Excession

Also, by custom, as described in Excession, any artifact (be it a tool or vessel) above a certain capability level has to be given sentience.

Character traits like strong shyness, while very rare, are not fully unknown, as shown in Excession.

Consider Phlebas In Excession, an overwhelmingly more powerful individual from an extremely advanced civilization is simply passing through on its way from one plane of the physical Reality to another, and there is no real interaction.

Excession These hyperspace engines do not use reaction mass and hence do not need to be mounted on the surface of the ship.

In a 2002 interview with Science Fiction Weekly magazine, when asked: Excession is particularly popular because of its copious detail concerning the Ships and Minds of the Culture, its great AIs: their outrageous names, their dangerous senses of humour.

In Excession, a sub-group of Minds conspires to provoke a war with the extremely sadistic Affront, although the conspiracy is foiled by a GSV that is a deep cover Special Circumstances agent.

Internal affairs Choniates criticised Manuel for raising taxes and pointed to Manuel's reign as a period of excession; according to Choniates, the money thus raised was spent lavishly at the cost of his citizens.

Minds generally refrain from using their all-seeing capabilities to influence people's reputations, though they are not necessarily themselves above judging people based on such observations, as described in Excession.

Rocks do not play a large part in most of the Culture stories, though their use as storage for mothballed military ships (Pittance) and habitats (Phage Rock, one of the founding communities of the Culture) are both key plot points in Excession.

Some drones are also designed as utility equipment with its own sentience, such as the gelfield protective suit described in Excession.