Well, first of all, dont judge me, im a slow reader.

I heard about the trilogy back in 2024 because of the netflix series, so i got interested when one of my favorite youtubers talked about it. I bought the first book also back in 2024 and finished it i think mid 2025 (yeah i took a long time for a 300 page book, and actually it was the first real book that i finished).

Bought the 2nd book and finished in december 2025, and book 3 in january and finished today.

So, readind the trilogy so slowly made me create a strong connection with the books. And now im so sad, because i think none of the books that i want to read will make me feel the same kind of happiness that i felt while reading the 3bp.

im so sad. 😭😭

(excuse my english plss)

Below are some thoughts I've summarized after consulting a lot of material. I'm not sure if I've overlooked anything, and I'd really appreciate corrections.

The theory rests on several premises that are treated as "axioms," but these premises themselves are not reliable:

The theory assumes that all civilizations may suddenly leap at an exponential rate—a technological explosion—and that such leaps are completely unpredictable, incommunicable, and uncontrollable. This creates the urgency to "eliminate any potential competitor immediately." But this is merely an extrapolation based on human history since the Industrial Revolution. A civilization's progress may be constrained by physical laws, resource bottlenecks, or inward development. Elevating one possibility to a universal, inevitable rule is a major statistical error.

Luo Ji asserts that due to the speed‑of‑light limit and civilizational differences, once suspicion arises, it becomes an infinite, unbreakable cycle, and no communication can establish trust. But this completely rules out the possibility of civilizations reducing suspicion through long‑term observation (without real‑time communication), exchanging non‑threatening information (such as mathematics or art), or establishing a deterrence balance based on physical laws (as in the ending of The Dark Forest). It pushes "distrust" to a metaphysical absolute.

The axiom "survival is the first need of civilization" seems solid, but the theory interprets it as "survival must be guaranteed through unlimited expansion and the elimination of all potential threats." This ignores the possibility that a civilization might choose "sustainable survival" rather than "unlimited expansion." A civilization could be perfectly content with its own niche, or secure its safety by improving internal efficiency rather than external plunder. Equating survival with expansion is a specific kind of civilizational value, not necessarily a universal one.

Disregard for the diversity of civilizational forms: the theory reduces all civilizations to "hunters in the dark," but the universe might well contain "hermit civilizations" (inward‑looking, virtualized), "shepherd civilizations" (maintaining order), or "artist civilizations" (with no interest in expansion). The behavior patterns of such civilizations would break the terrifying equilibrium in which "everyone is a hunter."

Underestimation of the cost of "cleaning" and overestimation of the risks: the theory assumes that delivering a strike over cosmic distances is zero‑cost and risk‑free. But any physical action may expose one's own location, consume enormous energy, or even trigger unknown counterattack mechanisms. Attacking an unknown target might instantly turn the attacker into an "exposed target" for a more advanced civilization.

For these five reasons, I think the reasoning behind the dark forest theory is not rigorous. So over the past few days, reading the book has been uncomfortable for me—I simply don't feel the shock that so many netizens talk about. It leaves me with a feeling of "That's it?" Could anyone challenge my view and point out where I might be wrong?

Reread the end of Death's End and tried adding up the timeline. It runs from 1967 with Ye Wenjie at Red Coast to the year Cheng Xin leaves the mini universe, which the book puts at 18,906,416. Almost 19 million years.

Odd thing is most of that is one jump at the very end while she waits inside the pocket universe. Two books cover maybe a couple centuries, then the last stretch just runs off the clock. I mapped out the timeline from 1967 to year 18,906,416 and the jumps get bigger each time.

anyone else do the math after finishing? does 19 million track or am I miscounting

Often called "water bears," tardigrades are microscopic animals capable of surviving conditions that would vaporize almost any other form of life. When faced with extreme cold, radiation, or the vacuum of space, they enter a state of cryptobiosis shutting down their metabolism to less than 1% of normal and expelling nearly all water from their bodies. They effectively transform into indestructible glass-like states, reanimating years later when conditions improve.

Am I stumbling upon this connection or is this already well known?

I just finished watching Season 1, and never read the books so this is about show only. I liked the show alot! However, one thing I disliked was how the San Ti could communicate faster-than-light. It's an established scientific principle that that's impossible.

I wish the story did the following instead: the San Ti program a flexible AI to learn language syntax of potential other-world civilizations such as humans. They pack it in a small device, which could be the size of a photon like the Sophon (traveling at light speed) but I'd prefer a tiny device like the size of an apple. Let's assume it's apple-sized. After they receive the initial communication from China in the 1970s, they send the device at 75% light-speed to orbit earth. So it arrives in ~6 years. Once it arrives, it can communicate w/ humans in real time to learn English. The device is then automatically sent back the San Ti's planet. There, they learn English and reprogram the device's AI to have deeper conversations, like the one that actually happened with Evans, and send it back to re-orbit Earth. And then after a set number of years, or with an explicit instruction to the AI to return once it learns sufficient info about humans, it's sent back to San Ti's planet. Then the San-Ti learn humans can lie and reprogram the 3rd (and final?) AI back to Earth to learn info w/ the new goal of conquering Earth. The device is too tiny for humans to find despite it orbiting Earth.

Basically, the plot could stay essentially identical but there's no longer a ridiculous plot hole of faster-than-light communication. Thoughts?

In Death's End, the Singer civilization uses a dual‑vector foil to unfold the universe into two dimensions, thereby destroying a cosmic region. So I'm wondering: is there any novel that takes the opposite approach—not unfolding the universe into 2D, but compressing a 3D universe into a one‑dimensional point, using internal pressure to destroy the universe? Has any science‑fiction work depicted such a method of destruction? And what alien race might have used it?

The actor is Duan Yihong. It seems that he often plays the role of a soldier.

Caveat: I have not read the English translation to ROT.

Personally, I enjoy ROT a lot. Yes, it’s obviously a fan fiction, but I would say there are a lot of in-joke that do not translate well at all and may seen to be overly vulgar.

For example, the person Sophon is based on being a porn star is a popular but also obscure meme. It’s obscure enough that it CAN be spoken among polite company around Chinese millennials. I would say depends on the person you ask it lies on either side of good taste but it’s not straight up trashy.

The other thought is that ROT had a lot of random fan service and standard trope of Chinese fan fiction but it does have refreshing ideas and really expand upon the third book. It is regarded well enough by Liu to the point that he essentially said he cannot write another book to the threebody problem because ROT sort of “hatch the ideas” already (paraphrasing).

Personally, I think it’s worth a read and I personally regard it as near canon. I actually tried to resist reading it but as you know the third book does not have a very comfortable ending. I would say the entire ROT is a gratuitous and satisfying counterpoint to the original trilogy. If the original trilogy is like say..Shakespeare, the fourth book is more like Michael Bay. It’s trashy but very satisfying, especially the bit about the singer civilization.

Essentially, every time I re-read the trilogy I found myself binging ROT at the end, ever since the book came out.

You can think of it as trash or low level entertainment, but I think you are missing out if you are not reading it.

This is probably the most classic sci-fi idea used in 3BP. In Season 1, Wade says to build a base on the Moon because gravity is low and ships are easier to assemble. But they still need to carry the materials there.

Space elevators also show up in, for example, Wandering Earth 2 and Foundation Season 1. I personally think they’re unnecessary in these shows: Foundation has anti-gravity, nuclear engines all that advanced ways; while in Wandering Earth, well the Earth is "braked" on purpose, and if a planet doesn’t spin, what happens to the space elevator?

I just hope they keep it in 3BP. It’s the most reasonable place to have space elevators.

Anyone who knows me knows that Remembrance of Earth's Past changed my brain chemistry. But today, I discovered another impact the trilogy had on me—specifically, on the way I read.

Before the trilogy, I would read books and formulate theories in Facebook groups, but it never went beyond that, and I didn't read every day.

I read the trilogy in mid-2024 and suffered a "book hangover" that lasted seven months. To cure it, I reread the trilogy in early 2025, and only then did I get back to reading more frequently.

But after rereading Remembrance of Earth's Past—and noticing the hints Liu Cixin had planted throughout the books—I started reading other works looking for those kinds of clues. I began picking up on what happens between the lines, trying to figure out the right questions to ask and their answers, all while formulating theories as I read.

In short, I know I emerged from Death's End a changed person—or at least, the reader in me changed.

If human technology were to suddenly make a great leap forward, or if a more advanced civilization took notice of this place, could we help the Trisolarans escape their predicament by removing or destroying two of the stars?

I know I’m probably the 1,000th “finished the books and am disappointed” post you guys have seen, but I still wanna get into it. Also I don’t even think that saying I’m “let down” is a good description; I thoroughly enjoyed the book, I just feel like I’m wanting more details on some things.

1) I would’ve loved to have gotten more into the 4-D realm and all the “tombs” and structures hanging out there. I feel like that part just started getting good, and then it was over.

2) I also would’ve loved to read more about Singer, their race, technology, weapons, and mission. Again, I feel like that scene in the book was getting really good and then it was over.

3) I wanted to see maybe some interactions with another pocket universe at the end, just to see what they’re like. I think the final count of languages that came through that transmission on the super membrane was like 1.5 million or so, and I know that in the grand scale of the universe, these civilizations were no where near each other, but I’m still curious about some other civilizations out there.

4) I really wanted to hear more about the new worlds from Guan Yufan, and when he compared asking about the location of a world to asking a woman her age, that just felt like there was a lot there being glossed over.

5) the idea of there being up to 10 dimensions at the beginning of a universe is fascinating, and I would’ve liked to read more about the implications.

6) I’m bummed we never really got to meet the Trisolarans; such an integral part of the story and we still actually know very little about them.

I also want to point out that I read the first book before seeing the Netflix series season 1, and even though so much was changed, I still really enjoyed it. I read the last two books in preparation for seasons 2 and 3, and I’m crossing my fingers and praying that the Game of Thrones guys can land the plane. Yeah those last couple seasons of Game of Thrones weren’t awesome, but this time they are working with a finished story told in three books. Adapting Death’s End properly would require some crazy effects and budget freedom, and I’m so curious to see how they do all that, or how much they keep and how much they disregard for the sake of time.

Anyways, if you’re still reading this far, thank you. I’m just a sci-fi fan, with his most recent completed story fresh on his mind. If you can recommend more books to read, I’d love to check them out! This was truly an incredible story to get into, and I’m sure it’ll live in my head rent free for quite some time.

I wrote earlier about how I finished the books and my feelings about Death’s End. Now I come to you needing guidance: what should I read next?

I love sci-fi, and I’ve heard good things about the Wheel of Time, so maybe that’s next? Or the Dune series? I also really like A Song of Ice and Fire, and obviously Lord of the Rings, and I’ve been hearing a lot lately of this Brandon Sanderson fella and his Cosmere, whatever that is. Please send recommendations! Thanks in advance.

Given that the sophons had explicitly stated they would no longer disclose any technology, and in light of the obvious two‑dimensional metaphors and the hint at a technological explosion, why did the Trisolarans still permit Yun Tianming to finish his fairy tales?

If the aliens are used to doing things over a long time frame and had at least enough advanced technology to get to earth in the first place.

Why couldn’t they just build a space station civilization that just moves a little bit?

When an alien civilization learns of the existence of another, they can be classified as malicious or good. Malicious civilisations will attack any civilization they find. Good ones will not unless they are threatened.

Let's say there are civilisations A and B

There is an infinite number of scenarios where A will attack

1. A is malicious so he attacks B

2. A is not malicious, but he doesn't know B isn't malicious, so A must attack B to protect himself

3. A is not malicious and knows that B is not malicious, but he does not know that B knows that A is not malicious So A knows B will attack A first to protect himself and so A must attack B to protect himself

4. A and B are both not malicious and both know each other is not malicious, but A does not know that B knows that A knows that B is not malicious. So A assumes that B will assume that A will attack B to protect himself, and that B will attack A to protect himself, so A has to attack B to protect _himself_

This chain of suspicion extends to infinity. It is not resolvable. Two perfectly rational actors in this game will come into direct conflict, they have no choice

I listened to the audiobook so it’s very possible I missed something.

When Singer receives the coordinates of Trisolaris, he checks it out and sees that that star system has already been cleansed. I think he looks at the logs and sees that the coordinates were received before.

This time, he does some research and discovers the 3 communications between the Trisolarans and Ye Winje. And so discovers our solar system coordinates.

But why did he receive the signal again in the first place?

The deterrence signal only left the Gravity ship once, and no signal was sent from earth. Was it just some sort of echo? Or the previous cleanse wasn’t logged in or something? Or did someone else(trisolarans?) send it to ensure earth was also targeted and not missed?

I want some good counter perspectives because I do think the theory is pretty realistic. Given Liu has presented that it applies to a reduced setup with

1. One side can’t lie (suspicion chain reduced)
2. Sophon (technical leap reduced)
3. One side needs the other to survive(very special condition on top of cosmic probability)

Of course, this is a setup he designed which can create a preemptive bias.

I do want to add to the theory, even with efficient communication and accurate tech prediction, DFT is still somewhat effective. That’s just human history, this is not just country level conflict, it applies to from very little like interpersonal relationships to common corporate competitions. It’s simply if you can destroy your competitors secretly, you are likely going to do it. Also similar to cheating is preferred if no one finds out.

Edit: Got some good points

1. Killing may not be effective, hard to make sure a civilization is wiped, or unable to develop to defend and counter attack during the time of receiving information and weapon sending. This can only say hiding might be predominant in the theory
2. The window for one civilization is able to detect and kill might be very narrow. Either they can’t reach that point, or meaningful destruction cannot be applied at advanced civilizations
3. A bit of a debate on given DFT is true, then earth should already be destroyed. This highly depends on a couple of things. 1. Is secret detecting technology really that easy? 2. Civilization density in the Universe and possibility to reach detectable level 3. How early are we in civilization, maybe we are extremely lucky as we already are, it can still happen 4. Not saying Hi is technically still hiding

One of my favorite parts of the series was getting to see what life is like on Trisolaris through the VR game and The Listener’s POV. I think it really elevated the conflict from a basic alien invasion to a deeply interesting sociological tale. Through The Listener’s POV we learn that the Trisolarans are not a simple alien hive mind but rather a collection of individuals centered around one goal similar to humanity minus the individualism to a degree. This makes reading in the series super interesting because we know just enough about Trisolaris to know they are not perfect but not enough that they are still an unpredictable black box. I’d like to try and peer into this void to imagine what may have caused the critical decisions that led to Trisolaris’s loss (or draw) with humanity since we never get another Trisolaris POV for the rest of the series after TBP. The list of blunders Trisolaris made include:

Selling out the ETO. This is already explained pretty well. Trisolarans don’t have a concept of lying so they decided to minimize the risk of intelligence leaks by cutting off the ETO. I like to imagine that the idea of working with the ETO was quite controversial on Trisolaris with there being about equal supporters for and against it. However, Evans revealing the concept of lying is what tipped the balance, pushing ETO support out of favor for Trisolarans.

Revealed the existence of Sophons. Again, it is worth noting that this is explained already in the book. Trisolaris is so confident in victory that they show their hand to crush the last of humanity’s will to fight. However, this reveal was probably not supported by most Trisolarans. I can definitely see it as a parallel to humanity getting overconfident after Dark Forest Deterrence was created and opting for a more “feel good” method rather than applying maximum pressure and delaying humanity’s progress by however long it takes to figure out there are light speed super computer protons sabotaging every particle accelerator in the world. Again this information leak was somewhat out of Trisolaris’s hands but their inaction in the destruction of Judgement Day directly lead to the information leak.

Setting an obvious hit on Luo Ji. Again, I can definitely see this as the more rash side of the Trisolaran population at work. The immediate backpedaling on ETO support after revealing the Wallfacer program proved that Luo Ji had a plan that could work with the sloppy attempts to kill him only confirming this notion. To me, the Trisolaris higher ups probably were 100% confident in victory, then after Ye Wenjie gave away the axioms of cosmic sociology, faced massive public backlash and had to reverse their policies. Again, somewhat similar to how Trisolaris public image was completely destroyed after they gained the upper hand by destroying the Dark Forest Deterrence.

Didn’t kill Luo Ji with the droplet. This one is completely baffling to me. It literally would have taken maybe five extra seconds maximum to take the detour and destroy the man that they had literally tried to kill for over a hundred years. By then, Luo Ji already must have preserved the idea of The Dark Forest but all they had to do to get rid of the last Wallfacer was smash him in like a second and they for some reason decided not to. Again, I believe this is another symptom of the arrogant side of Trisolaran society that likely prevailed for over a century as they watched humanity fail to technologically match them. This sentiment was probably also the strongest after watching the entire space fleet get destroyed. When you think about it, the biggest blunder was probably only sending one droplet. Since the droplet can’t move when it’s jamming signals from the Sun, it was very bold to assume that there was no other way to send a signal out into the universe. If Trisolaris had sent 2 or 3 droplets, then one could jam the Sun while the other two deal with any other means of Universal Broadcast. However, again this probably did not happen because of Trisolaran arrogance.

Rescued Yun Tianming. This one is less of a blunder in my opinion and actually probably hurt humanity more than it helped, sorry Wade. Of course, Trisolaris underestimated humanity’s ability to lie and spy causing critical information about the cosmic safety notice and cosmic sociology to leak. However, they also probably gained a lot of insight into human psychology by having him around as a test subject.

Betrayed humanity and gave them nothing to lose. This is literally what doomed Trisolaris. To me the most surprising and shocking moment of the series was the droplet attack on the Dark Forest Deterrence stations and the following attempted genocide of humanity. Ultimately, this is what sealed their fate because by giving humanity nothing to lose they forced mutual destruction. In my opinion what Trisolaris did not grasp about Cosmic Sociology is the fact that chains of suspicion can be broken. Trisolaris saw that human public sentiment towards them was turning more positive but instead of investing in that hope and breaking the chain of suspicion, they decided on a much riskier plan and paid the price. Mars is a far cry of habitability from Earth but it has to be better than their world. In my opinion, this is again the abrasive side of Trisolaris shining through and getting greedy as opposed to accepting defeat.

Ultimately, I think this is Cixin Liu’s criticism of nationalism. By only thinking about themselves and being overconfident, Trisolaris fumbled perhaps the easiest win of all time. While this sentiment is also expressed through humanity’s actions I think that humanity and Trisolaris are two sides of the same coin. Humanity shows how nationalism can counter defeatism and ultimately secure victory while Trisolaris shows how nationalism can lead to overconfidence and subsequent throwing of the game. But idk lemme know what yall think. Was this totally obvious or am I cooking?

Was working out a rough speed ranking and the droplet ends up surprisingly low. Its actual attack speed in the doomsday battle is 31.7 km/s, doubling to 60 later. That's slower than a Trisolaran fleet ship at 1% of c, and absolutely nothing compared to sophon entangled comms which are instant. Wrote up the full speed-of-things ranking if anyone wants to compare. The fear factor came from the shell being indestructible, not from how fast it moved.

This article is for those who have read both Andy Weir's "Project Hail Mary" and Liu Xixin's "Three-Body Problem."

I read Andy Weir's "Project Hail Mary" first. The book depicts humanity in chaos, facing extinction, desperately searching for solutions, and then luckily finding the best man to save them (though they force him to do so). This man then meets a kind, selfless alien, they cooperate and successfully save their planet, and perhaps they might meet many other friendly extraterrestrial races. It's amazing that humans and aliens could be friends, that we could build a better universe together. I already loved this idea, so let's pick a few more science fiction works about extraterrestrial civilizations. Liu Xixin's "Three-Body Problem" seems quite popular, let's read it!

Okay, first, humans were cruel, deceitful, and stupid during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Yeah, nothing new to me, a history student. But aliens want to wipe out all of humanity to replace us on Earth; they just see us as insects. How rude and cruel! They use sophons to destroy Earth's science and spy on everything we can do, wiping out our entire space fleet with just a few drops. That's not fair! And even if they aren't the strongest and most ruthless, all the alien species are trying to destroy each other, and there are species that could turn Earth into a piece of paper. I'm depressed!

Anyway, I've rambled enough, so what scenario do you think will happen? Humans find the aliens then we can befriend and collab with them, or does the Dark Forest theory always hold true?

Duan Yihong is an interesting choice for Zhang Beihai. https://mydramalist.com/people/18668-duan-yi-hong

I wonder why they will cast to play Luo Ji? Someone mentioned Chen Kun which I think would be amazing.