Terran Confederacy

The Terran Confederacy, also known as the Confederacy of Man, the Confederacy, or the Confederation, was the terran government that dominated the Koprulu sector before the Great War. It was ruled by the Old Families of Tarsonis and founded by Tarsonis and its colonies in 2323, after which it steadily extended its influence to other worlds. Its flag was based on the historical Confederate battle flag drawn from the databanks of the ATLAS computer, and its anthem was "To the Eternal Glory of the Confederacy." It was the empire that the Sons of Korhal under Arcturus Mengsk eventually destroyed, replacing it with the Terran Dominion.

Founding and expansion#

The Confederacy was founded by Tarsonis and its colonies in 2323 and began extending its influence across the sector. One of its first planned worlds was Tyrador VIII, famed for its centers of higher learning and orderly streets. It seized Khyrador and renamed it Braxis, and established a foothold on New Folsom to mine the catalytic elements needed to forge neosteel, later converting the mine into a prison for enemies too valuable or popular to kill. Chau Sara and Mar Sara were colonized by an expedition from Tarsonis, Mar Sara becoming the eighth of the thirteen core worlds.

The Guild Wars#

Tension between the Confederacy and the independent mining guilds of Moria broke into open war at the Battle of Noranda Glacier on Onuru Sigma in 2485. For nearly four years the Confederacy battled the Kel-Morian Combine across Char, Sonyan, Artesia Prime, and Turaxis II. During the conflict, in 2487, Confederate forces encountered an alien species on the Fringe Worlds that would later be named the zerg. They captured larva specimens and began investigating the connection between the creatures and psionics, engineering a fake cholera plague to cover the existence of these so-called xenomorphs.

The Guild Wars ended in 2489 with a skewed peace treaty that handed the Confederacy almost all the mining guilds affiliated with the Combine and assured its supremacy in the sector. The boom that followed enriched the Old Families, who grew more avaricious and corrupt as the divide between rich and poor widened. Confederate enforcement agencies abused the citizenry, and rebel groups such as the Colonial Liberation Army rose up, though they were rarely a match for Confederate forces.

The Rebellion of Korhal#

When the citizens of Korhal instigated riots against the local Confederate militia, the Confederacy declared martial law, which only agitated the populace further. After Senator Angus Mengsk captured all the Confederate outposts on the world, the Confederacy withdrew its forces and then sent Sarah Kerrigan and two other ghosts to assassinate Angus Mengsk along with his wife and young daughter. His son Arcturus Mengsk waged a crippling guerrilla war in response, attacking Confederate bases and installations through his group, the Sons of Korhal.

Two years later, hearing rumors that Mengsk had allied with the Umojan Protectorate, the Confederacy obliterated Korhal with a salvo of a thousand Apocalypse-class nuclear missiles. The atrocity drove still more recruits to the Sons of Korhal, and the Confederate-controlled Universal News Network was peppered with propaganda branding Mengsk a terrorist and a madman.

Experiments and first contact#

The Confederacy continued its experiments with the captured xenomorphs, often losing control of them, and devised the psi emitter, a device that lured the creatures to chosen worlds. More than a year before the outbreak of war, it had quietly swelled its troop strength by kidnapping civilians and inflicting neural resocialization on them. Research facilities such as the Jacobs Installation held captured specimens, and the secretive Cerberus Recon Squad oversaw the highest-level work alongside Alpha Squadron.

In 2499 the zerg infested Chau Sara, Brontes, and Dylar IV. On December 8 the protoss Koprulu Expeditionary Force incinerated Chau Sara from orbit, and as the protoss fleet moved toward Mar Sara, the Confederacy launched a clumsy counterattack. General Edmund Duke arrested Marshal Jim Raynor and the local militia on a pretext, but Raynor was soon freed by the Sons of Korhal, who used the chaos of the Confederate evacuation to raid the Jacobs Installation and steal secret data.

The fall of Tarsonis#

With the Confederacy's grip on the fringe worlds weakening, Antiga Prime rose in open revolt, stirred up when Sarah Kerrigan killed Duke's officer in the Antigan command center. A Confederate strike force sent to trap the rebels was annihilated by zerg lured there by a psi emitter that Kerrigan planted. The decisive blow came at Tarsonis itself, where the central orbital platform fell to Alpha Squadron and the capital's cities and industrial centers were devastated by the zerg, drawn by psi emitters that Arcturus Mengsk had authorized over the protests of Kerrigan and Raynor. Having destroyed the Confederacy, Mengsk formed the Terran Dominion and conscripted the surviving Confederate warriors, while children of the Old Families were hunted down and executed.

Government and military#

In theory each Confederate planet had its own senators, but in every meaningful way the Confederacy was ruled from Tarsonis City. Its government consisted of an elected Senate based at Nagglfar Hall and a Council that held no mandate from the people; both were generally viewed as corrupt, and the Old Families wielded enormous influence over both. The economy was centered on Tarsonis, with the Old Families employing colonial workers, allowing local industries to wither, and driving competitors out of business while the Confederate Revenue Service levied sudden new taxes.

The Confederate Armed Forces were less corrupt than the Senate or Council but were regarded as unreliable in defending the colonies and willing to commit morally questionable acts for their political masters. Their squadrons were filled with conscripts and ex-criminals, many forced to undergo neural resocialization. The bulk of the military was stationed at Tarsonis, whose most potent defenses lay in orbit, where three primary platforms served as staging areas for the fleet and the Ion cannon was the primary defensive weapon.