Criticism of RTS Storytelling

Someone shared with me a good analysis of the inconsistencies in the way psi-emitters are used, so I am sharing that here for archiving. Credits to “ARM3481” for this. The psi emitters were always a problem because we, the players, knew that the zerg were driven by a complex intelligence with an agenda, while the terrans at the time thought the zerg were basically just animalistic and cunning. For the psi emitters to actually have worked, the Overmind and its Cerebrates should have been freaking about their entire broods running off to invade planets without being ordered to do so.  That not being the case, it only made sense for the psi emitters "working" to be a misunderstanding whereby the Swarm's intelligent leadership were mistaking them for exceptionally powerful human psionics while the terrans were assuming that their devices were working as intended. Brood War and subsequent portrayals exacerbated the problem by applying both standards to the behavior of everyone...

I think it makes more sense for Tassadar’s character to propose an alliance with the terrans to prevent further losses and glassing. This is at odds with the game canon, but that’s what this blog is all about. We know from the tie-in short story “ Revelations ” (written by the same author as StarCraft ) that Tassadar and his forces were on the surface of Mar Sara during the battle, fighting off zerg and rescuing civilians and marines. Why did Tassadar never hail the Magistrate of Mar Sara and offer an alliance to repel the zerg? He hailed the Sons of Korhal in a  cut mission  on Antiga (which is apparently still canon?), so it would be in-character for him. In the manual, after the glassing of Chau Sara Tassadar promises himself that he will never glass another planet and will  find some way to rescue the terrans . But in the game he goes on to glass more planets. He completely fails to prevent the zerg from decimating the terrans. Why have him make this promise if he can...

In case you aren't familiar with the plot of the protoss campaign in Brood War, here is a script commentary . While the protoss are evacuating to Shakuras and repelling the zerg that somehow arrived before they did (I can't even pretend this timeline makes sense), QoB appears (having somehow traveled there from Char just in the nick of time like a character in the later crappier seasons of Game of Thrones ) and explains that she is free of zerg control and she can offer the protoss assistance. This is very obviously a ploy that no sane military commander would take remotely seriously. It's the middle of the apocalypse and suddenly a known enemy agent appears claiming to have the solution to their problems? This is just painfully transparent. All of the protoss hold the idiot ball and take her claims at face value, while only Aldaris points out that they have absolutely no reason to trust her and every reason not to. Naturally, nobody listens to him because, as if it wasn...

Although Arcturus Mengsk is depicted as the generic Saturday morning cartoon villain of the franchise (aside from... all the others), his actual backstory is that of a sympathetic hero up until the actual events of the game. In the game he starts off as a heroic rebel leader, then becomes increasingly morally ambiguous until he becomes a villain at the climax by betraying his loyal subordinate Kerry. There's no logical reason for him to do this besides personally insulting the player by killing off a likable character, since none of his other criminal actions are sufficient to make him a villain apparently (which reflects really poorly on Kerry and Raynor... but I digress). The "official" in-universe reason is twofold: firstly, he was tired of her developing a conscience that would lead to her leaving him as she planned to, and secondly,  she murdered his family while brainwashed . Oh my. Yeah, Mengsk's backstory is super dark. He was the scion of a rich politician f...

The character Aldaris is more or less an idiot villain in the protoss campaigns whose sole purpose is to cause conflict to drive the missions. The frustrating part is that he is written horribly. He always has a good point, but the narrative either unfairly punishes him or gives him the idiot ball for it. During the protoss civil war, he was suspicious of the nerazim and his reasons for being suspicious are completely reasonable considering that the nerazim caused the apocalypse the last time they were on the planet. You would only know this from reading the manual, as it is never brought up in the game script so Aldaris gets framed as an ignorant bigot standing in the way of victory. Then he just forgives the nerazim and says he was wrong, without providing any explanation for why he thinks so beyond "the narrative says I should admit I was wrong." In the next campaign, he starts a terrorist uprising. His reasoning for this is that the nerazim matriarch has been compromised...

Most of the obvious bad writing in the first StarCraft is concentrated in the Brood War expansion, but that does not mean the original game is devoid of bad writing. It has no shortage of its own. In the plot of  Episode 1 , a key plot device is the psi-emitter . Its purpose is to lure zerg, which it does very well: countless zerg from light years away will converge on it when you turn it on. Those who are familiar with the replicators from Stargate SG-1 may recognize this plot device, as a similar one was used to lure the replicators into a trap. The psi-emitter is never used against the zerg to lure them into traps, despite the fact that they seem compelled to follow it even if that interferes with their own plans. The idea is just never brought up even once, even though it is blindingly obvious. It is just used to lure the zerg so they can kill Mengsk's enemies for him. Considering that the plot is already about a civil war between the terran colonies while two simultaneous ...

One of the frustrating aspects of SC1's scripts are how juvenile they are in places, especially compared to the somewhat more nuanced take in the manual and other supplemental materials. Hard to believe these were apparently written by the same writer. Anyway, in the protoss backstory the ancestors of the nerazim are explained as causing the apocalypse with the reckless use of their powers and provoking the khalai to fight back in self-defense. So it is entirely reasonable for the khalai to have a negative view of the nerazim.  In the scripts for Episodes 3 and 4, during the protoss civil war , none of this is ever brought up and the judicators are framed as irrational idiotic bigots being mean to the innocent nerazim who just want to help. The judicator's suspicion is completely reasonable: the nerazim caused the apocalypse in the past and now they came back claiming they only want to use their powers to help. How are the judicator supposed to know that the nerazim are tellin...