Guma

Published: 03 March 2007

This is something short on medieval fantasy, but what is presented is an idea on security. Specifically, it describes how dual-tasking agents can be used for individualistic authentication and collaboratively as a volumetric defense mechanism. Please feel free to develop this idea, but do drop me a note, an inverse could be applied as some sort of cipher component?

Guma began as a small circular patch of land. This circle is thought of to the ancient Gumaians to be holy. Gumaians are simple people and thought of trade as something that must be done within the realm of God. Hence, they only trade within the holy, circular patch of land. As their civilization grow, the Gumaians started to produce more goods and services. People from foreign lands started to trade with the Gumaians. These foreigners are mainly interested in the Syphora herbs and green stones that can only be cultivated and found around Guma. Nevertheless, Gumaians still maintained their belief of trading only within the circular holy land. They do not travel, and are never merchants. Their life revolves around mining, cultivating and trading them within the circular land.

As their trade grew larger, the circular land became more important. The lack of supply of sought-after Gumaian goods in outside market makes themprecious. The circular land soon was a common target of robbers. Sixteen of the most influential traders in Guma decided to pool their resources to place guard posts around the perimeter of their circular holy land. Sixteen huts carved out of solid stone were built, each spaced equally from one another. Ineach hut, each trader placed his very own guard. Foreign merchants that wish to trade in Guma will have to approach one of the guards to be allowed entry.

Entry is only allowed if the merchant is recognized as a valid trader by the Gumaian guard. Each guard is only in charge of merchants that are associated to his trade house, and this represents the first task of a guard hut.
So it goes, a foreign merchant coming to Guma to trade will have to know which guard hut to approach for entry. Entry will be denied as long as he is not authenticated by the guard hut, and to be on the list of allowed merchants, he needs to establish contact with a Gumaian trader first, either by recommendation or some other means. This initial setup ensures that all merchants that enter Guma are valid ones.

The second task of a guard hut is to participate in collaborative defense of Guma in its entirety. A gang of robbers denied entry will find itself in battle with guards from the 16 Gumaian huts. As time went on, more traders are added to the Gumaian holy circle, and soonafter, the establishment of a guard hut becomes a prerequisite to setup a trading facility in Guma. The number of guard huts grew, partly out of the increased amount of traders in Guma, and partly out of need: as Guma grew, it faces increasing threats from battle-hungry nations wanting to conquer and strong robbers wanting to loot. At the peak of Gumaian civilization, there were 2048 guard huts, forming the Gumaian decentralised-command army.

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