Theory: Shattering Time

[Razosh]

So... am I the only one who is confused as shit by the changes in WarCraft lore? I mean really all of the War of the Ancients has been changed, none of what we currently knew which took place during the past 10,000 years is actually canon... You think I'm joking, for one in a flashback we see that they've changed the story so instead of abandoning the teachings of Cenarius, Illidan is now thrown out. Next on Huln never got his spear blessed by Cenarius except for in the Legion lore version where he apparently did. Illidan left to join the Legion for completely different reasons than in the books. And while on that topic, the Old Gods were no longer behind the summoning of Sargeras, they never opened the portal for the fallen Titan and had no role in the summoning what so ever unlike the books where they were the driving force.

"Oh wise one" I hear you say, "please explain, how does anything make sense then?" Well I never disappoint. I've been thinking for so long trying desperately to find any way that this could make sense and after a few dozen hours of pondering this I may have come up with the perfect answer. I was bashing my head against the table trying to find anything, just something that could make sense, and then I struck gold. While reading through the Wowpedia text of Nozdormu I came across this,

"Some day in the future, Nozdormu will fall to madness. Tricked by the Old Gods into trying to subvert his own mortality, Nozdormu will shatter the timeways and create the infinite dragonflight, becoming Murozond in the process."

In the Dawn of the Aspects book Nozdormu states that the lordship of time was a curse in disguise as he knew how and when he'd die and also that he could do nothing to stop those events from unfolding. And now at long last during our expedition on Draenor that cataclysmic event has happened. Just remember what happened when Deathwing became corrupt, the Sundering happened splitting the super continent of Kalimdor into several smaller continents like Northrend and Pandaria. And the second time Deathwing came the Cataclysm happened, regions were flooded, made uninhabitable, once lush forests were covered in molten lava and entire island were submerged under the sea.

So just like the fall of the Earth-Warder echoed the near destruction of our land so too does the fall of the lord of time echo the near destruction of the very fabrics of time. So how come the fracture isn't as visible to us as the Cataclysm? Well it's quite simple, the bronze dragonflight are unique among the living races, why, they are four-dimensional unlike humans who are three-dimensional. The forth dimension also most commonly thought to be time is a dimension that the human mind can't wrap its head around, it is too advanced so us not being able to see the changes in time as clearly as we could see the changes wrought on by the Cataclysm doesn't mean it isn't real, it just means we don't have the mental capacity to understand it.

Do you think I'm over exaggerating, Albert Einstein posed a theory called "relative time" it said that if an object moved faster time would transpire slower for that object. This was eventually to be proven correct by placing two watches, one on earth and one on a high speed plane. When the clock on the high-speed plane was brought down to earth the clock that had remained on earth the whole time was ahead of the other one. Not only was it ahead but it was also ahead by the exact same time that Albert had predicted in his calculations. And when both clocks were reset on Earth they moved at the exact same paste. So what does this prove, that my theory is 100% possible because people who are put on high speed plains aren't able to tell that time is moving slower which means our minds can't comprehend something as advanced as time and to us time appears as a straight line always moving forward to the exact same destination at the exact same paste, but Albert Einstein proved this isn't true.

So if we take Albert Einstein into account is it possible that time has been fractured without us knowing it, yes. It would also explain several anomalys such as Malfurions strange behaviour in Val'Sharah, the complete change in the story of the war of the ancients and how a small island group over night changed into a massive continent. So many strange changes are taking place because we no longer live in the same Azeroth and the planet we've grown up with is forever gone. As the WoWPedia article said:

"Nozdormu will shatter the timeways"

 

[PurgeandFire]

Yeah, legion had quite a few retcons. If we try to keep the books as canon, I like your idea. Pretty cool relating it to the sundering--cool concept as a whole. I love the idea of time shattering, causing things in the past to change.

I feel like the "blizzard" reason is that they are trying to move away from the books as canon--or at least they are trying to "tweak" it to establish characters differently/create new plot lines. With Illidan, I feel like they wanted to paint him as a noble guy who kinda teeters the line of morality, but that he lacks discipline/restraint. They changed him a bit, not sure if it was for better or for worse.

Tbh, I'd probably be more happy with your solution. It would be pretty cool as a concept, but also would be scary considering what more retcons would come out of it.

And while on that topic, the Old Gods were no longer behind the summoning of Sargeras, they never opened the portal for the fallen Titan and had no role in the summoning what so ever unlike the books where they were the driving force.

Where in Legion do they change that?

 

[Razosh]

Yeah, legion had quite a few retcons. If we try to keep the books as canon, I like your idea. Pretty cool relating it to the sundering--cool concept as a whole. I love the idea of time shattering, causing things in the past to change.

I feel like the "blizzard" reason is that they are trying to move away from the books as canon--or at least they are trying to "tweak" it to establish characters differently/create new plot lines. With Illidan, I feel like they wanted to paint him as a noble guy who kinda teeters the line of morality, but that he lacks discipline/restraint. They changed him a bit, not sure if it was for better or for worse.

Tbh, I'd probably be more happy with your solution. It would be pretty cool as a concept, but also would be scary considering what more retcons would come out of it.

Yeah they have already stated that the comic books are 100% non-canon as a response to the question "where is Med'an." The only problem is that only asks a completely new question, Because if the event leading up to Mad'an obtaining his powers were non-canon that would mean Aegwynn's still alive and she not any less of a powerhouse.

Where in Legion do they change that?

This is something I touch on in my other theory, probably should have mentioned it here too though.

Anyhow the reason is that if the Old Gods are less powerful than Sargeras which has been strongly indicated in the chronicles then that would mean that they could not have attempted to summoning him. Some people have said that the Old Gods are simply full of themselves and therefore just flat out refused to accept anyone else being more powerful than themselves. Now, the Old Gods being arrogant I could absolutely accept but that they would also have to ignore evidence even when put in front of their eyes. As stated by Tyrande, when Illidan attempted to close the portal he fused with the Old Gods, the issue only is that Illidan had seen the true uncensored power of Sargeras so by fusing with Illidan the Old Gods would have had access to this information and ignored it. The true power of Sargeras seems like a strange thing to ignore if your intention is to overpower him and he is more powerful than you doesn't it? Still not convinced, we also have Nozdormu, from War of the Ancients:

Again, Nozdormu thought of the demons-the Burning Legion-and their desire to use the Well of Eternity's power to open the way and eradicate all life on Azeroth. Yet, this was too shrewd for them... even their master, Sargeras.
And the whispers from within the Well grew more virulent, more eager. Distinctive voices that sent a chill through the Aspect. Yes, these were more than demons.
He had touched upon the evil corrupting the Well and knew more than ever that failure would bring worse than destruction.
Nozdormu now recognized them for what they were. Even the horrific fury of the entire Burning Legion paled in comparison.

Nozdormu seems really hell-bent on the notion that if the Old Gods were to break free from their prisons Sargeras wouldn't stand a chance against their might, as Nozdormu showed us "failure would bring worse than destruction." Now the question is where would Nozdormu have heard such a thing from, well there are only two options either he has witnessed one or several battle(s) between the two factions with his own eyes in a vision, which seem rather likely considering the fact that he has lived for countless millennia, he's a guardian of Azeroth and he spends most of his free time traveling through time. The second alternative is that he heard it directly from the Titan keepers who are the most solid insight to what the Titans are actually like in comparisson to the Old Gods as they've encountered both Old Gods and Pantheon. But even if you try to break every law of logic and say that it's still possible for Sargeras to be more powerful because Nozdormu never straight out said that the Old Gods were more powerful but only heavily indicated it let me break that final shred of illusion. Next up we have Korialstrasz who was Alexstrasza's prime consort who straight out says that if the Old Gods were to enter the mortal plain even Sargeras would be brought to his knees. (And Korialstrasz once again must have had either Nozdormu or the Titan Keepers as his original source for this information.)

Now that we've established the basics for this rather complex question, where in Legion is it stated that the Old Gods can not have been behind the summoning of Sargeras? If the Old Gods didn't know the true power of Sargeras when beginning the summoning they sure did when it was going on and yet they kept going, why, well there's only one reasonable explanation, the Old Gods were more powerful than Sargeras, at least according to the lore prior to Legion. Yet according to the lore of the chronicles Sargeras was able to shatter an entire planet in half along with its Old God(s) resident... That is the reason behind this entire theory, the foundation of everything that has happened in the past 10,000 years relies on the Old Gods being more powerful than Sargeras, if we are to assume it's the other way around nothing that has happened in the past 10,000 years, and I mean that on a literal level, can be considered as canon. For all we know in our current timeline Arthas may not have ever become the Lich King, in stead it could have been Timmy the peasant.

And that is the core of what has been troubling me how can everything have just completly changed between Mists of Pandaria and Legion, well there's only one answer ain't there, the fabrics of time have been shattered, and hence did this theory come to happen.

 

[Edhel-dur]

Razosh should be hired by Blizzard. He makes good efforts to 'explain' the inconsistent story aspect of Warcraft.

 

[Razosh]

Razosh should be hired by Blizzard. He makes good efforts to 'explain' the inconsistent story aspect of Warcraft.

Thank you, I do my best to try to put things in order sadly it seems that my counterpart, chaos goes by the name Blizzard Entertainment.

 

[Razosh]

You people never have the time to read anything so I made a fun little experiment, what if I instead made a video explaining and expanding upon this theory so here you have it, I had a lot of fun making it and I hope you'll enjoy listening to it:

 

[Leo Akastenix]

Interesting. Wish we could do it in this universe.

 

[Razosh]

Well there are two possible ways you could travel in time, the first involves traveling faster than the speed of light and the second involves abusing closed time-like curves. Although to actually abuse closed time-like curves you'd need to toy around with black holes and one miscalculation with a black hole would annihilate our entire planet and possibly even solar system. The theory is if a Black hole was to spin fast enough around itself it would collapse creating what is essentially a wormhole in space-time.

 

[Leo Akastenix]

I am amused...


(Wanted to give you rep but one my phone now so...)​

 

[Chaosy]

Interesting, but I got some counter points on some the points used to support the theory.

1. the Draenor expansion makes no sense

While two of X may not exist at the same time, there is nothing to prevent the second version warp them in once the first is dead.
This would, to an extent be how the Legion functions, they do not have two pitlords with the same name, however the pitlord eventually returns after regenerating in the Twisting Nether.
So they could send in the Iron Horde and once they are defeated they warp in the second one from whatever timeline they originate from.
​

2. Olds gods vs titans

You use a lot of what I would call subjective facts for your conflicting argument. What people think and say are not necessarily cannon. Anyone can lie and/or be deceived and/or be wrong.
Nozdumo might have seen the old gods be more powerful than the titans in one timeline (or reverse, does not really mater). However the important part here is timeline, a timeline has differences that is why the multiple timelines exist in the first place. Just look at alternate Draenor. Ner'zhul's wife can be found ingame despite her being dead at that point in time in our Draenor.​

 

[Razosh]

I am amused...


(Wanted to give you rep but one my phone now so...)

Thank you, any acknowledgement whether in the form of support, reputation, a comment or an intellectual debate is always very welcome.

Interesting, but I got some counter points on some the points used to support the theory.

1. the Draenor expansion makes no sense

While two of X may not exist at the same time, there is nothing to prevent the second version warp them in once the first is dead.
This would, to an extent be how the Legion functions, they do not have two pitlords with the same name, however the pitlord eventually returns after regenerating in the Twisting Nether.
So they could send in the Iron Horde and once they are defeated they warp in the second one from whatever timeline they originate from.​

While that is certainly possible it does lead to quite a few problems, first you'd have to maintain several dark portals at once all would have to be larger than any we've ever seen as you would need to be able to reinforce an entire army at any time you desire. No one has successfully maintained one Dark Portal for a long time and held control over it in Azeroths entire history not to mention the notion of dozens if not hundreds or thousands of them. Not to mention how taxing it was for Medivh + Sargeras to open one portal that was large enough for what 3-4 troops to pass through at the same time. To open up these many portals that could all transport entire armies at a moments notice.

You could argue what if it's just one portal and the portals destination changes during the battles. That is an immensely impractical way of doing it because first you would have to divert all your magic users to manipulating the portal in the middle of a battle and pulling such an immense amount of energy into opening a portal from scratch would drain them. Not only would they possibly have to do this once but potentially dozens of times. First the likelihood of magic wielders surviving such an event is next to 0 and that's not taking into consideration the orcs who would be dying like flies. In War of the Ancients we learn of the actual military implications of fighting demons. The most essential part of any battle were the mages, Illidan was easily as value as 1,000 infantry soldiers if he wasn't a complete moron and burned his own men which he did repeatedly. The mages were in charge of everything from defending their fellow soldiers to slaughtering their enemies by the hundreds if not thousands. To open up a portal mid battle would distract these mages and leave all the foot soldiers completely vulnerable and open for assault. And I know that in the game a soldier can survive an ice-shard to the neck or a fireball to the face because of balance reasons but according to the lore that is not the case.

While your hypothesis is plausible it is logically not nearly the smartest move as I see it. It would require far more magical energy far more resources and put a far larger risk on the armies chance of success. If I truly wanted to defend Azeroth with an army of orcs I would go to vastly different periods of time and take completely separate orcs because taking two Grommash Hellscreams just doesn't work in an effective way. But it is a good question and I do commend you on it, but I still think that if there is some reason behind all the events being so strange my theory is almost guaranteed to be correct and the other alternative I would believe to be that Blizzard screwed up on a more enormous scale than they ever have before.

2. Olds gods vs titans

You use a lot of what I would call subjective facts for your conflicting argument. What people think and say are not necessarily cannon. Anyone can lie and/or be deceived and/or be wrong.
Nozdumo might have seen the old gods be more powerful than the titans in one timeline (or reverse, does not really mater). However the important part here is timeline, a timeline has differences that is why the multiple timelines exist in the first place. Just look at alternate Draenor. Ner'zhul's wife can be found ingame despite her being dead at that point in time in our Draenor.​

First Nozdormu was having an inner monologue which rules out deception which only leaves us with the possibility that Nozdormu made a mistake, that's fair lets address why that is with almost guaranteed certainty not the case. Second, "a timeline has differences" That's not really true though there exists only one Legion across all the timelines for some reason, this is why Archimonde sent Gul'Dan to our timeline instead of some other place in his own, because the Archimonde in our timeline is the same as the Archimonde in alternate Draenors timeline. So we know that the Legion and Sargeras is therefor a constant and while we haven't gotten any similar claim about the Old Gods one could speculate, but that would be only that, speculation.

But lets get down to the meat of it all Nozdormu has most likely seen the Old Gods and Sargeras clash far more than once, because that is literally his job, observe the timelines. And as I've established Sargeras is a constant he does not change nor would his powers. So that leaves us only with the Old Gods as a changeable variable. One thing that is important then is that right at that very moment as Nozdormu made the observation of the Old Gods comparable strength to Sargeras he was at the Well of Eternity and witnessed the Old Gods himself. Don't think that's enough next example is Korialstrasz who made the statement that "if the Old Gods ever truly stepped onto Azeroth even the mighty Sargeras would be brought to kneel." And Korialstrasz lived during the War of the Shifting Sands a war where the red dragonflight took an active roll in fighting the Old God C'Thun.

You could certainly argue that I can't prove with 100% certainty that some enormous conspiracy wasn't taking place but I could also not disprove the statement that the Earth is actually shaped like a triangle and it's only behaving as a sphere due to a black located right next to Venus. But the likely hood of one is not the same as the other and the same goes for the argument regarding the Old Gods vs Sargeras. If I make the statement that the Old Gods were more powerful than Sargeras I would only have to assume that some of the most respectable sources on Azeroth spoke truthfully. If I on the other hand wanted to make the assumption that Sargeras was always more powerful than the Old Gods then I would have to assume that all these respectable sources were compromised by the Old Gods, every single one of them even though none of them actually displayed any sign what so ever of that being the case.

If you are invested in the lore of War of the Ancients and still believe that the Old Gods and Sargeras are even remotely comparable then you're a lunatic.

 

[ddengster]

Oh god... discussing things like power levels is never going to yield too much good discussion.

But I'll keep it a little more grounded. Your theory of shattering time has been used in other storylines before in other stories, most notably the DC Multiverse (which keep in mind is near 60 years of superhero storylines). I wouldn't be surprised if the Blizzard lore team pulled similar stuff just to keep the WoW cash cow going.

 

[Razosh]

Oh god... discussing things like power levels is never going to yield too much good discussion.

But I'll keep it a little more grounded. Your theory of shattering time has been used in other storylines before in other stories, most notably the DC Multiverse (which keep in mind is near 60 years of superhero storylines).

Doesn't Superman punch the fabrics of reality so that they are shattered in order to revive his friend?

I wouldn't be surprised if the Blizzard lore team pulled similar stuff just to keep the WoW cash cow going.

There is no cow level.

 

[ddengster]

Doesn't Superman punch the fabrics of reality so that they are shattered in order to revive his friend?



There is no cow level.

Superboy Prime actually, in order to get back to his own parallel universe. In any case, it's a tangled mess of lore that is reset/retconned in order to keep the comics alive and refreshed. And I remember that Chris Metzen was a comic book fan; it's no wonder that they were comfortable enough to indulge in the idea of parallel universes in WoD; after all, it's been done before.

 

[Razosh]

Superboy Prime actually, in order to get back to his own parallel universe. In any case, it's a tangled mess of lore that is reset/retconned in order to keep the comics alive and refreshed. And I remember that Chris Metzen was a comic book fan; it's no wonder that they were comfortable enough to indulge in the idea of parallel universes in WoD; after all, it's been done before.

Well it was hardly introduced first in WoD, actually we need to go far back, prior to the release of WarCraft III, there is abook called Day of the Dragon which was a WarCraft II book and the first to involve Nozdormu. The first time the main characters take active part in an alternate timeline however would be in the WarCraft III book War of the Ancients which was released prior to WoW. (Or at least the first 2 books in the trilogy were.)