Xil

Xil was a desert world whose surface held relics of the xel'naga. Once home to a living biosphere, it became a lifeless waste after a sudden cataclysm, and millions of years later it remained a draw for those seeking xel'naga artifacts, including the Tal'darim and Raynor's Raiders. (StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty)

A world the xel'naga abandoned#

Xil once possessed a living biosphere that gave rise to a sapient species. During this period the world was visited by the xel'naga. A disaster then struck the planet and wiped out its native ecology overnight. The xel'naga abandoned the world, but their relics remained on the surface. (StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty)

Millions of years after the disaster, Xil's ecology had still not recovered, leaving it a desert world. Even so, it was not without visitors. The Tal'darim, a faction of fanatical protoss who guarded xel'naga relics, maintained a presence among its ruins. (StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty)

The contest for the temple artifact#

In 2504, during the Second Great War, a Moebius Foundation expedition attempted to retrieve an artifact from a xel'naga temple on Xil. The expedition was wiped out by the resident Tal'darim fanatics before it could complete its excavation. (StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty)

Raynor's Raiders made their own attempt. They used the expedition's Drakken laser drill to burn through the temple's door, the drill doubling as a weapon against the Tal'darim's more powerful units. The Raiders prevailed and claimed the artifact. The Tal'darim executor Nyon, already enraged by the Raiders' earlier thefts of prized possessions on Monlyth, warned that the crime would echo through the stars. The threat unsettled Jim Raynor, who began to wonder whether the artifacts were worth the cost, a doubt set against the more mercenary attitude of Tychus Findlay. (StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty)