Yes, that's my impression, too, Uruk-hai means something like 'Uruk-folk' or 'Uruk-company' (my money would be on the later). The connection between Sauron's sorcery having something to do with the black Uruks of Mordor (do you have the citation, btw?) and Saruman's orc-men sounds reasonable, Bill.
My theory on the creation of the orcs is that the twisting of the body(Hroa) FOLLOWS the corruption of the soul(Fea), which is done by means of bribery and terror and persuasion and malicious suggestions and so forth, and that the magic of this later twisting of the Hroa consists of 'softening' the Hroa so that it can collapse around the new form of the twisted soul/Fea -- and that it takes the distributed power of a Valar to do that -- so it didn't happen after Morgoth was ejected. No new orcfathers from men, beasts or elves once he was gone.
However, what of re-twisting and re-altering an already corrupted form? Re-engineered battle-orcs? I could believe in that with only the power of an amplified Maia such as Sauron. So, I could believe that Sauron worked on the Fea of the biggest and fiercest strain of orcs he could find and softened their Hroa to reflect greater murderousness -- I could believe that twisting the already twisted was a more accessible evil, as the 'structural integrity' of the orc-bodies was already gone. It's possible Saruman also succeeded in following Sauron in this, also I can't help but see Saruman as too much a wanna-be to do this very effectively. Maybe I'm too contemptuous of him. My intuitions on Uruks and orcs all involve what goes on with a single spirit and its body, so the idea of sorcerous mixing of blood or genetics -- that's difficult for me to imagine. It's possible, certainly. I invite you, Bill, to shamelessly speculate on what wizardly powers would be involved in the sorcerous mixing of blood? That sounds like teleportation to me, which doesn't sound wizardly, am I missing something?
[ October 26, 2002: Message edited by: Nar ]
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