Greetings all! @iowa_card from Twitterland here. I have been mulling this over for a while and thought we could discuss this idea regarding what is really happening on The Event.
World of Warcraft
Part of the background on Sean Walker is that he was addicted to World of Warcraft and spent a significant amount of time trading WoW gold.
For those not familiar with is check here.
As a character part of the game involve completing quests.
Below are the types of quests available:
Kill Quests
A kill quest sends the character out to kill either a specific number of named creatures, or a specific non-player character or NPC. These types of quests often require the character to bring back proof of their work, such as animal fangs for a creature kill quest, or the head of an NPC. There are also quests to kill other players.
Combo Quests
The combo quest requires a player to attack certain enemies or structures with a combination of attacks until the required number of combos has reached. Enemies in these quests are usually either immortal or infinite in number till the player is successful in which the enemies would be killed or stop appearing.
Delivery Quests
Another type of quest is the delivery quest, also known as a FedEx quest or fetch-carry quest. This involves the character being sent to deliver an item from one location to another. Sometimes the character may need to collect the item first instead of being handed the item to deliver when starting the quest. These quests are made challenging by asking the character to journey through unfamiliar or dangerous terrain, sometimes while facing a time limit.
Gather Quests
Gather quests, also known as collection quests, require a character to collect a number of items. These can either be gathered from a location or environment, or require the character to kill creatures in order to collect the required items. The quest may also require the character to collect a number of different items, for example to assemble a device.
Escort Quests
The Escort quest is a combination of slaying monsters to maintain the well-being of a non-player character all while exploring an area alongside that NPC. A typical escort quest would involve protecting a character as he or she moves through a monster-infested area. A majority of the time the quest will demand of the player to slay multiple monsters to ensure the safety of the NPC. Escort quests can be beneficial, in forcing the player's focus to a particular area in order to play out a scene or reveal a section of the plot. They can also be used to funnel a character from one location to another, leading the player along a route or path. However, problems with this type of quest can occur if the artificial intelligence controlling the NPC causes them to behave in unexpected or unmanageable ways.
Hybrids
Elements from the above types can be combined to make more complex quests. For example, a quest could require that the player assemble the weapon needed to kill a specific foe (Gather quest) and then use it (Kill Quest).
Quest chains
A quest chain is a group of quests that are completed in sequence. Completion of each quest is a prerequisite to beginning the next quest in the chain. Quests usually increase in difficulty as a player progresses through the chain. The quests typically reveal a single plotline in stages that explain the reason for the quests. Quest chains can also start with opening or breadcrumb quests, in order to encourage characters to journey to a new area, where further elements of the quest chain are revealed. Through mechanisms like these, the setting of a particular location is explained to the player, with the plot or storyline being disclosed as the character progresses.
Isn’t it interesting that Sean seems to be progressing from one fantastical event to another much like a quest. As a side note, we must not forget about Cervantes’ Don Quixote
Plot summary
Alonso Quixano (or Quijano), a retired country
gentleman nearing 50 years of age, lives in an unnamed section of La Mancha with his niece and a housekeeper. He has become obsessed with books of chivalry, and believes their every word to be true, despite the fact that many of the events in them are clearly impossible. Quixano eventually appears to other people to have lost his mind from little sleep and food and because of so much reading.
First quest
He decides to go out as a knight-errant in search of adventure. He dons an old suit of armor, renames himself "Don Quixote de la Mancha," and names his skinny horse "Rocinante". He designates a neighboring farm girl, Aldonza Lorenzo, as his lady love, renaming her Dulcinea del Toboso, while she knows nothing about this.
He sets out in the early morning and ends up at an inn, which he believes to be a castle. He asks the innkeeper, who he thinks to be the lord of the castle, to dub him a knight. He spends the night holding vigil over his armor, where he becomes involved in a fight with muleteers who try to remove his armor from the horse trough so that they can water their mules. The innkeeper then "dubs" him a knight, and sends him on his way. He frees a young boy who is tied to a tree by his master, because the boy had the audacity to ask his master for the wages the boy had earned but had not yet been paid (who is promptly beaten as soon as Quixote leaves). Don Quixote has a run-in with traders from Toledo, who "insult" the imaginary Dulcinea, one of whom severely beats Don Quixote and leaves him on the side of the road. Don Quixote is found and returned to his home by a neighboring peasant, Pedro Crespo.[2]
Second quest
Don Quixote plots an escape. Meanwhile, his niece, the housekeeper, the parish curate, and the local barber secretly burn most of the books of chivalry, and seal up his
library pretending that a magician has carried it off. Don Quixote approaches another neighbor, Sancho Panza, and asks him to be his squire, promising him governorship of an island. The dull-witted Sancho agrees, and the pair sneak off in the early dawn. It is here that their series of famous adventures begin, starting with Don Quixote's attack on windmills that he believes to be ferocious giants.
In the course of their travels, the protagonists meet innkeepers, prostitutes, goatherds, soldiers, priests, escaped convicts, and scorned lovers. These encounters are magnified by Don Quixote’s imagination into chivalrous quests. Don Quixote’s tendency to intervene violently in matters which do not concern him, and his habit of not paying his debts, result in many privations, injuries, and humiliations (with Sancho often getting the worst of it). Finally, Don Quixote is persuaded to return to his home village. The author hints that there was a third quest, but says that records of it have been lost.
Part Two
Although the two parts are now normally published as a single work, Don Quixote, Part Two was a sequel published ten years after the original novel. Don Quixote and Sancho are now assumed to be famous throughout the land because of the adventures recounted in Part One. While Part One was mostly farcical, the second half is more serious and philosophical about the theme of deception. Don Quixote's imaginings are made the butt of outrageously cruel practical jokes carried out by wealthy patrons. Even Sancho is unintentionally forced to deceive him at one point. Trapped into finding Dulcinea, Sancho brings back three dirty and ragged peasant girls, and tells Quixote that they are Dulcinea and her ladies-in-waiting. When Don Quixote only sees the peasant girls, Sancho pretends that Quixote suffers from a cruel spell which does not permit him to see the truth. Sancho eventually gets his imaginary island governorship and unexpectedly proves to be wise and practical; though this, too, ends in disaster.
Conclusion 
The cruel practical jokes eventually lead Don Quixote to a great melancholy. The novel ends with Don Quixote regaining his full sanity, and renouncing all chivalry. But, the melancholy remains, and grows worse. Sancho tries to restore his faith, but his attempt to resurrect Alonso's alter-ego fails, and Alonso Quixano dies, sane and broken.
The World of Warcraft began November 23, 2004. Our first introduction to Sean and the other “normal” characters occurs in September 2005. Up until this time we assume Sean spent hours and hours questing and adventruring in WoW. Upon release, a small number of quests had software bugs that made them impossible to complete.
There was an interesting event that occurred during the course of gameplay that came to be know as the Corrupted Blood plague incident.
The Corrupted Blood plague incident was one of the first events to affect entire servers. Patch 1.7 saw the opening of Zul'Gurub, the game's first 20-player raid dungeon where players faced off against a tribe of trolls under the sway of the god Hakkar the Soulflayer. Upon engaging Hakkar, players were stricken by a debuff called "Corrupted Blood" which would periodically sap their life. The disease was also passed on to other players simply by being near infected players. Originally this malady was confined within the Zul'Gurub instance but made its way into the outside world by way of hunter pets or warlock minions that contracted the disease.
Within hours Corrupted Blood had completely infected major cities because of their high player concentrations. Low-level players were killed in seconds by the high-damage disease. Eventually Blizzard fixed the issue so that the plague could not exist outside of Zul'Gurub.
The corrupted blood plague so closely resembled the outbreak of real-world epidemics that scientists are currently looking at ways MMORPGs or other massively distributed systems can model human behavior during outbreaks. The reaction of players to the plague closely resembled previously hard-to-model aspects of human behavior that may allow researchers to more accurately predict how diseases and outbreaks spread amongst a population.
Brian Martin, independent security consultant for World of Warcraft, commented that it presented an in-game dynamic that was not expected by players or Blizzard developers and that it reminds people that even in controlled online atmospheres, unexpected consequences can occur. He also compared it to a computer virus, stating that while it is not as serious, it also reminds people of the impact computer code can have on them, and they're not always safe, regardless of the precautions they take.
There was an expansion to WoW called The Burning Crusade that I believe to relevant to our story.
The expansion concretes around Outland, the former world of Draenor and the new continent in the game, and quests generally allow players to explore the world on their own. The main storyline points to Illidan the Betrayer and what happened to him during the last years. Players can also go on quests that suggest helping Illidan in his time-being or slaying him for a special reward.
Other than that, many links between the former world of Draenor and the current Outland are also made, such as the opening of the Dark Portal by Medivh, which is an instance quest located in Caverns of Time. Retelling of the old relationship between Orcish shamans and the Burning Legion is also told in quest-sequence storyline.
Lor'themar Theron is the Regent Lord of Quel'Thalas] and was the leader of the blood elves of Azeroth in the absence of Prince Kael'thas Sunstrider. After Kael'thas' betrayal and eventual death, Lor'themar has become the sole leader of his people and seeks to lead them to a brighter future.
Illidan Stormrage was the self-proclaimed Lord of Outland, ruling from the 
Black Temple. He was born a night elf, and as stated by Maiev Shadowsong, became "neither demon nor night elf, but something more". He was the twin brother of Malfurion Stormrage and was in love with Tyrande Whisperwind. Once an unusually gifted sorcerer, the extent of his powers became difficult to classify due to his powers increasing in large bursts as a demon hunter and having absorbed the powers of the Skull of Gul'dan.
His pursuit of power and arcane mastery led him to commit a number of horrific acts against his own people and the races of Azeroth, including defecting to Sargeras during the War of the Ancients and creating the second Well of Eternity. For his actions, he was imprisoned for ten thousand years, until his release during the Third War. He came to be called the Betrayer for his acts against the night elf people and carried the title of Lord of Outland.
An interesting element of the lore for World of Warcraft is the Emerald Dream (also known as the Dream of Creation, Green Dream or simply the Dream) is a vast, ever-changing spirit world, that exists outside the boundaries of the physical world, and is the verdant realm of the Dragon Aspect Ysera.
The Emerald Dream is basically how the world would have been, if intelligent beings had not altered its surface. Think Eden.
It appears to those who travel within it as how Azeroth would have been if intelligent beings had not altered its surface, such as humans or elves, with the cut forests, farmed prairies, diverted rivers or built cities. It is a vision of the world as a verdant natural paradise. Tranquil forests stretch away in every direction, and rolling hills and majestic mountains mimic Azeroth's landscape.
Azeroth and the Emerald Dream are quasi-duplicates of each other — the Emerald Dream is Azeroth as seen through a magic lens, untouched by the hands of mortals. The mountains are in the same places in both worlds, but where a human metropolis stands in Azeroth, a lush field, vacant of artifice, grows in the Emereald Dream.
The Emerald Dream is the Azeroth that would not have been split by magic into the three landmasses of today — within it is the original greater landmass of Kalimdor, covered in the hazy emerald green forests of aeons past.
The Emerald Dream was originally described as a "a vast, ever-changing spirit world, existed outside the boundaries of the physical world. From the Dream, Ysera regulated the ebb and flow of nature and the evolutionary path of the world itself." This implies less stagnation than the Emerald Dream described in other sources.
The Emerald Dream also has multiple layers, described by Cenarius as different testing versions of Azeroth. These layers were created because the titans invested a great deal of work in perfecting their design of Azeroth, so, the finished design of the planet was the product of many previous flawed or unfinished models. Each layer represents an abandoned segment or idea that the titans tried and ultimately discarded. Malfurion observed that it looks like neither the mortal plane nor the Emerald Dream. He saw that one mountain peak lacked its northern face, while another peak looked as if someone had started molding it like clay but had lost interest. These older layers were normally uninhabited, invisible and incomplete, therefore limited in scope, relative to the finalized Dream. But they could be accessed by any who knew how to navigate them.
The Dream can be affected by all dreamers to a minor and temporary extent. However, no living creature except the titans has ever been able to permanently change the Dream. Ysera herself cannot control or shape the Dream, which has its own ecology and a variety of inhabitants, both sentient and non-sentient.
Time is meaningless inside the Dream. As a result, the green dragonflight, which spends the majority of its time in the Dream, is extremely long-lived. Ysera's consorts in particular almost never emerge from the Dream and are effectively immortal, as are all other permanent denizens in the Dream.So, while interesting what does this mean? Possibly that what we are seeing is a realm imagined or created by Sean (or his alter ego, a la Don Quiotie). The prisoners are a product of the Eden like world and like the early member of Adam’s family, very long lived. They slipped thru a portal on accident and need to get home, a quest similar to the Dranai of The Burning Crusade. The infection of the passengers is similar to the Corrupted Blood incident in that we saw hemorrhaging.
Now that have written this I remembered one more thing to discuss. Stephen King. He wrote this series called The Dark Tower. For those have not read it I will not go into details. It may provide a clue to how the show my turn.
Wow that is a lot. Ponder, discuss, debate and enjoy the food for thought.
As always you can find me on Twitter as @iowa_card. I will try to respond as soon as I can but life happens.
Stay Classy.
