The Culture
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- This article is about the 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 M. Banks and described by him in several of his novels and shorter fictions.
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[edit] 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 timeframe for the Culture stories is from 1300 AD to 2100 AD.
The Culture was apparently created when several humanoid species and their machine sentiences reached a certain societal level. In The Player of Games, the Culture is described as having existed as a space-faring society for eleven thousand years.
[edit] Culture citizens
[edit] 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. 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.
[edit] 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), 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, 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 caffeine. The Player of Games also describes "Sharp Blue", which is introduced 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".
[edit] 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".
[edit] Death
The Culture has a relatively relaxed attitude towards death. Anti-aging drugs and the continual benevolent surveillance of the Minds make natural or accidential 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 known as 'disposables', and are dealt with in detail in Look to Windward.
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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 posessing no conciousness, and thus not considered citizens). 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.
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 (forcefield and 'effector'-based), as well as other inherent powers. Despite being purpose built, these drones are still allowed a naturally developed personality and given a choice in lifestyle. Indeed, some are eventually deemed psychologically unsuitable as agents (for example as Mawhrin-Skel claims to be in The Player of Games) and must choose (or choose to chose) either mental reprofiling or alternatively demilitarisation and discharge.
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 being 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.
Concerning the lifespan of drones, 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.
[edit] Minds
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 tedious hindrances to computing power as the speed of light.
As far as Minds are concerned (and particularly ship Minds), they are known by the type of their ship (usually a three-letter prefix) and their name, which they choose themselves. Among the most common Culture ship types are:
- GCU: General Contact Unit
- GCV: General Contact Vehicle
- GOU: General Offensive Unit
- GSV: General Systems Vehicle
- LSV: Limited Systems Vehicle
- MSV: Medium Systems Vehicle
- ROU: Rapid Offensive Unit
- (d)ROU: Demilitarised Rapid Offensive Unit (later changed to VFP, short for Very Fast Picket.)
Minds of Culture craft choose their names, and (particularly in peaceful vessels) they are often whimsical and humorous, for instance:
- Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The
- Just Testing (GCU)
For many more examples, see List of Culture Ships.
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 classes, reflecting the Culture's profound distaste of war and resultant refusal to disguise their weapons with euphemism, are always unpleasant (such as the Gangster class, Torturer class, Psychopath class and Thug class ROUs). Their names are often tinged with menace (but still tend to be whimsical), such as:
- All Through With This Niceness And Negotiation Stuff (GOU)
- Attitude Adjuster (ROU)
- Frank Exchange Of Views (ROU)
For many more examples, see List of Culture Ships.
Since the Mind concerned chooses its own name this may sometimes even indicate a degree of self-hatred over its purpose for existence. For more information on the Culture's ships and Minds in general see: Mind (The Culture). A more complete list of Minds' names can be found there. Ships generally view their crew as "interesting companions" and interact with them through remotely controlled devices, often drones as well as more diverse entities. Examples of such diverse interactive systems are animals as well 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, to avoid the exploitation of sentient lifeforms, this is achieved by non-sentient technology unless absolutely necessary.
[edit] 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) denote specific philosophical or political alignments, or make other similarly personal statements. See Diziet Sma for a good example of the nature of names in the Culture.
[edit] The culture of the Culture
[edit] Capability
The Culture is a symbiotic society of AI's (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).
An analysis of the Culture on the Kardashev scale places it approximately at a level 3 civilization[citation needed], meaning it is able to harness all the energy of its galaxy. This is the most advanced level Kardashev originally considered for his ranking system, however its possible the Culture will eventually expand into other galaxies and reach level 4.
[edit] 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. A related comment is made by the narrator in The Player of Games regarding gender-specific pronouns in English, and by general reflection on the fact that Marain has much less structural emphasis (or even lacks) on concepts like posessions and ownership, dominance or submission as well as agression. Many of these concepts would in fact be somewhat theoretical to the usual Culture citizen.
Marain is also regarded as an aesthetically pleasing language.
[edit] 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 your nearest Mind. The only serious prohibitions that seem to exist are against harming other sentient beings, or forcing them into untertaking 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.
[edit] 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 every scientific truth has been discovered, every ailment cured, and where every thought can be read.
On the other hand, the Culture can be seen as fundamentally hedonistic – one of the main objectives for any being is to have fun. 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.
Of course, the massive 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.
[edit] Living space/Habitats
Much of the Culture's population live on Culture Orbitals that can accommodate billions of people - though in Player of Games, orbitals are also referred to by some as the quiet 'backwaters' of the Culture - especially compared to a more exciting life travelling in huge space ships such as GSVs ("General Systems Vehicles") that can accommodate millions of people at a time. Almost no Culture citizens seem to live on planets, except as visitors to other civilizations.
The culture, and some related civilizations are described as living in these various, often constructed habitats:
[edit] Orbitals
- Main article: Orbital (space habitat)
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 both Consider Phlebas and Look to Windward - in the former because an Orbital named Vavatch is to be destroyed by the Culture GSV ESCHATOLOGIST as a tactical move in the war, and in the latter, Masaq' Orbital is the main setting for the novel.
[edit] Spheres
Dyson Spheres exist in the Culture universe but are only mentioned in passing and are simply called 'Spheres'.
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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 do not play a large part in most of the Culture stories, though their use as Ship storage (Pittance) and habitats (Phage Rock) are both key plot points in Excession.
[edit] Ships
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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] Interaction with other civilizations
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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.
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 hardest-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. This, as shown in Player of Games, 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 posesses anything like ground troops, though 'terror weapons' (basically intelligent, nanoform assassins) are mentioned in Look to Windward.
[edit] Real-world politics
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.
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. 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.
[edit] 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, taking place against the backdrop of the galaxy-spanning Idiran War.
- The Player of Games
-
- A brilliant, though decadent, games player from the Culture is entrapped and blackmailed to work as Special Circumstances agent in the brutal Empire of Azad. Their system of society and government is entirely based on an elaborate strategy game.
- Use of Weapons
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- 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
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- 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
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- Culture Minds discover an Outside Context Problem: something so strange it could shake the foundations of their civilization.
- Inversions
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- 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
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- 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.
[edit] 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."
