Warp Prism

The warp prism was a flying protoss robotic machine built to transport troops and to reinforce the psionic power matrix that sustains protoss structures. A blend of psionics and robotics, it was the successor to the older protoss shuttle and outperformed it in every respect, becoming a fixture of Daelaam fleets in the era of the Second Great War and the conflicts that followed. (StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty; Warp Prism (StarCraft II official site))

Construction and intelligence#

The warp prism married psionic and robotic engineering without a visible join. Its hull was a conductive framework able to absorb most forms of energy by dissipating the force of incoming strikes across its surface. Housed within were thousands of psionic micro-receptors that drew on the power of the vessel's crystal core and projected "wings" laced with psionic energy. These wings were highly resilient and served as the craft's primary navigation sensors. (Warp Prism (StarCraft II official site); StarCraft Field Manual)

The prism was an automated vessel, directed by a robotic mind created through a psionic manufacturing process rather than crewed by a pilot. Its programming was built into the molecules of an advanced crystal lattice, a "crystal computer" described as transcending the constraints of space-time and existing within and beyond itself. This allowed it to manipulate matter and energy with great precision and to process vast amounts of data faster than thought. Warp prisms were capable of travel within a star system. Though fragile, they were considered indispensable, and no protoss fleet was held to be complete without them. They were small enough to be carried inside the hangar of a void ray. (Warp Prism (StarCraft II official site); StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty; StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void; StarCraft II: Nature of the Beast)

Transport and the power matrix#

Protoss forces used the warp prism in two principal ways. Its primary function was transport. Living and inorganic subjects alike were transformed into energy and their unique signatures imprinted into the prism's crystal lattice core. On reaching the destination the process was reversed, and the stored signatures were reconfigured into matter near the vessel. By linking to a warp gate, a prism could rapidly teleport warriors to its position, projecting protoss strength deep into contested ground. (Warp Prism (StarCraft II official site))

Its second and equally vital function was to act as a mobile focus for the psionic matrix. By opening a containment field around its power core after deploying, the warp prism could power protoss structures around it, temporarily replacing destroyed pylons in a colony or enabling a forward base to be raised quickly. Both functions relied on opening the containment field around the vessel's synthetic power source. While deployed in this phased configuration the prism diverted all energy away from its other systems and became completely stationary. During the One-Day War, the chitha demonstrated the ability to disrupt the warp capabilities of warp prisms. (Warp Prism (StarCraft II official site); StarCraft Field Manual; StarCraft: Evolution)

Variants and legacy#

The warp prism's design did not remain solely in Daelaam hands. The Tal'darim obtained the design by 2504 and, by 2506, re-purposed it into a larger variant; whether to arm warp prisms with heavy weaponry or to reserve them purely for deploying warriors remained a point of contention among their fleet lords. After the End War the Daelaam experimented with infusing warp prisms with Void energies to create phase prisms. Purifier warp prisms were built to transfer the artificial personalities of Purifiers between shells anywhere on the battlefield, and warp prisms of ancient design were deployed whose crystal lattices would at times reflect the neural patterns of the templar they carried. The recorded variants included the Tal'darim titanic warp prism and war prism, the Nerazim phase prism, and the Ihan-rii prism, the last patterned after a flower that once grew across the hillsides of their homeworld. (StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty; StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)