Thread 64227515

The Culture decides to invade America based on the machinations of the Minds. How quickly does America stomp?

No gridfire.

>>64227515 (OP)
>Culture
0,5 nanoseconds

>>64227515 (OP)
Heh

>>64227522
>>64227534

Develop your hypothesis

>>64227515 (OP)
>it's another old scottish socialist's utopian fantasy which he can't even make attractive to its own characters inside its own setting.
A Xeelee farts and deletes your transgender drug orgy before it was born. Next.

>>64227542
one single ship, name of "It Ain't Me", produces a few billion flying headbands that build in a cloud around the planet, then simultaneously drop through the atmosphere and glom onto each individual human old enough to speak. The headbands contain ultrafine forcefield effectors able to individually grab and move neuron arms and swap them between different synapses, as well as sense what the brain is doing, and are monitored and controlled by a team of three other Minds: No Returns Accepted, Creamy Center and For Whom The Bell Tolls. They use them to make minute changes to excise certain behaviors like genital mutilation and whatever makes people want to look like Kardashians, and rewrite a few loyalty-related areas. Within an hour of the initial invasion, all sapient Earthlings have become Culture citizens and within a year all Turkish perfume companies go out of business.

>>64227591
kek
10/10

Similar to the OP, how would you stop this?

- You get 200 years to prepare, with the resources of all human civilization on Earth and anything from the solar system you can find in that time
- you're limited to known physics, no breakthroughs
- you know its abilities: weight 10 metric tons, maximum acceleration/deceleration between 25g and 75g, maximum velocity 0.25c, hull is a single piece bonded by strong nuclear force, no weapons
- you can't cheat with deterrence strategies, you have to actually defeat/incapacitate it
- it knows where you are

>>64227655
1) Lure it into an electromagnetic trap, then clamp it down. Contain it.
2) Do we know what it's made of / what mechanism its drive uses?
3) Once restrained and contained, we would get to work with various atom-smashing or plasma torches.

I suppose if we have ALL of Earth's resources we could create a number of different traps, each one tailored for a different material contingency. If we don't know it's material / propulsive properties beforehand, maybe we can use some kind of spectrography to figure it out "quick enough."
Then use signal-spoofing to lure it into the appropriate trap.
Make it think "Earth's Command Center" is in the center of the trap.

>>64227515 (OP)
Cheradenine “the galactic chad” Zalkalwe conquers America on his own and realizes the Minds wanted it to go the other way.

>>64227655
My dick.

>>64227655
You need a system that's able to impart 75g+ of acceleration to it. Even that would only prevent it from accelerating towards you, stopping it relative to you would require even more. If you had a system that imparted 150g of acceleration into it from a range of 27AU away (!), you could deflect it before it hit the system. A particle beam that pushes that hard would probably require the entire earth's surface to be covered in fusion reactors. You could also try hitting it with a nonstop stream of millions of nuclear shaped charges, but this would be extremely difficult because it can evade at 75g and the interceptors would be extremely slow compared to .25c, so they would only arrive right before impact - they'd need to impart far far more than 150g to stop it.

Doesn't sound possible desu.

>>64227714
>Do we know what it's made of / what mechanism its drive uses?

it's propelled by some kind of plasma energized by matter/antimatter reactions. This also produces a lot of radiation making it relatively easy to observe when maneuvering. If it's using antiprotons and it can hit 0.25c, most of the craft's mass is probably fuel, but it might be using something more efficient.

>Lure it into an electromagnetic trap, then clamp it down. Contain it.

That might work, the material of the craft should still couple to magnetism. It might also disrupt its propulsion if it uses magnetic fields to direct the plasma. How would you lure it/stop it? It doesn't need to kill all humans, just you.

>>64227655
>it knows where you are
Well I'm sitting in a basement filled with 200 years of the finest furry porn mankind can produce, hoping it dies from disgust.
And a fusion bomb as backup in case it comes to purge me instead.

Also, everything is bonded together by the "strong nuclear force", so that part is actually fairly unimpressive.

>>64228655
Something larger than an atomic nucleus bonded by it is impressive. it's the property that makes the ship a weapon.

>>64227591
My god there's no AI that can be made which would produce such masterful prose.

>>64227515 (OP)
Go back to spacebattles nigger.

>>64227777
witnessed

>>64228702
We just have to chip away at it with neutrons or heat it to like 1000 million degrees no problemo

>>64227515 (OP)

There's every chance America wouldn't know it had been invaded. The minds have electronic warfare tech that makes the most sophisticated stuff we have look like a spark gap transmitter. A GCU could just park itself somewhere in the solar system and organize movements to re-shape society remotely.

>>64227762

The fun thing is Dizet Sma, Zakalwe's handler for the Culture in "Use of Weapons" is supposed to have visited earth before running into him. In the Culture books the Earth is part of a control group. We're to be left alone but monitored so the Minds can more precisely refine their utilitarian calculus.

If Zakalwe's on Earth it means he's gone rouge again and fucked up the Mind's plans again.

>>64228773
What color rouge?

>>64227515 (OP)>>64227548

Consdier Phelabas is great stuff

We Iridians now after coming into contact with troon reality. At this point I'm just a small alien who looks like an elephant trapped in a virtual Hell who used to be a shapeshifter, so's Graham Linehan .

>>64227515 (OP)
Culture is one of the most powerful factions in sci-fi, it will take more time to travel to earth than to destroy it.
But it also prefers more non-direct approach, agents, value cultivation, shadow government, so it can take hundreds of years.

>>64228846
>Culture is one of the most powerful factions in sci-fi,
Don't be a fag, anyone can just say big numbers. There are a million retarded sci fi factions that just "big numbers" shit over entire Galaxies.

>>64228868
Culture isn't powerful because of bigs numbers. It's a rare series where the unrestrained AI actually thinks, reacts, and acts at the speed that quantum supercomputer AI would act. The numbers are the least interesting part of the series.

>>64228889
>Gun number bad
>Speed number good
lmao

>>64228846
Still gets mogged by the Xeelee

>>64227655
>a single piece bonded by strong nuclear force
It would explode via nuclear meltdown on its own.

>>64228900
Not sure what you mean. The Culture aren't even the biggest society in their setting. They're the only one governed completely by AI, though. This makes their society much swifter than organic led empires.

>>64227655
Somehow the Chinese make Scifi annoying as shit.

Resist the influences of the godless degenerate economic elites, I mean space aliens, with good old fashion religion. Soberness, prayer, and family. A God fearing people can never be subdued by a godless culture.

>>64227515 (OP)
>>64228737
Threadly reminder that Athene will never be a woman.

>>64229065
If they weren't that strong and were supposedly having this big of an advantage they'd be wiped out long ago or their tech would be copied.

>>64229083
Other empires use AI, just not in a leadership or unshackled role. Other empires are quite sick of the Culture, because the Culture are seen as snooty pricks who need to be taken down a peg.

>>64227515 (OP)
This belongs on /lit/ or /tg/ or some shit. Whats with all these "what if x did y" retardation. Why are all these manchildren coming here.

>>64229096
Technically speaking, you are allowed to discuss the weapons of a setting here. Like the mechs of Battletech, or the guns of Halo.

>>64228795
Well, red, obviously.

>>64227655
I open the ai image generator and tell it to draw all future art of the droplet as poo. The droplet is now made of poo and is rendered inert.

>>64229101
>Like the mechs of Battletech,
ITS YOU

>>64227591
This is art.

>>64227591
>Turkish perfume
I don't get it.

>>64227591
>The headbands contain ultrafine forcefield effectors able to individually grab and move neuron arms and swap them between different synapses, as well as sense what the brain is doing
They don't actually need headbands to do that, they can do it at range.
They don't though, both mind-reading and mind-control are off-limits and only practised by blackops-minded Minds and even then only by the real sickos.

Subverting all sufficiently powerful computers is a thing though, so complex electronics are rebelling against you if they're capable and subverted/hacked if not.
You'd have to fight with bullets and that's not going to get through personal shields.

>>64227591
>excise certain behaviors like genital mutilation
>all sapient Earthlings have become Culture citizens
Pick one, that's almost the exact opposite of Culture culture

>culture sends billions of universal matter fabricators(machines which allow you to create anything you want) on earth
>watch breakdown of humans society hierarchy in hours
>some fanatics may refuse to use matter replicators because they are degenerate and gay, but minds send them to luxury fully automated reeducation camps

>>64229365
It's weird how fascist and totalitarian posters are in this thread are when The Culture is constantly portrayed as being ultra-libertarian with free will and privacy of thought amongst its highest ideals.

>>64227515 (OP)
>The Culture decides to invade
They just don't.
They don't perform invasions, especially against primitive civilisations,.
They manipulate, educate and engineer them into "voluntary" uplifting.

The canonical answer is that they thought about it but they reserve some civilisations for a control group because they want to be mathematically certain that they're doing the right thing and Earth drew a short straw.

It's in State of the Art IIRC

>>64227777
quads qonfirm; alien bussy is ours

>>64229068
it's just that one incredibly glazed guy. chinese don't have any other SF worth talking about

well, Ted Chiang did alright although it's a bit weirdly existential

but like most modern things you're never going to get anything as based as, say, Harrington-esque Star Admiral Guan Gong and the Romance Of The Three Star Systems
it's just going to be thinly-veiled "hurr durr colonialism bad communism good" no matter what kind of "scientific" concepts the novel purports to "explore"

>t. chink

>>64230243
That's the plot to Charlie Stross's Singularity Sky, a traveling civilization of posthuman weirdoes called the Circus arrives in a primitive star system and starts raining cell phones and granting wishes to people in exchange for fairy stories or any other data, one guy gets a matter fabricator in exchange for a communist manifesto.

As you can guess shit goes sideways.

It includes a space version of the Russian fleet that got btfo'd in Tsushima for good measure.

>>64230640

Not usually but if GSV Meatfucker decides to pop over and parks in Earth orbit it will do whatever it pleases.

>>64227591
This right here is why The Culture series is utter bullshit, it's nothing more than degenerate leftist fantasy where "technology" is just a outright replacement of magic and is just a deus ex machina that operates off pure author fiat.

>>64229079
>that name
I love the fact Tom Kratman btfo him so hard he fled the internet, it was fucking glorious.

>>64231238
qrd?
>>64230848
> Star Admiral Guan Gong and the Romance Of The Three Star Systems
Ken Liu literally did the Chu-Han contention in some post-singularity fantasy world.

>>64231230
But muh quantum!

>>64231230
>than degenerate leftist fantasy
Culture novels are quite interesting and readable up to Iraq War, Banks became very politically engaged after that event and it shows in writing.

>>64227777
Chegum. You won the /thread

>>64231341
>be kratman
>write book about second civil war (not!Hillary wins rigged election and turns America into a leftist dystopia)
>Texas is fighting US Federal Security Police
>a Abrams shows up
>disable it by dumping ammonia into the crew compartment causing them to freak out and abandon tank
>Spacebattles tranny dumps bullshit about how the filtration system can survive being immersed in ammonia
>Kratman btfo's him in a argument so hard that the mods permaban him
>tranny gets so smoked he dissappears off the internet
Spacebattles mods also got caught aiding leftists by banning everyone right of Mao, and the site had to fire everyone.
>Kratman
He wrote about a tranny tanker that gets captured by spessAl Queda and tortured to death, and outright calls Spacebattles faggots who have never done anything in the real world lamo.

>>64231858
>Iraq war
I LOVE the fact that the left simps for a genocidal dictator who started multiple wars, almost as if they have no morals beyond "fuck America".

>>64231896
You are literally Kuckman. Stop samefagging and talking about yourself in the third person, neverserved trannyfucker.

I haven't read a book in over 20 years

>>64231905
never read the books huh

>>64231985
>knows about the event
>no u
How fucking dumb are you?

>>64232091
A State of Disobedience is the book.
>Caliphate
Another book I highly suggest reading, Kratman nearly got everything right.

>>64228820
Like Xenogears, the Culture a shit.

>>64232074
sometimes I read a book a day, when work is really slow

>>64230563
Humans yearn to be free. No matter how benevolent the Culture minds are, people will loath the idea of being beneath them. Also some people believe that suffering builds character and will hate the Culture for removing suffering. Lastly there's religious reasons to oppose the Culture.

>>64232916
Yeah, that worked well for the Idarians.

>>64232977
And? They resisted the Culture for said reasons. Other empires covertly supported them as well.

>>64232985
The Homadans should have just gone full fuck you and the Culture would have been slowed for another x years.

>>64227515 (OP)
We would destroy the culture. They have no antibodies to our stupidity.

>>64233046
They would role out education systems that could upload stuff to our brains directly, like in the matrix. A child could be given 20 years of education in a second.

>>64233057
we would literally break their machines and infect them with malware if they tried. Our brains are that fucked up.

>>64227777
His dick will save us all

>>64230563
>free will and privacy of thought
>The Culture
Fucking l m a and indeed o.

>>64233057
It the last 70 years or so should have taught us anything, it's that education doesn't stop you from being retarded.

>>64231896
based

>>64227515 (OP)
>culture
destroyed by judaism in 5 mins, tops

>>64233848
>picrel yiddish response

>>64233848
The Culture basically are Space Jews.

>>64227515 (OP)
Nah, we'd win.

>>64231199
Grey area is "only" a contact unit and it could still do whatever it pleased.

>>64233298
>Free will
Cannot be reached if defined, only approached through a system that would control as many variables as possible to enhance your illusion of freedom. That or drugs.
>Privacy
Only happen when no one can or care to look.
Information is free by default, wanting privacy is also wanting a system that regulate everything & censor information.

sorry, i'm a hamilton and reynolds chad

>>64236432
you cuckold someone so they can blackmail you for it?
based I guess

>>64230563
It's because they're morons and either didn't read the books or read them but didn't understand them.

Sometimes technological difference can be so great the question is not "if" the Culture would win rather "how it feels like" winning. As in aesthetically.

You can kill everything with replicated weapons just made out of the free material out of a single asteroid like Psyche. Yet they'd probaly find it too ugly/brutish.

You can have nanobots that first slowly infect everything and then simultanously disconnect every brainstem at the same time. Thats in a way is much more "humanitarian" since humans dont get to realize they are getting invaded or feel fear about losing etc.

But ultimatly as >>64227591 said at this level the way I imagine a "touchy feely" civilization (but that is also proud of itself rather than self-hating like some turbo leftists/rightist today) would just go for a form of slow assimilation. As well as to avoid maybe the ethics that this is too foreful "brainwashing" rather making it feel more like it was your idea all along.

The Culture is pretty much immortal compared to humanity and has all the time in the world and work in timescales far larger than individual human politiicans and generation. It could even do it slowly in a way that it almost looks like "natural" evolution and social/technological development.

Its just would so happen that after 2000 years, humans would just happen to be indistinct from Culture citizens in bodies and morality. And since they would be indistinct even when told afterwards what has been done, they will just agree and say "oh year, obviously that was the most humanitarian option and obviously the Culture is great. Thanks for not killing us" and then plug into it straight away.

>>64230848
>chinese don't have any other SF worth talking about
I believe there's political discouragement from mainstreaming scifi in China, probably not comfortable with any "alternative" systems of government being explored. Too much like people being allowed to have opinions and also giving them bad ideas about the Chinese people living in any way that's not CCP controlled.
Part of there problem with HK and Taiwan.

Fantasy, outside of wuxia, is discouraged also but for reasons more closely resembling 80s Christian moral panic about d&d.

>>64231199
>if GSV Meatfucker decides to pop over and parks in Earth orbit it will do whatever it pleases
It's a GCU not a GSV, quite different classes, and it only does that to investigate war crimes and genocide which is why the other Minds haven't clipped its wings though they still don't use its name as a measure of censure that lets it know it's on thin ice.

>>64232916
>Humans yearn to be free. No matter how benevolent the Culture minds are, people will loath the idea of being beneath them
You're free to leave and you can keep your enhancements etc, up to a point.

There's one Culture citizen who's an ambassador to some ultra-edgy space arseholes because he likes their sense of humour.

The same book has a Culture splinter group who are based around constant change and adaptation.
The Minds aren't homogeneous either and the splinter groups can include Minds too.

>>64236598
>And since they would be indistinct even when told afterwards what has been done, they will just agree
There are occassionally some dirty secrets about that sort of thing, it's a plot point in The Hydrogen Sonata I believe.

>>64233848
>jewish trickery saving the human race
what a twist!

>>64227515 (OP)
>The Culture
>Post scarcity
>It's literally all fun and games. With guns, and flying boards and other vehicles. Or board games. Or incredibly advanced VR games
>You can murder people but nobody does it because what's the point? Also people will avoid you
>Sex is pretty much guaranteed, and they can improve it via drugs, pheromones, sensory enhancements
>You can look however you like, switch gender at will, do drugs. Leftards aren't going to bother anyone anymore with their bullshit.

Culture invading would be the best thing that could ever happen to America.

>>64229068
They're annoying people. Not as annoying as pajeets, but basically everyone from that part of the world can't help but be annoying. Even the Japanese.

I think it's from being face-based cultures.

>>64232916
>Humans yearn to be free
They really fucking don't, dude. Have you taken a look lately?
Even loners would thrive in the Culture, being given a huge swath of nature to just do whatever the fuck they want with.

Those who truly need to experience something beyond what the Culture can offer just go Contact/SC.

>>64237341
That they're getting it with no effort is what they don't like. It makes it feel hollow and unfulfilling, like playing a game with god-mode all the time. People would be happier in a Star Trek civilization. Nobody has to work, but people still choose to enroll in academies and earn prestige based on merit. Merit is earned via competition with others. The reward for hard work isn't money. It's the opportunity to do harder work.

>>64237318
>nobody does it because what's the point
Ahem. Niggers.

>>64237599
>That they're getting it with no effort is what they don't like.
You can always ask for more difficult activities, or competition with others within Culture games.

See: The player of games

>>64237948
The culture is a leftist fantasy so niggers are human in it

>>64228820
Consider Phlebas is the worst Culture novel I've read. The author has a massive bug up his nose about war and the book ends the way it does only because multiple characters are acting as illogically and against their own interests as possible. There's also the two different sections of scat fetishism that contribute little (the prison) or nothing (the island) to the plot.
Hydrogen Sonata is the best one I've read. Matter is a close second.

>>64238061
Why does he bring up copraphagia so much? It's also in Player of Games

>>64238111
Consider Phlebas and Player of Games both suffer from him making villains that are over the top in every possible way. It's so exaggerated it'd be cartoonish if it wasn't X-rated. The books are serious, if irreverent, science fiction novels and then all of a sudden Snidely Whiplash the child murderer/rapist who deliberately leaves shopping carts in parking spaces shows up.

>>64236811
lmao that's how they'd take out America, the Grey Area just rolls up and goes "yeah that holocaust thing? Can't find any actual evidence for it."

>>64238028
The Culture would simply genetically uplift Nigger to Humans.

>>64231858
I think all of them that I've read have the same problem
>relatively engaging until 3/4 through the book
>then pulls out strawman to say capitalism is baaad
I liked Surface Detail - mostly, the eternal war scenes were good and the torture porn was pretty horrible but well written. Then the rest of the book is just "none of these bad things would have happened without interstellar capitalism!!"

>>64238574
I mean, isn't capitalism just a necessary system in the early stages of civilization? It exists because we don't have infinite resources. A citizen of the Culture basically does have unlimited resources.

>>64238624
>A citizen of the Culture basically does have unlimited resources.
Unless he wants anything larger than a huge estate. A ship? Not an option. Curiously all ships are given sapient minds and thus can't be owned.
I think it would be more accurate to say that a culture citizen has unlimited fulfillment of needs and astronomical but obviously limited fulfillment of wants.

>>64238635
There's no such thing as an unarmed space ship. It would be too big of a security risk to give any citizen a relativistic ramming vehicle.

>>64238624
I wouldn't mind if it were well written
It also shows it's written by a britfag because any and all expressions of "liberty" are just about taking drugs and fucking and self mutilation

>>64238649
Liberty is a shit political concept that retards misunderstood.
A liberty was basically borderlands where nobody could impose law and they were uniformly shit and violent. Some absolute chromosome hoarders decided this was a great model for society and thus the foundation of the postwar world was laid.

>>64238701
Post which war? I know that liberty is a foundational value of the USA. Did you mean the War of Independence?

>>64238707
No I mean WW2 of course, the US wasn't relevant until then. The French were speedrunning really stupid ideas but at least they got their asses kicked.

>>64236811
You know I couldn't remember what class it was so I went with the most memorable one because I was sure some autist would correct me, thanks.

>>64238028
>>64238553
The Culture is pure abundance. If someone wants to fuck and do drugs all day, the Culture has a Mind running a GSV somewhere that can totally accommodate that with an endless supply of safe, clean drugs and like a billion other people who have been cleaned of all diseases on board who want the same thing.

>a leftist fantasy
Like... the premise of the culture is Abundance, with a a capital A. Traditional frameworks of "left" and "right" just break down in that. Do you want to work hard all day raising barns with neo-Amish? There's a place to do that. Do you want to be a special forces soldier? There's a role in Contact for you. Not much of a role, sure and heavily supervised by a Mind, but you can still do it. Do you want to be left alone to just grill and never see another person and hunt game innawoods? There's totally a GSV for that.
All of our politics is evolved around resource distribution, and when resources are pretty much endless that doesn't work so well.
So yeah it's a fantasy, but it's not really a leftist one.

>>64238718
I thought the US was the deciding factor in WW1?

Culture is nerd ultrafantasy highfalutin of an embarassing degree. You can especially tell when Banks was running his word processor while doped on acid.
Oh gee infiniresource space communism politics clash in the 80s. Definitely wasn't jerking himself off to writing better than a campy TV show of the time.

If Culture dropped into orbit nothing would happen because they'd instantly disappear, multi-dimensions don't fucking exist.

>>64238742
>space communism
Just stop you retard.

>>64238743
I'll have to spell out my intent since you people think youre so smart but can't actually read:
Stick to your niche content website, keep retard shit off of /k/. This thread isn't about weapons.

Now, what I actually wrote was -
Uh huh totally not communism, having all powerful politburo control everything else while the little people toil away for a cause.

>>64238748
>>64238742
>Hey guys, uh I think this book I found in the Fiction section prominently marked "Science Fiction" isn't actually real!
The level of autism and politicsbrain in these posts is only matched by the unfounded smug sense of superiority only achieved by genuinely midwitted.

>>64238751
This board is /k/ weapons not /k/ whatifspaceniggersrapedyourfacelmao

>>64238751
>if I insult them they'll go away and I'll feel superior
>I can't be dumb
>No u!
Ehl Oh Ehl.

Judging by the state of the fan wiki, the culture series is schizophrenic, low quality slop not worth reading.

>>64238757
Oh fuck off. Discussions about fictional weapons have always been a thing here. There's discussions about the guns of Aliens, how the props were made, about mechs. All of it.
You're just mad because you've been screeching all thread about "muh space communism, muh leftist" and people have been ignoring you or laughing at your inability to understand the concepts involved while you've been hammering the "report" button till it glows a cherry red color.

>>64238765
Here's how it's went.
Me:
>calls it how I see it
You:
>autistic screeching

>>64238759
>Them
It's just you, samefagging and screeching and hammering the report button all thread and failing to gain any traction for your political bullshit.

>>64238773
>it's been you the entire time
>all thread
And you're so certain of it you whipped up a shitmeme.

No, no this is great boys. A multi day thread can't possible have more than one person telling you to go back to the tranny shitter forum you came from.

>>64238735
lmao

>>64238778
Oh piss off. American material support was crucial in the efforts to stop the German war machine. You could absolutely say it tipped the balance.

>>64238763
Wiki's are for games, mate. A novel is its own wiki. The Culture series is widely regarded as the greatest scifi series of all time.

>>64238783
The median IQ of 65% of a population when you remove the lowest quintile is 105, I'm not impressed by group opinions.

Are we having fun yet.

>>64238789
My IQ was 120 the last time I tested it. It's probably lower now. I mean especially now, since it's late and I've had two glasses. What's your IQ?

>>64238794
That's a sad number to be proud of.
I was tested at 136 and reading collegiate level when I was 11.

I mean you brought up the size of the dicks...i wouldnt have said anything about ours.

>>64238783
>the greatest scifi series of all time.
bit of a stretch
it's pretty good tho

>>64238798
Our daddy taught us not to be ashamed of our dicks. Especially since they're such good size and all.

137 Stanford-Binet, not WAIS, by the way.

>>64238798
For someone claiming to have such a high IQ, you seem to be particularly bad at following the rules of grammar and syntax. Could it be that your childhood test was wrong? Perhaps you've declined in the years since. Regardless, I think you should read more. People who read regularly develop a wide vocabulary. Besides, if the Culture series isn't good enough for your sci-fi tastes, what else is there? Blindsight? Heh.

>>64238798
>I have a near genius IQ but all I can muster to do with my life is argue with autists on an Atacamese competitive soap carving bulletin board about a fictional book series that I misunderstood completely despite my galactic sized brain

>>64238812
Oh look some book-read jeet trying to tell me how my own language works.

>>64238798
>reading collegiate level when I was 11
This is very dependent on how old you are. If you're 50, that's impressive. If you're 20, you're functionally illiterate.

>>64238818
I bet you don't even know what mistakes you made.

>>64238832
There's nothing wrong with speaking colloquially or informally. Matter of fact, that's how language naturally changes.

>64238783
>The Culture series is widely regarded as the greatest scifi series of all time
Thisisbait.jpg

>>64238883
>He doesn't know!
110% brown.

>>64238895
Isn't it straight up chinkslop?

>>64238770
Yes but

anon...

autists DO call it how they see it. They can't avoid doing so, at length and volume.

>>64239043
Are you mentally retarded? I's jockslop. That's why it's got the degenerate commie shit all over it, that just how Scots are.

>>64239119
>200IQ supragenius pajeet is still here baiting for replies rather than curing cancer or running a billion dollar hedge fund
What are you doing here? Go out and build a fusion reactor or something lmao

>>64238798
Oh look everybody, another failed male who peaked in gradeschool! He thinks how well he read as a child matters!

>Guys please look I made socialism work
>No really guys stop laughing my setting is serious
>Come on guys take my fiction seriously please Im trying to be profound by handwaiving away the issues of a zero incentive structure society!
>No please guys I swear the tranny stuff is minimal its a serious novel

>>64238812
Blindsight is pretty good, Watts is certainly no right winger but he's so nihilistic you can read anything you like in his depiction of the future.

>>64237341
>just go Contact/SC
Those are shown to be quite hard to get into, the admissions are very competitive.
There are other service corps though.

>>64237599
Contact is basically Star Fleet without the Fisher-Price military-lite aesthetic and uniforms.

>>64238061
>There's also the two different sections of scat fetishism that contribute little (the prison) or nothing (the island) to the plot.
>>64238111
>Why does he bring up copraphagia so much?
You focusing on coprophagia and glossing right over all the torture, cannibalism, mutilation and other stuff.

The answer is that Banks is a horror writer and one aspect of the series is to trick sci-fi fans into reading horror.

>>64241137
But nothing in any of the books is scary.

>>64238635
>Curiously all ships are given sapient minds and thus can't be owned.
I think that small ships can be non-sentient and plenty are no more than drones of roughly human intellect.
The shuttle in Consider Phlebis (on the island) was pretty stupid.

>>64241143
He does macabre and gross body horror and disturbing concepts rather than terrifying.
Read any novel by him and there'll be some torture and stuff designed to creep you out.
It's possible you're just too edgy to be moved by it though.

>lots of negative nancies itt, being critical of a good lit sci-fi series without bringing alternatives
Shouldn't be that hard. Even Forever War ended up as a series

>>64231230
Technological capabilities are not the actual thing any of the novels revolve around.

>>64231905
More like the left "simps" for a couple millions people who got invaded and had their country turned into a wartorn shithole because some asshole had to one-up his daddy.

The only path to victory is surrender and join the culture.

>>64241305
>>64238812
>>64238783

Post your gun with timestamp

>>64231896
>>64229079
>Spacebattles relegates all "right wingers" to a private subforum without telling the public
>Someone "leaks" the subforum to the public
>Everyone on the subforum is banned for the staff to save face
>The banned "right wingers" make their own copy of spacebattles
>to prove they're not nazis they put "moderates", atheists, and a literal tranny in charge of the site
>Six months in they start banning people for hate speech and not supporting Israel enough

When will nerds learn.

>>64236432
unfathomably based
are you me?

>>64239170
I don't think that is a good interpretation of the Culture -- see >>64238734
You can literally do w/e tf you want, if that's leftism (it is not) then sign me and everyone else up

this is like asking what happens when a nuclear submarine goes all out against an island only populated by birds

>>64230563
Sorry about your penis, lil bro

>>64231230
>leftist

I assumed the books were a critique of interventionism until I learned the author thinks the Culture is morally correct.

>>64243737
>caring what the author thinks
it's not like he hits you over the head with "the culture is right". Most of the stories are morally ambiguous and puts all sides in a bad light one way or another

>>64231896
>>64243562
There has to be a position between Crapman and tranny Maoists or is that le centrism

>>64243591
It's retarded and childish because real life examples in almost all species on this planet is that feeding them for free leads them to doing nothing and being worthless.

>>64243800
because they lack a purpose. The Culture supposedly encourages you to find something you're passionate about and pursue that

>>64243809
Ok commie. Didnt read

>>64243809
Question.

Do you think streamers and vtubers actually do something for society?
Because all I see is they are a dumb vehicle for hugboxxing shitty behavior and selling people shit they don't need.

Don't forget to buy my branded gamersupps canteen, and participarte in our next stupid drama collab stream!

>>64243758
If you learn the author thinks the hedonistic imperialists are morally correct that colours your perception of everything he wrote, doesn't matter how balanced the stories themselves appear to be.

>>64243900
NTA
but nigga I doubt you read at all

>>64243925
Refutation:
We're on a text only website.

>>64243787
I'm sorry but yes it is

>>64239043
>chinkslop
Even chinks wouldn't be that degen

>>64241143
IS there even such a thing as a "scary book".
>Oh noes these words and letters are scaring me oh no

>>64232916
You can just become a Mind if you want to, the problem is that it's like taking a lego brick and building the notre dame around it, the end result doesn't really have much to do with the lego brick.

>>64227515 (OP)
If the culture wanted to independence day earth in a very tacky and unclassy manner, they would just target every collection of gunpowder larger than a grain of dust and chemically disable it from detonating, and then give everyone personal shields and send down 50 million culture ambassadors specially trained in "so you were pacified by an alien civilization" dialogue and they would have big great tits and cute faces. There wouldn't be anything which could be considered a "war".

>>64231905
"Fuck america" is the eleventh commandment thoughever

>>64228820
I'm a big fan of the series but Plebas is easily thew worst Culture book IMO. Horza's motivation makes absolutely no sense when you compare the Culture and Idirans.

>>64236668
>probably not comfortable with any "alternative" systems of government being explored
of course
>is discouraged also but for reasons more closely resembling 80s Christian moral panic
kind of yes but no, because it goes back to the above

Christian morality can (and has famously) been used against the ruling "government" i.e. the Church authorities

CCP morality is: obey the CCP, simple as. any "moral panic" in China translates to revolution against the CCP, and they can't have that.

>>64238798
The IQ of children isn't relevant to adults, all it means is that you're precocious.

>>64244562
>Horza's motivation makes absolutely no sense when you compare the Culture and Idirans.

They make perfect sense. Horza was raised in a culture that views artificial intelligence as less-than. The Culture is ruled by fake life, forcing their views on others, making them lesser and servile. While the Idirians are pretty much the British Empire with ultra-tech, hitch your wagon to them and you can earn honor and glory in an Empire ruled by real people for real people such as yourself.

You ever see a culture citizen? They're always supervised by some machine or construct. They're slaves and it's pathetic. Glorified pets. You won't let that happen to you.

>>64244612
>Horza was raised in a culture that views artificial intelligence as less-than
I don't remember that from the book. He was raised in some top secret hollowed out asteroid to be a gun for hire, from what I recall.
>forcing their views on others
I mean, their views are based on democracy and personal liberty, I don't necessarily see that as being so horrific
>While the Idirians are pretty much the British Empire with ultra-tech
the Idirans are proud genociders of other species, his prisoner brags about it constantly. Imagine thinking that living under a flesh and blood Hitler is better than under a robot Reagan or something
>culture citizen? They're always supervised by some machine or construct
this is not the case. It's true for book protagonists because they're Contact agents and they need support and/or supervision when meddling in other cultures. Regular citizens have no such supervision if they don't want it

>>64244631
I'm a culture apologist but it would be fair to say that any culture citizen living under a Mind would be basically having a palantir probe up his asshole. They don't believe in personal privacy, only mental privacy, (which is fair because at that level the equivalent of a civilian polaroid camera can basically observe what you had in your lead pocket three hours ago through 40 kilometer of bedrock), but like, a supercomputer which has perfect knowledge of your whereabouts, communications and doings at any time and has all scientific knowledge ever realized and can simulate entire universes in their heads, that thing basically knows what you're going to do before you do it, no need for mind reading. Of course, this doesn't apply to anyone who leaves for an extended time and has significant experiences, but any culturenik is basically totally supervised. It doesn't really matter, because the Minds are liberal, but the control is nigh-absolute if they wanted.

>>64244804
but the point is you can leave the Culture at any point, or just fuck off to some abandoned planet on the other side of the galaxy and you won't be bothered if you don't want to be. This is the opposite of being a slave to the machines. Horza MUST know this if he knows anything about the Culture

>>64244813
You can, but ARGUABLY, from an outsiders perspective, those people are merely outliers, like people going to live innawoods to get away from industrial society, while 999999 ppm of them are stuck scrolling phone and using toilet paper because "the system" is constructed like a pleasure trap. It was like 12 years i read CP though so I don't remember the specifics of horzas thoughts on it

>>64244575
Yeah fuckboy go on over to the voice channel to prove me wrong.

>>64244813
>just fuck off to some abandoned planet on the other side of the galaxy and you won't be bothered if you don't want to be
that's exactly what the pro-open borders leftists are saying, so thanks for proving that that's what the Culture is

>>64244804
>the control is nigh-absolute if they wanted
Fortunately they don't.
Minds have been compared to benevolent gods more than once.

>>64243689
Develop your hypothesis

>>64247323
Decisive emu victory

>>64243787
What's the enlightened moderate position between give up my guns (never) and give up my guns (immediately)?
Don't be a fucking retard. Moderation never existed, there's right, wrong, and "slowly progress towards more wrong".

>>64247655
^ that

>>64227515 (OP)
little off topic,but how good is this book? Just finishing up a memory called empire which had a disappointing lack of space ships

>>64247785
There are a lot of spaceships but they mostly send each other emails full of plot exposure.
Consider Phlebas, Excession, Use of Weapons are pretty good, Player of Games is okay, mileage varies on the rest.
Feersum Endjinn is probably his best scifi but it's phenomenally annoying to read. It's sort of like low IQ Gene Wolfe.

>>64247893
>plot exposure
The word you're looking for is exposition.

>>64247893
>Feersum Endjinn is probably his best scifi but it's phenomenally annoying to read
I found that I adjusted to those chapters very quickly, you just have to verbalise it internally.

>>64244804
>a supercomputer which has perfect knowledge of your whereabouts, communications and doings at any time and has all scientific knowledge ever realized and can simulate entire universes in their heads
These fuckers got mogged by a big ball.

>>64249090
big ball got mogged by a data transfer

>>64244804
>but like, a supercomputer which has perfect knowledge of your whereabouts, communications and doings at any time and has all scientific knowledge ever realized and can simulate entire universes in their heads, that thing basically knows what you're going to do before you do it, no need for mind reading. Of course, this doesn't apply to anyone who leaves for an extended time and has significant experiences, but any culturenik is basically totally supervised. It doesn't really matter, because the Minds are liberal, but the control is nigh-absolute if they wanted
And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.

>>64227515 (OP)

Why would they invade? There’s literally a book where Contact sends agents to Earth.

One loves it so much he decides to convert his body to human anatomy and spend the rest of his life there (until ironically he is mugged and killed by a nigger).

The other spends her time in Germany moping around Holocaust museums and monuments and decides Earth sucks and shouldn’t be contacted.

At no point was there any indication they wanted to invade Earth. And even if they did, they’d use lots of advance infiltrations by Special Circumstances personnel. Not just roll a GSV into orbit and say You’re Mine Now (though they could).

Not only that but they have Effector technology (manipulation of EM at vast distances). They could literally just mind control everyone. Shut down all our power. Broadcast whatever they want.

Your question is like asking how humanity would invade a molehill. And the answer is - however the fuck they want.

>>64239317

Echopraxia was better and showed more what life’s like on the home front. Pretty accurate too. I can’t wait for millions of humans to withdraw into virtual realities - their neat meatspace bodies racked, limbless and stacked like cordwood, in vast Facebook-Meta storage warehouses while the world outside burns down/gets invaded by aliens.

>>64241126
>Contact is basically Star Fleet without the Fisher-Price military-lite aesthetic and uniforms.

Also Special Circumstances makes Section 31 look like a bunch of retarded janitors getting high in a closet.

For a pacifist society - the Thing they send after some hostile aliens in Surface Detail - makes the Terminator T1000 look like a malfunctioning Furby. And what it did to its targets was absolutely horrific.

>>64244804

And even then some of the minds (such as Grey Area) openly flout the “no reading minds” rule - which is really more of a guideline. It’s heavily suggested in the books that not only at the Minds regularly reading people, but they subtly push them in the directions they want.

To the Minds humanity are more like pets, or benevolent lice.

>>64227655
Is that a relativistic kill vehicle? Turn its speed against it, put 100 tons of dust in its path. It will be reduced to ions on impact, which the sun's magnetic field will deflect.

>>64249160
>the Thing they send after some hostile aliens in Surface Detail - makes the Terminator T1000 look like a malfunctioning Furby.

Yeah I forgot what book it was in and what exactly it did but it was basically a female shaped terminator since the aliens were patriarchal and it would sting extra to be killed by a woman, it hunts them down and torturemurders them with extreme prejudice, sometimes the minds have no chill

>>64227515 (OP)
>invade
rofl
they could subvert all our shit-ass societies in an afternoon

>>64244531
50 million is way too much
5 space Taylor Swifts could do the job

>>64249160
You're not thinking of the e-dust assassin they sent to the chelgrian terrorists (who implanted a nuke into their brain so the minds would decline to read it) after the attempt failed? (Which was done because the culture fucked up in their meddling and caused a bloody civil war, and then half the chelgrian civilization ascended into another dimension but unusually kept some contact with the remainders). I remember that assassin, basically a t-1000^3, brutally murdering one of the bombers by injecting itself into his body and making him burst. People think the culture are a bunch of commie mary sues but it's basically banks making half hearted criticism of Utopia.