StarCraft (video game): Difference between revisions

{{quote|''[[Badass Boast|Only Blizzard could reinvent the RTS]]''|Ubisoft's (''Starcraft''<nowiki>'</nowiki>s distributor in France) [[Tagline]] for the game. }}

 

 

As the story opens, Terran civilization is embroiled in a civil war between the ruling Terran Confederacy and the rebel Sons of Korhal when Zerg infestations begin appearing on several worlds. As the Zerg quickly overtake the unprepared Terran outposts, Protoss battle fleets begin attacking the infected worlds as well, destroying all life on them to prevent the infestation from spreading. Arcturus Mengsk, leader of the Sons of Korhal, learns that the Zerg are attracted to psychic energy, and begins deploying "Psi Emitters" into Confederacy bases to bring down Zerg attacks upon them. By doing, so he ultimately destroys the Confederate capital of Tarsonis and takes control of the Terran government, declaring himself Emperor, but his lieutenant - former Confederate Ghost Sarah Kerrigan - is lost in battle and becomes infested by the Zerg. In her new form, she lends her psychic powers to the Zerg's already impressive numerical strength and turns it against the Protoss, managing almost to conquer the Protoss homeworld of Aiur before two warring Protoss factions, the Khalai and the Dark Templar, join forces with a group of Terran exiles to destroy the Overmind.

Three [[Expansion Pack|Expansion Packs]], ''Brood War'', ''Insurrection'', and ''Retribution'' were released in 1998. ''Brood War'' added new units and a continuation of the campaign, wherein the Protoss have to escape their Zerg-overrun homeworld, a new Terran faction invades the sector and the remaining Cerebrates attempt to resurrect the Overmind. Amidst all of the action, Kerrigan swoops in time after time to ally herself with everyone in turns, pitting them against each other and eventually making herself the Queen Bitch of the Universe by beating her weakened enemies in battle. Insurrection and Retribution were not made by Blizzard, not widely available, and generally regarded as [[Canon Discontinuity]]. Considering they don't really affect the canon and just focus on minor characters doing random stuff, it doesn't matter.

 

 

{{tropelist|You Require More Tropene Gas. Construct Additional Examples:}}

* [[Acronym and Abbreviation Overload]]: Most of the Goliath's [[Stop Poking Me]] quotes.

* [[All There in the Manual]]: Literally; the story assumes you already know the histories and social organizations of the factions from the huge lore section in the manual and so doesn't explain ''any'' of the background in the game itself.

* [[The Alliance]]: Raynor's Raiders and the Protoss. Literally used in the RPG that hardly anyone knows about.

* [[Black Humor]]: Lots. The best comes from Raynor during the final battle against the Overmind.

* [[Boxed Crook]]: About three-quarters of the Confederate military and virtually all of the Dominion military are 'resocialized' criminals who were sent from the penal system straight to the front line. Raynor's Raiders, however, is an all-volunteer force, and the UED military simply conscripts from their civilian population, although both regimes have proven that criminal is a stretchable term and often includes harmless people that didn't agree with the government enough.

** While any of the races can appear as any color in Custom/Multi-player games, and most of the colors are seen on each race at least once in the Single-player campaigns, there are some some general conventions. In the original game, the player's Terran forces are blue (or red when fighting for the Sons of Korhal), the Zerg are purple, and the Protoss are yellow. In Brood War, the player's protoss forces are usually blue (though in one of the missions they are brown), the Terrans are brown or white, and the Zerg are once again purple. Teal units are heroes for Protoss and Terrans, while Zerg heroes are red. Usually, important enemy units and structures, like enemy heroes, are yellow.

** Different factions likewise can be told apart by color: the Dominion is red, Alpha Squadron is white, Raynor's Raiders are blue, the UED is white, the Protoss warband are mostly blue and occasionally brown, the Khalai Protoss are yellow, Kerrigan's Zerg are purple, and generic enemy Zerg are usually brown and orange. If there are three enemy Zerg forces, odds are the third one is red or purple. Again, this isn't universal, and some variations can occur. For example, in two missions some Dominion forces are blue, and in another some UED forces are blue.

* [[Crosshair Aware]]: A tiny blinking red dot means someone's about to drop a nuke there, though it helps that they give a "Nuclear Launch Detected".

* [[Cutscene Power to the Max]]: The Zerg are far more fragile in cutscenes than in-game, often getting killed with only a few barrages of gunfire that would hurt but not kill them. In-game cutscenes (that is, scenes on the maps that aren't pre-rendered) often boost the attack strength of units so they can destroy enemies in a single shot for dramatic effect, like {{spoiler|Kerrigan have her strength boosted to 500 damage so she can kill Aldaris}}.

* [[Danger Deadpan]]: The Wraith and Dropship pilots.

* [[Dark Is Not Evil]]: The Dark Templars, outcasts of the Protoss race. The Khalai Protoss consider them evil heathens who nearly destroyed the Protoss way of life, but its all been blown out of proportion by horror stories passed down through the generations for the last thousand years. In reality the Dark Templar are actually nicer than the Khalai Protoss, seemingly not as dogmatic, and most (but not all) genuinely want to help their Khalai brethren.

* [[Dropped a Bridge on Him]]: You. That's right '''YOU'''. It's [[All There in the Manual]], but the Player-Cerebrate from the original Zerg Campaign is killed by Tassadar shortly after that campaign ends, when he basically catches Kerrigan in the exact same trap that got Zasz killed midway through the same campaign. All the other Zerg Cerebrates, unable to live without the Overmind, die between Brood War and the sequel as well.

* [[The Empire]]: The Terran Dominion, and the United Earth Directorate. Also, the Protoss before the fall of Aiur.

* [[Evil Versus Evil]]: Terran Dominion vs the UED vs the Zerg, Kerrigan vs. the Overmind, Sons of Korhal vs. The confederacy.

* [[The Federation]]: The Confederacy is essentially an evil version of this, being at least nominally a federal, democratic republic, especially in contrast to the openly [[The Empire|Imperial]] Terran Dominion.

* [[I Will Show You X]]: In one of the missions in the original Terran campaign:

{{quote|'''General Duke''': You're the last folks I've expected here. What's your angle, Mengsk?

'''Arcturus Mengsk''': Jim! Enough! I'll take care of this. }}

* [[Kill It with Fire]]: The point of the Firebat.

* [[Let No Crisis Go to Waste]]: In the Terran campaign, Mengsk uses the Zerg invasion to help himself gain power.

* [[Man in the Machine]]: Protoss Dragoons.

* [[Mobile Factory]]: Most of the Terran buildings and a few of the Protoss ones.

* [[Newsreel]]: The UED victory report, heavily inspired by the propaganda videos from the ''[[Starship Troopers]]'' movie.

** In the original Terran campaign, your actions end up putting a new power-hungry madman into power and getting Kerrigan infested by the Zerg. [[Failure Is the Only Option|Damned if you do, damned if you don't]] again, as the Confederacy was just as corrupt and not only caused the whole Zerg invasion in the first place, but was unable to do anything about it.

** Helping Duran get to Stukov during the UED campaign.

** And let's not forget Zeratul who {{spoiler|kills a cerebrate with his psychic powers, which briefly links his mind to the Overmind, revealing the location of Aiur and causing the downfall of the Protoss homeworld}}. According to the novels, four years later he's still in solitude feeling guilty for that and being forced to {{spoiler|kill Raszagal}}. And really, who can blame him?

* [[Non-Entity General]]: Mostly played straight, though [[All There in the Manual|supplemental materials]] eventually reveal that the Protoss executors for the original and ''Brood War'' were Artanis and Selendis, respectively.

'''Lester''': [[The Blues Brothers|Ah love you, Sarge.]] }}

* [[Oh God, Did She Just Hear That?]]: Kerrigan, a psychic, [[Crowning Moment of Funny|ripping into]] Raynor.

'''Raynor:''' Oh, yeah! You're a telepath. Look, let's just get on with this, OK? }}

* [[One-Man Army]]: The Torrasque.

* [[Gratuitous English]]: "Resluts".

* [[Headphones Equal Isolation]]: Subverted in that players are required to wear headphones to blot out all cheers of joy from the crowd when something happens. Double-Subverted in that it doesn't always work. Crowd noise does bleed in if its sufficiently loud, and crowd reactions have been known to influence pro-gamer decision making (stopping an army right before walking into a Spider Mine ambush).

* [[He's Back]]: Julyzerg, Ever OSL 2008.

* [[Hoist by His Own Petard]]: Terran players often get mine-dragged. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmdoXLf6VR0& Sometimes pretty badly.]

* [[The Rival]]: There have been a number of famous rivalries between Starcraft players. Biggest ones would be Boxer vs Yellow and Jaedong vs Flash, though there are others.

* [[Serious Business]]: The very image of stadiums filled with people watching people play a computer game may seem unusual, however, there's a reason why South Korea's two national sports are actually football ''and'' StarCraft. And then, there're the schools completely dedicated to Starcraft with 10 hour training sessions, six figure salaries and the screaming fangirls for the more victorious players. The top of the iceberg? The Korean ''Air Force'' has its own team.

* [[Tournament Play]]: The biggest.

 

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[[Category:Video Game]]

[[Category:Blizzard Entertainment]]

[[Category:Science Fiction Video Games]]

[[Category:Real Time Strategy]]

[[Category:Mac OS]]

[[Category:Nintendo 64]]