ARDA started off as an 'Anduril Catalogue', inspired by Palmer Luckey's defence tech startup.

Anduril, named after Aragorn's sword in Lord of the Rings, means 'Flame of the West' in Elvish.

Anduril seeks to disrupt the defence sector, doing to Lockheed Martin what Microsoft did to IBM.

As soldiers now regularly go into battle armed with modified consumer tech, such as ipads and drones, Anduril seeks to accelerate the pace of arms development, matching the iterative speed of consumer technology.

The connection to Lord of the Rings comes from it's backer, Peter Thiel, all of who's company names refer to Lord of the Rings. His surveillance company Palantir is named after the all-seeing stones used by Sauron.

Middle Earth, The Shire, and Mordor are all regions on the planet 'ARDA', hence the title of this film.

ARDA seeks to examine the plutocratic mindset, so each of these characters, although visually approximate, are psychologically accurate.

Central to their philosophy is a belief in absolute evil, in 'the forces of darkness' as the main challenge to the civilized west. They also believe that freedom and democracy are incompatible, preferring leadership by a monarchical CEO.

This is symbolised by 'Palmer', a Lancelot/Merlin hybrid, who's Stormcloud microshrapnel system has scoured the earth of all life. Only the five founders remain, deep under ground in Project Pluton.

'Peter' is the éminence grise, the shadowy financier of project Pluton.

Thiel's 'fellowship program', in which he encouraged students to drop out of university to found a startup, widely seen as an attempt to clone himself, calls to mind the 'Fellowship of the Ring'.

'Sam', the youngest of the group, seems friendly and open minded, much like OpenAI, but somehow always ends up in control.

'Marc', the author of the 'Techo Optimist Manifesto', is forever looking on the bright side of any situation. 

'Larry' is the oldest tech baron of the group. His regal manner is well suited to the new post democratic era, the 'Age of Kings'.

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