StarCraft Campaign Thoughts and Impressions

[FanaticTemplar]

Foreword

After a few arguments with various individuals on other boards regarding the merits and failures of Wings of Liberty’s storyline, I figured I should put it into context by playing through the whole story in order. This may or may not be of interest to anybody here, but I’ll be writing my thoughts as I go through the campaigns so that anybody interested can read them. I’d certainly enjoy reading other people’s opinions on the subject, I know that many people disagree with my views on some particulars, especially regarding Brood War.

I will limit my thoughts to the lore presented in the games. I did read Shadow of the Xel’Naga when I was younger and that abominable trash did a good job of dissuading me from reading any further works on the subject. I have shored up my knowledge either by reading on this site or through the StarCraft wiki, but I still feel more comfortable addressing the game lore itself.

Also, I’ll only be addressing my thoughts on the story and character development, not the gameplay.

StarCraft

StarCraft had a special advantage to my mind when it comes to evaluating the stories of the StarCraft series. Basically, it was new. I’ve always been fond of starting science fiction series, even horrible ones, because the premise allows for discovery and exploration. Science fiction allows this in a scope that no other genre can, except possibly the rare fantasy series that involve multiverses (The Malazan Book of the Fallen) or are willing to embrace the truly fantastical rather than be limited by an Earth-like (and often western European medieval Earth-like) setting (Discworld), and I greatly enjoy the wonders of the unknown. I first played StarCraft when I was 11, it was my first RTS (my third computer game, in fact, after The Sword of Shannara and Heroes of Might and Magic II) and I discovered the gameplay as well as the setting. I remember finding those first Hydralisks in the southeast corner of the map in Backwater Station with Raynor and my four starting marines and nearly panicking at how tough they were, never dreaming that I would someday be killing them by the dozens with Psionic Storms.

Eventually however any series is forced to depend on its plot and characters, as settings and villains become recurring and one gains familiarity with the setting. I certainly would never advocate that the StarCraft series attempt to recapture that feeling by doing something foolish like adding a fourth race or something like that, such things frequently either are retcons, annoyingly intruding into the established world, or else diminish the value of previous accomplishments by attempting to make everything seem disproportionately important (and obviously I’ll have something to say about this regarding the Dark Voice and the Hybrids when we get to Wings of Liberty).

I do not think this is a problem for StarCraft, but strangely enough it’s the original game that has the strongest basis on setting and characters to drive the story. Rather than relying on devices such as the Shakuras Temple or the Psi Disruptor or the Xel’Naga Artefact, StarCraft is driven most of all by the motivations of its characters. There are plot driving devices too, but they are not treated solely as such, but they integrate well with the plot and actually emphasise or develop the characters. The main such devices in StarCraft are, I think, the Psi Emitters, Kerrigan and the Dark Templar. Right off the bat, you’ll notice that two of those are characters. I’ll get into specifics as I discuss the campaigns in detail.

Anyway, StarCraft’s plot was fairly simple, at its core it’s an alien invasion that must be survived. Simplicity works well, and allows details to go into developing the characters and world, though any depth needs to be measured by the fact that they’re from an RTS video game. By any literary measure, these characters are definitely not very complex.

In light of all this, I can say with confidence that StarCraft had the best storyline of the three thus far released games in the franchise.

Rebel Yell

Hidden Content:

Storyline

The Terran campaign is about the Sons of Korhal’s war to overthrow the Confederacy, set on a backdrop of alien invasion. It’s fairly important to get these priorities in order, because if you go out thinking this campaign is about the alien invasion itself, you’re in for disappointment. Every mission after you join the Sons of Korhal in Desperate Alliance up to your desertion in The Hammer Falls furthers the goal of destroying the Confederacy in some shape or form, but no steps are ever taken to resist or fight back the aliens. You maintain an entirely reactionary role, fighting back the Zerg when you need to for survival, or stopping the Protoss when they threaten your plans for the Confederacy, but otherwise you ignore them or flee.

Despite this, the reality of the alien invasion is always clear. You can never go two missions without the Zerg being brought up, either because you have to fight them or because you intend to use them for your own ends using the Psi Emitters. Likewise, the Protoss show up periodically and incinerate whatever planet you were just on. The fact that this is all the Protoss do contributes to their aura of menace. Whenever they show up, a planet dies. Of course, this is quite anticlimactic when you do fight them in New Gettysburg and they come off pretty pathetic. Ah well.

There’s obviously some reference to the United States Civil War going on here, the Confederate flag and name Gettysburg are pretty blatant, even when I was 11 I noticed it. However, I am not an American, nor a student of American history, so I can’t really comment much about that. To my untrained eye, there seems to be something of an inversion going on however: I believe in that war it was the Confederates who were rebelling against the established authority. Also, the Sons of Korhal drew much of their support during the campaign from fringe worlds Mar Sara and Antiga Prime whereas the Terran Confederacy was based on the more industrialised and populated core worlds. Whether this is a coincidence or by design, or even a figment of my imagination is beyond me. Arcturus Mengsk at least is not from the fringe worlds, but the son of a senator from the core world Korhal IV.

We are introduced to the world and the Zerg invasion at the small scale – managing a single Terran colony on Mar Sara. While at this point the focus is on the Zerg invasion, the actual intention here is to get us to dislike the Confederacy so we are ripe for plucking by the Sons of Korhal later. First we are greeted by General Duke, who is a condescending self-important arse and naturally unlikeable. Then your friend Jim Raynor gets hauled off to jail for rescuing a Terran colony from the Zerg. And finally, you are abandoned to the Zerg yourself. After all of this, you are naturally predisposed to viewing Arcturus Mengsk and his Sons of Korhal favourably. This makes your desertion as Confederate Magistrate and joining with this rebellion credible and natural.

The missions for Mengsk slowly erode your confidence in him as a leader. I imagine exactly when you realise he is as bad as the Confederacy can be depends on the individual. It’s all very gradual and again, this smooth development makes for a good story. As previously mentioned, you are predisposed favourably in Mengsk’s favour, so you’re probably all too willing to go off and kill some Confederate bastards. When Mengsk says that Confederate arse Edmund Duke would make a powerful ally in a tone of Machiavellian delight, you don’t think too much of it despite Raynor’s and Kerrigan’s protests. It’s true, after all, that an enemy General makes an excellent prisoner, and even better turncoat.

So when does it become obvious that Mengsk is really not the idealistic hero we mistook him from? Is it when he starts using the Zerg as a weapon mere minutes after feigning outrage that Mar Sara was used as a test for that weapon, and comparing the act to the genocidal destruction of Korhal IV that prompted his rebellion? Is it when he actually uses that weapon to eradicate the most populated world in Terran space? Or when he abandons his own loyal subordinates to die at the hands of those Zerg?

The Rebel Yell campaign ends on a bitter note. Disillusioned with Arcturus Mengsk, you abandon ship before he has consolidated his power, forced to fight your way through the men who scant moments ago were your comrades and allies in order to escape the despotic regime that you helped put into power. As the fanfare and Arcturus Mengsk’s coronation speech plays in the background, you get images of dead Terrans and aliens rampaging unchecked, and you realise that nothing has changed. I’ll rant a lot about the lack of change and accomplishment throughout the Brood War campaigns when we get to them, but the difference here is that in Rebel Yell, this is the intended result. Throughout the campaign you feel like you’re fighting to achieve something meaningful, and the conclusion is that your hopes and expectations are dashed and all your efforts have been in vain. It’s a depressing start, but it makes your eventual and ultimate triumphs in the Protoss campaign all the sweeter.

The device that drives much of the plot in Rebel Yell is the Psi Emitter developed by the Confederacy. You get one mission to obtain it, two where you use it and one more where you witness some of its effects. One thing that the Psi Emitter has that makes it a good part of the story rather than an irritating plot enabler like the Shakuras Temple or the Xel’Naga Artefact is that it’s a logical and credible result of established character motivation and development. Despite what that weird instance in Brood War’s Reign of Fire would lead you to believe, the Psi Emitter isn’t some kind of Zerg magnet, it simply broadcasts the psionic signature of a Terran Ghost. The reason this attracts the Zerg is because of the Overmind’s motivations: it feels that it needs to assimilate the Terrans’ psionic potential in order to defeat the Protoss, and apparently hoped to use a powerful Terran psychic to save the Zerg from the Dark Voice’s schemes. The Psi Emitter simply broadcasts to the Zerg where they can find what they’re looking for, it’s a simple decoy. The Zerg don’t have to follow it, they choose to do so. And for the same reasons, it’s a credible technology for the Confederacy to develop. Once they realise that the Zerg are attracted to Ghosts, it’s a sensible theory to think that broadcasting a decoy Ghost’s neural imprint could allow the Confederacy some control as to where the Zerg will attack.

Overall, Rebel Yell has a solid and entertaining storyline, allowing easy immersion into StarCraft’s setting. The constant in this story is betrayal. It begins with the Confederacy arresting Raynor for saving a colony then abandoning you to the Zerg, it gets worse when you realise they actually unleashed the Zerg against you to test their efficiency as a weapon, and then you get the climax, with Mengsk’s betrayal of Kerrigan, and you turning your back on him.

Characters

Arcturus Mengsk

When I was reading some of the comments on Wings of Liberty’s campaign, there were many complaints about Arcturus Mengsk not reacting as ideally as a cold, calculating schemer should. And after replaying Rebel Yell, the reason for this became quite obvious: Mengsk is not a cold, calculating schemer. Oh, he’s a schemer all right. Deceitful and manipulative, a talented orator who knows how to pull at his audience’s emotions, but there’s nothing cold and calculating about him. In fact, he’s a short-tempered powder keg. He blows up at the slightest resistance to his desires. Like an arrogant and spoiled child, he tries to be polite and diplomatic because he knows this makes him look good. It is not enough that he be obeyed, he desires to be respected as well. At the same time, he is so certain of getting what he wants that when someone fails to fall in line, Mengsk has little patience for slowly cajoling or persuading him, and instead resorts to forcefulness.

It isn’t that Mengsk lacks intelligence or subtlety, far from. Rather, I suspect that his boundless ego might be the cause of this rapid hostility. He knows that he is convincing and charismatic, capable of influencing and manipulating people to his will, and he is so proud of this that whenever someone resists, he takes it as a personal affront, as though the person were insulting his talents.

The scene replays itself constantly throughout the campaign: Mengsk goes off about how it is necessary for them to do whatever it is he wants to do next, and if he is opposed, he shouts down any objections.

In Norad II, he appeals to his targets’ higher ideals and their ambition, explaining that they’re not doing this for Duke but to save an entire colony of innocent people, then teasing at how valuable a Confederate General could prove to be. When Kerrigan and Raynor fail to be impressed, he pulls rank and coldly states “I’m not asking you to like it, I’m asking you to do it.”

Then, in that same mission when he addresses Duke, he again tries to persuade Duke by drawing a dark picture of the Confederacy’s and even humanity’s future, but as Duke fails to jump on his offer, he grows more and more condescending and sarcastic, calling Duke by his first name in a degrading fashion, calling him a loser, treating him as an idiot for not seeing the obvious.

At the end of The Big Push, he is visibly irate that his subordinates are questioning his use of Psi Emitters, his answers are terse and allow no argument. He’s done with being polite with us. Same with New Gettysburg when Raynor openly questions his decision-making, Mengsk just ignores it and cuts communication. Likely already planning how he was going to get rid of Raynor once he was done with Kerrigan.

Mengsk tries one last time to be diplomatic during the briefing for The Hammer Falls, and it sounds really weird. It’s unlikely that Arcturus himself had any real expectations that this would work, it’s like he’s just going through the motions. Anyway, once called out on it, he goes straight to threats, including the famous “I will rule this Sector or see it burnt to ashes around me”.

I’m noting this because it’s exactly the same behaviour he exhibits in Wings of Liberty after Media Blitz, accusing the news against him of being slander and lies, but when the people fail to be appeased, he flies into a rage and acts as though personally offended. “You dare to question me?” he asks.

His anger also causes him to make some questionable decisions, like abandoning Kerrigan at New Gettysburg. Obviously Kerrigan was blindly loyal to Mengsk, but I imagine that the politician realised that even she might start noticing the truth once his Dominion failed to enact any positive change on Terran space, and having an idealistic highly trained assassin and Zerg magnet near you would be dangerous if you couldn’t ensure her loyalty. Also, I think subsequent lore has it that Kerrigan was the one who assassinated Angus Mengsk, but I doubt that was known at the time and therefore the reason Arcturus abandoned Kerrigan. But all in all, a subtler way of disposing of Kerrigan would have certainly been preferable to a colder, more thoughtful schemer, rather than openly displaying a lack of respect for underlings that would lead to desertion, as it obviously did for Raynor. But Kerrigan had displeased Mengsk by questioning him earlier, and she had outlived her usefulness anyway. I’m sure Mengsk was quite pleased to see her receive what he likely considered her comeuppance.

Likewise, I’m certain that Raynor was slated for death soon too – he had also questioned Mengsk over his use of the Psi Emitters, and his rant in the briefing for New Gettysburg clearly made him someone Arcturus would be eager to dispose of. I don’t think Arcturus in any way wanted to resecure his loyalty when he spoke to him before The Hammer Falls, but merely lull him before Mengsk could kill him.

Overall, Arcturus was a great character in this series, which is good because he’s essentially the one driving the campaign. Sure, Raynor is the protagonist, but it’s Arcturus Mengsk’s desires, ambitions and objectives that carry the plot. It’s his personality and the revelation thereof that leads to the climactic events of New Gettysburg and The Hammer Falls. Without an interesting character in Mengsk, Rebel Yell would most likely have been an uninteresting campaign.

There is the alternative possibility of course, that Arcturus really was well meaning and idealistic at the beginning of the campaign and that getting closer to power as well as the atrocities he had to commit to get there hardened him against the moral implications of his actions, but that’s really never played up in story, so it seems dubious. Arcturus never seems to doubt or question his choices, because he spends all of his time trying to convince others of their validity. It could be self denial, but it’s far more credible that he was simply lying.

Edmund Duke

General Duke is a character that has puzzled me for a while. I’m not entirely sure whether he’s supposed to be a good general or a horribly incompetent one. As I recall from Shadow of the Xel’Naga, he was a complete idiot, but it’s been a long time and as I mentioned in the foreword, I don’t really care for that book and see no reason to base my interpretation of the character from it.

The fact is that Duke is probably the character you defeat the most frequently in the entire game. Technically, you defeat the Overmind or Kerrigan every time you beat the Zerg, but I’m just counting times where the characters are directly implied or stated to be in command of opposing forces. In Rebel Yell alone, Duke is implied to be in command of the Alpha Squadron troops you overcome in Revolution and The Hammer Falls, and you witness him getting defeated by the Zerg before Norad II. That’s three times, in a campaign where he was actually on your side for three missions. The only other character implied to directly oppose you is Tassadar in New Gettysburg. It’s the lot of recurring henchmen of the antagonists to look incompetent because you beat them over and over.

Duke boasts about his prowess and the skill of his military unit, which can turn out to be laughably pathetic, for instance when he attacks Tassadar with a Battlecruiser and a handful of Wraiths, or met with general dismissal, like when Raynor answers a sardonic “right” to Duke’s boasting about Alpha Squadron’s abilities relative to Omega and Delta Squadron. This does indicate that his opinion regarding his abilities does not necessarily reflect reality, which is a staple of the incompetent general archetypes. It can be that he thinks he’s good whereas he is actually inept, or it may be that while actually good, he is deluded into thinking that he is even better.

On that other side, the manual does claim that Duke is one of the finest military minds in the Sector, and if we can believe his boasts, he’s successfully defended the Confederacy capital world numerous times, so some credit is due. Something else that struck me upon replaying the campaign is that he seems to be the only one of the main characters not to be fooled by Mengsk. Of course, as I explained earlier, Raynor and the player are set up in a position where they will be inherently receptive to Mengsk’s ideas, whereas Duke, as an enemy, is not. However, it is telling that even as the Sons of Korhal Dropships arrive to rescue him and his men, he immediately realises that Mengsk is doing this for a personal reason, not out of the goodness of his heart like he earlier told Raynor and Kerrigan.

In fact, if you look at it this way, then it is Edmund Duke, not Arcturus Mengsk, who is cold and calculating. It is an unfortunate assumption that people associate cold and calculating to deceitful and manipulative. Arcturus Mengsk is certainly intelligent, deceitful and manipulative, but as I pointed out above, he is also highly emotional and hot-tempered. Edmund Duke on the other hand has the subtlety of a box of bricks and while I believe he is intelligent and competent, he is not exceptionally gifted either. However, it does seem that barring absolute idiocy, he is a cool and unruffled character. He seems to react to every situation with contemptuous condescension. For example, contrast his mockery of the Magistrate in Desperate Alliance or his arrestation of Raynor in Backwater Station to Mengsk’s rant to Raynor in The Hammer Falls. Mengsk is clearly irate and swears revenge, and while Duke is insulting and threatening, that’s just who he is. There’s nothing personal about it, he likely doesn’t even think you’re worth it. Similarly, in his discussion with Mengsk and Raynor in Norad II, even though he is met with aggression, insults and condescension, Duke seems almost dismissive of the entire thing.

That said, Duke is not a very admirable character. He’s gratuitously offensive in speech and demeanour, he seems to have little respect for human life, especially seeing as how he was apparently hanging out on Mar Sara just watching people get slaughtered by the Zerg, he’s a hypocrite, accusing you of “not knowing where your loyalties lie” in Desperate Alliance then betraying the Confederacy as soon as Mengsk promises him a position in his cabinet – but not when it’s about the Confederacy falling apart or the Zerg rampaging unchecked. He brags and has an unduly high opinion of himself.

For all that, he makes a great antagonist. He doesn’t have the subtlety or power to be the villain of a plot, but he’s fun to defeat on the way, which is probably why he’s so often thrust into that role, as mentioned at the beginning of this passage.

James Raynor

Although I personally liked the device of having the player as an undefined character (here the Magistrate) in the campaign, the obvious problem is that you can’t really interact with the characters – because it is impossible to define your character, you can’t have character development or help other characters develop. That would make for a very bad story, but thankfully Blizzard gave us someone else to be our protagonist for storytelling purposes. Here, we have Jim Raynor. He’s supposed to follow a similar development as the player throughout the campaign, so he starts up, like you, a minor official on a fringe world being invaded by the Zerg. Raynor is an idealistic and heroic character, which makes it easy for us to root for him, as he typically acts in a way that we probably wish we could.

In the very second mission, Backwater Station, when the nasty government fails to intervene to help people in need, Raynor picks up his gun and Vulture and rides off to the rescue, kicking alien arse all the way. And when he gets betrayed and brought to jail for doing the right thing, he takes up arms with the Rebellion to right the wrongs in the system. Idealistic, like I said, and proactive. Even his job as Marshall is to uphold law and justice. With courage and integrity, nearly every action he takes in the campaign is geared towards helping humanity and saving lives. Raynor’s idealism is such that he doesn’t want to even associate with General Duke even despite the obvious advantages this would have for their cause.

Raynor is in for a rude awakening as he gets betrayed again and again. First by the Confederacy, which is probably a kick in the nuts, but worse still by Arcturus Mengsk. Because he joined the Sons of Korhal to improve the system, the realisation that Arcturus was equally corrupt and tyrannical strikes a terrible blow to Raynor. After all, if the system is evil, and the alternative is evil, what hope is there for humanity? All choices lead to ruin, so why bother making a choice at all? What is the point of taking any action at all? And to compound on the disaster, that betrayal kills Sarah Kerrigan. Kerrigan is an equally idealistic character, and probably even more naïve than Raynor, but we’ll get to that when we discuss her. Suffice it to say, the betrayal of Kerrigan means a lot of things for Raynor, most of which we’ll discuss in Wings of Liberty as they are central to that plot, but for now I’ll point out that as someone who shared Raynor’s high-minded ideals, her death is like a message that this is what awaits him: her death, betrayed by the people she was naïve enough to trust or love, is the fate that awaits all those foolish enough to have faith in others. Thus, we have the first major step that would lead Raynor to despair. Of course, Raynor is too much of a badarse to let that alone take him down, so for now he spits in Mengsk’s face and flies off.

Speaking of Sarah Kerrigan, as the protagonist and hero of the story, it was pretty much assumed (by me, anyway) that Raynor would end up with the only female character in the entire game. While Raynor expressed attraction (or thought of it, any way), it mostly seemed like this never came to be in Rebel Yell. Not because Raynor didn’t love Kerrigan, but because she was taken from him before he acted on it. There are two especially significant exchanges on this matter. The first is Raynor’s last conversation with Kerrigan in New Gettysburg. Raynor obviously realised the truth about Mengsk when he unleashed the Zerg on Tarsonis, and his last message to Kerrigan is an appeal to her. He wants them to leave now, before they do even more damage, before Arcturus does even more damage: to humanity, to her. Raynor is obviously protective of Kerrigan, but ultimately, he trusts her and lets her go, free to make her own choices and her own mistakes. This is part of why he blames himself for her fate.

The second is Raynor’s last message in the campaign, a remark he utters to himself. “Damn it, I never should have let her go alone.” You know, with the graphics available at the time, it is left to the voice actors to really bring forth the emotions felt by the character, and this is a great example. The tone expresses all of Raynor’s regrets. That he let her go, that he couldn’t save her, that he never told her how he felt about her. It’s also completely irrational, if he’d gone with her, then he’d be dead too, and nothing more. The whole tragedy which is started in the next campaign and becomes central to Wings of Liberty required that Raynor love Kerrigan, but I would not have expected it to be handled so clearly and yet with such subtlety. Very well done.

A last word about Raynor. I’m not sure how good a judge of character he is. He never figured Duke as the frontal assault type? Really? I have a hard time believing Duke can come up with anything else. The man has all the subtlety of a box of bricks, to repeat myself.

Sarah Kerrigan

We’ve already touched on Kerrigan’s importance regarding Raynor, and that’s a large part of why she was there. The most significant part was so she would be familiar to us when her infestation was revealed.

Anyway, while it was fairly apparent that Raynor loved Kerrigan, the opposite was not. In fact, I did for a time suspect she might be infatuated with Arcturus, her devotion to him went far beyond what should be reasonable. Like I said previously, Kerrigan is more naïve than Raynor, apparently still believing that “Arcturus will come around, I know he will” even after the man had fed an entire planet to the Zerg. That’s pretty extreme, so either she was blinded by her own loyalty, or else she loved Mengsk and couldn’t admit what he really was. Raynor certainly didn’t share her optimism on this issue, even though they were otherwise in usual agreement.

On the other hand, when the Zerg come crashing down it was to Jim and the Commander that she called for help, not Mengsk. So maybe she was just in denial, unwilling to admit that they had worked so hard for nothing.

I’m afraid there’s not much more I have to say about Kerrigan at this point that I haven’t said about Raynor. Idealistic and heroic. She’s clearly intelligent and moral enough to realise that what Arcturus does is wrong, and she confronts him about it, but ultimately she failed to act on her reluctance. She brings a bit of light-heartedness to the campaign for a short while in her early exchanges with Raynor, and her mysterious past in the Confederacy's Ghost program help explore the crimes of the Confederacy, and that's all I have to say for now, I think.

Overmind

Hidden Content:

Storyline

The Zerg campaign is the weakest of the three, I feel. Part of this is because it is fairly straightforward, not like the simplicity I praised in Rebel Yell, but a somewhat boring lack of variation and imagination. In Overmind, the campaign is about destroying everything on your path to invade Aiur. In Rebel Yell, the campaign was about overthrowing the Confederacy. These are somewhat similar, but they diverged in execution in a way that made the Terran campaign more enjoyable. For starters, Rebel Yell started before you joined the Sons of Korhal and played its way into joining the movement, establishing your motivation in wanting to defeat the Confederacy. Obviously this wasn’t feasible with the Zerg campaign. Likewise, the Sons of Korhal were in a position of weakness compared to the Confederacy, which meant you had to employ clever tactics in order to overcome the enemy. Your missions for the Sons of Korhal were to obtain Confederate intelligence, recruit allies to your cause, subvert Confederate officers to your side, and finally assault the Confederacy using an immoral weapon. This obviously allows for more development of both characters and factions than the Zerg campaign, where being in a position of strength, your missions essentially consist of crushing the Confederate survivors, crushing the Protoss survivors, crushing Duke's Dominion troops, crushing Raynor’s troops, crushing Tassadar, crushing Zeratul and crushing the defenders of Aiur. In fact it’s the enemy that employs clever strategies, like Tassadar’s feint in The Dark Templar.

However, that’s not the truest problem with this campaign. In the middle section, the campaign is enjoyable with the conflict between Kerrigan, Zasz, Raynor, Tassadar and Zeratul providing some interesting development that the story structure cannot, but the unfortunate fact is that this stronger passage is bracketed by a slow opening and an underwhelming climax.

The opening is slow, with four consecutive missions centred on protecting the Chrysalis. This is why I mentioned in the StarCraft overview that Kerrigan served as a plot device in the Zerg campaign despite being a character. Nearly half the campaign is spent on simply waiting for her metamorphosis to complete, without any development for the character. Thankfully, the payoff is significant, as Kerrigan’s personality strengthens the middle third of the campaign. Far more damning however is the invasion of Aiur. With Zasz dead and Kerrigan left behind, we are left with only Daggoth and the Overmind in the Zerg cast for these missions, and Daggoth doesn’t even speak except to comment on mission progress. Likewise, while the central part of Overmind was filled with conflict with notable Terran and Protoss characters, the last two missions are against the nondescript Vanguard of Aiur.

The objectives for those missions also rely on one-shot plot devices that never really made a lot of sense to me. Why exactly can the Overmind only “manifest” at the location of the Xel’Naga’s landing site? What use does the Khaydarin Crystal serve? What does "manifest" even mean? Does it mean he has to fly around in space, unable to land anywhere else? What is it that stops him from landing elsewhere? Does it mean that he can only assume corporeal form in such a place? Why would he even want to do that, since it does nothing but make him vulnerable? Why does he event want to “manifest” on Aiur? If he needs to “manifest” to assimilate the Protoss into the Swarm, then how did he “manifest” on all the worlds where he assimilated the Brontoliths and Mantis Screamers and what not? How did he intend to assimilate the Terrans for their psionic potential? Those worlds don’t contain Khaydarin Crystals, nor do they have spots where the Xel’Naga first landed. These elements do not help develop the characters, the factions or the world, they’re just padding to extend the campaign. It’s obviously a huge problem when a story’s climax is padding.

The root cause of these problems is probably the recurring flaw in Zerg campaigns: lack of Zerg characters. Overmind is the only Zerg campaign to offer a full cast of Zerg characters, with the Overmind, Daggoth, Zasz and Kerrigan. However, the hive mind of the Swarm largely prevents conflict, so both Cerebrates are largely reduced to acknowledging or agreeing with the Overmind, at least until Kerrigan shows up, and that prevents their personalities from really developing. The problem is that the Swarm is essentially a single character, with the Overmind, Daggoth, Zasz and even Kerrigan being merely different facets of that character. In a way, the Cerebrates are a means of introspection for the Overmind.

Thankfully, Kerrigan single-handedly saves this campaign, without her presence the campaign would likely have been terribly dreadful. Because Kerrigan was left with “the greatness of her spirit” she is allowed some individual motivation. It’s not that Zasz and Daggoth have no personality, it’s that they have no motivation distinct from the Overmind’s. Kerrigan’s presence thus allows conflict with Zasz, developing both their personalities. Likewise, her ego forces more direct confrontations with her enemies, allowing us to develop them as well. So despite an unimaginative and overextended plot (the entire campaign is essentially two or three missions dragged out over ten) the midcampaign stays enjoyable on the strength of its characters. Which makes the final two missions all the more anticlimactic.

I can’t say I’m a fan of the Overmind retcon from Wings of Liberty, but playing this campaign with that perspective suddenly makes a lot of sense. For example, the original explanation for the Zerg invasion of the Koprulu Sector was the need to assimilate humanity’s psionic ability into the Swarm to overcome the Protoss. This is evidently achieved through the infestation of Sarah Kerrigan, but then she is left behind on Char rather than brought over to spearhead the assault on Aiur. With the new motivation for Kerrigan’s infestation, this suddenly makes sense. Likewise, the Overmind’s final words: “Now shall the events set into motion so long ago be made complete,” and “Indeed, our two species are but opposite facets of a greater whole. Soon shall our two races be made as one.” These take new meaning with the Xel’Naga life cycle in mind.
As I said, Overmind has a weak storyline propped up by interesting character conflict, so I might as well move directly to the characters in question.

Characters

Daggoth

I’ve suggested earlier that the Cerebrates, being facets of the Swarm that are mirrored wholly within the Overmind exist as a means of introspection for it. Of course, they were created to allow the Overmind to divide its attention to the numerous Broods, just as the Overlords and Queens exist so that the Cerebrates don’t have to spread their attention to every individual Zerg in their Brood. This also reflects on the loss of these echelons: when Overlords die, the Cerebrates are no longer capable of spawning new Zerg, as their control is already taxed by the existing minds they have to pay attention to. This explains why the Garm Brood had to be put down in The Culling, rather than the Overmind simply taking control of it and creating a new Cerebrate for it, or dividing the Brood among existent Cerebrates.

It also might explain the increased development of Queens and Overseers in Wings of Liberty, as the removal of the Cerebrates places additional strain on the lower echelons of the Zerg hierarchy.

But back to Daggoth. While the Cerebrates might have been created merely as part of the command structure, that role does not require that they have sentience or personalities, anymore than Queens or Overlords. Every Cerebrate seems to have a unique, overriding purpose that is not shared with other Cerebrates and defines their personality. For the player – I assume this is Araq, the Cerebrate in command of the Jormungand Brood – this is a focus on the microcosm rather than the macrocosm. Instead of being focused on the Overmind’s vision, the Swarm’s “grand mission” which apparently drives the other Cerebrates, it looks only to the preservation and development of Kerrigan. This also makes the choice of bringing the player to Aiur bizarre, but then again not showing the invasion of Aiur would have been worse, so I guess the real question, again, is why Kerrigan wasn’t brought along as well.

Daggoth’s main purpose seems to be asking the question: “how?” As the Overmind’s right hand, he oversees whatever the primary concern of the Swarm is for the moment, and ensures that it is handled as well as possible. For this reason, when the priority is on your defending the Chrysalis, he teaches you how to defend yourself and expand your Brood so you can deal with your task, and sends his Hunter Killers to support your forces so you can deal with any threat as efficiently as possible. When you risk having your attention divided between the Terrans and the Chrysalis, Daggoth jumps in to make sure you stay focused on your priority, dealing with the distractions for you. Likewise, he’s the one to decide that the Swarm’s integrity takes precedence over hunting down the Protoss, or that the Dark Templar must be neutralised before invading Aiur.
For this reason, much of Daggoth’s input in the game comes from directions within the missions, as he watches over you to make sure that you’re doing your task optimally, for example warning you that your Overlords are out of place in Eye for an Eye or reminding you of your next objective in the Aiur missions.
Because Daggoth is such a goal-oriented character, and his goals are all the Overmind’s, there’s little opportunity for him to develop much beyond being a competent and efficient Cerebrate. His opportunity should have come in Brood War, after the Overmind’s death, but sadly that did not happen.

Edmund Duke

Duke’s single appearance in Overmind does little to develop the character (few characters in the series truly develop once they have been fully revealed) but it does confirm what I’d previously said about him. His confrontation with the Swarm puts his total number of defeats thus far to four, the runner-up being Tassadar with two if you count the feint in The Dark Templar as a loss, which I don’t. He again comes in overconfident in his abilities and gets crushed. It’s especially funny to note that between his orders that “I don’t want any slip-ups this time” and the shouts of “All right you sorry bastards, fall back!” Duke seems to be placing all the blame for his failures on the heads of his soldiers. Somehow that’s no surprise at all from General Duke.

Since he doesn’t appear directly in this campaign, I didn’t give Mengsk his own section, but I’ll talk about him here since it is his motivations that have brought Duke to Char. He was of course made aware of Kerrigan’s presence there when she reached out to him from within the Chrysalis, but Kerrigan seems to think that Duke was sent to “retrieve her”. Now that seems very unlikely to me, and may be further evidence that Kerrigan may have feelings toward Arcturus that cause her delusions when thinking of him. Mengsk quite clearly left her to die on Tarsonis, if he didn’t save her then, he wouldn’t send Duke all the way to Char to do so now. More likely, and as is suggested by the fact that Duke’s orders contain no mention of rescue or search – or even capture and experimentation – but merely the eradication of Zerg, Mengsk probably sent Duke to finish the job and kill Kerrigan for good.

James Raynor

The tragedy of Raynor and Kerrigan’s relationship takes a huge step up here, as they confront each other once more. Raynor’s theme of doing really stupid things to save Kerrigan also starts here. Raynor has brought his men to a barren, Zerg-infested volcanic world for nothing more than dreams of her. These dreams could very well have been nothing more than nightmare juxtaposing the Zerg that took everything from him, and the defining loss of Kerrigan on Tarsonis, but he still had to come, because there was a chance, no matter how small, that he could save her. How he got his crew to follow him on this venture is a mystery, I guess he didn’t precisely explain why he was coming. Oh, and in case that wasn’t bad enough, General Duke, the guy they were running away from, is here too.

Nobody does that just out of love, mind you. It’s clear that Raynor did love Kerrigan, and as finally is revealed here, the opposite is also true. However, her loss represents a lot more to Raynor than just a single woman he loved. Kerrigan is every single human consumed by the Zerg which Raynor was unable to save. She is every victim of Mengsk’s treachery which Jim helped him commit. She is also the loss of his own innocence, an idealistic young human destroyed by contact with a reality that contains people like Arcturus Mengsk, in a way that reflects both his own waning faith in humanity and betrayed hopes for the future, as well as his eventual fate if he refuses to accept reality. And she’ll eventually become even more than that.

Her infestation adds a nightmarish cast to this tragedy, because Raynor feels responsible for her infestation, he also feels responsible for her actions after she becomes infested. As Kerrigan’s actions draw her further and further from humanity, so does Raynor die a little more inside. Thus, to save Kerrigan is not only to save the woman he loves, or to symbolically renew his faith that he can actually help people, but it is also self-serving. If Raynor cannot save Kerrigan, he will eventually destroy himself.

One final detail. Despite Kerrigan’s infestation, Raynor still acts as though she were human, treating her like the person he once loved. If Kerrigan was delusional about Mengsk sending Duke to “retrieve her”, Raynor is delusional about what Kerrigan has become.

The Overmind

As the “eternal will of the Swarm”, the Overmind’s character is essentially the entire Zerg Swarm’s character. Which raises a curious dichotomy: the Zerg generally behave in an aggressive, erratic and instinctive fashion, whereas the Overmind displays a cold, rational and farsighted personality. Again, every trait exhibited by every single Zerg is fully mirrored within the Overmind, so I wonder. Perhaps the Overmind, feeling that these traits would hinder its analysis and planning of the Swarms grand scheme, decided to thrust it within the furthest extents of its being, where they would be less damaging to the greater organism? Or maybe it’s simply a result of their lack of intelligence, and the Overmind also shares those impulses buts is capable of maintaining itself under control.

Whatever the case may be, the Overmind appears as a strong, authoritarian, father figure throughout the campaign. All Zerg, including the player, are its children, endlessly trying to please it in order to obtain its approval. By the Overmind’s approval are all actions given value. Therefore, as you succeed in your missions, the Overmind gives you praise. “And so long as my prize remains intact, I shall remain pleased.” Likewise, when Zasz questions Kerrigan’s selfish choices, the ultimate remonstrance is incurring the Overmind’s displeasure. Kerrigan even calls the Overmind “father” upon birth. I guess the player would be her mother then, as the nurturing, protective embrace that saw her through her birth and youth, and spared all attentions on her, while the Overmind was out ensuring her future.

The Overmind also has the role of mystic or philosopher. I elaborated on how Daggoth’s personality was all about efficiently accomplishing the Overmind’s vision, he and the other Cerebrates take care of all the work, allowing it the freedom of contemplation. The Overmind is the visionary, and the Cerebrates like Daggoth are the one who turn that vision into reality.

I started this section by stating that the Overmind is synonymous with the Swarm. As a consequence, the Overmind is truly immortal, so long as even a single Zerg remains, as he embodies the sentience of the Zerg hive mind. This is why I suspect that its “manifestation” on Aiur was actually an incarnation – giving physical form to what was previously no more than the gestalt of all Zerg consciousness. Why it would wish to do this, however, is still fairly mysterious to me. Again, the Overmind retcon from Wings of Liberty provides an explanation – the Overmind intended to die, and taking physical form was necessary to achieve this. Still, it seems unlikely that its thought process would allow him to so actively contribute to its own defeat, so there must be something more to it, especially given that this explanation did not exist at the time.

Anyway, I have a hypothesis as to why the Overmind is harmed by the Void energies. The Void is described as being the emptiness of space, and as far as I understand astronomy, most – nearly all – of space is emptiness. It is this emptiness that divides all cosmic objects, the result of the break of cohesion after the Big Bang. As I was explaining, the Overmind’s immortality derives from the fact that it is not an actual physical being, but the unity of Zerg consciousness. The Overmind is every Zerg trait, every Zerg thought, everything that can in anyway be considered Zerg, condensed into a single point. It is the Zerg singularity. I further speculate that the Void would force emptiness into this singularity. Like the emptiness of space from which it draws its power, the Void creates emptiness between the thoughts of the Zerg, causing the singularity to lose its cohesion, until it is no longer a single point, but many. Instead of a single Zerg Overmind, there are trillions of tiny Zerg minds.

Of course, the Overmind does say that the Dark Templar wield energies that are much like its own, so my hypothesis is most likely wrong, since it would mean that the Void is actually the antithesis of the Overmind, and not in any way similar. Still, it’s an interesting thought exercise into the functioning of the Swarm and the Overmind.

Sarah Kerrigan

What exactly the infestation did to Kerrigan as a character is unclear. Evidently, this is not a development of the character of Sarah Kerrigan as she was established in Rebel Yell, while they do share the name, identity and memories, their personalities are nothing alike. While one could expect that being betrayed by the people you trusted most and being infested into the Zerg Swarm are very traumatic events that could lead to drastic changes in perspective and character, this doesn’t seem to be what we have here. Kerrigan, especially in Overmind, never really seems to consider her actions or motives. Her behaviour, her emotions, her thoughts, none have any resemblance to those she had when she was human. Psychologically, she is in fact a new character, not a development of an existing character.

At the same time, it seems unlikely that it is as simple as straightforward mind control. She quite clearly takes actions that do not exactly fit in with the Swarm’s objectives. In Agent of the Swarm for instance, the Overmind commands “Let not a Terran survive” but Kerrigan allows Raynor and his crew to leave. And in The Amerigo, she strives for self-improvement even though that only indirectly serves the purpose of the Swarm. Indeed, the Overmind states that “the greatness of her spirit has been left to her”.

The explanation that sounds most likely to me is simply that her though processes have been altered. It is already well established that brain damage can alter the personality or create various disorders. With all the apparent physical changes the infestation had on Kerrigan, it is not too hard to believe that her brain was altered as well. Likewise, in Agent of the Swarm she says that “I'm one of the Zerg, now. And I like what I am. You can't imagine how this feels...” Despite this, she will later (in True Colors) suggest the opposite. This euphoric feeling to me suggests, like her constant rage, that her new form releases hormones that affect her thoughts and actions.

So all in all, I believe that Kerrigan is in there somewhere, but it’s a Kerrigan that could be compared to suffering from various personality disorders while drugged and drunk. As such, I do not hold her responsible for her actions, because while she is free to make her own choices, she does not have the ability to correctly judge the consequences or moral implications of those choices. She is far gone from the woman who once claimed that “I just don't think anyone deserves to have the Zerg unleashed on them.”

Anyway, Kerrigan claims that she reached out to Raynor and Mengsk telepathically, and while the reason she called out for Raynor is made obvious in Agent of the Swarm – she loved him too – her relationship to Mengsk suddenly struck me as obvious. During my commentary on Rebel Yell I noted that it felt a bit like Kerrigan was infatuated with Mengsk, but now that I think further on it, it seems far more likely that she adopted Mengsk as a surrogate father.

Kerrigan after all was inducted into the Confederate Ghost Program. Raynor says that she was “part of those experiments with the Zerg, that Mengsk came and saved” her. Kerrigan was 26 when StarCraft begins, at what age was she taken from her family? I checked this out on the wiki, and the answer is apparently 8 years old, after she destroyed both her parents in one form or another. Yes, I think this makes far more sense. Evidently, the Ghost Program didn’t feel like family for her, or not a good one, anyway, otherwise she wouldn’t feel that Mengsk saved her. Arcturus, being the manipulative bastard we all know him to be, likely took advantage of this in order to secure her loyalty, providing her with the family she always needed.

This also explains her character portrayal. In the Rebel Yell commentary, I noted that she was far more idealistic and naïve than Raynor. Raynor had a strong faith in humanity, but he didn’t delude himself about their capacity for evil, he simply wanted to work against it. That’s why he acted without Confederate approval early in the game, that’s why he yelled at Mengsk in New Gettysburg, it’s why he eventually turned on him. Kerrigan was portrayed as more childish, a strange depiction for a character that is after all a professional assassin. She built her new life around her faith in Mengsk, taking confidence that his strength and confidence would always be a safe haven for her. That’s why she stuck with him – she was afraid of being without him, she feared incurring his disapproval. It’s why she called out to him from within the Chrysalis, because when lost in the dark and monsters are hiding nearby, who else does a child turn to but her father? In a way, New Gettysburg was Kerrigan being forced to grow up, but that didn’t really turn out well. She was pushed from the nest when she wasn’t ready, so she crashed into the ground.

Thus as infested Kerrigan, she is in her adolescence. The Overmind is a father figure for all the Zerg, but Kerrigan is the only one to directly acknowledge him as such. The Cerebrates call him “Overmind” and Zasz compares their relationship to a master-servant one. This gives a slightly humorous perspective to Kerrigan’s constant rage and her overly boastful demeanour, as a caricature of puberty. It also explains why Kerrigan, as a human and an individual, only ever acted to further father-figure Arcturus Mengsk’s objectives, but as a now enslaved member of the Zerg hive mind she strains to push her boundaries, straining to see how far she can stray from the Overmind’s will but still fearing to displease him and desperate for his approval, quarrelling with her siblings to prove who is the favoured child, and so forth. She also begins to learn more about herself, her mission in The Amerigo being a journey of self discovery.

Her antagonistic attitude toward the Protoss displays an almost laughable insecurity. She tries to cover herself with titles: “Queen of the Zerg” and “Queen of Blades”, trying to force people to respect her with words rather than by her actions. She overcompensates to hide those insecurities – heedlessly charging headfirst at everyone who has the audacity to question her, exaggerating her own abilities past the point of parody: “my stare alone would reduce you to ashes.” Come on, now.

Kerrigan still has memories of her past life, she remembers her love for Raynor, for example, but I don’t know that she actually has the capacity for love in her newly reformed brain. I suspect that the main reason she wants to preserve Raynor is because she fears that she will never experience that feeling again. Raynor is the only thing that can trigger that unique euphoria, and if she loses him, that part of her will be forever lost, like so much else of what she once was is now lost to the Zerg infestation. Unknown to the Overmind, this was probably her greatest act of defiance – her exploration of the Amerigo would ultimately contribute to the development of the Swarm, but saving Raynor is a desperate grasp for the preservation of her past, human, individual identity against the Zerg hive mind – against the Overmind.

Tassadar

We technically encountered Tassadar in Rebel Yell, but not as a character. With what we’ll learn later, it’s likely that the reason he engaged the Zerg directly on Tarsonis rather than purifying the planet is because the planets previously purged were scarcely inhabited fringe worlds – and even then, he gave the Terrans time to evacuate the planet before assaulting it. Tarsonis, as the Confederate capital world, would be so densely populated that Tassadar couldn’t condone the massive number of innocent lives that would be lost from following orders. Arcturus claims that if the Protoss engage the Zerg, the Confederates might escape, and that was probably exactly what Tassadar wanted.

Because Tassadar didn’t purify Tarsonis, the Overmind was capable of achieving its goal and infesting Kerrigan. Thus, Tassadar is at least as responsible as Raynor for Kerrigan’s fate and her subsequent atrocities. While Tassadar does express sorrow for Kerrigan’s fate, he is also much wiser than Raynor. Rather than self-blame and self-pity, he understands that sometimes, there are no easy choices, and sometimes mistakes are made. Rather than regret what cannot be changed, Tassadar looks forward, to correcting those mistakes and trying to learn from them.

Tassadar only appears in one mission, The Dark Templar, which is about his confrontation with Kerrigan. In it, he demonstrates that he is absolutely awesome. It isn’t easy to portray a scenario where you lose in a strategy game, because obviously the difficulty in gameplay is in winning. You can go the route of In Utter Darkness from Wings of Liberty and present an unwinnable scenario where you simply have to lose not as badly as you otherwise could. Or you can simply have the villain shout “all according to plan!” at the end of the mission. While this technically counts as the latter case, as it was a diversion for Zeratul’s attack, it’s also a clear victory for Tassadar against Kerrigan as individual characters. He was toying with her the whole while.
As I expressed earlier, Kerrigan’s behaviour demonstrates profound insecurity and her overcompensation for it. In the briefing for The Dark Templar, Tassadar shows up to taunt Kerrigan. After pointing out all that she has lost due to her infestation, something that she feels strongly about, as demonstrated by her behaviour with Raynor, Kerrigan reacts with a blatant change of subject. Where Tassadar points out her frailties as a character, Kerrigan replies with boasts about her power. Tassadar calls her out on this too, calling this fixation an “infantile test of will”. Kerrigan reacts as most adolescents do when treated like children. She throws a fit.

Tassadar likewise understands why she tries to conceal herself behind titles. He constantly refers to her as “O Queen”, mocking her desperate need for praise, and contrasting her self-glorification with his own presentation. Tassadar gives no titles, not even his authentic position of Executor, he does not boast about his power. In fact, it seems he’s actively decided to show only a fraction of his abilities, as Kerrigan claims that “I sense that your vaunted power has diminished since last we met.” Because I can see no reason for Tassadar’s power to decrease between this encounter and the confrontation in New Gettysburg, and because if anything his powers should in fact be growing now that he has started mastering the Dark Templar’s Void energies, this apparent diminution can only be a voluntary disguise. Where Kerrigan shouts “I am great, don’t you dare judge me otherwise!” Tassadar’s introduction states “Judge me for who I am, and you will not find me lacking.”

This climaxes with Kerrigan’s duel with Tassadar, undeniably my favourite scene in the entire series. In the briefing, Kerrigan called Tassadar foolish twice. With this duel, Tassadar demonstrates who the true fool is, without ever having to raise a hand against her.

Zasz

If Daggoth represents the Overmind wondering “how?” then Zasz is the Overmind wondering “why?”. Zasz is constantly trying to figure out how things work. For example, it sounds eager to watch how the player reacts to its first jump through Warp space, perhaps hoping to learn something from this.

The real opportunity for development from Zasz comes when Kerrigan is reborn. Because she is given unparalleled latitude and conserves some of her memories from before her infestation, she behaves in a manner unlike any Zerg Zasz has had the opportunity to study before. Kerrigan commands Zasz not to question her, but questioning seems to be Zasz’s entire purpose for existing. In words that seem almost prophetic, Zasz claims that Kerrigan will be the doom of them all. Whether this was an understanding that Kerrigan’s ability to defy others who should have been a part of herself would lead her to actively destroy them for her self-aggrandisement in Brood War, or whether it was simply a reaction to being threatened, we may never know as he sadly dies too soon for this development to go anywhere.

Zasz is an interesting character as it expresses self-doubt. Because all Zerg organisms share the same Overmind, every time Zasz questions the behaviour or actions of another Zerg, it is questioning itself. Rather than becoming burdened by these questions, Zasz tries to find answers and thus strengthen the Swarm by resolving any flaw that it might find within its functioning. As Kerrigan would prove to be a major flaw to the integrity of the Zerg, it’s good that Zasz focused on her immediately. Kerrigan, on the other hand, was completely blind by her own volition. If one accepts that the Cerebrates exist for the Overmind to facilitate introspection, then Kerrigan’s own slaughter of the Cerebrates and elimination of every other sentience within the Swarm demonstrates her crippling insecurity, her unwillingness to allow herself to consider her actions, out of fear that it would remind her of all that she has lost from her infestation, and that it would end with self-loathing. Thus, Kerrigan in Brood War will isolate herself within a cocoon of sycophantic adulation, and with people she can clearly treat as enemies. Black and white. No confusion, no questioning, no doubt.

Just as she commanded Tassadar not to presume to judge her, she commands Zasz not to question her. She is gladdened by Zasz’s death. Perhaps her dementia has lead her to consider all who question her as enemies? Perhaps, to her, Zasz was as much of a threat as Tassadar was? If so, then this again would be Kerrigan placing her own needs to preserve her Terran vestiges as a higher importance than the well being of the Swarm.

Zeratul

Zeratul first appears in this campaign, but he does not get a real introduction. He only speaks once, and while he calls Kerrigan a whore, (well, concubine of the Zerg isn’t exactly a whore, but it is fairly close. Concubines are women kept by men for sex and to produce children, but not worth marrying.) there’s not much to say about him. I wonder if he was sarcastic when he replied “Well spoken” to Kerrigan’s calling him a coward? I should hope so, but Zeratul will demonstrate a weird tendency to congratulate Kerrigan for her random violence, so maybe he’s being honest and it’s part of the Nerazim culture. Who knows?

As the one who slew Zasz and gave the Overmind the location of Aiur, the things he has done in this campaign will weigh on Zeratul, though they are perhaps best examined within the greater context of The Fall and the examination of the Protoss whole that will follow.

Post is too lengthy to include further instalments.

Thoughts on The Fall are on Page 2.
Thoughts on The Stand are on page 2.
Thoughts on The Iron Fist are on page 3
Thoughts on Queen of Blades are on page 8
Thoughts on Wings of Liberty are on page 18
Thoughts on the Hybrid story arc are on page 24

[drakolobo]

quite entertaining

[Quirel]

Wow.
You clearly put a lot of work into this.

Keep up the good work, there's little in this that I can really disagree with.

[Arous]

Very interesting thoughts, thank you. Looking forward to read next parts.

[Norfindel]

Nice read, thank you.

[MajinX]

Only thing I think might be slightly contradictory is how raynor is supposed to be a bit of a badass, dealing behind the back not caring about the rules sort of guy in the recent novels. He seemed a bit too naive and trusting in the beginning of the SC story. Although he is alot older in SC than in the novels where hes in his late teens and early 20s.

[FanaticTemplar]

Added commentary for Overmind, and reformatted the post for ease of reading.

Only thing I think might be slightly contradictory is how raynor is supposed to be a bit of a badass, dealing behind the back not caring about the rules sort of guy in the recent novels. He seemed a bit too naive and trusting in the beginning of the SC story. Although he is alot older in SC than in the novels where hes in his late teens and early 20s.

Well, I didn't read the books, because Shadow of the Xel'Naga was horrible and discouraged me from trying others, but by me reckoning, Raynor is not too naïve in Rebel Yell. Sure, he's idealistic, and he gets tricked by Arcturus Mengsk in the beginning, but those don't necessarily mean that he's naïve.

He also acts behind the back of the government that he's supposed to be working for to save Backwater Station, demonstrating that he understands that he isn't foolish enough to believe that everything will turn out fine if he doesn't act, and that you can't just trust the authorities to solve all your problems for you.

[drakolobo]

Why does he event want to “manifest” on Aiur? If he needs to “manifest” to assimilate the Protoss into the Swarm, then how did he “manifest” on all the worlds where he assimilated the Brontoliths and Mantis Screamers and what not? How did he intend to assimilate the Terrans for their psionic potential?

is supposed to overmind was a purely psychic entity, and the assimilation of the protoss, it take a physical form on Aiur. also good for me that was comforting WoL showed the reason I was put in a very vulnerable condition . basically it was suicide

[phazonjunkie]

I think this would be and excellent editorial for the main page when you're finally finished with it.

[Arous]

Wow, is there going to be seven parts in the end?