# Tell the story of the downfall the Reunited Kingdom (i.e. Gondor + Arnor) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 4, 2010, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-the-story-of-the-downfall-the-reunited-kingdom-i-e-gondor-arnor/538336 "2010-05-04T22:15:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2010, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-the-story-of-the-downfall-the-reunited-kingdom-i-e-gondor-arnor/538336/21 "2010-05-28T23:06:06Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Sometime between the end of the Third Age and recorded history, technology regressed from late-Medieval to neolithic. That’s beyond “dark age”- more like humanity was pruned down to a few thousand survivors, who for generations eked out the barest survival. Sounds to me like something pretty darn cataclysmic happened. > > My guess is that Sauron left behind some sort of “doomsday” device intended to destroy the world if he ever fell. Possibly by a heroic sacrifice that hasn’t been told it didn’t quite succeed, but humanity was set back 10,000 years. I can’t see Sauron having power or tech on that scale. If he had, he’d have used a lesser version of it on one of the lesser cities of Gondor to speed the surrender of Minas Tirth. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Q](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/898d66/32.png) [@Johnny\_Q](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Q)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2010, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-the-story-of-the-downfall-the-reunited-kingdom-i-e-gondor-arnor/538336/22 "2010-05-29T00:41:33Z")
I’m sure it will turn out to be an accident. Some scientific expedition(or what passed for one back then) starts poking around the ruins of Barad Dur or Minas Morgul and hits a pocket of Pure Evil or a switch labeled in the Black Speech(which hardly anyone can translate anyway) and… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-the-story-of-the-downfall-the-reunited-kingdom-i-e-gondor-arnor/538336.md?page=1)