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I think answers in response to your post will differ depending on whether or not you've read many of the Culture books -- to me it kind of sounds like you have,

• ethbr1 2y ago
  It's been a minute since I read Games, but from memory the target civilization there is of a scale far smaller than the Culture. Which is to say, if they both mobilized for brute force total war, the Culture could steamroll them. Which makes it a "send the Terminator back time to kill Sarah Connor" solution -- strangle a potential future competitor in the womb. That makes for an interesting book on the ruthless realpolitik behavior of otherwise moral and ethical superior civilizations, and how they actually maintain their superiority. (Probably Banks' point) But less-so on the hot tech-vogue generalization of "Isn't the Culture so dreamy? They've evolved beyond our ignorance."
  • n4r9 2y ago
    I'd note a couple of points here: - Yes, the Culture is way more technologically advanced than the Azadians. But the point is that a basic Culture human of standard intelligence (albeit extensive knowledge of strategy games) can - after a relatively small amount of training - defeat an Azadian who has devoted their entire life to Azad. And the reason is that the Culture humans's strategies reflect the values and philosophy of the Culture. The subtext is that the non-heirarchical nature of the Culture leads to a more effective use of resources. - The Culture-Idiran war is an example of them confronting an enemy that is of comparable technological development. Again, it's implied that the Culture wins because their decentralised and non-hierarchical existence let them move rapidly throughout the galaxy while switching quickly to a full war-footing. - It sounds like you have the impression that the Culture dominates all other civilisations. This is not true. For example, in Excession they discover that they're being observed by a vastly superior civilization that has some ability to hop between dimensions in a way that they cannot. There are civilisations like the Gzilt or Homomdans who are on a level with the Culture, and ancient Elder species like the Involucra who also give Culture ships a run for their money on combat.
    • ethbr1 2y ago
      I was speaking less about specific capabilities and more about total economic size. How big is the Azadian civilization in terms of worlds/stations/industry? > It sounds like you have the impression that the Culture dominates all other civilisations. There's three places I'm getting this from, more as a pervasive slant than an absolute truth. (1) Ian Banks' writings on the Culture (outside of the books themselves) demonstrate a very strong belief that the Culture approach to things is superior (to those used on current Earth, and to many alternatives) (2) The Culture as zeitgeist moment is very focused on how superior it is to alternatives (civilization evolution wise, if not explicitly). Rarely do people post blog entries about how interesting and aspiration other civilizations from the Culture series are (3) If Banks had wanted to set up a peer-powered civilization that made alternative choices, he would have. He didn't. At least aside from oddities or deus ex machina The most convincing point I've heard in this thread is that essentially the Culture is OP not because of inherent superiority of their beliefs, but specifically because their belief system keeps most of them hanging around past the technological stage other civilizations would have transcended.
      • n4r9 2y ago
        Points 1-3 show that Banks thought the Culture was morally superior. It's not obvious that they dominated the galaxy/universe on a technological or economic level. I concede that there's an suggestion that the Culture are doing very well and continuing to evolve at a greater rate than their peer civilizations due to several factors including their reluctance to Sublime and their idealistic nature. However on Wikipedia there's a well-sourced paragraph stating (emphasis mine): > Although the Culture has more advanced technology and a more powerful economy than the vast majority of known civilizations, it is only one of the "Involved" civilizations that take an active part in galactic affairs. The much older Homomda are slightly more advanced at the time of Consider Phlebas (this is, however, set several centuries before the other books, and Culture technology and martial power continue to advance in the interim);[b] the Morthanveld have a much larger population and economy, but are hampered by a more restrictive attitude to the role of AI in their society.[4] The capabilities of all such societies are vastly exceeded by those of the Elder civilisations (semi-retired from Galactic politics but who remain supremely potent) and even more so by those of the Sublimed, entities which have abandoned their material form for existence in the form of non-corporeal, multi-dimensional energy being. The Sublimed generally refrain from intervention in the material world.[5]
  • Ekaros 2y ago
    From Player of the Games interesting part was that the Culture would not even attempt to steam roll. But withdraw and consolidate where possible. Doing things over non-human scale in space scale... Which is only possible when you are not time and resource constrained like you would be on planet with human leaders...
• hermitcrab 2y ago
  The idea that the course of a civilization future history can be mathematically predicted with precision, as it is in Foundation[1] seems a little silly. But those books did predate Chaos theory by some margin. Also I'm not sure Asimov actually believed that 'psychohistory' would be possible. [1] If I recall correctly. It is ~40 years since I read Foundation.
  • ethbr1 2y ago
    It also helps that all of Asimov's characters are flat, static automatons, instead of deep, changing beings. ;)
    • hermitcrab 2y ago
      Yes, character development not exactly his strong point. Women especially, IIRC.