In 7.3, which is likely due to arrive in the next couple weeks, we're going to be traveling to the planet Argus. This was the home of the Eredar people 25,000 years ago. When the Dark Titan Sargeras had barely survived his war against the Pantheon, he came to the Eredar to make them the officers in his Burning Legion, bringing order to the inherent chaotic nature of demons. Those Eredar who refused to succumb to demonic corruption and transformation were forced to flee, led by one of the three Triumvirs who ruled the planet, Velen. These exiles took the name Draenei. And now, after twenty five millennia, the Draenei are finally going home.
But as important as the Draenei and the Eredar are to this post, they're not the focus. Kil'jaeden and Archimonde didn't just sacrifice their own... for lack of a better term, humanity (we'll say that refers to humanoids rather than humans.) Sargeras wanted the Eredar, sure, but he wanted something else there that we're only just finding out about now.
Spoilers to follow:
There are three planets that our player characters might have set foot on that we know by name. Azeroth is obviously the birth planet of most characters, even some Orcs. Draenor (later Outland) is where older Orcs and younger Draenei were born, while the oldest of the Draenei characters would have been born on Argus (the Draenei member of the Argent Crusade that Draenei death knights are forced to kill reminds you of being on Argus, which means that any Draenei DK has to be at least 25,000 years old.)
Beginning with the release of Chronicle, and revealed in-game in Legion, we discovered that Azeroth is both the name of the planet as well as the as-yet-unborn Titan who resides within the core of the planet. Titans are born from planets, beginning as formless World-Souls. Azeroth is the most potent and powerful World Soul that has ever existed, which caused some odd consequences for us. First off, the World Soul drew in so much of the Spirit element (that Monks call Chi) that there was a drought of it on the surface, causing the elements to rage against each other, as Spirit is usually what allows for cohesion and harmony between the elements. Azeroth has suffered from an infestation of the Old Gods, an infection that might have corrupted her had it not been for the intervention of the Pantheon, who created armies of Titanforged soldiers to fight the Old Gods (and whose descendants are many of the playable races) and set in place many systems to safeguard against the corruption.
Draenor had the opposite problem: an excess of Spirit but no World Soul to feed on it. Thus, the plant life on Draenor grew almost like a cancer that threatened to burn itself out, which led the Titan Aggramar to create a massive giant whose fragments would give life to the Grom, Magnaron, Gronn, Ogron, Ogres, and finally Orcs (yes, Orcs are the gnomes of Draenor - the smart, small ones.)
As we will discover in 7.3, Argus held the World Soul of a Titan. While he might have wanted the Eredar to serve him (they've done so well for the last 25,000 years) it's likely that Sargeras' primary objective in approaching Argus was to take control of the Titan within the planet.
In 7.3, we learn that Sargeras has been using Argus as fuel to power the perpetual regeneration of demons for his Burning Legion. Argus' possibly infinite power is being drained away so that Sargeras never has to worry about re-staffing. All his armies come back even when they are slain, meaning that the best mortal races can do is give the Legion setbacks, and in time, the Legion always prevails.
Here's the thing: Sargeras shouldn't need a Titan to do this.
The very reason Sargeras created the world of Mardum (that Demon Hunters have their first quests on and above which their order hall floats) was to deal with the problem inherent to hunting demons. Back in Sargeras' good days, he was the Pantheon's top slayer of demons. The problem was that every time he killed a demon, he would eventually see it again, wreaking havoc.
So rather than kill them, he would imprison them on Mardum.
Eventually, Sargeras discovered that killing a demon within the Twisting Nether would kill them permanently (my headcanon explanation is that the demon is actually always in the Nether, and what we fight are just temporary avatars, almost like drones. This explains why more powerful demons require more powerful portals - it's really that they need to build a body capable of exhibiting such power.) But by that time, he had decided he had use of the demons - after he discovered a group of Nathrezim were working for the Old Gods on a World-Soul-hosting planet that they had fully corrupted, he could not convince the others of the Pantheon to pursue what he felt was the only option - to destroy all worlds lest they fall to that same corruption and threaten to birth a Void Titan. Sargeras chose to use demons instead if the Pantheon wouldn't help him. And knowing how to kill them, he was able to coerce them easily into serving him.
But if this is the essential nature of demons - that they are always reborn in the Nether - doesn't that make his use of Argus unnecessary?
So first off: this could just be a plot inconsistency. But if we assume Blizzard knew what they were doing with Chronicle and this expansion (remember that they released Chronicle vol 1 with a whole lot of new Legion lore like the history of Odyn and Helya as well as Suramar, so they had to have figured most of this out by then,) what could explain this inconsistency?
The first possibility is pretty simple: It might have been that only Dreadlords/Nathrezim were capable of this Nether resurrection. Maybe this was due to their inherent nature, or perhaps they had been using the power of the Void-corrupted World Soul to bring themselves back. Perhaps what Sargeras is doing with Argus is similar to what the Nathrezim were doing with the unnamed Void-corrupted world soul.
The other possibility, and one I find more satisfying, is that this goes farther than standard demonic resurrection. When Tichondrius showed up in the Nighthold and when Mal'ganis showed up in Icecrown, I was kind of miffed, as both of these seemed to be killed in a method that shouldn't allow for resurrection. Mal'ganis was slain by Frostmourne (Arthas' first act as a Death Knight, actually) which seemed to work when all other weapons failed. Frostmourne, despite clearly using necromancy as its primary magical component, probably has a Fel element as well, given that it was forged by Kil'jaeden. Now, Tichondrius was very explicitly killed in a permanent manner by Illidan - in the battle over Felwood, Illidan grew frustrated because Tichondrius kept coming back from death. But when he consumed the Skull of Gul'dan (that the Legion had brought to corrupt the forest,) Illidan's demonic magic was able to reach into the Nether and kill Tichondrius for real.
So how did these guys come back from that?
Demons are almost entirely invulnerable because of their link to the Twisting Nether, but if someone manages to go in and kill them within the Nether, their advantage is lost. But maybe, through the power of a Titan, even when slain within the Nether, a demon can return. This would explain the return of these Dreadlords. According to the Illidan novel (which I haven't read, but have heard things second-hand,) places with enough Fel corruption become ironically dangerous to demons, as they're essentially in the Twisting Nether and thus make demons mortal. Sargeras has not been wiping worlds away entirely in his crusade - some he merely corrupts to the point that practically no life can survive there. If he wants his intergalactic demonic empire to survive, it would help to have a way to bring even those demons killed on home base.
A novice to demonology might have been surprised when Jaraxxus or Brutallus showed up again on the Broken Shore, but even one who knows about demons ought to have been shocked to see Tichondrius show up again in Suramar. This might be the thing that makes Argus such a terrifying weapon for the Legion to possess. And it knits the plot back together in a logical way! Win-win!
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