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Area 24 · Act 4 · The Eastern Front

The Alice Springs Wire War

Alice Springs and the MacDonnell Ranges, Red Centre — red rock gaps, dry Todd River bed, spinifex flats funnelled between ochre ridgelines; the Overland Telegraph line runs straight through it on poles.

DAY 192: CANBERRA HAS NOT HEARD FROM CANBERRA'S OWN TELEGRAPH IN THREE DAYS. THE POLES ARE DELICIOUS, APPARENTLY.

The history behind it

The Overland Telegraph Station (est. 1872) is Australia's spinal cord to London. The emus discover that pecking one wooden pole silences the Minister for Defence's daily 'total victory within the fortnight' cable — and develop a taste for it. The army must defend 3,000 km of wire against a bird that has learned what infrastructure is.

Outposts (4)

Take all of them and the area is yours. Retreat halfway through and the ones you already hold stay held.

  1. Telegraph Station Compound

    Headquarters · Defence tier 4

    The historic stone repeater station, ringed with sandbags. A Sandbag Officer whistles reload buffs from behind the wall while two Lewis Gun Posts cover the only two gaps in the barbed wire perimeter — the wire deliberately funnels the swarm into the cones. Thrown rocks over the sandbags end the officer's career; the guns get slower and the mob pours in.

  2. Heavitree Gap Checkpoint

    Gun post · Defence tier 3

    The narrow pass through the MacDonnell Ranges — the only road south. One Lewis Gun Post plus a Rifleman Line wedged in a gap barely three trucks wide. No flanking room: this is a pure reload-timing fight, rushing during the 2.5s pan-fumble. Capturing it opens a friendly spawn point on the far side of the ranges.

  3. Pole Camp 87

    Supply depot · Defence tier 2

    A telegraph line-repair camp: stacked replacement poles, coils of wire, a supply truck, and a bored Rifleman Line guarding it. Tutorial-grade for this area, but the truck is a Truck-Mounted Lewis that bolts for the Telegraph Station when alerted — peck its tyres first or fight it again later at Tier 4's doorstep.

  4. Todd River Bed Battery

    Gun post · Defence tier 3

    Field Artillery dug into the bone-dry riverbed, lobbing shells at the swarm's predicted position across open spinifex flats. No cover for 200 metres — never stop moving, turn after every falling shadow. The crew folds instantly to pecks once you close, and the newsreel notes the river has not run in eleven years, so the 'strategic waterway' defence baffles everyone including the crew.