Terran Prehistory

Terrans are the name used for humans in the fictional StarCraft universe.

At the end of the twenty-first century, private firms developed cybertechnology and genetic manipulation techniques. As the human gene pool warped, fundamentalists and other conservative organizations clashed with these corporations and their results.

By the twenty-third 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, officially known as the United Powers League, was founded, on November 22, 2229. Replacing the defunct United Nations, it directly controlled 93% of Earth. Only a small number of Latin American countries remained outside its sphere of influence.

The UPL claimed it was an "enlightened socialist" organisation - 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.

Within forty years the UPL also developed warp drive and cryonic technologies, opening the frontiers of space, and 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 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 (c. 2269), a brilliant young scientist named Doran Routhe made plans to consolidate his power within the UPL. It was very risky, but he had no problem with sending political prisoner lab rats to their 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. The Nagglfar was also equipped with an artificial intelligence called ATLAS. Routhe believed they would set up a colony and mine new resources for the United Powers League.

ATLAS scanned the prisoners, and discovered something unusual about them - approximately 1% 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 computer failed, and they 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. Unknown to them, the Protoss bore silent witness to their arrival, but chose not to interfere.

As the Tarsonians had access to ATLAS, they had a technological head-start on their stellar neighbours. Even so, it took them sixty years to build second generation subwarp engines and explore the rest of the system, discovering 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 star system, 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 Confederate, 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.

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. 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. Its 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 Angus Mengsk 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