Breakaway!

Breakaway!

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One of my guilty pleasures is the 1970s TV show Space: 1999. I’ve been rewatching it lately, and something about it seems to have engaged one of my spare backup Muses.

Space: 1999 was a very odd duck, kind of the epitome of the kind of science-fiction programming you’d find on British TV in the 1970s. Probably due to its creators, the inestimable Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. It’s a mix of hard SF and wild space-operatic fantasy, with FX that were superb at the time but that look very dated today, and writing that veered from interesting to horrible. The cast were very good, and they did the best they could with the material they were handed.

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been thinking about building a RPG scenario around a similar premise. It seemed likely that I would need to update the technology a bit, and the timeline, and find a way to make the core premise more palatable. Still, I find the basic notion – a near-future space outpost, on a course it can’t control, its crew trying to survive a series of challenges – quite appealing.

So here’s a side project that I might post freebies for, on an occasional basis. The working title is Space: 2049, and it will probably end up as a collection of notes and RPG material updating the original show for a more modern sensibility. I’ll probably use GURPS for the game-oriented pieces, since this is all going to be fan-derivative work for free anyway.

To begin with, have a timeline!

Timeline of Moonbase Alpha – to Breakaway

1990Birth of Victor Bergman, in London, United Kingdom.
2007Birth of John Koenig, in New York City, United States.
2009Birth of Helena Russell, in Denver, United States.
2011Birth of David Kano, in St. Andrew, Jamaica.
2013Birth of Robert Mathias, in New York City, United States.
2016Birth of Alan Carter, in Sydney, Australia.

Birth of Antony Verdeschi, in Florence, Italy.

While teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Victor Bergman has an annus mirabilis, publishing no fewer than five papers to revolutionize modern physics. In particular, Bergman’s theories suggest the possibility of direct control of gravitational forces.
2017Birth of Paul Morrow, in London, United Kingdom.
2018Birth of Tanya Aleksandr, in Weimar, Germany.
2023Birth of Sandra Benes, in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei.
2028First practical applications of Bergman gravitational technology are developed. The new technology promises to revolutionize transportation, especially in space.
2029While attending MIT, John Koenig meets Victor Bergman, who becomes his lifelong mentor and advisor.
2033Victor Bergman is awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics.

Construction of Moonbase Alpha begins in the crater Plato, by the American space agency NASA. The new base is intended as an industrial center, and a headquarters to coordinate exploration of the solar system.
2035Launch of the Sojourner One probe, an unmanned vehicle using the experimental fast-neutron drive invented by Dr. Ernst Queller. The probe appears to be successful, but vanishes without a trace within days of launch.

Launch of the Sojourner Two probe ends in disaster when the Queller drive cuts in too early, killing hundreds of people. Dr. Ernst Queller is found not to be at fault, but he goes into seclusion regardless.

Outbreak of the Pacific War, a global conflict between democratic and authoritarian power blocs. Construction of Moonbase Alpha, and other space exploration activity, is paused during the conflict.
2038End of the Pacific War, after Earth narrowly avoids a nuclear exchange.

A number of new international institutions are established in the aftermath, to stabilize the global community and deal with several ongoing crises. Among these is the World Space Commission, a unified body coordinating human space-exploration efforts. A new era in manned exploration of the solar system begins.

The World Space Commission takes oversight of the Moonbase Alpha project, resuming construction. Bergman gravitational technology is integrated into the base’s design and architecture.

World Space Commission awards contracts for the development of a new transport spacecraft applying Bergman gravitational technology – the Eagle.
2042First Eagle transport spacecraft are deployed.
2044Manned expedition to Jupiter is lost after a massive engine failure. Lee Russell, medical officer and husband of Dr. Helena Russell, is presumed dead.

Discovery of the “ninth planet,” a small ice giant orbiting Sol at distances between 360 and 600 AU. The new planet is named Ultra.
2046Several Hawk fighter craft are deployed to defend against a putative attack on Earth from space.

Manned expedition to Ultra departs, commanded by Tony Cellini.
2047Expedition to Ultra returns to Earth, with Tony Cellini as its sole survivor. Cellini is grounded after a diagnosis of severe psychological strain and paranoid delusions, but has a partial recovery and is later reassigned to Moonbase Alpha.

Working at Moonbase Alpha, Victor Bergman discovers the so-called Meta Signal, a pattern of phased gravitational waves that seems to carry considerable encoded information. World Space Commission announces the first evidence of intelligent life in space.
2048Victor Bergman hypothesizes that humans could use gravitational waves to respond to the Meta Signal. He begins an effort to decode and translate the signal, but progress is very slow.
2049A scientific expedition is planned to the apparent source of the Meta Signal. Construction of the spacecraft begins at Moonbase Alpha.

9 September: John Koenig arrives on Moonbase Alpha as its new Commander, replacing Anton Gorski. Koenig has been assigned to get the Meta expedition launched, but he discovers an outbreak of medical and psychological issues among the crew, far worse than he had been led to believe.

12 September: Commissioner Gerald Simmonds arrives on Moonbase Alpha and immediately comes into conflict with Commander Koenig, who remains cautious about pushing forward the Meta project. Simmonds begins to insist that the expedition move into its next phase without further delay, and also presses to have Dr. Bergman issue an immediate response to the Meta Signal.

13 September: “Breakaway.” On the insistence of Commissioner Simmonds, Koenig authorizes a first response to the Meta Signal. The result is catastrophic – intensely focused artificial gravitation, which reaches out from deep space and accelerates the Moon out of Earth’s orbit. Moonbase Alpha finds itself hurtling into deep space, at speeds which make any evacuation back to Earth problematic.

16 September: The runaway Moon disappears entirely from Earth’s view, and all contact with Moonbase Alpha is lost. In fact, the human response to the Meta Signal has engaged a billions-of-years-old Forerunner stargate network. The Moon is now being conveyed through the network to an unknown destination.
An Interesting Alternate History

An Interesting Alternate History

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Alexander Putting his Seal Ring over Hephaistion’s Lips, by Johann Heinrich Tischbein (1781)

While I slog through the Architect of Worlds draft, I’m still thinking about Hellenic alternate histories for my Danassos setting.

One of the most popular premises for a Hellenistic AH is the one in which Alexander the Great lives longer, perhaps long enough to see a legitimate heir born and recognized. Lots of people have played with that one . . . but I think I’ve found another one that’s just as interesting.

Suppose Hephaistion had lived longer?

Hephaistion, son of Amyntor, was Alexander’s closest friend and companion from boyhood, possibly his lover, certainly one of his most talented officers. Alexander trusted Hephaistion absolutely and without reservation – and that trust was apparently well-earned.

Hephaistion wasn’t just lucky enough to strike up a close relationship with his king. He was a competent diplomat and battlefield officer in his own right, often entrusted with important missions. He was apparently quite intelligent, patronizing the arts, maintaining his own years-long correspondence with Aristotle. With one or two exceptions, he got along well with his colleagues on Alexander’s staff. Most importantly, he understood Alexander – his ambitions, his ideas about building and governing a world-empire, his desire to build bridges between the Hellenic and Persian worlds. He was well-respected both among Makedonians and among Persians.

When Hephaistion died in 324 BCE, possibly due to complications of a bout of typhoid fever, it just about unhinged Alexander. The king lived only another eight months afterward, and it seems that the loss of his life-long companion had robbed him of something vital. When Alexander died in turn, at Babylon, he had made no provision for a regency or succession. That omission led the Makedonians to revert to their historical pattern of behavior, fighting ruthlessly over the throne, only this time on a much grander scale than before. The result was the complete extinction of Alexander’s royal line, and the permanent division of his empire. In the end, while Hellenistic culture came into its own, it was the rival empires of Rome and Parthia that inherited Alexander’s political ambitions.

If Hephaistion had survived to a decent age, it might not have added too many years to Alexander’s tally. By the time of his arrival in Babylon, Alexander had pretty thoroughly burned himself out and wrecked his physical health. Yet if Hephaistion had survived his king, there would have been no question of who would serve as Regent. He would also have been a competent guardian and foster father for Alexander’s son by Roxane. Doubtless others among Alexander’s generals would still have reached for their own ambitions, hoping to unseat Hephaistion or carve out their own kingdoms, but the imperial structure would have started out on a much sounder footing. It’s possible that Alexander’s empire would have remained intact for at least another generation.

This has possibilities – not least because I’m not aware of anyone else who has run with this specific premise. I’m going to tinker with the idea as time allows.

Planning for September 2022

Planning for September 2022

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Once again, the planning for this month is likely to be pretty straightforward.

In August, I got some incremental work done on Architect of Worlds, and I also finished writing the first section of my Hellenic-alternate-history-fantasy novel Twice-Crowned. That last went out to my patrons and readers about mid-month.

In September, I think those two projects are going to be reversed in priority. I’m planning to spend the bulk of this month working on the draft of Architect of Worlds, and maybe making a little incremental progress on Twice-Crowned and the Danassos setting in general.

In particular, I think I’m going to be focusing on three tasks for Architect:

  • Rationalizing the mathematical formulae throughout, so I’m using consistent variable names and the format of the formulae is consistent.
  • Making sure each step in the design sequences has a “modeling notes” section, to point readers toward some of the scientific literature if they want to investigate further.
  • Polishing the steps in the design sequence that involve placing planets in their orbits – I’m still not entirely happy with how this works, and there may be ways to streamline the process.

If I can get the Architect of Worlds draft into some kind of polished form by the end of this month, and there’s enough genuinely new material in there, then that may be a charged release for my patrons. The other option, if the amount of new material isn’t extensive enough, is to make it a free update. We’ll see how things go.

The planning schedule for this month:

  • Top Priority:
    • Architect of Worlds: Continue work on preparing a complete draft of the book for eventual layout and publication.
  • Second Priority:
    • Danassos: Continue work on the new rough draft of the novel Twice-Crowned.
    • Human Destiny: Continue compiling material for the eventual Atlas of the Human Protectorate.
    • Human Destiny: Design additional new rules systems for the Player’s Guide and add these to the interim draft.
    • Human Destiny: Begin work on a new Aminata Ndoye story, set during her first year at the Interstellar Service academy.
  • Back Burner:
    • Human Destiny: Finish the novelette “Remnants” for eventual collection and publication.
    • Krava’s Legend: Review and possibly rewrite the existing partial draft of The Sunlit Lands, and write a few new chapters.
    • Krava’s Legend: Write the second short story for the “reader magnet” collection.
    • Scorpius Reach: Write a few new chapters of Second Dawn.
    • Scorpius Reach: Start work on a third edition of the Game of Empire rules for Traveller (or Cepheus Engine).
Review: The Rings of Power (First Two Episodes)

Review: The Rings of Power (First Two Episodes)

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Okay, I stayed up way too late last night binge-watching the first two episodes of “The Rings of Power.” Here’s a snap review based on my first impressions.

Initial reaction: I’m sold. A few potential spoilers to follow, so be careful scrolling down.

As a Tolkien geek, I had to be a little concerned that the studio didn’t have the rights to anything but the trilogy itself. There’s a lot of material for a story set in the Second Age that they don’t have available. On the other hand, there are the Appendices to the trilogy – more than enough material to tell a good Second Age story, even if one would have to fill in a lot of details.

What matters is whether the end result is recognizably rooted in the legendarium, and so far I have to say I’m very pleased. I’m already seeing some very interesting takes on known characters and cultures. Our introductions to Galadriel, Elrond, Gil-galad, and Celebrimbor are all superb. The other cultures we get to see – societies of men in “the Southlands,” the Dwarves of a living Khazad-dum, and especially a tribe of proto-Hobbits – all strike the right notes.

They are taking some liberties with the canon timeline. For example, they’re clearly going to be compressing a couple thousand years of Second Age history down into a single human lifetime. I suspect they’re also going to be rearranging a few events and making up a few out of whole cloth for the sake of the story.

(Meanwhile, yes, there are several roles cast with actors of color. I have absolutely no problem with that, and the idiots review-bombing the series on that basis can piss right the fuck off, as far as I’m concerned. I’ve long since reached the limits of my patience with that nonsense.)

A couple of bits of business did have me scratching my head. There’s a whole sequence with Galadriel in the second episode that struck me as just weird. No, I don’t think even a first-rank Noldo Elf can expect to be able to swim the Atlantic.

There’s also a character, identified so far only as “the Stranger,” whose role is a complete mystery. Putting down my bet right now: what we’re seeing is the first arrival of Gandalf in Middle-earth, several thousand years before he first appears in canon. Which is going to be a surprising but very neat bit of story, if I’m right about what’s going on there.

None of that was sufficient to pull me out of the story for more than a moment or two at a time. The story is otherwise superb, the character acting and development are very good, and the visual spectacle of the thing is just gorgeous. I suspect they’ve got a long-running success here, if they can keep up the pace and the audience doesn’t prove to have pre-judged the thing before it gets a chance.

Review: Out of Time, by Chris Adams Ward

Review: Out of Time, by Chris Adams Ward

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Out of Time by Chris Adams Ward

Overall Rating: **** (4 stars)

Out of Time presents itself as a speculative fiction story, but at its heart it’s a novelistic appreciation for some of the greatest American music.

Henry “Slim” Tucker is a young African-American journalist, working in Chicago in the early 1920s. Although he is no musician, he loves the vibrant music, the jazz and blues, being played in the city’s bars and clubs. He writes about singers and performers for the Chicago newspapers. Once in a while, he also gets indisputable premonitions about what some of those artists must do, to further their careers and shape the musical world.

Brian Saxon is a successful British businessman, living in the modern day. After suffering a serious head injury in an auto accident, Brian awakens to find the world terribly changed. His beloved wife is now a stranger, and a completely different woman claims to have been his partner. Even worse, the American music Brian has loved all his life – the jazz, blues, swing, and rock-and-roll that he has listened to since childhood – has somehow vanished. The situation is intolerable . . . but soon, against all odds, Brian discovers that there may be something he can do about it.

Out of Time is outwardly the story of these two men, each unaware of the other’s existence, each struggling to survive and find happiness against an ever-changing background of great music. Neither of them understands their relationship, but over time they come to terms with it, and along the way they play a critical part in the evolution of American music. The true leading character in the novel, though, is the music itself, growing and changing, eventually becoming the global cultural phenomenon that it is today.

It’s clear that Mr. Adams, like his British protagonist, loves the music about which he writes. The book is well-researched, and although there are more than a few expository passages, the author uses some clever techniques to keep them from dragging down the story. Meanwhile, meeting so many of the great artists in the pages of this novel never got stale.

The mechanics of the novel work reasonably well. Mr. Adams has a clean prose style, although this novel needed at least one more careful copy-editing pass.

Out of Time spends most of its plot with African-American characters, during a time when casual bigotry and racism were commonplace. The characters constantly deal with and remark on the effects of that racism as they go about their lives. They don’t get to forget about it, and neither does the reader. Mr. Adams works hard to capture the experience of living in those times, but I’m not in a position to say whether he was entirely successful.

The story also gives a 21st century White British character an essential role in the evolution of African-American music throughout the 20th century, an implication some readers may struggle with. To be fair, neither of the story’s protagonists ever become aware of what’s truly happening to them – the story itself leaves much of this a mystery – and the African-American characters are never robbed of agency. In the end, is Brian Saxon causing changes in the history of music? Or is he simply voyaging, by force of will, across multiple alternate worlds until he finds his way home? The reader can never be sure, right up to the ambiguous ending.

I found the story in Out of Time very engaging, the characters sympathetic and easy to like. Possibly more important, the novel inspired me with a great deal of curiosity about a period of musical history, a set of musical genres, that I’ve never before spent much time with. I found myself wanting to go out and find recordings of the performances Mr. Adams refers to throughout the novel. In fact, I understand he’s compiled a list of real-world recordings to go with the narrative!

Recommended as an appealing story about two men’s relationship with some of the greatest music of the past century.

Status Report (14 August 2022)

Status Report (14 August 2022)

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Belleza Pompeiana, by John William Goddard (1909)

Just a quick note, since we’re about at the mid-point for the month of August.

I’ve been concentrating on the working draft for Twice-Crowned, and that’s making decent progress. I’m on Chapter Nine, which should be the last chapter of Act One of the novel. A couple thousand words and I’ll hit that milestone, probably later this week. Once I’ve done that, I think I’ll release the completed portion of the draft as this month’s charged release for my patrons.

I have a bunch of text already written for the beginning of Act Two, from the last time I attempted to write this story. With minimal work, that should drop right into the working draft. I may spend a little time in what’s left of August working on that.

Meanwhile, I think Architect of Worlds is going to move to the front burner once Twice-Crowned has hit that milestone. I’ve been working, off and on, to polish up the first complete draft of Architect, and I’m thinking that a few weeks of concentrated effort will get that into good enough shape that I’d be willing to share it with my patrons. At that point, the project will move to final development, editing, and layout for production. Probably won’t get there before the end of August, but it ought to be doable for sometime in September. I’ll decide whether that’s a charged release or a free update once I see just how much genuinely new material is in the draft.

The image for this post, by the way, is a painting out of the Neo-Classicist school, representing a young woman from the Roman town of Pompeii. On the other hand, she looks so much like my mind’s-eye image of Alexandra, the protagonist of Twice-Crowned, that I’ve grabbed a copy of the painting as a visual reference. For another approach to the character (especially for GURPS and other RPG fans), have a look at this post from 2018.

Planning for August 2022

Planning for August 2022

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This is going to be an unusually short monthly planning message!

July worked out pretty much as I expected:

  • I made quite a bit of incremental progress on the first complete Architect of Worlds draft, in that I assembled that first complete draft and began going through to polish and tighten up the text.
  • I also made good progress on the new rough draft for the novel Twice-Crowned. I’m up to about the middle of Chapter Six and have about 16000 words down as of this moment.

In neither case, though, did I reach a significant milestone that would have merited a big release for my patrons and readers. So aside from a couple of small items and an about-weekly status report, you folks didn’t hear much from me in July.

August is going to be much the same, although I’m a little more confident that one or both of those projects will generate something that I can release for my patrons. So here’s the planning schedule for this month:

  • Top Priority:
    • Architect of Worlds: Continue work on preparing a complete draft of the book for eventual layout and publication.
    • Danassos: Continue work on the new rough draft of the novel Twice-Crowned.
  • Second Priority:
    • Human Destiny: Continue compiling material for the eventual Atlas of the Human Protectorate.
    • Human Destiny: Design additional new rules systems for the Player’s Guide and add these to the interim draft.
    • Human Destiny: Begin work on a new Aminata Ndoye story, set during her first year at the Interstellar Service academy.
  • Back Burner:
    • Human Destiny: Finish the novelette “Remnants” for eventual collection and publication.
    • Krava’s Legend: Review and possibly rewrite the existing partial draft of The Sunlit Lands, and write a few new chapters.
    • Krava’s Legend: Write the second short story for the “reader magnet” collection.
    • Scorpius Reach: Write a few new chapters of Second Dawn.
    • Scorpius Reach: Start work on a third edition of the Game of Empire rules for Traveller (or Cepheus Engine).

So, in other words, a set of priorities pretty much identical to those of last month. Right now, I’m reasonably sure I’ll be able to release Act I of Twice-Crowned as a charged release for my patrons (at least 25000 words of fiction), and I may have a complete draft of Architect of Worlds that’s coherent enough to share, but we’ll see how the month goes.

Review: The Dark Earth, by Gordon Doherty

Review: The Dark Earth, by Gordon Doherty

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The Dark Earth (Book Six of Empires of Bronze) by Gordon Doherty

Overall Rating: **** (4 stars)

The Dark Earth is the sixth and final volume of Empires of Bronze, Gordon Doherty’s historical fiction series set in the ancient Hittite Empire. In the last volume (The Shadow of Troy) Mr. Doherty gave us his version of the Trojan War. This tale goes one better (or one worse): it’s set amid the Bronze Age Collapse itself.

The Dark Earth breaks with earlier books in the series, most obviously in that the central character is no longer King Hattu, but his son and heir, King Tudha of the Hittites. Climate change, civil war, and foreign invasion have whittled the once-mighty Hittite Empire down to a pale shadow of its former self. When Tudha rose to the throne, it was foretold that he would revive the kingdom’s fortunes. Unfortunately, darker prophecies dating back to his father’s youth are also in play. Tudha has very little left with which to face the challenges of his time: murder, betrayal, and a massive invasion of the so-called “Sea Peoples.”

If you know the history of this period, the end of the story will be a foregone conclusion: Tudha’s struggle will be in vain, and the Hittite Empire will fall at last. The Dark Earth works best as a story about fighting against impossible odds, and yet refusing to give up hope for the future.

Mr. Doherty continues to work well with the historical sources. This story uses a number of odd details from the final years of the Hittite kingdom – most notably, the one time that we hear of the inland-centered empire having a navy and campaigning at sea. Some elements of the story did strike me as being a little implausible, most notably the sheer size of the Sea People armies. I suspect Mr. Doherty is engaging in some exaggeration there, in order to tell a rousing blood-and-guts adventure story of almost mythical proportions.

The story has a genuinely surprising conclusion, one which escapes from the strict historical narrative to give the reader a sense of hope at the end of the journey.

Mechanically, the novel works reasonably well, although the formula of the earlier books begins to feel a little worn here. Unfortunately, Mr. Doherty got a bit careless with copy-editing in this final volume of the series. Flaws in the prose style weren’t quite enough to pull me out of the story, but after the good editorial work of the last few volumes they were a little disappointing. Workmanlike, but not remarkably so.

Readers should be aware, as always, that the story is set in a brutal and violent time. Descriptions of human cruelty and violence are common and very explicit.

I enjoyed The Dark Earth, and although there don’t appear to be any more stories planned for this series, I’m certainly likely to go looking for more of Mr. Doherty’s work. Recommended as a dark, but in the end hopeful, recounting of one of history’s worst disasters.

Status Report (24 July 2022)

Status Report (24 July 2022)

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The month of July is moving along more or less as I expected at the beginning. I’m making slow, incremental progress on both the first complete draft of Architect of Worlds, and on a first working draft of the novel Twice-Crowned. It’s actually been a productive month – I’ve managed to carry out at least a little forward motion almost every day.

By the nature of both projects, though, I have not really gotten to a point where there’s a big chunk of new material for me to release to my patrons and readers. Next month, more likely, but July is looking like a month without any big milestones.

This is to inform everyone, then, that there will be no charged release for my patrons in the month of July. I’m going to concentrate on putting the first coat of polish on Architect of Worlds and getting within striking distance of finishing Act I of Twice-Crowned. I should also have the month’s book review ready within the next week or so. Then we’ll see how the month of August shapes up.

The Rings of Power: A Small Side Bet

The Rings of Power: A Small Side Bet

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I’ve been watching the roll-out of the upcoming series The Rings of Power with a great deal of interest. I’m generally skeptical about film adaptations of beloved literary properties – I often enjoy them, but I also often wish the developers would pay closer attention to the source material. In this case, it’s clear that Amazon is preparing to exercise a lot of freedom within the lore of Tolkien’s world.

On the other hand, as a writer myself, I’m always interested to see how cross-platform adaptation is done; especially how it can be done to work well as a cinematic presentation without doing too much violence to the source material. Whether Amazon is going to be able to manage the trick remains to be seen, but for now I want to jot down a few notes as to how I might have gone about it. Consider this a “side bet” of sorts – over the next few years, I’ll be patting myself on the back (or cursing under my breath) as I see how well or how poorly I’ve managed to anticipate how the story unfolds.

Tolkien geekery follows! If you’re not closely familiar with the source material, especially the appendices to The Lord of the Rings and the second half of The Silmarillion, feel free to skip the rest of this one.

What’s clear is that we’re going to see the story of the Second Age of Middle-Earth. This is the era after the defeat of Morgoth in the First Age; it’s the time during which Sauron – the great behind-the-scenes villain of The Lord of the Rings – first works his evil will on a massive scale in the world.

What’s also clear is that Amazon’s writers are compressing the timeline of the Second Age to a considerable degree. The major conflicts of the Second Age in Tolkien’s source material take place over several thousand years. It appears that many, if not all, of the same plot beats will be taking place in the Amazon series within a single human lifetime. Human characters such as Tar-Miriel, Elendil, and Isildur are going to be appearing in the series from the very beginning, whereas in the source material they don’t appear until the very end of the Second Age.

We know that the series is planned to have exactly five seasons. As it happens, I think the epic story of the Second Age breaks down neatly into five plot beats – so this is how I think they’re going to lay it out.

  • Season 1 (The Long Peace) – everything up to about 1500 SA in the source material. Middle-earth is at peace, so we’re going to get plenty of character and setting development. We’ll also see plenty of foreshadowing that the kingdoms aren’t as stable as they look, and some kind of dark power is on the rise behind the scenes. Look for a character who appears to be an Elf and goes around tempting people to reach for their secret ambitions, probably going by the name of “Annatar.”
  • Season 2 (The Rings of Power) – roughly 1500-1690 SA in the source material. Celebrimbor rebels against Gil-Galad, sets up his own kingdom in Eregion, welcomes Annatar, and creates the Rings of Power. Close to the end of the season we see Annatar revealed as Sauron, who creates the One Ring in Mordor. Celebrimbor and his allies reject Sauron and take off their rings, knowing that Sauron will respond with violence.
  • Season 3 (The War against Sauron) – roughly 1690-1701 SA in the source material, but also conflated with events of the late 3200s SA. Sauron attacks the Free Peoples and nearly destroys Middle-earth. Eregion is laid waste, the Dwarves are put under siege, and Elrond goes off to build Rivendell for the first time. Sauron seems to be on the point of victory when Númenor comes to the rescue, defeating Sauron’s armies and capturing Sauron himself. Sauron is taken to Númenor as a hostage in the final episode of the season.
  • Season 4 (The Downfall of Númenor) – roughly the late 3200s and early 3300s SA in the source material. Númenor, already suffering from social unrest and dissension, is corrupted under the influence of Sauron. If Pharazôn hasn’t already seized power before, he does it now and soon becomes Sauron’s puppet. He leads the Númenoreans against the Valar, triggering the Downfall. The sinking of Númenor takes place in the next-to-last episode of the season and is both cinematically gorgeous and horrible to watch. In the last episode we see Elendil and his sons leading a few survivors into exile in Middle-earth.
  • Season 5 (The Last Alliance) – the later 3300s SA in the source material. The survivors of the last two seasons try to pick up the pieces in Middle-earth, but they soon realize that Sauron is back and preparing to march once more. They form a Last Alliance and fight a final war against Sauron. We’ll get to see the siege of the Dark Tower, and the last battle on the slopes of Mount Doom where Isildur captures the One Ring. The last episode will probably show us Isildur’s fate and the disappearance of the Ring, setting up the story of the Third Age.

I’ve probably missed a bunch of details. We’ve seen at least one Balrog in the trailers – are they going to be pushing the fall of Moria all the way back into the Second Age? There appear to be proto-Hobbits wandering around, and I have no idea how those are going to fit in. We’ll just have to see.

Still, I’m betting I’ve got the broad outlines down. I think there’s the possibility that the show will be able to give us all the great dramatic beats of the Second Age, even if they compress the timeline immensely for the benefit of a TV audience. It makes sense – difficult to build dramatic tension or handle the logistics of film production if you try to stick to a timeline of thousands of years, and you therefore have to keep replacing most of your cast. We’ll see if they manage to pull it off!