Duran

Title
 Role

**Samir Duran** is a proposed hero from the Blizzard Entertainment *StarCraft* franchise. Placeholder quotes for his hero appears in the interaction quotes of Stukov.

## Background

 This section concerns content exclusive to the *StarCraft* universe.

Samir Duran and Emil Narud are two names taken by an ancient xel'naga who served the renegade Amon in his quest to end the xel'naga's Infinite Cycle of creating universes to evolve the next generation of xel'naga. To do so, he and Amon's followers uplifted the protoss and the zerg to have the two purities of the xel'naga, form and essence, and sought to combine them to create an army of false xel'naga, or hybrid, to destroy their bretheren. However, when creating the zerg Overmind, they were discovered by xel'naga loyal to the cycle, and a battle above the planet Zerus occurred, leading to the Overmind unleashing the swarms and devastating the fleets above the planet. Amon and most of his followers were banished from the material universe, yet Duran survived the battle, and sought to manipulate events in order to bring about Amon's return and the creation of his hybrid armies.

The zerg, driven by their need to be perfect, sought out and clashed with the protoss, while the terrans were caught in the crossfire. Manipulating events, Duran inserted himself into the terrans as a member of the Confederate Resistance Forces and after the Overmind died into the Swarm of Sarah Kerrigan as an infested terran and her consort. When the United Earth Directorate invaded and proved a threat to his plans, he joined them under the guise of the leader of the Confederate Reistance Forces, helping the UED take the planet of Braxis. Duran served as the advisor to the UED's admirals Gerard DuGalle and Alexei Stukov, aiding them in conquering the Terran Dominion. However, Stukov began to realize Duran was manipulating the UED into actions that benefited the swarm, and against orders rebuild an abandoned Confederate weapon named the psi disrupter. Duran used this opportunity to convince DuGalle that Stukov had betrayed them, and DuGalle ordered Duran to kill Stukov. Duran did so, but only then did DuGalle realize Duran was a double agent, and saved the psi disrupter from Duran. As the UED claimed the infant Overmind on Char, Duran revealed his service to Kerrigan to them.

Duran aided in the alliance of Kerrigan, Jim Raynor, Fenix, and Arcturus Mengsk against the UED, helping as Kerrigan's advisor as she drove them from planet after planet, and manipulated and betrayed her allies. After the UED was driven from Char and the second Overmind killed, Duran vanished shortly afterward. Meanwhile, Dark Prelate Zeratul, having been betrayed by Kerrigan, accidentally stumbled on one of Duran's hybrid breeding operations on a dark moon. Duran revealed to Zeratul that he was a servant of a far greater power, and that the hybrid would reshape the universe forever. Shaken, Zeratul devoted himself to revealing Duran's true purpose, and what this meant in regards to the xel'naga.

Meanwhile, the terrans, shaken by the discovery of xel'naga ruins, created a group named the Moebius Foundation, formed by Crown Prince of the Terran Dominion Valerian Mengsk. Duran changed his shape to that of an old scientist named Emil Narud, and pretended to be the foremost expert on alien life, quickly becoming leader of Moebius. However, this was a front, and secretly Duran worked with Terran Dominion Emperor Arcturus Mengsk to create hybrid, convincing Arcturus that the hybrid would be a useful weapon for him. Kerrigan discovered this plan and saw through Duran's charade, and invaded the Terran Dominion, seeking out a relic named the Keystone that would be key to Duran's plans to bring back Amon from the Void. Duran manipulated the forces of Jim Raynor and Valerian Mengsk to gather the pieces of the Keystone first, and personally manipulated it to draw energy from Kerrigan and her zerg, which would deinfest her and gather enough energy to pull Amon from the Void. The attack was successful and Kerrigan was reverted to human, and when Valerian and Raynor returned to Duran hoping to get help for Kerrigan, Duran stole the Keystone and sold out Valerian, Kerrigan and Raynor to Arcturus's forces who were hunting them.

Meanwhile, Duran used a protoss faction named the Tal'darim, fanatic loyalists to Amon, and used the Keystone to revive Amon in one of their temples, pulling him back into the universe, though without a body. He gave the Keystone to Arcturus Mengsk, and returned to his hybrid breeding operations, using Alexei Stukov, who had been reanimated by the zerg years earlier, as a test subject to torture and experiment on for his research. However, Stukov broke out, and contacted a resurgent Sarah Kerrigan, who took over the Zerg Swarm once again, and told her of Duran and his plans. Kerrigan raided his lab at Skygeirr Platform, fighting his Dominion and Tal'darim guardians, then finally facing down with Duran himself. After a brutal battle and much injury, Kerrigan killed Duran's physical body, banishing his consciousness to the xel'naga dimension of the Void.

In the Void, Duran then served as the warden for the imprisoned xel'naga Ouros, who had been reaching out to the material universe through visions to aid the races there against Amon. However, Amon's crusade against the universe ended in failure, and he was also banished back to the Void. Years later, the forces of the material universe, at the goading of Ouros, came to the Void in the hopes of slaying Amon once and for all, where they found Duran. Fighting through his Void-based apparitions, the forces of the three races cornered Duran. Stukov confronted the weakened xel'naga, and in a final blow slew the xel'naga once and for all, avenging his first death by the shapeshifter's hand those many years ago.

## References

1. ↑ Unique Hero Kill Voiceovers, accessed on 2014-03-09