SCLegacy Podcast?

[Undeadprotoss]

I was thinking, a really idea to start with a YouTube thing is to upload a couple podcasts. It's fairly easy to do and we could probably manage to get guests like Jayborino on at times. What do you guys think?

Maybe have it be weekly, bimonthly, whatever.

[Nissa]

I wouldn't mind, but we'd have to plan that ahead.

Also, what kind of topics would we go on about?

[Undeadprotoss]

For a few:

-The future of the franchise, will there be a SC3?
-What are some paths that SC2 could have explored. Basically a "what could have been" episode
-Which race has the strongest, most compelling lore and why?
-Who was the strongest character in SC1, SC2, etc?
-Anything remotely related to SC1 or SC2.

[Nissa]

Those are all pretty broad topics. It would be better to narrow down stuff so that the podcast doesn't become muddled.

I'd like a podcast on the nature of SC characterization. Like, how it's changed over time. Honestly, I was watching clips from the Nova downloadables, and despite the racial diversity, everyone's the friggin' same. They're all monotonal, dead-eyed bread rolls.

Here's some stuff off the top of my head:
- Exactly how evil is Duke?
- Favorite characters
- What do we know for sure about Umoja and the KM Combine?
- Has Mengsk's story really been told? (ala being replaced by Valerian)

[Undeadprotoss]

How about we talk about the regression of Zeratul? How he went from one of the best and most beloved characters in SC1to a crazed and unrecognizable nomad in SC2?

[Mislagnissa]

There are already loads and loads of essays about the bad writing in SC2. The impossible economy of the dominion, the changing utility of the taldarim, the psychotic heroes, the space magic that does whatever the plot requires, the plot holes in the prophecies and evil plots, duran being limited to an anagram of his real name like Carmilla the vampire, the villains being complete idiots, etc. We know.

What we need is more criticism of SC1 and BW. Loomings and Rebel Yell are competent given the limited format, but Overmind and the Stand have... problems. Brood War is pretty much a completely different universe.

[Nissa]

I think you're hitting BW too hard. It is most certainly NOT a completely different universe. Yes, many plot elements went unexplained, Aiur's situation was retconned, and adding the UED wasn't the best of ideas, but it still had the great voice acting and feel of the previous game. It made most feel the same sorts of emotions that the first game made me feel. Given that I've met basically no one who criticizes BW to the extent you do, most people seem to feel the same way.

At the same time, it's fine if people want to talk about the flaws of BW. It may want to be something separated into categories, though.

- the condition of Aiur, and what about other Protoss worlds besides Aiur and Shakuras?
- how the inclusion of the UED changed SC and why they haven't been back
- how in the world did Kerrigan convince Raynor and Fenix to go along with her ideas?

[Mislagnissa]

How about we talk about the regression of Zeratul? How he went from one of the best and most beloved characters in SC1to a crazed and unrecognizable nomad in SC2?

Maybe discuss the retcons to the Protoss civilization?

In SC1 they had a god-like civilization, killed hundreds of their own gods, nuked themselves into the stone age, and are now still reliant on reverse engineering their ancestral tech. The Aeon of Strife is referred to in the original manual as the "bloodiest, most violent civil war ever recorded in galactic history," meaning that the Protoss Empire at the time was a galactic civilization (or became one because of the Aeon). They are a young civilization far from reaching their peak. While they may be longer lived than humans, it has been a few generations since the khala was founded: Raszagal was born on Aiur and banished around a thousand years previous (according to the DT novels, if you want to ignore that detail). This contrasts them from generic space elves and makes them unique.

In the original manual the Protoss are described as holding many worlds (approximately an eighth of the galaxy? the galactic fringe?), and the Dark Templar are nomadic. SC/BW retcons this for no reason: In Episode 3 there's no mention of them holding planets other than Aiur; Episode 4 claims Shakuras is the Dark Templar home world.

SC2 retcons their original civilization to the stone age, while keeping them killing their gods and the Aeon of Strife is still referred to as a galactic war. They become a decaying civilization that reached its peak long ago. They even have low fertility. This is exactly like generic space elves!

SC2's post-Aeon development introduces motherships, colossi, purifiers and the Spear of Adun. The Spear's culture clash subplot is nonsensical, as one of the downsides of the Khala is cultural stagnation, so they would not be much different from the Khalai refugees aside from being suddenly thrown into the aftermath of a war. The Spear of Adun would ironically make more sense as refugees from before the Aeon when the precursor to the Khala was much different (the original manual states that the Protoss extended their telepathic link to encompass the whole planet, but it was not given a distinct name until Khas named it Khala and added the castes and religious aspects). The same goes for the other technology, as it makes no sense the motherships and colossi would not have been used in Episode 3 if they were available. Zeratul activating them makes sense if he's still supposed to be the adventurer/archaeologist he was in the original manual, but not if he was reconnected to a mad prophet.

I think you're hitting BW too hard. It is most certainly NOT a completely different universe. Yes, many plot elements went unexplained, Aiur's situation was retconned, and adding the UED wasn't the best of ideas, but it still had the great voice acting and feel of the previous game. It made most feel the same sorts of emotions that the first game made me feel. Given that I've met basically no one who criticizes BW to the extent you do, most people seem to feel the same way.

At the same time, it's fine if people want to talk about the flaws of BW. It may want to be something separated into categories, though.

- the condition of Aiur, and what about other Protoss worlds besides Aiur and Shakuras?
- how the inclusion of the UED changed SC and why they haven't been back
- how in the world did Kerrigan convince Raynor and Fenix to go along with her ideas?

While the individual parts of BW sound nice, the whole is full of plot holes. Here are some reviews and parodies by other people:

• https://superior-realities.com/2014/...ing-to-say-it/
• https://www.fanfiction.net/s/1256310...uld-have-Ended and https://www.fanfiction.net/s/1231664...Emperor-Mengsk
• https://forums.spacebattles.com/thre...rcraft.243644/
• http://www.samods.org/175 or http://www.game-weavers.com/?page_id=107
• http://www.samods.org/195 or http://www.game-weavers.com/?page_id=140
  

Here are my complaints, in detail:

BW focuses more heavily on characters and their desires as opposed to the political spectrum of SC. Though SC, as its campaigns went on, began to shift from focusing on politics to focusing on characters, as shown by the plodding narratives of Episodes 2 and 3 compared to Episode 1 and the elevation of Kerry and Tass into messiahs of their respective factions. The problem with this is that Metzen simply is not good at writing convincing characters, so while the plot superficially appears to be character driven it is actually driven by the end plot Metzen wanted to tell. This results in the characters lacking real motivations and generally acting inconsistently and idiotically.

The technology and metaphysics of the setting are subject to retcons and plot holes, particularly in the case of the Protoss and Zerg. All of the major plot points, like the second Overmind and the xel’naga temple, are clear deus ex machinas. They appear without explanation, without precedent, without any way to be predicted, and steer the plot in the direction Metzen desired in defiance of verisimilitude.

The ending of Episode III is retconned to a Zerg victory. Despite the loss of the Overmind and numerous cerebrates, the remaining cerebrates are not only able to maintain their composure and cohesion, but become even more dangerous than before. Given the precedent set by Zasz in SC1, which resulted in the extermination of the Garm down to the last Zergling, they should be suffering from various deleterious effects like insanity, panic, and civil war.

The introduction of the second overmind trivializes the sacrifice require to kill the original at the end of Episode III. Its existence raises numerous questions about the nature of the hive mind. How did the Cerebrates know to create it? Why did the Zerg not create multiple Overminds as insurance? If the Overmind may be resurrected despite being slain by void magic, does that mean Cerebrates can too? If you merged some queens and overlords together, would they become a new cerebrate? How are cerebrates even created? Are they morphed from larvae like every other Zerg breed or do they have to be created by the Overmind? If there were no Cerebrates before the Overmind, how did the xel’naga create it? If the Overmind was originally created from scratch, why did the Cerebrates need to merge to create one? Could the Cerebrates have created a new Overmind from scratch? Could Cerebrates be created from scratch? Could Cerebrates create other Cerebrates? If the Overmind was originally a bodiless entity, why do all subsequent portrayals depict it as a physical entity? Why are Cerebrates embodied? Could they exist without bodies? It’s a huge can of worms that requires defining how the hierarchy of hive minds that runs the Zerg is actually structured, which canon has never done and thus we get inconsistent metaphysics.

Kerry’s ability to exert control over an arbitrarily high number of Zerg contradicts the explanations and numbers given in the original manual. The Zerg are a hierarchy of hive minds because it is difficult for a single mind to manage so many Zerg. The Overmind delegates tasks to cerebrates, who delegate tasks to queens and overlords, who give orders to individual Zerg. The Cerebrates are brain bugs, ripped right out of Starship Troopers. They are not warrior beasts like Kerry or the HotS cast, presumably because all that brain mass is required to manage their broods! Even then they have limits, as the largest single brood Tiamat is a paltry 6.5 million out of the “billions” of Zerg that make up the “innumerable” broods.

The Zerg commanders’ (Kerry and brain bug alike) newfound ability to reclaim feral Zerg appears without explanation. It was not possible for the Zerg to reclaim feral Zerg at the time of Zasz’s demise, forcing them to exterminate the Garm brood down to the last Zergling. This is clearly a retcon included solely to justify Kerry taking over the Zerg, which would otherwise be impossible.

Aldaris chose to start another civil war without explanation rather than tell everyone he suspected the Zerg had infiltrated the dark Templar. Speaking of which, there was no time for Kerrigan to have brainwashed Raszagal unless the Zerg simultaneously launched attacks on the Dark Templar at the same time they were assaulting Aiur. This would make strategic sense because the Protoss have warp gates which allow them to instantly travel between the many worlds of their empire and rapidly share military intelligence. Since the Dark Templar may destroy hive minds, they need to be distracted before they get involved in the conquest of Aiur. In SC1/BW, there’s no evidence the Protoss hold any planets other than Aiur and Shakuras.

The xel’naga temple and crystal keys are an obvious deus ex machina and macguffin. Their existence makes no sense: why would the xel’naga build a temple on Shakuras that can destroy Zerg (who did not exist at the time it was built), then send the two keys required to operate it to the boondocks of the galaxy? It would make far more sense as a terraforming device built by the Protoss before the Aeon of Strife, which had applications as a weapon of war (similar to the Dakara super weapon in Stargate SG-1). The crystal keys being hidden in remote locations would make sense if someone wanted to prevent the device from being misused that way, but for whatever reason refused to destroy these. The Protoss being unable to decrypt the password protection could be chalked up to their computers not being quick enough to do so before the Zerg overrun everything. In real world computer science, all encryption may be decrypted given sufficient time to go through all the possible encryption keys; the best encryption takes centuries to crack.

The UED is a retcon. In SC1, the K-sec was completely cut off from Earth. The Terrans lost the coordinates of Earth, Earth was not secretly watching them, etc. The UED takes away focus from the factions that already existed in the K-sec. In fact, the original manual introduced the Kel-Morians and Umojans as competitors to the Confederacy. The plot could have been identical with them instead and would not have required retcons or leaps of logic.

The invasion of the Dominion makes no sense. The Zerg had pretty much destroyed the infrastructure and economy of the K-sec for decades, maybe centuries to come. Yet we are expected to believe they have a functioning military that lasts more than a few hours against the UED and the Zerg in quick succession? Only if the K-sec was a cyberpunk dystopia with insane levels of industry and cloning! This is never explained and even if it was true it still clashes horribly with the space redneck aesthetic given previously and makes the K-sec look even more nightmarish than before.

DuGalle and Stukov’s actions are idiotic. DuGalle trusts Duran, who he outright states he distrusts for being a traitor, over his childhood friend. Stukov refuses to explain himself when he disobeys direct orders, which is a court-martial offense. DuGalle sends an assassin after Stukov, rather than calling a court-martial. Duran openly betrays the UED in front of their commander and probably dozens of other witnesses in the UED hierarchy, but nobody except Stukov remembers it.

Raynor allies with Kerry against the UED based on the assumption that the UED are space Nazis. This has two, maybe three, problems. Firstly, there’s no evidence the UED are space Nazis because their cast is culturally diverse (a Frenchman and a Russian, when the UPL made all languages other than English illegal) and they have ghosts (when the UPL was specifically exterminating all cyborgs and mutants, including psychics) and their goals are to overthrow the Dominion (which is a dictatorship run by a lunatic) and protect humanity against the much greater threats posed by the Zerg and Protoss (who have shown that they are an existential threat to humanity by consuming and glassing dozens of inhabited worlds and murdering untold billions). Secondly, Raynor is hick who grew up in the boondocks. There’s no way he has the education required to comprehend the horrors of the UPL’s racial purity crusade. Indeed, there’s the distinct possibility that such a thing is not taught in K-sec schools and is not widely known about (or even at all) considering it happened centuries ago and the ATLAS ships suffered severe corruption in their data banks. Thirdly, even if the UED were space nazis they are still vastly eclipsed by the threat of the Zerg and Protoss. The UED at least will spare everyone in the K-sec who has blue eyes and blonde hair, while the Zerg and the Protoss make no such distinction.

In general, everyone acts idiotically to let Kerry win. The original Zerg backstory, motivations and hierarchy is thrown aside in favor of QoB and Duran. QoB has no goals beyond a generic “take over the world” plot, which is bland and boring compared to the Overmind’s quest for perfection and universal conquest. Since she is not really a developed character, the writers use her to do whatever they need. Indeed, all of her military victories are the work of her pet Cerebrate.

Duran’s secret revelation of creating hybrids contradicts the Overmind’s stated goal in Episode II. The Zerg invaded Aiur with the intent of infesting and assimilating the Protoss, which would create hybrids automatically. All Zerg are hybrids of Zerg, their core genus and miscellaneous genes from other species. Duran even speaks in the same fanatical religious tone as the Overmind. While most of his ramblings could have easily been taken from the Overmind’s repertoire (considering that it elevates purity of form and essence into platonic ideals rather than the obviously arbitrary qualities they are in the original manual), his claim of serving a higher power that is not the Overmind makes no sense considering everything were told before that. The introduction of surviving xel’naga, a relic of the xel’naga, or another race entirely clashes with the faction politics that previously informed the setting and conflicts of SC. Like the UED, it takes the focus away from the existing factions. Zeratul’s surprise at the existence of hybrids makes no sense, since his mind meld with the Overmind should have already informed him this was the goal of the Zerg (if the infested Terrans were not already a huge tip off). Indeed, at the end of Episode III Tassadar gives a speech about how the Zerg will consume them and the universe if the Overmind is not stopped.

Everyone who thinks Brood War is a good story has a severe case of nostalgia goggles. Even if the dialogue sounds sensible in context, the story taken as a whole is nonsensical. Even the plot of Episode 2 still had a logical A-to-B progression, even if the last two missions feel like they came from a completely different campaign (which, considering the drafting process and rewrites, was probably the case).

See that? I just wrote a dozen paragraphs explaining the plot holes in Brood War. You know how much I could spend on StarCraft 1? This much:

Episode 2 and 3 suffers from severe pacing issues. Objectives that would have taken one mission in Episode 1 to resolve now take two or even three. The victories feel like they go in circles or repeated setbacks rather than building up the plot like the victories in Episode 1. You could cut the number of missions by half without losing track of the main plot thread!

Episode 2 introduces Kerry, plays her up as a messiah in the first eight missions, then forgets about her in missions nine and ten. She ultimately contributes nothing to the plot: her character is not used interestingly, her character arc from Episode 1 is not resolved, and as a unit within the campaign she may be ignored without making any difference (except her personal fight with Tass, which is an objective) because everything is done by the player character cerebrate. The plot of Episode 2 would be improved by replacing her with an army of psychic infested terrans who are actually instrumental in the war against the Protoss, game balance be damned.

Episode 3 does not really explain or resolve the heresy and civil war. The Judicator's dislike for the Dark Templar is never explained in the game itself, so they come off as moronic racists more interested in hunting heretics than fighting a war against galactic space monsters! The civil war is resolved far too quickly, with the Judicators just giving up after a couple of missions rather than really being convinced.

Part of the problems with Episodes 2 and 3 seems to be that the campaigns were written to follow a specific set of mandates. The writers seemingly had inordinate difficulty forcing the alien campaigns to conform, resulting in convoluted narratives compared to the simplicity of Episode 1. As far as I can tell, these mandates were:

• each campaign from the POV of a specific race. This is probably the most constricting mandate, as it directly interfered with implementing the others.
• fight against every race. In EP1 this was easy because the Terrans had civil strife, the Zerg were invading, and the Protoss were trying to halt the spread of the Zerg at the cost of human lives. In EP2 this required psychic dreams to lure Terrans to fight and a brood going feral to fight Zerg. In EP3 this required the executor to visit Char and fight the Terrans, since without the Zerg invading K-sec they had no reason to fight the Terrans anymore.
• change planet twice. This felt organic in Episode 1 and played into the raising of the stakes over the campaign. In Episode 2, the transition from Char to Aiur coincides with a complete drop of the previous plot threads, most of which are not picked up until Episode 3. In Episode 3, the first and third planets are the same (Aiur).
• space platform and installation maps. These feel forced in Episodes 2 and 3 and contribute to the plodding narrative. In fact, the Amerigo mission is redundant because the Zerg already took the Ghost Academy on Tarsonis. In Episode 3 these maps are part of the second planet arc and the hunt for Tassadar.
• a cameo from Raynor, Duke and Tassadar (and possibly Kerry?). EP1 broke this mandate by cutting the mission in which Tassadar made a cameo. In EP2, Tassadar claims to have met Kerry even though this never happened (not even in the cut mission!). The inclusion of Raynor and Duke feels forced in Episode 2, requiring the plot device of psychic dreams because otherwise Terrans would not be involved. Their inclusion in Episode 3 remains equally forced, and Duke appears only to justify PvT.
• align at least loosely with the cinematics, which were made before the script was finished. The Terran cinematics were often unrelated, but the Zerg and Protoss cinematics were almost always tied to the mission they appeared next to even when it needlessly complicated the plot (often in tandem with other mandates).

You may notice a pattern here: the writing in Starcraft gets progressively worse and convoluted with every installment. The writers changed with every installment: BW was the first time Metzen worked alone, and SC2 was written by three teams loosely headed by Metzen.

[Nissa]

Holy hell, Magmags. I wasn't saying BW isn't flawed, I was saying that it still feels like Starcraft despite those flaws. Sheesh.

Anyway, some more topics that would potentially suit a podcast:
- what makes a character good or bad?
- has an opinion of a character changed due to SC2? (eg Aldaris seems suddenly far more amazing)
- favorite/least favorite units
- what role could the Terrans serve in a Starcraft sequel, since most of the important plot points only concern Zerg/'Toss?
- the SC novels and why they were bad/not so bad (I hesitate to call any of them genuinely good).
- A discussion of all the retcons/poor decisions of the "Dark Templar" trilogy
- Enslavers and other post-BW, pre-SC2 downloadables
- Fanfiction!

[Mislagnissa]

Holy hell, Magmags. I wasn't saying BW isn't flawed, I was saying that it still feels like Starcraft despite those flaws. Sheesh.

I did say that the dialogue seemingly made sense in context. The interface may be Starcraft, but the story does not feel like Starcraft to me because of all the sweeping, pointless changes to the setting. Brood War is not a logical continuation of SC1.

- what role could the Terrans serve in a Starcraft sequel, since most of the important plot points only concern Zerg/'Toss?

None. SC1 specifically made Terran psychic powers vital to the Zerg because otherwise there would be no reason to include them. With Metzen at the helm, this plot point was forgotten and replaced with far less interesting ones like Kerry wanting power, or the UED wanting to halt an existential threat (although with the Zerg losing their original motive, the UED's plan is unnecessary since the Zerg have no reason to interact with other races ever again), or Duran/Amon creating hybrids despite this being the Zerg's original goal and forcing the Zerg into good guys. Without the Zerg trying to eat the Protoss and requiring the Terrans to do it (necessitating eating them too), there's absolutely no reason for the three races to ever interact with one another.

This is obviously the case in SC2. The Nova DLC has a forced plot where an entirely new faction, the Defenders of Man, are introduced specifically to give a reason to interact with the Protoss and Zerg. They steal from the Tal'darim, drawing Alarak into the plot. They use psi-emitters to lure Zerg, drawing Zerg into the plot. Without the Defenders of Man attracting the attention of Zerg and Protoss for questionable gain, those two races would never interact with Nova. The Niadra comic is much more blunt: Niadra is only interacting with the Protoss at all because she has an irrational directive to destroy them and has no self-awareness or foresight, and the Terrans only because they are physically in the way.

Introducing a new faction to force a conflict that would not otherwise occur is the exact same premise as Brood War and Starcraft 2. Every game has killed off their villain only for another one to crawl out of the woodwork in the next game. This is what Starcraft has been reduced to: a villain of the week series little different from Saturday morning cartoons like Dragonball Z or Sailor Moon. At least SM had the good sense to introduce a bigger bad at the end who was retroactively responsible for every antagonist in the series.

That is why I advocate rebooting the series from the original manual's premise that the Zerg are and will always be the main antagonist and plot mover in their quest for perfection. Even if you pretend that SC3 will not make so many retcons that the setting will become unrecognizable yet again, the UED is the only remaining faction that is able to carry the same narrative weight as previous big bad evil guys like the Overmind and Amon. Again, this is because the three races have absolutely no reason to ever interact with the Overmind and Amon dead because they were the only guys advocating any interaction (albeit violent).

- the SC novels and why they were bad/not so bad (I hesitate to call any of them genuinely good).

Yeah, they're not exactly good. They do provide some interesting context left out of the games, like the Antigan Revolt lasting six months or so in the Nova novel (before the DC comic retconned it to a month and a half for no apparent reason). The Uprising novel introduced the forgotten plot point that Kerry killed Mengsk's family, although it portrayed them both as nutjobs (Mengsk kills the two ghosts who helped Kerry while stating they are innocent by virtue of brainwashing in front of Kerry, then he tells her his sob story, then he tells her that he forgives her, and she is insane enough to believe him despite his actions showing he is clearly a nutcase who thinks that brainwashed victims should be held accountable for the actions of their superiors). The Liberty's Crusade novel mentions that the Confederacy's experiments on Zerg including reading Zerg minds (which was painful, and the origin of the name "Zerg"), mentioned that Confederate intelligence extracted from Zerg minds claimed that the Protoss were space nazis (I think the novel was written before the game script was finalized), suggested that the Protoss hailed the Confederacy (presumably warning them to evacuate) but the Confederacy covered it up, and some other details which clarify major plot points in Episode 1.

The Queen of Blades novel is embarrassingly bad. It portrays Episode 2 from Raynor's perspective and uses the silly plot device of psychic dreams to let him listen in on the Zerg briefings, which he tells the Protoss about and allows them to outmaneuver the Zerg. Not only that, but Zasz is portrayed as a complete moron who allows Zeratul to get within melee range on the basis that Zeratul will whisper the secret weakness of Kerry in his ear. (This despite Zasz being stated as the cleverest cerebrate in the manual, being responsible for intelligence gathering in the game, and being completely justified in complaining about Kerry given her later actions.)

I am glad we never got an adaptation of Episode 3, because it probably would have been horrible.

- A discussion of all the retcons/poor decisions of the "Dark Templar" trilogy

Golden worked with what they got, which was an unstable foundation that went nowhere. All of the retcons that Golden made are irrelevant as they were ignored in SC2. Characters with the same names appear in both, but they are not the same characters. Golden is the only writer who remembered Ulrezaj from that obscure online map.