Zerg population

[Omeganian]

However, if you take the cinematic in the context of the campaign, it almost certainly takes place on Char. If I recall correctly, that cut scene plays after the level in which the player character and Tassadar travel to Char in an attempt to find Zeratul and the other Dark Templar, lost there in a previous battle. The mission involves fighting one's way through a contingent of Zerg and infested Terrans (as well as part of General Duke's fleet), and bringing Tassadar and a few Zealots to the entrance of a Terran base at the rear of the main Zerg base. Its never really explained why there's a huge Terran facility on Char, or why Duke isn't perturbed by the Zerg forces overrunning it.

I think it is specified at the beginning of the cinematic (the one called Ambush) that it is on Char.

BTW, don't forget why the Xel'Naga chose the Zerg to experiment upon. The bugs can live just about anywhere.

The cinematic itself does not say it takes place on Char, but as Noble Ire said it just makes sense given its placement in the story. Although based on Blizzard's own artists, it's just a random scene they made before they knew about the campaign story so out of universe we know a bit more about it now.

I just installed the game and cheat jumped to the proper place. Says Char black on white (well, green on black actually). Almost all the cinematics specify the location at the beginning - but only the in-game copies.

[Guardsman Bass]

I guess, then, it is safe to assume that Char has a breathable atmosphere, at least part of the time. Why this is is anyone's guess, since the Blizzard website listed in the OP describes Char as having no indigenous life forms - perhaps the Terrans originally settling it used their technology to give it a breathable oxygen atmosphere. Liberty's Crusade describes Terrans using terraforming, but it is a non-canon source, so I wouldn't necessarily go off it.

It is a vast improvement on what things were originally, where Tiamat, the largest, most advanced, most powerful brood, personal vangaurd of the Overmind was made up of ... six million organisms, of all strains. There were broods which were measured in the tens of thousands.

Yeah, but as I mentioned, that passage is written from the perspective of "some Terran scientists" that "have attempted to document and classify a few of the larger Broods that have ransacked their colonies" (in contrast to the narrator after the 8th Terran mission in Starcraft original, which describes "billions of Zerg" being lured to Tarsonis). At the same time, it's not entirely consistent; some of the descriptions of the Broods seem to include information that would be unlikely for the Terran scientists to know, like the names of the dominating Cerebrates for these Broods.

[white_rabbit]

I mean they rely on it more than the Tyranids, who "merely" sow the rippers in the atmosphere and the known issue of Genestealer cults

Um, this isn't the case at all, the Nids utilise the biosphere of the planet in far more detail than this, from subverting and infecting the natural flora and fauna, to crust penetrating boreholes for their spore towers and hive structures. The 2nd edition codex describes quite clearly this sort of thing switching from a "tyranoforming" priority to combat when the invasion is threatened.

"rippers" are simply one aspect of this.

Zerg infesting a planet grow their army for the invasion and expansion there, rather than relying on the homegrown force only as auxiliaries or a "Fourth column"

Um, the Zerg tend to invade in vast swarms, exactly like the nids, the location of their infrastructure doesn't really make a difference, most of the nid forces are spawned in-situ around or on a planet, depending on the scenario. Only more potent types are kept in hibernation, i.e. "tens of thousands of tyranid warriors.....officers of the tyranid horde" are kept in hibernation aboard Hive ships.

Hell, these nid "auxiliaries" you are talking about have conquered planets before! Nid scout drones seed worlds with Gaunts, Lictors etc, or defeated invasions leave behind eggs/spores, and the worlds are devoured without even a hive fleet in orbit!

Consider the case of the infected Terran colonies, where the first thing the colonists knew was herds dissapearing, with by the time anyone discovered the Creep infesting the ground, it was usually around the time population centres were dissapearing and being eaten. (:"Liberty's Crusade"). As for adapting native lifeforms, we have the entire history of the Zerg, the examples of Infected Terrans, and, Ugh (Damn you for making me use this), the Dog-Zerg strain from "Shadow of the Xel-Naga" (KJA Starcraft book).

See above. I should also point out that the Rover-lisks aren't in the same situation as the terrans, since the roverlisks are manufactured by the zerg after one individual was taken over, whereas terrans are supposed to be "infected" guys who aren't mass produced.

This also reminds me that the Nids rip off other species all the time, they just do it in a more indepth fashion. They also infect and subvert technological constructs, from the Wraithbone constructs of the eldar, to Imperial Titans.

This is mostly quite obvious, I have the feeling you were just asking whether I thought the Zerg were better at biowarfare than the Biomass eating (But not using to anywhere near it's "weight") Tyranids. (I don't).

Every time you post about the Zerg and the Nids I get this feeling you don't really know what you are talking about for either race.

[Napoleon the Clown]

10 billion+ as a standing force. The Zerg seem to use up fairly little resources just to survive, but they'd still end up eating up a lot of what little Char has to offer in short order if Kerrigan simply let them explode too far. So while it doesn't seem like a lot, given the Zerg "reproductive" capacities, it's something that can be rationalized.


As far as not needing to breathe, their basic biological process may be one that can acquire everything from their food. Even if they do use oxygen as humans do, it may be that during the digestive process the needed O2 is stripped off to provide for the needs. There are examples of human populations that can thrive on less oxygen being present in their bloodstream than a typical human can function on, and the Zerg may be an extreme example of this, maybe even storing up large quantities of whatever their bodies use in place of oxygen, if it isn't oxygen that they use.

[Teleros]

Most areas of volcanic activity also release various toxic gases (to humans anyway) into the atmosphere - it's entirely possible that the Zerg use gases released this way - when you consider how long whales and such can hold their breaths I don't see why the zerg on Char couldn't be modified to either hold their breath a long time or utilise a different gas, or both.

[avatarxprime]

I just installed the game and cheat jumped to the proper place. Says Char black on white (well, green on black actually). Almost all the cinematics specify the location at the beginning - but only the in-game copies.

That's odd. I admit that I found it weird that only the Terran cinematics I saw on youtube gave locations in that black and green intro to the scene itself while all the Zerg and Protoss ones had it absent. Oh well, good to know that we have no need to infer anymore about the location.

Most areas of volcanic activity also release various toxic gases (to humans anyway) into the atmosphere - it's entirely possible that the Zerg use gases released this way - when you consider how long whales and such can hold their breaths I don't see why the zerg on Char couldn't be modified to either hold their breath a long time or utilise a different gas, or both.

Makes sense. The manual describes Zerg being modified to function in space after the Overmind absorbed a naturally space-faring species. It probably has absorbed other species that can survive in volcanic conditions and now its simply a choice of optimizing the metabolisms of the present generation of Zerg to the environment they are currently in. So really, Kerrigan can adjust her forces for whatever environment they will be fighting in provided they have something along those lines already present in the Swarm genome.

[Omeganian]

Most areas of volcanic activity also release various toxic gases (to humans anyway) into the atmosphere - it's entirely possible that the Zerg use gases released this way - when you consider how long whales and such can hold their breaths I don't see why the zerg on Char couldn't be modified to either hold their breath a long time or utilise a different gas, or both.

Makes sense. The manual describes Zerg being modified to function in space after the Overmind absorbed a naturally space-faring species. It probably has absorbed other species that can survive in volcanic conditions and now its simply a choice of optimizing the metabolisms of the present generation of Zerg to the environment they are currently in. So really, Kerrigan can adjust her forces for whatever environment they will be fighting in provided they have something along those lines already present in the Swarm genome.

The Zerg homeworld of Zerus was virtually a twin of Char if not worse. The Zerg ancestors managed to flourish there, that's why the Xel'Naga chose them for the experiments.