An Alexei Stukov question.

I have played Starcraft 64. Sure on the N64 the control scheme mate it terrible to play. But as I was reading wikipedia I was reminded of this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artanis_(StarCraft)#Artanis

So does this mean Alexei Stukov could play a part in the Starcraft 2 single player or SC2 lore? Or is this just a side offshoot that will not be touched in SC2?

And a 2nd question. If this means people can be de-infested, would this mean others would or could be de-infested too? Kerrigan maybe? Who knows? Do you think Blizzard would use this in SC2?

 

His (Stukovs) presence in StarCraft II has been denied for Wings of Liberty, but it has been stressed that he may appear in the two expansions. Personally I really hope he makes an appearance in SCII - he's a great character.

If you want to play some SC1 missions regarding the lore surrounding Stukov, Blizzard has made some really great official maps. The mission you talk about is in there, but so are two others.
If you like campaigns I really suggest you play the first mission of three (Deception), I guarantee that you haven't seen such a great SP map in SC1. You may find the maps here.

As for the de-infestation of Kerrigan, it seems very unlikely. She's just a tiny bit beyond that in my opinion.

 

Ahhhh, memories.

http://www.starcraft2forum.org/forums/showthread.php?t=58

58th thread EVER.

ANYways.

I still think it's a distinct possibility, though I doubt it actually will happen. Near as I can tell, Jim won't allow Sarah to live. On the flip side though, it would be an amazingly good way to test how robust the map editor is in respect to full fleshed campaigns.

EDIT: Ha, I just read through that. We were silly back then

 

http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Nanites

the tech is there

 

Alexei Stukov was weak (since he'd apparently not been infested long, although of course Resurrection IV is unclear on that).

Infested Kerrigan has been infested for five years now, is a powerful telepath and a combat dynamo. It's doubtful she could be uninfested, not without some really good trick on her enemy's part. And (unlike Stukov) she's clearly a bad guy, having made that choice. You're better off executing her for murder and genocide. Uninfesting her would still leave the same person underneath, only it would make publicly executing her a bit easier.

 

But if you look at Sarah as in Kerrigan before she was infested, she was a nice person always trying to do what was in the best interests of the civilians and the wider Terran community. And only after the infestation she went all loopy and bent on mass genocide. So I think the infestation process had to have messed with her mind to make her want to be so evil.

Can this be reversed I dunno. She just might be too far gone.

 

No, it can't be reversed. It's part of Blizzard's storytelling philosophy.

Arthas went through the same thing more recently. He had personal flaws which made it easy to lure him down the path of evil and madness. By the time he fell, it was mostly his own fault, not the fault of the Lich King or Burning Legion.

Sarah Kerrigan was a broken, damaged woman for a long time. From the age of seven or eight she became a slave to the Terran Confederacy for ten years. The one person who rescued her turned on her in a shocking betrayal. That left only Jim Raynor, but the zerg (and Mengsk) took her away from him. Oh... and she was a slave. Not entirely under the Overmind's control, but she wasn't exactly free, was she? The Overmind did leave most of her mind to herself, but that's just like keeping a slave who isn't under mind control (sort of like what humans did in real life).

Even during the Brood War, Kerrigan still felt bitter about how Mengsk had fed her to the zerg. She's gone over the top in seeking revenge against him. Her quest against the second Overmind (in an attempt to keep that very freedom she had striven for her entire life) resulted in deaths, betrayals, and a loss of Raynor's friendship. Ironically, when she told the protoss of Shakuras that she had only been evil due to the Overmind's influence, she might have been telling the truth... but she proved the lie to that statement with her betrayals.

She chose, of her own volition, to betray Fenix's protoss on Korhal. And when Zeratul slew Raszagal, she again chose to torture him mentally, rather than just killing him. She chose not to give Raszsagal back freely, too. Kerrigan's not just a zerg in a terran-shaped body, her own (somewhat warped) personality is still there. Her rage and bitterness have led her down a path similar to Arthas'.

 

But being infested amplifies that rage...i mean sure people can be enraged at times...but the infestation just keeps u in an enraged state and just drives u crazy...u cant just say that she would react all the same if she was de-infested and had to choose in between killing or letting fenix live

 

She didn't kill Fenix out of rage. She had no personal reason for hating him. He was in such a weak position (being cut off from Shakuras, being smacked down by the UED previously) that he wasn't a threat.

She killed him out of choice.

To put it another way, if someone gets high on some aggression enhancing drug, like PCP, and they commit a crime, they don't get to plead not guilty by reason of insanity (at least not as long as they knew they were taking the drug). In some cultures, you'd get a harsher sentence since you "should have known better".

 

Yes but Kerrigan did not take the drug (or infestation) with her own free will. More like she was captured, tired down and someone else injected drugs in into her veins while she stuggled and screamed.

 

And then decided she liked the addiction.

Even if everything she did when under the Overmind's control wasn't her fault, she's decided that Evil Feels Good.

The fact that she didn't have a choice in:

A) Being betrayed by Arcturus Mengsk.
B) Being infested.

Simply means she's a tragic fallen hero. She's still a villain, and is still capable of making choices. It's also pretty hard to separate how much of her rage is from being zerg and how much if from having been betrayed by Mengsk (and having been a slave most of her life).

 

what im saying is that her infested state and her broken mind makes her feel that way...its all about the brain...if someone hypnotizes me i may as well think that sh it smells nice....she did make a choice but not with a clear mind..

 

There is another point.

Her rage could have been hidden by the psychic dampener placed in ber brain by the Terrans. But once removed by the zerg once she became a zerg, her paychic powers sould have just consumed her thoughts, not be able to have controlled them and turned her into the bloodthirsty monster she is now.

 

The dampers were removed by Arcturus Mengsk, eight years before StarCraft I.

The ghost conditioning was removed by Kerrigan herself, post infestation.

 

where do u get all this info ?

 

From reading every lore source on StarCraft there is. Get your info on the wiki in my signature.

 

I played all of those "storyline" missions from Enslavers and stukovs missions.
They all SUCK!

 

Tragic hero? Kerrigan? I can only assume that you are referring to the "tragic hero" model that was derived from Aristotle's thoughts on drama: the heroic characters that have some sort of "tragic flaw" that inelectuably leads to their downfall.

While I do not deny that Kerrigan is a flawed character, you also astutely underlined that she did not become the Queen of Blades of her own volition. Thus, because she was denied free will, she does not match the definition of the archetypal "tragic hero". If you want an example of a "tragic hero" from Blizzard, look no further than Prince Arthas --the man who would do anything to salvage his kingdom. Kerrigan has no "key" flaw; arguably, she is not even "fallen". She is metamorphosed, in every sense. Here's a brief characterisation of Sara Kerrigan: diffident, trusting, naive, scarred, unbalanced, withdrawn, subservient. Contrast this with the Queen of Blades: powerful, scheming, defiant, opportunistic, emotionally stable. We can deduce from this compilation that Infestation did much to improve her psychologically. Unfortunately, it also had the adverse effect of instigating the deaths of millions.

So, what is she? Kerrigan, well, she's more of an a Byronic hero, or maybe an anti-heroine. We can still sympathise with her, and we even grudgingly admire her (does anyone actually hope she wins?): this is not the case with the archetypical tragic hero, as the audience is meant to be moved to pity by his/her downfall.

 

I hope Kerrigan kills Raynor and Zeratul.

 

Stukov died last time I remember.