Culture in ST

[NecronLord]

Sma? who?

Rasd-Coduresa Diziet Embless Sma da' Marenhide. Zakalwe's "friend". She appears in Use of Weapons and must be from Special Circumstances.

Zakalwe's comment : "You lubric bitch..." ( or something close )

It says it all, doesn't it ?

There are races way more powerful than the Culture ? Many ? I can't begin to imagine how powerful they can be... galaxy-killer, planetoid-sized light units, instantaneous drives, stuff like that...

Well I'm not sure if the Excession counts, but it's a probe and is capable of playing with the culture fairly easily.

[Crazy_Vasey]

It may have to wipe out the borg.

Nah, with Effectors they would merely alter the Borg's mindset. Rather then a conquering swarm, they would become an evangilizing swarm trying to convince you to join them rather then forcing you to join them.

Noooooooooo! Intergalactic Jehovah's Witnesses

[GSV Use Psychology]

Here's my few cents:

Questions :
1°) what is the efficiency of the Culture's warp with regard to ST's warp ( my guess is that it must be around 200 times faster than the highest warp factor used by Voyager, making it slower than transwarp, perhaps on par with low-grade Quantum Slipstream aka the Dauntless' one ) ? Is it realspace FTL or wormhole/spacefolding ?

The Culture ships don't generally use warp travel anymore since hyperspace is faster. Hyperspace is actually a common name since there are a few different layers of hyperspace. They are located "above" and "below" realspace and Culture ships apparently have access to all of these. The outermost skein/level/etc. is the energy grid, which basicly is a barrier of pure energy surrounding our universe separating it from a younger and an older universe. The Culture uses fields on it's ships which sorta push against the grid, and due to traction, move the ship. The grid is also an energy source and can be used as a weapon, called gridfire.

Gridfire is caused by manipulating the energy grid so that it appears where one wants it. There is no beam or similar, it just appears in realspace seemingly out of nowhere. I think the Minds see it differently since they can see to the hyperspaces and the grid, but to humans it just appears on spot. We've only seen gridfire used on a 14 kilometer Orbital, and the Dra'Azon, a Sublimed species (think Culture First Ones/energy beings), used something similar to discourage people from approaching a planet they/it were guarding.

2°) do displacers work on sentient beings ? I know for sure that they work on simple objects ( aka Sma's luggage in Use of Weapons ), but aren't they ethically challenging ? Do Culture's shields affect them ? Have we any clue about their capacity/range ?

Yes displacers work on living things. It apparently works by creating a small singularity/wormhole nearly instantly transporting the desired object between two points. There's about a 60 million-to-one (I believe, it could be less) chance that any single displacement will fail, which is why the Minds prefer people to use alternative forms of transportation.

There hasn't been any specific mentions of whether shields/fields stop displacers. Culture ships always have some fields active (there are many types) so I don't think shields generally stop displacers. Although since the Culture does displace stuff around enemy ships and not just directly inside them it indicates that there are some countermeasures.

Culture ships can carry out many tens of thousands of displacements in atmost a few minutes. Generally we're talking miniscule fractions of a second.

Ranges have varied in the books, we've seen ranges of just a few lightseconds to a few lighthours all the way to many lightyears, but the range seems to be tied to the volume of the object. I believe this because ships use displacers to transport their warheads, nanoholes and other ammunition, and we have instances where battles are fought at ranges over atleast a few lightyears. Basicly I think that the Culture's weaponry is really really small (they can make bombs to small to see that could tear Earth apart, source: State of the Art), allowing for longer ranges.

3°) does an effector work both on computers and biological brains, or are they specialized types of effectors ? Are they hand-held effectors ?

They work on both. Drones usually have a low-level effector, military drones have better ones. Culture suits also come equipped with them.

4°) what are the Culture's favorite hand weapons ? ( Zakalwe's plasma rifle isn't from the Culture, is it ? ) Do they have personnal forcefields ?

As mentioned hand weapons are not common in the Culture, military drones are better than any human could ever hope to be so there is rarely a need. Although they do have them. One mentioned in Use of Weapons:

"Micro Armaments System, Rifle. It has ten separate weapon systems, not including the semi-sentient guard facility, the reactive shield components, the IFF-set quick-reaction swing-packs, or the AG (anti-grav) unit, and before you ask , the controls are all on the wrong side because that's the left-hand bias version, and the balance - like the weight and independently variable inertia - are fully adjustable."

Also the antique plasma rifle which shattered and partially vaporised a fifteen metre cube of ice that Zakalwe liked, the Culture have handguns that are more powerful.

They do have personal forcefields, mentioned in Player of Games:

"'How about a magic amulet to ward of bullets?'
'Are you serious? I mean, if you are there is a passive-sensor impact-shield jewellery set on board, but they'd probably use CREWs -'"
Player of Games, page 216-217"

5°) what's the English name of the small autoguided projectiles commonly used by the Culture ? In my book it is translated by something like "missile-knife" or "dagger-missile"

Knife missiles, as mentioned by others.

6°) are they detailed stats or pictures of Culture's ship ? I know from Use of Weapons that GCUs are 3 km in lenght, GSVs are 80 km in lenght, and ROUs must be between 300-350 m in length ( having a mass of 1 megaton )...

GCU's aren't that big, they're probably a few hundred meters tops, same as the ROU's. GSV's vary from a few kilometers to the 200 kilometer.[/quote]