Conjoiner Telegraphy

[Kurkistan]

It all started in the "the most useless uses for useful powers" thread. There I was, minding my own business, when fate struck:

Put conjoined rubies on 2 telegraph machines.

If you don't have electricity, that's actually a very good idea.

Aren't those called spanreeds, and aren't they used for communication that's actually much more subtle than the telegraph ever was?

Don't you be dissing the telegraph! Thread time!

I understand that spanreeds exist, they're just slow, unreliable, finicky, expensive, and (most likely) have a limited range compared to telegraph keys.

"Subtle" is an odd word here. Do you mean faster? More versatile? Telegraphs are better at everything! *froths*

Message speed:

As far as speed, Morse code writers can get up to 60 wpm (words per minute) when copying, versus 22 wpm for hand-writing. Shorthand is more impressive, getting up to 282 wpm, but then we get into mechanical problems of differences between the pens, as well as inking, and I think a lot of information could be lost

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_per_minute
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_Code

Versality:

Versatility is a good point, which is probably more in favor of spanreeds at the moment. Shallan can't exactly draw a picture in Morse. But, then again, the vast majority of communication by spanreeds appears to consist of text, so it's not that big of a problem, and you could certainly have backup spanreeds to send along visual messages if necessary.

If you insist that I not use spanreeds at all, or you want just more reliability, range, economy, and accuracy, then you could certainly send digital representations of images. It would take forever to do by hand (though multiple operators would speed it up), but it could be done.

Mechanical Advantages:

Spanreeds are finicky, expensive, unreliable instruments. Their parts and environments need to be engineered precisely for similitude, and even then you have issues. I imagine that these issues grow worse over time, as different kinds and degrees of wear degrade an already iffy similarity between the pens. They're also a bit hard to set up on a battlefield or even when you're on the move at all (hard to get the table perfectly level and all of that), I imagine.

With telegraph keys, on the other hand, all you have to do is specify a few lengths and angles and you're got a perfect copy on both sides. Get it a bit wrong and all that happens is that the other guy might have to strike down a bit further or shorter to get the message through. You don't have to worry about ink levels or the size/cleanness of the writing surface or anything.

Mobility and Orientation:

Side thought on Conjoiners: It occurs to me that it's necessary that conjoiners work using the frame of reference of each of their halves, with relative changes in position for pen A being translated into an appropriate relative change in position for pen B. Otherwise, relative rates of rotation on the surface of Roshar would result in unpleasant shenanigans for the pen on the receiving end. Thus, initial orientation (facing down, sideways, diagonal, etc. relative to he paper, for instance) matters for all conjoiners. So even telegraph keys would need to be oriented the same way for proper use--though I imagine that someone clever could develop a gyroscopic key or something to deal with this.

The possibilities grow more intriguing when you consider mobility, particularly war-time communication. With telegraph keys, you can literally carry around a key the size of a mousetrap and use it from any place (and possibly even at any orientation, if you engineer it right, though that hurts mechanical simplicity). You could double up your connections very easily (two keys next to each other), allowing each side of a paired set of keys to send and receive any time it wants to without waiting for its "turn."

Range:

Looking at the Ars Arcanum, it has this to say about range:
1005
"There appears to be some sort of process used during the creation of the fabrial that influences how far apart the two halves can go and still produce the effect."
1006
"There appear to be some unexpected limitations to this form of fabrial, though I have not been able to discover what they are."

Before I looked this up, I was under the definite impression that "energy leak" occurred over range, with Pen A of weight 1 taking 2.1 units of force to move if it was 5 miles away from Pen B of weight 1, 2.2 if it was 10 miles away, etc. This only makes sense to me, otherwise we've got some serious issues of spanreeds breaking the world--such as putting spanreeds in a windmill in Alethikar to power windmills in Shinovar (yes, no stormlight, just going for distance) during a highstorm.

So I'm going to assume that this "unexpected limitation" is range-related. That leaves the possibility that range affects the amount of energy needed from stormlight, as opposed to energy from the user, but I'll go with the user for now.

If there is a range limitation, with greater range requiring greater force, then hand-writing messages becomes unfeasible at some point. That's where telegraph keys with funcitonally unlimited leverage on the transceiving key come in. Whereas it is unfeasible to add some power-multiplying mechanism to a pen, I see no problem with doing it for a simple up-down message. You might not even need it, since you could just apply a little more force to a normal key and get the same result, where extra weight could throw off penmanship.

Crazy-land:

If you don't like Morse code for some reason, then I have something a bit more modern for you, perhaps the Nth generation of this technology (though I doubt it, given the complexity).

Create a linked pair of typewriters. Boom. It won't improve speed that much (only 50-80 wpm for professionals), and would reintroduce all the "finicky" complaints that telegraph keys deal with, but it would be incredibly cool. You could increase speed by larger amounts with stenography machines, getting the density of shorthand without the potential lack of clarity.

Each key would have its own conjoiner, with keys on the receiving end triggering the type-writer's mechanisms. You could even have both ends print out, for quality-checking of the message and to keep records on both ends without any additional work. Muwhaha.

Masculine Employment:

Another way this could help is to allow masculine or cross-gender communication. It's not like letting women communicate is bad or anything, but commander Bob in the middle of the battlefield might want to be able to send or receive a message on the fly. Since we already know that some men are essentially using glyphs as a writing system, you could probably sneak Morse-code through, or at least some stripped down "take that hill; fortify that position" form of it. It would certainly be useful.

Impacts:

Magic is awesome. Radios are awesome. Magic radios, therefore, are doubly awesome. No-fuss, non-interceptable (without capturing the paired receiver), instantaneous, clear, long-range communication is awesome. So now we have triple awesome.

Besides the revolutions this would introduce to battlefield communications (picture the general with keys paired to every Colonel, with keys paired to their captains, with keys paired to their lieutenants...), it would just generally catapult Roshar into an information age of sorts. See how Terry Pratchett developed the impacts of "clacks" (chains of semaphores) if you want to see a relatively primitive communication system take off, and the effects it has on all levels of society.

As far as infrastructure goes, such a system would scale easily, and its infrastructure would likely mirror that of telegraph companies during their heyday. Regional hubs and switch-overs and whatnot. This as opposed to Kharbranth only being connected to the Shattered Plains through incidental spanreeds that may or may not be present in the city and whose owners will most likely not widely disseminate any "world news" they find out.

You could have such an explosion of scale with spanreeds, I suppose, but maintenance of such a system would be horrifying, with its carefully constructed pens and whatnot. You also have a really cool property with telegraph keys in that, if you want to cheat (and you really really do), you could "bridge" two sets of pairs (so from Kharbranth to Kholinar to the Shattered Plains, for example) by physically tying the arms of the two together. Muwhaha again.

Most importantly, though, if such a system actually gets put in place by the end of the books, then this will insure that no "Poor Communication Kills" scenarios need to happen, since, barring extremity, everyone will be able to talk to each other. This would allow Brandon to develop and maintain relations between characters while still splitting them up and sending them off on their own occasionally (I'm looking at you, Wheel of Time).

TL;DR: Using conjoiner fabrials to set up paired keys for telegraphy (preferably two sets of keys for each pair, for continuous and non-waiting input/output) is really awesome, and a much better idea (also more scale-able and more versatile) than writing out words with spanreeds.

EDIT: As it turns out, writing out full messages with a pen is also technically telegraphy, by definition. Needless to say, I mean the more traditional, Morse-code style telegraphy with essentially a simple on/off switch. You could engineer vastly more complex systems (essentially replacing electrical signals with mechanical ones), but I focus on the simple ones.

Edited April 16, 2013 by Kurkistan

[Elwynn]

I'd like to see Jasnah get the picture of a voidbringer to Dalinar with just a telegraph.

Just finished reading...you addressed that. Just the first thing that popped to mind when I started reading the thread.

edit: cause I have an ichty trigger finger

Edited December 6, 2012 by Elwynn

[Kurkistan]

I'd like to see Jasnah get the picture of a voidbringer to Dalinar with just a telegraph.

Just finished reading...you addressed that. Just the first thing that popped to mind when I started reading the thread.

edit: cause I have an ichty trigger finger

I forgive you, but only if the second thing was "Triple-awesome gem-studded goodness!"

EDIT: Anyone else getting this weird thing where a ">/" shows up after your smilies every time you edit?

Edited December 6, 2012 by Kurkistan

[Elwynn]

EDIT: Anyone else getting this weird thing where a ">/" shows up after your smilies every time you edit?

Yup, I got that same thing. Had to re-edit to get rid of it. Weird.

[Satsuoni]

Just one question: How do you propose to make paper feeds for your telegraph system?

I freely admit that I don't know much about telegraph, and for me morse code is insanely complicated.

But shouldn't the paper move somehow?

[Kurkistan]

Just one question: How do you propose to make paper feeds for your telegraph system?

I freely admit that I don't know much about telegraph, and for me morse code is insanely complicated.

But shouldn't the paper move somehow?

I also know very little about telegraphs, to tell the truth. Just enough to know that you're a lot better off with them than you are with simul-pens.

You could have strips of paper that move under the head due to muscle-powered (or fabrial powered, even) wheels, I suppose. I'm sure they had some low-tech mechanism for doing it back in the good old days.

Really, I was thinking a bit more of the stereotypical audible dits and dahs, then to be recorded by hand (or just interpreted on the fly). According to Wikipedia (our lord and savior), that's how the first generation of telegraphs did it, and even later the sound of the armature moving in and out of position to mark the paper was used to interpret the code before even looking at the page.

Edited December 6, 2012 by Kurkistan

[Satsuoni]

Hm, an interesting note about spanreeds:

The spanreeds looked like ordinary writing reeds, except that each had a small infused ruby affixed. The one on the far right pulsed slowly.

Spanreeds had several modes of operation, switching between conjoined mode and non-conjoined mode (otherwise you wouldn't be able to carry them) and flashing. Which means that at the very least, you could use the light switching on and off as a signal, without bothering about orientation, etc. Still, it would need a specially trained operator to interpret them.

The usage of the levels suggests that spanreeds are oriented relative to the planet, much like speed bubbles.

Also, an aside: spanreed was used to send messages from Kharbranth to shattered plains, which, looking at the map, is about 1/4th of the lengths of the whole continent (single on the planet). No degradation was apparent, and Shanlan could still draw easily enough. The stromlight consumption might be greater, but I don't think range plays much role in communication per se.

[Kurkistan]

I had thought of using the light as a signal, but it's probably horrifyingly slow. It could be useful as an emergency beacon, come to think of it. If you have the rubies to spare or it's a particularly valuable agent, someone could just put a conjoined ruby in his pocket and have it turn on or off, discretely, to send particular, high-importance messages, e.g. "turn on once if by land, twice if by sea."

As far as orientation goes, mainly I was saying that an upside-down receiver key probably won't do you much good, since it will try to go "down" towards the planet. I agree that each half most likely determines its local orientation (i.e. "down") based on Roshar, but they can't possibly share it directly ("still" is probably more particular), or differential rates of rotation (someone on the equator moves faster than someone on the poles) would do horrible things.

Yeah, I thought I was all kinds of clever with the range idea and leverage. Oh well.

Edited December 6, 2012 by Kurkistan

[Satsuoni]

Maybe slow, but not necessarily if you could make it light up when you press it and stop glowing when you release, which appears feasible (although not direct use of conjoiners, at least not in physical sense. We still have no idea how different settings work). Then you could just use morse code in flashes. Or even make a large keyboard that highlights glyphs in order.

Also note, that they are only just beginning the magitek revolution, those spanreeds, etc, are relatively new, and the first telegraph models were much worse. Maybe they will develop something more effective, like Etch-a-sketch on a distance,etc.

As far as orientation goes, mainly I was saying that an upside-down receiver key probably won't do you much good, since it will try to go "down" towards the planet. I agree that each half most likely determines its local orientation based on Roshar, but they can't possibly share it, or differential rates of rotation (someone on the equator moves faster than someone on the poles) would do horrible things.

Well, I was thinking more in the spherical coordinates. I wonder what happens if the conjoin activation is made at a different angle, actually. You can certainly change relative position, so what would happen if you were to turn reed upside-down? (It will probably reorient, given the difference between them and anti-conjoiners forgot-the-names. But not sure. The orientation is certainly maintained while conjoin is activated, since the pen can be rotated)

So, for now: at the activation of conjoined effect, rotation is set to zero - towards center or so, probably depending on perception a bit...

Wait, I'll pursue this thought later.

[EDIT] Pursuing...

The relative orientation in the horizontal plane does not seem to matter, at least there is no indication to the contrary. Otherwise (if moving spanreed north would have moved its pair north), all desks would have been necessary to align precisely, which does not seem to be the case.

Edited December 6, 2012 by Satsuoni

[Kurkistan]

I'll wait on your thoughts, Mr. Physics Brain.

As for this being the beginning of an age of innovation, I agree. They could do some interesting things with lights, depending on how the fabrials actually work.

I guess the main point of this thread (besides giving me a reason not to read Aristotle) is to highlight the incredible possibilities on a large scale brought about by Conjoiners. They're not just "plot radio" that lets important characters find things out in a timely manner occasionally: Conjoiners have the capacity--not even counting any other rediscovered magic or new technology--to single-handedly change the face of Roshar.

EDIT: You done persuing? Okay.

I don't think that they physically reorient on activation. I haven't read the book in a while (sorry about that), but I recall that users had to be careful to position the reeds just so before activating them or passing control to the other side.

I think that, if you have one spanreed (Pen A) at a 90 degree angle (parallel to its floor) and its partner (Pen B.) is perpendicular to its floor, then, on activation, Pen A will not "write in the air" whenever Pen B (floor-pointing one) is writing on a piece of paper parallel to its floor.

Instead, Pen A will move as if it were oriented properly: if you made a right angle by attaching a writing head to Pen A's gem (which is currently floating in midair above the floor), then that second pen would be writing the same message as Pen B. A piece of paper on an easel placed in front of Pen A will recording the scribbling of a mad man as it records the horizontal motion of Pen B--and that's only if it manages to be in the right place to be written on, as opposed to being to far away or being stabbed as pen B moves "down" or "up" its page.

EDIT 2: Oops, got a few particulars wrong.

Edited December 6, 2012 by Kurkistan

[Satsuoni]

The only problem is that they need rubies (the size of which governs amount of stormlight and therefore charge) and special spren, so mass-producing them is tricky. But not to fear! After all, gems are just quartz with bits of metal in it (well, a lot of them are). One day, they'll learn to soulcast the stuff, and their economy will collapse And spanreeds (or their advanced equivalents) will be common.

[Kurkistan]

The only problem is that they need rubies (the size of which governs amount of stormlight and therefore charge) and special spren, so mass-producing them is tricky. But not to fear! After all, gems are just quartz with bits of metal in it (well, a lot of them are). One day, they'll learn to soulcast the stuff, and their economy will collapse :)/> And spanreeds (or their advanced equivalents) will be common.

Give me a dozen and I'll revolutionize war. Give me a hundred and I'll transform Alethikar's governance. Give me a thousand and I'll show you a new world. </overly poetic-ness>

[Aethling]

Why run thousands of miles of telegraph wires when you already have a wireless system of communication that does exactly the same thing? Spanreeds might be expensive at the moment, but with the research they are doing into fabrials, I imagine that the cost will drop drastically. DVD, Blu-Rays, CD Players, HD TVs all had hefty pricetags for the early adopters, but they are fairly inexpensive now.

Spanreeds are far better for information you want to be kept secret. A war commander can limit the information to only the woman reading it to him. Telegraphs traversing any number of miles would be basically open to anyone that could hear the clicks. Not to mention the process of forwarding them over long distances.

[Kurkistan]

Why run thousands of miles of telegraph wires when you already have a wireless system of communication that does exactly the same thing? Spanreeds might be expensive at the moment, but with the research they are doing into fabrials, I imagine that the cost will drop drastically. DVD, Blu-Rays, CD Players, HD TVs all had hefty pricetags for the early adopters, but they are fairly inexpensive now.

Spanreeds are far better for information you want to be kept secret. A war commander can limit the information to only the woman reading it to him. Telegraphs traversing any number of miles would be basically open to anyone that could hear the clicks. Not to mention the process of forwarding them over long distances.

I think you've misread me by a fair margin. Although I was initially somewhat unclear on what I meant by "telegraphy" (since even me talking to you on this forum is technically telegraphy), I corrected it in an EDIT about an hour before you posted:

EDIT: As it turns out, writing out full messages with a pen is also technically telegraphy, by definition. Needless to say, I mean the more traditional, Morse-code style telegraphy with essentially a simple on/off switch. You could engineer vastly more complex systems (essentially replacing electrical signals with mechanical ones), but I focus on the simple ones.

To expand even further (though I thought I was rather obvious, what with a title of "Conjoiner Telegaphy:...gem-studded communications"), I do mean for Conjoiner fabrials to be used for this "telegraphy." So no wires, no electricity. If the telegraphy I've been drawing upon is electrical telegraphy, then this thread is about "quartz telegraphy."

The main difference will be in how it's implemented, namely with telegraph keys being used instead of pens, for greater portability, speed, and reliability. Spanreeds require standardized, level writing surfaces and implements, as well as nearly identical ink. A telegraph key mounted on a gyroscope will work on the back of a galloping horse, and can be replaced or repaired with ease. It's also just faster to Morse-out words than to write them.

So all the stuff you like about mass-production being on the horizon, security of communication, etc. is totally awesome and I like it. That's why I made an entire thread about it.

As far as anyone in "click range" being able to hear, I doubt that's much of a concern. If you don't want any sounds to be heard, then muffle the impact-surface and watch the armature's movement instead (or read the paper it's writing on, if you set it up that way). If you don't want anyone to see it, then you have the same problem as with having it be written out--except worse, since someone can come in at the end and still understand the message, what with the whole "being written down" thing.

Edited December 6, 2012 by Kurkistan

[Aethling]

Ah. So you are talking about a spanreed system that just makes marks on sheet of paper like a tickertape machine?

[Kurkistan]

Ah. So you are talking about a spanreed system that just makes marks on sheet of paper like a tickertape machine?

Yes, that or an operator listening to and recording dits and dahs from its movement, or even just watching the arm. The paper being incorporated into the machine isn't strictly necessary.

Such "spanreeds" would simply be better than using pens, beyond being easier to expand into a large-scale enterprise.

Edited December 6, 2012 by Kurkistan

[Voidus]

I just read that bit about using the lights flashing and realised that this could also be used to create a basic LCD display, so now we don't need spanreeds for pictures either, take that aartifabrians of Alethkar! 17th shard has you beat.

[Kurkistan]

I just read that bit about using the lights flashing and realised that this could also be used to create a basic LCD display, so now we don't need spanreeds for pictures either, take that aartifabrians of Alethkar! 17th shard has you beat.

So many conjoined gems. So very many...

You'd probably be better off with manual picture-making, either through digital transmission or spanreed sketches. The number of "pixel" conjoined gems, each of which would need to be infused with a spren and stormlight, each of which would have to be turned on or off to make any image...

Edited December 7, 2012 by Kurkistan

[Voidus]

Well it depends on what kind of resolution you want on them, the number isn't really as important as the volume for getting the gems, you can always just crack more, this actually seems like pretty much one of the only uses I can think of for gems this size from any broken Soulcaster settings, maybe a couple ruby Broams should do it if you took a mallet to it enough. Infusing them isn't a problem, although depending on the special method for creating coinjoined rubies actually conjoining them might be. Turning them on again depends on how much variability you have for the method for that, but if you could have it activate on touch then just use a brush and draw it out, more complicated than spanreed drawing but more accurate I'd think, no ink drops, etc.

Oh secondary idea, get 2 taut skins, embed conjoined rubies in each = possible telephone.

[Kurkistan]

Well it depends on what kind of resolution you want on them, the number isn't really as important as the volume for getting the gems, you can always just crack more, this actually seems like pretty much one of the only uses I can think of for gems this size from any broken Soulcaster settings, maybe a couple ruby Broams should do it if you took a mallet to it enough. Infusing them isn't a problem, although depending on the special method for creating coinjoined rubies actually conjoining them might be. Turning them on again depends on how much variability you have for the method for that, but if you could have it activate on touch then just use a brush and draw it out, more complicated than spanreed drawing but more accurate I'd think, no ink drops, etc.

Oh secondary idea, get 2 taut skins, embed conjoined rubies in each = possible telephone.

Good points. I guess it isn't to hard to get enough gems of that size. Spren might be an issue, as well as how long they can hold stormlight, since it's my impression that the square-cubed law holds for the size of gems and how long they can hold stormlight (like any mass holding heat, for example).

The big question is how you activate the "glow" function on gems. Once again, I haven't read in a while, but I seem to recall the gem needing to be twisted or something to activate it. If Conjoiners can be made such that simple pressure can turn gems on or off, it would certainly be more feasible.

I like the second one a lot, actually. You would have to solidly ground the two phones, though, so that secondary motion doesn't tear the skins and/or Dalinar doesn't have to wrestle with his phone whenever his opposite sneezes.

Edited December 7, 2012 by Kurkistan

[Voidus]

Good points. I guess it isn't to hard to get enough gems of that size. Spren might be an issue, as well as how long they can hold stormlight, since it's my impression that the square-cubed law holds for the size of gems and how long they can hold stormlight (like any mass holding heat, for example).

The big question is how you activate the "glow" function on gems. Once again, I haven't read in a while, but I seem to recall the gem needing to be twisted or something to activate it. If Conjoiners can be made such that simple pressure can turn gems on or off, it would certainly be more feasible.

I like the second one a lot, actually. You would have to solidly ground the two phones, though, so that secondary motion doesn't tear the skins and/or Dalinar doesn't have to wrestle with his phone whenever his opposite sneezes.

Spren are definitely a problem, along with actually splitting a gemstone that size is going to be quite difficult now that I think about it. But using the lights only might also have an advantage of not requiring matching reference frames if you could just transmit the light pulse and not any momentum.

I think that if spheres are expected to be infused at all times (Particularly chips) then holding the stormlight shouldn't be a problem.

Edit: Oh and yes definitely a good idea to ground the phones, otherwise when the receiver picks it up the sender is probably going to get smacked in the face by his phone

Edited December 7, 2012 by Voidus

[Chaos]

I forgive you, but only if the second thing was "Triple-awesome gem-studded goodness!" :P/>

EDIT: Anyone else getting this weird thing where a ">/" shows up after your smilies every time you edit?

That is very, very, very bizarre.

By the way dudes, if you see site errors like this, please post in the Site Issues forum so I see it more quickly.

Looking into it.

[happyman]

OK, I'm glad a comment of mine started this discussion. Just saw it.

I think that most of the comments have been on the mark. The discussions of the pros and cons of Spanreeds vs. telegraphs are quite intelligent. They actually represent a classic trade-off in technology of bandwidth vs. reliability. The span-reeds have much larger bandwidth, representing complex actions and images, but have a much larger price with maintenance, reliability and compatibility of the mechanisms at both ends. The telegraphs focus the information much more tightly in order to keep the noise down and the reliability up, at the price of slower communication.

I think that the security, if we are right that it is secure, is by far the biggest advantage Rosharian fabrials would have over the telegraph, regardless of whether they use a Morse code analog or something else.

[Kurkistan]

Thanks for your thoughts, happyman.

You sum it all up quite well, but I must disagree that the question of speed is firmly settled in favor of spanreeds. As I cited in the OP, experienced telegraph operators can match or exceed the speed of handwriting, in terms of words per minute. Shorthand does skew it back the other way, though.

[happyman]

Thanks for your thoughts, happyman.

You sum it all up quite well, but I must disagree that the question of speed is firmly settled in favor of spanreeds. As I cited in the OP, experienced telegraph operators can match or exceed the speed of handwriting, in terms of words per minute. Shorthand does skew it back the other way, though.

Bandwidth is a technical term which simply measures information, period. For pure abstract words, it seems likely that the telegraph might have an edge, like you said. When you include the possibility of pictures and emotional state of the writer, though, things begin to shift back the other way. Maybe not all the way; it depends wildly on what you are using it for. The suggested simplifications that make it more like a telegraph probably would make it more efficient for, say, military uses.