Even the names of Culture spaceships are jokes – for example "Lightly Seared on the Reality Grill", "Experiencing a Significant Gravitas Shortfall" (part of a running gag in the series) and "Liveware Problem" (see liveware). Banks often uses "outsiders" as viewpoint characters, and said that using an enemy of the Culture as the main character of "Consider Phlebas", the first story in the series, enabled him to present a more rounded view of the Culture. However, this character realises that his attempts to plan for anything that might conceivably happen on a mission are very similar to the way in which the Culture makes all its decisions, and by the end suspects he has chosen the wrong side. The focal character of "The Player of Games" is bored with the lack of real challenges in his life, is blackmailed into becoming a Culture agent, admires the vibrancy of the Azad Empire but is then disgusted by its brutality, and wins the final of the tournament by playing in a style that reflects the Culture's values. "Use of Weapons" features a non-Culture mercenary who accepts the benefits of association with the Culture, including immortality as the fee for his first assignment, and completes several dangerous missions as a Culture agent, but complains that he is kept in the dark about the aims of his missions and that in some of the wars he has fought maybe the Culture was backing both sides, with good reason. "Look to Windward" uses three commentators on the Culture, a near-immortal Behemothaur, a member of the race plunged into civil war by a Culture intervention that went wrong, and the ambassador of a race at similar technological level to the Culture's. The action scenes of the Culture stories are comparable to those of blockbuster films. In an interview, Banks said he would like "Consider Phlebas" to be filmed "with a very, very, very big budget indeed" and would not mind if the story were given a happy ending, provided the biggest action scenes were kept. On the other hand, "The Player of Games" relies mainly on the psychological tension of the games by which the ruler of the Azad Empire is selected. Banks is unspecific about many of the background details in the stories, such as the rules of the game that is the centrepiece of "The Player of Games", and cheerfully makes no attempt at scientific credibility. Banks says he conceived the Culture in the 1960s, and that it is a combination of wish fulfilment and a reaction against the predominantly right-wing science fiction produced in the United States.