I just realized I'm out of culture audiobooks. Apparently they aren't all available in the US. I love audiobooks as an auditory learner. Really a bummer, I'm looking forward to excession but I can't find it..do I need to book a European vacation just to listen to it?

bonus: If you had to choose three to come back in time to help humanity in the 21st century in the form of LLMs, which ones would you pick and why?

It looks like several titles from the series will be available as audiobooks on Everand starting tomorrow, 15 November for anyone interested. Everand is a subscription service (about $12USD), and offers unlimited listening to their catalogue, unlike Audible which gives you one credit every month. I'm just getting started with the series, and I always like to mix listening and reading, so this is big for me! :)

EDIT: So I think I inadvertently lied. Seems Everand has added those titles to their catalogue, or maybe has changed their membership terms to include some previously premium titles to the list I can access. But I can only listen to so much per month? A bit frustrated now tbh and un-pausing audible lol.

Okay so I just finished Excession last night. I've read Consider Phlebas, Player of Games, Use of Weapons and State of the Art. I've seen many people put this book at the top of their list of Culture books. I honestly see why some people might feel that way. I don't. But this sort of describes my experience with it. For me, it was basically a meh story that I really enjoyed reading, which seems a strange thing to say, but I'll try and explain.

The Good:

I feel like this book is a must read if you want to read more than one or two Culture books. The world building is extremely extensive. We see many different civilizations, including ones that have left the culture. We only get the mind view from the Elenchers but we see Tier, which feels very culture like but also different.

I really loved the Affront. We finally get to see a truly alien culture and how they might interact with humans. Firstly, a species that is not humanoid whatsoever and a society built on the joy of inflicting pain and suffering.

We get a good look into the minds and how they interact with each other and pull the strings behind the scenes. The Culture is basically an anarchist state with ultra intelligent AI holding everything together. But they are not immune from greed and pride and ambition. So they have their own society that they build consensus and even conspire for their own aims, which include a benevolent yet condescending attitude towards life. "Meat" seems to be used as an expletive.

We get a full explanation of how FTL travel works in this universe. Basically its some kind of tacking between dimensions and an underlying power source that can be tapped into with the right technology. And it served the story.

I enjoyed the human part of the story quite a bit. The characters and how they came together at the end was satisfying for the most part.

One thing that I would normally be annoyed with is how long it took for the story to get going because we'd be introduced to new major characters up to half way through the story. But it didn't bother me because each new introduction fleshed out the world. It wasn't gratuitous for the most part and it was interesting. It didn't feel like the slow ramp up that it was. It was sort of like multiple vignettes that eventually came around to interact and build a main plot. I thought this was done very well.

The Bad:

I really struggled to keep track of all the ships. Basically the "Sleeper Service" was the only one I understood who it was by the end. We have all these back and forth tightbeam "emails" that I didn't realize were formatted that way for a while and at first I just rushed through them because it felt like information that wasn't meant to be understood. So I feel like I got lost on what the conspiracy was and who it was between and who was on the outs. I feel like there were likely cues on some reveals later on that I just missed. I'd turn the page and see this back and forth text and knew I'd be dreading the next few pages. It felt like school work trying to get through them and I know I'd be getting a D on the test...

!I still don't know what happened to the Elencher ships. They got corrupted and run by the Excession? But why? It seems like the Excession was reactive to whatever tried to interact with it, but I can't see the logic of how it did so. The Sleeper Service was charging towards the Excession so it sent out a wall of death in response. In final hail marry, SS sent its mind in a tightbeam at the Excession's wall of death and it backed off. But the Elencher ships didn't act aggressively towards it. They just sent probes to gather information. Maybe it just gave more information than was needed which corrupted the minds of the ships?!<

The Meh:

The story itself wasn't bad but it wasn't great either. >!The Excession itself was interesting but it was little more than a plot device. It didn't really do anything other than provide an object for people and minds to project upon and react to. Its basically the monolith from 2001 Space Odyssey... which is fine... but its kind of a worn out trope unless its developed a bit more.!<

So maybe its because of this that the story just kind of fizzles out at the end. Its building and building and building but we never get to that crescendo. >!The Byr and Dejeil arc was getting interesting and we were about to hear the tough conversation that has been building for several chapters, only to have it interupted by the bulge of the Excession coming to destroy them all. But we never return to it. We only see that Byr got his wish of becoming an Affront and that Dejeil had the baby and is living on the Sleeper Service. But we never really saw what led these people to get there from where we last saw them.!< There's a gap in time, which is totally fine, but also in the story arc itself, which is what makes it feel "meh" to me.

Likewise, the SS is on a somewhat undefined mission that has to do with >!the Excession, the Affront is barreling towards it with all the Pittance warships, we see the brave little ship: I CAN'T REMEMBER WHAT IT'S NAME IS do significant but insufficient damage to the fleet, the SS's 80K fleet of its own and now it looks like they'll all be destroyed by the wave of death and in a hail marry, the SS projects its mind toward it and.... the death wave dissipates and the Excession disappears. Everything and everyone returns to where they would have been without it being there to begin with, other than some of the ships involved in the conspiracy...!<

Again, I wouldn't put any of this in the "bad" category, just that it was kind of anti-climactic at the end. It sort of felt like a short story that was almost 500 pages long if that makes sense. Easy to read (mostly). Fun ideas and concepts. A kind of iffy ending but you had fun along the way. An enjoyable story, just not among my top in the series. I'd put it above State of the Art and probably Consider Phlebas but PoG and UoW were much better stories IMO.

On to Inversions! (though I hear that's not necessarily a Culture novel?)

This what I imagine the conversation between the SC Minds went:

https://youtu.be/kCXTq-fWWio?si=ypbyj2UoFbWeroC_

"You mean they tortured him [Hamin]?"

"Only a little. He's old and they had to keep him alive for whatever punishment the Emperor decided on. The apex exo-controller and some other henchman have been impaled, the plea-bargaining crony's getting caged in the forest to await the Incandescence, and Hamin's being deprived of age drugs; he'll be dead in forty or fifty days."

This exchange seems like just an offhand display of the Empire of Azad's brutality, but I think Hamin's particular punishment is also an outstanding example of literary of symbolism, intentionally put there by Iain Banks. Why?

Because Hamin is a literary stand-in here for the entire Empire, and, specifically, the game of Azad. As Worthil explains, most societies evolve past authoritarian forms of government long before they reach the Empire of Azad's technological level:

"These stars," Worthil said - the green-colored stars, at least a couple of thousand suns, flashed once - "are under the control of what one can only describe as an empire. Now..." The drone turned to look at him [Gurgeh]. The little machine lay in space like some impossibly large ship, stars in front of it as well as behind it. "It is unusual for us to discover an imperial power-system in space. As a rule, such archaic forms of authority wither long before the relevant species drags itself off the home planet, let alone cracks the lightspeed problem, which of course one has to do, to rule effectively over any worthwhile volume."

"Every now and again, however, Contact disturbs some particular ball of rock and discovers something nasty underneath. On every occasion, there is a specific and singular reason, some special circumstance which allows the general rule to go by the board. In the case of the conglomerate you see before you - apart from the obvious factors, such as the fact that we didn't get out there until fairly recently, and the lack of any other powerful influence in the Lesser Cloud - that special circumstance is a game."

What Flere-Imsaho tells Gurgeh much later could be seen as an addendum to what Worthil said:

"The Empire's been ripe to fall for decades; it needed a big push, but it could always go. Coming in 'all guns blazing' as you put it is almost never the right approach; Azad - the game itself - had to be discredited. It was what held the Empire together all these years - the linchpin; but that made it the most vulnerable point, too."

Gurgeh did not just beat Nicosar. He beat the game of Azad. Once he did that, the Empire fell with just a bit of additional Cultural nudging. The Empire had been traveling on a downward slope well before the game between Nicosar and Gurgeh, and it might have fallen without Cultural help eventually, just after living an unnaturally long life. The game is the Empire's anti-aging drug.

To take this a bit further, Nicosar is the Emperor (well, Emperor-Regent, technically). He is at the top of the hierarchy. In military slang, he is the HMFIC (Head Mother Fucker In Charge). However, even though he has the most power in the Empire's structure, he still only has power within that structure. Firstly, his power is not absolute. For example, Flere-Imsaho says that Nicosar can use his Imperial veto on wagers which are not body-bets, implying that he cannot veto body-bets. Secondly, Azad is the glue holding the Empire together. Once that went away, Nicosar and his power would have gone with him even if he had outlasted his game with Gurgeh. Nicosar has the most formal power, but Hamin, being the rector of an Azad college, is a representative, leader, and literary symbol of the system without which the Empire cannot exist.

Isn't it only fitting that his fate mirrors the fate of his Empire?

I've been meaning to write this for awhile and in responding to someone in r/Stoicism I realized I'd summarized it fairly well.

The thing I don't care for in the Culture novels (only read the first four) is that the thinking of the people, and even the machines, doesn't seem at all evolved from our own thinking.

Here's what I wrote over there...

Technology is not the solution, and in many ways it makes the problems of humanity worse. It doesn't have to be that way, but it is because we lack the fundamental philosophy to deal with our technology and everything else.

We have to teach our children to recognize and deal with the monkey that lives in their skull. The monkey, or pre-human, or instinct, or whatever you want to call it, that's the part that lives in a dualist, binary world of us and them, in-tribe and out-tribe, and that thinks in terms of dominance and submission. Humanity won't get better until a large portion of the population learns to see that box and step out of it.

Humans are apes, with ape brains and ape instincts, but we're apes that can make up stories to justify mass murder so that we don't have to feel bad about, in fact, we can feel righteous, cause that out-tribe had it coming for their evil ways.

I can't imagine a utopia where we still think like apes. Even with infinite resources humans would still invent reasons to create tribes and fight between them.

Maybe the Culture has that philosophy, but I didn't see it in the books I read, and I don't believe the Culture could exist without it.

Edit: It doesn't matter that the humans of the culture aren't the apes of Earth. The thinking that shows in the book looks like what I see on Earth and I don't think we can get from here to there without changing our thinking.

I'm really pleased with the thoughtful nature of the replies and I'll try to reply but I have to go do my wage-slave thing. 😉

I don't know if this kind of post is allowed but I just read elon musk was brought into a phone conversation between Zelenski and trump...

Does anyone else feel like elon is the real life version of Joilers Vepper in Surface Detail ?

The richest man of the planet that basically guarantees he can get away with anything he wants and is in the center of all plots ?

[Edit] I apologize to those that point out this is "a common post", I'm new to this sub and I wasn't aware so many others had had the exact same reasoning

I am about halfway through this book. Some issues I’m having are that the “alien” planets seem to be some version of 20th century earth. Be it with tanks, or houses, roads, politics, etc. The planets seem to have the same day and night cycles as earth, as well as the same ecology. Also, why are all the planets populated by humanoid species with the same physiology as us? Arms and legs, sexual organs, hair? are the subject and novels like this? This novel is making it hard for me to suspend disbelief. TIY!

Vepper's Mobile Lair https://imgur.com/gallery/2HjCpeD

I just found out that I've been shadow banned from replying to comments, with no warning or justification, which seems like a pretty lame thing to do, so I'm deleting all my posts in this sub.

I get the impression that "Hegemonising Swarms" are another "great filter" for this setting, this time for relatively primitive Level 4 or 5 space faring societies which are trying to develop basic AGI and making the transition from pre-post scarcity manufacturing to the early stages of true post scarcity (but messing up big time, potentially decimating or outright destroying their civ).

That's the impression I'm given with the ancient derelict orbiting shipyards from Surface Detail (still very sophisticated from the perspective of RL readers, but kinda basic by the standards of the Culture or even the GFCF).

Where can I buy a knife missile? Primarily for use during my freeway commute, so if there's a model with a launcher tube, even better.

Hello, this is the first chapter of a Culture crossed over with the premise of the Gate manga/anime fanfiction. This is the first time I'm writing fanfiction, so any feedback or criticism would be appreciated. I'm also not a native english speaker, so if you notice an error or don't understand something, please tell me. I hope you find this first chapter interesting.

/oOo\

Chapter 1

A very strange arrival

\oOo/

They felt restless. They were surrounded by others that seemed as uncomfortable as they felt. That morning they had lots of their favourite food served. They were very happy about that, but they knew what it meant, today was going to be very stressful and scary. They ruffled their feathers. They wanted to run away, but they didn’t. They were surrounded by their family and friends, and especially their childhood friend was just next to them, and they trusted their friend. That’s why they managed to calm themself and stay still.

He could barely contain his excitement. In his sixteen years of life he had never been part of such an important event. His father wanted him to follow in his footsteps and become a merchant, but he had always dreamed bigger. He wanted to be famous and revered. He wanted to ascend to nobility. And this was his chance. He would become a great hero and bring civilization to the barbarians, just like in the stories his mother read to him.

He was absolutely terrified. His shoulders ached from the unfamiliar weight of his issued armour and his feet hurt from the constant marching. He already missed his parents and his big sister. They had just celebrated his coming of age ceremony when the imperial messengers passed through his village to announce the draft. His mother had barely been able to hold back her tears before the messengers left. His father seemed paralysed from shock while his sister was fuming with rage. He himself was downcast and felt resigned. He had already seen something similar years ago when his three older brothers had been drafted. At the time he had been excited and jealous of them. He thought they were going on some kind of adventure, but they never came back from it. Years of hardship followed for his family, and when things finally looked up, this happened. He shook his head and focused on the present again. He was determined to survive this. He heard that you could plunder valuables after a battle. Maybe that would allow them a better life in the village.

She felt a mix of anticipation and dread. She had trained her whole life for a moment like this. Twenty years of extensive training and education in anything her teachers could think of, even make-up, dancing and proper dressing, all three of which her mother insisted on, since according to her, she was still a lady. At first she resented her mother, even if she enjoyed dancing a lot, but eventually she begrudgingly had to accept that her mother had a point. Even if she didn’t want to, she had to behave properly if she wanted to survive in the imperial court. She chuckled at the thought that despite already having survived a few fights with her life on the line, the court was still scarier. She was roused from her thoughts by her mount, a griffon she had named Scarlet due to his bright red mane. She could tell he was nervous, but he stayed still and absolutely professional. She pet him on the head as a reward. She still remembered their less than perfect first guard shift in the sky above the imperial capital. They stood at attention with the many other imperial flying riders and the rest of the immense expeditionary army, waiting for their marching orders for the last leg of their journey. “Bring civilization and the true Gods to the otherworldly savages”. That was the official reason for this expedition. She was sure that was partly true, but thanks to her geopolitics professor she knew it was mainly because of lust for resources and power that this expedition had been formed. In any case she was part of this, so she would try to make the most of it. She had given herself three objectives: survive, fight with honour and learn about this new land. The horn signalling departure finally bellowed. She urged Scarlet forward. They would soon be there. She still felt the same mix of anticipation and dread.

-oOo-

The big herd had started moving again. Their stress had soon turned into excitement to be moving in such a gigantic herd. Their family and friends, but also many many many more were moving together in a giant herd. It was the most incredible thing they had ever felt. The herd had entered a very long cave, they hoped there would be an exit soon because they didn’t like not being able to fly. At that thought, they started hearing a commotion some way up in front of them and shortly after, started perceiving a strange and foreign, but still refreshing air. Finally, they would be out soon !

He had been marching through the tunnel for at least a quarter hour now. At first, when he saw the massive and magnificent Gate on top of the sacred hill he was speechless. But after entering and marching through the dark, seemingly unending tunnel, he started to get bored. To his great relief, after some more time of monotonous marching he started to hear whispers through the ranks of soldiers. Apparently the front of the expedition had finally reached the end of the tunnel ! His excitement, newly rekindled, flared up. He would soon enter a new world never seen before and do great things there. He thought of his father and that he was going to be the first in his family to do anything interesting in generations. He felt a deep satisfaction and already projected himself into the future, victorious over some great beast and saving an innocent maiden.

He felt relieved, he could at last see the light at the end of the tunnel. The last half hour had been excruciating. He knew that he would soon arrive in a completely unknown land and probably would have to fight and on top of that he had spent far too much time in this creepy tunnel in his opinion. He didn’t know why, but it unnerved him to his core. But that didn’t matter now since he was about to exit. At first he was blinded. When his eyes adjusted to the light, he thought he was back in the prairies near his village, the ones in which he played with his brothers, but only for a moment. He noticed it was too orderly, too proper, not the wilderness he was used to. There was also something else, something was off, was making him a bit dizzy and he just could not put his finger on it. Then, as they continued to advance he started to see houses in the distance. They looked like the small mansions of country nobility, and they seemed completely defenceless. He started to wonder if this was going to be easier than he had feared.

She had been among the first to exit the Gate, right after the cannon fodder, mainly monster, demi-humans and their handlers . Her immediate mission was to take off into the sky and scout out the surrounding terrain for threats. While she performed her duty on autopilot, in the back of her mind she noted how strangely familiar this landscape seemed. At first it made her think of the gardens of her family's mansion, but then she corrected herself, it looked more like the vast gardens of the imperial palace. From her high vantage point, she could see that everything seemed to have been arranged with psychotic attention to detail, but unlike the palace's strict following of rules, this landscape suggested…. Actually she wasn't sure what it suggested or what kind of rules it followed. No matter how long she looked at that landscape, all she could say was that she could not discern any kind of consistent rule, but that it had definitely been made by an intelligent hand and it managed to invoke a foreign sense of beauty in her she couldn’t quite grasp. It was such an unsettling feeling that she shuddered. “Well, you wanted to see a foreign and strange land and there you have it. I hope you’re satisfied.” Said a little voice in her head that sounded a lot like her mother. She was pulled back to reality when she heard a strange kind of scream or shout, she wasn’t sure. At first she thought it was an attack, she stopped surveying the ground, and for the first time since she arrived, really took in the sky and the Horizon. She realised there wasn’t any attack, she only saw stunned and confused griffon riders, but that quickly became irrelevant. She became conscious of an unease she hadn’t noticed and until now couldn’t explain. The horizon was completely wrong. The landscape was wrong. How far she could see was wrong ! The more she looked the dizzier she became and she felt a powerful migraine start to build up. Then she saw it. She had been flying in a large O shaped holding pattern to survey the ground, and now she had finally reached its middle point and saw what was behind the Gate and the tall hill behind it. Far in the distance stood some kind of structure. It reached so far up it pierced the clouds and went on and on and on and gradually turned blue and disappeared in the sky. She couldn’t see its beginning or end on either side of it either. It was like some gigantic wall was cutting this world in half. She felt oppressed, like she was choking, no she was really having trouble breathing. It felt like this thing was going to envelop her, and the rest of them, and this entire land and then her own land and crush them all and still never stop. It was the biggest thing she had ever seen, bigger than any mountain, more massive than any ocean and then she knew. She knew that only a god could have made it. It was impossible for a mortal to achieve. But weren't gods incapable of interfering with the material world ? At least that was what her theology teacher had told her. …But these foreign gods seemed to be able to do it though. She thought of her own gods, could they make something like this ? Surely they could ! But then why hadn’t they ever shown their followers something of such terrifying grandeur, why would they lie about their powers ? Maybe, just maybe she thought, shuddering, the gods of this world are more powerful than my own. Terror gripped her. They were about to attack the followers of these gods. She could see the hoards of monsters and freaks, followed closely behind by the imperial troops about to reach the small mansions, and if she knew anything about gods, then it was that they were short-tempered. They were about to condemn themselves to eternal damnation. She tried to lead Scarlett towards the head of the advancing troops as fast as she could but she was still nauseous and could barely hold on to him. She began to pray to these unknown gods, pleading them to forgive her, she wasn’t going to be there in time.

-oOo-

It was always doing something. Taking care of little things and large things, neglecting none. In its very long and interesting existence it had never been truly surprised by anything…. until now. In the midst of its perfect little world, something new appeared. Without any warning a gate sprung into existence in the middle of one of its meadows. It was so shocked that for the first time in aeons it stopped doing anything and simply stared at this strange new appearance with every sense it possessed for what felt like an eternity. Naturally, for any mortal this seeming eternity was barely a blink, but it still felt embarrassed and immediately returned to its activities. Of course it still kept its unwavering attention on this fascinating gate wondering how it had got here. An excitement welled up in it that it hadn’t felt in a very very long time and it decided to reach out to some friends that would be as interested in this as it.

END OF CHAPTER

In the sense of like, what if I wanted to go into a Pokemon VR but I wanted it to be so authethic that I request my mind be wiped before entering so I can experience the entire stuff as if I was born there? Would it be considered an invasion on autonomy, since I would end becoming other person after that or just I get a Mind-State done and that's it?

And what about more extreme cases, for example a kind of BSDM club (as rare as having psychos and fascists wannabes on VR instead of slap-droned) on steroids where all the participants are real people, but they are mind wiped to at the request, so they can perform acts well, let's say things not so pleasant to discuss?

I seem to remember that at the end of "the player of games", when the drone that was the narrator of the story, addresses the reader, he says that we are probably not reading the story in marain, but a translation in another language (or something similar). When he talks about marain, I think he also said that marain does have gendered pronouns but that they are rarely used outside of talks with other civilisations with a more gender biased society.

Am I remembering this correctly? I'm asking, because I want to write a story in the Culture world, and I thought it would be interesting to use neutral pronouns when characters speak marain and gendered pronouns when they use another language. What do you think of it ? Of course, the most important would be that the story is understandable.

I just finished Look to Windward and I did not expect for one of the last chapter to describe how a sort of Culture assassin or killing machine brutally massacres two of the people responsible for the whole mess. I guess "don't fuck with the Culture" was accurate after all. Also, Huygen was a traitor, I didn't expect that one bit.

The Culture's resources are near-infinite, but they clearly have an idea of the arc that more primitive civilizations should go through. It doesn't include individuals simply joining up... or does it?

There are tons of spacegoing, interstellar-traveling civs ("involved" civs) nowhere near as sophisticated, but sophisticated enough to reach the nearest Culture orbital and land and disgorge a few hundred would-be Culture citizens, if no one intervenes.

What happens when someone attempts this?

Edit: yesterday when I posted this it felt like a good thought experiment, and I felt no need to put my own cards on the table. This morning, it reads differently.

I have no problem with immigration, my family immigrated. I don't even have a moral problem with what is currently "illegal" immigration. Parents do what they must for their children - how can they do anything else? And wealthy societies nearly always gain from immigration in the long run. New York City was saved from bankruptcy by waves of immigrant entrepreneurs. But, we obviously struggle with it and the issue is enormously divisive in the US and elsewhere.

Ironically it seems the Culture (according to the Banks essay) frowns on immigration in most cases, but mainly because it is considered more appropriate to help other societies develop in their own time.

I read the book for the second time and still I am unsure what really happened. What was it that Sleeper Service realised in the chapter "Regarding Gravious"?

During the last seconds Sleeper Service went through its old messages and files. There is the message about the bird who had reported to someone all the time. Sleeper Service thinks: "So now I find out; now that's too damn late". What? What did it find out?

I recently remembered the mercenary guy from the Elysium movie, Espacially the scene where he is in the roof of a building, grilling giant lumps of meat. I compared him to Zakalve and though he is in most aspects the direct opposite of Zakalve, there are some similarities there.

First he is not part of the environment down on earth but a member of the elite civ. up on orbit like Zakalve but seems to feel more at home in the slums of earth. Zakalve as well rather lives on some low tech planet than join the culture on their orbitals and ships.

He is also a tool wielded by the powerful to do the dirty work for them.

Just a thought experiment, so conjecture is welcome. Say a subset of the Culture sublimed; would the Minds and human-level intelligences find themselves as equals?

Basically I just think it's a very weird thing in the books and I don't get why most civilizations (sans Culture of course) would even care to do it. I've not yet read Hydrogen Sonata which I've heard talks about it most in depth, but my understanding is that an entire civilization somehow, like, goes to Heaven or something. Except nobody can prove definitively that that's what happens since nobody that Sublimes ever comes back. It might just be mass suicide. Subliming as a concept just seems strange to me because it feels like the singular fantasy trope of what's otherwise space opera.

My first introduction to The Culture and Ian M Banks, f****** loved it, was introduced to it by a Communist friend so I loved the socialist/utopian threads running through it, can't wait to read the other books in the series, but that ending - I have no idea what to make of it. >!When that female Azadian blocked his microphone at the party and told him to win, I thought there'd be an uprising or something, with Gurgeh leading the revolution against the imperialist system. !<

!I get that Gurgeh's not supposed to be a traditional hero/protagonist but weirdly disappointed with that ending, The Culture essentially brings down a whole entire empire and what Gurgeh just goes back home like nothing happened?? I mean damn. And I'm still not clear what Mawhrin-Skel’s role was in this other than becoming Flere-Imsaho, Did he have a personality change in the end? Did he orchestrate the whole thing by getting Gurgeh involved?!< Took a long-ish break in the middle of the book and only recently picked it back up so will probably have to re-read the start again but yeah just wanted to get anyone else’s thoughts :)

So I just got this subreddit recommended to me and it seemed interesting and I was wondering what the series is about to see if I should check it out. For reference I really loved books and series like Children of time plus the expanse and I am also currently listening to an audiobook for Enders game

It's hard to narrow it down to just one, and since it seems a bit unfair to compare Minds with Drones and Humans, let's say one of each.

My favorite human has definitely got to be Sma (and I vaguely suspect she was Banks' too). He uses the character archetype of "woman SC agent who appears outwardly superficial but is ultimately shown to be incredibly intelligent and driven by compassion" quite a bit, but I feel like Sma is the most well-realized version of a such a character, and the easiest character to empathize with/like in the series in general. I have a pet theory that there are unnamed cameos in other books of Sma (and Zakalwe), the biggest one being that The Doctor and The Bodyguard are actually Sma and Zakalwe (though I haven't read Inversions in a while so that might conflict with some of the characterization in it).

My favorite drone...hard one, I really like Chamlis Amalkney and Churt Lyne. The "ancient wise drone who gracefully puts up with endless human bullshit" kind of character. I'll go with Churt for being just absurdly patient with Ulver and for the "it could fuck star systems" line.

As for favorite Mind, it has to be Masaq Hub for sure, for obvious reasons if you've read Look to Windward. By far the most fleshed out Mind in the series in terms of what it's like to be a Mind and the one who most clearly demonstrates that Culture Minds may effectively be gods but there's a core to them that very much resembles humanity.

... and I prompted it with a few follow ups to get it to give me something that wasn't very generic. I mean if you are sitting around thinking about AI - Banks comes to mind.

Querries:

a) Give me your most controverisal take on Iain M. Banks novel Use of Weapons by applying it to the world today. 200 words or less

b) Do the same but apply all references from all of Banks' Culture Novels

c) Rewrite it assuming the reader already understands the culture and take it a step further in the analysis

Final Response Below:

Banks’ Culture novels offer a searing critique of interventionist idealism, suggesting that even the most utopian societies cannot escape the moral rot embedded in power. The Culture, while presenting itself as benevolent and enlightened, often imposes its values on less advanced civilizations—raising the question of whether such interference is truly altruistic or simply a projection of its own ideological hegemony. These acts reveal a disturbing parallel to modern interventionist policies where powerful nations, though armed with rhetoric of “progress” or “human rights,” often embed their own agendas in so-called humanitarian missions.

More unsettling is Banks’ implication that the Culture’s interventions are as much about self-preservation as they are about altruism. By guiding “lesser” societies away from paths that might lead to dangerous outcomes, the Culture maintains the status quo that secures its own existential comfort. This dynamic echoes today’s global landscape, where interventions often ensure a controlled order rather than genuine liberation. Banks pushes us to confront the uncomfortable truth that even a utopia, if dependent on constant correction of “inferior” others, reveals an underlying arrogance that erodes its own ethical foundations. In essence, Banks challenges us to see the Culture not as a model to aspire to but as a mirror, forcing us to question the motivations behind our own “civilizing missions.”

The Culture apparently inhabits the Milky Way galaxy. I love how Iain’s stories evoke the sheer wonder of the size and diversity of the galaxy. A couple of weeks ago I shared a video about the size of the Universe. Here’s another brilliant one about the size of the Milky Way by the same creator. https://youtu.be/VsRmyY3Db1Y?si=ER1471Yv1xaAa0QJ

The story is about “lanky gray aliens” visiting the narrator, a portion of the story resembles part of surface detail… I’ll let you guess which part I’m hinting at.

Here’s the video, it’s by Bob Gymlan, enjoy!

https://youtu.be/tzrYu3Bo3O4?si=Vd3oaycfwdSQochQ

Sorry in advance for the long post.

So, I’m gonna be running a oneshot (with a custom rulebook) set in the Cultureverse. The story I could muster up goes something like this: A team of 3–4 citizens of the Culture receives an invitation to SC through various means. A GCU called “Actually, Quite Distinguishable from Magic” picks them up from their respective homes and assigns them a sort of test job to assess their skills in stressful, unfamiliar situations. They’re tasked with ‘taking care’ of a cruel king on a medieval pre-contact planet. Predictive models are showing that in 47 days, he’ll start a brutal war that will generally mess up the planet, so he needs to go.

I’ve come up with these limitations for the players (explained in-game as rules that AQDFM says they have to follow, because it says it feels this is the best way to evaluate them): Only three additional SC-grade implants are allowed, with occasional bans on things that would make the mission too easy. The mission needs to be completed ASAP and as quietly as possible. No casualties and no exposure of the natives to advanced tech.

Now, the players haven’t even heard of The Culture because there are basically no translated books, and they only know whatever self-translated info I’ve given them. So they 100% wouldn’t care if I get something wrong. But I will.

I unfortunately haven’t read too much about how SC works on the level of operatives (I’ve only read POG, Consider Phlebas, Excession, Surface Detail, The State of the Art, and I’m starting Look to Windward), so I would love to hear any criticism or thoughts regarding the setting, if it makes sense at all. Any lore-wise ideas would be greatly appreciated.

P.S. Putting a civilization’s fate in the hands of a few rookies is probably too risky. So I’m thinking I’ll say it was all a simulation and the king was relocated to a farm by the ship 3 weeks ago or something like that. Should anyone explicitly ask, of course.

And the ship also probably already has psychological evaluation of each and every member of the team and knows whether they should be accepted or not, the test job is mostly an excuse for me to run a game and the ship to mess with the newbies.

Or what a Culture Standard day is?