The Culture v's 40kverse

[Oracle_Hunter]

I'll give you Skaffen-Aitskaw but seeing as how that is the only scene in all the books where even one Culture citzen goes bloodthirsty refering to SC as 'Khornesque' goes beyond the event horizon of hyperbole.
And yes SC does dodgy stuff. They lie, they manipulate, they sometimes make deals with bad people to stop horrible people, making them out to be 'glorifying in destruction' because of this is, again, way over-the-top.

Oh, they don't all have to; it just needs to be permitted -- which it is.

All you need is one Ship, remember. One.

Again if you're refering to the Minds as 'robot overlords' you're missing the point. The Minds are not 'overlords' see Aorts Commanders post where he put it much better than I. Nobody in the Culture has to bend the knee to overlords, they can do what they want. They can chose to work alongside the Minds in SC and other places and may have to take orders from Minds but then they will have to take orders from other citizens because they are in organized groups where you need leaders and organizers.

Yes, nobody "has" to do what the Minds say but in the end, they do when the Minds want, don't they? Because the Minds are so much smarter than everyone else that they can manipulate anyone to doing their will. Don't believe me? Ask Yime Nsokyi.

So yeah, a society in which a class of supremely intelligent machines can control -- either directly or not -- every other sentient being they can reach is not one in which I'd say the organics have much autonomy. Sure they can do what they want but why bother doing anything at all -- the Machines have it well in hand.

They're meatpuppets: toys and pets that exist on the sufferance of the Minds. The fact that the Minds are fond of their pets does not change this essential fact.

EDIT: As far as Corrupting the Minds works I am assuming that they have some sort of presence or method of communication with the Physical World. Through that presence they can receive information and their instruments can become "blessed" by their new Patrons. The Chaos Gods do not need to physically "touch" someone to corrupt them -- except for Nurgle who is a really touchy-feely kind of God.