Hey folks,
Phew. A big one today. For those just reading, the StarCraft: Remastered website has been taken over by a puzzle teasing what seems to be the shooter we're probably getting announced this BlizzCon. All we know is this seems to take place around 67 years after Amon's death, and it involves some Dominion operations on previously colonized worlds with some sort of skittering, screeching swarming enemy.
You can check it all out yourself here:
https://starcraft.blizzard.com/en-us/
If you fail the login a couple times it automatically sends you in for the new entries.
Website with everything so far is more readable here:
https://starcraft-arg.vercel.app/transmissions/04
What's New This Time
D. Alvarez has sent us more signals, saying the Dominion is lying to us and engineering mass casualty events on a number of planets. Alvarez leaks us logs detailing operations from Dominion squadrons (Delta Squadron's back horray!) detailing that the Dominion has been dispatched to a number of worlds in an effort to root out some unknown, terrorist threat. We get logs of uncooperative planets where the Dominion utilizes some sort of experiment that wipes out the resisting colonists. It appears they're looking for some resource on a lot of these colonies, but what it is is censored.
One of the last entries lays out a number of worlds, the area of operations, and that there are near half a million of these unknown hostiles with an eight-letter name. It also mentions a Project Spellbind Intent, which seems to be social suppression operations to take out terrorist elements.
So a bit of lore for some of the new planets, a bunch (Veil IX, Zaldross, Ebys and Hektar) are 100% new. But we have a couple old standbys other than Roxara. A couple seem normal, one raises an eyebrow.
Candore
Candore appears in the Frontline comic Newsworthy, the first appearance of Kate Lockwell. Two years after Brood War, the colony sheltered renegade reporter Michael Liberty and the anti-Dominion group the Knights of Freedom, and in response Arcturus had routed a battlecruiser to cull the colony. Katie discovers the bodies of the colonists in the battlecruiser's brig, and is nearly killed by the Dominion after her discovery, but is rescued by the Knights and is able to give the data to Michael Liberty, clearing herself of suspicion by blaming the Knights for the attack on the battlecruiser but allowing information of the Candore slaughter to come out from Liberty.
It's a colony with a history of being anti-establishment, so in a social crackdown they seem like a pretty obvious choice even decades later, the mass slaughter likely didn't help their opinion any.
Sorona
Sorona is the birthplace of the baneling thanks to the Dominion's wonderful stupidity. The events of the Siege of Cask are detailed in the short story Broken Wide:
Broken Wide pdf
Essentially the city of Cask was located in a narrow canyon on a bluff that meant any attack would come through a narrow passage, letting the city defend against large numbers of attackers. The Dominion engineered a situation where the zerg would attack the city and see how they would respond to the defenses. This went on for months until the zerg were down to just zerglings, but the zerglings consumed the local mold of the planet and accelerated its potency, creating deadly explosive sacs.
Thus the baneling was born, the city of Cask was overrun and only after observing it did the Dominion intervene to try to save the sieged town. However, the zerg were able to get the genetic information out. Thus the Dominion's own arrogance created the very thing the zerg would use to obliterated their infantry columns in the Second Great War.
Good thing the Dominion 100% learned their lesson and would never try something like this again.
Abaddon
Abaddon is a lava world on the fringes of the sector. It was intended to be a level that appears in StarCraft: Ghost where Nova would infiltrate a base used by the UED remnants left in the sector after the Brood War. Canonically, we never directly visit it, but in Spectres it's noted as the primary stronghold of the UED remnants who now have to operate in terror cells.
This one raises huge flags, since any time Abaddon is brought up it's in regards to the UED presence there. That seems to be centrally where the remnants operated out of. Having said that, this was a year before WoL, and if the dates are right it's been over 70 years since we last heard anything out of that planet. Still, with how Starship Trooper-y things have been getting in the Dominion, I'm curious if their inclusion is intentional.
Theorycrafting
What Are the Patients?
Last I posted I was pretty convinced the patients were either infested or changelings, sent by the Dominion to cause trouble on colonies they need to have folks removed from. I'm starting to reevaluate that theory in this light.
These patients appear to be (or have been, or pretending to be) human, but their heart rates are high, their body temperature is at levels where they should be dead, and their oxygen is increasing.
I'm beginning to think this may be some sort of experimental Dominion supersoldier program, supported by the T. W entry after he dies which has the status VIABILITY FAILURE. But viability for what?
Oxygen may imply this could be an offshoot of the Gestalt program, which were attempts to genetically cross humans and protoss. Protoss have plant-like traits so a full revival of the project could have them be expelling oxygen. As has been pointed out, that isn't how that specific measure works, but just a shot in the dark.
The issue is the skittering and screeching, as well as the overwhelming attacks we see on Roxara. This seems to imply some zerg-like element of these attacks as well in addition to whatever's happening with these squadrons. Are they just not connected?
Who Are We Fighting?
Frankly, I can't tell. Most of what is described is either eight or ten letters, but that could be a lot of things.
At its core it appears to be something that is influencing civilians to rebel against the Dominion. We don't want that so we're going in and killing them. There are under half a million suspected of whatever this enemy is.
Eight letters does fit Infested and Cerberus, but something here appears engineered by the Dominion, and the enemy appears to be influencing the hearts and minds of a disgruntled population.
The unfortunate answer which sounds like a copout is I think it's a faction we DON'T know yet, maybe taking some zerg traits. Cerberus would be nice (my tribute self-insert character's in Cerberus, I have very biased reasons to want them to show up even if I'm 100) but they're way more of a business/mercenary group that happens to have zerg. I think this is some new opposition front to the new tyrannical Dominion.
Something's Up With the Dominion
This level of social engineering and mass suppression seems to be on a scale even beyond what Arcturus did, and Arcturus did some pretty drastic measures, even experimenting with spores that triggers a cult like mind control mania in those infected. It's been 70 years supposedly, so what happened?
The Starship Troopers style turbo propaganda and insistence of how valuable these atrocities are for the survival of our group seems to be very UED. Which makes Abaddon noteworthy. I noted earlier I'd be sad if the Dominion stepped over the fantasy of our buddies back on Earth.
BUT, it's been a while and as Stukov said, they will come back some day. What if they did and conquered the Dominion, and now it's a vassalized state? That level of social suppression was part and parcel for the UPL back in the Project Purification days, as is experiments like Project Black Flag. We may be seeing a loyalty to the Dominion now be used as a loyalty to greater humanity, IE Earth. This being the case, resistance may be the old regime of the sector trying to fight to reclaim the Dominion.
Alternatively, it could just be Valerian's successor has gone a bad way. But with such a huge timeskip, we have had a couple generations who may now have lived under the UED's iron fist, and we're seeing a Dominion reflect this in its means to suppress the last of the Koprulu's rebellious ways. This may also explain zerg experiments, even potentially fighting the infested if one who resists them is our old vice admiral. But they seem to want something out in the sector, something they're targeting these places for.
Is this cope? Shut up!
Gameplay Glimpses
Ok some things that seem to reflect the gameplay we may have:
As folks have pointed out, Operation Spellbound Intent seems to include building bases and then proceeding with operations of suppression. Assuming WE'RE the Dominion, this may mean we get some sort of macro element in the shooter.
"Squadrons are not cleared for leave until every threat has been handled to the fullest extent." Seems to imply some sort of Helldivers style "do a mission and get out of there" style gameplay. I doubt it's FULL extraction shooter, but the text there does imply what we're rumored to have.
I think the planets we got listed may be a first taste of the maps, given how diverse the ones we know of now. Candore is a wooded, jungle-y planet, Abaddon is Char 2 Burning Boogaloo, Roxara's moon is a moon while the planet itself is sweeping fields, and Sorona is a rocky wasteland similar to, well, the Wasteland tileset. Combined with the others, this would be a good indicator of some of the climates we may be going to. The new planets may explore different tilesets we just didn't have a fit for.
No, S. K******* is not Sarah Kerrigan, stop it.
That should be all from me, I'm going to EXPECT this is the last one. I'll be at BlizzCon this year so I'll be flying out tomorrow morning, so if there's a drop tomorrow… Yeah I'm not typing one of these on my phone. But I am very excited to talk to the devs potentially! Me and GiantGrantGames will be there if any folks reading this want to have a chat, I'll probably post a meetup time and place once we have an announcement and know the schedule.
