THE INFINITE BROOD (Starcraft/Supreme Commander Crossover Quest!)

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THE SWARM SHEET
  • Informational
    • The Brood of Blades
    ​
    Cerebrate Prime: Samantha Clarke
    LEVEL: 5
    XP: 205/210
    TRAITS
    Strategic Genius: Once per structured encounter, Sam can create a piece of the environment that is in her favor as a sticky spark. Roll a d3 for its value.
    Empathetic: upon meeting an NPC, learn their motivation!
    Legendary Commander: Gain 4 Command sparks at the beginning of each mission/combat. Command sparks may be spent to give NPCs orders, which they may either obey or refuse to obey (doing nothing instead.) Command sparks may not be regained via skills or powers.
    Hunted: Something wants her - but for what? +1 Danger to all scenes​
    SKILLS
    CLOSE COMBAT (2): Brawling, Edged Weapons
    PERSONAL (2): Awareness, Resilience
    SOCIAL (4): Charm, Empathy, Leadership, Taunt​
    MASTERY
    ACU Pilot (2): Nanofabrication [Mass], ObSat Operations [Range]
    The Hilt (4): Biomorphic Spawning (People), Regeneration (Durability), Physical Perfection (Speed), Telepathic Dominion (Range)​

    POWERS
    The Living Swarm
    Vent: 4-0
    Effect: Gain 1 Living Swarm spark, +1 per vent reduction.​
    The Living Swarm: While this swarm exists, move in three dimensions and through anything smaller than a keyhole, reforming at will. You may expend these sparks to cause 3 Hit Sparks in a Area 2 radius.​
    Area Upgrade: +1 to Area Characteristic​

    Biomorphic Reinforcement
    Vent: 4-0
    Effect: Create 1 Biomorphic Reinforcement spark, +1 per vent reduction, which can be given out to anyone within Range 2, or to yourself
    Biomorphic Reinforcement: +1 to Damage or Mass characteristic for the purpose of raw physical strength/feats.

    Back to Back
    Vent: 4-0
    Effect: Choose 1 ally (+1 per vent reduction), within Range 1. Each can take one action using one of your skills, any of them that you wish. Once they have done so, you may make a free attack with your melee weapon, getting +1 to your skill per ally that acted.​

    Adaptation
    Vent: 4-0
    Effect: Create a number of sparks equal to the enemy's difficulty, narratively based on turning their abilities against them. Works on enemies of Diff 2>, +2 per vent reduction.​

    Just as Planned…
    Vent: 6-0
    Effect: Vent 6 heat and create 1 Planning Spark for her or an ally, +1 Spark per vent reduction.​
    Planning: The person holding this Spark can expend this to get +1 to a skill check as a free action. Using this Stack counts as you are helping for the purpose of relationships.​

    GEAR
    Zeratul's Psi-Blades
    Adds: +0 (Edged Weapons) | Characteristics: Damage [Speed] (4)[1]​
    Shadowstep (3): Can expend as a free action to move without crossing intervening space.
    Guarded Space (3): Can expend to use Damage as a secondary characteristic for Durability, reducing incoming Damage characteristics.​

    GALACTIC WAR
    Victory Points: 5    ​
    RESOURCES​
    TERRAN DOMINION [Background] (1)​
    The men and material of the Dominion - limited, but they're mustering as we speak. ​
    ALLIANCE EXPEDITIONARY FORCES [Mastery] (1)​
    While you have access to several ACUs of every faction, they lack economic and technological support to be fully effective. ​
    ZERG HIVE [Mastery] (1)​
    The scant few Zerg you control that are free of Amon's influence. Mostly Zerglings. ​
    AEON FLEET [Background] (1)​
    While half a dozen CZARs seem impressive, they're not actually well made for ship to ship combat. ​
    ALLIED COHESION [Motivation] (1)​
    The alliance is fragile and weak.​

    FRONTS​
    Trade Sector-34-51 [Pirate Activity]
    Pirates Raiding 6 (Supply Lines in Disarray 1)
    COMMAND: Jim Raynor | ARMY: Raynor's Raiders
    RESULTS: Pending

    Braxis [Zerg Invasion]
    Borealis Siege 6 (Zerg Rampage1)
    COMMAND: General Samantha Clarke | ARMY: Brood Clarke
    RESULTS: Pending

    Typhan II [Active Xel'Naga ACU]
    Typhan II Occupied 6 (Xel'Naga ACU Spotted 1)
    COMMAND: Lt. Colonel Mathew Horner | ARMY: UEF Armored Command Unit
    RESULTS: Pending

    Deep Space Sector 981 [Hive Fleet Identified]
    Zerg Hive Fleet Spotted 6 (Kerrigan? 1)
    COMMAND: Citizen-Commander Dostya | ARMY: CN Armored Command Unit
    RESULTS: Pending
    ​
    ENEMY ASSETS (Currently Known)
    ​
    THE GOLDEN ARMADA
    ACTIVITY: Unknown | Threat Level: 6​
     
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  • Informational
    • I don't think many people want to be a murdermachine. I think most people would be a bit put off by that part.

    Immortality, great health, boosted senses, psychic powers, mood-regulation etc would all be neat tho.

    I think the main downside would be bigotry from your community, but maybe they'd be okay with that, I think we saw some bodymods early-on in the story, and it might be possible to dial down the intimidation factor on the body.
     
    Evillevi said:
    Staying human as in being biologically human is on the other hand not a bad thing since a core part of Sam's + Crews' identity is linked to being human.
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    Sam was born in an exowomb, finds natural birth absolutely disgusting, is physically 20 going on 50 (could live till 150 or 200 with current tech, possibly longer). This is less about what's natural and normal and more about choice, I think.
     
    Draz said:
    I don't think many people want to be a murdermachine. I think most people would be a bit put off by that part.
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    I mean, people seem to like catgirls. :D

    More seriously, though, just because you're a murdermachine doesn't mean you have to do any murders; Sam having natural weaponry doesn't seem that much different from Sam having constructed weaponry: either way she can (continue to) practice restraint, careful target selection, safe handling, etc.
     
    Cookiesndip said:
    I disagree. You lose the numerous boons of being an unkillable, immortal murdermachine and the authority over an entire race and the love of her life, for what, exactly? Some vague semblance of momentary physical humanity, a pretty bad reason, but I'm a fan of transhumanism so what do I know? Since Sarah will never want to actually leave the Zerg, and will gravitate back to it even if it means outright rebellion like in canon, so if we did that, we'd die in a flicker to her own eternity. That's a terrible deal alone.
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    I was more thinking about being human in a general idea/for our former crew as opposed to our specific circumstance.
     
    Reese said:
    I mean, people seem to like catgirls. :D

    More seriously, though, just because you're a murdermachine doesn't mean you have to do any murders; Sam having natural weaponry doesn't seem that much different from Sam having constructed weaponry: either way she can (continue to) practice restraint, careful target selection, safe handling, etc.
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    We need to teach Abathor to encode OSHA into the swarm so it can be forklift-certified.
     
    I've been following this quest (and by that I mean lurking) for a little while, and I gotta say, the entire sequence of events of Kerrigan's betrayal and subsequent transformation manages to both be a pretty great choice as far as story events go and almost have had me drop the story at the same. 10/10 would get slushed into a new brainwashing that's somehow less violating of my free will than the previous brainwashing.

    I do hope that wether Sam decides to keep being a Zerg if an alternative ever appears, or if she eventually decides to mend any bridges, that it isn't forced to come quick by player decisions. None of those options exist for now, or at least I don't think they do, but I do believe the story would be much poorer if this were to happen. Sam just moving on from how much of a betrayal this was, no matter her previous branwashing and the myriad of mitigating factors for Kerrigan, would make her just accept having her own free will and agency stripped away just like Kerrigan is (mostly) accepting to be the monster that her own conditioning and transformation imposed on her had the goal to make her into.

    Liking the idea psychic alien queen romance is cool, but there should at least be a lot of confrontation, calling out on bullshit, and making Kerrigan see that she's just taking the easy way out by going all "oh I'm a monster because of what I've done in the past so that 100% makes me not have to confront my decisions now even though I clearly feel guilt over it" before such a thing is even contemplated. Honestly, I'm not sure that's even preferable, because I can 100% understand if Sam never budges on her perspective on never forgiving. "I can fix her" and "she only stabbed me in the back that one time and there were this and that reasons for that" are not anything close to what an actually good relationship should run on.
     
    Ohno said:
    ...
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    I'm sick of this topic, so I won't get into it since it's just going to be reiterations of what I've said for the past 5 chapters, but I strongly disagree.

    You're also forgetting one major thing - we were dying, so it was this or letting us die, and that wasn't going to happen.
    "Fine. I need you for more than just commanding an ACU. A new overmind is forming on that planet and the Dominion - thanks to you, by the fucking way - has found and reactivated a Confederate era Psi Disruptor. I can barely control this Levithan and her spawn. A Cerebrate like you would help me focus that control and expand it. Bit. By. Bit. But...my...focus slipped." She looked away. "One of the hunter killers thought you going for your gun was a threat and shot you in the back as I grabbed you."
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    Also, just saying, you can't have your cake and eat it too. If for Clarke losing a minscule bit of free will for many, many positives that most humans would sell their soul for even a fraction of, is such a sticking point to her, then she absolutely every reason to be mortal enemies with the UEF, since they practice a far more extreme form of slavery on an institutional level. To be frank, I just heavily dislike the practice of warping characters and reactions to fit 21st century sensibilities in a fic that takes place in a setting that is very much not, it always completely takes me out of any sort of immersion in the story or setting. It's supposed to be a quest, a roleplay of sorts, in a universe drastically different from our own, and their cultures are equally so. It's like shoving it into a 40k fic, it just doesn't feel natural, and it's even more jarring with less moral characters. Develop them, or redeem them sure, but not excessively so, and no warping them.

    You guys knew exactly what it meant to get into a long-term relationship with the Queen of Blades, a morally grey, if not outright evil being, at least in Brood War, so complaining she acts far more like her HotS grey-white self, and basically left us untouched is silly when it should have been far, far worse. I cannot comprehend why it's even a problem OOC when literally everyone saw this coming from the beginning and went for the waifu anyway. IC, Clarke haw reasons to be pissed right now, but they also have plenty to bond over, and ultimately, like Sarah, she has no where else to go, got far more out of it than she lost, and is a pragmatic type of person.
     
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    Cookiesndip said:
    I'm sick of this topic, so I won't get into it since it's just going to be reiterations of what I've said for the past 5 chapters, but I strongly disagree.

    You're also forgetting one major thing - we were dying, so it was this or letting us die, and that wasn't going to happen.


    Also, just saying, you can't have your cake and eat it too. If for Clarke losing a minscule bit of free will for many, many positives that most would sell their soul for even a fraction of, is such a sticking point to her, then she absolutely every reason to be mortal enemies with the UEF, since they practice a far more extreme form of slavery on an institutional level. To be frank, I just heavily dislike the practice of warping characters and reactions to fit 21st century sensibilities in a fic that takes place in a setting that is very much not, it always completely takes me out of any sort of immersion in the story or setting. It's supposed to be a quest, a roleplay of sorts, in a universe drastically different from our own, and their cultures are equally so. It's like shoving it into a 40k fic, it just doesn't feel right, and it's even more jarring with less moral characters. Develop them, or redeem them sure.

    You guys knew exactly what it meant to get into a long-term relationship with the Queen of Blades, a morally grey, if not outright evil being, at least in Brood War, so complaining she acts far more like her HotS grey-white self, and basically left us untouched is silly when it should have been far, far worse. I cannot comprehend why it's even a problem OOC when literally everyone saw this coming from the beginning and went for the waifu anyway. IC, Clarke has reasons to be pissed right now, but also plenty to bond over, and ultimately, like Sarah, has no where else to go.
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    I think you're conflating IC and OOC a bit here. We all knew who Sarah was, but Sam didn't. And, OOC, I definetly don't believe going back to the UEF unless it'd be to start some sort of revolution there. I don't think it'd ever be a possibility to begin with.

    Personally, I'd be very fine with Sam staying a Zerg at the very least. I'm actually not sure what you think my stances are here, because what I've said boils down to respecting the scope of what's been done to the character, not rejecting it outright. Regardless of Kerrigan's intentions or if she wanted Sam to be transformed, what she did was a betrayal that resulted in her being transformed against her will, and this is not a binary between instantly accepting and forgiving her or rejecting and going back to the UEF. Samantha can and in my opinion should feel pretty much betrayed and angry abut everything that has been done to her, and I'm honestly a bit surprised at how pointing this out seems to come across as unreasonable or mixed up with other positions.

    Edit: I'm also not sure what part of any of that is an anacronysm to 21st century perspectives.
     
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    My personal preference is to convince Matt Horner + wife to become zerg by the end of this quest

    Having our own right hand zerg+wife will be a significant boost in our combat capabilities as a faction.
     
    Adhoc vote count started by DragonCobolt on Dec 17, 2023 at 10:51 PM, finished with 51 posts and 15 votes.
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    time to roll dice, a normal rarity in HEAT. Like, it's a diceless system...

    oh dear
    DragonCobolt threw 1 6-faced dice. Reason: sparks! Total: 1
    1 1
     
    ACT TWO, MISSION ONE: Among the Vileness (0.7)
  • Threadmarks
    • You pointed.

    "There," you said, quietly.

    "...good choice," the Queen of Blades crooned, her wings fanning out. "Very good choice indeed."

    ***

    ​
    The Cybran ACU had been restored to a mirror shine. Midnight black, it was as tall as the UEF standard issue ACU you had piloted before, but sleeker and somehow narrower seeming - with broad spines and fins that emerged from the head and neck and shoulders. The angular 'crown of thorns' look was part of the radar absorbing and reflection systems, and you knew for a fact that Cybran ACUs were often built with various kinds of augmented stealth systems. Despite all this, Dostya's machine was...not...a Cybran ACU. It became apparent as you walked towards it in the warmth and humidity of the Levithan.

    It had been...grown in. Pustules filled in cracks and muscle stretched along synthsteel. The nanolathe had several chitinous spines growing from it, fanning outwards, with a gleaming, snot-like eggsack hanging beneath it. As your nose wrinkled, a sudden gravely voice rumbled from behind you. "INTEGRATED WITH BIOFORM. CAPABLE OF ASSISTING SPAWNING. NEEDS ONLY MIND TO GUIDE STRANDS."

    You snapped your head around and saw an elephantine creature - four limbs fanned around his body, his back was hunched and armor plated, while gleaming green sacks of bile attached to his sides. His face was inhuman, his eyes glittering and full of intellect. He had moved up behind you without making a noise.

    Abathur.

    "I see," you said, frowning. "Can it still make Cybran units?"

    "WITHOUT GUIDANCE FOR METAL STRANDS, METAL FORMS...INCORRECT. WRONG. LACK GUIDING INTELLIGENCE. MERGE WITH ZERG STRANDS. CREATE SYNTHESIS."

    "Infested Cybran units," you said, then shook your head. "Those units are like mine - drones. That's how they're supposed to work."

    "BETTER THIS WAY."

    You sighed, then turned to the Cybran ACU. You weren't even sure how to get in. You walked towards it, frowning as you placed your palm against the side...and something...sang inside of you. You gasped, then trembled as your fingers fanned out. Your wrist creaked and then strands of black fluid emerged from the seam between wrist and hand - webbing themselves to the ACU. You bit your lip, and...like vomiting, it was all so easy and fast and hideous you had no time to really reflect on it until it was over.

    You...

    Came apart.

    A thousand gleaming eyes. Chittering claws. A mind, hazy and yet focused, aware of the swarm. A thousand holes. Niches, built for you, for you, for you. Slotting in. Warmth closing around your body. Tight. Enfolding you. You groaned, and then saw - saw through gleaming cameras and cracked lenses. You lifted your arms - and found yourself looking down at the infested arms of the ACU. You cried out, and your voice buzzed through electromagnetism and psionic energies.

    Abathur, you said you had it prepared for her, Sarah said, sounding annoyed.

    DID. IS.

    You lifted your head up. The body you felt was...large and...powerful. You were the ACU. It was your skin. You felt the humidity tracking along seams in your armor plating. You felt the buzzing, swirling mass of nanites. The thrumming pulse-beat of the fusion-reactor heart. You had...broken into a thousand component parts, swarmed into each of those infestation nodules that Abathur had scattered across the ACU, and become one. A nervous system, threaded through the entire vehicle.

    Well, I did ask him, and then Abathur did not provide details. Sarah's tone made it clear that this was far from the first time this had happened and she was once more considering wringing what passed for the Evolution Master's neck. Prepared for drop?

    Yessss...     The word came out of your mind as a crooning hiss.

    It felt good.

    It felt good. You were...so...powerful. There was no mediation, no pause, just...just...the ACU and everything it could do, wired to your nerves, singing with fire and heat. Then the Levithan enfolded you. Warmth cascaded through your pores and you felt your stomach lurch. Then...falling. Falling. You were in something dark and rich and roaring winds caught at you...and then everything burst apart in a spray of gore. Skin sloughed and muscle flew away and you stood from where you knelt, looking slowly around yourself. You had been dropped in a bio-mechanical drop pod, which had rent itself apart to spare you the impact upon the black rock and charred ashfields of the Zerg homeworld.

    Technically, it's merely our current homeworld. In so far as that exists, Sarah said. Now...look around yourself.

    You did so.

    You had not come down alone. Several manta-ray drones had detatched from the pod as well. Their helpful natures buzzed warmly in your mind. They were eager. Happy. Their writhing wings made you think of cats. As they frolicked around your ankles, Sarah explained.

    A Zerg hive, under proper control, isn't quite the same as the bases you're used to handling. Mass and energy still flow, but they flow along an ecological web. It's...considerably more resilient and effective, but it takes more management. Part of the reason why this mission is your first is, well, Zagara is a dangerous queen and you're under a time crunch, but...well, she isn't exactly going to be throwing ultralisks at you. Her hive has spawning pools and a few smaller dens for hydralisks - nothing you couldn't handle with your bare hands, my Hilt.

    You felt her palm on your cheek and wanted to purr. You bit your lip, focusing on the anger you still felt, simmering in you.

    So. Each hive is made up of organs - and each organ has a different function. You have to feed them appropriately, and connect them using the Creep. Drones mutate into these organs, and you can assist them with your nanolathe. Do you get the basics?

    Yeah...     you said.

    You already knew pretty much how you were going to handle this...and grinned as you lifted your arm - and felt the sing-song affirmation of the drones as they swept out, immediately following your commands.

    ---
    HEAT: 0/6

    Build your Hive! You have 38 points and get a Hatchery for Free! This means you start off, automatically, with 3 Larvae, which is assigned to other buildings to produce units and effects. If you buy a building multiple times, then you'll get one bigger building representing having lots of the same building working together. If you don't spend all the money, it'll be saved.

    Buildings
    Hatchery (Costs 10): Produces larva (3) and is immobile.
    Spawning Pool (Costs 14): Requires larvae (2), produces Zergling - fast and damaging unit.
    Hydralisk Den (Costs 15): Requires larvae (2), produces Hydralisks - causes damage at range, can become Lurkers for stealth attacks
    Roach Warren (Costs 14): Requires larvae (2), produces roaches - damaging ambushers that buff stealth operations
    Sunks and Spores (Cost 15): Protects all other buildings and hurts enemies that come close. Is immobile.

    Sample Builds
    [ ] Rush and Creep (Build 2 hatcheries - one for free, one for 10. Then get 1 spawning pool and 1 roach warren - fast attack and sneaking ambushers!
    [ ] Slow and Steady (Build 1 hatchery for free, then get a hydralisk den and a Sunken and Spore colony. Bank 8)
    [ ] Zerg Rush! (Build 2 hatcheries - one for free, one for 10. Then get 2 spawning pools and drown them in bodies.)
    [ ] Doing This Solo (Build 1 hatchery for free, then get 2 sunken/spore colonies and get ready to rip Zagara's hive apart with your bare hands.)
    [ ] Write In

    New campaign, new gameplay! That's the Starcraft way!

    Zerg hives use the Advanced Vehicle rules. Here's how those work: Each hive is made up of discrete pieces of gear (called components) representing the organs and bioforms of the hive. This means you can cheapen one by making it dependent on another. Certain sparks allow a component to be protected by other components! Their layout and position also matters, as you move throughout it to give orders and to place sparks.

    So, for example, if you hve a Hatchery, it produces People (larvae and drones) which can then be placed on Spawning Pools (to create zerglings) which produce Attack or Speed sparks, for use in battle.

    If you wish, you can even "supercharge" a characteristic. If your Spawning Pool provides 2 damage and needs 1 people, you can put 3 people onto it and get +2 damage. However, this can produce negative side effects as you "run too hot."

    Unlike in the Terran campaign, enemies will be directly targeting your hive - since, after all, they have to destroy the Hive before they can kill Samantha.

    You have 38 "resources" to spend on your initial hive! It would normally be 50, but...you start with a Hatchery, which is 12.

    Hatchery and Drones [REQUIRED]
    Cost: 10
    Characteristics: People[Size] (3)[2]
    Sparks: Internal (1)

    Spawning Pool
    Cost: 14
    Characteristic: Damage[People] (2)[1], Speed[People] (2)[1]
    Sparks: Internal (2)

    Hydralisk Den
    Cost: 15
    Characteristics: Damage[People] (2)[1], Range[People] (2)[1]
    Sparks: Mutate Lurkers (1) - this spark allows your Hydralisks to be Lurkers, preventing enemies from noticing any attack using this component so long as this spark continues to exist | Internal (2)

    Roach Warren
    Cost: 14
    Characteristics: Damage[People] (2)[1], Tool[People] (2)[1]
    Sparks: Internal (2)

    Sunken Colonies and Spore Colonies
    Cost: 15
    Characteristic: Damage (1), Durability[Size] (3)[1]
     
  • Threadmarks
    • DragonCobolt said:
    Adhoc vote count started by DragonCobolt on Dec 17, 2023 at 10:51 PM, finished with 51 posts and 15 votes.
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    time to roll dice, a normal rarity in HEAT. Like, it's a diceless system...

    oh dear
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    a question what does the dice suppose to do?

    [X] Zerg Rush! (Build 2 hatcheries - one for free, one for 10. Then get 2 spawning pools and drown them in bodies.)
     
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    Mailstrome said:
    We need to teach Abathor to encode OSHA into the swarm so it can be forklift-certified.
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    ...Oh, retraining the swarm away from war? :D


    Hmm. I'd rather-- Oh, wait. We have a ranged attack; we don't need to get it from our local swarm to have any at all, and we probably won't need much if any here. So:
    [X] Zerg Rush! (Build 2 hatcheries - one for free, one for 10. Then get 2 spawning pools and drown them in bodies.)
     
    [X] Zerg Rush! (Build 2 hatcheries - one for free, one for 10. Then get 2 spawning pools and drown them in bodies.)
     
    [x] Rush and Creep (Build 2 hatcheries - one for free, one for 10. Then get 1 spawning pool and 1 roach warren - fast attack and sneaking ambushers!

    Stealth is the Cybran way!
     
    [X] Rush and Creep (Build 2 hatcheries - one for free, one for 10. Then get 1 spawning pool and 1 roach warren - fast attack and sneaking ambushers!
     
    [X] Zerg Rush! (Build 2 hatcheries - one for free, one for 10. Then get 2 spawning pools and drown them in bodies.)

    Soooooo... I've mostly avoided voting in the combat scenes, because I don't know SupCom at all, and also keep failing to wrap my head around HEAT as an RTS simulator, ironically probably because of the time I helped playtest an earlier version of HEAT where it was being used as an Action Hero simulator (albeit in giant mecha). But... I play Co-op commander mode in Starcraft 2 fairly often, and my favorite way to play is Zagara as her Scourge Queen prestige and drowning the AI in zerglings.

    Edit: And to be clear I'm not going to vote for that in every Zerg mission, but its iconic for a reason so might as do it at least once, and a low risk mission seems like a good choice for it.
     
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    [X] Slow and Steady (Build 1 hatchery for free, then get a hydralisk den and a Sunken and Spore colony. Bank 8)

    Cut off reinforcements, attack later with roaches and lurkers in that stealth Cybran style. I don't fancy taking on Zagara, numbers game master with just Zerglings.

    Now, having a look over the last page...
    Cookiesndip said:
    IC, Sarah is far from unforgivable, we have almost the entirety of our free will, and they have a lot to empathize with between them. Like I said previously, all of the solutions for any and all of our issues can be found by literally just supporting her and not acting like almost everyone else in her life by trying to backstab her, which will lead to tragedy, or a similar relationship to canon Raynor and Sarah at best. Is it no wonder she wants an iota of security for our loyalty? And it really is just an iota, it certainly doesn't seem to stop us from arguing, fighting, or even outright trying to kill her. Abathur is an easy fix for any issues once we deal with Duran and build a strong enough relationship with her, instead of bailing, just like everyone else in her life.

    We can still be the voice of reason as Zerg, in fact we're much better positioned here to do so. Abandoning her (which she WILL interpret if we leave) is just going to break our trust with her, our leverage and shatter the already fragile relationship completely, permanently.
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    We aren't going to leave, you've convinced me of that, at least. Sam and Sarah are together barring exceptional circumstances.

    Look, personally I don't really care about Sam being human, both in the "genetics" kind and in the UEF kind. Humanity is relative. The commander grade gene-augmentations already rendered Sam more than human, and while it might be possible to get captured by the UEF, and for Riley to kindly "forgive" his old war academy friend - the UEF to us was a means to an end, a system to escape from. The baggage that returning would saddle us with is way too much to bother with.

    Seems to me there's been a bit of a miscommunication here, also - I'm not going to keep up snubbing Sarah at every turn, I'm just saying that imo for a character to be interesting, they need to have pushback against things that are, objectively, an upshot for them. They need to make mistakes, just like Sarah did all throughout canon BW and HotS, just like Sam did with Sarah just now.

    21st century morality being applied here is a win for the Zerg camp, not the human camp. We live in a world that's relatively xenophilic, especially compared to the hyperracists/xenophobes 30k GC Imperium, the UEF or the UED. Pretty sure if all us questers were UEF citizens we would've voted for Sam to jump out the airlock (sphincter?), chanting "The blue of the UEF, that's what matters! That's the only thing that matters!" or something equally pithy.


    Evillevi said:
    [...] and she lost no friends in that process because I think she doens't currently know that Raynor was stopped from helping her as opposed to being part of the Mengsk betrayal plan.
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    Yup, that's where I see the tragic aspect of Sarah.

    In this I'm not sure there is much of a difference between the two.

    My read on the update is that Sarah wants to keep things professional around us by distancing herself away from the implication that we are a consort/sextoy/girlfriend/sex slave that she hired. That this is just business and she's going otu of her way to avoid abusing her position to get a sex slave/consort/etc. A reasonable statement in a vacumn.

    Except that's from a modern human POV and quite frankly IMO Sarah having the ability to implement Mind control us on a whim* changes the dynamics a lot since being mind controlled into a sex toy or mind controlled into sheer euphoria as we murdre every one of our friends has little meaningful difference.

    A voice of Reason IMO is someone who challenges and meets Sarah on a wide variety of topic including both the professional zerg life and the unfortunate reality that no matter what Sarah wants, she did in fact make a Badass girlfriend/almost sex slave and no amount of polite fiction changes that.

    *By killing us and abathur modifying us as we respawn
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    ngl very on point. Only thing I'd say is that Sarah's probably falling back on her ghost social skills, so she'll be good at business and fucking. The actual relationship will be a collaborative effort.

    Thing is we were reeling back then. It would have been all too easy to just Zerg on and accept it all at face value. By pushing Sarah away, we centre on ourselves. We interacted with Cr outside of a formal introduction to Zerglings (whatever that would have been like). In short, we adjusted who we were before to who we are now by interacting with the situation outside of the... emotionally volatile components.

    In short though, high-powered infested Terrans may be immortal, psionic, able to do all sorts of good shit but they still have psychological weakpoints. They still think like humans, to some extent. Sarah believed that just because she had godlike psionic power she couldn't be defeated. Unfortunately, that's not really how it works [Tassadar] [Raynor] [Mengsk]. Gotta have some friction to develop different points of view, and importantly, ability to tolerate different points of view.

    edit: almost forgot
    DragonCobolt said:
    (is this not the most exciting thing to see from your QM?)
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    FTFY
     
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    DragonCobolt said:
    It had been...grown in. Pustules filled in cracks and muscle stretched along synthsteel. The nanolathe had several chitinous spines growing from it, fanning outwards, with a gleaming, snot-like eggsack hanging beneath it. As your nose wrinkled, a sudden gravely voice rumbled from behind you. "INTEGRATED WITH BIOFORM. CAPABLE OF ASSISTING SPAWNING. NEEDS ONLY MIND TO GUIDE STRANDS."
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    oooh
    I kinda wanna know what it looks like lmao
    Nice to know it got integrated, I wonder how the infested cybran units look and if they got mixed in with the zerg units we can deploy?
    DragonCobolt said:
    You lifted your head up. The body you felt was...large and...powerful. You were the ACU. It was your skin. You felt the humidity tracking along seams in your armor plating. You felt the buzzing, swirling mass of nanites. The thrumming pulse-beat of the fusion-reactor heart. You had...broken into a thousand component parts, swarmed into each of those infestation nodules that Abathur had scattered across the ACU, and become one. A nervous system, threaded through the entire vehicle.
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    Oh hey, is that the Mummy power thing? lmao,
    nice that it seems to be equally psionic shenanigans as the rest

    gale said:
    I honestly understand this more then the other version. Zerg just click for me.
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    I'm not entirely sure if I'm getting the system from the start- admittedly probs just glossed over and stuck with the "overall strategy" part of the vote- but now that it's Zerg, why not try, can't be the worst thing to figure out eventually lmao, and I love the li'l Zergies (big and small)

    If I'm reading it right, the hives and other People-producing things are basically like-
    the "power" that you can redirect to other components that use it- like the different "weapons" in the form of the units and whatnot, right? so 2 hives is 3+3 = 6 larva, then- hrm,
    DragonCobolt said:
    If you wish, you can even "supercharge" a characteristic. If your Spawning Pool provides 2 damage and needs 1 people, you can put 3 people onto it and get +2 damage. However, this can produce negative side effects as you "run too hot."
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    so wait- what's the extra 4 larva gonna be doing if we only have 2 spawning pools (which by themselves deal 2+2 damage right)? Or is it that we're putting it all into the spawning pools for (2+2) + (2+2) = 8 damage? is it like, a trade off in Larvae/People allocation for efficiency per Larvae vs maximizing each component/organ?

    Do we get more points per round to use for stuff?
     
    [X] Rush and Creep (Build 2 hatcheries - one for free, one for 10. Then get 1 spawning pool and 1 roach warren - fast attack and sneaking ambushers!
     
    Avangelion said:
    so wait- what's the extra 4 larva gonna be doing if we only have 2 spawning pools (which by themselves deal 2+2 damage right)? Or is it that we're putting it all into the spawning pools for (2+2) + (2+2) = 8 damage? is it like, a trade off in Larvae/People allocation for efficiency per Larvae vs maximizing each component/organ?

    Do we get more points per round to use for stuff?
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    Each round, the hatchery makes 3 larvae - if you allocate them, they stay allocated until you re-allocate them. It's like moving around a set resource - like allocating power between a spaceship's various systems (which is exactly what it is, that's what advanced vehicle rules are meant to represent, I just reskinned it to be a Zerg Base.)
     
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