Well maybe it’s not a problem for orcs, but lighting a field enough that you can see what you’re doing is tricky enough even with electric lights, especially once the crops start growing and casting shadows. That said, orcs seem to prefer meat so I’d guess they’d prefer to raise animals. You could maybe create some kind of factory farm, but if you keep your animals outside I can imagine it would still be tough if you can’t go outside during the day. There could be predators, escaped animals or all kinds of other issues that aren’t necessarily predictable enough to save for nighttime.
Orcs have almost perfect sight by night, so the former is no issue.
As for the latter, the same is true (albeit reversed) for diurnal species : if you keep your animals outside at night while you sleep, plenty of issues can arise (predators, escapes, etc…). We adjust and adapt. Do cows really need the sun to hoover up a clover field ?
Besides, it’s not like orcs turn into stone at dawn - they don’t like the Yellow Face, but they can walk all day under it if they really have to. They could wear really, *really *wide-brimmed hats. Orc burqas, even ! 
Are orcs immortal like elves?
I agree with Quercus that forgiveness is clearly part of Tolkien’s philosophy. Boromir asks forgiveness of Frodo (paraphrasing: “It was a fit of madness, what have I done”) and then, dying, of Aragorn, and we are certainly to take it that he died “in grace” or something akin.
Yes, there are those who fail to atone, but the good guys are always trying to give them opportunities to do so (i.e., forgiving them.) Consider how often Gandalf gives Saruman the choice, which he rejects them (from pride) and so degenerates even more. Consider how often Frodo forgives/excuses Gollum/Smeagol, constantly hoping that the Smeagol side will win out. Even Denethor (in books, not movie) is seen with considerable pity.
That would explain Fedor.
I don’t know what kind of night vision orcs have. I know it’s better than ours, but didn’t expect it to be “almost perfect”. If you’re right it’s obviously not an issue.
I disagree with your second point, though. If you don’t go out during the day, it’s not comparable to human behaviour. Humans have no issue with going out at night if necessary. We can have 24 hour access to our farms.
Anyway, it’s hardly of importance. I’ll accept that orcs could farm if they wanted, but I stand by my assertion that it would be “tricky”. I also don’t recall any evidence to suggest they ever do farm, but I don’t know the works of Tolkien inside-out.
I don’t think it was ever established in the canon, one way or the other.
The LotR Wiki entry says, “Possibly Immortal”, but I’m not sure where they’re getting that, other than conjecture based on the fact that they were derived from immortal elves.
Well, there was Gorbag’s reference to the “great siege” which rather (but not absolutely) implied he remembered The Last Alliance of Elves and Men attacking Mordor.
There’s a lot of unknown unknowns when it comes to orcs. it’s even been speculated about whether or not they ended up in the Halls of Mandos, in their own special wing. I consider that unlikely, as corrupted elves were known to refuse the summons of Mandos.
There was, but they were talking about going of on their own to do their own evil things.
Fair point.
You guys are starting to confuse me:
It’s very clear Aule created sentient life on his own, albeit with the limitations mentioned. That, or he did it by borrowing from Eru’s power (a bit like sneaking into Dad’s workshop and slapping together a model plane.)
Yavanna’s concern for the forest (no doubt brought about by her husband’s dwarves.) I don’t think she created the ents on her own. I remember her consulting with Eru or something like that.
Balrogs, we know are Maiar. Dragons, possibly so. But we know both Morgoth and Sauron can take an ordinary animal and nurture it and fill it with malice so as to make it gigantic and near-sentient.
Others, like Ungoliant, may be been “created” but the glitch caused by Melkor during the great symphony.
I’m not sure what you mean by “sentient” here, or its significance. From the Silmarillion quote* it sounds to me as if the dwarves – before that moment when Ilúvatar accepted them – were less capable than the computer in front of me, and certainly with no self awareness. It’s like you’re saying “this marionette is alive, except insofar as it doesn’t know or perceive anything and can’t move with my pulling its strings.”
*“For thou hast from me as a gift thy own being only, and no more; and therefore the creatures of thy hand and mind can live only by that being, moving when thou thinkest to move them, and if thy thought be elsewhere, standing idle.”
Balrogs are definitely Maiar. Dragons, though, I don’t think the evidence is there. The claim is usually based on a mention of “the evil spirit within” a dragon, but I think that’s more readily interpreted as a reference to the dragon’s own anima.
I think the simplest explanation for dragons is that the world once had natural creatures like dinosaurs in it, and that Morgoth corrupted them into dragons in roughly the same way that he corrupted Elves into Orcs. Sauron later found a remnant of some of those original creatures, and likewise corrupted them into the fell-beasts the Nazgul rode, though these were as far short of Morgoth’s dragons as Sauron was short of Morgoth.
On the dwarves, they had something going on mentally, at least, for Aule to be able to teach them language. They might not have been true people, but neither were they exactly marionettes. Computers might be about the right analogy.
IIRC after Illuvatar spoke to him Aulȅ raised his hammer to destroy the dwarf fathers but Illuvatar stayed his hand and said that he would grant the dwarves sentience, but would have to be put to sleep and couldn’t be woken up until after the elves had first crack at middle earth.
Then again the dwarf fathers cowered in fear when their creator raised his hammer, so I guess there’s still some interpretation there.
The part about the elves seemed unequivocal: Morgoth corrupted the elves, and that is thought to be his vilest deed.
It seems pretty obvious from the passage that’s been quoted repeatedly already that the Dwarf Fathers were NOT sentient until Iluvatar chose to make them so, which was pretty much immediately at the point that Aulë decided to destroy them for Iluvatar. They cringed because Iluvatar had given them free will by that point.
JRRT indeed wrote that, but he also wrote clearly in later years about his desire to unwrite that. And since he hadn’t actually made any of that part of the Silmarillion canon when he wrote the latter, we can point the finger at CJRT for assembling his dad’s notes in such a way as to assert that orcs did come from elves, when the Silmarillion was collected.
So do we go with the author’s most coherent statement in his draft, or his last intent?
That’s why asserting anything about JRRT’s as being unequivocal can be tricky.
Though I will add that in all of JRRT’s versions of the creation of the dwarves that I recall (referring to the HOME series), the dwarves were never sentient until Eru imbued them with the Secret Fire. Until that point, they were always Aulë’s meat puppets.
IOW, they’re just ugly xenophobes. Actually, they do sound a lot like teenage gangster-wannabes, which would make Sauron the grown-up taking advantage of the stupid morons.
We know Maiar can breed, and I seem to recall that there were Maiar other than Sauron and the Balrogs that followed Morgoth, is it possible that dragons were descendents of other fallen Maiar?
Well, not really. In early drafts, JRRT certainly had the Ainur in Arda reproducing. Eönwë was originally not just the herald of Manwë, but his son, too. But in later revisions he cut all that out completely.
I don’t think we have any clear-cut examples of Valar or Maiar reproducing in the works we generally and loosely consider as canon (LOTR, SIL, UT), do we?