The original telegraph system was based on ancient signaling systems utilized by many civilizations throughout history,

all of which allowed one person to communicate with another person, across large, sometimes even quite vast, distances.

In some cases this meant using drums or horns or other audible mechanisms.

Other times it meant flags of various colors and shapes to signal a general, for instance,

that reinforcements are needed at a particular location on a battlefield, or for a ship to notify

another ship that they wish to parlay, to have a friendly discussion rather than fighting each other.

At times, these mechanisms would extend into human-driven networks,

with one flag-bearer signaling another flag-bearer, who would raise their own flag after seeing

the first flag to signal yet another flag-bearer further along the path, and on and on and on,

a string of dozens of people passing a message from one location to the next, perhaps many

miles or tens of miles away, utilizing a chain of flags to pass that message onward down the line.

This mechanism was improved upon by the aforementioned telegraph system, which formalized

the often flag or horn or other simple message transmitting system into a network of towers

that could transmit textual information from tower to tower across vast distances,

using a simplified alphabet communicated using a custom semaphore system,

which was something like the flags used by ships and on the battlefield,

but made more complex so that adjustable arms atop a tower could be which was something like the flags used by ships and on the battlefield,

but made more complex so that adjustable arms atop a tower could be used to send a sequence of information to a neighboring tower,

both utilizing telescopes to see each other,

and that information could then be relatively quickly sent from tower to tower to tower,

connecting remote portions of an empire to more central

portions faster than a human on a horse could travel. Another variation on this theme used what's

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