No one really knows how the parties get to yes

That limiting intelligence sharing with respect to you is probably good, and probably going to be hard without his cooperation? I could not let any Feanorian defectors in but if I let any in at all some will be spies.

He is—seems—on board with the secrecy already, and does have the same thing I do riding on it. His spies, they won't tell just anyone Men can mess with song duration. No huge hole in the secrecy from that end. They themselves might see too much, eventually.

All right. There's a war on, I think that might be the best we can do with respect to unhelpful annoyingly competent allies.

It's better than the opposite problem, at least.

I hold them in as much regard as one can hold people who leave you to die and, notice, haven't even tried conveying apologies. And I don't think their - tendency to be themselves - makes them a net negative in the war. Unless the Enemy thinks of handing some city of poor fools a Silmaril, in which case Eru help us all.

Eru or practitioners. Whichever.

Are there any cities foolish enough to fight a war over it, against people who can't stop?

I don't know anything about the political structures of the Outer Lands. Lots of people might. The Silmarils are very tempting.

Even people who aren't from the Outer Lands didn't know what the Silmarils could do. Why are they that tempting?

There's no light in the world, and they can light an arbitrary area around them by as much as you'd like. And they're indestructible and beautiful and blessed by the gods.

Arbitrary area, I can see that being worth a war. For someone sufficiently shortsighted.

My brother once wanted to hang them in the sky. If he could figure out how, he could light the whole world.

Figure it out how? Building things that can put satellites in orbit is hard, very hard, but it's not conceptually tricky. Just have to be moving fast enough.

In orbit?

I guess there's no reason you should know about that. Or Fëanáro, for that matter.

So, down is measured toward the center of the earth. If you're far enough and fast enough, you go laterally and let gravity change your direction. If you do the math right you can end up going in a circle and stay that way almost indefinitely.

The center of Valinor? The center of Endore? Wouldn't people near the edges kind of slide, then?

Edges?

Of the world?

It's a sphere. Is yours somehow not a sphere.

How would it be a sphere? Wouldn't you notice the ground bending down?

No, because down means toward the center. If the world were a cube or something it'd pull the edges down until it stopped being a cube or something.

The world's flat. Down is just down.

People assumed ours was flat for a while, but with your eyesight you'd be less likely to mess that one up. If it's flat what happens at the edges? If you even have gravity the way my world does this should be impossible.

The Valar advised us not to try it, it's dangerous. Fëanáro and his wife went a couple times, I think.

More dangerous than just the fact that you can fall off and die? There should be weird gravity things going on, but those would be pulling you away from the edge.