History NightmareFuel / StarCraft

* Those stimpacks that allow your marines to fire faster at the cost of their health? Well, here's the price of their use: Hallucinations, hemorrhaging, addiction, weight loss, cellular degradation, seizures, cerebral deterioration, insomnia, paranoia and hyperdilated pupils. And this is ''all within Confederate safety margins!''
** It gets worse. If the UNN's sensationalist programming is to be believed, then it's implied that these drugs are within easy reach for ''children.''

* The ParanoiaFuel of the cinematic showing a Protoss attack on a Dominion military encampment on Char. First, a lookout spots a broken Dragoon making its way through a pass near the camp; after waking up his sergeant, the unit's mobile artillery piece [[CutscenePowerToTheMax obliterates the Dragoon in one shot]]. The lookout starts whooping and cheering in celebration -- when a fireball [[MoodWhiplash abruptly]] [[NotEnoughToBury destroys the lookout]] and his watch post, and another Dragoon appears (seemingly [[CutscenePowerToTheMax decloaking]]) a few feet away in front of the sergeant, who in turn barely has time to DeathGlare as the automaton in front of him [[StrippedToTheBone burns him to ash with a ball of plasma]]. (Bear in mind, the sergeant is in fatigues and [[TheresNoKillLikeOverkill not even wearing Marine armour]].) And behind this, a dozen or more Dragoons also appear, likely due to an Arbiter that flies overhead, and they casually [[TheresNoKillLikeOverkill turn the camp's tents]] into a burning wreck. Most of the platoon or company that formed the encampment probably didn't even have time to know what was going on, or were still asleep, right up to the moment they were killed.
* [[EvilSoundsDeep "Magnificent,]] [[WhamLine isn't]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=HbbR_QRnUDs#t=4m49s it?"]] [[spoiler: Who says this? Samir Duran. He is making [[BeyondTheImpossible Zerg-Protoss hybrids.]] And he serves [[GreaterScopeVillain a bigger, still unseen master...]]]]
* The infested Terrans. There's almost nothing left of their humanity, and the do enough damage to kill any unit with their suicide attack. Specifically, the point in the campaign where a marine asks, "Do you hear that?" and then one pops up right in front of you.
** The concept art of them. They're so full of alien parasites they're bursting out of their space suits. The sprite is very low-res, so it's not as bad-except for their Unit Profile on the little TV screen at the bottom, where they're shown to be so mutated they can't be recognized as having human faces anymore.

* The Zerg get even worse in the sequel. Better graphics mean more opportunities to give the Zerg stuff like sacs and pustules and tentacles and so forth. There's even a series of missions involving helping a group of colonists from a Zerg assault and infestation. The second mission alternates, every five minutes or so, between day and night. During the day, you run around blowing up creepy looking but inert infested structures. At night, the former colonists come out and try their level best to eat you and your troops. Worse, if you choose the "bad ending" for the third mission, [[spoiler:the colonial lead scientist succumbs to an infestation while trying to develop a cure and tries to kill Raynor]], in a lovingly rendered cutscene. Thank you, Blizzard, for ''that'' charming image ...
* The [[TheManBehindTheMan Dark]] [[GreaterScopeVillain Voice]] and his [[HeinzHybrid Hybrids]], and [[BadFuture what]] [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWEKnowIt will]] happen [[spoiler:if Kerrigan is killed]]. [[spoiler: Even the freakin' '''[[EldritchAbomination Overmind]]''' was scared of this thing]].
** [[spoiler: TheReveal that it's ''Amon'' who's behind protoss and zerg' uplifting is even more nightmarish. Khala, the unity so dearly cherished by protoss? A tool to enslave them... which is '''exactly what happens''' in ''Legacy of Void'', as Amon made brainwashed protoss kill their brethren and all other life. The Overmind, the collective Hivemind center of the Zerg? It's deprived of its freedom of will and made to serve Amon's genocidal plans. It even knew that after the Zerg would have exterminated the Terran and Protoss the Hybrids would destroy it and hated this. Fortunately, it managed to work around his brainwashing.]]
* The Hydralisks, in-story. Sure, the main heroes tear through them like nothing, but imagine being a regular marine - or worse, a non-armored person, dealing with these guys. Armed with blades / claws (depending on which game) that are driven by huge shoulder muscles and can punch through heavy armor, and also possessing armor-piercing projectile spikes and a wicked set of jaws. They're ambush predators, so you never know when one is gonna pop up from literally underneath you and rip you apart. And according to official data, Hydralisks are not just smart (by Zerg standards) - they're ''sadistic.'' ''VideoGame/StarCraftII'' cinematics give three more reasons to fear them. First, those projectile spikes can punch through 2 centimeters of reinforced steel ''and'' are tipped with a powerful venom; one guy got spiked in the arm and had to have the arm amputated to survive. Second, they hunt in packs, meaning that where there's one, there's generally at least two more. Lastly, they're huge; at full "height", they stand about 3 meters (around 10 feet) tall. Imagine one of these guys towering over you, ready to ram its claws through your chest and / or skull after it's done toying with you.
** To add some BodyHorror or fuel to this, the backstory says that Hydralisks were originally peaceful herbivores before the Zerg Swarm absorbed their DNA and turned them into what they are now.

* The short story ''The Education of PFC Shane'' shows us what it's like to be [[spoiler: infested- and, through some zerg-induced flashbacks, to be resocialized. Both involve being forced to relive the most traumatizing, horrific events of your life until you beg to have your mind rewritten. It's even worse for Shane, because some part of him is still resocialized into being a model citizen, and that part is utterly horrified at what he used to be.]]
* [[EldritchAbomination The Voice In The Darkness]]. It's the unholy spawn of {{Satan}}, [[Franchise/CthulhuMythos Nyarlathotep]] [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and]] [[WesternAnimation/GravityFalls Bill Cipher.]]

* [[MindRape Neural resocialization]], the process by which criminals, prisoners and political dissidents become unquestioning soldiers for both the Confederacy and the Terran Dominion. It makes Alex's ordeal in ''Film/AClockworkOrange'' look like a breezy chat with a therapist. Any memory they have of their violent (or political) crimes are scrubbed from their brains and replaced with "chocolate-coated" memories to fill in the gaps. Some of the techniques used to do this are so violent and invasive that their victims need to be ''restrained'' during the process. After all this is said and done, you get a brainwashed ex-convict in power armor ready and willing to kill anyone - even ''family members.''
** Some of these criminals are so out of control that they become ''resistant'' to the process. So what does the Dominion do with them? They send them to the "Icehouse" in the Torus System to be pumped with even ''more'' drugs and go through even more extreme training and conditioning. These misfits end up as Reapers, who use jetpacks for hit-and-run mission. If they manage to complete two years of service, they get released back into the civilian population with their criminal record wiped clean. The longest-serving Reapers live no more than ''six months.''

** Some of these criminals are so out of control that they become ''resistant'' to the process. So what does the Dominion do with them? They send them to the "Icehouse" in the Torus System to be pumped with even ''more'' drugs and go through even more extreme training and conditioning. These misfits end up as Reapers, who use jetpacks for hit-and-run mission. If they manage to complete two years of service, they get released back into the civilian population with their criminal record wiped clean. There has yet to be a single Reaper to live past ''six months'' of service.