Zerg were better off with the Overmind

[Donat]

How much brainwashing do you need to seek vengeance on the people who left you alone on a planet to die? :/

[Pandonetho]

It's that kind of vicious, villainous bastardy that I just love. It's the kind of spiteful, bitter bastardy behaviour that brainwashed Kerrigan could never give us, because brainwashed Kerrigan is a puppet following orders. She may say the words, but the intention behind them is not her own.

She wasn't brainwashed under the Overmind. She remembered exactly everything that happened, the Overmind even said that he had left her her spirit so that all other Zerg may learn from her. Like Norfindel said, she just couldn't go against the will of the Overmind, even though she constantly disagreed with him and the cerebrates. You think if the Overmind brainwashed her that she would really disagree and argue with the Cerebrates all the time?

Learn the definition of Brainwash, or don't use it. Brainwash means to persuade/coerce Kerrigan to change her ideals and agree with what the Overmind thinks so that she would want to do them according to her own will. Being forced to do something because she's bound to it does not mean Brainwash. Notice she had the EXACT same personality after the Overmind died. She just had the freedom to do what she wanted after.

[newcomplex]

Nobody says they have to be exclusively Cerebrates. If Kerrigan can make intelligent infested terrans, the Overmind surely could.

The Overmind would have no reason to make more sentient Infested Terrans. 1 was good enough, because it captured the collected knowledge and genetics of all the best the Terran Race has to offer.

The creation of Infested Terrans as lieutenants are a manifestation of Kerrigan's humanity. They aren't necessarily objectively better then the cerebrates, in fact, I bet she sacrificed raw psionic power by choosing Infested Terrans as lieutenants. She prefers them.

Stewart isn't just a omnipresent helper, he's also a person Kerrigan can talk to. It isn't incidental that while the Cerebrates personal relations to the Overmind were as advisors of undying loyalty, Ethan Stewart's relationship with Kerrigan is moreso a fanatical infatuated lover.

[phazonjunkie]

In terms of overall epicness the Overmind takes the cake to be sure, but in terms of overall plot relevance, evolution (both in terms of character and biologically speaking) it was essentially a dead end. It's motives and objectives were clear. It had advanced intellect and a level of awareness far beyond most other sentient beings, but in the end, it was simply a force of nature, a personified hunger. It had a single mandate that dictated everything it did and how it went about it. That and as was mentioned earlier, was more or less unable to directly interact with it's environment and it's enemies on a personal level, and didn't display any particular nuances in it's personality that that would make it easier to relate to. There's only so much you can do with a villain like that.

That being said, would the Zerg be better off with the Overmind? Perhaps, if the Zerg continued to be the primary antagonists; primal, unknowable, sinister. But that is no longer the case. It's now known more or less who and what they are, what they're capable of, what their primary imperative is, and more importantly, what their weakness is and how to fight them. As such the Overmind looses much of it's mystique, and what made it so ominous and sinister in the first place.

[Aldrius]

She wasn't brainwashed under the Overmind. She remembered exactly everything that happened, the Overmind even said that he had left her her spirit so that all other Zerg may learn from her.

Just because she had a personality doesn't mean she had free will. She couldn't go against the Overmind or it's interests. She was as bound to him as any of his Cerebrates. Do you really think the Kerrigan of Rebel Yell would serve the Zerg?

I mean why else would she go ahead and kill the fledgling Overmind and betray Daggoth otherwise? If she served the Zerg WILLING in Vanilla what reason would she have to betray them in Brood War?

Like Norfindel said, she just couldn't go against the will of the Overmind, even though she constantly disagreed with him and the cerebrates.

She constantly butted heads with Zasz. She never disagreed with him his motives or methods, she just couldn't stand how he was forever doubting her. That doesn't mean she had the free will to do as she pleased.

You think if the Overmind brainwashed her that she would really disagree and argue with the Cerebrates all the time?

We seem to be disagreeing on the definition of brainwashing here. To me it means that she was coersed into doing things she didn't want to through mind control of some sort. That altered her brain chemistry.

Notice she had the EXACT same personality after the Overmind died. She just had the freedom to do what she wanted after.

I don't think she had the same personality at all. She shared some traits with her "The Overmind" counterpart, but there are some VERY clear differences. The Kerrigan of "The Overmind" was brutish, dismissive and aggressive, instead of subtle, cunning and sadistic.

The Kerrigan of Brood War was wiser, more patient, more charismatic.

[Nicol Bolas]

If this is fundamentally Zerg, then either there should be no Zerg campaign, OR there should be very few Zerg characters in the Zerg campaign (Brood War), OR we need to accept that changes to the fundamental nature of the Zerg are necessary if they're going to continue playing a playable role in the campaigns (also to an extent Brood War).

Or, you accept it as a fundamental limitation of the writing and work around it. Skilled writers do that.

If she is in a position to make a decision that is truly hers, and is relevant to "The end of all things" or w/e, she would either be obeying the overmind, or rebelling. Sure, if she obeyed the overmind, she could carry out that decision as her personality dicated, but ultimately, as I said, she wouldn't be an agent character.

Again, we have a failure of imagination.

The Overmind wants X. Kerrigan goes to do X. While doing X however, Y happens and she has to choose how to deal with it.

See? Plot-relevant decision making. All very simple.

This is the direct result of the overmind not existing anymore, and it gives us a lot of potential characters in the Zerg campaign, and creates a lot of interesting plot oppurtunities.

No, it creates a lot of stupid. Like a talking Torrasque, for example.

The Zerg have always been better off as being an utterly alien force. Here's what I mean.

Being a reasonable gamer, I read the instruction manual before playing SC1. My mental conception of the Zerg after reading that didn't exactly jive with what Blizzard presented. As cool as the Overmind was and as nice as his voice was, the Overmind should never have spoken.

The Overmind is eternal. The Overmind is the will of the swarm. The Overmind Is.

Intelligent agents of the Overmind should never have communicated with it in any direct way that could be even conceptually translated into "speech." They simply understand the Overmind's desires, because it's desires are their desires intrinsically. They do what it wants because they want it because they are all a part of the Overmind.

Once you take this away from the Zerg, they just become a bunch of raving animals. Now under the command of a goddamned human. For all her infested-ness, for all her supposed cunning, Kerrigan is just a petulant woman-child lashing out at whomever she wants because she can.

She doesn't care about anything. If she improves the Zerg, it is only to make them more effective tools to exercise her will. For her, improving the Zerg is at best a means to an end; for the Overmind, it is the end. Kerrigan has all this power, but not one scrap of an idea of what to do with it.

Being ruled by her diminishes the Zerg to being nothing more than her army. Kerrigan may as well be the leader of a futuristic Mongolian hoard, not an unknowable and unstoppable alien force.

Nein, Kerrigan and GLaDOS are much better.

<off-topic> Oh Jesus Christ, can we please stop furiously masturbating to Portal yet? Is that allowed? Please?

I am so sick of the love this game gets. Yes, it's a good game. Yes, it's worthy of praise, for both gameplay and writing. And voice acting. But calling GLaDOS a villain? And a good one, at that? Please.

She's Orcus, on his throne. She doesn't do anything.

She, like Kerrigan, is a child, only GLaDOS has some ridiculous obsession with putting some random woman through a maze.

You want a great videogame villain? Kreia. From Knights of the Old Republic 2. That's a great villain. When you can make the player question his morality, then you've got something compelling.

The Overmind is not a great villain. But it is a great concept. One that should not simply be cast aside.

Just like... "Yeah, you killed your friend, you bastard."

Yeah, that line would have been a lot more powerful if not for the scores of idiot balls that it took to make that work.

I'm sorry, but you don't get to be a chessmaster when other people have to be made stupid for your plots to work.

That and as was mentioned earlier, was more or less unable to directly interact with it's environment and it's enemies on a personal level, and didn't display any particular nuances in it's personality that that would make it easier to relate to.

Relate to? You're not supposed to relate to it; it's the Overmind!

[Aldrius]

Yeah, that line would have been a lot more powerful if not for the scores of idiot balls that it took to make that work.

I'm sorry, but you don't get to be a chessmaster when other people have to be made stupid for your plots to work.

I don't really see any idiot balls. And there was no real Xanatos gambit-esque plan. Duran and Kerrigan were obviously improvising to me. Making it up as they went along. At least all the stuff that happened after Aiur.

I mean pretty much one of the first things we find out about Dugalle is that he can't STAND traitors. (You know, ubermoral french general and all that.) Disobeying direct orders and abandoning an important battle is treacherous behaviour. Dugalle can't really deny the evidence.

At the same time, Stukov needed to get to the Psi Disruptor immediately. There's a potentially infested spy and traitor in their midst. He can't waste any time getting it operational.

I don't think that comes across as well as it should, but I think it's a pretty emotionally powerful sequence of events regardless.

Besides that, I think Kerrigan has a few pretty brilliant plots through out the campaign, and none of those involve any idiot balls whatsoever.

[pure.Wasted]

Or, you accept it as a fundamental limitation of the writing and work around it. Skilled writers do that.

Why should the writers "work around" a fundamental limitation if the resulting story is going to be predictably uninteresting? The SC1 Zerg Campaign is not interesting. It's no coincidence that its most memorable plot moments are the encounters with Raynor, Zeratul, and Tassadar.

The Overmind is a brilliant concept, but it is a concept that is fundamentally at odds with the goals Blizz has explicitly set for themselves with the campaigns. The campaigns are about the relationships between different characters. If we can't empathize with a character, we're not going to care about him. If he's not free to develop, we can't empathize with him. And if he's Zerg, he's not free to develop. Not in any meaningful way that counts.

We're not completely at odds NB. I love what the Overmind represents, and I really miss that element from the Zerg. But the answer is not to "stick it into the Zerg campaign" and "work around" the limitations that ensue. The answer is to play to its strengths, not weaknesses. The Overmind works best as a threat that looms in the darkness. If they bring it back, that's what it needs to be. Not the perspective character, but an unstoppable force of nature that the perspective characters have to contend with.

I would be 100% fine with SC3 having no Zerg campaign, so that we could bring the Overmind back in the action.

[Andrew]

kinda off topic but I think it would be really awesome if they put some awesome new lacky for Kerrigan like an infested DT or something.

[Nicol Bolas]

You know, ubermoral french general and all that.

... Did you use the word "moral" in connection with DuGalle? Are you serious? Did we even play the same game?

Because I seem to recall that our first introduction to the character was him taking his BC down to look over the carnage of Zerg assaulting a human outpost, then just leave. Nope, not lifting a finger to help. Not dropping a relief force or ordering naval fire support. Or anything. He just watched, then left.

And why did he watch? So that he could show his XO exactly what they were planning to do! You know, their entire strategy for ending the Zerg threat and taking over humanity? The strategy that involved using the Zerg as a biological weapon.

Yeah, he's totally a moral guy

At the same time, Stukov needed to get to the Psi Disruptor immediately. There's a potentially infested spy and traitor in their midst.

Ya know, there's someone who might want to know about a Zerg spy in their midst. Maybe the Admiral?! He hates traitors, and you've got plenty of evidence of a traitor in your midst.

I'm sorry, but there's no logical way to explain why Stukov didn't go to the Admiral with evidence of Duran's duplicity. The state of the Psi Disruptor wouldn't matter if DuGaulle put a bullet in Duran's head. Going to the Psi Disruptor was Stukov picking up the idiot ball and running a touchdown.

It was almost as stupid as what Aldaris did. Almost.

The SC1 Zerg Campaign is not interesting.

Remember: as far as I'm concerned, you could remove the word "Zerg" from that sentence and get a reasonable statement.