Tex Talks Battletech Episode PX: The Protoss, I.E. 'Reason Number 2 why the Terrans aren't the Top Dogs back Home'
Chapter 0: Gold and Crystals and Space-Magic, Oh My
We are the Protoss. Children of ancient gods. We are the Firstborn. And we shall be the last left standing.
-Hierarch Artanis, Leader of the Daelaam – the Protoss faction that's friendliest to humanity
Now then, class – today, we're going to be covering the other side of the alien coin in the Koprulu Sector. Today we're going to be covering the Protoss, aliens who were sailing the stars in golden ships while we were still trying to figure out how to turn clay into bricks. Aliens who have technology so advanced that even the Terran's throw up their hands at it and call it fucking magic, who regularly snap the laws of physics like a twig over their knees. Aliens who have no-bullshit psychic magic powers and regularly live to well past a thousand years old and had an empire so old and glorious that the Star League would have seemed like a brief flash in the pan.
Aliens who, upon seeing we puny humans had a Zerg problem on one of our colonies, decided to intervene by setting an entire planet on fire to thoroughly wipe out all life on its surface.
Yeah. Say hi to the big kids on the block.
Chapter 1: Howdy, Neighbor
The first contact with another sentient race and they blow up a planet. Helluva calling card.
-Michael Liberty, Mostly Freelance Terran News Reporter
We'll be starting off with what most Terrans know about the Protoss, and their place in Terran history and perspective. We actually happen to have a very unique opportunity thanks to the Raiders, but we'll get to that in a bit.
On December 8th, as far as anyone really knew at the time, humanity had its first encounter with an alien species. They'd arrived in great golden ships of a design that no one had ever seen before. They didn't open up communications, they didn't send envoys.
They simply took up positions around Chau Sara, and promptly bombarded it from orbit until it'd been scoured down to the bedrock. Forget wiping out the cities, they pretty much obliterated everything that wasn't a mineral, down to the forests and jungles while they boiled away all liquid water on the world. Because the Protoss are the types to look at the insanity of the First and Second Succession Wars and unrestricted warship warfare, and consider that amateur hour in the orbital cleansing department.
This had a big, big effect on the perception of aliens in the Terran consciousness. They had shown up out of nowhere, and – as far as anyone knew – had decided to render one of their colonies into the past tense with seemingly zero provocation. Even after people found out that Chau Sara was being overrun by the Swarm and the Protoss, they weren't exactly happy with the Protoss.
Turns out, first impressions matter. And 'they were all going to die anyway so we killed them with orbital fire as opposed to being eaten alive' isn't actually a very easy sell.
After that, the Protoss decided to start waiting until evacuations had finished first before obliterating all life on the world they were over, sometimes even trying to help us puny humans out. But the Zerg were still running rampant. The basic pattern of this conflict – 'The Great War' – was basically Terrans shooting Terrans as Mengsk and the Sons of Korhal whipped up anti-Confederate sentiment into a frenzy, shortly before the Zerg descended on planets riven by infighting like a Lyran procurement rep at a Defiance Industries fire-sale with the Protoss trying to clean up the mess, actually try to help us out since they were only here for the Zerg, and mostly getting shot at by both sides in the process.
First impressions really matter, though to be honest I think that even without turning Chau Sara into a charcoal briquette the Confederates and Sons of Korhal would still have shot at the Protoss. They were too busy trying to weaponize the Zerg against each other, and the Protoss trying and successfully wiping the Zerg out – even in ground warfare – was kind of screwing up their plans.
I never thought I'd see the day when the Great Houses weren't the most fractious, divided, dysfunctional representations of humanity.
After that the Protoss kind of fell out of Terran perception – they were too busy trying to rebuild after getting stomped into the fucking dirty by the Swarm, and the Zerg had gotten enough out of them that they could focus on their war with the Protoss.
Yeah, the Terrans were basically stuck in the kids seat in the Koprulu Sector – neither side really gave a damn about them, so they never really knew just how powerful each side was until much, much later. Even today, the biggest perception of the Protoss amongst Terrans is that they're mysterious, don't like being disturbed, and will show you their displeasure at being disturbed by deconstructing you into your component atoms.
Chapter 2: An actual cultural exchange – of sorts
The name's Jim Raynor, pal. And I won't be talked down to by anybody. Not even a Protoss.
- James Raynor to Judicator Aldaris, probably the only man who can mouth off to a high-ranking Protoss and live
This is Raynor. I'd like to help if I can. Tassadar laid it on the line for me and my crew on Char. I'd like to repay the debt. Besides, I'm a long way from home, surrounded by hostile aliens. I've got to do something.
- James Raynor, proving why he has the above privilege
So, now that I've said all that, let's set all that aside for now, because in a truly impressive cosmic coincidence that makes the historian in me do a happy dance, the representatives of the Koprulu Sector that happened to wander back on into known space are probably the only Terrans out there to be on not just neutral, but actually 'good' terms with the Protoss.
Good enough that their own records of the Protoss don't just include AAR's from fighting with or against them, but also notes on their culture and history.
As you might have guessed from the above two quotes, this is contingent on the leader of the Raiders – see, the Protoss don't really give a damn about Terran politics. The fact that the Raiders are in it to fight the good fight against Mengsk and his goons isn't a huge factor.
But the Protoss do understand owing someone who did you solid, and Raynor's Raiders have a history of fighting with the Protoss – or at least the stable elements of their civilization – against the Zerg Swarm, even when it looked like they were all going to die if they stood and fought. Which is why, even if they've engaged in a shooting conflict with each other once, they remain on good terms – turns out, the Protoss are better clanners than clanners. Because when they lose, they take it on the chin and don't throw a tantrum whining about dishonorable tactics and cheating.
But enough of that context – let's dive into a small overview of the Protoss, their history, their culture and attitudes, and why despite having been put through the fucking wringer as of late, they are still the Big Stick in the Koprulu Sector with some basic outlines of what they can do when you're going up against them.
Chapter 3: Protoss Early History – When 'Age of War' doesn't say enough
There was a time when the Protoss were broken. Throughout the Aeon of Strife, we tore at each other with wanton abandon.
-Protoss Historian recalling the 'bloodiest, most violent civil war ever recorded in galactic history', at least to their knowledge
According to the Protoss, a long, long time ago, before they even had anything resembling 'writing' or 'civilization' or 'any form of society whatsoever', a bunch of gods calling themselves the Xel'Naga showed up one day to uplift them, apparently using a bunch of things called khaydarin crystals and other crystal-things to accelerate the process. They started out as a bunch of tribals at first, then quickly found themselves moving along the ladder of civilization with their psychic powers letting them all unify into something similar to a Hive mind. Similar, but not the same because each Protoss still was their own person – they just had perfect understanding of each others thoughts and emotions.
I feel like this is something you have to grow up with, because adding something like this to the Inner Sphere or the Clanners would probably just wind up with us finishing ourselves clean off. Can you imagine everyone becoming as angry and honor-hungry as a Clanner? Yeugh.
Anyway, the Protoss kept to their tribal affiliations and hit space-flight pretty early thanks to psychic space-magic technology, and not long after that the Xel'Naga showed up to explain things to them – the Protoss were grateful enough to basically worship them as gods, following their teachings and exploring the universe with a newfound fervor.
I do have to wonder, if the Xel'Naga didn't just step in to feed the Protoss a load of bullshit – it's not like there'd have been anyone who could tell them otherwise.
Because eventually, after having been raised up out of pre-sapience with more and more tech and developing their innate psionics to 'space magic bullshit' levels, the Protoss grew proud enough to actually take a swing at the Xel'Naga. And rather than being absolutely shitstomped by an alien race that was supposedly old when they were still living in tiny little tribes, the Protoss actually drove them off. Or, rather, killed a few hundred of them while the majority fucked off. But still, impressive given the headstart the Xel'Naga supposedly had – the Protoss had finally taken the reigns of their own destiny again.
And promptly fell into a civil war. Because I suppose even aliens have to get in on the Succession Wars.
It says something that they call this period the 'Aeon of Strife', and when their own records describe them as having 'devolved into frantic legions of merciless killers driven by unthinking hatred towards their brethren', it's pretty clear this left a big mark on their collective psyche. Even their other colonies away from Aiur – still connected by 'Warp Gates' that let them cross planets instantly – fell apart. It was a complete free-for-all where massacres like Kentares happened regularly, entire cities being deliberately and intentionally destroyed. Whether through normal methods, or through more creative means like using the environment to do the hard part.
Case in point, Mendella, which was sitting downstream of a reservoir that another Protoss tribe intentionally destroyed, flooding them all.
Eventually, however, the Aeon of Strife ended – for a multitude of reasons, the biggest of which was one particular Protoss who was named 'Khas', 'He Who Brings Order', because the Protoss are like that. He studied the Xel'Naga, dug up the khaydarin crystals they left behind, figured out how to access their old psychic link, and started teaching others.
Basically he was Protoss Jesus, or Protoss Moses, or… you get the idea. A prophet-type dude.
With the Psychic link – now known as the Khala – behind him, he was the leader of the movement that eventually saw the end of the Aeon of Strife, using diplomacy and kind words when he could talk people down, and his legion of fanatically loyal followers when he couldn't.
And with that, we enter the Second Age of the Protoss.
Chapter 4: The Protoss Second Age – Like the Star League in all the right and wrong ways
There are many things we know which you do not. That is why we are the leaders of the Protoss and you merely wield the sword when we tell you.
- Judicator Kortanul, Head of the Conclave to Executor Adun, Commander-in-Chief of the Protoss military, neatly summarizing the Khalai Caste System
This, right here, was the Protoss Golden Age. It was their Star League. It was the height of their civilization, when they set up the foundations of their modern society, when they created marvels that to the modern bullshit space-wizards would be considered Lostech.
It was also when they basically bombed an entire species back into the stone age, so actually pretty close to the Star League.
The Protoss operate on a caste-based society – although this wasn't just a way to put some people on top and others on the bottom, they were trying to avoid the tribalistic bullshit that saw the Aeon of Strife happen in the first place. Of course the tribes still existed and wound up messing up the Castes a bit, but hey, points for trying.
The Judicator Caste is, basically, on top – they have all the oldest Protoss, the ones people can respect out of age and experience, and their job is to govern the Protoss under the Khala's Law. Inside that, you have the Judicator Assembly, the ruling body of the Caste, and these guys decide who becomes a member of the Conclave, the ruling body of the Judicator Assembly.
So the Conclave controled the Judicator Assembly, which controled the Judicator Caste, which controled Protoss society. It's just layers and layers of control and exclusivity, all the way down. The Protoss could teach the Great Houses a thing or two about being pompous pricks.
Oh, and basically all of the members of the Conclave or the Judicator Assembly were either members of the Ara Tribe of Protoss, or were aligned with their interests, so basically the Ara Tribe controlled the Protoss. They even had their own personal guard, their own Black Watch called the… lemme check my notes here… 'khalen'ri' Praetor Guard. These guys weren't just guards though, when the Conclave wanted take military action in a more proactive manner, these guys would be the ones sent out.
Yeah. I'd call them the Protoss equivalent of the Camerons but even the Camerons at least were honest about the fact they were always going to be in charge… at least until they weren't.
Hey, another similarity – but that'll be for a video on the Great War and all the fallout that happened afterward. Suffice to say, the Cameron Dynasty has plenty of similarities with the Conclave.
Anyway, the second most prominent Caste are the Templars – these are basically the Clan Warrior caste, only they don't do the whole eugenics thing and don't intentionally throttle their own growth with weird breeding targets. These guys are the only guys who're supposed to be fight and lead – all Protoss military leaders are of the Templar Caste, raised to be fanatically loyal to the Khala and the Protoss Empire.
The last caste is also the largest, and is called the 'Khalai' – it includes 'everyone else' in Protoss society. From scientists to laborers to artisans, this is the designated 'civilian' caste.
There's a reason I'm putting this new societal shift in with the other history stuff. Again, this has to do with the Great War. It did a number on these guys.
Anyway, the Second Age saw this new Protoss society spreading across the galaxy, taking the worlds that the Xel'Naga once held while kicking the crap out of anyone else who picked a fight with them. Although I think that might have had to do with their diplomatic policy being basically going 'Father Knows Best' on literally every other alien species in the galaxy. Either you were a threat and needed to be exterminated, or you were a lesser species and needed to be observed and protected under the 'Dae'Uhl'.
Which, after they tried to intervene in an alien civil war in an incident called the Kalathi Intercession where they tried to stop a civil war and wound up bombing both sides into the Stone Age, they chose to edit the Dae'Uhl into something that basically said, 'Don't intervene in internal alien politics'.
There're also two other events – well, one is an incident, the other's more of a period of time I'm not entirely where it fits, I think it's just concurrent with their Second Age. The second one is pretty snappy, it's just called the Golden Age of Expansion – I'm sure you can guess what this was all about. The Protoss built huge, huge armadas with Motherships that made the Terrans famous Battlecruisers look like a dinky Leopard. I'll cover what these things could do later, but let me say this: A single Protoss Mothership would have made the Liberation of Terra into such an easy fight for Kerensky he could have napped through it. These things have guns aplenty, but their ability to support a fleet…
Well. Like I said, these things bear their own entry.
But despite all that power, Motherships weren't invincible – a major disaster saw two of them suffer critical failures in their 'Khaydarin Cores', which were giant magic crystals from Aiur, at which point they fell into a nearby star. After that, the Protoss actually had the foresight to try and prep for the apocalypse, although records concerning these preparations are a bit spotty.
Not sure if that means the Protoss don't entirely trust the Raiders or if their own records are damaged.
The second notable incident was the rise, and eventual exodus of the second major Protoss Faction, the Dark Templar. Or, in the Protoss vernacular, the Nerazim.
Chapter 5: The Birth of the Nerazim – The Protoss who like being Independent
As impossible as it may seem, there are some among us who would destroy everything we have sought to build over the last millennium. They question the Khala. They maintain that the right of the individual takes priority over the good of the whole. Some have even resorted to the extreme measure of self-mutilation in order to sever their connection to the Khala.
- Judicator Kortanul, Professional Asshole
In my heart... Raszagal is not a threat. I have questioned her-extensively. Nothing in her desires revolution, or disharmony. She merely wishes to keep herself to herself. Is that worthy of death?
- Executor Adun, asking himself a question to which the Star League, Clans, and Great Houses would answer 'yes'
See, not everyone was on board with joining the Khala and its associated society. Turns out, asking someone to join a mental net where everyone can see your thoughts and emotions in a society that's totally led by a single, extremely exclusive group of people that you have no chance of getting to participate in is actually kind of a tough sell, universally speaking. These guys didn't care about actually attacking the Khalai or anything, they just wanted to be left alone for the most part and remain true individuals. They'd even cut off their nerve cords – those weird pony-tail things you see on the back of most Protoss heads – to permanently sever their link to the Khala.
The Conclave, taking a page from the Star League's book, decided that any Protoss civilization that existed outside of their rule was an existential threat to the stability of their rule, and ordered the supreme leader of the Templar Caste, Executor Adun, to go and exterminate them before their very existence caused wars to break out across Aiur again in a new Aeon of Strife. Adun, not being psychotically insane or blindingly stupid, saw that maybe trying to wipe out an entire group of people for the crime of existing might see them fight back and cause wars to break out.
So, when he got given a prisoner, Raszagal – who would become the Matriarch of the Dark Templar – he promptly faked her death, faked a bunch more deaths, sent those videos to the Conclave to get them off his back, and tried to teach the independent Protoss to figure out how to use their psychic powers without the big safety net of the link.
Unfortunately, as it is here, no good deed goes unpunished because the independents lost control and accidentally unleashed psionic storms all across Aiur.
Yes, the same psionic storms that on a small-scale, tossed around by individual Protoss, can shred power-armored infantry like napkins and mission-kill Siege Tanks and Goliaths. These got unleashed all across Aiur, and the Conclave – after fixing the problem – realized that these independent Protoss still existed.
Old prejudices bubbled up against as these independents were hunted down and slaughtered, inter-tribal warfare breaking out again as the Khalai hunted the Nerazim, but the Conclave basically went into Capellan damage-control mode and put on huge information locks after the rest of the Nerazim were captured. Then they had a small problem.
See, they knew that if they punished Adun, they'd have to explain to the Protoss why one of the greatest warriors and commanders in their history was being fucked over. And Adun threatened that if the Nerazim were harmed while in captivity, he'd sing like a songbird and the full story of the Nerazim would come on out, not the version the Conclave was trying to peddle. So despite wanting to punish Adun and kill the Nerazim, they instead put a gag order on Adun and his troops, loaded all of the Nerazim onto a ship and promptly told them to go somewhere else.
Kortanul, the leader of the Conclave, was the head of all this, and when Adun showed up in person to see the Nerazim off he went berserk and tried to attack them, supported by the rest of the Conclave. The Nerazim responded in kind, and Adun prevented another wave of psi-storms from ripping Aiur apart by using his own psi-abilities to cover and shield the Nerazim as they escaped. He was successful, but died in the attempt – body totally burning out thanks to the amount of energy he channeled, until nothing was left.
There's a reason why the Nerazim love this guy. Funnily enough, the Khalai do too, because the Conclave publicized his death as being a heroic self-sacrifice against Nerazim treachery. Funny how things work out.
I'll cover the Nerazim in more detail at a later date – they deserve a feature of their own. But if you think, 'Protoss Periphery boys', you're not entirely off-the-mark.
Chapter 6: How to recognize a Protoss
As they say, the enemy of my enemy...
...is tall, dark and ugly?
-Exchange between Jack Frost, Rebel Firebat, and Charlie Vane, Rebel Wraith Pilot, upon seeing a Protoss for the first time
I'll get this out of the way now: Your average Protoss would think a Clan Elemental is below-average for size, overweight, and kind of unfit. These dudes consider nine feet to be 'about average' for height, and although they don't weight as much as an Elemental thanks to the fact they're built kind of twiggy for their size, turns out that pound for pound, Protoss muscles are way ahead of anything the Clans or Terrans have.
So. They're bigger than you, they're stronger than you, and they are most definitely faster than you. Add to that the claws all Protoss naturally have, and even naked a Protoss warrior could probably tear apart anyone not wearing power armor.
So all that must mean they have huge dietary requirements right? Elementals put away food like a Lyran general spends cash, so these wired-up alien supersoldiers must need tons of resources to sustain themselves. Logistics being the cold damper on performance, as always.
Except no. See, Protoss mouths aren't hidden – they don't have them, period. Protoss sustain themselves on fucking sunlight, which includes moonlight by the way, absorb the minimal amounts of water that they need through their skin, and can actually adapt themselves even further to live on lightless worlds like the Nerazim wound up doing.
They don't even poo. Yeah, I'm serious. 'Protoss waste excretion occurs on a molecular level through the skin', basically just sweating it out like a fart you can't detect.
And the fact they don't have noses or ears? Also not a problem. Again, their skin does both – and its good enough at it that they can identify other Protoss purely on smell alone. The one sense we have that's 'better' than them is taste, and that's because Protoss don't have tongues at all.
They also live for a thousand years easy, with a number of their kind easily hitting multi-millennia ages. They do get weaker over time, but when you can outlast a goddamn Battlemech in the combat longevity departments that's not a huge deal.
Even without considering their psychic space-magic the Protoss are pure unadulterated bullshit.
The one thing the Protoss do struggle with, though, is making babies.
See, for all those ludicrous biological traits that make being Protoss awesome, they have absolutely abysmal birth rates. The Xel'naga had to create another magic crystal, the Kassia Crystal, to get them to experience population growth as opposed to population stagnation, and even then it wasn't enough in the long run because in the twilight years of the Protoss Empire, their population was in decline because despite living for centuries on end and suffering minimal combat losses when they fought, they still couldn't make enough children to offset the deaths they had due to just plain old age.
Chapter 7: Psychic Space Magic
Magic. Just call it magic. It's totally magic.
- An unknown Dominion Marine, saying what we're all thinking
Right, class, time to cover the elephant in the room – Protoss and their psionics. Or, as we usually refer to them, their bullshit space-magic.
The Protoss are all naturally psionic to some degree – some more than others, but basically all of their tech and society is built around being psionic. A Protoss without any psionics would be basically unable to function in their modern society.
Now, what can the Protoss do with their fancy psionics? Well, let's go down a non-exhaustive list shall we?
They're all natural mind readers – we've covered this, and will go into more detail when we cover the Khala.
They can project actual goddamn energy shields. Personal force fields – some can do it innately, others need a bit of a technological boost, but basically all Protoss have this ability. I'll cover this better when I actually get to Protoss tech.
They can charge up their tools and equipment with psionic energy, like plugging a battery into a socket. Pretty convenient.
They can 'materialize, manipulate, or meld matter', which basically means they can make shit from nothing, have telekinesis available to them, or just join materials like they're mashing clay together.
There's the famous 'psi-storm' that Protoss High Templar can cast, where they proceed to tear apart an entire armored platoon with fields of what's basically psychic lightning.
And some Protoss basically act as memory banks, holding the memories of other Protoss from centuries or millennia ago so that they can be accessed when needed.
There's a reason I refer to this mostly as 'psionic', not 'psychic', because reading thoughts and minds is the least of the horseshit they can pull off. We've all heard the rumors about Terran psychic operatives, but even the wildest of those rumors would mean jack all compared to what the Protoss can do.
And, separate from all this space-magic insanity, Protoss just straight-up think faster and 'better' than us bog-standard humans, running multiple lines of thought concurrently and being able to contemplate multiple scenarios one after the other in an actual second.
Fucking aliens. At least we get to point out all their Second Age screwups and laugh.
Chapter 8: The Khala – The Capellan Confederation's Surveillance Wet Dream
For we are bound by the Khala...the sacred union of our every thought and emotion.
- Hierarch Artanis boasting about the most invasive surveillance method ever conceived
Now, then, I've already gone over the Khala briefly, so this is just going to use the details to emphasize how absurd it is.
First: You cannot hide from other linked Protoss. At all. The only time it was possible was during the Aeon of Strife, when the link was suppressed – otherwise, all Protoss are aware of all other linked Protoss nearby. Always.
Second, while the actual 'depth' to which a Protoss was linked was down to personal choice, but even at the most shallow levels you're still sharing all your emotions with the people around you. When major tragedies or conflicts occurred the Protoss all shared the same emotions be they anger or sadness, which probably made the Judicator's jobs a hell of a lot easier if they knew that all Protoss everywhere were of the same opinion of the topic of the day.
Meanwhile, going 'deep' into the Khala meant totally losing your sense of self – even the Protoss couldn't handle total unity 24/7, so only the Judicators and Templar would immerse themselves more than like, once a day.
Seriously, the Capellans or the Dracs wish they had this kind of observation and control over their people. No need for the Maskirovka when Mr. Yang the dumpling vendor is broadcasting all his thoughts into a public space, and even if he drops out his absence would be noted as well. The only way for Protoss to avoid using the Khala altogether would be to physically sever their nerve cords that hang at the back of their heads – this is what the Nerazim all do.
Now, the Khala isn't just the most effective surveillance system every devised – it has some practical benefits too. For one, while Protoss can speak to each other without it the Khala does allow for a stronger form of communication. While the emotional sharing is… uh, iffy, the fact that Protoss within the Khala could easily talk to any other Protoss in the same city, or even on the same planet, instantly and without fuss, is pretty damn useful. They only needed technological assistance via Psi-link spires when trying to talk to someone off-world.
They're not limited to Protoss/Protoss communication either - they can transmit information straight into Terran brains, or even somehow patch themselves into comm networks to share information. They can even do this with Terran comm networks that don't include any Protoss elements as well - they can just... seamlessly patch themselves in, no trouble or difficulty with clashing systems or secure lines. I have no idea how, and even Terran scientists basically seem to just give up by this point because it's not like a radio has a mind to read.
Second, the memories of dead Protoss get uploaded to the wider network – mostly fragmented, although Templars and Preservers would work to make sure these were coherent so that the knowledge, experiences and perspectives of dead Protoss were always available. Pretty useful – if nothing else, you'd avoid people using dead heroes to push their own bullshit forward. Be pretty tough for the Clans to proclaim themselves to follow Kerensky's true vision if we could access his memories and opinions at any time to really call them out on their bullshit.
Meanwhile, when it's applied to living Protoss... this sort of sharing of memory, emotion, and thought pretty much smooths over a thousand different problems in communication that we humans have to struggle with. They can instantly, instinctively understand not just what another Protoss is thinking, but get the full view of why they think that, the series of conclusions that led them to a certain viewpoint or decision. No misunderstandings, no omitted information due to time pressures or clashes due to differences in education. A Protoss doctor could tell their patient something, and the patient could immediately understand any level of professional jargon they used because the doctor could just give them that understanding, dumping it all into their mind so they know what's wrong with them, or at least what the doctor thinks is wrong with them.
And when it comes to combat?
If a Protoss warrior gets a bad feeling about something, a gut instinct that something is wrong, they can instantly relay both the feeling and why they feel that to their entire squad, who can they pulse back feedback on the topic with their own thoughts and observations, letting them near-instantly come to conclusions that'd take a Terran squad entire minutes of discussion.
They don't even need to really focus on it either - they can think about all this even as they're busy hacking you to pieces in melee, because for them it takes no meaningful time at all, nor is it something hugely draining for them.
When it comes to the coordination of units on the battle map, the Terrans have absolutely nothing on the Protoss or the Zerg. And we, meanwhile, aren't even playing the same game - the Protoss have a level of strategic coordination ability that makes an army group led by a Cyclops and packing C3 units in every single Mech look like goddamn smoke signals.
The last aspect is pretty simple, it's just a huge reservoir of psionic energy that some trained Protoss can draw upon. So they can drop Storms on you over, and over, and over again.
Chapter 9: Protoss Culture – Like Clanners, but less dysfunctional
We embrace the glory of battle!
-Your average Protoss Zealot upon getting shot at
Yes, you read that title right.
Protoss Culture in general moves slowly. Glacially slowly. Turns out, when you live for a thousand years, it's kind of tough for new ideas to gain traction against the old guard. Which probably outnumbers the new guard by a factor of at least ten to one. That, combined with the Khala meaning the old guard's thoughts and emotions hold dominance, basically means that outside of massive, absolutely ground-breaking new developments Protoss culture is effectively static.
Protoss Culture – well, the Khalai at least, I'm drawing a distinction there between them and other Protoss factions like the Nerazim – also just doesn't really put many women in high-ranking positions. I have no idea why – they don't seem really, like, outwardly sexist or anything, at least in no way I can glean from records. And there're plenty of female Protoss in all sorts of jobs – including the Judicator Caste and the Templar Caste, remember you aren't necessarily born into these Castes.
The only reason I can think of why is that there were never any Protoss women in the Conclave, which for most of their history had a stranglehold on Protoss culture and whatnot, so maybe that's the reason. And because Khalai culture is so vitrified, well, I guess there was some glass ceiling there.
It says something that the first female Protoss High Executor I could find an entry on, Executor Selendis, only reached her rank less than a decade ago. Like, seriously, it was only after a war that tore the Protoss Empire apart and gutted its entire leadership that a female Protoss finally got the seat of Executor.
Moving on from apparent gender equality issues, the Protoss are all very, very warlike. They might not be as pants-on-head ridiculous as the Clans went it comes to picking a fight with each other, but they'll never shy away from a fight because it's an opportunity to earn some glory on the battlefield. Like most Clanners, a Protoss Warrior given the choice between dying in honorable combat or survival through surrender is not actually given a choice. They will happily fight, and die, to the last man for an objective unless recalled by a higher commander.
The Protoss though, unlike the Clans, are perfectly happy to drop the hammer on you with all of their advanced technology. No holding the good stuff back out of some weird sense of fair play – for the Protoss, two key factors for victory in battle is earned through discipline and advanced technology. For the former, they have Templar who have trained for combat with their comrades longer than some noble houses have existed, period. For their advanced tech… well, we'll get to that, but believe me they're not shy about deploying the good stuff.
They do have two key differences with the Clans though: The first is that they won't put the boot down on civilians for no good reason. These guys might be aggressive, and their technological superiority plus their arrogance might have them considering any harm on 'lesser species' as 'acceptable collateral', but they also usually have a strong, strict sense of justice and honor, which involves honorable conduct on the battlefield.
So, yes, they might glass a planet of civilians without really trying out other means of resolving the issue. But they'll press the button because there's Zerg infestation there or some other bullshit, or it brings some strategic benefit. They won't bring the hammer down because they're throwing a tantrum after they lost a fight – *cough*SmokeJaguar*cough*. Hell, Selendis even congratulated Raynor on beating her when they got into a dustup back in the Koprulu Sector. After that, she got back to her job of kicking the shit out of the Zerg.
The second big difference is that that the Protoss, unlike the Clans, absolutely love melee combat. They adore it, and revel in rendering their enemies into the past tense face to face while considering the ranged weapons of other species who do not have every possible genetic advantage imaginable cowardly. That isn't to say they'll hamper themselves, far from it – they're fully aware that being able to hit your enemy from past arms-length is kind of critical to winning wars, and have a very frightening array of weapons developed for the purpose of reducing you to your component atoms from a distance.
So, I suppose you could say that a third difference is that the Protoss are smarter than the Clans. Not a high bar to clear really.
Chapter 10: Protoss Tech – AKA 'We know what this does, we just don't know how'
Got two Protoss walkers here! Just gonna blow-
- Last words of Thor Pilot Gregory Palmer, upon encountering a pair of Protoss walkers the size of Goliaths
Now we come to the final part of this lecture, and the part that most people were probably most interested in. Well, maybe tied with the section on Protoss psionics. Now we come to Protoss technology. It's in this section where we'll learn about how, and why, the Protoss were the absolute Big Stick until very recently, and even after being absolutely gutted are still a power nobody wants to fuck with. I won't go over all the niggly little details on just how much more advanced they are than the Terrans, I'll just focus on the militarily relevant details as it were.
First off: Shields. Real, no-bullshit energy shields that block anything from thrown rocks to particle projector shots. The Protoss have this on literally everything – from their disposable drones meant to harvest raw materials to their capital warships to their buildings. If you attack a Protoss base, and your troops get slaughtered or run off before they breach the shields? You've achieved fuck all because those shields recharge, and fast, so that by the time you send more troops that base is back at 100% power.
And if the Protoss happened to plant a shield battery nearby, then chances are good those shields are gonna recharge faster than you can damage them because that shield battery will burn its recharging batteries to rapidly power the shields of nearby structures.
But say you get past all that – you've brought enough bodies that the Protoss can't kill them all fast enough, and you've managed to breach the shields. Well, now you have to break through structures built with what are pound-for-pound the most durable materials in known space. Battlemechs might last for centuries but if you want to use a machine that's been sitting in storage for five hundred years then you're going to want a technician to take a look at it and bring it back to full readiness.
The Protoss, do not have this issue. They can build an automated gun, leave it sitting in the environment for eight hundred years, and rely on it still lobbing antimatter shots at their targets the moment those targets get into range no matter what sort of stealth tech they might have.
Yes. The Protoss arm their automated gun emplacements, their most basic defensive structures, with antimatter-based weaponry.
But let's say you've managed to overcome all those odds. You've brought enough troops to survive the Protoss counterfire, and enough firepower to breach their shields and armor. You've finally defeated the Protoss, have overwhelmed their base, and now the spoils of salvage are yours – you can take all that precious hyper-advanced tech and sell it to the highest bidder for reverse-engineering.
Except you can't.
Because it's no longer there.
You see, the Protoss have even greater mobility than the Terrans, both on the strategic and tactical level. Yes, the Terrans, who can fly an entire pre-built base into a LZ and start churning out materiel on your front doorstep. How do the Protoss do it?
Simple: They build all their shit back home, on Aiur or whatever other planet their craftsmen and phase-smiths and architects and whatever are on. They build all manner of buildings and war machines, even as out in the field a tiny disposable probe is running around.
This probe then sets markers for buildings to teleport in.
Yes. The Protoss don't even bother with giving you a chance to shoot down base buildings or easily-detected fleets while they're in flight – they just teleport an entire base in, from where they proceed to teleport additional soldiers and materiel in.
This isn't just a one-way process, either – almost every Protoss soldier is equipped with a personal warp beacon built into their armor, along with all their buildings. So when they take critical damage, they just get whisked away back to friendly territory so they can get medical attention in the case of warriors, or get the dents buffed out in the case of their buildings.
'Oh but Tex', you point out, 'that's a device built into the armor or whatever, surely it can be disabled!'
And yes, you can disable it, but these devices are built right into the guts of whatever it is you're shooting at. Which means if you try to disable it with weapons fire, you're going to blow straight through all of the valuable, hyper-advanced tech that you want to salvage and turn it all into shiny alien scrap metal.
There's a reason why despite massive amounts of effort, the Terrans still have almost zero working knowledge on how Protoss tech functions.
Oh, and remember what I mentioned up above with their ability to share information, through the Khala? Well, let's put these two facts together along with their aggression: The Protoss have zero hesitation running into gunlines, because their shields, armor and biology give them a level of combat endurance that makes CMC armor look like paper mache. They will charge in to engage you, and the moment they start taking actual, real damage to their bodies their armor will probably teleport them right back to home base to be patched up.
Now, it's not like the Khala just stops working because a Protoss is currently in medbay - they might not be able to participate in discussions or actively share information if they're passed out from blood loss and trauma, but all the way right up until they black out they were broadcasting how they were fighting and what resistance the enemy was putting up to their comrades. So their comrades all can see exactly how their comrade just got sent to critical care, and have the full memo on what took them out. And now that they have that memo, they can figure out how to counter it, and the moment someone figures that out, literally every Protoss warrior on the field will know because they're always sharing information with each other.
Even if they don't, once the unlucky bastard who got hammered recovers and comes back to active duty he can still share his own perspectives that other Protoss can, and will listen to to avoid falling for the same tricks twice.
And Protoss medical care is good - it's not perfect, but you need to be in more pieces than a Nova Cat dropship on Tukayyid for them to be unable to patch you back up to full fighting fitness. Even then, they can keep you alive with cybernetics.
And if you're wondering how bad the Protoss could possibly be given the sheer destructive potential we've seen the Terrans throw around… I could go into all of the myriad ways they have to put you into the past tense, but I'll just say this:
The Protoss make some heavy use of purely robotic units, to shore up their very limited numbers. In the Protoss arsenal, there is only one dedicated warmachine that we would classify as 'superheavy' class. There's another one that's pretty large itself, but that's a modified civilian mobile manufacturing plant that throws tactical nukes at whatever the Protoss want to make go away.
The one dedicated superheavy they have is the 'Colossus', and while it can set an entire grid square on fire, its most often used to wipe out swarms of lesser enemy units rather than cracking open hard targets.
That's right, an entire superheavy, the one example in the Protoss armory in fact, and it's dedicated to the same job we'd use a Firestarter for.
Why? Because everything else in the Protoss arsenal is so goddamn lethal that their problem generally isn't killing something, it's about being able to kill all of its friends in a timely fashion. When your basic, individual footsoldier has a decent crack at running down and then killing a god damn Mad Cat by themselves, like an Elemental juiced up on ten different kinds of stimulants, your biggest concern goes from 'how do we kill enemy hard targets' to 'how do we efficiently wipe out enemy crowds'.
Yeah. The question isn't 'why don't the Terrans rule the Koprulu sector', it's 'why don't the Protoss rule the goddamn galaxy'.