User:Winter's Tulpa/List of spacecraft in the Culture series

This is a list of spacecraft found in the Culture novels and short stories by Iain M. Banks. Most ships in this list are members of The Culture, the hybrid society featured in many of these novels. In this setting, each Culture ship, and some others, is also an artificial intelligence with a distinctive personality. Many of these ships are significant characters in the novels.

Naming

The machine intelligences called Minds (and, as a consequence, the Culture starships that they inhabit) usually bear names that do a little more than just identify them. The Minds choose their own names, and thus they usually express something about a particular Mind's attitude, character or aims in their personal life. Warship names are similar in retaining the whimsical nature, though the humour tends to be more cynical and threatening.

The classification of the ship types sometimes implies a degree of cultural embarrassment of the power they can potentially wield, for example their renaming of Demilitarised Rapid Offensive Units ((D)ROUs) as "Very Fast Pickets", whether or not they are actually "Demilitarised", while later the term "picket ship" is used to describe an Abominator-class General Offensive Unit, one of the most powerful front-line warship classes ever built by the Culture. "General Systems Vehicles" as a designation does not highlight the true potency of these craft, which could be hundreds of kilometres long.

Banks composed many of the Culture ships' names very carefully to express the attitude of the ship's Mind, and a few names contain puns where both meanings are appropriate to the ship's attitude. A few of the ship names, like variations on "gravitas", are also installments in running gags.

Some ships' names hint at their purpose, but in a way that is not clear until near the end of the book. For example, the Sleeper Service is a sleeper agent whose cover is storing people in suspended animation "sleeper service", and the Grey Area indulges in the (from the Culture's perspective) moral grey-area of reading the brains ("grey matter") of organic entities to root out historical genocidal acts.

Common ship types

Common ship types in the Culture series include:

Class	Acronym	Description
General Systems Vehicle	GSV	Mobile habitats and factory ships, largest and most capable Culture ship type. Build and host other ships, including smaller Systems Vehicles. May be home to billions of people. Some militarised and used as giant warships during the Idiran–Culture War. They are described in the books as holograms of the whole Culture, each one containing all the knowledge and productive capacity needed to reconstruct the civilization in case of catastrophe.
Medium Systems Vehicle	MSV	Smaller versions of the above. Sometimes former GSVs downgraded as larger GSV classes were developed.
Limited Systems Vehicle	LSV	Smaller versions of the above. Sometimes former GSVs or MSVs downgraded as larger GSV classes were developed.
General Contact Vehicle	GCV	Contact craft intermediate in size and function between Systems Vehicles and Contact Units. Capabilities include building other ships.
General Contact Unit	GCU	Standard Contact craft, used for exploration and for studying and interacting with other societies. Considerable combat capability, but less than dedicated warships. At the beginning of the Idiran–Culture War GCU craft were the primary offensive unit until Culture ship building moved to a war footing.
Limited Contact Unit	LCU	Smaller, less capable versions of the above.
Rapid Offensive Unit	ROU	Dedicated fast warships.
General Offensive Unit	GOU	Dedicated warships.
Limited Offensive Unit	LOU	Dedicated warships, smaller and less capable than GOUs and ROUs
Demilitarised ROU	(D)ROU	ROUs with main armament removed, used as courier ships.
Demilitarised GOU	(D)GOU	GOUs with main armament removed, used as courier ships.
Demilitarised LOU	(D)LOU	LOUs with main armament removed, used as courier ships.
Very Fast Picket	VFP	Synonym for (D)ROU.
Fast Picket	FP	Synonym for (D)GOU or (D)LOU.
Superlifter	SL	High-speed tugs, consisting largely of engine and used to accelerate or decelerate other ships. Some temporarily militarised as a stop-gap in the early stages of the Idiran–Culture War.

Novels

Consider Phlebas

Ships mentioned in Consider Phlebas include:

Civilisation	Ship Type	Name	Class	Comments
Culture	GSV	Bora Horza Gobuchul	Ocean, later Range	The name chosen by the Mind at the centre of the events of the book, after its rescue and emplacement in a GSV.
Culture	GSV	Determinist	System	The largest GSV class built by the Culture, composed of multiple separate hulls. Population 6 billion.
Culture	GSV	Eschatologist (temporary name)	Ocean	A comparatively small GSV class, designed for combat and military manufacturing.
Culture	GSV	Irregular Apocalypse
Culture	GSV	No More Mr Nice Guy
Culture	LSV	Profit Margin
Culture	GCU	Nervous Energy	Mountain
Culture	GCU	Prosthetic Conscience
Culture	ROU	Revisionist	Killer
Culture	ROU	Trade Surplus	Killer
Culture Ulterior	GSV	The Ends Of Invention		Officially discharged from Culture service, with its Mind/s removed, and employed as a neutral vessel to evacuate Vavatch Orbital.
Idiran	Light Cruiser	The Hand of God 137
Non-aligned (Ex-Hronish)	Armoured assault	Clear Air Turbulence or "CAT" for short		A pirate ship, and one of the main settings of the book. Named by the author after the rock album Clear Air Turbulence by the Ian Gillan Band, the cover of which shows a yellow-striped spacecraft painted by the sci-fi artist Chris Foss. The Clear Air Turbulence in the book is also described as having yellow stripes on its hull.
Non-aligned		Control Surface		Third ship of Ghalssel's Raiders, commanded by Jandraligeli, a former member of Kraiklyn's Free Company. This ship is mentioned only in the book's appendices.

The Player of Games

Ships mentioned in The Player of Games include:

Civilisation	Ship Type	Name	Class	Comments
Culture	GSV	Cargo Cult
Culture	GSV	Little Rascal	Plate	Focused on 'throughput' (ship construction and crewing), rather than accommodation. Population 250 million. Plate class hull dimensions 53 km × 22 km × 4 km (32.9 mi × 13.7 mi × 2.5 mi). The Deep Submersible Support Vessel (DSSV) Pressure Drop, the expedition support ship of the Five Deeps Expedition led by Victor Vescovo, has a utility boat on it called the Little Rascal. Similar to its namesake, the small vessel is designed to provide frequent crew-support missions and provisioning runs for the main ship.
Culture	GSV	So Much For Subtlety	Range
Culture	GSV	Unfortunate Conflict Of Evidence
Culture	GSV	Youthful Indiscretion
Culture	GCU	Flexible Demeanour
Culture	GCU	Just Read The Instructions		Elon Musk named three SpaceX autonomous spaceport drone ships after these ships.
Culture	GCU	Of Course I Still Love You
Culture	(D)ROU	Zealot
Culture	(D)GOU	Limiting Factor	Murderer	Jernau Morat Gurgeh's ship to Empire of Azad. Nominally demilitarised, but actually retains part of its main armament. Victor Vescovo, an American deep-sea explorer, named the deep diving submersible DSV Limiting Factor after this ship.
Culture	LOU	Gunboat Diplomat		An allusion to the concept of gunboat diplomacy.
Culture	Superlifter	Kiss My Ass	River
Culture	Superlifter	Prime Mover		An allusion to the Aristotelian philosophical concept of the prime mover, in humorous reference to the function of a Superlifter.
Culture	Clipper	Screw Loose
Azadian	Battlecruiser	Invincible		Flagship of the Empire of Azad.

The State of the Art

Most of the Culture ship names in this collection come from the titles of the chapters in the titular novella. The narrator explains that it has used the names of ships produced by a manufactory of the Yinang Orbitals of the Dahass-Khree, birthplace of the Arbitrary and known for ships that are "a bit crazy."

Ships mentioned in The State of the Art include:

Civilisation	Ship Type	Name	Class	Comments
Culture	GSV	Bad For Business
Culture	GCU	Ablation*
Culture	GCU	Arbitrary	Escarpment (middle series)	The only ship actually appearing in the book, and one of its main settings.
Culture	GCU	Arrested Development*
Culture	GCU	A Series Of Unlikely Explanations
Culture	GCU	A Ship With A View*
Culture	GCU	Big Sexy Beast
Culture	GCU	Boo!
Culture	GCU	Cantankerous
Culture	GCU	Credibility Problem*
Culture	GCU	Dramatic Exit*
Culture	GCU	Excuses And Accusations*
Culture	GCU	Funny, It Worked Last Time...
Culture	GCU	God Told Me To Do It*
Culture	GCU	Halation Effect*
Culture	GCU	Happy Idiot Talk*
Culture	GCU	Helpless In The Face Of Your Beauty*
Culture	GCU	Heresiarch*
Culture	GCU	I Thought He Was With You
Culture	GCU	It'll Be Over By Christmas
Culture	GCU	Just Another Victim Of The Ambient Morality*
Culture	GCU	Minority Report*
Culture	GCU	Never Talk To Strangers
Culture	GCU	Not Wanted On Voyage*
Culture	GCU	Only Slightly Bent
Culture	GCU	Perfidy*
Culture	GCU	Sacrificial Victim*
Culture	GCU	Space Monster
Culture	GCU	Stranger Here Myself*
Culture	GCU	Synchronize Your Dogmas*
Culture	GCU	Thank You And Goodnight*
Culture	GCU	The Precise Nature Of The Catastrophe*
Culture	GCU	Ultimate Ship The Second
Culture	GCU	Undesirable Alien*
Culture	GCU	Unwitting Accomplice*
Culture	GCU	Well I Was In The Neighbourhood*
Culture	GCU	You'll Thank Me Later*
Culture	GCU	You Would If You Really Loved Me*

*Names mentioned in the chapter names of the title novella only. All of them belong to ships produced by the Infracaninophile manufactury in Yinang Orbital.

Use of Weapons

Ships mentioned in Use of Weapons include:

Civilisation	Ship Type	Name	Class	Comments
Culture	GSV	Congenital Optimist
Culture	GSV	Size Isn't Everything		Length of over 80 kilometers. Parent ship of the Sweet and Full of Grace.
Culture	GSV	What Are The Civilian Applications?	Continent	Limited edition Prompt subclass. Can outrun a Very Fast Picket.
Culture	GCU	Just Testing
Culture	GCU	Sweet and Full of Grace		Child ship of the Size Isn't Everything. Unusual insofar as being the only Culture ship mentioned in the series to not have its name in start case.
Culture	GCU	Very Little Gravitas Indeed		Part of the "... Gravitas ..." running gag.
Culture	VFP/(D)ROU	Xenophobe	Torturer

Excession

Ships mentioned in Excession include:

Civilisation	Ship Type	Name	Class	Comments
Culture	GSV	Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The	Plate
Culture	GSV	Death And Gravity		Its name is a play on the adage that only death and taxes are inevitable; "taxes" are replaced with gravity, since the Culture doesn't have taxes (or money).
Culture	GSV	Ethics Gradient	Range	Parent ship of the Fate Amenable To Change. References ethical relativism, where no moral position is absolute.
Culture	GSV	Honest Mistake		Parent ship of the Grey Area.
Culture	GSV	Limivorous	Ocean	"of or relating to animals, usually worms or bivalves, that ingest earth or mud to extract the organic matter from it." Unflattering view of non-Mind entities if this is how it sees its relationship with the ship's organic complement. Or, if the initial element is derived from Latin limen, a boundary, a Mind that consumes (intellectual or physical) boundaries, a name reflecting its metaphysical concerns.
Culture	GSV	Uninvited Guest
Culture	GSV	Use Psychology
Culture	GSV	What Is The Answer And Why?
Culture	GSV	Wisdom Like Silence	Continent	Controlled by three Minds.
Culture	GSV	Yawning Angel	Range	Top speed, 146,000 × light-speed.
Culture	GSV	Zero Gravitas		Part of the "... Gravitas ..." running gag.
Culture	MSV	Not Invented Here	Desert	The Desert class was originally a GSV class that was demoted to MSV as Culture ship sizes grew. The Not Invented Here is usually termed an MSV, but is also referred to as an actual GSV twice (Genar-Hofoen is told that the NIH was a GSV by Tishlin, and he subsequently refers to it as a GSV even after knowing that it is now an MSV), while towards the end of the book it is referred to as an LSV by the Sleeper Service and in authorial narration. Accounts of its history are also contradictory: at one point, characters indicate that the NIH is generally believed (even within Special Circumstances) to have been destroyed five centuries earlier; at another, the narration states that it has always remained an apparently normal part of the Culture, with a very well-documented past.
Culture	LSV	Misophist		A Sophist is "a person who reasons with clever but false arguments." A Misophist is presumably someone who dislikes sophists.
Culture	LSV	Serious Callers Only	Tundra
Culture	GCV	Steely Glint	Plains	Parent ship of the Attitude Adjuster.
Culture	GCU	Different Tan	Mountain
Culture	GCU	Fate Amenable To Change	Escarpment	Child ship of the Ethics Gradient.
Culture	GCU	Grey Area (aka Meatfucker)		Ostracised for non-consensual mindreading of biological individuals, earning it the condemnation of other ships, who then ignored its chosen name in favor of Meatfucker. Child ship of the Honest Mistake. Also mentioned in Look to Windward.
Culture	GCU	It's Character Forming
Culture	GCU	Jaundiced Outlook	Ridge	Child ship of the Sleeper Service.
Culture	GCU	Problem Child	Troubadour	Early (vs Excession-contemporary) GCU, historical mention. Nominally captained by Zreyn Tramow.
Culture	GCU	Reasonable Excuse
Culture	GCU	Recent Convert
Culture	GCU	Tactical Grace	Escarpment
Culture	GCU	Unacceptable Behaviour		Child ship of the Quietly Confident (Sleeper Service).
Culture	LOU	Attitude Adjuster	Killer	Nominally demilitarised, but in fact a fully armed warship. Child ship of the Steely Glint. Class possibly downgraded from ROU (designated as such in Consider Phlebas, set five centuries earlier).
Culture	ROU	Heavy Messing	Gangster	An allusion to a term from Glaswegian, or from Ned-ese. Generally if one is said to be "heavy messing" they are considered by an aggrieved party to be interfering or aggravating a situation in which they have little to no stake in.
Culture	ROU	Killing Time	Torturer	A pun on a saying that 99% of war is just killing time, while the rest is the killing time.
Culture	ROU	Frank Exchange Of Views	Psychopath	Nominally demilitarised, but in fact a fully armed warship. References the diplomatic language commonly used to describe a blazing argument.
Culture	OU	T3OU 4	Type Three	Non-standard design, based on Inquisitor-class prototype. Child ships of the Sleeper Service. Controlled by semi-slaved AIs rather than independent Minds.
Culture	OU	T3OU 118	Type Three
Culture	OU	T3OU 736	Type Three
Culture	Superlifter	Charitable View	Cliff	Top sprint speed, 221,000 × light-speed (faster than contemporary ROUs).
Culture	Cruise Ship	Just Passing Through
Culture		I Blame My Mother
Culture		I Blame Your Mother
Culture Convertcraft	Main Battle Unit	Full Refund (formerly MBU 604)	Empire	Former Homomdan MBU, now Culture Convertcraft
Culture Eccentric	GSV	Quietly Confident, later Sleeper Service	Plate	Acts as a storage ship for biological persons in stasis. The name Sleeper Service is a pun on sleeping car (transport) and sleeper agent (espionage). It also secretly converts itself to be "mostly engine" so it can move unexpectedly quickly - a parallel to sleeper cars (racing). Standard Plate class top cruising speed is 104,000 × light-speed, increased by these modifications to 233,500. Originally controlled by three Minds, two of which were removed when the other became Eccentric. Parent ship of the Unacceptable Behaviour, Jaundiced Outlook, T3OU 4, T3OU 118 and T3OU 736.
Culture Sabbaticaler	GSV	No Fixed Abode	Ex-Equator	No fixed abode is a legal term for someone without a fixed address, such as a homeless person. Its name is an observation on itself as a moving starship inherently has no fixed abode.
Culture Ulterior		Highpoint		Possibly not a ship (described only as an "Ulterior Entity").
Culture Ulterior (AhForgetIt Tendency), Eccentric		Shoot Them Later
Culture Ulterior (Zetetic Elench)	Explorer Ship	Appeal To Reason		Part of the Stargazer Clan.
Culture Ulterior (Zetetic Elench)	Explorer Ship	Break Even
Culture Ulterior (Zetetic Elench)	Explorer Ship	Long View
Culture Ulterior (Zetetic Elench)	Explorer Ship	Peace Makes Plenty
Culture Ulterior (Zetetic Elench)	Explorer Ship	Sober Counsel
Culture Ulterior (Zetetic Elench)	Explorer Ship	Within Reason
Affront		Frightspear
Affront	Light Cruiser	Furious Purpose	Meteorite
Affront		Kiss The Blade
Affront		Riptalon
Affront		SacSlicer II
Affront		Wingclipper
Affront	Battleship	Xenoclast

Look to Windward

Most of the Culture ship names in Look to Windward are only mentioned in a humorous conversation about ship names in Chapter 11, Absence of Gravitas, and do not represent characters in the novel.

Ships mentioned in Look to Windward include:

Civilisation	Ship Type	Name	Class	Comments
Culture	GSV	Experiencing A Significant Gravitas Shortfall	Equator	Part of the "... Gravitas ..." running gag. A GCU of the same name is mentioned in Matter. SpaceX's fourth drone ship is named A Shortfall of Gravitas, in reference to this ship.
Culture	GSV	Lasting Damage		A GSV built for combat on the eve of the Idiran-Culture War. After it was destroyed in battle, a recorded copy of its mind-state was embodied in a new Mind and incorporated into another GSV of the same class. Its original Mind was later found to have survived the ship's destruction, and was also incorporated into a new combat GSV.
Culture	GSV	Lasting Damage I		The second ship incorporating the original Lasting Damage Mind, which had been assumed destroyed but eventually returned. This second ship was later itself destroyed, but its Mind again survived, and merged with the recorded mind-state of the Lasting Damage II, which was also destroyed, including its Mind, in the same battle. It became the Hub Mind of Masaq' Orbital.
Culture	GSV	Lasting Damage II		The ship incorporating the backup copy Mind of the Lasting Damage.
Culture	GSV	Sanctioned Parts List
Culture	GCU	Grey Area (aka Meatfucker)		Featured in Excession; mentioned here only as an illustration of the Culture's disapproval of machines reading the minds of biological individuals, an activity which led other Minds to disregard its chosen name in favour of the name Meatfucker.
Culture	ROU	Nuisance Value	Torturer
Culture	VFP/(D)ROU	Resistance Is Character-Forming	Gangster
Culture	Superlifter	Vulgarian
Culture		Someone Else's Problem†		Possible reference to the "SEP field", a type of cloaking device featured in the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Tertiary phase) which caused people to simply ignore what it was protecting, rather than actually making it invisible.
Culture		Lacking That Small Match Temperament†
Culture	GCU	Poke It With A Stick†
Culture	OU	I Said, I've Got A Big Stick†		The small print (spoken softly) is an allusion to the saying "Speak softly and carry a big stick."
Culture		Hand Me The Gun And Ask Me Again†
Culture		But Who's Counting?†		LOU Me, I'm Counting provides the answer.
Culture		Germane Riposte†
Culture		We Haven't Met But You're A Great Fan Of Mine†
Culture		All The Same, I Saw It First†
Culture		Ravished By The Sheer Implausibility Of That Last Statement†
Culture		Zero Credibility†
Culture		Charming But Irrational†
Culture		Demented But Determined†
Culture		You May Not Be The Coolest Person Here†
Culture		Lucid Nonsense†
Culture		Awkward Customer†
Culture		Thorough But... Unreliable†
Culture		Advanced Case Of Chronic Patheticism†
Culture		Another Fine Product From The Nonsense Factory†
Culture		Conventional Wisdom†
Culture		In One Ear†		Part of the expression "in one ear and out the other".
Culture		Fine Till You Came Along†
Culture		I Blame The Parents†
Culture		Inappropriate Response†
Culture		A Momentary Lapse Of Sanity†
Culture		Lapsed Pacifist†
Culture		Reformed Nice Guy†
Culture		Pride Comes Before A Fall†
Culture		Injury Time†		A play on the sporting term "injury time" (i.e. time added on at the end of a match to make up for stoppages required to deal with injuries to players) and a notional appropriate time to inflict an injury (see also Killing Time).
Culture		Now Look What You've Made Me Do†
Culture		Kiss This Then†
Chelgrian	Privateer	Winter Storm
Chelgrian	Temple ship	Piety
Chelgrian	Temple ship	Soulhaven

^†Names mentioned in a humorous conversation about various Culture ships in Chapter 11 of the novel.

Matter

Ships mentioned in Matter include:

Civilisation	Ship Type	Name	Class	Comments
Culture	GSV	Seed Drill	Ocean
Culture	MSV	Don't Try This At Home	Steppe
Culture	LSV	Xenoglossicist	Air
Culture	GCV	Subtle Shift In Emphasis	Plains
Culture	GCU	Experiencing A Significant Gravitas Shortfall		Part of the "... Gravitas ..." running gag. A GSV of the same name is mentioned in Look to Windward. SpaceX's fourth drone ship is named A Shortfall of Gravitas, in reference to this ship.
Culture	GCU	It's My Party And I'll Sing If I Want To	Escarpment	Allusion to the song It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to.
Culture	GCU	Lightly Seared On The Reality Grill
Culture	GCU	Pure Big Mad Boat Man		An inside joke based upon the language of Ned (Scottish) culture. It would be read/heard as "a pure big, mad boat, man" roughly meaning "a very large and deadly serious boat my good man".
Culture	GCU	Qualifier	Trench
Culture	GCU	Transient Atmospheric Phenomenon		Transient Atmospheric Phenomenon has been suggested as an alternative name for a UFO
Culture	GCU	You Naughty Monsters
Culture	FP/(D)GOU	Eight Rounds Rapid	Delinquent
Culture	VFP/(D)ROU	You'll Clean That Up Before You Leave	Gangster
Culture		Now We Try It My Way	Erratic	An ancient ship, originally an Interstellar-class ship of the now-obsolete General Transport Craft type.
Culture Ulterior	Superlifter (ex‑GCU), militarised	Liveware Problem	Stream (modified Delta-class GCU)	Militarised during the Idiran War and nominally absconded after the conflict, probably for the purpose of acting as a deniable Special Circumstances operative. The phrase is a joke among computer engineers, suggesting that the problem lies with the user. The Deep Submersible Support Vessel (DSSV) Pressure Drop, the expedition support ship of the Five Deeps Expedition led by Victor Vescovo, has a rescue boat on it called the "Liveware Problem." The inside joke according to the crew is that if the ship was ever sinking and the ship had to use the boat, it would probably be because of a "liveware problem."
Morthanveld	Cat.3 SlimHull	“Now, Turning to Reason, & its Just Sweetness”		The book's appendix capitalises the first letter of 'its', contrary to the two times the ship is named in the text.
Morthanveld	Cat.4 CleaveHull	“On First Seeing Jhiriit”		This ship is not mentioned in the story itself, only in the book's appendix.
Morthanveld	Cat.5 SwellHull	“Fasilyce, Upon Waking”
Morthanveld	Great Ship	Inspiral, Coalescence, Ringdown		Comparable to a GSV; the name refers to stages in the merger of two black holes.
Nariscene	Star Cruiser	Hence the Fortress	Comet
Nariscene		Hundredth Idiot, The	White Dwarf	Name derived from a Nariscene proverb.

Surface Detail

Ships mentioned in Surface Detail include:

Civilisation	Ship Type	Name	Class	Comments
Culture	GSV	Dressed Up To Party
Culture	GSV	Pelagian	Equator
Culture	GSV	Sense Amid Madness, Wit Amidst Folly	Plate
Culture	GSV	Total Internal Reflection		One of the "Forgotten"/"Oubliettionaries": Systems Vehicles remaining indefinitely in secretive isolation, tasked with recreating the Culture in the event of its destruction.
Culture	GCU	Armchair Traveller	Mountain
Culture	GCU	Bodhisattva, OAQS	Escarpment	Part of Contact's Quietudinal Service (Quietus). Quietus ships added letters OAQS - On Active Quietudinal Service - to their names while they were so employed.
Culture	GOU/PS	Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints	Abominator	Class publicly categorised as Picket Ship, to give the impression that they are equivalent in function to FPs and VFPs; in fact these are state-of-the-art warships, the most powerful to appear in the series.
Culture	FP/(D)GOU	No One Knows What The Dead Think		Formerly known as the GOU Obliterating Angel.
Culture	FP/(D)LOU	Hylozoist	Killer	Class possibly downgraded from ROU (designated as such in Consider Phlebas, set fifteen centuries earlier). Name alludes to Hylozoism.
Culture	FP/(D)ROU	The Usual But Etymologically Unsatisfactory	Psychopath	Class possibly downgraded from VFP (designated as such in Excession, set ten centuries earlier, and in The Hydrogen Sonata, set five centuries earlier).
Culture		Beastly To The Animals
Culture		Fixed Grin
Culture		Hidden Income		Type not mentioned in novel, but possibly General Transport Craft (see Matter).
Culture		Scar Glamour
Culture Eccentric		Labtebricolephile		This name appears to be derived from a misspelling of 'latebricole' (the misspelling in question likely originating from Stephen Chrisomalis's website "The Phrontistery"), which is an adjective meaning "living concealed in a hole".
Culture Ulterior, Eccentric	FP/(D)LOU	Me, I'm Counting	Hooligan	Another ship in the Culture is called But Who's Counting?.
GFCF	Contact Craft	Messenger Of Truth	Succour
GFCF	Minor Destructor Vessel	Fractious Person
GFCF	Minor Destructor Vessel	Rubric Of Ruin
GFCF		Abundance Of Onslaught	Deepest Regrets	Deepest Regrets-class ships are capital ships and the pride of the GFCF fleet.
GFCF		Vision Of Hope Surpassed	Deepest Regrets
GFCF	GOU	Joiler Veppers (provisional name)	Murderer (modified)	Based on the Culture's obsolete Murderer-class GOU, with upgraded speed and modified weaponry, built by the GFCF as a bribe for the Sichultian plutocrat Joiler Veppers.
Jhlupian	Heavy Cruiser	Ucalegon		Ucalegon means "a neighbor whose house is on fire". Ucalegon is also the name of a non-sentient Culture barge on Masaq' Orbital in Look to Windward.
Nauptre Reliquaria	Bismuth Category	8401.00 Partial Photic Boundary

The Hydrogen Sonata

Ships mentioned in The Hydrogen Sonata include:

Civilisation	Ship Type	Name	Class	Comments
Culture	GSV	A Fine Disregard For Awkward Facts
Culture	GSV	Contents May Differ	Atmosphere
Culture	GSV	Empiricist	System	A big ship, even by the standards of System-class vessels, which are the largest built by the Culture (being composed of multiple separate hulls, ships of this class are easily expanded, leading to great variations in size). Controlled by seven Minds. Population over 13 billion.
Culture	GSV	Just The Washing Instruction Chip In Life's Rich Tapestry
Culture	GSV	Kakistocrat		Home GSV of Mistake Not… "Kakistocrat" is Ancient Greek, meaning "worst ruler", a humorous inversion of "aristocrat".
Culture	GSV	Teething Problems
Culture	GSV	Unreliable Witness		Parent ship of the Smile Tolerantly.
Culture	MSV	Passing By And Thought I'd Drop In	Desert
Culture	MSV	Pressure Drop	Shelf	Victor Vescovo, an American deep-sea explorer, named the expedition/mother ship of the deep diving submersible DSV Limiting Factor after this ship. The current DSSV (Deep Submersible Support Vessel) Pressure Drop was formerly the USNS Indomitable.
Culture	LSV	You Call This Clean?	Blue
Culture	GCU	Displacement Activity	River	Class name previously used for a Superlifter class in The Player of Games.
Culture	GCU	Warm, Considering	Delta
Culture	LCU	Anything Legal Considered	Ridge	Class possibly downgraded from GCU (designated as such in Excession, set five centuries earlier).
Culture	LCU	Beats Working	Scree	The smallest class of Contact Unit: 80m long, with a human crew of five.
Culture	GOU	Headcrash	Delinquent
Culture	GOU	Questionable Ethics
Culture	GOU	Xenocrat	Delinquent
Culture	LOU	Caconym	Troublemaker	Although categorised as LOUs, the Troublemaker class are referred to as "nominatively camouflaged", outclassing earlier GOUs. "Caconym" is Ancient Greek, meaning "bad name", probably in reference to the English idiom meaning "bad reputation".
Culture	LOU	New Toy
Culture	VFP/(D)LOU	Rapid Random Response Unit	Troublemaker
Culture	ROU	Learned Response		The Deep Submersible Support Vessel (DSSV) Pressure Drop, the expedition support ship of the Five Deeps Expedition led by Victor Vescovo, has a small, dual-outboard sea-control/support vessel called the "Learned Response."
Culture	VFP/(D)ROU	Outstanding Contribution To The Historical Process	Psychopath	Twice referred to as “Ex-Psychopath-class”
Culture	FP/(D)ROU	Refreshingly Unconcerned With The Vulgar Exigencies Of Veracity	Thug	Some confusion as to type: described as a demilitarised ROU, but also as an FP, a designation otherwise applied to demilitarised GOUs and LOUs, whereas demilitarised ROUs are VFPs. Also referred to as an ROU class in Excession, but in that book the Thug-class-based Type Five OUs are lower in the fleet hierarchy than the Type Four, based on the Killer class, which is described in the same book as an LOU, implying that the Thug class should also be LOUs.
Culture	FP/(D)ROU	Value Judgement	Thug	See above.
Culture	Superlifter	Zoologist	Boulder
Culture Eccentric	OU/e	Mistake Not…		A one-off design of indeterminate classification, whose capabilities remain secret but which is a highly capable warship. It identifies itself as Ue, for Unit (eccentric/erratic); less coyly designated in the book's appendix as OU/e. Its full name, which is a private joke amongst other Culture Minds and almost never used, is the Mistake Not My Current State Of Joshing Gentle Peevishness For The Awesome And Terrible Majesty Of The Towering Seas Of Ire That Are Themselves The Mere Milquetoast Shallows Fringing My Vast Oceans Of Wrath.
Culture-Zihdren-Remnanter hybrid	(ex-)GCU	Smile Tolerantly		Formerly an ancient GCU, has hybridised its Mind with the technology of another civilisation, the Zihdren-Remnanter, and describes itself as having "enhanced loyalties" (i.e. divided loyalties). Child ship of the Unreliable Witness.
Gzilt	IR-HAS cruiser	5*Gelish-Oplule		Indefinite Range, High Acceleration/Speed
Gzilt	IR-HVW battlecruiser	7*Uagren		Indefinite Range, High Velocity/Weapon-load
Gzilt	IR-FWS battleship	8*Churkun		Indefinite Range, Full Weapon Spectrum
Iwenick	Space-Capable Inter-Element Transportation Component	Iberre		Private yacht, named after the owner's father-mother.
Iwenick	Strategic Outreach Element	CH2OH.(CHOH)4.CHO		The chemical whose formulation is given in this name is galactose (here used as a pun on galaxy/galactic).
Liseiden	Collective Purposes Vessel	Abalule-Sheliz
Liseiden	Collective Purposes Vessel	Gellemtyan-Asool-Anafawaya	(First Class)	Flagship
Liseiden	Collective Purposes Vessel	Laskuil-Hliz
Liseiden	Collective Purposes Vessel	Quiatrea-Anang
Liseiden		Fulanya-Guang
Ronte		Melancholia Enshrines All Triumph	Interstitial/Exploratory
Zihdren-Remnanter	Adjunct Entity	Oceanic Dissonance
Zihdren-Remnanter	Ceremonial Representative Carrying Ship	Exaltation-Parsimony III

Further ships

The following ships have not appeared in any books, however they were named by Iain M Banks in an interview with The Guardian. These ships obtained their names as a result of another (unnamed) Involved civilisation criticizing Culture ship naming policy, claiming that such powerful ships ought to have names with a little more gravitas.

• Stood Far Back When The Gravitas Was Handed Out
• Gravitas, What Gravitas?
• Gravitas... Gravitas... No, Don't Help Me, I'll Get It In A Moment...
• Gravitas Free Zone
• Low Gravitas Warning Signal
• Absolutely No You-Know-What

Legacy

The autonomous spaceport drone ships Of Course I Still Love You, Just Read the Instructions 1 & 2, operated by SpaceX, were named after General Contact Units mentioned in The Player of Games, as a posthumous homage to Banks by Elon Musk. The construction of a fourth drone ship, named A Shortfall of Gravitas, was announced by Elon Musk via Twitter on February 12, 2018. It is named after the Experiencing A Significant Gravitas Shortfall, a ship mentioned in Look to Windward and Matter as a GSV and GCU respectively.

See also

• List of fictional spaceships

References

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Categories:

• The Culture
• Fictional spacecraft