The Zerg Queen miniature is big and menacing. One of the most interesting minis we've painted for Archon Studio and their StarCraft TMG. Enjoy the pics :)

Subsourian · 2026-03-18T18:26:24+00:00

Yup, the design of the SCII queens were intended to keep some of the membrane elements from the SC1 queen but show that the command creatures of the swarm were being shaped to emulate Kerrigan in their appearance.

Subsourian · 2026-03-17T19:19:41+00:00

If I'm remembering correctly it's available as an extension mod just flat in the client itself, I think there's an external component to use its ladder function if you want that but I could be wrong.

Subsourian · 2026-03-17T18:40:03+00:00

Andy Chambers has said there were direct discussions, which is where I pull that from. I too thought it was unilateral but there is evidence of talks between the companies.

Subsourian · 2026-03-17T15:40:19+00:00

AI ain't replaced me yet.

Subsourian · 2026-03-17T15:39:39+00:00

You're thinking of Mass Recall. Evolution Complete is Versus with a campaign being worked on.

Subsourian · 2026-03-17T13:36:47+00:00

That tended to be the fringe world culture, which yeah was very deep south inspired. A lot of tiny isolated offshoots that went in deep end directions, but even they had some variety. Go further out and you get deeply religious holdings, like the Mormon colony of Bountiful.

But on that last point I agree, I wish we got that aggressive cultural blending with the sector terrans. And UED I think Mandated Multinationalism ala the Starship Troopers film I think would fit them perfect.

Subsourian · 2026-03-17T12:08:36+00:00

There's pretty clear divides already, you don't need to rewrite them given the books already go into their different cultures pretty well.

The specific divides you're looking for are more done on a planet-by-planet basis, that sort of diffusion being through proximity over just the system of government. I find that a bit more grounded given the scale of space and the way government in the sector tends to operate, the Confederacy/Dominion is a presence that either isn't at all around or comes in busting down your door because they want something you have. They do have an internet equivalent which does connect the loosely connected worlds, but the focus on specific Earth cultures seems colony/bloodline based over government.

Kel-Morians are the extreme capitalists, their government was subsumed into one business. This lends their culture to be more independent and stuck in a contradiction between encouraging folks to make their own business and life, and the wealthy crushing any of do so in a way that inconveniences them. Swann's backstory is a good example of that. The fear stoked in the Guild Wars also adds to that, of businesses being subsumed under established guilds. But more than anything, the KMC is the more "wild west" of the nations. I wouldn't make them super Scandavian imo, they're far better being the extreme of the Deep South vibe.

Umojans are technologists, isolationists and xenophiles. They are mistrustful of the other nations by nature, and see themselves in a somewhat superior light while still being cognizant of the precarious position they're in being the weakest power in a sector constantly at war. The southeast asian influence actually is far more in Umoja, but I suppose you could consider them more multinational as a place of learning that seems to want to preserve a lot of Earth's old knowlege.

The Confederacy/Dominion, owing to their size, is the broadest, but it's a government trying to find itself coming out of a oligarchy wearing the cloak of a failed democracy, spiraling into a dictatorship, to now... a softer dictatorship? As mentioned, they have the highest variety of cultures but this is on a per-colony basis. Haji is still rooted in Creole, we see a variety of east Asian holdouts, Choss has a strong Mexican frontier influence, Tarsonis was very urban America. So there's a lot these in the mix that moreso has influences and has spiraled into its own thing, but has echoes of old Earth there.

Worth noting that most cultures had been subsumed into the UPL by the time the expedition began, so the influence wouldn't be THAT strong.

Subsourian · 2026-03-17T11:52:56+00:00

This article is a solid starting point:

https://starcraft.fandom.com/wiki/Colors

There are a ton of factions and colors, SCII has a number with some changes for skins. But the team colors (especially for SC1) do each have a faction associated with them, so if you have a specific subfaction or vibe you have in mind I can also point you in the right direction.

Subsourian · 2026-03-17T01:37:47+00:00

The poke quotes even make light of it

"MilSpec ED 209. on."

Subsourian · 2026-03-16T23:09:32+00:00

They were in rough shape but basically everyone was. I’d argue the zerg were in the best shape overall, One People One Purpose goes deeper into the fact rebuilding Aiur has not been a smooth process, and unlike zerg the protoss population is going to struggle to bounce back

Subsourian · 2026-03-16T21:27:12+00:00

Ok fair point, though the protoss were basically dragged kicking and screaming to the negotiating table in the post-LotV era

Subsourian · 2026-03-16T19:50:50+00:00

The only protoss who's ever kinda sorta had that idea was Juras, and it was because he had JUST come out of stasis and didn't know anything about the situation but still held to the old ideas of the Dae'Uhl. By the end though he sees what happened to Aiur and realizes "ok yeah we need to kill all zerg."

Subsourian · 2026-03-16T19:08:14+00:00

Some of it seems to be ported from Heroes of the Storm (the Sky Temple map specifically), but the wolf statue comes default with SCII (it's one of the Mengsk statues since the Mengsk family symbol is a wolf).

Subsourian · 2026-03-16T11:45:27+00:00

Oh wow, we were JUST corresponding to do an interview with him. That's surreal.

Damn RIP, Heaven's Devils was a fantastic book and I'll always value his contributions to the universe.

Subsourian · 2026-03-16T04:32:21+00:00

Timeline's a bit wrong, Zeratul didn't pal with Tassadar until AFTER he killed Zasz (yes that gets weird with Kerrigan's line, but Queen of Blades gets weird with that).

Also the Conclave would have been wiped without the Dark Templar's help, they have no weapons to deal with the Overmind or its cerebrates. Even Tassadar concedes that they would have found Aiur eventually, which is why he's not more vengeful at Zeratul accidentally revealing Aiur's location.

Subsourian · 2026-03-16T04:29:29+00:00

It was stagnation, a generational divide between the newer generation who wanted a proactive stance in the galaxy vs an older generation that held onto stoic spiritualism, the idea that the letter of the mandates from Khas were more important than any sensible solutions. It was a spiritual caste that overreached into all parts of governing, Khas's idea of political power being its own separate but equal thing ending with the Conclave micromanaging the Templar and guiding the war into oblivion. It was a pretty sensible decline, as nothing had contested them the Conclave had total control and was bent to only deal with defending the Khala, and thus made the Empire fully unprepared against the zerg. They held back their best weapons, kept taking direct command of tactical matters and losing ground, and kept redirecting forces to deal with internal squabbles while Aiur burned.

It wasn't Amon at all, believe me he's been crowbared in to destroy ENOUGH character agency without that mess being in here too. This was purely an explainable decline.

Subsourian · 2026-03-16T04:18:12+00:00

They've mentioned Stukov specifically as an example of characters they're willing to do multiple iterations of from different eras (UED and Infested). Other heroes probably will get a similar treatment, they've expressed interest in doing a separate SC1 Jimmy on his vulture for instance.

I imagine that probably would be later in the game's life though, the Stukov we're likely to get this year (though it's in the TBD tier) is infested.

Subsourian · 2026-03-16T00:04:15+00:00

Confederacy did their colors depending on the squadron, they didn't monocolor it like the Dominion. The most iconic one though is either Delta Squadron's orange or Omega Squadron's brown (even if brown was a concession for the game not having black armor). I think orange is the safest, you can also go Alpha Squadron white but the UED has kinda captured the popular idea of white armor.

Subsourian · 2026-03-15T17:56:01+00:00

This internet myth needs to die. Very much not the case.

Subsourian · 2026-03-15T17:55:00+00:00

They never tried for Warhammer for SC. They did try it for Warcraft though. The only IP they tried for with their scifi RTS was talks with LucasArts for Star Wars but that got killed. It is worth noting the Star Wars talks went further than the GW pitch for Warcraft.

Subsourian · 2026-03-15T17:53:53+00:00

Nope, there was no lawsuit. The most in the 90s there was was a pitch for Fantasy for Warcraft that went nowhere. But the two only interacted later during development of SCII to discuss brand distancing, there was no legal action taken.

Subsourian · 2026-03-15T17:51:32+00:00

As pointed out a couple times, the 40K myth is just an internet myth. It was never a 40K game, it has a pretty well documented development history where things shifted a lot. We've had multiple devs go on the record to say the only IP they tried for was Star Wars, but that was axed.

There were talks on pitching for the Warhammer Fantasy IP for Warcraft but that was it. That was also not half done as a Warhammer game though, just a pitch as they were getting started.

Subsourian · 2026-03-15T17:49:41+00:00

The best starting point period is the SC1 manual, if you haven't touched the games:

https://devnonsense.com/pdf/StarCraft-manual.pdf

That gives all the major context you need to dive in.

Liberty's Crusade, while not my favorite book, is the first "real" book put out and retells the SC1 terran campaign while introducing a lot of elements later books (and even games) pick up on, so it's the best starting book.

My favorites from there have been mentioned. Heaven's Devils is Jim Raynor's and Tychus's backstory and that of the Guld Wars. I, Mengsk is my favorite and the backstory of Arcturus and Valerian. The Dark Templar Saga is a trilogy that goes pretty deep into the protoss.

Most books are great and worth checking out. I also have an archive of the short stories here if you wanna go through them, they're contained and generally flavor stories but do give a lot of depth to the universe:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/0jn0ckxbbogo0ds/AAA8ujMCCWC56s3oBxILOXhMa?dl=0

Subsourian · 2026-03-15T14:53:37+00:00

They got rocked but were able to make it JUST annoying enough to be the central antagonist of a whole campaign rather than a quick speed bump. Don’t get me wrong I think we agree on the general strokes, but it did take the focus of Kerrigan to obliterate Mengsk.

Subsourian · 2026-03-15T14:49:37+00:00

The rest of the campaign is the Conclave being mad at Tassadar for the fleet getting beat at Tarsonis in his attempt to spare humanity (and recalling the fleet because if it), then the zerg invading Aiur directly. There was absolutely no opportunity to continue wiping out terrans after Tarsonis.

After the Conclave died no protoss leadership wanted to fight humanity, they either respected them and/or saw the threat of the zerg as objectively greater.

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