StarCraft

This is a /v/ related article, which we tolerate because it's relevant and/or popular on /tg/... or we just can't be bothered to delete it.

StarCraft is Real Time Strategy video game, made by Blizzard. Despite being THE most balanced asymmetrical RTS ever and the South Korean national religion, StarCraft is most famous in neckbeard society for the "It's all stolen from WH40K" holy war.

Long story short, there are rumors, denied by both Blizzard and GW, that StarCraft at first was developed as WH40K game, until GW for some retarded reason rescind their permission on using the 40K universe (like they don't want a part of the bazillion tons of money Blizzard tend to earn for their games). /v/ tends to accuse GW of stealing Blizzard's ideas, which sounds silly at first, until you see the current Tyranyd design (prior to SC, the nids looked very different, as in, they looked sillier than the Space Marines do now). /b/tards tend to laugh at both /v/ and /tg/ and troll them to generate even more delicious copypasta.

To be fair, there is a lot in common between Starcraft and the 40k universe; but if you remove your fanboy glasses it's obviously because both settings are conscienceless rip-offs of the entire sci-fi genre with less then 0.1% original content - it's not like there weren't human space marines, ravenous, rapidly adaptable bug monsters, and psychic alien warriors before 40K. Deep inside your heart you know it.

Besides, anyone who takes the time to play both games will immediately notice that the actual rules and gameplay are radically different. StarCraft is very much based around the collecting and spending of resources, shifting army compositions, microing individual units, scouting, etc. 40k on the other hand has you pick out your army before a game even starts, uses randomized elements (dice), and most of the decision making is in how you position your units and engage the enemy. Yes, there is overlap, but a lot of that is simply because they're both strategy games. Regardless of whether Blizzard ripped of GW, or GW ripped off Blizzard, or both, the actual gameplay experiences are quite distinct.

TL/DR: If you're a fan of 40k or SC, stop bitching about all that "stolen" shit. It's a mark of fool doing that, and by doing that you make all your fellow fans look retarded. 40k is a blatant Mega crossover fanfic, 90% ripped off from Dune, Doom, Alien, Starship Troopers, Star Wars, 1984, Event Horizon, H.P. Lovecraft, Mecha Anime and so on all pasted straight onto Warhammer Fantasy anyway. TL;DR: Quit. Bitching.

For those of you who want to know more about the game as a whole, read on.

The Story in Brief

Starcraft takes place in the Koprulu sector, a distant part of the galaxy where abandoned human colonies are disrupted from their usual routine of civil war and internicine piracy by the sudden attack of a race of alien lizard-bugs that take over and mutate planets to suit their needs, determined to infest the galaxy. Things only get worse when a bunch of stuffy psychic aliens show up, determined to destroy the aforementioned lizard-bugs - and not caring much if they kill humans in the process. Havoc ensues

The Races

The Terrans

Humans in the Koprulu sector were originally a bunch of criminals and undesireables shot out into space by the United Earth Directorate with the excuse of being sent to colonise new alien worlds. The fleet went off-course and ended up in the Koprulu sector, where they have made the best of things since then.

Terrans are the "jack of all trades" of the three factions. They use a combination of specialized power armor suits, tanks, fliers and mecha in battle, and are the only faction whose vanilla trooper is a ranged fighter rather than a melee fighter. They're the fastest faction when it comes to setting up bases, as their core buildings can actually take off and fly to new terrain to move the entire base. Their unique racial tactic is to launch base-annihilating mini-nuke missiles with the aid of a Ghost or Specter, a telepathic invisible sniper rifle-wielding super-commando.

In the original Starcraft, you play as a planetary Marshal assigned to the remote world of Marsala. There, with the help of local sheriff James "Jim" Raynor, you encounter the first attack of the Zerg; in your flight to escape the planet before the Zerg devour all humans, you are abandoned by the ruling Terran government, the Confederacy. This leads to you allying with the rebel group known as the Sons of Korhal, and turning on the Confederacy... only for the Sons' leader, Arcturus Mengsk, to backstab you by using the Zerg as a living weapon to overthrow the Confederacy, proclaim himself Emperor Mengsk of "The Terran Dominion", and backstab you. Raynor swears revenge and turns on Mengsk.

In the expansion, Brood War, you play as an admiral in the United Earth Directorate fleet, sent to investigate what became of the lost colonists and bring them back under Directorate control. Ending up in a three-way conflict between Dominion, Zerg and Protess, you are ultimately wiped out.

In the Terran-focused sequel, Wings of Liberty, you play as a high-ranking member of Raynor's Raiders, a rebellion group that seeks to bring down the Dominion and destroy the Queen of Blades.

The Zerg

A race of alien space-locusts armed with biological weaponry, the Zerg travel from world to world, killing all independent life and assimilating its genetic code in order to produce new strains and species of Zerg, all in hope of achieving genetic perfection. In their wake, they infest worlds, terraforming them to sustain the Zerg's constant expansion of its terrible Swarm. Individually sentient, but linked by a crude telepathic network, all Zerg are bound to the will of a singular sapient will, who use this hive-mind to enforce their dominance and command their legions as extensions of themselves.

Zerg are the "fast 'n' flimsy" faction; cheap to get up and running, very easy to spam units for, but the absolute squishiest of the three factions. Zergs rely on drowning enemies under wave after wave of cheap, quick-moving troops, expending their resources faster than any other faction because they're certain to die anyway. Unlike Terrans or Protess, Zergs grow their bases quite slowly, as they have to sacrifice basic workers to create new buildings, and they can only grow buildings on a specialized, slowly-growing terrain mat they produce called "The Creep".

In the original Starcraft, and Brood War, you play as a Cerebrate; a massive psionic maggot-thing that is second in the Zerg's mental hierarchy only to the Overmind itself. In the original game, you play as a Cerebrate charged with protecting and serving the Overmind's latest and greatest creation; the Queen of Blades, a human Ghost (psychic assassin) captured and assimilated into the Swarm as a unique and deadly agent. When the Overmind is destroyed at the end of the first game, in Brood War, you play the only Cerebrate to remain loyal to the Queen of Blades, helping her in her quest to take total dominion over the Swarm - up to and including destroying an attempt to create a second Overmind.

In the Zerg-focused sequel, Heart of the Swarm, you play as Kerrigan, the Queen of Blades, who voluntarily rejoins the Swarm to destroy the Dominion and to prepare for the coming of Amon.

The Protoss

Highly advanced psychic warriors, the Protoss hate the Zerg because the Zerg are obsessed with assimilating the Protoss into the swarm, in order to achieve "perfection".

Protoss are the "slow 'n' tough" faction; they're extremely expensive and slow to produce, but they can take a heal of a beating, thanks to all their units and buildings coming with forcefields as standard. They fall between Terrans and Zerg when it comes to base building; uniquely, they teleport their buildings into place, but they need established power-grids, otherwise their buildings can't be summoned. This also gives them a key infrastructure weakness, as it means you can cause buildings to stop working if you destroy the generators powering them.

In the original Starcraft, you play as an Executor seeking to defend Aiur, the Protoss homeworld, from the coming Zerg invasion.

In the Brood War, you play as an Executor seeking to help the Protoss survive after they have been driven from Aiur.

In the Protoss-focused sequel, Legacy of the Void, you will help the Protoss make the preparations for the final showdown against Amon.

The Xel'Naga

A highly advanced alien race... and the cause of all this misery. See, they helped shape the Protoss into the powerful psykers they are today, and then got booted off of Aiur. They then created the Zerg, and got eaten for it - but one of them survived. Amon secretly manipulated the Overmind into seeking out the Protoss, and serves as the big bad of the Starcraft II trilogy, with his plans to create an army of Zerg/Protoss hybrids and then annihilate all life in the galaxy, so he can start over from scratch.