Culture agents visit Earth in a short story set after Consider Phlebas and it's during the Middle Ages. I'm not familiar with any medieval Culture encounters (

Culture agents visit Earth in a short story set after Consider Phlebas and it's during the Middle Ages. I'm not familiar with any medieval Culture encounters (and I don't see any in Wikipedia's description of the Culture's fictional history[0]), but there is a story, "The State of the Art", where Culture agents show up in the 1970's, which supports your point about the Culture explicitly not descending from humanity. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture#Fictional_history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture#Fictional_history