SC:L Retcons Analysis and Archive

[flak4321]

I wanted to point out something, as a writer: I note in attempting to parallel lore development of the Warcraft series with Starcraft's something that may help understand some story choices. Note that in the transitions from war1 to war3 the events of the previous games were assumed as having happened, but no attempt was made to acknowledge them otherwise (that I can see) before WoW. As WoW unfolded, other authors began expanding the WC universe. It would seem, inconsistencies and all, that the WC lore has flowed uniterrupted from game to game to expansion because new games were launched and Blizz gave the lore consistent enough attention to guide its direction properly.

Starcraft on the other hand, has no such lore flow. The initial game's story is separated by 12 years (from BW release) and many other projects not tying into the SC universe. This interruption has caused a "fracture of flow", obscuring the original ideas for the next chapters. Adding to this are the inconsistencies created by the many novels and mangas expanding the SC universe. Because these novels were written without at least 1 sequel game already done, there was not enough structure to hold the original story in as solid a state, to guide the flow, as that of the WC universe.

This results in a mix of inconsistencies that range from the generally acceptable (i.e. the changes in Raynor's and Mengsk's appearances, the appearances of the Taldarim in-game) to the plausible (the corruption of the Overmind, the inconsistencies between Queen of Blades and SC1) to the questionable (the various passings of the SC1 player characters: Magistrate/Commander, Executor, Cerebrate; Swann's Thor creation) to at last the barely but possibly acceptable such as Jedi Ghost Tassadar. This last group may transition up the chain with HotS and LotV providing greater context. In short, what we have is an unintentional imbalance of the lore flow.

This begs the question: has Blizzard failed the lore of SC? Not entirely, no. Blizz is merely guilty of being slow and distracted, and rightfully so. It is for us to find and understand the connections and inconsistencies, note them to Blizzard (politely), and see what they have in store for us. it is with this commentary that I thank Gifted for his excellent and ongoing retcon work and preach some patience with Blizz. Just as we are trying to be patient with the gameplay balance issues, so to must we be with the lore balance.

Edit: This speaks of the lore itself. The execution of the new lore in-game was also lacking on many grounds, but not so much you couldn't follow it. Could it have been more exciting, more enthralling? Yes. Definitely. But it was good nonetheless. Just not great. And it has little affect on the lore itself. Presentation does not change the facts, it merely shades our interpretation.

[Gradius]

it is with this commentary that I thank Gifted for his excellent and ongoing retcon work and preach some patience with Blizz

It's Gradius. But thanks.

[mr. peasant]

I wanted to point out something, as a writer: I note in attempting to parallel lore development of the Warcraft series with Starcraft's something that may help understand some story choices. Note that in the transitions from war1 to war3 the events of the previous games were assumed as having happened, but no attempt was made to acknowledge them otherwise (that I can see) before WoW. As WoW unfolded, other authors began expanding the WC universe. It would seem, inconsistencies and all, that the WC lore has flowed uniterrupted from game to game to expansion because new games were launched and Blizz gave the lore consistent enough attention to guide its direction properly.

Starcraft on the other hand, has no such lore flow. The initial game's story is separated by 12 years (from BW release) and many other projects not tying into the SC universe. This interruption has caused a "fracture of flow", obscuring the original ideas for the next chapters. Adding to this are the inconsistencies created by the many novels and mangas expanding the SC universe. Because these novels were written without at least 1 sequel game already done, there was not enough structure to hold the original story in as solid a state, to guide the flow, as that of the WC universe.

This results in a mix of inconsistencies that range from the generally acceptable (i.e. the changes in Raynor's and Mengsk's appearances, the appearances of the Taldarim in-game) to the plausible (the corruption of the Overmind, the inconsistencies between Queen of Blades and SC1) to the questionable (the various passings of the SC1 player characters: Magistrate/Commander, Executor, Cerebrate; Swann's Thor creation) to at last the barely but possibly acceptable such as Jedi Ghost Tassadar. This last group may transition up the chain with HotS and LotV providing greater context. In short, what we have is an unintentional imbalance of the lore flow.

This begs the question: has Blizzard failed the lore of SC? Not entirely, no. Blizz is merely guilty of being slow and distracted, and rightfully so. It is for us to find and understand the connections and inconsistencies, note them to Blizzard (politely), and see what they have in store for us. it is with this commentary that I thank Gifted for his excellent and ongoing retcon work and preach some patience with Blizz. Just as we are trying to be patient with the gameplay balance issues, so to must we be with the lore balance.

Edit: This speaks of the lore itself. The execution of the new lore in-game was also lacking on many grounds, but not so much you couldn't follow it. Could it have been more exciting, more enthralling? Yes. Definitely. But it was good nonetheless. Just not great. And it has little affect on the lore itself. Presentation does not change the facts, it merely shades our interpretation.

Except... that's not quite right. Blizzard didn't really have large gaps between development of Starcraft-related games. What it did have was large gaps between their actual releases. Brood War came out in 1998. By 2001, they were already working on SC: Ghost. In 2003, SC2 started development. The gap of 2-3 years (if even that) between projects is short compared to the time it took SC2 to be completed.

The reason why the lore wasn't perfectly consistent between SC1 and SC2 is simply because Blizzard has never been too fussed with regards to keeping lore perfectly consistent. It has always been their practice to adjust/modify/reinterpret/add to previous events in order to suit their current story. Classic examples would be how the world of Azeroth suddenly evolved from a single kingdom to one containing many nations as well as possess a host of sentient races - none of which were hinted of before, let alone seen - between WC1 and WC2 (and this was with only 1 year between the games' release), how Medivh's character slowly turned from villain to tragic hero over the course of time (not to mention the significance of his death changed) and how the term 'Azeroth' kept changing to mean everything from a nation (actually Stormwind), continent and world.

In all honesty, Blizzard doesn't put story and lore as top priority. If it gets in the way of the story they want to tell or gameplay, they will tweak it or even work around it. For instance, notice how Blizzard completely failed to explain how Zeratul, Tassadar and Raynor met in SC1? That was kind of an oversight, seeing as it was the pivotal alliance that won the war against the Overmind.

The reason lore inconsistency is more apparent now is because of the internet (specifically online Wikis) and online discussion; both of which provide easy reminder of the events as well as helped solidify our interpretation of said events. In the past, we could/would rationalise any inconsistency as Blizzard trying to bridge the gap between the two campaigns found in WC1 and WC2.

[Hawki]

Not really a response, but kind of my 2 cents on a trend that I think past comments have highlighted. Kind of similar to flak's post in general comments.

Something I've noticed about Blizzard's main sagas is the...well, saga format. Taking the main medias as examples:

Warcraft

I think Orcs and Humans to Tides of Darkness/Beyond the Dark Portal forms the first saga. No matter which side won in the first game, there was the hint of things to come-the human ending foreshadowed discovering the orcs' point of origin, while the Horde ending foreshadowed an invasion across the sea or opening new portals. Ultimately the Horde ending becomes canon and Tides of Darkness occurs, in which both endings were very much final. In this sense, Beyond the Dark Portal is kind of "books ends," where it has a linear storyline, settles the ending of Tides of Darkness and pretty much brings the storyline to an end. I think Warcraft could well and truely have ended then and there.

Reign of Chaos is a bit difficult to place-on one hand, I think it forms its own saga in a sense with The Frozen Throne, yet also ties-in with aspects of the previous installments. The Burning Legion, only hinted at to this point, is brought into play and Medivh returns-contray to what was said earlier, Medivh's corruption was hinted as early as Orcs and Humans, explained in Tides of Darkness and ultimately redeemed in Reign of Chaos. Once again, I think Warcraft could have ended with Reign of Chaos.

On the other hand, it leads into the events of The Frozen Throne, which, IMO, wouldn't have been a good place to end the series. Both games effectively form a second saga to link to the third saga of World of Warcraft. Can't say too much about that, as the saga's still ongoing, but from intuition and the leaked forum document, I'd guess it ends with Sargeras's defeat and a fourth, new saga begins with Warcraft IV. Likely something completely new there.

Diablo

Diablo's 'saga format' has some similarities to Warcraft. I think it's fair to say that the first saga is effectively Diablo to Lord of Destruction, like the first Warcraft saga in length. There is however, a problem with this analogy in that Diablo II doesn't end in the same manner as Tides of Darkness-if anything, it ends on a cliffhanger. The second issue is that Diablo III has been directly stated to finish what the first game began. Still, given the time gap, I'd say it would be more akin to Reign of Chaos, where it ties in some things, but effectively follows a mini-saga of its own. Certainly expansions have been confirmed.

Beyond that would likely be the third saga, which has been confirmed, at least in the sense that Diablo III is explicitly not the end of the series. My guess would be that it focusses on the other worlds hinted at in the Sin War Trilogy.

StarCraft

There's sort of a saga format here...what makes StarCraft different in that the first game had an expansion that continued the story rather than acting as a sidequel (e.g. as Hellfire was to the first Diablo game). The original game, I think, could have functioned as a stand-alone, yet ending it at Brood War wouldn't have been satisfactory. Question is, is Legacy of the Void the end of a first saga, or will the StarCraft II Trilogy be regarded as the second saga, StarCraft the first and Brood War effectively an interquel? Hard to say, I think that like Warcraft III, it's a bit of both. Personally however, I really think of it as one saga. Keep in mind the timeframes involved with its counterparts-17 years pass between Beyond the Dark Portal and Reign of Chaos (or 13 if you insist, but I think that timeline variant has been rendered null) and 20 years between Lord of Destruction and Diablo III. There's only a measly 4 years between Brood War and Wings of Liberty however, so I think it's kind of the same saga.

So what will saga 2 bring? Well, first there actually has to be a second saga, and that's not even been confirmed. There was a time where I wouldn't have been surprised if Legacy of the Void was truely the last installment in the series, given that there were far-spaced projections for Warcraft and Diablo. I think Earth and/or fleshing out the galaxy's other sapients is the next logical step, but time will tell.

Conclusions

Is there a point to the tirade? Not in itself, no. Still, I think it's part of the inevitability that the longer a series goes on, the more inconsistancies will spring up. It's sometimes possible to divide a series by sagas, while at other times it's started at point a and extended onwards with no distinct point b. Off the top of my head, the two Star Wars trilogies are a clear example of the former. The Warhammer settings are a clear example of the latter. Both series have ploughed through inconsistancies over time.

I think the ultimate point is that for me at least, I've come to regard inconsistancies as inevitable. Case in point the writer role-I've effectively written 11 multi-chapters and how many can I say have been left intact over the years as new material is added/altered to their host medias?

...1. And that's not including stuff that never made it to posting due to new material.

Still, despite that, only 1 posted story has been rendered irrevocably mutually exclusive with canon, so I plough on. I guess in any media, people will always plough on. If we didn't, why would be taking the time to discuss this?

(And now back to uni assignment work. This made for a nice refresher).

[Quirel]

Yeah, I met Bel'Shir rather than Braken, my bad. As for the protoss...well, you make a good point, though it's explained how the departure left a "mental wound" in the protoss. I guess they started to lose it as soon as they saw the xel'naga departing.

Time to re-evaluate how much the departure of the Xel Naga affected the Protoss, I guess, and how dependent the Protoss were on the Xel Naga. If I recall correctly, Braxis and Char were both Protoss colonies before the Aeon of Strife, which points to a very technologically advanced civilization. Also, didn't the Xel Naga leave because they felt the Protoss to be a failure, to be far too dependent on them? If they were overly dependent on the Xel Naga for learning, always looking up at the Xel Naga as the master race (oops, can't use that phrase any more, can we?) that brought them up out of savagery and would always be watching over them, I think I can envision the Protoss going completely around the bend and reverting to a pre-industrial society. Maybe even further, if some of their comrades didn't lose control over the Big Guns.

Aw, Hell. This is a PSIONIC RACE we're talking about. Can you guys imagine the sheer unbridled chaos that a multi-way civil war would go, where mind-raping is about as common as shooting? If that's the way it went down, it's a wonder the Protoss didn't revert to animal.

Of course, this is coming from a Terran fan who doesn't know as much about the Protoss as he thinks he does. Feel free to stick a pin in this argument.

The Overmind thing though, yeah I think that we can all agree is pretty lame .

Think again.

That's a good point, I didn't actually see it that way. I'll change this part. I just have to wonder why we don't see Protoss use telekinesis, like period.

Separation of Gameplay and Story.
On the other hand, we rarely see the Protoss use telekinesis or telepathy for anything other than speaking or killing, really. One would think that a race as powerful as that would be able to put it to use doing mundane tasks. For example... um...
Whacking the pleasure centers of R.M. Dahl's brain, rather than relying on No biochemical barriers to do your work for you would have saved me from rolling my eyes when the Tal'darim loaded her up on Sundrop. That, and maybe mentioning the Protoss using telekinesis to haul some of Jake's equipment, and stuff...

I still disagree. He did reach the Overmind through Zasz, but he directly states that he touched with the essence of the Overmind. The Overmind was able to read Zeratul's brain and extract the information he needed, so it was clearly a reciprocal exchange.

Hey, the Overmind is a hive mind more vast and powerful than the greatest minds in, say, the Marvel or DC universes. Lex Luthor was once shown taking a coffee break playing (and winning) fourteen simultaneous games of chess versus the researchers under him while reading Machiavelli's The Prince and also listening to a teach-yourself-Urdu tape on a Walkman of his own invention "to keep my mind occupied".

The Overmind is likely able to split his attention and multitask on millions of projects, paying attention to the actions and surroundings of billions of its underlings, contemplating the nature of reality, etc... And the idea that Zeratul processed everything on his momentary touch with the essence of the Overmind is like pouring the entire library of congress past someone and asking for a synopsis on the collected works of Phillip K. Dick.

Indeed it's clear to me now that it was meant to represent such a high-tech city, but it uses a space tileset nonetheless.

Which is only a wallbanger when you realize that several blank spots acting as moats around your base and the far Protoss bases... are taken up with a star tileset.

We do see the start of it actually, the bit where the Xel'Naga leave and somebody kills another protoss with a rock. "it is your fault shelak!"

Oddly enough, what are the weapons we see in riots? Sticks, baseball bats, bottles, and the occasional molotov cocktail.

Protoss don't drink and are probably too civilized to use petroleum products, so the rock is kind of justified. So rocks it is.

Am I making excuses? Some of you may think yes, but actually, what I'm writing here are my thoughts when I first learnt the info. I saw no retcon at the time and don't see one now. The Overmind to me is still a magnificant bastard. Not Darth Vader, but more like Doctor Octopus perhaps. A to B, rather than B with a bit of A. Course at least some survives via Kerrigan, but I think it better explains why the Overmind wanted to assimilate humanity's psionics. The psionics is the excuse, while Kerrigan is the goal. Reminds me of one of the plot twists of Alan Wake and was executed just as well.

Doc Ock? Magnificent Bastard? Isn't that Green Goblin's territory?

Anyhow, I think that the Dark Voice becoming the Overmind is inconsistent with what we saw in SC and SCII. Enough of the original Overmind survived to semi-openly initiate a backup plan (Kerrigan) and manifested itself upon Auir, widely regarded to be a bad move.

I think it's more likely that the Overmind was imprinted with overriding instincts, which it couldn't NOT fulfill. But it could see the end result of its actions, and knew that if it didn't do something, everyone would lose. Which is why it created a successor free of the overriding instincts and did a Rorschach on the surface of Auir.
"Well? What are you waiting for? Do it. DO IT!"

So yeah. I'll, er...dodge the vegetables now.

But aren't tomatoes fruit?

[flak4321]

It's Gradius. But thanks.

D'oh! My bad. Thank you Gradius for your excellent retcon work.

Except... that's not quite right. Blizzard didn't really have large gaps between development of Starcraft-related games. What it did have was large gaps between their actual releases. Brood War came out in 1998. By 2001, they were already working on SC: Ghost. In 2003, SC2 started development. The gap of 2-3 years (if even that) between projects is short compared to the time it took SC2 to be completed.

The reason why the lore wasn't perfectly consistent between SC1 and SC2 is simply because Blizzard has never been too fussed with regards to keeping lore perfectly consistent. It has always been their practice to adjust/modify/reinterpret/add to previous events in order to suit their current story. Classic examples would be how the world of Azeroth suddenly evolved from a single kingdom to one containing many nations as well as possess a host of sentient races - none of which were hinted of before, let alone seen - between WC1 and WC2 (and this was with only 1 year between the games' release), how Medivh's character slowly turned from villain to tragic hero over the course of time (not to mention the significance of his death changed) and how the term 'Azeroth' kept changing to mean everything from a nation (actually Stormwind), continent and world.

In all honesty, Blizzard doesn't put story and lore as top priority. If it gets in the way of the story they want to tell or gameplay, they will tweak it or even work around it. For instance, notice how Blizzard completely failed to explain how Zeratul, Tassadar and Raynor met in SC1? That was kind of an oversight, seeing as it was the pivotal alliance that won the war against the Overmind.

The reason lore inconsistency is more apparent now is because of the internet (specifically online Wikis) and online discussion; both of which provide easy reminder of the events as well as helped solidify our interpretation of said events. In the past, we could/would rationalise any inconsistency as Blizzard trying to bridge the gap between the two campaigns found in WC1 and WC2.

Some notes: First, thanks for such a thorough response. Second, some points of agreement and disagreement: I agree that Blizz doesn't give the lore the attention the gameplay gets. If the gameplay sucks, the story could be the greatest we've ever seen, but we'd never know it because we could not comfortably experience it. I also agree that technology has greatly enhanced tracking and organization of the lore and thus our ability to criticize.

Yes, SC2 was in development since 2003 and yes the Ghost project was started, but by Blizard's own admission, War3 and WoW (more so) took precedence even to the point of resource transfer. My point in comparing the timeline is to look at the appearance of finished product. The WC lore had consistent outpiut from Blizz, thus growing the base structure from which the outside authors (Golden, Dietz, Rosenberg, Knaak, DiCandido, etc.) had to work and also creating more avenues for expansion.

Because Starcraft did not have consistent, new structure put in place, (i.e. as well-defined a starting point) the outside authors had far fewer creative constraints within which to work. A weaker starting point invariably allows greater variety of quality. A stronger starting point allows a more refined flow.

This is not to say either you or I are right, or that one of us is more right. Your examples make that very clear. The use of the term "Azeroth" was left very open from the start. The initial interpretation for me was the land and the kingdom both had that name, and we agree on the evolution from there. We could also say that the term can mean all three at once.

Medivh's character evolution is an interesting thing. His role beyond WC1 was left as open as the interpretation of "Azeroth", and to me was handled much better. As for the proliferation of WC's races, one can just as easily say that Blizz never said these races didn't exist, so their appearance is plausible. This is actually a real writing technique often used. It allows for an expansion of interpretation rather than reimagining. The WC universe is riddled with these instances.

The Zeratul/Raynor/Tassadar trio is an example of this in SC. In SC1, Jimmy joins the 2 as they leave Char. You are correct, we were not told how they met within SC1. However, we were given just enough info to reasonably assume (a) the parties were likely aware of and keeping tabs on each other and (b) Jimmy's following of the seemingly "right cause", as can be defined within SC1 alone: he felt Mengsk was right in the necessity of the removal the Confederacy, or at least its leadership, and then the offense to his ethics by Mengsk's means, was enough to have motivated him to ask to join the right fight, blasting Zerg.

All in all, SC can attain the flow of WC and the upcoming chapters may yet accomplish this. I have much hope going forward.

[TheEconomist]

@flak4321: Jim and Tassadar met each other in a deleted mission. It's still on the original discs but you have to extract them from the MPQs. You can download these maps on the internet. If you can't find them, maybe I can send it to you.

[Zeraszana]

okay i didn't read through the whole thread so don't hit me, but regarding the tal'darim issue of using the khala - go and read twilight -> in it, Taarim from the temple touches with Korlendir within the Khala to confirm he is truly willing to join them and he has others bring sundrop to him, so maybe that is how they use the khala - have some who are nuts enough by themselves who don't need the sundrop and can still reach into the khala for energies e.g. the shelak tribe, they were fanatics even during the aeon of strife

http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Korlendir
http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Taarim

[flak4321]

@flak4321: Jim and Tassadar met each other in a deleted mission. It's still on the original discs but you have to extract them from the MPQs. You can download these maps on the internet. If you can't find them, maybe I can send it to you.

I'll have to take a look around, thx. I will look for them from other sources as I have no notion of how to extract them from an mpq file.

@Zeraszana: Close. We learn in The 1st volume of the Dark Templar Saga that the Shelak were caretakers of the Xel'Naga artifacts during the Aeon of Strife, but were not at that time phanatics. Khas himself was a Shelak. Further, there is nothing to say all of the Shelak guard the temple on Shakuras, so it is reasonable to assume that only some of the Shelak are fanatical/hooked on sundrop. However, your speculation about the use of the khala is very reasonable.