The significance of the Culture-Idiran war || The Culture Lore

Hi everyone, in this video I look at the significance of the Culture-Idiran war in Ian M Banks' science fiction books, the Culture series.
Thanks for watching!
#sciencefiction #theculture #ianmbanks
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DELPHINE DESCENDS
After her family is killed and her homeworld occupied, young Kathreen Martin is sent to the distant world of Furoris for re-education. She will live the rest of her life as a serf - to be bought and sold as a commodity of the Imperial Network.
When her only chance of escape is ruined, a chance mistaken identity offers her a new life as the orphaned daughter of a First-Citizen Senator and heiress to a vast fortune.
She vows to claw her way into power to sit among the worlds’ elite. Then, with her own hands, she will reap bloody vengeance on them all.
But to beat them, she must play their game. And she must play it better than them all.
BLACK MILK
Prometheus has the chance to bring his wife back from the dead, but doing so will mean the destruction of Earth.
Spanning time, planets and dimensions, Black Milk draws to a climactic point in a post-apocalyptic future, where humanity, stranded with no planet to call home, fights to survive against a post-human digital entity that pursues them through the depths of space.
Five lives separated by aeons are inextricably linked by Prometheus’s actions:
Ystil.3 is an AI unit sent back in time from the distant future to investigate Prometheus’s discovery...
The mysterious Lydia has devoted her life to finding a planet that the last remaining humans can call home…
Tom Jones (he’s a HUGE fan!) is an AI trapped inside a digital subspace, lost and desperate to find his way back to his beloved in real-time…
Dr Norma Stanwyck is a neuroscientist from 24th Century Earth whose personal choices ripple throughout time...
Prometheus must learn the necessity of death or the entire universe will be swallowed by his grief.
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IMAGE USE
The images in my videos are mostly licensed stock photos. However, occasionally I will use images found online. I always seek to properly credit artists and offer a link back to their amazing work but sometimes it's hard to find the original source of the work. If I've used an image you own and I haven't credited you, please feel free to get in touch as I am always more than happy to do so.

[@jeffreyatlee8785]

There is a poverty of Banks summaries on the internet. I need more people to make more movies to let people know about the most consistently awesome SF series

[@AtticusDenzil]

there is a scarcity due to the fact it's not as great as you perceive it to be, you have a very subjective and biased opinion, which hinders you to realize the truth about the actual value of these SF books

[@MuantanamoMobile]

@@AtticusDenzil You know what else is scarce? Geniuses, Polymaths, truly ethical and honest people, efficiency, truth, great food etc, and yet there is an abundance of the mediocre...just like -your-self.

[@Dave_of_Mordor]

​@@MuantanamoMobile Vote for me in 2024 and I'll make those scarcities go away. The world will be abundant with geniuses, polymaths, food, ethical, and self aware human beings.

[@elareia]

Please continue to explain The Culture.

[@sofyacab]

I swear, your videos and Quinn's ideas have reignited my passion for readin sci-fi, my life is eally empty but I can't describe how much these stories and worlds mean to me and how happy I am to discover new ones through your videos, thank you for sharing your passion so much!

[@GaminHasard]

Same for me.

[@DanielGenis5000]

I’ve enjoyed both as well!

[@jackjones7062]

There's a chilling scene at the end of the book which is one of my favourite chapters of any book just because of how visceral it is, think it was Banks trying to show just how little chance the Idirans stood, it is not the soldiers who decided this war it was liberalism applied to warfare

[@colin8696908]

There aren't a whole lot of KZbin videos on the culture so this is really appreciated. I love to hear more about this. I'll definitely be referencing this video on some of my comments on Isaac Arthur's videos.

[@libertyauto]

Consider Phlebas was the first Culture book I read, in 2013. Maybe its finally time I can re-read this book again, because I don't remember all of these details of the Culture-Idiran war. Was this information all revealed within Consider Phlebas, or was it gathered from mentions throughout the Culture series? And wow, some of these war decisions are relatable to current events.

[@holydissolution85]

There is a detailed post - war report at the end of the book with plenty of details like casualties, orbitals, planets and suns destroyed... There could also be some info in " Look to Windward" too..

[@dreadogastusf3548]

I too would like to know how much of this came from Banks stories and how much was extrapolation and invention. In any case I quite enjoyed the video and "future history".

[@libertyauto]

@@holydissolution85 Thank You

[@Sci-FiOdyssey]

The Consider Phlebas appendices contain a lot of detailed information on the war and the reasons for it. I actually really appreciated that Banks didn’t bog down the story itself with exposition but made the information available to the reader.

[@libertyauto]

@@Sci-FiOdyssey Thanks. Ya know, I am guilty of only briefly skimming appendices after reading a book. Which is probably why some of your details surprised me. And admittedly, the grand themes of the Culture was lost on me during that first book. Another reason to re-read Phlebus after finishing the series, since the details of the appendices would be of greater interest now. Thanks again, for your videos. This is twice now, that your videos have prompted a re-read (Hyperion) for me.

[@peterfmodel]

Good video, if my memory serves me correct one reason why the Idiran’s lost was the Culture was a space based race thus the Idiran’s could never hope to occupy the culture. As the Idiran's expanded as they chased after the culture, the occupation of more and more planets stretched their military capacity to breaking point. The Idiran’s also initially received minimal support from a far superior race, which resembled the Idiran race. When against all odds the culture destroyed one of their space craft, they withdrew from the war. I am not certain if it was in this novel, but the culture also destroyed one of their own mega structures which could not be moved, which indicated to all the culture were serious.

[@eventhorizon17]

Oddly, I would like more videos like this detailing the big picture with minor and major spoilers as I like to get a full picture even after I completed the book. Too many videos are "spoiler free" for pre-viewers and not enough for post viewers.

[@kid5Media]

A quibble, however. The Culture was and remained somewhat ambivalent about the need for war, but it was inevitable given the religious nature of the Idirans. Sooner or later they would have had designs on regions of the Culture and acted on them. The Culture could not have avoided a war with the Idirans.

[@damiancavanagh]

I love these Culture lore videos, please keep making them!

[@mideastbob]

An interesting summary, but a key point about the religious beliefs was that AI must be subservient to Idirans. Whereas in the culture AIs "the minds" were full citizens of the culture. This really reflects the times we are in now, as many worry about AIs and what it means for us. Also one of the main reasons the Idirans lost the war was that their ships/weapons could not be given full AI control. So they were slower to react than the culture minds. This is a lesser point than as you say 'the reason for the culture's existence'. I enjoyed your summary.

[@holydissolution85]

I want to read Banks again...

[@jasperdoornbos8989]

I want to start reading Banks!

[@mr.wookiesack]

Audio books are on youtube

[@thedanielstraight]

Brilliant work here Darrel!

[@NaatClark]

I can't believe this is the first time I'm putting it together but that one game of Azad in Player of Games is literally the tabletop version of the Idiran war

[@krisbarr5663]

Not really. Azad represents the empire. It does not represent a military conflict.

[@NaatClark]

@@krisbarr5663 "that one game of" Meaning a specific game of Azad that was played in the novel not the game it's self

[@lordblazer]

no, the Azad empire was an actual civilization that used a game to determine one's position within their society. their society was pretty cruel. think the roman empire.

[@philipwalker103]

Close actually. The reason why Gurgeh won the final game was that he naturally fell into the culture method of fighting a war that prevailed against the Idirans.

[@kingmanic]

@@lordblazer It's also a critique of meritocracy when the starting conditions are so different. If you had tutors and all your free time available to learn this game you could advance but you needed a lot for that. The best of the classes that had that time and money would rise but if you exceptional but socially lower it was hard, the woman who was good but couldn't play her hardest because it would cause too many waves and the men/apex would have her killed. The poorer couldn't even ante in because they didn't have the time or money. Ian M Banks writing always had that extra depth. He really though about the set ups. They're less paper thin than so much of scifi.

[@frankmontez6853]

Yeah the Homadan were thought to be too advanced/ powerful for anyone to mess with I remember one of the Culture agents believing this. But not true I guess ..

[@Flamdring]

Initially, the Homomda were indeed superior to the Culture, but the Culture has always had a major advantage over many other civilisations - the Minds. The machines can replicate and advance themselves at a rate that no biological being is capable of doing which is what happened during the war as the Minds started upgrading themselves and the whole war fleet at such a rate that they rapidly overtook the more advanced Homomda. On a much smaller scale, we will see happening on Earth soon when the AI matches our own intelligence first and then rapidly leaves us far behind.

[@andrewgturnbull]

Quick question - is this original content, or am I just listening to someone reading out the appendix from Consider Phlebas?

[@kubricksghost6058]

Great Channel. I'm lucky to have found you! Please make more content on the culture, I am sure we will see a movie for this series soon! It is becoming vastly popular after Elon's reference for it and grok large language model.

[@thomasciarlariello3228]

Nice illustrations.

[@edwardkuenzi5751]

This is not a sumnary by the creator of the video. He is simply reading the summary at tge end of Consider Phlebeas.

[@frankmontez6853]

Weren't the affronters a less tech advanced warlike societry than the Culture ? They're the species that stole some Culture warships and went after the vastly superior Alien artifact in the book Excession right ?

[@smokestacklightning]

Subbed.

[@bazoo513]

You neglected to mention an event near the end of the Idiran war, one that haunted Culture for centuries: the battle of twin novae. After Idirans sued for cease-fire, Culture refused, demanding unconditional surrender. in the following hostilities Idirans induced the suns of two inhabited systems to go nova, killing many billions. Culture forever blamed themselves for that. The commemoration of the event, on the occasion of the light of those novae reaching Masaq' orbital, is the introductory event to "Look to Windward", a kind of "other bookend" novel to "Consider Phlebas", which took place at the height of Idiran war. The latter novel describes a tragic fiasco by Contact, who provoked a cataclysmic civil war on Chel, and also committed something unthinkable, a hinted at retaliation for the attempt to murder Masaq' Mind, under the motto "You don't fuch with Culture!"

[@paulklee5790]

They had it coming….

[@bazoo513]

@@paulklee5790 It was very uncharacteristic of Culture, and some of us fans (there was a lively on-line community at the time, still on UseNet) believed it showed Banks' doubts in viability of his creation.

[@maya-amf3325]

I read Consider Phlebas and I can't say I got as much depth as this describes XD Are there other books or content that explains the lore of the war better? Or did I just not piece clues together while reading Phlebas?

[@krisbarr5663]

The main storyline mentions some of this, but much of this information is held in an appendix at the back of the book.

[@kkmardigrce]

Oy, I resent the Y-Wing, this is not about Star Wars! 😉Anyway, this would make a much better sci-fi movie series than SW... Thank you for the coprehensive look at the conflict.

[@Sci-FiOdyssey]

🤣

[@JazzGuitarScrapbook]

Banks said his brief was to ‘out Star Wars Star Wars’

[@nDjinn1]

I would lsike to see what a Mind would say if it had to pilot a Y wing 7:25

[@greyareaRK1]

Interesting. I don't remember most of that, but looking forward to reading it again. A y-wing?

[@Sci-FiOdyssey]

I didn’t even make the y wing connection 🤦‍♂️

[@alfofoGMS]

Pausing for a moment.. May I ask if this vid spoils Look to Windward? I am gonna read that next after Excession, but don't wanna spoil myself thru this vid although it looks interesting.

[@Sci-FiOdyssey]

It doesn’t. All this info is in the Consider Phlebas appendix.

[@fuffoon]

Im on book 8. If I watch this, will I have to hunt you down for not giving a spoiler alert? Perosteck, I need your service, maybe. Ok, finished the series. Now I can watch all the pertaining videos.

[@toi_techno]

I thought it was that the Idirans hated and thought Ai was blasphemous Meat against machine

[@kaspermcleish5255]

It's more the protagonist - Horza - whose pissed off about AI. He's shown to be a bit of a hypocrite given the fact his race - the Changers - were artificially created for war.

[@ZionistWorldOrder]

the word Jihad sure gets thrown around, means stife, you know as in Ad astra per aspera = to the stars, through jihad.

[@paulklee5790]

Never mind the bloody Roman Empire … I spend an unconscionable amount 😊of my down-mode time thinking about the Culture/Idiran conflict…

[@jhwheuer]

Let’s hope Disney never hears of The Culture……

[@69Kazeshini]

Lets hope hollywood in general never hears about the culture or revelation space.

[@stephenbrook5995]

Have you considered narrating history documentaries? You're basically repeating the plot as outlined within the book.

[@krisbarr5663]

Not so. The plot of the book occurs with the war in the background. The plot follows Bora, neither Idiran nor Culture, as he pretty much just tries to stay alive as a mercenary. It does not focus primarily on the war itself. This video gives no spoilers to the storyline of the book beyond the fact that the Idirans eventually lose.

[@TerrificRallyMaestro]

Bro you are just reading the wiki page

[@goliard20]

how many orbitals got destroyed again ^^'

[@huyclare8665]

14,334

[@frankmontez6853]

I wonder just how vast their numbers of minds , biological beings , ships planets were then ? The number of biological and non biological beings on each orbital was vast.

[@frankmontez6853]

How many casualties then ? At least trillions?

[@huyclare8665]

@@frankmontez6853 851.4 billion including machines

[@frankmontez6853]

@@huyclare8665 heathen machines !! “ Thou shall not make a machine in the likeness of human mind “

[@kparker2430]

The Culture could no more avoid the war with the Iridians than the West can avoid the war with Islam. The parallels are not coincidental as Banks was exploring this very conundrum with this novel.