Fanfic / When One Domino Falls

The mod splash screen, © Olga Maltseva aka Nexis

"All it takes to change history is one thing to fall differently. So what would happen if the battle of New Gettysburg was altered? What if the Commander was wary enough to buy some time? Follows the story of Starcraft from New Gettysburg right through to SC2 and beyond".

— Story description

When One Domino Falls is a massive Alternate History fanfic for StarCraft, created by Warchief and reimagining the events of the original game following a single event going different than in canon: that is, Sarah Kerrigan being rescued at New Gettysburg and not falling into the clutches of the Zerg. Just as the title implies, it starts to change a lot of events in a case of Domino effect.

The fanfic was in production for over seven years, and concluded in Nov. 2021. A sequel, Where the Domino Lands, detailing the events of StarCraft: Brood War - or the way these events will have played out with all the changes to the timeline wrought before - is in progress.

A game mod for StarCraft: Remastered was created based on the story and released in July 2023, with participation from Warchief. It can be found here.

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This fanfic / game mod provides examples of:

Tropes A to E

• Action Girl: The story has a near-Starcraft II level of gender balance in the fighting department. Of course, there are Kerrigan and Nova, then also the Protoss Selendis and Vorazun, but many more original female characters appear in military roles (fighting or piloting combat starships).
• Adaptational Badass: The Protoss scientist Lasarra is a decent, if unspectacular, fighter in the campaign mission where she appears, though she lacks any special abilities. Still, she usually racks up a few dozen kills by the end of her phase, although typically, the primary characters escorting her each have several times the amount of frags she has by that time.
• Alas, Poor Villain: The Magistrate expresses regret at having to kill the Overmind, because knowing him and fighting on the same side for a while made him know and respect the Zerg. The fact that the Overmind was practically brainwashed into becoming the enemy again adds insult to injury.
• The Alliance: Practically the new name for the protagonist faction that snowballs to include first the good chunk of the Sons of Korhal, then also Tassadar’s battlegroup; then the liberated New Folsom inmates, Dominion defectors, Dark Templar, Artanis’s fleet, some refugees from Aiur all join in due course, and they even have their own splinter Swarm of the Zerg in the ranks, too.
• All Your Powers Combined: Mentioned by the characters (mostly by the Magistrate) a few times, given the protagonist faction is the combination of two, then three, races. In the mod, in a few instances the player controls units from at least two, or even all three races, although in many cases the exact assortment is limited for balance reasons. The giant Sargas allied player in the penultimate mission plays this straight, as it uses almost every unit available from every race (minus the Dark Archons that are not yet available in the story, and Infested Terrans because the protagonists don’t do this to anybody) to give a terrifyingly good defense. It was the reason a non-story offensive objective had to be added to the mission, because this player is able to beat back just about anything the other computers could ever throw at it, albeit suffering casualties in the process.
• Animal Espionage: The well known solution of using parasited critters to provide vision is taken (starting in the story, then expanding into the mod) to the logical continuation of using Ragnasaurs – mind-controlled by Kerrigan and implanted with electronic equipment – as clandestine (and presumably expendable) spotters to launch nuclear missiles into the Zerg bases.
• Anti-Frustration Features: The mod contains many of these, some directly lifted from SC2. For example, once the game starts in a macro mission, workers are automatically assigned to mining tasks, saving the player from having to click every one of them and direct them towards separate mineral lodes. SCVs can now automatically repair damaged Terran mech units nearby, and rally points can be used to have the workers harvest resource nodes, instead of just moving to them and standing there like in the basic game.
• Artificial Stupidity: Despite the mod containing some improvements to the AI (and brand new scripts for just about any combat force seen within), some aspects just cannot be changed. Like, say, the propensity of the computers to squander units, or to build up like morons, bunching up their buildings with no regard to the actually available space and boxing in their units between them.
• All There in the Manual: The story serves as this to the companion mod, which inevitably abridges some of the parts, especially those containing large swaths of text.
• Armor Is Useless: Somehow, the swords – wielded not only by the Magistrate, but also by the Unknown Ghost at New Folsom – are able to slice through power armour. Justified later in the story by them being enhanced with psionics.

• Badass Crew: The cast roster of the broader protagonist faction includes pretty much every “good” character found in StarCraft, including some that have appeared way ahead of their canonical introductions, and even some “evil” ones for a while. It was described as “The StarCraft Dream Team” by one of the testers.
• Bad Future: The Overmind shows his now famous vision of the future, like it is done in canon, though the list of viewers is notably different.
• Bag of Spilling: Par for the course in StarCraft, but averted in some situations in the mod where the original game just wouldn’t. The system of achievements and research points gives some tangible benefit for later missions. Then, however many troops survive in the final map of Arc 2 will be given to the player in the first map of Arc 3. Also half the minerals earned in the resource-gathering mission 2-3 will be given to the player in mission 2-6.
• Bait-and-Switch: The infamous part where the Raiders are quietly gathering resources and training, but the Zerg suddenly arrive to turn the day into a bloodbath. In the campaign representation of this (the eleventh map, mission 2-3), the player is instructed to mine 8000 minerals on a map with no enemy presence whatsoever, probably making unspoiled players wonder what’s going on. But slightly after the 3000 mark, things start to go sideways real fast.
• Baseless Mission: There are very few missions that are this from start to end, but quite a few maps have phases with this kind of gameplay, only to segue to something different later on.
• Battle Couple: Two of note, and they’re even described as such upfront on the story page on FFN. Raynor and Kerrigan are a given, but the Magistrate and Nova evolve to become one too: in the mod, they have two missions where they strike out on their own with no other units under the player’s control, and banter and flirt all the way. Zeratul and Selendis might even be evolving in the same direction.
• Betrayal by Inaction: Mengsk tries to pull this on Kerrigan, although the mysterious advance warning to the Magistrate makes sure that it doesn’t work this time. Also somewhat applicable when the Judicator forces leave the battle of Char, leaving the Executor, Artanis, to sink or swim.
• BFG: The Temeraire tank in the story, hands down. It’s said to be three times the size of a regular Siege Tank – in fact, they’re so big that standard Dropships can’t carry them. They’re a no-show in the campaign though, for technical reasons (and implied balance considerations, too).
• Big Damn Heroes: If the Liberator showing up to carry Kerrigan to safety in a spot where she – canonically – gets the very short stick isn’t this... But it doesn’t end here: we can also count the heroes extricating Nova from the Dominion marines who are about to whisk her away to be conscripted into the Ghost program. Much later, on Aiur, Zeratul and his force save the other heroes from the Conclave’s fleet after Tassadar was freed from the Stasis Cell (it is even lampshaded by Zeratul joking that “[The Magistrate] seems to like rescuing people. It is nice to be able to return the favour for once”.
• Big Good / Mysterious Backer: It’s probably a Punchinello’s secret by now that the mysterious benefactor driving and shaping the events of the campaign is a Queen of Blades from an alternate timeline. Having lost everything to Amon in her own, she came to another where things could be changed for the better.
• Big "NO!": Nova when she witnesses the slaying of her family. She follows up with a psionic blast that destroys the murderers, a whole block worth of buildings (and, in the mod, any stray Zerg / Dominion troops that might end up nearby at the inopportune moment).
• Bittersweet Ending: Though it’s leaning quite a bit towards the “sweet” side compared to canon, the outcome is still far from nice: Aiur is reduced to rubble (even if the casualties aren’t as dire), the Overmind could not be freed, Cerebrate Sert doesn’t survive the final battle. But at least Tassadar is alive and Kerrigan hasn’t “gone bad” per se (even though her continued ability to overcome the Zerg corruption is very much in question). Elsewhere, Mengsk’s status as the top dog among the Terrans is pretty much the same as in canon, and the UED is looming just beyond the horizon.
• Blue Is Heroic: In the mod, the trademark faction colour is a variation of blue, Dark Aqua. The standard Dark Blue of player 2 is mostly used to represent the same faction or parts of it as allied players and in-cutscene factions.
• Boss Battle: Several: the Defense Module in the virtual reality of the ship mainframe, Duke’s battlecruiser on Char, Fenix. You get to fight Duran twice, and he’s doing sufficiently different kind of thing each time.
• Boss in Mook's Clothing: Even though the Unknown Ghost (later revealed to be Duran) appears as just that – a more or less regular Terran Ghost – he gives a much harder fight in his second appearance on Char, and especially the third one, on Aiur. Kerrigan even explicitly states that due to the level of power he has demonstrated, he cannot be human. In the mod, certain powerful special units are this: the Hybrids in the Prophecy flashforwards, and the various special breeds of Zerg, especially in the mission 3-6 “City of Echoes” where one enemy brood only fields these (up to the Torrasque, which, like in the original game, can be named a King Mook).
• Brainwashed and Crazy: What the Overmind went through after Kerrigan was changed, at the hands of Duran. Whatever subtle ways of breaching the original programming he was capable of – to secure the aid of the Raiders and ensure Kerrigan’s infestation on much better terms than in the canon – are gone after this.

• Call-Back: When the heroes find out with certainty that the Zerg are specifically hunting Kerrigan, Jim’s offhand remark from the canonical Rebel Yell campaign (“So the Zerg are here for you, darlin’?”) is brought up. To this, Jim replies that he’s not happy to be proven right this time around.
• Call-Forward: By the nature of The Reveal concerning the person of the enigmatic benefactor who had implanted the Magistrate with the dream forewarning of the danger facing Kerrigan, and through the discussion the protagonists had with them, it is inevitable that many future events are spoiled way ahead of time - including the imminent arrival of the UED and the identity of Samir Duran.
• Canon Immigrant: The ghost Kara Vaessen is canon (though her name was originally spelled Kare), but comes from an obscure bit of tie-in material. Wilkes Butler is of course the old nemesis of Jim’s and Tychus’ from the Heaven’s Devils book (although his backstory was expanded to justify him knowing the Magistrate well, and ending up in the employ of the Terra family). Finally, many SC2 characters appear well before they do in the canon.
• Character Catchphrase: “Let’s get this show on the road!” for the Magistrate.
• Chekhov's Gun: The decision to send a small fleet of Arbiters and Observers to monitor the Char system proved highly prescient (and life-saving) just a couple chapters later.
• Civil Warcraft: As in the original, you get to fight every race when commanding the very same race. Though, due to the way the story progresses, ZvZ battles become by far the most prominent of the three “mirror” match-ups.
• Civil War vs. Armageddon: As early as the Char campaign, the Magistrate talks about the need to muster the Terran factions, and possibly the entire sector, against the foreshadowed cosmic threat, even if its nature is, as of then, unclear since the Dark Voice isn’t spoiled quite as prominently. But through the vision of the future, the protagonists know that there is SOMETHING out there.
• Colour Coded Armies: In the mod, the player uses the trademark Dark Aqua colour whenever they control the primary faction, “The Raiders / Tassadar’s Exiles”. It even goes as far as changing the entire faction colour from Red to Dark Aqua mid-mission at New Gettysburg when they (violently) break away from Mengsk. When the player controls other factions, like the (Rogue) Fleet of the Executor, Refugees of Aiur, or even the villainous Hybrid forces in a flash-forward, the colours are different. The allied / complimentary factions are pretty much always the standard dark blue of “Mar Sara” / “Sargas Tribe”, and / or the purple of “Antiga”, which are all canonically associated with the “good” protagonist factions in the Terran and Protoss campaigns.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard / Not Playing Fairwith Resources: Downplayed in the mod, but in many cases the computers really depend on money being simply given to their AI scripts. Some enemies – as well as allies – start out with better upgrades, too. Somewhat necessitated by the fact that the computer, no matter whether allied or hostile, is not exactly known for efficiency, squandering units like it’s going out of fashion. It becomes a necessity in a Prophecy mission where the computers burned through resources so fast that it ended up screwing them up.
• Continuity Nod: Some notable transmissions from the canon are recycled and appear even outside flashbacks / flashforwards, though they might really appear in different situations. For example, Raynor gets to say his “...our old pal General Duke may be creepin’ around too” line – but on Tarsonis, nor on Char. Ditto his famous “won’t be talked down to by anybody, not even a Protoss” rebuke to Aldaris, though here, the circumstances are similar to canon. And who can forget Mengsk’s iconic “I will rule this sector, or see it burnt to ashes around me”. The author didn’t.
• Cool Starship: The Liberator to Jason Davis, period. Then, it is revealed to be a “zero specimen” to a whole series of Cool Starships, the Stingrays. However, it’s certainly not invulnerable, and is out of commission towards the end of the story after suffering a severe beating and a crash-landing with subsequent hasty repairs.
• Cosmetic Award: Averted. Unlike in SC2, almost all achievements somehow influence later missions – either by directly altering some aspects of gameplay (although the effects are, admittedly, minor in most cases), or by adding to the racial research point tallies that grant bonuses to particular units or structures. The latter mechanic is a cross between the achievements and the, arguably way more useful, Protoss / Zerg research points also found in Wings of Liberty.
• Curbstomp Battle: Given the player sometimes controls up to TEN heroes (especially during the Char missions), it comes as no surprise that this trope happens often to the enemy Zerg forces.
• Curse Cut Short: A few times in the mod, including by Duke at the conclusion of the battle at Dylar when his communication channel is forcibly squelched. Also by Duran in the finale, presumably because he is killed.
• Cutscene: The mod contains some pretty long in-game cutscene sequences that can’t be skipped due to the way the campaigns work. Some people are understandably pissed off about this. There are even six dedicated interlude maps that don’t feature any playable phases. This is all at least a little understandable because the source story is so long and detailed, with lots of dialogue.

• Damage Typing / Broken Armor Boss Battle: In a twist against the original game, when you fight the Unknown Ghost on Char in the mod, he only has 300 HP... but also possesses the “Independent” type of armour (actually a bugged remnant of SC beta), against which every attack, from a Broodling bite to a nuke, only deals 0.5 damage. It’s been nicknamed the “Divine” armour like one in Warcraft III for this reason. It is more or less the same with Kerrigan in mission 2-2 (where you have to defeat her when playing as Zerg). It's easier in Kerrigan's case because a unit with such armour, by design, is easier to kill when having units with fast weak attacks, like Zerglings, Stingrays or Carriers, but the player has none of these in the former case while being given a lot of Zerglings in the latter.
• Damsel in Distress: The Zerg do manage to kidnap Kerrigan after many failed attempts. The chapter centered around getting her back is called this trope's name verbatim, while the corresponding campaign mission is called Damsel In and Out of Distress.
• Data Crystal: The Ihan Crystals from Wings of Liberty make an appearance when you are among the Protoss on Aiur, though they are not named in the story.
• Death of a Thousand Cuts: The new Stingray unit, replacing the Valkyrie in the mod, also dishes out rapid low-damage attacks, though only to the intended target and not the area, and they’re laser-based (like those of the Battlecruiser in SC2) rather than missiles.
• Defeat Means Friendship: What you have to do to Fenix (though Aldaris’ Jerkass attitude also helps with swaying the good Praetor to your side eventually).
• Defector from Decadence: The Magistrate (twice, once offscreen). Tassadar. Artanis. Even Cerebrate Sert.
• Developer's Foresight: The long development time of the mod (exactly 5 years from inception to the release of the first playable version), as well as extensive testing efforts by many people, have given the ability to address most of the possible eventualities and edge cases. For example, countdown timers in missions 3-2 and 3-8 get slashed if the player has taken their time to wipe out all enemies and there is no any sort of challenge except getting bored by waiting in an empty map (the final Protoss mission in Brood War was infamous for this).
• Demoted to Extra: Fenix only appears relatively sparingly (and in the campaign is only playable once). This is because the story concentrates on the protagonist faction, with little focus given to the Zerg and Protoss that are not part of it.
• Diabolus ex Machina: The Unknown Ghost who almost takes out the Magistrate at New Folsom, and then appears on Char and Aiur (with much less drastic results...) is a literal unknown factor that nobody quite knows what to make of. At least until his name and goals are gradually revealed – but only by the mysterious benefactor who, by the virtue of their identity, has foreknowledge of many canonical events.
• Dirty Coward: Aldaris, branded as this by the Magistrate for running and abandoning his Executor to the Zerg twice. Davis doesn’t waste any time before telling this to the other Protoss of Aiur to win them over.
• Doomed by Canon: Several characters don’t meet the same fates they did in the vanilla game. However, the author decided that saving the Overmind would have been too much of a deviation from the canonical flow of events.
• Dreaming of Things to Come: What sets the story in motion. Of course, this is not an accident.
• Dream Intro: When the first mission of the mod, which is a rather faithful recreation of the canon mission New Gettysburg (but with the modern understanding of the canon and enemies that actually do something, including fighting each other), is concluded, everything vanishes into mist. Turns out it was the Magistrate’s prophetic dream.
• Dying Moment of Awesome: In Kerrigan’s vision of the “canonical” future, the Magistrate dies after beating back the Zerg assaulting his people on Antiga Prime, challenging Kerrigan to a duel and blowing himself up after he’s lost the battle so that she cannot infest and control him. She is so impressed that she doesn’t wipe out his remaining forces.

• Early-Installment Weirdness: The first few chapters of the story have a feel of the author trying his hand with it and looking where it takes him. They’re also very short especially in comparison to some monster chapters found later in the story.
• Earth-Shattering Kaboom: The Dominion, after arriving to Char, clears a landing zone for themselves by using a salvo of nukes. Thankfully they aim at a hapless Zerg hive, not the player’s base, and they even warn their Terran enemies of it. In the mod, this looks somewhat similar to the infamous sequence at the beginning of mission 2-5A in Brood War (“Ground Zero”), with the computer raining down 12 nukes on a big Zerg base, completely obliterating it with few, if any, survivors remaining.
• Easter Egg: Reading the information about every achievement nets you a meta-achievement and access to a small secret map.
• Elite Mooks: Mission 3-6 of the campaign features a Zerg brood that fields nothing but Heroic units in lieu of the standard fighting and caster strains (Devouring Ones, Hunter Killers etc... oh, and the Torrasque too, though mercifully, that one is strictly limited to one specimen per attack wave).
• Enemy Mine: Midway through the story, the Raiders strike an uneasy alliance with the Overmind against the Dominion fleets attacking Char. And then, they do exactly the inverse when the Overmind is forcibly controlled, and the protagonist faction has to join up with the remaining Dominion forces, just to survive and get off-world. They part with a wary non-aggression for the time being, but it is specifically said by Duke that they are still enemies.
• Escort Mission: The part where you take care of Lasarra as she repairs the power conduits. Both in the story and the mod.
• Exact Words: When the mysterious benefactor expresses surprise (and irritation) about Jason divulging their existence to Nova, the Magistrate glibly replies that he was told not to bring anyone to the meeting, but there was no talk of not telling anyone. The voice concedes the point.
• Exiled to the Couch: In one mission, Nova threatens the Magistrate (and the two are romantically involved by that point) with this if he accidentally stuns her with a Flashbang Grenade.
• Experienced Protagonist: The backstory given to the Magistrate states that he was a scion of an Old Family (but enlisted into the military under an assumed name to steer clear of the clan he clearly didn’t like), rose up through the ranks, became a proficient fighter and pilot, served stints on various plot-relevant planets, was involved in the design of new ships, and renewed connections with the Old Families by serving in the Terras’ security team. Quite a gamut of experience for someone who is implied to be about 40 years old at the start of the story.

Tropes F to N

• Failure Is the Only Option: The “straight” Prophecy mission. It comes with a little bit of challenge to make, though.
• Final Boss: Duran. Both in the story and in the mod.
• Five-Man Band: The Terran protagonists are one, with the two obvious couples and Matt Horner. Tychus later joins in as the Sixth Ranger.
• Forgot About the Mind Reader: There are several instances when Ghosts (Sarah, Nova, Kara Vaessen) reply out loud to the mental remarks by the Magistrate.

• Game Mod: There is a campaign faithfully based on the events of the story. It takes the form of a game mod, although it does not change the existing balance in a drastic way, only really changing one buildable unit (the Valkyrie into the Stingray). However it manages to shoehorn many new units, heroes and mechanics into the existing game. As of April 2024, full-scale voice work is being implemented (so far, it's not done for every character).
• Gameplay and Story Integration: Some relatively minor things described in the story were made into the mod just to preserve the feeling of consistency (for example, some of the traps found during the vulture chase in mission 2-7 might seem convoluted, but they are accurate representations of the story’s contents). Also, even the very minor characters get their own units, mostly with customized portraits.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Since When One Domino Falls has the mod built around the story, there are inevitable examples of this, although the authors worked together and tried to stick as close to the source material as possible. Some events are given more focus in the playable mod, like the elimination tourney against the Cerebrates on Char that takes all of a single line in the story but is expanded to a whole mission in the mod (as does the hunt for Ragnasaurs that precedes it in the same mission). Some are reconstructed entirely in the mod without being really discussed (like Tassadar’s attack against the Heart of the Conclave), and a whole micro mission is made about Nova infiltrating the ship of the presumed Dominion-aligned spy and hacking their systems. As well, the Temeraire tanks that take up such a big role in the story are missing from the mod entirely because of the technical inability to create a smoothly-functioning dual-mode unit that isn’t the default Siege Tank.
• Greater-Scope Villain: “What could possibly be worse than the Zerg and Mengsk?” Oh boy.
• Guest-Star Party Member: Apart from the four main heroes and a few more regulars (mostly the Protoss: Tassadar, Selendis and Zeratul), many characters only appear playable once or twice in the mod.
• Gunship Rescue: After getting the (hostile) Hyperion out of the way, the Liberator swoops down and carries Kerrigan away from New Gettysburg, breaking the canonical line of events.

• Hate Sink: The usual triumvirate of the Zerg, the Dominion and the Protoss Conclave. And given the events of the last couple of chapters, the latter might stick around to annoy the readers / players for quite a bit longer than they did in canon.
• Head-in-the-Sand Management: The Conclave, even moreso than in the canon.
• Heel–Face Turn: You go from fighting the Dominion to being allied to them in very short order. The same with the Zerg. Both instances don’t last.
• The Hero: Since the Magistrate is the Player Character in the Rebel Yell campaign, it’s natural that the story remains centered on him. He is also driving the story from Tarsonis to Aiur.
• Heroic BSoD: The protagonists are going through a mild case of this when the Zerg, after many failed attempts, finally manage to capture and spirit away Kerrigan.
• Hive Mind: The heroes discuss the implications of Khala serving somewhat like one (which would come into play in Legacy of the Void originally), and decide that taking out the Heart of the Conclave is necessary to avoid or forestall this outcome. This reinforces the decision to destroy it, anyway (apart from the Conclave being a corrupting influence in itself, and a bunch of obnoxious, obstructive gits as well).
• Hoist by His Own Petard: The Magistrate mentions this trope verbatim while talking to his mysterious benefactor in a vision.
• Hold the Line: Several missions of the mod have various degrees of this. Mission 2-3 plays it completely straight. Unlike most other maps, it even has enemies mostly spawned from thin air so that the player absolutely cannot sequence break and wipe out the source of the attacks to give themselves an easier time.
• Humans Are Diplomats: It’s up to the Terran characters (most notably, the Magistrate, but also Jim Raynor) to mediate between the High Templar and the Dark Templar so that at least they don’t kill each other on sight. This is done first individually (when Zeratul appears on Antiga Prime), and then collectively on Char, after the Nerazim fleet arrives and it’s apparently too much for some of Tassadar’s troops.
• Hybrid Power: The Hybrid units that are seen in a couple of maps (and playable in one of them) have some Protoss and Zerg properties and abilities mishmashed together.

• I Did What I Had to Do: Mengsk tries this when confronted about his actions (though it happens later than in the canon, and by video link). He is quickly called out on this, following which he snaps and delivers his famous “I will rule this sector or see it burnt to ashes around me” line (which is another Continuity Nod, like the similar phrases mentioned in that section).
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Mission names in the campaign are partly taken from the story chapters they were based on, partly just borrowing the names of the canonical missions they replace, and partly were simply invented by the mod's author based on his inner thought process (for instance, there are a line from a Deep Purple song, titles of an Iron Maiden track and a Napalm Death album).
• I Need You Stronger: The Overmind to Kerrigan, naturally. She doesn’t have it as rough as she did in canon (but not by much).
• Intimate Healing: Nova is healing Jason after his injury by the unknown Ghost at New Folsom by psionically speeding up his regeneration. The twist is that they don’t actually have sex, but she insists on being close and sharing the bed (and he can’t help wondering if such closeness is really warranted).
• I Shall Taunt You: One of the new mechanics in the game sees the Dominion infantry (Marines, Firebats or Ghosts) sometimes spew random invectives at the player's heroes when attacking them.
• It's Personal: The Magistrate – and Horner, especially in the story – feel this after the Zerg have destroyed the Cormorant.

• La Résistance: In triplicate. The entire protagonist faction is, by and large, being created out of various motley Terran, Protoss and Zerg groups fighting against whoever is the dominant power for their respective races at the moment.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: The story was publicly available for a while before the mod was released (the latter came around over 1.5 years later), so whoever has read it before playing the campaign will know about pretty much everything that is bound to happen in the game.
• Lawful Stupid: Wilkes Butler insisting on arresting Raynor is this. He even promises to put him in New Folsom – nevermind that the new government is running it now, and if he had shown up there he would’ve been stuffed in a cell right beside his “apprehended charge”, AT BEST.

• The Main Characters Do Everything: Understandably, the Magistrate is the primary focus of the story, but as it progresses, he becomes a little overbearing in this capacity. Then, after a few wrong decisions too many during the Aiur campaign, he is called out on this, and on his inability to delegate tasks in the degree that would be realistic for a person running a major military coalition. He learns the lesson.
• Meaningful Name: It might not have been intentional but naming the Magistrate Jason does bring in an association with the Greek myth of the Argonauts...
• Mechanically Unusual Class: In the mod, there’s a flashforward mission inverting the premise of the famous map “In Utter Darkness” from Wings of Liberty. The player controls Hybrid units that have a grab bag of abilities, and three new buildings that have functions with no exact parallel in the base game. It takes a few pages of text to explain all of this to the player.
• Mêlée à Trois: In the first mission “New Gettysburg”, the player is fighting both the Protoss and the Zerg, which are also mutually hostile (unlike the original map of the same name in the vanilla game, where – due to the insufficiency of the game mechanic at the time – these same enemy factions are actually allied despite the story).
• Mental Fusion: In addition to the well known principles of the Khala and the Zerg Hive Mind, the heroes attempt an unusual method of breaking into the Hive Mind at the tail end of the story, by using Kerrigan as the “tip of the spear” and the combined psionic power of many, many Protoss as the power behind it.
• Mindlink Mates: Jim and Sarah, Jason and Nova. It is referenced a few times, and made tactical use of in the latter case (after a hint is given that this could be possible).
• Mini-Game: There is a light-hearted secret map somewhere in the campaign that allows you to play a “game-within-a-game”.

• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In a twist, Zeratul is forewarned that in the canon, his blunder has allowed the Overmind to learn the location of Aiur, and avoids it. Tassadar, on the other hand, is not, and it’s his slip of the mind that eventually allows the Zerg to find the planet.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: For a given value of “villain”, but the Overmind, before it was reprogrammed and forcibly brought back into the fold, was able to ensure the creation of somewhat free-willed Infested Kerrigan, aligned with the “good” faction. She has a much better shot at guiding the Zerg towards her ostensibly intended task now.
• No Body Left Behind: In the Queen of Blades’ retelling of the future, the Magistrate ends up blowing himself up after he has lost the battle against her and was mortally wounded, so that she cannot infest and control him.
• No-Sell: The Hybrid units are made specifically immune to Mind Control to prevent the Protoss player in mission 2-5A from exploiting them. They are also 50% resistant to Maelstrom. Duran just plain shrugs off Flashbang Grenade effects (which are the same as Maelstrom in game) after being stopped for a moment, until he is heavily damaged.
• Nostalgia Level: Missions 1-1/1-2 and 1-3 are lifted from the two final missions of the Rebel Yell campaign, even sharing the names with them. However, they are very much expanded with additional objectives and plot deviations. And the enemy A.I.s are not nearly as braindead in the case of New Gettysburg mission.

Tropes O to W

• Obstructive Bureaucrat: Wilkes Butler, on his introduction, appears hell-bent on jailing Raynor for the latter’s past crimes, even though the government he had served doesn’t exist anymore. He is repeatedly called out for his ludicrous behaviour by the Magistrate, then by Nova, until he eventually gets the point. Later, he warms up to Raynor and even to Tychus.
• Officer and a Gentleman: The Magistrate, who in this story is a former member of Old Families and a ranking military officer for the Confederacy, is most of the time well behaved and polite. When he DOES snap, however, the audience (and moreso the intended targets) are in for an unforgettable experience.

• Palette Swap: Actually drawing function swap. Inside the virtual reality part of mission 2-1, the same basic units are given a different drawfunc so they look like they're iridescent ghosts of the same units, and they vanish when killed. They're otherwise very real and inflict real damage. The same principle is used to create "Projections" of units to simulate holographic long-distance connection.
• Precision Crash: When the Liberator is damaged by a Scourge attack during the Aiur campaign, Davis makes sure it crash-lands in as good a position to venture for the Protoss scientists as possible. Also invoked in the mod (mission 2-7) where the player not just has to avoid Duke’s battlecruiser coming down upon them, but actively try to guide it to the spot where its impact would demolish a bunch of Rock Formations barring the way.

• Regenerating Shields, Static Health: Averted for the Protoss, finally. While their organic units could always benefit from Medics, with how the Terran and Protoss factions are intertwined in the story, it’s much more prominent. But now, a passive ability called “Beacon of Stability” also grants every Nexus an aura that allows regenerating health to damaged Protoss mech units nearby, although it’s fairly slow so it can’t really be abused. Also, the Aiurian Springs found in some missions on, you guessed it, Aiur are for everyone – they replenish health (and shields, and mana) to any unit from any player, including the precious Protoss units like Carriers and Arbiters that used to be greatly hobbled by the enemies using Plague and Scourges.
• Recurring Location: Late Arc 2 and early Arc 3 of the mod that are happening on Char feature the same big swath of terrain around the Overmind’s nesting area and the protagonist faction’s base in no less than five maps, though they are variously trimmed and don’t really intersect in some cases. The Conclave citadel on Aiur is also visited twice (first you assault the place, then you defend it). Shreds of terrain are also shared between three missions on Aiur. Also New Gettysburg (but it was in a dream the first time around).
• Remixed Level: Missions 3-4 and 3-8 of the campaign feature the same location, the citadel of the Conclave; the terrain is almost identical save for some walls and doodads being demolished the second time around. You assault it in the former mission and defend from within it in the latter.
• The Remnant: Colonel Wilkes Butler guarding Terra Firma (despite both the Terra family, the platform’s proprietors, and the whole Confederacy being gone) is this. He does take quite a bit of concentrated effort by the Magistrate and Nova to be persuaded to join the protagonist side (even though the latter is by no means claiming to be Confederate loyalists).
• Resource-Gathering Mission: There is a spot when the heroes are doing just that (in both the story and the mod). However, it all goes off the rails when the Zerg appear midway to try and steal Kerrigan, and dissolves into a chaotic Hold the Line situation.
• Rousing Speech: The Magistrate gives one during the remembrance ceremony on Demon’s Fair. A couple shorter ones are given during tense moments on Char.

• Schmuck Bait: A conspicuous Armor bonus in the VR phase of mission 2-1 is this; approach it and two Infested Terrans unburrow right beside. Even if Nova is cloaked, they see her because there is a hidden Missile Turret behind the wall that gives detection to the enemy. (You can still snatch the item AND escape unharmed with some sleight of hand). This was inspired by similar traps created around powerups and keys in Doom.
• Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: The army size (and casualty) figures sometimes become a little too big to be conceivable in the story.
• Sequel Hook: It’s quite obvious that there will be a continuation detailing the events of Brood War (or the altered version thereof). The story has actually already been started.
• Sequence Breaking: Not as egregious as in the base game, but the expy of the mission "Homeland" (now mission 3-4 "Iconoclasm") can also be kind-of speedran as shown by the video reviewer C(a)hek. Mass a bunch of arbiters (real and hallucinated) to fly into the Conclave base towards the Heart (which, this time around, is very well defended), recall half a dozen Reavers in and quickly demolish it. However, the author of the mod, per Word of God, considers this as not a cheese, but a legitimate daring tactic very much worthy of the protagonist faction. Also the way the player can muster their forces and take out the fledgling Red player in mission 2-6 before it becomes too entrenched could be this; also approved by the author because it’s a risky but rewarding tactic, not exploitation of oversights.
• Set a Mook to Kill a Mook: When the gang kills the first Cerebrate on Char (and since it belongs to an orange team in the mod, it is heavily implied to be Zasz, slain by Zeratul at about the same timeframe in the canon), it creates a powerful and insane enemy force that more often than not attacks the other Zerg instead of the protagonist faction.
• Shout-Out: Non-story related text like achievement names in the mod is a playing field of this: for example, the achievement for mission 3-2 is homage to the sixth episode of Commander Keen, and there is a bunch of music references as well. Parts of the final boss battle are deliberate homage to a classic mini-campaign for Brood War: New Avalon II. it's even the same enemy you have to fight.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: Firmly on the Idealism side, even more so than the original vanilla campaign. There are hints, though, that the sequel, set during the Brood War, will change that quite a bit.
• Smug Snake: Mengsk and Aldaris strike as being this. Whatever sympathetic moments they may have had in the original game (especially Aldaris, who has come quite close to being redeemed in Brood War) are gone. See, for example, how Mengsk is conversing with his mole within the Raiders in the intercepted transcript.
• Spared by the Adaptation: In this version of events, Tassadar isn’t killed at the end of the final battle like he is in canon because the Overmind is taken out in a different way. And with Tassadar NOT suffering the fate of sacrificing himself to kill the Overmind, the story is bound to change the canonical societal and religious customs of the Protoss quite a bit... no more Messianic Archetype?
• Start of Darkness: While Kerrigan’s mind was not broken the same way it was in the canon when she was infested, she is still exposed to the corruption of the Zerg themselves. The fact that the Overmind was protecting her from it meant that with its destruction at the end of the story, Sarah’s slide towards the “evil” persona will probably accelerate.
• Status Quo Is God: Played with. While many things have been changed – including the biggest ones, that Kerrigan wasn’t captured by the Zerg at New Gettysburg, and that Tassadar survived the final battle – some of the changes have already been undone (as in, Kerrigan did get infested, although in somewhat different circumstances). What other changes will also be undone remains to be seen, but the author of the story was already quoted as saying “The more things change, the more they stay the same”.
• Suspiciously Small Army: Played straight, as with all of StarCraft, in many maps, but somewhat averted in the others, as the amounts of troops the players (computers especially) are fielding are noticeably larger than in the standard game – especially when dealing with the Zerg in later stages of the campaign.

• Tech-Demo Game: The mod often comes off as a showcase for the major StarCraft Remastered modding suite created by Markus Heikkinen aka Neiv, making use of many features that were impossible during the previous periods of modding the game.
• Tempting Fate: When warned by the Overmind of Kerrigan’s transformation being almost over, the Magistrate talks about this being the best news of the day. Immediately after this, the enemy Ghosts attack, throwing the whole endeavour into chaos that is reined in only through a huge expenditure of time and effort.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Invoked in the mod where one of the achievements (awarded for going out of the way to destroy all four Leviathans in a space chase mission) is called “There Is No Overkill Like...”
• Timed Mission: The mod has one example, the much-unloved assault on the Dylarian Shipyards where the player has to race against time to capture battlecruisers before the enemy launches them. However, demolishing the generators powering the launch will do away with the timer and take the pressure off the player.
• Token Evil Teammate: Again, for a given value of “evil”, but among the roster of Terran and Protoss heroes, Infested Kerrigan does stand out.
• Treachery Is a Special Kind of Evil: “Most crimes I can forgive, but bald-faced betrayal without remorse? This is beyond my limit”. However, the Magistrate does let Mengsk’s mole walk away on his own two feet and even take his battlecruiser with him, because he remembers the perpetrator being a good person once.
• Trick Arrow: When Kerrigan is about to be captured by the Zerg in the middle of the story, the Magistrate purposely shoots her with a special charge that contains a tracker. Sounds like a case of Crazy-Prepared, too, because he had the device on hand at the moment of the Zerg attack that nobody was expecting.

• Updated Re-release: At some point in 2021, just before being concluded, the story was updated with a certain amount of fixes. The mod also went through a dozen updates for bugfixes and new content.
• Unexpected Genre Change: Three missions in the campaign contain Stealth Action phases, something StarCraft in general was rather short on. At least one of those is supposed to be won without firing a shot.

• Video Game Caring Potential: The author of the mod clearly encourages low-casualty playthroughs - so much that the achievement in the first mission is beating it without any of your units dying (buildings are fair game). Many improvements to the game focus on unit survivability, and there is one mission (2-7) where any regular units you save are transferred to the next map.

• Walk It Off: In the story, Nova helped the Magistrate regenerate after the latter is badly wounded by a sword-wielding Ghost. In the mod, this is expanded upon as the added regenerative factor both of them enjoy in the game, starting in early Arc 2. Note that some other units may unexpectedly gain the same kind of regeneration because it’s so easy to manipulate. Some of the new in-game enhancements focus on unit survivability and add healing factor to units that didn’t have it (for instance, the self-extinguishing fires on Terran buildings – admittedly lifted from SC2 – as well as the Medics being able to heal themselves, albeit slowly, or the Terran infantry capable of gradually restoring health while garrisoned in bunkers).
• Weak Turret Gun: Sometimes they’re not so weak anymore. Some of the computer allies in the later stages of the campaign can now build the machinegun variety, too.
• We ARE Struggling Together / Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: The Raiders and the Dominion don’t get on well in the Char chapters, especially initially (no surprise given the fact they were outright enemies only a short while before). Apart from the obvious animosity Duke feels for the Magistrate and especially Kerrigan, verbal and even physical conflicts between the rank-and-file members of both forces are described, and the relations between officers are visibly tense in many scenes. Same goes for High and Dark Templar when the Nerazim arrive to Char; it’s even up to the Terran heroes to defuse the situation.
• Wham Episode: Several. You probably knew the premise of the story, but when the identity of the mysterious benefactor who has been sending Jason the visions is revealed, it has ruffled feathers quite a bit. This bit is probably the most discussed and controversial among the readers / players. Then, the part where Kerrigan was still caught by the Zerg despite the best efforts of the Raiders.
• Wham Line:
  • “I am the Queen of Blades, but I was once known as Sarah Kerrigan”. It’s not made a chapter-ending Cliffhanger for nothing.
  • “Did you really think it would be so easy?”