Selendis

Selendis is the current protoss High Executor, a celebrated warrior who rose as the protege of Artanis and became one of the most accomplished commanders of the Daelaam. (One People, One Purpose; StarCraft: The Dark Templar Saga: Twilight)

Early service#

Under the Protoss Empire, Selendis served as a liaison between Executor Tassadar and Artanis, serving as the protege of the latter. By the time of the Second Great War she held the rank of executor, and after the End War she became High Executor. An accomplished warrior, she had dealt thousands of deaths over the course of her service, some of them directly by her own hand. (StarCraft: The Dark Templar Saga: Twilight; StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty; One People, One Purpose)

The Brood War and its aftermath#

Shortly after the fall of Aiur and the successful defense and activation of the xel'naga temple of Shakuras, Selendis took part in a mission to rescue three heroes from Aiur. The mission was interrupted by the dark archon Ulrezaj, who slew two of the three before being captured along with several of his followers. She also became aware of the Shel'na Kryhas, protoss survivors stranded on Aiur, but did not believe it was possible to save them; she, Zeratul, and Artanis agreed to keep their presence secret. (StarCraft: The Dark Templar Saga: Twilight)

In 2503, Selendis was confronted with a dilemma when former Tal'darim and a terran, Rosemary Dahl, emerged through the temple of Shakuras, claiming to have escaped Ulrezaj. The Tal'darim were taken to be purged of their addiction to the drug Sundrop, while Dahl was imprisoned. Distrustful of terrans, Selendis was unwilling to believe Dahl's account of a mission to rescue Jake Ramsey, who carried within him the preserver Zamara. Once Dahl's story could be verified, Selendis began to treat her with greater respect and even championed her cause before the Hierarchy, persuading Artanis partly through careful manipulation of the leaders' egos. She nominated herself to lead the mission to hunt down Ulrezaj for his crimes against the protoss, including the slaughter of preservers, and convinced the Nerazim leader Mohandar to reveal the location of the Dark Templar sanctuary moon of Ehlna. (StarCraft: The Dark Templar Saga: Twilight; StarCraft II: Heaven's Devils)

At the Alys'aril, as Ramsey underwent an operation to remove Zamara, zerg under the command of Ethan Stewart appeared, and Selendis found she could not enter the Khala there to call for reinforcements. She negotiated with Stewart to delay him, but Ulrezaj returned to the battlefield and the situation collapsed into open fighting. When a Terran Dominion force under Valerian Mengsk severely injured Stewart, Selendis severed his head herself to protect Dahl from her own vengeance, a mercy Dahl did not welcome. Selendis vanished before the Dominion could claim the site, and a protoss fleet later arrived to drive them away. (StarCraft: The Dark Templar Saga: Twilight)

Haven and the Golden Armada#

The protoss remained wary of zerg encroachment, and they found it on Haven, a world near protoss space settled by terran refugees from Agria. When a zerg infestation virus broke out among the colonists, Selendis led a fleet to purify the planet. Before the purification could begin, Jim Raynor and his Raiders arrived to investigate at the request of Doctor Ariel Hanson, who sought time to develop a cure. Selendis cordially greeted Raynor and explained her intentions. What followed depends on the player's choice in Wings of Liberty: if Raynor refuses to allow the purification while hope of a cure remains, her fleet attacks and is repulsed, and as she withdraws Selendis hopes the terrans will be vindicated and thinks no less of Raynor for opposing her; if he sides with her, he agrees the situation is too dire to wait and has the Raiders purge the infected colony in the protoss' stead. (StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty)

Selendis helped construct the Golden Armada, a fleet built to reclaim Aiur from the zerg. The effort caused tension between the Khalai and the Nerazim on Shakuras, who feared the Khalai's single-minded drive to reclaim Aiur was risking Nerazim culture. When the dark templar Taelus seized the Citadel hoping to spark open hostilities, Artanis ordered Selendis to clear it with a squad of zealots. Vorazun and Mohandar intervened to negotiate, and in the fighting both Taelus and Mohandar were killed. Selendis stood her zealots down, expressing irritation at Vorazun's rash action but saying nothing further. (Children of the Void)

The End War and Amon's thrall#

Selendis was present with the Golden Armada when the Daelaam launched its attempted reclamation of Aiur. When Dark Prelate Zeratul appeared on the bridge to warn that Amon had returned and that the invasion must be called off, Selendis ordered the Templar to arrest the traitor, reminding those present that it was Zeratul's actions in the Great War that had allowed the zerg to find and invade the planet. Artanis chose to hear the Nerazim out but judged that too many lives had already been lost to turn back, and ordered Selendis to begin warping their forces in. He soon turned command of the invasion over to her while he withdrew to speak further with Zeratul. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)

When Selendis lost contact with Artanis, she asked Zeratul to lead a force to find him. Like many of the Khalai, she then fell under Amon's thrall through his corruption of the Khala, and after being cast out of Artanis she served as Amon's own vessel, leading her fellow thralls against the Daelaam. Her former comrades escaped Aiur aboard the Spear of Adun. Having gathered new allies, the Daelaam re-launched its invasion, and after Amon's body was destroyed the Golden Armada arrived under Selendis' command. In the final stage of the battle she defeated many zealots before Artanis held her off in the temple. When the freed Templar briefly regained their senses, Artanis asked them to sever their nerve cords to be free of Amon forever. Though she doubted the decision, Selendis was the first to cut her nerve cord, and all the others followed her. Later, aboard the Spear of Adun at Ulnar, she expressed vocal distrust of Sarah Kerrigan's motives when Artanis answered the Queen of Blades' call. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)

Life without the Khala#

In the aftermath of the war, Selendis struggled to adapt to life without the Khala and worked to find a purpose beyond the psionic gestalt that had bound her people. She found herself unable to contend with an enemy she could not fight, and struggled to communicate with others without the emotional connection the Khala had once provided. While in Aldera, she was notified of the mysterious death of a former Khalai Caste member named Eranis, whose self-inflicted wounds were connected to a strange device attached to the stubs of his nerve cords. She brought the corpse to the lab of Karax, where, alongside Talandar and Hierarch Artanis, they discovered that the device channeled Void energies directly through the nerve cords. (One People, One Purpose)

The investigation led to a protoss named Lantharis, who had combined stolen Nerazim technology with Purifier enhancements in an attempt to create a replacement for the Khala, though the jury-rigged technology was killing some who interfaced with it. Forced to ally with the Nerazim Nerath, whose family had designed the base of the stolen device, Selendis tracked and confronted Lantharis. In the aftermath, she joined Karax, Talandar, Nerath, and Artanis in discussing how to fill the emptiness the loss of the Khala had left, but found herself unable to offer a solution. She later performed the funeral rites for Eranis when no one else would, vaporizing his body and spreading his ashes to the stars, with a final promise from Nerath to help her find her own way through the silence. (One People, One Purpose)

Personality#

Selendis is an accomplished warrior who, over the course of her service, dealt thousands of deaths, some directly at her hands. In the period after the Brood War, she regarded the Nerazim as a threat to her heritage and saw them as overly smug, though she was willing to work beside them; she even gained a reputation among more tolerant Templar of being biased against the Dark Templar. After the End War she still held that prejudice but resolved to overcome it. Like many protoss, she holds deep respect for Jim Raynor because of his services to Aiur. She does not care for the Golden Age-style Templar armor that came into fashion after the End War, much preferring her own modern-styled armor that fits her slim frame. (One People, One Purpose; StarCraft: The Dark Templar Saga: Twilight; Colossus; StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty)