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[The Culture] Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism

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Posts

  • WinkyWinky rRegistered User regular
    tynic wrote: »
    glorious, archaic paper!

    I predict many many words and names that are spelled nothing like I thought they were

  • WinkyWinky rRegistered User regular
    Winky wrote: »
    A "demilitarized" GSV is also only a transient description, because a GSV contains basically the whole capability of the entire culture, including that to create weapons.

    The thing is that the culture really does believe in their ideals, so you'd have to really piss them off or threaten their existence to make a ship re-militarize again.

    One of the bits I liked (can't even remember which book it was from, probably Excession or Look to Windward?) is that they have GSVs that fly way out to the ass-end of nowhere and go off the radar for millennia just on the off-chance that some galaxy-wide cataclysmic event will occur and that they'll have to recreate the entire Culture from square one, because feasibly a single GSV loaded up with human genetic/memory data and enough resources could restart the entire Culture from scratch.

    I mean, a single fully inhabited gsv has like what.. 2-3 billion humans on it alone, plus all the drones and stuff? It's basically a planetary civilization in size already.

    And I mean I could totally imagine that in a galaxy-spanning civ like the culture, you'd find a few billion who'd be willing to just say fuck it and go on a trip outside the galaxy for a few millennia or ever

    I forget if the GSVs in the book are crewed or not, but even if not plenty of people would probably be willing to go into cold storage in one, or in a worst case scenario a GSV is perfectly capable of just making humans from scratch with DNA to reference.

  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    Winky wrote: »
    Winky wrote: »
    A "demilitarized" GSV is also only a transient description, because a GSV contains basically the whole capability of the entire culture, including that to create weapons.

    The thing is that the culture really does believe in their ideals, so you'd have to really piss them off or threaten their existence to make a ship re-militarize again.

    One of the bits I liked (can't even remember which book it was from, probably Excession or Look to Windward?) is that they have GSVs that fly way out to the ass-end of nowhere and go off the radar for millennia just on the off-chance that some galaxy-wide cataclysmic event will occur and that they'll have to recreate the entire Culture from square one, because feasibly a single GSV loaded up with human genetic/memory data and enough resources could restart the entire Culture from scratch.

    I mean, a single fully inhabited gsv has like what.. 2-3 billion humans on it alone, plus all the drones and stuff? It's basically a planetary civilization in size already.

    And I mean I could totally imagine that in a galaxy-spanning civ like the culture, you'd find a few billion who'd be willing to just say fuck it and go on a trip outside the galaxy for a few millennia or ever

    I forget if the GSVs in the book are crewed or not, but even if not plenty of people would probably be willing to go into cold storage in one, or in a worst case scenario a GSV is perfectly capable of just making humans from scratch with DNA to reference.

    Some ships have "crews" which is really just the ship's Mind LARPing with or humoring some biologics that want to play elaborate Spaceteam. Otherwise Minds handle everything themselves.

  • autono-wally, erotibot300autono-wally, erotibot300 love machine Registered User regular
    I mean gsv don't need a human crew, but iirc, they the main "living space" available to a culture citizen - some few orbitals, no planets. All of them live on gsvs and similar ships, don't they?

    kFJhXwE.jpgkFJhXwE.jpg
  • redxredx I(x)=2(x)+1 whole numbersRegistered User regular
    edited September 2021
    I mean gsv don't need a human crew, but iirc, they the main "living space" available to a culture citizen - some few orbitals, no planets. All of them live on gsvs and similar ships, don't they?

    Ehhh... pretty sure most live on orbitals, but GSVs are pretty common.

    There's a few planets as well, they're just uncommon and don't have a lot of realestate compared to an O. Most would need to be teraformed or are already occupied, so why fight over them, when you can just make living space.

    redx on
    They moistly come out at night, moistly.
  • WinkyWinky rRegistered User regular
    Quid wrote: »
    Winky wrote: »
    Winky wrote: »
    A "demilitarized" GSV is also only a transient description, because a GSV contains basically the whole capability of the entire culture, including that to create weapons.

    The thing is that the culture really does believe in their ideals, so you'd have to really piss them off or threaten their existence to make a ship re-militarize again.

    One of the bits I liked (can't even remember which book it was from, probably Excession or Look to Windward?) is that they have GSVs that fly way out to the ass-end of nowhere and go off the radar for millennia just on the off-chance that some galaxy-wide cataclysmic event will occur and that they'll have to recreate the entire Culture from square one, because feasibly a single GSV loaded up with human genetic/memory data and enough resources could restart the entire Culture from scratch.

    I mean, a single fully inhabited gsv has like what.. 2-3 billion humans on it alone, plus all the drones and stuff? It's basically a planetary civilization in size already.

    And I mean I could totally imagine that in a galaxy-spanning civ like the culture, you'd find a few billion who'd be willing to just say fuck it and go on a trip outside the galaxy for a few millennia or ever

    I forget if the GSVs in the book are crewed or not, but even if not plenty of people would probably be willing to go into cold storage in one, or in a worst case scenario a GSV is perfectly capable of just making humans from scratch with DNA to reference.

    Some ships have "crews" which is really just the ship's Mind LARPing with or humoring some biologics that want to play elaborate Spaceteam. Otherwise Minds handle everything themselves.

    Right, I meant "crewed" in the sense of having people living on them.

  • MvrckMvrck Dwarven MountainhomeRegistered User regular
    The GSV Empiricist in Hydrogen Sonata has 13 billion people living on it.

    Contact ships have crews to go explore civs on foot. The combat units are uncrewed by default though.

  • Styrofoam SammichStyrofoam Sammich WANT. normal (not weird)Registered User regular
    Mvrck wrote: »
    The GSV Empiricist in Hydrogen Sonata has 13 billion people living on it.

    Contact ships have crews to go explore civs on foot. The combat units are uncrewed by default though.

    It is noted as being on the extremely high end population-wise though. One of the biggest and grandest things the Culture could field.

    wq09t4opzrlc.jpg
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