Who likes to write fanfiction?

[Nissa]

Honestly, you have to make people get it. I once wrote a massive Mega Man fanfiction that gapped the breach between the original games and Mega Man X. Some people claimed it helped them understand and later games, and how they relate to continuity. Others, who hadn't played the original games, enjoyed my story for what it was worth and accepted my explanations for what was going on.

In other words, you can explain it so that people get it, without dragging down your story. The key is to just write what you wanna write and make it good. Everything else follows.

[ragnarok]

I suspect a key reason why the fanfiction does not focus on SC1-era politics is due to ignorance and the way SC2 turned the zerg and templar into worthless wimps.

Somehow I doubt that. Again, most people are not die hard SC fans, which was why many people were just fine with the SC2 lore when WoL came out

[Gradius]

The Overmind pre-retcon, and all the primal zerg post-retcon, inevitably came to the conclusion that they should eat everything. They go about this different ways, but ultimately that is their motivation as a species and it is the only motivation that makes any sense for them.

That's not really the primal zerg's goal. The Overmind and Amon's goal was to cull all life while absorbing whatever was useful into their own faction. The primal zerg don't want to cull all life as that would lead to stagnation, they just want to go around and keep assimilating new lifeforms. That's why Dehaka says "If that one (Amon) lives, all essence will be collected. Change will stop. I will fight."

[ragnarok]

That's not really the primal zerg's goal. The Overmind and Amon's goal was to cull all life while absorbing whatever was useful into their own faction. The primal zerg don't want to cull all life as that would lead to stagnation, they just want to go around and keep assimilating new lifeforms. That's why Dehaka says "If that one (Amon) lives, all essence will be collected. Change will stop. I will fight."

But they too have the idea of absorbing what's useful to them. After all, Dehaka made it clear most terran essence was useless to the primal zerg as it couldn't help them evolve.

[Turalyon]

The Overmind pre-retcon, and all the primal zerg post-retcon, inevitably came to the conclusion that they should eat everything.

I thought the Overmind wanted what it deemed "perfection" as it's primary goal. This esoteric but important difference is what separates them from the Tyranid, whose primary goal is indeed wanting to eat everything.

[Mislagnissa]

Somehow I doubt that. Again, most people are not die hard SC fans, which was why many people were just fine with the SC2 lore when WoL came out

Then explain to me why there are no stories about politics beyond Raynor vs Mengsk or Artanis vs Amon. SC1 introduced a complicated web of politics which the series progressively dismembered and discarded, resulting in a progressively sillier setting. The fanfics suffer from this. In fanfiction, remotely believable or least bit complicated politics are absent. There is no Confederate vs pirate militia politics, no tribal politics, and no zerg brood politics. It's just Raynor this, Kerry that. BORING!

This isn't about die hard fandom, which I don't consider myself a part of. To be entirely honest, I think you have very low standards. Even if SC2 wasn't a sequel, it is still badly written. The gameplay is fine, but the story is utterly abysmal. There are cliches, plot holes and idiot behavior up the wazoo.

The ending where the three races team up to defeat a severely retarded space Satan is stupid on its own merits, not just because it is a bad sequel to SC1. Imagine if someone wrote a story where the Nazis, the Taliban and the Soviet Union teamed up to defeat a severely retarded space Satan. You would think it is pretty stupid, right? This is the same situation on a much bigger scale, since the protoss and zerg are aliens with different psychology and biological drives from humans. Both races have committed unprovoked acts of genocide against humanity and each other, so the team up itself makes about as much sense as the Jews, Muslims and Nazis becoming BFFs out of the blue.

That's not really the primal zerg's goal. The Overmind and Amon's goal was to cull all life while absorbing whatever was useful into their own faction. The primal zerg don't want to cull all life as that would lead to stagnation, they just want to go around and keep assimilating new lifeforms. That's why Dehaka says "If that one (Amon) lives, all essence will be collected. Change will stop. I will fight."

Amon was trying to kill every living thing because he was crazy and stupid. That is nowhere near the same as the Overmind's goal.

The SC1 manual stated that the Overmind left Zerus because it knew the zerg would stagnate if they stayed, and that they went on their galactic slaughter in order to prepare themselves for war against the protoss. If the protoss weren't a threat, they would not have mobilized themselves for war and consumed every world on the path to Aiur.

Prior to the SC2 retcons that was the exact same goal as the SC1 primal zerg: everything in their path was either food for their young or material for their creations and they didn't give a damn about that vegan green peace garbage. The only thing the Overmind brought to the table was that it made the primal zerg vastly more efficient at what they were already going to do anyway.

The SC2 primal zerg rely on insane troll logic that actually renders them stagnant. Zurvan is the end result of primal zerg logic: he's a passive entity that spends his time in hibernation until new essence shows up. Except that for no apparent reason he cannot wake up on his own, so if he's considered the pinnacle of primal zerg then they are all an evolutionary dead end. If a natural disaster causes a mass extinction or renders the planet uninhabitable, or aliens show up with the capability and motivation to exterminate the zerg, they are up the fecal creek.

What separates the Overmind from the primal zerg is that it is superior in every single way. Its communistic government increases the zerg's efficiency by countless orders of magnitude, its foresight allows the zerg to anticipate and prepare for non-immediate threats, and it has space travel which means that it never has to worry about keeping cattle around because the infinite universe is its feeding trough (a fact which the primal zerg, and the Blizzard writers, are too small-minded to understand). SC2 even introduces a multiverse, which means that even if the primal zerg have a point about keeping cattle around in case they develop useful traits later then the Overmind could travel to alternate universes and through time/space to assimilate those species at the point where they became useful.

So, tl;dr, Overmind rules, Amon and primal drools.

I thought the Overmind wanted what it deemed "perfection" as it's primary goal. This esoteric but important difference is what separates them from the Tyranid, whose primary goal is indeed wanting to eat everything.

This was actually retconned in by the SC1 campaign as far as I can tell (I made a thread about it, will respond to replies soon). There's no basis for this in the SC1 manual, where the zerg were only ever concerned about keeping themselves on top of the proverbial food chain (a conditional and indefinite goal). The story of the xel'naga is a parable about the subjectivity of perfection and the dangers of perfectionism: they abandoned the protoss for not meeting their standards and nearly got killed for it, and when they proclaimed the zerg perfect then the Overmind ate them and went on to evolve beyond that so-called perfection.

But they too have the idea of absorbing what's useful to them. After all, Dehaka made it clear most terran essence was useless to the primal zerg as it couldn't help them evolve.

The SC2 concept of "essence" is nonsensical and stupid. Evolution is not a hierarchical process! Evolution just refers to the process of species acclimating to their environment because selection pressures kill off those who are less adapted. In the zerg's case, becoming better killing machines.

[ragnarok]

Then explain to me why there are no stories about politics beyond Raynor vs Mengsk or Artanis vs Amon. SC1 introduced a complicated web of politics which the series progressively dismembered and discarded, resulting in a progressively sillier setting. The fanfics suffer from this. In fanfiction, remotely believable or least bit complicated politics are absent. There is no Confederate vs pirate militia politics, no tribal politics, and no zerg brood politics. It's just Raynor this, Kerry that. BORING!

This isn't about die hard fandom, which I don't consider myself a part of. To be entirely honest, I think you have very low standards. Even if SC2 wasn't a sequel, it is still badly written. The gameplay is fine, but the story is utterly abysmal. There are cliches, plot holes and idiot behavior up the wazoo.

The ending where the three races team up to defeat a severely retarded space Satan is stupid on its own merits, not just because it is a bad sequel to SC1. Imagine if someone wrote a story where the Nazis, the Taliban and the Soviet Union teamed up to defeat a severely retarded space Satan. You would think it is pretty stupid, right? This is the same situation on a much bigger scale, since the protoss and zerg are aliens with different psychology and biological drives from humans. Both races have committed unprovoked acts of genocide against humanity and each other, so the team up itself makes about as much sense as the Jews, Muslims and Nazis becoming BFFs out of the blue.

Having all 3 races unite against a common enemy in itself isn't a bad idea, they just poorly executed Amon's character.

As for the focus on Raynor and Kerrigan in SC2, people got a little TOO obessed with it all, especially after Fenix's death in BW. Unfortunately the writers didn't understand that's only part of a bigger picture. Even Raynor's obession to topple Mengsk dominated things too much. Sure, it was his primary goal, but there are other people in the sector doing other things. The writers merely felt the other terrans were too lost in their own matters. Personally of course I felt they should have brought back the KMC, who has largely been left out of the picture for WAY too long (I'll be doing that in a future SC fic)

Zerg brood politics weren't needed because the Cerebrates couldn't exist without an Overmind (this was explained in the SC Hybrid story). Of course, you could say we should have looked at the story of the Cerebrates BEFORE they all died, and their schemes.

[ragnarok]

The SC2 concept of "essence" is nonsensical and stupid. Evolution is not a hierarchical process! Evolution just refers to the process of species acclimating to their environment because selection pressures kill off those who are less adapted. In the zerg's case, becoming better killing machines.

Once again this just shows you feel that whatever new ideas are total BS and the only "success" the SC2 storyline had was it failed EVERYTHING. Again, this was the reason I got very frustrated with the people on the battlenet forums for such complaints. There were its share of problems, but for non die hard fans they just let it go. This again goes back to why I believe if you keep this up, eventually Blizzard would notice and remake the whole trilogy.

[Mislagnissa]

Ragnarök, there is no good way to execute Amon's character. Any villain who wants to literally destroy the universe will never work outside a children's cartoon. Having the three races stop fighting is an insult to the franchise, because them fighting is the entire premise. Good villains would be the Overmind and the Conclave (and Ulrezaj, etc), since their motivations are understandable and even laudable if you are one of their constituents. Genuine moral ambiguity like that is a hallmark of good writing. Killing the Overmind and the Conclave is the point at which the series jumped the shark. The problem goes all the way back to SC1 forcing too much into a single game. Since it ended with the plot threads introduced in the manual either severed or never pulled at all, there was no good way to continue the story. It could only ever go downhill because the writers did not know what they were doing and never planned for sequels.

I don't believe the franchise should be remade because that implies the plot would remain largely the same, and the plot was terrible. It believe it should be rebooted entirely and the rebooted series should focus entirely on the war in the Koprulu sector, based on the plot points from the manual like the determinant and the protoss' schism over humanity's fate, without forcing in incongruous fantasy elements or literally mythic heroes.

[Nissa]

So...you're basically saying you're made that the plot progresses naturally, instead of having all three factions in a state of war continually, no matter how logically absurd the circumstances are to keep them that way.

Okaaaaay.