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The Culling of Stratholme
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Post by
ArgentSun
Just recently I finished reading
Arthas: Rise of the Lich King
, and to be honest, I have mixed feelings about it. On one side, there was very little in there I didn't already know - be it from Warcraft 3 (TFT), be it from WoW, be it from extra reading I have done on WoWWiki. On the other side, it was quite satisfying to read the exact words I knew a character would say (mainly Arthas) and be able to see the full context of what's going on. Overall it was a book where I learned more about the inner war Arthas led, and I found this knowledge satisfactory. I think this was the main point of the book too.
On this note, the book threw new light on some of the events of both Warcraft and WoW - the Culling of Stratholme being the one I am most interested in now. In the game we play the agents of the Bronze Dragonflight and struggle to prevent the Infinites from twisting the timeline by stopping Arthas from purging the city - likely by killing him.
Now, we are told that messing with the past and the timeline is bad. It shouldn't happen, because of unpredictable consequences. But I can't help but think - what if we did let Arthas die? What if the Culling never happened? How would the timeline progress, and wouldn't it be better for Lordaeron, and Azeroth in general, if we had never allowed the young prince to walk the path of corruption?
Well, let's assume everything up to the Culling goes as it's supposed to be. Then we, the heroes show up and are supposed to protect Arthas. But we decide not to. Let's also assume that the Infinite agents manage to kill the future Lich King. What happens now?
Lordaeron loses its only heir. Terenas and Jaina are probably
very
sad, and Jaina accuses herself for not being by Arthas and saving his life.
Mal'Ganis is alive. He has turned all of Stratholme into Scourge minions and probably gone to infest all of what we know as the Plaguelands - nothing new here.
In the normal timeline, Arthas would be taunted by the demon to go to Northrend. But since there is no Arthas, can we assume that Mal'Ganis will stay in Lordaeron and lead the attack against the human kingdoms? If he goes to Northrend, he will probably kill Muridan and his expedition, knowing that they are going after Frostmourne. So nothing new here, other than the fact that Ner'zhul wouldn't have a champion such as Arthas.
If Mal'Ganis stays in Loradaeron... He can continue spreading the Scourge, practically forever. Jaina and Uther know that the crates from Andorhal were the main way of spreading it, so it's safe to assume that they warned Terenas, Dalaran, and everybody else they could reach. They probably purged the now Scourge-infested Stratholme as well.
Would Mal'Ganis be able to play the role of Arthas as a champion of the Scourge and conquer as much as the prince did? I have little doubt that Lordaeron would fall. It was not very hard, unless the mages from Dalaran came to aid the human kingdom. Now, I believe they would. In the normal timeline they couldn't, because Arthas' assault was too sudden and unexpected, but with Mal'Ganis leading the assault, and Jaina hungry for vengeance, they would probably join forces with Terenas.
Would the humans be able to hold off the Scourge? This is much of a blind guess. I incline towards 'yes', because when Arthas attacked Dalaran, it was only Kel'Thuzad's magic that was able to counter the Kirin Tor's, and only partially. Without Arthas, Mal'Ganis would never be able to conquer Quel'Thalas, which means he would never be able to resurrect Kel'Thuzad, which means there would be no Kel'Thuzad to stop the Kirin Tor. Which in turn means that the Scourge would be stopped at Capital City. Granted, casualties will be given, but the mages should be able to hold on.
Unable to breach the elven defenses (assuming Dak'Khan stays out of this...and I am not confident about him), and being stopped at Lordaeron, the Scourge would be contained within the Plaguelands. Uther's Knights of the Silver Hand would probably be restored, and aided by mages, they might be able to stop and completely exterminate the undead. I don't think the quel'dorei would join them, as they would probably feel that the conflict is of scale unworthy for their attention.
There is no Scourge in the Eastern Kingdoms. There are many people angry or sad about Arthas' death. Mal'Ganis is either dead (unlikely), or fled to Northrend (highly likely).
What happens in Northrend is hard to determine. I want to say that Ner'zhul would grow weak, and Illidan would go and finish him off along with all of the Scourge. But the reason Ner'zhul started losing power in the first place was because the Legion didn't like the orc warlock's manipulations with Arthas - the two were getting too strong. So it is pretty probably that Ner'zhul would keep his usual level of power, and be able to stop Illidan (who would not be aided by Kael'thas, since the elven prince would have no reason to go to Northrend, with Arthas dead).
So what do we have at the end, other than huge confusion? Many of the currently dead characters are likely not to die. Ner'zhul would either be dead (which would mean the end of the Scourge), or he would be as powerful as he was in the beginning of the campaign. Either way, he loses. The reason he was able to create what he created was because no attention was drawn to him. With the Scourge infestation in Andorhal, Hearthglen and Stratholme, it is unlikely that the human nations would just sit and watch as the Scourge pillages their land. An attack would probably be launched against the Lich King, and knowing that a huge chunk of his forces would be destroyed in the Plaguelands, he would persih. Either way there is no Scourge.
Granted, there are many possibilities. Most of my assumptions look fairly legitimate, and it's almost safe to assume that things would go the way I described... other than one. Dark'khan. He is kind of a key figure. We don't know if he would have joined the Scourge if it was led by Mal'Ganis. If so, then things might have gone the normal way. But if he remains loyal to his nation and Quel'thalas remains intact, I am almost certain the Scourge would be no more by now...
So did we mess up in the Caverns of Time?
Post by
Adamsm
No, because if the Third War never happened, the Orc's would still be running in the little camps, rather then being able to find and create a new homeland. In fact, for all we know, without the Scourge to take the pressure off of the Horde while they fled Eastern Kingdoms, it might have been likely the Alliance forces would have turned on the Horde again, and finished them off completely.
Of course going another way; No Third War means the Night Elves never come out of hiding, Cenarius is still alive and the Legion is stopped at the gates meaning the World Tree never blows up......and I just torpedo'ed my own theroy there.
Thought, and here's one final thing: Mel'ganis corrupts the city of Stratholme(not sure what the population was) and has an army of instant of ghouls at his hands, which means he can stream out of the city and conquer the area's around stratholme, creating the plaguelands like you said, which would have continued the war against the undead, though not as large as the orginal death toll would occur.
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374045
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Post by
Neutronimity
If we mess with the timeline at all, everything is torn to shreds.
Old Hillsbrad
says so, as does
The Black Morass
.
I think you're wrong here. I would imagine Time as a tree of paths and ways. Whenever a distinct or small action is taken, the path splits up and takes another direction, other than it would have gone. So, not everything collapses but the future varies from the original.
Argent
is trying to elaborate which possible directions the way would have taken.
Andormu means that if something is changed in the past, the future (from the view of the past) will be altered. Thus, Andormu's world (and the world of the ones existing in it) would
be destroyed
implode as it infact never would have existed due to the altering. There would be a different world.
Post by
HoleofArt
Hmmm, but if we killed Arthas, Illdan would have gone on to become much more powerful, correct?
(Forgive me if I'm off, its been so long since I've read up on Illidan and him going insane with the loss at Icecrown Citidel.)
The blood elfs would also still be with the Alliance, as their city wasn't ransacked :D
But what about the Sunwell? That'd still be around.
We'd defeat the Scourge, essentially, but that may have created a larger threat with Illidan and Kael'thas, who may have become so powerful, that we adventurers couldn't have stopped them.
Plus, a great many more things
wouldn't
have happened, that
needed
to happen.
Its kind of like the idea with the Black Morass or Hillsbrad. Had we stopped either of those, we would have solved a lot of conflicts, but more than likely created bigger ones.
Post by
Adamsm
Kael'thas never would have turned if arthas had been dealt with there, the Elves would have remained neutral, and not lost their source of magic.
As for Illdian, he was only released due to the threat of the Legion, hard to tell if Mel'ganis alone could have summoned Archimonde to this plane, if not, Illidan would have remained locked away. If Archimonde had been summoned, the Lich King would have been destroyed by the Demon Elf and he would have returned to Outlands(maybe) to just sit in his throne and rule over it at the command of kil'jaeden.
Post by
Dralas
What I've seen from all of the dragonflights attempts to 'fix' the timelines is this: Almost all of them are Alliance biased.
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109094
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227660
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109094
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Post by
Adamsm
She, chromie is female. And hot a little gnome at that.
Post by
ArgentSun
She, chromie is female. And hot a little gnome at that.
Oddly enough, the name
Chronormu
implies male gender...
Post by
109094
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Post by
Dralas
Nice icon Argent, just now noticed it. FOR LORDAERON!
Post by
ArgentSun
Nice icon Argent, just now noticed it. FOR LORDAERON!
The irony? Been playing Horde ever since :)
(But again, that was because my friends were Horde - I'd love an Alliance paladin...)
But we are moving to offtopics...
Post by
HoleofArt
If anything, messing up time will always screw you over, and in WoW, this is more so than say... The Legend of Zelda xD
Although I do have my growing suspicions that Nozdormu is actually the leader of the Infinite Flight, but there's a reason he's doing it that we could never guess, not some more obvious, yet stupid reason like being afraid of dieing.
Post by
138638
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