Who likes to write fanfiction?

[ragnarok]

His behavior toward Kerry is understandable considering her psychotic behavior and the unfair preferential treatment she receives. The manual stated that other cerebrates found him unstable, when in the game he seems quite reasonable.

It's a matter of him looking into her power lust problems. Maybe the other Cerebrates didn't see it that way because they felt the Overmind would control her just fine. They weren't exactly wrong about that, they just didn't take into account the Nerazim, which was the reason why Kerrigan was telling Artanis and Zeratul about the 2nd Overmind in BW.

[Turalyon]

The plot of the games was not planned when the manual backstory was finished. While the manual sets up a status quo involving a Koprulu war with an open-ended outcome

Thing is, even if we don't play the Sc1 storyline and only have the manual to go off from, the Terrans still do not seem on equal footing to the other two. In comparison to the descriptions and capabilities of the other races, the Terrans are of limited number, strength and have no realistic means (on a lore level that is) to counter any of the other two over the long-term.

If the Terrans were setup like how the Trader Emergency Coalition are represented in Sins of a Solar Empire (a game which has minimal lore to justify its three-way tussle), then I could believe the Terrans would be a viable 3rd faction that could continue on in the long run. Course, the TEC sort of encroach on Zerg territory in that both are characterised by having "reserves", so the Terrans need to have something tangible on their side. It's all well and good to have esoteric qualities like "tenacity" and "hope" but this is supposed to be science fiction - so there has to be a sense of realism to justify the Terrans continued existence. There's nothing really there in the manual to suggest the Terrans could conceivably survive against the other two.

It's kinda why plot devices like the UED, Psi Disruptor and their ability to impossibly comeback no matter what (which sets up WoL and potentially originated from BW) had to be invented to bolster them. Whilst I acknowledge that it is a retcon and artifice, the idea of Earth coming to bolster the general strength of the Terrans (but not the concept of the UED that we got in BW) is the least egregious since it can be realistically explained and is far less of an ass-pull then the Terrans somehow magically being able to rebuild in an instant after crushing defeats, invent insane wacky tech out of nowhere that happens to also perfectly counter the other two or retconned into a much larger presence than what they originally were.

That isn't a strength. There's a reason why very few people even remember (or care to learn about) the zerg prior to the SC2 retcons, and why discussions and fanfics always focus around Kerry or incredibly silly original characters like the lovechild of Kerry and Raynor or Zagara's half-human clone baby.

In terms of characters, true Zerg fans are all about the Overmind, and there was plenty of that character being memorable to them. It's just that the Zerg are kinda niche in their appeal. They're not supposed to be "liked" in the general sense.

If it is possible for the Necrons to receive memorable characterization and still remain horrific monsters (like everyone else in 40k), then the same should be possible for the Zerg. The only obstacle is the lack of writers who actually care to go to that effort. The zerg "characters" in SC2 still amount to barely sentient plot devices that are immediately forgotten after they served their narrative purpose.

Giving the zerg actual personalities is the only thing that makes them stand out from all the other alien locusts in scifi (a subversion of the standard genre conventions, in the same way that originally the terrans were cyborg mutant criminals and the protoss were in the middle of a golden age). If those personalities are just bland window dressing, there's no point to include them in the first place.

The thing I love about WH40K lore is that you can take it or leave it and that everything that's been written can be potentially true or false. I remember there being outcry about the Necron lore change in how they were all initially just slaves to the C'tan gods but then retconned into the Necrontyr people actually having overthrown them and had all these other factional intrigues. On one hand, their initial representation was pretty bland and apart from an interesting backstory, they really weren't that different from Tyranid in terms of general concept. The retcon really gave some extra depth and differentiated them from their similarities with the Tyranid. It was justified too since the C'tan and Necrontyr were established as being different and having different goals from the get go. On the other hand, it kinda makes the Necron less unique/interesting/alien now because now they're sort of similar/same-y to the other races with all their various factional disputes and what not. Also, the original concept of the Necron hasn't been totally removed either, since they could exist as a faction of their own.

The Zerg, however, are not like the Necron in their setup. They are closer to the Tyranid in that they have never had any real division amongst them from the start. Like the Tyranid, the appeal of the Zerg is not and was never about the characters within that group but the general concept and idea of the race as a whole. Sure, there's more personification of these ideas and concepts with the Zerg than the Tyranid (and really that's the only difference - which is superficial anyway), but they still all serve that idea and concept of what it is to be "Zerg". So, compared to more human-like/identifiable-with characters, they're not really nor ever will be interesting characters in the classical sense with any autonomy/agency anyway.

Heck, Zasz's death isn't mourned at all! The zerg are forced to murder one of their own broods, and the narrative doesn't expect them (or the player) to care one bit. The only purpose this plot point served was to contrive a zerg versus zerg conflict (because the plot was written around mandates like that, which explains why the zerg and protoss campaigns were much more meandering than the terran campaign) and to foreshadow a deus ex machina that would be used to kill the Overmind at the end of the game.

What use is mourning to a Zerg? It's useful for humans on a psychological level but Zerg are not human. Why would you want to force human characteristics on a race that's supposed to be alien?

The permanent loss of a cerebrate does have an effect in how they behave thereafter. It establishes the Zerg do have a weakness and they prioritise fixing the consequences of that by targeting the Dark Templar and removing the Garm brood. Also, the Overmind goes out of action for awhile and the Zerg are now actually forced to do something they never conceived of ever having to do - all of which is unexpected for the Zerg.

The manual stated that other cerebrates found him unstable, when in the game he seems quite reasonable.

Given that Daggoth is a complete bore and, I suppose, representative of what a good/normal cerebrate is supposed to be like, then Zasz's personality would be considered "unstable" in that context.

As I said before, there's a reason why the zerg are generally unmemorable. They aren't given any desires, quirks or arcs to make players actually care about them beyond the obvious "embrace your destructive side in an RTS." The SC1 manual hinted that the zerg had weird quirks like the hydralisk's sadism, gorn's terror tactics, zasz's annoying second guessing or kagg's uncontrollable bloodthirstiness, but these were never explored outside of discussions by a few people on the internet like myself or Unhappy Anchovy over at spacebattles.

And, like I said, the only worthwhile Zerg character is the Overmind. The manual sets this up, the campaign is called Overmind, there's plenty of the Overmind in that campaign and it has the most interesting characterisation as befitting its role and station. When it comes to the Zerg, everything else is perfunctory next to the Overmind.

Fascinating. I really wish you guys could share all this stuff in an interview article or something, since I was really disappointed that Origins went on hiatus. I put a lot of thought into how the zerg hierarchy and politics could work but I am always happy to get other opinions. Something I always wanted was some kind of fluff bible that writers could use to guide themselves while writing zerg-centric narratives without falling into the trap of being bland or too similar to humans and protoss.

There was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing, I can tell you that much. We all had our different takes on how the Zerg "worked" and I must say that FanaticTemplar and I would often go-off on tangential discussions/arguments (we did that a lot generally on the forums here) to justify a particular turn/occurrence/behavour of a character in the narrative. In the end, I would always defer to Grad since it was his work and story at the end of the day, so I always tried to conceptualise things to work with or bring out his ideas. I think Grad lost a bit of motivation in continuing with it but we kind of figured out the whole story of it beforehand.

[Mislagnissa]

I tried writing starcraft fanfiction in the Blizzard style of being full of obvious plot holes and retcons. My readers complained about this, even after I explained that the games are full of plot holes and retcons.

Like, in the beginning of WoL, Valerie tricks Ray into murdering two security guards for the lulz and this is never brought up.

I can't imagine how they'll whine when Starcraft 3 introduces a new round of retcons.

[ragnarok]

I tried writing starcraft fanfiction in the Blizzard style of being full of obvious plot holes and retcons. My readers complained about this, even after I explained that the games are full of plot holes and retcons.

Like, in the beginning of WoL, Valerie tricks Ray into murdering two security guards for the lulz and this is never brought up.

I can't imagine how they'll whine when Starcraft 3 introduces a new round of retcons.

Strangely enough, for my fic the readers did very little complaining about such things....

[Turalyon]

Like, in the beginning of WoL, Valerie tricks Ray into murdering two security guards for the lulz and this is never brought up.

You talking about your fanfic here? I don't recall this happening at the start of WoL.

I can't imagine how they'll whine when Starcraft 3 introduces a new round of retcons.

Nah, they'll just lap it up like they did Sc2. No-one cares about continuity or story in big games as long as it looks and plays good.

[ragnarok]

Nah, they'll just lap it up like they did Sc2. No-one cares about continuity or story in big games as long as it looks and plays good.

Not everyone invested this much into the SC universe, Tura. Hell, I didn't show that kind of interest until AFTER WoL's release

[Mislagnissa]

You talking about your fanfic here? I don't recall this happening at the start of WoL.

The "Heir Apparent" cinematic where Raynor meets Valerian. Ray kills a bunch of Dominion marines beforehand, even though Valerian had planned to meet him. Neither cares about the lives they just wasted. It makes them both look cruel and callous.

[ragnarok]

The "Heir Apparent" cinematic where Raynor meets Valerian. Ray kills a bunch of Dominion marines beforehand, even though Valerian had planned to meet him. Neither cares about the lives they just wasted. It makes them both look cruel and callous.

You have to understand that Raynor had been fighting the Dominion for years. War hardens a person's mentality (trust me, I've read dozens of WWII books to know that). As time passed, Raynor increasingly began to see Dominion soldiers as just Mengsk's puppets.

[Mislagnissa]

I've run into a problem. The fandom has internalized the crappy SC2 lore, but I'm writing fiction that ignores the retcons and rewrites the great war to keep focus on three way conflict. How do I elegantly explain to my readers that my story doesn't have xel'naga space gods, wimpy protoss and other stupid ideas?

[Gradius]

I've run into a problem. The fandom has internalized the crappy SC2 lore, but I'm writing fiction that ignores the retcons and rewrites the great war to keep focus on three way conflict. How do I elegantly explain to my readers that my story doesn't have xel'naga space gods, wimpy protoss and other stupid ideas?

What have I been telling you since you started posting here? Enumerate and other fan-fictions will never be canon and nobody will care. SC2 lore has taken over.

I guess put a disclaimer somewhere.