StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void

[Dzupakazul]

I would've asked who all those people are, but boy am I glad not to "get" any of that shit.

Sargeras

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rrkuqFTS-k

This transformation defines the character in the sense that it makes us believe that Kerrigan was always, in fact, *that* Kerrigan in Broodwar. That the Overmind never did change her that much. That she was so devastated by Mengsk's "betrayal" that she did a 180 on her character. This is rather hard to believe - when people change, they don't just become the COMPLETE OPPOSITE of what they were, and in fact, it's difficult to believe in the first place that the Starcraft 1 Kerrigan would internalize such a deep hatred of Mengsk.

That she would rationalize genocide and doing the whole New Gettysburg thing because papa Mengsk said so tells more that she was being pathologically loyal to someone who, presumptously, got her out of the Confederate Ghost program and gave her a better purpose in life, only to utterly sodomize it by betraying her trust. "Arcturus will come around for me, I just know he will". Good reason to hate the guy.

In fact, that bit of retcon changes her character tremendously, because it shows that Kerrigan was a cold-blooded killer long before she was infested, which contradicts the personality she had in Starcraft 1.

Her introductory mission establishes her as someone who sneaks into a base to assassinate the guy in charge of the Antigan base. She's already an assassin, also part of a Ghost program which really fucks up with your mind something fierce. And again, she goes with Mengsk's orders only because she was loyal. Really, really loyal.

Starcraft's writing was way better when the issue of her humanity as the Queen of Blades wasn't hamfisted (muh Zerg are conscious creatures!), but way more subtle. Replay the mission "True Colors" to see what I mean. And "The Liberation of Korhal", for that matter; Kerrigan's revenge plot was well established into Brood War. Even if Mengsk helped her become an all-powerful Zerg, he also betrayed her trust and is an overall sleazeball. The animosity between them is pretty justified within SC1 frame.

Raynor's archetype seems to be that of the rogue/trickster. Reminds me a lot of Han Solo in Star Wars.

The guy's main operations was breaking into installations and taking what's inside with brute force, destroying power generators and piloting a Battlecruiser into the final clash with the Overmind, and also holding the line along with Fenix on Aiur for a long time. The only stealthy things he does is when Protoss lend him the Arbiter technology. Going with simple archetypes like that isn't good enough even for TVTropes.

 

[Azrael the cat]

because they retconned the original Protoss to become similar to how Tassadar was en masse.

They really dropped the whole 'let's destroy entire populated planets because the zergs have landed on them, even though the locals could probably mount an effective resistance with our help' like a lead balloon, didn't they?

 

[Azarkon]

Mengsk presents himself as a revolutionary who will cripple the Confederacy, and who is just a peaceful, misunderstood ruler of Korhal. Then he sics the Zerg on an entire planet. Then he overextends really harshly - Raynor calls him out on that it's fucking retarded to be fighting the Protoss and Zerg on two fronts, and his only reason for issuing the "don't destroy Zerg buildings" order is that Confederates may escape, because he's already betraying that he's a sick, dictatorial fuck. The operation in New Gettysburg wasn't necessary if Mengsk only wanted to cripple the Confederacy and liberate lands like Korhal. He already had Norad II and the Confederacy's best general at his disposal, as well as a pretty fucking skilled Magistrate, what more could he want? Wars are over when one side decides that fighting isn't worth it anymore; the Confederacy lost their core world and was completely in shambles, with Zerg rampaging through their outlier words like Chau Sara and Mar Sara, and with the Protoss (seemingly) performing Exterminatus on everything. The point was that Mengsk was a total, power-hungry dick, and the New Gettysburg operation was a greedy move, and that if Kerrigan was to be treated like a pawn, there was no telling who would be screwed over next. Then Kerrigan shows up and Raynor's good reason for hating Mengsk is that he enabled the creation of a creature who is a murderous bitch. Why would Kerrigan hate Mengsk so? Because she's human, she has a grudge, and even if she likes being a Zerg, it doesn't mean that she wouldn't like to impale him on his claw and culminate making him realize, "in his most private moments", that he managed to create his own undoing. Because she's a villain.

Mengsk being a power-hungry dictator is a given, but the driving force behind the story, past the first Terran campaign, was never presented as a liberation narrative eg "Mengsk is a tyrant! He does all this crap! He needs to be overthrown!" The driving force behind the story was Kerrigan enjoying being a Zerg and deciding to go on a killing spree against her former teammates. Because "vengeance." She goes above and beyond what the Overmind requires of her in terms of malice, and after the Overmind is destroyed by Tassadar, she uses everyone else as pawns in her bid to become the new Queen of Blades. And what does she do after Jim uses the Xel'Naga artifact to restore her to humanity? She goes right back to "vengeance."

It is this leitmotif of the story that is the problem with the entire Starcraft narrative, and it started with Starcraft 1. What's wrong with Kerrigan holding a grudge against Mengsk? Nothing - had she remained a simple villain and plot device for Raynor's development. But when it becomes the main motivation for the narrative, then everything is wrong with it because it is not sympathetic, and therefore not emotionally compelling. It situates the entire narrative of Starcraft on a stupid case of "hell hath no fury as a woman scorned." Plus it removes all that was sympathetic about Kerrigan's "death" to begin with and makes Raynor's love for her hard to believe.

They were Space Nazis who tried to enslave the Zerg simply to become new tyrants in the Sector - what Kerrigan told Raynor and Fenix was a half-truth, not an outright lie - they even had a huge Starship Troopers homage as their ending cinematic. The Admiral in charge was, again, overzealous, overambitious, and made a shitload of general mistakes. Brood War is a fun story, with lots of cool setups and upsets, but when you think about it, it's all about people acting like total and utter idiots just so Kerrigan and Duran can win. BW was something like FO2 in terms of worldbuilding and storytelling in many cases.

The idea of enslaving the Zerg and using them to bring order to the sector is ruthless but, ultimately, rational, even sympathetic, given that what we've seen from the Confederacy and the Dominion in terms of both morality and competency. In fact, the UED were the only ones with a plan for gaining and maintaining human hegemony in the sector, so in a lot of ways, they were the lesser of three evils and certainly a lot less evil than Kerrigan was in Broodwar. I actually found this aspect of the story rather compelling simply because it was a nice shade of grey after the black and white that was Warcraft 2. The UED were closer to the WH40k Space Marines than the Terrans and people are able to get behind that in a grimdark world where it's kill/be killed.

What about Duran's hybrids? What about the reconstruction of the Protoss? What about reclaiming Aiur? What if Kerrigan decided to continue Overmind's plan? What about her return? What if her hatred of humanity culminates in wanting to engulf it all for purely selfish reasons? What if SC2 becomes a story about insane Mengsk's dominion desperately clinging to power in spite of the Zerg's victory being absolutely certain somewhere down the line (sorta like WH40K lore, with Chaos inevitably winning at some point) and another unlikely Terran/Protoss alliance to get things into some managable status quo? What about some other third party? What about expanding roles of such factions as the Umojan Protectorate or Kel-Morian Combine, who don't seem to be associated with anyone?

None of these, except for the Protoss and Duran bits which ARE the main narrative of LotV, were the center piece of the narrative going into Starcraft II. We all know how Broodwar ended - with Jim vowing to kill Kerrigan, Kerrigan victorious, and the Protoss in shambles. People called for Blizzard to finish that narrative. What they didn't think was how shallow, ultimately, Kerrigan's character and motivation actually were, such that building a story around it ends you up with Mengsk being the most sympathetic character.

 

[Average Manatee]

In the end, it is the Protoss that is the most sympathetic in Starcraft 2 and that's in no small way because they retconned the original Protoss to become similar to how Tassadar was en masse. They could get away not having this in Starcraft 1, especially Broodwar, because they had other sympathetic characters. But in Starcraft 2, where all the Terran and Zerg characters are douchebag/SJW caricatures, there's no choice but to act as though the Protoss were the noble Draenei all along.

I think Protoss are the most sympathetic race in SC2 simply because they've been seen the least. All you see are basically rogue tribes that are made to be dumb and silly for the purpose of the mission. Remains to be seen whether the new campaign changes this.

Mengsk being a power-hungry dictator is a given, but the driving force behind the story, past the first Terran campaign, was never presented as a liberation narrative eg "Mengsk is a tyrant! He does all this crap! He needs to be overthrown!" The driving force behind the story was Kerrigan enjoying being a Zerg and deciding to go on a killing spree against her former teammates. Because "vengeance." She goes above and beyond what the Overmind requires of her in terms of malice, and after the Overmind is destroyed by Tassadar, she uses everyone else as pawns in her bid to become the new Queen of Blades. And what does she do after Jim uses the Xel'Naga artifact to restore her to humanity? She goes right back to "vengeance."

It is this leitmotif of the story that is the problem with the entire Starcraft narrative, and it started with Starcraft 1. What's wrong with Kerrigan holding a grudge against Mengsk? Nothing - had she remained a simple villain and plot device for Raynor's development. But when it becomes the main motivation for the narrative, then everything is wrong with it because it is not sympathetic, and therefore not emotionally compelling. It situates the entire narrative of Starcraft on a stupid case of "hell hath no fury as a woman scorned." Plus it removes all that was sympathetic about Kerrigan's "death" to begin with and makes Raynor's love for her hard to believe.

In SC1? No. She was never really about vengeance. In the original campaign she was just following orders while mocking the other side. In BW she killed people because they were powerful enough to potentially threaten her, not out of vengeance. Duke and Fenix both died because they were highly capable commanders, not out of any personal vendetta, while Mengsk goes free because Kerrigan knows he's pathetic without help.

 

[Azarkon]

That she would rationalize genocide and doing the whole New Gettysburg thing because papa Mengsk said so tells more that she was being pathologically loyal to someone who, presumptously, got her out of the Confederate Ghost program and gave her a better purpose in life, only to utterly sodomize it by betraying her trust. "Arcturus will come around for me, I just know he will". Good reason to hate the guy.

Her introductory mission establishes her as someone who sneaks into a base to assassinate the guy in charge of the Antigan base. She's already an assassin, also part of a Ghost program which really fucks up with your mind something fierce. And again, she goes with Mengsk's orders only because she was loyal. Really, really loyal.

Starcraft's writing was way better when the issue of her humanity as the Queen of Blades wasn't hamfisted (muh Zerg are conscious creatures!), but way more subtle. Replay the mission "True Colors" to see what I mean. And "The Liberation of Korhal", for that matter; Kerrigan's revenge plot was well established into Brood War. Even if Mengsk helped her become an all-powerful Zerg, he also betrayed her trust and is an overall sleazeball. The animosity between them is pretty justified within SC1 frame.

See, had Kerrigan just been a basket case from the start, it'd be easier to understand, but that's not the case. She never rationalized genocide. She opposed the New Gettysburg mission but was overruled. She followed orders because she was loyal but Mengsk had no illusions about her political views. That's why he dropped her in the original game, before the reton - because she was starting to question him and therefore becoming a liability to him. This was before they made up a story about her killing his family. Kerrigan never came off as a mentally unbalanced person in Starcraft 1 and her motivation for helping Mengsk was stated as being a combination of personal gratefulness and moral outrage at the Confederacy.

But that's not the problem. The problem is that we're supposed to believe that Mengsk abandoning Kerrigan was such an atrocity - compared to all the other shit that went on in the game - that it becomes the central motivation for all the main characters over the course of the next six campaigns, except for the Protoss who don't give a shit. I just don't buy it. Rather, I do buy it, but I don't find it compelling. Raynor and Kerrigan holding a grudge against Mengsk for that act is fine, but Kerrigan deciding to kill millions of Protoss and Terran just so she could decapitate Mengsk? How is that supposed to make for a proportional response? Kerrigan being driven by her vengeance is not sympathetic even were it believable because no one goes to those lengths over abandonment issues - and hell, she already had her vengeance in Brood War when she let Mengsk crawl away after soundly defeating him. It's not though Mengsk killed her whole family; no, it's the other way around.

This is why I said that, in the end, the only people left to cheer for in Starcraft are the Protoss, and even that's a retcon because the original Protoss were your average Eldar/Vorlon who gave no shits about anyone except for themselves, whereas nowadays they're the only people standing between the Big Bad and the universe.

 

[Dzupakazul]

Mengsk being a power-hungry dictator is a given, but the driving force behind the story, past the first Terran campaign, was never presented as a liberation narrative eg "Mengsk is a tyrant! He does all this crap! He needs to be overthrown!"

Mostly because Raynor has better things to worry about. First he tries to see what is it about the dreams he receives about Kerrigan, who was a friend to him. His force gets decimated and he meets Tassadar, and becomes a liberator for the Protoss. The Zerg are the big threat in the game, not Mengsk. The first story was an introduction, and later the Dominion becomes a minor villain who interferes with both the Zerg and Protoss campaigns, but they've had their moment, everything now is about the cataclysm between two ancient races. It fits, given that the Terran campaign was mostly an introduction of all the characters who will play the main roles in the whole Zerg/Protoss war.

The driving force behind the story was Kerrigan enjoying being a Zerg and deciding to go on a killing spree against her former teammates. Because "vengeance."

What?
She goes to the Amerigo to unlock her dormant psionic powers. Then she gets some leeway for herself under the supervision of a few Cerebrates so that she can grow and gather experience. Her slaughter of the Protoss was relatively untimely (what with the sneak attack that ensued), but still within the Overmind's plans (who wouldn't want the Protoss off the planet?), and the whole stupid "let's kill a Cerebrate for no reason" plot gets the Protoss homeworld of Aiur exposed and the Protoss back broken. Then she's left behind on Char to clean up the backline because she's a pretty damn minor character. She doesn't even appear in Episode III. When Raynor shows up, he's all about finding new allies and his final monologue is about the Zerg wiping out his "home, family and friends"; he doesn't explicitly name Kerrigan. Kerrigan fades as a presence way back in Chapter 2, and becomes a potential sequel hook (in the form of Brood War) only in the ending blurb. She was infested to the core, mixing up human cruelty with the Zerg's conqueror nature. She was an agent of the Swarm, a potent general, a strong evolutionary link for the Zerg (and Zerg are all about evolution). Kerrigan's vengeance plot only becomes a thing in BW when Terrans kinda become a dictating force in the universe (standard SC is a grand Zerg/Protoss battle with Terrans as a small tipping point in comparison; the perspective in Episode II and III tells us that neither Zerg or Protoss particularly care for Terran politics, and Raynor's Raiders are firmly established as second fiddle, support to the Protoss).

It is this leitmotif of the story that is the problem with the entire Starcraft narrative, and it started with Starcraft 1. What's wrong with Kerrigan holding a grudge against Mengsk? Nothing - had she remained a simple villain and plot device for Raynor's development. But when it becomes the main motivation for the narrative, then everything is wrong with it because it is not sympathetic, and therefore not emotionally compelling. It situates the entire narrative of Starcraft on a stupid case of "hell hath no fury as a woman scorned." Plus it removes all that was sympathetic about Kerrigan's "death" to begin with and makes Raynor's love for her hard to believe.

Kerrigan wants to unite all the Swarm and relish in the power. Not a bad goal, as far as video game villains go. To that end, she isn't above manipulating everyone to meet their ends. Dealing with Mengsk was a big part of that plan, but it was resolved and didn't need to be carried on over to SC2. Kerrigan, by the end of BW, could have easily just continued the usual Zerg legacy and go on with furthering her power, fully in line with the whole "the Swarm evolves" schtick that she seems to like quite a lot (a lot about Kerrigan's storyline in SC1 and BW is about her gaining more and more power and control, starting from the whole Amerigo bust).

What they didn't think was how shallow, ultimately, Kerrigan's character and motivation actually were, such that building a story around it ends you up with Mengsk being the most sympathetic character.

This is only if you honestly believe that Kerrigan hadn't already had delivered enough comeuppance upon Mengsk, first by making him out into a total fool in True Colors, and again, in Omega, where he gets spanked again with nothing to show for it other than a lot of expended "favors and concessions", and that Jim and Sarah were ever actually romantically involved and it wasn't just Jim Raynor starting off as a horny young fool and then becoming a hard-ass with the biggest grasp on humanity in the series (which shows in how he's the link between Terrans and the Protoss, and how later). SC and BW make me a Raynor/Fenix shipper, not Raynor/Kerrigan. Raynor worked with Kerrigan because he thought of her as the lesser evil (because he already knew, or at least thought he knew, the extent of her evil), and because he thought their goals were in line (since he bought the tale about the UED being literally worse than Hitler).

Way, way more could have been done. Mengsk somehow manages to become the ruler of an unified Terran Dominion despite being a massive dick with balls and, by the events of Brood War, reduced to a crippled, desert planet of Korhal, his empire in shambles, with massive conglomerates like Kel-Morian Combine somehow not deciding to capitalize and use the grace period Kerrigan left them to establish a new order in the Terran sphere of influence. It could have been a story about both Terrans and Protoss collecting their broken up societies together, as I assume the tensions regarding Dark Templar and the matter of Aiur could have been resolved in a much better way. You could even have Raynor work with Valerian Mengsk and somehow work off their uneasy relationship and coming to terms with one another, with Valerian succeeding "Emperor" Mengsk and learning from the mistakes of overzealous ambition. And once again, they'd bring the Zerg to a stalemate, or even Raynor would finally get his climactic kill on Kerrigan. And then the Hybrids could come into play somehow, being a massive wildcard; to throw the wrench into everything.

And again, Starcraft's story wasn't that good or that deep; it was very entertaining because the presentation was amazing and fit the genre. It was pretty good for a video game, and the story of SC2 could have been a big LoGH/Gundam/Tekkaman Blade clusterfuck for all I care; anything but all of this bullshit.

To put it simply:

The problem is that we're supposed to believe that Mengsk abandoning Kerrigan was such an atrocity - compared to all the other shit that went on in the game - that it becomes the central motivation for all the main characters over the course of the next six campaigns, except for the Protoss who don't give a shit.

This is simply wrong. UED wanted Mengsk removed to become *the* Terran authority in the sector. Kerrigan wanted vengeance on Mengsk, enacted it and went on to a much grander plan, which was to become the ultimate ruler of all Zerg swarms. Raynor and Fenix struck an alliance with Mengsk and Kerrigan only because Kerrigan convinced them that UED is the greatest evil in the known world.

The deal with Mengsk in the campaigns is that he is always put into irrelevancy. He ends Episode I triumphant, and then his presence is a token annoyance as a minor villain, represented by General Duke putzing around somewhere here and there, with the Zerg and Protoss cosmic conflict being the actual big deal. Then in Episode IV, he doesn't show up again - the Protoss are too busy with their shit, and the token Protoss vs Terran mission is used to foreshadow the UED. In Episode V, the UED topples Mengsk, but the grand quest is about reclaiming the Overmind and the ending cinematic doesn't mention him. And in Episode VI, he's a puppet to Kerrigan, Kerrigan gets his revenge on him and leaves him to rot, and then he is unheard from again until the final showdown, where he's leading a battered fleet of ragtag soldiers. And again, when you beat Mengsk and Artanis, they just go with "I'll get you next time, Gadget Cerebrate, next time!", but the real shiver-sender of the story is the way Kerrigan deals with DuGalle.

If the whole story was about Mengsk from the beginning, we wouldn't be having the "Dearest Helena" cutscene and Kerrigan wouldn't sadistically inform DuGalle that his entire fleet will be wiped out and there's nothing he can do about it other than struggle as hard as he can.

Mengsk is fucking irrelevant other than a tool for squabbling around some Terran politics and Terran loose ends. In every storyline, he is quickly disposed of.

 

[ArchAngel]

Well Kerrigan was not fully turned human in sc2. Also she didn't lose all memories. As you do zerg missions in HotS her memories as QoB return and with those her need for carnage and revenge. So I don't see anything wrong with that narrative. She was human once, but turning her into QoB changed her forever. By being back to being more human she lost some urges but gets them back afterwards. If they returned her to full human and wiped her memory of everything she did as QoB then you could claim bad characters and writing.

 

[Azarkon]

Mostly because Raynor has better things to worry about. First he tries to see what is it about the dreams he receives about Kerrigan, who was a friend to him. His force gets decimated and he meets Tassadar, and becomes a liberator for the Protoss. The Zerg are the big threat in the game, not Mengsk. The first story was an introduction, and later the Dominion becomes a minor villain who interferes with both the Zerg and Protoss campaigns, but they've had their moment, everything now is about the cataclysm between two ancient races. It fits, given that the Terran campaign was mostly an introduction of all the characters who will play the main roles in the whole Zerg/Protoss war.

Raynor and Kerrigan being deeply involved in the Zerg/Protoss campaigns IS the problem, as it makes their personal issues take precedence over the bigger conflicts between civilizations. This is why, in fact, the whole narrative feels melodramatic by the time Starcraft 2 comes around - it's been centered on these characters from the start, so how do you go about going in a different direction? This is why I prefer the narrative of a game such as Homeworld for RTS games - because it never loses sight of the bigger picture and feels faux historical, which is how a war game ought to feel. The struggles in Homeworld are the struggles of an entire people, civilization, race, whatever., which fits what you're actually doing in the game ie commanding armies.

Kerrigan wants to unite all the Swarm and relish in the power. Not a bad goal, as far as video game villains go. To that end, she isn't above manipulating everyone to meet their ends. Dealing with Mengsk was a big part of that plan, but it was resolved and didn't need to be carried on over to SC2. Kerrigan, by the end of BW, could have easily just continued the usual Zerg legacy and go on with furthering her power, fully in line with the whole "the Swarm evolves" schtick that she seems to like quite a lot (a lot about Kerrigan's storyline in SC1 and BW is about her gaining more and more power and control, starting from the whole Amerigo bust).

This is only if you honestly believe that Kerrigan hadn't already had delivered enough comeuppance upon Mengsk, first by making him out into a total fool in The Liberation of Korhal, and again, in Omega, where he gets spanked again with nothing to show for it other than a lot of expended "favors and concessions", and that Jim and Sarah were ever actually romantically involved and it wasn't just Jim Raynor starting off as a horny young fool and then becoming a hard-ass with the biggest grasp on humanity in the series (which shows in how he's the link between Terrans and the Protoss, and how later). SC and BW make me a Raynor/Fenix shipper, not Raynor/Kerrigan. Raynor worked with Kerrigan because he thought of her as the lesser evil (because he already knew, or at least thought he knew, the extent of her evil), and because he thought their goals were in line (since he bought the tale about the UED being literally worse than Hitler).

Way, way more could have been done. Mengsk somehow manages to become the ruler of an unified Terran Dominion despite being a massive dick with balls and, by the events of Brood War, reduced to a crippled, desert planet of Korhal, his empire in shambles, with massive conglomerates like Kel-Morian Combine somehow not deciding to capitalize and use the grace period Kerrigan left them to establish a new order in the Terran sphere of influence. It could have been a story about both Terrans and Protoss collecting their broken up societies together, as I assume the tensions regarding Dark Templar and the matter of Aiur could have been resolved in a much better way. You could even have Raynor work with Valerian Mengsk and somehow work off their uneasy relationship and coming to terms with one another, with Valerian succeeding "Emperor" Mengsk and learning from the mistakes of overzealous ambition. And once again, they'd bring the Zerg to a stalemate, or even Raynor would finally get his climactic kill on Kerrigan. And then the Hybrids could come into play somehow, being a massive wildcard; to throw the wrench into everything.

And again, Starcraft's story wasn't that good or that deep; it was very entertaining because the presentation was amazing and fit the genre. It was pretty good for a video game, and the story of SC2 could have been a big LoGH/Gundam/Tekkaman Blade clusterfuck for all I care; anything but all of this bullshit,.

Raynor and Kerrigan being romantically involved was basically a given for me when I played through the game. The game heavily hinted at it even though being a RTS there was no room for full-blown romance scenes obviously. They spelled it out in the sequel but virtually everyone saw it coming, so it wasn't a SC 2 invention, just a SC 2 culmination.

Again, my problem with the argument that SC 1 had none of the problems of SC 2 in terms of story is that it all started there. The character focus, the melodrama, the romance and the character motivations. SC 2's main mistake on top of SC 1 was retconning a bunch of shit and not understanding how weak SC 1's characters actually were. There's no way to build a fucking war story around Kerrigan's search for vengeance, Raynor's romantic feelings, etc. This is why LotV is the first expansion to actually feel "epic" again, though I'm sure Blizzard is going to screw it up later on by making it a Kerrigan, Raynor, and Zeratul character drama.

This is simply wrong. UED wanted Mengsk removed to become *the* Terran authority in the sector. Kerrigan wanted vengeance on Mengsk, enacted it and went on to a much grander plan, which was to become the ultimate ruler of all Zerg swarms. Raynor and Fenix struck an alliance with Mengsk and Kerrigan only because Kerrigan convinced them that UED is the greatest evil in the known world.

The deal with Mengsk in the campaigns is that he is always put into irrelevancy. He ends Episode I triumphant, and then his presence is a token annoyance as a minor villain, represented by General Duke putzing around somewhere here and there, with the Zerg and Protoss cosmic conflict being the actual big deal. Then in Episode IV, he doesn't show up again - the Protoss are too busy with their shit, and the token Protoss vs Terran mission is used to foreshadow the UED. In Episode V, the UED topples Mengsk, but the grand quest is about reclaiming the Overmind and the ending cinematic doesn't mention him. And in Episode VI, he's a puppet to Kerrigan, Kerrigan gets his revenge on him and leaves him to rot, and then he is unheard from again until the final showdown, where he's leading a battered fleet of ragtag soldiers. And again, when you beat Mengsk and Artanis, they just go with "I'll get you next time, Gadget Cerebrate, next time!", but the real shiver-sender of the story is the way Kerrigan deals with DuGalle.

If the whole story was about Mengsk from the beginning, we wouldn't be having the "Dearest Helena" cutscene and Kerrigan wouldn't sadistically inform DuGalle that his entire fleet will be wiped out and there's nothing he can do about it other than struggle as hard as he can.

Mengsk is fucking irrelevant other than a tool for squabbling around some Terran politics and Terran loose ends. In every storyline, he is quickly disposed of.

I'm not talking about Mengsk the character. I'm talking about that particular action on New Gettysburg, which became the driving force for the game's narrative, up till and including Heart of the Storm.

 

[Dzupakazul]

Raynor and Kerrigan being deeply involved in the Zerg/Protoss campaigns IS the problem, as it makes their personal issues take precedence over the bigger conflicts between civilizations. This is why, in fact, the whole narrative feels melodramatic by the time Starcraft 2 comes around - it's been centered on these characters from the start, so how do you go about going in a different direction? This is why I prefer the narrative of a game such as Homeworld for RTS games - because it never loses sight of the bigger picture and feels faux historical, which is how a war game ought to feel.

Tell me the way Raynor or Kerrigan are extensively featured in any capacity in any of the culminative moments of each Episode. In Episode I, we know the truth about the meaning behind Mengsk's propaganda, having been there ourselves, but that's it. In Episode II, Kerrigan doesn't even assist with the invasion on Aiur, as she stays on Char to clear out remaining Protoss outposts. In Episode III, Raynor's consistently reduced to a tag-along, he's mostly a hero unit, and at the end it's the Protoss who are supposed to have a grand fanfare, while Raynor is introduced as a nice bonus. Raynor and Kerrigan are nice, 'human perspective', characters, but in no fucking way do they dominate the narrative of original SC1; the Overmind wanting to assimilate the Protoss, the unveiling of the Dark Templar, and Tassadar suiciding into the Overmind's cocoon do. In BW, again, Episode IV has Raynor MIA for pretty much the entire duration of the campaign, in Episode V he appears suddenly, yoinks Mengsk and disappears to keep us guessing - and the UED storyline continues as normal. Kerrigan becomes center of the plot as her own character because she manipulates everyone and because she's the #1 pretendent to the rightful control of the entire Zerg race. When she had a goal of vengeance, she resolved it by the end of True Colors and went on to carry out much more profound pursuits than that.

These two characters are extensively on screen together for the duration of Episode I, a single mission in Episode II and a few Episode VI missions, and by Episode II Raynor's probably dealt with any delusions of scoring Zerg pussy; his actions in Episode VI stemmed from pragmatism more than anything. This wasn't "their" story up until Raynor's revenge for Fenix became a good potential sequel hook (which they threw the fuck away). Raynor gets way more shit done, has more banter, direction and feels more at home with Tassadar and Fenix.

Raynor and Kerrigan being romantically involved was basically a given for me when I played through the game. The game heavily hinted at it even though being a RTS there was no room for full-blown romance scenes obviously. They spelled it out in the sequel but virtually everyone saw it coming, so it wasn't a SC 2 invention, just a SC 2 culmination.

He gets way more in terms of camaraderie with Fenix, a member of a wholly another race, and the relationship between the two is much more interesting, given how Raynor seems to make a peaceful bridge between humans and Protoss, starting with Tassadar, than he ever does with Kerrigan. And he spelled it out that he is going to kill Kerrigan one day. If you took Raynor's laidback "darling" remarks at Kerrigan seriously, I don't know what to tell you.

Again, my problem with the argument that SC 1 had none of the problems of SC 2 in terms of story is that it all started there. The character focus, the melodrama, the romance and the character motivations. SC 2's main mistake on top of SC 1 was retconning a bunch of shit and not understanding how weak SC 1's characters actually were. There's no way to build a fucking war story around Kerrigan's search for vengeance, Raynor's romantic feelings, etc. This is why LotV is the first expansion that actually felt "epic" again, though I'm sure Blizzard is going to screw it up later on.

Kerrigan's search for vengeance has already been resolved (Mengsk. Got. Fucking. Wrecked. She could have destroyed him right there on Korhal but didn't only because she wanted to see him suffer, marooned for eternity on the center of a dead planet, buried alive; Kerrigan's had way more fucking bone to pick with Tassadar when he was taunting her back on Char back in SC1) and Raynor's romantic feelings are fucking bullshit.

I'm not talking about Mengsk the character. I'm talking about that particular action on New Gettysburg, which became the driving force for the game's narrative, up till and including Heart of the Storm.

Yeah, because it brought us the Queen of Blades, not because for the whole game Kerrigan's actions were all solely about revenge (they weren't).

 

[Azarkon]

Tell me the way Raynor or Kerrigan are extensively featured in any capacity in any of the culminative moments of each Episode. In Episode I, we know the truth about the meaning behind Mengsk's propaganda, having been there ourselves, but that's it. In Episode II, Kerrigan doesn't even assist with the invasion on Aiur, as she stays on Char to clear out remaining Protoss outposts. In Episode III, Raynor's consistently reduced to a tag-along, he's mostly a hero unit, and at the end it's the Protoss who are supposed to have a grand fanfare, while Raynor is introduced as a nice bonus. Raynor and Kerrigan are nice, 'human perspective', characters, but in no fucking way do they dominate the narrative of original SC1; the Overmind wanting to assimilate the Protoss, the unveiling of the Dark Templar, and Tassadar suiciding into the Overmind's cocoon do. In BW, again, Episode IV has Raynor MIA for pretty much the entire duration of the campaign, in Episode V he appears suddenly, yoinks Mengsk and disappears to keep us guessing - and the UED storyline continues as normal. Kerrigan becomes center of the plot as her own character because she manipulates everyone and because she's the #1 pretendent to the rightful control of the entire Zerg race. When she had a goal of vengeance, she resolved it by the end of True Colors and went on to carry out much more profound pursuits than that.

Try this: virtually every single narrative event in the first game is driven by one of the main "hero" characters, unless you don't consider the Overmind a character, in which case the Zerg was not until Kerrigan took over. That's the problem you're not seeing. It's not about their presence/absence. It's about the role they play in the story. Sure you have simple tactical missions without them. But look at what drives the narrative.

Episode I: besides the first mission in which you are there to clean out a few Zerg, the central narrative is the rebellion against the Confederacy, driven by Mengsk and Raynor, with Kerrigan playing support. Then Kerrigan gets "killed" and Raynor abandons Mengsk, and "you" fucking follow him, eventually to become buddies with the Protoss.

Episode II: I'll grant you that insofar as the Overmind is not a character, this was not character-driven

Episode III: entirely driven by Tassadar, Artanis, Fenix, and Raynor. Again, you start off with the Protoss military but quickly becomes a tag-along to Tassadar's group. He in turn drives all the major narrative moments up to and including the "end."

Brood War takes this even further with the Zerg and Protoss campaigns. Only the Terran campaign with the UED feels less character-driven and that's only because the UED already has a campaign goal and so there is no need for "heroes" to decide what to do every mission.

He gets way more in terms of camaraderie with Fenix, a member of a wholly another race, and the relationship between the two is much more interesting, given how Raynor seems to make a peaceful bridge between humans and Protoss, starting with Tassadar, than he ever does with Kerrigan. And he spelled it out that he is going to kill Kerrigan one day. If you took Raynor's laidback "darling" remarks at Kerrigan seriously, I don't know what to tell you.

There is no actual difference between deep friendship and romance to begin with so I don't know what to tell you - who cares? The bottom line is that Raynor's interactions with Kerrigan drove a huge section of the Broodwar narrative, during which Kerrigan's manipulations of the other major characters basically ARE the story, independent of whatever else was going on.

Kerrigan's search for vengeance has already been resolved (Mengsk. Got. Fucking. Wrecked. She could have destroyed him right there on Korhal but didn't only because she wanted to see him suffer, marooned for eternity on the center of a dead planet, buried alive; Kerrigan's had way more fucking bone to pick with Tassadar when he was taunting her back on Char back in SC1) and Raynor's romantic feelings are fucking bullshit.

You fail to see it doesn't matter whether the arcs were resolved because there is no story in Starcraft besides those of the main "heroes," so even though Kerrigan's had her vengeance, they had to take it up again because what the fuck is Starcraft's plot without those characters?

The game became character-centered in Starcraft 1 and remained that way during Starcraft 2. Regardless of how badly they screwed up SC 2's version of those characters, the seeds were there already in Starcraft 1.

 

[Azarkon]

Yeah, because it brought us the Queen of Blades, not because for the whole game Kerrigan's actions were all solely about revenge (they weren't).

The rest of it was driven by random acts of malice and out-of-character power-hunger, which are even less effective as the engine of a dramatic narrative. Again, as I said above, this is fine as long as Kerrigan's role is to be a plot device villain. But as soon as you start trying to make her the protagonist, it sucks. Vengeance becomes the basis of her character in Heart of the Swarm because that's all she's got in terms of motivations beyond "evil." I suppose the only way to make it work otherwise was a redemption story, but that was too fucking hard to make coherent with what happened previously and it'd be a poor fit for a RTS.

 

[Stereotypical Villain]

Spoiler: The UED shows up at the end of this shitty expansion, blows every faction out of the water with superior technology and Gerard DuGalle returns as a Dreadnought.

The end.

 

[DemonKing]

So has anyone actually had a chance to play yet and what are their thoughts. I remember being pleasantly surprised by the Zerg expansion which I ended up enjoying more than the Human campaign.

 

[Kane]

So has anyone actually had a chance to play yet and what are their thoughts. I remember being pleasantly surprised by the Zerg expansion which I ended up enjoying more than the Human campaign.

MP: New starting setup flipped the table around several times. Too early to tell.
SP (who cares): More of the same.

 

[Cyberarmy]

So has anyone actually had a chance to play yet and what are their thoughts. I remember being pleasantly surprised by the Zerg expansion which I ended up enjoying more than the Human campaign.

I'm enjoying Legacy of the Void much more than the previous campaings but I've only completed 9 missions now so things can change.

 

[rado907]

I'm near the end of the Protoss campaign. It's quite good. The missions are very intense. Almost all of them are on a timer. This is necessary, because the Protoss now have some extremely powerful base defenses, and the player can turtle big time. The campaign upgrades that the units receive are also quite powerful, and both the Protoss ground deathball and air forces become monstrous. You get to use all (or at least most?) BroodWar units if you want to.
The story is all right. Still an "epic" video game story, but what can you do. Basically Artanis is floating around trying to strike deals with all sorts of outfits on the basis of pure mutual benefit.
The big baddie, the xel'naga, and a few other outfits and characters give me a sort of a "Wheel of Time" vibe. Which is not necessarily a bad thing.

 

[Metro]

Don't really care about the game itself but watched the ending for the story: your son is the villain. Oh wait... actually the ending was pretty derpy. Not sure what the implication is with Raynor -- maybe that he got sucked into the Nexus for HoTS!

 

[Jaedar]

Hmm, for some reason the cutscenes lag for me, causing the audio and video to desync. This undercut the RIP moment

 

[Maculo]

So has anyone actually had a chance to play yet and what are their thoughts. I remember being pleasantly surprised by the Zerg expansion which I ended up enjoying more than the Human campaign.

I am 4-5 missions in. Brutal and Hard difficulty are very satisfying so far.

• So far the missions shake things up beyond just build max supply and run. Several missions force you to go outside of your base. Here is an example: there is a defend mission where you have to destroy 3 conduits outside of your base. All the while you will get attacked from 4 different directions. In addition to destroying the pylons, you have to hold out for a timer. The bonus objective is to hold out even longer, which I am finding difficult, because it sends Ultralisks and Hybrids out the ass.
  
• What I like personally, is just how much carnage goes on over the map in the beginning. You essentially get stalkers and zealots, which die quickly on Brutal. The end result is that I had to constantly warp in replacement units to keep momentum on some missions. Warp in makes the gameplay and battles feels really fluid, because you can continue the momentum.
  
• The Spear of Adun works somewhat like powers in Dawn of War: Soulstorm. You have a canon blast that is useful for when you get a barrage of Ultralisks and Hybrids. Another ability is the warp in a free pylon, which I have found incredibly useful to warp in fresh units near a battle.
• Another aspect of the campaign is that you can invest "solar points" into either new abilities on the Spear of Adun or use them to increase initial supply cap or building construction speed.
  
• Each unit has 3 versions. Zealot has a halberd wielding weapon version that does a whirlwind attack, and a dark templar version that does a charge and stun of the enemy.
  
• You can get Dragoons.

Edit: For a semi-spoiler on the villain.

Spoiler

I am not done yet, but I find it interesting that the main villain goes from "hur evil" in WoL/HotS to "I want to free you from this corrupted cycle." Still a goofy villain, but maybe Blizzard listened just a little from the HotS complaints.

 

[Keshik]

Shame the death came from some cheesy anime-like sword charge then delayed reaction. Didn't expect the Khalaa to be some sort of hive mind, but I guess it was never explained that much in the games or I had forgotten. Only 3 missions in, but am having fun, got owned horribly by the triggered nydus and warp prisms in the 3rd mission, fortifying the hell out of the chokepoints and that worked.

 

[Azalin]

• So far the missions shake things up beyond just build max supply and run. Several missions force you to go outside of your base. Here is an example: there is a defend mission where you have to destroy 3 conduits outside of your base. All the while you will get attacked from 4 different directions. In addition to destroying the pylons, you have to hold out for a timer. The bonus objective is to hold out even longer, which I am finding difficult, because it sends Ultralisks and Hybrids out the ass.

Yeah and if you go for the 1.8 billion achievement the buttfuck is something many people around here would enjoy

 

[Maculo]

Yeah and if you go for the 1.8 billion achievement the buttfuck is something many people around here would enjoy

I will try for the 1.8 billion achievement tonight. I wanted to try the mission without resorting to Dark Templar, but it looks like I cannot get higher without them. It probably does not help I went for Shakuras first in lieu of the terran missions.

 

[Dzupakazul]

Try this: virtually every single narrative event in the first game is driven by one of the main "hero" characters, unless you don't consider the Overmind a character, in which case the Zerg was not until Kerrigan took over.

Raynor was a vital character in Episode I, but like every other character from that episode, he's reduced to the role of a sidekick throughout the rest of the campaign. His appearance in Episode II is fairly token and is only there so he can witness the horror of Kerrigan's transformation, as the person that, to our knowledge, he was the closest to (which doesn't indicate they were ever romantically involved; Raynor is as loyal as SC characters go). Even in Episode III, where he serves as the Terran alliance presence and a lens through which we can see the hell of the whole conflict on normal people, he is firmly in a sidekick position:

• He shows up firmly as a sidekick to Tassadar; Aldaris acknowledges his existence, and then we're treated to more of Aldaris vs Tassadar politics. Raynor isn't there to bail out Zeratul; he doesn't appear in the mission Choosing Sides.
• He isn't in Homeland, the mission where the Conclave is disrupted, either. He is out of the scope of greater Protoss politics or the Protoss civil war; he only tags along to help out the real hero, Tassadar, but even then, his appearance is token, as a battlecruiser.
• Eye of the Storm is presented firmly as a Protoss (pyrrhic) victory. The narrative is Protoss-centric. The civil war between the Protoss is resolved. If you don't start off the mission glancing at the minimap, you won't realize you have a Terran base with you.
• Same with Kerrigan; the biggest impact she had on the narrative of SC1 itself was inadvertently allowing Cerebrate Zasz to be killed (and whether it was really her fault is negotiable) and preventing the Dark Templar from escaping Char (because she's firmly a sidekick to the rest of the Zerg; a mop-up crew, nothing else). She doesn't assist with the invasion of Aiur, which is *the* event of the campaign, which the Overmind has had a plan for all along. "The great quest that comes to an end" doesn't feature Kerrigan at all.

Episode I: besides the first mission in which you are there to clean out a few Zerg, the central narrative is the rebellion against the Confederacy, driven by Mengsk and Raynor, with Kerrigan playing support. Then Kerrigan gets "killed" and Raynor abandons Mengsk, and "you" fucking follow him, eventually to become buddies with the Protoss.

Episode II: I'll grant you that insofar as the Overmind is not a character, this was not character-driven

You're introduced to Tassadar and, indirectly, to Zeratul and the Dark Templar; this foreshadows lots of Episode III, especially Tassadar's attitude towards combat and him not being below using deceit and other such tactics. Kerrigan's transformation is a pretty big deal, even if she doesn't do much yet, there's lots of power in her speech about "I'm one of the Zerg now, and I LIKE what I am".. You get a large glance at the world around, you get to know the Cerebrates, you get to know how the Overmind deals with everything, you get to know that Overmind has had a master plan. Hell, you even get to know that the Cerebrates and the Zerg can have dissenting voices, which helps with the idea of the Zerg civil war in BW, where the power struggle between Daggoth and Kerrigan is shown off a bit.

Episode III: entirely driven by Tassadar, Artanis, Fenix, and Raynor. Again, you start off with the Protoss military but quickly becomes a tag-along to Tassadar's group. He in turn drives all the major narrative moments up to and including the "end."

Raynor is a token appearance that's mostly there to show off that he's around.

Brood War takes this even further with the Zerg and Protoss campaigns.

If you're talking strictly about Raynor/Kerrigan, then the Protoss campaign has Raynor MIA and he doesn't interact with her onscreen. BW is, indeed, about Kerrigan's master plan, but not about any R/K shipping. With the Zerg campaign, again, any R/K tension is resolved halfway through the campaign, because, again, Raynor is a sidekick; you don't even get to control him: he provides backup in Reign of Fire (only to justify that the operation Psi Disrupter can succeed, as a tiny bit of fluff). You can control Fenix, even. Raynor's plot is completely and utterly resolved in True Colors. He doesn't even come back to his Protoss friends, and he isn't even there for the ultimate showdown, even if he could be tagging along with Artanis.

Again, Kerrigan manipulates Raynor mostly because he thinks he knows her, and he buys the idea that she's back to a certain degree of humanity, just like the Protoss did. Unless you're able of convincing me that Artanis, Zeratul and Raszagal also really wanted to bone her, I'm skeptical that there was any romantic narrative to begin with; Raynor sided with her because he was stupid, just like everyone else in Brood War (which is the biggest flaw of the SCBW storyline: the fact that for Kerrigan's plan to work, everyone makes some really poor decisions, particularly in terms of communication).

Only the Terran campaign with the UED feels less character-driven and that's only because the UED already has a campaign goal and so there is no need for "heroes" to decide what to do every mission.

Everyone has a campaign goal; if DuGalle and Stukov, being generals of the whole operation, and Duran having his own agenda, makes Episode V a particular outlier (Episode IV is about the Protoss struggling to keep their race from extinction, and Episode VI is about Kerrigan becoming the ultimate master of the Zerg).

There is no actual difference between deep friendship and romance to begin with so I don't know what to tell you - who cares?

The people who wonder how can Raynor be fapping to Kerrigan with a straight face and completely forgetting about Fenix?

You fail to see it doesn't matter whether the arcs were resolved because there is no story in Starcraft besides those of the main "heroes," so even though Kerrigan's had her vengeance, they had to take it up again because what the fuck is Starcraft's plot without those characters?

Again:

• Raynor's goal was to kill Sarah Kerrigan. The only reason the plot point of "Kerrigan being absolutely necessary to stop Andor Drakon the ElDeR cHaOs GoD" works is because the writers really wanted to turn his tale into a banal, sappy love story. It's so shoehorned in, it's unbelievable.
• Kerrigan's goal was to keep being the fucking third Overmind; "For in time, I will seek to test their resolve and their strength. They will all be mine in the end, for I am the Queen of Blades! None shall ever despute my rule again.". Yeah, horseshit; her bold claim only lasts a single episode of the SC2 campaign. She even goes as far as to eliminate all Cerebrates (including the guy from Episode VI!) in the intermediary period, make her own Broodmothers, and keep doing everything in her power to evolve the swarm. Her vengeance was already resolved, as you agreed with me, so they didn't have to rehash that plot point.
• Mengsk was to rule over the Terran Dominion. He's a powerhungry dictator, ruling makes the sense of his life. Valerian is an interesting wildcard and his interaction with the rebels and with his father's policies has much greater potential than this stupid love-hate triangle they put into SC2.
• Artanis is busy making sure the Protoss are built up.
• Zeratul is a fucking moron anyway to be honest, but he's kind of a freelancer guy, so he either travels the world to learn more about Hybrids or prepares his Dark Templar brethren.
• Duran is the mysterious wildcard. The whole Xel'Naga hybrids plot could be an interesting wrench to throw into the usual Terran/Protoss vs Zerg balance of the conflict, but instead they decide to make the whole thing a big, warm, happy, fuzzy family. Kerrigan potentially being an ally of convenience would provide much more tension than the shitty "muh Zerg have feelings so it's okay" plot they went with, given that you'd have to be wary about any potential backstabs.

You could have the Protoss trying their hardest to recolonize Aiur and again come to terms with how their rulership should work. You could have Mengsk being the usual power-hungry self, trying his hardest to be the #1 in the Terran sphere of influence against competitors that arose immediately after he was left absolutely and utterly battered in the events of Brood War. You could have the Zerg being their usual world-eating self, and Kerrigan establishing her own order (removing Cerebrates, annihilating any remaining Daggoth rebels, coming up with the Broodmothers, and then, I dunno, trying to take over Shakuras or destroying those obviously harmful Xel'Naga temples). Instead it's banal, non-nuanced "ancient evil has awakened" plot.

The game became character-centered in Starcraft 1 and remained that way during Starcraft 2. Regardless of how badly they screwed up SC 2's version of those characters, the seeds were there already in Starcraft 1.

Which is not a bad thing. That they forgot half of the original writing and turned the other half into a dire rat's ass version of it is the problem.

 

[Saark]

Don't really care about the game itself but watched the ending for the story: your son is the villain. Oh wait... actually the ending was pretty derpy. Not sure what the implication is with Raynor -- maybe that he got sucked into the Nexus for HoTS!

Between the ending for FO4 and this, I am actually having troubles deciding which is worse.

Spoiler

Kerrigan transforming into whatever shes supposed to be at the end fighting space-cthulhu, and then she gets transformed back into a human so she can make out with raynor? This could be a bioware plot right there.

 

[Metro]

Does she transform a second time? My interpretation was Raynor imagined it. But maybe it is meant to be that moronic/magical of an ending.