As was the ever-vexing question, How do we know we’re not in a simulation? There” Whether these simulated beings were really really alive, and how justified it was to create entire populations of virtual creatures just for your own convenience under any circumstances, and whether or not – if/once you had done so – you were sort of duty-bound to be honest with your creations at some point and straight out tell them that they weren’t really real, and existed at the whim of another order of beings altogether – one with its metaphorical finger hovering over an Off switch capable of utterly and instantly obliterating their entire universe… well, these were all matters which by general and even relieved consent were best left to philosophers.

They either avoided creating virtual populations of genuinely living beings in the first place, or only used sims at that sophistication and level of detail on a sustainable basis, knowing from the start that they would be leaving them running indefinitely, with no intention of turning the environment and its inhabitants off at any point. The wretches hadn’t existed, they’d been brought into existence for a specific, contributory purpose, and now they were nothing again so what? Most people, though, were uncomfortable with such moral brusqueness, and took their responsibilities in the matter more seriously. It seems that the final days of the Gzilt civilization are likely to prove its most perilous.“Others reckoned that as long as the termination was instant, with no warning and therefore no chance that those about to be switched off could suffer, then it didn’t really matter. She must find the oldest person in the Culture, a man over nine thousand years old, who might have some idea what really happened all that time ago. Aided only by an ancient, reconditioned android and a suspicious Culture avatar, Cossont must complete her last mission given to her by the High Command. Lieutenant Commander (reserve) Vyr Cossont appears to have been involved, and she is now wanted - dead, not alive.

Now they've made the collective decision to follow the well-trodden path of millions of other civilizations they are going to Sublime, elevating themselves to a new and almost infinitely more rich and complex existence.Īmid preparations though, the Regimental High Command is destroyed. It is, truly, provably, the End Days for the Gzilt civilization.Īn ancient people, organized on military principles and yet almost perversely peaceful, the Gzilt helped set up the Culture ten thousand years earlier and were very nearly one of its founding societies, deciding not to join only at the last moment. The New York Times bestselling Culture novel.

The hydrogen sonata review