The road to Five Forks & Semaphores [HFQ spoiler]

p308[hardback].

no one in Guarnak - or Five Forks - had realized that the the bulk of the Army of Midhold's Charisian infantry had passed well north of Rankylyr, following the line of the canal and taking out the semaphore line as it advanced

Now, I fully understand why they silenced the semaphore towers as they passed to stop immediate warnings getting to Five Forks, but wouldn't the very silence of towers getting closer & closer to Five Forks have been a warning in itself?

I could imagine that at the start of each day signals would be send up/down the line to test the system and that lack of a reply from the next tower would surely be reported back up the line, not just ignored?

isaac_newton wrote:p308[hardback].

no one in Guarnak - or Five Forks - had realized that the the bulk of the Army of Midhold's Charisian infantry had passed well north of Rankylyr, following the line of the canal and taking out the semaphore line as it advanced

Now, I fully understand why they silenced the semaphore towers as they passed to stop immediate warnings getting to Five Forks, but wouldn't the very silence of towers getting closer & closer to Five Forks have been a warning in itself?

I could imagine that at the start of each day signals would be send up/down the line to test the system and that lack of a reply from the next tower would surely be reported back up the line, not just ignored?

Apparently, towers don't send test messages to each other. Nor does anyone send test messages over lines of communications. Nor do the towers watch each other enough to spot when one has been LIT ON FIRE. And this has been an issue since the Great Canal Raid AT LEAST which was several books back.

Frequently the towers are taken out at night. There doesn't seem to be any handshaking the absense of which would be a warning that something was amiss. That does seem a bit odd, doesn't it?

Don

n7axw wrote:Frequently the towers are taken out at night. There doesn't seem to be any handshaking the absense of which would be a warning that something was amiss. That does seem a bit odd, doesn't it?

Don

Yup - it's a bit like those films/TV shows where you are looking down a long corridor lit only by occasional ceiling lights. Suddenly the most distant one goes out and then the next one and then the next one. You dont know what's coming, but you are pretty sure that it is something spectacularly nasty

Having said all that, I highly enjoyed the raid on Five Forks!

Hello Everyone,

my first real posting here after years of lurking

BGV has AFAIR winter-capable cavallery at his disposal. The AoG AFAIR doesn't have ANY means at their disposal to bring combat to ICA mobile cavallery units in winter. Combat HAS to be initiated by the ICA in these circumstances, which means that they can choose location and timing and can roam more or less at will between the big AoG garrisons.

In these cirumstances it would make sense for BGV to use small self-sufficient cavallery units to cut enemy communication semaphores in ALL directions not only in the direction he is advancing to.

In this way, the CoG would register a growing communication blackout without definitive possibility to infer ICA troop movements from them.

Does that make sense?

Best Regards

Sri Syadasti

Sri_Syadasti wrote:Hello Everyone,

my first real posting here after years of lurking

BGV has AFAIR winter-capable cavallery at his disposal. The AoG AFAIR doesn't have ANY means at their disposal to bring combat to ICA mobile cavallery units in winter. Combat HAS to be initiated by the ICA in these circumstances, which means that they can choose location and timing and can roam more or less at will between the big AoG garrisons.

In these cirumstances it would make sense for BGV to use small self-sufficient cavallery units to cut enemy communication semaphores in ALL directions not only in the direction he is advancing to.

In this way, the CoG would register a growing communication blackout without definitive possibility to infer ICA troop movements from them.

Does that make sense?

Best Regards

Sri Syadasti

Hi Sri

Glad to hear from you, now that you have de-lurked

That is true, but I'm not sure that has been done in this case. I seem to remember that semaphores from Guarnak are still coming thru to Zion.

I guess it depends on the tower density - I have the feeling that there are just a few chains of towers, which often, but not always, shadow roads and canals - for obvious reasons, rather than a general network. That would make it more difficult to execute a 'general lights' out approach

Is there any chance at all they may have taken semaphore towers intact at night (or in any other conditions of non-communication) and kept up the "we're still here, nothing to report" messages from the tower closest to the remaining Temple towers?

isaac_newton wrote:p308[hardback].

no one in Guarnak - or Five Forks - had realized that the the bulk of the Army of Midhold's Charisian infantry had passed well north of Rankylyr, following the line of the canal and taking out the semaphore line as it advanced

Now, I fully understand why they silenced the semaphore towers as they passed to stop immediate warnings getting to Five Forks, but wouldn't the very silence of towers getting closer & closer to Five Forks have been a warning in itself?

I could imagine that at the start of each day signals would be send up/down the line to test the system and that lack of a reply from the next tower would surely be reported back up the line, not just ignored?

Why would they have a test? The church Semaphores and hell even church ships had never been attacked. So there is no habit of thought that says "Let's make sure everyone is still there." Furthermore text has repeatedly pointed out that the towers often can not see each other in inclement weather. So winter snow storms come I lose sight of towers for days on end, and I don't have winter gear thus i hunker down and hope for the best. Why chance freezing to death just to check the next tower down the line? Especially if I know; that there is no way the enemy is mobile in winter, and history shows everyone goes into winter quarters in the northern climates because it is so cold. No stretch to see everyone on the CoGA side just pulling an ostrich.

Kacey wrote:

isaac_newton wrote:p308[hardback]. "no one in Guarnak - or Five Forks - had realized that the the bulk of the Army of Midhold's Charisian infantry had passed well north of Rankylyr, following the line of the canal and taking out the semaphore line as it advanced"

Now, I fully understand why they silenced the semaphore towers as they passed to stop immediate warnings getting to Five Forks, but wouldn't the very silence of towers getting closer & closer to Five Forks have been a warning in itself?

I could imagine that at the start of each day signals would be send up/down the line to test the system and that lack of a reply from the next tower would surely be reported back up the line, not just ignored?

Why would they have a test? The church Semaphores and hell even church ships had never been attacked. So there is no habit of thought that says "Let's make sure everyone is still there." Furthermore text has repeatedly pointed out that the towers often can not see each other in inclement weather. So winter snow storms come I lose sight of towers for days on end, and I don't have winter gear thus i hunker down and hope for the best. Why chance freezing to death just to check the next tower down the line? Especially if I know; that there is no way the enemy is mobile in winter, and history shows everyone goes into winter quarters in the northern climates because it is so cold. No stretch to see everyone on the CoGA side just pulling an ostrich.

Well - I'm pretty sure that they would in fact have had good winter gear, after all it is a known fact that it gets somewhat cold in those parts

Checking the next tower would not normally have ment going there, but - if visible - then sending a simple trial signal would seem logical to me. I would have thought that would have been part of a regular routine after any snow episode - just in case an accident had happened while visibility was restricted.

The textev/pearls does seem to indicate a lot of important traffic whenever the system was up - so I would have thought that the standard procedures would have involved line break checks and diagnostics.

However, you are right - if this all occured in a snow storm period, then yes that would nicely explain the lack of alarms - though it would seem to be a loooong storm.

JeffEngel wrote:Is there any chance at all they may have taken semaphore towers intact at night (or in any other conditions of non-communication) and kept up the "we're still here, nothing to report" messages from the tower closest to the remaining Temple towers?

That sounds more plausible... one problem with that might be that individual operators might have had a subtle 'style' that would be recognisable, or private messages between operators - changes in style or cessation of such messages might be a giveway.

I think I'll go for this and maybe 'covering storms'