Saruman's economic infrastructure unexplained?

[alatar]

Originally Posted by mormegil

I just can't see that this would be a viable way of sustaning a truly large population. What do others think? If cannibalization was the method would they kill those they would eat or would they wait for them to die either in battle or of age? My guess is that they would just kill those who were weaker.

Can't see cannibalization as a really good way to sustain or especially build a population. Where is all of the soylent green as it were coming from? It almost sounds like a perpetual motion machine.

Assume that you have 100 full grown fully fed orcs in a cage. How long would they be able to go before the net number of orcs were reduced to where they would be useless as an army? Just sitting around burns calories. One orc would supply X calories, and so assume that one goes into the pot.

So now 99 less than well fed orcs are sitting around on day 2 (or whatever). They're hungry again, as that one orc was just enough. More orcs would need to go into the pot as each orc, being less than well fed, would provide less total calories. Maybe by day 5 it takes 2 orcs to provide X.

Anyway, you need some caloric input into the system.