Umojan Protectorate

The Umojan Protectorate was the nationalized militia and united interstellar political entity of Umoja and other nearby independent colonies. Defined above all by its independence, it openly opposed the encroachments of the Terran Confederacy and later maintained a long cold war with the Terran Dominion. Though smaller and less populous than the other major terran powers, the Protectorate leveraged advanced technology and an extensive espionage network to preserve its way of life.

Formation and the Confederacy#

The Umojan Protectorate was formed in an emergency sitting of the Umojan Ruling Council after the council saw the abuse the Terran Confederacy was capable of, when it appropriated nearly all of the mining guilds affiliated with the Kel-Morian Combine at the end of the Guild Wars in 2489. The Protectorate openly opposed Confederate encroachments on its territories, though it never declared open war, in part because of other threats facing the Confederacy, most notably the guerrilla war led by Arcturus Mengsk, with whom the Protectorate held a secret alliance.

When the Confederacy decimated Korhal with a nuclear barrage, the Umojans continued to support the survivors, the Sons of Korhal, allowing citizens to sign up as soldiers. When the Dominion was later formed, the Protectorate initially rallied to its side, only to distance itself once the Dominion's heavy-handed tactics began to resemble those of the Confederacy.

Cold war with the Dominion#

The Protectorate remained ideologically opposed to the Dominion and was widely considered a safe haven for those seeking refuge from Dominion persecution. It funneled resources into advanced technological research, built a far-reaching network of anti-Dominion separatists, and stationed elite espionage agents throughout the sector. Emperor Mengsk sought to bring both Umoja and Moria back into the Dominion fold and imposed an economic blockade on the Protectorate, forcing the Umojans to smuggle food to their own people.

When the Dominion senator Corbin Phash fled to protect his psychically gifted son Colin, Corbin found refuge in the Protectorate and struck an alliance with Minister Jorgensen. A Dominion ghost dispatched to assassinate Corbin failed, and rather than retaliate the Umojans took further steps to protect the Phash family. By 2503 the Protectorate was backing Project Shadowblade, a plot using spectres to capture Mengsk and force a public confession, though the scheme was foiled when Gehenna Station was destroyed by Nova Terra.

Government, society, and military#

The worlds allied to the Protectorate had long held independence as their defining trait, and Umojans considered themselves an enlightened people who held obvious contempt for the colonies that submitted to the Confederacy. The Protectorate possessed a small government, run by the Umojan Ruling Council, and a lucrative economy. Its architecture and technology were known for being highly functional and cutting-edge, and many workers from across the sector sought jobs in Umojan factories for their good pay and high security. The Protectorate sought a truce with the protoss, believing the elder race could teach them deeper truths, though it could not decode the Khala-based protoss communications and was ignored.

Compared to other major factions the Protectorate was underpowered and under-resourced, with a smaller population, but its technology was the envy of the Dominion Armed Forces. Umojan engineers favored robotics and were willing to develop artificial intelligence considered unsafe by Dominion standards. The Protectorate maintained standard forces such as marines, who by the post-Guild Wars era wore pale blue powered armor, and it relied heavily on hidden laboratories, plausible deniability, and agents such as shadowguards.

The Second Great War and after#

With the zerg invasion of terran space in 2504, the Protectorate mobilized and closed its borders. In the aftermath of the Flashpoint Conflict it sheltered Valerian Mengsk, Raynor's Raiders, and a de-infested Sarah Kerrigan as they fled the Dominion. At Research Station EB-103, Umojan scientists ran tests on the zerg mutagen remaining in Kerrigan's system while Umojan marines held off attacking Dominion forces.

After Valerian's ascension to the throne, he made good-faith overtures toward the Umojan Ruling Council, but beneath the surface the cold war continued. The Umojans captured documents connecting Valerian to the Moebius Foundation, which they kept aboard a space fortress named the Keep until Nova Terra infiltrated it and retrieved them. By 2511 the Protectorate had some of the most advanced biotechnology in the sector and was securing its borders against future zerg or Dominion attack, even conducting secret research into weapons designed specifically to combat the protoss. That research drew a renegade Nerazim to raid Spearpoint Base on Aeneas and steal the weapon, leading the Tal'darim Death Fleet to annihilate the base's defenders, though early warning allowed much of the civilian population to evacuate.