I’m tempted to say this is entirely correct. Unlike a few others upthread, I don’t think there’s a way to save Theoden in this scenario. I don’t think 21st-century psychologists are going to make any headway; there’s too much cultural dissonance for anyone in Edoras to trust them.
I also think the attempts to intervene in Frodo’s question (other than providing the distraction at the crucial moment) are wrong-headed. Anybody willing to take the ring from him by violence, or to drop both him and the Ring into the flames, is going to get corrupted by it.
So my plan would be to obliterate Isengard before the Orcs set out (making sure to kill Saruman on general principles–also to spare the Shire from scouring, as Merry and Pippin aren’t available to lead to rebellion) and then intervene in Pelennor Fields, making sure that Imrahil doesn’t get killed. I don’t think there’s a sure way to save Faramir either, and I don’t think Denethor’s worth saving, and somebody needs to be in position to lead the city. Then one must time the assault on the Black Gate to match what Aragorn planned, so Frodo gets his distraction. I think taking Sauron by power is doomed to failure, even with the technological advantage, since the battalion can’t get resupplied.
You need to take out the Corsairs, Skald, and get to Denethor before he can order the suicide attempt to reclaim Osgiliath. And don’t be so sure that manly-man Marines couldn’t win over Rohan.
There are bound to be some Tolkien fans among your Marines, so you’ll have people who get the cultures they’re trying to influence. Have 'em reel off some stuff about historical figures - the ones trying to influence Rohan can talk about Eorl the Young and Helm Hammerhand, while the ones trying to influence Minas Tirith can blather on about the Elves and Numenor. Between their understanding of the culture and history and their demonstrable military ability, I’m guessing you’ll be able to influence more than you think.
I agree that you have little chance of taking out Sauron by military means, and that any attempt to destroy the One Ring will result in the corruption of your soldiers. You’ve got to let that play out as it did in the book, including the Black Gates assault. Which would be interesting. Sauron has means of gaining intelligence beyond just verbal reports. He may be able to foresee that his Orcs and Haradrim will get hammered at the Black Gate. Does he come forth himself?
I think I was unclear. I don’t think Rohan is unsavable. I think Theoden is unsavable, unless killing Saruman does the trick. (I am going with the movie-paradigm here.) But, yes, once I’ve obliterated the forces of Isengard, it’s worthwhile to send some people to Rohan to get them into the war, if only because I want to shake Eowyn out of her suicidal depression. I’m not worried about saving her from Grima. At her worst, he had nothing but an ass-whupping coming the first time he tried anything.
Nope. He’s rational. But I don’t think he’s precognitive even in the limited way that Elrond and Galadriel sometimes seem to be. Also something has to be done to provoke him into acting too soon, as nobody is touching either palantir. Those get machine-gunned on sight.
I don’t think Sauron is precognitive either. But he has a Palantir, and they’re not just for communicating with other Palantiri. He has the rough equivalent, I think, of aerial recon.
He has zero experience with high-tech weaponry. He has seen what happened at Helm’s Deep, at least in a general way. I think he’s going to assume that someone has the Ring. He may well ramp up his assault on Minas Tirith, emptying the Dark Lands even sooner if he can. No matter; your forces will take on and defeat whatever he throws at Minas Tirith, assuming they prepared in advance and didn’t blow all their materiel in advance.
The question at this point is, does he decide to risk everything on his own bad-assery and come out at this point to fight at the Black Gates, or does he run like a Thompson’s gazelle who’s just seen a cheetah? I’m inclined to agree with you, that he’s too smart to depend on his own abilities. But I don’t feel certain of that.
Wrt Theoden, book always trumps movie. Theoden has been under unhealthy influence, but he can be saved. And I think having about 5000 Marines on his side, once he understands even a fraction of what they can do, will pep him right up. Even going with movie-canon, Theoden recovers when Saruman dies. Everybody knows that a spell’s effect ends with the death of the caster. (If you’re going with movie LotR, I can bring in Harry Potter rules.) Again, I think if the Marines start talking about Rohan heritage and culture, they win over Rohan.
I prefer the book to the movie. And honestly, once you get past FotR they’re largely separate creations; I’d say the movies are less based on Tolkien than suggested by him. Part of the reason I envisioned the encounter in terms of Peter Jackson’s World of Wonder is that PJ at least provided some specific numbers of Sauron & Saruman’s troops.
As for Theoden being released when Saruman dies, I wouldn’t count on it. If I were casting the spell I’d arrange otherwise out of simple malice.
I know you prefer book to movie. We’ve had that discussion before.
But you know you’re mortal (assuming, of course, that you are - you apparently have some abilities that suggest you aren’t). I doubt Saruman ever made contingency plans for his own death; to the best of his knowledge, he couldn’t be killed, and he was too arrogant to believe that his Middle-earth “costume of flesh,” if you will, could be destroyed.
If I recall aright, Movie!Saruman specifically says that Theoden dies if he does. He might have been bluffing of course. But if you view casting a magic spell as being something like programming a computer, you can easily imagine him arranging things thus, and see Gandalf’s difficulty in freeing Theoden as resulting not from his being less powerful (which he clearly wasn’t) but having to unravel a snarl of magic booby traps in a very short time.
Interesting, and I’m sure you’re right. Would you guess there are more or fewer Tolkien fans among your average 5000 U.S. Marines than among your average 5000 American civilians?
Now that the movies have been made, I’d guess at least equal, maybe a bit more. The movies oozed a lot of testosterone, and targeted a younger audience.
There’ll be plenty. And as somebody (Oak and Oy!) pointed out upthread, job one is to get copies of the relevant materials to make maps and such.
I still don’t believe it’d be possible to save Theoden, not even in terms of the books, without Gandalf. But you can put Eomer and/or Eowyn in a better position to rule the Rohirrim. And, despite what I wrote upthread about waiting for Grima to piss of Eowyn, it’d be wise to send a sniper to shoot him in the face while Isengard is getting drowned.
One other point: Skald criticized me before for not mentioning that I’d bring maps, but I don’t think that’s all that big a deal: There are pretty clear roads heading to Minas Tirith, and I’d probably have some locals riding with the front of the motorcade anyway. A bigger issue, though, will be translators. It’s hard enough convincing the locals that these funny-looking sticks are actually highly effective military weapons, but don’t worry, because we’re on your side, without having a language barrier to overcome, too. So we’ll need to make sure to send several scholars of Adunaic and probably Rohirric, too. In principle, one would be enough, but you’d probably want multiple points of contact, and also want the ability to split your forces and for each subforce to communicate with the locals, so let’s call it maybe a dozen, minimum.
Doesn’t the OP say the only supertech allowed will be TNG style universal translators? Because it’s supposed to. And I think the mission’s impossible otherwise.
Best to involve the locals as little as possible. You can’t avoid it entirely but you’re going to cause some culture shock and unforeseen circumstances. And don’t let them near guns if you can avoid it.
I don’t want to think about the Rohirrim in contact with guns any more than I want to think about Vikings with guns. It would be a blood bath before they even had contact with an enemy!
The only two physical things that mortars and [del]truck man[/del]horse-drawn artillery would have a problem with are Orthanc and the Black Gates.
So, divide up your forces and send just a hundred or so to Isengard and destroy the dam from afar, and there go the orcs. If Rohan won’t help you you’ll have to bring all your troops and have an actual battle which will take you several days out of the way, even after you kill the rohirrim for their horses.
If Rohan does help you, send half their troops along with a hundred or so of your troops so that they can guard you while you destroy the orcs and the dam with long range bombs.
But no matter if they help you with Isengard, you’ll have to leave a detachment of a hundred or so to besiege Orthanc, because your artillery won’t to anything against it, and invading it would lead to unacceptable losses, and you don’t want Saruman escaping or being set free by wildmen.
So, assuming the Rohirrim have helped you, have a detachment of them escort you down to Gondor. The Pelennor are pretty much already set up as an excellent killing field, station your artillery inside and your snipers on the walls of the City. The rest will get up close and personal with their submachine guns. It doesn’t even matter if the Witch King can’t be killed, it would take him several months to kill your troops one by one anyway especially since he has to make a big speech before every death. The rest of the Enemy’s army doesn’t stand a chance against modern weaponry, especially when they will be slowed down by Gondor’s foot troops before they can close with you.
Then, don’t follow up on the inevitable rout, even though you have plenty of horsemen left. You still need to draw Sauron out one more time to give the Ringbearer time to work his magic.
Why is it assumed that killing Saruman will be easy? Firstly, he not only understands but loves technology, and secondly he has his Voice. If he can get one of your scouts early on, and reverse engineer gunpowder, you will lose. If he realises the threat, he will survive - this is a guy who’s spent years building up an army with both Sauron and Gandalf opposed, he’s not stupid. Oh, and his tower is impregnable. He was only done in by a combination of the valour of Merry and Pippin, who are dead, and treachery from within.
It’s time you got over this irrational hatred of Aragorn. Malacandra had it right:
[QUOTE=Malacandra]
As long as you’re shipping Aragorn and Eowyn, it seems counter-productive to kill him off for the crime of having a very long-standing arrangement with another woman. Aside from the part about Eowyn being attracted to Aragorn at least partly because she saw him as a ticket out of Edoras, it’s hardly a sound basis for a relationship if her strongest case is founded on being OMG just as good as a man! with a sword and re-e-e-e-allly having the hots for him on the strength of twenty-four hours’ acquaintance.
[/QUOTE]
Eowyn was strong and brave and beautiful. But she also fell in love with the first powerful non-familiar man she ever met, basically because she wanted out of her current life.
And yes, some of the Dunedain were not nice guys. But Aragorn shows no sign of being that kind of asshole. He would have been an asshole if he’d thrown over Arwen for a one-day acquaintance with Eowyn.
I’d not assault Saruman directly. As pointed out upthread, the thing to do there is destroy the dam (easy with 21st first century technology versus what he was using) and obliterate his forces from a distance. Ask him for a parley and have a sniper put a hole in his head.
Incidentally he already has gunpowder. I disagree that he’ll be able to reverse-engineer anything, though; it’s too big a leap in technology and he hasn’t the industrial base. (Particularly since job one is going all Noah on his ass.)
Range weapons. Artillery will do wonders. Break the dam, hammer Orthanc with mortars. That sucker’s coming down. He’s not stupid, but contemporary technology is out of his league. And he’s not immortal; the fall of Gandalf demonstrates that.
