United Earth Directorate

The United Earth Directorate or UED is the current governing power on Earth, and is descended from the former controlling government, the United Powers League (UPL). The Directorate took a more pro-active role in internal and external galaxy affairs.

The United Earth Directorate is loosely based on the United Citizen Federation of the movie Starship Troopers. This can easily be seen at the end of Episode V, during the UED Victory movie.

The United Powers League
Following a period of social anarchy and the "fall of Western civilization", a new world government is re-asserted over Earth: the United Powers League (UPL). A police-state, it encompasses all but a few politically unstable South American countries. Rounding up "undesirables" &mdash; cyborgs, genetically "impure" individuals, hackers, political dissidents, psychics and more &mdash; they were determined to ensure mankind's purity and survival as a species; "Project Purification" was instituted: a campaign of mass genocide in which millions died.

The Exile and Long Sleep
However, the young scientist Doran Routhe wanted to explore deep space; he created a secret project intended to colonize distant planets with human prisoners, using four cold-sleep ships. It was very risky, but he had no problem with sending political prisoner "lab rats" to their possible deaths. Forty thousand prisoners were loaded into four sleeper-ships, called the Nagglfar, Argo, Reagan and Sarengo and loaded for a one year journey into deep space to the outlying planet, Gantris VI. The lead ship, the Nagglfar, was also equipped with an artificial intelligence called ATLAS, a revolutionary artificial intelligence. ATLAS scanned the prisoners, and discovered something unusual about them - a high proportion of them had a mutation leading to psionic potential. While currently weak, it would manifest in only a few generations. This information was logged and sent back to Earth. This may explain how the United Powers League came to know of this experiment. The project went awry, stranding the prisoners in the Koprulu Sector.

However, the guidance computer failed, and they traveled at faster than light speeds for 30 years. When they awoke, the survivors had no idea where they were or where Earth was: all hope of making contact again was lost. One of the spaceships (the Sarengo) crashed on Umoja killing all aboard, another, the Reagan, founded the colony of Umoja, the Argo founded the colony of Moria, and the Nagglfar built the main Terran colony in the sector: Tarsonis. The Terrans of Tarsonis eventually re-built the warp drive and created an interstellar Terran Confederacy. There were roughly a dozen Terran colony planets in the sector by the end of the 25th century. However, war broke out with the Zerg invasion and subsequent clashes with the Protoss.

As was later revealed, the UPL (consisting of Earth and its sister worlds) was able to observe the Terran breakaway colonies for some time. Their technology and weapons of war were almost exactly identical and very similar to those created by the Confederacy. No explanation of this is given in game. (This could be explained as result of the UPL's keen observation of the various colonies. Another possible explanation is that since the Confederacy used the databanks of the Nagglfar to deveolp their technology, the UPL would naturally have technology that was very similar)

The StarCraft: Brood War story
While there were no aliens in the home sector of Earth, there were two alien races exploring the Koprulu Sector. Neither were native to this area but came from the unknown regions of space. The conflicting Terran groups in this area would make first contact with the Protoss and Zerg, not the Directorate.

Reformation
But the former United Powers League carefully watched the Terran colonies. When the discovery of these two alien races were made, all of Earth was reformed into the United Earth Directorate.

Taking Action
The new Board of directors took action. An Expeditionary Force led by their greatest military leader, Admiral DuGalle, was assembled. Admiral DuGalle was given three main objectives when he would arrive:
 * Conquer all of the rogue Terran colonies and bring them under Directorate control
 * Take control of the Zerg Swarm by capturing the newborn Zerg Overmind
 * Use the commandeered Zerg Swarm to conquer the Protoss and pacify all Protoss conflict in the sector

Battle Order
Admiral DuGalle would have Vice Admiral Stukov as his second-in-command. The Fleet itself would be organized into two distinct wings:
 * Atlas Wing - ground forces, main color brown
 * Cronus Wing - space forces, main color white

The Cronus Wing was by far the largest force; usually the UED forces opposed by the player focused on aerial combat rather than ground combat (which was favored by the Terran Dominion).

There were also several specialized organizations within the whole Fleet:
 * UED Blockade
 * UED Strike Team
 * UED Commando Force
 * UED Science Corps

The UED Blockade was formed to blockade newly conquered worlds or help prevent outside interference and escapes with ongoing planetary battles. The UED Strike Team and UED Commando Force were elite ground forces that played a role in some of the Directorate missions during the campaign. The Science Corps controlled the second Overmind.

Vice Admiral Stukov himself had an Elite Guard, which used blue as its color. Stukov would actually defy the Directorate orders, although he did so in the Directorate's best interests. But disinformation by Samir Duran, a former member of Alpha Squadron, would lead to the death of Stukov.

Koprulu Sector Journey
The journey to the Koprulu Sector was a long and tedious one. The only way a military force could travel far in space was through suspended animation which the Expeditionary Force did. The forces arrived in the Koprulu Sector without incident, and immediately on arrival began to take over the nearby world of Braxis.

Koprulu Campaign
The UED started their invasion by setting Zerg on a Terran-occupied planet and watching the resulting massacre.

Braxis was the first of many victories for the Directorate forces in the Koprulu Sector, where Vice Admiral Stukov and Admiral DuGalle would meet the mysterious commando Samir Duran. The Expeditionary Fleet would travel to conquer Korhal (throne world of the Terran Dominion), successfully activate the Psi Disrupter (which severely weakened Zerg forces), and capture the second Zerg Overmind on Char.

Infested Kerrigan rallied various Protoss and Terran forces, such as Raynor's Raiders, to help fight the powerful Directorate Fleet. They were able to destroy the Psi Disrupter and the Zerg slowly came back to power. Infested Kerrigan, with the help of the Dark Templar, made a final blow by killing the Overmind. With both the Psi Disrupter and Overmind gone, Kerrigan became the Queen of Blades and leader of the Zerg. Kerrigan's former Protoss and Terran allies quickly became her enemies. The Protoss had to retreat from their homeworld of Aiur to the Dark Templar world of Shakuras. The Terran Dominion forces were left alone, but the UED forces were chased down and destroyed.

Directorate Continues
The United Earth Directorate suffered a great loss with the defeat of the Expeditionary Fleet, but it is still the only other power that has sufficient force to resist Kerrigan's Zerg, aided by the great distance between UED Earth space and the Koprulu Sector. However, the entire force within the Koprulu Sector was destroyed, so the UED must replenish forces from Earth if it wishes to attack the Koprulu Sector again.

It is unknown how much of its strength the Earth put into the military expedition to the Koprulu sector; the size of the UED Fleet commanded by DuGalle has been the source of much debate. Many people believe the Fleet was relatively small in size and was used primarily to scout Koprulu territory, and represented but a fraction of Earth's full military potential. However, it should be noted that the word "Expeditionary", when applied to military units in the real world, does not denote size or intent, but simply refers to any force dispatched to fight in a foreign land. For example, the American Expeditionary Force during World War I consisted of around 1 million soldiers. They also point out that in the Brood War campaign fears are raised for the safety of the planet Earth, should the UED fail to neutralize the alien (both Zerg and Protoss) threat. However many see this as falsified propaganda, as it is unlikely that any in the K-Sector know exactly where Earth is located.

All the same, it is likely that the United Earth Directorate has maintained some defense at home. The UED Expeditionary Force remnant may also have built a secret base at Abaddon in or near the Koprulu Sector.