"The Machine of Death" and what event(s) likely broke it [SPECULATION]

[Destinas]

Considering the Legion and Sargeras destroyed entire planets, I highly doubt burning a tree and its inhabitants or triggering a few wars on a single planet would break death.

Sure, but those other beings didn't have a deal with the guy who runs death for the entire universe, and those other planets didn't have a Helm directly connected to (and made in) the Shadowlands. They already stated (on the official website/Blizzcon "What's Next?" panel) that Sylvanas' intention for the burning of Teldrassil was to, in a way, "overpopulate" the Maw with souls. The whole Blood War was part of this. That wasn't exactly speculation, and could be much more directly tied to the "broken machine" mentioned.

The machine of death is broken, and players entering the Shadowlands will find the realm of the dead in disarray. In the natural order of things, souls are sorted and sent on to an afterlife realm appropriate to the lives they lived, but now, but over the past few years, all souls who have perished—including the innocents slain at Teldrassil—are being funneled directly into the Maw. The Shadowlands are starving for anima even as the Maw continues to grow from the glut of fresh souls.

Sylvanas has been seemingly perpetrating acts to bring about great amounts of death and destruction. In partnership with the Jailer, they have been working toward a common end for some time.

https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/news/23187291

That could simply be connected to quite a few other things to "break" the machine, like all the other things I mentioned and mentioned by the OP.

[Syrah-the-Old-One]

In my opinion, it's something connected to the Legion, more precisely, the Nathrezims.

-We know that they are (were ?) amongst the best manipulators and warlocks.
-We "used to know" that they had crafted the Helm of Domination and Frostmourne. We now know that those were stolen in the Shadowlands. Let's imagine the Nathezims did this. Therefore, they knew about the Shadowlands, and how the afterlife "works".
-Concerning the Shadowlands, we know that there's some entity called the "Jailer", who was supposed to watch over a place called the Maw. This place was basically WoW's version of Hell, in the sense that wicked "unredeemable" souls were sent there.

Now, let's think demons.. Those souls probably deserved to be sent to the Maw, right ? But when they died outside of the Twisting Nether, what happened to them ?
They respawned...

Now, for my hypothesis : the demons at first were as mortal as anything. But the Nathezim knew about the Shadowlands. Maybe it was one of the reasons why Sargeras wanted them in the Legion : so he could make his troops almost immortal.
He sent the Nathezim to the Shadowlands, they managed to chain up the Jailer and steal the Helm of Domination and Frostmourne, among other powerful artefacts, so the souls of demons could be brought back to the Nether. (idk how tbh)
After the Legion's defeat and sargeras' imprisonnment, the whole "bypass" must have gone mad and started taking all souls back to the Maw to compensate for how many demons ever respawned..



TL;DR : it's because the Legion wanted immortal soldiers, and they fucked up the death machine for it.

[reploid]

I watched the entirety of blizzcon. Death did not broke around Legion, it broke around Wrath. That video quote is laughable, the person isnt saying that at all. Grasping at straws heavily.

[huth]

How do you guess that?

Uther was stuck in Frostmourne. He's been confirmed to be in Bastion.

[TickTickTick]

One idea that I had is that it was Helya messing up something in the Shadowlands. She had a deal with Sylvanas, about which we don't know almost anything right now. Maybe Sylvanas was instructed to cause large amount of deaths while Helya does something that makes all of the souls to go to the Maw and it somehow powers her up?

Or maybe the fact that so many Night Elves died at the same time somehow broke the "system" of Shadowlands?

But what about Vol'jin? Either he told him to appoint Sylvanas as a new warchief cause he knew with the power of the Horde army she would be able to kill more, WHICH would break the Shadowlands, or...

Maybe it was indeed the AU that broke it? I really don't want to open this can of worms (are there many Arbiters, Jailers, Shadowlands?), but the events of WoD "connected" this Draenor to our timeline, and its inhabitants too. So all of a sudden many orcs, draenei and others appeared in this timeline, about which the Arbiter and the Shadowlands know nothing. Many of them also died shortly after. So maybe that's what broke the Shadowlands? Unidentified people going there and the Arbiter going crazy not knowing anything about them?

[Rustedsaint]

I feel it’s more that the maw started to slowly grab more and more innocent souls till it progressed to this broken mess we in now

[matrix123mko]

Uther was stuck in Frostmourne. He's been confirmed to be in Bastion.

Ok, this is correct. Then, maybe Cataclysm was the moment?

[huth]

Ok, this is correct. Then, maybe Cataclysm was the moment?

Maybe, maybe not. All we have is a lower and upper boundary. It can't have been broken before Cata, and it has to have happened by the time BfA starts or Sylvanas actions make little sense.

[Selastan]

I don't think we have seen this event yet. It's unlikely that anything done in the mortal world could effect the Shadowlands in such a manner. It was an inside job. Why else would Sylvanas have ended up in the maw to begin with? She wasn't that bad. Somehow, someone sent her there against the Arbiter. That person wanted to spook her, to twist her with fear to fight against the mechanisms of death itself. It's unlikely that the Jailer could do that himself, there is a bigger conspiracy. Someone big in the Shadowlands wants to break free, and they plan to do it by releasing the Jailer, breaking death. It's a cross-covenant endeavor, since it was the Val'kyr who mysteriously decided on a whim that they would repeatedly sacrifice themselves to save Sylvanas. They said it was because they 'lost their master', but then why didn't they do the same for Arthas when he died?

[Pahomije]

While we do that, N'Zoth has turned the world into The Black Empire because Visions of N'Zoth is just that, visions. Another threat to the world we have to deal with! I mean, no way that Blizzard will not use The Black Empire as a title for WoW, it's just too good.

Wouldn't it be cool if we somehow die in 8.3 or 8.3.5/9.0 and like cannonically and gameplay-wise spend the whole expansion in Shadowlands, without being able to hs to Azeroth hubs? And when we fix the machine of death, we're granted resurrection, only to return to a postapocaliptic Black Empire. That would mean that the world soul is corrupted though...

On topic, I'm curious as to who/what is the Jailor jailing, why is he jailed atm and who jailed him? Could it be Kil'Jaeden and the Dreadlords when they were stealing Frostmourne and Helm? Or the Arbiter? Or the Titans for that matter?

I'm afraid we're overthinking this, since much of the concept of Shadowlands contradicts previously established lore and in-game facts. What's up with AU Draenor souls, are they doubled? Forsaken and resurrected by the Light chars' souls, are they stolen from respective Covenants? What about various lingering spirits across Azeroth, did they not immediately go before Arbiter upon death?

Is there Ardenweald type dimension version for all other cosmic forses, from whence they can manifest back into (meta)physical realm, the same as Wild Gods? Is the Twisting Nether such afterlife realm for Demons, a part of Shadowlands? I wonder if each Shadowlands realm coresponds to a physical one, or to a primordial cosmic forse one?

[[Apok]]

The jailer is a titan or a titan keeper and his essence is used to fuel "the engine of death" in order for mortals to have some kind of existence after death. (just one theory)

Helm of domination is connected somehow and is part of the anchor point between out reality and the shadowlands, the conciousness of arthas/ner'zhul and the souls captured within frostmourne acted as somewhat of a safeguard to the shadowlands , the maw is the void lords current endgame its their attempt to gain a foothold in our universe. as in order to exist in our universe physically "They thus must consume untold amounts of matter and energy to maintain their presence".

Whether this presence is that of a physical being or as the shadowlands are tied to the denizens of azeroth a way for them to manifest their influence directly in order to corrupt the world soul. If the old gods are pieces of the void lords and they return to their realm to recover upon their death is it not possible that the void lords have learned of azeroth and the failings of their old god spawn after the deaths of y'shaarj, c'thun and yogg and soon N'zoth all their influence on the most powerful world soul is gone.


Another theory is that
Perhaps the jailer is not a titan but another entity akin to elune and as such the "dark" counterpart of her, with alot of fantasy mythos there is a underlying arc that there is no true "light" and "dark" and many of the concepts are just pushed by others to further their own agenda.
The void and titans remind me of the vorlons and shadows of babylon 5 two ancient races who stayed behind when the rest of the ancient races known as the first ones left our galaxy, they were supposed to be the shepherds of the younger developing races and sought to help them evolve and grow, however their viewpoints were diametrically opposed, the vorlons believing in order and teh shadows believing in evolution through struggle and chaos.
Recently in lore interview/panel the said that the chronicle is from the titans's point of view, what if all we know of the void for the most part is just the titans's depiction of them and they are no more noble or pure than the void lords themselves.
They way the vorlons deal with the shadows's influence on younger races is to begin to destroy planets because they believe their taint has spread too far, and that they must purge this, akin to sargeras starting the burning legion because he was afraid of a void corrupted titan, what if this is only the pantheons reasoning as to why he started doing this. what if the void is just the prison for an ancient enemy of the titans one that prized conflict?



Sylvanas could be attempting to break our cycle of death as the younger races did with vorlons and shadows by choosing not to choose which to side within instead choosing to stand on their own?

[Foolicious]

I already posted the clip. You need to read the thread properly before posting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CNy...outu.be&t=1234

That doesn't confirm anything though. Blizzard need to say something like "during the events of x in legion" to confirm it. Recent years is very very vague and doesn't describe any timeframe.

[Seradi]

Genn breaking that fucking lamp in Legion.

This one would be the most hilarious so I hope it’s this one lol.

[Nosgoth]

That doesn't confirm anything though. Blizzard need to say something like "during the events of x in legion" to confirm it. Recent years is very very vague and doesn't describe any timeframe.

Moving the goalposts now.

[Chonar]

Personally I'm still thinking it's connecting two different realities that fucked things up on a cosmic scale.

- "A place of power" for the tomb of Sargeras, sure... but many other areas on Azeroth are places of power. The Well of Eternity, the Vale of Eternal Blossoms...
- Argus being "The Death Titan" is only datamined info and to my knowledge, never acknowledged by Blizzard. We shouldnt have to rely on datamined info to make sense of things.
- You connecting the Rift above the Tomb to the Rift of Aln seems a bit reaching, literally the only thing they have in common is that they are a rift. One is demonic in origin, the other is Old God in origin.

So yeah, still thinking it's suddenly doubling the amount of souls in a single merged reality layer with copies of beings walking around and meeting eachother.

[telygroar]

Helya broke death when she died.

[Lochton]

@RedFenix

The Broken Machine
"The machine of death is broken, and players entering the Shadowlands will find the realm of the dead in disarray. In the natural order of things, souls are sorted and sent on to an afterlife realm appropriate to the lives they lived, but now, but over the past few years, all souls who have perished—including the innocents slain at Teldrassil—are being funneled directly into the Maw. The Shadowlands are starving for anima even as the Maw continues to grow from the glut of fresh souls.

Sylvanas has been seemingly perpetrating acts to bring about great amounts of death and destruction. In partnership with the Jailer, they have been working toward a common end for some time."

Thanks for the thread, was directed here for I ended up questioning all this. I've been told by others that all souls now go to the Maw after this event but the event gotta have been very recently, as in, I would believe - Legion recent if anything. I believe this because of Torga, a Wild God which has been confirmed having to go through the same routine as the rest of us. We see Torga without issue, contacting us from the realm of the dead where we then help avenge him in Nazmir so that he may find ease to be reborn once more. After what I hear from the Nazmir questlines, Torga's death was quite recently as his flesh and blood still lingered in the shell as we arrive.


Unless of course Blizzard is going to retcon Nazmir already...

[Terongor]

Watching Blizzcon, they mentioned that the "Machine of Death" broke sometime around the Legion time-frame. And yes, you will have to watch the event because MMO-Champion didn't include this detail in their recap notes. However, the official notes do fall in line with the Legion timeframe:



Anyways, we can surmise that Azeroth is VERY important on a cosmic scale, not only because of it's world-soul being the most powerful, but because of a couple other factors I'll explain (the Maw and the Rift of Aln). If the Maw's cosmic location is in close proximity to Azeroth (more specifically mirrored from Northrend), it's safe to say that Azeroth's close link to the central hub of the universal afterlife realm of the Great Dark Beyond has made our world the nexus of the universal cycle. If a force wants to unravel all of reality (such as the Burning Legion), the place to go do it is OUR neck of the woods. Following this line of reasoning, I have come up with a few major events that could have done this act.

What broke the Machine of Death?

• 1) Connecting the Alternate Timeline to the Prime Timeline with the Dark Portal and Vision of Time. - While this is ~technically~ before Legion, this event directly led to the events of Legion and keeps within the timeline of a "few years" that they mentioned. Any Azerothian souls that died during the events of WoD might have screwed up the cosmic "sorting" of souls. Would they go to the Arbiter of the Prime Timeline or the Alternate Timeline? This seems like the least likely of the crop, but it was worth mentioning.
  
  
• 2) The Felstorm at the Broken Shore being powered and maintained by the rift of magical power beneath the Tomb of Sargeras. - This "rift" is likely the same anomaly as the Rift of Aln, which connects to both the Twisting Nether AND the Great Dark Beyond (includes the physical plane, Emerald Dream, and the Shadowlands). Gul'dan was using the rift in the physical realm while Xavius was using it in the Emerald Dream. The rift being used in tandem might have strained the fabric of reality and broke the Machine of Death. This rift predated the arrival of the titans to Azeroth, as evidenced by Xal'atath mentioning at the Broken Shore that it was always a place of power that attracted many groups, including her own brethren before trolls settled in that area. She also mentions that the Battle FOR K'tanth that happened there between N'Zoth and Y'Shaarj. It's clear that they were fighting over this location for a reason.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• 3) The power of Death siphoned from Argus, the Unmaker (the Death Titan) and inflicted into the world-soul of Azeroth by Sargeras' sword Gorribal (which is still currently in Silithus). - To me, this seems like the MOST likely scenario, especially taking into account: Argus' abilities/internal "death titan" title from datamining, Blizzard's reluctance to answer questions about him at Blizzcon, and his Mythic red color-scheme (which is canon due to the in-game cinematic of Sargeras turning Argus' soul into an avatar like the other member of the Pantheon and his colors being red at first before transistioning to pale blue, both of which are known "death" colors). Gorribal radiated red energy before we neutralized it with our artifacts. Since Azeroth seems to be in close proximity to the Maw, the huge influx of Death energy might have affected the Rift of Aln connected to Azeroth's world-soul that subsequently connects all realms of existence, including the Shadowlands.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• 4) A combination of two or all three of these events ...might have compounded each other to cause the eventual breaking of the Machine of Death.
  
  
• 5) Other (tell me your reasoning in the comments below)

Tell me what you think!

1) unlikely as sylv nearly prevented it by poisoning Garrosh and she was actually hurt when Vereesa didn't poison Garrosh and prevent WoD.
2) I find it unlikely as Nathrezim and OG seem to know about Death and void sees Jailer as a huge enemy.
3) Well its a possibility but we have nothing supporting it but don't really remember any pure death creatures using red as death colour....(besides argus) dk blood isn't really that kind of red and represent other thing and not every colour mean something. Heck arguses red is more closer to emerald nightmare red.

4)As Sylvanas seemed to someway directly tied to it breaking I find it unlikely.
5) Personally I see something happening during we were in AU draenor which Sylvanas or helped in and we are going to find out about it in SL.

[Cosmic Janitor]

My guess is that what Ion refered to was instigated by the Jailer and Sylvanas. Sylvanas profited from souls going to the maw too much to just blame it on some other event. The reason why dumb and dumber started doing this though may be some powerful soul coming to the shadowlands and shackling down the jailer. I wouldn't be surprised if they dredge out Arthas again and blame it on him somehow or some bullshit with the souls of the 2 nerzuhls merging (are the shadowlands temporally local like the timelines or do they act like the bullshit they made up for the legion and the twisting nether?).

It could be anything though, since the rules of the shadowlands are literally being written (and probably already ignored) right now as we speak.

Edit: Also it could have broken even before WoW started, there is nothing that states the cause and effect are linked in a linear fashion. The cause might have started a gradual spiraling out of control that only recently reached the point where everyone goes to the maw. Heck, half the mythos about the shadowlands include some winged guides that ferry the souls, maybe they were replaced by the ones sylvanas uses in the feature trailer, how else would souls go the maw instead of the usual entry point before the arbiter?

[Mic_128]

Wouldn't it be cool if we somehow die in 8.3 or 8.3.5/9.0 and like cannonically and gameplay-wise spend the whole expansion in Shadowlands, without being able to hs to Azeroth hubs?

Something like that was toyed with during WoD, of us being trapped on Draenor, unable to return to Azeroth. It sounds fun in theory, but god would everyone get tired of it almost immediately.