An Outside Context Problem …

You know, I realise that — if you’ve been reading me for a while — you’d’ve probably thought I’m a one horse sci-fi obsessed, pony.

Which I’m not.

Really.

I mean, I have read “Anna Karenina”, after all.

That sounds even worse, doesn’t it?

OK, I’ll happily admit to — outside of the Sci-Fi ghetto — I’m not exactly widely read. Possibly not even that.

But I will admit to a fondness for John Le Carré, Frederick Forsyth, and Ian Fleming; as divergent a bunch of thriller writer’s as it’s possible to find.

And then there’s a certain Mr Iain Menzies Banks; whose novel, “Excession”, is currently on my bedtime reading list, and does knock out a good ’un, I’m thinking.

Now, I’ll happily admit I’ve not read much of his mainstream stuff. But his science fiction?

I like it.

It’s that world-building thing, again.

Quite literally, in Mr B’s case; many of his novels take place in his Culture universe, where Dyson Sphere’s are, if not as common as muck, then certainly frequent enough to not cause to much comment*. Everyday Big Science, in other words …

And with The Culture and it’s universe, Iain M Banks has put a believable — and BIG — background together. The Culture itself is a collection of human, humanish, not-very-near-human, and outright alien species , all of whom living in a benevolent technocratic, and very technologically advanced union.

That’s very unlike the Federation, in “Star Trek”, before you mention it.

The Federation is idealistic, and dedicated to — if not spreading those ideals — then certainly making sure that bad peopleº don’t spread theirs.

Now, as Banks presents the Culture, the Culture’s idealistic …

It’s ideal is to party.

Is that too simplistic?

I should rephrase that, maybe; the citizens of the Culture seem, to an entity, to live to the old pagan law. That, so long as you’re not hurting anyone else, doing whatever you want to do s the order o the day.

Which is a point, while I’m on the subject of citizens; I mentioned the biological ones, earlier didn’t I?

Yes I did.

I didn’t mention the artificial ones.

The Culture quite happily has artificial intelligence's as citizens and members of the community. Ranging from the smallish Drones, through various size of artificially intelligent ships — with inhabitants ranging from ‘crew’ to ‘populationª’ — all the way up to artificial worlds, with Minds, as Banks calls them, actually doing the organising. You know, running the life support, atmosphere, sunshine … and knocking out poetry and building life-sized model’s of the Battle of Waterloo, in-between …

Those ships feature heavily in “Excession”.

Mostly because they’re key to finding the Excession of the title; and or at least finding, and responding to, it.

What ‘it’ is, is an perfect sphere, complete black, almost undetectable … and seemingly older than the universe, itself.

What worries both the Minds, and Special Circumstances — the Culture’s in-house dirty tricks department — is that this could well be an Outside Context Problem.

To qoute the novel itself … ?

“The usual example given to illustrate an Outside Context Problem was imagining you were a tribe on a largish, fertile island; you'd tamed the land, invented the wheel or writing or whatever, the neighbours were cooperative or enslaved but at any rate peaceful and you were busy raising temples to yourself with all the excess productive capacity you had, you were in a position of near-absolute power and control which your hallowed ancestors could hardly have dreamed of and the whole situation was just running along nicely like a canoe on wet grass … when suddenly this bristling lump of iron appears sailless and trailing steam in the bay and these guys carrying long funny-looking sticks come ashore and announce you've just been discovered, you're all subjects of the Emperor now, he's keen on presents called tax and these bright-eyed holy men would like a word with your priests.”

That’s just simplifying the issue, of course.

Another complication is the fact that many of the major character’s are the various Minds.

Which I think is where it gets interesting …

At any rate, I’ll say no more.

Except I think you should really check this out for yourself.

* What causes comment are the interesting variations. Bank’s latest Culture novel, “Matter”, features a Shellworld; a world that’s a series of Dyson Spheres, within Dyson Spheres, within Dyson Spheres. Much like an intergalactic Russian doll, in other words.

º You know, Klingons, Romulans, Communists, what-have you …

ª I’m assuming you’ve not got a problem about a lack of numbers? Just the fact that a ship has a population should tell you something about the size, if not the function …