Terran

Terrans are the name used for humans to distinguish them from humans who remained on Earth. The name later referred to all humans.

Overview
Terrans have a genetic history of psionic power, but are generations away from reaching this full potential. Most have no psionic powers. The Terrans have found themselves in the middle of a war between the Protoss and the Zerg, and have struggled to survive amidst the war while also dealing with civil wars. However, some seem to also have made friends with the Protoss. Particularly in Episode III and afterwards, Marshal James Raynor seems to be accepted among the Protoss as an ally. They became true friends in the last chapter in Episode III when Raynor, Zeratul and Tassadar fought the Overmind together, but Tassadar sacrificed himself to destroy the Overmind.


 * Basically the same as humans of the 21st century, but they are slowly evolving into a psionically potent race, and, of course, are much more technologically advanced.
 * Originally were criminals rounded up and cast out on settler ships on a one year trip to a colony world. However, the navigation computer shut off during the trip and they ended up in stasis for 28 years. They ended up scattered across three colony worlds (Moria, Tarsonis, and Umoja).
 * After reuniting with the other colony worlds, Tarsonis established several colony worlds and formed the powerful, dictatorial Terran Confederacy. One colony, Korhal, went into rebellion and was nuked into oblivion. Arcturus Mengsk rounded up a force of rebels, the Sons of Korhal, and began to wage a guerrilla war against the Confederacy.
 * It is in December of 2499 when the Protoss and Zerg publically arrive in Confederate space, attacking the outlying colony worlds of Chau Sara and Mar Sara, respectively. However, the Protoss were obliterating the Zerg infestation of Chau Sara that had gone (supposedly) unnoticed.

Prehistory
At the end of the twenty-first century, private firms developed cybertechnology and genetic manipulation techniques, the latter eventually resulting in mutations ranging from enhanced senses to advanced telepathy. As the human gene pool warped, humanists, fundamentalists and other conservative organizations clashed with these corporations and their results.

By the twenty-fourth century, the human population had reached 23 billion and was still growing. As the huge population caused the implosion of many economies, the New World Order was founded, officially known as the United Powers League, on November 22, 2229. Replacing the defunct United Nations, it encompassed and controlled 93% of Earth's population. Only a few volatile South American countries remained outside its sphere of influence.

The UPL claimed it was an "enlightened socialist" organization - one of its first acts was to attempt to end racial separation - but frequently resorted to fascist tactics, banning many old languages and religions, imposing English as the primary world wide language.

Project Purification
While not a religious organization, the UPL embraced the philosophy of "the divinity of mankind". Hard-line members of the UPL launched Project Purification to remove mutations and unnecessary cybernetic prosthetics from the human population.

The UPL sent troops around the world, imprisoning hackers, synthetics, the cybernetically enhanced, tech-pirates, and criminals of every kind. In the process, 400 million people were killed. However, the UPL controlled the media to such an extent that the general population was not informed of these events.

The UPL also developed warp drive and cryonic technologies, opening the frontiers of space; within forty years the UPL had founded colonies on moons and planets in the Solar System.

The project allowed the UPL to use humans as lab rats, which sparked a huge scientific evolution in the human civilization of the StarCraft universe. Humans were subjected to drug enhancements, genetic purification, and emotion inhibitors and activators, sometimes through the use of the artificial intelligence. Many of those men and women that were used for scientific experiments. Because the UPL was a police state and a world dominion, test individuals were never scarce, as the UPL always apprehended those individuals against their plans.

The Long Sleep
During this period, a brilliant young scientist named Doran Routhe made plans to consolidate his power within the UPL by creating a colonization project to collect minerals and other resources from outside the solar system. It was very risky, but he had no problem with sending political prisoner lab rats to their potential deaths. Fifty six thousand prisoners were (secretly) prepared for transport, and of these, forty thousand were loaded into four sleeper-ships designated the Reagan, the Argo, the Sarengo, and the Nagglfar and loaded for a one year journey into deep space to Gantris VI, an outlying planet. Only the Nagglfar had a navigation system; the other three ships would follow it. The Nagglfar was also equipped with an artificial intelligence called ATLAS.

ATLAS scanned the prisoners en route, and discovered something unusual about them - a relatively 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.

However, the guidance system failed, and the ships traveled at faster-than-light speeds for thirty years, travelling 60,000 light years. Eventually the warp engines failed, and the ships emerged within the Koprulu Sector in a star system which contained a myriad of barren, if habitable, planets. This event would become known as the Long Sleep.

The Sarengo crashed on Umoja, killing 8,000 prisoners, the survivors of the Reagan founded the colony of Umoja, the survivors of the Argo founded the colony of Moria on a resource-rich world, and the survivors of the Nagglfar built what would become the main Terran colony in the sector: Tarsonis. When they awoke, the survivors had no idea where they were or where Earth was: all hope of making contact again was lost. Colonists on both worlds discovered that ATLAS had somehow erased all knowledge of their journey from their computer banks.

As the Tarsonians had access to ATLAS, they had a technological head-start on their stellar neighbors. Even so, it took them sixty years to build second generation subwarp engines and discover the other two colonies.

Terrans at War
Tarsonis attempted to convince the other two colonies to join in a conglomerate government (they refused) even as it created a large number of new colonies. By the time of the Guild Wars, Tarsonis had founded seven other colonies within the Koprulu Sector, including Korhal, and was calling its government an interstellar Terran Confederacy. Thus the Kel-Morian Combine was formed; a "pirate militia" which aided any of Moria's mining guilds that came into conflict with the Confederates. This led to a rise of tensions between Moria and the Terran Confederacy, leading to the Terran Guild Wars.

During the four-year war, the Morians used the Larscorp Goliath, which was well-suited to the constant urban warfare. Corporate information liberations stole the plans for the Goliath for the Confederacy, who built them as well.

Space warfare was conducted between large battlecruisers and medium-sized gunships. The latter would be replaced by Wraith fighters at some point after the war.

During the war, a notable Confederate military figure was General Brantigan Fole, who had a statue dedicated to him at Tarsonis' Ghost Academy. Umoja may have played a role in the war, big enough to "have its own side", almost certainly against the Confederates.

After four years, the Confederates declared victory after "negotiating" peace with the Kel-Morian Combine. Moria was left independent, but its supporting guilds were annexed; the events occurred approximately ten years before the beginning of StarCraft. Since then, Moria has founded new mining colonies and provided the Terran Confederacy with so much money that they are effectively immune to Confederate laws.

As a response to the defeat of the Kel-Morian Combine, the Umojan government developed its own "pirate militia", called the Umojan Protectorate.

Meanwhile, Confederates prospectors founded many new colonies and Confederate enforcement agencies abused the colonists, causing many rebel groups, such as the Colonial Liberation Army, to rise up against the Confederates, but they were rarely any match for the Confederate forces.

Rebellion of Korhal
Korhal IV, one of the oldest Terran Confederacy colonies, was a world of affluence. It's people, however, resented their affiliation with the corrupt Confederate senators.

Tensions arose between the colonists and the Confederates as the citizens began to revolt against the local Confederate militia. The Confederates imposed martial law, but the revolt refused to die out.

Korhalian Senator Angus Mengsk became a leader of the Korhalian revolt, issuing fiery statements declaring that the Confederacy no longer held any claim over the world of Korhal.

The revolt was successful enough to drive the Confederates from the planet, as the Confederacy decided on a new tactic. Three Ghosts assassins killed him and most of his family in the capital city, Styrling, and his head was never found. This did much to weaken the revolt.

Arcturus Mengsk, Angus's son, a former Confederate Colonel and prospector, was embarrassed by his father's actions, and while aware of Confederate corruption, was generally uninterested in Koprulu Sector politics. However, he was outraged by the death of his family and returned to Korhal to continue the rebellion. He rallied the militant groups that had followed his father and created an army which struck at various Confederate bases and installations. When he was gone to visit Umoja, an important rival of the Terran Confederacy, the Confederates fired a thousand Apocalypse-class nuclear missiles at Korhal, wiping out all life on the surface.

Next: StarCraft Prequel