Defenders of Man

The Defenders of Man was a terran anti-Dominion separatist group whose stated intent was to protect humanity from alien threats. Secretly organized by General Carolina Davis, a Dominion general loyal to the Mengsk family, the group manufactured zerg attacks on Terran Dominion worlds in order to discredit Emperor Valerian Mengsk and seize power. Its campaign, the Defenders of Man Insurgency, was ultimately exposed and crushed through the efforts of the ghost Nova Terra.

Origins#

The Defenders of Man formed at some point after the End War. With Valerian Mengsk allowing his people greater freedoms, including freedom of the press, anti-Dominion factions found an opportunity to come together, and the Defenders of Man emerged as the foremost group of this kind, arguing for the security of humanity. Drawing on the events of the Second Great War and the End War, the group gained ground. It was secretly organized by General Carolina Davis, a prominent Dominion general loyal to the Mengsk family, and at some point obtained a recording proving Valerian's complicity in the death of Arcturus Mengsk.

The Defenders recovered technology from the defunct Moebius Foundation, which allowed for the augmentation of psi-emitter designs. The plan was that, if the technology were ever discovered, it would be traced back to Valerian, who had worked with the Foundation prior to its dissolution.

Unleashing the zerg#

In their early stages, Defenders of Man agents arranged for the transfer of several Dominion ghost agents, including Nova Terra and Stone, to aid the group's activities. Nova was sent to plant what she believed were anti-zerg devices in New Andasar on Antiga Prime, but the devices were in fact psi emitters set to attract specific breeds of zerg. Before Nova and Stone could escape, they were captured, and Davis subjected Nova to a mind wipe.

When the Zerg Swarm attacked the colony of Bountiful, the Defenders of Man moved to save it, repelling the zerg before the Dominion could respond. As popular opinion turned toward the group, which was consistently the fastest to respond to zerg attacks on the Outer Colonies, more and more people flocked to its message. Nova later awoke with no memory in a Defenders of Man facility in Sharpsburg and escaped along with the captured ghosts Stone, Theodore Pierce, and Delta Emblock. Investigating further, she discovered that the Defenders were using psi emitters to attract feral zerg to Tyrador IX in a bid to make Valerian's regime appear ineffectual.

Heroes of the people#

The Defenders released psi emitters on Tyrador IX, luring feral zerg that overwhelmed the population, then arrived offering to evacuate civilians. Nova and her Covert Ops Crew followed. When the Tal'darim arrived under First Ascendant Ji'nara seeking vengeance for an earlier Defenders attack on a Tal'darim outpost, Nova destroyed the Tal'darim mothership to protect the civilians the Defenders were sheltering, and the Defenders rallied to repel the feral zerg. Credited with saving Tyrador IX, the group's membership grew.

Nova, meanwhile, struck a bargain with Highlord Alarak and used terrazine from Jarban Minor to recover her lost memories, finally remembering that General Davis was the Defenders' leader. She reported this to Valerian, who said he had a plan to stop them and that Nova needed to play her role to prevent further deaths.

The conspiracy collapses#

Valerian traveled to Vardona to announce, as a ruse, that he was stepping down as emperor. While the Defenders watched his convoy, Nova slipped through the sewers into Davis's compound, where she found the Defenders mind-wiping Dominion ghosts and developing new Dominion technologies. She incapacitated Stone, her old squadmate, and arrested Davis. Before the people, Valerian publicly decried the Defenders of Man and presented evidence of their crimes, but a Tal'darim Death Fleet then struck Vardona seeking revenge, and Davis escaped aboard a commandeered ship.

Davis fled to the Cerros Shipyards and activated the experimental war machine Xanthos, attempting to destroy the Dominion fleet's Gorgon-class battlecruisers. Nova and Admiral Matt Horner defended the Gorgons and destroyed the Xanthos, after which Nova found Davis alive in the wreckage and, in direct defiance of Valerian's orders, killed her. Public opinion returned to Valerian, but Nova became a Dominion fugitive, retaining the loyalty of her covert ops crew. The feral zerg attacks the Defenders had instigated on Tyrador IX led to the formation of the Knights of Tyrador as the planet's security force.