World Building- Messengers, Pigeons, & Smoke Signals

This is a short vid to briefly cover something that I think is really interesting, and yet not played with enough when it comes to world building. The implications for how messages travel are huge. The faster and more efficient they are, the more connected a people will be, which is good (until facebook gets invented) for stability and technological growth.
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Thanks to all my patreon supporters for- what? I don't have a patreon? Maybe I should make one so I can make better videos more often.
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Gregg N Friends: / @detourfilms5156
Bathroom Entertainment News Tonight: / @bonnetshorestv2118
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Okay what do I expect in the comment section-
a bunch of people telling me they wish I'd went over the tiniest details like "would the messenger go in and talk to the king, or would someone from the castle get it?", "did people actually present the messages on papers tied up on a silver plate?". Heck if I know, man.
Getting 1 or 2 things wrong.
Saying I should've explicitly talked about WWI homing pigeons, how pigeons are trained, and about Hermes
Something about the dingle in the intro (if you didn't notice)
That one guy that always mentions self pleasure
and DEFINITELY something about the icon of the guy riding the horse actually being a jockey and not a messenger.
*I promise to not edit this so I can be smug to people who point these out
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Credits to Grace M for playing the role of King George III
Credits to Zach N for telling me to increase the volume on the pizza time joke, and then proceeding to hurl insults at me for an unknown reason.
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#PizzaTime

[@nazamroth8427]

Fairies of one sort or another are usually a thing in fantasy universes.... why is no one utilizing them as messengers? Launch the fairy really hard(I mean cannon hard with whatever means you have), have it use magic to maintain speed(most of the energy is needed to gain or lose it, not to maintain) thus extending the ballistic arc, and it being sentient, it can even guide its path.... BAM, instant high speed communication network and a use for the annoying twerps.

[@timothymclean]

Or just have them fly. They combine the best qualities of couriers and homing pigeons.

[@nazamroth8427]

@@timothymclean Now where is my amusement in that? Also, usually they are too.... simple minded to be entrusted with such a duty. Better to not give them the chance to think and screw up.

[@seigeengine]

Launching a fairy very fast would probably kill it, maintaining speed still required a ton of energy, and generally fairies just can't magic anything they want into being the way of the world, and fairies are generally tricksters. Now what about a culture that fires just normal cannonballs at each other, using the timing to encode messages?

[@futurelink1359]

Maintaining speed is not easier for bug wings. There's a reason they have to flap so much. why dragonflies make a buzz sound or butterflies "flutter". They aren't as aerodynamic like plains and birds.

[@nazamroth8427]

@@futurelink1359 Alright, let us not start an argument, and employ compromise. Since both of your thughts contain valid points, how about this: We tie a fairy to a cannonball, then launch it really hard where we want to send the message. Fairies being too light to maintain speed is solved, and cannons are employed as ​ @seigeengine wanted. In fact, this may actually be a more amusing way to get rid of themimean deliver messages than what I first thought of.

[@mennoltvanalten7260]

That system in LOTR you scolded for only working sometimes and being very expensive was actually also used by the eastern Roman empire. It was used to send a message to the army in the capital, which then walked along its path toward an invading army. It also had the effect of telling everyone in the path to prepare for the passage of an army and muster their forces to join the army.

[@timothymclean]

I've heard of a signal-fire communication method which involved the _length_ of the fire being used to convey messages. Set a fire, drain water out of a tub, and put out the fire once it reaches the level of the appropriate message. The receiver would start and stop draining _their_ tub when they saw the fire start and stop, and would read the message at the water's level. Complicated, but apparently worth it in some cases.

[@Ratchet4647]

Timothy McLean Interesting, you could communicate some complex messages that way and no one would know what they mean. (Unless they get to read the tub)

[@jjackandbrian5624]

Why not just use morse code as the smoke signal

[@timothymclean]

@@jjackandbrian5624 Because this was before Morse Code.

[@dashiellgillingham4579]

That is one of the first things to be defined as a “hydraulic telegraph,” and according to my source the Carthaginians installed one between Sicily and them. My source (Polybius, the Histories) also makes a point of how impractical such a system would be to build or maintain for any significant length of time.

[@tancrediparisi7321]

"Land Marks" DAMN

[@planetaxolotl4398]

cool but why don't they just use snapchat

[@Stoneworks]

Planet Axolotl that’s exclusively where they send their nudes

[@rurushu8094]

Planet Axolotl cause the messages get deleted after 24 hours

[@gabrielcaballero4817]

Instrument!! Lots of people back then used various instruments to signal to people from varying distances! Native Americans,Koreans and others used Conches to communicate with each other, there was also buglers and Fifers, which used their instruments to communicate

[@illiaise]

I was looking for some mention of African Talking Drums. Some basic information: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drums_in_communication

[@alichi101]

The semaphore telegraph system should definitely be mentioned. It sits in that niche of technologically sophisticated and faster than messengers while not limited to simple signals but still not having need of electricity.

[@FishyNiden]

You don't necessarily need roads in conjunction with horses. The mongols used it successfully to have at their time the largest empire in the world, trough the power of horse and flatland, with meagre road system unless conquered.

[@ivanclark2275]

That’s sort of a unique geographical situation, because the core of the empire was naturally easily traversable by horseback, and the areas that weren’t like that were conquered from places like China or Persia which already had good roads.

[@seigeengine]

You might say that steppes are something of a natural road.

[@youcantbeatk7006]

_"I've been looking for you. Got something I'm supposed to deliver - your hands only. Looks like that's it. Got to go."_

[@rvoight92]

I have the idea to use wyverns or other large non-fire breathing flying creatures as mounts for messengers. Haven't quite figured out the best way to work it into a story yet though.

[@Crosshill]

sounds like elite messaging and royal showboating, worthy of a position of a designated courier rider to land dramatically in front of the addressee with the royal decree, and if they resist they get to murderize them too

[@kyleharrell4853]

I think most nations would initially only employ flying mounts like Hippogriffs, Griffins, Pegasi, and Wyverns as scouts and messengers due to no one being sure how to use them i n combat yet, which includes what tactics, weapons AND armor are ideal for that given mount. Also possibly because of the creatures temperament.

[@samburcham4753]

In my D&D campaign, the lizardfolk jungle civilization use colored fireworks to send messages, basically what you apparently did but without magic, guess cool ideas are just universally cool.

[@teodoraristic822]

"Have a snack" *shows ryan reynolds*

[@sirsketch8519]

You should totally do a video on mountains, ranges, and tectonic activity, especially with how much of an impact a range has on the location of rivers, forests, wind currents, deserts etc. Often times I find that many fictional worlds tend to get mountains, their features, and their locations wrong.

[@seraphina985]

One factor that can make the fire beacon technique more affordable is when it is set up as part of the defensive preparations for a specific threat, of course, this only works when you already have intelligence indicating the origin and timeframe for the attack. A real-life example of this would be the British using beacons as part of their defensive preparations against the Spanish Armada which enabled a much more rapid response once the attacking fleet was sighted.

[@leeannapolinares6786]

I'm gonna use my communication on a "language" that already exists. It doesn't have words, but it uses whistling and is good at great distances. This is mostly used by tribes in mountainous areas that are allies. Warriors that guards the outside of their town's are usually trained to use this to communicate to other tribes. I'm still not very sure to my other styles of communication but I'm working on it.

[@bizarreworld2510]

Dude your videos are epic!!❤️ They make me feel like I should give writing a try!

[@sophidina34]

Dude, seriously, I love your videos and the sense of humour with which you imbue them.

[@Stoneworks]

Aṣa thanks fam, it means a lot

[@Zekonos1]

i really appreciate that you add some entertainment value lmao... searching up this kinda stuff can be a little dry at times when you're trying to worldbuild and you get bogged down in like the history of the postal system....

[@josiebianchi3481]

"They're not as vital to the survival of states and empires as they were back then" Watching this after the 2020 election, can safely say that that line aged like milk.

[@notsorry4735]

My people used to use a specific emergency horn. Since there was usually a nomad or village near by they would relay that message. They would gather their forces and prepare for war. One question most of you will have is how will people know where to go? Well just say I'm at point A and I need help. I blow a horn and point B and C both hear the message is coming from my direction. Point B will blow its horn and people in points D and E will hear it from that direction, blow their horns and wait for everyone to come before telling them to move towards point A. This worked well apparently because the people of my clan, Abgal, according to oral history took at least one man from every family and sometimes leaving only one behind. So the majority of the able bodied men were able to gather quickly for the Battle of Mogadishu against the Portuguese and the civil war against the rival clan which held the capital. We took the capital at the battle of Wardhigley (the bloody ditch) which is now a district in the capital. The battle was such a bloodbath that when it rained the ditch filled with water that was red. Since then Abgal has remained the most powerful clan of our people. We hold the capital and lands surrounding it and mostly northeast of it where we first came. Although we are one of the youngest clans, with my line being of only 19 names including me and Abgal himself we are the largest of our age and older. Today we have forgotten our might, our power and our birthright earned by our forefathers at that battle. A day will come when someone will come to our people and lead us back to glory. And inshallah I will fulfil that prophecy.

[@petercarioscia9189]

Nice Hamilton opening. Edit: I don't remember subbing to you (this video popped up in my sub feed) but I'm happy I did at some point! Edit2: and the bell icon was engaged!

[@ryanratchford2530]

Dam. You’re always on point with the humour & memes 😂

[@matteoalberti2729]

And now I'll have to watch aaallllll of your videos for the next 3 weeks/months. Well, looks fair to me.

[@zachisosum]

Bruuuh!!! This vid is so litty. Love the will Smith joke.

[@mimikal7548]

This is my new favourite channel.

[@TheKarotechia]

Signal fires like the ones in LotR were used in Scandinavia. The fires were only manned in times of strife. Very important for warning about raiding fleets in costal areas.

[@Eva-lz5ry]

One of my favorite channels, funny but useful. 💯

[@cyan4845]

I feel like this channel is gonna be the next tier zoo. An excellent blend of education and entertainment.

[@seigeengine]

The interesting thing is horse riders are comparable in speed with human runners over these kinds of distances, even if the horses are regularly exchanged. There also isn't a significant difference in terms of weight that can be carried at these speeds.

[@scholarlydragon6074]

There's a big difference between running with nothing and running with a backpack full of packages. You'd also have to have some seriously elite runners to compete with a system like the Pony Express, which transported mail 2000 miles in 10 days. I'm not saying that it would be impossible, but you'd have to have a lot of really fast people with high endurance, especially if they're expected to run regularly. Also there's no way that you would be able to beat the horse system's fastest time, you could maybe get close enough to compete with their business, but you just aren't going to be able to do it faster.

[@seigeengine]

The pony express messengers were only transporting 20 lb of mail, and you don't need elite runners, just people whose... you know... job it is to be good at running. You're also attacking strawmen, so you know, get fucked.

[@seraphina985]

If you switch the horses out around once every 10-15 miles or so you can sustain a speed somewhere between a trot (about 8-9 mph) and a canter (12-13mph) averaging on the order of 10 mph or so, typically in medieval times around 10-15 miles also the typical distance between market towns as that was about the right distance to allow farmers with carts of goods to leave for town at dawn do their selling during the day and be home by sunset. So yeah horses are pretty good provided you have the infrastructure in place like that so that there are places to swap out for a fresh horse and leave the old horse behind to rest. For humans that distance is comparable to a half marathon for which the world record stands at 58:18 but the average time is closer to 2:05:00, bearing in mind that people who enter marathons are usually people that have at least some level of running training. Considering that is without carrying a pack with whatever consignments you are carrying and that with the number you would need to station them at every town across the country to relay messages between them you are going to be looking more likely around the latter time on average which gives a speed more in the region of 6.5 mph that makes the horse averaging 10 mph a little over 50% faster. If you need to cover far longer distances without any place to swap out the exhausted runner whether that be human or horse then you have a valid point over long distances the humans better endurance over long distances will allow them to catch up with the horse, this is in fact one thing humans are evolved to be very good at as tracking and perusing prey over long distances draining their prey's stamina before moving in for the kill when it becomes too exhausted to outrun them anymore but human hunting parties could pursue herds of game all day to accomplish this it wasn't something they did over the short distances traversed in an hour or two.

[@scholarlydragon6074]

@@seraphina985 Thanks for the numbers👍

[@seigeengine]

@@seraphina985 Except most people who enter marathons are not professionals at peak fitness, they're hobbyists. Average male completion times for half marathons give an average speed of 6.9 mph, whereas about a third of them average 7.5 mph, and roughly a tenth of them exceed 8.7 mph. Roughly 4% of those in their 20s manage to average 10 mph. I used the pony express as reference. It seemed to max out at 10 mph, but wasn't normally able to operate at this rate, typically operating at closer to 7.5 mph. And, again, I took reference to the loads actually carried by messenger horses at speed...which are light enough humans could trivially carry them. 20 lb isn't a lot of weight to carry, and weight isn't the issue. Send two runners instead of one, each now only has to carry 10 lb. Speed is the heart of this, not weight capacity. We're talking about the speed at which information can move, not the transportation of cargo. Humans are also capable of traversing terrain that horses aren't.

[@josephteller9715]

Mirror flashing messages (common in the 1700s thru the victorian era; replaced by flashing lights thru ww2 & the cold war) not mentioned. Also may have been used by the Ancient Egyptians. Semaphore and signal flags for ships (common for 3 centuries) not mentioned in detail. Bell signaling not mentioned (also used in many cultures, with different quantities, tones and patterns). Trumpets (again in tunes) used for signaling on the battlefield, as were bagpipes and other sound related systems. Please expand your depth and horizon on research. You have a good basis but need to expand the content. The world building thing was cute.... but why haven't the dwarves developed smoked glass (sunglasses) or filters (to reduce glare like the masks used in traditional welding?).

[@Ratchet4647]

Gnomes*

[@seigeengine]

Most of these are basically identical to smoke signals, tbh.

[@zachariusd]

Awesome video. Thanks!

[@jackgame2591]

Such a great Video

[@wales2815]

This is basically the best channel on KZbin.

[@stark_313]

Your videos make me wanna become a god and create a world that then falls apart because of a well placed Twinkie

[@codekillerz5392]

I love these videos

[@SizzleCorndog]

Hell yeah a new video

[@SilverGamingFI]

I'm currently creating a world where a kindom uses special arrows with messages tied to them, and shoot them to ashbamboo mats where another archer would read to who or where it is supposed to go, and shoot to the next post. Thus the message can travel through the archipelago in a matter of minutes. This is also duable in naval combat. And they don't even have to fear the message being stolen due to their unique writing style, wich looks like a line of pillars with weird carvings and lines sticking out

[@stijnbarneveld3999]

Hii, could you make a video about army's? Ive read that big empires had army sized equal to 0,5% of their population etc. Would love to know more about army's and how they can function in an empire.

[@ryanratchford2530]

Really enjoyed this video. And the bonus. Could you possibly talk about how you’d think & recomend to worldbuilders when people can make portals and instantly teleport in ancient/ classical period worlds

[@timothymclean]

Don't, unless you have a really good reason to. Not only do they mess worldbuilding up, they mess up a _lot_ of plots.

[@seigeengine]

You have to if you have a high magic world. Generally things like teleportation are higher level spells that would be pretty rare. It might be interesting to explore the consequences, but as always, limitations are where the cleverness can come in. Maybe portals can exist, but are hard to build and expensive to maintain for instance, and can only connect to other portals. Maybe have portals that can only be linked with one other portal, requiring two to be constructed and simultaneously connected. For teleportation, maybe have it be common but prone to disastrous failure. IF you want to explore how these things influence a world, that's fine, but understand that the consequences can mess things up significantly.

[@Ratchet4647]

Stargate anyone?

[@gllherme]

Really cool content you should make a video about realistic montains location and stuff

[@shadowhunter240]

instant thumbs up and sub for that intro

[@ravenpotter3]

I heard about the Incan messenger thing when i was in Peru! It’s so impressive how fast they could travel...

[@magiv4205]

Automatic like for the hamilton reference hahaha

[@srjskam]

Semaphore telegraph. Smoke signals 101: A great black cloud over the mountains = "Aww fuck, my quilt is on fire".

[@zam570]

Have you ever heard of the visual telegraph system invented in France in the late 1700’s. It’s super intuitive and it could fit in really any time period in a fantasy setting. And the fact that they used it effectively for a while through the use of thousands of towers shows that it wasn’t as infeasible as one would initially think.

[@zam570]

To add to that, they were used for the very first telecommunicated scam in 1836, but that’s just a fun fact.

[@lionetank9085]

Talking drums are also really interesting (I guess that would fall under signals) but to have a “talking” drums the language of said culture has to have a tonal language that the drums can replicate :)

[@ClashBluelight]

many medieval castles were built with fire pits and hay bails on their roofs. this way they could signal to the next castle over if an enemy got near the border or besieged them. some writings suggest kings could know about a border crossing within the hour and signal to send counter forces just as fast. similar story applies to the great wall of china. a warning could reach from one end to the other in 30 minutes from what i hear.

[@elijahgarland5237]

im intrested in your d&d magic system

[@quel2324]

Me at 0:10 : Yo I know the song

[@basicb7627]

found your channel the other day :) loving your content. Looking forward to more uploads in 2019 :)

[@davidhoogenboom3344]

in lotr was fire use cal for aid but also in combination of messengers (was used in movie but in the books), and it was used in england en norway

[@MediumDSpeaks]

Holy shit AND a Hamilton reference, you might have just become my favorite fucking channel

[@deeznoots6241]

Beacons existed in Roman Britain, they were used a lot the southeast coast to warn of incoming invasion

[@ivanclark2275]

You didn’t really talk about the pros and cons of the different systems, you just listed some.

[@seigeengine]

He mentioned some stuff about it, but did he claim to be doing otherwise? I'll give you some info: Signals (such as fires) can be very fast, only the time for the signal to be visible to the next point away and then initiate their own signal per distance. Range varies by method. A fast method instead of fire is to use light visible from other towers directed by mirrors, for instance. 10m towers seem to be a common height in history, and would be visible from each other by perhaps as far as 24 km. The romans at the least constructed light houses around 30m tall, which would give a range of 42 km, and there have been towers in excess of 60m tall in some places, although they're far more rare, and would give a range of around 60 km. Of course, these are all distances in ideal conditions over flat ground, elevation changes may increase this to as much as several hundred km, and worse conditions cause problems. This can be very fast, the fastest on this list even, but also requires infrastructure and people along the entire way, and you only need to knock out one of these links to prevent signals from traveling. Messages carried on horses are pretty common for fast communication in history, and there are famous examples like the pony express that swapped out horses and riders at check points along the way. Referencing the pony express as the fastest you can make messages move with horse, they carried around 9 kg of mail per horse at around 16-24 km/h. Horses can reach much higher speeds, of course, but only for very short periods. Interestingly, this isn't really much better than humans. I used marathons as my reference point. A trained long-distance runner can also run at around 16 km/h over the 42 km of a marathon, and potentially much farther, never minding they can also be swapped out as mentioned in the video. Also, interestingly, running that far isn't some rare thing only a few can do. Roughly 80% of people who participate in marathons succeed, and they aren't exactly unpopular. The world record marathon pace for men is around 20 km/h. Humans are very slightly slower and probably can carry a little less weight at those speeds, but we have the advantage that we can traverse a wide variety of terrains as needed, whereas horses suffer massively on any non-flat terrain. Homing pigeons can travel fairly reliably back to their home location from considerable distances (>1000 km even), and they can do it at as much as 100 km/h, but they can only carry a very small amount of weight, in the tens of grams at most. Additionally, they can only travel back to one place, and have to be transported to where you want to send the message from. There have apparently been successes getting pigeons to travel back and forth between two locations as much as twice a day using their food and home as the two terminating points, but this doesn't seem to be a common practice, and poses other limitations (like distance).

[@Yarradras]

@@seigeengine you are absolutely right! also note that (trained) humans are capable of running 160 kilometers under 24 hours through difficult terrain, including crossing mountains. The Western State race is famous for having started out as horse riding race but ultimately became a running race after one guy succesfully competed in it on foot. It's actually our ability to sweat as well as our upright / two-legged anatomy that make us quite competitive long-distance runners (with the right training of course)

[@seigeengine]

Yes. My point wasn't to suggest that it isn't generally better to have horses, but rather that the lack of horses isn't so big a handicap to communication as you might suspect, and that in rough terrain, humans may very well out-compete horses.

[@Crosshill]

@@seigeengine humans made for walking down prey at dramatic stalking paces, super creepy but dahm we got stamina

[@alexandredumont8651]

Talking drums in west african empires were a thing too ;)

[@KingCribble]

I know the talking drums from west Africa worked because so many west African languages are tonal. I always thought that was pretty cool.

[@Not_actually_a_commie]

Communication via kites is something interesting that some cultures used. Fireworks could also be an interesting concept if the state using them could afford it

[@HxH2011DRA]

Nice relationship advice XD

[@disneybunny45]

You say, the price of my love is not a price that you're willing to pay.

[@itshenry8977]

oi for for the Kingdom of Gondor they used Smoke signals to summon Rohan only and had messengers on horseback to travel through the levels of Minas Tirith and along the rest of Gondorian fiefs

[@Dreckmal01]

During the Anglo-Saxon period (specifically I want to say during the reign of Alfred the Great??) there were a series of watchtowers built and manned specifically for lighting signal fires to warn of things like Viking raids, so there is a precedent within history. I want to say that played a part in shaping English culture, in that it dramatically increased the response time by various warbands and fyrds, essentially lengthening the rule of Anglo-Saxon states. I could be full of shit too, though. I'm not bothering to look it up, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

[@jakubrosinski7147]

Make a video about city design and structure

[@ant_therapist]

I clicked on a cool looking video about worldbuilding and then get slapped in the face by a mf Hamilton reference. Also, nice vid, dude.

[@kinglouiev9530]

I think a messenger on a Dragon is better than the messenger on a Horse. However Dragons are more difficult to train and expensive to maintain however they travel much quicker.

[@Gulitize]

You are missing signs, like fire or smoke, but with 100% less fire, It's pretty much forgotten history.

[@badlanding0529]

You should have mentioned the optical telegraphs.

[@Stoneworks]

Fuck no.

[@torinjones3221]

Isn't that DnD gnome magic flares basically Attack on Titans flare system?

[@Iceey]

10 likes for the Hamilton reference! Do longer videos, bitterschon

[@AsherSkylark]

Why dindnt i subscribe to your channel a long time ago?

[@whalewil3135]

Do one about music please

[@notsafeforchurch]

Ah that's hot!

[@DiMadHatter]

another cool idea is the french semaphore telegraphs, which are towers with mobile arms that you can arrange to forme letter-like symbols and communicate between great distances here's a wiki link :) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semaphore_telegraph

[@WolfpackPodcastOfficial]

Yay Hamilton references!!!

[@therealoldnosey8689]

So how does a pigeon know where to fly to? Did people just train a shit ton of pigeons who only fly between two towns? So if they wanna send something from town A to town C do they get one of the A to C pigeons? Like the A to B pigeons would go between towns A and B?

[@aocgoomba8798]

Yeah pretty much.

[@futurelink1359]

Yeah. Each pigeon would would only have one place it flew to with consistency. This pigeon goes to town A. This one town B. This one C.

[@ivanclark2275]

A pigeon always flies back to its home, so you can take a pigeon from town A to anywhere and no matter where you go, you can always send a message to town A. When you run out of pigeons though, you need a messenger to bring them back.

[@soton4010]

Yes but you'll have about 5 pigeons for the same route

[@seigeengine]

You don't really need a messenger to go get them back even. It would be trivial to have new ones sent to you as you sent them, since they'd know how many you'd sent given they'd have them, ignoring losses, which could be mentioned in the note if needed.

[@redpandaz5146]

Concept- Replace Smoke Signals or Beacons with different colored fireworks

[@dranoradragonqueen1494]

or in fantasy griffins, dragons or other flying creatures that you can ride like a horse or train like a dog. Also warp gates, teliporting, communication spells, certain other spells. There are all kinds of communication options on all leaves that magic opens up. You could do something ice related that's like the smoke and fire signals. Going back to creatures, there might also be those creatures that are ride able that are faster then horses but to weak to be used in battle, there are also creatures that could take over in areas horses can't. Large Darven goats come to mind for mountain areas. Large dear for forest. Sea creatures of all kinds for the oceans, Aquaman did a good job on this one. Sand fish for the deserts like monster hunter not that they use them that way. Heck even some kind of animal that can dig through the earth at a fast speed or one that is faster then anything above ground but is to sensitive to light and there for needs racing tunnels to be made for it. Maybe there is something that can swim up a river and back faster then anything on land but is trainable. In other words get creative with your Intel and how they get it.

[@TheRukisama]

I hope your gnomes use Hamming codes for error detection and correction in their messages.

[@LG-rt8mq]

Boats coming soon?

[@cromabu5090]

I mean the Byzantines did use fire signals like Gondor

[@lebleu8843]

In my world, the "Drakonians" (dragon riders) had a monopoly on trade and messaging (and bombing once gunpowder was invented) due to flying and all thus play the former superior powers of the west in proxy wars thus sending them south to colonize to get an upper hand on the drakonians.

[@Stoneworks]

why use gunpowder when you have a dragon

[@lebleu8843]

@@Stoneworks stone doesn't burn

[@Stoneworks]

@@lebleu8843 jetfuel can't melt steel beems

[@mulethedonkey2579]

What about chimneys, or at least rain cover

[@giorgoskatsarakis9652]

Actually, the beacon system is not completely original. The byzantines had it in anatolia

[@johnfraire6931]

I decided to click this video right as my pizza dinged. Huh.

[@Stoneworks]

pizza time

[@casebarreoltt5990]

Reflecting sunlight as code was much more practica for complex messagesl during daylight than smoke signals. At night, the same coding system was used by blocking and exposing the light of a fire. Hilltops or large structures were therefore crucial real estate. The same power structures that performed hilltop pagan rituals have always been those who monopolize rapid messaging. You're welcome.

[@gregorflopinski9016]

Doesn’t they saying go: don’t shoot the messenger?

[@Lyle-xc9pg]

1:17 soniku

[@MediumDSpeaks]

HOLY SHIT IS THAT A MOTHER FUCKING HAMILTON REFERENCE! HA, if you like Hamilton references, maybe check out my channel... there's at least 1 per video

[@pepsimanfan5650]

Botes comeing soon

[@Katniss218]

PIZZA TIME!

[@FortessOfMind]

The inca menseger posts are called Tambos not that

[@1996squareenix]

how the hell do people train birds to travel to a specific location? I've never understood that.

[@Ratchet4647]

Eli Church Birds migrate. Somehow. They must get cues from their environment. At some point, previous civilizations realized pigeons return to their home. With a little training you can get them to go straight there. Now carry birds whose home is the place you need to communicate with, and release them when you want to with a message.

[@1996squareenix]

Ratchet4647 oh so you’d actually have to already have birds from the location you want to send them to, ok. For some reason I was under the assumption that they’d just use any random bird.

[@seigeengine]

Yeah, you need birds whose home is where you want to send the message, which poses troubles, like the need to manually transport the birds back. They also can carry basically nothing. The advantage is they're extremely fast, as much as 100 km/h, compared to even regularly swapped out horses at maybe 20 km/h.

[@seigeengine]

@LagiNaLangAko23 Yes, however, to my knowledge, that's a fairly recent development. Possible, but without historic precedent. It also only makes things more efficient, not faster, as you could just have both locations have pigeons whose home is the other place, and then send back a reply immediately.

[@donpacificbobcat9er615]

Using a Zeppelin seems like a terrible idea.

[@Stoneworks]

DonPacific Bobcat9er Absolutely right sir

[@ggtroll1365]

ph yeah yeah

[@fafafafafafafa]

No yodeling? I'm disappointed.

[@nolynste1926]

Actually we do know why pigeons go home. Or cats or bears for that matter. Magnetic crystals in their brain

[@sirnilsolav6646]

Why did you not cover water transportation? It was a lot faster than travelling by land. In Norway, roads were basically not used for travelling which meant that the roads were extremely underdeveloped. Even today our roads are based upon the Old Medieval Road system. Okay it's not that bad, but still pretty bad

[@alfredo.zauce1892]

Or a *ZEPPELIN!*

[@adamsloan9616]

I was expecting him to show a burning one when he said that.

[@danjclaude]

Haha will smith meme Aww That's hot

[@pepsimanfan5650]

First