A dated topic I know, but this was always one of the more interesting WC3 quests at least to me because for all intents and purposes it was Arthas’ Kobayashi Maru.
It presents him, and by extension us, with a stark morale conundrum: the city of Stratholme has been infected and most of its citizens are doomed even if they’re not yet aware of it.
To make matters worse, the Dreadlord Mal’ganis and his force are loose deep within the city and hastening the spread one house at a time.
In Arthas’ position, what would YOU do? What COULD you do?
In my personal and probably unpopular opinion, I don’t think there was much Arthas COULD have done differently.
Let’s say for the sake of argument that Arthas listened to Uther and Jaina and decided to have their total force bar the entrance and institute a quarantine while messengers were sent with all haste back to the Capitol for reinforcements and to inform King Terenas and by extension the Alliance of Lordaeron of the gravity of the situation.
To me though, I just don’t think it would be enough. Even if the mages of Dalaran found a way to detect the infected due to the plague’s magical nature, they wouldn’t be able to properly screen people because Mal’ganis would make sure they never got the chance.
Left to roam free in Stratholme with its people unmolested, in mere hours countless hundreds if not thousands of innocents would be quickly slaughtered by his forces and turned into mindless Scourge.
The ever decreasing number of clean refugees would be driven to hurl themselves in desperation at Arthas’ forces to escape the tightening noose of undeath at their backs. They would not wait to be properly inspected for infection, they couldn’t because the tide of Scourge at their backs wouldn’t give them the time. If they didn’t escape, and escape now, they would share a fate worse than death.
And so Arthas’ forces would be forced to cut them down in ever increasing numbers, destroying his army’s morale as well as slowly stretching them to the breaking point even as more reinforcements continue to arrive.
And when his army was thoroughly demoralized, exhausted, and spread out trying to stop every desperate refuge from sneaking out of every drain or side passage, then the real horror would emerge.
Swollen to thousands if not tens of thousands strong and likely bolstered with greater undead such as Abominations that they now had time to stitch together as well as the direct power and leadership of Mal’ganis himself, the Scourge would have fallen on the now vastly outnumbered and weakened army.
It would be as if a dam broke and released a veritable flood of undeath that crashed upon and began butchering them. No matter how many were killed, countless more would seem to take their place and it would be true as more continued to flood out of the massive city while the Alliance’s fallen would be raised and turned against their steadily dwindling living comrades.
Fighting for their lives, even Uther would understand that trying to simply contain the infection only created a greater catastrophe. Headstrong he might be, he would think bitterly, Arthas was right to have wanted to raze the city. Watching the endless numbers continue to pour out, he understand at last that the Scourge counted on their mercy to become unstoppable. In his desire to save the people of Stratholme, he had instead doomed them all and unleashed a far greater evil that would sweep across all of Lordaeron.
In all likelihood, Arthas and the others would be forced to flee to the Capitol and would soon be besieged.
In my mind, no matter what form of containment or quarantine Arthas and the others might have taken, it would only give Mal’ganis time to grow the Scourge presence there into an overwhelming tide that would eventually sweep them away. There wouldn’t be time to test for infected because Mal’ganis wouldn’t give them that time.
It was cruel, it was callous, it was genocide. But I sincerely believe Arthas felt he had no other choice and, despite the horror he would be unleashing against people who might not be infected, knew that if he didn’t then Mal’ganis certainly would and turn them all into enslaved monstrosities.
I just don’t think aside from a few scant cases that the citizens of Stratholme could have been saved no matter what choice he made in the time he had. It really was a no-win scenario for him, the only real choice he had was in choosing to left them die at the Scourge’s hands and be raised or finish them off himself in an act of mercy.
What do you think? Do you think a proper quarantine was actually possible and sustainable in this situation, or do you believe Arthas made the best possible choice he could have?