Exercise 01: Establishing the Status Quo

[ragnarok]

I made a quick map based on both my original ideas and some of the ones we've discussed here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5WtMsDUuEM

How long did it take for you to make it?

[Turalyon]

Turn thought from perceived slight. The gods would have me spread cheek only to ram c*ck in *ss.

Ha, the spirit of Batiatus lives on!

[ragnarok]

Hey GNA, I tried your google doc again, signed into google and still can't comment on it, it still says view....

[GnaReffotsirk]

Rag, maybe posting your disagreements here would be more useful. Say for example like this:

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I disagree on:

(C) because it sounds out of character. I don't like the Stukov faction recently introduced to be part of the main story.
(F) can be tweaked instead to a group led by scientists trying to discover a bio-weapon through infested terrans.

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[KaiserStratosTygo]

How long did it take for you to make it?

Bout an hour an a half.

[Nissa]

Okay, so here we go. I left some short notes in the file, but the long version is here.

b-3) No. This isn't Mengsk's possible motivation, it's the Overmind's. Mengsk was never a long term thinker, and all of his actions have been very short-sighted and shallow -- using psi emitters, abandoning a psychic when he knew the Zerg were looking for them, accepting Kerri's help to retake Korhal, etc. Dude is simply not capable of using Kerrigan to this end.

Actually, if you wanted to say that this is what the Overmind wants, it suddenly makes sense.

C) No, infested Terrans are already part of the swarm.

D) As true as this would have been even as early as her infestation, Kerrigan needs people. As a human, she was a psychic agent enlisted to take on specific targets and small operations with massive amounts of detail. She's an operative, not a strategist. She's going to need to trust, force alliance from, or infest the people she needs to do things for her. Maybe even some insane people want to become infested because they think it will make them powerful/take away the pain in their lives. Zerg cultists, maybe.

E) Absolutely not. The idea of the khaydarins being a psi matrix goes against the manual, which states that the psychic link of the Protoss is genetically their own. It's much simpler that the Overmind just wanted to use the khaydarins to make the Protoss vulnerable to Zerg infestation. Way simpler. Let's go that route, and have Kerrigan consider the option, though she might consider against it, depending on how we feel about that angle.

F) Lol, I totally thought of Zerg cultists before reading this. Awesome.

G) "Evolving" is hands-off genetic change over time. Therefore it isn't evolution when the Zerg do it. Nitpick of the day. Anyway, I don't think it should be factional with the Zerg. The Zerg, being mindless, are basically the tools of anyone with the psi capacity to mess with them. Maybe we should try having the Protoss control some. Like, there's faction 1, Kerrigan. Faction 2 are the cerebrates who want to make the Overmind's will come back (one of the cerebrates holds the memory of the Zerg). Faction 3, which is of unknown motivation for a long time, is being controlled by a Protoss faction.

This Protoss faction could be any number of things:
- Judicator psychics trying to become useful in contemporary Protoss life, now that they are not the leadership caste.
- Ulrezaj messing things up.
- The Tal'darim, absent of all their SC2 connotations and finally a real, unified idea.
- Protoss scientists trying to solve the mysteries of infestation and how to reverse it.

H) I've basically already stated why I'm iffy on this, but there's some interesting ideas in this section.

I) No, the Overmind always seems to have had a unified plan, and that hinges purely on the Protoss. The manual states how they found the Protoss, and any sequel we make to SC needs to preserve what it originally was and felt like, not become another version of fanfiction retconning like SC2 was. Besides, this doesn't feel terribly interesting. It doesn't make me think of interesting plots for the Zerg.

J) Cute, but again, no story potential.

K) No. The Zerg are mindless animals, slaves to the whims of their leaders. Kerrigan might let some of them develop strains based on adaptations to environments, but the Zerg don't have the capacity to need a dictatorship. Dictatorships are for minds that need to be manipulated, not minds that are under the psychic power and can just be directly controlled.

N) NOOOOO!!! Broodmothers are stupid! Whyyyyyyyyyyy......

First of all, nothing Zerg should be called "mother." Secondly, we don't want to remind people of SC2. If Kerrigan creates her own demi-authorities (which she, being distrustful, is less likely to do), they need to be completely different, more under her power, and actually scary.

O) I think you're being too mechanical about it, but yeah, Kerri isn't as powerful as the Overmind.

P) What the heck are you even talking about? Kerrigan's creative enough to do what she did in BW, she's hardly a drone.

Well, I'll do more later. Right now I have to do school stuff.

In other words, a lot of plot potential exists here.

[ragnarok]

Rag, maybe posting your disagreements here would be more useful. Say for example like this:

------------

I disagree on:

(C) because it sounds out of character. I don't like the Stukov faction recently introduced to be part of the main story.
(F) can be tweaked instead to a group led by scientists trying to discover a bio-weapon through infested terrans.

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I hope you know I don't really mind about the Stukov faction in the story. Of course, I never really paid attention too much to the whole SC1 mercenaries and all that with infested Stukov. In fact until HotS I never really expected Blizzard to have intended his revival by Kaloth even be canon.

[KaiserStratosTygo]

Eh, i'm good with factional zerg, because of the fact that Kerrigan is no overmind and has no business somehow being able to control all of them, the Zerg by their very nature should be able to develop over time their own leaders, whether it be new cerebrates or some lower form of that altogether. Blizzard kind of fucked up when it came to BW's story telling especially on that aspect.

[Gradius]

I'm sorry but the Tal'Darim shouldn't exist. If there was really a third protoss faction we'd have heard at least something about them in SC1. They're a retroactive add-on that came out of nowhere, and also redundant since they're basically just edgier dark templar.

[ragnarok]

I'm sorry but the Tal'Darim shouldn't exist. If there was really a third protoss faction we'd have heard at least something about them in SC1. They're a retroactive add-on that came out of nowhere, and also redundant since they're basically just edgier dark templar.

Does this mean you also weren't too pleased to hear about them back in the DT Saga, Gradius?