Special Circumstances

Special Circumstances (also abbreviated SC) is a 'secret service'-type organisation that exists within the fictional anarchist utopian science fiction civilisation known as the Culture (which forms the background of several novels and shorter works of Iain M. Banks). Special Circumstances is part of a larger Culture organisation called Contact, which coordinates Culture interactions with (and in) other civilisations. SC exists to fulfil this role when circumstances exceed the moral capacity of Contact, or where the situation is highly complex and requires highly specialized skills, such as in The Player of Games. Special Circumstances also does the 'dirty work' of the Culture, a function made especially complicated by the normally very high ethical standards the Culture sets itself. SC acts in a way that has been compared with the democratising intentions of real-world liberal intent on overcoming the world's (and especially other nation's) evils by benign interference. In the... full article at wikipedia