Writing a New Starcraft 2 storyline

[Nissa]

Mengsk was interesting. He can't use the Zerg anymore, because Kerrigan is in full control of them and it's not as if he has much choice in not being a foot note because Kerrigan's vendetta against him is includes making sure he never rises to power again (as she says in BW).

That's not at all what I meant. If the guy is willing to use Zerg to gain power, he'll go to any extreme to stay in it.

Raynor would seem to disagree: "Let's kick this revolution into overdrive!"

Either way, exchange the word with rebellion, open hostility or vendetta if it doesn't suit. The original point still makes sense.

I guess so, but that doesn't make SC2 canon. Anyway, it just seems more likely Raynor would focus more on Kerrigan. There's no reason for Raynor to believe he can replace Mengsk with someone more honest than him, particularly in the light of all the nation-level authority figures he's ever known are controlling scumbags. Actually, Aldaris is probably the best example of authority he's ever seen (in comparison to the others, of course), because Aldaris is the only one who ever backed down and showed a little humility (in the final mission of SC).

No, Raynor might fight Mengsk for his own reasons, but never for a revolution. I dunno, he'd probably see Mengsk's hate for Kerri as a good thing.

Oh, I'm sure both would have tried to keep their word - which is something I would have like to see as a means of continuity - but Sc2 goes along with the assumed knowledge that while they did try, the task was impossible and so they reverted to easier targets such as each other. I guess that's to be expected when you put in an arbitrary 4 years in which nothing at all happened.

Well, we're making our own SC2, so that neeeever happened. Yup.

It's hard to know when the association started, so it could've been a fairly recently development. Besides, I get the feeling that Mengsk and Valerian aren't actually aware of the Hybrids specifically and that Narud had only been using the Dominion's resources and the Moebius Foundation as a cover to hide his work with them. If that's the case, we could've transplanted them to another Terran faction as a means to explore some of the more neglected Terran aspects.

Anything's possible at this point. Though I have the feeling Val's being set up as a nice guy for now, only to end up the one who's really doing the whole hybrid thing, for intellectual purposes. At least, that'd be the best outcome of what happened. It's just cheap to pin the whole thing on Mengsk when he couldn't spend the resources on it without knowing at least a little about what was happening to that money.

A "good ending" is relative and usually entails certain expectations (namely yours) that have to be met to be considered "good". Given that Starcraft's story, on a very broad level, is about a conflict that embroils three groups the ending of SC1 makes it such that the three groups have all fought themselves to a standstill - sure the story could continue, but it doesn't need to. In BW, where we have the forced continuation of SC1, the ending is even more definitive than the first in that the 3-way conflict that the premise is based on is shattered forever with one of the groups being the outstanding and most dominant victor. Any such continuation from here would be more difficult since it'd likely be unidirectional and therefore pointless unless contrivances were to occur - which is what Sc2 had to utilise in order to continue. An ending to a story should be just that, and end - it shouldn't feel beholden to continue because of financial reasons or for the sake of continuance or for the sake to appease a certain section of fans. There's a reason why sequelitis exists.

.......A good ending doesn't hinge on expectations. It hinges on objective writing ability and as logical flow as possible. Keep in mind that Blizzard is a business, and "appeasing a certain section of fans" is how they get their money. In short, if making a game can make them a profit, they'll do it. It's not about "appeasing" so much as it is economic gain.

In other words, Blizzard isn't obligated, they're "obligated" -- it makes sense for them to make sequels for a game if they can make money doing what their customers want. It's kind of the whole point of the business, y'know.

[Turalyon]

That's not at all what I meant. If the guy is willing to use Zerg to gain power, he'll go to any extreme to stay in it.

Ok, let's stick with that (going to extremes to get what he wants) as being one of Mengsk's "hat". How would you begin to use that in a sequel rewrite when Mengsk is rendered powerless and kept that way by Kerrigan without resorting to macguffen-ry or other plot contrivance?

Anyway, it just seems more likely Raynor would focus more on Kerrigan. There's no reason for Raynor to believe he can replace Mengsk with someone more honest than him, particularly in the light of all the nation-level authority figures he's ever known are controlling scumbags.

I agree on both counts. A sequel rewrite should at, the least, make a show of Raynor trying to go at Kerrigan rather than just brush it off/leave it behind-the-scenes. As to Raynor transitioning his actions to Mengsk, I've always taken his motivations for eventually doing such a thing to be "less-than-pure". Like I said in the previous posts, it's not unreasonable for Raynor to eventually shift his attention to Mengsk because he's stonewalled by the impossibility of getting at Kerrigan. In essence, he transfers his frustration and anger to another legitimate target (it helps that Mengsk was responsible for Kerrigan's current condition) he can potentially make some ground on so it can be an outlet and to assuage his feelings about his inability to actually doing anything to Kerrigan when, for his ultimate benefit and sanity, he should really just let it all go. He's not actually doing it for noble reasons like making the Terrans have democratic rule or any other nonsense like that - though, that would legitimately feed into his spiel when trying to recruit others and who knows? After awhile, he may eventually start believing his own bullshit if he peddles it long enough. Unlike Sc2, the rewrite needs to give an unbiased view of Raynor and should not represent his actions as always being heroic and pure-hearted.

Actually, Aldaris is probably the best example of authority he's ever seen (in comparison to the others, of course), because Aldaris is the only one who ever backed down and showed a little humility (in the final mission of SC).

Luckily, Raynor wasn't around when Aldaris threw it all away in his misguided rebellion on Shakuras...

Well, we're making our own SC2, so that neeeever happened. Yup.

That's good. An actual continuation rather than a gap and then random stuff happening. Cool!

Though I have the feeling Val's being set up as a nice guy for now, only to end up the one who's really doing the whole hybrid thing, for intellectual purposes. At least, that'd be the best outcome of what happened. It's just cheap to pin the whole thing on Mengsk when he couldn't spend the resources on it without knowing at least a little about what was happening to that money.

It'd be a shame if Val was yet another scheming, evil Terran guy - they should have just kept Mengsk Snr around to fill that vacuous role (who knows? no-one seems to stay dead in Starcraft anymore, so Mengsk could still be alive for all we know ) that being the case. It'd also be unwise to pin it to Mengsk now given that he's already dead, so that revelation would be a fizzer if it were revealed as such. I'm pretty sure they were meant to show Narud as being an independent guy who just approached Val or Mengsk to do them a favour in exchange for some hi-tech research or something. The Mengsks likely had no idea Narud was making Hybrids in his spare time.

.......A good ending doesn't hinge on expectations. It hinges on objective writing ability and as logical flow as possible.

So BW lacked a logical flow at it's ending thereby disqualifying it as being "good"? There is no such thing as a universally "good" ending to anything - people will mope about what defines "good" till the end of time. What they can agree on is where a definite ending exists (as in the story just doesn't just cut off in the middle or something) - which BW has. The Sc2 we got and the difficulty of rewriting a "proper" sequel without contrivance further shows just how definitive and conclusive that ending to BW was.