Kerrigan should hate the Confederacy more

[Shadow Archon]

Doesn't the EU lore about Ghosts say something about them having their memories wiped on a constant basis in order to keep them in line? Maybe Kerrigan wasn't even fully aware of what the Confeds did to her and only had Mengsk's anecdotes to go by after he rescued her way back when.

Nah.

That was with the Dominion and the Confederacy Post-Kerrigan-as-a-Ghost.

They went to Mind-Wipes from Psi-Dampeners as a consequence of Mengsk turning Kerrigan against the Confederacy.

[Visions of Khas]

Well why didn't she say "I just don't think anyone deserves to have the zerg unleashed on them." and skip all the mass murdering in HoTS?

On the flip side, why did she disagree with the use of psi emitters if destroying a bunch of planets with zerg is a-ok?

Okay, Gradius, this is getting a little ridiculous.

Do you truly believe any anyone's personality to remain static for more than four years? Is it impossible for a character's motives and beliefs to change dramatically? Especially after becoming a child soldier, being forced to become an assassins, betrayal by your "rescuer", Zerg infestation, mental conditioning by the Overmind and THEN Amon and all the drastic neuro-chemical alteration that entails, waging a war effort on her former race at the behest of alien instincts, de-infestation, being poked and prodded by scientists as this would-be Prince of humanity parades you around as a trophy, then having that one single, small anchor to reality -- Raynor -- destroyed in front of you?

Sometimes, it's easier than you think to be pushed into the "Fuck EVERYONE" territory. And if it takes ALL of the ABOVE to push you into that mentality, then you're far more human and rational than any other human in existence.

Do me a favor and do some light reading into PTSD.

[Nissa]

Doesn't the EU lore about Ghosts say something about them having their memories wiped on a constant basis in order to keep them in line? Maybe Kerrigan wasn't even fully aware of what the Confeds did to her and only had Mengsk's anecdotes to go by after he rescued her way back when.

Yes, in Starcraft Ghost: Nova it's confirmed that all ghosts go through a memory wipe. Nova went through this wipe after her training, so Kerrigan likely did the same.

Edited: Actually, Shadow Archon, in SCG Nova she mentions the memory wipes before the Dominion exists, so clearly it was part of Confederate practices.

[Shadow Archon]

Edited: Actually, Shadow Archon, in SCG Nova she mentions the memory wipes before the Dominion exists, so clearly it was part of Confederate practices.

After Kerrigan already left.

“Is it true?” she whispered.

Kelerchian frowned. “What was that?”

“Is it true? At the end of the training program, you’ll take my memories away? Please tell me.”

“That’s become SOP lately.” Kelerchian looked concerned now. “Is that a probl—”

The confed’s words were cut off by Nova’s running up to him and wrapping her arms around his chest. “Thank you thank you thank you thank you, Agent Kelerchian, you don’t know what this means, thank you so much!”
---------------
“No ‘perhaps’ about it.” He turned to watch the trainees. They had switched to a different type of push-up, with their fists together on the floor, their legs spread a bit wider, and pushing up and down so their chests landed on their wrists. “I see you kept the program intact.”

“There were a few elements of the Confederacy that were worth keeping. The Ghost Program was one of them. I know firsthand how effective the Ghosts are.”

“I’m sure you do. It’s ’cause of you that trainees have their memories wiped when they graduate.”

Putting his hand over his heart, Mengsk said, “I had nothing to do with Sarah Kerrigan’s defection to my cause, Agent Kelerchian. She did that of her own free will. I merely took advantage of your own inability to hang on to her.”

They used Psi-Dampeners/Neural Inhibitors when Kerrigan was a Confederate Ghost.

“Yes, and perhaps more. Telepaths have
powers that not even the Confederacy fully understands yet. That’s
why they ensure the compliance of their Ghost soldiers
by putting ‘neural inhibitors’ inside their brain.” Mengsk
pointed to the scar. “It makes them highly responsive to
orders, and in most cases, inhibits their memories.”

“Why do they want to repress their memory?” Somo
asked.

Arcturus waited for a moment, choosing his words
carefully. “Because Ghosts are only sent on the blackest
of operations. They are assassins, infiltrators, and murderous
automatons under Confederate control. The
inhibitors are implanted so the Ghosts cannot remember
the things they have done, and therefore if captured
cannot give up any Confederate secrets to the enemy.”

Arcturus stood over Kerrigan, looking down at her.
Unreadable emotions passed over his face. “We’re going
to have her inhibitor removed.”
--------------
“You were a Ghost, a Confederate soldier. Before you
became a soldier, a chip—called a ‘neural inhibitor’—
was implanted in your brain. Part of the function of the
inhibitor is to repress memory. The rest of your memory
loss is due to the drugs administered during the experiments.
We have removed the chip, and the drugs’ effects
are not permanent. I believe that with time, and
patience, and the proper guidance, you may regain your
memories. All of them.”

[Nissa]

Shadow Archon, please stop quoting things. One, they're long. Two, they don't prove your point.

Neural inhibitors existed in the Confederacy, sure, but nothing you quote indicates that they were exclusively used before Mengsk, and nothing you quoted indicates that Mengsk (or someone in his administration) made the program switch to straight up memory wipes. You're placing a strict interpretation on two loose references.

I also just realized that the book doesn't even make a distinct difference between the two. They may in fact be the same thing.

[Shadow Archon]

Shadow Archon, please stop quoting things.

Uh, no.

If we're going to debate what the books says, I'm going to be quoting the books.

If you don't like that, I'm sorry. I'm not stopping.

One, they're long. Two, they don't prove your point.

One, how is less than five hundred words long? I've posted quotes containing thousands of words before.

Two, yes they completely do.

Neural inhibitors existed in the Confederacy, sure, but nothing you quote indicates that they were exclusively used before Mengsk,

Well, the exclusiveness of NIs isn't what we're talking about. It's Mind Wipes.

Ghost, which takes place in 2499/2500 states that Mind Wipes was a recent SOP for Ghosts. Neural Inhibitors are presently used too going by the manual, that was never part of the argument.

Uprising takes place in 2491 and makes no mentions of Mind Wipes and only Neural Inhibitors.

and nothing you quoted indicates that Mengsk (or someone in his administration) made the program switch to straight up memory wipes.

No, it doesn't.

It states that because of Sarah's defection from the Confederacy, they started using mind wipes during the Confederacy's run.

Not to mention, mind wipes are brought up in the book before Mengsk even creates the Dominion.

You're placing a strict interpretation on two loose references.

It isn't a strict interpretation.

It's a straight up stated fact that's what happened.

“I’m sure you do. It’s ’cause of you that trainees have their memories wiped when they graduate.”

Putting his hand over his heart, Mengsk said, “I had nothing to do with Sarah Kerrigan’s defection to my cause, Agent Kelerchian. She did that of her own free will. I merely took advantage of your own inability to hang on to her.”

The Confeds only started to use mind-wipes because of Sarah's defection.

That's crystal clear right here.

I also just realized that the book doesn't even make a distinct difference between the two. They may in fact be the same thing.

They aren't.

Mind Wipes are a process that uses external technology to modify/remove memories.

Neural Inhibitors are an internal implant.

[Gradius]

Yes, in Starcraft Ghost: Nova it's confirmed that all ghosts go through a memory wipe. Nova went through this wipe after her training, so Kerrigan likely did the same.

Edited: Actually, Shadow Archon, in SCG Nova she mentions the memory wipes before the Dominion exists, so clearly it was part of Confederate practices.

No, Kerrigan defected in 2491, after which they started using mind wipes to prevent ghosts from doing so again. Nova was discovered around 2500.

While technically Donny wins the argument (lol) to take the discussion a bit more seriously, you have to remember that some of what happened up there was additional information added by the novels.

Only the bits about her dad being killed and her being the one that killed Mengsk's parents. Everything else is from the game:

"RAYNOR
Why are you doing this, Kerrigan? Look. I
know about your past. I mean, I've heard
the rumors. I know you were a part of those
experiments with the Zerg; that Mengsk
came and saved you, but you don't owe
him this!"

SC1 manual:

"Brought into the Confederate Ghost
program as a child, Kerrigan was never
given the chance for a normal life. The
neural processing treatments that were used
to dampen and pacify her latent psychic
powers left her a withdrawn and introverted
young girl. Forced to murder countless
enemies of her Confederate masters,
Kerrigan was finally exposed to a series of
clandestine experiments conducted by the
Confederate Government."

- It was never personal for the Confederacy. Kerrigan was one of many ghosts, and they wanted soldiers. They weren't persecuting her family or her specifically.
- Because she was raised into ghost training from so young an age, Kerri would have assumed that this sort of "childhood" was normal. Kids tend to define normal by what they observe on a daily basis. A child has to be around 12 or 13 before they begin to understand what weird is and how to be judgemental, and that's only if they have comparisons. Thus, Kerrigan's emotions on this topic could potentially be pretty numb without some kind of inner healing or therapy to help her understand what she's been through.

How is it not personal? When the Nazis/KGB walk into your home and abduct you for one of their slave camps, one could definitely take it personally and it's definitely not normal. Even the SC1 manual says it's not normal.

If she thought it was just "how the system worked" and a-ok she wouldn't be fighting against the Confederacy in SC1.

- The ghost program may have attempted to justify itself through Umojan or Morian brutality.
- Kerrigan probably has a war-like perspective of things. That is, before she was infested, she was okay with killing for Mengsk for what she perceived as the greater good. Probably she figured this was to some degree true of her enemies.

This doesn't explain why she's willing to go to the lengths she does in HoTS. A war-like perspective didn't stop her from being a sane individual and looking down on using zerg as a bio-weapon against other humans.

Mengsk, on the other hand, betrayed Kerri specifically. He, having once shown Kerrigan that there is a difference between right and wrong, as well as allowing her to see that the universe is bigger than the Confederacy and that she doesn't have to be a blind killer, dumped her because she was inconvenient. He claimed the moral high ground, then abandoned it when Kerrigan started questioning his right to use psi emitters.

So what's the big deal? Yeah it's too bad that Mengsk ended up being a hypocrite, but that crime doesn't match the severity of the Confederacy's against her. Lieutenant Rumm betrayed her too by helping kill her father and favorite kitten. The Confederacy tried to kill her after she defected.

Well, Arcturus betrayed Kerrigan first.

The Confederacy never betrayed her. They were awful to her from day one.

So? The Confederacy treated her like crap for 10 years. Arcturus treated her like crap at one battle. Why does the latter outweigh the former?

Add-in the psychic dampener's effect on her mind, and I doubt she remembered most of what the Confed's did to her. She seemingly had no memory of slaughtering Mengsk's family after all.

She definitely remembers killing people. She definitely remembers Lt. Rumm. The fact that she forgets the names of a specific senator's family is just proof that all the killings blended in.

There's the issue with time as well. She was fighting against the Confederacy for nine years as Mengsk's right hand man. At the beginning of HotS, she states she doesn't remember what she did as the Queen of Blades, so the events of SC1 just happened to her from her PoV. So, Arcturus's sins are much more fresh in her mind, especially with the Confederacy being dead.

Doesn't that become irrelevant as she remembers more and more?

She also probably shifted some of the blame of her actions as the Queen of Blades to him as well.

That's pretty irrational then. It's not like Mengsk could see that coming.

Eh, while at first, this is true, over time during Heart of the Swarm, her memories as the Queen of Blade start to filter back in, and as such, her personality gets warped.

She isn't full queen bitch of the universe.

But she is part queen bitch.

For examples, at the beginning of the game:

Nobody is acting like her personality got warped. Raynor, Matt, Valerian, all have no problem working with a mass murderer. I mean Raynor got mad for five minutes but that's about it. Then she saves civilians on Korhal, etc.

And now she states that she is the Queen of Blades...

Right after stating she wasn't on Phaeton.

Actually, she directly tells Abathur she is the Queen of Blades when she first meets him.

Then there's the big line from Kaldir.

Kerrigan is actually giving a value to Zerg lives in this statement here and saying that it is immoral to kill Zerg...

Well, I've seen that kind of view of the Zerg by Kerrigan before.

That line is stupid and irrational.

So, the Queen of Blades is not the same as in Starcraft 1 and Brood War, but she definitely still exists in a fashion.

Hell, I'd say that the Zerg Hive-Mind is closer to the Khala than you would normally think.

Ever since she started to control the Zerg in HotS, she started looking at them less as monsters and as something more.

Going around destroying entire planets wholesale? Well duh I'd say the queen of blades still exists! :P

According to Kindregan in a Q&A, the Queen of Blades is Sarah Kerrigan under the influence of the zerg mutagen, and the Queen of Blades didn't feel the need to kill Mengsk, but Sarah Kerrigan did and wanted revenge. The question is why she went on such a huge murder spree given that it's exactly what human Kerrigan would condemn.

Okay, Gradius, this is getting a little ridiculous.

Do you truly believe any anyone's personality to remain static for more than four years? Is it impossible for a character's motives and beliefs to change dramatically?

Four years? What about the amnesia plot gimmick? <_<

What exactly did the artifact do then according to you? Because:
1) Still evil.
2) Willingly reinfested herself.

Especially after becoming a child soldier, being forced to become an assassins,

Those things already happened to Kerrigan when she said "I don't think anyone deserves to have the zerg unleashed on them". You seem to vastly underestimate the mental fortitude one needs to be a trained assassin. They specialize in keeping their emotions under control, especially in stressful situations. It's kind of their job. And going on some maniacal murder spree is not consistent with human kerrigan OR a trained, intellligent assassin.

betrayal by your "rescuer"

So he tried to kill her. Big deal. The Confederates tried multiple times.

Zerg infestation, mental conditioning by the Overmind

Not actually that bad according to Kerrigan. Apart from becoming one of the most powerful beings in the universe, she also says:

"I'm one of the Zerg, now. And I like what I am. You can't imagine how this feels..."

If it was so bad, she wouldn't willingly reinfest herself in HoTS just to get revenge against one guy.

and THEN Amon and all the drastic neuro-chemical alteration that entails

Amon didn't do anything to her.

Kerrigan: He never controlled me. I felt … an influence. A trace of something dark, but long gone. Amon must have died before I was infested.

waging a war effort on her former race at the behest of alien instincts,

So her solution to this is to...wage another war against her own race, at her own behest this time. Makes sense. Not.

de-infestation

She definitely repaid Warfield for that courtesy.

being poked and prodded by scientists as this would-be Prince of humanity parades you around as a trophy

Oh my, they did medical tests on her to make sure she was ok. How will she ever survive? -_-

then having that one single, small anchor to reality -- Raynor -- destroyed in front of you?

1) Again. Not a big deal for a trained assassin. She could keep her emotions in check, and starting a massive galactic war is not an appropriate emotional resopnse. She already went through this with Somo...where she kept her emotions in check.
2) Ultimately irrelevant because she planned on getting revenge against Mengsk no matter what.

Sometimes, it's easier than you think to be pushed into the "Fuck EVERYONE" territory. And if it takes ALL of the ABOVE to push you into that mentality, then you're far more human and rational than any other human in existence.

Do me a favor and do some light reading into PTSD.

Do me a favor and apply that same logic to the Confederates. I know "PTSD" sounds in theory like a great cop-out for crap writing that you can apply liberally to all aspects of a character's irrationality, but please explain how Kerrigan is a classic case of PTSD? She goes through more emotional turmoil when she finds out Raynor doesn't love her anymore than she does in trying to cope with any of the things that happened to her. She's calm, collected, acts intelligent, and brings her a-game.

One of the main PTSD symptoms? Avoidance. They avoid all things that may remind them of the traumatic event. Now since you're claiming that this event is her infestation, which she isn't even supposed to remember, and since she has a nightmare about killing people again as the Queen of Blades at the start of the game, it would seem reasonable to conclude that avoiding ANY and ALL mental contact with zerg would be a realistic response. Never mind avoiding killing any more people in the future. First thing Kerrigan does? Take control of zerg and trash Valerian's lab. Next thing Kerrigan does? Returns to Queen of Blades status and kill people by the millions again. Lashing out violently like a petulant teenager against anyone who doesn't give you what you want is a Hollywood stereotype, not an accurate represenation of PTSD whatsoever. An actual psychiatrist might be insulted by this juvenile representation of PTSD, but I think he'd opt for a diffential diagnosis like schizophrenia instead.

[Nissa]

No, Kerrigan defected in 2491, after which they started using mind wipes to prevent ghosts from doing so again. Nova was discovered around 2500.

While you might be right, I was referring specifically to Starcraft Ghost: Nova. That book doesn't specifically nail down anything about Kerrigan's defection or policies on mind wipes. It does refer, however, to Nova having her mind wiped. However, if you have some alternate source in mind, alright. What is it?

Only the bits about her dad being killed and her being the one that killed Mengsk's parents. Everything else is from the game.

That's why I said "some."

How is it not personal? When the Nazis/KGB walk into your home and abduct you for one of their slave camps, one could definitely take it personally and it's definitely not normal. Even the SC1 manual says it's not normal.

Well, I read a lot of historical accounts of tyrannies and communist dictatorships. What I mean, is, it's not personal if Stalin makes a quota that he wants 10,000 people from X region to be arrested and shipped to labor camps. He doesn't much care who he gets, so long as he gets his quota. Or in Kerrigan's case, she might be more of a "sharashka" inmate, arrested to make sure the best scientific minds in prison work for the Soviet Union's benefit.

Heck, all I mean is, no one in the Confederacy specifically said, "I want to hurt Kerrigan and her family." They just wanted ghosts. Didn't much care who they were, so long as they had psychic power.

If she thought it was just "how the system worked" and a-ok she wouldn't be fighting against the Confederacy in SC1.

What I meant was, she wouldn't know it wasn't normal until she was saved from the ghost programs. Before that, she wouldn't have any other life to compare her ghost life to, depending on how/when she lost her memories.

This doesn't explain why she's willing to go to the lengths she does in HoTS. A war-like perspective didn't stop her from being a sane individual and looking down on using zerg as a bio-weapon against other humans.

Yes, but her infestation does explain it. SC2 differences aside, noninfested Kerrigan is a different person from her infested counterpart. That, and a true war-like perspective won't stop a person from looking down on using zerg as a weapon. A true military soul is not a necessarily immoral one, and people with war-like perspectives tend to respect their enemies, in most cases. Hm...I'm not quite sure I can explain what I mean. If you read some military biographies, youll get 'it.

So what's the big deal? Yeah it's too bad that Mengsk ended up being a hypocrite, but that crime doesn't match the severity of the Confederacy's against her. Lieutenant Rumm betrayed her too by helping kill her father and favorite kitten. The Confederacy tried to kill her after she defected.

Uh....you must have read a book I didn't. Presumably, that book was published after SC1 came out, and thus actress Glynnis Talken's performance wasn't based on the ideas in that novel. Thus, you can't really associate SC1 Kerrigan too closely with her novel incarnations. Particularly since many of the novels suck, and even when they don't, they add details that complicate information from the games.

So? The Confederacy treated her like crap for 10 years. Arcturus treated her like crap at one battle. Why does the latter outweigh the former?

Well, you're definitely not a girl. *chuckles*

Thing is, when you have the expectation that a certain group of people is going to be dumb, it doesn't disappoint you when they are. Mengsk, however, is more or less a father figure to Kerrigan, and only when he liberated her could she have known a life outside of the Confederacy. He also claimed to have morals. All of that he threw away when he betrayed her. The Confederacy's sins against her could only be equal to Mengsk's sins if Kerrigan trusted the Confederacy as much as she did Mengsk.

That, and pre-infested Kerrigan apparently had some form of morals, wherever they came from. Given that Kerrigan was betrayed into the Zerg and became a more monstrous form, she had little humanity left to forgive Mengsk. That, and by that point there wasn't much, if any, Confederacy left for Kerrigan to punish.

[Shadow Archon]

So? The Confederacy treated her like crap for 10 years. Arcturus treated her like crap at one battle. Why does the latter outweigh the former?

Because one led directly to her being responsible for killing billions for one.

Becoming the Queen of Blades is worse than all the Confederacy did combined.

She definitely remembers killing people. She definitely remembers Lt. Rumm. The fact that she forgets the names of a specific senator's family is just proof that all the killings blended in.

Or that she doesn't remember it at all...

Seriously. It's never brought up.

Given a neural inhibitor was involved with her memories at the time, we can't really say one way or the other.

Doesn't that become irrelevant as she remembers more and more?

Not really?

The more she remembers what she did as the Queen of Blades, the more she'll likely blame Mengsk.

That's pretty irrational then. It's not like Mengsk could see that coming.

It is pretty irrational.

People aren't rational 24/7, especially after emotional trauma.

Nobody is acting like her personality got warped.

Nobody is privy to us seeing her transition through the game.

They do kind of freak out when they see her re-infested though.

Raynor, Matt, Valerian, all have no problem working with a mass murderer.

This depends upon when you mean.

If you are talking about her actions before HotS, they don't blame Sarah for that.

“Don’t worry?” Her head jerked back and she stared at him, her lips curled and her voice rising on the last note. It seemed to startle the doctors out of their fascination with her statistics, and they glanced over to regard the patient instead of the numbers. “How can you say that to me? Jim, I know what I did. I remember. Billions dead . . . because of me!”

“That was not you,” Jim said firmly. “That was the Queen of Blades. What they made you into. You’re back to being Sarah again. And we’re together now. So just hush, honey."

Right after Wings when they are leaving Char, before her amnesia kicked in.

If you're talking about here actions during HotS.

No, they don't care.

Raynor, Matt, and Valerian all were fine when they slaughtered Tal'Darim when it was convenient.

Raynor and Matt were fine with causing a massive uprising in the Dominion while the Zerg were slaughtering billions and even attacking Dominion core worlds.

They apparently don't give a damn that she's killing tons of Dominion military and whatnot in HotS. They don't know about Kaldir, but that's about it.

I mean Raynor got mad for five minutes but that's about it. Then she saves civilians on Korhal, etc.

Yeah.

Actually, she directly tells Abathur she is the Queen of Blades when she first meets him.

...Yes?

I just quoted that.

She says she's not the Queen on Phaeton, finds out Jim's "Dead", goes to the Leviathan, meets Abathur,and then states "I am the Queen of Blades!"

That line is stupid and irrational.

That's the point. Think about it.

To a human mind-set it is completely insane. Why on earth would she say that from a Watsonian perspective?

The Zerg are just killing machines with no personal intelligence. Seeing the Zerg be slaughtered by the billions does not evoke any form of sympathy by Kerrigan in Liberty's Crusade when she is fully human. She didn't even think the Confederacy deserved to be attacked by them.

To her now? With her memories as the Queen of Blades coming back in?

It isn't irrational or stupid. She feels everything the Zerg feels when she controls them. The Zerg are an extension of herself and are seen as her children when she was the Queen of Blades.

The hive mind is making her think less like a human and more like the Zerg as a whole. Remember, Zagara considers this a moral action.

So, yeah, at that time Kerrigan was slaughtering the Protoss for her own survival and possibly for revenge from the Zerg they killed.

She jumps to the defense of billions of Zerg the Protoss killed rather than the Terran lives lost due to Protoss Purification when Lasarra says she'll be slaughtering thousands of colonist.

Kerrigan by human standards is no longer sane. It seems after Kerrigan started gathering the Swarm, the hive mind warped her priorities.

Going around destroying entire planets wholesale? Well duh I'd say the queen of blades still exists! :P

Well, yeah.

There's no longer an Amon/Overmind influence on her though.

She also is sparing lives more.

According to Kindregan in a Q&A, the Queen of Blades is Sarah Kerrigan under the influence of the zerg mutagen, and the Queen of Blades didn't feel the need to kill Mengsk, but Sarah Kerrigan did and wanted revenge. The question is why she went on such a huge murder spree given that it's exactly what human Kerrigan would condemn.

Well, Kerrigan post-artifact still had Zerg Mutagen in her...

...Since we are talking about Kerrigan from HotS.

You know how the Zerus Spawning pool completely gets on your nerves?

Well, Kerrigan still had Zerg mutagen in her body present from the original Overmind/Chrysalis infestation.

Given that she looks practically the same as the Queen of Blades in either manifestation, only with slight differences in her face, and with the cut idea that her left-over Zerg cells would have reinfested her back into the Queen of Blades anyways, my current head canon is that the Zerus Spawning pool was working with the leftover cells from the last time Kerrigan was infested.

Otherwise, she wouldn't survive.

Her psionics were still boosted beyond Psi-10 post-artifact, and her Zerg cells were active given she was still becoming more powerful psionically with the whole RPG aspect.

Given that was the big deal when Kerrigan was infested in SC1, I think that's a proper explanation for why the Zerus Spawning Pool managed to do such a massive improvement over the last Queen of Blades.

It makes more sense than the Overmind's work being inferior to the first spawning pool if you assume the Primal Queen of Blades was only possible because of what the Overmind originally did to Kerrigan.

[Gradius]

While you might be right, I was referring specifically to Starcraft Ghost: Nova. That book doesn't specifically nail down anything about Kerrigan's defection or policies on mind wipes. It does refer, however, to Nova having her mind wiped. However, if you have some alternate source in mind, alright. What is it?

Pg 283 Mal says to Mengsk "It’s ’cause of you that traineeshave their memories wiped when they graduate." They're talking about Kerrigan.

Well, I read a lot of historical accounts of tyrannies and communist dictatorships. What I mean, is, it's not personal if Stalin makes a quota that he wants 10,000 people from X region to be arrested and shipped to labor camps. He doesn't much care who he gets, so long as he gets his quota. Or in Kerrigan's case, she might be more of a "sharashka" inmate, arrested to make sure the best scientific minds in prison work for the Soviet Union's benefit.

Heck, all I mean is, no one in the Confederacy specifically said, "I want to hurt Kerrigan and her family." They just wanted ghosts. Didn't much care who they were, so long as they had psychic power.

My grandparents actually lived in Stalin's labor camps. They hate Stalin.

What I meant was, she wouldn't know it wasn't normal until she was saved from the ghost programs. Before that, she wouldn't have any other life to compare her ghost life to, depending on how/when she lost her memories.

Not necessarily. She was abducted as a kid. She knows what normal is. Even then, upon getting out, she'd hate the Confederacy even more, yes?

That, and a true war-like perspective won't stop a person from looking down on using zerg as a weapon.

"I just don't think anyone deserves to have the zerg unleashed on them."

Uh....you must have read a book I didn't. Presumably, that book was published after SC1 came out, and thus actress Glynnis Talken's performance wasn't based on the ideas in that novel. Thus, you can't really associate SC1 Kerrigan too closely with her novel incarnations. Particularly since many of the novels suck, and even when they don't, they add details that complicate information from the games.

Either way the evidence still points to the fact that the Confederates treated her worse. Mengsk is not special because he targeted her specifically.

Thing is, when you have the expectation that a certain group of people is going to be dumb, it doesn't disappoint you when they are. Mengsk, however, is more or less a father figure to Kerrigan, and only when he liberated her could she have known a life outside of the Confederacy. He also claimed to have morals. All of that he threw away when he betrayed her. The Confederacy's sins against her could only be equal to Mengsk's sins if Kerrigan trusted the Confederacy as much as she did Mengsk.

Fair enough. I get the emotional argument behind this. But I still expect Kerrigan to react according to her morals. The betrayal sucks, but it still doesn't outweigh what the Confederacy did to her, and she didn't need to destroy multiple planets in HoTS.

That, and pre-infested Kerrigan apparently had some form of morals, wherever they came from. Given that Kerrigan was betrayed into the Zerg and became a more monstrous form, she had little humanity left to forgive Mengsk. That, and by that point there wasn't much, if any, Confederacy left for Kerrigan to punish.

Sure, but why the massively different reactions between SC1 and HoTS?