As a sibling commenter said, Excession is almost entirely about fleshing out the "society" of Minds and the scheming and politicking that's going on within. It

As a sibling commenter said, Excession is almost entirely about fleshing out the "society" of Minds and the scheming and politicking that's going on within. It is of course impossible to actually write in-depth superintelligent characters without being a superintelligence yourself, making the Minds in the story quite human-like. Nevertheless the novel shows that Banks was quite aware of the problem of the Minds easily becoming mere dei ex machina – and quite literal ones at that.