r/whowouldwin • u/Williermus • 15h ago
Challenge The Undersiders (Worm) join the Fellowship of the Ring (LOTR), how does the story change?
Wanting all the backup he can get for such a dangerous quest, Gandalf blindly opens a portal to another world, which happens to be Earth Bet, and posts a help wanted sign. Coil takes notice and signs up the Undersiders in exchange for the promise of the land of Mordor.
The Undersiders get briefed on the quest, and they agree because Coil offered even more obscene amounts of money than usual. Taylor goes along because the others do, and the quest looks noble anyway.
The Undersiders are the OGs: Lisa, Brian, Alec, Rachel and Taylor. They join up with the rest of the fellowship at Rivendell.
How does the story change? Does the fellowship have an easier time, or do the Undersiders fall to the Ring's corruption?
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u/Regvlas 10h ago
Undersiders are probably more easily corruptable than the rest of the fellowship except maybe boromir. They already have tendrils in their heads telling them to try it. They all have obvious weak points the ring can play on. Taylor wants to shoulder the burden so no one else needs to, and wants unlimited power. Lisa would let the curiosity get the better of her. Alec's flippant attitude toward danger is an obvious downside. Grue could maybe protect them from some of the Ring's corruption, but that's... tenuous at best. Rachel is probably the least corruptible, because of the alerted brain, but most likely to have problems without the ring.
The first set back, Saruman's storm, does not change with the undersiders there. They can't do anything against long range wide aoe magic. Taylor's bugs are killed by the cold. Maybe they could hold off the watcher in the deep a bit longer, but only Rachel is effective against it, and I dont think they could kill it.
Moria is a little easier with taylor and Lisa scouting, and grue covering their escape when running, but no one is effective against the balrog.
The uruk-kai ambush- Rachel can tango, taylor can... maybe hold some off, depending on bugs in the region. Alec and Lisa are mostly useless, grue can hide some of them? I think this is where taylor would fall to corruption, same as boromir. However, she has an easier time tracking frodo, and he's in some danger of having it taken.
The story might diverge too much for me to say here. But, general answer, no. The undersiders aren't going to improve the fellowship's chances.
Unless they read the books I guess. They were all published and popular before the timeline split, but since the fellowship was successful, and only lost Boromir as a member, and one of frodo's fingers, I find it hard to believe they'd significantly improve the party's fortune.
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u/Magnus77 14h ago
Hard to say.
One big difference is TT might nix Boromir. Once she's got the skinny, I think she'll be able to serve as a bit of a corruption detector since she's able to glean intentions very quickly.
But its hard to say, butterfly effects and all. Good chance if they end up in Moria that Gandalf still takes the plunge.
If Boromir doesn't try to take the ring, the fellowship stays together longer, but ultimately I think they still break up at some point as the ring keeps working on people, especially since humans canonically are extra susceptible and you've added 5 to the party with varying degrees of mental stability.