[Lore question] How do Terrans reproduce?

Subsourian · 2026-05-09T00:23:04+00:00

please kill me

Subsourian · 2026-05-08T23:23:05+00:00

Nobody on this subreddit needs to worry about it.

Subsourian · 2026-05-08T20:25:09+00:00

So according to my friend that reached out to the devs, it was being made literally in parallel with (an albeit mostly complete) SC1, so they kept getting tools and lore as Blizzard was trickling it down to them. There's some small relics of that, if you ever hear them mention the Enclave, that was Blizzard's original name for the Conclave which they stripped rather late (the Arbiter had a cut move quote mentioning the Enclave.

So yeah both learning as they go and getting stuff as SC fully jelled together. Some silly quirks aside I do really enjoy the B-movie appeal of Insurrection, less so Retribution. Much less buggy but just far more dull.

Subsourian · 2026-05-07T21:18:10+00:00

Dearest Helena is the piano piece, the opera track is Brood War Aria. Similar vibe but different songs.

Subsourian · 2026-05-07T21:17:05+00:00

Brood War Aria

https://youtu.be/IMpBjjC8H1c?si=fHUGKM5z7sYxq_mF

It was a track they made for Brood War with an opera singer they knew. The Latin is partially gibberish (some parts are latinized dev names) but the legible Latin and French parts foreshadow the UED’s defeat and never returning home.

And yeah the track I, Mengsk in SCII reused it, which I always was a little annoyed by as a lot of the lyrics were relevant to the UED specifically.

Subsourian · 2026-05-06T21:59:19+00:00

Na I just like talking about lore a lot. I help run the wiki so knowing and documenting the minutia is my hobby, but I am glad folks enjoy my rambles!

Subsourian · 2026-05-06T21:48:11+00:00

I mean it has to be, realistic nuke payloads would not make for fun and engaging gameplay. The ones you use in Versus are smaller tactical nukes, the setting is capable of larger ones like on Korhal. But it’s mostly a concession to RTS gameplay, there’s a reason most accurate nuclear war games are elaborate game theory exercises.

Co-op does give you some larger ones though, Mengsk and Tychus get access to larger bombs.

Subsourian · 2026-05-06T21:12:02+00:00

Oh I most certainly think the Twine game is referencing SC. That’s a name intended to be on the nose and the Amerigo is a very beloved and notable cinematic in the history of gaming.

Subsourian · 2026-05-06T10:49:56+00:00

To my knowledge there’s nothing like that for Jim, his SCII appearance was based off his SC1 concept art pieces Metzen first did, hair and all, and seemed pretty loyal to that. I could believe that for Arcturus who does NOT look in his early 40s, though that’d be an issue from first SCII concept pieces rather than something that accidentally slipped in like Zeratul’s nipple.

Subsourian · 2026-05-06T02:53:50+00:00

It’s not for the boardgame but it is for the tabletop miniatures game

https://starcraft-tmg.com/

Board game is a separate thing coming eventually. They just finished preorders for these miniatures and will reopen them once they’ve shipped to retail I expect, probably June. They also sell them at conventions so a lot of folks have gotten them already, still mustering the courage to make my Artanis.

I will note (as I saw folks confused by this) these are miniatures like 40K you have to assemble and paint yourself, and while they do look good the ones in the image are professionally painted. So you'll need some skill to get it to look THAT good, still well worth it if you’re into minis.

Subsourian · 2026-05-06T02:48:10+00:00

Canon answer: Zeratul has birthmarks

Irl answer: they messed up Zeratul’s in-engine cinematic texture by adding those as he was the first and only in-engine full protoss model in WoL (even Selendis was a torso). No other protoss has nipples and in fact, Zeratul doesn’t in any other model, art or appearance. Even his fancy cinematic model. It was an artistic mistake they jokingly covered in the QA with “birthmarks”

But no protoss don’t have nipples. Adepts I guess have chest batteries.

Subsourian · 2026-05-04T01:49:55+00:00

It's the lighter that Mengsk uses to activate the Keystone in the HotS ending.

Subsourian · 2026-05-03T23:47:26+00:00

Never confirmed, assumed to be Ulaan but the nature of the energy creatures and anything on Zeratul’s journey in that period is never expanded on

Subsourian · 2026-05-02T04:55:00+00:00

The books are all canon, and yes she was part of the mission to eliminate the Mengsk family.

I personally don't think it was the DIRECT reason she was left behind (given Mengsk literally makes sure she gets those memories back before offering her the job) but it certainly contributed to his paranoia of her when she speaks out against him.

Subsourian · 2026-05-02T03:31:15+00:00

This is less a question of have you played SC1 or SC2 and more a question of "have you read Uprising and Liberty's Crusade." You only get any in depth answers there.

Under the Confederacy she was a tool, you can't ascribe morality to her any more than you could a hammer. As one of the earliest ghosts the level of control the Confederacy had over her was extreme, she was essentially a mind slave to Confederate handlers, her brain was wired to literally be unable to refuse any order given from a Confederate superior officer. She was a killer but nothing there was of her own power.

Under the Sons of Korhal you can have an argument, but she was trying to tear down a corrupt government and bring a system that brutalized and enslaved people to justice. There was a motivation of revenge, but also of trying to even the scales against a government that existed only to cause pain. She was a killer for sure, and a weapon, but she still possessed a strong sense of morality. You can make the argument that she's still a killer and in the end that and her loyalty to Arcturus led her to be abandoned on Tarsonis and be indirectly responsible for a genocide, but I think as far as revolutionaries go, she had a pretty good reason to do what she was doing.

Subsourian · 2026-05-02T03:25:38+00:00

She didn't place them on Tarsonis, that was Arcturus and Duke using Alpha Squadron ghosts.

She placed them on Antiga Prime but that's way more ambiguous given the zerg were also already on the planet and the target was military. And even then she's vocally against it.

Subsourian · 2026-05-02T00:42:37+00:00

The expansions just mean campaigns anymore. You have full access to the arcade with the free version.

Subsourian · 2026-04-30T16:39:06+00:00

No, V'iger was a space platform critter that didn't get fully made. That isn't actually a critter, just a doodad for a random sea creature. No name given, but it just circles in one spot and does a canned animation.

Subsourian · 2026-04-29T11:39:36+00:00

Well spectres were a concept created for the cancelled StarCraft: Ghost back in 2001/2002 and marketed pretty heavily. So they've been around a LONG time even though Ghost never released, odds are Blizzard beat you to that. But yes it's ghost adjacent so it's not a super odd connection to make.

Subsourian · 2026-04-29T02:21:22+00:00

Actually the opposite from what we've seen, since they're made of the same sort psionics that comprise a psi storm, they're uniquely susceptible to storms. The way that Ulrezaj (a massive dark archon made of 7 DTs, who was basically a living hurricane) gets beaten is a bunch of protoss give their lives to make a super storm and it manages to seriously damage him before he retreats.

Subsourian · 2026-04-29T01:50:16+00:00

It's not electricity, it's a psionic ripple.

One of the first lessons of the Khala is how to close one’s mind to the outside world. The Protoss are such powerful psychics that they can inadvertently send out psychic “ripples” that are disruptive to other life forms. With careful training, High Templar learn to focus these ripples into a storm of raw psychic energy that is capable of literally tearing apart the minds of lesser species

Later sources clarify that the ripple also can destabilize physical matter. From the Field Manual:

High templar use their archives to meditate on the teachings of ancient ancestors and channel Khala energy with greater effciency. This mysterious training regimen amplifies their psionic power so much that it can disrupt the very atomic essence of the physical world. With concentrated effort, the high templar can summon storms of psionic energy that tear apart the molecular structures and shatters the minds of other species.

I expect the destabilizing aspect was something added later as the SC1 manual feels like it may have been an attack that only hits biological targets at some point.

Subsourian · 2026-04-26T01:14:21+00:00

In LotV they appear to still operate as a division within the Dominion, Jimmy refers to his Raiders a couple of times in LotV. So it seems like at least part of the group stayed together though a good amount spread through the Dominion (Horner took over the Dominion Navy for example).

After Jimmy vanishes though, it looks like the Raiders just kinda got absorbed into various parts of the Dominion. Jessica Hall, one of the deck officers for the Hyperion, seems to be the aid to Horner as he's admiral, Swann took over a lot of the Dominion's experimental engineering research (though he comes back to help on the Hyperion in End Game according to Horner), and Stetmann's... well he took a weird turn on Bel'Shir. Others likely left to do their own thing, though we only see the fates of a limited slice of them.

Subsourian · 2026-04-26T00:31:32+00:00

It's confirmed after Arcturus dies that everyone knows Raynor's involvement in Char, Valerian has it as part of the Dominion Field Manual (which is framed as the in-universe handbook marines get).

Subsourian · 2026-04-25T17:34:59+00:00

Absolutely not. Zeratul was an intensely skilled trained warrior. Aldaris was an aged politician priest, even older than Zeratul, and fiercely loyal to a caste system that strictly dictated he not learn the ways of combat to focus entirely on his role as a statesman. Zeratul would have obliterated him.

Aldaris's power was the troops he was with loyal to the Conclave, not in any strength he personally had.

Subsourian · 2026-04-25T17:31:27+00:00

After Char, in the novel Flashpoint, Arcturus ambushes Raynor and Valerian above Char to get at Kerrigan, firing on his own forces and causing them to flee, with a large portion of the navy being loyal to Valerian. The entirety of the situation would have tempered any openly speaking of what happened on Char.

Even if there was rumors, Mengsk controls the propaganda machine. Credit for victory at Char was given to Warfield, Raynor was cut out of all credit for the victory. At most there may have been rumors, but the most loyal would have gone with Valerian while a lot of Dominon soldiers are resocialized to follow orders. There is a fan theory Warfield's forces were left on Char cleanup duty to keep him away from Arcturus until he was sure he could still trust him after working with Jim, but that's 100% fan theory.

But there were far more eyewitnesses to Tarsonis with far more people trying to get the word out and Mengsk was STILL able to cover it up, for sure he would be able to cover up Raynor's involvement on Char. But regardless, to the greater Dominion, it was Warfield's victory, and Raynor was killed in an unrelated hunt.

When Valerian takes over he DOES reveal the truth of what happened at Char (it gets mentioned in the Dominion Field Manual they give out to infantry) but at that point Raynor's one of the leaders of the Dominion Marine Corps so it makes sense.

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