Vikings and Ravens

[The_Blade]

I'd recommend also not going into the literal gameplay of a unit to work on a layout of the story. Most of the narrative elements I've read, where a game is the design reference, give this level of detail that IMO breaks the continuity of storytelling by diverting into the gameplay elements. The writer normally attempts to explain the situation through the familiarity of the reader with the game itself. Istead, use these references like a river and think on conventional ways to translate the game into a realistic/cohesive environment.

Bad example:
...Suddenly, a Terran Banshee decloaked from the air above and rained a volley of Backlash Rockets, which can only hit ground targets. As the roaches fled into their burrows a nearby Raven was sensing their movement through it's detection ability.

Better example:
...Suddenly, a glimmer of light in the sky revealed the metallic plate of a hovering Terran aircraft, which had been hiding from sight. It engaged the fleeing enemy with a volley of Backlash Rockets, which swiftly splattered the ground and splintered the creatures with molten shrapnel. As the Roaches fled into their burrows, a nearby droneship, known as a Raven, was following their movements through the underground by interpolating seismic readings from a local array of sensors. These were placed by the infantry corps prior to the engagement.

[Mislagnissa]

I'd recommend also not going into the literal gameplay of a unit to work on a layout of the story. Most of the narrative elements I've read, where a game is the design reference, give this level of detail that IMO breaks the continuity of storytelling by diverting into the gameplay elements. The writer normally attempts to explain the situation through the familiarity of the reader with the game itself. Istead, use these references like a river and think on conventional ways to translate the game into a realistic/cohesive environment.

Bad example:
...Suddenly, a Terran Banshee decloaked from the air above and rained a volley of Backlash Rockets, which can only hit ground targets. As the roaches fled into their burrows a nearby Raven was sensing their movement through it's detection ability.

Better example:
...Suddenly, a glimmer of light in the sky revealed the metallic plate of a hovering Terran aircraft, which had been hiding from sight. It engaged the fleeing enemy with a volley of Backlash Rockets, which swiftly splattered the ground and splintered the creatures with molten shrapnel. As the Roaches fled into their burrows, a nearby droneship, known as a Raven, was following their movements through the underground by interpolating seismic readings from a local array of sensors. These were placed by the infantry corps prior to the engagement.

Ditto. I can’t stress this enough. Gameplay is not realistic!

[Nissa]

I'd recommend also not going into the literal gameplay of a unit to work on a layout of the story. Most of the narrative elements I've read, where a game is the design reference, give this level of detail that IMO breaks the continuity of storytelling by diverting into the gameplay elements. The writer normally attempts to explain the situation through the familiarity of the reader with the game itself. Istead, use these references like a river and think on conventional ways to translate the game into a realistic/cohesive environment.

Bad example:
...Suddenly, a Terran Banshee decloaked from the air above and rained a volley of Backlash Rockets, which can only hit ground targets. As the roaches fled into their burrows a nearby Raven was sensing their movement through it's detection ability.

Better example:
...Suddenly, a glimmer of light in the sky revealed the metallic plate of a hovering Terran aircraft, which had been hiding from sight. It engaged the fleeing enemy with a volley of Backlash Rockets, which swiftly splattered the ground and splintered the creatures with molten shrapnel. As the Roaches fled into their burrows, a nearby droneship, known as a Raven, was following their movements through the underground by interpolating seismic readings from a local array of sensors. These were placed by the infantry corps prior to the engagement.

Trust me, I know. It's one of the flaws that plagued some of the SC official novels. I was actually going to say something like that in response to Mislag's question, that gameplay isn't really like real military history, but neither is it like a game either.

Though I'm afraid neither of your examples work for me, because I want the reader to feel like more of a participant in the action, and want the perspective to look more like how it would from one individual perspective. Like, a soldier on the ground isn't going to know that a specific airship dropped a bomb, they're going to see an explosion of earth, react by instinct, and then perhaps a moment later realize that it was indeed a bomb, and what kind of plane might have dropped it.

[Turalyon]

^ Hmm, makes me wonder why you'd even want to know the gameply aspects of the units are then. It's not really all that important. There's always going to be "ludonarrative dissonance" when you're going to exposit a battle scene from a detached third-person perspective. It's good you're going for a first person perspective since you don't necessarily have to give out those details (the character we're following doesn't necessarily have to have omniscient knowledge of the fan reader and the reader should give latitude for that). Only the anal-retentive game players will harp on whether an air unit is firing on ground units when it actually can't in gameplay and I presume they wouldn't be the intended audience for your story anyway.

[Nissa]

Well, the fact of the matter is in writing you have to know at least three times whatever you're putting on the page. Even in a made up culture, people will do things for reasons that exist in their own world, even if the reader isn't told that reason. By having an understanding of how things work in the SC world, I can make it feel more like the game, even if in subtle, non-obvious ways. I mean, why bother writing fanfiction if I'm not going to reference the source? My comment above was mainly on writing style, not on research.

[Turalyon]

I mean, why bother writing fanfiction if I'm not going to reference the source?

Yeah, but your fanfiction is the reference to the source in and of itself already. All I was trying to say was that you don't necessarily need the details and minutiae of the gameplay to do that "referencing" for you since it will more likely and potentially constrain yourself. I mean, really, there isn't a solid lore reason why airborne Vikings can't attack ground (since it's only really for gameplay/balance reasons). There isn't a solid reason why we can't have Vikings in "real fictional universe life" carry bombs/weapons for land engagements (or their machine guns, which they use only for their landform for some reason...), neither.

Heck, the Raven can also be utilised in your story as the stealth bomber akin to modern day drones used in warfare as it used to have a seeker missile ability. I say "used to" because it's been removed/replaced by a missile that does no damage and only temporarily removes armour.

In fact, the units in the game can change so much/markedly due to "balance" reasons such that it's probably unwise to look to gameplay for the actual capabilities of the unit in "real fictional universe life". Protoss Carriers have world-purifiying lasers on them but they aren't used in gameplay for obvious reasons (and story reasons too since most encoutners would be over very quickly one would imagine if they could utilise them in military engagements...). If we only looked at what they did during gameplay or obtained our knowledge of those units from what we saw in the gameplay, you'd never have known that and/or have written them as not having that ability.

[Mislagnissa]

Are you sure that’s the logic you want to use? Turalyon and I already explained at length that key plot points break down once you start forcing the story to be realistic. The protoss have fleets of death stars, the psi-emitter is a crippling weakness to the zerg, the terrans are all complete morons, etc

[Nissa]

Yeah, but your fanfiction is the reference to the source in and of itself already. All I was trying to say was that you don't necessarily need the details and minutiae of the gameplay to do that "referencing" for you since it will more likely and potentially constrain yourself. I mean, really, there isn't a solid lore reason why airborne Vikings can't attack ground (since it's only really for gameplay/balance reasons). There isn't a solid reason why we can't have Vikings in "real fictional universe life" carry bombs/weapons for land engagements (or their machine guns, which they use only for their landform for some reason...), neither.

Heck, the Raven can also be utilised in your story as the stealth bomber akin to modern day drones used in warfare as it used to have a seeker missile ability. I say "used to" because it's been removed/replaced by a missile that does no damage and only temporarily removes armour.

In fact, the units in the game can change so much/markedly due to "balance" reasons such that it's probably unwise to look to gameplay for the actual capabilities of the unit in "real fictional universe life". Protoss Carriers have world-purifiying lasers on them but they aren't used in gameplay for obvious reasons (and story reasons too since most encoutners would be over very quickly one would imagine if they could utilise them in military engagements...). If we only looked at what they did during gameplay or obtained our knowledge of those units from what we saw in the gameplay, you'd never have known that and/or have written them as not having that ability.

....I was trying to be polite, Tura. I didn't want to say it out loud. My original comment was due to Blade's writing style, and I think his examples were poorly written. The narrative style was awful. That's all I meant. Sheesh.


But if you're going to ramble on about this, sometimes the point of fanfiction is to make the original make sense. And to not say something about a unit that's going to distract the reader from the story. I mean, come on, do you really want me to treat the SC canon the way Blizzard did? I've got to have some integrity.

[The_Blade]

Lol Yea no harm done, Nissa. I wrote that up with an omniscient narrator just to make my point, tho sorry for stating the obvious. I often go full Jack London, despite hating his ass, too. I also do not know how to write action. IMO very few authors do. Considering how vocal Misla has been about military fiction, I decided to recount all the books I've read that fit the genre. I honestly only remember a few books fondly and despite dealing with strategy and/or war very few had action.

I guess what I was trying to communicate is that I hate textbook fan fiction. It's horrible and cringy at it's average and decent at it's best. Queen of Blades was full of this and many other SC novels. I agree with you 100% that there needs to be some form of integrity preserved in adapting the source material so that coherence exists. Otherwise we get the StarWars sequels LOL.

[Nissa]

Lol Yea no harm done, Nissa. I wrote that up with an omniscient narrator just to make my point, tho sorry for stating the obvious. I often go full Jack London, despite hating his ass, too. I also do not know how to write action. IMO very few authors do. Considering how vocal Misla has been about military fiction, I decided to recount all the books I've read that fit the genre. I honestly only remember a few books fondly and despite dealing with strategy and/or war very few had action.

Yeah, action really is hard. I'm not particularly good at it, though I did do a bit during a Mega Man fanfiction I wrote. It's easier when you're working with fighting robots rather than armies, however. Writing armies is hard unless you have real military experience. Which I do not have. All I really want is to be able to do military dialogue, like between generals and politicians that's hauntingly scary. Like they're moving real people like pawns.

Military nonfiction is usually better, but because of the way technology works nowadays, I've discovered that the old army movements of the past are obsolete. Like military pilots nowadays can very literally shoot things outside of their visible sight.

I guess what I was trying to communicate is that I hate textbook fan fiction. It's horrible and cringy at it's average and decent at it's best. Queen of Blades was full of this and many other SC novels. I agree with you 100% that there needs to be some form of integrity preserved in adapting the source material so that coherence exists. Otherwise we get the StarWars sequels LOL.

Ha. Well, honestly I have seen fanfiction that was good. I flatter myself that my Mega Man fanfiction is good, but really the absolute best I read was this one where Azumanga Daioh characters crossed over into the Star Trek universe. It was as if Azuma himself had written it. ...I'm trying to remember some Starcraft Fanfiction that was good, but honestly it's been so long since I read any that I don't know what to say.