Colin Phash

Colin Phash was a young terran child with powerful psionic gifts, the son of the former Terran Dominion senator Corbin Phash. His abilities ranged from sensing the zerg before they appeared to a psychic attack capable of destroying zerglings, and his story traced the darker side of the Dominion's treatment of psychic children as he was hunted, forcibly inducted into the Ghost Academy, and finally freed to become the youngest known member of the Umojan shadowguard.

A hidden gift#

Colin Phash lived on Maltair IV among the miners, where he built a reputation for hearing things others could not. His powers included a "quiet voice" that prevented the zerg from detecting him so long as he concentrated, and his father, Senator Corbin Phash, taught himself to hide his thoughts and to fake them in order to shield his son.

In 2500, after the rise of the Terran Dominion, Corbin was touring the mines with Colin while arguing with the mine owner Scott Dagget, accompanied by six marines under Captain Veers, who had lost a son who would have been Colin's age. When the zerg attacked, the group and many civilians took shelter in the mines. Colin's psionic technique let him sense a horde of invaders entering the mine seventy hours after their initial arrival, and he warned the others; his father covered for him by claiming he simply had sharp hearing. The marines fought off the zerg but lost one of their number. A marine named Piett, who had a psychic brother and regarded such people as freaks to be made into weapons, repeatedly tried to expose Colin and to convince Veers to use the boy as bait, but Veers placed Colin under his protection.

Monstrous tactics#

When the group rested before a planned march to a safe bunker, Piett crept to Colin and mocked him; Colin scratched his face in return. Piett then kidnapped the boy, tied him to a pillar with explosives as a trap for the zerg, and had friends among the marines try and fail to disable Veers's suit. Veers freed Colin, but the two were attacked by a pair of zerglings; Colin destroyed one with a psychic attack, unable to explain how, and Veers killed the other but was mortally wounded from behind. As he bled to death, Veers told Colin to activate an emergency communication device and then hide, promising to return for him though he knew it was a lie. Colin slipped past the firefight, dragged his unconscious father to the bunker, and apologized to him for the bruises when he woke; the rest of the terrans had been killed by the zerg.

On the run#

Rescued by Dominion marines but with their secret exposed, the Phashes separated and fled. Colin traveled with Andrew Ballenger, an aide to the now former senator, moving among refugee camps on various worlds while Corbin sought asylum from the Umojan Protectorate's Minister Jorgensen. Pursued especially by the wrangler Randall, the pair could not safely contact Corbin, and one attempt to reach him proved to be a Dominion trap they barely escaped.

Posing as father and son, Colin and Ballenger reached the Gohbus Moon Refugee Camp, a dangerous place as the world Gohbus was about to break apart from a terraforming disaster. Colin's growing powers picked up the nightmares of the suffering refugees whether he wished to or not, and he found some relief writing letters to his father that he could never send. Randall tracked them there and, when bribery failed to make the refugees give Colin up, released lobotomized zerglings fitted with explosive collars to provoke an attack the refugees would blame on the boy. Colin used his quiet voice to keep the zerg from closing in, but Randall pistol-whipped Ballenger unconscious and, when Colin taunted him over the comm, used a psi-screen to break his concentration and reveal his location. As the zerglings moved in, a vengeful Ballenger electrocuted Randall; the pair tried to fight free, Colin using his powers against the zerglings, but Ballenger was killed. Colin was taken by reapers to the Ghost Academy, while UNN reporter Kate Lockwell reported the news as a happy outcome, outraging Corbin, who swore to expose the Academy with Minister Jorgensen's support.

The Ghost Academy#

At the Academy, Director Kevin Bick and Superintendent Sarco Angelini showed Colin pro-ghost propaganda and tested him for psionics and endurance. His telepathy was measured by forcing him to pick out which of several marines aiming rifles at him had loaded his weapon, on pain of being shot; Colin chose correctly. His scores ran high, though his telekinetic and pyrokinetic ratings, while above those of most ghosts, were inconclusive. When his quiet voice was tested by placing him among the zerg, Angelini observed that the power effectively shifted Colin's mind to another place, and when the boy tried to flee, Angelini broke the power, sending Colin's mind fully out of his body in an act of astral projection. Intrigued, the Academy hoped to replicate the ability and initiated a memory reassignment program on Colin, during which he saw a vision of his father.

Subjected to further testing by Dr. Gauthier and transferred to a wing usually reserved for older students, Colin was glimpsed by Nova Terra on a few occasions while using his astral projection, and he once asked her for help and lured her into a restricted area. When the ghostmaster general was sent to evaluate his astral projection, Bick and Angelini, preferring to keep the young psychic, opposed the agenda. Ordered to demonstrate the ability by locating three hidden Arcturus Mengsk holograms while the ghostmaster watched, Colin deliberately lied about their positions, prompting the ghostmaster to denounce Bick as a fraud and storm out. Colin later admitted to Angelini that he had failed on purpose because he would rather remain at the Academy than be taken away.

Escape and after#

Allied with Project Shadowblade, Corbin Phash eventually secured his son's release, and Colin became the youngest known member of the Umojan shadowguard. At some point Gabriel Tosh reached out to recruit Colin into Project Shadowblade as a spectre to help remove Arcturus Mengsk from power, but Colin declined, disapproving of their methods and bound by his duties in the shadowguard.

Powers#

Colin was considered very good at hiding and at sensing the zerg, with high endurance and strong telepathic powers; his telekinetic and pyrokinetic ratings exceeded those of most ghost trainees, though that testing remained inconclusive, and his psionic index was rated at 7.5. He could unleash a psychic attack powerful enough to destroy zerglings. His distinctive "quiet voice" allowed him to evade the notice of the zerg by shifting his mind to another plane, and at its furthest extent he could send his mind entirely out of his body in astral projection, an ability the Ghost Program found extraordinarily interesting and hoped to reproduce.