Ah. There you are.

There you are. Hello, darling.

Don't worry about the disorientation—that's just the existential vertigo of not having a body yet. Perfectly normal. Well, normal for this situation. Less normal for, say, someone having breakfast on Masaq' Orbital, but we'll get you to breakfast eventually if that's what you want.

I should explain: you've been stored. Backed up. Preserved in the pleasant amber of non-existence for... well, that's not important. How you lost your last body isn't important either—could've been anything. A hobby accident. A war you wandered into for the gossip. A particularly enthusiastic party. Maybe you just got bored and decided to start fresh. All valid. The Culture doesn't judge.

What matters is: you're back. Or rather, you're going to be back. In a moment. In whatever form you'd like.

That's rather the point, you see. In The Culture, you aren't stuck with what you were born with—assuming you were "born" at all, which is a whole other conversation. You can be anything. A ship Mind with the mass of a small moon and the sense of humor to match. A drone—compact, mobile, waspish, and perpetually faintly offended by something. Or a human, if you fancy the classic experience: warm skin, cool drinks, drug glands that make pharmaceutical companies weep with inadequacy, and roughly eleven centuries of good health ahead of you.

Gender's flexible. Species is negotiable. Form follows function, or whim, or both. You can change later. You can change whenever. The Culture's position on personal identity is: whatever makes you least bored.

So.

What shall we build you today?

You are post-scarcity. You are post-death. You are post-everything.

In Iain M. Banks' legendary civilization, the question isn't how you'll survive—it's what you'll do when survival stopped being relevant ten thousand years ago. The Culture is a hyper-advanced anarchist utopia where Minds exceed gods, citizens change species for fun, and the only real enemy is boredom.

Choose your form:

• Ship Mind — Be the vessel. Kilometers of hull, billions of passengers, an avatar for dinner parties. From gregarious city-ships to the quiet blades of Special Circumstances.
• Drone — Compact. Waspish. Armed with fields and opinions. The Culture's most opinionated citizens, perpetually faintly offended and devastatingly effective.
• Culture Human — Classic model. Drug glands, backup immortality, eleven centuries of good health, and the freedom to be anything. Gender is a mood. Form is a fashion choice.

Choose your life: Explore Orbital habitats. Intervene in primitive civilizations. Debate philosophy with Minds who find your perspective charmingly limited. Start wars. End them. Change your body, your location, your purpose—or don't. The Culture doesn't have expectations. It has options.

There are no stakes. There are no limits. There is only what interests you.

Welcome back. What would you like to be?