Excession
Encyclopedia
Excession, first published in 1996, is Scottish writer Iain M. Banks's fourth science fiction
novel
to feature the Culture
. It concerns the response of the Culture and other interstellar
societies to an unprecedented alien artifact, the Excession of the title.
The book is largely about the response of the Culture's Minds
(AI
s with enormous intellectual capabilities and distinctive personalities) to the Excession itself, a black swan
event, and the way in which another society, whose systematic brutality horrifies the Culture, tries to use the Excession to increase its power. As in Banks' other Culture novels the main themes are the moral dilemmas which confront a hyperpower
and how biological characters find ways to give their lives meaning in a post-scarcity society which is presided over by benign super-intelligent machines. The book features a large collection of Culture ship names, some of which give subtle clues about the roles these ships' Minds play in the story. In terms of style, the book is also notable for the way in which many important conversations between Minds resemble email
messages complete with headers
.
space, appears to be older than the Universe
itself and resists the attempts of the Culture and technologically equivalent societies (notably the Zetetic Elench) to probe it. The Excession is what the Culture's social scientists describe as an Outside Context Problem, one which a society cannot foresee and is often fatal. A metaphor to help explain this phrase is that of a successful aboriginal culture suddenly finding ocean-going vessels on its shores for the first time.
A group of stereotypical bureaucrats tries to manage the Culture's response to the Excession but is brushed aside by the Interesting Times Gang, an informal group of Minds
some of whom are veterans of the Idiran-Culture War
, to try to deal with what is by far the most serious challenge the Culture has faced.
Meanwhile a rapidly-expanding race, which the Culture calls the Affront (because of its systematic sadism towards subject species and its own females and junior males, despite being relatively advanced), tries to exploit the Excession by infiltrating a store of mothballed Culture warships and using them to claim control of the mysterious object.
It turns out that the Affront have been manipulated into their grab for power by another Culture faction which thought it was morally imperative
to curb the Affront's cruelty by any means, and intend to use the Affront's theft of Culture warships as an excuse for war
.
The GSV Sleeper Service eventually takes control of the situation. Its name is the most meaningful pun in the story: outwardly it is an Eccentric
(drop-out
from the Culture) which dedicates its enormous resources to presenting tableaux of historical events (mainly battles) populated by passengers in suspended animation
; but in fact it is a sleeping member of Special Circumstances
, the Culture's covert operations organization. The name of Sleeper Service is thus double-pronged—it is a Sleeper Service to human beings in Storage, and a Sleeper Service within SC, as it has produced a massive war-fleet during the 40-year period it has spent behaving as an Eccentric. It prepares to deploy this fleet during transit to the Excession.
But Sleeper Service has an unresolved issue. Until a few decades previously, the ship operated under another name as a normal GSV, providing a habitat for a vast number of Culture citizens. Two of its passengers, Dajeil and Genar-Hofoen, had had an intense love-affair which ended badly when Genar-Hofoen was unfaithful and a pregnant Dajeil tried to kill Genar-Hofoen, but only succeeded in the feticide of the child with which Genar-Hofoen was pregnant. After the break-up, Dajeil froze her pregnancy and subsequently remained in a state of intense depression for 40 years, and the ship changed its name to Sleeper Service and started acting as an Eccentric. It carried only one conscious humanoid passenger, Dajeil, and spent much of its attention trying to talk her out of her depression, for which it considered itself partly responsible.
As a result, when the Culture asks Sleeper Service to help in dealing with the threat of war, the ship demands that in return Genar-Hofoen must be handed over to it. Genar-Hofoen is lured to Sleeper Service on a pretext, and only later told that he is there to work with Dajeil to help her recover from her psychological trauma.
Sleeper Service then unloads the passengers who had been part of its historical tableaux. Having spent much of its Eccentric decades converting a large percentage of the mass of the tableaux' scenery into engines, it easily outruns the very fast ship which other elements of the Culture had asked to keep watch on it. Once it is beyond the watching ship's sensor range, Sleeper Service changes course and heads towards the Excession. When it arrives it becomes apparent it has previously converted the rest of its spare mass into a vast fleet of remote-controlled warships numbering in the area of 80,000 units. The Excession, in response to the Sleeper charging at it, then triggers a multi-light-year Gridfire wave which threatens to obliterate it and its entire fleet, along with the accompanying Grey Area
. Only its Mindstate, transmitted right at the Excession, saves it by convincing the Excession to halt its attack. The Minds controlling the ships which the Affront stole from the "mothball" find themselves outnumbered more than 130:1, and refuse to help the Affront. The Affront fleet's commander and the Culture ship which led the conspiracy commit suicide. A prolonged war is thus averted. At the same time the Excession disappears as mysteriously as it arrived.
Meanwhile, the rush of events, combined with a conversation with Genar-Hofoen, results in Dajeil moving out of her depression and completing her pregnancy. Genar-Hofoen returns to the Affront, having been rewarded by being physically transformed into a member of the Affront species (whose company he finds more stimulating than that of the Culture's people).
The book's epilogue reveals that the Excession is a sentient entity which is currently acting as a bridge for a procession of even higher beings which travel between universes. It also assesses whether the species and societies it encounters are suitable to be enlightened about some unknown further existence beyond the Universe. As a result of events in the story the Excession concludes that the civilisations it has encountered in our universe are not ready for this enlightenment and moves on so that it will not cause any further disturbance, hence its disappearance at the end of the book. It also takes the name given to it by the Culture – Excession – as its own.
This is a problem that is "outside the context" as it is generally not considered until it occurs, and the capacity to actually conceive of or consider the OCP in the first place may not be possible or very limited (i.e., the majority of the group's population may not have the knowledge or ability to realize that the OCP can arise, or assume it is extremely unlikely). An example of OCP is an event in which a civilization does not consider the possibility that a much more technologically
advanced society can exist, and then encounters one. The term is coined by Banks for the purpose of this novel, and described as follows:
Banks has noted that he spent much time playing the Civilization
computer game (appearing to refer to the first version of the game series) before writing the book and that it was one of the inspirations for the concept of the 'Outside Context Problem' central to the novel. In an interview, Banks specifically compares this to having a Civilization battleship arrive while the player is still using wooden sailing ships. The situation has been more recently described as black swan theory
.
as protagonists.
When asked about his focus on the possibilities of technology
in fiction
, Banks said about the book:
Also significant within the Culture novel cycle is that the book shows a number of Minds acting in a decidedly non-benevolent way, somewhat qualifying the godlike non-corruptibility and benevolence they are ascribed in other Culture novels. Banks himself has described the actions of some of the Minds in the novel as akin to "barbarian kings presented with the promise of gold in the hills".
s make it advisable for new readers of Banks' Culture stories to start with other books.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
to feature the Culture
The Culture
The Culture is a fictional interstellar anarchist, socialist, and utopian society created by the Scottish writer Iain M. Banks which features in a number of science fiction novels and works of short fiction by him, collectively called the Culture series....
. It concerns the response of the Culture and other interstellar
Interstellar travel
Interstellar space travel is manned or unmanned travel between stars. The concept of interstellar travel in starships is a staple of science fiction. Interstellar travel is much more difficult than interplanetary travel. Intergalactic travel, or travel between different galaxies, is even more...
societies to an unprecedented alien artifact, the Excession of the title.
The book is largely about the response of the Culture's Minds
Mind (The Culture)
In Iain M. Banks' Culture novels most larger starships, some inhabited planets and all orbitals have their own Minds: sentient, hyperintelligent machines originally built by biological species which have evolved, redesigned themselves, and become many times more intelligent than their original...
(AI
Ai
AI, A.I., Ai, or ai may refer to:- Computers :* Artificial intelligence, a branch of computer science* Ad impression, in online advertising* .ai, the ISO Internet 2-letter country code for Anguilla...
s with enormous intellectual capabilities and distinctive personalities) to the Excession itself, a black swan
Black swan theory
The black swan theory or theory of black swan events is a metaphor that encapsulates the concept that The event is a surprise and has a major impact...
event, and the way in which another society, whose systematic brutality horrifies the Culture, tries to use the Excession to increase its power. As in Banks' other Culture novels the main themes are the moral dilemmas which confront a hyperpower
Hyperpower
A hyperpower is a state that dominates all other states in every sphere of activity. A hyperpower is traditionally considered to be one step higher than a superpower. The definition and use of the term varies....
and how biological characters find ways to give their lives meaning in a post-scarcity society which is presided over by benign super-intelligent machines. The book features a large collection of Culture ship names, some of which give subtle clues about the roles these ships' Minds play in the story. In terms of style, the book is also notable for the way in which many important conversations between Minds resemble email
Email
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
messages complete with headers
Header (information technology)
In information technology, header refers to supplemental data placed at the beginning of a block of data being stored or transmitted. In data transmission, the data following the header are sometimes called the payload or body....
.
Plot summary
The Excession of the title is a perfect black-body sphere that appears mysteriously on the edge of CultureThe Culture
The Culture is a fictional interstellar anarchist, socialist, and utopian society created by the Scottish writer Iain M. Banks which features in a number of science fiction novels and works of short fiction by him, collectively called the Culture series....
space, appears to be older than the Universe
Universe
The Universe is commonly defined as the totality of everything that exists, including all matter and energy, the planets, stars, galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space. Definitions and usage vary and similar terms include the cosmos, the world and nature...
itself and resists the attempts of the Culture and technologically equivalent societies (notably the Zetetic Elench) to probe it. The Excession is what the Culture's social scientists describe as an Outside Context Problem, one which a society cannot foresee and is often fatal. A metaphor to help explain this phrase is that of a successful aboriginal culture suddenly finding ocean-going vessels on its shores for the first time.
A group of stereotypical bureaucrats tries to manage the Culture's response to the Excession but is brushed aside by the Interesting Times Gang, an informal group of Minds
Mind (The Culture)
In Iain M. Banks' Culture novels most larger starships, some inhabited planets and all orbitals have their own Minds: sentient, hyperintelligent machines originally built by biological species which have evolved, redesigned themselves, and become many times more intelligent than their original...
some of whom are veterans of the Idiran-Culture War
Idiran-Culture War
The Idiran-Culture War is a major fictional conflict between the Idiran Empire and the Culture in the midst of which Iain M. Banks' science fiction novel Consider Phlebas is set. His later book, Look to Windward, contains many references to the war: particularly the induced supernovae of two stars,...
, to try to deal with what is by far the most serious challenge the Culture has faced.
Meanwhile a rapidly-expanding race, which the Culture calls the Affront (because of its systematic sadism towards subject species and its own females and junior males, despite being relatively advanced), tries to exploit the Excession by infiltrating a store of mothballed Culture warships and using them to claim control of the mysterious object.
It turns out that the Affront have been manipulated into their grab for power by another Culture faction which thought it was morally imperative
Moral imperative
A moral imperative is a principle originating inside a person's mind that compels that person to act. It is a kind of categorical imperative, as defined by Immanuel Kant. Kant took the imperative to be a dictate of pure reason, in its practical aspect. Not following the moral law was seen to be...
to curb the Affront's cruelty by any means, and intend to use the Affront's theft of Culture warships as an excuse for war
Casus belli
is a Latin expression meaning the justification for acts of war. means "incident", "rupture" or indeed "case", while means bellic...
.
The GSV Sleeper Service eventually takes control of the situation. Its name is the most meaningful pun in the story: outwardly it is an Eccentric
Eccentricity (behavior)
In popular usage, eccentricity refers to unusual or odd behavior on the part of an individual. This behavior would typically be perceived as unusual or unnecessary, without being demonstrably maladaptive...
(drop-out
Dropping out
Dropping out means leaving a group for either practical reasons, necessities or disillusionment with the system from which the individual in question leaves....
from the Culture) which dedicates its enormous resources to presenting tableaux of historical events (mainly battles) populated by passengers in suspended animation
Suspended animation
Suspended animation is the slowing of life processes by external means without termination. Breathing, heartbeat, and other involuntary functions may still occur, but they can only be detected by artificial means. Extreme cold can be used to precipitate the slowing of an individual's functions; use...
; but in fact it is a sleeping member of Special Circumstances
Special Circumstances
Special Circumstances, abbreviated SC, is a 'secret service'-type organisation that exists within the fictional anarchist utopian science fiction civilisation known as the Culture. It forms a background and plot device in several novels and shorter works of Iain M...
, the Culture's covert operations organization. The name of Sleeper Service is thus double-pronged—it is a Sleeper Service to human beings in Storage, and a Sleeper Service within SC, as it has produced a massive war-fleet during the 40-year period it has spent behaving as an Eccentric. It prepares to deploy this fleet during transit to the Excession.
But Sleeper Service has an unresolved issue. Until a few decades previously, the ship operated under another name as a normal GSV, providing a habitat for a vast number of Culture citizens. Two of its passengers, Dajeil and Genar-Hofoen, had had an intense love-affair which ended badly when Genar-Hofoen was unfaithful and a pregnant Dajeil tried to kill Genar-Hofoen, but only succeeded in the feticide of the child with which Genar-Hofoen was pregnant. After the break-up, Dajeil froze her pregnancy and subsequently remained in a state of intense depression for 40 years, and the ship changed its name to Sleeper Service and started acting as an Eccentric. It carried only one conscious humanoid passenger, Dajeil, and spent much of its attention trying to talk her out of her depression, for which it considered itself partly responsible.
As a result, when the Culture asks Sleeper Service to help in dealing with the threat of war, the ship demands that in return Genar-Hofoen must be handed over to it. Genar-Hofoen is lured to Sleeper Service on a pretext, and only later told that he is there to work with Dajeil to help her recover from her psychological trauma.
Sleeper Service then unloads the passengers who had been part of its historical tableaux. Having spent much of its Eccentric decades converting a large percentage of the mass of the tableaux' scenery into engines, it easily outruns the very fast ship which other elements of the Culture had asked to keep watch on it. Once it is beyond the watching ship's sensor range, Sleeper Service changes course and heads towards the Excession. When it arrives it becomes apparent it has previously converted the rest of its spare mass into a vast fleet of remote-controlled warships numbering in the area of 80,000 units. The Excession, in response to the Sleeper charging at it, then triggers a multi-light-year Gridfire wave which threatens to obliterate it and its entire fleet, along with the accompanying Grey Area
GCU Grey Area
In the Culture novels by Iain Banks, the GCU Grey Area is a General Contact Unit of the fictional Culture society that has turned eccentric...
. Only its Mindstate, transmitted right at the Excession, saves it by convincing the Excession to halt its attack. The Minds controlling the ships which the Affront stole from the "mothball" find themselves outnumbered more than 130:1, and refuse to help the Affront. The Affront fleet's commander and the Culture ship which led the conspiracy commit suicide. A prolonged war is thus averted. At the same time the Excession disappears as mysteriously as it arrived.
Meanwhile, the rush of events, combined with a conversation with Genar-Hofoen, results in Dajeil moving out of her depression and completing her pregnancy. Genar-Hofoen returns to the Affront, having been rewarded by being physically transformed into a member of the Affront species (whose company he finds more stimulating than that of the Culture's people).
The book's epilogue reveals that the Excession is a sentient entity which is currently acting as a bridge for a procession of even higher beings which travel between universes. It also assesses whether the species and societies it encounters are suitable to be enlightened about some unknown further existence beyond the Universe. As a result of events in the story the Excession concludes that the civilisations it has encountered in our universe are not ready for this enlightenment and moves on so that it will not cause any further disturbance, hence its disappearance at the end of the book. It also takes the name given to it by the Culture – Excession – as its own.
Outside Context Problem
This novel is about how the Culture deals with an Outside Context Problem (OCP), the kind of problem "most civilisations would encounter just once, and which they tended to encounter rather in the same way a sentence encountered a full stop."This is a problem that is "outside the context" as it is generally not considered until it occurs, and the capacity to actually conceive of or consider the OCP in the first place may not be possible or very limited (i.e., the majority of the group's population may not have the knowledge or ability to realize that the OCP can arise, or assume it is extremely unlikely). An example of OCP is an event in which a civilization does not consider the possibility that a much more technologically
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
advanced society can exist, and then encounters one. The term is coined by Banks for the purpose of this novel, and described as follows:
Banks has noted that he spent much time playing the Civilization
Civilization (series)
Civilization is a series of turn-based strategy, 4X video games produced by Sid Meier. Basic gameplay functions are similar throughout the series, namely, buiding a civilization on a macro-scale from prehistory up to the near future...
computer game (appearing to refer to the first version of the game series) before writing the book and that it was one of the inspirations for the concept of the 'Outside Context Problem' central to the novel. In an interview, Banks specifically compares this to having a Civilization battleship arrive while the player is still using wooden sailing ships. The situation has been more recently described as black swan theory
Black swan theory
The black swan theory or theory of black swan events is a metaphor that encapsulates the concept that The event is a surprise and has a major impact...
.
Banks' view of the Culture
The book, more than any of the other Culture novels, focuses on the Culture's MindsMind (The Culture)
In Iain M. Banks' Culture novels most larger starships, some inhabited planets and all orbitals have their own Minds: sentient, hyperintelligent machines originally built by biological species which have evolved, redesigned themselves, and become many times more intelligent than their original...
as protagonists.
When asked about his focus on the possibilities of technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
in fiction
Fiction
Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...
, Banks said about the book:
Also significant within the Culture novel cycle is that the book shows a number of Minds acting in a decidedly non-benevolent way, somewhat qualifying the godlike non-corruptibility and benevolence they are ascribed in other Culture novels. Banks himself has described the actions of some of the Minds in the novel as akin to "barbarian kings presented with the promise of gold in the hills".
Reviews
Most reviewers praised the book's ideas and witty writing, but some complained about its complexity. A few who praised it commented that Excessions complexity and frequent use of in-jokeIn-joke
An in-joke, also known as an inside joke or in joke, is a joke whose humour is clear only to people who are in a particular social group, occupation, or other community of common understanding...
s make it advisable for new readers of Banks' Culture stories to start with other books.