The world of Azeroth is home to innumerable wonders and mysteries.
Countless races live across its continents, their histories and stories stretching back
perhaps even to the era of the Old Gods themselves.
But Azeroth has become a world defined not by the beauty of its lands or the achievements
of its peoples.
Instead, it is synonymous with the wars fought between its two great powers.
Each conflict has grown in scale and suffering until now all of Azeroth has been forced to
take a side, divided between The Horde or the Alliance.
The Horde in its current state is a confederation based around Orcs, Trolls, Tauren, Blood Elves,
Goblins, and even Pandaren and the undead Forsaken.
Each sees the horde differently.
As a refuge for outlanders and the downtrodden, an alliance of convenience, a means to a better
future, or merely an instrument of vengeance.
The former Warchief of the Horde, Vol’jin, described it as a family, but it has struggled
to restrain the darkest aspects of its nature.
Where the Horde is built on necessity, the Alliance is united behind high ideals.
Concepts like nobility, justice, and the goal of a fair and peaceful world have united humans,
dwarves, night elves, gnomes, Worgen, Pandaren, and the Draenei.
A sense of brotherhood prevails across the Alliance, when united against a common foe
their resolve cannot be questioned.
Yet when viewing the relationship between the Horde and the Alliance it often seems
that each exists only to rival and fight the other.
Both sides, whatever their intentions, have come to harbor an inescapable need for vengeance
and retribution that has poisoned every attempt at a lasting peace.
Instead, each conflict only escalates as the Alliance and Horde attempts to gain some new
advantage over the other.
The first war, fought roughly thirty years ago, was a conflict between the Orcish clans
of Draenor and the human Kingdom of Stormwind.
This was the first time the Orcs had appeared on Azeroth, and the brutality and suffering
they unleashed would sour their reputation for decades to come.
The war ended with Stormwind in flames and human refugees scattered across the northern
Kingdom of Lordaeron, bitter for revenge.
The second war saw the birth of the Alliance, and men, gnomes, elves, and dwarves smashed
the armies of the Horde, despite their new allies in the trolls and ogres.
Desperate to end the power of the Horde forever, the Alliance travelled through the Dark Portal
to the Orcish homeworld of Draenor.
The resulting conflict shattered the planet, transforming it into the Outland.
The surviving Orcs on Azeroth were placed in internment camps, only to rediscover their
shamanistic roots and unite under a new leader who vowed to create a new Horde.
The Third Great War was the largest yet, with the Alliance and Horde battling not only one
another, but the demonic forces of the Burning Legion.
In a rare example of what could be achieved when old rivalries were cast aside, elements
of the Horde and Alliance dealt the Burning Legion a tremendous defeat at the Battle of
Mount Hyjal.
Azeroth was saved and demonkind was dealt a blow the likes of which had not been seen
since the War of the Ancients, 10,000 years before.
Despite the revelation that the Burning Legion had manipulated both sides into decades of
war, the cycle of hatred between the Horde and the Alliance continued.
Across Azeroth, a Cold War prevails between the two powers, occasionally interrupted by
periods of open conflict or a temporary truce to deal with new threats that endanger both.
A second invasion by the Burning Legion and the return of Deathwing the Destroyer saw
the Horde and Alliance unite to accomplish the impossible.
Each time however, old animosities returned and the scramble for new lands and resources
took hold over each side.
The greatest tragedy is that should one side ever finally achieve a total victory over
the other, they will likely win nothing but a dying world.
Wounds inflicted by the Burning Legion have never fully healed and Azeroth has suffered
under cataclysm and war with seemingly no end in sight.
If both sides are to have a future, their only hope may be to finally escape the endless
conflict that has come to define the existence of the Horde and the Alliance.
In Rivalries, the Templin Institute investigates the relationships and conflicts between two
or more factions, organizations or individuals.
Rivalries is the second of four new pilots we’re introducing day by day this week.
If you would like to see the Templin Institute investigate the rivalries between the Romulans
and Klingons, Batman and Superman, or others, a pledge of just one dollar a month to our
Patreon gets you a vote when the polls open this Friday.