That's somewhat ironic - had the Alliance surrendered sooner, they might have avoided complete annihilation at the hands of the Kohr-Ah (given that nobody knew about the Precursor vessel). Then again, nobody knew about the Kohr-Ah, either, until later on... and it's really lucky on the grand scheme that Earth just so happens to be at the rendezvous point of the two Ur-Quan species: had the doctrinal war been fought anywhere else, then humans would either end up annihilated, or the Precursor vessel wouldn't have got very far with the entire might of the Kzer-Za fleets concentrated on hunting it down.

In any fictional story there are some things you just have to accept on faith, otherwise there's no story to tell.  The fact that important things happen in the general vicinity of the heroes is one of those things.

That could be well over 100-200 ships, easily. 10 dozen = 120, 20 dozen = 240. These are not small numbers, and even larger ones could still quite handily be referred with the term 'dozens'.

10 dozen I'll give you.  20 dozen is getting to the point where the terms "hundreds" would be more accurate than "dozens," though, I think.  Even if Fwiffo did mean something on the order of 240 ships when he said "dozens" that still gives us a rough figure of 720-800 ships in the whole Ur-Quan fleet.  That's still not a lot for conquering a whole sector of the galaxy, let alone roaming around  enslaving everyone they find for the last 25,000 years.  (The fact that they've had 25,000 years to gather resources and build more ships makes this total figure even more ludicrous.)

Actually, since the galaxy is rather wide in terms of its radius (50000 ly), I'm happy to believe that both races went full circle around the galaxy to come back to their original region, give or take a bit, and they just didn't meet on the way. One could have stuck to the rimward side while the other could have travelled nearer to the coreward side (and more slowly).

Indeed.  Or one could've gone over the other.  The galaxy may be flatter than it is wide, but it's not exactly flat.

I actually found this picture really amusing: It's a great example of not letting realism get into the way of a good story.  "You ask how this works? Easy: like this!" :-)

To paraphrase Gene Roddenberry's famous response when asked how fast the Enterprise could go: "They travel at the speed of plot!"

I'm pretty sure that the Melnorme say that this now is really the second meeting, with no intervening prior meetings. Anyway, the idea of this being a recurring event is appealing. It sounds like the sort of agreement they would have.

You're right, they do.  That was the primary bit of evidence shaken loose in the other discussion that made me give up on my crackpot theory about multiple past Doctrinal Wars and throw in with the "they just missed each other a few times" theory.

Hehe, true. Yes, no doubt that the prevailing ideology would be a permanent driving force, rather than a one-off business matter. I'm not sure what happens to the Ur-Quan without the Sa-Matra (unless you want to count SC3 as evidence!); it seems that they were doing fine enslaving and annihilating everything and everyone they encountered till now even without it...

Indeed, and i certainly don't count SC3 as evidence in this regard.  I don't want to derail this thread with ranting about SC3, but the idea that the ur-Quan just gave up and joined the Alliance after their one super-powerful ship was destroyed always bugged me.  The Ur-Quan are terrified of enslavement and perfectly capable of fighting a war without the Sa-Matra (as evidenced by the fact that they keep it in reserve unless the situation becomes truly desperate.)  Having that ship blown up might scare them, but that would only make them more dangerous in my opinion, not less.

I haven't played the P6014 demo yet (though I intend to in the near future), so we'll see what they have to say about the Ur-Quan reaction to the Sa-Matra being destroyed.

In my opinion, they most likely would retreat with whatever battle thralls they can still command and plot a counterattack against our sector of space.  Maybe, just maybe, the Kohr-Ah would even be willing to tolerate working with battle thralls - temporarily of course - until this sector was subdued.

On a side note, this is one of the many reasons I love SC2: The Ur-Quan are genuine, real aliens. They're not evil, they're just alien. Different. Not like us (with funny foreheads). They're the antagonists because their interests are incompatible with ours, but they're so alien that human morality doesn't apply to them. That just makes them all the more terrifying. SC2 is a formidable example of science-fiction entertainment done right.

Absolutely agree, and well said, by the way.  One of the most memorable moments of my young life was when I realized the Kzer-Za weren't just mindless overlords bent on galactic domination for its own sake.  One of the most spine-chilling moment was when I realized there was something out there WORSE than the greens. =P

[forever]

I asked this very same question not too long ago over on the star-control.com forums.  The most logical answer that was shaken out from that discussion was that the two Ur-Quan fleets just missed each other a few times as they traveled around the galaxy, and the time they met was back in (roughly) their own space.  Considering how truly wide 100,000 light years is and considering that the two fleets would have to maintain a certain degree of coherency if they're going to fight their way through any and all sentient life forms they encounter, it's not that unreasonable.  Also, keep in mind that 25,000 years is a pretty long time.  Admittedly the game is somewhat vague on exactly how long it would likely take to circumnavigate the galaxy through HyperSpace, but you'd think they could do it at least a couple times in that amount of time.

If you don't like that answer, here's another which I had thought of (and ultimately let go of after some discussion): If you allow the Kohr-Ah to win the Doctrinal War and then go talk to the Kzer-Za, they will eventually make mention of the fact that they two Ur-Quan races will now go their separate ways (with the Kohr-Ah in possession of the Sa-Matra) and continue around the galaxy until they meet AGAIN.  At which point they will fight AGAIN.  In other words, there's no real guarantee that the Doctrinal War occurring in our region of space during the game was the first one since 25,000 years ago.

Also, keep in mind that the Ur-Quan (both types) track potential target races by homing in on HyperWave broadcasts.  In theory, it's entirely possible that several sentient races have gone unnoticed simply because they hadn't reached that level of technology when the Ur-Quan passed by.  So, just because the Kohr-Ah have covered half the galaxy (or the entire galaxy, a few times over) doesn't mean the entire galaxy is devoid of sentient life.  New races will rise to power in the wake of the Ur-Quan fleet, to be eventually discovered and attacked by one or the other at a later time.  And so, the Ur-Quan Path of Now and Forever truly is forever.  It's not one quick loop around the galaxy and then home in time for tea and biscuits after a little rejuvenating scuffle with your off-coloured brothers.  It's a continuous hunt will persist until the end of time itself (or until some uppity alien captain flying an ancient Precursor tugboat with a really big bomb strapped to its spine destroys the one uber-powerful weapon you had going for you.  After that, it's apparently time to sit down and rethink your schemes for galactic domination.)

I guess there are a few RPGs where you're just one of many adventurers throughout the game. MMOs for example. Diablo perhaps. I'm sure there are other examples too. But, I was more referring to RPGs with chosen ones, or eventually obvious and recognized saviors.

In my experience, one of the more common traits of "chosen ones" is a selfless desire to help others.  I should think that such a person, in a world of Black Villains and White Heroes, would insist on paying fair market value for the items he sought from merchants.  Even if they were willing to give stuff to him for free, it would only be right to compensate them for their efforts.  Heck, a hero like that would probably go around giving away money to those in need (and not just "those in need who will probably repay the favour in some way later on.")

For those games, the requirement to pay for stuff could be seen as a character trait of the hero rather than a demand on the part of the merchant.  There's a reason there aren't generally too many chosen ones running around worlds like that, after all.

The greedy Druuge could actually be used to explain (better than most RPGs) why the heroes, who are saving the world, still has to pay for stuff.

Do you find it illogical that the heroes still need to pay for stuff in most RPGs?  I mean, just because you're out to save the world doesn't mean everyone else can suddenly afford to give away their goods and services for free.  More to the point, you haven't saved the world yet.  Maybe after the game is over they can get whatever they want for free, but if claiming you and your friends are out to stop the big bad nobody else has beaten yet was sufficient to get free food and gear, the game world's economy would collapse pretty quickly.

Economics aside, I love the artwork.  Keep it coming. =)

P.S: If the Druuge are the defacto merchants around here, does that mean the player can trade away party members for gear? =O

The reason I make the suggestion is that in my own writing, I've found it very liberating to simply plot out the story in little bites.  "What would happen if they did this?" and just enjoy the rest of it as a free-writing exercise.  You end up inventing a lot of "voice" just by exploring what the characters would do in that situation, and the more you free write in character, the sharper it gets.

Yes, but if I understand what you're saying here correctly, it's still only one person (ie: you) doing all the writing.  Perhaps I've misunderstood, though.

LOVE the artwork!  Thanks for sharing.  I always enjoy seeing this sort of fan-art, especially SC-themed. =D

I'd love to see the iPhone version come to fruition, too.  It was painful to see that project die, especially considering how close to being finished it sounded like he was.
If someone wanted to do it up as a hybrid iPhone/iPad game, that'd be cool, too.  Although, a straight iPad version with no iPhone support would make me a sad panda =(

Are you kidding? The VUX stayed on the "we were offended" story until they were given a LOT of pressure from the Captain constantly apologizing. They prided themselves in being incredibly open-minded. It seems crazy that they would sacrifice all that pride to make it look like they weren't offended by an insult that they actually were offended by.

I'm not quite sure how you read my post, but you seem to have walked away with the exact opposite of what I was saying.  I was saying they were acting more offended than they really were, due to their pride.

More seriously, there's not much point in a full construction procedure being aboard, but not having very detailed technical information would be irresponsible.

Indeed, there would need to be some pretty detailed schematics of wiring and installation procedures for basically everything other than the core framework of the chassis just so that engineers have a reference for making repairs.  It would be foolish to go out into deep space with nothing better than your chief engineer's memory about how things fit together - even if he could memorize all the schematics for something as big as a starship, what if he got killed in an explosion or something?  If the ship is left without power and the only guy who knows how to fix it gets geeked, that's basically the end for everyone on board.  Contrary to what popular sci-fi teaches us, the odds of some random alien ship happening by your specific coordinates would be next to zilch.

So they may not have blueprints, but they certainly would have enough that reverse engineering the rest probably wouldn't be too hard.  Especially for the same species that built it in the first place.

That said, the Tobermoon was part of a top secret operation to a distant planet that the people back on Earth had apparently forgotten about 20 years ago.  The woman who smuggled the blueprints out of Detroit probably had no idea that ship even existed, so saving the blueprints prior to the destruction of all known ships would have been a prudent move from her position regardless.

As an aside, wasn't the Tobermoon destroyed in the introduction text for SC2?  So the ship that accompanied the Vindicator to Earth was apparently a second ship, no?

Well, other VUX, obviously.  Otherwise the species would probably have a difficult time propagating.

However, I get the impression that their "distaste" of the human form is at least partially due to wounded pride rather than actual disgust.  The VUX are a prideful race and their pride was wounded by Captain Rand's comment, so now they take every opportunity to lash out at humans in kind.  I'm sure part of it is genuine disgust (if the range of motion in our necks really makes us look like jabbing corpses to them) but I think most of it is just posturing.

Regarding the size, I asked a very similar question not too long ago over on star-control.com, and the answer I got seems to be that it's roughly 250~350 meters long, most likely.  Based on estimations made using this picture and others like it.

Regarding the power level, I concur with Draxas that it probably wouldn't have been all that powerful in terms of fighting ability.  It's a tugboat, not a battleship.  In that respect, Zelnick was probably lucky that it was only half finished, leaving him room to easily modify the armaments without needing to tear it apart first.

Why do you think the Ur-Quan left the Lurg alone? It just doesn't seem to be in the Ur-Quan's nature to do that. Of course, it doesn't seem to be in the Ur-Quan's nature to form any civilization capable of space flight. That generally requires getting along with each other.  I've wondered if the Lurg could be Brown Ur-Quan or descendants of them.  The original box art was supposed to be the Ur-Quan.

They seem a bit too "different" from the two Ur-Quan races, physiologically speaking, to be a depiction of the brown version.  At least, in my opinion.  It's true the that black and the green were created by genetic manipulation, so it's entirely possible that the extent of such manipulation resulted in more than just cosmetic changes to the species.   I just don't "feel it" on a personal level, you know?  I prefer to think of the Lurg as an entirely different species and cut ties to the fact that it was supposed to be an Ur-Quan that was drawn before the Ur-Quan image was finalized.

There's a problem with the Ur-Quan siding with the Alliance: the Kzer-Za may at times be rational, but they, just like the Kohr-Ah, are clearly terrified by the mere idea that they might once again become slave races in the future. It's also important to remember the Ur-Quan's territorial nature; the only reason they joined the Sentient Milieu in the past was because the Taalo didn't trigger their territorial instincts.

Yeah, and even after they were part of the Milieu, by all accounts, they spent most of their time scouting the outer reaches of Milieu space, specifically to avoid triggering their territorial nature with other Milieu races besides the Taalo.

Besides which, to me it seems somewhat presumptuous to suggest a name like "the Ur-Quan Coalition" after having your ass kicked by your new "allies."  I somehow doubt any of the Alliance member races would accept such a name change.  Frankly, if history is any indicator, the Ur-Quan would probably be subject to some pretty severe injunctions as part of any peace talks, considering what they did to the sentient races in this part of the galaxy over the last 40-50 years.  Such injunctions would likely seem like a form of slavery to the Ur-Quan, I imagine, and thus I don't see any such peace talks being terribly successful.

More likely the two Ur-Quan races would retreat, possibly combine their forces, and start looking for another way to deal with this "troublesome" sector of space.  The idea that the Ur-Quan just turned around and joined the Alliance because they lost ONE ship was always one of my least favourite aspects of SC3.  (Admittedly it was a very powerful ship, but considering how long they took to bring it into play during the Crucible of Sentience, they obviously don't think of it as their only means of fighting a war.)