Is Ekkaia now called Outer Space?
 

hi people
i am wondering what others think about this notion that Ekkaia, also called Vai, roughly corresponds to Outer Space within Eä, the Universe (especially after the bending of the World at the end of the Second Age)?
Eäralda

I don't think it was space. The translations given in The Silmarillion for 'Ekkaia' are 'The Outer Sea' and 'The Outer Ocean'. An early Silmarillion quote says this:

Ulmo being there would certainly seem to indicate it was a water ocean.
Another quote from The Silmarillion:

After the Fall of Númenor I believe it was an ocean still. Only Valinor and Eressëa were physically removed at that time, and it could still be 'The Encircling Sea' compassing all the lands, much as looking at the Earth from space shows all oceans to really be one.

It depends, I think, on which stage in the development of the Legendarium we're considering. In the published Silmarillion Ekkaia is obviously an ocean, the Outer Sea that surrounded all of Arda, i.e. both Aman and Middle-Earth (contrasted to Belegaer, the Great Sea between Aman and Middle Earth, which was Osse's domain).

In the Myths Transformed section of Morgoth's Ring, however, Tolkien equates Arda with what we would now call the Solar System (the planet Earth, as a part of this, being called Ambar, the Habitation). So if Ekkaia at this stage is still meant to encompass all of Arda, rather than Ambar only, it can be little else than what we call Outer Space.

Which makes Ulmo's association with it somewhat confusing. Maybe somebody with a deeper knowledge of Tolkien's late cosmology (and a copy of HoME X at hand to quote from) could shed more light on this?

these are Beautiful answers! thank you! i was only asking because of my wondering "well, where the heck the Ekkaia go after the bending of Arda??" then i began to kick in my metaphorical thought, as well as a bit of knowledge about the iconic properties of water, its Chaotic associations, plus talk in the HoME about "special ships" that only Ulmo had to travel in the "waveless dark Outer Oceans" or something to that effect...as well as the whole "Arda floating like a ship in the dark waveless waters of Vai" deal. :confused: if only Ulmo can travel there, and there were no ocean life in it, and it was so dark as to be pitch black, then maybe this was the metaphor for Outer Space...? and maybe Ulmo is a powerful Spirit of Outer Space who chose water (which the thinking is that it came to Earth billions of years ago on ice comets from Space) as his way to communicate with Earth or relate to the Children on terms that they could understand?:confused:

I don't know where you got this quotation from, but it reminds me strongly of Tolkien's early drawing of the Earth as a ship ("i Vene Kemen") reproduced in HoME I. And if Vai/Ekkaia indeed = Outer Space, the Ship of Arda would be something very much like our contemporary metaphor 'Spaceship Earth'.

At least in the 1930s, Tolkien had the Ekkaia or Vaiya not being a real water ocean even before the downfall of Numenor. In the Ambarkanta (found in HoME IV) Vaiya is "more like to water below the Earth and more like to air above it" and ships cannot sail in it.

cool thanks! so it seems that Ulmo is really given lordship over Outer Space...Ossë and Uinen are then both the governors of the Earth's bodies of water, and they report to Ulmo, who reports to Manwë, who reports to Eru.

I wouldn't name Ekkaia 'outer space'. In what ever cosmologie of Tolkien we look, Vai, Vaiya, Ekkaia is part of Arda. If that is so, then Ulmos lord-ship ends were Arad ends. I do not know how the right scienctific name for it is, but it is like the spcae influenced by our sun. Outer space in contrast is, in my understanding at least, the free space between the solar systems or even between the glaxies.

As an aside: The Void in Tolkiens world is also not identical to outer space, since the void is outside Eä while outer space is part of it.

If the influence zone of the sun is Ulmos domain, then we have to asked what that implies. My only idea about that is that one way to define the influence zone of a star would be to look at the solar wind and where it is no longer observable as a constant stream of particels coming from that star. One main part of that solar wind are hydrogen ions.

Respectfully
Findegil