Earth
the human homeworld of Old Terra
Earth, called Old Earth by the terrans of the Koprulu sector, was the birthworld of humanity and the seat of the United Powers League and its successor, the United Earth Directorate. It exiled the prisoners who founded the Koprulu colonies and later sent a fleet to conquer them.
Earth, often called Old Earth by the terrans of the Koprulu sector, was the homeworld of humanity. It was the cradle of the United Earth Directorate and the source of the exiled prisoners whose descendants would settle the Koprulu sector. (StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty; StarCraft: Liberty's Crusade; StarCraft)
The decline of Old Earth#
Through its history, humanity on Earth developed an international power structure defined by military superiority and the acquisition of capital. In the 21st century, radical new technologies brought advanced computers and information to even the poorest nations, but reckless progress followed. Genetic experimentation, cybernetics, cloning, and gene-splicing rose into the public forum, and humanist and hard-line religious factions clashed with the private corporations that profited from them. As cybernetic implants and slight mutations such as heightened senses and advanced telepathy spread, civil chaos grew. By 2301 the population had reached an estimated 23 billion, strained by pollution and a lack of resources, and the balance of world power ultimately collapsed into international pandemonium. (StarCraft)
The United Powers League#
On 22 November 2229, the United Powers League was founded on the basis of enlightened socialism, accomplishing the unification that the defunct United Nations never could. The UPL encompassed close to 93 percent of Earth's population and often resorted to fascist police actions to maintain order. It designated English as the common language, banned many ancient languages, and outlawed religion, while holding an almost zealous belief in the divinity of mankind that called for the eradication of non-vital prosthetics and mutations among the pure-strain human gene pool. (StarCraft)
The UPL leaders set Project Purification in motion, rounding up dissidents, hackers, the cybernetically enhanced, tech-pirates, and criminals of every kind. Nearly four hundred million people were executed, the violence hidden from a populace served by a controlled world-media. With warp-space travel developed, Doran Routhe used his political connections and fortune to secure fifty-six thousand prisoners slated for execution. He catalogued their mutations and enhancements, fed the data into ATLAS, and loaded the forty thousand deemed viable onto four supercarriers bound for Gantris VI. The ships veered off course and crash-landed in the Koprulu sector. For generations the UPL studied the slow advancement and hostile infighting of the distant colonies without interfering. (StarCraft; StarCraft: Brood War)
The United Earth Directorate#
News of the discovery of the protoss and the zerg spread like wildfire across Earth, and the resulting panic brought the dissident countries into the UPL's fold, expanding its powers and prompting its renaming as the United Earth Directorate. When it became clear that the Koprulu colonies were losing strength, the UED Council saw the perfect opportunity to establish control. In 2500, on word that a new Overmind was growing on Char, the Council formed an expeditionary force under Admiral Gerard DuGalle with orders to enslave the Overmind, every member briefed on the objective to conquer the sector. News of the fleet's defeat reached Earth shortly before it was eradicated. (StarCraft: Brood War; StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty)
Frequently asked questions
- What is Earth in StarCraft?
- Earth, often called Old Earth by the terrans of the Koprulu sector, was the homeworld of humanity. It was the cradle of the United Earth Directorate and the source of the exiled prisoners whose descendants would settle the Koprulu sector.
- What caused the collapse of Old Earth?
- In the 21st century, reckless progress in genetic experimentation, cybernetics, cloning, and gene-splicing led humanist and religious factions to clash with the corporations that profited from them. As cybernetic implants and mutations spread, civil chaos grew, the population reached an estimated 23 billion by 2301, and the balance of world power collapsed into international pandemonium.
- What was the United Powers League?
- Founded on 22 November 2229 on the basis of enlightened socialism, the United Powers League achieved the unification the United Nations never could, encompassing close to 93 percent of Earth's population. It designated English as the common language, banned many ancient languages, and outlawed religion, while believing in the divinity of mankind.
- What was Project Purification?
- Project Purification was a UPL campaign that rounded up dissidents, hackers, the cybernetically enhanced, tech-pirates, and criminals. Nearly four hundred million people were executed, the violence hidden from a populace served by a controlled world-media.
- How did Earth's exiles found the Koprulu colonies?
- Doran Routhe secured fifty-six thousand prisoners slated for execution, catalogued their mutations, fed the data into ATLAS, and loaded the forty thousand deemed viable onto four supercarriers bound for Gantris VI. The ships veered off course and crash-landed in the Koprulu sector, where their descendants settled the colonies.
Gallery
Images via StarCraft Wiki
Sources
- GameStarCraft, Blizzard Entertainment, 1998
- GameStarCraft: Brood War, Blizzard Entertainment, 1998
- GameStarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, Blizzard Entertainment, 2010
- BookStarCraft: Liberty's Crusade, Jeff Grubb, Pocket Books, 2001
Spotted a factual error or a primary source we missed? Email a correction. Every flagged claim gets reviewed.
Followed from this entry
United Powers League: the police state that exiled humanity
The United Powers League ruled almost all of Earth from 2229 onward, banning religion, imposing a single language and killing more than four hundred million of its own citizens under Project Purification. Its surplus prisoners became the involuntary colonists of the Koprulu sector, and its panic at the discovery of alien life reforged it into the United Earth Directorate.
ATLAS
The Artificial Tele-empathic Logistics Analysis System, or ATLAS, was a revolutionary supercomputer that selected which prisoners would survive the journey that founded the Koprulu sector colonies. Fragments of its code still survive in terran adjutants.
Char
Char was an inhospitable volcanic planet in the Koprulu sector that became the primary hive world of the zerg. It was the site of Sarah Kerrigan's rebirth as the Queen of Blades and, years later, of her restoration to human form.
Gerard DuGalle
Gerard DuGalle was a highly decorated admiral of the United Earth Directorate who commanded the Expeditionary Fleet sent to subdue the Koprulu sector during the Brood War. Manipulated by Samir Duran into ordering the death of his lifelong friend Alexei Stukov, he was defeated by Sarah Kerrigan and took his own life as the fleet fell.
Koprulu Sector: where three races met
A fringe region sixty thousand light years from Earth, settled by exiled humans. The Great War and the Brood War were both fought across its worlds.
United Earth Directorate: Earth's invasion
Earth's militarist government sent a fleet into the Koprulu sector to enslave the second Overmind. Kerrigan's Swarm destroyed it in the Brood War.
Mentioned in9 entries
Artificial intelligence: machine minds of the Koprulu sector
Artificial intelligence was simulated intelligence implanted as computer coding, carried in software or in hardware such as robots. Terrans relied on it for everything from navigation to warfare, the protoss built their automatons through psionic manufacture and once created the sentient Purifiers, and even the xel'naga left thinking crystals behind them.
ATLAS
The Artificial Tele-empathic Logistics Analysis System, or ATLAS, was a revolutionary supercomputer that selected which prisoners would survive the journey that founded the Koprulu sector colonies. Fragments of its code still survive in terran adjutants.
Captain (Episode V): field commander of the UED Expeditionary Fleet
The Captain was an unnamed officer of the UED Expeditionary Fleet who executed the Directorate's conquest of the Koprulu sector under Admiral Gerard DuGalle and Vice Admiral Alexei Stukov. From the capture of Boralis to the chaining of the second Overmind on Char, the Captain carried out every major ground operation of the invasion. What became of the officer after the fleet's destruction was never recorded.
English: the common tongue of terran humanity
English was a West Germanic language of Earth that the United Powers League designated as the common language of the planet in the twenty-third century. Carried into the Koprulu sector by the exiled colonists, it was sometimes called Terran there, and it grew a vocabulary of frontier slang, military shorthand, and new units of time and measure that no speaker of earlier centuries would have recognized.
Long Sleep
The Long Sleep was the centuries-defining journey during which four supercarriers loaded with cryogenically frozen prisoners were exiled from Earth, drifted blind through warp space, and crash-landed in the Koprulu sector, founding the colonies from which all terran civilization descended.
Nuclear missile: terran weapon of mass destruction
The nuclear missile, or nuke, was the terran weapon of mass destruction, launched from structures, vehicles, and starships across the Koprulu sector. After the Confederacy burned Korhal IV with a thousand Apocalypse class missiles, terran arsenals shifted to smaller tactical warheads guided to their targets by ghost operatives.
StarCraft Timeline: every major event from the xel'naga to the One-Day War
The full StarCraft chronology, from the xel'naga uplifting the protoss and the zerg to the peace that followed the End War. Events are grouped into ten eras, oldest first, with Gregorian years wherever the games and novels give one.
United Earth Directorate: Earth's invasion
Earth's militarist government sent a fleet into the Koprulu sector to enslave the second Overmind. Kerrigan's Swarm destroyed it in the Brood War.
United Powers League: the police state that exiled humanity
The United Powers League ruled almost all of Earth from 2229 onward, banning religion, imposing a single language and killing more than four hundred million of its own citizens under Project Purification. Its surplus prisoners became the involuntary colonists of the Koprulu sector, and its panic at the discovery of alien life reforged it into the United Earth Directorate.
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