So I was having some fun with the thought of what to do with all the orcs after the War of the Ring and this crazy idea popped into my head... So voila! The first, and to be honest quite probably last (I'm not good at maintaining stories), chapter of Orc Rehab. If there's a decent number of you who want it to continue give me a shout and I'll see how it goes.
Hope you enjoy.
No one seemed quite sure whose idea 'Orc Rehabilitation' had been. Pippin claimed it was Gimli, swiftly backed up by his partner in crime, Merry. Gimli promptly passed it onto Aragorn, say gruffly
"He's the King; shouldn't he be taking some responsibility?" Aragorn claimed that he'd been acting on advice from Gandalf. Gandalf was about to pass it onto Frodo but then decided, in his infinite wisdom, that he'd had rather a lot on his plate recently, and said nothing.
Anyway, who had thought it up wasn't really the issue. The issue was that it was going ahead and was swiftly moving towards It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time Junction, after which it would do an express run to The Most Terrible Decision Ever Since Sméagol and Deagol Decided To Go Fishing City. In short, it was not going well.
After the fall of Sauron, there had been a lot of deliberation about what to do with all the orcs. And there were a lot. It appeared that Sauron had been breading them like crazy to bring up his numbers and as such the whole of Middle Earth was teaming with the things. Most of the commanders had been for killing them all but there were a few very persuasive voices that eventually won round the council and agreed that Orc Rehabilitation should be tried. After all, some reasoned, were not the orcs once elves twisted by pain? Why should it not work the other way round?
So 'The Mordor Rehabilitation Unit for Orcs and Other Evil Beings' was created. It was set in Mordor for two reasons. Firstly, because that was where most of the orcs were hanging out these days, not being welcome in most villages, and secondly because there was a nice, newly cleared area of ground for building the new facility.
One of the first problems they'd run across was the fact that apparently orcs are not the cleverest of beings. Sneaky was about the highest level of intelligence that they could manage and that was mainly fuelled by greed and their fellow orcs stupidity. Very quickly any orc with an I.Q. that was above average (i.e. not that high really) was elevated through the ranks and as a consequence had been rounded up at the end of the war with the other officers and executed or taken prisoner. This however led to a dearth of brains in the population and a group of frankly very confused killing machines. Now no one was yelling at them, telling them what to do, various groups had formed, and very quickly disbanded, in attempt to set up some sort of government. I believe there was even an attempt at democracy that failed, mainly due to the fact that Black Speech has no word for 'vote'. It was all a bit of a mess.
Those orcs that wished to sign up for M.R.U.O.O.E.B. were moved onto the facility, though as I mentioned orcs can be stupid and quite a few signed up with no idea what they were in for. The rest continued to hang out in the heartlands of Mordor and a small community grew up around the base of Mount Doom. It was constantly being torn down and built again and the mayor kept being killed and replaced but no one there seemed to mind too much. And if it wasn't for you– there was always room at M.R.U.O.O.E.B. which was located 'just down the road, past the fallen down tower but if you hit the giant black gates you've gone too far'.
It had taken a while to build the campus; though Gimli had a platoon of dwarves working flat out, it was eventually decided to postpone the building of the swimming pool and to open as soon as the major buildings were completed. The halls of residence were situated a little way from the main teaching rooms on a small hill. A stream ran past, though it was really more of a ditch filled with muddy water and surrounded by flies. But the orcs seemed to like it, and often took long, lingering walks along its banks, or dosed in the weeds. And as Sam pointed out
"Weeds are only plants that you don't like, and these plants are obviously liked," he nodded sagely "And isn't kingsfoil a weed?"
He had a good point.
So there we go! Not very long but hopefully slightly amusing. Thanks for reading and please let me know what you think.
Annapurna