Spectre

Spectres were terran special forces operatives whose psionic powers were granted by the potent reagent terrazine. Many were elite ghosts who had been exposed to the gas, while others were neurally resocialized troops subjected to the same procedure to produce a lesser grade of operative. Created as part of the secret program Project Shadowblade, spectres were among the most powerful psionic soldiers the Terran Dominion ever fielded, but the addictive nature of terrazine and the unpredictability of its effects made them a volatile asset that figures such as Gabriel Tosh and Nova Terra fought over throughout the Second Great War.

Nature and creation#

Spectres were produced by exposing telepaths to terrazine, a potent psionic reagent. The side effects of the enhancement were considered unpredictable, but the gas allowed a telepath to regenerate brain cells, overcome memory wipes, and increase their psionic power by one or more points on the Psi Index, with some spectres approaching protoss levels of psionics. Spectres inhaled terrazine like a drug from a bottle. Through an alliance with the Umojan Protectorate and technology stolen from the secret Dominion project Sector 9, spectres became difficult to detect by ordinary means or by mind-reading, the exception being other terrans exposed to terrazine. Their hostile environment suits gave a greater boost to strength and agility than the standard Dominion version, and they were fitted with sonic-dampening boots for quieter movement.

Creating a spectre also required the element jorium and a psionic waveform indoctrinator to activate the operative. Jorium stabilized the terrazine and minimized the insanity and hallucinations the gas could cause, and a strict schedule of terrazine and jorium intake could nullify the worst of the transformation's side effects. Jorium was far harder to obtain than terrazine, which posed a constant difficulty for the program. The procedure affected everyone slightly differently, and many spectres became eccentric, some collecting objects such as dolls in an effort to enhance their powers. Because terrazine was addictive, many did not keep to a strict schedule and instead overdosed, suffering hallucinations and violent outbursts. The ghost Nova Terra claimed spectres always became psychotic, though Doctor Ariel Hanson found little evidence that they were more prone to aberrant behavior than ordinary people and believed Nova had lied.

Origins under Project Shadowblade#

In 2501 the Terran Dominion discovered the fringe world of Demon's Fair, where investigators found a terrazine-releasing rift. On realizing the gas enhanced psionic power, Emperor Arcturus Mengsk created the secret program Project Shadowblade, led by General Horace Warfield. The gas was tested on several terrans, some of them low-level psychics, to observe its effects. Colonel Jackson Hauler, head of Nova Squadron and secretly an escapee from the Ghost Program, infiltrated the program under the name Cole Bennett and tested the gas on himself. The project was violently dissolved, with three members arrested, neurally resocialized, and imprisoned in New Folsom, while Bennett escaped.

Despite the program's failure, Mengsk continued it in secret, attempting to create controllable spectres in a hidden lab on the planet Tartarus, which later fell into obscurity. He eventually made contact with the renegade ghost Gabriel Tosh and discovered another source of terrazine on the fringe world of Altara.

Tosh's revival and the breakout#

Tosh and Mengsk's network forged an alliance with the Umojan Protectorate and, using the cloaked battle platform Gehenna Station along with Umojan technology and the secret Sector 9 project, began building an army of spectres. Most were kidnapped ghosts, lured into vulnerable positions and stripped of their neural implants to avoid Dominion detection. They secured the help of Lio Travski, an AI who had once been a technopathic ghost, enabling them to send communications in Mengsk's name. The group also invented the psi indoctrinator, which allowed barely psychic resocialized troops to be turned into a lesser grade of spectre.

In 2503, Tosh tried to recruit his former friend Nova Terra, but failed, and his attack on Augustgrad also failed, costing him a number of spectres. Nova led Dominion forces in a successful assault on Gehenna Station, killing several spectres and destroying the platform, leaving Tosh able to escape with only six resocialized marines in indoctrinators. With the fall of Project Shadowblade, spectres became a rare sight in the Koprulu sector.

By 2504 a number of spectres had been captured and deactivated by Nova, ending up in New Folsom Prison. During the Second Great War, Tosh sought to hire Raynor's Raiders to free the prisoners and to gather the jorium and terrazine needed to reactivate them. Nova, by then a Dominion ghost, tried to dissuade Jim Raynor by claiming spectres were psychotic killers, but unwilling to trust a Dominion agent, Raynor followed Tosh's plan, and the breakout succeeded. As a condition of his support, Raynor extracted a promise that only volunteers would undergo the spectre process. Nova later convinced Raynor that Tosh's ambitions were too dangerous, and the Raiders helped her destroy the spectre training facility on Avernus Station before she assassinated Tosh.

Later appearances#

By 2506, spectres were being used by the Moebius Corps, sighted by Zeratul at an old Moebius Foundation hybrid lab and later on Sky Shield, during the attack on Ulnar, and in the defense of Revanscar. Spectres also served among Raynor's Raiders during the joint assault into the Void, where they helped protect Sarah Kerrigan as Ouros transferred his essence into her.

After the Defenders of Man Insurgency, Nova Terra set out to gather jorium across the sector to prevent the creation of more spectres. At the lab on Tartarus she ordered the spectres there killed, but her assistant defied the order and released six of them. Still loyal to the memory of Arcturus Mengsk, these spectres stole the Griffin and spread chaos through the sector, assassinating several prominent politicians. Nova allied with Matriarch Vorazun of the Daelaam, and together they hunted the spectres down and convinced them they were more than weapons for a dead emperor. The spectres surrendered and were taken to Aiur to recover from the experiments done to them, later departing with Nova aboard the Griffin.