Could Moria ever be retransformed into a good mine?
 

The Balrog's dead and it isn't too hard to kill orcs and trolls, so do you think that Moria could be restored???? Personally, I do.

With the fall of Sauron, I'm quite sure the Dwarves would return eventually. Their love of Moria, and the lure of the riches there, especially mithril, would bring them back.

[ February 21, 2002: Message edited by: Birdland ]

Of course! if I were a dwarf I would be among the first ones to make an attempt!
Besides, there is a 'Durin the seventh and last' in the dwarven family tree in the appendixes, and where else would a Durin rule but in Khazad-Dum? Balin, when he was killed by an orc, had gone to see if he could see the crown in Kheled-Zaram and thus become the next Durin.

I can't help but feel though that the damage done in Moria is too severe. After a place has been raveged by a demon of the old world,
I don't think it can be that easily, that quickly. It is too much.

The dwarves did have a suspiciously big amount of mithril for the reforging of the gate of Minas Tirith, so chances are high they were pretty quick to return to Khazad-Dûm. Whether the mine, that Elves found uncanny long before the Balrog and the orcs (see the definition of Khazad-Dûm in the Silmarillion) could ever be onjectively unflawed and utterly beautiful, is another matter.

I never said that the dwarfs wouldn't try Im asking if the damage isn't to great that was caused by the orcs raidings on it and the balrog's inhabiting

The following quote is from Peoples of Middle Earth. It was probably omitted from Appendix A.
So, provided this quote is authorative, the dwarves are led back to Moria by Durin VII (the last incarnation of Durin), and Moria is restored to some of its former splendor, for a while. I expect this happened some time during the fourth age.

-Voronwë

The Balrog's dead? I thought he just fell back into the darkness. Or did Gandalf finish the job down there?

gandalf finished the job

I think Gandalf talks about it in the Chapter, The White Rider, I don't have the book with me to quote it.

I was hoping the dwarves would have a last hurrah sort of thing! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]
Hey...why don't you write a fan fiction about it? Cool story idea!

[ February 21, 2002: Message edited by: Aralaithiel ]

Someone should do that fan fiction thing about the retaking of moria. I would like to read that.

Gandalf did not kill the Balrog down in the chasm of Khazad-Dum. They fought on the peak of Zirak Zigul (sp.) and the Balrog was pushed over the edge falling to his death.

What happened to his spirit I dont know.

OOOOOOoooooooooooo lemme write the fanfiction

I don't see why not. Though the way Gimli drools over the caves at Helm's Deep they might have gone there first. If memory serves, the dwarves 'dissapear' from memory by diging in deep.