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proudfoot posted:Yup, after one galactic year, the Culture no longer exists, presumably having sublimed, destroyed by an outside context problem, or somehow switched galaxies/universes or changed into something unrecognizable as the Culture. A Galactic Year is about 250 million years, that's quite some time to be top dog in the galaxy. At the time most books take place the Culture is just a few thousand years old.
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Oct 26, 2009 16:21
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| # ¿ May 6, 2024 23:46 |
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Comstar posted:I never understood why the Excession was considered a good thing considering every ship that sent a probe into it was attacked forcibly taken over. I think it's more a case of interesting than good, which for the AIs might be enough to consider it positively. If you're basically a godlike people with few things to fear in this galaxy, potentially dangerous things from somewhere else hold some appeal, even if they might or might not bring the destruction of your civilization (there's always the ascension way out if necessary), simply because of the stimulus they provide. I think it is a topic that Neal Asher explored quite a bit more with his Polity series, which has similar premises (AI ruled post-scarcity (or nearly so) humanity) but with some significant differences.
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Apr 29, 2010 09:31
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alkanphel posted:Technically couldn't the Culture just sublime and escape the heat-death? I am currently re-reading Excession and it mentions that parts of the Culture have already sublimed but the majority don't want to do so yet. Even sublimed they would still be in this universe and most likely be subjected to the heat-death. Maybe the last thing to die, but the sublimed species would most likely still do so if they can't escape to another universe (and if not the universe wouldn't be dead, since there is something of the universe left, although it would probably be pretty boring).
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Apr 30, 2010 07:49
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Pompous Rhombus posted:
It's not cheap, but you can buy it here: http://www.spaceimages.com/io.html
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Jun 25, 2010 06:20
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pseudorandom name posted:Fun fact: the actual physical book is the least expensive part of the process, and Amazon is screwing everybody with Kindle pricing. It's not Amazon, it's the publishers who - with help of Apple - managed to get Amazon to switch to an agent model for most of them, meaning the publisher sets the price and Amazon just gets a share of it. It was done mostly because publishers thought that Amazon's 9.99 was way too cheap for e-books.
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Oct 10, 2010 17:47
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enigma74 posted:Someone mentioned The Culture as having potentially disappeared after one galactic cycler earlier - something about a hegemonizing swarm, OCM, and sublimination. What does OCM stand for? Yes, it was in the epilogue of Look to Windward I think? The one with the gigantic intelligent space whales in air bubbles that work as ecosystem for other species and are near immortal. We meet one at the novels main timeline and once again after the Culture has vanished. Although it's probably longer than most intelligent species stay on the stage - a Galactic Cycle is 230 million years after all.
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Oct 13, 2010 06:58
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Prolonged Priapism posted:
Also, the Beats Working tried not to hurt the Liseiden ships, only keep them from shooting things up. It used effectors, and was able to control the targeting and fire control - meaning it could easily have used the Liseiden weapons to take out other ships if it wanted, even if it hadn't had any weapons of its own. It chose not to. Liked The Hydrogen Sonata quite a bit, but then I had no major problem with Surface Detail or Matter either.
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Oct 28, 2012 18:08
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| # ¿ May 6, 2024 23:46 |
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poo poo. loving cancer. 
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Apr 3, 2013 16:20
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