The Culture

This article is about a fictional society. For the main article on culture, see culture.

The Culture is a fictional anarchic, socialistic and utopian society created by the Scottish writer Iain Banks and described by him in several of his novels and shorter fictions.

The Culture is characterized by being a post-scarcity society (meaning that its advanced technologies provide practically limitless material wealth and comforts for everyone for free, having all but abolished the concept of possessions), by having overcome almost all physical constraints on life (including disease and death) and by being an almost totally egalitarian, stable society without the use of any form of force or compulsion, except where necessary to protect others.

Origins

According to the author, in his fiction the Culture exists in parallel with human society on Earth, rather than representing an imagined future for the human race. Seen from Earth, the time frame for the published Culture stories is from roughly AD 1300 to AD 2100, with Earth being contacted during the end of the time frame, though the Culture had previously visited the planet.

The Culture itself was apparently created when several humanoid species and their machine sentiences reached a certain societal level, and took not only the physical, but also their civilizational evolution into their own hands. In The Player of Games, the Culture is described as having existed as a space-faring society for eleven thousand years.

The culture of the Culture

Capability

The Culture is a symbiotic society of AIs (Minds, Drones) and humanoids, who all share equal status. As mentioned above, all essential work is performed (as far as possible) by non-sentient devices, freeing sentients to do only things that they enjoy. As such, it is also a post scarcity society, where technological advances mean no-one wants for any material goods. As a consequence, the Culture has no need of economic constructions such as money (as is apparent when it deals with civilisations in which money is still important).

Marain

The Culture has a shared language in Marain, designed by early Minds. The Culture believes (or perhaps has proved, or else actively made true) the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis that language affects society, and Marain was designed to exploit this effect, while also 'appealing to poets, pedants, engineers and programmers'. Designed to be represented either in binary, base-eight or symbol-written form, Marain is also regarded as an aesthetically pleasing language.

Related comments are made by the narrator in The Player of Games regarding gender-specific pronouns, and by general reflection on the fact that Marain places much less structural emphasis on (or even lacks) concepts like possession and ownership, dominance and submission and especially aggression. Many of these concepts would in fact be somewhat theoretical to the usual Culture citizen.

Laws

There are no laws as such in the Culture. Social norms are enforced by convention ("good manners" and, as described in The Player of Games, possible ostracism for more serious crimes), and the all-seeing eye of the nearest Minds. The only serious prohibitions that seem to exist are against harming other sentient beings, or forcing them into undertaking any act (another concept that seems unnatural - in fact almost unheard of - to almost all Culture citizens).

While the enforcement in theory could lead to a Big Brother-style surveillance society, in practice social convention among the Minds prohibits them from watching, or interfering, in citizen's lives unless requested, or there is severe risk. The practice of reading a human being's mind (or that of any sentient being) without permission - something the Culture is technologically easily capable of - is also strictly taboo, and Minds that do so are considered deviant and shunned by other Minds. This gives some measure of privacy and protection - though the very nature of Culture society would, strictly speaking, make keeping secrets irrelevant: most would be considered neither shameful nor criminal.

Biological citizens

It has been argued that the role of humans in the Culture is nothing more than that of pets, or parasites on Culture Minds, and that they can have nothing genuinely useful to contribute to a society where science is close to omniscient about the physical universe, where every ailment has been cured, and where every thought can be read. Many of the Culture novels in fact contain characters (from within or without the Culture) wondering how far-reaching the Mind's dominance of the Culture is, and how much of the democratic process within it might in fact be a sham - subtly but very powerfully influenced by the minds in much the same ways Contact and Special Circumstances influence other societies. Also, except for some mentions about a vote over the Idiran-Culture War, and the existence of a very small number of 'Referrers' (humans of especially acute reasoning), few biological entities are ever described as being involved in any high-level decisions.

On the other hand, the Culture can be seen as fundamentally hedonistic - one of the main objectives for any being, including Minds, is to have fun - rather than to be 'useful'. Also, Minds are constructed, by convention, to care for and value human beings. While a General Contact Unit (GCU) does not strictly need a crew (and could construct artificial avatars when it did), a real human crew adds richness to its existence, and offers distraction during otherwise dull periods. In Consider Phlebas it is noted that Minds still find humans fascinating, especially their odd ability to sometimes achieve similarly advanced reasoning as their much more complex machine brains.

Of course, the freedoms enjoyed by humans in the Culture are only available because Minds choose to make them so. Nevertheless, social convention within the community of Minds seem to make it impossible, as well as abhorrent, that these freedoms should be curtailed. The freedoms are such that all are free to leave the Culture when desired, sometimes forming new societies with Culture ships and Minds, most notably the Elench.

The citizens of the Culture

Biological

The Culture is a posthuman society, which originally arose when seven or eight roughly humanoid space-faring species coalesced into a quasi-collective - a "group-civilisation" - ultimately consisting of approximately thirty trillion (short scale) sentient beings (this includes artificial intelligences).

Although the Culture was originated by humanoid species, subsequent interactions with other civilisations have introduced many non-humanoid species into the Culture (including some former enemy civilisations). Little uniformity exists within the Culture. Its citizens are such by choice, they are free to join, leave, and rejoin or indeed declare themselves to be, say, 80% Culture.

Physiology

Techniques in genetics are advanced to the point where bodies are freed from built-in limitations: severed limbs grow back, sexual physiology can be voluntarily changed from male to female and back (though the process itself takes time), sexual stimulation and endurance are strongly heightened in both sexes (something that is often subject of envious debate among other species), any pain can be 'blanked out', possible poisons or toxins can be bypassed away from the digestive system, automatic reflexes such as breathing can be switched to conscious control, and bones and muscles adapt quickly to changes in gravity without the need to exercise them.

Hormonal levels and other chemical secretions can also be consciously monitored and controlled. Furthermore, the humans of the Culture are equipped with drug glands in the base of their skull which secrete on command any of a large selection of chemicals, from the merely relaxing to the mind-altering: "Snap" is described in Use of Weapons and The Player of Games as "The Culture's favourite breakfast drug", and presumably resembles super-charged caffeine. "Sharp Blue" is described as a utility drug, as opposed to a sensory enhancer or a sexual stimulant and helps in problem solving. "Quicken", mentioned in Excession, puts experiences in slow motion. Other such self-produced drugs include "Calm", "Gain", "Charge", "Recall", "Diffuse", "Somnabsolute", "Focus", and "Crystal Fugue State".

Phenotypes

For all these genetic improvements, the Culture is by no means eugenically uniform. Human members vary in size, colour and shape at least as much ourselves, and there are further differences: in the novella The State of the Art, it is mentioned that a character "looks like a Yeti", and that there is variance among the Culture in minor details such as the number of toes or of joints on each finger. It is mentioned in Excession that:

"the tenor of the time had generally turned against ... outlandishness and people had mostly returned to looking more like people over the last millennium", previously "as the fashions of the intervening times had ordained - people ... had resembled birds, fish, dirigible balloons, snakes, small clouds of cohesive smoke and animated bushes".

While the Culture is generally humanoid (and tends to call itself 'human'), various other species and individuals of other species have become part of the Culture.

See also: List of species (The Culture)

Artificial

As well as humans and other biological species, sentient artificial intelligences are also members of the Culture. These can be broadly categorised into drones and Minds. It should also be noted that by custom, as described in Excession, any computer of a certain capability level has to be given sentience.

Drones

Drones are roughly comparable in intelligence and social status to that of the Culture's biological members. Their intelligence is measured against that of an average biological member of the Culture - a so-called "1.0 value" drone would be considered the mental equal of a biological citizen, whereas lesser drones such as the menial service units of orbitals are merely proto-sentient (capable of limited reaction to unprogrammed events, but possessing no consciousness, and thus not considered citizens). The sentience of advanced drones has varying levels of redundancy, from systems similar to that of Minds (though much reduced in capability) down to electronical, atomechanical and finally a biochemical back-up brain.

Although drones are artificial, the parameters that prescribe their minds are not rigidly constrained and sentient drones are full individuals, with their own personalities, opinions and quirks. Like biological citizens, Culture drones generally have lengthy names. They also have a form of 'sexual' intercourse for pleasure, called being 'in thrall', though this is an intellect-only interfacing with another sympathetic drone.

While civilian drones do generally match humans in intelligence, drones built especially as Contact or Special Circumstances agents are often several times more intelligent, and imbued with extremely powerful senses, armaments (usually forcefield and 'effector'-based, though occasionally more 'offensive' weaponry such as lasers or, exceptionally, 'knife-missiles' are referred to), as well as having other inherent powers. Despite being purpose built, these drones are still allowed a individual personalities and given a choice in lifestyle. Indeed, some are eventually deemed psychologically unsuitable as agents (for example as Mawhrin-Skel notes about itself in The Player of Games) and must choose (or chose to choose) either mental reprofiling or alternatively demilitarisation and discharge from Special Circumstances.

Physically, drones are floating units of varying size and shape, usually with no external moving parts. Drones get around the limitations of this inanimation with the ability to project "fields" - both ones capable of applying a physical force, which allow them to manipulate objects, and visible, coloured fields called "auras," which are used to enable the drone to express emotion. There is a complex code of drone body language based around colour and pattern (which is fully understood by biological Culture citizens as well).

In size drones vary quite a lot: the oldest still alive (eight or nine thousand years old) tend to be around the size of humans, whereas technology later on allowed them to be small enough to lie in a human's cupped palm; however modern drones may be any size between these extremes according to fashion and personal preference. Some drones are also designed as utility equipment with its own sentience, such as the gelfield protective suit described in Excession.

Minds

Main article: Mind (The Culture)

By contrast, Minds are considerably more powerful than the Culture's other biological and artificial citizens. Typically they inhabit and act as the controllers of large-scale Culture hardware such as ships or space-based habitats. As such, Minds are usually identified with and known by the same name as the physical object they operate and live within. Unsurprisingly, given their duties, Minds are tremendously powerful: capable of holding millions of conversations simultaneously with any of the citizens that live aboard them, while running all of the functions of the ship or habitat. To allow them to perform at such a high degree, they exist partially in hyperspace to get around such hindrances to computing power as the speed of light.

During the time of Consider Phlebas, Minds were estimated to number in the several hundreds of thousands.

Culture Minds choose their own names (which then also identify the craft they inhabit, if any), and their choices are often whimsical and humorous. Ship-based minds are identified by a three-letter prefix denoting class (such as GSV or GCU), followed by their personal name, such as:

• Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The
• Just Testing

Culture military craft are often designed to be ugly and graceless, lacking the Culture's usual aesthetic style, and it has been theorised that this is because Culture citizens wish to distance themselves from the military aspects of their society. Their ship classes, reflecting the Culture's profound distaste of war and resultant refusal to disguise their weapons with euphemisms, are always unpleasant (such as the Gangster class, Torturer class, Psychopath class and Thug class). Their self-given names are often tinged with menace (but still tend to be whimsical), such as:

• All Through With This Niceness And Negotiation Stuff
• Attitude Adjuster
• Frank Exchange Of Views

See also: List of ships (The Culture)

Presumably to avoid the cumbersome repetition of such long names, the inhabitants of ships and habitats tend to refer to the overseeing Mind as simply "Ship" or "Hub", for example.

Since the Mind concerned chooses its own name this may sometimes even indicate a degree of self-hatred over its purpose for existence. Warship Minds are somewhat out of the normal Culture's behaviour range, designed to be more aggressive and less ambivalent about violence than the usual Culture citizen.

Ships generally view their crew as "interesting companions" and interact with them through remotely controlled devices, often drones or humanoid 'avatars'. Examples of more diverse interactive systems are animals such as small fish suspended in their own anti-gravity sphere of water.

As a sidenote, the fact that artificial intelligences are accepted as citizens of the Culture was a major factor in the Idiran-Culture War, which is explored in Consider Phlebas. This granting of citizenship has other more general consequences. For instance, although there is a high degree of automation within Culture technology, but to avoid the exploitation of sentient lifeforms, this is achieved by non-sentient technology unless absolutely necessary (though Minds often work at administrative tasks using bare fractions of their enormous mental capabilities).

Names

Culture citizens - humanoid or drone - have long names, often with seven or more words. Some of these words specify the citizen's origin (place of birth or manufacture), some an occupation, and some (chosen later in life by the citizen himself) may denote specific philosophical or political alignments, or make other similarly personal statements. An example would be Diziet Sma whose full name is Rasd-Codurersa Diziet Embless Sma da' Marenhide:

• Rasd-Codurer is the planetary system of her birth, and the specific object (planet, orbital, dyson sphere, etc.). The '-sa' suffix is roughly equivalent to '-er' in English. By this convention, earth humans would all be named Sol-Terran (or Sun-Earther).
• Diziet is her given name. This is chosen by a parent, usually the mother.
• Embless is her chosen name. Most Culture citizens choose this when they reach adulthood (according to The Player of Games this is known as "completing one's name"). As with all conventions in the Culture, it may be broken or ignored: some change their chosen name during their lives, some never take one.
• Sma is her surname, usually taken from one's mother.
• da' Marenhide is the place of her upbringing, or her 'house', the 'da' or 'dam' being similar to 'von' in German.

Death

The Culture has a relatively relaxed attitude towards death. Anti-aging drugs and the continual benevolent surveillance of the Minds make natural or accidental death almost unknown. Advanced technology allows citizens to make "backup" copies of their personalities, allowing them to be resurrected in case of death. The form of that resurrection can be specified by the citizen, with personalities returning either in the same biological form, in an artificial form (see below), or even just within virtual reality. Some citizens choose to die (or 'go to sleep') for long periods of times, out of boredom or curiosity about the future.

However, as is made clear in the novels, attitudes individual citizens have towards death are very variable (and have varied throughout the Culture's history). While many, if not most, citizens make some use of resurrection technology, many others do not, preferring instead to risk death without the possibility of recovery (for example when engaging in extreme sports). These citizens are sometimes called 'disposables', and are described in Look to Windward. Taking into account such accidents, voluntary ethanasia for emotional reasons, or choices like sublimation, the average lifespan of humans is described in Excession as being around 350 years or longer.

Concerning the lifespan of drones and Minds, given the durability of culture technology and the aforementioned options of mindstate 'back-ups', it is reasonable to assume that they live as long as they choose. Even Minds, with their utmost complexity, are known to be backed up (and reactivated if they for example die in a risky mission, see GSV Lasting Damage). In Excession, however, it is noted that even Minds themselves do not necessarily live forever either - often choosing to eventually sublime or even comitting suicide.

The technology of the Culture

Anti-gravity / Forcefields

The Culture (and other societies) have developed powerful anti-gravity abilities, closely related to their ability to manipulate forces itself.

In this ability they can create action-at-a-distance forces, including walls, pushing, pulling or fine-manipulation forces, as well as use forcefields for visual display or destructive ability. These forces still retain restrictions on range and power: while forcefields many square kilometres large are possible, and in fact, orbitals are held together by forcefields in Look to Windward, spaceships are still used for travel and remote activity.

Artificial intelligence

Main article: Mind (The Culture)

Artificial intelligences (and to a lesser degree, the non-sentient computers omnipresent in all material goods), form the backbone of the technological advances of the Culture. Not only are they the most advanced scientists and designers the Culture has, their lesser functions also oversee the vast (but usually hidden) production and maintenance capabilities of the society.

The Culture has achieved artificial intelligences where each mind has thought processing capabilities many magnitudes beyond that of human beings, and data banks which if written out on paper and stored in filing cabinets, would cover thousands of planets skyscraper high (as described by one Mind in Consider Phlebas), yet has managed to condense these entities to a volume of several dozen cubic metres (though much of the contents and the operating structure are continually in hyperspace)

At the same time, it has achieved drone sentiences of human-or-above intellectual ability in barely apple-sized form, and built extremely powerful (though not sentient) computers capable of fitting into tiny insect-like drones.

Energy manipulation

A major feature of its post-scarcity society, the Culture is obviously able to gather, manipulate, transfer and store vast amounts of energy. While not explained in detail in the novels, this involves anti-matter and 'grid energy', a postulated energy field dividing the universe from a mirroring anti-matter universe, and providing practically limitless energy. Transmission or storage of such energy is not explained, though these capabilities must be powerful as well, with tiny drones capable of very powerful manipulatory fields and forces.

Matter displacement

The Culture (at least by the time of Excession) has developed a form of teleportation capable of transporting both living and unliving matter instantaneously. This technology has not rendered spacecraft obsolete - in Excession a barely apple-sized drone was displaced for no further than a light-second at maximum range (mass playing a role in determining maximum range), a tiny distance in galactic terms. The process also still has a very small chance of failing and killing living beings, but the chance is described as so minuscule that it becomes more an emotional issue than a real danger.

Personality backups

See also: Death in the Culture

The Culture has the capability to read and store the full sentience of any being, biological or artificial, and to thus 'reactivate' a stored being after its death. Note that this also necessitates the capability to read thoughts, but as described in Look to Windward, doing this without permission is one of the few real crimes of the Culture.

Starships / Warp drive

Main article: Ship types (The Culture)

As an almost fully space-borne culture, starships (next to orbitals) are the main living spaces, vehicles and ambassadors of the culture. A proper Culture starship (as defined by warp capability and the presence of a Mind to inhabit it) may range from several hundreds of metres to many hundred kilometres. The latter may be inhabited by billions of beings and are artificial worlds of their own, including whole ecosystems.

The Culture (and most other space-faring species in its universe) use a form of Hyperspace-drive / warp drive to achieve faster-than-light speeds. Banks has evolved a (self-confessedly) technobabble system of theoretical physics to describe the ships' acceleration and travel, using such concepts as 'infraspace' and 'ultraspace' and an 'energy grid' between universes (from which the warp engines 'push off' to achieve momentum).

Warp engines do not use reaction mass and hence do not need to be mounted on the surface of the ship. Acceleration and maximum speed depend on the ratio of the mass of the ship to the volume of its engines. As with any other matter aboard, ships can gradually manufacture extra engine volume or break it down as needed. In Excession one of the largest ships of the Culture redesigns itself to be mostly engine and reaches a speed of 233,000 times lightspeed. It should be noted that within the range of the Culture's influence in the galaxy, even such speeds can translate to years of travelling to the more remote spots.

Warp engines can be very small, with drones barely larger than fist-size described as being thus equipped. There is also at least one (apparently non-sentient) species (the 'Chuy-Hirtsi' animal), that possesses the innate capability of warp travel. In Consider Phlebas it is being used as a military transport by the Idirans, but no further details are given.

Living space / habitats

Much of the Culture's population lives on Culture orbitals, vast artificial worlds that can accommodate billions of people. Others travel the galaxy in huge space ships such as GSVs ("General Systems Vehicles") that can accommodate hundreds of millions of people. Almost no Culture citizens are described as living on planets, except when visiting other civilizations. The reason for this is partly because the Culture believes in containing its own expansion to self-constructed habitats, instead of colonizing or conquering new planets.

The culture, and some related civilizations are described as living in these various, often constructed habitats:

Orbitals

Main article: Orbital (The Culture)

An Orbital is a ring structure orbiting a star as would a planet. Unlike a Dyson Sphere or Ringworld, an Orbital does not enclose the star (i.e. it is much too small). However, like a Ringworld, the Orbital rotates to provide an analog of gravity on the inner surface. A Culture Orbital rotates about once every 24 hours and has 'gravity' about the same as Earth's, making the diameter of the ring about 4,000,000 km, and ensuring that the inhabitants experience 'night' and 'day' as we do. Orbitals feature prominently in many Culture stories.

Spheres

Dyson Spheres exist in the Culture universe but are only mentioned in passing and are simply called 'Spheres'.

Big Rings

Similarly, Ringworld-like megastructures also exist in the Culture universe but are referred to as 'Big Rings'. These habitats are not described in detail but some are recorded as having been destroyed in the Idiran-Culture war.

Air Spheres

These are vast, almost planet-sized bubbles of atmosphere enclosed by force fields. There is only minimal gravity within an Air Sphere. They are inhabited by various forms of life, including citizens of the Culture and related civilizations. The Spheres predate the Culture, and may have been created by an old, technologically advanced culture.

Rocks

These appear to be asteroids and other non-planetary bodies inhabited in their hollow interiors. They may have artificial gravity of the sort apparently employed by ships, they may rotate to provide 'gravity', or they may have no gravity at all. Rocks (with the exception of those used for secretive purposes) are described as having warp drives, and thus can be considered a special form of spaceship. Like orbitals, they are usually administered by one or more Minds.

Rocks do not play a large part in most of the Culture stories, though their use as storage for mothballed military ships (Pittance) and habitats (Phage Rock, one of the original origins of the Culture) are both key plot points in Excession.

Ships

Main article: Ship types (The Culture)

See also: List of ships (The Culture)

Ships in the Culture are, in effect, huge intelligent individuals, controlled by one or more Minds. Many are hundreds of kilometers in size and have residents who live on them full time. Ships may contain smaller ships with their own populations. In Use of Weapons, the protagonist Zakalwe is allowed to acclimatize himself to the Culture by wandering for days through the habitable levels of a ship, eating and sleeping at the many locations which provide food and accommodation throughout the structure, and enjoying the various forms of contact possible with the friendly and accommodating inhabitants. In Excession a particularly large GSV named Sleeper Service specializes in tending to humanoids who have elected to spend time in suspended animation. The Ship's Mind amuses itself by using the bodies in tableaux of historic battles.

Planets

Though several other civilisations in the Culture books live on planets, the culture as it currently exists is not mentioned as still living on planets. It would appear from their ethical standpoint on this issue with other species that they prefer to live on worlds they have built, rather than colonise pre-existing ones, in order to preserve natural environments.

This respect is not absolute though; in Consider Phlebas, some Minds suggest testing a new technology on a 'spare planet' (knowing that it could be destroyed in an anti-matter explosion if unsuccessful). It should be assumed from their normal ethics, however, that this planet would have been lifeless to start with.

Interaction with other civilizations

See also: List of species (The Culture)

Foreign policy

Although leading a comfortable life within the Culture, many of its citizens feel a need to be useful, and to belong to a society that does not merely exist for their own sake, but that also helps improve the lot of sentient beings throughout the galaxy. For that reason, the Culture carries out "good works", covertly or overtly interfering in the development of lesser civilisations, with the main aim to bring them - often very gradually - closer to the Culture ideal in both technology and social norms. As Culture citizens see it, these good works provide the Culture with a "moral right to exist".

A group within the Culture, Contact, is responsible for its interactions (diplomatic or otherwise) with other civilisations (though non-contact citizens are apparently not prevented from travelling or interacting with other civilizations). Further within Contact, an intelligence organisation named Special Circumstances exists to deal with interventions which require more covert behaviour - the interventionist approach that the Culture takes to the advancement of other societies may often create resentment in the affected civilizations, and thus requires a rather delicate touch.

Behaviour in war

While the Culture is normally pacifist, Contact additionally acts as its military arm in times of war, while Special Circumstances is its Secret Service. During war, most of the strategic and tactical decisions are taken by the Minds, with apparently only a small number of especially gifted humans, the 'Referrers', being involved in the top-level decisions. It is however hinted at in Consider Phlebas that the actual decision to go to war was based on a vote of all Culture citizens, presumably after vigorous discussion within the whole society.

It is described in various novels that the Culture is extremely reluctant to go to war, though it may start to prepare for it long before its actual commencement. In the Idiran-Culture War (possibly one of the most hard-fought wars for the normally extremely superior Culture forces), various star systems, stellar regions and many orbital habitats were overrun by the Idirans before the Culture had converted enough of its forces to military footing. It should be noted however, that the Culture Minds had had enough foresight to evacuate almost all its affected citizens (apparently numbering in the many billions) in time before actual hostilities reached them. As shown in Player of Games, this is a standard Culture tactic, with its strong emphasis on protecting its citizens rather than sacrificing some of them for short-term gains.

War within the Culture is mostly fought by the Culture's sentient warships, the most powerful of these being war-converted GSV - which are described as powerful enough to oppose whole enemy fleets. There are few indications that the Culture possesses anything like ground troops, though 'terror weapons' (basically intelligent, nanoform assassins) are mentioned in Look to Windward.

Real-world politics

Utopia

Comparisons are often made between the Culture and the twentieth and twenty first century Western civilization(s), particularly their interventions in less-developed societies. These are often confusing especially with regard to the author's assumed politics.

Many believe that the Culture is a utopia carrying significantly greater moral legitimacy than the West's, by comparison, proto-democracies. While Culture interventions can seem similar at first to Western interventions, especially when considered with their democratising rhetoric, the argument is that the Culture operates completely without material need, and therefore without the possibility of baser motives. This is not to say that the Culture's motives are entirely altruistic; a peaceful, enlightened universe is in the Culture's enlightened interest. Furthermore, the Culture's ideals - in many ways similar to those of the left liberal perspective today - are to a much larger extent realised internally in comparison to the West.

Some transhumanists hold up the Culture as a model of the type of society they hope to ultimately achieve.

Criticism

Others see the Culture as only too similar to today's Western societies - bent on interfering with less developed societies out of any number of reasons; a sense of guilt at their own comfort relative to others, moral righteousness (similar in a sense to Crusaders or Missionaries), or even just providing the Culture with a reason for its own existence beyond pure hedonism.

Many of the practices employed by Special Circumstances would be considered distasteful even in the context of a Western democracy. Examples are the use of mercenaries to perform the work that the Culture doesn't want to get their hands dirty with, and even outright threats of invasion (the Culture has issued ultimatums to other civilizations before). Use of Weapons is an excellent example of just how dirty Special Circumstances will play in order to get their way and the conspiracy at the heart of Excession demonstrates how at least some Minds are prepared to kill (both directly and indirectly) Culture citizens where they conclude this is for the long term good. However, Special Circumstances represents a very small fraction of Contact, which itself is only a small fraction of the entire Culture, making it comparable again to size and influence of modern intelligence agencies.

Novels

The Culture novels comprise (in publishing, and mostly chronological, order):

Consider Phlebas

The first Culture novel. Its protagonist is working for the religious Idiran Empire against the Culture. A rich, although basically linear story about recovering one of the artificial sentiences of the Culture, it takes place against the backdrop of the galaxy-spanning Idiran War.

The Player of Games

A brilliant though bored games player from the Culture is entrapped and blackmailed to work as a Special Circumstances agent in the brutal stellar Empire of Azad. Their system of society and government is entirely based on an elaborate strategy game.

Use of Weapons

A non-linear story about a Culture mercenary called Zakalwe. Chapters describing his adventures for Special Circumstances are intercut with stories from his past, where the reader slowly discovers why this man is so troubled.

The State of the Art

A collection of short stories (some Culture, some not) and a Culture novella. The (eponymous) novella deals with a Culture mission to Earth in the 1970s.

Excession

Culture Minds discover an Outside Context Problem: something so strange it could shake the foundations of their civilization.

Inversions

Seemingly a Special Circumstances mission seen from the other side - on a planet whose development is roughly equivalent to 13th Century Europe.

Look to Windward

Sequel of sorts to Consider Phlebas. The Culture has interfered in the development of the Chel with disastrous consequences. Now, in the light of a star that was destroyed 800 years previously during the Idiran War, plans for revenge are being hatched.

Banks on the Culture

When asked in Wired magazine (June 1996) whether mankind's fate depends on having intelligent machines running things, as in the Culture, Banks replied:

"Not entirely, no. I think the first point to make about the Culture is, I'm just making it up as I go along. It doesn't exist and I don't delude myself that it does. It's just my take on it. I'm not convinced that humanity is capable of becoming the Culture because I think people in the Culture are just too nice - altering their genetic inheritance to make themselves relatively sane and rational and not the genocidal, murdering bastards that we seem to be half the time."

"But I don't think you have to have a society like the Culture in order for people to live. The Culture is a self-consciously stable and long-lived society that wants to go on living for thousands of years. Lots of other civilisations within the same universe hit the Culture's technological level and even the actuality of the Culture's utopia, but it doesn't last very long - that's the difference."

"The point is, humanity can find its own salvation. It doesn't necessarily have to rely on machines. It'll be a bit sad if we did, if it's our only real form of progress. Nevertheless, unless there's some form of catastrophe, we are going to use machines whether we like it or not. This sort of stuff has been going on for decades and mainstream society is beginning to catch up to the implications of artificial intelligence."

In a 2002 interview with Science Fiction Weekly magazine, when asked:

"Excession is particularly popular because of its copious detail concerning the Ships and Minds of the Culture, its great AIs: their outrageous names, their dangerous senses of humour. Is this what gods would actually be like?"

Banks replied:

"If we're lucky."

External links

• By Iain M. Banks:
  • "A Few Notes on The Culture"
  • Spike magazine interview
  • Scifi.com interview
• Culture List fan mailing list