StarCraft II Heaven

The Zerg started their existence on the volcanic world of Zerus, little more than small worms at the bottom of the food chain. However, the arrival of the Xel’Naga fleets, the memory of the failed Protoss experiment fresh in their minds, changed all of that. The Xel’Naga no longer sought purity of form, as they had in the Protoss, but purity of essence.

The powerful aliens found what they longed for in the Zerg, and immediately set about their proto-genetic manipulations. Through this well-intentioned tampering, the Zerg survived the brutal conditions of their homeworld and began to thrive. They adapted to their surroundings and developed the ability to burrow into and merge like a parasite with larger creatures. Eventually, they were capable of taking control of the host creature’s functions.

Over time, the Zerg accumulated a vast selection of host creatures and the ability to merge select genetic traits into the rest of the hive. The Zerg took on a decidedly eugenicist attitude, striving to assimilate the chemistry and genes of only the best creatures they encountered, and purging those deemed unworthy.

So rapid was this evolution that the Xel’Naga themselves were alarmed. In the span of a handful of generations, the original races that were assimilated were no longer recognizable. Often, the Zerg alterations turned once benign and peaceful creatures into fearsome nightmare beasts that sprouted spines, razor-like limbs, and nearly impenetrable carapaces. To prevent disaster reminiscent of the Protoss, the Xel’Naga created a central intelligence for the Zerg collective: the Overmind. At first little more than the embodiment of the primal instincts and drives of all Zerg, but it evolved over time to develop a primitive personality and the beginnings of advanced intelligence.

The Overmind was assisted by secondary command strains, forming a sort hierarchy and chain of command for the Zerg. The next highest strain was the Cerebrate, nothing more than enormous versions of the original Zerg, which was given a specific objective and bestowed full reign to accomplish it. The Cerebrates themselves turned to specialized strains for supervision such as Queens and Overlords.

This command structure allowed the swarms to grow and strengthen and expand, and permitted the Overmind to remove its focus from mundane operations, which allowed full devotion of its mental faculties to contemplation. It realized in a brief timespan that the whole of Zerus’ native lifeforms had been incorporated into the Swarm or eradicated. Realizing it needed to grow, expand, and evolve its broods, the Overmind assimilated a spacefaring creature that was passing through Zerus’ solar system.

The Xel’Naga had been keeping close watch on their new creation. In just a few centuries, the Zerg had evolved from non-threatening worm-like insectoids into the undisputed masters of Zerus; a fearsome collection of creatures. The Creators were aware of the Zerg forays into space, but they had no idea that the Overmind was aware of their presence until it was too late; the Overmind cut its psychic link with its creators, and sent its minions to consume the Xel’Naga.

Within hours, the Xel’naga fleet was annihilated and the greater portion of their race was incorporated into the Zerg gene pool. Through the assimilation of its Xel’Naga, the Overmind learned the vast knowledge of its creators. It harnessed Khaydarin crystals, enhanced the evolution of its subordinate strains (without compromising their unswerving devotion), and most importantly, it learned of the Xel’Naga’s First Born: the Protoss.

The Overmind knew the Protoss possessed what the Xel’Naga called “purity of form”, while the Zerg had “purity of essence.” It immediately set out in search of the Protoss, leaving behind the burning wasteland of Zerus and scouring the galaxy for the strongest of creatures to serve as soldiers in its inevitable battles. It sent scouts to find these minions, knowing the Protoss would be a formidable foe. Of special interest to the Overmind were beings that could harness psychic energies, in order to negate the advantage the Protoss held with their powerful psionic powers.

Eventually, its scouts found what the Overmind was looking for. The creatures were frail, and had only burgeoning psionic potential, but within a handful of their generations, the primitives would develop incredible psionic abilities. Realizing that these beings – humans – would decide the final, apocalyptic duel between the two creations of the Xel’Naga, the Overmind directed the swarms toward the Terran colonies of the Koprulu sector.

After a six decade journey, the Swarm infested the colony of Chau Sara, and, from there, began to spread across outlying Terran worlds like a plague. Only intervention from the Protoss prevented the total infestation and assimilation of the Terrans; it was this intervention that paused the Overmind. Intrigued at finally facing its long-sought foe, it allowed the Protoss to incinerate the planets of Chau and Mar Sara to learn about the enigmatic enemy.

The Overmind was quite pleased with the results of its experiment. It marveled at the Protoss’ decisive action and the utter destruction wrought by them. The Overmind withdrew its forces to observe the results of first contact between its greatest potential weapon and its greatest foe.

However, the Terrans reacted with extreme hostility to both alien races, while at the same time leveling charges at opposing factions within their own worlds. Perhaps the most disturbing event occurred when the Overmind found its minions called by Terran technology during a bloody civil war on the planet of Antiga. It was intrigued by this development, and even more so by the powerful psionic presence of one of these Terrans.

The Overmind found its swarms drawn to the Confederate capital of Tarsonis, again by the same artificial psionic signature. It also detected the same psychic presence as on Antiga close by, and decided the time to examine this unique Terran was at hand. It sent a Hive to observe the Terran and Protoss battle at New Gettysburg. The psi-sensitive Terran, Lieutenant Sarah Kerrigan, was leading the Terran forces against a Protoss purification force. Once the Protoss were dealt with by the Terrans, the Zerg mounted a massive assault, slaughtering Kerrigan’s surviving forces and capturing her.

As the Zerg hyper-evolutionary processes transformed Kerrigan into a Zerg, the Overmind’s forces escaped from Tarsonis to Char in spite of opposition from Confederate remnants and Protoss forces. Once on Char, Kerrigan reemerged, now a Zerg and the Overmind’s most lethal agent. Her own Hive fought off a Terran incursion before turning its attention to the Protoss.

It was in the aftermath of a battle with Protoss forces under Executor Tassadar that the turning point in Zerg history came. A massive struggle fought between Kerrigan’s Hive and a Protoss contingent was a distraction for another Protoss, Prelate Zeratul of the Dark Templar, to assassinate the Cerebrate Zasz. Because the energies of the Dark Templar matched those of the Overmind, Zasz’s fate was sealed and he was permanently killed. The attack stunned even the Overmind, but promised the demise of the Koprulu Sector. In that moment of contact, all of the Overmind’s knowledge was shown to Zeratul… and all of Zeratul’s knowledge was given to the Overmind.

With Zasz’s Garm brood run amok, a Cerebrate was dispatched to terminate the now-wild Zerg as the Overmind recovered from its traumatic brush with the Dark Templar. Once it had healed from the psychic shock, the Overmind left Char, tasking Kerrigan to hunt the remaining Protoss and some stragglers from an earlier Terran expedition. The rest of the Swarm (including the Overmind itself) began the final assault on Aiur, homeworld of the Protoss.

The struggle was brief and bloody, but the Zerg cut a swathe of destruction through the lush planet and secured a place for the Overmind to manifest. So entrenched, the Zerg began to curiously curtail their efforts, often only attacking in small groups. This caused some initial victories in the Protoss counterassault, but a bitter reversal came in the Battle of Antioch, where the Protoss Praetor Fenix was slain in battle.

However, the Protoss were losing the war despite winning the odd battle. Worse yet, there was a Protoss Civil War erupting between the forces of Executor Tassadar, who allied himself with the Dark Templar, and the Protoss Conclave, the exiled government of Aiur. The Zerg were able to use this chaos for a while to make further inroads on Aiur. However, the Conclave eventually surrendered to the Executor, and with the help of the Terran James Raynor, the Protoss forces mounted a direct assault on several minor Cerebrates, killing them with Dark Templar and ensuring they could never return. Finally, the Overmind itself was in the crosshairs of the Protoss-Terran alliance. In an apocalyptic battle that left countless Zerg, Terrans, and Protoss dead, Tassadar rammed his crippled Carrier into the Overmind as the creature attempted to escape into a warp rift.

The Overmind, the very essence of the Zerg collective consciousness, was dead.

The remaining Zerg on Aiur went on a rampage, devastating nearly three-quarters of the Protoss survivors and their homeworld. Those who could escaped via Warp Gate, but the Zerg followed the survivors through to Shakuras, and began to wreak havoc on the survivors. Further complicating matters, Kerrigan – now free of the Overmind’s control – sought to eliminate the other Zerg factions, especially that of Senior Cerebrate Daggoth. She enlisted the help of the Protoss, convincing them (with some psionic manipulation of Matriarch Raszagal) that the other Broods were a far more dangerous threat than she was.

So began the Brood Wars, and Sarah Kerrigan’s ascension to ruler of the Zerg. Through broken promises, treaties, and betrayal, she manipulated and blackmailed the forces of the Protoss, Terran Dominion, and even the unwitting Terrans of the UED into doing her bidding. Firstly, she assisted the Protoss in retrieving the Uraj and Khalis crystals – as well as crippling the defenses of the newly-regenerating Overmind – before turning on them and killing Adjudicator Aldaris in front of Raszagal, Fenix, and Zeratul. Banished from Shakuras, she departed with fervor. On the planet, the remaining Zerg, not under her control, began to assault the Protoss viciously, and so the refugee Protoss and their Dark Templar brethren fought bravely to secure an ancient Xel’Naga temple, and used its powers to cleanse Shakuras of the Zerg.

Her use for the Protoss finished, Kerrigan planted an operative in the ranks of the United Earth Directorate Expedition, under the guise of Lieutenant Samir Duran. Through Duran, she was able to convince Admiral Gerard DuGalle, commander of the UED expedition, to destroy a psionic disruptor, which was designed to strip Zerg from the control of the Overmind or a Cerebrate. Later, Duran engineered the assassination of Vice Admiral Alexei Stukov by feeding DuGalle false information before defecting back to Kerrigan.

With the forces of humanity in disarray, Kerrigan turned her attention to the local Terrans. She had a deep-seated grudge against Emperor Arcturus Mengsk, whose actions led to her capture by the Zerg, but assisted him in recapturing his throne world of Korhal from the UED. But once victory was secured, the self-styled Queen of Blades turned on her allies in the Terran Dominion and Protoss, killing Praetor Fenix and General Edmund Duke and their attached forces. Curiously, she spared Arcturus Mengsk and James Raynor, stating she was “tired of the slaughter.”

However, her rest would be interrupted by an assault from Zerg forces slaved to UED control systems. She lost four of five primary Hive Clusters in the initial assault, but quickly beat back the slave broods and killed the UED science team controlling them. She then mounted a covert assault on Shakuras, and kidnapped Matriarch Raszagal from the Protoss city of Talematros.

The assault was a ploy to lure Zeratul into killing the infant Overmind. In return for his services (as only Dark Templar energies can harm a Cerebrate or the Overmind), Kerrigan promised to release the Matriarch.

After a grueling battle with Protoss and Zerg battling against UED slave broods guarding their enslaved Overmind, Zeratul personally ended the threat of the immature Overmind. He demanded that Kerrigan hand over Raszagal, but to his horror, the Matriarch herself refused to leave Kerrigan’s side. Brimming with arrogance, Kerrigan revealed she’d been psionically controlling the Matriarch before her encounter with Zeratul on Shakuras. Hoping to save his leader, the Dark Templar Prelate kidnapped the brainwashed Raszagal.

Within six hours, all Zerg on Char then fell under Kerrigan’s influence. Taking the opportunity for revenge on Zeratul, the Queen of Blades marshaled her Swarms with explicit orders to capture Zeratul and the Matriarch. The rest of the Protoss were to perish.

In less than a half hour, the Zerg Swarms had massacred the Protoss defenses and were in position to take possession of Raszagal’s Stasis Cell prison.

Zeratul appeared suddenly, and cut down the Matriarch with his warp blade, proclaiming it was better she die than live as Kerrigan’s slave. With her dying thoughts, Raszagal thanked Zeratul for freeing her from Kerrigan’s control and entrusted him to watch over the Dark Templar tribes.

Stunned by the ruthless act, Kerrigan permitted Zeratul and a handful of surviving Dark Templar to flee the planet of Char.

With the major threats to her power gone – the Terran Dominion in ruins, the UED expedition routed, the Protoss beaten, and the Zerg Swarms all under her control (she found even Cerebrates to be superfluous; she had direct control over all of the Zerg) – Kerrigan retreated to an orbital platform above Char. Protected only by a single Cerebrate and its brood, she let her guard down for a moment.

It very nearly cost her everything. Three different fleets converged on her poorly-defended platform: one UED, one aligned with Arcturus Mengsk, and a Protoss fleet led by Executor Artanis, effective leader of the Aiur Protoss. Through nuclear missiles, Siege Tank barrages, Battlecruiser assaults, Zealot skirmishes, Scarab bombs, and the other weapons at the disposal of the Terran and Protoss attackers, the Zerg Brood defending Kerrigan’s Hive Cluster fought back the determined and desperate assault. Blood flowed freely across the Char Aleph station, but finally, the Zerg prevailed. Mengsk promised he’d be watching Kerrigan as he withdrew, while Artanis swore the Protoss would never forget her manipulations and treachery.

DuGalle pleaded for the lives of his men, but Kerrigan bluntly explained her intention to take no prisoners. She gave him and the surviving UED forces a running start and claimed victory, cementing her rule as the ruler of the Zerg, now the de facto superpower of the Koprulu Sector.

Kerrigan kept her word with DuGalle, and a Zerg strike force killed the escaping fleet to the last man before they reached Earth.

Over the next few years, the Zerg remained quiet, slowly rebuilding and developing new strains. “Headquartered” on Aiur, Kerrigan’s forces still cause trouble for interlopers to Zerg worlds. Kerrigan herself has engineered the creation of a second infested Terran, as she is, one Ethan Stewart. Stewart’s role appears to be that of a general and royal consort.

These new developments indicate that while the Zerg have been docile for four years, Sarah Kerrigan, the “Queen of Blades,” has little intention of their remaining that way for long.