Starcraft reboot ideas discussion thread

[sandwich_bird]

Huh, so we're supposed to see Zeratul's game unit icon in the mission as a spaceship then? Gotcha!

You didn't see it but he jumped in a void ray off screen >.>

[Gradius]

Didn’t a whole crap load of dark Templar attack the Overmind before Zeratul delivered the finishing blow?

[Nissa]

Yeah I really see Duke swallowing his pride and coming to a mutually beneficial solution lmao.

Resolving the situation includes Tassadar leaving immediately and that’s just not an option.

It's not an option because Tassadar's a hothead. Had Tass been logical, he could have backed off. By speaking to him, Duke was warning him to back off. Tassadar didn't back off, and thus caused retaliation.

(Sorry if I come as a rude or something, I am currently frazzled after the workday.)

A story? This is a not a story, this is a massive shared universe deal involving hundreds and hundreds of planets, many billions of Terrans and Protoss, and quite literally countless numbers of Zerg. There is material here enough for many hundreds of campaigns.

I understand that. It's pretty obvious. What I was saying is that I don't care about that universe, and that if I read a story from that universe, I might care. After all, you can do anything with a framework, and where the real good or bad comes in is with a story.

The Purifiers do not make sense, since the Judicators would probably have them exterminated rather than hidden away.

Buh? Why? They're history! Not to mention, obviously loyal to the Conclave.

If you want to criticize purifiers in a logical sense, you should argue that they be Dark Templar in origin. After all, if the Aiur Protoss are the ones with the khaydarin crystals, then they should be the ones recording history on crystals, while the Dark Templar, who don't have access to them, should have purifiers as a way of compensating for their loss.

[Gradius]

It's not an option because Tassadar's a hothead. Had Tass been logical, he could have backed off. By speaking to him, Duke was warning him to back off. Tassadar didn't back off, and thus caused retaliation.

And not rescue Zeratul to help save Aiur? Ok

[Nissa]

And not rescue Zeratul to help save Aiur? Ok

Holy crap, Gradius. He didn't have to attack Duke to rescue Zeratul. Duke was only on a certain segment of the map. Assuming it were possible with Starcraft's game structure, Tassadar should have offered either temporary alliance, or an "I won't shoot you if you don't shoot me while we rescue our guys" sort of deal.

[Gradius]

The layout of the map? That’s not an argument, the map doesn’t mean anything especially when the map changes each time we go back to the same location in a later mission.

[Visions of Khas]

Holy crap, Gradius. He didn't have to attack Duke to rescue Zeratul. Duke was only on a certain segment of the map. Assuming it were possible with Starcraft's game structure, Tassadar should have offered either temporary alliance, or an "I won't shoot you if you don't shoot me while we rescue our guys" sort of deal.

Duke kicks off contact with Tassadar's fleet with a threat, to which Tassadar responds in kind. Due to the set up of the map, however, you are not forced to actually combat his Alpha squadron, which is already in obvious shambles; that is the player's discretion.

[Turalyon]

Um, is Tass not a hothead if he happens to never encount Duke in that mission? That actually happened the first time I played it.

[Mislagnissa]

I don't know if I said this before, but I had some ideas for the teleportation retcon from SC2.

I don't believe the death animation should be a teleport. Recall already had its own animation, so it is a visual inconsistency. I have no problem with protoss using recall to withdraw forces (some may contest that as cowardly, but there's a point at which courage becomes stupidity), but they should actually use the recall ability and animation. The teleport crystal mentioned in the Field Manual stays, but now it acts as a beacon for recall rather than a teleporter itself (which explains why not every warrior is teleporting whenever convenient).

As for the point at which protoss become dragoons, and the whole angst about a warrior's death versus a cowardly retreat... I always thought it was kind of strange how Protoss medical tech is apparently advanced enough to place people in armored sarcophagi and augment limbs but not advanced enough to replace limbs. Going by a vague statement in the original manual that dragoons contain the souls of fallen warriors, I would posit that protoss psychic powers include their consciousness surviving for a certain time after their bodily death. Before bodily death the warrior could be saved, but after they would need to be placed in a dragoon. In this case, the function of a dragoon changes from a life support system to a form of embalming and cryogenics that keeps the body from deteriorating so as to preserve the mind. (This would also explain how, pre-retcon, a protoss could be seen to die by exploding and yet reappear as a dragoon in a latter mission. I believe that Protoss leave corpses in various states of damage due to their exploding, but we don't see the corpses because all corpse sprites fade.)

Didn’t a whole crap load of dark Templar attack the Overmind before Zeratul delivered the finishing blow?

It is still kind of silly to think that hacking at a mountain of regenerating flesh would have an effect and ignores the fact that dark templar can summon psychic storms, but that's game mechanics for you.

To continue down the line of logic I mentioned before where the Overmind structure is an avatar of the Zerg rather than a leader...

I imagine the Zerg hierarchy as being bottom-up or ascending rather than top-down or descending. The Zerg are not actually ruled by giant brain-like creatures, but merely gain a boost in efficiency from their presence. Humans do not consciously think about breathing or walking around, we just do it automatically; the Zerg take this logic to its greatest extreme networking countless minds that way. Killing these organisms does not cause an irrevocable change in how the Zerg operate. Attacking the hive mind itself does not destroy the genes responsible for generating it. Like the Flood from Halo or the Necromorphs from Dead Space, the Zerg's natural instincts compel them to congregate and form higher intelligence.

Yeah, assaulting the hive mind with void magic is analogous to lobotomy or psychotropic drug overdose. "Killing" cerebrates with void magic causes their brood to go feral. "Killing" the Overmind causes the broods to go feral, cerebrate and all. Assuming the initial wave of psychotic behavior and lack of coordination doesn't destroy the brood beyond all hope of recovery, natural selection will kick in and ensure the feral brood will survive and prosper. Eventually the damage to the hive mind will regenerate and the brood will spontaneously produce a new cerebrate or two. The broods will fight other broods for domination, ultimately resurrecting the Overmind.

It is difficult for humans to comprehend the existence of intelligence like that, leading to the typical but erroneous assumption that the cerebrates and Overmind are slave masters. This makes about as much sense as saying that you need to be decapitated to release your extremities from slavery.

If you want to criticize purifiers in a logical sense, you should argue that they be Dark Templar in origin. After all, if the Aiur Protoss are the ones with the khaydarin crystals, then they should be the ones recording history on crystals, while the Dark Templar, who don't have access to them, should have purifiers as a way of compensating for their loss.

The Judicators were quite happy to exterminate the Nerazim for refusing to conform and the Terrans for being in the way of some harmless space bugs, so why would they entomb the Purifiers for demanding some thanks once in a while?

SC2 retconned the Protoss so that all their technological progress was moved from before the Aeon of Strife to after it. In the process, the protoss are changed from a young race reverse-engineering the accomplishments of their ancestors to generic space elves who are dying out because something something Tolkien. Ironically, the backstory addition somewhere that Raszagal is old enough to remember the end of the Aeon of Strife makes more sense with the previous version of the lore. Since EN reverts to the old lore, this means that things like Motherships, Colossi and Purifiers become pre-Strife tech by default.

In the BW manual and Retribution there are mentions of "argus" stone or crystal used by the Nerazim or Xel'naga; SC2 has a vague "blood shard" used by tal'darim. EN takes that concept and expands it into an artificial khydarin substitute created by the Nerazim because it works better with their powers than khydarin does. I myself did the same thing for the Zerg, explaining what that giant purple crystal in the briefing room is. If khydarin is the basis of protoss tech in a similar fashion to how silicon and stuff is the basis of human tech, there's no reason to believe that it would not have variants and substitutes like real electronics does (e.g. argus, blood shard, zerg crystal, etc). For all we know raw khydarin needs to be refined somehow before it can be used for computing or power conduction.

[Nissa]

Duke kicks off contact with Tassadar's fleet with a threat, to which Tassadar responds in kind. Due to the set up of the map, however, you are not forced to actually combat his Alpha squadron, which is already in obvious shambles; that is the player's discretion.

Bear in mind that I'm talking about in-world considerations, not necessarily as Starcraft the game. Yeah, in game you're supposed to go over there so that you can expand your base, but in a world where an alien force goes into enemy territory, negotiation is an option. Particularly when Duke goes "you're in our airspace, what's wrong with you?" Despite his words, Duke's tone and the fact that he's even talking to Tassadar means that Tass could have ended the situation more peaceably. Again, if this were a real-world situation, not a game.