StarCraft Timeline: every major event from the xel'naga to the One-Day War

This timeline covers the whole StarCraft story, from the xel'naga seeding the galaxy with new races to the uneasy peace of the 2510s. Terran events use ordinary Gregorian years, because the Koprulu Sector colonists brought Earth's calendar with them. Protoss and zerg prehistory has almost no fixed years, so those entries are given relative to the Great War or as rough eras. Dates come from the games (StarCraft in 1998 through Nova Covert Ops in 2016) and from the official timelines printed in the novels StarCraft II: Heaven's Devils (2010) and StarCraft: Evolution (2016).

The xel'naga and the elder races (prehistory to around 1500)#

Long before humans reached the sector, the xel'naga had already shaped both alien races that would later fight over it. Almost nothing here has a year attached, so the order matters more than the numbers.

• Prehistory: The xel'naga renewed their kind through the Infinite Cycle, uplifting one race for purity of form and one for purity of essence. A rogue faction under Amon rejected the cycle and uplifted the protoss on Aiur and the zerg on Zerus, meaning to merge them into a hybrid army of his own. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)
• Prehistory: Amon's followers created the Overmind to bind the zerg into a single Swarm, with a directive to hunt down and assimilate the protoss. (StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm; StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)
• Millennia before the Great War: The xel'naga lived among the protoss as gods until the tribes grew proud and suspicious of them. When the xel'naga prepared to leave Aiur, some protoss attacked them. The protoss who stayed loyal left with them and became the Tal'darim, while those left behind lost their psychic link and fell into the Aeon of Strife, a tribal war that lasted for millennia. (StarCraft: The Dark Templar Saga: Firstborn; StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)
• Around 500 BCE: The Shelak scholars Savassan and Temlaa found a trove of khaydarin crystals and used them to rebuild the lost link. Savassan took the name Khas, spread the Khala across Aiur and divided protoss society into castes, which began the end of the Strife. (StarCraft: The Dark Templar Saga: Shadow Hunters; StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)
• Around the same time: The kindling of the Khala woke the loyal xel'naga sleeping at Ulnar. They went to Zerus to confront Amon, who unleashed the Swarm on them and killed most of their number. The survivors cast Amon into the Void and withdrew to Ulnar to wait. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)
• After Amon's fall: The zerg stripped Zerus of life and left the world to hunt for the protoss. Strains left behind became the primal zerg, who kept fighting each other on the regrown jungle world. (StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm)
• Around 500 CE: Protoss unification was complete and the Second Age began. The newly formed Conclave sealed away the records of the Aeon of Strife and placed them in the care of preservers. (StarCraft: The Dark Templar Saga: Shadow Hunters; StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty)
• Around 1500: About a thousand years before the Great War, the Conclave ordered Executor Adun to execute the tribes who refused the Khala. He hid them instead and taught them to cloak, but their untrained powers set off psionic storms across Aiur. The Conclave exiled them aboard a xel'naga ship, and Adun died shielding them as it launched. The exiles became the Nerazim and settled on Shakuras. (StarCraft (manual); StarCraft: The Dark Templar Saga: Shadow Hunters)

Exile from Earth (2229 to 2323)#

Terran history in the sector starts with a crime. Earth's new world government shipped its unwanted people into deep space, and the ships went badly off course.

• 2229: The United Powers League was founded on Earth on 22 November, built on a doctrine of enlightened socialism. It set out to purge humanity of cybernetic and genetic "deviants". (StarCraft (manual))
• Under the UPL: The scientist Doran Routhe had 40,000 frozen prisoners loaded onto four supercarriers, Nagglfar, Argo, Sarengo and Reagan, and launched them toward the planet Gantris VI. The artificial intelligence ATLAS, installed aboard Nagglfar, guided the convoy. (StarCraft (manual))
• The Long Sleep: The guidance systems failed and the convoy drifted blind through warp space for twenty-eight years. This voyage is remembered as the Long Sleep. (StarCraft (manual))
• 2259: The supercarriers dropped out of warp in the Koprulu Sector with their engines burnt out. Nagglfar crashed on Tarsonis, Argo on Moria, and Reagan and Sarengo on Umoja. The survivors became the first terrans. (StarCraft (manual); StarCraft II: Heaven's Devils)
• 2323: Tarsonis and its colonies founded the Terran Confederacy. Moria and Umoja stayed outside it. (StarCraft II: Heaven's Devils; StarCraft (manual))

The Confederacy and the Guild Wars (2323 to 2489)#

For a century and a half the Confederacy grew richer and more brutal. Its war with the mining guilds made the careers of Arcturus Mengsk and Jim Raynor.

• Before 2485: The mining guilds of Moria joined into the Kel-Morian Combine. Sources disagree on when. The Heaven's Devils timeline puts its founding in 2485, but I, Mengsk shows the Combine already clashing with the Confederacy well before then. (StarCraft II: Heaven's Devils; StarCraft: I, Mengsk)
• 2460: Arcturus Mengsk was born on Korhal IV, son of the senator Angus Mengsk. Around the same year, colonists fleeing Confederate strife settled the remote world of Bhekar Ro. (StarCraft: I, Mengsk; StarCraft: Shadow of the Xel'Naga)
• 2478: Confederate marines retook Andasar City on Antiga Prime after a revolt and left no survivors. On Korhal, Angus secretly began the Rebellion of Korhal while condemning it in public. Arcturus graduated from Styrling Academy and turned eighteen that December. (StarCraft: I, Mengsk)
• 2480: Arcturus, who had joined the Confederate Marine Corps against his father's wishes, fought in August on Sonyan, where his division drove off Kel-Morian miners. (StarCraft: I, Mengsk)
• 2485: Confederate troops under Captain Arcturus Mengsk and Edmund Duke of Alpha Squadron clashed with Kel-Morian forces at the Noranda Glacier refinery on Onuru Sigma. The fight marked the start of the Guild Wars. (StarCraft: I, Mengsk)
• 2487: Zerg larvae turned up on several fringe worlds. The Confederacy blamed the dead colonies on cholera and shipped the specimens off to research centres. (StarCraft: Uprising)
• 2488: A farm boy from Shiloh named Jim Raynor enlisted and was posted with Tychus Findlay in the Heaven's Devils, who fought on Turaxis II. (StarCraft II: Heaven's Devils)
• 2489: Confederate officials agreed to ceasefire talks in April. The peace left the Combine its independence but handed most of its guilds to the Confederacy, and Umoja answered by forming the Umojan Protectorate. (StarCraft II: Heaven's Devils; StarCraft (manual))
• 2489: Angus Mengsk declared Korhal independent. The Confederacy sent three ghosts, who killed Angus, his wife and his young daughter. Arcturus took command of the rebellion, while Raynor and Tychus turned outlaw. (StarCraft: I, Mengsk; StarCraft II: Heaven's Devils)

The road to war (2490 to 2498)#

Korhal's destruction gave Mengsk a cause and an army. Meanwhile the Confederacy was quietly studying the creatures it had found.

• 2491: While Arcturus was on Umoja recruiting, the Confederacy fired a thousand Apocalypse class nuclear missiles at Korhal IV and killed millions. The survivors regrouped as the Sons of Korhal. (StarCraft: I, Mengsk)
• The 2490s: Mengsk recruited Sarah Kerrigan, a powerful telepath trained by the Confederate Ghost Program, who became his most trusted agent. (StarCraft (manual))
• Around 2494: A bank job on Bacchus Moon went wrong. Tychus was captured while Raynor got away. (StarCraft II: Devils' Due)
• 2496: Raynor put his outlaw years behind him and became marshal of Mar Sara. (StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty)
• 2497: Fenix was trapped in a Conclave tower when Nerazim rebels seized it during a celebration on Aiur. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)

The Great War (December 2499 to June 2500)#

The Great War lasted barely six months. It ended the Confederacy, crowned an emperor and left Aiur in ruins.

• 2499: The zerg overran the colony of Chau Sara. In December a protoss fleet under Executor Tassadar arrived and, on the Conclave's orders, burned the planet's surface to ash. (StarCraft (manual); StarCraft)
• 2499: Zerg spread across Mar Sara. Raynor saved Backwater Station, was arrested by Alpha Squadron for it, and was freed by the Sons of Korhal. The rebels and Raynor's men got off the planet just before the protoss incinerated it. (StarCraft; StarCraft: Liberty's Crusade)
• January 2500: The battlecruiser Norad II was brought down by the zerg over Antiga Prime. Raynor rescued General Duke, and Alpha Squadron went over to the Sons of Korhal. On Tarsonis, rebels murdered the Terra family, and the young telepath Nova Terra killed hundreds in a burst of psionic rage before vanishing into the slums. (StarCraft; StarCraft: Ghost: Nova)
• February 2500: Kerrigan planted a psi emitter on Antiga Prime and drew the Swarm down on the Confederate blockade, ending the Battle of Antiga Prime. Ten days later Duke used psi emitters to lure billions of zerg onto Tarsonis. During the Battle of Tarsonis, Mengsk abandoned Kerrigan to the zerg, and Raynor broke away from him in disgust. (StarCraft; StarCraft: Liberty's Crusade)
• Late February 2500: Raynor's men raided the Dylarian Shipyards and stole the battlecruiser Hyperion, the start of Raynor's Raiders. (StarCraft: Queen of Blades)
• March 2500: Mengsk was crowned Emperor Arcturus I of the new Terran Dominion. (StarCraft: Queen of Blades; StarCraft: I, Mengsk)
• April 2500: On Char, Kerrigan emerged from her chrysalis as the Queen of Blades. Zeratul killed the cerebrate Zasz, and through that brief psychic contact the Overmind learned where Aiur was. The Swarm invaded the protoss homeworld, and the Overmind took root on the planet. (StarCraft; StarCraft: Queen of Blades)
• May 2500: Tassadar, Zeratul and Raynor fought a long guerrilla campaign against Kerrigan on Char, and Tassadar learned to wield Void energies. When Judicator Aldaris demanded his arrest, Fenix and the protoss executor took Tassadar's side. (StarCraft: Queen of Blades; StarCraft)
• June 2500: Back on Aiur, the Conclave branded Tassadar a traitor, and the Protoss Civil War broke out. He surrendered, was rescued by his followers, and then channelled the Khala and the Void through his flagship to destroy the Overmind at the cost of his own life. The Fall of Aiur had killed most of the protoss on the planet. (StarCraft)

The Brood War (July to October 2500)#

The Overmind's death left the zerg leaderless for only a moment. The Brood War that followed was a four way scramble for the Swarm, and Kerrigan won it.

• July 2500: The protoss survivors fled Aiur through the last working warp gate to Shakuras, home of the Nerazim, while Fenix and Raynor held the gate behind them. On Char, the cerebrate Daggoth began growing a second Overmind. (StarCraft: Brood War)
• August 2500: Kerrigan offered the protoss an alliance against the new Overmind. With her help they recovered the Uraj crystal on Braxis and the Khalis in the Raid on Char, then used them to power a xel'naga temple that wiped every zerg off Shakuras. (StarCraft: Brood War)
• September 2500: The UED Expeditionary Fleet under Admiral Gerard DuGalle and Vice Admiral Alexei Stukov arrived to bring the sector to heel. Helped by the turncoat Samir Duran, it took Braxis and then Korhal at Emperor's Fall, where Raynor and the protoss snatched Mengsk away from capture. (StarCraft: Brood War)
• September 2500: The Directorate captured the young Overmind on Char with a psi disruptor. Duran tricked DuGalle into ordering Stukov's death, and Stukov exposed Duran's treachery as he died. (StarCraft: Brood War)
• September 2500: Kerrigan allied with Mengsk, Raynor and Fenix, destroyed the psi disruptor and helped retake Korhal. Then she turned on them. Fenix and Duke were killed, and Kerrigan seized the Nerazim matriarch Raszagal to force Zeratul to kill the captive Overmind. When he rescued Raszagal, Zeratul found her mind bent to Kerrigan's will and killed her too. (StarCraft: Brood War)
• September or October 2500: Kerrigan broke the combined Dominion, protoss and UED fleets over Char and destroyed the fleeing Directorate fleet. DuGalle took his own life. Mengsk went home to rebuild, Artanis led the protoss survivors on Shakuras, and Zeratul left to chase rumours of the xel'naga. (StarCraft: Brood War; StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty)

The uneasy peace (2501 to 2503)#

Four years passed with no open war, but the sector was hardly quiet. The Dominion tightened its grip, and Kerrigan waited on Char.

• 2502: Dominion marines massacred the people of Candore Colony. UNN reporter Kate Lockwell survived the cover up, and footage of the killings later aired on the anniversary of Mengsk's coronation. (StarCraft: Frontline)
• Around 2503: The archaeologist Jake Ramsey touched the mind of the dying protoss preserver Zamara in a xel'naga temple and was left carrying her memories, which drew him into the secrets of protoss and xel'naga history. (StarCraft: The Dark Templar Saga: Firstborn; StarCraft II: Heaven's Devils)

The Second Great War (2504 to April 2505)#

The Second Great War began when Kerrigan's Swarm struck the Dominion. It ended with Mengsk dead in his own palace.

• 2504: The Swarm attacked Dominion worlds and Raynor's Raiders hit Mar Sara. Tychus, freed from prison, recruited Raynor to collect xel'naga artifacts for the Moebius Foundation, and Zeratul passed on a prophecy that only Kerrigan could stop the hybrids and their dark master. (StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty)
• 2504: Prince Valerian Mengsk revealed that he had funded the artifact hunt and joined the Raiders in the Battle of Char. The assembled Keystone turned Kerrigan human again. Tychus tried to kill her on Mengsk's secret orders, and Raynor shot him. (StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty)
• January 2505: Dominion forces raided the Umojan lab where Kerrigan was recovering. Raynor was captured and reported executed, and Kerrigan went back to the zerg to take revenge on Mengsk. (StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm; StarCraft: Evolution)
• Early 2505: Kerrigan reunited the broods and travelled to Zerus, where she was reborn in the first spawning pool as the Primal Queen of Blades and won Dehaka to her side. (StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm)
• 2505: Kerrigan freed Raynor from the prison ship Moros, though he refused to forgive what she had become. She later killed Emil Narud of the Moebius Foundation, who turned out to be the same being as Samir Duran and who confirmed that Amon had returned. (StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm)
• Early April 2505: The Swarm assaulted Korhal in the Battle of Korhal. With Raynor's help Kerrigan reached the imperial palace and killed Arcturus Mengsk. Valerian took the throne, and Kerrigan led the Swarm away to hunt Amon. (StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm; StarCraft: Evolution)

The End War (2506 to 2508)#

Zeratul named it the End War. Amon came back, took the Khala and turned the protoss against themselves, and it took all three races to stop him.

• 2506: Hierarch Artanis led the Golden Armada to retake Aiur. Amon revealed himself and seized everyone linked to the Khala. Zeratul died cutting Artanis free, and the survivors fled aboard the ancient arkship Spear of Adun. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)
• 2506: Artanis gathered allies across the sector. He woke the Purifiers, won over Alarak, who overthrew the Tal'darim's Highlord, and fought beside Kerrigan at Ulnar, where he learned Amon's true aim. Shakuras was destroyed to keep it out of Amon's hands, and the Moebius Corps was wiped out. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)
• Late 2506: Artanis returned to Aiur, and the protoss there cut their nerve cords to break free of the Khala. They destroyed Amon's physical body and reclaimed their homeworld in the Reclamation of Aiur. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)
• 2508: Kerrigan called Raynor and Artanis into the Void through Ulnar to finish Amon at his source. The dying xel'naga Ouros gave his essence to Kerrigan, she ascended as a xel'naga, and she destroyed Amon for good. Broodmother Zagara took command of the Swarm. The Evolution timeline dates this to 2508, while the game's epilogue puts it soon after the fight for Aiur. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void; StarCraft: Evolution)
• 2508: Valerian declared a ceasefire with the protoss and the Swarm and promised open elections. Some time later Kerrigan, now a xel'naga, returned to Raynor and he left with her. (StarCraft: Evolution; StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)

After the End War (2508 to 2511)#

Peace held, but only just. The threats now came from inside the Dominion as much as from outside it.

• After 2508: The Defenders of Man, secretly led by General Carolina Davis, lured feral zerg onto Dominion worlds to make Valerian look weak. Nova Terra, with the Covert Ops Crew, recovered her stolen memories, exposed Davis and killed her, ending the Defenders of Man Insurgency. (StarCraft II: Nova Covert Ops)
• 2511: On the regrown world of Gystt, Abathur tried to start a war between the Dominion, the protoss and the Swarm. The One-Day War ended when his plot was exposed, and the three powers agreed to negotiate over the zerg creatures carrying xel'naga essence. (StarCraft: Evolution)

StarCraft games in order#

StarCraft is one of the easy ones. The games came out in the same order the story happens, so release order and story order are the same list.

1. StarCraft (1998)
2. StarCraft: Brood War (1998)
3. StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty (2010)
4. StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm (2013)
5. StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void (2015)
6. StarCraft II: Nova Covert Ops (2016)

Start with StarCraft and Brood War, which StarCraft: Remastered (2017) bundles together, then play the StarCraft II trilogy. Nova Covert Ops is a short mission pack set after the End War, so leave it until last.

StarCraft books in story order#

The novels fill gaps around the games. In rough order of when each story starts:

1. StarCraft: I, Mengsk (2008)
2. StarCraft II: Heaven's Devils (2010)
3. StarCraft II: Devils' Due (2011)
4. StarCraft: Uprising (2000)
5. StarCraft: Liberty's Crusade (2001)
6. StarCraft: Ghost: Nova (2006)
7. StarCraft: Queen of Blades (2006)
8. StarCraft: Shadow of the Xel'Naga (2001)
9. StarCraft: The Dark Templar Saga: Firstborn (2007)
10. StarCraft: The Dark Templar Saga: Shadow Hunters (2007)
11. StarCraft: The Dark Templar Saga: Twilight (2009)
12. StarCraft: Evolution (2016)

Liberty's Crusade and Queen of Blades retell the first two campaigns of StarCraft, so they're best read after playing it.

Where the story stands#

The latest fixed point in the chronology is 2511. Valerian rules a battered but reforming Dominion, Artanis leads the Daelaam on a reclaimed Aiur without the Khala, and Zagara's Swarm holds Gystt. Amon is gone, Kerrigan has left the sector behind, and the three powers are talking rather than fighting, for now. (StarCraft: Evolution; StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)