#not noticing everything on the planet until a mostly local concept is connected to it

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CRIMINALS CLAIMING THAT THEY ARE ON A LOW TECH WORLD AND NEED RESCUE

CRIMINALS ON A VACATION FROM EXPERIENCING HIGH TECHNOLOGY SUPPRESSING EVIDENCE OF TECHNOLOGY'S SOPHISTICATION

CRIMINALS DEGRADING THE APPARENT FUNCTIONALITY OF TECHNOLOGY TO MAKE IT APPEAR TECHNOLOGICAL RESOURCES ARE LESS DEVELOPED

[brazenautomaton]

Fixing Heart of the Swarm’s Story, part 3

When last we left off, we weren’t actually at a good stopping place because we’d detailed 2 out of 3 planets you can do in mostly any order, but the post was becoming very long. But we detailed Kaldir and Char. Now, for Zerus.

After Kaldir Or Char

Zerus is introduced with an incredibly cheesy, hackneyed plot device: Zeratul shows up and says “Go here ‘cause destiny and prophecy and shit”. Unfortunately, due to the structure of the game and the knowledge of the characters -- neither Kaldir or Char can strongly lead into it because you might not have done either and can do either one after Zerus; nobody on Umoja can know about Zerus, nor would they ever recommend it to you -- it’s kinda gotta be something out of nowhere. And once on Zerus, Kerrigan has to be ready to get transformed after one single mission. Even introducing Stukov in Kaldir, you might not have him, so he can’t be the impetus for Kerrigan’s willingness to transform. None of the other Zerg characters, if they knew about Zerus, can possibly provide enough impetus to go there and transform without changing them enough that they no longer do things they need to do in the rest of the story. If you stick to this mission structure, your options are very limited. And if you delay it, well, it already could have come over halfway through the game. 

So we may just have to throw ourselves on the mercy of the court: Zerus and the need to go there is introduced by a prophecy, but at least in an interesting way.

Zeratul rides up in the Void Seeker and hops on to Kerrigan’s Leviathan. He tells her about Zerus, but he doesn’t know that’s what he’s doing -- he thinks she already knows. He’s here to make sure there’s no agents of Amon on board, because *mumble mumble* he has some void ability to find dudes.

And Kerrigan is like “You’re Zeratul, aren’t you? Jim spoke very highly of you.” And Zeratul realizes how much this Kerrigan doesn’t remember. So... she sits down and they have a goddamned conversation. Part of it is about Kerrigan fearing the Queen of Blades and fearing that she has no other path than to become that again. Part of it is just two people trying to connect, who know they can’t. It needs to be unexpected and heartfelt. We’ve shown Kerrigan as vulnerable, we need to show Zeratul as well, kind of stumbling when he realizes Kerrigan doesn’t already know and isn’t the invincible power-grabber he expected her to be, going on from there. And after the beginning when he sets it up to look like an exposition-dump scene about Amon and the Dark Voice and prophecies, after he gets across the Zerus information, there needs to be no sci-fi exposition whatsoever. Just the kind of talking that makes characters have nervous half-smiles about how their lives have gone. People who in the past seemed constantly certain, or are told they should be constantly certain, having a little moment about “shit sure is crazy, isn’t it?”

I know it’s easy to just say “have a really good scene, make it really emotional!” and not detail it in specific, but this is about structure. The player needs to walk away from this scene thinking “that’s nice, they went somewhere I didn’t expect with that”, so that they won’t notice “the next plot point in this story is happening because a prophecy said it was going to happen” until we’re already miles away.

Zerus

Kerrigan goes to Zerus to evolve to full power. In this, she’s still not (and never will be) the Queen of Blades, but she still needs more power both personally, and more power to command the Swarm. That’s what the increasing supply cap is about! On arrival, depending on if you’ve completed both Char and Zerus or only one, she can either say that since Raynor is dead there’s no point in trying to hide in a human mask, or that now that she knows Raynor is alive she has to be willing to do anything to save him.

The character she meets here is Dehaka, and the arc is about “Kerrigan’s afraid of power because she’s afraid of the Queen of Blades”. Now, just because of the restriction of the mission structure, this can’t really be built up to, which is another reason we want that conversation with Zeratul to touch on it. And Dehaka doesn’t have a whole lot of depth to him, because his concept is kind of about how he doesn’t have depth, his persona and character are streamlined of unnecessary things so he can more efficiently consume essence.

He does get picked up before mission 1, though, instead of after mission 3. When you arrive on Zerus, you’re like “shit we don’t know anything about this place and they aren’t linked to the hive mind, we need a local guide”, and pick up Dehaka with blatant bribery attempts; he’s the one who tells you about the Ancient One.

You can’t get many Leviathan conversations with Dehaka about the subject considering the first has to be about “hey we just picked you up why do you want to work for us” and then the second is right before the mission where she gets in the chrysalis, but you can still reflect a bit on her fear of becoming the Queen of Blades and Dehaka’s complete inability to comprehend why this could be a bad thing. Unlike with Zagara, who has the same problems as Kerrigan and reflects them, Kerrigan begins to understand her own problems better as she tries to get Dehaka to understand what she means. She also tells Stukov “Hey, if I come out and I’m the Queen of Blades, you need to kill me.” I’d love to have a more specific command, but since there’s not going to be any sort of “enemy within” plot, any plan or mechanism he has to kill her has to be abandoned and never come back, so being more specific than “you’ll have to kill me” would set up the existence of something that isn’t going to be used.

Missions can play out identically save for dialogue changes. Mission 1, feed meat to the giant ancient Zerg in a repeat of “Welcome To The Jungle”. Mission 2, defend the Chrysalis. Mission 3, Diablo III. The mission structure prevents us from having to do a lot to get the Primal Kerrigan upgrade, hopefully at least talking about being uncertain if she wants it makes its acquisition meaningful in another way. And between Mission 2 and Mission 3, we add a very important cutscene.

We add the Battle Inside The Mind (Inside The Chrysalis), what is happening in Kerrigan’s head, where she confronts and overcomes the Queen of Blades. And the image of the Queen of Blades is taunting her the whole time, informing us of what Kerrigan’s real fears are. Primary among them: Amon had no control over her, she’s just a cruel person, and the Queen of Blades is what she becomes when there’s nothing to stop her. But what can you do, you’re too weak now to do anything, you can succumb to the Queen of Blades or you can die, etc. This is one of those scenes where they fight fruitlessly, and the hero only triumphs when they realize something. Since we don’t have a lot of in-depth fight scenes and things to call back to in choreography, it’s probably something she says: that she’s not willing to give up everything for power. She’s only willing to give up herself. Optionally, probably, the realization includes giving up her pride. 

Mission 3 needs some more lines where Kerrigan feels empowered and happy and exhilarated about testing our her new powers, but other than that, it’s fine.