What would have happend if Terenas decided to outright kill the orcs?

[Ardenaso]

I think it's pretty much Terenas himself who inadvertently sped up the membership of the Cult of the Damned and greatly contributed to the Burning Legion's Third Invasion. I mean because he decided to push to tax for the Internment Camps, it put the Alliance of Lordaeron in a very tight spot:

• Gilneas Leaving, and them building the Greymane Wall
• Arathi Leaving
• High Elves Leaving, _{which subsequently fueled Othmar Garithos hatred towards the High Elves}; and the elves who helped in Warcraft 3 were just random volunteers or were commissioned by the Kirin Tor and Silverhand
• The Barovs' desperation that made them accept and build the bastion for the Cult of the Damned
• Many angry farmers and impoverished people joining the Cult of the Damned
• All of the above, domino effect on Gilneas, Stromgarde, and (formally) Quel'thalas not being there for Lordaeron when Arthas was still scourging the Western Plaguelands (at least they had Kalimdor brigades, it's something)

So, title. Would the Cult of the Damned be just some sort of a small group of humans and elves in a small camp? Would the Kul Tirans have completely genocided the Darkspears in Sen'jin Isles? Would Dar'kan Drathir dabble in the Void instead of helping the Cult of the Damned? Would the Centaurs drive the Taurens to extinction? What do you guys think?

Edit: I'm guessing if not the Plague problem, the Alliance of Lordaeron might have been able to help the Gnomes defend their homeland from the Troggs.

[Arikara]

Ultimately the Legion would've managed to invade regardless, because they always do. Without the orcs, trolls, and tauren at Twilight of the Gods, Archimonde would almost certainly be victorious, and the world would burn.

[omeomorfismo]

cult of the damned would anyway succeded in the serf society because taxes or not taxes they still would starve, but in addition they would spread even in gilneas and stormgarde.
the biggest difference would be anyway the hijal battle that without orcs trolls and tauren would be lost

[Varodoc]

A lot of things would've changed. The Cult of the Damned's success in spreading the plague comes down to the orcs distracting the Alliance of Lordaeron with their rebellion. We can see in the very intro of the Human campaign that the Alliance did not have any concern for the plague that was spreading in the north due to the orcs attacking their doorsteps. If the orcs had been slaughtered at the end of the Second War, there wouldn't have been any orcish insurrection, thus the Alliance of Lordaeron could have devoted their full attention to countering the spread of the plague.

Defeating the Legion would've been very easy. Without the Scourge to summon him, Archimonde would've never invaded. Simple. The Alliance of Lordaeron had the means to easily stop the spread of the plague if they had actually focused on it before it was too late.

[Biomega]

A lot of things would've changed. The Cult of the Damned's success in spreading the plague comes down to the orcs distracting the Alliance of Lordaeron with their rebellion. We can see in the very intro of the Human campaign that the Alliance did not have any concern for the plague that was spreading in the north due to the orcs attacking their doorsteps. If the orcs had been slaughtered at the end of the Second War, there wouldn't have been any orcish insurrection, thus the Alliance of Lordaeron could have devoted their full attention to countering the spread of the plague.

Defeating the Legion would've been very easy. Without the Scourge to summon him, Archimonde would've never invaded. Simple. The Alliance of Lordaeron had the means to easily stop the spread of the plague if they had actually focused on it before it was too late.

That's a classic mistake of alternate history you're making - you're assuming only one side would play out differently, while the other side plays out the same. But that's not simply going to be the case.

Without the orcs to distract the Alliance, the Scourge/Cult of the Damned would have used different tactics. They might have waited longer to reveal themselves, for example, or relied more on infiltration of the Alliance leadership. Without a common enemy, the various kingdoms of the Alliance could well have been turned against each other by the Cult. Heck, the Orcs' meddling may well have accelerated the Scourge's timetable, causing them to act before they were fully prepared - and thus leading to their ultimate defeat.

Archimonde and friends play the long game. They've been at it for THOUSANDS of years. They were in no hurry per se, being spurred only by potential threats to their plans and not by some urgent timetable. Without those threats, they could well have taken another decade or two to get things done, and then REALLY gotten them done.

We can't really know for sure.

[derpkitteh]

you lose a large percentage of the defense against the threats to azeroth, and either archimonde or the scourge would have ultimately won.

[Varodoc]

That's a classic mistake of alternate history you're making - you're assuming only one side would play out differently, while the other side plays out the same. But that's not simply going to be the case.

Without the orcs to distract the Alliance, the Scourge/Cult of the Damned would have used different tactics. They might have waited longer to reveal themselves, for example, or relied more on infiltration of the Alliance leadership. Without a common enemy, the various kingdoms of the Alliance could well have been turned against each other by the Cult. Heck, the Orcs' meddling may well have accelerated the Scourge's timetable, causing them to act before they were fully prepared - and thus leading to their ultimate defeat.

Archimonde and friends play the long game. They've been at it for THOUSANDS of years. They were in no hurry per se, being spurred only by potential threats to their plans and not by some urgent timetable. Without those threats, they could well have taken another decade or two to get things done, and then REALLY gotten them done.

We can't really know for sure.

Kel'thuzad had been gathering followers for 3 years, at the same time when the orcs were breaking from their internment camps. Also Kel'thuzad and the Cult revealed themselves only after the Lich King believed the perfect moment to strike had come, so it's the opposite of what you said. The Lich King's plan relied a lot on the orcs' success.

Furthermore, Kel'thuzad's success in finding any follower at all is only because Terenas was taxing the shit out of his people to fund the internment camps. If the orcs had just been exterminated, nobody would be angry with Terenas and thus Kel'thuzad would hardly have any follower.

[rayvio]

there would have still been some orcs who had avoided capture (such as the Frostmane and Warsong clans Thrall meets up with early into his freedom) who would have sworn vengeance. likely some alliance subjects would sympathise with the very docile captive orcs and try to help them possibly leading to some serious internal conflicts

we don't know at what point Garithos was brainwashed by a Dreadlord so if it was prior to his anti-elf crusade he'd definitely still be promoting strife within the ranks. even if he wasn't a Dreadlord puppet yet, he was still a pompous xenophobe so he'd be sure to have alienated somebody

things would've played out very differently but there were still very powerful and manipulative forces at work which would continue to pursue the same agendas so many of the same events would likely play out but in very different fashion. who knows, perhaps Illidan would've had a more consistent personality in that timeline or Rhonin would lead an army of raptors to defend Hyjal

[KOUNTERPARTS]

It's always fun to speculate as to what could happen.


I hope sometime in the future we get something like the Chromie events where we could see glimpses of potential changes in the timeline if one or two things played out differently.


A bit off-topic, but personally I think Blizzard is wasting the potential of using the Infinite Dragonflight as a plot point for us to experience things like that.

[Syegfryed]

Human kingdoms would devour itself, the scourge would take over the lands and fuck up humans and nelves alike, and the legion would invade without a single problem since there was no one to defend the world.

- - - Updated - - -

there would have still been some orcs who had avoided capture (such as the Frostmane and Warsong clans Thrall meets up with early into his freedom) who would have sworn vengeance. likely some alliance subjects would sympathise with the very docile captive orcs and try to help them possibly leading to some serious internal conflictsl

you mean frostwolf, but even so, those clans would simple die out in the upcoming events, the horde would never be formed, and they not travel to kalindor and help against the legion

[Feanoro]

There'd be a helluva lot less dead, and more towns and cities still standing. The Horde is the Legion's greatest success.

[Aeula]

The united Alliance of Lordaeron would've been able to better resist the scourge. But Archimonde would probably yeet Nordrassil since the Night Elves are kinda useless.

[Shelly]

The Cult was a creation of Kel'Thuzad, there was a perfect storm moment certainly with the Orcs leaving their internment camps but the plague of undeath was inevitable.

Once the plague was in Stratholme there was no stopping it from spreading throughout the rest of Lordaeron. Even if the Silver Hand had been able to quarantine the city the plague was already on its way down into the Tirisfal Glades.

To stop the plague and the cult you'd need to stop Kel'Thuzad. But then you'd need to stop Ner'Zhul, but then you'd need to stop Medivhe, but then you'd need to stop his mom and so on.

Basically it's unstoppable because the narrative requires it.

[Feanoro]

The united Alliance of Lordaeron would've been able to better resist the scourge. But Archimonde would probably yeet Nordrassil since the Night Elves are kinda useless.

In WoW written by aging metal fans and necrophiliacs, sure. In WC3, they made Grom Hellscream crap his pants.

[Akka]

This entire question has two different answers.
The "narrative" answer (i.e. the self-justification that writers will conjure to claim that what was told was the "best" story) will find a way to contrive that without the Horde, the Legion would somehow win, so it's better that the Horde was captive than killed.
The "logical" answer (i.e. taking the events as a baseline and following actual logic) which would point that keeping the Orcs alive was what destroyed the Alliance, and was itself a completely absurd decision to begin with that only existed because the writers needed to keep the Horde in the game.

The united Alliance of Lordaeron would've been able to better resist the scourge. But Archimonde would probably yeet Nordrassil since the Night Elves are kinda useless.

You remember that Archimonde could only be summoned because the Scourge conquered the Sunwell, which required Lordaeron to fall, right ?

[Minikin]

I think it's pretty much Terenas himself who inadvertently sped up the membership of the Cult of the Damned and greatly contributed to the Burning Legion's Third Invasion. I mean because he decided to push to tax for the Internment Camps, it put the Alliance of Lordaeron in a very tight spot:

• Gilneas Leaving, and them building the Greymane Wall
• Arathi Leaving
• High Elves Leaving, _{which subsequently fueled Othmar Garithos hatred towards the High Elves}; and the elves who helped in Warcraft 3 were just random volunteers or were commissioned by the Kirin Tor and Silverhand
• The Barovs' desperation that made them accept and build the bastion for the Cult of the Damned
• Many angry farmers and impoverished people joining the Cult of the Damned
• All of the above, domino effect on Gilneas, Stromgarde, and (formally) Quel'thalas not being there for Lordaeron when Arthas was still scourging the Western Plaguelands (at least they had Kalimdor brigades, it's something)

So, title. Would the Cult of the Damned be just some sort of a small group of humans and elves in a small camp? Would the Kul Tirans have completely genocided the Darkspears in Sen'jin Isles? Would Dar'kan Drathir dabble in the Void instead of helping the Cult of the Damned? Would the Centaurs drive the Taurens to extinction? What do you guys think?

Edit: I'm guessing if not the Plague problem, the Alliance of Lordaeron might have been able to help the Gnomes defend their homeland from the Troggs.

The blank scroll scenario in MoP confirmed that no singular faction can save azeroth from all the threats it faces. In that scenario even if the Legion is defeated by a single faction, that faction will no longer be strong enough for the resurgence of the black empire (pretty much the scenario we face right now, just slightly better becuase legion was defeated by both horde and alliance so we still had something left to face Nzoth).

on a more comedic note though. If he had executed the orcs instead of prison for their genocidal campaign in the eastern kingdoms, at least we wouldnt hear the stupid argument of "he put orcs in internment camps! how evil! thats not fair at all to the orcs who destroyed their planet, then came here and committed genocide!"

[Feanoro]

The blank scroll scenario in MoP confirmed that no singular faction can save azeroth from all the threats it faces.

AKA the excuse for not exterminating the Horde despite them being mad dogs. MoP also gave us social Darwinism, praising how war and conflict weed out the weak. What a great message.

[Syegfryed]

AKA the excuse for not exterminating the Horde despite them being mad dogs. MoP also gave us social Darwinism, praising how war and conflict weed out the weak. What a great message.

its better have mad dogs on your side killing the enemy than not having then at all

"azeroth" only stood against the Legion because of the horde help, not just orcs, but also taurens and trolls, who, were saved by orcs

The alliance nations without orcs would attack themselves anyway, the scourge would ravage the land anyway

[McNeil]

The Cult of the Damned would likely still succeed because of how much of a blind eye every nation except Dalaran had on the plague, and once it catches them completely unaware all the damage will be done either way with Arthas heading to Northrend and turn into a DK. Arthas as a DK would maybe face more resistance, but at that point he was already considerably more powerful than whatever nation can throw at him, so it would just take him longer to clear out Lordaeron and summon Archimonde. And if Archimonde gets summoned than we have no orcs left fighting them and the night elves would be left fighting by themselves with maybe Jaina as an ally. At least the night elves would still have Cenarius at their side.

Another interesting alternate timeline is how the story would look like if Arthas didn't turn into a DK. Rather than picking up Frostmourne he listens to Muradin and leads his men back home, in which case Mal'Ganis could strike anytime soon but Arthas may convince every nation to take this issue seriously and then combine their powers to hunt down Mal'Ganis. The Legion invasion may not even happen.

[derpkitteh]

In WoW written by aging metal fans and necrophiliacs, sure. In WC3, they made Grom Hellscream crap his pants.

some of the earliest concepts of wow were written by metzen on the back of a napkin at a metal show. he was the one responsible for grom and night elves being hardcore as fuck.

the dude in my sig and knaak are the ones responsible for useless nelves. knaak to a lesser extent, but he is the one that moved night elves away from actual strong female warriors by turning tyrande into little more than malfurion's arm candy.