Not just Link, not just one Link, but many. Thousands upon thousands of Links from the unknown, bearing gifts of both love and prosperity.
Imagine if these Links came about with tech of the future, unseen by the populace of Hyrule, the fact that all bare the face of the hero baffling both them and the true hero himself.
But are they heroes?
Imagine if these presumed heroes came here for something more....More than saving Hyrule, but controlling it. What if they only saved Hyrule to preserve strategic resources that they would harvest and use against the locals, if not, themselves? What if war broke out? Tearing the land of Hyrule apart, killing both each other and the innocent people that populate the land with weapons of another era.
Guns, bombs, artillery, tanks, battleships, airplanes, mines, and much, much more would be used to kill off their opponents.
On the subject of war
What if, the links were separated into different factions? All leading and killing for different causes? What if they clashed together in conflict? War and Death would be the only things that both Hylian and Link would know. The link only knowing to kill, slaughter, and win!
But what if they are heroes?
What if these links eventually came to their senses? What if these wars and conflicts didn't start in the first place? Would they unite together to destroy a common enemy like...Ganandorf? Would they possess the willpower and resources to fight a being of pure evil? Would they want to?
Would they use their technology of the future to fight the forces of evil? Would Ganandorf find a way to intercept them? Possibly. Could Ganandorf find weaknesses in the Empire of Links and use it against them?
The average link himself doesn't possess the qualities of the hero whose face they bare. They're normal, generic. They possess fear in their hearts, greed, jealousy and the rest of the sins that could be listed.
If these elements were to grow out of their intended places, it would be chaos. Corruption would spread among the Link Empire, and the will to fight would be no more.
They need someone to lead them...Someone with known merit that possess a pure heart. The hero, Link. They need someone to lead them into the heat of battle! To fight for the good of all Hyrule and it's people! They need morale to keep on fighting and to win!
But even if they were heroes, the perpetual bloodshed across Hyrule would be an irremovable scar in the history of the land.
links will eventually clash with their own darker counterparts, a fair battle some might say if the dark links weren't as brutal and relentless as the links whose spirit would be just as willing if they only had the courage to do so.
What if the hero...Link...Was no more?
What if he had died in the midst of battle or if he had lost to the final battle with Ganandorf? What if the hero himself had even existed? If the links had just came around and left at the first sign of trouble to find a new land to settle?
What if they did settle that land?
It would spawn an era of link...An era for peace and prosperity and for science and culture to ramp up in the link empire.
But with all this good, abandoning Hyrule would release consequences that were first unknown and not even thought of at the time.
The pure evil that is Ganandorf would spread outwards from the now tainted and cursed Land of Hyrule...To touch the isolated, peaceful land of the links.
They would really have something to fight for now...They needed to fight for their Country and Empire.
For their Country, for their Fatherland, for their Motherland. For the Queen or King.
They will all unite to repel the evil forces of Ganandorf, to try their hardest to eliminate what threatens their land and their culture. But the absence of the Hero who would have been destined to kill the evil if not for his death would leave the links with nothing but their own external forces.
They can't use magic, aren't good with bows, and are oblivious to the goddesses that control the world.
All they have are the techs that they possess at the time.
Would they triumph over the evil or will they fall? An answer that would be hidden until this new war of Good vs Evil ends.
But where did they come from?
This is the question that is shrouded in mystery...Were they gifted from the Goddesses of Hyrule? Were they spawned from an outside magic? Did they just pop out of nowhere?
This question will be answered. But not now, not ever.
The government of the Link Empire wouldn't want their own people to know where they came from, and why there's more coming their way, they won't explain why they keep using precious soldiers and link life as cannon fodder and just replace them out of the blue.
Of course, the more modern Link Empire that is to come would have standards and morals to follow, but the past can be repeated, and they links want to know how to stop it from happening, they want to know their origins.
All of these questions are to be answered in events that would change the empire for the best, or the worst.
To change the timeline.
From the beginning to the end.