The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you lot Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story backside World of Warcraft.

Always since the announcement of Warlords of Draenor, most players -- including myself, to a degree -- have been under the assumption that this is an expansion involving time-travel of some sort. Sure, supposedly nosotros equally players aren't traveling in time, but Garrosh Hellscream did so, to an alternate version of Draenor whose history he presumably changed. Now instead of invading Azeroth as nosotros're accustomed to, this altered version of Draenor and its Iron Horde are attempting to invade the here and now.

Only there'south one cardinal thing we've been missing -- this isn't fourth dimension travel. Not in the slightest. Afterwards playing on beta for a mere few hours, what Blizzard is doing is something entirely different. While we've been focusing on fourth dimension travel and how this would affect our future, Blizzard has been quietly putting together a story with some far-reaching, drastic implications that may very well have everything we know about World of Warcraft, stand it on terminate, and knock it over with i well-placed accident.

Spoiler Alert: The following column contains a couple of adequately big spoilers for Warlords of Draenor. If you are avoiding expansion information and discussion, exercise not go along.

Dorsum to the Future

The moment Warlords was announced, players jumped pretty hard onto the time-travel attribute of the expansion, attempting to puzzle out exactly what Blizzard meant past "this isn't time-travel." The running theory virtually players have gone with is every bit follows: Garrosh Hellscream goes back in fourth dimension. Garrosh stops his father and the rest of the orc clans from drinking the Blood of Mannoroth, thus saving them from demonic corruption. Garrosh says something to convince all the clans to unite together and build a Dark Portal -- not to unleash an army under Legion command, but to unleash the Iron Horde. The Dark Portal is connected to our Azeroth, nowadays-day, and that'southward where our story begins.

As far as analogies get, this is perhaps closest to Back to the Future II. In that flick, Marty travels to his ain future with Doctor and sees an aged Biff Tannen -- who realizes that Physician and Marty have a time automobile. Taking matters into his own hands, Biff hijacks the Delorean and takes a sports annual from the future dorsum to 1955 while Doc and Marty aren't looking, giving his younger self the key to getting everything he ever wanted. When Md and Marty render "home" to 1985, they return to an alternating version of their history in which Biff has everything -- including Marty's mother -- and Marty'southward father is dead. It's pretty heavy.

Applying this scenario to Warlords, here we have our Biff: Garrosh Hellscream, who hasn't traveled forward in the future, he'southward merely grown up, been betrayed by his ain people, seen what the Horde he remembered from his childhood turned out to be -- and he doesn't similar information technology. He happens upon a method of traveling in fourth dimension via Kairoz the statuary dragon, and promptly peaces out for his past with the intent to save not only his father, but the rest of the Horde. Meanwhile we're here in the present, when suddenly the Iron Horde comes busting out the Dark Portal.

But it'due south non quite the correct analogy -- considering if this were truly a Back to the Future mode timeline, Thrall would suddenly cease to be. Every orc in the Horde would suddenly finish to exist. In fact, the Horde itself would stop to exist, having never actually invaded. So nosotros fall instead to "Garrosh fabricated an alternate universe when he traveled back in fourth dimension" -- but as of playing the beta, that'due south not right either. And I've got one screenshot, just one, that immediately proves it.

Rulkan, Kil'jaeden, and Ner'zhul

If y'all've ever read Rise of the Horde, you're familiar with the proper name above. Rulkan is Ner'zhul'due south mate, a woman of no particular distinction -- she wasn't a shaman, she wasn't a leader. And in the original timeline, she wasn't even live. When Kil'jaeden arrived on Draenor, Rulkan had already passed abroad several years before, leaving Ner'zhul alone and vulnerable. Then Kil'jaeden took the guise of Rulkan's spirit when he commencement spoke to Ner'zhul, actualization to him in a dream and leading him downwardly a path that would set orc against draenei and eventually lead to the abuse of the orcish race.

Only Rulkan never died on this Draenor. She'due south well and truly alive, having left the Shadowmoon Clan forth with a scant scattering of followers who didn't really agree with what Ner'zhul was upward to. She simply exists, when co-ordinate to our history, she should not. Did Garrosh modify her fate? No. Garrosh Hellscream didn't prevent her death, when he traveled dorsum in time -- he had nothing to do with her or her fate at all. And she's not the only outlier on Draenor.

In this globe, Akama is no longer broken -- only he'southward also no longer a priest of Karabor. Instead, he's both vindicator and Exarch, i of five Exarchs who pb the draenei in a quango under Prophet Velen. Garrosh certainly didn't give Akama either a promotion or a career change. In that location are others equally well -- familiar faces that are instantly recognizable to those that played through Burning Crusade or read the novels, but in unfamiliar roles that deport no resemblance to our history. So what gives? What did Garrosh Hellscream do, when he traveled back in time?

He didn't do annihilation. He didn't actually travel back in time at all. Or rather, he did -- but not as nosotros conventionally recall of it.

Star Trek

The more than of beta I run into -- and I accept absolutely seen very, very little of it so far -- the more it is becoming blatantly clear that this isn't a Back to the Future style of story. Maybe Garrosh idea he was traveling dorsum in time, simply he wasn't -- he'southward on a unlike version of Draenor, in an alternate universe, past a method that bears far more resemblance to the 2009 Star Expedition franchise reboot than Marty and Dr.'south adventures in time. In Star Trek, a black hole sent both Spock and the Romulan Nero back in fourth dimension. Once Nero arrived, he spent years only biding his fourth dimension, waiting to find Spock and accept his revenge. While he was at it, he killed James T. Kirk'due south father, presumably setting off a chain of events that inverse the history of Star Expedition to the alternate universe presented.

Except Nero had nothing to practice with the changes in Spock'southward personality, the history of Scotty, McCoy, or any of the other original Enterprise members who bore very little resemblance to their original selves. And so what we accept hither is simply this: an alternating universe. Certain, Nero traveled back in time, only he didn't travel downwards his ain timeline. When he came out of that black pigsty, he didn't come out at some indicate in his ain history, he came out in a universe that was in some means similar to his own, but with a few significant differences. Killing Kirk'due south male parent didn't really crusade a ripple or butterfly effect. It made Kirk an orphan, but it didn't touch Nero's time to come or the future of Romulus in the slightest.

In Warlords, nosotros presumed that Garrosh Hellscream traveled back along our ain history -- going back to the days of Rising of the Horde. The small pieces we've seen in beta so far clearly bespeak that this is absolutely not the instance. Garrosh didn't travel back in his own timeline. He popped out in some strange alternate universe of Draenor, one with clans that take familiar names, just different histories. One where his father certainly existed every bit leader of the Warsong, but the Ner'zhul appeared to have very little sway over the clans as a whole. One where the Legion may accept appeared somehow, but not through the guise of Ner'zhul'due south very much alive mate Rulkan. One where the Shadow Council exists, non every bit a comprehend for Gul'dan'south machinations of the Horde, but ... for some other purpose that hasn't actually been revealed just yet.

Implications

What does this mean for players? Information technology ways we can accept every unmarried piece of historical lore we've been presented with to appointment and throw information technology out the window, considering those rules and that history merely don't exist on Draenor. Information technology ways nosotros are going in completely bullheaded, and whatsoever preconceptions we had of how sure characters acted in our own universe no longer apply. It means we have free reign to do any the heck we desire with this version of Draenor, considering anything we do on this earth will have admittedly no bearing at all on the history of our ain. This Draenor does not, never has and never will grow upwardly to be our Outland. It was never destined to be.

Did Garrosh Hellscream go back in time? Yes. But his arrival in the past diameter no impact on our version of Azeroth, because that Draenor he arrived at with Kairoz wasn't the Draenor he grew upward on. He might not have actually existed on that Draenor at all -- we yet don't know that, nonetheless. The Frostwolves live in Frostfire Ridge, a cold northern expanse, a far weep from the greenish rolling hills described in Rise of the Horde -- because this isn't Ascension of the Horde. Information technology never was. Information technology never volition be. Which means Blizzard now has gratuitous reign to tell whatever story they desire to, with no need to pay attending to anything that might have come before in Warcraft I or Ii -- this isn't Warcraft I or 2. It never was. It's a story that hasn't been told yet.

We are going into a world where the only common thread between it and our own are the names of the people we are going to see. We should not wait them to act remotely like they did in our own version of history. Honestly, we shouldn't expect anything at all, considering what we appear to be getting, and then far, is a foreign, weird echo -- a might-take-been tale. Volition information technology impact our own universe? It might -- but not in a fashion we can expect or predict. In that location is no predicting this expansion at all.

Which is honestly pretty exciting, when you recollect about information technology.

Kairoz and the nature of time

But that leads us to another question -- why did Kairoz take Garrosh Hellscream to this alternate Draenor? Did he intend to visit our ain history, but mess information technology upwardly along the way? Why would Wrathion back up Kairoz in doing this? Did Kairoz intend to simply drib off Hellscream and return to our ain time, secure in the knowledge that the threat of the Horde and the atrocities committed in our ain timeline would simply end to be? What did Kairoz acquire on the Timeless Isle, and was his meddling with Epoch Stones and Visions of Time actually useful?

According to War Crimes, Kairoz is presumably office of a group of bronze dragons who believe that history should be inverse to make a ameliorate future. So did Kairoz expect that was what he was doing, when he helped Garrosh Hellscream escape? Did he actually know what he was doing with the device in War Crimes, or did he brand a gigantic mistake? Nosotros don't know the answers to these questions yet, considering as of correct now on the beta, Kairoz is nowhere to be seen.

Only i affair is absolutely certain -- if, on this alternate version of Draenor, we encounter anyone from Azeroth other than those who have traveled with us on our journeying, they don't vest there. Azeroth, still it might exist in this alternate universe, has no begetting on Draenor at all, and it's most definitely not our habitation. In that case, it might exist a far wiser, better idea to leave it lonely -- and instead focus on shutting downwards the Iron Horde and then information technology tin't invade our world, and finding a way to get back home to when and where we belong.

Either way, our history as we know it? It's exactly the aforementioned, and hasn't changed a fleck. Warlords of Draenor isn't our Draenor -- it'due south a new globe with new stories, heady possibilities, several familiar names on people who might not be as familiar as nosotros were expecting, and a story we simply tin't predict.

While you don't demand to have played the previous Warcraft games to savour World of Warcraft, a trivial history goes a long style toward making the game a lot more than fun. Dig into even more than of the lore and history behind the World of Warcraft in WoW Insider'due south Guide to Warcraft Lore.