Three Body Problem 1/2 Review

Three Body Problem 1/2 Review

Hi guys, this will be a two-part summary of book trilogy that I read back in 2024, and it still remain one of the best trilogies of sci-fi I have ever read, I started to reading The Three-Body Problem in April 2024, and it took me until July 2024 to finish the whole trilogy (I have not read The Redemption Of Time). I have to be honest, I was not expecting the direction this trilogy would take with all the character and with humanity as a whole, but the ending was great, it also me scary a bit , even though this was a science fiction novel rather than horror

I first heard this trilogy back at high school, but I never feel curious enough to read it until Netflix adaptation came out, I watched the whole first season, and it motivated me to learn the rest of the story. I still think the TV series is a good introduction to the trilogy

The Investigation Begins

The story starts when Dan Shi, a police detective, investigates a phenomenon in which a scientist name Ya Dong commits suicide despite having a successful background, he realizes that this accident is not an isolated cases, and similar cases happen worldwide. These suicide cases are accompanied by a new problem: particle physics experiments begin to produce nonsensical result, even though the same calculations had worked well for a long time. The experimental data has recently started to break down

His investigation leads to the discovery of a mysterious organization called the ETO, and he realizes this group is targeting another scientist, Wang Miao, because he is an important nanomaterials researcher. It turns out that this organization was created to sabotage humanity's scientific progress, and prepare the upcoming Trisolaran invasion.

First Contact

The first contact between humanity and the Trisolarans is initiated by Ye-Wenjie. She is recruited by a secret Chinese radio transmission based with a mission to search for extraterrestrial live. Her parents were killed during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, and her father was killed by the Communist Party because of his belief in scientific principle. One day, Ye have this idea to increase the power of transmitter by reflecting the signal off the sun. After she does this, she eventually receives a reply from an alien race called the Trisolaran. This alien being which replied to her was a pacifist, and she told her that to not replied back to her as their species was a conqueror, but Ye Wenjie drive by her mad to the China Communist Authority and the human race as whole decide that human race is not able to save themselves, and they need other being to make sure we are not destroying herself, she decided to replied and help Trisolaran to conquered earth once they arrived

The ETO Organization

ETO stand as Earth-Trisolaran-Organization was started to shape by Ye and Mike Evans, using the financial status of Mike Evans as the son of oil magnate he started to built the organization and started to recruit minded individual using some sort of game to this organization

Operation Guzheng

The world then stated to realize the danger of this alien invasion, and to gained momentum of knowing the enemy, Chang Weisi a Major General and Dan Shi decided they must storm the major headquarter of the enemy located in tanker ship called Judgement Day. To initialize the raid, they decided to employ sophisticated nanotechnology fiber from Wang Miao in an operation called Guzheng, they need to making sure all inhabitants of the ship was safely kill without damaging the information inside needed to know the enemy intent, they created a flying blade weapon that made from ultra strong monofilament that able to slice through matter with molecular precision to cut the ships apart and making sure the critical data that is damaged can be safely salvaged

The Sophon Revelation

Once the operation done, the humanity cipher some information and learned more of this alien being called Trisolarans, they also realize that the reason why the scientific progress of humanity started to decline due to interference by Trisolarans technology called Sophon, Sophon was a Microscopic supercomputer with a size of protons that can move and communicate instantly via quantum mechanics, The Trisolarans are using this to prevent particle acceleration experiment happen worldwide by falsifying data

They also learn that Sophon allow Trisolarans able to heard all human communication anywhere, so no conversation is secret from Sophon as they can heard it instantly if it threatening them.

The Wallfacer Project

Realizing this, the united nation decided to assemble a Wallfacer project, the world will choose 4 people to represent humanity to develop complex, and hidden strategies without the need to state the reason of their intent as long the order did not violate international law. This project also services to confused the Trisolarans, as they didn't have the capability to read human mind and intent hence this project aim to fight back the Trisolarans by using deception while humanity develop their technology and space weapon capability using the current scientific progress they have

The chosen Wallfacer then started to make their own progress on the idea they see suitable to save humanity, The Trisolarans realizing human plan started to make plan to counter the wallfacer by choosing a selection of people loyal to their cause to become Wallbreaker, with a goal to making sure that their idea was abandon or exposed to stop them in making their plan reality

The Four Wallfacers

At this time the war preparation is accelerate, during this time the four Wallfacers started to plan their own counter attack to combat Trisolarans.

First Wallfacer – Frederick Tyler who is US General plan to deploy nuclear bombs around debris cloud, with a plan to explode it if Trisolarans fleet come closed, but this plan was failed due to wallbreaker exposed a weakness of this plan on needed Human Ships to carry the bomb, it was later led to the creation of Trisolarans droplet that put the plan on stop

Second Wallfacer – Manu Reyes plan to used human pheromones to drive Trisolarans crazy once they land, this development started on his observation that Trisolarans dehydration fluid affected human cognition, but this plan was broke by wallbreaker as he exposed the plan and make the research futile due to Trisolarans lacked biological olfactory systems

Third Wallfacer – Bill Hines plan to accelerate human brain development through prion and neural enhancement to an intelligent human that surpass Sophon intelligence, but this plan was cipher and failed due his experiment of brain proved unstable and fatal, despite he continuing doing the research, his role as wallbreaker was abandon

The last Wallfacer - Luo Ji is strangely unique, he does not carry out visible research or build weapon like the others. Instead, he wants to test a piece of cosmic sociology he calls the "Dark Forest" theory. Dark Forest was a theory that many intelligent being is hiding inside cosmos waiting to stalk and kill the being that shown up. He test this by broadcasting the location of star, 187J3X1 and go for a cryogenic sleep with instruction to be awakened if anything happens. He is woken 51 years later, when the star has been destroyed, proving that the Dark Forest is real, he then decided to salvage Frederick remaining cluster of nuclear weapon and scatter them in a precise formation around the sun. If triggered, the explosions will create dust clouds that broadcast the Trisolarans location to the entire universe. Luo Ji has found a way to save humanity by creating an ultimate deterrent on the Dark Forest Theory

The Deterrence Era

Realizing this Trisolarans kneel and decided to stop their act of aggression toward human, they decided to abandon the invasion plan and reversed away from Earth. Hence the humanity enter a new era called deterrence where they live with other intelligent being watch them from afar