Did the Xel'Naga Foresee Their Defeat?

[Visions of Khas]

Dehaka and the "Primal Zerg" don't have a psionic hive-mind link, so they are not affected by it even though being "Primal Zerg" does apparently mean having this recently retconned version of "purity of essence".

Well, the Hive Mind was Amon's "corruption", as Primals are proudly very individualistic. *sigh*

I'd think their innate psychic sensitivity would allow them to feel the Psi Destroyer's field as a buzzing in the back of the head, but it doesn't have the fatal feedback loop in the Hive Mind to take advantage of.

No proof of this, just speculatin' and shit.

Possibly, unless Amon blocked the communications or something.

Probable. Amon controlled the Void at that point, so nothing happened without his say-so. Which makes me wonder; the Dark Templar used the Void, but lore always stayed they were very well aware of the dangers in its use. I'm guessing Amon was this innate danger. So did DTs use Amon's corrupted Void energies, but sparingly to avoid his attention; or did they pull upon small pockets of uncorrupted Void energy?

[ragnarok]

Exactly, so why did you even bother bringing this up?

It's also possible that Ouros was one of those who was considered paranoid by the other Xel'Naga. Of course, if that's the case it'd mean that Ouros wanted to be absolutely sure Amon was REALLY gone after his defeat at Zerus, whereas the other Xel'Naga's arrogance in thinking they won the battle, so Amon's threat was over with. If that's true, it's no different than Mengsk's mentality (though his had better grounds) at Tarsonis, thinking the zerg would kill Kerrigan. But then again, everyone believed the zerg would have done that prior to the SC1 zerg campaign....

The purities are retconned from essence into "great changeability" and form into "great psionic capability" in Sc2. Ouros believes Kerrigan fulfills this requirement which leads him to endow his power to her. Therefore, by the games logic, she has both purities.

That is merely his belief, which I feel was nothing more than blind faith. And in any case I felt if the ascension had to happen, it should have had better strings attached. This was something I discussed with Stratos before Blizzard gave us any info for LotV: that while Zeratul led Kerrigan to Zerus, he had contingency plans in the event she chose to abuse that power.

Similarly it would have been reasonable for Ouros to put a similar backup plan. Amon certainly had a point to Raynor and Artanis in saying what grounds did they have that Kerrigan wouldn't abuse the Xel'Naga power....

[ragnarok]

Probable. Amon controlled the Void at that point, so nothing happened without his say-so. Which makes me wonder; the Dark Templar used the Void, but lore always stayed they were very well aware of the dangers in its use. I'm guessing Amon was this innate danger. So did DTs use Amon's corrupted Void energies, but sparingly to avoid his attention; or did they pull upon small pockets of uncorrupted Void energy?

This is why I'm saying Amon did not bend ALL of the Void to his will. And in any case, Void energy is considered dangerous regardless of Amon's corruption. After all, it was the Void energy that killed the Overmind in the first place. The stalkers' particle disruptors used Void energy and that had damaging effects. The Tal'darim's bane blades, along with their Ascendants' Agonizing Blast (drawn from the Void) proved extremely damaging, and they retained these powers even after LotV, which proves Amon's corruption was never a critical factor to make Void energy deadly.

[Turalyon]

That is merely his belief, which I feel was nothing more than blind faith.

His belief coincides with the actual truth that Kerrigan has the purities - otherwise, she wouldn't have "ascended" when Ouros transferred his powers to her and Artanis wouldn't exclaim that she was a Xel'Naga when that happened.

[ragnarok]

His belief coincides with the actual truth that Kerrigan has the purities - otherwise, she wouldn't have "ascended" when Ouros transferred his powers to her and Artanis wouldn't exclaim that she was a Xel'Naga when that happened.

I felt that wasn't the proper way to ascend, merely Ouros pulled some strings and broke tradition for the sake to beat Amon and all that.

[Turalyon]

I felt that wasn't the proper way to ascend.

There's no other information in the game to suggest that there is even a "proper way". Regardless of the how, you need both purities to become a Xel'Naga, which Kerrigan had and did respectively.

[ragnarok]

There's no other information in the game to suggest that there is even a "proper way". Regardless of the how, you need both purities to become a Xel'Naga, which Kerrigan had and did respectively.

I mostly just went off what Artanis got from Ulnar, that it's supposed to be the two destined races. That should have been the way it's done, and was done like that in the past.

[Visions of Khas]

There's no other information in the game to suggest that there is even a "proper way". Regardless of the how, you need both purities to become a Xel'Naga, which Kerrigan had and did respectively.

Then there's not quite the clear distinction of the Purities as we were led to believe. And I think a lot of that rests with the Zerg. Their hyper-evolutionary traits brought out the best in Kerrigan, twice: Once, during her initial infestation, and again on Zerus. Her ability to wield such powerful psionics should be Purity of Form (what I see as the physical capability to house, withstand, and be augmented by immense psionic power). What's less clear to me, then, is where the Essence is involved. I always considered the Overmind itself to be that Purity, but that's not the case in SCII canon.

[ragnarok]

Then there's not quite the clear distinction of the Purities as we were led to believe. And I think a lot of that rests with the Zerg. Their hyper-evolutionary traits brought out the best in Kerrigan, twice: Once, during her initial infestation, and again on Zerus. Her ability to wield such powerful psionics should be Purity of Form (what I see as the physical capability to house, withstand, and be augmented by immense psionic power). What's less clear to me, then, is where the Essence is involved. I always considered the Overmind itself to be that Purity, but that's not the case in SCII canon.

Only the first time for the hyper-evolutionary. From what I saw, that only existed in the corrupted zerg. The primal zerg don't seem to have this, as the 2nd time was just the catalytic fluids from the pool.

[Turalyon]

I mostly just went off what Artanis got from Ulnar, that it's supposed to be the two destined races. That should have been the way it's done, and was done like that in the past.

Well, Kerrigan is of two races afterall: Primal Zerg and Human/Terran. As to the "destiny" part, it's about the purities being destined to appear in two different races, not that the Zerg and Protoss are specifically destined to have the purities. Besides, the Xel'Naga are the architects of such "destiny" and the purities. Since Ouros is one of them, what he says about what qualifies as meeting the requirements to be of the purities trumps whatever Artanis thinks/interprets it to be.

The only reason I can say this with any confidence, is that the retcons over retcons allow this interpretation.

Then there's not quite the clear distinction of the Purities as we were led to believe. And I think a lot of that rests with the Zerg. Their hyper-evolutionary traits brought out the best in Kerrigan, twice: Once, during her initial infestation, and again on Zerus. Her ability to wield such powerful psionics should be Purity of Form (what I see as the physical capability to house, withstand, and be augmented by immense psionic power). What's less clear to me, then, is where the Essence is involved. I always considered the Overmind itself to be that Purity, but that's not the case in SCII canon.

The purity retcons are actually pretty clear in and of themselves - it's just that it muddies what came before. What they want, is for you to forget what you knew...

Purity of form was far simpler in Sc1 where it was defined as merely the peak physical embodiment of life. In Sc2, it's retconned into meaning "great psionic potential" - which may or may not require having "good" (whatever defines "good" that is) physical traits. Once again, Kerrigan has always had psionic potential despite that she happens to also be so special and the actual unique epitome of this trait (which is more to do with writers opting for "Sue-ness" and going down the "chosen one" path).

In Sc2, purity of essence is defined as the "capability of great change" (which makes no literal sense since something "pure" comes with the inference that it is unadulterated/not capable of change) whereas in Sc1 it was about the fundamental nature of something that stayed the same despite great change (sure, it's somewhat esoteric but it flows on from the manual's history where the Protoss experiement was a failure - I guess that's why no-one ever understood it). The Overmind was instrumental for the latter interpretation, whereas in Sc2 it's a restriction on the purity because it's enslaved and that the hivemind that pervades the Swarm Zerg is an unnatural creation and corruption of said purity. That's why the Primal Zerg were conceived as an out (one of the many reasons why their representation is distasteful). Kerrigan becomes a primal Zerg in HotS, so she attains this retconned purity of essence version.

It's kind of interesting in a way since the Sc2 retcons of the purities are consistent with the at-the-time retcon that Protoss couldn't be assimilated/infested by Zerg. The reason given then was that it was the Khala - which fits in with what LotV tells us in that Amon wanted to stop the cycle and that the Khala was corrupted by Amon's influence. Sc2's purity retcons "clarify" (if one can see it as that...) the reason for Protoss assimilation by Zerg not being possible (which was a retcon itself) is that it was Amon's doing all along.