How this glossary is built
Every entry here is written to be safe to read before you have played anything. Where a term’s full meaning is a plot point, the entry says what the term is and stops — you will find “the psionic operative at the centre of the original story” rather than an account of what happens to her.
Two habits will save you more confusion than any single definition. Check the era. This universe runs across decades and several changes of government, so a statement about who rules what is only true of its own period. And check whether a word names a species or an institution — the most common mistakes in StarCraft coverage are all that one error.
Longer explanations live on their own pages: Terrans, Zerg, Protoss and the campaign timeline.
Places
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Koprulu Sector | The region of space the series takes place in — far from Earth, settled by accident, and where all three species end up in the same room |
| Tarsonis | The capital world of the old human order, the Confederacy of Man |
| Korhal | Arcturus Mengsk’s homeworld, later the capital of the Terran DominionIts principal city is Augustgrad |
| Moria | Home of the Kel-Morian Combine: mining, cartels and private security |
| Umoja | Home of the Umojan Protectorate, the human power that kept its distance |
| Mar Sara | A small, hot Confederate colony. Where the original campaign starts |
| Char | A volcanic world that becomes the Swarm’s foothold in human space |
| Aiur | The Protoss homeworld, and the thing most Protoss decisions are ultimately about |
| Shakuras | The world of the exiled Dark Templar |
| Zerus | The world the Zerg came from, long before the Swarm reached this sector |
Powers and organisations
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Confederacy of Man | The old human government, centred on Tarsonis. Rich, corrupt, and in charge when the story opens |
| Terran Dominion | The empire Arcturus Mengsk founds after the Confederacy falls. Not a synonym for “the Terrans” |
| Sons of Korhal | Mengsk’s insurgent movement before it became a state |
| Kel-Morian Combine | An industrial cartel with its own armed forces. Interested in ore, not ideology |
| Umojan Protectorate | A smaller, independent human state |
| Raynor’s Raiders | Jim Raynor’s irregular force. A few ships and a grievance |
| United Earth Directorate (UED) | Earth’s government, which eventually sends its own fleet into the sector |
| The Swarm | The Zerg as a whole, organised into broods under a single directing will |
| Conclave | The Protoss ruling body, drawn from the Judicator caste |
| Templar / Khalai / Judicator | The Protoss castes: warriors, builders and workers, rulers |
| Dark Templar (Nerazim) | Protoss who refused the Khala and were exiled for it. A schism about consent, not a villain faction |
| Daelaam | The name for the reunited Protoss of the StarCraft II era, Khalai and Nerazim together |
People, introduced without their endings
| Name | Who they are |
|---|---|
| Jim Raynor | A colonial marshal who ends up a rebel commander. The series’ nearest thing to a decent man, and its most reliable point of view |
| Sarah Kerrigan | The psionic operative at the centre of the whole story. Everything about her afterwards is a spoiler |
| Arcturus Mengsk | Leader of the rebellion against the Confederacy, and founder of the Dominion. Not the hero of that sentence |
| Valerian Mengsk | His son. A StarCraft II figure, and a more complicated one than his father |
| Tassadar | A Protoss Templar commander ordered to do something he judges to be wrong |
| Zeratul | A Dark Templar. The series uses him to say the things nobody wants to hear |
| Artanis | A younger Protoss commander who becomes the leader of his people in StarCraft II |
| The Overmind | The single mind directing the Swarm in the original game |
| Amon | The antagonist of the StarCraft II trilogy, and older than any of the three species’ current arrangements |
| Xel’Naga | The ancient species that shaped both the Protoss and the Zerg. Long gone, and not done with the sector |
Hardware, biology and the two resources
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Minerals and vespene gas | The two resources. Minerals are mined from crystal fields, vespene is tapped from geysers — which is why every Terran base looks like a refinery |
| CMC power suit | The sealed armour a Terran marine lives inside. Industrial, heavy, and the reason a marine is dangerous |
| C-14 gauss rifle | The marine’s weapon: metal spikes accelerated down a magnetic rail. Named by the developers for the announced game [D] |
| Siege tank | A Terran vehicle that plants itself and becomes artillery, at the price of not being able to move |
| Battlecruiser | A Terran capital ship. In StarCraft II one of them, the Hyperion, is effectively a location |
| Ghost | A Terran psionic operative: cloaking and a long rifle, with an unpleasant institutional history behind the training |
| Neural resocialisation | The Confederate practice of rewriting a convict’s personality into an obedient soldier. Mentioned in passing, and worth not skipping past |
| Creep | The living carpet Zerg structures grow on, and mostly cannot function without |
| Drone, zergling, hydralisk, mutalisk, ultralisk | Zerg strains: the worker that mutates into buildings, the fast swarmer, the acid-spitter, the flyer, and the very large one |
| Overlord | The floating Zerg creature that carries the Swarm’s control to the ground. An antenna, not a leader |
| Cerebrate | A Zerg sub-mind relaying the Swarm’s will to one brood |
| Khala | The Protoss psionic communion that ended their civil war, and organised everything afterwards |
| Pylon / warp gate | Protoss power and transit: structures arrive already built, and stop working when the power grid does |
| Psi blade | The energy blade a Protoss warrior fights with |
| The Void | The energy the Dark Templar learned to use in exile. Also, later, a proper noun worth paying attention to |
Five terms that are usually used wrongly
Each of these turns up in coverage, in forum arguments and in AI-generated summaries, and each of them is simply an error.
- “Terran” does not mean “Dominion”. Terran is the species. The Dominion is one government, founded partway through the story, and humans spend a great deal of the series fighting it.
- The Zerg are not mindless. They act on a single directing will, and who holds that will changes across the series. “What the Zerg want” has a different answer per era, which is why two accurate summaries can look contradictory.
- The Protoss are not one culture. The split between the Khala and the Dark Templar is a genuine schism about whether a mind may be closed, and it drives most Protoss plots.
- “Dominion” is not the new game’s subtitle. It is the title of the reveal cinematic. The announced game carries no number and no subtitle at all — the mix-up is so common we gave it its own page. [E]
- A unit name is not a feature. Zerglings, mutalisks and overlords have been named for the announced game, and Protoss architecture is described as hidden in the cinematic. [D] That is a pointer to what is in the fiction, not a confirmed enemy list, and no gameplay has been shown at all.
If a summary of this universe fails any of the five, treat the rest of it carefully.
Change history
- First published version. Written because the reading route recommended a glossary that did not exist. Entries are deliberately written to stop short of campaign outcomes, so the page is safe before a first playthrough.
Editorial status
Read and released by a named editor before publication. This page describes the released games of the series. Where it touches the announced game, the statement it rests on is attributed and dated; nothing here is an account of firsthand play of the unreleased game.