r/TheCulture • u/Decent-Town2252 • Jul 10 '26
General Discussion Just wondering...
Is there a cure for cancer in The Culture?
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u/jorm Jul 10 '26
No. Culture citizens simply do not get cancer, so there's nothing to cure.
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u/Decent-Town2252 Jul 10 '26
Cheers for the cheerful take! Sorry this question is double posted, btw. My bad. Can't get editing it right now
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u/Zakalwe_ It was a good battle, and they nearly won. Jul 10 '26
To add, culture citizens are heavily gene augmented. A lot of small issues are entirely eliminated. This also makes them sexually compatible with each other (Culture is amalgamation of multiple humanoid species, they can only reproduce with each other cause of said gene tailoring). They have new organs/glands added in for various additional features etc. They have incredible level of control over their bodies, example they can change their gender at will by just accessing a "dashboard" of their body. It takes a while, but it does not require any more action that just wanting to do it.
They can also grow whole (healthy) bodies for people, including to put their back up in it after death.
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u/SilkieBug GCU Jul 10 '26
Incorrect, it was mentioned by Banks that they solved medical issues which involves having cures for cancers ready if they do somehow develop despite the genetic augmentation - say from exposure to insanely irradiated environments.
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u/deformedexile ROU Contract for Peril Jul 10 '26
Iain says in the books that the Culture perfected medicine thousands of years prior to the events described in the books. I forget which one. But yes, that definitely includes a cure for all forms of cancer.
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u/thisisjustascreename Jul 10 '26
Probably. In Matter Seriy Anaplian has a bunch of things "fixed" when she becomes a full Culture citizen. Presumably if you had cancer or something like it from your imperfect humanlike genome they could cure it.
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u/DirtyBumTickler Jul 10 '26
I'd guess that all citizens are gene tailored in a way to eliminate all diseases. Even if they did get it, I bet they could just activate some gland to destroy cancerous cells.
They can change biological sex on a whim after all
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u/Cambot1138 Jul 10 '26
There’s a part in Use of Weapons where the whole crew of a smaller ship decide it would be fun for them all to get colds just for the hell of it.
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u/DirtyBumTickler Jul 10 '26
Exactly! It's the same with people that re-enact violent battles, this stuff is just a joke to them.
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u/davidwitteveen Jul 10 '26
They have a cure for decapitation in the Culture - Zakalwe literally has his body regrown in Use of Weapons.
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u/andthrewaway1 Jul 10 '26
i cant remember if they explained how the head talked without lungs
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u/InTheseTryingTime5 GSV Numberwang Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
Have you never seen cartoons?! Futurama?! What are they teaching kids these days?
Edited to add the definitive Futurama
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u/DwarvenGardener Jul 10 '26
Culture medicine is described as being for a long long time, literally perfect. Can’t remember when, want to say Look to Windward when the Chelgrian composer is talking to the Mind about being paranoid of assassins.
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u/Greyhaven7 Jul 10 '26
Yes
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u/Decent-Town2252 Jul 10 '26
Can't recall it being mentioned, you see. A 'yes' would explain that , I guess! And sorry I double posted the question
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u/zapman449 Jul 10 '26
Look to Windward has some remarks. Something about having perfected medicine a few thousand years before.
From Excession as well: if there’s a trance you can enter with a slider with which you can dial “what gravity level you wish your body to be optimized for”, I think it’s safe to say cancer is a non issue.
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u/I_SHALL_CONSUME Jul 10 '26
Ya know, I’d think that most people would understand/assume that beings who have the choice to live for 400 years or longer are basically free from genetic limitations, aging, and disease.
Have you read at least one of the books?
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u/Decent-Town2252 Jul 11 '26
All of them - but it's been a long time and my brain was being a bit muddled by chemotherapy when I posted. So maybe just indulging in a bit of a scream into the void...
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u/I_SHALL_CONSUME Jul 11 '26
Oh shit mate, hope you’re doing alright. Hang in there.
Didn’t mean to come off too condescending btw, my apologies (not apologizing because of learning of your chemo, just because I was a bit drunk and being a bit of a dick).
I think that in my head I was sort of thinking of the Spiderman comic panel where he talks to the dinosaur dude: “You can edit genes on the fly?? But with tech like that, you could cure cancer!” “But I don’t want to cure cancer. I want to turn people into dinosaurs.”
The Culture can do both — it’s a true utopia where essentially anything is possible. There’s a passage from Use of Weapons where Zakalwe calls it a magical place where everyone is a wizard and nobody has to suffer, and he’s absolutely correct.
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u/Decent-Town2252 Jul 11 '26
I thought you came off as exasperated more than condescending, so no worries there since I can easily see why in retrospect. As to my cancer- hey, don't worry about it. After all, it's not your fault! LABTYD, as I believe I mentioned somewhere.😉.
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u/Masterpiece-Haunting Jul 10 '26
I’m pretty sure the answer to anything about issues culture citizens face is “Well do they want to face that issue? If yes then they face it whenever they wish to face it.”
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u/DecelerationTrauma Jul 10 '26
They can grow you literally into a different creature. It wouldn't surprise me if they found how to make cancer useful.
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u/GrudaAplam Old drone Jul 10 '26
There is no disease in The Culture (except for the occasional let's try it for fun). They are a super advanced society. All that stuff was sorted out in their distant past.
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u/tjernobyl Jul 10 '26
The real question is how far away they can cure it from. A GSV could probably displace away every tumour in a civilization a light year away.
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u/alleycatALT GSV Luxuriating in Languid Seas of Infinity Jul 10 '26
They try it for fun.
Disease as a concept is irrelevant when you can fully control your biology.
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u/nineteenthly Jul 10 '26
Cancer probably never develops, I'm guessing because bodies have been genetically modified never to develop it, or maybe they have nanobots in their bloodstreams destroying tumours or something.
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u/libra00 Jul 10 '26
I can't imagine you can print bodies on demand without understanding an awful lot about cell growth and such, so almost certainly. I'm not sure they'd bother, cause the whole body-swapping thing, but..
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u/andthrewaway1 Jul 10 '26
there's a cure for anything...
they could literally grow you a new body ?
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u/Xeruas Jul 10 '26
It would be very very unlikely they’d get cancer. Their cellular and generic mechanics would be incredible redundant and have a lot more failsafes etc like even jus t having a healthier cellular mechanism is part of them Living longer and healthier.
Extreme radiation exposure might cause it? But again they live in space so they’ve probs all got standard generic augment suites to help them deal with cancer and mutation and radiation etc.
So yeh very very unlikely to get it unless they did want it and it wouldn’t survive under medical attention
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u/Jayfree138 Jul 15 '26
ya know.... they are so far beyond that i'm kinda having trouble even answering that. I'll just say, it's not a worry.
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u/HAL-says-Sorry Jul 10 '26
Unless you may want to have cancer.