What was Sauron's plan for a Middle-earth conquered and ruled by him?

Question

I have watched only the movies, but this question is about Sauron in the books.

Sauron is said to be an aggressor who wants to conquer Middle-Earth and bring all the people living in it under his domain. To what ends? What was the motive behind his desire to conquer the World? What did he plan to do with all that land and people if he were to prevail?

In the movies it seems like he and his followers wanted to wipe out the Elves, Hobbits and Humans and replace those with Orcs i.e. How Aragorn says to King Théoden that Saruman's armies are attacking to destroy the People of Rohan down to the last child, how the Commander of Orc Armies at Osgiliath declares that the age of Men was over and how he ordered his orcs to kill everyone upon entering Minas Tirith. Why would Sauron be so generous to the Orcs as to conquer the whole world and then just give it to them?

Reading the Wiki Overview of Sauron in the books, it provides a better picture. It claims Sauron merely wanted to reform and reorganise Middle-Earth, in the beginning at least. To do that he needed to bring everyone under his rule for the "Greater Good".

What are these reforms he wanted to bring if he had won? What did he plan to do after his victory?

Note: I prefer answers from the books even though I haven't read them.

Answer 1

To be Lord of Middle-earth

Through the control and domination of the peoples of Middle-earth.

_{And he would've gotten away with it if it wasn't for those meddling Hobbits!}

Sauron's plan followed that of his master, Melkor. He planned on controlling Middle-earth and rebuilding it in the image Melkor had imagined during the Music.

The Enemy in successive forms is always ‘naturally’ concerned with sheer Domination, and so the Lord of magic and machines; but the problem: that this frightful evil can and does arise from an apparently good root, the desire to benefit the world and others – speedily and according to the benefactor’s own plans – is a recurrent motive.
_{Letter to Milton Waldman in 1951}

Sauron's ultimate plan, after the failure to ensnare the Elves (as outlined below) is most clearly presented in Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age:

Now Sauron’s lust and pride increased, until he knew no bounds, and he determined to make himself master of all things in Middle-earth, and to destroy the Elves, and to compass, if he might, the downfall of Númenor. He brooked no freedom nor any rivalry, and he named himself Lord of the Earth.
_{The Silmarillion - Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age}

Both Sauron and Melkor were convinced their plans were that of good, that they were in fact benefiting the peoples of Middle-earth.

From Myths Transformed in Morgoth's Ring¹, it is told that Melkor wanted all or nothing, and given that he could not find the Flame Imperishable to create life, he decided to destroy it all. Sauron however did not have the same destructive mindset, wanting just to dominate

Sauron had never reached this stage of nihilistic madness. He did not object to the existence of the world, so long as he could do what he liked with it. He still had the relics of positive purposes, that descended from the good of the nature in which he began: it had been his virtue (and therefore also the cause of his fall, and of his relapse) that he loved order and co-ordination, and disliked all confusion and wasteful friction. (It was the apparent will and power of Melkor to effect his designs quickly and masterfully that had first attracted Sauron to him.) ... But like all minds of this cast, Sauron's love (originally) or (later) mere understanding of other individual intelligences was correspondingly weaker; and though the only good in, or rational motive for, all this ordering and planning and organization was the good of all inhabitants of Arda (even admitting Sauron's right to be their supreme lord), his 'plans', the idea coming from his own isolated mind, became the sole object of his will, and an end, the End, in itself.
_{History of Middle-earth - Volume X, Myths Transformed}

In Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age, we are given a few more details of Sauron's motives:

And in the south and in the further east Men multiplied; and most of them turned to evil, for Sauron was at work ... Men he found the easiest to sway of all the peoples of the Earth; but long he sought to persuade the Elves to his service, for he knew that the Firstborn had the greater power; and he went far and wide among them, and his hue was still that of one both fair and wise.
_{The Silmarillion - Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age}

Now the Elves made many rings; but secretly Sauron made One Ring to rule all the others, and their power was bound up with it, to be subject wholly to it and to last only so long as it too should last. [...] And while he wore the One Ring he could perceive all the things that were done by means of the lesser rings, and he could see and govern the very thoughts of those that wore them.
But the Elves were not so lightly to be caught. As soon as Sauron set the One Ring upon his finger they were aware of him; and they knew him, and perceived that he would be master of them, and of all that they wrought.
_ibid.

We see from his initial plans in the Second Age was to gain the trust and control of the People's of Middle-earth and to live as their ruler/king. However, when he found out he couldn't dominate the elves, he took to destruction and war. As with his master, if he couldn't have everything he'd destroy what he couldn't have (Note: The difference is that Sauron would only destroy what he couldn't have whereas Melkor would destroy everything).

But he, finding that he was betrayed and that the Elves were not deceived, was filled with wrath; and he came against them with open war...
_ibid.

His resistance to ultimate destruction is shown by his attempt to then sway the Men and Dwarves, while the Men proved simple to corrupt the Dwarves were more stubborn. Although they were corrupted Sauron never gained control of their will.

But Sauron gathered into his hands all the remaining Rings of Power; and he dealt them out to the other peoples of Middle-earth, hoping thus to bring under his sway all those that desired secret power beyond the measure of their kind.

The Dwarves indeed proved tough and hard to tame; they ill endure the domination of others, and the thoughts of their hearts are hard to fathom, nor can they be turned to shadows.

Men proved easier to ensnare. Those who used the Nine Rings became mighty in their day, kings, sorcerers, and warriors of old.

---

¹ Melkor and Morgoth are the same person, Morgoth is just his epithet.

Answer 2

To usher in the age of industrial and mechanized production.

Mairon was originally a Maia of Aulë. Like his master, his interest lay in production and craft; but his sensibilities were less those of the individual smith or craftsman:

he loved order and co-ordination, and disliked all confusion and wasteful friction.

to paraphrase — he loved the well-oiled, well-tuned many-part machine process...

When he got into the ring fashioning business, he did not engage in it as an individual project, but rather set about to organize many smiths; and the result was a production line of rings, albeit a short-lived one. Now, true, the Elves made their rings more special and unique — but they are the least susceptible to Mairon's influence, or in other words, the most traditionalist and the least compatible with activities of masses.

In Mordor, and by influence in Orthanc — there was mining, dust, soot; there was a huge black tower, reminiscent of a factory chimney. And the population — they were not the noble-born, nor the yeoman farmers or the landed gentry, but the ugly race of Orcs, and to some extent migrants from the East and South, easier to control and manipulate.

Indeed, Mordor is the "nightmarish" version of late-19th-century industrial society: The innards of the dirty factory, with bent-back unskilled laborer creatures skulking around, taking orders from their intendants; with the fires of the forge and the towering chimney. That is the world Mairon was creating and that is what can be conceived as the movement he represents at the end of the Third Age of the Sun. This also explains why it's reasonable to describe his intentions as having "merely wanted to reform and reorganize Middle-earth".

Notes:

• This analysis does not at all square with his activities in the 1st age, the werewolves and vampires etc.
• This claim/vision/perception should really be developed more thoroughly, and perhaps literary critics have done so; I'm just relating my own half-baked thoughts on this.
• I would contrast this aspect of LotR with the view of industrialization in Hayao Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke, in which the Capitalist baron of industry, lady Hiboshi, is afforded a more humanizing, less monstrous characterization, while the mythic, pre-industrial have both nobler aspects and darker, atavistic ones. In both stories, the mythic and fantastic "side" has some sort of a pyrrhic victory and inevitably recedes.

Answer 3

To the good answers given already, I would like to add that in the Third Age, Sauron was motivated by hatred and revenge. In the Second Age Sauron almost dominated Middle-earth for whatever reasons. That age was known as the Dark Years. Then he was driven back by the Elves who rebelled against him, and the Númenóreans. The final victory of the Númenóreans was his defeat in the hands of Isildur.

In the Third Age, Sauron returns and tries to conquer Middle-earth again. This time he is fueled also by his grudge against the realms of his hated Númenóreans, and his actions are directed against them, almost succeeding in destroying them.

Answer 4

Understanding Morgoth helps in understanding Sauron. Sauron started out as a mere servant of Morgoth, who was the greater "enemy" and the metaphysical originator of evil.

In The Silmarillion, the universe is created literally from song. (This helps explain the huge role poetry and song plays in Tolkien's works as a whole, as well as other things that can sometimes seem strange or obscure, such as the nature of Tom Bombadil's powers.) The music that creates the universe started out as a harmony, with each part subordinate to the whole. Morgoth was a part of that harmony, but then decided that he wanted to express himself as an individual, and departed from harmony to sing for himself. This created discordance, which turns out to be the root of evil.

Morgoth goes on to oppose the Valar, and to oppose their creation with his own (inferior) individual creation. Orcs as degenerate copies of elves; trolls as degenerate copies of ents; etc. Sauron continues this work after Morgoth is defeated. Although there was a time when Sauron had a fair appearance, he seeks to rule Middle-earth so that he can destroy what is fair (because it is harmonious) and replace it with discordant ugliness, for the sake of defying and opposing the Valar.