Excession by Iain M. Banks

Excession by Iain M. Banks
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Here is GSV Ethics Gradient's response to the first contact with the alien entity from another Universe/Dimension as a warning to other space-ships. I love this kind of pseudoscientific gobbledegook.

Excession notice @c18519938.52314.
Constitutes formal All-ships Warning Level 0.
Excession.
Confirmed precedent-breach. Type K7 ˆ. True class non-estimal. Its status: Active. Aware. Contactiphile. Uninvasive sf. LocStatre: Esperi (star).
First CommAtt (its, following shear-by contact via my primary scanner @ n4.855.0065.59312) @ n4.855.0065.59487 in M1-a16 & Galin II tight beam, type 4A. PTA & Hand shake burst as appended, x@ 0.7Y. Suspect signal gleaned form Z-E lalsaer ComBeam spread, 2nd Era. xContact sall signed ‘I’. No other signals registered.
My subsequent actions: maintained course and speed, skim declutched primary scanner to mimic 50%closer approach, began full HS passive scan (sync./start of signal sequence, as above), sent buffered Galin II pro-forma message-reception confirmation signal to contact location, dedicated track scanner @ 19% power and 300% beam spread to contact @ -5% primary scanner roll-off point, instigated 2exponential slow-to-stop line manoeuvre synchronised to skein-local stop-point @ 12% of track scanner range limit, ran full systems check as detailed, executed slow/4 swing-around then retraced course to previous closest approach point and stop @ standard 2ex curve. Holding there.
Excessions’s physical characteristics: (¡am!) sphere rad. 53.34 km, mass (non-estimal by space-time fabric influence – locality ambiently planar – estimated by pan-polarity material density norms at 1.45x813t. Layered fractal matter-type-intricate structure, self supporting, open to (field-filtered) vacuum, anomalous field presence inferred from 821 kHz leakage. Affirm K7ˆ category by HS topology & eG links (inf and ult.). eG details non-estimal. DiaGlyph files attached.
Associated anomalous materials presence: several highly dispersed detritus clouds all within 28 minutes, three consistent with staged destruction of >.1m3 near-equiv-tech entity, another ditto approx. 38 partially exhausted M-DAWS .1 cal rounds, another consisting of general hi-soph level (O2-atmosphered) ship-internal combat debris. Latter drifting away from excessions’s position. Retracks to debris clouds expansion profiles indicates mutual age of 52.5 days. Combat debris cloud implicitly originating @ a point 948 milliseconds form excession’s current position. DiaGlyph files attached.
No other presences apparent to within 30 years.
My status: H&H, unTouched. L8 secure post-system-scour (100%). ATDPSs engaged. CRTTDPSs engaged.
Repeat:
Excession eG (inf. & Ult.) linked, confirmed.
eGrid link details non-estimal.
True class non-entimal.
Awaiting.
@n4.28.855.0073.64523…
…PS:
Gulp.>

That almost-human exclamation of fear at the end is just so cute. This kind of gibberish is essentially the conversations of the Minds of space-ships of The Culture of all hues and persuasions and shows the egos, idiosyncrasies and foibles of the leviathans of space.
In The Player of Games Banks’ answer to Douglas Adams’ intoxicant – the ‘Pan-galactic gargle-blaster’ was

I’d like a double standard measure of staol and chilled Shungusteriaung warp-wing liver wine bottoming a mouth of white Effyre-Spin cruchen-spirit in a slush of medium cascalo, topped with toasted weirdberries and served in a number three strength Tipprawlic osmosis-bowl, or your best approximation thereof.’

Here the inebriant is

The 9050 was a cocktail which notoriously involved about three hundred processes to make, many of them involving unlikely and even unpleasant combinations of plants, animals, and substances. The end result was an acceptable if strong-tasting drink composed largely of alcohol, no more, but you didn’t really drink it for the internal effect, you drank it to show you could afford to, they put it in a special crystal field-goblet so you could show that you could. The name was meant to imply that after sinking a few you were ninety per cent certain to get laid and fifty per cent assured to ending up in legal trouble (or it may have been the other way round – Gena-Hofoen could never remember).

Some tipple!
This is the awe-inspiring and intimidating description of an Affronter space-ship

Dwarfing all the others were three huge dark craft, each of which looked vaguely as though it had been modelled by taking a free-fall aerial bomb from one age and welding onto it a profusion of broad swords, scimitars and daggers from an even earlier time and then magnifying the results until which was a couple of kilometres in length.

This classic from the Culture needs to be re-re-read endlessly…

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