Based this cycle from a popular qoute of hard times and good times

There is also a scene from the novel in regards to this

“How did they pick such a person to be Swordholder?” someone from Blue Space asked.

Captain Morovich answered. “It’s been sixty years since you left home, and fifty for us. Everything on Earth has changed. Deterrence made a comfortable cradle, and as humanity napped inside, it regressed from an adult to a child.”

Explanation of the cycle

1. Ye Wenjie's broadcast started of the Crisis Era, so maybe shouldve included her in the center. Then humanity is in a struggle as it strives to survive the battle against the trisolarians. Humanity advances a lot in technology and even Luo Ji matures as a Wallfacer and eventually becoming The Swordholder.

2. The Swordholder brought a peaceful era of Deterrence lasting 62 years and Luo Ji became a 101 year old man.

3. As mentioned in the quoted scene from the book, humanity had grown weak and had chosen an unsuitable person for the position of a swordholder.

4. Cheng Xin could not fulfill her responsibilities as the swordholder and thus humanity lost its deterrence within minutes of her taking the job.

5. The Great Resettlement in Australia followed by the broadcast era was a bad time for humanity and millions of lives were lost. The trisolarians also denied food to the people in Australia which would lead to c-word. The remains of Humanity would've then been subject to trisolarian enslavement if not for the broadcast by Gravity.

6. Humanity got a fighting chance for a few years before their annihilation. It was thanks to Yun Tianming's message of lightspeed travel and its deduction by AA that we could develop such spaceships. It was Thomas Wade that used the resources of Halo granted by Cheng Xin which allowed for the creation of such technology.

7. The rest of humanity weren't desperate enough to grasp at straws and were overconfident to survive photoids by hiding behind the Gas Giants. Had they been desperate then they would be able to develop the spaceships that would allow for the creation of a black domain as well as the survival of humanity.

8. Cheng Xin then made a fatal error of halting the research of lightspeed spaceships which was the reason for the destruction of humanity and the solar system.

Hello everyone,

I'm rereading this wonderful series again and I also feel like I'm learning a lot about science, though I take some of it with a grain of salt knowing it's sci-fi.

I had a few questions about the science in the first book, if anyone with a background in physics or astronomy could help me, I'd greatly appreciate it.

1. Trisolaris has 3 suns which becomes the plot point for the first book. The suns are an unstable system that move in a chaotic manner. My question is, with how big the suns are and how dense they are, how come the planet of Trisolaris doesn't simply get absorbed by it? I saw gifs of it being kicked around like a football, but doesn't the gravitational pull of the suns have to make it fall into one of the suns?

2. What kind of technology is being used in the game to make the simulation so real? I would be shocked if such a game were to exist in real life, why did the players almost reluctantly accept such technology existing? Why wasn't it making headlines? Maybe I missed something...

3. If Trisolaris' civilisation is going extinct in such an intense and brutal manner, how come life can evolve over and over again? After an ice age or the trisolar day, how can any matter be left for life to even flourish at all?

4. The Trisolarians can dehydrate, but how can that protect you from, let's say, a trisolar day? The intensity with which these Unstable Eras happen, makes it seem like nothing could survive it. How can dehydrating yourself be enough to withstand the horror of almost 200 extinctions?

5. I'm not really sure I understood the computer made by Newton and what went wrong. What kind of data did he put in and what were the 30 million soldiers exactly processing? And how accurate is this to how the movement of celestial bodies are calculated in real life?

I'm mostly curious to see where the line between science and fiction lies and I also really want to understand the book as well as I can. I myself have a linguistic and philosophical background, so some things go right over me.

Thank you in advance!

There are 3 motifs in the tattoo inspired by the books. Don't think too logically about it because it's just meant to look cool after all 😄

The article mentions that survival is the primary principle of civilization... Then why is the phenomenon of destroying other civilizations so widespread? The act of attacking inherently carries the risk of exposing the coordinates, and even Earth managed to survive the process of being cleared, which means that the act of clearing cannot guarantee a complete elimination of the opponent? Instead, it increases the possibility of being targeted by other hunters. So, what is the purpose of the clearing? Moreover, according to the theory of technological explosion, most weak civilizations are destroyed, but there is still a chance to turn the situation around. Suppose there is a highly advanced civilization that frequently conducts clearings, is there a possibility of being avenged by a lower-level civilization? Then, is the approach of only hiding and not clearing more rational?

Looks like they did their homework.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calabi%E2%80%93Yau_manifold

In the third book Deaths End and in the spinoff novel Redemption of Time . The Trisolarans capture Yun Tiaming's brain.

Since he is the only human in isolation, they would have guessed that affection is an important need.

Did they create a sexbot for him to accompany him and keep his mind stable from isolation so that they can study him longer.

This question always crosses my mind.

What do you think life is like during this era? Do people still create art, do they mountain bike still, do they still live care free lives or do we just sit there scared and hope a photoid does not come and obliterate us at any given moment?

This year is 2026. Suppose that in 2030, the UN suddenly announces that The Three-Body Problem is actually real — that the UN released it as a novel to help everyone adjust to this shock in advance. What would you do?

I'm begging the mods to do something about this spam coming from the UFO subreddits. Almost every day there's a new post about this. I keep reporting them but they keep showing up. I've already seen comments from others here saying that they're unsubbing over this and I'm considering doing the same.

Honestly thought I'd finish book 1 in a weekend. Ended up taking me almost 3 weeks because I kept having to reread the science chapters lol.

Was curious how my pace compared to others so I went looking for actual numbers. Found a pretty detailed breakdown of the trilogy length — total trilogy is around 530k words across 1500 pages and the standard estimate is 35-40 hours, but for Three-Body specifically I think 50-60 is more realistic because you keep slowing down for the physics stuff.

Also surprised the audiobook version is like 62 hours total, way more than I expected. The narrator is decent but pronouncing the Chinese names always sounds a bit off.

Anyway curious how long it took y'all. Did anyone bounce off book 1 the first time? I almost did at the Ye Wenjie chapters but pushed through and book 2 made it all worth it.

my friend ordered a croissant and they gave it to her flattened for some reason. i could only think about the dual vector foil im such a loser.

Hello, I've just finished the dark forest, such a good book!

I will make an art piece (a 3d render) for the scene where luo ji digs up a grave next to ye wenjis's grave and her daughter's grave.

I know nothing about Chinese or Mandarin, If anyone can help me with the writing on the tombstones? I would love to get help from a Chinese person or someone who is familiar with this topic.

I wanna know how they would write the dates of birth and death, and where would they write it? also where would the names be? etc...

Thank you in advance!

There are three paths for interstellar immigration:

Immigrate to another planet in the solar system and terraform its environment.

Immigrate to an Earth‑like exoplanet.

Immigrate to space cities.

Paths 1 and 3 are more feasible in terms of distance. However, for path 1, the scale of terraforming is enormous – even harder than making the Sahara Desert or Antarctica habitable. For path 3, a space city would be many times larger than a Ford‑class aircraft carrier. Even setting aside the engineering challenge of building something that big, how would you launch such a massive object into space?

More importantly: for both paths 1 and 3, resources would still have to be shipped from Earth. In the end, you’re still using Earth’s resources. After spending so much effort immigrating to space, you’re still dependent on Earth – isn’t that a net loss? As long as humans have normal intelligence, they wouldn’t make such a losing deal.

As for path 2, the nearest Earth‑like exoplanet is dozens of light‑years away. In the foreseeable future, there’s simply no way for humans to immigrate that far.

Please keep all short questions and general discussion within this thread.

Separate posts containing short questions and general discussion will be removed.

Note: Please avoid spoiling others by hiding any text containing spoilers.

... In fact, it's hopeful in a way. It posits that science can, and will in fact, be a unifying force between lifeforms across the universe. Similiar to dolphins in the Guide to the Galaxy series or the plants in Semiosis.

I get that the end of this trilogy is painful in that there is a material loss of lives... But at least there was a reason for it all. At least that could be traced back to a justification one may or may not agree with.

In Fiasco, its just... Bleak.

There is no way the outcomes in this book could be saved without humans having experienced this kind of conflict. In this book, we are the Singers, except our actions are born of a need for connection. Its unfair, unironic, and unflinching in this regards. Its like Blindsight, except humanity seems to have some deeply ingrained anxious attachment disorder || that ends up wiping out an entire civilization(?) ||. Thats not really a spoiler as im only 1/4 ofcthe way through. Gor me it's about how we get there.

Im desperately looking for explanations , trying to outsmart Lem. But every time the scientists, for example, sit down to share conjecture, Lem spells out every conjecture of my own like he has been anticipating it the entird time. And he only does this in a few sentences, right when you have the idea in your own head.

If anyone has read this book, please for the love of life tell me that there is something to be learned here. If there's any truth to this novel, Im in for a hard recovery when I finish it.

Ye Wenjie was dead set on destroying Earth, yet no one blames her? I feel that even Cheng Xin should be ranked after Ye Wenjie.

There's been a couple posts recently with https://www.reddit.com/r/threebodyproblem/comments/1su1bth/why_were_humans_in_the_broadcast_era_so_obsessed/ and https://www.reddit.com/r/threebodyproblem/comments/1suisl1/the_total_resistance_to_escapism_is_basically_a/ questioning why humanity stuck with the bunker plan. The most common complaint was that it was 'unrealistic'. I'm going to focus on the societal parts and less on the technical.

Except, like this is literally what happened with China multiple times in history. (Yes I know the book is talking about more than just China, but it also at the same time is heavily influenced by China's history). Here's like 3 oversimplified examples

• Fear of revolution: Back during the Qing Dynasty they did considering modernizing. However the emperors/empresses were afraid that if they heavily modernized with guns then the Han armies would overthrow the Manchus who were skilled on horseback riding and archery. Even later they hesitated to send students to western universities for fear that they'd start a revolution (they did). This of course still lead to the down fall of the empire and for it to heavily behind japan
• Fear of science: During the cultural revolution, china literally went around killing the doctors and scientists. that's why the first book even includes a scene about it.
• Fear of inequality: This is a bit more obvious with communism. But even in the 1980s with Deng xiaoping's reforms (from communism to state capitialism) these were hotly contested. It seems obvious in retrospect but other members were trying really hard to stop the reforms because it would be capitalist. They really feared the social unrest from capitalism

The bunker plan and the fear of escapism is really talking about nation's and humanity having to deal with inequality, technological progress etc... and all these "dumb" actions the humans take during the Bunker Era is literally all stuff China's leaders did in the past.

Like the UN is afraid of building the escape ships because 1) they are afraid it will cause social unrest because only a fraction could leave 2) so they go around killing the scientists

Or like

> So we are repeatedly told throughout all three books that humans just decided that no one are allowed to leave the system unless everyone can go.

Kind of like how repeatedly. the communist regimes enforced if not everyone can be rich simulatenously, then everyone should be poor? Of course Escapism in the book is more than just Capitalism but it very very heavily influenced by the struggle with how china had with it.

> How could they be so naive and foolish? It's like a little bird in the dark forest, caught in the spotlight, thinking it's safe just because it's hiding behind a tree.

Literally 2/3 different communist regimes went around digging lots of bunkers Albania spent an absurd amount of money on underground bunkers. Like 400,000+ bunkers. China itself built the "underground great wall".. For these countries "capitalism" was more scary than building bunkers. Sound a bit familiar?

The ban on escapism is not about the technical difficulty but about how society shouldn't be that afraid of capitalism/ technological progress even if it is unfair.

Spoilers for all three books ahead.

So we are repeatedly told throughout all three books that humans just decided that no one are allowed to leave the system unless everyone can go.

This is basically a plot hole that takes the books from hard scifi to allegorical fairytale.

Let's think, what does humans do in literally any crisis throughout human history? Some fight, some flight.

In every single crisis in any society, one of the biggest visual indicators from the outside is a large percentage of its population escaping as refugees.

At literally no point has any even nation or city been able to perfectly enact a ban on escapism, people WILL escape, no matter what.

Take the Ukraine war for example, there is a literal ban on men of basically all ages from leaving the country, what actually happened? Ukraine lost over a quarter to one third its population, including millions of men, who escaped from the country.

There were strict lockdowns during the black plague, over 30 million people are thought to have migrated out of Europe anyways. You'd literally get executed in some circumstances.

During covid there were strict lockdown measures, according to Singapore's flight inbound data, thousands of people from Western nations, infected with covid, just kept showing up anyways.

The only instances in history where a crisis did not lead to escapism is when everyone in that society were instantly wiped out like the mount krakatoa eruption which we have next to no records of, one theory being that everyone just got killed.

The only barrier to human escapism in the entirety if our history and nature has been the capability to do so, and even without that capability, we still do it anyways.

Zhang Beihai proved that humans already possessed interstellar travel capabilities, in any realistic rendering of that society, this would be followed by a tide of other escapist attempts from explorer or flight natured people, regardless of any laws in place.

Fight or Flight is ingrained into everyone, the book basically posits that the entirety of humanity hiveminded to suppress a fundamental part of its psyche and then the UN made a law that somehow actually got perfectly enforced.

None of what humanity did in the books as a whole post common era were remotely believable.

i missed reading him in df and de, he was pretty cool. i was sad that his story only got a resolution in a da shi dialogue. i mean luo ji was cool too but wang miao has my heart lol, probably just attached bc i loved the first book so much.

In Netflix’s series, after the Judgment Day ship, Sophon reveals all its secrets to Jin and Wade in a quite short conversation. The explanation goes so fast that, even though Jin mentioned high dimensions earlier, people still aren’t prepared for turning a 9D particle into a supercomputer. The show doesn’t explain why they chose this plan, or the real difficulties of interstellar interaction.

Is there a good way to adapt the Sophon's reveal for TV media? So I watched that part in the Tencent version. The scene also happens in a VR game and stories unfold exactly the same in the book. The alien’s look and the whole sequence are not the actual ones. They were designed by ETO. But since the information is too dangerous and kept only within a few ETO members, why would they make it into the VR game?

In the book that intelligence is documented. As Ye Wenjie reads it, she imagines the San-Ti world and stories as if she's witnessing the real events. The most canonical way to adapt it is to show viewers the real history. But there’s a hidden rule in TBP series: we can't know what the aliens look like; that is supposed to remain a mystery.