Cerberus Program

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The Cerberus Program was a Terran Confederacy black ops unit formed from the late Cerberus Recon Squad.^[1]

As of February 2500, the group was led by Confederate bureaucrat Tamsen Cauley, who quickly defected to the side of Arcturus Mengsk. The unit remained under the control of Cauley—now a Terran Dominion official—until 2502.^[2] After the death of Arcturus Mengsk the group was forced to go underground and became devoted to engineering enslaved zerg broods.^[3]

History[]

Fall of the Confederacy[]

By February 2500 the Cerberus Program was reborn under the command of Tamsen Cauley. It used neurally resocialized soldiers, rendering them less innovative but more obedient than non-resocialized groups such as the War Pigs.^[2]

When the War Pigs, a band of "throw-away" outlaws employed by the Confederacy, became a liability to Cauley, he decided to replace them with the Cerberus Program. Cauley lured them to Tyrador VIII where Cerberus marines and goliaths tried to kill them. However, the War Pigs killed all of the attackers and escaped.^[4]

Many of Cerberus' members were killed defending the Confederacy during its fall and the outfit vanished. However, not all of its members were accounted for.^[5]

Cauley's Ascent[]

As the Terran Confederacy's defeat became more clear, Senator Tamsen Cauley began to assemble a new upgraded Cerberus Program, preparing for the change in regime. Cauley soon became a Terran Dominion official, even meeting with Arcturus Mengsk. He built up a power base at the Dominion Internal Security Division where he assembled resocialized Cerberus troops, whom he considered his own rather than the Dominion's. He planned to use them to kill the War Pigs after they carried out the mission he had recruited them for—to assassinate Jim Raynor.^[4]

Cerberus troops under the command of Lars Trakken followed the War Pigs to Moria, where the War Pigs had been seeking the trail of Jim Raynor. Trakken, who had not been neurally resocialized, led his troops in aggressively questioning the Kel-Morian Combine, learning that the War Pigs had asked questions about Raynor. Trakken contacted Tamsen Cauley and made comments about Cole Hickson which Cauley found suspicious and began investigating. The Cerberus Program force would continue to track the War Pigs at a distance with their Wraiths.^[6]

War Pigs[]

Lars Trakken's Cerberus forces tracked General Lee to Urona Sigma. Tamsen Cauley believed they had tracked Jim Raynor there. He had discovered Trakken's connection to Hickson, and warned him not to let the mission become personal. After most of the War Pigs left General Lee and located Raynor underneath the planet, Trakken disregarded Cauley's instructions and used his cloaked Wraith to attack General Lee.^[7]

Cerberus troops later boarded General Lee, seeking its pilot, Nuura Joss, but she was able to elude the resocialized troops and crash-land on the planet in an escape pod. Cerberus later found the empty pod and the heavies weren't able to locate their targets.^[8]

Unable to control his hatred of Hickson, Trakken took a dropship with a squad of troops to the surface. He demanded the War Pigs surrender him, and was surprised when they did. However, it was a ruse by the War Pigs and Jim Raynor to steal his dropship and escape. The War Pigs and Raynor got the drop on the squad, and during the battle the zerg emerged onto the battlefield. Between them, the Cerberus troops were killed.^[9]

Dogs of War[]

	This article or section contains information derived from Co-op Missions, and should not be considered part of the official StarCraft storyline.

During the reign of Arcturus Mengsk, the most talented scientists of the Cerberus Program harvested zerg specimens from the isolated Maguro Brood, starting with their zerglings. From these specimens, Cerberus created the Dogs of War, enslaved zerg with surgically modified nervous systems for control by the Terran Dominion.

In order to research mutalisk behavior, the program created large aviaries, though these facilities had an uptick in staff disappearances. Dr. Rudolfo Subsourian worked to ensure enthralled hydralisks and enthralled ultralisks had their control apparatuses secured, though at the loss of many interns.

In the alternate timeline where Arcturus Mengsk survived the Second Great War, the emperor deployed the Program's creation against the forces of Amon in the End War.^[10]

Renegades[]

After the death of Arcturus Mengsk, the Cerberus Program abandoned the Terran Dominion and went underground, forced to sell their services to the highest bidder to survive.^[11] Their research in neural resocialization was instead brought for use against the zerg, and they began redesigning the nervous systems of various zerg breeds to allow them to be controlled by a terran operator.

This drew the attention of very wealthy investors, who funded Cerberus projects, allowing them expenditures such as redesigning the nervous system of individual banelings. Their sales team would often showcase their enslaved ultralisks to prospective clients as a means to wow them. Titanium compounds and blades were used used to reinforce the offensive and defensive capabilities of many of their warriors, and luminescent eyes, technologies such as void sensors, and energy beacons were used to increase their visibility.^[3]

The Battle of Tyrador IX[]

Sometime after the Defenders of Man Insurgency, Cerberus was hired by rival interests to invade the resort world of Tyrador IX in an act of corporate sabotage.^[11] Cerberus controlled zerg were unleashed upon the planet, blindsiding the ill equipped Knights of Tyrador who defended the world. Though they were spotted by a reaper, the defenders of the city of New Canaan mistook the headlamps on their hydralisks as dune buggies. The Cerberus zerg took out many of the planet's air defenses in the first wave, and swiftly brought the Knights to the brink of ruin.

Unbeknownst to Cerberus, a third faction entered the battle, when the Ihan-rii protoss blindsided the Cerberus assault on New Canaan. Though Ihan-rii forces tried to land, they were ambushed by lurkers at the dropsite. Mutalisks found themselves quickly matched by their air forces as stone ships assaulted the Cerberus lines. The Cerberus zerg were pushed back under the combined Knights and Ihan-rii assault.

However, Cerberus could not give up the invasion of Tyrador IX, as they needed to demonstrate real world metrics to secure funding agreements. While the Ihan-rii and Knights of Tyrador rebuild above, Cerberus infiltrated the lava tunnels beneath the planet and seeped them with hatcheries. Extractors tapped into the vespene reservoirs of the Knights of Tyrador, and began to spawn a new brood. Their spires assimilated traits from the local Tyrador gigabats, making their mutalisk fierce echolocative hunters.

Baneling nests were placed under key terran fortifications, while spore crawlers and spine crawlers were scattered through the lava tube network. Lurker dens allowed the broods a series of stealthy advanced lookouts, while neural parasites were used to ensure any spelunkers who wandered in reported equipment failure before vanishing. Nydus networks were created to ensure the Cerberus broods could strike anywhere, in preparation an inevitable second invasion.^[12]

Organization[]

Under Cauley, the Cerberus Program used neurally resocialized troops, Cerberus goliaths, and Wraiths. Trakken himself was not resocialized.^[6] The troopers carried C-14 rifles.^[9]

Cerberus has a surveillance team called the Delta Unit.^[8]

After their downfall, Cerberus focused their efforts on reprogramming zerg broods to be used by terran clients. Many of their clients were wealthy which allowed them to expand their operations. Many were enhanced with titanium blades and increased armor, as well as technologies to expand the latent abilities of the zerg, or that allowed clients to control broods spawned from other creatures. In most cases, the entire nervous systems of these zerg were replaced with machines.

This new Cerberus was headed by an executive board, but was beholden to funding agreements with third party clients who would purchase their zerg.^[3]

Known Members[]

Cauley-Era

• Lars Trakken (deceased)

Post-Cauley

• Dr. Rudolfo Subsourian
• Cheryl
• Herbert

Notes[]

• A Cerberus zerg skinset was made available in the BlizzCon 2019 War Chest.^[13] A Cerberus building skinset was made available in War Chest 6.^[14]
• Cerberus is a hound of Hades in Greek mythology that has three heads. The group's symbol is based off of the mythological beast.

References[]