The war, briefly

The first Idiran-Culture dispute occurred in AD 1267; 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 cooperate, 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 any one 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’ favor (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 the Idirans a ship

was a way of getting from one planet to another, or

for defending planets. To the Culture a ship was an exercise in skill, almost a work of art.

The GCUs (and the warcraft which

gradually replaced them) were created with a combination of enthusiastic flair and machine-oriented

practicality the Idirans

had no answer to, even if the Culture craft themselves were never quite a match for the better Homomdan ships. For

those first

years, nevertheless, the GCUs were vastly outnumbered.

That opening stage also saw some of the war’s heaviest losses of life, when the Idirans surprise-attacked many war-irrelevant

Culture

Orbitals, occasionally producing billions of deaths at a time. As a shock tactic this failed. As a military strategy

it deflected even more

resources from the already stretched Idiran navy’s Main Battle Groups, which were experiencing great

difficulty in finding and successfully

attacking the distant Culture Orbitals, Rocks, factory craft and General Systems Vehicles

which were responsible for producing the Culture’s

matériel. At the same time, the Idirans were attempting to control the

vast volumes of space and the large numbers of usually reluctant and often

rebellious lesser civilizations the Culture’s retreat

had left at their mercy. In 1333 the War Conduct Agreement was amended to forbid the

destruction of populated, non-military

habitats, and the conflict continued in a marginally more restrained fashion until near the end.

The war entered its second phase in 1335. The Idirans were still struggling to consolidate their gains; the Culture was finally

on a war

footing. A period of protracted struggle ensued as the Culture struck deep into the Idiran sphere, and Idiran policy

oscillated between trying to

defend what they had and build up their strength, and mounting powerful but defense-weakening

expeditions into the rest of the galaxy,

attempting to inflict hoped-for body blows upon a foe which proved frustratingly

elusive. The Culture was able to use almost the entire galaxy to

hide in. Its whole existence was mobile in essence; even

Orbitals could be shifted, or simply abandoned, populations moved. The Idirans were

religiously committed to taking and holding

all they could; to maintaining frontiers, to securing planets and moons; above all, to keeping Idir

safe, at any price. Despite

Homomdan recommendations, the Idirans refused to fall back to more rational and easily defended volumes, or

even to discuss

peace.

The war toed-and-froed for over thirty years, with many battles, pauses, attempts to promote peace by outsiders and the Homomda,

great

campaigns, successes, failures, famous victories, tragic mistakes, heroic actions, and the taking and retaking of huge

volumes of space and

numbers of stellar systems.

After three decades, however, the Homomda had had enough. The Idirans made as intransigent allies as they had obedient mercenaries,

and the Culture ships were exacting too high a toll on the prized Homomdan space fleet. The Homomda requested and received

certain

guarantees from the Culture, and disengaged from the war.

From that point on, only the Idirans thought the eventual result much in question. The Culture had grown to enormous strength

during the