Jake Ramsey

Jacob Jefferson "Jake" Ramsey was a talented and intensely curious terran archaeologist, regarded in his field as a maverick. He became a protoss preserver after the dying preserver Zamara forcibly entered his mind, leaving his memories to pass to future generations of preservers. Carrying Zamara and her catalogue of protoss history, Ramsey was pulled into a struggle over the secret heritage of the protoss and the xel'naga, pursued by Valerian Mengsk, the dark archon Ulrezaj, and the Queen of Blades, Sarah Kerrigan.

Early studies and the maverick#

Ramsey was born on Tarsonis, growing up with his parents and his sister Kirsten, and retained fond memories of his life there into adulthood. He became an archaeologist and explored a number of worlds with strange alien ruins, including one he knew as Van Osten's Moon, which was actually a planet, though he was forced to break off that research for lack of funding. During the Great War he lost many friends in the fall of Chau Sara and Mar Sara.

Although talented, Ramsey found his career stagnating after the Brood War, in part because of his maverick theories. He believed that the artifact discovered on Bhekar Ro had been created by an intelligent alien species unknown to the terrans, possibly the ancestor of the protoss and zerg. He was nominated for the Flinders Petrie Award for his excavations on Pegasus but did not win, a lasting source of bitterness. After two years on the inhospitable world of Gelgaris, he received a message from a man who identified himself as Valerian Mengsk, son of Emperor Arcturus Mengsk and a budding archaeologist. Valerian offered full funding to help uncover the secrets of artifacts created by a third alien race that were appearing on various worlds, and hired Ramsey to unearth an artifact on Nemaka related to the one on Bhekar Ro, on the condition that he work with people unfamiliar to him and keep Valerian's identity and certain information secret.

The discovery of Zamara#

Ramsey traveled to Nemaka aboard the Gray Tiger, learning on the way that he was not leading the first expedition there. He was introduced to R. M. Dahl, the leader of a team of private mercenary marines, and befriended Marcus Wright, a resocialized marine with a monstrous past. Exploring the artifact, Ramsey fell through collapsing floors and twisted his ankle, then discovered alien glyphs and a wall that glowed at his touch. Approaching the temple alone one night and recognizing the universal mathematics of the Golden Mean, he drew a Golden Spiral that opened the sealed door. Inside lay a crashed protoss vessel and the crumpled body of a protoss caught in a kind of time bubble. When the bubble popped, the protoss awoke, attacked Dahl, and flooded Ramsey's mind with memories before he passed out.

Ramsey awoke transformed. The emotion and memory centers of his brain had been altered, and he had become a telepath. The voice in his head identified herself as Zamara, the protoss who had died, a preserver able to hold the memories of other protoss, which had come with her when she took residence in his mind. She had an important secret to transmit and would allow nothing, not even Ramsey himself, to interfere with it. She offered to teach him to filter incoming thoughts and altered his brain to make him efficient at telepathy. When Dahl, who had been selling Ramsey to Valerian Mengsk, took him to be handed over, Zamara neutralized Marcus Wright's resocialization to spark a rampage, and Ramsey escaped the Gray Tiger with Dahl in an escape pod.

Flight across the sector#

As Ramsey lapsed in and out of consciousness, Zamara uploaded protoss memories into him, centered on the warrior Temlaa and his mentor Savassan during the Aeon of Strife and their rediscovery of the psionic link that would become the Khala. He developed eidetic memory, a painful gift that made the deaths of his friends feel even more real. Dahl, wanting to keep Ramsey's valuable brain alive and to spite Valerian Mengsk, took the pair to Dead Man's Rock to meet her former lover, the crime lord Ethan Stewart. Ramsey's mind-reading proved vital in seeing through an ambush, but he also learned that Stewart had been in contact with Valerian Mengsk and intended to betray Dahl. Together they took Stewart hostage and fought free of an assassin, with Zamara using a psychokinetic technique that risked damaging Ramsey's incompletely altered brain, before escaping by warp into the unknown.

His psychic outburst drew the attention of Valerian's ghost Devon Starke, of Kerrigan, and of the powerful dark archon Ulrezaj, the latter two more interested in the preserver in his head than in Ramsey himself. Zamara directed the party to Aiur, where the zerg stranded them, but a band of protoss called the Shel'na Kryhas rescued them. Zamara sought a pure Khaydarin crystal from a cavern guarded by the Tal'darim, protoss who had mentally regressed to the Aeon of Strife and served a Benefactor, the Xava'tor, whom Zamara identified as Ulrezaj. She revealed her purpose: to store herself in the crystal so her presence would no longer feed the brain tumor growing in Ramsey, and to reactivate the warp gate to reach Shakuras, where the Dark Templar could transfer her mind. After a battle in which the protoss sacrificed themselves to stop Ulrezaj, Ramsey, Dahl, and the survivors escaped through the warp gate.

Zeratul and Ehlna#

Redirected to an ice world when the Shakuras gate guards sealed their end, and suffering seizures as multiple tumors killed him, Ramsey was taken by Zamara to the sanctuary world of the Dark Templar Zeratul. Recognizing Ramsey as soul-sick, Zeratul at first refused to speak with them, but Zamara's situation drew out his curiosity, and the two traded stories. Ramsey told him that killing Raszagal at her own request to break Kerrigan's control had been honorable, even if failing to follow her instructions to lead the Nerazim was not. Zeratul, losing control, strangled Ramsey but let him go, and later returned having learned from terrans never to give up. Zamara revealed to him the life cycle of the xel'naga and that the hybrids were not a natural part of it.

Zeratul accompanied them to Ehlna, a Dark Templar sanctuary world where Zamara could be removed. As the operation proceeded, the site was attacked by zerg under the infested Ethan Stewart, by Ulrezaj, and finally by Dominion forces under Valerian Mengsk. Zamara was successfully removed and used the moon's energies to trap Ulrezaj inside her crystal with her. The Dominion won the battle, and Ramsey, now bereft of psionic power but still bearing tumors, surrendered to Valerian's forces. Arcturus Mengsk wanted to drain his knowledge despite Ramsey's willingness to hand it over, but Valerian stalled his father until Ramsey's tumors could be removed, and Devon Starke sacrificed himself to buy the time needed for Ramsey and Dahl to escape.

Author and aftermath#

Ramsey later chronicled his experiences with the protoss in a digi-tome titled Alien Enigmas, releasing an audio fragment from his collection in anticipation of publication and theorizing in an interview that the protoss now living on Shakuras were embracing change to avoid Aiur's fate. At some point before the Second Great War he informed Valerian of a xel'naga device that could hypothetically de-infest the Queen of Blades, a theory that proved correct at Char.

After years of running, Ramsey was forced to work for the Dominion under Project Blackstone, with Arcturus Mengsk using Rosemary Dahl as leverage. Assigned beta-level clearance, he discovered that live protoss were being experimented on and could hear their suffering despite no longer being a psychic. When the lead scientist's secret release of zerglings turned the facility into a death trap, Ramsey survived a week-long siege alongside the former ghost Leah Martine, who ultimately abandoned the survivors. Valerian Mengsk, now head of the Dominion, arrived to rescue them and offered Ramsey continued work researching xel'naga artifacts, reuniting him with Dahl.

Character and abilities#

Ramsey stood over six feet tall and was an exceptional poker player, counting cards naturally. His integration with Zamara gave him deep insight into the protoss psyche and culture but left adverse effects, making him prone to mood swings and a sense of detachment from his fellow terrans, and the recurring headaches caused by his exposure could not be medically treated. While joined with Zamara he possessed telepathic abilities he never fully controlled, and after her removal he lost his telepathy but developed precognitive and empathic powers.