Given that the Culture are determined to 'enlighten' the less developed civilisations in the galaxy and bring them round to their way of thinking, while the Idirans are more concerned about converting everybody to their religion, war between the two was pretty much inevitable. The former are a pleasure-seeking post-Singularity Utopia who love sleek shiny technology and are ruled by their machines, while the latter are a Proud Warrior Race of Scary Dogmatic Aliens who utilise Boring, but Practical technology and are convinced A.I. Athens and Sparta: A galactic-scale version with the Culture versus the Idirans.Anti-Hero / Anti-Villain: Horza is the former in respect to the novel, but could be seen as the latter to the extent that the Culture itself is the protagonist of the series.Neither the Culture or the Idirans want to risk pissing them off.

Always a Bigger Fish: The Dra'Azon are a race of almost unfathomably powerful Energy Beings that care little for the physical galaxy besides preserving Ghost Planets as monuments to futility and destruction, including Schar's World.Yet, he still won't quit while he's behind. All for Nothing: Every damn escapade that Horza gets his team involved in ends in disaster.Interestingly, the novel is mostly told from the perspective of Bora Horza Gobuchul, a 'Changer', who sides with the Idirans and sees pretty much all of the Culture's signature aspects in a highly negative light.Ĭonsider Phlebas provides examples of the following tropes: It concerns the war between the Culture and the Idiran civilisation, an event whose repercussions affect all of the future novels in the series.

Iain banks consider phlebas