The objective of StarCraft vs Star Wars is super unique, there are billions of planets that need to be destroyed, each is guarded by a progressively stronger group of enemies.
Its also important to note zerg can outproduce the empire, each infested planet is like a factory word of imperium, but as the imperium needs another planet types, zerg don't wich means that the stalemate scenario actually favours zerg
Either he goes into a rage and murderizes every Zerg he can find becaue of how much he hates them. Or he runs off screaming "I HATE YOU!" and fly off to the opposite end of the galaxy.
There is an X-factor missed that I think pushes this in favor of the Swarm, and that is the Leviathan's ability to infest other spacecraft directly, turning a foe's own firepower against them. While this is devastating enough when it's a Battlecruiser or Carrier, Star Destroyers in the hands of the Zerg become a nightmare for the Empire
Another factor that Grant seems to not have fully thought through is the leadership Grant says that the zerg has a weakness in that if kerrigan falls then the zerg falls but that is completly false all off her advisers Can take her place zargara took her plas after she disapeared in into the void and stukov litterlig leaded a terran group so from the starcraft lore given the fact that zargara took over the swarm it would not be to unreal for Other broodmother to also take over the swarm. He stats that the Empire leadership has no weakness in that vader palpatin and the Other guy could take over the Empire but in the movie after vader and palpatine dies the Empire pretty much falls because off a lack off leadership.
@@thorminerdk9906 He used the swarm from a certain point in time and he explained in the video that there is lore stating that at that time the swarm would split in 2 factions. (zagara vs abatur) To your second point, at the battle of endor palpatine was using the darkside to "motivate" his fleet and troops and he specicfully made plans that when he would die, so would the empire. The empire wasnt meant to survive after his death. So when he died at endor all his troops suddenly felt the opposite of motivation even giving the troops a feeling of great terror and thus evening the odds for the rebels. Also plot xd, they needed the story to continue.
@@Linkatchu Zerg could invest terrans and keep their memories in the starcraft universe but it would probely cost them efficiency when operating a star destroyer. The real question should be if the Zerg could maintain such a ship without the supply of needed resources of which the answer is no.
I think the fact that all Zerg are living weapons essentially being born fully armed and armored as well as being able to eat pretty much anything can be a significant factor as wars are often won by logistics.
It really never occurred to me to imagine how not-out-of-place Kerrigan would be in the Star Wars universe; there's all kinds of exotic and strange aliens living together in the main galaxy, it would not be weird to see someone like her just hanging out.
She's larger than a normal human now, as well as being obviously very naked in high organic heels. Most species would be at minimum, interested to learn more about her since >new species??? But there's the small problem in the scenario where tatooine ***doesn't*** Panic at seeing what is basically a giant organic ship arrive in orbit.
@@nonya1366 I mean this is all hypothetical anyway, Kerrigan's not going to roll up to the Mos Eisley Cantina and order a drink to hear what the latest gossip in the galaxy is in the first place; She's a powerful telepath and a conqueror, both traits that fail to lend themselves to casual schmoozing. Most likely, she'd descend upon Mos Eisley in force, ground every ship in the port, put down any resistance, and gather information from her prisoners. So, the thought experiment of Kerrigan just hanging out is a little moot anyway, but I guess she could put a onesie on?
@@MrGeorgeFlorcusThat's more reasonable yeah, mind grab some folk and rip out their bits [The swarm does that too, I think they eat memories if they want anyways.] But I just can't picture her being. Subtle. In the scenario. Because leviathans are fucking massive and tatooine has a lot of criminals who'd look at one of them and go 'uuuuuuuuuhhhhh time to go!' But she really should put on a onesie, considering she is very naked. Even if her bits aren't showing because, she evolved past a need for those.
Why do I find thinking about stuff like this so fascinating? I love it! Lol I noticed 2 things that were missed that might be worth mentioning. 1) I understand the empire has planetary shields over the core worlds. Aren't those worlds the big city planets? So, which worlds make the FOOD for those big city worlds? Are there planetary shields over them? I can totally imagine the Zerg managing to overtake any "backwater planet" that produce major sources of food for the empire and basically starving the people to death. 2) From what I've seen in Star Wars, even when the empire is in full power, there's a lot of people/worlds that might follow the rules, but don't really like or support the empire. However, with a massive Zerg invasion of the galaxy, I'd imagine that any fence sitters (and even people who hate the empire) would suddenly throw all of their support to the empire for defending the galaxy. They might not be the kindest protectors in the galaxy, but the Empire would be the only hope the galaxy has of surviving. The people would recognize that and become more active than ever before in the support of the empire. The galaxy would finally become united in order to fight against the Zerg. (No, I don't imagine many would willingly join the Zerg.) What would a fully united Star Wars galaxy manage to accomplish I wonder?
To add to your point 1), galactic core is helplessly dependant on rim territories for resources and swarm could win by attrition in my opinion, simply starving off the Empire, if not on food, then on resources needed to run their military industrial complex
Kerrigan is also a persuasive leader. She would sow division among the subjects of the Empire, even finding allies among peoples ans worlds who were dissatisfied with the Empire. She did during the Brood War as she made both Raiders, Dominion forces and Protoss help her destroy the UED.
@@LegendStormcrow Indeed. But Kerrigan, specially before being dumbed down during SCII, was quite clever. While she could mind control, she could as well persuade, bribe and betray. While she could easily infest and/or mind control, nothing would stop her from sweetening the deal to get allies, or getting them/maintaining them cooperative by obtaining leverage. She offered Arcturus Mengsk his Dominion back, no strings attached (other than her later betrayal). She appealed to Raynor's feelings towards her (then assassinated his men, the Raiders' Protoss allies and Fenix). She also kidnapped (and corrupted) Matriarch Raszaghal to get the Dark Templar to cooperate with her in the mission to assassinate the fledgeling Overmind. All and all, she was the most competent and ruthless leader in the known SC universe.
I think the one thing seriously missing here is that the DS is vulnerable, not to a direct attack, but to infiltration, something the Zerg are known to do. It is vast with lots of places for an infected individual to get a foot hold and once they do, the inner defenses are pretty bad against the zerg. Even if protected by Vader or the Emperor, both could be exhausted and overwhelmed by shear numbers. So, it could easily fall. Since we're talking directly after the battle of Yavin, the DS II would at best be still in early construction and likewise vulnerable, especially given where it was built. And, if we follow your scenario, realistically there will be no more in the line as the empire simply won't have the resources to allocate to a third. I would also argue the zerg are likely to start adapting their space forces to the circumstances far quicker than the empire would adapt to them. That said, the empire does have one thing they could leverage which is the potential for battle droids which should be immune to infestation and can be mass produced and I could see them going that way once they realize their human forces just won't cut it and are actually a liability. Given the balance, the empire I think more times than not would lose the conflict. They'd put up a good fight, but ultimately would have to have a flawless defense on many key targets which they just haven't shown. Sooner or later something will slip through and they're likely to lose big assets that they just can't afford to lose to hold the stalemate. However, they do have the potential for victory as well, I just think on average they'd be on the losing side.
The DS isn't the bulk of the empire 's firepower. Turbolasers dish out 2 gigawatts, so a volley from a star destroyer can put out twice the energy of a star each second. Only problem is that the energy is super concentrated, but the empire wouldn't have issues cracking worlds considering that they have 150,000 star destroyers in their prime, plus countless support ships and fighters. Then putting the dreadnoughts in the mix. Plus star destroyers are much faster than leviathans, which rely on their arms to do damage. Since they can damage each other, I feel leviathans would fall pretty quick to turbolaser fire. In other words, the sheer scale of the empire would be difficult to overcome for an enemy with very little means of being discrete aside from occasionally stowing away on an unsecure freighter. The empires only weakness is incompetence, but something big as the zerg will be ran by Thrawn, Palpatine, and Tarkin. At the height of their power, the zerg had like 50 planets. At the height of the empire, it has 1 million planets. I think the Empire takes this just on the sheer resources it can muster. Id say the zerg won't do much more than the killiks
Also there isnt exactly a fleet of Death Stars and though they are capable of hyper space travel, they arent exactly quick when it comes to sub light speed travel. Zerg infestation happens exponentially and we already established the fact that parasites traveling to high density population words would create massive and uncontrollable pockets of Zerg basically anywhere in the galaxy. Coruscant may be the end game for the Zerg, but the Star Wars galaxy has more than a few worlds that are basically mini coruscants. Nar Shaddaa would be an example of that. Also the fact is ignored that even imperial space ships could be infested. Think of our cruise ships and how diseases can spread on these. Also intel is a major factor here. While the swarm has access to easy ways to learn about political structures pretty much simply by talking or listening to ppl (given they eventually learn the languages), the empire would have to discover the swarm structures of the Zerg. and as long as they only fight individual planetary infestations I dont see much chance in that other by some stupid accident.
@@iamblight707 That's not supported by what is on screen. We've seen turbo lasers hitting right next unshield, unprotected, ground targets and beside the relatively small explosion of the impact, there is no signs of anything close to that strength. Now this is rare to be seen, but we've seen it (the most notable in the new canon being Thrawn's attack on the rebel base in Rebels, in the old canon the bombardment of the city during KOTOR where even massed fire was only causing conventional level impacts, among others). We've also seen that ground vehicle weaponry can destroy space ships in the clone wars and in attack of the clone and revenge of the sith which is canon in both and these vehicles are clearly no where even close to that level of firepower, so again it is inconsistent with their durability against turbo laser fire. And then there is the matter that while they have a huge number of star destroyers, they also have a huge number of things to protect with those star destroyers, hence why we don't see huge fleets ever. The biggest we ever seen was in the RotJ. They just can't concentrate much, and even if they for whatever reason abandoned this strategy, the zerg could easily force them right back into it by just making wide spread simultaneous attacks on now undefended worlds.
@@SonnyAmbush I doubt the empire won't suddenly forget how to fight off a plague. The republic dealt with them for thousands of years, including plagues enhanced by bioweapons and sith alchemy. The empire dealt with blackwing, a zombie virus, fairly easily.
@@Derekloffin it's the canon number. No guarantee they actually used turbolasers. They were more likely heavy laser cannons used for precision strikes. Thrawn wanted the rebel leadership alive, and the city of lothal mostly intact. And if you're talking about hoth, the ATATs weren't using turbolasers they used laser cannons. The ATTE destroyed the munificents because they were unshielded. Also, munificents are like 6x weaker than venerators, which are 3x weaker than ISDs. Also, even if the zerg travel anywhere near fast as star wars ships, which they don't, star wars ships can only safely travel through hyperspace lanes because of the high density of star systems. At best the zerg will sweep the outer rim (excluding hutt space and several powerful local navies) then the empire will get scared and delta zero every planet in the path of the zerg until they develop a bioweapon than neutralizes them. At worst the zerg will attack something the empire cares about first, and be wiped by by the fleet in a matter of hours. The infection to mutation rate is too high for the zerg to be unpredictable as it needs to be to seed enough worlds to be a threat. The empire has so many planets and so many resources, the zerg could take 100 planets, and not make a dent in the empire. The zerg are literally just angrier killiks.
The funny thing about StarCraft is that for how OP its factions look at times. . . Everything that ever happened in StarCraft happened in the Koprullu sector. The UED lost its expeditionary fleet but Earth was untouched. Who knows what other Xel'Naga creations are Lurking out there. Did the rest of the Galaxy even had an idea of Amon's attacks?
I mentioned that for the Zerg, and hypothetically Star Trek, when it comes to scale. Star Wars largely operates on a scale a thousand times larger than the other franchises as its norm. Travel and Communication in particular. It completely sucks ALL fun out of these comparisons, but Star Wars tech covers distances franchises like Trek and Craft take years or decades to cross... in a manner of hours or days. You pretty much need to ignore those traits, lest the Emperor have the most ridiculous "Oh Crap" moment ever and send literally 15,000 Star Destroyers to converge on Infested Tattooine within a few days' time, tops. For whatever distance the UED needed to cross, I doubt it was a very large portion of their galaxy. The distance which might've been years for them might've been comparable to going from Naboo to Tattooine, or even Hoth to Bespin which was done without a Hyperdrive.
Even if the emperor immediately glassed every infested planet I doubt the most important core worlds would last very long That being said in sc1 the zerg were written as this unstoppable menace that effortlessly rolled over half the dominion core worlds, then proceeded to topple the canonically huge protoss empire overnight. And pretty much nobody except the UED was able to even contain the zerg without using the psi disruptor, much less take ground from them. They got a huge nerf in SC2 where raynor just pops on over to char and 1v1s kerrigan while the zerg swarm is at the strongest it ever was in the canon.
Also, don't forget that some species are immune to the force in one way or another (invisibility vs precognition, immunity to mind tricks, so on). The Zerg would pick up on that quickly.
If the force and psionics are the same, these creatures might be immune to the swarm's influence. They could probably get the virus, but they might not be controllable.
besides immunity to the Force, there also are species immune to Lightsabers and Blaster Fire. Idk, if the late Republic/early Empire already hunted them to extinction to manufacture their improved Clone/Stormtrooper armors, but if the Zerg Swarm would find some of them, they would have the ability to evolve a "Tank" that is immune to blaster fire, forcing the empire to use more unconventional kinetic weaponry.
@@jand.4737 Ground combat would be barely relevant strategically. In total war, the empire would destroy any continent world with significant infestation in a matter of hours. Strategically important centers like shipyards and critical hyperspace points would be fortresses in space and on the ground. Plus the zerg would have to not only find but subdue these beast, and there's no guarantee they'd be allowed to spread around that much without resistance once they attack the Empire.
There is something really interesting that wasn’t considered here. Because you specifically chose the Zerg before their battle on Korhal, we are working with a “good” Kerrigan. This Kerrigan isn’t corrupted by outside powers and is capable and willing to work with others. I could see the Zerg making allies and sparing people, this could cause traitors to appear in the empire. On a side note. Kerrigan is the Anakin Skywalker of StarCraft. A beyond powerful psychic (force user) told in prophecy to destroy evil and bring balance to the galaxy/universe.
Yeah, the scenario laid out required Kerrigan to be a murder hobo but took the Kerrigan most likely to track down the rebel hold outs and get rid of the Empire the smart way. I don't think the Empire has a chance when an even scarier space wizard is stepping up to the plate to kick their ass.
Funnily enough, the Empire's saving grace could end up being the clone troopers' old rival, the battle droid. While not terribly impressive on an individual level, they can be mass-produced on a frankly obscene scale (as the Empire knows all too well from the Clone Wars), new technological advancements can be incorporated and rolled out relatively swiftly, alternate versions and even entire new classes can be designed to counter specific threats, and they are 100% biologically inert meaning the Swarm can't infest, poison, or even eat them like they could storm troopers. Basically, an Uno Reverse Card to the Zerg.
IIRC most combat droid production was shut down and/or dismantled following the Clone Wars though, we certainly don't see many in the original trilogy. Also zerg *can* eat them, considering they use "Minerals" as their main resource.
I would like to see the Empire mass produce Phase III Darktroopers, that would completely annihilate everything Zerg. Considering that Phrik is such an extremely strong material that it can survive a blast from the Death Star. ua-cam.com/video/vSjQG234J_M/v-deo.html
I think something that Grant didn't talk about was supply lines. The Republic and Empire both relied on a massive amout of supplies from the mid rim and outer rim. As such losing the outer rim and a large chunk of the mid rim would cause the Empire to buckle under attrition.
Agreed! And not to mention the Empire would still face other threats while being stalked by the Zerg. With the Empire weakened, it's pretty likely that new rebel factions will try to fight the Empire even while this infestation was going on. Self-interested groups, like maybe the Hutts, and other pirate factions would raid and pillage systems that are now poorly defended in the weakening or flat-out absence of the Imperial navy. They would have to choose; reinforce shipping lanes to protect against pirate raids, which would weaken the forces needed to blockade the advance of the Zerg, or take forces away to strengthen the blockade and leave the merchants at the mercy of the pirates.
@@wasdwasd609Imperial navy: 25,000 imperial 1 star destroyers, 4.8-36 million smaller warships(2,400-4,000 combat ships per sector(imperial sourcebook), 50+dreadnoughts(around 26 of which are executer classes), a sovereign class(continent/small moon busting laser), two eclipses(continent/small moon), over 263,000(Specter of the past) other star destroyers/similar sized ships, sun crusher(star buster, that tanked a death stat laser), 2 death stars, an extra death star prototype with a functional laser, 2 death star sized habitation spheres, a galaxy gun(snipe planets and ships from across the galaxy), metal crystal phase shifters(bypass shields to weaken hull integrity), the tarken,(planet buster), the conqueror(continent/small moon cracking super laser) and dozens of world devastators(can rip apart planets with tractor beam projectors, while tanking shots from capital ships. Can collect materials to upgrade/grow, and even create new world devastators). There was a plan to include super class star destroyers(8km) in many of the empires sectors. That is potentially 100s. There was also the assertor class(15km), bellator(7km), vengeance class(19km), and mandator III(12km). Imperial army: 10s of trillions(Rebellion era campaign guide, and Imperial sourcebook) Stormtrooper corps: 100s of millions-billions CompForce: 100s of billions(2nd edition sourcebook) Tanks/repulsorcraft: 2-9 Trillion Walkers: 10s of millions Fighters: 62 million- a few hundred million Territory: over a million, and a half full member worlds(rebellion era campaign guide,and 2nd edition source book) , and 5-70+ million colonies(Essential atlas), vessels, and protectorates. Han solo stated to Luke they would have to search six million inhabited systems, and an old republic comic stated the holonet connected six million worlds. 1,000s of sectors(imperial source book). Weapon damage: Turbolasers dish out megatons of superheated plasma, while laser cannons in the kilotons. The attack of the clones cross section states 200 gigatons a shot, and 6 megatons a shot but we treat it as an outlier(It also states turbolaser shots travel at light speed). Contrary to popular belief star wars shields do protect against projectiles/high velocity attacks. A super star destroyer's shields have tanked rebel cruisers jumping out of hyperspeed, and multi megaton hits from asteroids in an asteroid field. Deflector shields can produce ray shields(Physical/High velocity projectile weapons), and particle shields(energy based weapons). Both the 2nd edition sourcebook, and cross section tell us star destroyers are capable of turning the upper crust of planets into slag which we can believe. Carnor jax states an imperial star destroyer can make stone run like water, and turn sand into glass. Going by the bombardment of caamas, it takes several star destroyers to reduce a planet's surface twice the size of earth to molten slag in under twenty four hours. The E-11 is the equivalent of a 14.5mm round with enough heat to punch through a lightly armored or unarmored opponent, and in a new hope it vaporizes steel bars. The DLT-19 was capable of taking down lightly armored vehicles. The T-21 light repeating blaster fires the plasma bolt equivalent of a 22.5-30mm bullet from a guass rifle. Mercenaries using light blaster cannons shot through 4 inches of plasteel. T-21
My money is on the Swarm. Their adaptability and scale, combined with the abundance of terrifying predatory creatures in the SW galaxy for Abathur to play with would overwhelm the bulk of the Imperial forces. Sidious and Vader would undoubtedly present a challenge, but that challenge is significantly reduced when cut off from their powers. Thrawn was known to carry a creature with such an ability as a pet. It came from an area not explored by the Empire. Thinking about the force, Kerrigan's abilities already look extremely similar to several dark side powers. She's fueled by rage, projects lightning, crushes and strikes with telekinesis, levitates, and one of her primal abilities even taps into the light side by healing herself and her party. The only basic force powers she lacks are the short and long-term precognition. Given the overlap, it's questionable if Abathur could find a way to use the force to further augment the Swarm. However, infestation of gifted force sensitives would allow Kerrigan to add additional hero units to her ranks. I tend to think that none of these force sensitives would be on her level because she literally redefined the psionics scale, twice, in her home universe. If a trained force user like an Inquisitor, surviving Jedi, or the Bendu were captured and infested, then things could get interesting. Kerrigan's raw power, tempered by the focus of a force user would be a powerful combination.
@@sc2_Nightmare I feel like the shadow in the warp would disrupt zerg psychic powers, making them less efficient, and the Nyds would just eat them through sheer numbres. Zerg are more efficeint at absorbing biomass and integrating it into the swar though, if they focus on orks and eldar early to enhance their powers, they might have a shot.
Okay, okay, hear me out. Kerrigan IS a powerful force user. She was born with a certain, more or less unexplained power, she uses it to shock people with Force Lightning, choke everyone in area, crush them with implosion, and uses it to enhance her speed and ability to jump. Heck, the whole Zerg chain of command can be seen as a kind of 'Jedi mind trick' as well. The only thing she's missing is a lightsaber, but that was stolen by miss Covert Ops.
In KOTOR and in the Thrawn book trilogy there were powerful Jedi that had an ability called “battle meditation” that allowed them to inspire armies and even communicate orders to them. Kerrigan having a powerful form of battle meditation makes perfect sense
@@HeroOfJusticeYT I find your lake of faith disturbing. Also the zerg and abuther and kerrigan alone are vastly superior to the empire even at it's very peek even if they owned 3 death stars. The moment the zerg have several planets to breed and spawn their broods the empire had better deathstar those planets before the zerg had the chance to leave orbit. The zerg are an organic species that can survive in the vacuum of space and only become more genetically adapted to what they have to capture and the ability to adapt in general that it would be a game of whack a mole for the empire that they simply could never cleanse when the entire galaxy of space can contain contingent zerg expansion beyond the outer rim. The empire is mostly limited in its expansion as the outer rim exists meaning the empire does not control every potential breeding ground for the zerg. Also kerrigan is basically a sith/jedi in her own right and ya, if abathur discovered midichlorians (which seems impossible for him not to given every life form there has them and would stand out) , abathur would be spinning the sequences to ensure zerg not only have them too, but that they are genetically bred for that trait. Abathur is so underestimated due to literally being able to evolve life and rapidly mutate creating ever new challenges for the empire that only become harder to counter over the time abathur has. zerg having a civil war would also not be the end and sells the zerg short. The zerg existed and functioned quite fine before kerrigan as they had things like the overmind and other beings of psionic ability approaching inconsequentially short to her own. changelings plus abathur, i don't see the empire being able to deal with the infestation being able to hid basically anywhere and the empire does not have enough sith to turn the tides in battles that will be so stretched. the zerg are underestimated here
I think the zerg would immediatly try to take over the Deathstar once it blasted one foot hold Not to mention that the zerg once before rather easily cnoquered a "citadel" a absurdly hard defended Planet namely Tarsonis and as you said they where about to attack Korhal while simultaneously laying siege on the entire Dominion so Corruscant or any other Citadel world wouldnt be much of an issue and taking over the Deathstar would effectively be a dwath sentence to the Empire
and lose all their leviathans to low yield deathstar blast and its escorting fleet, because the zerg would clearly be taken more seriously than the rebellion.
This was fun to watch! I was thinking, when you mentioned the devastation a single larvae could wreak by sneaking onto a starship... The Zerg could just win this hypothetical war by infesting Coruscant by ACCIDENT. A Planet of the Apes type ending (the Andy Serkis one) could easily run amok and quickly find its way to the inner planets.
Another 'win' I can see the Zerg getting is Time. Palpatine is old, Vader is aging. Zerg don't really age. There were Primal Zerg (still alive in game) who were around when Amon took and corrupted the Overmind.
@@isaacgraff8288 True, although Palpatine (even in old canon) had multiple contingencies for his death, and was actively researching how to circumvent it. It is not impossible for Sith to live for a really long time (Darth Krayt for example).
The problem is...the zerg can't even handle their own, substantially smaller galaxy. They occupied like 50 planets in their prime, to the Empires 1.5 million. The Imperial fleet also has the advantage in range, firepower, and speed. I think the zerg would get lost in star wars. In fact, the zerg already exist in Star Wars. There's the Killiks dark nest, the Raguul plauge, and that zombie bioweapon virus. None of them are superpower factions at any point in history. Killiks came close but were crushed by a former vassal of the empire, despite getting help.
@@isaacgraff8288 Palpatine could just body swap in both Canon and Legends. I doubt they'd be a significant threat more than 50 years at a time anyway, more of a looming menace that keeps returning because they can't completely get rid of it.
@iamblight707 That was do to a few factors, prime among them being the difference between the Overmind and your standard hivemind supreme intellgence. The Overmind was one that did not belive in waste, one that was focused upon perfection, to achieve the greatest ability out of themselves and their children. Alongside that, we never saw the full scale of swarms war with the Protoss, however we do know the protoss covered a notable portion of the galaxy
I immediately thought of enemy within and how this infestation would crush the empire. If a farm boy can sneak into the Death Star, could a queen larva do the same and take down all the empires greatest weapons.
To be fair, enemy within took place on a ship that fled in a panicked and poorly guarded manner. Because of how hangars work, if an infestation got loose in the hangar they could probably jettison it if need be.
Infesting the deathstar is the exact moment the empire looses, Kerrigan would see the value of the superweapon and defend it accordingly, unleashing its destructive power uppon the galaxy without much remorse
@@laxcatthesleepycat2688i am not sure about that. Using the death star weapon would be pretty counterproductive to the zergs as the only thing they want is to get more planets to assimilate so destroying them would be a bad idea for her. Maybe i could see her using it on a very few amount of planets but not much
Fun video. The Galactic Empire vs NonForce swarms was explored in the Yuzhong Vong invasion in the legacy books. Seeing as both civs can be played in RTS games, I think it would be feasible for someone to mod one or the other to show this conflict. :D
Love the video! Something to add. One of, if not the primary reason that the war in the Koprulu sector is a stale mate is because the protoss go around glassing planets that show even the slightest display of infection. You can see in one of the Wings of Liberty missions that Dr. Hansen's colony was only barely starting to show signs of infection before the protoss came along and started trying to burn the entire world. Given that protoss glass planets from orbit. . . and any Mothership (of which there are 9 known to canon), carrier (tens of thousands known to canon) or voidray (Very common heavy assault unit), they can Planet Crack to stop infestations at a rate that the Imperial forces just cant match. Granted, the mark one death star (the one we pretended to not blow up) was capable of firing once every 24 hours. The mark 2 could come closer, with a fire time of 3 minutes (and since it was never used like that, engineering principles would ask with what drawbacks) they could come closer in theory. I still dont see a shot every 3 minutes matching the efficiency of tens of thousands of ships. Although side note, the Death Star mark 2 was modified to also be fireable at capital ships. This puts kerrigan at a massive disadvantage if they were to ever find her flagship leviathan.
In Galactic Republic/Empire, there's a protocol called Base Delta Zero - orbital bombardment to such extent nothing survives on the planet's surface. Most of the planet is still there, of course, so you need energies far less than what Death Star possesses for that. According to Legends, as few as three Imperial-class Star Destroyers could execute such operations in a "matter of hours". I guess small fleet of Star Destroyers can glass a planet actually fast and outspeed/overpower any possible zerg regrowth.
@@user-25352 Yeah blasting the surface does not do much to the Zerg. They do extensive tunneling on planets that they properly infest. Just look at Char for a idea on how hard they are to wipe from a planet even without any real leadership (early Zagara was kinda bad at her job)
@@dragonearth5456 pretty sure protocol was devised to depopulate worlds even where locals have lots of underground cities/population. "Far, far away" galaxy has lots of races, some more unique than others. and while zerg do seem to be at the top of "adaptability" and "spread really fast" leaderboard, they aren't the only ones capable of burrowing deep. The real thing that makes them hard to wipe out by terrans is lack of high-power energy weaponry, they rely more on kinetic-like guns and maybe some bombs/nukes. They just can't decisively damage planet's surface+subsurface thoroughly enough so that no zerg lifeform that can reproduce survives. SW ships can just output raw power into turning planet's surface and subsurface unsurvivable even for zerg, even if it they would have to slowly "cleance" it sector by sector.
@@user-25352 Keep in mind the Protoss glassed planets and for years later the Terrans where still finding Zerg all over the planet they traditionally get progressively deeper tunnels super fast to get their nydus network up. Also if the Zerg are not attacking a fleet in orbit of a planet that means they don't even have enough Zerg there to warrant glassing yet. They will always attack ships found in orbit of their hives.
It's a little inconsistent how quickly the Protoss respond to infestation, I mean in Safe Haven it seems the infestation is contained to a few colonists behind a fence while in Haven's Fall there's an actual Zerg presence and multiple villages potentially infested. In SC1, the Protoss only glass Chau Sara when it's been fully infested, months after the Zerg first showed up, although I suppose that can be chalked up to them not expecting the Zerg in Terran space and Tassadar's fleet being put together for that specific situation.
Huh How did I never question that Kerrigan's swarm travelled like halfway across the galaxy to get to Zerus in the first third of the campaign... That's crazy
@@nguyenphamthanhgiang8951 Yeah but all you hear is that your first trip will be unpleasant. Even then the first trip is still in Terran space; Tarsonis to Char with Char being a world in Terran territory but so horrible that no one stayed there
@@SenyiKimmo yes, I know. I've played the game like dozens of times over the last nearly 30 years. But Auir is still in the same area of space relatively, like it's part of the Khoprulu Sector. It's definitely far from the terran systems, but it's not as crazy as Zerus or Ulnar.
Because it's not mentioned in the games really, but in interviews as other material it was mentioned that Kerrigan going from Koprulu to Zerus and back took a couple of months~ (Not taking into account how much was the travel and how much was the subjugation of the primals) Also we do know that Zerus is in or close the galactic Core, while Koprulu is in the edges of the galaxy.
The best way to defeat the Empire is to fire a single torpedo at their Artosis Pylon Power Generator and overload the entire thing into a chain explosion.
Interesting thought: can Kerrigan or for that matter the Zerg leadership even be killed by the means the Empire has? Canonically in SC the Overmind and his Cerebrates could only be destroyed by "Dark Templar energies", which are a kind of psi-energy-stuff. The Force is not really this, is it? In SC2 there are ideas put forth that the Swarms body cannot truely be destroyed as long as there is "essence". now this is also hardly defined, but it is heavily hinted that basically everytime you kill the physical body of a Zerg it will simply hatch again at some hatchery as long as nothing messes with the essence. Only (some) Protoss and this weird XelNaga Artifact where able to do so. Even if we for arguments sake say that the Force is able to grant the power to forever destroy a certain Zergs essense (i.e. permanently kill Kerrigan, Stukov etc...), the empire only has 2 people capable of doing this. Darth Vader and Sidius have their work cut out for them, traveling from planet to planet in search of the boss Zergs... Another thing not considered is whether Kerrigans psi powers would be equal or stronger than the force. To me she would probably win a straight up fight against even the emporer in powers, as she regenerates much faster and probably has a lot more atrition. It is not seen in the games, but if you read some of the Starcraft books that explore the Terran "Ghost" (so what Kerrigan was before she evolved twice into something insanely more powerful in psi-abilities) and their skills, they can flat out think weaker minds to perish. Nova, the pseudo follow-up Ghost to Kerrigan in the Terran Dominions Army was able to just think her target dead over a few miles away. Meanwhile Kerrigan is labled as the strongest Psionic in the Starcraft Universe by the Dominon - a class 13 Psionic Lifeform (or whatever the number was) Imagine Kerrigan starts using that shit - just thinking armies dead. We do not know if she is incapable of it or if she didnt really try it because of Protoss being around all the time, who have stronger minds than weak Terrans (or in this application Stormtroopers?). The numbers war would also be interesting, I wonder whatever happened to Droid and Clone Armys - can the empire still produce them if push came to shove and humanity fears this weird bug infastation, some reluctant citizens that did not enjoy the Dictatorship, might suddenly have less problems with old Palpatine? Then there is the problem of attrition. Once the empire retreats into its coreworlds - how will it sustain them? with trade and resources from the Outer Rim basically gone, I think many of the core worlds will ultimately start to revolt. Hungry people make for bad subjects. Add to this, that at some point the Empires army may run out of skilled workforce and soldiers, as they need years to train new personell to the skill level the persons they replace had... Zerg have the hugest advantage here, as it seems to take little to no time to replace Zergling X Ultimately, Im not sure if the empire really stands the chance you give them in the video, because all they can hope for is destroying every planet that isnt "clean" with the Death Star (or similair shit) and would ultimately end up destroying themselves in their effort to remain in power with their iron grip. wow this got a lot longer than I intended for at first... respect to those who took the time to read my 2 cents
Man ... lets try to keep it lore accurate somewhat. Kerrigan cant "think armies dead" .. or you know she'd do it constantly against terrans at least. Do you really wanna take out full powered Legends Palpatine? Hint: he's somewhere planet cracker level if I recall, being able to create warp storms in different part of the galaxy. That's a bit more (by a landslide) than what even Primal Kerrigan could do (not talking ascended xel naga) . Also there are not only 2 force sensitive people in the Empire. Given the circumstance (human race wipe out scenario) sith and jedi would join hands. So you get Luke, Leia, other jedi in hiding, and a restored Vader (keep in mind Palpatine keeps him weak for a reason) You're downplaying the empire insanely. The zerg merely covered 2-300 worlds at peak? Empire is millions of worlds. They are more advanced in tech than terrans were too. ... and their leaders can see the future trough the Force. It would not be in zerg's favour.
@@TheShadow6391 I think Kerrigan's forces would be heavily outgunned and outmaneuvered in space, which is the thing that matters. Startcraft FTL is slower, Star Wars one is absurdly fast. Her chance I think would be assimilating this tech somehow (might not be possible organically), and/or taking Empire from within, dominating/infesting/recruiting people like Thrawn and other admirals to be servants/pawns, assimilating Vong (if they exist within setting we imagine) by assassinating and masquerading as their leadership (zerg can mutate to look like anything outside with skill and effort), and take control of Empire from within by ambushing the Emperor (that would only work depending on their respective skills in divination/anti-divination/stealth) and replacing him, maybe with help of previously converted Vader (for whom Kerrigan can easily regrow limbs after he's infested). Then Empire and the galaxy is hers to take at her leisure, but that's only if Vader and Emperor don't discover and burn her beforehand. Without Kerrigan with her psionics including infiltration abilities like invisibility, Zerg would be just particularly nasty decease/critters I think. Unless zerg infestation can be controlled from light years away, in which case it could remind the Flood scenario... but I doubt zerg are that strong with zerg virus, otherwise they could assimilate terrans easy enough already with small infiltration units - which they don't and can't, and need to be physically present to infest and mutate for assimilation/enslavement/recruitment.
@@user-fl3le7pt9c I agree with the points made. Also I would possibly argue Vader/Palpatine would be extremely difficult to infest/mind control. They are after all incredibly well trained and disciplined. We're not talking some random human, they are beyond human condition and both transcend death (vader as a ghost, palpatine SOMEHOW returned etc) (well palpatine learns to clone and spirit trasfer himself) . They could surely infest other officers, but these 2 would be big no no imo. As you mentioned they are not able to mass infest terans/protoss that openly fight them. Why would they be able to do so with the Empire. Also the infested are not particularly dangerous compared to regular zerg ... they are zombies more or less. So planets with a military presence would not fall easily. This topic is much like Imperium vs Tyranids in 40k (both sides are beefed up however). And Tyranids still dont win/or not without major efforts and heavy losses.
@@user-fl3le7pt9c the problem is that that isnt how kerigen fight , she go and fight her enemy like she did to raynor at WOL , and narud menks and amon later on , she would attck them head on and before she would realize how much this is stomp she would already be dead
There is one annoying trope that is never really considered in those kind of situation, that hyper-specialized relying on trade planets are stupid. I mean, ok, it's kind of metaphore of the globalization happening on Earth, but if you really think about it, it makes no sense. A city planet like Corusant would still be able to produce the massive quantities of food, basic resources and manufactured goods to sustain a very large population and a thriving economy, even producing warships and whatever the Empire need. The sheer scale of a planet is often not really well pictured in SciFi in general, they are more treated as country or a besieged castle. But there is not really such thing as besieging a whole world, it won't really run out of food, water, resources or means of production in a meaningful timescale. Usage of hydroponics for food, fusion energy, and deep mining are kinda basics techs in those kinds of setting. It's fair to imagine that the Empire would have some hard times at the beginning to transition his economy from a globalized trade-focused one to a more isolationist. If they manage to keep control of their planets and their stellar system they are into, they can hold firm against the Swarm for really long. One thing that could happen with this, is that the Empire disintegrate, because of this isolationism into a bunch of "City-States" each stellar system or planet becoming his own entities.
It is a fun question. Biggest Issue I usually have with factions compared, is that each side plays and follows different rules. I think the Zerg's biggest advantages are competent commanders and adaptability. As for the Empire? Palpatine and Vader are incredibly powerful, they also have a handful of powerful super weapons.
Vader and Palp are powerful and they could massacre a lot of Zerg, however if Kerrigan wants them dead she’ll just swarm them constantly with hundreds of Zerg at a time until the soldiers they have are wiped out and they slowly are worn down by constantly fighting different forms of zerg
@@ztrax7133 Neither are any more powerful than a High Templar, and those died by the thousands. Star Wars cannot ever win against Starcraft. Look at Star Destroyers, they use turbolasers that cannot hit anything smaller than a corvette, rely on line of sight for everything, get taken out super easily by a hit to the bridge vs Terran BCs which have a ton of very fast fire rate auto turrets specifically designed against smaller air/space craft and Mutas and they still went down in large numbers fairly quickly by the sheer number of Mutas. Also the whole Starcraft Evolution book cannot even happen, Abathur was explained in Heart of The Storm's dialogue with Abathur to have gone wild once Overmind died, and that he cannot function without a hive connection.
Normally I'd make some snide comment that zombies are almost never physically fit enough to perpetrate a zombie outbreak, but I think its pretty fun to note that StarCraft zombies would absolutely massacre normal civvie populations, what with their added armor from carapace, claws, extra agility, and ability to spread infections with injected larvae, rather than just zombies spreading it only. Honestly, I think you give "average joe with a blaster" too much credit here lol Edit: ...that being said, they'd still be a non-factor against any real military forces from the empire.
The Empire does still have flamethrowers and chemical weapons which infested humans are still very weak to. Some also burn in sunlight so I still think they are lacking simply because of how weak the human body is as a base to work with. This is probably a reason why they were suicide bombers in the first game.
@@coatofarms4439 I have to agree with all your points but this falls apart when you consider the vast array of species with starwars. Some of which come from high gravity worlds and are stronger and more durable as a resault than your average human. That and the augmented forces from assimilated creatures in the starwars galaxy I honestly think given a bit of time the swarm would crush though.
I think that if a infestor made its way to the under city of Coursant then the empires in a lot of trouble. The massive population and mostly unmonitored lower levels have lots of potential and given how easy it is for infestations to pop up its incredibly dangerous for the Empire
The under city of Coursant might genuinely kill the infestor. It's pretty bad down there. Like really bad. But if it's in the criminal underworld levels, it has a pretty good chance. But the underworld levels sometimes has to deal with the things in the deeper levels coming *up* sometimes, so a Infestor might be doable for them.
@@sneediumminer Usually with the Imperium losing and having to exterminatus hundreds of planets and sacrifice large numbers of irreplaceable ships and barely replaceable ships to stop the particular hivefleet of the century. Never again getting those planets back the way they were, as they are all now barren or hellscapes. Sure, they stop them, but each time costs significant resources they never get back.
This is an incredibly clean and fun analysis, but I think it's important to remember that the Empire's technology is either on-par with or outright weaker than Protoss tech, and the protoss *with* the Golden Armada spent half a decade building up before even trying to retake Auir, which was only occupied by a moderate force of enthralled zerg, nowhere near the might of the unified swarm. Protoss have spent centuries perfecting the exact weapons needed to combat zerg, and still struggle to succeed outside of orbital bombardment. Their primary tactic is total planetary annihilation, and all that leaves the empire with is a growing pile of dead rocks. Lore Zerg have been stated to be pretty much immune to any type of chemical or radiation attack. In the abscence of psionic capability, their literal only vulnerability is being too physically mangled to keep fighting, whether by plasma, fire, blade, or bullets. The empire's weapons are almost universally plasma-based guns (that they call lasers).
Funnily enough I feel like my Stellaris prowess comes in useful here. If we assume your story ends in a stalemate like you said with the empire being pushed basically to the core worlds while leaving the midrim destroyed/a warzone and the outer rim infested. The Empire is dead, not through lack of manpower or industry but through agriculture. You see, an intergalactic level of civilization shifts individual planets to a position we have countries at right now. Import/Export problem essentially, the core worlds are going to be your ecumenopoli, massive planet-wide city/industrial zones with outputs when it comes to military that would be frankly obscene, yes. However, a world with that kind of population, even giving the greatest benefit of the doubt to the Empire, would never be able to sustain its own populace basic needs. If we assume they have perfect recovery systems, they could sustain themselves on water through filtration/asteroid ice refining. However, a planet-wide city needs a planet-wide food production and I believe a lot of these world would be located in the midrim of the galaxy. So if the Empire was in fact pushed to basically the core worlds alone, they would literally eventually collapse from the inside due to attrition, not immediately since there would probably be some reserves or stations with hydroponic systems for emergencies, but over time the Swarm would quite literally starve the Empire out.
The big problem these inter-franchise comparisons have is the difference in scale. StarCraft and Star Trek take place in very small pockets of space for the most part. The Koprulu Sector is basically just a handful of planets that's been kind of bulked out by SC2, but it's still the equivalent of a few nodes in Stellaris. Star Trek spreads out a bit more but ultimately still takes place in just 1 galactic quadrant (Alpha Quadrant) and even that is barely even touched in terms of exploration. Star Wars takes place across an entire full galaxy, one largely even known and explored. Logistics is massively in the favor of Star Wars tech, they cross distances in hours that Trek and Craft tech takes years or decades to cross. It's like a Snail, an ordinary real life one with no powers, trying to fight or blockade Sonic the Hedgehog. So in Stellaris terms: How hard would it be for a faction 4 nodes big to "cut off" the logistics of an Empire controlling 400 nodes and also several layers of tech more advanced? It's VERY un-fun for comparisons like this, but for context the trip from Naboo/Tattooine to Coruscant in Episode 1 is the kind of distance it would take Voyager ~70 years to cross at their max sustainable Warp speed. Who even knows how far Earth is from Koprulu but that itself is a trip that took many years, and could be fairly short in galactic terms all things considered. The Empire could bring its entire navy to every individual planet in the Koprulu Sector, orbitally bombard them into becoming Char #2 #3 #4 etc, and be home for tea by the time Kerrigan could react to any of them.
Every single time the Zerg have been defeated in canon, it has been due to their leaders dying: whether it's Cerebrates being assassinated by Dark Templar, Kerrigan being purged, or the Ganthritor being steered into a collision course with the Overmind. I imagine the Empire (and any remaining Rebels and Jedi) would try something similar this time too; it's how the plot usually tends to go...
Yes but how the leaders died made that especially impossible to do. You needed specifically DT energy to do any of those kills, and there arent any Xelnaga artifacts here to purge kerry. Theres no way the empire will win this.
@@wmzer0mw Still, you could target individual broodmothers repeatedly. They're pretty hardy in their own right but are still no Kerrigan. Teams of assassins that hunt down broodmothers could prove to cause significant turmoil in the Swarm's power structure, as more stress is put on the link between Kerrigan and lower level queens. As for how well they can actually do this? Well, I dunno. The Empire could prove to be shockingly good at it, or Broodmothers could prove to be able to defend themselves even if caught completely off-guard.
@@SenyiKimmo Possible but doubtful. The zerg are still a hive mind, the minute a brood mother or 2 disappears, the hive will recognize it and develop counter measures, even without actually being anywhere near there. Abathur was able to do that in the evolution bonus missions where he can influence remote planet evolutions.
I was half interested clicking on this, thinking it was just gonna be another long hand-wavey video explanation between the two factions by a channel I'm not familiar with. But DAMN this was really well researched and thought out. And now I'm sitting here going down the rabbit hole on how this war would look and I NEED this to be made into a series now.
I think that the Death Star is a lot less invincible than you imply, while the Zerg would have trouble breaking it in a conventional space battle, any Zerg managing to board it would spell doom for the poor stormtroopers and crewmen who now have to deal with Zerg in CQC
...while they have actually no or only few means for actual CQB anyway - a zerg swarm isn't exactly a few pesky Jedi's, it's a completely different threat! - i don't see stormtroopers standing any chance against even a few zerglings when terran marines are already bubblegum to chew trough xP Okay, lets give them plasma shot's aka "Laser Bolts" actually being more effective than bullets, they still have the issue of their armor not exactly doing much against projectiles of any kind, so just a few Hydralisks and the groundbattle on the deathstar is over. The only thing i see the empire being superior is space battles, i don't see the Zerg expanding any further into core worlds, as they would long be dispatched by even patrol forces - the Zerg aren't exacly that tough without their Numbers in Ground&Air Combat - and never had to fight against Plasma Weaponry aka "Laser Bolts", so even if we grand a theoraticly "armor" capability against those, they would need to evolve it first - by that time the Empire would likely have them hunted down, with no other threats than maybe civil unrests that could indeed bind forces, there's to plenty of Imperials that in this case start to outmatch the Zerg Armada and thus would likely kick them out before they even had a chance to spread to other worlds - and Tattoine would certainly serve as a new Alderaan - i mean srsly, the Zerg are a Ground combat focused faction, while the Empire is a Space focused one wich also has a freakin deathstar and no hesitation to just blow infested planets up, with the only limiting factor of it's slow hyperspace speed and that there's like only 2-3 of them troughout the universe - so unless the Zerg spread faster (and mind you, for that they HAVE TO travel trough space!) than the Empire can blow up infested planets, the Zerg loose. - no denial the Zerg would Win most Ground battles unless fighting against fortifications (they lack any actual siege weapons - yes i'm aware of ultralisks, they are still limited in capabilities while the empire can trow bombs at them! - Zerg win trough numbers, not their inherent limited capabilities! - and even Zerg reproduction is limited, also don't forget there is no vespin gas, so a substitut would be needed! - still, most non-heavily defended planets would fall just like in the Starcraft universe.)
It all comes down to if the Zerg would be able to penetrate the shields and armor of the death star. And honestly I kind of doubt they would have the firepower necessary for that. Star Wars shields just seem to me like something the Zerg just aren't equipped to deal with
@@hanneswiggenhorn2023 yet they can easily deal with protoss plasma sheilding. also most star wars shields are build to deal mostly with energy attacks like laser fire. even though star wars 'lasers' are plasma. while protoss plasma shields protect from both energy and kinetic
I didn't know about the head-bonk for the longest time. For years after watching A New Hope. Learned about it from the internet only a years ago and was like, "What? No way. There's NO WAY they left that in the movie!" Immediately fired up the movie, fast-forwarded to the scene, and promptly died laughing because it was true. And I LOVE that they left it in! XD
I hope you make another like this. I haven't even seen Star Wars, but it's a cool and fun video to watch and you explain the assets and tactics well enough that I'm up to speed.
I'm usually not a fan of faction comparison videos because they do exactly what you pointed out and typically just compare death ball to death ball without considering the scale of the battlefield, but I've watched enough of your videos to know you put way more effort than that into any video you make so I gave it a chance. This is the right way to do one of these videos and I like how you factor in different win conditions for each side beyond just "kill them to the last." I agree with your assessment on it likely ending in a stalemate and how it could be broken. If the Zerg Swarm were to manage to harness the Force through infestation (likely of an Inquisitor or Jedi survivor) and gain an understanding of it, the stalemate would be broken if Abathur could work that into new Zerg strains. That said, the Imperial economy might collapse on itself between their efforts to quarantine the Zerg and the loss of the Outer Rim's resources under a prolonged stalemate anyways.
Just to clarify, the force is something that cannot be infested or taken over somehow. Even when you have the tech of the flood or tyranids. Also i believe he tried hard to make it look unbiased but in fairnes and i mean this in a respectfull way, the swarm is like toiletpaper for the empire and when he has done the slightest of research on this matter he would have know this, respectfully.
Now I am just picturing Luke turning off his targeting computer, missing, and the sound of crickets as it pans to reaction shots of all the rebels before Dodonna bellows *FUUUUUU* and the music cuts him off as credits roll. Best ending.
I'm not sure if Darth Vader would even help in ground battles. Banelings and roaches would be highly problematic. A lightsaber does not protect you against acid spray. While his suit provides some resistance against acid, it may not be enough, especially in a prolonged fight or with Abathurs work.
While that’s a possibility, this would have to be the first time the Empire has ever encountered them and they would need to ambush Vader alone in massive numbers. Otherwise he’d be smart enough to use the Force against them and rely on his precognition to avoid any other ambushes. It’s definitely a possible win con, but not reliable enough to happen more than a few times.
unlike the movies though Vader would likely be moving with his elites and once the threat of acid is known they would take a more cautious approach and blast em at range, plus his force power would still work on em but yeah banelings would cause hella damage
I think Kerrigans psionic level would be easily translated into the force. or rather, like flooding a pot of water with a glass of oil. Zerg Hive Mind is like a gallaxy and Kerrigan is its central black hole, you would just know if something so huge would suddenly pop up in your yard. Vader and Palps would immediately feel something powerfull appeared or voided the force... These two would immediately be allerted, they would seek it out and understand it. While Kerrigan would stunned by her confusion. when she infests and learns about this galaxy, Vader with Tarkin and Thrawn are already hunting her down. And i already said that psionics would be easily translatable to the force, zerg queens are already a jedi level, so that doesnt change anything. Tarkin and Thrawn would already adjust tactis and strategy, while Vader would be a match for Kerrigan herself. All in all Kerriganonly hope is to become Palps new apprentice, otherwise its Exterminatus. Zerg would only fare just a lot better than against WH Imperium but only initially.
Heh agreed. Kerrigan (human, infested or post-infested-purple) was no match for the Overmind and Cerebrates in their full strength, so how could she take on Palpatine, Darth Vader and whatever other force-sensitive assets that Palpatine had stored away for a special occasion? To me, if the Zerg were to REALLY mix it up against the Galactic Empire on even ground, it'd have to be the Overmind and Cerebrates version thereof. Likely, a Dark Jedi is comparable to a Dark Templar, so they might lose a Cerebrate or two.... But still, it feels like a better mixup than crappy Starcraft 2 Retcon Kerrigan. Moreover... my OCD mind has to point out that, uh, scourges can fly in space, as seen when they took down Norad II (Edmund Duke's ship) in that SC1 cutscene. Just mass those to the 11th degree and fling 'em at the star destroyers. (Pretty sure that all other "air" units can fly in most space-like settings too, seeing as they can on Space Station Maps). I just hope that the Empire doesn't have Science Vessels LOL. Irradiate OP.
@@HoboKa_AlexShtokalko ahhhh a Man of Culture! I agree wholesomly! Overmind would pose a much better challenge, Him alone could potentially make entire Jedi Council kneel under his psionic pressure. As for the Empire, they do have specialized ships, so.... a Science DESTROYER is not impossible lmao.
A very interesting scenario. There's one aspect I either didn't notice or wasn't focused on. If Kerrigan learns about the logistics network the Empire needs to function before or around the first encounter with Tarkin, she could use a longer deception. She can get the details from captured logistics officers and computers in fallen bases or ships. Having the Zerg play a "defeated bug species" while infestations are smuggled to various logistics planets in the Midrim. Use them to transfer infestations or even larvae onto shuttles bound for ISDs, or even have some travel to the core worlds. Within half a year, there is a good chance that 10% or more of the ISDs can be turned into floating tombs by infecting everyone on board in a man vs. bug skirmish without fancy empirical war machines, rendering the fleet ineffective from the mass outbreak. In StarWars, many developments take place over the course of several months, placing such a strategy within the realm of possibility, and Kerrigan is a master at switching between covert sneak attacks and full-scale invasions. It would be interesting to see how the Empire reacts to such a blow to its coordination and supply chains. From that point on, it would be an all-out war.
I really liked your balance between fan-theory and grounded observations (about fictional things). It creates a balance that encourages discussion without sounding either too overblown or too pretentious. Thank you for this thought exercise!
This makes me want to see a battle between a couple Leviathans and the Death Star. A Leviathan could probably drop zerg on the Death Star, maybe even a hatchery if they're so inclined. From there, nydus' burrow in and raise hell.
this actually raises a solid point, in that the Empire's point defense has always been lacking. After all like 5 wings of fighters were able to seriously threaten a Moon sized base. What would a few thousand drop pods do to the death star?
first the deathstar has shields and could one shot it its also constantly protected by alot of ships unless they have codes to enter they would be blasted before they get anywhere near the deathstar
@@L_______That would be a lot more true if the entire defensive complement of the DS1 didn't utterly fail to protect the station against an insignificant number of snub fighters. Millions of AA guns, hundreds of shield layers, and thousands of fighters all failed to stop 29 rebel fighters, a space truck, and an actual crop duster pilot. A Dark Lord of the Sith barely lifting a finger to slay these amateurs got as many on screen kills as the collective economic might of the Galactic Empire. No kidding Vader thought the station was a joke.
@terran6686 well first the rebels knew the only weak point in the deathstar that the empire didn't really know about But more significantly they failed against plot Like so many before and after it Like how the forerunners somehow failing to stop the flood while a significantly less technologically advanced somehow could defeat it
To note. There are many creatures and materials in star wars that are resistant to blasters and even lightsabers and the force. So the zerg could as an army adept the essence of these creatures and become unstoppable since nothing could kill them. Kerrigan would if we look at it be unkillable to anyone in the star wars universe regardless. Spy blades the only weapons ever shown to damage her seem to look like lightsabers. But thats where your wrong. Psy blades are extensions of psionic energies of the wearer. Moreover the two times shes been cut has been by zeratul and narud. Zeratul, narud both used specifically warp blades infused with void energy. Which can cut through literally anything in the Starcraft universe. Knowing this it makes sense. Kerrigan has been shown to tank missles, fire ,machine gun bullets and psionic energy. Fought mountain sized monsters . Nuclear weaponry. Hel the women turned mengsk into a bomb that destroyed a giant portion of the emporers castle which is a gigantic structure. And didnt even leave a scratch. This doesnt even take into account her regeneration or ability to burrow. Her abilities like lightning explosions implosions mind control sensing abilities and much much more
I think you are underestimating how attrition would wreck the empire in a 'stalemate'. We know canonically that the Zerg can just turn entire worlds into 'bio mass farms' to perpetually keep the swarm fed and if not growing, maintain enough numbers to keep chipping at the empire... who would not have this tool. They'd eventually start running out of farmable land because most of those are probably not in the core worlds. Starvation would eventually win it for the swarm
As you brought up the novel at the end, I had to laugh, because Zahn's a prolific Star Wars author, having written a lot in the Legends-canon before Disney bought LucasArts, and a fair amount since, especially with his "canon to both" antagonist, Grand Admiral Thrawn.
Also fun because I think a win is much more achievable for the Empire if Thrawn is a piece on the board. He's much more willing to use surgical strikes and recon to probe the swarm. He also demonstrably knows how to counter the kind of subterfuge the swarm would initially employ and he'd be much more invested in learning how they work prior to engaging
Oh I would LOVE to see more of these videos around the idea of two armies from different galaxies or universes colliding. In fact, as a fun baseline, I'd like to see you tackle the Terran Dominion and the Protoss in their own scenarios against the Galactic Empire.
Their defensive power is too much first the anti-air cannons can destroy landing aircraft or drop pots coming into the atmosphere and The Golden Armada Plus the Dominion fleet can probably easily defeat The death Star
@@calvinedgington2020 Not a chance... these are the types of forces the Empire was designed to defeat. Conventional. They may win some initial engagements but not against a mobilization of the Empire. The Rebellion succeeds because they are fighting against occupiers. This is hard for any invader to hold territory from a determined enemy. They have to split their forces all over to put out fires as large fleets do the dirty. However, as the rebellion is squashed in this scenario, it is the full might of the empire against them. That would be 1 Death star and probably around a thousand ISDs against them. I can't see them taking that. The problem with vs scenarios is scope and scale. People have no idea of the Canon Scope and scale of the Empire... which is fair as only SW nerds really pay attention to that stuff.
i dont think the terrans would stand much of a chance, while mangst is a cunning poltistion and leader ans some of their ground forces, espeailly in the form of infinity would be superuer to the empires and i dare say, vikings, wraths and valkrays are better than most of the tie family and as we see all these fighter craft are shown to be more than up to the chanallange of taking out enemy captail ships. the dominion even at its hight was never really able to project its power outside the kaplou sector. nor have we seen them be able to produce militry hardware at anyware near the rate that the empire could. at best i could see them being able to take a hand full of systesms maybe even one or two of the mid rim worlds, but little else, though i would say. they could easyly make friends with any remaining rebel groups and criminal oragasions i dont think the protros even united and with the golded amarda have the population to challange the empire, though like the terrans they could make a lot of friends. and unlike the tarrens the galexy isnt trading one dictor for another. as the protoss are extremely benevolent with the exepction of the taldrim. but with out amon theyd likely fuck of to be edge lords
there is a video that I dont know if it is still up but it takes the Flood and the Tyrranids from 40k and compares them. I even debated the fact the Zerg would actually out evolve and out number the Tyrranids and ultimately win (hard fought but still a win) given time and more evolution I would say the Zerg could ultimately take over most of the 40k universe to some degree due to infestation and subterfuge. ua-cam.com/video/rjy5rb5oVRA/v-deo.html there was a comment 5 years ago that i had started a thread that was debating the Zerg and the Nids.
with the Protoss at the height of there power and with the motherships, carriers, voidrays, etc. and the long range capabilities they have with the Tempest. the empire would fall not to mention if the Protoss like in the legacy of the void be able to have the tal'darim and the purifiers on there side it would be a largely one sided fight, basically a massacre of the Galactic Empire.
If the Alexander is canon to Hots, then infested terrans are capable enough to use battlecruiser levels of technology. Something that may have been overlooked, is also that the overmind was able to launch itself as a self propelling cinetic projectile across worlds, and in this went from Char to Aiur. It does seem that the Zergs have precedents of terrifyingly quick movement through space, despite their ability to hold fights outside of atmospheres. All in all, it may be that the first force to have the initiative would mercilessly take down the other one. Be it the Empire by locking down their space quadrant, or the zergs, by infiltrating using changelins and infestation to the upper echelons of the Empire, up to the point they would be noticed by mind readers and force users, which would already be too late. This video is very interesting and was a blast to watch, many thanks for all your hard work, Grant, and for your appreciation of Stormtroopers - who actually wear armor that is second only to bescar, so you would need more than a flippin' hand blaster to take them down !!! - To whoever takes the time to read this, have a wonderful day ! (or night / and night ?)
There is proof that Zerg can infest tech even without going into Coop, just look at infested command centers from SC1, or the permanent neural parasite from HOTS campaign, that parasite can even take over robotic units, which proves that the Zerg can and will take control of even fully mechanical entities.
Love it, I think the biggest thing that was ignored is refugees. I could totally see core worlds getting infested pretty badly early on just from that. Also scourges could probably kill the death star, that things weak to small 1 man fighters and scourges only cost 25 minerals !
considering how effective scourge seemed to be alone from SC2 and all the vids ive seen from Grant id say that the scourge is the biggest problem the empire would have to face in space
The Rebel attack was based on inside knowledge of exactly how to hit the Death Star. After seeing the Rebellion commit their entire attack into a single target, the Empire would probably put shields on that target.
So i had a couple things that i wnated to bring up for the zerg that i thought should be mentioned. 1st: i think the leviathans are being low balled as they are absolutely able to destroy ships and are show so in game. We are show a leviathan tearing through a huge prison ship and keeping it restrained so the zerg could board. Of course a prison ship is nothing compared to a battle ship but this is just to show that they can tear into ship and i think they'd be able to do the same to star wars battle ships. Leviathans have several weapons to use: their tentacles that also allow as a way for zerg to board other ships, their bile swarms and bio plasmid charges that they can lauch at enemy’s and they can mutating mutalisks and brood lords themselves. I still think that they are primarily a uber for the zerg but a armed one that could take down a battle ship but might loss to two. (I mean if a purrgil can damge a ship there is no way a leviathan couldn't do serious damage.) 2nd: in the video he never brings up the rest of the zerg flyer which are all capable of space fighting. (As far as i know). This means that the zerg will have a much stronger fighting force in space then whats being mentioned. The flyers that would do the best in space combat would probably be the scourge, mutalisks and corruptors. Corruptors especially since both terrain and protoss are terrified of them. 3rd: instead of using the infection kerrigan could use a queen larva to infect someone to then carry it to a capital and have them go to a secluded spot to start a colony under the city and release a plague when its time. The queen larva doesn’t change anything about the host so its way more subtle and Kerrigan would definitely be able to find some people in the outer reach willing to do some biological terrorism. I think in this senerio the zerg would win more times then not but i definitely see the empire being able to win it they approached the senerio correctly. I see the empire winning hands down if we used all their lore.
I think this is a pretty reasonable result of the matchup. I think I would agree. Some variables would certainly alter or push it to lean to one side or the other, but yeah. Good video!
considering how stupid the Galactic Empire is at times - yes. That being said, Zerg in both SCI and SCII make a lot of weird decisions as well, so imo the winner is not obvious, tho I still would say zerg have the upper hand
Is the Empire really that stupid though? The Zerg are constantly beaten by former prisoners who use the equivalent of scrap metal guns from 40k. Even still they develop their own technology to control of destroy the Zerg. I don't think the Empire is anywhere near the level of incompetence that a bunch of American convicts would have.
Ok but are the zerg stupid enough to build a troop transport that's hanging 10 meters into the air... Yes i just described the AT AT I think ground zerg would eviscerate the empire and it's not even close because of how pathetically lacking in ground forces the empire actually is
@@pougetguillaume4632 To be fair to an AT-AT, it is armored and shielded enough that all the conventional anti-siege weaponry the main fortress of the Rebellion had cannot take one down. Most energy shields just don't do much against physical objects, thus the convoluted but effective toe cable solution. Very much a running theme with Imperial technology. Works wonders against other large scale and large power adversaries, not very good against lower tech physical solutions. That said, no, the Empire just does the Wings of Liberty Mothership mission with a local Star Destroyer. For as much crap as was given to the Protoss fleet's reputation, the Zerg couldn't even stop Tassadar from manually ramming the Gantrithor into their most heavily foritified position in the galaxy: The defenses of the Overmind. (To be fair, this was retconned to the Overmind wanting it to happen.) But they're not going to stop something with the firepower of a standard Star Destroyer bombarding from orbit while repeatedly being acknowledged as having zero chance at in-space superiority. I mean the Golden Armada is considered to be pretty darned Zerg slaying and implacable, and it is just nowhere near the might of the Imperial Navy. To the Zerg's credit though, they did break at least the Xel'Naga's observational positions from the surface of Char, killing almost the entirety of the Xel'Naga in the process... but how much of that is actual Xel'Naga or survived retcons is anyone's guess, as I'm sure it was retroactively masterminded by Amon these days so who knows what degree of assistance he'd provided for that feat. The lore for all these series can turn into some real jumbled messes.
@@jaeusa160 *laughs in gravity and in exposed unarmored neck joint* I'm sorry i'll never end making fun of how silly the damn thing is... it can't even turn properly, is physically uncapable of going above jogging speed (becuase leg joints can't bend any further) and the fact its guns are forward facing instead of on a turret just makes things worse. You say the empire was designed against near peer adversaries and i disagree, i think the empire only successes were *because* they were fighting an outgunned ennemy. The tie fighter uses the eyeball mark 1 and yet they had the brilliant idea of hiding the pilot's vision with 2 big solar panels... absolutely BRILLIANT The ewok winning is the most credible military feat of the OT trilogy fight me.
@@pougetguillaume4632 No, they make super huge four legged rhinos too big to get in the fight. completelly outsmarted the empire with that one. Wait it gets better, they also made an organism capable of infesting entire colonies, that gets killed by man with gun because the super advanced organism can't attack. Wait, wait, They also made the guys that comunicate the orders from the leader to everyone else giant floating air ballons that explode with a couple of missiles.
Also the swarm does in fact have a good counter for aerial/space craft. They are called scourges, and can be spawned both on land and in space. On land they can either be born out of eggs like most of the zerg breeds, there are dedicated structures called Scourge nests, and also the Leviathan is able to spawn them. They are little, for spacecraft level, creatures that can eat the hull and explode on contact. Nasty things.
@@soujemn5 Because the empire can only afford one when Jango could pump 3 on a random Jedi for shits and giggles? Clearing a path through the astroid field I might add.
@@iamblight707 i think you're missing the issue. a sonic detonator would be roughly as effective as any large vehicle munition you'll never kill all the scourges in time, that's why they're used as anti-armor weapons
@@soujemn5 It smashed astroids into smithereens but whatever. I raise you shadow missiles used on YV hoards. Detonation is 1km wide and they vaporise all matter within because it's a fusion reaction, more powerful than fission bombs. They were produced en mass and used by every ship down to fighters. And yes they are still cannon. Zerg swarms would have to either spread out, where they'll be harder to control and have less of a punch do to the loss of the combined mass, or they'll be wiped out in droves.
Damn this vid made me realise I need this movie. I can imaigine it now, the final scene with Kerrigan and Darth Vadar in a vigerous fight to the death; a back and forth flurry of brutal slashes as the Queen of Blades and the Sith Lord go at each other. Massive damage being inflicted and recieved by both parties. Visibly tiring, Vadar swings overhead for a death blow but Kerrigan dashes out of reach with the last of her energy. Vadar reacts by turning to the force to choke the battered Kerrigan. Kerrigan is dangling in the air 1m from the ground struggling as Vadar limps over to her and readies his lightsaber to inflict a final blow. After a quick witted line of edgy dialog from Vadar, he places both of his hands on the hilt of his lightsaber and in one quick motion proceeds to stab Kerrigan through the chest. As he does she uses the last of her energy to zaps him with her lightning ability, causing the lightsaber to deactivate and they both fall to the ground in defeat. With the camera slowly rising looking down on the two, [sprawled out in a Ying-Yang pattern on the floor], we see Vadars body rising and falling to his breath, while Kerrigans body start to visibily regenerate. After a cutaway, we return to the two as Kerrigan body regenerates and she steadily manges to find her footing, rising to her feet as the rest of her body snaps itself back into place. Vadar notices and rises to his knees trying to match her. As she makes it onto her feet, towering over Vadar, Kerrigan quips back a line outclassing Vadars mocking dialogue from earlier in the fight. [In Arcturus Mengsk revenge fashion] Kerrigan then uses her power to burn Vadar soul from inside his body. Vadar screams out in immense pain, slowly rising high into the air as his body contorts as it slowly implodes as his life force is burned from the inside out from Kerrigan's righteous fire. He then explodes, in atomic fasion, wiping out not only their battleground but the environment around them [maybe a Starship or critical facility to the imperial forces]. With this the fight is over. Whether Kerrigan survives this explosion or not I cannot say (she wasn't injured from when she put Arcturus Mengsk through this same punishment, but the scale of this explosion from imploding Vadar, combined with the harsh environment, could certainly alter the outcome here). Additionally, whether the war comes to a conclusion and if it does, which force is the eventual 'victor', is determined by Kerrigan's uncertain fate. *End Cinematics, [sombre mood and soundtrack] There are no celebrations here. Every participant in this war has lost more than they could ever initially contemplate. The Sith and remaining Empire are portraid as uniquely human. The is no hatred, evil or such on display here. Merely beings trying to survive total annihilation.
On the topic of Star Destroyers being less effective in atmospheric combat against the Swarm. The Empire doesn't need to enter the atmosphere at all and can just lay waste to Zerg hive clusters from orbit. It's hard to compare the Gantrithor since it was fighting on Aiur, and the Protoss were extremely abhorrent to the idea of using their more powerful weapons on the surface of their beloved homeworld. I very much doubt the Empire has the same kind of sentiment.
I mean sure but the Zerg fliers can also fly in space (See Nova Covert Ops mission 4 I believe but not sure if that is the correct mission). The so the things that would prove best support for the leviathans in space are still a factor, and if memory serves Bile Launchers can shoot into orbit so as long as the Swarm fights in the orbit of a planet they should have full access to their anti capital ship arsenal, and beyond that range Star Wars ships should start loosing enough power to not be to effective against the planet surface.
Yep. The Empire does not want to WASTE conquerable worlds' infrastructure and resources needlessly, but infested worlds do not fit that bill. The Empire was fine destroying Alderaan, a prosperous lush world with a long history, even just as an example to crush the spirits of the rest of the galaxy. Death Star aside, the Empire would be happy to be the Purifier Mothership from Wings of Liberty... except from much higher orbit. There's a reason single Star Destroyers were enough to oppress regions probably as large as the whole Koprulu Sector itself.
yeah, we saw how in SW Rebels the Empire can bombard a very small area from far in orbit. They can jump into a system, get in position in matter of quick minutes and just finish off a Hive if they know its location. once the Hive is gone, so is most of the control over the zerg forces. the swarm would need loads of Hives on the same planet in case the Empire pops by to bombard. and if the target is too hard to hit the Empire can easily turn tail and jump away
@@mihalypeti a planet with a minor to medium infestation would be suseptible to that, but the zerg can take over a planet very quickly, exibit A of kerrigan ordering a queen to take over a planet and said planet just got taken over in a manner of seconds, though i think thats a severe exageration but if we take that as zerg take over speed
I honestly think the Zerg's prowess in space combat was understated in the video. Remember the UED fleet? Brood War's closing cinematic? DuGalle was sent home with his tail between his legs, and in said cinematic the fleet was still substantial with many dozens of ships, maybe more, but the Swarm descended upon the remnants of the fleet and utterly annihilated them. Not a single ship was spared. And as we saw in Star Wars movies, Star Destroyers are not very adept at handling squadrons of small fighters. That is why they have TIE fighters, but they'll be outnumbered dozens, maybe even hundreds, to one. And the TIE fighter isn't an X-wing, its armor is nonexistent, armament is light, not shielded. I would wager that a single glaive wurm from a mutalisk would gut a TIE fighter with one hit. And those glaive wurms would strike by the thousands. It'd be like the arrow scene from "300" but if the Spartans didn't have their shields. Then that would leave the Star Destroyers at the mercy of the literal millions of Devourers, Guardians, and Scourge, in numbers that would overwhelm any point defense system. Hell, the Leviathans wouldn't even NEED to participate in the attack.
the weird thing is that you just described the initial contact between the Tyranids and the Imperium of Man in Warhammer 40K :) it was eerily accurate. I know a lot of people compare the zerg with the Tyranids and there are some obvious similarities, but this video really showcases the inspiration the SC2 devs got. A very well made video and I look forward to seeing more like it.
@@leererKanal No, that's an urban legend. SC was of course influenced to an extent by 40k, but anything you could point out as a similarity between the two can just as easily be explained as them both drawing inspiration from the same preexisting sources (largely Starship Troopers, Dune and, for the tyranid/zerg elements, Alien)
Amazingly done!!!! I think you unknowingly gave us a real winner by the end, by introducing the Force. So, while we dont know how the force truly works, as of what are the conditions for someone to be born with it. It is very evident that people are born with the foce and a lot of aptitude to become jedis or siths. There has been quite a lengthy historical record of the jedis and their order, which means the Swarm will eventually learn of its existence. Then, it is very likely they will seek ways to replicate them, or at the very least, set up conditons in which they can gather and infect force sensitives. Then, you will be talking, in the worst case scenario, about a swarm legion comprised of force sensitive infested jedi-like soldiers that will just wreck havoc across the galaxy. In the best case scenario for the Swarm... they are able to replicate the miticlorians and, bassically, grant most of their soldiers some degree of force sensitivity. Keep in mind the Zerg already have some sort of "force sensitivity" by their psionic links. So, it is entirely doable for them to replicate the force to some degree if not to fully attain it.
I also think at some point Kerrigan and the swarm would figure out that the empire can't easily produce more star destroyers and would take them out in boarding actions. The empire would quickly lose the resources to make any more as they contracted.
why couldn't they make more? They created a second Death Star in a matter of a couple years after the first one exploded, replacing a few thousand star destroyers is NOTHING compared to that.
@@Doomfoolable Even with all that production, getting the resources and manpower to make Star Destroyers faster than the Zerg can just fly swarms of scourge into them wouldn't be easy.
@@TrixterTheFemboy Tie Fighter seem to be the perfect craft to pick of Scourge though, would be like a critical mass of corsairs that don't need to be afraid anymore.
@@MolochDE The issue with this is that TIE Fighters will have to contend with Mutalisks, which themselves are incredibly annoying batshit creatures that fly around like maniacs and beat the shit out of fighter craft. Oh and they tend to fight in flocks. Genuinely praying for those TIE pilots.
It's all strategic until Palpatine gets miffed and starts destroying planets Kerrigan or her chain of command have been spotted on. He does have the power to do this even from the safety of his home planet.
Great video, I'd love to see this for some of the other factions such as the Zerg invading during the middle of the Clone Wars or vs the Halo's Covenant.
Honely I think the X-factor you glossed over at the end would be the deciding factor: Either the zerg would quickly figure out how to have their entire swarm be anakin level force sensitives and the empire is completely screwed, or the very appearance of the zerg in the galaxy would creat such a large disturbance in the force that vader launch an all out offensive within hours of the zerg showing up. Honestly I think the former is more likely.
I would imagine kerrigan's zerg would be better at first contact and early years of the war but the Overmind's zerg would have a better potential for an overall galactic domination.
@@lanychabot-laroche135Well, for one, the Empire would have literally no way to deal with cerebrates. They're immortal and can only be killed by dark templar. It's also a far more unified entity where the entire command structure has unfaltering loyalty to the Overmind.
I would probably compare dark sith powers to dt's or maybe just any force user powerful enough to disrupt and sever the link as it was killed. In this way the overminds forces would be weaker to the leadership caste getting taken out. It's shown in sc1 massive swaths of zerg going feral and them losing control over large areas when they lose one. And if they ever lose the overmind they are even worse off than Kerrigan getting sniped. On top of that the celebrates and overmind are fixed in place and not easily moved, while the cerebrates are better than the overmind at this still very fixed compared to stukov just flying away in a ship. The overmind is also more of a pure commander than Kerrigan who can single handedly wipe out armies and decimate front lines like the top level force users.
In the Legends Canon there is ~20 book series called New Jedi Order. It's about Zerg/Protoss-like alien race invading Star Wars galaxy 25 years after Return of the Jedi. It is being said there many times, that Empire with all it's military might would destroy the aliens, where New Republic lost almost half of it's territory and billions of people during 5-year war. Edit: Lel, I just got to @4:41 :D
My favourite part of this is how you establish which Zerg you'll be using because of how vastly different they behave under a variety of circumstances as opposed to the Galactic Empire which is pretty consistent across the board but the Zerg it's like if they're feral than no, if they follow Amon they might get the job done faster, hell Wings Kerrigan and Swarm/Void Kerrigan are so vastly different that even that thtows a spanner in the works and that's just touching on SC2, makes it more fun in my opinion :)
I think the Emperor was not accounted for enough in this video. He would absolutely be able to sense the fleet entering the star wars universe. I know you didnt want to bring up the Vong but Sidious was aware of them before they revealed themselves and the Gods of the Vong were afraid of him. Canonically he can communicate telepathically, see into the future, create illusions that are near indistinguishable, and many many others. overall though, very cool video!
I would argue that the psionic nature of the zerg would likely make his interference complicated. Likely why he didn't bring it up either. If I were doing the comparison I would completely negate Sidious with Kerrigan. The 2 have almost the same powers.
@@glenecollins if the zerg killed him she certainly wouldn't have to. She also have a full on hive mind when his attempted body swap was with a inexperienced force user. Not the leader of a multi billion lifeform hive mind and a powerful and experienced Pisonic in her own right.
Very interesting and fun to watch video. As you mentioned the Tarkin doctrine dictates fear. But fear is something that will not help against the zerg. Only the highest ranks of the Zerg (Kerrigan and her advisors) are even capable of feeling fear. But honestly they will not „fear“ an AT-AT nor a Stardestroyer. That‘s why I think the empire loses much of it‘s military power.
I love that you took a risk with this video. I had SO much fun watching this! You laid everything out so beautifully. GG I hope this video does well so Grant can do more outside of the box videos. Please share this video ❤
It would be interesting if the zerg could discover and utilize midiclorians. It could end up being beyond there abilities, like trying to make a second Kerrigan, or it could be simple but still difficult to utilize, or it could be an I win button.
That is absolutely terrifying. Another 'win' I can see the Zerg getting is Time. Palpatine is old, Vader is aging. Zerg don't really age. There were Primal Zerg (still alive in game) who were around when Amon took and corrupted the Overmind.
if they for some reason utilize that and falls to the dark side they are really screw xD is what mf old mans wants in all the movies. is like giving palpatine a amon hability
I gotta say that the thing is that star destroyers can also be easily destroyed, by using the zerg's greatest capital ship, the leviathan, to use it's tendrils to pierce the thick protection and let tens of thousands of zerg swarm into the ship, it can basically overwhelm them.
Wouldn't even need to do that, in SC2 HOTS campaign you can see a Leviathan punch through the superstructure of a literal SPACE FORTRESS as if it’s paper. The hull of a mere ship? It would just punch if a few times and turn it into Swiss cheese.
If mediclorians are something that can be assimilated I'd see the swarm pump out things like Zooanthropes from the Tyrannids, flying artillery. Also, remember that Stukov knows how to marry technology with Zerg flesh. Meaning that destroyed Star Destroyers could get added to the swarm. It could very much be a game of the Swarm slowly trying to press on the Empire more and more until it just runs out of resources.
Stukov infested _technically_ aren't A canon, but unless the Death Star and its supporting fleet can operate at full capacity 24/7 the zerg would not run out of viable habitats any time soon and don't need infested mech, a Star Destroyer _will_ go down to thousands of drop pods filled with roach/hydra. The Empire cannot rebuild its fleet fast enough, and it _definitely_ cannot replace the civilians working in production and logistics if drops or infestation ever get to them.
Midichlorians aren't generating the Force at all. That's a misconception. In fact, any attempt messing with the Midichlorians would have the Force beat you up. So no, The Zerg aren't going to have any Force users.
@@epistemo3442 so basically midochlorians are in a similar boat as the protoss. they're a signifier of "purity of form" as it were, but they're also so resistant to assimilation that it's not worth trying. and the midichlorians don't even have the advantage of the zerg's psychological compulsion to _try_ to assimilate the protoss, so abathur would only keep hold of force-sensitives just to understand the force
no offense, but Midichlorians are explained so fucking poorly that that's what about 99% of people think, so that's what grant used, and its what I shall run with
Great video! I think the only thing that you overlooked/left out was the unknown regions and wild space. There, the Zerg could power up without a large organized thread like the empire to keep it down, and then just roll over the entire galaxy.
A couple factor I think are worth mentioning. 1. The extent of Kerrigan’s control over the swarm. The Koprulu sector is just that, a sector and even with Zerg on just a handful of planets Kerrigan has been shown to struggle to control all of them. Would she be able to control the swarm on a galactic level? 2. Psi disrupters. If the empire ever got something like that or the emperor or Vader could use a force ability that approximates its effects the empire immediately wins any engagement Kerrigan isn’t directly involved in and even if she is there she would have to put massive concentration to keep her forces in line. There is no possible scenario that the swarm can whin when it’s too busy tearing itself apart.
Kerrigan knows very well that her swarm can be disrupted so she could lay a very big trap to counter. Thrawn:" Their retreat pattern is unusual. I strongly suggest we don't pursue." Tarkin:" Nonsense! Clearly the emitter is working as planned. Now full force attack and we can end this threat once and for all." Kerrigan activiates her biggest trap card- Dehaka and its Primal Zerg brood.
By the way, I remember there are species in Star War that are resistant/immune to Jedi mind trick. Abathur will have a field day to conduct all sort of experiments.
Nice video. It was epic. Two of my favorite franchices in one video. 1 note: Kerrigan mops the floor with either Vader or the Emperor. If they combined the queen of blades may struggle but she just two broken. Yeah, i know about starcraft cosmology but Kerrigan is just on another level. Kerrigan can create psi storms big enough to destroy worlds in matter of seconds while the emperor with preparations can create those only in legends. But this is my favourite video of all time. Good 👍 job. PS: I personally think the swarm wins. Leviatans are incredibly tanky and can just go through small destroyers.
There's always room for more What If? content on the web. An interesting match-up in my mind is Halo's Covenant empire at its height vs the Protoss alliance near the end of LotV.
An interesting thought experiment to be sure, I liked it. Another battle scenario that I've always thought would be interesting is Zerg (StarCraft) vs. the Scourge (Warcraft) and the Lich King. When you think about it the two have a lot of similarities (being able to produce masses of effective soldiers, the army being controlled by a central person, etc.). I guess the similarities make sense seeing how both games are from the same company.
@@woodsytheowlscharedcorpse4761 I d say Nids win out of sheer number and being able to project tha shadow in the warp, which would probably disrupt zerg psychic connections. Scourge vs Zerg is interesting, it would depends on the rules upon which magic interacts with zerg abilities.
@@woodsytheowlscharedcorpse4761 Well tyranids have the issue of not being humans. They have no real idea of how humans works, and they'll just fight what gets between their food and themselves. Zergs have human leaders, who would be much more efficient in using human weaknesses
@@lvo9197 Well, that depends on how similar the Synapse link of Tyranids and Zerg are. If they are too similar, then Kerrigan, Broodmothers and Overlords could very well engage in synaptic tug-o-war with the Tyranid Hivemind for control of the swarms while being highly resistant, if not outright inmune, to the Shadow in the Warp. And that's assuming the SitW even works on SC psychics, as there is no Warp in SC. Think of it how in the Warcraft novels from the War of the Ancients, when Queen Aszhara redirects the magic of the Well of Eternity to the portal, all Night Elf sorcerers lose their ability to wield magic, as they channeled arcane magic by tapping into the WoE, while Ronin retained his ability to wield magic because he didn't need to tap into the Well of Eternity, instead having learned to draw arcane power from the world itself. If your psychics do not tap into the warp for their powers, then the shadow in the warp is worth jacksquat.
@@IsmaelSantos-xv9qf it depends indeed, but because of the sheer size of the tyranids (they are visible in open space, most cosmic bodies that aren t stars are very hard to spot unless they are MASSIVE), if zerg are affected, they would be devastated. The problem with the shadow working only for warp boudn beings, is that the tyranids come from outside the galaxy, and if this aura worked there too, it implies that is not limited to warp bound beings, but any form of sentience. Also, zerg psychic powers have been stoped before by terran made devices, so it is quite possible they wouldn t be able to match the nids on that front. Again, I think zerg could win if they evolved some kind of specialized resistance, maybe consuming some orks to enhance their psychic powers.
I really enjoyed the video. I believe that the empires knowledge of the galaxy should be taken into consideration. Meaning, they know about the species on planets were planets are in the hyper space roots.
Great video. One thing I think might tip the scales in space combat a little is that the leviathan are not really the zergs combat force to my knowledge. The two things that would mainly threaten star destroyers would be the curroptor on the one hand, which I think they actually could deal with, as it's on the slower more armored side, which the empire is good at dealing with. The thing that would be far scarier I think would be scourges. They are fast and can deal a ton of damage, but are farely squishy. However star wars always had the problem of having rather inaccurate weapons, so the empire might struggle to defend their star destroyers against them.
Previously mutaliaks have been shown to be the real threat in air to air fights, just massive clouds of mutas chipping away at the armor and causing 1000 small breaches. Mutas have even been shown in short stories to start bringing down carriers that are capable of wiping fleets of battlecruisers out as they learn the specific traits and weaknesses of each ship through many battles eventually bringing it down.
leviathans have hollow tentacles through which zerg forces can be deployed. sure, the leviathan itself isnt as combat capable as one would assume from a 11km creature, however, its still massive, strong, and has highway thick tentacles that can break through terran armor and spunk hundreds of zerg inside whatever ship they attacked. mate, they are a force to be reconed with
Loved the video! Only a couple things i personally found iffy, one of which being the "stability" of the Empire's leadership; even in movie canon after the loss of the Emperor/Vader (to an extent Tarkin) the Empire immediately fractured into multiple warlord states vying for power to be the successor. On the flip side, wouldn't the Empire just tactically deploy the death star vs fleets sniping leviathans at will? (the Escort fleet for the DS1 and 2 were always massive making it hard for the swarm to close the gap). The key for space for the swarm (to me) would be the ability to perhaps do some sort of ambushes or short range jumps to close the gap and force boarding actions to overwhelm the crew/disable the big ships. Also side note, while the rebellion was crushed as a unified overall force, the Empire being forced to constrain and tighten its grip on its people even further would not be a viable long term strategy; the Zerg don't need to deal with insurrections, riots, or internal power struggles (as long as Kerrigan is around). Not to mention the key to every war: Logistics, the Imperial Navy was a *massive* Resource burden on the Imperial budget, and that's with their extortion of groups like the hutts/Corsec/etc; maintaining their immense military while more or less holding ground indefinitely would lead to economic collapse while also making it difficult to keep its frontline maintained with proper equipment and supplies; The Zerg can basically "Home Grow" whatever they need. Overall I can't say for sure who would win as there's so many little factors, but I love the video!
Well, how do you think they are going to "Home Grow" while the Death Star is around?) Actually, i think logistic would be a zergы problem in this scenario, since it is them who would need to build up new production and besiege new planets (they have no capabilities to bypass them by simply destroying). Also Empire has space combat superiority, giving them an advantage in transportation, raiding and blockading capabilities, that are crucial for the war of attrition. Zergs would have to be extremely careful and efficient with their resource usage but Kerrigan isn't knows for her caution or thrift (at least in my understanding).
I'd agree with you that the Zerg don't have to deal with internal power struggles, but when facing an extragalactic threat like the Zerg, the Empire is more likely, IMO, to stick together and just have the next man up mentality. If they start attacking one another they will definitely all die. I do think this favors the Zerg by a lot though.
The Empire can only field 1 or _maybe_ 2 Death Stars and they don't travel instantly. The zerg would simply flee the thing on sight if they don't have enough scourge to disable it while hitting a dozen other planets at the same time. Careful use of Interdictors _could_ work but IIRC those have major shortcomings in terms of shielding, close quarters escorts and possibly even wind-up time meaning they would likely get wrecked almost immediately by suicide dives and _maybe_ enable a single leviathan kill in return. And we know how laughably ineffective turrets/point defence tend to be in Star Wars so the zerg would quickly devise a plan involving a lot of scourge, baneling-filled drop pods or close quarters combatants who can tunnel through metal to neutralise the Death Star in one big suicide attack against the station itself thus once again giving them free reign. The only real way I see the Empire win without people acting out of character is if the first contact involves the attention of some of the other higher ups who would realise the true nature of the threat sooner. For example if the Swarm dropped out over Kuat they would probably still obliterate it but sustain heavy losses, and the advanced tactics required to overcome a massive orbital shipyard complex with substantial planetary support would very quickly alert the Emperor himself that these are not just dumb hungry bugs. At that point his scheming and Force powers should allow him to mount an effective counterattack fairly quickly and crush anything short of a Galaxy-wide anti-mask rebellion despite literal face-eating monsters roaming the quarantined streets.
@@Photoloss Agree, but after these attacks of "dozen other planets" the swarm would anyway have to regroup and replace losses, thereby opening for the Emperial attack. Without safe rear that would do all the production it is impossible to win this giant war, and i don't see how they are going to get this rear with Death Star flying around. On the massive suicide attack on the Death Star by scourge, baneling e.t.c. Even if all these staff manages to reach the surface of the station i think there is no way it can deal any significant damage to it. In Episode 4 it was clearly stated that it is impossible to destroy Death Star using conventional weapons. In Episode 6 a giant Executioner star destroyer crashed straight into DS2 surface dealing no significant damage to the station (at least it looked this way). So why would even a giant swarm of scourge, provided that they managed to pass through the DS escort, fighters (i guess scourge or baneling-filled pods are much less maneuverable than X-Wings), and, albeit inefficient, point defence systems, do any better?
@@user-ue4ix6qc1m The zerg don't really have an "industrial rear". They are decentralised and adapt very quickly, effectively the only defining characteristic is the local concentration of zerg biomass, most of which can relocate across interstellar distances fairly quickly. Once the threat of the Death Star becomes known they would not keep large garrisons in "local reserve" like WoL Char, they would simply abandon that planet and move on to the next. As for taking down the Death Star, I see two main avenues: 1) physical damage to the main gun. The station itself is strategically insignificant, much of the weapon's mechanisms are exposed or close to the surface making them much easier targets for both explosives and metal-tearing boarding parties. Most of the crew can't fight effectively in the vacuum of space or in cramped maintenance tunnels around the gun either while the zerg suffer no such restrictions. And then the more pressing issue 2) death or infestation of the crew. We know the station has significant internal blind spots, its compartmentalisation will be designed around external hull breaches, sabotage and reactor issues rather than coordinated hyperadaptive bioweapons, and the Empire's own biotech is so cripplingly inferior I even doubt their ability to deploy an effective security check scanner against implanted parasites. Even if they somehow go in lockdown quickly enough that will take the station out of the ongoing battle for some time, and an infestation of the on-board supplies will force it off the front lines entirely for a deep clean because none of the crew can survive without food or clean water. Basically as soon as any reasonable number of zerg make direct contact the Death Star is dead in the water, meaning it is the ultimate harass/cleanup tool against minor opposition and a near insurmountable static defence installation until the zerg can amass the raw numbers to just push past it. Which won't take all that long when they have most of the Galaxy available while the Death Star only guards a single planet. If the starting conditions do not allow for a widespread infestation of the Outer Rim then the Death Star will secure the Empire's ultimate victory, but if the zerg can nab more than a handful of planets before someone goes on a Stellaris speedrun it will not operate quickly enough to matter all that much.
I do believe Midi-chlorians were retconed to be attracted to force individuals not the cause of force sensitivity so they would be able to get force powers that way and overall psionics aren't too dissimilar to the force and it should be noted that Kerrigan was the Anakin of her universe being a exceptional gifted with psionic power. And the Zerg over all doesn't use psionics outside of commander units since it seems like certain level of intelligence and individuality is required. I can see the Zerg snowballing extremely quickly because as you get closer to the galactic core there'd be much more traffic across it I can see Kerrigan bidding her time and with the information acquired get a sleeper agent on Coruscant and get a Hive going on the lowest levels of the city planet Palatine would in all likelihood since something growing and send some investigators but those levels are so dangerous their disappearance would not be that concerning. Flash forward to the Zerg's big push into the galactic core nydus worms burst onto the top levels of Coruscant dividing the empire's attention Palatine would likely be the first to evacuate the planet but the massive amount of biomass on the planet is subsumed into the swarm as the hub of galactic commerce is eliminated the empire goes into panic mode. Palatine is transported to the Deathstar and the remaining fleets are recalled to it the Zerg are allowed to consume the remaining planets largely uncontested swelling their numbers to unimaginable levels the empire attempts to put up one final defense centered on the Deathstar but the incomprehensible number of the swarm eventually overwhelms them and Palatine and Vader fight for hours before exhaustion gets to them leading to their deaths and the galaxy becoming the swarm's.
The objective of StarCraft vs Star Wars is super unique, there are billions of planets that need to be destroyed, each is guarded by a progressively stronger group of enemies.
Not to mention the unknown amount of planet killers on forgotten planets like that one massive machine from the bad batch series
I understood that reference! :D
My queen, the podracers on this planet are made out of pure essence!
@@poilboilerAre you saying that they... Never mind, I don't want to know
Its also important to note zerg can outproduce the empire, each infested planet is like a factory word of imperium, but as the imperium needs another planet types, zerg don't wich means that the stalemate scenario actually favours zerg
I’m disappointed that you didn’t point out how Vader would feel about the Zerg seeing as they’re coarse, rough, and they get everywhere.
*vader immediately backs off of zerglings*
Either he goes into a rage and murderizes every Zerg he can find becaue of how much he hates them.
Or he runs off screaming "I HATE YOU!" and fly off to the opposite end of the galaxy.
Damn - I thought I had purged that bit of dialogue from my brain until now.
LOL
You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Take my like.
There is an X-factor missed that I think pushes this in favor of the Swarm, and that is the Leviathan's ability to infest other spacecraft directly, turning a foe's own firepower against them. While this is devastating enough when it's a Battlecruiser or Carrier, Star Destroyers in the hands of the Zerg become a nightmare for the Empire
Palpatine just need a throw for a invasión of aliens
Another factor that Grant seems to not have fully thought through is the leadership Grant says that the zerg has a weakness in that if kerrigan falls then the zerg falls but that is completly false all off her advisers Can take her place zargara took her plas after she disapeared in into the void and stukov litterlig leaded a terran group so from the starcraft lore given the fact that zargara took over the swarm it would not be to unreal for Other broodmother to also take over the swarm.
He stats that the Empire leadership has no weakness in that vader palpatin and the Other guy could take over the Empire but in the movie after vader and palpatine dies the Empire pretty much falls because off a lack off leadership.
@@thorminerdk9906
He used the swarm from a certain point in time and he explained in the video that there is lore stating that at that time the swarm would split in 2 factions. (zagara vs abatur)
To your second point, at the battle of endor palpatine was using the darkside to "motivate" his fleet and troops and he specicfully made plans that when he would die, so would the empire. The empire wasnt meant to survive after his death.
So when he died at endor all his troops suddenly felt the opposite of motivation even giving the troops a feeling of great terror and thus evening the odds for the rebels.
Also plot xd, they needed the story to continue.
But, would that apply without a crew, given the weapons are operated by people?
@@Linkatchu Zerg could invest terrans and keep their memories in the starcraft universe but it would probely cost them efficiency when operating a star destroyer.
The real question should be if the Zerg could maintain such a ship without the supply of needed resources of which the answer is no.
I think the fact that all Zerg are living weapons essentially being born fully armed and armored as well as being able to eat pretty much anything can be a significant factor as wars are often won by logistics.
Logistics \o/ praise Agrippa, Napoleon etc
Looking forward to "can you beat the galactic empire with zerglings only" run
Officer:So zergs are just these little guys what are they gonna do leap up and chew apart out starships?
@@anarchistliliaZergling: *Noms on Bridge window*
Zergs don't stand a chance, It's clear in starcraft their spaceships are about the length of 5 zerglings
@@arbiters487 picturing zerg ships as just a spacefaring clown car has improved my opinion of the faction immensely, thank you
@@anarchistlilia Imperial gunner"SIR THE ZERGLINGS HAVE EVLOVED AND ARE JUMPING ON TO OUR GUNS SIR"
It really never occurred to me to imagine how not-out-of-place Kerrigan would be in the Star Wars universe; there's all kinds of exotic and strange aliens living together in the main galaxy, it would not be weird to see someone like her just hanging out.
She's larger than a normal human now, as well as being obviously very naked in high organic heels.
Most species would be at minimum, interested to learn more about her since >new species???
But there's the small problem in the scenario where tatooine ***doesn't*** Panic at seeing what is basically a giant organic ship arrive in orbit.
@@nonya1366 I mean this is all hypothetical anyway, Kerrigan's not going to roll up to the Mos Eisley Cantina and order a drink to hear what the latest gossip in the galaxy is in the first place; She's a powerful telepath and a conqueror, both traits that fail to lend themselves to casual schmoozing. Most likely, she'd descend upon Mos Eisley in force, ground every ship in the port, put down any resistance, and gather information from her prisoners. So, the thought experiment of Kerrigan just hanging out is a little moot anyway, but I guess she could put a onesie on?
@@MrGeorgeFlorcusThat's more reasonable yeah, mind grab some folk and rip out their bits [The swarm does that too, I think they eat memories if they want anyways.]
But I just can't picture her being. Subtle. In the scenario. Because leviathans are fucking massive and tatooine has a lot of criminals who'd look at one of them and go 'uuuuuuuuuhhhhh time to go!'
But she really should put on a onesie, considering she is very naked. Even if her bits aren't showing because, she evolved past a need for those.
All flying can fly through space.
Kerrigan post-primal can adopt her Ghost fit and that'd be fine, she simply chooses not to. @@MrGeorgeFlorcus
Why do I find thinking about stuff like this so fascinating? I love it! Lol
I noticed 2 things that were missed that might be worth mentioning.
1) I understand the empire has planetary shields over the core worlds. Aren't those worlds the big city planets? So, which worlds make the FOOD for those big city worlds? Are there planetary shields over them? I can totally imagine the Zerg managing to overtake any "backwater planet" that produce major sources of food for the empire and basically starving the people to death.
2) From what I've seen in Star Wars, even when the empire is in full power, there's a lot of people/worlds that might follow the rules, but don't really like or support the empire. However, with a massive Zerg invasion of the galaxy, I'd imagine that any fence sitters (and even people who hate the empire) would suddenly throw all of their support to the empire for defending the galaxy. They might not be the kindest protectors in the galaxy, but the Empire would be the only hope the galaxy has of surviving. The people would recognize that and become more active than ever before in the support of the empire. The galaxy would finally become united in order to fight against the Zerg. (No, I don't imagine many would willingly join the Zerg.) What would a fully united Star Wars galaxy manage to accomplish I wonder?
To add to your point 1), galactic core is helplessly dependant on rim territories for resources and swarm could win by attrition in my opinion, simply starving off the Empire, if not on food, then on resources needed to run their military industrial complex
That's logic of 40k, the Empire of Man is cruel but it's better than being destroyed by the horrors or the warp or orcs.
Kerrigan is also a persuasive leader. She would sow division among the subjects of the Empire, even finding allies among peoples ans worlds who were dissatisfied with the Empire. She did during the Brood War as she made both Raiders, Dominion forces and Protoss help her destroy the UED.
And even if she can't convince you to join, there are several ways for the swarm itself to take over bodies, imitate, or even mind control enemies.
@@LegendStormcrow Indeed. But Kerrigan, specially before being dumbed down during SCII, was quite clever. While she could mind control, she could as well persuade, bribe and betray. While she could easily infest and/or mind control, nothing would stop her from sweetening the deal to get allies, or getting them/maintaining them cooperative by obtaining leverage.
She offered Arcturus Mengsk his Dominion back, no strings attached (other than her later betrayal). She appealed to Raynor's feelings towards her (then assassinated his men, the Raiders' Protoss allies and Fenix). She also kidnapped (and corrupted) Matriarch Raszaghal to get the Dark Templar to cooperate with her in the mission to assassinate the fledgeling Overmind. All and all, she was the most competent and ruthless leader in the known SC universe.
I think the one thing seriously missing here is that the DS is vulnerable, not to a direct attack, but to infiltration, something the Zerg are known to do. It is vast with lots of places for an infected individual to get a foot hold and once they do, the inner defenses are pretty bad against the zerg. Even if protected by Vader or the Emperor, both could be exhausted and overwhelmed by shear numbers. So, it could easily fall. Since we're talking directly after the battle of Yavin, the DS II would at best be still in early construction and likewise vulnerable, especially given where it was built. And, if we follow your scenario, realistically there will be no more in the line as the empire simply won't have the resources to allocate to a third. I would also argue the zerg are likely to start adapting their space forces to the circumstances far quicker than the empire would adapt to them. That said, the empire does have one thing they could leverage which is the potential for battle droids which should be immune to infestation and can be mass produced and I could see them going that way once they realize their human forces just won't cut it and are actually a liability.
Given the balance, the empire I think more times than not would lose the conflict. They'd put up a good fight, but ultimately would have to have a flawless defense on many key targets which they just haven't shown. Sooner or later something will slip through and they're likely to lose big assets that they just can't afford to lose to hold the stalemate. However, they do have the potential for victory as well, I just think on average they'd be on the losing side.
The DS isn't the bulk of the empire 's firepower. Turbolasers dish out 2 gigawatts, so a volley from a star destroyer can put out twice the energy of a star each second. Only problem is that the energy is super concentrated, but the empire wouldn't have issues cracking worlds considering that they have 150,000 star destroyers in their prime, plus countless support ships and fighters.
Then putting the dreadnoughts in the mix. Plus star destroyers are much faster than leviathans, which rely on their arms to do damage. Since they can damage each other, I feel leviathans would fall pretty quick to turbolaser fire.
In other words, the sheer scale of the empire would be difficult to overcome for an enemy with very little means of being discrete aside from occasionally stowing away on an unsecure freighter. The empires only weakness is incompetence, but something big as the zerg will be ran by Thrawn, Palpatine, and Tarkin.
At the height of their power, the zerg had like 50 planets. At the height of the empire, it has 1 million planets. I think the Empire takes this just on the sheer resources it can muster.
Id say the zerg won't do much more than the killiks
Also there isnt exactly a fleet of Death Stars and though they are capable of hyper space travel, they arent exactly quick when it comes to sub light speed travel. Zerg infestation happens exponentially and we already established the fact that parasites traveling to high density population words would create massive and uncontrollable pockets of Zerg basically anywhere in the galaxy.
Coruscant may be the end game for the Zerg, but the Star Wars galaxy has more than a few worlds that are basically mini coruscants. Nar Shaddaa would be an example of that.
Also the fact is ignored that even imperial space ships could be infested. Think of our cruise ships and how diseases can spread on these.
Also intel is a major factor here. While the swarm has access to easy ways to learn about political structures pretty much simply by talking or listening to ppl (given they eventually learn the languages), the empire would have to discover the swarm structures of the Zerg. and as long as they only fight individual planetary infestations I dont see much chance in that other by some stupid accident.
@@iamblight707 That's not supported by what is on screen. We've seen turbo lasers hitting right next unshield, unprotected, ground targets and beside the relatively small explosion of the impact, there is no signs of anything close to that strength. Now this is rare to be seen, but we've seen it (the most notable in the new canon being Thrawn's attack on the rebel base in Rebels, in the old canon the bombardment of the city during KOTOR where even massed fire was only causing conventional level impacts, among others). We've also seen that ground vehicle weaponry can destroy space ships in the clone wars and in attack of the clone and revenge of the sith which is canon in both and these vehicles are clearly no where even close to that level of firepower, so again it is inconsistent with their durability against turbo laser fire.
And then there is the matter that while they have a huge number of star destroyers, they also have a huge number of things to protect with those star destroyers, hence why we don't see huge fleets ever. The biggest we ever seen was in the RotJ. They just can't concentrate much, and even if they for whatever reason abandoned this strategy, the zerg could easily force them right back into it by just making wide spread simultaneous attacks on now undefended worlds.
@@SonnyAmbush I doubt the empire won't suddenly forget how to fight off a plague. The republic dealt with them for thousands of years, including plagues enhanced by bioweapons and sith alchemy. The empire dealt with blackwing, a zombie virus, fairly easily.
@@Derekloffin it's the canon number. No guarantee they actually used turbolasers. They were more likely heavy laser cannons used for precision strikes. Thrawn wanted the rebel leadership alive, and the city of lothal mostly intact.
And if you're talking about hoth, the ATATs weren't using turbolasers they used laser cannons.
The ATTE destroyed the munificents because they were unshielded. Also, munificents are like 6x weaker than venerators, which are 3x weaker than ISDs.
Also, even if the zerg travel anywhere near fast as star wars ships, which they don't, star wars ships can only safely travel through hyperspace lanes because of the high density of star systems.
At best the zerg will sweep the outer rim (excluding hutt space and several powerful local navies) then the empire will get scared and delta zero every planet in the path of the zerg until they develop a bioweapon than neutralizes them.
At worst the zerg will attack something the empire cares about first, and be wiped by by the fleet in a matter of hours.
The infection to mutation rate is too high for the zerg to be unpredictable as it needs to be to seed enough worlds to be a threat. The empire has so many planets and so many resources, the zerg could take 100 planets, and not make a dent in the empire. The zerg are literally just angrier killiks.
The funny thing about StarCraft is that for how OP its factions look at times. . . Everything that ever happened in StarCraft happened in the Koprullu sector. The UED lost its expeditionary fleet but Earth was untouched. Who knows what other Xel'Naga creations are Lurking out there. Did the rest of the Galaxy even had an idea of Amon's attacks?
yeah who do you thing the bbeg for SC 3 is gonna be =P
I mentioned that for the Zerg, and hypothetically Star Trek, when it comes to scale. Star Wars largely operates on a scale a thousand times larger than the other franchises as its norm. Travel and Communication in particular.
It completely sucks ALL fun out of these comparisons, but Star Wars tech covers distances franchises like Trek and Craft take years or decades to cross... in a manner of hours or days. You pretty much need to ignore those traits, lest the Emperor have the most ridiculous "Oh Crap" moment ever and send literally 15,000 Star Destroyers to converge on Infested Tattooine within a few days' time, tops.
For whatever distance the UED needed to cross, I doubt it was a very large portion of their galaxy. The distance which might've been years for them might've been comparable to going from Naboo to Tattooine, or even Hoth to Bespin which was done without a Hyperdrive.
@@isimiel3405
>SC bbeg
>Cries in SC1/broodwar
Even if the emperor immediately glassed every infested planet I doubt the most important core worlds would last very long
That being said in sc1 the zerg were written as this unstoppable menace that effortlessly rolled over half the dominion core worlds, then proceeded to topple the canonically huge protoss empire overnight. And pretty much nobody except the UED was able to even contain the zerg without using the psi disruptor, much less take ground from them.
They got a huge nerf in SC2 where raynor just pops on over to char and 1v1s kerrigan while the zerg swarm is at the strongest it ever was in the canon.
@@sneediumminer Then the Golden Armada exists in SC2 as well and it's just like "Why did we care about the Zerg again?"
Also, don't forget that some species are immune to the force in one way or another (invisibility vs precognition, immunity to mind tricks, so on). The Zerg would pick up on that quickly.
If the force and psionics are the same, these creatures might be immune to the swarm's influence. They could probably get the virus, but they might not be controllable.
25 000 star destoriers >
The only species that's immune to the force is the yrsmari (ik i butchered the name) and their located in the deep core if I remember right
besides immunity to the Force, there also are species immune to Lightsabers and Blaster Fire. Idk, if the late Republic/early Empire already hunted them to extinction to manufacture their improved Clone/Stormtrooper armors, but if the Zerg Swarm would find some of them, they would have the ability to evolve a "Tank" that is immune to blaster fire, forcing the empire to use more unconventional kinetic weaponry.
@@jand.4737 Ground combat would be barely relevant strategically. In total war, the empire would destroy any continent world with significant infestation in a matter of hours. Strategically important centers like shipyards and critical hyperspace points would be fortresses in space and on the ground. Plus the zerg would have to not only find but subdue these beast, and there's no guarantee they'd be allowed to spread around that much without resistance once they attack the Empire.
There is something really interesting that wasn’t considered here. Because you specifically chose the Zerg before their battle on Korhal, we are working with a “good” Kerrigan.
This Kerrigan isn’t corrupted by outside powers and is capable and willing to work with others. I could see the Zerg making allies and sparing people, this could cause traitors to appear in the empire.
On a side note. Kerrigan is the Anakin Skywalker of StarCraft. A beyond powerful psychic (force user) told in prophecy to destroy evil and bring balance to the galaxy/universe.
Yeah, the scenario laid out required Kerrigan to be a murder hobo but took the Kerrigan most likely to track down the rebel hold outs and get rid of the Empire the smart way. I don't think the Empire has a chance when an even scarier space wizard is stepping up to the plate to kick their ass.
what if darth vader is kerrigan's father?
Spoiler alert ‼️ ❓
@@RifetOkic what spoiler?
@@RifetOkic Legacy of the Void was 8 years ago my guy
Funnily enough, the Empire's saving grace could end up being the clone troopers' old rival, the battle droid. While not terribly impressive on an individual level, they can be mass-produced on a frankly obscene scale (as the Empire knows all too well from the Clone Wars), new technological advancements can be incorporated and rolled out relatively swiftly, alternate versions and even entire new classes can be designed to counter specific threats, and they are 100% biologically inert meaning the Swarm can't infest, poison, or even eat them like they could storm troopers.
Basically, an Uno Reverse Card to the Zerg.
Or you could take the old b1s and reprogram them. Boom instant insane army
Or you could take the old b1s and reprogram them. Boom instant insane army
They still can hide small organisms inside a droid to serve as a trojan horse.
IIRC most combat droid production was shut down and/or dismantled following the Clone Wars though, we certainly don't see many in the original trilogy. Also zerg *can* eat them, considering they use "Minerals" as their main resource.
I would like to see the Empire mass produce Phase III Darktroopers, that would completely annihilate everything Zerg. Considering that Phrik is such an extremely strong material that it can survive a blast from the Death Star.
ua-cam.com/video/vSjQG234J_M/v-deo.html
Can you imagine Abathur getting a hold of the remains of a Zillo Beast? Brutalisks would be child's play compared to that.
OHHH frak I forgot about the Zillo beast aaah
I think it wasn't part of the canon here. But yeah
@@Regunes Shows are part of the main canon, he included them.
Abathur: "Zillo creature, essence useful, massive amounts of biomass required, vulnerability to terran ion-based weapondry concerning. Need for experiment, supplement natural armor with ultralisk chitinous plating, disperse ionic energy. Good."
hell yeah, The Zillolisk. the closest the Zerg can get to deploying Godzilla
I think something that Grant didn't talk about was supply lines. The Republic and Empire both relied on a massive amout of supplies from the mid rim and outer rim. As such losing the outer rim and a large chunk of the mid rim would cause the Empire to buckle under attrition.
Yeah honestly the Empire has no chance. You cant hand deliver Reaver ammo and not expect them to get fucked by air or burrowed units.
Agreed! And not to mention the Empire would still face other threats while being stalked by the Zerg. With the Empire weakened, it's pretty likely that new rebel factions will try to fight the Empire even while this infestation was going on. Self-interested groups, like maybe the Hutts, and other pirate factions would raid and pillage systems that are now poorly defended in the weakening or flat-out absence of the Imperial navy. They would have to choose; reinforce shipping lanes to protect against pirate raids, which would weaken the forces needed to blockade the advance of the Zerg, or take forces away to strengthen the blockade and leave the merchants at the mercy of the pirates.
@@wasdwasd609Imperial navy: 25,000 imperial 1 star destroyers, 4.8-36 million smaller warships(2,400-4,000 combat ships per sector(imperial sourcebook), 50+dreadnoughts(around 26 of which are executer classes), a sovereign class(continent/small moon busting laser), two eclipses(continent/small moon), over 263,000(Specter of the past) other star destroyers/similar sized ships, sun crusher(star buster, that tanked a death stat laser), 2 death stars, an extra death star prototype with a functional laser, 2 death star sized habitation spheres, a galaxy gun(snipe planets and ships from across the galaxy), metal crystal phase shifters(bypass shields to weaken hull integrity), the tarken,(planet buster), the conqueror(continent/small moon cracking super laser) and dozens of world devastators(can rip apart planets with tractor beam projectors, while tanking shots from capital ships. Can collect materials to upgrade/grow, and even create new world devastators).
There was a plan to include super class star destroyers(8km) in many of the empires sectors. That is potentially 100s. There was also the assertor class(15km), bellator(7km), vengeance class(19km), and mandator III(12km).
Imperial army: 10s of trillions(Rebellion era campaign guide, and Imperial sourcebook)
Stormtrooper corps: 100s of millions-billions
CompForce: 100s of billions(2nd edition sourcebook)
Tanks/repulsorcraft: 2-9 Trillion
Walkers: 10s of millions
Fighters: 62 million- a few hundred million
Territory: over a million, and a half full member worlds(rebellion era campaign guide,and 2nd edition source book) , and 5-70+ million colonies(Essential atlas), vessels, and protectorates. Han solo stated to Luke they would have to search six million inhabited systems, and an old republic comic stated the holonet connected six million worlds. 1,000s of sectors(imperial source book).
Weapon damage: Turbolasers dish out megatons of superheated plasma, while laser cannons in the kilotons. The attack of the clones cross section states 200 gigatons a shot, and 6 megatons a shot but we treat it as an outlier(It also states turbolaser shots travel at light speed). Contrary to popular belief star wars shields do protect against projectiles/high velocity attacks. A super star destroyer's shields have tanked rebel cruisers jumping out of hyperspeed, and multi megaton hits from asteroids in an asteroid field. Deflector shields can produce ray shields(Physical/High velocity projectile weapons), and particle shields(energy based weapons). Both the 2nd edition sourcebook, and cross section tell us star destroyers are capable of turning the upper crust of planets into slag which we can believe. Carnor jax states an imperial star destroyer can make stone run like water, and turn sand into glass. Going by the bombardment of caamas, it takes several star destroyers to reduce a planet's surface twice the size of earth to molten slag in under twenty four hours. The E-11 is the equivalent of a 14.5mm round with enough heat to punch through a lightly armored or unarmored opponent, and in a new hope it vaporizes steel bars. The DLT-19 was capable of taking down lightly armored vehicles. The T-21 light repeating blaster fires the plasma bolt equivalent of a 22.5-30mm bullet from a guass rifle. Mercenaries using light blaster cannons shot through 4 inches of plasteel. T-21
@@too_s0ber910Read above
meanwhile the swarm is using the outer rim for supplies and reinforcements growing more and more day by day.
"Executor has firepower the zerg can't match"
Scourge: "Am I a joke to you?"
gotta remember the zerg at the point he was talking about don't use scourge anymore
My money is on the Swarm. Their adaptability and scale, combined with the abundance of terrifying predatory creatures in the SW galaxy for Abathur to play with would overwhelm the bulk of the Imperial forces. Sidious and Vader would undoubtedly present a challenge, but that challenge is significantly reduced when cut off from their powers. Thrawn was known to carry a creature with such an ability as a pet. It came from an area not explored by the Empire.
Thinking about the force, Kerrigan's abilities already look extremely similar to several dark side powers. She's fueled by rage, projects lightning, crushes and strikes with telekinesis, levitates, and one of her primal abilities even taps into the light side by healing herself and her party. The only basic force powers she lacks are the short and long-term precognition. Given the overlap, it's questionable if Abathur could find a way to use the force to further augment the Swarm. However, infestation of gifted force sensitives would allow Kerrigan to add additional hero units to her ranks. I tend to think that none of these force sensitives would be on her level because she literally redefined the psionics scale, twice, in her home universe. If a trained force user like an Inquisitor, surviving Jedi, or the Bendu were captured and infested, then things could get interesting. Kerrigan's raw power, tempered by the focus of a force user would be a powerful combination.
I hope this isn't going to be a one-off thing. More Zerg content about fighting between them and other SciFi Factions!
Zerg vs. Tyranids: No matter who wins, everyone else loses.
Personally, I'd love to see how other Starcraft factions may fare against the Galactice Empire and maybe other Star Wars galactic civilizations.
@@sc2_Nightmare I am about 90% sure that the two would just assimilate into one swarm.
And then everyone else loses.
Zerg vs Imperium or Orks would be awesome
@@sc2_Nightmare I feel like the shadow in the warp would disrupt zerg psychic powers, making them less efficient, and the Nyds would just eat them through sheer numbres. Zerg are more efficeint at absorbing biomass and integrating it into the swar though, if they focus on orks and eldar early to enhance their powers, they might have a shot.
Okay, okay, hear me out. Kerrigan IS a powerful force user. She was born with a certain, more or less unexplained power, she uses it to shock people with Force Lightning, choke everyone in area, crush them with implosion, and uses it to enhance her speed and ability to jump. Heck, the whole Zerg chain of command can be seen as a kind of 'Jedi mind trick' as well. The only thing she's missing is a lightsaber, but that was stolen by miss Covert Ops.
New headcanon: the Force users embody purity of form in a different iteration of the infinite cycle.
In KOTOR and in the Thrawn book trilogy there were powerful Jedi that had an ability called “battle meditation” that allowed them to inspire armies and even communicate orders to them. Kerrigan having a powerful form of battle meditation makes perfect sense
You're reaching so hard
@@HeroOfJusticeYT I find your lake of faith disturbing. Also the zerg and abuther and kerrigan alone are vastly superior to the empire even at it's very peek even if they owned 3 death stars. The moment the zerg have several planets to breed and spawn their broods the empire had better deathstar those planets before the zerg had the chance to leave orbit. The zerg are an organic species that can survive in the vacuum of space and only become more genetically adapted to what they have to capture and the ability to adapt in general that it would be a game of whack a mole for the empire that they simply could never cleanse when the entire galaxy of space can contain contingent zerg expansion beyond the outer rim. The empire is mostly limited in its expansion as the outer rim exists meaning the empire does not control every potential breeding ground for the zerg.
Also kerrigan is basically a sith/jedi in her own right and ya, if abathur discovered midichlorians (which seems impossible for him not to given every life form there has them and would stand out) , abathur would be spinning the sequences to ensure zerg not only have them too, but that they are genetically bred for that trait. Abathur is so underestimated due to literally being able to evolve life and rapidly mutate creating ever new challenges for the empire that only become harder to counter over the time abathur has.
zerg having a civil war would also not be the end and sells the zerg short. The zerg existed and functioned quite fine before kerrigan as they had things like the overmind and other beings of psionic ability approaching inconsequentially short to her own.
changelings plus abathur, i don't see the empire being able to deal with the infestation being able to hid basically anywhere and the empire does not have enough sith to turn the tides in battles that will be so stretched.
the zerg are underestimated here
Haha. Kerrigan mind tricks stormtrooper :"these are not the infesteds you are looking for. Open the base gate!"
I think the zerg would immediatly try to take over the Deathstar once it blasted one foot hold
Not to mention that the zerg once before rather easily cnoquered a "citadel" a absurdly hard defended Planet namely Tarsonis and as you said they where about to attack Korhal while simultaneously laying siege on the entire Dominion so Corruscant or any other Citadel world wouldnt be much of an issue and taking over the Deathstar would effectively be a dwath sentence to the Empire
and lose all their leviathans to low yield deathstar blast and its escorting fleet, because the zerg would clearly be taken more seriously than the rebellion.
This was fun to watch! I was thinking, when you mentioned the devastation a single larvae could wreak by sneaking onto a starship... The Zerg could just win this hypothetical war by infesting Coruscant by ACCIDENT. A Planet of the Apes type ending (the Andy Serkis one) could easily run amok and quickly find its way to the inner planets.
Another 'win' I can see the Zerg getting is Time. Palpatine is old, Vader is aging. Zerg don't really age. There were Primal Zerg (still alive in game) who were around when Amon took and corrupted the Overmind.
@@isaacgraff8288 True, although Palpatine (even in old canon) had multiple contingencies for his death, and was actively researching how to circumvent it. It is not impossible for Sith to live for a really long time (Darth Krayt for example).
The problem is...the zerg can't even handle their own, substantially smaller galaxy. They occupied like 50 planets in their prime, to the Empires 1.5 million. The Imperial fleet also has the advantage in range, firepower, and speed. I think the zerg would get lost in star wars.
In fact, the zerg already exist in Star Wars. There's the Killiks dark nest, the Raguul plauge, and that zombie bioweapon virus. None of them are superpower factions at any point in history. Killiks came close but were crushed by a former vassal of the empire, despite getting help.
@@isaacgraff8288 Palpatine could just body swap in both Canon and Legends.
I doubt they'd be a significant threat more than 50 years at a time anyway, more of a looming menace that keeps returning because they can't completely get rid of it.
@iamblight707 That was do to a few factors, prime among them being the difference between the Overmind and your standard hivemind supreme intellgence. The Overmind was one that did not belive in waste, one that was focused upon perfection, to achieve the greatest ability out of themselves and their children. Alongside that, we never saw the full scale of swarms war with the Protoss, however we do know the protoss covered a notable portion of the galaxy
Not the video I was expecting, but I’m not disappointed.
You could say that it’s a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one. Lol
@@tntengineer2330we'll be watching his career with great interest.
I immediately thought of enemy within and how this infestation would crush the empire. If a farm boy can sneak into the Death Star, could a queen larva do the same and take down all the empires greatest weapons.
To be fair, enemy within took place on a ship that fled in a panicked and poorly guarded manner. Because of how hangars work, if an infestation got loose in the hangar they could probably jettison it if need be.
Yeah infesting the people on board of the most important ships would be a very high priority.
Infesting the deathstar is the exact moment the empire looses, Kerrigan would see the value of the superweapon and defend it accordingly, unleashing its destructive power uppon the galaxy without much remorse
@@laxcatthesleepycat2688i am not sure about that. Using the death star weapon would be pretty counterproductive to the zergs as the only thing they want is to get more planets to assimilate so destroying them would be a bad idea for her. Maybe i could see her using it on a very few amount of planets but not much
they were allowed to escape the death star plus let's be real protoss security is terrible
Fun video. The Galactic Empire vs NonForce swarms was explored in the Yuzhong Vong invasion in the legacy books.
Seeing as both civs can be played in RTS games, I think it would be feasible for someone to mod one or the other to show this conflict. :D
Love the video! Something to add.
One of, if not the primary reason that the war in the Koprulu sector is a stale mate is because the protoss go around glassing planets that show even the slightest display of infection. You can see in one of the Wings of Liberty missions that Dr. Hansen's colony was only barely starting to show signs of infection before the protoss came along and started trying to burn the entire world. Given that protoss glass planets from orbit. . . and any Mothership (of which there are 9 known to canon), carrier (tens of thousands known to canon) or voidray (Very common heavy assault unit), they can Planet Crack to stop infestations at a rate that the Imperial forces just cant match. Granted, the mark one death star (the one we pretended to not blow up) was capable of firing once every 24 hours. The mark 2 could come closer, with a fire time of 3 minutes (and since it was never used like that, engineering principles would ask with what drawbacks) they could come closer in theory. I still dont see a shot every 3 minutes matching the efficiency of tens of thousands of ships.
Although side note, the Death Star mark 2 was modified to also be fireable at capital ships. This puts kerrigan at a massive disadvantage if they were to ever find her flagship leviathan.
In Galactic Republic/Empire, there's a protocol called Base Delta Zero - orbital bombardment to such extent nothing survives on the planet's surface. Most of the planet is still there, of course, so you need energies far less than what Death Star possesses for that. According to Legends, as few as three Imperial-class Star Destroyers could execute such operations in a "matter of hours". I guess small fleet of Star Destroyers can glass a planet actually fast and outspeed/overpower any possible zerg regrowth.
@@user-25352 Yeah blasting the surface does not do much to the Zerg. They do extensive tunneling on planets that they properly infest. Just look at Char for a idea on how hard they are to wipe from a planet even without any real leadership (early Zagara was kinda bad at her job)
@@dragonearth5456 pretty sure protocol was devised to depopulate worlds even where locals have lots of underground cities/population. "Far, far away" galaxy has lots of races, some more unique than others. and while zerg do seem to be at the top of "adaptability" and "spread really fast" leaderboard, they aren't the only ones capable of burrowing deep.
The real thing that makes them hard to wipe out by terrans is lack of high-power energy weaponry, they rely more on kinetic-like guns and maybe some bombs/nukes. They just can't decisively damage planet's surface+subsurface thoroughly enough so that no zerg lifeform that can reproduce survives. SW ships can just output raw power into turning planet's surface and subsurface unsurvivable even for zerg, even if it they would have to slowly "cleance" it sector by sector.
@@user-25352 Keep in mind the Protoss glassed planets and for years later the Terrans where still finding Zerg all over the planet they traditionally get progressively deeper tunnels super fast to get their nydus network up. Also if the Zerg are not attacking a fleet in orbit of a planet that means they don't even have enough Zerg there to warrant glassing yet. They will always attack ships found in orbit of their hives.
It's a little inconsistent how quickly the Protoss respond to infestation, I mean in Safe Haven it seems the infestation is contained to a few colonists behind a fence while in Haven's Fall there's an actual Zerg presence and multiple villages potentially infested. In SC1, the Protoss only glass Chau Sara when it's been fully infested, months after the Zerg first showed up, although I suppose that can be chalked up to them not expecting the Zerg in Terran space and Tassadar's fleet being put together for that specific situation.
Huh
How did I never question that Kerrigan's swarm travelled like halfway across the galaxy to get to Zerus in the first third of the campaign...
That's crazy
Tbf if you play Brood War you will heard the Overmind mentions about warp traveling with the young cerebrate too
@@nguyenphamthanhgiang8951 Yeah but all you hear is that your first trip will be unpleasant.
Even then the first trip is still in Terran space; Tarsonis to Char with Char being a world in Terran territory but so horrible that no one stayed there
@@ClericOfPholtus There is a cutscene in starcraft showing the Overmind creating a warp rift to teleport the zerg forces to Aiur
@@SenyiKimmo yes, I know. I've played the game like dozens of times over the last nearly 30 years.
But Auir is still in the same area of space relatively, like it's part of the Khoprulu Sector. It's definitely far from the terran systems, but it's not as crazy as Zerus or Ulnar.
Because it's not mentioned in the games really, but in interviews as other material it was mentioned that Kerrigan going from Koprulu to Zerus and back took a couple of months~ (Not taking into account how much was the travel and how much was the subjugation of the primals)
Also we do know that Zerus is in or close the galactic Core, while Koprulu is in the edges of the galaxy.
The best way to defeat the empire is to spam 200 supply worth of marines, not play traditional Zerg let’s be real here
With no Medivacs? 😱
*Ultralisks enter the chat
The best way to defeat the Empire is to fire a single torpedo at their Artosis Pylon Power Generator and overload the entire thing into a chain explosion.
@@jaeusa160One in a million shot
[sad Defiler noises]
Interesting thought: can Kerrigan or for that matter the Zerg leadership even be killed by the means the Empire has? Canonically in SC the Overmind and his Cerebrates could only be destroyed by "Dark Templar energies", which are a kind of psi-energy-stuff. The Force is not really this, is it?
In SC2 there are ideas put forth that the Swarms body cannot truely be destroyed as long as there is "essence". now this is also hardly defined, but it is heavily hinted that basically everytime you kill the physical body of a Zerg it will simply hatch again at some hatchery as long as nothing messes with the essence. Only (some) Protoss and this weird XelNaga Artifact where able to do so.
Even if we for arguments sake say that the Force is able to grant the power to forever destroy a certain Zergs essense (i.e. permanently kill Kerrigan, Stukov etc...), the empire only has 2 people capable of doing this. Darth Vader and Sidius have their work cut out for them, traveling from planet to planet in search of the boss Zergs...
Another thing not considered is whether Kerrigans psi powers would be equal or stronger than the force. To me she would probably win a straight up fight against even the emporer in powers, as she regenerates much faster and probably has a lot more atrition.
It is not seen in the games, but if you read some of the Starcraft books that explore the Terran "Ghost" (so what Kerrigan was before she evolved twice into something insanely more powerful in psi-abilities) and their skills, they can flat out think weaker minds to perish.
Nova, the pseudo follow-up Ghost to Kerrigan in the Terran Dominions Army was able to just think her target dead over a few miles away. Meanwhile Kerrigan is labled as the strongest Psionic in the Starcraft Universe by the Dominon - a class 13 Psionic Lifeform (or whatever the number was)
Imagine Kerrigan starts using that shit - just thinking armies dead. We do not know if she is incapable of it or if she didnt really try it because of Protoss being around all the time, who have stronger minds than weak Terrans (or in this application Stormtroopers?).
The numbers war would also be interesting, I wonder whatever happened to Droid and Clone Armys - can the empire still produce them if push came to shove and humanity fears this weird bug infastation, some reluctant citizens that did not enjoy the Dictatorship, might suddenly have less problems with old Palpatine?
Then there is the problem of attrition. Once the empire retreats into its coreworlds - how will it sustain them? with trade and resources from the Outer Rim basically gone, I think many of the core worlds will ultimately start to revolt. Hungry people make for bad subjects. Add to this, that at some point the Empires army may run out of skilled workforce and soldiers, as they need years to train new personell to the skill level the persons they replace had... Zerg have the hugest advantage here, as it seems to take little to no time to replace Zergling X
Ultimately, Im not sure if the empire really stands the chance you give them in the video, because all they can hope for is destroying every planet that isnt "clean" with the Death Star (or similair shit) and would ultimately end up destroying themselves in their effort to remain in power with their iron grip.
wow this got a lot longer than I intended for at first... respect to those who took the time to read my 2 cents
Man ... lets try to keep it lore accurate somewhat. Kerrigan cant "think armies dead" .. or you know she'd do it constantly against terrans at least. Do you really wanna take out full powered Legends Palpatine? Hint: he's somewhere planet cracker level if I recall, being able to create warp storms in different part of the galaxy. That's a bit more (by a landslide) than what even Primal Kerrigan could do (not talking ascended xel naga) .
Also there are not only 2 force sensitive people in the Empire. Given the circumstance (human race wipe out scenario) sith and jedi would join hands. So you get Luke, Leia, other jedi in hiding, and a restored Vader (keep in mind Palpatine keeps him weak for a reason) You're downplaying the empire insanely.
The zerg merely covered 2-300 worlds at peak? Empire is millions of worlds. They are more advanced in tech than terrans were too. ... and their leaders can see the future trough the Force. It would not be in zerg's favour.
@@TheShadow6391
I think Kerrigan's forces would be heavily outgunned and outmaneuvered in space, which is the thing that matters. Startcraft FTL is slower, Star Wars one is absurdly fast. Her chance I think would be assimilating this tech somehow (might not be possible organically), and/or taking Empire from within, dominating/infesting/recruiting people like Thrawn and other admirals to be servants/pawns, assimilating Vong (if they exist within setting we imagine) by assassinating and masquerading as their leadership (zerg can mutate to look like anything outside with skill and effort), and take control of Empire from within by ambushing the Emperor (that would only work depending on their respective skills in divination/anti-divination/stealth) and replacing him, maybe with help of previously converted Vader (for whom Kerrigan can easily regrow limbs after he's infested). Then Empire and the galaxy is hers to take at her leisure, but that's only if Vader and Emperor don't discover and burn her beforehand.
Without Kerrigan with her psionics including infiltration abilities like invisibility, Zerg would be just particularly nasty decease/critters I think. Unless zerg infestation can be controlled from light years away, in which case it could remind the Flood scenario... but I doubt zerg are that strong with zerg virus, otherwise they could assimilate terrans easy enough already with small infiltration units - which they don't and can't, and need to be physically present to infest and mutate for assimilation/enslavement/recruitment.
@@user-fl3le7pt9c I agree with the points made. Also I would possibly argue Vader/Palpatine would be extremely difficult to infest/mind control. They are after all incredibly well trained and disciplined. We're not talking some random human, they are beyond human condition and both transcend death (vader as a ghost, palpatine SOMEHOW returned etc) (well palpatine learns to clone and spirit trasfer himself) .
They could surely infest other officers, but these 2 would be big no no imo. As you mentioned they are not able to mass infest terans/protoss that openly fight them. Why would they be able to do so with the Empire. Also the infested are not particularly dangerous compared to regular zerg ... they are zombies more or less. So planets with a military presence would not fall easily.
This topic is much like Imperium vs Tyranids in 40k (both sides are beefed up however). And Tyranids still dont win/or not without major efforts and heavy losses.
@@user-fl3le7pt9c the problem is that that isnt how kerigen fight , she go and fight her enemy like she did to raynor at WOL , and narud menks and amon later on , she would attck them head on and before she would realize how much this is stomp she would already be dead
There is one annoying trope that is never really considered in those kind of situation, that hyper-specialized relying on trade planets are stupid. I mean, ok, it's kind of metaphore of the globalization happening on Earth, but if you really think about it, it makes no sense. A city planet like Corusant would still be able to produce the massive quantities of food, basic resources and manufactured goods to sustain a very large population and a thriving economy, even producing warships and whatever the Empire need.
The sheer scale of a planet is often not really well pictured in SciFi in general, they are more treated as country or a besieged castle. But there is not really such thing as besieging a whole world, it won't really run out of food, water, resources or means of production in a meaningful timescale.
Usage of hydroponics for food, fusion energy, and deep mining are kinda basics techs in those kinds of setting. It's fair to imagine that the Empire would have some hard times at the beginning to transition his economy from a globalized trade-focused one to a more isolationist. If they manage to keep control of their planets and their stellar system they are into, they can hold firm against the Swarm for really long.
One thing that could happen with this, is that the Empire disintegrate, because of this isolationism into a bunch of "City-States" each stellar system or planet becoming his own entities.
It is a fun question. Biggest Issue I usually have with factions compared, is that each side plays and follows different rules. I think the Zerg's biggest advantages are competent commanders and adaptability. As for the Empire? Palpatine and Vader are incredibly powerful, they also have a handful of powerful super weapons.
So did the terrans. And protoss...
Vader and Palp are powerful and they could massacre a lot of Zerg, however if Kerrigan wants them dead she’ll just swarm them constantly with hundreds of Zerg at a time until the soldiers they have are wiped out and they slowly are worn down by constantly fighting different forms of zerg
@@ztrax7133 Neither are any more powerful than a High Templar, and those died by the thousands. Star Wars cannot ever win against Starcraft. Look at Star Destroyers, they use turbolasers that cannot hit anything smaller than a corvette, rely on line of sight for everything, get taken out super easily by a hit to the bridge vs Terran BCs which have a ton of very fast fire rate auto turrets specifically designed against smaller air/space craft and Mutas and they still went down in large numbers fairly quickly by the sheer number of Mutas. Also the whole Starcraft Evolution book cannot even happen, Abathur was explained in Heart of The Storm's dialogue with Abathur to have gone wild once Overmind died, and that he cannot function without a hive connection.
Normally I'd make some snide comment that zombies are almost never physically fit enough to perpetrate a zombie outbreak, but I think its pretty fun to note that StarCraft zombies would absolutely massacre normal civvie populations, what with their added armor from carapace, claws, extra agility, and ability to spread infections with injected larvae, rather than just zombies spreading it only.
Honestly, I think you give "average joe with a blaster" too much credit here lol
Edit: ...that being said, they'd still be a non-factor against any real military forces from the empire.
plus blasters are wildly inconsistent with killing unarmoured targets, nevermind armoured.
The Empire does still have flamethrowers and chemical weapons which infested humans are still very weak to. Some also burn in sunlight so I still think they are lacking simply because of how weak the human body is as a base to work with. This is probably a reason why they were suicide bombers in the first game.
The infested do not always burn in sunlight, that was only one WOL mission, in no other circumstance have infested burned in sunlight.
@@coatofarms4439 I have to agree with all your points but this falls apart when you consider the vast array of species with starwars. Some of which come from high gravity worlds and are stronger and more durable as a resault than your average human. That and the augmented forces from assimilated creatures in the starwars galaxy I honestly think given a bit of time the swarm would crush though.
The infested terrians only burned because of the star the world was orbiting. All other showings of them had them not burn
I think that if a infestor made its way to the under city of Coursant then the empires in a lot of trouble. The massive population and mostly unmonitored lower levels have lots of potential and given how easy it is for infestations to pop up its incredibly dangerous for the Empire
The under city of Coursant might genuinely kill the infestor. It's pretty bad down there.
Like really bad.
But if it's in the criminal underworld levels, it has a pretty good chance. But the underworld levels sometimes has to deal with the things in the deeper levels coming *up* sometimes, so a Infestor might be doable for them.
Yeah this basically turns into tyranids vs imperium and we all know how that usually pans out
@@sneediumminer Usually with the Imperium losing and having to exterminatus hundreds of planets and sacrifice large numbers of irreplaceable ships and barely replaceable ships to stop the particular hivefleet of the century. Never again getting those planets back the way they were, as they are all now barren or hellscapes.
Sure, they stop them, but each time costs significant resources they never get back.
Just hand it a death stick.
@@madsword19 If a zergling gets high off deathsticks, does the entire hivemind get high off deathsticks?
This is an incredibly clean and fun analysis, but I think it's important to remember that the Empire's technology is either on-par with or outright weaker than Protoss tech, and the protoss *with* the Golden Armada spent half a decade building up before even trying to retake Auir, which was only occupied by a moderate force of enthralled zerg, nowhere near the might of the unified swarm.
Protoss have spent centuries perfecting the exact weapons needed to combat zerg, and still struggle to succeed outside of orbital bombardment. Their primary tactic is total planetary annihilation, and all that leaves the empire with is a growing pile of dead rocks.
Lore Zerg have been stated to be pretty much immune to any type of chemical or radiation attack. In the abscence of psionic capability, their literal only vulnerability is being too physically mangled to keep fighting, whether by plasma, fire, blade, or bullets. The empire's weapons are almost universally plasma-based guns (that they call lasers).
Funnily enough I feel like my Stellaris prowess comes in useful here. If we assume your story ends in a stalemate like you said with the empire being pushed basically to the core worlds while leaving the midrim destroyed/a warzone and the outer rim infested. The Empire is dead, not through lack of manpower or industry but through agriculture. You see, an intergalactic level of civilization shifts individual planets to a position we have countries at right now. Import/Export problem essentially, the core worlds are going to be your ecumenopoli, massive planet-wide city/industrial zones with outputs when it comes to military that would be frankly obscene, yes.
However, a world with that kind of population, even giving the greatest benefit of the doubt to the Empire, would never be able to sustain its own populace basic needs. If we assume they have perfect recovery systems, they could sustain themselves on water through filtration/asteroid ice refining. However, a planet-wide city needs a planet-wide food production and I believe a lot of these world would be located in the midrim of the galaxy. So if the Empire was in fact pushed to basically the core worlds alone, they would literally eventually collapse from the inside due to attrition, not immediately since there would probably be some reserves or stations with hydroponic systems for emergencies, but over time the Swarm would quite literally starve the Empire out.
The big problem these inter-franchise comparisons have is the difference in scale.
StarCraft and Star Trek take place in very small pockets of space for the most part. The Koprulu Sector is basically just a handful of planets that's been kind of bulked out by SC2, but it's still the equivalent of a few nodes in Stellaris. Star Trek spreads out a bit more but ultimately still takes place in just 1 galactic quadrant (Alpha Quadrant) and even that is barely even touched in terms of exploration.
Star Wars takes place across an entire full galaxy, one largely even known and explored. Logistics is massively in the favor of Star Wars tech, they cross distances in hours that Trek and Craft tech takes years or decades to cross. It's like a Snail, an ordinary real life one with no powers, trying to fight or blockade Sonic the Hedgehog.
So in Stellaris terms: How hard would it be for a faction 4 nodes big to "cut off" the logistics of an Empire controlling 400 nodes and also several layers of tech more advanced?
It's VERY un-fun for comparisons like this, but for context the trip from Naboo/Tattooine to Coruscant in Episode 1 is the kind of distance it would take Voyager ~70 years to cross at their max sustainable Warp speed. Who even knows how far Earth is from Koprulu but that itself is a trip that took many years, and could be fairly short in galactic terms all things considered. The Empire could bring its entire navy to every individual planet in the Koprulu Sector, orbitally bombard them into becoming Char #2 #3 #4 etc, and be home for tea by the time Kerrigan could react to any of them.
1:07 I laughed wayyyy too hard when he said tactics and just showed General Duke.
Where'd you study tactics, boy?
Every single time the Zerg have been defeated in canon, it has been due to their leaders dying: whether it's Cerebrates being assassinated by Dark Templar, Kerrigan being purged, or the Ganthritor being steered into a collision course with the Overmind.
I imagine the Empire (and any remaining Rebels and Jedi) would try something similar this time too; it's how the plot usually tends to go...
Yes but how the leaders died made that especially impossible to do. You needed specifically DT energy to do any of those kills, and there arent any Xelnaga artifacts here to purge kerry. Theres no way the empire will win this.
@@wmzer0mw Still, you could target individual broodmothers repeatedly. They're pretty hardy in their own right but are still no Kerrigan. Teams of assassins that hunt down broodmothers could prove to cause significant turmoil in the Swarm's power structure, as more stress is put on the link between Kerrigan and lower level queens.
As for how well they can actually do this? Well, I dunno. The Empire could prove to be shockingly good at it, or Broodmothers could prove to be able to defend themselves even if caught completely off-guard.
@@SenyiKimmo Possible but doubtful. The zerg are still a hive mind, the minute a brood mother or 2 disappears, the hive will recognize it and develop counter measures, even without actually being anywhere near there.
Abathur was able to do that in the evolution bonus missions where he can influence remote planet evolutions.
yeah, the only real way the zerg could lose is a plucky ragtag band of 3-5 assorted rebels on a suicide mission
@@theeviloverlord7320 Belly of the Beast:
This was an awesome and super well put together and researched video! I’d love to see Zerg V Galactic Republic or Protoss V Empire/Republic!
I was half interested clicking on this, thinking it was just gonna be another long hand-wavey video explanation between the two factions by a channel I'm not familiar with. But DAMN this was really well researched and thought out. And now I'm sitting here going down the rabbit hole on how this war would look and I NEED this to be made into a series now.
I think that the Death Star is a lot less invincible than you imply, while the Zerg would have trouble breaking it in a conventional space battle, any Zerg managing to board it would spell doom for the poor stormtroopers and crewmen who now have to deal with Zerg in CQC
and then be infested
Imagine an infested deathstar, with all the strength of zerg combined with the devistation of the deathstar, gl fighting that empire o_O
...while they have actually no or only few means for actual CQB anyway - a zerg swarm isn't exactly a few pesky Jedi's, it's a completely different threat! - i don't see stormtroopers standing any chance against even a few zerglings when terran marines are already bubblegum to chew trough xP
Okay, lets give them plasma shot's aka "Laser Bolts" actually being more effective than bullets, they still have the issue of their armor not exactly doing much against projectiles of any kind, so just a few Hydralisks and the groundbattle on the deathstar is over.
The only thing i see the empire being superior is space battles, i don't see the Zerg expanding any further into core worlds, as they would long be dispatched by even patrol forces - the Zerg aren't exacly that tough without their Numbers in Ground&Air Combat - and never had to fight against Plasma Weaponry aka "Laser Bolts", so even if we grand a theoraticly "armor" capability against those, they would need to evolve it first - by that time the Empire would likely have them hunted down, with no other threats than maybe civil unrests that could indeed bind forces, there's to plenty of Imperials that in this case start to outmatch the Zerg Armada and thus would likely kick them out before they even had a chance to spread to other worlds - and Tattoine would certainly serve as a new Alderaan - i mean srsly, the Zerg are a Ground combat focused faction, while the Empire is a Space focused one wich also has a freakin deathstar and no hesitation to just blow infested planets up, with the only limiting factor of it's slow hyperspace speed and that there's like only 2-3 of them troughout the universe - so unless the Zerg spread faster (and mind you, for that they HAVE TO travel trough space!) than the Empire can blow up infested planets, the Zerg loose. - no denial the Zerg would Win most Ground battles unless fighting against fortifications (they lack any actual siege weapons - yes i'm aware of ultralisks, they are still limited in capabilities while the empire can trow bombs at them! - Zerg win trough numbers, not their inherent limited capabilities! - and even Zerg reproduction is limited, also don't forget there is no vespin gas, so a substitut would be needed! - still, most non-heavily defended planets would fall just like in the Starcraft universe.)
It all comes down to if the Zerg would be able to penetrate the shields and armor of the death star. And honestly I kind of doubt they would have the firepower necessary for that. Star Wars shields just seem to me like something the Zerg just aren't equipped to deal with
@@hanneswiggenhorn2023 yet they can easily deal with protoss plasma sheilding. also most star wars shields are build to deal mostly with energy attacks like laser fire. even though star wars 'lasers' are plasma. while protoss plasma shields protect from both energy and kinetic
7:22
"The Empires focuses on the core of well-trained and equipped Stormtroopers."
*Shows stormtrooper bonking his head*
But it was a well-trainer bonk.
You can see the calculated presition of that bonk. 10/10, one of the bonks of all time.
I didn't know about the head-bonk for the longest time. For years after watching A New Hope. Learned about it from the internet only a years ago and was like, "What? No way. There's NO WAY they left that in the movie!" Immediately fired up the movie, fast-forwarded to the scene, and promptly died laughing because it was true. And I LOVE that they left it in! XD
I hope you make another like this. I haven't even seen Star Wars, but it's a cool and fun video to watch and you explain the assets and tactics well enough that I'm up to speed.
I'm usually not a fan of faction comparison videos because they do exactly what you pointed out and typically just compare death ball to death ball without considering the scale of the battlefield, but I've watched enough of your videos to know you put way more effort than that into any video you make so I gave it a chance. This is the right way to do one of these videos and I like how you factor in different win conditions for each side beyond just "kill them to the last."
I agree with your assessment on it likely ending in a stalemate and how it could be broken. If the Zerg Swarm were to manage to harness the Force through infestation (likely of an Inquisitor or Jedi survivor) and gain an understanding of it, the stalemate would be broken if Abathur could work that into new Zerg strains. That said, the Imperial economy might collapse on itself between their efforts to quarantine the Zerg and the loss of the Outer Rim's resources under a prolonged stalemate anyways.
Just to clarify, the force is something that cannot be infested or taken over somehow. Even when you have the tech of the flood or tyranids.
Also i believe he tried hard to make it look unbiased but in fairnes and i mean this in a respectfull way, the swarm is like toiletpaper for the empire and when he has done the slightest of research on this matter he would have know this, respectfully.
Now I am just picturing Luke turning off his targeting computer, missing, and the sound of crickets as it pans to reaction shots of all the rebels before Dodonna bellows *FUUUUUU* and the music cuts him off as credits roll.
Best ending.
I'm not sure if Darth Vader would even help in ground battles. Banelings and roaches would be highly problematic. A lightsaber does not protect you against acid spray. While his suit provides some resistance against acid, it may not be enough, especially in a prolonged fight or with Abathurs work.
While that’s a possibility, this would have to be the first time the Empire has ever encountered them and they would need to ambush Vader alone in massive numbers. Otherwise he’d be smart enough to use the Force against them and rely on his precognition to avoid any other ambushes.
It’s definitely a possible win con, but not reliable enough to happen more than a few times.
Vader can probably force push the banelings away.
@@fulguratingbean9489 How many hunterlings can he stop? Or the acid from troopers who shot down hunterlings in self defense?
unlike the movies though Vader would likely be moving with his elites and once the threat of acid is known they would take a more cautious approach and blast em at range, plus his force power would still work on em but yeah banelings would cause hella damage
nah, vader can even dive on lava, he can use the force to shield him from anything, acid, flame throwers, anything
I think Kerrigans psionic level would be easily translated into the force. or rather, like flooding a pot of water with a glass of oil. Zerg Hive Mind is like a gallaxy and Kerrigan is its central black hole, you would just know if something so huge would suddenly pop up in your yard. Vader and Palps would immediately feel something powerfull appeared or voided the force... These two would immediately be allerted, they would seek it out and understand it. While Kerrigan would stunned by her confusion. when she infests and learns about this galaxy, Vader with Tarkin and Thrawn are already hunting her down. And i already said that psionics would be easily translatable to the force, zerg queens are already a jedi level, so that doesnt change anything. Tarkin and Thrawn would already adjust tactis and strategy, while Vader would be a match for Kerrigan herself. All in all Kerriganonly hope is to become Palps new apprentice, otherwise its Exterminatus. Zerg would only fare just a lot better than against WH Imperium but only initially.
Heh agreed. Kerrigan (human, infested or post-infested-purple) was no match for the Overmind and Cerebrates in their full strength, so how could she take on Palpatine, Darth Vader and whatever other force-sensitive assets that Palpatine had stored away for a special occasion?
To me, if the Zerg were to REALLY mix it up against the Galactic Empire on even ground, it'd have to be the Overmind and Cerebrates version thereof. Likely, a Dark Jedi is comparable to a Dark Templar, so they might lose a Cerebrate or two.... But still, it feels like a better mixup than crappy Starcraft 2 Retcon Kerrigan.
Moreover... my OCD mind has to point out that, uh, scourges can fly in space, as seen when they took down Norad II (Edmund Duke's ship) in that SC1 cutscene. Just mass those to the 11th degree and fling 'em at the star destroyers. (Pretty sure that all other "air" units can fly in most space-like settings too, seeing as they can on Space Station Maps). I just hope that the Empire doesn't have Science Vessels LOL. Irradiate OP.
@@HoboKa_AlexShtokalko ahhhh a Man of Culture! I agree wholesomly!
Overmind would pose a much better challenge, Him alone could potentially make entire Jedi Council kneel under his psionic pressure.
As for the Empire, they do have specialized ships, so.... a Science DESTROYER is not impossible lmao.
A very interesting scenario.
There's one aspect I either didn't notice or wasn't focused on.
If Kerrigan learns about the logistics network the Empire needs to function before or around the first encounter with Tarkin, she could use a longer deception. She can get the details from captured logistics officers and computers in fallen bases or ships. Having the Zerg play a "defeated bug species" while infestations are smuggled to various logistics planets in the Midrim. Use them to transfer infestations or even larvae onto shuttles bound for ISDs, or even have some travel to the core worlds. Within half a year, there is a good chance that 10% or more of the ISDs can be turned into floating tombs by infecting everyone on board in a man vs. bug skirmish without fancy empirical war machines, rendering the fleet ineffective from the mass outbreak.
In StarWars, many developments take place over the course of several months, placing such a strategy within the realm of possibility, and Kerrigan is a master at switching between covert sneak attacks and full-scale invasions.
It would be interesting to see how the Empire reacts to such a blow to its coordination and supply chains.
From that point on, it would be an all-out war.
I really liked your balance between fan-theory and grounded observations (about fictional things). It creates a balance that encourages discussion without sounding either too overblown or too pretentious. Thank you for this thought exercise!
This makes me want to see a battle between a couple Leviathans and the Death Star. A Leviathan could probably drop zerg on the Death Star, maybe even a hatchery if they're so inclined. From there, nydus' burrow in and raise hell.
this actually raises a solid point, in that the Empire's point defense has always been lacking. After all like 5 wings of fighters were able to seriously threaten a Moon sized base. What would a few thousand drop pods do to the death star?
first the deathstar has shields and could one shot it its also constantly protected by alot of ships unless they have codes to enter they would be blasted before they get anywhere near the deathstar
@@L_______ The first Death Star can fire I think every 24 hours. It can kill one invading leviathan. Not two.
@@L_______That would be a lot more true if the entire defensive complement of the DS1 didn't utterly fail to protect the station against an insignificant number of snub fighters.
Millions of AA guns, hundreds of shield layers, and thousands of fighters all failed to stop 29 rebel fighters, a space truck, and an actual crop duster pilot. A Dark Lord of the Sith barely lifting a finger to slay these amateurs got as many on screen kills as the collective economic might of the Galactic Empire. No kidding Vader thought the station was a joke.
@terran6686 well first the rebels knew the only weak point in the deathstar that the empire didn't really know about
But more significantly they failed against plot Like so many before and after it
Like how the forerunners somehow failing to stop the flood while a significantly less technologically advanced somehow could defeat it
To note.
There are many creatures and materials in star wars that are resistant to blasters and even lightsabers and the force.
So the zerg could as an army adept the essence of these creatures and become unstoppable since nothing could kill them.
Kerrigan would if we look at it be unkillable to anyone in the star wars universe regardless.
Spy blades the only weapons ever shown to damage her seem to look like lightsabers.
But thats where your wrong.
Psy blades are extensions of psionic energies of the wearer.
Moreover the two times shes been cut has been by zeratul and narud.
Zeratul, narud both used specifically warp blades infused with void energy.
Which can cut through literally anything in the Starcraft universe.
Knowing this it makes sense.
Kerrigan has been shown to tank missles, fire ,machine gun bullets and psionic energy. Fought mountain sized monsters . Nuclear weaponry.
Hel the women turned mengsk into a bomb that destroyed a giant portion of the emporers castle which is a gigantic structure.
And didnt even leave a scratch.
This doesnt even take into account her regeneration or ability to burrow.
Her abilities like lightning explosions implosions mind control sensing abilities and much much more
I think you are underestimating how attrition would wreck the empire in a 'stalemate'.
We know canonically that the Zerg can just turn entire worlds into 'bio mass farms' to perpetually keep the swarm fed and if not growing, maintain enough numbers to keep chipping at the empire... who would not have this tool. They'd eventually start running out of farmable land because most of those are probably not in the core worlds.
Starvation would eventually win it for the swarm
As you brought up the novel at the end, I had to laugh, because Zahn's a prolific Star Wars author, having written a lot in the Legends-canon before Disney bought LucasArts, and a fair amount since, especially with his "canon to both" antagonist, Grand Admiral Thrawn.
LOL didn’t even realize
Also fun because I think a win is much more achievable for the Empire if Thrawn is a piece on the board. He's much more willing to use surgical strikes and recon to probe the swarm. He also demonstrably knows how to counter the kind of subterfuge the swarm would initially employ and he'd be much more invested in learning how they work prior to engaging
@@FrumpleJamesI bet he'd broker a peace. Failing that, he'd convince part of the swarm to side with the Empire, and use it to beat the rest.
@@astecheee1519 It's impossible to cause a civil war in the zerg without killing Kerrigan.
@@snakeman830 A psi disruptor is a pretty effective piece of technology.
less than a minute in, and you put up Edmund Duke's face when mentioning "Tactics" Grant, you're too good at this!
Oh I would LOVE to see more of these videos around the idea of two armies from different galaxies or universes colliding. In fact, as a fun baseline, I'd like to see you tackle the Terran Dominion and the Protoss in their own scenarios against the Galactic Empire.
Their defensive power is too much first the anti-air cannons can destroy landing aircraft or drop pots coming into the atmosphere and The Golden Armada Plus the Dominion fleet can probably easily defeat The death Star
@@calvinedgington2020 Not a chance... these are the types of forces the Empire was designed to defeat. Conventional. They may win some initial engagements but not against a mobilization of the Empire. The Rebellion succeeds because they are fighting against occupiers. This is hard for any invader to hold territory from a determined enemy. They have to split their forces all over to put out fires as large fleets do the dirty. However, as the rebellion is squashed in this scenario, it is the full might of the empire against them. That would be 1 Death star and probably around a thousand ISDs against them. I can't see them taking that.
The problem with vs scenarios is scope and scale. People have no idea of the Canon Scope and scale of the Empire... which is fair as only SW nerds really pay attention to that stuff.
i dont think the terrans would stand much of a chance, while mangst is a cunning poltistion and leader ans some of their ground forces, espeailly in the form of infinity would be superuer to the empires and i dare say, vikings, wraths and valkrays are better than most of the tie family and as we see all these fighter craft are shown to be more than up to the chanallange of taking out enemy captail ships. the dominion even at its hight was never really able to project its power outside the kaplou sector.
nor have we seen them be able to produce militry hardware at anyware near the rate that the empire could.
at best i could see them being able to take a hand full of systesms maybe even one or two of the mid rim worlds, but little else, though i would say. they could easyly make friends with any remaining rebel groups and criminal oragasions
i dont think the protros even united and with the golded amarda have the population to challange the empire, though like the terrans they could make a lot of friends. and unlike the tarrens the galexy isnt trading one dictor for another. as the protoss are extremely benevolent with the exepction of the taldrim. but with out amon theyd likely fuck of to be edge lords
there is a video that I dont know if it is still up but it takes the Flood and the Tyrranids from 40k and compares them. I even debated the fact the Zerg would actually out evolve and out number the Tyrranids and ultimately win (hard fought but still a win) given time and more evolution I would say the Zerg could ultimately take over most of the 40k universe to some degree due to infestation and subterfuge. ua-cam.com/video/rjy5rb5oVRA/v-deo.html there was a comment 5 years ago that i had started a thread that was debating the Zerg and the Nids.
with the Protoss at the height of there power and with the motherships, carriers, voidrays, etc. and the long range capabilities they have with the Tempest. the empire would fall not to mention if the Protoss like in the legacy of the void be able to have the tal'darim and the purifiers on there side it would be a largely one sided fight, basically a massacre of the Galactic Empire.
If the Alexander is canon to Hots, then infested terrans are capable enough to use battlecruiser levels of technology. Something that may have been overlooked, is also that the overmind was able to launch itself as a self propelling cinetic projectile across worlds, and in this went from Char to Aiur. It does seem that the Zergs have precedents of terrifyingly quick movement through space, despite their ability to hold fights outside of atmospheres.
All in all, it may be that the first force to have the initiative would mercilessly take down the other one. Be it the Empire by locking down their space quadrant, or the zergs, by infiltrating using changelins and infestation to the upper echelons of the Empire, up to the point they would be noticed by mind readers and force users, which would already be too late.
This video is very interesting and was a blast to watch, many thanks for all your hard work, Grant, and for your appreciation of Stormtroopers - who actually wear armor that is second only to bescar, so you would need more than a flippin' hand blaster to take them down !!! - To whoever takes the time to read this, have a wonderful day ! (or night / and night ?)
Co-op assets aren't canon, but Alexander being an infested battlecruiser would be really cool and I wish it eventually shows up in canon.
There is proof that Zerg can infest tech even without going into Coop, just look at infested command centers from SC1, or the permanent neural parasite from HOTS campaign, that parasite can even take over robotic units, which proves that the Zerg can and will take control of even fully mechanical entities.
Love it, I think the biggest thing that was ignored is refugees. I could totally see core worlds getting infested pretty badly early on just from that. Also scourges could probably kill the death star, that things weak to small 1 man fighters and scourges only cost 25 minerals !
considering how effective scourge seemed to be alone from SC2 and all the vids ive seen from Grant id say that the scourge is the biggest problem the empire would have to face in space
Scourges could undoubtedly wreck the death star, but this is the Swarm right before the second invasion of Korhal. They don't have scourges.
The Rebel attack was based on inside knowledge of exactly how to hit the Death Star. After seeing the Rebellion commit their entire attack into a single target, the Empire would probably put shields on that target.
@@fulguratingbean9489 Who would win a moon sized battle station with a planet destroying laser or ONE SMALL FLYING EXPLODING BOI
@@cheesysealAnon and his 1.2 million brothers
Stormtrooper 1 to stormtrooper 2: "Looks like you ran over some feller's wamprat, Sarge."
So i had a couple things that i wnated to bring up for the zerg that i thought should be mentioned.
1st: i think the leviathans are being low balled as they are absolutely able to destroy ships and are show so in game. We are show a leviathan tearing through a huge prison ship and keeping it restrained so the zerg could board. Of course a prison ship is nothing compared to a battle ship but this is just to show that they can tear into ship and i think they'd be able to do the same to star wars battle ships. Leviathans have several weapons to use: their tentacles that also allow as a way for zerg to board other ships, their bile swarms and bio plasmid charges that they can lauch at enemy’s and they can mutating mutalisks and brood lords themselves. I still think that they are primarily a uber for the zerg but a armed one that could take down a battle ship but might loss to two. (I mean if a purrgil can damge a ship there is no way a leviathan couldn't do serious damage.)
2nd: in the video he never brings up the rest of the zerg flyer which are all capable of space fighting. (As far as i know). This means that the zerg will have a much stronger fighting force in space then whats being mentioned. The flyers that would do the best in space combat would probably be the scourge, mutalisks and corruptors. Corruptors especially since both terrain and protoss are terrified of them.
3rd: instead of using the infection kerrigan could use a queen larva to infect someone to then carry it to a capital and have them go to a secluded spot to start a colony under the city and release a plague when its time. The queen larva doesn’t change anything about the host so its way more subtle and Kerrigan would definitely be able to find some people in the outer reach willing to do some biological terrorism.
I think in this senerio the zerg would win more times then not but i definitely see the empire being able to win it they approached the senerio correctly. I see the empire winning hands down if we used all their lore.
I think this is a pretty reasonable result of the matchup. I think I would agree. Some variables would certainly alter or push it to lean to one side or the other, but yeah. Good video!
considering how stupid the Galactic Empire is at times - yes. That being said, Zerg in both SCI and SCII make a lot of weird decisions as well, so imo the winner is not obvious, tho I still would say zerg have the upper hand
Is the Empire really that stupid though? The Zerg are constantly beaten by former prisoners who use the equivalent of scrap metal guns from 40k. Even still they develop their own technology to control of destroy the Zerg. I don't think the Empire is anywhere near the level of incompetence that a bunch of American convicts would have.
Ok but are the zerg stupid enough to build a troop transport that's hanging 10 meters into the air...
Yes i just described the AT AT
I think ground zerg would eviscerate the empire and it's not even close because of how pathetically lacking in ground forces the empire actually is
@@pougetguillaume4632 To be fair to an AT-AT, it is armored and shielded enough that all the conventional anti-siege weaponry the main fortress of the Rebellion had cannot take one down. Most energy shields just don't do much against physical objects, thus the convoluted but effective toe cable solution. Very much a running theme with Imperial technology. Works wonders against other large scale and large power adversaries, not very good against lower tech physical solutions.
That said, no, the Empire just does the Wings of Liberty Mothership mission with a local Star Destroyer. For as much crap as was given to the Protoss fleet's reputation, the Zerg couldn't even stop Tassadar from manually ramming the Gantrithor into their most heavily foritified position in the galaxy: The defenses of the Overmind. (To be fair, this was retconned to the Overmind wanting it to happen.) But they're not going to stop something with the firepower of a standard Star Destroyer bombarding from orbit while repeatedly being acknowledged as having zero chance at in-space superiority. I mean the Golden Armada is considered to be pretty darned Zerg slaying and implacable, and it is just nowhere near the might of the Imperial Navy.
To the Zerg's credit though, they did break at least the Xel'Naga's observational positions from the surface of Char, killing almost the entirety of the Xel'Naga in the process... but how much of that is actual Xel'Naga or survived retcons is anyone's guess, as I'm sure it was retroactively masterminded by Amon these days so who knows what degree of assistance he'd provided for that feat.
The lore for all these series can turn into some real jumbled messes.
@@jaeusa160 *laughs in gravity and in exposed unarmored neck joint*
I'm sorry i'll never end making fun of how silly the damn thing is... it can't even turn properly, is physically uncapable of going above jogging speed (becuase leg joints can't bend any further) and the fact its guns are forward facing instead of on a turret just makes things worse.
You say the empire was designed against near peer adversaries and i disagree, i think the empire only successes were *because* they were fighting an outgunned ennemy. The tie fighter uses the eyeball mark 1 and yet they had the brilliant idea of hiding the pilot's vision with 2 big solar panels... absolutely BRILLIANT
The ewok winning is the most credible military feat of the OT trilogy fight me.
@@pougetguillaume4632 No, they make super huge four legged rhinos too big to get in the fight. completelly outsmarted the empire with that one.
Wait it gets better, they also made an organism capable of infesting entire colonies, that gets killed by man with gun because the super advanced organism can't attack.
Wait, wait, They also made the guys that comunicate the orders from the leader to everyone else giant floating air ballons that explode with a couple of missiles.
Also the swarm does in fact have a good counter for aerial/space craft. They are called scourges, and can be spawned both on land and in space. On land they can either be born out of eggs like most of the zerg breeds, there are dedicated structures called Scourge nests, and also the Leviathan is able to spawn them. They are little, for spacecraft level, creatures that can eat the hull and explode on contact. Nasty things.
Good counter would be the sonic detonator Jango Fett used on Kenobi.
@@iamblight707 okay, one down, there are still a dozen closing on your cruiser
@@soujemn5 Because the empire can only afford one when Jango could pump 3 on a random Jedi for shits and giggles? Clearing a path through the astroid field I might add.
@@iamblight707 i think you're missing the issue. a sonic detonator would be roughly as effective as any large vehicle munition you'll never kill all the scourges in time, that's why they're used as anti-armor weapons
@@soujemn5 It smashed astroids into smithereens but whatever.
I raise you shadow missiles used on YV hoards. Detonation is 1km wide and they vaporise all matter within because it's a fusion reaction, more powerful than fission bombs. They were produced en mass and used by every ship down to fighters. And yes they are still cannon.
Zerg swarms would have to either spread out, where they'll be harder to control and have less of a punch do to the loss of the combined mass, or they'll be wiped out in droves.
Damn this vid made me realise I need this movie.
I can imaigine it now, the final scene with Kerrigan and Darth Vadar in a vigerous fight to the death; a back and forth flurry of brutal slashes as the Queen of Blades and the Sith Lord go at each other. Massive damage being inflicted and recieved by both parties.
Visibly tiring, Vadar swings overhead for a death blow but Kerrigan dashes out of reach with the last of her energy. Vadar reacts by turning to the force to choke the battered Kerrigan. Kerrigan is dangling in the air 1m from the ground struggling as Vadar limps over to her and readies his lightsaber to inflict a final blow. After a quick witted line of edgy dialog from Vadar, he places both of his hands on the hilt of his lightsaber and in one quick motion proceeds to stab Kerrigan through the chest. As he does she uses the last of her energy to zaps him with her lightning ability, causing the lightsaber to deactivate and they both fall to the ground in defeat.
With the camera slowly rising looking down on the two, [sprawled out in a Ying-Yang pattern on the floor], we see Vadars body rising and falling to his breath, while Kerrigans body start to visibily regenerate. After a cutaway, we return to the two as Kerrigan body regenerates and she steadily manges to find her footing, rising to her feet as the rest of her body snaps itself back into place. Vadar notices and rises to his knees trying to match her. As she makes it onto her feet, towering over Vadar, Kerrigan quips back a line outclassing Vadars mocking dialogue from earlier in the fight. [In Arcturus Mengsk revenge fashion] Kerrigan then uses her power to burn Vadar soul from inside his body. Vadar screams out in immense pain, slowly rising high into the air as his body contorts as it slowly implodes as his life force is burned from the inside out from Kerrigan's righteous fire. He then explodes, in atomic fasion, wiping out not only their battleground but the environment around them [maybe a Starship or critical facility to the imperial forces]. With this the fight is over.
Whether Kerrigan survives this explosion or not I cannot say (she wasn't injured from when she put Arcturus Mengsk through this same punishment, but the scale of this explosion from imploding Vadar, combined with the harsh environment, could certainly alter the outcome here).
Additionally, whether the war comes to a conclusion and if it does, which force is the eventual 'victor', is determined by Kerrigan's uncertain fate.
*End Cinematics, [sombre mood and soundtrack] There are no celebrations here. Every participant in this war has lost more than they could ever initially contemplate. The Sith and remaining Empire are portraid as uniquely human. The is no hatred, evil or such on display here. Merely beings trying to survive total annihilation.
please yes ! make more as i legit feasted on your video with immense attention as it captivated me so deeply .
TLDR : 20/10 video
On the topic of Star Destroyers being less effective in atmospheric combat against the Swarm. The Empire doesn't need to enter the atmosphere at all and can just lay waste to Zerg hive clusters from orbit. It's hard to compare the Gantrithor since it was fighting on Aiur, and the Protoss were extremely abhorrent to the idea of using their more powerful weapons on the surface of their beloved homeworld. I very much doubt the Empire has the same kind of sentiment.
I mean sure but the Zerg fliers can also fly in space (See Nova Covert Ops mission 4 I believe but not sure if that is the correct mission). The so the things that would prove best support for the leviathans in space are still a factor, and if memory serves Bile Launchers can shoot into orbit so as long as the Swarm fights in the orbit of a planet they should have full access to their anti capital ship arsenal, and beyond that range Star Wars ships should start loosing enough power to not be to effective against the planet surface.
Yep. The Empire does not want to WASTE conquerable worlds' infrastructure and resources needlessly, but infested worlds do not fit that bill. The Empire was fine destroying Alderaan, a prosperous lush world with a long history, even just as an example to crush the spirits of the rest of the galaxy. Death Star aside, the Empire would be happy to be the Purifier Mothership from Wings of Liberty... except from much higher orbit.
There's a reason single Star Destroyers were enough to oppress regions probably as large as the whole Koprulu Sector itself.
yeah, we saw how in SW Rebels the Empire can bombard a very small area from far in orbit. They can jump into a system, get in position in matter of quick minutes and just finish off a Hive if they know its location. once the Hive is gone, so is most of the control over the zerg forces. the swarm would need loads of Hives on the same planet in case the Empire pops by to bombard. and if the target is too hard to hit the Empire can easily turn tail and jump away
@@mihalypeti a planet with a minor to medium infestation would be suseptible to that, but the zerg can take over a planet very quickly, exibit A of kerrigan ordering a queen to take over a planet and said planet just got taken over in a manner of seconds, though i think thats a severe exageration but if we take that as zerg take over speed
I honestly think the Zerg's prowess in space combat was understated in the video. Remember the UED fleet? Brood War's closing cinematic? DuGalle was sent home with his tail between his legs, and in said cinematic the fleet was still substantial with many dozens of ships, maybe more, but the Swarm descended upon the remnants of the fleet and utterly annihilated them. Not a single ship was spared. And as we saw in Star Wars movies, Star Destroyers are not very adept at handling squadrons of small fighters. That is why they have TIE fighters, but they'll be outnumbered dozens, maybe even hundreds, to one. And the TIE fighter isn't an X-wing, its armor is nonexistent, armament is light, not shielded. I would wager that a single glaive wurm from a mutalisk would gut a TIE fighter with one hit. And those glaive wurms would strike by the thousands. It'd be like the arrow scene from "300" but if the Spartans didn't have their shields. Then that would leave the Star Destroyers at the mercy of the literal millions of Devourers, Guardians, and Scourge, in numbers that would overwhelm any point defense system. Hell, the Leviathans wouldn't even NEED to participate in the attack.
the weird thing is that you just described the initial contact between the Tyranids and the Imperium of Man in Warhammer 40K :) it was eerily accurate. I know a lot of people compare the zerg with the Tyranids and there are some obvious similarities, but this video really showcases the inspiration the SC2 devs got. A very well made video and I look forward to seeing more like it.
I mean... wasn't StarCraft meant to be a Warhammer game? So ofc. there would be some similarities
@@leererKanal No, that's an urban legend.
SC was of course influenced to an extent by 40k, but anything you could point out as a similarity between the two can just as easily be explained as them both drawing inspiration from the same preexisting sources (largely Starship Troopers, Dune and, for the tyranid/zerg elements, Alien)
Either way now i want to hear grant to do this with sc2 and wh40k
exactly! was looking for this comment :)
Starcraft started out as a warhammer 40k game.....so the rumor goes
Amazingly done!!!! I think you unknowingly gave us a real winner by the end, by introducing the Force. So, while we dont know how the force truly works, as of what are the conditions for someone to be born with it. It is very evident that people are born with the foce and a lot of aptitude to become jedis or siths. There has been quite a lengthy historical record of the jedis and their order, which means the Swarm will eventually learn of its existence. Then, it is very likely they will seek ways to replicate them, or at the very least, set up conditons in which they can gather and infect force sensitives. Then, you will be talking, in the worst case scenario, about a swarm legion comprised of force sensitive infested jedi-like soldiers that will just wreck havoc across the galaxy. In the best case scenario for the Swarm... they are able to replicate the miticlorians and, bassically, grant most of their soldiers some degree of force sensitivity. Keep in mind the Zerg already have some sort of "force sensitivity" by their psionic links. So, it is entirely doable for them to replicate the force to some degree if not to fully attain it.
You asked me what I think, and I think it was a really entertaining video. Thank you Grant!
I also think at some point Kerrigan and the swarm would figure out that the empire can't easily produce more star destroyers and would take them out in boarding actions. The empire would quickly lose the resources to make any more as they contracted.
why couldn't they make more? They created a second Death Star in a matter of a couple years after the first one exploded, replacing a few thousand star destroyers is NOTHING compared to that.
@@Doomfoolable I think you answered your own question. They couldn't replace them so easily because they were replacing the death star.
@@Doomfoolable Even with all that production, getting the resources and manpower to make Star Destroyers faster than the Zerg can just fly swarms of scourge into them wouldn't be easy.
@@TrixterTheFemboy Tie Fighter seem to be the perfect craft to pick of Scourge though, would be like a critical mass of corsairs that don't need to be afraid anymore.
@@MolochDE The issue with this is that TIE Fighters will have to contend with Mutalisks, which themselves are incredibly annoying batshit creatures that fly around like maniacs and beat the shit out of fighter craft. Oh and they tend to fight in flocks. Genuinely praying for those TIE pilots.
Love that you actually put strategic objectives vs just a fight to see who wins.
It's all strategic until Palpatine gets miffed and starts destroying planets Kerrigan or her chain of command have been spotted on. He does have the power to do this even from the safety of his home planet.
This is why we love Grant. He's smart.
Great video, I'd love to see this for some of the other factions such as the Zerg invading during the middle of the Clone Wars or vs the Halo's Covenant.
Honely I think the X-factor you glossed over at the end would be the deciding factor: Either the zerg would quickly figure out how to have their entire swarm be anakin level force sensitives and the empire is completely screwed, or the very appearance of the zerg in the galaxy would creat such a large disturbance in the force that vader launch an all out offensive within hours of the zerg showing up.
Honestly I think the former is more likely.
A smooth sounding narrator, good information and sources, entertaining visuals with a side of meme. A solid 10/10 from me! I'd love to see more!
I would imagine kerrigan's zerg would be better at first contact and early years of the war but the Overmind's zerg would have a better potential for an overall galactic domination.
How so?
@@lanychabot-laroche135Well, for one, the Empire would have literally no way to deal with cerebrates. They're immortal and can only be killed by dark templar. It's also a far more unified entity where the entire command structure has unfaltering loyalty to the Overmind.
@@TheRealXartaXtacking onto this that if the Overmind created Kerrigan, he could likely do a similar infestation to Vader
I believe Overmind Zerg has harder time compared with Kerrigen's. Kerrigen's swarm is more adaptive and resourceful.
I would probably compare dark sith powers to dt's or maybe just any force user powerful enough to disrupt and sever the link as it was killed.
In this way the overminds forces would be weaker to the leadership caste getting taken out. It's shown in sc1 massive swaths of zerg going feral and them losing control over large areas when they lose one. And if they ever lose the overmind they are even worse off than Kerrigan getting sniped.
On top of that the celebrates and overmind are fixed in place and not easily moved, while the cerebrates are better than the overmind at this still very fixed compared to stukov just flying away in a ship.
The overmind is also more of a pure commander than Kerrigan who can single handedly wipe out armies and decimate front lines like the top level force users.
In the Legends Canon there is ~20 book series called New Jedi Order. It's about Zerg/Protoss-like alien race invading Star Wars galaxy 25 years after Return of the Jedi. It is being said there many times, that Empire with all it's military might would destroy the aliens, where New Republic lost almost half of it's territory and billions of people during 5-year war.
Edit: Lel, I just got to @4:41 :D
That was intensely entertaining, thanks for putting that out!
YES! Finally, someone did a video on this. You really made my evening, Grant.
My favourite part of this is how you establish which Zerg you'll be using because of how vastly different they behave under a variety of circumstances as opposed to the Galactic Empire which is pretty consistent across the board but the Zerg it's like if they're feral than no, if they follow Amon they might get the job done faster, hell Wings Kerrigan and Swarm/Void Kerrigan are so vastly different that even that thtows a spanner in the works and that's just touching on SC2, makes it more fun in my opinion :)
I think the Emperor was not accounted for enough in this video. He would absolutely be able to sense the fleet entering the star wars universe. I know you didnt want to bring up the Vong but Sidious was aware of them before they revealed themselves and the Gods of the Vong were afraid of him. Canonically he can communicate telepathically, see into the future, create illusions that are near indistinguishable, and many many others. overall though, very cool video!
I would argue that the psionic nature of the zerg would likely make his interference complicated. Likely why he didn't bring it up either. If I were doing the comparison I would completely negate Sidious with Kerrigan. The 2 have almost the same powers.
@@umbraviventemthe emperor body swapping is canon now so the universe would probably just end up with a Zerg emperor.
@@glenecollins if the zerg killed him she certainly wouldn't have to. She also have a full on hive mind when his attempted body swap was with a inexperienced force user. Not the leader of a multi billion lifeform hive mind and a powerful and experienced Pisonic in her own right.
I don't think psyonics would help the emperor, didn't help the protoss much either.
Very interesting and fun to watch video. As you mentioned the Tarkin doctrine dictates fear. But fear is something that will not help against the zerg. Only the highest ranks of the Zerg (Kerrigan and her advisors) are even capable of feeling fear. But honestly they will not „fear“ an AT-AT nor a Stardestroyer. That‘s why I think the empire loses much of it‘s military power.
I love that you took a risk with this video. I had SO much fun watching this! You laid everything out so beautifully. GG
I hope this video does well so Grant can do more outside of the box videos.
Please share this video ❤
9:50 the idea of kerrigan and stukov just hanging around as they investigate is hilarious and cool lmao
It would be interesting if the zerg could discover and utilize midiclorians. It could end up being beyond there abilities, like trying to make a second Kerrigan, or it could be simple but still difficult to utilize, or it could be an I win button.
That is absolutely terrifying. Another 'win' I can see the Zerg getting is Time. Palpatine is old, Vader is aging. Zerg don't really age. There were Primal Zerg (still alive in game) who were around when Amon took and corrupted the Overmind.
if they for some reason utilize that and falls to the dark side they are really screw xD is what mf old mans wants in all the movies. is like giving palpatine a amon hability
I gotta say that the thing is that star destroyers can also be easily destroyed, by using the zerg's greatest capital ship, the leviathan, to use it's tendrils to pierce the thick protection and let tens of thousands of zerg swarm into the ship, it can basically overwhelm them.
Wouldn't even need to do that, in SC2 HOTS campaign you can see a Leviathan punch through the superstructure of a literal SPACE FORTRESS as if it’s paper. The hull of a mere ship? It would just punch if a few times and turn it into Swiss cheese.
@Lunaraia which mission was that? I remember them showing the Leviathan punching into the prison ship but not a space Fortress.
@@Zerg_Zillait’s the prison mission where you rescue Rainer it’s in the open space set of missions
But does the Empire have Dowadiru?
No? I see that Swarm is clearly superior
the best of the best
Checkmate
If mediclorians are something that can be assimilated I'd see the swarm pump out things like Zooanthropes from the Tyrannids, flying artillery.
Also, remember that Stukov knows how to marry technology with Zerg flesh. Meaning that destroyed Star Destroyers could get added to the swarm. It could very much be a game of the Swarm slowly trying to press on the Empire more and more until it just runs out of resources.
Stukov infested _technically_ aren't A canon, but unless the Death Star and its supporting fleet can operate at full capacity 24/7 the zerg would not run out of viable habitats any time soon and don't need infested mech, a Star Destroyer _will_ go down to thousands of drop pods filled with roach/hydra. The Empire cannot rebuild its fleet fast enough, and it _definitely_ cannot replace the civilians working in production and logistics if drops or infestation ever get to them.
Midichlorians aren't generating the Force at all. That's a misconception. In fact, any attempt messing with the Midichlorians would have the Force beat you up. So no, The Zerg aren't going to have any Force users.
@@epistemo3442 Oh, okay.
@@epistemo3442 so basically midochlorians are in a similar boat as the protoss. they're a signifier of "purity of form" as it were, but they're also so resistant to assimilation that it's not worth trying. and the midichlorians don't even have the advantage of the zerg's psychological compulsion to _try_ to assimilate the protoss, so abathur would only keep hold of force-sensitives just to understand the force
no offense, but Midichlorians are explained so fucking poorly that that's what about 99% of people think, so that's what grant used, and its what I shall run with
Awsome and fair presentation. Hoping you can do more of these. Warhammer 40k vs the empire or starcraft universe next please
Great video! I think the only thing that you overlooked/left out was the unknown regions and wild space. There, the Zerg could power up without a large organized thread like the empire to keep it down, and then just roll over the entire galaxy.
I think these types of videos are really cool, seeing how various universes would stack up, with Grant's epic voice explaining everything.
A couple factor I think are worth mentioning.
1. The extent of Kerrigan’s control over the swarm.
The Koprulu sector is just that, a sector and even with Zerg on just a handful of planets Kerrigan has been shown to struggle to control all of them. Would she be able to control the swarm on a galactic level?
2. Psi disrupters. If the empire ever got something like that or the emperor or Vader could use a force ability that approximates its effects the empire immediately wins any engagement Kerrigan isn’t directly involved in and even if she is there she would have to put massive concentration to keep her forces in line. There is no possible scenario that the swarm can whin when it’s too busy tearing itself apart.
I like to thing that force can disturb psionic powers
Kerrigan knows very well that her swarm can be disrupted so she could lay a very big trap to counter.
Thrawn:" Their retreat pattern is unusual. I strongly suggest we don't pursue."
Tarkin:" Nonsense! Clearly the emitter is working as planned. Now full force attack and we can end this threat once and for all."
Kerrigan activiates her biggest trap card- Dehaka and its Primal Zerg brood.
@@zgredczwartyniesamowity363 I also think so but there's a problem, Palpatine killed a lot of force users. Clearly insufficient Force resources.
By the way, I remember there are species in Star War that are resistant/immune to Jedi mind trick.
Abathur will have a field day to conduct all sort of experiments.
Great video, I hope you make more like these in the future
Nice video. It was epic. Two of my favorite franchices in one video.
1 note:
Kerrigan mops the floor with either Vader or the Emperor. If they combined the queen of blades may struggle but she just two broken. Yeah, i know about starcraft cosmology but Kerrigan is just on another level. Kerrigan can create psi storms big enough to destroy worlds in matter of seconds while the emperor with preparations can create those only in legends.
But this is my favourite video of all time. Good 👍 job.
PS: I personally think the swarm wins. Leviatans are incredibly tanky and can just go through small destroyers.
This was a Surprise to be sure, but a welcome one
There's always room for more What If? content on the web. An interesting match-up in my mind is Halo's Covenant empire at its height vs the Protoss alliance near the end of LotV.
Very cool thought experiment that is well laid out. Kudos!
(oh, and now subscribed, cheers.)
This is friggin entertaining..
Kept me thinkering every second haha
imagine a viper yonking the death star
HAHA, you got me there
Imagine co-op Dehaka eating the Death Star
Unbelievable
An interesting thought experiment to be sure, I liked it. Another battle scenario that I've always thought would be interesting is Zerg (StarCraft) vs. the Scourge (Warcraft) and the Lich King. When you think about it the two have a lot of similarities (being able to produce masses of effective soldiers, the army being controlled by a central person, etc.). I guess the similarities make sense seeing how both games are from the same company.
Another one that feels weirdly obvious is What Happens if you swap The Zerg in for The Tyranids in WH40k
@@woodsytheowlscharedcorpse4761 I d say Nids win out of sheer number and being able to project tha shadow in the warp, which would probably disrupt zerg psychic connections. Scourge vs Zerg is interesting, it would depends on the rules upon which magic interacts with zerg abilities.
@@woodsytheowlscharedcorpse4761 Well tyranids have the issue of not being humans. They have no real idea of how humans works, and they'll just fight what gets between their food and themselves. Zergs have human leaders, who would be much more efficient in using human weaknesses
@@lvo9197 Well, that depends on how similar the Synapse link of Tyranids and Zerg are.
If they are too similar, then Kerrigan, Broodmothers and Overlords could very well engage in synaptic tug-o-war with the Tyranid Hivemind for control of the swarms while being highly resistant, if not outright inmune, to the Shadow in the Warp. And that's assuming the SitW even works on SC psychics, as there is no Warp in SC.
Think of it how in the Warcraft novels from the War of the Ancients, when Queen Aszhara redirects the magic of the Well of Eternity to the portal, all Night Elf sorcerers lose their ability to wield magic, as they channeled arcane magic by tapping into the WoE, while Ronin retained his ability to wield magic because he didn't need to tap into the Well of Eternity, instead having learned to draw arcane power from the world itself. If your psychics do not tap into the warp for their powers, then the shadow in the warp is worth jacksquat.
@@IsmaelSantos-xv9qf it depends indeed, but because of the sheer size of the tyranids (they are visible in open space, most cosmic bodies that aren t stars are very hard to spot unless they are MASSIVE), if zerg are affected, they would be devastated. The problem with the shadow working only for warp boudn beings, is that the tyranids come from outside the galaxy, and if this aura worked there too, it implies that is not limited to warp bound beings, but any form of sentience. Also, zerg psychic powers have been stoped before by terran made devices, so it is quite possible they wouldn t be able to match the nids on that front. Again, I think zerg could win if they evolved some kind of specialized resistance, maybe consuming some orks to enhance their psychic powers.
Love the video! I never thought about the fauna bit. I think you're right.
I really enjoyed the video. I believe that the empires knowledge of the galaxy should be taken into consideration. Meaning, they know about the species on planets were planets are in the hyper space roots.
Great video. One thing I think might tip the scales in space combat a little is that the leviathan are not really the zergs combat force to my knowledge. The two things that would mainly threaten star destroyers would be the curroptor on the one hand, which I think they actually could deal with, as it's on the slower more armored side, which the empire is good at dealing with. The thing that would be far scarier I think would be scourges. They are fast and can deal a ton of damage, but are farely squishy. However star wars always had the problem of having rather inaccurate weapons, so the empire might struggle to defend their star destroyers against them.
Previously mutaliaks have been shown to be the real threat in air to air fights, just massive clouds of mutas chipping away at the armor and causing 1000 small breaches.
Mutas have even been shown in short stories to start bringing down carriers that are capable of wiping fleets of battlecruisers out as they learn the specific traits and weaknesses of each ship through many battles eventually bringing it down.
leviathans have hollow tentacles through which zerg forces can be deployed. sure, the leviathan itself isnt as combat capable as one would assume from a 11km creature, however, its still massive, strong, and has highway thick tentacles that can break through terran armor and spunk hundreds of zerg inside whatever ship they attacked. mate, they are a force to be reconed with
Loved the video! Only a couple things i personally found iffy, one of which being the "stability" of the Empire's leadership; even in movie canon after the loss of the Emperor/Vader (to an extent Tarkin) the Empire immediately fractured into multiple warlord states vying for power to be the successor. On the flip side, wouldn't the Empire just tactically deploy the death star vs fleets sniping leviathans at will? (the Escort fleet for the DS1 and 2 were always massive making it hard for the swarm to close the gap). The key for space for the swarm (to me) would be the ability to perhaps do some sort of ambushes or short range jumps to close the gap and force boarding actions to overwhelm the crew/disable the big ships.
Also side note, while the rebellion was crushed as a unified overall force, the Empire being forced to constrain and tighten its grip on its people even further would not be a viable long term strategy; the Zerg don't need to deal with insurrections, riots, or internal power struggles (as long as Kerrigan is around). Not to mention the key to every war: Logistics, the Imperial Navy was a *massive* Resource burden on the Imperial budget, and that's with their extortion of groups like the hutts/Corsec/etc; maintaining their immense military while more or less holding ground indefinitely would lead to economic collapse while also making it difficult to keep its frontline maintained with proper equipment and supplies; The Zerg can basically "Home Grow" whatever they need.
Overall I can't say for sure who would win as there's so many little factors, but I love the video!
Well, how do you think they are going to "Home Grow" while the Death Star is around?) Actually, i think logistic would be a zergы problem in this scenario, since it is them who would need to build up new production and besiege new planets (they have no capabilities to bypass them by simply destroying). Also Empire has space combat superiority, giving them an advantage in transportation, raiding and blockading capabilities, that are crucial for the war of attrition. Zergs would have to be extremely careful and efficient with their resource usage but Kerrigan isn't knows for her caution or thrift (at least in my understanding).
I'd agree with you that the Zerg don't have to deal with internal power struggles, but when facing an extragalactic threat like the Zerg, the Empire is more likely, IMO, to stick together and just have the next man up mentality. If they start attacking one another they will definitely all die. I do think this favors the Zerg by a lot though.
The Empire can only field 1 or _maybe_ 2 Death Stars and they don't travel instantly. The zerg would simply flee the thing on sight if they don't have enough scourge to disable it while hitting a dozen other planets at the same time. Careful use of Interdictors _could_ work but IIRC those have major shortcomings in terms of shielding, close quarters escorts and possibly even wind-up time meaning they would likely get wrecked almost immediately by suicide dives and _maybe_ enable a single leviathan kill in return.
And we know how laughably ineffective turrets/point defence tend to be in Star Wars so the zerg would quickly devise a plan involving a lot of scourge, baneling-filled drop pods or close quarters combatants who can tunnel through metal to neutralise the Death Star in one big suicide attack against the station itself thus once again giving them free reign.
The only real way I see the Empire win without people acting out of character is if the first contact involves the attention of some of the other higher ups who would realise the true nature of the threat sooner. For example if the Swarm dropped out over Kuat they would probably still obliterate it but sustain heavy losses, and the advanced tactics required to overcome a massive orbital shipyard complex with substantial planetary support would very quickly alert the Emperor himself that these are not just dumb hungry bugs. At that point his scheming and Force powers should allow him to mount an effective counterattack fairly quickly and crush anything short of a Galaxy-wide anti-mask rebellion despite literal face-eating monsters roaming the quarantined streets.
@@Photoloss Agree, but after these attacks of "dozen other planets" the swarm would anyway have to regroup and replace losses, thereby opening for the Emperial attack. Without safe rear that would do all the production it is impossible to win this giant war, and i don't see how they are going to get this rear with Death Star flying around.
On the massive suicide attack on the Death Star by scourge, baneling e.t.c. Even if all these staff manages to reach the surface of the station i think there is no way it can deal any significant damage to it. In Episode 4 it was clearly stated that it is impossible to destroy Death Star using conventional weapons. In Episode 6 a giant Executioner star destroyer crashed straight into DS2 surface dealing no significant damage to the station (at least it looked this way). So why would even a giant swarm of scourge, provided that they managed to pass through the DS escort, fighters (i guess scourge or baneling-filled pods are much less maneuverable than X-Wings), and, albeit inefficient, point defence systems, do any better?
@@user-ue4ix6qc1m The zerg don't really have an "industrial rear". They are decentralised and adapt very quickly, effectively the only defining characteristic is the local concentration of zerg biomass, most of which can relocate across interstellar distances fairly quickly. Once the threat of the Death Star becomes known they would not keep large garrisons in "local reserve" like WoL Char, they would simply abandon that planet and move on to the next.
As for taking down the Death Star, I see two main avenues: 1) physical damage to the main gun. The station itself is strategically insignificant, much of the weapon's mechanisms are exposed or close to the surface making them much easier targets for both explosives and metal-tearing boarding parties. Most of the crew can't fight effectively in the vacuum of space or in cramped maintenance tunnels around the gun either while the zerg suffer no such restrictions. And then the more pressing issue 2) death or infestation of the crew. We know the station has significant internal blind spots, its compartmentalisation will be designed around external hull breaches, sabotage and reactor issues rather than coordinated hyperadaptive bioweapons, and the Empire's own biotech is so cripplingly inferior I even doubt their ability to deploy an effective security check scanner against implanted parasites. Even if they somehow go in lockdown quickly enough that will take the station out of the ongoing battle for some time, and an infestation of the on-board supplies will force it off the front lines entirely for a deep clean because none of the crew can survive without food or clean water.
Basically as soon as any reasonable number of zerg make direct contact the Death Star is dead in the water, meaning it is the ultimate harass/cleanup tool against minor opposition and a near insurmountable static defence installation until the zerg can amass the raw numbers to just push past it. Which won't take all that long when they have most of the Galaxy available while the Death Star only guards a single planet. If the starting conditions do not allow for a widespread infestation of the Outer Rim then the Death Star will secure the Empire's ultimate victory, but if the zerg can nab more than a handful of planets before someone goes on a Stellaris speedrun it will not operate quickly enough to matter all that much.
I do believe Midi-chlorians were retconed to be attracted to force individuals not the cause of force sensitivity so they would be able to get force powers that way and overall psionics aren't too dissimilar to the force and it should be noted that Kerrigan was the Anakin of her universe being a exceptional gifted with psionic power.
And the Zerg over all doesn't use psionics outside of commander units since it seems like certain level of intelligence and individuality is required.
I can see the Zerg snowballing extremely quickly because as you get closer to the galactic core there'd be much more traffic across it I can see Kerrigan bidding her time and with the information acquired get a sleeper agent on Coruscant and get a Hive going on the lowest levels of the city planet Palatine would in all likelihood since something growing and send some investigators but those levels are so dangerous their disappearance would not be that concerning.
Flash forward to the Zerg's big push into the galactic core nydus worms burst onto the top levels of Coruscant dividing the empire's attention Palatine would likely be the first to evacuate the planet but the massive amount of biomass on the planet is subsumed into the swarm as the hub of galactic commerce is eliminated the empire goes into panic mode.
Palatine is transported to the Deathstar and the remaining fleets are recalled to it the Zerg are allowed to consume the remaining planets largely uncontested swelling their numbers to unimaginable levels the empire attempts to put up one final defense centered on the Deathstar but the incomprehensible number of the swarm eventually overwhelms them and Palatine and Vader fight for hours before exhaustion gets to them leading to their deaths and the galaxy becoming the swarm's.
I am glad that I paid so little attention to good advice; had I abided by it I might have been saved from some of my most valuable mistakes.