The Culture vs the Xeelee vs the 5th Imperium

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Which one wins ?

The Culture
8
32%
The Xeelee
17
68%
The 5th Imperium
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 25
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The Nomad
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The Culture vs the Xeelee vs the 5th Imperium

Post by The Nomad »

OK it's probably already been done to death, anyway I'm curious and want to hear your arguments.

And if some specialists want to give detailed infos on the various opponents, I'll be glad :) ( I begun to read Use of Weapons of the Culture, but I dunno too much about the Xeelee - short of the infamous starbreaker beam - or the Imperium - short of its infamous planetoid battleships....
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Post by Dahak »

The Xeelee win this on easily.
The other two just don't pose enough a threat to the Xeelee.
The 5th Imperium and the Culture are too limited due to their respective FTL drive systems.
On a one-on-one basis, the Culture and Imperium will probably kill a Nightfighter, but in the end they are totally outnumbered. When you have the resources of a whole universe to use, they hardly can outproduce you :D
A short descritpion of their abilities:
They exist since the beginning of the universe.
They can do whatever they want with time-space, they use galaxies as weapons, can make galaxy clusters collide, just to have some free space.
They can manipulate natural constans as they please.
Have incredible fast FTL.
Constructed the Ring.
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Post by Faram »

Ok now I vant to read about the Xeelee who wrothe the books? what ar the books? :D
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Post by Hotfoot »

Needs more Skylark. Throw in the Capital D and we'll see some real fur fly.
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Post by Dahak »

Faram wrote:Ok now I vant to read about the Xeelee who wrothe the books? what ar the books? :D
Books were written by Stephen Baxter.
They are:
Raft
Timelike Infinity
Ring
Flux
Vacuum Diagrams
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Post by The Nomad »

But wouldn't the Culture's Effectors be able to easily gain tech and intelligence from the Xeelee ( or the Imperium ), making the fight a little less insanely unbalanced ? I'm starting to imagine General Offensive Units equipped with hundreds of starbreaker beams ( except if, of course, starbreakers are inferior to GOUs' weaponry :) ) , jumping at will throughout the Universe...
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Post by Shinova »

The Nomad wrote:But wouldn't the Culture's Effectors be able to easily gain tech and intelligence from the Xeelee ( or the Imperium ), making the fight a little less insanely unbalanced ? I'm starting to imagine General Offensive Units equipped with hundreds of starbreaker beams ( except if, of course, starbreakers are inferior to GOUs' weaponry :) ) , jumping at will throughout the Universe...
It isn't the starbreakers that make the Xeelee so powerful. It's their space-time abilities.

The xeelee locked an entire galaxy or something inside a hyper-cube, thus trapping everything inside it. If the Culture messed around with the Xeelee, they could stick the Culture galaxy in a hyper-cube as well.
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Post by Dahak »

Shinova wrote:
The Nomad wrote:But wouldn't the Culture's Effectors be able to easily gain tech and intelligence from the Xeelee ( or the Imperium ), making the fight a little less insanely unbalanced ? I'm starting to imagine General Offensive Units equipped with hundreds of starbreaker beams ( except if, of course, starbreakers are inferior to GOUs' weaponry :) ) , jumping at will throughout the Universe...
It isn't the starbreakers that make the Xeelee so powerful. It's their space-time abilities.

The xeelee locked an entire galaxy or something inside a hyper-cube, thus trapping everything inside it. If the Culture messed around with the Xeelee, they could stick the Culture galaxy in a hyper-cube as well.
They only locked humanity in a hypercube :)
And about Starbreakers:
Quote from Vacuum Diagrams:
"The handgun must be a gravity laser," the Qax said slowly. "The coils on the butt of that handgun are small synchrotrons. Subatomic particles move at fantastic velocities in there; the thing emits a coherent beam of gravity waves which-"
"I thought you needed large masses to get significant gravity waves."
"No. As long as you move a small mass fast enough...The energy must come from the same source as your ship's - from the structure of space itself."

That handgun made the Qax homesystem sun go nova from a grazing shot.
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Post by septesix »

Not to metion their timetravel capability and the Ultimate communication/spying device beings...the antiXeelee!

A being made up of Quantum wave functions, capable of observing events millions of lightyears apart simulatanously. It can also peak into just about any places.

Also, their consturction material, 100% energy to matter conversion efficecy. A Human used one such "Xeelee Flower" device to survive a Star going nova/supernova.

and there are uncounted trillions of nightfighters around the Rings alone, Who know how many others they've got in reserve in various places.
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Post by The Nomad »

Are the Xeelee biological or do they have bio-avatars ?

Then, I guess the thread becomes The Culture vs The 5th Imperium, since the Xeelee are so uberpowered....
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Post by Dahak »

The Nomad wrote:Are the Xeelee biological or do they have bio-avatars ?

Then, I guess the thread becomes The Culture vs The 5th Imperium, since the Xeelee are so uberpowered....
They are biological, although no one ever saw a Xeelee. But from Xeelee artifacts one could deduce that they are smaller and more filigrane built than humans.
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Post by Stormbringer »

The Nomad wrote:Are the Xeelee biological or do they have bio-avatars ?

Then, I guess the thread becomes The Culture vs The 5th Imperium, since the Xeelee are so uberpowered....
Even as powerful as the Fifth Imperium is, they're no where near a match for the Culture. The Culture could beat the Imperium with numbers alone. The Imperium is only a few decades old and is salavagin what it can of the old Empire. The Culture is a full fledged, established power. They've got more ships and way more resources.

Add to the the massive combat power advantage of the Imperium and the Imperiums flat out fucked. They'd probably be smart and join the Culture rather than make a suicidal stand they couldn't possibly win.
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Post by The Nomad »

I still wonder : wouldn't the Culture's Effectors be able to gain Xeelee tech ? Or are they so uberpowerful that no hacking device can harm their computers ?
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Post by Dahak »

The Nomad wrote:I still wonder : wouldn't the Culture's Effectors be able to gain Xeelee tech ? Or are they so uberpowerful that no hacking device can harm their computers ?
I'm not sure if you'd find their computers...
The Xeelee ship in Vacuum Diagrams had all its engines, computers, additional quarters folded away in on itself inside the paper-thin hull...
If you get to see any Xeelee ship in a fight at all.
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Post by Shinova »

Dahak wrote:
The Nomad wrote:I still wonder : wouldn't the Culture's Effectors be able to gain Xeelee tech ? Or are they so uberpowerful that no hacking device can harm their computers ?
I'm not sure if you'd find their computers...
The Xeelee ship in Vacuum Diagrams had all its engines, computers, additional quarters folded away in on itself inside the paper-thin hull...
If you get to see any Xeelee ship in a fight at all.
Does that mean they used space-time to hide away the interior in the same way a Culture Mind puts most of its computing processor in hyperspace?
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Post by Sea Skimmer »

The Xeelee take this one. The Fifth Empire though is hopelessly outclassed though.
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Post by septesix »

Shinova wrote:
Dahak wrote:
The Nomad wrote:I still wonder : wouldn't the Culture's Effectors be able to gain Xeelee tech ? Or are they so uberpowerful that no hacking device can harm their computers ?
I'm not sure if you'd find their computers...
The Xeelee ship in Vacuum Diagrams had all its engines, computers, additional quarters folded away in on itself inside the paper-thin hull...
If you get to see any Xeelee ship in a fight at all.
Does that mean they used space-time to hide away the interior in the same way a Culture Mind puts most of its computing processor in hyperspace?
Well, Hyperspace is just one extra dimension. Xeelee can access a host of other different ones..

Beside, the point is that either Culture or the 5th Imperium will never get the chance to face Xeelee square off in battle. Their galaxies can be destroyed from afar with ease and a really long time....
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Post by Peregrin Toker »

I have read Use of Weapons recently, and to me it occurs that although the Culture is one of the most advanced sci-fi civilizations, it is still more or less believable.....

But from what I've heard about the Xeelee, the Xeelee sound like they are in a grey-zone between mortals and gods, and that their technology is so advanced that it's behind mortal comprehension....

However, I refrain from voting on this poll as I don't know anything about the 5th Imperium and I have neither read any Xeelee novel...
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Post by Enlightenment »

Simon H.Johansen wrote:But from what I've heard about the Xeelee, the Xeelee sound like they are in a grey-zone between mortals and gods, and that their technology is so advanced that it's behind mortal comprehension....
Xeelee technology is about as incomprehensible to us as a nuclear submarine would be to a cave man. Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Score at leat one for Xeelee realism. :)
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Post by Peregrin Toker »

Enlightenment wrote: Xeelee technology is about as incomprehensible to us as a nuclear submarine would be to a cave man. Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Nah, that's how incomprehensible they are to the Culture.... or so it seems.... to us, they would probably be as incomprehensible as a Death Star is to a dog....
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