Fenix

Fenix was a protoss zealot and praetor of the Protoss Defense Forces who led his fellow warriors into battle against the enemies of the Protoss Empire. Revered by his warrior-brethren and dubbed the Steward of the Templar, he became one of the most celebrated heroes in protoss history, legendary for his deeds on the battlefield through the Great War and the Brood War.

Early life and service#

Fenix ignited his first psionic blade at Aldera and rose through the Templar ranks alongside his friends Artanis and Tassadar, fighting the enemies of the protoss in countless battles. His early service was marked by repeated brushes with death from which he alone emerged. He survived an operation in which his entire legion was killed save for himself and the warrior they had been sent to rescue, retook a seized facility called The Rock from terrorists before it was purified, and, after being captured by mercenaries who tried to use him to assassinate Judicator Aldaris, broke free and hunted them down one by one. During a hostage exchange on a border world he was hunted by an unknown alien species that divided his forces, defeated it in martial combat, and survived its explosive death. In 2497, locked in a Conclave tower seized by Nerazim rebels during the celebration of Khas'mas, he walked barefoot over shards of khaydarin crystals and slew the terrorists and their warlord with their own warp blades.

On the world of Dannuth VII, inhabited by a race called the tagal, Fenix and Artanis led their forces to victory though outnumbered thirty to one. Unknown to him, before the Great War the Conclave sent him to a secret research facility on Glacius, where his brain was scanned into a prototype purifier unit under the pretense of the dragoon program, so that the Conclave could judge whether the ancient purifier technology might be revived.

Fall at Antioch#

When the zerg invaded Aiur, Fenix stood in defense of the province of Antioch, holding a strategic outpost as his forces were nearly overwhelmed. Aldaris sent the new executor, his old comrade Artanis, to rescue him, and together they defeated the zerg incursion. When Tassadar sent word that the cerebrates were the zerg's weak point, Fenix agreed to test the strategy over Aldaris's objection, but the attempt failed because the information from Tassadar was incomplete.

Left behind with a small force to hold Antioch while Aldaris ordered a strike on the province of Scion, Fenix was defeated during the Second Battle of Antioch. As he moved to slay a hydralisk, his psionic blades ceased to function, and he was overwhelmed by the zerg that followed. His ruined body was recovered after the battle and placed into a dragoon exo-skeleton, preserving the warrior in a mechanical shell.

Rebellion and the death of the Overmind#

When Tassadar returned to Aiur, Fenix gladly joined his rebellion against the Conclave; Tassadar was surprised to find him alive within a dragoon. Alongside Zeratul and the Dark Templar, Fenix helped assault Kor-shakal, but Tassadar surrendered himself to Aldaris rather than let protoss keep killing protoss. Refusing to stand by while the Conclave prepared to execute Tassadar, Fenix joined Tassadar's terran companion Jim Raynor in a desperate rescue, and the would-be rescuers were themselves saved by Zeratul and the Dark Templar when the Conclave's troops surrounded them.

Fenix proposed sending his forces against the primary zerg hive clusters to thin their numbers so that Zeratul could slay a pair of cerebrates, believing the Overmind would be distracted long enough for a direct assault. He joined the attacks personally, and the protoss pushed through the weakened defenses until Tassadar sacrificed himself to destroy the Overmind.

The Brood War#

The Overmind's death sent the zerg rampaging across Aiur, destroying the Conclave and killing seventy percent of the population. Fenix joined Aldaris, Zeratul, and Raynor to lead the scattered survivors, who followed Zeratul's plan to flee through the sole functioning warp gate to Shakuras. When zerg attacked the gate, Fenix and Raynor fought long enough for the refugees to escape, then stayed behind to secure and close their end of the gate so that no more zerg could follow. The two decided to fight to the end against overwhelming odds, but were contacted by Sarah Kerrigan, who told them of a new Overmind and the United Earth Directorate's plans to control it. After the warp gate self-destructed, Fenix and Raynor fled to Shakuras.

Kerrigan later asked for their aid, and Fenix joined an unusual alliance with her and Arcturus Mengsk against the UED, which now controlled the new Overmind and wielded the psi disrupter. Fenix never trusted Kerrigan but followed Raynor's lead. He personally led zerg forces to seize the minerals of Moria from the Kel-Morian Combine, disdaining the raid and wishing he could fight the epic battles of his youth, though he insisted he could still throw down with the best of them.

Betrayal on Korhal and legacy#

On Korhal, formerly the Terran Dominion throne world, Fenix and Raynor struck the UED's outlying fortifications while Kerrigan's troops assaulted the main base at Augustgrad. As the allies defeated the UED, Kerrigan and Samir Duran engineered a betrayal. Fenix, not entirely surprised, prepared to face her forces and fell to the Swarm. Kerrigan mocked Raynor, saying Fenix had died the way all protoss hope to, in combat, and an enraged Raynor swore he would kill her for it. In the final battle of the Brood War, Artanis led a protoss attack partly aimed at avenging Fenix, though it was unsuccessful. Five years later, Fenix's death remained a sore point that Raynor raised again when he and Kerrigan reunited on the Moros.

By the End War, Fenix was regarded as a legendary figure among the Daelaam. During that conflict, a copy of his consciousness was reactivated in the body of an experimental purifier, recovered from Glacius by Karax, and that revived warrior would become known as Talandar.

Personality#

Fenix was a powerful warrior who led directly from the frontlines, fearless and honorable, embodying the best aspects of the Khalai. Zeratul described him as being as stalwart a warrior as he had ever known, and Kerrigan acknowledged him as uncannily resourceful. Even housed in a dragoon, where he could seem stoic and robotic, the persona behind the shell remained visible at times. In battle he would repeat a code to himself, reminding himself why he fought: that he feared no enemy because the Khala was his strength, and feared not death because the strength of the protoss was eternal. He distrusted Aldaris and the Judicator Caste, relying instead on his own unparalleled skill and that of his fellow templar. He held the Tal'darim in contempt as honorless traitors and had a dim view of most other species, though he could only wish that more terrans showed the courage that Jim Raynor did.