Welcome one and all to our penultimate debate for the season!  That’s right folks, we have two showdowns of verbal mastery left and then it’s time to cast those votes and we’ll see who will be the new warchief!  Tonight we have two of our front runners, the Dark Lady Sylvanas Windrunner and the cooking sensation Basic Campfire!  These two were fiercely battling in the polls, and we’ve all been looking forward to this debate.

However, since we fired Executus last time, we needed a new translator for Firespeak, so we decided to preform a horrific ritual and resurrected Hydross the Unstable…  what? He’s bilingual. Anyway, this debate is sponsored by…  /sigh…   The Nefarian Academy of Draconic Genetic Engineering And Evil Liberal Arts.  This is starting to get ridiculous.  Let’s get on with it this, so I can get paid and then use said currency to get completely drunk so I can forget this all…

QUESTION: You are both ‘outsiders’ in your own right to the Horde, what do you think your unique view can bring to the position of Warchief?

BASIC CAMPFIRE <Translated from FireSpeak>: <An outsider as in the context that we are not orcs?>

Yes.

BASIC CAMPFIRE: <What about Richard Knaak?>

I don’t think any cares if Richard is an outsider or not.

BASIC CAMPFIRE: <But…>

SYLVANAS: No. One. Cares.  Answer the question, Sticks.

BASIC CAMPFIRE: <Very well. I would say that my ‘position’ has allowed me to brew a perspective of sympathy for the common man.  I think that being able to relate to the downtrodden and hungry common folk.  After all, it is the warchief that cooks for them, not the other way around. It’s taught me to boil compassion and – >

SYLVANAS: Are you really going to keep this pun charade going? It’s not even amusing any more.  More pitiful really.

BASIC CAMPFIRE: <Look, I’m a talking pile of burning logs that has nothing going for it except for a moderate pacifist political philosophy, a bunch of cheap cooking puns and the fact that I’m not Garrosh.  Give me a break.  What I know is that being a pile of flaming sticks and doing nothing will probably be less destructive to the Horde than whatever you or Hellscream will come up with.  I’m not up at the podium openly expressing my desire for bloodshed.  How is that for an outsider perspective?  And what do you have that makes you so special as an outsider anyway, Ms. Windrunner?>

SYLVANAS: Hate and fear.  Both are important to understand vividly if one is to control a group the size of the Horde over three continents.  Fear keeps our enemies off our lands.  Fear keeps prisoners from rising up and killing the guards.  Fear prevents betrayal.  Varimathras did not fear me, that should have been a warning.  I’ve learned the value of fear now. We must also know hate in order to ensure that we are hating our enemies and not each other.  Take a look at the situation between the Tauren and the Forsaken.  They hate us.  I know it. My people know it.  But we don’t return it.  We understand that our hatred is best served in other ways, namely our ongoing feud with those Scarlet morons.

BASIC CAMPFIRE: <I’m sure the Windsong family would find your sentiment quite hollow. Or do you routinely poison people you don’t hate?>

SYLVANAS: Thersa Windsong was dying when she came to the Undercity, nothing she had found could cure her. We tried. We failed.  I suppose you’d see many a surgeon hanged with that sense of morality, Campfire.

QUESTION: The Warchief is required to some times make unpopular decisions, what can you say that shows the voters you can be willing to make those decisions and deal with the consequences?

SYLVANAS: While it seems almost every decision I’ve made could be viewed as an unpopular one in some member of the Horde’s eyes, I would say one that epitomized my career – and that turned out well, I suppose – would be supporting the Sin’dorei’s admittance into the Horde.  A controversial decision, what with their reliance on fel magic for sustenance at the time.  However, the Forsaken stood by the Blood Elves and for it we have a strong ally that has proven on more than one occassion that they are an asset to the Horde.  Despite doubting glances from both orcs and tauren, I reinforced the Sin’dorei’s forces in the ghostlands with my own soldiers.  Aiding them in reclaiming the lost regions of Quel’Thalas from the Scourge and dealing a blow against the Lich King’s hold in the Dead Scar.  Top that, logs.

BASIC CAMPFIRE: <Is it that hard for you to simply acknowledge me with the minimal amount of respect?  To use my name instead of calling me sticks or logs?  I am another candidate in this running, you know.>

SYLVANAS: Considering that some of the other candidates are the man-child Garrosh and a man who writes fantasy fiction, it’s not exactly something that’s going to garner any respect from me.  Or is being a candidate your ‘unpopular decision’?

BASIC CAMPFIRE: <Very well, but I refuse to sink to your level, Windrunner.  As a campfire, I often make decisions that are unpopular: I wane, I lose heat, I go out in the middle of the night leaving you without warmth.  These actions have taught me how frail people can be.  They have shown me that even the smallest choice – to rest, to push myself too hard and fall behind, to lose sight of the goal – can have devastating consequences.  We must always think before we act.>

SYLVANAS: So those were choices?  You actively chose to do those things?

BASIC CAMPFIRE: <Well… sort of… yes…  or when the wind was too harsh or it got wet…  or…  regardless, it has been very insightful to how one SHOULD be making decisions.  After all, the Sin’dorei with or without your support still fell to Kael’thas’ deception did they not?  Where was your unpopular decision to aid the elves now that many had succumbed to the demonic energy the other members of the Horde were worried about?>

SYLVANAS: The Forsaken were fully devoted to the offensive at the Sunwell.  Many of our greatest champions went and pledged themselves to the cause.  I do not recall many burning twigs assaulting the enemy forces there however.  Or was allowing the Burning Legion to seize the Sunwell part of your brilliant outsider knowledge?

BASIC CAMPFIRE: <You are testing my patient, Windrunner.>

SYLVANAS: You’ve already lost mine.

Umm…  Okay, getting a bit tense in here. QUESTION: There is an old saying that states “Nothing ventured, Nothing gained” what are you willing to risk for the Horde and how much would you need to gain in order to be willing to push that limit?

BASIC CAMPFIRE: <The only sensible answer to the question would be ‘Only what must be risked’ and ‘Only when necessary’ but I suppose you want something more specific to titilate your readers into controversial and angry discussions?>

Well, that would be NICE. We haven’t had a good flame war in the comment section since…   Okay, we’ve never had a flame war in the comment section.  But I would still love to see it.  I got a bag of now extremely stale popcorn set aside for the moment.  Please continue.

BASIC CAMPFIRE: <I would never risk the safety of the women and children of the Horde.  I would go as far to say that only those who have chosen to fight will be risked, because they have actively consented to be risked.  The only time I would ever break this vow is in the face of complete possible annihilation.  But no battle, no war, not even invasion would cause me to risk those who have not actively chosen to be put in harms way.>

SYLVANAS: You may find annihilation to be sooner than later if Wrynn has his way.  That man sees every horde an abomination, and wants them six feet under in the quickest possible way.

BASIC CAMPFIRE: <Why am I not surprised that you take issue with Wrynn?  Still a bit sore after he vowed to reclaim the human territory you seized from them? Negotiation is the key to victory for all of Azeroth, and assumptions are the enemy of negotiation.  It’s like putting chicken gravy on a salad, you just don’t do it.>

SYLVANAS: That’s possibly the dumbest thing I’ve heard you say yet, Twigs.  And I’m not referring to putting gravy on the salad.

BASIC CAMPFIRE: <What would you risk, Windrunner?  Everything?  Down to the last crying baby?>

SYLVANAS: Yes.

BASIC CAMPFIRE: <What?!>

SYLVANAS: Not without reason, you short sighted lump of fuel.  Such sacrifices would not be meaningless and I am nothing if not someone who plans ahead.  If everything I have been working on comes to fruition, the Horde will no longer have a need to fear death.  Who wouldn’t elect me warchief knowing that there may be immortality to be gained?

BASIC CAMPFIRE: <I don’t know.  How about anyone who has heard such empty promises from demons, old gods, or the cult of the damned?  You’ve gone mad, Sylvanas.  I can see why the good people of the Horde would be willing to elect a humble and honored campfire to the position over people like you.>

SYLVANAS: Then it will be their loss for it, Campfire.  When you crackle and burn as the Alliance razes our cities the ground, we will see where the Horde’s true feelings lie.

Umm…  wow.   There you have it folks.  I was kinda hoping for a few more Ha Ha’s there at the end, but damn.  I guess there’s a sense of finality in the air as we come to the end of the debate season.  I’m already nervous for next time when we see Garrosh Hellscream and Thrall take to the podiums.

Of course I’d like to thank Hydross the Unstable and Bilingual for providing tonights translation and not screwing it up.  And of course, tonight’s debate was brought to by the Nefarian something or other blah blah.  Why do the bad guys keep sponsoring the debates?  Would it kill us to get a good guy sponsor?  Anyway, see you next time folks!