Time for my first thread, oh boy
*clears throat*
BfA Alpha Speculation everyone, and I know this topic is spicy, but first: The facts.
After Ion Hazzikostas mentioned Draenor Orcs as a future allied race in the January 30 Q&A, we all didn't know, what Draenor Orcs are meant. We live in a timeline where Draenor isn't really "Draenor", because Outland, but I guess I don't need to explain that to you.
Last week's Alpha 26010 added a Gorgrond map, which first sparked the discussion. Gorgrond, not Blade's Edge Mountains. Also the Gorgrond map had no structures whatsoever, because it was stripped clean of them. I assume because it's not needed for a scenario, which is going to be built from half-scratch anyway. So it was obvious that it will be the alternative Orcs from Draenor...right?
Well...not really, because Alpha 26032 added the "Mag'har Direwolf", a direct link to the Mag'har Orcs from Outland.
The question at this point is...why? We now have one point for Draenor Orcs and one point for Draenor...well, Outland Orcs. At this point I'd first like you to answer the poll, what you think would be better. And why?
Now to the speculations, and I really want to know your opinion on that, because otherwise I wouldn't open a thread for that matter.
In my opinion, and this is just my opinion, the Allied Race will be the Mag'har Orcs, but from alternative Draenor.
I know you'll ask one very important thing right now and asking that is only right: But the Mag'har are from Outland, how is that possible?
I first wanted to argue for the Outland alternative, too, but then I read up on the Mag'har. Who and what are they? So I read through their Gamepedia article and found many very important clues. One lead to another in my research, so I'll present them in the exact same order.
1. "Mag'har" literally means "uncorrupted": This is a very relevant point. The Draenor orcs speak the same Orcish as our Orcs do, or at leas we have no case against that, so "Mag'har" will mean the same thing to them. When the orcs sacrificed EVERYTHING in Patch 6.1 you can see members of different clans. Also, the raid in Patch 6.2 showed members of different clans, very prominent in the council of hellfire-fight. We don't really know how many orcs drank the Blood of Mannoroth at that point, we can just assume it were less orcs because of their losses in most parts of Draenor and the focus on Tanaan as a zone. But we can be certain, that there are indeed uncorrupted orcs. In all clans, not only in the frostwolves, because of one thing that wasn't really prominent in the WoD Lore...
2. The red pox and the timeline problem: The virus that made our orcs immune or at least partially immune to the fel corruption did appear "years prior to the Blood Pact with Mannoroth", so is it the same with Draenor? We know that things are different, because well I dunno, and correct me if I'm wrong, but we don't really hear anything about that in WoD, at least not after Patch 6.1. But having the red pox as a real THING in Draenor Draenor creates the perfect bridge for one thing I think everyone who is interested in the Draenor Orc Allied Race wants...
3. Uncorrupted, but different: The Mag'har orcs are boring. Not in the slightest in terms of lore, don't get me wrong, and not in terms of characters, but in terms of clan diversity. They are members of all clans, members of all clans forming one assimilated culture of "just orcs" since decades now. If you allow even the Iron Horde-loyal orcs to be uncorrupted via the red pox, you can use any orc from any clan as a possible Player Character. And that's awesome, right? This opens the realistic lore-founded possibility for the Blackrock and the Laughing Skull Clan, this opens it for every clan we visited on Draenor. You could call it lame storytelling, but in the end, wouldn't it be just pure logic that lets the red pox exist in alternative Draenor? That will lead to the orcish speaking population to call the uncorrupted Orcs "Mag'har"? That will lead the horde protagonists, together with Eitrigg, Thrall, Saurfang (or whoever, that's some discussion for another day), to recruit them for the Horde? I think it is. But what do YOU think?
Thank you for reading this, I hope I was succesfull in throwing in some new firewood to the already burning discussion with my first thread™. I hope we can have a nice politeful discussion here, but maybe it will just be a shitshow, obviously I can't see in the future and maybe this whole essay is obsolete in a few hours when a new Alpha patch renames the "Mag'har Direwolf" in, I dunno, "Gorgrond Wolfie", or whatever, but we are here to speculate, because that's why we're here, right?