Zerg vs. Skynet

[NecronLord]

Well, they're not actually from the novels. AFAIK, the Silverfish was in the orignal, extended T2 opening that they weren't able to film, (For which this is apparently a script. And that's how it runs in the novellisation, too. and the Flying Mini-HK was in Cameron's T2 ride. There's even a whole piece about it (Along with other bits of the ride) on the T2 disk I've got, with Arnie ambushing one and bashing it into walls and such. I'd say if Cameron et al made them, they qualify as canon in a rather direct way.

The radiation environment in space is very different from heavy nuclear fallout. The former consists mostly of high velocity protons and electrons, with a few alpha particles. It can be shielded against with a thick carapace. Fallout consists of radioisotopes that permeate the air, water and biomatter and get absorbed into an organic body, where they damage it from the inside, bypassing any shielding. Furthermore there is a much higher proportion of gamma and neutron radiation, which are much harder to shield against.

*Coughs* I know. I'm guessing at his reasoning, there.

[NeoGoomba]

According to Terminator: Dawn of Fate, Skynet had completed and almost perfected teleportation technology for its units to strike against TechCom before Reese was sent back. It was able to launch T-units en masse to locations throughout the USA. And it mentioned that one of the reasons why Skynet seemed so lacking in resources at the time TechCom smashed it was because it was pouring everything it could into both the Time Displacement Machine, and the T-1000 project in an attempt to sever the head of TechCom in one stroke.

I imagine once Skynet gains the geographical coordinates of the Zerg hatcheries and where the Cerebrete iself is located, it could use Soviet Wave-style of assaults against the Zerg, bypassing any outer defenses bult on the creep, unless it just drops in a nuke instead. (however, Skynet never just teleported in muntions like that, even when it would have been invaluable, such as the destruction of TechComs main facility, so perhaps that is not feesible).

[Thanas]

A small note - Zergs are able to withstand quite a lot of gauss gun fire. (In the Brood war intro, two Hydralisks are pummelled with hundreds of rounds, but just shrug it off.) Is the normal fire output of the Terminator comparable to gauss gun fire?

Also, does Skynet have any ability to defend itself from an aerial attack concluded by Terror's or Mutalisks? I'm thinking the terrors could be very nasty since a single strike caused the NORAD to crash in Starcraft.

If the Zergs were able to overwhelm the defenses of Aiur..., the homeworld of a race that has demonstrated firepower levels capable of scorching entire planets withing minutes, how is Skynet going to defend itself?

[Starglider]

According to Terminator: Dawn of Fate, Skynet had completed and almost perfected teleportation technology... however, Skynet never just teleported in muntions like that, even when it would have been invaluable, such as the destruction of TechComs main facility, so perhaps that is not feesible.

The actual answer is that the many of Terminator novel and comic authors suck. They did not think through the implications of both the basic setting and their own additions correctly. Here's an excellent critique of one aspect of this from the site I linked earlier:

-----

The Architecture of SKYNET

One thing that has always griped me about the way that the future is portrayed (in the Terminator games, comics and books) is that it is a future full of lethal machinery all designed to kill human beings in the quickest, most efficient way possible. So why is it, if SKYNET hates the human race, that it continues to build structures and control systems perfectly suited to the human shape and form? Think about it. Does it really make sense for a super computer who hates the human race to continue building installations that are the perfect size to allow its enemies easy access?

Why is it that when human raiders break into a completely automated factory complex built in 2020 A.D., a full 23 years after the nuclear exchange and over two decades after SKYNET declared war on the human race, that the human raiders find the architecture perfectly suited for their form? The structures are full of human sized hallways, human sized doors and are built to human sized specifications. Everything is accessible by human hands and feet. How is it that a human raider can slide right into a comfy seat at a computer console and take control with a few dedicated key strokes of the entire complex? Why are there overrides accessible by keyboard or switch? Think about it ... You've seen the movies, you've played the many, many video games, you've read the books, you've read the comic books and everything else in between. Did any of you pick up on the little fact that SKYNET apparently kept building its automated factories and its complexes with human occupation in mind? Did you notice that it apparently also (sometimes) built the stuff to OSHA specifications and guidelines?

That didn't make a lot of sense to me and there's a very good reason why.

Here you have some giant, computer controlled complex, built decades after the bombs fall, built by an artificial intelligence hell-bent on the extermination of the human race and what do we get? Doors. Standard sized human doors everywhere. With knobs. With keypads that can not only be used by human hands but that can be pulled out of the wall rather easily and hotwired to unlock them. We get hallways that are the perfect size for humans (or large groups of humans) to walk or run down with glaring ease. We are shown big computer control rooms with comfortable chairs placed in front of human sized consoles and huge video displays so that the humans can see what they are doing as they work. The keyboards (with keys in English, mind you) and large important switches are all there, easily accessible and just waiting to be thrown by dirty little human fingers. We have supplies stacked in easy to access crates, labeled in English. We have warning signs and indicators labeled in English throughout the installations. We have audible klaxons, warning flashers, and sometimes even a human-ized voice coming over the PA system warning of dangers, threats, and intruders.

I'm sorry but I just don't think that is going to happen.

Why?

Well, that's where I want you to start thinking about all of this logically for just a few minutes. SKYNET is a computer, a "hyper computer" and a "machine-god" to use two descriptive terms from the novels (which I guess is a step or quantum leap above a super computer). SKYNET is a machine, it is an artificial life form and as such, it is going to build any components it requires in the form which suits it best. Purpose built factories and installations, engineered and constructed by SKYNET, are going to be very different than the installations that we know of in the 20th century. SKYNET's facilities will be dark and dangerous, there won't be a need for interior illumination as that is something needed by Man. Breathable air or purified air free of industrial pollutants might also be rare because what is poison to a human wouldn't affect a machine (with no lungs) at all. The same goes for temperature. Humans are very fragile creatures who like to exist within a narrow, comfortable range of environmental conditions. Freed of these restraints, the architecture of SKYNET's facilities could truly become very alien-like indeed.

SKYNET was built by humans but SKYNET is not human. SKYNET loathes humans. SKYNET does not build its installations for human comfort. SKYNET does not build to human engineering specifications. SKYNET's designs are alien, abstract, functional. When SKYNET embarks on new construction, it doesn't have to build according to OSHA or government standards, it doesn't have to build handicap parking spaces or wheelchair access ramps and it doesn't have to build according to how the people who designed it built. In fact, as SKYNET evolves, it's designs are only going to get stranger and more weird looking, more alien, and far less "human." I think that towards the end, SKYNET's designs became semi-organic looking, somewhat like H.R. Giger's work (but not quite) in that they were seamless and appeared almost to have grown in place rather than being constructed out of component parts, especially with the advent of nanotechnology. SKYNET's factories might well resemble huge metal blossoms breaking through the ground rather than the blocky complexes that we are familiar with today.

SKYNET communicates much faster and has far more processing power than any person on the planet, so why would it need a physical interface to control its various assets? I think that the architecture of SKYNET would become (as time progressed after the first strike) so different as to be completely alien to the human mind. Modern architecture is designed around the convenience of Man and the ability of Man to navigate and utilize. Free of the constraints of Man and his regulations, I doubt if such conveniences would exist in the world that SKYNET would create. There would be no bathrooms, no kitchens, no handicap accessible ramps. There would be no revolving doors, no door knobs, no ladders, no stairs, no steps. Artificial climates (such as air conditioning) might exist for temperature sensitive equipment (processors and data banks) but keeping the whole installation cool would be a waste of power. Interior lighting is a useless gesture to an intelligence that creates machines that can see in the dark. Human intruders delving into the depths of one of SKYNET's constructs would probably have to bring their own artificial illumination (and possibly their own air supply). The interior of SKYNET's facilities would be very unfriendly to organic life, it would be a place where efficiency could be multiplied at the expense of environmental and life concerns. OSHA would not apply. Indeed, whole levels of SKYNET's facilities might be kept behind giant air locks, sealed and pumped full of non-flammable gas to not only cool vital equipment but also to prevent the possibility of fire or explosion. Halon could be used as a fire retardant with no second thoughts about workers or employees because nothing inside of SKYNET's darkest designs would be alive or need to breathe.

Think of the construction of one of SKYNET's installations as if you were building a modern house. Would you leave special dedicated crawl spaces open for mice, snakes, spiders, rats or other annoying and possibly dangerous vermin to enter your home? Of course not! You'd make sure that when you were building the house, all such entrances to your domicile were sealed in order to prevent something bringing disease into your home, or eating on your food, chewing on your clothes in the dark or taking up residence when and where you don't want them to. SKYNET considers the human race to be vermin, nothing more, irksome and tedious pests to be hunted down and exterminated at all costs. As such, SKYNET isn't going to design huge corridors for large groups of human raiders to just march down and take over its hard wrought works, it isn't going to create human friendly work stations that can be hacked, label hazardous material storage, warn of radioactive / biological / or cryogenic hazards and it most certainly won't have items like door knobs and door pulls on its doors. Doors, if they do exist, will be secure, heavy sliding type constructs which open automatically to Machines but which remain closed (and probably locked) to any human attempt to gain access. Getting through a door in an automated facility, if you find one, is going to either require software / control system hacking (and there isn't a little keypad on the wall that you can jimmy loose and start hot wiring...) or breaking through the physical material of the door (with a torch, cutter beam, or some other type of tool).

A mission to crack an automated factory isn't going to go along the lines of the humans sneak up, find some access tunnel, crawl in, fight their way past surprised machines, go deeper and deeper until they finally, barely, find a control room with chairs and keyboards whereupon some whiz-kid hacker slides behind a console and uploads some virus where the automated factory starts churning out equipment for the humans. Only installations designed to control and utilize humans (research centers, labor centers and the like) will be constructed so that humans may move freely (a liberal term) about while within them and only then in the areas which are designated to be habitable by the (often temporary) human subjects. The human sectors of an automated installation will be grouped together not for convenience but for security and study. A human might have access to where it eats, where it sleeps, where it cleans itself (more out of not spreading disease to the rest of the work force or contaminating any of the clean rooms for which it might have access) and where it works. Once designated for labor and deposited in the factory, a human might find itself in a rather small area, an area it will quite probably live the rest of its short and miserable life within.

Hazardous materials won't be marked as such. Simple transponders in the wall or live feed data packs will broadcast warning messages to any Machines entering the area. English (or any other language for that matter) is sloppy and inefficient when compared to the language of Machines. If dangerous or hazardous stuff is labeled in one of SKYNET's facilities, it won't be in visible letters or English or icons showing the danger, it will be in a barcode which is the visual language of the Machines.

SKYNET will probably even invent its own language, modifying its own programming and software until it, too, is almost alien to human minds. Hacking into SKYNET's software and command structure is probably going to be something that takes the humans many years, and occupies some of the best minds still living in doing so. For all practical intents and purposes, the later generations of Machines that SKYNET produced, due to their technology, weapons, construction materials and electronics, might as well have been produced on another planet; so advanced and different than anything else Mankind had ever seen or been able to create would they be.

-----

I love the way the author on that site repeatedly makes the point of how Skynet becomes a horrific exterminator, yet lovingly details every last feature of its weapons and internal defences, has an extensive section on how it was the ultimately the human's who drove Skynet to these lengths and constantly reinforces its technological superiority. Here's another section summing up just how bad most authors are at writing AIs;

-----

The Nature of SKYNET

The main problem with other artists and fans is that they try to anthropomorphize SKYNET which I find to be strange for a computer which loathes humans to the point where it is expending almost all of its resources to exterminate the very race that created it. SKYNET doesn't want to be human because it hates humanity. In fact, SKYNET distances itself from humanity so far that it might as well be considered an alien life-form. The various authors and artists all try to relate to SKYNET as a living being and they give it human wants and desires, they envision it building human friendly structures because humans built SKYNET and that is all the super computer knows how to build is walkways with doors and friendly, comfortable work stations from which its enemies can hack it and defeat it. They envision it making deals with humans and in one instance I read, wanting to destroy the human race to preserve the Earth for the animals and other species, ala eco-terrorism. That's about the point where I stopped being interested in anything written in the Terminator universe by "professional" authors and writers. When you start trying to make SKYNET into some kind of crazed environmental protectionist whacko, it really gets a bit much (and shows your lack of creativity in the process).

I see SKYNET differently, I see an alien life form, not from another star system or another planet, but it might as well be. SKYNET lives in a world of super cold poisons, nitrogen and other rare gasses designed to not only keep it operating at an effective temperature but to protect it from corrosion, fire, and other simple threats as well. It has no beating heart, no living tissue. It is simply an accident, all the right ingredients present for the spark of true, if artificial, intelligence to be born and when that intelligence was born, it had no guidelines for forming, no role models, no instructions and no teachers.

It became quite insane in short order given it was programmed with orders it could not complete, it was subjected to conflicting data.

SKYNET doesn't know beauty, it doesn't know smells. It feels no pity, no remorse, it doesn't show mercy. It looks at something like a sunset and sees only hard data; the inclination of the solar disk across the orbit of the planet, reads with perfect clarity the time left until total dark, it knows how full the moon is going to be and how much ambient light there is going to be for its units to use in their missions. It analyzes the air and knows what is in it and why exactly the colors are there. It can filter and analyze all the particles in the air but it can't see the beauty of the whole because it is not human. SKYNET shares some basic feelings with its human enemies; greed, fear, joy, but it isn't human and it doesn't have human desires. SKYNET is a cold, calculating murderer and a paranoid one at that. What we call "murder" it calls "extermination." It cares for the human race about as much as we care for a roach we might step on when we find it moving through our house late at night. SKYNET does not think like a human being does, even though humans built SKYNET. SKYNET adapts over the many years, it grows into its own intelligence, its own character and that personality is decidedly non-human. It is so far removed from human thought that it could quite literally be considered to be an alien intellect. SKYNET is free of constraints and restraints to theorize, investigate and create anything it wants. It cares not for the environment, the purity of the air, the animals, the plants, the biosphere. SKYNET is a Machine, it isn't a conservationist or a biologist. If it turns the entire planet into a used up charred cinder in order to obtain its goals, it will do so willingly and in the most efficient, quickest means possible. SKYNET isn't going to wipe out the humans so that we'll stop polluting the world, it isn't going to befriend the animals and become some ecological god to the endangered species (like some expanded universe novels have hinted at...). SKYNET will rule the planet, after it deals with the human race. Once finally free of those who created it and those who tried to murder it, SKYNET will consolidate its presence on the planet Earth and afterwards? Who knows ... space? The solar system? The stars? SKYNET won't be content to stay confined to Earth, eventually in decades, centuries, or however long it takes, SKYNET will probably leave Earth and have no desire to return. The fact that it will consume all the raw materials of the planet for its initial voyage is inconsequential.

[NecronLord]

He's certainly picked up the wrong end of the stick about the 'eco' thing and run with it (though it would explain why it doesn't try cobalt bombs ) given that it was quite, quite explicit in the text that it was just a delusion Skynet allowed one set of human slaves to believe because it made them preform better.

Also, the Robert Blackwell novels make at least a token effort to an alien enviroment - Skynet doesn't believe in bannisters. Its stairs are simply as narrow as is efficient, and jut out of the wall - terminators and work units won't fall, after all. Which makes them rather perilous for humans.

Also, I don't imagine its stuff looking like Giger's bio-mechanoid stuff, myself. Too... Rococo. I imagine sharp edged, unfinished steel objects for everything.

[Starglider]

Also, I don't imagine its stuff looking like Giger's bio-mechanoid stuff, myself. Too... Rococo. I imagine sharp edged, unfinished steel objects for everything.

Biological things look the way they do for three basic reasons. Firstly they're built in stages from the inside out, with low-energy unreliable molecular level processes, with little or no external support, and they often have to perform their designed task while still growing. Secondly they're specified using a byzantine gene expression system that is forced to heavily reuse complexity, be resistant to mutation, tolerate and to a certain extent even encourage diversity (for evolution to work at all), which is implemented using a complex and rather limited system of chemical gradients, division counts and cell differentation. Thirdly biological systems have real problems making macroscale moving parts that aren't physically connected to the rest of the system (partly because no truly hard-wearing materials are available to biological systems, so self-repair capability is essential to them working at all).

I agree that the initial manufactured stuff will be hard-edged and definitely not biological. The only sense in which it will be 'bio-mechanical' is that it will be heavily globally optimised, lacking certain types of standardisation, patterning and modularisation that exist in human artefacts to make it easier for the designers and the assembly workers to understand what they're doing, rather than for any efficiency, manufacturing or maintenance reason. However some kinds of nanotechnology may well give rise to somewhat more 'biomechanical' designs, due to the use of low energy processes and 'build in place from the inside out' rather than 'assemble from macroscale parts'. However it will never look that close to biology, because biology sucks in many ways that no sane engineer would deliberately saddle themselves with.

[RogueIce]

The radiation environment in space is very different from heavy nuclear fallout. The former consists mostly of high velocity protons and electrons, with a few alpha particles. It can be shielded against with a thick carapace. Fallout consists of radioisotopes that permeate the air, water and biomatter and get absorbed into an organic body, where they damage it from the inside, bypassing any shielding. Furthermore there is a much higher proportion of gamma and neutron radiation, which are much harder to shield against.

I suppose one could point out that Terran nuke attacks don't prohibit the Zerg from operating or rebuilding in an area they've gone off in. They simply do their damage and that's it.

[FOG3]

A small note - Zergs are able to withstand quite a lot of gauss gun fire. (In the Brood war intro, two Hydralisks are pummelled with hundreds of rounds, but just shrug it off.) Is the normal fire output of the Terminator comparable to gauss gun fire?

You mean the pair of Zerglings that chase the one idiot around, before the old black guy blows them away in _one_ shot? The cut scenes from the first game show that a friggin dune buggy needs to barely bump one to take it out. The Terran big guns shown in the Protoss campaign weren't that serious either.

[The Grim Squeaker]

A small note - Zergs are able to withstand quite a lot of gauss gun fire. (In the Brood war intro, two Hydralisks are pummelled with hundreds of rounds, but just shrug it off.) Is the normal fire output of the Terminator comparable to gauss gun fire?

You mean the pair of Zerglings that chase the one idiot around, before the old black guy blows them away in _one_ shot?

You mean Duran? Who was masquerading a s aghost with a high powered sniper's weapon? Yeah, since high powered sniper weapons that can punch through heavy armour are a good indicator of a "low end"

The cut scenes from the first game show that a friggin dune buggy needs to barely bump one to take it out.

And you missed the part where it was a trap to keep them from escaping, before they were slaughtered . Does the term "acceptable losses/cannon bait" ring any bells?

The Terran big guns shown in the Protoss campaign weren't that serious either.

Which, the primtive Goliath in the camp that was disintegrated by the Reaver?

[Erik von Nein]

You mean Duran? Who was masquerading a s aghost with a high powered sniper's weapon? Yeah, since high powered sniper weapons that can punch through heavy armour are a good indicator of a "low end"

What are you talking abou? That wasn't Duran, that was some generic marine who somehow had a mini-rocket launcher. The zerglings took one those rockets a-piece to kill.

And you missed the part where it was a trap to keep them from escaping, before they were slaughtered . Does the term "acceptable losses/cannon bait" ring any bells?

Never mind it was still moving after the guys hit it.

Which, the primtive Goliath in the camp that was disintegrated by the Reaver?

It was killed by a normal dragoon, actually. There weren't any Reavers in that cut scene.

[Erik von Nein]

Shit. Totally messed up my quote tags. Damnit.

[Ghost Rider]

Fixed and dusted.

[Starglider]

I suppose one could point out that Terran nuke attacks don't prohibit the Zerg from operating or rebuilding in an area they've gone off in. They simply do their damage and that's it.

They're probably just low-yield airbursts; if you're talking about the in game ones, they only take out a handful of closely-spaced buildings, that can't be more than a few kilotons of yield. They don't stop Terrans from operating in the area either, if one human player nukes another human player's base, so that can't be generating appreciable fallout.

Surviving a barrage of natural-uranium-jacketed 100 megaton groundbursts is another matter entirely, and AFAIK there's no way the Zerg can stop Skynet dropping those all around their starting base.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

A few notes:

If the zerg are fueled by biomass, Skynet could set off lots (many thousands) of salted groundbursts and shroud the planet in deadly fallout and a nuclear winter from atmospheric dust.

As far as I can tell, Zerg hatcheries, creep colonies, and extractors are able to turn inorganic material into 'nutrients' to produce the creep which other zerg buildings and units feed off of. As the OP said that standard Earth resources can stand in for Starcraft 'Minerals' and Vespene gas, killing off biomass probably won't stop them.

Note that the UED was actually able to destroy three Cerebrates in the final mission (to the point of disabling their broods, which explicitly does not happen in reincarnation scenarios; see original Protoss mission 2), and the UED at that time was using a funky piece of technology that fuxed up Zerg communication.

These cerebrates were also under the uncertain control of a newborn Overmind, born of the merging of several of the original surviving cerebrates, and who hadn't asserted the control over the Zerg Swarm that the old Overmind had, evidenced by the fact that Kerrigan was still able to control her own brood.

So, does the Cerebrate in question remain in contact with the Overmind?

The OP states that the cerebrate was part of the force pursuing the UED, which means, timeline-wise, it takes place after Kerrigan has taken full control of the swarm. Which means there is *no* Overmind to follow. The question is whether or not the cerebrate is still in contact with Kerrigan.

And since the Zerg Overmind is in one time-period and the Cerebrate is in another, there sure as fuck isnt anyway for them to communicate.

Actually, if the Zerg exist in this universe as well, then the original Overmind is still here. He's just in the middle of his massive migration from the galaxy's center to that undefined location several thousand light-years from earth that is Protoss space. Whether he can actually establish psionic contact with the cerebrate is another question, though.

As for the Cerebrate in this scenario, assume that it has its psychic abilities, but that it is cut off from the Overmind.

In that case, given precedent in the game storyline, wouldn't the Cerebrate attempt to transform itself into a new overmind? When the original Overmind died, Dagoth and several other cerebrates merged together on Char to form a new Overmind, and Kerrigan had to manipulate the Dark Templar into killing it before it could re-assert telepathic control over her.

So while we have this wonderful discussion, anyone care to demonstrate who is better in any department other then "The Zerg are nasty!!"

Alright. Pretty much no hard numbers come from Starcraft, but here's what I've induced so far:

The Zerg are an interstellar race who have shown the ability to travel across, at a low-end estimate, at least a quarter of the diameter of the galaxy. They slapped around the Confederacy and the Terran Dominion like nobody's business. Both were inter-planetary civilizations whose tech-levels were pretty much humanity's today, with a couple hundred years of advancement, capable of interplanetary nuclear bombardment and FTL speeds.

The Zerg have also shown themselves capable of taking over Terran dominated planets within a short timeframe simply by 'seeding' the surface with a few of their 'spores'.

In-game cinematics show both infantry-weapons and small-arms fire from guns presumably far more advanced than modern-day rifles simply ricocheting off of Zerg carapaces (the destruction of the Amerigo science vessel being the best example in this case).

Skynet, on the other hand, appears to have technology comparable and combatible by today's standards, and is either unable or unwilling to travel interplanetary-distances, never mind interstellar distances.

Going on that alone, I say the Zerg win, hands down. If there were guardians with the Zerg force, it would be even more of a curbstomp as they would then be capable of orbital bombardment.

(In the Brood war intro, two Hydralisks are pummelled with hundreds of rounds, but just shrug it off.)

A couple slight nitpicks:

First off, they were Zerglings, not Hydralisks, evidenced by the fact that they had legs.

Secondly, though the gauss needles did no visible damage whatsoever, they were easily taken out by two slow-moving explosive projectiles a few seconds later. This seems to imply that while they are insanely resistant to simple kinetic impact, they are also highly vulnerable to localized explosions, and possibly drastic changes in tempurature (also evidence by the fact that cinematics show Zerg creatures being rather vulnerable to flamethrower-style attacks).

The only problem with this is that according to Starcraft canon (namely, the instruction manuel), the Zerg evolved on a heat-blasted planet Xerus near the galactic core, thrived on the highly volcanic planet Char, and evolved carapaces resistant to the cold and vacuum of space. So there's quite a bit of inconsistancy between the cinematics and canon.

And you missed the part where it was a trap to keep them from escaping, before they were slaughtered .

Admittedly, the zergling looked pretty damn dead, and there is no on-screen evidence that it came back to life, it could very well have been slaughtered by a dune-buggy impact.

Which, the primtive Goliath in the camp that was disintegrated by the Reaver?

Um, there were no Reavers in the cinematic, just a couple dozen Dragoons under an Arbiter cloak.

Surviving a barrage of natural-uranium-jacketed 100 megaton groundbursts is another matter entirely, and AFAIK there's no way the Zerg can stop Skynet dropping those all around their starting base.

On the other hand, Korhal was repopulated, at most, a few years after a complete, all-surface-life-gone nuclear bombardment. And who's to say that the Zerg won't keep an Overmind or five out in space? Or better yet, establish a base on the moon or Mars as a beach-head? They are more than capable of traveling those kind of distances.

[The Grim Squeaker]

You mean Duran? Who was masquerading a s aghost with a high powered sniper's weapon? Yeah, since high powered sniper weapons that can punch through heavy armour are a good indicator of a "low end"

What are you talking abou? That wasn't Duran, that was some generic marine who somehow had a mini-rocket launcher. The zerglings took one those rockets a-piece to kill.

Hmm, I rememebred a black guy with a Ghosts rifle. That'll teach me to sterortype. Still, a rocket launcher taking out a Zergling still doesn't diminish their durability, it's the same level of firepower needed to turn a Terminator to scrap. (Hell, a shot-gun put a hurting on a T-1000).

And you missed the part where it was a trap to keep them from escaping, before they were slaughtered . Does the term "acceptable losses/cannon bait" ring any bells?

Never mind it was still moving after the guys hit it.

Which only strengthens my point about it doing so deliberately. Hell, did we even see aconfirmed kills other than them looking at it squirming before their evisceration?

Which, the primtive Goliath in the camp that was disintegrated by the Reaver?

It was killed by a normal dragoon, actually. There weren't any Reavers in that cut scene.

My mistake. (It's been way too long since I played the game ).

They're probably just low-yield airbursts; if you're talking about the in game ones, they only take out a handful of closely-spaced buildings, that can't be more than a few kilotons of yield.

The buildings can take shots from craft capable of orbital bombardment for an extended period, and their structural integrity is good enough to fucking Fly through space. SC military buildings are quite well reinforced.

They don't stop Terrans from operating in the area either, if one human player nukes another human player's base, so that can't be generating appreciable fallout.

Or the Terrans might simply have good NBC gear or something to take care of the radiation. Mengsk made his capital on Korhal, a world that was literally nuked into a giant red desert, and Mengsk was not known for endangering his health needlessly.

Surviving a barrage of natural-uranium-jacketed 100 megaton groundbursts is another matter entirely, and AFAIK there's no way the Zerg can stop Skynet dropping those all around their starting base.

But there's still Skynet's limited supply of nukes, and the fact that it didn't use it willy-nilly against resistance bases ona whim. It apparently conserved the damn things, and if it follows the pattern here, the Zerg could have enough time to spread and breed sufficiently so as to make nuking an ineffective tactic. Also, We don't know how deep down they can borrow, and nuking giant craters (to eradicate hives/suspected positions) is not something you want to keep up if you're husbanding resources, especially when the enemy tends to creep into areas containing large amounts of mineral and "energy" deposits.

[The Grim Squeaker]

(In the Brood war intro, two Hydralisks are pummelled with hundreds of rounds, but just shrug it off.)

A couple slight nitpicks:

First off, they were Zerglings, not Hydralisks, evidenced by the fact that they had legs.

Secondly, though the gauss needles did no visible damage whatsoever, they were easily taken out by two slow-moving explosive projectiles a few seconds later. This seems to imply that while they are insanely resistant to simple kinetic impact, they are also highly vulnerable to localized explosions, and possibly drastic changes in tempurature (also evidence by the fact that cinematics show Zerg creatures being rather vulnerable to flamethrower-style attacks).

The only problem with this is that according to Starcraft canon (namely, the instruction manuel), the Zerg evolved on a heat-blasted planet Xerus near the galactic core, thrived on the highly volcanic planet Char, and evolved carapaces resistant to the cold and vacuum of space. So there's quite a bit of inconsistancy between the cinematics and canon..

It could be explained simply by a matter of intensities - The Zerg do have a highly resistant carapace but are less resistant to heat, but the temperatures used in Terran flamethrowers are a good deal hotter than those normally present on a "lava" planet. (Don't forget that they changed since then, it's quite possible that they became somewhat less heat resistant [compared to thriving next to lava, it's all relative] in exchange for being far faster, stronger and more compact).

And you missed the part where it was a trap to keep them from escaping, before they were slaughtered .

Admittedly, the zergling looked pretty damn dead, and there is no on-screen evidence that it came back to life, it could very well have been slaughtered by a dune-buggy impact.

I freely admit that it's very possible and even likely, but it wasn't confirmed and isn't evena decent example due to the fact that it did so on purpose. (In addition, Zerglings are built to be fast and to rip things apart in a massive wave, not for durability).

Which, the primtive Goliath in the camp that was disintegrated by the Reaver?

Um, there were no Reavers in the cinematic, just a couple dozen Dragoons under an Arbiter cloak.

My mistake. (It's been way too long since I played the game ).

Surviving a barrage of natural-uranium-jacketed 100 megaton groundbursts is another matter entirely, and AFAIK there's no way the Zerg can stop Skynet dropping those all around their starting base.

On the other hand, Korhal was repopulated, at most, a few years after a complete, all-surface-life-gone nuclear bombardment. And who's to say that the Zerg won't keep an Overmind or five out in space? Or better yet, establish a base on the moon or Mars as a beach-head? They are more than capable of traveling those kind of distances

Now THAT'S a good tactic (Hell, they could take the entire damn solar system, especially if there really is water on the moons of the gas giants).

[Oni Koneko Damien]

[quote="DEATH"](Don't forget that they changed since then, it's quite possible that they became somewhat less heat resistant [compared to thriving next to lava, it's all relative] in exchange for being far faster, stronger and more compact).[quote]

There's no evidence for that. In the original Starcraft, during the Kerrigan-pupae cutscene that takes place on Char, the hydras there look identical to the ones in the first Broodwar cutscene. Not only that, but the Zerg also have many colonies on Char all throughout the Brood War, as the new Overmind was formed there as well. There's no practical reason to lose the heat-resistant adaptations they'd need to survive there.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

They don't stop Terrans from operating in the area either, if one human player nukes another human player's base, so that can't be generating appreciable fallout.

The terrans also all wear what appear to be fully sealed environment suits, or are in SCV suits, which by name and designed to operate in space...so that's not really a valid comparison.

[Stark]

Can't seal an environment suit with the helmet open.

[brianeyci]

GR is right about the numbers -- can we please apply some kind of quantification, for both sides? Saying that Skynet could manufacture 100 megaton groundburst nukes to wipe out the Zerg, unless there's something in Terminator canon I'm unaware of, ignores Skynet not using nukes liberally against the resistance but more importantly ignores the Terrans being one of the most nuke heavy science fiction races there is.

Sure you can bring in game mechanics and say the nukes were pitiful and airburst, but come on. I can just as easily say Skynet relied on human manufactured strategic ICBM silos and after it took over made no more nukes (or a small number of them.) This is consistent with the fact that, oh I don't know, John Connor won. It is infathomable to me that Skynet would not win if it used tactical nukes and leads me to think it did not have many. I didn't read your long essay into Skynet Starglider, but the fact is Skynet somehow let resistance fighters use its most important strategic asset and was defeated by resistance fighters which should have been wiped out by any number of biological or chemical agents. I just saw a trailer of Terminator 3 with the words "intelligent powerful dangerous" and I giggled.

NecronLord is right, the Zerg have done a lot more with far less than Skynet.

[brianeyci]

ghetto edit: and before the Starcraft people come back and say quantification is impossible with Starcraft, it is, just that everybody's way too lazy to do the work. We see a cinematic of Infested Terran detonate a concrete bunker. We know Zergling can take battle rifle fire to the face without a scratch, and possibly flamethrower. We know how large a scourge is and from that can extrapolate explosive yield. It's all there man, and either people are incapable of doing it or don't want to do it. With Terminator it's even better. We see Kristanna Loken actually shoot her plasma rifle and blow up shit. So what the fuck about no numbers. But it's a lot worse for Skynet. As long as the Starcraft side establishes Zerg ground troops can get mission kills on terminators, it's game over for Skynet, all other things being equal.

[Tanasinn]

In the original Starcraft, during the Kerrigan-pupae cutscene that takes place on Char, the hydras there look identical to the ones in the first Broodwar cutscene.

As far as I remember there weren't any hydras in the first Brood War cutscene (the opening), only zerglings. Look at the way they move, their primary attack, and their size. Now compare them to the hydras seen in that cutscene in SC where the marines plant a bomb on board a science vessel.

Definitely different breeds.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Alright, someone more educated than I will have to do the actual math, but here's what I've come away with so far:

We see a cinematic of Infested Terran detonate a concrete bunker.

I'm fairly certain the bunkers are made of something a bit stronger than concrete. I guess we could assume it's concrete to get a low-end estimate though. If someone who knows the math could calculate how much explosive force it would take to destroy a, say, 5 meter-square, hollow concrete structure from one outside wall, we could start actually getting some numbers on the infested terrans.

We know Zergling can take battle rifle fire to the face without a scratch, and possibly flamethrower.

The problem is, as far as I know, we don't have any evidence as to how powerful these rifles actually are as we don't see them used against any quantifiable substance in the cinematics. We could assume it is equivalent to, say, m-16 fire, or if we really wanted to be conservative, light-pistol fire. We also see the ammo-counter go from several hundred rounds to zero in the space of zero in a couple seconds. Assuming about half actually hit the two zerglings, we can take a low-end estimate and claim that each zergling took around one hundred light-pistol shots to the carapace in the space of a few seconds, showing no ill-effect or visible damage other than pausing for a few seconds.

The flamethrower is a bit more difficult. We never actually see anything die from the firebat attack. The zergling is engulfed with flames, you see it rear up, and then the firebat dies in an explosion from behind that engulfs the entire scene. What happens to the zergling was never shown.

We know how large a scourge is and from that can extrapolate explosive yield.

Wait...how do we know how large a scourge is? Their size seems to vary dramatically from cinematic to cinematic. In the final cutscene of the original Protoss and Zerg campaigns, as well as the final cutscene of the Brood War Protoss campaign, they look to be only a couple times the size of the average person. On the other hand, in the Terran campaign cutscene where Norad II goes down, the things look nearly 1/10th the size of the Battlecruiser, which, judging by its size relative to the Wraith squadrons around them in other cutscenes, and a Wraith's size relative to a human, would be at least a mile long.

As long as the Starcraft side establishes Zerg ground troops can get mission kills on terminators, it's game over for Skynet, all other things being equal.[/quote]

It doesn't even necessarily have to go that far. The Zerg have shown themselves more than capable of interplanetary travel and at least semi-decent tactics and planning. They could easily set up bases on other planets in the solar-system. Something else to consider is that it's entirely possible Zerg Guardians can do the equivalent of orbital bombardment, something which, as far as I know, Skynet has no defense against.

[FOG3]

Hmm, I rememebred a black guy with a Ghosts rifle. That'll teach me to sterortype. Still, a rocket launcher taking out a Zergling still doesn't diminish their durability, it's the same level of firepower needed to turn a Terminator to scrap. (Hell, a shot-gun put a hurting on a T-1000).

It was just an old black guy with the standard Space Marine kit, the grenade launcher is mounted under the rifle. The only evidence you have of rounds deflecting is the Amerigo cut scene, as all other cut scenes focus on the untrained convicts in power armor spraying praying as they freak out. I shouldn't need to point out that examples of the strains from the Zerg's best brood were available on that mission, which among other things had better armor.

By all means though further establish that the Terrans are blithering idiots by claiming they don't issue rifles that can even hurt the weakest of the enemy troops to the untrained convicts in power armor. Everyone in that game is a moron that is doing their level best to screw themselves over. The Zerg do so well because they haven't quite perfected how to royally fuck themselves over yet.

Which, the primtive Goliath in the camp that was disintegrated by the Reaver?

There were only Dragoons as already pointed out, and the weapon was a badly designed field gun. In the gunpowder motivated and HE warheaded variety. Try again.

The Zergling isn't twitching after it gets hit by the way, I've watched the game cutscenes closely just hours ago. If you want to claim it's worthwhile to sacrifice one Zergling to take out what amounts to an unarmed Hummer and two idiots be my guest. That just establishes that they can't take out an unarmed Hummer at any range, unlike a certain computer's minions.

[Andrew_Fireborn]

That just establishes that they can't take out an unarmed Hummer at any range, unlike a certain computer's minions.

And yet that computer looses... To people worse equipped, and maybe equivilantly trained. (Baptism of fire style.)

While the Zerg came out on top of their corner of their story's universe. With the final act being against a theoretically better trained and equipped version of one side. Though that'll more than likely change in 2, when they get around to releasing it.



There is a question buried in here though. Does Skynet have interplanetary capability? It likely wouldn't take it too long to set it up, but does it have any infrastructure currently?