analysing other, less advanced civilisations but — where the circumstances appeared to Contact to justify so doing — actually interfering (overtly or covertly) in the historical processes of those other cultures.
With a sort of apologetic smugness, Contact — and therefore the Culture — could prove statistically that such careful and benign use of 'the technology of compassion' (to use a phrase in vogue at the time) did work, in the sense that the techniques it had developed to influence a civilisation's progress did significantly improve the quality of life of its members, without harming that society as a whole by its very contact with a more advanced culture.
Faced with a religiously inspired society determined to extend its influence over every technologically inferior civilisation in its path regardless of either the initial toll of conquest or the subsequent attrition of occupation, Contact could either disengage and admit defeat — so giving the lie not simply to its own reason for existence but to the only justificatory action which allowed the pampered, self-consciously fortunate people of the Culture to enjoy their lives with a clear conscience — or it could fight. Having prepared and steeled itself (and popular opinion) through decades of the former, it resorted eventually, inevitably, like virtually any organism whose existence is threatened, to the latter.
For all the Culture's profoundly materialist and utilitarian outlook, the fact that Idir had no designs on any physical pan of the Culture itself was irrelevant. Indirectly, but definitely and mortally, the Culture
Despite all appearances to the contrary, the Culture, not the Idirans,
The Idirans were already at war, conquering the species they regarded as inferior and subjugating them in a primarily religious empire which was only incidentally a commercial one as well. It was clear to them from the start that their
The war, long before it was finally declared, was regarded by the Idiran high command as a continuation of the permanent hostilities demanded by theological and disciplinary colonisation, involving a quantitative and qualitative escalation of armed conflict of only a limited degree to cope with the relatively equivalent technological expertise of the Culture.
While the Idirans universally assumed that having made their point the people in the Culture would back down, a few of the Idiran policy-makers anticipated that, should the Culture prove as determined as a 'worst possible' scenario projected, a politically judicious settlement might be arrived at which would save face and have advantages for both sides. This would involve a pact or treaty in which the Idirans would effectively agree to slow or limit their expansion for a time, thus allowing the Culture to claim some — but not too much — success, and provide the Idirans with (a) a religiously justifiable excuse for consolidation which would both let the Idiran military machine draw breath and cut the ground from beneath those Idirans who objected to the rate and cruelty of Idiran expansion, and (b) a further reason for an increase in military expenditure, to guarantee that in the next confrontation the Culture, or any other opponent, could be decisively out-armed and destroyed. Only the most fervent and fanatical sections of Idiran society urged or even contemplated a war to the finish, and even so merely counselled continuing the fight against the Culture after and despite the back-down and attempt to sue for peace which they too believed the Culture must inevitably make.
Having drawn up these «no-lose» formulations of the likely course of events, the Idirans joined battle with the Culture without qualm or hesitation.
At worst, they perhaps considered that the war was being begun in an atmosphere of mutual incomprehension. They could not have envisaged that while they were understood almost too perfectly by their enemy, they had comprehensively misapprehended the forces of belief, need — even fear — and morale operating within the Culture.
The first Idiran-Culture dispute occurred in 1267 AD; the second in 1288; in 1289 the Culture built its first genuine warship for five centuries, in prototype form only (the official excuse was that the generations of Mind- generated warship models the Culture had kept in development had evolved so far from the last warcraft actually built that it was necessary to test the match of theory and practice). In 1307 the third dispute resulted in (machine) fatalities. War was publicly discussed in the Culture as a likelihood for the first time. In 1310 the Peace section of the Culture split from the majority population, while the Anchramin Pit Conference resulted in the agreed withdrawal of forces (a move which the more short-sighted Idirans and Culture citizens respectively condemned and acclaimed).
The fourth dispute began in 1323 and continued (with the Culture using proxy forces) until 1327, when the war officially began and Culture craft and personnel were directly involved. The Culture's War Council of 1326 resulted in several other parts of the Culture splitting away, renouncing the use of violence under any circumstances.
The Idiran-Culture War Conduct Agreement was ratified in 1327. In 1332 the Homomda joined the war on the Idiran side. The Homomda — another tripedal species of greater galactic maturity than either the Culture or the Idirans — had sheltered the Idirans who had made up Holy Remnants during the Second Great Exile (1345-991 BC) following the Skankatrian-Idiran war. The Remnants and their descendants became the Homomdans' most trusted crack ground-troops, and following the Idirans' surprise return and retaking of Idir in 990 BC, the two tripedal species continued to co-operate, on terms that came closer to equality as Idiran power increased.
The Homomda joined with the Idirans because they distrusted the growing power of the Culture (they were far from alone in having this feeling, though unique in acting on it overtly). While having relatively few disagreements with the humans, and none of them serious, it had been Homomdan policy for many tens of thousands of years to attempt to prevent anyone group in the galaxy (on their technological level) from becoming over-strong, a point they decided the Culture was then approaching. The Homomda at no point devoted all their resources to the Idiran cause; they used part of their powerful and efficient space fleet to fill the gaps of quality left in the Idiran navy. It was made clear to the Culture that if the humans attacked Homomdan home planets, only then would the war become total (indeed, limited diplomatic and cultural relations were maintained, and some trade continued, between the Homomda and the Culture throughout the war).
Miscalculations: the Idirans thought they could win alone, and so with Homomdan support assumed they would be invincible; the Homomda thought their influence would tip the balance in the Idirans' favour (though would never have been prepared to risk their own future to defeat the Culture anyway); and the Culture Minds had guessed that the Homomda would not join with the Idirans; calculations concerning the war's duration, cost and benefits had been made on this assumption.
During the war's first phase, the Culture spent most of its time falling back from the rapidly expanding Idiran sphere, completing its war-production change-over and building up its fleet of warships. For those first few years the war in space was effectively fought on the Culture side by its General Contact Units: not designed as warships, but sufficiently well armed and more than fast enough to be a match for the average Idiran ship. In addition, the Culture's field technology had always been ahead of the Idirans', giving the GCUs a decisive advantage in terms of damage avoidance and resistance. These differences to some extent reflected the two sides' general outlooks. To
