Random Thoughts Thread

[Turalyon]

I never understood why Metzen thought it would be a good idea to reintroduce Kerry as the QoB in Episode 2. Beyond the fact that Episode 2 easily has the weakest plot (if it can even be called that) of the original campaign trilogy, it clashes with the Zerg being a gestalt consciousness bent on devouring and remaking the universe.

It's because the Zerg, by their very nature, are inherently boring (this is coming from an avid Zerg fan mind you) to form a narrative around. They're essentially a mass of unified robots doing many things to achieve one goal. Any apparent discord amongst them would feel and be false because they're all unified. Kerrigan is a conceit and plot twist to be sure (not that either are bad things mind you), but that inclusion allows a certain uncertainty and chaotic factor into what would otherwise be a plodding and emotionless drag of Zerg just doing their stuff.

It makes no sense for QoB to have her own personality, higher reasoning capabilities or the ability to pursue goals that do not benefit the Zerg. It makes no sense for the Zerg to have just one of her, when their modus operandi is mass spawning armies of warrior beasts.

Well, cerebrates have their own personality, higher reasoning capabilities and the ability to pursue goals that do not benefit the Zerg (Kagg of the Surtur Brood apparently eradicates fellow Zerg in their rampages). It doesn't make sense that there's only one of, say Daggoth, either.

[Mislagnissa]

It's because the Zerg, by their very nature, are inherently boring (this is coming from an avid Zerg fan mind you) to form a narrative around. They're essentially a mass of unified robots doing many things to achieve one goal. Any apparent discord amongst them would feel and be false because they're all unified. Kerrigan is a conceit and plot twist to be sure (not that either are bad things mind you), but that inclusion allows a certain uncertainty and chaotic factor into what would otherwise be a plodding and emotionless drag of Zerg just doing their stuff.



Well, cerebrates have their own personality, higher reasoning capabilities and the ability to pursue goals that do not benefit the Zerg (Kagg of the Surtur Brood apparently eradicates fellow Zerg in their rampages). It doesn't make sense that there's only of, say Daggoth, either.

These two paragraphs are apparently contradictory. First you say that a Zerg campaign would be plodding and emotionless, next you say that Zerg have personalities that could easily come into conflict. (There are an estimated "innumerable" Zerg broods, so they certainly have numerous command fleets like Tiamat.)

The entire appeal of the Zerg is that they exist in a (mostly) harmonious utopia. Doing that justice would require special care and attention to how their narrative is written, and for the writers to be invested in the Zerg and their alien nature. Xenofiction writers accomplish this stuff all the time, so you are wrong about Zerg being inherently boring. Metzen is incompetent and unable to write more than one type of plot, so we got a story I found unmemorable. Rather than focusing on Zerg characters and their alien psychology and trying to make the audience care about them, we got a bland Saturday morning cartoon villain stealing the spotlight.

[Turalyon]

These two paragraphs are apparently contradictory. First you say that a Zerg campaign would be plodding and emotionless, next you say that Zerg have personalities that could easily come into conflict.

I never implied Zerg having personalities that could easily come into conflict (but you do apparently), only just that they have personalities, like as in, a set of expressed thoughts and behaviours.

The entire appeal of the Zerg is that they exist in a (mostly) harmonious utopia. Doing that justice would require special care and attention to how their narrative is written, and for the writers to be invested in the Zerg and their alien nature. Xenofiction writers accomplish this stuff all the time, so you are wrong about Zerg being inherently boring. Metzen is incompetent and unable to write more than one type of plot, so we got a story I found unmemorable. Rather than focusing on Zerg characters and their alien psychology and trying to make the audience care about them, we got a bland Saturday morning cartoon villain stealing the spotlight.

The only Zerg character worth following is the Overmind because it is the Zerg and we get plenty of its character in the time that was allotted to them. The campaign is named after it and the story begins and ends with it. What more do you want? We could cut Kerrigan totally and have more Overmind monologuing to fill its place but there isn't much to the character that's worth making an interesting narrative about. It has no need to converse with the other races and having it or its cerebrates bicker amongst themselves is false drama because the Zerg are never truly in dissent with each other making such "conflict" ultimately nothing of consequence anyway.

The Zerg and the Overmind are memorable not because the narrative makes you care for them (not that it ever could or should really - see how WoL tries and fails to do this by retconning a tragic past into it backstory) but because they are a high-minded and alien concept. That they're not relatable or recognisably human is what appeals to me about the Zerg (as opposed to Protoss, who are "alien" in name only and are really just idealised humans) and that is what makes writing a narrative difficult for them.

[Mislagnissa]

I never implied Zerg having personalities that could easily come into conflict (but you do apparently), only just that they have personalities, like as in, a set of expressed thoughts and behaviours.



The only Zerg character worth following is the Overmind because it is the Zerg and we get plenty of its character in the time that was allotted to them. The campaign is named after it and the story begins and ends with it. What more do you want? We could cut Kerrigan totally and have more Overmind monologuing to fill its place but there isn't much to the character that's worth making an interesting narrative about. It has no need to converse with the other races and having it or its cerebrates bicker amongst themselves is false drama because the Zerg are never truly in dissent with each other making such "conflict" ultimately nothing of consequence anyway.

The Zerg and the Overmind are memorable not because the narrative makes you care for them (not that it ever could or should really - see how WoL tries and fails to do this by retconning a tragic past into it backstory) but because they are a high-minded and alien concept. That they're not relatable or recognisably human is what appeals to me about the Zerg (as opposed to Protoss, who are "alien" in name only and are really just idealised humans) and that is what makes writing a narrative difficult for them.

I never suggested having the cerebrates bicker, although the sort of false conflict you describe is emblematic of soap operas and sitcoms (the most common entertainment TV today other than "reality" shows). I suggested writing memorable alien villains, and having them act like characters in a melodramatic faux-medieval soap opera/sitcom would leave an impression. Here's what UA said in his let's play:

A few general thoughts on the zerg backstory: it's really interesting how they set this up so that the zerg swarm contains actual characters. It's obvious to compare the zerg to the Tyranids of Warhammer 40,000, or the titular aliens of the Alien franchise, or perhaps the Bugs of Starship Troopers or whatever else you like. The bug race is a science fiction cliché. What the zerg add is a whole layer of sapient individuals who, while genetically bound together, have personalities, friendships, rivalries, and even internal politics. For me, the characters are what make the zerg stand out and make them memorable.​
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I emphasise them particularly because the rest of the zerg background is pretty uninspired. Generic creator race, experiment run amok, blah blah you know the drill.​

You may not agree with that assertion nor think the Zerg should be written sympathetically, but that's boring. I always felt a feature of Starcraft was that all three sides were sympathetic and morally relative and I think a halfway competent writer could pull it off with ease.

As a human being, the two halves of your brain often bicker, do they not? You constantly doubt yourself and wonder whether you should go left or right. You could almost say your emotions have their own personalities, like in that movie Inside Out. That could easily be applied to the Zerg on a larger scale.

EDIT: My original point still stands. Kerry is not Zerg. She is a Saturday morning cartoon villain.

[sandwich_bird]

You could have made the Overmind have multiple personalities clashing against each other. Kinda like in the game Hellblade with Senua's psychosis. That could be an interesting angle for a while. Enough for 1 episode anyways. The difference between that and the cerebrates' bickering is that the cerebrates cannot disobey the overmind meaning there can't be any "tense" conflicts. On the other hand, the overmind can disobey the overmind.

[Mislagnissa]

You could have made the Overmind have multiple personalities clashing against each other. Kinda like in the game Hellblade with Senua's psychosis. That could be an interesting angle for a while. Enough for 1 episode anyways. The difference between that and the cerebrates' bickering is that the cerebrates cannot disobey the overmind meaning there can't be any "tense" conflicts. On the other hand, the overmind can disobey the overmind.

I was under the impression the cerebrates were the overmind's multiple personalities and that the overmind was their conscience. While the games portrayed the overmind and cerebrates as distinct physical entities which enslaved the zerg, the original manual outright stated they were a result of merging the constituent minds of their broods. The overmind was the collective minds of all zerg organisms, but there were too many to coordinate effectively so it had to create secondary and tertiary agents to control its own limbs. The reason why cerebrates were immortal was not because they had magic resurrection magic, but because the brain bugs were glorified CPUs with their actual consciousness distributed within their broods. Of course this proved too difficult for the writers to wrap their heads around and we got a plot device instead.

One of the interesting parts of the first Zerg campaign was that the Overmind talked to the cerebrates, but the cerebrates never talked back or acknowledged the Overmind. While the Overmind gave the PC a broad directive, it was Daggoth and Zasz who gave specific instructions (at least until Daggoth inexplicably vanished in missions 9 and 10, which is so jarring that I think it was because of script rewrites). The significance of this was never explained, but it makes sense if the Overmind is supposed to be the cerebrates' own conscience and voice of reason rather than a separate entity. Do you acknowledge your conscience and talk back to it like it was a person?

Back to the depiction of cerebrate politics, I believe that Surtur/Kagg would have behaved exactly like Kerry in regards to be being bloodthirsty, temperamental and verbally lashing out at other cerebrates whenever they question its loyalty or try to stop it from shedding the blood of their enemies. The Overmind stated that it deliberately programmed Kerry with that personality, just like it programs all broods, and there is no reason to believe the broods would behave any differently. The primordial zerg before the Overmind were vicious monsters that instinctively sought to dominate their environment and stay at the top of the food chain, and just because they share a single conscience does not mean they would suddenly start acting like emotionless robots.

[sandwich_bird]

I was under the impression the cerebrates were the overmind's multiple personalities and that the overmind was their conscience.

He is but he also has his own personality. I get that he's the result of merging the personality of all cerebrates but that still amount to a distinct separate entity. This means that his internal conflict shouldn't necessarily be a reflection of the conflict of his cerebrates even if they stream into it.

[Mislagnissa]

He is but he also has his own personality. I get that he's the result of merging the personality of all cerebrates but that still amount to a distinct separate entity. This means that his internal conflict shouldn't necessarily be a reflection of the conflict of his cerebrates even if they stream into it.

You are still falling into the trap of thinking of the Zerg hive minds as comparable to human minds when they are not. They are emergent processes derived from the collective thoughts and feelings of the Zerg that compose them. The Zerg are most closely comparable to the Geth from Mass Effect and the Tines from A Fire Upon the Deep, who have a lot more detail devoted to their psychological workings and operate nothing like what you describe.

In the narrative, the entire purpose of the Overmind is to harmonize the Zerg and prevent individual egos from getting in the way of their progress as a species. Writing it as having a distinct existence from its constituents and suffering from psychosis runs entirely counter to that theme, especially when it already has split personalities in the form of broods, and distracts from the original premise more than it helps.

It is difficult to really discuss and implement that kind of narrative since, as far as I know, the Zerg are the only instance in fiction of a gestalt consciousness being partitioned into multiple personalities and yet this concept was barely explored before being thrown under the proverbial bus in favor of an endless string of bland Saturday morning cartoon villains.

In any case, we are getting ahead of ourselves and losing track of my actual complaint. Since the Zerg are coordinated through an unimaginable (literally) gestalt consciousness, it makes no sense that Kerry would take them over as opposed to being subsumed into the swarm.

[Visions of Khas]

The certebrates DO acknowledge the Over mind, however, when it chastises Zasz for trying to reign in Kerrigan.

[Gradius]

You are still falling into the trap of thinking of the Zerg hive minds as comparable to human minds when they are not. They are emergent processes derived from the collective thoughts and feelings of the Zerg that compose them. The Zerg are most closely comparable to the Geth from Mass Effect and the Tines from A Fire Upon the Deep, who have a lot more detail devoted to their psychological workings and operate nothing like what you describe.

That's because that's not how it works in StarCraft, even according to the manual. It's some sort of combination of shared consciousness and top-down hierarchy. The Overmind was a semi-sentient being at first because it just represented the drives/instincts of the zerg, but then it developed personality and advanced intellect. It's more than just an emergent phenomena. The Overmind has its own body, and the Overmind, Zasz, Daggoth, are all characters who are given their own biographies in the manual. Emergent phenomena cannot be attacked directly, but the Overmind was killed anyway.

In Mass Effect, there are hundreds of geth in any one geth body being downloaded/networked constantly. In StarCraft, the zergling is its own creature who obeys a cerebrate. If you were to wipe out the geth programs, the geth bodies would all shut down, whereas the zergling would just go feral.

It is difficult to really discuss and implement that kind of narrative since, as far as I know, the Zerg are the only instance in fiction of a gestalt consciousness being partitioned into multiple personalities and yet this concept was barely explored before being thrown under the proverbial bus in favor of an endless string of bland Saturday morning cartoon villains.

The Cerebrates are explicitly secondary agents. They communicate the will of the Overmind to their minions, but they still have their own personalities.