Where Are All The Asians In StarCraft?

[nocommayes]

I've decided to hit up the SClegacy forums because I've tried to discuss the game on reddit, and they're worthless as far as actually conversing about anything.

To be upfront, I know a reasonable amount about the lore. The Koprulu sector is basically Earth's Australia, and they sent all the people they didn't want over there, these people became today's Terrans, etc.

There's also at least one instance of an Asian character, Master Miyamoto, who taught Valerian Mengsk how to be skilled with swords.

All of that aside, where are the Asians in the Terran army? I know that at the very least there's a Black unit [the Marauder], but I think that about does it for diversity in the Terran ranks. You'd think that with such a huge fanbase in Korea, it wouldn't hurt Blizzard to make at least one unit of Asian descent.

[Robear]

I've mostly just learned to live with the idea that the reason Terrans are almost entirely white space Americans is because, yeah, the prisoners that became the original colonists happened to be drawn from prisons in America that were mostly full of white people. It's plausible. In contrast, the UED were predominantly space Europeans (DuGalle, Stukov, the German Valkyrie pilot). It is a story possibility that Earth a few hundred years in the future is less racially integrated than Earth today, in keeping with the creepy dystopian overpopulated eugenics-infused culture that exists in Starcraft, and some other faction on Earth is predominantly Asian. Same for Latin@s, Africans, Arabs, etc.

That being said, the real answer is that to the guys at Blizzard and probably to most of their target American audience, white men are the default. We all know that a black woman could be a marine, but people would think it was weird if all marines were represented by a black woman's portrait, in a way that they don't when all of them are white men. So, white folks all around! And it doesn't occur to them to make any of the secondary characters (Swann, Stetmann, Horner, Hanson, Kerrigan, Mengsk, those newscasters, Nova, etc.) non-white unless they're going to go full on Jamaican accent, dreadlocks and voodoo dolls with it. Blizzard isn't good at diversity, at all.

(Samir Duran was an exception. He was cool. The original Starcraft's opening had a Hispanic-sounding guy. Warfield's good too. But these are all people of color surrounded by throngs of white people.)

That being said, if Blizzard added Asian characters, they would probably be incredibly stereotyped (see: Gabriel Tosh, the Pandaren Brewmaster, Warcraft's Jamaican-accented voodoo trolls), because, again, Blizzard is super bad at this sort of thing. No surprises that their one Asian character happens to be a Japanese sensei. Blizzard sucks at this.

[Gradius]

We've also got Somo Hung: http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Somo_Hung
And (presumably) the leader of the Kel-Morian Combine: http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Mah_Sakai

All of that aside, where are the Asians in the Terran army? I know that at the very least there's a Black unit [the Marauder], but I think that about does it for diversity in the Terran ranks. You'd think that with such a huge fanbase in Korea, it wouldn't hurt Blizzard to make at least one unit of Asian descent.

Given that the gene pool was somewhat limited when the terrans arrived on their respective planets in the k-sector, it's likely that asians just interbred with everyone else and were absorbed, if there were even that many onboard the supercarriers to begin with. As a result only small pockets of truly asian heritage survive.

[The_Blade]

I agree with Gradius.

I would like to add the following theory: Oriental cultures became dominant in the future, because the conflict is described as "the fall of western culture". I believe there was a war between Asia-Russia and the "Allies" (US, Canada, Australia and Europe).

Europe and Australia were taken in the first years through direct invation. So, I fear most of the North American population was killed in a bomb strike. This strategy was popular, because oceans protected the American landmass. As the new powers took over the world they had to fix what Western Culture "had done". So they killed Latins and Africans, due to severe pour quality of life. Then our good doctor Doran Routhe had his space project idea.

Capitalism collapsed which killed most of the western economy. This war was not fair at all. Asians also had more than half of the population at the time of this Genoside. Russians, Australians and Europeans were then subordinates of the Asian world order.

This is why we see a Western Kropulu sector and a "Russian" UED. Russian troops were sent to the Kropulu sector in behalf of the Asian overlords, because they were less valuable. I believe the UED, in general, is quite stable and successful under the strict world order. People in the UED also have a really high quality of life.

I especulate this was what happened. The only obstacle is the English language in the UED. I guess it was only used for UI purposes and is not the real official language of the UED.

[nocommayes]

I more or less agree with what Robear said about Blizzard's target audience being the White American gamer. Gradius and The_Blade offered reasons for why the lore doesn't support a lot of Asians, but I think it's more likely that this is story supporting art, instead of the other way around.

Considering what Robear mentioned about more "ethnic" characters being stereotyped, what Terran unit could you feasibly see being Asian? It can be an existing unit [Viking, etc.], or one that doesn't exist yet.

[Robear]

I'm honestly surprised they didn't make the viking (a transformer, for crying out loud) or the warhound, have Japanese pilots. Think of all the anime mecha references they could have made? Ideally they wouldn't rely on stereotypes, but so many of Blizzard's ideas with Starcraft are all about stereotypes/cliches in the first place (like the terran confederacy being southerners and using the Confederate flag), I'm just surprised.

If I were making up my own material, I'd go for a Korean captain of a valkyrie-sized unit. Could be a man or a woman (they'd have to not pull any "exotic" sexualized crap if it were a woman), could be a ship or some sort of large ground craft (I'm thinking AT-AT sized) but someone giving orders to a crew. Then if they want to throw in any references to pro gamers or whatever they could.

[Turalyon]

I'm honestly surprised they didn't make the viking (a transformer, for crying out loud) or the warhound, have Japanese pilots. Think of all the anime mecha references they could have made? Ideally they wouldn't rely on stereotypes, but so many of Blizzard's ideas with Starcraft are all about stereotypes/cliches in the first place (like the terran confederacy being southerners and using the Confederate flag), I'm just surprised.

Given the cultural insensitivity regarding Tosh's character in WoL, one should be glad that Asians are under-represented in the SC universe... unless Blizz is specifically aiming to offend a large portion of their player base.

[TcheQuevara]

What doesn't make the slightest sense is that there are Asians in Starcraft. And blacks. And caucasians, for that matter.

You get a 40k population. In 200 years, all their etnicities will mix. Bingo. There is no other way this could happen.

Everyone in SC should look like Latin@s (mongolic/negroid/caucasoid mixed ancestry). Maybe more leaning to the white side if the supercarriers population was more "white trash" as it probably was.

The most unrealistic thing in SC, given this natural tendency to mix races, is Tosh. He:

- Has a specific accent
- Is very black, obviously not a mulatto
- Has a specific religion/creed/culture
- Has a poverty background.

I understand that if 5 or 20 years in the future Afro religions are a privilege of certain nationalities and people with strong black ancestry and poor background. But even today, one of the whitest states in Brazil is the one with the most Candomblé/Umbanda followers (fourth map here). The only Candomblé priestess I know is white - actually she's Lebanese. Her family probably arrived here less than a hundred years ago.

To keep a culture this strong and unchanged for 250 years... in a population of 40k, how many people would have to be jamaican, black and voodoo-ish to form a group thick enough to keep this culture away from miscigenation?

This also makes me realize that, since "Latino" marines have "Latino" names and "Asian" terran have "Asian" names... anyone from a non-causasian etnicity is probably inbred as frak.

[TcheQuevara]

Blade, English was the official language of the UPL. IIRC the other languages were banished...?

My own theory is that maybe someday in the past the UPL had a great quality of life, but by the time the UED was formed, they would already be facing a decades ou centuries long economic hardship. Maybe more politcal issues developed. Maybe the Solar System and surrounding space is very poor on the elements needed by 25th century technology.

That would explain why Earthlings, even having a bigger population (more troops and productivity) and more time to develop (as they didn't have to rebuild from zero) weren't that superior to Koprulu Terrans. Basically, because they're poor.

[Kimera757]

In more recent lore products, exceedingly minor characters often have Asian surnames. I wouldn't expect a huge rush of Asian characters, but at least one appearing in Heart of the Swarm wouldn't be missed. (No accent necessary.)

A lack of Asians is particularly notable because, despite a mixing of races being far more realistic, most terrans appear to be Caucasian, and there are several blacks as well, and few if any mixed race characters.