Zealot

Zealots are a type of protoss warrior, the lower-ranked Templar who have yet to reach the upper levels of the Khala. They form the backbone of the protoss military and have been utilized since before the Discord. Armed with psionic blades and shielded by plasma, they are the first line of the protoss war machine and the most numerous of its frontline warriors.

Role and orders#

Zealots form the backbone of the protoss military and have served in that capacity since before the Discord. At least some, if not all, Khalai zealots are members of the Zealot Order, which honors the moon Saalok as its symbol and calls it the Zealous Round. Zealots can operate in formations as small as platoons and as large as legions.

The Tal'darim also employ zealots. As the lowest ranking links in the Chain of Ascension, they are the ones most eager to prove themselves. The Ihan-rii, by contrast, field zealots who are fanatic believers in the xel'naga, holding that one day they would ascend to eternal godhood.

During the Great War, many zealots demonstrated their fearlessness by going without head armor, a practice that has since been discontinued. After the End War, many zealots took part in the artistic celebration of the Golden Age of Expansion, changing their armor to the more ornate style of that era.

Training#

Each zealot is trained for decades in hand-to-hand combat, tactics, pain tolerance, and martial discipline. They are taught to hate their enemies with a white-hot passion and to hunt them down without mercy, even in the face of their own deaths. Through the path of the Khala, zealots learn to hone their innate battle rage to a fine edge, though they can invoke a near-berserker rage in battle if need be.

Zealots undergo rigorous training and trials before receiving their power suits. Those that distinguish themselves in battle receive complex leg augmentations that enhance their speed, mobility, and endurance. They are forbidden from using alien tissue and weaponry in combat as a means of preventing foreign infections.

In the days of the Golden Age of Expansion, attempts were made to train zealots to wield more ethereal psionic powers like their high templar brethren. At the behest of Grand Preserver Rohana, these attempts were halted in favor of keeping the more traditional and focused split between the two classes of Templar warriors. The shame of the fall of Aiur later drove the zealots to intensify their physical training, which came to include duels at the end of their instruction.

Combat and tactics#

All protoss possess a degree of psionic power, and zealots use theirs exclusively for battle. They have a limited form of precognition that lets them predict enemy movements, strike with deadly accuracy, and dodge attacks. Their leg augmentations enhance their movement speed, allowing them to catch an enemy off guard with brutal charges. After conflicts wore on, some zealots developed the ability to turn their bodies into pure energy for a few microseconds, a lightning-fast burst of speed that lets them strike suddenly against an enemy that believes them out of range.

Zealots are armed with psionic blades channeled through the forearm units of their power suits. The Khalai's refinement of the focusers in these units allows the psi-blades to increase in power as a zealot's rage rises in battle, and the blades can tear through armored structures and vehicles alike. With the aid of cybernetic implants, zealots use their psionic powers to surround themselves with plasma shields.

The zealots' mastery of their emotions means they can fight longer, harder, and better than their adversaries. A handful of them can easily control an entire colony of lesser species. Because the protoss population has diminished through conflict, great lengths are taken to minimize zealot casualties. A severely injured zealot may be transported off the battlefield at the moment of defeat by a device called a warp stone in order to be recovered, while those too critically injured are often transformed into a dragoon or an immortal.

Variants and notable zealots#

Several specialist variants of the zealot exist across protoss society. The Khalai field the Aiur zealot, the Nerazim field the centurion, and the Purifiers field the legionnaire and the sentinel. Notable individual zealots include Kaldalis, Urun, Argus, and Selendis, who later rose to the rank of executor. Fenix served as a zealot before his wounds saw him transplanted into a dragoon, and the zealot Khastiana was later transplanted into an immortal.