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I finally had some time to play video games again and so I played through Legacy of the Void, Nova Covert Ops and Starcaft Remastered. I felt like writing down my thoughts, scattered as they may be. I should admit that I haven't read any supplementary material such as Starcraft novels (and I consider those to be "extended universe", they don't feature in my personal canon). Also, my recollection of WoL and Heart of the Swarm is a bit fuzzy.
What I do recall is being intensely annoyed at Heart of the Swarm, which at the time I felt was by far the worst Blizzard campaign I had experienced. If I can briefly state my objections, to me the character of Kerrigan seemed entirely insufferable and an unpleasant protagonist.
On a brief note w.r.t. the Remastering. I noticed there are still lots of typos in the mission dialogue, and I couldn't find out what happened to the secret mission involving Duran which sets up SC2. I guess people have already discussed this a lot, but I personally wouldn't have minded a slightly less conservative remastering, with a few more improvements to the interface. But I guess it's fine, and I'm still planning to start playing ladder. I played one game where I started with: "pls be nice, first game" and my opponent answered: "that's what a Korean would say" ^^.
Anyway, I wanted to write something about my thoughts on Kerrigan specifically and the campaigns in general.
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Starcraft starts out with Kerrigan as a special agent of Mengsk's guerrilla movement. She has some interactions with Raynor that can charitably be described as flirtatious and she demonstrates a measure of humanity by only grudgingly accepting to call down Zerg forces on their military opponents after Mengsk insists on it.
"I'm having doubts about this, Arcturus. I just don't think anyone deserves to have the Zerg unleashed on them."
"I know you have personal feelings about this, but you can't let your past cloud your judgment. Carry out your orders, lieutenant."
At this moment we don't know anything about her background other than that she was once a ghost as part of the Confederacy's special ops program, where she was presumably subject to inhuman experimentation and conditioning. We know she has killed before, because her gameplay debut has a cut scene where she assassinates civilians in cold blood. We can also presume that those individuals with psionic abilities face ostracization as children and are vulnerable to exploitation by various military or corporate organizations.
We don't know how she ended up with Mengsk or how what her past dealings with the Zerg were (maybe I missed it). It is narrated that the Confederacy has experimentally developed psi emitters in order to control the zerg. And later on in the story it will be shown that the United Earth Directorate is capable of controlling the Overmind and employing Zerg forces as direct military assets, instead of the cruder psi emitters which are employed as homing beacons and seem to have more limited strategic value. It's possible that Kerrigan, with her psionic abilities, was involved in these projects, and her disapproval might have been what led her into Mengsk's organization. But that's speculation on my part.
I've written this to get an idea of Kerrigan as a character prior to her infestation, because the game only allows her a few lines of dialogue before then. I think this is somewhat meager information to flesh out a character, but what we can say is that Kerrigan is an unreliable agent. She served the Confederacy and disavowed them, she became a traitor to an organization she must have been part of since childhood. She spoke up against Mengsk and was probably on the path to subordination, a bit similar to Raynor.
After Mengsk abandons her, she is infested, and has her abilities amplified, although it should be noted that she is pretty fragile in terms of gameplay. In an early mission she raids a laboratory to access files relating to ghost conditioning. She succeeds in undoing her conditioning and the result of this adventure is that she has the psionic storm ability unlocked. The Overmind also refers to her as his most powerful agent, but I think this refers to the fact she is the first successfully infested autonomous being with psionic potential
The transformation must have been very painful as well, she has to have been brought to near death making a final stand against the Zerg. It is possible she tried to leave the final bullet for herself. So she must have been in a very pitiful state before being placed in the cocoon. She is then completely remodeled into this skeletal husk and outfitted with spikes and wings and extra arms in order to become a creature of nightmare. Although ridiculously some of Blizzard's in-game art shows her with supersize breasts (!) after her transformation, almost the only flesh she has left, but whatever.
I actually really liked the characters in the original campaigns. Tassadar, Zeratul, Raynor, Mengsk, Duran, Stukov, Kerrigan, they're all so cool, not at all whiny, and always connected to larger currents that involve geopolitical considerations.
Kerrigan after her infestation is a changed person. She was restrained and timid before, she was literally conditioned by the ghost program. Yet now she is flush with power, almost excitable, impulsive and constantly eager to prove herself. I should say that I liked this contrast, it's a convincing dark mirror to her earlier personality and it follows precedent in Sci-Fi / Fantasy * where a turn to the dark side makes somewhat extraverted and uninhibited. Certainly Kerrigan must have had a lot of anger and resentment against Terrans in general, that she could finally give expression to.
I think that thematically this can be read as a critique against the military cultures of both the Confederacy and the Dominion (or the Protoss Conclave). Tassadar, Zeratul, Raynor, Kerrigan are really the most expressive characters, the most full of life, yet they are also the ones that speak out against ossified bureaucracy and power. Later on a potentially sympathetic character, the dark templar matriarch Raszagal who leads the "good" protoss faction is still depicted as weak, old and easily undermined by Kerrigan. You can probably set out similar reasoning for Admiral DuGalle from the UED.
+ Show Spoiler [*] +This is a key theme in vampire stories, for example. See for instance Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where all the vampiric versions of characters have their personalities inverted, and where fans generally theorize that the most repressed, unsatisfied, unhappy people become the most powerful vampires.
Nevertheless, if you don't view the story on a thematic, but on a narrative level it is ironic that this new Kerrigan is directly controlled by the Overmind and so can hardly be a model for autonomy. The Overmind does seem to be content with her performance and conceives of her actions as an expression of his will.
(this ends the Starcraft vanilla section, I wanted to write more, but maybe tomorrow -- plz leave thoughts ^_^ )
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Brood War starts the next chapter in Kerrigan's life. She informs the Protoss of a newly forming Overmind and seeks their aid in destroying it. She claims that she now has free will, but that the infant Overmind could easily take control of her once it is awakens. I think this claim can be investigated and shouldn't necessarily hold up under closer scrutiny.
There is a conversation with the Zeratul, Artanis, Raszagal and Kerrigan where she explains her previous actions. She says that she is no longer the mindless murderess she once was, and that whatever warped control the Overmind exerted over her is gone. However we know that Kerrigan was allowed a significant level of autonomy. The Overmind's "warped control" didn't prevent her from having an independent personality, from feuding with cerebrates and from pursuing personal projects. This strikes me as far from mindless. She receives crucial support from Raszagal in this conversation and in retrospect probably had her under her thrall already. Kerrigan is a cunning strategist and delights in twisting the truth, so we shouldn't believe everything she says.
For instance, I wonder why cerebrates can't simply control her directly if the Overmind could. First of all, there is some reason to believe that the Overmind can't always control its subjects psionically at infinite range, and from this we can infer that its close range psionic power should be formidable. Secondly, cerebrates seem to me to be just much smaller versions of the Overmind, which serve as extensions of its power where it can't physically reach because it is stuck in Char. Overlords also seem to be variations on the same theme, except that the cerebrate controls the overlords. The whole thing strikes me as a hierarchy of control, similar to a military hierarchy. And every level is capable of commanding all of its inferiors, just as long as there is the possibility of a direct signal. So why can't a cerebrate replicate this and control Kerrigan, who is a "mere" infested ghost? And why would a collection of cerebrates merged together suddenly have sufficient power to achieve this end?
I don't have a good answer to this, maybe the story doesn't really warrant this level of scrutiny and maybe we should just take Kerrigan at her word. But one answer I can think of is that Kerrigan is "special". She underwent a lengthy transformation, she was an experiment, she was intended as the special agent of the Overmind. I would theorize that the cerebrates were never capable of controlling her and that they wouldn't necessarily be able to even if they formed a new Overmind, because they weren't "attuned" to Kerrigan's "frequency", so to say.
Kerrigan is not an oracle, she can't see into the future. There was a legitimate chance that she might lose control of herself, so she eliminated this possibility. But she also eliminated her competition for control over the zerg. She emphasizes the first part of her motivation in confronting the Protoss with her proposal, while obscuring the latter.
I also wonder how she is capable of controlling the zerg. If this entire network of cerebrates and overlords was previously necessary, then it strikes me as a bit of an overreach for Blizzard to present Kerrigan as single-handedly being capable of directing the entire swarm. I thought that maybe Kerrigan's control was a combination of native psionic abilities, use of psi emitters and an alliance with a handful of lesser cerebrates. That is to say, rag-tag control which is far below the potential of the Overmind, and is more like herding goats rather than the full obedience displayed previously. There are a number of story lines where Kerrigan has to deal with renegade zerg and she's seemingly endlessly mopping up rogue cerebrates until there are none left. The Zerg are largely mindless and their effectiveness as an army, instead of just as a nuisance and diversion, depends on being able to direct them to strike at various places.
This is why I would think that future research into psi disruptors and emitters, not to mention the possibility of enslaving and studying cerebrates should suffice to completely tilt the odds in the favor of the Dominion in the long term. According to this logic, Kerrigan's control is tenuous and would not hold up in the presence of powerful technology. This could be why she is so paranoid about the single psi disruptor in existence and seeks to destroy it. This device alone poses a large threat to her domination.
This strategical consideration could be why Kerrigan seeks to operate through trickery and why she seeks to initially ingratiate herself with both Terran and Protoss.
(I still didn't get to the part I was planning to write T_T, but maybe another update tomorrow ^_^ )
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I was a bit derailed last part speculating about Zerg control mechanics, which is probably a dead end. If you want to know whether psionic emanations are similar to radio signals, you probably shouldn't look for evidence in the campaign, because it's not treated in a consistent fashion. Similarly, you shouldn't ask how zerg are capable of space travel nor why mutalisks can flap their wings in space.
I'll quote this bit from an article on fantasy writing:
Bolognium is an element that you will find upon no Periodic Table in any classroom in the world. It is, however, far from rare.
Balognium, or, alternately, bolognium (from: “baloney”) is an element highly familiar to SF fans. Or, in any case, that is the context in which I first encountered the term. The term may be unique to that venue, but the phenomenon is far too widespread to make any argument about the element being so as well. It just seems to be particularly easy to recognize it when you are pretending to be dealing with hard science.
Bolognium is an element in a story that makes absolutely no sense, is unsupported by any branch of science or natural law, or is laughably internally inconsistent, and is all but completely impossible to rationalize.
But it is — always — absolutely necessary to make the story function. And the unspoken contract with the reader is that the reader will suspend disbelief over the bolognium’s improbability and in return the author will attempt to limit himself to only one piece of balognium per story.
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Brood War vs vanilla Starcraft:
Brood War has a different feeling to it than the vanilla game. It is more of a struggle of power between factions, rather than a grand narrative about coming together to defeat the Overmind. That's why you have all these characters and why you have the endless court intrigue and short term alliances. But while there are grand conflicts between species, this is all seen through the lens of a handful of commanding officers. You are basically prohibited from caring about civilian or military casualties, because the gameplay depends on constant battle and constant deaths. You only experience the military dimension of every race, you don't get a sense of art or culture or occupation. Everyone is a soldier and everyone is expendable. I think this is almost inevitable when you create an RTS game.
I'm mentioning this because I felt that Starcraft 2 foregrounded these personal conflicts and motivations to such a large extent that the writing degenerated into comic book territory, where only a handful of super powered individuals play any meaningful role. To me it feels like Brood War has a better balance, where by unfortunate necessity the roles of soldiers and military personnel are obscured, but nevertheless the game still feels like a war between different factions. And for instance Kerrigan's motivation seems mainly to stay alive, or have the Zerg win the war. Even though she has complex characterization, it is all in the service of these larger conflicts, it's all grounded in the actual wars that are going on.
Compare this to Starcraft 2 where a million lives are thrown away because Raynor has a crush on Kerrigan or because Zeratul heard something in a prophecy. Or I read somewhere that it was revealed in some novel that Kerrigan had killed Mengsk's parents and that's why he plotted to have her killed in the Terran campaign. We thought it was just a heartless military decision, showing Mengsk's true colors but it was all interpersonal drama inappropriately played out on a grand stage by military officers who should really be focusing on other things.
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Brood Wars end:
I think video games lend themselves to speculating about counterfactuals, because you tend to play as both sides of the conflict, and the outcome of a competitive game is supposed to be open-ended. As an example, Brood War ends by pitting Kerrigan against the combined might of the Dominion, UED and the Protoss, after her top lieutenant has abandoned her and after she lost control of some of her forces to the new Overmind. The reason you win the battle is because you happen to play as Zerg, that's the structure of the campaign and it's what decides the outcome. But with some minor tweaks it could have very easily gone a different way, and I don't know if it would have resulted in a radically different type of story. The campaign also doesn't feel linear as it explores different intraspecies conflicts, which only occasionally intersect
Brood War is not a story about good versus evil, at least that's not how it's presented. The factions representing the human race are both various shades of evil, and the Zerg has a human face in Kerrigan, and she certainly suffered enough to garner sympathy. If Kerrigan happened to triumph in the final conflict, all it means is that she survive to fight another day. No lessons were learned, there is no Apotheosis. Kerrigan is victorious, but she is alone in the world, bereft of any company. The final scene has her staring blankly into the sky, wondering about great conflicts coming to her in the future.
Maybe this is why the ending had to be something of an anti-climax, had to feel a little bit arbitrary.
 
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Is it fun to play through? I don't think I ever gave the singleplayer a proper try.
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On July 02 2018 08:37 Starlightsun wrote:
Is it fun to play through? I don't think I ever gave the singleplayer a proper try.
I thought it was fun. The gameplay is a bit samey, but the writing is pretty good. If you enjoy BW multiplayer and the SC2 campaigns you should try it.
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I added another section, since I was planning to write about the entire BW campaign, but it's taking awhile. It's a bit rambling, sorry.
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For instance, I wonder why cerebrates can't simply control her directly if the Overmind could. First of all, there is some reason to believe that the Overmind can't always control its subjects psionically at infinite range, and from this we can infer that its close range psionic power should be formidable. Secondly, cerebrates seem to me to be just much smaller versions of the Overmind, which serve as extensions of its power where it can't physically reach because it is stuck in Char. Overlords also seem to be variations on the same theme, except that the cerebrate controls the overlords. The whole thing strikes me as a hierarchy of control, similar to a military hierarchy. And every level is capable of commanding all of its inferiors, just as long as there is the possibility of a direct signal. So why can't a cerebrate replicate this and control Kerrigan, who is a "mere" infested ghost? And why would a collection of cerebrates merged together suddenly have sufficient power to achieve this end?
I wonder if there are biblical and/or (Greek) mythological undertones here. Personally I am not able to perceive them if they exist, but I am not well versed in either. But I know a lot of popular culture borrow heavily from the bible/mythology, and seemingly complex storylines can be deciphered that way.
Perhaps a theme along a fallen angel and/or Oedipus?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus
Perhaps the Overmind is both Laius and the Sphinx, and Raszagal is the Oracle in Delphi.
Or perhaps the cerebrates are cherubim, Kerrigan is a Seraph and the Overmind is the Tree of Life.
In Medieval theology, following the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius, the cherubim are the second highest rank in the angelic hierarchy, following the seraphim.
While Hebrew tradition must have conceived of the cherubim as guardians of the Garden of Eden (in which they guard the way to the Tree of life), they are often depicted as performing other roles; for example in the Book of Ezekiel, they transport Yahweh's throne. The cherub who appears in the "Song of David", a poem which occurs twice in the Hebrew Bible, in 2 Samuel 22 and Psalm 18, participates in Yahweh's theophany and is imagined as a vehicle upon which the deity descends to earth from heaven in order to rescue the speaker.
All I'm saying is that I've always found the story in SC and BW to be strikingly elegant (not at all like the childish SC2 travesty), and I suspect there is good reason for it.
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If I search google for Neraphim I get: "Neraphim are a nomadic people who hunt through the maelstrom of Limbo, following and hunting their elusive and ever-moving prey. [..]Their special ability is camouflage." This is from some D&D site dated to 2004. The Dark Templar are another camouflaging nomadic race called the Nerazim on the Starcraft wiki, but that's not from the games themselves afaik. I saw there's a book trilogy called The Dark Templar Saga written by Christie Golden starting from 2007.
I suppose these are all references to the Seraphim caste of angels in the bible, but I don't understand the reason for this etymology, because the Seraphim are fiery angelic beings, whereas the Dark Templar are fallen, shadowy creatures (although they are sympathetic). Maybe there is some tradition linking these that I'm not aware of.
In any case, it's probably not relevant to your point, because this is all from the books and is not part of the original conception of the Starcraft universe, I just decided to mention it. Much of modern fantasy is heavily derivative.
And it's funny that you should mention this, because the other day I thought of the Overmind as an actual godlike creature, in the sense of its omnipotence and omniscience with regards to the Zerg. The Overmind is everywhere where dwelleth a Zerg, he knows all their intimate thoughts and secrets. He birthed the cerebrates, and when cerebrates die they become one with him and are reincarnated within him. He is their alpha and omega, he gives them purpose etc. The Overmind is also clearly coded as male. And you can imagine that most Zerg are not under his direct control, but feel his presence nevertheless. So I think it's fair to describe him in biblical terms.
But I don't know if there is a clear message to the story. For instance, the dark templar are rebels against conservative religion, but as nomads they have directly experienced the world and this is seen as lifting them above the Council. I thought this dialogue was cool:
Aldaris: "I will not be addressed so by one so devoid of the Khala's light. You and your vile brethren shall die with these traitors."
Zeratul: "Are you truly so blinded by your vaunted religion, that you can't see the fall ahead of you? Your Conclave believes that they are winning this war, but all they've succeeded in doing is helping the Overmind to win."
Aldaris: "What could you possibly know about our designs, blasphemer?"
Zeratul: "You speak of knowledge, Judicator? You speak of experience? I have journeyed through the darkness between the most distant stars. I have beheld the births of negative-suns and borne witness to the entropy of entire realities... Unto my experience, Aldaris, all that you've built here on Aiur is but a fleeting dream. A dream from which your precious Conclave shall awaken, finding themselves drowned in a greater nightmare."
Trying to find some thematic unity here, you could also say that Kerrigan is in some sense orphaned after the loss of the Overmind, this all-powerful being that privileged her with his attention. It's also why the story of the expansion feels much more modern than that of the original Starcraft, which has a sort of grand design, a mythical story about the ancient, god-like Overmind swallowing the universe. Whereas Brood War is the story of a girl trying to make it in a world where everyone distrusts her and she has to use her wits to stay afloat.
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The original campaign inspirations:
Terran - Freedom/Rebel Movements and subsequent political consequences
Zerg - Alien, Borg from Star Trek, Starship Troopers, other misc. Sci Fi works
Protoss - The New Testament
I'm not kidding about the Protoss; their story is very analogous to the decline of the Jews in the bible who cling to failing traditions, while persecuting the followers of a new radical messiah named Tassadar.
Brood War:
Protoss - Refugee plight
Terran - Tons of European Facist overtones
Zerg - Queen Bitch of the Universe
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Canada8987 Posts
I'm just disapointed she turned into a naked flaming angel and not a giant space squid at the end of LOTV. It would have been in accordance with the lore.
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I was pretty disappointed from a gameplay perspective of the HOTS campaign. WOL was just the right amount of difficult and I enjoyed doing the missions and leveling up my units. HOTS was a cakewalk compared to WOL. Mass roach hydra every single mission and you'll be fine, even on Brutal. I cant even remember what the last mission of HOTS was, but that last WOL mission where you have to hold out until the artifact activates was sick and difficult. Never bothered touching LOTV campaign after my disappointment with HOTS.
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On July 03 2018 10:29 CHEONSOYUN wrote:
The original campaign inspirations:
Terran - Freedom/Rebel Movements and subsequent political consequences
Zerg - Alien, Borg from Star Trek, Starship Troopers, other misc. Sci Fi works
Protoss - The New Testament
I'm not kidding about the Protoss; their story is very analogous to the decline of the Jews in the bible who cling to failing traditions, while persecuting the followers of a new radical messiah named Tassadar.
Brood War:
Protoss - Refugee plight
Terran - Tons of European Facist overtones
Zerg - Queen Bitch of the Universe
As far as I recall the original Warcraft was supposed to be an adaptation of Warhammer, but there were some licensing issues and so they decided to create their own universe. I suppose Starcraft started out as an homage to Warhammer 40k?I actually don't know anything about the Warhammer franchise, but I read that the Zerg are based on a species called the Tyranids.
The Tyranids are an extragalactic composite species of hideous xenos that is actually a space-faring ecosystem comprised of innumerable different bioforms which are all variations on the same genetic theme. The Tyranid race is ultimately dedicated solely to its own survival, propagation and evolutionary advancement. The Tyranids collectively form a monstrous superorganism that travels across the universe in their great Hive Fleets of biomechanical Hive Ships, systematically consuming all other biomatter to enable its own rapid evolution and reproduction. All Tyranid organisms are synaptic (psychically-reactive), and each Tyranid creature within a Hive Fleet shares and contributes to a communal Hive Mind, which allows the trillions of beings comprising the Tyranid Hive Fleets to communicate and organise instantaneously on a staggering scale.
The mentality of the Tyranid approach to warfare can be described with the phrase "quantity has a quality all its own". From the "lowly" Ripper, to the deadly Hive Tyrant and beyond, the signature of the Tyranid species is that they overwhelm their foes with sheer numbers, reproducing massive numbers of highly virulent organisms in record time from the biochemical soup that they derive from the biospheres of the worlds that they consume.
I mean, that directly describes the Zerg. Of course this is based on the bugs from Starship Troopers, but the notion of endless propagation and evolutionary advancement, and the hive mind idea, is not from the book, right? It's been awhile since I've read it, and I can't remember what was in the book and what was in the movie.
Reading up on the Tyranids I can't find anything about an Overmind-esque focal point of the Hive Mind, instead their hive intelligence operates more like a distributed neural network where each ship is like a node. The same is true for the Borg in Star Trek afaik.
So maybe the Overmind is an original idea by Blizzard? Though it's a fairly obvious extension I guess.
Also, even the cerebrates have individual minds of their own, they're just under control of the Overmind. It's not really collective intelligence.
On July 04 2018 03:15 Epishade wrote:
I was pretty disappointed from a gameplay perspective of the HOTS campaign. WOL was just the right amount of difficult and I enjoyed doing the missions and leveling up my units. HOTS was a cakewalk compared to WOL. Mass roach hydra every single mission and you'll be fine, even on Brutal. I cant even remember what the last mission of HOTS was, but that last WOL mission where you have to hold out until the artifact activates was sick and difficult. Never bothered touching LOTV campaign after my disappointment with HOTS.
LOTV is more challenging on Brutal than HOTS, but not by too much. I thought it was fine for a casual playthrough. Obviously you can't take the story seriously at all, but that's a given.
On July 03 2018 10:58 Nakajin wrote:
I'm just disapointed she turned into a naked flaming angel and not a giant space squid at the end of LOTV. It would have been in accordance with the lore.
It reminds me of Babylon V where (spoiler) the godlike, ancient Vorlons, first among the races etc. appear as culture-specific angelic beings to everyone that observes them. But if you were to record them on video you'd find they're actually space-energy-squids, they just have some sort of mind control. We see Kerrigan later on hooking up with Raynor, and she appears fully human. Perhaps he is in for a surprise.  (I'm stealing this joke from the movie Galaxy Quest, which also had squid-like beings appear human. When one of the aliens makes out with a human she loses control over her transformation and hilarity ensues etc.)
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I heard the Tyranids are mostly retroactively like the zerg. the Tryanids of 1997 aren't the same tyranids we think of today.
One thing that I'm surprised not more people talk about, is like, the freaking layouts of the bases in the starcraft campaign.The mineral patches and gas geyers are completely in wtf places.
Its COMPLETELY alien to how the game is played at any level. That, and they try to push you to do useless tactics, like stealing other people's tech labs by floating your bases over to their base.
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On July 05 2018 13:08 lestye wrote:One thing that I'm surprised not more people talk about, is like, the freaking layouts of the bases in the starcraft campaign.The mineral patches and gas geyers are completely in wtf places.
Its COMPLETELY alien to how the game is played at any level. That, and they try to push you to do useless tactics, like stealing other people's tech labs by floating your bases over to their base.
Ever heard of storytelling? I may be reaching here, but maybe they wanted you to feel like you were in a natural environment where mineral patches are naturally occuring and not artificially aligned in the most optimal eSports 1337 pattern. And I may be way off here, but maybe they used funky tactics as plot devices?
Jesus, your complaints are the most imbecile I've ever heard. Stay away from the campaign if storytelling is a completely alien concept to you.
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On July 05 2018 15:19 Jae Zedong wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2018 13:08 lestye wrote:One thing that I'm surprised not more people talk about, is like, the freaking layouts of the bases in the starcraft campaign.The mineral patches and gas geyers are completely in wtf places.
Its COMPLETELY alien to how the game is played at any level. That, and they try to push you to do useless tactics, like stealing other people's tech labs by floating your bases over to their base.
Ever heard of storytelling? I may be reaching here, but maybe they wanted you to feel like you were in a natural environment where mineral patches are naturally occuring and not artificially aligned in the most optimal eSports 1337 pattern. And I may be way off here, but maybe they used funky tactics as plot devices? Jesus, your complaints are the most imbecile I've ever heard. Stay away from the campaign if storytelling is a completely alien concept to you.
Right... because the first thing that comes to mind about mineral patches in Starcraft is storytelling.
And I'm not criticizing the storytelling at all, I'm pointing out the awkward map design in the vanilla campaign, which they rectified in the Brood War campaign. We're also discussing gameplay in this thread, a huge reason for the campaign is to teach you how to play the game. You don't have to be rude.
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On July 04 2018 03:15 Epishade wrote:
I was pretty disappointed from a gameplay perspective of the HOTS campaign. WOL was just the right amount of difficult and I enjoyed doing the missions and leveling up my units. HOTS was a cakewalk compared to WOL. Mass roach hydra every single mission and you'll be fine, even on Brutal. I cant even remember what the last mission of HOTS was, but that last WOL mission where you have to hold out until the artifact activates was sick and difficult. Never bothered touching LOTV campaign after my disappointment with HOTS.
I agree about HotS, it was too easy and I barely remember anything from this campaign, but LotV was a lot better for me and it wasn't that easy, I remember I had a lot of fun with it.
Covert Ops, on the other hand, I can't make myself to finish it for about a year now. I got 100% achievements in all other campaigns but here I just get bored after 1-2 hours.
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I added two more sections on BW vs the original Starcraft and the somewhat anti-climactic BW ending. I don't know if anyone reads these, but nevertheless there they are. At least one more section still planned.
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On July 04 2018 03:15 Epishade wrote:
I was pretty disappointed from a gameplay perspective of the HOTS campaign. WOL was just the right amount of difficult and I enjoyed doing the missions and leveling up my units. HOTS was a cakewalk compared to WOL. Mass roach hydra every single mission and you'll be fine, even on Brutal. I cant even remember what the last mission of HOTS was, but that last WOL mission where you have to hold out until the artifact activates was sick and difficult. Never bothered touching LOTV campaign after my disappointment with HOTS.
Too bad LotV is imo by far the best of the 3. Awesome gameplay, the coolest character in Alarak and the most epic music. You must forego the Epilogue though, I'm still trying to get rid of the memory of that.
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On the topic of who influenced whom, I came across this by accident: Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood End, which apparently was a popular science fiction novel. In any case, here is a short summary paraphrased from wiki:
The story follows the alien invasion of Earth by the mysterious Overlords, whose arrival begins decades of apparent utopia under indirect alien rule, at the cost of human identity and culture.
The Overlords' purpose is revealed; they serve the Overmind, a vast cosmic intelligence, born of amalgamated ancient civilizations and freed from the limitations of material existence. The Overlords themselves are unable to join the Overmind, but serve it as a bridge species, fostering other races' eventual union with it.
It is explained that the time of humanity as a race composed of single individuals with a concrete identity is coming to an end. Minds reach into each other and merge into a single vast group consciousness. If the Pacific were to be dried up, the islands dotting it would lose their identity as islands and become part of a new continent; in the same way, people cease to be the individuals and become something else, completely alien to the "old type of human".
This is from 1946, so it seems fairly prescient.
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I wanted to do one final observation about Kerrigan, to finish my thoughts on her.
(source)
The Overmind was not blind to its plight. It foresaw the apocalyptic outcome if Amon, whom it called "the Fallen One", was victorious. Although unable to resist its directive to destroy the protoss, the Overmind sought to secretly undermine Amon's plan to enslave the Swarm. Under the pretense of creating a new weapon to combat the protoss, the Overmind had Sarah Kerrigan captured and transformed into the Queen of Blades.The Overmind kept Kerrigan's true purpose hidden from everyone, including Kerrigan herself. In the future the Overmind glimpsed at, Amon had eventually recognized the threat that Kerrigan posed.
Kerrigan was reborn as the Queen of Blades after Amon's defeat at Ulnar. Because of this, while she still felt his lingering influence over her, and had her personality twisted, she was effectively an individual, as opposed to the Overmind. After the Brood War, Amon's will crept into her thoughts through the mutagen within her, showing her visions of his return and the extinction of the zerg. She pulled the Swarm back to Char, and for four years, she quietly prepared the zerg for war as per Amon's will.However, while Kerrigan felt his influence, Amon never directly controlled her. Though convinced that the future could not be averted, Kerrigan resolved that she and the Swarm would fight to the death and perish in a final blaze of glory.
This is the story after Starcraft 2. Here we can appreciate "retroactive continuity" and the rehabilitation of a former villain. We misjudged the Overmind, which famously rebelled against the Xel'Naga and then sought to assimilate all life in the universe, slaughtering billions in the process. It was actually merely a pawn in Amon's greater machinations. It invaded and destroyed Aiur because of its tragic inability to resist Amon's directive, but fortunately it created Kerrigan at the mere cost of some millions of human lives on Tarsonis. And conveniently, Kerrigan is both an independent person with an individual mind and an unwilling tool of Amon's larger agenda, tragically compelled to do evil despite being pure of heart.
I should say that this really annoyed me, because these it essentially erases two of my favorite BW characters. The Overmind becomes a confused mess, an outwardly evil creature who is secretly noble even if all of its supposedly noble actions can at face value be explained as sensible military decisions. Whose grand menace as the devourer of the universe becomes neutered into that of a cuddly creature wanting to do the right thing.
And Kerrigan, whose every action in BW can be viewed as self preservation and whose humanity is still very evident, is treated as a victim of some sort of hypnosis that clear her from her multitude of crimes.
I wanted to somewhat back up the last statement, since to me it was the most interesting thing that jumped out on my recent BW playthrough.
So first of all, she can not be held fully responsible for the actions of Duran e.g. his murder of Stukov, since he was an independent agent seeking to betray Kerrigan. We can infer that Kerrigan directed him to destroy the psi disruptor and oppose the new Overmind, both of which are of vital importance if Kerrigan wants to remain in command of her military forces. That said, it's possible she did directly order Stukov's murder.Aldaris.
With regards to the protoss, she enthralls Raszagal and murders Aldaris when he threatens to expose her. That's quite ruthless. I think that in general Kerrigan doesn't like the protoss and hardly feels any pangs of doubt in killing them if necessary. So she is quite ruthless here.
There are actually many other examples of her heartless disregard for people's lives, such as where she attacks a terran or a protoss colony in order to secure some direct strategical goal.
She allies with terran and protoss forces yet again later on, but delivers on the general expectation that she would betray them at the earliest opportune moment. Afterwards she admits to "growing weary of the slaughter". However, this slaughter is still restricted to military casualties.
There is another incident later on where she lets Admiral DuGalle live following his defeat on Char, and previously she did the same with Zeratul and Mengsk if I recall correctly. She also lets Mengsk live and refrains from invading Korhal in order to eliminate all of humanity.
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I think if you look at all these incidents, I don't think there is any particular one where she simply delights in the slaughter of humanity out of some twisted need for destruction. She clearly does not like the protoss and she no qualms about assassinating those who threaten to expose her schemes, but she still leaves their civilizations intact. And you can interpret numerous incidents as her being somewhat unwilling to directly harm terran civilians.
To me of all that paints a picture of somewhat who reasons as a military commander and who prioritizes her survival and her ability to control the Zerg army. This inevitably pushes her over into being evil and beyond redemption in any moral framework which would be acceptable to us on earth. But on the other hand, Kerrigan is also very young and showed signs of growth, she also did not really have the chance to reflect on her actions, most of them being absolutely necessary for her survival. And well, in our world we think of "killing nazis" as sometimes morally acceptable, and we think of military casualties as somehow different from civilian ones. And it has to be said that much of the Dominion and UED, or the protoss conclave, were very oppressive and authoritarian, and that they certainly planned to capture Kerrigan and experiment on her. And Kerrigan certainly is a victim of severe trauma and of various circumstances.
I think that in summary you can still view Kerrigan as the villain, but it surprised me, actually, that if Blizzard had made a few minor changes to the BW plotline that she would have been almost salvageable and you could almost make a case for her actions. The way it is now, I don't think that's quite possible, the lack of scruples she displays is rather too evident, but it's quite close nevertheless.
At the very least you can say that she reasons as a human does, even if it's an embittered, wicked one. She does not reason as a Lovecraftian horror which seeks to eliminate all life.
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And I think that there was enough material to work with here for a sequel.
I mentioned Apotheosis in a previous post, which is defined as: the expansion of consciousness that the hero experiences after defeating his foe, or alternatively the glorification of a subject to divine level and relates to Joseph Campbell's Universal Hero myth. Note that the latter literally happens in Legacy of the Void as Kerrigan is transformed yet again into an angel. A better example would be the end of Lord of the Rings, where evil is defeated and a saddened Frodo departs to the West and Aragorn is crowned as a sort of philosopher king. Victory comes with transformation.
By the way, this is a common criticism of the Harry Potter septology, that Voldemort is defeated but their society still mistreats muggles, elves, centaurs, goblins, you still have prejudice and corruption etc. Everyone is just waiting for the next Dark Lord for the whole thing to play out all over again. The whole thing in retrospect looked like a gang war between two opposing factions, where one side wins and takes power. There is nothing really transformative about it, so as an ending it's somehow unsatisfying.
I feel like the story of Starcraft 2 had to be the atonement of Kerrigan for her sins and had to be about her growth as a person, so that she could see beyond narrow military gains and direct self preservation. And she had to be a model for all of the races and the entire sector, so that her transformation could stand as a symbol for the end of the perpetual factional disputes that happened. I guess this would end the story in some sense, but it doesn't have to be absolute and forever, just as long as the seed is planted. And for this to happen you can not start the story by erasing any of Kerrigan's agency in Brood War and by just reinventing her character by means of a magical device. And then even after she is "good", she still does all the same evil out of military necessity and she immediately (and needlessly) transforms back into a zerg anyway.
Like, what point was Blizzard trying to make? If I'm cynical I could say that it's about having a franchise and having marketable characters akin to comic book heroes / villains and deciding that Kerrigan is so popular that she should be reinvented as a hero and that therefore she has to be given a clean slate. Regardless of the requirements of the narrative. Honestly, the Kerrigan from BW strikes me as a complex character whose motivations are hard to guess. And I think this was beyond the skill of Blizzard to follow up on.
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