Incompetent Enemies & You Always Win Syndrome

[Twilice]

Yes and that is why I put my /ignore on swann's "findings". I don't really see it as canon at all. Maybe I should, maybe I shouldn't.

[The_Blade]

The vulture, IIRC, was old trash. Books mention that vultures are dangerous and unpredictable, because they like to blow up. Raynor "lost" his old vulture. We could scratch for a reasonable answer here and there, but the introduction of most units would still be flawed. Now, I would also like to ask a question:

Why the hell can you build 32 BCs? or 100 ghosts? Both numbers feel really unreasonable acording to lore. So, why?

The king of unreasonable numbers would be the Immortal. Immortals are veteran dragoons who were upgraded for survival. After the events on Aiur and Shakuras, how many dragoons do you think the protoss have? 200-300?

[Visions of Khas]

You know, my biggest complaint comes from the continuity or lack thereof, and atmosphere. They're intertwined really.

We get a poor sense of what we are fighting for; the Dominion and Zerg and Protoss are all these massive, incalculably large powers; veritable forces of nature. And what are you? What ARE you? A single man at the helm of a battlecruiser with a handful of volunteers.

No mention is ever made of colonists joining your cause; you never train or ask for something in return from the colonists.

I really wish the folks at Blizzard would play through Halo Reach. It's one of the few games that, in my opinion, really gives you a sense of the scale of things; of how much is being lost and how much more WILL be lost.

Your enemies in StarCraft are more or less faceless. Sure, we have Kerrigan and the Tal'darim Executor, but they're more caricatures. We've got Mengsk, but he's so distant and comical he's irrelevant, which is why it's hard to emotionally invest in the story.

In Reach, the enemy didn't even have these to represent them, but the story didn't suffer from it. We get a sense of scale from the escalation of the conflict. In StarCraft, it's a muddied and muddled affair of higher difficulty and more units, but a sense of the war itself is never made clear. We have no true sense of loss. We are faced with an ominous darkness that we know can only snuff out the light.

One of Gradius' complaints is the fact that we're surrounded by progidies. In a way, I don't see anything wrong with this. Breaking open New Folsom gave us a small sense of what we were up against; it detained so many radicals, free thinkers, academics and political enemies that I was extremely excited to see what would happen next. These are Mengsk's enemies, people that can think and act with intelligence. So it makes sense for these people to tend to congregate together.

On the other hand; Raynor was never a prodigy. In any sense. Strategically or otherwise. He was the every man, but he was defined by his character. He followed his heart, and it was always in the right place. He wanted to make a change, and would do his utmost with a little help from grit and determination. And that is lacking from Wings storyline; we don't see heart, we don't see the common man or woman. We get traces and rumors of a Cause, THE "Cause". But I don't feel we ever see it. Now THAT is disappointing.

[Turalyon]

One of Gradius' complaints is the fact that we're surrounded by progidies. In a way, I don't see anything wrong with this. Breaking open New Folsom gave us a small sense of what we were up against; it detained so many radicals, free thinkers, academics and political enemies that I was extremely excited to see what would happen next. These are Mengsk's enemies, people that can think and act with intelligence.

In a roundabout sort of way you're supporting Gradius' claim that Raynor's enemies are not his equal because what you said here seems to imply that Mengsk is indeed an incompetent fool for not utilising/turning (which I'm sure he's more than capable of doing) these "prodigies" in his prisons for his own use. Instead, we have Mengsk using Tychus, a veritable meathead, as a rather ineffective mole...

On the other hand; Raynor was never a prodigy. In any sense. Strategically or otherwise. He was the every man, but he was defined by his character. He followed his heart, and it was always in the right place. He wanted to make a change, and would do his utmost with a little help from grit and determination. And that is lacking from Wings storyline; we don't see heart, we don't see the common man or woman. We get traces and rumors of a Cause, THE "Cause".

As peasant had said, Raynor (and his crew) only seem to be prodigies because the opponents he faces are themselves ineffectual. You're right, Raynor is nothing special but nor are his enemies... in fact, they're shown to be worse because Raynor is running rings around them!

How can Raynor show "heart"/grit/determination when he isn't really being tested?

[Gradius]

I would like to highlight the difference in strength & numbers of the Raiders when they were just created in SC1 to right now in WoL. This information was taken from the Queen of Blades novel, which Metzen considers the definitive take of what happened to Raynor during the Zerg campaign.

1) After New Gettysburg, everybody who disagreed with Mengsk's betrayal rebelled and joined the Raiders. At this time the Raiders are at their highest numbers. The books say 300 people. As part of his motivational speech to rebel against Mengsk, Raynor tells the Raiders that tonight they dine in hell.

2) They were heavily outnumbered when they escaped Tarsonis, so they suffered losses there.

3) They raided the Dylarian shipyards and stole Hyperion as well as several other ships. At this time, the Raiders are at their highest strength. They have an actual fleet of ships.

4) The Raiders went to Char to find Kerrigan. Here they suffered their greatest losses. Their total man count went down to 40 according to Queen of Blades. ALL of their battlecruisers were destroyed before they could do anything, except Hyperion. A huge waste and stupid move on the part of Aaron Rosenburg considering that these battlecruisers might have made the battle of Aiur more realistic. How Raynor is supposed to do anything with a single battlecruiser & handful of people is actually a problem that has existed since SC1.

5) So, with a total of 40 people Raynor somehow manages to fight on Aiur, which is a total joke. If the Raiders are not all dead at this point, it's really a god damn miracle.

6) After helping destroy the Overmind, the Raiders decided to STRAND themselves on Aiur in order to help evacuate the Khalai survivors.

7) Raynor helps save Mengsk from the UED. His Command Center is destroyed in the Emperor's Flight mission, and he suffers yet another defeat.

8) At this point, it's a miracle he's still alive. There is just no way.

9) After BW Raynor still fights Zerg in his biography, a nod to the SC: Alternity board game most likely. He also helps Artanis & Taldarin to deinfest Stukov in Resurrection IV.

10) Then in the 4 years after that, he apparently does nothing but drink and hide from Mengsk while he revels in his losses. This is realistic. This is what he should be doing. This is where WoL starts off, and it provides absolutely no basis for him going on to basically dominate everyone.

Where did he get his strength in WoL? We still don't know if he actually has a fleet or anything. He has spectres helping him, but that mission doesn't have to be completed until very late in the game. Did he receive an increase in numbers from the colonists he helped save? Perhaps, but there is no dialog indicating anything like that.

[phazonjunkie]

3) They raided the Dylarian shipyards and stole Hyperion as well as several other ships. At this time, the Raiders are at their highest strength. They have an actual fleet of ships.

4) The Raiders went to Char to find Kerrigan. Here they suffered their greatest losses. Their total man count went down to 40 according to Queen of Blades. ALL of their battlecruisers were destroyed before they could do anything, except Hyperion. A huge waste and stupid move on the part of Aaron Rosenburg considering that these battlecruisers might have made the battle of Aiur more realistic. How Raynor is supposed to do anything with a single battlecruiser & handful of people is actually a problem that has existed since SC1.

IIRC, The Hyperion was the only actual 'warship' Raynor ever had access to. The rest were just transports or supply ships (it states it in the novel I believe).

5) So, with a total of 40 people Raynor somehow manages to fight on Aiur, which is a total joke. If the Raiders are not all dead at this point, it's really a god damn miracle.

SNIFF, SNIFF....I....smell....RETCON!!.........The hired mercs probably didn't hurt either.

8) At this point, it's a miracle he's still alive. There is just no way.

'Suspension of disbelief. He's THAT good.'

[Turalyon]

There is no justification for Raynor still being around, let alone being successful as well, beyond him having one of the most sturdiest pieces of "plot armor" going around. That is, up until a "plotline death" is required to maintain the grittiness....

[The_Blade]

8) At this point, it's a miracle he's still alive. There is just no way.

To be fair it's a miracle anyone in contact with the Zerg is still alive. IIRC the Zerg first poisoned Chau Sara's and Mar Sara's atmospheres with powerful toxins and then started infesting camps. The Conclave knew at this time that the Zerg were unstopable after entering at a planet's atmosphere, and therefore ordered to purge the Zerg with fire. This was one of the reasons the Conclave wanted to imprision Tassadar, when he neglected to melt Mar Sara to save the Terrans. There's also lore which points out that the Protoss refused violence as a whole after the "Aeon of Strife". **The colosus were burried because they worked only for war.** Suggesting the purification by fire was perhaps not taken lightly.

I believe Kerrigan had the full potential to win the BroodWar over every single adversary because the Zerg were a RELENTLESS threat to everyone else. Tarsonis, Char, Aiur, Shakuras, Korhal, the Sara system and many more fell to the Swarm. After the BroodWar, survivors were not alive because of luck, strenght, or hiding abilities; they were alive because of Kerrigan's "good will".

Perhaps the story ark of SC2 made her stop during the Broodwar; but if the arc was actually her returning to kill everyone else, we might have seen either the ending of both Terrans and Protoss or a long struggle for survival. Even if the arrival of the Hybrids was delayed, the death force of the Swarm would have been enough to clean every single planet of other life forms.

[mr. peasant]

Where did he get his strength in WoL? We still don't know if he actually has a fleet or anything. He has spectres helping him, but that mission doesn't have to be completed until very late in the game. Did he receive an increase in numbers from the colonists he helped save? Perhaps, but there is no dialog indicating anything like that.

To be fair, he could have bolstered his numbers in the intervening years between SC:BW and WoL.

On a more general note, Starcraft (and Blizzard in general) has never been a particularly detailed universe with Blizzard making up the lore as they go along (I'm reminded of how Stormwind in Warcraft was at one point the kingdom of Azeroth, on the subcontinent of Azeroth, on the continent of Azeroth on the planet Azeroth), revising it as and when they see fit, and playing fast and loose with the numbers. One need only look at the K-Sector population counts to realise this. As such, the inconsistency of the size of Raynor's forces (beyond that it is supposedly 'small') is to be expected.

[Turalyon]

To be fair, he could have bolstered his numbers in the intervening years between SC:BW and WoL.

This is incongruous with Raynor being on the verge of utter defeat when WoL begins and the story telling us that Raynor has been losing over those 4 years. Being so marginalised as well, it seems strange that anyone would want to join up with Raynor's rag-tag team of losers.