What the Blood Elves should do

We actually don’t know the condition of Silvermoon beyond what we saw in the Nightborne recruitment quests. Neither it or Eversong Woods are even mentioned in the “Azeroth at War: After Lordaeron” missions.

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That is borderline conspiracy theory. In the Blood Elf heritage quest we saw at least that Silvermoon and Isle of Quel’Danas are just fine.

So who do you imagine has destroyed the Blood Elves, the defunct scourge, who we killed all of their leaders in Ghostlands, and now their new Lich King keeps them dormant, or the handful of Amani who are still alive? We’ve raided Zul’Aman twice, killed their gods and leaders twice, and the second time involved a good number of their population being killed when the Dark spear and, Silver covenant, and Blood Elves all attacked at once.

If you want a conspiracy theory, I would posit that Sylvanas has purposefully been preventing any restoration efforts at the Ghostlands to keep the Blood Elves under her thumb.

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Thats actually a pretty good theory, I wouldn’t be mad if that ended up being the case. Her history puts it within the realm of possibility.

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Ban’dinoriel was actually remade in WC2 after initial Horde attack with Gul’dan but before the Dragon riders came. This dialogue is after Horde attack on runestones.

Elf sorcerers summoned an immense shield around Silvermoon City. The barrier derived its power from the Sunwell, a fount of magic that served as the heart of Quel’Thalas’s culture.

Chronicle: Volume II, pg 164

After this, Ban’dinoriel had 2 shields. Outter (dampening) shield that was empowered by Runestones and the inner shield that was empowered by Sunwell and mooncrystals. Chronicle vol. 2 didn’t elaborate on the latter but it was explained in Blood of the Highborne during Scourge attack.

Here at An’telas, one of the three mooncrystals had been embedded within the altar. It was said the crystal kept here had been cut from the emerald Eye of Jennala when the world was young.

There were two other crystals as well, both enshrined at ley-line intersections: one cut from the amethyst Stone of Hannalee, the other from the sapphire Body of Enulaia. Charged by the ley lines, the three crystals fed the earth’s arcane energies into the magical web that protected Silvermoon. This dome of energy was known by the elves as Ban’dinoriel—the Gatekeeper. A defensive barrier of immeasurable force, dwarfing even the might of the Runestones that powered the outer dampening field, a field that restricted the use of magic to that wielded by the elves themselves.

Blood of the Highborne

Inner shield was invincible from outside threat but it only covered the Silvermoon City itself and the surrounding area unlike the outter shield that was empowered by Runestones. Sylvanas died outside inner shield.

The mooncrystals were found later and Kael’thas used them to destroy the corrupted Sunwell but they still survived the explosion.

Rommath held out his hand, palm up. The mooncrystal hovered an inch above it. “The mooncrystals endure.”

Astalor’s eyes narrowed. “Their power is greatly diminished and no doubt deeply corrupted by the energies they have channeled, but they may still be of some value.”

The magister then turned to Kael’thas. “My liege, I believe they would be safest in your keeping.” The prince looked from his comrade to the stones, which had become small and fiery verdant spheres.

Rommath hesitated briefly, then added, “He is right.”

“So be it, then,” Kael’thas responded. The two magisters gestured, and the orbs floated in front of the prince.

Blood of the Highborne

So Kael basically made the 3 Mooncrystals that empowered the inner shield his toys! Blood Elves may have them now considering Horde canonically killed Kael’thas (twice). Unfortunately, it clearly says that the power of mooncrystals are greatly diminished, so it’s safe to assume that it’s probably impossible to remake Ban’dinoriel with those.

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The power for the shield comes from the ley lines and from the Sunwell. Power that the Blood Elves still have. The Mooncrystals were just foci. There is surely other magical artifacts in the world that can take their place.

Hardest part woukd be food unless tgey want to do as the nightborne did

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It actually does say Mooncrystals were like conduits.

Simply removing the crystals would not cause the barrier to immediately collapse. With the crystals pilfered, the shield would wane over time, but the magi within Silvermoon were fully capable of channeling the Sunwell’s energies to maintain the defense. It was simply more convenient and far more efficient to use the crystals than to force the magi to stand around channeling all day.

But I agree, there must be other replacement artifacts. Like, they could just say that Reliquary found something useful for once after digging places around Azeroth >.>

Edit: Actually, I don’t really care about it being remade because there’s already Ban’dinoriloadingscreen protecting the entire zone now!

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Presumably the blood elves remember the last time the decided to just secede from their allies, Arthas managed to march though their gates. If nothing else, the elves do have some loyalty to their allies.

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No, because the sad truth of the matter is that succumbing to their isolationist tendencies have done nothing but backfire on Elves in the past. Even in brief instances of it (like the High Elves, after they left the Alliance of Lordaeron, after the Second War) it caused them to be thoroughly out of the loop when it comes to the world around them; and rendered them completely unprepared when the world they attempted to succeed from came back to remind them that the world wont stop just because they wish to hide away.

Best analogy I have for this is: Its better to keep one hand on the steering wheel and try to keep some semblance of control, rather than letting go and losing all control. Not to mention, the BEs (despite their absence in the WoT) are NOT absolved if they were to simply leave (no more than the Tauren). Part of the consequences of Blizz forcing the Horde leadership to stall on moving against Sylvie for as long as they did is they’ve made every Horde race far more complicit in her burning of Teldrassil. Leaving … is not necessarily a get-out-of-jail free card, and the Horde IS still one of the World’s two superpowers (which does offer some support).

EDIT: Not to mention, it would be a massively scumbag thing to do to get the Nightborne into the Horde, only to abandon them and their city to their fate … just to hide behind their own protective barrier until things blow over. THEIR shield is unlikely to be repaired.

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I actually gasped. That’d be devious indeed!

Mainly because doing do would leave them vulnerable again. The sunwell is valuable to a whole lot of people and having allies helps in defending it, kind of why the night elves joined the alliance because the second well of eternity is a huge target

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they should abandon the horde in the time of need after all the horde help?

i mean, the elves stop being that egocentric.

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They could have in city vegetable gardens, there is lots of patches of fertile soil in the city. There is also lots of seemingly fertile ground on the Isle of Quel’Danas. And of course they could supplement it with fishing the waters around the city and island.

I agree to a point, mostly because Blizzard’s horrible bungling of the faction war/the Horde in general has made this sound appealing. The idea that this haughty race of elves was brought low by tragedy and forced to reevaluate their historically poor attitude towards alliances to survive the storm was great, but at this point they’d almost certainly profit more from just shutting themselves off again and dedicating their forces entirely to home security rather than [the current evil warchief]'s mad quest to conquer the world.

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Failing that, they should at least demand veto power over the new Warchief’s decisions.

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Actually Dar’kan didnt figure it out, Lor"themar (then a ranger and his friend) told him about them.

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Oh and to add a thought. No they should not leave the Horde either to hide under the sheild or join alliance. What they should do is go kick Sylvies teeth in and give her the finger alongside the horde who have any sense of honor. Then kick her followers teeth in til with cleansed it of the blight shes created of it.

They’ve probably concluded that hiding behind magical shields is a bad idea in the long run. You can hide for awhile, but eventually someone will get through your defences, and then you will be screwed. It’s better to be out there being proactive in the world.

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To quote epic badass Saurfang “You and me, we don’t get to hide”

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