History VideoGame / StarcraftIIWingsofLiberty

* DownerEnding / KillEmAll: Invoked by Zeratul on the consequence of killing Kerrigan.

* NotCompletelyUseless: Regenerative Bio-Steel is generally considered worthless compared Cellular Reactor, largely due to how slowly mechanical units heal using it. But in ''Ghost of a Chance'', you get access to mechanical units but no [=SCVs=] or Science Vessels to repair them. Regenerative Bio-Steel can be very useful with proper micro or even just pulling the entire force back after a few shots to whittle away your enemies over time.
** Orbital Strike is widely agreed to be inferior to the Tech Reactor but it can be useful on missions where the win condition is to destroy a specific structure(s), such as "Maw of the Void" or "Gates of Hell". Allowing troops to be deployed right at the objective greatly reduces how much enemy opposition the player needs to fight.

%%** Orbital Strike is widely agreed to be inferior to the Tech Reactor.

* ActionInsuranceGag: When the Odin comes under fire offscreen, Tychus quips "Ah hope this thing's insured."

* NotCompletelyUseless:
** Regenerative Bio-Steel is generally considered worthless compared Cellular Reactor, largely due to how slowly mechanical units heal using it. But in ''Ghost of a Chance'', you get access to mechanical units but no [=SCVs=] or Science Vessels to repair them. Regenerative Bio-Steel can be very useful with proper micro or even just pulling the entire force back after a few shots to whittle away your enemies over time.
** Orbital Strike is widely agreed to be inferior to the Tech Reactor, but it is very useful for speedruns, such as "Maw of the Void" or "Gates of Hell", to reach an objective faster and easier.

* HarderThanHard: The [[NintendoHard aptly-named]] Brutal mode.

* HotScientist: Ariel Hanson. [[http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100622163610/starcraft/images/e/e0/ArielHanson_SC2_Art2.jpg Lampshaded a bit.]]

** The player is free to do missions in any order with only story continuity linking them. ''Heart of the Swarm'' would make each mission (with one exception) part of a three-mission chain, and ''Legacy of the Void'' scaled it back to two-mission chains, sometimes with a third standalone mission before or after. ''Wings of Liberty'' also has branching mission paths, which the other two games didn't. This feature and the ability to complete the game ''without'' finishing every mission also can lead to [[ContinuitySnarl story continunity errors]] and [[EasyLevelTrick levels becoming trivial]] from using advanced units that some missions weren't designed for.

* DeepSouth [[AC:[[RecycledInSpace IN SPACE]]]]:

* WhatAPieceOfJunk: Raynor and Swann have a tense discussion about [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything vulture]] [[RecycledInSpace hover-bikes]]. Swann thinks the model is a deathtrap. Raynor, having iconically [[VideoGame/StarCraftI owned one himself]], is not amused.

* RagtagBunchOfMisfits: Ohhh, boy: a {{nerd}}, a MrFixit, a mercenary contractor, an idealist, renegades...we can continue all night long. {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d by both Raynor and Matt, after the mission "Media Blitz":

* AwesomeMccoolname: Horace WARFIELD

** What the player thinks upon hearing: "Alert. Class twelve psionic waveform detected." In case you're wondering, yes, [[UpToEleven that scale normally goes up to ten]]. And yes, [[BigBad it is exactly who you think it is]].

** The second-last Artifact mission that involves the firewave is one of those missions that can be beaten fairly quickly with the cheese-tactic of running air-units along the edge of the map, and then sniping the structure in the back of the main enemy base that's holding the Artifact fragment after clearing away the few detecting Photon Cannons that protect it. It's possible to pull off with just an army of cloaked Banshees that you unlock in this mission. Good enough micro, while much more difficult, can even complete this cheese-tactic with just the four starting Banshees. In addition, having Vikings or Wraiths unlocked for anti-air certainly helps, along with any means of detection to get rid of the one of two pesky Observers along the way, such as having Orbital Command scans or Science Vessels unlocked.

** The second-last Artifact mission that involves the firewave is one of those missions that can be beaten fairly quickly with the cheese-tactic of running air-units along the edge of the map, and then sniping the structure in the back of the main enemy base that's holding the Artifact fragment after clearing away the few detecting Photon Cannons that protect it. It's possible to pull off with just an army of clocked Banshees that you unlock in this mission. Good enough micro, while much more difficult, can even complete this cheese-tactic with just the four starting Banshees. In addition, having Vikings or Wraiths unlocked for anti-air certainly helps, along with any means of detection to get rid of the one of two pesky Observers along the way, such as having Orbital Command scans or Science Vessels unlocked.

** The second-last Artifact mission that involves the firewave is one of those missions that can be beaten fairly with the cheese-tactic of quickly running air-units along the edge of the map, and then sniping the structure in the back of the main enemy base that's holding the Artifact fragment after clearing away the few detecting Photon Cannons that protect it. It's possible to pull off with just an army of clocked Banshees that you unlock in this mission. Good enough micro, while much more difficult, can even complete this cheese-tactic with just the four starting Banshees. In addition, having Vikings or Wraiths unlocked for anti-air certainly helps, along with any means of detection to get rid of the one of two pesky Observers along the way, such as having Orbital Command scans or Science Vessels unlocked.

* EasyLevelTrick: The developers give the player the ability to play through missions from different mission chains in any order, with only a hidden "do this many missions first" value locking the later ones. A lot of missions from one chain are trivialized by units from another, if you know what you're doing.
** The first Rebellion mission has you chasing down Dominion trains, and gives you the Diamondback for the mission, which can attack on the move and deals bonus damage to armored units. But if you do the second Artifact mission first and get Siege Tanks, they're even better -- they cost less resources and supply, build faster, they can handle attack waves much better than the Diamondbacks, and since you're given notice every time a train spawns, you have plenty of time to get them into position to siege up and bombard the train. A mechanic in the mission concerns a kill team of Marauders that patrol the region; a dangerous army to a group of Diamondbacks, but Siege Tanks will have a much easier time with them, and if you've done enough Protoss research to get the Science Vessel, you can use them to Irradiate the squadron and watch them wither and die in seconds.
** The second Colonist mission tasks you with defending yourself from Infested Terrans during the night and destroying their spawning structures during the day. Your assigned unit for the mission is the Hellion, but if you do the first Covert mission you get the Reaper, which are built for three things -- moving quickly, fighting light units, and destroying buildings. A force of Reapers can steamroll the infested structures by day, get back to base quickly once the sun sets, and then spend the night effortlessly holding off the infested.

** The second Rebellion mission requires you to scavenge resources from scrap pick-ups around the map to earn the alleigance of a neutral third-party to help you smash a heavily fortified enemy base. However, you only need to destroy their Planetary Fortress, which is located in back of the base on a high cliff with light defenses. If you use the Hercules dropship and build up a decent-sized army, you can ferry them up onto the high ground and focus fire down the Fortress before the enemy can mobilize enough defenders to save it. Vikings and their mercenary counterparts Hel's Angels will work as well, easily bringing down the Jackson's Revenge Battlecruiser and (with upgrades) outrange the Fortress when they're in ground assault mode.
** The third Rebellion mission is an EscortMission where you're meant to build Wraiths to help out a OneManArmy allied unit that isn't very effective against enemy air units. However, if you finish the Colonist missions beforehand, you have the Viking, which is superior to the Wraith in every possibly way, both as air superiority and ground support fire.
** The second artifact mission has you defending an objective building, the Laser Drill, until it bores a hole into the temple as your win objective. While your main unit for the misison, the Siege Tank, is vital to defense, you're also going to deal with enemy air units. The mission tells you to build missile turrets and use the drill to kill them, but if you did the Colonist missions to get Vikings, or just the second Covert mission to get Goliaths, they'll handle your anti-air no worries, and Goliaths also help provide support fire for the ground waves.
** While it varies depending on difficulty and the specific mission, enemies don't always send out detectors with their attack waves. If you get the upgrades to equip Ghosts, Banshees, or Spectres with permanent cloaking, they can make base defense pretty easy, even using them to wall off the enemy's path in large numbers.

* CreatorCameo / TheCastShowOff: One of the in-game TV ads is about Music/Level80EliteTaurenChieftain, in-game called "[=L800ETC=]", the band comprised of several members of Blizzard's development team, promoting their new album.

* DealWithTheDevil: [[spoiler: Again, Tychus's deal with Mengsk. For his freedom, he just has to play along with Raynor until he gets to Kerrigan, then he must kill Kerrigan. This was, by the way, half revealed in the opening cinematic- the dialog reveals that Mengsk is letting Tychus go free, but at that time it is not revealed why.]] It was even invoked by name in the final cinematic.

** Annabelle, one of the terran NPC's and the only female in the Hyperion's Cantina, talks like SouthernBelle if you click on her (one of her lines includes "Well I do declare!").

* ReverseEscortMission: The Odin mission has Tychus swtich off his comms by "accident" before he decides to have a fun little rampage through several Dominion bases. Normally this would be a painful EscortMission... except on most difficulties, he'll have little trouble clearing out most of them by himself. On harder difficulties, you need to heal him with SCV's and provide anti-air support but he's still making your life significantly easier.

** The player is free to do missions in any order with only story continuity linking them. ''Heart of the Swarm'' would make each mission (with one exception) part of a three-mission chain, and ''Legacy of the Void'' scaled it back to two-mission chains, sometimes with a third standalone mission before or after. ''Wings of Liberty'' also has branching mission paths, which the other two games didn't. This feature and the ability to complete the game ''without'' finishing every mission also can lead to [[ContinuitySnarl story continunity errors]] and [[EasyLevelTrick levels becoming trivial]] from using advanced units that some missions wern't designed for.

** There is no Master Archives when you complete the campaign, so if you want to reply a mission with different tech options, you need to load an earlier save from the campaign or play it through again. WordOfGod is that this is because the later two campaigns organize missions into chains, so the player will always have the same handful of tech options for a given mission with only a few differences, but ''Wings of Liberty'' with its total freedom in the order you do missions, there are way too many variables to account for.

** The player is free to do missions in any order with only story continuity linking them. ''Heart of the Swarm'' would make each mission (with one exception) part of a three-mission chain, and ''Legacy of the Void'' scaled it back to two-mission chains, sometimes with a third standalone mission before or after. ''Wings of Liberty'' also has branching mission paths, which the other two games didn't. This feature and the ability to complete the game ''without'' finishing every mission also can lead to ContinuitySnarls and [[EasyLevelTrick levels becoming trivial]] from using advanced units that some missions wern't designed for.

** The player is free to do missions in any order with only story continuity linking them. ''Heart of the Swarm'' would make each mission (with one exception) part of a three-mission chain, and ''Legacy of the Void'' scaled it back to two-mission chains, sometimes with a third standalone mission before or after. ''Wings of Liberty'' also has branching mission paths, which the other two games didn't.

** Regenerative Bio-Steel lets all your mechanical units slowly regenerate health, but the regen rate is ''very'' low, even lower than Zerg natural regeneration, so it's very inefficient to rely on that for healing. Besides, you can see on the same screen that Science Vessels with Nano-Repair are coming on the Protoss research tree and they'll heal your mechs way better. And for extra irony, Science Vessels benefit from Cellular Reactor, the other upgrade on the same tier as Bio-Steel.

** The first Rebellion mission has you chasing down Dominion trains, and gives you the Diamondback for the mission, which can attack on the move and deals bonus damage to armored units. But if you do the second Artifact mission first and get Siege Tanks, they're even better -- they cost less resources and supply, build fastor, they can handle attack waves much better than the Diamondbacks, and since you're given notice every time a train spawns, you have plenty of time to get them into position to siege up and bombard the train. A mechanic in the mission concerns a kill team of Marauders that patrol the region, a dangerous army, but if you've done enough Protoss research to get the Science Vessel, you can use them to Irradiate the squadron and watch them wither and die in seconds.

** Alternately, you can first play "Media Blitz", causing Donny Vermilion's nervous breakdown, and then complete "Maw Of The Void" and have him back, reporting on [[spoiler: Valerian Mengsk]]'s failure to arrive to a battlecruiser's christening ceremony which was proceeding despite the general mayhem caused by [[spoiler: the rioting in the streets]]. The continuity's hosed either way.

** "Cuttthroat" can be beaten pretty quick and easily without ever needing to hire Mira's mercenaries. This is primarily due to the placement of Orlan's Planetary Fortress command center as it can be reached from the low ground outside of his base by spamming nukes upon it. Or if you have Planetary Fortress lab upgrade unlocked, you can lift your own command center while picking up 5 [=SCVs=], drop it next to Orlan's command center, and turn your command center into a PF to destroy his while your [=SCVs=] are there for repair duty.