Arkship: the three protoss vessels built to outlive the species

The arkships, also called ark vessels, are three enormous protoss starships built by order of the Conclave long before the Great War, in the stretch of protoss history known as the Lost Age. Each is larger than a zerg leviathan, and none of them was built to win a war. They exist to keep the species alive after one.

What is an arkship?#

An arkship is the protoss answer to the question of what happens on the day the species faces extinction, and the answer is a vessel big enough that entire planets of colonists could live aboard it if they had to evacuate. Each one can store thousands of protoss in stasis until they are needed. Each can manufacture squadrons of scouts every day and wage a prolonged war on its own. Each is powered by a solar core, where a synthetic star generates enough energy to run the ship for centuries and possibly for thousands of years. Every system carries several redundancies and backups so that mechanical failure does not stop it working.

The name was borrowed. It came from the large ancient protoss seafaring vessels that sheltered smaller ships from storms they could not ride out alone.

Why did the protoss build them?#

The idea came out of a disaster: an oversight in the operation of two motherships led both craft to be destroyed by a neutron star, killing over eight thousand protoss, and the three grand preserver sisters who saw it happen wanted a safeguard against anything worse. Orlana, Rohana and Shantira set out to prepare for a great disaster falling on their species rather than an accident befalling one crew.

They advised that three ships be built rather than one. A single vessel would be mighty, but if something happened to it there would be nothing left, and a second and third ship meant another layer of failsafes. Construction of the first took several centuries after the mothership disaster. Judicator Mardonis and Templar Adun christened it the Spear of Adun. The Memory of Nezin and the Pride of Altaris were built over the centuries that followed.

Then the preservers reconsidered the whole plan. Weighing everything they remembered, they judged that the protoss would eventually face a disaster so great that the arkships could not save them, and that the ships would be lost trying to fight it. The purpose was rewritten: the arkships would restore the protoss after such a disaster, not attempt to stop it. All three were buried around Aiur in massive launch bays cradled in three of its cities, each loaded with thousands of templar warriors in stasis. The grand preservers went into stasis aboard them too, so that whichever protoss commander uncovered the ships would have their guidance.

What happened to the three arkships?#

Two of them never woke up, because the fall of Aiur reached the dormant Memory of Nezin and Pride of Altaris and the zerg destroyed both where they lay. Only the Spear of Adun, beneath Khor-shakal, survived intact.

During the Reclamation of Aiur, Hierarch Artanis went after the last arkship to crown the victory. The return of Amon and the corruption of the Khala turned that into an evacuation instead: Artanis loaded the Khalai he had freed aboard the ship and left the planet. From the Spear of Adun he ran a long campaign against Amon and his forces, built up enough strength to retake Aiur, and banished Amon to the Void. Two years later, in 2508, he took the arkship into the Void itself and defeated Amon for good.

A fourth arkship exists. During the End War, Amon seized a number of phase-smiths and had them build one for him, then used it to attack his enemies from orbit.