Much as I’d like to offer you one of my own drones, or a knife missile or some magic force-field buttons for your cardigan or an enchanted gusset or whatever the fuck, for protection if nothing else… I can’t, because in the unlikely event you do waste this fucker, or try to but fail – a much more plausible scenario, if we’re being honest here – and they find any Culture tech on you, suddenly we look like the bad guys, and – hilarious though that would be in so many ways, obviously – even I draw the line at that sort of shit. Unless I’m requested to by a properly constituted committee of my strategically informed intellectual superiors, naturally. That would be entirely different.—Demeisen, to Quyn-Sichultsa Lededje Samwaf Y'breq d'Espersium, Surface Detail, Chapter 12
A Mind Incident Group is a group, typically ad hoc, of Culture Minds gathered to collectively discuss, direct, coordinate, and manage a Culture response—typically military—to an ongoing incident or other emergency.
Overview[]
The Culture is an extremely flat society that does not possess any sort of formal government or hierarchy, with Contact being the closest equivalent to the Culture's government. Even within Contact, there are no formal ranks or hierarchy.[1] The Culture's response—acting through Contact and, in particular, Special Circumstances—to any sort of emergency is to gather a group of Minds to coordinate a response to the incident.
Membership[]
A Mind Incident Group starts when a Contact or, more likely, Special Circumstances Mind becomes aware of a potential incident and begins informal and typically secretive discussion with one or more like-minded Minds on how to respond. This process continues, with the group taking greater and greater action and bringing in more members as an incident grows until a full-fledged Mind Incident Group is eventually formed and an incident coordinator is elected, appointed, or assigned.[2][3] At this point, depending on the nature of the incident, the group may act more openly, begin to requisition resources outside of the original group, and coordinate an organized Culture response to the incident if necessary.
Mind Incident Groups overwhelmingly, but not exclusively, consist of ship Minds, since only ships will be in a position to respond directly to an incident. Such groups always include active participants in the conflict, such as ships already engaged in combat or warships tasked to respond to the incident, as well as others whose role is to provide guidance and oversight. The participants in such groups are a combination of martial might, political influence, reputation for wisdom or intelligence, and happenstance, such as the first ships to respond to the incident, having a well-placed agent in the concerned civilisation, or possessing special knowledge regarding the ongoing incident.
Minds may be invited based on their reputation or need and may also be removed by group consensus. For example, in the Interesting Times Gang, the GSV Wisdom Like Silence was the original, randomly assigned Incident Coordinator who was ejected from the group for being boring.[2] At the same time, legendary Minds who were thought to have been lost were invited into the group by their peers, including the Eccentric Shoot Them Later, GSV Limivorous, MSV Not Invented Here, Full Refund, and GCU Different Tan, with the MSV Not Invented Here being appointed Incident coordinator.[2] Being a major ship, such as a particularly large GSV, may also allow one to be invited into such a group as a matter of course or provide leverage to demand admittance into the group.[4]
Specialist Agencies Prompt Response Committee[]
The Specialist Agencies Prompt Response Committee (SAPRC) was a type of Mind Incident Group. Unlike a typical Incident Group, the SAPRC was not ad hoc and were apparently a standing committee, with representatives from the four largest specialist sections of Contact: Special Circumstances, Numina, Restoria, and Quietus.[5] In addition, they appeared to be multiple levels of SAPRC, with the least influential appearing to be a local chapter, and presumably higher level SAPRCs existing.
Known Mind Incident Groups[]
Interesting Times Gang[]
- Main article: Interesting Times Gang
The Interesting Times Gang coordinated the response to the Excession.
Sichultian Incident SAPRC[]
During the Sichultian Incident, members of the local SAPRC gathered to coordinate and oversee a response. However, the group appeared to be less effective and coordinated than previous Incident Groups as they openly bickered with each other and did not coordinate with all major stakeholders as previous groups did. This could possibly be because they were members of different agencies and thus lacked the relationships and trust that the members in previous Incident Groups commanded.
- Beastly To The Animals (Restoria, appearing as thin-looking humanoid)
- Dressed Up To Party (Unaffiliated, appearing as orange-red cloud)
- Fixed Grin (Numina, appearing as avatar with silvery skin)
- Labtebricolephile (Unaffiliated, appearing as ventriloquist dummy)
- Scar Glamour (SC, appearing as a blue bird)
- Zaive (Quietus, appearing as a chandalier)
Gizilt Incident Group[]
- GSV Contents May Differ (Incident Coordinator)
- LOU Caconym
- GCU Displacement Activity
- GSV Empiricist
- GSV Just The Washing Instruction Chip In Life’s Rich Tapestry
- Ue Mistake Not...
- MSV Passing By And Thought I’d Drop In
- MSV Pressure Drop
- LSV You Call This Clean?
References[]
- ↑ Matter, Chapter 5
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Excession, Part 3, Chapter IV
- ↑ The Hydrogen Sonata, Chapter 16
- ↑ The Hydrogen Sonata, Chapter 11
- ↑ Surface Detail, Chapter 26
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