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I really like seeing references to the Culture series when naming things: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Player_of_Games https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/T

I really like seeing references to the Culture series when naming things: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Player_of_Games https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Player_of_Games

hoseja 5y ago
Kinda ironic since in the novel, a human player is better than the strong AI (albeit a little inexplicably).
- 7thaccount 5y ago
  I thought the protagonist wasn't nearly as talented as the culture AIs (even the ones that are not all that powerful)?
  - hoseja 5y ago
    I don't think a full Culture Mind is present but he outstrips his spacecraft's ability to help him with preparation in later stages of the competition. I clearly remember this.
    - macmac 5y ago
      At least that is what the ship (SC) wants him to think.
      - WJW 5y ago
        Indeed. (spoiler following) The plot basically revolves around SC manipulating both Gurgeh and the Empire of Azad in an ever bigger and complex game than the one in the book. Given how Banks describes the Minds in other books it would be extremely curious if they wouldn't crush any biological player in any normal game the same way chess computers crush humans these days. But, it is possible that a more limited mind like the security drone could be outstripped by Gurgeh. In one of the other books they do mention that "smaller" machines like environmental suits and small drones get more limited minds than full starships as it would be cruel to put a fully capable Mind in such a limited body.
        stavros 5y ago
        How did I miss this plot point? It's been a while, but I remember focusing on the game Gurgeh played. Maybe I just don't remember it now.
        WJW 5y ago
        The last page of the book gives it away: (MASSIVE SPOILER OBV) The security drone who came with Gurgeh to Azad was the same drone he meets during the introduction chapters who was "rejected" from SC and offers to let him cheat (though it was wearing a disguise at the time). Then, after he cheats he basically gets blackmailed into going to Azad and conveniently this "non-SC" drone comes with him in a very "non-SC" ship that claims to have its weapons removed but doesn't. At some crucial points the security drone influences Gurgeh to play the best he can, such as when he takes him on a tour of the slums and the Culture-educated Gurgeh gets so furious at the mistreatment he witnesses that he absolutely crushes his opponent in the next match. They mention in one of the final chapters that the minds wanted the Azad empire to become a better place since it was really shitty to its citizens. However, they couldn't just invade and impose laws because they're the Culture, and the Azad empire kept claiming moral superiority because they had this one thing (the Game) that they thought the Culture couldn't match. The Minds knew Gurgeh was talented enough to get far enough in the tournament that the Azad Empire would be seriously shaken, because if this single foreigner can beat so many of the best and brightest in the Empire at the thing it claims to do best then what could the entire Culture do? This turns out to have been correct, at the end of the book the Azad empire starts to collapse because they no longer trust their leadership, who have been proven to be incompetent at the very thing they claim to do best. Beaten by a human btw, not even by one of the god-machines that the Culture also has. Having predicted that this would happen, the Minds set out to manipulate Gurgeh into going to Azad to play the Game and by doing so bring about regime change. The Minds and/or SC were playing a much higher level game than Gurgeh all along, he was merely one of the pieces they used to play.
        stavros 5y ago
        Ahh, thank you! Now that you recount it, it all comes back to me. I should read more Banks, he's a fantastic writer.
  - thom 5y ago
    Is that clear from the text? Gurgeh supposedly perceives the result of the last game before the AIs so we’re led to believe he’s seeing deeper. Obviously he could have been wrong and still won. The AIs lied to and manipulated him the entire time so it’s hard to know, but it would seem a very odd weakness for an AI to have. I think Banks pretty quickly recanted on the subject of the Culture’s ‘referrers’ but I don’t think he plays a full Mind, so it’s not a clear cut conversation.
    - joshuamorton 5y ago
      My recollection is that by the end of the novel its clear that Gurgeh was never competitive with the ship, although he might have been competitive with his security drone (although even that isn't clear, since <spoilers> imply that the security drone is a better game player than it pretends to be). To me it felt like the whole point of the novel was that Gurgeh was a piece in an even larger game and he didn't even realize it. So the idea that the people playing the "bigger" game couldn't compete in the smaller game seems silly, and I think they mention that they used Gurgeh instead of an AI to make it appear fair to the inhabitants of the planet.
      - sdenton4 5y ago
        Yeah, I thought it was clear from the beginning of the book that no humans were even remotely competitive with any AI (including the main character) but that human game players were sort of an aesthetic throwback, like dog-racing in an era of F1 cars.
        7thaccount 5y ago
        This was my understanding as well, but I might have read into it. The culture minds are in freaking hyperspace to get around lightspeed limitations on computations. He for sure can't beat that, but he could beat someone on another planet at their own game that he literally just learned in the year it took to get there. A game that permeates every aspect of their civilization. I do assume his drone could beat him as well, but I'm not sure.
- pharmakom 5y ago
  No he is not, but AIs are not allowed in the competition the story centers around.
  - hoseja 5y ago
    Near the end of the competition, as he is deep in his analysis, the light craft AI gives up on helping him since it gets overwhelmed. Granted it's not a full Culture Mind (kinda hazy, been a while) but still a point for the meatbag.
    - pharmakom 5y ago
      I think the main character can be so strong at the game by the end because of his immersion in Empire culture. The ships AI would likely be at least as strong with the same experiences. Plus, as you mention, the ships AI is not smartest AI around.
    - arlort 5y ago
      I always interpreted the end reveal as showing that control was highly confident of both the outcome of the game and of how Gurgeh got to that outcome. It's been a while but I am pretty sure that the ship lied when saying that it got overwhelmed and did so only because it was confident he was on the right path but needed to get there in a specific way which wouldn't have worked quite the same if the ship intervened
      - hesperiidae 5y ago
        Yeah, he wouldn't have reached such a good solution with help, and that was also originally taken into account by the Culture when they sent him out in the first place, since they knew him that thoroughly.
      - bduerst 5y ago
        Yep, basically the nebulous, unknown minds of Control predicted the main character would win, and set up as many conditions as possible to push him to do so. Including bluffing about help from the AI. It was part of an even bigger game but I'm not going to get into spoilers.
Borrible 5y ago
Banks should have named one of Culture's General System Vehicles 'Don't be Evil'. https://theculture.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_spacecraft https://theculture.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_spacecraft
dane-pgp 5y ago
I think it is also a reference to "PogChamp", although it's disappointing that PoG apparently wasn't evaluated against the Arcade Learning Environment (ALE) corpus of Atari 2600 games.
- abledon 5y ago
  much more refined to think a spam of "POG!" stands for Player of Games when reading twitch chat
doctor_eval 5y ago
I suppose it's better than "Use of Weapons".
- OneTimePetes 5y ago
  Why not have a seat, take that chair over there.
  - _0ffh 5y ago
    One of the best, and executed to perfection! You can sort-of-see the point coming for a long, long time in the book, as he gradually builds the suspicion by dropping the occasional hint here and there, but it's always so that it must remain a highly uncertain speculation until he drops the reveal. Just the right balance between "How should I have suspected that?" and "Those hints were too much on the nose!".
    - OneTimePetes 5y ago
      Its such a crime - of war and all else, its like a blindspot of imagination. That a man would do such a thing - to what is essentially family, as tactics.. the horror..
CobrastanJorji 5y ago
Allusions are fun and all, but I disagree. These are important problems that a lot of people have put their whole careers into researching. Silly names like these lack gravitas.
- gremloni 5y ago
  If anything the caliber and lore of the series gives the project an incredible amount of gravitas. Plus the scheme is just plain beautiful in my opinion.
  - lacker 5y ago
    You may find this Iain Banks interview enjoyable. TLDR search for "gravitas" ;-) https://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/sep/11/iainbanks-science-fiction https://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/sep/11/iainbanks-scie...
    - macmac 5y ago
      Brilliant. "Absolutely No You-No-What" is fantastic.
      - stavros 5y ago
        Nothing can top "Ultimate Ship the Second".
        xenophonf 5y ago
        My favorite is Eschatologist (temporary name) lolololol
- sjg1729 5y ago
  Always sad to see these projects suffer from A Shortfall of Gravitas
  - 5y ago

I really like seeing references to the Culture series when naming things: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Player_of_Games https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Player_of_Games

hoseja 5y ago

Kinda ironic since in the novel, a human player is better than the strong AI (albeit a little inexplicably).

7thaccount 5y ago
I thought the protagonist wasn't nearly as talented as the culture AIs (even the ones that are not all that powerful)?
- hoseja 5y ago
  I don't think a full Culture Mind is present but he outstrips his spacecraft's ability to help him with preparation in later stages of the competition. I clearly remember this.
  - macmac 5y ago
    At least that is what the ship (SC) wants him to think.
    - WJW 5y ago
      Indeed. (spoiler following) The plot basically revolves around SC manipulating both Gurgeh and the Empire of Azad in an ever bigger and complex game than the one in the book. Given how Banks describes the Minds in other books it would be extremely curious if they wouldn't crush any biological player in any normal game the same way chess computers crush humans these days. But, it is possible that a more limited mind like the security drone could be outstripped by Gurgeh. In one of the other books they do mention that "smaller" machines like environmental suits and small drones get more limited minds than full starships as it would be cruel to put a fully capable Mind in such a limited body.
      - stavros 5y ago
        How did I miss this plot point? It's been a while, but I remember focusing on the game Gurgeh played. Maybe I just don't remember it now.
        WJW 5y ago
        The last page of the book gives it away: (MASSIVE SPOILER OBV) The security drone who came with Gurgeh to Azad was the same drone he meets during the introduction chapters who was "rejected" from SC and offers to let him cheat (though it was wearing a disguise at the time). Then, after he cheats he basically gets blackmailed into going to Azad and conveniently this "non-SC" drone comes with him in a very "non-SC" ship that claims to have its weapons removed but doesn't. At some crucial points the security drone influences Gurgeh to play the best he can, such as when he takes him on a tour of the slums and the Culture-educated Gurgeh gets so furious at the mistreatment he witnesses that he absolutely crushes his opponent in the next match. They mention in one of the final chapters that the minds wanted the Azad empire to become a better place since it was really shitty to its citizens. However, they couldn't just invade and impose laws because they're the Culture, and the Azad empire kept claiming moral superiority because they had this one thing (the Game) that they thought the Culture couldn't match. The Minds knew Gurgeh was talented enough to get far enough in the tournament that the Azad Empire would be seriously shaken, because if this single foreigner can beat so many of the best and brightest in the Empire at the thing it claims to do best then what could the entire Culture do? This turns out to have been correct, at the end of the book the Azad empire starts to collapse because they no longer trust their leadership, who have been proven to be incompetent at the very thing they claim to do best. Beaten by a human btw, not even by one of the god-machines that the Culture also has. Having predicted that this would happen, the Minds set out to manipulate Gurgeh into going to Azad to play the Game and by doing so bring about regime change. The Minds and/or SC were playing a much higher level game than Gurgeh all along, he was merely one of the pieces they used to play.
        stavros 5y ago
        Ahh, thank you! Now that you recount it, it all comes back to me. I should read more Banks, he's a fantastic writer.
- thom 5y ago
  Is that clear from the text? Gurgeh supposedly perceives the result of the last game before the AIs so we’re led to believe he’s seeing deeper. Obviously he could have been wrong and still won. The AIs lied to and manipulated him the entire time so it’s hard to know, but it would seem a very odd weakness for an AI to have. I think Banks pretty quickly recanted on the subject of the Culture’s ‘referrers’ but I don’t think he plays a full Mind, so it’s not a clear cut conversation.
  - joshuamorton 5y ago
    My recollection is that by the end of the novel its clear that Gurgeh was never competitive with the ship, although he might have been competitive with his security drone (although even that isn't clear, since <spoilers> imply that the security drone is a better game player than it pretends to be). To me it felt like the whole point of the novel was that Gurgeh was a piece in an even larger game and he didn't even realize it. So the idea that the people playing the "bigger" game couldn't compete in the smaller game seems silly, and I think they mention that they used Gurgeh instead of an AI to make it appear fair to the inhabitants of the planet.
    - sdenton4 5y ago
      Yeah, I thought it was clear from the beginning of the book that no humans were even remotely competitive with any AI (including the main character) but that human game players were sort of an aesthetic throwback, like dog-racing in an era of F1 cars.
      - 7thaccount 5y ago
        This was my understanding as well, but I might have read into it. The culture minds are in freaking hyperspace to get around lightspeed limitations on computations. He for sure can't beat that, but he could beat someone on another planet at their own game that he literally just learned in the year it took to get there. A game that permeates every aspect of their civilization. I do assume his drone could beat him as well, but I'm not sure.
pharmakom 5y ago
No he is not, but AIs are not allowed in the competition the story centers around.
- hoseja 5y ago
  Near the end of the competition, as he is deep in his analysis, the light craft AI gives up on helping him since it gets overwhelmed. Granted it's not a full Culture Mind (kinda hazy, been a while) but still a point for the meatbag.
  - pharmakom 5y ago
    I think the main character can be so strong at the game by the end because of his immersion in Empire culture. The ships AI would likely be at least as strong with the same experiences. Plus, as you mention, the ships AI is not smartest AI around.
  - arlort 5y ago
    I always interpreted the end reveal as showing that control was highly confident of both the outcome of the game and of how Gurgeh got to that outcome. It's been a while but I am pretty sure that the ship lied when saying that it got overwhelmed and did so only because it was confident he was on the right path but needed to get there in a specific way which wouldn't have worked quite the same if the ship intervened
    - hesperiidae 5y ago
      Yeah, he wouldn't have reached such a good solution with help, and that was also originally taken into account by the Culture when they sent him out in the first place, since they knew him that thoroughly.
    - bduerst 5y ago
      Yep, basically the nebulous, unknown minds of Control predicted the main character would win, and set up as many conditions as possible to push him to do so. Including bluffing about help from the AI. It was part of an even bigger game but I'm not going to get into spoilers.

Borrible 5y ago

Banks should have named one of Culture's General System Vehicles 'Don't be Evil'. https://theculture.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_spacecraft https://theculture.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_spacecraft

dane-pgp 5y ago

I think it is also a reference to "PogChamp", although it's disappointing that PoG apparently wasn't evaluated against the Arcade Learning Environment (ALE) corpus of Atari 2600 games.

abledon 5y ago
much more refined to think a spam of "POG!" stands for Player of Games when reading twitch chat

doctor_eval 5y ago

I suppose it's better than "Use of Weapons".

OneTimePetes 5y ago
Why not have a seat, take that chair over there.
- _0ffh 5y ago
  One of the best, and executed to perfection! You can sort-of-see the point coming for a long, long time in the book, as he gradually builds the suspicion by dropping the occasional hint here and there, but it's always so that it must remain a highly uncertain speculation until he drops the reveal. Just the right balance between "How should I have suspected that?" and "Those hints were too much on the nose!".
  - OneTimePetes 5y ago
    Its such a crime - of war and all else, its like a blindspot of imagination. That a man would do such a thing - to what is essentially family, as tactics.. the horror..

CobrastanJorji 5y ago

Allusions are fun and all, but I disagree. These are important problems that a lot of people have put their whole careers into researching. Silly names like these lack gravitas.

gremloni 5y ago
If anything the caliber and lore of the series gives the project an incredible amount of gravitas. Plus the scheme is just plain beautiful in my opinion.
- lacker 5y ago
  You may find this Iain Banks interview enjoyable. TLDR search for "gravitas" ;-) https://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/sep/11/iainbanks-science-fiction https://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/sep/11/iainbanks-scie...
  - macmac 5y ago
    Brilliant. "Absolutely No You-No-What" is fantastic.
    - stavros 5y ago
      Nothing can top "Ultimate Ship the Second".
      - xenophonf 5y ago
        My favorite is Eschatologist (temporary name) lolololol
sjg1729 5y ago
Always sad to see these projects suffer from A Shortfall of Gravitas
- 5y ago