Cast of Characters

CAST OF CHARACTERS

You will meet many old and new characters in StarCraft II: some good, some bad, some walking the fine line between hero and villain.

KERRIGAN

Ex-Confederate ghost operative Sarah Kerrigan underwent a dramatic transformation after she was betrayed by Arcturus Mengsk and capture by the Zerg. Through ruthlessness and cunning, she has emerged as the undisputed ruler of the Swarm.

Dark forces combined to bring her under the sway of the zerg Overmind, but the same courage and tenacity that she had shown as a ghost, and later as a rebel against the Confederacy, brought about her dominance of the alien sentient. Now she holds the reins of the Swarm and commands an innumerable army of monstrous creatures poised to sweep mankind from the Koprulu sector.

The zerg Overmind sensed Kerrigan’s formidable psionic powers and desired to adapt this new weapon for the Swarm. Bringing all of the evolutionary strength of its genetic skill to bear upon the one-time ghost, the Overmind transformed Sarah Kerrigan into an unstoppable combination of psychic ability and biological deadliness: the Queen of Blades was born.

Not wanting to hamper Kerrigan’s intellectual and strategic brilliance, the Overmind left her a degree of individual will that differed from its cerebrates. It was this freedom that allowed her ambitions to rise, and before long, the Queen of Blades conquered her cerebrate kin and took charge of the Swarm when the Overmind was slain.

Now Kerrigan moves the zerg toward an unknown future. Ancient prophecies foretold her coming. The sense and meaning behind these prophecies are vague, but make no mistake: countless billions of lives are bound to the destiny of Sarah Kerrigan.

JIM RAYNOR

Jim Raynor is the leader of Raynor’s Raiders, a rebel group opposed to the oppressive Terran Dominion. Years of struggling against the regime and the restless ghost of his past have taken their toll on Raynor, and of late he seems to be losing faith in his ideals.

Raynor and his troops went on to fight alongside the protoss in several campaigns and played a key role in battling the United Earth Directorate incursion that followed. A twist of fate found Raynor temporarily allied with Arcturus Mengsk and the Queen of Blades, the being reforged from Sarah Kerrigan by the zerg Overmind. Although these two tyrants fought against a common foe, it was only a matter of time until their tenuous alliance collapsed. In the end Kerrigan was the one who turned against her erstwhile allies and struck the first blow, and many of Jim Raynor’s comrades died to her treachery.

Raynor escaped the massacre and vowed vengeance. Even so, against the full strength of the zerg Swarm and the vast psionic powers of the Queen of Blades, his chances seemed slender at best. Eventually, exhausted and disillusioned, Raynor returned to terran space to lead a resistance movement against the spreading power of Arcturus Mengsk’s Terran Dominion. Over the years this fight hasn’t gone well. Arcturus Mengsk has used his greatest weapons – oratory, the media, and propaganda – to marginalize Raynor’s efforts.

In the last phase of the Guild Wars, Raynor and Findlay were accused of committing manslaughter during an ill-fated mission on Turaxis II. For their part, Raynor and Findlay knew that their superiors were to blame for the operation’s disastrous failure and resulting deaths. The two men fled from the military soon after, well aware that they would never receive a fair trial if it meant tarnishing the reputation of Confederate commanding officers. The pair remained outlaws together for years until Tychus was captured by Confederate law enforcement and sentenced to life in cryogenic incarceration. Exactly how Raynor managed to avoid Findlay’s fate and land a job as a marshal on Mar Sara is unknown.

ARCTURUS MENGSK

Emperor Arcturus Mengsk I rules over the Terran Dominion with an iron fist and a silver tongue. To ensure humanity’s survival through the dark days ahead, Mengsk is committed to uniting terrans under his leadership.. whether by choice or by force.

As a scion of the Confederacy’s elite Old Families, Mengsk had an easy road ahead of him: inherit his parents’ vast fortune and live a life of fame and power. Yet following in the footsteps of his father, Angus, a Confederate senator on Korhal IV, wasn’t for Arcturus. Even from a young age, he was determined to make his own way in the galaxy.

Much to the chagrin of his parents, Mengsk’s ambitions led him to join the Confederate Marine Corps. There he hoped to learn the finer points of prospecting, a profession that had intrigued him for some time. As tensions between the Confederacy and the Kel-Morian Combine rose, Mengsk found himself embroiled in the brutal Guild Wars. As a Marine, he became known for his brilliant tactics and innate leadership skills, but a life in the military was never his goal. Before the Guild Wars ended, Mengsk left the marines and began his prospecting career on the fringe worlds.

Mengsk’s sway over the public extends far beyond tarnishing the reputations of his enemies. Through his oratorical mastery and firm control over the media, he has kept his past – and present – atrocities hidden from the public. Most of the Dominion populace accept Mengsk’s rule, believing him to be the only leader capable of protecting them from the alien threats in the Koprulu sector. Mengsk asserts that humanity’s only chance to survive the dark days ahead is to be united under his leadership, whether by choice or by force.

VALERIAN MENGSK

The son of Emperor Arcturus Mengsk, Crown Prince Valerian is trained in politics and military strategy, and possessed of high-minded fascination with xenoarchaeology. Valerian’s dreams of being a better leader than his father seem noble, but are they tempered by the cold realities of rule?

It was three words that left their mark on Valerian shortly after he met his father, Arcturus, for the first time. In the seven years since his birth, Valerian had lived a sheltered, idyllic life on Umoja with his mother, Juliana Pasteur. Arcturus – who had only recently learned of his son’s existence – disapproved of everything about Valerian, from the books he read to his lack of physical ability. In private, Arcturus told Juliana that she was raising a “bookish, effeminate weakling.” When the hurtful words were later repeated to Valerian, he vowed to do whatever it took so that no one – including his father – would think of him that way again.

In the years that followed, Valerian devoted himself to physical conditioning, weapons training, and academics, albeit without his father at his side. Arcturus was off fostering his rebellion against the Confederacy and had little time to see his son in person. Valerian and his mother lived on the run, moving from one hiding place to the next to escape Confederate assassins. Much of what Valerian learned about Arcturus’s actions during this period came from Universal News Network broadcasts. These reports were peppered with Confederate propaganda, but Valerian knew not to take what he heard at face value.

Arcturus doesn’t share Valerian’s obsession with archaeology, and in some ways, the relationship between the two men remains strained. Valerian respects Arcturus, but he doesn’t always agree with his tactics, nor does he view his father’s enemies – such as freedom fighter Jim Raynor – as his own. Although Valerian shares his father’s ruthlessness and unwavering desire to succeed, he also embodies the goodness and compassion of his late mother. Only time will tell if he will retain his individuality and distinct set of values or become trapped in the long shadow of his father.

ZERATUL

Zeratul is a dark Templar, a renowned psionic warrior and assassin whose forbears were exiled from the protoss home world of Aiur over a thousand years ago.

The dark templar refused to submerge themselves in the communal protoss mind link, the Khala, preferring instead to strive as individuals. Zeratul holds the rank of prelate and is probably best known for his role in ensuring the survival of the protoss since the zerg threat first became apparent.

It was Zeratul who overcame the prejudices of Executor Tassadar when they met on Char, and thus began to heal the rift between the Aiur protoss and the dark templar. It was Zeratul who was the first to slay a zerg cerebrate although the cerebrates had been thought immortal. Most of all it was Zeratul who returned to Aiur with Tassadar and set into motion the events that would rejoin the sundered halves of the protoss race and overthrow the oppressive rulership of the Conclave.

For the moment he focused on a more immediate concern: contacting any other nearby protoss who had survived the Queen of Blades’ treachery. Tracking protoss power signatures to an obscure moon, he hoped to reunite with his comrades and return to Shakuras with them in order to plan for the future. Instead of comrades, however, he found a former agent of the Queen of Blades – the enigmatic Samir Duran – engaged in breeding protoss/zerg hybrid creatures. Although Zeratul destroyed the facility, Duran claimed that it was merely one of many. Duran also revealed that he had been known by many names over the millennia and that he was not serving the Queen of Blades, but rather a “far greater power.” Deeply troubled by what he had seen, Zeratul went into self-imposed exile with only a handful of followers at his side. He continued to seek answers for what manner of being Duran truly was, and what dark future he was working toward.

IZSHA

Izsha is Sarah Kerrigan’s chief advisor among the Swarm the closest thing the zerg have to a terran adjutant. fused from human memomry and zerf hive-mind, it is her duty to keep the Queen of Blades – or her successors – familiar with the past and prepared for the future.

The being now known as Izsha was one of the Queen’s truly unique developments, marrying traits like episodic memory to the collective consciousness of the Swarm. However, as “her” functions were more suited to hive organization than warfare, Izsha remained largely unknown to the enemies of the zerg.

Among the zerg, Izsha occupies a similar role to that of a terran military’s adjutant – assisting with navigation, logistical analysis and record-keeping. Izsha is physically grafted to the nerve center of the Queen of Blades’ Leviathan, where she filters through the ceaseless volume of sensory data that floods the Swarm with each passing moment.

The suggestions and guidance that Izsha offers come from a time before, when the Queen of Blades suspected a great and terrible danger to the Swarm, and took action to preserve her own memories for the future of the zerg. Izsha is literally a living record of the experiences of the Queen of Blades, destroyer of worlds – of what use can she be to Sarah Kerrigan?