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{{tropelist}}
* [[All Love Is Unrequited]]: The Culture's fluid attitude to relations makes this a somewhat rare problem. Appears a lot, however, in ''Inversions''.
* [[Alternative Number System]]: The Culture uses base 9.
* [[Anachronic Order]]: ''Use of Weapons'' alternates between two storylines, one running normal, the other back to front. ''Look To Windward'' is about
** Also ''Excession''.
* [[Apocalypse How]]: The epilogue of ''Consider Phlebas'' gives the final tally of casualties of the Idiran-Culture-War in terms of sentient beings lost, destruction of ships, infrastructure, stars, etc. Spheres are Dyson Spheres, Orbitals are miniature (3 million kilometres wide) [[Ringworld|ringworlds]] and Rings are full-size [[Ringworld|ringworlds]].
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* [[A Million Is a Statistic]]: The postscript on the [[Stealth Pun|Culture Wars]] as noted in [[Apocalypse How]] relates the deaths of trillions in a dry, deadpan tone. It's not even a big war by galactic history standards.
* [[Mind Over Manners]]: Culture Minds, drones and ships are all quite capable of mind reading, but it is one of the society's biggest taboos. The one ship that regularly engages in mind-reading and -manipulation is disdainfully referred to as ''Meatfucker'' by its peers even centuries after its disappearance from the galaxy. To put this in perspective, calling the ship in question ''Meatfucker'' instead of its chosen name is considered such an insult that most Minds would commit suicide in shame over it.
▲* [[The Minnesota Fats]]: The Excession.
* [[My Girl Is a Slut]]: As The Culture is a free-love society, there is no stigma attached to promiscuity in either gender. They generally go with the [[Ethical Slut]] philosophy. The heroine of ''Use of Weapons'' does receive some snark from her [[Robot Buddy]] for her sexual habits, such as having an orgy with the entire crew of a starship, but no one looks upon her badly for this, and the male protagonist of the novel is definitely attracted to her. In fact, in one book the protagonist is called a barbarian because [[Everyone Is Bi|he doesn't sleep with men]] and hasn't ever done a [[Gender Bender]]. Although in ''Excession'', the male protagonist [[Really Gets Around]], and sort of subverts the free-love ideology, by promising a degree of monogamy to someone (who [[You Have Been Warned|warned him multiple times what it would cost him]]) and then {{spoiler|[[Stupidity Is the Only Option|cheated on her while she was pregnant.]]}}. [[Woman Scorned|She]] [[Break the Cutie|did]] ''[[Unstoppable Rage|not]]'' [[Ax Crazy|take it well.]]
* [[My Girl Is Not a Slut]]: On the other hand, the parts of ''Excession'' that aren't driven by the [[Title Drop]] are driven by one woman who abstains from the Culture's sexual mores after her immediate youth.
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** There are also complaints from the narrator in ''Player of Games'' about having to translate pronouns of a three-gendered species from Marain to English.
* [[Utopia]]: the Culture.
** [[Word of God|Straight from the horse's mouth]]: [https://web.archive.org/web/20090923002508/http://nerdworld.blogs.time.com/2008/02/29/iain_banks_the_matter_intervie/
{{quote|''' ''Do you think of the Culture as a utopia? Would you live in it, if you could?'' '''
Good grief yes, to both! What's not to like? ...Well, unless you're actually a fascist or a power junkie or sincerely believe that money rather than happiness is what really matters in life. And even people with those bizarre beliefs are catered for in the Culture, albeit in extreme-immersion VR environments. }}
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'''Zakalwe:''' To some people, that might sound like just a good excuse for bad behaviour.
'''Diziet Sma:''' And perhaps they would be right. Maybe that is all it is. But if nothing else, at least we need an excuse; think how many people need none at all. }}
** Crucially, the Culture's own utopian society is not in itself dependent on morally reprehensible means. SC's major use of this trope is when they're helping ''other cultures'' be less atrocious to each other in the long run -- when they're rolling out to defend the Culture from a threat or crisis they're generally able to be more straightforward about what they're doing.
* [[Voluntary Shapeshifting]]: Bora's species, the Changers, in ''Consider Phlebas'' can change (over a period of days) to look like anyone they want.
* [[We Will Have Perfect Health in the Future]]: People in the Culture actually exercise a great degree of control over their physiology, from common functions such as ignoring pain from injuries, to more exotic functions such as gravitational adaptation (in ''Player of Games'', though in that case it kicked in automatically, and in ''Excession'', where this is done willingly). In ''Use of Weapons,'' some people decide to give themselves colds out of boredom, implying that they wouldn't have them otherwise. So, yes, the Culture ''has'' cured the common cold.
* [[Weapon of Mass Destruction]]: Anything a Culture ship might use during space combat qualifies, with gridfire and antimatter bombardment probably straying into [[Doomsday Device]]-territory. (Gridfire, incidentally, involves using the ''fabric of space and time'' as a weapon.) Along with some of their ''handheld'' weapons, as well. The pocket-size gun in ''A Gift from the Culture'' comes to mind.
* [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?]]: Played with. The Culture has sentient drones, space ships, space suits, ''guns''. All are considered citizens, in their own way.
* [[We Will Not Use Photoshop in the Future]]: Avoided in ''The Player of Games''. It is a specific plot point that only direct real-time observation by a Mind-level intellect can produce a recording of an event with high enough fidelity that (other Minds) could tell it apart from a fake. To produce an audiovisual recording capable of fooling merely human senses beyond the possibility of detection is stated to be a routine task for the Culture equivalent of desktop PC freeware.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Science Fiction Literature]]
[[Category:The Culture]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Culture, The}}
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