Remember the Xel'Naga sculpture that Zeratul sees in the intro? It's not a Xel'Naga!

[Alex06]

Remember this guy?



Well, in the beta files, there's an icon for a unit called a "Xel'Naga Destroyer", but the in-game portrait is titled "Hybrid Destroyer":



I'm thinking it's some kind of guardian or powersuit...Doesn't it look oddly JUST LIKE that alien in the first 2 pics?
The original picture at the top reminded me of the phoenix energy being...Could they be the same thing?

EDIT: What I meant is, I think that the inscription in the temple in the intro that we thought was a Xel'Naga is actually the "Hybrid Destroyer". And at the end, I suggested that it could also be the phoenix creature/energy being.

[Noctis]

The portrait would suggest it's a living being. As for the thing on the temple, well it could be a Xel'Naga or what the Protoss/Zerg hybrids are meant to look like.

ANyone else find it scary that the Xel'Naga knew exactly how the 2 races would evolve? It's seems as though they are still going on the path of the Cycle without them.

[Santrega]

Is it possible the Xel 'naga is in fact a hybrid of zerg and protoss which would make a zerg/toss hybrid exactly what a xel'naga is?

Otherwise it would be really hard to confuse a hybrid with Xel'naga when making the portrait and unit...

[Edfishy]

Or maybe the unit's a Destroyer for the Xel'Naga. Similar to a WWII German/American/Japanese Destroyer, etc.

[Santrega]

Or maybe the unit's a Destroyer for the Xel'Naga. Similar to a WWII German/American/Japanese Destroyer, etc.

Hmm.. A hybrid destroyer for the xel'naga... Which would make it a xel'naga destroyer...

Yeah, that probably works.. Sounds like in this case that xel'naga is still gone but this destroyer is going to make an appearance to do the xel'naga's bidding still?

[Alex06]

The portrait would suggest it's a living being. As for the thing on the temple, well it could be a Xel'Naga or what the Protoss/Zerg hybrids are meant to look like.

I'm saying that the thing in the portrait (the Destroyer) and the thing on the temple ARE ONE AND THE SAME THING. :P
And strangely, the destroyer portrait looks exactly like a DT Protoss in a powersuit (which also has a metallic DT color)...

ANyone else find it scary that the Xel'Naga knew exactly how the 2 races would evolve? It's seems as though they are still going on the path of the Cycle without them.

What do you mean? Where did you get that? The Xel'Naga evolved the 2 races themselves...They looked for the 2 essences in many races and found that the Zerg and Protoss each had them.

[Eligor]

I'm pretty sure that the "Destroyer" unit IS a proper Xel'Naga, and NOT one of Duran's hybrids. It looks angelic and ethereal, as opposed to the rather crude and material "Hybrid Viper" unit. And yes, it bears more than a passing resemblance to the temple carvings, which is another clue pointing to it being the true completion of the cycle instead of whatever artificial and twisted substitution Duran (and his masters?) want to instate.

[Kaiser]

You know, this is spoiler stuff. You really should put it in the title.

[Twilice]

Heavy spoilers ^^ Keep em coming!

[newcomplex]

But those two don't look anything alike.....

hint: One has two legs the other doesn't have legs.

and this should've been in the lore forums methinks :P.



anyway, my personal theory is that due to its in game status as under the race "Xelnaga_", yet being a hybrid, hybrids will be imperfect malformed Xel_naga which will serve as foot soldiers and canon fodder for the normal Xel naga at some point in the SC2 trilogy. Though obviously they'd be far more powerful then your average zealot, but a similar use in the army.