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

[Visions of Khas]

WALL OF TEXT.

I thoroughly entertaining and enlightening dissection of detail, Telenil.

[ragnarok]

I thoroughly entertaining and enlightening dissection of detail, Telenil.

You were supposed to put the part of him being tazered, VoK....

[FanaticTemplar]

All right, wall of text incoming.

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.

You choose to interpret Mengsk being too dangerous to allow to live as Mengsk not being a threat, and Kerrigan promising that she'll crush the UED as treating them as a threat. And you say I'm arguing against the letter of the briefing? You haven't addressed the similarity of their declarations. I assume that while you are completely fine with taking Kerrigan at her word and I am just being stubborn by doubting her, you'd have issue with taking Mengsk at his word when he promises that he'll be capable of dealing with Kerrigan the moment she slips up? What about when the omniscient narration promises that Mengsk is planning to rebuild the Terran Dominion?

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.

I still can't believe you accuse me of "arguing against the letter of the briefing" and then try to pull this off. The text of the briefing is: "Now that the UED's power base is broken on this world, only their forces on Char pose any significant threat to me." The subject of the sentence is the UED. She is saying that after having eliminated the UED forces on Korhal, the only forces the UED have that can pose a significant threat to her are those on Char. She is not saying that there are no other forces that can threaten her besides the UED, especially not those of her allies, since the very next thing that happens is that Duran changes the subject by bringing up those same allies.

Kerrigan says that without her Mengsk will only be the Emperor of his own cell, and you take that as agreement from Mengsk, ignoring that Mengsk himself said that with time, he would overthrow the UED. But more importantly, you pretend that the fact that after being deposed he is incapable of overcoming the UED without Kerrigan's help is evidence that Mengsk is substantially weaker, ignoring the fact that Mengsk wasn't able to overcome the UED before he was deposed, as evidenced by the fact that he was deposed at all. Thus all you have demonstrated is that being deposed by the UED hasn't made him stronger.

You point out that Kerrigan says Mengsk will be easy to deal with after his army on Korhal is wiped out and Duke is killed, and try to spin that as Kerrigan thinking that Mengsk is easy to deal with before that happens, and ignore the fact that Brood War proves that she was wrong by making Mengsk a threat for her to deal with again in Omega.

You compare the UED considering Mengsk's forces substantial when he is entrenched in Augustgrad to Kerrigan thinking his army can be whittled down with relative ease by stabbing them in the back while they sleep and treat this as evidence of a decrease in power, completely ignoring the situation and forgetting that even after Mengsk was overthrown the UED still call him a considerable threat.

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.

Stop. "Calling in favours" is not synonymous with "temporarily borrow". Neither is "making a few concessions". In fact, one would generally expect the very opposite.

But hey, you want to use that quote? Go ahead. Does Mengsk sound like this was expensive for him? Does it sound like he's run out of favours to call? Does it sound like there are no more concessions to make? No, of course not. He didn't even have to make a lot of concessions. Purchasing this fleet was trivially easy for him. The reason he mentions that a lot of people want to see her dead is because that fact made buying his fleet even easier.

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".

"Rag-tag" means disorganised, eclectic, untidy, etc. Since we know he purchased his fleet from diverse groups, this is not a problem, nor is it evidence of anything. I'm not sure what your point is in saying that the Dominion has yet to be rebuilt, that's not relevant. What is relevant is that it establishes what Mengsk will be doing in the future. And now that the future is out, we know that the epilogue was right.

[Gradius]

"Hatching from eggs" is not a free process, despite what you pretend: "Even the Zerg require Minerals to harden their carapaces and develop strong teeth and bones/The Zerg have adapted to use raw Vespene as a source of nourishment to drive their highly accelerated metabolisms." The Zerg require the same resources Terrans need to build Battlecruisers.

Except those resources are extremely easy to get and can be found on every planet. Humans and Protoss however can't be spawned from minerals.

She also said "My stare alone would reduce you to ashes". Mengsk, on the other hand, says "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..." Clearly, Mengsk was correct. So again, entirely consistent with Brood War.

Because of the magic "I win" button? How is that an argument? Nobody could have predicted that MacGuffin. Mengsk was getting spanked when Kerrigan invaded his worlds, and she'd have rolled over him easily if not for the artifact.

If you assume that they started out equal, which is contrary to evidence. The Kel-Morian Combine was brought to heel in the Guild Wars and was never allowed to recover. The Dominion lost more, but they had more to lose.

Germany was brought to heel in WW1. Didn't stop them from being a threat in WW2. One of the richest factions in the sector should be able to not suck so bad. And I never said they started equal.

Her opinion was wrong. The reality of the invasion make that clear.

"We will lose countless drop pods in the opening moments."

"We're sending millions. If only a fraction get through, it will be enough"

Where were the orbital defenses in BW? I mean, I can keep going, but how exactly can you claim that Korhal was harder to destroy in BW when it was a one-mission ordeal, not an entire campaign?

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.

You have not provided any evidence that Mengsk made any recoveries in BW.

See how easy that was? From my point of view, we're the ones providing all the evidence, and you're handwaiving it away while providing none of your own. How about we stop accusing each other of not having evidence? :P

What about when the omniscient narration promises that Mengsk is planning to rebuild the Terran Dominion?

He can do that. He can go back to Sons of Korhal status. But he can't domineer over all other factions in SC2...

Personally I've always treated his desire to rebuild the Dominion after BW as one of his megalomaniac delusions.

Stop. "Calling in favours" is not synonymous with "temporarily borrow". Neither is "making a few concessions". In fact, one would generally expect the very opposite.

But hey, you want to use that quote? Go ahead. Does Mengsk sound like this was expensive for him? Does it sound like he's run out of favours to call? Does it sound like there are no more concessions to make? No, of course not. He didn't even have to make a lot of concessions. Purchasing this fleet was trivially easy for him. The reason he mentions that a lot of people want to see her dead is because that fact made buying his fleet even easier.

"Losing a battle does not cause you to forfeit your dictatorial authority..."

Tell me the last time a dictator had to "call in favors" or "make concessions" to use his military. Mengsk has lost control of his government and now has to bribe desperate "diverse groups".

Brood War proves that she was wrong by making Mengsk a threat for her to deal with again in Omega.

No, he's not. The bulk of Kerrigan's forces were stated to be on the surface of Char. Again, it was a 3v1 against one Cerebrate, who won anyway. At no point was Mengsk a threat. Same with the UED and Protoss, both of whom just got decimated. It's also a fallacy to say that Mengsk's fleet was as large as the other two factions in Omega. That's purely an argument from gameplay and even if it was true, the fleets aren't Dominion, so you can in no way prove that he "recovered".

UED - don't have any troops to draw on in the k-sector. The defeat of their fleet spelled the end for them.
Protoss - their military force is depleted, but they have multiple worlds to draw from (presumably), and a recovery by SC2 is possible. Kind of like if you're playing a game of SC2, just lost your army in a huge battle, but are sitting on 3 bases ready to churn out a bunch of units from your warp gate.
Moria/Umoja - have been staying out of the fighting for all we know, and are in the best position to take advantage.
Mengsk - his fledgling government just failed miserably. He was just handed multiple losses. The whole reason for his Dominion's existence and his rise to power (protecting you from the scary aliens) is now utterly bunk.

[FanaticTemplar]

Except those resources are extremely easy to get and can be found on every planet. Humans and Protoss however can't be spawned from minerals.

Then they'll just have more Battlecruisers and fewer Marines, since the resources necessary to make Battlecruisers are extremely easy to get and can be found on every planet.

Because of the magic "I win" button? How is that an argument? Nobody could have predicted that MacGuffin. Mengsk was getting spanked when Kerrigan invaded his worlds, and she'd have rolled over him easily if not for the artifact.

Exactly my point. Just as you don't take Mengsk's word for it, I don't take Kerrigan's.

Germany was brought to heel in WW1. Didn't stop them from being a threat in WW2. One of the richest factions in the sector should be able to not suck so bad. And I never said they started equal.

Then provide evidence that the Kel-Morian Combine was a threat to Mengsk by the end of Brood War.

"We will lose countless drop pods in the opening moments."

"We're sending millions. If only a fraction get through, it will be enough"

Where were the orbital defenses in BW? I mean, I can keep going, but how exactly can you claim that Korhal was harder to destroy in BW when it was a one-mission ordeal, not an entire campaign?

Invading Korhal was a 2-mission deal in The Iron Fist (out of eight, or 25%) and a single-mission deal in Queen of Blades (out of ten, or 10%). It was a three-mission deal in Heart of the Swarm, but one of those was a self-imposed handicap, so it doesn't count. That leaves two missions, including the one because Mengsk pulls a magical deus ex machina out of his arse (I'm not counting destroying the Psi Disrupter as part of the invasion for Queen of Blades because it wasn't actually on Korhal and might be considered as part of the overall conflict against the UED) out of twenty (I'm not counting the evolution missions, because I am nothing if not fair) for... also 10%. Equally difficult as claiming it from the UED, much easier than taking it from Mengsk the first time, by that chosen metric.

You have not provided any evidence that Mengsk made any recoveries in BW.

See how easy that was? From my point of view, we're the ones providing all the evidence, and you're handwaiving it away while providing none of your own. How about we stop accusing each other of not having evidence? :P

Did you really think I'd allow you to come into power again? [...] I think I'll leave you here, Arcturus, among the ashes of your precious Dominion. I want you to live to see me rise to power.
How'd you manage to scrape up your new fleet?

I'm assuming that you mean I haven't demonstrated that Mengsk has made implausible recoveries in Brood War (because otherwise you're just flat out wrong), in which case you haven't provided evidence that he has made an implausible recovery in Wings of Liberty, and we're still left on an even footing. Because from my point of view, I'm the one providing all the evidence and you're just handwaving it away while producing none of your own.

However, you are the one asserting a contradiction. You have the burden of evidence. I am completely fine with asserting that neither Mengsk's recoveries in Brood War or Wings of Liberty are problematic, unless proven otherwise. Which, in dealing with a work of fiction, is the default assumption.

He can do that. He can go back to Sons of Korhal status. But he can't domineer over all other factions in SC2...

Personally I've always treated his desire to rebuild the Dominion after BW as one of his megalomaniac delusions.

Or he can not. We don't assume a contradiction until proven otherwise. For example, I don't assume that because Tassadar "could" have died during the battle of New Gettysburg, his future appearances contradict established lore.

"Losing a battle does not cause you to forfeit your dictatorial authority..."

Tell me the last time a dictator had to "call in favors" or "make concessions" to use his military. Mengsk has lost control of his government and now has to bribe desperate "diverse groups".

Hell, why stop at dictators? I can name you democratic governments that will make deals with military industrialists. And they aren't collapsing.

No, he's not.

Yes, he is. It happened because she couldn't commit the entirety of her forces to the battle, and he only provided a third of the forces to the battle, which is irrelevant: it still demonstrates that she was wrong when she said Mengsk would be easy to deal with. And it also proves that she was wrong when she said she wouldn't allow him to recover.

[Gradius]

Then they'll just have more Battlecruisers and fewer Marines, since the resources necessary to make Battlecruisers are extremely easy to get and can be found on every planet.

Are we really having this conversation? :P

Zerg don't have to pay their workers to mine minerals. Zerg don't have to worry about the workers rebelling or their conditions. Battlecruisers require a crew. Etc. etc. The zergs' military production is far more sustainable.

Exactly my point. Just as you don't take Mengsk's word for it, I don't take Kerrigan's.

Except Mengsk never said "I am going to rebuild the Dominion and lord over all other factions". He uttered a vague threat of "I'm going to get you back one day!" Whereas Kerrigan said "let's be real. this will be a very tough fight".

Then provide evidence that the Kel-Morian Combine was a threat to Mengsk by the end of Brood War.

"The Morians started off with their own supercarrier of people in the koprulu sector, and challenged the Confederacy during the Guild Wars.

The Confederacy was destroyed by Mengsk's psi emitters (9 of the 13 core worlds got wasted). That alone is enough to justify my argument. But then Mengsk got trashed by the UED and the Morians went back to working for themselves. Then Korhal got wrecked by Kerrigan. Then Kerrigan destroyed all of Mengsk's assets on Augustgrad again. Then Mengsk lost the puny remainders of whatever he had left at Omega.

In the meantime, Moria was attacked once for a mineral raid. So, tell me, who sounds like they're in a better position?"

^---it doesn't get any more blatant than that. If you think it's subjective, fine, just say so. But stop saying there's no evidence.

Did you really think I'd allow you to come into power again? [...] I think I'll leave you here, Arcturus, among the ashes of your precious Dominion. I want you to live to see me rise to power.

Yeah so? He might have come back into power if she left him there unharmed, which she didn't. Which proves that he shouldn't be in power during SC2. The Dominion is in ashes. This is evidence for my position, not yours.

How'd you manage to scrape up your new fleet?

It's his fleet but it's not the Dominion's fleet. If it was the Dominion's fleet he'd be able to summon it up like he's been doing all game, not have to make favors and concessions. Even you can agree that this is damn solid evidence that the Dominion is militarily bankrupt during Omega, yes?

I'm assuming that you mean I haven't demonstrated that Mengsk has made implausible recoveries in Brood War (because otherwise you're just flat out wrong), in which case you haven't provided evidence that he has made an implausible recovery in Wings of Liberty, and we're still left on an even footing. Because from my point of view, I'm the one providing all the evidence and you're just handwaving it away while producing none of your own.

If you want to ignore everything I wrote here sure: http://sclegacy.com/forums/showthrea...l=1#post182585

However, you are the one asserting a contradiction. You have the burden of evidence. I am completely fine with asserting that neither Mengsk's recoveries in Brood War or Wings of Liberty are problematic, unless proven otherwise. Which, in dealing with a work of fiction, is the default assumption.

Not true. You previously stated "If you want to say that Mengsk's recovery makes no sense, then I'll be right there agreeing with you. If you want to say it's inconsistent with Brood War, that's a different issue, because it is a problem established by Brood War". We've been asking you to explain what makes it consistent with BW, but you've failed to demonstrate that he made any miraculous recoveries in BW. In fact, you said "You've only demonstrated that Mengsk was weaker at the end of Brood War than he was at the beginning."

So...what exactly is your point? You agree with us about Wings of Liberty, but you claim that there's a double standard because the same thing goes on in BW itself. That would mean you think there's a contradiction in BW and that therefore the burden of evidence is on you. Not that that means anything. Burden of proof doesn't mean that one side is obligated to churn out facts and evidence until the other side finally finds something that it likes. The burden of proof shifts anytime something new is presented.

Hell, why stop at dictators? I can name you democratic governments that will make deals with military industrialists. And they aren't collapsing.

The arms industry doesn't sell troops.

Look, the logic can only go one of two ways here. Either the Dominion is so broke that it can't afford to pay for arms, or it can't afford to muster up troops. Otherwise, I'd love to hear your explanation for why Mengsk had to make concessions/favors instead of just ordering the Dominion fleet around like he's been doing all game. Saying "Everyone may have been beaten and broken by Kerrigan, but Mengsk is still the one-eyed man in the land of the blind" is not an answer. It's you conceding to the fact that the fleet doesn't belong to the Dominion.

Yes, he is. It happened because she couldn't commit the entirety of her forces to the battle, and he only provided a third of the forces to the battle, which is irrelevant: it still demonstrates that she was wrong when she said Mengsk would be easy to deal with. And it also proves that she was wrong when she said she wouldn't allow him to recover.

He was easy to deal with. One of her subordinates took care of that problem along with 2 others in one swoop. Even if the Cerebrate lost, it would have been nothing more than an inconvenience.

[ragnarok]

Are we really having this conversation? :P

Zerg don't have to pay their workers to mine minerals. Zerg don't have to worry about the workers rebelling or their conditions. Battlecruisers require a crew. Etc. etc. The zergs' military production is far more sustainable.

Oh please, what makes you think the Dominion does better? I'm more than sure a lot of the workers Mengsk employs is nothing more than slavery.

Except Mengsk never said "I am going to rebuild the Dominion and lord over all other factions". He uttered a vague threat of "I'm going to get you back one day!" Whereas Kerrigan said "let's be real. this will be a very tough fight".

Which is relatively vague and can be open to interpretation. Besides, if Mengsk didn't rebuild the Dominion, how WOULD he get her back someday?

Yeah so? He might have come back into power if she left him there unharmed, which she didn't. Which proves that he shouldn't be in power during SC2. The Dominion is in ashes. This is evidence for my position, not yours.

Kerrigan left Mengsk unharmed on Korhal itself to humiliate him. I'm not even sure Mengsk was actually WITH the fleet in the Omega battle....

Sure, I too agree Mengsk shouldn't have been in power. After those disasters, you can only manipulate the people so far. Mengsk continued to insist he was the only hope for humanity and if he died, the terrans in the sector wouldn't survive. But by the end of the Brood War, you'd think the majority of the Dominion people would have at least chosen to take that chance.

[Turalyon]

Telenil calls his a wall-of-text? He's got nothing on me.

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.

You were expecting this still even after BW upended what you thought was Protoss' victory at the end of Sc1?

As to you referencing "the last things we hear", I made a point about this about Raynor that you dismissed. He made promises and said stuff too you know... we know how well that turned out.

The problem with the ending of Brood War with regards to making Mengsk weak is that there's nobody to make him weaker than.

This I can support you on. However, that really isn't what I and the others are saying. Mengsk is becoming weaker in comparison to his previous comeback when you look at the context at each of his comebacks. Telenil has detailed that very well.

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.

I think most people would disagree here. This is actually a criticism levelled at BW in that by the end of it, it strongly intimates that all forces except Kerrigan are weakened into irrelevance and will eventually be wiped out altogther. It is also partly why WoL seems artificially propped and stilted in it's setting because it has to contrive a reason to prevent the inevitable outcome that BW's ending pushed/suggests (ie: all non-Zerg are effed).

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).

I get this, but by doing this we are relegating the whole of BW as being pointless because it whitewashes any impact the UED could have had. On reflection, I've gotten used to Mengsk's representation as being somewhat incompetent in BW but only as long as this characterisation was earnt and had consequence. By having things still go his way despite him actually being incompetent than he lets on is a slap in the face. It's also the reason why in Sc2, he is such a terribly conceived villain that it feels unjustified to waste two installments on him.

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.

I understand the conceit for this, but I fail to see why Mengsk has to be the villain of Sc2 given his track record.

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.

Right, so there was some acknowledgement that the Protoss victory came at a cost before the retcon took full affect. We don't even have the privilege of that in WoL. Mengsk from Sc1 can easily transition into his Sc2 representation without so much of a problem. The reason it is a problem, because like it or not, BW did happen and stuff happened to Mengsk in BW.

The comparison to the original StarCraft is invalid.

I was being somewhat facetious there, because I know that there really was massive changes in status quo. However, I'm pretty sure you relegate BW as being worthless for the same facetious logic I used (the UED came and went like a fart in the wind), when there was ample opportunity for status quo changing events. One of which being the high possibility of Mengsk becoming irrelevant.

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.

And yet we have WoL which starts off trying to explain that Raynor had been a thorn in Mengsk's side for years and only recently has he been losing. Can we use the same justification for Raynor's comeback in Sc1 to explain his reapperance in WoL? At what point does this become untenable for you?

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...

It does when it shake the foundations of one's already threadbare authority. You have to take into account, he has no Dominion to help repay damages and he has lost further face/reputation. Sure, you can't measure something as reputation but at this point, that's all Mengsk has and it's been tarnished. He is now in the most vulnerable part of his life than at any other previous time. Before he was the leader of the Sons of Korhal he enjoyed and could make use of anonymity to build his coalitions but now, he's overexposed and with his pants down.

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.

How can he realistically offer those when, at the time, he has no empire/Dominion? There's nothing against him promising and lying to those special interest groups that he can impart such privileges later, but he is not, at that specific time, in the position to give them this.

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

As soon as you provide evidence that the force he commands in Omega is actually representative of the Dominion.

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

Claiming implausibility possibly, not contradiction. Afterall, you and the others have used the same "evidence" to reach different conclusions - so much for evidence when it's up to interpretation.

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.

I'm trying to point out that using the epilogue as some undisputed/omniscient piece of evidence is shaky at best. That Mengsk goes off to rebuild the Dominion doesn't necessarily mean he can much like how Raynor disappeared didn't necessarily mean he did.

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.

Of course Mengsk is significant. They're treating him seriously but only because it's the first part of their plan. His significance took on another dimension when someone unlooked for happened to helped Mengsk escape at the eleventh hour. What was just a preparatory mission to get rid of a potential thorn in their side before the main event of subduing the alien became something unexpectedly more.

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.

That's because it's debatable that his comebacks in BW are implausible. Following from that, it's debatable that Mengsk can keeping continuing to plausibly comeback.

But you're upset about Mengsk's comeback in Wings of Liberty, but not with the others, and I wonder why.

One, because there is, in the absence of hard evidence, anecdotal evidence to suggest that Mengsk's comebacks in BW came with an ever increasing cost that he would be hard pressed to pay. My stance is a little bit softer than the other guys because I've mentioned earlier and elsewhere that I have no real qualms about Mengsk coming back either just that there is no acknowledgement of the hardship and continuation of ramifications from BW. And two, I haven't had the chance to complain about the other ones yet.

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

Someone who has the power to give someone else something does not mean that the person who was granted that thing has more power than original person who gave it to them in the first place. Especially so when the person doing the asking has nothing to give but promises in return.

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

No. He is able to wrangle the support of others out of nothing but his words because that's the conceit of his character. There is consistency there because he does this to Duke afterall. The price he pays is only once he loses the fleet because it destroys the conceit of his ability to sweet-talk anyone now. The spending of trillions is only absurd in the context that there's a discrepancy in the amount of power he has between his fall from grace in BW and in WoL where he now can spend so much on a triviality which implies he can probably spend quadrillions and more on things of real import to the Empire. It's like trying to explain the huge differences in population between Sc1 and Sc2 - it's actually quite possible but highly improbable.

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.

Not sure if I did say anything about turning his world into a superfortress really nor really thought about that being fine. I didn't even consider Augustgrad in BW to be that much of a deal probably because of the limitations of the game showing his "fortress" to be not much different/larger than any other outpost represented in other previous missions. The sparseness of that and the world itself being some nuclear desert/hostile looking didn't really help convey how powerful he was or that the world was occupied by any substantial civilian element. Even if it were not that, Korhal would have been the original base of his Sons of Korhal organisation, so there would've been some standing military force being bolstered by the remaining disparate Confederate troops that looked to him for guidance. The sparseness of Korhal there then becoming an ecumenopolis and peaceful centre of a largely harmonious/unified Terran presence in 5 years speaks of enormous, unheard of power and capability beyond what was even thought possible. Yeah, Rome wasn't built in a day... just five years is all.

[TheEconomist]

I am the undisputed King of walls of texts. </self-deprecating humor>

Unfortunately, I'm only an observer in this discussion. Keep up the work guys.

[Telenil]

You choose to interpret Mengsk being too dangerous to allow to live as Mengsk not being a threat, and Kerrigan promising that she'll crush the UED as treating them as a threat. And you say I'm arguing against the letter of the briefing? You haven't addressed the similarity of their declarations. I assume that while you are completely fine with taking Kerrigan at her word and I am just being stubborn by doubting her, you'd have issue with taking Mengsk at his word when he promises that he'll be capable of dealing with Kerrigan the moment she slips up? What about when the omniscient narration promises that Mengsk is planning to rebuild the Terran Dominion?

Mengsk's forces (I assume you mean that since she does leave Arcturus unharmed) are not "too dangerous", they "might be dangerous". About as much as Fenix's forces could be. Kerrigan is not taking any chance, and besides, she wanted to screw Arcturus no matter what, as revenge for getting left behind on Tarsonis.

I'm not sure of what you are trying to prove with these epilogues. Kerrigan had suffered a serious setback at the end of episode 5, so did Mengsk at the end of episode 6, and both made a threat before fleeing (this is also true of Artanis). There is a similarity in that sense, but since Brood War ends with Mengsk's words, the parallel could only be relevant for the recovery he makes before Starcraft 2, not the alledged unbelievable recoveries he made in Brood War.

I still can't believe you accuse me of "arguing against the letter of the briefing" and then try to pull this off. The text of the briefing is: "Now that the UED's power base is broken on this world, only their forces on Char pose any significant threat to me." The subject of the sentence is the UED. She is saying that after having eliminated the UED forces on Korhal, the only forces the UED have that can pose a significant threat to her are those on Char. She is not saying that there are no other forces that can threaten her besides the UED, especially not those of her allies, since the very next thing that happens is that Duran changes the subject by bringing up those same allies.

Arguable. The phrase can also be taken as "now that we have destroyed the UED here, the only thing that really threatens me is their forces on Char". Since the rest of the briefing mentions it won't be difficult to take both allies with a surprise attack, I stand by my understanding.

Kerrigan says that without her Mengsk will only be the Emperor of his own cell, and you take that as agreement from Mengsk, ignoring that Mengsk himself said that with time, he would overthrow the UED. But more importantly, you pretend that the fact that after being deposed he is incapable of overcoming the UED without Kerrigan's help is evidence that Mengsk is substantially weaker, ignoring the fact that Mengsk wasn't able to overcome the UED before he was deposed, as evidenced by the fact that he was deposed at all. Thus all you have demonstrated is that being deposed by the UED hasn't made him stronger.

Thus it made him weaker. Or are you arguing that being deposed and losing your heavily defended capital city was a negligible loss?

You point out that Kerrigan says Mengsk will be easy to deal with after his army on Korhal is wiped out and Duke is killed, and try to spin that as Kerrigan thinking that Mengsk is easy to deal with before that happens, and ignore the fact that Brood War proves that she was wrong by making Mengsk a threat for her to deal with again in Omega.

Duke and Fenix together were defeated with "relative ease", and Mengsk is easy without Duke. So yes, it does mean that the threat the Dominion posed before before True Colors ranks at "relative ease".

What is true is Kerrigan understimated Arcturus as a person, in that she did not expect him to be able to rally a fleet at all. But she felt threatened by the combined forces of the three fleets, not by Arcturus' forces particularly. Omega put the Zerg against virtually every other faction left in the Sector, and they won anyway. What do you think the Dominion military alone could have done at this point?

You compare the UED considering Mengsk's forces substantial when he is entrenched in Augustgrad to Kerrigan thinking his army can be whittled down with relative ease by stabbing them in the back while they sleep and treat this as evidence of a decrease in power, completely ignoring the situation and forgetting that even after Mengsk was overthrown the UED still call him a considerable threat.

When the UED moved against Aiur, Mengsk commanded a single battlecruiser fleeing from Korhal at top speed. They were moving to intercept Mengsk specifically, not his (at the time) non-existent army. The notion that emperor Arcturus Mengsk, as a person, is a danger to the UED is evidenced by the fact that DuGalle makes a point of executing him publicly, even after they have captured him. Which kind of make sense: unlike Kerrigan, the UED cared about politics.

What you are showing is that the UED considered Arcturus Mengsk could cause trouble even without an empire. Kerrigan didn't, and Omega shows that the UED probably made a better judgement. Which is an interesting point, that particular thought had never occured to me before.

Stop. "Calling in favours" is not synonymous with "temporarily borrow". Neither is "making a few concessions". In fact, one would generally expect the very opposite.

But hey, you want to use that quote? Go ahead. Does Mengsk sound like this was expensive for him? Does it sound like he's run out of favours to call? Does it sound like there are no more concessions to make? No, of course not. He didn't even have to make a lot of concessions.

Essentially correct, with the caveat that Arcturus also "called in favours". I'm not a native speaker, but I understand this as "you give me something now and I will do something for you later", like getting in debt, only not with money. If this is the case, it does seem to imply that he was a bit short on actual compensations.

In any case, the point is not that the favors were costly, it is that he had to make concessions at all - as opposed to ordering people around or giving money. He couldn't intimidate or coerce these people into joining him. Besides, as Kerrigan understands the situation, people are going to be disappointed, which supports the idea that Arcturus was given the fleet for this mission specifically.

"Rag-tag" means disorganised, eclectic, untidy, etc. Since we know he purchased his fleet from diverse groups, this is not a problem, nor is it evidence of anything. I'm not sure what your point is in saying that the Dominion has yet to be rebuilt, that's not relevant. What is relevant is that it establishes what Mengsk will be doing in the future. And now that the future is out, we know that the epilogue was right.

So if we agree that Mengsk got his fleet from a number of different groups, that it wasn't so expensive to get, and that the Dominion had yet to be rebuilt, how is the period between True Colors and Omega an unbelievable recovery? At no point did his actions require a large empire or vast amounts of ressources.