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Much of Look To Windward was on an Orbital with 50 billion inhabitants, four billion simultaneous mind uploads stored in the hub, the hub Mind described having billions of distinct thoughts in any given second and separately being described as capable of simultaneous conversation with all inhabitants.

A Culture Mind losing a single human(oid) isn't like having a pet run away, it's like losing an eyelash — your peers may comment about the "bald patch" if you lose a lot all at once, but not any single individual one.

Yet at the same time, these Minds are written to care very much indeed: this particular Mind was appalled at having killed the 3492 (of 310 million) who refused to evacuate three other Orbitals that needed to be destroyed in the course of a war.




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