Ariel Hanson

Ariel Hanson was a bio-engineer and colonial leader from the world of Agria who became associated with Raynor's Raiders during the Second Great War. A selfless and altruistic individual, she served as the effective second-in-command of her colony before the zerg drove her people from their home, and afterward provided the Raiders with the medical and scientific expertise they lacked. Her efforts to cure a zerg infestation among the colonists ended in tragedy when she herself was consumed by the virus.

Origins on Agria#

Ariel Hanson was born to the renowned terraformer Doctor Bernard Hanson and the geneticist Talise Cogan, and grew up on Agria, a colony her father founded after he and Cogan divorced. Her genius showed early. At six she began poring over her father's old chemistry digi-tomes, at eleven she published her first research paper on the effects of mutagenic chemicals on the rare trabillia flower, and at sixteen, having graduated from upper school two years ahead of her peers, she received a full scholarship to the prestigious Tarsonis University her father had once attended. Despite Agria's rich biodiversity and her father's objection, she accepted the grant and traveled to Tarsonis.

Over three years she earned a bio-engineering doctorate but declined a job offer there. Disenchanted by the crass and arrogant intellectuals of Tarsonis, above all her own mother, she returned to Agria. Cogan declared that she was simply running from the real world as her father had, words that only reaffirmed Hanson's decision, since if Tarsonis was the real world it was one she did not want to be part of. While her father remained the colony's chairman, she effectively became his second-in-command, her duties including rounds of hands-on health examinations. Agria came through the fall of the Confederacy largely unscathed, and the Terran Dominion retained its status and stationed a permanent defense force there.

In 2503, pirates raided the colony seeking its advanced technology, and although the Dominion fought back, many innocent colonists were killed in the crossfire. Hanson risked her life to save dozens of bystanders trapped in the fighting, and came to believe the Dominion saw the colonists as expendable.

With Raynor's Raiders#

The Second Great War deepened Hanson's hatred of the Dominion. When the zerg invaded Agria, the Dominion fleet withdrew to the core worlds rather than defend it. Raynor's Raiders answered her distress call instead and successfully evacuated as many colonists as possible, resettling them on Meinhoff. Hanson stayed with the Raiders to assist them, since they had neither a modern medical facility nor scientific expertise of their own.

As the Raiders gathered pieces of a xel'naga artifact, Hanson studied the mysterious device and discovered that protoss could be killed simply by being in close proximity to it. On Meinhoff a zerg infestation struck the colony and was purged by the Raiders, and at Jim Raynor's suggestion she began devising a cure for the virus. Gabriel Tosh voiced concern that the zerg had nothing to gain from invading Agria and that something about Hanson was not right. She also detected jorium in the minerals the Raiders mined for Tosh, a substance that could be used to produce psionic abilities in humans, and she briefed Raynor on terrazine. When the Raiders broke open New Folsom Prison for Tosh, Hanson found that his spectres, contrary to the claims of Nova Terra, were not psychotic at all, and that the ghost had lied.

Haven and infestation#

When the colonists reached the world of Haven on the border of protoss space, the zerg infestation followed them there as well. A protoss fleet under Executor Selendis arrived to contain the virus through purification. Raynor chose to protect the colony, and during the fighting Hanson continued to develop her cure. When the protoss were driven back, Hanson left to settle on Haven, unable to persuade Raynor to come with her. She gave him a kiss on the cheek, told him he was a good man, and departed.

In the alternative course of events, Raynor chose instead to assist the protoss, believing purification was the only way to stop the virus from spreading. Hanson, displeased, stormed off the Hyperion's bridge and locked herself in the laboratory, where she became infested with the zerg virus. By the time the Raiders had finished purging Haven, 99.3 percent of her DNA was zerg, and Raynor was forced to kill her.

Fate of her name#

At some point the Dominion became aware of the family connection between Hanson and her mother, Talise Cogan, who was by then involved with Project Blackstone, as well as Hanson's association with Raynor's Raiders. Hanson was regarded as one of two troublesome daughters whose exposure might disrupt Cogan's research. Cogan was eventually informed by a colleague that Hanson had been caught up in the Second Great War, that contact with her had been lost at Meinhoff, and that she had last been seen near protoss space, and Cogan came to believe her daughter was dead.

Character#

Hanson was characterized as selfless and altruistic, a scientist of rare talent whose conscience consistently placed the lives of ordinary colonists above her own safety and above the interests of the Dominion she came to distrust. Within Raynor's Raiders she served as a moral counterweight, offering positive guidance through Raynor and standing as the opposite of the harder, more cynical figures around him, a role that made her end all the more tragic.