The Deeprun Tram is the most powerful strategic asset on Azeroth

Lore Story Forum
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Not sure if you’re measuring the length of the tram or the distance from Stormwind to Ironforge. Because (canonically) the Tram makes a pretty significant detour around the bulk of the continent (this is the only way to account for the directional inconsistency of the tram.) So, you have to figure in the distance that it takes far into the ocean, before returning to the mountain.

Which also brings in the point that Arathi on the Lordaeron continent is actually at a higher elevation, so I want to see the Tram breaching under the Bridge of Thandol Span.

That’s not an bizarre as Deadmines. Decend deep into an underground mine to find the exit… on the top of a hill. ABOVE the entrance to the mine.

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I don’t know if it’s really that, so much as Blizzard likes to portray the horde version of things as darker than the alliance versions. I think the only element that hasn’t really gotten this treatment yet is the light.

  1. Goblin tech tends to be self-destructive and unreliable because of bad actors. Gnomish accidents are more “whoopsie-daisy” and whimsical.
  2. Horde spiritualism has been subverted twice now; first with the orcs and then again with Vol’jin as the “spirits” had him place Sylvanas in charge.
  3. Horde technological advancement, split between Garrosh’s horde and goblins, are more ecologically harmful and horrifying in practice (mana bomb). Dwarven military machines are just kinda “there,” from what I understand.
  4. Arcane addiction was explored through the blood elves as soon as they were made a horde race, showing how dangerous it could be. Alliance arcane might is admittedly a little weird in this regard because it’s either Jaina or Dalaran, neither of which really explored those themes.
  5. Horde dark magic has had blatantly harmful effects because of the whole WC1-2 horde stuff. But as soon as void elves got screentime, they start demonstrating how scary powers can be used “responsibly.”
  6. While they don’t get a lot of screentime, the horde archeological group (whose name I’m blanking on) has a mission statement about doing it for power, whereas the alliance version has a much more palatable surface goal of knowledge.

The devs clearly aren’t shy about showing how things can go wrong when the horde does something, but they’ve explored this consistently enough that they’ve inadvertently created a theme where if the alliance and horde are both doing something, the horde will find a way to screw it up.

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Or it could just be fundamental cultural differences. The Horde is dominated by martial culture, so when they create technology it’s more likely to take the form of weapons. Gnomes and Dwarves build trains and stuff, Horde builds bombs.

It’s like how Klingons can design and build their own weapons just fine but someone else needed to teach them how to do warp drives.

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I’ll argue here that, while the Technology on the Horde does get played in a poor light more often, in general that is part of a broader subject of just about ‘everything’ getting treated in a darker / poorer light in Horde cities. From the quality of living, to the safety of their lands, to the output of their agricultural production. While a good bit of this is rooted in older depictions of the Horde that have not changed over the decades, I do not think that it speaks to an overall trend of technology being wholly bad in the Horde.

Especially with new developments in the Horde over time, we have seen a decidedly improved relationship between the Horde and technology, especially as the various races have moved forward in their stories. (The rare times that occurs). It is also seen more prominently in the races that have joined the Horde in more recent times.

The Horde has plenty of technological marvels and pieces that have helped secure the safety and prosperity of the Horde, and are generally portrayed as ‘safe enough’ as well. From the Engineering marvel of Thunder Bluff, to the ever increasing reliability and performance of Zeppelins, and new steps forward in naval technology with aircraft carriers from the Mag’har, and the new Ship of the Line vessels from the Forsaken. The goblins have their X-in-a-box technology that, while rarely deployed in the narrative, is a powerful asset in setting up towns, forts, trading posts, or just about anything else they wish to place in a box.

The Rocketway, Telemancy Networks, Zeppelin routes have all proven to be incredibly effective, with Telemancy generally being portrayed as superior to regular teleportation magic in broad terms. Zeppelins, as well, effectively give the Horde stable and speedy transportation lines with relative transport speeds over the ocean that are far faster than what sailing ships would be able to accomplish given their current technological level.
(As a comparison: Hindenburg could cross the Atlantic round trip in about 98 hours. A sailing ship took between 1-2 Months. Even steam ships in the early 20th century were taking around 15 days) The Zandalari are shown to be master builders, and skilled shipwrights comparable to the Kul’tiran shipwrights as well.

The Shal’dorei in addition have been able to sustain themselves with food and water largely through magical means through thousands of years while beneath the shield around Suramar, and that knowledge should still be with them to this day. Not only that, but Highmountain, Zandalar, and however much of the Drogbar territory now falls under Navarogg’s control are all insanely resource rich and could provide the fertile grounds to prop up any expansion of Horde supply chains.

The Horde has plenty of advantageous technologies that could be applied to their prosperity, and in my opinion would have been applied in a story that paid more attention to logistics than Warcraft often does.

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45

The main reason I believe Blizzard wouldn’t do this is because, unlike the Deeprun tram, which is all self-contained in an instance, a Train across Kalimdor would be a massive world overhaul that I don’t believe Blizzard has any intention to do. Not to mention that it would be considerably longer then the Tram and would likely have a longer return trip time.

Which is a shame because it would be awesome.

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I’ve actually thought about that as a concept expansion before as well. A “Hollow Earth” type of scenario where we explore the underground of Azeroth. I’m not sure what the entire setting would be but an interesting concept for sure. Especially with a heavy Dwarven theme on the Alliance side of things.

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Thanks I hate it.

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I really hate it when writers for WoW uses the in-game scale as the ‘canon’ scale for zone sizes. Like do they seriously believe that Goldshire is just an inn and a blacksmith?

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Another glorious example of this was in that Pre MOP book. I’m pretty sure they said that the entire Theramore civilian population fled on a single ship lol…

I know Theramore was pretty small ingame but lorewise it was a pretty sizeable city state.

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I honestly think Goblin tech is highly underrated in the popular consciousness.

I think much of it comes form the fact that Goblins work a lot more with explosives. Failures are naturally bigger and flashier. But outside of that, all their stuff tends to work.

But when we finally got a look at Kezan in Cataclysm, it had pretty much every convenience one would expect of urban life in the mid 20th century US/UK: electric lighting, cars with personal radios driving on highways, printed magazines and calendars, as well as mass produced metal cans for food and drink. They’re on the cusp of launching rockets into the Twisting Nether at the Area 52 site. Everyone else on Azeroth may may have steampunk and magicpunk, but Goblins are straight up living in the 1950’s, with elements of zeerust.

But outside of goblin areas, you don’t see as much of that. The technology of the Horde and Alliance tends to begin and end at weapons of war rather than extend towards consumer goods. They’re not even particularly interested in logistics.

Or maybe they just don’t have the money. Sure, your average Stormwindian or Orgrimmarite probably spends more in taxes to collectively purchase an airship for the war effort, but the city infrastructure is still relying on wood and stone. And the average citizen doesn’t have enough disposable income or culture that would lead every family to have their own car, weekend golf games and casual consumption of mass produced sugary drinks dispensed by vending machines.

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That comes with living in a society that has lived in a constant state of war for 20 years.

That, and technology tends to take a couple decades before it trickles down to the proletariat.

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I know everyone is saying portals exist and that portal ‘technology’ renders the tram less vital. However, portals are primarily a gameplay mechanic and not as easy to operate in lore. We see Jaina portal everything and everyone all the time but she’s considered the most powerful sorceress alive, and one of the most powerful mages to have ever existed ever.

In Shadows Rising, First Arcanist Thalyssra (an incredibly powerful sorceress in her own right and one of the strongest alive, but ultimately weaker than Jaina) was struggling to recover and even walk after having teleported a relatively small horde militia, I think 50-100 soldiers if I’m remembering correctly, from Zuldazar to Nazmir.

If portal technology was as easy to use and simple as everyone in the thread is making it out to be, we wouldn’t have the need for zeppelins, naval transport fleets, MOUNTS, basically anything requiring us having to travel more than a quarter mile of distance.

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Off-topic but this thread made me fly around Khaz Modan and I had never noticed how many tunnels one had to travel through to reach Dun Morogh, and how both entrances into the zone are guarded by little valleys guarded by bunkers. The place is super tanky.

It also reminded me that there’s a similar dwarven tunnel connecting Arathi to Aerie Peak. Even notwithstanding the Deeprun Tram there seems to be a virtually uncontested land route running from Stormwind through to the Wildhammer.

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The Vindicaar would now be Azeroth’s most powerful strategic asset (a MAGIC SPACESHIP WITH A MAGIC LAZER), but yeah, the tram is useful and Blizzard once again forgets the consequences of their lore and acts like it doesn’t exist.

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I would have preferred if in the Battle of Lordaeron they used the Vindicaar to blast down the walls rather than the flying ship tbh.

It would have also gave Turalyon something to do rather than being awkwardly absent from the effort to reclaim his homeland’s capitol.

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Even though Jaina wouldn’t have been able to teleport them out of Sylvanas’ bomb with her spell, I otherwise like that idea.

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Alleria could have done that too.

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Unless they found a way to massively nerf the Vindicaar it could have been used to win the battle singlehandedly. Just rake the Horde’s lines and plague catapults with a holy laser and then teleport marines directly into the throne room.

Wouldn’t even need to damage the walls and the Alliance could move in immediately.

As funny as this would have been it’s obvious why they didn’t do it.

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The Battle of Hastings except William brought a Star Destroyer

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Maybe that’s why it was sidelined. The Vindicaar could single-handedly avenge the Burning of Teldrassil by “renovating” Orgrimmar or Undercity.

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