The Culture v's 40kverse

[Oracle_Hunter]

If you understand where he's apparently arguing from, it actually makes internal sense. You see, it's a circular argument; he sees the Culture's humans as meatpuppets of the Minds, therefore anything the humans do is a priori dictated by the Minds, since they are puppets. Therefore, if a human does something he is dragooned into it by the Minds since the Minds control the humans.

Which is not the case, but nine pages hasn't gotten that across, so I doubt more is going to do the trick.

While I love being called mentally slow I was actually referring to Yime Nsokyi's situation in Surface Detail

[Excession]

Actually, to play devil's advocate here:

(player of games spoiler)

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Gurgeh was totally dragooned into joining SC, they preyed on his pride and used that to blackmail him. Did he end up a better person for it? Sure, but he ws still nearly press gagned into service

AArgh ! Ages since I read the book. Wasn't he blackmailed by his drone friend without SC's knowledge ?

Player of Games spoiler

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SC might very will have manipulated Gurgeh. His Drone friend might have been still working for SC, though that is unclear. SC did this because it was the best way to overthrow an empire that was routinely and successfully genociding, torturing, and a whole bunch of other unpleasant thing, over multiple star systems. In many ways the Empire of Asad was behaving like the IoM. Direct intervention would have cost billions have lives more than the indirect route that SC used. Gurgeh did, kind of, ask the Minds for something that would interest gim, and he did gain from the experience.

While I love being called mentally slow I was actually referring to Yime Nsokyi's situation in Surface Detail

The actions of the Mind that implanted Yime with a neural lace without her consent, even if it did save her life, managed to break or at least bend a lot of the Culture's rules. The really hard and fast rule (which would be the first one on the list if they had a written list) is not to read someone's mind without their permission, and technically that never happened. When Yime was reanimated it was by automated systems that did not feed her thoughts to the Mind hosting her.

[thorgrim29]

I completely agree with you that it was certainly the best possible outcome. However, he was manipulated by SC no matter how you look at it.

[jseah]

Inserting a faction of scientific advance, friendship and light into the setting does make the darkness of the setting darker <...>

Ahem, lets see what we have here.

The Culture. A faction of incredibly advanced science, actively trying to make friends and generally much much "light"er than anything else.

Well, I think they qualify! =D

Part 3

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6th week
Constrained Behaviour, Unconstrained Morality, the Mind that had the first Chaos contamination has another one. A unanimous vote in favour of NOT Boxing it was registered (the person's backup voted in his place) and the contaminated person was destroyed.
This is despite the strictest quarantine possible. If the invisible nanotech can reach so far, then no quarantine is possible in any case. License to use asteroids and stellar material for construction is granted. This has been taken as a strike against the invisible nanotech hypothesis.

Another GCU is complete. The two previous ships are gaining their own crew as their Minds materialize citizens stasis-ed for the journey.

Another unusual signature has been detected on the Forge World, apart from the IoM FTL drives. This one was on the planet surface and not correlated with IoM activity. Shortly afterwards, the Mind in orbit detected a minor interference with IoM activities and managed to gain some data about the disturbance.
A remarkably well-shielded scout was surveying the IoM activities as if on a routine patrol. This scout is also roughly humanoid but of a different biological species to the IoM. The shielding tech was advanced enough to escape passive sensors of Culture vessels, although judicious effector use was sufficient to locate and track it.
Using the same scanning method revealed a similarly shielded and concealed structure under the ground in an uninhabited location of the Forge World. This structure seems to utilize the FTL drive principles in a totally different way, although from the architecture, transport is also the aim.
The scout and the structure is under surveillance. Signatures and search protocols for these are being distributed and the Minds will soon scan their assigned planets for these 'invisible' men.
The effector protocol to pierce the invisibility was tried but no nanotech was revealed. It is deemed unlikely that this new civilization is Chaos due to mismatch in behaviour.
OOC: Eldar & a webway gate. Just a routine surveillance patrol on IoM activities.

7th week
A GSV and GCU is complete.

We are conducting a full vote of all 1:1 intelligences and up. The Mind that reached the IoM Forge World came across IoM descriptions of Chaos and the Warp as it surveyed a Space Marine chapter.
The readings have updated our hypothesises. Chaos is <...>. Our conclusion has narrowed down the possibilities to two major contenders.
1. Chaos is a sublimed civilization or a conglomerate of them; since there appear to be no other sublimed civilizations in contact, our only hope of survival is to Sublime ourselves before they change the rules.
2. Chaos is an Outside Context Problem of a very minor class. The IoM has made significant inroads towards understanding Chaos and doubtless we can do better. In this case, we will best proceed by being extremely cautious around Chaos while trying to gather as much information about it as possible.

The interpretations are mutually exclusive and prescribe *immediate action* that is also mutually exclusive. This decision was deemed important enough to put to a vote.

The vote was a near-tie, in favour of Outside Context Problem. The last votes, and therefore the deciding ones, came from Constrained Behaviour, Unconstrained Morality.


We have had a rash of Chaos contaminations across the various ships. A statistically significant number of them occurred in Constrained Behaviour, Unconstrained Morality. The number of applications for temporary transfer for 'holiday' to that ship has dropped from its characteristically high number to nearly zero. Quarantine measures mean that no one can transfer from it.
The occurance of contamination among our organics and 1:1 drones is at least eight standard deviations above IoM rates. Why this is so is not clear, although interpretations of IoM texts indicate our freedom of expression is at fault. Clearly we cannot restrict that so we will have to perform damage control.
Constrained Behaviour, Unconstrained Morality has a rate of Chaos contamination three sigmas above Culture baseline. What this means is also unclear although the more... physical vices it is known for (and why it was, up until recently, a popular holiday transfer request) is also mentioned in IoM texts.

A GCU has decided to leave its chosen planet (a farming colony) and agreed to pay a visit to the capital system of the IoM, Sol. It is a long travel along the rim of the galaxy and the ship will take two weeks to arrive.

8th week
A GSV and two GCUs have been built.

Contact has been lost with Constrained Behaviour, Unconstrained Morality, including all hands. Last information from it did not indicate anything unusual, except for the first simultaneous Chaos contamination of a pair of humans, one of them the original one who had been first contaminated.
A GSV and a GCU have been dispatched to investigate. They have been cleared for military engagement and their citizens transferred off-ship.

This incident has caused the 1:1 intelligences to be concerned. It is a new situation for them, one that they have to worry about their possible future existence. Chaos contamination appears to be totally random and, while controllable, is also unavoidable.
We Minds have voted amongst ourselves to waive all moral constraints to solve this problem of Chaos. Most of the organics have to learn it again, but this emotion...
This we remember and know.

Fear.

IoM - Military outpost - Emergency message to Space Marine Chapter
Possible Xeno sighting. A great flare in the sky, many hundreds of times brighter than the local sun. Telescopes and scantified scanners could not identify the source of the explosion but the size of the detonation is estimated to be at least two orders of magnitude larger than the combined explosive power of the largest IoM warship, including a complete self-destruct sequence.
This explosion occurred at roughly four times the distance of a holding orbit.

Massive environmental damage, significant atmospheric loss. The Guard Regiment stationed here has suffered massive casualties and current strength stands at 14% and falling.

9th Week
Culture
A GSU is complete. We have a new habitat.

The GSV and GCU pair arrived in system under full military power and the remnants of Constrained Behaviour, Unconstrained Morality have been recovered and analyzed. The destabilized planetary orbit has been corrected and the worst effects of atmospheric loss adjusted downwards. This intervention should prevent additional significant loss of life on the IoM's part without revealing our presence. They are too xenophobic to risk revealing ourselves to them.

From what we gather, the self-destruct safety of the GCU tripped. Why it might do so is still a best guess but all evidence so far points to the failsafe against hostile takeover of the Mind having initiated the self-destruct. Given the situation, Chaos being able to contaminate Minds is a significant, even likely, possibility.
Recovery of the citizens on board is impossible.

The threat of Chaos is immense. A vote 88% in favour of all citizens allows us Minds to read the minds of any and all non-Culture citizens without permission. It is a major breach of protocol, but our existence is at stake. A large majority of our own citizens have also given permission for us to read their minds, with appropriate privacy concerns. A significant minority have demanded constant surveillance or to re-enter stasis.

All Minds are constantly rechecking all components for Chaos contamination. This is requiring significant amounts of computational power, but survival focuses the mind wonderfully. Many minor reports of machines and automated systems displaying strange errors have accrued; they have been corrected.
All the Minds are now operating on a buddy system. Two halves of the Mind exist separately and check each other for contamination. None has been found but any discrepancy will call a different ship to pay a visit.

Experimenting with the Warp is totally forbidden, we will only observe until we understand its link to Chaos.
It skirts close to this restriction, but one Mind insisted on implementing the armouring device of the IoM on its own ship and some of the citizens have also taken up Techpriest prayers as a hobby. A vote of Minds decided that this would be allowed. The primary argument is to define ourselves from the IoM; we could of course adopt the IoM's practices trivially but that would destroy our identity.

Chaos is a serious threat. For the first time for many of us, even us Minds, we have turn our attention to the problem of survival in the face of an Outside Context Problem.

We now have Unconstrained Behaviour and Constrained Morality.

Ye god, phrases for names is unwieldy as heck.
Also, the self-destruct is canon. The excerpt of the Excession fight from last thread had this happen. And Chaos isn't as subtle as a Mind using effectors...

Hope I didn't mangle the IoM's part too badly. (Do space marines have prayers? Will retcon if not. )

[Shadow of the Sun]

While I love being called mentally slow I was actually referring to Yime Nsokyi's situation in Surface Detail

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If I recall correctly, she had actually agreed to be a sleeper agent for SC instead of being pressganged.

Excession: you're thinking of Lededje, not Yime Nsokyi.

[Misery Esquire]

~stuff~

Hope I didn't mangle the IoM's part too badly. (Do space marines have prayers? Will retcon if not. )

O.o

Technically, Astartes have Battle Litanies, that could be mistaken for prayer, but they, in the majority of cases, don't actually pray. Having managed to keep hold on that part of the Great Crusades' purpose.

Also, ship visiting Terra. They have... no possible way of avoiding being spotted, psychicly. And Terra is Paranoia Central of the IoM.

--Edit ; Also, they don't tend to call Space Marines. ...Well, by that, I mean they do. But then tend to get millions or billions of Guardsmen instead.

---Edit2 ; Also, also. A self destructing Imperial Ship in midorbit wouldn't leave a planetary surface if it's Warp Drive was active at the time, so twice as powerful as that would... Er. Not leave anything intact.

----Edit3 ; Forge Worlds have no Guardsmen, and wouldn't call for Space Marines, as they're run by AdMech, who would want more AdMech.

Or suggest that democracy, religious freedom, representation on the home world, not feeding thousands of people to the GE every year, etc are in anyway good ideas

Just noticed this and ;

Democracy is fine. You just can't try to kill everyone to get it. The Imperium doesn't care about the running of individual world politics at all. And there's no effective way to run the Imperium itself as a Democracy.

The thousand sacrifices to the Emperor's Chair is required, if they want any variety of FTL travel that doesn't involve your face exploding into something that immediately attempts to eat the rest of your still-living body. Every time. I mean, it still happens on rare occasions as-is.

[jseah]

The ship exploded somewhere at 4x the standard IoM orbit is what I was trying to say.
Space is really really big. An extended orbit should mitigate much of the impact. If you wish, why not suggest an orbital distance for the Culture ship that might have the effect described?
Also the military outpost CB, UM blew up on is one of the rim planets, not anywhere near the Forge World. It was a quiet rim planet where the Guardsmen didn't die quite as much as they normally do. At least it was before they lost half the atmosphere.


The psychic detection of the incoming Culture vessel is not something I would have known, thanks for that. The Culture don't know that yet obviously, and it's not like the IoM could identify or catch them anyway. Or even prevent the Culture from scanning every planet willy nilly.
Although them being detected would make for an interesting story. I was actually planning on leaving that ship alone until it could make a round trip and grant the Culture access to the Black Library.


Don't Space Marine Chapters visit Forge Worlds occasionally? I thought they would have to repair and restock somewhere... and a Forge World makes alot of sense as a repair yard.

[Misery Esquire]

The ship exploded somewhere at 4x the standard IoM orbit is what I was trying to say.
Space is really really big. An extended orbit should mitigate much of the impact. If you wish, why not suggest an orbital distance for the Culture ship that might have the effect described?
Also the military outpost CB, UM blew up on is one of the rim planets, not anywhere near the Forge World. It was a quiet rim planet where the Guardsmen didn't die quite as much as they normally do. At least it was before they lost half the atmosphere.

Ah, I see. Sorry, I misunderstood the statement. Or the context, anway.

Anyway, AdMech tend to claim entire solar systems and enslave everything in it, and while the Imperium is symbiotic with the AdMech, Mars will want to send it's own folks. Plus, Space Marines are for massive invasions, not mysterious death. Inquisitors will probably be there shortly, if they weren't already hiding somewhere nearby. Being Inquisitiorious.

The psychic detection of the incoming Culture vessel is not something I would have known, thanks for that. The Culture don't know that yet obviously, and it's not like the IoM could identify or catch them anyway. Or even prevent the Culture from scanning every planet willy nilly.
Although them being detected would make for an interesting story. I was actually planning on leaving that ship alone until it could make a round trip and grant the Culture access to the Black Library.

Er. Once in-system, you're in the middle of a million, million hyper-vigilant psykers, who will not only predict that you're going to show up before you do, but be able to track your ship by either checking the future (a dangerous option), it's physical exsistance (not a popularly-shown option) or knowing that there's something with a mind floating around at about the ring of Saturn. (Popular option) And then you'll have the entire Battlefleet Solar (The largest and strongest fleet in the Imperium that up until the 13th Black Crusade did nothing but sit ontop of Terra and wait), the entire strange Dark Age armoury of Mars, and every Inquistor still hanging around with thier personal Relic ships.

If they can't shoot down a single Culture ship, then... Well, a single Culture ship could solo the 40k universe without any backup, excepting the Eye of Terror/Maelstrom/Commoragh. The only thing to ever quasi-get into Terran space since the Horus Heresy were five Oldcron ships, that are undectable to psykering due to thier Blank nature. And they were still blasted to bits on thier way into Mars Orbit. (They were making a bit of a lemmings rush for the red planet.)

Also, the Black Library is... Inside the Webway. Kinda hard to sneak a ship into.

Don't Space Marine Chapters visit Forge Worlds occasionally? I thought they would have to repair and restock somewhere... and a Forge World makes alot of sense as a repair yard.

They have thier own autonomous resupply yards, Forge Worlds only tend to send large shipments marked "New Power Armour and Bolters, guyz", unless they're Iron Hands/Iron Hands successor chapters, or one of the other AdMech-seconded Space Marine chapters.

...I suppose it isn't overly unlikely, but they don't like to call for anyone that doesn't wear red and have half thier brain replaced with calculators.

[Forum Explorer]

The psychic detection of the incoming Culture vessel is not something I would have known, thanks for that. The Culture don't know that yet obviously, and it's not like the IoM could identify or catch them anyway. Or even prevent the Culture from scanning every planet willy nilly.
Although them being detected would make for an interesting story. I was actually planning on leaving that ship alone until it could make a round trip and grant the Culture access to the Black Library.


Don't Space Marine Chapters visit Forge Worlds occasionally? I thought they would have to repair and restock somewhere... and a Forge World makes alot of sense as a repair yard.

Speaking of which as soon as they are detected they'll be attacked psychically and physically. No ship is allowed in Sol without lots of warning.

Everything is just shipped from the Forge World to the Space Marines. Some chapters do have a closer relationship with a Forge World and may have representatives there.

While we are talking about Psykers something else I should bring up is the Eldar. They can see the future and if the Culture begins to make any major interference to the Imperium the Eldar may decide to try and detect/contact the Culture.

[Luzahn]

Hmm, the Culture reaction to Exterminatus would be very interesting to see.

[jseah]

And then you'll have the entire Battlefleet Solar (The largest and strongest fleet in the Imperium that up until the 13th Black Crusade did nothing but sit ontop of Terra and wait), the entire strange Dark Age armoury of Mars, and every Inquistor still hanging around with thier personal Relic ships.

If they can't shoot down a single Culture ship, then... Well, a single Culture ship could solo the 40k universe without any backup, excepting the Eye of Terror/Maelstrom/Commoragh.

Unfortunately, the answer to that happens to be yes. They cannot shoot it down.

Culture ships fight battles in 4 dimensions (their weapons travel across hyperspace) at standard speeds of many multiples C, and engagement times measured in microseconds.

Nothing in the IoM or any of the non-Chaos guys can even hope to scratch the paint. At least, nothing short of an Alpha+ psyker and even those run at human-reaction speeds, which is... not very fast. A Mind can make a pass through Sol and detonate every single planet (which includes Jupiter) with a CAM warhead and the Sun for good measure, and be out the other side before the psykers can even blink once. They can probably do that while teleporting the God-Emperor into the ship too. (although that is manifestly not a good idea)

Essentially, nothing short of parsec range detection (which might buy you a few seconds) or future warning will even be able to notice a Culture vessel on an attack run.


Good thing it's just coming to look.


I'm not sure what the limits are on Eldar future prediction though. How far can they see? And are their predictions foilable or 100% predictive?

Also, what's an Exterminatus?

[Tavar]

Exterminatus is the general name used to describe methods for complete planetary destruction/destruction of the biosphere.

Eldar prophecy is...complicated. They see the future, though they don't necessarily see the entire future. They can certainly see centuries into the future, and it does seem that they can see multiple pathways depending on what choices they make.

[Luzahn]

Also, what's an Exterminatus?

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It's what you do when a planet gets compromised. Nuke it from orbit.
Well you can use the super fire-plague, but it's less impressive

[Douglas]

Also, what's an Exterminatus?

This.

It's the IoM's last resort option for dealing with out of control Chaos corruption, Tyranid or Ork invasion, etc.

[Forum Explorer]

They see multiple paths so their predictions are very foilable. They seem to spend a lot of their time trying arrange that the right future comes to pass. Sometimes they even fight over which is the 'right' future.

As for how far, well that varies as well. Sometimes they only get enough warning to prepare themselves for the impact (like Iryaden and the Tyranids) and sometimes they get enough warning to act Millenia ahead of time. (They predicted the rise of the Emperor as well as the entire Horus Heresy.)

Psykers don't necessarily act human reaction speeds. It depends on powerful they are and how they use their powers but it isn't uncommon for them to dodge bullets or to well basically act faster then humanly possible.

But really the big thing would be how capable is a Mind and it's crew is against being attacked mentally. Against a high level psyker most beings don't have much of a chance and psykers have wiped out entire crews of ships by turning everyone against each other. (And this is despite Imperial ships being psychically shielded!)

The Sol system has the single best psykers in the Imperium at it's disposal and they can work together. Sure if the Culture wanted they could figure something out to fly in and exterminate everything. But an initial scouting mission is likely in trouble.

[GolemsVoice]

Everything is just shipped from the Forge World to the Space Marines. Some chapters do have a closer relationship with a Forge World and may have representatives there.

Also, every Techmarine get's send to Mars and learns the secrets of the Adeptus Mechanicus there, doesn't it?

[jseah]

What's the range of a psyker mind-control/probe/read?

It probably varies, but why not give a rough estimate for Sol's defences say? And will they even start with psykers; since as I understand it, every time the psykers do anything with the Warp, they can screw up and BAD things happen?

The Mind is probably rather hard to attack mentally, given that it has internal safeguards against external control (as seen in the Excession incident). Obviously the fail-deadly is a last resort. Would not be surprised to see unbelievably complicated error-checking. It probably takes something on the level of a Mind to successfully hack another Mind.
The crew can be attacked but as Oracle Hunter says, they don't really matter and any attack can be undone in the blink of an eye. Literally.

Reconstructing the entire crew from nothing might take a bit longer, a couple of minutes maybe. But totally doable and would mostly just annoy the Mind.


In any case, if they're attacked by any means (and they are forewarned about psykers), the likely reaction is to back off a couple of lightyears and watch for a bit. Perhaps try to sneak something in.

[Forum Explorer]

Also, every Techmarine get's send to Mars and learns the secrets of the Adeptus Mechanicus there, doesn't it?

I'm not entirely sure if it's Mars (though that does sound right) but yeah all Tech-Priests are trained by the Adeptus Mechanicus.

What's the range of a psyker mind-control/probe/read?

It probably varies, but why not give a rough estimate for Sol's defences say? And will they even start with psykers; since as I understand it, every time the psykers do anything with the Warp, they can screw up and BAD things happen?

The Mind is probably rather hard to attack mentally, given that it has internal safeguards against external control (as seen in the Excession incident). Obviously the fail-deadly is a last resort. Would not be surprised to see unbelievably complicated error-checking. It probably takes something on the level of a Mind to successfully hack another Mind.
The crew can be attacked but as Oracle Hunter says, they don't really matter and any attack can be undone in the blink of an eye. Literally.

Reconstructing the entire crew from nothing might take a bit longer, a couple of minutes maybe. But totally doable and would mostly just annoy the Mind.


In any case, if they're attacked by any means (and they are forewarned about psykers), the likely reaction is to back off a couple of lightyears and watch for a bit. Perhaps try to sneak something in.

Hmm it depends if the Emperor does something personally. He may have wiped out an entire fleet via a warp storm some hundreds of light years away. But that was an actual threat to him, not just a scout. (He would likely be able to tell the difference)

Similarly the Astronoticum can be 'seen' over the entire Imperium and outside it as well. However that has never been used offensivly to my knowledge (but if it was....)

Otherwise it's so iffy particularly with a race as advanced as the Culture. I would say they could technically look more then a few light years around for the scout ship but they wouldn't find it because they would be looking for signs of warp travel like everything else uses. Oh but that's an active search. I imagine that when they are passively searching they are only looking a little past Pluto.

Will they start with psykers? Depends how close it gets to Terra and how fast it's moving. If it get's past Saturn then I imagine they would. Likely they would target the crew of the ship first not recognizing the Mind as the important force due to their lack of AI. They might just try sending the Mind a shut down or self-destruct command. Which from what I've heard, wouldn't work at all. (I imagine the command would be sent as is a force of authority had sent it to the Mind (that would be the delusion sent anyways) however as Minds don't have an authority higher then them they could likely beat the delusion with a little effort.)

As for the warp being risky, well it is. But generally the risk is low enough that it's worth taking the chance to take out even minor foes.

[jseah]

Another question on the Eldar:

What is the usual reaction time of the Eldar to things?

As stipulated in the OP, no one in WH40K knows the Culture are coming. So when they show up, the Eldar start getting visions.

Lets say they wanted to do some scouting and sent a guy to the nearest Webway. Let's say it's that one on the Forge World I mentioned. How long would he take to arrive?


In essence, I am asking for the length of their OODA loop. How long does it take for the Eldar to respond (on the strategic level, obviously individual and tactical reaction times are faster) to new information?


And what methods do they have for getting that information?

[Forum Explorer]

Another question on the Eldar:

What is the usual reaction time of the Eldar to things?

As stipulated in the OP, no one in WH40K knows the Culture are coming. So when they show up, the Eldar start getting visions.

Lets say they wanted to do some scouting and sent a guy to the nearest Webway. Let's say it's that one on the Forge World I mentioned. How long would he take to arrive?


In essence, I am asking for the length of their OODA loop. How long does it take for the Eldar to respond (on the strategic level, obviously individual and tactical reaction times are faster) to new information?


And what methods do they have for getting that information?

If it doesn't effect them? They likely won't respond at all. If it's a direct threat? (Which the Culture isn't. If anything the Culture would be good for the Eldar.) Then they will respond within days and immediately begin preparations. Something that could just ship the balance of power? Much harder to tell. They would likely wait longer and see what would happen first or do something that was minor in order to shape the future slightly.

They really depend on their Seers to forsee the future. That is their primary source of information. Besides that they need to do manual scouting by sending a ship in (btw the Eldar don't have many robots, mostly due to their high dependence on psykers. Nearly all of their technology uses it in some shape or form and that requires an actual Eldar to be there.) That ship would have very sophisticated scanners but we've never been given the details on how that would actually work. (The best we've got is better then the Imperium. Which can give real time (I think) updates of an entire solar system.)



Webway travel is insanely fast but I don't think any hard numbers are given. Plus it depends how close a Craftworld is at the time. So the timeline you've got is pretty good for an initial scout. Of course with the Eldar they could be acting on a vision to 'introduce' themselves so the Culture would seek them out. (AKA they knew sending the ship would result in the Culture eventually peacefully contacting the Eldar. They didn't know why sending the ship got this result though.)

[Oracle_Hunter]

Another question on the Eldar:

What is the usual reaction time of the Eldar to things?

As stipulated in the OP, no one in WH40K knows the Culture are coming. So when they show up, the Eldar start getting visions.

Lets say they wanted to do some scouting and sent a guy to the nearest Webway. Let's say it's that one on the Forge World I mentioned. How long would he take to arrive?


In essence, I am asking for the length of their OODA loop. How long does it take for the Eldar to respond (on the strategic level, obviously individual and tactical reaction times are faster) to new information?


And what methods do they have for getting that information?

Eldar get this kind of information from reading Seer Stones -- a sort of "safe" form of seeing the future. As has been mentioned before, Farseers (the most powerful form of Psyker available to the Eldar) mostly see potential futures and the most talented (mostly from Ulthwe) have been known to enact plans that take centuries to unfold and result in massive bloody wars fought between non-Eldar races. From what I can tell, the favored method of Farseers for dealing with problems is to redirect the threat into someone else that can kill it -- as a dying race they are very conservative with their own forces.

Now, how are they going to regard The Culture? With great alarm! A force more powerful than anything ever seen in the Galaxy appears without warning and is supremely susceptible to Corruption -- particularly that of Slaanesh, a Chaos God that really likes to eat Eldar souls. Chances are the Farseer in question would not even bother sending scouts anywhere near The Culture (it would be slow, risky, and probably fruitless) but would instead spend more time reading the runes hoping to figure out some way to stop Chaos from eating the Craftworlds.

There are a couple of options that come to mind:

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(1) Figure out a way to get the Necrons pointed at The Culture.
The Necrons are the one race closest to technological parity with The Culture and have all sorts of weird tech (including some manner of time travel). The Eldar might stir up Tomb Worlds they predict The Culture will explore or even raid some Necron areas to lure them into the predicted path of The Culture. At the very least this tussle would buy the Eldar some time and is unlikely to increase the risk of a Chaos Culture springing up.

(2) Entice The Culture into the Webway where they will run into the Dark Eldar.
The Webway is mostly ruled by the Dark Eldar but visited by the Craftworld Eldar; it is in many ways their greatest treasure and their greatest threat. On one hand it would be easy to leave a "dangerous" (read: Dark Eldar) Webway portal "open" for The Culture to find and the Webway is so confusing that countless explorers have been lost forever trying to find their way through it. This makes it an enticing trap for The Culture and -- bad comes to worse -- it can result in The Culture wiping out the hated Dark Eldar. The downsides are many as well: the Eldar Black Library and Harlequins are hidden in the Webway and you do not want to give an intelligent and potentially Chaos-tainted opponent access to that. Additionally, if The Culture figures out the Webway then it has easy access to every Craftworld, Maiden World and -- dangerously -- the chaos-tainted Crone Worlds that now lie within the Eye of Terror and will certainly Corrupt any Ship that visits them.

(3) Tell The Culture which of their Ships is going to be Corrupted and hope they take appropriate action.
This is the long-shot, but Eldar Farseers have gone to great lengths to tell races about Chaos-related threats in their future. As a rule, nobody listens to them and is therefore caught by surprise when Chaos does appear. This is why the Eldar have switched to a "let's you and him fight" approach when it comes to future threats but there is a chance they might want to try and warn this new and potentially powerful ally of the danger of Chaos. Of course this is unlikely to be used since it will reveal the Eldar to The Culture and possibly allow The Culture to locate Craftworlds. Still, it's a thought.

[Soras Teva Gee]

Hmm, the Culture reaction to Exterminatus would be very interesting to see.

My guess is nonplussed. Rendering planets uninhabitable is pretty easy for any space faring society.

They'd probably find it amusing that planets are considered relevant at all.

[Oracle_Hunter]

My guess is nonplussed. Rendering planets uninhabitable is pretty easy for any space faring society.

They'd probably find it amusing that planets are considered relevant at all.

Well how would they feel about the tremendous loss of life? Amusing perhaps?

[Soras Teva Gee]

Well how would they feel about the tremendous loss of life? Amusing perhaps?

At galactic scales destroying a planet can approach knifing someone. And like that anyone can do it and while no one should its not like its a big shocking thing to happen.

Consider this from the war with the Idiran:

Total casualties amounted to 851.4±25.5 (0.3%) billion sentient creatures, including Medjel (slaves of the Idirans), sentient machines and non-combatants, and wiped out various smaller species, including the Changers. The war resulted in the destruction of 91,215,660 (±200) starships above interplanetary, 14,334 orbitals, 53 planets and major moons, 1 ring and 3 spheres, as well as the significant mass-loss or sequence-position alteration of 6 stars.[3]

Despite the relatively small scale, in comparison with the rumoured conflicts of the past as referred to by the sublimed species of the galaxy, the Idiran-Culture war is considered one of the more significant events in the galactic history of the Culture setting.

[Selrahc]

Jseah I guess you've chosen to go with the view that Chaos can just corrupt anyone at any time with no tangible cause? It's understandable from a narrative perspective, even if it isn't really how Chaos works.

Also, ship visiting Terra. They have... no possible way of avoiding being spotted, psychicly. And Terra is Paranoia Central of the IoM.

A good portion of Culture ships are uncrewed, so could probably sit right in the middle of the Solar system unspottable by anything. The ship can also be scanning from far beyond orbit, to the tune of at least several light hours away, accepting a certain degree of sensor latency for security. It can even make a rapid picosecond pass over and drop clouds of self replicating spy nano-bots, which the Imperium has very few ways to tackle. They could even fly into system, then use their effectors to forcibly lobotomize every Psyker. No possible way? You really aren't thinking creatively enough.

[Excession]

Excession: you're thinking of Lededje, not Yime Nsokyi.

Oops. Names have never been good for me. Sorry about that.

[Parra]

That said, can I think of a better society? Sure.

Spoiler

Show

(1) you don't leave all your thinking to Machines, no matter how bright. Minds are partners, or possibly governors, but they don't get to rule the whole damn thing.

(2) Whomever is in charge of a planet/orbital/Sphere has to be mortal. They get to live a fixed period of time after taking office (say 100 years) before dying. Dead leaders can be banked for reference purposes but they die at the end of their terms. This makes sure your rulers are focused on the day to day and not just a thousand years down the line.

(3) You limit the Minds so that they can't just do their own things willy-nilly. They're advisors, not puppetmasters. The local ruler can refer problems to them if they want or not but the Minds don't get to suggest things.

(4) Non-interference pacts between the different "states" within The Culture and free-migration between them. Hopefully this encourages diversity not just of small-c culture but also organization. The only time the components of The Culture work together is for matters of Foreign Affairs.

(5) Foreign Affairs can be made up of immortals for all I care, but they're organics, not Machines. Their principal duties are monitoring other civilizations as threats and dealing with them. Trade and "state" defense is mostly a matter of the individual "states" but Foreign Affairs gets to decide whether to incorporate a new civilization into The Culture framework. Ideally each "state" would have its own representative in Foreign Affairs each which would have access to the Mind of that "state" for reference.

I'm pretty pleased with that. It takes care of my major concern (free-wheeling Physical Gods) and ensures a less uniform method of governance as a practical matter. By getting rid of some vast sweeping Contact or Special Circumstances groups and leaving "contact" up to the individual "states" this Culture is going to be less invasive on a universal scale and less prone to puppet-mastery.

Just to clear up a few misconceptions you have here:
1. Minds dont rule anything. In the Culture, no one is in charge. No one rules anything. No, not even Minds.
2. Orbitals/Rings/Rocks/etc are only run by Minds because there is so many things going on at once. The Minds that run them, volunteer and are free to leave at any time they like. The various Habitats can run for a time relying on its individual systems non-intelligent AI.
Given the way the Culture works, I would be at all surprised to find some Habitats not being run by Minds at all.
Even the ones being run by Minds have 'natural' sections where things can just run wild, and yes Culture citizens can choose to live there too.
3. In the Culture, Minds are sentient beings and full citizens. They have as much right as anyone else in the Culture to do whatever they choose.
4. There are not States in the Culture (assuming you mean State in a Country/Nation sense). Their are varying statuses (Ulterior, Excentric etc) and organisations (Contact, S.C., Quietus, etc) and you are free to come and go to as you like. You can even leave the Culture at any time as well.
5. The reason Contact as a organisation exists is to stop any old person landing on a backward planet and setting themselves up as a God, or causing untold amounts of suffering because their actions were not properly thought through.

The only truly shadey part of the Culture is Special Circumstances. And even then, while their methods are sometimes questionable, they are still working towards the same overall goals as the rest of the Culture

[Brother Oni]

A good portion of Culture ships are uncrewed, so could probably sit right in the middle of the Solar system unspottable by anything.

I think all the different flavours of the Offense Units are un-crewed simply because organics wouldn't be able to withstand the g-forces involved in the combat manoeuvering they do.

I think the (d)ROU and VFP class ships have limited crew numbers but they're not expected to get into fights, just shift people and materiel quickly from place to place or into hostile territory.

All the System Vehicles have crew, with the larger ones rivalling or exceeding Eldar Craftworlds if I remember my numbers correctly.

[Douglas]

(3) Tell The Culture which of their Ships is going to be Corrupted and hope they take appropriate action.
This is the long-shot, but Eldar Farseers have gone to great lengths to tell races about Chaos-related threats in their future. As a rule, nobody listens to them and is therefore caught by surprise when Chaos does appear. This is why the Eldar have switched to a "let's you and him fight" approach when it comes to future threats but there is a chance they might want to try and warn this new and potentially powerful ally of the danger of Chaos. Of course this is unlikely to be used since it will reveal the Eldar to The Culture and possibly allow The Culture to locate Craftworlds. Still, it's a thought.

It seems to me that The Culture is far more likely to listen than any normal 40k faction. They might ask for an explanation first, and maybe read a few Eldar minds to be sure they're serious (since jseah's already written in a decision that the situation is dire enough to warrant violating that privacy rule), but I doubt a Mind would dismiss something with that kind of historical evidence backing it up.

The big question, then, is whether The Culture's reaction to Eldar Farseer knowledge can be predicted by an Eldar Farseer. If it can, then I'd say this option instantly becomes the front runner by a large margin rather than a long shot.

[Parra]

I think all the different flavours of the Offense Units are un-crewed simply because organics wouldn't be able to withstand the g-forces involved in the combat manoeuvering they do.

Generally speaking yes, though some do have a small crew. It does however limiting their potential manoeuvrability. Whether they have one on or not is at the discretion of the Mind

They might ask for an explanation first, and maybe read a few Eldar minds to be sure they're serious

They would only read the Eldars mind with that Eldars permission.
For a society with no laws, this is the closest thing they have to one and is considered to be the only real privacy