Are Dragoons "Realistic?"

[ragnarok]

Writing is not rocket science.

No, but it's impossible to satisfy everyone. Put it this way Mislagnissa: let's pretend Blizzard allowed you to write your version of SC2 after the events of BW. You really think you'd produce a story so great that NO ONE on the planet will give any criticism towards it?

[Turalyon]

So I guess I'd agree that there is no real cliffhanger but there are definitely many points of interest that could warrant a sequel or a spin-off such as the one mentioned by Nissa.

My point was not about denying that sequels and spin-offs are possible, just that the story can be seen as satisfactorily whole/complete/resolved with all that we did get.

I'm not sure I like these ideas that the story must be told in specific ways or with specific types of endings.

That's not what I'm getting at with Nissa though. She denies that the story in Sc1 can be considered complete, whereas I disagree and was trying to explain how it could be seen that way due to how it's told.

[Mislagnissa]

No, but it's impossible to satisfy everyone. Put it this way Mislagnissa: let's pretend Blizzard allowed you to write your version of SC2 after the events of BW. You really think you'd produce a story so great that NO ONE on the planet will give any criticism towards it?

Of course not. Firstly, nobody is perfect and I am sure that even if my story was free of retcons and plot holes then somebody would find some kind of fault with it. Secondly, I would not have written a plot for SC2 because the foundation is shot and a reboot going back to basics is the only thing that I would enjoy.

The problem is that Blizzard is just bad at writing. They never plan their plots in advance, they never adhere to consistent rules, and they never think about how events would rationally work out. They just make things up as they go along and hope nobody will notice the glaring plot holes and characters acting like lunatics.

The story of Starcraft simply does not make sense due to a lack of internal consistency and there is no possible way to rationalize it, especially if you start from first principles.

Amon's backstory simply makes no sense.

1. Blizzard expects us to believe that the xel'naga never had any internal conflict until suddenly in this cycle when Amon built an entire cult around himself.
2. Amon tries to break the infinite cycle by making it happen faster rather than killing the xel'naga and erasing the universe, which is the exact same insane troll logic used by the reapers in Mass Effect who prevent robot wars by starting robot wars.
3. The xel'naga wrote a prophecy, with murals and visions and everything, predicting that Amon would kill them then Kerry would kill him. They do absolutely nothing to stop him and Amon never once realizes that following the prophecy leading to his own death is a bad idea.
4. Amon suffers the same problem as Kerry in BW, in that all of his accomplishments are due entirely to writer fiat rather than any actual work on his part.
5. Amon just stole his shtick from the Overmind, but the Overmind was a better villain because he had rational motivations.
6. There is no actual explanation for how Amon killed all the other xel'naga despite them all being immortal and capable of single-handedly tearing planets apart, he just does.
7. There is no explanation for what happened to Amon's followers other than Duran, they just stop existing off-screen. In fact, after reading the wiki I've concluded that they were actually made up by the writers in interviews to fill the plot holes afflicting the plot.
8. Much like the Overmind, Amon is defeated by a cheap deus ex machina rather than any work on the part of the writers.
9. There is no logic to Amon's death and resurrection. The explanation we get contradicts the explanation of how xel'naga immortality works: xel'naga actually exist in the void and their bodies in our universe are just projections. There is no point at which Amon should have been dead, and if he was then it would be permanent.
10. Kerry breaks the infinite cycle by fulfilling and continuing it. For no apparent reason, the new generation of xel'naga depicted in the Evolution novel have none of the traditional xel'naga powers. In fact, most of them are killed off even though logically their souls in the void should be unharmed.
11. Amon has the ability to control anyone connected to the Khala, even though that makes no sense. The khala is just high bandwidth telepathy with a limited range, and it isn't a hive mind because the protoss are not engineered that way like the zerg are (even then, the zerg hive mind has an IFF system which prevents just any telepath from hijacking it). Even if we use the really stupid excuse that his emotions are so strong that the protoss cannot help but empathize with him over their own self-preservation, what is he using to ensure that the khala is being broadcast across the galaxy? The range is so short that the Field Manual explicitly states that protoss ships have to be lined with multiple relay points to let the crew communicate. Logically speaking, if Amon can broadcast the khala across the galaxy then he should just be able to use dark archon mind control on everyone in the galaxy at once and win instantly.

I really do not understand how you can just ignore these problems just because SC2 was your first introduction to the narrative universe. SC2 was basically my first introduction too because I don't really remember playing SC1 as a kid and even then I still dismiss the entirety of the games as inferior to the story I imagined after reading the SC1 manual two decades after it was written. The lore is pointlessly convoluted and the wiki pages sound like the delusional ravings of a madman.

[sandwich_bird]

That's not what I'm getting at with Nissa though. She denies that the story in Sc1 can be considered complete, whereas I disagree and was trying to explain how it could be seen that way due to how it's told.

Yeah I got that but I was going back to when Nissa said SC +BW would have been better of if it followed a 3 act structure . Even if we assume that BW was incomplete, it's not necessarily a bad thing. For example, if you imagine an Indiana Jones ending where, after killing the bad guy and saving the day, he leaves to go find some new lost treasure or whatever, I think the majority of people wouldn't feel dissatisfied with such an ending even if there's never a sequel that flesh out the story of the bait. Normalcy in that universe includes constant random adventures. I guess for the bait to be satisfying, it needs to not bring new expectations.

If we go back to BW, the hybrids definitely bring in new expectations so I wouldn't consider this a "good incomplete ending". They and Duran are a huge breakaway from the expected new normalcy of the universe. The only saving grace of this plot line is that it's hidden in a secret mission. This greatly lessen the impact of it. It's like when movies put their baits after the credits.

[ragnarok]

I really do not understand how you can just ignore these problems just because SC2 was your first introduction to the narrative universe. SC2 was basically my first introduction too because I don't really remember playing SC1 as a kid and even then I still dismiss the entirety of the games as inferior to the story I imagined after reading the SC1 manual two decades after it was written. The lore is pointlessly convoluted and the wiki pages sound like the delusional ravings of a madman.

I'm not a die hard SC fan. I may have played SC1 and BW before SC2, but I was young and wasn't interested in RTS games (well, technically still am not, but you get my point). I didn't really invest much into it. Even after WoL was out I still didn't. It was only after speaking with some people online for what should happen after WoL (this was before any info for HotS was out) that I thought about writing my own fic, and as I began writing it, I had to look at the SC wiki for lore info and realized the universe was much deeper than I thought. Only then did I begin to invest more into it (but it's still not hardcore).

This goes back to what I was speaking to GNA on: that if you only got deeper into the universe via the SC2 lore and THEN looked back at SC1 and BW, you may not be as critical of the SC2 storyline.

And besides I take what was given unless it goes COMPLETELY whack (like what happened in Tiberium Twilight)

[Mislagnissa]

I'm not a die hard SC fan. I may have played SC1 and BW before SC2, but I was young and wasn't interested in RTS games (well, technically still am not, but you get my point). I didn't really invest much into it. Even after WoL was out I still didn't. It was only after speaking with some people online for what should happen after WoL (this was before any info for HotS was out) that I thought about writing my own fic, and as I began writing it, I had to look at the SC wiki for lore info and realized the universe was much deeper than I thought. Only then did I begin to invest more into it (but it's still not hardcore).

This goes back to what I was speaking to GNA on: that if you only got deeper into the universe via the SC2 lore and THEN looked back at SC1 and BW, you may not be as critical of the SC2 storyline.

And besides I take what was given unless it goes COMPLETELY whack (like what happened in Tiberium Twilight)

SC2 is absurd even without being compared to SC1. I thought it was absurd long before comparing it to its predecessors. I am critical of the writing because it is bad. It is full of plot holes, inconsistencies, idiot plots, deus ex machina, lack of basic logic and all the other hallmarks of bad writing.

It astounds me that you are unable to recognize bad writing. If you want to write, you need to be able to recognize bad writing. Otherwise your writing will make the same mistakes.

Tell me, if you had to rewrite the story from the very beginning so that everything is consistent with the latest retcons, then do you think events would have turned out remotely the same?

Short answer: no, they wouldn’t.

The xel’naga wrote a prophecy explaining that Amon would rebel and kill them all. They decorated their own tomb with murals depicting him killing them in the future. How does that make any sense at all? Why would you ever think any of it makes sense?

The story falls apart the moment you try to think how anything fits together. If you really believe the story makes sense, then explain to me Amon actions prior to the Great War in excruciating detail from his own perspective without contradicting the nonsensical backstory given by the game and while remaining perfectly logically consistent.

[ragnarok]

Tell me, if you had to rewrite the story from the very beginning so that everything is consistent with the latest retcons, then do you think events would have turned out remotely the same?

Short answer: no, they wouldn’t.

The xel’naga wrote a prophecy explaining that Amon would rebel and kill them all. They decorated their own tomb with murals depicting him killing them in the future. How does that make any sense at all? Why would you ever think any of it makes sense?

As I see it back in SC1 Blizzard didn't really want to explain the Xel'Naga because they were supposed to be extinct, but there might have been those who wanted to know more about them by SC2. Personally I felt they could have appeared via flashbacks and that's enough or something like that.

As for the murals on their tomb, let's just it's their way of getting others to eventually figure out what happened, and the threat Amon posed. Unfortunately, that didn't explain how they were supposed to stop Amon. In fact the only reason we got some more info out of it all was because Rohana refused to server her chords for so long.

Now, on the whole bad writing part, Blizzard made inconsistency problems, I knew that since HotS. I merely trying to piece together what they wrote and fill in the gaps as best I can (though this should have been their job). For the whole "your writing will make the same mistakes," every fic will inevitably be flawed in some way. You can make it as consistent as you want, but ultimately there will be people who'd see there were things you didn't explain in your fic.

If you think that qualifies as "Deus Ex Machina" BS....

[Turalyon]

Yeah I got that but I was going back to when Nissa said SC +BW would have been better of if it followed a 3 act structure . Even if we assume that BW was incomplete, it's not necessarily a bad thing. For example, if you imagine an Indiana Jones ending where, after killing the bad guy and saving the day, he leaves to go find some new lost treasure or whatever, I think the majority of people wouldn't feel dissatisfied with such an ending even if there's never a sequel that flesh out the story of the bait. Normalcy in that universe includes constant random adventures. I guess for the bait to be satisfying, it needs to not bring new expectations.

If we go back to BW, the hybrids definitely bring in new expectations so I wouldn't consider this a "good incomplete ending". They and Duran are a huge breakaway from the expected new normalcy of the universe. The only saving grace of this plot line is that it's hidden in a secret mission. This greatly lessen the impact of it. It's like when movies put their baits after the credits.

I dunno. Given how the status quo is clearly shifted toward how (over)powerful the Zerg are depicted as in the end of BW where not even a team-up can defeat them, any realistic/natural continuation from this is dire and pointless... unless some new expectation (like the hybrids) is introduced to balance things out again. By being forced to do that, it'd feel more and more enmeshed in sequelitis - the need to continue for the sake of continuing/to pander the fanbase/to get to a "preferred" ending - rather than a natural sequel.

[drakolobo]

I always saw a portrait of nostalgia addicts in void legacy, you are the ones who cling to the glorified past Aiur or Khala
every time Artanis talks about not clinging, I imagine he speaks to you, "everything to cling to an ideal, maybe irretrievable" "Aiur is our past, but will it be our future?" "Rohana free from the past and enter this new era"


what was the thread theme?

[Gradius]

If we're nostalgia addicts, why do we think Covert Ops > LoTV > WoL > HoTS? The order the games came out has nothing to do with their quality. Obviously you don't understand how nostalgia works. I can be nostalgic for a cartoon I watched when I was a kid and recognize that the writing sucks; something you seem to be incapable of doing to SC2 due to...what? Fanboyism?