Restorations of "Project Bellwood" and "Templar Census" for your viewing pleasure!

[Mislagnissa]

In 1998 the official Starcraft website included some materials which were never repeated in future sources. For years this material was believed lost, until I managed to reconstruct it.

For your viewing pleasure, I present feature-complete archives of the documents "Project Bellwood" and "Templar Census" from the beta Starcraft website. Since these are reconstructions from piecemeal materials I was able to find through painstaking google searches, they are not perfect recreations but they still look pretty and contain all the original information as I tried to be as accurate as possible. Please let me know if you notice any errors.

Other links of interest:

• Original Starcraft beta site, archived by wayback machine (only the Terran section is complete)
• An overview of the Starcraft alpha/beta (save a copy in case it goes offline!)
• Hidden pics and cut material (ditto!)
• Translations of the Latin phrases in the templar census (ditto!)
• Starcraft 1 beta manual pdf
• Starcraft 1 gold manual pdf
• Brood War manual pdf

[Mislagnissa]

I recently became aware of an even older archive of the Starcraft website from 1996. Apparently the terrans were centered on Earth and engaged in conflict with the protoss for some time before the mysterious "zurg" showed up.

It is really fascinating to see how much has changed since then.

[Nolanstar]

Interesting find, thanks for sharing this!

[Mislagnissa]

Seeing the '96 protoss page translating xel'naga as "first ones" reminds me of that name's general inconsistency over the course of the series. In '96 it meant "first ones" (presumably in Khalani). In '98 the manual it meant "wanderers from afar" (explicitly in Khalani). By SC2 it became the true name of the species in their own language, and their Khalani name changed to Ihan-rii ("great teachers").

I cannot really understand why this change was made. The Starcraft lore is full of made-up names with no origin given and no attempt made at realism since these names are all standardized in the vocabulary of protoss, terrans and zerg. It is more realistic to assume these names are being translated for the convenience of the audience who are assumed to be terrans. Indeed, the manual cannot decide whether to be an omniscient narrator or a terran narrator synthesizing from other sources, adding further confusion.

But I digress.

[TheEconomist]

Wow, even I didn't know about this. Thanks so much Mislagnissa!