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

[ragnarok]

That's not evidence he recovered. He was the commander of multiple systems of planets. Korhal was sacked, but he can still draw forces from other places. With each defeat, his reputation and military was downgraded. He went from 100% to 50% to 10%. It's like a volume knob, not a on/off switch.

And yes, his 10% at Omega wasn't enough to do much at all. All of Kerrigan's broods were on the surface of Char and a single Cerebrate defeated him and two other forces that were also shadows of their former power. Pretty consistent.

Which is yet another annoyance at Blizzard's action of the Dominion's empire by WoL and HotS. It made it seem like after Korhal fell, the UED did very little to annex the rest of the Dominion empire, even though that was their goal for the sector from the very beginning of the BW terran campaign.

My favorite contradiction regarding the whole Dominion falling apart ordeal had to be Kerrigan's line to Mengsk at the end of True Colors which basically outright confirmed that the writer's intent in BW was to have Mengsk fall apart, and that Kerrigan would never allow Mengsk to return to power while she was alive and kicking people down...then comes WoL, and he somehow does just that, and even somehow poses a threat in HotS. Ya...great job there Kerrigan! You sure kept him down for the count for four years!

Well I wouldn't exactly say that, Retlo. If you recall at the BW ending, Kerrigan felt a threat coming (though it wasn't revealed until SC2 to be Amon), and thus made preparations for them. Thus her claim to test her enemies' resolve proved hollow, as she withdrew the swarm to Char to make preparations to deal with Amon.

In that regard, I don't think she was paying too much attention to what was happening on the Dominion end, and therefore did not anticipate Mengsk could return to power and pose an actual THREAT to her.

Remember, at the beginning of WoL, Kate Lockwell was saying the same thing, telling Mengsk that the threat of the Zerg invasion was still real, but instead of building up the fleet, he squandered trillions to hunt down Jim Raynor.

[FanaticTemplar]

What, so you think that Mengsk can seemingly take infinite body blows without nary a consequence and that that's OK? Besides, a man such as Mengsk, who is so full of himself, would never let on that he's on a downward spiral. Doesn't mean that that's evidence that he's invincible and godly forever more...

No, I'm saying Brood War is rife with absurdities like this. The UED invasion is merely the most egregious.

It is a problem because you seem to be taking take this situation as a vaccumm with no regard to consequence or hint of cause and effect.

As I said before, the question of whether Mengsk ever becomes relevant in BW is debatable and you yourself then admit that when you mentioned his "relevancy" it was in terms of a subjective POV of the characters in that universe. If one were to step back and consider the perspective of one outside looking in, Mengsk is not objectively a relevent threat to anyone in BW. What relevency he had after his rescue was only because Kerrigan and Raynor permitted him to have it. The Terran force he "commands" are remnant of what was left after his capture - with the rest being most likely pressed into UED holdings or destroyed. When his remaining loyal army (a mere shadow of what is was before the UED usurped him) is crushed in True Colours he has to make concessions and rely on his 'silver tongue' as a last resort to round up and borrow a fleet on the proviso he kill Kerrigan with it. He then proceeds to fail to live up to that promise. He is now indebted to others whilst having nothing of his own to wager now. There is no way his silver tongue can get him out of that situation. So, by the end of BW, Mengsk has literally lost everything!

That's entirely hypothetical, no one has provided me any evidence of this thus far. But even if what you said was true, that'd just be more reason to keep Mengsk in power. How can he repay his debts if he's deposed?

The fact is that after Mengsk was abandoned "in the ashes of his precious Dominion" he was immediately negotiating deals with the Sector's power brokers and commanding one of the most powerful forces in the Sector. You forget that he was one of three fleets in Omega, the other two being the UED and the Protoss. The UED were entirely annihilated, the Dominion and Protoss were beaten back to rebuild. You want to say that makes them irrecoverably weak? Compared to whom? The Zerg, certainly, but they're basically infinitely powerful and this has remained consistent in StarCraft II, which needs to give a plethora of excuses and deus ex machinas for the Dominion not immediately folding whenever they confront the Zerg. So that's entirely consistent. But who else? If you want to believe that Mengsk was incredibly weak, that doesn't mean much, since weakness is a relative term. He was equally strong to the Protoss by the end of Brood War. Can you demonstrate that he is far stronger in StarCraft II? He was infinitely weaker than the Zerg in Brood War, this has not changed with StarCraft II. He leads the strongest Terran faction in StarCraft II, can you demonstrate that this isn't the case at the end of Brood War?

There's a lot I could say about this but I and many others have said it before and more succinctly. Simply put, there is no progression of Raynor's character from BW into Sc2 and that's the problem. You can transplant Sc1 Raynor directly into Sc2 without knowledge of BW and you'd be none the wiser.

Mostly. And this is again because Brood War doesn't progress the story much at all. To demonstrate a problem would require Wings of Liberty's Raynor to contradict progress that was made in Brood War. But he doesn't.

As to Raynor not abandoning the notion of killing Kerrigan, that is with the presumption that the audience member has played BW. Not knowing that history (and even then if you did know it), there is a definite and legitimate cause for some to interpret that Raynor never intended to kill her from the start just by his forlorn looks at Kerrigan's picture. People note that something has changed here.

The one where he says it would have been better if Kerrigan had died?

That's not evidence he recovered. He was the commander of multiple systems of planets. Korhal was sacked, but he can still draw forces from other places. With each defeat, his reputation and military was downgraded. He went from 100% to 50% to 10%. It's like a volume knob, not a on/off switch.

And yes, his 10% at Omega wasn't enough to do much at all. All of Kerrigan's broods were on the surface of Char and a single Cerebrate defeated him and two other forces that were also shadows of their former power. Pretty consistent.

The fact that he went from being abandoned in the ashes of his empire to commanding one of the three most powerful non-Zerg armies in the Sector is not evidence that he recovered.

Very well. I cannot in fact provide any clearer evidence than this, so if you dismiss it there's nothing I can do.However, since it is insignificant to you, I can only conclude that your evidence that he couldn't have recovered after Omega will prove to be superior.

[ragnarok]

The fact that he went from being abandoned in the ashes of his empire to commanding one of the three most powerful non-Zerg armies in the Sector is not evidence that he recovered.

Very well. I cannot in fact provide any clearer evidence than this, so if you dismiss it there's nothing I can do.However, since it is insignificant to you, I can only conclude that your evidence that he couldn't have recovered after Omega will prove to be superior.

It's not a recovery in THAT sense, Fanatic.

It merely meant that because Kerrigan withdrew the Zerg back to Char and disappeared from sight for the next 4 years, the Dominion had time to rebuild. At the beginning of WoL, Kate Lockwell made it clear that Mengsk had allowed the fleet to decay, despite the threat of another Zerg invasion.

All that meant was that by the time of WoL, the Dominion fleet was once again a sizable force, it does NOT mean it was at the strength that it was when the Dominion was first formed.

As for recovery, it also has to be in terms of "recovery compared to who else."

Remember, ever since the Kel-Morian Combine lost the Guild Wars to the Confederacy in 2489, they had NEVER recovered. This was still true even by the time of HotS. The Umojan Protectorate, which had been formed in the aftermath of the Guild Wars, had started off very small, and had to build up little by little. That would explain why by the time of WoL, they were still relatively small, having a very tiny fleet, much smaller than the KMC, though with much better technology and everything.

The Dominion itself, on the other hand, had annexed almost EVERYTHING that had originally belonging to the Confederate empire. This was Blizzard's excuse of not explaining just how vast the Confederate empire is.

That way, by never explaining it, they could say that it had been a LOT bigger than we once thought, allowing MANY other resource worlds (ones that were unscarred from warfare in SC1 and BW) to be added to the Dominion, and THAT was what allowed the Dominion to rise back up in a reasonable time in the aftermath of the BW, when it had been virtually shredded.

[Turalyon]

No, I'm saying Brood War is rife with absurdities like this. The UED invasion is merely the most egregious.

I'm not following your train of thought here. You were the one trying to justify this apparent "absurdity" of Mengsk "coming back again" with a bonafide absurd reason (ie: there was no suggestion he wasn't weakening with each blow he took).

That's entirely hypothetical, no one has provided me any evidence of this thus far.

What's so hypothetical about it? It's no more hypothetical than you're reasoning for Mengsk "coming back" as evidence of him having infinite power. At the least, my hypothetical makes more sense. Just sayin'....

But even if what you said was true, that'd just be more reason to keep Mengsk in power. How can he repay his debts if he's deposed?

Not really. After such a loss, Mengsk will repay his debt by both losing his life and shifting the balance of remaining Terran power to those he owes his debt. On the flip side, even if he did win, Mengsk's Dominion will still be comparably weak and easy prey to manipulation by the other Terran powers he had to seek assistance from. If anything, he would have been beholden to them and would most likely be Emperor in name only. Yet, Sc2 completely dissolves that by saying "Nope, Mengsk is and was always invincible and had an infinite well of power to draw from".

The fact is that after Mengsk was abandoned "in the ashes of his precious Dominion" he was immediately negotiating deals with the Sector's power brokers and commanding one of the most powerful forces in the Sector. You forget that he was one of three fleets in Omega, the other two being the UED and the Protoss. The UED were entirely annihilated, the Dominion and Protoss were beaten back to rebuild. You want to say that makes them irrecoverably weak? Compared to whom? The Zerg, certainly, but they're basically infinitely powerful and this has remained consistent in StarCraft II, which needs to give a plethora of excuses and deus ex machinas for the Dominion not immediately folding whenever they confront the Zerg. So that's entirely consistent. But who else? If you want to believe that Mengsk was incredibly weak, that doesn't mean much, since weakness is a relative term. He was equally strong to the Protoss by the end of Brood War. Can you demonstrate that he is far stronger in StarCraft II? He was infinitely weaker than the Zerg in Brood War, this has not changed with StarCraft II. He leads the strongest Terran faction in StarCraft II, can you demonstrate that this isn't the case at the end of Brood War?

I'm not comparing Mengsk's weakness compared to the other races because, at the time, the Terrans are the weakest race as setup in that universe to begin with. I'm comparing Mengsk's weakness against other Terrans and how is eroded position by the end of BW would make him extremely vulnerable to other elements within the cutthroat dynamics of Terran society. Mengsk and/or his Dominion are just a political party with clout if they can demonstrate power over other Terrans and BW dismantles him completely in that regard. There's nothing wrong in the Terrans rising back up to be as strong as they can be in general, just that the idea that it is Mengsk and his Dominion that are the ones to do it is far-fetched. Given that he's been reduced to a position worse than when he was leader of the Sons of Korhal (he was not indebted to anyone then and had any army built from loyalty not one that was borrowed) to not only rebuild his faction, somehow dominate the top-tier elements to make himself Emperor again and reconstitute the dynamics of his Dominion and then build-up the whole Terran presence to a degree that surpassed even the Confederates nearly two centuries of rule all in 5 years is more difficult to swallow.

Mostly. And this is again because Brood War doesn't progress the story much at all. To demonstrate a problem would require Wings of Liberty's Raynor to contradict progress that was made in Brood War. But he doesn't.

That's the thing. What little there was in terms of progression for Raynor's character in BW is completely ignored in the sequel. As I said, you can skip BW and be none-the-wiser however in BW, Raynor did show the beginnings of a change in direction for his character. He wasn't going to be the self-pitying sap who takes personal responsibility of the actions of others anymore. We didn't get a chance to explore any of this change before he's back to his usual way again (stereotypical sullen, put-upon hero guy) in Sc2.

The one where he says it would have been better if Kerrigan had died?

Still doesn't mean he still wanted to kill her personally.

The fact that he went from being abandoned in the ashes of his empire to commanding one of the three most powerful non-Zerg armies in the Sector is not evidence that he recovered.

In what context is he recovered? The fleet he commands is not technically his and it just represents a temporary material gain based on concessions and promises. All that this is evidence of his that he has a high charisma stat... and one that loses it's currency when he backs it up with a defeat.

[ragnarok]

Still doesn't mean he still wanted to kill her personally.

Explain why not, Turalyon. After Fenix's death, Raynor vowed to be the man to kill her. Kerrigan even reminded him of this back in the Flashpoint book, and again on the Moros, giving him the chance to fulfill the promise. Thus even by the Flashpoint book, Kerrigan was expecting Raynor to do it.

[FanaticTemplar]

I'm not following your train of thought here. You were the one trying to justify this apparent "absurdity" of Mengsk "coming back again" with a bonafide absurd reason (ie: there was no suggestion he wasn't weakening with each blow he took).

I'm just pointing out the double standard. People complained that Mengsk's power in Wings of Liberty makes no sense. I mention that equally absurd or worse events occurred in Brood War and everybody seemed fine with it then. If you're going to go the opposite angle and argue that things must make sense until proven otherwise, then apply that same standard to Wings of Liberty. Demonstrate that Mengsk is in an unrealistically good position in StarCraft II compared to the position he was in at the end of Brood War. I don't really mind which angle you choose to approach this from, I merely desire consistency.

I'm not comparing Mengsk's weakness compared to the other races because, at the time, the Terrans are the weakest race as setup in that universe to begin with. I'm comparing Mengsk's weakness against other Terrans and how is eroded position by the end of BW would make him extremely vulnerable to other elements within the cutthroat dynamics of Terran society.

Very well, provide evidence that Mengsk was weak relative to other Terrans by the end of Brood War.

That's the thing. What little there was in terms of progression for Raynor's character in BW is completely ignored in the sequel. As I said, you can skip BW and be none-the-wiser however in BW, Raynor did show the beginnings of a change in direction for his character. He wasn't going to be the self-pitying sap who takes personal responsibility of the actions of others anymore. We didn't get a chance to explore any of this change before he's back to his usual way again (stereotypical sullen, put-upon hero guy) in Sc2.

I never read that from Raynor in Brood War. He spent the entire game being a gullible pawn.

Still doesn't mean he still wanted to kill her personally.

Doesn't mean he didn't. You're the one claiming a contradiction, the burden of evidence is on you.

In what context is he recovered? The fleet he commands is not technically his and it just represents a temporary material gain based on concessions and promises. All that this is evidence of his that he has a high charisma stat... and one that loses it's currency when he backs it up with a defeat.

What else would a military fleet be? Mengsk doesn't construct Battlecruisers alone with his own hands and spawn armies of Marines by cloning. All armies are built on the authority of its leaders. But since his political clout and military arsenal don't count, what is your evidence that Mengsk has recovered in StarCraft II?

[ragnarok]

Very well, provide evidence that Mengsk was weak relative to other Terrans by the end of Brood War.

Actually for this part Fanatic, answer me something: how much did you see the KMC and UP get damaged in the BW?

[RetlocLive]

People complained that Mengsk's power in Wings of Liberty makes no sense. I mention that equally absurd or worse events occurred in Brood War and everybody seemed fine with it then.

*sigh* it's this kind of defense that gave defenders on the B.Net forums a bad name.

Who cares if Brood War has problems or not (Don't get me wrong here either, I know damn well it does). However, that doesn't for-one-bit excuse this one concerning the Dominion during the transition from BW to WoL. It's a completely separate problem! Saying one problem is justified because of some other random problem existed is like saying American Football concussions are a problem, because Baseball doesn't have instant replay. They are completely separate problems that have nothing to do with one another. You're proving nothing by saying that the return of the Dominion is justified, because Brood War has problems.

It's true that there's hardly any concrete proof that Mengsk is in a better or worse state during the transition. However, the fact that Brood War gave off the feeling that Mengsk, and his Dominion, was screwed on all accounts by the end of Omega, that they took part in defeat after defeat starting from the UED coming in and taking them over, of course it would feel off when you suddenly realize that by WoL, all that work you did slowly whittling down the Dominion was all for not.

I said it before on B.Net, and I will say it again. All I'm asking for is a sign or two that the Dominion was still in rebuild mode. Anything to show that the beating the Dominion took in Brood War actually affected them in some way.

I didn't get it.

[ragnarok]

It's true that there's hardly any concrete proof that Mengsk is in a better or worse state during the transition. However, the fact that Brood War gave off the feeling that Mengsk, and his Dominion, was screwed on all accounts by the end of Omega, that they took part in defeat after defeat starting from the UED coming in and taking them over, of course it would feel off when you suddenly realize that by WoL, all that work you did slowly whittling down the Dominion was all for not.

I said it before on B.Net, and I will say it again. All I'm asking for is a sign or two that the Dominion was still in rebuild mode. Anything to show that the beating the Dominion took in Brood War actually affected them in some way.

I didn't get it.

Well it was, Retlo, but WoL just didn't say it DISCRETELY. You recall the interview Kate Lockweel conducted with Mengsk at the beginning of the game? She made it clear that he had allowed the fleet to decay, when the Zerg was still a real threat.

It's possible Kate was saying the fleet was still a LONG way to go from full strength, despite it being a sizable force again. And that means if the Zerg invaded at this point in time, the fleet would be able to stop them.

[FanaticTemplar]

*sigh* it's this kind of defense that gave defenders on the B.Net forums a bad name.

Who cares if Brood War has problems or not (Don't get me wrong here either, I know damn well it does). However, that doesn't for-one-bit excuse this one concerning the Dominion during the transition from BW to WoL. It's a completely separate problem! Saying one problem is justified because of some other random problem existed is like saying American Football concussions are a problem, because Baseball doesn't have instant replay. They are completely separate problems that have nothing to do with one another. You're proving nothing by saying that the return of the Dominion is justified, because Brood War has problems.

It's true that there's hardly any concrete proof that Mengsk is in a better or worse state during the transition. However, the fact that Brood War gave off the feeling that Mengsk, and his Dominion, was screwed on all accounts by the end of Omega, that they took part in defeat after defeat starting from the UED coming in and taking them over, of course it would feel off when you suddenly realize that by WoL, all that work you did slowly whittling down the Dominion was all for not.

I said it before on B.Net, and I will say it again. All I'm asking for is a sign or two that the Dominion was still in rebuild mode. Anything to show that the beating the Dominion took in Brood War actually affected them in some way.

I didn't get it.

Actually, if we go back to page 3, you'll find that the question was whether Arcturus Mengsk's inexplicable return to power was 'inconsistent with the story of Brood War', so they're not separate. If Brood War demonstrates that Mengsk has inexplicable recovery powers, then the fault in Wings of Liberty is that they were consistent with the lore of Brood War, when they should in fact have retconned it out.

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.