Tuesday 13 August 2013

The coming storm

The Darkspear trolls under Vol'Jin are revolting. No, seriously, they are. Up in the Barrens, they're openly colluding with the Alliance to disrupt Garrosh's preparations for the coming war, paying adventurers like me to go and kill orcs.

That's par for the course from trolls, I suppose. They can't even get along with each other, never mind with other species. Never trust a troll. Do you remember when the Zandalari trolls were the good guys? I even became exalted with them, back in the day. They helped us in Zul'Drak against the Drakkari, as we helped them in Zul Gurub against the Gurubashi. Now the Zandalari try to kill me on sight.

You can never trust a troll. Garrosh is learning this painful lesson, as Vol'Jin backstabs him.

Well, I'm happy to help Vol'Jin become a thorn in Garrosh's side, but I don't understand why he wants to become one. Is he hoping to break away from the Horde and join the rest of the Trolls in a third faction? According to our alliance spies, he claims to be unhappy with "Garrosh playing god? Making monsters? Dis ain't what da horde is about!". Well, I'd be tempted to believe him if he wasn't in the same horde as the undead. Playing god and making monsters is exactly what the Forsaken are about. Has he forgotten about Sylvanas Windrunner? If he was really unhappy about that, he should have left the horde long ago.

I can also sympathise with the goblins' unhappiness over their treatment by the orcs, especially the Kor'kron Guard. But I can't see why they would want to overthrow Garrosh. The Kor'kron Guard are just behaving the way all orcs do. Removing Garrosh won't change the nature of the orcs, any more than overthrowing Gallywix would change the nature of goblins.

And, orc adventurers, why are you planning on betraying your own warchief? He has expanded your territory, given the night-elves an almighty kicking, blown Theramore to smithereens, and generally made Kalimdor a horde-dominated continent. He's everything a proper orc could want in a warchief, unlike Thrall who wanted to make peace with the alliance and made friends with Jaina Proudmoore. He wanted to be a Peacechief. Garrosh showed how real orcs deal with Jaina Proudmoore. What real orc wants peace? Maybe that's good for the tauren, but a real orc lives for war. You should be joining the Kor'kron Guard to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women. And if the trolls and the goblins don't like it, crush them too. Instead you're planning to betray and kill the best Warchief you've ever had!

Never trust an orc.

Anyway, I'm glad the idiots in the horde are breaking themselves apart, for Garrosh is a real danger to the Alliance, and King Varian Wrynn's only response to Garrosh's attacks have been to turn the other cheek. Even when Jaina kicks the blood-elves out of the Kirin Tor, for helping Garrosh steal the divine bell, that wimp complains that he could have got the Sin'dorei to join the alliance, if only she'd done nothing. Yeah, right.

Meantime Jana has been using a scrying technique known as "datamining" to determine that Garrosh may be planning on blowing up Stormwind Harbour. I wonder if that will wake Varian from his slumber.


11 comments:

  1. More likely, the vision someone has of Stormwind Harbor is just another deus ex machina hammer-blow, this time to force Alliance players to accept working as the Troll's junior partner. If it were up to me I'd be busy retaking conquered territory - maybe up near Forsaken land, that Gilneas place or, oh, Stromgarde? - and letting the Horde go at each other tooth and nail.

    But we can't have that, the Alliance is here to provide a canvas for the Horde, none of this active role stuff for us.

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  2. I hear you, Rimecat. I don't know why we've been wasting our time in Pandaria, dealing with farms and vermin and Mogu when we have real enemies on our doorstep.

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  3. Well, among other reason why Vol'jin would want Garrosh dead, there's the whole assassination attempt thing:

    http://www.wowhead.com/zone=6565

    Garrosh has also been subjugating the Trolls all expansion... even some of the Orgrimmar dailies have been anti-Troll (for one cooking daily you have to steal food from the Troll slums... there might be others). He's a racist, has no time for non-Orcs and is a horrible choice for Warchief. It's time for him to go.

    Hopefully next expansion will be more Alliance-focused.

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  4. My question is: when the alliance has invaded Orgrimmar and defeated Garrosh...are they going to just leave? "All right, job's done, see you guys in the next war" How does this story end in a way that isn't completely ridiculous?

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  5. R, your point is well-taken, and I linked to the "Dagger in the Dark" already (see Vol'Jin's quote). Garrosh did indeed know that Vol'Jin was a traitor, but he didn't act upon it until Vol'Jin gave him proof. It's only after it's obvious that Vol'Jin isn't going to give the orcs the secret of the Mogu magic that Rak'Gor tries to kill him.

    As for racism, Trolls aren't a race of Orc. They're a different species. They aren't even from the same planet.

    Anonymous, I, too, am keen to see how they get out of this one! Perhaps, like the Battle for the Undercity, it will be more in the nature of a raid (in the normal sense of the word) than a siege: a commando strike to take out Garrosh and the top orc leadership.

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  6. I have never understood how the Tauren tolerated the Forsaken being part of the Horde; surely the undead are as much an abomination to the Tauren as they are to the Alliance? Now Thrall is no longer around, and Cairne is gone, what keeps the Tauren allied to the Forsaken?

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  7. I agree, Alipally. To me the Tauren are naturally Alliance.

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    1. Maybe beforehand, but then in Cata the Alliance slaughtered everyone in Taurajo...

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  8. Indeed Cygnia, war is hell.

    But not everyone in Taurajo was slaughtered - that's just propaganda put about by the Orc Warlord Bloodhilt. In fact, the Alliance General (General Hawthorne) allowed the civilians in Camp Taurajo to flee. You can meet many of them in Camp Una'fe, if you don't believe me (seek out Tawane for her side of the story).

    When conscripted convicts start looting, General Hawthorne also ordered the looters to be arrested.

    How many tauren died in Taurajo? According to Winnoa Pineforest, there were four deaths: Omusa the flight master, Yonada the tailoring supplier, Dranh the leatherworking trainer and Krulmoo the skinning trainer.

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  9. Not to sound mean, but you really do sound like a noob (as you point out in the title). I agree, never trust a troll. Unless it's a Darkspear. I would highly recommend rolling a Horde toon and learning some of the lore from their side. You'll see that the Darkspear are unlike the rest of the trolls, and work on a strict honor code.

    The reason you earned that Zandalari rep? That was Vol'Jin, working with both factions for the better of Azeroth. The reason you're disrupting Garrosh's forces now? Vol'Jin, for the better of Azeroth.

    Next, your comment on Varian being a "wimp" for chiding Jana about her reaction to the Blood Elves of the Kirin Tor, and trying to bring them in? He wasn't being a wimp, he was actually working to strengthen the Alliance against the Horde with more allies. Deal with problem people, not the race as a whole. Varian is finally being the leader everyone asks for on the Alliance side, and yet everyone is pissed that he is finally acting the part. That's just silly.

    To catch up on lore for both sides, I'd recommend the Know Your Lore article on the WoW Insider blog. Pick and choose the articles as you want, but it will definitely help you understand the story a little more.

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  10. "... the Darkspear are unlike the rest of the trolls, and work on a strict honor code"

    Does that include backstabbing your current horde leader? He was right not to trust the Darkspear trolls!

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