| “ | Awaken my child, and embrace the glory that is your birthright. Know that I am the Overmind; the eternal will of the Swarm, and that you have been created to serve me. | „ |
| ~ The Overmind to one of its Cerebrates. |
The Overmind is the original leader of the Zerg Swarm and the primary antagonist of the first installment of the real time strategy video game StarCraft.
It is an evolved life form which serves as the collective consciousness of the Zerg Swarm and guides them in their quest to cleanse the universe of life and consume all other organic forms. It is also responsible for the events of the first Great War. It is one of the main antagonists of the StarCraft franchise alongside Sarah Kerrigan and Arcturus Mengsk.
It was voiced by Paul Eiding in StarCraft II.
Its Evil Ranking[]
What Makes It Heinous?[]
- It slaughtered almost all of the Xel'Naga and destroyed their world-ships, under Amon's orders.
- It went on a galactic rampage with the Zerg Swarm which lasted for millenia. During this period, the Overmind and the Zerg consumed and assimilated countless civilizations and killed untold billions of beings.
- As soon as it reached the Koprulu Sector, it slaughtered the population of the planets Chau Sara, Mar Sara, Antiga Prime and even Tarsonis which is the most populated Terran world.
- It regularly spreads the Zerg virus, turning many into mindless, zombie-like creatures who attack their former friends and families and suffer in the process.
- It captured Sarah Kerrigan after killing all her men, subjected her to horrible experiments and mutations and turned her into the Queen of Blades, which makes the Overmind indirectly responsible for all the crimes she has committed.
- It attempted to slaughter the entire Protoss race and assimilate them into the Zerg Swarm, successfully killing millions in the process and forcing the Protoss to abandon their homeworld before being defeated.
- The Overmind has plans to assimilate all life in existence until only the Zerg remain.
What Makes It Inconsistent?[]
- It was created by Amon for the specific purpose to wipe out all life in the universe and has an overriding directive which controls its actions which means that it has moral agency issues.
- The Overmind loves the Zerg in a strange way. It views them as its "children", calls Kerrigan "daughter" after her transformation and shows affection for her and the player Cerebrate. The reason why it butchers entire civilizations and wants to consume all life is because it wants to make the Zerg stronger and increase their chances of survival.
- It redeems itself even though its redemption is very debatable. The reason why the Overmind transforms Kerrigan into the Queen of Blades is because the Overmind has foreseen that Amon would eventually wipe out the entire Zerg race and it wants to stop him. The Overmind can't oppose Amon directly because of its overriding directive and so it wanted to make Kerrigan strong enough to oppose Amon and to stop his plans which means that the creation of the Queen of Blades actually saves all life in the universe from extinction and the Overmind is even willing to accept death as long as Amon's plans are. However, the Overmind only cares about the survival of the Zerg race and there is no indication that it cares about any of the other creatures in the universe. It just wants the Zerg to survive, so that they would continue to slaughter other creatures and become stronger. However, this is still enough to prevent it from qualifying as Near Pure Evil.
- In Wings of Liberty the Overmind is given some sympathy. When Zeratul reads the last thoughs of the Overmind just before its death, he sees that the Overmind felt at peace because it knew that its race would be saved from Amon's wrath. Then, when Zeratul speaks to "Tassadar's spirit" (who is actually a Xel'Naga called Ouros in disguise) Ouros tells him that the Overmind has shown courage in his attempts to rebel against Amon in an indirect way. He also calls the Overmind "a prisoner of its own mind" which does give it a sense of tragedy because it didn't choose to be evil in the first place but instead was forced to commit those actions due to its overriding directive and impaired moral agency.
Trivia[]
- The Zerg Overmind and Sarah Kerrigan are the only Inconsistently Heinous villains from Starcraft.
- The Zerg Overmind is very similar to the Tyranid Hive Mind from Warhammer 40000 because both are immortal, hive mind entities with immense psychic powers that telepathically control a race of alien insectoids and continuously seek to wipe out all beings that are not part of said race and evolve their minions.
External Links[]
- Zerg Overmind on the Villains Wiki
- Zerg Overmind on the Magnificent Baddie Wiki
- Zerg Overmind on the StarCraft Wiki
- Zerg Overmind on the Heroes of the Storm Wiki
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 Inconsistently Heinous
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Video Games Starcraft | ||