Chau Sara

2499: the year the Great War began

2499 was the final year of peace in the Koprulu Sector and the first year of the Great War. It opened with quiet training rosters and covert cover ups, and it closed with two Confederate colonies burned from orbit, the zerg revealed to terran eyes, and rebellion spreading from Mar Sara to Antiga Prime.

2502: the year of quiet atrocities

2502 fell in the uneasy years between the Brood War and the Second Great War. The Terran Dominion hid a colonial massacre behind parade broadcasts, Emperor Mengsk buried the mother of his heir, a squad of outlaw commandos was sent to kill Jim Raynor, and secret programs built on stolen ghosts and captive protoss advanced in the dark.

Alpha Squadron

Alpha Squadron, nicknamed the Blood Hawks, was an elite Terran Confederate military formation under General Edmund Duke that defected to the Sons of Korhal during the Great War and went on to serve the Terran Dominion.

Barracks: mustering hall of terran infantry

The barracks housed and trained all terran infantry, a mobile structure that could cross great distances to reach new hot zones. Pitched by the Dominion as a safe and comfortable staging point, it was in truth a sterile warren of bunks, deployment ramps, and resocialization tanks that unnerved many of the recruits who lived inside it.

Cole Hickson

Cole Hickson was a terran outlaw and soldier scarred on the left side of his face, a sniper and frequent leader of the War Pigs. He once saved Jim Raynor's sanity in a Kel-Morian prison camp, then years later was resocialized by Tamsen Cauley into an unwitting assassin sent against Raynor.

Conclave: the elders who exiled the Nerazim

A small body of Judicator elders ruled the Protoss Empire from Aiur. They banished the Dark Templar, enslaved the Purifiers and tried Tassadar.

Confederate Armed Forces: military arm of the Terran Confederacy

The Confederate Armed Forces was the military of the Terran Confederacy, headquartered on Tarsonis and organized into squadrons of conscripts and resocialized criminals. It fought the Kel-Morian Combine in the Guild Wars, razed Korhal with nuclear weapons, and collapsed when the zerg overran Tarsonis.

Confederate Marine Corps: infantry backbone of the Terran Confederacy

The Confederate Marine Corps was the best known military arm of the Terran Confederacy, an infantry service older than the Confederacy itself that filled its ranks with resocialized criminals and reluctant volunteers. It fought the Kel-Morian Combine through the Guild Wars and was destroyed alongside its government when the zerg overran Tarsonis.

Edmund Duke

Edmund Duke was a Terran Confederacy general in command of Alpha Squadron and a member of one of the Old Families of Tarsonis. After his rescue by the Sons of Korhal he defected to Arcturus Mengsk, becoming the chief military tactician of the Terran Dominion until his death at Sarah Kerrigan's hands.

Every Zerg Brood, From the Garm Brood to Kerrigan's Swarm

Every named zerg brood in StarCraft, from the Overmind's six great broods of the Great War to the broodmothers who served the Queen of Blades. Each entry covers who led it, what it was good at, where it fought and how it ended.

Fall of Aiur

The Fall of Aiur was the zerg invasion of the protoss homeworld during the Great War, fought at the same time as the Protoss Civil War. Tassadar destroyed the Overmind, but the Swarm had already claimed too much of Aiur, killing seventy percent of the protoss and forcing the survivors to abandon their world.

Ghost

Ghosts were the feared psionic covert operatives of the terran sector, drawn from psychically gifted individuals, trained from infancy as assassins, and used to guide nuclear strikes for the Confederacy and the Dominion.