Midnight will be an elven expansion it would be really strange if the alliance didn’t have an elven capital.
I feel like there are lots of options for a separate Alliance hub, but I’m also concerned that Blizz is going to go the easy way and just make Silvermoon gameplay-neutral.
Off the top of my head:
- Exodar as a hub, floating nearby. Has the advantage of calling back to BC.
- Shalandis Isle, using the old night elf camps there. This should have the advantage of requiring an explanation to the Alliance player of what the night elves were doing there back in BC, showing the night elf POV of those events, but that might generate conflict and we know what the writers think of that recently.
- A naval fleet anchored off of Quel’thalas somewhere - has an advantage that it could mix-and-match different Alliance ships, so that the hub’s theme isn’t one-note.
- That one island reachable along the coast, that had a night elf-style ruined tower. It’d be fun to get some lore on what the ruins are, too.
- Gilneas/Stromgarde/etc - if we’re using portals to reach the gameplay area, distance doesn’t really matter, and these regions are full of promise for updated inclusion in the story. Probably not as thematic to elven reunification, though.
Unfortunately, I’m expecting a neutral Silvermoon. (But there’ll be some tweet or buried forum post that says it’s really still Horde in lore and this is just a temporary visit by selected trustworthy Alliance members! Doesn’t that make it aaaaaaall better?)
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Hey… we Horde recruits are hard fighting nail eating… lol
That’s the fantasy bit. Though, IIRC, there have been similar situations in history where recruits out maneuvered or out fought Vets. Sometimes being a raw recruit and not knowing the “proper” way to fight is an advantage… just not as often as fiction writers would like us to believe.
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I would find that a plausible excuse. Against anything but giant wolf men who don’t follow the rules of warfare 
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Reminded me of a movie I watched involving Werewolves and modern military. Dog Soldiers fun film but now I’m feeling old… that movie was released 22 years ago… blights me.
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Sounds like a fun movie. I heard of it, never actually seen it myself though
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Yes, but the reason that we’re going there as part of the World Soul saga is to defend the Sunwell, and the MU Draenei are very much attached to that. Also, it feels weird to me if the Horde BC zones get a makeover and nothing happens with their Alliance equivalents. Like I said, I’m not expecting that to happen, and I think Silvermoon is indeed the most likely candidate for a hub, but I just think it would be neat to see the Draenei get some love as the other BC player race, especially with their history with the Sunwell, especially since they build spaceships that could just park nearby for the expansion’s duration.
Good idea, I forgot about that island. I agree about the potential conflict, but it would be a nice place to use some of the shiny new night elf assets that were built for Bel’ameth.
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I think if Silvermoon is the neutral capital, it will be neutral forever, especially if the Thalassian elves (VE, BE, HE) become a united people at the end of Midnight.
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I already have my pitchforks ready. War Mode wont have a single non-Horde elf in all of Quel’thalas if I can help it.
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If it helps, I have zero interest in Silvermoon and say we take all the void and high elves and throw them ALL in the maw.
Worse obession blizz ever came up with
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I’m a high elf fan but I want them to have nothing to do with modern Quel’thalas. The contemporary Alliance-aligned high elves are - and should be - the scattered orphans of Quel’thalas-that-was, completely and purposefully separate from the inhabitants and inheritors of the Quel’thalas that rose from its own ashes like a phoenix.
Though, I feel like the constant reuse of the Silver Covenant, while making them nothing but blue-painted mirrors of blood elves who are solely obsessed with the blood elves, really hasn’t helped keep that distinction.
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She is is “revanchist”. While fascism is no stranger to use of revanchism, they are not the same thing.
Wikipedia has a nice article on revanchism.
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The head of state of Quel’Thalas is married to the head of state of another Horde nation, and neither have any reason to pull their people out of the Horde at this point; even without the faction war, the Horde and Alliance still have use to their respective member states for the purposes of trade and mutual aid. I don’t foresee Quel’Thalas leaving the Horde without a massive rework of the factions, and I don’t think that’s likely to happen within the scope of Midnight’s story. Silvermoon may welcome Quel’dorei civilians back, since the biggest reason for the split and exile hasn’t existed since Burning Crusade, but I wouldn’t expect Silvermoon to suddenly split from the Horde over reconciliation with a comparatively small group of exiles.
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That the Silver Covenant (and the Sunreavers… and the Kirin Tor) “lost all but a few after amassing in Dalaran” at least reduces the chance of them fielding inexplicable armies in Midnight. Say what you will about the void elves, but their implementation as “anti-blood elves” was at least more creative than painting blood elf doodads blue.
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I mean, that’s all high elves are at the end of the day. They’re basically blood elves who stayed on team blue
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Bel’ameth is an alliance capital and the horde has permission to enter.
Silvermoon could be like Bel’ameth, Lor’Themar allows the alliance to enter the capital because the horde/alliance elves will be united (elven reunification) to protect Quel’Thalas.
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My imagination makes me think it’d be cool to have the ruins of Silvermoon on the left side be taken by Alliance forces while the Horde retain the right side. The left would be rebuilt with blue High Elven architecture and serve as the Alliance hub.
The in between areas could be a battleground called the Battle for Silvermoon, like Wintergrasp, where both sides led by the Void Elves/High Elves vs the Blood Elves.
Yeah, then The Forsaken can take up the northern half of Gilneas so Battle for Gilneas still makes sense.
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Well lore wise it wouldn’t be continuous, it would’ve only happened for Midnight lorewise. After that I’d be fine with the Alliance ditching and giving it back to the Blood Elves. I just thought it was a cool idea and the only other option for the Alliance aside from Silvermoon being straight up neutral. And an urban warfare battleground in an elven city where you capture key points is too cool to resist, and the High Elf/Blood Elf duality is once again, perfect.
Well, the expansion’s tagline is “unify the elven tribes of Azeroth,” so a battle for Silvermoon wouldn’t really be conducive to that. And even if the Silver Covenant weren’t just smashed by the Void knife, a high elf vs blood elf war is a bit of an absurd proposition by any metric of lore, especially in the heart of blood elf power. It’d be blood elves vs void elves, and even then…
To put it another way: a Sunreavers vs Silver Covenant battleground in Crystalsong Forest would’ve worked. High elf exiles vs the full might of Quel’Thalas in Silvermoon City, not so much.
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