Spoiler for the Hellscream short story will follow. I highly recommend going to over to worldofwarcraft.com the check it out if you have any interest in lore. It's a quick read and really makes the whole situation in Draenor crystal clear, vis-a-vis time travel and alternate universes.
Also some spoilers for some of the late, pivotal quests in Warlords (primarily Nagrand, which is the highest-level zone.) Actually, if you're worried about any big, massive spoilers, this is the thing you'd be worried about.
Spoiler conscious people gone?
Ok.
Hellscream, after a brief introduction that shows what happens to Kairoz (put simply: he acts haughty and insulting to Garrosh Hellscream - surely a Bronze Dragon would be cleverer than that,) the main crux of the story is the meeting between Garrosh and Grom. At no point does Grom have any idea who Garrosh is, except that he notes that Garrosh has a similar jaw-tattoo that is a tradition among the Warsong. In this universe, Grommash never had a son, so even if he were aware of the whole time-travel thing (he's not) it would never occur to him that the guy in front of him could be his son from the future.
Garrosh first approaches Grom to tell him pretty much not to pay attention to Gul'dan's warnings. Gul'dan has indeed made mention of some new allies and source of power, and Garrosh is there to put the kibosh on that whole business (we see what happens there in the Warlords cinematic.) He offers modern Goblin technology instead - but while he's happy to save the souls of his father and his people, Garrosh really wants them as a means to an end - he suffered a humiliating defeat in Orgrimmar, and he wants payback.
The technology, fantastical as it seems to Grommash (remember that the Orcs were basically Iron Age technologically at that time, whereas modern Azeroth is Industrial,) is intriguing, but at best, it would just mean that the Horde might have a difficult time coalescing in this timeline. Garrosh needs to make Azeroth and his own history of the Horde seem bad enough to convince Grom that he's got to stand against it - and the entirety of Azeroth.
So he takes Grom to see the "future" at the Stones of Prophecy, using the shard of the Vision of Time that he used to kill Kairoz (being only a shard, it's nicknamed the Glimpse of Time.) He shows Grom the "future," which is in fact the past of our universe. Grom sees himself drink the blood and sees Draenor destroyed. He sees the wars in Azeroth, and he gets to the point where the Orcs are imprisoned in the Internment Camps. And he begins to get a slight glimpse of a young Orc Shaman called Thrall who...
And that's where Garrosh cuts off the vision. He does so immediately after murdering the shaman who attends the Stones of Prophecy. This shaman, more attuned to the flow of time, knows Garrosh for the interloper he is, and he is able to glimpse what Thrall truly represents - the redemption of the Orcs, and their ascension to become guardians of Azeroth. The unnamed shaman sees the truth - the destruction of Draenor and all the horrors that befell the Orcish people were ultimately a sacrifice for a greater good. Draenor died so that Azeroth could live (and while we don't have an explicit reason why Azeroth is so important, I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's probably the most important planet in the Warcraft Universe - and not just because that's where most of our characters are from.)
Grom only sees our timeline as one in which the Orcs became prisoners and slaves. Actually, it doesn't exactly help to convince him otherwise that the Horde is now run by a Troll. Still, the figure of Thrall is an intriguing one - one that he does not get sufficient time to analyze. Thrall and Grom were close friends by the time Grom died in our timeline. It was with Thrall that Grom faced down Mannoroth. Imagine what might have happened if Grom had been able to see the whole picture.
And really, this is what makes Warlords of Draenor so interesting. Grommash Hellscream, Warchief of the Iron Horde, is the least villainous villain we've ever had. He's a brute, sure, and a military aggressor, which we generally frown upon these days. But he's fighting us mainly because he thinks that we're the evil ones. As far as he knows, the Horde is essentially the Terran Empire to his Federation, and the only thing he knows of the Alliance is that if he loses, the Alliance is going to imprison his entire population (as far he he can tell.)
The invasion of Azeroth is, in Grommash's eyes, a preemptive strike against a horrifying foe, because he has been manipulated by Garrosh.
But a lot of stuff goes down in Draenor as we quest through the area. It would be really great if we could show Grommash just who exactly was telling him and mobilizing him to form the Iron Horde. If Grommash could see how Garrosh had lied and manipulated him, and could see how the modern Horde is hardly the demon-blood fueled monstrosity that it used to be, and most importantly that Grom died to redeem his people in our timeline, he might think twice about his actions.
But we're never going to be able to expose Garrosh for the liar that he is. Because Garrosh is the first of the Warlords of Draenor to fall.
Yes, after five expansions where we saw Garrosh go from sullen and afraid of his own potential (actually, good call, earlier Garrosh, come to think of it,) to absurdly proud, reckless, then refining his skill to account for his recklessness, and finally become so bloody-minded that he alienated his own people. Finally, the true reckoning occurs, and Garrosh is left dead - crushed by the stones that would, in his universe, lay beneath his home of Garadar.
The thing is, the one person from our universe that Grommash trusted is gone. What comes next?
In patch 6.0, we're going to take down Highmaul, depriving the Iron Horde of their only non-Orc allies, and then we're going to take down Blackrock Foundry, depriving them of their most important industrial center as well as Grommash's most important lieutenant, Blackhand. It's not unthinkable that Grom might get a little desperate.
In our universe, desperation is what led the Orcs to drink the blood of Mannoroth. They were fighting against the Draenei, and while they weren't losing, they had come to something of a stalemate - the Draenei holding fast in places like Shattrath. The demon blood gave them the physical edge and the resolve to push forward and devastate the Draenei. Yet in Draenor B, the Iron Horde is formed more specifically to take on the threat of Azeroth. The Draenei are seen as something of a secondary threat compared with us. Ner'zhul did not whip people up into a panic after being manipulated by Kil'jaeden as he was in our timeline. Instead, Gul'dan merely began the process of drumming up anti-Draenei fervor as well as he could - but Gul'dan, clever as he was, just didn't have the respect that Ner'zhul had. Gul'dan effectively jumped the gun on the demon blood, banking more on Grom's lust for power in general rather than any sort of imminent problem.
But the Iron Horde has a problem in progress. The Iron Horde might have an edge over the Frostwolf clan, and certainly took the Draenei by surprise, but the Alliance and Horde of Azeroth are well-equipped to deal with the kind of tech that the Iron Horde is using - which makes senses, as it's our freaking technology.
The industry and technology Garrosh brought to the Iron Horde might have made it easy for them to roll all over Draenor, but they spend the entirety of Warlords losing ground. Every attack they make is repelled, and Nagrand - which was apparently untouchable at first, is now filling up with Alliance and Horde forces. Only Tanaan remains protected, but that's not going to last too long.
The kind of desperation that Grommash is going to be feeling by the time we kill Blackhand is going to make the stalemate of Shattrath City look like a minor speed bump.
And that could be Gul'dan's "in."
Garrosh isn't there to keep his "father" on the right course, and his allies are dropping like flies -by the end of 6.0, I believe that Ner'zhul (Shadowmoon,) Kargath (Shattered Hand,) Blackhand (Blackrock,) The Iron Wolf (Thunderlord,) and of course Garrosh (Warsong,) are all dead - and so is the Warlord of the Burning Blade clan, though his daughter quickly takes over. That leaves, in terms of allies, basically Kilrogg Deadeye (Bleeding Hollow) and Azuka Bloodfury (Burning Blade.)
Suddenly, that demon blood is probably looking mighty tasty. Sure, Mannoroth's dead, but it's possible that Gul'dan could find another hook-up if Grom's willing for a rapprochement.
On the other hand, Gul'dan might be ready to forget about the Iron Horde. Our war with the Iron Horde is an excellent smokescreen for Gul'dan to do his business. Auchindoun is totally under assault from the Shadow Council and the full-on Burning Legion. Remember, just because Mannoroth is dead doesn't meant the Legion has lost all interest in Draenor (the whole Night Elf campaign took place after his death in WCIII.)
We know that Grommash is going to be the final boss of Warlords (as frustrating as it was to see two expansions in a row with an end-boss as an Orc Warchief of a "four letter modifier" Horde named G. Hellscream,) but what form that takes could really vary. I personally don't think we're just going to get Siege of Orgrimmar 2.0, because Blizzard has explicitly said that demons are going to play a big role in the final raid.
So the real question is: whose side is Grommash going to be on by the time we face him?
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