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A comment on The Culture War: Iain M. Banks’s Billionaire Fans. Parent comment

Re:The Culture War: Iain M. Banks’s Billionaire Fans by mkl on Wednesday January 27, 2021 @04:30AM (#25926073)
They are Rings but smaller. Culture Rings are like Niven's Ringworld, and go all the way around a star, spinning around the star to simulate gravity. Culture orbitals are also ring-shaped and spinning to simulate gravity, but they're nowhere near as big (relatively speaking; still more surface area than Earth), and generally orbit a star more like a planet does. Culture Spheres are Dyson spheres.
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Re:The Culture War: Iain M. Banks’s Billionaire Fans by arethuza on Wednesday January 27, 2021 @04:56AM (#25926249)
The size of an Orbital is dictated by day length and surface "gravity" - they are arguably more elegant than Niven style Rings which need a lot of extra stuff to generate day/night cycles (shadow squares?).
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Re:The Culture War: Iain M. Banks’s Billionaire Fans by mkl on Wednesday January 27, 2021 @05:52AM (#25926637)
Yes. One book (The Player of Games?) gave enough numbers for me to do the calculations, and it matched about 24h and 1g.
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Re:The Culture War: Iain M. Banks’s Billionaire Fans by simonh on Wednesday January 27, 2021 @04:46AM (#25926181)
I don't think the Culture builds rings or spheres themselves, but they exist and they are aware of them. There are civilizations in the galaxy considerably more advanced than the Culture.
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Re:The Culture War: Iain M. Banks’s Billionaire Fans by dodobirdlord on Wednesday January 27, 2021 @05:40AM (#25926546)
I believe the Culture is credited as having creating the ring in Consider Phlebas.
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Re:The Culture War: Iain M. Banks’s Billionaire Fans by mkl on Wednesday January 27, 2021 @05:49AM (#25926611)
Do you mean Vavatch, that was scheduled for destruction? That was Culture, but an Orbital.
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Re:The Culture War: Iain M. Banks’s Billionaire Fans by arethuza on Wednesday January 27, 2021 @06:43AM (#25927048)
Vavatch was destroyed by a militarised Culture GSV but it wasn't "owned" by the Culture.
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Re:The Culture War: Iain M. Banks’s Billionaire Fans by p_l on Wednesday January 27, 2021 @07:51AM (#25927588)
Vavatch was, IIRC (I'd have to search through) built by Culture, but since then ceded, similarly the ships that helped evacuate it
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