Know Your Lore: The Bronze Dragonflight, Page 2

For a group of dragons mostly concerned with the ebb and flow of time led by a reclusive aspect who knows the exact time and place of his death, the Bronze Dragonflight has been surprisingly active. They have appointed 'Watchers', agents who move through time serving the unknowable goals of Nozdormu himself, and have involved themselves with events in Andorhal and beyond. It's interesting to note that in his/her appearance in Andorhal, Chromie seems to believe that the Scourge is tampering with time itself, an assertion seemingly borne out by the appearance of Temporal Parasites, but considering Chromie's earlier appearance in Stratholme (well, earlier from a pure timeline perspective, but later subjectively... this is why I love time travel, by the way, because events actually can precede their causes) where we see the Infinite Dragonflight at work trying to kill Prince Arthas before he could become the Lich King, it's possible that the Scourge were not involved at all. We certainly never see evidence of them traveling through time again.
Nozdormu himself makes a reappearance between the Second and Third Wars, being one of the Aspects who bands together to free Alexstrasza and defeat Deathwing. He's also involved in the events wherein Korialstasz/Krasus, Rhonin, and Broxigar are sent back in time and completely confuse the heck out of everyone reading along trying to figure out the original events of the War of Ancients vs. their changes and alterations. Good job there, Nozzie. That helped keep those timelines straight.
Since then, the various sub-factions of the Bronze Dragonflight (the Brood of Nozdormu, the Keepers of Time, and the Scale of the Sands) have each seemingly taken on specific duties. The Brood, led by Anachronos, seems most concerned with protection the Bronze Dragonflight itself, stopping the Qiraji once and for all and otherwise making sure the other factions continue their work unmolested. The Keepers of Time (led by the brother and sister pair Andormu and Nozari) seem more directly involved with the actions of the Infinite Dragonflight, a group of strange dragons and draconids who work to alter the timeline for some as yet unknown reason (which I will be going into next week) and the Scale of the Sands serves as Soridormi's personal servants, currently occupied with trying to preserve the timeline around the events of the Battle of Mount Hyjal.
At present (as much as that word has any meaning to a group of time travelers) much of the bronze dragon's efforts are taken up in their conflict with the infinites. It's impossible to say when this conflict actually started. For all we know, the Infinite Dragonflight won't even come into existence for thousands of years. Since both they and the bronzes are capable of moving through time, their skirmishes take place on a constantly shifting battlefield of when, not where. We do know that even during the Nexus war Chromie sends adventurers to the Bronze Dragonshrine in Northrend, where selected agents team up with themselves twice in order to do battle with the infinites and see a puzzling image of Nozdormu at the end of a rite that is intended to show the leader of that time altering faction.
Chromie reveals at the end of that quest (the first quest, where future you comes back to help present you in the dragonshrine, not the second quest, where present you goes back in time to help past you defend the dragonshrine) that the bronzes currently have no idea when Nozdormu is, merely that he's away dealing with important temporal matters. However, since the rite she sent you to enact was intended to determine who the leader of the infinite dragonflight is, quite a few have theorized that this means Nozdormu is in fact the head of the infinites. How could the Aspect of Time, in charge of maintaining the timeline, dedicate himself to destroying it? Well, there are many possibilities, none confirmed.
Nozdormu himself makes a reappearance between the Second and Third Wars, being one of the Aspects who bands together to free Alexstrasza and defeat Deathwing. He's also involved in the events wherein Korialstasz/Krasus, Rhonin, and Broxigar are sent back in time and completely confuse the heck out of everyone reading along trying to figure out the original events of the War of Ancients vs. their changes and alterations. Good job there, Nozzie. That helped keep those timelines straight.
Since then, the various sub-factions of the Bronze Dragonflight (the Brood of Nozdormu, the Keepers of Time, and the Scale of the Sands) have each seemingly taken on specific duties. The Brood, led by Anachronos, seems most concerned with protection the Bronze Dragonflight itself, stopping the Qiraji once and for all and otherwise making sure the other factions continue their work unmolested. The Keepers of Time (led by the brother and sister pair Andormu and Nozari) seem more directly involved with the actions of the Infinite Dragonflight, a group of strange dragons and draconids who work to alter the timeline for some as yet unknown reason (which I will be going into next week) and the Scale of the Sands serves as Soridormi's personal servants, currently occupied with trying to preserve the timeline around the events of the Battle of Mount Hyjal.
At present (as much as that word has any meaning to a group of time travelers) much of the bronze dragon's efforts are taken up in their conflict with the infinites. It's impossible to say when this conflict actually started. For all we know, the Infinite Dragonflight won't even come into existence for thousands of years. Since both they and the bronzes are capable of moving through time, their skirmishes take place on a constantly shifting battlefield of when, not where. We do know that even during the Nexus war Chromie sends adventurers to the Bronze Dragonshrine in Northrend, where selected agents team up with themselves twice in order to do battle with the infinites and see a puzzling image of Nozdormu at the end of a rite that is intended to show the leader of that time altering faction.
Chromie reveals at the end of that quest (the first quest, where future you comes back to help present you in the dragonshrine, not the second quest, where present you goes back in time to help past you defend the dragonshrine) that the bronzes currently have no idea when Nozdormu is, merely that he's away dealing with important temporal matters. However, since the rite she sent you to enact was intended to determine who the leader of the infinite dragonflight is, quite a few have theorized that this means Nozdormu is in fact the head of the infinites. How could the Aspect of Time, in charge of maintaining the timeline, dedicate himself to destroying it? Well, there are many possibilities, none confirmed.
- It's not Nozdormu at all, and Chromie was right, the hourglass did indeed show Nozdormu fighting back against them.
- It's a future alternate version of Nozdormu seeking to prevent his own death reaching back in time to change events on Azeroth so that he won't die. He's disabled his 'present' self so he won't fight him.
- It's present day Nozdormu doing the same thing, but because he knows he's supposed to. His awareness of the time and place of his death indicates he dies because he starts the infinite dragonflight, so he did so in order to preserve the timeline and bring out the foreordained events of his foreseen death.
- Nozdormu has gone mad because he has to maintain the sanctity of a timeline that leads inexorably to his own death, which he knows the exact date and means of, so his personality has broken and he isn't even aware that he's the head of the infinite dragonflight.
- It's not Nozdormu, but someone close to him that either wants to usurp his position or prevent his death against his own will (Soridormi and Anachronos would both be contenders here) - Nozdormu is either being kept out of the loop or actively subverted by his most trusted followers.
- Come up with your own crazy theory! It's time traveling dragons, it doesn't have to make a whole lot of sense.
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Reader Comments (Page 3 of 3)
Eldoron Mar 17th 2010 10:22PM
I have been thinking about this for a while now and I think I have a pretty nice idea. At least I find it nice... Well I do think that Nozdormu is in the background with the Infinite Dragonflight. I think it is his own dragonflight from the future. And I have several points to prove it.
As we have seen so far, many dragon aspects (and their flights of course) are not really fond of mortals. Only the red and the green one is at our side, really. Now, I think that Nozdormu grew tired of seeing how mortals blew up their (and Azeroth's) history. And I think he grew so tired he wanted to do something about it. Just remember... Infinites wanted to kill Medivh, Thrall, and Arthas. 3 persons who brought much suffering to Azeroth. Well okay, Thrall is not too obvious. But think of this: should he never escape, the Horde wouldnt be there now. There would be only Alliance. PEACE. I think I dont have to explain the other 2 persons. (I do not mention Battle of Mount Hyjal because -as far as I know- there are no Infinites in that fight.
Of course you were all fed with made-up reasons why we have to save these people. But they really sound stupid... I think Chromie (and Blizzard through her, of course) only tried to give these actions some common sense, what GOOD the Infinites want to prevent, and why it is very-very important for us to step in. But you all know that these things they want to prevent are originally bad. We were just given some crafted reasons what good sprung out of those actions in the end. Malygos went mad, Neltharion too, Ysera's dragons captured and corrupted by the Nightmare, Alextrasza captured by the Dragonmaw orcs... they are not stable, and not even so mighty as we would think. I am pretty sure Nozdormu is behind the Infinites.
totemdeath Mar 17th 2010 11:58PM
Here's what'sREALLY happening with the Bronze Dragonflight:
In a vision of the future, Nozdormu has seen the true creators of the universe. They are not titans, old god, or legions of demons in the nether, but ordinary looking humans in a magical land called 'California'. He has seen that they are working on creating a new universe with new wonders that the 'Californians' can place their heroic Avatars in. That's how the World of Warcraft will end, and he knows it.
Soulerous Mar 18th 2010 4:55AM
I was under the impression that Aman'Thul the Highfather empowered Nozdormu, and that Norgannon empowered Malygos.
Daedalus Mar 18th 2010 8:05AM
My crazy theory is that Nozdormu is behind the Infinite Dragonflight, but that they're actually working for the greater good.
I mean, when you look at some of the things that the Bronze flight has had us do, in a lot of cases, we're only taking their word for it that it's the right thing to do. Make sure Arthas becomes the Lich King, ensuring the deaths of thousands of innocents? Make sure the Dark Portal opens, the resulting wars occur, Azeroth is razed, and Draenor is destroyed? I mean, we're told that these things have to be done, that the alternative is worse, but how do we know that's the case?
Perhaps Nozdormu created the Infinites to prevent the most destructive events in history, and save countless lives. Maybe the Infinites are his attempt to correct the mistakes his first brood made in "preserving" a timeline that didn't really turn out so great. Can we really be sure that the timeline the Infinites are trying to bring about isn't, in fact, the "good" one?
Droma Mar 18th 2010 8:22AM
There are some proofs that the infinite dragonflight were born from the bronce dragonflight.
Not only they can time trivel like the bronce dragons but also have a "sand breath" as offensive attack (paired with frost and shadow magic).
What amuses me is the possible paper that Doorna and Salandria would have in future events regarding the bronce dragonflight (Doorna and Salandria are the draenei and blood elf orphans that you can take under tutelage for few days in the childrens week). When you visit the Caverns of Time, the bronce guardians attacked both childs without warning. Zaladormu stopped them telling that they aren't responsible from their future actions... I wonder what that means?
Cigan Mar 18th 2010 8:44AM
Thyrial: The situation with the Infinite Corruptor is one where the Infinite flight is there tampering with Strath and the Bronze show up to stop them. That is more or less how everything plays out. My line of thinking, and I won't claim it's perfect, but I still think it fits the story, is that the Infinite could disrupt the Bronze flight. I don't necessarily mean destroy them, but directly interfere with their ability to monitor time. They do not appear to ever take those steps which is what makes me think that something else is going on.
That said there is the other trend which is each of the flights being corrupted one by one. The blacks were first, then the Blues went over the deep end, the Greens are probably going to get there some time soon because of the Emerald Nightmare, so the Infinites could just be part of a larger trend. It really seems like Blizzard is systematically destroying all of the Titan's remaining infrastructure on Azeroth. I can't help but think they plan on the storyline culminating with the Titan's coming back and clashing with Sargeras on Azeroth. It's kind of a hard end game kind of thing, so maybe they'll never get to it. Who knows.
Vaeku Mar 18th 2010 8:34AM
Interesting article.
However, as before, I am still completely confused. But that's time travel.
mathias.koch Mar 18th 2010 9:01AM
It's Chromie its just has to be, all time traveling dragon-gnomes are evil you should know that.
PodPeople Mar 18th 2010 12:11PM
all the other know 'bastardized' dragons have been the handy work of black dragons, generally deathwing himself. the only exception being the frostwing bone dragons, those are pretty clearly the work of the LK and the cult of the damned. my theory is that the infinite dragons are altered bronze dragons that deathwing (or some other black dragon) has manipulated and is using them to mess with the time line to keep the bronze flight occupied or even eliminated. and the only bronze dragon that knows about it is Nozdormu, and that's only because he being held captive by them and they're draining his essence to add to the black dragon eggs to make the infinites. My guess this is being done in the amber sanctum of wyrmrest.
Celess Mar 20th 2010 5:13AM
I must say I love these articles, they're fun, well-informed and generally a good read. This one, however, didn't flow so well and was full of typos and incomplete sentences that really were quite jarring.
A good article, but it felt as if it'd been pushed at the last minute.
SenorTucan Mar 24th 2010 6:40PM
"his/her"
wat?