If LotR had been written by someone else!?

[Son of Númenor]

Frodo awoke with a pounding headache. Standing up, he felt a searing pain shoot down his spine, and realized he had been sleeping on a root. He cursed, and walked drowsily over to where Sam was making a pot of coffee.

"You look like hell," said Sam, pouring him a cup.

"It's the Ring," said Frodo.

In 1976, Mordor Technology Management & Services Inc. had conceived of the One Ring: an electronical manifestation of a fraction of the Dark Lord's being, encoded digitally into a golden band with microconductive properties. The idea of making an evil spirit physically manifest was not new; years before, MelkCom engineers had used type IIb boron-coated diamonds to disseminate their CEO's EVIL (Electronically Viable Inherent Loathsomeness) into the fabric of earth's lithosphere. But MTMS Inc. was taking it to a new level, with sophisticated doping techniques allowing engineers to procure an infinitesimally small electronic encoding of EVIL. In another ten years, dissemination techniques would become obsolete, replaced with extreme concentrations of structurally pure EVIL. The ramifications were huge if this technology became commercially and -- more importantly -- militarily viable.

Frodo knew all of this, of course, being the one who had been hired by Riven Dell Electronics to 'devalue' the Ring -- an industry euphemism for the destruction of a superior technology by a rival company, amounting essentially to corporate hijacking.

Frodo shouldered his pack as he downed the last swig of hot coffee. "Let's get moving," he said. "We should make camp in Bree by 1900 hours."