Second Age

The Second Age was the era of protoss history that followed the founding of the Khala, the philosophy through which the prophet Khas ended the Aeon of Strife and reunited his fractured people. With the old tribal feuds set aside, the protoss reorganized themselves into a caste society, rebuilt their civilization on their homeworld of Aiur, and resumed the spacefaring expansion that would carry them across the xel'naga's former domain. It was a period of renewed unity, prosperity, and discovery that laid the foundations of the protoss empire later generations would inherit.

From the Aeon of Strife to the Khala#

The Second Age was born out of the Aeon of Strife, the long darkness in which the protoss had devolved into warring legions consumed by hatred for their own kind, having lost the primal psychic bond their ancestors once shared. The individual most responsible for ending that darkness was a protoss eventually named Khas, meaning He Who Brings Order. Khas studied the forbidden teachings of the xel'naga and unearthed the khaydarin crystals, channeling their primal energies through himself until he accessed the buried psychic link and became the first in millennia to do so. Flooded by the emotions of every protoss, he realized that his people had never truly lost their connection but had only forgotten how to attune themselves to it.

Khas gathered young protoss together and taught them to reach the bond, then developed the Khala and called upon his people to forgo their old feuds and reunite. The Ara Tribe rallied to his vision first, and the dominant Akilae Tribe soon recognized that it heralded a bold new beginning. As tribe after tribe gave up its feuds and joined the growing ranks of the Khalai, the long civil war came to an end and the Second Age began.

The caste system#

While the old tribes were kept intact as a reminder of past follies, the Khala called for a shift from tribal society to a caste system, so as to remove the last remnants of hostility and strengthen the resolve to embrace a new beginning. Three castes defined the new order. The Judicator Caste was made up of elders and statesmen whose chief responsibility was governing the protoss under the dictates of the Khala's Law; the Ara held power within the Judicator Assembly and so controlled who presided in the ruling Conclave. The Judicators banned all xel'naga teachings but appointed the Shelak to study and protect the khaydarin crystals, hoping that unraveling the mysteries of the xel'naga might expand protoss knowledge through the Khala.

The Khalai Caste was the largest, comprising the driving industrialists, scientists, and workers who rebuilt their homelands after the Strife, with the Furinax serving as weaponsmiths and builders obsessed with merging the sacred energies of the khaydarin crystals with modern technology. The Templar Caste was made up of the holy warriors who followed the Khala's disciplines toward ever-escalating pinnacles of psionic power, and the Akilae were entrusted with the defense of Aiur itself.

Rebuilding and expansion#

Under the new order the protoss flourished. They built five cities and thirty-eight temples across Aiur, and their population swelled to billions. Their growing prosperity led them to rediscover many of the sciences and studies lost during the Aeon of Strife, and once they had relearned space travel the Auriga were charged with servicing the Great Fleet that protected the space-ways of their homeworld. The Templar fought first to protect the new culture from those who rejected it, then turned to defending their people from fearsome fauna and hostile aliens as the protoss settled other worlds.

As they ventured into the far reaches of the Koprulu sector, the protoss claimed Khyrador among their first colonies, building ten settlements and two temples there and making it home to one of the divided khaydarin crystals as a symbol of their spacefaring achievements. Much of this exploration took place under the guidance of Executor Adun, whose careful diplomacy quelled disputes with other races at minimal cost. Over a few centuries the protoss reclaimed an eighth of the worlds once presided over by the xel'naga, spreading their civilization to many of the more advanced races they encountered.

The Dae'Uhl and the works of the Age#

In keeping with the strict codes of the Khala, the protoss took upon themselves the burden of the Dae'Uhl, a duty that followed xel'naga tradition by calling on them to protect and safeguard lesser races while keeping their own presence hidden. Unlike the xel'naga, however, the protoss refused to manipulate or interfere in the evolution of their wards, instead keeping a close and vigilant watch against threats they could not see for themselves.

The Second Age was also a period of great invention. On the research retreat of Endion, the greatest protoss scientists secluded themselves from political affairs to devise technologies that would benefit the empire, and it was there that the psionic matrix was first conceived. Formed from a lattice of khaydarin crystals embedded in Aiur's crust at the Citadel of the Executor, a temple, and the xel'naga caverns, the matrix was sparked in 500 B.C.E. The Purifiers, artificial warriors created to do the bidding of the Conclave, also belonged to this era, but when they rebelled and slaughtered the Templar of Lantinum after being denied the standing of true warriors, it was decided that they would be shut down, and they became a symbol both of protoss achievement and of its dangers.

Legacy#

The unity of the Second Age was never perfect, and the seeds of later division were sown within it. A few rogue tribes, drawn most heavily from the Sargas, refused to submit to the Khala out of fear that their individual identities would be erased, and after Executor Adun secretly spared rather than executed them, their untrained powers spiraled into storms that ravaged the protoss colonies. To preserve the secret, the Conclave banished them from Aiur, and these exiles became the Dark Templar, who severed their nerve cords, drew their power from the Void, and eventually settled on Shakuras. In time they would form the Nerazim, the tribe whose long estrangement from their Khalai brethren would shape protoss history for ages to come.

The Second Age gave way to the Golden Age of Expansion, the era in which motherships led vast armadas through deep space and the protoss reached the height of their artistic and cultural achievement. The institutions forged during the Second Age, the Conclave, the castes, the Dae'Uhl, and the Khala itself, endured as the bedrock of protoss society until the coming of the zerg and the fall of Aiur brought the old order to its end.