Any BSG fans out there? If so you might be familiar with this term:

"All this has happened before and it will happen again."

I'd like to find a way to build in the theme of Eternal Return in my TOR campaign. I love this concept and I think it can work well in a Middle-earth story. I'm looking to tie in any number of devices or trappings; I love the idea of the eternal song (Song of the Ainur??) being reflected in the All Along the Watchtower theme that the Final 5 here on the BSG, and specifically I like the rendition that Kara plays on piano while she's feeling the epiphany of the numeric sequence that leads to Earth. (Youtube search "Kara Remembers"). It has such an ominous, mysterious, yet familiar feeling, like you on the verge of realizing something powerful but also hopeless.

I like the visual theme of the Ouroboros serpent, the snake which devours itself; a primeval symbol reflecting the Mobius strip of later math-the infinitely cyclical world. I think the many "ages" of Arda kind of recapitulate this theme.

If we look at the two mythologies (Middle-earth and BSG...and I'm not saying we should...just that we could), we could actually stitch these two things together. (SPOILER ALERT) as the BSG series ends 150,000 years before the present day (and thus by rough design, being about 100,000 years before the actual events of the antiquity of the Silmarillion). Let me be clear on this: I'm not saying we or anyone or myself should try to suggest that somewhere buried in the dirt of Arda is the ancient burial mound of Laura Roslin, or the engine of a viper or anything of that nature. I'm looking at the substance of mythology, and trying to lift concepts out of BSG and put them into a ME campaign and asking if it's doable and if anyone has every tried it.

I apologize, but all I could think about while reading this was the Wheel of Time series. Ewwww.

oh. Sorry, haven't read it. Is that what it's all about? Same ideas?

Every book begins with this quote...

The Wheel of Time turns, and ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legends fade to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the third age by some, an Age yet to come, an age long pass, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings or endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.".

Robert Jordan is big on the whole cycle of civilization thing. I read the first 8 books, then stopped because I got bored.

First of all - BSG is - IMHO - the best SF series I've ever seen by far. I'm just in the process of watching it on DVD and it really rocks.

Coming back to the point - Tolkien himself says something along this line: There is always a "leftover" of Evil when an Age ends and a new begins. This leftover is of lesser power than the previous incarnation and finally (after the Third Age), the leftover is reduced to human evils (in the sense of organized opposition).
So, in a sense there is the "this has happened before" theme, but not as literal as in BSG. It's more like that similar things happen, but in different context and finally evil as a mythological Dark Lord is overthrown when the One is destroyed.

In Tolkien's legendarium, Evil is the rebellion against God's will and ultimately doomed to failure, regardless of its means or interim victories.

Cheers
Tolwen