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{{work|page=The Culture/Consider Phlebas}}
The first [[Iain M Banks]] novel set in [[The Culture]], it concerns the war between the Culture and the Idiran civilization, an event whose reprecussions affect all of the future novels in the series. Interestingly, the novel is mostly told from the perspective of Bora Horza Gobuchul, a [[Voluntary Shapeshifting|"Changer"]], who sides with the Idirans and sees pretty much all of the Culture's signature aspects in a highly negative light.
{{tropelist}}
* [[All for Nothing]]: Every damn escapade Horza gets his team involved in ends in disaster. Yet still he won't quit while he's behind.
* [[Anti
* [[Backwards Name]]: (Bora) Horza gives Orab as a false name at one point.
* [[Brick Joke]]: the Megaships.
* [[Chase Fight]]
* [[Cluster F
* [[Death World]]: An unseen example is the Idirian homeworld, which has caused them to evolve into [[Badass]] warriors. The planet where the lost Mind is hiding is something of a literal example, being a world that once evolved sentient life with an advanced civilization until said life wiped itself out in the culmination of something like our [[Cold War]].
* [[Dead Person Impersonation]]: At the opening of the novel, Horza has been exposed impersonating a politician for the Idirans; once he's picked up by [[Space Pirates]], he makes plans early on to replace the Captain, and eventually does.
* [[Inside a Computer System]]/[[Cuckoo Nest]]: Horza is knocked out and dreams that he's woken from an immersive computer game. The technician tending to him gets some of the details of his story wrong, and when Horza tells him so, the guy realises he's woken up the wrong person and puts him back under. Horza wakes up, and [[
* [[Downer Ending]]
* [[Fantastic Racism]]: Horza hates and despises sentient machines (to be sure, he doesn't believe they're really sentient). Most Idirans despise non-Idirans (see [[Superior Species]]), and they have a religious justification for it.
* [[Fat Bastard]]: The Prophet of the [[I'm a Humanitarian|Eaters]]. [[Nausea Fuel|Yuck.]]
* [[Hero Antagonist]]: Balveda.
* [[Non
* [[Proud Warrior Race Guy]]: [[Martyrdom Culture|The Idirans]] hold firm religious beliefs in fighting to the death. For example:
** Xoxarle,
** Quayanorl, Xoxarle's comrade, despite grievous damage done to him during the aforementioned lasergun fight, manages {{spoiler|to drag himself up to the train parked in the station, get it running, and wham it into the train sitting in the station Horza and the others are occupying, kicking off the cataclysmic fight that gets everybody but Balveda and Unaha-Closp killed.}} The Idiran fulfills his wish to die having contributed an noble to his species' cause.
* [[Ragtag Bunch of Misfits]]: the [[Space Pirates]] - things don't go well for them
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* [[Scary Dogmatic Aliens]]: The Idirans.
* [[Shapeshifter Identity Crisis]]: Horza (as a shapeshifter) has a literal invocation of this trop. He doesn't lose control of his shifting, but several of the dream sequences he experiences hint that he may not actually be who he thinks is
* [[Snarky Non
* [[Space Pirates]]: Kraiklyn's Free Company.
* [[Sympathetic POV]]: Horza hates the Culture and, for example, while the later novels draw humor from the humorous/macabre names the Culture gives to ships, he's disgusted by this apparent display of the Culture's cavalier attitude towards something as grim as interstellar warfare.
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* [[Temple of Doom]]: The Temple of Light; {{spoiler|it's constructed from crystal blocks that turn shots from laser weapons back on the shooter}}, among other tricky defenses.
* {{spoiler|[[This Was His True Form]]: Balveda has a moment invoking this trope as she takes Horza's corpse with her off the planet at the end, reminiscing that for all their interactions, this is the first time she has seen his real face.}}
* [[What Measure Is a Non
** Unaha-Closp plays a vital role at the end of the novel, contrary to Horza's implicit discrimination against the drone.
* [[Worthy Opponent]]: Horza and Special Circumstances agent Perosteck Balveda to each other.
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[[Category:The Culture/Consider Phlebas]]
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