The Story of Starcraft 11: The Protoss Units

The Protoss - the third race in Starcraft - are a collision of adjectives.

I’ve sometimes described them as psychic cyborg samurai fundamentalist ancient warrior puritanical reptiles. That doesn’t do them justice - you could easily squeeze a few more in there.

But I’ve given this some thought.

You could simplify them down into a blend of two barely-compatible themes. These themes play nicely across Protoss units, so let’s do that.

The first theme is incredibly advanced technology - the scifi half of their concept. The Protoss are an ancient race and everyone knows that older races have the best tech. They’re halfway towards rivalling the Xel’Naga - this setting’s version of the negligent/hostile, vanished, godlike precursor race.

The Protoss built an empire that spanned a good chunk of the galaxy, off the back of advanced robotics, arcships, fabricators and other advanced tech. Then the empire fell into decline.

But still, the tech they use at the time of this campaign - even if it’s a shadow of what it used to be - is well advanced of anything Terrans can build.

The other theme is magic - the fantasy half of their concept.

Sure, it’s called psionics in Starcraft, which is a scifi word for psychic powers, which is a normal word for magic. But it is magic. The Protoss possess powerful psionic abilities - again, beyond what Terrans can use. Protoss are telepathic by default, communicating using a shared mental connection (called the Khala) instead of using sound.

Telepathy is just the start of what they can do.

It makes for an interesting tension. Not a unique one, sure - Dune also plays with technology and magic-by-another-name in the same setting.

Still, it makes for great high-adventure fodder. Protoss warriors can follow a psychic distress signal, riding in a faster-than-light, robot-piloted shuttle to retrieve an ancient crystal prophesised to power a laser weapon.

And it works.

Let’s talk about the units.

Probes

Terran workers - the folks who gather resources and build structures - are engineers in mech-suits.

The Zerg use creatures who carry dozens of genetic strands inside them.

Protoss armies don’t bother with any of that. That sounds like tedious work - a distraction from their meditations and training. Instead, they use robots to do manual labour.

This is obviously advanced technology. But it’s also like how the Spartans used slaves, so they could let their men train as warriors - and how many fantasy cultures draw inspiration from ancient Sparta? Already, this blends the scifi and fantasy elements of the Protoss so well.

Zealots

The base warrior for the Protoss have force fields and cybernetic legs - that’s advanced technology.

But they’re also… well, Zealots. They carry energy swords into battle, eager to fight and die for the cause. A common unit bark for them is “My life for Aiur!”. They’re not called zealots for nothing.

That’s fantasy.

Dragoons

Plato allegedly said, “Only the dead have seen the end of war”.

The Protoss don’t agree. Dragoons are cybernetic constructs - spider-like mechanical machines of war.

Their pilots?

Slain Protoss warriors, kept alive in suspended animation.

The neural interface works using their psionic link - apart from that, this is a purely scifi concept. Replace the psionics with an implanted wire and you’re there.

High Templar

Swinging the other way…

High templar are spellcasters. There’s no ambiguity here - what they do is magic by another name. They can create illusionary duplicates of units, burn enemy mana for damage and deal heavy punishment over an area of effect.

They’re reskinned sorcerers and wizards. Even the way they move - floating above the ground and creating visual distortions - leans heavily into fantasy.

Archons

No technology here.

Two high templar can choose to merge their bodies, creating an entity of pure psionic power. They don’t have a physical form but are instead raw energy.

They’re an interesting example of the lore and the mechanics clashing. Lorewise, archons are temporary. In game, there’s no time limit on them. Lorewise, archons are only created as a last resort - an almost profane and certainly desperate act. In game, you make them by the dozens because they’re awesome.

Archons are beings of pure energy. While those show up in scifi sometimes - often, really - this is a fantasy concept. Just to remove any doubt about that, there’s no Chamber of Ascension or nanobot injection. Two high templar touch hands and choose to meld their psychic essences.

It’s fantasy.

Reavers

These jerks are somehow both annoying to use and annoying to fight against. They’re slow and expensive, yet they can delete entire armies of ground units.

They’re robots that carry self-guided explosive orbs. Whatever they fire at ceases to exist before long.

Reavers are scifi. They also show that the Protoss don’t just fight for honour - they fight to win.

Shuttles

Mechanically, there’s not a lot to say here. Is it different from the Terran dropship? No, not really.

Lorewise, shuttles have robot pilots and it’s a scifi concept to start with.

Scouts

These flying units are spaceships that fire bullets and missiles. Scifi.

They’re not very strong unless you have a lot of them. Then again, they’re not supposed to be. According to the lore, the name says it all - these are scouts, not warships, yet they can still hold their own against other races.

Observers

I mentioned above that the Protoss are halfway towards being an ancient, enigmatic precursor race. The only thing stopping them is their limited meddling during pre-history.

The observers are the most precursory thing the Protoss have.

Like the scouts, these weren’t designed as weapons of war. Cloaked and loaded with sensors, their role is to monitor and observe primitive races and other things of interest.

It’s a classic scifi convention.

Mechanically, they’re invisible detectors - a handy tool in a Protoss composition. The other player might not even realise their cloaked units are vulnerable until it’s too late.

Carriers

These units are further proof that Protoss take warfare seriously.

They’re vast capital ships, loaded with robotic attack drones.

Scifi, all the way.

Not versus - and

Every Protoss unit is both scifi and fantasy. Some draw more from one genre than the other, but all of them are both.

Protoss have no mouths because they don’t need to speak. (“But what do they EAT?” - the Shamus Young fans reading this). Their eyes glow with psychic power.

They command robots and fly spaceships using their innate psionic abilities.

The unit design reflects both genres.

What they do with these units? That also reflects both genres. But we’ll talk about the characters and campaign story later.