Your Samir Duran Theories here

my thoughts on Duran: I think he's helping the Dark Voice achieve galactic domination. He's almost definitely not Zerg (since Kerrigan knows and controls almost all things zerg and he confused even her) and almost certainly not Xel'Naga since the hybrids he created were "perversions" according to the preservers, much like the creatures found by Raynor and Zeratul in WoL. I'm not quite sure why that would mean he was helping Kerrigan in Brood War--it could be possible that she was not as big of an obstacle to the Dark Voice as the UED was at that point--but it's obvious from the BW campaign that his allegiance was not strictly with Kerrigan.
Regarding Duran's physical form: the zerg have been able to create nearly identical copies of terran and protoss forms with changelings. It's not far-fetched to believe that the Dark Voice, an older and more advanced entity, can bestow the same qualities on his underlings.
There has been speculation that Duran is in fact Narud from WoL (Narud is Duran backwards, identical facial hair). Narud is the head of the Moebius Foundation, which dedicated a lot of time and resources to gather the Xel'naga artifact in an attempt to de-zergify Kerrigan. Indeed, we see that after her deinfestation, Kerrigan loses much of her power and her brood is scattered. I think it's likely that in HoS Duran and/or Narud will be antagonists (but not initially--they'll probably try to buddy up with Kerrigan and then backstab her, or attempt to get Raynor and the Dominion and the Protoss to keep her in check from becoming too powerful again).

 

Actually, the incident with Narud made me doubt that Duran works with the dark voice. After all, Narud made Raynor gather the Xel'naga artifacts, something which would likely lead to a free Kerrigan, which definitely isn't in the plans of the dark voice.

 

No? All the Dark Voice wanted was for Kerrigan to be out of the way. I'd argue that de-infesting Kerrigan (and thus making her lose most of her power over the swarm) fits in nicely with the Dark Voice's plans.

 

Except we know from the previews we've seen that Kerrigan still has some degree of power over the swarm (though the exact degree is unknown). The best solution for the dark voice would have indeed been to gather the artifacts, but he'd want to use it himself, so they could kill ol' Kerry afterwards.

 

we know for a fact that the artifact greatly weakened Kerrigan's control over the swarm as evidenced by the preview missions where the brood mothers took off on their own. HoS's campaign is focused on Kerrigan gathering her forces again after the devastating blow which scattered them. Kerrigan indeed almost suffered death, if not for Raynor's timely rescue. It's curious indeed to see why Raynor rescued Kerrigan in the first place, since he swore on his life that he would be the one to kill her...it's possible that the Zeratul missions changed his mind, but those are strictly optional missions.

Regarding collecting the artifact for himself, it's possible that the Dark Voice does not have enough minions of his own to directly contest the artifacts with the Dominion, Raynor, and especially the Zerg Swarm. Knowing that Raynor's Raiders are resourceful in a pinch, he chose them to help secure the artifacts from the Tal'darim.