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Alexi Stukov (also known as Alexei Pylyshyn) is a fictional character in the Starcraft universe. He is the Vice Admiral of the United Earth Directorate's Expeditionary Force.

Introduction

His primary role involved research, especially into technology and physical theory, and more recently into the Zerg and Protoss. While a brilliant tactician, he did not contest Admiral DuGalle's leadership of the United Earth Directorate expeditionary force to the Koprulu Sector.

Stukov is 52 years old, and is a childhood friend of Gerard DuGalle, who is 64.

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Stukov is represented in the game by the Terran Ghost unit and may indeed have been psychic. This ability may have enabled him to resist the influence of Samir Duran - assuming Duran was using psionics to manipulate people.

War Action

We first see him trying to blockade Braxis when the Protoss visited, for reasons unknown to him. The Protoss were able to penetrate the blockade, and eventually Stukov had to give up the chase.

Duran was ordered to destroy the Psi Disruptor on Tarsonis but Stukov's Ghosts told Duran they would take care of this themselves. Stukov disassembled it and transported it to Braxis in order to hide this from Duran; However, he never told DuGalle about this.

When the UED force pursued James Raynor and Arcturus Mengsk to Aiur, DuGalle split his forces into three or four sections. One directly attacked Raynor and Mengsk, while Stukov and Duran's forces were tasked with preventing more Zerg from entering the combat arena.

However, a huge flood of Zerg attacked just as Raynor and Mengsk were escaping. Stukov tried to warn DuGalle, but Duran claimed that there must have been a problem with Stukov's equipment. Instead, Duran moved away from his assigned area. So did Stukov; he was going back to Braxis, where he activated the Psi Disruptor.

The Traitor

DuGalle was livid, especially since Duran was goading him. He ordered Duran to execute Stukov for treason against the UED, a task Duran gladly accepted. Stukov's personal forces resisted the UED, but eventually Duran located Stukov and shot him, possibly with a small pistol in the heart. In any event, Duran promptly vanished.

With his dying breath, Stukov told Admiral DuGalle that Duran had been manipulating him from the beginning, was almost certainly infected by the Zerg and may have been for a long time. Stukov's last words were punctuated when the outer walls of the Psi Disrupter were breached by a massive wave of Zerg, triggering alarms and possibly setting of the Disrupter self-destruct sequence. At DuGalle's request the remainder of Stukov's personal forces assisted the UED forces in their efforts to recapture the Psi Disruptor from the Zerg.

According to the ending video of Episode V, Stukov was given a burial in space near Char. This is doubtful, however, due to the obvious false nature of the video (it claimed Stukov was killed fighting the Zerg on Char, which was definitely untrue).

DuGalle took Stukov's death personally, especially because he was the one who originally argued that Duran was untrustful. Kerrigan taunted Admiral DuGalle on Char, claiming that Stukov was "twice the man DuGalle was".

Reanimation

Stukov may have made a comeback, however. In the Blizzard Map of the Month called Deceptions, Stukov was observed, obviously infested, and working with former Confederates in a high-tech science facility. According to data acquired by the Kimeran Pirates in the facility, the Confederates were studying how to revive Terrans using Zerg reanimation techniques.

In the Blizzard Map of the Month Mercenaries II, Stukov made yet another appearance. He hired mercenaries to destroy enemies of his who had conveniently settled on the same dark planet. If you play the three-player version of the map, you will notice that the white Terrans in the southwest corner have a battlecruiser with them - the Kimeran Juggernaut. That is the name of the high-tech battlecruiser used by the Kimeran Pirates. The Kimerans were mostly or completely wiped out by Stukov's mercenaries.

Stukov's most recent appearance was in Ressurection IV, a secret map in the Nintendo 64 version of StarCraft. In this mission, Artanis revealed that Zerg Cerebrate Kaloth had reanimated Stukov, who was now in charge of his own Zerg Brood on Braxis. However, Stukov was weak, which was reflected in the power of the Brood ... it had little.

Nonetheless, the Brood apparently wiped out the Terran civilians on the planet.

Artanis sent James Raynor and Taldarin, a very old Protoss Dragoon, along with a small Terran force (taken from Raynor's Raiders) and a small Protoss force, down to the surface with a high-tech nanite serum which could reverse the infestation process. These nanites (or something similar) have also made appearances in StarCraft: Deceptions and StarCraft: Alternity.

Stukov's forces, most of which seemed to consist of former Confederates such as Bud Morris, were not completely with him, and many of them felt he had gone insane. Many of them decided to join forces with Raynor, helping him free the Protoss prisoners Stukov was keeping on Braxis. Eventually the heroes cornered Stukov, who was surrounded by Nydus Canals (a Zerg transport system) and four large Zerg Cocoons. These cocoons exploded, revealing a quartet of Torrasques. Despite such formidable opposition, the heroes prevailed and Stukov was injected. Freed from the Zerg (but somewhat bitter of this fact), Stukov helped the heroes to evacuate. In orbit over Braxis, the Protoss fired a single powerful energy beam at it, burning it's surface of all life. A small, icy world, that's all it took.

External Links/References

• Starcraft Universe
• United Earth Directorate
• StarCraft homepage at Blizzard Entertainment
• Battle.net StarCraft Compendium
• Image of Infested Stukov by Samwise Didier copyright Blizzard Entertainment
• Underwood, Peter, Chris Metzen and Bill Roper. StarCraft: Brood War (Manual). Irvine, Calif.: Blizzard Entertainment, 1998.

• Characters in the StarCraft universe
• Terrans
• Zerg
• Fictional admirals