The road to Five Forks & Semaphores [HFQ spoiler]

Kacey wrote:
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.

That used to be true. But after so long, even the dimmest light bulb would catch on that things have changed and start taking counter measures.

Don

isaac_newton wrote: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.

Except no one on the Temple side learned of Merlin's attacks on semaphore towers during the Great Canal Raid until well after the Raid ended. And he left BURNING TOWERS behind him.

By now, tower communication lines should be "pinged" with dummy messages on a daily basis just to make sure they're still up and running. Yet no one on the Temple side appears to be doing that.

Even if they're are only limited message sending windows (because the towers are run by human beings who have to watch other towers), it would be trivial amount of work for towers to ping their neighbors when there's no message traffic. And if actual messages are being passed, then pinging would be unnecessary.

Yes, all this not-noticing is Weird.

And yet, it seems to be a characteristic of DW's
characters in more than one of his Universes.
In Multiverse, in HHNF the Arcanans take out - murder -
one Voice and his Station after another. The next
stations in line do note that messages are late, they
even suspect that Something May Have Happened,
BUT they do not put 1+1+1+1+1 together to equal five,
or even eleven thousand one hundred eleven.
Forts Shalar, Brithik, and Ghartoum are each surprised,
just like Hell's Gate Lines was, even thought the
Regiment-Captain and his Voice at Ghartoum discuss the
matter!

The One Exception I can remember, is a StateSec general
whose suspicions are aroused enough to take action,
not because he didn't get his messages,
(come to think of it, he got them),
but because he didn't get his Chess Move!

Otherwise, DW expects his characters to take *no* action
because of lack-of-messages.

HTM

evilauthor wrote:
Except no one on the Temple side learned of Merlin's attacks on semaphore towers during the Great Canal Raid until well after the Raid ended. And he left BURNING TOWERS behind him.

By now, tower communication lines should be "pinged" with dummy messages on a daily basis just to make sure they're still up and running. Yet no one on the Temple side appears to be doing that.

Even if they're are only limited message sending windows (because the towers are run by human beings who have to watch other towers), it would be trivial amount of work for towers to ping their neighbors when there's no message traffic. And if actual messages are being passed, then pinging would be unnecessary.

Howard T. Map-addict wrote:The One Exception I can remember, is a StateSec general
whose suspicions are aroused enough to take action,
not because he didn't get his messages,
(come to think of it, he got them),
but because he didn't get his Chess Move!

Otherwise, DW expects his characters to take *no* action
because of lack-of-messages.

HTM

Maybe the Church needs to encourage - strongly! - playing chess by semaphore with your neighbors along the way. Or checkers. Or dirty limerick exchanges. Anything.

JeffEngel wrote:

Howard T. Map-addict wrote:The One Exception I can remember, is a StateSec general
whose suspicions are aroused enough to take action,
not because he didn't get his messages,
(come to think of it, he got them),
but because he didn't get his Chess Move!

Otherwise, DW expects his characters to take *no* action
because of lack-of-messages.

HTM

Maybe the Church needs to encourage - strongly! - playing chess by semaphore with your neighbors along the way. Or checkers. Or dirty limerick exchanges. Anything.

They're a bunch of leeches... Maybe they could tell dirty jokes... That would at least be entertaining!

Don

Militarily the checks on the semaphore system make perfect sense, especially on posts that close to the war front. Four things to consider why it has not been done, the first being that innovation is really not encouraged. The second is that this is the first time in Safehold history that the semaphore towers have been a war target. Third there is how a non response could mean a multitude of things that have gone wrong; weather, equipment breakdown, staff unavailable NTM the possibility of a message just being missed are all other options as well as enemy action.

Finally there is the small matter of such a check being used to indicate enemy action could be used against the CoGA and if a semaphore HAS been taken out the enemy could potentially use such a check to decieve the CoGA.

True, but knowing that there's a break in the semaphore lines regardless of the break's cause is rather important to military operations.

Even in peacetime it's important to have high availability on the semaphore network and that requires early detection of problems. There should be standard procedures to dispatch relief or maintenance crews automatically if messages stop.

What everybody is overlooking is that you don't _need_ to detect problems in a visual system. You can see them. As they happen, in real time. Every single tower is in sight of at least 2 other towers, so even if it should catch fire, there's going to be an interested audience. If something breaks, the neighbours will see the effects - and either wait for them to fix it or go to an alternate signalling protocol. There's at least one reduced character set for use at night, for example, that should be able to pass an order for parts that can't be manufactured locally. Of which I would bet on there being an extremely small number. Depending on replacement protocols and frequency of use, even main timbers for the structure could be kept on hand for post-storm repairs. Meanwhile, your neighbours can see that you're not sending because you fell over. And send a status report up the chain. In peace time, if there're no messages coming in, the natural conclusion is that nobody has anything to say, not that the system is broken. None of the protocols developed for ensuring the integrity of _electrical_ comm systems will exist, for the good and simple reason that the conditions they are designed to detect cannot arise. They serve no purpose in the semaphore system, useful or otherwise.

Wartime... yes, war does add a new failure mode to the system - enemy action - but it does _not_ change the operating characteristics. Since the system has never before in all its history been to war, enemy action isn't going to figure very large in the thinking of its operators or administrators - and the people for whom it does figure large probably have had enough on their plates that they haven't gotten around to thinking about it very much. Since the chain in question will have had essentially zero routine traffic since Fairkyn was cut off, it wouldn't be the least bit surprising if the lads actually out in the wind and snow don't find a lack of emergency traffic all that disturbing, regardless of what Duchairn or Magwair may think they should be thinking.

Now, having gone over the flaws in the claims that there must be protocols for detecting breaks in the chain, maybe I should point out that whatever the value of my reasoning, it's completely irrelevant! There is sufficient evidence in the text that, however found out, the capture of the semaphore stations was in fact perfectly well known to the relevant AoG HQs. What the OP missed was that they were identified as stations along the canal. IOW, stations running down the Ohlarhn Gap to Guarnak, past that marvelous strong point that Wyrshym hadn't been able to man fully. There is no canal connection from Five Forks to Ohlarn, and the high road runs through Hyrdmym, which GV bypassed. Given my druthers, I'd go around the south side of the West Ice Ashes, but AFAICT he went north [I don't think he could get through the Gap unobserved - the redoubt again]. Either way, he's moving across country, and there _is_ no semaphore chain to act as trip-wire for the Five Forks garrison. Not after he heads west again, at any rate, and meanwhile his people in the Gap are strumming their wires as loudly as they can. Just so everybody knows where to look for his forces, of course

Expert snuggler wrote:Even in peacetime it's important to have high availability on the semaphore network and that requires early detection of problems. There should be standard procedures to dispatch relief or maintenance crews automatically if messages stop.

Louis R wrote:What everybody is overlooking is that you don't _need_ to detect problems in a visual system. You can see them. As they happen, in real time. Every single tower is in sight of at least 2 other towers, so even if it should catch fire, there's going to be an interested audience. If something breaks, the neighbours will see the effects - and either wait for them to fix it or go to an alternate signalling protocol. There's at least one reduced character set for use at night, for example, that should be able to pass an order for parts that can't be manufactured locally. Of which I would bet on there being an extremely small number. Depending on replacement protocols and frequency of use, even main timbers for the structure could be kept on hand for post-storm repairs. Meanwhile, your neighbours can see that you're not sending because you fell over. And send a status report up the chain. In peace time, if there're no messages coming in, the natural conclusion is that nobody has anything to say, not that the system is broken. None of the protocols developed for ensuring the integrity of _electrical_ comm systems will exist, for the good and simple reason that the conditions they are designed to detect cannot arise. They serve no purpose in the semaphore system, useful or otherwise.

Wartime... yes, war does add a new failure mode to the system - enemy action - but it does _not_ change the operating characteristics. Since the system has never before in all its history been to war, enemy action isn't going to figure very large in the thinking of its operators or administrators - and the people for whom it does figure large probably have had enough on their plates that they haven't gotten around to thinking about it very much. Since the chain in question will have had essentially zero routine traffic since Fairkyn was cut off, it wouldn't be the least bit surprising if the lads actually out in the wind and snow don't find a lack of emergency traffic all that disturbing, regardless of what Duchairn or Magwair may think they should be thinking.

Now, having gone over the flaws in the claims that there must be protocols for detecting breaks in the chain, maybe I should point out that whatever the value of my reasoning, it's completely irrelevant! There is sufficient evidence in the text that, however found out, the capture of the semaphore stations was in fact perfectly well known to the relevant AoG HQs. What the OP missed was that they were identified as stations along the canal. IOW, stations running down the Ohlarhn Gap to Guarnak, past that marvelous strong point that Wyrshym hadn't been able to man fully. There is no canal connection from Five Forks to Ohlarn, and the high road runs through Hyrdmym, which GV bypassed. Given my druthers, I'd go around the south side of the West Ice Ashes, but AFAICT he went north [I don't think he could get through the Gap unobserved - the redoubt again]. Either way, he's moving across country, and there _is_ no semaphore chain to act as trip-wire for the Five Forks garrison. Not after he heads west again, at any rate, and meanwhile his people in the Gap are strumming their wires as loudly as they can. Just so everybody knows where to look for his forces, of course

Expert snuggler wrote:Even in peacetime it's important to have high availability on the semaphore network and that requires early detection of problems. There should be standard procedures to dispatch relief or maintenance crews automatically if messages stop.

OK - good point about the route - what was confusing was the textev '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 '

Not so sure about the first para though. Even in peace time things could happen which would prevent signal transfer without destroying the tower - illness or some such. In jihad times, with possible roaming bands of the disaffected waiting to fall on isolated towers I would have thought that a regular 'I'm here' would be almost mandatory. I also would have thought that there would be local chatter between towers, training etc etc