[StarCraft] Rebooting the verse as gritty rational milscifi
- Thread starter MediumGatoKatr
- Start date
- Discussion Videogame
That page 136 is hilarious. For several reasons:
- It makes such a huge deal about resource wars as a reason for the terrans to go to war with anyone else (with the official website at one point suggesting the terrans will invade protoss space for resources), but this never comes up once in the games.
- It's written as an obvious satire of the military industrial complex's callousness, complete with tongue-in-cheek notes written by a surprisingly self-aware marine, which makes absolutely no sense as an in-universe document.
- It is completely outclassed by the Tiberium games. Here's a video:
I can't tell whether the quadrant thing is serious or not. Koprulu sector is also called the Terran sector because it is mostly populated by terrans. If it has been retconned into a quadrant, then that makes all the statements about the UED being way more powerful than the Koprulu terrans, protoss, and zerg combined sound like complete gobbledygook. Then again, one early pitch for SC2 was that the zerg would take Earth with seeming ease so we really shouldn't treat the UED as anything more than meat for the grinder.
Not to mention that it retroactively makes the lore increasingly ridiculous if the Koprulu terrans claim a quadrant of the galaxy. That's like ~50-100 billion stars and countless more planets. How did the Confederacy maintain a dictatorship over a space that large? How did the Sons of Korhal have a hope in hell of fighting that? How the heck did taking out Tarsonis cause many billions colonies and quadrillions of colonists to just roll over and accept Dominion rule?
I'm sorry for irritating you. You don't deserve that.
I should probably get a prescription for anti-depressants when this plague finally blows over.
I haven't been able to find anything besides The Vang novels. They're currently only available on the used books market until the author republishes them as ebooks like the Battle Dragons series has been. They lack a fandom so there wouldn't be many people who would be drawn to the name.
And to be entirely honest my fanfic would probably be a loose crossover of Starship Troopers, The Vang, BattleTech, Necroscope, Outlaw Star, and the Moreau/Confederacy novels. Premise: the good ol' boys, psychic spies, and engineered catboys pilot giant mechs to fight omniparasitic space bugs.
It sounds like a fun and gonzo premise in my opinion. Too bad I have this writer's block.
What do you think of "tricentenarian ex-military cyborg catman sheriff has to defend his small town from invasion by omniparasitic space bugs"?
Last edited:
- Location
- Patriarchova
How about you watch/read/play a bunch of things from a totally different genre for a while and see if that helps?
Shadow Archon
Protoss Preserver
- Location
- Louisiana
Oh, Resource Wars happen all the time. It's just not in the campaign, it's all in multiplayer. "Kill your opponent while mining the map" is the epitome of SC multiplayer, and tons of Short Stories or Website blurbs talk about battles happening in that versus context of fighting over resources. "Momentum," "Radio Liberty," "Broken Wide," "Frontline," etc. all have typical fights over resources. The one mission during Brood War where Kerrigan invades Moria was also a push for resources to fund the invasion of Korhal is a good example too.
The entire field manual is like that. The Marine makes comments on everything, and that's honestly the best part of the Field Manual.
Tiberium being actual grey goo and slowly spreading over the Earth isn't really comparable to Minerals spread across thousands of light years on planets, moons, and asteroids. Every single planet in the Koprulu Sector probably has minerals on it in some way, shape, or form, so by just sheer math, there should be more total Minerals in StarCraft than there is Tiberium in C&C just because we only ever see Tiberium on Earth even though it's extra-galactic.
As for the Quadrant thing, in the beginning, the Terrans in SC1 only had thirteen planets. Korhal, a major world in the Confederacy, only had four million people on it. That was retconned in books to thirty-five million, but now in SC2 it has a full population of six billion post-terraforming. The setting retconning itself to be bigger and bigger is a trend it has always had. In SC2, the Terrans lost billions on the first day of fighting against the Zerg in Wings of Liberty treating it more as an inconvenience than a big deal and that's small beans compared to Kerrigan destroying worlds in Heart of the Swarm or Amon sending the Golden Armada on a purification bend in Legacy of the Void. Post-Legacy, Blizzard has just retconned in entire new city planets, Feral Broods that can encircle entire planets, and entire new Protoss factions. Them retconning the size of the Sector to a Quadrant doesn't surprise me a bit.
- Location
- Patriarchova
It's like they really want to be making Warhammer 40K.
Despite having already beaten it many times over in popularity.
I don't quite understand where they're coming from, I must admit.
Despite having already beaten it many times over in popularity.
I don't quite understand where they're coming from, I must admit.
Last edited:
Believe me, I tried that for years. I am still trying.
I'm currently waiting on this indie game called Liquidation which seems like it will finally scratch my itch. I talked to the devs on their discord server and they echo my complaints about Blizzard writing. While their planned campaigns will have main characters, obviously, they do intend to make the playable sides stand on their own as organizations with ideology behind them.
There's also Five Nations and possible remasters of Tiberian Sun and Red Alert 2 that I'm looking forward to.
In terms of non-RTS stuff... I'm looking forward to Scorn, The Medium, and Lust from Beyond.
And to be candid, StarCraft is not the only franchise that I have strong reservations about. I feel the same way about the Alien franchise. I'm one of those people who disregards the movies outside of the first two, but makes exceptions for the good entries in the EU like the Isolation game and the Labyrinth comic.
I used to like stuff like Avatar: The Last Airbender, A Song of Ice and Fire, and the Stargate franchise. But in the last several years the fanfiction scene has gotten repetitive and uninspired in my opinion. There's only so many times that I can see the same characters going through permutations of their possible lives before it gets boring.
There may be thousands of fics where "Ned Stark does X," but it's ultimately still about Ned Stark navigating Westeros whether he's an otherblood or a planetary governor.
Correction to myself: there's like one or two missions and a few short stories nobody reads that focus on resource wars.
The main story that anybody cares about is still a soap opera about mary sues pursuing personal vendettas across the galaxy and running roughshod over any sense of verisimilitude. Logistics are an afterthought at best.
Blizzard says StarCraft is military scifi, but it really isn't. If you're writing military scifi and logistics are an afterthought at best to you, then you really shouldn't be writing military scifi.
What I mean is that Tiberium has better world building behind it. The substance and the ideological wars fought over it are the main premise of the franchise. Which comes as no surprise since it's a spiritual descendant of Dune, the scifi counterpart to The Lord of the Rings, which was all about ideology and resource wars.
Even the way C&C structures its resource mechanics compared to SC places greater emphasis on literally fighting over the resource in-game by virtue of simply placing resource fields farther away from bases.
Tiberium feels less contrived than "minerals" do from a writing perspective. Minerals just exist, miraculously undergirding the terrans' mobile industrial complex. Tiberium has an explanation for its miraculous properties and that explanation (self-replication, xenoforming, etc) has a dramatic effect on both the gameplay and the fluff.
The difference between Tiberium and StarCraft is not unlike the difference between the Frank Herbert novels and the Brian Herbert novels. One is about ideology, resource wars, logistics, and the dangers of hero worship, while the other was written based on what superhero wank the writers thought would be cool at the time.
As if Mengsk and Kerry weren't already irritating Sues. Now Mengsk took over an entire quadrant by luring zerg to one tiny city, and Kerry took over quadrillions of zerg with ease.
I fully expect Blizz to pull yet more weird and ridiculous shenanigans in the future. Well, assuming StarCraft isn't already on life support like it seems to be and even then I suspect it will be mined for mobile shovelware. And, as with WarCraft, the new retcons and storylines will contradict and undercut the messages and lore from prior installments.
I don't get how anybody can seriously invest in Blizzard's writing enough to hound naysayers as filthy heretics. That's like making a rotting block of Swiss cheese your holy text.
It terms of profit, maybe. In my experience, 40k has a vastly larger fandom engaging with the actual setting. StarCraft has such shit lore and storytelling that nobody is interested in discussing it on the various fanfiction forums I've tried. By contrast, 40k threads commonly go into the hundreds of pages and are constantly updated over the years.
According to Google trends, Warhamer 40k seems to have eclipsed Starcraft around November/December 2017.
I suspect the reason why Blizzard is constantly upping the stakes into oblivion is because that's just what they do. They did it for WarCraft and are still doing it. Just recently they introduced the "first ones" who are apparently being setup as even older than the titans. Blizzard seems obsessed with shoehorning recursive deities into their plots.
I can't wait until they retcon Amon to a good guy trying to stop the evil xel'arin, like they retconned Sargeras to a good guy trying to stop the void lords. Or something similarly silly. I could probably throw silly ideas at the wall for a while and then be unsurprised when some of them eventually appear in a Blizzard product.
Although... if a later installment of StarCraft introduces a bunch of retcons and surreal events that alienates the weirdos who still like this lore, then I couldn't help but feel schadenfreude and vindication.
Oh, and fun trivia: Joseph Mallozzi once tried to pitch a StarCraft tv show.
- Location
- Patriarchova
I don't know that anyone does.
At the very least, I have yet to meet a person - online or off - who cares one tenth as much as you. Either approvingly or disapprovingly.
The vast majority of Starcraft fans never cared about the plot. Many of those who did no longer do. The remaining bunch I suspect are 90% down to Blizzard's creepy parasocial marketing leading them to stan everything the company does, rather than liking what's in the actual story on its own merits.
That, and kids. A lot of kids and teenagers probably like Blizzard's writing.
Last edited:
That and these articles that neatly sum up the "three faction archetype" exemplified by and failed by SC.
The Celestial, Terrestrial, and the Diabolic: the three faction archetype
Every now and then I’ve noticed that on the internet, or in the internet, when someone mentions the game Halo/Starcraft someone else mentions how it stole it’s faction ideas from Starcr…
electriccartilage.wordpress.com
The fall of Starcraft 2’s story
The original Starcraft is the perfect example of the three faction archetype. The Terrans are down to earth humans, the Zerg are a mindless swarm of destruction, and the Protoss are ancient beings …
electriccartilage.wordpress.com
I think another productive line of discussion would be to see whether we could make races that more closely hew to those archetypes. Though "Tribal-Wizard-Warrior-Poet-Scientists" and "Bloodthirsty Hordes of Destruction" aren't exactly difficult to write in the first place.
In the interests of not completely alienating my potential audience, I would prefer to write the humans in general as more conventional scifi. Something like d20 Future is my baseline: space travel, cybernetic implants, mutations, psionics, mechs, etc. That gives a better contrast against the other two alien civilizations.
- Location
- Patriarchova
That's always the issue with transhumanist scifi, yeah. But if the main POV human faction are individualist dissidents resisting the overminds, then that shouldn't be too much of an issue.
Thank you for the suggestion, but I don't need more than one aggressive hegemonizing swarm object.
So I did some digging, and it turns out the Starships Troopers franchise/expanded universe has gradually introduced elements that make the Arachnids more and more like the zerg even as the zerg have become less and less like the bugs.
The movies changed the bugs compared to the novels by replacing their technology with biotech, not unlike the zerg (more zerg-esque than tyranid-esque at any rate). The third movie introduced a "god bug" that was almost identical to the zerg's overmind. The Roughnecks cartoon introduced the ability for the bugs to splice foreign genetic material into their larvae to produce new castes, such as the imposter bugs, and at one point a human character was turned into a bug hybrid.
So now the Arachnids have basically all the same traits as the pre-Kerry zerg, with the exception of personalities for their brain bugs (that we know of). Though I wouldn't be surprised if that gets introduced at some point, probably in a hypothetical RTS with a story mode from the bug POV.
Fascinating, no?
The movies changed the bugs compared to the novels by replacing their technology with biotech, not unlike the zerg (more zerg-esque than tyranid-esque at any rate). The third movie introduced a "god bug" that was almost identical to the zerg's overmind. The Roughnecks cartoon introduced the ability for the bugs to splice foreign genetic material into their larvae to produce new castes, such as the imposter bugs, and at one point a human character was turned into a bug hybrid.
So now the Arachnids have basically all the same traits as the pre-Kerry zerg, with the exception of personalities for their brain bugs (that we know of). Though I wouldn't be surprised if that gets introduced at some point, probably in a hypothetical RTS with a story mode from the bug POV.
Fascinating, no?
I'm so angry.
I really want to get over the Starshit franchise and have peace of mind. I can't do that unless I write my original fiction where I try to execute the premise in a non-stupid fashion. But I have horrible writer's block and I don't know how to get over that.
This is so frustrating. I shouldn't even need to do this. Why the fuck couldn't Blizzard's writers pull their shit together?
"Oh hey, we wrote these horrible bug monsters led by a culture of mad scientists and social darwinists. So original and ripe for exploration, amirite? Evil campaigns are tight. I know what a perfect improvement would be: let's kill them all off and insert a psycho succubus based on my ex-girlfriend! And while we're at it, lets annihilate all the other cultures we've been world building up to this point in our internal writing binders to prop up our fav characters who are totally not self-inserts. That's totally not a stupid idea that only showcases how fucking incompetent I am. All the kids on wattpad will be so impressed!"
I don't know why I care so much. Is it the novelty? The way the expanded universe and fanfiction scene has been so thoroughly tainted that I can't enjoy any of that either? The complete lack of any competing works that I could latch onto instead? The years of online abuse by the Blizzard fanboys that I really shouldn't take to heart but do anyway?
Jfc
Worm is about a chick who can talk to bugs and gets a bazillion fanfics, but the zerg Overmind and its cadre of Starship Troopers-inspired brain bugs and countless biological horrors reminiscent of the tyranids and Nurgle daemons gets nothing?
You can't hear it, but I'm screaming internally right now. I really don't want to care, but I can't stop.
I really want to get over the Starshit franchise and have peace of mind. I can't do that unless I write my original fiction where I try to execute the premise in a non-stupid fashion. But I have horrible writer's block and I don't know how to get over that.
This is so frustrating. I shouldn't even need to do this. Why the fuck couldn't Blizzard's writers pull their shit together?
"Oh hey, we wrote these horrible bug monsters led by a culture of mad scientists and social darwinists. So original and ripe for exploration, amirite? Evil campaigns are tight. I know what a perfect improvement would be: let's kill them all off and insert a psycho succubus based on my ex-girlfriend! And while we're at it, lets annihilate all the other cultures we've been world building up to this point in our internal writing binders to prop up our fav characters who are totally not self-inserts. That's totally not a stupid idea that only showcases how fucking incompetent I am. All the kids on wattpad will be so impressed!"
I don't know why I care so much. Is it the novelty? The way the expanded universe and fanfiction scene has been so thoroughly tainted that I can't enjoy any of that either? The complete lack of any competing works that I could latch onto instead? The years of online abuse by the Blizzard fanboys that I really shouldn't take to heart but do anyway?
Jfc
Worm is about a chick who can talk to bugs and gets a bazillion fanfics, but the zerg Overmind and its cadre of Starship Troopers-inspired brain bugs and countless biological horrors reminiscent of the tyranids and Nurgle daemons gets nothing?
You can't hear it, but I'm screaming internally right now. I really don't want to care, but I can't stop.
- Location
- Patriarchova
Get help.
cB557
voOOP
I feel like you kinda tripped over a big part of why you don't see a lot of Starcraft fanfiction in this? It's a pretty derivative setting so basically anything you want to write about in Starcraft, you can write about in another setting. People aren't super attached to the Starcraft characters, so if someone has a choice between writing their idea in Starcraft or writing it in some other setting, there's good odds that they're more interested in the other setting's characters and that's gonna tip things in favor of that setting.
That's not true. There's almost two thousand fanfics on fanfiction.net. About Kerry, Raynor, Mengsk, Amon, and nothing else, but it's not like people aren't attached. I don't understand why, since those characters are all shit anyway.
But the Overmind and cerebrates are such a novel concept, despite their brief canonical appearance, that I'm honestly surprised nobody besides myself displays any interest in them. Unhappy Anchovy went on and on about how interesting they are as a story tool.
But all the zerg fanfiction is about Kerry's boyfriend issues. Because nothing says "swarm of biological horrors invading to add your distinctiveness to their own" like boyfriend issues.
Kerry is a shit character who ruins the zerg and her deranged personal vendettas against her ex-boyfriends is completely at odds with the zerg's concept. Overmind and cerebrates are awesome characters who actually synergize with the zerg's concept. Why is it that nobody besides myself has ever considered keeping them around and exploring that instead of stupid Kerry boyfriend issues?
What gives?
Really?
If that's true, then why am I having such a hard time finding a different setting which supports the concepts I originally liked about Starcraft unless I write it myself?
I'm incessantly complaining about Starcraft because there isn't another setting I can switch to where I can recreate the elements I originally liked. And when I try to see if anybody else is interested in the same things I am, I generally get apathy.
The Celestial, Terrestrial, and the Diabolic: the three faction archetype
Every now and then I’ve noticed that on the internet, or in the internet, when someone mentions the game Halo/Starcraft someone else mentions how it stole it’s faction ideas from Starcr…
electriccartilage.wordpress.com
Although Starcraft is a perfect example of this well worn trope about humans vs aggressive hegemonizing swarms vs Tribal-Wizard-Warrior-Poet-Scientists, it's not interchangeable with every other work that recycles the trope.
Starcraft has, sorry, had unique elements that made it stand out. Even if individual elements were derivative, It had a unique arrangement that I haven't seen recreated elsewhere yet. At least not enough for me to switch other my monomania.
And the elements I liked aren't even all that complicated.
- An interstellar confederation of human colonies jockeying for power, rampant strip-mining, cyborgs and mutants and what not, cybperpunk in space, etc. Doesn't that basically describe most modern scifi or am I wrong?
- Tribal-Wizard-Warrior-Poet-Scientists with an imperialist/environmentalist bent.
- Aggressive all-consuming space bugs that evolve rapidly by studying the species they consume, seek perfection through self-improvement and dominating the universe, and to top it all off they have characters with personalities to distinguish them from all the other aggressive hegemonizing swarms in scifi.
- They fight. Each other. Factions within themselves. Etc.
All things considered, you'd think this would be quite common. It's a simple premise. It's tailored for video games.
You'd think.
But it's been surprisingly hard for me to actually find fiction that meets those criteria.
What's been the hardest to find are the horrible all-consuming space bugs with personalities. The only other fiction I've been able to find in that vein are the Vang novels by Christopher Rowley.
I find it really hard to believe that this concept isn't more common in military scifi. What gives?
cB557
voOOP
Well, 2,000 fanfics sounds like a big number, and I mean it's not exactly a small one. But that's 2,000 fanfics over two decades, and meanwhile Overwatch has nearly 4,000 and it's only been around for four years. Warcraft is only four years older than Starcraft, and it's got nearly seven and a half thousand fics. To look at a game from a similar story genre but from a different developer, Halo has about 9,000 fanfics, and it's a few years younger than Starcraft. I can't give you a perfect scientific answer as to why, but clearly there's something that makes people want to write fanfics about stuff that Starcraft is short on relative to other franchises.
Though, when we're talking about what story elements or lack thereof drove this, we should also consider stuff like the fact that Starcraft dropped off the map for a fucking decade. Fanfiction is fed by fandom, and fandom is usually fed by regular releases. Having one game, some DLC, and then almost nothing for ten years, especially when those ten years were the 2000's when internet fandoms were really blowing the fuck up, is not going to make the sort of large and lively fanbase that'll churn out fanfiction.
As for why zerg fics tend to focus on Kerrigan, I think that's because most fanfiction is character driven. A big cause of that, I think, is that as humans, we're more likely to get really invested in specific characters moreso than concepts and cultures, so we're more likely to write fanfic focusing on characters rather than on cultures. And really, even if you do want to write about a specific culture or concept, you're probably going to need characters through which you'll explore those. Like it's not impossible to explore those with minimal use of characters, but it's a lot harder. While you could focus on the cerebrates or Overmind as your viewpoint characters, they're way less fleshed out than Kerrigan, so there aren't as many hooks for you to write a story around. Like, cerebrates especially would essentially mean writing an entire character from the ground up, as opposed to building off an existing one.
But also, like I said earlier, if people want to write about weird alien monster hiveminds, there's plenty to choose from, and most of them will have enough wiggle room in canon for an author to fit their particular idea of interpretation onto it. Like, with your own ideas about the Zerg, you talk about them like this is what the Zerg are, but they're really more of your own specific interpretation of the Zerg. Well, your interpretation or Anchovy's interpretation, depending on how you look at it. They're interpretations based on canon, but there's a lot of extrapolations and filling in blanks that canon or other writers could handle differently. Heck, sometimes canon did handle it differently. So a lot of those ideas could be used with other hiveminds with the same degree of faithfulness.
But with characters, it's harder to partition off or focus in on some specific aspect of them in the way you can a culture. A person is a much smaller, tighter thing than a culture, so different aspects of them are much more interwoven and influence eachother more strongly than their equivalents in a culture would. Essentially, if you have an idea about Kerrigan, it's probably an idea that can only be explored through Kerrigan, not some other character. I mean sometimes another character can explore that idea, but it's much less likely than say, having an idea about the Zerg that you could also explore via the Tyrranids. Especially since ideas about cultures tend to be rooted in the vaguer high concept aspects of them, while character ideas are often rooted in those interwoven influences.
To give examples, you yourself have actually decided that your ideas for the Zerg are easier expressed through an original setting, and I think that's a good demonstration of this sort of principle in action. You have ideas about how hiveminds might work, particularly what certain worldviews would look like through a hivemind, and how those worldviews might work in practice. It's inspired by the Zerg, but you don't need the Zerg for it, and you ultimately decided that preexisting Starcraft canon was ultimately just limiting the ways you can explore it. But say someone wants to write a fic about how Kerrigan's inhuman nature, first as a ghost and then as a Zerg, has been alternately a way to control her and a way for her to liberate herself, and how that complicates her identity, and how that colors her relationship with Raynor, and his very human ideas of independence. Where in the story about an alien culture, those years of prior Starcraft storytelling are a restriction on the story you want to write, in the character fic those years of storytelling are the entire reason the fic is able to exist.
Well, I think part of your frustration comes from wanting something very specific. Like, all the individual tropes are pretty common, but if you want morally complicated interstellar human empires, we've got a lot of them. If you want cool honorable alien warriors, we sell 'em by the dozen. If you want world-eating space bugs, there's a whole swarm of those. But if you want all of those at once, it shrinks your options considerably. But you actually do still have a good bunch of options, even with criteria that specific. But those options still aren't good enough for you, because you want specifically Starcraft. But you also specifically don't want Starcraft, because you don't like Starcraft. So like, you can see why you're kind of a tough customer to please on this, yeah?Really?
If that's true, then why am I having such a hard time finding a different setting which supports the concepts I originally liked about Starcraft unless I write it myself?
I'm incessantly complaining about Starcraft because there isn't another setting I can switch to where I can recreate the elements I originally liked. And when I try to see if anybody else is interested in the same things I am, I generally get apathy.
Although Starcraft is a perfect example of this well worn trope about humans vs aggressive hegemonizing swarms vs Tribal-Wizard-Warrior-Poet-Scientists, it's not interchangeable with every other work that recycles the trope.The Celestial, Terrestrial, and the Diabolic: the three faction archetype
Every now and then I’ve noticed that on the internet, or in the internet, when someone mentions the game Halo/Starcraft someone else mentions how it stole it’s faction ideas from Starcr…
Starcraft has, sorry, had unique elements that made it stand out. Even if individual elements were derivative, It had a unique arrangement that I haven't seen recreated elsewhere yet. At least not enough for me to switch other my monomania.
And the elements I liked aren't even all that complicated.
- An interstellar confederation of human colonies jockeying for power, rampant strip-mining, cyborgs and mutants and what not, cybperpunk in space, etc. Doesn't that basically describe most modern scifi or am I wrong?
- Tribal-Wizard-Warrior-Poet-Scientists with an imperialist/environmentalist bent.
- Aggressive all-consuming space bugs that evolve rapidly by studying the species they consume, seek perfection through self-improvement and dominating the universe, and to top it all off they have characters with personalities to distinguish them from all the other aggressive hegemonizing swarms in scifi.
- They fight. Each other. Factions within themselves. Etc.
All things considered, you'd think this would be quite common. It's a simple premise. It's tailored for video games.
You'd think.
But it's been surprisingly hard for me to actually find fiction that meets those criteria.
What's been the hardest to find are the horrible all-consuming space bugs with personalities. The only other fiction I've been able to find in that vein are the Vang novels by Christopher Rowley.
I find it really hard to believe that this concept isn't more common in military scifi. What gives?
I think part of why you're so hung up on this is that you've got this whole narrative built up in your head about why you don't like the story. Like, look at this:
It's not enough for it just to be a story you don't like, you've built up this profile on a person you've never actually met where every story beat you don't like is correlated with some crippling character flaw of theirs. You've written this villain who destroyed the version of Starcraft you have in your head that's perfect in the way only something that doesn't exist can be.
To expand on that last half a sentence, this idea you have of a Starcraft that lives up to its full potential is currently just a bunch of vague concepts and plot threads that have yet to be sullied by the process of fleshing them out in detail, those details being used to construct an interesting idea for a story, that story being translated from an idea into a script, and then that script needing to be warped and edited to fit the realities of game development. This narrative you have about the incompetent Starcraft writers assumes that with the worldbuilding they had, it should've been easy to write a good story.
But if that were true, this thread wouldn't exist. The preexisting Starcraft stuff has done a lot of worldbuilding groundwork for you, and you even have the extant Starcraft story to serve as an example of what not to, so if it should've been easy for the writers, it should be trivial for you. But instead, you've created several threads on an internet forum trying to ask strangers for help and advice on this project, because it turns out writing stories is pretty hard.
Past all the spite, it sounds like you do find a lot of these sci-fi ideas genuinely interesting, so I don't want to discourage you from writing. But it's not going to be easy*, you can't be sure it's going to be good, and you can't be sure people will like it. I recall you lamenting the lack of attention some of your other threads got; something about "do people even want interesting sci-fi stories?" And the answer to that is of course they do, but you didn't have one yet. You had a couple pages from an unfinished world design document, centered around a very specific sort of sci-fi story that you're hyperfixated on, and that you were hoping other people were hyperfixated on too. But ultimately, if you want your story written, you're just going to have to knuckle down and write it yourself.
And the thing is, writing is a skill like any others. It needs to be studied and practiced, so your first bunch of stories are probably gonna be kinda bad because you're still learning. Even once you've found your stride, well, take a look at UF or Quests. Look at how many threads get like, five updates with three unique posters in the thread and then peter out. If people don't pick up your stories, it's not because they just don't appreciate good sci-fi, it's because there's thousands of writers out there just like you, working just as hard to be noticed, and so you're going to have to just deal with that rejection and keep trying.
I guess the shorter way to put it is this one quote or line that I forget where it's from. "Few people want to write, but everyone wants to have written." You're gonna need to figure out which of those you are.
It's probably from Mark Twain. I feel like whenever there's some snappy quote like that I can't remember the source of, it's always Mark Twain.
*You've actually made it particularly hard on yourself with your choice of story. You haven't written much before this, right? A lot of rookie writers get the idea to write this big epic fantasy or sci-fi story because those are rad and have lots of big ideas that are cool to think about in abstract, but it also means writing a story much longer and more complicated than most other types of story, and they get way in over their heads without realizing it. It might be best to start smaller; maybe focus in on one or two of your ideas that could be explored on a smaller scale and write a short story on that.
- Location
- Patriarchova
@MediumGatoKatr, have you ever had a boyfriend? If so, then you've clearly been very lucky with your relationships.
Yeah, that was what I figured too.
Yes. Also, writer's block.
At my best, I have been able to write a several thousand word short story in anywhere from a few hours to under a week. Now I'm struggling to do even that.
I have this short story sitting on my desktop that is 3/4 finished but it took me months to get that done. I finished the first half in just a few weeks, but the remaining half is taking months.
It's not a lack of ideas. I already wrote out the summary of the plot from beginning to end. It's the fleshing out part that has proved difficult.
It's not a lack of attention. Another short story in the same series was well received by those I shared it with. Anonymously, so that they wouldn't spare my feelings. I got several thumbs up that made me realize I'd hit on a winning formula.
I think it's my attitude. I'm too defeatist and nihilistic and angry.
I need to see a therapist or get a prescription for antidepressants or all of the above or something
- Location
- Patriarchova
I just re-downloaded the original Starcraft and Brood War and am playing through them for the first time in many years. It's made me think about things that I think could have been better, and strong points that weren't well capitalized on, but from a different angle.
Starcraft has some of the worst ludonarrative dissonance I've ever seen in a video game. The gameplay and the lore have absolutely nothing to do with each other, to the point where you could probably pair each of them with the opposite half of another existing game and have a better fit. There are three factors in particular that I think contributed to this.
1. Starcraft is basically Warcraft: 40K. Pretty much the exact same game mechanics, same playstyle, etc. Just now air units replace sea units, and the primary and secondary resources have kind of switched harvesting processes. The two series are similar enough that if you switched the aesthetics it would be hard to even notice (especially true of Warcraft 3, where sea units were traded for air ones a la Starcraft).
2. Starcraft is at its roots, unlike Warhammer that started on the tabletop, a real time strategy computer game. The genre codifier for these was Westwood's Dune II, which came with game mechanics rooted in the Dune universe that have since been copied by many other creators. Sometimes more sensibly than other times.
3. Starcraft has a small number of titles, with the same micromanagement-focused gameplay trying to encompass all conflicts in the setting. A mistake that the Games Workshop games that inspired Blizzard notably avoided (Battlefleet Gothic is a distinct thing from vanilla WH40K, etc).
An elf with a bow can reasonably snipe a sailor off the deck of a troll destroyer, assuming primitive cannons that require the ship to come fairly close to the shore in order to attack. If you use a little imagination and suppose that elven archers use fire arrows for coastal battles and sieges, then the elf could even contribute meaningfully to the sinking of that destroyer by shooting its sails etc. The same is NOT true of a terran marine with a machine gun shooting at a multi-kilometer protoss capital ship designed to glass planets and exchange blows with other planet-glassing spaceships on an even footing.
In the Dune games, you're fighting for control of a specific resource. The only reason you're on this planet is to harvest that resource. The only way you can convince the asshole space nobles who provide you with manpower and equipment to continue doing so is by giving them a proportionate amount of that resource to convince them that their investment is paying dividends. In many of the Starcraft scenarios, interstellar civilizations are fighting existential battles over their home planets. Needing to pay for everything you field with resources gathered onsite does not make sense here.
Starcraft is a great game. I haven't actually played Starcraft 2, but gameplay-wise it's supposed to be at least as great. The gameplay isn't broke, so there's no need to try to fix it. The problem is that Blizzard didn't even try to make a story and setting that actually fit the set of game mechanics they were committed to. On one hand I love this, because it provides amazing shitpost fodder for Versus Debates. But on the other, if you're even slightly interested in the games' lore, it's awful.
So, I'm gonna try and reimagine the plot and setting of Starcraft into a plot and setting for Starcraft.
Starcraft has some of the worst ludonarrative dissonance I've ever seen in a video game. The gameplay and the lore have absolutely nothing to do with each other, to the point where you could probably pair each of them with the opposite half of another existing game and have a better fit. There are three factors in particular that I think contributed to this.
1. Starcraft is basically Warcraft: 40K. Pretty much the exact same game mechanics, same playstyle, etc. Just now air units replace sea units, and the primary and secondary resources have kind of switched harvesting processes. The two series are similar enough that if you switched the aesthetics it would be hard to even notice (especially true of Warcraft 3, where sea units were traded for air ones a la Starcraft).
2. Starcraft is at its roots, unlike Warhammer that started on the tabletop, a real time strategy computer game. The genre codifier for these was Westwood's Dune II, which came with game mechanics rooted in the Dune universe that have since been copied by many other creators. Sometimes more sensibly than other times.
3. Starcraft has a small number of titles, with the same micromanagement-focused gameplay trying to encompass all conflicts in the setting. A mistake that the Games Workshop games that inspired Blizzard notably avoided (Battlefleet Gothic is a distinct thing from vanilla WH40K, etc).
An elf with a bow can reasonably snipe a sailor off the deck of a troll destroyer, assuming primitive cannons that require the ship to come fairly close to the shore in order to attack. If you use a little imagination and suppose that elven archers use fire arrows for coastal battles and sieges, then the elf could even contribute meaningfully to the sinking of that destroyer by shooting its sails etc. The same is NOT true of a terran marine with a machine gun shooting at a multi-kilometer protoss capital ship designed to glass planets and exchange blows with other planet-glassing spaceships on an even footing.
In the Dune games, you're fighting for control of a specific resource. The only reason you're on this planet is to harvest that resource. The only way you can convince the asshole space nobles who provide you with manpower and equipment to continue doing so is by giving them a proportionate amount of that resource to convince them that their investment is paying dividends. In many of the Starcraft scenarios, interstellar civilizations are fighting existential battles over their home planets. Needing to pay for everything you field with resources gathered onsite does not make sense here.
Starcraft is a great game. I haven't actually played Starcraft 2, but gameplay-wise it's supposed to be at least as great. The gameplay isn't broke, so there's no need to try to fix it. The problem is that Blizzard didn't even try to make a story and setting that actually fit the set of game mechanics they were committed to. On one hand I love this, because it provides amazing shitpost fodder for Versus Debates. But on the other, if you're even slightly interested in the games' lore, it's awful.
So, I'm gonna try and reimagine the plot and setting of Starcraft into a plot and setting for Starcraft.
Last edited:
Arkalest
ELOP Stan In The Streets, Dromok Under The Sheets
I mean yeah bluntly speaking SC2 is a hundred times worse about it, cause the refrain is that Now Things Are Bigger And Better, "now the Protoss are really pissed. So pissed they brought out their oldest weapon...The War of the Worlds tripod." Which is apparently so big that it can be hit by anti-air units. (It's the only unit that has that distinction in MP I think?)
Like you could tell that the iota of creativity that there was in the OG SC was snuffed out just by looking at them flailing around with Terrans. The ludonarrative dissonance there is amazing, as the story wants you to take this tale of war, dictatorship and rebellion seriously, but at the same time the unit designs are....Just disjointed.
You get flamethrower-equipped buggies that turn into power armor. And I guess, that would've been fine in SC1 as a colonial frontier defense thing, but seeing these try to fight off Mengsk's IoM cosplayers is ridicolous. Likewise, the Vikings feel like they're trying to Macross it out without truly embracing the weirdness of it all. The idea there's actual robots called exterminators which are just tanks with a torso and that you're supposed to take them seriously is just lolno.
I could go on and on, but I broadly agree there.
Like you could tell that the iota of creativity that there was in the OG SC was snuffed out just by looking at them flailing around with Terrans. The ludonarrative dissonance there is amazing, as the story wants you to take this tale of war, dictatorship and rebellion seriously, but at the same time the unit designs are....Just disjointed.
You get flamethrower-equipped buggies that turn into power armor. And I guess, that would've been fine in SC1 as a colonial frontier defense thing, but seeing these try to fight off Mengsk's IoM cosplayers is ridicolous. Likewise, the Vikings feel like they're trying to Macross it out without truly embracing the weirdness of it all. The idea there's actual robots called exterminators which are just tanks with a torso and that you're supposed to take them seriously is just lolno.
I could go on and on, but I broadly agree there.
- Location
- Patriarchova
So! Instead of just doing a big loredump, I'm going to go through the Terran building tech tree and infer lore from it. I'll be reusing plenty of names and concepts from the canon lore, but most of them will be very heavily reimagined.
I'm going to use Starcraft 2 as the base here. The reason being that if I ever want to make this into an actual mod, SC2 is much easier to do that with.
Industrial Center (formerly command center)
The Koprulu Sector's best known contribution to humanity's planet-exploration technology, the Kel-Morian Combine's mark III mobile industrial center is the face of the Terran frontiers. This remarkably compact structure includes everything your guild needs to set up a new mining colony; onboard ore and gas processors, light manufacturing bays, and enough (spartan) quarters, arcology spaces, and medical equipment to support a crew of fifty for extended unsupported missions. The manufacturing bays are primarily optimized for the production of T-280 space construction vehicles or local derivatives thereof. Assuming enough local ore and fuel sources can be found, the Industrial Center has everything it needs to turn raw materials into new SCV's, as well as to refuel and repair arriving freighters when they come to deliver new personnel and supplies and pick up the surplus products. However, while it is every prospector guild's main workhorse, an industrial center alone isn't sufficient to properly capitalize on a rich mining site. Heavier industry, bigger crews, and orbital launch facilities to ease in the moving of bulk mineral and gas yields will eventually be necessary, as will fortifications to defend against rival guilds, junkers, or alien invaders.
Refinery
Somewhere on the frontiers, someone has managed to engineer an industrial center that can plop itself down right on top of a gas drilling site and hook its processor up directly to the vent. Unfortunately, they've managed to keep it a secret from all the many, many pirate gangs and pro-turncoats who sell those designs to everyone else, so the rest of humanity is still stuck building onsite gas rigs. The topography of every site is different, and different natural gases require a range of modifications to harvest safely and efficiently, so each drilling site needs a custom build structure. No point shelling out for lift tanks or thrusters for a refinery, since each one is purpose built for the site in question. Some guilds stay behind to disassemble and recycle old refineries after an area has been depleted and it's time to move on, but most find this uneconomical and just leave them behind for the Junkers.
Arcology (formerly supply depot)
Have your SCV's staple some metal sheets together, rivet them into the ground, and then just pump some atmosphere in once its nice and airtight. Bammo, you've got secure-ish living and storage space outside of your Industrial Center! Supply depots store processed minerals and gas beyond the Industrial Center's capacities; product which can then be used to buy more goodies from the next freighter, or to maintain and fuel more home-made goodies of your own. The Olympus Mons pattern standardized supply depot that most guilds replicate has specialized levels for habitation, storage, and bacteria farming. Or even insect farming, if you're some kind of spoiled rich asshole operating under direct government subsidy in a settled region.
Cryobay (formerly barracks)
Some older Industrial Center designs have built-in armories and soldier accommodations, at the cost of manufacturing capability, mobility, or structural integrity. The dominant Kel-Morian design leaves all that out, with the rationale that if you're in seriously hostile territory then you might as well build dedicated fortresses that can move independently. The cryobay is a fortified mobile structure filled with enough cold sleep pods to store hundreds of combat-trained or resocialized personnel; either guild mercenaries, leased convicts, or professional state soldiers kept at ready. The cryobay has the needed medical facilities to unfreeze or refreeze these soldiers as needed, as well as a shooting range and excercise area to keep them sharp. The cryobay's umbilical walkway allows it to annex an external generator for faster thawing and revivification, or a tech lab to support and equip more transhuman troops with more esoteric biochemical or cybernetic needs.
Engineering Bay
SCV's can build the tools to build the tools. To make the really intricate large-scale components though, you need a dedicated engineering facility with more floorspace than an Industrial Center can afford to spend on that. Another negmass-lifted mobile structure, the engineering bay is basically a building for producing parts of other buildings. Parts which can then be transported by SCV for assembly somewhere else. Engineering Bays can produce needed parts for Starports, Planetary Fortress modules, and some defensive structures. Engineering Bays also let you supplement the Cryobay's manufacturing capabilities for larger scale and higher quality infantry equipment.
Hangar (formerly factory)
Most Koprulu natives use a stripped down derivative of the Umojan Protectorate's Mustang 3-2 Vehicle Assembly Facility to build light vehicles and store heavy ones purchased from the freighter. Where the United Earth Directorate holds sway, the Typhoon Ark MK2 vehicle factory serves the same function. Like the Cryobay, a Hangar can integrate itself into an external, surface-based reactor or tech lab. The former lets the hangar assemble vehicles at twice its usual speed. The latter, once the labs are properly stocked with the necessary chemistry and physics equipment, allow the Hangar to maintain military grade armored vehicles leased from orbit.
Armory
Vehicle ammunition takes a lot of store space, and you really want to protect those volatiles from planetary and orbital environments. Preferably far away from anything important. No one in their right mind is going to lease you any high grade heavy weapons platforms if you don't have an armory onsite. Even if you have the infrastructure to build main battle tanks yourself, practical considerations make armories a necessity.
Starport
The mark of a really successful mining colony is the presence of one or more Starports. All Terran miners use a version (or at least, functional equivalent) of the now-ancient Quantradyne APOD-33 Harvester dropship for bulk mineral and gas lift. Starports allow these suborbital transport vessels to be built and fueled, as well as much more efficiently loaded than doing so directly from an Industrial Center or Arcology's warehouses. In hostile environments, these dropships can also be used for rapid troop transportation around the planet, and the Starport can also support a range of other air and spacecraft. Like Hangars, the Starports can link with an offboard tech lab or reactor. The latter for faster operation, the former for supporting larger vehicles such as the much more modern Umojan Medivac or UED Hercules dropships.
Psionic Laboratory (Koprulu Only)
Thanks to the circumstances of the original Tarsonis, Moria, and Umoja colonies' foundations, the Koprulu sector has a higher concentration of psychics than anywhere else in Terran space. Most native mining guilds are led by psychics, and the Tarsonis-based Confederation of States was the first of the local governments to create a dedicated psychic soldier training program. The Confederation kept their training methods secret for three whole years before everything got leaked by a combination of spies, turncoats, and the latest Confederation civil war. Nowadays, even some Junker gangs can train (or, more often than not, are led by) Ghosts and keep them sane using variations of the Tarsonian Psionic Laboratory. The Umojan Protectorate's style of psionic laboratory, strangely, seems to NOT be based on the Tarsonian original, though it appeared at roughly the same time. Something about the processes they use feels ritualistic, foreign, in a way that gives even native Umojans a creepy feeling.
Thunderhead Silo (UED Only)
With the alien situation in the Koprulu Sector having alarmed the authorities all the way back on Earth, the UED has reluctantly begun supporting their sponsored guilds with leased SHW22-Thor land dreadnoughts. The size of these vehicles, as well as their demanding refueling needs, necessitates a special hangar - build mostly underground - to house and maintain them. When the UED Colonial Authority itself requires a planetside military base, Thunderhead Silos and their accompanying Armories are priority construction projects, often built via "conscripted" local guild members.
Fusion Core
No one thought you could bring FTL-equipped spacecraft into atmospheric environments until the Tau Ceti War, when one of the now-defunct governments involved unveiled a compact warship capable of lowering itself into a planet's lower atmosphere to act in a superheavy gunship role. The technology stayed undercover for about as long as it usually does among Terrans, and soon every government had designed its own take on the concept. A Fusion Core facility is required to recharge the propulsion reactors of any such vessels called planetside in order to ensure safe orbital escape once the mission is accomplished or the guild contract expired. In the Koprulu sector, the Confederation-developed Behemoth Frigate/Gunship is the spacecraft of choice for such missions. A cheap (by interstellar craft standards) platform that can both support ground forces, and participate in space battles using its oversized Yomato cannon to dish out damage that even capital ships can feel. The UED, meanwhile, has used its superior resources to develop the specialized Gorgon Interplanetary Patrol Vessel; a ship tailor-made for close quarters planetary conquest. Both designs have since appeared in the hands of licensed mining guilds, or unlicensed ones by way of deserter crews who ran away with their ships and turned pirate.
I'm going to use Starcraft 2 as the base here. The reason being that if I ever want to make this into an actual mod, SC2 is much easier to do that with.
Industrial Center (formerly command center)
The Koprulu Sector's best known contribution to humanity's planet-exploration technology, the Kel-Morian Combine's mark III mobile industrial center is the face of the Terran frontiers. This remarkably compact structure includes everything your guild needs to set up a new mining colony; onboard ore and gas processors, light manufacturing bays, and enough (spartan) quarters, arcology spaces, and medical equipment to support a crew of fifty for extended unsupported missions. The manufacturing bays are primarily optimized for the production of T-280 space construction vehicles or local derivatives thereof. Assuming enough local ore and fuel sources can be found, the Industrial Center has everything it needs to turn raw materials into new SCV's, as well as to refuel and repair arriving freighters when they come to deliver new personnel and supplies and pick up the surplus products. However, while it is every prospector guild's main workhorse, an industrial center alone isn't sufficient to properly capitalize on a rich mining site. Heavier industry, bigger crews, and orbital launch facilities to ease in the moving of bulk mineral and gas yields will eventually be necessary, as will fortifications to defend against rival guilds, junkers, or alien invaders.
Refinery
Somewhere on the frontiers, someone has managed to engineer an industrial center that can plop itself down right on top of a gas drilling site and hook its processor up directly to the vent. Unfortunately, they've managed to keep it a secret from all the many, many pirate gangs and pro-turncoats who sell those designs to everyone else, so the rest of humanity is still stuck building onsite gas rigs. The topography of every site is different, and different natural gases require a range of modifications to harvest safely and efficiently, so each drilling site needs a custom build structure. No point shelling out for lift tanks or thrusters for a refinery, since each one is purpose built for the site in question. Some guilds stay behind to disassemble and recycle old refineries after an area has been depleted and it's time to move on, but most find this uneconomical and just leave them behind for the Junkers.
Arcology (formerly supply depot)
Have your SCV's staple some metal sheets together, rivet them into the ground, and then just pump some atmosphere in once its nice and airtight. Bammo, you've got secure-ish living and storage space outside of your Industrial Center! Supply depots store processed minerals and gas beyond the Industrial Center's capacities; product which can then be used to buy more goodies from the next freighter, or to maintain and fuel more home-made goodies of your own. The Olympus Mons pattern standardized supply depot that most guilds replicate has specialized levels for habitation, storage, and bacteria farming. Or even insect farming, if you're some kind of spoiled rich asshole operating under direct government subsidy in a settled region.
Cryobay (formerly barracks)
Some older Industrial Center designs have built-in armories and soldier accommodations, at the cost of manufacturing capability, mobility, or structural integrity. The dominant Kel-Morian design leaves all that out, with the rationale that if you're in seriously hostile territory then you might as well build dedicated fortresses that can move independently. The cryobay is a fortified mobile structure filled with enough cold sleep pods to store hundreds of combat-trained or resocialized personnel; either guild mercenaries, leased convicts, or professional state soldiers kept at ready. The cryobay has the needed medical facilities to unfreeze or refreeze these soldiers as needed, as well as a shooting range and excercise area to keep them sharp. The cryobay's umbilical walkway allows it to annex an external generator for faster thawing and revivification, or a tech lab to support and equip more transhuman troops with more esoteric biochemical or cybernetic needs.
Engineering Bay
SCV's can build the tools to build the tools. To make the really intricate large-scale components though, you need a dedicated engineering facility with more floorspace than an Industrial Center can afford to spend on that. Another negmass-lifted mobile structure, the engineering bay is basically a building for producing parts of other buildings. Parts which can then be transported by SCV for assembly somewhere else. Engineering Bays can produce needed parts for Starports, Planetary Fortress modules, and some defensive structures. Engineering Bays also let you supplement the Cryobay's manufacturing capabilities for larger scale and higher quality infantry equipment.
Hangar (formerly factory)
Most Koprulu natives use a stripped down derivative of the Umojan Protectorate's Mustang 3-2 Vehicle Assembly Facility to build light vehicles and store heavy ones purchased from the freighter. Where the United Earth Directorate holds sway, the Typhoon Ark MK2 vehicle factory serves the same function. Like the Cryobay, a Hangar can integrate itself into an external, surface-based reactor or tech lab. The former lets the hangar assemble vehicles at twice its usual speed. The latter, once the labs are properly stocked with the necessary chemistry and physics equipment, allow the Hangar to maintain military grade armored vehicles leased from orbit.
Armory
Vehicle ammunition takes a lot of store space, and you really want to protect those volatiles from planetary and orbital environments. Preferably far away from anything important. No one in their right mind is going to lease you any high grade heavy weapons platforms if you don't have an armory onsite. Even if you have the infrastructure to build main battle tanks yourself, practical considerations make armories a necessity.
Starport
The mark of a really successful mining colony is the presence of one or more Starports. All Terran miners use a version (or at least, functional equivalent) of the now-ancient Quantradyne APOD-33 Harvester dropship for bulk mineral and gas lift. Starports allow these suborbital transport vessels to be built and fueled, as well as much more efficiently loaded than doing so directly from an Industrial Center or Arcology's warehouses. In hostile environments, these dropships can also be used for rapid troop transportation around the planet, and the Starport can also support a range of other air and spacecraft. Like Hangars, the Starports can link with an offboard tech lab or reactor. The latter for faster operation, the former for supporting larger vehicles such as the much more modern Umojan Medivac or UED Hercules dropships.
Psionic Laboratory (Koprulu Only)
Thanks to the circumstances of the original Tarsonis, Moria, and Umoja colonies' foundations, the Koprulu sector has a higher concentration of psychics than anywhere else in Terran space. Most native mining guilds are led by psychics, and the Tarsonis-based Confederation of States was the first of the local governments to create a dedicated psychic soldier training program. The Confederation kept their training methods secret for three whole years before everything got leaked by a combination of spies, turncoats, and the latest Confederation civil war. Nowadays, even some Junker gangs can train (or, more often than not, are led by) Ghosts and keep them sane using variations of the Tarsonian Psionic Laboratory. The Umojan Protectorate's style of psionic laboratory, strangely, seems to NOT be based on the Tarsonian original, though it appeared at roughly the same time. Something about the processes they use feels ritualistic, foreign, in a way that gives even native Umojans a creepy feeling.
Thunderhead Silo (UED Only)
With the alien situation in the Koprulu Sector having alarmed the authorities all the way back on Earth, the UED has reluctantly begun supporting their sponsored guilds with leased SHW22-Thor land dreadnoughts. The size of these vehicles, as well as their demanding refueling needs, necessitates a special hangar - build mostly underground - to house and maintain them. When the UED Colonial Authority itself requires a planetside military base, Thunderhead Silos and their accompanying Armories are priority construction projects, often built via "conscripted" local guild members.
Fusion Core
No one thought you could bring FTL-equipped spacecraft into atmospheric environments until the Tau Ceti War, when one of the now-defunct governments involved unveiled a compact warship capable of lowering itself into a planet's lower atmosphere to act in a superheavy gunship role. The technology stayed undercover for about as long as it usually does among Terrans, and soon every government had designed its own take on the concept. A Fusion Core facility is required to recharge the propulsion reactors of any such vessels called planetside in order to ensure safe orbital escape once the mission is accomplished or the guild contract expired. In the Koprulu sector, the Confederation-developed Behemoth Frigate/Gunship is the spacecraft of choice for such missions. A cheap (by interstellar craft standards) platform that can both support ground forces, and participate in space battles using its oversized Yomato cannon to dish out damage that even capital ships can feel. The UED, meanwhile, has used its superior resources to develop the specialized Gorgon Interplanetary Patrol Vessel; a ship tailor-made for close quarters planetary conquest. Both designs have since appeared in the hands of licensed mining guilds, or unlicensed ones by way of deserter crews who ran away with their ships and turned pirate.
Last edited:
- Location
- Patriarchova
Indeed. Starcraft is an extreme example even by those standards, though.
- Location
- Patriarchova
Not sure if I should build off of the beginnings of the Terran lore I've got there, or start from ground level again with the Zerg tech tree?
Still working on the Protoss on a very basic conceptual level. Unlike the other two who just need some adjustment, I'm not sure how much of their original lore is even *remotely* fitting for their game mechanics.
Still working on the Protoss on a very basic conceptual level. Unlike the other two who just need some adjustment, I'm not sure how much of their original lore is even *remotely* fitting for their game mechanics.
Mechasaurian
Big Bossu
- Location
- Lost among fields of history
- Pronouns
- They/Them
While flash-cloning might fit the game mechanics, I think it would take away from the "space redneck" aesthetic that makes the Koprulu Terrans stand out.
You know, those SC1 cutscene marines that each had their own individually modelled face (complete with evidence of horrible dentristry in the future), and were prone to antics like stuffing iced beer and nuclear bombs in the same box?
I'd amend this to saying that the Koprulu Terran Marines are normal recruits (draftees, press-ganged prisoners, "had no better economic prospects," etc) held in cryostasis/suspended animation, packed like sardines somewhere in the back of the
And, minor quibble, but I would change the name of UED Marine equivalents to "Espatiers." Doesn't need to be a mechanical change - just a flavour change to reflect the UED's aesthetic as American stereotypes of Europeans.
Ooh, you're attributing the Spectres to the Umojans? More attention being given to the Protectorate (the one functional democracy in Terran space that is still kinda shady on account of their realpolitik games) gets a yes from me.
In what sense do you mean?
The Protoss are the "Crystal Spires and Togas" race. They behave like they're in a heroic high fantasy while the Terrans are living a grungy Used Future and struggling with the messy results of the collapse and reform of authoritarian states. And the Zerg are just playing an RTS game.
Mechanically speaking, the 'Toss cheat by building everything off-site and warping it in.