Project Lamplighter (not a project)¶
Project Lamplighter exists because too many things in Ankh-Morpork have recently been working almost correctly. Messages arrive, but slightly late. Signals repeat, but not quite identically. Decisions propagate through guilds with an enthusiasm that feels … coordinated.
That sort of thing.
Stated purpose (the paperwork version)¶
“To ensure continuity, integrity, and predictability of the city’s signalling and decision-making infrastructure.”
This sentence has been approved three times, mostly because nobody can quite remember what it means.
Actual purpose (the real one)¶
Project Lamplighter is a city-wide defensive correlation effort:
Mapping all signalling paths: semaphore, post, guild messengers, informal runners, and suspiciously reliable pigeons
Identifying choke points where information can be delayed, altered, or nudged
Detecting coordinated influence attempts that look like coincidence until you line them up
In modern terms, it is threat hunting. In Ankh-Morpork terms, it is noticing when several people have the same bad idea at once.
Why now?¶
Because someone has been testing the city. Not breaking it. Measuring it.
Small probes. Harmless-seeming experiments. The sort of thing former hackers recognise immediately and never admit to out loud.
The Scarlet Semaphore has noticed.
The Department has noticed that the Scarlet Semaphore has noticed.
The Patrician noticed first.
Who is staffed on it¶
Analysts who used to be very inventive criminals
Operators who know how systems fail politely
A liaison who insists they are “definitely not from the Patrician’s office”
Participation is voluntary.
Declining participation is also voluntary, but comes with career counselling.
Expected outcome¶
Nothing.
And that is the point.
If Project Lamplighter succeeds, nothing dramatic will happen, no crisis will occur, and no one will ever know how close the city came to needing a very different sort of stability department.
The lamps will stay lit. The signals will behave. The city will wobble, as usual, but not fall over.
Which, according to the Patrician, is the only acceptable definition of success.