Idiran-Culture War - Overview

Overview

According to Banks' appendices to Consider Phlebas, the war began in 1327 AD, and continued for 48 years and one month, resulting in an eventual but total victory for the Culture.

The conflict was one of principles; the Culture went to war because the Idirans' fanatical imperial expansion, justified on religious grounds, threatened the Culture's "moral right to exist". As the Culture saw it, the Idirans' extending sphere of influence would prevent them from improving the lives of those in less-advanced societies, and thus would greatly curtail the Culture's sense of purpose. As is the case with all major decisions, the decision on the part of the Culture to go to war was through direct vote of the entire population. Academics who have analysed Bank's universe in comparison with real-world political thought have remarked that the decision of the Culture to go to war was a moral choice, rather than one of necessity, as the Culture could have easily avoided war.

The Idirans' decision to go to war is described as being founded in their philosophical, moral and religious distaste for the almost symbiotic nature of the Culture and the threat that their artificial intelligences were considered to be posing to the primacy and significance of biological life in the universe. Such fears were also found in many of those who supported the Idiran side during the war, as exemplified by Horza, the protagonist in Consider Phlebas.

As Horza, a mercenary for the Idirans observes: "the conflict was inevitable"; the Idirans would not halt their expansion, because their faith wouldn't allow it; the Culture was so ill-defined, having no borders or laws, that it would also have grown ceaselessly. The two cultures would have been unlikely to forge a peaceful co-existence.