Two and a half centuries after their arrival in the Koprulu Sector, the greatest nation of
humanity lay in ruins.
On the capital world of Tarsonis, billions of Zerg ravaged across the planet, leaving
only mountains of corpses and deserted cities in their wake.
Panic spread across the outlying colonies, but amid this chaos came a single rallying voice.
Promising a new beginning for mankind, Arcturus Mengsk crowned himself Emperor of a new nation,
one that would unite the dissident factions of man into an indivisible whole and deliver
swift vengeance against the nightmarish Zerg and the calculating Protoss, a great new power
known as the Terran Dominion.
This state was the ultimate achievement of the Sons of Korhal, a rebel movement
born out of the failed attempt to win independence for their world of the same name.
When the Terran Confederacy, the Dominion’s immediate predecessor, unleashed their nuclear
arsenal on Korhal rather than allow it to secede, Arcturus Mengsk gathered the scattered
survivors aboard the captured Battlecruiser Hyperion.
Fueled by the desire to fulfill the dream of his assassinated father, Mengsk led the
Sons of Korhal in a series of daring hit and run attacks against Confederate targets, becoming
the most wanted fugitives in the sector.
The rebellion captivated the public and quickly grew into a symbol of liberty fighting against
the tyranny and corruption of the Confederacy.
Armed with a steady influx of public support and volunteers, including defectors from the
Confederate military, the Sons of Korhal built up their strength to the point where they
could engage the Confederacy, ship to ship and man to man in open battle.
The arrival soon after of the Zerg Swarm and the Protoss ended any remaining hope for the Confederacy.
Caught between two warring alien races and faced with an increasingly well-equipped rebellion
from within, its collapse was inevitable.
The fall of Tarsonis and the declaration of the Terran Dominion under Arcturus Mengsk
rallied the human forces of the Koprulu Sector.
Despite this triumph, the actions of Emperor Mengsk began to progressively resemble those
of the Confederacy, employing ruthless tactics and oppressive policies.
The realization that their guiding moral principles had been betrayed alienated many of his oldest
allies, including the former Confederate Marshal Jim Raynor, who, along with hundreds of disillusioned
followers, abandoned the Dominion.
The sacrifice of the Protoss executor Tassadar destroyed the power of the Zerg Overmind,
reducing the swarm into a feral and directionless, but still dangerous, remnant of their former strength.
This hard-won armistice was critical for the Dominion who were sorely in need of time to
fully establish their nation and reconstruct their battered economy and industries.
This peace was not to last.
The arrival of the Protoss and Zerg had greatly alarmed the United Earth Directorate, which
had been quietly monitoring the events of the Koprulu Sector since the arrival of the
first supercarriers centuries earlier.
Determined to wipe out any potential danger to Earth, the UED launched an expeditionary
force to the distant sector, quickly occupying the worlds of the still recovering Dominion
and forcing Mengsk into exile.
The Dominion forces in hiding entered into a tenuous agreement with the Queen of Blades,
a former special forces operative, who had, at one time, been the second in command of
the Sons of Korhal, before being abandoned by Mengsk during the Fall of Tarsonis.
The alliance successfully liberated the worlds of the Dominion before the Zerg betrayed the
agreement, destroyed the greatest threats to their queen’s existence and then mysteriously
disappeared.
The Dominion had been granted a reprieve and was finally allowed to transform the nation
from a makeshift wartime emergency government to sector-wide superpower.
Emperor Mengsk himself would rule from the capitol world of Korhal, eventually restored
and decontaminated as symbol of Terran rejuvenation.
It’s capital Augustgrad was renamed in his honor.
A strong proponent of what he termed “benevolent despotism” Mengsk governed the Dominion
under a system resembling an absolute monarchy, with himself as Emperor.
The authority of the Emperor could not be restricted by any legislature, custom, or
even the rule of law.
The self proclaimed “Mengsk Dynasty” was used by Arcturus to describe the intended
line of succession and the members of the imperial family had ties to key industries
across the Dominion, trading power and influence for vast amounts of wealth.
The emblem of the Mengsk Dynasty was a wolf’s head, often displayed as being intertwined
with the insignia of the Government to further blur any line between the Dominion and Mengsk.
Despite maintaining the appearance of having elected officials in the form of the Dominion
Senate, the institution was largely ceremonial, with real power outside of the Mengsk Dynasty
concentrated in a wealthy aristocracy.
The true nature of the Dominion’s government was misrepresented to its own citizens through
a vast propaganda campaign that frequently celebrated the Dominion as a bastion of liberty.
“Peace. Law. Order”
became such a popular slogan that it was adopted as the state’s official motto.
Governments and groups that had remained outside of Dominion control, such as the Umojan Protectorate,
the remnants of the United Earth Directorate Expeditionary Fleet, “Ryan’s Raiders”,
and even the former Confederacy were branded “racial traitors” while the Zerg and Protross
were portrayed as distinct threats to be feared and hated.
The Zerg in particular were used to great effect to support the policies of Emperor
Mengsk, with the rule of Dominion widely described as the only defense against another attack
by the swarm.
Where these propaganda efforts failed, the Dominion ruled through fear, oppression, and
constant surveillance.
Even minor crimes elicited harsh punishments.
Keenly aware of the threats posed by an internal insurgency or outside intervention, Emperor
Mengsk made use of an enormous military apparatus equally responsible for ensuring the stability
of the regime and defending against foreign powers.
The Dominion Armed Forces made use of essentially the same military doctrine that had defined
Terran strategy since their arrival in the Koprulu Sector, albeit updated to incorporate
new technologies and wartime experience.
The space naval arm of the military was known as the Dominion Fleet, its task forces based
around various classes of battlecruiser that constituted the largest and most capable ships
ever fielded by humanity.
These massive vessels were supported by various auxiliary ships, air superiority squadrons
and flights of strike craft.
During planetary invasions, these ships provided aerospace support for the Dominion Marine
Corp, which emphasised a combined arms approach to counter the wildly different threats of
the Zerg and Protoss.
The Dominion also made use of the controversial Ghost Program, a reconnaissance and special
forces group comprised entirely of psionically gifted individuals.
Ghosts were some of the most effective operatives in the Dominion and often used by the regime
as assassins.
Effectively the direct successor to the original Sons of Korhol, the Dominion military ceremoniously
named many of its elite units after those that had participated in the rebellion against
the Confederacy.
These included Alpha Squadron, Nova Squadron, and even a marine unit named after the Sons
of Korhal themselves.
In spite of the massive rearmament in preparation for a seemingly inevitable Second Great War,
the Terran Dominion received precious little warning when the Queen of Blades finally made
her move.
The invasion was devastating, and unable to protect all the outlying colonies at once,
the Dominion withdrew its forces to the core worlds, holding firm against the onslaught
at the cost of millions of lives.
Slowly but surely, the Dominion military industrial complex stepped up to meet the demands of
total war, and the Zerg were pushed back.
The situation remained perilous however with Zerg sightings all over the Dominion and no
means for the Dominion fleet to be everywhere at once.
It was not the Zerg that dealt the most serious blow to the Dominion but rather Jim Raynor,
who exposed the brutal truth that Mengsk himself had lured the Zerg to the Confederate capital
of Tarsonis deliberately.
Even a great victory on the Zerg stronghold of Char in which the Queen of Blades reverted
to human form did little to stop the growing shock and anger over the atrocities committed
by Mensk’s regime.
Furious that this information had been revealed, Emperor Mengsk scoured the sector for Jim
Raynor and Sarah Kerrigan, the former Queen of Blades.
In the final battle of the Second Great War, Raynor and Kerrigan, reborn once more as the
Primal Queen of Blades, arrived over Korhal.
With the might of the Swarm behind her, Kerrigan cut through the Dominion’s defenses, swept
through Augustgrad and together with Raynor, killed Mengsk in the heart of his palace.
With the death of his father, Prince Valerian was named Emperor, and dedicated himself to
bring about a new beginning for his people free of military oppression and corruption.
Imperial rule was slowly dismantled and the Dominion reformed itself into a democratic
federation.
In the wake of greater events elsewhere in the galaxy, a ceasefire between the Terrans,
Zerg and Protoss was established, a demilitarized zone dividing their respective territories.
In this new era of peace and prosperity, the greatest question remains: is this simply
another interlude before the next conflict tears the sector apart?
Powerful forces remain at work across the galaxy and before too long, powerful fleets
and armies might once more be mobilized under the banner of the Terran Dominion.
The Templin Institute investigates alternate worlds and realities.
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