Commander Concept: Dr. Ariel Hanson

Co-op Missions Discussion
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Haven was a colony on the edge of Protoss and Terran space. When Amon corrupted the Khala; Amon’s protoss came to Haven to wipe out Hanson’s colony. This time, without Raynor to protect them, Dr. Ariel Hanson and her people take drastic measures in the fight against Amon’s forces.

  • Dr. Hanson is a Terran commander that fields a resilient colonial infantry. Her militia wins protracted fights with superior healing techniques, powerful infantry abilities, and… controversial survival strategies.

  • When taking lethal damage; all of Dr. Hanson’s ground infantry transform into zerg units with full health instead of dying. After a long cooldown, they have the ability to reverse their transformation, restoring their health again and returning to the Terran unit they started as.

  • The colonists of Haven aren’t mindless, like many infested Terrans. They’ve mastered their alternate forms, and can undergo their transformations willingly if they need a tactical advantage.

  • Dr. Hanson cannot build a Factory and does not have access to Factory units, instead relying on her Colonist’s transformations and abilities to access middle and high-level Zerg units.

  • Dr. Hanson’s construction units cost less and train faster to jump-start her economy faster. This is essential because most of her units cost more than equivalent units in other armies.

SCV // Haven Colonist:
-Reduced Cost and Build Time.
=>Transforms Into: Zergling (Increased Attack and Movespeed, can leap to targets and jump cliffs)

Marine// Haven Militia:
-Can use StimPak. [Researched]. It’s effects last longer than normal StimPak, and persists after transformation.
=>Transforms into: Infested Marine.
-Can Jump Cliffs

Medic// Haven Geneticist:
-Can use Heal (AutoCast).
-Can use Spawn Aberration (AutoCast). Target non-heroic enemy unit is destroyed and permanently becomes an allied Aberration. High Energy Cost (~%60 total energy). AutoCast targets enemies in-range with the highest HP.
=>Transforms into: Aberration. (Higher base HP. Higher base HP Regen)

Marauder// Haven Heavy Infantry:
-Can use Stimpak. [Researched]. Effect persists after transformation.
=>Transforms into: Mutalisk (Higher Armor and Base HP. Sundering Glaive.)

Ghost// Haven Ranger:
-Can use Cloak.
-Can use Lockdown.
-Can use Call Down Ultralisk Drop-Pod. (Rapid calldown. Moderate damage in an area. Spawns an Ultralisk with timed life. Ultralisk Drop-Pods automatically build from Haven Academies.)
=> Transforms Into: Psionic Infested Terran
-Can use Psionic Storm.
-Can use Consume (to recover Energy).

Medivac// Haven Medivac: (Support/Siege unit)
-Can use Heal
-Passively fills hold with Flying Locusts.
-Deploys Flying Locusts when attacking at long distances.
=> Does not Transform on death.

Science Vessel// Haven Science Vessel:
-Can use EM Pulse.
-Can use Repair Beam on structures and allied mechanical units.
-Can use Infestation Plague. (Can target any unit, including allied units. Enemy biological units that get close to an Infected unit also get Infected. Infected enemy biological units take damage until they are destroyed. Infected enemy biological units destroyed while infected spawn Flying Locusts.)
=> Does not Transform on death.

-Command Center, Barracks, Starport: Can build Reactors to double production output. Starport does not require Factory. Dr. Hanson cannot build Factory or Armory. Dr. Hanson does not have access to Battlecruisers, Vikings, or Wraiths.

-No Bunkers, but Missile Turrets can attack ground units.

TopBar:

Locust Swarm:
Target a location. All of Dr. Hanson’s structures immediately spawn a number of uncontrollable Flying Locusts with timed life that immediately attack-move to the target location. Upon arrival, they will automatically seek out any attack-able target.

Haven’s Devils:
A Haven Medivac full of Locusts and eight Haven Geneticists with full energy deploy at a target location.

Safe Haven:
A powerful regeneration effect affects all allied units.

Haven’s Fall:
Dr. Ariel Hanson herself deploys on the field for a limited time and immediately transforms into a powerful Brutalisk.

I’ve seen a few concept threads on making Hanson a commander, and none of them really grabbed me. She’s not a military leader, so I never liked giving her military vehicles or capital ships. Someone recommended giving her a domesticated swarm, and that might’ve worked if Stetmann didn’t already cover that niche.

One thing we do know about Dr. Hanson, is that she willingly infests herself when the chips are down and she feels cornered. I wanted to explore the idea of an army of willing infested. Infested that keep their intelligence and sentience, and choose the infestation as a tactical decision to outplay their enemies. I want the infested Terrans of Haven to feel less like body-horror zombies and more like clever Lycanthropes or shape-shifters. Less like ghouls, and more like The Hulk.

The Colonists of Haven know they can transform, and more importantly know they can transform back to human when their business is done. This isn’t some permanent, painful nightmare. Their transformation is a power, an ability they can rely on. For this commander, I imagine the Construction Unit and the Psionic Infested Terran getting their own unit portraits and voice lines. They might reference their ability to transform in a casual, coy, or confident manner.

I also envision transformed units keeping the voice lines of the original terran base units. I know it’d probably be strange to hear Marauder voice lines coming from an armored Mutalisk, but I think it’d help reinforce that these are willing transformations, and practically it would help remind the player that (after a cooldown) those zerg units can always tranform back into Terran units.

I haven’t given much thought to what upgrades and abilities would be available from the upgrade structures. But I like this concept for Hanson more than others I’ve seen for her. What do you all think?

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Even though co-op is non-canon, somehow the idea of Terrans being able to transform to Zerg form and back again is just way too weird.

This reminds me of one of the bosses in Resident Evil 6 who had the capability of turning into a full sized T-Rex from mere human form in a matter of seconds.

As for the calldown itself, you would want something unique as most calldowns are. A discount Brutalisk ain’t much of a selling point.

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I don’t like the idea of turning Colonists into Zerg. More so, Terrans can’t just transform into just any Zerg strain. It’d only be Infested Terrans. I’d rather not have Hanson go down the Infested Terran path either.

I think a better concept (in my opinion) is more a rag tag militia type that focuses on Support for their teammate.

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This is certainly of the more unique ideas for Hansen. I admit that switching from terran to zerg, and back again, is an interesting take. Unfortunately I have to agree with the others, terran would become infested terrans, not some specific strain of zerg. And I don’t really want to see Hanson as another infested terran commander. While I wouldn’t mind another infested commander, we don’t have a character that’s been used in StarCraft 2 that could work. There’s a couple they could use from SC1 or the comics, but none that I would expect them to remember the existance of. I’m hoping for Hansen to be a colony simulator, establishing a civilian town wherever the mission takes us.

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It’s something I could get over with in time. Hell, I was weirded out how Stukov survived. Was cured, then went back to being infested.

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so basically a subtly weirder version of Stukov.

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Thanks for the replies! Let’s see what we have here:

Lots of pushback on the fundamental concept. I can understand that. Obviously I love my own ideas so I still think this concept is rad, but I’m not going to tell someone they’re wrong for getting weirded out by this radical notion. It’s supposed to be controversial in-verse, I shouldn’t be surprised if it’s legitimately considered a step too far by some.

That said, I don’t think it’s outside of this character’s purview. The two most important things she does (across timelines) is cure infestation and willingly cause infestation. I’d want a Commander Hanson to do both. Further, I maintain this is far from ridiculous by StarCraft lore standards. After all, “Let’s recap–I was betrayed and killed, shot into space, captured by the Zerg, resurrected and infested, cured, given to Moebius to research the protoss cure, and was instead experimented on as the cure slowly failed.”

So, the core inspiration for this concept comes directly from the post-Haven’s Fall cinematic and Matt Horner later suggesting Ariel infested herself willingly. Watch it again and really look at the infested Dr. Hanson. She’s utterly unlike any infested Terran we’ve seen so far. She’s not some lumbering zombie, and she’s not just an oddly colored human with extra tentacles or fleshy bits sticking out of her. Her arms and legs have cloven claws, her knees bend backwards and she runs quadrupedal. That’s not an ordinary infested Terran… “That’s a Zerglin’, Lester.” She didn’t just infest herself. She’s turned herself into a specific strain of Zerg.

That said, she’s still got some human bits, so I think the in-game skins for Dr. Hanson’s Zerg units should reflect that they’re shapechanged humans instead of “pure” Zerg.

I know it’s kind of ridiculous, but that is precisely the aesthetic I’m looking for. I’d like Hanson and her units to present as Totally Normal Humans™ with a clean, pretty, laboratory-white aesthetic and absolutely no indicators that anything’s wrong until they transform. I’m going for a “Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde in the city of werewolves” theme. I get that sometimes the Law of Conservation of Mass will be flagrantly violated, but I say to heck with Lavoisier’s Physics. What have the laws of thermodynamics ever done for us anyway, right? Nothing! That’s what!

They’re both unconventionally infested terrans who lean on their infantry, but that’s where I’d like their similarities to end. Where Stukov is overtly monstrous and drowns foes in waves of disposable units, Hanson has relatively few, expensive, Hardy units that are always outnumbered but can sponge damage from all sides like Your Mum tanking waves of rowdy sailors. Where Stukov answers an attack wave by dropping a Psi Emitter and hundreds of infested terrans, expecting literally %100 casualties, Hanson answers an attack wave with, like, a dozen Marines backed by a couple of medics and a medivac and expects every single unit to survive. An ally of Stukov knows the most effective thing they can do is disrupt enemy fortifications and target enemy AoE units so the tide can do it’s job. An ally of Hanson should know that Hanson can Frontline like a paladin, so they should be building high-damage units to complement Hanson’s meat-shields.

That is an excellent point. ‘Just a Brutalisk.’ is pretty lame. So let’s say that Hanson has timed life, is targetable but functionally indestructible (owing to ludicrous HP Regen) and taunts all nearby enemy units to focus-fire her. That makes it a relatively low-damage calldown, but it’s meant to mitigate tons of enemy damage, which is more in line with her theme anyway.