Valkyrie

"Valkyrie prepared"

- Terran Valkyrie

The Valkyrie-class Frigate is a Terran anti-fighter spacecraft that first appeared in StarCraft: Brood War.

Overview
The Valkyrie first appeared in the Koprulu Sector as part of the United Earth Directorate pacification force at the beginning of the Brood War, and was quickly adopted by Colonial forces.

The Valkyrie was a well-armored and respectably fast spacecraft designed to engage other enemy spacecraft. They were armed with H.A.L.O. anti-aircraft/spacecraft rockets which were fired in large volleys. The detonation of a rocket was powerful enough to damage nearby enemy units, and not just the primary target. As such, the Valkyrie was particularly effective against closely packed enemy forces.

After the Brood War, Valkyries were adopted into the Terran Dominion for a brief period; the Dominion later replaced them with the more agile Predator.

StarCraft
The Valkyrie fires rockets in salvos of eight. Each rocket causes splash damage to enemy units within a 3x3 matrix around its detonation. As each rocket has a base damage of 6 (explosive), this makes Valkyrie excellent at quickly causing damage, and destroying, lightly-armored enemy air units which are packed closely together.

A bug prevents the Valkyrie from attacking if there are too many units on the battlefield, possibly limiting the Valkyrie's utility.

Upgrades

 * Ship Weapons
 * Ship Plating

Quotations

 * See: StarCraft Quotations

Known Valkyries

 * Anglia: Part of a small force sent to aprehend Jake Ramsey and Rosemary Dahl above the world of Dead Man's Rock. The use of the Khala by Ramsey stunned the captain long enough for the fugitives to escape.

Background
The Valkyrie appeared in Alpha and Beta versions of StarCraft as a ground-attack bomber but never made it into the final version of StarCraft.

The Valkyrie's current model may have been influenced by text in the StarCraft manual. Before the development of the Wraith, space battles generally took place between medium-sized gunships and battlecruisers. The Wraith supplanted the gunships because they were agile enough to avoid laser battery fire.

The Valkyrie was later included in the expansion: StarCraft: Brood War. During development of the expansion they had an ability called "Afterburners", which gave them a very high speed for a limited time and cost energy. However, it was found that it was far too easy for Valkyries to fly into a Zerg base and destroy all of its Overlords. To prevent the use of such a "cheesy" strategy, "Afterburners" was removed from the final release.

The classification of a "frigate" is strange in a sense, given that the Valkyrie appears to be a heavy fighter rather than a space frigate which, in science fiction, are usually hundreds of meters long. Still, the UED may have differentiated away from the norm.

It was possibly named after the XB-70 Valkyrie, a supersonic strategic bomber that never reached production.