Adjutant

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.

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. Terran commanders valued the strategic edge an adjutant provided, since its ever-present gaze over the field of battle helped commanders direct their forces and keep their troops in line. The duties an adjutant performed were broad, encompassing navigation, administration, decryption, the presentation of history, 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.

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. In the past, adjutants had been cybernetic, possessing organic components, but modern adjutants were entirely synthetic. Although they were designed to be appealing to the terran eye, they were bereft of social skills, and they had been intentionally designed to fall into the uncanny valley rather than to pass as human.

An adjutant could function for decades, but its artificial intelligence could break down and grow erratic over extended service, and an adjutant could enter a repair mode when required. The transition from cybernetic to synthetic construction marked a clear generational line in their development, and the loss of organic components distinguished the modern adjutant from its predecessors.

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. Other recorded units included Adjutant 33-27 V3.1974 and individually named adjutants such as Monica.