h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Sorry, mate this article is not about the orcs as we all see them, it might be about orcs as you see them. It is not even about the origin of the orcs. It was a brilliant idea to write about orcs, but it just lacks a bit of direction. It is just way to general.....And FIY most LiveRPG are based on paper and dice systems. And there is no such thing like a computer RPG yet, the still lack the complete freedom you have when you play the old fashioned way...

Chili, getting his dice ready

By the way; as a matter of fact, Jennifer Anniston is the most attractive women in the world, 'cause I think so. And there's no such thing as softice, 'cause it doesn't taste good enough... c'mon man, you're building facts on own ideas!

About 95% of the world population sees orcs a desciped in the article. And CRPG's like baldurs gate og Logos (which includes a living Dungeon Master) are Role Playing Games, no matter how much freedom they lack.

It's OK with me, if you think that the article lacks som einformetion on a specific kind of Orcs, just write an article about the kinda Orcs you're interrested in. But don't just spread youre views as facts.

Lewi

BTW: LiveRPG's are based FAR from ordinary RPG, using standart RPG rules, but lacking any of the refinements of a RPG game.

95% of the public think of orcs as green, barbaric, and that's about it. You've got WAY too much information to appeal to public info here... you think the general public think that the females are slightly smaller than the males? Or care?

The problem is that your article has specific information on a specific type of orc - the AD&D orc. As such it should either be retitled "orcs in AD&D", or modified so that it has information on other orc types. Or information should be *removed*, so that the article only has information that is common to *all* types of orc.

After all, what if someone had written an article about Space Orks, and titled it "orcs"? Wouldn't that leave you in exactly the same position as we are now in? Would you not be raising the same objections?

Lucinda, I look forward to reading your article about Space Orks, or for that matter any other type of orc. No doubt it will be linked to this article so people can have a fuller knowledge of the evolution of orcs over the last 600 years.

Ok.
At which point this article will be renamed to reflect the fact that it too is an article about just one type of orc?

I am not spreading personal views as a matter of fact. It was in no way meant to be fact what I am posting to this forum. I just get the impression that you are writing about a specific type of orc. And that is all I said here. Your article has nothing to do with how 95% of the people see orcs. Just go and ask somebody who has not been exposed to any RPG material. They will tell something about trolls and orcs and old myths. The orcs brought up in the myths have very little in common with the tolkienesque ones you are describing here.
I don´t want to start a fight so I will stop posting here, but I find it quite sad that you are too narrow minded to pick up our suggestions here.

Chili, getting bored

Sorry, but I had to do this...

OK, I am going to become very unpopular now.
But, Tolkien did not write a bible. He is a very telented writer, and I love his work, it
just happens that this article is not about Tokiens orcs, it is about ordinary Orcs as
we all know them (as included in AD&D)

LewiDK

Doesn´t need an comment, does it?

Chili, nuff said

Me again, forgot something...

c&ped that from the "disrespecting the man" entry...

Just check it...

Chili

Chilli, chill out and write something better... It will be added to the h2g2 family of articles... trust me

yep... I am gonna do that sometime

This conversation is really of track. It have nothing to do with the artcile above

This posting is purely bassed on As Far As I Know information.

AFAIK there is a possibility of adding to an article, and thereby building it with all the information it SHOULD contain.

Unfortunately, the only Orcs I know of are the ones used in AD&D, CRPG's and the different books I've read (including Tolkiens The Hobbit, or at least I think it's the same kinda Orcs)
So please, I would take it as an honor if you would add the information on the 14th century, Tolkien and other orcs.

This was more or less my idea when I wrote the article

LewiDK

Some grasp of the mythic universe in which Lord of the Rings is set could be helpful. Long ago, Middle Earth was created by the one God, Illuvatar. Elves were made first, then humans, dwarves and Ents. However, Melkor {aka Morgoth) who was one of the Valar (or great angels) rebelled against the divine plan. Melkor twisted the laws of creation to make orcs, trolls and other evil creatures. After Melkor was chained and (later) cast into the Void - in the wake of many wars waged over the fate of three Silmarils, or heavenly jewels - it fell to Sauron, Melkor's chief lieutenant, to pursue the cause of evil in middle Earth.

That, roughly, is where Lord of the Rings begins. A return bout is looming between Sauron and his minions on one side, and the elves, humans and their allies on the other. Crucially, a ring found proves to be the One Ring of ultimate power, forged long ago by Sauron. The hobbit Frodo embarks on a quest to destroy this Ring before it falls into Sauron's hands again, or of anyone else willing to use it. Although the story is ripe with parallels (Melkor/Morgoth -- Lucifer/ Satan, the Ring = atomic power) Tolkien firmly rejected allegorical readings. Still, as Tolkien's colleague Tom Shippey says, it seems hardly accidental that Sauron's final defeat occurs on March 25, seen in medieval times as the date of the Annunciation and the Crucifixion.

The saga of Middle Earth began as a serious game with languages, stimulated by Professor Tolkien's Oxford studies of Beowulf and other medieval texts. Tolkien intended to provide England with its own equivalent to the Norse myths. At its genesis in December 1937, The Lord of the Rings was a marriage Of convenience - something that would provide his publisher with a sequel to the surprise hit The Hobbit, while furthering Tolkien's hope that his pet project The Silmarillion (a history/philology of Middle Earth begun in 1914) might find a publisher.

At deeper levels, the trilogy furthers Talkie's belief - stated in his essay "On Fairy Stories" - that myths should satisfy our yearning for a joy beyond the walls of this world, offering a transcendence in stark contrast to the tragedy at the core of drama. For Tolkien, the Christian myth was the supreme example of the redemptive power of such stories.

To Ursula Le Guin, Tolkien's world is more morally complex than, say, C S Lewis's Narnia. While Narnia has good people and bad people - and how Lewis exults in the fall of the wicked - Tolkien consistently offers his characters (Boromir, Saruman, Wormtongue, Denethor and, especially, Gollum) a chance of repentance. Even the zombie-like Black Riders and Sauron are not evil men, Le Guin argues, "but embodiments of the evil in men ... [Similarly] the men who do wrong are not complete figures but complements: Saruman is Gandalf's dark self, Boromir is Aragorn's and Wormtongue is, quite literally, the weakness of King Theoden."

As for Gollum, compassion seems the only possible response. "Gollum is Frodo's shadow and it is the shadow, not the hero, who completes the quest." In one of his letters, Tolkein even criticised the judgmental Sam for ensuring that evil finally wins the battle for Gollum's soul. Not that the Tolkien who fought at the Battle of the Somme and whose sons fought the Nazis was at all soft-headed about evil. "Tolkien's ethic, Le Guin concluded, "like that of dream, is compensatory ... but because responsibility has been accepted, charity survives." Even so, one nagging problem for the modern reader is that Tolkien routinely links fair skin and blond hair with moral virtue, and dark skin with evil.

Other moral issues are seldom rendered in black and white. How is Boromir's desire to use the Ring to save his kinfolk to be judged? Is the Ring an irresistible force of external evil - in which case, why does it have no effect on Sam, Aragorn, Faramir, Merry, Pippin or Legolas - or does it magnify an existing tendency? Are there female orcs, or are all orcs vat-grown? Are the Dunlendings intrinsically worse than the Rohirrim,- or under ecological pressure did they just make bad tactical choices?

Unfortunately it is doubtful if we will ever find out. New Zealand filmmaker Peter Jackson cannot rely on special effects to convey the moral subtleties of this tale in the upcoming Lord of The Rings films.

>Calling this article an introduction is a very good idea. I just thought about the literally thousands of different types of orcs. The Shadowrun Orc, The MERP-Orc, the Games Workshop Orc, the AD&D Orc and what not. The funny thing is that they are all so different from each other...<

Since this is the entry in the Guide, then it must be the truth. ALl other sources of information, including history and actual sightings must be wrong.

.... until you write a more inclusive article about orcs

"Oh. Does that mean I have to stop whining and do something positive and helpful."

"Yes."

The positive and helpful suggestion to change the title a teensy weensy bit has already been made, I believe...

Orcs is a generic title that covers the information in the article nicely. In a similar manner the article on beer does not describe every beer available in the world, nor the one on wine or the one on chickens or the one on God.

Didn't the one on God just get rejected for much the same reason that this one has been critiqued?
No criticism was meant to be implied - I just felt that you were being a little harsh decrying such comments as 'whining'. *shrugs*

I also accepted the article on God for inclusion in the Edited Guide It was rejected higher up because some of the information was opinion.

If the researcher removes (rewrites in a different form) the opinion bits it will be accepted. As I understand it the researcher has been informed about this and the ball is back in his court.

On a huge digression, I do love the process of removing opinion - 'it has been claimed that' is now ranked close to 'obviously' in my list of handy phrases...