About the original plan

[Super Dickmann]

That's absolutely insane, and if I'm expected to believe that (which I don't), thank goodness that's dead.

You are expected to believe that, because that's what Baine, who you're more fond of than most, says, as @Mehrunes has again reminded. The Warchief had supreme authority over the Horde in all regards. There has never in the game been a Horde judicial system. There are no Horde judges, there are no Horde courts. The Horde is, or rather was, an army with a state, not a state with an army. Thrall didn't try Burx, Garrosh didn't try Krom'gar. They killed them on the spot and were fully in their right to do so. Past that, any state in the world would deliver either life imprisonment or the death penalty for equivalent acts by those bound to it.

And you should know by now camera focus is not "incidental" in cutscenes by Blizzard, they put immense attention to detail in each shot to cram as much storytelling as possible into a short time frame.

I've seen the cinematic. The Derek model is the Daelin model used in the earlier Jaina cinematic with slightly different textures and a different head. The knife is a part of both models. The reuse and focus on it is symbolic - hence why we center on it as Derek goes on about how he was going to be used to kill them. It's not confirmed that that's the method. Jaina herself ponders if he's a suicide bomber. It's no more a suggestion that that's how he'd go killing (since he'd freed before he's ready anyway) than it is a suggestion that he was still controlled, which you'll recall I told people back when it came out was entirely off-base and he was in control of himself.

[Powerogue]

[MENTION=577136]
The Horde has access to courts but chooses not to use them. Not that it matters, since once you spare any crew who surrender of your own side to rescue a forsaken from a Lich King tier villainous plot you fit the bill anyway. Ditto having an assassination attempt plotted for you before any evidence of wrongdoing besides questioning your evil leader also qualifies.

Fixed. /10chars

I know you have your own way of warping perspective on this but I'm still solidly reflecting Blizzard's side here when writing the story.

[omeomorfismo]

Come to think of it, I should really make a macro to yell "Kamehameha" every time I cast the Azerite beam. @Recovery 's comment really made me giggle

better, i had kame for when i press the button
hame in the middle of the casting
haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
for the duration of the beam xD

m+ pulls were so satisfing

[Super Dickmann]

Fixed. /10chars

Where are the Horde courts? Find me a single Horde judge. After you've found him, which you won't, find me how his authority outstrips that of the Warchief. Then write me the paragraphs lambasting Thrall or Garrosh or any previous Warchief for not using this fictive juridical tool but instead simply killing the people they deemed traitors through the absolute authority vested in them through the Blood Oath.

Past that, the Derek plan occupies around the same moral wavelength as the DK DPS rotation does in raising a ghoul, the Horde does in its widely practiced slavery which it did under every Warchief except possibly Vol'jin or the Forsaken themselves did, what with having built their state through possession. Saurfang's guilt is known to us, the player, for a fact and even if we pretend we haven't seen Lost Honor for whatever reason, we see evidence of his guilt during the questline where we learn he could only have gotten out with SI:7 assistance, with the last thing we see of him before then having been his desertion.

[Mehrunes]

I'll also link Taliesin's cutscene breakdown even if in retrospect he seems to have been wrong about it foreshadowing Derek's brainwashing being ultimately successful. He's very good at noticing the details and symbolism Blizzard put in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ve3B915e5-s

Taliesin turned out to be wrong? Who'd have thunk. But please, do link his breakdown that you yourself doesn't get certain things right. I'm sure this specific part of it happens to be right because that'd be convenient to you, though.

Fixed. /10chars

I know you have your own way of warping perspective on this but I'm still solidly reflecting Blizzard's side here when writing the story.

You projecting whatever nonsense you want onto Blizzard and proclaiming it to be their "intent" that you divined from fish guts or whatever isn't even an echo of an argument.

On more serious note, I don't think you know what fixing something means. There is literally not a single Horde character in a judiciary role for the faction in the game. We've only ever had Warchiefs delivering justice themselves or people acting on Warchief's behalf doing so in their name like when when Bloodhilt punished Gar'dul in Southern Barrens. Which he did by killing him.

So you talking about how @Super Dickmann has "their own way of warping perspective" here is hilarious. Disingenuous as hell, especially coming from someone who can't ever keep their story straight *cough* anything related to Before the Storm *cough*, but hilarious nonetheless.

[Powerogue]

Where are the Horde courts? Find me a single Horde judge. After you've found him, which you won't

While I'm loathe to bring it up, the pandaren have one. And, as much of a mess as it is, we did have that questline in the Brawler's Guild. It's not out of the question. But you're right, under Sylvanas, she asserted absolute, totalitarian authority and attempted to kill anyone who dissented from that authority, or even ran the risk of potentially dissenting from that authority (Thrall). It was bad. We got rid of it for good this time. End of story.

[Mehrunes]

While I'm loathe to bring it up, the pandaren have one. And, as much of a mess as it is, we did have that questline in the Brawler's Guild. It's not out of the question. But you're right, under Sylvanas, she asserted absolute, totalitarian authority and attempted to kill anyone who dissented from that authority. It was bad. We got rid of it for good this time. End of story.

Yes, the Pandaren of Pandaria are truly the judiciary body of the Horde. You cracked that one right open. Sorry @Super Dickmann, but you got proven wrong here.

Also, "it's not that out of the question" is not only a rather terrible standard of evidence in general, but flat out ineffective in context of your previous claims levied at Super Dickmann. You authoritatively stated that you fixed their prior post, claimed they are warping perspective there and that you outright are "solidly reflecting Blizzard's side here when writing the story". You should have something actually tangible here to make the claims you did, not conflating Horde with Pandaria or a private organization within the Horde and going "lel it's not out of the question".

[mickybrighteyes]

Firing the beam from orbit ought to weaken it quite significantly, actually. You'd be wasting a fairly significant part of its power on warming up the atmosphere.

If the beam function as dealing heat damage you might be on to something.... that is not the case however.

But besides that point. functional laws of physics in the game universe don't work at all as we would like to think (i.e. toss a fireball that IGNITES METAL and watch the people wearing said ignited metal run around breathing just fine)

[Kokolums]

Look, Blizz knew this was Garrosh 2.0, but that everyone hated the idea of Garrosh 2.0, so they tried to mask it with this stupid "is she evil or not" stuff.

[mickybrighteyes]

That's absolutely insane, and if I'm expected to believe that (which I don't), thank goodness that's dead.

That's the case... same is true for monarchy or such a position held by a king...


I mean aside from the gnomes, none of the factions are exactly democratic.

[Super Dickmann]

While I'm loathe to bring it up, the pandaren have one. And, as much of a mess as it is, we did have that questline in the Brawler's Guild. It's not out of the question. But you're right, under Sylvanas, she asserted absolute, totalitarian authority and attempted to kill anyone who dissented from that authority, or even ran the risk of potentially dissenting from that authority (Thrall). It was bad. We got rid of it for good this time. End of story.

The Pandaren have a court, yes. It is not the Horde's court. It was used once as a post-hoc tribunal, the outcome of which was rigged. Do you know how Thrall would have dealt with the issue? He wouldn't bring Garrosh to court. He would cave his skull in, because that's how he, and Garrosh and after them Sylvanas dealt with things and it's how the Horde deals with things. The Horde isn't a western liberal democracy, though even if it was, the penalty for generals and officials who'd go on killing sprees to help states that said democracy is at war with would be far from peachy as a jaunt through any modern legal code would have you discover.

Your problem is that you think that people don't grasp Blizzard's intention - everyone knows full well that they tried to cast Baine and Saurfang as put upon heroes and Sylvanas's actions against them or Zelling as uniquely terrible and against the spirit of the Horde, but they fail spectacularly in doing so and referring to the prior lore shows this definitively. And at the same time, to show some kind of loyalty to Blizzard's intent, where convenient you entirely ignore what they're trying to tell you in this abortion of a story - namely that Sylvanas was merely using the institutional powers every Warchief has in the fashion every Warchief was able to and often did use them. That Horde didn't change its system after Vol'jin and just thought putting a good dictator in charge would solve their issue without changing that inherent element would fix things. Hence why the ultimate conclusion of this dross is not to put a new guy in but to gut the foundation of the organisation and change it to be more like its opposition, because oligarchy and bloodline monarchy are the enlightened form of state control.

[Mehrunes]

The Pandaren have a court, yes. It is not the Horde's court.

Wait, what now?

[Jastall]

That's the case... same is true for monarchy or such a position held by a king...


I mean aside from the gnomes, none of the factions are exactly democratic.

Not really true in real life. Most monarchies had courts of law, if only to deal with minor disputes because the King had far better shit to do than to decide whenever this sheep or that pasture belonged to random peasant X or Y. How developed or impartial were said courts obviously varied wildly, but places like medieval England, Rome or China had fairly well developed courts. And while the word of the king/emperor was very important, that it was law only worked on paper if that. In practice every monarch or even warlord relied on their vassals and ignored them very much at their own peril. Modern democracies did not invent laws.

The Horde is perhaps more akin to, say, a Mongolian horde, an army with some semblance of a state that does not require courts because everyone under its command is either a soldier or a servant/slave and it keeps moving from conquest to conquest. But the important part is that, when they were done conquering, said Mongolians ditched such a system and established institutions that allowed them to actually rule their lands, often inspired by what already existed among the conquered populaces, because the Khan couldn't be expected to trek from northern China to Persia every time a problem came up, and these wildly different, often settled populations couldn't be expected to only subscribe to whatever tribal honor and warrior code ruled Mongolian steppe nomads.

Thing is, in this game the Horde never did that. It settled in a permanent territory but kept having the head honcho be an absolute dictator. It absorbed close to dozen races, some of them very different from the Orcs, but didn't change its socio-political structures to accommodate them at all. It has no institutions to speak of and no law that we know beyond "you're a slave to this guy/gal" and "try to kill them this particular way if you think they suck". That's a system worthy of some backwards tribe or single roving army, not a global superpower composed of many races that has far too many problems to solve for one individual. While Blizzard has been absolutely shit at actually handling the issues that would naturally crop up from such a blindingly stupid tradition, that there were issues only makes sense to me, the Horde just straight up makes no sense at all as it is presented in the lore.

[Eazy]

She still says that only when talking about the whole campaign.

Whole campaign and the fight with Malfurion.

Her initial comment to Saurfang in regards to Malfurion specifically still is that he was wasting her time.

Just as she was wasting his time. She was acting like Vegeta who had even fight with Goku saying "oh, he was just wasting my time... phew".

He also still had to flee from her three times and the later

And she ran from him also? Your argument is what?

the later (and as such canon) portrayal in the novel still says squat about Sylvanas kneeling or moaning with pain.

Game and novel are not excluding themselves. Novel is written by the characters perspective, while game is written by the players. There are things in the novel that we didn't see in the game and there were things in the game that we didn't see in novel. They are both limited and cannot present us everything and each second of that battle, which means as long as they're not excluding themselves - they're canon.

[mickybrighteyes]

Not really true in real life. Most monarchies had courts of law, if only to deal with minor disputes because the King had far better shit to do than to decide whenever this sheep or that pasture belonged to random peasant X or Y. How developed or impartial were said courts obviously varied wildly, but places like medieval England, Rome or China had fairly well developed courts. And while the word of the king/emperor was very important, that it was law only worked on paper if that. In practice every monarch or even warlord relied on their vassals and ignored them very much at their own peril. Modern democracies did not invent laws.

I'm not seeing much elaboration on how a ruler getting personally involved wouldn't have final say if they took action...

I'm seeing delegation of other issues to lesser powers... at least in this description.

My understanding is still if the ruler gets involved there is no one who can really stop them. Like if Varian wanted to go invade some territory and kill someone, no one existed to force him to stop... he had advisors who would argue it's a bad idea, but he still had the final authority to make the command.

Thing is, in this game the Horde never did that. It settled in a permanent territory but kept having the head honcho be an absolute dictator. It absorbed close to dozen races, some of them very different from the Orcs, but didn't change its socio-political structures to accommodate them at all. It has no institutions to speak of and no law that we know beyond "you're a slave to this guy/gal" and "try to kill them this particular way if you think they suck". That's a system worthy of some backwards tribe or single roving army, not a global superpower composed of many races that has far too many problems to solve for one individual. While Blizzard has been absolutely shit at actually handling the issues that would naturally crop up from such a blindingly stupid tradition, that there were issues only makes sense to me, the Horde just straight up makes no sense at all as it is presented in the lore.

Another issue with faction background is that they really don't bother discussing anything outside of whatever story arc is the flavor of the month. Like there was never any inkling of slave fighting rings in orgrimmar until we sat through Varian's revealed backstory for Lo'gash. We don't really look at any facets of these multiple groups gathered together be it forsaken and orcs and elves...

Honestly the lore in general is rather fucked with blatant posturing to make us react to specific events in certain way. Like how we're supposed to take the "honor" bullshit as something for the entire horde when there was never any established idea to connect the elves or forsaken or trolls.... One could argue orcs had something pushed for as their idea of honor and maybe tauren as well, but the rest? wtf are they supposed to think of?

[Jastall]

I'm not seeing much elaboration on how a ruler getting personally involved wouldn't have final say if they took action...

I'm seeing delegation of other issues to lesser powers... at least in this description.

My understanding is still if the ruler gets involved there is no one who can really stop them. Like if Varian wanted to go invade some territory and kill someone, no one existed to force him to stop... he had advisors who would argue it's a bad idea, but he still had the final authority to make the command.

With his own army, sure. In real life, a king's army was mostly made up of the troops levied by their vassals. If they had enough, they could easily pressure him into ending his military ventures. Several English kings had that happen to their expeditions in France, for example. Or the king could run out of money and be forced to stop as well. Thankfully for the people of Azeroth, logistics do not exist in their universe, or at least exist only for so long as the plot demands it and then go back to being a non-issue. See Stormwind being down to sending farmers to the frontlines early in BFA, but then never mentioning a lack of soldiers again.

No idea how Stormwind is structured nowadays however. In vanilla the House of Nobles was important to its story and conceivably would have a say in sending the city's troops half a world away, but since then the place (and to some extent the Alliance itself) is apparently the uncontested Wrynn solo show, because if there's one thing that is better than turning the Horde into the Alliance is it turning the Alliance into the Horde.

[mickybrighteyes]

No idea how Stormwind is structured nowadays however. In vanilla the House of Nobles was important to its story and conceivably would have a say in sending the city's troops half a world away, but since then the place (and to some extent the Alliance itself) is apparently the uncontested Wrynn solo show,

Basically they neutered everything about the alliance and hoisted Varian as "high king" of the alliance. A position that previously was supposed to be the equivalent of, say, America's 5 Star General/Admiral rank. House of nobles sort of vanished, as did a number of major figures.

because if there's one thing that is better than turning the Horde into the Alliance is it turning the Alliance into the Horde.

In some aspects it would be a benefit to the story. Give some storylines to non-humans among the alliance but honestly the story is too blatant with making one side look far worse than the other... not because of actions shown but because characters go out of the way to STATE it. Like Sapphy and Grizzie running to the alliance because they're afraid of their research getting used with the assumption that the alliance would never use it in the way the horde would (but we later see both factions abusing azerite war machines anyways XD)

[huth]

If the beam function as dealing heat damage you might be on to something.... that is not the case however.

But besides that point. functional laws of physics in the game universe don't work at all as we would like to think (i.e. toss a fireball that IGNITES METAL and watch the people wearing said ignited metal run around breathing just fine)

No, regardless of what it's funciton is. You seem to be forgetting the part where it's functionally hitting the atmosphere the entire way to the target. The only way to avoid that is to not have an atmosphere.

[Jastall]

Basically they neutered everything about the alliance and hoisted Varian as "high king" of the alliance. A position that previously was supposed to be the equivalent of, say, America's 5 Star General/Admiral rank. House of nobles sort of vanished, as did a number of major figures.



In some aspects it would be a benefit to the story. Give some storylines to non-humans among the alliance but honestly the story is too blatant with making one side look far worse than the other... not because of actions shown but because characters go out of the way to STATE it. Like Sapphy and Grizzie running to the alliance because they're afraid of their research getting used with the assumption that the alliance would never use it in the way the horde would (but we later see both factions abusing azerite war machines anyways XD)

The sheer cognitive dissonance of working with Magni that says people mining isolated Azerite veins need to be put to the sword posthaste while I queue for an Island Expedition where my goal is to murder hundreds and gather a shipload of the stuff so my faction can make bombs and tanks of them was indeed not lost on me. The consequences of having several narratives going on at once, one assumes.

Much like Legion was all about us uniting to kill the demons, except in the different space-time continuum around Warden Towers and open world PvP objectives where you just forget about all that nonsense and murder each other because screamy lady/gruffy Mcgruffman says so. Lorewise it was probably different characters doing that.

[Evaddon]

I don't know, the plot feels like they wanted it to go different way but decided to take it another way on a bigger scale then what was originally intended, I think they had a smaller scaled story planned but decided to bridge into the powers around the Warcraft universe, rather then the people and World of Azeroth. Which is both a positive and a negative...but we could see how this ties into elements of the future story or if it doesn't at all.