🫘

Not remotely covered by the system generator but I have snagged the physicist about it and got them talking because this is a fun question so:

Earth's magnetic field is in microtesla so even a pretty little increase will have an effect

Anything that involves moving electrons around will be affected - in power transmission, for example, electrons aren't moving all that fast but the charge is travelling at about two thirds the speed of light.

An electromagnetic wave (like light or radio waves) is half in the magnetic field so if your background magnetic field is strong enough you'd get something happening, but whether that's a block or an amplification is a question for a different kind of physicist.

Exactly how the magnetic field increase affects your signal transmission is out of field for either of us sorry.

My instinct is to say that actually the magnetic field probably wouldn’t do much provided that it’s constant or roughly constant with time; light is a pair of oscillating electric and magnetic fields, but because of the principle of superposition, light can still travel through electric and magnetic fields because the oscillation remains, it’s just that the ‘zero state’ shifts. That is, instead of oscillating between, say, positive and negative 35 nanoteslas (ie the strength of the magnetic field due to sunlight at the surface of the earth, according to this Reddit user (https://www.reddit.com/r/askastronomy/comments/1m96yjo/solar_magnetic_field_strength_at_earths_surface/) (I. Don’t want to do the math right now.)), it would oscillate between, say, 20.003 and 19.997 microteslas. However, this is exactly what happens on Earth, and we can still get sunlight and radio waves. Basically the same thing would happen on this hypothetical planet; the only way it would interfer with light is if it were also oscillating on a similar timescale- which is to say on the order of around a trillion times a second. This can’t happen due to a spinning metallic core, but if the planet were putting off blackbody radiation due to heat, I could conceive of that being sufficient to ‘jam’ some frequencies. However I’m not sure if that would happen at the desired frequencies at reasonable temperatures. This may be a case where you need to apply a little bit of Artistic License and do it anyways.

TLDR: A strong magnetic field around a planet is going to make your space weather situation ~funky~ (with consequences).

Ignoring solar wind effects, a breathable atmosphere means that there will be a plasma formed around your planet that will move along/interact with your planet's strong magnetic field. This has the potential cause some problems with communications both on-planet and between planet and space, since waves of certain frequencies can't pass though a plasma the same way they do normal atmosphere and empty space.

A planet that for whatever reason cant communicate with the outside solar system and therefore has to rely on physical mail, even in a GFFA type universe where space travel is commonplace, is a super fun concept imo. Snail mail planet.

Links below if you're curious, showing some of the differences between planets with strong/weak mag fields and a short one about Earth's magnetosphere that talks a bit about the impacts on space travel at the end.

Here we go. Version 1.1 is a little chaotic but it works, and Version 1.2, which attempts to reduce the chaos, still only works about half the time on my machine. This is possibly primarily a 1-D-10-T error, but I'm working on it. I've hosted stuff on CryptDrive because it doesn't demand an email address, doesn't allow AI scraping, and is registered in Europe.

This link goes to a PDF of detailed, me-proof instructions for downloading and running the thing and reading the output. The physicist has not reviewed these so any errors are mine. I am not very good at Matlab yet, so if you have shortcuts or more elegant ways of doing things, please do let me know.

This link goes directly to a download of the zipped folder containing all the code you need to run the star system generator on Matlab. I've tested it on Matlab R2025a, and the physicist has written and run it on (we think) Matlab R2023b. No promises are made for other versions.

Please take whatever precautions you think reasonable before opening a zipped file of code downloaded from an encrypted cloud drive hosted by a complete stranger.

Suggestions for future versions are not particularly welcome because there is a plan in place, and if you ask for something that's already mentioned in the readme as a planned future feature I will just point you back to the readme. Bug reports and questions are very welcome; please send a screenshot as a Tumblr ask to this blog. Expect at least a 48-hour turnaround on questions.

If you pick this up and run with it and do something amazing with it, as I'm sure many of you will, please tag this blog in a post about it! We'd love to see what y'all get up to.

The license terms are set out in the readme as follows:

In my head Secunit is like old like

meanwhile three is like

[ID: A playlist titled "spock explains pon farr to kirk" by user taken from amok time. The playlist is 4 hours and 5 minutes long and uses song titles to spell out an entire conversation, here transcribed in plain text:

"Captain, there are some things which transcend even the discipline of the service." "Would it help if I told you that I'll treat this as totally confidential?" "It has to do with biology." "What?" "Biology" "What kind of biology?" "Vulcan biology" "You mean the biology of Vulcans?" "Biology, as in, reproduction?" "Well, there's no need to be embarrassed about it Mr. Spock. It happens to the birds and the bees." End ID]

thanks to @nebulations for the ID recommendation to increase accessibility :)

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HERE IS THE PLAYLIST FOR THOSE WHO WANTED IT

Happy (slightly belated on both counts) fifth birthday and 30,000 views to Ganaka Pit, my Murderbot Diaries animatic!!

It hit 30,000 views on the 3rd of this month and turned 5 on the 7th. Genuinely still staggered by the amount of love so many people hold for this - I'm proud of it, of course I am, and I was proud of it to begin with, but to see it still getting attention and so many lovely comments on a steady trajectory five whole years later is literally mindblowing.

[Summary of this post]

This is a guide to common warning signs in Discord communities, including (1) toxic positivity, (2) gaslighting, (3) tone policing, (4) derailment, (5) groupthink, and (6) lack of transparency. It explains how these behaviours show up in online spaces, why they are harmful, and how to recognise when a server’s culture is becoming unhealthy. It may also help moderators and community leaders reflect on whether their server shows any of these patterns and consider healthier approaches.

Discord is a wonderful tool for bringing people together. Large servers can become lively communities where people from all over the world casually drop in – someone shares a picture of their lunch while someone else says goodnight. These spaces can feel familiar and fun.

But even in friendly communities, server culture can slowly turn sour. Sometimes people contribute to a harmful environment without realising it, genuinely believing they are helping. Other times, the harm is subtle enough that many members stay oblivious while a few begin to feel uncomfortable.

When you get to know people on a server, it can become difficult to acknowledge that something is wrong. You might find yourself becoming a bystander, or if you’re negatively affected, you might start doubting your own perception and feeling increasingly distressed.

To avoid that spiral, it helps to recognise early warning signs of an unhealthy server environment. Below is a summary of common red flags, based on personal research and guidance from Discord’s own Safety Center, as well as other sources.

[Red Flags to Watch Out For]

Conclusion

These signs don’t always mean a server is malicious, but they do mean you should pay attention to how the space makes you feel. Healthy servers make space for concerns, listen when something feels off, and adjust when needed. Unhealthy ones often repeat the same patterns, dismiss feedback, or protect the status quo instead of the people in the community. If you recognize several of these warning signs and attempts to speak up are met with defensiveness or silence, it may be a sign that the environment is not willing to change.

In those situations, the safest and most peaceful option is often to step away without fanfare. You do not need to justify your feelings or convince anyone on your way out. Your well‑being matters, and you deserve to be in spaces where your voice is respected.

or, in other words,

If the community dynamics in a discord server don't work for you, if you're feeling uncomfortable with the space for any reason, if you've seen people trying to make changes or raise concerns (or tried to do it yourself!) but attempts to do so are consistently denied, derailed, downplayed, etc... it is okay to just leave without fixing things. You can stay in touch with the friends you have made in that space and leave the rest behind.

The Murderbot Diaries Starmap! ✨🧭

Routes Traveled by Murderbot:

Port FreeCommerce - Unnamed Station in Mihira & New Tideland System: [unknown time]

Mihira & New Tideland - RaviHyral: 21 cycles

RaviHyral - [Unnamed]: 7 cycles

[Unnamed] - HaveRatton: 26 cycles

HaveRatton - Milu: 20 cycles

HaveRatton - "hub station": 7 cycles

"hub station" - TranRollinHyfa: 4 cycles

Preservation - NE Survey Planet: 4 Preservation cycles

Preservation - Adamantine Colony: 20 cycles

Other Locations:

All Systems Red Survey Planet

Divarti Cluster: Tapan's collective is from this noncorporate polity.

Kalidon: Corporate Rim political entity where company funding Ganaka was based.

GoodNightLander Independent's home polity: Noncorporate, ownership of SecUnits banned.

Parthalos Absalo: Noncorporate.

WayBrogatan: Indie station.

Network Effect Survey Planet.

Station from the short story Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy.

UplandGateway One: Nearest station to the Mihira & New Tideland system. Corporate charters say stations are supposed to be independent/sovereign territory.

Planetary Torus.

I tried making noncorporate polities warm-colored and corporate ones cool-colored. But not sure I got that all right, and sometimes it's ambiguous.

I would like to add that we actually have a decent idea of the time to travel from PortFreeCommerse to Mihira & New Tideland. In the first chapter of Artificial Condition, during the first meeting of Perihelion and MB, we get this line:

"This is why I had been a free agent among humans for less than seven cycles, including time spent alone on a cargo transport, and I already needed a vacation."

So less than seven cycles, but probably not that much less.

Note that it mentions that news could have

"come through a wormhole with one of the faster passenger transport"

updated:

~3 hours for the alien-remnant-speed wormhole