It seems well established that Culture citizens can and do indulge in all kinds of hobbies and pastimes. For example, Gurgeh's lady friend who made cannons in The Player of Games, or Gestra Ishmethit in Pittance making scale models of ancient sailing ships in Excession.

So I've been wondering just how sophisticated and technical such hobbies could be and how purist the hobbist would be about them. Gestra was very purist: making his own tools and growing the wood and fibrous plants to make his ships; it's unclear how much help Gurgeh's friend might have had.

For example, suppose a Culturenik's hobby was making devices powered by thermionic valves/vacuum tubes. It's certainly possible to make working valves in a home workshop (see the YouTube video and this website for example), but you do need rather a lot of moderately sophisticated equipment.

Also, to do something useful with such things, you also need a whole lot of other electronic components. For example, you would almost certainly need a transformer of some kind: it's certaily possible to make your own transformers, but you need steel sheet for the core and insulated wire - both the result of another set of industrial processes.

Any Culture Mind worthy of the name could of course just produce steel sheet and copper wire and resistors and capacitors and so on; but, would a Culturenik consider getting that kind of help as cheating? Or would the hobbyist regard the acquisition of other components as the equivalent of mail order: I want these bits and pieces in a kit to make my amplifier?

Or, would this not a suitable hobby at all?

I might try to include him in my fan fiction!

One of the (many) fun things about writing Culture fan fiction is being able to create book cover mockups based on the actual books as published.

Impact Analysis and Surface Detail book covers

When I first started work on Impact Analysis, IMB had just published Surface Detail, and it seemed entirely natural to base my ideas for a book cover (bottom left) on the design of the UK imprint (top left).

Recently, the books have been re-issued with a very different style for the covers (top right). So, I thought it would be time to create a new cover mimicking the same style (bottom right).

Thoughts?

A Culture ship passed through the system yesterday, sucking all the new information off the Starlink network. It found my Reddit name amusing and decided to change its name to Inevitable Aside.

It's a small ship, only 25,000 humans on board, but room for a lot more.

The cabins are incredibly spacious.

I was invited to tour with the Aside so it may be a while before I post again.

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A porthole in a cabin on the Inevitable Aside looks out on the common area.

​

The newly renamed Inevitable Aside.

This very interesting discussion in r/TheCulture might form the basis for an amusing fan fiction story?

I've been re-reading the books looking for references to the drugs that Culture citizens can produce from internal glands on demand. I've been tracking down both drug names and the effects of (sometimes unnamed, sometimes multiple) compounds.

Specifically, I want to introduce plausible names and effects into my fanfic writing. For example, I thought that shush was a good name for a drug which induces a short nap from which the user awakes refreshed and alert.

I did notice that the names of glanded drugs are inconsistently capitalized in the books. For example, Snap ("the Culture's favourite breakfast drug") is capitalized in PoG but not in UoW. The later works tend towards no capitalization, so I think I'll go with this approach.

I'm seeking names for some other societies who might interact with the Culture, for a new piece of fan fic.

"Most of the developed galaxy had been following that story for the past hundred days, as the aftermath of the short but bitter Blitteringueh-Deluger War played itself out on the CAM-bomb-mined Blitteringueh home planets and the Deluger fleets fleeing with their precious holy relics and Grand House captives. It had ended with relatively little loss of life, but in high drama, and with continuing, developing repercussions..."

(From Excession)

This suggests that Deluger and Blitteringueh might be suitable?

Or are there better ideas?

I can't find such a thing if there is. Did I miss one? If so, what's the link to it?

So I tried to post this on the main Culture subreddit, but I think it got automoderated or something. I'm going to try and post it here, slightly edited, instead.

One thing about the novels themselves, is that they often focused on a major plotline of Something Big happening, and it was often of a viewpoint of those not nominally in the Culture proper, with only a few scenes per novel showing the 'normal life' of the Culture citizens.

One thing I am craving to read is a fanfic of the many genres that reject this premise, but is still set in the Culture itself. For example, the books themselves only showed fairly mainstream parts of the culture, that didn't go too greatly into the mind and body changing of the near-humans, for obvious Doylist reasons to make them relatable to a wide audience. But what's the Watsonian reason for that to be the actual case within the Culture itself? That'd be interesting to look into!

Or, another angle I really want to read about are some of the subCultures that are still part of mainstream Culture, and aren't ulterior, but have slightly nonstandard philosophies. The sheer number of people in the population, as well as their tendency towards fads and the level of freedom mean there have to be all sorts of weird groups, and I would bet that the Culture is the sort of place where eccentrics tend to not be solitary eccentrics, but instead highly social eccentrics.

For example, what sort of interpersonal Drama or Romance sort of story could you get on a GSV that's home to a wide variety of transhumans (which will tend to want to upgrade themselves in various different ways beyond Culture standard, and make a wide variety of 'non-typical' lifestyle choices, while still tending to want to stay under the level of a true Mind), furries, xenophiles (for the humans bodytype folks), humanophiles (for the nonhuman bodytype folk), drones that like nonstandard body types, mechanophiles (for the biological types), biophiles (for the drones), etc. etc. -- and these relationships and attractions don't have to be sexual when I say 'phile', they can be aesthetic, philosophical, cultural, romantic, etc. What shenanigans would such a group get up to? What kind of Mind would find joy in riding herd on such a disparate group? How would that Mind help these people achieve their goals while balancing their need for agency, to make their own mistakes, and to prevent them from truly fucking up royally? What explorations of self and other could such a story relate? Where would such a Ship go, and what would the people on it collectively do?

Also, has anyone done this sort of work, and if so, where might I find it?

Soooo......A few years ago I used to write Zombie fiction, and wrote the piece below (published in "All the Dead are here" on Amazon ahem). I'll let you decide whether it is Culture related or not (spoiler: It very much is). Apologies for the slightly screwy formatting. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. I posted this over on the main Culture page and was directed here *waves* hellooo.

Your humble servant,

ROU Death and Magnets

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Cadish

John hopped around in panic. He had scrambled down the alley in hope of escape and found the end blocked. Turning, he saw a group of Zombies around the corner see him and start to advance with that guttural growl. Fear rose in John’s throat and frantically he tried to climb up the sheer wall but couldn’t find a handhold in the well-pointed brickwork.

“Shit, shit, shit,” he repeated. The Zombies filled the end of the alley. He couldn’t run past them. Arms raised, they moved inexorably towards him with hungry lust in their rheumy eyes. Frantically, John tried to brace his back against the wall and shimmy up, but the gap was too wide and he fell on his ass. He had no means of escape. He huddled in the corner and the Dead closed the last few inches, bending down to grab him and feast. He raised his arm up to stop them and noticed that he could see through his hand. His whole body tingled as the moans rose to a crescendo, and as the Dead grasped at him, snapping their teeth and licking their lips, his arm seemed to vanish in front of his eyes.

“What the f,” he said.

8.96 nanoseconds prior to John saying “what”, Cadish once again surveyed the scene many miles below. He was perplexed and confused. This was almost the polar opposite to the effect he had expected. The simulations he had run had shown happy meat and a pleased population with a bright future for the meat creatures. No. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t right at all.

3.47 nanoseconds before John said “f,” Cadish reviewed the past few hours' surveys, collated the anomalies, ran a series of simulations based on current and assumed data forward in time to several thousand years and came to the conclusion that he didn’t have enough data to assume anything. He would have to talk to one of the locals. Get their perspective on the situation.

“uck,” Said John as the transfer completed and he found himself crouched in the centre of a silver room. Myriad complex pipework in what looked like stainless steel formed the walls and as he looked closer he saw pipework on pipework like a fractal pattern. What looked like blades or butter knives appeared to be connected to the ends of some of these pipes or rods. The room was roughly square and dimly lit even though he could see no light source. His eyes adjusted to the gloom and he realised he could see his breath. It was freezing cold but as he stood the temperature rose dramatically.

“What. The. Fuck,” John repeated, now completely confused, and feeling slightly sick.

“Apologies meat creature. Interior space has oxygen content but the temperature will take several divisions of linear time. Bits of time. Pieces of time. Pieces of Eight? What?…..seconds to achieve your ambient temperature,” said a low hollow voice that didn’t seem to come from anywhere.

“What the fuck?” John repeated.

“Are you stuck? Locked? Repeating? Looped?” said Cadish.

“If so, say, ‘What the’, if not say, ‘fuck’.”

“Eh?” said John.

The room seemed to vibrate with a low rumble. John immediately thought it sounded like someone saying ‘Hmmm’ as if they were frowning in consternation.

John regained a modicum of composure.

“Where am I?” he asked to the room

“Excellent!” exclaimed Cadish. “You are not stuck. Looped in linear time! Communication can commence. Let us talk together/communicate in sporadic soundwave amplitudes.”

John just blinked.

“Would you like a seat?” said Cadish, emulating meat protocols he had observed.

John nodded. Cadish thought this was wonderful. Normally, transferred creatures became angry or panicked and had to be returned to their prior location before they hurt themselves. This creature showed a higher function.

John felt the ground beneath him move and stepped to one side. The pipework and blades below him seethed and writhed before rising out of the ground searching and feeling their way up to a height of about three feet. There was the sound of a thousand knives being sharpened as the rods flicked about, searching for something as if working out the best position to lay and for several seconds it flapped about ineffectually before finally settling into something that resembled a lopsided chair, or it would if there wasn’t(weren't) a nasty looking blade sticking up from the seat.

John didn’t sit.

“Oh sorry,” said Cadish, and the offending blade flipped about as if searching for somewhere to hide, like a mouse caught by surprise in the corner of a shed with no immediate escape. Eventually, it forced its way under several other blades laying flat on the seat and nestled in as if getting comfortable. John sat down gingerly and the chair seemed solid enough.

“Good. Good,” said Cadish. “I cannot offer you food, energy, fuel, sustenance...”

“Look. Where the hell am I?” Said John, trying to bring some sanity back to the situation.

“I have created this aperture to maintain your current life state. You are several divisions of distance above your previous position. Divisions of distance. Millimetres. Yards. Chains. Inches. Kilometres. Miles. Yes, miles. You are several miles above your previous position. Look.”

Two large rods folded out of the roof at one end of the room and an inky image coalesced between before forming an unbelievably high definition image of the Earth in 3D. The ruined Earth sparkled below John, it was so realistic, so beautiful and, with a sickening sensation, John realised he was in space.

“What the. What are you?” exclaimed John.

“I am Cadish,” said Cadish.

“What's a Cadish? A Computer? A ship? A robot? An Alien?” said John

“I am Cadish,” said Cadish. “I am not a PC, an ocean-going vessel or an alien. Not to me, anyway.”

“Well what do you want with me?” he asked.

“Good. Good. Straight to business. No beating about the bush. Excellent,” said Cadish.

“I need to inquire/ask/determine/assess/simulate/hypothesise/find out and torture several parameters with reference to the situation currently in progress through linear time on the surface of your home planet/home-world,” said Cadish.

“You want to ask me a question?” summarised John.

“Yes,” said Cadish with uncommon brevity.

John shrugged and, with no small measure of glee, Cadish realised this was the meat gesture for ‘go ahead’.

The image on the screen morphed into a street view. Zombies were chewing on a fresh kill, savouring the dark meat of the liver of what looked like some poor teenager. A rod shot up from the floor with a ‘snick’ and stopped in front of the image.

“What are these?” asked Cadish, tapping the screen with the blade pointer.

“These are Zombies, Cadish. The living dead, eating the flesh of the living,” said John, sickened by what he saw.

The physiological response of the meat creature confused Cadish.

“Living Dead is an oxymoron, a conundrum. A paradox. Not…..erm……right,” said Cadish.

“The dead started rising up last night, they started attacking and eating people. I don’t know why, Cadish,” said John sadly, thinking about the people he had lost in the last few hours.

“Maybe it was a disease, some type of swine 'flu, or maybe the government,” he continued.

Cadish saw the same sadness come over John that he had observed on his arrival and initial surveys of the planet.

“I do not understand. These Zombies are autonomous, moving, thinking, in the same way as you meat creatures. Why do you think they attack you meat creatures?”

“I don’t know Cadish. I’m not a Scientist. They aren’t the same though, are they? They don’t bleed, they don’t think, they just eat human flesh,” said John.

There was a low rumbling ‘Hmmm’ from Cadish.

“You are correct, meat creature,” it said after a moment's thought.

“John,” said John.

“What?” said Cadish.

“My name is John. John Kendall,” said John.

Cadish remained silent.

“JohnKendall. I do not understand death,” said Cadish.

“Nor me.”

“When meat ceases to move/function/talk/speak/complain/analyse/think, what happens?”

John thought for a moment.

“Everything stops, Cadish. The heart stops pumping blood, electricity stops going through the brain, the soul leaves the body.”

“The soul? I have not seen this on analytical diagrams of your meat structures. Where is this ‘soul’?” This was totally new information to Cadish and was very exciting.

“If you are religious you believe that the soul departs the body to move to a higher plane or a different dimension,” said John.

“Oh,” said Cadish. “Please remain here for 3 divisions of linear…sorry…seconds.”

“Do what now?” said John as the room dissolved around him. Panic gripped as the cold of space nibbled at him and the air was sucked from his lungs. He could see the Earth hanging like a jewel below him but pain shot through his eyes and he had to close them before they were forced from his body. The pain and cold increased exponentially until he realised he was sat, once again, in the spindly metal chair aboard Cadish. He breathed deeply, recovering his composure before screaming at his captor.

“Cadish! What the hell was that? You left me in space!”

“Yes. Apologies. I needed to check several trillion dimensions and as you can appreciate this can take some divisions of linear time,” said Cadish.

“Your meat structure 'souls' are not referenced in any pan-dimensional literature, nor could I detect any evidence of a physicality of 'souls' in any dimension other than this one.”

“I don't think it works like that, Cadish,” said John, still out of breath.

“Why?” said Cadish petulantly.

John sat and thought for a moment.

“I wish I had the internet here,” John mumbled.

“The internet? What are the internets?”

“Our global information network on Earth.”

“Oooh!” said Cadish who was actually quite impressed by this.

“Where is it?”Cadish enquired. The scene on the screen still played out but in the background, John could see a shop counter with a PC on it. He stood and walked over to the screen.

“There. See that thing?” he asked as he pointed at the screen. The image tilted jerkily around until the front of the computer could be seen.

“We use those things to type, you know, with our fingers. To give the computer instructions or to access the internet,” said John pointing at the keyboard. “We see what the results are on the screen.”

“Then its lucky we were at the exactly correct place/location/spot to view this 'internet'.” said Cadish, calculating the staggering odds of that happening.

“What? No. Any object like that, really anything with a screen that looks like that can access the internet or store information,” said John.

“Really?” said Cadish.

“Yes. Try to log on to it, if you can find anywhere with electrici......” John stopped as the PC onscreen booted up. The image changed to show the flickering scene of millions of computers booting up simultaneously even though the apocalypse had stopped the supply of electricity to all but the most secure bunkers.

“Ah yes. I will retrieve/gather/harvest this information. Harvest complete. What now JohnKendall?” said Cadish.

“Have you just downloaded the internet?” Asked John, stunned.

“Yes.”

“That was quick.”

“No it wasn't. Your computers are slower than light.”

John felt like apologising for some reason. He didn't.

“Look up 'Religion'.”

“Oh,” said Cadish. The room seemed to dim around John and when Cadish spoke again it was in a low tone.

“The Nanodes and I did not calculate this possibility.”

“Wait! Hang on. The what now?” said John “You mean you know about this?”

The room visibly bristled with alarm, the screen folded up into the roof and a rod and blade hand shot out to grab John's and shake it vigorously.

“VerynicetomeetyouJohnKendallthishasbeenveryinformativeIwillnowtransferyouback.”

“Whao.Whoa. Wait a minute you. What do you mean? 'The Nanodes'?” Exclaimed John.

There was a long pause.

“It appears JohnKendall that I may have a confession/redemption/apology to make,” said Cadish, contritely. The screen flicked down from the roof and an image appeared of a group of people, dressed in black, mourning at a funeral. The coffin was being lowered into the ground and the people around could be seen crying and shaking with grief. The image morphed into a succession of funerals from different parts of the world.

“This was the first image/funeral/burial I really saw on my arrival. It confused me for eight seconds, which is a very long time indeed,” said Cadish. John sat back in the spindly chair.

“Why did it confuse you?” asked John.

“Everyone was very sad/morose/scared. It made me feel similar.” Cadish's voice was very quiet now. “I did not want to study so much sadness. So I calculated several million possibilities and planned a future with limited outcomes. Bar some population errors, it appeared to be a good solution. The Nanodes were dispatched to implement the plan/scheme/non-linear action.”

John rubbed his forehead and eyes in frustration. He had a headache coming on.

“So what did you do?”

“The idea/thought was to repair all damaged meat structures. So no-one would.......die, and those that were dead were repaired,” said Cadish.

“Well it didn't work did it?”

“Yes it did.”

“No it didn't.”

“Yes it did.”

“No it didn't, they are all still dead. None of their organs work, none of the nerves work.”

“Actually it did but not as it was prior to the event. We decided that it would be inefficient/poor form/just plain wrong to repair them as they were and so the Nanodes replaced all existing autonomic functions, with the exception of the higher brain activities, so as better to assimilate themselves back into a live state, and prevent further cellular decay leading ultimately to a system failure/death.”

“They were going to be immortal?” said John.

“They were going to be immortal, and so would you when you suffered a terminal system failure/went kaput,” said Cadish.

“So you were actually trying to stop death?” said John.

“Yes. I thought this was what the people were like before they died but I don't believe that to be correct/resolved, hence my communicating with you.”

John thought about this for a moment. Cadish, for some reason, could feel non-linear time wriggling about in the background as the possibility of this revelation revealed itself like a mass of writhing snakes.

“So you thought all the Zombies were like this before they died?”

“Yes. It was the only resolving pattern.”

“So the Nanodes got something wrong then?”

“Not possible. They have 100% success rate at all tasks we agree on,” said Cadish, a little offended it must be said. He contacted the Nanodes.

“Oh.”

“What?” said John.

“It appears there may have been an iterative error/cock-up/mistake.”

“What!”

“Given that the Zombies' state was a second state separate to that of standard meat structures, there may be a reason for it. Initial subjects did not act like meat structures and the Nanodes could not determine the reason for this. They are not as intelligent/pandimensional/omnipotent...No...too much ego. Not as smart as me and they looked for a precedent on which to base higher function programming. Seeing as this was not a normal state for the meat structure to return from system failure/death they used a guide to understand higher function programming and not knowing individual psyches/higher functions/personalities/memories they based it on a template,” explained Cadish.

“What template?” said John, pensively.

“A DVD copy of George Romero's 'Dawn of the Dead',” said Cadish, the room shuddering with embarrassment.

“Everyone was the same. It made the programming easy and this was what we assumed the people looked like before death, because they still looked like that in their graves. I think the Nanodes may have become confused and thought it was a historical document. This has never happened before,” said Cadish.

“So you thought everyone would embrace Zombies as old friends and loved ones and that no-one would notice that they weren't actually acting like they used to?” said John.

“This may have been an error.”

“Yes, Cadish. This is an error,” said John, thinking about what this meant. He rubbed his face and forehead. His head ached and was getting worse. Eventually, he looked up at the screen and smiled.

“I reckon we can fix it.” he said.

“Hmmm.” vibrated Cadish. “I'm not sure how wise this is. I don't want to interfere/spoil/mess up and make the situation any worse.”

“Can't you just go back in time and stop yourself doing it?”

“As you yourself said, JohnKendall, it doesn't quite work like that,” said Cadish.

“Really? Ok. Well we'll just have to repair what you've done the best we can,” said John.

Relinquishing the endless possibility of Cadish's considerable power to this meat creature was too delicious an opportunity to ignore. He felt positively giddy at the thought, and he could feel non-linear time flapping about like a wet fish with all the uncalculated possibilities that could occur. Cadish tried not to show his excitement.

“Can you get the Nanodes to relinquish control of the bodies, just let them die again?” asked John.

“Hmmm. I am reluctant to comply. People will not see their loved ones again, and will be sad. I cannot allow that.”

John laughed. Cadish was stunned at this reaction, it was like nothing he had ever seen before, he was quite perplexed as to its meaning.

“Cadish, I absolutely guarantee that the people will be happy about it,” laughed John, smiling for the first time in hours.

Cadish negotiated with the Nanodes and, reluctantly, they agreed. On the screen, John saw the Zombies drop to the floor, their link severed from their microscopic puppet masters.

The image changed to show a group of survivors fighting a running street battle against the Dead. As the pursuing Zombies fell to the floor, the group slowed to a walk, looking dazed and confused. Slowly, one edged back to the now dead pursuers and poked it with the end of his machete. It didn't move. The grouped started jumping around, laughing, hugging each other, and crying. They didn't look sad at all.

“Ooh!” said Cadish, “well that is good, isn't it?”

John sagged in his seat, relieved the nightmare was over. Cadish flicked through other scenes of celebration occurring all over the globe, but John couldn't see the celebrations, all he could see was the devastation the last night had caused. This gave him an idea.

“Cadish. Can the Nanodes repair inanimate objects as well as living forms?”

“Oh yes. It is much easier, but the amount of damage done compared to the time of my arrival is massive, this may take several linear...sorry...minutes to achieve and may not be one hundred percent accurate, but I can ensure that none of the errors are dangerous. Would that suffice?”

“We'll try that then,” said John.

Cadish was stunned, the meat creature, knowing that the solution would not be perfect, was willing to complete the task anyway! Oh to have such uncertainty, oh to have a wild stab in the dark without calculating the trillions of possible outcomes! Cadish deliberately ignored both linear time and non-linear time, he didn't want to know what would happen next. It was so exciting. It negotiated with the Nanodes who complained bitterly at the amount of work involved. He promised them a reward for their hard work and loyalty and they agreed.

John watched the screen intensely as broken glass rose from the floor, millions of pieces coalescing together, forming a white hot ball of glass before stretching out to the size of the window it came from. It drifted back into place, cooling rapidly as it went. A car rolled onto its wheels before the panels buckled out to their former shape, the wing mirror flew in from the left of the image and re-attached itself and it glided gently into the parking spot from which it came. John and Cadish watched in awe as the scene unfolded, in fact, if it wasn't for the reaction of the people watching the scene it would just look like a film in reverse. After a couple of minutes, the Nanodes reported in.

“99.14% correct realignment of damage,” reported Cadish, proudly.

“What about the 0.8 or whatever is left?” asked John.

“Of the incorrect realignments, the most severe is a tree in Idaho which has the DNA of a horse. It will not be a problem... As long as the DNA has no muscle stem cells, of course.”

“Right,” said John, trying to imagine the horse-tree running free across the plains of Idaho. He shook his head and got back to business.

“Last thing, Cadish. All the dead are going to rot and cause horrific diseases, can you remove all the bodies? Dispose of them?” asked John.

Cadish didn't answer but on screen all the Zombies corpses instantly bubbled, grew into a sort of small mossy hill then disintegrated into the Earth.

“Next?” asked Cadish.

“Next? Well the last thing I think is to return me home isn't it?” said John.

“Oh,” said Cadish.

“What?”

“It would be unwise, JohnKendall, for your species to know my name/nomenclature/power/existence. I'm afraid you cannot go homeworld,” said Cadish, quite saddened by this turn of events, and the fact that JohnKendall was going to leave this mess a lot less tidily resolved than Cadish would have liked.

“Cadish. Look up 'conspiracy theory' and 'alien abduction',” said John.

“Oh,” said Cadish “They will think you are insane/nutty/mad-in-da-heid/not well.”

“Yes. That is why I'm not going to tell anyone about this.”

Cadish thought for a while before agreeing. It had considered the possibility of putting John in his subspace Zoo, but felt this would be a bit unkind given all the help - and fun - he had provided.

“Well, JohnKendall, it has been an absolute pleasure to meet you.”

The blade and rod hand shot up and shook John's hand enthusiastically.

“Er, and you,” said John, taking care to not cut his fingers on the vicious looking blades and rods that shook his hand.

“I'm sorry about all that erm, all those erm, well I'm sorry anyway,” said Cadish, and he meant it, it had been quite the strangest visit he had made to anywhere in a long time.

“Oh that's ...ok,” said John. Ok? Ok! He had lost his girlfriend and his best mate. God only knew who else and here he was saying it's ok like Cadish was a seven-foot tall body-builder who had spilt his beer in the pub. It didn't pay to antagonise body-builders and John concluded that Cadish was a lot more powerful than a body-builder in the pub.

John stood there awkwardly for a moment.“Well then, 'bye,” he said hopefully. He waved his hand feebly to the room.

“'Bye, JohnKendall,” said Cadish, and in a moment John was back in the alley, tingling all over. In the distance, he could hear singing. He walked from the alleyway without looking back and never spoke of Cadish with anyone, however, he often pondered the experience and decided after a few years to join the clergy.

Cadish hung like a silver star in the heavens for 7.6 nanoseconds. In this time he catalogued the internet, watched the whole of youtube, and everything ever made on television. He read every piece of writing committed to file. He came to the conclusion that he liked Benny Hill, Chess and JRR Tolkien the best but didn't really like the film '2001'. Finally, he filed all the data away in subspace along with the dimensional search results and the trillions of simulations he had conducted, and decided to leave a marker for any passing traveller who happened upon the human race. For his own amusement, he decided to leave it as a meat creature email.

'Traveller@Earthorbit.sol

Dear Traveller,

If you find this message it means you are in Geosynchronous orbit above a most remarkable planet, whose populace display the most interesting possibility solutions. I would recommend the inhabitants be viewed for a period of linear time, or to see the planet from first-life to fiery end, I suggest a hat-stand of non-linear time be employed.

However, I most humbly request that you do not interfere or disturb the creatures below as their existence is short, brutal and fragile and any well-meaning action can have disastrous consequences as I, Cadish, have learned.

Best Regards,

Cadish.'

He simulated linear time to ensure that all who saw this message obeyed it, and unfortunately, several billion years in the future, Earth would be conquered by a warlike species from the rim of the great event.

To counter this he added '.......However, if you do interfere I will be......displeased' to the last line, another scan revealed this would do the trick and ensure that the meat creatures would be left well alone.

Cadish gazed at the planet one last time, thought about what had happened, and vibrated its interior space in a 'Hmmm'. Then it folded space around it like a child folding a duvet around itself in a cold bedroom and was gone.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12036536/5/Minded - it's on this page in five parts, with a drop-down menu. Somehow 'Part 5' is actually the first few chapters...dunno how that happened.

I mean in theory everyone is speaking Marain all of the time and it's just been translated into English for the books, but could dialogue using romanized Marain be at all useful? Like this would be an example of what I'm thinking about:

Bortchak saw her long-lost friend, Llayyenthaul. "Hylge, ivemi!" she said, loudly enough for her to be heard.

"Hylge, tchay Bortchak", replied Llayyenthaul.

"Yokayshay sayno geyuh?", asked Bortchak.

"Hyl", replied Llayyenthaul.

The man with whom Bortchak had been dining, who was not a Culture citizen, looked at her confusedly. "I didn't know you spoke multiple languages", he said. "Who's that and what were you speaking?"

"Oh, that was no one, just an acquaintance of mine", she said. "We were speaking Marain."

"Ah, I see," he said, and not wanting to show his ignorance, pretended like he knew what Marain was. Bortchak laughed internally at his false confidence.

Yeah so I don't know if that would be a useful narrative device or if that would merely distract the reader. I'm biased, and I freely admit that I'm just trying to promote the language, but I'm also interested to see if anyone else could find genuine use for it in their fanfics.

I've posted an updated version of Butterfly Happiness, another Culture fanfic short story, including online, PDF and eBook (Mobi, ePub) formats.

(Edit: added links)

I'm toying with the idea of writing a fanfic story set while the Culture was still forming - before the formal constitution was agreed, but when the possibility was being taken seriously. In canon, this would be a long time (~9 millennia?) in the past.

So, what do we know about that time from the novels? Some thoughts.

The Culture might have been called "The Aliens"

Minds don't yet exist, but there are plenty of smart AIs around - minds with a small-m - and (mostly) accepted as personally sentient

There are more formal ranks and hierarchy, at least in Contact - "Captain of the crew" rather than of the boat.

Perhaps, not yet fully in the post-scarcity phase - still some vestiges of money?

Phage Rock was "one of the first space-borne entities to declare for the new grouping".

Ulver Siech's ancestors (from Excession) were involved in setting things up.

Ship speeds were much lower - 100's of lights, rather than 10's or 100's of kilo-lights?

The Very Large Self Sufficient Ship concept was under development - perhaps building the very first GSVs (later demoted to LSVs)

Anything else I should take into account?

(edit: spelling)

From: ROUe The Culture Only Exists In My Mind

To: LOUe Narcissistic Solipsist

“Dude, what’s happening?”

From: LOUe Narcissistic Solipsist

To: ROUe The Culture Only Exists In My Mind

“F*** off, I’m busy!”

(What did they expect?)

From: GOU Captain Obvious! To: Sol-Terra

“People of Earth ... snicker ... we regret to inform you a hyperspace bypass is scheduled.... just kidding. But there are sealed plans for a Bridge. Just carve OK on the moon in Marain.”

James Tiberius Kirk: Defender of the noninterference directive or SC mole in The Federation (possibly Zakalwe himself?)

Discuss:

A complete 4000-word short story set in the Culture universe.

This story was at least partially inspired by this discussion with /u/Aliase.

5 years of mourning and was looking for the post, now sadly deleted. Then while google-fu'ing found someone might have mentioned the old post on reddit (i think), and yay, someone put up a WBM link. Here it is, a little cleaned up with the original link. Hope it makes you all feel a little better about stuff.

Fuck this universe for taking Banks too soon. I should be enjoying a new Culture novel about now.

...

...

“Mr Banks, wake up.”

Iain Menzies Banks opened his eyes.

“Wha-tha-feck!”

Banks looked around the extremely white room, the word simulation printed at the bottom left corner everywhere he looked.

“oh ye got to be feckin kiddin me”.

A drone, (of course) floated over him, a silver bar of soup, a rosy pink and flashing blue field with little sparkles and fireworks to show just how gosh darn happy it was to be there.

“Mr Banks, I understand there may be a little disorientation, but the Twist will be providing access to your stored memories as you think of the questions. That sounds like fun, yes!” it said cheerfully.

“Where am I?”

“You are within the substrate of the GCU Was That a Great Plot Twist (or What?), about four thousand light years from Earth”. The drone pronounced the brackets in the ships name because they were speaking Marain.

“Holy shite.” He said, in Marian, with a slight scottish lilt he was pleased to notice.

“I’m the drone Fezmass Chougran Hanrahan, but everyone just calls me Fez. I will be your reintegration assistant.”

“So the Culture?” He almost whispered.

“Yep! All true!” a little firework went off to show how pleased Fez was at that fact. “And might I say you have done some splendid work on Earth. Contact are most pleased!”

“Oh feck, it’s all real…. oh fecking feck….” Iain Banks just stared at the floor for a moment. His mind working over, asking and receiving.

Suddenly his face scowled in surprise and horror.

“Oh, I am seriously fecked”

The drone flashed grey blue of concern, all the sparkly bits tucked away. “Oh no, what is it Mr Banks?”

“Zakalwe” He said, “I wrote about him.”

The drone bobbed “Well whoever that is, I don’t think he would mind..” was all it had time for before Iain Banks looked at the drone in a kind of amused despair.

“No ye don understand, I wrote the truth about Zakalwe! His deepest and darkest!”

The drone flashed the purple and green of slightly-embarrassed-for-my-lack-of-knowledge on-the-subject, and just bobbed expectantly at Banks.

“Ah well," Banks shrugged, "when do I get me drug glands then?!”

https://web.archive.org/web/20130622085146/http://friends.banksophilia.com:80/guestbook/comment-page-243#comments

*edited for formatting

I've received further comments on Dark Matter by private email from my correspondent AB. He expressed himself broadly happy with several earlier chapters, but took issue with chapter 6: "Hive Society".

The previous version was largely exposition - boringly so, according to AB - so I re-drafted much of the chapter in the form of inter-Ship communications.

I'd appreciate any view on the relative merits of the two versions.

Following the the list of rare and unusual words pointed out by /u/RatioProsperous, how about Obambulatist for the name of a GSV?

From obambulate - To walk about, to wander aimlessly.

Any suggestion as to the class of the GSV? Plate? System??

IMHO, IMB was very good at inventing plausible aliens which had capabilities or features that supported a very different kind of society. Think of the Azadians in PoG, for example: three sexes, one of which was very strongly dominant.

Following this inspiration, I'm looking to a species as antagonists which would counterpoint the "enhanced human" model of the Culture. I'm currently suggesting beings with a much larger range of senses than anything we (or, presumably, most Culture citizens) would consider normal.

So far, I've come up with:

• Sight, but over a much larger range of wavelengths than even Culture humans: at least mid-infrared to high ultraviolet - maybe even X-rays?
• A vario-baric sense: direct awareness of changes in atmospheric pressure. At high rates of change, of course, we would call this "hearing". Works well into the range we would consider ultrasonic, so echo-location (like bats and blind people) is possible.
• Direct chemical analysis senses, more diverse and precise than our notion of smell and taste. Includes the ability to sense another's emotional state of mind by "tasting" their "blood" - requires an incision, of course. Also includes a sense of atmospheric humidity, carbon dioxide concentration, etc. (Yes, they are carbon-based, oxygen breathers.)
• Touch and kinesthetic senses. This includes hyper-sensitivity to air currents, which can thus be used as a means of communication. Also, long spines/whiskers, like cats and dogs.
• Direct awareness of classical EM radiation: "radio waves" of various frequencies.
• A magnetic sense, with a corresponding inate ability to determine compass directions - at least, on a planet with magnetic poles (like ours). (This might not work on an Orbital.)
• A direct awareness of gravity, and a sensitivity to micro-gravity changes. This might give them "dowsing" abilities? This sense might be confused by AG, or even spin-generated gravitational effects? So they would hate Culture ships and Orbitals.
• Perhaps as a side-effect of the above, some sensitivity to hyperspace and motion in 4D.

As an inference from the above, these creatures have evolved a much larger brain than humans, even in the Culture, and are thus both more intelligent and faster thinkers than us. (Not a patch on Culture Minds, of course.)

Is this potentially interesting? Other senses I should consider adding?

Once again I am struggling with inventing names of things which might align with IMB's thinking. So, an appeal to the Sub for ideas...

This one is an alien artifact, a Gas Giant miner; it strips - and ultimately dismantles - huge planets and creates mini black holes, presumably originally intended as power sources for habitats. The actual builders are unknown, but the artifact is thought to be the work of some Sublimed, or at least severely abated species. The artifact is intelligent, sentient - if not quite up to Mind standards - and chatty, even garrulous, but refuses to be argued out of its purpose. At least it doesn't seem to want to make more copies of itself, so it’s not a variant of Smatter or a Hegmonising Swarm. It travels from system to system at slow, barely-relativistic speeds, and would need to be deflected if it approached a Gas Giant which is, in any sense, inhabited.

So, an interesting diversion to support a plot point, perhaps. But what to call it?

This post in /r/TheCulture set me thinking. Wouldn't it be useful to pull together a collection of lesser-known resources to aid aspiring writers of Culture fanfiction?

This comment in particular links to a list of names of characters, places and species from all the novels. Really good - although not quite complete - and helpful new material I hadn't seen before.

Anything else out there?

I've received by private email some detailed feedback on the first few chapters of Dark Matter - many thanks to AB for taking the time to read this so closely. I've already reworked those chapters significantly based on his remarks.

One criticism was the name I had chosen for the swarming creatures which live within Brown Dwarf stars. I fully admit the original name was a bit "meh".

So, I've picked a new name: Pleiadic Navigators.

The Pleiades is a stellar cluster in our skies, and the first Brown Dwarf star we humans discovered was in that region of the sky. At least one possibility for the derivation of "Pleiades" appears to come from the ancient Greek for "to sail", as well as being the divine Seven Sisters from Greek mythology. Wikipedia

Does this work? Would IMB have chosen something like this?

By some coincidence, this post is very timely, since I appear to have set myself up to address the problem of a in-universe war with the Culture: the first equiv-tech conflict since the Idiran War.

Dark Matter is describing a newly-declared war, which surely would not have happened if the enemy (the "Hidden Sisterhood") did not feel some confidence it could deal with the few-thousand Abominator-class GOUs scattered about the greater galaxy.

So, what properties could prevail against this top-of-the-range GOU? So far, I have stealth: hard to detect on long-range scanners and able to move at comparable speeds but without easily-detectable disturbances of the Grid; and difficult-to-comprehend weaponry which can certainly threaten some Culture vessels.

Is this enough? What other properties might allow the HS to pose a serious threat?

I've been reading the Prologue posted by /u/ratioprosperous a few months ago. It's really very good indeed. But it's too late to comment directly on the original post and, in any case, I wanted to offer (in the spirit of constructive criticism) a large number of rather small amendments. So, I've taken the liberty of doing the following:

• copying the entire text into a Word document;
• adding my comments and changes, with change marking on, and
• converting the whole thing to PDF

I thought the piece was a little too long for a Prologue (at ~3800 words) - but it would make a really good first chapter. I've taken the liberty of suggesting a chapter title: "Collateral Damage".

I've converted to British English, on the grounds that IMB was a Scottish Brit. (I'm a Brit, too.)

I've adjusted some of the drone aura colours, in line with the research on this page.

I've changed "lightyears" to "AU" (Astronomical Units) - which is more in line with a near-miss from a comet. (Strictly, an AU is the average distance from the Earth to the Sun, so this is a plausible translation into Earth English - no doubt the Culture will have some appropriately standardised version.)

What we need now, IMHO, is:

• a good suggestion for a title for the work as a whole, and
• a second chapter (in a very different voice?) to introduce one (of several, perhaps?) antagonists, with whom Mleu and Lnifftur will eventually tangle.

I'm in two minds about whether to provide a single-file downloadable form of my (shortly to be completed) Culture novel Impact Analysis.

Sure, producing a PDF version (or one of the eReader formats) is easy enough, and it allows readers more convenience and flexibility as to when and where they read.

But, previous experience with other novels is that unscrupulous people ignore the copyright notice, and post my books on their own websites - supporting their income from advertising - or, worse, offer paid-for downloads on the Internet with neither permission from me nor offer of payment.