The Dark Universe: Reading Liu Cixin's "The Complete Works of the Three-Body Problem"

The first time I read The Three-Body Problem was ten years ago. At that time, "Three-Body Problem" was already very famous in the sci-fi circle, but it had not yet entered the public eye. After reading the first book, I was so impressed that I didn't read any further. Over the past ten years, The Three-Body Problem has continued to grow in influence, becoming the most successful Chinese popular novel in the first two decades of the new century. Not only the domestic Internet always mentions "The Three-Body Problem", but also among the foreign friends around me are fans of the "Three-Body Problem", which makes me seem to be an outlier if I haven't read the entire book. In order to understand "Dark Forest" and "Dimension Reduction Strike", I finally spent a week reading the trilogy from start to finish.

trisomy

Simply put, the Three-Body Problem series is about the interstellar war between Earth and aliens. This theme can be regarded as retro, and the content and style of "Three-Body Problem" are reminiscent of the classic science fiction novels of the 1940s and 1950s.

The aliens in the book come from the three-body world four light-years away from the solar system, where there are three "suns". The law of motion of three celestial bodies under the action of universal gravitation is the famous three-body problem, which is the origin of the title of this book. It is now known that the three-body problem cannot be solved accurately, and the three suns have irregular orbits, which creates an extremely harsh living environment for the planet where the three-body man is located. Getting too close to or too far from the sun is deadly, the Trisolaran civilization has been destroyed countless times, and there is the potential danger of falling into the sun completely. The novel simulates the repeated birth and destruction of the Trisolaran civilization in the form of video games. Although it sounds complicated, it is actually just saying: the aliens are in dire straits and have a strong will to immigrate to the aliens. Swap the three-body problem for other crises, such as the sun's decline, and the story holds true. Until one day, Trisolaran received a signal from the earth and found that the earth is a habitable planet, and decided to invade the earth.

Considering that the Trisolarans are on the verge of life and death, and have space technology far beyond that of Earth civilization, I wonder why they don't actively look for immigrant planets, but passively listen for signals. Whether or not you can receive an alien signal is purely accidental, and according to the cosmology in the book, this signal is likely to be deceptive, and it is very risky to reply to the signal. The solar system is the closest star system to the Trisolaran world, and there is no reason not to actively survey it. In contrast, Alpha Centauri, the closest star to the solar system, the prototype of the Trisolaran in the novel, has been coveted countless times in science fiction works, and there is no reason why the Trisolaran never cared about his neighbors.

At the technological level of Trisolarans, it would take 450 years to reach Earth. After a long 450 years, the Earth technology may have surpassed the Trisolarans by then. In order to solve this problem, the Trisolarans created "Sophons" to block the development of Earth's technology.

Tomoko is the most important and exciting sci-fi setting in the first novel, and it also paved the way for the later two. A sophon is a proton in a high-dimensional space, which is carved into an intelligent computer after being unfolded in two-dimensional space. According to the book, going from a higher dimension to a lower dimension "gets bigger" (imagine a bottle of ink that becomes two-dimensional—on paper—and has a huge area). A proton is reduced from nine dimensions to two dimensions, and its area is large enough to cover the entire planet. Due to the extremely small mass of the sophon, it can be accelerated to the speed of light and reach the earth in advance. Sophon plays two roles: one is to interfere with particle accelerators on Earth and block the development of basic science; the other is to communicate with Trisolarans and monitor the Earth.

Without particle accelerators, can human technology continue to develop? The view in the book is typical of scientific reductionism, which holds that all science is ultimately physics. The inner logic of this view is that since everything is composed of microscopic particles, as long as microscopic particles are studied, all phenomena can be finally explained. However, the whole is not equal to the sum of its components. Even if the characteristics of each component are known, it does not mean that the performance of the system as a whole can be predicted. For example, do you think that as long as the microscopic particles are clearly studied, human behavior can be predicted? The opposite of reductionism is holism, which holds that complex systems cannot be broken down into parts for analysis. This issue is complex and will not be discussed further. In short, reductionism is a controversial theory, and it is also a matter of opinion whether the expensive particle accelerator is worth building.

Can Tomoko spy on the world? According to the setting in the book, Sophon moves at the speed of light, and can appear in multiple places at almost the same time, so that every move of human beings is under surveillance. However, with billions of people in the world, so many people speak and write together, the total amount of information is astronomical, not to mention that human expressions and body movements can also transmit information, and the total amount of information is even greater. In the book, the Trisolarans also rely on artificial monitoring to receive alien signals. How do they extract useful information from this innumerable mass of information? Moreover, the Trisolarans are not familiar with Earth civilization. According to the setting in the book, they rely on brainwave communication and do not know how to deceive. In the third part, they cannot even see the hidden information in Yun Tianming's fairy tale. In this case, if you use symbols, hints, etc., even in front of the Trisolaran, they may not understand. Tomoko's surveillance is really not that scary.

Of course, if you have to be true to the setting, then science fiction cannot be written. Humanity is caught in a big crisis of alien invasion, how to deal with it next?

Trisolaran 2 Dark Forest

Continuing the two premise in the first part: the development of basic human science has stopped, and every move of human beings is under the surveillance of Trisolarans. The only known weakness of the Trisolarans is that they do not know how to deceive. In such a sinister situation, the book proposes a very middle-of-the-road idea: hand over the future of the earth to four people. They are called "Wallfacers" and have extremely high powers and can call resources at will. They deceive others and deceive themselves first, do not communicate their true strategies with the outside world, and use clever tricks to confuse the Trisolarans. At the same time, some anti-human extremists who took the initiative to take refuge in the Three-Body Problem chose the "Breakers" to oppose it.

This setting looks interesting at first glance, but the book does not handle it very well, and it lacks in characterization and plot arrangement. Of these four Wallfacers, I don't even remember the first three names (the fourth one is the protagonist Luo Ji, more on that later). And the confrontation between the Wallfacer and the Wallbreaker also lacks the ups and downs in the plot. The story routine is that the Wallfacer does some strange things, and then suddenly someone says "I'm your Wallbreaker, your real intention is actually Is such that……".

The surface strategy of the first Wallfacer is to take a suicide attack to confront the Trisolaran head-on. The real idea is to use ball lightning to attack the human fleet, quantize the human fleet and then attack the Trisolaran (this setting comes from Liu Cixin's previous work Ball Lightning, which is confusing if you haven't read it). This technology cannot be controlled by humans, and the Trisolarans are not afraid at all, and in the end, they die.

The surface strategy of the second Wallfacer is to attack the Trisolaran with a hydrogen bomb. The real idea is to blackmail the Trisolaran through the means of perishing together, using the hydrogen bomb explosion to push Mercury toward the sun, and the chain reaction after that will destroy the entire solar system. But humans can't make enough hydrogen bombs to propel Mercury, and this plan is completely untenable.

The surface strategy of the third Wallfacer is to study brain science and improve human intelligence. The real idea is to create a brainwashing machine to make humans believe in defeatism and escape from the solar system. In my opinion, this plan is completely superfluous. In such a harsh environment, there must be countless people who want to escape, and there is no need for brainwashing at all. It was also written later that Zhang Beihai, who did not accept brainwashing, was a staunch defeatist.

To sum up, the strategies of the first three Wallfacers themselves are failures, and there is no direct confrontation between Wallfacers and Wallbreakers, and the story structure of positive and negative confrontation is wasted.

As for the fourth Wallfacer, Luo Ji, he's a cynical playboy. For the first half of the novel, he has been sitting idle, wondering why he was chosen as the Wallfacer. The author spent a lot of time writing Luo Ji's love story: he imagined a perfect dream lover, and used the authority of the Wallfacer to find this dream lover in the real world: Zhuang Yan. Luo Ji and Zhuang Yan fell in love and got married, but at the happiest time, they discovered that their wife and daughter had been hibernated by the United Nations, in order to coerce Luo Ji to take on the responsibility of the Wallfacer.

This love story is very embarrassing to read. The so-called dream lover is completely a vase with no character at all. And this content is almost forced into the book and has no logical connection with the main line.

Luo Ji's role is also a tool man, and his role is to propose the "Dark Forest" theory. The so-called dark forest is actually social Darwinism of the jungle. Specifically, the book argues that:

(1) Survival is the first need of civilization

(2) Civilizations continue to grow and expand, but the total amount of matter in the universe remains the same

So there is conflict between civilizations. And due to

(3) Suspicion Chain: Both parties cannot judge whether the other party is a well-intentioned civilization

(4) Technological explosion: The technology of weak civilizations may accelerate development, surpassing that of powerful civilizations

The best way is to stifle the weak civilization in its cradle and eliminate it as soon as it is discovered.

The book also specially arranged an episode to confirm the correctness of the dark forest theory: after encountering a three-body attack, five space warships fled the battlefield, and the remaining resources were only enough for one warship, so they killed each other, and in the end only one warship survived.

Of the four premises put forward in the book, the first point is fine. The second point is problematic, the universe is infinite, and civilization is rare (we have yet to discover alien civilizations), there is no reason to think that there must be a life-and-death competition for survival among civilizations. The chain of suspicion in the third point can be eliminated through communication, and Sophon's setting itself proves the possibility of communication. The fourth point is that the technological explosion is just an unproven conjecture, and the acceleration of human technology may only be temporary. For example, since the Apollo landing on the moon, human aviation technology has not continued to accelerate.

Even if all four assumptions are accepted, the dark forest still does not work from a game-theoretical point of view. To take the metaphor in the book, in the dark forest, every civilization is a hunter with a gun. At this time, a target suddenly appeared. If the hunter shoots rashly, he will also reveal his position. How do you know that it is not the mantis catching the cicada and the sparrow? In addition to war, there may also be relations of colonization and cooperation between civilizations. Even for a malicious civilization, violence may not be the best solution. The cosmology in The Three-Body Problem is too pessimistic.

At the end of the book, according to the dark forest theory, Luo Ji threatens to broadcast the coordinates of the Trisolaran in the universe (which will also reveal the coordinates of the earth, which is a way of perishing together) and reach a peace agreement with the Trisolaran.

Three-body 3 Death is immortal

After reading "Dark Forest", the plot has basically ended successfully, and I am very curious about how the story will be edited next. "Death Immortal" is the longest and largest in the trilogy, and it is also the loosest in content.

Continuing the plot of the previous one, relying on the threat of the dark forest, the state of peace between the earth and the three-body is barely maintained. The person responsible for pressing the button on the broadcast that perishes together is called the "sword bearer". Putting the survival of two civilizations in the hands of one person is incredible. In order to ensure that the threat is effective, it should be guaranteed that once the Trisolaran invades, 100% immediate retaliation will be carried out, otherwise the threat will be ineffective. In the novel, the people chose a "gentle and beautiful" swordsman, Cheng Xin (whose gender is as rigid as Zhuang Yan in the previous film), and did not have the courage to press the button of mutual destruction at all, and the three-body man immediately invaded the earth And destroy all gravitational wave broadcasting tools, human beings become prisoners of aliens.

This set of books has always had a tendency to belittle the masses, which is evident in this one, treating the human collective as a mob. Humanity has experienced the crisis of nuclear deterrence. I can't imagine that in the future, people will make no achievements in the political game and will kill themselves foolishly. Gender biases are also evident in the book, such as the peaceful future of making men weak and looking like women, and mocking the superficial ignorance of a feminized society, electing incompetent sword-bearers like Cheng Xin.

After the Earth was occupied, the Trisolarans forced the Earthlings to emigrate to Australia. The chaos and famine in the process killed countless people. Strangely enough, Cheng Xin was not blamed for causing this disaster, and the supporting characters in the book were still defending her.

Just as the cataclysm intensified, the Earth battleship that escaped the Trisolaran attack sent out a gravitational wave signal. The Trisolaran world was first destroyed by an unknown advanced civilization, and the earth was also at stake. The Trisolarans abandoned their home planet and Earth, and traveled to the universe in a light-speed spacecraft.

Humans immigrated to the space city behind Jupiter, hoping to use Jupiter as a bunker to avoid the blow. The book describes the principle and shape of the space city in detail, which is very interesting to read. It is a pity that there are 10,000 ways for aliens to destroy the earth. This time, it was replaced by the "two-way foil" that makes the three-dimensional space two-dimensional, and the entire solar system was destroyed. The only way to escape the catastrophe was a spaceship capable of reaching the speed of light, but Cheng Xin (she again!) stopped her efforts to build the spaceship in the first place. This woman who destroyed the world twice was given a light-speed spaceship that was secretly built to go to aliens.

Cheng Xin followed up with a series of adventures, including navigating in the "black domain" with low light speed, living in a small artificial universe, and so on. There are so many sci-fi ideas in this section that it's almost enough to write another novel. In the end, in order to save the big universe, Cheng Xin returned the mass of the small universe to the big universe. But she ended up leaving an ecological ball with a mass of five kilograms in the small universe. The book suggested that the lost five kilograms of mass might cause the universe to fail to restart.

Another dark line in the book is the story of Yun Tianming, a terminally ill patient who has a crush on Cheng Xin. He once gave Cheng Xin a star, and his brain was sent to the Three-Body Problem. Through fairy tales, he conveyed important survival information to mankind. Although the fairy tale written by Yun Tianming is very moving (this fairy tale is probably the most literary passage in the trilogy), he is still a tool person responsible for transmitting clues, so I won't mention it.

Summarize

This is a set of novels with outstanding advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is the author's exuberant imagination, and the sophons, curvature-driven engines, two-way foils, etc. in the book are all impressive. The sci-fi setting in the book does not stop at simple fantasy, but includes theoretical derivation and vivid descriptions. The process of making sophons, the destruction of the three-body world by light particles, and the two-dimensionalization of the solar system are absolutely shocking scenes. . As for the relatively "soft" setting of Dark Forest, although I don't agree with it, at least it is a topic worthy of discussion.

The downsides focus on writing skills. Criticisms of Liu Cixin's writing are commonplace, and I think it's not just a matter of language ability. Liu Cixin's writing is uneven. When writing about space and spaceships, I don't find his prose to be lacking; but when he writes about characters, I can't help noticing the abrupt dialogue, the pale characters, and sometimes having to endure bad passages to read on.

I think the core of literature is people. Literature portrays people's images, tells people's experiences, conveys people's emotions, and moves readers who are people. In sci-fi, especially the so-called "hard sci-fi", sci-fi ideas are the most important. Science fiction writers often come up with an idea first, and then work their way around the characters and plot. In this way of writing, characters are just tools used to show the spectacle of science fiction and drive the narrative. In Liu Cixin's speeches and interviews, he has repeatedly admitted that he uses his characters as tools. A true sci-fi is often unavoidable at the expense of literature. This also shows exactly why science fiction is a niche. If "The Three-Body Problem" is made into a movie one day, I hope that the director will spare no effort to keep the important sci-fi settings, and the characters and plots do not need to stick to the original work.

Although I don’t want to put it on the line, there are indeed many extreme ideas in this book, the most obvious one is gender bias. It is said that the English version has been deleted in more than a thousand places. Many of Liu Cixin's views are actually very common in his generation, and it can only be said that he did not transcend the limitations of the environment of the times.

If "The Three-Body Problem" were an English novel, my rating might be lower. However, considering the overall level of contemporary Chinese popular novels, the achievement of The Three-Body Problem is of epoch-making significance. We finally have a sci-fi novel that is popular all over the world, and it's a bit unreasonable not to support it. If this is an opportunity, it will definitely be a rare good thing to attract more people to pay attention to science fiction and promote the development of Chinese science fiction.

The Dark Universe: Reading Liu Cixin's "The Complete Works of the Three-Body Problem"