That is a fair argument if you consider the Culture to be a collection of civilisations living in harmony, but if the Culture is rather a single entity which su

That is a fair argument if you consider the Culture to be a collection of civilisations living in harmony, but if the Culture is rather a single entity which supplants the existing civilisation and gradually replaces all of the unique features of the existing civilisation, is it still fairly classifiable as “peace with a neighbour”? It’s a tough question and I don’t profess to know the answer, but for me I think I would argue that you can no longer call them a “neighbour” if they’re no longer separately identifiable as “not the Culture”.