What is a Culture knife missile?

[AWACS]

Is it literally a knife that flys around and then flys into its enemies and stabs them?

That seems a bit primitive. I've got the idea that it's probably not therefore a "knife missile" in the 100% literal sense.

So what is it?

[septesix]

They are basically miniture Culture Drone armed with less weaponary than a normal drone. At least that's the impression I get from reading "Use of Weapon".

[Sindai]

I forget the exact size of them, but it's probably in the millimeter or centimeter range.

From what I recall, soldier drones use them against primitive enemies. They fly around and generate kinetic forcefields to cut things apart very quickly.

If the drone ever needs more firepower, it has micromissiles loaded with antimatter, a CREWS, and its effector. That's all I can remember.

[IXJac]

Knife missiles actually ARE rather primitive in their basic function. They basically are flying knives and they do fly around and slice their enemies to bits (though they do it faster than any human can react, and with powerful force-fields). They have other weapony as well, depending on sophistication, but the fly-n-dice routine is very much their signature.

My take on them is that the Culture specifically chose the more primitive style of weapon for psychological reasons. Most Culture weaponry just doesn't look very serious - even the most deadly firearms look like childrens toys.

A knife though screams violence and killing in pretty much any civilization. People are instinctively terrified of an edged weapon. A knife missile is thus for when you want to send a little message to the local bravos. . .

[Bregor]

I forget the exact size of them, but it's probably in the millimeter or centimeter range.

I always got the impression that they were about the size of your finger.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Originally posted by Bregor


I always got the impression that they were about the size of your finger.

The general concensus is that they are around a small dagger size, not as small as a millimetre heck no, or finger sized.

Skaffen-Amtiskaw carried 3 internally and he was the size of a briefcase.

They can be armed with nanoguns though and other smaller weapons, but generally are not sentient and so are expendable.

The thought of watching an entire army decapitated in a millisecond is nasty though.

[RalphNumbers]

Actually I got the impression that the beads on the dagger in inversions were knife missiles, and that the dagger itself was a sort of carrying case. Thus making the KMs in the centimeter range at most. Unfortunately, I don't have the book with me, anyone have a quote?


Anyway, yes KMs aren't quite sentient (they're about as smart as a bright dog, just really fast). And they can carry smaller weapons, including effectors, and nanomissiles.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Originally posted by RalphNumbers
Actually I got the impression that the beads on the dagger in inversions were knife missiles, and that the dagger itself was a sort of carrying case. Thus making the KMs in the centimeter range at most. Unfortunately, I don't have the book with me, anyone have a quote?


Anyway, yes KMs aren't quite sentient (they're about as smart as a bright dog, just really fast). And they can carry smaller weapons, including effectors, and nanomissiles.

That theory has never been proven, it is also suggested they are bombs or something.

They seem way too small to be such devices.

[RalphNumbers]

Originally posted by Admiral Valdemar
They seem way too small to be such devices.
With Cluture level tech? Hardly.

[Contemplator]

They seem way too small to be such devices.

Remember, this is a race that can hide a very powerful gun as someones toothe.

Skaffen-Amtiskaw carried 3 internally and he was the size of a briefcase.

No, he was hiding as a briefcase sized drone in a lower tech civ. He was actually the size of a game chip.

Remember, most advanced machines in the Culture hold parts in Hyperspace.

[GSV Use Psychology]

Originally posted by Contemplator
[B]
No, he was hiding as a briefcase sized drone in a lower tech civ. He was actually the size of a game chip.
/B]

Now it's been a time since I read Use of Weapons, but I don't recall Skaffen-Amtiskaw being that size. You sure you don't mean Mawhrin-Skel (aka Flere-Imsaho), from Player of Games?

[Osmosis]

Is the knife missle an anti-personnel or an anti-vehicle weapon? Or both?

[Admiral Valdemar]

Originally posted by Contemplator


Remember, this is a race that can hide a very powerful gun as someones toothe.

But a gun is entirely different to a knife missile. Skaffen could hold hundreds if they were this size.

No, he was hiding as a briefcase sized drone in a lower tech civ. He was actually the size of a game chip.

Remember, most advanced machines in the Culture hold parts in Hyperspace.

No, he wasn't that size, that's impossible even for the Culture, he was briefcase sized and continued to be this size throughout UoW. His shell was a gunmetal colour with a "snout" that protruded with a sensor band. When Sma was on Crastalier, Skaffen used hardlight fields to produce a handle and cover any telltale spots.

Drones AFAIK do not use hyperspace for component parts as they don't need the calculating power and memory Minds require.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Originally posted by GSV Use Psychology


Now it's been a time since I read Use of Weapons, but I don't recall Skaffen-Amtiskaw being that size. You sure you don't mean Mawhrin-Skel (aka Flere-Imsaho), from Player of Games?

I assume so, since at the end Mawhrin-Skel is seen as a small and highly advanced SC drone used to cover Gurgeh in his tournament in the empire of Azad.

It was originally held within a casing to disguise it's size (clenched fist) and true looks.

[GSV Use Psychology]

One of the few times knife missile were used was in Use of Weapons, when Skaffen-Amtiskaw "took care of" a few bandits.

The door burst open, slamming against the mud wall. Sma flinched. The two black-cloaked men filled the doorway. She could smell them. One strode in towards her, sword out, rope in the other hand, not noticing the drone at her side.

'Excuse me,' said Skaffen-Amtiskaw.

The man glanced at the machine, without breaking stride.
Then he wasn't there anymore, and dust filled the room, and Sma's ears were ringing, and pieces of mud and paper were falling from the ceiling and fluttering through the air, and there was a large hole straight through the wall into the next room, across from where Skaffen-Amtiskaw - seemingly defying the law of concerning action/reaction . hovered in exactly the same place as before. A woman shrieked hysterically in the room through the hole, where what was left of the man was embedded in the wall above her bed, his blood spattered copiously over ceiling, floor, walls, bed and her.

The second man whirled into the room, discharging a long gun point-blank at he drone; the bullet became a flat coin of metal a centimetre in front of the machine's snout, and clunked to the floor. The man unseathed and swung his sword in one flashing movement, scything at the drone through the dust and smoke. The blade broke cleanly on a bump of red-coloured field just above the machine's casing, the the man was lifted of his feet.
[...]
The man trashed wildly in the centre of the room for a second, the he was a blur through the air above her, there was another colossal pulse of sound, and a ragged aperture appeared in the wall over her head, beside the window looking out to the square.
[...]
One of the warriors roared, brandishing his sword and lunging towards the door of the inn.
He managed two steps. He was still roaring when the knife missile flicked past him, field outstretched.
It separated his neck from his shoulders. The roar turned to a sound like the wind, bubbling thickly through the exposed wind-pipe as his body crashed to the dust.

Faster- and turning more tightly - than any bird or insect, the knife missile made an almost invisibly quick circle round most of the riders, producing an odd stuttering noise.

Seven of the riders - five standing, two still mounted - collapsed into the dust, in fourteen separate pieces.
[...]
In the square, both of the inn-keeper's daughters slipped to the ground from the mounts they had been tied to, their bonds slashed in the same cut that killed all seven men.
[...]
One man dropped his sword and started to run. The knife missile plunged straight through him. It curved like a red light shining on a hook, and slashed across the necks of the last two dismounted riders, fellinf both. The mount of the final rider was rearing up in front of the missile, its fangs bared, forelegs lashing, claws exposed. The device went through its neck and straight into the face of the rider.
[...]
The knife missile spun slowly about, seemingly reviewing its few seconds' work, then it started to float back towards the window.

[Howedar]

If a Mind is located mostly in hyperspace, does that mean it is vulnerable to attacks from a ship in hyperspace?

[Admiral Valdemar]

Originally posted by Howedar
If a Mind is located mostly in hyperspace, does that mean it is vulnerable to attacks from a ship in hyperspace?

Trapdoor system negates such threats.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Originally posted by Osmosis
Is the knife missle an anti-personnel or an anti-vehicle weapon? Or both?

One would have to say both. A single bird sized knife missile if told, would zip at several Machs and use it's cutting fields to slice apart legions of troops and armour and aircraft in seconds at the molecular level.

They are not infalliable though, Zakalwe spent a year devising a plan to trap one in a strong EM field within an MRI scanner tube like those used today. A laser was used to destroy it before it escaped.

[Bregor]

Of course, the knife missile following Zakalwe was just there to watch him, and wasn't actively trying to attack at the time...

[GSV Use Psychology]

Originally posted by Howedar
If a Mind is located mostly in hyperspace, does that mean it is vulnerable to attacks from a ship in hyperspace?

Well yes, but not specifically due to that. The Minds is not exactly floating in the same hyperspace as eg their ships travel in. The way I understand it is like the difference between an object in a water tank or an object in an ocean.

The object, representing the Mind parts, is in water (hyperspace) in both cases, but the water tank is some form of enclosed area of hyperspace. At least this is the way I understand it, it's not really explained.

It's vulnerable to attacks from hyperspace, just like anything else, since Culture weaponry can be fired between the different hyperspace dimensions (there are several, located above and below normal space) and realspace.