Again, that's a poor analogy. While you've pretty much nailed Mengsk's view of the Zerg, you're missing the fact that you really cannot compare a highly intelligent alien collective to an early attempt at biological warfare. It doesn't even help that Psi Emitters don't even work as advertised: we're not dealing with flies to honey here, we're dealing with "hey look! That signal is *exactly* what we're looking for. Let's check it out!". At which point, the Zerg invade your planet and take it over while scouring the entire thing for that really powerful Terran Psychic they just detected who doesn't actually exist.johnnythewolf wrote:It's clear Mengsk regarded the Zergs as nothing more than a Confederate's bioweapon. Still, he willingly decided to cut short to what would have been a long and costly conflict by using the Emitters, kinda like how the Europeans used smallpox to put an end to Pontiac's revolt. The "good" thing about the Zergs is that the Emitters do lure them to a specific point.I don't think that's a good comparison at all. It's more like convincing the hostile, neighbouring civilization to invade your enemy's capital while plotting to take over the provinces and assuming that they won't come and clobber you while you're at it. Mengsk was playing with fire. They had no idea what the Zerg were or what they were capable of, and got burned as a result. I think Kerrigan was the first to realize just how dangerous those things were long before anyone else did.
Except the battle was never in space. They likely chose it because 1) the other Tarsonis missions were on Space Platform Terrain (The Big Push, and The Hammer Falls) and they felt it'd tie that series of missions together better and 2) They wanted a more "urban" environment than what Badlands provided or 3) They were sick of badlands terrain since the rest of the campaign used that terrain type.johnnythewolf wrote:Yeah, I knew about it already. The fact remains Blizzard chose to set the battle in space for some reason.New Gettysburg was always intended to be on the surface of Tarsonis, not in orbit. So it's not actually retcon. There's also a cut Terran mission (the original version of "The Big Push", actually) that also took place in New Gettysburg and is Badlands.
Honestly, I'm going to go with Kerrigan just making excuses to Jim. Mengsk ordered her down there to keep the Protoss away from the Zerg and she wasn't about to disobey his orders. She knew Jim was having second thoughts about this whole Sons of Korhal business and she wanted to make him feel better about what she was doing. Like you said, there was no time to argue, so she just made up an excuse on why she needed to put her life on the line for a madman to satisfy Jim.johnnythewolf wrote:Good point, but that doesn't explain why Kerrigan "felt" the Protoss were here to destroy the planet.Tassadar had chosen to engage the Zerg directly in an effort to save Terrans, which ended up getting him relieved of his command by the Conclave (Protoss doctrine for dealing with the Zerg was "burn infested worlds. Spare no one."). That's why The Executor was appointed to replace Tassadar at the beginning of the Protoss campaign.
Chau Sara, Mar Sara and Antiga were all sparsely populated border worlds, and the Zerg had basically overrun the planets by the time he arrived. Tarsonis was the most heavily populated Terran world in the sector and still fighting. It was a different kettle of fish.
Perhaps the Protoss originally intended to destroy the planet, but Tassadar changed his mind after witnessing the SoK's resistance?
Eh, Mengsk would have made up some sort of an excuse about how "it had to be done" and "this was the only way" and "they would have done the same to us" and she would have believed him.johnnythewolf wrote:That's because Mengsk double-crossed her before she had the chance to directly confront him about the matter. As I said, there was no time to argue, as the Protoss had just shown up.I wouldn't call her subordinate, she wasn't a blind follower, but she was a very loyal person. You earned her loyalty, and she'd stick with you through thick and thin. Mengsk hadn't quite hit his point of no return (that was his "I will rule this sector or see it burnt to ashes around me!" speech), but the writing was on the wall by that point, Kerrigan just didn't want to believe it.
It is done, Cerebrate. They've all been destroyed. LetRead her comments at the end of the mission. She's not a happy camper about what she did there at all. She did it for purely strategic reasons, not because she wanted to.
us return to Tarsonis to rest. For the first time since my
transfiguration I am wearied of the slaughter.
She sounded more bored than remorseful, honestly. If she were really that concerned by strategic reasons, she would have NOT spared Mengsk (hell, she wouldn't have bothered rescuing him at all) nor would she have let Raynor go AGAIN. Duke and Fenix were hardly a threat to her.[/quote]
Exactly. So why didn't she kill the ones who actually mattered? Oh, right. Because she cared about them on some level or another because she was still Sarah Kerrigan! Her strategic goal was to weaken her enemies, it was something she had to while she had the chance, as Duran pointed out. But she didn't even hit them were it would hurt the most (taking down Jim and Mengsk and effectively ending the Dominion and any chance of the Terrans remaining a united force). She just focused on were it would hurt a lot. Curious, huh?
Yep. That's what Blizzard promised right there and later on with the conflict between Kerrigan and Zeratul. Between Jim and Zeratul, Kerrigan was on a path for having some sort of a climactic final showdown with the two of them at some point.johnnythewolf wrote:Don't you tell me you were really expecting a climactic showdown between Jim and Kerrigan at some point?Eh, if you've got hope, you'll always believe that there's always a chance. If Blizzard had planned to redeem her at that point, they wouldn't have had Jim promise to be the one to kill her (that's making a promise to the audience! Most of who at that point want that! You don't break those. They are sacred!). SC2 clearly showed Jim seeing Kerrigan and Infested Kerrigan as two different people, while SC1 Jim seemed to blur them together.
Between developing Terran technology and Protoss technology, I'm pretty sure there would be some sort of reason to hold on to hope. If he really, truely believed that uninfesting her would bring her back to "normal" in Brood War, he'd have reacted differently. To Jim at that time, Kerrigan was still Kerrigan, she'd just embraced the darker side of her personality and there was nothing he could do about it.johnnythewolf wrote:Besides, Raynor's promise was made out of shock and sheer anger. Kerrigan even made fun of him by pointing out that he didn't actually have what it takes to kill her. Judging by WoL's beginning, Jimmy seems to have realized she was right. He had really no reason to believe there was hope to redeem her until Valerian showed up.
Again, you don't see Kerrigan and Infested Kerrigan being treated as two different people until Wing of Liberty. That's a new development.johnnythewolf wrote:And of course, Jimmy regards Kerrigan and the QoB as two different people, because that's what they are, personality wise; as I previously said, human Kerrigan was humble and altruistic, while the QoB was just a mean, mean psychopath! In BW, he joined forces with her because she made him believe she was still the old Sarah, on whom he had a crush... and still have, it seems.
Just because your former girlfriend has turned into an evil alien queen doesn't mean that you can't have lingering feelings for her.
Artanis being The Executor is an SC2 retcon, not Brood War, Johnny. The Executor was still the Player Character from Episode III at the time. Duran, the UED, Shakuras, and Braxis were new developments in areas that were not previously explored (we really didn't know much about what the Dark Templar were up to after their exile from Auir, and the UPL plot cuts off after the Terrans are exiled from Earth). There's a difference between worldbuilding and retconning. Retconning has to change something that was previously established.johnnythewolf wrote:*That* is a retcon?A retcon is a shortening of "Retroactive continuity". It's pretty much going back and saying: "hey! When you *thought* this happened, this is what really happened!". It can occur on varying levels from "The Never Before Seen, Lost, Untold tale of Jim and Raynor's Raiders!".
Then, in that case, pretty much everything introduced in Brood War is a retcon: Duran, the UED, Shakuras, Braxis, Artanis being The Executor, and so on.
The "The Never Before Seen, Lost, Untold tale of Jim and Raynor's Raiders!" is an example of inserting a story where there was previously none. For example, Jim's theft of the Hyperion. It's never really explained in SC1 how Jim acquired the ship, you simply assume that Jim and The Magistrate were already in command of it when they defected from the Sons of Korhal. In SC2 lore, it's explained how Raynor and Matt stole the ship from Mengsk at the Dylarian Shipyards. That's a low-level type of retcon that usually works out fine.
I really don't think that's the case, Johnny, since SC2 considers Liberty's Crusade and Queen of Blades to be the more accurate accounts of what happened in the events covered in SC1.johnnythewolf wrote:Except Blizzard's policy regarding the novels has always been that the games' canon takes precedence, unless proven otherwise.Queen of Blades is a retelling of the SC1 Zerg Campaign to bring it in line of the SC2 version of the StarCraft Universe. So you see the introduction of THE PROPHECY, and they kill off The Cerebrate because he and his ilk were getting in the way of The Plan despite the fact that he survived in the Original campaign and Brood War in the game. It is a retcon because it diverges from the previously established version of events.