The Three-Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #1)

by Liu Cixin

The main path of spreading Trisolaran culture to society was the Three Body game. The ETO invested enormous effort to develop this massive piece of software. The initial goals were twofold: one, to proselytize the Trisolaran religion; and two, to allow the tentacles of the ETO to spread from the highly educated intelligentsia to the lower social strata, and recruit younger ETO members from the middle and lower classes.

The Adventists and the Redemptionists were always in sharp conflict. The Adventists believed that the Redemptionists were the greatest threat to the ETO. This view wasn’t without reason: It was only through some Redemptionists who had a sense of duty that the governments of the world gradually came to understand the shocking background of the ETO rebels.

Of course, that war wouldn’t occur for another 450 years, and had nothing to do with those living today, but many people hoped that if humans did lose, at least their descendants who were alive in four and a half centuries could live on. Serving the Trisolaran invaders would clearly help with this goal. Compared to the other two factions, the Survivors tended to come from the lower social classes, and most were from the East, and especially from China.

Let’s look at the current composition of the ETO. The Adventists would like to destroy the human race by means of an alien power; the Redemptionists worship the alien civilization as a god; the Survivors wish to betray other humans to buy their own survival.

I started the fire, but I couldn’t control how it burnt.

Redemptionists, losing those messages would be as if Christians lost the Bible or Muslims lost the Koran. I think you are faced with the same problem. The Adventists are holding the Lord’s messages hostage, and that is why Judgment Day has remained unmolested so far.

The current Trisolaran civilization is capable of space travel at one-tenth the speed of light. This technology leap occurred a few decades ago in Earth years. Before that point, their maximum speed had hovered around one-thousandth the speed of light.

Here’s the thing. The Trisolaran Interstellar Fleet is composed of incredibly massive spaceships. Accelerating them is a slow process. One-tenth the speed of light is only their maximum speed, but they cannot cruise at this speed for long before decelerating as they approach the Earth. Also, the source of propulsion for the Trisolaran ships is matter-antimatter annihilation.

the macroscopic level, two protons are nothing. Even a single cilium on a bacterium would include several billion protons. What’s the point? YE: They’re a lock. INTERROGATOR: A lock? What are they locking? YE: They are sealing off the progress of human science. Because of the existence of these two protons, humanity will not be able to make any important scientific developments during the four and a half centuries until the arrival of the Trisolaran Fleet. Evans once said that the day of arrival of the two protons was also the day that human science died.

“Many things that have happened recently are incredible. But for two protons to block all progress of human science? That seems…” “Let’s focus on one thing first. The Trisolarans were able to shoot two protons at the Earth from four light-years away and they both reached the target! That accuracy is incredible!

just want to point out this fact: In the universe, an important mark of a civilization’s technological advancement is its ability to control and make use of micro dimensions. Making use of fundamental particles without taking advantage of the micro dimensions is something that our naked, hairy ancestors already began back when they lit bonfires within caves. Controlling chemical reactions is just manipulating micro particles without regard to the micro dimensions.

Or, as Da Shi here would put it, we have information parity. The war between alien invaders and humanity has begun. Our descendants won’t face the Trisolarans for another four and a half centuries. For now, our opponents are still human.

The canal didn’t seem very special, probably because it was so narrow here, but a hundred thousand people had dug out this part of the canal in the previous century, one hoe at a time.

At the same time, Judgment Day began to separate into more than forty slices, each slice half a meter thick.