The telegraph solved the latency problem between cities and fixed rail hubs, but it had no place on the battlefield or along the active construction zones. The Arren Guard Corps (AGC), escorting high-value shipments, relied on unreliable runners. Commander Elric's army was paralyzed by the inability to relay commands across vast distances instantly.
"The war front is a non-linear, high-variance system," Alex noted, looking at Elric's latest, frantic dispatch—sent via a slow, written letter.
"The telegraph provides excellent strategic oversight, but zero tactical agility. We need to cut the wire."
The goal was to invent a simple field radio—a device that could send and receive coded pulses (like the telegraph) but wirelessly, using the principles of electromagnetism.
Alex returned to his first energy source: the Voltaic Pile (battery). He knew a massive jolt of electricity could create a wave, and a simple antenna could catch it. He tasked Garth and Marcus with the next level of electrical engineering.
* The Transmitter (The Spark): Using the battery's energy, they built a simple induction coil—a heavy loop of copper wire—which, when the circuit was rapidly closed, would generate a high-voltage spark across a small air gap (the spark-gap transmitter).
* The Antenna (The Catcher): A simple, elevated copper rod was used as the antenna, and a corresponding rod at the receiver was connected to a primitive coherer—a glass tube filled with metal filings that would stick together when hit by an electromagnetic wave, allowing the signal pulse to register.
The technology was crude, unreliable, and had a terrible range, but it worked.
"We have created a wave that carries information, Garth," Alex explained. "It flows through the air, not the copper."
"It's loud, My Lord," Garth complained, rubbing his ears after the first test. "And it smells of brimstone."
"Loud is acceptable, Garth. Slow is not. This is the sound of instantaneous tactical command."
***
Alex immediately deployed ten of the bulky, battery-powered field radios to Commander Elric's logistical camps, bypassing the Royal Quartermasters entirely.
He also equipped the AGC's lead Security Foremen—now acting as mobile tactical units along the rail construction—with the field radios. This allowed the AGC headquarters back at the manor to instantly vector security teams based on real-time threats.
The effectiveness was immediate.
Commander Elric, for the first time in the war, could coordinate cavalry charges and supply drops over distances instantly, collapsing the enemy's reaction time. The barbarians, fighting armies that suddenly moved with impossible speed and coordination, began to be systematically routed.
The soldiers, seeing the bulky, complicated box that emitted static and clicked in response to a far-off command, did not call it a "radio."
They called it the "Viscount's Voice" or the "Mind-Speaker Box." A persistent rumor spread through the ranks that Viscount Arren could hear every complaint and every strategic mistake, leading to unnervingly high morale and discipline among the troops supplied by the Syndicate.
The war provided massive revenue, but it created an ethical and administrative strain that Alex had to manage, despite his logical detachment.
Hemlock, processing the accounts for the war effort, developed a nervous twitch. "My Lord, the Syndicate has purchased the entire regional supply of winter cloaks! The civilian populace will freeze!"
"The war effort dictates resource allocation, Hemlock," Alex stated, attempting a neutral tone. "The cost of losing the war, statistically, is higher than the cost of localized civilian inconvenience. We have optimized for the survival of the state."
However, Alex's underlying moral systems—which dictated that widespread suffering was an inefficiency—forced a compromise. He used the field radio to communicate with his foremen: divert 5% of the rail capacity for three days to haul high-yield grain and excess charcoal from the Syndicate's reserves to key civilian centers, sold at a zero-profit, subsidized rate.
He didn't do it out of charity; he did it as social risk mitigation. Widespread starvation led to riots, which led to supply chain disruption—a factor that would damage the Syndicate's long-term profitability.
The Arren Syndicate was now not only the military supplier and chief financier but also the primary provider of emergency relief, simply because the state itself was too feudal and inefficient to manage complex logistics.
Next priority: The reliance on fragile paper currency is still a risk, especially during wartime. The Syndicate needs a global, unseizable, mathematically secure asset to back its currency and finance future expansion. It's time to invent the concept of the Global Gold Standard (or its equivalent).