< StarCraft

StarCraft/Shout Out


Here's the place for every Mythology Gag, Continuity Nod, Shout-Out, Expy, Captain Ersatz and No Celebrities Were Harmed references in both StarCraft and StarCraft II.

Starcraft and Brood War

Terrans

Units

Heroes

  • The Hero class unit of the Terran Firebat is called Gui Montag
  • The Hero class unit of the Terran Wraith is called Tom Kazansky
  • Word of God confirmed that the name "James Raynor" is one towards James Ryan.
  • The bad guy from the Enslavers campaign is called Alan Schezar.
  • The first dialogue between Kerrigan and Raynor is a nearly literal Shout-Out to a dialogue from the first season of Babylon 5.
  • General Duke is an Expy of John Wayne.
  • The Admiral Gerard DuGalle, to Charles de Gaulle.
  • Vice-Admiral Alexi Stukov to Georgi Zhukov, a Russian general in the 2nd world war.


Zerg

Heroes

  • The Hero class unit of the Zerg Hydralisk is called Hunter-Killer
  • The Hero class unit of the Zerg Ultralisk is called Torrasque, also the name of a dragon from an old french legend.


Protoss

Units

  • The Observer is a treasure trove of these in both games. Among it's greatest hits are a German Warcraft 2 advertisement, a Steve Irwin-like voice, a Diablo quote from Adria and...

"One small step for man. One giant... STOP POKING MEEE!"

Heroes

Stop poking me!
What do I look like, an Orc?
This is not Warcraft in space! It's... much more sophisticated! I know it's not 3-D!


Other

  • So many from Aliens and from Warhammer 40K:[1]
  • The cheat codes:
  • Click on the Hero Samir Duran long enough, and he will start speaking the titles of Duran Duran songs.
    • To further the reference he speaks the first two lines in the chorus to Duran Duran's most well known song.

Duran: "My Name is Duran, DURAN!"
Duran: "What's so funny?"
Duran: "Please, please, tell me now!"
Duran: "Is there something I should know?"

  • A Terran mining planet is named Moria. A mission takes place there in which you have to mine loads of minerals. Can't be any more obvious, can it?
  • The Terran victory cinematic from Brood War is a parody of newsreels from The Fifties, and probably also a shoutout to the first Starship Troopers movie.
  • The intro to Brood War is a near-direct copy of the Do Lung bridge scene from Apocalypse Now, complete with a detached soldier sporting a grenade launcher listening to a Hendrix-esque guitar track.


StarCraft II

Terrans

General

  • Lots of aspects of the Terrans, in particular the Used Future aesthetic and the awesome new music, give one the impression that someone at Blizzard got the Firefly DVD set for Christmas.
    • Also, a website error yields one of two messages: "Some terrible, terrible error has occured," or "I swallowed a bug - We seem to be having a little problem with our website, so we may experience some slight turbulence and then - explode."
    • That and the general feel of the campaign in general. Compare the relationship between Jim and Tychus to the one between Mal and Jayne, for example.
  • The hologram of a dancing Night Elf female in the Hyperion's cantina appears to be the actual character model, imported directly from WoW.
  • The very first Tosh mission has you mining for boatloads of minerals on a planet called Redstone, while creepy crawly Zerg run a periodic interference on your otherwise peaceful operations.
  • The Hyperion's armory is Bay 12. Rory Swan, the manager, also looks pretty dwarvenly.

Units

  • The SCV will say that you got a purty mouf...
  • The Marine will make several quotes associated with marines in war movies. Also, like Tychus, he makes the infamous Chew Bubblegum comment when klicked on repeatedly.
    • He also complains he's "still stuck in this chicken**** outfit"...
    • ...mentions that he has a relative named Lester (a character in one of the first game's cinematics killed by a zerg)...

"Oh, my cousin Lester saw a zergling, once..."

    • ...and suspect that a medic is following them around. (They automatically try to heal injured units within their sight range and will follow them around to do so)
    • One of his quotes is also "I'm waiting on you!" - which belongs to (human) Kerrigan in the first game.
  • Many of the Thor's lines are retoolings of various Arnold Schwarzenegger lines. With the same accent. The German version has even Schwarzenegger's dub voice for the Thor.

"If somebody asks me if I've killed any zerg, I say yes, but they were all bad."
"What is best in life: to crush the zerg, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of the protoss."
"I'll be back!"
"Sue me, dickhead!"
"I am here! Click me!"
"What happened to you, Commander? They got you pushing too many pencils?"

    • The Odin, the even bigger and stronger version of the Thor, uses T-800 cannons as its main weapons.
  • Quoth The Raven:

"I'm sorry, commander, I'm afraid I can't do that".
"I know I've made some very poor decisions lately, but I can give you complete assurance that my work will be back to normal"
"All your base are belong to us!"
"Who said anything about cake?"

    • Via editors people have found out how the Raven operator's face looks like. He has a blank expression staring at a screen while holding a control stick. It's suspected to be a joke towards the clichè of hardcore gamers in front of their monitors.
    • The Ravens are aerial casters and detectors, and their abilities are best against groups of light enemy units (science vessel)
  • The Viking pilot will say "Transform and roll out!"
    • He also often follows attack orders by saying "burn and pillage!", guess what vikings were famous for?
    • One of his fun quotes directly references the early Blizzard game, "The Lost Vikings". He calls out the three characters names, and concludes that they probably got lost again.
    • Vikings are dual purpose walkers with anti-ground Gatling guns and anti-air missiles (Goliath, apart from changing modes... into an expy of the Valkyrie).
  • The spectre rattles off a whole bunch of titles of Steven Seagal movies when repeatedly clicked.
  • The ghost likewise spouts out more than a few Clint Eastwood quotes.
    • There's also this gem:

"I see live people. [two gunshots] I see dead people".

    • And:

"Johnny #5 is not alive."

  • The Reaper is a walking, talking potpourri of Shout Outs, with a few obvious ones towards Repo Man.

"The life of the Reaper Man is always intense."
"I thought I signed up to be a *Repo Man*! Imagine my surprise."
"I like you. That's why I'm gonna kill you last."
"This is ground control to Major Tom."

  • The Hellion seems to be a fellow troper:

"Suspension is an integral part of any vehicle, but this one requires Suspension of Disbelief... Get it?"

    • The Hellions are speedy mechanical units (vulture) armed with flamethrowers which do splash damage to small units (firebat).
  • Medivac:

"Why you boys all wearing red shirts anyway?"

    • The Medivac dropship is just the original dropship with healing abilities, and during development it was just the normal dropship. When it became the medivac, they didn't even bother to change the model except to slap a few red crosses on the wings.
  • Wraith:

"Gravity: it's not just a good idea, it's the law.

  • Banshee:

"What's the vector, Victor? Give me the clearance Clarence."
"I picked the wrong day to quit stimpacks."
"Apocalypse... Now!"
"In space, everyone can hear me scream... 'cause, I'm the Banshee. Get it?"
"Today's in-flight movie will be Ghost Academy: The Musical, starring Zec Afron and Corbin Green."

  • Firebat:

"Burninatin' the countryside."
"Turns out I hate the smell of napalm in the morning."
"Flame on!"

  • Marauder:

"Got a whole lotta love!"

BELIEVE IT!!!

"Ever told you about my rug? It really tied the room together!"
"Fool me once, shame on... me? No. SHAME ON YOU ... twice... for fooling' me ... once? Bah, forget it. Let's just be friends."

  • Battlecruiser:

"It's a trap!"

  • The Hercules pilot not only speaks with scotish accent he also has a blue strip over his nose. It seems like a copy of Braveheart was also onboard the old starships. It even has a kilt pattern spraypainted on his armor suit.
  • The Spartan Mercenary Goliath pilot is modeled after Dustin Browder, head producer of the game. He gained internet fame by his enthusiastic reporting style, birthing the "terrible, terrible damage" meme that is also referenced ingame several times.

Heroes and story characters

  • Apparently a certain spy is an inspiration to ghosts, given the way Nova and Tosh play with their butterfly knives.
  • Tychus quotes the infamous Chew Bubblegum line in the first Odin mission.
  • Your science guy in the Terran campaign is called "Egon Stetmann", a walking, talking reference to all sorts of stuff:
  • Tosh looks like a burlier version of Reggae legend Peter Tosh, (hence the surname) but he is most certainly not a laid-back Rastafarian.
    • In the Hyperion's Cantina there's also a poster about "Tosh and the Screamers", his band.
  • Valerian was derisively called "Arthas-in-Space". When the StarCraft II official site was first launced, the entire biography page on him was littered with comments about his likeness to Arthas.
  • Warfield spouts one to the famous "TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE DAMAGE!" meme in the mission "The Gates Of Hell":

"Mah ship has taken terrible, terrible damage!"

  • Tychus was convict number 626


Zerg

  • Kerrigan's ghost number is 24601
  • The Zealot Changeling has this line:

Changeling: I'm looking for a cat, means worlds to me.

  • A lot of new units exist to fulfill the same role as a cut unit from the original game, while some new units are just old units with new abilities. Most are an improvement over the original. A few examples:
    • The Brood Lords have the same role as the guardians, and even look like guardians, with the main difference being that brood lords spawn broodlings when they attack
    • Spore colonies and sunken colonies (creep-expanding structures that doubled as anti-air or anti-ground turrets) have been replaced with spore crawlers and spine crawlers, respectively, which function nearly the same except that they can be repositioned and don't produce more creep (the zerg now use a different mechanic for spreading creep).
    • Completely inverted by the queen, who despite sharing its name with a unit from the original game is completely different. The original queen was an aerial support caster, the Starcraft II queen is a ground unit designed to help base expansion by spawning extra larva and expanding the creep as well as providing some basic air defense.
    • Also inverted with the Infested Terran, who is now a temporarily summoned unit that shoots guns rather than a suicide bomber (a role now filled by the baneling).
    • A new heavy air unit prominent in the Char campaign, the Leviathan, combines features from the heavy air units of the other two races (Terran Battlecruiser, for its heavy damage attack, and Protoss Carrier, for its ability to spawn Mutalisks).


Protoss

Units

"Shuffleboard on the Lido Deck, now commencing."

  • The Void Ray advices you:

"Always bet on Void"

  • The High Templar seems to be a bit of a nerd:

"Your thoughts betray you."
"Get out of my mind, novice!"
"Yours is the inferior intellect."
"Do you know what happens to a frog when it gets hit by lightning?"

  • Immortal

"There can be only one!"

  • A lot of new units exist to fulfill the same role as a cut unit from the original game, while some new units are just old units with new abilities. Most are an improvement over the original. A few examples:
    • The Mothership is literally just a bigger, more expensive Arbiter from the first game. In early previews of the game it had different abilities, but Blizzard scaled them back.
    • The Colossi are huge robotic siege units ideal for attacking masses of small units (reavers)
    • The Stalkers are basically Dragoons with the added ability to Flash Step
  • Maar sometimes says "Merely a temporary setback" when he revives.
  • As noted in this Team Liquid thread, the Void Seeker unit has the same markings in its inner ring as the markings on the South Korean flag.

Heroes


Other

"Ride the lightning!"

    • From the Phoenix:

"Justice for all! (Except for the Zerg)"

      • It's a double reference. It may also refer to a particular attorney...
    • From the Reaper:

"Fear the Reaper, man!"
"This is ground control to Major Tom"

    • From the Vulture:

"Born to be wild!"

"This vessel has assumed control. It has assumed control."

  • One of the on-location news reports takes place aboard the evacuation ship Skynyrd II.
  • The songs listed in the commercial for the Level 800 Elite Tauren Marines albums: The song titles are all somewhat inspired by titles of 20th Century and 21st Century music.
    • I Kissed a Zerg! (Katy Perry - I Kissed A Girl)
    • Like a Firebat out of Hell (Meatloaf - Like A Bat Out Of Hell)
    • I Left My Heart on Mar Sara (Literally) (Frank Sinatra - I Left My Heart in San Fransisco)
    • New Folsom Prison Planet Blues (Johnny Cash - Folsom Prison Blues)
    • Don't Cry For Me Tarsonis (Madonna - Don't Cry For Me Argentina)
    • Another Hydralisk bites the dust (Queen - Another One Bites The Dust)
    • With or Without Nukes (U2 - With or Without You)
    • Saturday Night's Alright for Nuking (Elton John - Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting)
    • Lucy In The Sky With Mutas (The Beatles - Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds)
    • I Can't Drive Warp 5.5! (Sammy Hagar - I Can't Drive 55)
    • Every Rose Has It's Thor (Poison - Every Rose Has It's Thorn)
  • The song Terran Up The Night has a pretty obvious one:

We have our own Transformer
The rough and tough Viking
He can fly and he doesn't cry
Like the little wuss Starscream

  1. ↑ And before anyone says otherwise, remember: 40K came first.
  2. ↑ As if Egon's name and references weren't enough...
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