SPOILERS: Archives: The First Disc

Lore Story Forum
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Once they started hitting the Titans with the morally-grey bat, I had started to have some theories about how that was going to play out. Perhaps this weekly quest that came out yesterday is pointing the way I thought it was.

Now that we have this notion of a “prime world soul,” and that the Titans set out to find it specifically, it begs the question of whether world souls are Titans at all. The specific language used is that they wanted to “guide” it to become the “greatest titan of all.” I think that, in the end, the morally grey part of the Titans’ story is that they are doing the same thing every other force is trying to do to Azeroth, which is shape it in their own image. So, it isn’t necessarily that world souls are specifically Titans, but rather some kind of stem cells, as it were. Titans go around trying to make them Titans, Void Lords want to make them in their own image, etc.

In Shadowlands, Firim ended his writings with this:

But if his scheme was thwarted, then why is my mind so ill at ease?

Because I have seen how fragile the pattern is. How delicate the scales that keep the six forces in balance.

And if the Jailer, in his act of malevolence, left behind but the most imperceptible of cracks in that pattern, then I fear what is tiny now will only grow, until the balance itself is prone to be shattered by another force applying relentless pressure.

I pray that the First Ones anticipated such an eventuality. That they would leave measures in place to preserve their grand design.

Unless…

Unless their design was never meant to endure.

And that… that is the possibility that haunts me.

Any one force shaping the “prime world soul” in their image would certainly shift the balance of power in one of the six cosmic force’s direction, and then the balance between them would certainly be shattered. So it isn’t a good thing if the Titans “guide” Azeroth in their direction.

I think it is even more foreshadowed in the Earthen story with Magni and, earlier, with the Dragonflights. With the Dragonflights, they got their power back not from the Titans, but from Azeroth (something “different” as they put it). With Magni, once his Azeroth-infused power was transferred to the Earthen, these Titan creations ask what they are. Magni responds they can be whatever they want. If that’s Azeroth will, maybe Azeroth doesn’t want to be a Titan, and is now trying to shape herself in her own image.

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I may as well post it here

does anyone know why the earthen smashed the edicts?
I kinda forgot by the time the campaign ended. After the edicts were smashed a big titan thing appeared and tried to kill them.

it seemed the titans didnt want the earthen to stray from the edicts but I cant remember why they were abandoning them. It had something to do with the coreway and protecting it I think.

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This was the text in regards to the Titanic Failsafe questline, I believe it was because of the inherent contradiction of the edicts having them protect the Coreway when they wanted to commit to the war against Xal’atath. The edicts would have them stay on the surface and just focus on fixing things, when they thought they needed to offer their services directly to the Alliance/Horde as they venture below. Merrix says this:

So the titans send their ancient machines against their disobedient children.

Would our creators have us protect the Coreway at the expense of all else? At the expense of Azeroth herself? Are we meant to preside over a road untraveled, leading to the world’s dead heart?

No, today we are all Unbound, and we will fight for our freedom. For Azeroth!

So, being programmed to maintain the highway as your only directive, even if the the thing the highway goes to ceases to exist, doesn’t really make sense. I’m glad you brought it up though, because that goes to my earlier point. Things “breaking away” from Titan influence is kind of the theme.

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In this case, destroying the edict machinery was very unethical… both unethical to the Earthen, and unethical to us mortals, and unethical to the world soul of Azeroth as well. The reason the Titans would be in favor of edicts (we don’t yet have evidence that the titans themselves established the edicts, could have been a lesser keeper or watcher) is that forces of the void love to corrupt and sway the emotions of fleshy free will beings… to get them to fight with anger and doubt and fear and pride and hatred. The Old Gods feed on that necrophotic energy, as we now know.

So these immoral earthen smashing the edict machines to go be part of a fight ended up actually “helping” Xal’atath… and harming Azeroth.

But back to the first disc lore reveal; I have a totally different interpretation than you do. It revealed to us that Archaedas believes (wasn’t actually the words of Khaz’goroth…but it is Archaedas saying he believes this is what Khaz’goroth said) that Khaz’goroth believes the world soul inside Azeroth is the Prime World Soul… in other words, the Azeroth World Soul would be the mother of all the other titan world souls. Including Khaz’goroth and Aman’thul and Argus and the one found and killed by Sargeras and the one dismantled and put back together again in shadowlands, etc. In other words, it suggests that the world soul now inside Azeroth wasn’t always inside a planet…and could have been traveling through the Great Dark Beyond, spawning out new baby titans as it went along, maybe being chased by void entities the whole way. Then eventually that Prime Titan might have gotten tired of running away from void, and decided to build a planet around itself, and a Sun and Moon entity to help defend it against void while she slept to regain her strength.

The whisper “She is not the last, but the first” could very well apply to Azeroth being the First Titan.

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Yes the Titans ruined the First Ones grand design on purpose because they evaluated themselves to gods.

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I think Azeroth being an independent faction is still the most likely and straightforward scenario. Yet I could totally see a “twist” where the Titans are trying to keep all external forces away from influencing Azeroth. I’m torn on what is actually going to happen.

They say it is because the older traditions are stale and incompatible with their current situation.

But I don’t think the leveling stories do well to establish that. From the questing, it seems the Earthen get renewed meaning in their edicts and understand not to be so “rigid” in their interpretation.

Merrix and Baelgrim, for example, realize their edicts to protect all Earthen means all Earthen. If they squabble and divide their people between Oathsworn and Unbound there will be no Earthen to protect.

Yet, in the max-level campaign, Merrix believes it is best to reject the oaths. The same edict he supposedly came to understand better during the Steelvein story.

Just feels like disjointed reasoning and I don’t think you missed anything.

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The Unbound are perfect Horde material.

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I mean, it took Merrix to develop a split personality to make him realize that he can help all Earthen with what he was doing, while still technically following the strict edicts he was programmed with.

I thought that was kinda of neat that it was his way of getting around the rigidity of his programming

All Earthen at the end of the max level campaign are Unbound. It’s why both sides got them as allies

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they could have made a contrast between oathsworn and unbound.

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Yeah. It’s called the leveling campaign. Should try playing it sometime. :dracthyr_nod:

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I did and I was confused this is the first time a neutral rae isn’t serperated.

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I enjoyed that part of the questline. It was interesting to see how the Earthen reevaluated their edicts.

At least my interpretation was once Merrix realized there wasn’t a conflict anymore, he integrated both sides. It was his misunderstanding that led him to live two lives.

That is why I find the breaking of the edicts to be redundant. Merrix already found a resolution and gained a deeper understanding of his oath.

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I hope the next set of races will not be neutral. We need to go back to faction exclusive stuff.

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The game is moving each day further away from that. Endgame progression really is damaged by the faction divide and wow has always been gameplay first.

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It destroys the flavor of the game if all races are neutral.

Give alliance void etherals

and horde amani trolls

for midnight that is.

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I just really think that is where Dragonflight had already been pointing. The Primalists were presented as one of those “Ok, you’re technically right, but you’re all nuts” kind of villains in regards to the Titans being manipulative, especially in the War of the Scaleborn novel. And at the end of Dragonflight, having the Aspects regain their powers not from the Titans, but from Azeroth herself, sure makes it seem like Azeroth doesn’t utilize Order magic as a means.

In fact, I’m not sure anyone has classified what kind of magic Azeroth utilizes. Sure seems different and unique to everything else, including how we used Azerite in BfA. Blizzard has really left everything bare after Shadowlands, and I feel like the only mysterious unknowns out there now are the nature of Azeroth and the introduction of the First Ones.

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I would say the campaign quest line dealing with the rooks gives some validation to your original post.

It seems to Beal and the other earthen individual in that quest (can’t recall his name), that the titans forced their will on the rooks to serve the earthen. And they both realized it was wrong but argued differently about it which lead to their falling out. And they couldn’t make progress on it because Beal eventually went back for “recharge” and it wiped his memory every time.

In other words even the Earthens own free will was discounted from modeling the “edicts.” There were roles for everyone and you could not stray. Now this would make more sense if everyone else didn’t get corrupted (I e curse of flesh, Loken, etc)

I would gather the titans upon meeting the “children of Azeroth” in legion demonstrated to them what happened. Life on this world soul took its own course and it worked out for the best as opposed to their original design, and they went with it.
I feel your assertion that they will help prevent others from influencing our world soul and allow it remain uninfluenced if we and the world soul deem it so.

The only ones who have ever been rigid on their stances have been titankeepers and their constructs. Even algalon was a construct I think if not just someone who bought “cosmically calculated data” as the only path forward. And sometimes it’s hard to blame them when dealing with something like the old gods.

Anywho that’s my 2 cents. Bravo on the topic! Cheers

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It does beg the question of why the Titans created anything with free will in the first place. It would seem a cosmic force of order would best be served by having its constructs made with a set will to establish order and obey the edicts. Maybe free will is a part of the curse of flesh, at least mentally. I’ve generally only thought of it as completely literal in regards to the body. The Old Gods do like to always remind us how the are responsible for how they mortal races are in the game.

That’s a different subject though :wink:

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From my understanding the over all edict of the Earthen was focused on protecting the Coreway, defense over offense. The Earthen wished to stand with the Horde and Alliance against the Nerubians, so Merrix and the others decide to smash the edicts as a symbolic moment to show that the Earthen can make their own choices and to official join the war against Xal’atath.

Now since we already saw Merrix bend his edict before, I’m not clear why he couldn’t bend it here. After all an easy argument to make is that with since Nerubians attacked the Coreway once already and were fighting the Earthen on the Isle of Dorn, they could attack again, and would likely seek to prevent repairs. So the best way to help defend the Coreway was to deal with the active threat against it.

Though it’s possible that the Council of Dornogal thought that the other Earthen wouldn’t have his flexibility, with the destruction of the edicts being that symbolic moment.

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You know that’s a good point. I haven’t considered “limited will” in that regard. It makes sense. The earthen have “free will” to carry out their directive in the most logical efficient way it seems. Any deviations seemingly are suppose to be sorted out with the “recharges.”

On the other hand, the unbound somewhat prove the contrary. It seems with enough data gathering some earthen and even other titan constructs do gain more personality, perspective, understanding, etc. so perhaps they seem to have the capacity to learn. And in that the capacity to direct their own will. At least the earthen seem more capable mentally than, let’s say your typical golem construct.

Then of course there is the curse of flesh as you mentioned. Perhaps magic like that “lift” so to speak innate magical programming in living beings?

So perhaps there in lies the key. Interesting to think about. As fun as it can be to make these observations and inferences hopefully we get some concrete lore on this kind of stuff from metzen or a future chronicles.

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