Mothership

The mothership is a powerful protoss capital ship. It is set to appear in StarCraft II.

Overview
Motherships are mighty protoss vessels that were constructed centuries ago during the Golden Age of Expansion. They were intended to act as primary command ships to lead vast armadas of protoss explorers through deep space and bring them safely home again. They were designed by Juras, though in contrast to his initial design, weapons were added at the insistence of the Templar Caste.

In the aftermath of this period of expansion, the surviving motherships became holy shrines to the protoss, representing an honored way of life and a part of the proud history of the protoss race. As such, they were left in place as titanic monuments at the farthest reaches of protoss exploration. It was believed that their like would not be needed again. After the zerg devastated Aiur however, the surviving motherships were called back into service. Arriving in Aiur's star system, only to find the planet largely abandoned by the protoss, the assembled fleet of motherships embarked on a search for the protoss breatheren. Eventually this came to pass and are now not crewed with mystics and historians, but with warriors.

At the heart of each mothership is a huge khaydarin crystal infused with an incredible amount of psionic energy. By tapping into this energy, a mothership can warp or crack the very fabric of space-time itself. The devastating power of a mothership can wipe out squadrons of enemy ships in the blink of an eye or lay waste to entire planets. Other aspects of a mothership's interior include a waking chamber for its commander, crew quarters and a medical bay.

Game Unit
fr4qjfvhp_o In the most current development version of StarCraft II, the mothership is unique for balance reasons.

The mothership moves very slowly.

The mothership is treated as a support unit with powerful defenses.

The mothership's standard attack consists of two beam weapons. These can attack both air and ground units. This makes them quite ideal as support in the back lines of a battle while capable of attacking enemies in the front lines. While the mothership has an immense amount of hit points, it is incredibly expensive and not worth the risk of being exposed to open fire. Players should expect the enemy to throw everything they have in destroying these immense vessels. Overall, it should only be built if one has air superiority and can adequately defend it.

Development
The mothership has been switched back and forth from a one-of-a-kind unit to a normal unit, multiple times since its unveiling in May 2007.

The mothership is hard to test, as it is high in the tech tree.

The mothership used to be able to survive a direct hit from a nuclear missile.

The mothership could be cloaked with Null Shield in earlier builds.

Previous Abilities
Any abilities that do not make it into the final mothership will still be available in the game editor.

Time Bomb has been added and removed to the mothership frequently. It was last removed as of April 2009 and given to the high templar in the form of Time Rift.

Quotes

 * Main page: Mothership Quotations

Known Motherships



 * Moratun

Known Commanders

 * Juras
 * Rihod

Trivia
If the Blizzard game demonstration video is any indication, not to mention the voice of the quotes on the official StarCraft II website, it is thus far the only protoss non-hero unit to be voiced by a female representative.

The mothership's "Planet Cracker" ability is based on the energy beam from the ship in the introduction video for StarCraft I. That ship is the "conceptual anchor" for the mothership idea.