Shakuras

Shakuras was the homeworld of the Nerazim, the Dark Templar protoss who settled it after their exile from Aiur. A desert world fixed in perpetual twilight, it was home to a warp gate and a Xel'Naga temple built above a nexus of powerful cosmic energies, and its capital was Talematros. Shakuras sheltered the Khalai refugees who fled the zerg invasion of Aiur during the Brood War, and it was ultimately destroyed by its own people to deny it to Amon during the End War.

A twilight world#

Shakuras possessed at least two moons of different sizes and a gas giant in its star system. It was a desert planet of ebony rock fixed in a state of perpetual twilight, with no clear difference between night and day. Unlike Aiur, the homeworld of the Khalai, large regions of Shakuras were completely devoid of vegetation, and the skeletons of previously existing lifeforms could be found scattered across it. The world was the homeworld of the kakaru.

The Xel'Naga had constructed a temple above a nexus of powerful cosmic energies. When the Dark Templar found it, they decided to remain and study it, altering their own biology to adapt to the harsh desert. Despite their isolation, Shakuras was not entirely unknown to the Khalai; the prophet Tenarsis received visions of the world and the conflict that would blight it long before the reunification of the protoss kindreds.

The Brood War#

In 2500 the Khalai survivors from Aiur traveled to Shakuras through the warp gate. The zerg took control of the gate and followed them, ambushing the protoss with hydralisks before the Dark Templar saved them. Two cerebrates took up station around the Xel'Naga temple. After Matriarch Raszagal welcomed the Khalai survivors, she had them scour the temple grounds of infestation, and once that was done Sarah Kerrigan arrived and asked to be escorted to the Citadel. Kerrigan offered to help find the Uraj and Khalis crystals and departed with Artanis, Zeratul, and a protoss army to secure them.

In their absence Aldaris and a legion of Khalai survivors revolted against Raszagal. On the army's return, Raszagal ordered Aldaris terminated, but Kerrigan killed him before he could reveal that she had manipulated the Matriarch, and Zeratul banished Kerrigan from Shakuras for interfering in a protoss matter. Artanis and Zeratul then carried the Uraj and Khalis to the temple and channeled its energies while the protoss army held off the zerg. The resulting explosion obliterated the zerg on Shakuras but left a wasteland of sand dunes and shattered ruins.

The world was not yet safe. The Dark Templar terrorist Ulrezaj tried to drive the protoss of Aiur away from Shakuras using false khaydarin crystals to enhance zerg immune to the temple's effects, but Zeratul and Artanis destroyed the crystals at Schezar's Char base and later defeated Ulrezaj and his terran ally Alan Schezar. When Kerrigan returned, Samir Duran infiltrated the pylon clusters and caused a surge that destroyed Talematros, and in the confusion Kerrigan's minions kidnapped Raszagal.

Rebuilding and destruction#

After retreating from Char Aleph, Artanis and the survivors of his fleet returned to Shakuras to rebuild their civilization. For the next four years the Khalai attempted to reunify their society with the Dark Templar, and interaction with them and the temple led to many new developments. In 2503 protoss survivors from Aiur arrived alongside a terran named Rosemary Dahl, fleeing the dark archon Ulrezaj to recover the preserver Zamara and her host Jake Ramsey; the Tal'darim among them, cut off from the Khala by a drug called Sundrop, eventually broke their addiction and reintegrated into protoss society. The capital, Talematros, was rebuilt by 2503.

During the End War, Shakuras was overrun by zerg and hybrid forces that poured through its warp gate from Aiur. The Shadow Guard was decimated and the cities obliterated, and by the time the Spear of Adun arrived only the southwest quadrant of Talematros remained in Nerazim hands. Artanis cleared the launch bays to evacuate the remaining Nerazim transports. As Amon's forces overran Talematros, Matriarch Vorazun reluctantly decided to destroy Shakuras rather than let it become a den for Amon's forces, and Artanis was swayed by her argument that their true home had always been Aiur. To bleed Amon, the protoss lured as many of his zerg and hybrid onto the world as possible, then overloaded the temple's phase prism to force a spike of energy into the planet's core. The protoss defended the temple until the overload activated, and the destruction of Shakuras killed more than a billion of Amon's corrupted zerg along with many of his hybrid.