While people might remember it for other more striking ideas, I was impressed with how it expounds the theory behind the claims that "intelligence implies violence". That entire narrative was quite chilling.
That, and the way the author explains how to establish a means of communication using just... pain.
It's a brilliant book.
Feels like a precursor to the Dark Forest theory.
The Three Body Trilogy was absolutely packed with fantastic and original ideas, and explained/presented in ways that flowed well with the story. That's how I found it anyway. I very much enjoyed all three Three Body Problem books. Also very much enjoyed Blindsight.
If not sarcasm, I feel sorry for your not being able to extract joy from any of those books, and hope there are others that tickle your fancy that maybe the HN readership might like to know about. Going by your email address, I'd guess that maybe Accelerando might do it?
I disagree it's unoriginal, though. It's pretty original, you just have to be prepared to suspend your disbelief (it's kind of on me that I wasn't when I read it).
But I took Dark Forest to mean the Dark Forest Theory which the post I was replying to mentioned, and that's just a common theory under a new name, which has been a commonly known solution to the Fermi paradox for so long that no one is credited with coming up with it. It's given the "deadly probe" name in a SETI review of the Fermi paradox literature in 1984.
Peter Watts has a very dark view of humanity.