Xel'Naga Temple Explosion

[Gradius]

Me and Telenil were discussing this the other day and were wondering how the xel'naga temple cleansed the zerg from Shakuras. There seem to be two options:

1) The explosion destroyed the bulk of the zergs' forces, but only in the explosion radius. The protoss had to clean up whatever was left afterwards.

2) The xel'naga temple got rid of all the zerg on all of Shakuras, and the explosion was just a side-effect.

[DemolitionSquid]

If memory serves, there were still Zerg leftover on Shak after the XTE.

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If memory serves, there were still Zerg leftover on Shak after the XTE.

[Robear]

When I was younger, I assumed that the explosion actually spread to cover the entire surface of the planet— because, as we see repeatedly during the game, Shakuras' soil is dark blue, but then at the end of that cutscene, not only has the new crater around the temple turned to orange sand, so has the entire surface of the planet.

Before:



After:



And then, uh, obviously this only affected the very top layer of soil, because, by SC2, it's back to being blue.

...But now I just think they hadn't decided it was going to be a blue planet yet when the cinematic department was working on those scenes. It had always seemed blue to me in the beginning of that cutscene, but now I just think it's because it was, you know, night time— if you turn up the exposure on the pre-dawn, pre-explosion shots, it already looks like normal ground.



The explosion does at least boil away those bodies of water and create a sandy crater though, so I wasn't, like, 100% wrong, haha. There could still have been enough time for some sort of psionic shockwave to cover the planet imo.

[Turalyon]

Maybe the explosion, killing anything in its initial vicinity, set off some sort of secondary psionic shockwave that enveloped the planet to kill off the rest of the Zerg. It being Xel'Naga tech afterall, I should expect something else than just a "mere" explosion.

[Gradius]

Maybe the explosion, killing anything in its initial vicinity, set off some sort of secondary psionic shockwave that enveloped the planet to kill off the rest of the Zerg. It being Xel'Naga tech afterall, I should expect something else than just a "mere" explosion.

See that's what i was thinking. It seems like such a huge waste to have gathered the crystals for what is the equivalent of a regular bomb.

[Visions of Khas]

The explosion seemed to be a manifestation of the psionic energies coursing across the entire planet, enveloping and disintegrating all Zerg, world-wide.

The twilit nature of Shakuras itself is probably mundane. The planet's rotation probably shields the Dark Templar settlement from the sun for most of the time; or it rests in the shadow of several moons or a gas giant. The rising sun was symbolic more than anything.

[DemolitionSquid]

See that's what i was thinking. It seems like such a huge waste to have gathered the crystals for what is the equivalent of a regular bomb.

It wasn't a regular bomb. It only killed Zerg and didn't destroy the temple. Even if it enveloped the entire surface of the planet, Zerg can burrow. I swear there were still Zerg that needed to be mopped up after the explosion.

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See that's what i was thinking. It seems like such a huge waste to have gathered the crystals for what is the equivalent of a regular bomb.

It wasn't a regular bomb. It only killed Zerg and didn't destroy the temple. Even if it enveloped the entire surface of the planet, Zerg can burrow. I swear there were still Zerg that needed to be mopped up after the explosion.

[TheEconomist]

Otherwise, it would make more sense for the Protoss to use one of their weapons.

Given Blizzard's flair for theatrics and how they used to mess up a lot of things in the cinematics, I doubt much can definitely be taken from this. You just have to rationalize. As usual.

[Turalyon]

Even if it enveloped the entire surface of the planet, Zerg can burrow.

That's where the "psionic" part comes into play.

I'd imagine that Shakuras would have something similar to the psionic matrix (where they draw their power from) that Aiur has, which the Xel'Naga temple taps into or is a focal point. It makes some sort of sense because it's an out for Shakuras to explain how they draw their power and technology as well as give a possible reason why the Overmind decided to choose a Xel'Naga Temple on Aiur to be levelled.

Yeah, sure there's no proof of this but since people are using the "it wasn't mentioned that it didn't before" as proof, why can't I?

[Shadow Archon]

Ulrezaj did something to a group of Zerg to make them "immune" to the temple in the Enslaver campaign, so it might be similar to the Xel'naga energy creature "absorbing" the Zerg and Protoss or the Hybrids "consume DNA" ability.

Heck, the Xel'naga temple there might just be another site like the temples in the book that is harvesting Protoss and Zerg.