Heart of the Swarm Sept 2012 beta unit details - leaked video

[Shadow Archon]

Um, you do realize the galaxy is only 130,000 light years in diameter, right?

Yes. He would end up outside the galaxy.

Sorry, I've kind of given up on trying to work out the details of warp space bar maintaining the wiki article, but the stickler in me just had to point that out.

Oh, it's okay.

As for the UED, I don't know how long it took for the trip to the K-Sector, but I suspect it takes a lot of time and energy to prepare to jump 60,000 light years,

I'm going off the timeline. They left after the Overmind died, and appeared in the Korpulu sector possibly before the Protoss campaign dependning upon when the intro happens.

There isn't a lot of time there, and as for energy, we don't know if longer jumps require more power.

and they just didn't have enough time before the zerg fell on them. (It's a bit like trying to charge up the afterburners, but you need an hour to do it, while the zerg will land on you in 45 minutes.)

This goes against the sub-warp in uprising and the warp in "Escape from Mar Sara" where they were capable of jumping to different solar systems in seconds.

While a terran ship might be able to jump millions of light years, I don't believe it's ever been stated to happen deliberately. The terran vessels in Uprising, at least, seemed to take a long time to get places. (Same in the comics. Even a relatively short trip took at least two days.)

We don't know the distances though, the speed of Korpulu sector Terran ships in comparison to UED ships, and the size of the Korpulu Sector. There's literally no way to judge the distance.

I try to avoid using anything presented in the Queen of Blades. It is one of the worst SC novels, and the facts that are presented are sketchy at best. The changes to the storyline that are presented in the book that are actually good didn't deserve to be wrapped up with everything else that book changed.

It's unfortunately canon, and thus it has a valid interpretation of the events. With no canon policy, all contradictions are equally canon.

IMHO, I don't see what's wrong with the Zerg getting to Zerus within two weeks.

[l33telboi]

FTL in Starcraft suffers a lot because the original game didn't really define how it worked, so then the other authors writing the books basically had to invent their own stuff, and so there are a lot of contradictory information. FTL is, after all, a pretty important part of any soft science fiction universe.

Having said that, Blizzard has tried to mesh it all together, if in a rather haphazard way.

The way I figure it works, based mostly on the later novels, is a little like this: There are two types of FTL, warp travel, and sub-warp travel.

Warp travel requires extensive calculations to be performed before initiated, and it's also non-linear in nature (that means it doesn't go from point A to point B at a certain speed), judging by the quote about a miscalculation putting a vessel millions of lightyears away from their current location in the blink of an eye. Travel to a specific location does still take time, however. It's disorienting for the people inside the vessel, and it looks as if you're trying to travel through a blue tunnel.

Sub-warp travel on the other hand works more like FTL in nBSG, with a vessel winking out at location A and then winking in at location B, almost as if by teleportation. This requires no calculations. I'm assuming there's some downside to this (like fuel consumption or perhaps range) because otherwise there'd be no point in using regular warp drives. This is also the type of warp travel that Raynor appears to use in WoL.

The reason I believe Blizzard has tried to fix this is because both systems are demonstrated in the Dark Templar trilogy, written by the same author. So it seems they told her of both types of FTL travel.

In regards to Zerus and the Zerg, the revelation that they can travel to Zerus is perhaps exactly that... a revelation, but not that problematic. The UED certainly has the capacity to travel such distances in little time, and it's not impossible for the Zerg to be faster or as fast. Why the long travel time originally? Perhaps they spent most of that time assimilating new species and improving themselves? Or maybe they've simply evolved their FTL to become faster?

I do believe that Zerus is going to be one of those "travel there and back again at the speed of plot" type deals, considering we've seen some artwork with Kerrigan on Zerus.

[Turalyon]

...all contradictions are equally canon

I hope you're not trying to justify ass-pulls.

IMHO, I don't see what's wrong with the Zerg getting to Zerus within two weeks.

Regardless of the possibility of such a thing, who says the Zerg or Kerrigan have to get to Zerus in the first place? One would think that there'd still be Zerg on their homeplanet of all things.

Also, who's to say that those faraway Zerg can't be controlled via psychic powers over distances of light years? I'm sure the Overmind was doing that easily beforehand. If the Overmind thinks Kerrigan to be more powerful than itself, let alone expect her to take over its reigns, shouldn't we expect Kerrigan to be able to do that as well?

[topsecret221]

The devs say so, because they mentioned that Kerrigan is on the front lines in EVERY mission, if I'm not mistaken.

[Shadow Archon]

I hope you're not trying to justify ass-pulls.

I'm not justifying it, I'm just saying that someone who uses any Starcraft lore that contradicts other lore in Starcraft is still valid. For example, the Uprising version of the Korhal bombardment is just as valid as the Manual or Liberty's Crusade, or I'Mengsk despite the minute or big differences.

There is no canon policy, so therefore all are equal.

Regardless of the possibility of such a thing, who says the Zerg or Kerrigan have to get to Zerus in the first place? One would think that there'd still be Zerg on their homeplanet of all things.

Also, who's to say that those faraway Zerg can't be controlled via psychic powers over distances of light years? I'm sure the Overmind was doing that easily beforehand. If the Overmind thinks Kerrigan to be more powerful than itself, let alone expect her to take over its reigns, shouldn't we expect Kerrigan to be able to do that as well?

She's going to be on Zerus because she's always going to be on the front line in every mission, and Zerus doesn't have normal Zerg going off the datamines, but I won't say anymore due to spoilers.

[Turalyon]

The devs say a lot of things...

As to spoilers, I don't mind. I expect utterly ridiculous things to potentially happen in SC lore these days so I can't say I'd be too surprised if it happens to be spoilerish.

[Shadow Archon]

The devs say a lot of things...

And their word is law.

As to spoilers, I don't mind. I expect utterly ridiculous things to potentially happen in SC lore these days so I can't say I'd be too surprised if it happens to be spoilerish.

Spoiler than:

Primal Zerg on Zerus.

[Gradius]

The UED use some version of FTL where they gain increased speed by trading off time in their local field of reference. That's why they were able to get there in like 2 weeks, but had to come out of cryo-hybernation. They were frozen and the journey probably lasted years in their frame of reference, so I don't think it makes sense that the zerg would have this capability.

[Quirel]

The UED use some version of FTL where they gain increased speed by trading off time in their local field of reference. That's why they were able to get there in like 2 weeks, but had to come out of cryo-hybernation. They were frozen and the journey probably lasted years in their frame of reference, so I don't think it makes sense that the zerg would have this capability.

Just like in Aliens, huh?

Where did you hear that?

[Shadow Archon]

The UED use some version of FTL where they gain increased speed by trading off time in their local field of reference. That's why they were able to get there in like 2 weeks, but had to come out of cryo-hybernation. They were frozen and the journey probably lasted years in their frame of reference, so I don't think it makes sense that the zerg would have this capability.

Going by what?

Anyways, Zerg are immortal, why would time matter?