wevets:
Not in the sense of Earth/Revelations apocalypse, but in the sense that the civilization within that solar system has experienced a number of devastating wars, some of which apparently left vast tracts of the planet uninhabited (possibly uninhabitable?) and wiped out enough of the people/institutions that various technologies and histories were lost.
I’m not an astronomer, but it seems plausible to me that stars could be expelled from galaxies, and since we seem to be finding lots of exoplanets, there is a likelihood that such expelled stars would have planetary systems.
Interesting, thanks.
Baron_Greenback:
Missed this thread at the time.
There are some hints in Excession that given access to a very, very young Universe, you can manipulate the settings, so to speak, as you see fit. Perhaps the entities that are migrating via the Excession are going to a groovy designer Universe. A physical implementation of some crazy Infinite Fun Space concept? The Sublimed are still confined to our rather mundane Universe, after all.
Thats an interesting thought, I did wonder what could be better than Subliming which seems to be pretty much depicted as as much of a Heaven that would be possible in the Culture universe.
Evil_Captor:
I think the notion of the Culture hanging on forever because of its anarchic nature has a lot to recommend it. It does not strike me that all of the Culture will ever be ready to Sublime at once. Their do-gooding with less advanced cultures ensures that there will always be chain of cultures going from primitive to Culture members, as the more advanced Culture members Sublime.
I really like that idea!