Starcraft reboot ideas discussion thread

[Nissa]

Humans (Schezar's Scavengers) were already on Aiur according to canon, if for some reason Raynor's Raiders don't count. Other planets they can flee to don't matter, as fleeing Aiur is not a viable option for many protoss (like Aldaris) since it has too much sentimental/religious value.

That's true, but you also have to consider that Aiur has too much sentimental/religious value for them to want humans trampling all over their world. The question here is whether fleeing Aiur is worse than having humans all over it, in the opinion of the Protoss. I mean, you might be able to write a version of the Protoss that are cool with it, but the Protoss as presented don't seem to want a bunch of humans they don't know on their world. One group is not enough to convince them it's a good idea. That, and I'm still not convinced the humans would want to be involved.

I mean, if this is a remake, you can do what you want, it's just not convincing to me, and I think there are better ways to portray the KMC/Umoja. For one thing, inter-human drama seems like the best place for this. I'm also cool with one faction becoming closer to the Protoss than the others, but the destruction of Aiur would be a catalyst to help with that sort of thing, rather than the Protoss making a knee-jerk reaction to include strangers on their beloved planet during the original invasion. After a long time of trust I might be convinced that they'd bring in a few humans they knew well in a secondary war meant to retake Aiur after years of Zerg supremacy, but not the original invasion.

Remind me again where the Schezar thing happens. Was that in a downloadable mission or a novel? I believe you that it exists, I just can't remember where.

[Mislagnissa]

You're mad because some characters are popular? That's not really something you can do anything about. Besides, when you write a character, a reader has to be convinced they're interesting. Tassadar has been introduced, so he's already convinced people he's interesting. His advantage isn't that he's a "celebrity", it's that he's had a head start. You have to do with your original characters what was done with Tassadar in the original story.

Sorry if this sounds harsh since I don't intend that at all but it could mean that your original characters are either underwritten, inconsequential or even just not interesting enough. It's that or that your writing may be somewhat... wanting?

You have to keep in mind that Tassadar was an original character at the time and not just the designated "hero" (which, generally, all memorable fictional stories seem to centre around anyway, like it or not). Tass was merely the protagonist during Sc1 and more importantly, Sc1 was not heavy on the protagonist-centred morality like Sc2's stories are. Tass did a lot of stuff that turned out wrong, was a pariah for his cause and was only really considered a "hero" by all after his sacrifice. I suppose you could have the same story without Tassadar being the recurring linchpin character but then it'd just be an easily forgettable collection of events rather than a memorable or engaging narrative.

Tassadar, like many Starcraft characters, does not actually have a full-fledged personality aside from being a generic good guy. Quite literally, he (and the other canon characters) is only interesting because he had a "head start" despite being bland and generic when you analyze him. Aside from being a stereotypical paladin, I cannot describe his personality at all.

My original characters had lists of personality traits and backstories written for them, which I make every attempt make drip off the page. They have desires, flaws, doubts, and quirks in spades... each one has more personality than every canon protoss character combined (except for maybe villains like Ulrezaj and Alarak).

I am not so petty as to kill off Tassadar like Ned Stark (though I really want to), but he is definitely being demoted to a minor character rather than the leader of the Koprulu expedition. Since the Koprulu expedition had at least fifty warships, which I assume are carriers, then that means there are at least fifty executors in the fleet. Tassadar is just one of many.

Humans (Schezar's Scavengers) were already on Aiur according to canon, if for some reason Raynor's Raiders don't count. Other planets they can flee to don't matter, as fleeing Aiur is not a viable option for many protoss (like Aldaris) since it has too much sentimental/religious value.

There are two problems with this assertion stemming from canon: 1) canon has no sense of scale, so all distances and travel times are arbitrary and inconsistent; and 2) the canon protoss do not populate any planets besides Aiur and Shakuras.

If the protoss had a galactic empire in canon rather than one planet and the canon had proper respect for distances and travel times, then Schezar probably would have raided a nearby planet his FTL drives could reach within his lifetime.

She doesn't have to control anything; she can lead by example, etc.

The zerg are lead by giant brains which think and plan on scales unthinkable to humans. The queens and overlords have bigger brains than she does and their intelligence was artificially enhanced. I find it unbelievable that the zerg would ever consider her a viable source of advice when her core genus is intended for front line combat against space elves. That makes about as much sense as humans taking advice from huskies while fighting Roswell greys.

[Nissa]

Tassadar, like many Starcraft characters, does not actually have a full-fledged personality aside from being a generic good guy. Quite literally, he (and the other canon characters) is only interesting because he had a "head start" despite being bland and generic when you analyze him. Aside from being a stereotypical paladin, I cannot describe his personality at all.

*ahem*

Sounds like a personal problem to me. YOU can't describe Tassadar's personality, maybe, but he certainly has one. He's the excitable, open, rash, and not always forward thinking dynamo, a descendant of the "rebel" archetype within 80s and 90s media. He, when partnered with Aldaris, is an example of "the rebel is always right" trope. For example, there's rebel Ferris Bueller vs. his dumb, authoritarian principal, low-level John MacClane vs the powerful, yet callous FBI, and ST3's Captain Kirk vs a Starfleet so jaded and materialistic it won't help out the son of the Vulcan ambassador and attempts to to throw McCoy in an asylum without actually trying to figure out what's wrong with him. The Tassadar vs Aldaris pair is a better, more realistic example of this trope, in that Tassadar isn't always right, and his attitude gets him into unnecessary trouble, and Aldaris is at least a little willing to listen and was actually somewhat right in the end.

In other words, Tassadar is based on a trope, but his hot-headedness and selfless heroism make him both better and worse as a person than other examples. Tassadar is also open and willing to learn. Pray tell, how is this merely a typical paladin? May it be, perhaps, that your dislike of this character is calling you to oversimplify a more complex person?

Also, I really want to read your stuff and see if your characters are interesting. I won't blame you if you don't want me to, though.

[Gradius]

That's true, but you also have to consider that Aiur has too much sentimental/religious value for them to want humans trampling all over their world. The question here is whether fleeing Aiur is worse than having humans all over it, in the opinion of the Protoss. I mean, you might be able to write a version of the Protoss that are cool with it, but the Protoss as presented don't seem to want a bunch of humans they don't know on their world. One group is not enough to convince them it's a good idea. That, and I'm still not convinced the humans would want to be involved.

I mean, if this is a remake, you can do what you want, it's just not convincing to me, and I think there are better ways to portray the KMC/Umoja. For one thing, inter-human drama seems like the best place for this. I'm also cool with one faction becoming closer to the Protoss than the others, but the destruction of Aiur would be a catalyst to help with that sort of thing, rather than the Protoss making a knee-jerk reaction to include strangers on their beloved planet during the original invasion. After a long time of trust I might be convinced that they'd bring in a few humans they knew well in a secondary war meant to retake Aiur after years of Zerg supremacy, but not the original invasion.

Remind me again where the Schezar thing happens. Was that in a downloadable mission or a novel? I believe you that it exists, I just can't remember where.

Humans are already on it; the Raiders could have people from literally every faction as far as the protoss are concerned, so banning other factions from being there from the story makes no sense and seems like doublethink to me. They really don't have the option of being picky, and it'd be dumb to lose the planet because of that.

It was from the Enslavers maps that came with SC1.

1) canon has no sense of scale, so all distances and travel times are arbitrary and inconsistent; and 2) the canon protoss do not populate any planets besides Aiur and Shakuras.

Wat? It's a remake. I can do whatever I want with planets and distances. -_-

If the protoss had a galactic empire in canon rather than one planet and the canon had proper respect for distances and travel times, then Schezar probably would have raided a nearby planet his FTL drives could reach within his lifetime.

Pretty irrelevant to my core concept that humans have stepped on Aiur.

The zerg are lead by giant brains which think and plan on scales unthinkable to humans. The queens and overlords have bigger brains than she does and their intelligence was artificially enhanced. I find it unbelievable that the zerg would ever consider her a viable source of advice when her core genus is intended for front line combat against space elves. That makes about as much sense as humans taking advice from huskies while fighting Roswell greys.

Agree to disagree. Kerrigan leading things has been the plot of StarCraft since forever. Her tactics are different and she has the advantage of knowing how the Overmind's enemies think. Not a hard concept to grasp.

And again, leading the charge on the battlefield is not the same as leading the army, which is the Cerebrate's job. It's essentially the same setup as SC1 where Kerrigan is under the guidance of the purple Cerebrate.

[Mislagnissa]

*ahem*

Sounds like a personal problem to me. YOU can't describe Tassadar's personality, maybe, but he certainly has one. He's the excitable, open, rash, and not always forward thinking dynamo, a descendant of the "rebel" archetype within 80s and 90s media. He, when partnered with Aldaris, is an example of "the rebel is always right" trope. For example, there's rebel Ferris Bueller vs. his dumb, authoritarian principal, low-level John MacClane vs the powerful, yet callous FBI, and ST3's Captain Kirk vs a Starfleet so jaded and materialistic it won't help out the son of the Vulcan ambassador and attempts to to throw McCoy in an asylum without actually trying to figure out what's wrong with him. The Tassadar vs Aldaris pair is a better, more realistic example of this trope, in that Tassadar isn't always right, and his attitude gets him into unnecessary trouble, and Aldaris is at least a little willing to listen and was actually somewhat right in the end.

In other words, Tassadar is based on a trope, but his hot-headedness and selfless heroism make him both better and worse as a person than other examples. Tassadar is also open and willing to learn. Pray tell, how is this merely a typical paladin? May it be, perhaps, that your dislike of this character is calling you to oversimplify a more complex person?

Also, I really want to read your stuff and see if your characters are interesting. I won't blame you if you don't want me to, though.

Certainly, I am biased. Aside from the narrative oversimplifying the complexities of real war in order to make him the hero, I cannot find fault with his character.

Humans are already on it; the Raiders could have people from literally every faction as far as the protoss are concerned, so banning other factions from being there from the story makes no sense and seems like doublethink to me. They really don't have the option of being picky, and it'd be dumb to lose the planet because of that.

It was from the Enslavers maps that came with SC1.


Wat? It's a remake. I can do whatever I want with planets and distances. -_-


Pretty irrelevant to my core concept that humans have stepped on Aiur.

Sigh, fine. I really think that should be relegated to sequels. The first game of a new series should focus entirely on the koprulu war, maybe even end at a point before the Confederacy falls. SC1 has an absurdly rushed narrative with too much filler and I think letting it breathe would do some good. Not every game has to be an epic war for the fate of the universe shoehorned into too few missions to really give a good sense of scale.

I really think the series should be an anthology rather than focusing on the same small cast of characters who are somehow responsible for everything that happens in the sector and the fate of the universe. Raynor being the hero of the galaxy sounds about as sensible to me as Che Guevara being the hero of Earth.

Agree to disagree. Kerrigan leading things has been the plot of StarCraft since forever. Her tactics are different and she has the advantage of knowing how the Overmind's enemies think. Not a hard concept to grasp.

And again, leading the charge on the battlefield is not the same as leading the army, which is the Cerebrate's job. It's essentially the same setup as SC1 where Kerrigan is under the guidance of the purple Cerebrate.

So she’s the cerebrate’s avatar in the same way as a Tarrasque? I suppose I can accept that, but I still think the series should be an anthology. I am still confused as to why the zerg are not deploying armies of assimilated terran breeds in your reboot.

[Turalyon]

Tassadar, like many Starcraft characters, does not actually have a full-fledged personality aside from being a generic good guy. Quite literally, he (and the other canon characters) is only interesting because he had a "head start" despite being bland and generic when you analyze him. Aside from being a stereotypical paladin, I cannot describe his personality at all.

I think you're mistaking Tassadar with Raynor since the latter certainly gives a greater feeling of what you described both in the manual and the game story than it does for the former.

Aside from the narrative oversimplifying the complexities of real war in order to make him the hero, I cannot find fault with his character.

Are you kidding me? There is a reason why people consider a Aldaris a good (not in the moral sense that is) character - he's not just merely an antagonist with an interesting affect but he also happens to have a point when it comes to his negative assessment of Tassadar's actions so far.

Tassadar was effectively controlling the Zerg with his initial tactics only to make a misguided tactical blunder to engage the enemy head on because his conscience arrived too late and he does this without consulting the chain of command. Despite supposedly being a prodigy military commander for his age, he loses this engagement somehow. He then goes AWOL and refuses to comeback offering no good reason. When he does make contact, he gives them the finger when they ask him to account for himself and then deliberately misinforms his superiors about a strategy that cost time and resources for null effect. If he didn't want to tell them that only DT could kill cerebrates then because of some anxiety about how they might react, why bother telling them at all about targeting cerebrates when he knows its useless information/lacking a critical component for that tactic to even be effective?

He shows further incompetence to his rank as he continues to still keep losing ground on Char such that he is on the verge of being utterly defeated and needs to be rescued. He is then revealed to be consorting with ancestors of those who figuratively brought their entire race to the brink of annihilation in ages past and then incites the reactivation of their past civil war that their race never really recovered from in the first place. He then goes on to command his forces to actively kill his own brethren thereby weakening their efforts against the Zerg further (which, according to the authorities, were doing reasonably well enough to justify sending an expedition to go find Tassadar in the first place). He only stops when he's killed enough to trigger his guilt meter a second time - a "lesson" he already should've learnt earlier when he supposedly felt guilty killing so many Terrans before Tarsonis was somehow a tipping point for his morality. He's supposed to be the exemplar of his station/rank yet acts like a child. By no means is Tassadar a faultless and idealised paragon of virtue.

[sandwich_bird]

By no means is Tassadar a faultless and idealised paragon of virtue.

+1. That Enumerate coolaid is obstructing your vision misla

Raynor being the hero of the galaxy sounds about as sensible to me as Che Guevara being the hero of Earth.

Except he's not? His contribution to the war prior to SC2 isn't that huge. It's not like he single handedly killed the overmind and restored peace to the galaxy... He helped put a dictator in power and offered a minor contribution on Aiur... yup, next Starlord right?

SC1 has an absurdly rushed narrative with too much filler and I think letting it breathe would do some good. Not every game has to be an epic war for the fate of the universe shoehorned into too few missions to really give a good sense of scale.

I agree that it feels rushed but the issue is not the mission count. The problem is that the story was told mostly through the mission briefings and that is a very limiting way to present a universe. SC2 got it right with the in-between adventure mode and the relevant cinematics. I don't see any reason otherwise to expand the mission count significantly. It's concise as it is and adding more would just dilute the experience imo. At least for the main plot, side missions are fine.

[Gradius]

then deliberately misinforms his superiors about a strategy that cost time and resources for null effect. If he didn't want to tell them that only DT could kill cerebrates then because of some anxiety about how they might react, why bother telling them at all about targeting cerebrates when he knows its useless information/lacking a critical component for that tactic to even be effective?

I don’t get it. People who keep saying this never offer up any proof that Tassadar knew about the void requirement. Obviously if he knew about the void requirement he’d have shared it.

[Mislagnissa]

+1. That Enumerate coolaid is obstructing your vision misla

I never said that. I must have misspoke, because I meant to say I found no fault with his character writing besides the really cramped narrative.

Except he's not? His contribution to the war prior to SC2 isn't that huge. It's not like he single handedly killed the overmind and restored peace to the galaxy... He helped put a dictator in power and offered a minor contribution on Aiur... yup, next Starlord right?

Speaking of which... the terran presence in the other campaigns was contrived because the Koprulu Wars arc had been ended in the first campaign. I think it would have made more sense for Ray and Tass to ally during the invasion of Koprulu. Supposedly there was a huge war going on but it is just a footnote in Starcraft history due to the cramped narrative. That is why I advocate writing anthology campaigns and keeping the action of campaigns limited to single planets.

I don’t get it. People who keep saying this never offer up any proof that Tassadar knew about the void requirement. Obviously if he knew about the void requirement he’d have shared it.

The void is a deus ex machina. You could write a perfectly good story without it.

For example: killing zerg commanders disrupts their cohesion until the brood resurrects their commander. You can take advantage of this to hurt them while they are vulnerable. Any kind of psychic warfare could be used on the zerg, that is why they wanted to assimilate terran psychics so badly. For purposes of dramatic irony, only the dark templar have a psychic nuke ready at the time that could be used on the god bug. Because void magic was not played up as a deus ex machina, when the god bug inevitably resurrects it does not come off as a lazy sequel plot that invalidates the protoss' sacrifice.

[Turalyon]

I don’t get it. People who keep saying this never offer up any proof that Tassadar knew about the void requirement. Obviously if he knew about the void requirement he’d have shared it.

But he does have that knowledge and he does actually share it... in Choosing Sides (it's part of his reasoning to get the Executor to go help him rescue Zeratul), 3 missions after his first advice to go kill the cerebrates in Into the Flames! Aldaris be like "Once again, things that should have been brought to my attention YESTERDAY!"

Indeed, he immediately prefaces his advice to kill the cerebrates in Into the Flames by saying that he learnt much from the Dark Prelate, Zeratul. In light and hindsight of this, one could surmise that when Tass advised Aldaris of killing cerebrates, Tass probably thought it was a "given" in that cerebrates could only be killed by Dark Templar (expecting assumed knowledge from others get people into trouble all the time). This may explain why he didn't add "oh, by the way, you need Dark Templar/Void energy specifically to kill cerebrates just in case it wasn't clear the first time". However, this just speaks further of his major fault in poor communication and disconnect with his own people because Tassadar should know that Aiur is free of Dark Templar and that, therefore, "killing" cerebrates without them would not be possible.