The Ultimate Weapon of The Trisolarans | Three Body Problem Series

It’s not every day that I encounter a series of books that I just love. Especially science fiction. Since I read The remembrance of Earth's past aka the Three-body problem series last year, I have not stopped thinking about it. The scale of this series is enormous, the ominous mysteries it invokes are intriguing and chilling to the core. In this video, we discuss some of the major events detailed in book two of the series, The Dark Forest, The Great Ravine, and the Trisolaran invasion of the Solar System.

By Year 205 of the Crisis Era, humanity at large believed that they had nothing to fear from the Trisolaran Fleet which had more than 200 years before it would reach the solar system. Fear of the Trisolarans, whose sophon technology had crippled humankind's understanding of physics, and allowed the aliens real-time knowledge of events on earth, had once nearly destroyed humanity, plunging them into the devastating period of time known as the great ravine. One might be tempted to compare the great ravine to the great depression of 1930, but the great ravine in no way compares to the depression…it is far worse. In the year 1930 there were about 2 billion people on earth, at the start of the great ravine there were 8.3 Billion people on earth, and when there was no more food, billions starved.

Cover art: The Listener by Zcool

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[SilyusPayne]

The droplet was one of my favourite parts in the trilogy. It illustrates perfectly well how a battle between two sides with completely different technological levels looks like. It was a detail that made clear why Trisolarians locked down specifically the study in particle physics in the previous book. This way, the primitive humanity was forced to spend the last centuries in their precious island crafting the best bows and spears they could, only to be annihilated by long range artillery before the real battle could even begin.

[jonathanwarta]

One of the most amazing things about this trilogy is Cixin Liu’s ability to credibly imagine technology far beyond current human capabilities, but sufficiently within our understanding to be creepy and chilling.

The teardrop, the dimensional foil, lightspeed… such a brilliant mind.

[EL-ISS]

"If I destroy you, what business of it is yours?"

That line from The Dark Forest absolutely haunted me. Basically being so technologically insignificant that it's tantamount to someone kicking over an ant hill.

[briannenurse]

When you talked about the humans interpreting the droplet as a gift, I was like "Have these people never read about the Trojan horse?"

[cnfracto]

I remember getting to that part of the book completely convinced that humanity was unbeatable, and that there was no way for the author to recover the tension that one felt during the wallfacer parts of the book.
Oh boy how wrong I was, it made me feel as arrogant as the humans of that era.

[robb]

The Dark Forest had a slow start for me but The Droplet scene is definitely one of the best moments of the series

[DavidTheGnome]

(spoilers for all 3 books)
It's pretty interesting that the military strategists were worried about facing antimatter weapons at the doomsday battle, and then ultimately, the only time any humans were threatened by antimatter, it was Wade's soldiers in the 3rd book. Humans always speculating on how to counter technology that they wind up turning on themselves. The cold war-like deterrence state and technological creep in this series is so so well done. Always tense and constantly evolving.

[beauc]

Aliens are crossing centuries worth of space to annihilate you and conquer your planet, they sent incredibly tiny intangible computers to stall your technology and have not shown a single instance of mercy.
"This menacing tear must be a gift!" Those billions of dead must've included all the skeptics.

[casey]

the teardrop only became hostile once someone truly understood that it was hostile. that's the creepiest thing...

[jeanerasmus]

Honestly there were so many impactful moments in Book Two that still gives me chills to this day. Lets just say that if A Storm of Swords had the Red Wedding, Dark Forest had like 6 Red Wedding tier moments, it's crazy 😂

[snapintoaslimjimohyeah]

This was BY FAR the most riveting and engrossing part of the whole series for me… Just the utter devastation and humiliation of the human fleet after all they thought they had accomplished…Fantastic. I compare this part to the end of the last book when the entire solar system is being consumed by the dimensional object thing, but that part had such a sense of prolonged dread because it happened almost in slow motion compared to the Droplet attack. Anyway, both scenes were absolutely devastating and epic in scale. Wonderful writing.

[femmedracula]

Remembrance of Earth's Past is well written but so laden with doom that I actually felt existential despair after reading it. Not about the real world, just how the books left me feeling. For a lot of reasons I don't think I'll ever read them again but I'm glad I *did* read them, and love your videos analyzing them.

[martingomez]

I started the series because of you, and finally finished it yesterday.

[xahbal]

Most humiliating part is when you think you are advanced. Trisolarans defeated you by a tactic you used in the stone age. Throwing a hard object at you.

[elbarto]

Cixin Liu really knows how to play with the readers feelings. Although it was already pretty clear as a reader that mankind would not just overcome the Trisolarians technology and be able to defeat them, Liu perfectly brings across the the human optimism as they thought they had advanced to a technology level way beyond the Trisloarians. Thus even the reader became optimistic that humanity would be able to defend them self. This quickly turned into a feeling of hopelessness and depression after humanity encountered the droplet.
Imagine being a human after the droplet attack and how hopeless and little you must feel. Like an ant that was stupid enough to think it is smarter than a human and can fight the humans just to see how a human destroys a big ant hill, with millions of ants that worked so hard for to build over years, within a few seconds.
After this chapter I somehow also felt somewhat hopeless and pessimistic for a few days and I think I have never been touched by a book in this way.

[tamaleseason]

I’m so happy someone is making 3BP content. I still haven’t reached the highs of this sci-fi series since I’ve this series a couple years ago. It’s a masterpiece

[animeadept]

Quinn, I'm angry I found your channel so late into your content. You're an amazing dude and deserve an intergalactic award. I understand more about the world. My naivety was transmuted into knowledge, thank you... honestly

[georgedeng]

One of my favourite sci-fi battles that I know, its so unique and different compared to other sci-fi battles. So glad more people are talking about this series.

[christianbass]

I am not a book reader😢 and I am glad people would go out and do this kind of video. I'd like watching graphical stories.

[serhanbakir]

This was one of the most psychologically devastating moments of the book for me... even after all those years past, when I watch this video, I suddenly went back to that feeling of hopelessness and fear. Brilliance in imagination and perfection in writing...
very nice playlist by the way, keep up 👏