EPTAs a celebration of the end of finals, I have taken upon myself to unwind with some good old-fashioned criticism of Starcraft. Of course, I don't mean BW vs SC2, or Fundamental Problems With Terran, but I mean some English major bullshit.
There are a fair amount of options to look at Starcraft in the eyes of an English major (read: someone who completely over-thinks things). For instance, you could easily squeeze out a few pages on Kerrigan in terms of feminist theory. Consider: Sarah Kerrigan is one of the few female characters prominently featured in the series (aside from Mira who doesn't really count, and Razagal, the protoss Matriarch). She is thrust into a war by men who want to exploit her power and abandoned by men to die, but is reborn into the Queen of Blades who serves as an icon for the feminine in the most symbolically feminine race (queens and eggs)...
I could go on, but that's not what I want to talk about. We're here to discuss postcolonialism and the idea of colonization in Starcraft, as well as it's effect on how we play the game. But, lets start at the beginning. What is postcolonialism?
Postcolonialism is a post-modern branch of literary theory that deals with imperialist and colonial interactions, both in regards to the past and now that many colonies are now independent countries of their own. These new modern revelations about the attitudes and ideals of colonialism, and the relationships between the colonizers and the colonized have opened up a lot discussion about various works of literature. A good example is that of The Tempest and the relationship of Prospero (the colonizer) to Caliban (the colonized, often now portrayed as a Caribbean islander).
Now, to Starcraft. Let's just examine a little lore before getting to the nitty-gritty of how it effects multiplayer. We've got the Koprulu sector, on the edges of the Protoss territory. The Protoss ideas of Stewardship come into play, left over the Protoss Colonial period (we can observe the pProtoss as a post-colonial society in some sense, as they have ceased colonial and imperialistic efforts) This serves as the colonial territory for the Terrans, who quickly devour resources and expand outward in order to further their empire and power through the use of colonies. The Zerg essentially operate under similar principles, except with a slightly more sinister nature.
The methods of colonization of the Zerg and Terran are incredibly different. The Terran use a very brute-force approach of colonization and expansion through the sword (er, Gauss Rifle). The Terrans need resources and only resources, similar to the Protoss, who both believe that their species is the pinnacle of galactic sentience. The Zerg, however, are multi-species society. The Zerg operate through infestation and assimilation, similar to "Westernization", a word thrown around a lot in regards to the impact of Western culture on Eastern societies. The Zerg incorporate the useful into the brood, as they did with the Kerrigan and all the various species that now make up the brood.
For the actual mechanics of colonization, this thread right here is fantastic:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=214452
If we take a look at other similar RTS games and how they manage essentially the same conflict and resource management. Starcraft (and Warcraft) both present a similar problem in terms of resource management in that valuable resources are incredibly limited. Gold mines collapse. Mineral fields deplete. Compare this to Age of Empires (specifically 2), in which there are renewable resources. After all the deer are hunted and berries picked, your society moves into intensive agriculture and mass farming, essentially a sustainable economic system (granted eventually you will run out of wood to build farms, but assuming a realistic world trees regrow) in which players can buy and sell resources at market and engage in trade to regain gold and buy stone. In Starcraft there is no such system. Once the map is depleted (which is not impossible by any means) resources are gone. Starcraft does not have a stable economic system, which forces players in the late game to take bigger economic risks in terms of expanding (moving towards enemy territory, as it were.
Lets take a look at Shakuras plateau, TvZ. The late-game expansions (those towards the center of the map, and not in elevated positions) are hell for any race to defend (especially a zerg) without considerable defensive investment. Also, consider how a Terran takes a base lategame: Float a cc to it, planetary up, and drop >9000 mules in order to get the maximum resources in the shortest amount of time. If anything, the MULE represents the colonial attitudes of the Terran more than anything- exploit resources as fast as possible to get resources for cost efficient, but disposable soldiers.
What the MULE is to Terran in terms of colonial practices, creep is to the Zerg. Remember what I mentioned earlier about the colonial ideas of the Zerg? Zerg establish what is there , territory by spreading their goo all over it. Moving on to creep means moving on to Zerg Territory. The Zerg will know your every move, and you are at risk for being surrounded and watching your army, a representation of your races ideals, be swallowed by the swarm.
The psionic matrix serves in a similar role for Protoss, but relative to their Post-Colonial status. While Terran and Zerg are economically or territorially aggressive, warp gate and the recall spell are something else entirely. Recall or warp-in serve to defend Protoss expansions or to immediately have Protoss zealots their to enforce their doctrine with psi blades.
All of these mechanics serve unconsciously with the ideals represented by the race. We can look at the recent TL shirts which sum it up incredibly eloquently- Spirit, Swarm, and Steel.
Their colonial interactions and goals can be visualized best when each race is in their optimal position:
For Zerg: Opponent is trapped in their base, creep is everywhere. On 5 bases with consistent income and larvae production, and the ability to adapt at will to defeat the opponents army. Expansions have all either been taken or creeped upon.
For Protoss: Bases are secure, with observers placed and watchtowers taken to avoid damage from drops and monitor the main army. Warp gates can instantly reenforce or defend, and warp prisms or pylons can deny expansions. A devastating deathball is at the ready to smash through the inferior army of the enemy.
For Terran: Regions are secured by sensor towers and tanks, or the map has been split. The enemy has no visibility and cannot safely do anything, meaning observers and overseers have been denied and creep has been prevented. The Terran is able to move around the map freely with drops or other various harass to prevent the opponent from having any significantly powerful army for the final push.
So, what does this all mean? In short, the colonial ideas represented by each race determine how the race functions and in turn, how we play the game. Granted, MVP is not thinking about the symbolism of Terran mining styles in the narrative completion of the race when he plays, but it's unconsciously being beamed to us. I contend that one of the reasons that people are so consistently against the MULE is because of it's exploitative nature. However, it totally makes sense in terms of narrative for Terrans to have something like that. "We need to mine out the valuable resources of this planet as fast as possible" is a very Terran thing. Terrans don't care about global warming or the hazardous effects of vespene gas.They need resources now. Non Terrans hate the exploitative nature of the mule, especially on Shattered Temple or Antigua where that son of a bitch is going to planetary up and call down mules by the truckload on those minerals. There is no concern for sustainability. The inconvenient truth is that they are going to be mined out faster because of it, but a Terran doesn't care.
Lets end this up with a nice TL,DR because this has gone on for near-1500 words and I actually want to go play the game. Each race represents various colonial methods and strategies. These ideals not only impact the way the race is played through units and stylization, but through the very mechanics. By analyzing the way we play the game, we can see the colonial doctrine of each race played out each time we 1v1, and a representation of the struggle of colonial powers over territory seen in the the Age of Exploration(15/1600s to early 1700s) and the Age of Imperialism (1800s to early 1900s) with a science-fiction twist.
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So, if you bothered to read through all that, you probably have a few reactions, and I wanted to address them here.
"You are completely over-analyzing this. Just play the friggin' game"
------- I probably am, but it's kind of what I do. Part of the fun of being an English major, at least for me, has been looking at thing through various critical lenses and then analyzing the hell out of them.
"This is rambling and makes absolutely no sense"
------- Cut me a break. It's probably an awful, half-baked idea, but I just finished exams and felt like writing about something fun for a bit.
"You are wrong, here is why"
-------I probably am wrong. This is my interpretation of things. You probably have a different one. This isn't really a right or wrong thing.
"No, bro, you're seriously incredibly wrong"
------ Oh? Really? Well I just wasted about two hours.
If you actually enjoyed it, which I hope you did, that's pretty sweet. I love doing this stuff, and would gladly do more critiques with no founding in reality if people like it.
If you hated it, I guess that's cool too.
EDIT- I AM NOT COMPLAINING ABOUT MULES. I PLAY TERRAN. I LIKE MULES.
