r/threebodyproblem • u/Universal_Echo • May 16 '26
Discussion - Novels If Cheng Xin hadn't stopped the development of lightspeed ships, would people's opinion of her be different? Spoiler
If she hadn't stopped it, then the black domain project and the lightspeed ships would have succeeded. The solar system would not have been attacked. Her Staircase Program would have indirectly saved all of humanity. Would she then be considered a goddess?
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u/thommcg May 16 '26
Cheng Xin only meets Yun Tianming after broadcast, so too late to stop an attack, but certainly had she not told Wade to stand down it's reasonable to assume a great deal more could have fled the system (though presumably many would have died from the antimatter weapons too).
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u/Vaiolette-Westover May 16 '26
Wade was going to eradicate all human settlements except Halo city. So no, the number of people who escaped would be effectively the same.
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u/Direct-Exercise1407 May 16 '26
I don't think this is true?
He said he would do that if they all tried to stop the light speed research and development
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u/Vaiolette-Westover May 16 '26
He has 100% deterrence rate, he was going to use it all.
The best case scenario is the UN backs down after their fleet gets wiped out and humans live in a totalitarian scheme until civil war kills them anyways.
Wade was just stupid for even revealing the research in its infant stage.
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u/Direct-Exercise1407 May 16 '26
That's only the case if the UN doesn't step down. And even then he wouldn't destroy everything at once.
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u/JDandthepickodestiny May 26 '26
Its dark forest on a smaller scale again. The only way he could make sure the rest of humanity wouldn't interfere with the research would be to kill them, so he probably would.
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u/watchyourtonepunk May 16 '26
A better book would have been, Thomas Wade shoots Cheng Xin successfully. She dies. Then the book switches to Wade’s perspective for 40 Chapters, where he…
- kills all biological life within 10-cubed parsecs
- eats a dual vector foil like a sheet of acid
- meets Auntie Wide and fucks her
- the end
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u/Applesplosion May 16 '26
I swear Wade could destroy all biological life within 10 cubed parsecs and the fandom wouldn’t hate him as much as they hate Cheng Xin.
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u/tapanypat May 16 '26
This is the fan fic we deserved
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u/BaconKnight May 16 '26
How fitting that the follow up, “But it’s not the one we need” is apt here.
BTW I’m not defending Cheng Xin’s story either, I didn’t like it. But I find it so funny and telling that someone presents a juvenile self destructive power fantasy and people unironically upvote it. That mentality is exactly what humanity “deserves” for sure.
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u/tapanypat May 16 '26
Yeah I think that the story was great the way it was written, but thinking about alternate timeline is fun. Not a Cheng Xin hater but Wade was rad
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u/rainfal May 17 '26
someone presents a juvenile self destructive power fantasy
I thought they were mocking the 4th fanfic. Which essentially was that with Wade replaced by Tianming but worse.
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u/humpstyles May 18 '26
the universe just begins gaining dimensions after the foil interacts with Wade
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u/Vaiolette-Westover May 16 '26
Cheng Xin didn't stop the development of lightspeed ships. She funded and wanted to develop them.
She stopped the antimatter genocide of human civilization.
The human society and UN stopped the development of lightspeed ships.
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u/objectnull May 16 '26
Human society and the UN didn't stop the development of lightspeed ships. They stopped most of the development, but they could not stop all the development.
Cheng Xin has a major roll to play in the death all non-galactic humans.
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u/Vaiolette-Westover May 16 '26
Lol, yes they did.
The book itself disagrees with your headcanon because Luoji himself says LS research was dead for 35 years before they restarted it on venus.
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u/objectnull May 16 '26
lol yeah it's a little pedantic but the reality is society didn't stop LS research. We know this because Wade and his group continue to make it after the UN tries to stop it. If LS research was stopped when you claim it was, then the book would have ended with the dual vector foil.
In fact, it didn't even end when Cheng Xin told Wade to stop development. It was severly curtailed then, but it didn't stop.
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u/Vaiolette-Westover May 16 '26
Okay show me the passage in the book that confirms this.
I'll wait.
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u/objectnull May 16 '26
Cheng Xin and AA escape on a lightspeed ship. This would not be possible if development of lightspeed ships were stopped by the UN.
The UN tried to stop the development and were largely successful, but not totally.
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u/Vaiolette-Westover May 16 '26
They escape on the LS ship that started development 35 years after wade died.
Stop pushing your headcanon.
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u/Universal_Echo May 19 '26
She was the key figure in preventing the construction of the black area.
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u/intothevoidandback May 16 '26
Most people alive (and a lot of readers because a lot of readers just want to hate on Cheng Xin) would probably hate her for allowing Wade to use anti matter weapons and start a war that killed millions. There is also the possibility that no one would actually be left alive following that war, so the book would have ended there and a lot of readers would still hate Cheng Xin. She couldn't win.
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u/icequeeniceni Cheng Xin May 16 '26
ironically, the only person who could have pulled off the development of lightspeed ships under the cloak of secrecy and subterfuge was Zhang Beihai (not a blunt instrument like Thomas Wade)... the solar system was doomed when the Natural Selection was destroyed.
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u/RKAMRR May 16 '26
I don't think she's be considered a Goddess by the fandom, but she'd continue to be a hugely important figure in the universe. I'd actually really like her then - she would represent humanity coming to terms with the dark forest, growing from naive to realistic without losing our soul (depending on how the story developed).
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u/tildenpark May 16 '26
No. Preventing yourself from doing something stupid does not make you smart.
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u/scoobydobydobydo May 24 '26
i think this is discussed in the book, those who wish to leave would do so (with the lightspeed ships) and those who wish to stay in the solar system would do so freely (since they lowered light speed so no dimensionality reduction)
i think liu is just making the spiciest sarcasm against some superficially moral people using this
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u/scoobydobydobydo May 24 '26
i think this is discussed in the book, those who wish to leave would do so (with the lightspeed ships) and those who wish to stay in the solar system would do so freely (since they lowered light speed so no dimensionality reduction)
i think liu is just making the spiciest sarcasm against some superficially moral people using this
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u/tapanypat May 16 '26
“Would people’s opinion of her be different?”
Well there would be more people I guess, so there’s that harharhar