What is the "canonical" option for the Wings of Liberty split missions?
Wings of Liberty had 3 "split" missions, where you had to choose sides:
- Safe Haven / Haven's Fall, where you had to pick between Dr. Hanson and Executor Selendis
- Breakout / Ghost of a Chance, where you had to pick between Tosh and Nova.
- Belly of the Beast / Shatter the Sky, where you had to pick between flooding the tunnels, and destroying the zerg aerial platforms.
Playing the second campaign mission in Heart of the Swarm, I ran into Nova, who off-handedly remarked that "Things might have been different if you had helped me with my Tosh problem", apparently still bitter that I liked the Spectres more than her ghosts on my last playthrough of Wings of Liberty.
However, it's entirely possible to own Wings of Liberty and not have played the campaign (or otherwise have no campaign data). In that case, what is the presumed outcome of these missions? Or, alternatively, does Starcraft not actually pass this along to the expansion, and assumes you sided with Tosh, etc?
In the starcraft 2 lore panels at blizzcon 2010 and 2011 they answered these questions. The canonical choices are the A choices, so
Raynor chose Tosh over Nova
Raynor chose Dr. Hanson over Selendis
Raynor chose the Tunnels in Belly of the Beast, not the platforms in Shatter the Sky
transcript for the first two.
Best I can find for the tunnels answer is the entire lore panel from 2011.
In a "Canonical" Heart of the Swarm Campaign
- Raynor helps Tosh over Nova (Breakout)
- Raynor sided with Haven and Dr. Henson over Executor Selendis (Safe Haven)
- Raynor takes out Zerg Nydus Worms by flooding the tunnels with Lava (Belly of the Beast)
If you are confused as to what decisions you made in Wings of the Liberty, you can confirm these for yourself, via in-game dialog.
For the first, Raynor and Nova will talk briefly at the end of the second mission: Back in the Saddle. Nova will explicitly state whether or not Raynor helped her or Tosh.
For the third, in a conversation with Zakara after the first Char mission, the brood mother will mention whether or not the tunnels are flooded with lava. If they are, Belly of the Beast was completed. (In retrospect, the cinematic that plays after the 3rd char mission in WoL makes a lot more sense if it comes after Belly of the Beast)
Blizzard ALWAYS goes with what they call "A Canon". This means that whatever the FIRST choice is becomes the "official" choice.