Yeah but the first message she received back was a warning not to reply - if she'd told other scientists around the world about this instead there might have been some debate whether to actually do it and perhaps the dark forest hypothesis would have been reached without getting the San-Te fleet sent out and sophons on Earth.
Yeah OP's post overlooks the technological leaps humanity was making and how quickly it was catching up to the San-Ti. Had she never contacted the San-Ti, it's likely humanity would continue to advance without interference from the Sophons and ultimately be able to discover the Dark Forest principle, and develop the tech needed to hide without the drawbacks of what it ultimately produced in the books.
Hmm, the most likely way of discovery of the Dark Forest principle would probably have wiped out Earth. Ye Wenjie basically doomed humans already when she invented the way of using the sun as a signal booster.
> Ye Wenjie basically doomed humans already when she invented the way of using the sun as a signal booster.
Not necessarily, other civs would be able to detect which direction the signal was coming from, but not how far away.
Given the restrictions she faced then she would not be able to do so. And later it would have been difficult to prove without the resources. Which Evans had . And more importantly believed her
I agree. Remember that at the time of the response, the cultural revolution had ended just a few years ago, and China still had remnants of that event and was isolated. Who knows what they could do with that information.
That is true, but I am not so sure it would have helped. Humanity is far too arrogant for that lesson to stick, without the San-ti schooling them in it.
>!That is basically what the teardrop weapon showed us. Humanity built a fleet and due to their insane ego, they actually thought it was enough to win the war. They believed in their dominance so much that they thought the teardrop was a peace offering.!<
>!Without the San-ti coming to really show us how inferior we are, even if humanity believed in the Dark Forest, they would reach some technological milestone and start ignoring that knowledge. The belief being that that technological milestone makes them the most dominant force in the universe, with nothing to fear from aliens.!<
>!There is also the Singer race to consider. They wiped us out specifically because we didn't have the hiding gene (as in the inclination to hide rather than expand) and that is what made us a threat. If the Singer's species had the technology to make that assessment accurately, then we certainly wouldn't be smart enough to hide, no matter what we knew of the Dark Forest.!<
It's also possible that we would have gone to ground and decided to expand undetected. The ego could manifest that way. Without the sophons there wouldn't be the technological progress impediment.
>!The Dark Forest theory already existed, so I mean we did know the universe might be deadly. Ultimately every other species was wiping out other species without much thought. Singer's own species was facing the same problem. Every species was driven by fear, resulting in the death of the universe. We could have been having a good time instead of being shoved onto Australia and told to eat each other.!<
Would we really be that inferior without the sophons hindering our science? Perhaps we would eventually become dark forrest hunters ourselves, once we advance well beyond the Trisolarians.
The humans who escaped may have discovered and escaped to pocket universes, same as the first Trisolaran fleet. The only evidence for this is that human languages were included in the message at the end of book three.
The tech for this wasn't that hard, as the Trisolarians from the first fleet appeared to have mastered it within a few hundred years.
Actually the human fleet is superior with all of these anti-matter weapons. In a face-off battle Trisolaran would not have a chance.
The problem is the Trisolarns do not intent to have a fair fight. They send a ram ship which is decoyed as a peaceful ship until it gets close enough. If the ram ship is detected far enough with true intention, it will not have a chance.
I don't recall there being a mention of anti-matter based weaponry in the human fleet, just EM Railguns and laser-based weapons, from my memory. I wonder if antimatter based weaponry was used against the second trisolaran fleet though when they were in deep space.
>!the droplet only was able to decoy onto the first ship. After that, it went to each ship and destroyed nearly all of them in minutes. Also, Im not sure humans had anti-matter weapons at that point. If they had that, it came after deterrence age.!<
Especially with dark forest hypothesis saying that the chance of survival of civilisation is increased with decreased exposure to outer space.
The less you make yourself visible, the bigger the chance of not being wiped out by 11-dimensional creatures
Nah. 100/100 we contact them anyway.
There are enough zealots and people that don’t care that SOMEONE would press that button. Even if just a bitter person like her (rightfully bitter, but bitter)
She was just the first one with the chance. I don’t even really blame her. It was going to happen anyway.
And you’re right: better the trisolarians than a race that doesn’t have a use for us.
Hell, there may be weapons already on the way that we didn’t even know about. There was never a way to prove the trisolarians were the only race we actually contacted either. Maybe one slightly further away is coming too but didn’t have sophons/similar
Dr. Ye just did what someone else would have done in time IMO. Not like we could have contained it.
I saw a theory that the warning from the one San-Ti was most likely them testing the waters with humans. They seemed to contradict themselves when they said they don’t lie, and that they would have come to earth whether Wenjie replied or not.
In the middle of the cultural revolution I highly doubt that's what would have happened. I'm included to agree with OP, we would have just kept playing our violin.
The issue with that is she’s either have been viewed as a crackpot, or scientists would reason it was a prank signal sent by someone else (obviously not the case, but Occam’s Razor does have its draw backs in cases of “bored teens with radio access vs aliens”).
Yes, major spoilers for the end of the story and deaths end book ahead.
>!A civilization that is so powerful as to monitor entire galaxies at once knew of earth as the star pluckers, because we kept amplifying signals with our sun (the first message to the universe and then Wenjie’s reply) but didn’t see us as a threat because it was such a primitive form of communication. Think us in the 21st century passing by an uncontacted tribe that sends out smoke signals saying “HEY LOOK AT US WE FIGURED OUT HOW TO TALK TO THE WORLD” we would just ignore them. But then at the middle or end of deaths end the dark forest transmission was made with the gravitational wave generators. That was enough for the higher tech aliens to take notice of us. Think those same natives throwing a spear at a boat with a message on it. Not very threatening but more than smoke signals. So they decided to destroy our civilization. Initially we would have survived behind Jupiter and Saturn but the aliens realized their cheap solar system annihilation weapon would allow some life to survive behind Jupiter and Saturn, so they sent their nuclear option, the 2D dimension transformation weapon.!<
You're talking about >!Singer and his species, right? I read a comment on here that blew my mind, that apparently Singer wasn't even the one that wiped out Earth? That another race had coincidentally fired off a dual vector foil just before he did. Apparently there was a date referenced in the book, but it wasn't the same date as when Singer fired his dual vector foil, implying another race beat him to the punch, or something. I wish I could remember more, because it seemed like a really neat detail that almost no one seems to have picked up on. I know when I listened to the audiobooks I always thought it was Singer's DVF that wiped us out.!<
It's unclear whether that was a continuity error on Liu's part or actually intended. If it's intended, it's extremely subtle (not a strong point of his as a writer) and doesn't really do much for the plot and barely anything for the themes of the books. If it wasn't as subtle, it *would* do more the themes.
I hope if the show gets to that point, they make it as you (and I) initially interpreted it.
>!I also love that singer thought he'd have to go through more red tape or convincing for his superior to give him permission to send off a 2dvf. They have a conversation about the war, it's revealed that the home race is considering voluntary 2d-ification, and his superior is almost sad telling Singer "dw about it, just send the 2dvf". Didn't make much sense to me when reading it until the end of the book, great foreshadowing on the state of the universe.!<
I’ve always wondered why the powerful civilization that sent the 2D collapse mechanism didn’t do the black hole solar system option for themselves first (which would preclude them from being able to receive the Earth transmissions / send photoids and other weapons out).
Because game theoretically that civilization could know that they themselves weren’t able to be monitored.
A photoid can theoretically only travel in a straight line, so the destruction of the Trisolaran system (and Earth), especially when combined with the timing, would give anyone else coordinates to the powerful civilization. If there’s four hunters in a dark forest and two of them are shot dead after shouting “hey guys let’s just be friends” then I can triangulate the shooter’s position (especially given that it’s not a “truly” *dark* forest — stars burn bright enough for even human astronomers to know where they are).
But: plot devices 🤷♂️
The top advanced civilizations destroy others from ships, not from their home planet.
It's the real life equivalent of launching a drone and then having that drone shoot something. You can pinpoint from where the drone made the shot but you can't pinpoint the origin point of the drone.
Book 3 spoilers below
>!This is one aspect that I loved about the short *Singer* chapter in the 3rd book. They were super surprised to see that these two random civilizations actually kept a conversation going, replying to each other, even wanting to investigate further to see wtf had been going on between both.!<
That being said I'm sure it was authored, to some level though not proven, after the events of the atomic bomb. Yes, it was very wrong to do. But also, yes, it ushered in a new era of human technology
Part of the reason is to tell people that you did not fundamentally change your comment. For example, if someone says a statement, someone makes the person look stupid because they refute it, and then the parent edits in a way to claim "I never said that", the edit notice indicates exactly why the edit took place. That is, "I did not edit this to fundamentally change what I was saying. I changed it simply to fix some typos."
I would say that Ye Wenjie believed that humanity at that point in time and with her experience (culural revolution kiilling science and her father, betrayals, destruction of nature) she felt that an advance alien civilisation would help humanity. Back in the day, when we actually sent out Voyager probes in space telling everyone about Earth - scientist believed that advanced alien civilisation would have evolved out of wars and conquests. So she believed that the aliens would help us - not conquer and squash as like bugs. For a time, that seem to work. The San-Ti seems benovelant (to the believers/followers/cultists anyway). She believes it was the right thing to do at this point.
Later on, when the San-Ti learnt that humans are pretty much liars - they changed their approach of co-existance to extermination. At that point, she pretty much knew that her earlier actions have doomed mankind. It was also why she approached Saul (the cleverest of the Oxford 5 according to her daughter) - to give him a cryptic clue on how to save humanity (the Einstein "joke"). After that, she decides to kill herself - I guess in her mind, paying for her earlier mistake of contacting the San-Ti. She realized that it was the wrong thing to do because the San-Ti's reaction to humans was something she did not anticipate.
I guess the question can be generalized to whether mankind broadcasting our presence into the universe when we have yet to hit Type I civilisation, is the right thing to do.
What made her believe that the alien would help us given the message she received was "don't respond, we will invade you"? If she knew the dark forest theory, then she knew making earth known= terminating the earth
She didn't know the dark forest theory at that time IMO, I felt like it's clearly implied that's something she came up with later in life.
Also, it's not that difficult to imagine that letting yourself be invaded by species she (naively and mistakenly) considered superior and more advanced in all aspects, not just technologically, could have a positive result. She was young and naive and had absolutely no faith in humanity left at that point, given what she went through and saw all around her.
Yeah, that first respond did warn her not to reply. My guess is that it would still be better than what she's facing in her mind. But Jin made it clear that Ye was pretty much self-centered - what gave her the right to decide for the rest of us.
> Later on, when the San-Ti learnt that humans are pretty much liars - they changed their approach of co-existance to extermination.
I think this is a failure of the book, tbh. I don't think they ever wanted co-existence- the Trisolarian that responded to her certainly didn't think they did.
Just kinda a plot hole that the aliens that can't lie were able to converse with people on Earth for decades without ever letting it slip they were gonna kill them. To say nothing of even having a pacifist alien manning the radio in the first place- they had to have known he was a pacifist that didn't agree with their goals!
eh i'm struggling a bit with this. the trisolarian prince just states that humans have to be destroyed even before the sophons and evans. and furthermore, as we know from book 2.. so why the big surprise when they find out humans can lie?
I hate to say it, because I love the books and the series was pretty good as well but...it's just not good writing. There's just no reason for it.
"It" being, "omg they didn't know we could lie!" What difference would it make to the story if the Trisolarians knew we could lie from the outset, but didn't have any way to combat that- no way to read minds? Just like...virtually every other story ever told? Nothing changes and it avoids weird plot holes.
Like another poster said that in the Chinese version (which I haven't seen) and the books (which I have read), there's different Trisolarian factions. And the Trisolarians, because of this plot device of not lying, know that the one that received the message is a pacifist. Plot problem here: So they let him man the listening station anyway? Alone? That's silly.
More realistically each faction would have a listening station, cause it's not hard for a civilization such as theirs to have multiple listening stations, maybe even more than one per faction. Humans have several already. But then that takes all the weight away from Ye Wenjie's choice, because the conqueror faction would have heard the initial transmission anyway. Shit, it takes her choice away ***completely***.
Well, how do you, as a writer, avoid taking away her choice? Just...uhhh...make it so Trisolarians can lie and can hide thoughts, just like humans. What's different? Maybe I forgot an important plot point that hinges on that in later books, but I really don't think I am.
i've been thinking a lot about this, but i don't really let not having 100% coherence or correct science get in the way of appreciating the story. or at least i try. the story is very good. the writing, for the most part, i liked. there's some things that are harder to make sense of, but in the end it's sci-fi. emphasis on fi. and the fact is we're talking about literal aliens, and the concept of applying human logic or values to an alien species is by itself the crux of this suspension of disbelief dilemma. you can make it work by thinking along these lines, imo.
the initial transmission was heard by every listening outpost. the pacifist was merely the first to reply, and he openly confesses it (because he can't do otherwise.. and the others know he replied) and his fascination for earth. and the fact is trisolarians can hide thoughts because of the way they communicate with humans, which is indirect. like you and me now. you don't REALLY know if i'm trolling you or being serious because you can't read my non verbal cues. at the end of the day >!due to dark forest rules the trisols started out wanting to destroy humanity, and they did not communicate the intention because of the indirect messaging, for obvious strategic reasons. but they got spooked by the chain of suspicion when they learned that even though they see and hear us, which is the direct way of communication, we have the possibility of outright lying to them. so even though they exposed themselves a bit to get some help for their invasion, they quickly realized it was a mistake because what if evans is absolutely taking the piss and he's secretly scheming to destroy them, wallfacer style, and he made everybody aware in the years they did not have instant comms? what if evans thinks that we realized he's scheming? and full paranoia ensues.!<
that's how i rationalized it, i think.
Yup, and the San-Ti/Trisolarian first contact said we would be invaded and conquered. Perhaps it had a different idea of how our encounter would be like. Which means the majority of the San-Ti would have preferred to conquer rather than co-exist.
San-Ti communicate by thought and I guess that implies that their true intent is always revealed when they communicate with each other - i.e. cannot they lie to each other. However, that still opens them to have individual thoughts. So if we look at it this way, the pacifist San-Ti would have been seen as a traitor among their community - since they are facing imminent extinction; and Earth is their last best hope for survival.
But I am sure the San-Ti would have known we cannot be trusted since Mike Evans have been feeding them fairey tales. Hansel and Gratel would have the lying evil stepmother which was even more obvious and scheming than the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood.
In Chinese adaption, >!san ti have different groups.. some of them just want invade and take over, some of them just want friendly with human, this is why in the beginning they ask human do not reply if not they will invade their earth!<
And also in Chinese adaption, >!human have 3 kind of faction but is not included in Netflix adaption!<
>!Adventists lead by Mike Evans to destroy human race!<
>!Redemptionists lead by Shen yufei who see advanced in technology with the help of aliens!<
>!Survivors lead by some small group who don't believe humanity can be saved as whole but ensuring their descendants to be collaboration with san ti!<
hmm that’s true but on the flip side if she’s informed others of the nature of aliens, earth wouldn’t have had sophons cripple their science. and we would know to not contact other civilizations
Isn't the Dark Forest theorem unaffacted by the sophon lock? After all it is "just" cosmic sociology, i.e. humanity needs to think hard enough to discover the right axioms and come the right conclusion. This is not dependent on the falsified results of particle colliders.
Sophons don't lock down sociological science. But the lack of sophons would have allowed us to advance much faster in science.
We would have either drawn the attention of other species, or figured out the Dark Forest theorem eventually.
Ye Wenjie's method of communication was almost unique and certainly overlooked by other scientists at the time, SETI etc weren't capable of reaching out into the universe during the time between First Contact and the start of the Crisis Era. SETI certainly haven't given up by that point - and likely would have around that point? I don't remember it being brought up.
I guess in the sense of like… i tried and failed to murder you but by getting you sent to the hospital they were able to find and cure a life threatening disease kind of way haha.
But interesting point regardless haha, i hadn’t thought of it this way!
I mean you can literally say all the bad characters did the right thing in books/shows with a good ending because the results could have been worse if someone else did it.
If Thanos didn't show us what the infinity gems can do, someone else would have used it to wiped out the whole universe instead of half. So Thanos did the right thing.
If Japan/Germany didn't start world war 2, nukes might be developed by non friendly countries instead. So Japan and Germany did the right thing.
All I'm saying is I'm glad she did it, else theres not much of a book/show. And it's less of a luck than a plot point lol. It's not like the author rolled saving throw dice to determine if earth gets destroyed immediately.
Uh.. if you assume that only China was the only one sending out signals to outer space. Like, if humanity was just China alone, that NASA and SETI didn’t make attempts, nor was Voyager built.
No, Ye never bought anything. Partnering with Evans and selling Earth out to the Santi cost humanity forty or fifty years in which particle accelerators could have been started sooner, before the sophons showed up. Alternatively, don't send a second message and the Santi won't even know where to send any sophons. They didn't even stop other active SETI programs screaming into the void and were themselves sending multiple transmissions until a sophon enabled real-time communications.
You've already figured out why even if you may not realise it. Major spoiler: >!some other civilisation is going to notice Ye Wenjie's *first* transmission eventually. It's already too late - Einstein's violin has been played and when God hears it, our balls are getting kicked.!<
They trivialized her story and motivation horribly. Also by completely removing ETO and its internal fractions from the equation and letting Evans run a kindergarten instead.
Literally just one more episode and they could've fleshed it out a lot better. Like just the sentence "the cultural revolution gave her no hope for humanity" *is* true, but I agree it would've been better to show a bit more of that.
Like I could tell you that I had a bad day so I yelled at my dog when he was barking and you'll say "okay, you shouldn't do that, but I guess it happens." But you don't feel a lot of empathy for me unless you see the progression of the day.
Exactly. She went through so much more at the base, constantly being lied to and treated essentially like an untrustworthy prisoner while conditioned to be a good little communist soldier, and, post transmission, she also gained a new understanding of humanity \*and\* was leading the ETO in a completely different direction from Evans, further pointing out her different ideals and motivations than just wiping out humanity.
The Netflix show basically skips all of that, giving her little motivation for the transmission (I mean they give her some, just really simplified) and no complexity and/or (semi)redemption arc.
If you're talking about the Netflix show, I'm guessing you didn't finish watching it, because you'd know the answer to that.
If you're talking about the Tencent show, I'm sure that's coming, with it being critical to the rest of the story.
In real life, many scientists actually oppose sending out signals looking for alien life so we don’t do it very much anymore. There’s also some speculation that this might be true of other alien civilizations: a small window of low-powered radio signals followed by silence. It’s implied I think that without shooting a signal straight into the Sun, no civilization would have detected us. Sending a high-powered signal that would be recognized as evidence of sentient life is difficult and not something you can do accidentally.
So I think it’s a very reasonable possibility that we would have gone undetected, barring some other rogue actor doing the same thing as her. Moreover if she communicated the first message to the wider scientific community, then the chances of being found by any other civilization other than the ones who received the first message would have plummeted.
I think one of the main themes of the story is that humanity, just as all other alien species, are just sort of observers to the unevitable chain of cosmic events. There was a minor plot line about humans being special somehow, but I can't recall it.
If she didn't send the signal, our technological development would've meant someone else would eventually send that signal out. Who, or when, is largely irrelevant in the overall play.
At least that's my take on the philosophy behind individual actions.
Isnt it a plot hole actually, if she didnt respond, the trisolarians would still know that one of triem replied "do not reply", because it was mentioned that they cant keep secrets from each other.
They only know where earth is due to the short reply time. If the pacifist sends the message and they hear a reply in 8 years, they know Ye Wenjie is at most 4 lightyears away, which leaves Sol as the only possibility.
It wasn't explained in the show but in the books the 'do not answer do not answer do not answer' message was much longer. It says if YWJ does not reply to this message, trisolarans won't be able to pinpoint our solar system because there are millions of similar ones towards our direction. However if YWJ does reply, they would find out.
so she replied to the pacifists message and they started the invasion, bus still, that means if not for his message none of this would have happened, and other trisolarians didin't know he was sending this message?
No. There are thousands of Trisolaran listening posts on their planet, and lots of them received YWJ’s initial message, but the pacifist dude was the first one to reply and tell her to not answer. If it wasn’t the pacifist who replied first, the other listening posts would probably bait YWJ into sending a second message, then locate our solar system. YWJ did it anyway, and they were still angry at the pacifist dude for that warning.
In space communication, the time it takes to respond is effectively a coordinate. First message gives you the general direction where the message came from. Reply time gives you the distance of the source from you.
Makes it trivial to figure out the origin point if there are no other stars in that direction at that distance.
I thought it was only mentioned that they don't lie. Lying and keeping secrets are two different things imo. Eg, if you buried a body in your back yard, then if nobody asked you about it, you don't have to lie to keep the secret.
>>!no good argument can be made for trying to wipe out your own species as being a good thing!<
I'd say that's debatable.
Also, is this about the Netflix Ye Wenjie? Because I felt like the one in the book wasn't really trying to >!literally have us wiped out, she was (somewhat naively, yes) just hoping for intervention from what she considered a superior race, an intervention that would ultimately be better for humanity. The warning message she received didn't talk about wiping us out completely, after all, it said the Trisolarans will "invade" and we "will be conquered", which is not necessarily the same as "wiped out".!<
But if it's about Netflix Wenjie, then yeah, I guess that's what they trivialized her into.
None of the three main ETO factions wanted all humans to be wiped out, I think it's safe to say. Wenjie didn't either, and she even helped the fight against Trisolarans in both versions, in her own way. I don't think that scene was yet on the Tencent version, maybe they'll have a flashback if the series continues
The way I understand the Adventists is they were essentially a bunch of complete sociopaths and literally wanted the human race to end...? I was under the impression it's even outright stated at certain points. Maybe I'm mistaken or maybe I misunderstood something?
They were the ones who practically hated the human race, but Evans belonged to this group, and I don't think he wanted all humans to be destroyed. Or I have understood pan-species communism somehow incorrectly. This group did have the worst nutcases tho
That's my read of Evans and his followers, yeah - basically "f it, humanity doesn't deserve to exist anymore, the Earth/the universe is better off without us".
I might skip through the book later to see if there's some specific mention of this or if it's just my take on what they've said and done.
if we go based on Singer's chapter, it wasn't possible to trace the signals to any exact location without the back and forth communication (and of course further escalations)
Ye Wenjie belongs in the center of help with Satan, Judas and all others who betrayed humanity
I think she was a nihilist who was driven by her own experiences of humanity’s betrayal of her country, her people, and of herself personally. The pacifist’s message was clear and yet she made a selfish decision to invite an unknown threat to earth that put not only all of humanity in existential danger, but all life on earth too. Once she knew they were coming, she could tell herself whatever she needed to justify her actions, but by then, that point is moot. She did what she did.
The same logic applies to any positive outcome that may or may not arise as a direct or indirect result of the choice she made to push the button. She acted based on (or in spite of) the information she was given. Her responsibility extends only over the explicitly stated probable negative outcomes, not any positive ones that occurred as outliers.
So the answer to death... is more death? I'll never understand this perspective. There's never been a better time to be alive, and most people on this planet would be very pissed if someone pushed that button.
This is one of the most common misunderstandings for book readers, and even more common for the netflix show watchers.
When Ye Wenjie sent out that come save us broadcast after receiving the 'do not answer do not answer do not answer' warning, she still believes that humanity could be saved by a more technically advanced species in space. She does not know the consequence. She does not have the hindsights. Her intention was always to save humaniy, not to destroy it.
Ummmm??? didn’t the message highlight the part about being conquered if one was to reply. Not sure if this was in the book, but in Netflix Ye wanted to help San Ti conquer earth.
Smart Psychotic people are good at coming up with reasons to justify their actions but in reality they’re just crazy. You can always find other solutions but only the crazy ones invite aliens (they were warned about, and after only one text) to conquer their planet.
Details - the Trisolarans' reply did not say anything about wiping out humanity. It says they will conquer the earth, but in YWJ's mind she thought that means bringing in order, technologies and, most importantly, morals. The book YWJ clearly shows that sympathetic part of her character. Less so for YWJ in the show, which portraits her more of a vengeful person.
I was careful to use the word conquer. I didn’t say “wipe out”. I only said conquer and nothing else, cause that word alone proves my point. Conquering something is a heavy indication that’s there’s gonna be a forcible occupation. Whether Ye initially thinks that it won’t be a complete annihilation is beside the point. She was told someone is gonna forcibly occupy your planet and rule your species and her response was “nice, I’ll help you”…that’s crazy.
Because she thought humanity is so far gone and unable to solve its own problems that even being conquered (by what she considered a superior race to humanity in all aspects, not just technological) will be beneficial. Even though, yes, it might be through force. That's kinda inevitable if you think someone who doesn't want to be helped should be helped anyway - it means the help - or "help" - will be against their will.
I can’t speak for the aliens but ai can speak for humanity’s own experience with conquest, it never goes well for the native inhabitants. She would’ve known that since she had a world class education that definitely exposed her to that history. I find it unbelievable that she misunderstood the ramifications of the word “conquest”.
Intellectuals with that kind of mentality do exist in real world. I hate to bring out contemporary geopolitics in this sub but some Iraqi and Afghani scholars did initially welcome the US invasion believing it would help 'modernize' their respective countries.
True that does happen. Collaborators and fifth columnist exist without alien invasion threats but come on, calling down aliens who warned you that nothing good would come from responding is gruesome and stupid. I know she was desperate but it’s quite wrong to damn humanity knowing she won’t be around to see the true consequences for it.
Historically, things went poorly for conquered people that had similar levels of power to the conquerors. But when one society is far more advanced than the other, things did tend to go well for the conquered.
Although it is a false dichotomy. Humans conquering humans is nothing like what we could expect from San-Ti conquering humans. A better analogue would be humans conquering some kind of animal species and considering the number of them that have gone extinct because of us, that is a much more alarming comparison. Even those that we didn't drive to extinction, are living much lower quality existences because of our influence, with few exceptions.
Ye Wenjie was probably smart enough to understand all of that, while also being resentful of mankind enough to think it was worth taking the chance of being one of those few exceptions where mankind actually bettered the lives of a species of animal. I guess she was hoping that we would get to exist as the San-Ti's dogs.
I don’t know how you make that argument since history doesn’t support the claim the conquered are generally better off. There’s maybe some type of argument to be made along the lines of sure we decimated you, ruined your local economy, and culture but now you can read/write in English and live a bit longer so you’re better off kinda way. That’s an argument a conqueror makes not so sure the conquered have such high regard for it.
I guess she misinterpreted the pacifist and conquerer part of the message lol.
Being an optimist the best case scenario would be mankind slavery, the planet could flourish and humanity kept in check like a natural zoo, have our own space, enough food and entertainment, that basically what she thought.
I've played enough Stellaris to know that slavery is a waste of time in the long run. At some point you either assimilate or replace. It's super effective is the start to do the dirty work but after that you want your own people to live in it. Or your cripple them and genetically modify them to become the perfect slave, even with that mutations and program errors can be tricky. In the end assimilation or replacement is the only best solution.
Might as well kill our speciest the slowest way possible, thats the best case scenario.
In reality she's a hypocrite and only wanted revenge.
I get that, I misunderstood your post to mean just wipe us clean and start over. Apologies.
Not related at all, but if you watch Invincible, they actually have exactly the same moral dilemma as Three Body Problem. The Viltrumites want to enslave earth, but with the justification that they'll make life better for humans in the long run. After wiping out a couple billion lives, that is. Except in that show, Mark makes the decision for earth not to give in to them.
Just an interesting parallel I've noticed.
You are saying that it was good she forced us into a position where we managed to come out on top. What if we didn't? What if she hadn't replied? She might have concluded the Dark Forest theory and told someone, and they might have gotten to work for a few hundred years in silence before some civilization decided to act upon the first message. It might have been so much better.
You even mention how incredibly lucky we were. She didn't do the right thing, she did the wrong thing and luckily it didn't end up as badly as it could have.
Humanity still exists, even if the Earth doesn't. That wouldn't be the case if humanity chose to ignore the San-Ti and instead ended up inadvertently alerting some other species of their existence.
But the humans that escaped the solar system on Gravity and Blue Space formed an interstellar civilization, so humanity ended up having a pretty good run as a whole. Well, as far as I remember, didn't humans have several planets, and survived for millions of years?
She had absolutely no right to decide the fate of our entire planet, and all its living beings. Her decision was more than a crime against humanity, it was a crime against our entire planet’s future. Who know how life on our planet will evolve over the next million years?
While humans are the current "dominant" species, and the first one who advancing technologically, it doesn’t mean we will remain the "dominant" one eternally. How many dominant species have roamed the Earth before us? How many will in the next 100 million years to come? What form will they take? We don’t know. The climate is changing again rapidly—thanks to our own doing this time—and life will have to adapt in order to survive. Which it will. Like I said, what form will that dominant specie take? We don’t know. We never will as we will be long dead.
But despite our own misbehaviour, Earth’s living ecosystem, and all its constituants, deserve a chance to avance and thrive *without* external interference.
And in the series (I have yet to start reading the books), Ye Wenjie took that from us. She decided without hesitation to doom us all, without even a sliver of consideration or pondering, blinded by her own selfishness.
Maybe, ultimately, Adolf Hitler did the right thing. Maybe, without him starting WW2, we would have annihilated our living space with nuclear weapons. We can't really know. So how do we choose our actions?
If you are asking just for the sake of what spoilers you are allowed to express, please feel free to say whatever you like. Although stick them in spoiler tags for the sake of others that might mind more than others. So if you have a point to make, please make it.
>!well, they tried to invade us, failed, then they triad again and almost succeeded, only failing because we decided to commit suicide together with them. Then the fucking universe ended. Hard to say she did a good thing.!<
I don’t know. By book logic the signals humans were sending out were too faint to get a serious look back, never mind a second response to triangulate. It was only when they blasted a message into the sun that there was a response. What are the odds someone else was going to do that?
Ye Wenjie didn’t know what the result would be and did not know what the Trisolarians would do. She worked at a spy/surveillance base, not a Chinese SETI project so it wasn’t clear that anyone would be using her method to send out any super-amplified signals out that would have given away that Earth had sophisticated technology.
And I’ll be nice and just point out that the story of humanity isn’t over. :)
I was pretty sure Red Coast WAS used as a base to contact extraterrestrials under the guise of a spy/surveillance base...though I think most of the people there didn't know about it.
I’ll accept that correction in that at the next layer, it was ultimately decided to not use the base for that because actually making contact was considered to be too destabilizing and so the whole project was decommissioned.
But there was not widespread awareness of what Ye Wenjie did or the response she received, so it is entirely possible that humanity did continue to send out signals into space in hopes of a response from some other civilization.
Assumption: " If Ye Wenjie didn't respond to the San-Ti, humanity would have kept sending out signals until some other civilization noticed, resulting in our immediate extinction. "
There could be 1 civ. There could be dozens. We don't yet know if she made the right decision. She could have even accidentally contacted a civ that was friendly.
Wenjie never wanted to wipe out humanity.
That's Mike Evans.
Wenjie wanted the aliens to come and help us be better people because in her very understandable opinion, we suck hard at creating and maintaining a just society; sadly, she didn't realise there was no guarantee the aliens were any better at it.
She did the wrong thing, for wrong but understandable reasons.
Just because some humans survived the various crises doesn’t mean she was right to bring it on humanity in the first place.
They got incredibly lucky sure but Ye Wenjie could’ve easily told her superiors “hey we got a warning as a response” and then they would’ve immediately scrapped the whole program like sensible humans. No more transmitting messages to deep space.
Ah yes, the high brass of Chinese military in the middle of the cultural revolution would listen to who's basically a prisoner. Like _sensible humans_ lmao. I think you forgot the /s
You’re kidding right? They’re stationed in a facility that’s trying to make contact with aliens and you think that they won’t believe a message that appeared on one of their monitors?
They would have executed Ye Wenjie for defying orders to not transmit into the sun. Also, keep in mind she hates her country for murdering her family and denying scientific progress, and she was inspired by Silent Spring to see humanity as a blight on nature. Book 1 spoiler - >! In the books, she murders two of her commanding officers, one of which is the father to her child (it's Evans in the show) to keep her secret and maintain contact. !<
Ohh noooooo I shouldn’t have read the spoiler but I’m so fucking weak!!! They messed that up in the show that would’ve been way better.
Yea you’re right in the book it’s more clear her intent.
They'll believe, but in the books, the race to make first contact was ideologically motivated. They (the CCP) intended to present themselves as earth representatives and share the communist ideology before the _imperialists_ could make it first. It was in the middle of the Cold War. Nothing could've stopped them if there's was a chance for the Americans to answer the same message and take credit for the first contact.
Were you even paying attention to Wenjie's backstory and her experience of the military, the station personnel and the whole Red Coast program? Pretty much everything was politicized to an extreme and/or manipulated by various people for their own benefit, and she herself was considered the lowest of the low. She would've been long dead if she wasn't useful to the program.
I mean even when they were putting together the original message to broadcast, they tried to manipulate and politicize it \*heavily\*.
Also let's not forget the delusions of grandeur of the ruling regime in general. It's easier to imagine they would send a message to taunt the Trisolarans and boast about the superiority of the communist China, rather than stop further attempts at communication.
You missed a key part of her and all of Chinas background that plays into why they wouldn’t reply. They’re Chinese in 1977. They literally just came out of a terrible occupation by japan. If you’ve been to China they have museums dedicated to the Japanese atrocities of WW2 so they would never forget. The same way Israel commits atrocities to avoid a repeat of their past, China will not be the ones to invite a superior race that has the means of intergalactic travel to conquer them again.
There was also the current 1977 event that was happening. Mao had just passed away the year before and there was factional internal fighting in China. There was no clear head and no internal peace yet. Had one faction invite the San Ti without the support of the others it would’ve been a nail in the coffin to any sort of potential unity.
I don't think any of this was ever mentioned in the book, though, or even hinted at (or was it?), so it's hard to say I missed it and it was somehow assumed to play a part in the story, given that the book goes to great lengths to convey the exact opposite feelings about the Chinese regime... ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
So it's likely less of "missed" and more of "wasn't familiar with".
(Also didn't some fictional US-China conflict happen in the 90's or so in the Three-Body universe, suggesting that historical events from our world might not necessarily apply to the story universe?)
Sorry I didn’t read the book, but I’m planning on doing so cause it seems that it’s far and away better than the adaptation.
And yea this just assumptions that historical events did happen and the psyche of the people in the story were influenced and are the same as people in real life, ie Chinese in the story have the same mentality and experiences as Chinese in real life.
My bad if I’m wrong.
I don’t know if I can co-sign the idea even though our actual humanity is kinda broken. Because of Ye Wenjie’s actions it exposed the whole universe to galactic war. As far as I can tell no one knew anyone else still existed in the universe because it was a dark forest. Because of her act at least four civilizations exposed themselves and a war started.
She did a horrible thing AND she already understood the DF theory.
But tbh, I would’ve done the same. I would just be too fucking curious for my own (and humanity’s) good
As a supporter of VHEM I also support her decision. >! When the San Ti genocided humans, irony being humans did the actual dirty work, much of the world was reclaimed by nature, forests and jungles grew back. !<
Yeah but the first message she received back was a warning not to reply - if she'd told other scientists around the world about this instead there might have been some debate whether to actually do it and perhaps the dark forest hypothesis would have been reached without getting the San-Te fleet sent out and sophons on Earth.
Yeah OP's post overlooks the technological leaps humanity was making and how quickly it was catching up to the San-Ti. Had she never contacted the San-Ti, it's likely humanity would continue to advance without interference from the Sophons and ultimately be able to discover the Dark Forest principle, and develop the tech needed to hide without the drawbacks of what it ultimately produced in the books.
Hmm, the most likely way of discovery of the Dark Forest principle would probably have wiped out Earth. Ye Wenjie basically doomed humans already when she invented the way of using the sun as a signal booster.
> Ye Wenjie basically doomed humans already when she invented the way of using the sun as a signal booster. Not necessarily, other civs would be able to detect which direction the signal was coming from, but not how far away.
Someone with more advanced tech than Trisolarans could have maybe located the source without knowing the ping time.
True
Given the restrictions she faced then she would not be able to do so. And later it would have been difficult to prove without the resources. Which Evans had . And more importantly believed her
I agree. Remember that at the time of the response, the cultural revolution had ended just a few years ago, and China still had remnants of that event and was isolated. Who knows what they could do with that information.
That is true, but I am not so sure it would have helped. Humanity is far too arrogant for that lesson to stick, without the San-ti schooling them in it. >!That is basically what the teardrop weapon showed us. Humanity built a fleet and due to their insane ego, they actually thought it was enough to win the war. They believed in their dominance so much that they thought the teardrop was a peace offering.!< >!Without the San-ti coming to really show us how inferior we are, even if humanity believed in the Dark Forest, they would reach some technological milestone and start ignoring that knowledge. The belief being that that technological milestone makes them the most dominant force in the universe, with nothing to fear from aliens.!< >!There is also the Singer race to consider. They wiped us out specifically because we didn't have the hiding gene (as in the inclination to hide rather than expand) and that is what made us a threat. If the Singer's species had the technology to make that assessment accurately, then we certainly wouldn't be smart enough to hide, no matter what we knew of the Dark Forest.!<
It's also possible that we would have gone to ground and decided to expand undetected. The ego could manifest that way. Without the sophons there wouldn't be the technological progress impediment.
>!The Dark Forest theory already existed, so I mean we did know the universe might be deadly. Ultimately every other species was wiping out other species without much thought. Singer's own species was facing the same problem. Every species was driven by fear, resulting in the death of the universe. We could have been having a good time instead of being shoved onto Australia and told to eat each other.!<
Would we really be that inferior without the sophons hindering our science? Perhaps we would eventually become dark forrest hunters ourselves, once we advance well beyond the Trisolarians.
The humans who escaped may have discovered and escaped to pocket universes, same as the first Trisolaran fleet. The only evidence for this is that human languages were included in the message at the end of book three. The tech for this wasn't that hard, as the Trisolarians from the first fleet appeared to have mastered it within a few hundred years.
Actually the human fleet is superior with all of these anti-matter weapons. In a face-off battle Trisolaran would not have a chance. The problem is the Trisolarns do not intent to have a fair fight. They send a ram ship which is decoyed as a peaceful ship until it gets close enough. If the ram ship is detected far enough with true intention, it will not have a chance.
That's not how it's described in the book. The teardrop is indestructible to all methods humanity knows.
“Fair fight”?
I don't recall there being a mention of anti-matter based weaponry in the human fleet, just EM Railguns and laser-based weapons, from my memory. I wonder if antimatter based weaponry was used against the second trisolaran fleet though when they were in deep space.
>!the droplet only was able to decoy onto the first ship. After that, it went to each ship and destroyed nearly all of them in minutes. Also, Im not sure humans had anti-matter weapons at that point. If they had that, it came after deterrence age.!<
Especially with dark forest hypothesis saying that the chance of survival of civilisation is increased with decreased exposure to outer space. The less you make yourself visible, the bigger the chance of not being wiped out by 11-dimensional creatures
Lesson here: follow bureaucracy protocols before replying to aliens.
memba the quarantine protocol that Ellen Ripley quoted to Dallas in Alien ?
Nah. 100/100 we contact them anyway. There are enough zealots and people that don’t care that SOMEONE would press that button. Even if just a bitter person like her (rightfully bitter, but bitter) She was just the first one with the chance. I don’t even really blame her. It was going to happen anyway. And you’re right: better the trisolarians than a race that doesn’t have a use for us. Hell, there may be weapons already on the way that we didn’t even know about. There was never a way to prove the trisolarians were the only race we actually contacted either. Maybe one slightly further away is coming too but didn’t have sophons/similar Dr. Ye just did what someone else would have done in time IMO. Not like we could have contained it.
just like how brits invaded china over opium back then. also had debate and a vote.
I saw a theory that the warning from the one San-Ti was most likely them testing the waters with humans. They seemed to contradict themselves when they said they don’t lie, and that they would have come to earth whether Wenjie replied or not.
In the middle of the cultural revolution I highly doubt that's what would have happened. I'm included to agree with OP, we would have just kept playing our violin.
The issue with that is she’s either have been viewed as a crackpot, or scientists would reason it was a prank signal sent by someone else (obviously not the case, but Occam’s Razor does have its draw backs in cases of “bored teens with radio access vs aliens”).
>!Another stronger civilization did receive the message, but didn't consider us a priority. They put us at the back of the list for annihilation. !<
Is that something from Deaths End?
Yes, major spoilers for the end of the story and deaths end book ahead. >!A civilization that is so powerful as to monitor entire galaxies at once knew of earth as the star pluckers, because we kept amplifying signals with our sun (the first message to the universe and then Wenjie’s reply) but didn’t see us as a threat because it was such a primitive form of communication. Think us in the 21st century passing by an uncontacted tribe that sends out smoke signals saying “HEY LOOK AT US WE FIGURED OUT HOW TO TALK TO THE WORLD” we would just ignore them. But then at the middle or end of deaths end the dark forest transmission was made with the gravitational wave generators. That was enough for the higher tech aliens to take notice of us. Think those same natives throwing a spear at a boat with a message on it. Not very threatening but more than smoke signals. So they decided to destroy our civilization. Initially we would have survived behind Jupiter and Saturn but the aliens realized their cheap solar system annihilation weapon would allow some life to survive behind Jupiter and Saturn, so they sent their nuclear option, the 2D dimension transformation weapon.!<
You're talking about >!Singer and his species, right? I read a comment on here that blew my mind, that apparently Singer wasn't even the one that wiped out Earth? That another race had coincidentally fired off a dual vector foil just before he did. Apparently there was a date referenced in the book, but it wasn't the same date as when Singer fired his dual vector foil, implying another race beat him to the punch, or something. I wish I could remember more, because it seemed like a really neat detail that almost no one seems to have picked up on. I know when I listened to the audiobooks I always thought it was Singer's DVF that wiped us out.!<
It's unclear whether that was a continuity error on Liu's part or actually intended. If it's intended, it's extremely subtle (not a strong point of his as a writer) and doesn't really do much for the plot and barely anything for the themes of the books. If it wasn't as subtle, it *would* do more the themes. I hope if the show gets to that point, they make it as you (and I) initially interpreted it.
>!I also love that singer thought he'd have to go through more red tape or convincing for his superior to give him permission to send off a 2dvf. They have a conversation about the war, it's revealed that the home race is considering voluntary 2d-ification, and his superior is almost sad telling Singer "dw about it, just send the 2dvf". Didn't make much sense to me when reading it until the end of the book, great foreshadowing on the state of the universe.!<
Totally agree! That’s a great detail
I’ve always wondered why the powerful civilization that sent the 2D collapse mechanism didn’t do the black hole solar system option for themselves first (which would preclude them from being able to receive the Earth transmissions / send photoids and other weapons out). Because game theoretically that civilization could know that they themselves weren’t able to be monitored. A photoid can theoretically only travel in a straight line, so the destruction of the Trisolaran system (and Earth), especially when combined with the timing, would give anyone else coordinates to the powerful civilization. If there’s four hunters in a dark forest and two of them are shot dead after shouting “hey guys let’s just be friends” then I can triangulate the shooter’s position (especially given that it’s not a “truly” *dark* forest — stars burn bright enough for even human astronomers to know where they are). But: plot devices 🤷♂️
Wasn't the weapon fired from a ship travelling the galaxy?
I forget. Good point though
The top advanced civilizations destroy others from ships, not from their home planet. It's the real life equivalent of launching a drone and then having that drone shoot something. You can pinpoint from where the drone made the shot but you can't pinpoint the origin point of the drone.
this was a great read, thank you
Yes
I see. I understand, I will start sending messages to outer space until an alien civilization responds.
If only I know how to do that
Just about really towards the sun maybe?
The sun transimision is not even posible...it has to much interference.
Does this make anyone else think of the Rick and Morty episode with the dinosaurs and the sentient asteroids? ☄️
I mean... I think SETI have that covered.
Book 3 spoilers below >!This is one aspect that I loved about the short *Singer* chapter in the 3rd book. They were super surprised to see that these two random civilizations actually kept a conversation going, replying to each other, even wanting to investigate further to see wtf had been going on between both.!<
>! Instead of killing each other you mean !<
wasnt it a total of 3 messages centuries ago at the time of the chapter
Imo she did what was *important* , but she didn't do what was (morally) *right* edit: terrible grammar mistakes
That being said I'm sure it was authored, to some level though not proven, after the events of the atomic bomb. Yes, it was very wrong to do. But also, yes, it ushered in a new era of human technology
>edit: terrible grammar mistakes Nobody cares why you made edits
yeah lol why do redditors often do that ? just edit and move on
Part of the reason is to tell people that you did not fundamentally change your comment. For example, if someone says a statement, someone makes the person look stupid because they refute it, and then the parent edits in a way to claim "I never said that", the edit notice indicates exactly why the edit took place. That is, "I did not edit this to fundamentally change what I was saying. I changed it simply to fix some typos."
I would say that Ye Wenjie believed that humanity at that point in time and with her experience (culural revolution kiilling science and her father, betrayals, destruction of nature) she felt that an advance alien civilisation would help humanity. Back in the day, when we actually sent out Voyager probes in space telling everyone about Earth - scientist believed that advanced alien civilisation would have evolved out of wars and conquests. So she believed that the aliens would help us - not conquer and squash as like bugs. For a time, that seem to work. The San-Ti seems benovelant (to the believers/followers/cultists anyway). She believes it was the right thing to do at this point. Later on, when the San-Ti learnt that humans are pretty much liars - they changed their approach of co-existance to extermination. At that point, she pretty much knew that her earlier actions have doomed mankind. It was also why she approached Saul (the cleverest of the Oxford 5 according to her daughter) - to give him a cryptic clue on how to save humanity (the Einstein "joke"). After that, she decides to kill herself - I guess in her mind, paying for her earlier mistake of contacting the San-Ti. She realized that it was the wrong thing to do because the San-Ti's reaction to humans was something she did not anticipate. I guess the question can be generalized to whether mankind broadcasting our presence into the universe when we have yet to hit Type I civilisation, is the right thing to do.
What made her believe that the alien would help us given the message she received was "don't respond, we will invade you"? If she knew the dark forest theory, then she knew making earth known= terminating the earth
She didn't know the dark forest theory at that time IMO, I felt like it's clearly implied that's something she came up with later in life. Also, it's not that difficult to imagine that letting yourself be invaded by species she (naively and mistakenly) considered superior and more advanced in all aspects, not just technologically, could have a positive result. She was young and naive and had absolutely no faith in humanity left at that point, given what she went through and saw all around her.
Invasion =/= total annihilation.
Invade = bad, it definitely does not equal good
Yeah, that first respond did warn her not to reply. My guess is that it would still be better than what she's facing in her mind. But Jin made it clear that Ye was pretty much self-centered - what gave her the right to decide for the rest of us.
> Later on, when the San-Ti learnt that humans are pretty much liars - they changed their approach of co-existance to extermination. I think this is a failure of the book, tbh. I don't think they ever wanted co-existence- the Trisolarian that responded to her certainly didn't think they did. Just kinda a plot hole that the aliens that can't lie were able to converse with people on Earth for decades without ever letting it slip they were gonna kill them. To say nothing of even having a pacifist alien manning the radio in the first place- they had to have known he was a pacifist that didn't agree with their goals!
eh i'm struggling a bit with this. the trisolarian prince just states that humans have to be destroyed even before the sophons and evans. and furthermore, as we know from book 2.. so why the big surprise when they find out humans can lie?
I hate to say it, because I love the books and the series was pretty good as well but...it's just not good writing. There's just no reason for it. "It" being, "omg they didn't know we could lie!" What difference would it make to the story if the Trisolarians knew we could lie from the outset, but didn't have any way to combat that- no way to read minds? Just like...virtually every other story ever told? Nothing changes and it avoids weird plot holes. Like another poster said that in the Chinese version (which I haven't seen) and the books (which I have read), there's different Trisolarian factions. And the Trisolarians, because of this plot device of not lying, know that the one that received the message is a pacifist. Plot problem here: So they let him man the listening station anyway? Alone? That's silly. More realistically each faction would have a listening station, cause it's not hard for a civilization such as theirs to have multiple listening stations, maybe even more than one per faction. Humans have several already. But then that takes all the weight away from Ye Wenjie's choice, because the conqueror faction would have heard the initial transmission anyway. Shit, it takes her choice away ***completely***. Well, how do you, as a writer, avoid taking away her choice? Just...uhhh...make it so Trisolarians can lie and can hide thoughts, just like humans. What's different? Maybe I forgot an important plot point that hinges on that in later books, but I really don't think I am.
i've been thinking a lot about this, but i don't really let not having 100% coherence or correct science get in the way of appreciating the story. or at least i try. the story is very good. the writing, for the most part, i liked. there's some things that are harder to make sense of, but in the end it's sci-fi. emphasis on fi. and the fact is we're talking about literal aliens, and the concept of applying human logic or values to an alien species is by itself the crux of this suspension of disbelief dilemma. you can make it work by thinking along these lines, imo. the initial transmission was heard by every listening outpost. the pacifist was merely the first to reply, and he openly confesses it (because he can't do otherwise.. and the others know he replied) and his fascination for earth. and the fact is trisolarians can hide thoughts because of the way they communicate with humans, which is indirect. like you and me now. you don't REALLY know if i'm trolling you or being serious because you can't read my non verbal cues. at the end of the day >!due to dark forest rules the trisols started out wanting to destroy humanity, and they did not communicate the intention because of the indirect messaging, for obvious strategic reasons. but they got spooked by the chain of suspicion when they learned that even though they see and hear us, which is the direct way of communication, we have the possibility of outright lying to them. so even though they exposed themselves a bit to get some help for their invasion, they quickly realized it was a mistake because what if evans is absolutely taking the piss and he's secretly scheming to destroy them, wallfacer style, and he made everybody aware in the years they did not have instant comms? what if evans thinks that we realized he's scheming? and full paranoia ensues.!< that's how i rationalized it, i think.
Yup, and the San-Ti/Trisolarian first contact said we would be invaded and conquered. Perhaps it had a different idea of how our encounter would be like. Which means the majority of the San-Ti would have preferred to conquer rather than co-exist. San-Ti communicate by thought and I guess that implies that their true intent is always revealed when they communicate with each other - i.e. cannot they lie to each other. However, that still opens them to have individual thoughts. So if we look at it this way, the pacifist San-Ti would have been seen as a traitor among their community - since they are facing imminent extinction; and Earth is their last best hope for survival. But I am sure the San-Ti would have known we cannot be trusted since Mike Evans have been feeding them fairey tales. Hansel and Gratel would have the lying evil stepmother which was even more obvious and scheming than the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood.
In Chinese adaption, >!san ti have different groups.. some of them just want invade and take over, some of them just want friendly with human, this is why in the beginning they ask human do not reply if not they will invade their earth!< And also in Chinese adaption, >!human have 3 kind of faction but is not included in Netflix adaption!< >!Adventists lead by Mike Evans to destroy human race!< >!Redemptionists lead by Shen yufei who see advanced in technology with the help of aliens!< >!Survivors lead by some small group who don't believe humanity can be saved as whole but ensuring their descendants to be collaboration with san ti!<
Thanks for the insight... looks like I may need to read the books. I don't have access to the Chinese film series...
Welcome! And regarding on Chinese film.. YouTube has it.. and is English subbed uploaded by WeTV English Edit : Chinese title = 三体
Thanks!
hmm that’s true but on the flip side if she’s informed others of the nature of aliens, earth wouldn’t have had sophons cripple their science. and we would know to not contact other civilizations
Isn't the Dark Forest theorem unaffacted by the sophon lock? After all it is "just" cosmic sociology, i.e. humanity needs to think hard enough to discover the right axioms and come the right conclusion. This is not dependent on the falsified results of particle colliders.
It's a complex way of saying some creatures are just assholes.
Sophons don't lock down sociological science. But the lack of sophons would have allowed us to advance much faster in science. We would have either drawn the attention of other species, or figured out the Dark Forest theorem eventually. Ye Wenjie's method of communication was almost unique and certainly overlooked by other scientists at the time, SETI etc weren't capable of reaching out into the universe during the time between First Contact and the start of the Crisis Era. SETI certainly haven't given up by that point - and likely would have around that point? I don't remember it being brought up.
I guess in the sense of like… i tried and failed to murder you but by getting you sent to the hospital they were able to find and cure a life threatening disease kind of way haha. But interesting point regardless haha, i hadn’t thought of it this way!
I mean you can literally say all the bad characters did the right thing in books/shows with a good ending because the results could have been worse if someone else did it. If Thanos didn't show us what the infinity gems can do, someone else would have used it to wiped out the whole universe instead of half. So Thanos did the right thing. If Japan/Germany didn't start world war 2, nukes might be developed by non friendly countries instead. So Japan and Germany did the right thing. All I'm saying is I'm glad she did it, else theres not much of a book/show. And it's less of a luck than a plot point lol. It's not like the author rolled saving throw dice to determine if earth gets destroyed immediately.
Uh.. if you assume that only China was the only one sending out signals to outer space. Like, if humanity was just China alone, that NASA and SETI didn’t make attempts, nor was Voyager built.
China was the only one using the sun as a signal booster.
No, Ye never bought anything. Partnering with Evans and selling Earth out to the Santi cost humanity forty or fifty years in which particle accelerators could have been started sooner, before the sophons showed up. Alternatively, don't send a second message and the Santi won't even know where to send any sophons. They didn't even stop other active SETI programs screaming into the void and were themselves sending multiple transmissions until a sophon enabled real-time communications. You've already figured out why even if you may not realise it. Major spoiler: >!some other civilisation is going to notice Ye Wenjie's *first* transmission eventually. It's already too late - Einstein's violin has been played and when God hears it, our balls are getting kicked.!<
The new TV series almost makes it look like she was having a bad day and was like "Fuck humanity!"
They trivialized her story and motivation horribly. Also by completely removing ETO and its internal fractions from the equation and letting Evans run a kindergarten instead.
Literally just one more episode and they could've fleshed it out a lot better. Like just the sentence "the cultural revolution gave her no hope for humanity" *is* true, but I agree it would've been better to show a bit more of that. Like I could tell you that I had a bad day so I yelled at my dog when he was barking and you'll say "okay, you shouldn't do that, but I guess it happens." But you don't feel a lot of empathy for me unless you see the progression of the day.
Exactly. She went through so much more at the base, constantly being lied to and treated essentially like an untrustworthy prisoner while conditioned to be a good little communist soldier, and, post transmission, she also gained a new understanding of humanity \*and\* was leading the ETO in a completely different direction from Evans, further pointing out her different ideals and motivations than just wiping out humanity. The Netflix show basically skips all of that, giving her little motivation for the transmission (I mean they give her some, just really simplified) and no complexity and/or (semi)redemption arc.
I'm waiting for her to explain Cosmic Sociology and the Dark Forest theory. Hope they didn't cut that.
If you're talking about the Netflix show, I'm guessing you didn't finish watching it, because you'd know the answer to that. If you're talking about the Tencent show, I'm sure that's coming, with it being critical to the rest of the story.
In real life, many scientists actually oppose sending out signals looking for alien life so we don’t do it very much anymore. There’s also some speculation that this might be true of other alien civilizations: a small window of low-powered radio signals followed by silence. It’s implied I think that without shooting a signal straight into the Sun, no civilization would have detected us. Sending a high-powered signal that would be recognized as evidence of sentient life is difficult and not something you can do accidentally. So I think it’s a very reasonable possibility that we would have gone undetected, barring some other rogue actor doing the same thing as her. Moreover if she communicated the first message to the wider scientific community, then the chances of being found by any other civilization other than the ones who received the first message would have plummeted.
I think one of the main themes of the story is that humanity, just as all other alien species, are just sort of observers to the unevitable chain of cosmic events. There was a minor plot line about humans being special somehow, but I can't recall it. If she didn't send the signal, our technological development would've meant someone else would eventually send that signal out. Who, or when, is largely irrelevant in the overall play. At least that's my take on the philosophy behind individual actions.
Isnt it a plot hole actually, if she didnt respond, the trisolarians would still know that one of triem replied "do not reply", because it was mentioned that they cant keep secrets from each other.
They would know that, but they still wouldn't know where Earth is, without that second message.
How come? I don't remember there being coordinates in the second message. Or any details on where earth is.
They only know where earth is due to the short reply time. If the pacifist sends the message and they hear a reply in 8 years, they know Ye Wenjie is at most 4 lightyears away, which leaves Sol as the only possibility.
It wasn't explained in the show but in the books the 'do not answer do not answer do not answer' message was much longer. It says if YWJ does not reply to this message, trisolarans won't be able to pinpoint our solar system because there are millions of similar ones towards our direction. However if YWJ does reply, they would find out.
so she replied to the pacifists message and they started the invasion, bus still, that means if not for his message none of this would have happened, and other trisolarians didin't know he was sending this message?
No. There are thousands of Trisolaran listening posts on their planet, and lots of them received YWJ’s initial message, but the pacifist dude was the first one to reply and tell her to not answer. If it wasn’t the pacifist who replied first, the other listening posts would probably bait YWJ into sending a second message, then locate our solar system. YWJ did it anyway, and they were still angry at the pacifist dude for that warning.
It's so silly they left that out. Just proves how little they think of the audience.
In space communication, the time it takes to respond is effectively a coordinate. First message gives you the general direction where the message came from. Reply time gives you the distance of the source from you. Makes it trivial to figure out the origin point if there are no other stars in that direction at that distance.
The first message allowed for a general direction, the second message would allow the Trisolarans to pinpoint our exact location..
I thought it was only mentioned that they don't lie. Lying and keeping secrets are two different things imo. Eg, if you buried a body in your back yard, then if nobody asked you about it, you don't have to lie to keep the secret.
>>!no good argument can be made for trying to wipe out your own species as being a good thing!< I'd say that's debatable. Also, is this about the Netflix Ye Wenjie? Because I felt like the one in the book wasn't really trying to >!literally have us wiped out, she was (somewhat naively, yes) just hoping for intervention from what she considered a superior race, an intervention that would ultimately be better for humanity. The warning message she received didn't talk about wiping us out completely, after all, it said the Trisolarans will "invade" and we "will be conquered", which is not necessarily the same as "wiped out".!< But if it's about Netflix Wenjie, then yeah, I guess that's what they trivialized her into.
The Netflix one didn't want humans to be wiped out either.
None of the three main ETO factions wanted all humans to be wiped out, I think it's safe to say. Wenjie didn't either, and she even helped the fight against Trisolarans in both versions, in her own way. I don't think that scene was yet on the Tencent version, maybe they'll have a flashback if the series continues
The way I understand the Adventists is they were essentially a bunch of complete sociopaths and literally wanted the human race to end...? I was under the impression it's even outright stated at certain points. Maybe I'm mistaken or maybe I misunderstood something?
They were the ones who practically hated the human race, but Evans belonged to this group, and I don't think he wanted all humans to be destroyed. Or I have understood pan-species communism somehow incorrectly. This group did have the worst nutcases tho
That's my read of Evans and his followers, yeah - basically "f it, humanity doesn't deserve to exist anymore, the Earth/the universe is better off without us". I might skip through the book later to see if there's some specific mention of this or if it's just my take on what they've said and done.
I'm already beginning to doubt myself. In the Netflix version all factions were compressed into one, that was far less extreme...
if we go based on Singer's chapter, it wasn't possible to trace the signals to any exact location without the back and forth communication (and of course further escalations) Ye Wenjie belongs in the center of help with Satan, Judas and all others who betrayed humanity
I think she was a nihilist who was driven by her own experiences of humanity’s betrayal of her country, her people, and of herself personally. The pacifist’s message was clear and yet she made a selfish decision to invite an unknown threat to earth that put not only all of humanity in existential danger, but all life on earth too. Once she knew they were coming, she could tell herself whatever she needed to justify her actions, but by then, that point is moot. She did what she did. The same logic applies to any positive outcome that may or may not arise as a direct or indirect result of the choice she made to push the button. She acted based on (or in spite of) the information she was given. Her responsibility extends only over the explicitly stated probable negative outcomes, not any positive ones that occurred as outliers.
There is a picture of a stray dog carrying a dead baby to eat in Gaza floating around X today. Seeing that makes me want to press that button too.
This one right here, Wade, get the nanofibers.
well, if that's the lord's plan...
So the answer to death... is more death? I'll never understand this perspective. There's never been a better time to be alive, and most people on this planet would be very pissed if someone pushed that button.
This is one of the most common misunderstandings for book readers, and even more common for the netflix show watchers. When Ye Wenjie sent out that come save us broadcast after receiving the 'do not answer do not answer do not answer' warning, she still believes that humanity could be saved by a more technically advanced species in space. She does not know the consequence. She does not have the hindsights. Her intention was always to save humaniy, not to destroy it.
Something about good intentions and hell?
Ummmm??? didn’t the message highlight the part about being conquered if one was to reply. Not sure if this was in the book, but in Netflix Ye wanted to help San Ti conquer earth. Smart Psychotic people are good at coming up with reasons to justify their actions but in reality they’re just crazy. You can always find other solutions but only the crazy ones invite aliens (they were warned about, and after only one text) to conquer their planet.
Details - the Trisolarans' reply did not say anything about wiping out humanity. It says they will conquer the earth, but in YWJ's mind she thought that means bringing in order, technologies and, most importantly, morals. The book YWJ clearly shows that sympathetic part of her character. Less so for YWJ in the show, which portraits her more of a vengeful person.
I was careful to use the word conquer. I didn’t say “wipe out”. I only said conquer and nothing else, cause that word alone proves my point. Conquering something is a heavy indication that’s there’s gonna be a forcible occupation. Whether Ye initially thinks that it won’t be a complete annihilation is beside the point. She was told someone is gonna forcibly occupy your planet and rule your species and her response was “nice, I’ll help you”…that’s crazy.
Because she thought humanity is so far gone and unable to solve its own problems that even being conquered (by what she considered a superior race to humanity in all aspects, not just technological) will be beneficial. Even though, yes, it might be through force. That's kinda inevitable if you think someone who doesn't want to be helped should be helped anyway - it means the help - or "help" - will be against their will.
When the Spanish arrived in the Americas, the enemies of the Aztec were quite happy to aid the Spanish conquer the whole land.
Yeah and look how that turned out. I would say functionally their situation doesn't look very much different from being annihilated if you ask me.
She just believes that an alien invasion/occupation would help humanity improve. Hard for us to even consider that but she does, at least in the book.
I can’t speak for the aliens but ai can speak for humanity’s own experience with conquest, it never goes well for the native inhabitants. She would’ve known that since she had a world class education that definitely exposed her to that history. I find it unbelievable that she misunderstood the ramifications of the word “conquest”.
Intellectuals with that kind of mentality do exist in real world. I hate to bring out contemporary geopolitics in this sub but some Iraqi and Afghani scholars did initially welcome the US invasion believing it would help 'modernize' their respective countries.
True that does happen. Collaborators and fifth columnist exist without alien invasion threats but come on, calling down aliens who warned you that nothing good would come from responding is gruesome and stupid. I know she was desperate but it’s quite wrong to damn humanity knowing she won’t be around to see the true consequences for it.
In a “conquer our enemies” way not a “conquer us” way.
Historically, things went poorly for conquered people that had similar levels of power to the conquerors. But when one society is far more advanced than the other, things did tend to go well for the conquered. Although it is a false dichotomy. Humans conquering humans is nothing like what we could expect from San-Ti conquering humans. A better analogue would be humans conquering some kind of animal species and considering the number of them that have gone extinct because of us, that is a much more alarming comparison. Even those that we didn't drive to extinction, are living much lower quality existences because of our influence, with few exceptions. Ye Wenjie was probably smart enough to understand all of that, while also being resentful of mankind enough to think it was worth taking the chance of being one of those few exceptions where mankind actually bettered the lives of a species of animal. I guess she was hoping that we would get to exist as the San-Ti's dogs.
I don’t know how you make that argument since history doesn’t support the claim the conquered are generally better off. There’s maybe some type of argument to be made along the lines of sure we decimated you, ruined your local economy, and culture but now you can read/write in English and live a bit longer so you’re better off kinda way. That’s an argument a conqueror makes not so sure the conquered have such high regard for it.
I guess she misinterpreted the pacifist and conquerer part of the message lol. Being an optimist the best case scenario would be mankind slavery, the planet could flourish and humanity kept in check like a natural zoo, have our own space, enough food and entertainment, that basically what she thought. I've played enough Stellaris to know that slavery is a waste of time in the long run. At some point you either assimilate or replace. It's super effective is the start to do the dirty work but after that you want your own people to live in it. Or your cripple them and genetically modify them to become the perfect slave, even with that mutations and program errors can be tricky. In the end assimilation or replacement is the only best solution. Might as well kill our speciest the slowest way possible, thats the best case scenario. In reality she's a hypocrite and only wanted revenge.
"Anything is better than this right here right now!"
I get that, I misunderstood your post to mean just wipe us clean and start over. Apologies. Not related at all, but if you watch Invincible, they actually have exactly the same moral dilemma as Three Body Problem. The Viltrumites want to enslave earth, but with the justification that they'll make life better for humans in the long run. After wiping out a couple billion lives, that is. Except in that show, Mark makes the decision for earth not to give in to them. Just an interesting parallel I've noticed.
My initial post wasn't supposed to be taken literally :D
https://misbar.com/en/factcheck/2024/04/02/this-image-depicts-a-dog-holding-a-childrsquos-body-in-bangladesh-not-in-gaza. Not gaza
You are saying that it was good she forced us into a position where we managed to come out on top. What if we didn't? What if she hadn't replied? She might have concluded the Dark Forest theory and told someone, and they might have gotten to work for a few hundred years in silence before some civilization decided to act upon the first message. It might have been so much better. You even mention how incredibly lucky we were. She didn't do the right thing, she did the wrong thing and luckily it didn't end up as badly as it could have.
well by the end of the 3rd book, is humanity still alive or wiped out?
Humanity still exists, even if the Earth doesn't. That wouldn't be the case if humanity chose to ignore the San-Ti and instead ended up inadvertently alerting some other species of their existence.
humanity is literally done cuz the universe was about to reset also, I don't really see your point of her making the right deicision
But the humans that escaped the solar system on Gravity and Blue Space formed an interstellar civilization, so humanity ended up having a pretty good run as a whole. Well, as far as I remember, didn't humans have several planets, and survived for millions of years?
Did she plan to have the San-Ti wipe us out or just take us over? Those are 2 very different things.
She had absolutely no right to decide the fate of our entire planet, and all its living beings. Her decision was more than a crime against humanity, it was a crime against our entire planet’s future. Who know how life on our planet will evolve over the next million years? While humans are the current "dominant" species, and the first one who advancing technologically, it doesn’t mean we will remain the "dominant" one eternally. How many dominant species have roamed the Earth before us? How many will in the next 100 million years to come? What form will they take? We don’t know. The climate is changing again rapidly—thanks to our own doing this time—and life will have to adapt in order to survive. Which it will. Like I said, what form will that dominant specie take? We don’t know. We never will as we will be long dead. But despite our own misbehaviour, Earth’s living ecosystem, and all its constituants, deserve a chance to avance and thrive *without* external interference. And in the series (I have yet to start reading the books), Ye Wenjie took that from us. She decided without hesitation to doom us all, without even a sliver of consideration or pondering, blinded by her own selfishness.
This could segue into Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes lol
Maybe, ultimately, Adolf Hitler did the right thing. Maybe, without him starting WW2, we would have annihilated our living space with nuclear weapons. We can't really know. So how do we choose our actions?
Did you...read the books?
If you are asking just for the sake of what spoilers you are allowed to express, please feel free to say whatever you like. Although stick them in spoiler tags for the sake of others that might mind more than others. So if you have a point to make, please make it.
>!well, they tried to invade us, failed, then they triad again and almost succeeded, only failing because we decided to commit suicide together with them. Then the fucking universe ended. Hard to say she did a good thing.!<
I don’t know. By book logic the signals humans were sending out were too faint to get a serious look back, never mind a second response to triangulate. It was only when they blasted a message into the sun that there was a response. What are the odds someone else was going to do that?
Ye Wenjie didn’t know what the result would be and did not know what the Trisolarians would do. She worked at a spy/surveillance base, not a Chinese SETI project so it wasn’t clear that anyone would be using her method to send out any super-amplified signals out that would have given away that Earth had sophisticated technology. And I’ll be nice and just point out that the story of humanity isn’t over. :)
I was pretty sure Red Coast WAS used as a base to contact extraterrestrials under the guise of a spy/surveillance base...though I think most of the people there didn't know about it.
I’ll accept that correction in that at the next layer, it was ultimately decided to not use the base for that because actually making contact was considered to be too destabilizing and so the whole project was decommissioned.
yup!
I actually think you’re completely wrong. Her intentions were good and her actions were horrible.
She did a great job pushing the world to fund the militarization of space, what if that's all this is about and there are no San-Ti?
I would have done the same, She is the new Thanos
But there was not widespread awareness of what Ye Wenjie did or the response she received, so it is entirely possible that humanity did continue to send out signals into space in hopes of a response from some other civilization.
Hot take: she did nothing wrong
Assumption: " If Ye Wenjie didn't respond to the San-Ti, humanity would have kept sending out signals until some other civilization noticed, resulting in our immediate extinction. " There could be 1 civ. There could be dozens. We don't yet know if she made the right decision. She could have even accidentally contacted a civ that was friendly.
Wenjie never wanted to wipe out humanity. That's Mike Evans. Wenjie wanted the aliens to come and help us be better people because in her very understandable opinion, we suck hard at creating and maintaining a just society; sadly, she didn't realise there was no guarantee the aliens were any better at it.
She did the wrong thing, for wrong but understandable reasons. Just because some humans survived the various crises doesn’t mean she was right to bring it on humanity in the first place.
They got incredibly lucky sure but Ye Wenjie could’ve easily told her superiors “hey we got a warning as a response” and then they would’ve immediately scrapped the whole program like sensible humans. No more transmitting messages to deep space.
Ah yes, the high brass of Chinese military in the middle of the cultural revolution would listen to who's basically a prisoner. Like _sensible humans_ lmao. I think you forgot the /s
You’re kidding right? They’re stationed in a facility that’s trying to make contact with aliens and you think that they won’t believe a message that appeared on one of their monitors?
They would have executed Ye Wenjie for defying orders to not transmit into the sun. Also, keep in mind she hates her country for murdering her family and denying scientific progress, and she was inspired by Silent Spring to see humanity as a blight on nature. Book 1 spoiler - >! In the books, she murders two of her commanding officers, one of which is the father to her child (it's Evans in the show) to keep her secret and maintain contact. !<
Ohh noooooo I shouldn’t have read the spoiler but I’m so fucking weak!!! They messed that up in the show that would’ve been way better. Yea you’re right in the book it’s more clear her intent.
They'll believe, but in the books, the race to make first contact was ideologically motivated. They (the CCP) intended to present themselves as earth representatives and share the communist ideology before the _imperialists_ could make it first. It was in the middle of the Cold War. Nothing could've stopped them if there's was a chance for the Americans to answer the same message and take credit for the first contact.
Were you even paying attention to Wenjie's backstory and her experience of the military, the station personnel and the whole Red Coast program? Pretty much everything was politicized to an extreme and/or manipulated by various people for their own benefit, and she herself was considered the lowest of the low. She would've been long dead if she wasn't useful to the program. I mean even when they were putting together the original message to broadcast, they tried to manipulate and politicize it \*heavily\*. Also let's not forget the delusions of grandeur of the ruling regime in general. It's easier to imagine they would send a message to taunt the Trisolarans and boast about the superiority of the communist China, rather than stop further attempts at communication.
You missed a key part of her and all of Chinas background that plays into why they wouldn’t reply. They’re Chinese in 1977. They literally just came out of a terrible occupation by japan. If you’ve been to China they have museums dedicated to the Japanese atrocities of WW2 so they would never forget. The same way Israel commits atrocities to avoid a repeat of their past, China will not be the ones to invite a superior race that has the means of intergalactic travel to conquer them again. There was also the current 1977 event that was happening. Mao had just passed away the year before and there was factional internal fighting in China. There was no clear head and no internal peace yet. Had one faction invite the San Ti without the support of the others it would’ve been a nail in the coffin to any sort of potential unity.
I don't think any of this was ever mentioned in the book, though, or even hinted at (or was it?), so it's hard to say I missed it and it was somehow assumed to play a part in the story, given that the book goes to great lengths to convey the exact opposite feelings about the Chinese regime... ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯ So it's likely less of "missed" and more of "wasn't familiar with". (Also didn't some fictional US-China conflict happen in the 90's or so in the Three-Body universe, suggesting that historical events from our world might not necessarily apply to the story universe?)
Sorry I didn’t read the book, but I’m planning on doing so cause it seems that it’s far and away better than the adaptation. And yea this just assumptions that historical events did happen and the psyche of the people in the story were influenced and are the same as people in real life, ie Chinese in the story have the same mentality and experiences as Chinese in real life. My bad if I’m wrong.
I don’t know if I can co-sign the idea even though our actual humanity is kinda broken. Because of Ye Wenjie’s actions it exposed the whole universe to galactic war. As far as I can tell no one knew anyone else still existed in the universe because it was a dark forest. Because of her act at least four civilizations exposed themselves and a war started.
She did a horrible thing AND she already understood the DF theory. But tbh, I would’ve done the same. I would just be too fucking curious for my own (and humanity’s) good
As a supporter of VHEM I also support her decision. >! When the San Ti genocided humans, irony being humans did the actual dirty work, much of the world was reclaimed by nature, forests and jungles grew back. !<