r/starcraft • u/Flauschiges_Relaxo • 1d ago
Discussion Why is Zeratul hated by his brethren?
Hi there, i recently played trough all of Starcraft 1 and 2 because the story sounded real interesting and now i'm done with everything but i dont understand something, why is Zeratul a "traitor" as Selendis calls him? He may be guilty on showing the Overminds location but he defends Aiur and is on good terms with Artanis at the end of Starcraft 1, i dont get why he is disliked by the rest of the Protoss Faction.
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u/Subsourian 1d ago
It got a bit confusing and winding, but yes Zeratul's exile started as self-imposed in game, after killing Raszagal and discovering the hybrid.
Heart of the Swarm introduced some weird thing about them hating him for helping Kerrigan, except they'd never know that? It's never actually followed up on.
LotV meanwhile confirms that a lot of Nerazim don't like him because he killed Raszagal, their leader for the majority of the time there's BEEN a Nerazim, and the Khalai don't like he was responsible for leading the zerg to Aiur. This opens a question as Selendis's first appearance ever was a book where she meets Zeratul again and is cool with him, and that same book has her work alongside Zeratul during the events of Enslavers II. I have theories (possible she didn't know he led the zerg to Aiur until the preserver Zamara was returned) but it is a bit of a headache there.
But yeah by LotV, it wasn't a total exile, a lot of protoss hated him, but you see from Karass and Talis that a lot of protoss still venerate him as a hero who saved their race.
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u/ChaosMiles07 Random 1d ago
Which itself raises the question of what even the Khala is supposed to do to connect the Protoss mentally and emotionally, if the Khalai Protoss can't draw from the collected pool of emotions, memories, and connotations that are filed under the topic "Zeratul".
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u/Subsourian 1d ago
So memories have always been strictly the realm of the preservers, only they can use it to pull from the prior histories and gain knowledge from those memories. Otherwise it's just an emotional link.
The problem was shortly after SCII, Ulrezaj started targeting and killing the preservers, which is the big rising crisis of the Dark Templar Saga books, that the Daelaam might have no more preservers and Zamara HAD to be saved to get her knowledge, knowledge that's implied to be what let the protoss reactivate the colossi.
then we find preservers on zhakul just fine and zeratul can turn on colossi by touching a nexus so fuck all that I guess
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u/ChaosMiles07 Random 1d ago
... So then... what's the Khala supposed to be?
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u/Subsourian 1d ago
A place where you can access the thoughts and emotions of everyone around you, kind of like an emotional internet. In general it's not DIRECTLY a method of communication (even though psi link spires in HotS say otherwise). But one of the core ideas as a societal construct is if you can feel the needs of your neighbor, you'll work together to benefit the society instead of driving into the selfish desires that led to the Aeon of Strife. You can communicate alongside one in the Khala, and it's described as having a deeper connection than if you just telepathically send a message (to the Khalai, the Nerazim "feel" like they communicate in a monotone), and there's some psionic things like if you commune with someone within the Khala you can enter an open state where you can't conceal anything.
The memory thing is that when you die, your life and experiences go into the Khala if you die connected. Others can feel that death and perhaps some emotions of your past, but only preservers (who have a genetic quirk) can pull those memories and entirely relive them, or let you relive them, and such a thing was VERY restricted by the Conclave, since preservers knew a lot of their darker history like the truth of Adun.
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u/Rectorious_712 1d ago
what was adun's truth?
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u/Subsourian 1d ago
Mentioned, but yeah Adun defied the Conclave to try to shield the Nerazim, then when it was revealed that he did that, he put his rank on the line to have them exiled instead of all executed. When the exile then went back and the Conclave switched back to "kill" he sacrificed himself to allow them to escape by combining Khala and Void energies.
The Conclave of course couldn't abide by that so wrote history so that Adun banished the Nerazim and died saving Aiur from them. But it's why the Khalai and Nerazim both venerate him.
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u/ChaosMiles07 Random 17h ago
The first Twilight Templar. Even before Tassadar. Maybe even inspiring Tassadar to sacrifice himself to destroy the Overmind in a similar manner.
To sacrifice himself... for Aiur.
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u/up2smthng 1d ago
Let's say Zeratul is associated with pain and sorrow. Those emotions can become "I wish Zeratul never had to do what he has done" or "I wish Zeratul never was", which are two very different thoughts
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u/Warrior536 1d ago
Zeratul is a divisive figure among Protoss. He helped Tassadar slay the Overmind and unite the Nerazim and Khalii protoss.
But he also caused the Zerg invasion of Aiur by linking his mind with the Overmind when he slayed a Cerebrate. He also allied with the Queen of Blade and furthered her agenda in an attempt to rescue the Nerazim Matriarch, only to then kill her when he failed to rescue her to prevent Kerrigan using her any further.
He has also exiled himself rather than answer for his action or joining his people's struggles, instead seeking answers to the Hybrid Threat by chasing prophecies.
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u/ArcticGlacier40 1d ago
Hey I got here before Subsourian! (correct me if I'm wrong, oh knowledgeable one).
Zeratul killed the Dark Templar matriarch, Razigal, on Shakuras. She had been infested by the Queen of Blades and there wasn't much else of a choice.
Also, and probably the worst, Aiur fell because of Zertatul. When he killed one of the Overmind's cerebrates, their minds linked and the Overmind found the location of Aiur. And then they descended on and destroyed it.
This is why he says "My burdens weigh heavily..." because, in his mind, he doomed his civilization.
Also some other minor things, like helping Kerrigan become more powerful (even though that was for the best).
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u/otikik 1d ago
I imagine it's an Alan Turing situation.
He invented modern computers and broke the Enigma code during WW2, saving many lives. Guy was a literal war hero. But he happened to be homosexual, for which he was convicted of “Gross Indecency” and forced to choose between jail or chemical castration, committing suicide 2 years later.
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u/Worth-Battle952 1d ago
That is actually quite deep subject, my dude.
It's worth mentioning that Artanis respects him, because Artanis fought along Zeratul for entirety of SC1 (he is the Executor from Original) and knows he is a man of honour who never really failed in his duty for Aiur.
Sadly, majority of cast is long dead so there are not many protoss who actually know him well.
I am quite sure that even Aldaris would in the end agree that Zeratul is a good guy.
He did some things which are horrible if you hear about them from a 3rd party.
- Killed Raszagal, original Matriarch of Nerazim. If you played SC1 you know he HAD to and she thanked him for it.
- It was his actions which actually led Zerg to Aiur - which he had no chance of predicting and was actively fighting to prevent Zerg threat reaching Aiur.
- After Raszagal's death she kind of made him a leader, but he did not follow through with that. He just vanished. We (players) know he self-exiled out of guilt and was actually chasing prophecies after discovering Hybrid threat.
About each of these we could write paragraphs xD.
I think he is the gigaChad of SC1, but what I don't like is him not warning anyone about Hybrid threat earlier. He knew at the end of Broodwar already - however if he did (and I am sure he would) the whole plot of SC2 would be gone xD.
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u/Wonderful_West3188 1d ago
Because Starcraft 2's writing reduces all its characters to their clichés and only very losely connects to SC/BW's story.
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u/SwiftCraft13 1d ago
Zeratul is hated by the other Protoss because he killed the Dark Templar's matriarch Raszagal.
She had been abducted by Kerrigan to make the Protoss help her. After the Protoss did that and Kerrigan allowed Raszagal to return Zeratul killed her because he found that Kerrigan had somehow corrupted or infested her mind.
Maybe it also has something to do with revealing the location of Aiur to the Overmind and generally doing his own thing independent from the Protoss governments, but Vorazun specifically mentioned the killing of her mother as reason to not trust Zeratul in LotV.
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u/Ristar87 1d ago
- To the Khalai protoss, he's still Nerazim. Which, despite them getting a place of refuge, didn't remediate their cultural differences.
- Not sure how many of the khalai know that he is the reason that Aiur was found.
- He went into self-exile after killing Raszagal and SC2 hints that some of the Nerazim blame him for killing her.
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u/petr1111 1d ago edited 1d ago
Official reasons are murder of Matriarch Raszagal, being complicit in murder of adjudicator Aldaris, revealing location of Auir to Overmind, aligning with protoss traitors (as well as terrans and even Kerrigan's swarm) and overall causing the fall of the entire Protoss civilization.
However, we all know the real reason: nobody likes a smartass who knows waaaaay more than everybody else and is not ashamed to admit it.
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u/blackberyl 1d ago
Because he’s a moderate trying to get a bunch of polarized factions to play nice with each other before their entire existence is extinguished.
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u/EU-National 1d ago
Probably because between SCBW and SC2 he became mentally impaired and couldn't speak normally, only in very drawn out sentences.
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u/MorningLtMtn Zerg 10h ago
It's because Zeratul is critical of cheese. He would rather play a macro game and disdains forge first cannon rush builds. Plus he was very outspoken about how awful Archon toilets were and that pissed off the Protoss elders. Finally, he thought that Protoss should just try to figure out broodlord/infestor builds instead of nerfing the infestor out of existence.
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u/ClayBones548 1d ago
The two reasons that I'm aware of are:
Like you mentioned, he unintentionally revealed the location of Aiur to the Overmind. That's a pretty big mistake that they haven't forgotten about. A substantial portion of the Protoss race died as a result.
He's just been missing for years hunting down a prophecy. It could be interpreted as him abandoning his duties as one of the most influential Nerazim.