#the three body problem spoilers

[gffa]

I felt about about looking up the ending for Death’s End before finishing these last 200 pages of the book, but I was so desperate to know where all of this was going, and I felt bad about that at first, like I’d ruined the surprise for myself.  But as I’m still going through these final chapters, I’m gaining a new appreciation for the decision. I don’t think it would have worked to look it up before I read the book ahead of time, I had to experience the majority of the story without expectations, and maybe it would have been even better had I stuck to that.  But I’m gaining a new appreciation for what this series does, why it had to be told the way it was, why all these big and small desperate choices being made all along the way. SPOILERS FOR THE THREE-BODY PROBLEM SERIES BEYOND THIS POINT.

I’m at the point where Cao Bin is taking Cheng Xin on a tour and they’ve gotten to Lightspeed II, which is empty and utterly eerie for it, because the flickering light is spooky as hell.  Turns out, it’s the space dust falling into a black hole that’s 5km away, just a tiny one, is what’s making it like this--and it’s connected to the research into the Black Domain project, where they would create a black hole to lower the speed of light in the Solar System so they would no longer be a threat. And it struck me.  That’s it, that’s what this whole story is about. All these civilizations just like humanity, desperately looking for a way to just survive, being forced into this warfare for existence, so they create black holes to show that they can never escape their own system and won’t be a threat, and it rips apart the fabric of the galaxy just a little more.  Or every time an advanced civilization comes along and will annihilate them by destroying the plane of existence they live unless they re-engineer themselves to be able to live in one lower dimension, which rips apart another layer of the universe. I spent so much of this book wondering if humanity would find a way to stand with the other titans of the galaxy, if their ability to learn these concepts within mere centuries would save them, if they could learn to navigate the higher dimensions, if they would learn how to create light-speed travel, etc.  And that’s it, that’s the trap!  Every step they take, whether it makes them more powerful or deliberately handicaps them, whether they do it to themselves or another civilization does it to them, it’s another step on changing the fabric of the universe, until it rips another dimension away, until it lowers the speed of light in the galaxy, until eventually the whole thing is going to collapse everywhere. Knowing the end of the story, knowing where all of this is going, adds another layer of horror to that tiny little black hole off the side of Lightspeed II, one that’s not necessarily affecting anything, other than people can’t live here, but it slammed into me everything else that’s been going on, everything humanity has been desperately trying to achieve to save themselves, and all of it, all of it, is just helping bring their own eventual death on, because that’s the trap.  If you leave everything alone, others will kill you.  If you handicap yourself, you’re destroying the galaxy around you.  If you keep progressing, you’re ripping into the fabric of the universe.  There was never any way out of this, once you cross a certain threshold of progress. It’s chilling, but I can’t say it’s without hope.  The universe doesn’t have to be forever for it to be worth something, all those lives that lived their time in the ways they could, all the people that got to experience things or had their friends and family around them, that still mattered, even when the bigger picture was much darker. I think I’m glad I knew the ending exactly where I did, it helped me articulate a lot of the feelings I had about the series, and I gained a hell of an appreciation for why it was structured the way it was.  Every step of the way was an illustration of why the universe is the way it is, goddamn.

[pinkbalrog]

I enjoyed the Three Body Problem and will probably read the rest of the series but I wish I'd been prepared for the Sexism. Spoilers under the cut.

Pivotal female character with complex motives and emotional states becomes a murderer and arguably the worst kind of traitor, becomes a figure head trying to mitigate damage in an organization facilitated by her actions, is shamed by truth and then . . Dies?

Her daughter commits suicide whereas her boyfriend survives to act against that which doomed her.

Her mother breaks, betrays her father, then proceeds to betray her.

Her female mentor commits suicide.

Three women are emotionally devastated murderers.

One woman is directly compared to a machine and her only purpose was to facilitate the needs of her genius boyfriend (she is also a would be murderer).

One woman cries when her husband is upset while said husband uses her as a prop and ignores his son and finds emotional support everywhere but with her.

There are a few secretaries and young female zealots. The zealots die or suffer horribly, and the secretaries are moderately useful.

The science fiction is fun! The author's note is informative. The translation is fantastic. Just don't get invested in the female characters, like at all. If I missed one--apologies.

[todayontumblr]

Thursday, March 28.

3 Body Problem *spoilers*

There are pickles, snags, muddles, and problems. Then there are problems concerning three bodies. This would be the latter. 

But problems, three-body or otherwise, can escalate into full-blown conundrums. And that is just what we have for you this Thursday, March 28, in the form of these Spotlight interviews with Zine Tseng and Rosalind Chao, and John Bradley and Alex Sharp, all four of 3 Body Problem fame, who were subject to a myriad of tough questions. The dark forest theory? Could Jason Momoa solve the #3 body problem? Ways that the first season does not end? And what would the ideal three-course meal one could put together to pair with a viewing of 3 Body Problem?

[lovefrombegonia]

Ye Wengjie's reply to Trisolarans in different versions of the three-body problem saga:

⚠️ [SPOILER ALERT] ⚠️

Netflix:

"Come. We cannot save ourselves. I will help you conquer this world."

Book and Cdrama:

"Come here. I will help you conquer this world. Our civilization is no longer capable of solving its own issues. We need your force to intervene."

[cringe-but-freee]

we stan a girlie who doomed humanity bc of her trauma

[kiwibirb1]

So. I have finished Madoka Magica (the show at least). I am currently sobbing. ITS THE DOOMED YURI IT REALLY IS LIKE WHEN YOU LEARN HOMURAS BACKSTORY AND THEN MADOKAS WISH ITS SO SAD AND SO HAPPY AT THE SAME TIME AND THE WAY HOMURA USES THE BOW AND ARROW AT THE END BECAYSE ITS WHAT MADOKA USED????? DEAD STRUCK STRAIGHT THROUGH THE HEART OBLITERATED

[shunphantomhivezoldyck]

Has anyone in the fandom of stories of transmigration and time travel ever read The three body problem trilogy, by Cixin Liu, or just until the second book? Because let me tell you, the book presents something called the Wallfacers, individuals who have to engineer a plan to save humanity from an inevitable alien invasion but they can’t tell anyone the specifics in risk of being found out by alien technology, and so a barrier of communication forms between these Wallfacers and the rest of the population where basically no one can ascertain if what the Wallfacers tell them is true or part of the strategy, etc. So there’s this fragment:

And I was reminded of how transmigrators and regressors operate in their stories, even when they don’t seem to want to, and how people watch them in awe or admire them based on the results of absurd or unconventional plans.

I just wanted to share this weird coincidence I found in a SF book.

[serenpedac]

“We belong to the Earth and the sea, you belong to the stars.”

— Zhang Beihai (The Dark Forest - Cixin Liu)

[female-malice]

One of the things I really enjoyed about the Three Body Problem trilogy was how Cheng Xin, despite of being one of the most objective wholesome and goodly characters of the series she managed her actions turned to be the ones more polarizing and controversial and even at some point "incorrect" at the point that a big part of the fandom keeps acting like if she was some kind incompetent idiot, when in reality she was just... an engineer who ended being chosen as the one in charge of one of the most fucked up defense mechanisms made by humans.

The fact that Cheng Xin "failure" defending Earth is because she took serious her ethics instead of it being a product of some moral failure, is something I loved and it hurt me as reader when she realized how wrong she had been for acting "right". Probably if someone like Thomas Wade had been the one taking a fucked up option instead of her I would be like "damn that's sad but it was bound to happen ¯\_(ツ)_/¯". But fandom act like if having a characters taking wrong choices by right reasons are stupid as if we could not end doing something like that in our daily life.

Like, no wonder why sometimes popular media chicken outs about making an authentically morally ambiguous female characters who are not antagonists or give a powerful female character a moment of objective failure; fandom can't even deal with a "nice" woman failing due keeping her ethics in place.

90% of the fandom failed to pay attention to the last 100 pages of the series.

(spoilers ahead)

Cheng Xin "fails" to save the solar system. But that's not where the book ends. There's 100 more pages.

We learn a lot about the universe in those 100 pages. But by that point, most of the fandom is too angry with Cheng Xin. So they don't read the ending carefully.

Cheng Xin chooses to return her micro-universe's mass to the main universe. She does this due to her sense of duty and ethics. This is the same sense of duty that informs all her decisions throughout her life. Sophon greatly admires Cheng Xin for her choice and her sense of duty and ethics.

In the ending, just over 1 million civilizations made it into micro-universes. That includes Earth civilization, galactic humans, and Trisolarans. Cheng Xin is the lone representative of Earth civilization at the end of the universe. And she does her part to save the universe. She rejects survival inside the micro-universe and embraces the chaos and danger of the aging main universe.

The first axiom of cosmic sociology is that survival is the primary need of civilization. Remember what Wade tells Cheng Xin? "If we lose our humanity we lose a lot. But if we lose our bestial nature, we lose everything." A civilization can survive eternally within a micro-universe. What would happen if it was Wade at the end of the universe instead of Cheng Xin? I think it's obvious. He would remain in the micro-universe and destroy the main universe.

Cheng Xin's act only returns the mass of 1 of millions of micro-universes. But Cheng Xin is quite the influential figure for both Trisolarans and galactic humans. However, how can she influence anyone while she's in a micro-universe? Well, Sophon is there. Sophon says that it's impossible to transmit information into the main universe. But the Trisolaran micro-universes are designed and programmed by Trisolarans. Maybe there's a way to transmit from one Trisolaran micro-universe to another. And the Trisolarans put Sophon in there with Cheng Xin! Sophon says Cheng Xin's universe was designed specifically for her. It's the smallest micro-universe they ever designed. Trisolarans were obsessed with humanity, Yun Tianming, and Cheng Xin. I know they'd want to watch Cheng Xin in her micro-universe. I'm sure they found a way to do that.

So Cheng Xin's choice might have been transmitted to all the Trisolaran micro-universes. But what about galactic humans? Well, it's implied that Trisolarans may have conquered many galactic humans. And they may have put them in Trisolaran micro-universes. So it's possible that two civilizations saw Cheng Xin's choice.

Cheng Xin's choice shows that at the end of the universe, cosmic sociology is no longer helpful. Survival is no longer the right choice. Duty is the right choice.

Returning mass to the main universe would've been impossible for Wade. He couldn't Return. He could only Advance.

Hopefully, there are thousands of Cheng Xins from various civilizations at the end of the universe. And hopefully, there are no Wades.

[taniushka12]

EVERYBODY GO WATCH THREE-BODY RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!

here's the entire show in vik with both spanish and english subs (and some more) and here's the full playlist on yt (unfortunately only w/ eng subs) (and if you have amazon Do watch it there)

if you watched the netflix version I Thoroughly recommend watching this (the chinese version) at the very least because you can fit a lot more things in thirty episodes than fucking... Eight. I Would Guess

and if you haven't, it's a hard sci fi show that starts with the suicide investigation of a scientist that claims that Physics Doesn't Exist (in a long list of scientists that are killing themselves for the same reason), and mainly follows a detective and a scientist he managed to rope into the investigation as they try to figure out what the fuck is going on. At the same time we see flashes and later full flashbacks of a woman, the mother of the aforementioned first suicide victim, in 1979 at the aftermath of the Chinese cultural revolution (this is important)

The show is slow paced at first but when it gets going it gets going, and is thick with scientific theory and philosophy. If you're interested even a smidge in anything I mentioned this far Please consider checking it out 😭😭

[in-a-brown-study]

so, i got to the part where the Droplet is revealed. and it was fucking hilarious.

like the humans on Earth were "omg it's so beautiful. it's perfect. it's an act of peace from the trilosarans. we've won !!!!"

*a few pages later*

the seemingly inoffensive droplet: bitch you fucking thought. i can destroy hundreds of you insects in seconds

stupid humans:

"If I destroy you, what business is it of yours?"

[rincewind87]

I am reading The Dark Foredt - book 2 of the Three Body Problem trilogy.

It opens with a description of an ant crawling over a surface. Normally I hate this kind of flowery, pointless prose, but this was done really well. It's from the ant's perspective and it's really well done.

I got to the end of the passage and I was ready to turn the page, but there was a tiny little beetle on the page. Normally I would have flicked it away without another thought. I don't want it to accidentally smoosh into my book, so I'm not trying to hurt it, but I also don't care what happens once its not on the page.

But this time I was thinking about what the beetle thought of the experience of walking on a book. I mean, that can't be something that happens to a beetle a lot. The surface is smooth to a human but probably pretty varied to a tiny beetle - obviously less so than a lot of surfaces but probably still like sand dunes.

And then it flew away under its own power and I didn't have to flick it.

I dunno if there's a lesson here or what, but it felt like experiencing art.

[pulusional]

3 body problem book series' dark forest sure is funny! :D

I really like rememberance of earths past by cixin liu

[apodemus-sylvaticus]

[gender-trash]

45 pages into redemption of time and we have already hit two of the primary purposes of fanfic: 1) establishing without a shadow of a doubt that They Fucked and 2) whump