| The True Meaning of StarCraft | |
|---|---|
| Season 1, Episode 19 | |
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| Air date | December 22, 2012 |
| Episode guide | |
| Previous Marine Training |
Next Epic Mule Time |
The True Meaning of StarCraft is the ninteenth episode in the first season of StarCrafts.
Plot[]
Storyteller archon narrates the poetic story on his book to three kids: zealot, dark templar and high templar.
On one snowy night, all units from three races of StarCraft II unite to celebrate StarCrafts. They encircle the sensor tower, decorated as the StarCrafts tree, and sing along by the caroling. Spine crawler helps a drone hang a star decor on top of the tower, and Derpfestor tries to put up an infested swarm egg on the tower but falls off.
On top of a mountain, inside a colossus wreckage, a green zealot or Grinchlot and the Green Probe remembers his worse experiences in StarCraft II gameplay such as trying to attack the terran base but thwarted by a supply depot at the entrance, accidentally letting the zerglings enter his base with the metabolic boost speed upgrade, and suffering a defeat from a blue protoss stalker and sentry due to blink and force field. This causes him to become tempestuous about "OP" (overpowered) abilities, and plans to steal the upgrades, minerals and researches.
While the town is sleeping as the units end in late of the game, the zealot creeps in and steals marine weapon upgrades, minerals, and a box of HotS upgrades. On the next door, he takes stimpacks, zergling wings, vespene containers. He even steals creep tumor, warp gates, repair drills, larvae and warp-in devices in every main base. As he finished removing all StarCraft II add-ons, he sleighs them to the top of the cliff, drawn by his probe. He prepares to throw them to the abyss (extremely OP), expecting misery and rage quit from StarCraft community on the town that he wants.
As he realized from the town, the units does not rage quitting at all. They continue playing one on one, team games, and even free for all. They even say "GG" (good game), though they play without upgrades and researches. With an epiphany with tears, Grinchlot realizes that all units still have strengths and weaknesses, and yet they are all patches. So he returned all the stolen upgrades, researches and minerals. The balance has been restored, asymmetrically, and he learns the true meaning of StarCraft. Grinchlot has given an upgrade, charge boots, and runs in joy on the snowfield.
The narrator closes the story, citing that upgrades, researches and evolutions on three races don't matter for the balance of the game and overpoweringness of every single player. The most important of all is the spirit of StarCraft.
Characters[]
- Grinchlot (debut)
- Green Probe
- Archon
- Young zealot
- Young dark templar
- Young high templar (debut)
- Marauder
- Hydralisk
- Marine
- Immortal
- Reaper
- Queen
- Ghost
- Drone
- Spine crawler
- Derpfestor
- Infested terran
- Stalker (cameo)
- Sentry (cameo)
- Ultralisk (debut, cameo)
- Baneling (cameo)
- MULE (cameo)
- Phoenix (cameo)
Transcript[]
The transcript for this episode can be found here.
Trivia[]
- This is the first Christmas special of StarCrafts and second holiday special in the series.
- This episode was uploaded after December 21, 2012, the failed Mayan doomsday prediction date.
- Jonathan Burton provided the voice of the narrator, making it the first episode with voice acting since "A Hellion of a Harass."
- Snow land environment is shown for the first time, and will be reused only in later Christmas-special episodes.
- This is the first episode to introduce a different color team, which is green. The new color will be added in Season 3 as the Red Team, not counting the "Heart of the Swarm Opening."
- This is the only episode outside Season 3 to feature protoss units fighting other protoss until "Protossed" in Season 7.
- This is the first time a race fighting each other in different teams outside Season 3 until "The New Zerg" in Season 5.
- This is the only episode outside Season 3 to feature protoss units fighting other protoss until "Protossed" in Season 7.
- In Grinchlot's thought balloon, first two scenes from older episodes, "Supply Block" and "Choked Up" are reused and re-colored Bob the Ragelot's and protoss buildings' blue color team to green.
- On the fireplace, each of the three stockings contains weapon upgrade for marines in progressive order.
- The purple box entitled, "HOTS", and acronym for Heart Of The Swarm which is the sequel expansion for StarCraft II: Wings Of Liberty. Also, it has a zerg symbol drawn underneath the title.
- This expansion was released on March 12, 2013, at 79 days after the episode's airdate.
- As Grinchlot removes the warp gate's spherical portal, a star from StarCrafts logo is shown to be sad.
- This is the only time in the series that young version of protoss units such as zealot, high and dark templars are featured.
- Respectively, they resemble Fenix, Tassadar, and Zeratul.
Cultural References[]
- This episode is adapted from Dr. Seuss' storybook, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, except Christmas is used as StarCrafts (a pun holiday), Whoville as the StarCraft II multiplayer gameplay, and the Grinch as bronze league player (or original StarCraft player due to experiencing new protoss abilities on StarCraft II such as blink and force field)
Errors[]
- Grinchlot's green eyes became blue in the warp gate robbery scene.
- Grinchlot has removed the zergling's metabolic boost wings as he have stolen all the upgrades. But later when the units are frolicking on the town, two running zerglings still have wings.
Storyline Analysis[]
- Since this is the first episode with moral lesson, Grinchlot plays a role of a bronze-league player who is yet to be skilled up with general StarCraft II strategy. He experiences many tactics from opponents like cheesing an enemy, scouting enemy bases, kiting a single unit, micromanaging, and rushing with macro-management. These strategies may be succeeding with the use of abilities. However, abilities that other players complain about overpowered researches and unit attributes may be either good or bad, as a subject to be nerfed in later updates. Also, even without them, most of the StarCraft II players may continue with passion and fun when the episode's moral line quotes: "But the most important, is the spirit of the game." This is intended to lessen the rage-quitting, harassment and internet flame war via chat, comments and forums on Battle.net.
Video []
StarCrafts Ep19 Christmas Special