What do we know about hummers...

I've become intrigued with hummers which serve as Arcana's message carriers.

They are tiny and are nouished with sugar water. They are fast and travel long distances. Appatently they are programmed by spell to know their destination and they also have their messages loaded by spell although I'm less clear on how that works. A lot of how this stuff works seems analogical to computers. From what I remember from textev, there are security measures against having someone else read your mail.

So, when Ulthar sent the message home to his wife, was it carried by the same hummer for the entire distance of 80000 miles plus or minus?

Does the hummer stop at relays along the way to rest and feed?

Can a hummer carry more than one message at a time?

What else about the little beasties do we know that comes to mind?

I've also wondered why Ulthar didn't send his message to the Duke rather than involving his wife...

Don

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Is it wrong that my immediate response is: "They don't know the words"

Sent from my SM-G920I using Tapatalk

n7axw wrote:I've become intrigued with hummers which serve as Arcana's message carriers.

They are tiny and are nouished with sugar water. They are fast and travel long distances. Appatently they are programmed by spell to know their destination and they also have their messages loaded by spell although I'm less clear on how that works. A lot of how this stuff works seems analogical to computers. From what I remember from textev, there are security measures against having someone else read your mail.

So, when Ulthar sent the message home to his wife, was it carried by the same hummer for the entire distance of 80000 miles plus or minus?

Does the hummer stop at relays along the way to rest and feed?

Can a hummer carry more than one message at a time?

What else about the little beasties do we know that comes to mind?

I've also wondered why Ulthar didn't send his message to the Duke rather than involving his wife...

Don
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Yes
Yes
and Yes

Because:
1. Less chance of interception by someone who didn't want the Duke to know
2. More interesting story.

Let me take a shot at answering the questions.

n7axw wrote:So, when Ulthar sent the message home to his wife, was it carried by the same hummer for the entire distance of 80000 miles plus or minus?

Does the hummer stop at relays along the way to rest and feed?

Can a hummer carry more than one message at a time?

I would say most likely not, yes, and yes. I doubt that one animal could fly that distance, without stopping for care along the way. If it did need to stop most likely the messages would have been downloaded from one hummer to another, and then the new one was sent on its way. With this system you can have messages from widespread senders placed on one hummer and sent to the next relay. any messages to be delivered locally would be pulled out, and the a new hummer would take the remainder (and probably additional messages) further on. This reduces the need for hummers, and makes sure that more messages reach their destinations. The handlers don't need to know more than the address the message is going to (like we have with the US post office).

Security of the messages is handled via some form of encryption, hence the need for Ulthar to hack the hummer handler's PC. They where able to hide an extra message within the message to his wife, one that would only reveal itself when she used her personal key to unlock the message. Likely the military has the ability to unlock private messages as needed to guarantee operational security, the hack may have been used to hide the message from the military unlock codes.

I just reread the section where Arlis, Ulthars wife receives the message. It is done with relays. That particular hummer traveled across most of New Arcana with its message.

Don

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