Saturday, February 17, 2018

What do the Draenei Do Now?

One of the standard male Draenei jokes, in-game since their debut in 2007, is "We have it all figured out: Step One: We Land the Exodar. Step Three: We defeat Legion and go home. There is just one thing missing..."

Well, by the end of Legion, we've actually accomplished step three (step two apparently was "ally with the races of Azeroth and wait for a psychotic demon-elf to open up a gateway to Argus") but the end of this long quest is not nearly the happy ending that the Draenei may have hoped for.

Argus, of course, is no longer easily accessible, as the portal Illidan tore open was shut once Sargeras was bound to the Seat of the Pantheon. But as soon as that portal opened, it became pretty obvious that going home was not a long-term solution for the Draenei. While Antorus was breached and the Legion's forces have been scattered, the planet the Draenei hoped to return to was so brutally devastated for the 25,000 years of Legion rule that there's practically no hope that it will ever be returned to life. Granted, Outland is still somewhat habitable despite arguably being more torn apart than Argus, but Argus is so saturated with fel energy that it seems very dubious that the Draenei would want to stay.

Thus, the Draenei must now truly accept Azeroth as their new home, with the perpetual threat of the Horde and the Old Gods and all the other dangers that it is host to.

The Draenei are also now dealing with an influx of new population: The Lightforged Draenei. We haven't seen a whole lot about the difference between these groups, but they could be quite profound.

The Draenei (Exodar Draenei, we could call them, though that might exclude people like the Aldor or Sha'tar who stayed behind in Outland,) have followed the Prophet Velen for all this time - many were born in exile, though some certainly would remember leaving Argus. Still, Velen has been their trusted leader all this time.

And Velen has largely been worthy of that position. While his failure to foresee the betrayal of the Orcs is a serious cause to lose faith in him, in practically every other circumstance he has shown poise and wisdom. When Illidan destroyed X'era and Turalyon tried to kill Illidan for doing so, Velen calmed everyone and ensured that the task at hand - defeating the Legion - was what people focused on. He has even shown a greater sense of nuance in his attitudes toward the Light and Fate. He believes in the Light, certainly, but what's really important to him is doing the right thing. To borrow alignment systems from D&D, he's Lawful Good, but more Good than Lawful.

And despite being profoundly ancient (he was already a respected sage 25,000 years ago, doing one third of the ruling duties of the entire planet,) he's able to keep up with the other members of the Alliance and aid them.

What's interesting about the Lightforged is twofold. First off, they have not been following Velen all this time.

It's actually not clear when the split occurred. But my interpretation is that the Lightforged never got on the Genedar with Velen in the first place - that their salvation from the Man'ari was purely through X'era and they have been on the Xenedar all that time (we can also probably assume that lore-wise, the Xenedar is a lot bigger than it is in-game.)

The Lightforged have lived all this time as soldiers. While the Exodar Draenei (maybe "Genedar Draenei would be a better term?) were basically one giant group of refugees traveling across the cosmos, the Lightforged seem to be far more regimented. You don't see any Lightforged children around - presumably they've been just fighting all this time, not living normal lives.

They're also not beholden to Velen. It strikes me that it would make more sense for them to generally fall far more on the Lawful side of the Lawful Good alignment, especially given the way that X'era tried to force Illidan into her service against his will.

The other big thing to note is age:

Turalyon, from our perspective, has only been away for maybe 25-30 years - however old Arator is, basically. But for him, it's been a thousand. That suggests that, on average, the time experienced by the Army of the Light is as much as 40 times longer than what we experience.

Now, consider that the Draenei left Argus 25,000 years ago.

For the sake of argument, we'll assume that the Genedar Draenei have been experiencing time at the same rate as Azeroth - they certainly couldn't be experiencing it at 40 times because we know that Kil'jaeden and Archimonde were active during the War of the Ancients, so it had to be at least 10,000 years since Sargeras' corruption of the Eredar.

So if we assume that it's been 25,000 years from the Azeroth perspective since the Draenei left Argus, and that the time distortion effect for someone fighting in the kinds of places the Army of the Light is fighting, that means that Lightforged Draenei have been fighting for...

One. Million. Years.

That's kind of insane. That means that your Lightforged character you might have just rolled is probably older than Velen many times over. We don't know how long ago the Ordering of Azeroth was, but there's a good chance your Lightforged character is older than Odyn. You might be older than Yogg-Saron, a literal Old God.

That's not to say you were around before them - it's just that you've experienced that much time.

Which also means that the Legion had control of Argus for a million years, and that Archimonde, Kil'jaeden, and their ilk were all super freaking old.

So yeah, a million years of demonic infestation - I think Argus is a lost cause.

So Draenei culture is going to be going through some weird changes after Legion. The single motivating quest has been accomplished or failed, depending on your perspective. The Exodar, once a temporary shelter, is going to be the last major Alliance foothold on or around Kalimdor.

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