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Originally Posted by Inziladun
Any thoughts as to the nature of these plagues? Illness caused by micro-organisms isn't exactly a known thing in Tolkien's Arda. How did Morgoth, and later Suaron, manage their bio-terror acts? Could the "plagues" have had a chemical origin, instead of one founded in biology? After all, we see the land around Angband and Mordor rendered sterile and void of vegetation. The Brown Lands were subjected to some sort of assault that made them utterly unusable for anything.
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The image of the "dark winds out of the East" has interested me for some time. This suggests, unless it is meant to convey a primitive understanding of disease, that it was spread atmospherically rather than by people or animals. It caused me to think of radioactive fallout which would spread through the atmosphere after a large nuclear detonation. A chemical poison seems quite possible, but it would have to be extremely potent to be effective when mixed with the atmosphere at large.