Infested Terran

Infested terrans, also known as infested humans, were a breed of zerg created when the Swarm infected a terran with a hyper-evolutionary virus. The infection consumed the victim's mind and remade the body, granting it zerg traits while usually stripping away the human's intelligence and sanity. Many infested terrans were used as powerful suicide bombers, but as the zerg perfected their means of infestation, the breed took on other roles, turning captured human technology to the service of the Swarm across the Koprulu Sector.

Purpose of infestation#

The zerg believed they needed the use of psionic powers to defeat the protoss. The terrans were the only species the Swarm had discovered with psionic potential powerful enough to help achieve that victory. Most terrans, however, were not psychic, and even those who were lacked the genetic compatibility to retain their intelligence and psionic powers through infestation. As a result, most infested terrans lost both, and the great majority were used as disposable suicide bombers.

This changed by 2503, when Sarah Kerrigan solved the problem of infested terrans losing their sentience and could reliably create sentient ones. She used some as her consorts and generals, though their managerial roles were later taken over by powerful zerg called broodmothers.

Effects of infestation#

An infested terran was created when a human was infected with the zerg hyper-evolutionary virus. The victim usually lost most of their intelligence and sanity as their mind was consumed by the zerg. Most became physically stronger, faster, and tougher, developing the ability to burrow along with other typical zerg traits such as rapid healing and the capacity to receive orders psionically. Many infested terrans could explode, sacrificing themselves in a splash of toxic fluid; the resulting blast had a ten-meter radius, produced a large shockwave, and could destroy small structures.

Infestation of resocialized subjects peeled away their false memories in favor of the real ones. Often during infestation, a subject saw a reflection of themselves through which the zerg hive mind spoke, encouraging them to give in to the encroaching will of the Swarm and to join its collective consciousness willingly. If the victim refused, the hive mind could force its consciousness upon them and break them. In appearance, an infested terran was described as looking as if it had been redesigned by a madman with too many spare parts from a variety of species, with growths and tentacles extruding from a body of ruptured features and festering skin covered in carapace.

Strains and types#

Before and during the Great War and the conflict that followed, most infested terrans acted as suicide bombers. The majority were created by infesting command centers, which then released the bombers, and terran scientists theorized that the triggering mechanism of the baneling had been taken from this strain. By the Second Great War, the zerg had developed new strains. One wore a CMC powered combat suit and carried gauss rifles; spawned by the infestor, it had only a short duration, and infestors were known to swallow infested terrans and regurgitate this strain later. Other strains relied on claws. Various infested colonists were also produced during the conflict, often spawned in large numbers from infested colonist huts or from cocoons popped by a very large queen, along with the heavily mutated aberration. Following the End War, feral zerg infested numerous Umojans on Jarban Minor, and newly developed breeds included the volatile infested, the infested banshee, and the infested siege tank, some of which could spit corrosive acid.

Experiments and notable cases#

Infested terrans were the subject of many experiments by zerg, terrans, protoss, and the xel'naga. The greatest single zerg success was the acquisition of Sarah Kerrigan, a ghost and former member of the Sons of Korhal whom the Overmind left with the majority of her spirit, allowing her to retain her intelligence and even some of her humanity. The New Swarm later sought to infest human leaders to turn them into colony rulers of their own, with Alexei Stukov as its first such experiment.

Kerrigan, the Queen of Blades, developed an interest in recreating the experiment that had created her. Though she did not believe she could perfectly duplicate her own change, which she considered perfect, she sought to get close, and specifically pursued psychic terrans even though most of her subjects were non-psionic. Her experiments usually failed, producing defects in intelligence and mobility, until they succeeded with the ex-mercenary and former crime lord Ethan Stewart in 2503, whom she intended to make her consort and who quickly became one of her troop leaders. During the Second Great War she infested refugees on Meinhoff, where the plague spread rapidly and powerful aberrations emerged before falling prey to the planet's harsh sunlight, and the contagion later reached the colony of Haven, where Doctor Ariel Hanson was herself infested. In the war's final months Kerrigan used virophages and infestors to infest Skygeirr Platform in her effort to stop the Hybrid Breeding Program of Emil Narud, after which she ordered Abathur to cease all experimentation on terran subjects.

The cerebrate Kaloth, a survivor of Kerrigan's purge of the cerebrates, conducted its own experiments in infesting human leaders, reanimating the corpse of former United Earth Directorate Vice Admiral Alexei Stukov to create Infested Stukov. Terran factions experimented on the breed as well. The Terran Confederacy stored ardeon crystals tainted with zerg spores in the Jacobs Installation, where mere contact would quickly transform a terran into an infested one, and Confederate remnants created the subject Morik in attempts to restore the mental faculties of the infested. Some terrans devised anti-zerg nanites that preserved a subject's intelligence, producing infested terrans called mutates. The protoss, more interested in destroying infested terrans or reversing the process, developed a radical nanotech serum that successfully freed Infested Stukov for a time. A five-part xel'naga device ultimately held the power to reverse infestation entirely, and Jim Raynor and Crown Prince Valerian Mengsk led a combined force to Char to activate it and restore Kerrigan's humanity.