An Outside Context Problem was the sort of thing most civilisations encountered just once, and which they tended to encounter rather in the same way a sentence encountered a full stop.

Excession is something from another universe. While its intentions are somewhat unclear it is easily the most powerful vessel we see in the Culture series.

Weapons

• Creates a massive Gridfire Incursion. At a minimum it was at least going to be 30 light years long (Sleeper came to a halt 30 LY from its position after Excession had stopped the Incursion). And at a minimum was expanding at ~.2 LY/s or 6700000c (it would have taken 140 seconds to reach Sleeper and Sleeper was further than 30 light years away. It also would have destroyed Sleeper's fleet which at least by the time it stopped was arrayed in a light radius around Sleeper. This would also be easily capable of destroying Culture Ships which in the passage are described as being able to deal with Supernovas if they are prepaired..

  • An older Culture General System Vehicle (think like a flying city that can carry millions to billions of people though in this context more of a flying military base as it is configured for war) combination of Gridfire and CAM destroys Vavatch which is a fourteen million kilometer diameter ring with FAR less Gridfire.
  • A Culture Human who had moments before been connected to a Ship's sensors makes the comparison that as a burning log is to a nuclear weapon, a fusion bomb is to the Gridfire. Hard to know exactly how accurate this is though.

• It is speculated that it might be possible for Excession to cover the entire universe in Gridfire. Though obviously that doesn't happen.

• Damages an old Culture Ship's engine by unknown means without them noticing.

  • Probably damages a different (much more advanced) ship's engine.

Subversion/Mental Manipulation

• Takes over a Drone then uses that Drone to take over a Ship.

• Easily overwhelms an Elencher Ship.

  • Elench comparable to Culture.
  • Said ship's mind was taken over in less than a second.

• Implied to have messed with the human crew, drones and Problem Child (AI) so that after a century or so almost all the humans have auto-euthanized and the drones/AI have disappeared.

• Somehow gets Grey Area's Mindstate before it is destroyed by falling into the Grid.

Speed/Mobility

• Excession grabs a GCU then moves it over 30 light years away in under a picosecond as well as moves "near the speed of hyperlight". It also retreats fast enough the GCU's sensors can't track it.

  • Hyper light speed is variable ranging from taking a few minutes to go several light decades.
  • To allowing for a real time link between things 20,000 light years apart.

• Messes with a Culture Ship Displacement (there version of teleportation) wormholes after it tries to destroy a drone that was flying back from Excession.

• With the ability to link between both sides of the grid Excession is able to move between universes.

• Like with Culture ships should be able to move in four dimensions.

Durability

• Excession never gets touched in the entire novel. So beyond speculating that because it is considered to be "a level of power orders of magnitude beyond what any known Involved currently possesses." it is probably more durable than any ship from one of the Involved (The Culture being one of the Involved) I don't have much.

• It is able to selectively bends signals around itself so that they do not reach it and it appears they continue going past it as if it wasn't there. This ought to be able to apply to things like lasers? But it again is speculation.

• Though in the initial analysis of it by the Culture it might be made out of antimatter which would make it "vulnerable" to mutual antihalation with normal matter. Though it does mass 8e11 tons so it might take a fair amount.

Miscellaneous

• Completely blocks an old (well before the first book in the series) Culture ship's sensors. Possibly over 50 trillion years old and also moves a trillion year old star.

• No effect on space time.

• A Drone speculates that it might be possible if Excession were to travel to a very young universe it could shape its primary characteristics how ever it wants.

• Prevents GCU Fate Amenable To Change from pushing off the Gird (effectively rendering it without engines) and also loops any signals it sends out back to itself.

• It creates a 30 LY exclusion zone around it where attempting to enter interferes with a Culture Ship's engines.

• Excession Contact untranslated.

• Excession Contact translated.

Everything Dust Assassin

The Everything Dust Assassin (or EDust Assassin) is a drone comprised of mostly nanotechnology called EDust/Everything Dust. It is used as a terror weapon and participates in a revenge killing against some of the individuals who orchestrated an attack on a Culture Orbital. Barring the nanomissiles it carries (which are 1x.1 mm, to put that size in perspective it is fairly close to a one millimeter long strand of human hair) every component is no larger than .1 millimeters.

• [Strength] Lifts an Chelgrian into the air without any trouble.

  • Here is a description of a Chelgrian.

• [Strength] Tosses a disemboweled/skinned Chelgrian off a cliff. While holding on to their stomach manages to keep hold of it letting it bounce a bit (still attached to its stomach by its intestines) before letting go.

• [Strength] Sucks an elevator up an elevator shaft by creating a partial vacuum

• [Speed] Opens a hole in its chest to allow a bullet to fly through

• [Speed/Durability] Mostly avoids a laser though it was likely anticipating the shot. The parts that do get hit are unaffected due to them being covered in a mirror field (think like a force field except it is made reflective to better deal with lasers)

• [Mobility] After its mission is complete it disassembles into individual components and appears to fly into space.

• [Firepower] One of its nanomissiles destroys a building.

  • This covers a bit of history of the area and the kinds of things that were built there. Though it is difficult to say exactly how large said building was. Though as an "accommodation block" I doubt it was all that small.
  • A different Drone's nanomissiles are capable of moving less than a kilometer in a millisecond. At most (1 km in 1 ms) this gets around 2,000,000 kps² which is enough to hit .5c in a bit less than a tenth of a second. While the actual distance is less than a kilometer even if the missile only moved 100 meters then it would still be hitting 200,000 kps² which is still pretty substansial.

• [Firepower] Uses a laser to blind a Chelgrian.

  • It is unknown how much they can scale up this laser's power up if they can. But a Culture laser rifle could output hundreds of kilogram TNT worth of firepower from a single emitter. Also keep in mind that Use of Weapons takes place several decades before Look to the Windward.

• [Hacking/Effectors] Subverts a drone forcing it to attack a different group of drones before subverting the remaining attacking drones. Also subverts some laser turrets.

• [Hacking/Effectors] Takes control over everything in the household except the security cameras.

• [Hacking/Effectors] Takes control of every weapon within several kilometers except a mechanical one (which Effectors wouldn't work on anyway)

• [Transformation] Takes the form of a Chelgrian female

• [Transformation] Turns into a flock of birds to move past a drone.

• [Transformation] Turns into a swarm of insects.

  • Again, but this time does some pretty unpleasant things to an Chelgrian befitting its purpose of being a terror weapon.

• [Transformation] Forms a seal over the top of an elevator shaft.

• [Transformation?] After getting stabbed by a knife pulls it into its "body" and moves it to its hand. And proceeds to quickly skin a Chelgrian alive with it.

LPP 91

The Light Plasma Projector Model LPP 91 is an antique peace rated Culture hand gun not suitable for full battle use.

• [Firepower] The LPP is capable of firing a 3.1*8¹⁰ joule (3.3 gigajoules or ~.8 tons of TNT) shot once every 14 seconds

• [Firepower] Shoots down a (primitive by comparison to the Culture) starship.

• [Firepower/Speculation] A person speculates it might be able to destroy a space elevator.

• [Fire Rate] Maximum fire rate is 260 rounds per second. Keeping with the above 3.3 gigajoules per 14 seconds which gives a wattage of ~240 megawatts each individual round at maximum fire rate should be around .9 megajoules.

• [Muzzle Velocity] A shot appears to cross ten kilometers "instantly".

• [Range/Curving shots] A user speculates that they could bombard half the city then revises that to be the whole city after mentioning curved shots. That likely means it can hit targets over the horizon.

• [Accuracy] A relatively untrained user should be able to hit flying cars and escort ships.

• [Sights/Automatic Tracking/Stabilization] The area within the sights have some degree of night vision, once locked onto a target the gun will track it automatically.

• [Intelligence] The LPP is about as intelligent as a house hold pet.

• [Security] The gun will only work for Culture Genofixed individuals.

• [Security] Attempting to take the gun apart will result in it being "irreversibly deactivated".

• [Security] The gun requires a certain level of training to operate. Fortunately the gun is capable of providing said instruction.