestionable antagonist at that. (Unless she was a misunderstood victim, of course.)

Again, like the Overmind in StarCraft.

To elaborate, the Overmind is an incredibly better character than the Dark Voice, but it was still evil and still existed to be the villain.

Well, you're right, for now we don't know how much we're supposed to take as a grand plan and how much is coincidence. But it's all been said before by now, so check those older posts again. Basically, Tassadar's ghost says that the overmind was "courageous" and essentially left Kerrigan as an attempt to save the situation. But Kerrigan is never shown to be in control of anything or even say anything remotely intelligent, quite on the contrary, what with her embracing the end and all. So if the overmind thought that Kerrigan would have a chance and doing something useful, then we're left with a plot that works only because of an extreme coincidence of very implausible events: Kerrigan apparently has no idea what she's supposed to do, and the only reason that Zeratul and Raynor know is because [insert previous posts: prophecy, ghosts, convenient artifacts, etc. etc.]


Alright, so it wasn't a cunning plan, granted. But as I said above, what WoL did turn out to be was an extremely unlikely chain of implausible events. If the overmind only sort of gave the Kerrigan idea a shot because it was the best he could do, then this doesn't pay off anywhere in WoL at all, because nobody is aware of this. So the fact that despite everyone's ignorance and considerable opposition interests, Kerrigan still ends up in a position where she can fulfill the overmind's hopes at salvation just comes unexpected and unmerited.

So maybe it's not the overmind's roulette, but a Reader's Roulette or something, if that makes sense.

But I don't understand why you feel that Kerrigan needs to know about this? All that is needed is that Kerrigan work to prevent the Dark Voice from controlling the Zerg, and if Brood War has shown us anything, it is that Kerrigan wishes to be sole master of the Swarm. She opposed Daggoth, the New Overmind and the UED for it, what makes you think that if uninformed of the Overmind's vision she'll hand the Swarm over to the Dark Voice?

Wait, I misunderstood you, too. Again, the overmind is a huge threat for the Terrans and Protoss alike and certainly deserves being fought with the toughest means available. But he's not "evil" in the Disney sense of just being a bastard because the story needs an antagonist. The Zerg have goals and drives that are part of their nature and fit with their backstory, and they generally make for a believable party in the Koprulu sector and in the narrative universe as a whole. The very fact that their goals go counter the Terran's need for survival is what drives the story, but such is exactly the purpose of good writing: Establish several factions whose interests create conflict. I still wouldn't call the Zerg malevolent or "evil" (such a juvenile word anyway). I'm sure they would claim they're doing a good thing, and we simply don't have any models for ethics between different sentient species. Hostile, territorial, aggressive, yes. Evil? Leave that for Austin Powers.

(If you will, Mengsk is probably more clearly "evil" than the Zerg; in SC1 he craves personal power at the expense of people who trust him, and we have the whole "see the sector burn" thing. Because we have a good understanding of human values, we can see his desire to burn his fellow humans if he cannot rule them as something malevolent.)

Such relative morality is inherently irrelevant since it can justify anything. Just because a group believes something is right does not make it right.

[mr. peasant]

Because it's a cartoonish invention that comes out of nowhere (no pun intended) and is introduced for the sole purpose of being an antagonist, and a perfect and unquestionable antagonist at that. (Unless she was a misunderstood victim, of course.)

In general, a "villain" is just a writing technique: It's a simplistic way of introducing adversity and conflict, and usually unambiguously clear-cut as the antagonist. Ain't nobody getting the "Vengence of the Void" expansion where we get to play as little voidlings and your command center is a black hole or something.

Yes, yes, the Dark Void is evil, no doubt. It's just a silly cartoon, that's what I don't like about it and don't want it to blunder into the StarCraft universe.

I disagree that this is necessarily a bad thing. True, a purely evil villain is a simplistic way of generating conflict. However, the entire value of a story lies in the conflict it generates as well as its resolution. Let's take a look at Harry Potter as an example (since it is a famous, fairly universally recognised story), Voldemort is unambiguously evil - being a racist who uses dark magic and going so far as to use the title 'Dark Lord'. And at the same time, all the interesting developments in the story occur as a result of his actions or from the heroes' efforts to defeat him.

[Turalyon]

Alright, so it wasn't a cunning plan, granted. But as I said above, what WoL did turn out to be was an extremely unlikely chain of implausible events. If the overmind only sort of gave the Kerrigan idea a shot because it was the best he could do, then this doesn't pay off anywhere in WoL at all, because nobody is aware of this. So the fact that despite everyone's ignorance and considerable opposition interests, Kerrigan still ends up in a position where she can fulfill the overmind's hopes at salvation just comes unexpected and unmerited.

So maybe it's not the overmind's roulette, but a Reader's Roulette or something, if that makes sense.

That's the same problem I have with how this story is playing out. There are quite a lot of (or too many rather) convenient events (or "essential coincidences" as FT put it earlier) that just happen. One example of this being that the real Overmind seems to be getting exactly what it wants without it really having to lift a finger and lo and behold, it's goal also has the dual purpose of defeating a Big-Bad that has just suddenly cropped up.

FT mentioned in a previous post that in any story there are things that will have to verge on the incredible (read as unbelievable) to sustain our interest. Exactly when something crosses over that line into incredibility (I call it a "BS threshold") is very much a subjective thing. I guess all we can do now, is just chalk what has happened so far as "shit happens" and leave it at that.

Evil? Leave that for Austin Powers.

"Evil" is such a nebulous and subjective concept. You can't really begin to define it objectively because it needs a subjective reference/starting point. Evil is really just something that prevents or is in opposition of the way of life (with varying degress) of a particular individual or group. The Zerg are evil to everyone else because their actions are quite definitive and obvious - they are either killing or denying their way of life by replacing it with their own. Everyone else is evil to the Zerg because they are refusing, resisting and outright preventing their ideal of perfection, their way of life, in their attempts to kill them. Saying which one of these as being objectively more evil is impossible since it is dependent on the frame of reference.

SC1 was really good at exploring the nature of evil, especially in regards to the use of 'necessary evils'. It was represented as Mengsk in the Terran campaign, Kerrigan in the Zerg campaign and as Tassadar in the Protoss campaign. For Mengsk, it was the promise of action against an inept institution who was doing nothing against the greater evil of the Zerg and Protoss destroying their worlds at the cost of being uncompromising in its vision. For Kerrigan, it was the promise of a new perspective and potential victory at the cost of all the troubles that rampant individualism could potentially bring to a unified and collective organisation that is the Zerg. For Tassadar, it was the promise of survival and victory against an implacable enemy at the cost of potentially destroying an established way of life that only came about due to extreme hardship and the fear of sliding back into that rut.

[DarthYam]

wings of liberty does do it to an extent. Zeratul flat out states "justice demands that she die for her crimes." If kerrigan wasn't needed to stop the Dark Voice, zeratul and raynor wouldn't have thought twice about killing her.

and in a way, it is possible for the dark voice to have more depth

After the death of the protoss at the start of the aeon of strife, the dv became disillusioned with his breatheren, and came to the conclusion that they needed to be reborn in a way that they would be "more natural" and "more perfect" for such a harsh universe. As such, he forces the zerg to destroy his breatheren and tries to merge them with the protoss via void energy so as to create a xel naga that would be more open to his vision of nihilism and destruction

also, the hidden evil was foreshadowed in dark origins. duran mentioned his "hidden power" master, and we all knew it was related to the hybridization of the zerg and protoss. We are only now beginning to see the nature of this threat, but he was foreshadowed and isn't quite "out of nowhere".

[hack59]

But I don't understand why you feel that Kerrigan needs to know about this? All that is needed is that Kerrigan work to prevent the Dark Voice from controlling the Zerg, and if Brood War has shown us anything, it is that Kerrigan wishes to be sole master of the Swarm. She opposed Daggoth, the New Overmind and the UED for it, what makes you think that if uninformed of the Overmind's vision she'll hand the Swarm over to the Dark Voice?

Well, again, because if she doesn't know what's at stake, then the events of WoL are random and unmerited. It's not like Kerrigan's control of the swarm, or any of her actions at all, for that matter, are shown to work towards saving everyone from the hybrids. On the very contrary, Kerrigan flat out wants "to embrace the end when it comes". You're right, in principle Kerrigan could have been the overmind's last hope without her knowing, but that idea simply falls flat on its face with the way WoL plays out.

Such relative morality is inherently irrelevant since it can justify anything. Just because a group believes something is right does not make it right.

That's true, and I never said I wanted to justify anyone. As I said, everyone has every right to try and stamp out the Zerg, because they pose an existential threat to everyone. But just as you and I probably never consider the morality of killing game for food, I would prefer not to apply a term like "evil" to a scenario that can be better descibed with less subjective terms (like "hostile", "aggressive", "territorial", etc.). It's just a small peeve, but the point is that in SC1 you can play all three campaigns and invest in what's going on, which would be less satisfying if you were asked to work for someone who is a flat-out cartoon evil overlord.

Well, that's just my take on it. Sure, the Zerg were clearly the "antagonist faction", but they still felt a bit more significant than just the cardboard cutout requisite threat. Again, the good writing manages at once to create conflict and make every part of the scenario interesting in its own right. By contrast, a stereotypical "pure evil villain" isn't usually very interesting because there's nothing to learn from or relate to his motivation.

Anyway, fine, call the overmind "evil" if you like, but I hope you appreciate the qualitative differences between the SC1 overmind and the WoL Dark Void.

I disagree that this is necessarily a bad thing. True, a purely evil villain is a simplistic way of generating conflict. However, the entire value of a story lies in the conflict it generates as well as its resolution. Let's take a look at Harry Potter as an example (since it is a famous, fairly universally recognised story), Voldemort is unambiguously evil - being a racist who uses dark magic and going so far as to use the title 'Dark Lord'. And at the same time, all the interesting developments in the story occur as a result of his actions or from the heroes' efforts to defeat him.

Yes, sure. The overall value of a story is comprised of many parts, and if you have enough interesting things to say about your heros, you can get away with a two-dimensional villain. Or even if the entire value of your story lies in the detail and richness of the narration, as in the Lord of the Rings, and all your plot elements are right out of Black and White's Collection of Teenage Hero Clichés, you can still get away with it because you can make something great out of it. It's just that a) StarCraft had created a precedent of a throughout well-constructed story in SC1 and some of us had expected something equally impressive this time, and b) that WoL just doesn't have a lot else to make up for it, story-wise.

I hope you don't take everything I say as absolutes, everything is in the context of this discussion and I don't always point out that in other types of writing there are other ways of doing things.

wings of liberty does do it to an extent. Zeratul flat out states "justice demands that she die for her crimes." If kerrigan wasn't needed to stop the Dark Voice, zeratul and raynor wouldn't have thought twice about killing her.

Ughh, yeah, maybe. Just ask yourself, did you feel engaged by that plot? Did it really make you think about the nature of evil and about justice? I mean sure, there was this obvious dramatic choice at the end, but the whole idea of having to save Kerrigan because of the prophecy doesn't actually ever come up outside the crystal missions! So... if you really want to read all that into WoL and you have a great experience, fine, knock yourself out, but it could have been handled a lot better...

[DarthYam]

The Dark Voice is shaping out to be a credible threat (As in he might be simplistic but still has a real chance of killinating everyone.) I mean, the guy has DURAN and MENGSK (two magnificent bastards) on his payroll, which isn't exactly an insignificant achievement. What's more, blizz confirmed the overmind was never noble (just that his consuming tendencies were redirected the way the dv wanted). Kerrigan still needs to face her guilt for all the monsterous crimes she comitted, and that is great storytelling potential

[FanaticTemplar]

Well, again, because if she doesn't know what's at stake, then the events of WoL are random and unmerited. It's not like Kerrigan's control of the swarm, or any of her actions at all, for that matter, are shown to work towards saving everyone from the hybrids. On the very contrary, Kerrigan flat out wants "to embrace the end when it comes". You're right, in principle Kerrigan could have been the overmind's last hope without her knowing, but that idea simply falls flat on its face with the way WoL plays out.

That's a lot to attribute to a single quote, especially one that is largely unexplained and quite out of character for the Kerrigan that was introduced in the original game. I don't think it's fair to judge this part without playing Heart of the Swarm, at the very least.

That's true, and I never said I wanted to justify anyone. As I said, everyone has every right to try and stamp out the Zerg, because they pose an existential threat to everyone. But just as you and I probably never consider the morality of killing game for food, I would prefer not to apply a term like "evil" to a scenario that can be better descibed with less subjective terms (like "hostile", "aggressive", "territorial", etc.). It's just a small peeve, but the point is that in SC1 you can play all three campaigns and invest in what's going on, which would be less satisfying if you were asked to work for someone who is a flat-out cartoon evil overlord.

As a mater of fact I have considered the morality of killing game for food. I think it is acceptable, as is the inverse killing of humans by predatory animals, even though I understand wanting to avoid or prevent such deaths. In fact, I think it's the near decimation of predatory animals out of preventative self-preservation that is by far the least moral of those. Anyway, the Zerg aren't just feeding on other species, they're completely wiping them out. And more than that, the Overmind is capable of higher thought, of self-examination.

Well, that's just my take on it. Sure, the Zerg were clearly the "antagonist faction", but they still felt a bit more significant than just the cardboard cutout requisite threat. Again, the good writing manages at once to create conflict and make every part of the scenario interesting in its own right. By contrast, a stereotypical "pure evil villain" isn't usually very interesting because there's nothing to learn from or relate to his motivation.

Anyway, fine, call the overmind "evil" if you like, but I hope you appreciate the qualitative differences between the SC1 overmind and the WoL Dark Void.

You mean that the Overmind was awesome and that the Dark Voice is probably the worst character introduced in the series? Oh yeah, I totally agree.

[DarthYam]

again, the DV was foreshadowed in brood war. also, I'm willing to see how things turn out. he may very well have more depth. then again i was more of a fan of how threatening and fucked up the villains were.