Protoss

The protoss, called the "Firstborn" in their own tongue of Khalani, were a sapient humanoid species native to Aiur whose advanced technology complemented and enhanced their mastery of psionics. Their two principal cultural groups were the Khalai, who followed the Khala, and the Nerazim, who rejected it, with further branches in the Tal'darim, the Purifiers, and the Ihan-rii. Alongside the zerg and the terrans, the protoss were one of the three dominant species of the Milky Way, and the most technologically advanced of them, though their civilization was repeatedly sundered and reunified across its long history.

Uplift and the Aeon of Strife#

The protoss were discovered by Amon and his followers on Aiur, a world the xel'naga had previously engineered. Nearing the end of their life cycle and seeking a species to achieve purity of form, the xel'naga were drawn to the protoss by their natural mental connection. Amon uplifted them, accelerated their evolution, and after a millennium of subtle guidance the xel'naga revealed themselves and descended to Aiur. The protoss revered Amon and his followers as gods, calling them the Ihan-rii, the Great Teachers, the Makers, and the Guardians, and learned much from them. In time they grew wary of their creators, rebelled, and attacked their ships, killing hundreds. Amon and his followers left, and the protoss fell into the Aeon of Strife, a period of brutal civil war.

The Strife ended when a protoss named Savassan, later called Khas, discovered the khaydarin crystals the xel'naga had left behind and used them to recreate the psionic link that had once bound the tribes together. This became the basis of a new philosophy, the Khala, and the foundation of a caste-based society. Around 1500 by terran reckoning, the Conclave moved to exterminate heretics who had cut themselves off from the Khala. Executor Adun refused to kill them and instead taught them to hide, but when the rogues lost control of their powers and were discovered, they were secretly banished from Aiur aboard an ancient xel'naga ship. These exiles became the Nerazim.

The Fall of Aiur#

By 2499 the protoss had become aware of the zerg, another xel'naga creation, attacking the terrans who had settled the Koprulu sector two centuries earlier. The Conclave dispatched Executor Tassadar to purify the infested worlds, but his force failed. The survivors traveled to the zerg world of Char, where Tassadar struck an alliance with the Dark Templar prelate Zeratul and learned of a weakness in the zerg command structure that only the Dark Templar could exploit. Meanwhile the main zerg force fell upon Aiur.

When Tassadar brought Zeratul to Aiur, civil war broke out between his followers and the Conclave's. Tassadar's faction prevailed, and his forces then assaulted the Overmind itself. Tassadar died in the battle, having channeled Dark Templar void energies to destroy the Overmind, but seventy percent of the protoss on Aiur were killed. The survivors fled to Shakuras, the Dark Templar homeworld, pursued by a zerg faction. There they were drawn, through the manipulations of Sarah Kerrigan and her minion Samir Duran, into destroying the second Overmind, an act that made Kerrigan the sole leader of the Swarm. When the protoss attempted a revenge strike, Duran abandoned her to pursue protoss-zerg hybridization experiments, which Zeratul discovered before exiling himself for several years.

The End War and the loss of the Khala#

The protoss spent years rebuilding the Golden Armada, and in 2506 launched it to retake Aiur. The attempt coincided with the return of Amon, who corrupted the Khala and possessed every protoss connected to it. Hierarch Artanis gathered the survivors aboard the arkship Spear of Adun and set out to find a means of fighting Amon. The Daelaam retrieved the Keystone, evacuated the Nerazim from Shakuras before the planet fell, and followed Zeratul's lead to the xel'naga temple of Ulnar, only to find the xel'naga within already dead.

Artanis then united the ancient Purifiers and the Tal'darim with the Daelaam and moved to reclaim his homeworld. The attack succeeded: Aiur was retaken, and the Keystone was used to pull Amon from the Khala while the protoss severed their nerve cords, ending the Khala forever and thrusting Amon back into the Void. With the aid of the Dominion and the Zerg Swarm, the protoss then pushed into the Void and slew Amon. In the years that followed, the protoss struggled to heal the racial wounds of their history and to cope with the loss of purpose that the Khala's destruction had left behind.

Physiology and mind#

Protoss typically stood between two and three meters tall, with two glowing eyes, digitigrade legs, scaled and semi-permeable skin, and a bony crest extending back from the crown of the head. Beneath the crest, nerve cords emerging from the back of the head allowed them to access their racial psionic gestalt, the basis of the Khala. Aside from their eyes they had no facial orifices, lacking mouths, noses, and visible ears, and they derived sustenance from light rather than food, absorbing energy across a wide range of the electromagnetic spectrum. They possessed three hearts set so closely together that many regarded them as one organ, and their blood was a dark blue-purple. A protoss could live up to a thousand years, though they grew weaker with age, and the species was never prolific, its population kept low and in decline through age and conflict.

Their psionic abilities ran further than those of terran ghosts. Protoss were natural mind-readers who had to learn to filter, block, and release the thoughts of others, and they communicated telepathically, either by emotionless "speaking" or through the nerve-cord link that carried emotion and formed the heart of the Khala. They could shield themselves, charge their tools and weapons, and meld or manipulate matter, and the powers of the Khala and the Void both protected them from zerg infestation. Eye color corresponded to kindred: predominantly blue among the Khalai, green among the Nerazim, and red among the Tal'darim.

Culture and technology#

Protoss culture was built around core philosophies adhered to rigidly for over a millennium, which made their society slow to adapt. The Khalai traced their culture to the end of the Aeon of Strife and the caste system Khas established, dividing society into the Judicator, Khalai, and Templar castes. The protoss were a warrior race who trained incessantly for combat, prized glory, honor, and a strict code of justice, and considered dying with honor preferable to surviving through cowardice; they regarded the ranged weapons of terrans as cowardly even as they recognized the need for them. They had once worshipped the xel'naga as gods, and a number of protoss heroes, Khas, Adun, Tassadar, Zeratul, and Artanis, were honored with formal phrases such as "En Taro Adun."

The protoss were the most technologically advanced race in the galaxy, blending psionics with conventional engineering to a degree that some terran scientists found inadequate to call technology at all. Their weaponry was energy-based, their metals durable enough to resist decay and corrosion for centuries, and their armor often carried teleportation systems that whisked a mortally wounded warrior to safety. Those too badly injured to fight on but unwilling to join their ancestors in the Khala could be placed within the shells of cybernetic walkers such as the dragoon or immortal. Because of their low numbers the protoss relied heavily on robots and automated war constructs, and they deliberately limited their use of technology, wary of what they might unleash with it.