Depends on the grayness of the orcish regime. My point being, if even America couldn’t nuke a country and get away with taking no responsibility (they took very little, but my point still stands regardless) then what makes you think Ukraine is going to enslave or kill the “orcs”? Warning, wall of text below.

Tl;dr: The orcs aren’t meant to be a metaphor for a race, they’re a metaphor for Victorian-era aristechnocratic factory and railway owners (Sauron) and their Pinkerton-style union-busting goons (tree-hating orcs).

Also tl;dr: The elves, on the other hand, are just because Tolkien made them to speak his con-lang pet project of a “High Elvish” language, go figure. Admittedly, my online persona is the main character in all three of my writing projects, so I definitely have no right to complain about putting in the work to make a world for a favored creation to interact with.

Rant begins now, feel free to ignore! If the foe who is about to conquer your country just blew up two cities and they’re offering near-equality, then you have “fantasy subversion” orcs or America just before the end of WWII, and I would certainly be relieved (at least with the advantage of hindsight) in that case about allying rather than everyone I care about dying by gun or by A-bomb. If they’re hellbent on overthrowing a democracy to ensure their own prosperity, you get orcs ruled as raiding parties who only care about freedom applying to themselves, or America’s various nasty CIA operations for the sake of protecting corporations and the power of the wealthiest people in the world, in which case Gondor better call for aid. If the orcs are being led by a charismatic yet clearly evil ruler with an ego the size of a skyscraper tower and a [redacted] small enough for a ring, and the orcs are dumb enough to believe in this monster…

Of course, apply this to any situation or nation as needed, no country is perfect but few modern sovereign states are as close to fubar as North Korea or Somalia, and probably not even them, that the people would - even upon being injured and backed into a corner - disrespect an offer of some level of mercy from a would-be victim who turned the tables.

It would be going too far to do more than help determine a new government to replace the Russian oligarchy, and the fact that Ukraine’s military are getting called out by it’s government, it’s own people and by the global press for drafting people by threat of violence is hopefully a sign that no, the orcs outside AND inside the gates of our communities are just trying to live and no longer believe it when told by the tribal leaders to risk their lives just to destroy someone else’s lives.

Refuse? Maybe. Insult? Nobody is going to insult an honest truce put in writing, because the average person - if nothing else - does not approve of a complete stranger with a fancy office looking a gift horse in the mouth while the other hand of the horseman is holding a loaded pistol is in the mouth of the general public. Not that many leaders still have the public in unbroken chains by the point that becomes a “choice” that needs to be made.

I’m not saying war is ever not horrible, only that if black-white or even monochrome morality wasn’t relative, the world wouldn’t have survived long enough to have democratic ideals to strive toward and never quite reach, socialist interstate highways that fund capitalist organizations (truck stops, auto mechanics, tire manufacturing plants, tow truck companies, etc.), and capitalist organizations that would collapse like everything else if they didn’t at least try to help keep humanity from blowing ourselves up or otherwise destroy modern civilization… not that climate crisis is looking avoidable anymore…

The world is a mixed bag and taking over the world is like trying to herd cats because nobody likes being bullied and there’s always someone who doesn’t enjoy seeing people suffer to disagree with the orcs, or tell the elves to stop being holier than thou and actually get involved in the Atlantic blockades before more people die, Roosevelt …or (thanks to the internet, may it continue to exist) otherwise call out who the real bad guys are (especially if it’s both sides, in which case someone will try to keep track of who committed which war crimes) to the world’s third parties. It’s not perfect, but war is worse than hell already and being able to restrict it at all, let alone be even remotely potent in doing so, is as much a miracle to, say, 135 years ago (1893, as it’s 2023 as of this writing) as blowing up a major city instantly, putting robots on Mars before any human would ever go there, or sending a short message to someone in South Africa, Japan or Colombia with augmented reality iGlasses (“Apple Vision Pro” is just… un-toyetic) from the $150 seat of a commuter jet to the nearest metropolis.

Sorry for the rant, it’s more than aggravating as a writer to hear people starting on the orc argument. It’s like one person saying “this fictional concept is racist because I need a scapegoat!” and the other saying “But because it’s only loosely based on reality, none of the things these characters do actually matter irl even if they’re 100% applicable to real life situations!” followed by a bunch of “Nuh-uh!” and “Uh-huh!” noises over what actually amounts to “No, there’s no realism to the elf-orc always alignment stupid monochrome morality, but people need a reference for what they might want to strive for and what they should avoid resorting to in pursuit of their goals” because that’s what writers aimed for before every single show had to be artificially diverse. If you have to shove it down people’s throats, you shouldn’t be writing a story because you promised entertainment along with enlightenment.

Don’t be like Ayn Rand, Chris-Chan or Adolf Hitler, write a world and write people into it, don’t be like this reply and write a goddamn manifesto because unlike on Lemmy, if someone is choosing to read your book then they probably paid you money for it. I say this because I had to learn to try to avoid making anyone in my fictional stories, even and especially my author surrogate character, subject to the same world as everyone else in the story and for that world to be fun or interesting before it is a morality tale or political drama.

If you didn’t like reading all this, please do better than the bare minimum when you sell a luxury good you produced. “Made by an independent artist”, myself and my work included, does not automatically equal “Made by an experienced artist”.