观前叠甲：本文中文题目为三体中的哲学，为某课程作业作品，由于撰写时直接用的英文，没有留下中文版本，相信作为老科幻粉或者三体粉或者资深高水平B站用户能轻松理解文章的内容。本文主要包括：三体剧情的讨论，为什么说三体是硬科幻，三体中角色塑造，三体中人性弱点及闪光点的思考。中文版本有生之年更新，不用期待，正文内容应该已经尽量分段了，可能还有部分格式上错误，希望不会影响阅读（阅读不懂如果不是你的问题那就是我的问题）。非专业up，只是一个兴趣使然的up，老太空歌剧屁股人，文中不涉及对任何作品的拉扯，不支持对线，未经允许不得转载。
1.Introduction
The novels discussed in this article is the Remembrance of Earth's Past, which is a science fiction trilogy by the Chinese writer Liu Cixin and is translated into English by Ken Liu. Chinese readers generally refer to the series by the title of its first novel, The Three Body Problem (2006). The following novels are The Dark Forest (2008) and Death's End (2010). The Three Body Problem was the first Asian novel ever to win a Hugo Award for Best Novel, in 2015. Death's End was also a 2017 Hugo Award for Best Novel finalist. In this report, I will introduce the story of the three-body trilogy, basic setting and explanation of the novels and some philosophy thinking after reading.
2. Outline of the story
The three-body trilogy tells a story between Earth and Trisolaris. Trisolaris is the civilization on the Trinary star system in the Proxima Centauri, which is 4.2 light-year from Earth. After destroy of many civilizations, Trisolaris obtain the ability to do space travel. Since it is impossible to predict the movement in trinary star system., Trisolaris decided to find another place in the universe to continue the civilization. Back to earth, during the Culture Revolution, China ran a secret research project named Red Coast to find extraterrestrial life by sending interstellar messages and got reply from Trisolaris. A researcher in Red Coast, Ye Wenjie, who was disillusioned by the political chaos and had come to despise humankind, responded and invited them to come to Earth to settle its problems. Trisolaris formed the feet with starships at 10% light speed and started the space travel which would end in 450 years and locked the Earth’s technology by influencing the result in experiment of basic physics. The same time, on Earth, the Earth-Trisolaris Organization (ETO), formed by some scientist and politicians, developed to help Trisolaris. The three body problem tells the story of Ye Wenjie, the struggle and development of Trisolaris and how people found out the conspiracy of ETO.
The second novel, the Dark Forest, shows the image of the universe and how human being fought against the threat the Trisolaris: Trisolarans had extremely advanced picotechnology which allows them to create eleven-dimensional supercomputers called sophons which, when viewed in three dimensions, only occupied the volume of a proton and had the power to cause hallucinations, spy on any corner of the Earth, transmit the information gathered to Trisolaris using quantum entanglement. Since the starships of Trisolaris was found by using space telescope, all countries united to deal with the crisis: The United Nations selected four men to be "Wallfacers", the keepers of plans known only to themselves, who were granted full access to the resources of the UN. The Wallfacers’ plans were similar: using something to threat Trisolaris to reach a balance like the relationship between US and Soviet Union during Cold War, or trying to send a group of human to the universe to continue human civilization.
Many new technologies developed in a short time: Hibernation, Quantum Computer, Controlled Nuclear Fusion, Space Elevator, and this phenomenon was called Technology Explosion. But some moral problem showed up: technologies for personal space travel were forbidden and two Wallfacers who wanted to use Earth to threat Trisolaris were polished after their truly plan announced by Wallbreakers from ETO. The reason is quite simple: Who has the right to divide who can survive from the disaster or who has the right to using the life of all human being on Earth as chips in the game between two civilizations.
In the following 200 years, human society faced “The Big Gap” and another “Renaissance”. “Make time for civilization, for civilization won't make time” was a symbol of that dark age. Then, even though there was no breakthrough in basic physics, Earth was equipped with stellar class battleships capable of interstellar travel at 15% light speed and armed with laser weapons, railguns and nuclear bombs, and people began to think Earth could beat Trisolaris’ starships. Later, The Earth Fleet meets the Trisolaran probe in a massive formation of nearly all of Earth's starships. The probe, which appeared to be a solid "droplet" of a mirror-like substance based on the strong interaction, arrived and activated during its examination to attack the human fleet. The strong interaction force made the droplet the strongest object in the solar system and the probe smashed through most of Earth’s starships. The surviving ships decided to escape the Solar System and head for nearby stars in hopes of founding civilization once again. However, the humans aboard these ships quickly realized there are only enough supplies for a single ship. The distances between ships hindered sufficient communication to allow for a calm discussion between ships. Thus, in both groups of ships, one crew initiated a first strike against the others before collecting supplies and resources and continuing their journey.
Supported by the situation of these surviving ships, one of the Wallfacer, Luo Ji (means Logic in Chinese), announced the Dark Forest Theory basic on the Ye Wenjie's two axioms of cosmic civilization: 1. Each civilization's goal is survival; and 2. Resources are finite. And following is the image of the universe: Like hunters in a "dark forest", a civilization can never be certain of an alien civilization's true intentions. The extreme distances between stars creates an insurmountable "chain of suspicion", where any two civilizations cannot communicate well enough to dissipate mistrust, making conflict inevitable. Leaving a primitive civilization alone is not an option due to the exponential progress of technological change, and a civilization you have detected might easily surpass your own technological level in a few centuries and become a threat. If you have detected a civilization, then you have also confirmed that said civilization will eventually be able to detect you. Therefore, it is in every civilization's best interest to preemptively strike and destroy any developing civilization before it can become a threat, but without revealing their own location to the wider universe, thus explaining the Fermi paradox.
With the power of Wallfacer, Luo Ji built a deterrence system to threat the Trisolaris. This system used Sun as a tool to broadcast the location of Trisolaris to the whole universe, which could lead to the end of Earth and Trisolaris. As a result, like the situation in Cold War, these two civilizations had a period of peace time and Luo Ji became the first Swordholder, who had the right to switch on the deterrence system.
Death’s End, as the last novel of the three-body trilogy, expands the worldview of the story and describes an even darker universal image. The main character, Chen Xin, was a symbol of common morals. After selected as the second Swordholder, she hesitated to put on the switch when faced with the threat of Trisolaris because of the potential disaster to human civilization. However, human on the starships broadcasted the location, and Trisolaris gave up Earth and human needed to find another way of survives. In consider of the safety of Earth, Chen stopped the research of lightspeed ships. When dark forest attack arrived, Chen got the chance to get aboard to the only lightspeed ships which could survive from the attack of a very advanced civilization that reduce humanity into two-dimensional beings. The universal image is much dark: at the very beginning, the universe is 11 dimensional and the light speed is infinite. But after the wars between civilizations, the universe was changed to 3 dimensional and might change into zero dimensional and light speed became slow as a result of the abuse of Curvature Propulsion. Besides, other physics and math laws were used in these wars and the unnerves was sliding towards a hopeless end. However, human civilization lasted to the end of the universe by the humans on the surviving starships through hiding themselves into small universes outside the universes. The author left an open ending whether the universe will go to a new beginning or to the endless expanding.This is the most of plots in the trilogy and some details will be discussed in following part.
3. Explanation and tribute of The three-body trilogy
The three-body trilogy is a typical hard science fiction for the have the explanations of fictional facts in it.
In the first book, to show a struggle of Trisolaris, ETO used a game called Three Body, where people could join the cyber world using special equipment and experience the life on the Trinary star system. This idea is usually seen in Cyberpunk novels and other science fiction works. In real life, AR and VR technology still has a large space of development to reach what we can see in science fiction works. The research for extraterrestrial life, which is called Red Coast plan, has a prototype in real life: the fanaticism for extraterrestrial life of last century. In terms of extraterrestrial life, there is a famous question, the Fermi paradox, which is about the apparent contradiction between the lack of evidence for extraterrestrial civilizations and various high estimates for their probability. In Liu’ novels, aliens are all over the space, and even on the trinary star system in the Proxima Centauri. Proxima Centauri is the closed star system to earth and trinary star system is a chaos system with several specific stable solutions. But in the novels, there is life and civilization, which could be explained by one of axioms of cosmic civilization: Each civilization's goal is survival. We will go on to the settings of the novels and put the Dark Forest theory to the last of this part.
In the second book, the new technologies are more common: Hibernation, Quantum Computer, Controlled Nuclear Fusion, Space Elevator. They are under development and still need break through, like how to gain energy from the controlled nuclear fusion system. Space Elevator is quite interesting and is common in science fictions like Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke and the high-intensity nanomaterials need from space elevator. Hibernation is used to keep the human bodies in a stable situation so that they can week up after months or years or even centuries. In the dark forest, the author does not discuss the moral problem of Hibernation: why some people can experience the future built by other people without doing anything. As a science fiction novel on the stage of universe, starship is something that cannot be ignored. I don’t think Three-body can be easily divided into Space Opera because it is not the only thing in the novel. There is a very interesting detail in the development of starship in the novel. Zhang Beihai, a political officer in the Chinese Navy, assassinated propulsion researchers who had the right to speak were advocating for medium drives in the space force, which require ships to carry 2/3rds of their weight in fuel, which will severely handicap the human fleet. And this lend to human choosing technology without working fluid rather than the common technology for rocket. I think this shows the author’s attitude towards new technology: do not let the present technology be the limit of new technology. The strong interaction probe, "droplet", has a mirrorlike substance even be amplified to atom level as the effect of strong interaction. This makes us think about the Stele with same proportion even measured with advanced technology in 2001: A Space Odyssey and it is a way to show the big gap in technology between two civilizations. In this novel, there is an Easter egg of Foundation series by Isaac Asimov: using the failure of the Seldon’s Plan to imply the failure of one Wallfacer’s plan. The origin of Swordholder is the leaders with buttons to start nuclear weapons in the world under nuclear deterrence during the Cold War: both sides have the power and the willing to start power, and then both sides will not be first man to start and then the peace in surface reached which is like Damocles Sword hanging on everyone and the man with the weapon is the Swordholder.
Other higher technology of Trisolaris like sophons, Curvature Propulsion for lightspeed starship and the image of higher dimensional universe may be considered more like fiction for there is no theory support for them, maybe they are the same with String Theory or Quantum mechanics. The author using some basic setting to explain the image of the novel and this part runs well in the logic of the novel. We may know the truly result of question with breakthrough in basic physics: how 4 dimensional universe looks like? Whether Dark matter is the matter reduced into two-dimensional beings? The end of the universe? It is not science fiction that needs to answer these questions. The space war using basic laws like light speed, dimension is not something complete new as well: like in the On the Orion Line by Stephen Baxter, where aliens stop human space force by changing the Planck constant. The end of Death’s End can be a tribute to the Last Question, a short novel by Asimov: humans move to other universe to survive and continue civilization, living the original universe with endless expanding.
From the discuss above, the three-body trilogy is a successful hard science fiction novel, then we move on to the Dark Forest Theory for Fermi paradox. In science fiction works, creators always come up with some interesting theories to full up the world view in their works, and some may have positive influence to the development of technology, like the Three Laws of Robotics. In fact, many theories in science fictions can have prototypes in the reality. I would like to compare the Dark Forest Theory to the Psychohistory from Foundation. The idea of psychohistory is similar to the Quantum mechanics: we cannot predict the action of single person just like we cannot predict the action of single atom, but if the number of people or atoms is large enough, we can predict the action of the whole group. And this is the key point of Foundation, which is directly connected to the Seldon’s Plan to rebuild the second Galactic Empire. Back to the Dark Forest Theory in Three-body, we can found similar idea in Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes: if in the state of nature, without government and communication, each person would have a right, or license, to everything in the world for themselves and the willing to live will lead to a "war of all against all". Liu puts this into the stage of universe, and the single persons are changed into different civilizations. Considering the lack of universal government, chain of suspicion due to the big cost in time to communicate and the risk of potential and rapid development in technology, to get the right to survive, the "war of all against all" becomes the "war of all civilizations against all civilizations". The afraid of exposing the exists of own civilization in the dark universe may lead to the silence on the surface of sky and the lack of evidence for the extraterrestrial civilizations. Putting the correctness in reality aside, Dark Forest theory is successful in the novel and is the cornerstone of the stories: the reason for the Trisolaris occupation, the base of the deterrence system by broadcast the location, the big gaps between different civilizations and the universal image. In the stage of the novel, this can be a reasonable explanation for Fermi paradox. But moving out of the novels, some question still exists for the theory: the strict condition for the birth of life? Not all civilizations have the willing to out of space? Surviving is not the only quest for civilization, and maybe The pursuit of truth is the final push for the advanced civilization? Other form of life like energy? The potential exists of universal government formed by advanced civilization? The way of communicate or space travel with higher speed than light? Maybe some questions are not supported by science but they are common settings of science fictions. My attitude toward the Dark Forest theory is that it is a successful setting in the novels but we cannot say it is the truth and stop the research on the technologies for space travel.
4. Philosophy of the three-body trilogy
This part will be divided into two questions: the characters in the novels; human weakness and glory. I will compare two group of people and the main character Luo Ji. The characters in the three-body trilogy are not like characters in literature works who have many mental explanations and may have change in characteristic. They are more like symbols of different people or the tools to push the story. And the human weakness and glory run through the whole trilogy.
The first group of people is the people with strong will or Idealist. The example is Zhang Beihai, the officer in Navy, and Bill Hines, a Wallfacer. They have the same belief that Earth will lose the war and the only hope to continue human civilization is escape from the Solar System. They used their own way to meet the goal and this willing was achieved by other people. If just looking at the result, we can say they are heroes for Earth. Zhang always had a strong will that supported his whole plan and did something not moral during the time like killing some innocent people to accelerate the process of technology development and hijacking a starship from human feet. He is more like an anti-hero but what he fights for is not himself but the human being. Bill Hines used his power as the Wallfacer to create the machines to instill specific state to human spirit. He used the machines to instill an incorruptible state of defeatism in humanity's military, forcing humanity to develop plans to escape the solar system rather than stay and fight, and he used the machines to instill a state in his own spirit that what he did was right to help him against moral problem and afraid in his mind. We cannot juggle him as a hero and ignore the moral problem in influencing the independent thinking.
The next group is Chen Xin and Thomas Wade in Death’s End, for they are the symbol of moral and rational side of human. Chen is on the moral side and as mentioned before Earth lose in the game of deterrence and missed the chance to develop lightspeed starships and survive due to Chen’s consideration for the human beings alive. Wade is the colleague of Chen and is a mad scientist who would like to sacrifice anything to push the process of technology development, just like Salver Hardin in Foundation, whose brief is” never let your sense of morals keep you from doing what is right”. Wade tried to kill Chen twice: One is to stop Chen from becoming Swardholder and another to push on the study for lightspeed starships, but he hesitated and failed twice. Wade hesitated for he wanted to give chance to Chen, to human moral, and hoped that human moral would make a concession to what deserve doing even with risk for human beings. His failure is predictable and this may imply the moral troubles stand before technology development in some field. In author’s attitude, these troubles are hard and even impossible to get over. This may be truth that moral can be a limit to technology but there is another idea that moral attitude may change with the development of technology. It takes time to find the truth.
Then comes to Luo Ji, the presenter of Dark Forest Theory, a successful Wallfacer, a hero without crown. Not like Ye Wenjie, who suffered from the Political storm during the Culture Revolution and lost hope for human nature but repented in the end, or Zhang Beihai, a Naval officer with strong brief, Luo Ji is more like a common people when been chosen as the Wallfacer due to his relationship with Ye Wenjie and his study in cosmic civilization. He did not know the dark forest theory at the begging even though he got the two axioms of cosmic civilization and was not ready to take the responsibility as a Wallfacer, just using his power to find a secluded villa and a dream lover to live in seclusion till the UN used his family to threaten him. When he understood Dark Forest Theory, he got to know that he is the only one with the power to make Earth have an equal right to talk with Trisolaris. He still met many challenge: the risk that Trisolaris understood the plan and stopped it with high technology, the misunderstanding from human society. He finally succeeded and became the first Swardholder, who lead to a peace pried for Earth. He has all the equalities for hero like courage and wisdom and did what a hero supposed to do. From the novel, we can understand the process of improvement, from a normal man to a hero. However, human beings never thank Luo Ji or treat him as a hero, just because he also has the power that threat everyone’s life. And this is why I think he is a hero without crown.
If put the fiction issue and the characters aside, we can find the novels use many pages to show the human nature. I will choose several interest example to discuss. In the novel, to fight against the crisis of Trisolaris, all the countries and groups united together but there are swirls under the peace surface. The forbidden of escape using starships is an example, for it is hard for human society to find out the question: who has to right to get aboard to Noah's Ark. Technology blockade, scramble for interests between influence groups, double standard towards people and group, betray and chicanery are still exists, even under the threat of the same enemy. it is still a long way for human to build an equal and unity society and maybe it is impossible with the misunderstanding due to many issues. I will never say what Chen Xin did in novel is wrong for what she did is what almost everyone would do on that set due to human nature, due to love for others.
There is one interesting example: when Earth Federation (Government formed due to crisis of Trisolaris) recalled the two human ships that survived the Doomsday Battle, Bronze Age and Blue Space. Upon their return, the crew of Bronze Age is charged with crimes against humanity for destroying other ships in the fleet. This may be extreme in the novel, just image in the case, a group of people lost in some place in mountain or on the sea and had nothing to eat or drink, there is two choice，everyone dead or some people use the body of others to survive, which one is right? If someone survived by eat others’ body, will he be punished or how the society will treat him? In reality, there is very low chance for this horrible thing to happen, but something similar may happen like scramble for supplies during earthquakes, air crashes or accident in mines. The law system nowadays may not punish them in consider of humanity, but it is hard to say they can easily assimilate into society because people may label them for hitting others for their own interest. For this question, different ideal exists.
Even though the novels talk a lot about the human weakness, we can still find the glory of human nature. There is no age without the whistler for crisis: the novel, there are many people notice the threat of "droplet" due to their professionalism even though most people have no idea of danger; there is no age without people stick to their heart: a basic physics professor, Ding Yi, did not join the ETO but used many tools to do research and when he realized no chance for breakthrough for basic physics, he still actively promoted the application of basic physics; there is no age without hope: “Make time for civilization, for civilization won't make time” People after big turmoil worldwide during the crisis of Trisolaris still gathered together and rebuilt home. I want to use a detail from end of the first book, the three-body problem, to end this part: after Trisolaris send the last image that uses insects to represent human beings to show the big gap in technology, Shi Qiang, a common policeman reflected on how despite all the advances man has made over pesticides, the simple-minded locust still manages to survive and thrive. The hope and the courage are the glory of human nature.
5. Conclusion
I have read the novels in Chinese for over 5 times and this report may be more like the filling and understanding for the three-body trilogy. I rewrote the story line in the logic of my understanding and referenced the English version. The three-body trilogy has been translated into many languages like English and Japanese and I am happy that more and more people get to know about this for I think this is the best science fiction novel in China. Even though in the novels, there are many page about human nature that leaves space for further thinking but it does not achieve the level of philosophy. It is enough because the three-body trilogy is just one of the hard science fictions works.
