yes Banks was a loss to the SciFi world. But its always fun to speculate that he might have had some sort of insight and some civilization like the Culture might exist. Then putting that together with the USAF’s mysterious vehicle is a fun story - for me anyway.
Got to the question posed by the term GSV that triggered a memory. Which linked to SpaceX and Musk naming a couple of launch recovery droneship platforms at sea, after “vessels” from Bank’s series. “Of Course I Still Love You” in the Atlantic, and “Just Read the Instructions” in the Pacific.
This last mission was launched from inside a payload fairing atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, a re-useable rocket, recovered to one of those two droneships.
Say no more— ‘nudge, nudge’...