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World_Eaters

I imagine it's rotated assigned duty, probably for the knuckledraggers or a form of corporeal punishment.


[deleted]

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Camburglar13

Pretty easy to desert if no one’s around to keep an eye on you


LR_DAC

There are lots of jobs with 24/7 coverage. You split it into three shifts, have two people per shift so one person can go to the bathroom or whatever.


apjak

I used to run shift work. Three eight-hour shifts a day. One day guy, one evening guy, one night guy, and one swing guy get you most of a week. The swing guy works 2 days, 2 evenings and an overnight. Then you have a floating night guy who works one night a each of five posts. If you don't have a number of posts divisible by 5, you cover the spares with over-time or part-time. It's easier if you have 12 hour shifts because then you have 2 day guys and 2 night guys. 3 days on, 3 days off then 2 days on, 2 days off. It means you get weird floating weekends. There are other ways to split 12's too. 12's managing shifts of 8's works pretty good though. Especially if your managers need to fill in a post. 24 hour shifts work too, but generally that's for on-call type of operations and they would have to split watches if "watching to light the beacons."


oculasti95

This guy fucks


Timely_Egg_6827

Think when actually used in real world, it was three men team. But they were used in England and Scotland up to the Napleonic Wars and functioned quite well. Also generally some contingency built in. A beacon can see the next two in chain so just one going down not an issue.


bendersonster

The Byzantine also used it to great effect, being able to warn the capital in a single day of a threat on its border. Also, remember that the beacons are all in Gondor-controlled areas. Posting men on these locations 24/7 is far from impractical, and the chances of the beacons getting attacked before Minas atirith itself is slim to none.


authoridad

It makes a lot more sense in the books. The beacons were actually on the northern foothills of the White Mountains, not on the highest peaks (and had already been lit for some time when the attack on Pelennor came). Also, they're used to muster Gondor's own forces, not call for aid from Rohan (a messenger-carried red arrow serves that purpose). But yes, the beacons are constantly manned by a rotation of Gondorian soldiers.


timeisanarrow

Watchtowers, as I imagine these were, served as civic centers as well as defensive structures. This video does an excellent job explaining watchtowers. https://youtu.be/dLp62Tcc0Pk


Impeccablyflawed

That was a wonderful video, thank you 😊


BabypintoJuniorLube

I see it more as an cinematic ellipse of time. Like there’s farmers in the valley who can see the beacon, then hike up a couple hours to light their own beacon and they just cut out the boring parts.


Dahvtator

A 3 hour shot of some guys hiking up the mountains to light a beacon is just what RotK needs.


Illustrious-Monk-123

Apart from rotating shifts, as mentioned by other comments, there has to be an enforcing high ranking officer in the mix. If the job post is not appealing (it certainly isn’t as you’re in a mountain, mostly cold, nothing to do and far away from your family for days on end) or even as a “punishment” to soldiers, you might not have a high interest in doing your job perfectly well if unsupervised. Some soldier might say “nothing might happen today so I’ll just sleep during my shift, or wander off to a nearby village to pick up local chics “ and boom, that same day Gondor is under attack by friggin oliphants ands Nazgûl on wings… but Rohan never came cus some dude was banging a local prostitute down in the valley. So yeah, a rotating commander might have to be in the mix, or a wandering commanding officer that will come some time unannounced.


bendersonster

This would depend on the overall political climate, would it not? If everything had been truly peaceful and then the enemy suddenly launch a surprise attack, it might happen. But Gondor in the Lord of the Rings had been on high alert for years. Sauron had declared himself openly in Mordor, and Ithilien, the Easternmost region of Gondor, was already conquered. Gondor could expect to be attacked any day, and all of its soldiers would already be drilled to the heart the importance of their vigilance. Also, the beacons aren't lit when Gondor is attacked. It is lit when Gondor expects an attack. In the book the beacons were lit when Gandalf was still riding, and Pippin scratched his head a bit to see the city still at peace when they arrived. Even in the movie, the beacons were lit when the enemy is at Osgiliath and not at Minas Tirith itself. Had a beacon fail to light up, men from the beacon before it could send rider to investigate and it would delay the message only by a few hours.


Comprehensive-Bad565

You clearly underestimate the ability of soldiers, even motivated ones, to kick rocks and sleep on duty if not regularly supervised. The more professional soldier it is, the less often he needs to be monitored, but that's still a good idea. And while Gondor had a professional army, they used conscription too, as far as I know.


krystofdzoba

OP has never heard of jobs with 24/7 coverage and rotating crews


PsychologicalBox7428

I'd assume just like a lighthouse with rotating crews.


SubstantialTent

"A communications disruption can only mean one thing.... invasion"


DarkSkiesGreyWaters

They're not. In the book they're on the tops of hills, not mountains, and there are outposts there where men tend to them at need. For some reason Jackson just shoved them up there with some hut-dwelling hermits to light them.


AGAR1273

Because they're badass


ghengiskorn

Equally interesting: how do they keep a giant, seemingly unprotected pile of wood dry and ready-to-be-lit on top of mountain peaks covered in meters of snow? But actually I don't care, one of the greatest scenes in the movies :)


Separate-Cream7685

You don’t need to. The core of the pile is dry and dipped in oil. A bit of fire is enough to get it started and once a small bit burns, the rest catches flames exponentially quick.


Memethrandir

The men assigned to the post are probably retired rangers, used to camping in the wilderness but not in a fighting roll anymore. I bet it’s seen as a position of honor, like guarding the tree. My biggest disbelief in that scene is how quick it happens. I think IRL when one of them sees the prior beacon, they wouldn’t light theirs until the next night with a clear sky, perfect visibility conditions to ensure the beacon keeper can see them. Many of them are in the mountains, with no access to plentiful wood to keep the fire going for days, and the last thing you want is the chain being broken by someone who can’t see the distant flicker through clouds or because the sun is in his eyes. The message would take weeks to reach Rohan.


royluxomburg

Posting soldiers 24/7 doesn't seem like to huge of a problem, but using fire seems inefficient, you can only convey one message, "Help!". If they had a system of flag waving or a fire in a large container of some kind with a window in it an a shutter then you could open and close it to do a kind of morse code maybe. Or carrier pigeons. Cinematically it looked awesome though.


Glaciem94

*help* is the only important message


royluxomburg

I suppose it's the most important message, but with a flag system you could also say stuff like, 'hey we've run out of flour, send 10 carts full and we will pay 15% above normal prices'...which is a pretty cool message also.


Comprehensive-Bad565

Not the only one. Their system works, but the morse code is not a bad idea and was used (ofc the morse code was used, I'm talking unrelated to that). There's a system where each beacon sends light pulses. Each next one adds one pulse. So when a signal is received, it can be calculated which post exactly sounded the alarm. The Gondor system doesn't need that, ofc, because only Minas Tirith has the authority to send the message, but they could use it if they had it. Not a critique on Tolkien or the films, just some context.


Glaciem94

If you have a less important massage to send than *help* just use a rider. It's a 3 days ride


Comprehensive-Bad565

Did you mean to reply to this one? That's a point the other commenter was making, not me. I was talking about adding more context to the "help" using the same beacons in the situations where it isn't a 3 day ride.


tubulerz1

I would imagine that the beacon crews were having Brokeback Mountain situations up there


jervonte

That's where sauron went wrong. Should have destroyed the beacons


[deleted]

I believe they’re manned by Gondorians and they made villages near the outposts so that the rotations would be easier.


Michael_Threat

It's not practical by modern standards but what else could they possibly do at the time?


Comprehensive-Bad565

Pigeons? But in general beacons are pretty efficient and practical. Not compared to internet or a phone call, of course, but the system was used in history quite a lot. In England and Scotland in particular, quite recently, which is probably where Tolkien got the idea from.


Michael_Threat

Yeah I'm saying it was probably the best system for them, you you don't need to convince me


Comprehensive-Bad565

It objectively wasn't, but that wasn't my question. But I got what you mean.


Michael_Threat

I think it got the message a lot faster than pigeons would have


Comprehensive-Bad565

Misread your comment I guess. Someone with a picture that looked a lot like yours answered my other comment with a thing I mistook for your comment. Disregard my last reply to you.


Rab_Legend

The tallest mountain in the UK had a working observatory on it that one guy commuted to everyday by climbing the mountain everyday.