Saruman the Many-Colored stood atop Orthanc, looking over Isengard, mentally planning for the machines he wanted to build. But those pesky trees had to go first.
On a different wagon-train of thought, he needed servants. Powerful servants, who could easily spy out any information he might want to know and destroy his enemies. Of course, he had needed something like this for awhile, but he had never found a way to create one before, so he had turned to birds and beasts, and now he was using Orcs and Goblins. But they just didn't have that… that uniqueness he needed… But now, he had found somehing. The reason he could not find any beings powerful enough for his needs and yet with the knowledge worth more than a Dwarven-made suit of mithril armour. It was because the future of Middle-earth had already been written. He could not go against it without creating a devestating paradox.
Of course, Saruman being the brilliant wizard he is, asked himself a question: who wrote the future? And could they change it? This thread of ideas led him to deduce a solution for his need. He would call two beings from the realm of the written-future. He would make them into powerful weapons, and they would tell him all he needed to know so he could change the future. A good, solid plan, without risk of interdimensional paradoxes.
But then there was a matter of strength. With the creatures he needed being outside the world he knew, would Saruman have enough magical skill and energy needed to bring them to Middle-earth and mold them as he wanted to? Well, there's only one way to find out.
Concentrating, the Istar sank deep into himself. From an outside observer, it would look as if he had fallen asleep standing up, slumped on his staff, his beard fluttering with his breath. But his mind wandered beyond the boundaries of space and time.
He came across a Man who possessed the knowledge he needed, and Saruman just about chose him. But at the last moment, he backed away. The stubbornness of a male might make his job more difficult. He would take a female. Two females, if he could. It's always good to have a back-up.
Ah, here are two excellent specimens! Two young daughters of Men, with heads full of the extensive information that he craved. Quickly he snatched them up.
Now, to make them strong. What should he do to them? Give them magical powers? No, no, that would basically mean turning them into one of the Ainur, and even Saruman was not that powerful. Turn them into animals? No, that would simply decrease their strength, not to mention their intelligence. But that gave him an idea. Of course he knew of Beorn, the skin-changer, and the Beornings, of whom it was said that skin-changing had been inherited. He remembered Gandalf's description of the great black bear charging through Orcs and Goblins at the Battle of the Five Armies. Skin-changers were mighty beings. Just the sort of servants he could use.
So he morphed them. Of course, they weren't in the written-future realm, nor were they in Arda. They were in the nothingness in between them. Saruman put them there only because he felt they would be safer there, and it took a lot less magical energy to change them there. He gave them seven forms each, and began to draw them to Middle-earth.
Now, this was the tricky part. His energy was nearly spent, and there were many invisible magical boundaries around Arda. He was just about there, nearly tasting the information his new servants held, when…
A bird flew up to him and cawed in his face. He knew what it was trying to say. Gandalf is still in the Shire with the hobbits, Gandalf is still in the Shire with the hobbits. He sent out birds to spy on his fellow Istari. Why would he trust a crazy brown loner with, as he told the White Council over fifty years ago, "an excessive consumption of mushrooms," or a grey wanderer with an obsession over short people with abnormal feet?
But at the moment, this messenger was most unwelcome. It threw Saruman's concentration off completely, and his two creations went rocketing off towards the first location his frazzled brain came up with: the Shire. Exactly where he didn't want them to go. And it was all that stupid bird's fault!
Saruman sighed in anger and tried to shoo away his spy, but it refused to leave, holding out a tiny pouch on its leg. Grumbling, the Istar dug out a golden Galleon—What? Even the Wise have to learn, and Hogwarts is pretty much the best darn place to learn!—placed it in the pouch, and sent the bird away.
He would not have enough energy to try and do this again for a very long while. Stupid bird. Stupid Gandalf. Stupid mushrooms.
And so, grumbling to high heaven, Saruman the Many-Colored planned world-domination atop the black tower of Isengard…