This dropped on my feed, and first of all, I love it.
But it did make me wonder … how much better would Cata have been if it hadn’t been Horde vs Alliance, but rather, Horde vs Twilight Hammer Cult vs Alliance vs Dark Iron Dwarves vs Cenarion Circle and Earthen Ring vs Twilight Dragons vs Dragon Flights vs the Naga vs the Silithid.
Literally every faction just going mad with paranoia and warmongering, with the Twilight Hammer Cult within every faction driving the Alliance and Horde to war against each other with manufactured ‘information’ and ‘incidents’, and all forces allied with the Old Gods, however slightly, just going H.A.M. on the nearest non-Old God allied force or nation. Just bleeding our strength out across a hundred different battlefields against every enemy, all at once.
The Dark Irons, having subjugated the Dark Horde after the defeat of Nefarion, under the command of a revived Dagran Thaussian, possessed by the spirit of Ragnaros, launching a brutal invasion from the north of Ironforge and the surrounding territories, with enslaved Orcs, Ogres and Trolls bent under the whips of a fanatical and mad army of Dark Iron Dwarves, enslaved in turn by Fire and Magma Elementals and Lava Giants, with Moria and a small core of Dark Irons who have realised this is no ‘miracle’, but the doom of not only their people, but all of Dwarven-kind.
The Kingdom of Stormwind and her territories reels as the Defias comes back, stronger than ever with a huge number of dispossessed and starving refugees and vagabonds from the staggering taxes levied upon the people taking up arms to ‘take back’ what is theirs as unnatural droughts and strange plagues grip the territories, the dark forces of Duskwood spilling out into Elwynn Forest and Redridge being assaulted by the Dark Iron Army, as well as Jungle Trolls sailing up the coastline to assault Stormwind herself, the heart of trade and diplomacy within the Alliance struggles to find its footing to actually stem the tide of chaos and insurrection as the Twilight Hammer rots the spirit of Humanity from within.
The Kaldorei get caught up with internal civil strife as Tyrande invites the Highborn back in to help counter what she sees as a surge of Horde aggression, causing a rift between her and Malfurion and giving Maieve Shadowsong a hefty dose of political ammunition in the process, leading to a struggle over who is really hearing the ‘Voice’ of Elune, while the Worgen struggle to find a place in the world, with Stormwind being a hotbed of instability and chaos that isn’t the best fit for people who literally wolf-out under the slightest bit of stress, and the Twilight Hammer manipulating both the Horde and the lingering Demonic forces to assault Ashenvale ceaselessly while Naga and Twilight Hammer Cults infest the coastlines and ruins, unearthing dark forces the Kaldorei had long discounted as inert or dead for tens of thousands of years …
The Draenei are likewise assailed by Naga, isolating them on their islands and compelling the Prophet to face the darkness within himself to try and break the stalemate, and in the process, figure out that the Void has been infecting his prophecies, hence why his ‘visions’ were so scattered on Draenor, and why they’ve only become more disjointed, and more terrifying, as the Old Gods reawaken during the Cataclysm.
For the Horde, Orcs and Trolls alike reel as Naga invade their coastlines, Twilight Hammer Cults explode amongst their people, sowing mistrust for Shamans and Mystics alike amongst the population and driving Garrosh to value a warrior’s insight above the wisdom of the spirits, while Elementals driven mad by the rising of the Old God lay sieges to Durotar, Orgrimmar, Azshara and the Barrens. With certain factions within the Alliance blaming the Horde for this elemental chaos, the Acting Warchief lashes out at these accusations of what he sees as slander against the spirit and pride of the Horde, and an insult to his personal honor, much to the chagrin of his allies who need him to keep the Horde focused on defending itself.
In Mulgore, the chaos of the Old Gods has granted the Quillboar and Harpies dangerous gifts, while Centaur from Desolace have begun to invade through newly opened ravines, gullies and fissures in the great mountain ranges that encircle and protect their new homeland, while across the Barrens, Stonetalon Mountains and the newly-flooded Thousand Needles, the Grimtotem Tribe, aided by enslaved elementals and Twilight Hammer Cultists, rise up in open rebellion against Cairne, and then Baine, attempting to either break the Tauren Tribes to the dark will of the Magotha, or bend them over the altar to empower the Grimtotems’ most dire and formidable champions through blood sacrifice.
The Forsaken and Sin’dorei reel as the dark energies that infest their lands lash out with guided malice, and the reckless demands of their Warchief push them into conflicts that they can scarcely afford to fight in the first place, with the Sin’dorei struggling to keep both the Sunwell properly guarded and provide enough warriors to keep the furious and short-tempered Acting Warchief from casting them out of the Horde in the middle of this world-wide chaos, with Naga rising in incredible numbers from the sea to assault both Quel’thalas and the Sunwell itself, while the Forsaken struggle as their ‘mindless’ Undead slaves suddenly develop a singular, driving will across their ranks and turn on the Forsaken, while rebelling Human colonists invade the Plaguelands, eager to escape Stormwind’s grasp and unwilling to acknowledge the Forsakens’ claim to these regions, leading to a four-way war between the rebels, Stormwind and the Undercity and the lingering Scourge forces in the region.
All over Azeroth, it is chaos. Where one battlefield falls in favour of the Horde or the Alliance, the forces of the Old Gods throw themselves with fanatical zeal at the defenders in the other, overwhelming the mega-factions through suicidal charges and devastating magical attacks infused with the void, tainting Elemental, Druidic and Arcane magics alike, while those spellcasters of the Light or other, Holy magics find their powers muted or even ineffective against this rising tide of Void and Madness.
I just think it was a missed step to have the Cataclysm be as, for lack of better words, as ‘clean’ as it was, with the Alliance and Horde beating each other over the heads with sticks while the Twilight Hammer diddled itself in the corner waiting for its turn. It really should have been absolute chaos where every single person that was upright and could hold a weapon was involved in the fighting, for better or worse, because you couldn’t turn the corner without an enemy popping up, and the fatigue, the strain and the horrendous loss of territories, resources and soldiers was actively and openly tearing the Mega-Factions to pieces before the players’ eyes.