415 – Saruman’s OPSEC Problem: Unfinished Tales with Dr. Bret Devereaux

Aldarion, then serving as the Lord of the Ships and Havens under his father, Tar-Meneldur, did a lot to grow Númenor's naval power, including the establishment of Vinyalonde on the coasts of Middle-earth.

But twice, first in Second Age 843, when he found it overthrown by great seas and plundered by hostile men, and then 20 years later, when he found it now wholly ruined, great seas had brought to nothing all his labors to restore it.

With that as background, talk to us about the importance of a harbor in Middle-earth for Númenor, even in this early stage of their history, and then why is it so hard to keep this thing in one piece?

Yeah.

I mean, so this is...

Reading through this again, uh, it's really striking that he has a series of voyages.

Mm-hmm.

Right? And he'll go out, and he'll come back, and he'll go out again.

And because he's a Númenórean, these voyages are often decades apart because he's-

[laughs]

... at it for quite some time.

Yeah.

But what it, it put me most in mind of thinking historically is something like the pattern of Portuguese expansion and exploration down the coast of Africa and into the Indian Ocean.

And I think, folks, maybe perhaps some listeners less familiar with this, I know in the United States, we tend to focus on the exploration of the Americas, but European exploration down the coast was a major, uh, undertaking, mostly led by the Portuguese, with the Dutch and later the British following after them.

Mm-hmm.

And one of the patterns here is what we sometimes call ports and forts imperialism.So you send out an expedition.

In the case of Portugal, these are gonna be a mix of trading and raiding.

So you have some boats, you put some trade goods on the boats.

The boats are also filled with armed men.

If you find someone who has something you want, you offer them the goods.

If they don't take the goods, maybe you do a little pillaging, maybe you do a little piracy.

These expeditions are usually i- in this period, that is in the early modern period, they were private enterprise.

So the king would contract somebody out, but that's like a businessman, usually an, an aristocrat who is then basically in charge.

He has a license to go out and do whatever.

And what we see beginning in the 1420s, so it begins quite early, is the steady progression of each set of voyages goes a little bit further, and they're mapping coastlines, and they're setting up small bases, these ports, where they'd find a good harbor.