Mothership

The Protoss Mothership is an extremely powerful capital ship. They were originally constructed centuries ago during the Golden Age of Expansion, acting as command ships for Protoss explorers sent on expeditions; they were crewed by mystics and historians. As the Golden Age reached its end, the Motherships were left in place as monuments at the farthest reaches of Protoss exploration. After the Zerg devastated Aiur, the surviving Motherships were converted into warships and crewed by warriors, although they are also treated as holy shrines.

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 and 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.

Strategic Properties
The Mothership's standard attack consists of eight anti-ground disruptor pulses, that spread out and attack all enemies within range. This makes them quite ideal as support in the back lines of a battle, dishing out pain to the front lines. While the Mothership has an immense amount of a hit points, they are incredibly expensive, and are not worth the risk of being exposed to open fire. Indeed, expect the enemy to throw everything they have in destroying these immense vessels.

The true power of the Mothership comes from its three special abilities. Each one has the capacity to turn defeat to victory.
 * Time Bomb - Slows down all enemy movement within a radius around the Mothership's position when it casts this. It also stops ranged weapons from reaching their targets. Ideal for dealing with static defense like Missile Turrets.
 * Planet Cracker - Deals massive damage to an area directly below the Mothership's position (ideal for destroying buildings and slow-moving targets such as Siege Tanks. However, it has no effect on air units.
 * Cloaking Field: The Mothership has the ability to cloak not only all ground units under it, similar to that of the Arbiter, but buildings as well. The field is only active when the Mothership is stationary.

At BlizzCon 2007 it was announced that the Mothership had undergone some major changes losing the Black Hole ability as well as being able to attack air units, however it retains its ability to use the planet cracker and more than one Mothership can be built.

Statistics
As of May 21, 2007, the Mothership possesses 350 shields, 850 hit points, and 300 energy; the Time Bomb ability costs 75 Energy and the Planet Cracker costs 100 Energy.

The Mothership itself costs 400 minerals, 400 gas and 10 psi.

Quotes
- Select Quotes
 * "As all are one."
 * "Justice has come."
 * "Downloading orders."
 * "Directive confirmed."
 * "We await."
 * "Direct us."
 * "We proceed."

- In game Quotes
 * "Defensive systems failing."
 * "Reaching progress, we are undone."
 * "As the Khala wills."
 * "We are the voice of Aiur."
 * "Our systems host with the truth."

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 design of the ship seems to be model on the city ship Atlantis from the TV series Stargate Atlantis. It is also visually similar to the titular space station of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.