Mechasaurian
Big Bossu
- Location
- Lost among fields of history
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Go ahead.
In which I complain about Starcraft
- Thread starter MediumGatoKatr
- Start date
- Sci-Fi Videogame
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- Tags
- halo mass effect starcraft
- Location
- Patriarchova
...yes?
I mean, this is the big plot twist of the Rebel Yell campaign. Among the chaos of the Zerg invasion and the revelation of the Confederacy's wrongdoings, Raynor and the Magistrate make an alliance with Mengsk and the Sons of Korhal and find themselves increasingly involved in his plan to topple the Confederacy. Only to find out that they have enabled a Full Circle Revolution and put a mass murderer on a throne at the cost of entire planets.
In this context, the fact that the Dominion is barely even a new coat of paint over the Confederacy is entirely appropiate, because it helps to sell the emotional gut-punch.
I will also have to contend your characterization of Mengsk as a "cartoony evil emperor." He is shallow as a person, but in very believable ways that contribute to his villainy. And his shallowness as a person does detract from his depth as a character. He was perhaps a genuine freedom fighter at one point, spurred by the atrocities of the Confederacy, only to end up wearing the skin of the monster he slayed. That's pretty compelling.
You complain that Rebel Yell did not substantially alter the political sphere. Fine. I could contend that the destruction of entire planets thanks to Mengsk's mad schemes and Tassadar's decision to rebel against the Conclave's glass-first-ask-questions-later orders were pretty significant shake ups...but I won't.
Instead, I will say that the Full Circle Revolution served the big plot twist of the SC Terran Campaign quite effectively, and thus was good storytelling. It's not Shakespeare, but I liked it.
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@Leila Hann, I rather liked your rewrite of Brood War and the way it closed up the plot holes while hitting the same beats.
It makes me curious as to what your version of SC2 would have looked like (the Kerralisks aside, which I am admittedly not a big fan of). You seem like the sort to have some notes tucked away somewhere.
As for my own ideas...well, here's some spitballing on my part. Writing for the Terrans is the easiest part, since they give us the most material to work with - they remain a recipe for internicine fighting and some good old fashioned war, plotting, and skulduggery.
- The Confederacy/Dominion is well and truly in ashes. It's not going to turn up whole and powerful as if it wasn't ravaged by regime change, the Zerg, the UED, etc.
- The new villain Terran faction is the Kel-Morian Combine, which is now resurgent in the face of the death of the Confederacy/Dominion's death. They are an unpleasant sort, who are ruthlessly seizing and exploiting the Dominion's former holdings, turning lots of former Dominion civilians into debt slaves, wage slaves, and actual slaves to enrich their corporatocracy.
- The protagonist Terran faction is the Umojan Protectorate (the pragmatic democracy), who also happen to be quietly backing James Raynor and other groups resisting the Combine.
- The Dominion Remnants and the Ghost Academy (a quasi-independent branch of the Dominion, kind of like the CIA with psychics), inspired by the likes of Allen Schezar, have been working on controlling Zerg through their Ghosts. Their backers are Mengsk with what resources he has left to his name (because he is a persistent bastard if nothing else) and/or the Protectorate, because the Umojans have been scared by the sheer instability and chaos of the alien wars ravaging the sector, to the degree that they are willing to invest in mad science to tip the scales in their own favour.
- The ultimate ambition of the Academy and their backers is the creation of a homegrown Queen of Blades - a human overmind loyal to themselves. Of course, Kerrigan would come down on them with the wrath of an angry godess if she ever found out...
There are a variety of possible Terran campaigns, and all them sort of write themselves. It's more difficult to put together the pieces together for the Zerg and Protoss, because there is less to work with.
Kerrigan is implied to have gained full control of the Zerg, though it is not impossible that there are other broods out there. Which leaves us with the question of what her defining goal even is now that she won the Brood War and become the dominant military power in the sector. Maintain her position? Become even stronker by snatching up the feral broods on Aiur? Not exactly the stuff of riveting character development.
And the Protoss are, as you have pointed out, rather bare-bones in their characterization - their main source of internal conflict was the tyrannical and self-defeating Conclave, but they are now dead. Their obvious course of action is to try to rebuild themselves on Shakuras and to orient their economy to more guns and less butter while hoping that Kerrigan doesn's come to finish them off...but that doesn't provide a compelling narrative either.
Oh, and I still don't know what "Dark Origin" should lead to. Sinister and horrifying though that mission was, it drew a lot of its strength from its sheer vagueness and uncertainty. I know that it shouldn't lead to an army of hybrids invading from offscreen to wipe out human and terran life in the name of a generic doomsday villain, but I don't know where it should lead. (Nor do I understand how Kerrigan is supposed to have inadverdantly sped up Duran's plans).
...I guess a Protoss campaign could revolve around Duran's efforts to further sow chaos and destruction in the Koprulu Sector, thus preparing things for whatever his plan is, and Zeratul's efforts to pursue and stop him? I'm frankly at a loss.
Something I'd do in Starcraft 2 is split each of the races into two subfactions.
For terrans, it would be obvious. UED and Koprulu. Koprulu play very similar to the original terrans. UED has cheaper, shittier infantry, and more focus on air power.
For protoss...I'm tempted to say Khalai and Nerazim, but the way they seemed to be integrating in both my own and the canon versions of Brood War would make that feel like a step backward. Maybe instead it would be Daelim (mix of Aiur refugees and Nerazim, based out of Shakuras, who we last saw in Brood War) and a new faction made up of protoss from far flung colonies who weren't hit by the zerg, but have regrouped now after the shock of the empire being cored. I might draw on canon Starcraft 2 a bit here and have these guys be the ones who dug up the old protoss war machines from their far-flung vaults; the motherships, colossi, etc. They'd be a more mech-focused protoss subfaction, while the Daelim would be more magic and specops focused (due to their high and dark templars, which the colonist protoss lack).
For zerg...one faction is obviously Kerrigan's swarm, but I can see two options for the other. Option a) would be surviving cerebrates, in which case their zerg would be the original flavor while Kerrigan's would be somewhat humanified. Option b) would be for the other zerg faction to be Duran and his hybrids leading a brood of their own, in which case I'd have Kerrigan's faction be the original flavor and Duran's be the weirder, more humanoid (protossoid) ones.
Umojan Protectorate and Kel-Morian Combine are the dominant powers in the Koprulu sector now. The Dominion has been reduced to a shadow of its former self, and Mengsk is starting to lose it. Raynor either joined the Umojans, or went back to the Daelim and is part of a small human expat community on Shakuras.
I'm not sure how I'd get everyone involved. But I know I'd want the first major event of the game to be Kerrigan's invasion of the UED, while in her wake Duran begins setting his own plans in motion and threatening the Koprulu terrans and protoss of both flavors. He might also start fucking around with the protoss somehow, increasing the tensions between the Mechtoss and the Daelim. Not sure how.
I'm unfortunately at a loss as to who and what Duran is. His goal in "Dark Origin" seems to have been essentially the same as the Overmind's: fuse the protoss and zerg to create a new species with purity of form and essence alike. The obvious answer is to do what the canon SC2 did and make him a xel'naga or xel'naga servitor, but well...the WAY that Blizzard ended up doing that was pretty darned stupid. And...the xel'naga always struck me as one of the weakest aspects of the story even in the original game, so I'm cautious of giving them an active role in modern events. Not sure.
Mechasaurian
Big Bossu
- Location
- Lost among fields of history
- Pronouns
- They/Them
What, pray tell, would be the impetus for Kerrigan's invasion of the UED? Why is she willing to run off and challenge them apparently without completely subjegating Koprulu first? Do they have something she urgently wants?
- Location
- Patriarchova
1. She's convinced they'll send another fleet eventually, and would rather go wreck their house than have them come and wreck hers.
2. She's actually curious about Earth, though her zergy psychology has twisted that into something more destructive than mere curiosity.
3. She kinda has a deathwish.
I tried that already. It would be identical to Starcraft and I would be liable to get sued.
My idea is a clear rip-off:
The humans are transhumans with a South USA culture divided between the evil empire, the good democracy, the corporate republic, and the rebels. They have psychic mutants.
The bugs are divided into swarms managed by brain bugs, all of which answer to a collective mind. Each swarm has a specific role and personality.
The space elves are divided into jedi, sith, dark elves, aspect warriors blah blah blah. There are numerous distinct ethnic groups and religions. They have fleets of solid gold death stars.
The bugs want the human psychic mutants to make weapons against the space elves so they can fight them and gain their power.
I don't see the point in writing a new thing when Starcraft already laid out the ground work.
That's damning with faint praise. I don't like it because of the plot holes, the lack of scale and the obvious rush job.
If you had only the manual to work with, would you or anyone else here have written the same story? I highly doubt it.
Tassadar kept happily glassing planets anyway despite promising not to. He is a hypocrite.
Furthermore all this happened because of writer fiat anyway.
I don't care about fictional villains unless they are deep and complex. I am not a child anymore.
You are shackling yourself to a story you just stated is completely stupid. If you only had the manual to work with, what would you have written?
- Location
- Chile
I mean, you're also shakling yourself to a story that you just stated is completly stupid.
Personally I don't get what's the problem with it. We all like stories that are completly stupid every now and then, cuz yeah, it's silly and doesn't make any sense, that's exactly the beauty of it. You just don't have to take it seriously.
Personally I don't get what's the problem with it. We all like stories that are completly stupid every now and then, cuz yeah, it's silly and doesn't make any sense, that's exactly the beauty of it. You just don't have to take it seriously.
I want to know what Starcraft would have been like if I wrote it with the benefit of hindsight. Why do you people keep giving me crap for being unhappy with the canon and wanting better?
I think you are on to something. I will write a prospectus for my Starcraft rip-off and you can tell me whether it is worthy of a lawsuit.
Human history: The Confederacy won the Civil War, conquered the world and went out into space. They are opposed by the Corporate Congress, the Democratic Republic, and the Rebels. They experiment with psychic mutants. Their tech tree consists of cyborgs, mutants, mechs, robots and such.
Bug history: the bugs were originally soil-dwelling telepathic rotifers. The precursors uplifted them and they became parasitic genetic laboratories. The bugs ate the precursors and went on a planet-eating spree. They want to eat the elves but need a determinant to do so: humanity. They are divided into swarms named for mythological monsters, each led by one or more brain bugs. Their tech tree consists of engineered monsters.
Elf history: the elves were uplifted by the precursors and ultimately surpassed them. They fragmented due to nationalism and the precursors left. After a dark age they rebuilt the internet and created a utopia. Their tribes united aside from a few rebels. They annexed other civilizations and engaged in all sorts of atrocities. Now they invaded human space to deal with the bugs after capturing deep space probes. Their tech tree consists of crystals and electronic trees.
Does this strike you in any way as liable for copyright infringement?
I really do not want to reinvent the wheel here.
- Location
- The Great Beyond
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
You have been describing traditionally some deep divides between what you want and what Starcraft has.
Lemme lay out a setting description.
In a dark, wartorn future, humanity has taken to the stars. All known aliens are hostile, but humanity isn't exactly the good guys here, either. Worlds are razed for questionable reasons, those in charge are often corrupt, if not out right malevolent, humanity is protected by questionably sane 'marines' in power armor, having psychic powers is grounds to be kidnapped by the government, and when the all devouring bio swarm comes along things are dire enough for even humans and aliens to set aside their differences, at least long enough for one pitched battle...
Now did I just describe Starcraft? Or Warhammer 40k?
Indeed, I could do the same thing with Starcraft and the Starship Troopers movie.
Psychically powered secret service, the ground troopers are bloodily slaughtered and little more than canon fodder, the aliens are commanded by a specialized caste of 'brain' bugs with no technology in sight...
You can use a surface level description to make any number of settings sound overly alike. But you keep talking about how you'd want to radically overhaul Starcraft, both on the overall background level and on the actual arcs of the story level.
You can say you don't want to reinvent the wheel, but what you seem to want is to reinvent the setting, so I'm not seeing where that comes in.
I think the bland mediocre Starcraft manual is workable, but the games' stories are terrible so I want to see someone else's followup to the manual with blackjack and hookers.
It isn't reinventing the setting, it's ignoring all the stupid retcons that piled up.
Manual says zerg want to assimilate humanity. Protoss hold galactic empire. Earth is gone forever. Blah blah. Mediocre generic tropes.
Game ignores this and makes kerry into zerg messiah because Metzen is a bad writer. Zerg steamroll all opposition until deus ex machina saves the day. Protoss are wimps trying desperately to stay relevant. Earth was secretly watching all along but gives up after one failure.
Next game retcons everything so the precursors were the villains all along. Zerg are good guys nice and want to make peace. Protoss are wimps trying desperately to stay relevant. Fiery angel deus ex machina saves the day.
The manual was mediocre, yes, but it was workable. The games' scripts are bad fanfiction loosely based on that manual.
So I'd prefer to go back to the manual and ignore everything that came after. A reboot, basically. Again, the setting is still recognizable so I don't see how it is reinventing anything.
- Location
- The Great Beyond
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
"Hmm. This setting isn't going over well. What should we do?"
"Well, a lot of people don't like the tone or the latest arc. Maybe we should reinvent it somehow?"
"Mm. Could work. But we should reboot it, so we can be clear that none of those ideas from the later arcs apply unless explicitly included."
The basic process behind most series reboots, if I had to wager.
But since you aren't the IP owner here, there's literally no reason you can't take the basics of the presented scenario, tweak things to your personal taste, and rename things. Boom, your own setting.
You explicitly don't want to work with the canon characterizations, so it's not like you plan to have Very Obviously Arcturus Mengsk anyways. Almost none of Starcraft's ideas are new ones.
The Protoss are a psychic species with a caste system and psychic tech that is older than humanity. In other words, they're the Eldar with a fresh coat of paint to stop Games Workshop suing Blizzard. The Terrans have been done again and again. It's just humans under a new moniker. The Zerg are the Tyranids or the Starship Troopers bugs.
None of this stuff is so obviously Starcraft that you couldn't use the core ideas without people screaming plagiarism. In fact, a lot of these ideas are so generic that people wouldn't necessarily make the connection at all if you quietly created your serial numbers filed off setting and didn't announce your inspiration.
Because it's not a serial numbers filed off idea. You want to take what you like about Starcraft and make a setting out of that. In fact, your definition is so narrow you explicit want to ignore everything but the manual, at which point none of the iconic Starcraft units or characters even exist.
I'm telling you 'why not give new serial numbers to your divergent idea rather than carve Starcraft serial numbers into an idea that isn't clearly starcraft?'
Mechasaurian
Big Bossu
- Location
- Lost among fields of history
- Pronouns
- They/Them
It's damning with faint praise to say "this thing has issues, but the positives outweigh the negatives?"
Also, I have no idea where you are getting the information on Tassadar from, but it doesn't seem like the game itself. First you claim that the game "ignored" the manual saying that the Protoss made a decision not to glass any more human planets. This was false. Now you are saying Tassadar "made a promise" not to burn any more words, only to keep doing it. This is also false.
Here is what Aldaris had to say on the matter:
There you go. That, plus events in Rebel Yell, tells us all we need to know.
Kerrigan was hinted at having something in 06. It also explained why the overmind left her on char even when the dark Templar were at his door. Amon as a darker power also could have worked
If I were doing it I'd make it clear that Kerrigan is trying to redeem herself and not everyone trusts her. Also she dies in the process of redeeming himself
- Location
- Chile
By chance ever played Legacy of the Confederation?
It kinda sounds like what you're describing. It has its own problems, but that's an issue for another time and context.
Honestly, looking back there are significant portions of those LPs I'd rewrite, especially that quite whiny early part of Wings of Liberty, and the way I skipped/half-assed most of Legacy of the Void.
Very broadly, my current take would be:
Starcraft: Generally very good, the campaigns establish a different tone and feel for every race, and manage to tell a dramatic story at the same time. Balancing the competing needs to reveal the setting and tell a story mean that these three campaigns had the toughest challenge of all, and they did well. The story falls apart the most in the protoss campaign, which needed a bit more time and detail on how the protoss actually work as a race, but the skeleton is still good and I can't be too judgemental.
Brood War: Here the plot does genuinely start to fall apart a bit, but for the most part the story is executed with enough enthusiasm and energy that you don't notice. Why doesn't Aldaris tell anyone the reason for his revolt? Why didn't the protoss just permanently kill the new Overmind early? Would DuGalle really trust the obviously dodgy local over his friend of decades? And so on. But unlike the original, Brood War is mostly going for character drama - Zeratul, Kerrigan, and DuGalle in particular - and the wild energy of the plot and the good voice acting carries it off.
Wings of Liberty: Generally quite well put-together and dramatic, with an appropriate level of schlock for this setting. The main concern I would have are that firstly the Tychus arc isn't filled out as thoroughly as it should be. The first issue is that for this plot to work we need to like Tychus and trust in the strength of his friendship with Raynor, but Tychus spends too much time looking dodgy, unreliable, or just plain a terrible partner to have. So maybe toning down some of the lol-Tychus-is-violent-and-stupid humour and showing more of him being a good friend to Raynor? Secondly, it's almost that the story they're trying to tell is too subtle for their audience or for the setting they've established. There's this pretty deep inner struggle going on within Tychus throughout the plot - kill a murderer of millions and betray my friend for a pardon, or sacrifice my own life because I accept my friend's belief that Kerrigan can be saved? - and you can see a number of early scenes where Tychus is trying to head off conflict, such as trying to convince Raynor that Kerrigan deserves to die, or that scene where he gets blind drunk over it; and we can see that Raynor doesn't get it because of his obsession with Kerrigan. I'm just not sure that sort of character drama gets through to most players.
Heart of the Swarm: Honestly, my only problem here is that Heart of the Swarm is set after Wings of Liberty, and not before. The big issue here is that it completely negates WoL's story. There are a number of small issues along for the ride to do with moral arbitrariness, but for the most part the emotional trajectory of the story they're telling works, and the dive into zerg culture is surprisingly interesting. Basically I like a lot of the individual story beats of Heart of the Swarm and I like what it establishes in terms of setting, but I think it was the wrong place for this story. HotS needs to come before WoL.
Legacy of the Void: Despite what I said before, I'd have to stick by the two judgements that this story is quite bland and uninspired, and that it fails to make the best use of its premise. I do wonder if a lot of the problem just comes down to the fact that protoss can't emote very well. Protoss were designed for a time when there'd be very little visual storytelling: just static heads in boxes. To compensate, they have to rely on big declamatory speeches, rather than any of the more subtle, personal cues that we get from Terran characters. Plus I can't help but think this is a story that seems to be about ideas more than it is about people? But it doesn't ultimately have anything very interesting or clever to say about the Khala, or about the social issues it gestures at. If the characters were nuanced and interesting, I could forgive the bland ideas; if the ideas were compelling, I could forgive the weak characterisation. But as it is I feel like there's nothing to grab on to?
Into the Void: Worst. Epilogue. Ever!
Covert Ops: This is probably my favourite Starcraft II campaign. It's not that it's particularly smart, because it isn't, or that it has particularly nuanced or deep characterisation, because it doesn't, but because it nails its chosen tone really well. It helps that it's not pretending to be anything other than a rollercoaster action movie about psychic spies, and mechanically I think it's really interesting. So it gets a thumbs-up from me.
Overall, I rank the campaigns something like: Starcraft > Covert Ops > Wings of Liberty > Brood War > Heart of the Swarm > Legacy of the Void > Into the Void. But I could be persuaded to change that ranking based on how I feel on any given day!
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What IS Starcraft at this point? SC2 neatly severed every major plot point so that nothing remains. Kerry and Raynor are gone forever and they pretty much took over the setting while they existed. They ruined it forever.
There's a lot about Starcraft that isn't terrible. It has potential for halfway decent stories if you toss Kerry and the xel'naga in the garbage where they belong. I used Starcraft because that's easier than making a new setting nobody understands. It has common reference points like overminds and taldarims and whatever. I can work with that.
It's a personal thing that I somehow feel the need to demand external validation for. I am incapable of abandoning Starcraft at this point in time, even though I really really want to. I have issues, I know that.
I am pathologically frustrated that Blizzard's writing was so shitty and ruined otherwise workable (if mediocre) ideas. I am further frustrated that I can never find like-minded people in any forums I frequent. I only find naysayers who tell me to give up or waste time on filing the serial numbers.
That only makes me angry and sad.
I don't want a ripoff. I want the Starcraft I imagined I would get in 1998, before the game's terrible execution dragged my hopes through the mud.
The manual explicitly stated Tassadar resolved he would not burn more worlds at the end of the protoss history chapter. The games are effectively an alternate universe from the manual, making numerous unnecessary contradictions and generally doing a terrible job with the plot hooks given. The game story is a rush job that haphazardly bulldozes all the world building previously established.It's damning with faint praise to say "this thing has issues, but the positives outweigh the negatives?"
Also, I have no idea where you are getting the information on Tassadar from, but it doesn't seem like the game itself. First you claim that the game "ignored" the manual saying that the Protoss made a decision not to glass any more human planets. This was false. Now you are saying Tassadar "made a promise" not to burn any more words, only to keep doing it. This is also false.
Here is what Aldaris had to say on the matter:
There you go. That, plus events in Rebel Yell, tells us all we need to know.
Again, answer me this: if you only had the manual to work with, then would you really tell the same story?
A better story would focus entirely on Mar Sara and have Raynor and Tass team up there. That is precisely what the promo material teased before the writer changed his mind.
I'm tired of arguing with you. If you want a detailed analysis of why Starcraft is deeply flawed and what a better alternative would be, here is a hundred page book someone wrote on the subject:
ValhaHazred
The Littlest Murderhobo
- Pronouns
- they/them
I can think of at least two things I'd change if I was in charge of Starcraft.
Kerrigan is a weird brain spider monster, Raynor is a buff space lady and they're going to smooch. Also some space wars might happen.
I actually didn't care at all about the plot of Starcraft. I just remember being annoyed that after Kerrigan's transformation was so built up she was just a hot lady in bug cosplay.
Kerrigan is a weird brain spider monster, Raynor is a buff space lady and they're going to smooch. Also some space wars might happen.
I actually didn't care at all about the plot of Starcraft. I just remember being annoyed that after Kerrigan's transformation was so built up she was just a hot lady in bug cosplay.
Mechasaurian
Big Bossu
- Location
- Lost among fields of history
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Moving the goalposts, huh?
First you claimed that SC deviated from the manual in not having Tassadar decide to stop glassing worlds. Then you claimed that he promised not to burn any more worlds, only to merrily keep doing it. Now you're back to the first claim.
Stop being obtuse. I'm not sure about you, but I know what happened in game - Tassadar glassed a couple of worlds on the Conclave's orders, but presumably had strong misgivings over it. Upon reaching Tarsonis, his conscience finally won the war within him. So he decided to rebel against the Conclave, stop glassing human worlds, and make an attempt at rescue of the human civilians with a ground force. He suffered for this action.
As for what I'd have written based on the original StarCraft manual...I don't rightly know what I'd have written. But I'd bet good money that you would get a different story for each and every individual you show it to. Each would have some difference in scale, in themes, in character, in major plot beats, etc. I would come up with something different from what Metzen wrote, but so would everyone else on the planet.
Yet, some broad strokes would remain - the Zerg are the villain, the monster, the dragon to be slain, so I suspect that the Overmind being killed at the end of the story by the Protoss - its named archenemy - would come up a lot in all these alternate StarCraft timelines.
...look. You have some basically good and correct points. StarCraft's story is imperfect, and has flaws. The game we got probably didn't make the best possble use of the setting laid out in the manual. Blizzard's writing has gotten progressively worse over the decades.
But, in your disappointment with Blizzard's writing, you made some ridiculous and outright false claims and arguments in the name of bashing Blizzard. Multiple people have made not of this.
Furthermore, about your...obsession?...with a 20 year old manual that has been largely forgotten and wasn't really that good anyway. Not only is it hard to relate to, but it doesn't seem...healthy? I mean, I hear so much bitterness in you when you speak of it and of StarCraft in general.
I strongly doubt that anyone here is out to get you. I personally hope that your writing turn out well.
But - let me be frank - your acerbic tone and your outlandish arguments/claims are causing people to take issue with you.
(To end this post on a slightly friendlier note, I also suggest that you rename the stuff in your story and make it officially a work of original fiction. Star Wars started production as Flash Gordon fanfiction, and now its essentially a religion.)
ValhaHazred
The Littlest Murderhobo
- Pronouns
- they/them
Doesn't the story go that Starcraft was itself a Warhammer 40K game until Blizzard decided they could file the serial numbers off and make their own IP?
- Location
- The Great Beyond
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
Wouldn't surprise me, it blatantly is. It is amazing to me they got away with 'these are Marines. They have the basic design of Adeptus Astartes, but totally aren't those, honest!' as the bluntest example.
- Location
- Brisbane
Not to mention the green Orcs and steampunk dorfs in Warcraft...
Hykal94
Orange Estus Kitteh
- Location
- Firelink Shrine
In defense of Blizzard, the origin of the archetypal Space Marine was from Starship Troopers own Mobile Infantry. The book, not the movie.
Space Marines in early 40k were basically convicts in power armour, which is basically what the Terran Marine is while the Primarchs were normal human generals. I think they became the Space Monks we all know and love around 3rd Edition.
It also had drop pods and a bug alien species war going on. However the common Zerg/Nid has more to do with the xenomorph from Aliens. While Nids were mentioned in early 40k, the most popular representation of Nids were the Genestealers which later became it's own faction.
The Protoss are basically Eldar, but not elves. What with the whole crystals thing going on.
Space Marines in early 40k were basically convicts in power armour, which is basically what the Terran Marine is while the Primarchs were normal human generals. I think they became the Space Monks we all know and love around 3rd Edition.
It also had drop pods and a bug alien species war going on. However the common Zerg/Nid has more to do with the xenomorph from Aliens. While Nids were mentioned in early 40k, the most popular representation of Nids were the Genestealers which later became it's own faction.
The Protoss are basically Eldar, but not elves. What with the whole crystals thing going on.
- Location
- Patriarchova
I can think of at least two things I'd change if I was in charge of Starcraft.
Kerrigan is a weird brain spider monster, Raynor is a buff space lady and they're going to smooch. Also some space wars might happen.
I actually didn't care at all about the plot of Starcraft. I just remember being annoyed that after Kerrigan's transformation was so built up she was just a hot lady in bug cosplay.
I fully believe that Raynor/Fenix would have been a thing had the latter not been stuck in a dragoon by the time they met.
Triggerhappy
Stick with Trigger and You'll Make it Through
- Location
- SoCal
They're big shooty bois in power armor. That's like the most generically SF thing out there alongside the constitutional obligation to have marines and battlecruisers.
ValhaHazred
The Littlest Murderhobo
- Pronouns
- they/them
Raynor, kiss the hull you coward!