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

[Gradius]

Okay, using absolute terms,

I didn't say using relative terms was wrong, I was implying that stating facts from the game doesn't mean anything when you can't show that the ending point is unreasonable given the starting point. You've already agreed that Mengsk's rise to power in WoL is unreasonable. But now you're doing the same for SC1 and BW, so the burden of proof is on you, not me.

demonstrate that Mengsk is unreasonably more powerful in Wings of Liberty than he should be.

Ok: http://sclegacy.com/forums/showthrea...l=1#post182585

So? The Zerg get defeated all over the place and only become more powerful.

The zerg hatch from eggs and can replicate whole armies as an afterthought. That's why they're the menace of the galaxy and rolled over the protoss and terrans. Any comparison you make with them will be irrelevant.

Being defeated doesn't mean you're annihilated. In fact, Omega makes it a point that Mengsk's fleet was not annihilated by contrasting it to the UED's. He was forced to retreat. Truly, he is unfit for leadership because he hasn't had any more success against the Zerg than anyone else.

That was the point: Kerrigan gave him enough scraps to survive so she could continue toying with him. She also told him "Did you really think I'd allow you to come into power again?"

Do you have any evidence?

See above.

Protecting his people from terrorists is also his job, and that's assuming Kate Lockwell somehow has accurate information about Dominion spending. I'm not expecting much transparency from the Dominion government.

Well, Kate seems to think it's a waste of money with what information she does have.

Source?

BW manual:

Having crowned himself Emperor of the Dominion, all of the Terran colonies within the Koprulu sector were united under one sovereign rule for the first time.
With General Edmund Duke by his side, Mengsk was unopposed by any of the major Terran Militias within the Sector.

That was also the point of his inauguration speech and Fenix commenting on how greedy Moria is because they abandoned the Dominion to make money.

I haven't read the Frontline comics, and they're irrelevant: if there is a problem in Wings of Liberty, the evidence should come from Wings of Liberty.

Yes. It was a random aside that can be ignored for all intents and purposes.

So Mengsk getting demolished on Korhal puts him in an unrecoverable position, the KMC getting demolished on Moria puts them in a perfect position to overthrow Mengsk? I disagree.

It's not the same thing. Mengsk lost 3 times and Moria was raided, not demolished. Fenix even says that it's a "covert" mission.

It's hard to say if they were someone's target or not when they don't appear. Either way there doesn't need to be any specific reason to invade Umoja: The Stand demonstrates that Cerebrates can just appear on a planet for absolutely no reason and have the power to wipe out the entire Protoss species, so there's no reason to assume that Umoja got spared.

Not that this is important. If you want to say that the Umojan's situation relative to the Dominion in Wings of Liberty is problematic, you first need to demonstrate their situation relative to the Dominion at the end of Brood War.

Whether it's Umoja or a random dissident in Mengsk's government, there is a clear narrative problem here in the idea that Mengsk is the only one capable of leading the terrans, no matter how many times he gets defeated and embarassed.

Even if I were willing to accept all your assumptions, you still have not demonstrated that the Kel-Morian Combine had the power to push Mengsk around at the end of Brood War.

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

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

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

Or, it could be the complete opposite of what you say: in Brood War Kerrigan was only able to conquer Korhal by allying herself with the Protoss and the Dominion - two of the most powerful factions in the game
- and sacking the Kel-Morian Combine for resources, then betraying her allies to gain a definitive advantage. In StarCraft II, even after losing a vast amount of her Broods in space after her deinfestation, and leaving a massive portion of her remaining warriors in space during the actual invasion, and Mengsk getting all the time to fortify himself on Korhal, and taking a deliberate strategic disadvantage to reduce civilian casualties, and Mengsk pulling out a magic macguffin out of his arse that straight-up kills Zerg, Kerrigan still had no problem taking Korhal. Clearly, Korhal was incredibly stronger in Brood War, and this is clear evidence that Mengsk never recovered from his losses then. There you go, evidence that Mengsk never recovered.

Many broods went feral after the Overmind died too. Then a giant chunk of the swarm was annihilated by the xel'naga temple on Shakuras. Then Char was invaded and captured by the UED where the zerg casualties were in the millions. Then Kerrigan had to deal with the psi disruptor, which was way worse than the psi destroyer because it prevented her from controlling her minions at all (that's the only reason she needed allies). In addition, Korhal in SC1 was guarded by UED slave broods. Where were the slave broods protecting Korhal in HoTS? Kerrigan even kept a bunch of her Leviathans up in space, and told Zagara to take the rest of the swarm away if she loses, which implies she didn't even have to use the entire swarm to destroy Korhal. So no, I'm not buying this assertion at all, even with Blizzard's retcons and creative liberties for HoTS.

Kerrigan still had no problem taking Korhal.

Again I quote: "Toughest fight of our lives".

There you go, evidence that Mengsk never recovered.

Not even close.

*spends trillions of credits on Raynor
*spends lavish amount of money beautifying Korhal
*builds extravagant weapons like the Odin and unveils a new battlecruiser every week

Even the WoL CD intro says "Meanwhile, the Dominion has grown in power and extended its influence throughout the Koprulu sector." This is the same as saying that it's vying with the other factions for power and winning.

[ragnarok]

Again I quote: "Toughest fight of our lives".

See, this is why I'm curious just WHAT info she stored in Izsha, and just WHAT she remembered of Dominion industrial capacity. Since there's been WAY too much talk on the battlenet forums that destroying those Dominion worlds weren't even necessary.

[Turalyon]

Was gonna reply to FT but I think Grad has officially subbed himself in perfectly. Thanks for the assist!

What I'm not understanding with FTs position so far is that he's demanding concrete evidence for something that is intimated through logical subtext where he has not provided similar standards of evidence to back his justification beyond saying Mengsk can recover because he can and the game shows us. Why it Ok for him to sit on the superficiality of such a stance and not us? If we are to establish that Mengsk's comeback in Sc2 is not absurd because it was absurd previously (there's some squirelly circular reasoning there), why/how are Mengsk's comebacks in BW considered absurd/impossible? I think our position can't be much more clearer than presented.

I think it helps if we contextualise this issue with Mengsk's power level with another example. Much as the Protoss lovers out there dislike the current path, the downward slide in Protoss has been consistently justifiable across the installments so far. Their numerous losses have pretty much left them as a footnote in Sc2 and reasonably so. If we are to use them as the template for the current debate, imagine if they were represented like Mengsk/Dominion are in Sc2 after what they went through and try to explain that as being logically reasonable. It's partly why I have trepidation about LotV having the Protoss magically save the day because they it happened to be that they weren't so crippled afterall.

[ragnarok]

Was gonna reply to FT but I think Grad has officially subbed himself in perfectly. Thanks for the assist!

What I'm not understanding with FTs position so far is that he's demanding concrete evidence for something that is intimated through logical subtext where he has not provided similar standards of evidence to back his justification beyond saying Mengsk can recover because he can and the game shows us. Why it Ok for him to sit on the superficiality of such a stance and not us? If we are to establish that Mengsk's comeback in Sc2 is not absurd because it was absurd previously (there's some squirelly circular reasoning there), why/how are Mengsk's comebacks in BW considered absurd/impossible? I think our position can't be much more clearer than presented.

Turalyon, it's kind of like this:

By the end of the Brood War, although Korhal took damage due to UED occupation, it DOES seem that the UED didn't leave Korhal a total wasteland or anything like that. Remember, in the terran campaign, there were only TWO missions on Korhal. The first was to attack the Dominion physics labs or nuclear silos, and the 2nd was to deal with Mengsk himself.

If that's true, then essentially most of Korhal was not attacked by the UED, but simply occupied when Mengsk fell from power. And that means most of Korhal was not left badly damaged when the UED forces were driven off, even after the Zerg campaign on the planet. This could mean that enough industrial facilities and everything was still left intact and everything. After all, the UED seemed only to attack military targets, not industrial ones, and in the Zerg campaign it was only about dealing with the UED.

In that sense, Kerrigan was relatively stupid in saying she left Mengsk was nothing but tatters after killing Duke.


Point is, if those facilities had been left intact, then it would make sense how Mengsk was able to restore Korhal relatively quickly.

[Telenil]

See, those 5 separate invasions against the swarm Warfield was telling Raynor about proved both the Dominion was weak AND that he was an incompetent general.

After all, if he led those invasions, why didn't UNN say anything?

Because the writers only intended the news as comic relief, as opposed to giving the Dominion point of view. More specifically, it was impossible to tell a consistent story when the levels could happen in almost any order. Yes, this is an out-of-universe perspective, but I think it is the correct answer.

The news spots are only supposed to make sense in very specific cases that directly relate to the level you've just played (terrorist attack blamed on the Spectres...). The rest is filler showing Kate Lockwell being cut or reports where every noun is censored by a beep, so I don't think it is safe to draw conclusions based on what the news don't report.

In fact, I'd be willing to ignore that "trillions" line on the grounds that most of these news are stupid anyway.

If you're going to say that Mengsk having access to an entire fleet in Omega is not evidence, I am certainly going to dismiss 'spending trillions' as being evidence. Especially since we have no way of knowing if that's really what he was spending his money on.

The other Terran powers being unheard of is entirely consistent with StarCraft and Brood War. There was never any mention of how the Umojan Protectorate and Kel-Morian Combine reacted to the Confederacy's collapse in the games. Remember that I'm asking you to provide evidence that he is improbably stronger in Wings of Liberty than he was in Brood War, so if you want to use the fact that the other Terran powers are not interfering in Wings as evidence, you need to demonstrate that the other Terran powers were interfering at the end of Brood War, otherwise you can't demonstrate that this is an improvement.

Again, the Terran fleet we see in Omega is a Dominion fleet the same way that the troops who landed in Normandy were British. The Dominion didn't recover in the SC2 sense, he found other forces willing to help him.

That is proof that the Dominion was not an overwhelmingly dominant Terran force anymore, since his leaders had to negotiate with whoever could send them soldiers instead of ordering them in line. Do you imagine Mengsk calling favors so he could send Duke to defend the Dylarian shipyard? The Terran coalition at Omega ("rag-tag fleet") doesn't come together because Mengsk is the one who asks, but because people who normally want nothing to do with him ("special interest groups") also hate Kerrigan.

I was about to write about Moria and Umjoa, but Gradius summed it up already.

[FanaticTemplar]

I didn't say using relative terms was wrong, I was implying that stating facts from the game doesn't mean anything when you can't show that the ending point is unreasonable given the starting point. You've already agreed that Mengsk's rise to power in WoL is unreasonable. But now you're doing the same for SC1 and BW, so the burden of proof is on you, not me.

I agreed that Mengsk's rise in power in Wings of Liberty was unreasonable based on the same standards I used to conclude that his rises in power in Brood War were unreasonable. If you argue that my standards are incorrect, then I cannot conclude that his rise in power in Wings of Liberty was unreasonable. The burden of proof for that is on you, not me.

Besides, how does pointing out that Mengsk has become a considerable threat to the UED off of four (or two) surviving worlds in the span of a few months not show that the ending point is unreasonable?

Ok: http://sclegacy.com/forums/showthrea...l=1#post182585

This is the same narrative I've read before, but it doesn't actually demonstrate what I asked for. You've only demonstrated that Mengsk was weaker at the end of Brood War than he was at the beginning. With regards to the two waqys Mengsk had of staying in power, you haven't demonstrated that Mengsk no longer had any military force, and worse, since Mengsk returned from Omega with his battered fleet but the Zerg don't show up again for five years, you've demonstrated that Mengsk would appear to be best suited to protecting the Sector from aliens.

The zerg hatch from eggs and can replicate whole armies as an afterthought. That's why they're the menace of the galaxy and rolled over the protoss and terrans. Any comparison you make with them will be irrelevant.

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

That was the point: Kerrigan gave him enough scraps to survive so she could continue toying with him. She also told him "Did you really think I'd allow you to come into power again?"

She also said "My stare alone would reduce you to ashes". Mengsk, on the other hand, says "Just remember that I'll be out there... waiting for you to slip up, Because sooner or later, you'll make a mistake. And when you do..." Clearly, Mengsk was correct. So again, entirely consistent with Brood War.

BW manual:

Thanks, you are correct. But that just means that Mengsk had command of their forces until he was deposed by the UED, so they assuredly also suffered from the invasion. There is still no evidence that they were powerful enough to depose Mengsk at the end of Brood War.

It's not the same thing. Mengsk lost 3 times and Moria was raided, not demolished. Fenix even says that it's a "covert" mission.

But Mengsk had more planets besides Korhal, as you have stated yourself. And this 'covert' mission involved the infestation of Terran Command Centers as part of its objectives.

Whether it's Umoja or a random dissident in Mengsk's government, there is a clear narrative problem here in the idea that Mengsk is the only one capable of leading the terrans, no matter how many times he gets defeated and embarassed.

But he doesn't need to be the only one. He just needs to be the one that is actually doing it.

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

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

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

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

Many broods went feral after the Overmind died too. Then a giant chunk of the swarm was annihilated by the xel'naga temple on Shakuras. Then Char was invaded and captured by the UED where the zerg casualties were in the millions. Then Kerrigan had to deal with the psi disruptor, which was way worse than the psi destroyer because it prevented her from controlling her minions at all (that's the only reason she needed allies). In addition, Korhal in SC1 was guarded by UED slave broods. Where were the slave broods protecting Korhal in HoTS? Kerrigan even kept a bunch of her Leviathans up in space, and told Zagara to take the rest of the swarm away if she loses, which implies she didn't even have to use the entire swarm to destroy Korhal. So no, I'm not buying this assertion at all, even with Blizzard's retcons and creative liberties for HoTS.

Wait, 'dead minions' is way worse than 'hard to control minions'? Anyway, the Psi Disruptor was out of the equation before the invasion of Korhal, so you're very much mistaken about that. And there weren't many Zerg on Korhal because the UED had difficulty controlling them, so this is far less of a concern than the Psi Destroyer. Also, leaving a bunch of her Leviathans in space was part of my argument, so I'm slightly confused as to what you're going for there.

Again I quote: "Toughest fight of our lives".

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

Not even close.

*spends trillions of credits on Raynor
*spends lavish amount of money beautifying Korhal
*builds extravagant weapons like the Odin and unveils a new battlecruiser every week

Even the WoL CD intro says "Meanwhile, the Dominion has grown in power and extended its influence throughout the Koprulu sector." This is the same as saying that it's vying with the other factions for power and winning.

Again, demonstrate that this was beyond his means at the end of Brood War.

What I'm not understanding with FTs position so far is that he's demanding concrete evidence for something that is intimated through logical subtext where he has not provided similar standards of evidence to back his justification beyond saying Mengsk can recover because he can and the game shows us. Why it Ok for him to sit on the superficiality of such a stance and not us? If we are to establish that Mengsk's comeback in Sc2 is not absurd because it was absurd previously (there's some squirelly circular reasoning there), why/how are Mengsk's comebacks in BW considered absurd/impossible? I think our position can't be much more clearer than presented.

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

I think it helps if we contextualise this issue with Mengsk's power level with another example. Much as the Protoss lovers out there dislike the current path, the downward slide in Protoss has been consistently justifiable across the installments so far. Their numerous losses have pretty much left them as a footnote in Sc2 and reasonably so. If we are to use them as the template for the current debate, imagine if they were represented like Mengsk/Dominion are in Sc2 after what they went through and try to explain that as being logically reasonable. It's partly why I have trepidation about LotV having the Protoss magically save the day because they it happened to be that they weren't so crippled afterall.

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

He didn't desperately borrow a fleet on the proviso that he kill Kerrigan, the surprise was not in building a fleet, it was in building a fleet so fast. And it wasn't 'lent' to him to kill Kerrigan, there's no evidence of any other Terran group with a personal grudge against her, and that wouldn't be "a concession" or "calling in a favour" anyway. No, he bought that fleet, by promising favours and concessions that people were eager to accept because they came from the most powerful man in the Sector. That's the "logical subtext" of Omega. Everyone may have been beaten and broken by Kerrigan, but Mengsk is still the one-eyed man in the land of the blind.

[Telenil]

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

He didn't desperately borrow a fleet on the proviso that he kill Kerrigan, the surprise was not in building a fleet, it was in building a fleet so fast. And it wasn't 'lent' to him to kill Kerrigan, there's no evidence of any other Terran group with a personal grudge against her, and that wouldn't be "a concession" or "calling in a favour" anyway. No, he bought that fleet, by promising favours and concessions that people were eager to accept because they came from the most powerful man in the Sector. That's the "logical subtext" of Omega. Everyone may have been beaten and broken by Kerrigan, but Mengsk is still the one-eyed man in the land of the blind.

Are you sure you have the briefings in mind? Here is the exact quote from True Colors:

Samir Duran: "And what of your allies here on Korhal, my Queen? What would you have done with them?"
Infested Kerrigan: "They are of no further use to me. Though they have proven themselves useful, it might be dangerous to allow them to live. Without the services of General Duke, Mengsk will be easy to deal with. But Raynor and Fenix are uncannily resourceful. *sigh* They must all be eradicated. Cerebrate, I want both General Duke's and Fenix's bases destroyed. Leave no one alive."
Samir Duran: "My Queen, if I may suggest a strategy? Both the Protoss and Terran forces are resting after our previous victory. If we attack immediately, while most of them are asleep and unaware, we can whittle down their defenses with relative ease!"

It might be dangerous to let them be. Without Duke, Mengsk will be easy. Kerrigan doesn't do a surprise attack because she has to, but because that's expedient, a rather easy win. None of this fits with the idea that Arcturus is as dangerous as ever.
Omega quote:

Arcturus Mengsk: "You sound worried, Kerrigan. Have I caught you at a bad time?"
Infested Kerrigan: "Not at all, Arcturus. How'd you manage to scrape up your new fleet? Been raiding the salvage dumps again?"
Arcturus Mengsk: "I called in a few favors. Made a few concessions. You'd be surprised to see how many special interest groups in this sector want to see you dead."
Infested Kerrigan: "I'm sorry to have to disappoint your new friends, Arcturus. But you really shouldn't have attempted this stunt. It'll take more than your three little fleets to bring me down."
Arcturus Mengsk: "Three fleets?"
Infested Kerrigan: "Don't play dumb, Arcturus. I've already spotted the other two fleets."

She didn't think he could gather a fleet that could threaten her, full stop. And that's because he couldn't, what she saw then was a combined Terran effort, plus the Protoss, plus the UED. "So fast" or any equivalent is missing. It spells out that the other Terran groups specifically want her dead.
The reason Turalyon, Gradius and I reached the same conclusion is because that's what the briefing says, in terms that are not particularly ambiguous.

[ragnarok]

Because the writers only intended the news as comic relief, as opposed to giving the Dominion point of view. More specifically, it was impossible to tell a consistent story when the levels could happen in almost any order. Yes, this is an out-of-universe perspective, but I think it is the correct answer.

The news spots are only supposed to make sense in very specific cases that directly relate to the level you've just played (terrorist attack blamed on the Spectres...). The rest is filler showing Kate Lockwell being cut or reports where every noun is censored by a beep, so I don't think it is safe to draw conclusions based on what the news don't report.

In fact, I'd be willing to ignore that "trillions" line on the grounds that most of these news are stupid anyway.

Oh I know that, and that was one of the flaws of WoL in telling the whole story from Raynor's POV, makes it seem like no one else ever did anything. That's why despite the prophecy is disliked, at least the Protoss mini campaign there proved something else had happened.

Kate Lockwell's actions were fine, since Mengsk used UNN's censorship to hide his own war crimes and everything. As for the trillions squandered, I'm sure it's not an EXACT number, but at the very least Mengsk had to manipulate the media to believe that.

For the part before Omega of him calling favors, of course that wasn't enough for the Dominion to recover. But at that point, the KMC and UP were still allied with the Dominion. It was only AFTER the BW that they turned away, because Mengsk's incompetent handling of the fleet there had them lose the battle, giving them the impression Mengsk was leading humanity to perdition.

[FanaticTemplar]

Are you sure you have the briefings in mind? Here is the exact quote from True Colors:
It might be dangerous to let them be. Without Duke, Mengsk will be easy. Kerrigan doesn't do a surprise attack because she has to, but because that's expedient, a rather easy win. None of this fits with the idea that Arcturus is as dangerous as ever.

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

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

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

Omega quote:

She didn't think he could gather a fleet that could threaten her, full stop. And that's because he couldn't, what she saw then was a combined Terran effort, plus the Protoss, plus the UED. "So fast" or any equivalent is missing. It spells out that the other Terran groups specifically want her dead.

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

[ragnarok]

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

Not via a battle of numbers there's no way to threaten her, but numbers aren't everything in battle. Of course we didn't start seeing this until WoL, but still.

That's why I still expect the Protoss to have their power released for LotV.