The technological stagnation of Middle Earth

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The technological stagnation of Middle Earth

Post by Durandal »

Has anyone else wondered about this? In the 3,000 years since the Ring was cut from Sauron's hand ... not one thing has changed! Look at our own advancement in the last 500 or so years. We've gone from bows and arrows, castles and swords to computers, guns and urban housing.

Anyone have any ideas as to why Middle Earth stagnated like it did?
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Re: The technological stagnation of Middle Earth

Post by Stormbringer »

Durandal wrote:Has anyone else wondered about this? In the 3,000 years since the Ring was cut from Sauron's hand ... not one thing has changed! Look at our own advancement in the last 500 or so years. We've gone from bows and arrows, castles and swords to computers, guns and urban housing.

Anyone have any ideas as to why Middle Earth stagnated like it did?
It's actually degraded. The Gondorihm have lost much of the skill they had from the time of Numenore. The Dwarves and Elves have like-wise declined from their primes.
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Post by Master of Ossus »

Stormbringer is quite correct. Middle Earth has actually suffered technologically since the Second Age.
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Post by Shinova »

It's probably because of the existence of magic. With it, technology isn't as required as much.
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Post by Stravo »

There is precedence for such stagnation, the Fall of the Roman empire plunged most of Western Europe into a Dark Age. The East in Byzantium continued advancing to the point where they looked on Western Europe much the same way we look on nations like Somalia and other third world pits. The West lost many Roman advances particularly in architecture and engineering and had to be relearned.

Also Shinova's point about magic makes some sense but from reading the books I thought magic was still a rare thing in the outside world like the shire. The only real magic wielders were Saruman, Gandalf, Radagast and the other magi.
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Post by Hotfoot »

Shinova wrote:It's probably because of the existence of magic. With it, technology isn't as required as much.
Actually, magic has diminished greatly since the Second Age as well. Perhaps even moreso than the technology. But as Stravo said, magic is rather rare and precious to begin with, so unlike in D&D, it can't really be used as a substitute for technology.
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Post by Master of Ossus »

Judging how much magic is available in Middle Earth is very difficult because the elves do not properly understand the word "magic." It is such an integral part of their lives that they don't even really notice it. However, it is clear that most of their most powerful members have moved to Valinor by the time of the Ring's destruction, and that they are far less powerful than they had been during the Second Age.
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Post by white_rabbit »

I dont know that its actually stagnated that much for the basic peasentry..

I mean, we only read about the shire and a few other places, and we dont really see the farms, and towns of Middle earth, just the large citys who were built by the previous generations uber craftsmen, and therefore may not have really been industrialised so to speak..


for all we know the industrialisation that Sharku brings to the shire may be a more extreme version of whats already happening out in the world.
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Post by Durandal »

Magic could be a reason, but still. 3,000 years is a very long time in terms of human development. By the time of the siege of Minas Tirith, there aren't any ballistas or catapults to speak of. By all rights, the Orcs should be attacking with hovertanks, and the Men defending with surface-to-surface turbolasers and missiles. :)
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Post by HemlockGrey »

Well, linear technological progression is not a given. It only really happened a few times in our history.
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Post by Shadow WarChief »

Durandal wrote:Magic could be a reason, but still. 3,000 years is a very long time in terms of human development. By the time of the siege of Minas Tirith, there aren't any ballistas or catapults to speak of.
Try reading the book. The orcs did use catapaults

As for technological stagnation:

Elves: Never really "needed" tech in the first place. They just used their magic. The more powerful members of their race either died or went west to valinor, taking their knowledge out of middle earth

Dwarves: The dwarves were actually pretty damn good. They built into mountains and made stunning pieces of architecture. They were only driven out of Moria and the Lonely mountains in the first place because of Balrogs and Dragons.

Men: well let's see...the tower of ecthelion, Orthanc, Minas Ithil. At their height, Gondor and Numenor were able to do some things that we weren't able to do till about a century ago: sky scrapers.

leaning tower of Pisa and Roman Colloseum don't even kinda come close, those aren't nearly 1000+ feet tall.

They were only able to make them for a short time because all of the original refugees from Numenor were dying off and their wisdom was dying with them.

I guess something analogous to real life would be a roman engineering escaping the fall of the empire taking a lot of his buddies and starting a kindgom in some backwater of Gaul.
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Post by beyond hope »

You're overlooking the most obvious reason: war, and the activities of Sauron's minions. Orcs may not be great fighters (I think the orc to human kill ratio is something like 15 or 20 to 1 in the books) but they breed like rats. I've only read the books once, so someone correct me if I'm mistaken. I got the definite impression though that the orcs had gaining ground slowly but surely, simply because the ranks of the defending forces were thinning and they were divided against each other as well. Most of their resources are just going into trying to preserve the status quo.
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Post by fgalkin »

Actually, whoever brought up the Dark Ages analogy was correct. Since the time of the Last Alliance, Arnor has fallen, Gondor shrank to half its original size and was ruled by Stewards, even its capital was in ruins.

The Dwarves lost Moria, the Lonely Mountain, and their kingdoms were basically in the Iron Hills and in the Blue Mountains.

As for the Elves, most elves moved on to Valinor. The only big names from the First Age were basically Galadriel Cirdan, and a few others.


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Post by Sea Skimmer »

In addition it would seem the world of man and dwarves, who strike me as the only species who could and would really put a effort into technology, have far smaller numbers then Earths humans did at a similar technology level. That would do much to stagnate technology.
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Post by Gandalf »

ME was stagnant because the Elves, the most influential of the Free People, had a Confuscianist approach of always looking to the past.
Though for a different standpoint, ME was always stagnant because he had a very dim view of technology because it ruined his Shire like home town, that is why only Isengard and Mordor utilised it.
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Post by fgalkin »

Yes, the Ring symbolizes technology, IIRC.

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Post by lgot »

what do you mean by the ring is a symbol of technology ? not the old nuclear bomb teory, is it ?

By the way, many of the factors are correct. The book is a symbol of the change of magic to normal human age, therefore magic stops science advances (and some of the technology advancements with that) , just like superstition hold back science in our own story.
There was a lot of magic still in the world, after all the elfs hold back some of their territories and they trusted in magic and Sauron as well. The book clearly says there is a lack of union, effort and development of humans and the dwarves that rarely share their progress.
Plus even so, technology was related to the Valars and such. The technology to build better weapons, use better metals as always followed by some magic so the technology got lost there...
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Post by Vympel »

Play Arcanum for an RPG where a typical cliched fantasy world with eleves and dwarves and shit is undergoing an industrial revolution.
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Post by Xon »

Vympel wrote:Play Arcanum for an RPG where a typical cliched fantasy world with eleves and dwarves and shit is undergoing an industrial revolution.
Arcanum, were technology & magic were diametric opposites. Were a running steam engine would cripple a powerfull mage.

I wonder what would happen if you introduced a modern computer & power generator to Arcanum. More importantly, if it was turned on just outside the Elves forests :twisted:
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Post by neoolong »

ggs wrote:
Vympel wrote:Play Arcanum for an RPG where a typical cliched fantasy world with eleves and dwarves and shit is undergoing an industrial revolution.
Arcanum, were technology & magic were diametric opposites. Were a running steam engine would cripple a powerfull mage.

I wonder what would happen if you introduced a modern computer & power generator to Arcanum. More importantly, if it was turned on just outside the Elves forests :twisted:
Does it work the other way around? That high powered magic interferes with the working of technology?
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Post by Vympel »

Those mages couldn't stand up to my uber tech armor and machine guns

:roll: :twisted:
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Post by Xon »

neoolong wrote:
ggs wrote:
Vympel wrote:Play Arcanum for an RPG where a typical cliched fantasy world with eleves and dwarves and shit is undergoing an industrial revolution.
Arcanum, were technology & magic were diametric opposites. Were a running steam engine would cripple a powerfull mage.

I wonder what would happen if you introduced a modern computer & power generator to Arcanum. More importantly, if it was turned on just outside the Elves forests :twisted:
Does it work the other way around? That high powered magic interferes with the working of technology?
Yes. However, the highest level mages in the game cant go near a town that would be at most be classified as a town out of the early industrial revolution, with out the revolution part.
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Technological civilisation is relatively recent in the RW

Post by Patrick Degan »

Consider the historical perspective of our own real world. Human civilisation has roughly lasted for about 12,000 years, dating from carvings, votive objects, and pottery fragments found at Çatal Huyuk in present-day Turkey. It is only in the last five hundred years that the sort of accelerated development which has ultimately resulted in a civilisation equipped with computers, rocketry, plastics and composite materials, and nuclear power has been seen on this planet. Three thousand years of relative stagnation is only a quarter of that stretch of time.

The world of Middle Earth has either not yet reached a certain critical mass in population density and mechanical invention, or collected wealth and military power, or at some point in its past suffered a terrible civilisational collapse and retrogression from which it still has not recovered. If resources are poor, it may never recover from whatever reversal may have occurred in the time before Sauron.
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Post by Sir Sirius »

Nah, the REAL reason is Manwe, Elbereth and all the other Valar (AKA. gods).
Just think about it, how much have religions stuntted the develepment of technoly in the real world? Pretty much I would say. And the Valar, the gods of Arda, were really REAL in the Middle-Earth, not just myths and fables like our's are. How much would religions based on REAL living deitys slow down progress?
A LOT? Yeah, I'd say so.
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Post by Stormbringer »

Sir Sirius wrote:Nah, the REAL reason is Manwe, Elbereth and all the other Valar (AKA. gods).
Just think about it, how much have religions stuntted the develepment of technoly in the real world? Pretty much I would say. And the Valar, the gods of Arda, were really REAL in the Middle-Earth, not just myths and fables like our's are. How much would religions based on REAL living deitys slow down progress?
A LOT? Yeah, I'd say so.
I don't think it's fair to even compare the Valar to the Judeao-Christian god. They are genuinely benevolent and compassionated and don't prize ignorance. Hell, Aule reveled in teaching and sharing knowledge with the Nolodor and Dwarves.

I think the genuine problem in Middle Earth is two fold. Most are happy the way they are, it's certainly better conditions and all than Medieval Europe or even Ancient Rome. The Nolodor, Edain, Numenorian, and Arnorian/Gondorian civilizations all did things that only recently attained or better. Particularly in feats of engineering and medicine. Plus they have more of a respect for the natural world than we did. A lot of the civilizations are more careful about using the natural resources and protecting them than we were.

Second of all, the continuing series of calamities that Morogoth and later Sauron brought about. It's like Rome going under each time, first the Nolodor and Edain, next Numenor and Eregion, and then Arnor and Gondor. It's a matter of numerous setbacks to the development.
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