Exercise 01: Establishing the Status Quo

[KaiserStratosTygo]

Someone needs to remake SC1 without the garbage interpretations taken by SC2 and those terrible books.

[ragnarok]

Mengsk spared Duke because he can use him, even if Duke has greater potential to betray him compared to Kerrigan, right? Is Duke more loyal to Kerrigan in that moment or not? If so, then it would imply Kerrigan is an asset, at least, he intends to keep in service. If not, having shown Mengsk to keep what he can use, that is Raynor, a mere marshal, and the confederate Magistrate of a backwater planet.

If Mengsk was established as a man who hoards what he can use, even how small, then a person like Kerrigan who is his right hand lieutenant for so long seems to be far greater in value than the rest of his collection.

Duke was more devoid of morality, this was something touched on in the SC Ghost Nova book. Likely Mengsk saw that and decided his greed and lust for power would keep Duke loyal to him no matter what.

[Turalyon]

He wants to be surrounded by loyal people, so if someone doesn't appear so loyal, they're out. He doesn't need to make long term plans to see that Kerrigan is slowly becoming less loyal. That's happening right in front of him.

Did you read my post at the top of the previous page? If it is exactly as you've said, why is Raynor still around as long as he was when he is way more overtly vehement and potentially disruptive in his resistance to Mengsk's decisions? Why didn't he just send Raynor down there with Kerrigan and abandon them both? He's apparently dumb enough to keep on a volatile guy who is more obviously disloyal that he openly questions him time and again in front of his other followers but decides to only edge out a lieutenant who would back him even despite their own reservations because she was subtly disloyal only on a moral stance? A moral stance that he's supposedly blind to as well? That makes no sense!

If Mengsk really was a guy who just made decisions in the moment and had no tolerance for disloyalty of any kind, he would have had Raynor shot (or at the least, be on a higher priority list to take Kerrigan's place in New Gettysburg instead) the instant he began questioning his decision to keep on Duke! Duke is way more valuable to Mengsk's plans and has greater utility than Raynor afterall.

But that's an assumption.

Like the position you're presenting somehow isn't? Puh-lease.

Mengsk did not "have to" get rid of her, not that we know.

True. But can we then say that he really "had" or "wanted" to get rid of her just because he didn't go rescue her? Why can't it be considered a utilitarian or a hard leadership decision instead? People do things that they'd rather not do quite a lot.

Also, it's not really about whether she really does pose a risk to Mengsk, but whether he thinks that she does.

But we don't really know if Mengsk thinks she poses a risk either. Your interpretation that he does think this is really an assumption, too.

Kerrigan was questioning his actions, and clearly the only thing keeping her loyal was the fact that he'd rescued her. Her complaints about his use of psi emitters establishes that she does not follow him unquestioningly.

Wrong. She is loyal to Mengsk because she actually has faith in him despite her own reservations. Her last words in conversation with Raynor are thus: "Arcturus will come around. I know he will."

[ragnarok]

Kerrigan has been very useful, and will be very useful, and was tasked and trusted to accomplish the most vital part of his plans, which she did complete.

My thoughts are that Kerrigan went in, and Mengsk, at the peak of his accomplishment, payed a high price. He had to abandon her down there, and the reason is not because he couldn't trust Kerrigan anymore. If Kerrigan lives, he keeps his most useful soldier. She poses no risk to Mengsk, nor did she show any sign of ending their relationship.

It was raynor who was jealous of her loyalty to mengsk. Raynor who was emotionally too affected by this. He hated Mengsk for not risking their entire operation by leaving the planet before the entirety of the Zerg descend upon them.

I'm too tired and distracted to express myself clearly.

Raynor felt that Kerrigan was being too loyal and blind, not seeing that Mengsk's actions are going to backfire. For the most vital part of the plans, it began with Antiga Prime, where she felt using the Zerg like that was just wrong, and Mengsk felt such questioning would ultimately lead her to turn on him, so better to get rid of her ASAP

[Nissa]

Did you read my post at the top of the previous page? If it is exactly as you've said, why is Raynor still around as long as he was when he is way more overtly vehement and potentially disruptive in his resistance to Mengsk's decisions? Why didn't he just send Raynor down there with Kerrigan and abandon them both? He's apparently dumb enough to keep on a volatile guy who is more obviously disloyal that he openly questions him time and again in front of his other followers but decides to only edge out a lieutenant who would back him even despite their own reservations because she was subtly disloyal only on a moral stance? A moral stance that he's supposedly blind to as well? That makes no sense!

I confess I didn't. It gets kinda annoying to go back and read old posts when sometimes I don't have access to the internet for a couple days, and this thread has blown up.

Um, well, bear in mind that I see Mengsk as far more subtle than you think I see him. I find it hard to describe things when I see people as subtle as I see Mengsk. Basically, the only reason why Mengsk didn't react to Raynor the same way he reacted to Kerrigan is because they're two different people. Also, bear in mind that he might not have intended to allow Kerrigan to die when he originally sent her out. Actually, that's more likely, given his personality -- he's an opportunist rather than a long term planner. It's most probable that he saw Kerrigan in a dangerous situation, and decided she wasn't worth the trouble of rescuing. Her loyalty becoming shaky is the primary factor, but also Mengsk's mentality in viewing people by their use to him personally means that he may have seen it as a waste of resources. In other words, he could not have seen Kerrigan as a daughter (as Gna says), because he never displays emotions in her favor when it comes to his actions.

Kerrigan also probably knows a lot about Mengsk and his methods, and if she dies, everything she's seen is gone. She can't report how he obtained Duke's loyalty or the details of the psi emitter missions. In other words, I'm very certain Raynor would have been killed at some point had he stayed around. Duke is too self-pragmatic to much care about morality (Rag, the books never count because they suck), but because Raynor generally tries to do what's right, he's not going to follow Mengsk regardless of the consequences.

If Mengsk really was a guy who just made decisions in the moment and had no tolerance for disloyalty of any kind, he would have had Raynor shot (or at the least, be on a higher priority list to take Kerrigan's place in New Gettysburg instead) the instant he began questioning his decision to keep on Duke! Duke is way more valuable to Mengsk's plans and has greater utility than Raynor afterall.

You're misinterpreting me, a bit. I never meant that he was absolutely intolerant of disloyalty. He's simply more loyal to himself than he is to anyone else, and when considering his tools (ie the people who work for him), he takes what he views as problems into account.

Tura, I've had this problem when talking to you before. You kinda take what I'm saying at the wrong interpretation, and then get antagonistic about it. Please try not to strawman me in the future. I'm not always the best at explaining things, but please try to understand what I'm saying.

True. But can we then say that he really "had" or "wanted" to get rid of her just because he didn't go rescue her? Why can't it be considered a utilitarian or a hard leadership decision instead? People do things that they'd rather not do quite a lot.

Well, given how Mengsk treats people in general, it's clear that he sees them from the standpoint of their usefulness to him. He's sweet-worded and logical to people who he can get use out of (rescuing Duke), but is harsh and unrelenting towards people who are against him (using Zerg against the Confederacy, instantly rabid against Raynor leaving). Mengsk does not view people as having their own intrinsic value. Thus Mengsk's choice to abandon her on Tarsonis is less of a hard leadership decision and more a decision of personal economy. That, and it was never made clear that the mission was one that required a hard leadership decision. Evacs were expected all around. Mengsk just didn't bother.

But we don't really know if Mengsk thinks she poses a risk either. Your interpretation that he does think this is really an assumption, too.

I guess that's fair, but given that she's a psychic and also his second in command, her seeing him as a moral threat or a is inherently devastating towards Mengsk's future intentions. She's in the position to know a lot about him.

Wrong. She is loyal to Mengsk because she actually has faith in him despite her own reservations. Her last words in conversation with Raynor are thus: "Arcturus will come around. I know he will."

In what way does this quote prove your point? Kerrigan is making an emotional statement, not a logical one. And yeah, it was kinda my point to say that she's putting her faith in him despite her reservations. I was emphasizing to Gna that she had reservations, and those reservations are the beginning of her being able to see Mengsk for what he is versus what she wants him to be. Kerrigan is basically confessing that she hopes Mengsk will be a good leader because she wants him to.

[ragnarok]

But we don't really know if Mengsk thinks she poses a risk either. Your interpretation that he does think this is really an assumption, too.

You really think that? Mengsk's paranoia was never exactly too far from the surface, though the same could be same for his arrogance. I always thought the moment Kerrigan began to question his actions in terms of doubt, Mengsk began to think that.

[Turalyon]

Tura, I've had this problem when talking to you before. You kinda take what I'm saying at the wrong interpretation, and then get antagonistic about it. Please try not to strawman me in the future. I'm not always the best at explaining things, but please try to understand what I'm saying.

That's not really fair. I could accuse you in kind of just preferring to seeing/interpret my responses as me being an arsehole so that you can feel better about yourself but I won't because I actually don't think/see it that way. My misunderstanding/misinterpretations stem from me trying to understand your position. My intent in all my responses has and always been about merely testing the strength of your position, never antagonism. I would've hoped you'd realised that's how I tend to operate by now. Please keep this in mind as (or if) you go through my replies below.

Um, well, bear in mind that I see Mengsk as far more subtle than you think I see him. I find it hard to describe things when I see people as subtle as I see Mengsk.

Sure, but it didn't really help/come across this way when you reductively called Mengsk a "blind fool".

Also, bear in mind that he might not have intended to allow Kerrigan to die when he originally sent her out. Actually, that's more likely, given his personality -- he's an opportunist rather than a long term planner. It's most probable that he saw Kerrigan in a dangerous situation, and decided she wasn't worth the trouble of rescuing. Her loyalty becoming shaky is the primary factor, but also Mengsk's mentality in viewing people by their use to him personally means that he may have seen it as a waste of resources. In other words, he could not have seen Kerrigan as a daughter (as Gna says), because he never displays emotions in her favor when it comes to his actions.

Ok, I can get behind this perspective. Being a spur of the moment decision to leave Kerrigan is a possible scenario but that could be explained in several yet equal ways (because it's all assumptive either way). It could be due Mengsk's intolerance to Kerrigan's waning intolerance coming to ahead in that instant but it could also be because Mengsk didn't want to risk more lives for what he deemed as a lost cause in that same instance as well. What's great about it, is that we never truly know which way it is and how you interpret that scenario speaks more about the viewer than anything else.

Still, it doesn't explain that if Mengsk's mindset revolves around "taking out" disloyal people as they appear and when he can, why he doesn't plan for and deliberately send Raynor down there or send him on some other crazy ass mission earlier due to his more overt displays of disloyalty. The only way I can fathom this working is if I intrepret Mengsk's behaviour in The Hammer Falls (the last mission of Rebel Yell) as him subtly wanting Raynor to rage against him (which he obliges to do) so that he then has the excuse to kill him as well. If this is so, can we truly still call him a "blind fool" if this (secretly wanting Raynor to pick a fight) was what he intended?

You're misinterpreting me, a bit. I never meant that he was absolutely intolerant of disloyalty.

My misinterpretation is merely because your position isn't very clear. You hinge Mengsk's decision to leave Kerrigan on the reason that he is intolerant to signs of disloyalty and now say that it isn't. What am I supposed to think?

Well, given how Mengsk treats people in general, it's clear that he sees them from the standpoint of their usefulness to him. He's sweet-worded and logical to people who he can get use out of (rescuing Duke), but is harsh and unrelenting towards people who are against him (using Zerg against the Confederacy, instantly rabid against Raynor leaving). Mengsk does not view people as having their own intrinsic value. Thus Mengsk's choice to abandon her on Tarsonis is less of a hard leadership decision and more a decision of personal economy. That, and it was never made clear that the mission was one that required a hard leadership decision. Evacs were expected all around. Mengsk just didn't bother.

You're right that he doesn't see people as having intrinsic value, only the value they have in regards to himself and his goals but the conclusion you've drawn is not the only one though since it doesn't rule out the possibility he's coming from a utilitarian frame of thinking. In such a mindset, Kerrigan actually does have value to him since she has always been an effective, useful and a loyal tool to Mengsk despite her misgivings and never outwardly gone against him. If we consider that he did not plan to abandon Kerrigan up until that moment, it could be interpreted that Mengsk abandoned Kerrigan because he became aware that the situation that unfolded was untenable and that the right course of action was to reduce further risk of losing more lives in a rescue attempt by hightailing it outta there.

A leader has to make executive decisions that will no doubt upset people in whatever path s/he chooses to take, but they still have to make the hard decisions and cop the flak either way in order to get things done and hope that their decision affects the greater good. Mengsk wasn't in a position to explain his actions then and there since it was in the heat-of-the-moment and required an immediate decision. He weighed her value against the risk of losing more men and chose the latter. In such a scenario, he can't win because he potentially loses more men and Kerrigan in a rescue attempt over the risky gain of getting his best officer back or potentially saves his strength and men for future endeavours by making the risky loss of his best officer. In short, the decision he made could've been about minimising the damage and loss of overall utility of his organisation.

His angry response at Raynor's glib remark about sacrificing Kerrigan is because Raynor thinks that Mengsk had no concept of value when it came to Kerrigan whatsoever, when he actually does hold value in Kerrigan and her sacrifice- it's just that it's a different type of value. Kerrigan was indeed a sacrifice that had weight to Mengsk because she had great utility and he no longer has access to that now because of his decision to leave her. Her sacrifice was not meaningless, frivolous and not in vain as Raynor accuses him of, it was necessary to help enable a better future (albeit a very skewed and monomaniacal one that is). Mengsk is scarier to me when I consider him as a well-intentioned extremist (which this interpretation marks him out to be) and not some vapid, two-bit villain (which unfortunately, most people reduce him into because they take his final reveal as marking him as such forever more).

given that she's a psychic and also his second in command, her seeing him as a moral threat or a is inherently devastating towards Mengsk's future intentions. She's in the position to know a lot about him.

In what way does this quote prove your point? Kerrigan is making an emotional statement, not a logical one. And yeah, it was kinda my point to say that she's putting her faith in him despite her reservations. I was emphasizing to Gna that she had reservations, and those reservations are the beginning of her being able to see Mengsk for what he is versus what she wants him to be. Kerrigan is basically confessing that she hopes Mengsk will be a good leader because she wants him to.

That she's a psychic actually makes things even more troubling for your position since she should've been able to read his intent about wanting to get rid of her, if that's what he really felt. If Kerrigan was already doubting Mengsk, why didn't she read his mind and why would she even bother to even hope he'd be "better" at all if she can mind-read? The only reasonable answer (ie: one not involving a contrived plot device like he was wearing a psi-shield or some other crap like that) to this is that she really wasn't doubting Mengsk in any serious way to justify her mind-reading him, ie: she had absolute faith in him.

You really think that? Mengsk's paranoia was never exactly too far from the surface, though the same could be same for his arrogance. I always thought the moment Kerrigan began to question his actions in terms of doubt, Mengsk began to think that.

It's not a matter of what I think, it's a matter of taking a perspective and running through it's logical course. If Mengsk was really that paranoid and arrogant as you say he is, Raynor would've been killed way earlier than Kerrigan due to Raynor's numerous outbursts and overt questioning of Mengsk's decisions throughout Rebel Yell.

[Gradius]

It's not that I see it, it's that Mengsk does. Mengsk is a brutal man, one who really would have abandoned Duke if Duke had been unreasonable/loyal to the Confederacy enough to refuse him (Duke is of course far too pragmatic, but that doesn't change what Mengsk would have done). Note that Kerrigan offers no real logic in defending him, just a meager "he knows what he's doing" rather than a "this decision is smart because..." Kerrigan can only defend him from an emotional standpoint

She's doing both:

"I know what I'm doing. The Protoss are coming to destroy the entire planet, not just the Zerg. I know that because ... well I just know it. I am a Ghost, remember?"

Needing to defend Tarsonis from the protoss who are coming to destroy the planet is a logical argument, even if the evidence for it is a tad flimsy. :P

[KaiserStratosTygo]

She's doing both:

"I know what I'm doing. The Protoss are coming to destroy the entire planet, not just the Zerg. I know that because ... well I just know it. I am a Ghost, remember?"

Needing to defend Tarsonis from the protoss who are coming to destroy the planet is a logical argument, even if the evidence for it is a tad flimsy. :P

I mean she has good reason to believe that since that was what they were doing up until that point (not including the cut mission but even then they still destroyed antiga)

[ragnarok]

She's doing both:

"I know what I'm doing. The Protoss are coming to destroy the entire planet, not just the Zerg. I know that because ... well I just know it. I am a Ghost, remember?"

Needing to defend Tarsonis from the protoss who are coming to destroy the planet is a logical argument, even if the evidence for it is a tad flimsy. :P

Except the zerg are overrunning the whole planet anyway, and she's not exactly interfering with that. Raynor should have brought up that point.