The Culture

Sardaukar · Post by **Sardaukar** » 2002-12-04 08:18pm

Please excuse my ignorance, but who are the Culture and what do they do?

Exonerate · Post by **Exonerate** » 2002-12-04 08:37pm

Ugh, not another thread like this!

data_link · Post by **data_link** » 2002-12-04 08:41pm

You know, this board does have a search feature so that you can find the answers to questions already asked a thousand times. Or, you could just scroll down and find ESB's thread asking the SAME FUCKING QUESTION!

Anyway, The Culture FAQ

Will a mod please lock this utterly useless thread?

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2002-12-04 08:43pm

This must've been the nth time someone has asked that.

Use the search like previous post suggested.

Sardaukar · Post by **Sardaukar** » 2002-12-04 08:49pm

Thank you for the rude responses, you don't HAVE to reply, you know.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2002-12-04 08:53pm

On second thought, I'll just sticky this baby.

Starscream · Post by **Starscream** » 2002-12-18 01:38am

Sardaukar wrote:Thank you for the rude responses, you don't HAVE to reply, you know.

Quite correct. If you don't like the thread, it will die if you don't post in it.

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2002-12-18 10:26pm

Whats the Culture?

Jadeite · Post by **Jadeite** » 2002-12-18 10:56pm

Whats the Culture?

Wow, for a second there, I had a WTF reaction, then I noticed the smiley.

SyntaxVorlon · Post by **SyntaxVorlon** » 2002-12-19 08:08pm

kojikun
location:hell

That probably explains it.

ArmorPierce · Post by **ArmorPierce** » 2002-12-23 02:44pm

Yeah, we don't need to be rude but we don't need to have double threads. But we don't need to be that rude.

Morning Star · Post by **Morning Star** » 2002-12-23 04:10pm

ArmorPierce wrote:Yeah, we don't need to be rude but we don't need to have double threads. But we don't need to be that rude.

Has anyone ever told you that you're very confusing.

Captain Cyran · Post by **Captain Cyran** » 2002-12-24 09:40pm

Morning Star wrote:
ArmorPierce wrote:Yeah, we don't need to be rude but we don't need to have double threads. But we don't need to be that rude.
Has anyone ever told you that you're very confusing.

That's not confusing...thinking about 30 different things at once, now THAT is pretty confusing.

Morning Star · Post by **Morning Star** » 2002-12-25 08:10pm

Captain_Cyran wrote:
Morning Star wrote:
ArmorPierce wrote:Yeah, we don't need to be rude but we don't need to have double threads. But we don't need to be that rude.
Has anyone ever told you that you're very confusing.
That's not confusing...thinking about 30 different things at once, now THAT is pretty confusing.

And so are you.

Captain Cyran · Post by **Captain Cyran** » 2002-12-25 08:13pm

Why thank you.

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2002-12-30 02:09am

A quote found by Xalev containing in-depth information on Culture capabilities. Everyone, read this before doing anything Culture-related.

First... The Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn is my own personal creation. But it's culture based so it'd whup a Lucifer.

The Culture are quite simply one of the most INSANELY powerful races in sci-fi.

I'll be using a few quotes from the old 'Power of the Culture' thread.

1.) "Gridfire taps the energy barrier between universes and brings that energy into our universe. Gridfire can be made to mainfest in any shape, and it simply appears on the target -it is not a beam - making it hard to dodge. 700 years ago, the GSV Eschatologist created four hundred 35,000 km long Gridfire Intrusions in a matter of minutes to destroy the 14,000,000km long Vavatch Orbital. Vavatch was made out of a substance almost as strong as the Suncrusher's hull. Range for Gridfire is measured not in kilometres but in parsecs."

Minimum estimates for gridfire put it at 1e55 Joules. That's roughly 100000000000000000 times more powerful than the DS superlaser. [No, they're not. No one has ever been able to find the source for this 1e55J sillyness, and it comes up as a perennial form of moronitude, having as it does, not a jot of supporting evidence. A wise reader will disregard this paragraph. The best that can be said for gridfire firepower with any surety is that it is sufficient to destroy a planet several times over, around 1e33J ~NecronLord]

2.) "The Effector is another "weapon." It can be used as a sensor, a communicator and a very effective offensive or defensive system. It can take control of a ship or person and force it to self destruct or shut down. Culture effetors are VERY advanced and have ranges of over 2,500 light years and can take over and destroy another Culture Mind in under a microsecond."

Ouch

3.) "The Culture also has displacers - like transporters but far better. They can transport things into the heart of stars, and perform tens of thousands of operations a second. A GSVs heavy duty displacers can pick up another ship from across a solar system. Range increases as the size of the target decreases allowing microscopic objects like CAM or nano bombs (bombs too small to see capable of blowing up planets) to be displaced lighty years away. Displacers are also used to deploy other weapons like plasma charges, fusion bombs and nano holes (microscopic black holes)."

Double ouch.

4.) "For sensors, the Culture uses effectors to pick up emissions or radiation. It can pick up something little more powerful than a penlight at 2,000 ly away. They also use the "skien" to detect the presence of mass. The skien is a level of hyperspace that invariably bends when a significant mass is in the area. For large masses like entire fleets it can sense thousands of ly away. For smaller masses like individual ships this range drops, especially if they are hiding near a larger mass, but it is still substantial."

So it ain't hiding from a Culture ship.

5.) "In defense a GSV does not use shields, it uses "fields." These force fields extend hundreds of km out from the GSVs true hull. They are often used as secondary hulls and entire cities and ecosystems are built on them. A "system" class GSV has up to six billion people living on its outer hulls. In defence these fields form barriers and shells hundreds, even thousands of km deep that must be penetrated to harm the ship itself. Fields can be used to reflect, trap or weaken incoming attacks and GSVs have the power to rebuild their fields in seconds.

GSVs have a system known as "Trapdoor" for dealing with internal explosions. The Trapdoor system transports any unwanted energy straight into hyperspace where it can dissipate harmlessly. Thus it is impossible to use any conventional energy weapons to kill a GSV.

Culture GCUs in the Idiran war (700 years ago) used the tactic of hiding inside stars to escape detection and a 300m long GCU is a FAR weaker ship than a 30 -300KM long GSV. As well, it was stated by the GCU Grey Area that even supernovae were no threat to it. It said that the only natural thing in the galaxy that could harm it was if it flew into a black or white hole. "

Shivan cannons are minor annoyances.

5.) "A GCU is a non-military exploration vessel about 300 meters long on average. They are run by a Mind, a powerful machine intelligence, the distant descendant of sentient computer AIs. Minds are millions of times smarter than humans and think far faster. They can simulate the life and death of an entire universe in a matter of seconds. Battles between Mind piloted starships often take less than a micro second to resolve. The ship does not have a crew, per-se, as humans aren't required for its operation, but people tend to come along for the ride, and to act as human liasons to other civilizations the ship runs across.

A GCU is generally unarmed, but the sheer power of its engines allows it generate enough energy to "waste whole planets" as stated by the Very Fast Picket (ROU demilitarized) Xenophobe. "

Convinced yet?

And for another example.. the Culture Rapid Offensive Unit Killing Time fought a battle against a fleet in 11 microseconds at a speed of 143 TRILLION times light speed.

The Nomad · Post by **The Nomad** » 2002-12-30 07:18am

Just to add :

about the ground combat...

Cultureverse is not as strong on the ground, but nonetheless :

Human : combat suits ( controlled by thought or voice, efficient against everything but high-powered ground weaponry, sensors, effectors, superhuman strenght - much more than 4 men, anti-grav... 'nuff said ) and handguns more powerful than Zakalwe's plasma rifle ( near - kiloton range according to my estimations ... but that's modern Culture )... high-powered lasers, microhowitzers, mini-nukes, plasma cannons, Gauss guns firing explosive bullets are very common.
Not to mention special training and genofixed abilities, nonetheless they're waay too slow when compared to drones.

Changelings : good spies ( genetically engineered humans ), shape-shift in hours both physically ( limited to humanoids ) and mentally ( behaviour and attitude ), various other abilities including cobra-like poison spit due to poison teeth ( cause blindness, and if bite, act as a neurotoxin ), poison glands located in the fingers ( cauze muscular paralysis and death ), various biological retroactions, acid secretions...

Drones : supersonic flight and diehard manoeuvrability ( in Excession , an Elench drone, slightly inferior to Culture's ones, reached supersonic speeds in standard atmosphere within a vessel's corridors ) , force fields ( defense, manipulation, lightsabre-like cutting ) , stealth, effectors, nanomissiles able to completely level a house, gigawatt or even terawatt ranged CREWs ( lasers ), millisecond reaction times ( conservative estimate extrapolated from the realspace reaction times of the Minds )

E-Dust Assassin : mimetic abilties, swarm mode, ( apparently ) mirror fields, at least good resilience to laser cannons, near-invulnerability to bullets, lasers, effector, nanomissiles and reaction times...

The Nomad · Post by **The Nomad** » 2002-12-30 07:23am

I forgot missiles

Semi-sentient small-sized missiles, can use force-fields and lasers, very fast and agile, knive-missiles can cut through many things, and good-sized escort drones carry several of them, as well as micromissiles and scout-missiles.

And the drones have the ability to combine force fields and holographic projections to create ST-style holograms, "soligrams".
Enjoy

The Nomad · Post by **The Nomad** » 2002-12-30 07:39am

And a minor nit-pick : GCUs are armed, and are the back-bone of the Culture army in the first stages of a conflict ( before the unholy war machine of the Culture starts to mass-produce ROUs, LOUs, and GOUs ).

XaLEv · Post by **XaLEv** » 2002-12-30 11:47am

Some additions:

A GCU is generally unarmed, but the sheer power of its engines allows it generate enough energy to "waste whole planets" as stated by the Very Fast Picket (ROU demilitarized) Xenophobe.

Culture vessels' engines produce thrust by pushing against the grid. Their engines do utilize obscene energy levels, but I'm not sure if they can put that energy directly into a planet. They can, however, use their engines to produce waves in the grid which can reach up into the skein - a kind of poor man's Gridfire - by accelerating towards a planet and then braking very hard.

"The Effector is another "weapon." It can be used as a sensor, a communicator and a very effective offensive or defensive system. It can take control of a ship or person and force it to self destruct or shut down. Culture effetors are VERY advanced and have ranges of over 2,500 light years and can take over and destroy another Culture Mind in under a microsecond."

Effectors also have 'suck' and 'blow' settings, allowing them to pull energy out of an object or flood it with energy.

And for another example.. the Culture Rapid Offensive Unit Killing Time fought a battle against a fleet in 11 microseconds at a speed of 143 TRILLION times light speed.

This speed was an anomaly, as it was dangerous to Killing Time's engines and done because KT didn't expect to survive. The usual maximum speed for Culture vessels is around 230 thousand c.

Necro99 · Post by **Necro99** » 2003-01-04 02:09am

What other INSANELY POWERFULL Races are there in the Sci-Fi domain?

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-01-04 09:39pm

Empire.

Xeelee. Q. You name it.

Kosh_The_Vorlon · Post by **Kosh_The_Vorlon** » 2003-01-05 02:18am

Necro99 wrote:What other INSANELY POWERFULL Races are there in the Sci-Fi domain?

Well, the Jjaro could send the Culture running for cover screaming..

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2003-01-05 02:26am

Traditionally, the Xeelee are the ones brought up when naming a race that can stomp the Culture.

Yes, the Xeelee civilization can wipe out all that listed in my post. Tells you just how powerful the Xeelee is

Shrike · Post by **Shrike** » 2003-01-16 03:41am

Of course, the Xeelee's power comes from their sheer logistics base - they have, more or less, the entire universe to draw upon. 14 billion years of growth gets you a pretty damn big population. In any kind of stand up fight though, the Xeelee would get worked and then some, their ships simply have not demonstrated the ability to stand up to Culture warships in reaction speeds, ranges or in 'nifty shit' (effectors).