Wool: IT - How would you design the system? *potential spoilers*

[Nathan Blevins]

I just wrapped up Wool and I thought it was a great book. The author did a great job in building a credible story w/ the right mix of multidimensional conflicts w/ personal-interest stories that really drew me in. Great.

As an IT enthusiast, I could not help to find myself wondering how I would design the IT system to keep the the silo going. So, I thought I would pose the question to the group: if you were the designer of the silo, what would you have changed to keep the silos running?

Here's my list:

* Elevators - Why all the dang stairs? Have every level connected by a series of elevators and have that as the ONLY way to travel between areas. By controlling the elevators, you control movement between levels. Charge for use of elevators to keep movement to a minimum. Also, only allow authorized persons to stop on specific levels.

* Notification systems for monitoring - So, you get the idea that IT is logging everything, right? Why are they not getting notifications when buzz words come up? In several cases, there were emails & other such things that could have been easily scraped, held, & dealt with LONG before they could be come a problem.

* Ditch the radios - Why would you use such an insecure thing such a radio waves? Make it a closed network w/ VOIP and you are g2g. Create 1 highly secure WAN with which to communicate with other silo IT.

* Remote attack abilities - Level X giving you problems? Just gas them to knock them out & go collect. You could be much more evil, but lets not get grim.

* Automated defense / sentry systems - Enough said.

That's just a few off the top of my head. What about you?

[David Sven]

Nathan wrote: "* Elevators - Why all the dang stairs?
"

To restrict the flow of information between departments. You can keep the ultimate purpose of the suits secret if the various groups constructing materials and systems are kept separated.

Notification systems for monitoring - So, you get the idea that IT is logging everything, right? Why are they not getting notifications when buzz words come up?

Because not everyone in IT is "in" on the conspiracy. That sort of monitoring raises its own questions.

Ditch the radios - Why would you use such an insecure thing such a radio waves? Make it a closed network w/ VOIP and you are g2g. Create 1 highly secure WAN with which to communicate with other silo IT.

Needs equipment and maintenance which needs people to maintain them which needs more co conspirators. Lo tech is better?

Remote attack abilities - Level X giving you problems? Just gas them to knock them out & go collect. You could be much more evil, but lets not get grim.

* Automated defense / sentry systems

Again, difficult to keep secret.

[Robert of Dale]

The gassing of people could easily be explained as an impromptu repurposing of another system (like a sprinkler system), and monitoring as necessary to find agitators who are planning an uprising.

The elevators would be really hard to maintain, and the silo seems to be so vertically arranged that it would be necessary to have more elevators than there is space to put them, in order for people to travel from work to home to bazaar. That just doesn't seem practically possible.

However, having a highly expensive pair of elevators, one reserved for IT and/or Governor use, and another for public use, would give potential trouble-makers a tempting route up or down, which could be exploited by IT by locking them inside.