Worldbuilding in Valinor

Haerengil does make a good point about an elvish dislike of wheels.

For example, chariots arise because of the unsuitability of early horsemanship for cavalry. Since the elves require neither saddles nor lengthy desensitization training for cavalry horses, they would likely be able to skip that step.
 
Telling Time During the Noontide of Valinor

One of the obviously frustrating parts of telling a pre-Sun story is the entire concept of the passage of time, and how you would count 'years' or even 'days'. When trying to sort out daily life - when does it begin? What does it look like during the mingling of the lights? How bright is it at the various times of the day? How does the existence of 'Treelight' affect our storytelling, if at all?

As you know, Telperion was made first, and then Laurelin, so the 'earlier' part of the day is dominated by silver light, and the latter part of the day by golden light. But they both wax and wane, so it's a bit more complicated than that.

12 hour day
1st hour: Telperion waxing, Laurelin dormant
2nd hour: Telperion waxing, Laurelin dormant
3rd hour: Telperion full strength, Laurelin dormant
4th hour: Telperion waning, Laurelin dormant
5th hour: Telperion waning, Laurelin awakens
6th hour: 1st mingling of the lights: Telperion fading, Laurelin waxing
7th hour: Telperion dormant, Laurelin waxing
8th hour: Telperion dormant, Laurelin waxing
9th hour: Telperion dormant, Laurelin full strength
10th hour: Telperion dormant, Laurelin waning
11th hour: Telperion awakens, Laurelin waning
12th hour: 2nd mingling of the lights: Telperion waxing, Laurelin fading

The 'brightest' time of day would seem to be the 9th hour, when the brighter Laurelin is at full strength, and the dimmest, most twilighty time of day would be the 12th hour, during the 2nd mingling of the lights, as Laurelin fades out and Telperion is still at (relatively) low strength. But in Valinor proper, it never gets dim enough to see the stars overhead. As beautiful as they are, the Trees cause serious light pollution! :p It's a good thing elves don't need to sleep, or else all elf-children would need room-darkening shades.

Okay, all my snark aside, this is *not* what a day with sunlight is like. There is no 'morning' nor 'evening' here - nightfall doesn't come until the destruction of the Trees. So...how does this impact elvish culture? Surely they refer to time passing based on the Trees, just as we would refer to morning and afternoon. What do elves in Valinor say to each other instead of 'good morning?' (which might explain why Gandalf took the phrase so seriously!)
 
Might be my human-chauvinism showing, but the idea of experiencing life as a millennia-long single never ending day with no reprieve sounds horrific. lol

"Yavanna grew the trees. Later that day, Melkor hewed them down."
 
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some - again very rough - sketches for swan-designs I tried to apply to the various shiptypes Tolkien mentions. Dromon, Shallop, Skiff, Barge, Galley, Galleon, Bark Gondola.

Personally i like the Dromon, Shallop, Barge, Gelleon and Gondola. The Skiff always looks clumsy and I didn't manage to make a Galley or Bark that doesn't look ugly - problem is the Ship design, the Bow in detail, i tried more agressive swan-poses , but both Galley and Bark look crappy as swanships.

Other problems: a Dromon is a warship, the Falmari wouldn't have any warships. They could have Barges... there were great quarries in southern Aman, not far from Ungolianths abode, and the Falmari could have built large Barges to transport great rocks and Stones. A Galleon is a ship of war too, but it can store a lot of material and it can transport animals, such as horses, on long journeys. I imagine they could have had Skiffs, but those would probably only be small fishing-vessels. They definitely would have Gondolas for nice holiday boat-trips in the Bay of Eldamar...
 
Dunno if it's worth thinking about at the same time, but Galadriel and Celeborn have Swan boats on the Anduin in the Third Age as well...
 
Dromon means "runner", so the elven dromons might be rowed racing-crafts, later modified as war-ship. This makes later fast war-ships named dromons.
 
good point. so the early dromuns would have been built for sports.like it.galadriels boat would have been a gondola.
 
another thing: if the falmari had built barges to transport building material for the noldor (i suppose the creek near tuna has a riverport) the noldor may have felt they had the rights to those boats.. problem: how did the noldor steer their ships? the falmari are experienced mariners, the noldor are not.did they kidnap seamen from alqualonde and force them to steer their ships to middle-earth? on the other hand nildor builders, miners and craftsmen would have acompanied the falmari on their trips to the southern quarries... some of them may have had learned some nautic skills from the falmari and maybe knew how to navigate along the coast of aman.
 
i think those storms could have drowned any seacraft, even if steered by falmari. how many elvencrsfts disappeared later on their journey to the west before eatendil? and most of those woukd have bern manned by cirdans best mariners...
 
hard to say.uinen is a master of storms.to me it seems like a miracle that any ships survived at all... thats why i came up with that question.running a large seacraft is no small issue..
 
Well, we know they did, and we have no indication that the Noldor were great mariners. I think it more likely that Uinen was not actively trying to kill them. Had she intended so, surely she would have.
 
that's an option of course.one could also suggest that ulmo or manwe were able to ward off greater tragedy.
 
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That is a very critical S3 plot point there, actually. How hard Uinen works to thwart them, who if anyone works against her (and how), how capable the Noldor are themselves vs. how much Valar assistance they receive.
 
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