Truth Before Authority

by Mislagnissa

In the twilight of the 25th century, the templar discover mysterious probes on the edge of the empire and detect clandestine transmissions from terran space. Investigation reveals the presence of hostile "xenomorphs." You can guess where this is going... (Prequel to SC1, part of my AU series.)

1. Preface

This story takes place in an alternate universe that takes massive liberties with the lore of Starcraft as you may understand it. The Starcraft lore is twenty years old and has accumulated a huge amount of inconsistencies and retcons. This fanfic ignores all that convoluted knotting in order to tell the story that I want to tell.

Explaining all the divergences would take a lot of time, so I will not bore you. Google "starcraft manual" and in the first result you should find the original manual for Starcraft 1. Read it and absorb it. That is pretty much all you need to know to be able to understand and enjoy this story. I will be including some concepts introduced in later games, but they will be integrated into the manual's version of events. I rely on the Starcraft wiki for reference, since it is really helpful for keeping track of things.

For those introduced to the franchise through Starcraft 2, the key divergences are: 1) the xel'naga are not space gods but mortal scientists that got their butts handed to them by their own creations, 2) the protoss empire rules a bazillion worlds and civilizations across the galaxy which means that the zerg will not arbitrarily steamroll them in the third act, 3) the overmind is the overarching villain of the setting and that will never ever change because he is way too cool, 4) tons of other details that should become apparent as the story progresses but feel free to ask questions if you do not understand something.

For those of you familiar with Brood War and took offense to the retcons made in Starcraft 2... I am sorry to say that my personal fanfic universe will be ignoring the events of Starcraft 1 and Brood War. I did not like the way those campaigns handled the setting, so this qualifies as a fix fic in that regard. There are already a couple other stories which retell the events of the games, but in this fic I intend to tell a different story.

This story is not for everyone. This fandom is already inundated with stories about Kerry and Raynor. I wanted to focus on new stories with new characters rather than constantly rehash the same handful of characters that never interested me in the first place. I feel that this reliance on the same tiny cast strangles creativity. I do have a few ideas for the canon characters in my alternate universe, but I have so many more ideas for stories where they could not plausibly fit and trying to would be detrimental to my narrative.

All you need to know is that my vision of Starcraft is much bigger in scope. The Koprulu sector is huge and plays host to countless theatres in which the protoss, terran and zerg fight for control. The adventures of Raynor and Kerry would not be a blip on anyone's radar. One day I hope to write anthology novels exploring the many campaigns in Koprulu, but I am getting way ahead of myself.

This story focuses on one theatre in particular. A decade prior to the Battle of Chau Sara, the Confederacy experimented with the zerg vanguard. A nearby protoss border patrol fleet intercepted their transmissions, and events spiraled from there...