How goes your peace conference? Slowly. Having exhausted the possibilities of every other form of mass-murder they could possibly employ against each… - Iain Banks

The double-sun system was relatively poor in comets; there were only a hundred billion of them.

On this purely practical issue he judged massacre wasteful and even contrary as a method of control. Fear lasted a week, anger a year and resentment a lifetime, he’d held.

"But what if someone kills somebody else?"
Gurgeh shrugged. "They're slap-droned."
"Ah! This sounds more like it. What does that drone do?"
"Follows you around and makes sure you never do it again."
"Is that all?"
"What more do you want? Social death, Hamin; you don't get invited to too many parties."
"Ah; but in your Culture, can't you gatecrash?"
"I suppose so," Gurgeh conceded. "But nobody'd talk to you."