"3 Body Problem" has so many problems!
Wake me up when the next "Expanse"-level sci-fi lands.
Wake me up when the next "Expanse"-level sci-fi lands.
Every time a seemingly intelligent person takes the dark forest hypothesis seriously I am dismayed. The only answer to the dark forest is: FTL is impossible and we are presently incapable of detecting ourselves at a distance of 4 LY so there is a 0.0% chance of detecting anything beyond that.
You don't need to detect a civilisation. All you need to detect is a planet hospitable to whatever biology suits you.
That said, our detection tech improves relatively quickly and we might be able to directly image rocky planets before this century is over. It's safe to assume that, if there is someone curious enough to look for planets with biosignatures or technosignatures that has been perfecting their craft for thousands, or millions of years, by now they must be very good at that.
This is not a fact to begin with, and in the book their civilization was repeatedly wiped out.
> Secondly, the trisolarans are hyper-advanced. They turn individual protons into sapient robots and play with antimatter, therefore they can make a damn air conditioner. Manufacturing habitats to isolate them from the effects of their orbit would be easier than almost every single other thing they do in the entire series, including transporting their whole species across interstellar distances. Some of the things they do would be harder than keeping their planet in a stable orbit by force.
This is not the failure mode they’re concerned with.
You also seem to drastically overestimate their capabilities.
however you missed some explanatory details:
!!!SPOILERS BELOW!!!
the trisolarans specifically evolved to survive their chaotic orbit, by being able to completely "dry out" and wait in stasis for a safer time. this is based on how some worms and bacteria on earth have the ability to survive extreme conditions by similar protective stasis methods.
the trisolarans are very intelligent but their advancements are constrained by the need to rebuild the civilization at unpredictable intervals. this actually drives their technological innovation as they are existentially motivated to figure out how to predict the orbital intervals.
its also implied that the trisolarans did not think themselves very far advanced compared to humans, only that they had a few centuries head start on understanding the fundamental nature of physics. they conclude that all they need to do is sabotage our particle colliders to confound our ability to gain any more insight into subatomic mechanics to prevent us from achieving what they have
moving their civilization across interstellar space is far less difficult than it would be for humans mostly because the civilizations can be dehydrated and kept in storage, not needing supplies to live out the years in transit. even so it still takes incredible engineering and resource investment to achieve because the fleet must move semi-autonomously and reliably for centuries because FTL travel is beyond their ability.
it would be impossible to stabilize their orbit because the planet is being chaotically thrown between 3 large stars. they are also not just concerend with surviving the next "hot cycle" they had predicted true apocalypse for even their survivable species. IIRC the planet was doomed to eventually fall into one of the stars based on their predictions
not quite. they are aware that they are significantly ahead of humans, but have also observed human scientific and technological progress following an exponential curve, since we do not get our civilization(s) wiped out periodically.
they fear that we will easily catch up with them in 400 years unless they somehow intervene.
Although I read the book when it first came out, I have basically zero memory of it, so I don't recall if FTL communication is essential to the story. However, having just watched the first season of the Netflix season, I explicitly noticed that even though it mentions use of FTL communication, the story absolutely doesn't need it at any time. There's a local representative of the distant folk who is clearly trusted to make decisions, and could represent the distant folk for all communication purposes.
When Evans speaks with the San Ti/Trisolarians, he is talking to them via one of a pair of sophons - quantum entangled protons.
Whether this changes their chance of success is certainly debatable, but it definitely changes their behavior.
(0) note that AFAIR from reading book 1 just about a month ago, this is series-canon, not book-canon.
But I do think it's worth suspending disbelief a bit to try and enjoy the other ideas presented. It's fiction for entertainment, not a serious warning to stop broadcasting signals out into the universe.
It's fun, but it's not an accurate prediction of our technological abilities.