Likely the latter. Odds of success are much more important than time to success, too, here.

True. But retaliating in kind is a thing he could already do; throwing things isn't an idea he needs to imitate. 

We have some speculation on that. Not sharing, sorry. We think it is worth the time to develop things that could at least in principle shred a Vala.

Well. That was part of why I asked, was in case there was something we should match the timing to.

Still. Years?

There is very little gained by hitting him in ways that do not kill him.

Our target was Angband. It would be– not a final win, but a win.

What would it achieve, exactly?

It'd be a setback for him, he's more powerful in Angband and if we can make there not be an Angband that's not something he can replace easily.

We are unconvinced both that levelling the fortress itself will do anything about there being an Angband in the relevant sense and that the continent will not crumble with it.

That's a risk? I guess if it did manage to kill him...

It is a risk. Worth it if it killed him, but something of a disaster if it merely inconvenienced him.

How would the continent be destroyed along with Angband instead of the Enemy?

He might be trying to stall, if there's a reason for that. Maybe the Vala-killing weapon is going to be more effective or completed sooner than he wants to say...

If the Enemy decides to channel or magnify the vast amounts of energy we are throwing at him, instead of trying to protect his territory from them. That is plausibly the sort of thing he could do within his domain.

Okay. It was already preferable to do it while he's out, if he leaves again. Or we could wait until there are enough practitioners for our other weapon to be a more complete success.

If that's going to happen inside a year it seems less easily used to have catastrophic side effects, yes.

Definitely. Your years are long. But I mean if it's simultaneous we wouldn't have to worry about him redirecting anything.

Can't comment on the feasibility of that, given my current information.

Well, I'll pass on the message that you think a year or two might be enough to have a shot at him as well as his fortress. I'll still try to push for targeting Angband sooner if possible, probably that means scaling up what we're already doing until we're very sure it's safe. Definitely don't plan to launch without notifying you, of course.

We would need a fair bit of advance warning to evacuate even a fraction of the people you would be putting in danger for what does not sound like any strategic benefit.

For probably weakening him and definitely denying him his defenses. We can do advance warning, but the point is to wait until we aren't endangering the continent even if he'd try this.

In that case I am back to being unable to comment. Take care.

And you too.

She passes on the message, almost hoping it sounds unconvincing. It's not exactly impatience if "wait fifteen years" isn't in the human repertoire, right?

I wish we knew more about how Valar operate so we could estimate better whether reducing Angband to rubble does harm him, rather than annoying or provoking or trivially inconveniencing him.

Melian might tell us. We should talk to her before trying anyway, to verify Doriath would be safe if he did strike back like this.

And we tried the fast 'maybe it's easier than we expected' play, and it did not work.