Special Circumstances, abbreviated SC, is a 'secret service'-type organisation that exists within the fictional anarchist utopian science fiction civilisation known as the Culture. It forms a background and plot device in several novels and shorter works of Iain M. Banks.
Special Circumstances is part of a larger fictional Culture organisation called Contact, which coordinates Culture interactions with (and in) other civilisations. SC exists to fulfil this role when circumstances exceed the moral capacity of Contact, or where the situation is highly complex and requires highly specialized skills, such as in The Player of Games. Special Circumstances also does the 'dirty work' of the Culture, a function made especially complicated by the normally very high ethical standards the Culture sets itself. SC acts in a way that has been compared with the democratising intentions of real-world liberal intent on overcoming the world's (and especially other nation's) evils by benign interference.[1]
In the novels, Special Circumstances often provides the main plot device linking the Culture and other civilisations being intervened in. The 'Good Works' (for which Special Circumstances does the dirty work) are the wider plot device for allowing interaction between the advanced Culture and the 'barbaric' societies it tries to improve. In the same vein, Banks has noted that the perfect society of the Culture creates well-adjusted, content people - who are (for story purposes) rather boring.[2] Therefore, many of the Culture novels deal with outside agents or mercenaries in the employ of Special Circumstances.
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Interventions by SC usually take the form of covert operations (military or otherwise) designed to strengthen or weaken factions within less advanced civilizations.
Typically, the interventions aim to improve the situation of less advanced civilizations, and to get them closer to the Culture ideal. Sometimes interventions may also be intended to nip future challenges to the Culture in the bud (The Player of Games). While the Culture believes that it can statistically prove that most interventions achieve this end, operations are not always successful. Some, as in Look to Windward, may even be disastrous for the intervened civilization.
Special Circumstances regularly pairs its humanoid agents with a combat drone in a long-term partnership. The combat drones are exceedingly intelligent and extremely lethal artificial intelligences. This combination is described as being famous well beyond the Culture to the point approaching a cliché as "...a partnership you could, allegedly, still frighten children and bad people with." The drone is supposed to provide protection and a more level-headed point of view to the SC agent.[3]
Special Circumstances does not always 'play nice' like the rest of the Culture. Their activities have been known to include assassinations, involving for example a 'terror weapon' entity. While only one is described in Look to Windward, there is reference to it being 'a' terror weapon, likely in the sense of 'one of multiple'.
These entities are apparently designed to teach a form of lesson ("instruct") to opponents of the Culture, and to eliminate specific leaders of the enemy; generally, one or two enemies at the top of the conspiracy "pay with their lives". Certainly, the Chelgrian responsible were reminded by their agent of the possible consequences ("Don't fuck with the Culture... we are about to").
During its mission, the terror weapon sadistically kills the Chelgrian chief conspirators (the video security cameras are preserved for the edification of their associates). This is particularly atypical for Culture behaviour, which usually eschews any cruelty – though the act may have been tailored to the expected reactions of the victims' civilisation.
Such instructive lessons are frequently a plot element: in Excession, for example, the instant cloud of warships deployed by the Sleeper Service stops the Affront's stolen fleet in its tracks. While not a terror weapon as such, it has a similar effect on the Affront commander who commits suicide. The weapon need not be a Culture machine at all; Special Circumstances employs agent/drone pairs and mercenaries for parsimonious instruction.
Terror weapons can achieve an almost bloodless rout of the enemy, in contrast with no-holds-barred offensive war machines; in Surface Detail, the Abominator-class picket ship wipes out a third of the GFCF fleet to administer the required instructive lesson. Tellingly, it does so in self-defence, and its victims had placed themselves in harm's way (but it thoroughly enjoyed the exercise).
Those in charge had been warned in the same words (by Vatueil), "'I think we all know the saying: 'Don't fuck with the Culture.'") That admonition was ignored, with the usual consequences. The GFCF dismissed the threat, observing that they had actually been responsible for some incidents giving rise to that saying. Vatueil pointedly suggested they were Culture pawns, well knowing how indirect the Culture can be in accomplishing its dirty work. Joiler Veppers paid with his life; a Culture "tattoo" first immobilized and then dissected him.
In Look to Windward, the terror weapon (which may or may not be a Culture citizen, but is apparently sentient) is a nanoform entity formed of EDust, or Everything Dust. Capable of changing between wildly different shapes, from animal to dust cloud, almost instantly, as well as possessing laser and antimatter capabilities, the terror weapon is a formidable foe. However, its main ability lies within its ability to use powerful forcefield effectors (as weapons, manipulators or defences) and very advanced remote electronic warfare abilities to enable it to disrupt opposing weapon systems or turn them against each other. Such abilities have other applications than terror. EDust was originally intended as a construction material. In Surface Detail, the tattoo, like the EDust assassin, was sentient (and even had a name); it was originally intended for preservation of the person wearing it.
In times of war (as seen in Consider Phlebas), the Contact section of the Culture, and in particular Special Circumstances, acts as a military intelligence and special forces service. In general life, SC is rarely seen or heard of, and is one of the few organizations within the Culture which does not provide information about its actions, working largely in secret, apparently controlled and guided only by a number of the more secretive Minds. The special status of Special Circumstances is best explained by Bora Horza Gobuchul in Consider Phlebas:
Contact membership is seen as a high achievement for people of the Culture as even the best of the best still tend to be too many for the limited available places. SC membership, even more difficult to obtain (and attributed only by invitation) is seen as still more desirable; while SC often deals with (and sometimes furthers) what Culture citizens hate the most (barbarity, violence and actions of questionable ethics), it is also seen as romantic and dashing.
Examples range from Ulver Seich in Excession ("She sighed. 'I suppose so,' she said, rolling her eyes. 'Join Contact and go exploring…' [Y]ou will never have a better chance of getting into Contact, even Special Circumstances, and with them owing you a favour; or two. Do you understand? This is your big chance, girl.'"), to Yime Nsokyi in Surface Detail ("This is the bod who’s famous in the Culture because she turned down SC").
Surface Detail even mentions competitions to take the place of avatars on SC ships, eagerly sought after; “Poor fool won some sort of competition to replace a ship’s avatar for a hundred days or a year or something similar... if I’d really been sneaky I’d have left the dumb fuck with a batch of implanted false memories full of whatever Contact-wank fantasies he’d been imagining before he took the gig in the first place.”.
The morally ambiguous role of Special Circumstances is best explained by Diziet Sma in Use of Weapons :
The SC idea that an advanced civilisation should covertly help those less advanced is similar to the ideas and actions of Progressors in the Noon Universe of Boris and Arkady Strugatsky, as well as the agents of Canopus in the Shikasta novels of Doris Lessing.
The activities of SC are entirely at odds with the Prime Directive in the Star Trek universe. Starfleet explicitly prohibits activity of the kind sanctioned by the Culture, though also for reasons of altruism or enlightened self-interest. See Section 31 for a similar organisation in the Star Trek context. Commentators have argued that for storyline purposes, the Star Trek directive is broken almost as much in that franchise as intentional intervention occurs in Banks' universe, but the Star Trek characters have to be described as trying to not intervene, whereas Banks can let his characters act purposefully.[1]
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