Why Amon makes no sense

[ragnarok]

I'll make the judgment when/if SC3 comes out, Mislag. Now yes right now I believe Blizzard isn't going to learn, but I'll vent that out once the game is out (if it happens).

As for you thinking the lore is a total mess, fine with me. But know this: when I wrote my SC fic (which was to bridge WoL and HotS), I used the SC2 lore for it and I got praised by many of the reviewers (I'm sure it'd hold true once you write a long enough SC fic too). If you think for one moment that "oh those reviewers don't really count because they're too stupid and ignorant on the SC lore and should be locked in the insane asylum for thinking in such a way"......

[Gradius]

Rag 5 years ago: I’ll wait until heart of the swarm comes out before I determine that WoL is garbage.

[ragnarok]

Rag 5 years ago: I’ll wait until heart of the swarm comes out before I determine that WoL is garbage.

I hope you know Gradius after the events of HotS things went WAY downhill. Especially after reading Shadow Wars, well let's just say a reckoning is inevitable

[Mislagnissa]

I'll make the judgment when/if SC3 comes out, Mislag. Now yes right now I believe Blizzard isn't going to learn, but I'll vent that out once the game is out (if it happens).

As for you thinking the lore is a total mess, fine with me. But know this: when I wrote my SC fic (which was to bridge WoL and HotS), I used the SC2 lore for it and I got praised by many of the reviewers (I'm sure it'd hold true once you write a long enough SC fic too). If you think for one moment that "oh those reviewers don't really count because they're too stupid and ignorant on the SC lore and should be locked in the insane asylum for thinking in such a way"......

And you are sure they only liked your story because it used SC2 lore as opposed to appreciating your writing for its own merits?

When I wrote a story that deliberately defied the lore as an experiment, without a disclaimer, reviewers only complained about breaking the lore. Then I wrote another story with a disclaimer, and the reviewers only complained that my writing did not fit their preconceived notions of how my original characters should act.

If you know Blizzard will invalidate all your work, why do you still use their lore?

I don’t ignore the plot of the games just because I don’t like the plot. I ignore the lore because it is not a stable foundation for spin-off stories.

[ragnarok]

If you know Blizzard will invalidate all your work, why do you still use their lore?

I don’t ignore the plot of the games just because I don’t like the plot. I ignore the lore because it is not a stable foundation for spin-off stories.

Because unless the lore seems COMPLETELY whack to me, I try to make use of it. For example, if I was to write a command and conquer fic, I'd most likely discard the Tiberian Twilight storyline

[Mislagnissa]

Because unless the lore seems COMPLETELY whack to me, I try to make use of it. For example, if I was to write a command and conquer fic, I'd most likely discard the Tiberian Twilight storyline

Starcraft lore is whack. I read the wiki. There are numerous contradictions.

The article on the protoss empire states that it was declining and growing at the same time. The article on infestation says terrans are incompatible, but this never features in the games. The articles on infestation and hybrids say that protoss and zerg genes are simultaneously incompatible yet can be combined. Mengsk reads ahead in the script and sends Tychus to kill Kerry.

There are numerous analyses of the games showing that the writing is nonsensical. The “troubles with starcraft” wordpress blog, the “UA plays starcraft” threads, among others.

The lore changes according to the current whims of the writers. The plot of the games is lackluster at best. The characters are cardboard caricature puppets.

I really don’t understand people like you who unironically enjoy it. You might be able to turn your brains off, in which case kudos to you, but I cannot stand fiction which insults my intelligence.

[Gradius]

The article on the protoss empire states that it was declining and growing at the same time.

Where? It just says the empire was growing although the population was declining.

The article on infestation says terrans are incompatible, but this never features in the games.

Where? It says most terrans are rendered as mindless drones due to some incompatibility, but that doesn't mean every piece of genetic material is incompatible.

The articles on infestation and hybrids say that protoss and zerg genes are simultaneously incompatible yet can be combined.

They can be combined by Narud/Amon since they're the ones who basically created them and have a whole different level of technology, but they're incompatible in the sense that zerg can't infest them.

Mengsk reads ahead in the script and sends Tychus to kill Kerry.

Yeah that's dumb.

You might be able to turn your brains off, in which case kudos to you, but I cannot stand fiction which insults my intelligence.

Yeah, I agree, but most of your critiques boil down to you failing to understand some basic lore and coming up with a bunch of false dilemma fallacies because you can't be arsed to investigate further and/or actually play the games.

[Mislagnissa]

Where? It just says the empire was growing although the population was declining.


Where? It says most terrans are rendered as mindless drones due to some incompatibility, but that doesn't mean every piece of genetic material is incompatible.


They can be combined by Narud/Amon since they're the ones who basically created them and have a whole different level of technology, but they're incompatible in the sense that zerg can't infest them.


Yeah that's dumb.


Yeah, I agree, but most of your critiques boil down to you failing to understand some basic lore and coming up with a bunch of false dilemma fallacies because you can't be arsed to investigate further and/or actually play the games.

Those are not false dilemmas or my lack of understanding. Those are examples of the writers changing previously established rules when it suits them. You can rationalize them all you want, but that doesn’t change the fact that nothing is set in stone. In the Starcraft universe, anything is possible on the flimsiest of pretenses.

Let’s use the infestation example.

According to the short story about Amanda Haley, terrans are incompatible with infestation. They go crazy and lose any psychic powers. However, this doesn’t apply outside that short story. In the game the infested were merely bound to the Overmind and rendered fanatically loyal, according to the manual. In SC2 the suicide bombers are actually just one type of infested, not the average. Those who are infested in the games suffer no apparent loss of faculties, and if they are psychic then they will become more powerful because the writers say so (but that may just be due to Kerry having the writer on her side since they call her a demigod in the Q&A). Also, infestation will restore decomposed corpses back to full functionality and recover the deceased’s memories perfectly, even though that should be impossible without time travel in reality.

Protoss cannot be infested, except for that time they were infested by creep and other zerg parasites. I fully expect that a future game will have infested protoss with barely an explanation, since they were in the SC2 beta before being removed due to developer fiat. Duran/Amon outright sent the Overmind to assimilate the protoss, so clearly the zerg could do something barring the writers being forgetful again.

Etc.

[Gradius]

According to the short story about Amanda Haley, terrans are incompatible with infestation. They go crazy and lose any psychic powers. However, this doesn’t apply outside that short story. In the game the infested were merely bound to the Overmind and rendered fanatically loyal, according to the manual.

In Hybrid, the zerg are trying to create more psychic terrans through a similar process that created Kerrigan. They're not being infested by queens. Those are two different processes and you equating them as the same thing leads to a false dilemma fallacy.

In SC2 the suicide bombers are actually just one type of infested, not the average.

Yeah, SC2 has new units and isn't in the same era as SC1. What's your point?

Those who are infested in the games suffer no apparent loss of faculties,

Again, not the same thing, but they're both definitely mindless because they're consumed by the will of the Overmind rather than retaining their own personas.

and if they are psychic then they will become more powerful because the writers say so

Nope. Where? The only example is Ethan Stewart who was:
a) a rare specimen like Kerrigan
b) subjecteted to the same process that created Kerrigan but refined over 4 years

And then Stukov in Resurrection IV, which the whole thing was dumb, yes. But again, it's not the same process that Haley was subjected to as it's been refined since then.

Also, infestation will restore decomposed corpses back to full functionality and recover the deceased’s memories perfectly, even though that should be impossible without time travel in reality.

Yeah, well, so are psionic storms and zerg. Nobody bitched about this happening to Shepard in Mass Effect 2 (even though the writers went to great pains to address this). Still, seems a little pedantic.

Protoss cannot be infested, except for that time they were infested by creep and other zerg parasites.

The fact that this was an exception to the rule was explicitly stated in the narratives themselves, so calling this out as a contradiction is pretty dishonest. Also, they weren't infested by a parasite, they were implanted with one for an unrelated purpose. Your critiques make it look like you put zero research into your arguments which makes it hard to take seriously.

I fully expect that a future game will have infested protoss with barely an explanation, since they were in the SC2 beta before being removed due to developer fiat.

Yeah it was removed because protoss are supposed to be immune to infestation. This was a rare example of the developers acquiescing and removing something from gameplay because it didn't service the lore (which should be the opposite since SC2 is an e-sports game). This is a rare instance where you should actually show gratitude instead of being a whiner and complaining of "developer fiat".

Duran/Amon outright sent the Overmind to assimilate the protoss, so clearly the zerg could do something barring the writers being forgetful again.

This is a legit plot hole though. SC2 is dumb.

[Mislagnissa]

I hardly expect the writers to keep infested protoss off-limits considering everything else they retconned.

Anyway, ALL of this is pendantic nerd arguing when you get right down to it. This is fiction and we are nerds.

What is more important is what makes for a good story. Anything is possible in the world of fiction as long as you can convince the audience to suspend disbelief. I don’t care that a convoluted irrational magic system disallows some obscure application. If that application can be useful to a story, I see no reason not to have infested protoss, mindful infested terrans, or whatever else I can imagine. A writer can always justify absolutely anything with technobabble as long as it doesn’t break the story.

Obviously the zerg can use technobabble to create better infestation with none of the limits of the previous type. That’s their entire shtick. If I wanted to go full nerd I’d go into about how they have to devise new forms of infestation for every species they encounter. Not because the target is immune, but because an incompatible infestation causes death because zerg microorganisms are deadly biological weapons. If infestation doesn’t take, the microbes will just replicate inside you until you die of sepsis, a clogged artery, or your skin melting off because your blood has turned into acid. There is no reason beyond writer fiat that protoss or psychic terrans or whatever cannot be successfully infested given sufficient research and development. There is no reason this cannot become faster with further research until the zerg can quickly infest protoss on the battlefields.

Oh, Amanda Haley lost her sanity and telepathy? Doctor Zerg can trivially cobble together a technobabble fix that solves that right away! She’s a rotten corpse? Zerg can fix that too! In fact, most of their intel comes from infesting the dead!

Okay, we’ve run into a problem by giving the zerg the ability to resurrect the dead an arbitrarily long time after death. If they could do that the whole time, why don’t they do it all the time before and since?

Grad, if you really want to know how the lore breaks down, take a look at the feats threads on spacebattles and sufficientvelocity. The lore has the three races pulling all sorts of ridiculous stunts. Claiming that infested protoss are somehow off limits is absurd when the three races can do things like casually destroy planets, mass clone their population, manufacture anything in seconds, and travel to anywhere in the galaxy instantly. They can whatever they want regardless of whether it was previously stated impossible because the lore is crazy.