Azeroth B

To reiterate something we've all been aware of for quite some time: The Draenor we're currently fighting through is not the same Draenor that became Outland. Every one of us is an alien to this world, even the Orcs and Draenei who recognize it as looking almost exactly like home.

Kairozdormu did not brought Garrosh to this universe to change the past. Altering the course of this Draenor's events will do nothing to prevent the destruction of the world where our Horde began. All that is in the past - the true past. Indeed, it's even possible that Kairoz did not travel through time at all - it's possible that this Draenor is merely thirty years out of synch with ours.

The implications of this sort of parallel world are immense. Not only are we left with mysteries of just what differences there are between our past and Draenor's present, but we are left with an entire potential cosmos, and indeed, myriad alternate cosmoses.

We're still a few months out from Blizzcon, where we will almost certainly learn about the next expansion. In all likelihood, we'll return to Azeroth and set aside this question of parallel universes in favor of dealing with a more straightforward threat.

But in the event that we continue to deal with this alternate universe, there's a location that I think would be far more interesting to explore than some second Draenic continent (the so-called Ogre Continent we've often heard about.) And that is the alternate Azeroth.

Yet can we actually go there?

Logistically, from a game-making standpoint, you do run into one big problem, namely that the thing that really made the Azeroth side of the Dark Portal interesting was the Horde's invasion. Otherwise you have the fairly peaceful kingdom of Stormwind (originally called the Kingdom of Azeroth, which is confusing, but only as much as the fact that the country typically called America is within the continent of North America) more or less getting by without any major problems.

Except that's not really the case. There's plenty of stuff on Azeroth that had nothing to do with the Horde that are still threats. There's the Gurubashi Empire right near Stormwind, and there are Old Gods, Elemental Lords, Naga, and all manner of craziness.

And that's not to mention Medivh. While the Last Guardian managed to redeem himself during the Third War, he did so as some kind of ghostly apparition. Medivh spent his natural life possessed not by a demon, but by the Dark Titan Sargeras himself. While Kil'jaeden's obsession with hunting down the Draenei was ultimately what created the Horde, it was Sargeras who sought to use the Horde as the vanguard of a full-fledged Burning Legion invasion.

The Horde clearly failed in that regard, but it was an even bigger failure in Draenor B's universe. In fact, until Gul'dan's usurpation of the Iron Horde, it wasn't a viable candidate at all (and the Fel Iron Horde has us to deal with first.)

But I hardly think that would be a reason for Medivh/Sargeras to give up. What machinations might be going on in an Azeroth where the Dark Portal never opened?

Of course, we're making an assumption here.

We're assuming there is an alternate Azeroth.

Many different universes or timelines exist - we can assume there are countless, or even infinite versions of Draenor. But on Azeroth, the dragon aspect of Time was given explicit instructions - there is only one true timeline, and it must be guarded at all costs.

We know that Azeroth is a special place - the Titans spent a great deal of effort forming it, and seemed to take a more active hand in it than they did with Draenor. Indeed, if there's any indication of how important it is, look at how obsessed Sargeras is with conquering it.

Yes, the Well of Eternity was likely a great source of power, but one would think that its destruction would bump it down the priority list for the Legion if that was their primary objective in conquering the planet.

Perhaps the "special" nature of Azeroth is that it is truly unique. Like the Nether itself, Azeroth is a hub around which the entire Warcraft Multiverse revolves (it certainly does in narrative terms.)

Consider this: the Iron Horde was able to set up their Dark Portal to invade our Azeroth, and not theirs. Yet they did not have Kairoz on their team - Garrosh killed the bronze dragon. I'm not even sure they still had the Glimpse of Time (the remaining shard of the Vision of Time that had been broken after crossing universes.) Did the Iron Horde have the know-how to get to an other universe? How could they ensure that their portal linked up with our Azeroth, and not their version of it?

Perhaps there is a problem here, though. If we assume that there is only one Azeroth, then how do you explain the dangers to its timeline, and the whole threat to time that the Infinite Dragonflight poses?

Yet maybe this isn't a problem with the theory, but rather an argument in its favor. If changing the timeline were simply to send you to a different universe, then there is no fear of paradox, and nothing truly gets changed. When we go to Draenor, we kill Ner'zhul. Yet this does not erase the existence of the Lich King from our past, because this Ner'zhul is not our Ner'zhul.

But if everything were condensed into a single universe, then such an act could be catastrophically dangerous. If we, as time travelers ourselves, are made immune to the history-and-memory-rewriting of history changing, then we would see the changes we create pile on top of each other, totally upending our own sense of history and setting.

Previously, I had thought that End Time - the post-apocalyptic future in which Deathwing had defeated us and ended the world - was a problem in this "single Azeroth" theory. But by restricting Azeroth to a single sequence of events, it means that any changes must overwrite the previous version, rather than simply branching off. And if history can actually be rewritten on Azeroth, that makes it that much more important to guard the timeways.

Because if Murozond were just an alternate-universe version of Nozdormu, then the foreseen death he saw was never really his own, and there's no guarantee that the former Bronze aspect will turn to evil. But if there is only one, then that fate is sealed. It might not look the way we remember it, given that we have overwritten the "End Time" future, but it will happen.

Are there holes in this theory? Oh hell yes. And while I think our next expansion should deal with contemporary Azerothian threats, I do think it would be nice to at least leave the door open for seeing a pre-Horde Azeroth or an alternate version of Azeroth (I would love to see the good King Arthas Menethil.) But it could also, with a little futzing and maybe a retcon here and there, be a huge explanation for some of the cosmological mysteries of Warcraft.