Adjutant
terran command artificial intelligence
Adjutants were the non-sapient artificial intelligences that served terran commanders across the Koprulu sector as advisers, navigators, and keepers of data. Humanoid in form but bereft of social grace, they descended from the original ATLAS coding and offered commanders an ever-present strategic eye over the field of battle.
Adjutants were a form of non-sapient artificial intelligence used by the terrans of the Koprulu sector and the United Earth Directorate. Humanoid in design yet sometimes addressed simply as "computer," they served as advisers, navigators, and data keepers to terran commanders, offering an ever-present strategic eye over the field of battle. Significant portions of the original ATLAS coding still survived within them, and they remained a fixture of terran military command from the Terran Confederacy through the Terran Dominion. (StarCraft; StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty; Project Blackstone)
Function#
Adjutants were sometimes addressed simply as "computer," though they were humanoid in design. Significant portions of the original ATLAS coding and functionality survived within them. The duties an adjutant performed were broad, encompassing navigation, administration, decryption, advising commanders, and the storage of data of all kinds. When playing back an audio feed, an adjutant's voice would adjust to match the original speaker. (StarCraft: Uprising; StarCraft; StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty; Project Blackstone)
Design#
Heat sinks were located on the back of an adjutant's head, and when performing complex calculations, steam could be seen rising off the fins there. Although they were designed to be appealing to the terran eye, they were bereft of social skills, and they had been designed on purpose to fall into the uncanny valley rather than to pass as human. (The Art of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty)
Notable adjutants#
Among the recorded adjutants was Adjutant 23-46, which held knowledge of the Battle of New Gettysburg. During the Second Great War, the Terran Dominion launched a salvage operation on Tarsonis to recover lost Confederate technology, and Raynor's Raiders attacked the expedition and made off with this adjutant. Once decrypted, its transmissions revealed Arcturus Mengsk giving the order to use the psi emitters over the objections of Jim Raynor and Sarah Kerrigan, evidence the Raiders later broadcast to weaken Mengsk's rule. Another recorded unit, Adjutant 33-27 V3.1974, ran the secret Project Blackstone research facility. (StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty; Project Blackstone)
Frequently asked questions
- What is an adjutant in StarCraft?
- Adjutants were non-sapient artificial intelligences used by the terrans of the Koprulu sector and the United Earth Directorate. Humanoid in design yet sometimes addressed simply as computer, they served as advisers, navigators, and data keepers to terran commanders.
- What functions did adjutants perform?
- An adjutant's duties were broad, encompassing navigation, administration, decryption, advising commanders, and the storage of data of all kinds.
- How were adjutants designed?
- Although designed to be appealing to the terran eye, they were bereft of social skills and had been designed on purpose to fall into the uncanny valley rather than to pass as human.
- What was Adjutant 23-46 and why was it important?
- Adjutant 23-46 held knowledge of the Battle of New Gettysburg and was captured by Raynor's Raiders during a Dominion salvage operation on Tarsonis. Once decrypted, its transmissions revealed Arcturus Mengsk giving the order to use the psi emitters over the objections of Jim Raynor and Sarah Kerrigan, evidence the Raiders later broadcast to weaken Mengsk's rule.
Gallery
Images via StarCraft Wiki
Sources
- GameStarCraft, Blizzard Entertainment, 1998
- GameStarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, Blizzard Entertainment, 2010
- BookStarCraft: Uprising, Micky Neilson, 2000
- BookThe Art of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, Blizzard Entertainment and Insight Editions, 2010
- WebProject Blackstone, Blizzard Entertainment viral campaign (website and Cameron Dayton's Twitter), 2013
Spotted a factual error or a primary source we missed? Email a correction. Every flagged claim gets reviewed.
Followed from this entry
ATLAS
The Artificial Tele-empathic Logistics Analysis System, or ATLAS, was a revolutionary supercomputer that selected which prisoners would survive the journey that founded the Koprulu sector colonies. Fragments of its code still survive in terran adjutants.
Psi emitter
The psi emitter was a portable terran device that broadcast the amplified neural imprint of a ghost to draw the zerg across interstellar distances. The Terran Confederacy built it as a containment weapon, and Arcturus Mengsk used it to annihilate the Confederacy at Tarsonis, an atrocity that haunted the Koprulu sector for years afterward.
Arcturus Mengsk
Arcturus Mengsk led the Sons of Korhal to bring down the Terran Confederacy and crowned himself Emperor of the Terran Dominion, ruling through cunning, propaganda, and brute force until his death during the Second Great War.
Jim Raynor
James Eugene Raynor was a farm boy turned Confederate marine, marshal, and rebel who helped bring down the Terran Confederacy and later fought its successor, the Terran Dominion, becoming one of the few terrans to ally long-term with the protoss.
Raynor's Raiders: the rebel band of Jim Raynor
Raynor's Raiders were the terran rebel formation led by Jim Raynor, born from Raynor's Rangers after Arcturus Mengsk abandoned Sarah Kerrigan at New Gettysburg, waging a long insurgency against the Dominion from the battlecruiser Hyperion.
Sarah Kerrigan, the Queen of Blades
Sarah Kerrigan was a psychic terran who began as a Confederate ghost, rose to be second-in-command of the Sons of Korhal, and after Arcturus Mengsk abandoned her on Tarsonis was captured and infested by the Zerg Swarm to become the Queen of Blades.
Mentioned in10 entries
2505: the year the Second Great War ended
2505 was the year in which the second phase of the Second Great War was fought across the Koprulu sector. It saw Sarah Kerrigan rebuild the Zerg Swarm, the death of Emperor Arcturus Mengsk at the Battle of Korhal, and the zergling outbreak that destroyed the Blackstone facility.
Artificial intelligence: machine minds of the Koprulu sector
Artificial intelligence was simulated intelligence implanted as computer coding, carried in software or in hardware such as robots. Terrans relied on it for everything from navigation to warfare, the protoss built their automatons through psionic manufacture and once created the sentient Purifiers, and even the xel'naga left thinking crystals behind them.
ATLAS
The Artificial Tele-empathic Logistics Analysis System, or ATLAS, was a revolutionary supercomputer that selected which prisoners would survive the journey that founded the Koprulu sector colonies. Fragments of its code still survive in terran adjutants.
Battle of Tarsonis
The Battle of Tarsonis, also called the Fall of Tarsonis, ended the Terran Confederacy. The Sons of Korhal lured the Zerg Swarm to the Confederate capital with psi-emitters, abandoned Sarah Kerrigan to the zerg, and cleared the way for Arcturus Mengsk to found the Terran Dominion.
Dominion Armed Forces
The Dominion Armed Forces were the military of the Terran Dominion, built from the Sons of Korhal and the conscripted remnants of the Confederacy. Across the Brood War, the Second Great War, and the war against Amon they grew into the most powerful terran military in the Koprulu sector.
Engineering Bay: infantry research center of the terran military
The engineering bay was a terran research structure devoted to improving the quality of the weapons and armor fielded by infantry. In use by the Terran Confederacy as early as 2488, it remained one of the first two research facilities raised in any Dominion field base, and its work followed terran soldiers to every battlefield in the Koprulu sector.
Project Blackstone: the Dominion's secret xenoscience program
Project Blackstone was a classified Terran Dominion research program ordered by Arcturus Mengsk to unlock the secrets of the zerg and protoss. Conscripted scientists laboured on a hidden asteroid installation until a zergling outbreak nearly killed them all, and Valerian Mengsk rebuilt the project aboard the science vessel Brin.
Psi emitter
The psi emitter was a portable terran device that broadcast the amplified neural imprint of a ghost to draw the zerg across interstellar distances. The Terran Confederacy built it as a containment weapon, and Arcturus Mengsk used it to annihilate the Confederacy at Tarsonis, an atrocity that haunted the Koprulu sector for years afterward.
Talen Ayers
Talen Ayers was a famous research geneticist and author whose bestselling books on xenobiology made him a household name before he was abducted into the Dominion's secret Project Blackstone, where his doubts about Arcturus Mengsk and the fate of his daughter slowly hardened.
Tarsonis: the world Mengsk fed to the zerg
Arcturus Mengsk lured the Swarm to the Confederate capital with psi emitters in 2500, then left Sarah Kerrigan there to be taken by the zerg.
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