part 8.5 Necrons
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Week 3
White Devil is now exiting the area currently in reach of the Culture in its tailing of the Necron fleet. It seems likely that the Necrons have been on a long journey towards this planet. Long before their communications loop ought to have been re-established, even if it was galactic range and fast.

Perhaps the Necrons also have some method of divining the future like the Eldar?

The Necrons' relations with each other are at least cordial since the Necron Lord on the fleet indicated he has a copy of the intelligence engineering database. He thanks us for providing the technology and White Devil is hopeful that this has made further diplomatic relations possible. White Devil will proceed to attempt further negotiations regarding maps of Necron territory he knows of in exchange for all our maps (except the Eldar).


part 8.5 Eldar
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Week 1
Our ambassador has registered a protest from the Eldar about our improving diplomatic relations with the Necrons. While expected, we cannot be seen to be taking sides in this war of impossibly long length even if the Culture as a whole does favour the side of the Eldar. (individualist cultures have always been more popular among the 1:1 intelligences and indeed most of the Minds) Additionally, we cannot believe the Eldar's accounts of treacherous Necrons since the Necrons have so far negotiated in good faith and what problems were excusable by mental degradation.

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The two Wanderers on the GSV have managed to get acquire a significant following among the organic and even drone citizens. While we do understand that the Wanderers are Eldar who have grown tired of life on their Craftworlds, the Wanderers have given multiple talks, speeches and impromptu demonstrations of Eldar attitudes, mindset and general modes of thought.

This is attracted a large amount of interest as the Eldar appear to be just exotic enough that many view them as walking and talking priceless cultural icons. And familiarly humanoid enough to to not evoke revulsion for those who still retain those instincts (which is more than would admit it).

As for the Wanderers, it appears that the one in Virtual Reality will not be coming back. The other two gave permission on his behalf for us to probe the VR and from psychological analysis of our results, we are of the opinion that that this transition is permanent. The Virtual Reality software and hardware used was for unlimited access and the interface is too strong to break; the Eldar can be said to be part machine as we have noted the VR environment extending his mind's capabilities and doing external processing.

The other two Wanderers were the only persons to have viewed the constructed reality (noted reactions include condescension, superiority, revulsion and some guilt) apart from Mind-class entities and Special Circumstances (only on Need-To-Know basis). They have agreed with our assessment and in fact were instrumental in convincing this Mind that recovery of the Wanderer from VR would not be possible without mental damage and almost certain death.

They have requested that he be kept alive for as long as his natural lifespan lasts and when he dies, that we return his soulstone to the Eldar. To this, we have agreed.

The topic of soulstones allowed us to broach the subject of the strange devices they carry. The material is clearly not normal and mostly is partially Warp based. Their explanation of how their artistic creations work (and soulstones are partially art, like almost everything the Eldar do), if representative of how the Eldar do things in general, explain alot about the Eldar's problems as a race and particularly the difficulty in explaining construction techniques but not basic science.

This was immediately deemed an important cultural quality central to the Eldar's identity as a race by most of the citizens on this GSV and we Minds also agree with that assessment.

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This SC agent is reporting that there is little to report. Lessons in spatial awareness continues apace, where I am unable to keep up with the Eldar unless glanding. The SC drone of course outdoes everyone but the Eldar do not consider it sentient.

I wonder if the Eldar would be willing to engage in philosphical discourse of the definition of sentience and its inclusion of inorganic intelligences?

The Culture love the Eldar's culture! The kind of art and lifestyle that was described in the two Path of the X books is basically a slightly more disciplined Culture, something the citizens are not used to and so feels like great Drama!
Not too disciplined like the IoM, since the many of the Culture do not like actual hardship, which kinda misses the point of the Eldar Paths but hey, that kind of thing didn't stop us in RL so why should it here?
And that its Warp and semi-religion powered (the Eldar do alot of things that look like ancestor worship), while the Eldar have maintained a non-theocratic state of government and a high standard of living, means that the Culture interprets it as a way of life and Fascinating Cultural Quirk.

There's the matter of Eldar sense of superiority but that only adds to the mystique.

Like westerners learning asian culture (and the reverse!), the Eldar no doubt feel that the Culture citizens have completely missed the point and are doing everything all wrong. Although the widespread acceptance and growing fad in everything Eldar has got to stroke their egos quite a bit! =D

Gavin:
I'll think about using Inquisitorial proxies, but it strikes me as replacing one dictator with another.

All:
Perhaps that faction of the Inqusition the Culture backs might be linked to some friendly Forge Worlds (whose leaders might be bribed with hyperspace drive technology? Preferably of the tactically limited sort)

We might have a workable plan that lowers the eventual mass death. Mega deaths are probably still gonna happen, but if the hyperspace drive is widespread by then, at least it won't ALL crumble since any true revolution would render the Astronomican inoperable or at least unreliable.