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The historical significance of the fall of Constantinople would not be apparent for many years. For most, the obvious association was that it marked the final gasp of the Roman Empire. Byzantium was a thousand-year rut behind the wheels of Ancient Rome, and though it enjoyed splendor for a time, it finally evaporated like a water stain under the bright sun.
At the beginning of the Deterrence Era, both worlds carefully analyzed Luo Ji’s personality and built up detailed mathematical models. Human and Trisolaran deterrence game theorists reached remarkably similar conclusions: Depending on his mental state at the moment deterrence failed, Luo Ji’s degree of deterrence hovered between 91.9 percent and 98.4 percent. Trisolaris would not gamble with such odds.
They had achieved wa kei sei jaku—harmony, respect, purity, and tranquility, the four principles of the Way of Tea.
At its root, this fear was a fear of dark forest deterrence itself. This was characteristic of ultimate deterrence: The deterrer and the deteree shared the same terror of deterrence itself.
Five centuries ago, civilized men of Earth—most of whom had actually been criminals in Europe—stepped onto this continent and shot the Aboriginal peoples in the woods for sport. Later, even when they recognized that their quarries were men and women, not beasts, the slaughter continued.
People could obtain news about the world only through very limited channels. For a population used to a super-networked world full of information, it was as if they had all gone blind. Modern governments lost all their techniques for mass communication and leadership, and were ignorant of how to maintain order in a massively overcrowded society.
The continent was emerging from the shadow, and the terminator was right in the middle of the continent. It was morning in Warburton, and she thought of the desert sunrise seen by Fraisse from the edge of the wood.
This was the Lagrangian point. Here, the dinghy was a satellite of the Sun, orbiting in synch with the Earth.
Cheng Xin was taken aback by the chaotic arrangement of the pipes. It wasn’t the result of carelessness; on the contrary, to create this kind of utter chaos required great effort and design. The arrangement seemed to find even the hint of a pattern to be taboo. This suggested an aesthetic utterly at odds with human values: Patterns were ugly, but the lack of order was beautiful.
Dewdrop had never seen such a wide, open sky full of stars, and for the first time she felt how dark and silent the night could be. The torch on the carriage could only illuminate a small patch around her, and the world beyond was black velvet.
The two-dimensional metaphors were a technique used to resolve the ambiguities introduced by literary devices employed in conveying strategic intelligence. After a dual-layer metaphor, a single-layer supporting metaphor was added to confirm the meaning of the dual-layer metaphor.
Death is the only lighthouse that is always lit. No matter where you sail, ultimately, you must turn toward it. Everything fades in the world, but Death endures.”
The false alarm was the result of the explosive amplifying effects of a hyper-information society when fed sensitive news.
As long as you live your life within a hundred thousand years and a thousand light-years, none of those things need concern you. That ought to be enough for anyone.”
All my life has been spent climbing up a flight of stairs made of responsibility. When I was little, my only duty was to study hard and obey my parents.
And now, I’ve climbed to the apex of responsibility: I am responsible for the fate of the universe. Of course this responsibility doesn’t belong only to me and Guan Yifan, but we own a share of the responsibility, a share of something that I never could have imagined.
