I ove that The Culture operates on the near opposite of the Prime Directive.
Star Trek: Who are we to interfere with Planet Nazis?
Culture: Planet Nazis? Oh, we infiltrated and killed several key leaders implicating resistance forces which led to a civil war. The result is still essentially an oligarchy but they’ve established universal suffrage. With some nudging they should even out in a few decades and we can start considering first contact.
You face The Culture with the trolley problem they’ll not only flip the switch, they’ll then start heading up the track to take out the next negligent conductor.
I also like the notion that this is fundamentally what gives the lives of the people in the Culture meaning: there are other people out in the universe suffering and because they are attempting to motivate those civilizations to willingly adopt the moral framework of the Culture, even the most ostentatious hedonism on the part of Culture citizens at least serves the purpose of making the Culture’s lifestyle more attractive to those who haven’t adopted it.
They don't even want or need these foreign groups to join the Culture either, which is interesting. They just want them to be better, kinder and more peaceful versions of what they already are.
With the exception of eccentrics like Grey Area who using his power as an impossibly advanced spacecraft coasts from one industrialized world to the next exposing their most heinous and least talked about sins against their own race to their entire world
That'd be some shit for first contact right? You're sitting around eating a burger and suddenly every electronic device on the planet is hijacked by aliens to confront you with the ugliest deeds your race has ever done for no motive other than to make sure you don't do it again because you can't hide from it, others are watching
I feel like this would not work on humans.
That’s why the Culture ultimately just decided to leave Earth as a control group.
I would like to reiterate my very strong disagreement with this decision
Clearly, the current pile of preventable crisis upon preventable crisis is just SC creating a situation so messy that Contact will intervene, followed by widespread distribution of slap drones.
I ove that The Culture operates on the near opposite of the Prime Directive.
Star Trek: Who are we to interfere with Planet Nazis?
Culture: Planet Nazis? Oh, we infiltrated and killed several key leaders implicating resistance forces which led to a civil war. The result is still essentially an oligarchy but they’ve established universal suffrage. With some nudging they should even out in a few decades and we can start considering first contact.
You face The Culture with the trolley problem they’ll not only flip the switch, they’ll then start heading up the track to take out the next negligent conductor.
I also like the notion that this is fundamentally what gives the lives of the people in the Culture meaning: there are other people out in the universe suffering and because they are attempting to motivate those civilizations to willingly adopt the moral framework of the Culture, even the most ostentatious hedonism on the part of Culture citizens at least serves the purpose of making the Culture’s lifestyle more attractive to those who haven’t adopted it.
They don't even want or need these foreign groups to join the Culture either, which is interesting. They just want them to be better, kinder and more peaceful versions of what they already are.
With the exception of eccentrics like Grey Area who using his power as an impossibly advanced spacecraft coasts from one industrialized world to the next exposing their most heinous and least talked about sins against their own race to their entire world
That'd be some shit for first contact right? You're sitting around eating a burger and suddenly every electronic device on the planet is hijacked by aliens to confront you with the ugliest deeds your race has ever done for no motive other than to make sure you don't do it again because you can't hide from it, others are watching
I feel like this would not work on humans.
That’s why the Culture ultimately just decided to leave Earth as a control group.
I would like to reiterate my very strong disagreement with this decision
Yeah but you have a silly meat brain, what do you know
Ulver Seich: Hehe, it looks like a dildo.
Churt Lyne (a drone): That's appropriate. Armed, it can fuck solar systems.
This quote needs to be in the OP cause hot damn that sort of humor just insta-sold me on this.
There's a grim humor throughout the series. It also gets to how ridiculously absurd Culture technology is compared to the galaxy as a whole.
Gurgeh can't fly his small pod ship around because what is basically a mobile apartment is faster than any warship the local empire has and they don't want them to know that. A demilitarized warship is still capable of destroying planets etc
There's also how the drone gets told it has to wear a disguise...
and is outraged that in addition to being bulk and square, it has to emit static crackling as it hovers.
end spoiler...
although that drone is absolutely 100% actually Skaffen-Amitskaw from Use of Weapons.
is it? I recall it being the drone that blackmails him at the start. There's over 100 years between Use of Weapons and Player of Games
Yep, same drone. And it's not like everyone in the Culture isn't functionally immortal anyways.
No, I'm almost positive you're mixing up characters. Can't find anything online to this effect.
Just looked it up - yes I'm wrong, the drone which blackmails him is in fact the same drone which accompanies him around the planet but it's not Skaffen-Amitskaw...I think...now I'm not so sure why I thought that in the first place....
I name all my electronic hardware (that allows you to choose a name) after Culture ships.
I'm currently typing on Another Fine Product From the Nonsense Factory, my old MacBook Pro. My new one, Hidden Income (I got it from work) is in the shop. The one I had when I wrote my PhD was It'll Be Over By Christmas and my old 17" was Big Sexy Beast. My external hard drives are Cargo Cult, Not Wanted on Voyage (it's not portable), and Contents May Differ (my backup drive). My home WiFi network is Clear Air Turbulence. My Kindle is Armchair Traveller. My Switch is New Toy, and my Wii was Injury Time.
I like Excession, not only are the ships great, it digs into the gender/sex fluidity of the Culture more than any of the others.
I forget if it's Excession or Player of Games that shows how trivial changing one's sex is in the Culture. It's part of the standard built-in functionality of the average Culture citizen's body, right in there with the drug glands, 400 year life span, and the multiple orgasms. Tongue some nubbin in your mouth and in a few weeks you'll have transitioned. It's about as notable as dying your hair.
Hydrogen Sonata and (I think) Matter have have the guys who switch species or got poured into spiked balls, which are the sort of bold moves that might fuel a few minutes of gossip at your average Culture cocktail party.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
I like Excession, not only are the ships great, it digs into the gender/sex fluidity of the Culture more than any of the others.
I forget if it's Excession or Player of Games that shows how trivial changing one's sex is in the Culture. It's part of the standard built-in functionality of the average Culture citizen's body, right in there with the drug glands, 400 year life span, and the multiple orgasms. Tongue some nubbin in your mouth and in a few weeks you'll have transitioned. It's about as notable as dying your hair.
Hydrogen Sonata and (I think) Matter have have the guys who switch species or got poured into spiked balls, which are the sort of bold moves that might fuel a few minutes of gossip at your average Culture cocktail party.
You're also seen as a little strange if you don't change sex at least once in your life, like someone who refuses to ever eat tomatoes or something along those lines.
I ove that The Culture operates on the near opposite of the Prime Directive.
Star Trek: Who are we to interfere with Planet Nazis?
Culture: Planet Nazis? Oh, we infiltrated and killed several key leaders implicating resistance forces which led to a civil war. The result is still essentially an oligarchy but they’ve established universal suffrage. With some nudging they should even out in a few decades and we can start considering first contact.
You face The Culture with the trolley problem they’ll not only flip the switch, they’ll then start heading up the track to take out the next negligent conductor.
I also like the notion that this is fundamentally what gives the lives of the people in the Culture meaning: there are other people out in the universe suffering and because they are attempting to motivate those civilizations to willingly adopt the moral framework of the Culture, even the most ostentatious hedonism on the part of Culture citizens at least serves the purpose of making the Culture’s lifestyle more attractive to those who haven’t adopted it.
They don't even want or need these foreign groups to join the Culture either, which is interesting. They just want them to be better, kinder and more peaceful versions of what they already are.
With the exception of eccentrics like Grey Area who using his power as an impossibly advanced spacecraft coasts from one industrialized world to the next exposing their most heinous and least talked about sins against their own race to their entire world
That'd be some shit for first contact right? You're sitting around eating a burger and suddenly every electronic device on the planet is hijacked by aliens to confront you with the ugliest deeds your race has ever done for no motive other than to make sure you don't do it again because you can't hide from it, others are watching
I feel like this would not work on humans.
That’s why the Culture ultimately just decided to leave Earth as a control group.
I Would Like to Reiterate My Very Strong Disagreement With This Decision
I ove that The Culture operates on the near opposite of the Prime Directive.
Star Trek: Who are we to interfere with Planet Nazis?
Culture: Planet Nazis? Oh, we infiltrated and killed several key leaders implicating resistance forces which led to a civil war. The result is still essentially an oligarchy but they’ve established universal suffrage. With some nudging they should even out in a few decades and we can start considering first contact.
You face The Culture with the trolley problem they’ll not only flip the switch, they’ll then start heading up the track to take out the next negligent conductor.
I also like the notion that this is fundamentally what gives the lives of the people in the Culture meaning: there are other people out in the universe suffering and because they are attempting to motivate those civilizations to willingly adopt the moral framework of the Culture, even the most ostentatious hedonism on the part of Culture citizens at least serves the purpose of making the Culture’s lifestyle more attractive to those who haven’t adopted it.
They don't even want or need these foreign groups to join the Culture either, which is interesting. They just want them to be better, kinder and more peaceful versions of what they already are.
With the exception of eccentrics like Grey Area who using his power as an impossibly advanced spacecraft coasts from one industrialized world to the next exposing their most heinous and least talked about sins against their own race to their entire world
That'd be some shit for first contact right? You're sitting around eating a burger and suddenly every electronic device on the planet is hijacked by aliens to confront you with the ugliest deeds your race has ever done for no motive other than to make sure you don't do it again because you can't hide from it, others are watching
I feel like this would not work on humans.
That’s why the Culture ultimately just decided to leave Earth as a control group.
I Would Like to Reiterate My Very Strong Disagreement With This Decision
This is a great ship name
Whereas this is the kind of name a cheeky young Mind would choose and then be mildly embarrassed about after a few centuries.
My favourite ship name is Mistake Not from Hydrogen Sonata because of the reveal of its full name:
Mistake not
My Current State Of Joshing Gentle Peevishness For The Awesome And Terrible Majesty Of The Towering Seas Of Ire That Are Themselves The Mere Milquetoast Shallows Fringing My Vast Oceans Of Wrath.
Since we were discussing ship names, there's a ship in Halo called Two For Flinching that's a rapid attack corvette and I always though that was a pretty Culture name to give something. That perfect mixture of childishness and menace.
Just finished Consider Phlebas. I loved those incompetent space pirates right through to the end. You're very slowly introduced to the Culture, for a book that's part of a series of books about the Culture they almost come across as guest stars in a book about Horza the Changer.
Totally wasn't expecting the weird cannibal death cult, felt bad for that shuttle AI Horza murdered.
When he kills the Shuttle is when you properly realise that Horza is a bad person for the first time, I think. That's quite a significant moment, he just cold bloodedly murders the AI.
He could have at least tried reasoning with it, "hey how about you drop me off real quick and you can come back and finish your mission." Nope, he skips straight to figuring a way to murder his way out of the situation.
I'm kind of thick I guess, but I didn't understand the end of Consider Phlebas. Why did the
ship name itself after Horza? Was it just trying to shit on his legacy or what?
Its not really clear and since its a Mind its probably intentionally so. They're only as understandable as they want to be. Its unlikely it was mocking because the Culture probably isn't big into mocking dead people who aren't around, what's the point?
My guess is that it admired his determination and resourcefulness despite his bad deeds and poor intentions.
Totally wasn't expecting the weird cannibal death cult...
To me, that part very much felt like the Iain (no middle initial) Banks of The Wasp Factory coming in, writing a chapter and then going back to his room.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Totally wasn't expecting the weird cannibal death cult...
To me, that part very much felt like the Iain (no middle initial) Banks of The Wasp Factory coming in, writing a chapter and then going back to his room.
I read Wasp Factory and Use of Weapons at about the same time and felt that constantly.
There is some discussion of Earth as control group etc., which I know is a joke, but....
I thought it was pretty clear that the Culture is set in the far, far, far future, and that many societies are human or human offshoots, which is why they're... humanoid. There is no contemporary Earth in the setting.
If I'm wrong, if this is meant to be another universe with a bunch of aliens who happen to look and behave exactly like humans, I'm going to be disappointed, tbh
There is some discussion of Earth as control group etc., which I know is a joke, but....
I thought it was pretty clear that the Culture is set in the far, far, far future, and that many societies are human or human offshoots, which is why they're... humanoid. There is no contemporary Earth in the setting.
If I'm wrong, if this is meant to be another universe with a bunch of aliens who happen to look and behave exactly like humans, I'm going to be disappointed, tbh
Some of the books take place while we're in our middle ages. The book makes jokes several times abiut english not having words for things in the Culture's language and vice versa. I suspect "human" is one of them. To the culture thats just an intelligent bipedal mammal that can probably breed with anyone else "human".
There is some discussion of Earth as control group etc., which I know is a joke, but....
I thought it was pretty clear that the Culture is set in the far, far, far future, and that many societies are human or human offshoots, which is why they're... humanoid. There is no contemporary Earth in the setting.
If I'm wrong, if this is meant to be another universe with a bunch of aliens who happen to look and behave exactly like humans, I'm going to be disappointed, tbh
Actually, Earth was visited in the '70 by Contact in a short story in The State of the Art. It was classified as primitive, but developing nicely, so monitor but don't interfere for now.
There's also some indications in Consider Phlebas and Surface Details that Earth was officially contacted and joined the Culture later on.
PS.
Also, humanoid does not means single species of human. It's a bunch of species with vaguely similar biology, followed by a lot of technology.
Those are a minority of the galaxy. Variants on the "gas bag" body plan are more common.
There is some discussion of Earth as control group etc., which I know is a joke, but....
I thought it was pretty clear that the Culture is set in the far, far, far future, and that many societies are human or human offshoots, which is why they're... humanoid. There is no contemporary Earth in the setting.
If I'm wrong, if this is meant to be another universe with a bunch of aliens who happen to look and behave exactly like humans, I'm going to be disappointed, tbh
"The State of the Art" is a ~100 page story where the Culture visit 1970s Earth and after some deliberation decide to treat it as a control group for non-intervention. It's a good read.
There is some discussion of Earth as control group etc., which I know is a joke, but....
I thought it was pretty clear that the Culture is set in the far, far, far future, and that many societies are human or human offshoots, which is why they're... humanoid. There is no contemporary Earth in the setting.
If I'm wrong, if this is meant to be another universe with a bunch of aliens who happen to look and behave exactly like humans, I'm going to be disappointed, tbh
The Culture books span centuries. The first book happens during the 12th century or something. It's documented somewhere. The State of the Art takes place in the late 1970s.
And yeah, there's a lot of Star Trek going on. Diziet Sma mentions only needing "minor alterations" to blend in.
"I got a couple of extra toes, a joint removed from each finger and a rather generalized ear, nose and cheekbone job. The ship insisted on teaching me to walk differently as well"
There is some discussion of Earth as control group etc., which I know is a joke, but....
I thought it was pretty clear that the Culture is set in the far, far, far future, and that many societies are human or human offshoots, which is why they're... humanoid. There is no contemporary Earth in the setting.
If I'm wrong, if this is meant to be another universe with a bunch of aliens who happen to look and behave exactly like humans, I'm going to be disappointed, tbh
Earth as a control group isn't a joke, it's the ending of The State of the Art. A Contact ship rolls in during the 70's, stuff happens, and they decide to leave well enough alone to see what happens and also as part of The Culture's constant worrying that despite their technology and best intentions, they're not actually doing the right thing when they roll up on primitive screwheads and try and bring them into the galactic fold.
If it makes you feel better, they do eventually establish contact with Earth around 2100.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
Posts
"NO! Bad human! No burning coal!!"
Yeah but you have a silly meat brain, what do you know
Clearly we need more spaceships.
edit: I also think the britain thread title is a pretty good spaceship name.
I'm currently typing on Another Fine Product From the Nonsense Factory, my old MacBook Pro. My new one, Hidden Income (I got it from work) is in the shop. The one I had when I wrote my PhD was It'll Be Over By Christmas and my old 17" was Big Sexy Beast. My external hard drives are Cargo Cult, Not Wanted on Voyage (it's not portable), and Contents May Differ (my backup drive). My home WiFi network is Clear Air Turbulence. My Kindle is Armchair Traveller. My Switch is New Toy, and my Wii was Injury Time.
I forget if it's Excession or Player of Games that shows how trivial changing one's sex is in the Culture. It's part of the standard built-in functionality of the average Culture citizen's body, right in there with the drug glands, 400 year life span, and the multiple orgasms. Tongue some nubbin in your mouth and in a few weeks you'll have transitioned. It's about as notable as dying your hair.
Hydrogen Sonata and (I think) Matter have have the guys who switch species or got poured into spiked balls, which are the sort of bold moves that might fuel a few minutes of gossip at your average Culture cocktail party.
You're also seen as a little strange if you don't change sex at least once in your life, like someone who refuses to ever eat tomatoes or something along those lines.
This is a great ship name
Whereas this is the kind of name a cheeky young Mind would choose and then be mildly embarrassed about after a few centuries.
Super advanced Minds the size of the Galaxy and they happily embrace being petty little shits.
Mistake not
It does seem like a bit much to tattoo across your knuckles.
"Mistake Not" is much more succinct.
No, That Part Before ? That's The Name
Why Do We Keep Naming Ships In An Obscure Primitive Language ?
I've always liked "Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The"
Totally wasn't expecting the weird cannibal death cult, felt bad for that shuttle AI Horza murdered.
Its not really clear and since its a Mind its probably intentionally so. They're only as understandable as they want to be. Its unlikely it was mocking because the Culture probably isn't big into mocking dead people who aren't around, what's the point?
My guess is that it admired his determination and resourcefulness despite his bad deeds and poor intentions.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
God we need more spaceships...
Yes, but when is that not true?
I thought it was pretty clear that the Culture is set in the far, far, far future, and that many societies are human or human offshoots, which is why they're... humanoid. There is no contemporary Earth in the setting.
If I'm wrong, if this is meant to be another universe with a bunch of aliens who happen to look and behave exactly like humans, I'm going to be disappointed, tbh
Some of the books take place while we're in our middle ages. The book makes jokes several times abiut english not having words for things in the Culture's language and vice versa. I suspect "human" is one of them. To the culture thats just an intelligent bipedal mammal that can probably breed with anyone else "human".
Actually, Earth was visited in the '70 by Contact in a short story in The State of the Art. It was classified as primitive, but developing nicely, so monitor but don't interfere for now.
There's also some indications in Consider Phlebas and Surface Details that Earth was officially contacted and joined the Culture later on.
PS.
Also, humanoid does not means single species of human. It's a bunch of species with vaguely similar biology, followed by a lot of technology.
Those are a minority of the galaxy. Variants on the "gas bag" body plan are more common.
"The State of the Art" is a ~100 page story where the Culture visit 1970s Earth and after some deliberation decide to treat it as a control group for non-intervention. It's a good read.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
The Culture books span centuries. The first book happens during the 12th century or something. It's documented somewhere. The State of the Art takes place in the late 1970s.
And yeah, there's a lot of Star Trek going on. Diziet Sma mentions only needing "minor alterations" to blend in.
Earth as a control group isn't a joke, it's the ending of The State of the Art. A Contact ship rolls in during the 70's, stuff happens, and they decide to leave well enough alone to see what happens and also as part of The Culture's constant worrying that despite their technology and best intentions, they're not actually doing the right thing when they roll up on primitive screwheads and try and bring them into the galactic fold.
If it makes you feel better, they do eventually establish contact with Earth around 2100.