Battle of Tarsonis

The Battle of Tarsonis, also known as the Fall of Tarsonis, was the engagement that brought about the effective end of the Terran Confederacy. The Sons of Korhal overwhelmed Confederate defenses by luring the Zerg Swarm to the capital world with psi-emitters. Despite the intervention of a protoss expeditionary force led by Executor Tassadar, the Sons of Korhal and the zerg won a devastating victory, after which Arcturus Mengsk proclaimed the Terran Dominion.

Background#

The anti-Confederate insurrection spearheaded by the Sons of Korhal gained unstoppable momentum after the Battle of Antiga Prime, which saw the defection of Alpha Squadron to the rebel cause and validated the effectiveness of the psi-emitters. Strengthened by these gains, Arcturus Mengsk, leader of the Sons of Korhal, planned to strike Tarsonis and destroy the heart of Confederate power. He kept the exact nature of the plan secret from subordinates such as Sarah Kerrigan and Jim Raynor.

The rebel invasion#

Breaking through the orbital defenses of Tarsonis was delegated to General Edmund Duke and Alpha Squadron, who knew them intimately. Three orbital platforms served as staging points for the Confederate military, and Duke proposed a strike on the central platform to create enough confusion for a small force to break through to the surface. The rebels secured the platform after defeating defending Delta and Omega Squadron forces.

A Sons of Korhal force led by Sarah Kerrigan and Jim Raynor descended to the surface, where Confederate General Ledbetter coordinated the defense. Heavy fighting broke out between the rebels and the Confederate Delta and Omega Squadrons in the streets of Tarsonis City, including the moment a battlecruiser crashed in the city's western districts. During the fighting, Kerrigan, Raynor, and reporter Michael Liberty learned that Duke's forces were setting up psi-emitters.

The alien invasion#

The active psi-emitters drew the zerg to the planet. Billions arrived and quickly overran the surprised Confederates and rebels, consuming entire cities. Tassadar's protoss expeditionary force arrived in pursuit of the Swarm sooner than Arcturus Mengsk had expected. The protoss were interested only in fighting the zerg but fell into conflict with the Confederacy as well.

The protoss success against the zerg alarmed Mengsk, who feared the Confederates would escape while the Swarm was diverted. He ordered Sarah Kerrigan to defend the zerg hives from the protoss, over the objections of Kerrigan and Jim Raynor. The fighting degenerated into a four-way melee between rebels, Confederates, zerg, and protoss. The rebels forced the protoss to withdraw but were then overrun by the zerg, and Kerrigan was lost after her requests for support and retrieval were ignored by the rebel fleet, to the horror of Raynor and several followers.

The evacuation#

As Arcturus Mengsk ordered the rebel fleet to withdraw, Jim Raynor and reporter Michael Liberty disobeyed and commandeered a dropship to New Gettysburg. On the ground, political affiliations were discarded as terran troops banded together in a desperate fight against the zerg while the protoss withdrew. The pair retrieved a number of soldiers and refugees before being forced to lift, but Sarah Kerrigan was not among the rescued. Their dropship rendezvoused with the battlecruiser Thunder Child, which also sheltered refugees before departing. Osborne Port became the flashpoint for the evacuation as the only secure shipping point left, and the Sons of Korhal rescued some civilians from there. The zerg continued to attack the Confederacy and protoss to protect their prize before departing for Char.

Aftermath#

The end of the Terran Confederacy followed quickly. On the rebel side, Jim Raynor led his own unit and other disenchanted Sons of Korhal soldiers in a break from the main group, forming a new rebel movement and escaping Tarsonis after fighting the Sons of Korhal. The Confederate Resistance Forces barely escaped the battle. As the victorious rebels gained the allegiance of many former Confederate worlds, Arcturus Mengsk proclaimed the Terran Dominion, with Korhal as its new capital. For years the ruins of Tarsonis were inhabited briefly by the main Swarm under an infested Sarah Kerrigan, then by feral zerg, bandit groups, and insurgents, while Dominion salvage teams recovered what they could.

The Confederacy had intercepted Sons of Korhal transmissions during the battle that implicated Mengsk in deliberately bringing the zerg to Tarsonis. Those records were lost after the Great War, and Mengsk turned the battle into a solemn part of the Dominion's founding myth. During the opening of the Second Great War, Dominion excavations on Tarsonis recovered the transmissions in the form of Confederate Adjutant 23-46. Tipped off by informants, Raynor's Raiders raided the excavation, stole the adjutant, and broadcast the evidence on the Universal News Network, sparking riots and scrutiny of Mengsk.