There was a gif or a video montage of Boromir trying to catapult the ring to Mordor. Im on the move and cant search properly. But would be ideal for this discussion.
this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2026
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Because Elrond cut the the budget of Revendell NASA to spend more money on some project to make elves self-deport.
This is what I was waiting for. You know the theory of the eagles and Tom bombadil having the power to save everyone and not using it? What if the reason they didn't is because they can't. As in when they enter mordor they lose their power. Whereas the hobbits were removed from the magical doings of the world and therefore somewhat immune. Even galaxriel was temtpted by the ring. Bobmbadil probably only has power in his forest and the eagles only showed up after sauron's defeat but the eagles were on the spot right quick. Meaning they had to be close by. Which means they probably intended to be there and were waiting for wards to drop so they could help. Maybe.
My theory about Bombadil is that he was Tolkien's avatar in Middle Earth. Like, "I'm the one writing this story, I created this world, I'm more powerful than the gods of this realm, but if I solve all your problems right now then there wouldn't be a story so I'm not going to do that."
There's also the issue of anti-air defense in general. You can see those eagles from miles away.
Yeah, and the AA capabilities of Saruman would mean that even a highly manoeuvrable hypersonic cruise missile would have pretty low chances to get past, while the Sauron's eye seems like it could mess with onboard electronics.
Well for one, if they missed then they would basically be express shipping the ring back to Sauron...
And my Δv!
Really it was a time issue. Even if you assume the hobbits of the Shire had both the technological capacity to create a functional guided rocket and the industrial capacity to manufacture it ready to go, it takes around about a decade to bring a rocket development program from conception through to completion, even optimistically. Factor in the fact that there's a single unique and irreplaceable payload and if you fail to hit the target you've basically delivered the ring to Sauron, given it's apparent indestructibility, the reliability requirements would push the development time back a lot. It might take 20 or 30 years for the rocket to truly be ready for that mission. They were only able to confirm that what they've found actually is the one ring less than a couple years from when Sauron would have invaded everyone, so even with the most optimistic possible appraisal of the military industrial complex of the free peoples of Middle Earth there simply wasn't time. It's one of those projects where throwing more bodies at it just slows things down.
Yeah, but what if you're working with dwarves? And using elvish technology for a guidance system?
Perhaps need more lore information before we can understand how well the Elvish guidance systems would work under the full effects of Sauron's eye, which, considering the perceived threat and opportunity (in case destabilisation of the rocket is successful), on top of the ease of application (it would be in-air, easier to pick, as compared to little ground targets moving among other landscape objects), I'd say Sauron would put full attention onto the missile.
Much easier to just find a way to build a better furnace.
Easy solution, send a rocket or two to take out the Eye of Sauron before launching the one with the ring. Perhaps launch a flurry of them to overwhelm any remaining air defenses, which won't know which one has it.
Much easier to just find a way to build a better furnace.
Nope. It's not about the heat at mount doom, but the magic bound in the ring.
You have the maker of the ring^[Shadow of Mordor]!
Just make a magic furnace.
What in the heck is that graph? Abundance as a function of time?? What? But the data looks a lot more like some kind of EMR spectrum?
Probably a chromatogram from a gas chromatograph.
Counterpoint.
What if they buried it, like real deep, like 50m+ deep.
It was at the bottom of a river for 2500 years, it’s honestly more effective than taking the ring right into enemy land.
If you read the books, a lot of people thought Sauron wasn't ever getting the One back because they were convinced it must've been swept out to sea.
I wouldn't put it past the ring to manipulate some octopus to carry it back to land.
Have the dwarves cast in into a huge lump of steel a dump it way out in the ocean.
Too risky.
What if the huge lump of steel ends up having a hole (imperfection, which would be caused by the will of Sauron affecting the Dwarven workers' concentration) and someone then puts a finger in it?
Have guards at a safe distance ready to flood the casting floor with molten iron, while the dwarves are working. It may be cruel, but an influenced dwarf wouldn't get away with the ring.
Imperfections would be acceptable. I mean once the ring is encased in 2 tons of steel good frigging luck getting to it unnoticed.
Do we know what powers the ring gives to a dwarven smith?
Would he be able to find a way to escape incoming molten metal the moment he put his finger in a 2 ton steel sphere?
What if he ends up with the power to mould metal by thought? He might just manage to deform the same piece of steel and use it to prevent the molten metal from getting to him and then use it to create stilts and a shield for incoming guard attack?
Ok, maybe they can just make a cast, separately, away from the ring's influence and then get Frodo to drop the ring in the molten metal right after it part of it has been poured in.
But what if the ring ends up floating or sinking during the hardening (cooling down) process, making it accessible to touch, but at the same time, hard enough to detect?
Fifth-age Mordorian Nazis would scour the ocean floor for it in their submersibles until they find it.
At that point no one in Middle Earth would still even believe in the One Ring, if any had even heard of it outside of fairy tales told to children.
I'm not big on lotr lore. My Atlas of Middle Earth was mostly just used for RPG, and the Silmarillion has been left untouched on the book-shelves in my home. But are you saying that there's a nazi-hunting-artifacts storyline? Like Indiana Jones in Middle Earth?
Hobbit rockets never leave the ground. They use pipe-weed as fuel and, by T plus 60 of any launch, the engineers are all giggling on the launch pad eating funions as a quick post-elevenses snack.
That would explain why Gandalf likes visiting the Shire so much
when Gandalf said "Fly! You Fools!" This is what he meant
Silly me! I thought he miscasted a levitation spell.
"I mean it's not rocket science, guys." - Boromir on using a catapult to launch the ring into Mt. Doom
Legit question. Can the ring influence targeting computers over long distances? Or modern LLMs?
No but I'm sure it lt would literally (read: narratively) affect any mortal programming the computer, or setting the LLM out with such a purpose.
affect any mortal programming the computer
You don't need the ring nearby when programming the computer.
This is more of an orbital nuclear defense question since Mordor has a pretty in depth strategy against this sort of threat. Frodo probably didn’t consider this option because of the Pan-Middle Earth nuclear deescalation agreement of the second age, sub section 2, page five, which if violated could have big international downstream effects.
one does not simply ICBM into Mordor.
Also. we can easily create temperatures far exiding mount Doom's lava.
I think it's not about the temperature of mount doom, but the magical effects of the ring being forged there. But I could be way off...
it's more about a plot device, so any attempt at destroying it anywhere else is bound to fail. alternative, launch it into space like the Voyager,
since the ring posesses magical powers, maybe you can trigger it to release a "magical explosion" some how. but MAGIC is very nebelous in lotr, very little spellcasting, or magical attacks, or effects magic.
Maybe even ye olde thermite could do something
it's gravity's rainbow not gravity's bilbo
Question, if I have an unbreakable ring, what cool things could an engineer do with that?
Well it's interesting that it makes regular ringing/metallic sounds when it's dropped(at least in the movies), so it is not inelastic. Which means it could be deformed if placed under extreme force but it would always spring back into shape. So I think it might be the world's most powerful spring.
is there something useful that can be done with just ONE unbreakable spring?
It probably produce/absorb heat somehow when being deformed. Then, we use it to boil water, turn a turbine, and generate power!
That level of power would corrupt even the most noble of mortal minds. Hell, it can even corrupt immortal minds. That level of power cannot be wielded for good intentions without subverting those intentions for evil purposes!
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I mean, it all looks so simple.
What's your equation to enter the cave?
Oops, you missed the cave and now you've just invented Middle Earth's fastest possible way to return the Ring to Sauron.
Couldn't you make it a bunker buster?
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