Epic Moments

My limited internet connection over the last 6 months or so has prevented me from downloading the monthly updates for a long time now, so I haven't seen much of the SCO lore yet. But the Interdiction Field thread got me thinking about SC2's story and what made it so special too me. I've realized that it's the same thing I've done in my own universe, a 6000 year long timeline where the game eras focus on the truly epic “WWII moments” of the history. SC2 was the same way. It was a series of truly epic moments. They weren't just “quests”, in SC2 a “quest” was often an entire war between two species. The Pkunk-Yehat War, Thraddash, etc.

This, I think, was the primary key that made SC2 so unique and different and memorable above any other similar story I have ever experienced in a game. The primary/main “quests” are not “quests”, or just merely stories, they are “epic moments”. They have to be bigger than any one person or character, those are “minor side quests”. In Star Control a “primary story quest” should ALWAYS be something BIG. A war between two species, the big evil main bad guy race exterminating a race, or enslaving them, or devastating their home world. A planet blows up. A star blows up. A new black hole forms and destroys a solar system in the process. Sometimes the player wasn't even directly involved, you'd see one circle merge with another on the map on the other side of the galaxy from where you were... but that was also still a part of the story even though you weren't even directly involved with it at the time.

After thinking about what made the SC2 story, and game, so memorable and great too me this is what the core of it was too me. It wasn't a story about people or characters, those storylines were minor side arcs, it was a story of the entire galaxy and all of the most epic moments that happened during this period.