Are there really only one Archimonde and Kil'Jaeden?

[Eats Compost]

I think you are misunderstanding CoT. It's true that, as you said, Nether time is not anchored to our time (or any universes' time for that matter) and operates independently. However, Battle for Mt. Hyjal in CoT doesn't mean that there are two different Archimonde at the same time.

Why? Because the nature of CoT is different from WoD. In CoT, we are travelling back on our own timeline to the past of our universe. The Hyjal battle there didn't happen in our present (unlike WoD), but in our past instead. Similarly, that Archimonde (or other CoT events' characters for that matter - with the exception of DS raid as Blizzard said) didn't exist in our "present" (by the moment we entered CoT Hyjal), he existed in the past - the one and only during our Mt. Hyjal battle. The "present" Archimonde (back when we entered CoT) was still in the Nether only. As far as I know, there hasn't been any example of any demon existing at two places at the same time - using Nether time as a benchmark (not counting any illusion, clone, body splitting magic, of course).

It's hard to address the rest of your argument since the premises (either "there was an Archimonde in the nether and a different Archimonde on Azeroth at the same time" or "nether time actually is synced to our own time") aren't necessarily the case here.

Edit: what you said about Draenor are true, though. The Legion in WoD is our Legion (the one and only). And Nether time exists independently, but have access / is connected to all other timelines (with the Nether existing outside of all realities / universes time and space, but are connected to them).

If nether time is independent of our time, then why would travelling back in time (regardless of whether we're actually shifting into another timeline) send back nether time, as well? If nether time is independent and Archimonde exists in it at a particular moment, we presumably would not be able to negate that with any form of time travel outside of the nether itself, which I'd think means that the Archimonde in the nether still has to be there, and if we kill Archimonde in the past, that soul still has to do something. That's the problem I have with it - the existence of time travel (as well as alternative timelines where one particular demon may die and be transferred to the nether at a slightly different point in time, of which there are probably many) means that we have to explain what happens in a nether crossing all timelines and times when a demon's own death/life overlaps with another version's. That's where the duplicates problem comes from - my issue isn't that the are duplicates, it's the there aren't.

The whole "soul back to the nether" thing is a total mess when the Burning Legion spans across times and timelines. Obviously, I totally accept that the Legion in WoD's Draenor is our Legion, but the broader idea that there's a single Legion with unfettered access to all timelines just doesn't sit well with me. It's either gotta have some kind of extremely specific special-casing, or some kind of alternative explanation.

[Qualia]

If nether time is independent of our time, then why would travelling back in time (regardless of whether we're actually shifting into another timeline) send back nether time, as well? If nether time is independent and Archimonde exists in it at a particular moment, we presumably would not be able to negate that with any form of time travel outside of the nether itself, which I'd think means that the Archimonde in the nether still has to be there, and if we kill Archimonde in the past, that soul still has to do something. That's the problem I have with it - the existence of time travel (as well as alternative timelines where one particular demon may die and be transferred to the nether at a slightly different point in time, of which there are probably many) means that we have to explain what happens in a nether crossing all timelines and times when a demon's own death/life overlaps with another version's. That's where the duplicates problem comes from - my issue isn't that the are duplicates, it's the there aren't.

Why wouldn't we be sending back in Nether time when we time travel as well? The Nether exists independently, but it is also connected to all other universes - for each moment in each universe, we have a specific corresponding / connected moment in the Nether as well. To elaborate two situations we've experienced from my understanding based on what we know (may or may not be canon, since Blizzard didn't explain fully about it yet):

- CoT: we traveled back in time to the battle of Mt. Hyjal in the past. Hyjal Archimonde was summoned from the Nether in the past, killed at Hyjal, his soul / spirit went to the Nether at that time (in the past). There is no change to "present" (relatively, "present" as in the moment we traveled in time) Archimonde.
- WoD: we traveled to an alternate universe Draenor. Present Archimonde / KJ / Legion also detected Kairoz's activities and contacted AU Gul'dan in the past of the alternate universe. AU Gul'dan summoned the one contacted him - present Legion demons back to AU Draenor. There was a past Legion in the past Nether at that time, too, but they weren't the one contacted AU Gul'dan and weren't summoned, they just continued doing whatever they were doing - unrelated to events in WoD. When the summoned present Legion demons were killed, their spirits came back to where they came from - present Nether.

There, is there anything wrong with it? There is still a single Legion, and I don't see any particular unexplainable hole in that theory.

So.. why didn't just Aman'Thul go back in time and get an army of himself that could spread out across the galaxy and secure everything, instead of sending Sargeras off alone? He's way beyond the Bronze Dragonflight in terms of time travel; he gave them their powers after all. There is not a problem presented in WC lore that Aman'Thul couldn't handle alone with his control over time, whether it's the Burning Legion, Void Lords or a baby Titan being corrupted. Just do a little time travel, get a billion Titans from various timelines and alternate universes, and secure the entire universe and every possible multiverse. No problem. It's like instant cloning.

Technically, the Bronze Dragonflight could do that too. It was just implied that he didn't want to do it, or dare to do it - the same reason why the Bronze Dragonflight didn't want to do it. Messing with time can cause a lot of unforeseeable effect, as he told Nozdormu in Dawn of the Aspect "Without the truth of time as it is meant to unfold, more will be lost than you can possibly imagine. The fabric of reality will unravel. It is a heavy task--the base of all tasks of this world, for nothing can transpire without time".

[Deleted]

What I want to know is their a legion-version of thrall, our characters etc. Basically is there an Azeroth where we joined the legion. Because the end of War Crimes showed there were other Azeroth's?

Intresting idea o thought

[Aquamonkey]

If in alternate reality let's say, Thrall submits to the Legion and becomes a demon, does that mean our universe's Thrall would become demon too?

The AU duplicates don't automatically become a demon. AU Arch and KJ on Argus still had to be approached by the Legion as they were in our universe.

"Thousands of year ago, the demons of the Burning Legion came to our homeworld and offered our leaders a great gift. Two of them, Kil'jaeden and Archimonde, saw the wisdom in their offering, but the last leader, Prophet Velen, refused."

[Deleted]

Every second another pair of Archimonde and KJ makes a deal with Sargeras, and every second a pair also refuses the deal with Sargeras. There are infinite Archimondes in the Legion.

[Akibaboy]

Picture this: Archimonde is sitting at a table. On the table there are hundreds of books (realities), all turned to different pages (position in the reality's timeline). He can read these pages, turn them and learn details of a given world and what's going on. Archimonde wants to step into a specific book at a specific page for some purpose... supposedly to destroy worlds or w/e... but cannot enter unless characters within the book make a pathway for him to enter (portals, sacrifices, energy, etc.). Even if he is pulled into a book, his real self is still just sitting at the table, and if he is killed in the book it has no effect on his real self. Thus, he communicates with characters in separate realities at separate points in time, hoping to find ones with the capability to bring him into the world to burn it from inside, but to him it has no bearing on his existence in his own reality. That is, until we enter his reality and kill him there. Even if we did that, it doesn't mean the books are being rewritten... it would just mean that the being existing outside them is no longer screwing with them.

And this is head canon so no idea if that's what they're getting at but that's how I interpret it.

[dd614]

This alternate timeline story already gave me a headache but it gave me a migraine when I thought of this:

The Burning Legion transcends all realities. The Burning Legion you get is the same every time, that means ONE Kil'Jaeden and ONE Archimonde.

The problem I have with that is, they weren't the only sons of whoever gave birth to them, we also have Velen.

We have at the very least two Velen, and the WoD one sacrificed himself for us. It's safe to say that there are more Velens out there.

Considering the fate of the alternate characters we met in WoD aren't THAT far off our timeline, surely Velen in other realities must have two siblings, Archimonde and Kil'Jaeden or whatever their names were before they turned Eredar, who give in to the offering of great power, soooooo... what happens to them? Considering the Draenei in WoD seem to have fled from the Burning Legion as well I don't think the answer is as simple as "The BL didn't bother with the draenei in other timelines".

Don't think on it too hard. Blizzard certainly didn't.

[Dyptheria]

Picture this: Archimonde is sitting at a table. On the table there are hundreds of books (realities), all turned to different pages (position in the reality's timeline). He can read these pages, turn them and learn details of a given world and what's going on. Archimonde wants to step into a specific book at a specific page for some purpose... supposedly to destroy worlds or w/e... but cannot enter unless characters within the book make a pathway for him to enter (portals, sacrifices, energy, etc.). Even if he is pulled into a book, his real self is still just sitting at the table, and if he is killed in the book it has no effect on his real self. Thus, he communicates with characters in separate realities at separate points in time, hoping to find ones with the capability to bring him into the world to burn it from inside, but to him it has no bearing on his existence in his own reality. That is, until we enter his reality and kill him there. Even if we did that, it doesn't mean the books are being rewritten... it would just mean that the being existing outside them is no longer screwing with them.

And this is head canon so no idea if that's what they're getting at but that's how I interpret it.

This is actually a good explanation and could account for a number of things. A Demonic Archimonde could reach into each of those realities and replace the soul of a "clean" Archimonde with a portion of his own, or control the body somehow. That "avatar" could then work to "bring the Eredar to the Legion" in the situations where Sargeras is as yet unaware of the Eredar. Of course Kil'jaeden would do the same, so in each reality it would appear that Velen would either flee or be killed...unless there is a Demonic Velen who hasn't yet got around to replacing all of the "clean" Velens yet, for whatever reason.

Or perhaps all three of them are a) Demonic and b) running an experiment to see the outcomes of various combinations of the three of them accepting/refusing the Legion's power.

[Eats Compost]

- WoD: we traveled to an alternate universe Draenor. Present Archimonde / KJ / Legion also detected Kairoz's activities and contacted AU Gul'dan in the past of the alternate universe. AU Gul'dan summoned the one contacted him - present Legion demons back to AU Draenor. There was a past Legion in the past Nether at that time, too, but they weren't the one contacted AU Gul'dan and weren't summoned, they just continued doing whatever they were doing - unrelated to events in WoD. When the summoned present Legion demons were killed, their spirits came back to where they came from - present Nether.

There, is there anything wrong with it? There is still a single Legion, and I don't see any particular unexplainable hole in that theory.

If our present nether was able to establish a connection to the past version of Draenor and a past version of the Legion is also running around, then why can't the past Draenor timeline's version of the nether connect to our world? And if the AU Legion never got into contact with Draenor, are we meant to assume that it was never going to happen in that timeline anyway? After all, Kil'jaeden found Draenor by chasing the Draenei - it seems strange that he'd just never turned up if there was indeed a past Legion running around.

There's also a few other tidbits that don't sit well with me. Mannoroth is a big one. At which stage is our present Legion meant to have been able to contact and work with the past alternate Draenor timeline? If it's tied to the opening of the Dark Portal and it's linking to our world, then that would have to mean that the Mannoroth we dealt with isn't from the same Legion. If it's not tied to that, it raises a huge question of the conditions required by the present Legion to work with past alternate timelines - does just one individual (like Kairoz and Garrosh) need to travel there? Did they already have access that has nothing to do with our world, and they elected not to use it? Why is a present (by our measure) version of the Legion diddling around like that at all? Could they just substitute in their future-knowledge selves in past moments to fix things that went wrong?

Like someone already mentioned, alternate timelines and time travel do tend to make a story into Swiss cheese by default, but a single Legion across all timelines in an environment that involves travel between them, travel through time AND those demons being dispatched to various worlds in many of them, with our specifically timed Legion being the one that we encounter even in other timelines.. It's just a bit too much for me. It's the kind of thing where every answer just raises more questions.

In the back of my mind, I feel like they just wanted to express that the Legion we fight in WoD is ours and that it subsequently matters, but that they went with a bit of a silly story solution for making that happen.

[Piamonte]

this is my take on this:

-one legion existing outside of the multiple timelines.
-the legion can´t travel through time, they can only invade us in the present.
-WoD was a different timeline, one of many others until (thanks to kairoz) became a different dimension that is accesible to us in our present and thus it became part of our present.
-Because there is only one true Archimonde in the nether, when an Archimonde accepts the pact with Sargeras in another timeline, it becomes part of the Archimonde in the nether, essentially becoming one, thus Archimonde has all the knowledge of all the other mortal Archimondes in all the timelines since the moment they are born until they become a demon.
-Socrethar is an unique example of a demon being in two places at the same time, when Othar became Socrethar, he was still on draenor, thus he was on Draenor and the nether at the same time, but when he died, he became part of the Socrethar being in the nether, this weird event is caused as a consequence of Draenor becoming a different dimension.
-The timelines are not so different from one another because there are fixed points in time that cannot change, certain people becoming demons or the Deathwing death event which Nozdormu fixed in all the timelines.

[Deleted]

I'll pose a more interesting question while we're at it:

Warlords of Draenor supposedly takes place in the past, roughly ~25-30 years. When we kill Archimonde in mythic, it's done inside the Twisting Nether, which is the place that demons can be killed permanently, so Archimonde should be completely dead. However, he still invades Mount Hyjal ~20 years in the future in our timeline now. So either he didn't die when killed in the Twisting Nether, as he should have, or the battle at Mount Hyjal should never happened in the original timeline, which means alliances weren't made, Night Elves didn't lose their immortality, etc, unless there are some really weird paradox things going on here.

What's the deal with that nonsense? I suppose you could just explain it away as a weird time travel thing, but it seems like a weird oversight.

@OP As for the question at hand, the events happening in Warlord's version of Draenor are also after the events have (presumably) taken place on Argus in the other timeline. I would assume that the demonic versions of themselves merged in the Nether, which is why you don't see multiples of them running around. In fact, it's entirely possible that after their defeats (Sunwell Plateau and Mount Hyjal) the versions that were "killed" in our timeline may have just inhabited their own bodies from another timeline and merged their collective knowledge, similar to how demon hunters and regular demons have "immortal demon souls" that survive until they find another hospitable body.

He did not invade anythig because that time already is passed in our timeline

[Rafoel]

There's a few problems with having a single Legion that operates on its own, separate timeframe. Specifically, the timeline in question, the flow of time, and how those two things interact with eachother. For duplicates, I'll use Archimonde as an example. He got blown up by Malfurion's wisp army, which would've sent his soul to the nether.

Presumably, he was still in the nether when we went back in time in CoT. When we went to Hyjal, there was an Archimonde physically there. Now, at that moment, if nether time is not anchored to our own time and operates irrespective of it (as the Draenor situation would suggest), does that mean that there was an Archimonde in the nether and a different Archimonde on Azeroth at the same time? (Worth noting; this would apply to any demon, and I only use Archimonde as an example because he was in a specific place at a specific time. We can also use it as a general "what if" to explore the implications of an all-timelines/realities/whatever Legion or Nether)


If we say yes, then that'd mean there's many copies of each demon from different timelines (where they died in the mortal plane and were sent back to the single, not-on-our-timeline nether) and we'd have to have some kind of system that re-unifies versions of a demon when they get back to the nether. Or, there'd have to be a single version of a demon that's the "real" one that goes back to the nether, whereas the others are shit outta luck.

We could say that no, nether time actually is synced to our own time (meaning that going back in time in our own world also goes back in the nether's time), which then then eliminates the problem of duplicates (as by going back into the past, we're back in the nether's past too). That raises another difficult question, though; if the nether is synced to the time that you are in, why is the Legion that's up-to-date with us getting summoned in Draenor?

Then, we can explain that by saying that Draenor is a different kind of time travel with different rules (which it is, as we already know) which then raises another question; does that mean that the Legion is synced specifically to our timeline? If so, does that mean that it's more accurate to say that our timeline is the only one in sync with the nether, acting as a master record of what's going on at any given stage?

Then we've got all the questions about why the Legion keeps coming back in sequence with our own timeline, why they don't have precognition or supposedly unattainable information about various things (as they did have in Draenor 2.0, but not in other examples of travel in time or timelines) and why none of the other potential problems with a single Legion have come up.

Time travel is always a bit nonsense when it comes to applying reason and causality, but the existence of only a single Legion is just impossible to reconcile. To me, it only really makes sense if the Draenor Legion was simply our Legion instead, or if the nether we know is rooted to our own timeline but has access to others (which'd require further reconciliation to explain why the Legion got through to Draenor 2.0 anyway). That's why I don't think that can be the case.

That's why it makes a lot more sense to me that Draenor 2.0 would simply be a thing that exists somewhere within our own timeline, timeframe and reality, with our own Legion accessing it in a similar way to how we did (and Kairoz's actions being less about travelling through time/timelines and more about copying something from another). It eliminates the messy, endless complications that arise from the Legion being in every version of everywhere and operating on their own sync. Again, not actually supported by any sources that I know of, but I just can't rationally reconcile the Legion interacting with time and timelines the way they've suggested that they have.

Well, for the first part, in BC time travel worked kinda differently - it was retconned in WoD. Back then we were told Infinite Dragonflight wanted to change the past, but now we know they would actually create alternate timelines, and our own present would remain unaffected. What's more, The Hyjal raid actually never happened - Blizzard stated they thought "visiting that moment would be fun" and that is the only reason the raid even exists (notice that we aren't fighting any infinite dragonflight there). From canon point of view, the version from WC3 cinematic is the true one. Infinite Dragonflight themselves were actually from alternate timeline, as now we know they will never be created in our universe (bronze dragonflight and aspects lost their powers), yet our encounters with them still happened.

Whatever.

The point is Legion demons were effectively established as multidimensional beings. While we can't truly understand how such beings perceive reality, similar concepts are not foreing in fantasy worlds. Think of Dr Manhattan, who perceives past, present and future simultaneusly. For Kil'jaeden and Archimonde, the main question I would have - "Aren't they getting bored doing everything over and over again? I mean, how many times can they contact Gul'dan and make him betray the Horde?"

We still don't know how different timelines are actually created. This isn't a problem of "well there is infinite amount of them". The beginning of every timeline is the same - the creation of world, when light and void collided. At that moment, there was only one timeline. How did they diverge first? Is it a matter of some quantum mechanics? Or maybe magics?

The only way there would be infinite amount of timelines was if every single moment, every 0.0000000001s, infinite amount of them were created. Cause as Warcraft Universe age is finite, if finite amount of timelines is created in every not-infinitely small amount of time, then total amount of timelines os also finite. Which makes us go back to question - how are new timelines created?

[FelPlague]

Maybe all the different reality versions got ripped out of their reality and merged into one when they took Sargeras' deal.

would make sense

maybe they would have all accepted, and sargeras got the power from the ones who accepted, and used it to power up 2 who accepted, and killed off the rest as they were no longer useful, and maybe we will see a corrupted velen, the only one in a universe who accepted, and normal velen would have to kill him, and those who declined simply were ignored

who knows, or maybe the legion could just be too busy and not want to spend the millions of years to recruit them all, and simply need to get azertoh killed before it awakes

[My User Name]

ugh... alternate universe topic again?

i hate wod

[Qualia]

If our present nether was able to establish a connection to the past version of Draenor and a past version of the Legion is also running around, then why can't the past Draenor timeline's version of the nether connect to our world? And if the AU Legion never got into contact with Draenor, are we meant to assume that it was never going to happen in that timeline anyway? After all, Kil'jaeden found Draenor by chasing the Draenei - it seems strange that he'd just never turned up if there was indeed a past Legion running around.

Logically, it can. As in, the past Nether can connect to our present world (if I'm not misunderstanding what you said), we just need someone to make the connection which isn't something easily done. And yes, there was that theory that maybe the Legion weren't going to touch AU Draenor by the time we arrived if not for our / Kairoz's messing with the timelines (since Blizzard never gave us many information about this so all we have are theories) - which doesn't sound too off given that, thanks to some unknown cosmic mechanic, the Legion seem to be able to affect the alternate universes just by causing damage in the main universe (going off by what Vandel saw in "Illidan"). If that was true, there wouldn't be any real needs for them to personally come to any alternate universe to destroy those, they can just stick with the MU instead. Or, maybe they were going to invade the AU sometime later, with a more minor branch of the Legion instead of the main one (since Illidan saw that the one who have been attacking us is just a tiny part of the entire Legion), both theories could work.

There's also a few other tidbits that don't sit well with me. Mannoroth is a big one. At which stage is our present Legion meant to have been able to contact and work with the past alternate Draenor timeline? If it's tied to the opening of the Dark Portal and it's linking to our world, then that would have to mean that the Mannoroth we dealt with isn't from the same Legion. If it's not tied to that, it raises a huge question of the conditions required by the present Legion to work with past alternate timelines - does just one individual (like Kairoz and Garrosh) need to travel there? Did they already have access that has nothing to do with our world, and they elected not to use it? Why is a present (by our measure) version of the Legion diddling around like that at all? Could they just substitute in their future-knowledge selves in past moments to fix things that went wrong?

I'd assume that the Legion can contact with past / present / future universes, thanks to the nature of the Twisting Nether *if* there is any connection open between the timeways. However, they can't mess around with time by themselves. In WoD case, there were the connection between the past AU and the present created by the shard the moment Kairoz brought Garrosh to Draenor ("Because most of the hourglass is still in our Azeroth, this piece resonates with our timeway"). Then Kairoz got killed by Garrosh, and Garrosh himself doesn't know how to handle the connection - maybe if Kairoz was still there, he'd have protected it from being detected by others.
The question of why have the Legion never tried to obtain their future self's knowledge is a legit one. Unfortunately, it fall into the category of "If this happens, we wouldn't win, so it can't happen" kind of reason. If we are to explain it from a lore perspective, maybe it's too rare to have someone opening a connection between past & future then keep it opened without protecting it. Or maybe the Legion are infected with Plot-Induced Stupidity so that they never considered it necessary to do so.

[Ryxxi]

Isnt Draenor an alternate time line and Not alternate universe ?

[Qualia]

Isnt Draenor an alternate time line and Not alternate universe ?

I *believe* those are the same thing in WoW since every universes branched off from the same main universe (supposedly ours). They are only different in other fictions where different universes may have entirely different origins.

[MikeBogina]

There's bound to be universes where KJ and/or Archimonde refused Sargeras, universes where Sargeras never betrayed the Pantheon and so on. There's countless universes where demons exist that have never existed in ours, like for instance maybe Velen and maybe even other Titans besides Sargeras. They dont matter because they can't access our universe. They are exclusive to their universes.

I imagine for the sake of it, there's one massive demon legion in the Nether. But many of them are only physically allowed in a few universes, universes they originated from. Maybe they all have badges or passes that show what universes they're from. Sargeras being in the most of them has a rainbow badge, while a Velen demon only being in a handful has a yellow badge.

By their own logic, their own rules that Blizzard has stated, there is probably a few Titans in the Legion aswell. But they can't access our universes.

It's really stupid and hopefully Blizzard retcons/retracts it soon.

[Aquamonkey]

-the legion can´t travel through time, they can only invade us in the present.

They can travel through time. That's how Archimonde got to -2 BDP AU Draenor.

-WoD was a different timeline, one of many others until (thanks to kairoz) became a different dimension that is accesible to us in our present and thus it became part of our present.

Kairoz did nothing of the sort. He died before he could do anything but transport him and Garrosh to -4 BDP AU Draenor. AU Draenor is still in its original universe.

-Socrethar is an unique example of a demon being in two places at the same time, when Othar became Socrethar, he was still on draenor, thus he was on Draenor and the nether at the same time, but when he died, he became part of the Socrethar being in the nether, this weird event is caused as a consequence of Draenor becoming a different dimension.

The Socrethar we see in WoD is earlier in the timeline than the Socrethar we see in TBC.

[Alteiry]

This alternate timeline story already gave me a headache but it gave me a migraine when I thought of this:

The Burning Legion transcends all realities.

Not really, it's the Twisting Nether that trancends all realities (really, space and time), and the Burning Legion has bound itself to the Twisting Nether, presumably to achieve some form of immortality.

The Burning Legion you get is the same every time, that means ONE Kil'Jaeden and ONE Archimonde.

Their souls, yes.

The problem I have with that is, they weren't the only sons of whoever gave birth to them, we also have Velen.

Uh, they aren't related by blood.

We have at the very least two Velen, and the WoD one sacrificed himself for us. It's safe to say that there are more Velens out there.

Sure, because Velen didn't bind himself to the Twisting Nether like Arch and KJ did.

Considering the fate of the alternate characters we met in WoD aren't THAT far off our timeline, surely Velen in other realities must have two siblings, Archimonde and Kil'Jaeden or whatever their names were before they turned Eredar, who give in to the offering of great power, soooooo... what happens to them? Considering the Draenei in WoD seem to have fled from the Burning Legion as well I don't think the answer is as simple as "The BL didn't bother with the draenei in other timelines".

My personal guess is that the AU versions of all demons are used in the resurrection process of slain MU demons. So, you might consider the AU Arch and KJ "spares" in case the MU Arch and KJ are killed and their souls banished back to the Twisting Nether.