Is it time to scrap the Alliance and Horde?

[Varodoc]

You are talking about 2 different "The Hordes". The Horde that invaded Azeroth was "The Orcs", mind controlled by Sargeras. The Horde that currently resides in World of Warcraft is a military alliance between multiple people groups. The first Horde was formed the "conquer stuff", as you say. The current Horde was formed to preserve themselves.

If you want to see how the current Horde came to be, it is shown through the story of Warcraft III. In that story you can see various oppressed groups banding together to overcome their oppressors. So both statements can be true. It doesn't have to be one or the other. The Alliance exists because of the Orcs. The current Horde exists largely due to the humans - though obviously the impending Burning Legion invasion and Medivh's (a human) intervention had a lot to do with it as well. But if the Orcs aren't enslaved by humans, it's likely Thrall never forms the new Horde in the first place.

Strange, the first thing I see upon starting WC3 is Thrall leading an orcish army through a human town in clear violation of the Alliance Internment Act that was keeping the peace in the land.

And your attempt at excusing the Horde of their crimes is easily disproven by Saurfang noting that the majority of the modern Horde follow the bloody legacy of Blackhand, while Thrall and Vol'jin were the outliers.

Finally, any attempt at disconnecting the WoW Horde from the Old Horde is futile as the WoW Horde literally named their capital after the Warchief of the Old Horde. The moment Blizzard decided that the """"modern""" Horde capital should be named "Orgrimmar" is the moment your entire argumentation crumbled to dust.

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This is increasingly looking like another attempt to defend the Horde (and by extension Blizzard) at all costs.

The thing is that Blizzard itself never defended Garrosh or presented him as a reasonable dude, in fact pretty much everyone immediately turned on him, as they saw that he was a genocidal lunatic, starting with Cairne and Vol'jin.

It's just a vocal minority on this forum that is adamant on defending Garrosh's and the Horde's actions in Cataclysm, even though the story never makes any attempt at doing so.

[Caiphon]

As I've already said (and you appear to be ignoring), there are no naturally occurring farmlands. Jungles are incredibly fertile areas that can be and have been reclaimed into useful farmland.

Jungles tend to have thin, loose topsoil that is easily removed through heavy rainfall (which tropical climates tend to have plenty of). This exposes the subsoil which contains little organic material and is quick to dry, resulting in a fairly dusty patch of land that has limited potential for growing crops. Jungles made farmland yield good harvests for a year or two then rapidly deteriorate as the topsoil is expended. Look up 'jungle topsoil' on google and you'll see plenty of irl examples.

Yes this can be remedied to an extent through various means (ex. chemical fertilisers) but we don't really know how advanced Azerothian agricultural science is - after all these folks primarily fight with swords and axes.

It's one of the single most ridiculous claims in the entire faction stalemate, and that's saying something.

Between Sylvanas loyalists abandoning their beloved queen because of a single utterance, the Zandalari throwing their entire army at literal mists AND failing to notice that their entire fleet had been rigged with bombs for a while, the Kaldorei fighting absymally in their own lands in response to an extremely forseeable attack etc. the Horde's food shortage certainly isn't on the more ridiculous side of Blizzard's plot spectrum. Which leads to the next part:

This is increasingly looking like another attempt to defend the Horde (and by extension Blizzard) at all costs.

I have loathed Blizzard's storytelling since mid MoP and would likely be one of the last folks to defend that aspect of the company. However I do not think it's an extreme stretch for them to say the Horde lacked food and farmlands, especially in the region surrounding their capital. They also went great lengths through online stories and novels explaining how Orgrimmar was struck with famine after the Shattering, which is something they don't do anymore when implementing monumental lore events. Durotar is a wasteland and the Barrens are, well, literally called the Barrens. If Ashenvale is as fertile as the stories make it out to be it's not far fetched for a hot headed militant warchief to invade, real life leaders have made war for much less.

I will say though that I'm also not one of the three or four people with a hate boner for the Horde, droning on and on about how the Horde should be dismantled, how they should have been wiped from Azeroth long ago and etc. This isn't Warhammer Fantasy where the factions are black and white. The Horde and its champions have stood up against countless threats to the planet ranging from the Legion, the Scourge, the Old Gods and their lackies and of course bald man. And they will continue to do so, even if it means standing with the Alliance, should the world be threated by another force of evil. And if you've played the DF beta you'll know that even Alliance characters generally acknowledge this, albeit to varying degrees.

[Florena]

Scrap them? No.

Deemphasize the faction conflict, allow more communication/in game cooperation between factions? Sure, sounds good.

[Feanoro]

@Caiphon Notice I said lands converted with work. For a real world example prior to modern fertilizers, look into Zimbabwe which (as Rhodesia) was converted from jungle to farmland to the point that it now produces a food surplus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Zimbabwe

Azeroth has druids, shamans, and (crazily enough) farmers. There is nothing short of writer laziness stopping the Horde from developing and/or learning agriculture.


The Horde standing up to world ending threats is nothing more than self preservation. That does not excuse multiple genocidal campaigns against the Alliance.

[Aresk]

Just look at how they restored the Western Plaguelands from Chernobyl to a semi-decent farming area (iirc there are even Alliance farmers there, before morally grey Sylvanas and Forsaken move in, butcher everyone mercilessly, and add their corpses into their army of the dead).

There are multiple farms in WPL. Two north of Andorhal and two east of it, with the one immediately east being conscripted by the Alliance during the battle of Andorhal. IIRC, there are also some farmers south by Chillwind Camp, but no farm is depicted on the map there.

You are talking about 2 different "The Hordes". The Horde that invaded Azeroth was "The Orcs", mind controlled by Sargeras. The Horde that currently resides in World of Warcraft is a military alliance between multiple people groups. The first Horde was formed the "conquer stuff", as you say. The current Horde was formed to preserve themselves.

If you want to see how the current Horde came to be, it is shown through the story of Warcraft III. In that story you can see various oppressed groups banding together to overcome their oppressors. So both statements can be true. It doesn't have to be one or the other. The Alliance exists because of the Orcs. The current Horde exists largely due to the humans - though obviously the impending Burning Legion invasion and Medivh's (a human) intervention had a lot to do with it as well. But if the Orcs aren't enslaved by humans, it's likely Thrall never forms the new Horde in the first place.

Many people already pointed out several inconsistencies with this, but I'll add a few other points that haven't been discussed. First, the orcs were not mind-controlled; they had amped up aggression but were still capable of making up their own minds. Second, the "first Horde" was initially led by Blackhand until Orgrim Doomhammer replaced him. Upon the Horde's defeat in WC2, the orcs were put in internment camps with some of them escaping, including Doomhammer, who later met Thrall and named him as the new Warchief. Thrall literally donned Orgrim's armor and picked up the Doomhammer as his own weapon, as well as maintained all the customs of the Horde. Given that the line of Warchief succession goes from Blackhand through Sylvanas unbroken, it seems very disingenuous to say it's a completely different organization, even if the goals of the organization have shifted under different leaders (e.g. Thrall's focus on peace was very different from Garrosh's focus on conquest).

[Segus1992]

Very unlikely only because its pretty much become a part of their brand identity for WarCraft.

"pretty much"? It literally has been since mid Vanilla. No way they're scrapping it.

[Varodoc]

There are multiple farms in WPL. Two north of Andorhal and two east of it, with the one immediately east being conscripted by the Alliance during the battle of Andorhal. IIRC, there are also some farmers south by Chillwind Camp, but no farm is depicted on the map there.

Yes, that's right.

And for the record, that project to restore the Western Plaguelands was a joint Argent Crusade/Cenarion Circle effort, but both of these organizations are neutral paramilitary groups of volunteers, and so we can't expect them to have many funds or resources in the first place (the Argent Crusade was literally based in a ruined, decrepit chapel in the middle of a wasteland). I imagine that the Horde, one of the two main mortal superfactions on Azeroth, would have far more resources and manpower to devote to such a project, and so there's really no excuse as to why the Horde/Garrosh couldn't just order a restoration process of the Barrens or even Tirisfal.

If Ashenvale is as fertile as the stories make it out to be it's not far fetched for a hot headed militant warchief to invade, real life leaders have made war for much less.

Those wars would not be started irl if we had mages and druids who can literally make the land fertile with magic.

A peaceful solution could have been found. But, as per his own admission, Garrosh was a warrior obsessed with the stories of the Old Horde. A wiser leader would have refrained from invading Alliance territory and starting a war with the Alliance.

[Caiphon]

@Caiphon Notice I said lands converted with work. For a real world example prior to modern fertilizers, look into Zimbabwe which (as Rhodesia) was converted from jungle to farmland to the point that it now produces a food surplus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Zimbabwe

Azeroth has druids, shamans, and (crazily enough) farmers. There is nothing short of writer laziness stopping the Horde from developing and/or learning agriculture.

You'd think with world-ending disasters happening every other year Azerothians would have normalised modern to even science fiction level weaponary yet they still fight with steel swords and axes, even though they have SF-level civilisations (hello eredar!) among them to expedite the process. That's basically how fantasy works - the setting has a certain technological level and it usually doesn't progress much over time. What shamanism and druidism does to the land is solely up to the writers, and if they say terraforming isn't in the repertoire that's just how it is really. We even have in-game examples of druidism backfiring horribly when used to enhance ecosystems.

The Horde standing up to world ending threats is nothing more than self preservation. That does not excuse multiple genocidal campaigns against the Alliance.

You almost make it sound like the Alliance stood up to all these threats to protect the Horde. Both factions stood up to protect themselves and their people first and foremost but they were also able to agree that Azeroth itself must be protected and healed. That alone is a compeletely different stance from Warhammer's Armies of Chaos who just want to see everything burn or even BfA~SL Sylvanas who strived to have the world succumb to Death. And if you actually play through the Horde quests it's very, very obvious that the PC and major lore characters fight and put themselves at risk for causes greater than just saving their hides, to save other beings, the world, or even the entire universe. That's literally the definition of heroism. I don't know what kind of satisfaction you get from all the hate but this game has always been about heroes of the Alliance and Horde saving Azeroth from various evils that seek to destroy her.

[Ragedaug]

Strange, the first thing I see upon starting WC3 is Thrall leading an orcish army through a human town in clear violation of the Alliance Internment Act that was keeping the peace in the land.

This backs my point. To your point, yes, if the Orcs kept being good slaves, they would not have formed the new Horde. They would have known and stayed in their place.

And your attempt at excusing the Horde of their crimes is easily disproven by Saurfang noting that the majority of the modern Horde follow the bloody legacy of Blackhand, while Thrall and Vol'jin were the outliers.

I'm not excusing anything. I'm explaining what happened, because you clearly have no idea what you are talking about. You started with conflating the current Horde with Gul'dan's Horde that invaded Azeroth. The only thing they have in common is the name.

Finally, any attempt at disconnecting the WoW Horde from the Old Horde is futile as the WoW Horde literally named their capital after the Warchief of the Old Horde. The moment Blizzard decided that the """"modern""" Horde capital should be named "Orgrimmar" is the moment your entire argumentation crumbled to dust.

Doomhamer was the first leader working to break the Horde free of the Burning Legion. He culled the Shadow Council and Blackhand. His further military campaigns against the humans was not good, but Doomhammer knew the Orcs were stuck in this strange land and knew they would be enslaved or eradicated if they could not establish a strong kingdom. None of this excuses Doomhammer, though the acts of the humans following War II show he was correct in understanding the fate of the Horde. If only he has a crow telling him to cross the sea, he could have and would have saved a lot of bloodshed. Anyway, Thrall honors Doomhammer for his work in freeing the Orcs from human slavery as well as from Sargares' slavery.

If your point was correct, and the Orcs were just celebrating and honoring the old Horde for their blood lust and savagery, Orgrimmar would be named Guldannar or Blackhandar.

[Varodoc]

This backs my point. To your point, yes, if the Orcs kept being good slaves, they would not have formed the new Horde. They would have known and stayed in their place.

If the orcs didn't try to commit genocide on all the civilizations in the Eastern Kingdoms, the humans wouldn't have held a grudge.

That you unironically thought this was a good argument is hilarious to me.

You also ignored that they choose the internment camp route because they didn't want to stoop to the Horde's level and just kill every surviving orc, but that's par for the course when it comes to this debate and the few who defend the orcs.

I'm not excusing anything. I'm explaining what happened, because you clearly have no idea what you are talking about. You started with conflating the current Horde with Gul'dan's Horde that invaded Azeroth. The only thing they have in common is the name.

They have much more in common than just the name, given how there are literal war veterans from the Old Horde like Eitrigg and Saurfang who were part of the New Horde.

Doomhamer was the first leader working to break the Horde free of the Burning Legion. He culled the Shadow Council and Blackhand. His further military campaigns against the humans was not good, but Doomhammer knew the Orcs were stuck in this strange land and knew they would be enslaved or eradicated if they could not establish a strong kingdom. None of this excuses Doomhammer, though the acts of the humans following War II show he was correct in understanding the fate of the Horde. If only he has a crow telling him to cross the sea, he could have and would have saved a lot of bloodshed.

Ever heard of a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Gee, no wonder the humans mistreated the orcs after Doomhammer doubled down on the massacre after the First War and tried to destroy all the northern kingdoms of humans, elves, and dwarves.

Anyway, Thrall honors Doomhammer for his work in freeing the Orcs from human slavery as well as from Sargares' slavery.

Thrall also acknowledges that his people were monsters who had to atone for their sins, hence why he chose to establish his new city in a literal wasteland.

Thus disproving your flawed and non-canonical notion that the New Horde cannot be held accountable for the sins of the past. Given how Thrall literally choose Durotar as their new home to atone for the sins of the past, meaning that even Thrall (and Blizzard ofc, via Thrall) agrees with me, and not with you, that the orcs were responsible for everything they did in the past, and that they had a lot to atone for.

Even the newest expansion addresses this, as the crimes committed by the Dragonmaw under Doomhammer against Alexstrasza and her brood were never forsaken by the world.

If your point was correct, and the Orcs were just celebrating and honoring the old Horde for their blood lust and savagery, Orgrimmar would be named Guldannar or Blackhandar.

My bro, it's literally named after a dude who caused more wreckage and destruction across the kingdoms than Gul'dan and Blackhand ever did.

You understand that Doomhammer waged a world war that engulfed the entire continent in bloodshed and carnage, yes? Just to give you an example, literally every single holding in Khaz Modan (a very large kingdom in the central EKs) fell except for Ironforge itself. The same argument can be made for Quel'Thalas (a major kingdom of the north), as large swathes of the forest kingdom were burned to ashes and only the capital was spared thanks to Ban'dinoriel.

I don't think you understand at all the sheer magnitude of the war that Doomhammer started.

[Combatbutler]

Thrall also acknowledges that his people were monsters who had to atone for their sins, hence why he chose to establish his new city in a literal wasteland.

An incredibly stupid thing to do, since it punished the next generations, more or less ensuring future conflict.

[Ragedaug]

If the orcs didn't try to commit genocide on all the civilizations in the Eastern Kingdoms, the humans wouldn't have held a grudge.

Literally no one (including me) is arguing against that. Yes, the Orcs started it. Yes, the humans response to the Orcs it reasonable. Both of those points you keep making are obvious, and again, no one is arguing against that. You have beat that strawman down. But then you act like it's weird that the descendants of those conquering Orcs would take exception to life long enslavement.

That you unironically thought this was a good argument is hilarious to me.

The fact that you think things happen in a vacuum and the descendants of criminals should be kept enslaved indefinitely and those slaves wouldn't ever do anything about it is hilarious to me. So I suppose we are even.

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I'm responding to specific point, then you go all over the place mentioning things I'm not talking about. To be honest, it's very difficult having a conversation with you. You mention a thing, I respond to that thing, then you respond with "but all these other things" instead of continuing to discuss the point in contention. I agree with like 95% of what you are saying, so it weird that you respond to me with all those other things, since I agree and am not arguing those points. So probably pointless to continue our conversation. I'll let you have the last word, but am not planning on continuing this conversation with you. All the best. Have a good one.

[Varodoc]

Literally no one (including me) is arguing against that. Yes, the Orcs started it. Yes, the humans response to the Orcs it reasonable. Both of those points you keep making are obvious, and again, no one is arguing against that.

So if you acknowledge that the orcs started it, why did you begin this convo by claiming that the modern Horde formed in response to any action done by the Alliance?

The current Horde exists largely due to the humans - though obviously the impending Burning Legion invasion and Medivh's (a human) intervention had a lot to do with it as well. But if the Orcs aren't enslaved by humans, it's likely Thrall never forms the new Horde in the first place.

No, the modern Horde did not form in reaction to an action done by the Alliance, because the creation of the internment camps was, in itself, a reaction to the Second War started by the orcs. In the end, all the humans did was defend themselves and then choose to spare the surviving orcs instead of slaughtering them.

Claiming that the modern Horde formed in response to Alliance aggression is erasing the First and Second War, because the Alliance of Lordaeron itself was formed in response to the Old Horde's invasions.

But then you act like it's weird that the descendants of those conquering Orcs would take exception to life long enslavement.

Descendants? Last I checked, plenty of adult orcs who fought for the Old Horde survived and went on to join the New Horde. Not even 20 years passed since the end of the Second War and the Third War.

The fact that you think things happen in a vacuum and the descendants of criminals should be kept enslaved indefinitely and those slaves wouldn't ever do anything about it is hilarious to me. So I suppose we are even.

So did you just ignore the part where I pointed out that we know at least two veterans of the Old Horde who went on to join the New Horde (Saurfang and Eitrigg) and there are probably many more named characters and, obviously, unnamed people like that?

I'm responding to specific point, then you go all over the place mentioning things I'm not talking about. To be honest, it's very difficult having a conversation with you. You mention a thing, I respond to that thing, then you respond with "but all these other things" instead of continuing to discuss the point in contention. I agree with like 95% of what you are saying, so it weird that you respond to me with all those other things, since I agree and am not arguing those points. So probably pointless to continue our conversation. I'll let you have the last word, but am not planning on continuing this conversation with you. All the best. Have a good one.

I respond with "but all these other things" because, believe it or not, context is important.

Your first point that the orcs would not have formed a """"new"""" Horde if the humans didn't oppress them is technically true, but obviously I, as an Alliance player, am not going to stop there, and I am going to point out that the humans held a grudge (reasonably) against the orcs for all the shit they pulled.

You then tried to say that Gul'dan's Horde and Thrall's Horde only have the name in common, at which point I highlighted the fact that many orcs of Thrall's Horde are veterans of the Gul'dan's Horde (and it's not even subtle, in-game Saurfang never shuts up about his PTSD from the First War and when he butchered the humans of Stormwind).

You then attempted to argue that Doomhammer was wise, as he knew that the strange world would never accept the orcs unless they won, then cited their treatment at the hands of the humans after the war. I pointed out, once again, that context is important and that the humans probably wouldn't have treated the orcs so poorly if Doomhammer didn't start a world war against them. I specifically used the term "self-fulfilling prophecy" as it describes the situation perfectly.

Following this, you argued that Thrall honours and admires Doomhammer, but this is only one side of the picture. Because, on the other hand, we see that Thrall very clearly feels that his people are guilty for the actions of the Old Horde led by Doomhammer; guilty enough that they need to atone for their past sins by settling in Durotar, an arid wasteland where nothing grows. Thrall respects Doomhammer as he was his friend and mentor, but he also acknowledges that Doomhammer had ton of blood on his hands.

And finally, you said that if the Horde honored the bloodlust and savagery, they'd name the capital after Gul'dan or Blackhand. At which point I noted that Doomhammer caused more carnage throughout Azeroth than the two of them combined, and so it was a moot point to make, because Doomhammer had his own share of bloodlust and savagery.

[Aucald]

As this thread remains mired in Alliance vs. Horde posts, as opposed to discussing WoW without either the Horde or Alliance, there's no real reason for it to continue - especially since there are a plethora of other threads to debate the topic. Closing this.