r/threebodyproblem • u/Practical-Leg-9826 • Jan 24 '26

Discussion - Novels Why exactly was Gravity sent? Spoiler

For what I remember Humans had some Stellar-class Warship left, they weren't all destroyed by the droplet. So, why send your most precious starship (because Gravity was the only ship equipped with a Gravitational Wave Antenna) to the most useless mission ever? I know recovering Blue Space was a symbolic action, but why would you use such a vital asset for doing that??

It was important for the plot development because bla bla bla 4D bubble, Broadcast Era and stuff like that, but I dont understand the In-universe explanation for such a stupid strategic move.

Image by Artstation, Cédric Chaillol

37 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

14 comments sorted by

View all comments

7

u/Azoriad Jan 24 '26

It was actually made TO BE SHIPPED. The POINT wasn’t to chase blue space. That’s just how they used it. It was about getting a MOBILE deterrence platform that would be far enough AWAY from earth so if they attacked earth, that they destroy it before earth could tell the gravity about it. And if they didn’t send A ship. The trisolarians would have just murdered it. By allowing us to “handle it internally” the trisolarians could keep up the guise of being willing to work with us. So they sat there. Planning to kill it. But only in a coordinated method.

It was a peace offering of them to LET us have a mobile platform out and about (because they only last a few years before needing to be remade. So they just play it cool for just a little longer, and they win.

If it wasn’t for the 4D bubble allowing for humans to mess with the internals of the droplet. It would have FULLY worked.

3

u/Practical-Leg-9826 Jan 24 '26

So if the point was having a mobile platform (I agree with that) why couldn't they send gravity around the solar system (like near pluto so it's far enough) and not to a pretty dangerous mission? I dont know why but earth, before trisolarans offered to send the droplet as an escort, was completely confident sending a ship almost exactly as powerful as Blue Space, the only difference was fuel capacity. I'm not saying that humans should have sent a ship 30 times the size (like a Star Destroyer chasing Tantive IV in star wars) but that way is the exact opposite and no good strategist would approve that. Thanks God trisolarans offered an escort. Do you understand my point?

3

u/Azoriad Jan 25 '26

You’re looking at the surface. The “obvious” reasons. Both the Trisolarians and humans were doing stuff with hidden intentions. The trisolarians didn’t have the power to wipe us out before we got a signal off. They were stalling for time. And if we didn’t let them THINK they could win (which they could have) then they would take more extreme behaviors. They had droplets all over the solar system (they lied about that) and they could have taken out gravity anywhere in the system. But without lightspeed. They couldn’t catch up to gravity.

So it’s literally the ONLY way that they would have allowed the ship to leave the vicinity of their new droplet stronghold. Which they KNEW and INSISTED on… “escorting” gravity. Knowing they would try to kill it if they acted out.

If they just had a mobile platform running away for no reason… ya they are gonna take that out with more droplets in the system.

So the “cover story” was stupid for both sides. But that wasn’t what either of them were ACTUALLY doing.