That’s what I thought their plan was. Zerg terrorism.
Why must they be unbeatable? Why is my suggestion a bad thing?
The SC1 manual said quite explicitly the zerg invaded Koprulu to assimilate humanity as a weapon against the protoss, since otherwise they would not win. That’s an interesting premise imo.
Furthermore, the zerg’s subtle decades long invasion prior to the first contact war only makes sense if they cannot arbitrarily spawn arbitrarily high numbers of warriors whenever they want.
Because then theres no story. You end up with the zerg either wiping out humanity or being wiped out. With the protoss and terrans both opposed to them, there simply isn’t any way for them to be equal to only one race in power, because then the other race would just come in and bulldoze them when theyre vulnerable. You don’t fight a war on two fronts unless you have the power to hold them both.
I’m not convinced and I think you are thinking needlessly inflexible.
The SC1 pointed out that exact problem and provided a simple solution. That’s why the terrans and protoss are at war with each other and themselves. It distracts them from the zerg, who are the most unified by their nature. (Not to mention you could add feral, rogue, primal zerg as wildcards.)
I fail to see why this is a bad thing. You can drag out the war for years and years to tell all kinds of stories like you did in canon. The only difference is that the Confederacy, Conclave and Overmind would be the status quo instead of Dominion, Daelaam and Overqueen.
That’s pretty much the premise of this fanfic timeline on the old forums: SC2 Forums I have a few disagreements, like it too closely adhering to the canon timeline despite not needing to, but that’s essentially how I imagine a metaplot based on the manual might turn out.
A penny for Your thoughts? I think we’ve just made a lot of progress in overcoming our disagreements. I think I have anyway. I’ve been needlessly hostile to you, for which I apologize.
The terrans and protoss aren’t at war though, at least not in the way they are with the zerg, and the only reason the zerg didn’t annihilate the terrans is because they got what they wanted and left before it came to that.
Fundamentally, to work as an antagonist, groups like the zerg cant be beaten with conventional military forces. Theyre the outside alien threat, and they need to be actually threatening, ie they need to have a plausible chance to win completely. Against two opponents, that means they need to be able to match both opponents simultaneously, or be able to lock one away such that it doesn’t have to fight it until theyre ready.
Then why can’t we change things so that they are, as the SC1 manual setup in plot hooks? Pit the protoss and terrans against each other over the genocides.
That doesn’t explain why their decades long invasion prior to the first great war was so subtle. The canon timeline is quite clear their probes discovered the terrans sixty years prior to the war and the Confederacy didn’t discover anything until the 2480s. The psi-emitters are suggested to have started the open warfare. Why the subtlety for decades? Either the zerg didn’t have arbitrarily fast spawning capabilities, or they were trying to avoid attention from terrans and/or protoss.
I don’t believe that is strictly necessary. Why can’t the zerg take advantage of existing chaos, as it was implied they might in the SC1 manual?
EDIT: And even so, you said all stories just plot out the way the author wants. Why is Metzen’s story immune to criticism but mine deserves so much criticism it is impossible in your opinion?
Because without the Zerg, there was no existing chaos? The Protoss only intervened because the Zerg began infesting the Terrans. The Protoss, up until that point, were watching over the Terrans as the Xel’Naga had done to them under the stewardship of the Dae’Uhl.
Because that would require changing the fundamental identity of the Firstborn from a “holier than thou” elder civilization to one that the terrans can somehow face on even footing at the height of their power. Youre not just tweaking the story, youre writing something totally different.
Because they were gathering information. Once they hit, they blitzkrieged the crap out of the terrans. They conquered 9 of the 13 terran core worlds in less than a year.
Because your vision is irreconcilable with the fundamentals of StarCraft. If you want to go write your own Sci-fi stuff, go do that, don’t try and hijack somebody else’s work, that’s just lazy. For example, as Xer mentioned, the protoss were very studiously avoiding interfering with the terrans.
Let’s make a list.
Mar Sara - two victories are justified, 3rd is a just in time evacuation
Colonists - just in time evacuation, abuse of planetary condition to methodically wipe out infested force that lacks powerful and developed strains
Methodical eradication of infested areas done in time (sadly non-canon) vs bullcrap mission that shouldn’t have happened for multitude of other reasons.
Daelaam could have just a small expedition fleet, where they heavily relied on the Nexus system and the Mothership, which would be justified given the lack of anti-air capabilities of the Infested force on Haven.
So, Safe Haven is BS, but not because of that.
Rebellion - it actually was a raid and Dominion isn’t in full control of the planet, those mercs were on par, well Valhalla was a somewhat justifiable raid, Media Blitz … is dumb. Piercing the Shroud is a raid and we actually get our butts kicked by the Hybrid.
Covert - Zerg on Redstone III are a token force, Nyon’s T’D suck, in both cases of New Folsom we use our enemy’s own stuff against them.
Artifact - Nyon’s T’D and Zerg let us make a diversion, the Dig… why did they leave the laser up is beyond me, but us beating them is justified, Moebius Factor is just running around, we don’t beat the Swarm in battle, we outsmart them, Supernova is once again abuse of planetary conditions, in Maw we are backed by Dominion.
On Char we are backed by Dominion.
So… there aren’t actually that many “raid” encounters outside of Rebellion missions and only one that is purely dumb is Media Blitz.
Safe Haven is dumb… for all the other reasons. Protoss could have been spread thin using only anti-infestation forces, not expecting Terran resistance because Dominion sucks ballsy
I always considered OM Swarm larger, but less diverse, than PQoB Swarm.
That contact with a truly powerful opposition like Protoss Empire or UED forced Abathur to specialize Swarm’s forces.
The protoss weren’t keeping too close an eye if they didn’t notice the psi-emitters but the zerg’s deep space probes migrating to koprulu. But I digress.
The terrans already have their internal strife. The protoss glass inhabited planets, starting war with the terrans. And the protoss expedition has a schism with those who want to hell the terrans. And if we dip into the SC2 lore, some ihanrii stasis facilities were probably destroyed so they’ll want revenge on the protoss empire.
It’s an opportunity the zerg may take advantage of to harvest population centers for psychic mutations. We know from the wiki that psychic powers aren’t all made equal, either. Some are unique.
And even if the zerg do have a lot forces in the sector in the short term, the psychic warfare might cause a brood war too. Further chaos
But in canon they are very weak even at the start because their empire collapsed long ago. The zerg only invade one planet and that’s enough to destroy their entire civilization.
And the UED is even more powerful too.
The protoss are wimps in canon, so it’s not hard to believe the terrans can stand against them under a tweaked scenario.
Okay, fine. I’ll go off and make my own starcraft ripoff with blackjack and hookers. I tried that for months and absolutely nobody was interested anywhere. So I’m piggybacking off Starcraft’s fandom since it already has the infrastructure.
Why can’t we just discuss a starcraft AU based on the SC1 manual where my suggestions make sense? I don’t like the modern starcraft in its totality and would prefer to discuss the manual’s draft of lore and what could arise from it. Is that somehow not starcraft enough for anyone?
That is pointless to the discussion because
Monlyth says semi-realistic, thus implying he is fully aware it’s not Art of War by Sun freaking Tzu or Infanry Attacks by Erwin “Desert Fox” Rommel.
He is talking how gameplay positively affects the lore, not vice versa.
You mean mAnUaL.
I am sorry…
Ultimately, it’s not. The main part of Starcraft is the fact that it’s a game that people play for either enjoyment or to get the satisfaction of being good a clicking buttons (unless you’re pro, in which case money).
With TD’s story, he wanted a campaign, which is why he wrote with gameplay in mind. While I haven’t yet read through your story, it’s sounding like you are writing more for the sake of it and not for the fact that a campaign actually can be made (easily) for it.
That’s nice.
I’ll save you the time on reading: I prefer the SC1 manual’s draft of the lore that is not consistent with the final game’s script. I would prefer to discuss the former, what stories it could tell, the ways in which it would differ from the current canon, etc.
Writing a mission map is different from writing general lore.
You could easily level the same complaint at the canon story.
No need to mention that. My reading comprehension was fine the first three dozen times it was obvious from your posts.
Snark aside, I get it. What-ifs are fun. But Monlyth is talking about what-is-es.
Then I apologize for derailing the topic. I concede to you.
No problem, man. We are just having ruthless, yet civilised discussion.
Holy mother of hell. I disappear for a day, and I suddenly come across two threads here with 50+ new posts. Were you all like…on a break yesterday?
Meh. We’re just rehashing the same topics over & over again. There’s not much left to talk about.
I mean they’ve got that Scavengers comic, but I feel like the lore is ruined so I could care less what they put out anymore.
But seriously, Gradius. If you are disappointed with Blizzard’s handling of the lore, then why not write your own alternate universe fiction? If your work is popular enough, then other creatives might follow suit and start a trend.