Legacy of the Void Ending Explained: Amon, the Void and the Epilogue

StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void came out on 10 November 2015. It is the third and last part of the StarCraft II trilogy, following the protoss Hierarch Artanis through the End War against Amon, the fallen xel'naga behind the whole saga. Its three-mission epilogue, Into the Void, brings back Sarah Kerrigan and Jim Raynor to finish the story that began in the original StarCraft. This page goes through the campaign in order and then explains the ending, with full spoilers. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)

Before the story begins#

Heart of the Swarm ended with Kerrigan killing Emperor Arcturus Mengsk on Korhal and leading the Swarm away to hunt Amon. His son Valerian Mengsk took the throne. Before that, Kerrigan had killed Emil Narud, the same being as Brood War's Samir Duran, who warned her as he died that Amon was coming back. (StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm)

Amon had been pulling strings since the first game. He was the Dark Voice that enslaved the Overmind, and his servants had been breeding hybrids of protoss and zerg for years. In Wings of Liberty, Zeratul saw a vision of the future Amon wanted: every race dead, and Kerrigan, the one who might have stopped it, killed before her time. (StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty)

The trap on Aiur#

A short prologue follows Zeratul to the Tal'darim temple on Atrias, where Highlord Ma'lash was taking orders from Amon. Amon's power brought the temple down, and Zeratul escaped with the last piece of the prophecy he had been chasing. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)

Artanis then led the Golden Armada to retake Aiur from the zerg left there since Brood War. In the middle of the attack, Amon reached through the Khala, the psionic link every Khalai protoss shares through their nerve cords, and took control of them all. Zeratul arrived too late to warn them. He cut Artanis's nerve cords to free him and was killed by the possessed Hierarch. Artanis escaped with the survivors aboard the Spear of Adun, an ancient arkship brought back to life by the phase-smith Karax. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)

Gathering the protoss#

Most of the campaign is Artanis rebuilding an army. He helped Matriarch Vorazun save the Nerazim, who had never joined the Khala and so could not be possessed, and then destroyed Shakuras with Amon's forces still on it. He won over the Purifiers, machine warriors whose copy of Fenix, Talandar, came to lead them. He helped Alarak kill Ma'lash so that the Tal'darim turned on the god they had worshipped. On Korhal he saved Augustgrad from the Moebius Corps with Raynor's help and took the Keystone, which Karax realised could be used to trap Amon. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)

What Ulnar revealed#

At the xel'naga temple of Ulnar, Artanis fought beside Kerrigan and learned the truth about the xel'naga. They lived by an Infinite Cycle: they seeded life and waited for a race pure of form and a race pure of essence to arise, then gave up their own essence so those races could become the next xel'naga. Amon refused to be replaced. He uplifted the protoss and the zerg himself so he could merge them into the hybrids, a race under his control that would wipe out all life and let him remake the universe. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)

The other xel'naga were dead. That hit Artanis hard, because it meant the beings his people had worshipped as their makers had in fact been Amon. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)

Retaking Aiur#

The allied army went back to Aiur and destroyed Amon's host body, grown from protoss flesh and the dead Overmind. That left Amon living only in the Khala and the possessed protoss, led by Executor Selendis. Artanis's forces held the Keystone while it charged, and Artanis fought Selendis hand to hand. When the Keystone fired it purged Amon from the Khala for a moment, and Artanis told the freed templar to cut their nerve cords. Selendis went first and the rest followed. The Keystone gave way, and with no hosts left, Amon was thrown back into the Void, and Aiur was protoss again in the Reclamation of Aiur. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)

Into the Void#

The epilogue begins with a problem. Amon was beaten but not dead, and in the Void he would only grow stronger. Kerrigan called on Artanis and Raynor, and they followed her through the gate at Ulnar into the Void itself. There they found that Narud had survived in the Void as well. The allied fleets killed him and freed his prisoner, Ouros, one of the last xel'naga, who had been chained there by Amon. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)

Ouros was dying, and he explained the one way left to win. Only another xel'naga could kill Amon inside the Void, because the Void was an extension of his will. Ouros offered to pass his essence to Kerrigan, the only one strong enough to hold it. She accepted. While the transfer took place, Raynor, Artanis and Zagara held off Amon's Void creatures. When it was done, Ouros faded away and Kerrigan rose as a xel'naga. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)

The allied armies then broke through the Void crystals that shielded Amon. He told Kerrigan she had been a pawn of the cycle her whole life. She answered that she cared nothing for his cycle and chose freedom for every living thing, and she destroyed him. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)

The ending explained#

The aftermath ties off each thread. Zagara took command of the Swarm. Artanis led the Daelaam, the united protoss, on a reclaimed Aiur, this time without the Khala. Valerian stayed on as Emperor of the Dominion. Some time later Kerrigan came back in human form to the bar on Mar Sara where the trilogy started, and Raynor got up and left with her. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)

What it means comes down to three things. First, the Infinite Cycle came full circle. Amon tried to break it by making his own merged race, but the cycle got its successor anyway: Kerrigan, who had been infested by the zerg, the race pure of essence, and had then been reborn on Zerus as the Primal Queen of Blades. The Overmind made her in the first game hoping she could free the zerg from Amon. In the end she did more than that. (StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty; StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm; StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)

Second, the protoss paid for their victory with the Khala itself. The link that had united them for thousands of years was the doorway Amon used, so the Khalai cut it, and the Daelaam rebuilt Aiur as a people who had to talk to each other. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)

Third, Raynor got the ending he spent three games fighting for. He brought Kerrigan back on Char, lost her again when she went back to the Swarm, and kept faith in her through all of it. The last scene is the payoff: she came back for him. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)

A few questions remain. The game never says where Kerrigan and Raynor went or what a xel'naga does now that the cycle has a new shepherd. The timing is loose too. The epilogue puts the final battle soon after Aiur, while the timeline printed in StarCraft: Evolution dates it to 2508. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void; StarCraft: Evolution)

Where it fits#

Legacy of the Void closes the story told across StarCraft and Brood War and the StarCraft II trilogy, covered in full in StarCraft II story explained. One more chapter follows. Nova Covert Ops picks up after the End War, with the ghost Nova Terra uncovering a plot against Emperor Valerian. The StarCraft timeline places everything in order. (StarCraft II: Nova Covert Ops)