Why doesn't the Captain warn DuGalle about Duran's treachery?

[Turalyon]

Before I go on, I must say that I'm enjoying this debate more than I expected.

Actually, that's exactly what I'm asking you. In Brood War Mengsk keeps getting knocked down, but he gets up again, ain't never gonna keep him down, but you keep demanding concrete evidence for that logical subtext. You've dismissed everything I've provided, which is fine. But now I ask you to live up to your own standards, and you're upset?

Not upset, just noticing that this is going all one way. We've done most of the justifying whilst you've just sat back and taken it for granted that the thing is absurd. We've at least attempted to explain the apparent absurdity (I wouldn't call that dismissing but clarifying by the way) whereas you seem to be blinkered to that as being an unassailable fact to base your logic around. You're essentially saying Mengsk's comeback's are absurd because of contrivance when the same thing can be said of Zerg cerebrates coming back/Zerg forces recovering being absurd because it relies on contrivance. That's what I'm interpreting from you. Please enlighten/correct me, that's all I'm asking.

Yeah, but the Protoss have been consistently weakening.

Using your logic, no, they're not, otherwise Artanis wouldn't have been able to field one of the three biggest fleets to oppose Kerrigan in Omega. No, the Protoss are not consistently getting weaker because they throw-away troops and a mothership in a pissing contest with Raynor in WoL. No, the Protoss are not consistently weaker because they apparently have a Golden Armada which we should be fearful of and it seems justified because Kerrigan is afraid of it because all her actions on Kaldir are based around it.

Mengsk on the other hand just pops back up.

Just like the Protoss have been doing as described above. Wow, that's absurd!

You seem to be content to just trivialise his reappearances and then use that to excuse it in Sc2 because it's consistent. I and the others have stated he doesn't "just pop back" but comes back under specific conditions which we have mentioned and are self-evident. You haven't justified why we should hand-wave these as not being relevent and insist on it being absurdity forevermore.

The "logical subtext" of Mengsk's victory speech and Duke's appearance on Char is that Mengsk's new Dominion is far more powerful than the Confederacy, despite being built on nine (or seven) fewer worlds. The "logical subtext" of Kerrigan considering him a threat that needs to be dealt with using the element of surprise in True Colors is that Mengsk is still as dangerous as he ever was. And Omega? Not only is Kerrigan audibly worried when he shows up, but I completely disagree with the narrative you people have built up for his fleet.

Ok, so this is more like what I was asking for with the above. But, I can just as easily dismiss these as you have done with our justifications. Mengsk's victory speech is clearly propaganda and not a true reflection of his or Terran capabilities (due to only having only a few core worlds left). Duke's presence on Char is meaningless since anyone can turn up anywhere and anytime just like Raynor does with his army. Kerrigan does not really see a threat in Mengsk in True Colours since she plainly reveals that she's just doing this to him out of petty revenge. She's not audibly afraid of Artanis or DuGalle in Omega, so that must mean the Protoss and UED are not as powerful.

[Telenil]

Sure it is. Infested Kerrigan underplays everything, it's pretty blatant what it means that they might be too dangerous to allow to live. It is that they are too dangerous to allow to live. Hence why she does not allow them to live.

But sure, I'll go the exceedingly literal route and accept the alternative position that Mengsk's power was at the precise level where it is equally likely that he could ruin Kerrigan as not, and therefore Kerrigan cannot be certain whether or not he is too dangerous to allow to live.

But I wonder how you read that to come to the conclusion that "Mengsk is not a danger to me. I do not need to kill his forces and best(? favourite?) general, but I will do so anyway." That is the exact opposite of what that briefing says.



I have no idea why you think time is not a factor, because that makes absolutely no sense. Why would it be impossible for Mengsk to gather a fleet in any amount of time? Aside from that, I haven't disagreed with any of what you've written. The Zerg are infinitely powerful, of course Mengsk couldn't threaten her. And of course other Terrans want "her" dead, where "her" is the directing influence of the Swarm. None of this is the issue.

I'm beginning to suspect that you are not going to accept any argument as relevant, whatever we say.

You get a briefing that downplays the threat they might pose, says Duke's and Fenix's armies combined versus a surprise Zerg attack is pretty much a foregone conclusion, and that Kerrigan considers Fenix to be more of a threat than Mengsk would be without Duke, yet you still argue that it means the Dominion is as strong (even with respect to the other Terran) as he was during episode 5, where it took the UED two full levels to conquer Korhal.

Then you disregard that the rag-tag fleet Mengsk uses for his final push appears to be (more or less...) on par with the remainder of the UED fleet after Korhal and Char. The briefing is not very specific, but none of the fleets appeared to be overwhelmingly larger than the others. A large part of Arcturus' fleet comes from groups that were not particularly sympathetic to the Dominion, to whom he had to make concessions, and it all made less than half of the army which would give Kerrigan pause but fail to defeat her. Despite surprise.
... and yet you get from this that he is blatantly as much of a threat as he was two campaigns before?

You are entitled to your own opinion. If you still don't agree with us, fine, let's agree to disagree. What I find unreasonnable is the claim that you were not given any evidence.

[ragnarok]

Then you disregard that the rag-tag fleet Mengsk uses for his final push appears to be (more or less...) on par with the remainder of the UED fleet after Korhal and Char. The briefing is not very specific, but none of the fleets appeared to be overwhelmingly larger than the others. A large part of Arcturus' fleet comes from groups that were not particularly sympathetic to the Dominion, to whom he had to make concessions, and it all made less than half of the army which would give Kerrigan pause but fail to defeat her. Despite surprise.
... and yet you get from this that he is blatantly as much of a threat as he was two campaigns before?

Telenil, you and I both know sometimes your opponent can be tougher than he should be FOR THE SAKE OF GAMEPLAY.

Are you SURE the fleet Mengsk scraped up was really that powerful? Or was that simply for gameplay reasons?

Because you have to remember that by Omega mission, the Dominion military was largely still in tatters. Sure, Mengsk could have turned to the KMC, but their fleet is VERY outdated and can barely do anything.

In fact, the only reason why Kerrigan had difficulty AT ALL in the Moria mission in BW was because she had JUST regained control over her broods, and was still in the process of getting them strengthened.

[Telenil]

Because you have to remember that by Omega mission, the Dominion military was largely still in tatters. Sure, Mengsk could have turned to the KMC, but their fleet is VERY outdated and can barely do anything.

I'd argue a bit on the phrasing, but yes, that's what I was saying. That Mengsk's fleet was not nearly as threatening as what he could have gathered before the fall of Korhal.

[ragnarok]

I'd argue a bit on the phrasing, but yes, that's what I was saying. That Mengsk's fleet was not nearly as threatening as what he could have gathered before the fall of Korhal.

Yeah but Mengsk was still full of his own arrogance in believing Dominion invincibility right before the UED arrived.

Remember, even when confronted by Dugalle, he STILL believed he'd win. He only began to learn a LITTLE when Korhal fell. When back in his hands and the loss of Duke, he had to see the other way because there was no other choice. But then, in the 4 years that followed, he forgot it all again.

[FanaticTemplar]

Before I go on, I must say that I'm enjoying this debate more than I expected.

I'm glad to read that! I was actually worried that I was getting annoying and going to ask if you guys wanted me to just drop it .

Not upset, just noticing that this is going all one way. We've done most of the justifying whilst you've just sat back and taken it for granted that the thing is absurd. We've at least attempted to explain the apparent absurdity (I wouldn't call that dismissing but clarifying by the way) whereas you seem to be blinkered to that as being an unassailable fact to base your logic around. You're essentially saying Mengsk's comeback's are absurd because of contrivance when the same thing can be said of Zerg cerebrates coming back/Zerg forces recovering being absurd because it relies on contrivance. That's what I'm interpreting from you. Please enlighten/correct me, that's all I'm asking.

You're correct that I consider the Zerg shifting from defeated on Aiur to infinitely powerful to be a similar issue, but that's also pretty clearly a retcon. But I do think I've expressed frequently why I feel that Mengsk's earlier comebacks are absurd, the whole 4/13 Terran worlds, being deposed by the UED, being abandoned in the ashes of his empire by Kerrigan, yet always popping back up as a threat. I consider those to be equally implausible as Mengsk's big comeback in Wings of Liberty, where he certainly comes back stronger, but also doesn't do it in the span of a few weeks. But you think his comeback in Wings is problematic, while those in Brood War are not, and I want to know what the difference is. Omega shows Mengsk as still being the most powerful man in the Sector, he can buy an army with favours and concessions - and listen, I don't think there's any concession I could make that would allow me to buy an aircraft carrier - and those favours and concessions are only worth something because of the power, authority and influence Mengsk wields, and the expectation that he will continue to wields them. There's never any evidence that other Terran groups are better off than he is at the end - the epilogue tells us that Mengsk slunk back home to rebuild his empire, and Wings shows us that this is exactly what he did. That Mengsk came back is exactly what one should have expected from the end of Brood War, that he did is not absurd, merely the scale at which he did - and if we're only talking about scale, then the fact that he was able to leverage four surviving worlds into building 'the most heavily fortified city in Dominion space' and becoming a considerable threat to the UED in just a few months, or the fact that he bargained his way from sitting in the ashes of his empire to commanding one of the most powerful fleets around in a few days or weeks is equally absurd.

Using your logic, no, they're not, otherwise Artanis wouldn't have been able to field one of the three biggest fleets to oppose Kerrigan in Omega.

The fact that the Protoss have a fleet comparable to Mengsk's is a sign of Mengsk's recovery, but not a sign of the Protoss' - the difference in power between the Protoss and the Terrans at the beginning of StarCraft is immense, with Tassadar sparing Confederate fleets out of mercy. The fact that they are now of comparable strength either means that the Terrans are incredibly stronger now, or that the Protoss are far weaker, or a little bit of both. It can also be that the Terrans are slightly weaker and the Protoss massively weaker, which might be what you're going for, but even then, I refer you to the one-eyed man in the land of the blind idiom - even if Mengsk is weaker than he was at a previous time, he's still the strongest Terran around unless there's evidence that the other Terran factions didn't suffer.

Just like the Protoss have been doing as described above. Wow, that's absurd!

The Protoss do seem to have miraculously recovered in Heart of the Swarm if we're judging by this Golden Armada threat, but it's pretty hard to be sure because the Protoss never bloody appear in StarCraft II. Except the Adun-damned Tal'darim. Ugh. But this is not a source of disagreement between us, as far as I understand.

You seem to be content to just trivialise his reappearances and then use that to excuse it in Sc2 because it's consistent. I and the others have stated he doesn't "just pop back" but comes back under specific conditions which we have mentioned and are self-evident. You haven't justified why we should hand-wave these as not being relevent and insist on it being absurdity forevermore.

Sure, and when I asked you to demonstrate how Mengsk had unrealistically popped back up in Wings of Liberty, I pointed out that there was nothing contradictory to his situation at the end of Brood War, but you also insist on it being absurdity.

Ok, so this is more like what I was asking for with the above. But, I can just as easily dismiss these as you have done with our justifications. Mengsk's victory speech is clearly propaganda and not a true reflection of his or Terran capabilities (due to only having only a few core worlds left). Duke's presence on Char is meaningless since anyone can turn up anywhere and anytime just like Raynor does with his army. Kerrigan does not really see a threat in Mengsk in True Colours since she plainly reveals that she's just doing this to him out of petty revenge. She's not audibly afraid of Artanis or DuGalle in Omega, so that must mean the Protoss and UED are not as powerful.

Exactly. After you (general you, not specific you) dismissed everything that showed Mengsk's recoveries in Brood War, I asked for demonstrations of his recovery in Wings of Liberty and nothing was provided that I couldn't equally easily dismiss. You're using different standards to determine whether Mengsk's recoveries in Brood War or Wings of Liberty are absurd.

I'm beginning to suspect that you are not going to accept any argument as relevant, whatever we say.

You get a briefing that downplays the threat they might pose, says Duke's and Fenix's armies combined versus a surprise Zerg attack is pretty much a foregone conclusion, and that Kerrigan considers Fenix to be more of a threat than Mengsk would be without Duke, yet you still argue that it means the Dominion is as strong (even with respect to the other Terran) as he was during episode 5, where it took the UED two full levels to conquer Korhal.

Again, Kerrigan has downplayed every threat, including Tassadar, Zeratul, the Templar, the Dark Templar, the UED and the Dominion. In fact, let's compare Kerrigan's dialogue in To Chain the Beast to Mengsk's in Omega:

Kerrigan: You see, Admiral... there are a number of groups in this sector who feel that your involvement here causes certain complications. My associates and I intend to make sure that your reign is short lived.
Mengsk:: I called in a few favors. Made a few concessions. You'd be surprised to see how many special interest groups in this sector want to see you dead.

Kerrigan: Ah, you're referring to your vaunted Psi Disrupter. It won't last you forever, Admiral. Sooner or later, I'll destroy it. Then I'll show you what the Zerg are really capable of.
Mengsk: Just remember that I'll be out there... waiting for you to slip up. Because sooner or later you'll make a mistake. And when you do...

Eerily similar, isn't it? Do you also believe that Kerrigan was in an irrecoverable position at the end of The Iron Fist?

Then you disregard that the rag-tag fleet Mengsk uses for his final push appears to be (more or less...) on par with the remainder of the UED fleet after Korhal and Char. The briefing is not very specific, but none of the fleets appeared to be overwhelmingly larger than the others. A large part of Arcturus' fleet comes from groups that were not particularly sympathetic to the Dominion, to whom he had to make concessions, and it all made less than half of the army which would give Kerrigan pause but fail to defeat her. Despite surprise.
... and yet you get from this that he is blatantly as much of a threat as he was two campaigns before?

Yes, let's look at this rag-tag fleet which is on par with the remainder of the UED... Here's what that fleet looks like... after it has been defeated in Omega. Which means that Mengsk bought himself a much larger fleet in a matter of days or weeks, and still has something comparable after Omega, in his allegedly irrecoverable state. The fact that it cannot threaten the Zerg is irrelevant, the Zerg are infinitely powerful starting with Brood War. What you need to demonstrate is that this feat somehow makes him too weak to rule the Dominion.

Hell, if Ragnarok's claim that the Dominion only had 50 Battlecruisers by the invasion of Char in Wings of Liberty is accurate, then you've clearly inverted which recoveries are sane or not.

You are entitled to your own opinion. If you still don't agree with us, fine, let's agree to disagree. What I find unreasonnable is the claim that you were not given any evidence.

I have not been given any evidence that Mengsk's recovery in Wings of Liberty is less credible than his recoveries in Brood War. When I provide evidence of the absurdity of Mengsk's recoveries in Brood War, it gets refuted, and when you provide evidence of the absurdity of Mengsk's recoveries in Wings of Liberty, I refute it as well.

[ragnarok]

Hell, if Ragnarok's claim that the Dominion only had 50 Battlecruisers by the invasion of Char in Wings of Liberty is accurate, then you've clearly inverted which recoveries are sane or not.

THAT is about the only part I felt was SEVERELY flawed in the Flashpoint novel that Christie Golden wrote.

The swarm's population on Char was over 10 billion. Sure, Kerrigan scattered plenty of them across the sector to look for the Xel'Naga relics, but still.

You'd have to still expect at least 3 to 4 billion on Char by the time of the invasion. A force of 25 battlecruisers would be useless against that. Hell, given that much Zerg, you'd need at least 2500 battlecruisers or something to have a good chance.

[Turalyon]

I was actually worried that I was getting annoying and going to ask if you guys wanted me to just drop it

Not to me. I'm not in it to argue for arguments sake, only to challenge assertions and gain better understanding. I think by now you, of all people, would be assured to have a solid opinion that is worth listening to. It's just trying to understand where it's coming from is the tricky part.

You're correct that I consider the Zerg shifting from defeated on Aiur to infinitely powerful to be a similar issue, but that's also pretty clearly a retcon.

Curious. Had WoL never seen the light of day, in what state did you think Mengsk ended up in at the end of BW? Did you think that his accumulated losses had any significant consequence at all?

The overpoweredness of the Zerg in BW, to me, is really only self-evident and sinks in after the exodus of Aiur. That first mission in The Stand is reasonable in the sense that everything is in disarray and that there are no clear indicators there (aside from the requisite gameplay-story segregation issue of the Zerg only seemingly waiting and gunning for your units most of the time) that the Zerg are overpowered in the sense that they weren't affected by the Overmind's death.

With WoL, we do not even get an indication that Mengsk suffered at all. You say that BW is worthless on it's own because everything is undone by the end which is debatable because one can argue the same case for Sc1 when looking at that just by itself ("Man, what a waste of time that Overmind campaign was because it gets killed in the end and the Zerg are repelled"). It could have gone either way. WoL was an opportunity to look at possible consequences of BW, but instead it immediately sweeps any possible significance it could have had under a rug.

But I do think I've expressed frequently why I feel that Mengsk's earlier comebacks are absurd, the whole 4/13 Terran worlds, being deposed by the UED, being abandoned in the ashes of his empire by Kerrigan, yet always popping back up as a threat.

Do you also consider Raynor's "comeback" (where did his army come from?) in Eye of the Storm absurd after being crushed in Agent of the Swarm and being somewhat alone in The Hunt for Tassadar? Afterall, like Mengsk, Raynor can only draw from a smaller pool of Terran worlds now and worse, he doesn't have access to other resources like Mengsk.

I consider those to be equally implausible as Mengsk's big comeback in Wings of Liberty, where he certainly comes back stronger, but also doesn't do it in the span of a few weeks. But you think his comeback in Wings is problematic, while those in Brood War are not, and I want to know what the difference is.

You haven't articulated exactly what it is but I'm starting to think that what you are railing against is actually similar to what I and the others are railing against in that it's about Mengsk's inherent/potential capability or rather, where the conceit of his capability begins/ends. The difference being that you're starting point is with the notion that the Terran force, such as it is by the end of Sc1, has no real further/future potential making any possibility of Mengsk coming back from any fall of grace at all unrealistic whereas I/the others seem to be starting off with the notion that the Terrans still have some level of inherent/potential capability (by the end of Sc1) that Mengsk can potentially tap into but becomes exhausted and/or closed off over time (throughout BW). Am I right so far? Does this clarify our position a bit more?

favours and concessions are only worth something because of the power, authority and influence Mengsk wields, and the expectation that he will continue to wields them.

An expectation that gets shattered when he loses. We must not forget that there has to be some consequence for his constant failures, of which this is the latest (and last one). Sure he came back twice, but he wasn't exactly in the same position as he was each time he came back. Or is it that irrelevant to you? I don't see how one can disregard that.

What power, authority and influence can possibly wield when he's only been "in office" for a few months and still coming to grips with forming a system of government? Not only that, Mengsk has been shown to "buy" things, such as Duke's (he's a general for God's sake) loyalty, due to his propensity to manipulate others by instilling the fear of something comparatively greater as the alternative to his way. He was doing this to Kerrigan and Raynor the whole time and he could do this without the actual power and influence one would associates with those who would be in legitimate positions of power over Terran affairs.

Besides, we only have Mengsk's words to go by. I know I'm really stretching and going into hypotheticals here when I say this, but these "special interest groups" may have only lent him the fleet in the hopes that he would be killed trying to tackle on the Zerg. He's failed to attack the Zerg on previous attempts through Duke in Sc1 and has been handed military defeats by the UED and Kerrigan in BW. We know that anyone can try their hands at propaganda (the UED for example), so how can we be sure that these groups don't know this and want Mengsk to fall on his sword? Even if Mengsk did destroy the common threat that is the Zerg, it was with their forces. They may take orders from Mengsk for the mission at hand but are they loyal only to Mengsk in other respects? Are we expected to think that there aren't other schemers other than Mengsk out there? Who knows?

There's never any evidence that other Terran groups are better off than he is at the end

But we can take this either way. Did the other Terran groups also suffer similar devastating setbacks as Mengsk? Maybe not, if they can lend such a fleet to Mengsk. Even if they were at a lower level prior to BW, they would be on a more equal footing (the gap would've closed considerably at the least) as Mengsk by the end of BW which would have made life difficult for him in order to establish his power over all Terrans, let alone have time to improve on it.

the epilogue tells us that Mengsk slunk back home to rebuild his empire, and Wings shows us that this is exactly what he did.

So what? It also says Raynor disappeared and no-one ever heard of him since but in the 5 years he made a name for himself fighting Mengsk as shown in WoL. It's not the only time something intimated in an epilogue only to be proved false later when Sc1 ends with Protoss victory only for BW to go on and say otherwise. You can't use the later installment as as backward justification for something that could've just as easily turned out to be the opposite at the time (just as BW did to Sc1 in terms of Zerg power).

That Mengsk came back is exactly what one should have expected from the end of Brood War, that he did is not absurd, merely the scale at which he did - and if we're only talking about scale, then the fact that he was able to leverage four surviving worlds into building 'the most heavily fortified city in Dominion space' and becoming a considerable threat to the UED in just a few months, or the fact that he bargained his way from sitting in the ashes of his empire to commanding one of the most powerful fleets around in a few days or weeks is equally absurd.

You may have something with regards to the UED's threat assessment of Mengsk but consider the following questions. Can we consider 'the most heavily fortified city in Dominion space' to be relative to what is possible with only four remaining worlds? How much of a threat is Mengsk relative to the UED's main mission of eliminating the aliens? Should we expect the UED to treat all potential threats, no matter how small, seriously? If so, then this doesn't really speak much of Mengsk's power at all. One could say that the UED attacked Mengsk first because it was potentially the easiest task to complete first.

As to his bargaining ability, well, I've mentioned something about that in my response to your previous statement above. The conceit of Mengsk's character is that he has a silver tongue and that he can bluff well even with a poor hand/position. Also, we don't know if there are any additional strings to his new-found power in Omega, he's not openly going to admit that.

The fact that the Protoss have a fleet comparable to Mengsk's is a sign of Mengsk's recovery, but not a sign of the Protoss' - the difference in power between the Protoss and the Terrans at the beginning of StarCraft is immense, with Tassadar sparing Confederate fleets out of mercy. The fact that they are now of comparable strength either means that the Terrans are incredibly stronger now, or that the Protoss are far weaker, or a little bit of both.

You make a good point but that's not the point I was making. I'm not talking about comparisons (which are iffy to do at the best of times), I'm talking only about the Protoss. The force presented by Artanis appears to be one of their biggest showings so far and this is after having both their homeworlds almost expunged of all life! It seems like a miraculous recovery with no apparent reasoning behind it at all. Do you consider this absurd? By the same token, is this scenario any less absurd than Mengsk's situation? You should complain about this, too!

he's still the strongest Terran around unless there's evidence that the other Terran factions didn't suffer.

Can you really attribute Mengsk's display of strength in Omega as being solely his own when it really wasn't his to begin with? The fleet is the measure of his power, but it wasn't his in the first place. The conceit is that Mengsk can come from a position of relative weakness to a position of relative strength here due to him bargaining on something that other parties are interested in (that is, the ending of the Zerg threat/killling Kerrigan). They are investing on Mengsk to do something. He fails in this venture which closes this avenue for him to exploit again and also makes his most back-to-basics tactics unreliable now. He gambled big time by making such promises and concessions and he lost, he won't be in a position for a do-over and has nothing else (he can't promise to end the Zerg threat because he outrightly failed and he can't offer Dominion support/whatever because it's in ashes) to put on the table to wager.

You're using different standards to determine whether Mengsk's recoveries in Brood War or Wings of Liberty are absurd.

How? We've attempted to preface Mengsk's recoveries in BW as being not-absurd to highlight the apparent absurdity of his recovery in WoL.

[FanaticTemplar]

Curious. Had WoL never seen the light of day, in what state did you think Mengsk ended up in at the end of BW? Did you think that his accumulated losses had any significant consequence at all?

As I pointed out elsewhere, the last things we hear about Mengsk in Brood War is that he's promising Kerrigan that this isn't over and he'll get her next time, and the epilogue narration promises that Mengsk would rebuild the Dominion, so sure, I was pretty much expecting Mengsk to continue being the leader of the most powerful human faction. The problem with the ending of Brood War with regards to making Mengsk weak is that there's nobody to make him weaker than. Sure, he's weaker than the Zerg, but that doesn't mean anything. Omega explicitly places him alongside the UED and the Protoss, and is there anything in the games at this point that suggests there might be another group more powerful than these? The UED gets completely annihilated by Kerrigan, but I at no point figured that Mengsk and Artanis would be weakened to irrelevance in the sequel. There's no one else to take their place.

That's what I mean when I say that his weakness is relative. He gets weaker than he was at the beginning of Brood War, but so is everyone else except the infinitely powerful Zerg. But so long as he's still the strongest Terran around, there's no reason to remove him as the head of the Dominion (especially since he serves such a valuable narrative role as an antagonist commanding one of the game's three races - this is something that looks to become especially problematic after Heart of the Swarm with Good Prince Valerian and Hearty Kerrigan and Artanis commanding the three races).

As to how much he's recovered, I never denied that it was absurd, but StarCraft is a war game, so the characters need to have access to vast military forces. A slow recovery would age our human characters to death, and not inflicting significant damage would lower the stakes of the story. That's why I compare it to Mengsk's rebounds in Brood War - every time he pops back up, he needs to have the power to threaten the player, even if a few days or weeks ago he was 'abandoned in the ashes of his empire', now he's commanding a massive fleet.

The overpoweredness of the Zerg in BW, to me, is really only self-evident and sinks in after the exodus of Aiur. That first mission in The Stand is reasonable in the sense that everything is in disarray and that there are no clear indicators there (aside from the requisite gameplay-story segregation issue of the Zerg only seemingly waiting and gunning for your units most of the time) that the Zerg are overpowered in the sense that they weren't affected by the Overmind's death.

Well, the epilogue of StarCraft is pretty clearly saying that the Zerg on Aiur have been defeated, but it's true that in that first mission they don't yet appear to be infinitely powerful. But the rest of The Stand does that.

With WoL, we do not even get an indication that Mengsk suffered at all. You say that BW is worthless on it's own because everything is undone by the end which is debatable because one can argue the same case for Sc1 when looking at that just by itself ("Man, what a waste of time that Overmind campaign was because it gets killed in the end and the Zerg are repelled"). It could have gone either way. WoL was an opportunity to look at possible consequences of BW, but instead it immediately sweeps any possible significance it could have had under a rug.

The comparison to the original StarCraft is invalid. The status quo at the end of StarCraft is immensely different than it was at the beginning: humanity has encountered alien races, had most of its planets devastated by them, overthrown a corrupt, tyrannical government and instated a new one, the Swarm has been broken and defeated, a new Zerg creature unlike any other is prepared to ascend in the vacuum of the Overmind's death, the Protoss who had reigned undisputed for all of their history were humbled and brought low, the sacred authority of the Conclave was repudiated, the Dark Templar were welcomed back to Aiur, and that planet is also in ruins. None of this is derived from Brood War, it's a difference from the status quo established by the manual and that from the epilogue.

Do you also consider Raynor's "comeback" (where did his army come from?) in Eye of the Storm absurd after being crushed in Agent of the Swarm and being somewhat alone in The Hunt for Tassadar? Afterall, like Mengsk, Raynor can only draw from a smaller pool of Terran worlds now and worse, he doesn't have access to other resources like Mengsk.

Yes, of course. Even when I first played StarCraft in 1998 I realised that Raynor's fleet of Battlecruisers was completely ridiculous. It might even be the most insane of them all.

You haven't articulated exactly what it is but I'm starting to think that what you are railing against is actually similar to what I and the others are railing against in that it's about Mengsk's inherent/potential capability or rather, where the conceit of his capability begins/ends. The difference being that you're starting point is with the notion that the Terran force, such as it is by the end of Sc1, has no real further/future potential making any possibility of Mengsk coming back from any fall of grace at all unrealistic whereas I/the others seem to be starting off with the notion that the Terrans still have some level of inherent/potential capability (by the end of Sc1) that Mengsk can potentially tap into but becomes exhausted and/or closed off over time (throughout BW). Am I right so far? Does this clarify our position a bit more?

Sure.

An expectation that gets shattered when he loses. We must not forget that there has to be some consequence for his constant failures, of which this is the latest (and last one). Sure he came back twice, but he wasn't exactly in the same position as he was each time he came back. Or is it that irrelevant to you? I don't see how one can disregard that.

I don't see why losing in Omega would cause Mengsk to be deposed. It is by far the least significant of his defeats, being an attack on foreign space from which he retreated with a number of his forces still intact, compared to the devastation of 9/13 Terran worlds or both invasions of Korhal. Losing a battle does not cause you to forfeit your dictatorial authority...

What power, authority and influence can possibly wield when he's only been "in office" for a few months and still coming to grips with forming a system of government? Not only that, Mengsk has been shown to "buy" things, such as Duke's (he's a general for God's sake) loyalty, due to his propensity to manipulate others by instilling the fear of something comparatively greater as the alternative to his way. He was doing this to Kerrigan and Raynor the whole time and he could do this without the actual power and influence one would associates with those who would be in legitimate positions of power over Terran affairs.

Pretty much all of the UED campaign clearly suggests that Mengsk has the governance of the Dominion in firm control. What power, authority and influence can he offer? Deregulations, subsidies, protectionism, pardons, legal exemptions, hell, he can sell one of Mar Sara's moons if he likes. And of course, you can only be assured that these things will remain binding if Mengsk remains in power.

Besides, we only have Mengsk's words to go by. I know I'm really stretching and going into hypotheticals here when I say this, but these "special interest groups" may have only lent him the fleet in the hopes that he would be killed trying to tackle on the Zerg. He's failed to attack the Zerg on previous attempts through Duke in Sc1 and has been handed military defeats by the UED and Kerrigan in BW. We know that anyone can try their hands at propaganda (the UED for example), so how can we be sure that these groups don't know this and want Mengsk to fall on his sword? Even if Mengsk did destroy the common threat that is the Zerg, it was with their forces. They may take orders from Mengsk for the mission at hand but are they loyal only to Mengsk in other respects? Are we expected to think that there aren't other schemers other than Mengsk out there? Who knows?

Yeah, I'd still need you to demonstrate that these forces were "lent" .

But we can take this either way. Did the other Terran groups also suffer similar devastating setbacks as Mengsk? Maybe not, if they can lend such a fleet to Mengsk. Even if they were at a lower level prior to BW, they would be on a more equal footing (the gap would've closed considerably at the least) as Mengsk by the end of BW which would have made life difficult for him in order to establish his power over all Terrans, let alone have time to improve on it.

Sure, that might be possible, but if you're claiming a contradiction the burden of proof is on you.

So what? It also says Raynor disappeared and no-one ever heard of him since but in the 5 years he made a name for himself fighting Mengsk as shown in WoL. It's not the only time something intimated in an epilogue only to be proved false later when Sc1 ends with Protoss victory only for BW to go on and say otherwise. You can't use the later installment as as backward justification for something that could've just as easily turned out to be the opposite at the time (just as BW did to Sc1 in terms of Zerg power).

No, but you're saying that Wings of Liberty contradicts Brood War's final status quo... that the epilogue established this status quo isn't evidence that Wings of Liberty would respect it... but the fact that it did is evidence that there is no contradiction.

You may have something with regards to the UED's threat assessment of Mengsk but consider the following questions. Can we consider 'the most heavily fortified city in Dominion space' to be relative to what is possible with only four remaining worlds? How much of a threat is Mengsk relative to the UED's main mission of eliminating the aliens? Should we expect the UED to treat all potential threats, no matter how small, seriously? If so, then this doesn't really speak much of Mengsk's power at all. One could say that the UED attacked Mengsk first because it was potentially the easiest task to complete first.

Mengsk was enough of a threat that DuGalle deemed it preferable to destroy the Psi Disrupter rather than risk it falling into Mengsk's hands, and was willing to invade Aiur ahead of schedule for the sole purpose of killing Mengsk. That implies significance.

You make a good point but that's not the point I was making. I'm not talking about comparisons (which are iffy to do at the best of times), I'm talking only about the Protoss. The force presented by Artanis appears to be one of their biggest showings so far and this is after having both their homeworlds almost expunged of all life! It seems like a miraculous recovery with no apparent reasoning behind it at all. Do you consider this absurd? By the same token, is this scenario any less absurd than Mengsk's situation? You should complain about this, too!

You seem to be have misunderstood the situation. I'm cont complaining about Mengsk's crazy comebacks. As I've said, this is a necessity of the game. However, people complained that Mengsk's comeback in Wings of Liberty demonstrated that the writers never even cared about consistency in StarCraft II and I pointed out that Mengsk bouncing back implausibly is consistent with Brood War. I feel like I'm pretty consistent in all this: I'm not upset about Mengsk's comeback in Wings of Liberty, I'm not upset about his comebacks in Brood War. If you think the Protoss fleet in Omega is a comeback, I'm not upset about it either. I'm upset about the Zerg following StarCraft, but it's not because they came back (as you said, the epilogue's mention of Kerrigan made that comeback pretty much inevitable) but because they were given infinite power (I'm not using 'infinite' as hyperbole, by the way, I have not seen evidence that there are any combinations of factors which can cause the Zerg to lose) in contradiction to their loss. But you're upset about Mengsk's comeback in Wings of Liberty, but not with the others, and I wonder why.

Can you really attribute Mengsk's display of strength in Omega as being solely his own when it really wasn't his to begin with? The fleet is the measure of his power, but it wasn't his in the first place. The conceit is that Mengsk can come from a position of relative weakness to a position of relative strength here due to him bargaining on something that other parties are interested in (that is, the ending of the Zerg threat/killling Kerrigan). They are investing on Mengsk to do something. He fails in this venture which closes this avenue for him to exploit again and also makes his most back-to-basics tactics unreliable now. He gambled big time by making such promises and concessions and he lost, he won't be in a position for a do-over and has nothing else (he can't promise to end the Zerg threat because he outrightly failed and he can't offer Dominion support/whatever because it's in ashes) to put on the table to wager.

Again, I don't understand this assertion that Mengsk's fleet was "not his".

How? We've attempted to preface Mengsk's recoveries in BW as being not-absurd to highlight the apparent absurdity of his recovery in WoL.

I don't feel you've accurately described the difference in absurdity between the two. Mengsk gets himself a new fleet in Omega and you assert that it's fine because he basically had to sell his kidneys for it (despite not having evidence for that) but then assert that having trillions to spend on (allegedly) hunting Raynor is absurd. He leverages to resources of four surviving worlds in the aftermath of massive planetary genocides to turn his favourite city into a superfortress in a matter of months and you're fine with that, but then you tell me that 'beautifying' that city in the subsequent five years of peace is absurd. I just don't see the big difference here.

[Telenil]

All right, wall of text incoming.

Again, Kerrigan has downplayed every threat, including Tassadar, Zeratul, the Templar, the Dark Templar, the UED and the Dominion. In fact, let's compare Kerrigan's dialogue in To Chain the Beast to Mengsk's in Omega:

Kerrigan: You see, Admiral... there are a number of groups in this sector who feel that your involvement here causes certain complications. My associates and I intend to make sure that your reign is short lived.
Mengsk:: I called in a few favors. Made a few concessions. You'd be surprised to see how many special interest groups in this sector want to see you dead.

Kerrigan: Ah, you're referring to your vaunted Psi Disrupter. It won't last you forever, Admiral. Sooner or later, I'll destroy it. Then I'll show you what the Zerg are really capable of.
Mengsk: Just remember that I'll be out there... waiting for you to slip up. Because sooner or later you'll make a mistake. And when you do...

Eerily similar, isn't it? Do you also believe that Kerrigan was in an irrecoverable position at the end of The Iron Fist?

With all due respect, this reasonning is wrong.

Kerrigan doesn't downplays Tassadar as much as she underestimates him. She honestly believed she would beat him, and only after Zasz dies does she realise that she was stronger than that (exact quote, "I shouldn't have understimated him so"). She arguably downplays Zeratul in her "my stare alone" monologue, but in the end she calls him a "formidable opponent" in ZergX09.

And she does not underplay the UED, not until the Overmind has been taken down and she had practically won the war. The dialog you've shown acknowledges that the Psi Disruptor can thwart her plans. She does not deny DuGalle's assertion that the disruptor will make it difficult, her argument is instead "I'll destroy it somehow, some day, and then you will see what happens".

Duran and Kerrigan both call the psi disruptor a "very serious problem", and they are the same characters who correctly assess that the Dominion "base of operation" at Augustgrad and Fenix's army will both fall easily to them. Kerrigan calls the UED forces on Char "the only significant threat to me" (right before she says Arcturus is going to be easy...), and then again in ZergX08 "we can expect the UED to provide us with heavy resistance, but not even they can stand in our way".
Most of your refutation so far boils down to "Kerrigan doesn't mean what she says when she describes her enemy", and the fact that you are arguing against the letter of the briefing already makes the claim that we have "no evidence" problematic. You can refute evidence, but it is not the same as not being given any.

Yes, let's look at this rag-tag fleet which is on par with the remainder of the UED... Here's what that fleet looks like... after it has been defeated in Omega. Which means that Mengsk bought himself a much larger fleet in a matter of days or weeks, and still has something comparable after Omega, in his allegedly irrecoverable state. The fact that it cannot threaten the Zerg is irrelevant, the Zerg are infinitely powerful starting with Brood War. What you need to demonstrate is that this feat somehow makes him too weak to rule the Dominion.

Hell, if Ragnarok's claim that the Dominion only had 50 Battlecruisers by the invasion of Char in Wings of Liberty is accurate, then you've clearly inverted which recoveries are sane or not.

I have not been given any evidence that Mengsk's recovery in Wings of Liberty is less credible than his recoveries in Brood War. When I provide evidence of the absurdity of Mengsk's recoveries in Brood War, it gets refuted, and when you provide evidence of the absurdity of Mengsk's recoveries in Wings of Liberty, I refute it as well.

Once more, with feeling:
You are arguing that, though absurd, the Dominion recovery is not particularly more unbelievable than in Brood War, where you say Mengsk recovered / bounced back time and time again. I argue that Mengsk did not in fact recover, and that the Dominion military becomes significantly weaker after Emperor's Fall, and then weaker again after True Colors.

Mengsk is left with weak forces at the end of Emperor's Fall, as evidenced by Kerrigan's "the only thing I can promise you is that without my help, you will Emperor of your eight-by-eight cell for the rest of your life", and although the phrase can be exaggerated by the irony, Arcturus agrees more than he denies.

Then comes True Colors. After Arcturus has re-conquered Augustgrad, she takes some time to recapitulate and calls the UED the "only significant threat to her". She names Fenix and Raynor as people tht may become problematic later on, as opposed to Mengsk, who she says will be "easy to deal with" without Duke. Then Duran points out that the defenses of both factions will be "relatively easy" to "whittle down" by a surprise attack. This is as opposed to the UED campaign as it can be, where the full might of the UED fleet still considered Mengsk's forces as "substantial" after the previous level has crippled part of his defenses.

Thus, Emperor's Fall has clearly collapsed the Dominion military power, which is far from having recovered by the middle of the Zerg campaign.

Then comes Omega. Kerrigan is alarmed by the size of the army that approaches her stronghold, about a third of which is forces under Arcturus' command. However, this fleet is only partly made of Dominion soldiers: when a surprised Kerrigan answers how Arcturus managed to gather yet another fleet, he explains that plenty of people that were not supporters of the Dominion ("special interest groups", "your new friends") were willing to join him against Kerrigan - indeed, even his arch-nemesis DuGalle is willing to cooperate with him at point. It could be argued that rallying such a coalition would make the Dominion stronger, but these groups still followed their own interests, as evidenced by the fact that Arcturus had to "call in a few favours, make a few concessions". He didn't buy this fleet as much as he was trusted to lead the coalition that might defeat the Zerg. This is also how Kerrigan understands it, and she immediately replies "I'm sorry to have to disappoint your new friends".
Then Arcturus says that he will still be out there and wait for Kerrigan to make a mistake, as does Artanis (which, if I understood correctly, did not make you expect a massive a Protoss buildup after Brood War). The epilogue describes the fleet Arcturus lead as "rag-tag", which is again radically different from the way the UED portrayed the Dominion defenses during the invasion of Korhal. Then the text proceeds to describe how Arcturus is going to "plan the reconstruction of his Terran Dominion", which means exactly "the Dominion has yet to be rebuilt".

Therefore, Arcturus and the Dominion still have not recovered from their defeats at the time of Omega. The fleet Mengsk brings against Kerrigan is a combined effort of Dominion survivors and the various factions that were previously hostile to him, but were convinced by concessions he made to let him lead the battle against their common enemy. Then that battle was lost.

If I had to argue against my own side, a more pertinent argument would be that since the fleet led by the Dominion was not, in fact, an actual Dominion force, then Arcturus' military position compared to other Terran might be better at the end of Omega than it was before the battle. But this is quite different from "Arcturus made insane and unbelievable recoveries all over Brood War".