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

[FanaticTemplar]

...I am the third, I can see that a claim is problematic even if I am confused as to where the person is going, and that people are likely emotionnally involved in an 18 pages debate should be a no-brainer. This was not supposed to be personal, sorry if you felt it was. What I do believe is that the last page was worth a "this is not going to go anywhere unless we cool down and think this through".
For the records, I didn't have much of an Internet connection in the first half of August, and prioritized Mass Recall over this for obvious reasons.

Very well, I'm sorry if I overreacted then.

So your argument in saying Char should be the strongest UED stronghold is narrative rules of escalation. Again not willing to be personnal, it does sound like you just sort of assumed it was.
A rather clear case where narrative escalation didn't happen is The Hammer Fall. The Big Push was the Sons of Korhal fleet against the strongest Confederate garrisons, while the Hammer Fall is a part of the Korhal fleet against Alpha Squadron, after Mengsk's troops had been ordered to leave Tarsonis.

Actually, that would still be threat escalation since Raynor was a whole lot weaker during The Hammer Falls than the Sons of Korhal forces were in The Big Push, so the relative threat was probably still greater. I suspect you would have greater success by comparing The Hammer Falls to New Gettysburg, where they had to face the Zergb Swarm and Tassadar's Fleet of the Executor, but then, the narrative structures aren't similar. To Slay the Beast is the narrative climax to which earlier UED missions like The Liberation of Korhal are building up to. The climax of Rebel Yell is New Gettysburg, with The Hammer Falls serving as a dénouement.

On the other hand, there are a number of things in the actual game pointing towards Korhal being the UED primary position, like it considers Korhal his capital world, and that it is his primary staging point. Speaking of which, I'm taking a closer look at the definiton and the US military dictionnary states:
I think you had the first meaning in mind, do we agree the second is more appropriate? Both cover the idea of "troops gathering here before leaving", but the second is more than that, a transport hub as opposed to a stepover. This fits with Korhal being the capital world of the UED and a strategic objective for Kerrigan. A place being a staging area doesn't mean, by itself, that it is lightly defended, a staging area in the second sense is likely to have large concentrations of troops.

I'm not saying that it was lightly defended, in fact I believe it was the second most powerful force the UED had in the Koprulu Sector. But the purpose of such a logistics hub - in either definition - is to get the troops where they are needed, which is elsewhere.

Technically true, but Mengsk also had large forces on Char (and Skygeirr) that had already been destroyed. A good reason for not participating in the defense is being dead.

And the UED lost troops on Aiur and Braxis, but we cannot know how much troops were available to either faction at any given time. What we can know, is that Mengsk was pulling all his available assets to defend Korhal, and the UED was not. That is something that makes the invasion during Brood War easier. If you can demonstrate that the UED had more forces on Korhal during Brood War than the Dominion did during Heart of the Swarm, then that would both render my fact irrelevant, and be something that made the invasion during Brood War harder, but first you must demonstrate it.

Again, please clarify what you are trying to demonstrate.
If memory serves, your original argument was "I agree that the WoL recovery is absurd, but so was the recovery in Omega". This is the idea my arguments are an answer to.

That was my initial statement, which I later amended to "Mengsk's recovery in Wings of Liberty is no more absurd than his recovery in Omega".

You then followed with arguments along the line of "Kerrigan had it easier in Brood War",

You're mistaken, actually. Gradius is the one who claimed that Kerrigan had it far harder in Brood War, a statement which I objected to, and have provided evidence to demonstrate. He did this in response to a completely different discussion that I was having with Turalyon about how the Zerg's infinite power after the Brood War retcon made the Zerg almost unusable narratively. He apparently didn't realise that this was the topic of conversation which is why I gave him a chance to start over last post. It has nothing to do with Mengsk or the Dominion, it's strictly about the Zerg and narrative plot devices. That's why I bring up that Kerrigan had self-imposed handicaps (sparing civilians and leaving many of her Leviathans and Brood Mothers behind) even though those have nothing to do with the Dominion. I suspect you are not interested in this issue, but Gradius responded with a direct quote to it, so I figured he was.

I know what I've been arguing for: 1) True Colors leaves the Dominion a shadow of its former (pre-UED) self, 2) Mengsk only managed to gather his Omega fleet because other Terran groups are far more concerned about Kerrigan than they were about him (a reasonning not unlike DuGalle's, only on a smaller scale), 3) this is not absurd. Do we (more or less) agree on these three points, or not?

I agree with 1), though it doesn't have any strong basis, I could certainly make a case against it, were I so inclined. I don't agree with 2) and don't really see any reason to believe it, and as to 3), well, absurd is a relative term. As I said earlier, it is not significantly more or less absurd than his recovery in Wings of Liberty.

You know, a thought just occurred to me. Here we are still discussing the plausibility of Mengsk's position between BW and WoL, when we haven't even discussed a possible discontinuity between Mengsk's power levels between WoL and HotS.

During WoL, we have Char emptied of Zerg that then go ravaging the K sector. This is considered the end-times for all concerned that are non-Zerg. Yet somehow, half of the Dominion fleet is able to abscond and assault Char. Even in it's weakest state, the Zerg on Char are able to obliterate the majority of this fleet. Given this information, we have to consider how the rest of the sector is faring because if the meat of the Zerg's power is assaulting Terran and Protoss holdings early on, how would Mengsk and the remaining Terrans in WoL actually fare better with only his remaining half of the Dominion fleet?

In HotS, Mengsk seems to have recovered enough of a force to find and chase down Kerrigan on Umoja, consolidate on Char and have a lasting presence on it, and give the Swarm pause at Korhal despite having numerous support worlds being overrun earlier. The gap was only three weeks between WoL and HotS. Were the Zerg attacks in WoL even less devastating than what was implied (which wasn't much at all in the first place really). How does one go about explaining this, I wonder?

I think the Zerg in Wings of Liberty were mostly attacking the Fringe Worlds, and Mengsk wasn't even making much of an effort to defend them. The second half of his fleet should be largely intact. I don't know if that answers your question, but it is hard to tell what "half the Dominion" really means as a power rating, especially compared to the Umojan Protectorate, who have never appeared on screen before. I suspect that the forces on Char are the remaining forces of the invasion fleet from Wings of Liberty though, which would explain why Warfield is commanding there.

'Course, there's apparently a book that tells of some of the stuff that happens between games, and I haven't read it, so this is probably quite dubious.

The notion that the UED actually being relatively and physically weak (in terms of man and ship power) from the get-go compared to Mengsk is quite an interesting theory. However, this also complicates things a great deal because by losing the hold on Korhal, their remaining original standing forces on Char when the neo-Overmind was killed and having no further means to bolster themselves at that point, you would also have a case for the UED being absurdly recovered for Omega as well.

Well, not necessarily. Kerrigan didn't wipe out the entire UED fleet during To Slay the Beast, she was focused on the Overmind. If the UED retreated after they lost control over the Zerg, they could still have a pretty significant force. The issue with Mengsk is that True Colors implies that he has been rendered powerless, and Omega flies in the face of that.

It also brings into question the nature of Terran strength. If, like Mengsk, the UED only had real strength (meaning the potential and the capability to apply it) when they maneuvered themselves politically enough (the potential) to allow them to use such strength, wouldn't that mean that this real strength lies in unmentioned other entities and power brokers? If that's so, why would they support the Dominion 2.0/Mengsk having control over all Terran affairs again after seeing him lose to such a relatively weak (as speculated) enemy in the UED? Can we really equate Mengsk getting an army as him having his Dominion reconsituted and lording over all Terrans again as the same thing?

I seem to recall you being one of the people who read A Song of Ice and Fire. There's a quote where Varys asks Tyrion a riddle in which a king, a septon and a wealthy man ask a sellsword to kill the others. Your question reminded me of that . There are many reasons why they could choose to support Mengsk, not least of which is if they never stopped doing so - the UED was only in power for a few weeks, and Mengsk was never caught.

As to the "not having the strength to land on Char", that somehow didn't stop Mengsk and DuGalle making individual attempts in Omega anyway...

Tell me about it. It also contradicts what I was talking about with Duke's invasion in StarCraft too, so if I'd been thinking of the UED instead (which I seldom do) I probably should have expected the Wings of Liberty invasion to go so poorly .

Yes. Following Agent of the Swarm, Raynor is seen twice later on in The Hunt for Tassadar and Homeland being represented as a single Terran unit. This implies that he's is on his own and/or lost his fleet in Agent of the Swarm. But then we see him in Eye of the Storm with an army! How do you know which parts you should or should not ignore as being irrelevant due to just being "gameplay" reasons? Why in this instance, is Raynor still considered inherently weak here (and forever more it seems) and considered acceptable when he shows absurd recovery here? Why is Mengsk exempt? He was systematically shown to be inherently weak and yet his absurd recovery is somehow evidence that his Dominion was intact (the implication being he wasn't weak at all to begin with)?

Wait, when did I say his Dominion was intact because of Omega? The epilogue is quite clear that the Dominion needs rebuilding. What I said is that going from ashes to an endgame fleet in a week is a pretty ridiculous recovery.

As to Raynor, yes, if he has a fleet again in Eye of the Storm after losing it on Char, that's an insane recovery that makes no sense.

Heh, but when does Kerrigan's incompetence ever actually set her back/harm her significantly in anyway? For Mengsk, it has affected him multiple times in negative ways and then all of a sudden at the end... he's on top again somehow. Sure, it's all dependent on the conceit of having Kerrigan being the winner and everyone being the loser/dumb, but even by accepting that conceit it makes Mengsk's situation stick out in particular.

Actually, I think it's the UED that sticks out - both the Dominion and the Protoss need to recover to become relevant again for StarCraft II. The UED, on the other hand, is completely wiped out.

That Nafash already had advanced creatures and Kerrigan did not, implies that Kerrigan was weaker than Nafash when she landed on Kaldir. They both still shared the weakness to Kaldir's extreme temperature so that doesn't matter when comparing Nafash's forces and Kerrigan's.

One could say the same about Zagara, but Kerrigan defeats Zagara on Char, doesn't she? Incidentally, Kerrigan and her Brood gained an immunity to the conditions of Kaldir thanks to Abathur, a resource Nafash did not have, and an advantage she did not have when facing the Protoss.

Also, you haven't commented on the fact that Izsha comments on the Protoss actually being responsible for killing Nafash. All of the above points to the Protoss being more powerful than Kerrigan at that time.

I haven't commented because I don't think it's that important. That the Protoss killed Nafash doesn't mean that the Protoss are more powerful than Kerrigan.

The Dominion isn't the infrastructure, it's just the government that controls the infrastructure. We know that the institution known as the Dominion ceased to exist because the UED were very exact in dealing with the remaining people that made up the Dominion. It's how they would've been in a position to control the infrastructure from that point on to bolster themselves. The very few remaining people that helped make the Dominion were then further extinguished when Kerrigan decided to do what she did in True Colours.

The Dominion is an abstract concept, nothing more than a name Mengsk imposes upon that which obeys him. If Mengsk regained control of the infrastructure, he has reestablished the Dominion.

I didn't forget. The UED would still want to "cross the t and dot the i" by making sure Mengsk is "controlled" (ie: dead), much like how any authority would want to capture an escaped convicted criminal who has become a fugitive. Especially so when unidentified parties were involved in helping him become fugitive in the first place. What it doesn't mean is that the Dominion as an institution is still viable and has all it's powers and priveleges intact in actuality. Otherwise, the UED wouldn't have been able use the Terran infrastructure left behind because the Dominion still existed. In turn, this would mean there was nothing to recover from because Mengsk didn't technically lose anything of objective significance.

Do you think it is so exceptional for a monarch or government in exile to return to power?

It's a heated debate and my posts aren't meant as insults, just like I'm assuming your posts aren't meant as insults. If you're genuinely bothered by this, send me a PM and I'll stop posting.

I'm sorry, I was unclear. I'm not especially bothered by the insults as such, and I have certainly grown less civil as my patience wore thin, for which I apologise. What I meant is that it feels like the insults are just another way in which you are attempting to avoid the actual discussion.

Anyway, you don't get to accuse me of holding contradictory positions when you've been telling me how the Dominion is weaker in HoTS than in BW, yet how much harder the invasion of Korhal was in HoTS than in BW.

You don't know what you're arguing, which is why I offered to let you start afresh. I'm not sure when I have argued that the Dominion is weaker in Heart of the Swarm, the argument that the invasion of Korhal in Heart of the Swarm was harder than it was in Brood War is about the Swarm's power, not the Dominion's, and has nothing to do with the points you want to argue. And the relative strength of the Dominion from Brood War to Heart of the Swarm is something is only marginally relevant to any issue I'm interested in discussing.

And my point is the same as when I first replied to you, that "I was complaining about the fact that Mengsk and the Dominion posed an actual challenge to the swarm (evidence of how ridiculous the WoL recovery was)".

Right, and why shouldn't they be?

[Gradius]

You don't know what you're arguing, which is why I offered to let you start afresh. I'm not sure when I have argued that the Dominion is weaker in Heart of the Swarm, the argument that the invasion of Korhal in Heart of the Swarm was harder than it was in Brood War is about the Swarm's power, not the Dominion's, and has nothing to do with the points you want to argue. And the relative strength of the Dominion from Brood War to Heart of the Swarm is something is only marginally relevant to any issue I'm interested in discussing.

I thought we got into the "which invasion was more difficult" tangent because we were comparing what was stronger, Korhal in BW or Korhal in HoTS, comparing who could take more punishment. We got there because we were arguing about absurdity of the Dominion's recovery in SC2, which you didn't have a problem with because of Mengsk miracling up a fleet in Omega. I responded to your quote to Turalyon because I felt our previous discussion on the topic wasn't finished, but I see we've been on two separate wavelengths.

Right, and why shouldn't they be?

Because of all this: http://sclegacy.com/forums/showthrea...l=1#post182585

My question is do you believe that Mengsk's multiple losses in BW should affect the status quo in SC2 at all, and if so, how? Or should those defeats get handwaived away under the "it's been 4 years" excuse?

[Telenil]

I'm not saying that it was lightly defended, in fact I believe it was the second most powerful force the UED had in the Koprulu Sector. But the purpose of such a logistics hub - in either definition - is to get the troops where they are needed, which is elsewhere.

I'm not an expert in military matters, but I read enough to be confident when I say this is the wrong way to think of it.

In the real world, the area from which you dispatch the troops to the front lines (that is, the one reasonnably close to the front) is a critical position. It will be located at some major crossroad because that's where you can reach many places quickly. If you lose that position, your armies might be cut off from one another or face supply problems. You do use these places to get troops elsewhere when the battle is further away, but this is also where you make your stand.

An other way to consider it is that if a position at the front line is attacked, you reinforce it from the staging area.

The presence of major crossroads is partly why cities are important from a military perspective. This goes to the point that cities were bombed because collapsed buildings would block the streets. Again, I have solely refered to real world strategies so far, because the definition of staging points in real life has been brought up.

If Korhal is your primary staging point and your capital city, which the game specifies, then it is two good reasons to make Korhal your most heavily defended position. You could argue that the Overmind is a pretty big deal too, but there is no equivalent to the "primary staging point" line about Char.

And the UED lost troops on Aiur and Braxis, but we cannot know how much troops were available to either faction at any given time. What we can know, is that Mengsk was pulling all his available assets to defend Korhal, and the UED was not. That is something that makes the invasion during Brood War easier. If you can demonstrate that the UED had more forces on Korhal during Brood War than the Dominion did during Heart of the Swarm, then that would both render my fact irrelevant, and be something that made the invasion during Brood War harder, but first you must demonstrate it.

There is a fallacy here. Either we can tell the strength of their respective armies or we can't. If we can't, then you can't argue one way or the other.
In particular, you can't assume all of the Dominion forces in late HotS amounted to more than a large fraction of the UED fleet. You would need to demonstrate that the armies were roughly equal in the first place for this comparison to make sense.

In other words, your reasonning seems to be something like "we don't know how strong the armies were, so I can say they were comparable, so Korhal had more defenses in HotS because all the Dominion was there". That doesn't work, unless you are willing to accept the opposite as equally valid.

2) and don't really see any reason to believe it

This may only be a matter of phrasing, but worded that way, you were given reasons to believe it. You often said "you have no arguments", when it should in fact be some variation on "I don't find your arguments convincing". This felt rather insulting, and not just because we quoted the game more often than you did.

[Turalyon]

I think the Zerg in Wings of Liberty were mostly attacking the Fringe Worlds, and Mengsk wasn't even making much of an effort to defend them. The second half of his fleet should be largely intact.

How can we tell this specifically until HotS goes on to suggest that this supposition is true (given Mengsk's capability to still resist)? If Valerian and Warfield's fleet (constituting half of the Dominion fleet) is crushed in a concentrated effort at the supposed weakest point of the Zerg at that point in time (owing to them spilling out to expunge the sector of non-Zerg life), how can we expect Mengsk to do better when he has only half of his fleet to defend numerous worlds against the full force of the Zerg? Afterall, he did lose to the UED. Also, if we're considering the UED we're actually weaker than Mengsk to begin with, well, the implications of that would mean the Dominion should have most likely lost quite a number of worlds at the least when the Zerg invasion occurred in WoL. As the Zerg are still considered capable and dangerous even without leadership (as evidenced by their OPness in BW), then how do we expect the Dominion to recover so quickly in 3 weeks (between WoL and HotS) for Kerrigan to have to invade numerous Dominion holdings/planets (again?) via telepathic commands in HotS?

Curious indeed.

Well, not necessarily. Kerrigan didn't wipe out the entire UED fleet during To Slay the Beast, she was focused on the Overmind. If the UED retreated after they lost control over the Zerg, they could still have a pretty significant force. The issue with Mengsk is that True Colors implies that he has been rendered powerless, and Omega flies in the face of that.

If we are to think of the UED as a limited force, what are we to make of their forces being crushed at Korhal (with the control of Terran forces all going back to Mengsk to fuel his recovery) and their supposed last bastion on Char being destroyed? Afterall, you yourself that the To Slay the Beast could well have been the proper ending of BW and the end of the UED as a threat.

I seem to recall you being one of the people who read A Song of Ice and Fire. There's a quote where Varys asks Tyrion a riddle in which a king, a septon and a wealthy man ask a sellsword to kill the others. Your question reminded me of that . There are many reasons why they could choose to support Mengsk, not least of which is if they never stopped doing so - the UED was only in power for a few weeks, and Mengsk was never caught.

Yeah, it's a question of what you believe is more powerful. We don't even know how much support Mengsk even had in the first place since his Dominion is less than a year old. He had his chance to "shine" and he failed spectacularly to a foe that could have been considered weaker than he was. I mean, if we are to use the "they never stopped supporting him" argument, I can't see why the Confederates (since elements of them still exist) couldn't have re-established themselves again since they had nearly two centuries of rule to establish their support, too.

Tell me about it. It also contradicts what I was talking about with Duke's invasion in StarCraft too, so if I'd been thinking of the UED instead (which I seldom do) I probably should have expected the Wings of Liberty invasion to go so poorly .

Glad to know that your aware of your own bias.

Wait, when did I say his Dominion was intact because of Omega? The epilogue is quite clear that the Dominion needs rebuilding. What I said is that going from ashes to an endgame fleet in a week is a pretty ridiculous recovery.

You intimated as such to explain how he is able to get his fleet for Omega. Your "Roman Empire" analogy attests to this as well when you liken Mengsk's recovery as if "the Roman Empire stands again with half of the territory it held at the peak of its power completely intact".

As to Raynor, yes, if he has a fleet again in Eye of the Storm after losing it on Char, that's an insane recovery that makes no sense.

And yet we still consider him weak... Why can't we think that for Mengsk?

Actually, I think it's the UED that sticks out - both the Dominion and the Protoss need to recover to become relevant again for StarCraft II. The UED, on the other hand, is completely wiped out.

One could just as easily say that's also the reason why the UED doesn't stick out because they're well and truly swept under the rug and forgotten by the time Sc2 happens. The fact that the Dominion survives into Sc2 despite all it's previous hardships and actual fragility begs for some degree of exploration.

One could say the same about Zagara, but Kerrigan defeats Zagara on Char, doesn't she? Incidentally, Kerrigan and her Brood gained an immunity to the conditions of Kaldir thanks to Abathur, a resource Nafash did not have, and an advantage she did not have when facing the Protoss.

I haven't commented because I don't think it's that important. That the Protoss killed Nafash doesn't mean that the Protoss are more powerful than Kerrigan.

You only face Zagara in one mission and she only has one base. That mission could've represented a decisive strike that sidestepped the majority of the forces Zagara could potentially command for all we know. For that matter, we don't know how extensive Nafash's Brood on Kaldir was before we get to Kaldir. We do know that Nafash pushed out but was repulsed back into pre-prepared defenses and then killed by Protoss. If Nafash only had one base like Zagara does on Char, then the Protoss would still be more powerful as they had multiple bases. Kerrigan had to build up first and recruit frozen Zerg forces to bolster herself (the reason for coming to Kaldir was to recruit others afterall) when facing them in two missions on Kaldir's surface. Kerrigan's Zerg forces at that time couldn't be that much greater than the initial stages of Nafash's Brood, especially if you did it before going to Zerus.

The immunity thing was only acquired later by Kerrigan, so we can't use that when we are comparing the initial composition of their forces before other factors come into play.

The Dominion is an abstract concept, nothing more than a name Mengsk imposes upon that which obeys him. If Mengsk regained control of the infrastructure, he has reestablished the Dominion.

Exactly, but how does Mengsk go about regaining control of said infrastructure on his lonesome? If the infrastructure is now part of the UED, it can no longer be identified as "Dominion".

Do you think it is so exceptional for a monarch or government in exile to return to power?

Not at all. But, I could just as easily ask why not the Confederates coming back into power after Mengsk was deposed instead? Afterall, they were in exile, too.

[FanaticTemplar]

I thought we got into the "which invasion was more difficult" tangent because we were comparing what was stronger, Korhal in BW or Korhal in HoTS, comparing who could take more punishment.

Except that no comparison can be established, because as you pointed out repeatedly, the UED and the Dominion are different entities, and the Dominion's circumstances in True Colors aren't even close to comparable to those in Heart of the Swarm. So the invasions can't really be used to establish the relative strength of the Terran Dominion between games.

Because of all this: http://sclegacy.com/forums/showthrea...l=1#post182585

That doesn't really address much. We have no real metric for determining the power of the Dominion, or the power of Kerrigan's Swarm by the climax of Heart of the Swarm.

My question is do you believe that Mengsk's multiple losses in BW should affect the status quo in SC2 at all, and if so, how? Or should those defeats get handwaived away under the "it's been 4 years" excuse?

Well, first I need to establish a standard here. Should Mengsk's multiple losses in Brood War affect his status quo in Brood War? Should those defeats be handwaved away because Mengsk "called in a few favours. Made a few concessions"?

I'm not an expert in military matters, but I read enough to be confident when I say this is the wrong way to think of it.

In the real world, the area from which you dispatch the troops to the front lines (that is, the one reasonnably close to the front) is a critical position. It will be located at some major crossroad because that's where you can reach many places quickly. If you lose that position, your armies might be cut off from one another or face supply problems. You do use these places to get troops elsewhere when the battle is further away, but this is also where you make your stand.

An other way to consider it is that if a position at the front line is attacked, you reinforce it from the staging area.

The presence of major crossroads is partly why cities are important from a military perspective. This goes to the point that cities were bombed because collapsed buildings would block the streets. Again, I have solely refered to real world strategies so far, because the definition of staging points in real life has been brought up.

If Korhal is your primary staging point and your capital city, which the game specifies, then it is two good reasons to make Korhal your most heavily defended position. You could argue that the Overmind is a pretty big deal too, but there is no equivalent to the "primary staging point" line about Char.

I know people in the actual military, I'm meeting some of them Thursday. I can ask them if you like. But I have pointed out multiple times how the line is not evidence of anything. Primary staging area does not mean most heavily defended area, and the line is about how Kerrigan would benefit from its destruction )or liberation, more accurately), not about how strongly it is defended. It has nothing to do with that. If you want to go the route that a location so important to the UED must be their most heavily defended one, then you're shooting yourself in the foot, because Admiral DuGalle himself will tell you what the UED's priority is: "Given the true nature of our mission to enslave the Overmind". Their mission is to enslave the Overmind. The Overmind is on Char. That's their highest priority.

There is a fallacy here. Either we can tell the strength of their respective armies or we can't. If we can't, then you can't argue one way or the other.

Nor have I.

What I said is that Mengsk was using all his available assets to defend Korhal, and the UED was not. That is something that made it the Heart of the Swarm invasion harder than the one in Brood War. If you can demonstrate that even that portion of the UED's forces is greater than the entirety of the Dominion in Heart of the Swarm, then you can render that argument irrelevant, but it's not the same argument.

This may only be a matter of phrasing, but worded that way, you were given reasons to believe it. You often said "you have no arguments", when it should in fact be some variation on "I don't find your arguments convincing". This felt rather insulting, and not just because we quoted the game more often than you did.

Have you? I haven't counted. Are you counting the three of you combined to my one?

Anyway, I don't mean to insult you, but no, I have no reason to believe it. Perhaps I have forgotten, it's been a long thread. Please remind me.

How can we tell this specifically until HotS goes on to suggest that this supposition is true (given Mengsk's capability to still resist)? If Valerian and Warfield's fleet (constituting half of the Dominion fleet) is crushed in a concentrated effort at the supposed weakest point of the Zerg at that point in time (owing to them spilling out to expunge the sector of non-Zerg life), how can we expect Mengsk to do better when he has only half of his fleet to defend numerous worlds against the full force of the Zerg? Afterall, he did lose to the UED.

Hold on a sec, that's not accurate. Kerrigan pulled massive numbers of Zerg away from the Terran worlds and back to Char crush that half of the Dominion fleet, and even so that would certainly not be the weakest point of the Zerg at the time, it would simply be Char being the weakest it has been since... well, who knows. And while it may only be due to the magical plot device, that half of the fleet was not entirely wiped out, you can still see numerous Battlecruisers in the sky during the final cinematic. There's no reason at all to assume that the other half of the fleet would have suffered grievous damage.

Also, if we're considering the UED we're actually weaker than Mengsk to begin with, well, the implications of that would mean the Dominion should have most likely lost quite a number of worlds at the least when the Zerg invasion occurred in WoL. As the Zerg are still considered capable and dangerous even without leadership (as evidenced by their OPness in BW), then how do we expect the Dominion to recover so quickly in 3 weeks (between WoL and HotS) for Kerrigan to have to invade numerous Dominion holdings/planets (again?) via telepathic commands in HotS?

We do know that the Dominion was retconned into being way huger than the original [whatever number] worlds of the Confederacy for StarCraft II, how do you know that the Dominion did reclaim those worlds? We only know of Char, as far as I know. Do we go to Mar Sara, Agria, Monlyth or Tyrador in Heart of the Swarm, or any other world we know to have been conquered by the Zerg? I honestly can't remember. I've only played Heart of the Swarm once .

If we are to think of the UED as a limited force, what are we to make of their forces being crushed at Korhal (with the control of Terran forces all going back to Mengsk to fuel his recovery) and their supposed last bastion on Char being destroyed? Afterall, you yourself that the To Slay the Beast could well have been the proper ending of BW and the end of the UED as a threat.

The objective in To Slay the Beast was to kill the Overmind, not crush the UED. The Reckoning says that "The remnants of the UED fleet have fled the planet, but I have no idea how many functional ships they still possess." Like Duran, I have no idea how much power they still possess.

Yeah, it's a question of what you believe is more powerful. We don't even know how much support Mengsk even had in the first place since his Dominion is less than a year old. He had his chance to "shine" and he failed spectacularly to a foe that could have been considered weaker than he was. I mean, if we are to use the "they never stopped supporting him" argument, I can't see why the Confederates (since elements of them still exist) couldn't have re-established themselves again since they had nearly two centuries of rule to establish their support, too.

True. I suppose we have to accept that Mengsk was more persuasive and politically agile than they were. But that's been Mengsk supposedly greatest asset anyway, so that seems reasonable enough to me.

You intimated as such to explain how he is able to get his fleet for Omega. Your "Roman Empire" analogy attests to this as well when you liken Mengsk's recovery as if "the Roman Empire stands again with half of the territory it held at the peak of its power completely intact".

No, I was actually trying to demonstrate the opposite... how is having half the territory 'being intact'? I was specifically trying to demonstrate that a recovery can be absurd without being complete.

Look, either Mengsk still had an active fleet after True Colors, which raises the question of why he didn't bring it to Korhal since he was utterly obsessed with that invasion, or
Mengsk no longer had a fleet, but still had the ability to raise one after True Colors, in which case since his ability to rebuild is not in any way harmed after True Colors, he still possesses that ability after Omega and there is no reason why he couldn't have rebuilt further in five years, or
Mengsk no longer had either a fleet nor the ability to raise one after True Colors, yet somehow appears with one anyway in Omega, in which case his recovery is absurd.

Am I wrong? What other options are there?

And yet we still consider him weak... Why can't we think that for Mengsk?

I don't know, why can't you?

One could just as easily say that's also the reason why the UED doesn't stick out because they're well and truly swept under the rug and forgotten by the time Sc2 happens. The fact that the Dominion survives into Sc2 despite all it's previous hardships and actual fragility begs for some degree of exploration.

And the excuse was given in the years of rebuilding that followed Brood War.

You only face Zagara in one mission and she only has one base. That mission could've represented a decisive strike that sidestepped the majority of the forces Zagara could potentially command for all we know. For that matter, we don't know how extensive Nafash's Brood on Kaldir was before we get to Kaldir. We do know that Nafash pushed out but was repulsed back into pre-prepared defenses and then killed by Protoss. If Nafash only had one base like Zagara does on Char, then the Protoss would still be more powerful as they had multiple bases. Kerrigan had to build up first and recruit frozen Zerg forces to bolster herself (the reason for coming to Kaldir was to recruit others afterall) when facing them in two missions on Kaldir's surface. Kerrigan's Zerg forces at that time couldn't be that much greater than the initial stages of Nafash's Brood, especially if you did it before going to Zerus.

Why not? Nafash's Brood had elements that were desirable for Kerrigan's Swarm, but that doesn't mean that Kerrigan didn't have her own advantages, that Nafash did not.

The immunity thing was only acquired later by Kerrigan, so we can't use that when we are comparing the initial composition of their forces before other factors come into play.

But the immunity was provided thanks to Abathur, which she did have before hand.

Exactly, but how does Mengsk go about regaining control of said infrastructure on his lonesome? If the infrastructure is now part of the UED, it can no longer be identified as "Dominion".

What makes you think he was alone? If nobody else, we know that Warfield survived any UED purge that might have happened.

[Turalyon]

Kerrigan pulled massive numbers of Zerg away from the Terran worlds and back to Char crush that half of the Dominion fleet, and even so that would certainly not be the weakest point of the Zerg at the time, it would simply be Char being the weakest it has been since... well, who knows.

Oh really? I've always thought that the invasion of Char in WoL was only made possible because most of the Zerg were still sector wide/being recalled/en route back to Char, not that they all had actually returned to Char at that piont in time to crush Valerian's half of the Dominion fleet. I guess that's what I meant when the Zerg were at their "weakest" when they invaded because most of the Zerg army was away elsewhere.

There's no reason at all to assume that the other half of the fleet would have suffered grievous damage.

Why not? Because we didn't see it? That's the same reason I can use to say they actually did suffer grievous damage.

Either way, are we given any indication to think that when the rest of the Swarm invaded the rest of the sector that they'd somehow temporarily lose their overpoweredness and be so completely ineffective that they did no damage at all such that Kerrigan had to do most of the hardwork against the Dominion in HotS? Mighty convenient.

We do know that the Dominion was retconned into being way huger than the original [whatever number] worlds of the Confederacy for StarCraft II, how do you know that the Dominion did reclaim those worlds? We only know of Char, as far as I know. Do we go to Mar Sara, Agria, Monlyth or Tyrador in Heart of the Swarm, or any other world we know to have been conquered by the Zerg? I honestly can't remember. I've only played Heart of the Swarm once .

I don't have any clue either. The idea behind my previous question was more to do with how effective the Zerg invasion was in WoL. I mean, if we are considering the Zerg overpoweredness to be consistent with BW, then it's reasonable to then assume the Zerg would've done some considerable damage to the Dominion during WoL, right?

The objective in To Slay the Beast was to kill the Overmind, not crush the UED. The Reckoning says that "The remnants of the UED fleet have fled the planet, but I have no idea how many functional ships they still possess." Like Duran, I have no idea how much power they still possess.

But To Slay the Beast can serve as the final mission/crushing of the UED forces as you have put forward previously. With that in mind, you could have that ending cinematic with Kerrigan defeating their remnants/Dugalle commiting suicide happen right there. If we have that scenario above, the dialogue The Reckoning can be thought of as a sort of "shifting of the goalposts" to accommodate a recovery for the UED to appear in Omega.

True. I suppose we have to accept that Mengsk was more persuasive and politically agile than they were. But that's been Mengsk supposedly greatest asset anyway, so that seems reasonable enough to me.

It's kinda funny that you say this though, because I remember your big review of Sc1 stating that Mengsk isn't actually really that astute and is prone to temper tantrums when things don't go his way.

No, I was actually trying to demonstrate the opposite... how is having half the territory 'being intact'? I was specifically trying to demonstrate that a recovery can be absurd without being complete.

It's about the Empire, as an idea/an institution, being intact - not the territory.

Mengsk still had an active fleet after True Colors, which raises the question of why he didn't bring it to Korhal since he was utterly obsessed with that invasion

You know, this option makes more sense than you give it credit for given Mengsk's terrible tactical abilities and egomania (all on display in BW) - he didn't do it because it was "beneath him" at the time to do so. We can potentially chalk up the misunderstanding of thinking Mengsk was down and out due to the writer over-exaggerating his defeats.

Mengsk no longer had a fleet, but still had the ability to raise one after True Colors, in which case since his ability to rebuild is not in any way harmed after True Colors, he still possesses that ability after Omega and there is no reason why he couldn't have rebuilt further in five years

Eeeh, the ability to raise an army does not necessarily equate to him being also able to rebuild anything and everything else nor that he can raise another army again or indefinitely especially should he fail the first time.

Besides, saying that "Mengsk no longer had a fleet" in that above scenario is technically misleading because he always had access to one/many.

Mengsk no longer had either a fleet nor the ability to raise one...yet somehow appears with one anyway....in which case... recovery is absurd.

The Protoss and perhaps even Raynor can do this and yet they have not been considered absurd.

I don't know, why can't you?

What do you mean? I've always come from the perspective that Mengsk is weak and can still summon an army and still be considered weak - much like Raynor and the Protoss. It's your perspective that suggests that Mengsk was never weakened in any significant way.

And the excuse was given in the years of rebuilding that followed Brood War.

That's not what I meant by "exploration".

Why not? Nafash's Brood had elements that were desirable for Kerrigan's Swarm, but that doesn't mean that Kerrigan didn't have her own advantages, that Nafash did not.

Um, I figured that her being depowered/deinfested is supposed to mean something more than just a cosmetic change/personality reset, like being weaker than before?

But the immunity was provided thanks to Abathur, which she did have before hand.

Huh? Are you citing Abathur as being the actual advantage, not the immunity, that Kerrigan has over Nafash? That's somewhat dubious. Given that the advantage that Abathur provides was one of unrealised potential (up until it was realised later in the mission)and he's an advantage that all Zerg share equally, it doesn't really say much. That Kerrigan had to recruit some of Nafash's brood in order to collect the genetic material for that immunity implies that her initial standing forces were probably not as strong as what Nafash's initial standing forces were.

What makes you think he was alone? If nobody else, we know that Warfield survived any UED purge that might have happened.

I meant it figuratively in the sense that the only power the "Dominion" (if it can even be recognised formally as such) has is in Mengsk at that point - or that's what the game leads us to believe. Warfield is a retroactive explanation - we didn't know if he even existed back then until WoL told us otherwise.

[Telenil]

I know people in the actual military, I'm meeting some of them Thursday. I can ask them if you like. But I have pointed out multiple times how the line is not evidence of anything. Primary staging area does not mean most heavily defended area, and the line is about how Kerrigan would benefit from its destruction )or liberation, more accurately), not about how strongly it is defended. It has nothing to do with that.

You have claimed multiple times it is not evidence for anything. I disagree. Primary staging point means primary strategic position for UED operations across the Sector, which means the planet you have every reason to defend. Besides, Korhal is also the "UED capital world". Does it sounds like the capital and primary staging point should not be the most heavily defended, when we have yet to bring a single line stating Char is the UED primary, well, anything?

Obviously, you only defend a place when there is something to defend it against. I don't mean the primary staging area has the highest number of troops at all times, but that it would have the highest concentration of troops should it become under threat.

If you friends know about the specifics, then sure, ask them. Useful confirmations would include whether the place from which you dispatch the troops to the front lines counts as a staging area, and whether such places are indeed considered strategic positions.

What I said is that Mengsk was using all his available assets to defend Korhal, and the UED was not. That is something that made it the Heart of the Swarm invasion harder than the one in Brood War.

Non sequitur. To explain it in practical terms: Arcturus called all of his forces to defend Korhal. That makes the invasion harder than if he hadn't. But does it make it harder than its Brood War counterpart? We don't know, because we can't compare the strength of the respective defenders.

You can't assume all of A is larger than part of B when you don't know what A and B are.

Have you? I haven't counted. Are you counting the three of you combined to my one?

Anyway, I don't mean to insult you, but no, I have no reason to believe it. Perhaps I have forgotten, it's been a long thread. Please remind me.

Arcturus had to call favours and make concessions to gather his fleet, as opposed to paying cash or giving orders. He states that Kerrigan "would be surprised to see how many special interest groups" hate her, which implies groups with different objectives banded together against Kerrigan, and that this alliance would have been unlikely under other circumstances. This is also how Kerrigan understands it, and she immediately refers to these groups as Arcturus' "new friends", who would be "disappointed".

All this points towards Arcturus recruiting other groups who were not part of the Dominion and didn't like him, by using the danger Kerrigan poses. This is not handwaving his defeats, it is acknowleding that he couldn't gather a fleet on its own anymore.

Is this clear and incontrovertible proof? I guess nothing ever is. But I don't think it is reasonnable to say there is "no reason" to believe it.

[FanaticTemplar]

Oh really? I've always thought that the invasion of Char in WoL was only made possible because most of the Zerg were still sector wide/being recalled/en route back to Char, not that they all had actually returned to Char at that piont in time to crush Valerian's half of the Dominion fleet. I guess that's what I meant when the Zerg were at their "weakest" when they invaded because most of the Zerg army was away elsewhere.

Yes, they were, but in reaction to the invasion of Char, Kerrigan started pulling back her forces, it's mentioned in the news segment after Gates of Hell. So when they actually invaded Char, the planet was at its weakest, but by All-In the rest of the Swarm was closing in.

Why not? Because we didn't see it? That's the same reason I can use to say they actually did suffer grievous damage.

And why would you assume a contradiction without any basis?

Either way, are we given any indication to think that when the rest of the Swarm invaded the rest of the sector that they'd somehow temporarily lose their overpoweredness and be so completely ineffective that they did no damage at all such that Kerrigan had to do most of the hardwork against the Dominion in HotS? Mighty convenient.

Why would you assume they suffered no damage?

I don't have any clue either. The idea behind my previous question was more to do with how effective the Zerg invasion was in WoL. I mean, if we are considering the Zerg overpoweredness to be consistent with BW, then it's reasonable to then assume the Zerg would've done some considerable damage to the Dominion during WoL, right?

It's plausible, but you've got to keep in mind some things we do know about the invasion: Mengsk abandoned the Fringe Worlds and drew back his fleets to protect his more valuable Core Worlds, and Kerrigan started the invasion not to destroy the Dominion, but because she was searching for the Xel'Naga artifacts. Damage was assuredly done, but I see no reason to assume that it was crippling.

But To Slay the Beast can serve as the final mission/crushing of the UED forces as you have put forward previously. With that in mind, you could have that ending cinematic with Kerrigan defeating their remnants/Dugalle commiting suicide happen right there. If we have that scenario above, the dialogue The Reckoning can be thought of as a sort of "shifting of the goalposts" to accommodate a recovery for the UED to appear in Omega.

Yes, it could have (and should have) been the final mission and crushing of the UED, but it wasn't.

It's kinda funny that you say this though, because I remember your big review of Sc1 stating that Mengsk isn't actually really that astute and is prone to temper tantrums when things don't go his way.

Do you think he can't be both? I also mentioned in the Brood War review that Mengsk in Omega is the most confident and collected he's been in the game, and my perception of that was that he was back in his element, commanding his empire once more.

But another thing to keep in mind is that the Confederacy was falling apart. Korhal, Mar Sara and Antiga are the worlds we know about, but given the limited number of planets in the Confederacy at the time, that's still a massive number. Replacing the Confederacy with the Dominion was a revolution, an internal affair. The UED invasion was an external one, and would explain the resistance of the Koprulu Terrans. Note for example in DuGalle's final speech: "And the colonies we were sent to reclaim have proven to be stronger thatn we anticipated."

It's about the Empire, as an idea/an institution, being intact - not the territory.

Oh, then yes, as an idea I believe the Dominion was intact by Omega. The UED were merely a temporary occupying force, they did nothing to destroy the Dominion as a notion. I just meant that it was obviously severely damaged and weakened physically.

You know, this option makes more sense than you give it credit for given Mengsk's terrible tactical abilities and egomania (all on display in BW) - he didn't do it because it was "beneath him" at the time to do so. We can potentially chalk up the misunderstanding of thinking Mengsk was down and out due to the writer over-exaggerating his defeats.

Now you're critically undervaluing Mengsk. He was obviously obsessed with retaking Korhal, and would certainly view cooperating with Raynor and Kerrigan as further beneath him than using his own forces. No, this seems like quite a stretch.

Eeeh, the ability to raise an army does not necessarily equate to him being also able to rebuild anything and everything else nor that he can raise another army again or indefinitely especially should he fail the first time.

Do you have any evidence to suggest that he had the ability to raise one and only one more fleet? Because you're arguing for something pretty damned specific. Wings of Liberty demonstrates that he had the ability to rebuild, and this seems consistent with his abilities at the end of Brood War.

Besides, saying that "Mengsk no longer had a fleet" in that above scenario is technically misleading because he always had access to one/many.

What makes you say that?

The Protoss and perhaps even Raynor can do this and yet they have not been considered absurd.

What are you trying to say?

What do you mean? I've always come from the perspective that Mengsk is weak and can still summon an army and still be considered weak - much like Raynor and the Protoss. It's your perspective that suggests that Mengsk was never weakened in any significant way.

No it isn't. My argument was always that his recoveries in Omega and Wings of Liberty are consistent, whether you want to take the perspective that Mengsk never suffered as much damage as he appeared to, or that he did suffer sever damage yet can miraculously recover. I'm not sure which way you want to go with, but I am completely willing to adapt. However, my perspective was that Mengsk was weakened - and then absurdly recovered. Remember, that's how this whole thing started? How I mentioned that Mengsk kept recovering absurdly throughout Brood War?

That's not what I meant by "exploration".

Yeah, except it really doesn't. The Dominion's recovery is not what the story is about. This exploration you demand is trivial minutia. It's not necessarily a problem to include that, but it's not required either. This is a game about sci-fi armies waging war against each other, not about the economics of interplanetary monarchies. The four years explanation is just an excuse to explain how it happens, like "psionics" is an excuse to explain how High Templar have an area of effect ability that damages all units within it, or "warp space" is an excuse for interstellar travel.

Um, I figured that her being depowered/deinfested is supposed to mean something more than just a cosmetic change/personality reset, like being weaker than before?

Again, you seem to be having trouble with the concept that one can be weaker without being weakest. Before her deinfestation, she was infinitely powerful. She is now less than that.

Huh? Are you citing Abathur as being the actual advantage, not the immunity, that Kerrigan has over Nafash? That's somewhat dubious. Given that the advantage that Abathur provides was one of unrealised potential (up until it was realised later in the mission)and he's an advantage that all Zerg share equally, it doesn't really say much. That Kerrigan had to recruit some of Nafash's brood in order to collect the genetic material for that immunity implies that her initial standing forces were probably not as strong as what Nafash's initial standing forces were.

Naw. We know that she had more forces, because if you choose to go to Char first, you can compete with Zagara's intact Brood, even without Abathur's advantage of immunity to the environment.

I meant it figuratively in the sense that the only power the "Dominion" (if it can even be recognised formally as such) has is in Mengsk at that point - or that's what the game leads us to believe. Warfield is a retroactive explanation - we didn't know if he even existed back then until WoL told us otherwise.

How does the game lead you to believe that the Dominion is rendered powerless? Again, Mengsk shows up with a Dominion fleet for Omega, that sounds powerful to me.

You have claimed multiple times it is not evidence for anything. I disagree. Primary staging point means primary strategic position for UED operations across the Sector, which means the planet you have every reason to defend. Besides, Korhal is also the "UED capital world". Does it sounds like the capital and primary staging point should not be the most heavily defended, when we have yet to bring a single line stating Char is the UED primary, well, anything?

Obviously, you only defend a place when there is something to defend it against. I don't mean the primary staging area has the highest number of troops at all times, but that it would have the highest concentration of troops should it become under threat.

I've already pointed out that if you're going to pretend that Korhal needs to be the strongest defensive position of the UED because of its importance, then you need to contend with the actual quote I provided from the guy actually in charge of the UED's military movements that flat out states that their objective is the Overmind, on Char. That's the UED's priority. Did you forget that before accusing me of having "yet to bring a single line stating Char is the UED primary, well, anything?" Kerrigan says that Korhal is the UED's primary staging area. Dugalle says that Char is the true nature of their mission. There's your scale of importance.

If you friends know about the specifics, then sure, ask them. Useful confirmations would include whether the place from which you dispatch the troops to the front lines counts as a staging area, and whether such places are indeed considered strategic positions.

Interestingly, while they acknowledged that staging areas are usually not the most heavily fortified positions, they did explain that this is because staging areas are usually situated in allied countries adjacent to the conflict area. A staging area within the conflict area would be massively fortified, and if you consider that the UED invasion of the Koprulu Sector could include the entire Sector as a conflict area, Korhal would certainly be exceptionally well defended.

Non sequitur. To explain it in practical terms: Arcturus called all of his forces to defend Korhal. That makes the invasion harder than if he hadn't. But does it make it harder than its Brood War counterpart? We don't know, because we can't compare the strength of the respective defenders.

You can't assume all of A is larger than part of B when you don't know what A and B are.

Yeah, no. I'm not making that assumption at all, despite how hard you wish I was. I am listing things that made the Heart of the Swarm invasion as being harder than the Brood War invasion. They are taken independently.

Arcturus had to call favours and make concessions to gather his fleet, as opposed to paying cash or giving orders. He states that Kerrigan "would be surprised to see how many special interest groups" hate her, which implies groups with different objectives banded together against Kerrigan, and that this alliance would have been unlikely under other circumstances. This is also how Kerrigan understands it, and she immediately refers to these groups as Arcturus' "new friends", who would be "disappointed".

All this points towards Arcturus recruiting other groups who were not part of the Dominion and didn't like him, by using the danger Kerrigan poses.

No. Mengsk is bragging about how easy it was for him to get his new fleet. This is no way suggests that "Mengsk only managed to gather his Omega fleet because other Terran groups are far more concerned about Kerrigan than they were about him", what this suggests is that other groups were eager to help Mengsk in this endeavour. They still view him as a leader and their best chance against the Zerg. This suggests that he is still powerful and influential.

[Turalyon]

Yes, they were, but in reaction to the invasion of Char, Kerrigan started pulling back her forces, it's mentioned in the news segment after Gates of Hell. So when they actually invaded Char, the planet was at its weakest, but by All-In the rest of the Swarm was closing in.

Ok! So, in a roundabout fashion, we've just established that the Zerg are not as overpowered in WoL as they are made up to be (can it still be regarded as consistent with BW if they fail all of their major and minor objectives?). They did very little damage to the Dominion when they went on their "death march" and then when they managed to hightail it back to Char to crush Valerian's/Raynor's invasion, you're saying they did no significant damage since at the end of it we still see a large number of Battlecruisers in orbit and that in HotS, the Dominion has Char in their control.

The problem now isn't that the Terrans are too strong, but the Zerg are now inconsistently represented in their dominance.

And why would you assume a contradiction without any basis?

What do you mean, "no basis"? You're the one that mentions that WoL is consistent with everything in BW, up to and including the Zerg's overpoweredness. I'm trying to follow your lead by assuming the Zerg did some appreciable damage in WoL, because they also did some appreciable damage in BW. And yet, now you claim that this apparent contradiction is not a contradiction. Man, I'm confused.

Why would you assume they suffered no damage?

No significant damage. I'm sure they suffered damage, but not any that is noticeable or felt obviously in any real way. Just look at HotS, the Dominion is still operating as normal despite having their worlds and fleet assaulted by the Zerg in WoL. If you didn't tell me the Zerg had attacked in WoL, I couldn't tell in HotS whether the Dominion had been attacked at all given the distinct lack of consequence of the Zerg's invasion in WoL (which happened... apparently).

It's plausible, but you've got to keep in mind some things we do know about the invasion: Mengsk abandoned the Fringe Worlds and drew back his fleets to protect his more valuable Core Worlds, and Kerrigan started the invasion not to destroy the Dominion, but because she was searching for the Xel'Naga artifacts. Damage was assuredly done, but I see no reason to assume that it was crippling.

Do you really think that the Zerg are that surgical when they invade a planet? In Sc1, they were ostensibly in search of psionic emanations but that didn't stop them from overrunning the entire planet and quelling all opposition. Afterall, they took down Tarsonis. Just imagine what Kerrigan would've thought when Mengsk pulled his fleet back to protect his core. If she even half-suspected Mengsk and the Terrans knew about the artifacts and had them in their territory, wouldn't it be somewhat suspicious to Kerrigan for them to rally their forces to the Coreworlds - that maybe, the artifacts being in the Coreworlds are perhaps one of the reasons they're pulling back?

Also, the attack on the Moebius Foundation HQ (a planet that seems to be fairly developed) hints that Kerrigan didn't know exactly where to look for the artifacts but was suspicious of Mengsk's involvement and willing to attack such established worlds to find them. There could've been many other established worlds she assaulted as well such that if Mengsk's strength is derived from these worlds (as HotS goes on to try and establish by showing Kerrigan's telepathic commands for Brood Mothers to assault important Dominion holdings), wouldn't she have already done some of the legwork already in bringing Mengsk down during WoL?

Yes, it could have (and should have) been the final mission and crushing of the UED, but it wasn't.

Then how can you not reconcile the possibility that even though To Slay the Beast was not the final mission despite being a clear indication that the UED's forces were routed then, that their presence in Omega could be seen as an absurd recovery too?

Do you think he can't be both? I also mentioned in the Brood War review that Mengsk in Omega is the most confident and collected he's been in the game, and my perception of that was that he was back in his element, commanding his empire once more.

In Sc1 maybe. In BW, Mengsk is nothing more but an incompetent, bold-faced liar and a smug person who would never admit or even feign weakness. He thought he was still in control when the UED had him dead to rights, too. Much like how we can dismiss some of what Kerrigan says as being nothing more than empty posturing and sabre rattling, why can't we think that of Mengsk there in Omega?

Korhal, Mar Sara and Antiga are the worlds we know about, but given the limited number of planets in the Confederacy at the time, that's still a massive number.

The retconning of how many Terran planets there were has something to do with this though.

Oh, then yes, as an idea I believe the Dominion was intact by Omega. The UED were merely a temporary occupying force, they did nothing to destroy the Dominion as a notion. I just meant that it was obviously severely damaged and weakened physically.

Thing is, the Dominion wasn't obviously severely damaged nor weakened physically either, as it has enough pull to allow Mengsk to have a fleet (being the physical embodiment of the Dominion - that it is there flies in the face of what you just said about it being weakened) in Omega. This is what you're implying as well.

Now you're critically undervaluing Mengsk. He was obviously obsessed with retaking Korhal, and would certainly view cooperating with Raynor and Kerrigan as further beneath him than using his own forces. No, this seems like quite a stretch.

Not really. Think about it a bit more. Mengsk thinks that cooperating with two of his enemies to retake Korhal is tactically sound because that way, he doesn't need to expend any resources and he could follow-up with his own should Raynor and Kerrigan fail (perhaps even hoping that either Raynor and Kerrigan kick the bucket in the process). If he really had the power to use his own fleet, what's better than having his enemies weaken themselves first? That'd be in keeping with his warped attitudes toward others. I'm not the one undervaluing Mengsk, BW has done that well enough on its own.

Do you have any evidence to suggest that he had the ability to raise one and only one more fleet? Because you're arguing for something pretty damned specific. Wings of Liberty demonstrates that he had the ability to rebuild, and this seems consistent with his abilities at the end of Brood War.

Easy. Valerian comes out of nowhere to suddenly gift Raynor with an army that he wasn't even expecting or perhaps even wanting. And yet Raynor had no ability to raise one, doesn't mean now that he has one that he always had the ability to raise one.

What makes you say that?

Well, considering that the fleet he obtains is still Dominion property (no matter where it came from) according to your premise, Mengsk can be said to always having had access to a fleet and was never without one (potentially or in actuality) in the first place.

What are you trying to say?

Keep up.

I've been going over that specific aspect about the Protoss and Raynor for the past few pages. It's only now that you've admitted the possibility that Raynor may have had an absurd recovery (if at all) but even then you're still willing to think that Raynor could only do that (get back his fleet) one time and/or that he's perpetually weak and that that is all OK. Likewise, with the Protoss they show absurd recovery too but you don't bat even an eyelid for that.

No it isn't. My argument was always that his recoveries in Omega and Wings of Liberty are consistent, whether you want to take the perspective that Mengsk never suffered as much damage as he appeared to, or that he did suffer sever damage yet can miraculously recover. I'm not sure which way you want to go with, but I am completely willing to adapt. However, my perspective was that Mengsk was weakened - and then absurdly recovered. Remember, that's how this whole thing started? How I mentioned that Mengsk kept recovering absurdly throughout Brood War?

Just as you are trying to make me aware of the further implications of my perspective (and how they can be wrong), I'm trying to do the same for you. The problem is how you go on to explain the basis of this absurd recovery. By trying to justify absurdity, you've dug yourself a hole because the implications of absurdity being manifest and realised means that there's nothing stopping it from having a cascading effect, undermining anything else that people hold to be possible/impossible in that universe. The others have attempted to offer explanations as to why it may not be absurd and that the recovery is of a particular sort because if we just accept absurdity as being possible than we can't really have a debate because "everything/anything can happen just because" is all the justification one needs.

Yeah, except it really doesn't. The Dominion's recovery is not what the story is about. This exploration you demand is trivial minutia. It's not necessarily a problem to include that, but it's not required either. This is a game about sci-fi armies waging war against each other, not about the economics of interplanetary monarchies. The four years explanation is just an excuse to explain how it happens, like "psionics" is an excuse to explain how High Templar have an area of effect ability that damages all units within it, or "warp space" is an excuse for interstellar travel.

Oooh, I wouldn't go down this path if I were you. Saying what is and what is not the story is about is always go be rife with conflicting opinions. There's already a case against Raynor and Kerrigan's stories in Sc2 not really being what the Sc2 story "should" be about and that their personal hang-ups are "trivial minutia" as well. The Dominion, being representative of the Terrans and being one arm of the tripod that is the conflict of the three central races, can easily be the focus of what was ostensibly supposed to be a campaign about Terrans in general...

Again, you seem to be having trouble with the concept that one can be weaker without being weakest. Before her deinfestation, she was infinitely powerful. She is now less than that.

I'm limiting my comparison only to Kerrigan's, Nafash's and the Protoss' forces on Kaldir.

Kerrigan cannot command all the Swarm at that point in time and only has a very small brood - possibly due to not having all her previous infested powers necessitating her to try and find others to support her. Nafash has all of her faculties and command of an entire brood when she landed on Kaldir. In comparison of Kerrigan's forces at the time she landed on Kaldir vs Nafash's forces at the time she landed on Kaldir, it's not unreasonable to think Kerrigan was the weaker of the two. Nafash is defeated by the Protoss. The Protoss seem to have an established presence with multiple bases and a ready army. In comparison of Kerrigan's forces at the time she lands on Kaldir vs the established Protoss presence, it's not unreasonable to think Kerrigan is the weaker of the two.

Naw. We know that she had more forces, because if you choose to go to Char first, you can compete with Zagara's intact Brood, even without Abathur's advantage of immunity to the environment.

This I'll grant because now you have that justification of her having some additional help. Without doing Char first though...

How does the game lead you to believe that the Dominion is rendered powerless? Again, Mengsk shows up with a Dominion fleet for Omega, that sounds powerful to me.

Insofar as the Protoss and Raynor showing up with a fleet (after previously being decimated) are considered powerful.

[FanaticTemplar]

Ok! So, in a roundabout fashion, we've just established that the Zerg are not as overpowered in WoL as they are made up to be (can it still be regarded as consistent with BW if they fail all of their major and minor objectives?). They did very little damage to the Dominion when they went on their "death march" and then when they managed to hightail it back to Char to crush Valerian's/Raynor's invasion, you're saying they did no significant damage since at the end of it we still see a large number of Battlecruisers in orbit and that in HotS, the Dominion has Char in their control.

The problem now isn't that the Terrans are too strong, but the Zerg are now inconsistently represented in their dominance.

Don't know about that, the Zerg infinite power is the ability to destroy anything that opposed them, and that's consistent. They certainly did a lot of damage to the Terran forces on Char, but a significant number managed to survive long enough for the deus ex machina to activate. That the Terrans would eventually have been wiped out is not something either of us questions, this is only a question of how fast they would be wiped out.

What do you mean, "no basis"?

That's what you said. If the second half of the fleet suffered grievous damage, and we know that the half that went to Char did, where do all of Mengsk's forces in Heart of the Swarm come from? You're saying I have no basis to assume that Mengsk's half of the fleet suffered superficial damage - which is not entirely accurate, we know that Mengsk pulled the fleets back and avoided engaging the Zerg on the Fringe Worlds, that implies that those fleets didn't see a lot of action, and therefore didn't take a lot of damage - which is fair, but you have no basis for assuming that they did suffer grievous damage, and why would you assume that, since it creates contradictions?

No significant damage. I'm sure they suffered damage, but not any that is noticeable or felt obviously in any real way. Just look at HotS, the Dominion is still operating as normal despite having their worlds and fleet assaulted by the Zerg in WoL. If you didn't tell me the Zerg had attacked in WoL, I couldn't tell in HotS whether the Dominion had been attacked at all given the distinct lack of consequence of the Zerg's invasion in WoL (which happened... apparently).

Except strength is relative. Kerrigan also took a lot of damage from Wings of Liberty and her deinfestation. We know that the Dominion is still a threat to her by her current condition, but that doesn't mean it isn't weaker than it was before it took the damage from the invasion of Wings of Liberty.

Do you really think that the Zerg are that surgical when they invade a planet? In Sc1, they were ostensibly in search of psionic emanations but that didn't stop them from overrunning the entire planet and quelling all opposition. Afterall, they took down Tarsonis. Just imagine what Kerrigan would've thought when Mengsk pulled his fleet back to protect his core. If she even half-suspected Mengsk and the Terrans knew about the artifacts and had them in their territory, wouldn't it be somewhat suspicious to Kerrigan for them to rally their forces to the Coreworlds - that maybe, the artifacts being in the Coreworlds are perhaps one of the reasons they're pulling back?

Also, the attack on the Moebius Foundation HQ (a planet that seems to be fairly developed) hints that Kerrigan didn't know exactly where to look for the artifacts but was suspicious of Mengsk's involvement and willing to attack such established worlds to find them. There could've been many other established worlds she assaulted as well such that if Mengsk's strength is derived from these worlds (as HotS goes on to try and establish by showing Kerrigan's telepathic commands for Brood Mothers to assault important Dominion holdings), wouldn't she have already done some of the legwork already in bringing Mengsk down during WoL?

You think so? Her quote about Narud's "pathetic charade" implies that she knows Narud is behind that, and I doubt she'd believe that guy is subservient to Mengsk.

Then how can you not reconcile the possibility that even though To Slay the Beast was not the final mission despite being a clear indication that the UED's forces were routed then, that their presence in Omega could be seen as an absurd recovery too?

Can you rephrase the question? I don't know that the UED recovered at all for Omega, as I pointed out The Reckoning clearly tells us that the UED still have forces that have escaped.

In Sc1 maybe. In BW, Mengsk is nothing more but an incompetent, bold-faced liar and a smug person who would never admit or even feign weakness. He thought he was still in control when the UED had him dead to rights, too. Much like how we can dismiss some of what Kerrigan says as being nothing more than empty posturing and sabre rattling, why can't we think that of Mengsk there in Omega?

You say that Mengsk would never admit or even feign weakness, but he quite clearly did just that earlier in the campaign. He was visibly rattled in the missions prior to the liberation of Korhal.

Thing is, the Dominion wasn't obviously severely damaged nor weakened physically either, as it has enough pull to allow Mengsk to have a fleet (being the physical embodiment of the Dominion - that it is there flies in the face of what you just said about it being weakened) in Omega. This is what you're implying as well.

Actually, True Colors does imply that the Dominion has been severely damaged physically. That's why that Omega fleet is an absurd recovery.

Not really. Think about it a bit more. Mengsk thinks that cooperating with two of his enemies to retake Korhal is tactically sound because that way, he doesn't need to expend any resources and he could follow-up with his own should Raynor and Kerrigan fail (perhaps even hoping that either Raynor and Kerrigan kick the bucket in the process). If he really had the power to use his own fleet, what's better than having his enemies weaken themselves first? That'd be in keeping with his warped attitudes toward others. I'm not the one undervaluing Mengsk, BW has done that well enough on its own.

Doesn't gel with his attitude in those missions, and would imply that he also had reserve forces after Omega, since for consistency he would have let DuGalle and Artanis fight themselves. Also, we know that he had an army, and that Duke was in command of it. There's no reason to believe what you're suggesting.

Easy. Valerian comes out of nowhere to suddenly gift Raynor with an army that he wasn't even expecting or perhaps even wanting. And yet Raynor had no ability to raise one, doesn't mean now that he has one that he always had the ability to raise one.

I asked for evidence though, not a hypothetical.

Well, considering that the fleet he obtains is still Dominion property (no matter where it came from) according to your premise, Mengsk can be said to always having had access to a fleet and was never without one (potentially or in actuality) in the first place.

No... having the ability to raise a fleet and having a fleet are entirely different things.

I've been going over that specific aspect about the Protoss and Raynor for the past few pages. It's only now that you've admitted the possibility that Raynor may have had an absurd recovery (if at all) but even then you're still willing to think that Raynor could only do that (get back his fleet) one time and/or that he's perpetually weak and that that is all OK. Likewise, with the Protoss they show absurd recovery too but you don't bat even an eyelid for that.

I don't bat an eyelid at Mengsk's recoveries either... this started because people decried Mengsk's recovery in Wings of Liberty, and I pointed out that this wasn't the first time Mengsk had an absurd recovery. You're just reinforcing my position.

Just as you are trying to make me aware of the further implications of my perspective (and how they can be wrong), I'm trying to do the same for you. The problem is how you go on to explain the basis of this absurd recovery. By trying to justify absurdity, you've dug yourself a hole because the implications of absurdity being manifest and realised means that there's nothing stopping it from having a cascading effect, undermining anything else that people hold to be possible/impossible in that universe. The others have attempted to offer explanations as to why it may not be absurd and that the recovery is of a particular sort because if we just accept absurdity as being possible than we can't really have a debate because "everything/anything can happen just because" is all the justification one needs.

Except if you reread that quote, you'll note that I have no problem accepting excuses to make this recovery plausible. I'm just being consistent in my approach to Brood War and Wings of Liberty. Absurd, not absurd, whichever you prefer, it is of no concern to me.

Oooh, I wouldn't go down this path if I were you. Saying what is and what is not the story is about is always go be rife with conflicting opinions. There's already a case against Raynor and Kerrigan's stories in Sc2 not really being what the Sc2 story "should" be about and that their personal hang-ups are "trivial minutia" as well. The Dominion, being representative of the Terrans and being one arm of the tripod that is the conflict of the three central races, can easily be the focus of what was ostensibly supposed to be a campaign about Terrans in general...

I didn't say "should" be about, I said "is" about.

I'm limiting my comparison only to Kerrigan's, Nafash's and the Protoss' forces on Kaldir.

Kerrigan cannot command all the Swarm at that point in time and only has a very small brood - possibly due to not having all her previous infested powers necessitating her to try and find others to support her. Nafash has all of her faculties and command of an entire brood when she landed on Kaldir. In comparison of Kerrigan's forces at the time she landed on Kaldir vs Nafash's forces at the time she landed on Kaldir, it's not unreasonable to think Kerrigan was the weaker of the two. Nafash is defeated by the Protoss. The Protoss seem to have an established presence with multiple bases and a ready army. In comparison of Kerrigan's forces at the time she lands on Kaldir vs the established Protoss presence, it's not unreasonable to think Kerrigan is the weaker of the two.

It's not unreasonable. It's not necessarily right though.

This I'll grant because now you have that justification of her having some additional help. Without doing Char first though...

No, I mean whether you go to Char or Kaldir first, you start off with a similarly sized force. And that force was large enough to compete with Zagara's Brood, so I see no reason why it couldn't compete with Nafash's Brood.