"(nobody knows how long that First Age pre-sun really was …)." I do
But however one defines the
First Age,
if the topic is the creation of Orcs from Elves (which I don't think is necessarily the case, but that's a long story), then we can generally start with the Awakening of the Quendi, in Valian Year 1050. My math could be off (or I could be making some other silly mistake), but employing 1 Valian Year = 9.582 Sun Years:
1050 (Elves Awake) to 1500 (end of VY reckoning) equals 450 Valian Years + 590 Sun Years... or basically 4,311 (.9) years + 590 more =
4,901 years. Tolkien had once mentioned (drafts for Appendix B) that the ages were around 3,000 years long, and though he did state that the First Age was the longest, admittedly this number is notably longer... but then again, counting only Sun Years (590) is too short, and going deeper in time only adds more years!
In any case, if we use JRRT's later 144, that is, 1 Valian Year = 144 Sun Years.
64,800 + 590 =
65,390This leaves a vast amount of time between the Awakening of the Elves and the end of the First Age! I note Christopher Tolkien's comments concerning the awakening of Men:
"In notes not given in this book, in which my father was calculating on this basis the time of the awakening of Men, he expressly stated that 144 Sun Years = 1 Valian Year (...) Placing the event "after or about the time of the sacking of Utumno, Valian Year 1100" (...), a gigantic lapse of time could now be conceived between the "arising" of Men and their first appearance in Beleriand." Christopher Tolkien, Myths Transformed, note 5 to Aman and Mortal Men. In another text Tolkien had noted:
"The coming of Men will therefore be much further back. This will be better; for a bare 400 years is quite inadequate to produce the variety, and the advancement (e. g. of the Edain) at the time of Felagund."This second statement refers to the earlier idea of course, where Men awaken with the Sun (which could be seen as reflecting Mannish myth) and Finrod chances upon Beor and his Men in Sun Year 400 (Grey Annals).
Anyway, by switching to 144 Tolkien could greatly increase the time involved, as well as matching 144 to his
Elvish Long Year (144 Sun Years) in the Appendices to
The Lord of the Rings. Was he going to do this, and
publish it, especially without altering the dates in the Annals (originally written with 9.582 in mind)? Who knows. But it seems to me that he was leaning this way, possibly with some alterations to the dates concerning the revolt of the Noldor, at least.
I mean, one can do a lot of rebelling in 144 years!
Of course what
you probably want here is not the length of the First Age but the "gap" between the awakening of the Elves and the first "certain" appearance of orcs.
I'm too lazy to track that down in detail
But Tolkien invented Orc-formed Maiar, which could arguably explain early sightings, or early assaults, for example, on an Elf who had wandered alone and too far from help... compared to later battles with large numbers of regular orcs.
It's said in VY 1330 that the orcs were
"yet few and wary, and did but smell out the ways of the land, awaiting the return of their lord." And in 1497 there were enough to help wage war in Beleriand.
If this date represents the true first use of many regular orcs (I'm going to be lazy still, and check no further), then...
... from 1050 to 1497 gives us 447 Valian Years...
(times 9.582) or
4,283 years (and change)...
... or (times 144)
64,368 years.
Give or take. Or something else
And I feel compelled to add (blather on) that this post represents a bit of "using (some of) what there is", whereas Tolkien was not obliged to constrict himself to dates or explanations that his reading public knew nothing about. For example, JRRT could have landed on 144 and notably revised a First Age Tale of Years with this number in mind.
So never mind