When the Trisolaran's home solar system was destroyed for me that was a wow moment. The Trisolarans could just not leave Earth alone and look what it got them. Maybe some survived on ships but with their system wrecked they are screwed. The Trisolarans learned a valuable lesson in the story that they already kind of knew - their is always a bigger asshole out in space than you...
@@thomascrabtree But far more of their civilization could have survived. Bunker erra shows us just how low level a photon attack is. The Trisolarians just continue to make blunder after blunder in understanding humanity. There was almost 0 reason to have to have humans cut off from electricity and eat each other, they did that just for cruelty sake. Without the 100's of years of delay for their fleet then humanities ability to have scientific explosions meant nothing. They did it all just for the sake of cruelty. At so many points they could have have easily formed an alliance but let their fear stop them.
How much of a gamble is that, though? There's an insane implausibility in the Trisolarans even thinking that it would be possible to keep the existence of other aliens a secret. Think about it. The Alpha Centauri system is OUR CLOSEST NEIGHBOR. And it turns out to be inhabited. Any humans which do NOT immediately assume there are lots of aliens in the galaxy are ... just stupid, really. And anyone assuming the Trisolarans are the most advanced out there ... among how many thousands or millions ... again, just stupid, really.
At that point of the beginning of the deterence era, however, it had been proven for quite some time that there was indeed a "bigger fish" and they were indeed hostile.
It wasn’t a gamble - that’s the whole point. It was proven when they earlier made said bigger fish annihilate a random star system by faking an intelligent broadcast.
@@Ett.Gammalt.Bergtrollthey didn't fake an intelligent broadcast. They broadcast the location of another star to test the Dark Forest hypothesis, which was proven to be truth. Either an intelligent and quickly advancing civilization was present there and reckless enough to expose themselves, or someone else was saying that there was something notable there. For any sufficiently advanced civilization, the safest option upon recieving the coordinates was to destroy everything there, because even the slightest possibility of a threat eventually emerging from that system was unacceptable.
In "Death‘s end", The human being fear the Swordholder more than the Trisolarans, juste because the Swordholder is a imminent threat ：he/she is the ultimate dictator who could sign a death sentence of two worlds in a second. So after living nervously under the shadow cast by the Swordholder, few people appreciate Luo ji, even though he spent his whole life time securing the earth and humanity.
@@URProductions a dictator rules using coercion. The first swordholder was chosen by the UN, the 2nd by a democratic election. The word dictator is an oversimplification
@@URProductions Not exactly I‘m afraid. Among Chinese readers, Cixin Liu was often criticized as a “ social Darwinist ” because of his overly pessimistic depiction of humanity. Liu has expressed his frustration in several occasions. During an interview, he said that the world in the three body problem series is like an ant farm, especially a hash one; as a author, he was curious about reactions of humanity under extreme conditions, that doesn't mean it mirrors the real world.
I love when the Trisolarans mention that Liou Gi had an insanely high deterrence percentage and then casually said: "But Wayde ... He had no curve at all!" They truly were teriffied of Thomas Wayde more than they were of Liou Gi.
@@transforgoku I guess it would be a temporary satisfaction for maybe just a few secs because soon after people would realize that the enemy got erased by a far more powerful alien civilization and that civilization is coming for them
That's the reverse idea of fermi paradox...those alien planets were obliterated to dust by more advanced alien and those who were appear on our sky just the remains of their species..
I knew it was over as soon as you said "It was decided that a vote would be held to elect the next sword holder." You can't trust people to actually vote for the candidate most likely to destroy all humanity.
Yes, but you also can't expect political stability if the people have no say. That's why there were revolutions which eventually toppled the Wallfacer structure.
@@chinguunerdenebadrakh7022 I present a compromise: the council. The mob thinks like a mob. But the council thinks like the elite, and most are principled enough to mimic the behaviours of the sun king (the past sword holder in this regard). That or Representative Democracy.
One thing not explored in the last book is the fact its implied only the young races are in the dark forest. The dark forest seems to be the great filter for young races. Getting out of it seems to be when a race has matured.
The notion of a on its own monolithic model of existence, being in fact nothing more than a filter for another, is a terrifying concept. Just, the scale of it.
I think the implication is that in the early universe, the conditions for life were mostly in higher dimensions. As those older races fought and dimensionally striked themselves out of existence, they unintentionally made the lower dimensions hospitible for life. This happened again and again until finally three dimensional life became possible. It is also implied that Singer is from a race who escaped the collapsing 4th dimension, so its race could be considered an older race.
I thought about it too. It seems that the point of maturity is when a race finally master lightspeed travel. Once a race master that ability, it is virtually not possible for that race to be wiped out. Because of relavistic time dilation, it is possible for lightspeed travelers to reach anywhere and anywhen in the future while only experiencing a short passage of time from their pown perspective. A hundred light year journey at lightspeed would only take a few minutes from the traveler's point of view. The book even talk about "Ultimate Ships" that goes on billion years long voyage to the death of the Universe, which would only be 10 years from within their own frame of reference. There will always be survivors of a lightspeed traveling species somewhere in the Universe. For example, say a Dark Forest attack happens which wipe out all members humans within the Milky Way. But that's still ok because there's a lightspeed traveling ship carrying humans on a million year long voyage to a distant galaxy. From their frame of reference only several months has passed because of time dilation. Those humans will reappear in the universe a few million years later where they can start anew.
@@Sikarius3403 I agree and the mastering of light speed also seems to determine your ability to defend your self from attacks. It's really very interesting how just messing with light speed can change so many things also. The scary part of the whole physics being weaponized, is that for many races they simply wouldn't know the laws have been altered.
@@Sikarius3403 your using the term wrong light years stands for the amount of years it takes for you to get somewhere at lightspeed. 24.000 light years are still 24.000 years traveling at lightspeed.
The idea that the Trisolarans demonstrated they were great artists kind of to throw us off guard, then abandoning it all in an instant in favor for their true compulsive genocidal nature, (because apparently culture and art meant nothing to them the whole time) is pathological as fuck
Two things, 1. I don't know if I'd consider it pathological to play a ruse like that if the purpose was the survival of your species. and 2. I'm not sure there interest in human culture was entirely made-up. Sophon, who no doubt reflects genuine Trisolaran sensibility when she is being her true self, seemed to genuinely appreciate some of it even after there was no longer reason for pretense.
The Ridiculous part is that trisolaris didnt need the earth as much as they needed the stable system that the sun upheld. They could have created habitats and living spaces all over the solar system. There never was a need to antagonize humanity any more than locking their technology up.
It was another case of collective hubris of humankind. It was equally bad as putting their whole space fleet at tight formation around the probe from Trisolaris.
I’ve listened to each video describing this series multiple times because of your amazing story telling. Thanks so much for the content. Wish I could be put into stasis until each Video drops so I don’t have to wait on the next😂
You know they’re like actual books you can read? Dune is objectively better than Quinns readings. That’s not a knock on Quinn, it’s a compliment to Frank Herbert.
@@Malchiar010695 well duh😂 but if I’m exploring new series without buying a book these videos are GREAT introductions. They don’t give all the details just enough to peak my interest and help me understand once I do!
She had no chance Her job was not to push the button, her job was to look like she could, out of vengeance and spite alone Those who messed up are those who elected her, they knew what kind of personality a sworholder should have but chose otherwise
She was the worst conceivable pick. You don't want a kind Swordholder, you want a vengeful one. You want someone who looks like they're waiting for an excuse, any reason at all. Cheng Xin never had that in her and everyone knew it.
@@shortlivedglory3314 it’s crazy for sure, we the reader can see that electing her is completely insane. But The people at the time were just tricked ya know? Everything was a long con by the TS. They were straight up a wolf in sheep’s clothing.. lulled humanity into a false sense of security.
What I find interesting is a fair number of the Trisolaran public wanted peace and cooperation amongst Earth and Trisolaris. Creating art and influencing human culture, but it was the governing body of Trisolaris that ultimately decided to attack humanity after transfer of the Swordholder. I love how well Cixin Liu nails down this concept of not all of Trisolaris wanting a war. It's a shame that a lot, if not all of the pacifist Trisolarans probably died out in the Photoid attack.
Considering how they really aren’t allowed disposing thought most likely didn’t want peace. The arts were very likely a plan set due to the brain they received. We see some bit of humility when the first broadcast is sent but even the lone trisolarian acknowledges that most won’t be so kind. So it’s very like most wanted to capture that world. Especially since MAD deterrents would likely feel like antagonism. No one usually looks to the one holding self destruct buttons as a friend. Someone earlier said the same thing about Luo ji being hated by his own people despite saving the world for a bit longer.
I think of two possibilities. One is that that all the art and such was AI generated to fool humanity. We later learned that they learned deception and were teaching humans fake physics. Another is a possible cultural rift between the Trisolarans on the homeworld and the ones on the first fleet who had been separated from them for hundreds of years. They were the ones who revived Yun Tianming and knew him personally and they were the ones who built the pocket universe to save a few humans at the end of time. We know both branches controlled the sophons at different times.
I just assumed that creating art for humans was their way to trick humans into being more open towards the trisolarans and ultimately vote for an swordholder that wouldn't be reliable. Imagine things turned out differently and humans still viewed trisolarans as the conquerors: They probably would have voted for Wade or one of the others.
@@ThePunikaTVWell it could still be both ways. Peaceful Trisolarans created art as a way of trying to bridge the gap between them and humanity. Then their governing body used it as a weapon to lower humanities defenses. It's not uncommon for institutions of power to weaponize the artwork produced by culture against their enemies. An extreme example would be the N@zis perverting Nietzsches work about the Ubermensch, using it to represent Eugenics rather than what he intended. The unnofficial but still approved spinoff book also gives as an actual example of a peaceful Trisolaran individual.
In Chinese version the name of the main character actually represented different motive of human kind, so it’s actually a battle of inner peace that led to the decision making of mankind. Luoji, is also the Chinese word for: logic. While Chengxin is the Chinese word for: good heart. So in another word, human kind is constantly going back and forth on basic logic, while good heart is good in nature, but it’s always the wrong choice in realistic world
Cold logic is what lead to WW2. You sure its the best choice in the realistic world? The trisolarians are pure logic and they got xenocided by someone else. If you play the game of cold logic, there is always someone smarter and better than you. You wont survive natural selection with cold logic only.
Books 1 & 2 are unforgettable. I loved the plot of “The Witch/Whore of Constantinople.” I wish we’d get more about the Humans that escaped and more about the war that the 2nd Trisolaran fleet fought, which was against another alien race that was not Human.
@@jonbaxter2254 I cannot agree. If the central figure wasn’t as much of a coward and the author was able to do some more world building that really mattered sure. Lots of the ideas and themes are great but the girl MC made the book unbearable.
@@NotSoSerious69420 I agree, I kind of hate the main charatcer as she doomed Earth TWICE. However, the scale of everything gets dialed up to a million, eons pass in the blink of an eye, even the Trisolarans no longer become a threat. The fact the Trisolaran second fleets gets demolished by an even greater threat made me realise just how massive the scale of these novels are. They are such small fish in a large ocean. The Dark Forrest is a horror book. Death's End is world-bending, galaxy spanning Sci-Fi.
@@NotSoSerious69420 A coward? The whole point of the book is that radical love is perhaps stronger than any force. She acted again and again with integrity and humanity and perhaps blind faith in a better future. Cowardice would have been to push the button and jump to war.
I love these 3 body problem vids. Honestly this series scares the living hell out of me! I still haven’t read it yet but I think I’m goin to buy it for my son and then take turns with him reading them. Spoilers are always welcome in my world. Thanks Quinn!
I read it and I never ever read I was one them people that go to sleep after 10 mins after listening to multiple vids of his I brought the series, and I finished the first book in about 4 days! You and your son will love ut
@JIMI book will have better feels n shock without previous spoiler, specially well crafted stories like this. Try 'Zindell ' Requium for homo sapiens series for you n your son, another space science fiction of high quality n interest
God i love this story. It's almost a shame that most people's first exposure to it will be thru the upcoming Netflix series. Netflix doesn't have a great track record for doing justice to the stories they adapt. I fear it could be resident evil (or cowboy bebop, death note, etc) all over again.
Oh believe me, Netflix doing the Three body problem isn’t the problem. Netflix doing the Three body problem with David Benioff in charge IS the problem. And filming is already in progress, if not completed.
The first Chinese version of the three-body TV series has been filmed and will be aired soon. Chinese three-body fans have also animated stories about Luo Ji and Zhang Beihai
lol the author said in interview that the plot to a certain extent resembles the recent history of China. Also the driving factor of Japan to invade through wars, according to many scholars, is the bad island habitat which also earthquakes a lot. Correspond to the trisolarians, right?
@@hongjian3714is that her name in the original Chinese version?? I must be forgetting that editors note because that’s such a cute name. And yeah, she was Cheng Xin and Yifan’s like… friend/maid type companion in the pocket world. She genuinely seemed so nice and interesting until she revealed her true nature. But then she went back to being kind and friendly. Very odd character arc, but I liked her honestly.
You really are a gifted teacher, in that you explain complicated concepts in a digestible format, without dumbing it down or shying away from the more difficult ethical or philosophical elements - please keep up the fantastic work - many thanks 🙏
She was the most irritating character the author created, from a legion of irritating characters, for many reasons. The madness started with the very first woman who called death upon us in the first place and ends with this utterly futile and ineffective waif. Don’t forget that he created her though, and orchestrated every word, thought and action. That was one thing that reveals a lot about the author. His one dimensional characterisations throughout the trilogy made this story almost unreadable for me, his lack of understanding of how important it is to make people even believable, let alone act with humanity and logic, vastly detracts from what could otherwise be the most compelling plot I’ve read. Why on earth would they have picked someone like her in the first place, even if such a weak and stupid character could ever actually have had the history of experience he made up for her to justify the choice? It is totally unbelievable. It’s like a really socially imbecilic incel had one great idea, but none of what was required to express it adequately or to any sense of satisfaction. It’s actually not even logical at that point. We have a race of super intelligent almost immortal critters, living in an environment so harsh that they are looking to migrate, suddenly caring that the home system that was destroying them would be destroyed by the sword holder. Why would they say they were not going to kill humanity? Was this a lie? These same critters that can’t understand deceit? How did they then use deceit? We have a sword holder elected that navel gazes and muses on art, a representation of the times he created, who acts like someone concerned with how beautiful the water is that comes out of a faucet while she sits in a bathroom on board the sinking Titanic. I found the last book almost unreadable for these reasons. The only explanation that would make the whole experience meaningful would be if it turned out the author himself was trisolaran, and therefore gets a free pass for misunderstanding people so badly.
@@ApacheMagic Its called an archetypal character. She and Wade are meant to be archetypal ideals struggling through the eons as opposing forces. It is very much more a philosophical work than a typcial character study. And Im not sure where you are going in SCIENCE FICTION for detailed character studies... Most characters in classic science fiction are far more wooden than these. Its part of the genre IMO.
@@ApacheMagic The author Cixin Liu told that he does not care for character development, as the characters are only vessels to tell his story and concepts. So the characters acted the way they do, just to propel the story telling.
There's two moments in Death's End that hit me particularly hard, first is when the button for the transmission is pressed, both Blue Space and Gravity's crew vote unanimously for it, but for the last necessary vote everyone stops and gathers around the final crew member, they know the gravity of what they're about to do, and unlike Cheng Xin they understood this was necessary, they wouldn't nurture those who had betrayed them, as sweet as their siren's call would be in the form of art about the beauty of our world. Particularly for the crew of Gravity, their chase mission and expected return to earth as triumphant heroes would now never take place, being forced to join Blue Space into becoming a cosmic species, the chances of humans in the solar system being able to survive the dark forest being too remote to consider anyone else would survive. The second moment is when Cheng Xin and Guan Yifan see both human and trisolaran languages were included in the message asking them to disassemble their pocket universe, it made me realise how after everything these two species had done to each other, they had become intrinsically linked, had Ye Wenjie never established contact with trisolaris, humanity would have likely began exploring the universe much later, and would have definitely been wiped out soon after becoming too notorious, Trisolaris instead would have likely looked for a way to expand their civilization away from their hostile solar system and become a cosmic society, which is what both species ended up doing in the end. Seeing how both species had endured enough to be included in the pocket universe message felt like the trisolarans had been in a hurtful relationship that lasted centuries, but in the grand expanse of cosmic time the mutual destruction of our homeworlds felt like quarrel we had so long ago it no longer mattered.
If I remember correctly the broadcast vote was not unanimous, but most voted in favor and the vote that was important was just the one that put them over the edge.
Quinn! I read through this series over the past month because of you! This is the first video of yours I’ve been able to watch new. Thanks for making great content, sir! And thanks for introducing me to one of my favorite series ever.
Man, Cixin Liu's series was the coolest thing to happen to sci-fi in ages! Aside from the brilliant, exciting story, it was informative to read something from a Chinese perspective. The Wandering Earth really showed the differences between East and West outlooks. The Chinese casual acceptance of Big Governments discarding billions of people in the service of larger plans was both alarming and fascinating.
There's a theory that this is a result of "River" civilizations like Chinese and Egyptian, basically the ancient Chinese had to live off the fertile Yellow River but periodically suffered catastrophic desasters from the river's floods. So ALL the tribes along the river had to work together under 1 leadership to build defenses and irrigation to tame the Yellow River. Legend has it the Chinese people were first ever brough together by the Yellow Emperor by combining all tribes to fight a .... well biblical flood. So Wandering Earth is just a modern retelling of that story.
I think Lord Dark Helmet said it best in Spaceballs. "Evil will always triumph, because good is dumb." Humanity was definitely on the dumb side here. "Superadvanced aliens who were previously trying to murder us without provocation now want to be our bestest buddies? Hyuk, sounds good to me!"
Human beings are portrayed as suicidally dumb in this series. Another good example is the rejection of escapism. Clearly the correct response in the face of the Trisolaris crisis and rejected based on some very strange "moral principles".
tbf, it was like 1 or 2 generation after Luo Ji Threaten Trisolarion. The world is basically peace for decades, Kids won't know the horror of war, they will just appreciate how beautiful trisolarion's art and movie is.
To be fair, Trisolarans were previously established as being completely incapable of lying, so it makes sense that people thought their redemption was also honest. No one expected that the race who's defining trait aside from determination and fascism was honesty would be able to fool them for a century.
just think of how many of you think your alone now? that the aliens arent here already. that they havent been here all along and are manipulating you from the shadows already. you think they cant hide from you? that you would know about them if they were here. your arrogance is your downfall not necessarily your lack of intelligence
Quinn’s, I highly recommend looking into Peter Watts “Blindsight” and “Echopraxia Books.” If they aren’t on your radar still. They are also quite solid Cosmic Horror, and the story is simply a page-turner. The Audiobooks are also really well narrated.
I gave a friend of mine Blindsight and he thought it was absolutely awesome. Asked him to explain me what it's about without much spoilers and he told me it was pretty difficult and couldn't do it, but he also suggested Villeneuve should've make it into a film. What is Echpraxia about? I might go for Blindsight audiobook in the future.
@@sk8shred I couldn't see it being made properly into a film, if simply for the fact that most people today are not wired for the concepts in the book (extreme intelligence without consciousness, for exmaple).
i must say i enjoy your videos about this story more then the books themself. Its maybe the translation but even as a audiobook i generally didnt like the narration and dialogues of the books. But your way of telling the story makes it definitely worthwhile :)
Er I mean it's kind of the opposite though, sadly... It's more like, "shh, don't make too much noise and turn down the lights, or else our neighbors will know where we are and kill us."
I’d really think you’d like Girl’s Last Tour. It’s a manga about two of the last humans exploring a ruined city, slowly learning a bit about what happened. To me, this story is an interesting apocalypse because after it happens, the world’s done. Everything is dead and gone. Normally something is left- zombie apocalypse stories have survivors, alien invasions at least have the aliens left. But not this story, and that’s sad.
Spoilers: I think at the end, where they sit down with their last food it's hinted that they missed a city with people. The people aren't shown, but it looks lived in. Of course it makes it all the more sad in another way. They were so close.
4:35 The most beautiful thing about this... Later finding out about the 100 Tales of Yun Tianming and Cheng Xin and how they came to be... That beautiful possibility that, even back then, across the void of space & time, the Trisolaran Art was being directly inspired by Yun~ in his love story to Cheng~. 16:00 What is also really interesting going back from book 3 to books 1&2 again... We know by book 3 that the Trisolaran's can create Micro-Universe's... I couldn't help but wonder if what everyone believes to be an untraceable video-game back in Book 1 is actually Wang Miao and the ETO recruits actually visiting Micro-Universes... It wouldn't have been beyond what we knew to be the Trisolaran's technical capabilities at the time... Were the Trisolaran Hydration cycle actually the ability to, at will, enter and exit from 4D/3D/2D space? I really loved the series Quinn and I'm so grateful for you having pointed me towards these amazing books.
Hey Quinn could you do a video on the Xelee sequence? Its a hard scifi series written by a mathematician. It follows humanity over the course of millions of years in a war against a godlike species called the Xelee which inhabits the blackhole at the center of the galaxy
@@Jakey_-iz9tw so the Xelee are still far stronger but ultimately fighting humanity with one arm behind it's back? While humanity has grown powerful enough through years of advancement to serve as a nuisance to the Xelee?
@@Jakey_-iz9tw Humanity wasnt a threat as much as a nuisance, the Xelee only "left" because humanity was threatning the cosmic string life in the black hole, the xelee value all normal matter life and attempts of eradication are... not apreciated, The Phontinos on the other hand well in the end they kick the shit out of the Xelee
@@lelagrangeeffectphysics4120 >well in the end they kick the shit out of the Xelee Do they? I thought it was kind of a draw, and constant back and forth, but the xeelee decide to peace out in another universe instead
Is there any reason why they couldn't have had more than one sword holder? If they had given all 7 candidates one then the chance of at least one of them pressing the button should nearly 100% and therefore the attack would never have happened.
Basically they didn't want more than one. They didnt really want any and didn't really consider the tri-solarans as enemies any more, this is implied to be facilitated by the tri-solarans shift in attitude.
I hate when the monster in horror stories win via inaction or halfassedry, I really find it infinity more interestingly if the monster wins after humanity tried everything or made a mistake that actually makes sense or even when the monster loses but there is greater threat, its like a deus ex machina but for the monster its robs the story of meaning
Whoever's reading this, i pray that whatever you're going through gets better and whatever you're struggling with or worrying about is going to be fine and that everyone has a fantastic day! Amen
I thought it was interesting that the aliens' way of making sure that while they're slowly making their way to Earth they wouldnt lose was by making sure human beings couldnt 1. make much progress with subatomic physics 2. stop them from stopping humans from making much progress with subatomic physics. So a superior technology that is inherently tied to subatomic physics could not be beaten while they slowly make their way over to earth.
a good and utopian outcome doesn't allow for conflict and thus no sales but dystopian sci-fi is exactly what we want. Who would've read a book about how nice it is to live in a perfect society where we all agree and love each other? Add in that we are using ground up people as food and BAM! It becomes the stereotypical hidden dystopia
Wow that was amazing !!! I cannot believe humanity did not have a back up plan in case the sword was sabotaged. This book series is really interesting. I cannot wait for the next video.
Just wanna thank you for introducing this series and you have seriously changed my outlook on books and reading, I’ve been on your page less then a month maybe about 3 weeks and I’ve brought about 6 books thus far
I hate Cheng Xin, but I think I understand why the author decided to make her so naive and pacifist. Cheng Xin is definitely the most kind hearted of all three protagonists and it leads to (spoilers) the end of the solar system. I think what’s coming across is kindness and naive goodness really doesn’t belong in the cold darkness of the universe. This is kind of echoed when the new space humans refused to share their planet coordinates even with old earth people like Cheng Xin. So I guess I liked her in the story, but personally I thought her character was a little boring
Yeah, I liked the part when the Galactic Humans told her that "it is considered bad manners to ask anyone you meet out there where he comes from", implying that different alien races do have occasionally cautious, but peaceful encounters with each other within the Dark Forest.
Part of me likes her because as a human being she's a beautiful and kind soul, the other part of me realizes that humanity fell because of her incompetence, they should've given the sword to a spiteful cold and calculated animal of a man, one of those people that would rather kill themselves than help others.
I always got the idea that she was wrong for the right reason. Yeah we could have survived in each of those situations, but it would have required someone to breach some really important human ideals. Kind of like those spaceships that left the solar system, the changes to humanity would have been quick and horrible if those ideals had been breached. So the species suffered at unimaginable levels but the people remained human and maintained the things that we consider important for humans. As opposed to the spaceship people who became something new.
I am impatient to finish the book I'm currently reading to start this one. You're videos about it(that I didn't watch yet to avoid spoilers) are like a cruel teaser😅. Joke put aside you're doing an amazing work and It's always a pleasure to see black people in the sci-fi community 👍🏿
I haven't even read none of these books but his breakdowns are so fascinating and I feel like I know everything about them this channel definitely is underrated
It's an interesting scenario - humanity falls because of kindness, while the invaders are destroyed because of their cruelty. It mirrors reality, as well, to some extent. Nations that disarm without a power backing them are often destroyed. Nations that commit genocides also often fail - from ancient Assyria to the Third Reich.
Im truly proud to add you to my small list of subscribed youtubers. I love your coverage and effort you put into each video. Youre and intelligent man who is easy to listen to.. thank you for your content!
I absolutely abhore the second sword holder. Its the worst part of the book for me. Disgracefully irreverent of how covetous, untrusting and down right fearful we can be as humans. It would have taken centuries for us to even openly watch their alien propoganda, and it seriously does not take a genius to know that is exactly what it is. Mankind has completely and totally lost its edge in this rendition of the story. I mean shit, decoy swordbearers were never a thing? The people who predicted the droplet attack couldn't predict the obvious implied intentions of these aliens and their feel good movies and bullshit diplomat? The very idea that Sophon was even allowed to exist, or that we would trust them at all before having even a theoretical defence against the droplets, is such intense idiocy that it boggles the mind and yanks me straight out of the story. The three body problem goes from a fascinating examination of a realistic alien invasion, to a tale of intense, cartoonish Darwinism on mankind's behalf, and it only gets WORSE. There was so much promise and skill in this series, but the author fails to do humanity justice several times. We are not that unified. We are not that optimistic, not that peaceful, or trusting. We are largely superstitious self supremacists, and the idea that the government wouldn't use the OBVIOUSLY hostile Tri-Solarins as a continuing, unifying "Other" is so absurd that I really cannot understand it. The idea that the swordbearer candidates would not be tested with a false emergency to gauge their reactions to the actual threat makes me want to puke. Has all sense of complexity and ape cleverness departed from our entire species? The second Swordbearer is the bane of a false mankind, and while I'm not contending that we would last much longer, THIS is not how we would go out. Not even marginally close.
You're not thinking from the perspective of a Chinese author who is annoyed that they haven't nuked Japan and the USA and Russia and all the other countries, but mainly Japan to start with, and instead millions upon millions of Chinese people actually watch and enjoy Japanese media - I mean you're right that they should have taken centuries to even openly watch Japanese "propaganda" but instead, there they go watching Pokemon and playing Mario like some stupid naive fools or whatever. I mean, of course democracy is stupid because I'm sure that if the general Chinese population voted on whether or not to allow imports of Playstation game consoles those insanely suicidal anti-global-thermonuclearwar-niks would vote to allow Playstations.
Maybe humanity already has fallen. I do see a parallel with how a public relations company in the USA was able to shift the public view that influenced politicians around the world to ignore the danger of global warming, classifying it as natural and calling it as "climate change". The science demonstrated since the decade of 1980 that the problem was real. A group of companies where able to make mankind ignore a real problem, and now with the consequences being visible there are still deniers. So is not far fetch that aliens could influence the whole of humanity so they not see a problem that will happen.
@@OdnaropX Even then, Global warming is one of the most contentious issues there are in the world, and the division between deniers and acknowledgers is stark and sometimes violent, which is not what we see here. On top of that, Global Warming is a nebulous, faceless concept. The aliens which obliterated our space force, killed hundreds of thousands, and whom we have been demonising for decades or centuries, are not faceless. This bullshit "mother of mankind" swordbearer would not have won her vote, and if she did, there would have been intense civil unrest. She is demonstrably and openly the worst possible choice, and the fact that they exposed her to the Sophon when the previous swordbearer was almost defined by his isolation, is just a walking lobotomy of an idea. You do not ELECT someone for this. We do not Elect our soldiers or generals, we TRAIN THEM for their roles. We do not elect diplomats or police. We do not elect doctors or firemen, we fucking train them. But sure, lets hold a popularity contest for the highest possible, DIRECT military role in all of ape history. And let's also pick a giant softy who could be accurately predicted by an armchair psychologist after one or two of her televised interviews. Sure. Yeah. Fuck me, so much of that whole process was a mess that its hard to even know where to begin.
Yeah, your not really wrong. When the MC wakes up, mankind has become androgynous and feminine, and the message is basically that this made us pretty weak and pathetic. We are gullible as a monolith in this story. Not only that, but, you know, we could have just destroyed our own planet ourselves. Thats what they are after, and it would actually be easy for mankind, after being given the Australia ultimatum, to destroy the world before the aliens could get there. Contrary to popular belief, you cannot stop all destructive endeavors with battering rams. The idea that those ideas were not seeded throughout the earth long ago in various forms is pretty unrealistic.
In spite of the cursing, you definitely nailed it. It made the whole story hard to take seriously. We basically walk into the open jaws of an obvious monster, just because its warm there. Its hard to take seriously how helpless and lacking in canny, critical thinking skills very nearly every human being is after Cheng appears in the story.
It wasn't, blue space wasn't able to activate a broadcast, it needed a star, gravity (the name a different ship) was able to broadcast without a star. at the time humanity was against blue space and worked with the droplets to pursue blue space, the pursing human ship was named gravity and was escorted by 2 droplets, but humanity didnt want the dropets 2 immediately kill blue space 4 reasons (it's complicated), the droplets where there to make sure that blue space couldn't reach another star to broadcast incase gravity failed. However at the end of deterrence the droplets tried to annihilate both blue space and gravity but blue space destroyed the droplets (the way they did it is complicated and not important). So gravity now realising trisolaris' had turned on them teamed up with blue space and used it's special antenna that blue space didn't have to broadcast.
@@MagikarpMan god damn that was some awfully good insight in this book (which I haven't read, and just watch videos). Thanks for that, really makes me want to read this book sometime soon.
I read this books because of your videos and Deaths End is probably my favorite because of the several concepts and ideas it proposes. Looking forward to next videos!
It hurts me not being able to watch the videos on this book series, as I have only read book one. But I love your videos so hopefully soon I will be able to catch up.
I absolutely love these 3 Body videos, they are superb. Quinn has done a fabulous job with these. This book series had a huge impact on me. I'm looking forward to the next video which logically would cover the Bunker era and Galaxy era.
man, i have to say, i love your videos. they are so pleasant to listen and are such informative. It is like hearing a analysis included in a summary without being boring. hold it up man
Yeah that "you're surrounded by food" bit officially pushed me to the opinion that the entire trisolaran species needed to be annihilated. Humans gave them so many chances to live and cooperate together, their response was evidence that shared existence wouldn't be possible.
Same, I thought, this civilization is so ruthless, they could've been the responsible for the universe collapsing if they had the technology, but again it's the point of the dark forest theory, you must kill or be killed
@@KingRidley And at that moment I remembered the words of the Listener: “I am tired of Trisolaris. We have nothing in our lives and spirit except the fight for survival.” “What’s wrong with that?” “There’s nothing wrong, of course. Existence is the premise for everything else. But, Princeps, please examine our lives: Everything is devoted to survival. To permit the survival of the civilization as a whole, there is almost no respect for the individual. Someone who can no longer work is put to death. Trisolaran society exists under a state of extreme authoritarianism. The law has only two outcomes: The guilty are put to death, and the not guilty are released. For me, the most intolerable aspects are the spiritual monotony and desiccation. Anything that can lead to spiritual weakness is declared evil. We have no literature, no art, no pursuit of beauty and enjoyment. We cannot even speak of love.… Princeps, is there meaning to such a life?” “The kind of civilization you yearn for once existed on Trisolaris, too. They had free, democratic societies, and they left behind rich cultural legacies. You know barely anything about them. Most details have been sealed away and forbidden from view. But in all the cycles of Trisolaran civilization, this type of civilization was the weakest and most short-lived. A modest Chaotic Era disaster was enough to extinguish them. Look again at the Earth civilization that you wish to save. A society born and bred in the eternal spring of a beautiful hothouse would not be able to survive even a million Trisolaran hours if it were transplanted here.” “That flower may be delicate, but it possesses peerless splendor. She enjoys freedom and beauty in the ease of paradise.” “If Trisolaran civilization ultimately possesses that world, we can also create such lives for ourselves.” “Princeps, I’m doubtful. The metallic Trisolaran spirit has infiltrated each of our cells and solidified. You really believe it can melt again?"
@@KingRidley Theoretically, with the help of sophons, it would be possible to avoid war altogether. By manipulating public opinion, taking into account the fact that the whole earth was under surveillance and adding to this an instant connection - in 200 - 250 years it would be possible to achieve that neither people nor trisolars would perceive each other as strangers. But they just didn't think about it. Their mentality didn't allow it.
Honestly its a sin having to wait to see the next vid on this story because I freaking love this so much!!!! You do great justice to how you present the story! Please dont take to long till you release the next vid on the story.
You make this story feel so exciting and dire and I'm about to try the first book again, even though it's a bit dull for my tastes. Keep your content coming
I would love to see you do a video comparing Thomas Wade to Cheng Xin. I think these two characters are such a huge, complex, and important part of Death's End.
Thanks for getting me into the Three Body Problem. Your enthusiasm for the series really shines through and I hadn't heard of the books before. It's also sent me down a rabbit hole brushing up on very basic cosmology and quantum physics so I can keep up which can only be a good thing.
Just finished reading Deaths end yesterday and danm... what a ride! and that ending lef me puzzled about the end result of that universe,if the returners plans work and the majority of artifical/closed micro universes,return the mass to the original or keep hidden. the outcome puzzle me. and i love that way he imply that big number of sentiends choose to make thei own artifical universes at the expense of the mass stealing and knowing the harm caused by their actions at large. Another thing thati love it big time,was the dimensional strikes,that form of warfare and preventive attacks fascinated me.
Hey Quinn. I'm eternally grateful to you for introducing me to this excellent trilogy. I'm 2/3rds through Death's end, and I've lent the first two volumes to a friend who is a lifelong science fiction fan. Best regards.
Where did you get all this TBP art? So cool. Really great stuff Quinn, I enjoy the way you speak, break down stories, present videos. You singled handedly got me to buy the first two books (audio books at least).
I'll be honest, your descriptions of this series are better than the actual books, IMO. It has great ideas but is let down by its writing. Frankly I think he should have left the Trisolarian society vague for one. He also is pretty bad at driving home the significance of certain events. The tension in your audio descriptions is somewhat missing on the page.
Absolutely this; the books are pretty bad to be honest. The tension is lacking, the atmosphere is sterile throughout, the characters are paper thin... The ideas are really all that's left to carry the series. Shame because there's something awesome here buried beneath the mediocrity.
Thanks to you I've listened the entire trilogy on audiobook due to my job(I'm a firecracker) and partially read the books at home and personally I am delighted with the full trilogy. Again thank you forbyour content and keep it going, already a fan here!
Star Trek: Maybe we can all, like, get along, man. Pass the space weed. ☮️ Three Body Problem: If we don't doom the universe to wipe out this other race before they find out we exist, they might destroy us first. Call me crazy, but I think reality is actually somewhere in between these two.
maybe the biggest plothole in the entire series is the fixation of the Trisolarans on earth. By the time Cheng became the swordholder, they already have the capacity to travel at light speed, and could easily colonize other worlds e.g. DX3906, without risking get retaliated. A small risk, but a risk indeed.
Well, their existence is already exposed to the human civilization, and according to dark forest theory, that makes humanity an existential threat for them. The Trisolarans are depicted as hardline survivors and they could never trust that humanity would simply forget about the contact and leave them be. They'd always live in fear of a technological explosion taking place on Earth and then humanity hunting them down in retribution. They cannot expose Earth to the dark forest either, given that the two star systems are so close to each other. The argument goes the other way as well, once again due to dark forest theory. Trisolaris cannot really know what humanity thinks they think about humanity and whether or not they'd prepare a preemptive first strike (like in the battles of darkness) once they are sufficiently developed technologically. The dark conclusion is that you can never really trust anyone and your safest bet for survival is to stay hidden and eliminate life on sight, if you are capable. Hide well; cleanse well. Only after the broadcast is sent to they back off and decide to flee, as the threat of the dark forest is orders of magnitude above that of humanity and the two systems are guaranteed to be destroyed in a short time.
Maybe, but also they probably though that humanity wouldn't be capable of using the broadcast after the first sword holder. They were right in this, but they couldn't foresee that a 4th dimension bubble would allow their probe to be destroyed.
They could not let humans alone. Because we were a treat. We knew about their location and existense. In the dark forest theory your go is to stay hidden from everyone else.
That woman literally did everything wrong. I enjoyed book 2 but then this book did an alien 3/jurassic park. You know that happy ending. Well what if we just took that happiness from the characters in the first scene. Then they give us this woman who at every decision point makes either the most selfish or stupid decision possible.
Book 3 had a semi-happy ending, only human on Earth is destroyed, the human in space become quite powerful (the ship they used to escape Blue Origin become artefact in their museum ) and survived till the very end (replied to the broadcast of returning matter), but the scope is not focused on them because the books are called "Remembrance of Eaths past"
I don’t see anything redeeming in her character. She lies to herself to feel self important. Takes on a job she was not serious about, and as a result of her delusions causes the destruction of the human race. Uh and this was supposed to be a sympathetic character? You could’ve picked a random guy from the street and promised to take care of all his needs in return for pressing a button in the event of a droplet attack and he would’ve done a better job. Hell for that matter you could’ve rigged up a computer system to do it automatically and cut the “human factor” out of the loop entirely except as a backup. The stupidity of the characters starts to drag the narrative down. The fakest part of the book is her not being ripped apart by the refugees bare hands in Australia.
Haven't read the books, but considering what's been discussed in this video, she did at least one thing right - not actually pressing the button. The deterrence failed at the moment trisolarans actually attacked, and since that moment, the right decision becomes to not destroy both. After all, what really works as a deterrence is not you actually pressing the button and killing both sides, it's your ability and readiness to do so. And the fault is on the people who decided to give the "sword" to a person who won't press the button.
I'm pretty sure this ties into the authors views about femininity and how it is a threat to humanity or something. Every single time humanity dooms itself it's because of a woman or the "feminization" of human culture. Author is obviously misogynist.
I will never read this series because doing so sounds absolutely horrifying, but please keep summarizing it for me like an audio book because the story sounds genuinely inspiring and your videos make the horror more approachable.
Lol I read this whole series because of your channel and I loved it. I think the style of writing takes a bit getting used to but the ideas are amazing.
This honestly feels like a rather large plothole, the choice of Cheng Xin as the second Swordholder. If humanity had the capability to determine Luo Ji’s odds of initiating the transmission, why wouldn’t they do the same for her? Why didn’t they check if they were giving the Swordholder position to someone who would bring about the end of Deterrence?
So while reading I thought the trisolerans intended cheng xin to be the sword holder based on information from tian ming, but then later we found out that he doesn't get awakened until later, so yeah, this is a glaring plot hole to me as well.
There was a large plot hole in the book as well. At the end of book two Luo Ji said he was giving the control to the UN and wanted nothing to do with it. Then the last chapter was 5 years later and he was happy living with his family giving the sophon a lecture on love. In book three he is a hermit living in a cave, his family is gone and they tell us he initially only handed the control over for 18 hours. So how did those 5 happy years at the end of book 2 happen? Seems like the writer changed his mind and shoehorned him into the sword holder job when he should have just created a new character for the job.
I understand why you want to remain undetected, and why, if you do detect someone else, you want to strike first (as was explained in the Dark Forest video). BUT, in the case of that gravitational wave broadcast, things get more complicated. From a game theory perspective it would be preferable to let someone else destroy the broadcast location while you are watching - instead of the other way around.
yeah but when there is bigger people there is also bigger idiots. Who is to say that the spaceship that destroyed the star didnt get destroyed right after?
@@kalebbradford143 Game theory always assumes perfectly rational actors, and everyone doing the thing that's best for them. If you assume people doing less than optimal things, then the whole dark forest idea falls apart.
I like how the people who have problem with the second swordholder blame women in general for the way she was written and not the author who wrote her in such a way in the first place.
Honestly I think the appearance of the Trisolarian emissary says loads more about author's personal beliefs leaking into the story than sword holder's gender. Any pacifist personality put in a military role would be equally disastrous regardless of any other personal characteristics. If you can't pull the trigger, you don't belong in the role. A protector who cannot destroy without hesitation has no real ability to protect. It's also more than a little possible that Cheng Xin was not the *only* viable candidate for the Trisolaran purposes during the selection process, the entire slate of candidates may have been manipulated. That's how I would have played it if I'd been setting it up.
Aaah Quinn!! You’re the reason I read this series - I saw your first video on the Three Body Problem and that was it! I love this video series, I’m in here talking back to you like you’re standing here. So good!!
The third book was a massive letdown. The main character was just so annoying, she literally doomed humanity twice. I did like the blue dream/gravity part... The book was overpacked with forgettable charaters and ridiculous set pieces. The Dark Forest is fantastic though.
@@mattbebe2555 worst idea I had ever heard ever. Them not IMMEDIATELY attempting to run from earth after the signal was sent out is the single most moronic thing I’ve ever heard of.
@@mattbebe2555 As I recall, the MC made an effort to support the development of Light Speed Travel even after the government made it illegal. It was humanity that wanted to stay, not her.
I'm puzzled as to why the Trisolarans didn't utterly annihilate Earth and the solar system when the signal was finally broadcast as an act of revenge. It wouldn't have taken them long with the droplet superweapons.
They arent "evil" or vengeful, but just supremely utilitarian to the point of cruelty. The chapter where Sophon/Tomoko stood before the assembled masses of humanity now herded together in Austrialia and told them "if you dont want to starve, just eat each other" wasnt actually out of malice. Remember, survivalst cannibalism was pretty normal for the Trisolarans during their chaotic eras, so they just applied their own morality upon the human race. Those few thousand humans who lived on the fragile mars colonies had it a lot better, since the aliens knew that they wouldnt try anything stupid if they wanted to survive.
Yes, despite the thrid book having the best ideas I could not enjoy it as much as the first two - because it constantly wanted to bang my head against something hard thanks to Cheng Xin. She is supposed to be smart but makes the wrong decisions nonstop. If she is doing anything at all and not constanly being rescued by others. In a normal story Wade would be the villian but here I find myself cheering for him because he would actually get the right things done. But, of course, he is a Real Man. A Manly Man. A Man that makes the hard decisions the females and those feminised man of the future cannot take. Like Zhang Beihai did in the past and on the Natural Selection. If the people of the future would have listened to the wise True Men of the Common Era humanity would have defeated the Trisolarans! That point is driven home with the sublety of a karate kick in the scrotum.
@@Bigjuicydumbdumb Of course, manly men get things done. And not so manly man get things done. And women get things done. It is just that the writing tells you that no one BUT the manly man is any good.
@@Jim-i7v1yYOU let your body be ripped apart to give birth to your ungrateful ass, and then say women aren’t warriors. You are here because a woman was willing to sacrifice her body for NINE MONTHS for you. You are here because a woman was willing to endure fairly unimaginable and almost intolerable pain to bring about your existence. She was willing to bleed so that you can live. Show some damned respect.
I'm glad you brought up the author's weird takes on masculinity and femininity. I could NOT take the second book's first section at all seriously because of the "dream girl" the wallfacer brought to his island because she looked like the woman in his fantasies, and then she WASN'T some kind of plant by the Trisolarans who knew what kind of person he wanted.
When the Trisolaran's home solar system was destroyed for me that was a wow moment. The Trisolarans could just not leave Earth alone and look what it got them. Maybe some survived on ships but with their system wrecked they are screwed.
The Trisolarans learned a valuable lesson in the story that they already kind of knew - their is always a bigger asshole out in space than you...
Their home system was uninhabitable due to the "three body problem", so they had no choice but to leave. They should have been less aggressive though.
@@thomascrabtree It's extra ironic as at this point humanity was totally looking forward to welcome the trisolarans as friends.
@ Mr. Death Just like the Borg from Star Trek had to learn the hard way.
@@thomascrabtree But far more of their civilization could have survived. Bunker erra shows us just how low level a photon attack is.
The Trisolarians just continue to make blunder after blunder in understanding humanity. There was almost 0 reason to have to have humans cut off from electricity and eat each other, they did that just for cruelty sake. Without the 100's of years of delay for their fleet then humanities ability to have scientific explosions meant nothing. They did it all just for the sake of cruelty. At so many points they could have have easily formed an alliance but let their fear stop them.
Both sides should just have left their star systems while they could.
It’s interesting how humanities M.A.D. solution amounts to a calculated gamble that “there is always a bigger fish“.
How much of a gamble is that, though? There's an insane implausibility in the Trisolarans even thinking that it would be possible to keep the existence of other aliens a secret. Think about it. The Alpha Centauri system is OUR CLOSEST NEIGHBOR. And it turns out to be inhabited. Any humans which do NOT immediately assume there are lots of aliens in the galaxy are ... just stupid, really. And anyone assuming the Trisolarans are the most advanced out there ... among how many thousands or millions ... again, just stupid, really.
At that point of the beginning of the deterence era, however, it had been proven for quite some time that there was indeed a "bigger fish" and they were indeed hostile.
It wasn’t a gamble - that’s the whole point. It was proven when they earlier made said bigger fish annihilate a random star system by faking an intelligent broadcast.
@@Ett.Gammalt.Bergtrollthey didn't fake an intelligent broadcast. They broadcast the location of another star to test the Dark Forest hypothesis, which was proven to be truth. Either an intelligent and quickly advancing civilization was present there and reckless enough to expose themselves, or someone else was saying that there was something notable there. For any sufficiently advanced civilization, the safest option upon recieving the coordinates was to destroy everything there, because even the slightest possibility of a threat eventually emerging from that system was unacceptable.
In "Death‘s end", The human being fear the Swordholder more than the Trisolarans, juste because the Swordholder is a imminent threat ：he/she is the ultimate dictator who could sign a death sentence of two worlds in a second. So after living nervously under the shadow cast by the Swordholder, few people appreciate Luo ji, even though he spent his whole life time securing the earth and humanity.
Such a very Chinese way of looking at the world: humanity requires an ultimate dictator to save it.
@@URProductions a dictator rules using coercion. The first swordholder was chosen by the UN, the 2nd by a democratic election. The word dictator is an oversimplification
@@URProductions Not exactly I‘m afraid. Among Chinese readers, Cixin Liu was often criticized as a “ social Darwinist ” because of his overly pessimistic depiction of humanity. Liu has expressed his frustration in several occasions. During an interview, he said that the world in the three body problem series is like an ant farm, especially a hash one; as a author, he was curious about reactions of humanity under extreme conditions, that doesn't mean it mirrors the real world.
The CCP is a cancer on this planet and needs to be eradicated.
@@URProductions The entire point of 1 was that the educated elite of Earth were the biggest threat to us.
I love when the Trisolarans mention that Liou Gi had an insanely high deterrence percentage and then casually said: "But Wayde ... He had no curve at all!" They truly were teriffied of Thomas Wayde more than they were of Liou Gi.
Thomas had no wave because he would go for mutual destruction. He was an antinatalist and if pushed would prefer everyone die before humans survive.
the idea of being bullied by an alien species far more powerful then you and then seeing those aliens get erased from existence is fucking terrifying
But satisfying at the same time...
@@transforgoku I guess it would be a temporary satisfaction for maybe just a few secs because soon after people would realize that the enemy got erased by a far more powerful alien civilization and that civilization is coming for them
@@eddielin6081 Gotta turn super saiyan 💥💥💥
That's the reverse idea of fermi paradox...those alien planets were obliterated to dust by more advanced alien and those who were appear on our sky just the remains of their species..
The entire series is terrifying.
"The enemy of my enemy is my enemy, but they took out my enemy for me. Time to get away."
I knew it was over as soon as you said "It was decided that a vote would be held to elect the next sword holder." You can't trust people to actually vote for the candidate most likely to destroy all humanity.
Yes, but you also can't expect political stability if the people have no say. That's why there were revolutions which eventually toppled the Wallfacer structure.
@@chinguunerdenebadrakh7022 I present a compromise: the council. The mob thinks like a mob. But the council thinks like the elite, and most are principled enough to mimic the behaviours of the sun king (the past sword holder in this regard). That or Representative Democracy.
One thing not explored in the last book is the fact its implied only the young races are in the dark forest. The dark forest seems to be the great filter for young races. Getting out of it seems to be when a race has matured.
The notion of a on its own monolithic model of existence, being in fact nothing more than a filter for another, is a terrifying concept. Just, the scale of it.
I think the implication is that in the early universe, the conditions for life were mostly in higher dimensions. As those older races fought and dimensionally striked themselves out of existence, they unintentionally made the lower dimensions hospitible for life. This happened again and again until finally three dimensional life became possible. It is also implied that Singer is from a race who escaped the collapsing 4th dimension, so its race could be considered an older race.
I thought about it too. It seems that the point of maturity is when a race finally master lightspeed travel. Once a race master that ability, it is virtually not possible for that race to be wiped out. Because of relavistic time dilation, it is possible for lightspeed travelers to reach anywhere and anywhen in the future while only experiencing a short passage of time from their pown perspective. A hundred light year journey at lightspeed would only take a few minutes from the traveler's point of view. The book even talk about "Ultimate Ships" that goes on billion years long voyage to the death of the Universe, which would only be 10 years from within their own frame of reference. There will always be survivors of a lightspeed traveling species somewhere in the Universe.
For example, say a Dark Forest attack happens which wipe out all members humans within the Milky Way. But that's still ok because there's a lightspeed traveling ship carrying humans on a million year long voyage to a distant galaxy. From their frame of reference only several months has passed because of time dilation. Those humans will reappear in the universe a few million years later where they can start anew.
@@Sikarius3403 I agree and the mastering of light speed also seems to determine your ability to defend your self from attacks. It's really very interesting how just messing with light speed can change so many things also.
The scary part of the whole physics being weaponized, is that for many races they simply wouldn't know the laws have been altered.
@@Sikarius3403 your using the term wrong light years stands for the amount of years it takes for you to get somewhere at lightspeed.
24.000 light years are still 24.000 years traveling at lightspeed.
The idea that the Trisolarans demonstrated they were great artists kind of to throw us off guard, then abandoning it all in an instant in favor for their true compulsive genocidal nature, (because apparently culture and art meant nothing to them the whole time) is pathological as fuck
honestly i cant believe people fell for it when its so obvious
@@colorpg152 people tend to fall for comforting lies, especially when they lack personal experience
Two things, 1. I don't know if I'd consider it pathological to play a ruse like that if the purpose was the survival of your species. and 2. I'm not sure there interest in human culture was entirely made-up. Sophon, who no doubt reflects genuine Trisolaran sensibility when she is being her true self, seemed to genuinely appreciate some of it even after there was no longer reason for pretense.
The Ridiculous part is that trisolaris didnt need the earth as much as they needed the stable system that the sun upheld.
They could have created habitats and living spaces all over the solar system. There never was a need to antagonize humanity any more than locking their technology up.
It was another case of collective hubris of humankind. It was equally bad as putting their whole space fleet at tight formation around the probe from Trisolaris.
I’ve listened to each video describing this series multiple times because of your amazing story telling. Thanks so much for the content. Wish I could be put into stasis until each Video drops so I don’t have to wait on the next😂
Me too, the whole atmosphere he creates in these videos makes replaying the videos worth it.
Quinn is better than the books :P
You know they’re like actual books you can read? Dune is objectively better than Quinns readings. That’s not a knock on Quinn, it’s a compliment to Frank Herbert.
Read the books! I knocked out all three in a few weeks. Absolutely worthwhile
@@Malchiar010695 well duh😂 but if I’m exploring new series without buying a book these videos are GREAT introductions. They don’t give all the details just enough to peak my interest and help me understand once I do!
Cheng Xin is the embodiment of "You had one job."
Meanwhile, Luo Ji is literally "fuck around and find out" lmao
Haha so perfect I thought the exact same thing
She had no chance
Her job was not to push the button, her job was to look like she could, out of vengeance and spite alone
Those who messed up are those who elected her, they knew what kind of personality a sworholder should have but chose otherwise
She was the worst conceivable pick. You don't want a kind Swordholder, you want a vengeful one. You want someone who looks like they're waiting for an excuse, any reason at all. Cheng Xin never had that in her and everyone knew it.
@@shortlivedglory3314 it’s crazy for sure, we the reader can see that electing her is completely insane. But The people at the time were just tricked ya know? Everything was a long con by the TS. They were straight up a wolf in sheep’s clothing.. lulled humanity into a false sense of security.
What I find interesting is a fair number of the Trisolaran public wanted peace and cooperation amongst Earth and Trisolaris. Creating art and influencing human culture, but it was the governing body of Trisolaris that ultimately decided to attack humanity after transfer of the Swordholder. I love how well Cixin Liu nails down this concept of not all of Trisolaris wanting a war. It's a shame that a lot, if not all of the pacifist Trisolarans probably died out in the Photoid attack.
Considering how they really aren’t allowed disposing thought most likely didn’t want peace. The arts were very likely a plan set due to the brain they received. We see some bit of humility when the first broadcast is sent but even the lone trisolarian acknowledges that most won’t be so kind.
So it’s very like most wanted to capture that world. Especially since MAD deterrents would likely feel like antagonism.
No one usually looks to the one holding self destruct buttons as a friend. Someone earlier said the same thing about Luo ji being hated by his own people despite saving the world for a bit longer.
I think of two possibilities. One is that that all the art and such was AI generated to fool humanity. We later learned that they learned deception and were teaching humans fake physics.
Another is a possible cultural rift between the Trisolarans on the homeworld and the ones on the first fleet who had been separated from them for hundreds of years. They were the ones who revived Yun Tianming and knew him personally and they were the ones who built the pocket universe to save a few humans at the end of time. We know both branches controlled the sophons at different times.
I just assumed that creating art for humans was their way to trick humans into being more open towards the trisolarans and ultimately vote for an swordholder that wouldn't be reliable. Imagine things turned out differently and humans still viewed trisolarans as the conquerors: They probably would have voted for Wade or one of the others.
@@ThePunikaTVWell it could still be both ways. Peaceful Trisolarans created art as a way of trying to bridge the gap between them and humanity. Then their governing body used it as a weapon to lower humanities defenses. It's not uncommon for institutions of power to weaponize the artwork produced by culture against their enemies. An extreme example would be the N@zis perverting Nietzsches work about the Ubermensch, using it to represent Eugenics rather than what he intended.
The unnofficial but still approved spinoff book also gives as an actual example of a peaceful Trisolaran individual.
In Chinese version the name of the main character actually represented different motive of human kind, so it’s actually a battle of inner peace that led to the decision making of mankind. Luoji, is also the Chinese word for: logic. While Chengxin is the Chinese word for: good heart. So in another word, human kind is constantly going back and forth on basic logic, while good heart is good in nature, but it’s always the wrong choice in realistic world
Cold logic is what lead to WW2. You sure its the best choice in the realistic world?
The trisolarians are pure logic and they got xenocided by someone else.
If you play the game of cold logic, there is always someone smarter and better than you. You wont survive natural selection with cold logic only.
Chengxin can also mean “deliberately (do wrong stuff)”🤪
Wade in Chinese correspond to “Violate morals”. Eventually, human chose true heart over immoral but effective advancement
This… makes a lot of sense. Thank you for this info.
There's a lot of such contexts that's lost to the Western audience and completely removed in the Netflix adaptation
Books 1 & 2 are unforgettable. I loved the plot of “The Witch/Whore of Constantinople.” I wish we’d get more about the Humans that escaped and more about the war that the 2nd Trisolaran fleet fought, which was against another alien race that was not Human.
Still think the third book is the best due to being so out there
@@jonbaxter2254 I cannot agree. If the central figure wasn’t as much of a coward and the author was able to do some more world building that really mattered sure. Lots of the ideas and themes are great but the girl MC made the book unbearable.
@@NotSoSerious69420 I agree, I kind of hate the main charatcer as she doomed Earth TWICE. However, the scale of everything gets dialed up to a million, eons pass in the blink of an eye, even the Trisolarans no longer become a threat.
The fact the Trisolaran second fleets gets demolished by an even greater threat made me realise just how massive the scale of these novels are. They are such small fish in a large ocean.
The Dark Forrest is a horror book. Death's End is world-bending, galaxy spanning Sci-Fi.
@@jonbaxter2254
@@NotSoSerious69420 A coward? The whole point of the book is that radical love is perhaps stronger than any force. She acted again and again with integrity and humanity and perhaps blind faith in a better future. Cowardice would have been to push the button and jump to war.
I love these 3 body problem vids. Honestly this series scares the living hell out of me! I still haven’t read it yet but I think I’m goin to buy it for my son and then take turns with him reading them. Spoilers are always welcome in my world.
Thanks Quinn!
this book is not worth spoiling. ive always been the type who doesnt care about spoilers but this book needs to be experienced firsthand.
What about the CCP?
I read it and I never ever read I was one them people that go to sleep after 10 mins after listening to multiple vids of his I brought the series, and I finished the first book in about 4 days! You and your son will love ut
@JIMI book will have better feels n shock without previous spoiler, specially well crafted stories like this.
Try 'Zindell ' Requium for homo sapiens series for you n your son, another space science fiction of high quality n interest
@@relaxbay5660 i took 3days one for each
God i love this story. It's almost a shame that most people's first exposure to it will be thru the upcoming Netflix series. Netflix doesn't have a great track record for doing justice to the stories they adapt. I fear it could be resident evil (or cowboy bebop, death note, etc) all over again.
The Netflix what now??? Please tell me they aren't making a series of it??
Not against the idea but Netflix are clueless.
Oh believe me,
Netflix doing the Three body problem isn’t the problem.
Netflix doing the Three body problem with David Benioff in charge IS the problem.
And filming is already in progress, if not completed.
Lets not ruin death notes reputation, Netflix death note officially does not exist, I feel disgusted just thinking about it
Noooo!
The first Chinese version of the three-body TV series has been filmed and will be aired soon. Chinese three-body fans have also animated stories about Luo Ji and Zhang Beihai
_"The android takes the form of a gentle japanese woman"_
Oh China, never change. lol
The name of sophon in chinese sounds like a japanese female name, hence the association and avatar of choice by trisolarians to make of their android
Tomoko is complete waifu material tho. She (or a version of her) ends up helping and protecting the main characters in the end.
lol the author said in interview that the plot to a certain extent resembles the recent history of China. Also the driving factor of Japan to invade through wars, according to many scholars, is the bad island habitat which also earthquakes a lot. Correspond to the trisolarians, right?
@@hongjian3714is that her name in the original Chinese version?? I must be forgetting that editors note because that’s such a cute name.
And yeah, she was Cheng Xin and Yifan’s like… friend/maid type companion in the pocket world. She genuinely seemed so nice and interesting until she revealed her true nature. But then she went back to being kind and friendly. Very odd character arc, but I liked her honestly.
@@Kingbimmy Tomoko in Chinese is 智子，which means Sophon.
You really are a gifted teacher, in that you explain complicated concepts in a digestible format, without dumbing it down or shying away from the more difficult ethical or philosophical elements - please keep up the fantastic work - many thanks 🙏
I'm just finishing the last book now. I went out and got the trilogy basically because of your videos, and I've got to say you didn't steer me wrong.
She was the most irritating character the author created, from a legion of irritating characters, for many reasons. The madness started with the very first woman who called death upon us in the first place and ends with this utterly futile and ineffective waif.
Don’t forget that he created her though, and orchestrated every word, thought and action. That was one thing that reveals a lot about the author. His one dimensional characterisations throughout the trilogy made this story almost unreadable for me, his lack of understanding of how important it is to make people even believable, let alone act with humanity and logic, vastly detracts from what could otherwise be the most compelling plot I’ve read.
Why on earth would they have picked someone like her in the first place, even if such a weak and stupid character could ever actually have had the history of experience he made up for her to justify the choice? It is totally unbelievable.
It’s like a really socially imbecilic incel had one great idea, but none of what was required to express it adequately or to any sense of satisfaction. It’s actually not even logical at that point.
We have a race of super intelligent almost immortal critters, living in an environment so harsh that they are looking to migrate, suddenly caring that the home system that was destroying them would be destroyed by the sword holder.
Why would they say they were not going to kill humanity? Was this a lie? These same critters that can’t understand deceit?
How did they then use deceit?
We have a sword holder elected that navel gazes and muses on art, a representation of the times he created, who acts like someone concerned with how beautiful the water is that comes out of a faucet while she sits in a bathroom on board the sinking Titanic. I found the last book almost unreadable for these reasons.
The only explanation that would make the whole experience meaningful would be if it turned out the author himself was trisolaran, and therefore gets a free pass for misunderstanding people so badly.
Same here!
@@ApacheMagic Some novels focus on ideas more than they do character development, that's true.
@@ApacheMagic Its called an archetypal character. She and Wade are meant to be archetypal ideals struggling through the eons as opposing forces. It is very much more a philosophical work than a typcial character study. And Im not sure where you are going in SCIENCE FICTION for detailed character studies... Most characters in classic science fiction are far more wooden than these. Its part of the genre IMO.
@@ApacheMagic The author Cixin Liu told that he does not care for character development, as the characters are only vessels to tell his story and concepts. So the characters acted the way they do, just to propel the story telling.
There's two moments in Death's End that hit me particularly hard, first is when the button for the transmission is pressed, both Blue Space and Gravity's crew vote unanimously for it, but for the last necessary vote everyone stops and gathers around the final crew member, they know the gravity of what they're about to do, and unlike Cheng Xin they understood this was necessary, they wouldn't nurture those who had betrayed them, as sweet as their siren's call would be in the form of art about the beauty of our world. Particularly for the crew of Gravity, their chase mission and expected return to earth as triumphant heroes would now never take place, being forced to join Blue Space into becoming a cosmic species, the chances of humans in the solar system being able to survive the dark forest being too remote to consider anyone else would survive.
The second moment is when Cheng Xin and Guan Yifan see both human and trisolaran languages were included in the message asking them to disassemble their pocket universe, it made me realise how after everything these two species had done to each other, they had become intrinsically linked, had Ye Wenjie never established contact with trisolaris, humanity would have likely began exploring the universe much later, and would have definitely been wiped out soon after becoming too notorious, Trisolaris instead would have likely looked for a way to expand their civilization away from their hostile solar system and become a cosmic society, which is what both species ended up doing in the end. Seeing how both species had endured enough to be included in the pocket universe message felt like the trisolarans had been in a hurtful relationship that lasted centuries, but in the grand expanse of cosmic time the mutual destruction of our homeworlds felt like quarrel we had so long ago it no longer mattered.
If I remember correctly the broadcast vote was not unanimous, but most voted in favor and the vote that was important was just the one that put them over the edge.
Quinn! I read through this series over the past month because of you! This is the first video of yours I’ve been able to watch new. Thanks for making great content, sir! And thanks for introducing me to one of my favorite series ever.
Man, Cixin Liu's series was the coolest thing to happen to sci-fi in ages!
Aside from the brilliant, exciting story, it was informative to read something from a Chinese perspective.
The Wandering Earth really showed the differences between East and West outlooks. The Chinese casual acceptance of Big Governments discarding billions of people in the service of larger plans was both alarming and fascinating.
There's a theory that this is a result of "River" civilizations like Chinese and Egyptian, basically the ancient Chinese had to live off the fertile Yellow River but periodically suffered catastrophic desasters from the river's floods. So ALL the tribes along the river had to work together under 1 leadership to build defenses and irrigation to tame the Yellow River. Legend has it the Chinese people were first ever brough together by the Yellow Emperor by combining all tribes to fight a .... well biblical flood.
So Wandering Earth is just a modern retelling of that story.
@@weepingcamel1 Pure Nonsense !
@@agaragar21 the what is?
Alarming to a Western thinker. And individualist thinker.
I think Lord Dark Helmet said it best in Spaceballs. "Evil will always triumph, because good is dumb."
Humanity was definitely on the dumb side here. "Superadvanced aliens who were previously trying to murder us without provocation now want to be our bestest buddies? Hyuk, sounds good to me!"
Human beings are portrayed as suicidally dumb in this series. Another good example is the rejection of escapism. Clearly the correct response in the face of the Trisolaris crisis and rejected based on some very strange "moral principles".
tbf, it was like 1 or 2 generation after Luo Ji Threaten Trisolarion. The world is basically peace for decades, Kids won't know the horror of war, they will just appreciate how beautiful trisolarion's art and movie is.
To be fair, Trisolarans were previously established as being completely incapable of lying, so it makes sense that people thought their redemption was also honest. No one expected that the race who's defining trait aside from determination and fascism was honesty would be able to fool them for a century.
just think of how many of you think your alone now? that the aliens arent here already. that they havent been here all along and are manipulating you from the shadows already. you think they cant hide from you? that you would know about them if they were here. your arrogance is your downfall not necessarily your lack of intelligence
The aliens can't lie right? Why not ask them "Do you still want to conquer earth?"
I like Quinn. His knowledge of science fiction is immense. He actually explores the themes and leitmotifs that reoccur though out the genre.
Quinn’s, I highly recommend looking into Peter Watts “Blindsight” and “Echopraxia Books.” If they aren’t on your radar still. They are also quite solid Cosmic Horror, and the story is simply a page-turner. The Audiobooks are also really well narrated.
I gave a friend of mine Blindsight and he thought it was absolutely awesome. Asked him to explain me what it's about without much spoilers and he told me it was pretty difficult and couldn't do it, but he also suggested Villeneuve should've make it into a film. What is Echpraxia about? I might go for Blindsight audiobook in the future.
@@sk8shred I couldn't see it being made properly into a film, if simply for the fact that most people today are not wired for the concepts in the book (extreme intelligence without consciousness, for exmaple).
Freeze Frame Revolution by Watts is also amazing
@@sk8shred Neill blomkamp is actually working with peter watts right now to adapt his books into a movie
These books are brilliant. Also Starfish, which was amazing and occasionally nightmare inducing.
i must say i enjoy your videos about this story more then the books themself. Its maybe the translation but even as a audiobook i generally didnt like the narration and dialogues of the books. But your way of telling the story makes it definitely worthwhile :)
A word of wisdom. Be nice to your neighbors, someone may be watching. Great storytelling Quinn. You're a master of it.
And don't trust bitches, they ain't shit...
Er I mean it's kind of the opposite though, sadly... It's more like, "shh, don't make too much noise and turn down the lights, or else our neighbors will know where we are and kill us."
I’d really think you’d like Girl’s Last Tour.
It’s a manga about two of the last humans exploring a ruined city, slowly learning a bit about what happened.
To me, this story is an interesting apocalypse because after it happens, the world’s done. Everything is dead and gone. Normally something is left- zombie apocalypse stories have survivors, alien invasions at least have the aliens left. But not this story, and that’s sad.
It's really grim. I wonder what was the artist's state of mind at the time.
Spoilers:
I think at the end, where they sit down with their last food it's hinted that they missed a city with people. The people aren't shown, but it looks lived in. Of course it makes it all the more sad in another way. They were so close.
Sounds awesome
Well if its a boy and a girl not all is lost......
I love this manga, it is a great and also somewhat strangely optimistic read about the meaning of life and the last people on the world.
I really enjoy this video series because it allows me to revisit the ideas of the trilogy without actually having to re-read the books
4:35 The most beautiful thing about this...
Later finding out about the 100 Tales of Yun Tianming and Cheng Xin and how they came to be...
That beautiful possibility that, even back then, across the void of space & time, the Trisolaran Art was being directly inspired by Yun~ in his love story to Cheng~.
16:00 What is also really interesting going back from book 3 to books 1&2 again...
We know by book 3 that the Trisolaran's can create Micro-Universe's...
I couldn't help but wonder if what everyone believes to be an untraceable video-game back in Book 1 is actually Wang Miao and the ETO recruits actually visiting Micro-Universes... It wouldn't have been beyond what we knew to be the Trisolaran's technical capabilities at the time...
Were the Trisolaran Hydration cycle actually the ability to, at will, enter and exit from 4D/3D/2D space?
I really loved the series Quinn and I'm so grateful for you having pointed me towards these amazing books.
Hey Quinn could you do a video on the Xelee sequence? Its a hard scifi series written by a mathematician. It follows humanity over the course of millions of years in a war against a godlike species called the Xelee which inhabits the blackhole at the center of the galaxy
that's a cool concept but it sounds like an absurdly one sided fight, can I ask exactly how humanity holds its own against the Xelee?
@@Jakey_-iz9tw so the Xelee are still far stronger but ultimately fighting humanity with one arm behind it's back? While humanity has grown powerful enough through years of advancement to serve as a nuisance to the Xelee?
@@Jakey_-iz9tw Damn, I think you just got me hooked, I might have to check it out for myself some time, thanks for the context
@@Jakey_-iz9tw Humanity wasnt a threat as much as a nuisance, the Xelee only "left" because humanity was threatning the cosmic string life in the black hole, the xelee value all normal matter life and attempts of eradication are... not apreciated, The Phontinos on the other hand well in the end they kick the shit out of the Xelee
@@lelagrangeeffectphysics4120 >well in the end they kick the shit out of the Xelee
Do they? I thought it was kind of a draw, and constant back and forth, but the xeelee decide to peace out in another universe instead
So good Quinn, thanks for sharing...while I'm a book lover I just don't have time to read-you made it easy.
Is there any reason why they couldn't have had more than one sword holder? If they had given all 7 candidates one then the chance of at least one of them pressing the button should nearly 100% and therefore the attack would never have happened.
Basically they didn't want more than one. They didnt really want any and didn't really consider the tri-solarans as enemies any more, this is implied to be facilitated by the tri-solarans shift in attitude.
This writing isn't great...
I hate when the monster in horror stories win via inaction or halfassedry, I really find it infinity more interestingly if the monster wins after humanity tried everything or made a mistake that actually makes sense or even when the monster loses but there is greater threat, its like a deus ex machina but for the monster its robs the story of meaning
@@colorpg152 yep I 100% agree. If the protagonist or antagonist has to be incompetent for the plot to work then its just a bad plot.
@@henry6896 Not really, the universe Liu describe is 100% coherent in itself.. It's more "hard science" than "space opera" in it's storytelling.
Whoever's reading this, i pray that whatever you're going through gets better and whatever you're struggling with or worrying about is going to be fine and that everyone has a fantastic day! Amen
Thank you!
I really needed that
Yeah i needed that too
Right back at you buddy
I've got an itchy bum hole
I thought it was interesting that the aliens' way of making sure that while they're slowly making their way to Earth they wouldnt lose was by making sure human beings couldnt 1. make much progress with subatomic physics 2. stop them from stopping humans from making much progress with subatomic physics.
So a superior technology that is inherently tied to subatomic physics could not be beaten while they slowly make their way over to earth.
I wonder how many sci-fi writers have an optimistic view of life and reality 🤣
🤣🤣
A book about how everything is fine in the future would be really boring. Existential dread is the fun part!
Gene Roddenberry.
a good and utopian outcome doesn't allow for conflict and thus no sales but dystopian sci-fi is exactly what we want. Who would've read a book about how nice it is to live in a perfect society where we all agree and love each other? Add in that we are using ground up people as food and BAM! It becomes the stereotypical hidden dystopia
The truth is always painful, but not everything that hurts is true.
Wow that was amazing !!! I cannot believe humanity did not have a back up plan in case the sword was sabotaged. This book series is really interesting. I cannot wait for the next video.
I think they actually did, but all of those plans were figured out and stopped.
Just wanna thank you for introducing this series and you have seriously changed my outlook on books and reading, I’ve been on your page less then a month maybe about 3 weeks and I’ve brought about 6 books thus far
I hate Cheng Xin, but I think I understand why the author decided to make her so naive and pacifist. Cheng Xin is definitely the most kind hearted of all three protagonists and it leads to (spoilers) the end of the solar system. I think what’s coming across is kindness and naive goodness really doesn’t belong in the cold darkness of the universe. This is kind of echoed when the new space humans refused to share their planet coordinates even with old earth people like Cheng Xin. So I guess I liked her in the story, but personally I thought her character was a little boring
Yeah, I liked the part when the Galactic Humans told her that "it is considered bad manners to ask anyone you meet out there where he comes from", implying that different alien races do have occasionally cautious, but peaceful encounters with each other within the Dark Forest.
Part of me likes her because as a human being she's a beautiful and kind soul, the other part of me realizes that humanity fell because of her incompetence, they should've given the sword to a spiteful cold and calculated animal of a man, one of those people that would rather kill themselves than help others.
@untreated ADHD wouldve been better
I wouldn't call putting people in harms way kindness or helpful.
I always got the idea that she was wrong for the right reason. Yeah we could have survived in each of those situations, but it would have required someone to breach some really important human ideals. Kind of like those spaceships that left the solar system, the changes to humanity would have been quick and horrible if those ideals had been breached.
So the species suffered at unimaginable levels but the people remained human and maintained the things that we consider important for humans. As opposed to the spaceship people who became something new.
I just realized the teardrops are actually Prince Rupert's drops made of some kind of unknown metal.
I am impatient to finish the book I'm currently reading to start this one. You're videos about it(that I didn't watch yet to avoid spoilers) are like a cruel teaser😅. Joke put aside you're doing an amazing work and It's always a pleasure to see black people in the sci-fi community 👍🏿
Here here! ♥️
@@AProudDad 🙌🏿
I haven't even read none of these books but his breakdowns are so fascinating and I feel like I know everything about them this channel definitely is underrated
Sorry Quinn - within 30 seconds of your intro, you convinced me that I need to purchase and read these books before watching the video. I'll be back.
It's an interesting scenario - humanity falls because of kindness, while the invaders are destroyed because of their cruelty.
It mirrors reality, as well, to some extent. Nations that disarm without a power backing them are often destroyed. Nations that commit genocides also often fail - from ancient Assyria to the Third Reich.
Im truly proud to add you to my small list of subscribed youtubers. I love your coverage and effort you put into each video. Youre and intelligent man who is easy to listen to.. thank you for your content!
I absolutely abhore the second sword holder. Its the worst part of the book for me. Disgracefully irreverent of how covetous, untrusting and down right fearful we can be as humans. It would have taken centuries for us to even openly watch their alien propoganda, and it seriously does not take a genius to know that is exactly what it is.
Mankind has completely and totally lost its edge in this rendition of the story. I mean shit, decoy swordbearers were never a thing? The people who predicted the droplet attack couldn't predict the obvious implied intentions of these aliens and their feel good movies and bullshit diplomat? The very idea that Sophon was even allowed to exist, or that we would trust them at all before having even a theoretical defence against the droplets, is such intense idiocy that it boggles the mind and yanks me straight out of the story. The three body problem goes from a fascinating examination of a realistic alien invasion, to a tale of intense, cartoonish Darwinism on mankind's behalf, and it only gets WORSE.
There was so much promise and skill in this series, but the author fails to do humanity justice several times. We are not that unified. We are not that optimistic, not that peaceful, or trusting. We are largely superstitious self supremacists, and the idea that the government wouldn't use the OBVIOUSLY hostile Tri-Solarins as a continuing, unifying "Other" is so absurd that I really cannot understand it.
The idea that the swordbearer candidates would not be tested with a false emergency to gauge their reactions to the actual threat makes me want to puke. Has all sense of complexity and ape cleverness departed from our entire species? The second Swordbearer is the bane of a false mankind, and while I'm not contending that we would last much longer, THIS is not how we would go out. Not even marginally close.
You're not thinking from the perspective of a Chinese author who is annoyed that they haven't nuked Japan and the USA and Russia and all the other countries, but mainly Japan to start with, and instead millions upon millions of Chinese people actually watch and enjoy Japanese media - I mean you're right that they should have taken centuries to even openly watch Japanese "propaganda" but instead, there they go watching Pokemon and playing Mario like some stupid naive fools or whatever.
I mean, of course democracy is stupid because I'm sure that if the general Chinese population voted on whether or not to allow imports of Playstation game consoles those insanely suicidal anti-global-thermonuclearwar-niks would vote to allow Playstations.
Maybe humanity already has fallen. I do see a parallel with how a public relations company in the USA was able to shift the public view that influenced politicians around the world to ignore the danger of global warming, classifying it as natural and calling it as "climate change". The science demonstrated since the decade of 1980 that the problem was real. A group of companies where able to make mankind ignore a real problem, and now with the consequences being visible there are still deniers. So is not far fetch that aliens could influence the whole of humanity so they not see a problem that will happen.
@@OdnaropX Even then, Global warming is one of the most contentious issues there are in the world, and the division between deniers and acknowledgers is stark and sometimes violent, which is not what we see here. On top of that, Global Warming is a nebulous, faceless concept. The aliens which obliterated our space force, killed hundreds of thousands, and whom we have been demonising for decades or centuries, are not faceless.
This bullshit "mother of mankind" swordbearer would not have won her vote, and if she did, there would have been intense civil unrest. She is demonstrably and openly the worst possible choice, and the fact that they exposed her to the Sophon when the previous swordbearer was almost defined by his isolation, is just a walking lobotomy of an idea.
You do not ELECT someone for this. We do not Elect our soldiers or generals, we TRAIN THEM for their roles. We do not elect diplomats or police. We do not elect doctors or firemen, we fucking train them. But sure, lets hold a popularity contest for the highest possible, DIRECT military role in all of ape history. And let's also pick a giant softy who could be accurately predicted by an armchair psychologist after one or two of her televised interviews. Sure. Yeah. Fuck me, so much of that whole process was a mess that its hard to even know where to begin.
Yeah, your not really wrong. When the MC wakes up, mankind has become androgynous and feminine, and the message is basically that this made us pretty weak and pathetic. We are gullible as a monolith in this story. Not only that, but, you know, we could have just destroyed our own planet ourselves. Thats what they are after, and it would actually be easy for mankind, after being given the Australia ultimatum, to destroy the world before the aliens could get there. Contrary to popular belief, you cannot stop all destructive endeavors with battering rams. The idea that those ideas were not seeded throughout the earth long ago in various forms is pretty unrealistic.
In spite of the cursing, you definitely nailed it. It made the whole story hard to take seriously. We basically walk into the open jaws of an obvious monster, just because its warm there. Its hard to take seriously how helpless and lacking in canny, critical thinking skills very nearly every human being is after Cheng appears in the story.
So much for Trisoleran's mathematics that weren't able to preditct that one of the surviving ships could be able to activate the deterrance anyway.
It wasn't, blue space wasn't able to activate a broadcast, it needed a star, gravity (the name a different ship) was able to broadcast without a star. at the time humanity was against blue space and worked with the droplets to pursue blue space, the pursing human ship was named gravity and was escorted by 2 droplets, but humanity didnt want the dropets 2 immediately kill blue space 4 reasons (it's complicated), the droplets where there to make sure that blue space couldn't reach another star to broadcast incase gravity failed. However at the end of deterrence the droplets tried to annihilate both blue space and gravity but blue space destroyed the droplets (the way they did it is complicated and not important). So gravity now realising trisolaris' had turned on them teamed up with blue space and used it's special antenna that blue space didn't have to broadcast.
@@MagikarpMan god damn that was some awfully good insight in this book (which I haven't read, and just watch videos). Thanks for that, really makes me want to read this book sometime soon.
I’ve read the series 3 times now but I love the way you explain and simplify the whole story. 👍
I read this books because of your videos and Deaths End is probably my favorite because of the several concepts and ideas it proposes. Looking forward to next videos!
Just can't get enough of your videos, dude. Thank you so much from Ireland 🇮🇪
It hurts me not being able to watch the videos on this book series, as I have only read book one. But I love your videos so hopefully soon I will be able to catch up.
Amazing video as always, you make unbelievably good sci-fi content. Much love
You wont get what you want
So glad you are tackling this trilogy. I loved this series.
I have watched nearly every video you made about the 3 body series.
This video is so far the VERY BEST one yet. Whitt
I absolutely love these 3 Body videos, they are superb. Quinn has done a fabulous job with these. This book series had a huge impact on me. I'm looking forward to the next video which logically would cover the Bunker era and Galaxy era.
Man you should totally do a book club thing or make a separate channel for it because you're an amazing reader and narrator
man, i have to say, i love your videos.
they are so pleasant to listen and are such informative. It is like hearing a analysis included in a summary without being boring.
hold it up man
The moment when Sophons self-genosidal plan for humanity is revealed is the most horrific thing I've ever read.
Yeah that "you're surrounded by food" bit officially pushed me to the opinion that the entire trisolaran species needed to be annihilated. Humans gave them so many chances to live and cooperate together, their response was evidence that shared existence wouldn't be possible.
@@KingRidley Damn right.
Same, I thought, this civilization is so ruthless, they could've been the responsible for the universe collapsing if they had the technology, but again it's the point of the dark forest theory, you must kill or be killed
@@KingRidley And at that moment I remembered the words of the Listener:
“I am tired of Trisolaris. We have nothing in our lives and spirit except the fight for survival.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“There’s nothing wrong, of course. Existence is the premise for everything else. But, Princeps, please examine our lives: Everything is devoted to survival. To permit the survival of the civilization as a whole, there is almost no respect for the individual. Someone who can no longer work is put to death. Trisolaran society exists under a state of extreme authoritarianism. The law has only two outcomes: The guilty are put to death, and the not guilty are released. For me, the most intolerable aspects are the spiritual monotony and desiccation. Anything that can lead to spiritual weakness is declared evil. We have no literature, no art, no pursuit of beauty and enjoyment. We cannot even speak of love.… Princeps, is there meaning to such a life?”
“The kind of civilization you yearn for once existed on Trisolaris, too. They had free, democratic societies, and they left behind rich cultural legacies. You know barely anything about them. Most details have been sealed away and forbidden from view. But in all the cycles of Trisolaran civilization, this type of civilization was the weakest and most short-lived. A modest Chaotic Era disaster was enough to extinguish them. Look again at the Earth civilization that you wish to save. A society born and bred in the eternal spring of a beautiful hothouse would not be able to survive even a million Trisolaran hours if it were transplanted here.”
“That flower may be delicate, but it possesses peerless splendor. She enjoys freedom and beauty in the ease of paradise.”
“If Trisolaran civilization ultimately possesses that world, we can also create such lives for ourselves.”
“Princeps, I’m doubtful. The metallic Trisolaran spirit has infiltrated each of our cells and solidified. You really believe it can melt again?"
@@KingRidley Theoretically, with the help of sophons, it would be possible to avoid war altogether.
By manipulating public opinion, taking into account the fact that the whole earth was under surveillance and adding to this an instant connection - in 200 - 250 years it would be possible to achieve that neither people nor trisolars would perceive each other as strangers.
But they just didn't think about it.
Their mentality didn't allow it.
Honestly its a sin having to wait to see the next vid on this story because I freaking love this so much!!!! You do great justice to how you present the story! Please dont take to long till you release the next vid on the story.
I saw your first video and I started reading this series. At a good time too, I hear a Three Body TV show is coming.
You make this story feel so exciting and dire and I'm about to try the first book again, even though it's a bit dull for my tastes. Keep your content coming
I would love to see you do a video comparing Thomas Wade to Cheng Xin. I think these two characters are such a huge, complex, and important part of Death's End.
Thomas Wade is goat
Thanks Quinn, I appreciate the content !
Consider Audiobooks Reading - good clear voice, pauses in right momensts and exellent for deep space story narration. You got my vote.
Thanks for getting me into the Three Body Problem. Your enthusiasm for the series really shines through and I hadn't heard of the books before. It's also sent me down a rabbit hole brushing up on very basic cosmology and quantum physics so I can keep up which can only be a good thing.
Just finished reading Deaths end yesterday and danm... what a ride! and that ending lef me puzzled about the end result of that universe,if the returners plans work and the majority of artifical/closed micro universes,return the mass to the original or keep hidden. the outcome puzzle me. and i love that way he imply that big number of sentiends choose to make thei own artifical universes at the expense of the mass stealing and knowing the harm caused by their actions at large. Another thing thati love it big time,was the dimensional strikes,that form of warfare and preventive attacks fascinated me.
Quinn, you should consider narrating/performing audiobooks. You've got that "golden voice" thing going on.
Damn, that was thrilling! Please, I would buy audio books from you in a blink of an eye. Cheers from Brazil
This is one of your best series I have ever watched! Great content. I need to read this now.
Hey Quinn. I'm eternally grateful to you for introducing me to this excellent trilogy. I'm 2/3rds through Death's end, and I've lent the first two volumes to a friend who is a lifelong science fiction fan. Best regards.
Where did you get all this TBP art? So cool. Really great stuff Quinn, I enjoy the way you speak, break down stories, present videos. You singled handedly got me to buy the first two books (audio books at least).
Thanks for these videos Quinn, I finished the series last year and your videos take me back to those chilling wtf moments. Great job!
I'll be honest, your descriptions of this series are better than the actual books, IMO.
It has great ideas but is let down by its writing. Frankly I think he should have left the Trisolarian society vague for one. He also is pretty bad at driving home the significance of certain events. The tension in your audio descriptions is somewhat missing on the page.
Absolutely this; the books are pretty bad to be honest.
The tension is lacking, the atmosphere is sterile throughout, the characters are paper thin... The ideas are really all that's left to carry the series.
Shame because there's something awesome here buried beneath the mediocrity.
Just curious if you read the original Chinese version or the translated English version?
Thanks to you I've listened the entire trilogy on audiobook due to my job(I'm a firecracker) and partially read the books at home and personally I am delighted with the full trilogy. Again thank you forbyour content and keep it going, already a fan here!
I still havent thanked you for introducing this series to me. I have read all 3 books in 1,5 months. I loved it!
Thanks alot! :)
Star Trek: Maybe we can all, like, get along, man. Pass the space weed. ☮️
Three Body Problem: If we don't doom the universe to wipe out this other race before they find out we exist, they might destroy us first.
Call me crazy, but I think reality is actually somewhere in between these two.
Completely agree. Star Trek seems like a pipe dream while TBP seems like a very nihilistic view. Imagine it’s somewhat in the middle.
Hard agree
The dark forest hypothesis means that even if 90% of civilizations are at least non-hostile, the 10% that remain are enough to cause the problem.
maybe the biggest plothole in the entire series is the fixation of the Trisolarans on earth. By the time Cheng became the swordholder, they already have the capacity to travel at light speed, and could easily colonize other worlds e.g. DX3906, without risking get retaliated. A small risk, but a risk indeed.
Well, their existence is already exposed to the human civilization, and according to dark forest theory, that makes humanity an existential threat for them. The Trisolarans are depicted as hardline survivors and they could never trust that humanity would simply forget about the contact and leave them be. They'd always live in fear of a technological explosion taking place on Earth and then humanity hunting them down in retribution. They cannot expose Earth to the dark forest either, given that the two star systems are so close to each other. The argument goes the other way as well, once again due to dark forest theory. Trisolaris cannot really know what humanity thinks they think about humanity and whether or not they'd prepare a preemptive first strike (like in the battles of darkness) once they are sufficiently developed technologically. The dark conclusion is that you can never really trust anyone and your safest bet for survival is to stay hidden and eliminate life on sight, if you are capable. Hide well; cleanse well.
Only after the broadcast is sent to they back off and decide to flee, as the threat of the dark forest is orders of magnitude above that of humanity and the two systems are guaranteed to be destroyed in a short time.
Maybe, but also they probably though that humanity wouldn't be capable of using the broadcast after the first sword holder. They were right in this, but they couldn't foresee that a 4th dimension bubble would allow their probe to be destroyed.
They could not let humans alone. Because we were a treat. We knew about their location and existense. In the dark forest theory your go is to stay hidden from everyone else.
That woman literally did everything wrong. I enjoyed book 2 but then this book did an alien 3/jurassic park. You know that happy ending. Well what if we just took that happiness from the characters in the first scene. Then they give us this woman who at every decision point makes either the most selfish or stupid decision possible.
This is exactly how I feel. And the worst part is that she gets to escape after screwing up EVERYTHING.
Book 3 had a semi-happy ending, only human on Earth is destroyed, the human in space become quite powerful (the ship they used to escape Blue Origin become artefact in their museum ) and survived till the very end (replied to the broadcast of returning matter), but the scope is not focused on them because the books are called "Remembrance of Eaths past"
I don’t see anything redeeming in her character. She lies to herself to feel self important. Takes on a job she was not serious about, and as a result of her delusions causes the destruction of the human race. Uh and this was supposed to be a sympathetic character?
You could’ve picked a random guy from the street and promised to take care of all his needs in return for pressing a button in the event of a droplet attack and he would’ve done a better job. Hell for that matter you could’ve rigged up a computer system to do it automatically and cut the “human factor” out of the loop entirely except as a backup. The stupidity of the characters starts to drag the narrative down.
The fakest part of the book is her not being ripped apart by the refugees bare hands in Australia.
Haven't read the books, but considering what's been discussed in this video, she did at least one thing right - not actually pressing the button. The deterrence failed at the moment trisolarans actually attacked, and since that moment, the right decision becomes to not destroy both. After all, what really works as a deterrence is not you actually pressing the button and killing both sides, it's your ability and readiness to do so. And the fault is on the people who decided to give the "sword" to a person who won't press the button.
I'm pretty sure this ties into the authors views about femininity and how it is a threat to humanity or something. Every single time humanity dooms itself it's because of a woman or the "feminization" of human culture. Author is obviously misogynist.
I will never read this series because doing so sounds absolutely horrifying, but please keep summarizing it for me like an audio book because the story sounds genuinely inspiring and your videos make the horror more approachable.
Lol I read this whole series because of your channel and I loved it. I think the style of writing takes a bit getting used to but the ideas are amazing.
This honestly feels like a rather large plothole, the choice of Cheng Xin as the second Swordholder. If humanity had the capability to determine Luo Ji’s odds of initiating the transmission, why wouldn’t they do the same for her? Why didn’t they check if they were giving the Swordholder position to someone who would bring about the end of Deterrence?
So while reading I thought the trisolerans intended cheng xin to be the sword holder based on information from tian ming, but then later we found out that he doesn't get awakened until later, so yeah, this is a glaring plot hole to me as well.
@@Athos90 The trisolarans didn’t really play a part in her being chosen afaik
@@NStripleseventhere is 100% a part in the book where sophon says she intended Cheng Xin to win
the book explain this better
There was a large plot hole in the book as well. At the end of book two Luo Ji said he was giving the control to the UN and wanted nothing to do with it. Then the last chapter was 5 years later and he was happy living with his family giving the sophon a lecture on love. In book three he is a hermit living in a cave, his family is gone and they tell us he initially only handed the control over for 18 hours. So how did those 5 happy years at the end of book 2 happen?
Seems like the writer changed his mind and shoehorned him into the sword holder job when he should have just created a new character for the job.
The fact that they chose Australia was smart
I think the fanart at 3:53 depicts the Singer and not a Trisolaran. One of the most intriguing and chilling chapters in the series
Yep, really looks like Singer
I was listening this like I was hypnotised. You are next level Quinn
I understand why you want to remain undetected, and why, if you do detect someone else, you want to strike first (as was explained in the Dark Forest video).
BUT, in the case of that gravitational wave broadcast, things get more complicated. From a game theory perspective it would be preferable to let someone else destroy the broadcast location while you are watching - instead of the other way around.
yeah but when there is bigger people there is also bigger idiots. Who is to say that the spaceship that destroyed the star didnt get destroyed right after?
@@kalebbradford143 Game theory always assumes perfectly rational actors, and everyone doing the thing that's best for them.
If you assume people doing less than optimal things, then the whole dark forest idea falls apart.
@@hooby_9066 that's it's flaw. We already know irrational actors exist. Trisolarans found us that way in the first place
@@hooby_9066 well then apparently the dark forest idea fell apart
I like how the people who have problem with the second swordholder blame women in general for the way she was written and not the author who wrote her in such a way in the first place.
Misogyny at it's finest 😪
@@kat_286or maybe, you just live life through that lense
Honestly I think the appearance of the Trisolarian emissary says loads more about author's personal beliefs leaking into the story than sword holder's gender. Any pacifist personality put in a military role would be equally disastrous regardless of any other personal characteristics. If you can't pull the trigger, you don't belong in the role. A protector who cannot destroy without hesitation has no real ability to protect. It's also more than a little possible that Cheng Xin was not the *only* viable candidate for the Trisolaran purposes during the selection process, the entire slate of candidates may have been manipulated. That's how I would have played it if I'd been setting it up.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come back to these TBP videos
I think that I’m addicted
Aaah Quinn!! You’re the reason I read this series - I saw your first video on the Three Body Problem and that was it! I love this video series, I’m in here talking back to you like you’re standing here. So good!!
The third book was a massive letdown. The main character was just so annoying, she literally doomed humanity twice. I did like the blue dream/gravity part... The book was overpacked with forgettable charaters and ridiculous set pieces. The Dark Forest is fantastic though.
I feel you on that one. She deserved the worst fate. She got the best.
If only wade had the sword.
Hibernation was used as a plot device in this book. Really cheapened the story.
@@matthewsmith1779 Yup. I was done after the main character thought it was a better idea to hide behind Neptune than leaving the solar system.
@@mattbebe2555 worst idea I had ever heard ever. Them not IMMEDIATELY attempting to run from earth after the signal was sent out is the single most moronic thing I’ve ever heard of.
@@mattbebe2555 As I recall, the MC made an effort to support the development of Light Speed Travel even after the government made it illegal. It was humanity that wanted to stay, not her.
I'd never read this series, to depressing for me but I'm really enjoying your summary.
I'm puzzled as to why the Trisolarans didn't utterly annihilate Earth and the solar system when the signal was finally broadcast as an act of revenge.
It wouldn't have taken them long with the droplet superweapons.
They arent "evil" or vengeful, but just supremely utilitarian to the point of cruelty. The chapter where Sophon/Tomoko stood before the assembled masses of humanity now herded together in Austrialia and told them "if you dont want to starve, just eat each other" wasnt actually out of malice.
Remember, survivalst cannibalism was pretty normal for the Trisolarans during their chaotic eras, so they just applied their own morality upon the human race. Those few thousand humans who lived on the fragile mars colonies had it a lot better, since the aliens knew that they wouldnt try anything stupid if they wanted to survive.
I love the intro sound track of your show. and the sound track throughout the show. synth arpeggios. very nice
Quinn since I heard this I'm so compelled to read this book. Thanks
Woohoo new Three Body Problem video!🙌🙌🙌
Yes, despite the thrid book having the best ideas I could not enjoy it as much as the first two - because it constantly wanted to bang my head against something hard thanks to Cheng Xin.
She is supposed to be smart but makes the wrong decisions nonstop. If she is doing anything at all and not constanly being rescued by others. In a normal story Wade would be the villian but here I find myself cheering for him because he would actually get the right things done.
But, of course, he is a Real Man. A Manly Man. A Man that makes the hard decisions the females and those feminised man of the future cannot take. Like Zhang Beihai did in the past and on the Natural Selection. If the people of the future would have listened to the wise True Men of the Common Era humanity would have defeated the Trisolarans!
That point is driven home with the sublety of a karate kick in the scrotum.
I feel that. Reading about her is jarring. How much can one man scream at a book? Well, I found out.
Manly men getting things done is however reality.
@@Bigjuicydumbdumb sure Jan
@@Bigjuicydumbdumb Of course, manly men get things done. And not so manly man get things done. And women get things done.
It is just that the writing tells you that no one BUT the manly man is any good.
Those were my thoughts exactly.
I knew you've made a disclaimer at the beginning but damn did I still cringe at "She wasn't a warrior, she was a woman." 😂
Women are not warriors, men and women are different, stop crying about it
As if one can’t be both 🙄
@@Jim-i7v1yYOU let your body be ripped apart to give birth to your ungrateful ass, and then say women aren’t warriors.
You are here because a woman was willing to sacrifice her body for NINE MONTHS for you. You are here because a woman was willing to endure fairly unimaginable and almost intolerable pain to bring about your existence.
She was willing to bleed so that you can live. Show some damned respect.
please give more videos on this series I CANT GET ENOUGH so good!!!!! i'll watch multiple times. Love it.
Because of your videos I read all three books. First time I’ve done such a thing
I'm glad you brought up the author's weird takes on masculinity and femininity. I could NOT take the second book's first section at all seriously because of the "dream girl" the wallfacer brought to his island because she looked like the woman in his fantasies, and then she WASN'T some kind of plant by the Trisolarans who knew what kind of person he wanted.
You felt let down that the book didn't stick to common western tropes?
Not very interested in povs other than your own eh
@@HighLordBlazeReborn ... what?
This just sounds like y'all are ideologically possessed.
How could she be a spy? What're the chances that the 1 in a billion person just also happens to be eto? Don't be stupid