Mothership

The mothership was a powerful protoss capital ship, a mighty support vessel and one of the most powerful warships in the protoss arsenal. Motherships served as the flagships of the Golden Armada and greatly exceeded the size of any Terran Dominion military vessel, their bulk surpassed only by the zerg leviathan. A single mothership could turn the tide of a battle, and its full power could wipe out squadrons of enemy ships in the blink of an eye or lay waste to entire planets. (Mothership (StarCraft II official site); StarCraft Field Manual; StarCraft II War Chest)

Design and capabilities#

The mothership was costly and time-consuming to produce, and so the protoss came to construct them in two stages, with the mothership core as the first step. Its hull, comprising three slowly rotating wings, projected a tightly woven energy dome that sustained a breathable atmosphere within the vessel and turned harmful deep-space radiation into surplus energy for plasma shields and primary systems. The hull plating was unusually thick, its exact resiliency unknown to Dominion scientists. The vessels were built for redundancy: damage to a single wing would not disrupt combat systems, and short-range teleporters moved crew rapidly between the gaps in the wings. A single crew member could pilot the ship for simple warps, while more complex operations required a full crew, who lived among waking chambers, crew quarters, a med-bay, and escape pods. (Mothership Core (StarCraft II official site); Mothership (StarCraft II official site); StarCraft Field Manual; Mothership)

At the heart of each mothership lay a huge khaydarin crystal infused with an incredible amount of psionic energy, which dissipated quickly into the gaps between the wings after being discharged. By tapping this energy a mothership could warp or crack the very fabric of space-time. Once fully operational, the vessel absorbed the dissipating power through its wings and projected it as a wide cloaking field, rendering nearby protoss forces, structures, and allies invisible to the naked eye, though the mothership itself gained no protection from it. For combat the ship was equipped with a purifier beam, its primary means of defense, firing in controlled bursts against air and ground targets. (Mothership (StarCraft II official site); StarCraft Field Manual)

Origins in the Golden Age#

The motherships were designed by Juras and constructed during the protoss Golden Age of Expansion as deep-space exploration vessels, leading armadas of protoss ships through the stars. The Templar Caste successfully petitioned for modifications, and the final design included weapons; some vessels were eventually converted into military command ships. (Mothership; Mothership (StarCraft II official site))

In the midst of the Golden Age, an imperfection was discovered in the way a mothership vented excess energy between its wings while maneuvering in unusually high gravity. The flaw lay in the khaydarin crystal cores, and it caused two motherships to fail in the gravity well of a neutron star, killing 8,463 protoss in one of the greatest losses of life of the entire age. In response the Khalai Caste developed two inventions: the technology that allowed motherships to mass recall away from danger, and the arkship, a massive vessel meant to guard the wider Protoss Empire against a similar random tragedy. (It Will End in Fire)

The surviving motherships were not recalled at the end of the Golden Age. Most were left at the farthest reaches of protoss exploration as titanic monuments and holy shrines, commemorating an honored way of life and a proud period of history, their crews placed in stasis in the expectation that the ships would not be needed again. One exception was High Templar Rihod's mothership, which remained active and whose crew aided lower-technology aliens struck by disaster. (Mothership (StarCraft II official site); Mothership; StarCraft: Frontline Volume 3)

Recall and the wars that followed#

The zerg attack on Aiur during the Great War forced a re-evaluation, and the motherships were recalled to service by High Templar Erekul, though too late to alter the course of the war. Among the reactivated ships was Moratun, the original mothership, crewed solely by its designer Juras. Moratun rescued zealots from a besieged colony before traveling to Aiur, but it and other empty motherships arrived in the system only after the Khalai had evacuated to Shakuras, and the fleet was forced to find the Dark Templar homeworld on its own, manned by the few survivors who could be found. Rihod's mothership was deliberately kept away from Aiur for fear it might be lost in combat. (Mothership (StarCraft II official site); Mothership; StarCraft: Frontline Volume 3)

The motherships were reunited with the protoss during the Interbellum and taken over by the Templar Caste, and since their return from deep space they became an important part of the protoss war effort and the Golden Armada. During the End War many were lost to the control of Amon, and the Daelaam was forced to engage them during the final assault on Aiur. As Aiur was rebuilt a renewed cultural interest in the Golden Age of Expansion brought a wave of support and care for the ancient ships. (Mothership (StarCraft II official site); Mothership Core (StarCraft II official site); StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void; StarCraft II War Chest)

Variants and commanders#

The Tal'darim also fielded motherships. The vessels of their Death Fleet were equipped for battlefield domination, each one serving as a throne from which a Tal'darim fleet lord oversaw the ruin of their foes. The Ihan-rii adorned their motherships with runes declaring their order the only true descendants of the xel'naga. Known motherships and commanders across protoss history included Moratun, and commanders such as Hierarch Artanis, Executor Nyon, Commander Rihod, and Juras himself. (StarCraft II War Chest; StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty; StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void; StarCraft: Frontline Volume 3; Mothership)