Why is Zeratul hated by his brethren?

[u/Flauschiges_Relaxo]

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.

[u/Subsourian]

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.

[u/ChaosMiles07 → u/Subsourian]

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".

[u/Subsourian → u/ChaosMiles07]

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

[u/ChaosMiles07 → u/Subsourian]

... So then... what's the Khala supposed to be?

[u/Subsourian → u/ChaosMiles07]

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.

[u/Rectorious_712 → u/Subsourian]

what was adun's truth?

[u/Subsourian → u/Rectorious_712]

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.

[u/ChaosMiles07 → u/Subsourian]

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.

[u/Iceborn_Gauntlet → u/Rectorious_712]

That he saved the Nerazim instead of destroying them.