Editing The Culture (section)

==Science and technology==

===Anti-gravity and forcefields===
The Culture (and other societies) have developed powerful [[anti-gravity]] abilities, closely related to their ability to manipulate forces themselves.

In this ability they can create [[action-at-a-distance]]&nbsp;– including forces capable of pushing, pulling, cutting, and even fine manipulation, and forcefields for protection, visual display or plain destructive ability. Such applications still retain restrictions on range and power: while forcefields of many cubic kilometres are possible (and in fact, orbitals are held together by forcefields), even in the chronologically later novels, such as ''Look to Windward'', spaceships are still used for long-distance travel and drones for many remote activities.

With the control of a Mind, fields can be manipulated over vast distances. In ''Use of Weapons'', a Culture warship uses its electromagnetic effectors to hack into a computer light years away.

===Artificial intelligence===
Artificial intelligences (and to a lesser degree, the non-sentient computers omnipresent in all material goods), form the backbone of the technological advances of the Culture. Not only are they the most advanced scientists and designers the Culture has, their lesser functions also oversee the vast (but usually hidden) production and maintenance capabilities of the society.

The Culture has achieved artificial intelligences where each Mind has thought processing capabilities many orders of magnitude beyond that of human beings, and data storage drives which, if written out on paper and stored in filing cabinets, would cover thousands of planets skyscraper high (as described by one Mind in ''Consider Phlebas''). Yet it has managed to condense these entities to a volume of several dozen cubic metres (though much of the contents and the operating structure are continually in hyperspace). Minds also demonstrate reaction times and multitasking abilities orders of magnitude greater than any sentient being; armed engagements between Culture and equivalent technological civilisations sometimes occur in timeframes as short as microseconds,{{sfn|Banks|1996|p=396}} and standard Orbital Minds are capable of running all of the vital systems on the Orbital while simultaneously conversing with millions of the inhabitants and observing phenomena in the surrounding regions of space.{{sfn|Banks|2000|p=224}}

At the same time, it has achieved drone sentiences and capability of Special Circumstance proportions in forms that could fit easily within a human hand, and built extremely powerful (though not sentient) computers capable of fitting into tiny insect-like drones. Some utilitarian devices (such as spacesuits) are also provided with artificial sentience. These specific types of drones, like all other Culture AI, would also be considered citizens - though as described in the short story "Descendant", they may spend most of the time when their "body" is not in use in a form of remote-linked existence outside of it, or in a form of AI-level virtual reality.

===Energy manipulation===
A major feature of its [[post-scarcity]] society, the Culture is obviously able to gather, manipulate, transfer and store vast amounts of energy. While not explained in detail in the novels, this involves [[antimatter]] and the "energy grid", a postulated energy field dividing the universe from neighboring anti-matter universes, and providing practically limitless energy. Transmission or storage of such energy is not explained, though these capabilities must be powerful as well, with tiny drones capable of very powerful manipulatory fields and forces.

The Culture also uses various forms of energy manipulation as weapons, with '''"gridfire"''', a method of creating a dimensional rift to the energy grid, releasing astronomical amounts of energy into a region of non-hyperspace, being described as a sort of ultimate weapon more destructive than collapsed antimatter bombardment. One character in ''Consider Phlebas'' refers to gridfire as "the weaponry of the end of the universe". Gridfire resembles the [[zero-point energy]] used within many popular science fiction stories.

===Matter displacement===
The Culture (at least by the time of ''The Player of Games'') has developed a form of [[teleportation]] capable of transporting both living and unliving matter instantaneously via wormholes. This technology has not rendered spacecraft obsolete&nbsp;– in ''Excession'' a barely apple-sized drone was displaced no further than a light-second at maximum range (mass being a limiting factor determining range), a tiny distance in galactic terms. The process also still has a very small chance of failing and killing living beings, but the chance is described as being so small (1 in 61 million){{sfn|Banks|2000|p=363}} that it normally only becomes an issue when transporting a large number of people and is only regularly brought up due to the Culture's safety conscious nature.

Displacement is an integral part of Culture technology, being widely used for a range of applications from peaceful to belligerent. Displacing warheads into or around targets is one of the main forms of attack in space warfare in the Culture universe. ''The Player of Games'' mentions that drones can be displaced to catch a person falling from a cliff before they impact the ground, as well.

===Brain–computer interfaces===
{{See also|The Culture#Death|l1=Death in the Culture}}

Through "neural lace", a form of [[brain–computer interface]] that is implanted into the brains of young people and grows with them, the Culture has the capability to read and store the full sentience of any being, biological or artificial, and thus reactivate a stored being after its death.{{sfn|Newitz|2017}} The neural lace also allows wireless communication with the [[Mind (The Culture)|Minds]] and databases.{{sfn|Cross|2017}} This also necessitates the capability to read thoughts, but as described in ''Look to Windward'', doing this without permission is considered taboo.{{sfn|Banks|2000}}

===Starships and warp drives===
Starships are living spaces, vehicles and ambassadors of the Culture. A proper Culture starship (as defined by hyperspace capability and the presence of a Mind to inhabit it) may range from several hundreds of metres to hundreds of kilometres. The latter may be inhabited by billions of beings and are artificial worlds in their own right, including whole [[ecosystem]]s, and are considered to be self-contained representations of all aspects of Culture life and capability.

The Culture (and most other space-faring species in its universe) use a form of [[Hyperspace (science fiction)|Hyperspace]]-drive to achieve [[faster-than-light]] speeds. Banks has evolved a (self-confessedly) [[technobabble]] system of theoretical physics to describe the ships' acceleration and travel, using such concepts as "infraspace" and "ultraspace" and an "energy grid" between universes (from which the warp engines "push off" to achieve momentum). An "induced singularity" is used to access infra or ultra space from real space; once there, "engine fields" reach down to the Grid and gain power and traction from it as they travel at high speeds.{{sfn|Banks|1996}}

These hyperspace engines do not use reaction mass and hence do not need to be mounted on the surface of the ship. They are described as being very dense [[exotic matter]], which only reveals its complexity under a powerful microscope. Acceleration and maximum speed depend on the ratio of the mass of the ship to its engine mass. As with any other matter aboard, ships can gradually manufacture extra engine volume or break it down as needed. In ''Excession'' one of the largest ships of the Culture redesigns itself to be mostly engine (by combining the hyperspace engine fields of thousands of semi-slaved warships which have been constructed in secret, and housed within the ship itself, and out of view) and reaches a speed of 233,000 times [[lightspeed]]. Within the range of the Culture's influence in the galaxy, most ships would still take years of travelling to reach the more remote spots.

Other than the engines used by larger Culture ships, there are a number of other propulsion methods such as gravitic drive at sublight speeds, with antimatter, fusion and other reaction engines occasionally seen with less advanced civilisations, or on Culture hobby craft.

Warp engines can be very small, with Culture drones barely larger than fist-size described as being thus equipped. There is also at least one (apparently non-sentient) species (the "Chuy-Hirtsi" animal), that possesses the innate capability of warp travel. In ''Consider Phlebas'', it is being used as a military transport by the Idirans, but no further details are given.

===Nanotechnology===
The Culture has highly advanced [[nanotechnology]], though descriptions of such technology in the books is limited. Many of the described uses are by or for Special Circumstances, but there are no indications that the use of nanotechnology is limited in any way. (In a passage in one of the books, there is a brief reference to the question of sentience when comparing the human brain or a "pico-level substrate".)

One of the primary clandestine uses of nanotechnology is information gathering. The Culture likes to be in the know, and as described in ''Matter'' "they tend to know everything." Aside from its vast network of sympathetic allies and wandering Culture citizens one of the primary ways that the Culture keeps track of important events is by the use of practically invisible nanobots capable of recording and transmitting their observations. This technique is described as being especially useful to track potentially dangerous people (such as ex-Special Circumstances agents). Via such nanotechnology, it is potentially possible for the Culture (or similarly advanced societies) to see everything happening on a given planet, orbital or any other habitat. The usage of such devices is limited by various treaties and agreements among the Involved.

In addition, EDust assassins are potent Culture terror weapons, composed entirely of nano machines called EDust, or "Everything Dust." They are capable of taking almost any shape or form, including swarms of insects or entire humans or aliens, and possess powerful weaponry capable of levelling entire buildings.{{sfn|Banks|2000|p=136}}