A picky correction: the Culture has both Orbitals and Rings, and defines them differently, but you're treating them as one. Quoting myself from a year ago [1]:
> Orbitals, while enormous (greater surface area than earth), are much smaller. The Culture novels do have Ringworld-sized rings as well, though. E.g. from Consider Phlebas, flying under the orbital Vavatch: "It was like flying upside-down over a planet made of metal; and of all the sights the galaxy held which were the result of conscious effort, it was one bested for what the Culture would call gawp value only by a big Ring, or a Sphere."
They are Rings but smaller. Culture Rings are like Niven's Ringworld, and go all the way around a star, spinning around the star to simulate gravity. Culture orbitals are also ring-shaped and spinning to simulate gravity, but they're nowhere near as big (relatively speaking; still more surface area than Earth), and generally orbit a star more like a planet does. Culture Spheres are Dyson spheres.
The size of an Orbital is dictated by day length and surface "gravity" - they are arguably more elegant than Niven style Rings which need a lot of extra stuff to generate day/night cycles (shadow squares?).
I don't think the Culture builds rings or spheres themselves, but they exist and they are aware of them. There are civilizations in the galaxy considerably more advanced than the Culture.
Banks' "Orbitals" are smaller rings, perhaps planet-diameter, orbiting at a distance from their star; "Rings" are Niven-Ringworld-style structures with a star in the middle. Spheres are mentioned here and there, I think, just called "spheres".
Just to add to this, they have those names due to their autonomous nature, much like the culture ships. I imagine Musk has the idea of a fleet of autonomous ships moving as required to collect rockets unable to make landfall.
>Legacy: The autonomous spaceport drone ships Of Course I Still Love You, Just Read the Instructions 1 & 2, operated by SpaceX, were named after General Contact Units mentioned in The Player of Games, as a posthumous homage to Banks by Elon Musk.[11] The construction of a fourth drone ship, named A Shortfall of Gravitas, was announced by Elon Musk via Twitter on February 12, 2018.[12] It is named after the Experiencing A Significant Gravitas Shortfall, a ship mentioned in Look to Windward and Matter as a GSV and GCU respectively.
In 2016 Musk did say "the first ship that goes to Mars, my current favourite is Heart of Gold, from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ... I like the infinite improbability drive"[0]
Thanks for writing this. I remember getting into Banks only a couple of years before his passing, so I'm really grateful for the people who have kept going with critical thought regarding his work and who he was.
Thanks for reading! He's far and away my favorite author, and I'm happy so many people on here love his writing as much as I do.
(And I agree with people's comments that how much of a utopia it really is is up for debate, especially if you don't agree with Banks's views on economics & society. But to me his own personal intent was very clear.)
I enjoyed reading this, but what is the reason for the big orange boxes that quote from later in the article? I see other publications do this and always found it distracting. Is there a reason for it, is it for the benefit of modern internet users with poor attention skills?
In magazines the original intent was to catch the attention of people scanning through an issue, just flipping through - they might turn a page and suddenly see a big quote in large text that caches their interest, and so they will stop and read the article. I admit I don't know how useful it is on a website and I thought a bit about whether to include it - ultimately I left it becuse it felt "magazine-y" and part of the goal was for the site to feel more like a magazine, with issues, and less like a blog that scrolls endlessly. But I admit it is mostly an affectation that may not serve any real purpose.