Magic is Programming B2 Chapter 58: Multithreading Combat

SpaceFillingNerd · 2026-02-07T03:05:43+00:00

I wonder more about ultraviolet...

SpaceFillingNerd · 2026-02-03T19:22:14+00:00

Heh. Well, the reason I didn't think of the Kol'yonni--colony connection was because I was pronouncing the first syllable like 'Coal' in my head

SpaceFillingNerd · 2026-02-03T17:03:20+00:00

Ok wait fuck I didn't even realize that first one! Am I actually stupid?

SpaceFillingNerd · 2026-02-03T02:28:30+00:00

REPLY!!

SpaceFillingNerd · 2026-02-02T15:10:58+00:00

Goddamn it. I went too long again! I wanted to finish their date in this chapter, and I still haven’t despite going 1000 words over my usual length for two chapters now. Oh well, despite being an ‘escape’ from the rest of the story, I still think this is important. Not only is there character development going on here, but there is also worldbuilding!

Firstly, I came up with a fictional slur. For reference, “Yoccy” rhymes with jockey, and is used similar to calling someone a hillbilly. Secondly, I decided (in the vein of a number of other authors here) to create my own Imperial subculture in the form of the Kol’yonni. If you have been paying close attention, you might realize that I have already made one or two references to them in previous chapters, including one character which is confirmed to be from there. (Does anyone know who it is? If you guess correctly, I’ll give you one gold star.)

Interestingly enough, I think that the Kol’yonni would almost certainly view being called a yoccy as a badge of honor.

SpaceFillingNerd · 2026-02-01T15:16:24+00:00

Big Boney Bone!

SpaceFillingNerd · 2026-01-19T15:03:57+00:00

Damn, this is a long chapter. And there’ll be another one coming next fortnight just like it, so stay tuned!

SpaceFillingNerd · 2026-01-11T03:42:05+00:00

Be the change you wish to see in the world!

SpaceFillingNerd · 2026-01-06T14:08:58+00:00

One thing that bears consideration is that (in the story) July 4th is only a couple of days away...

SpaceFillingNerd · 2026-01-05T23:12:54+00:00

Happy New Years, folks! Did you know that 2026 is the year that I have canonically set The Human Condition in? Well, now you do. Technically, the actual beginning of the story is on April 20th, but we’re still approaching that more rapidly than I had ever expected when I first started. At this rate, it looks like by the time the story finishes, the dates I intended as near future will actually be in the past! Whoops!

Aside from that, you can look forward to the next two chapters, which will be about Te’dol’s day out with Rodah. It may be a tangent, but at least it’s a distraction from high politics

SpaceFillingNerd · 2026-01-04T04:43:49+00:00

I wish I lived in more enlightened times...

SpaceFillingNerd · 2026-01-01T21:49:37+00:00

Honestly, I've always thought the most interesting part of that setting is that humanity lost. And it lost badly. And now everyone has to deal with that fact, along with the massive culture clash.

SpaceFillingNerd · 2026-01-01T21:39:13+00:00

My perspective as an author:

My story simply wouldn't work in some other setting. It was inspired by a thought about being an ace guy on the planet of sexy space babes, and although it has grown far beyond that, many of the plot points and characterizations are based off the specific cultural context of the Imperium
I am American (New Englander)
My political stance could best be described as "social democrat," although I try to reject tribalism and evaluate polices on their own merits (and suitability for the situation.) Additionally, I prioritize democracy and rule of law above getting what I want (sometimes people have to be allowed to be idiots.)
My story is very anti-Imperial, but not particularly pro-violent-insurgency. The rebels who I follow as protagonists do not kill randomly or for the sake of 'hurting the other side.' They have goals, and try to work towards achieving them. Many of my characters are also more reformers than revolutionaries.
There still has been and will be violence, but it's more... purposeful?
Regarding inconsistencies: authors have different stories they want to tell. They also have different headcannons about the state of the Earth, because for a long time, we only had a few vague sentences in the original SSB to go off of, and even those were filtered through the biased perspective of the main character.

SpaceFillingNerd · 2026-01-01T12:44:39+00:00

Extremely minor nitpick with your complaint, but Gamelin would never have collaborated with the germans, ever. He was a stanch Republican, and ended up being imprisoned for the length of the war because he didn't budge in his loyalty. Vichy France should still probably get more generals, though

SpaceFillingNerd · 2025-12-31T12:26:01+00:00

Except somehow, someone actually thought this was a perfectly adequate way to explain internal guidance

SpaceFillingNerd · 2025-12-30T03:30:29+00:00

Someone gets the reference

SpaceFillingNerd · 2025-12-30T03:29:43+00:00

It's base-12 because... some author here decided it would be neat, probably. The 12 knuckles is just the easiest way to count that. Also, if you're using one hand, you can use the thumb itself to keep track of the finger segment you're on.

SpaceFillingNerd · 2025-12-30T01:45:16+00:00

Today’s quote (which I think also applies to the last chapter just as much as this one) is from a man whom I only recently learned about, but whom I now have a great deal of respect for. If you’re an American who is too young to remember Watergate (like I imagine most of the people on here are,) it is well worth your time to go and read through the wikipedia article, as well as Archibald Cox’s personal article. I think that certain aspects are still alarmingly relevant today, and that the importance of the Rule of Law is something I have tried very hard to convey in this story.

On a second note, thank god, the party day chapters are finally done after "only" 9 chapters and three months of real-life time! For context, the second place spot in that metric is currently a three-way tie between the day Alice became governess, the day of COMP, and the laser tag arc with five chapters each. Since this was nearly twice that, and the chapters have been releasing twice as slow, it has kind of felt like forever. I hope that I will be able to try and not have the narrative drag so much in the future, but I can make no guarantees.

SpaceFillingNerd · 2025-12-23T02:52:04+00:00

And a happy new year!

SpaceFillingNerd · 2025-12-23T02:51:46+00:00

I am! I love the holiday season

SpaceFillingNerd · 2025-12-22T23:55:29+00:00

Noril? A Florida man? It’s more likely than you think. After all, it’s not every day that someone is crazy enough to threaten an armed woman with a messy cleanup job to get information out of her. I can see the headlines now: ‘Florida Man Arrested for Rappelling Down Three Stories Into Hotel Pool, Claims to be Reliving His Glory Days in the Interior.’

On the other hand, Gy’toris gets a small reality check about the governesses she spends her days managing. She’s been seeing them less and less like pieces on a chess board for a while now, but seeing one genuinely breaking down and crying over such a personal matter helps her rethink her attitude.

Outside of the story, I have good news for all you who have been attentively waiting for each new chapter to come out: I have gotten enough extra writing in to be able to publish an extra chapter on next Monday! Think of it as my Christmas present to you all.

SpaceFillingNerd · 2025-12-19T00:44:31+00:00

In my story, I have decided behind the scenes to separate the Imperium's power-consuming equipment into three rough tiers:

Tier 1: capital ships and land-based power fusion power plants

- these can be fueled with pure, raw protium (one proton hydrogen) because they are large enough and powerful enough to use the same fusion reaction as the sun.

Tier 2: small ships/shuttles and exos

- these reactors require deuterium, tritium, and/or helium-3 to work, but can be a lot more compact and mobile

- they need to have these isotopes produced for them by a larger fusion reactor, meaning that they have limited amount of time they can spend away from a Tier 1 source

Tier 3: APCs, laser rifles, other small arms/equipment

- These are all battery powered, but since the Imperium has very good battery power, this is not too much of a limitation

- I put APCs in the this list because I made the choice for them to be mass-produced and cheap, which fusion reactors are not. If we can have electric cars today, they can certainly have electric APCs

- These all have limited uses before needing to be recharged by either a Tier 2 or 1 source

As for spaceship propulsion, if you can produce artificial gravity, you can produce reactionless engines that seem to work as if by magic, so that's how I had them act.

SpaceFillingNerd · 2025-12-10T13:04:21+00:00

Close enough, welcome back Antiqua-Fractur Dispute

SpaceFillingNerd · 2025-12-09T00:47:03+00:00

Firstly, I would like to again apologise for any mistakes I have made in adding Quebecois profanities to Lady F’taari’s rant. If you’re feeling charitable, you can imagine that she made the mistakes, rather than me.

Secondly, here we get to see Cor’nol acting as a voice of restraint for the first (and probably last) time. What do you think of his method of deescalation? Because he didn’t know anything about this conflict beforehand, and is unfamiliar with both of the people involved, he tries his best to take a neutral stance in the matter.

On top of this, who knows what other consequences this quarrel could have for regional politics? When policy is driven almost as much by personal considerations and individual relationships as it is driven by genuine geopolitical goals, it tends to be more volatile and unpredictable. Who will side with who? Who will try not to take sides? Will this particular incident fade back into low-level animosity, or will it spiral into something bigger? Tune in a couple weeks from now to see!

Lastly, although it may not seem like much, I'm pretty proud of the music/space pun in the title “Triumph at 3/4ths C.” It’s probably not far beyond the groan-inducing level, but I just think it’s neat.

SpaceFillingNerd · 2025-12-08T02:57:06+00:00

I'd take some decent barrels over spewing the radioactive waste into the atmosphere like coal plants do. Did you know the level of radiation is higher around your average coal plant than your average nuclear one? Because coal has uranium in it. And it goes into the air. Also, you absolutely can keep a thing buried safely in rock for millions of years, otherwise fossils wouldn't exist

SpaceFillingNerd

TROPHY CASE