Dehaka

Dehaka was a primal zerg pack leader native to Zerus, and one of the last of the great primal pack leaders alive when the Swarm returned to the primal homeworld. A bipedal creature with two pairs of arms, one large and one small, he was missing his large right arm and his small left one, having lost the larger limb only shortly before Sarah Kerrigan arrived on Zerus. Where other pack leaders were consumed by the hunger for power, Dehaka pursued essence as a means of survival and constant change, and that single principle carried him from the jungles of Zerus into the wider war against Amon.

Zerus and the alliance with Kerrigan#

Dehaka lost his large right arm shortly before the Swarm's return to Zerus; the severed limb was later found in the same region where Sarah Kerrigan defeated the other primal pack leaders, still bleeding heavily, a sign that the wound was recent. When the Swarm arrived, Dehaka chose at first only to watch Kerrigan and her followers. He witnessed the newcomers awaken the ancient primal Zurvan and the primal reinfestation of Kerrigan herself.

Unlike the other pack leaders, who were ruled by their appetite for power, Dehaka measured the situation differently. He judged Kerrigan to be the strongest of the zerg and concluded it would serve him and his pack better to ally with her and gather more essence than to stand against her. He went personally to greet her aboard her leviathan, and Kerrigan accepted the alliance, warning him that she would take his essence if he ever betrayed her. Dehaka committed part of his pack to helping her kill the rival pack leaders, Zurvan among them. When Kerrigan later confronted him, she confirmed that he had known Zurvan would turn on her; Dehaka did not deny it, observing that one zerg would grow strong and the other would fall, and that as a zerg she had already known this to be inevitable. He remained with the Swarm.

Into the Koprulu sector#

When the Swarm reached Skygeirr Station, a Terran Dominion facility, Dehaka was puzzled by the structure but content to sample terran essence. Inside the station he encountered a different kind of essence, that of protoss-zerg hybrids, which he could not collect. He recognized that the creator of those beings served Amon, a power that would devour all essence, and he understood that if Amon succeeded all change would stop and all essence would be gathered into one. To Dehaka, the end of change was the end of survival, and he resolved to fight to prevent it.

The Swarm then operated alongside Raynor's Raiders to retrieve Jim Raynor from Dominion custody. Dehaka was frustrated by the scarcity of essence and traded sharp words with Broodmother Zagara, until Kerrigan broke up the quarrel and forbade him from collecting essence in the area. The rescue succeeded, though Dehaka noticed Kerrigan's silence in its aftermath.

Korhal#

Kerrigan took the Swarm to Korhal to depose Emperor Arcturus Mengsk. Dehaka remarked on the abundance of essence on the world and how unlike it was to anything he had encountered, and set his pack to collecting it. When the Dominion deployed the Psi Destroyer, Dehaka and his primal pack held a decisive advantage: lacking the psionic connection that bound the Swarm's zerg together, they were immune to the weapon. Dehaka destroyed the first link himself, his sudden appearance startling both Arcturus Mengsk, who called him a creature, and the soldiers guarding the link. He summoned his pack to help him destroy the remaining links before joining the main battle.

In the final assault on Korhal Palace, Dehaka and his pack were checked by entrenched Dominion positions and could not advance until those defenses were broken. Once they fell, Dehaka pressed his forces forward, declaring that they would consume all essence in their path.

The End War#

After Korhal, Dehaka strengthened his pack and returned to Zerus, where he incorporated three pack leaders, Glevig, Murvar, and Dakrun, into his own pack; they followed him because of his strength. During the End War he led the primal zerg against Amon and his forces, aided by the pack leaders he had absorbed.

Character#

Dehaka was a survivor above all, cunning, strong-willed, and convinced that a creature must continually evolve to remain at the top. His fixation on essence was not a hunger for power but for survival; power, in his view, was a trap, and the trap that had ruined the other primal pack leaders. He was willing to forge alliances when they suited him and to abandon them when they did not. He regarded the primal zerg as the true zerg, as distinct from their Swarm-born counterparts, and he reflected near the end that he had changed greatly since joining Kerrigan, remaining one of the strongest surviving primals and intending to stay that way.