Quote Originally Posted by Water_Bear View Post
**Yes, yes, Minds aren't AI. Whatever. The IoM will not see such a nuanced distinction as significant in terms of wanting them gone.[/I]
It'd almost be hard to fault them is the ironic thing. The Minds have, after all, pretty immediately turned their attention to undermining the Imperium's sovreignty, imposing a puppet ruler, dismantling their religious organisations and generally remolding them as they see fit (and mostly because simply destroying the imperium would make them feel bad, I get the feeling that if they can't change the Imperium as they want they'd probably consider destroying it anyway). They also, via their post-singularity tech, hubris and complete lack of understanding the warp, potentially represent a galaxy ending threat if Chaos ever got hold of their stuff, which has come close once or twice.

All of which is undoubtedly more benevalent than the actions of the Iron Men, who sound like they were more generally opposed to their former masters than the more targeted, institution and cultural things the Culture would be attempting to change/destroy.

Eventually, the Men of Iron turned on their human masters, believing themselves superior to the humans who relied on the Men of Iron to do virtually everything for them. In the end, the Men of Iron were destroyed by humanity in a terrible war that extinguished countless lives and destroyed the ancient galaxy's economic and political unity.
But when so much of the Imperium of Man, even back in the days when the Emperor was up and about, can be summed up as motivated by doing whatever was necessary to ensure that humanity survived and prospered in an often directly hostile galaxy, it does make a certain amount of sense.