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Enemy Within is a mission in StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm. It is one of only two missions where Sarah Kerrigan is not playable at all, though her instructions are heard throughout.

Background[]

EnemyWithin SC2 Game1

The larva

Though Sarah Kerrigan was successful in stopping the protoss from contacting Shakuras, their main vessel managed to escape the Swarm's wrath and flee the planet. Unable to reach the vessel in time to destroy it, Kerrigan implanted captive protoss Lasarra with a special larva, then allowed the protoss to warp Lasarra back to their vessel. Upon her arrival the larva killed Lasarra and emerged onto the ship.

Consuming the biomass of the captive specimens the protoss were studying, the larva grew into Broodmother Niadra. Continuing to grow and evolve, Niadra spawned a brood of zerglings, roaches, and hydralisks, and infested the ship, killing every protoss on-board and thwarting even their attempts to launch escape pods.

The ship fell under Niadra's control but she and Kerrigan lost contact. With no purpose or mission left to her, Niadra declared to her brood she would continue her initial mission, to hunt down and slay the protoss.[2]

Walkthrough[]

For the first part of the level, all the player can do is follow Kerrigan's commands to avoid the protoss and kill a handful of zealots using a giant ursadon. After consuming it and reaching the checkpoint, the larva will evolve into Niadra, who has the ability to spawn up to sixteen zerglings to aid her, and can continue to evolve by consuming biomass during the rest of the level. In the next room the player will find protoss guarding more specimens that can be consumed, and eventually finds that only the zerglings are small enough to continue through a series of ducts, the main passages blocked by shields. The zerglings can destroy the shield generators through the ducts to allow Niadra to pass, and eventually the player must use her ranged attack to destroy the ship's warp drive. The player must now evacuate their forces to a safe part of the ship before the warp drive's explosion destroys the rear part of the ship.

In the next room the player will fight several protoss, and find more specimens to consume. At this point, if the player has consumed all previous specimens, Niadra will absorb enough biomass to evolve again. This grants her more health, damage, supply, and allows her to spawn roaches as well as zerglings. More specimens await in the next rooms, but the player must stop the protoss from killing them before Niadra can consume them. Depending on the difficulty level, the warriors the player encounters may include high templar and archons. Consuming all available biomass in these chambers gives Niadra enough to evolve to her highest level of power, further boosting her stats and allowing her to birth hydralisks. In one of these chambers the player finds protoss fighting another giant ursadon. Infesting it with Niadra gives the player control of it. The ursadon does not regenerate health normally, but Niadra Regeneration Aura will affect it the same as the zerg to slowly heal it.

Shortly after this point, the player reaches the bridge of the ship. The protoss begin launching escape pods, and the player must quickly move about the bridge to destroy them before they escape. Once all the escape pods are destroyed and every protoss unit on the ship is killed, the mission is won.

Note that there is more than enough biomass on the ship to evolve Niadra to her final form. Once she reaches her third stage of evolution she cannot evolve further, but will continue to be able to consume biomass to no benefit.

Videos[]

Achievements[]

EnemyWithin SC2-HotS Icon Enemy Within
Points

10 Achievement SC2 Game1

Criteria

Complete the “Enemy Within” mission in the Heart of the Swarm campaign.

Edit
BiomassEffect SC2-HotS Icon Biomass Effect
Points

10 Achievement SC2 Game1

Criteria

Collect 450 Biomass in the "Enemy Within" mission.

Notes

The achievement name is a reference to the Mass Effect series of games.

Edit
FailureToLaunch SC2-HotS Icon Failure to Launch
Points

10 Achievement SC2 Game1

Criteria

Don't let an Escape Pod reach less then 20 seconds in the "Enemy Within" mission on Normal difficulty.

Edit
MonsterSmash SC2-HotS Icon Monster Smash
Points

10 Achievement SC2 Game1

Criteria

Kill 15 units with the Giant Ursadon in the "Enemy Within" mission on Hard difficulty.

Notes

The achievement name is a reference to the 1962 song Monster Mash.

Edit
Heart10 SC2AchiveImage Queen Rush
Points

10 Achievement SC2 Game1

Criteria

Complete the "Enemy Within" mission in less than 13 minutes on Normal difficulty.

Notes

A "queen rush" is a common tactic in chess, as well as a strategy in competitive StarCraft II.

Edit

Notes[]

After the warp core and the timed objective are destroyed, a room along the center left edge of the map becomes explorable. Within is a "protoss kitchen" using the same doodads as the one in Aiur Chef with a "Pylon Poweraid" structure. The Poweraid description reads: The small print on the side reads, "eSports is what you make it."

The shape of the map closely resembles the ark shuttle unit.

In the original version of the mission Kerrigan narrated Lassara's death sequence.[3]

References[]

  1. Blizzard Entertainment. Heart of the Swarm beta Map Editor. (Activision Blizzard) (in English). September 4, 2012
  2. Blizzard Entertainment. StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm. (Activision Blizzard). PC. Mission: Heart of the Swarm, Enemy Within (in English). 2013-03-12.
  3. 2014-08-20, Unused HoTS Story Elements. StarCraft Legacy, accessed on 2014-08-30
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