THE TERRANS
The Terrans are a group of humans who were exiled from Earth and launched into space aboard massive ark ships. Most of these ships were lost during the journey, but a few managed to survive and eventually reached a region where they would make their new home: the Koprulu Sector.
The story begins in the distant year of 2499. After a long period of adapting to life in space, far from their home planet, the Terrans had finally entered a time of stability under the rule of the newly formed Terran Confederation. On the surface, it appeared to be a benevolent government—especially from the perspective of citizens in the core colonies, most notably on the capital planet Tarsonis. However, for those living in the outer colonies, it was seen as nothing more than an oppressive military dictatorship. This perception would eventually lead to the rise of numerous rebel groups over the years, the most notable among them being the Sons of Korhal, a militant faction led by Arcturus Mengsk.
But some years before the Confederation's internal conflicts erupted, a private research and exploration company called Moebius, led by chief scientist Narud Acveld, made what could be humanity's most significant discovery. While exploring the most distant planet at the edge of the Confederation's known space, they uncovered the ruins of what appeared to be a highly advanced alien pyramid—marking the first confirmed evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial life in the universe. Unfortunately, that was not all they found inside. After spending considerable time excavating the entrance to a vault in the deepest chamber of the ruins—using even a prototype high-powered laser—they discovered a strange sample of mummified and partially fossilized biological tissue. Naively, they collected it for study.
The scientists of Moebius did not know it then, but a primordial evil had been unleashed.
After removing the sample from the ruins and transporting it to a lab in the outer regions of colonized space—where the research could be conducted in secret—Moebius scientists slowly began making progress in studying the alien tissue over the years. As their research advanced, they became increasingly obsessed with the sample. Despite its severely deteriorated state, once it was fed nutrients, it began showing signs of activity, stunning the researchers with its regenerative capabilities. They believed this could lead to major breakthroughs in Terran medicine.But more than that, their tests revealed the sample had a strong psionic signature—something that could potentially be used to further enhance the Confederation's "Ghost" units, genetically and psionically augmented humans.
After years of experiments, and countless attempts to complete the tissue's DNA using genetic material from various living organisms, the scientists managed to achieve something not far from a miracle: they brought a creature to life from that sample.That being would come to be known as the "Zergling", the first Zerg to walk the universe in eons.
However, the creature was far from perfect—just a twisted, devolved version of what it once was, due to the modifications made by the Terran scientists. But over time, the tyrannical Zerg DNA began to overwrite the altered segments. The creature gradually started to resemble its original form, growing unnaturally large fangs and claws for its size, along with irregular spines and wing-like protrusions across its body. For a long time, the scientists believed these deformities were side effects of the genetic engineering process. Combined with the creature's growing aggression and increasing size, their unease only grew.
All except one.
The true identity of chief scientist Narud was none other than Duran—a rogue Confederate Ghost who had long been presumed KIA. Deeply attuned to psionic energies, Duran had felt something from the very moment they approached the planet where the ruins were found—something like a whisper, a pull, a guiding hand. It was under that influence that the explorers located the vault, and under his insistence that its seal was broken. That mummified tissue called to him… whispered to him.The Overmind must live again.
To continue his research and the larger project of reviving the Zerg—a name that would only be uncovered later through translations of the pyramid's ancient inscriptions—Narud sought funding from the Confederation. Seeing the creature as a potential weapon to crush the growing rebel factions across the sector, the Confederation agreed.Unaware that they were creating the very tools of their own destruction.
THE ZERG
The Zerg were a race that had existed since the very first breaths of creation. It was nearly impossible to find any matter in the universe older than them.They embodied the purest and most brutal expression of the law of the jungle — evolution in its rawest form.
In their earliest days, the Zerg were a plague upon worlds.They hunted every form of organic life they came across, swarming over planets, multiplying at terrifying speeds, and consuming everything until nothing was left behind.In doing so, they forced life to evolve — and they evolved in turn to keep up with it.
But even in their endless hunger and savage instinct, there was a kind of control.Their destruction had purpose. Direction.Their eternal hunt was not just chaos — it was strategy. Survival. And because of that, they couldn't afford to wipe out all of their food sources.
Then one day, the primal Zerg came into contact with something they had never encountered before.Something new. Something majestic. Something dangerous.
For the first time, the Zerg found themselves challenged for dominance over the universe.
They had clashed with the Protoss — a race of beings so technologically advanced and so deeply attuned to psionic power that they were nearly unbeatable.It wasn't long before the two species entered into conflict.
But that first war was no contest.
The Protoss barely saw the Zerg as a threat. To them, it was pest control. A purge.And for the wild Zerg, it was near extinction.
But desperation fuels change.And the Zerg evolved — in ways the universe had never seen before.
That evolution gave birth to a hive mind — a collective intelligence that linked every Zerg together.From the raw instinct of survival came a will greater than the sum of its parts.It didn't exist in the physical realm. It was something more — a higher consciousness born from necessity.
At first, it was barely different.This newborn mind didn't know what to do yet. But it knew one thing:It had to survive. At all costs.
And the Protoss stood in the way.
Battle after battle, the disorganized wild Zerg began to move with strategy and precision.When tactics failed, new strains of Zerg would appear overnight to counter their weaknesses.Their numbers grew beyond anything natural — their hives were no longer birthing animals, but soldiers.
When the first Protoss began to fall on the battlefield, it became clear:the swarm that once took years to overrun a planet could now consume entire star systems in days.
That was when the Protoss finally realized the war was real.They dispatched their elite warriors to the affected sectors as the Zerg spread by the hour.
It was the beginning of the first — but by no means the last — Zerg–Protoss War.
The war was brutal and lasted a long time, leaving a vast stretch of devastated planets in its wake.But ultimately, it ended with the defeat of the Zerg, as the Protoss had nearly infinite resources to keep fighting — they controlled most of the known universe, after all.
By the war's end, the Protoss destroyed the last known Zerg hive, believing they had completely eradicated the threat.
But nothing could be further from the truth.
Now fully matured, the Overmind — realizing defeat was inevitable — had retreated small Zerg broods to the farthest reaches of space, beyond the expanding Protoss borders.There, in the darkest corners of the universe, the Zerg began rebuilding their forces.
But that wasn't all.
The Protoss, proud warriors that they were, carried trophies from the battlefield with them — a cultural tradition that had never caused them problems before.But the Zerg are anything but ordinary.
The Overmind had crafted a cruel and brilliant trap: it had left behind microscopic Zerg organisms hidden inside Zerg skeletons — bones that were now scattered across Protoss territory as war trophies.
These dormant creatures were designed to lie in wait, feeding on any organic matter they came into contact with, slowly growing into full-fledged swarms.
The plan was for these skeletons to spread throughout Protoss space unnoticed — and then ignite a full-scale resurgence from within.
But the Overmind underestimated the efficiency and power of the Protoss.
Their empire expanded faster than expected, and the hidden swarm was discovered before it could mature.The scattered remains had only reached a small portion of Protoss space — but that was enough.
The second Zerg–Protoss War had begun.
This time, the Zerg had a stable foothold.And the Protoss, for the first time, were forced to fight on multiple fronts within their own territory.
The conflict between the two races followed the same cycle for thousands of years: the Protoss would face and defeat the Zerg, believing they had eradicated them—only for the swarm to resurface somewhere else in the galaxy. Eventually, however, the Protoss managed to end the threat once and for all, sealing the last known sample of Zerg tissue deep within a sanctuary.
That is, until Narud's scientists discovered and reawakened the sample, bringing the Zerg back once again.
Sensing Narud's presence, the long-dormant Overmind reached out with a desperate plea, showing Narud visions of the Zerg's former glory and promising the power he had always craved.
With funding from the Confederacy, Narud was able to accelerate the process. Through manipulation and persuasion, he convinced military officials to test his new weapon on one of their outer colonies—Chau Sara, a planet known for harboring anti-government insurgents.
The test ended in "disaster," just as Narud had planned, when a Protoss fleet—drawn by the Zerg presence—attacked the planet. The assault caused the Zerg to spread throughout the system.
The swarm quickly moved to another inhabited world in the Sara system: Mar Sara, a mining colony. Despite desperate pleas for aid, the Confederacy offered only minimal support. A portion of the population was evacuated and recruited by the Sons of Korhal, among them the now former sheriff James Raynor, who would become one of the movement's most important figures.
At this point, not only the Zerg but the Protoss as well—though in far fewer numbers—had begun invading Terran space, with all three factions fighting a chaotic war on multiple fronts.
Despite these setbacks, and the mysterious disappearance of Narud, the Confederacy continued its Zerg research. They discovered that the creatures could be attracted to—or even influenced by—psionic waves emitted by Ghost operatives. However, the Ghosts lacked both the efficiency and range to fully exploit this trait, which only served to make them easier targets for the Zerg, even while cloaked. Using this insight, scientists developed a psionic emitter capable of luring massive numbers of Zerg across a wide area.
This technology was stolen and used by Arcturus Mengsk and the Sons of Korhal to bring down the Confederacy. They planted an emitter on the Confederate capital world of Tarsonis, luring the Zerg and triggering the planet's complete destruction. With the Confederacy in ruins, Mengsk established a new Terran regime: the Dominion. For the first time in Terran history, the people were united under a single banner—with Mengsk as their emperor.
There was a time when Mengsk truly was the heroic figure the people believed him to be. But somewhere along the way—perhaps driven by power, or desperation—that man who had once sought unity became cold, ruthless, and unconcerned with the methods as long as they brought results.
During the fall of Tarsonis, Mengsk coldly abandoned part of his forces, including the rogue Ghost Sarah Kerrigan. As part of a newer generation of Ghosts, she had been enhanced with Zerg psionic traits. She was Mengsk's lieutenant and most trusted operative—and the love of James Raynor's life. Disillusioned by Mengsk's cruelty and genocidal tactics, Raynor gathered his followers and formed the Raynor's Raiders, a resistance group that would rise in defiance against the Dominion.
But contrary to what everyone believed, Sarah Kerrigan did not die at the claws of the Zerg. Narud—now the avatar of the Overmind and its anchor in the physical world—was leading the swarm, and he saw in Kerrigan a potential unlike anything he had encountered before. He chose to infest her, a process by which the Zerg convert an organism into one of their own—thus creating the Queen of Blades.
THE PROTOSS
In times immemorial, the Zerg were without a doubt the most powerful beings in the universe — but never the only ones. And even their boundless hunger could not reach every corner of the cosmos, not all at once. On the far opposite end of the universe, another race began to emerge. Safely distant from the Zerg threat, they had enough time to develop — time they would desperately need. From their earliest days, the Protoss were an unchanging species due to their incredibly long lifespans. This made them resistant to innovation, which was often met with blind skepticism and extreme violence.
Early Protoss society was marked by the persecution and execution of thinkers, with their government and culture defined by brutal, unending wars between countless clans across their homeworld, Aiur. Their civilization retained many tribal elements that would persist for eons.
But one day, the mystic Khas looked to the stars in search of a way to save his people — from both their suffering and their inability to feel empathy for one another. To achieve this, Khas sought to forge a psionic connection that would link all Protoss minds. In the midst of a massive battle that threatened the very existence of their species, Khas managed to put his plan into action. He unified his people through this shared psionic bond, allowing them to experience one another's thoughts and emotions. For the first time, the Protoss could truly understand each other, and their civilization began to flourish under the rule of the Conclave.
This connection, along with the teachings of Khas, would become known as the Khala.
Now united, the Protoss experienced rapid technological advancement, quickly mastering space travel and the ability to construct gateways that would one day create near-instantaneous travel tunnels across the universe. But despite their prosperity, the Protoss still faced internal problems. Not all Protoss clans had accepted the Khala—some actively severed their nerve cords to break the connection. These were the Nerazim, and the Conclave could not allow such irregularity to threaten their newly achieved unity. This led to a systematic hunt and attempted extermination of the Nerazim, who specialized in stealth tactics and remaining hidden, making them difficult to eliminate.
This hunt ignited a bloody civil war, which nearly led to the complete extinction of the Nerazim. But when faced with a moral choice, the Executor Adun chose to allow the Nerazim to flee Aiur, never to return. The Nerazim then vanished into the vastness of space aboard their ships.
With their internal strife behind them, the Protoss began expanding their control across the universe—which, in those days, was a very different place. The cosmos was far denser with matter, and life seemed to exist under every stone. Naturally, the Protoss encountered these lifeforms, some of which possessed intelligence.
Initially, their response was to annihilate anything that stood in their way. But determined to learn from their past mistakes, the Protoss adopted a more nuanced approach. When encountering wild, non-sentient life, they would collect specimens and preserve them aboard massive habitat ships. When discovering tribal societies, they would observe and subtly manipulate them in directions they deemed favorable. And when they met more advanced civilizations, the Protoss offered two choices: submission or extermination—with the latter being the more common outcome.
This was the golden age of the Protoss Golden Empire, and nothing seemed capable of halting their advance.
That is, until they encountered the Zerg.
Their first encounter was already violent, and it didn't take long for the Protoss to determine that the Zerg were far too aggressive to be preserved. The decision was made: the Zerg had to be exterminated. This led to escalating conflicts. At first, the Protoss had little trouble dealing with the Zerg, but the constantly evolving nature of their enemy meant that, despite ongoing innovations in Protoss weaponry—which grew increasingly destructive—they simply couldn't keep up. That was the Age of Fall, the relentless friction of war gradually weakened the empire's hold over its territory, with the most affected being the subordinate worlds—a humiliation the Conclave would not tolerate.
Eventually, the Conclave discovered the existence of the Overmind and managed to understand its pattern: whenever the Zerg approached extinction, the Overmind would experience a surge of power, taking control of even the smallest remaining fragments of Zerg biomass scattered across the galaxy and using them to rebuild the swarm. However, this ability only manifested in moments of dire crisis. So, the plan was simple—destroy the Zerg before they had time to react.
Through a series of staged battles, sacrificing numerous subordinate worlds and even their own soldiers, the Protoss lured the entirety of the Zerg swarm into the heart of their territory, where a trap had been set. As the final battle approached, the Conclave activated its most powerful weapon: a device designed to contract space itself, crushing everything within its radius.
The weapon was powerful—too powerful. Instead of merely contracting space, it caused a massive collapse over a far greater area than intended. The result was a rift in the very fabric of the universe, a wound that consumed not only the Zerg, but also all the Protoss subordinate worlds, their subject species, and over 90% of Protoss society.
Afterward, the Protoss managed to track the presence of the Overmind within the remaining Zerg biomass and used their technology to imprison its consciousness inside it, ending its influence and power over the remnants scattered across the galaxy, preventing it from reviving the Zerg. But fearing they had not destroyed all of the biomass, the Protoss chose to seal it away in a hidden sanctuary.
The scar left by the activation of the weapon caused deep trauma among the Protoss, with their only saving grace being that their most sacred world, Aiur, was spared from destruction. But the fear of the weapon grew so intense that the Protoss began actively destroying their most advanced technologies and isolated themselves within their original star system for millions of years, taking a very long time to venture into the universe again and recover what they had once built.
The Protoss were not the only ones to suffer from the use of the weapon—so too did the universe itself. Like a hemorrhage, the "wound" bled away almost all life from existence. Planets that once teemed with living organisms became one in a million, and the Protoss would not encounter intelligent life again until the resurgence of the Zerg.
Shortly before the resurgence of the Zerg, a young Protoss Executor named Tassadar—a prodigy in his mastery of the Khala and deeply attuned to the very fabric of the universe—sensed a dark presence in the void. Driven by curiosity, he ventured into the stars in search of answers. On one of his journeys, he encountered an enigmatic figure: Zeratul, a Dark Templar and Praetor of the Nerazim who still lived scattered throughout the universe. Zeratul was a being of immense power who, despite lacking the Khala, had forged an indescribably deep connection with the cosmos—and he, too, had felt the same ominous presence.
Their meeting quickly turned into a confrontation. Over the millennia, the Conclave had grown increasingly stubborn and intolerant, maintaining a standing order for all Protoss to kill any Nerazim on sight. However, Tassadar had an open mind and a thirst for knowledge. He could sense that Zeratul was not his enemy. Instead of fighting, the two began to speak—and what began as tension grew into a powerful alliance.
Together, they uncovered clear signs of the Zerg's return—signs the Conclave dismissed as mere ancient myths, ignored by all but those willing to look deeply enough, like Tassadar. The Nerazim, however, had never forgotten the Zerg. Having clashed with them multiple times across the stars, they had fought their own hidden wars. One truth the Conclave never knew was that the Zerg were uniquely drawn to the energies of the Nerazim, much like psionic ghosts, making them the first targets in many encounters. Because of this, the Nerazim had always remained vigilant against the Zerg's return.
Realizing the danger, both Tassadar and Zeratul returned to their respective peoples to seek support—but for Tassadar, this would not be easy. The Protoss clans were divided, teetering on the brink of civil war over control of Aiur. The Conclave, tasked with preventing such a war, was desperate to preserve peace at home and refused to send forces to confront a threat they didn't believe in.
It was only when Executor Aldaris, a high-ranking member of the Conclave and a scholar of the old legends, intervened that Tassadar was granted limited support—a small fleet, with the mission to destroy the Zerg and any Terran forces involved with them in any way.
But that delay proved costly. It gave Narud enough time to bring the Zerg back to life.
And the rest... you already know...
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And this is my version of the StarCraft story. As you may have noticed, I only covered events up to roughly the beginning of the Protoss campaign in the original StarCraft. The reasons for that are quite simple:
From that point onward, the story more or less follows the official campaign, and I don't have enough knowledge to properly deal with the events of Brood War, which makes it impossible for me to tackle anything from StarCraft II. And lastly… I just don't know what happens after that.
My other thoughts for this retelling mostly involve aesthetic changes—especially with the Protoss, whose focus now is on rediscovering their lost technologies rather than creating new ones—and with the Zerg, who are a modified version of the original strain seen at the beginning of the story.
Also, there are some game design ideas I've been toying with, mostly focusing on the current state of the Protoss. And… well, I don't really know how to put this…
But I kinda don't work at Blizzard, so I'm obviously not developing a StarCraft game. 😅
In the end, I hope you enjoyed this littleahem*3794 words dream of mine. Thank you for your time!
If I had to pick my favorite part, it was definitely erasing Amon entirely from the story!Bye!