"The Men are pretty far off anyway. I doubt there'll be any in Beleriand until after the war unless we go and fetch them - which I suppose we might, once we've fought presumably-Thauron..."

"Unless Thauron thinks getting humans to start wars is the most fun thing ever and runs out of wars to start there."

"My father thinks four more years and he'll have a way to put a dent in him."

"A large uncomfortable embarrassingly-shaped dent?"

"This really, really isn't about me."

"Still."

A while later the golems report that Men and orcs have been introduced and get along splendidly.

Well, that's almost nice except for who introduced them.

Yeah. Also it's going to be increasingly hard to take out Sauron and leave on friendly terms with humans, they seem to be picking up the orcs' cheerful loathing of Elves and stories of Elven atrocities.

The humans'll get over it. Might take a few decades, but still.

Is the plan still a forced march into Noldorin custody or should they station enough of the army at the humans' current location that there's no need to make them move?

Since they can't servantmake it's not strategically essential to control them at all. If they're going to have PR problems making them move is not going to help.

Well, yeah. But it seems likely the Enemy's play if the Noldor win the fight with Thauron is to invite the Men back to Angband.

How are the Men tolerating the Charps, as of nowish?

The Men treat the Charps as curiosities, but there hasn't been any hostility.

So... Charps can spread alternative perspectives on the entire situation of the war and then that information will at least be available even if they don't believe it.

Now the Men get hostile to the Charps. Apparently they were warned that the Charps could be mind-controlled by Elves to try to connive to deceive the Men, and when the Charps start doing that the Men decide with considerable dismay that the Charps have been so hijacked. The orcs tell them lots of stories of Elven atrocities to make up for it.

By the time Kib gets updates on this situation the Charps have already assured everyone that they don't have minds and were made by a human from the lost world but that's probably not going to do any good.

Probably not. Faster long-distance communication would be really nice but the engineers are mostly working on Thauron-injury and it seems like a hard project.

And shines are low-bandwidth and need pretty exact information about the intervening distance... ugh.

The hidden city in the mountains is completed. Ulmo has promised that of all the Noldorin kingdoms it will fall last, which isn't ominous at all, and anyway no skill or magic can find it and it's good to have somewhere to put the civilians.

The humans should probably stay, though, being vital strategic assets.

Yup. Not going anywhere.

I'd miss you.

I'd miss you too.

It's convenient there are so many other considerations it's not even relevant. But still.

Maitimo is a spectacularly devoted and effective and slightly ruthless King. He is not any better.