A Question of Loyalty - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

Formendacil · 06-24-2009, 10:22 PM

Indeed, it asks some interesting genetic question about orks--ones that might be answered if we had a certain answer about their parentage... but not probably. Though Tolkien seems to have waffled between Elves and Men, and toyed with the idea of Melkor having originally incarnated some lesser Maia, who then reproduced--ala Melian, but nastier, nonetheless I think it's fair to say (granted, not going to argue it either way) that Tolkien more or less decided that the idea of Melkor not being able to create his own race of slaves from scratch was a keeper. It's nicely paralleled by Aulë and the Dwarves, anyway, and all in-text evidence in the Lord of the Rings--the only text Tolkien ever really said was canon--is that orks have individual and independent personalities, nasty as they are.

Thus, my opinion would tend to the idea that Orks must have been been perverted somehow from Children of Ilúvatar. This being the case, both Elves and Men (and if you want to throw them in for completeness, Dwarves too) can both stand the sun. No problem there. Tolkien also says that Elves and Men are biologically the same species, for all intents and purposes, since they can interbreed and produce fertile offspring, so as far as biology is concerned, it doesn't matter if Orks are bastardised Elves or bastardised Men--either way, they should have no more problem with sun than tanning.

But they do.

Or they did, until Saruman's reintroduction of non-tampered Eruhini DNA.

But (and as we stray from Tolkien to genetics, I admit my knowledge weakens), my understanding is that chromosomes come in pairs. Did Morgoth just tag ONE chromosome with the sun-pain, and then breed it into his orks? It certainly seems easier than hitting EVERY chromosome in that slot, and if sun-pain is a dominant gene, then once Morgoth had done enough breeding, practically every ork would hate the sun (quite apart from cultural pressures put on by the Dark Lord's antipathy, together with Sauron, the Balrogs, the Dragons, etc...).

If, however, Morgoth only tagged a dominant gene with the ork mutation, and then bred the species so that everyone, practically speaking, had it, then Saruman would NOT have needed to introduce an outside genetic, but could have just pursued crossbreeding the recessive, non-ork, genes that (making up numbers) only 2% of the ork population still carried in the late 3rd Age. Certainly, if what Morgoth was doing was playing god with genetics, when Saruman started doing the same thing 6 ages later, the rumours in Eriador could just as easily have assumed that he must have been doing vile crossbreeding with Men, since I'm going to assume genetics wasn't exactly your average Dunlending's forte.

Am I even in the right ballpark, science people? Or am I dressed for football at a cricket match?

06-24-2009, 10:22 PM	#21
Formendacil Dead Serious Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Perched on Thangorodrim's towers. Posts: 3,328	Indeed, it asks some interesting genetic question about orks--ones that might be answered if we had a certain answer about their parentage... but not probably. Though Tolkien seems to have waffled between Elves and Men, and toyed with the idea of Melkor having originally incarnated some lesser Maia, who then reproduced--ala Melian, but nastier, nonetheless I think it's fair to say (granted, not going to argue it either way) that Tolkien more or less decided that the idea of Melkor not being able to create his own race of slaves from scratch was a keeper. It's nicely paralleled by Aulë and the Dwarves, anyway, and all in-text evidence in the Lord of the Rings--the only text Tolkien ever really said was canon--is that orks have individual and independent personalities, nasty as they are. Thus, my opinion would tend to the idea that Orks must have been been perverted somehow from Children of Ilúvatar. This being the case, both Elves and Men (and if you want to throw them in for completeness, Dwarves too) can both stand the sun. No problem there. Tolkien also says that Elves and Men are biologically the same species, for all intents and purposes, since they can interbreed and produce fertile offspring, so as far as biology is concerned, it doesn't matter if Orks are bastardised Elves or bastardised Men--either way, they should have no more problem with sun than tanning. But they do. Or they did, until Saruman's reintroduction of non-tampered Eruhini DNA. But (and as we stray from Tolkien to genetics, I admit my knowledge weakens), my understanding is that chromosomes come in pairs. Did Morgoth just tag ONE chromosome with the sun-pain, and then breed it into his orks? It certainly seems easier than hitting EVERY chromosome in that slot, and if sun-pain is a dominant gene, then once Morgoth had done enough breeding, practically every ork would hate the sun (quite apart from cultural pressures put on by the Dark Lord's antipathy, together with Sauron, the Balrogs, the Dragons, etc...). If, however, Morgoth only tagged a dominant gene with the ork mutation, and then bred the species so that everyone, practically speaking, had it, then Saruman would NOT have needed to introduce an outside genetic, but could have just pursued crossbreeding the recessive, non-ork, genes that (making up numbers) only 2% of the ork population still carried in the late 3rd Age. Certainly, if what Morgoth was doing was playing god with genetics, when Saruman started doing the same thing 6 ages later, the rumours in Eriador could just as easily have assumed that he must have been doing vile crossbreeding with Men, since I'm going to assume genetics wasn't exactly your average Dunlending's forte. Am I even in the right ballpark, science people? Or am I dressed for football at a cricket match? __________________ I prefer history, true or feigned.