Pre-Release
- Way back in the days of the original StarCraft, when using the map editor, there was an unused Protoss hero unit called Tassadar/Zeratul, the hero version of the Archon
- We know that it is possible for a High Templar and a Dark Templar to merge into an Archon
- One of the scrapped units for SC2 was a Twilight Archon, then replaced by the generic Archon above
- All of this is Jossed. even the "spirit" of Tassadar turns out to be a Xel'naga, well, a good Xel'naga
- Jossed.
- The Deploy Fenix ability is quite similar to this. Although it's only a single character and it works on a timer rather than a revive mechanic, you can only have one and it's a unique unit.
- Confirmed: You do control the Zerg in the last epilogue mission. You also control the Terrans in the mission prior to that one.
- Semi-confirmed: The Tassadar from Echoes of the Future is indeed fake. It's a Xel'Naga named Ouros. However, Amon is very real.
- Jossed. Niadra doesn't even appear at all.
- Seems to be Jossed as of Whispers of Oblivion, where Kerrigan's forces use the same units no matter what you chose on your playthrough
- They ended up using the most popular selections for Kerrigan's abilities and everyone's selections during the Epilogue.
- Considering the Protoss still hate the zerg, the zerg are still on an unending quest to assimilate everything they can to evolve to new levels of power and terrans are still humans and therefore power hungry backstabbing assholes, they could resolve every plot thread and still continue the story with no problems in drumming up new conflict. Hell, they've already set up the United Earth Directorate to return in the near future.
- Shockingly not, while there is obviously still potential, most of the long running plot threads are resolved.
- He's moved from primary protagonist to the mentor - a role often associated with death.
- confirmed, he dies by an Amon-possessed Artanis' psiblades.
- He's helped Kerrigan, practically Enemy Number 1 of the Protoss.
- Not a contributing factor in his demise.
- In the one of the last scenes of the trailer, he says, somberly 'My life... for Auir', indicating he is hesitant about doing something, but ultimately deciding his life is a cost worth paying to do it.
- Severing Artanis' nerve cords to free him from Amon's corruption of the Khala was Zeratul's goal, and it did cost him his life.
- It looks like Artanis is wearing his blade.
- Definitely is
- This could be those Shadow Corps guys that appear in the crashing space station level.
- Appears to be confirmed by the short story "Sector Six," though he's not controlling them directly — that's the hybrids' job.
- Sort of. Moebius Corps are an Amon-controlled faction.
- He represents the light templars, she represents the dark. While the most technologically advanced, the Protoss are also socially backward next to Terrans, still living in tribes and clans. A union between the two could bring the two main divisions of the Protoss closer together.
- Jossed. There's no mention of marriage at all.
- It would fit in with his "Darth Vader" aesthetic, explain who her father is, and might explain who trained her as a warrior, as we haven't seen many dark templar females.
- Vorazun is Raszagal's daughter.
- There's no indication of who her father was. And Zeratul and Raszagal were close, before he was forced to kill her.
- Vorazun is Raszagal's daughter.
- By now, the Protoss known that Kerrigan (as the Overmind-infested original Queen of Blades, not her free-willed primal Queen of Blades form) mindwashed Raszagal, leaving the Dark Templar matriarch with only one line spoken of her own free will in the entire game, just after Zeratul had to put her down (she was mortally wounded, but had a last line). It's not too hard to see where this may go.
- Jossed. The two never met.
- Just like Kerrigan had to access the Primal Power, the Protoss protagonist will have to use the ultimate power his race is capable of.
- Confirmed. In one mission, Vorazun stated that Artanis was becoming a dark templar.
- Because that would be a great throw back. Could be subverted or averted, depending if Amon has a huge final form. Zeratul could also warp in and get Artanis out of the Spear before impact. Or Zeratul would be the one doing the sacrificing.
- Jossed.
- Former Terran forces that worked with Narud when experimenting upon the Hybrid. The survivors are now just working for his benefactor.
- Former Dominion soldiers after Mengsk's defeat. Since many of the soldiers, notably Marines, were brainwashed into loyal soldiers of Mengsk, they were left leaderless after he fell. This opened the opportunity for Amon to offer service under a higher power.
- Other Terrans outside the Dominion. Come on, the Terrans are NOT limited to the Dominion (Umoja and Moria for example). And there appears to be a planet not recognized before that serves as their HQ.
- An extremist bunch of UED Remnants.
- Mostly jossed. The Shadow Corps were their name in development, they're the Moebius Corps, Brainwashed and Crazy Moebius soldiers used by Amon, although they were originally under Narud's employ and were corrupted later.
- I know this is supposed to be a reference to... something. But I can't figure out what. Anyone wanna clarify?
- Jossed, obviously.
- Hmmm... where have I seen that before?.
- It will be Twilight of the Gods all over again, I think.
- Semi-confirmed. There is such a mission, but it's the penultimate one.
- Only Kerrigan does, and there's not much fusion to be done with yourself.
- Johnny is never mentioned - not saying that he couldn't show up as a ghost, but there's also a chance he's long dead, one of the many faceless ghosts you murdered in the Terran/Zerg campaigns
Post-release
If their tech improves fast enough they might actually be able to outpace Amon as he tries to regain power and might be able to kill him without any Xel'Naga help at all.
- Has Kerrigan come back superficially in her old form, now that her job is done, and now can spend some proper quality time with Jim?
- Sarah's now a Physical God. Who can stop her if she wants to put on a human disguise and take breaks off her world building?
- Duran/Narud took human form for quite a long time with absolutely no ill effect. Why shouldn't Sarah be able to?
- Has Kerrigan come to Ascend Jim?
- His body is very likely not suitable for Ascension.
- And he has no psionic potential. He'll likely just live out his life in full with the woman he loves
- Has Jim been on the booze again?
- Doubt it, despite booze appearing in the scene, Raynor never even makes a move for it - it's a stark contrast to the opening of Wings of Liberty.
- Or, in what I think is the actual ending... Jim has drunk himself to death and the last thing he sees is an hallucination of the love of his life come to claim him?
- He "was never heard from again". You'll think that if he passed away, someone will find the body.
- And it's not like the bar was never searched when he went missing, his badge was found, but his body was gone. He's very likely on one of Sarah's re-seeded planets with her.
Much of the Klingon Promotion like parts of their culture came from Amon, and would have supported a society ready to fight. Contact with the other protoss would have shown them another way to operate, and with no Amon, and fewer/smaller conflicts, those parts of the culture will have no purpose and disappear.
Since Amon is dead, there's no longer anything inherently dangerous about it. The current generation of Protoss won't be able to reform it, but there's no reason the next generation born with intact neural cords can't do it.
- Even better, just bring in some dominion medics to healing beam them back.
Use this WMG place to guess who else might appear in that DLC aside of the obvious ones (Nova and some new, original Ghosts).
- Gabriel Tosh
- Niadra
- Alarak (Hey, he's wandering the verse, he might even bump to Nova while wandering)
- Confirmed! Alarak is back in the 2nd pack.
- Lt. Morales (Sgt. Hammer already made the transition as a Canon Immigrant, and likewise, Stukov still hinted that UED might return. Maybe Morales would be one of the UED reps...)
- Stukov himself (Given his warnings of the UED's eventual return, he'd have a vested interest in not letting the Brood War repeat again.)
And it will take place in a new region of space where the Terrans, Protoss, and Zerg are expanding to. The singleplayer campaign could even have you playing as a sort of hybrid of the three factions instead of a separate campaign for each one (Provided Blizzard can think of a way to do so reasonably).
To preserve some sort of separate culture, the Tal'darim will keep some form of this ritual. However, instead of the loser dying, they will simply be demoted to some lower position. The fighting among allies will be replaced by some other kind of competition, based on the combatant's role in society (Warriors would fight, builders/engineers would build something, etc.) with psionic support intact.
Kerigan turned into a "perfect" looking human when she became Xel'naga. By analogy, the species the formed this generation of Xel'naga was a "perfect"/beautiful form of whatever the psionically powerful species was in the past form, which apparently was a tentacled creature of some sort. If Protoss had actually become the next Xel'naga, the next forms would perhaps have looked like the tassadar vision.
The overmind may or may not have had some idea of what was going to happen, but the vision shown to Zeratul was from Ouros. Ouros has apparently been following events in the Koprulu sector somewhat closely, and as a powerful godlike Xel'naga with a lot of time to observe, has the capability to see ahead. The timeline:
The terran campaign plays out about as normal, but with Kerrigan dying at the end. (Maybe Raynor let Tychus shoot her, maybe he did so himself, maybe some dominion soldiers did it, maybe Raynor spent less effort protecting her, etc.)
With kerrigan dead, no one is able to unify the swarm, leaving Hybrids to be bred, than go to individual brood mothers, kill them, and take over individual broods. In this way, Amon gains control of the entire swarm, not just the Aiur zerg. In addition, Kerrigan was not around to destroy Skygeirr and kill Narud/Duran, allowing him(her? it?) to assist in controlling the swarm.
Under the control or Amon, the swarm attacks Korhal, possibly supported by the Taldarim and/or Shadow Corps. Unlike Kerrigan, Amon does not wis to simply kill Mengsk and leave, instead, he kills all humans in the sector. In addition, Amon's forces capture the Keystone.
Artanis starts the invasion of Aiur, as planned, but the invasion either takes place a bit before or a bit after in does in the game's timeline (Artanis may have expected interference from Kerrigan in the invasion, the news of her death and changes in events would change the invasion's timeline). Amon corrupts the Khala as he did in Legacy of the Void, but due to butterfly effects, a different collection of people is saved by nerve cord severing. The spear of Adun may or may not get activated, however, with no Keystone to get, the protoss wouldn't have any options but to try and fight Amon until thinking of some other plan. In control of the entire swarm, Amon would be able to seek out the protoss more effectively, eventually forcing them back to Shakuras or another dark world. Here, the protoss would fight their last stand and lose.
Because Amon would have the zerg to use, the khalai protoss would be saved to make hybrids and build a better body, rather than being used in combat. The protoss would also know that there were survivors from outside the sector, and would have a reason to preserve their story in what looks like the end of the universe.
Now you might be asking... "but isn't he dead?". Yes, he's still pretty much dead. However, for as many oppositions of his Dominion, he would have a good bunch of supporter. And seeing that he's also an excellent planner, he would have gathered his hidden supporters and implant them with a backup plan: They will continue where he left off should he die, meaning that Dominion and the world should be his and his alone. He might either upload his consciousness to a backup body or sorts, or just use holograms to command the Defenders. The time to act just happens to be during the Nova Covert Ops, as a Dominion under Valerian wouldn't fit with Arcturus' vision so the Defenders would use any means to restore the old Arcturus order.
And where does this link? At the final part of the 1st plan, Nova found out that... the Defender of Man is using the same modus operandi Arcturus used to topple the Confederacy, such as using psi-emitters to swarm a planet with Zergs when there's living people in there, in order to defame the current Dominion under Valerian so they will join the Defender of Man... much like Arcturus did with the Sons of Korhal.
With Abathur being added as the third Zerg commander, the Terrans remain the only faction with (so far) only two commanders. Nova would be a possibility, seeing as how both Raynor and Swann lack Ghosts/Spectres, and how the Terrans only have male commanders.
- Confirmed. Nova is now the third Terran co-op commander.
- Rather than ascend Raynor, maybe Kerrigan will try to have kids with him. Said kids could be a new generation of Xel'naga.
Swann is Mech + Macro play — his units are all Factory or Starport-based, he compensates for a lack of Barracks units or Bunkers with powerful defensive turrets and his upper-level abilities include multiple SCVs building a building faster together and smushing the Tech Lab and Reactor together — two Boring, but Practical upgrades that reward careful investments and knowing when to cash them in.
The Horners are Sky Terran + Micro play — all of Matt's units are Starport units, and Mira's stand-in for the Barracks and Factory is an air unit unto itself. Also, the air units are powerful, significant investments while the ground units are expendable Cannon Fodder, with a bunch of micro-heavy gimmicks to keep them competitive.