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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Deep Space Sector 981 [Hive Fleet Identified]
Zerg Hive Fleet Spotted 6 (Kerrigan? 1)
COMMAND: Citizen-Commander Dostya | ARMY: CN Armored Command Unit
RESULTS: Pending
ENEMY ASSETS (Currently Known)
THE GOLDEN ARMADA
ACTIVITY: Unknown | Threat Level: 6​
 
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[x] Let her go, give her time (Begins Smash and Grab the Uraj)

Was tempted by the plot progression of ending act one, but went with the more cautious option
 
[X] Stop her (Ends ACT ONE)

I want to see how this ends. Also, it just feels like the right thing to do in the moment. Sam sees her girlfriend freaking out and being afraid Sam wouldn't accept her if she knew all the nasty details of what's going on with her. Her first instinct is gonna be to say that she wants to support Sarah and will accept her regardless of whatever nasty secrets are coming up. After all, she probably thinks Sarah was forced into doing some kind of black ops stuff, not ... Queen of Blades.
 
Mine own initial thought was to go with stopping Sarah, but on further reflection I don't think that's going to work out if the point is to get Sarah to properly talk about herself and lead to a situation where we can try and help her. I think we need to give her time to stop and let Sarah's inner conflict to simmer further and make her even yet more hesitant to go Queen of Blades.

I also don't think Sarah and Clarke have gotten to know one another enough for Clarke to be able to pull off an effective emotional appeal. Sarah certainly doesn't believe Clarke would be willing to accept her and I think more time has to be spent with the two talking and properly getting to know one another, doing more than cute but otherwise surface level flirting before Clarke can rely on the power of love to reach Sarah.
 
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[] Stop her (Ends ACT ONE)

Irresponsible chaos vote is in.

Spart117MC does have the better plan, but i feel that this is more in character for Clarke. I do expect it to blow up in her face, but I think it will blow up in an interesting way.

Although I wanted to see a full large scale Sup Com conflict before the campaign ended, multiple experimental and maybe even a game ender to end the arc with a bang.

Maybe in Act 3?

Still either way I want to congratulate DragonColbolt on their good writing and excellent fusing of the settings. I look forward to seeing how you continue to expand on what we have seen here.

Edit: changed my vote, left molt of my previous vote to keep conversation readable.
 
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Mine own initial thought was to go with stopping Sarah, but on further reflection I don't think that's going to work out if the point is to get Sarah to properly talk about herself and lead to a situation where we can try and help her. I think we need to give her time to stop and let Sarah's inner conflict to simmer further and make her even yet more hesitant to go Queen of Blades.

I also don't think Sarah and Clarke have gotten to know one another enough for Clarke to be able to pull off an effective emotional appeal. Sarah certainly doesn't believe Clarke would be willing to accept her and I think more time has to be spent with the two talking and properly getting to know one another, doing more than cute but otherwise surface level flirting before Clarke can rely on the power of love to reach Sarah.
It feels like they're on a medium burn? Or- quick spark, that settles on a medium burn? Iunno of the analogy makes sense lmao, and it's been a while

Like, the fun and whatnot that they have aside, this is one of the few times- if not the first, I can't remember?- that they had a deep conversation about themselves/each other and stuff, right? Push too hard too early on something so big and- well, hrm,

I mean I guess I'm a bit of a cautious one myself, but trauma from both being a Ghost and the other stuff- and the whole QoB thing is, well, IC Clarke's only had a vague warning dream and not much reason to give it much more weight just yet besides some vibes, and she might know from her own stuff that it'd take time to handle even just the former big thing, (IMO anyways).

Well, I guess we'll just see where the chips fall or however that saying goes.
 
[x] Let her go, give her time (Begins Smash and Grab the Uraj)

I want to see how this ends. Also, it just feels like the right thing to do in the moment. Sam sees her girlfriend freaking out and being afraid Sam wouldn't accept her if she knew all the nasty details of what's going on with her. Her first instinct is gonna be to say that she wants to support Sarah and will accept her regardless of whatever nasty secrets are coming up. After all, she probably thinks Sarah was forced into doing some kind of black ops stuff, not ... Queen of Blades.
I think it's deciding between Brood War & Starcraft 2 is far as things go.
 
Spart117MC does have the better plan, but i feel that this is more in character for Clarke. I do expect it to blow up in her face, but I think it will blow up in an interesting way.

Given the way the vote is worded I don't think the result of the choice will be interesting actually. It's not going to lead to a final encounter, it means that whole thing just ends right there. That's part of why I'm hesitant to take that choice, because I want to see further development and interactions between the two.

It's also kind of emotionally unsatisfying as a reader. Here's all this character stuff and then it just ends with Sarah probably going Queen of Blades. The end, pick a new character.
 
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Given the way the vote is worded I don't think the result of the choice will be interesting actually. It's not going to lead to a final encounter, it means that whole thing just ends right there. That's part of why I'm hesitant to take that choice, because I want to see further development and interactions between the two.

It's also kind of emotionally unsatisfying as a reader. Here's all this character stuff and then it just ends with Sarah probably going Queen of Blades. The end, pick a new character.

I do sort of agree that this would probably end the UEF campaign and start the
Zerg
one. Mechanically the more boring choice but storywise going forward will be more interesting for Clarke to flub up Sarah's recovery.

I am still a bit conflicted myself cause the last mission should be FUN and an escalation. I assume that it would be an attack on Char to get the last crystal for Black Sun. I don't really want to miss that.

I could also be completely wrong and letting things go might develop into a bigger shock moment.

Well this is my brain voting at midnight after doing 8 hours of homework.
 
Mechanically the more boring choice but storywise going forward will be more interesting for Clarke to flub up Sarah's recovery.

I'll be honest, I don't find that interesting for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, it's a Starcraft cliche. Sarah's humanity prodding at her before she ultimately decides to double down on being queen bitch of the universe is a thing Starcraft, from the games to the books, love to do whenever they decide to prod at their character. It was only with the sequel that Sarah got to do more with her character.

Secondly, Clarke causing a setback but then spending an arc trying to do something about it would be interesting, but that's not what's set to happen here. Act One will straight up end if we stop Sarah. Worst case scenario, that means all of the build-up that's happened in the last 77K words between them simply concludes in the next thousand words and their character plot is arguably at its midpoint, with it at best 2/3rds done.

I can't see any conclusion to Clarke and Sarah's relationship happening here being anything but premature, and banking on the next campaign being a direct continuation and assuming that'll give us an opportunity to flesh Clarke and Sarah's relationship is a major risk.

DC has said the next "campaign" is going to be Zerg and the one after that Protoss in keeping with how Starcraft does its stories, that is true. They've also paired Starcraft's races and their campaigns with SupCom factions. Terran with UEF, Zerg with Cybran, and Protoss with Aeon. There is every chance that the "Zerg" campaign is going to be as "Zerg" as the UEF campaign has been "Terran" and rather than getting dropped into Sarah's shoes we'll instead end up helming a Cybran expedition.

That the death of player characters is a very real possible outcome in this quest too places into doubt that choosing to stop Sarah will lead to an outcome where she will continue to interact with Clarke. In fact going by HEAT mechanics, there is a possibility that is why stopping Sarah leads to the end of Act One as that results in Clarke's death.

Right now, in terms of mechanics, we are lightly overheated. In terms of game mechanics, stopping Sarah at this juncture may be the equivalent of heavily overheating and if you overheat enough you die and I don't find that interesting.

Rocks falling and Clarke dying is an unsatisfying conclusion to all the character interactions that have come before. And as I've said before, Sarah ending up in a situation where she rejects her humanity and kills or otherwise removes the element that had her questioning herself is a tired trope not only of science fiction, but of Starcraft itself and the stories in the franchise that focus on her.

Edit:

@DragonCobolt this might be one of those instances where knowing how the choices translate mechanically could be critical to making a decision, so allow me to ask, does stopping Sarah here overheat us and does it do so to the point where we are at risk of death?
 
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So yeah I've done some thinking and gone back to check the HEAT mechanics and the expected heat gain of confronting Sarah, and I'm pretty sure "Stop her" will straight up kill Clarke.

At 7 Overheat (13 heat total), you succeed and die irrevocably.
[ ] Push the issue and confront her more directly. (Diff 10 Charm check with a -10 penalty - gain 18 heat, end ACT ONE)

18 heat gain with a 6 heat capacity is 12 Overheat. Right now, we're at 2 overheat since we went the more subtle route and ended up gaining only 8 (8/6). So yeah, this choice isn't a question of which is more "interesting" this is straight up whether or not we're killing Clarke.

We are not making a plot only decision, this is a mechanics based choice that can and will result in character death.
 
So yeah I've done some thinking and gone back to check the HEAT mechanics and the expected heat gain of confronting Sarah, and I'm pretty sure "Stop her" will straight up kill Clarke.




18 heat gain with a 6 heat capacity is 12 Overheat. Right now, we're at 2 overheat since we went the more subtle route and ended up gaining only 8 (8/6). So yeah, this choice isn't a question of which is more "interesting" this is straight up whether or not we're killing Clarke.

We are not making a plot only decision, this is a mechanics based choice that can and will result in character death.
Well-
Right,
Time for more dissociation today,
I'll check back in later later I suppose, head needs to cool off, and today's been- blep, for me (outside of the quest)
 
We are not making a plot only decision, this is a mechanics based choice that can and will result in character death.
I just don't believe that this is how DC would write this, mechanics or not.

Personally I'm tentatively leaning the History Eraser button, even though it sucks, on the assumption that it's Good Drama, and that it leads to something more interesting than "oops Sam dead." A character can be lost/unplayable without being dead, which I hope Sam bringing up Riley was a hint at - President Riley is extremely distinct from Cadet Riley, and Infested Sam would be distinct from General Sam (or maybe she gets captured and we get Sarah trying to rescue her!)

It depends on how the writing actually plays out though. I could totally see Sarah revealing herself on Braxis to save Sam, for example. Or if they have another fight next mission, and then we get a final Char mission that pits the two against each other. Do you think smashing mechanical hordes into Zerg hordes counts as foreplay and/or hatesex????

I'm tooorn



Edit: after all that, I have decided. The drama doesn't have to end here, after all. We'll get Queen of Blades eventually, so let her cook! At least a little bit longer.

[X] Let her go, give her time (Begins Smash and Grab the Uraj)
 
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I'll be honest, I don't find that interesting for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, it's a Starcraft cliche. Sarah's humanity prodding at her before she ultimately decides to double down on being queen bitch of the universe is a thing Starcraft, from the games to the books, love to do whenever they decide to prod at their character. It was only with the sequel that Sarah got to do more with her character.

Secondly, Clarke causing a setback but then spending an arc trying to do something about it would be interesting, but that's not what's set to happen here. Act One will straight up end if we stop Sarah. Worst case scenario, that means all of the build-up that's happened in the last 77K words between them simply concludes in the next thousand words and their character plot is arguably at its midpoint, with it at best 2/3rds done.

I can't see any conclusion to Clarke and Sarah's relationship happening here being anything but premature, and banking on the next campaign being a direct continuation and assuming that'll give us an opportunity to flesh Clarke and Sarah's relationship is a major risk.

DC has said the next "campaign" is going to be Zerg and the one after that Protoss in keeping with how Starcraft does its stories, that is true. They've also paired Starcraft's races and their campaigns with SupCom factions. Terran with UEF, Zerg with Cybran, and Protoss with Aeon. There is every chance that the "Zerg" campaign is going to be as "Zerg" as the UEF campaign has been "Terran" and rather than getting dropped into Sarah's shoes we'll instead end up helming a Cybran expedition.

That the death of player characters is a very real possible outcome in this quest too places into doubt that choosing to stop Sarah will lead to an outcome where she will continue to interact with Clarke. In fact going by HEAT mechanics, there is a possibility that is why stopping Sarah leads to the end of Act One as that results in Clarke's death.

Right now, in terms of mechanics, we are lightly overheated. In terms of game mechanics, stopping Sarah at this juncture may be the equivalent of heavily overheating and if you overheat enough you die and I don't find that interesting.

Rocks falling and Clarke dying is an unsatisfying conclusion to all the character interactions that have come before. And as I've said before, Sarah ending up in a situation where she rejects her humanity and kills or otherwise removes the element that had her questioning herself is a tired trope not only of science fiction, but of Starcraft itself and the stories in the franchise that focus on her.

Edit:
@DragonCobolt this might be one of those instances where knowing how the choices translate mechanically could be critical to making a decision, so allow me to ask, does stopping Sarah here overheat us and does it do so to the point where we are at risk of death?


Yeah, sleeping on it and coming back to it you are probably right.

I will change my vote for the Drama and the plot hook of Black Sun and a more spectacular conclusion.


[X] Let her go, give her time (Begins Smash and Grab the Uraj)
 
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So yeah I've done some thinking and gone back to check the HEAT mechanics and the expected heat gain of confronting Sarah, and I'm pretty sure "Stop her" will straight up kill Clarke.

In one of the heat settings, Tankquest, the mood and tone don't support character death and so there are different results for high level overheat: being captured for a plot arc is one of them!

This choice will not kill Clarke. It will shift focus from the terran campaign to the zerg one. How, I will not say.
 
[X] Let her go, give her time (Begins Smash and Grab the Uraj)
 
In one of the heat settings, Tankquest, the mood and tone don't support character death and so there are different results for high level overheat: being captured for a plot arc is one of them!

This choice will not kill Clarke. It will shift focus from the terran campaign to the zerg one. How, I will not say.
Theory Time: Kerrigan might be going full Queen of Blades, but there's no way she's leaving her girlfriend behind while she does so. The only question is whether Sam stays human, or gets Zergified.
 
Theory Time: Kerrigan might be going full Queen of Blades, but there's no way she's leaving her girlfriend behind while she does so. The only question is whether Sam stays human, or gets Zergified.

Hey, you know that in the early days of Heart of the Swarm development Isha was meant to be a Zergified human scientist, with a minor subplot and snarku character?
I think that given much more unstable military situation in this verse, it would make sense for Kerrigan to use a skilled general with some management training as personal assistant rather than scientist, don't yoy think?
 
[X] Let her go, give her time (Begins Smash and Grab the Uraj)

Let's keep doing the current campaign. We can regret not skipping to Zerg campaign later.
 
Theory Time: Kerrigan might be going full Queen of Blades, but there's no way she's leaving her girlfriend behind while she does so. The only question is whether Sam stays human, or gets Zergified.
Well we might need a bit more development for that- to have more control over it I guess?, so I just wanna be safe. I mean, as a Zerg main and one who finds the zergies adorbs (if you're actually part of the swarm anyways) I'm kinda biased towards getting zergified if it doesn't like- mindwhammy/control someone like the programming in the QoB lmao, but I do want them to have a closer relationship first, more time to cook- and also just, completionism/"don't wanna miss out"- plus apparently converting the stuff we do have here into the next one
Do you think smashing mechanical hordes into Zerg hordes counts as foreplay and/or hatesex????
Honestly could be both or either depending on context lmao, especially if their nerves/feeling is hooked up to what's happening to the hoards/swarms they control XD

Infested Sam would be distinct from General Sam (or maybe she gets captured and we get Sarah trying to rescue her!)
Okay so- the Zergies campaign would be paired with Cybran right? I wonder how that'd work exactly? Like, biotech? Cyborg-forms? Symbiosis?
Biomecha? Or like those dinosaur aliens in Alien Shooter? Lmao
 
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