About the red lanterns¶

Stated aim (as overheard, never written down): “To see what happens if the city’s routing assumptions are … questioned.”, said with the same tone one might use when wondering whether a supporting wall is load-bearing.

What they are actually poking at¶

In Ankh-Morpork terms, this is messenger routing. In modern terms, yes, it looks suspiciously like BGP.

The Scarlet Semaphore are interested in:

• Who announces routes

• Who trusts those announcements

• How quickly false paths propagate

• How long it takes for anyone sensible to notice

They are not trying to break the city. They are trying to find out how easily it could be persuaded to misdeliver itself.

Method (Semaphore style)¶

Very informal. Alarmingly clever.

• False but plausible signal announcements

• Competing semaphore paths that look “more efficient”

• Gentle hijacks that reroute information without stopping it

• Observing which guilds panic first and which do not notice at all

Everything is reversible.

Mostly.

Relationship with the Department of Silent Stability¶

Officially: none. Practically: everyone involved assumes they are being watched and proceeds anyway.

The Department calls this unsanctioned resilience testing. The Patrician calls it useful information gathering. No one uses those phrases in front of each other.

There is a standing, unspoken rule:

• If the Department intervenes, the Operation stops immediately

• If they do not, the findings are quietly … shared

Risk posture¶

High curiosity. Moderate danger. Severe consequences if someone gets creative without thinking.

This is why several former Semaphore members now work for the Department. Not as punishment. As continuity.

Current status¶

Ongoing, intermittently paused for tea, arguments, and ethical discussions that sound suspiciously like technical debates.

Nothing has gone wrong yet.

Which, frankly, is making everyone more nervous than if something had.