The Campaign - Backstory

Then 'till now: Terrans in the Koprulu Sector

The Terran race is the most familiar to us, as the Terrans are the humans. Their power lies in technology and potential for psionic augmentation. Arriving in the Koprulu sector in 2259 as the result of a mistaken trajectory, 50,000 prisoners awoke from cyber sleep to have to formulate a society. Crash-landing on three different planets, they originally formed three distinct factions, the strongest known as the Terran Confederacy. Experimenting with psi emitters the confederacy eliminated its enemies by luring the Zerg behind enemy lines and letting the swarm do their dirty work. Being found out by Arcturus Mengsk's Sons of Korhal, Mengsk led his forces against the Confederacy. During this campaign he left his second-in-command, assassin Sarah Kerrigan, to die during a Zerg siege of Tarsonis, the capital planet. This incensed Jim Raynor, one of his most prolific commanders. Thinking Kerrigan dead, he vowed revenge and took his force (Raynor's Raiders) out of Mengsk's employ. Raynor would find out that Kerrigan was not in fact killed, but had been captured by the Zerg and her DNA was being fused with Zerg DNA. Raynor could not save her from being transformed and she emerged from her incubation distorted and immensely powerful: the "Queen of Blades," with half the Zerg swarm at her disposal. She would wage a civil war to become the sole ruler of the Swarm(more on this later, as this sentence basically summarizes Broodwar).

The campaign of Starcraft II begins four years after the Queen of Blades assumes power, with Raynor's Raiders in a lull in their activity against Mengsk, who assumed power over the Terrans.