Elheru Aran wrote:535. Half of which is ~268 (ish). And that's one country in this world of ours. Admittedly a country with a lot of pull, mainly economically, but still.
You don't need 268. ~20 would be well enough, most is comprised by followers that could be pulled if their seniors ordered them so.
It's not only the Congress you have to worry about, too. Governors of the states have a lot of pull, as do the various members of the Cabinet and the commanding officers of the military. This doesn't even take into account, say, the leaders of the national parties, and they damn well have a LOT of influence. News pundits, billionaire donors, etc...
What pull? They can do stuff in their states, but can they say declare a war? Create military units? Make any decision affecting outside of the state they are in? No, so they don't matter. As for the other people you mentioned, please. They are steered and bought easily in modern world, what makes you think actual mind controlled conspiracy with members acting in perfect unison will be any worse at it?
We are talking about a LOT of people to brainwash. And even if members of Congress don't turn over all that quickly, the Executive Branch is guaranteed to turn over every 4 or 8 years.
To give you example of Poland - capturing just
two people (leaders of out largest 2 parties) would give you enormous amounts of control. Sure, it's mostly because they fought very hard to be top dogs and there are no politicians capable of easily challenging them, but still, you'd need a whole political revolution to get rid of their influence.
For Sauron to get into any kind of position where he can be in reliable control of the US, he basically has to be expanding his influence over the span of a century or so at least, probably more.
Sure, but he doesn't need control so far. All he needs is president and congress advising caution and isolationism from this 'dangerous, unnatural world behind the portals'. All he needs from Earth is complacency and staying still while his agents are stealing technologies, gather info, and sow discontent. He can wait even a hundred years before making good enough conspiracy, what matters is that he has hundred years to do it first.
How many people does he actually mind-control as opposed to simply influencing them in some fashion, anyway? The only ones I can think of are Saruman and the last King of Numenor. Denethor he more just screwed with and let the guy's own issues mess himself up, and with the Kings of Men he had the Rings helping.
He had these big human armies both from South and from Angmar. Unless people there like following unnatural, half-invisible moving corpses for no reason he had to establish a measure of control before he could convince them that following him is now natural state.
Borgholio wrote:Hell, just pick most of the Congress, Supreme Court, top military brass, general public, etc...
What. The only person on the list of 20 top presidential successors that wouldn't listen to everything Obama would have to say is John Boehner. Everyone else can be brought on board on his leisure should Sauron decide to do so.
President or not, politically he just can't do whatever he wants. There are so many checks and balances that his power would be sorely limited if Sauron managed to ring him. Corrupting Theoden and Denethor only worked due to the fact nobody really was able or willing to stand up to them.
Where are these checks and balances when Obama is bombing and spying on half on the world? Sorry, what was last illegal thing Obama couldn't do because someone said no?
Sure, people would object if he surrendered USA to Sauron, but say sending a team of delegates to Middle Earth for 'negotiations' (made out of people he wants to be corrupted) or sabotaging war effort (America can't afford another war this generation) would be trivial unless Sauron did something really stupid.
Who cares how many people they meet? Being corrupted by Sauron isn't like a disease. He needs a ring and a great deal of time...and even then not everybody is susceptible to it. Remember that he had thousands of years to work his mojo and how many ringwraiths did he end up with? The same nine he started out with.
He had nine because guess what, he had
nine rings. There are, however, indications he had a dozen nations following him and not because they thought he looked good in black. Mind control is a thing in Middle Earth - did you forget how even greatest human state that set out to destroy him turned out to be destroyed instead?
Even if each ring can just influence, not even control, 5 people on average, it's enough to ensure Earth won't invade Mordor ever without Pearl Harbor sized casus belli. Someone ended term? If he is not useful anymore, he or she can quietly commit suicide or have accident a few months later to transfer influence to successor, and that only if we have a hard limit.
Borgholio wrote:If we took in refugees from Middle Earth, I wonder if we'd be able to learn anything from any magical artifacts they brought with them.
LotR is not D&D, actual magical artefacts were very rare in that world.
