Azeroth Without Orcs

Warlords of Draenor is a lopsided equation. Pre-Warlords, we had Azeroth and Outland. Outland was once called Draenor, but after the destruction wrought by Ner'zhul's panicked campaign of portal-opening, the planet is now really just a continent-sized chunk of rock that floats through the Twisting Nether (and for some reason the gravity is still sufficient. Chalk it up to magic.) It's still inhabitable, but only barely. Azeroth is still more or less the planet it has always been. And with the opening of the Red Dark Portal, we are now connected to an alternate-universe version of Draenor, and one that is 30-40 years in the past.

It's unlikely we'll see what things are like in Outland after the Iron Horde portal-jacks the Dark Portal, as going back there will effectively be going back in time to when Illidan was still in charge there. My assumption is that the garrisons of Thrallmar and Honor Hold simply saw the Dark Portal snuff out, and at least the folks at Honor Hold said "oh crap, not again!" but everyone also happily remembered that there are some Naaru dimensional ships and a lot of mages who can port them back home.

Anyway, we have Azeroth, Outland (which we can also call Draenor A) and Draenor (B.) And as I've mentioned before, that leaves us with the question of Azeroth B.

Now, to be clear: Blizzard has pretty much put the kibosh on the notion of Azeroth B coming into play in Warlords. We probably won't be going there. But it certainly allows for that as a future destination (assuming Draenor B does not exist within a planet-sized universe bubble - which I'm not ruling out.)

What would Azeroth look like if not for the Orcs?

The first appearance of Orcs on Azeroth was the opening of the Dark Portal (not counting Broxigar's time-travel appearance during the War of the Ancients... let's just assume the original history here.) Medivh, the Last Guardian, had been possessed since birth by the Dark Titan Sargeras, and Sargeras, through Medivh, coordinated the construction of the Dark Portal with Gul'dan to create the portal. No Gul'dan, and at best there might be a stone archway in the Black Morass, but it wouldn't connect to anything.

In fact, early on, we have our first real variable. With the Iron Horde heading to our universe and time period, there's no Horde to invade Azeroth. But Medivh is still very much a puppet of the Burning Legion's master. There's all manner of things he could do if the whole Orcish Horde thing doesn't pan out.

But setting Medivh aside:

Stormwind remains at peace. It is never destroyed by the Horde, and King Llane most likely gets to live out a peaceful reign, which in turn makes Varian less of a grump. The humans probably still have conflicts with the Trolls, but their loose alliances with the Dwarves, Gnomes, and High Elves provide them with enough support to fend them off.

Without Orcs, the First and Second Wars don't happen. And indeed, the Third might not as well. After all, the Burning Legion transforms Ner'zhul into the Lich King, and the Scourge serves essentially as a far more effective army than the Horde, except that the Lich King is a little too strong of will, and sabotages the Legion's efforts in Kalimdor by helping Illidan.

So no Scourge, and thus Terenas remains King until he dies of natural causes, probably. And Arthas hopefully doesn't come across anything too stressful in his training as a Paladin, and certainly doesn't get his soul stolen by Frostmourne.

Without the Scourge, the Burning Legion doesn't have a ready-made army to fight the Third War with, so they might decide to hold off on the invasion. Thus the Night Elves basically remain the way they were, still immortal. Illidan remains locked up.

It's tempting to say that the Old Gods and the Elemental Lords and their plans would be unaffected, but I'm also not certain of that. Twilight's Hammer has been an instrumental part of shepherding mortals into serving the Old Gods. But Twilight's Hammer was actually an Orc Clan originally, that had somehow been taken over by the Ogre Cho'gall. Cho'gall was a member of Gul'dan's Shadow Council, and it wasn't until after the Second War at least that the Hammer affiliated itself with the Old Gods.

So perhaps even Deathwing's reemergence might not have happened, and the Cataclysm may have been averted entirely.

That said, the Old Gods are not entirely reliant on Twilight's Hammer. Indeed, the Hammer is only affiliated with the Old Gods as a means to an end - they seek pure chaos, and the Old Gods seem to share that goal.

And the Old Gods are certainly a serious threat, nor are their minions. First off: Deathwing was pretty much at large before and during the Second War. I honestly don't have the full background on his role as Daval Prestor, but he very well might still be manipulating things behind the scenes in Alterac, and his daughter may have still been in Stormwind. Though with no grand rebuilding, the whole Defias thing may not have happened.

Ragnaros and the Dark Iron Dwarves who worshipped him would most likely still be a threat. In fact, it's possible that the Dark Irons would never have reintegrated into Dwarven society, or even the Wildhammers for that matter.

Yogg-Saron's machinations would still very much be going on, and without the threat of the Lich King to draw us to Northrend, we might not be there to stop him from escaping Ulduar - though how close he was to achieving that goal remains a little unclear.

C'thun and his Qiraji army would probably still be charging their way through Kalimdor, with only the Night Elves and Tauren to fend them off.

And Pandaria would certainly still be under threat from the Sha, but then again, our influence on Pandaria - while it may have a positive effect in the long run - is a little foggy at the moment.

And while the Burning Legion would probably not have the Horde or the Scourge at its disposal, it's pretty clear that they'd still be looking for ways to invade. In the absence of the Dark Portal or the corrupted Sunwell, or a friendly occupying force in Dalaran, though, it might be tough to get in.

But to be clear: Azeroth would not be a peaceful utopia without the Orcs. Would it be better? Well, that largely depends on what you think the net effect of the Horde has been on the world. Certainly at this point it's basically a necessity (though if Wrathion's goal of the Alliance absorbing the Horde were possible to accomplish peacefully, that might be better,) but many of the biggest problems that the Horde has been instrumental in fixing have been caused either directly or indirectly by the Horde itself.

Then again, the Horde necessitated the creation of the Alliance as a superpower to oppose it, and thus, the Alliance and Horde races would probably be divided. Indeed, even humanity itself would still be seven separate kingdoms (though there'd also be a lot more humans.) By uniting against the Horde or with the Horde, we now have two huge globally-reaching forces that can and do regularly defend the world... when they're not fighting each other.

Whatever that hypothetical would actually lead to is theoretically going to be right there on Azeroth-B. But will we ever see it? I'd love to, but it's unlikely.