End War: Amon's crusade on the galaxy

The End War was the name given by Zeratul to the crusade waged by the resurrected xel'naga Amon against the Daelaam and the galaxy as a whole. It opened with Amon's corruption of the Khala during the protoss attempt to reclaim Aiur and ended in the Void with the destruction of Amon by Sarah Kerrigan, who had been remade as a xel'naga to do it. The war united the sundered protoss under Hierarch Artanis and ultimately bound terran, zerg, and protoss together against a common enemy. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)

Background#

The Second Great War had set Amon's return in motion. The use of a xel'naga device on Char deinfested the Queen of Blades, and it was held that hybrids present at that moment had gathered the energy needed to revive the fallen xel'naga. After the war, with the death of Arcturus Mengsk, Kerrigan led the Swarm in primal form to find and confront Amon. Soon afterward the Moebius Foundation fell under hybrid control and its Moebius Corps began assaulting Dominion worlds. (StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm; StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)

Removed from the early fighting, the Daelaam were consumed by internal strife, the Khalai and Nerazim still far from united. Hierarch Artanis resolved that reclaiming Aiur from the zerg was the one shared cause that could rebuild protoss civilization, and he built the Golden Armada, the largest protoss fleet ever assembled, for that single purpose. As Kerrigan drew the Swarm out of the Koprulu Sector, the chance to retake the homeworld came at last, and the Armada launched. Legacy of the Void, the last chapter of the StarCraft II story, plays out this war from the protoss side. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)

The Reclamation of Aiur#

The Golden Armada arrived at Aiur, but the invasion went catastrophically wrong. Amon revealed his presence and corrupted the Khala, turning many protoss into his slaves. Zeratul fell to Amon, though not before severing Artanis's nerve cords so that the Hierarch could lead a free protoss again. Artanis and his followers cut away their own nerve appendages to break Amon's hold, and the Nerazim reactivated an ancient protoss arkship, the Spear of Adun, to carry the survivors off the doomed world. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)

Amon's Assault#

Amon unleashed legions of hybrids in a galactic assault, dividing his forces to conquer the entire sector at once. Korhal, Shakuras, and Glacius came under attack. At Korhal the Moebius Corps seized the Sky Shield platform and sent it plunging toward Augustgrad; Emperor Valerian Mengsk, Admiral Matt Horner, and Jim Raynor held the line with the support of Artanis and the Spear of Adun, recovering the stolen Keystone from the Moebius Corps. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)

Shakuras fell soon after, as millions of Amon's zerg poured through the warp gate from Aiur. Matriarch Vorazun refused to let her homeworld become a staging ground, and Artanis lured in as many of Amon's broods as possible before overloading the planet's xel'naga temple, destroying Shakuras and over a billion zerg. At Glacius the Daelaam raced the Tal'darim of Alarak to a research vault and recovered the data that would let phase-smith Karax restore a prototype Purifier modeled on the mind of Fenix. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)

Gathering Allies#

Karax traced the Keystone's origin to Ulnar, where the xel'naga had once resided. There Artanis encountered Kerrigan amid the hybrids, and the two were forced into an uneasy alliance; together they closed a door Amon had opened to the Void. Kerrigan counseled Artanis to subjugate his enemies and gather allies for the war to come. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)

Artanis did exactly that. He reactivated the Purifiers at Cybros and pledged to treat them as equals, ending the Khalai caste system in the process. He aided Alarak in deposing Highlord Ma'lash through the ritual duel of Rak'Shir, bringing the Tal'darim Death Fleet into the alliance. He destroyed the last hybrid production facility in the Revanscar asteroid field, halting Amon's supply of hybrids and raising the phase-smith Karax to the rank of Templar. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)

Return to Aiur and the Final Reckoning#

With the Purifiers reactivated, the Tal'darim allied, and the hybrid facilities destroyed, the Daelaam mounted a second reclamation of Aiur. Artanis divided his forces to destroy the psi-matrix anchoring the corrupted Golden Armada and then turned the combined firepower of the Death Fleet, Cybros, and the Spear of Adun against Amon's physical body, destroying it. With the Keystone set upon the temple grounds, Selendis and the enslaved protoss were freed from the Khala, and the Daelaam stood united. Artanis laid a psi-blade upon a grave for the fallen Zeratul. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)

In 2508, during the celebration of the reclamation, Kerrigan called on Artanis and Raynor to help her destroy Amon at his source. The alliance of terrans, zerg, and protoss entered the Void. There Alexei Stukov took his revenge upon Emil Narud, whose death freed the last xel'naga, Ouros, who had hidden in the guise of Tassadar. Ouros revealed that only Kerrigan could survive transformation into a xel'naga and defeat Amon. Kerrigan took on that power, shattered the Void crystals shielding Amon, and destroyed him with a single beam of energy, ordering the others to flee as he died. What her ascension means, and how the epilogue plays out, is covered in the Legacy of the Void ending explained. (StarCraft: Evolution; StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)

Aftermath#

Two years later the Terran Dominion under Valerian Mengsk and Matt Horner entered an age of peace, though Jim Raynor vanished, leaving only his badge at Joeyray's Bar on Mar Sara. The protoss, united under the Daelaam, rebuilt Aiur and kept peace with the Dominion, while the Tal'darim under Alarak departed to find a new world. The zerg, now led by Zagara, reclaimed Char and the worlds around it. Life began to bloom on barren worlds across the sector, baffling Dominion scientists, even as both the Dominion and the Daelaam struggled for years to rebuild from the war. Those closing years are the last stretch of the StarCraft timeline, which starts with the xel'naga. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void; StarCraft Field Manual; StarCraft: Evolution)