Question on the Zone of Fire

[Pthagnar]

what if i have really fucking huge heatsinks strapped to me?

[patiku]

Uh, because it doesn't actually make any heat, it just causes burn-like symptoms on living things. Read the wiki!

[Pthagnar]

okay so i take huge doses of anti-cytokine and anti-inflammatory drugs

[Drydic]

Doesn't work.

Cause?



MAGIC!

[Pthagnar]

he ruined that one ages ago by starting to explain shit. now the cat is out of the bag.

[Drydic]

he ruined that one ages ago by starting to explain shit. now the cat is out of the bag.

SILENCE!



MAGIC!

[Pthagnar]

that's what i'm trying to say!

[vec]

he ruined that one ages ago by starting to explain shit. now the cat is out of the bag.

Almea has explainable aspects and unexplainable aspects. The Zone of Fire is one of the latter.

[zompist]

There are other positions besides "magic is technology" and "magic is inscrutable". From a conworlding point of view, magic doesn't need to be treated as a pseudo-technology, so long as it's not used as a cheat. E.g. we don't know why the Ring can only be destroyed in Mt. Doom, but at least Tolkien is consistent about it and doesn't introduce an alternative partway through.

Maybe you think the Ring could be destroyed by antimatter. But that's an unanswerable question as the Fellowship had none available.

On the other hand, it's fair to question why eagles can fly hobbits out of Mordor but not fly them into it.

I've tried to create a consistent description of the Zone of Fire, but I don't see that it's necessary or useful to worry about things that don't exist on Almea. (If they ever did-- e.g. if I advanced Almean history 500 years-- then of course I'd work out the implications.)

[Mashmakhan]

On the other hand, it's fair to question why eagles can fly hobbits out of Mordor but not fly them into it.

Maybe they are afraid of Mordor, and will only fly into it when they know very well what they are looking for and where to find it?

[patiku]

On the other hand, it's fair to question why eagles can fly hobbits out of Mordor but not fly them into it.

Maybe they are afraid of Mordor, and will only fly into it when they know very well what they are looking for and where to find it?

Mount Doom (it's a huge volcano).

[alice]

On the other hand, it's fair to question why eagles can fly hobbits out of Mordor but not fly them into it.

JRRT surely thought of this, and I suspect his answer would be something like "two hobbits sneaking into Mordor by themselves are far less likely to be noticed than two hobbits being carried by large birds".

[Drydic]

True. After all the Nazgûl were on air patrol after Rivendell. And somehow I think their mounts were the equal of the eagles.

[Neon Fox]

On the other hand, it's fair to question why eagles can fly hobbits out of Mordor but not fly them into it.

Sadly, the answer to that one is "Tolkien didn't think of it". But there are all sorts of other reasons it wouldn't have worked if it had been tried, starting with flying Ringwraiths.

[Mornche Geddick]

It's pretty plain to me. The eagles couldn't go in except by air, so they couldn't go in undercover. Even without airborne Ringwraiths, Sauron was certainly capable of shooting down eagles in the air by lightning bolts. His powers were much greater than Gandalf's or Saruman's. He was able to "torture and destroy the very hills" and blast the entire realm of the Entwives. And those three mountain ranges around his country look suspiciously artificial to me.

[Drydic]

It's pretty plain to me. The eagles couldn't go in except by air, so they couldn't go in undercover. Even without airborne Ringwraiths, Sauron was certainly capable of shooting down eagles in the air by lightning bolts. His powers were much greater than Gandalf's or Saruman's. He was able to "torture and destroy the very hills" and blast the entire realm of the Entwives. And those three mountain ranges around his country look suspiciously artificial to me.

Take a look at the Atlas of Middle-Earth some time. The mountains of Mordor actually aren't that out of wack considering the upheavals after the sinking of Beleriand. It actually probably used to be the Inland Sea of Helcar.

[Mornche Geddick]

Not on the scale of the map that I could see on page 5. The Inland Sea of Helcar looks a great deal too large. The Iron Mountains, the Misty Mountains, the Great River (Anduin) and Greenwood the Great (Mirkwood) are all visible and Mordor was about one-third to half the size of Mirkwood. On that map, Mordor's eventual location would be partly on the western shore and partly over the water. The Sea of Nurnen might be a remnant of a lost or shrunken Helcar, and so might the sea of Rhun, into which the River Running flows.

What makes me think the mountains of Mordor are artificial is that they have formed in an exact C-shape enclosing it. That is not like any other mountain range on Middle Earth. But it is very like what Sauron would have wanted for his international borders.

[Drydic]

Not on the scale of the map that I could see on page 5. The Inland Sea of Helcar looks a great deal too large. The Iron Mountains, the Misty Mountains, the Great River (Anduin) and Greenwood the Great (Mirkwood) are all visible and Mordor was about one-third to half the size of Mirkwood. On that map, Mordor's eventual location would be partly on the western shore and partly over the water. The Sea of Nurnen might be a remnant of a lost or shrunken Helcar, and so might the sea of Rhûn, into which the River Running flows.

What makes me think the mountains of Mordor are artificial is that they have formed in an exact C-shape enclosing it. That is not like any other mountain range on Middle Earth. But it is very like what Sauron would have wanted for his international borders.

You have a point. The only thing that gives me pause is that the only ones who have the power to raise mountains are the Valar (and Morgoth). And even they seem to actually build them (the elves passed giant quarries below the Pelóri on their ways to/from Valinor) rather than magic them into being. We don't know how Sauron's power compares to theirs, 'cause our only half-measures of it are the statements that Sauron 'was only less evil in that he was long in service to another', and that, concerning Lórien, 'there dwelt a power too great to vanquish save Sauron himself coming there' (paraphrased slightly), which are maddeningly vague.

[BGMan]

Back to topic...

Doesn't work.

Cause?

MAGIC!

Zompist himself says a plane would probably be the best way to get across, and a fast ship the next best. Doing it over land on foot is obviously ill-advised and as far as I can tell, the worst way.

Personally, I've never liked "magic" and try to figure out ways to explain the Zone non-magically (as in the wiki's discussion section); my favorite is a radioactive ring (as in, Saturn-type ring) that fell to Almea. It could be kept radioactive by magic, surely. Oh well...

[Drydic]

One Ring, To Rule Them All...

[patiku]

What is a "radioactive ring"? Saturn's rings are made of ice.

[BGMan]

What is a "radioactive ring"? Saturn's rings are made of ice.

A ring made out of some highly radioactive material. Uranium and thorium would not do; it would have to be something like plutonium, polonium, radium, cobalt-60, etc. that leaked out of orbit and deposited itself on the surface of Almea. Since rings orbit around a planet's equator, it would get deposited on Almea's equator. Anything approaching the equator would get zapped, as if they were walking into Chernobyl or Fukushima. Plutonium, for example - specifically Pu-239, the most commonly-made isotope - can stay highly radioactive for tens of thousands of years.

So how would this happen? Maybe the ktuvoks had a huge nuclear-powered space station orbiting over the equator, that was blown up by the ilii thousands of years ago. Nuclear fission would have seemed as powerful as the stars, even if strictly that's nuclear fusion. The pieces of the blown-up space station, including tons of plutonium, made a ring that eventually settled onto Almea's equator. The events got scrambled and ended up as the legend of Obondosiu's star and Soxaeco.

It's kinda dumb, I know, but invoking magic to smooth around the edges of things could always be invoked.

[Salmoneus]

Not on the scale of the map that I could see on page 5. The Inland Sea of Helcar looks a great deal too large. The Iron Mountains, the Misty Mountains, the Great River (Anduin) and Greenwood the Great (Mirkwood) are all visible and Mordor was about one-third to half the size of Mirkwood. On that map, Mordor's eventual location would be partly on the western shore and partly over the water. The Sea of Nurnen might be a remnant of a lost or shrunken Helcar, and so might the sea of Rhûn, into which the River Running flows.

What makes me think the mountains of Mordor are artificial is that they have formed in an exact C-shape enclosing it. That is not like any other mountain range on Middle Earth. But it is very like what Sauron would have wanted for his international borders.

You have a point. The only thing that gives me pause is that the only ones who have the power to raise mountains are the Valar (and Morgoth). And even they seem to actually build them (the elves passed giant quarries below the Pelóri on their ways to/from Valinor) rather than magic them into being. We don't know how Sauron's power compares to theirs, 'cause our only half-measures of it are the statements that Sauron 'was only less evil in that he was long in service to another', and that, concerning Lórien, 'there dwelt a power too great to vanquish save Sauron himself coming there' (paraphrased slightly), which are maddeningly vague.

Sauron, let's remember, took centuries just to build Barad-dur. I don't see him throwing up three mountain ranges in double-quick time. And we're explicitly told that Shelob lived in Mordor before Sauron arived.

In the early accounts, and in the Atlas of Middle Earth, Mordor and the seas of Rhun and Nurnen are all part of the land where Helcar was. Mordor on this account would have been created either by Morgoth when messing around with stuff, or in the general cataclysm following his defeat. However, later sketches show Mordor and the sea of Rhun being around a lot earlier.

[Izambri]

According to AME, which gives a geological explanation, Mordor could have been formed during the destruction of the Iron Mountains, due to a woldwide [crust] raising in the region of Palisor, where the Great Gulf partially absorbed the waters of the Inland Sea of Helcar. Mordor mountains would have grown rapidly due to the exterme volcanic phenomenon in the region.

[So Haleza Grise]

Sauron, let's remember, took centuries just to build Barad-dur.

It bothers me that he managed to whip the place up again, without the ring, stronger than ever, in Bilbo's lifetime.