Debbi said: > Could someone please tell me what 'VFP' and 'GSV' are? Thanks!
The Culture, as well as being a mailing list, is also a star-spanning pseudo-utopia in manys of Iain Banks' sf novels. The ships are run by supersmart AIs called Minds, which often give themselves flippant names. The shipnames I append to my messages are part of a Culture List tradition that I follow here too because there are enough people around who recognise them. A "VFP" is a "Very Fast Picket", which is another name for a "(d)ROU": a "(Demilitarised) Rapid Offensive Unit", one on the Culture's warships. A "GSV" is a "General Systems Vehicle", a mobile factory and city with the population of a large Terran nation. The other common type of ship is the "GCU" or "General Contact Unit", which is a smaller ship used for seeking out new civilisations. Somewhere on http://cdr.sine.com/cdr/ is a copy of Banks' notes on the Culture, which will give you a much better idea of what all of this is about. Rich GSV Space Commies
