Tche's deliberations on LotV Campaign

[DarthYam]

I don't understand the appeal behind Alarak either. He's slightly fun, but doesn't seem like an actual protoss character. His voice acting gets rave reviews for some reason, but I think he sounds like he has a speech impediment. I'm not a fan of the inclusion of the Tal'Darim to begin with, who are just darker and edgier Dark Templar. That role should have been given to some other dark templar, instead of completely dropping the unity of khala and void theme that they've been building up for multiple games to asspull an entirely new protoss civilization out of nowhere. I was sad there were no twilight templar/archons.


Exact opposite. Metzen already admitted that WoL sucked:


http://www.polygon.com/2015/11/6/967...y-dlc-blizzard

He was admitting it was flawed. He still liked some of the overall ideas behind it, and thinks in some way it was ok. Honestly, WOL had some good ideas. Raynor facing his past and overcoming his inner demons? Expanding on a greater evil lurking in the shadows? Allowing Kerrigan to actually grow beyond the bland villain in brood war? All good. Even the artifact was really no worse than Brood War's pyramid (and if anything it was actually foreshadowed and built up rather than used once and abandoned). On paper the ideas in WOL were actually not bad. They were good even.

Amon was unable to actually enter his physical body due to getting it destroyed so Duran may well have spent millennia trying to regain contact or pushing the overmind to where they could meet so that Amon could be reincarnated

[DarthYam]

Heart of the Swarm's problem was that it tried to be too many things. It wanted to have Kerrigan as the conflicted anti hero, but also the vengeful warrior. What we got was schizophrenic. If Blizzard had gone with the original idea (Kerrigan spares Lassara and comes to befriend her) the story would be more coherent. Kerrigan would remain relatively noble throughout the entire story.

[ragnarok]

Heart of the Swarm's problem was that it tried to be too many things. It wanted to have Kerrigan as the conflicted anti hero, but also the vengeful warrior. What we got was schizophrenic. If Blizzard had gone with the original idea (Kerrigan spares Lassara and comes to befriend her) the story would be more coherent. Kerrigan would remain relatively noble throughout the entire story.

It would have been fine even if Blizzard chose the TOTAL vengeance path too, DarthYam.

As a lot of people from the battlenet forums have already said, the main problem in HotS was consistency. The critics said they wouldn't have minded if Blizzard chose the redemption path if it was consistent, and the same held true for the vengeful path

[ragnarok]

Amon was unable to actually enter his physical body due to getting it destroyed so Duran may well have spent millennia trying to regain contact or pushing the overmind to where they could meet so that Amon could be reincarnated

Not regaining contact at all, DarthYam.

Remember what Rohana had told Artanis before they returned to Aiur:

When the Khala came to light again (which probably is when Khas rediscovered the link)., the regular Xel'Naga confronted Amon and his followers at Zerus, and Amon unleashed the swarm, but in the end he was defeated and forced back into the void. Duran spent the next 3000 years trying to figure out a way to create a body to sustain his master.

In that regard I think Duran had known all along Amon was still alive in the void, but he was stuck there unable to do anything except give orders to Duran.

[TcheQuevara]

I still think the plot holes are indefensible. You can't tell me that there isn't some random khalai with nerve cords stuck on some planet/asteroid out there somewhere in the universe where Amon could "hide".

Well, search and you'll find. It's like eagles in LotR. Even great stories have them. I don't think this is the biggest of problems; it's easier to find out an explanation for than teh aforementioned eagles. For example, Amon wanted all enslaved Protoss there to protect him - he probably weaponized the whole protoss race in his final effort to destroy the universe; there would be no point in saving Khalai for later, and his millenar plan was jeopardized by Artanis already. Is this a forced explanation? Yes. But less so than anything I've seen to explain eagles!

The problem with SC2 isn't that it has plot holes which are too big. Is that it has plot holes that are everywhere. The story overall has little consistence. The second most important (arguably the most important) plot track of WoL - fighting against the Dominion, working for credits to build up the guerrilla, infiltrating the Odin to cause a political crisis - is an absolute mess. Brian Kindregan came out with an explanation for it, ok, I think it might have worked or not if it was explained during the game, but the problem was that while playing the game the story just sounded stupid because everything contradicted everything. This is my issue. IMHO plot holes are not always a problem.

Rohana agreeing to cut off her nerve cords and lose millennia worth of knowledge of billions of sapient beings is a massive loss. Nobody even tried to find another way. They could have put her in stasis or something, but they invalidated all of SC1's lore just to get across the message that "collectivism & old ways = bad"

Yeah, the bias against collectivism is stupid. The homogenization of Protoss isn't only lame, but also strikes me as a great contradiction - it is an attack on diversity rather than a a defense on tolerance. But Artanis had a reason for that: he quite radically decided everything must change grom now on. He says the Khala promess was a lie. I hate him for it. This is good. Stories should surprise us and deconstruct their own premisses.

Then Amon. I don't understand why he didn't just go forth with his plan to hybridize zerg/protoss before thousands of years ago.

This is easier to explain. He was dead after the war over Zerus. He still had great influence over the Overmind (who he created while he was alive), less so over Kerrigan, but he was dead. He didn't kill the Protoss because he needed them to make the next generation of hybrids. So he used his agents and built his plan over time.

It's essentially the same thing. All Khas did was rediscover how to link to it with khaydarin crystals. He didn't make anything new.

Don't know about that. Seems to me since the Khala has it's own philosophy and discipline it's necessarily different from an organic, naturally occuring mind phenomena.

They use psionics to talk, so it's not surprising, but it's not mind control.

Yes. Thanks for clarifying!

Jokes aside, the problem with the Khala is that the word is used to describe several things (ie: it's a religion, a system of thought, a source of psionic power, a psionic communal link etc) singularly, in multiple or all aspects at once but without specification at any given time. I've had discussions on this with someone else about this elsewhere and boy, was that difficult. My POV of the Khala stems from the original manual. It states that it is a "system of psychic progrression" which was "primarily meant to define a rigid system of behavior". In short, it was a philosophy which was distinctly separate from the communal link. Nowadays, Khala is supposed to represent all of those things together. Either way, it has been stated that a basic Protoss can easily reject the communal link and the philosophical system without having to remove their cords. Also, it never says that anyone within the Khala can physically control the actions of another within the Khala, it only just allows "feelings". I guess this makes the "mind-controlling the Protoss through the Khala" a bit of a plot-hole.

I like your insight about the Khala. I think it's ok if the concept is developped further than it was in the original manual, and that the word for the link is the word for the philosophy and for the social order, because that's how things are named in the real world. Thinkers have got to create new labels to dissect all a word contains in smaller parts, or to accept that a word should explain different things, because those "different things" are actually connected and none of them exist by itself but only in relation to each other.

So do I, but I think Blizz would disagree with your disagreement. For example, they clearly want you to believe the Kerrigan is good and appropriately redeemed.

In the Epilogue, I think they want you to believe she honestly tried. Even if they think she was redeemed, this doesn't mean they made any effort to make you think that too. They were more interested in Raynor and Kerrigan's feelings about this whole mess of feelings and infestation and war and fate, not about any of those things mean outside of their relationship.

However, Artanis does bow to the murderer of Raszagal and Aldaris. Something big was going on, for sure.

Why worry about a possible future event that may not even happen when you aren't even sure that a future of any kind is even possible?

That's the old deontology vs consequentialism debate, isn't it? I don't think she was frivolous at all. Certainly misguided, but she was caring deeply for the ethical weight of her decisions.

It's worse than that. The Khala isn't really extinguished since Protoss are born with nerve cords and can therefore form the Khala again. Not only that, but the one individual who knows about it/brought it about/could control it/manipulate it is no longer around, so there's no risk to it now. Such a silly thing Rohana is, isn't she?

Is it? We don't really know. I would think so. Maybe it can be reborn, but we should believe the Khala specialist that all the past knowledge is lost, and this is exactly what Artanis expect.

Ah yes and I remember how people feared how the Zerg would be humanised. They really should have feared the Protoss being made into humans.

Haha man, can't say I dislike your pessimism. Spot on.

Yes, but that was in response to Tche establishing how important the cords were for the Khala (as LotV overtly does) since he said that the Nerazim need to cut their cords to avoid being subsumed by the Khala.

I'd just like to state my opinion has changed ever since, but I wouldn't be able to explain what I believe right now.

In that regard I think Duran had known all along Amon was still alive in the void, but he was stuck there unable to do anything except give orders to Duran.

Yes, and don't forget that in Alarak's short story it is said Amon cannot be talked to.

[Turalyon]

Even if they think she was redeemed, this doesn't mean they made any effort to make you think that too.

However, Artanis does bow to the murderer of Raszagal and Aldaris. Something big was going on, for sure.

Think you just torpedoed your own position. Lol

Scenes like the one you just described suggest to me that Blizz intended this because I have no other reason to think otherwise... unless they're trolling.

That's the old deontology vs consequentialism debate, isn't it?

If only it were that deep or equally represented in LotV. When compared together, Rohana's position is nowhere near defensible or understandable as Aldaris's similar position. At this point in time and what has happened to the Protoss so far, her POV just amounts to bigotry for the sake of bigotry rather than for any justifiable or reasonable moral stance. She is literally advocating against allying themselves with undesirables because they MUST be worse than what Amon is inflciting upon because if that's not true, her position doesn't really make sense. It doesn't make sense the other way either since she knows they can't win as they are but then refuses outside help. I guess she's advocating suicide in this case then?

Is it? We don't really know. I would think so. Maybe it can be reborn, but we should believe the Khala specialist that all the past knowledge is lost, and this is exactly what Artanis expect.

It's not that much of gigantic leap that the Khala will comeback - Khas was able to do it after no other Protoss at the time thought that such a thing as the primal link ever existed (during the Aeon of Strife), so it shouldn't take the current Protoss that long to rediscover it. Then again, we don't really know anything in Sc anymore what with the constant retroactive continuity, so who knows.

[ragnarok]

Yes, and don't forget that in Alarak's short story it is said Amon cannot be talked to.

Not by the Tal'darim, no. But Duran is different, maybe he had better communications. Thus Duran served as Amon's mouthpiece to the Tal'darim people. But obviously the deception couldn't work forever.