Defenders of Man Insurgency

The Defenders of Man Insurgency was a conflict fought after the End War between the Terran Dominion and the separatist group the Defenders of Man, who sought to undermine the rule of Emperor Valerian Mengsk. Secretly led by General Carolina Davis, the Defenders planted psi-emitters on Dominion worlds to draw feral zerg, then arrived to repel the Swarm and cast the Dominion as too weak to protect its own people. The conspiracy was exposed and destroyed largely through the efforts of the ghost Nova Terra.

The Vanishing Ghosts#

Some time after the End War, the Defenders of Man rose to prominence within the Dominion, casting Valerian Mengsk's more diplomatic stance toward the alien races as a weakness humanity could not afford. The group was secretly commanded by General Carolina Davis, a prominent figure loyal to the Mengsk family who, armed with intelligence linking Valerian to the death of Arcturus Mengsk, set out to bring down his rule. Loyalists engineered the transfer of Dominion ghosts, among them Nova Terra and Stone, into the Defenders' command and ordered them to plant anti-zerg devices on Antiga Prime that were in fact psi-emitters. When Nova tried to expose the plan, Davis had her mind wiped, though Nova managed to implant a warning to herself in her visor as the zerg overran Antiga Prime.

As ghosts went missing, the Dominion Intelligence Section sent operatives to investigate, and the revolutionary media group Radio Liberty intercepted their coded transmissions. After Radio Liberty was raided, the journalist Michael Liberty revealed an access point into the Defenders' database, exposing the fate of the intelligence agents, killed by Nova Terra. Admiral Matt Horner received the findings, and Nova was branded a traitor to the Dominion.

The False Flag#

The Defenders of Man planted psi-emitters across the sector, on worlds such as Antiga Prime and Bountiful, drawing swarms of feral zerg that overran the colonies. Each time, after the Dominion responded too slowly, the Defenders arrived to rescue the survivors and broadcast that the Dominion had proven too weak to protect them. This drove up popular faith in the Defenders while eroding confidence in the Dominion, and led figures such as Magistrate Grayson to denounce the Emperor publicly.

Lost Memories#

Months later, Nova Terra awoke in a Defenders facility with no memory of how she had come there, only the hidden message in her visor warning that she would be killed. She escaped, fought through Defenders forces in the city of Sharpsburg, and reached a spaceport to flee the planet. Contacting a Dominion battlecruiser, she was led to Admiral Horner's base on Borea, where she learned she was wanted for treason. When the Defenders triggered a psi-emitter and feral zerg assaulted Borea, Nova helped Horner hold the line and used the chaos to escape, and Horner brought her before Valerian Mengsk.

Valerian offered Nova a Covert Ops Crew and the starship Griffin in exchange for her loyalty, and assigned his technology specialist Reigel to her. Reigel's attempt to undo her memory wipe revealed she had spent the missing months in Tarsonis City, and Valerian sent her to investigate. On Tarsonis, Nova infiltrated a Defenders facility and learned of their plan to unleash the zerg on a civilian world and let it be destroyed, to display the price of Valerian's weakness.

Plots and Schemes#

While the Defenders raided a fringe Tal'darim outpost and fled before the Death Fleet could retaliate, Highlord Alarak and First Ascendant Ji'nara mobilized to destroy them. On Tyrador IX the Defenders lured a massive swarm of zerg with psi-emitters, and Nova's Covert Ops Crew arrived to save the civilians while the Tal'darim Death Fleet under Ji'nara bombarded the planet. Knowing the Tal'darim would slaughter civilians alongside the Defenders, Nova destroyed the shield projectors guarding their mothership and downed it, allowing the population to be evacuated.

Alarak then boarded the Griffin and offered Nova a bargain: he would supply terrazine to restore her memories if she led him to the Defenders of Man. Nova reluctantly agreed, and on Jarban Minor she harvested terrazine from native gliders amid the remains of an infested Umojan Protectorate expedition. Taking the terrazine in careful microdoses, Nova recovered her memories of her operations with Stone, the discovery of the psi-emitters, and at last the identity of the Defenders' leader: Carolina Davis.

The Battle of Vardona#

Valerian devised a plan to take Davis without making her a martyr. He agreed to announce his resignation on Davis's homeworld of Vardona, drawing the Defenders' attention while Nova slipped into Davis's compound through the sewers to apprehend her. Inside, Nova found her old squadmates Pierce and Delta imprisoned and was confronted by Stone, whose memories the Defenders had rewritten; she incapacitated him without killing him and seized the traitor general.

As Davis was brought before the people, Alarak and his Death Fleet attacked Vardona, burning Defenders, Dominion, and civilians alike. The lower ranks of the Defenders, unaware of Davis's agenda, allied with the Dominion, and together they held the line until the Dominion Fleet arrived with Gorgon-class battlecruisers and the Tal'darim were defeated. In the chaos, Davis seized a warship and escaped, and Nova set out to track her.

Dying Throes#

Davis took refuge in the secret Cerros Shipyards, where she seized a section of the yards and activated an experimental weapon, the Xanthos, intending to destroy the Gorgon-class battlecruisers stationed there and cripple Valerian's fleet. Nova deployed into the shipyards, drove the Xanthos back to its repair bay, and was joined by Admiral Horner aboard the Hyperion, which pushed the Defenders' line back until the bay was exposed. Despite a hidden transformation, the Xanthos was destroyed, though Davis survived inside.

Nova boarded the wreck. Davis warned that killing her would make Nova no better than the Defenders, but against Valerian's order to take her alive, Nova killed Davis, ending the insurgency. Afterward, the journalist's documents on the Defenders swung popular opinion back to Valerian, who chose to let Nova go for the time being. Nova and her Covert Ops Crew aboard the Griffin broke away from the Dominion to become a vigilante group, fighting its enemies in their own way.