Ruining Sauron's Supply Lines

[Glorelendil]

I cannot recall of one instance in any book where good guys show compassion to orcs (or other Shadow creatures) of any sort.

Is Gollum not a shadow creature?

EDIT: Nevermind. We're starting to argue about preferences. It seems we don't have the same ideas about the game, but neither opinion is right.

[Angelalex242]

Fair enough.

Because I was just about to argue Gollum is a 'accumulated 5 permanent shadow hobbit', not a true creature of Shadow. That is, Gollum still runs on Hope. Unlike most creatures with 5 permanent Shadow, Gollum survives instead of dying, mostly thanks to long ownership of the One Ring.

[Tolwen]

Starving orcs to death isn't all that 'Shadowy.' Nobody among the Wise really cares what happens to those orcs anyway. As far as I can tell, even Manwe himself doesn't care what happens to orcs. So they're fair game for whatever sorts of sabotage PCS might want to inflict.

That raises a very good and difficult question about what is morally good - or acceptable - with respect to orcs (as the Enemies' primary "evil" soldiery).
Believe or not, Tolkien thought quite deep about that:

But even before this wickedness of Morgoth [his evil techniques in creating orcs] was suspected the Wise in the Elder Days taught always that the Orcs were not 'made' by Melkor, and therefore were not in their origin evil.
They might have become irredeemable (at least by Elves and Men), but they remained within the Law [of Eru]. That is, that though of necessity, being the fingers of the hand of Morgoth, they must be fought with the utmost severity, they must not be dealt with in their own terms of cruelty and treachery. Captives must not be tormented, not even to discover information for the defence of the homes of Elves and Men. If any Orcs surrendered and asked for mercy, they must be granted it, even at a cost. This was the teaching of the Wise, though in the horror of the War it was not always heeded.
-HoMe12.Myths Transformed

This interesting philosophical debate about morality in dealing with orcs shows several things. Wicked as they are, they are still technically Children of Eru and therefore - in theory - subject to the same privileges as Elves and Men.
It also acknowledges that the realities of war often prevented the "right way" to deal with them and that in this respect Elves and Men sometimes (or even often?) failed to meet the appropriate moral standards (admittedly, in the reality of the world these standards would be very hard to follow in their pure form). In TOR terms, they would then accumulate Shadow Points in relation to the situation and deed at hand.
I find it particularly highlighting that it is specifically not allowed (even if this surely happened) to simply deal with them in their own cynical ideology (i.e. something is allowed because I can do it and it gives me an advantage). IMO your idea of letting intentionally starve thousands of orcs to death is exactly this kind of orc-thought and in TOR terms indeed deserves lots of Shadow Points in a very short time.

Cheers
Tolwen

EDIT: The "orc-thought" is explicitly not to be understood as a personal judgment on you, but the general idea of accepting Realpolitik practices in Middle-earth. And again - it existed in numbers even among the "good guys". Especially the Númenóreans realms have a decent record of not-so-nice actions in their history.

[Evening]

Even Tolkien can't have it both ways.

That is, that though of necessity, being the fingers of the hand of Morgoth, they must be fought with the utmost severity, they must not be dealt with in their own terms of cruelty and treachery. Captives must not be tormented, not even to discover information for the defence of the homes of Elves and Men. If any Orcs surrendered and asked for mercy, they must be granted it, even at a cost.

Plan A: We attack Mordor, ask them to surrender. If they do not, kill tens of thousands of them until they do surrender.
Result: no shadow points.

Plan B: Tell Sauron and forces serving him to surrender or there will be consequences. If they do not surrender, sabotage their food supply by burning all their wheat fields until they are faced with starvation. Surrender is then viewed as a preferable solution.
Result: 100,000 shadow points.



On a similar tangent, this equates the act of sieging an orc fortress with shadow point gain. "Then Gil-galad and Elendil passed into Mordor and encompassed the stronghold of Sauron; and they laid siege to it for seven years, and suffered grievous loss by fire and by the darts and bolts of the Enemy, and Sauron sent many sorties against them."


Did Elendil and the rest accrue the monty haul of shadow points for that tactic?

[Glorelendil]

Plan A: We attack Mordor, ask them to surrender. If they do not, kill tens of thousands of them until they do surrender.
Result: no shadow points.

Plan B: Tell Sauron and forces serving him to surrender or there will be consequences. If they do not surrender, sabotage their food supply by burning all their wheat fields until they are faced with starvation. Surrender then becomes a preferable solution.
Result: 100,000 shadow points.

Is there such a thing as "orc civilians"? Grandmothers? Children? Civil rights activists?

[Tolwen]

Is there such a thing as "orc civilians"? Grandmothers? Children? Civil rights activists?

Well, the first three probably yes. Even orcs have "normal lives", even if their society is extremely martial, brutal and likely macho. Since they are deformed versions of the Children of Eru, they share their basic necessities and features as well.

The last ones on your list are those with the honour of forming Sauron's frontline troops against dangerous enemies - or serving the malnutritioned youngsters with fresh meat...

Cheers
Tolwen

[Glorelendil]

The last ones on your list are those with the honour of forming Sauron's frontline troops against dangerous enemies - or serving the malnutritioned youngsters with fresh meat...

Ah, got it...Mordor is like North Korea.

[Robin Smallburrow]

Angelalex

As someone who has researched Mordor extensively for just these questions, I can say with some certainty:

1. "I pity even his slaves" - this was Gandalfs quote during The Last Debate. As others have said,acting like the Enemy is worth a lot of Shadow pts.

2. However, reconnaissance missions into Mordor were tried on occasions (including by Aragorn himself as Thorongil), but what you are forgetting is Sauron's magic.
As Elrond says, an elven lord like Glorfindel is no better than an ordinary hobbit for the purposes of sneaking into Mordor. For me this means that the more powerful a character actually has less chance of not being detected. Your heroes of 6 stealth won't stand a chance without some sort of magical protection.

Robin S

[Angelalex242]

Actually, I got the scorched earth idea from General Sherman's March to the Sea in the Civil War. I'm imagining these six superdudes basically doing something similar to Sauron's food supply. Sherman left NOTHING behind the Confederacy could use to feed itself. Wonder how many Shadow Points he got?

Anyways, throwing magical protection on 6 guys isn't the hard part here, if there's a way to cloak these guys from Sauron's magic, somebody'll figure it out. The hard part is determining whether it's more evil to burn fields and let orcs starve to death or just flat out stab the orcs to death, as was mentioned earlier. 6 guys can't be expected to stab thousands of orcs to death, but they very well could march to the sea.

[Glorelendil]

Actually, I got the scorched earth idea from General Sherman's March to the Sea in the Civil War. I'm imagining these six superdudes basically doing something similar to Sauron's food supply. Sherman left NOTHING behind the Confederacy could use to feed itself. Wonder how many Shadow Points he got?

Anyways, throwing magical protection on 6 guys isn't the hard part here, if there's a way to cloak these guys from Sauron's magic, somebody'll figure it out. The hard part is determining whether it's more evil to burn fields and let orcs starve to death or just flat out stab the orcs to death, as was mentioned earlier. 6 guys can't be expected to stab thousands of orcs to death, but they very well could march to the sea.

Brother of a friend...this is in the 80's...was driving to Florida for spring break. He gets pulled over for speeding in Georgia, and this caricature of a southern sheriff (I always imagine chewing tobacco, but I made up that detail) drawls, "Boy, what makes you think you can go through my state like that?"

The young yankee shrugs and says, "Sherman did it."

Spent the weekend in jail, but swore it was worth it for the story value alone.

Anyway...
1) Sherman had a lot more than 6 guys.
2) He is hardly remembered as a hero for doing it.
3) A hero can kill thousands of orcs and turn the tide of the war through inspirational leadership.