The Culture vs. the Galactic Empire

[Ender]

I suggest his name be edited to "Eddy the Very Stupid". Can the mods do that?

[Ender]

I don't consider a Mind to be "Weak-willed"

Still, even if taking care of the humans is as easy as breathing, would you still breath if you didn't have to?

Why do humans keep and care for pets?

[Eddy the Very Great]

Why would culture humans allow themselves to be reguarded as pets? Also why is the 9000 year old culture more advanced than the 25,000 year old Republic?

[Ender]

Why would culture humans allow themselves to be reguarded as pets? Also why is the 9000 year old culture more advanced than the 25,000 year old Republic?

Because that is how it is you fucking retard.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Because it is.

BTW: Dumb question, but not as dumb as Eddy-chan here:

What's Gridfire, exactly?

[Eddy the Very Great]

It makes impossibly high levels of energy appear on the target.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Not from you, Baka-chan, from someone WITH a brain...

[Xon]

Because it is.

BTW: Dumb question, but not as dumb as Eddy-chan here:

What's Gridfire, exactly?

Gridfire is the Cultures most powerful weapon. It is when they open a trans-dimensional rift between the 'Grid' (universe below & above the current universe) and dump a shit load on energy into realspace/hyperspace.

The estimates I've seen are ~ 10^50 joules, of it can be killed via brute force, the Culture can kill it. If it relies on electromagnetism for its through processes, the culture can effectorise it. Whether it can function on entities which encode their thought processes into other fundemental forces(gravity, nuclear forces) or relies one mantipulation of said fundmental forces is unknown(as a Culture Vulture for more details).

And to top it all off, the Culture have really really fast reaction times(sub-millisecond range) and really powerful Minds (basicly sentient computer, but with an enoughtmass amount of processing power & memory storage)

[XaLEv]

Because it is.

BTW: Dumb question, but not as dumb as Eddy-chan here:

What's Gridfire, exactly?

Long story short, the universe is a hypersphere arranged like an onion, with the various layers separated by a region of energy called the Grid. Gridfire works by pulling some of this energy up from the Grid and depositing it in realspace. Due to the 4D nature of Gridfire, it seems to just appear on the target when viewed in 3 dimensions. The energy content of the Grid is effectively unlimited, and the amount in any single Gridfire Incursion is enourmous; the numbers I've seen for it are in the area of 1e55 J, but I have no idea how that was derived. It does give a good idea of how powerful Gridfire is, though.

[Singular Quartet]

Not from you, Baka-chan, from someone WITH a brain...

Actually, he's fairly correct (For once)

gridfire can be sued as a weapon, although some minds use it for more... artistic... destruction. For example, a GSV taking apart an Orbital in Consider POheleobas. It cuts it apart into squares, beofre bloowing those into smaller squares, then just using a flat out CAM barrage to complete wipe out the rest.

Mind you, this is still a few light-months (Or was it years?)out.

[XaLEv]

Also, that's the controlled, dedicated-weapon form of Gridfire. Culture vessels use the Grid for propulsion, by pushing against irregularities in it. They can produce waves in the Grid by accelerating. Accelerate hard enough, and these waves will reach all the way to the skein of realspace, in a kind of poor-man's Gridfire.

[Singular Quartet]

Another such analogy, byt IXJac at ASVS:

If the Culture is the US, then the Homomdan Empire is the USSR, the Chinese are the Idirans, the mugger on the corner of Fifth and Main is the Galactic Empire, and the bum he's curb-stomping is the UFP.

ACtaully, I think he ahs it backwards. The Idrians were the USSR (Now their just Russia), the Homodans are China, and the Affront are the Saudis. Everything else works out perfectly.

[SyntaxVorlon]

And just to add, as I am both a fiver and a vulture, the entirety of B5 military forces(Dilgar to Vorlons) is some young guy who takes one look at the mugger and sees the guy he's beating up, and wonders if he could be as strong as the mugger, but knows the UFP is a total idiot and weakling by looking at him.

How would the Culture take on Galactus, find a way to feed him energy from the grid, and wean him off planets. Then give him a nice condo on some orbital, what they do with most of their enemies.

[The Nomad]

Why would culture humans allow themselves to be reguarded as pets?

The guy who took care of the edition of the Culture novels in my country ( Gérard Klein ) had a striking image :"Take a cat and its master. In your opinion, what does the cat think ? 'This huge friggin' thing feeds me for nothing, provides me with delicacies, caresses, and fun, of course it serves me.' Now the average Culture sentient ( wether human, alien or drone ) is the cat, and the average Mind the human ( just infinitely more intelligent, proportionnaly )."
It should be noted that some malevolent Minds exist ( aka Grey Area, nicknamed Meatfucker ), or other Minds which do not like inferior sentients and don't take care of them. They're very few of the first ones, and slightly more of the second ones. But the vast majority of the Minds like human-level sentients.

Also why is the 9000 year old culture more advanced than the 25,000 year old Republic?

Because it is so. Or, if you like a more detailed explanation : they've got God-level IAs for millenia. What do you think a bunch of meatbrains could do in twice as many years ? The only thing they have which might interest the Culture is SW hyperdrive. But their own hyperdrives have so much other advantages that it's not really worth it. And if going through SW hyperspace cuts them from the Grid, they just won't use it.
Not to mention that the Culture was created 9,000 years ago by civilisations which were alraedy space-faring. Species like the Homomdans had IIRC been space-faring for tens of millenia ( the quote must be in CP or LtW ).

Galactus vs Culture :
* they can attract him near one of the Dead Worlds or Aerospheres. Well, after that we've at the very least a neutralized/banned Galactus
* connect him to the Grid, he'll be fed with limitless energy til' the death of this universe
* effectorize him ( and no Mr Wong, effectors aren't psionics, as, with the possible exceptions of the Sublimed and the Refferent, the Cultureverse has no supernatural phenomenons I've heard of ).

[Captain tycho]

OK, I have a very silly question . What is an effector?

[The Nomad]

OK, I have a very silly question . What is an effector?

A Cultureverse device that apparently manipulate EM fields. There are hand-held effectors ( used by humans ), drone or suit-borne effectors as well as starship-level effectors. It can be used as a weapon, hacking device, sensor, defense, whatnot.

They can manipulate biological brains, various forms of computers including the Minds. They also have a "blow" and "suck" setting which respectively fill an object with energy and , well, suck that energy out of it ( this can take the form of the "soul" of an human or drone, which can be then reimplanted in a new body ). They're so versatile that it is difficult to distinguish a "no limits" fallacy from the truth.

While having most of the time very little effective firepower, they're the most dangerous weapon of the Cultureverse, Gridfire excluded, as there is no truly effective defense against them ( aside from, of course, being faster than your opponent ).

[Faram]

Capitan you might vant to check out this:

[url=ttp://www.cs.bris.ac.uk/~stefan/culture.html]A Few Notes on the Culture

by

Iain M Banks[/url]

[Stormbringer]

It should be noted that some malevolent Minds exist ( aka Grey Area, nicknamed Meatfucker ), or other Minds which do not like inferior sentients and don't take care of them. They're very few of the first ones, and slightly more of the second ones. But the vast majority of the Minds like human-level sentients.

Grey Area isn't really malevolent. The best analogy would actually be something like the Furies. It's simply taken it upon it self to take vengeance on behalf of certain wrong parties.

[Faram]

Grey Area isn't really malevolent. The best analogy would actually be something like the Furies. It's simply taken it upon it self to take vengeance on behalf of certain wrong parties.

I love this port from Excession:

~You would not belive what I am, commendant, but what I am talking about is a thing called genocide, and the proof thereof.

We did what had to be done!

~Thank you, we've just been through all that. Your self-justification have been noted.

I belive in what I did.

~I know. You had the residual decency to question it occasionally, but in the end you did endeed belive in what you where doing. That is not an excuse, but it is a point.

Who are you? what gives you the right to crawl inside my brains?

~My name would be something like Grey Area in your language. What gives me the right t crawl inside your brains, as you put it, is the same thing that gave you the right to do what you did to those you murdered; power. Superior power. Vastly superior power, in my case. However I have been called away and I have to leave you now, but I shall return in a few months and I'll be countinuing my investigations then.

GCU Gray Area to a murderous sob that he scared to death.

[Luke Starkiller]

Grey Area isn't really malevolent. The best analogy would actually be something like the Furies. It's simply taken it upon it self to take vengeance on behalf of certain wrong parties.

I love this port from Excession:

~You would not belive what I am, commendant, but what I am talking about is a thing called genocide, and the proof thereof.

We did what had to be done!

~Thank you, we've just been through all that. Your self-justification have been noted.

I belive in what I did.

~I know. You had the residual decency to question it occasionally, but in the end you did endeed belive in what you where doing. That is not an excuse, but it is a point.

Who are you? what gives you the right to crawl inside my brains?

~My name would be something like Grey Area in your language. What gives me the right t crawl inside your brains, as you put it, is the same thing that gave you the right to do what you did to those you murdered; power. Superior power. Vastly superior power, in my case. However I have been called away and I have to leave you now, but I shall return in a few months and I'll be countinuing my investigations then.

GCU Gray Area to a murderous sob that he scared to death.

Dammit I need to get that book, but it is 'Temporarily Unavailible to Order'.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I love the Meatfucker. It's second only to the Killing Time (still the best damn sci-fi ship name ever, IMHO) in terms of ruthlessness.

Gotta love taking the law into your own hands and getting away with it.

[Kerneth]

I just started reading the Culture novels thanks to you guys.

These are great. I can't find "Use of Weapons" but my library had "Excession", "Inversion", "Player of Games", and "Look to Windward".

Yes, Gray Area is a badass. Though as far as ship names go I think So Much For Subtlety and Frank Exchange of Views are probably among the best going even if they aren't really "warships".

[NecronLord]

The idea of the force intervening on behalf of the Empire is as likely as the Grid intervening on behalf of the culture.

[Eddy the Very Great]

I know that. I was just saying that the Force is an advantage for SW's side.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

That's all I have to say right now.