Xel'naga worldship spotted?-wildly speculative

[Roland]

Taken from SC2armory.

I think 90% of the explosions on the sphere's are just sparks from the nukes and whatnot, but there are a couple which look legit to me.

Here's a slightly photo shopped image of it, points of interest have a number, and are blown up in the left margin, corresponding comments below

http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/3704/spheres2.jpg

I didn't use image tags because it would be overwhelming large if I had, just copy past URL.

1) I think this is n impact on the sphere, notice how it seems to be rising out of it, it's not just a spark, it stops right at the edge of the sphere.

2) See above, this blast also stops at the sphere.

3) This is the sunset, clearly behind the sphere's

4) This isn't too significant, it appears to be a second sphere further away from the view-point than the more imposing one in the foreground.

5) This is the only thing I haven't mentioned before, it seems like very good evidence that the artist had in mind that the sun was behind the spheres, it's the light from the other side of the sphere just visible behind the horizon, you can see it whenever the moon is distinctly in front of the sun on Earth, which is usually only visible during an eclipse, when the artist was doing this he had to have had the idea that the spheres were in in front of the sun, and so he probably would have realized that if they were moons the dark side would be facing us, forcing him to put the sun behind the view-point if he wanted that side illuminated by it, but he didn't really care if the sun was lighting up the side facing us because, the sphere's being in atmosphere, the nuke is perfectly sufficient for the job. Keep in mind that if you were looking at this scene from an astronomical view the sun really would be only minutely lower than the sphere's so light from behind and that angle is perfectly reasonable.

[Norfindel]

Man, they're moons, it's just that there is shit going on there too. Not difficult to happend when you can travel among different systems.

The sphere up there has a crater hole on it, much like our moon.

Drawings aren't scientifically correct. Look at the Battlecruisers and Wraiths, the Wraiths won't even fit into the Battlecruisers. You can hudge the distance by how fogged they look.

[Roland]

For the record I'm really playing Devil's advocate here, I genuinely am not at all convinced they're worldships, but I think your not giving it enough of a chance at all, open mindedness is a positive attribute.

BTW, on the armory people have mentioned that worldships could be deactivated, and set in orbit around various planets all the time the Xel'ngag were "sleeping" and be taken for small moons by other races such as Protoss and Terran.

[Shadow Archon]

BTW, on the armory people have mentioned that worldships could be deactivated, and set in orbit around various planets all the time the Xel'ngag were "sleeping" and be taken for small moons by other races such as Protoss and Terran.

If so, then you would have to wait until one of them activates before they are proven to be worldships.

[Gradius]

I'm wondering how big the worldships could have possibly been if the Overmind, within mere hours, destroyed the entire XL fleet with just the infested creatures from a single ashworld planet?

[Shadow Archon]

I'm wondering how big the worldships could have possibly been if the Overmind, within mere hours, destroyed the entire XL fleet with just the infested creatures from a single ashworld planet?

Its my believe that the Xel'naga let themselves get beaten, so we don't know the entire situation. Im sure if the Xel'naga Worldship had anything like the Temple technology from Shakuras, it should of had the power to rip the Zerg apart.

[Hamshank]

Please, those are two moons up close, they have nothing to do with the sun.

[Roland]

@Hamshack, please re-read the first post, namely the last line.

"I'm posting this because I'd like as much feedback as possible"

Dismissing it without stating any reasoning is not feedback.

Essentially what the debate boils down to is whether or not you think the artist was taking things like light source and size into account, or was he trying to make it just look cool. There's no way either side of that debate can convince the other, as they're tugging on different ropes, if you have something constructive to say on the assumption the artist is taking realistic lighting etc. into account, by all means, say it, otherwise your just repeating everyone else.

Assuming the art is supposed to be realistic, they can't be moons, and are probably worldships. Assuming the art is just for coolness, then it's in all probability just a moon.

[mr. peasant]

There's something else that is worth taking into consideration... Would Blizzard allow an artist to so prematurely unveil the Xel'Naga? They are at the moment akin to a God-like race in terms of SC's lore, are a total mystery to players in terms of who they are and what they look like as well as likely to play a major role in the overarching story. The Xel'Naga are unlikely to make an appearance in WoL except at the very end as some sort of cliffhanger.

[Roland]

1) There is a protoss mini-campaign in Wings of Liberty, most people think it will deal with Zeratul's discoveries, in large part because of the amount of art/cinematic footage released which deals with it, there is also a screenshot in-game of Zeratul at what looks like a xel'naga alter in the caverns.

2) This is a good topic discussing the appearance of Xel'naga

3) The most recent SC book pretty much describes in very reasonable detail the Xel'naga's agenda. You can look it up on the Wiki.