A Culture ship - who in sci-fi could destroy it?

[K. A. Pital]

There is one Culture ship, however, not a military one (a GSV or, perhaps, if the GSV is overkill, then something smaller) arriving to a sci-fi universe. As I gather, a demilitarized ship would not have effectors, so it would not be able to instantly take over enemy tech.

The task of the defending party (be it a faction from Star Wars, Star Trek, Warhammer 40K and Battlestar Galactica - let's stick with these three so far) is to destroy the ship utterly or at least kill it's crew and somehow hinder it's abilities.

Now, all bets are off - infiltration attempts such as say floating into a GSV dock and then opening fire and blasting everything inside to shit a-la CAT in Consider Phlebas is a valid tactic too.

Will the Culture ship have enough energy, speed and endurance to actually wipe out a whole pangalactic civilization like the Empire or Imperium of WH40K? How possible is infiltration inside such a ship with success?

What if return is impossible and the Culture ship will be hunted down by all factions due to the danger it presents with it's high technology? What would the Culture mind on-board do?

[Starglider]

The usual suspects are capable of beating Culture technology; Time Lords, fully powered Dalek Empire, a few other ultra-high-end civs with time travel and/or 'reality hacking' type technologies. As for everyone else...

There is one Culture ship, however, not a military one (a GSV or, perhaps, if the GSV is overkill, then something smaller) arriving to a sci-fi universe. As I gather, a demilitarized ship would not have effectors, so it would not be able to instantly take over enemy tech.

All Culture ships have effectors, although the ones on non-military ships may have less raw power. It's not just technology either; the Grey Matter used its effectors to read people's minds and insert itself into their dreams from high orbit, so presumably other Culture ships could mindrip opponents if they needed to. A demilitarised ship can also fabricate its own weapons, given some raw matter and a few weeks lead time (demonstrated by the Sleeper Service).

The task of the defending party (be it a faction from Star Wars, Star Trek, Warhammer 40K and Battlestar Galactica - let's stick with these three so far) is to destroy the ship utterly or at least kill it's crew and somehow hinder it's abilities.

None of those powers are likely to be able to affect a ship in infraspace or ultraspace (the Culture's versions of hyperspace), before you even consider speed and shielding.

Now, all bets are off - infiltration attempts such as say floating into a GSV dock and then opening fire and blasting everything inside to shit a-la CAT in Consider Phlebas is a valid tactic too.

That was an ex-Culture GSV, it was not clear if it even had a Mind. A modern one would trivially defeat such efforts with its (hyperspace) trapdoor system, as seen in Use of Weapons.

Will the Culture ship have enough energy, speed and endurance to actually wipe out a whole pangalactic civilization like the Empire or Imperium of WH40K?

Energy, yes, even a Culture GCU can devastate planets with its engine backwash. Endurance, yes, Culture ships draw energy from hyperspace and are self-maintaining, with indefinite endurance (there are Culture ships thousands of years old). Speed, probably not; killing a few planets a day it will take thousands of years to destroy the whole Imperium. What would actually happen if a Culture ship was determined to kill a galactic civ would be constructing its own Von Neuman kill swarm. GSVs are already set up to constantly manufacture smaller ships (Sleeper Service built a fleet of tens of thousands over a couple of decades - and final assembly apparently occurred in just the last few days), and even a GCU has the seed technology to do it.

What if return is impossible and the Culture ship will be hunted down by all factions due to the danger it presents with it's high technology? What would the Culture mind on-board do?

Under normal conditions, hide. If for some reason that doesn't work, destroy itself. Culture minds aren't normally motivated to destroy other civilisations.

[RedImperator]

Under normal conditions, hide. If for some reason that doesn't work, destroy itself. Culture minds aren't normally motivated to destroy other civilisations.

I don't even know if it would have to hide. Against most sci-fi societies, a Culture mind could find a patch of empty star systems (since most so-called galactic powers are barely present in their own galaxies), start building a Culture-in-exile, and there'd be fuck-all the locals could do about it.

[Formless]

I know that Schlock-verse isn't one of the usual suspects, but how would the culture ship deal with a terapedo with a dummy fuse in their crew and/or engine compartments? That's about the only space opera style universe that I can think of that can begin to deal with such a ludicrous enemy.

[Grog]

On he trapdoor system. Is it known that it would be able to stop a CAT like attack? Is there any known limits to this technology? Was it ever seen used on anything more powerful than Zakalwes gun?

[Crazedwraith]

No but it was stated in the dialogue to be able to handle nukes.

[Sarevok]

Hunting down a lone self sufficient starship is very very difficult. The problem is compounded by the fact that most well known interstellar empires have no effective planetary defenses. They can't protect their worlds from hit and run attacks by an enemy that can just fade into hyperspace and become immune to weapons that it already can't ignore.

[Starglider]

I know that Schlock-verse isn't one of the usual suspects, but how would the culture ship deal with a terapedo with a dummy fuse in their crew and/or engine compartments? That's about the only space opera style universe that I can think of that can begin to deal with such a ludicrous enemy.

Might work, the first time. Teraports are quite easy to jam with low energy gravity waves; in the Schlockverse, most inhabited systems have teraport area denial out to several light hours. However, presumably they have to be the right kind of gravity waves as interference from the gravitic drives, weapons and anhiliation reactors doesn't seem to be a problem. Whether the teraport would work through a Culture ship's extremely strong and exotic engine fields, shielding and artificial gravity is unknown. You might bag one (Schlockverse conversion bombs certainly have the yield, up into teratons, possibly enough to defeat even a GSV's trapdoor system), but you can bet any other ships will analyse the attack and have TAD improvised within minutes (more likely seconds).

That said, just trashing the crew areas will do zip to the general effectiveness of the ship; all Culture 'crew members' are really just passengers. Teraporting into 'engine spaces' would be problematic, since the working parts of the ship are mostly solid blocks of exotic matter. Lacking solid intelligence on the ship's layout, you'd probably have to try teraporting conversion bombs in to random co-ordinates and hope you get lucky before the ship notices and disappears into hyperspace. The only Schlockverse power that might be able to repeatedly kill Culture ships is Petey, due to the galactic core generator powered super-teraport he has, and even that probably can't target ships in infraspace/ultraspace.

[Formless]

Well, as per the OP, he only has one he needs to bag. Or more likely, Petey would swamp their defenses with multiple bombs and a holo-globe (or something similar to facilitate communication) and proceed to make them an offer they cannot refuse.

[Tasoth]

Could the Eldar pull this off? I know in Nightbringer, at the cost of an entire fleet (or most of it, atleast), they were able to put a stop to the C'tan tombship within the span of moments it took The Nightbringer to realize just what they were about to do.

[adam_grif]

I'll say Q and other sufficiently advanced aliens of its ilk, but that almost seems like cheating at this point.

If they arrived in the Stargate universe, SG-1 would no doubt stumble across some kind of magical ancient superweapon designed specifically to defeat them, or have Carter engineer a solution in under a week. But again, cheating.

Outside of plot induced superpowers, I'm struggling to think of anything.

[K. A. Pital]

Working precognition is a huge power against the Culture, because it negates the otherwise obscene Culture reaction time advantage.

What of a Culture Fast Picket? It would be small, demilitarized and all that. A Culture ship regardless of size and armament might also have problems dealing with stuff like Chaos - the humans inside might be easily corrupted, and possibly perhaps the Mind itself could be.

[Starglider]

Well, as per the OP, he only has one he needs to bag. Or more likely, Petey would swamp their defenses with multiple bombs and a holo-globe (or something similar to facilitate communication)

I'd note that the Culture uses Displacers extensively, including to displace bombs (CAM) and plasma in combat. Displacers use single large wormholes; something that is supposed to be impossible in the Schlockverse due to the ridiculous power demands (the Gatekeepers claimed the gates worked like that, but actually they broke you down into a data stream, transmitted you through a tiny wormhole, and reassembled you on the other side). This is why the teraport uses a huge number of nanoscopic wormholes, to reduce power demands. Culture ships have no trouble fending off incoming wormholes as long they're undamaged and not facing superior power. I suspect one would recognise a teraport attack as a massively parallel Displacer attack and be able to defend against it, and then probably realise that in this universe its own Displacers can be used in this manner. Petey might still win due to brute force, but again by Schlockverse standards the Culture are already using ridiculous amounts of raw power to make their single-wormhole teleport system work at all.

The LOTA weapon might work, if the Culture ship can be detected and sits still for long enough, but we don't know enough about it to be sure. Culture ships survive supernovas, so it all depends on whether the beam teleport mechanism can bypass Culture fields (which extend into hyperspace) as well as Schlockverse gravitic shields (which don't).

and proceed to make them an offer they cannot refuse.

Such as?

I'll say Q and other sufficiently advanced aliens of its ilk, but that almost seems like cheating at this point.

Frankly I stopped rating the Q after the Voyager episode where the Voyager crew teleported to the Q Continuum and were the decisive factor in their civil war (by wielding hand weapons disguised as muskets, no less). DW has analysed this before, their powers may well be technology-based, and while they can clearly mess with all the Trek powers just fine we have no idea if they can stand up to significantly more advanced civilisations.

[Formless]

Well, as per the OP, he only has one he needs to bag. Or more likely, Petey would swamp their defenses with multiple bombs and a holo-globe (or something similar to facilitate communication)

I'd note that the Culture uses Displacers extensively, including to displace bombs (CAM) and plasma in combat. Displacers use single large wormholes; something that is supposed to be impossible in the Schlockverse due to the ridiculous power demands (the Gatekeepers claimed the gates worked like that, but actually they broke you down into a data stream, transmitted you through a tiny wormhole, and reassembled you on the other side). This is why the teraport uses a huge number of nanoscopic wormholes, to reduce power demands. Culture ships have no trouble fending off incoming wormholes as long they're undamaged and not facing superior power. I suspect one would recognise a teraport attack as a massively parallel Displacer attack and be able to defend against it, and then probably realise that in this universe its own Displacers can be used in this manner. Petey might still win due to brute force, but again by Schlockverse standards the Culture are already using ridiculous amounts of raw power to make their single-wormhole teleport system work at all.

That depends on how quickly they realize what is going on. If their existing technology is only meant to fend off a couple of wormholes at a time, then how are they supposed to defend against an attack that involves the creation of what must amount to billions of microscopic wormholes in a matter of seconds, and which ends with a more conventional weapon being attached to their ship? The teraports give Petey the element of surprise, and since he already has a presence in the Milky Way which includes the massive zero-point energy generator at the galaxy's core he has much more resources to throw at the problem than the lone Culture ship. Assuming that he knows the potential of the Culture's technology to either fuck over the galaxy or to further his goals, it is in his best interest to throw whatever resources he needs at the problem and either negotiate with, capture, or destroy the culture ship if it sets foot in the Milky Way.

The LOTA weapon might work, if the Culture ship can be detected and sits still for long enough, but we don't know enough about it to be sure. Culture ships survive supernovas, so it all depends on whether the beam teleport mechanism can bypass Culture fields (which extend into hyperspace) as well as Schlockverse gravitic shields (which don't).

Well, the fact that everyone was treating it like a strategic game changer implies they think it can punch through TAD, if that is any consolation. Of course, this assumes Petey can convince the eponymous AI that lives in and controls LOTA to help him out. That could go either way, depending on how much LOTA trusts the Fleetmind.

Such as?

Well, what I was thinking is that these are essentially the guys Petey wishes he could be (the Culture, that is). And here is a ship with the technologies that could help him achieve that goal, not to mention help him fight the Dark Matter entities in Andromeda. To him, these guys would make perfect allies-- but if they say no, the potential for them to ruin stuff in his galaxy is too great to ignore, so it would be perfectly in character for him to negotiate at gunpoint.

[NecronLord]

Could the Eldar pull this off? I know in Nightbringer, at the cost of an entire fleet (or most of it, atleast), they were able to put a stop to the C'tan tombship within the span of moments it took The Nightbringer to realize just what they were about to do.

That wasn't the Eldar. That was a multi-species coalition. It is unknown, given the descriptions of them at the time, whether or not the Eldar were developed enough to contribute starships to that. The coalition fleet was given instructions by the Deceiver.

[adam_grif]

Frankly I stopped rating the Q after the Voyager episode where the Voyager crew teleported to the Q Continuum and were the decisive factor in their civil war (by wielding hand weapons disguised as muskets, no less). DW has analysed this before, their powers may well be technology-based, and while they can clearly mess with all the Trek powers just fine we have no idea if they can stand up to significantly more advanced civilisations.

Yikes. Although I'll say that it smacks of the same kind of magic technobabble solution wankery that usually gets automatically disqualified in "vs" scenarios.

[mr friendly guy]

Frankly I stopped rating the Q after the Voyager episode where the Voyager crew teleported to the Q Continuum and were the decisive factor in their civil war (by wielding hand weapons disguised as muskets, no less). DW has analysed this before, their powers may well be technology-based, and while they can clearly mess with all the Trek powers just fine we have no idea if they can stand up to significantly more advanced civilisations.

Even if just their "guns" were technology and the rest of it was innate, it wouldn't really matter since either can be quantified. You are right in that Darth Wong was doing something along those lines ie analysing them against more stronger sci fi powers, using the GE as an example, mainly to counter act Q wankers. In any event I think he mentioned that some oh so awesome Q feats like moving a small moon a short distange ( in TNG) required less energy than the DS super laser. In any event its certainly less impressive than some Whoverse feats, who move objects with more mass than a small moon, so I would say they most probably won't stand up to some of the big boys of sci fi.

[RedImperator]

Working precognition is a huge power against the Culture, because it negates the otherwise obscene Culture reaction time advantage.

Does it really? I would think that it only helps if you're fast enough to actually take advantage of it. At some point, you have to commit to making a move--blocking to the left or the right, in a simplified example--and once you've committed, if the Culture's reaction time is fast enough, it can just change directions. It might be that your precog just shows you getting your ass kicked no matter what you do.

[petesampras]

Does it really? I would think that it only helps if you're fast enough to actually take advantage of it. At some point, you have to commit to making a move--blocking to the left or the right, in a simplified example--and once you've committed, if the Culture's reaction time is fast enough, it can just change directions. It might be that your precog just shows you getting your ass kicked no matter what you do.

A fundamental problem with the concept of precognition is that the future is (at least potentially) dependant on your actions, and your actions will be affected by what you perceive the future to be. The precog practitioner versus much faster but precog lacking opponent just ends up with a go-back-in-time-and-kill-your-grandfather style paradox.

[RedImperator]

Does it really? I would think that it only helps if you're fast enough to actually take advantage of it. At some point, you have to commit to making a move--blocking to the left or the right, in a simplified example--and once you've committed, if the Culture's reaction time is fast enough, it can just change directions. It might be that your precog just shows you getting your ass kicked no matter what you do.

A fundamental problem with the concept of precognition is that the future is (at least potentially) dependant on your actions, and your actions will be affected by what you perceive the future to be. The precog practitioner versus much faster but precog lacking opponent just ends up with a go-back-in-time-and-kill-your-grandfather style paradox.

Yeah, that's my conclusion, too. Something like Jedi precog only works if your opponents aren't fast enough to react to your reactions. I don't know if you'd run into a paradox; it could be that the precog just shows you getting gridfire up your ass, or blanks out, or the signal is so confusing you can't do anything with it, or it's just plain deceptive because your brain's clock speed is too slow. Like, it tells you the Culture is going left, you go left to block, the Culture reacts and starts to the right, your precog tells you this, but by the time you get the signal and process it, your head is moving in a different direction from the rest of your body.

[Stormin]

The Culture vs Schlock was brought up and Schlock's author even chimed in his opinion.

http://zoo.nightstar.net/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=486&




I can't believe I even remembered that thread and spent precious minutes looking it up

[Hawkwings]

How about Xeeleeverse Humanity? They have fairly mindbendingly powerful stuff. And if that's not enough, the Xeelee are always good for kicking people's asses.

[Darth Hoth]

Some of the E. E. Smith superscience-civilisations from the good, old pulp era might be able to pull this off.

Skylark: These guys I am fairly certain can do this. They did something similarly in Skylark Three, when they exterminated the Fenachrone, in hunting down a colony ship that went to hide in a distant galaxy, and that one had far superior weapons, sensors and FTL speed to a Culture craft. Their only problem should be hitting one hiding in Banksian hyperspace.

(For those unfamiliar with Skylark, their warships are thousand-kilometre artificial planetoids with "cosmic energy" power generation enough to easily vapourise terrestrial planets by DET. Sensor ranges are many millions of light-years at least, as are ranges for teleported munitions {transferred through the "fourth [spatial] dimension" and used to much the same effect as Culture displacers, but can move anything up to solar masses}; technobabblish FTL beam weapons propagate at such speeds that tactical battles can be fought over ranges of hundreds of thousands of light-years. Reaction times of the psychics that man the ships are in the microseconds as of Skylark DuQuesne {the last book} and their computers are faster; however, they lack independently working AI, so those still require human direction.)

Lensman: Basically, they can do anything the Galactic Empire could and some more. Their civilisation sports some very powerful psychics who should probably be able to find a Culture ship lurking about (supposedly they can search whole universes for single individuals in seconds at most). But unless said psychics can destroy the Culture Mind with their powers, their regular forces do not have anything that should be very effective against a Culture warship in combat. Perhaps an Nth-space planet (FTL projectile with mass, which does funny things with spacetime) or a dozen might cut it. If the Arisians (the ancestors of all "Ascended Ancient Energy Being Precursor Races", but actually benevolent and helpful at least some of the time) step in, it is a given.

Various late Smith novels - The Galaxy Primes or the Subspacers: Small settings by powerful space opera standards (a hundred systems or so in the latter, few if any with populations larger than present-day Earth, and fewer in the former) so they most likely do not have the capability of finding a Culture ship in hiding. They do have psychics who are very powerful by the standards of most settings, though - they can teleport things (including starships) over large distances seemingly instantaneously (one combat use of this was to teleport parts of a warrior to different places) and induce magical direct matter-to-energy conversion in materials not protected by psychics - so if they do find the Culture ship they probably can dismantle it with those.

[Big Orange]

You are right in that Darth Wong was doing something along those lines ie analysing them against more stronger sci fi powers, using the GE as an example, mainly to counter act Q wankers. In any event I think he mentioned that some oh so awesome Q feats like moving a small moon a short distange ( in TNG) required less energy than the DS super laser.

Worse still the Death Star is an artificial moon 160 kilometers in width anyway and discharges similar power to Q moving a natural moon when its massive engines go at sublight cruising speed (and it can also initiate its hyperdrive). But remember you're talking about a single Q individual manipulating celestial bodies and not the Q race at large, so even if an individual Q's observed powers overlap with the capabilities of gigantic space vessels like a General System Vehicle and the Death Star, they're still well above Jedi Knights and Culture Drones.

What if a GSV finds itself in deep space in orbit above the Discworld? There is the possibility of a Sourcerer, but then there already are the Discworld Pantheon of Gods and the Auditors of Reality (also Death Himself and His grandaughter Susan can teleport around and manipulate time very, very deftly).

[Starglider]

What if a GSV finds itself in deep space in orbit above the Discworld? There is the possibility of a Sourcerer, but then there already are the Discworld Pantheon of Gods and the Auditors of Reality (also Death Himself and His grandaughter Susan can teleport around and manipulate time very, very deftly).

Slams straight into the problem discussed in the thread Stormin linked. There are some cross-universe comparisons that just do not work in any rational way, even for very determined and inconsistency-tolerant fans. The universes are too different for a meaningful framework for interaction.