[What's O.L.D Is N.E.W] Iain M Banks-inspired sci-fi campaign!

[Shayuri]

Yeah, one conceit I was running with is that an electronic intelligence that is 'actually' intelligent requires hardware that doesn't fit in a human sized device...making my character something new and potentially revolutionary (and therefore very threatening).

But if uploads and personality copies can be carried in small packages, then that undercuts that.

And it's not a bad thing necessarily, but it seems like it brings Earth closer to the Culture in terms of technology.

 

[CanadienneBacon]

Is it you who is moving? Where you moving to?

 

[Unsung]

Yep, back to the West Coast for me. Which was always the plan.

 

[Shayuri]

Just gonna give this a '2 weeks since last post' ping here. Just to make sure it's still a thing.

If it helps, I've picked a name for my android! And it isn't even Anne!

 

[Celebrim]

The Culture. Heard of it? The novel series-- including Use of Weapons, Excession, The Player of Games, Look To Windward, and Consider Phlebas, among others-- and the hyperadvanced spacefaring socioanarchists of the same name?

I'm a big fan of Banks, but your description of it is lacking nuance and particularly lacking all the nuance that would for me make The Culture work as a setting for an RPG.

A post-scarcity civilization 'governed' (quote-unquote; led, guided, or shepherded might all be better words for it)...

It's funny that you leave for nuance the one area that I think is absolutely uncontroversial - that the Minds govern The Culture and indeed govern The Culture absolutely. There is plenty of evidence that The Minds at most see the input of the human citizens about like we see the preferences of our dog - we'll help him take a walk or a winkle if he behaves himself, but we don't actually let him run the house in any fashion. And it's quite clear that push come to shove, they'll just make humans do what they think is best for them or ignore them.

by benign

Here's where we get to our first problem. It's clear that most of the time the Mind's are friendly, but its not at all clear that most of them are benign. Perhaps our perspective as readers is skewed by the sorts of Minds we encounter, but the book presents plenty of widely ambitious and even sadistic minds for our review as well as quite a few warship minds that love nothing more than being able to just go off on whatever less advanced society the feel needs teaching a lesson.

Currency is considered a disproven notion and there are no spoken laws-- theoretically, at least.

Theoretically sure. But in practice the books present us with what I think is a fairly clear picture of what currency is actually in use and what laws there really are. Humans think there is no currency in the same way you dog thinks he lives in an egalitarian commune of share and share alike because he has no notion of what a credit card is.

Officially pacifist...

And yet these official pacifists reliably intervene militarily more often than the US government.

...with a strong diplomatic arm of well-intentioned meddlers...

You know what they say about good intentions, right?

called Contact; Contact has a further specialized division of spies called Special Circumstances, who some would argue aren't really part of Contact at all at this point.

And even better question is whether they are even part of the The Culture at all at this point. And even better question is whether despite the fact that I think most of The Culture would view SC as being abhorrent, it would also appear that this group is the real government of The Culture and makes most of its pertinent decisions.

Sort of like Star Trek's Federation, but with more sex and drugs and fewer rules, and nothing resembling the Prime Directive. Not at all shy about interfering with less advanced civilizations if it cuts down on atrocities-- that's the Culture.

I got the impression that in theory at least there was a Prime Directive equivalent and that the Culture obeyed it about as studiously as Star Trek actually obeyed its own Prime Directive. What I would say is that the effect of technology on the culture is somewhat better thoroughly explored in The Culture than it is in The Federation, which really has lousy world building.

 

[CanadienneBacon]

Are you planning on playing in this game, [MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION]?

 

[Shayuri]

Hehe, Celebrim, it's a fine point by point rebuttal, but I sort of took Usung's intro post more like a tongue in cheek Starship Troopers type puffery montage... Would you like to know more?

Clearly there's a lot of very interesting subtext, and ethical questions raised by something like The Culture. That's what makes it fun. And while the post didn't explicitly say so, it wasn't far buried between the lines I thought.

 

[Unsung]

@Shayuri Still a thing! For sure. Summer's been busy so far and will only get busier from here. Gotta crack the whip, and hopefully have some more free time come August.

Any questions? Do we all feel comfortable enough to start something? @CanadienneBacon Anything I can do to help with your character?

@Celebrim In general? Agreed on all points. That first interest-check post was intended to be a pretty broad-strokes, low barrier-to-entry description-- hopefully coming across as slightly jokey and self-deprecating without spoiling too much for those who hadn't read the books. Between all the air quotes, qualified statements, and parentheticals and hint-hinting, I wanted to leave some room to question how perfect this utopia really was (or any utopia, really), while still making it sound appealing and a bit plausible. It is to some extent propaganda, but the seams are there to be pulled.

It's funny that you leave for nuance the one area that I think is absolutely uncontroversial - that the Minds govern The Culture and indeed govern The Culture absolutely. There is plenty of evidence that The Minds at most see the input of the human citizens about like we see the preferences of our dog - we'll help him take a walk or a winkle if he behaves himself, but we don't actually let him run the house in any fashion. And it's quite clear that push come to shove, they'll just make humans do what they think is best for them or ignore them.

This is probably my one bone of contention. I don't think this is quite as much of a foregone conclusion as you say. Definitely the Minds run the Culture-- how unbearably paternalist or dictatorial they are is probably a matter of personal taste. And certainly some Minds do feel exactly as you describe about humans, whether behind closed doors or inside encrypted communiques. Meanwhile others probably just don't care much one way or the other. Still, there's likewise plenty of evidence in the text that some Minds care quite keenly about humans' feelings and freedoms. The taboo against reading a person's thoughts, for instance, is Culture-wide, although obviously there are those who do it anyway (and probably more who do it in secret). A Mind has the power to make humans do whatever they want, thinking and acting on scales exponentially above and beyond anything a human or drone could even conceive, let alone attempt. That they don't simply make humans their puppets, or that they even bother to try and appear not to, that alone seems to be a mark in their favour.

Could Culture Minds treat its human citizens as what amount to glorified pets, or at least the developmental equivalent of children? Undoubtedly. Do they? To some extent, although you could say the same of humans with any amount of power over other humans. Is this ultimately a bad thing? Compared to the alternatives? Well, that's the question. It certainly calls into question how socialist, anarchist, pacifist, or democratic this supposed utopia can really be.

Which is what I like about it, and the books. Banks as author doesn't take these questions for granted, doesn't dismiss them or handwave them away.

 

[CanadienneBacon]

[MENTION=6781406]Unsung[/MENTION], give me through this coming Monday to finish the Banks book and get a character together? I've been seriously engrossed in reading something else for the past few days, but when I'm done with that, I can shift my attention back to Player of Games. Will you be around this weekend to answer character creation questions?

 

[Unsung]

No problem. I'll probably be around intermittently through both days, but I'll definitely answer what I can.

Reading the Culture books in publishing order isn't necessarily the entry to the series I'd recommend for everyone. What else have you been reading?