Starcraft reboot ideas discussion thread

[ragnarok]

Ugh, dude. Dude. When I first played Wings of Liberty, and aided Agria, I expected to see colonists taking refuge in Swann's hangar bay, with maybe some shuttles or transports hugging tight to the Hyperion in the background. It would have been incredible to see volunteers from this bunch join the Raiders and bolster their numbers. The same could have happened after the New Folsom breakout.

But Blizzard be like, "Consequences, in my games? I don't think so."

This was kind of what I had hoped for in the Shakuras missions in LotV, where some of the Nerazim could get the satisfaction of seeing the surviving Khalai finally forced to give up the Khala, after all those years of seeing the Dark Templar beneath them (despite the fact they too are refugees with their world gone)

[Turalyon]

Ah, ok. So the reboot's going to have Terran worlds "assaulted" initially but not wiped out in any form or affected majorly as to weaken the presence of the Terrans. Then again, I think one (and only one) world of the Terrans should perish at Protoss hands in this reboot prologue though. That way, one can focus on the tragedy/consequence of that event and it will give a Watsonian reason for sustained Terran animosity against Protoss (TvP). Protoss can use this one incidence (of destroying a Terran planet) as a cause for their division in how to deal with the Zerg (PvP). Otherwise, one would just presume the Protoss to just ally with the Terrans from the get-go.

[Mislagnissa]

Ah, ok. So the reboot's going to have Terran worlds "assaulted" initially but not wiped out in any form or affected majorly as to weaken the presence of the Terrans. Then again, I think one (and only one) world of the Terrans should perish at Protoss hands in this reboot prologue though. That way, one can focus on the tragedy/consequence of that event and it will give a Watsonian reason for sustained Terran animosity against Protoss (TvP). Protoss can use this one incidence (of destroying a Terran planet) as a cause for their division in how to deal with the Zerg (PvP). Otherwise, one would just presume the Protoss to just ally with the Terrans from the get-go.

The idea I was going for was that the devastation of capital worlds like Tarsonis, the twist of episode 1 in canon, is what kicked off the status quo instead. Not all of the worlds, but sufficient to weaken the Confederacy enough for rogue states like the Dominion to form.

The planets don't need to be glassed completely, because I want to have possibility to revisit them a la canon (e.g. Tarsonis' cities left ruins rather than being melted to nothing) without positing that terrans have implausibly fast terraforming and population growth. Mass cloning and nano scale manufacturing shouldn't let them get out of jail free.

Mar Sara is fine though. Tassadar decided to team up with Raynor to fight off the zerg since evacuating the population isn't a long-term solution.

[Turalyon]

The idea I was going for was that the devastation of capital worlds like Tarsonis, the twist of episode 1 in canon, is what kicked off the status quo instead. Not all of the worlds, but sufficient to weaken the Confederacy enough for rogue states like the Dominion to form.

The planets don't need to be glassed completely, because I want to have possibility to revisit them a la canon (e.g. Tarsonis' cities left ruins rather than being melted to nothing) without positing that terrans have implausibly fast terraforming and population growth. Mass cloning and nano scale manufacturing shouldn't let them get out of jail free.

Mar Sara is fine though. Tassadar decided to team up with Raynor to fight off the zerg since evacuating the population isn't a long-term solution.

Hmm, I don't think the Terrans can afford to have their main worlds affected seriously since they're not as expansive as the Protoss empire are nor do they have seemingly endless back-up/speedy recovery like the Zerg. I think Tarsonis is too big of a target since it's one of the first core worlds of the Terrans landed on and the head of the strongest Terran presence in the sector since they arrived in the K sector. Having it even just "devastated" but not completely gone would still have huge consequence (like potentially breaking the morale of the Terrans irrevocably) and signify the Terrans are overall, too weak. To have them just bounce back from that like Zerg would due to whiz bang nano-tech and cloning kind of takes away from the feeling of consequence that VoK was alluding to. And, this is addition to and aside from the feeling that Terrans utilising such tech kinda feels gimmicky and plot devicey (which I thought you were trying to minimise given that you dislike Terran plot devices like the Psi emitter). That aforementioned reason is why I thought the Terran presence should instead be rebooted as being larger since it's a softer/less egregious plot devicey reason to explain how Terrans can absorb such blows but still realistically comeback. Also, one could invent or use another lesser Confed held world and still get the same effect of "triggering" the rise of the Dominion without having to explain away the issue of how Terrans are somehow stronger after not having the strength to defend the strongest capitol world they possess in the first place.

[ragnarok]

You don't really have to make it seem like the planets were glassed completely, Mislag. It really makes me wonder if Tassadar ever considered burning the planet enough to the point where he can fool the Conclave into thinking he glassed the whole planet, but in reality only burned where the zerg concentrations were the heaviest.

[Mislagnissa]

Hmm, I don't think the Terrans can afford to have their main worlds affected seriously since they're not as expansive as the Protoss empire are nor do they have seemingly endless back-up/speedy recovery like the Zerg. I think Tarsonis is too big of a target since it's one of the first core worlds of the Terrans landed on and the head of the strongest Terran presence in the sector since they arrived in the K sector. Having it even just "devastated" but not completely gone would still have huge consequence (like potentially breaking the morale of the Terrans irrevocably) and signify the Terrans are overall, too weak. To have them just bounce back from that like Zerg would due to whiz bang nano-tech and cloning kind of takes away from the feeling of consequence that VoK was alluding to. And, this is addition to and aside from the feeling that Terrans utilising such tech kinda feels gimmicky and plot devicey (which I thought you were trying to minimise given that you dislike Terran plot devices like the Psi emitter). That aforementioned reason is why I thought the Terran presence should instead be rebooted as being larger since it's a softer/less egregious plot devicey reason to explain how Terrans can absorb such blows but still realistically comeback. Also, one could invent or use another lesser Confed held world and still get the same effect of "triggering" the rise of the Dominion without having to explain away the issue of how Terrans are somehow stronger after not having the strength to defend the strongest capitol world they possess in the first place.

The google doc I plugged addresses points like these.

See, Kopulu system and Koprulu sector are now two different things (to resolve the contradictions between SC1 and SC2). The SC1 Tarsonis Confederacy is now a single state within a much larger Confederacy consisting of multiple states. Mengsk took advantage of the devastation of Tarsonis to unite the Tarsonis-Koprulu system under his Dominion. But the rest of the Confederacy wasn't conquered by it.

They're large enough to support how many campaigns people want to tell, but not infinite. I'm deliberately avoiding mentioning specific scales to avoid writing anyone into corners.

You don't really have to make it seem like the planets were glassed completely, Mislag. It really makes me wonder if Tassadar ever considered burning the planet enough to the point where he can fool the Conclave into thinking he glassed the whole planet, but in reality only burned where the zerg concentrations were the heaviest.

The idea is to be flexible since this is a sandbox built with custom campaigns in mind. I don't want to force anyone to memorize a lot or worry too much about contradicting canon. Unreliable narrators are in full force to cover up any inconsistencies.

The important thing is to get rid of stupid elements like fantasy heroes and villains with unwarranted control over teh universe. That is, the small scale of the licensed fiction becomes the norm rather than wacky side stories with no relevance to the Kerry/Raynor soap opera.

[ragnarok]

The important thing is to get rid of stupid elements like fantasy heroes and villains with unwarranted control over teh universe. That is, the small scale of the licensed fiction becomes the norm rather than wacky side stories with no relevance to the Kerry/Raynor soap opera.

You make it sound like that cannot happen in sci-fi. It can be made to work, back in WoL when they first announced about Amon, I didn't think the concept in itself was crap, if only they executed it better. Nor was Kerrigan and Raynor's pairing needed to be thrown out the window, as long as it wasn't the whole picture, which Blizzard didn't understand.

[Turalyon]

They're large enough to support how many campaigns people want to tell, but not infinite. I'm deliberately avoiding mentioning specific scales to avoid writing anyone into corners.

Ok, so the Terran presence overall is larger in this reboot than what was suggested in/compared to the original afterall then. I get that you don't want to specific detail on the exact scale but I got confused because of the lack of a general sense of scale.

[Mislagnissa]

Ok, so the Terran presence overall is larger in this reboot than what was suggested in/compared to the original afterall then. I get that you don't want to specific detail on the exact scale but I got confused because of the lack of a general sense of scale.

If I want to be specific, then I would guesstimate that Koprulu sector is a cube with dimensions of 200 ly each. That gives an average of 32k stars within the sector.

The Orion Arm sector(s) is more densely populated due to a larger seeding population. I would guesstimate a length of 1000 ly. (Taken from the Alternity Star*Drive RPG.)

[Mislagnissa]

A critique I got of my proposal is that it isn’t detailed enough and that this vagueness will lead to retcons down the line. The problem is that this is an intentional choice. I was told elsewhere nobody cared for ToxicDefiler’s proposal because it was too long and detailed. I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place.

I decided last week to abandon my proposal for the foreseeable future. The current environment simply isn’t conducive to fandom in general, much less attempts to salvage the lore.