If a race is genocided and loses 90% of its population it’s impossible for them to fight off a military that was previously equal to them. If the alliance doesn’t genocide the horde in response to Teldrassil then the horde will come back rather easily from losing this war and take over the alliance. Once this happens the alliance races small population size will make them coming back from this impossible as they’ll be locked out culturally, racially, and politically. With this in mind how can the alliance win BFA without replying to Teldrassil in equal measure?
TL;DR: 90% of a race is wiped out by the opposition (this happened to the native americans via smallpox btw); even if they win the war with the last 10% they will be severely outnumbered. How can they come back from this without genociding the other side to even out the numbers?
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The NE army was sent on a wild goose chase only a small fraction of their military was affected.
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Right, but with all of their civilians dead they no longer have anyone to make military supplies, they don’t have an economy to build up resources or money to allow them to trade with other races. The only way they could have these things would be by dedicating some of their military to such duties, but that would further reduce they’re military power.
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To be fair, the genocide against the Night Elves is what likely brought the factions back into relative balance. The Alliance always had the advantage in population by a large margin. Most of the Horde was sent to Kalimdor on a handful of ships, with enough room to spare to pick up the Darkspears who, themselves, were on the brink of extinction. Then the Horde saved the Tauren, who were at risk of suffering genocide from the Centaur.
So from the outset the Horde was always significantly smaller than the Alliance. The Night Elves, who were equal to that Horde as well as the Alliance forces sent to Kalimdor, then joined the Alliance. The Forsaken were not noted to be particularly numerous either. The Blood Elves joined the Horde and were also a race that had suffered near genocide. The Bilgewater Cartel is a single Cartel carried by a single boat…
When you get down to it, the Horde does not pick up a whole lot of population at any point in the franchise, and instead continually loses forces. The Northrend conflict, according to Thrall, wiped out an entire generation of the Horde, while the Alliance counted it’s losses at about 50,000.
Then we have the Cata-MoP war which ended in a civil War for the Horde from which it did not recover, and left the Forsaken and Blood Elves as the strongest forces within the Horde, numerically.
This isn’t to say the Alliance hasn’t suffered losses or recruited races that have had their populations decimated, but the gain of the Night Elves marked a MASSIVE advantage in numbers the Alliance held until Teldrassil was burned down.
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This literally happened to the Blood Elves but it doesn’t stop them from fielding whole armies every other expansion apparently.
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Pop numbers are meaningless, move along.
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As unappealing as I think it sounds to players on both sides, I think the best option would be to conquer the horde and work on reeducating the population. A retaliatory genocide would be just as gross and the violence has to stop at some point, or revenge will just go on forever.
And yeah, I know it sounds stupid to say the alliance is the one that has to forgive the horde…again. And not to stoop to their level…again. But Blizzard seems unwilling to want anyone in the current horde to proactively seek peace so I’d think the most moral in-game option would be to remove the leadership and rehabilitate the population.
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I’ve always held to the idea that Teldrassil was meant to even out the numbers betwixt alliance and horde. I just wish it weren’t the horde that had to deal them such a blow. Would have been more fitting if it were Azshara I’d think.
But I suppose in the context of WoW and the war of thorns this answers my question. As for real life I guess this means it still goes unanswered, but I think this is one of the last places I’d go to for an answer on such a thing.
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The Night Elves win in Darkshore without Alliance aid, so they seem to be doing just fine. The burning of Teldrassil was not as destructive as people think. It was a tragedy, no doubt, but the Night Elves are hardly on the brink of extinction.
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I cant be the only player willing to let Azeroth die to if it means dragging the Horde down with us.
I mean, the devs said that we’d have to choose revenge or saving the world- i dont see why i shouldn’t choose revenge (so far)?
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Honestly, from my understanding the issue is we keep giving crazy people asbolute power with no means other then dueling to remove them. The Horde has plenty of level headed people in it, it’s just that they also have crazies like Sylvanas in it as well and the way the government is set up (No Proper Succession other then what the old leader says when they leave, absolute power over multiple nations, the fact the highest governmental position is also the highest military one, no apparent rule of law) makes it so that said Crazy people can easily trick or persuade someone to make them warchief, as they only need to do it for one person, then they get absolute power and can act above the law, doing whatever they like, and force people to obey them do to the stupid blood oath.
Orc Culture is honestly one of the main things holding the horde back right now and makes it super easy for a tyrant to take over in universe.
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Sure they took it. But holding it is another matter. I won’t be surprised if they have to give it up and then they and the gilneans take some land on the EK instead.
who knows, if they go this route maybe we could get more expansions where the horde and alliance don’t have to deal with each other as much. Like it’d be awesome if N’zoth beat and took over the horde this xpac and Azshara did the same to the alliance. Then next xpac each faction has to focus on beating their respective conquerer. The nelves of course would get some serious spotlight in said followup xpac (where-in the alliance could canonically defeat Azshara before the horde does N’zoth), as a sort of cathartic retribution for Teldrassil, their past with Azshara, and to give them a chance to start rebuilding early as they’ll have the most to work on.
I certainly don’t think more genocide should be the answer to genocide.
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Can’t say I blame you much at this point. Right now it looks like if we choose revenge we get wiped out. If we choose to save the world; the horde wipes us out anyway. Feels like a zero-sum game at the moment.
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They will Hold it… Night Elves get all their land back.
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But lets say for example the nelves didn’t have a massive population that hangs over the horde. Let’s say the genocide at Teldrassil really did put the nelves on the brink of extinction but they managed to miraculously pull off the win anyway. How could they ever keep hold of the horde with such a tiny remaining population? If anything the horde would not only ultimately end up winning once they fought back against their new conquerer’s but those that would have inflicted genocide would have received almost zero punishment in response to it and would easily be able to do it again, and again, and again. Because they’d never be punished for it, and those they continually inflicted genocide upon would only get weaker and weaker.
It’s a slippery slope, and I don’t exactly have a good answer or alternative for it. But genocide for genocide doesn’t seem like a good decision if you ask me.
I’d also say the raising of undead is a huge problem as well. I mean the very process of raising someone basically removes all positive emotions. How can anyone be expected to make totally rational and good-willed decisions at that point?
If the horde wants to keep raising people then they need to, at minimum fix the process by which people are raised at the very least.
The answers are:
a) Dismantle the horde (never gonna happen due to obvious reasons)
b) The horde get rids of this stupid warchief system (also never gonna happen due to writers being hacks)
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War for war doesn’t sound too great either, but it’s either you hit the other guy back or he’ll just keep punching you. I guess what i’m trying to say is: “Don’t start none, won’t be none.”
At least that’s the only potential answer I’ve got right now.
@Gharion: Maybe it’s just me but I actually feel like dismantling the horde would be a great idea. Imagine them revamping all the horde starting zones to where the horde races have to break out of alliance occupation and restart the horde, while the alliance starting zones are changed to show that they aren’t exactly treating the horde races too well, or are making little attempt to re-educate them.
This way the alliance could have their victory, and the horde gets to feel like outcasts, underdogs, and people just trying to live peaceful lives once again. Maybe give us like, a 5 year timeskip where the horde stays under alliance occupation before they break out where it could be noted that in that time all the evil people were killed.