Omar Telegraph

Telègraf Omar

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The Omar Telegraph is a long-range visual communication system developed by Ona Omar, initially deployed in the Mediterranean Crown but currently used all around Europe and beyond. Its based on the optical telegraph, but uses arcanurgy to overcome most of the system's drawbacks. While it is complex to set up, the system is designed to require minimal maintenance.
Due to the strategic importance of the Omar Telegraph, telegraph towers are usually located in well-defended places, such as castles or other kinds of fortresses. The largest tower is located in Montjuïc (Barcelona), next to the Palace of the Courts, and it's a communications hub for the entirety of the Mediterranean Crown.

Name

The official name of the system is Long-Distance Arcane TelegraphTelègraf arcà de llarga distància, but most people call it Omar TelegraphTelègraf Omar after its creator. Many people, especially in the Mediterranean Crown, mistakenly call it Sea TelegraphTelègraf del mar—this is due the similarity between Omar and the Catalan word mar ('sea').

Design

The Omar Telegraph is an interconnected network of buildings (often built as towers) that, similarly to the optical telegraph, form different messaging lines. However, unlike its mundane cousin, a single telegraph tower can be attuned to different lines according to its operator's wishes, or even to multiple lines at once. In order to attune to a specific line, the operators need to know that line's secret code and the closest tower from that line must accept the attunement. This makes intercepting messages between towers incredibly difficult.
On top of the verification system, each tower is equipped with two systems necessary for communication, called mouthboca and earorella. The mouth is a set of levers connected to the ear of its closest towers through sympathetic runes. The ears are a grid of metallic cubes laid out in the same pattern as the mouth—when a lever is pressed, the linked ear cube in the receiving tower vibrates and floats about ten centimiters. When an operator sees the message, their duty is to relay it to the next tower along the line. Messaging lines are bidirectional: the directional lever controls which of the two closest towers will get the message.
There have been some attempts at making the message relaying automatic, but to no avail for now. Messages sent beyond the range of the tower are very imprecise, and sympathetic runes can only link two objects. This means that the transference method between ear and mouth would need to be mechanical or use some sort of sensor-based rune. All attempts at this have produced unreliable results, which are unacceptable given the strategic importance of this technology.

contents

Invention

1880

Inventor

Ona Omar i Picó

First Line

Barcelona-Valencia