...and several tie-in novels and books. There's also a board game, which was released October 2007.Set in the "Koprulu Sector" of space, tens of thousands of light years distant from Earth, the story unfolds between three playable races. The Terrans, human beings descended from outcasts, criminals and political dissidents who were exiled from the Sol system centuries earlier, boast a Used Future society with a military based around cybernetics, heavy artillery, and "Ghosts" - covert operatives with latent psychic abilities. Their principal adversaries are the zerg, an insectoid race with the ability to "infest" creatures of other species and assimilate their genetic properties for their own benefit. The majority of the zerg are drones lacking free will, controlled by Hive Minds called Cerebrates which in turn are controlled by an entity called the Overmind, which sees its sole raison d'etre as the assumption of all life into the zerg swarm. In between the two are the protoss, a race of warrior philosophers whose advanced psionic capabilities are as important on the battlefield as their advanced weaponry.StarCraft was one of the first games to become popularly used in professional gaming competitions, particularly in South Korea, where StarCraft matches are played out in sports arenas (occasionally jumbo jet hangers), with giant televisions displaying the action and simulcast on nationwide networks!There was also StarCraft: Ghost, a Third Person Shooter set a few years after Brood War (but some before StarCraft II) and announced in 2001. After five years in development and several postponed releases, it was put on hold indefinitely in 2006.
Protoss do Class 6 type to get rid of the zerg. The planet is covered with plasma and magma when they're done. Nothing gonna be living in that mess.
Terrans also demonstrated a capacity to do this, by launching numerous nukes from orbit and reducing the surface of the planet to a black glassy substance. This led to the outlawing the manufacturing of full-size nukes to prevent such an event occurring again, leading to the multiplayer usage of "mini-nukes" that inflict underwhelming damage at relatively cheap cost.
Executor Tassadar may have actually done this after destroying the zerg overmind in a void-channeled/infused kamikaze attack, quoted stating that "I have not tasted death, nor shall I".
Base on Wheels: One of the major Terran advantages. Their command base and primary production facilities are all capable of being lifted up off the ground and moved to other locations, either if there's an imminent enemy attack or if they just need to move to an area with better resources. Technically they don't roll on the ground as per standard for this trope, but they're not able to be used as bases until they touch down, and their movement speed is pretty slow.
Bizarre Alien Biology: Protoss and Zerg can survive in hard vacuum unprotected, apparently.
According to the second book in The Dark Templar Trilogy, Protoss are photosynthetic.
Crapsack Universe: The individual factions all suck one way or the other, the only genuinely nice, trustworthy people are the individuals with no real power.
Terrans act somewhat like locusts, moving from world to world to drain the resources and most of their standing military consists of mind-controlled convicts. Of their governments, the Confederacy was corrupt to its core, the Dominion is slightly better but compensates with its Emperor's extreme narcissism, and the UED are Space Nazis.
The Protoss are fairly nice, but they're Scary Dogmatic Aliens and have enough trouble keeping peace among their own tribes without involving the other races. And lord help you if you catch the Zerg cold, they'll burn your colonies into ash.
The Zerg want to achieve perfection... by absorbing every other being they encounter, until they're the only race left.
Damage Is Fire: Terran and Protoss buildings burn. Zerg buildings bleed. Terran buildings on fire take further damage from it until it's destroyed or sufficently repaired. The heaviest the damage, the more widespread the fire/blood.
Deflector Shields: Personal type. Every protoss unit has them. In some of the games, some Terran units can create a Defensive Matrix for friendly units or create their own.
Doomed by Canon: One of the novels "I, Mengsk," goes into the details of Arcturus Mengsk's past, including his homeworld of Korhal and his family. People who are familar with the story of the games know what happens to Korhal and the Mengsk clan.
Earth-Shattering Kaboom: The Protoss doctrine for dealing with a Zerg-infested world goes something like "burn it from orbit until everything on the surface is dead." This is how the Terrans first found out that aliens existed: a Protoss fleet appeared near the planet Chau Sara and blasted it without warning or explanation.
Evil Counterpart: The Zerg were deliberately engineered by the Xel'Naga to be an opposite of the Protoss as part of their experiments. The Protoss have "purity of form" while the Zerg have "purity of essence." The Protoss use a telepathic link that connects all of them, the Zerg are a Hive Mind. The Protoss are graceful and intelligent, the Zerg are bestial and driven by instinct. Even in battle they use opposite techniques, the Protoss army consisting of singular elite soldiers who have spent years training forwar, against the Zerg army consisting of lots and lots of expendible units evolved to be killing machines.
Of course, this is only a superficial interpretation. The Dark Templar novels reveal that the "Turned Against Their Masters" gig is a Protoss fabrication. The Zerg and Protoss were created in order to unite with each other and create a new iteration of the Xel'Naga (it's just how those guys worked) as part of their life-cycle. The Zerg got corrupted by an Eldritch Abomination before that could happen, however, and were made to attack their makers and the Protoss.
Evil Is Visceral: Aspects of the Zerg that do not fit neatly into other tropes: the way that buildings pulsate when they are being constructed, their sound effects (especially if liquids are involved), the Overmind's influence is represented by a big eye. Then there's the growing tissue sample in Starcraft II...
Expanded Universe: In the form of paperback novels and graphic novels.
Faction Calculus: One of the most famous examples, providing a huge amount of depth to the game.
Terrans are Balanced. They have the easiest time climbing the Tech Tree and only one non-ranged unit (the Firebat) in the entire franchise, though their units can be Glass Cannons in compensation. They have the best standing defenses in the form of Bunkers, which you can hide infantry in, and some of their buildings can take off and fly to other locations, but in return they all subvert Critical Existence Failure: Damage Is Fire, and if a Terran building's Life Meter is reduced far enough, it will burn down of their own accord unless repaired. Finally, the Terran military is less mobile as a whole; their units are Master of None, they need to rely on each other for support, and they have to waste some army in Bunkers or leave their base undefended.
Zerg are Subversive, with lots of small, fast, weak units suitable for a Zerg Rush; they also have all the Suicide Attackers, which partially offsets their extreme vulnerability to choke points. Their structures must be built on creep and result in the consumption of the Worker Unit used to build them (it grows into the building), but all Zerg units and buildings have Regenerating Health, and the other two races can't build structures on creeped territory. Where a few Terran and Protoss units have Invisibility Cloaks, almost all Zerg units can "burrow" underground, allowing them to ambush, recon and heal. Finally, because of the way Zerg build units*
The other two races can only build one unit at a time from their production facilities, and each facility is limited to a single style of unit: barracks can't make airplanes, for instance, and vice versa. Zerg can build up to three units at a time from one facility, and every facility can produce any unit the Zerg player currently has access to
, they can change army composition on a dime, exploiting Tactical Rock-Paper-Scissors with frightening rapidity.
Protoss are Powerhouse, focusing on an Elite Army of expensive-but-powerful soldiers. Protoss units and structures have Deflector Shields which regenerate over time, supplementing their already-high Hit Points. All Protoss buildings must be built near a "Pylon," and if a building is ever out of a Pylon's range it stops working. Pylons also raise your Arbitrary Headcount Limit, which is why you must Construct Additional Pylons. They are the Protoss' least-durable buildings. Having said that, the Worker Unit simply opens a Portal Door through which the building teleports, and then can wander off to do other things, instead of having to stay temporarily (Terran) or permanently (Zerg). They also have the best Squishy Wizards, courtesy of their highly-developed psionic powers.
Fantastic Rank System: The Protoss have a different rank structure, though only three ranks are ever mentioned in the original game:
Praetor: Probably close to an Army Captain, Fenix held this rank.
Executor: Probably close to a Brigadier (1-star) General; Tassadar, Artanis, and Selendis held this rank.
Judicator: A high-ranking government official, Aldaris held this rank.
Prelate: The Dark Templar equivalent of either Praetor or Executor. Zeratul was addressed as such in Brood War.
In the backstory, a travel from Earth to the Koprulu sector takes the Terrans about thirty years and is performed by means of sleeper ships, while the Zerg Swarm spent about as long drifting from their homeworld to the Terran planets, but in the course of the campaign both Terrans and zerg jump from system to system.
Protoss have instantaneous warps, to the point that their buildings are not "built" but are warped in from their homeworld.
Over time, the UED has managed to advance FTL technology to allow them to get to the Koprulu Sector from Earth in a matter of months.
Future Slang: The novels introduce "fekk" as a curse word.
Of course, 'feck' is contemporary British slang.
Gambit Pileup: The entire storyline. Every major character in this game, human or otherwise, seems to have some sort of hidden agenda and it's nigh-impossible to tell who's getting the upper hand. Mostly, it doesn't work out well for anybody.
Genocide Backfire: The Terrans in the Koprulu sector were descendants of unwanted people on Earth who were sent on hardly inhabitable places to test if they could survive. They can.
It should be noted that the genocide might not have backfired if the sleeper ships hadn't missed their destinations.
Hammerspace: Terrans have building components appear and snap themselves together out of thin air.
Hive Mind: The zerg Swarm, obviously. The Khala of the protoss is also somewhat like this, only the protoss in the Khala retain their individuality and free will, and can choose not to share all of their thoughts and feelings with others.
Humans Are Special: Deconstructed. The Terrans of the Koprulu Sector are only a few generations away from becoming a psionic species. Instead of indicating that humanity is on the verge of becoming something greater, this just means they drew the attention of the Zerg, who view their psionic potential as the key to fighting their real target, the Protoss, on equal grounds.
Humans by Any Other Name: For all intents and purposes the term "Terran" is used as a substitute, both by humans and by non-humans, for the word human. This is particularly odd since Earth (except for in the expansion) is practically a non-factor and the word Protoss has nothing at all to do with the name of the protoss homeworld (Aiur). As for the Zerg, it's unclear if they're named after Zerus (given the unusual spelling) or whether Zerus is named after them.
Hufflepuff House: Both the Kel-Morian Combine and the Umojan Protectorate get no screentime in the original game, beyond a blurb in the manual. The Combine was later elaborated on in Brood War, but Umoja still has yet to make an appearance.
Instant-Win Condition: In the multiplayer; you win the game if you destroy every building the enemy player controls, even if your own base is in shambles and you're on your last unit.
Planet "Char" didn't earn its name by being a planet of rainforests and crystal blue oceans.
Protoss means "first born" in the language of the Xel'naga, and is derived from the Greek word πρωτος, which is pronounced the same way and means "first".
Neglectful Precursor: Early on, it's revealed that the Xel'Naga were trying to create a perfect race: The Protoss were a failed experiment, but they succeeded with the Zerg, up until the point where they got eaten.
In the Dark Templar novels, however, it's revealed that the Xel'Naga were done with the Protoss; they had completed their work and left to create the Zerg as a complementary species, which would have, in time, joined with the Protoss to create the Xel'Naga's descendants. Someone screwed that gig up, though.
The Remnant: The Confederacy just won't seem to go away after being defeated by Mengsk. The UED still has pockets of forces left behind in the sector. Groups of both go to work as mercenaries. The novels also mention other rebel groups that fought the Confederacy separately...and then went right on to fight the Dominion, since it wasn't any improvement.
The Republic: The Umojan Protectorate, which of all the major Terran states seems to be the only one that's consistently "good".
Justified for the Protoss, who warp in their structures and units already constructed from somewhere else.
Justified for the Terrans; all their buildings are prefabricated, and Starcraft II's better animations show that the SCV is operating an assembly armature that is included in the building kit, rather than welding the whole thing together by hand.
Schedule Slip: Anytime Blizzard issues a release date for a full game.
The novel Starcraft: Ghost: Spectres has been delayed so long and for so many times, it's aping the Vapor Ware game it's based on.
Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: When the Terrans first arrived to the Koprulu sector, they only numbered approximately 32,000. According to Blizzard's website, there are at least twelve billion Terrans in the Koprulu sector at the beginning of Starcraft II, and Raynor mentions Kerrigan killing eight billion people during the first game. He might have been including the Protoss but that still means you're looking at more than twelve billion humans living in the sector. As mentioned here, to have this many people after only 240 years would require the population to at least double every decade, for 24 decades, not taking into account the deaths that occur from any number of natural and unnatural causes, because the Terrans have a history of civil wars.
Sequel Hook: Dark Origin. Which is notable due to the level being a unlockable secret. Unless you finished the previous mission within a certain amount of time, the player would never learn about the plot.
Stuff Blowing Up: Everything explodes. This is most obvious with the zerg, in that killing their living buildings results in the building splattering spectactularly in a shower of blood.
Suspiciously Small Army: Rampant, in quite a few missions your enemies have very small armies, or at least small armies that you see. The later missions have larger bases with more troops, but you're still not going to be seeing enemy forces number in the thousands like you would expect from an actual army.
Tactical Rock-Paper-Scissors: Exaggerated. In addition to some units only being able to hit airborne or ground-going enemies, attack damage gets boosted or blunted depending on the opposing unit's physical size (small vs large); the sequel also added bonuses against unit composition (biological vs armored); and, always, lots of small cheap units can easily gang up on a large expensive one. The end result is a tangled web of counters, with each unit being specifically strong against several others and being weak to several more.
Themed Cursor: A sonar-like thing whose color changes depending on the alignment of whatever you're hovering it over. Green, yellow and red are friendly, neutral and enemies.
Turned Against Their Masters: Both the protoss and the zerg, against the Xel'Naga; the protoss merely shooed them away from their world, while the zerg killed most of them. The Protoss rebellion was just as violent as the Zerg's was. The only difference is the Zerg were all working towards assimilation of the Xel'Naga, and the Protoss were just killing anything that moved, including themselves. A good number of Xel'Naga were killed during the Protoss uprising.
Unobtainium: Neosteel, Khaydarin crystals and both Vespene Gas and "minerals".
Vestigial Empire: The Protoss empire, apparently even before the invasion of Aiur.
Walk It Off: Any Zerg unit or building slowly regenerates health. Protoss also slowly recharge their shields over time, which can make up between half to about ninty percent of their total effective health.
Weak Turret Gun: Encountered frequently in installation missions.
With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Tends to happen to humans with high psi levels if not restrained quickly. The novels also provide this in device form, which blocks any attempts at mind reading at the cost of the user going slowly mental if it's used for more than a couple of hours. Which happens to both characters that had been using them for selfish reasons.
Sector" of space, tens of thousands of light years distant from Earth, the story unfolds between three playable races. The Terrans, human beings descended from outcasts, criminals and political dissidents
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