The Supernova Era

by Liu Cixin

The Chinese children got out of their vehicle and stood quietly off to one side. The whale, it turned out, was still alive, and its mouth twitched and the one cloudy eye that faced upward, big as a truck tire, stared at them lifelessly. A few Japanese kids emerged from the belly of the huge animal drenched in blood, straining under the effort of carrying a huge, dark red organ: whale liver. The crane loaded it onto a truck, where it filled up the entire bed and quivered there, steaming. One kid holding a paratrooper knife climbed aboard and cut a few pieces off the liver and tossed them out to a pack of army dogs beneath the truck. The entire scene, the circle of bloodstained snow, the vivisected whale, the children on top of it slicing pieces of flesh, the blood-smeared crane and trucks, the dogs wrestling for scraps on the bloody snow, and the ocean, stained crimson by two rivers of whale blood, was a surreal picture of horror.

What is wrong with you Cixin? Why would you paint such an horrible image? Global catastrophe was okay and eating whale here was alright but why would you show us a live whale being mutilated?? I guess your pint is children are cruel and don't realize it. Also those children brought dogs to Antartica and I feel bad for penguins there, if any of them were alive.

“When I was at the army with my dad, every day when I got out of class I’d play with the boys from the local villages. We’d shoot birds and catch frogs, and when I saw those little creatures die at my hands, I didn’t feel anything in particular. The others were the same.” Specs nodded. “Yeah. It takes a lengthy process of life experience to truly appreciate the value of life. In the mind of a child, life doesn’t occupy the same place as in an adult’s. What’s strange is that adults always associate children with kindness, peace, and other wonderful things.” “What’s strange about that?” Huahua said, giving him a look. “In the adults’ era, children existed within their restrictions. But more importantly, children had no opportunity to take part as a collective in the cruel struggle for survival, so of course their true nature wouldn’t be exposed. Oh, for the past couple of days I’ve been reading the copy of Lord of the Flies you gave me.” “It’s a good book. Golding was one of the few adults who really got children. It’s a shame that the others mostly judged the hearts of children using the measure of great men,* rather than recognizing our basic nature. This was their last and greatest mistake. And that mistake has introduced too many variables into the progress of history in the Supernova Era,” Specs said somberly.

“I’ve got one,” said Lê Sâm Lâm, the prime minister of Vietnam. “Guerrilla war!” “Wicked! How do you play?” “The two opposing teams attack each other’s base using a small guerrilla force. The specific rules are as follows—” “Shut up!” Davey shouted, leaping up and banging the table. “You ought to be ashamed of yourselves for proposing such a vile idea!” “That’s right. You should be ashamed!” Green joined in. “It’s . . . ​it’s going to be a little disruptive,” Yagüe said to Lê Sâm Lâm. “Back at the meeting in Washington, we reached a consensus that country’s bases are sacrosanct. Your proposal disturbs the very foundation of the games.” The event was vetoed.

So children here do have some principles.

“That’s a little too . . . ​barbaric,” said Davey timidly, and the other children nodded along. Ōnishi didn’t bat an eyelid. “Mr. President, and the rest of you, you all should be ashamed of your weak nerves,” he said, brandishing the weapon. “It’s the foundation of all of the games you all have already suggested, the soul of war. Humanity’s very first toy.” “Very well. Include a cold-weapons event,” Ilyukhin said. “Except this kind of military sword . . . ​isn’t really necessary, is it?” Davey asked, averting his gaze from the sword on the table, as if the glare hurt his eyes. “Then rifle bayonets,” Marshal Zavyalova said. The children’s enthusiasm had vanished. They all stared at the sword in silence, as if they had just awakened from sleepwalking and were trying to figure out what they were in the process of doing. “Anyone else have a suggestion?” Yagüe asked. No one answered. There was no sound in the hall, as if the sword had taken away their very souls. “Okay then. We should get ready to start the games.”

He pressed the fire button and saw the spurt of fire from the barrel and the dust kicked up ahead of them by the vented air. Then off in the distance the shell exploded in fire and smoke. It was a clean explosion, no dirt, and Wang Ran knew it was a hit. The tank continued to advance, trailing smoke, but he knew that it wouldn’t make it very far before it stopped. He moved the crosshairs to capture another target, but then from outside the tank came a deafening noise. His helmet and earphones had excellent noise-shielding, but he knew it was a loud noise because it rocked his entire body numb. The viewfinder went dark, and his legs suddenly felt burning hot, like the time when he was young and his father carried him into a hot tub. But the heat turned scorching, and he looked down at the inferno he was now standing in: flames were everywhere in the lower part of the cabin.

Contrary to their enticing names, the games saw some of the most brutal forms of combat in history. During the battles, weapons exchanged fire more directly than they ever had before, and the casualties they caused topped the ranks of their particular category of combat. For example, in the tank battles, even the winning side saw at least half its tanks destroyed. Blood flowed in rivers by the end of every game in the War Olympics. As for the little soldiers, they prepared for eternity with every sortie.

Not sure but isn't war olympics given in detail in the book. I am enjoying it but it is average compared to first half of the book.

During the grenade games, for example, there were children known as “pitchbacks,” who never used their own grenades but picked up the ones thrown by the enemy and tossed them back. Although few managed to survive the games, it still was an honor to be a pitchback. They were described in a popular fighting song: Oh what a joy to be a pitchback, one as great as me! I’ve got a craze for hand grenades, and I pick up all I see. As quick as a lick I snatch them up when they’re smoking in the muck, Like Ali Baba in the treasure cave, But I’m . . . ​not . . . ​gonna . . . ​get . . . ​stuck!

“They’ve informed us that they’re still in the game, and have just launched a nuclear missile at our base carrying a four-megaton warhead that will strike its target in twenty-five minutes.” Vaughn asked, “Did he say anything else?” “No. He hung up right after that.” All eyes focused on Vaughn. He gently set down his knife and fork, and said calmly, “It’s real.” Just then another officer came running in and nervously reported that the warning center had detected an unidentified projectile heading in their direction. The warning system had first detected the object when it took off from southwestern China, but by the time the warning had navigated the multiple layers of confirmation, the object had already passed the equator.

I wonder why HuahuaChines president informed Davey/US president about the nuclear missile he had launched. I hope it was some sort of double bluff, because I really wanted a revenge. Also, Huahua had said something about being calculated.

“That’s not really accurate,” Specs said. He had to shout to make himself heard over the howling wind. “It rarely snowed in Antarctica before the supernova. It’s actually one of the driest places on Earth.” “That’s right,” Vaughn said. He was still only lightly dressed, and stood at ease in the cold wind, which had the children burrowing into their coats and shivering anyway.

Yeah, Specs and Vaughn are at it.

“Have you gone crazy, CM? The wind is so stiff out on the ocean and the ice is so slippery, we’ll be blown away like sawdust!” yelled one of the children. Specs said, “If everyone holds hands, we won’t blow away. Pass that back.” And so, lines of children soon appeared out on the ice, almost a hundred in each, all holding hands and walking through the blizzard. As they crept away from the shoreline they looked like stubborn wriggling bugs. The line of national leaders advanced onto the ice first. Huahua had Davey to his left and Specs to his right, followed by Ilyukhin. Dense, windblown snow tumbled over their feet, making the children feel as if they were walking through the white deluge of surging rapids.

coats of ice. “Let them into the cabins. These kids won’t last long out here before they freeze to death,” Davey said to the captain. “Can’t do that, Mr. President. The cabins are full to bursting with the American kids who came aboard first.” “And the hangars? There’s tons of space in there, enough for a few thousand people. Are those full too?” “They’re full up with planes!” “Then bring the planes up onto the flight deck.” “Impossible. The flight deck already has too many other fighters that the horrible weather forced to make an emergency landing here. See, the elevator to the hangars is completely blocked!” “Then push them into the sea!” And so, one after another, the ten-million-dollar fighter planes were pushed over the side of John C. Stennis and into the ocean, and the broad flight deck quickly filled with more planes brought up from the hangars on the enormous elevator. The international group of children left the deck for the warm refuge of the cavernous hangars, which soon held thousands of occupants. Once the children had warmed up a bit, they gasped in wonder at the sheer size of the carrier. But on the flight deck out in the snowstorm, over a hundred drenched children had frozen to death.

EPILOGUE BLUE PLANET Finished at last! Time to take a deep breath, like a diver breaking the surface.

What? It doesn't have a proper ending?

Fortunately, Liu Jing was Verené’s graduate advisor, and so I had her ask Dr. Liu directly. I learned as a result that Liu Jing’s nobody of a father, Liu Cixin, had written a few science fiction stories back in the Common Era, most of them published in a magazine called SFW (I checked this out; Science Fiction World was a previous incarnation of the Precision Dream Group that has a monopoly on hypermedia arts on two worlds). Verené even brought back three of his stories. I got halfway through the first one and had to throw it away; what utter trash! The whales in that story even grew teeth! Under the influence of a father like that, it’s no wonder Liu Jing has the attitude toward scholarship and the methods she does.

Lol

“God, the sky’s clean!” I exclaim. The motionless, filthy clouds you used to see every time you went out have vanished, and the sky is a pure, pale red.

Wow, mars? But then earth has to be small. So a terraformed moon?!?! Within 30 years?!?!

Over the eastern horizon a blue planet rises like a sapphire set into the pale red veil of the sky. “Dad, is that where we came from?” Jingjing asks. I nod. “That’s right.” “And our grandparents still live there?” “Yes. They’ve always lived there.” “Is that Earth?” Looking at the Earth is like staring into my mother’s pupil, and tears swim in my eyes as I choke out, “That’s right, my child. That’s Earth.”

Yeah the endings felt abrupt. May be Vaughn wanted to say, exploring America is what caused us to want to go to the moon. And similarly exhanging countries , being in new land will make people explorers and somehow avoiding candytown dilemna.

Countless tall buildings, hypermarkets, and factories spring up like magic all around you. But the biggest changes are invisible: a wired China is expanding rapidly, and people spend at least half, if not more, of their personal lives online. They interact socially, purchase practically every good imaginable from Taobao up to and including hamsters, and huge groups of them can make their opinions and requests known directly online for events large and small, forming a powerful force of public opinion that is overwhelming traditional media and is rapidly becoming a major determiner of China’s future. The scene in Supernova Era where the internet and a quantum computer facilitate a national dialogue has already basically come to pass in China.

China used to have no sense of the future. In our subconscious, today was the same as yesterday, and tomorrow was going to be the same as today. The future as a concept doesn’t really appear in traditional Chinese culture.

I guess this book makes more sense from China's perspective. It's also about leaving past behind and innovating. The major events in SE are supposed to be examples of real life China or the world.

And it is also the greatest fear of humanity as a whole, a terror deeply rooted in human civilization, one that occupies a key place in our spiritual life. Staring into the endless darkness of the cosmos, humanity futilely grasps for a pair of nonexistent hands, but we have so far been unable to find any signs of other intelligent civilizations from our vantage point on a planet that’s no more than a speck of dust in outer space, even as the gods of religion grow ever harder to make out. And therefore our world today is already that of the children in the novel: humanity is an orphan unable to find its parents’ hands, its mind full of terror and confusion even as sparks of naivete and unruliness flicker into flame. . . . ​We may not even be as lucky as those children, since in our course of study there is no one to instruct us. With that in mind, the story told in this novel is a fairly unremarkable one.

Really good afterwords.