Warren Held

"Branamoor has kept the neurotic xenophobe shut away in the sublevels, free to torture the protoss without anybody raising inconvenient moral objections. The Dominion decided to give a crazy man access to some of our most intelligent enemies, all while locked inside a tiny asteroid brimming with experimental weapons. Brilliant. Apparently word from on high was that Held's work on the protoss was too important to worry about a little thing like criminal misuse of scalpels. What did they think a monomaniac would do when he heard about the dwindling food supplies? Obediently take his place in line?"

- Talen Ayers on Warren Held^(src)

Warren Held
Biographical
Died	16 May, 2505, Blackstone facility
Physical
Race	Terran
Gender	Male
Hair	Brown
Political
Affiliation	Terran Dominion Project Blackstone (February 2, 2505—)
Occupation	Xenobiologist

Dr. Warren Gregory Held was a xenobiologist associated with the Project Blackstone. He was a protoss specialist though despised their kind. According to Dr. Talise Cogan, Held had limited social skills, not noticing negative social cues (such as boring his audience).

Biography

Up to 2503, Dr. Held participated in Project Gestalt, which experimented on protoss. The Project was eventually terminated by vengeful protoss attackers, leaving Held with mental and physical injuries, preventing him from lifting heavy objects.

Project Blackstone

"Dr. Held is quite obviously a few mitochondria short of a functioning cell, as the saying goes."

- Talen Ayers^(src)

During the Second Great War, Held, like a number of other scientists, was recruited into the newly formed Project Blackstone. He wished to get to his lab and start working immediately, but it took a day before the lab would be opened. He protested to Dr. Helek Branamoor that the Axiom tools he wanted weren't there, and he had to make do with Procyon tools instead. He stated that he would find the Procyon tools difficult to use due to a (unspecified) medical condition. Dr. Branamoor told him to contact Adjutant 33-27 V3.1974 instead, and also objected to Dr. Held using his first name rather than "doctor". The adjutant informed Dr. Held that Procyon discontinued that line of tools two years previously. Dr. Held noted that Stanley Burgess had managed to get his hands on those tools some time after they had been discontinued.

Dr. Leah Martine did a dissection of protoss specimen AP-03. While Dr. Held was impressed, he wasn't happy that she anthropomorphized them. While stating this, he revealed his own biases, calling the protoss "monsters" and saying they were just looking for their weaknesses. When Dr. Martine protested his biases, he told her to do the analysis again.

Dr. Held would later vivisect live protoss specimens, alienating Jake Ramsey, another imprisoned researcher with unique insights into the protoss. Dr. Branamoor had ordered him to keep the dissections secret from Ramsey.

Eventually, Dr. Held suffered a nervous breakdown and attacked Dr. Martine, seriously wounding her, though in retaliation Martine released a psionic burst that nearly through Held through the wall. Red Quinton soon arrived, putting Held in a headlock and diffusing the situation. Ramsey would later suspect that Dr. Martine deliberately pushed Dr. Held to his limit to get him removed from the project. If the accusation was true, then she was successful as Dr. Branamoor later made an announcement informing Blackstone staff that Dr. Held has been removed from the project.

However, despite Dr. Held's official removal from the project, he was instead secretly transferred to one of the facility's sub-levels to continue his experiments on protoss subjects, these ones psi-blocked.

He later issued an open letter to the Blackstone research staff, claiming he had made a breakthrough in his research, but that Dr. Branamoor's recent stricture on supplies was hampering his progress. He subsequently released a number of zerglings into the facility that had been specially injected with an enzyme that would "send them into a frenzy."

Held made a mistake however in that when he let the zerglings out, he let Doctor Talise Cogan walk freely in the lower levels. She released the protoss test subject Kaeon, who killed Held through psionic means. Major Lee Treicher was unable to kill him herself like she promised because as Dr. Talen Ayers noted, there wasn't much of Held's brain left for the bullet to get lodged into.