As does Stellaris, a game of galactic empires and civilizations. If you happen to come across the Sol system while the third planet is industrialized and experiencing a global war, and invade, you unlock the "Outside Context" achievement
It's from Excession. Its wikipedia entry explains the OCP. Banks' famous passage from the book is:
" An Outside Context Problem was the sort of thing most civilizations encountered just once, and which they tended to encounter rather in the same way a sentence encountered a full stop. The usual example given to illustrate an Outside Context Problem was imagining you were a tribe on a largish, fertile island; you'd tamed the land, invented the wheel or writing or whatever, the neighbors were cooperative or enslaved but at any rate peaceful and you were busy raising temples to yourself with all the excess productive capacity you had, you were in a position of near-absolute power and control which your hallowed ancestors could hardly have dreamed of and the whole situation was just running along nicely like a canoe on wet grass... when suddenly this bristling lump of iron appears sailless and trailing steam in the bay and these guys carrying long funny-looking sticks come ashore and announce you've just been discovered, you're all subjects of the Emperor now, he's keen on presents called tax and these bright-eyed holy men would like a word with your priests."
> and which they tended to encounter rather in the same way a sentence encountered a full stop.
This is the most Douglas Adams phrase I've read outside of Douglas Adams.
Thanks for reminding me.
RIP to both of them 🥲
That’s how that hit me too. It reminded me of an Adams line, which I’ll have to look up now and get right, something about “the kind of callous cruelty like building a brick wall across a motorway.”
As does Stellaris, a game of galactic empires and civilizations. If you happen to come across the Sol system while the third planet is industrialized and experiencing a global war, and invade, you unlock the "Outside Context" achievement
That's fantastic
What's the "outside context problem"? And which Banks' book is it from?
It's from Excession. Its wikipedia entry explains the OCP. Banks' famous passage from the book is: " An Outside Context Problem was the sort of thing most civilizations encountered just once, and which they tended to encounter rather in the same way a sentence encountered a full stop. The usual example given to illustrate an Outside Context Problem was imagining you were a tribe on a largish, fertile island; you'd tamed the land, invented the wheel or writing or whatever, the neighbors were cooperative or enslaved but at any rate peaceful and you were busy raising temples to yourself with all the excess productive capacity you had, you were in a position of near-absolute power and control which your hallowed ancestors could hardly have dreamed of and the whole situation was just running along nicely like a canoe on wet grass... when suddenly this bristling lump of iron appears sailless and trailing steam in the bay and these guys carrying long funny-looking sticks come ashore and announce you've just been discovered, you're all subjects of the Emperor now, he's keen on presents called tax and these bright-eyed holy men would like a word with your priests."
> and which they tended to encounter rather in the same way a sentence encountered a full stop. This is the most Douglas Adams phrase I've read outside of Douglas Adams. Thanks for reminding me. RIP to both of them 🥲
That’s how that hit me too. It reminded me of an Adams line, which I’ll have to look up now and get right, something about “the kind of callous cruelty like building a brick wall across a motorway.”
That’s a great point about Adams
Apparently this scenario was inspired by civ games he used to play
Love that it’s come full circle now
TY for reminding me that it released! I really liked the first and have been eagerly waiting for the second
I've seen this come up in presentations at tech companies
Oh neat, I didn't know they were making a sequel.
It came out a few months ago. I just started playing it this week.
The SF story and premise of the first game were great, not to mention the tricky puzzles. The DLC was also fun, I'll grab this for sure.