I really enjoyed the Culture novels but my takeaway was similar to OP's. The citizens are essentially pets that the Minds really like and take care of. They have almost no real agency though besides what the Minds will humor.

The Culture would continue to chug along with our with out the humans, the minds would just be bored until they created some other race to entertain themselves with.

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arethuza 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Pets can't leave though? A number of the Culture stories (e.g. "The State of the Art") describe Culture citizens who left the Culture - in that story for 1970s Earth.

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marssaxman 2 hours ago | parent [-]

My wife's pet cat leaves and returns whenever he wants to. While he may not share our capacity for language, his communication of his preferences - nay, requirements - was clear, forceful, sustained, and (eventually) effective.

If a Culture mind were faced with human behavior equivalent to pissing on everything but the litterbox and bolting for the door at every opportunity, I imagine they'd eventually get tired of playing jailer and let their pets go, too.

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arethuza an hour ago | parent [-]

The stories make it pretty clear that if you want to leave you can just leave (maybe slightly different if you are an SC operative)? Similarly the Culture is fairly open minded about immigration to the Culture - but they worry about that looking like a form of colonialism so it's not like they advertise it...

	▲	marssaxman 38 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		That's certainly true - the minds obviously do care what their humans want, and go to some effort to help them get it. I just thought the idea that "pets can't leave" was funny and not entirely true, given some of the experiences I've had with them.