What is Draenor?

Admittedly, the title here might be a little misleading. Draenor was (well, in lore - probably not in real life) a real planet, with real people there. It witnessed the arrival of the Draenei, the rise of the Horde, the construction of the Dark Portal and the subsequent retreat of the shattered remnants of the Horde. The Alliance Expedition came in, and the shattering caused by Ner'zhul. It was transformed into Outland and saw everything that happened during the Burning Crusade expansion. The last real bit of lore to happen there was a gathering of the Earthen Ring in the lead-up to the Cataclysm.

But soon, we'll be trekking out to a very different Draenor. On the surface, it seems that we're stepping into the past - a Draenor that should have only existed in the memories of those who lived there. But it's different. It's a Draenor where the Orcs en masse did not drink the blood of Mannoroth, yet they were united nevertheless into an aggressive Horde bent on the conquest of both their world and of our modern Azeroth.

In theory, what we've got here is a standard alternate timeline. Garrosh, with the help of Bronze Dragon Kairoz, traveled back into the past and stopped his father from drinking the blood, instead introducing modern industry and technology to give them a military edge. Yet instead of changing our history, instead what appears to have happened was that an alternate universe opened up, parallel with our own.

Except it's not parallel. If it were, we should be coming to a Draenor that has been at war for 30 years, and the likes of Grommash and Durotan ought to be old, old men. Instead, it seems that at most a year or two have passed since Garrosh's changes to the timeline.

This new Draenor seems tied inextricably to our progression of time. It seems that both we and Garrosh have experienced the flow of time at the same rate, even as he's gone back into this past.

Seems a bit fishy, doesn't it?

When you first arrive on the Timeless Isle, you'll come to a small gathering of people - Lorewalker Cho, Anduin Wrynn (with his bodyguards,) Wrathion (with his bodyguards,) and Kairoz. There are actually two quests that send you to them. One, the standard one, prompts a little dialogue scene where Anduin and Kairoz discuss the interesting qualities of the Timeless Isle. However, if you're on the Legendary Chain, there's an additional discussion that begins between Kairoz and Wrathion. Wrathion's tendency toward shameless ambition is more evident there, but it prompts this tantalizing statement from Kairoz:

"What if it were possible to shape and mold time as you would a ball of clay? What possibilities await? What new worlds could we create?"

There's a lot that doesn't really make sense about this alternate Draenor. Why does it connect with the modern day? Why does it not change our history? Why does it not replace the existing Outland?

Because it's not really Draenor.

Kairoz created a facsimile of Garrosh's home world. He used the power he gained while studying the Timeless Isle to craft an entirely new world from scratch. And he populated that world with people who were based on these figures of the past, but are not truly them.

This alternate Draenor is real, and its people are real. But they've all only existed since the moment Kairoz created the world for Garrosh to travel there.

And with that, there are no paradoxes. This "alternate history" hasn't changed our for the very clear reason that it didn't even exist back then. The "red dark portal" does not need to be a time-travel portal in addition to its other duties, because the alternate Draenor truly is a modern entity.

Garrosh is satisfied. He has his army of Orcs and Orcs alone, ready to take revenge on the enemy who defeated him and the allies who betrayed him. He believes he has saved his people from demonic corruption. He has an entire world to himself.

But Garrosh is just a pawn in all of this. He's a point of inspiration and a catalyst for the true mastermind: Kairoz. Alternate Draenor is the first experiment in using the power of time to shape and create entirely new worlds, and if you don't care about the rampaging barbarian army you've unleashed, it counts as a resounding success.

Creating entire new worlds out of the fabric of time: there are infinite possibilities for what you could do with such incredible power. Take any force, any artifact from history, and merely imagine a world where it could still exist, and you have it. Did something go wrong in that world? Did something disrupt or corrupt that person or that object that you need? Simply rewrite history, change a few variables, and you have your readymade tool available to you.

Sounds impractical? Sounds convoluted?

Two words: Dragon Soul.

We've already done it. The Dragon Soul was shattered to a million pieces, and corrupted into the wretched Demon Soul by Deathwing. But through the manipulations of time, we were able to create a new version of it to use in the fight against the Aspect of Death.

A group of time-travelers at some point have, or will, figure out what Kairoz has been able to accomplish. Perhaps he is their instructor, or perhaps he has been manipulated by them. And all of the alternate, broken histories that they create, will be the crises that we heroes of Azeroth will be tasked with resolving in the Caverns of Time.