After I responded to Jeff's post, I got to thinking about the speed of communications in Celandra. For simplicity, I'm ignoring magical means of communication, and focusing on the traditional messenger on horse back. The website gives a speed of 25 miles per day for normal riding or walking, and 50 miles per day for a forced march or forced gallop. That works out to an average speed of 2.5 mph and 5 mph, respectively, assuming that one only rides for 10 hours per day. On Earth, some long-distance riders have averaged 58 miles per day at 5.8 miles per hour. The Pony Express riders averaged 9 mph over a 25 mile-long stage, or 90 miles per day. A Scottish laird covered the 105 miles between Aberdeen and Inverness in 7 hours, averaging 15 mph, and switching horses 8 times, for an astonishing 150 miles per day, again assuming only 10 hours of riding per day. I first looked at the Thalcedon-Caladyn route. The distance between the two cities is 550 miles as the crow flies. Using the website numbers, it would take 44 days at a normal pace to make the round trip between the two cities, and 22 days for a round trip at a forced pace. This would mean that if a situation requiring the urgent action of the Regency Council were to arise in Caladyn, it would take 11 days for news of the crisis to reach Thalcedon, 11 days for a courier carrying the Council's orders to return to Caladyn, and another 11 days before the Council would receive confirmation that the orders arrived in Caladyn, for a total of 33 days. This is a nearly unworkable lag. Then I looked at the Thalcedon-Fauve Monde route. The capitals of Cedonia and Burcancy are 900 miles apart, as the crow flies. This translates into round trip times of 2 months, 12 days at normal pace and 1 month, 6 days at forced pace. If the Cedonian Ambassador to Burcancy needs to consult with his government in negotiations, it will be just over a month before negotiations can continue. Back in the days of the Old Cedonian Empire, the cycle of reporting a problem, sending orders, and confirming receipt of orders would have taken over a quarter-year. However, introducing a Pony Express-style system of relay riders greatly speeds things up. Using the 9 mph over 25 mile-stages, the 550 miles between Thalcedon and Caladyn can be covered in 2 days, 13 hours one way; 5 days, 2 hours for the round trip. For the Thalcedon-Fauve Monde route, the numbers improve to 4 days, 4 hours one way; 8 days, 8 hours round trip. So, for an ordinary traveller, it's 22 days from Thalcedon to Caladyn at a normal pace, but dispatch riders carrying mail make the same journey in about 2.5 days. As far as communication by sea is concerned, the Thalcedon-Fauve Monde trip takes 9 to 14 days by sea. Thalcedon to Mirabalpur is a 6 to 10 day trip; in fact, nearly every port on the Midsea is within about 10 days of Mirabalpur by sea. So, at the height of the Old Cedonian empire it would have taken about 9 days for a message sent from Thalcedon to arrive at Jall in Hisaria via dispatch rider. On the other hand, a merchant caravan, moving much slower, would take about 80 days to cover the same distance one-way. Forced-marching troops could reach Hisaria from Thalcedon in about 40 days. This sort of figuring gives a better sense of the size of Qaiyore than simple distances. Andrew Janssen ---------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, send mail to celandra-off@phoenyx.net.
