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Old 08-04-2009, 08:10 PM   #1
Inziladun
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Dark-Eye Bio-warfare In Middle-earth

I started thinking about this after re-reading ROTK Appendix A.

Quote:
"Ever will some new evil be hatched in Angband beyond the guess of Elves and Men," they said. And in the autumn of that year, to point their words, there came an ill wind from the North under leaden skies. The Evil Breath it was called, for it was pestilent; and many sickened and died in the fall of the year in the northern lands....
UT Narn I Hîn Húrin

Quote:
Soon after a deadly plague came with dark winds out of the East. The King and all his chidren died, and great numbers of the people of Gondor....for weariness and fewness of men the watch on the borders of Mordor ceased...Later it was noted that these things happened even as the Shador grew deep in Greenwood, and many evil things reappeared, signs of the arising of Sauron. It is true that the enemies of Gondor also suffered, or they might have overwhelmed it in its weakness; but Sauron could wait, and it may well be that the opening of Mordor was what he chiefly desired.
ROTK Appendix A

Two epidemics of deadly disease, each apparently deliberately introduced.
The first, Morgoth's seems to mainly have been a terror weapon intended to weaken the will of the Men of Dor-lómin prior to the Nirnaeth, as it had an especially terrible effect on their children.
Sauron's use of the plague was more tactical: he wanted to re-occupy Mordor, and could not do so while it was constantly guarded by Gondor.

Here's the issue: the use of plagues could have brought great mortality to Sauron's foes in the years leading up to the War of the Ring, or during the War itself. Certainly his own armies would likely be affected, but still: it seems to me the sacrifice might have been worth it.
Why didn't Sauron attempt to set another plague on the West after his return to Mordor?
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