StarCraft: Uprising

StarCraft: Uprising is StarCraft fiction authorized by Blizzard Entertainment, the same company that created the hit video game StarCraft, as an e-book.

It is a prequel to the events in the game StarCraft concerning the Sons of Korhal.

"Back of Book" Description
Far in the future, 60,000 light-years from Earth, a loose confederacy of Terran exiles are locked in battle with the enigmatic Protoss and the ruthless Zerg Swarm. Each species struggles to ensure its own survival among the stars in a war that will herald the beginning of mankind's greatest chapter -- or foretell its violent, bloody end. She is the Zerg Queen of Blades. Her name has become legend throughout the galaxy, and that legend is death for all who stand against her. Yet once, long ago, Sarah Kerrigan was human -- the unwilling subject of an insidious clandestine experiment. She was forced to serve as a merciless assassin for the Terran Confederacy until a twist of fate propelled her toward a destiny none could have foreseen. This is the untold tale of Kerrigan's shadowy origin...and the war that was fought for her very soul. An original tale of universal conflict set in the world of the award-winning, bestselling computer game from Blizzard Entertainment.

Synopsis
General Arcturus Mengsk, leader of the Korhallian Rebellion, and his right-hand man, Lieutenant Pollock Rimes, were recruiting in the Umojan Protectorate when he and the Umojan Ruling Council receive a tip from the Confederates. They witnessed the destruction of Korhal from their spydeck. This action, while destroying the vast majority of the Korhalian Rebellion, increased the number of recruits. Two of the new recruits were an aging Umojan soldier named Forest Keel and a Fringe Worlder named Somo Hung. The newly grouped rebels were termed the Sons of Korhal.

Mengsk refitted a captured Confederate battlecruiser, which he renamed the Hyperion.

The First Item
Sarah Kerrigan, a young telepathic woman, was being tested in a secret Confederate facility by Dr. Flanx. Her abilities were used to control strange xenomorphs.

Arcturus Mengsk made plans for his first retaliatory strike on the Confederacy. Forest Keel was trained to operate a tank, and the new recruits received general training. Somo Hung drew Rimes’ ire during the training. Finally Mengsk explained his daring plan to his troops:

With the assistance of Umojan-gathered intelligence, the Sons of Korhal would assault the secret Confederacy base on Vyctor 5. Keel, Hung, and Rimes would be part of the team. Infiltrating the area’s strange defenses, they recovered an amnesiac woman named Sarah, captured Dr. Flanx, and recovered some dead xenomorphs.

The Second Item
Arcturus Mengsk had the woman’s neural adjuster removed, which allowed her memories to slowly return. He and Somo Hung made her feel welcome, and Mengsk even gave her an important job… helping him interrogate Dr. Flanx. Meanwhile, Sarah Kerrigan remembered being tortured for more than a year by Lieutenant Rumm, her first trainer from her Ghost Program days.

Mengsk admitted to Kerrigan that he hadn’t rescued her for altruistic reasons, but because she had knowledge of the Ghost Academy on Tarsonis, which he planned to attack.

Entering Confederate space, the Hyperion was ambushed by the Norad II, commanded by Colonel Edmund Duke. A mole had alerted the Confederate battlecruiser, which prevented the Hyperion from escaping. Mengsk appeared to surrender long enough for Duke to send a boarding party to the Hyperion, then the Hyperion engaged in a form of combat so surprising it left Duke speechless for a moment. Meanwhile Dr. Flanx linked up with the boarding party, but they were successfully ambushed by the Sons of Korhal. However, the boarding party contained a Ghost who, hidden by his cloak, started killing the rebels. Sarah Kerrigan volunteered to eliminate the Ghost. Bringing back his body and Hostile Encounter Suit, she noted Mengsk’s strange thoughts, which he quickly hid from her.

The Third Item
Mengsk sent a team of rebels to the world of Pridewater, a Confederate colony with rebellious tendencies. During the trip, Hung and Kerrigan got close.

Mengsk asked Kerrigan to find a certain Ghost for him. To do so, Kerrigan would need a locater carried by the Academy’s Post Commander… Major Rumm. He had reason to believe Rumm was studying the xenomorphs.

The other rebels sneaked into the Academy, stealing weapons, but they were betrayed by the previous traitor. Hung, having determined who was betraying them, tracked him down and engaged him in mortal combat. He was severely injured, but the traitor was dead. Unfortunately, Major Rumm was able to capture Kerrigan in a high-gravity chamber due to the warning he had been given, and the rest of the rebels were ambushed by cloaked Ghosts.

The last remaining rebel, Forest Keel, blew up the Academy’s reactor (with a little help from Hung), killing and injuring the Ghosts (along with himself). This freed Kerrigan from the high gravity; she escaped and killed Major Rumm with her unlocked psionic powers. However, she escaped too late to prevent Rumm from killing Hung. Before leaving, Kerrigan retrieved the wanted Ghost (who had fallen unconscious in the battle with the rebels) and found and killed the xenomorphs being studied there.

Kerrigan brought the Ghost to Mengsk, who declared to the Ghost that he had killed his family, then shot him in cold blood. Kerrigan was horrified at once again being used, but Mengsk told her that she had given him hope, so he forgave her for being the third Ghost to have murdered his family.

The destruction of the Ghost Academy was too big to ignore; the Confederates allowed edited versions of Mengsk’s statements to be aired. Universe News Network reporter Michael Liberty covered the story.

Canon, Errors and Final Comments
StarCraft: Uprising is frequently seen as canon, as information contained within appears in StarCraft: Hybrid, a short story published by Blizzard Entertainment in Amazing Stories magazine. Micky Neilson has collaborated on the StarCraft storyline.


 * The battlecruiser is described as "roughly two leagues long", making one about six miles long. The battlecruisers in the cinematic (especially the one at the beginning of Brood War) are far smaller.


 * A few parts of the novel contradict the StarCraft manual. According to the novel, the missiles fired at Korhal emerged from battlecruisers, but in the manual, they were fired directly from Tarsonis.

Furthermore, the Terran military space vessels are equipped with Protoss-style shields in the novel, but not in the manual or game. Still, a reference to battlecruiser shields are made in the secret mission map Deception. In addition, the concept of Terran force fields was brought up in StarCraft Ghost: Nova.


 * Korhal lost 4 million people, according to the manual, but in the novel Mengsk says 35 million people were killed.


 * The novel says that Umoja and the other two original colonies were settled "just a few millenia" ago, but the manual says it was much more recent (after 2229).


 * Forest Keel said he served "seven cycles" in the Guild Wars, but in fact the Guild Wars only lasted four years.

Characters in StarCraft: Uprising

 * Lieutenant Sela Brock – Sons of Korhal pilot and officer.
 * Edmund Duke – Terran Confederacy officer.
 * Doctor Flanx – Terran Confederacy scientist researching xenomorphs.
 * Somo Hung – Fringe World immigrant to Umoja and Sons of Korhal soldier.
 * Sergeant Forest Keel – elderly Umojan veteran soldier and Siege Tank crewman.
 * Sarah Kerrigan – former Terran Confederacy Ghost and Sons of Korhal operative.
 * General Arcturus Mengsk – leader of the Sons of Korhal rebel movement.
 * Lieutenant Pollock Rimes – captain of the Hyperion.
 * Gunnery Sargeant Mitch Tanner; Gamma Squadron Marine stationed at the Pinacle.
 * Major Rumm – officer and Post Commander at the Ghost Academy.
 * Tibbs – a Sons of Korhal soldier.

Excerpt

 * Starcraft: Uprising. Simon & Schuster. Accessed 2007-11-16.