Sarah Kerrigan

Sarah Louise Kerrigan is one of the major characters from the StarCraft games.

Sarah was a psychic terran female. She began her career as a Confederate ghost and later became the second-in-command of the Sons of Korhal. Following Arcturus Mengsk's betrayal, she was captured and infested by the Zerg Swarm, ultimately becoming the self-proclaimed Queen of Blades (a.k.a. the Zerg Queen) and leader of the Swarm.

At the Dominion Ghost Academy, ghosts in training are told the Confederacy allowed Kerrigan to "defect" to the zerg. Non-control zerg strains referred to her as "the Kerrigan."

Personality
Due to ghost conditioning, Kerrigan was an introvert from a young age and arguably remained aloof when freed from Confederate control. Her life as a ghost gave her "jaded sensibilities." However, she never fully embraced the darker aspects of her nature. As the Queen of Blades, Kerrigan was torn emotionally, and had to 'justify' to herself what she had become. During and after the Brood War, she had moments of what could be argued to be conscience/compassion, but became colder over time. Her actions were affected by Amon's influence. The Queen of Blades was not a separate entity from Sarah Kerrigan, but they were not quite the same person either. Rather, Kerrigan in her Queen of Blades persona was Kerrigan under the influence of some devastating forces such as zerg mutagen.

After her de-infestation on Char, Kerrigan was angry and conflicted, feeling like she was being pulled in many directions at once. That practically everyone in the Koprulu sector wanted her dead also affected her emotions. Indeed, she no longer possessed the hatred for life that she once did and while she was willing to be ruthless, she had a human's perspective on such actions. However, her hatred of Mengsk remained, albeit contrasted with her continued love for Raynor. Kerrigan had suffered some memory loss from her time as the Queen of Blades. Most of her memory was a blur, and of what she could recall, the images were horrible.[104] She considered herself responsible for what she'd done as the Queen of Blades, and possessed extreme guilt for her actions. While moving against Mengsk, she demonstrated moments of compassion, such as sparing Dominion forces on Char and guilt over Lassara's death. One of the core elements of Kerrigan's personality is that of her manipulation by others, and her lack of identity. Her reversion to human form by Raynor allowed her to finally develop an identity for herself, though found her emotions torn between a man that she loved (Raynor) and a man that she despised (Mengsk).

Psionics
Sarah Kerrigan was an extremely powerful terran psychic. At a young age she fried her mother's brain accidentally with psionic powers and demonstrated telekinetic abilities. Indeed, her powers were so strong it forced a readjustment of the psionic measurement scale. Her powers were then rated at PI 10, making her the most powerful ghost on record. Her powers were reduced by both ghost conditioning and a neuro-adjuster but after the device's removal, she was powerful enough to throw Major Rumm around with telekinesis and fry his brain.

Kerrigan was uniquely suited to controlling zerg even before she was infested. In experiments conducted with captured zerg specimens, the Confederacy terminated the other ghosts involved in the project because only Kerrigan could get the results they wanted. Following deinfestation during the Second Great War, she retained the ability to control zerg. Kerrigan's gene pattern enabled her retention of intelligence upon infestation.

Prior to deinfestation during the Second Great War, she was at least an order of magnitude more powerful than PI level 10, possessing a "class 12 psi signature". After becoming a terran/primal zerg hybrid, her psionic power exceeded, and could not be measured by, the PI scale.

Upon the transfer of Ouros's essence, Kerrigan gained immense psionic might, able to wield celestial energy as a cohesive beam and send it out as a wave of energy.

Tactics
Kerrigan was a Confederate ghost and underwent the usual harsh ghost training. She was especially good at using knives, firearms, and driving vultures, and was skilled enough in martial arts to kill a terran officer by kicking him hard enough to break his neck. Kerrigan has also demonstrated competence in the areas of deception and strategy. When working with Duran, she often relied on him to come up with strategies, but was more than capable of creating her own complex plans. As the Queen of Blades, she was able to spin zerg DNA strands/sequences into her own creations.

Zerg Abilities
Sarah Kerrigan was infested by the zerg as part of an experiment. Her new appearance was personally designed by Abathur, though the process was painful. The transformation occurred within a chrysalis and was completed on Char. Her stature increased, and she gained an armored carapace, claws, and "wings" usable as weapons and effective against psi-blades. Kerrigan was also able to cloak, despite no longer wearing a ghost's hostile environment suit. Unlike most infested terrans, Kerrigan retained her intelligence and at least some part of her personality. Her DNA also received telomeric additions.

Kerrigan's full psionic potential was initially suppressed by residual ghost conditioning. Upon reversing the process, she gained enough psionic power to create psionic storms and could even sense the protoss hiding on Char. However, she was still not in full command of her powers, as she was unaware that she was giving Raynor a direct link to the zerg hive mind through the psychic link she had with him.

By the time the first Overmind had been slain, Kerrigan was powerful enough to gain control of approximately half of the Zerg Swarm and seize the mind of Raszagal without even setting foot on the same planet. Upon the end of the Brood War, Kerrigan no longer needed cerebrates to help her control the zerg.

By the Second Great War, Kerrigan had gained a psionic implosion ability. She also had very swift regeneration; a wing severed by Zeratul on Ulaan regrew in seconds. By this time, Kerrigan was the most powerful psionic in the universe, powerful enough to hold her own against 27 siege tanks. After gaining Zerus's powers via the first spawning pool, Kerrigan was even stronger than when she was as the Queen of Blades. Her psionic powers continued to develop and the "boundless fury" of the primal zerg allowed her to leap through the air and strike at targets with terrible force. As the primal Queen of Blades, her psionic might was unrivaled by any being.

Trivia

 * As of October 9, 2005 the battle.net web site contained a hidden image of Kerrigan saying "Help me Jim Raynor...you're my only hope!". The animated GIF image and the text can be found at the bottom of the main page. In order to reveal them the user has to click the round object above the Blizzard image. This is a possible reference to Princess Leia ("Help me Obi-wan Kenobi... You're my only hope!") from Star Wars.


 * A diorama of the Queen of Blades exists in Blizzard Entertainment's office in Irvine, California.


 * Kerrigan has ranked well in fan polls of game villains, and was voted as fans' favorite female character of Wings of Liberty (in her terran form).


 * Kerrigan's ghost number designation, 24601, is a possible reference to the number Jean Valjean was designated as a prisoner in the Bagne de Toulon in Victor Hugo's 1862 novel/play Les Miserables.


 * Kerrigan was incorrectly labeled as a Dominion ghost on the StarCraft Twitter feed. In reality, she was a ghost of the Confederacy, not the Dominion.


 * In the 2013–2018 period, Kerrigan's article was the most visited page on the wiki.