Now, let’s talk about the story of Starcraft 1’s Terran campaign. I won’t go through it mission-by-mission - I plan to do that for Starcraft 2’s campaigns, because there’s a lot more to say there.

We’ll keep the story high level for now, talking about the campaign as a whole and what - if anything - it’s trying to say.

I’ve alluded to a lot of these events already, but let’s put it together.

The Bit Before the First Bit: Aliens are Scary

You’re the magistrate, lording* over some poor, insignificant part of the bootstrapped Terran Confederacy. After years of getting by on broken and salvaged technology, the Confederates had managed to scrape together a civilisation.

* Benevolently or not? Effectively or not? With absolute power, or with checks and balances? It’s hard to say.

Then, aliens invade. Initially known as xenomorphs, the Zerg prove to be a threat unlike any other. Waves of savage monsters overwhelm the Terran colonies, one by one.

The only thing that can reliably stop them are the Protoss - another alien race who beat the Zerg by sterilising any planets they’re on with orbital bombardment, not caring how many humans die in the crossfire.

It’s a scary time. Inhabited worlds fall, then burn.

The First Bit: The Real Monsters are the Tyrants, but Also the Monsters

The first few missions have you dealing with all this chaos. First, you have to deal with some rebels. Then the Zerg show up. You fight an impossible war, made worse by the Confederates punishing you for showing any initiative.

Raynor wants to fight back and save people. You, as the player, help him out.

Then the Confederates declare your planet a lost cause. They evacuate, leaving you behind. You accept an offer for rescue from terrorists/freedom fighters the Sons of Korhal.

For this traitorous traitorism, you’re declared a criminal.

The Second Bit: Fighting the Good (?) Fight

You fight alongside Mengsk* and his group, the Sons of Korhal. Your main targets are the Confederates - you steal research, lead revolutions and do fun stuff like that.

* No, that implies you’re equals. He doesn’t do any of the fighting - he’s more of a rule-from-the-backline sort of leader.

One piece of tech you steal is a psi emitter. It’s like catnip to the Zerg, calling out to them across multiple systems*. They don’t exactly form an orderly queue to get close to it, nor does it rob them of their cunning. It’s like a sign saying FREE T-SHIRTS - difficult, if not impossible for them to resist.

* Ten to 25 lightyears, according to the wiki.

It’s a beacon, directing their movements and fury.

A peaceful use for a device like this is to lure Zerg away from populated areas.

A less-peaceful use for it…

A planet - Antiga Prime - goes into open revolt against the Confederates, thanks to the actions of the player. The Confederates respond by deploying a large force of elite troops to the planet. Mengsk’s plan is to sneak into the base, deploy the psi emitter, then run for the hills*.

* Ideally, these hills are on a distant planet.

This is, at best, morally questionable. Antiga Prime is full of both allies and innocents. Yeah, the Zerg are already on the planet, but this lures more of them*.

* Enough that the Protoss do what they do best and barbecue the planet later.

Arguments in favour of this plan - all is fair in love and war. And when the Zerg destroy the Confederate base, it allows the Sons of Korhal to escape, so arguably it saves lives.

Raynor and Kerrigan don’t make those arguments. They go along with the plan, but they’re not exactly thrilled.

The Zerg might wipe out all human life in this part of the galaxy - using them as a weapon could be both cruel and foolish.

The Third Bit: Bye Bye, Moral Ambiguity

With the Confederates in disarray, you take the fight to the planet Tarsonis. If you want to know what Tarsonis is like, think Trantor from the Foundation series or Coruscant from Star Wars - a capital city that spans the planet. Think billions of people, all densely populated.

You break through their orbital defences and Mengsk uses the psi emitter again.

This attracts the Zerg, with the Protoss right behind them. The Protoss change tactics, though - not wanting to kill billions of innocent Terrans by nuking the planet, they deploy their forces to engage the Zerg directly.

You’re put into an awkward position - a three-way fight* between your forces and the two alien invasions. The Protoss want to kill the Zerg; the Zerg want to kill everyone; Mengsk wants to protect the Zerg until they’ve destroyed Tarsonis.

* Narratively, that is. Engine limitations mean the two AI-controlled armies never fight each other - you’re positioned (in)conveniently between them. They fix this limitation in the Brood War expansion, putting that to good use.

It makes for a unique mission - you’re attacked from both sides, but you can’t counterattack the Zerg base. You just have to soak what they throw at you while you fight the Protoss.

With the Protoss in retreat, the Zerg start to overrun the planet.

Mengsk pulls his forces back, leaving Kerrigan behind. Apparently, he isn’t fond of her questioning his use of genocide as a military strategy. Raynor gets angry at Mengsk. Mengsk responds with a speech so villainous that I can’t tell if it’s over the top or perfect. Either way, Raynor is elsewhere on the planet and can’t intervene to stop him or save her.

The Zerg overrun your base, killing anyone (except you, apparently. I guess you oversee battles remotely?) while Kerrigan goes down fighting.

The Fourth Bit: I Want to Break Free

The last mission involves you and Raynor trying to escape the planet. To do that, you have to destroy Mengsk’s Big Gun™ that could shoot your ships out of the sky.

There’s not a lot to say here. You stomp across the map, smash a key building, then leave to start your own rebellion* against Mengsk.

* With blackjack! And… eh, you get the idea.

That’s the Terran campaign, except for the parts I skipped over. It’s a well-told story with some standard elements*: duty to superiors versus service to the people; the leader of the rebellion who yearns to be a tyrant; shady conspiracies; people getting to know each other by fighting together; betrayal; things that go bump in the night…

* This is not a criticism. You want a plot like this to use some tropes of the genres. If you want to go surreal, post-modern or experimental with your writing, save it for a DLC.

So that’s the story. The next question is… does it work as an RTS plot?

Will It Blend… Narrative and Gameplay Elements?

Here are some things the campaign tells us. Let’s see how well they do.

The Zerg are mysterious. Check. No Zerg speaks to you (but they do make horrible growling sounds). There are no humanoid Zerg (except for infested Terrans). They look like animals, if not monsters. At no stage do you see them use tools, show curiosity or hesitate.

All they do is attack, defend, kill and die.

That’s not so with the Terrans. In some missions, you find non-combatants - scientists, mostly - who try to run away from you. Some Terrans respond to your arrival with anger or surprise. Not the Zerg, though.

The Protoss are mysterious. Check. They don’t even show up til the second-last mission. When they do, they don’t talk to you - all they do is fight.

The Zerg are dangerous. This varies. They certainly show up a lot. When they do, they move fast, attack a lot and will probably take a lot of your forces down, even if you win.

Then again, your ragtag forces beat them - a lot.

Then again again, those victories are usually minor. Clearing the map isn’t a decisive victory. Yeah, you held them off while others escaped or you rescued an ally from them. It’s not like you’re driving them off the planet.

The biggest let down is the mission Desperate Alliance. It’s a timed defence mission - survive for 30 minutes until Mengsk can haul you out of the fire. It should be a gripping struggle to hold on, losing steadily but slowly enough to that you drag yourself over the line.

That’s what you’re told the Zerg are like - a relentless swarm that you can’t fight directly.

It’s a shame that mission has such anaemic attack waves. Surviving for the time limit is easy. Heck, any decent player can take the fight to the Zerg and clear the map.

The Protoss are dangerous. Maybe? They only show up in one mission and they lose to you, even while you’re fending off the Zerg. Then again, they hit hard. It’s tough to say.

Raynor is a brave hero. Yeah, unless you choose to play with him benched, hiding in your base while his minions do all the fighting. In construction missions, he’s usually riding a reparable bike, so keeping him alive isn’t too hard. In non-construction missions, he’s a beefed up marine, so he’s useful to bring into the fight.

Kerrigan is a brave hero. Not so much. She’s not that great in a fight. She can turn invisible, which is less useful than it sounds. There’s no way to restore any health she loses. Since her dying means you fail the mission, it’s common for players to keep her safe at home.

The Confederates are corrupt and sinister. Check. Sneaking through a secret research facility of theirs, you get glimpses of experiments they’ve done. That includes studying and possibly breeding Zerg, so they’ve known about the threat since before they invaded.

The Confederates are incompetent. Check. While you fight for them, they give you scraps to deal with significant threats. When you fight against them, you melt through significant amounts of military hardware.

From the outside, they don’t seem to have a plan beyond throwing soldiers at the problems until the bad guys go away. Mengsk and Raynor both have a knack for striking at vulnerable points - something that Confederate military academies seem to skip teaching their officers.

This part of the galaxy is harsh and unforgiving, with Terrans doing well to hold on. Check. Most of the fighting happens on desert planets or broken, patchwork space platforms.

Mengsk’s betrayal is upsetting. Yeah, I’ll pay this one. Most of the heavy lifting comes from outside the gameplay. During the mission briefings, he’s intelligent and focused, steadily sliding from “Yeah, they call me a terrorist, but whatever” to “I will do what’s necessary to win this war” to “I will rule you all or you’ll die trying!”

In gameplay, though?

I spent too long coddling Kerrigan to be happy with him letting her die. Also, that was my base he let the Zerg overrun.

Outrageous!

I’m sure I’ve missed bits, so let me throw it open to you. What did the Starcraft 1 Terran campaign* do well that helped sell you on the story?

* We’ll get to the other campaigns soon.