Phoenix

The phoenix was a protoss air superiority fighter, a deadly and highly maneuverable spacecraft designed for aerial harassment and able to outmaneuver almost any foe. In use by 2502, it rapidly replaced the older scouts and corsairs in the role of air superiority fighter, and its patrols became a common sight on the outer rim of protoss territory, where they swept deep space for alien threats. A single phoenix strike force could keep an enemy army pinned down even when vastly outnumbered.

Propulsion and design#

The phoenix was propelled by a compact inertial drive that surrounded the craft in a warp field, allowing swift displacement in deep space or planetary atmospheres. Twin high-power plasma thrusters supplemented the drive, making the phoenix a formidable interceptor. An energy weave covered its wings, giving them an appearance akin to a circuit board; in reality the weave was made of light-reactive fibers that absorbed, channeled, and redirected all types of energy, including the pilot's psionic input. Its primary function was to maintain the coherence of the warp field that sheathed the fuselage and to enhance the ship's stability and maneuverability when it banked, rolled, or slid at high speed.

Armament#

The phoenix carried twin ion blasters highly suited to air-to-air combat, weapons that disintegrated their targets through short-wavelength energy beams composed of negatively charged ions. The blasters could only be used against aerial targets, and were designed to allow the phoenix to fire while on the move, though their short wavelength limited the travel distance of each shot and the damage done to heavily armored foes. The cannons' effective range presented a problem until the protoss began replacing the old focusing lenses with the more advanced anion pulse-crystals.

When confronted by more dangerous enemies, a pilot could unleash a short-lived gravity beam by overloading the ship's warp field through its inertial drive. The result was a beam of anti-gravity that turned its target into a near-weightless object, immobilizing it for a few precious seconds, though at the cost of the phoenix's own mobility. The beam had originally been conceived as a weapon of last resort but was later embraced by the Great Fleet as an effective control weapon. In 2506 the phase-smith Karax used solarite to improve the phoenix's power management systems, allowing it to target multiple enemies with the gravity beam and to use the beam without diverting power from its weapons or propulsion.

Pilots and desperate tactics#

Sophisticated and lethal as the phoenix was, a patrol squadron all too often found itself heavily outnumbered by zerg or terran enemies. To overcome this, phoenix pilots developed a dangerous counter-ploy: by overloading the warp field through the ship's ion blasters, a pilot could unleash a short-lived storm of destruction devastating enough to destroy a large number of enemies at once. The cost was severe, for in the aftermath the phoenix was left temporarily powerless and crippled, and wary foes learned to flee an overload and return moments later to destroy the helpless craft. In turn, pilots began to use staggered discharges to catch their enemies in a web of destruction. Protoss commanders frowned on these desperate tactics but came to accept them tacitly as a necessity. Among the phoenix's known pilots was Admiral Urun.

Phoenixes among the other protoss#

The Tal'darim had incorporated the phoenix into their arsenal by 2504; despite their preference for overwhelming force, they understood the value of being swift and deadly, and kept a fleet of phoenixes stolen from the Templar. The Purifiers regularly favored their mirages, an automated variant of the phoenix, but retained a fleet of automated phoenixes for occasions when the mirage's phasing technology was not needed. In the reconstruction period after the End War, the Shelak Tribe commissioned a number of phoenixes modeled after Judicator Caste escort ships, which despite their craftsmanship became controversial symbols. The Ihan-rii built their phoenixes from stone, which did not inhibit the craft's maneuverability or top speed but made them formidable missiles when crash-landing.