Ship Types of The Culture - Systems Vehicles

Systems Vehicles

A Systems Vehicle represents the full spectrum of the Culture's capabilities, since it can access all of the information known by the Culture and can make anything that the Culture can make. Systems Vehicles are enormously magnified von Neumann probes, as their essential components are engines, multi-purpose factories and Minds (advanced artificial intelligences). With these capabilities a Systems Vehicle can function as anything its Mind(s) and the Culture choose. The most common and most visible functions are:

• the principal habitats of many members of the Culture, with populations in the millions or billions. Much of the Culture's organic population lives in Systems Vehicles. The inhabitants have limited say in the running of the Systems Vehicle but can easily transfer to another Systems Vehicle or to a Rock or Orbital whose Mind's preferences are more compatible with their own.

• shipyards and motherships for lesser space ships, including General Contact Units (see below).

• in crises groups of Systems Vehicles (assisted by some smaller ships, mainly General Contact Units) act as the nearest thing to a government that the anarchistic Culture ever has.

When the Culture got embroiled in its first major war (early in the series of Culture stories), at first it had no specialist warships and had to use Systems Vehicles (mainly General Systems Vehicles, the largest class) and General Contact Units for combat. This was a waste of the resources and capabilities invested in Systems Vehicles–although their size and manufacturing capacity makes them formidable and sometimes devastating opponents, the cost of losing such a vessel was considered too high to risk them in general conflicts.