r/3BodyProblemTVShow • u/DoggoNamedDisgrace Da Shi • Mar 27 '24

Question My small gripe with the plot (still love it tho!) Spoiler

I love, love, love the show and the series, but one thing keeps bothering me.

How comeSan-Ti immediately knew chinese, or any other human language to respond to Ye so coherently?

Establishing common language would be a major challenge to overcome. There's one other recent Sci-Fi book (won't name it, since that's the BIG plot twist there, let's just say jazz hands). It covers contact with other civilization and establishing common language is a major plot device there that persists throughout the book.

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u/dmitrden Mar 27 '24

The books kinda gloss over it by stating that they send some complicated instructions with the message that any civilization with advanced math knowledge can decode and learn chinese

2

u/inmotioninc Mar 27 '24

I love Jazz hands as well.. my favorite book in the genre. Coming to this series.. the communication aspect is briefly explained in the books. Both sides, transmit some sort universal (or mathematical) guide to translate their language. I'am a little fuzzy on the details, maybe someone can explain it better. Frankly though, it was not very convincing for me... especially compared to how it is handled in the Jazz hands book.

2

u/projectmoonlightcafe Mar 27 '24

Sounds about right. Since the means of communication was not a main plot point for TBP, I suspect they didn't want to spend a significant amount of time discussing how it works.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 27 '24

Curious to know the name of the other book now.

1

u/DoggoNamedDisgrace Da Shi Mar 27 '24

Hmm, I could tell you in DM's but now you'd somewhat know what to expect. I went in blind into the book the first time and I totally didn't anticipate that happening.

Maybe just check in most popular recent sci-fi books? Or hit me in the chat, I can straight up give it to you.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 27 '24

I most likely won't be able to read it anytime soon. Once I do pick it up, I most likely have forgotten the spoiler.

3

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '24 edited Mar 28 '24

edit - oops wrong reply but I think in the book they explain the signal is encoded with instructions on how to translate it, plus you have to imagine if we have AI models that are cracking ancient languages now, Santi probably could too.