1 Legion in all realities? CONFUSING!

[Cl4nK]

I believe that there aren't infinite amounts of Azeroths. Only one.
Another Draenor was created when Garrosh went back in time thus creating another timeline. And that's it. Now we will be closed off the alternate draenor and will be back to only one "reality".

Not their greatest moment of lore-creating (over twitter, no less). But, even though we have NPCs quoting "infinite realities" I sort of want to think about it like some of you do. That there is only one Azeroth and an alternative timeline/universe only starts existing once we venture into it like on Draenor. Else, the Burning Legion would have had their behinds handed to them infinite times over.

Well, sorry to burst your bubble, but it's 100% confirmed, not only in game, but in the books as well, that there's infinite realities and that the Burning Crusade is literally destroying each and every single one of them. Spoilers ahead from Illidan novel.

A titanic vision smashed into his brain. This time he saw not just one universe but a near infinity of them, a complex fractal structure, where new worlds were born each minute from the decisions made a hearbeat before.
Everywhere the Burning Legion marched, destroying world after world. Each death narrowed the range of possible worlds, till eventually all the multitude of possibilities narrowed to but a few...He saw countless Azeroths, countless Vandels, and countless Khariels, and to everyone of them came death...In every world, in every future, the Burning Legion strode, invincible, unstoppable, dooming the universe to eternal darkness in its wake.

[Okacz]

Yes, he did single out this particular Azeroth we live in, which wouldn't be too unbelievable seeing we are supposed to be the main universe. We don't know what happened to other universes at that time - maybe the Legion sent some minor lieutenants there, or it's also possible that the Legion weren't involved with them at all (if they can destroy everything by destroying our universe, why bother wasting any significant effort on others?). Is there anything wrong about that, going with what we know so far in lore?

Yes, there is a lot of wrong with it. If our Azeroth was strong enough to fight full Legion force, with Sargeras himself spearheading the assault, I'd say sending "minor lieutenants" to other Azeroths would be as pointless as Murlocs trying to invade Icecrown Citadel.

Also, what do you mean that "they can destroy everything by destroying our universe, why bother wasting any significant effort on others"? Exactly HOW is our universe special? It's the same Azeroth as millions of other Azeroths across other universes. Check that - in WoD, Legion was doing the EXACT SAME THING on Draenor as it was doing in our Draenor - and they were doing this to attack their version of Azeroth. Which means that ALL of those Azeroths are Legions targets. Legion needs to destroy ALL Azeroths. Which also, funny enough, means that they potentially tried to pull off the "orc corruption plot" billions of times across billions of universes. Mannoroth must be sick and tired of it.


Here's the kicker - this whole timey-wimey stuff in WoD, alternate universes and such at least make some degree of sense if you discard the idea of "One Legion across ALL universes". We go back to see potentially the same Mannoroth doing what he did before, Archimonde simply dies on alternate Draenor, meaning he doesn't lead the assault on Hyjal anymore - it's just a standard "what if" scenario. This whole multiverse idea is just a thing that was thrown into the mix by someone on Twitter, and they just seem to be rolling with it. It makes no sense, it's absolutely pointless and the whole idea is that the player is not supposed to think about it.

Still, it was just a few twitter posts. Blizzard doesn't want to deny what their employees wrote, but books like Chronicle don't touch the whole multiverse idiocy with a ten foot pole. And I'm sitting here, baffled by how idiotic the lore would be if this tweet was actually canon.

[Septik]

Actually, if there is only one Legion, and infinite realities, then the Legion cannot possibly win.

I honestly think this is where Legion is heading, and the whole one legion thing is just a setup for an easy out at the end of this expansion to lead into the next big threat.

Probably the void lords. Someone (who ever is left standing at the end of this xpac) will be like, "Sargeras' goals are right but hes doing it all wrong, so we ended him somehow (illidan's plan im sure) and now we have to pick up his fight and do it the 'right way'!!"

[Deleted]

That's irrelevant to my point.
We're not talking abou traveling between realities.
We're talking about dude from PRESENT reality A, goes to PAST reality B only to return to PRESENT reality A.

What if "Present" Legion could give crucial information to "Past" Legion? That'd be insane.

MU Azeroth is "now".
AU Draenor is "back then".
MU present Garrosh traveled to AU past Draenor.
If that Archimonde was from the present, then the Legion was time-traveling. How? Help from Kairoz?

The Legion cannot possibly time-travel at will. If it could, the whole Warcraft story would implode on its own stupidity.

If Kairoz did help, perhaps the Infinite Dragonflight is somehow connected to the Legion?
Afterall, Kairoz did want an infinite army. Isn't that what the Legion is supposed to be?
Perhaps Kairoz was being manipulated?

Doesn't work like that, that's was my point. Legion is outside time, AU Draenor is not past for them, it's "present" as any other reality or timeline.

Legion is like a player playing Crusader Kings 2 and choosing whatever bookmark they want to play now.

That's why I said "look through the eyes of the villain". For Archimonde (one and just one Archimonde) was: Defeat at MU Hyjal -> Recovering in the Nether -> Invade AU Draenor -> Death in AU Draenor.

[Hctaz]

Here's my thought. Blizzard is really shit at dealing with time travel and the like. They've gone back and forth on different things they've said that it's hard to keep track. I remember when people were complaining about the timelines and all this crazy garbly gook that Draenor basically replaced our Outland in our universe. Essentially somehow Garrosh was able to take their Draenor and push it into our timeline. Basically there would just exist a universe that has no Draenor. No orcs or Draenei anymore at all and the Burning Legion would 100% win in that timeline super easy but also be confused as to where they all went. The way Blizzard had originally talked about this expansion made it seem sensible that there wouldn't be multiple Legions since there would just be one legion in our timeline still and that's it and Draenor had just shifted dimensions and replaced Outlands in the universe.

Then they said that the Legion is interdimensional. This just caused a mess of issues for the lore and I don't understand the purpose. Would it not be okay to just say that Gul'Dan was in contact with AU Legion until they switched the universe and then our Legion picked up on it and took over from there? That would be easy for me to buy. What also doesn't make sense then is how Mannoroth was like... a different entity than ours but supposedly the same. I don't get that at all either. Why were the orcs freed from his blood curse in WC3 if he was just going to come back? Once again they could have easily explained this away with their original story AND also still had Mannoroth stay as a boss in HFC. Basically they could have said Mannoroth was AU Mannoroth and ours was 100% dead (which would then break their lore that demons can only die in the nether but screw that. That change specifically for Mannoroth would be ok imo) and that whatever was on Draenor at the time of its connection with our realm stayed there. So the Mannoroth we fight in HFC would have just been a resurrected AU Mannoroth.

And to answer the question "Well why can't the Legion assemble themselves from all dimensions and wreck us?" they could have just said "Demons are too powerful to time travel or change dimensions... except Mannoroth (lol)" and I don't think anybody would have complained about that either.

Nope now we have to deal with the implications that somehow there's only one Archimonde and Kil'Jaeden even though they started out as mortals and became demons later but somehow there are multiple Velen's running from the Legion. Like... yeah. Dunno man.

[Sylreick]

Alright so if there is one legion across all timelines, how does that exactly make sense? There are multiple Velens but only one Kil'Jaeden and one Archimonde? If I am right about that, they put in a massive paradox.

There's only one demonized Archimonde that's part of the burning legion. The demonic soul/presence or whatever it is can only be hosted by one body at a time and the other versions of himself would be nowhere near as powerful nor have the capability of traversing the multiverse as would a demon. Velen is not a demon, he didn't take the offer from Sargeras so his soul is not tied to the nether and thus not tying any of his alternate versions to the original.

[Gheld]

People make this too complicated.

They just did this to keep accusations of "retcon" at bay for WoD.

Nothing more, nothing less. Just lazy writing.

[Thelxi]

Alternate reality crap should never have happened. I hope Blizzard is regretting this and plans on never repeating this shit.

[Deleted]

Nothing more, nothing less. Just lazy writing.

Lazy? No. Confusing? Yes.

[Gheld]

Lazy? No. Confusing? Yes.

No. It's not confusing at all.

It's just lazy. It's the J.J. Abrams solution (with the new star trek series). "OMG RETCON" "No, it's an alternate timeline".

It's literally the laziest plot device you could ever come up with because it doesn't demand any continuity at all.

[Sallador]

Correct me if i'm wrong but I believe the magic was based on that of the timeless Isle, IE a "pocket" type universe. As far as I understood from the info we were given on that quest chain and everything that followed was that the bronze dragon involved, based on the magic of the timeless isle, spawned a "past" draenor in our universe. In it's own pocket of course.

[Gheld]

Here is WoD in a nutshell.

Blizzard: Time travel.
Fans: OMG RETCONS
Blizzard: No... it's an alternate universe and stuff.
Fans: OMG but then nothing we do matters.
Blizzard: No...because there's like...only one legion and stuff..

Garbage writing. And again. Look at the plot for WoD. Look at the plot for the movie. Look at when the movie was originally slated for before all the delays. They made a shit second rate plot in the game to try and use the movie as a marketing tool. It's undeniable at this point.

[Deleted]

No. It's not confusing at all.

It's just lazy. It's the J.J. Abrams solution (with the new star trek series). "OMG RETCON" "No, it's an alternate timeline".

It's literally the laziest plot device you could ever come up with because it doesn't demand any continuity at all.

Again, lazy? no. Confusing? Yes.

Because timeways and timelines are part of Warcraft's story since the WotA novel. Blizzard wasn't even trying to retcon anything with WoD, the main purpose was to bring back the Warlords (the first plan was to ressurect them in Outland).

[Qualia]

Correct me if i'm wrong but I believe the magic was based on that of the timeless Isle, IE a "pocket" type universe. As far as I understood from the info we were given on that quest chain and everything that followed was that the bronze dragon involved, based on the magic of the timeless isle, spawned a "past" draenor in our universe. In it's own pocket of course.

Um, no, you are wrong.

I'm a bit lazy to check back to see what exactly Timeless Isle was (only remember vaguely that it supposedly shifting through time / reality), but any conclusion that AU Draenor was spawned in our universe s a pocket dimension is wrong. Blizzard stated that, more than once, that (1) there is / are AU Azeroth to go with the AU Draenor, we just didn't visit it and (2) the alternate universes always exist.

[Deleted]

Here is WoD in a nutshell.

Blizzard: Time travel.
Fans: OMG RETCONS
Blizzard: No... it's an alternate universe and stuff.
Fans: OMG but then nothing we do matters.
Blizzard: No...because there's like...only one legion and stuff..

Garbage writing. And again. Look at the plot for WoD. Look at the plot for the movie. Look at when the movie was originally slated for before all the delays. They made a shit second rate plot in the game to try and use the movie as a marketing tool. It's undeniable at this point.

That's so wrong that I don't even know where to start.

... well, could start by correcting your use of "retcon" word. Retcon (retroactive continuity) happens when you go back in a story and add something that wasn't there. Like Illidan's purpose to stop the Legion. There were no retcons in WoD.

[Gheld]

Again, lazy? no. Confusing? Yes.

Because timeways and timelines are part of Warcraft's story since the WotA novel. Blizzard wasn't even trying to retcon anything with WoD, the main purpose was to bring back the Warlords (the first plan was to ressurect them in Outland).

The novels are written by third party authors to get more money out of people who have no control over their wallet. Just look at the damage control they had to do over the Emerald Dream being "solved" in a novel.

The fact that you vehemently defend this WoD of crap.. yeah.. not even going to bother with you son.

[Cl4nK]

Also, what do you mean that "they can destroy everything by destroying our universe, why bother wasting any significant effort on others"? Exactly HOW is our universe special? It's the same Azeroth as millions of other Azeroths across other universes. Check that - in WoD, Legion was doing the EXACT SAME THING on Draenor as it was doing in our Draenor - and they were doing this to attack their version of Azeroth. Which means that ALL of those Azeroths are Legions targets. Legion needs to destroy ALL Azeroths. Which also, funny enough, means that they potentially tried to pull off the "orc corruption plot" billions of times across billions of universes. Mannoroth must be sick and tired of it.

Because our Universe is the Main Timeline? Because it's been said over and over again, both in game and in books that our is the true one, that the Bronze Dragonflight was created to preserve literally OUR timeline, not the others.

Here's the kicker - this whole timey-wimey stuff in WoD, alternate universes and such at least make some degree of sense if you discard the idea of "One Legion across ALL universes". We go back to see potentially the same Mannoroth doing what he did before, Archimonde simply dies on alternate Draenor, meaning he doesn't lead the assault on Hyjal anymore - it's just a standard "what if" scenario. This whole multiverse idea is just a thing that was thrown into the mix by someone on Twitter, and they just seem to be rolling with it. It makes no sense, it's absolutely pointless and the whole idea is that the player is not supposed to think about it.

Still, it was just a few twitter posts. Blizzard doesn't want to deny what their employees wrote, but books like Chronicle don't touch the whole multiverse idiocy with a ten foot pole. And I'm sitting here, baffled by how idiotic the lore would be if this tweet was actually canon.

That would be the case, except it has been mentioned both in the Illidan Novel, as well as in the new Audiodrama featuring Gul'dan/Khadgar, where they literally mention the other timeline and the reasoning for KJ for bringing up a new Gul'dan.

[Qualia]

The novels are written by third party authors to get more money out of people who have no control over their wallet. Just look at the damage control they had to do over the Emerald Dream being "solved" in a novel.

I wouldn't argue about your opinion in regards to WoD or WoW in general. However, the novels are written by third party authors with inputs from Blizzard (i.e: what important points need to be in the story) . Your post seemed to imply that they (the novels) had little to do with canon - that's wrong. If you think those authors could write whatever they want, you are mistaken.

[Gheld]

I wouldn't argue about your opinion in regards to WoD or WoW in general. However, the novels are written by third party authors with inputs from Blizzard (i.e: what important points need to be in the story) . If you think they could write whatever they want, you are mistaken.

And as we all know Blizzard's quality control department has been hitting home runs lately.

[Deleted]

The novels are written by third party authors to get more money out of people who have no control over their wallet. Just look at the damage control they had to do over the Emerald Dream being "solved" in a novel.

The fact that you vehemently defend this WoD of crap.. yeah.. not even going to bother with you son.

False. The novels are written by authors hired by Blizzard in order to write them down. All the novels have previous story bullet points given majorly by Metzen and then accepted or rejected by Metzen himself.

Remember the Eredar retcon? It firstly appeared on the Rise of the Horde novel and it was Metzen's fault, he even admitted that.

- - - Updated - - -

And as we all know Blizzard's quality control department has been hitting home runs lately.

Not the point of this thread or even your previous posts.