Getting eaten by the plant was not part of the plan. Just crash landing near Grog. On the intro it says that the engines were shut down, not that they were damaged in anyway. Of course that's only supposed to make sense after the fact.
But I understand. I thought some people might not like the ending because of the implications but I wanted to do something with a bit of a twist. As for why the Elves need the Orcs, it relates to the official High Elf lore. They form alliances with different Orc tribes to get them to fight other tribes so the Orcs are too busy fighting each other to pose a real threat to the Elves, in the way they later do to the Dwarf Guilds.