Jernau Gurgeh is a player of games. Today, we would call him a professional chess champion. He is famous in the society of which he is a citizen. At least as famous as Garry Kasparov and Bobby Fischer.

The Culture, this tolerant, anarchist, liberal and ethical galactic society, has discovered an empire. An authoritarian socio-economic structure that is held together only by a kind of miracle: a game.

Contact will offer Jernau Gurgeh the chance to play this game.

This game, The Azad, proves to be the most extensive and complete abstraction of life. It has shaped society and the entire Empire as it has given it its name. Civil servants, priests and generals are appointed according to their playing style and their position in the rankings, with the winner taking the highest office: Emperor.

One can play it according to values, and military strategies can be applied to it. Its pawns have a life and a force of their own. They can turn against their original owner or, on the contrary, increase his power. Its boards are territories that can be developed, from which resources can be extracted, and where pieces can be manoeuvred in the manner of ancient armies.

This game is therefore the most advanced and sophisticated political decision-making system in existence, as it allows political visions and decision-makers to compete, to see them clash and to see which are the most effective or not, even before they are applied in real life.

Contact, the Culture’s department responsible for ‘relations with foreign peoples and civilisations’, hopes that Gurgeh’s game, played according to the Culture’s liberal values, will at least destabilise the Azad Empire.