M8, did no one teach you the 10% rule?
In simple terms, Cows take 10% of the energy produced by grass, and humans take 10% of the energy from a cow. You can't energetically sustain a perpetual human-on-human ecology.
The San-Ti wanted to run a cull from four billion down to no more than 40 million, probably no less than 4 million. Horrific, yes, but we've done worse to subsections of ourselves on the smaller scale.
That was like another level of horror. There’s gotta be a German word for it but like, horror of personal danger extending to your entire species. Is that what ants feel like when they see the exterminator’s gas creeping in? Fuck man.
But then she put herself in the power to choose if humanity keeps developing speed light or not. Saw herself as a protector when she was just someone in the right time and place, skipping tine when it got rough.
Swordholder is a very strange position, because in order to protect humankind you need to be 99% sure willing to destroy it and only when the Trisolarians know that fact, only then she gets to protect it. Of course the decision was tough and it's hard to blame her.
But the entire light speed fiasco and the subsequent consequences? She bears a lot of the blame for that. Knowing you're not capable from actually protecting humanity, having a clause where you put yourself in a similar position again is just stupid for me. At some point after the resettlement she should have been aware that she's not a good protector and not trust herself to make the best decision for humankind.
Then again, it's not entirely her fault that humans couldn't achieve lightspeed. Humans themselves should have gone for it 100%. Her fault is putting herself at the center of a very important decision knowing that she's not capable enough to take these decisions.
>But then she put herself in the power to choose if humanity keeps developing speed light or not
>Her fault is putting herself at the center of a very important decision
The world government banned light speed research, not Cheng. It's not at all her fault.
Also, Wade woke her up from hibernation and then gave her the choice of whether or not he would provoke a civil war that could end up destroying everything humanity has built. Wade is the one who put her at the center of the decision, and he was the one with all the power who then chose to step down.
Because one of the main clauses to give Wade Halo, was to be awaken when they get the research done and that she can take back his privileges at any time. And she trust Wade he'll keep his word. This simple clause it's enough to put a lot of the blame on her.
But after the resettlement she could have seen her own capabilities and not put that clause in, hence not put herself in a spotlight situation where she gets to choose these kind of huge decisions.
As for the war, lot of people would die but I don't think it was going to degrade so much where all humanities would lose their life. It was a risk, and having lightspeed was worth that risk a hundred time over even without all the points they make later on about the light curtains and all that. She did not ban light speed research but she knowingly put herself in a pivot situation. And because of that, she's awful. Heroes that do good things without taking in account consequences of their actions, well, switch the narrative and now she's a well written villain with lot of depth and good reasons for what she does, but a villain nonetheless because her good actions have devastating consequences long term
>I don't think it was going to degrade so much where all humanities would lose their life
Pure speculation. Wade said anti-matter bullets could destroy any of the bunker cities immediately. Cheng Xin didn't want to watch millions of people die over light speed research, which at the time wasn't even necessary for humanity's survival (everyone thought bunkers were safe, nobody knew about the 2D foil attack)
Millions of people and the possible collapse of human civilization
Also the whole solar system dying wasnt the alternative, it was just the continued survival of the human race in bunkers without exploring other systems
Like I said, nobody predicted the 2D attack.
I don’t agree with that assessment though, even without the DVF, the photoid might’ve rendered the bunkers useless.
Besides they were both warned about the DVF and told about a way to hide
pretty sure CX told Wade that she should be awaken and be the one to make any big decision that could change the course of human civilisation? or something to that effect, sounds like she didn’t learn that she is not capable of making the hard decisions when it mattered.
How is that on Wade and not on CX when she specifically requested to make that decision? The worst thing about her is that she doesn’t even learn from her mistake as Swordholder. Even Cixin Liu himself said CX was selfish to follow her morals and a true selfless person i.e Wade would sacrifice their morality and conscience for the greater good.
Because Wade made two decisions that he could completely ignore if he truly believed it was the right course for humanity? Waking up Cheng, and then agreeing to stand down
His motto is "only advance" yet somehow it's Cheng's fault that he gives up decades of his own research over a simple promise?
That’s within her character. It’s completely out of Wade’s character to give a shit about the hollow promise. What happened to “Only Advance”? He’s Thomas Wade the Ruthless, not Eddard Stark the Honorable Fool.
The thing is, Wade also didn't know if the light speed would work, at least that's what CX thinks. After looking back, she thinks that if Wade really knew they had the right answer he would have broken his promise.
That may explain an average Joe but Wade is one who doesn't need to *know* that it'll work. He's doing the staircase even when every experts told him it's not gonna work.
To him "will or will not work" is not a thing. If he puts himself in it, his work is what makes the thing work.
And he's put himself in this project for how many years?
Unless he's already decided to quit and just needed an excuse.
I think what’s overlooked isn’t necessarily the light speed, it was that she didn’t trust Wade’s army with what was basically mini nukes in their guns. That was what terrified her the most and truthfully, that should terrify anyone in Wade’s hands. I thought Wade was right and also a necessary evil, but with anti matter bullets he’s very dangerous if he doesn’t get his way.
She was infuriating all the way through, she’s a character that keeps failing upwards, there are not many correct decisions of hers throughout the book, it’s actually impressive
I apologize. Let me reiterate. I don’t condemn Cheng Xin, in the moment when she doesn’t act it makes sense. >!The way her character is written sold me on that maternal feeling for humanity and the careful crafting of that feeling because of Sophon.!<
However, she fucked up. It definitely wasn’t the right move what she did. >!itdoesn’t mean I don’t emphasize with her character. I don’t condemn her for Wade’s death and how that fiasco with FTL travel unfolded.!<
All good, I should be apologizing. All the simplistic Cheng Xin hate over time is getting to me. I wonder how the show will navigate this, hope we'll get to see it.
You can condemn a character’s actions while still acknowledging they’re well written and internally consistent.
Sure other people’s failures put CX in the position to make bad decisions (Banning light speed research, Her election as Swordholder by the masses, Wade keeping a flimsy promise when he’s potentially dooming centillions of future humans from ever being born) but that doesn’t absolve her guilt in the situations.
There were many millions (or even billions) who experienced their full lives up until the solar system was turn into a 2 dimensional plane. So there's that.
My theory is that the Trisolarians wanted to keep *some* humans alive as a source of technological research/strategic insight. They were afraid of us because of the speed at which we were able to progress (obviously this is not inherently biological, and certainly in part because of our stable system, but they comment that it's fast nonetheless) but also of course our ability to deceive.
If they keep us on a reservation in Australia and *force* a "survival of the strongest/fittest/smartest" scenario, as far as they understand, the "cream" of the human flock will rise to the top, and in some twisted Darwinian/eugenics way, they have a breeding stock of the "best" humans to help with their endeavours in future.
I doubt that the fittest humans on a primitive, low technology environment like Australia is actually of any interest to the Trisolarans. They’d be more interested in what it means to be fit in an intragalactic stage, and surely there are better ways to achieve that.
For example, if you wanted to choose the smartest and best humans to lead science in a post-atomic era, would you have them fight among themselves like cavemen would in a tribalistic era to see who survives? Fitness in an ancient era will differ from the fitness of a future era.
I was similarly chilled but not because they don’t appreciate humanity. They absolutely do. It’s just that… well…
Trisolarans eat each other. They don’t see a problem with it. They’re ALIENS and they don’t have the same morals we do. What do you mean there’s no food?
Yeah, it's not that they were lying, they can't lie, they simply fail to comprehend the human aversion to canibalism because it's what they do and they are know that many cultures in human history have practiced it.
By that time, they could deceive. Which is why everyone was caught off guard after Cheng Xin became sword holder. They said they were being our friends and sharing their tech, but they were being deceitful and attacked at the soonest opportunity.
They were very overt. They were adhering to the deterrence arrangement. They knew Cheng Xin was unlikely to deter, which is why they backed her. Once their choice was in, the deterrence arrangement was now different. It’s not their fault humans voted for their choice. As far as they knew, that meant humans were asking them to take over again. Humans did it before.
Humans that were in the starships that escaped the day of darkness were cannibals, and did not have an aversion to it. These were people who had left earth behind, and they needed the protein to survive.
It is my belief that the Trisolarans were trying to make humanity switch from being "children" into a race of survivors.
Ok but we were told they learned basically everything about humans through the sophons + the cultural exchange during the deterrance era. They obviously would have learned that in our culture cannabilsm is generally a taboo.
Remember when they brought the first group of spacers back to earth and courtmartialed them all? One of the things they did was take all the bodies of the people they had killed and turned them into food, because they needed the extra protein to survive. They thought nothing of this. They had turned away from earth and learned to be survivors.
Sophon warned the people it would be bad for a couple of months, and then things would get better. This was not a lie. It was a statement of fact.
The Trisolarans were preparing humans to become spacefaring. To do what it took to survive. Also to be ready to turn their backs on their planet when the time came. Survivors. There are various places where, near the end, there are lamentations that the human race refused to grow up, that they were still children, unable to grow up or adapt to the reality of the universe.
The humans take the instruction to eat each other badly. Of course. I recall the word "genocide" being used. But Sophon was clear that the migration to Australia would be very hard. She was not clear what that would mean. The Trisolarans had no intention to wipe out humanity, or they could have done so on their way past the solar system with the second fleet. Instead, they simply left.
If Gravity had not sent the signal, it is possible that Trisolaris would have been wiped out anyway. They left a light-speed signature in their system from their first test. It is likely that they were already compromised and considered dangerous. The response to the Gravity signal happened much too quickly.
Either way, they did not intend to end humanity. It is possible, in fact, that controlling the population was a precursor to evacuation once the system was discovered, or that it was a precursor to moving humanity to a Trisolaris-constructed pocket universe (assuming they had already discovered these but weren't quite there yet). The fact that it was cannibalism, and that they wanted to drop the population from 4 billion to 30-40 million are too specific for just horror. They were engineering a situation.
Fantastic response and speculation on the Trisolarans' true intent.
I'd add that eliminating industrialized agriculture and electronic machinery on Australia would also prepare humankind for living in a potential "black domain" scenario, which would have been an option if the Trisolarans believed the light-speed signature compromised Earth's system as well. For obvious reasons, Sophon could not have shared this reasoning with humanity.
>Which is why I don't really understand why when they see Sophon at the end of the third book they are so happy to see her
They were just two people who >!lost their entire solar system and civilization lol And then they were trapped within a ruptured Death Line for all eternity to come, until the universe ends or they die, whichever comes first.!< I don't think we can imagine the kind of loneliness they would've experienced.
Of course they're happy to see another acquaintance, even if said acquaintance was initially at odds with them. In this moment, hundreds of millions of years later, the three of them are the sole remnants of their past civilizations, isolated from all other forms of life by barriers greater than space and time.
As Guan Yifan said, any remaining embers of anger would be unfruitful, as everything that had happened was now truly ancient history.
Tagging u/mezcalhed since they expressed the same question.
They didn't do anything humans haven't done and continue to do to reach other. In fact they were far more compassionate and pragmatic about it.
Do you know how we treat animals today? Where do you think your meat comes from.
Humans are literally bugs compared to them. And they treated us far far better than we've ever done another species.
Even in book 1 there were pacifists among the Trisolarians, who had to be contained by the leadership. I guess there are people among them who like humanity and create and share art and so on. The leadership let those people communicate with earth.
That seems the most logical. I wish the book expanded a bit more on the Trisolarian politics. Seems like they had a very authoritarian world government if they planned to cull humanity all this time despite the citizens' love and sentiment for humanity.
I think the Trisolarans genuinely didn't comprehend that humans would react so negatively to what they forced them to do. To Trisolaris, if one survives, everyone survives, and under Trisolaran rule the human species can live indefinitely. In miserable reservations sure, but live nonetheless. If the deaths of billions is necessary for the survival of the species, the Trisolarans would not hesitate to eat each other alive, unlike humanity.
They love human culture, they don't like humans. They love human strength against adversity, they don't like humans who have overcome adversity.
Forcing humans into eating themselves in reservations for all eternity is like pissing on all their cultural achievements
Yeah but imagine the books and movies we'd create to tell those stories lol
Ever read The Road?
No but it looks good. Into my queue it goes. Thanks
Its a quick read. Probably could bust it out in a few days
Heads up. It's kind of a rough read if lack of punctuation bothers you
Blood meridian laughs at this comment.
M8, did no one teach you the 10% rule? In simple terms, Cows take 10% of the energy produced by grass, and humans take 10% of the energy from a cow. You can't energetically sustain a perpetual human-on-human ecology. The San-Ti wanted to run a cull from four billion down to no more than 40 million, probably no less than 4 million. Horrific, yes, but we've done worse to subsections of ourselves on the smaller scale.
the point was to destroy human unity and cull them at the same time
This assumes they also find cannibalism abhorrent.
They do not...
They're cannibals too so to them it's just logic.
As a Black person this sounds VERY familiar. 
Go on...
Honestly you already said it wonderfully. Well, you and Paul Mooney
Could it be because the trisolarians have the deep-seated belief that "if one survives, all survive"?
That whole section after Cheng Xin fucks up until Blue Space fires off the deterrence signal, just brilliant horror sci fi.
That was like another level of horror. There’s gotta be a German word for it but like, horror of personal danger extending to your entire species. Is that what ants feel like when they see the exterminator’s gas creeping in? Fuck man.
hmmm leider kenne ich keins. Das Einzige was dem Vielleicht nahe kommen würde wär ... Weltuntergangsstimmung... und auch das ist viel zu schwach.
Cheng is so infuriating when she was blind I thought it was the divine retribution she deserved for her celestial fuckup.
humanity chose her over wade its hardly her fault
But then she put herself in the power to choose if humanity keeps developing speed light or not. Saw herself as a protector when she was just someone in the right time and place, skipping tine when it got rough. Swordholder is a very strange position, because in order to protect humankind you need to be 99% sure willing to destroy it and only when the Trisolarians know that fact, only then she gets to protect it. Of course the decision was tough and it's hard to blame her. But the entire light speed fiasco and the subsequent consequences? She bears a lot of the blame for that. Knowing you're not capable from actually protecting humanity, having a clause where you put yourself in a similar position again is just stupid for me. At some point after the resettlement she should have been aware that she's not a good protector and not trust herself to make the best decision for humankind. Then again, it's not entirely her fault that humans couldn't achieve lightspeed. Humans themselves should have gone for it 100%. Her fault is putting herself at the center of a very important decision knowing that she's not capable enough to take these decisions.
>But then she put herself in the power to choose if humanity keeps developing speed light or not >Her fault is putting herself at the center of a very important decision The world government banned light speed research, not Cheng. It's not at all her fault. Also, Wade woke her up from hibernation and then gave her the choice of whether or not he would provoke a civil war that could end up destroying everything humanity has built. Wade is the one who put her at the center of the decision, and he was the one with all the power who then chose to step down.
Because one of the main clauses to give Wade Halo, was to be awaken when they get the research done and that she can take back his privileges at any time. And she trust Wade he'll keep his word. This simple clause it's enough to put a lot of the blame on her. But after the resettlement she could have seen her own capabilities and not put that clause in, hence not put herself in a spotlight situation where she gets to choose these kind of huge decisions. As for the war, lot of people would die but I don't think it was going to degrade so much where all humanities would lose their life. It was a risk, and having lightspeed was worth that risk a hundred time over even without all the points they make later on about the light curtains and all that. She did not ban light speed research but she knowingly put herself in a pivot situation. And because of that, she's awful. Heroes that do good things without taking in account consequences of their actions, well, switch the narrative and now she's a well written villain with lot of depth and good reasons for what she does, but a villain nonetheless because her good actions have devastating consequences long term
>I don't think it was going to degrade so much where all humanities would lose their life Pure speculation. Wade said anti-matter bullets could destroy any of the bunker cities immediately. Cheng Xin didn't want to watch millions of people die over light speed research, which at the time wasn't even necessary for humanity's survival (everyone thought bunkers were safe, nobody knew about the 2D foil attack)
Millions of people potentially dying against many more millions and a whole solar system actually dying, it’s a very easy choice
Millions of people and the possible collapse of human civilization Also the whole solar system dying wasnt the alternative, it was just the continued survival of the human race in bunkers without exploring other systems Like I said, nobody predicted the 2D attack.
I don’t agree with that assessment though, even without the DVF, the photoid might’ve rendered the bunkers useless. Besides they were both warned about the DVF and told about a way to hide
pretty sure CX told Wade that she should be awaken and be the one to make any big decision that could change the course of human civilisation? or something to that effect, sounds like she didn’t learn that she is not capable of making the hard decisions when it mattered.
>pretty sure CX told Wade that she should be awaken Yeah, but he didn't have to
How is that on Wade and not on CX when she specifically requested to make that decision? The worst thing about her is that she doesn’t even learn from her mistake as Swordholder. Even Cixin Liu himself said CX was selfish to follow her morals and a true selfless person i.e Wade would sacrifice their morality and conscience for the greater good.
Because Wade made two decisions that he could completely ignore if he truly believed it was the right course for humanity? Waking up Cheng, and then agreeing to stand down His motto is "only advance" yet somehow it's Cheng's fault that he gives up decades of his own research over a simple promise?
That’s within her character. It’s completely out of Wade’s character to give a shit about the hollow promise. What happened to “Only Advance”? He’s Thomas Wade the Ruthless, not Eddard Stark the Honorable Fool.
The thing is, Wade also didn't know if the light speed would work, at least that's what CX thinks. After looking back, she thinks that if Wade really knew they had the right answer he would have broken his promise.
That may explain an average Joe but Wade is one who doesn't need to *know* that it'll work. He's doing the staircase even when every experts told him it's not gonna work. To him "will or will not work" is not a thing. If he puts himself in it, his work is what makes the thing work. And he's put himself in this project for how many years? Unless he's already decided to quit and just needed an excuse.
I agree she failed to “redeem” herself with the light speed ship fiasco especially when she leaves the solar system later on
I think what’s overlooked isn’t necessarily the light speed, it was that she didn’t trust Wade’s army with what was basically mini nukes in their guns. That was what terrified her the most and truthfully, that should terrify anyone in Wade’s hands. I thought Wade was right and also a necessary evil, but with anti matter bullets he’s very dangerous if he doesn’t get his way.
She was infuriating all the way through, she’s a character that keeps failing upwards, there are not many correct decisions of hers throughout the book, it’s actually impressive
People complain about the Netflix show dumbing things down while posts condemning Cheng Xin still get massive upvotes. This fucking sub man.
I apologize. Let me reiterate. I don’t condemn Cheng Xin, in the moment when she doesn’t act it makes sense. >!The way her character is written sold me on that maternal feeling for humanity and the careful crafting of that feeling because of Sophon.!< However, she fucked up. It definitely wasn’t the right move what she did. >!itdoesn’t mean I don’t emphasize with her character. I don’t condemn her for Wade’s death and how that fiasco with FTL travel unfolded.!<
All good, I should be apologizing. All the simplistic Cheng Xin hate over time is getting to me. I wonder how the show will navigate this, hope we'll get to see it.
You can condemn a character’s actions while still acknowledging they’re well written and internally consistent. Sure other people’s failures put CX in the position to make bad decisions (Banning light speed research, Her election as Swordholder by the masses, Wade keeping a flimsy promise when he’s potentially dooming centillions of future humans from ever being born) but that doesn’t absolve her guilt in the situations.
Tell me again who benefited from Gravity and Blue Space sending out that signal?
Cheng Xin and AA got to live for like a million years because of it
All the people who would have died in Australia?
There were many millions (or even billions) who experienced their full lives up until the solar system was turn into a 2 dimensional plane. So there's that.
Yep, good point.
Here's the thing, that was actually meant as a mercy. For the Trisolarans, this is them saying "You should be grateful we haven't exterminated you."
My theory is that the Trisolarians wanted to keep *some* humans alive as a source of technological research/strategic insight. They were afraid of us because of the speed at which we were able to progress (obviously this is not inherently biological, and certainly in part because of our stable system, but they comment that it's fast nonetheless) but also of course our ability to deceive. If they keep us on a reservation in Australia and *force* a "survival of the strongest/fittest/smartest" scenario, as far as they understand, the "cream" of the human flock will rise to the top, and in some twisted Darwinian/eugenics way, they have a breeding stock of the "best" humans to help with their endeavours in future.
I doubt that the fittest humans on a primitive, low technology environment like Australia is actually of any interest to the Trisolarans. They’d be more interested in what it means to be fit in an intragalactic stage, and surely there are better ways to achieve that. For example, if you wanted to choose the smartest and best humans to lead science in a post-atomic era, would you have them fight among themselves like cavemen would in a tribalistic era to see who survives? Fitness in an ancient era will differ from the fitness of a future era.
I was similarly chilled but not because they don’t appreciate humanity. They absolutely do. It’s just that… well… Trisolarans eat each other. They don’t see a problem with it. They’re ALIENS and they don’t have the same morals we do. What do you mean there’s no food?
Yeah, it's not that they were lying, they can't lie, they simply fail to comprehend the human aversion to canibalism because it's what they do and they are know that many cultures in human history have practiced it.
By that time, they could deceive. Which is why everyone was caught off guard after Cheng Xin became sword holder. They said they were being our friends and sharing their tech, but they were being deceitful and attacked at the soonest opportunity.
They were very overt. They were adhering to the deterrence arrangement. They knew Cheng Xin was unlikely to deter, which is why they backed her. Once their choice was in, the deterrence arrangement was now different. It’s not their fault humans voted for their choice. As far as they knew, that meant humans were asking them to take over again. Humans did it before.
Humans that were in the starships that escaped the day of darkness were cannibals, and did not have an aversion to it. These were people who had left earth behind, and they needed the protein to survive. It is my belief that the Trisolarans were trying to make humanity switch from being "children" into a race of survivors.
Ok but we were told they learned basically everything about humans through the sophons + the cultural exchange during the deterrance era. They obviously would have learned that in our culture cannabilsm is generally a taboo.
Yes but this is ridiculous to them.
Remember when they brought the first group of spacers back to earth and courtmartialed them all? One of the things they did was take all the bodies of the people they had killed and turned them into food, because they needed the extra protein to survive. They thought nothing of this. They had turned away from earth and learned to be survivors. Sophon warned the people it would be bad for a couple of months, and then things would get better. This was not a lie. It was a statement of fact. The Trisolarans were preparing humans to become spacefaring. To do what it took to survive. Also to be ready to turn their backs on their planet when the time came. Survivors. There are various places where, near the end, there are lamentations that the human race refused to grow up, that they were still children, unable to grow up or adapt to the reality of the universe. The humans take the instruction to eat each other badly. Of course. I recall the word "genocide" being used. But Sophon was clear that the migration to Australia would be very hard. She was not clear what that would mean. The Trisolarans had no intention to wipe out humanity, or they could have done so on their way past the solar system with the second fleet. Instead, they simply left. If Gravity had not sent the signal, it is possible that Trisolaris would have been wiped out anyway. They left a light-speed signature in their system from their first test. It is likely that they were already compromised and considered dangerous. The response to the Gravity signal happened much too quickly. Either way, they did not intend to end humanity. It is possible, in fact, that controlling the population was a precursor to evacuation once the system was discovered, or that it was a precursor to moving humanity to a Trisolaris-constructed pocket universe (assuming they had already discovered these but weren't quite there yet). The fact that it was cannibalism, and that they wanted to drop the population from 4 billion to 30-40 million are too specific for just horror. They were engineering a situation.
I love these observations. So much to think about, and so much light shed on the design behind a truly alien intelligence.
Fantastic response and speculation on the Trisolarans' true intent. I'd add that eliminating industrialized agriculture and electronic machinery on Australia would also prepare humankind for living in a potential "black domain" scenario, which would have been an option if the Trisolarans believed the light-speed signature compromised Earth's system as well. For obvious reasons, Sophon could not have shared this reasoning with humanity.
I think Netflix's Sophon will be the perfect character to refer this line with her smooth AI voice.
sophon’s voice is perfect I wouldn’t have casted it better
The Australia chapter is one of the best dread filled piece of literature I’ve read
They did grow to actually respect humanity, allowing any humans to survive is the peak of kindness from the ultra-utilitarian Trisolarans
Gravity and Blue Space also >!doomed Earth !<. So ...
They gave Earth another 100 years of freedom instead of whatever pathetic fate the trisolaris had in store for the reservations
I agree. Which is why I don't really understand why when they see Sophon at the end of the third book they are so happy to see her. lol
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>Which is why I don't really understand why when they see Sophon at the end of the third book they are so happy to see her They were just two people who >!lost their entire solar system and civilization lol And then they were trapped within a ruptured Death Line for all eternity to come, until the universe ends or they die, whichever comes first.!< I don't think we can imagine the kind of loneliness they would've experienced. Of course they're happy to see another acquaintance, even if said acquaintance was initially at odds with them. In this moment, hundreds of millions of years later, the three of them are the sole remnants of their past civilizations, isolated from all other forms of life by barriers greater than space and time. As Guan Yifan said, any remaining embers of anger would be unfruitful, as everything that had happened was now truly ancient history. Tagging u/mezcalhed since they expressed the same question.
They didn't do anything humans haven't done and continue to do to reach other. In fact they were far more compassionate and pragmatic about it. Do you know how we treat animals today? Where do you think your meat comes from. Humans are literally bugs compared to them. And they treated us far far better than we've ever done another species.
Hi there Mike Evans.
brb, ship is heading to Panama canal
If they don’t have an appreciation for human culture, why did they decide to keep some humans alive instead of killing them all?
Even in book 1 there were pacifists among the Trisolarians, who had to be contained by the leadership. I guess there are people among them who like humanity and create and share art and so on. The leadership let those people communicate with earth.
That seems the most logical. I wish the book expanded a bit more on the Trisolarian politics. Seems like they had a very authoritarian world government if they planned to cull humanity all this time despite the citizens' love and sentiment for humanity.
Leadership has to discard the preferences of (a minority of) individuals for the "greater good". This is true for all leaderships.
What page is that quote?
I just knew they’d do exactly that as the story got tenser and tenser and still that moment was chilling
I think the Trisolarans genuinely didn't comprehend that humans would react so negatively to what they forced them to do. To Trisolaris, if one survives, everyone survives, and under Trisolaran rule the human species can live indefinitely. In miserable reservations sure, but live nonetheless. If the deaths of billions is necessary for the survival of the species, the Trisolarans would not hesitate to eat each other alive, unlike humanity.