What does a Culture Ship look like?

[AirshipFanboy]

I was reading about the Culture on wikipedia, and laughing at its ship names. I have never read the books.

Now I'm wondering, what do these goofy Culture ships look like? Has anyone seen fanart of Culture ships? How are they described in the books?

[Vain]

The ROUs were described as looking like a giant dildo (seriously). Cylindrical body with a pod at the front for effectors and weapons, with engines and whatnot at the back.

The GSVs were more like giant saucers with cities and parks built on their surface, although I suspect they look more spherical from the outside, due to all of their layered fields and whatnot. Culture field technology is so reliable that the fields might as well be considered part of the ship itself, which is why they feel comfortable building parks on the skin of their vessels.

[Dartzap]

What was the giant silvery ship on the front of Look To Windwards?

[Vanas]

IIRC that from the outside of it's field layers, a GSV looks much like a silver ellipse, rather longer than the vessel within (They're more impressive on the inside.)

GCUs, I don't think, have ever really been described.

ROUs are ugly, utilitarian ships, the theory being that the Culture isn't happy with building them, hence the class names. As Vain said, big engines, big guns, not much else.

Dart: I assume it's the GSV Experiencing A Significant Gravitas Shortfall, hovering so close that the Hub could feel it's gravity well if it weren't fielding it out.

[NecronLord]

That's odd. Could have sworn I'd posted here...

[Big Orange]

I have a rought idea of what Culture ship appear like (ie. GCUs are robust space cruisers, ROUs look like phallic blades or rockets, GSVs are space bourne city sprawls inside giant glowing bubbles and modules are shuttles etc), I guess Idiran warships are somewhat similar to Daleks warships (the Hand of God 137 was described as a disc), but a better question is what the Homomda starships look like...

[Chris OFarrell]

"It looks like a dildo!"

"That's appropriate. Armed, it can fuck entire solar systems."

Ulver Seich and Churt Lyne talking about the ROU Frank Exchange of Views

[Sriad]

Due to the dimensions given (2km by 5km by 15km to to pick random generally accurate numbers), I always imagined GSVs as huge rectangular prism slabs with parks, buildings, and whatnot covering their various surfaces, as suits the whims of the particular ship.

Rocks (like Diziet Sma's home, the name of which eludes me) look like rocks with bits of technology all over them... or in the case of older rocks, many layers of buildings, drives, expansions, and domed environments wholly occluding the rock itself.

[XaLEv]

Plate-class General Systems Vehicle (shape of field structure approximate):
Side view, cutaway

Top view, cutaway

Side view, external


The Excession:
External view, pick a direction

All images are to scale, 100 meters per pixel.

[Mlenk]

Um, yeah, ok. Those images were rather plain looking.

[Gil Hamilton]

Um, yeah, ok. Those images were rather plain looking.

To be fair, that's actually what the Excession looks like.

[AirshipFanboy]

Clearly, the awesomitude of the Culture's ship names are not equalled by its ship designs.

Although, the dildo idea is kind of funny.

[Vanas]

Clearly, the awesomitude of the Culture's ship names are not equalled by its ship designs.

Although, the dildo idea is kind of funny.

As I said, GSVs are more impressive on the inside. We see inside the fields in Use Of Weapons, it's a out-riggered, gaudily painted thing with parks on the surface and small craft buzzing all about it. Heck, two other GSVs are inside the fields, tagging along. I don't have the book to hand, but the passage sums them up nicely.

[Big Orange]

The GSV diagrams that XaLEv provided are pretty darn abstract and dry - Iain M. Banks sorely needs tie in art with his stories, like J.R.R. Tolkien does and Culture related art seems disappointingly thin on the ground, even at DeviantArt.

[LapsedPacifist]

Clearly, the awesomitude of the Culture's ship names are not equalled by its ship designs.

Although, the dildo idea is kind of funny.

Actually a torturer class ROU is thought of by Major Q. in LtW as "Brutally Powerful" and by his companion as Ugly and utilitarian. If you know about ships )In Universe) they're a lot of drive engines for maneuverability and then guns. They've got plenty of awesomitude.

LP

[NecronLord]

Banks has plenty of artistic moments. But the starship designs are practical. The exception is GSVs, which have been seen with all sorts of semi-external gardens and so on.