Matt Horner

Matthew "Matt" D. Horner was a Terran Dominion admiral, captain of the Hyperion, and former member of Raynor's Raiders and the Sons of Korhal. An idealist who joined the rebellion to make a difference, he became Jim Raynor's loyal first officer and the conscience of the Raiders, fighting alongside Raynor and Crown Prince Valerian Mengsk to end the reign of Emperor Arcturus Mengsk and serving in defense of the reformed Terran Dominion through the End War.

An idealist enlists#

Matt Horner was the second son of a minor Tyrador IX merchant, living a safe and boring life while yearning for something more. He found it in the tales of a trader recruiting for the Sons of Korhal, who spoke of the evil empire of the Terran Confederacy and praised those plotting its downfall. Intelligent, youthful, and idealistic, Horner wanted to make a difference and embraced the rebellion's cause.

Following the group's advice, he enlisted in the Confederate Navy, excelled as a pilot, and graduated with honors before deserting to join the Sons of Korhal full-time. Posted to the merchantman Cormorant, a vessel converted for blockade running, he earned a reputation as clever and dependable, rising to first officer as the Great War raged.

The break with Mengsk#

When the Cormorant was called to evacuate the fringe worlds the Confederacy had left to die, Horner was assigned to work with Arcturus Mengsk's newest recruit, Captain Jim Raynor, and quickly grew to admire his bravery and loyalty. He took part in the mission to Orna III alongside Raynor and the rebellion's second-in-command, Sarah Kerrigan, guiding them through the facility from the Cormorant.

When Mengsk used psi-emitters to lure the zerg en masse to Tarsonis, destroying the Confederate capital and countless innocents, Horner was disgusted, seeing one tyrannical regime merely replaced by another. After Raynor broke from the Sons of Korhal, Horner was among the first to follow. When the new Raynor's Raiders seized Mengsk's flagship, the Hyperion, at the Dylarian Shipyards, Horner was assigned to run the ship and eventually became its captain. Two months later, over Char, he made a dangerous emergency warp jump on Raynor's order to escape the infested Kerrigan's zerg, returning months later to recover the surviving Raiders.

Raynor's conscience#

Over the years that followed, Horner took control of the Raiders' small fleet and much of Raynor's military planning. He became hardened by his experiences, but his ideals and resolve remained undimmed even against Dominion propaganda. As Raynor's doubts spread to the crew, Horner kept faith in his commander, trying to act as Raynor's conscience while keeping him focused and firing up the Raiders. It was during this period that he became the unwilling "husband" of the mercenary Mira Han, won as a prize in a poker game at Deadman's Port, a relationship he actively avoided thereafter.

By the Second Great War, Horner still served as Raynor's first officer. He was distrustful of the convict Tychus Findlay, whom he caught accessing the Hyperion's archive without permission, and he continued to worry over Raynor's poor psychological state and drinking. He counseled his friend to let go of his guilt over Kerrigan, and his encouragement helped return Raynor to effective leadership. When the Raiders recovered evidence of Mengsk's hand in the fall of Tarsonis, Horner formed the plan to broadcast it across the Dominion, seizing the prototype walker Odin and using it to take the UNN Studios on Korhal. The resulting riots marked, for Horner, the true beginning of the revolution after years of frustration.

Char and the road to Korhal#

Horner's faith in Raynor was sorely tested when the Raiders learned the Moebius Foundation was owned by Crown Prince Valerian Mengsk. He believed an assault on Char to deinfest Kerrigan was suicidal and the Dominion alliance unethical, and he feared the momentum against Mengsk would be lost, but he uneasily let his commander have his way. As the campaign progressed and Raynor put the belligerent Findlay in his place, Horner came to allow Valerian to prove himself rather than assume he was the same as his father. During the assault on Char he provided advice and support from the Hyperion, tracking drop pods and warning of incoming attacks until the Keystone deinfested Kerrigan.

When Arcturus Mengsk's fleet arrived to claim Kerrigan, Horner devised the maneuver that lured the zerg onto the emperor's flagship and let the rebels escape, and he guided the running flight to Deadman's Port and Space Station Prometheus, taking a gauss round through the arm along the way. Through the rescue of Raynor from the prison ship Moros and the final invasion of Korhal, Horner collaborated with Valerian to evacuate as many civilians as possible while Raynor aided Kerrigan on the front lines, the battle ending with the death of Arcturus Mengsk.

Admiral of the reformed Dominion#

Now an admiral in the Dominion fleet, Horner fought through the End War, taking control of Sky Shield during the defense of Korhal against the Moebius Corps and accepting Mira Han's mercenaries against Amon's forces. In 2508 he joined Raynor in descending into the Void to support Kerrigan and Hierarch Artanis against Amon, and after the war he reaffirmed the military's support for the new Dominion government and its peace negotiations with the protoss.

In the reformed Dominion he served Valerian Mengsk through the Defenders of Man insurgency, sheltering Nova Terra when she was branded a traitor and helping repel the Tal'darim Death Fleet at Vardona. By 2511 he remained admiral of the fleet, voicing caution when the Zerg Swarm under Overqueen Zagara sought aid on Gystt during the One-Day War, jury-rigging a psi-emitter and launching a nuclear strike on Valerian's order, an act he noted felt very much like something Arcturus Mengsk would do. A principled man who always weighed the morality of a choice and disliked drinking while on duty, Horner remained one of the few optimists in the Koprulu sector through every campaign he fought.