What broke the machine of death, I think I solved it.

[Mr Draken]

I had a sudden thought after watching Afterlives: Ardenweald, and it would not get out of my head.

So I have spent the better part of then until now going over everything I could find to see if I was wrong, and I cannot disprove this, but it makes total sense.

What broke the machine of death? seeing Ursocs death narrows our timeline extremely, to the point where I think there is only one possible cause that lines up.

The Defeat of Helya.

What we know, is that Hellhiem and the Halls of Valor were made almost pocket dimensions. made by Helya herself as a place for the Vykrul souls to go after they die. those deemed worthy went to Odyn. Helya took the unworthy. effectively keeping all those souls, that Anima away from the shadowlands.

Sylvanas makes a deal with Helya, one we do not know the details of, but we know at that point she was working for the Jailer. from what we have seen in beta, the Maw has been effectively staved of any Anima, the reason being to keep the Jailer imprisoned.

Helya is defeated, what happens to all the souls she was keeping in Hellhiem? that energy, that Anima.... goes to the maw, effectively jump starting it, giving it the power to push and gain control. allowing the jailer to empower those working for him to act and put plans into motion.

Thoughts? comments? did I miss something? do you have something else to add?

[Deathrange]

Helya isn't dead tho. She is alive and active as proven in BFA.

[Mr Draken]

I suppose I should say, defeated then? either way. I think that moment is what caused the break.

[Garymorilix]

The Legion chronology needs to be cleared up a bit.

So we have Ysera arriving in Ardenweald as "one of the last souls" freshly as we quest through the zone.

At the same time we have Ursoc being there BEFORE the drought started but he also died AFTER Ysera in the actual game.
The only explanation for this would be that the Emerald Nightmare raid happened BEFORE the ending of the Val'sharah storyline, but that is simply impossible as Xavius had to be alive for Ysera's corruption and we deal with him in the raid, not to even mention that we see Ysera's "ghost" at the end of the raid in the Emerald Dream.

So Ursoc arriving in Ardenweald way before the drought even started simply does not make sense with the rest of the continuity.

Also, there needs to be an official confirmation about the order the Broken Shore zones happened in the actual story.
Did Stormheim happen before or after Ysera's death? Even if they happened at the same time, did the lantern break before or after her death?

The fact that the Broken Shore has no official chronology makes it impossible to theorize what exactly happeend that broke Death.

[Squigglyo]

This assumes the problems didnt start earlier.

A drought of souls wouldnt neccesarily see an effect instantly.
They could/would have reserves in place. What we see in the Ardenweald video could be the result of them nearing the end of reserves they started tapping into eons ago.


And lets say that Helya had millions of souls saved up.
If the Maw was being starved, why would these souls not be kept away as well?
No matter how many souls Helya might have had, that would pale in comparison to the entire cosmos' daily death count entering the Shadowlands I would imagine.

[Mr Draken]

This assumes the problems didnt start earlier.

A drought of souls wouldnt neccesarily see an effect instantly.
They could/would have reserves in place. What we see in the Ardenweald video could be the result of them nearing the end of reserves they started tapping into eons ago.


And lets say that Helya had millions of souls saved up.
If the Maw was being starved, why would these souls not be kept away as well?
No matter how many souls Helya might have had, that would pale in comparison to the entire cosmos' daily death count entering the Shadowlands I would imagine.

I agree, but we know things were already snuck out of the maw before that. and no, it may not be equal to the entire cosmos's daily death count. but it could be a large chunk to kick start things.

We also know from Ian that it was during legion specifically that the machine of death broke.

- - - Updated - - -

The Legion chronology needs to be cleared up a bit.

So we have Ysera arriving in Ardenweald as "one of the last souls" freshly as we quest through the zone.

At the same time we have Ursoc being there BEFORE the drought started but he also died AFTER Ysera in the actual game.
The only explanation for this would be that the Emerald Nightmare raid happened BEFORE the ending of the Val'sharah storyline, but that is simply impossible as Xavius had to be alive for Ysera's corruption and we deal with him in the raid, not to even mention that we see Ysera's "ghost" at the end of the raid in the Emerald Dream.

So Ursoc arriving in Ardenweald way before the drought even started simply does not make sense with the rest of the continuity.

Also, there needs to be an official confirmation about the order the Broken Shore zones happened in the actual story.
Did Stormheim happen before or after Ysera's death? Even if they happened at the same time, did the lantern break before or after her death?

The fact that the Broken Shore has no official chronology makes it impossible to theorize what exactly happeend that broke Death.

I dont think the Lantern matters to be honest for this. that was her gift to Sylvanas in return for something yes? what did Sylvanas give her? or promise her? and was the lantern the only thing given by Helya?

Emerald nightmare happens after leveling. Yesera is one of the last yes. but Ursoc could also be one of the last. which would mean the breaking of death happened after that raid. but before we can assume the end of legion.

[aceperson]

one thing you have to keep in mind, helya only ferried souls from azeroth. even then, she didn't ferry every soul on azeroth. it isn't like she ferried every single soul in the entirety of the game. the kyrians existence alone proves that point. i don't think one overly powerful valkyr being temporarily defeated could break the engine of death.

this is probably a long shot theory but i think when sylvanas made the deal with helya, it was to get her to team up with the jailer. what helya wanted in return was vengeance on odyn but that couldn't be done as long as the seal on the halls of valor were in place and she has since lost access to the power she had when she made it. thus, sylvanas sent our forces to combat helya and "defeat" her (since you can't kill death) which would cause the seal to break and free odyn. now that odyn is free, helya is fully on team jailer and is going to break the engine of death, get her promised power, and then try to get revenge on odyn.

one thing did just pop into my mind. While helya "dying" couldn't be the reason, it could've been the trigger. maybe the jailer had everything setup to break the engine of death and was just waiting on helyas defeat to break it. it would explain ursoc getting to ardenweald.

[Squigglyo]

didnt we kill a titan?

A titan soul is probably a shitload of soul-energy. That would definitly upset the balance a bit too.

[Garymorilix]

I agree, but we know things were already snuck out of the maw before that. and no, it may not be equal to the entire cosmos's daily death count. but it could be a large chunk to kick start things.

We also know from Ian that it was during legion specifically that the machine of death broke.

- - - Updated - - -



I dont think the Lantern matters to be honest for this. that was her gift to Sylvanas in return for something yes? what did Sylvanas give her? or promise her? and was the lantern the only thing given by Helya?

Emerald nightmare happens after leveling. Yesera is one of the last yes. but Ursoc could also be one of the last. which would mean the breaking of death happened after that raid. but before we can assume the end of legion.

It's pretty obvious that the breaking of Death happened in Stormheim one way or another.
This is what the pixie says in Ardenweald:
"This spirit was within the last group to arrive before the drought began."
Ursoc died WAY after Ysera and there should have already been drought.

But that is also the huge issue with Ursoc arriving in Ardenweald BEFORE the drought that literally started to happen after Death broke.
It doesn't matter which was the single event in Stormheim that broke Death, what matters is it was way before Ursoc died. So he should not end up in Ardenweald in the first place.

At least with Zandalari Loa's we could say that Bwonsamdi saved them like he said he saved trolls from the Maw. But there was no patron Loa/Wild God in Val'sharah to do this.

The issue here is clearly that Ardenweald is supposed to represent druidism and Ursoc is a pretty big druidic icon.
They also literally built the whole cinematic around the dying dialogue of Ursoc, nothing else.

They clearly fucked this up, should have used a Wild God or Loa that died in an earlier expansion and not Ursoc.
Now all we can do is watch and have fun not thinking about it.

[aceperson]

didnt we kill a titan?

A titan soul is probably a shitload of soul-energy. That would definitly upset the balance a bit too.

it would make sense but it's WAY too late in the timeline to make sense.

[Aresk]

it would make sense but it's WAY too late in the timeline to make sense.

Why is it too late to make sense? When wouldn't it be too late? It would help narrow a timeframe.

Whatever event triggered it was after the first wing of the Emerald Nightmare raid (I don't think the bosses have a firm chronology, but we know it was after Ursoc's death), which is after the initial attack on the Broken Shore, in which Vol'jin was already being played by the agents of death. There could have been any number of minor actions taken that contributed to the break, and there may not even be an Azeroth action that coincides with it; it could have been a hundred or thousand little things done to eventually cause the whole machine to stop working.

[Ursoc18]

My first idea was that it was Genn breaking Sylvanas' lantern.

[Squigglyo]

Do we have anything from Blizzard that points to any timeline that shows us when things might have happened?

Even just a 'between this' and 'that' would be helpful.

[fatgunn]

It's pretty obvious that the breaking of Death happened in Stormheim one way or another.
This is what the pixie says in Ardenweald:
"This spirit was within the last group to arrive before the drought began."
Ursoc died WAY after Ysera and there should have already been drought.

But that is also the huge issue with Ursoc arriving in Ardenweald BEFORE the drought that literally started to happen after Death broke.
It doesn't matter which was the single event in Stormheim that broke Death, what matters is it was way before Ursoc died. So he should not end up in Ardenweald in the first place.

At least with Zandalari Loa's we could say that Bwonsamdi saved them like he said he saved trolls from the Maw. But there was no patron Loa/Wild God in Val'sharah to do this.

The issue here is clearly that Ardenweald is supposed to represent druidism and Ursoc is a pretty big druidic icon.
They also literally built the whole cinematic around the dying dialogue of Ursoc, nothing else.

They clearly fucked this up, should have used a Wild God or Loa that died in an earlier expansion and not Ursoc.
Now all we can do is watch and have fun not thinking about it.

Ursoc's arrival could have been after the drought started but before it was evident in that specific grove. Fawn boy from the video didn't even know about the rest of Ardenweald dying until the Queen shows up. As for him showing up, it's possible wild gods don't operate on the same cycle as mortal souls.

[Mr Draken]

Do we have anything from Blizzard that points to any timeline that shows us when things might have happened?

Even just a 'between this' and 'that' would be helpful.

Yes. They said it was legion. Near the begining. But after the emerald nightmare raid from what we see here.

Also, a thought.... it was mentioned that why woyld Helyas saved up souls matter in the grand scheme? Well... the souls from our war were vital... the more the better. And one would assume she would have many, many more souls from eons of collecting them.

[Darknessvamp]

But we didn't kill Helya so I don't see how that would have an effect on the Arbiter, especially considering her realm and captured souls are completely separated from the Shadowlands and focuses on Vrykul souls just like the Halls of Valor. Plus people are too eager to assume the system broke early on in Legion, all we've been told is it broke sometime during Legion which stretches from the Broken Shore Invasion to the events in Silithus.

Personally I'm betting on our time on Argus having something to do with it, possibly to do with the death of the guy they kept calling a 'Titan of Death'.

[Chakah]

Personally I'm betting on our time on Argus having something to do with it, possibly to do with the death of the guy they kept calling a 'Titan of Death'.

Agreed. And it would be completely consistent of Blizzard to make this the players fault instead of an NPC scheme.
We unbalanced the pantheon of Order by defeating Argus. Killing a literal 'Death Titan' was bound to have consequences.

And it gives them an excuse to bring back Illidan again someday.

[taishar68]

A couple of things to keep in mind:

Time flows differently in the Shadowlands than it does on Azeroth, so when we look at things like Ysera & Ursoc dying, from a timeline perspective, it's not necessarily analogous to their specific events in Ardenweald. Also, in terms of the time between their deaths in our world, it doesn't necessarily have to be a long time in between; in terms of canon, the Emerald Nightmare could have taken place shortly after Ysera's death in Valsharah. Indeed, if your particular character finishes leveling in Valsharah, you could theoretically step right into EN (assuming I am not missing anything from the story, it's been 4 years since I ran it from the jump).

My theory on what actually broke the engine was prompted by the Bastion short. Look at this timeline:

Before Uther's death, the Kyrians are unaware of any odd things happening.
Uther goes to Bastion, and after a while (the time between WC3TFT & WOTLK) at least one Kyrian realizes something is fishy.
Arthas dies, and is dumped into the Maw, sidestepping the normal flow of death. I am going to guess that this sparks an awakening in the Jailer; but to be honest I don't know how relevant a single soul is to either the Arbiter or the Jailer.
Sylvanas commits suicide, and experiences the Maw, or something akin to it. She is saved by the Valkyr, and they make her immortal.
Sometime between the Cataclysm and Legion, she strikes a deal with the Jailer, which leads to Vol'jin's vision and her rise to Warchief. She then begins her machinations that we see in Legion and BfA.

I am guessing that she is playing the Jailer; using him for her ends but making him believe they share a common goal.

*I am aware I may be wrong or missing/forgetting things.

[aceperson]

Time flows differently in the Shadowlands than it does on Azeroth,

you must've missed the clarification on this. time doesn't flow differently. the perception of time in the shadowlands is different. it's a stupid thing to talk about but they did for some reason.

- - - Updated - - -

Why is it too late to make sense? When wouldn't it be too late? It would help narrow a timeframe.

Whatever event triggered it was after the first wing of the Emerald Nightmare raid (I don't think the bosses have a firm chronology, but we know it was after Ursoc's death), which is after the initial attack on the Broken Shore, in which Vol'jin was already being played by the agents of death. There could have been any number of minor actions taken that contributed to the break, and there may not even be an Azeroth action that coincides with it; it could have been a hundred or thousand little things done to eventually cause the whole machine to stop working.

we killed argus months (at least) after ysera died and she is stated to be one of the last to arrive. that means it can't have been to much later than her death for the engine to have broken. we know ursoc also made it which lengthens the time frame a little bit but still not enough to include argus in it.

[Farlomous]

no no no, we all know it was a cat druid that knocked it off the mantle place.