One-Day War

The One-Day War was a one day conflict in 2512 between the Terran Dominion, Zerg Swarm, and Daelaam as they fought to maintain the peace against an insurgent zerg breed known as the chitha led by Abathur, who sought to spark conflict between the zerg and the other factions of the sector. At the center of the conflict was the adostra, a breed that mix zerg and xel'naga essence that could generate life on ruined worlds.

Background
In the wake of the End War, the powers of the Koprulu Sector enjoyed an uneasy peace, but struggled to rebuild. The Daelaam struggled to heal from the deep societal scars from the loss of the Khala, and continued their reconstruction efforts on Aiur. The Terran Dominion meanwhile was suffering from famine and droughts, as they struggled to rebuild their scarred worlds. Heavily damaged worlds were putting an intense economic strain on the rest of the Dominion, and a massive number of physically and psychologically scarred war veterans stretched the nation to capacity. Emperor Valerian Mengsk sought help from the Umojan Protectorate, but due to distrust between the two nations after the reign of Arcturus Mengsk and the recently ended Umojan-Dominion Cold War, was denied aid.

The Zerg Swarm meanwhile underwent a drastic change under Overqueen Zagara. Sarah Kerrigan, former ruler of the Swarm, had ascended into a xel'naga She first gave the zerg the power to choose their own destiny, and then gifted samples of xel'naga essence for them to use. Zagara sought to use this to rebuild the planets destroyed by the various wars. She had Abathur, the zerg evolution master, create a new breed from a mix of zerg, another unknown race of sentient beings, and the xel'naga. This breed, known as the adostra, rested in pods and could "dream" life into the surrounding land, forcing life to grow as the xel'naga did.

Zagara then moved on the planet of Gystt, which had been destroyed by protoss purification in the Great War in 2500 shortly after the incineration of Chau Sara. She disabled the protoss satellites in orbit, and used the adostra to change the world from a barren land to a flourishing jungle.

The creation of the adostra, however, displeased Abathur, who thought that the zerg should always be the dominant species in any assimilation. In addition, Abathur saw the peace between factions as a betrayal of what the Swarm was, that war was necessary to the zerg's purpose, and that their ultimate goal should be the assimilation of all life. Thus, Abathur made fake pods for some of the adostra, and instead used their part of the xel'naga essence to make a new breed named the chitha, which could disrupt psionics and communications. These breeds could command lesser zerg, and had developed speech centers, so they could be commanded outside of the zerg hive mind. Abathur instead used a biomechanical replication of the United Earth Directorate Valkyrie communicators to relay commands to them.

Abathur came up with a plan, during peace talks between the three races, he'd use the chitha to draw the Dominion and Daelaam into destroying the adostra. Doing so would spark conflict again, and remove what he saw as an abomination from the Swarm.

The Web is Drawn
Soon Hierarch Artanis of the Daelaam noticed that the satellites around Gystt had stopped transmitting. When he arrived there with a small protoss fleet, he found Gystt transformed into a flourishing ecosystem. Artanis then blockaded the planet and prepared to purify it again. In response, Overqueen Zagara sent a leviathan with a queen named Mukav to ask for aid from the Terran Dominion, and to relay peace talks. What she did not know was Mukav was under the sway of Abathur, and that aboard that leviathan Abathur hid the chitha.

Mukav arrived at Korhal, and repeated the same command over and over; Zagara requested their presence on the planet Gystt, and they were under threat from the protoss fleet of the Daelaam. With such a strange request, Emperor Valerian sought to investigate, but he and his advisors were concerned it may be a trap. In response, Valerian sent six battlecruisers, the Hyperion, Fury, Titan, Phobos, Circe, and Cerebrus as well as the 934th Marines and reaper, goliath and warhound detachments to support him. He arrived to find the planet full of life, and the protoss ready to destroy them.

Zagara contacted them both, and made offers of peace. She requested that the two leaders meet her on the surface to discuss how she could use the ability to spread life on planets to aid in their reconstruction efforts. Skeptical of peace offerings made from the zerg, Artanis and Valerian agreed to the conditions, but only if they could send a survey team down to the planet to investigate if her claims were true. She agreed, and Colonel Abram Cruikshank put together a small team to investigate the surface: Master Sergeant Foster "Whist" Cray, a marine, Lieutenant Dennis "Dizz" Halkman, a reaper, Tanya Caulfield, a ghost, Dcotor Erin Wyland, a xenobiologist, and Ulavu, an exiled protoss researcher. They were sent planetward as Zagara met with the delegation.

Conflict Erupts
The survey team came down and studied the fauna, before Caulfield notes a nearly mechanical psionic signal coming nearby. On the way there however, they were ambushed by a squad of zerglings and ravagers. This was communicated back to Valerian, who asked Zagara for explanation. She explained that they had crossed the border between two broodmothers, and that the zerg there had reverted to their feral instincts. She bid that they move on. The group continued to follow the signal, arriving at a large structure. After fighting their way inside, they discovered the chitha, who immediately unleashed a psionic burst at Caulfield, knocking her unconscious. Only after Ulavu revealed he was a Nerazim did the defeat the chitha. They then found the adostra in the pods, which looked similar to the chitha. Thus, the group destroyed the nest, killing the adostra inside.

Zagara heard news of this, and was enraged. She explained to them the nature of the adostra, and that she could not make any more. The peace talks nearly broke out into conflict, as Zagara and Abathur denied the existence of the chitha, and Hierarch Artanis returned to his ship. Emperor Valerian refused to leave however. He was then notified that protoss forces near second of the three nests of adostra was under attack. Admiral Matt Horner ordered Colonel Cruikshank to send part of their ground forces to aid them, while the survey team was to secure the third nest.

Cruikshank did, but found that the battle had gotten too intense, and the protoss were being overrun. The force's commander Sagaya ordered the detonation of a disruptor inside the nest, which Cruikshank obliged in spite of his orders being to protect the nest. The detonation destroyed the zerg in the area, but also the nest. All but three protoss from the force were killed.

Meanwhile, the survey team moved in a dropship to the final nest, but zerg forces had begun to mass toward it. In response, Admiral Horner deployed a psi emitter in order to stop the flow of zerg to the nest. However, a pack of mutalisks caught the dropship as it was moving to the point. The survey team managed to fight off the mutalisks, and the Dominion fleet launched a nuclear missile at the emitter, shutting it off and killing the zerg immediately around it. However, that was not all of them, and the survivors once again moved to the third nest.

In response, Colonel Cruikshank and Commander Rahas, new commander of the protoss forces came up with a plan to serve as a buffer to the survey team and buy them time to reach the nest. They did so, making a line to stop the zerg advance, but as they were setting up a devourer downed Rahas's shuttle, and he was trapped and wounded. Alikka, a Nerazim, took over in his place. In space, Zagara sent a devourer with a chitha sample to the Hyperion, which allowed Doctor Talise Cogan to perform an autopsy on it.

The survey team was forced to land due to heavy damage, but was able to go on foot to the last nest. On they way they encountered light chitha resistance, but noticed they were holding some of the broods back. They were able to enter the nest, and discovered the biomechanical communicators that allowed Abathur to communicate with the chitha. However, soon they also found that the zerg had begun to assault the nest.

Cruikshank's line meanwhile had begun to wear down as zerg continued to assault them. He noted that after a certain line on the field, the zerg's attacks would become slow and sluggish. He surmised that if he moved the line back, he would fight on more even terms, but that would leave Rahas to die. Instead, he put a terran pilot in one of the downed phoenixes, and used its ion cannons to wipe out the zerg as they arrived. The zerg forces were pushed back, and the team rushed to save the survey team.

Meanwhile at the third nest, light zerg began to pour in. Erin Wyland, after taking the samples she needed, used her perdition flamethrowers to destroy the zerg that were flooding in, but in the process was consumed by the flame. She was saved by Ulavu, and only suffered moderate burns. Soon a protoss force and Zagara arrived, and was able to relieve them.

The Web Collapses
Valerian questioned Zagara as to what the chitha were and the whereabouts of Zagara, but she did not know. The survey team then realized he was in the one leviathan on the surface, and the one that they used to communicate with the Dominion. Valerian asked to meet Zagara aboard the Hyperion, and Zagara, though confused, accepted. In reality, this was a ploy to find Abathur, who they expected would try to hijack the leviathan and escape, making the terrans and protoss think Zagara was fleeing and sparking another conflict. In response, Valerian had Caulfield's C-10 rifle replaced with a communicator that could penetrate the shroud of the chitha.

The group boarded the leviathan, and inside found Abathur with a large group of chitha and Mukav. Abathur revealed his plans, and that he wanted both conflict and the destruction of the adostra. However, Caulfield revealed that her rifle was a communicator, and now the Dominion and Daelaam fleets knew of his presense. In response, Mukav attacked the survey team, Zagara attacked Abathur, and a large amount of chitha poured in the room.

Zagara was hampered by a large number of chitha that began to pile on her. The survey team fought Mukav, and were able to down her quickly with a flurry of fire and Ulavu's warp blade. However, there were still too many chitha to handle. As a last ditch effort, Caulfield overloaded her neural inhibitor, incinerating all chitha in the room but knocking herself unconscious. Zagara tore into Abathur, but kept him alive, and the survey team were returned to the Hyperion.

Aftermath
With the plot of Abathur revealed and the chitha seemingly destroyed, peace talks and discussions on how to use the adostra to benefit the three factions could now commence. Abathur was kept alive, but put in a place where he could cause no harm. The Zerg Compliance Ground-Force] Unit was formed by the Terran Dominion as a motion of peace, which was to aid in guarding the adostra, hunting down any more chitha, and ensuring Abathur could not damage the peace that had been won between the three races.