I think it’s fair to say they could at least last a couple minutes, though they would lose.
Zeratul could have leaned a bit to the left and he’d have chopped her head off in WoL, even after he killed a bunch of hydras. Artanis has some pretty damn impressive abilities with gameplay. At one point on Ulnar he tells Kerrigan to stay close because he’ll literally mend both of their wounds. Zeratul and Artanis’s fight was pretty impressive too, with the telekinesis force lightning.
They’re both psionic powerhouses, at least compared to ghosts. And let’s not forget that zealots can turn into pure energy and back again.
If it’s one Nova and the rest of the Dominion ghosts vs. Primal Kerrigan, I think Kerrigan slaughters the whole academy.
Actually, the second comic puts the time where Stetmann was sent to Bel’shir a couple of month prior to the Epilogue. It’s entirely possible that he didn’t inhale any Terrazine until after the Phoenix thing.
I’d say it’s less like building muscle and more like learning to drive a race car. The car isn’t getting faster or more agile, you’re just able to drive it better.
I mean, yeah, all caste systems are artificial social constructs. The difference between, say, Hindu castes and the Khalai Protoss’ castes is that only one of the Protoss’ castes are (were?) based on birthright, the Judicator class, while the other 2, the Templar and Khalai castes, were based on psionic potential.
The strongest Khalai Protoss were selected for the Templar caste of warriors, while the rest took up roles in the Khalai caste. They’re a warrior race, of course they’d select for the strongest members of their species. It’s literally that simple.
While they’d been being experimented on, yes, but by the time GZ ended up fighting them they had managed to remove their psi-inhibitors and call for help, which didn’t arrive in time to save Muadun but did liberate the rest of the Protoss held captive.
Muadun also removed GZ’s own psi-inhibitor, which Burgess (the guy in charge of the experiments) had used to control him, with his last action before he died.
Alright, that still leaves the second question though.
Huh, I don’t remember hearing about the Ghosts suits also having a power-armor function, but I’m not surprised. I’d figured Nova, literally the second most naturally powerful psionic Terran had just used some teeking to help her lift the guy.
What I’d been talking about specifically was their perception. They used their psionics to enhance their senses and almost slow their perception of the passage of time, allowing them much greater predictive abilities without needing actual precog, enough so that it would seem like they did have precognitive abilities. It’s also what helped them be so accurate, as they could perfectly time their shots on a target.
This pretty much matches my understanding.
Not a chance. Kerrigan was toying with him and all he managed to do was wound her superficially while she managed to actually hurt him. Let’s not forget that Kerrigan was, at the time, the single most psionically potent person ever in SC lore. Nova Terra has on 2 occasions released psionic blasts rivaling tactical nukes, and she’s “only” a PI 10, while Kerrigan is estimated to be PI 12. As far as I can tell, the PI scale is logarithmic, though I’m not sure of the factor. Either way, Kerrigan is multiple times stronger than Nova was, and Nova could have killed Zeratul easily with an attack like her mini psi-nuke.
You think Zeratul would have run away if he thought he stood a chance in killing Kerrigan, who had caused him and his people so much suffering? Remember, he didn’t know that Kerrigan’s survival was vital for the universe’s survival yet, so that wouldn’t have held him back.
So is the claim that he could have stood a chance, because we’ve never seen them fight. All we have here is conjecture, and mine is based on a comparison of their abilities.
Comparing Artanis’ abilities to Kerrigans is like comparing a harsh wind to a full-blown tornado. He’s a strong warrior, yes, but Kerrigan has personally shredded entire armies. It took the combined might of half of the Dominion’s forces and all of Raynor’s Raiders, plus support from Tosh’s Goons and the Moebius Corps to merely hold her off long enough to use the Xel’naga artifact, and even that was a brutal and bitter struggle.
Probably the best and clearest example of Kerrigan’s power though was in Flashpoint, where she killed two hybrids with a single psionic attack. Like, how the hell is Artanis supposed to stand up to that?! Hybrid are some of the single most powerful forces in SC lore, and Kerrigan just one-shots two of them!
We know that psionically, Ma’lash was more powerful than Alarak via Alarak’s own admittance, and that Alarak is more powerful than Artanis, though I’m not sure if he’d be able to match Artanis’ physical prowess in combat.
Again, this is not the case. They do, in fact, draw power from the Khala. Muadun was unable to draw upon the Khala while his psi-inhibitor was on, but when it was turned down enough he could access his psionic abilites, he was able to cast greatly weakened but still lethal psi-storms. He then was able to remove his psi-inhibitor entirely, but the Khalai Protoss held captive with him weren’t powerful enough to give him the juice he needed to beat GZ.
They are literally thought of as weaker and inferior and looked down upon by the Templar and Judicator casts because they lack the psionic power of Templar and the leadership birthright of Judicators.
It wouldn’t be a caste system if there were any class mobility. You think the Khalai would be fine just staying Khalai if they could earn their way into the Templar caste? No, they wouldn’t, but they’re stuck where they are because they don’t have the psionic potential necessary to become Templar (pre-LotV where the caste system is abolished).
Yes, but I was talking about Khalai Protoss in specific. I mention the Nerazim and the Void elsewhere in the post.
It’s similar to it, and can be used in similar ways, but it is actually not psionic energy. In fact, it tends not to get along well with psionic energy, which is why every Dark Archon but Ulrezaj burned out and died rather quickly after forming.
Again, their placement in the caste system has nothing to do with their psionic potential. It was based on an ideal from protoss antiquity. You can’t categorize a whole tribe and segment of the population to a single role and a psionic powerhouse could have easily been born as a Furinax tribe member.
Flashpoint was poorly written, and regardless there’s different levels of hybrids. The ones kerrigan killed in there must have been failures because there’s no way a human can take on a hybrid. A single hybrid dominator in HoTS was enough to crush primal Kerrigan’s mind from halfway across the map unless you got the swarm to intervene.
Muadun and the Khalai were severely crippled the whole story. At no point did they have their equipment or any control. But muadun still broke his neural inhibitor, which zero could not do. Zero is probably just under a regular zealot, but still above a ghost.
Kerrigan is not a PI 12. The scale only goes up to 10. She was a class 12.
Nova’s mini nuke is an obvious example of power creep & crappy writing. Go read SC: Uprising. Kerrigan struggled to do basic stuff. Regardless, such a “nuke” is suicidal and pales in comparison to Tassadar’s suicidal attack which destroyed a giant organic mountain (the Overmind).
Sure, if they’re drawing upon the Khala. If not, they’re roughly equal in pure psionic potential and it comes down to experience (which would give the HT an advantage) and tactics (which would get the Ghost an advantage).
That’s basically a phasing ability, and only works for an extremely brief period of time (basically just enough to dodge one or two shots), and only a few Zealots can actually do this.
It also doesn’t really prove anything about their psionic potential. It’s cool, yeah, but it can’t really rival a mind-spike in power.
I’m not arguing that High Templar are not far more formidable psionic foes than Zealots. I’m saying that if you measured their psionic potential and then compared them to your average Ghost, they’d all be roughly equal.
Yes, that was what boosted him up to PI 7.
She wouldn’t have been able to become a Zealot if she wasn’t a Templar.
Wrong fight. I’m talking about his escape attempt.
On their own, of course. But Muadun could draw at least some power from them to fight with, albeit not much, which is why he still lost.
Alright, so this answers the first question, but still leaves the second one unanswered.
If you’re talking about altering bullet trajectory, then yes, that takes a lot of power and skill, but that was not the method I was referring to to improve accuracy.
It’s actually some sort of self-affecting telepathy, where they slow their perception of time and heighten their senses. They don’t necessarily move any faster with this, but it does improve their ability to react because they can see and recognize threats faster.
Killing Hydras is easy for DTs. It’s literally a sport for them.
Killing Kerrigan? Nah, many have tried, they’ve all failed. I see no reason Zeratul could do what dozens of others, even attacking in groups, couldn’t. And that isn’t even considering the level of overkill Kerrigan can unleash.
Whoever said Void powers aren’t powerful? They’re just different.
Kerrigan would walk all over him as easily as he would walk over a newbie Ghost.
Have you played LotV? He has Astral Wind to revitalize his fellow warriors and Lightning Dash that’s basically a much better Zealot Charge because it deals AoE damage and stuns.
And do you really think he could have earned his position as Hierarch without being an above-average fighter when he wasn’t born a Judicator?
Yes, and that allowed him to harness a massive amount of power for a brief period. Hence, he comes the closest, and by all accounts he came fairly close, easily outmatching even Nova’s psi-nukes.
You asked a question, I gave some answers.
That he earned through his combat prowess and leadership, so does that magically make him not a warrior? And if not, did he stop being Hierarch when he fought on Aiur again? Does your current position completely wipe away your previous ones?
I didn’t say anything about Zeratul being above average, just that he is certainly a warrior. Just because he’s spent the last couple years playing prophecy sleuth doesn’t mean he ceases to be a fighter.
Which are both part Protoss and immensely psionically powerful.
Those were Razor Swarms, which as I understand are more telekinesis based than psi-storms. Additionally, Kerrigan is immensely powerful.
They can create them but can’t control them, and they aren’t very strong.
I mean, if you want to make this a competition to compare abilities, Hybrids, DTs, and Kerrigan can’t use Dominate like Nova can. You have to get a Dark Archon to match that.
It has everything to do their psionic potential.
Yes, that’s why there’s a limit on how much you can draw from a certain number of nearby Protoss. They draw power from the Khala, which acts as a link sort of power line between Protoss. The amount of power you can draw is directly related to the number and psionic power of the nearby Protoss.
Used by the Tal’darim to enhance their equipment, such as in Destroyers and Havocs. Not used to as power source to psionic abilities.
I’d thought this was just made up for the Arcade, but it looks like there is just one in-canon and it is a reservoir of psionic energy, albeit one you have to fill with energy on your own. It’s a battery, not a link between power sources like the Khala.
Enhances ones’ own abilities, but you cannot draw power from it directly. It’s literally psionic doping, it doesn’t provide any extra power itself, it just makes your body output more. And there’s a point where it becomes permanent which depends on the individual affected.
Can be paired with psionics, and drawn upon for Void powers, but is not actually a source of psionic energy.
Basically to the Khalai Protoss what Bloodshard Crystals are to the Tal’darim, except they can be “burned” to provide an immense amount of energy. Unfortunately, that energy is not psionic.
But none of them actually act as a power source for psionic energy they can draw upon.
You also didn’t mention Alavash or Sundrop drugs, the former of which is used to help deepen a Khalai Protoss’ connection to the Khala and the later is used to deepen a Nerazim’s connection to the Void. Again, neither of them act as power sources themselves and only improve the access to one.
Happened in the Ghost Academy manga, but that’s the only case I know of.
Hmm, there seems to be some disagreement in-canon over how Void energies differ from psionic energies.
For example, Ulrezaj practically leaked Void energy which corroded surfaces around him as he moved, but psionic energy doesn’t do that.
Then there’s also the issue with other Dark Archons in constant pain as the Void and psionic energies clash in their bodies, quickly leading to their death.
I agree. All three Protoss factions are enhanced in their own way. The Tal’darim use Terrazine, the Nerazim call upon the Void, and the Khalai draw from the Khala.
If any one of them lacked their central pillar of power, they’d be significantly weaker than the other two.
It literally uses the reaction of the two together to produce the energy it then channels into its plasma beam. I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t happen if they were the same thing.
At this point, I’m half certain Void energy is to psionic energy what antimatter is to matter; similar in many ways but not exactly the same, and they annihilate on contact with each other.
Not used to power psionic abilities or their counterparts.
That’s just psionic energy.
Not a thing unless you’re talking about quasars and the like, which don’t actually play a role in SC.
Also not a thing. The Xel’naga use Void and psionic energies.
Kerrigan and Protoss do not draw power from external sources. Kerrigan is just a fusion-reactor of a psionic generator, and Protoss have to share theirs. Ghosts are no different except in magnitude compared to Kerrigan and their lack of an ability to share compared to Khalai Protoss.
He missed because she dodged. If he aimed to the left, she’d have dodged the other way. And he only managed to clip her at all because she was playing with him. Classic supervillain monologue trope allowing the hero to get a shot in.
The lightning was from Amon, it was just channeled through Artanis.
Artanis might be. Zeratul isn’t.
A PI 10 like Nova would fair far better in a psionics matchup against Kerrigan than Artanis would.
Again, your ability to join the Templar caste is entirely dependent upon your fighting prowess, which is directly and inherently related to your psionic potential. If someone is born to a family of Khalai but they have the psionic ability necessary to be a Templar, they become a Templar. It’s literally that simple.
Your personal negative opinion of the book does not render it non-canon any more than me liking some fanfic makes that canon.
The hybrid Kerrigan killed were a Reaver and a Destroyer. They were the two earliest breeds of hybrid, and so not the most powerful, but they were still extremely dangerous.
Hybrid Dominators are much more powerful than Destroyers and are specifically designed with psionic warfare in mind. Additionally, it was not “crushing” her mind, but rather draining her until she was able to find and destroy it. Basically, the only reason the Hybrids stood a chance against her was range and time.
Muadun was only able to do that after it was turned almost all the way down and because he hadn’t gone through the intensive neural conditioning GZ had. If either of those factors had not been the case, he would not have been able to even try to remove it.
Again, Gestalt is more powerful than Muadun even when he’s drawing from other nearby Protoss, and Muadun is a High Templar, which are about as powerful as a Zealot. Therefore, Gestalt, at PI 7 is more powerful than a Zealot.
The scale only goes up to PI 10 because that’s the highest any human has been recorded and humans are who it was made for. When applying to subjects who exceed the scale, it can be extrapolated out. For example Nova would have gained about 1 PI level after her exposure to Terrazine, bringing her from a 10 up to an ~11.
And “class 12 psi signature” is literally the same thing as PI 12. Your psi signature is the score that determines your place on the Psi Index.
Again, your personal negative opinion does not render something non-canon.
Kerrigan, like all powerful Ghosts, was equipped with a psi-screen or inhibitor to keep her abilities in check. This is standard practice for Ghosts deployed in the field, both for the Confederacy and for the Dominion.
Nova did not have a psi-screen/inhibitor on both times she unleashed her psi-nuke because she wasn’t a Ghost the first time and she was only a trainee on a training mission the second, and so we got to see her full potential. We likely won’t see it again because I doubt she’ll take the inhibitor off or use the ability even if she does; both times she used it were traumatic experiences and caused her to lose people she cared about deeply.
Apparently it isn’t so suicidal, considering she pulled it off twice and is still kicking hard. She’s probably got a couple more in her at least.
And yeah, Tassadar’s sacrifice via combining Void and psionic energies dwarfs Nova’s stunt. Nova’s was comparable to a tactical nuke, but Tass’ was practically an Apocalypse-class nuclear missile.
[quote=“Maximus-12995, post:27, topic:3858”]
Wow, we went way off topic.[/quote]
Welcome to our Forum.
When Stetmann recounting the event up to that point. Plus, the fact that he doesn’t know anything about the fight with Amon while his rescuers do. It’s clear that he was sent before the Epilogue and was ‘rescued’ after it.
As I understand it, he’s been stuck there since during the Second Great War. The wiki says he was assigned to Bel’shir at some point between WoL and HotS, but at the end of HotS the political turmoil in the Terran Dominion led to him being forgotten.
And the language used in the comic is rather ambiguous to whether the End War is still going on or not, it just says that he doesn’t know about the “war on Amon.” It could still be on-going or it could already be over. Can’t really tell.
The Wiki is awesome, but it’s fan made. You need to understand that some information there is unreliable. I have yet to see an official account of when exactly did Stetmann gone missing. The war on Amon happened a couple of year after the end of LotV. According to the comic Stetmann was gone for years. However, the comic is released in chronicle order or so I believe. This means it takes place after Shadow Wars and the Evolution. That puts Stetmann absent somewhere between the end of LotV and the Epilogue. So it’s really not out of place for him to inhale the Terrazine and gone crazy after the Phoenix saga.
Although, even if he was missing during the Second War, it wouldn’t disprove my point.
No, that’s not how it went at all. During the Aeon of Strife the protoss had fractured into tribalism, with literal tribes. Once the Khala was established, the existing tribes were sorted into the various castes. If you were an Ara, you were a Judicator. If you were a Furinax, you were a khalai. If you were a Sargas, you were a Templar. End of story. The tribes had certain proclivities that let them settle easily into the caste system (the furinax were good craftsmen, and the Sargas were skilled assassins, for example), but any given Ara could have had more potential than any given Sargas, and they would still be a Judicator.
Can someone tldr the Stetman situation for me? I heard “Stetman made robo zerg” awhile ago and thought it sounded like some stupid gimmicky thing to sell skins. So I didn’t look into it. Is there significant lore here?
Stetman was left on Bel’shir as an advance party for a research mission, but the end war started and the rest of the mission never came, leaving him alone thinking he was abandoned.
He started huffing terazine and it made him less than stable. When the Tal’darim arrived on Bel’shir to mine terrazine, Stetman freaked out and cannibalized his outpost to make robo Zerg to defend himself (and Bel’shir, who he reveres as deity thanks to all that terrazine huffing)
His mecha swarm is technically distinct from the failed simulant project the unit skins came from, but they use the same models for convenience.
the war against Amon begins from the corruption of the golden army in Aiur, and the expansion with the broods of Amon extends when the folta of death begins the eradication of planets and the invasion of korhal the conflict calms down with the defeat of Amon in Aiur ends his persecution in the epilogue
The events in the comics make me think that the Stetman rescue has something to do with a future development of the simulant project(skin robot lore), the real replication is cool but impractical, the lore advance technology used to recreate the organism would have been better applied in a military team, the simulant project seems like a whim like jurasic park or the tall skyscraper race
Both of those statements need a citation. We’ve been over this; the khala doesn’t provide any type of power boost that can’t be found somewhere else. That’s why dark templar, tal’darim and high templar are roughly equal.
You think a simple mind spike is on par with transforming your whole body into energy and back again? Do you have any clue how hard the latter is from a physics standpoint?
That’s a baseless statement that contradicts a bunch of lore. Gestalt Zero getting the templar grade nerve cords made him twice as powerful as the ghost baseline. The high templar itself is further even beyond that.
Double the combat effectiveness of a ghost. Go re-read that comic.
Any protoss can be a zealot.
Where he’s drugged and chained down with a neural inhibitor in his brain? Are you kidding me? That’s your example? Zero had to stab him with more tranquilizer or it would have been game over. But not before Muadun snapped his metal restraint and found a way to get into zero’s head.
The fight after that where they all tried to escape isn’t remotely fair either. He was drugged/tortured/starved yet still broke his neural inhibitor, broke zero’s inhibitor, and let him kill him on purpose so that he could get into zero’s brain and free him. Muadun literally yelled across worlds telepathically to get the rest of the protoss, something a ghost needs a psi emitter type device to even think about doing.
The khala doesn’t work that way. It’s an external energy pool like the void. How do you think it would possibly work if the protoss only drew from each other? That would afford them zero extra energy as a group.
Furthermore, the other protoss in that facility had inhibitors and couldn’t access the khala anyway.
They were talking about psychic ability. Ghosts are pitiful compared to protoss. If you have more questions I quoted the whole paragraph and you can always read the book.
Well then I’m sure zealots can do that too. Lassatar or whatever his name was was dodging bullets in that one comic.
Stop strawmanning me. For the 9th time, I never said he can kill Kerrigan. I’m saying he can put up a good fight.
Yeah, it’s impressive, which is why it doesn’t make sense that you think Kerrigan would overkill him or Zeratul.
Btw, Zeratul was Tassadar’s master who was Artanis’s master. Zeratul is way older with way more experience and did better than Tassadar against Kerrigan in the queen of blades book. If anything, Zeratul is going to be a much stronger fighter than Artanis.
What does being a Heirarch have to do with being a good fighter or having high psionic potential? Nothing. He was elected for his good leadership qualities, not psionic abilities.
Any protoss with nerve cords can combine khala and void though. That alone doesn’t make Tassadar special.
The problem is that you’re just assuming they’re more powerful and/or special without any evidence.
Look… the President of the United States isn’t the smartest human or best warrior because he’s the leader of our government and commander in chief. You’re making a fallacious logic leap there. Artanis is at least competent, but there’s no evidence he’s gifted at psionics instead of leadership or military strategy.
In SC1 it was a normal psi storm. Either way, she should be powerful enough to do it.
That’s like complaining that Nova can’t control who her mini-nuke destroys.
The dark templar’s psi storms went across the entire planet of Aiur and were even noticed on colony worlds. This absolutely takes a dump on Nova’s little mini nuke of a 4 block radius.
I meant she can’t make one that she can control well. An ability where you pass out after you cast it isn’t going to be a staple in your combat arsenal.
It’s about time you provided a citation because that’s definitely not how it works.
Artanis says “Karax of the Khalai, you were born a craftsman from a caste of engineers. But now, you stand as warrior.”
The protoss are going to have billions in each tribe. It’s completely ridiculous that each protoss born in a khalai or judicator tribe is going to be unsuited for combat or psionics. Can’t you see how ridiculous that sounds? They’re just not trained for combat because that’s how the caste system works, which is unfair, which is why Artanis got rid of it…
Again, not how it works. They don’t draw power from nearby protoss. They get emotions & information from nearby protoss.
For example, a void ray draws energy from the khala which is a separate external energy pool, not “other protoss”. The void ray and other khalai technology isn’t sucking other protoss dry to power itself.
The void is definitely a source of psionic energy…
starcraft.fandom.com/wiki/Void
So what’s the difference? I guess I’m wondering what your point is. You agree that all protoss are roughly equal in terms of power no matter where they get their energy from right?
There’s not. Khala, void, celestial are all types of psionic energies.
So what were you saying about the khala giving the high templar a boost? It doesn’t. They all have their own equal power sources.
Not much of a weapon if the two main energies annihilate with each other then.
I don’t feel like hunting down examples of where this isn’t the case for all your responses, but this one is pretty obviously a source of power for protoss. It powers the spear of adun and a bunch of robotics/ships that use psionic abilities.
Look at any Purifier unit. It uses technology to gather power for its psionic abilities.
Yes it is. Ulrezaj and the Xel’Naga temple both use cosmic energies.
“The Temple is situated above a nexus of powerful cosmic energies. If we were to access those energies…”
~ Raszagal
The existence of dark templar pretty much disproves your protoss sharing of energy hypothesis. Kerrigan getting enough energy from her own biology to slam a battlecruiser to the ground is ridiculous. Think of how absurd that sounds. As if you can use bioelectricity to make giant psi storms or plasma shields…
They all gather energy from somewhere else. Kerrigan and ghosts appear to get it from the environment instead of a particular source like the khala or void.
We’ve seen Artanis make lightning, such as when he killed those dozens of zerg in the temple. There’s no evidence units somehow get a power boost when possessed by Amon.
Not sure if joking.
You heard Valerian. The most finely trained ghost is pitiful compared to an average run of the mill protoss.
Where has that happened? You are stuck with the caste you’re born into for which I have provided evidence. You’ve provided zero evidence that it works the way you think it does.
These books have lots of silly crap and blatant contradictions in them. Either way, the obvious solution is that those particular hybrids were too weak and/or not finished. We know there’s varying levels of hybrids.
No, the only reason she stood a chance against the hybrid was because she had the whole swarm on her side. If you had left them alone, the hybrid would have psionically overpowered her from far away.
Incorrect. He broke the neural inhibitor back in his cell after Burgess ordered a full diagnostic on all inhibitors to make sure they were functioning properly. It wasn’t “turned down” at all. All after being drugged, tortured, cut off from the khala and starved of sunlight.
Kerrigan or Nova never had the power to overcome their neural inhibitors.
-_-
If it was only designed to only go up to 10, you can’t score a 12 on it. Names mean things. Class and PI are different for a reason.
You keep saying that as if I haven’t addressed all your points, which I have. If I have a side-comment about the crappiness of the writing, it’s my prerogative to put it out there. ;p
Her ability isn’t that much different than a psionic storm. They both kill stuff, destroy the environment, etc. Only difference is, a high templar doesn’t get knocked out of commission after he uses it once.
Well, I think the war on Amon that was mention in the comic means the epilogue. The event during the LotV doesn’t feel like a war for me. It’s rather one sided and more of a struggle to survival. Beside the last two missions, I don’t see any fight against Amon.
Regardless, I’m not sure what your point is here.
Damn! Why don’t they do it in PvT? I could have made it to Grand Master if only my Zealot dodge half of the Bullet coming their way! (I’m joking, of course.)
Ok, that’s actually less dumb than I was expecting. And considering he’d already designed robo cats, it’s not far fetched. So long as he has access to automated construction facilities, my suspension of disbelief isn’t horrendously broken.
Edit: Jesus Christ, Grady, I had to scroll for ten years to get above your last post.
