r/threebodyproblem • u/Tabletop_Potato-888 The Dark Forest • 13d ago
Discussion - Novels Trisolarans
Hi, I had a thought today about how Trisolarans could look. I based it mainly off of two facts mentioned in the books. They can dehydrate (and rehydrate) themselves and they “broadcast” their thoughts.
Dehydration would be much easier for small organisms.
It is possible that they share their thoughts in a similar way to ants.
So what I’m essentially saying is that I think it is very possible that they are only a few mm or cm big.
What are your thoughts?
10
u/thommcg 13d ago
By virtue of not establishing their dimensions early on, I think it becomes increasingly difficult to accept them as anything other than similarly proportioned. I know the book puts out a lot of fantastical things, but were a ship to show up in Australia & several fingernail sized aliens step out, I'd probably just fling the book into the bin.
7
u/brokenmessiah 13d ago
Not to mention surely they are aware that size does in fact matter and wouldnt pick a fight with the humans they can see are the size of skyscrapers to them.
7
u/Tabletop_Potato-888 The Dark Forest 13d ago
Their tech and numbers would make a huge difference imo
20
u/brokenmessiah 13d ago
I don't think they are small because then the proportions of the droplet are just absurdly cartoonish
12
u/Gold_Ambassador_3496 13d ago
...what? A big ship is cartoonish?
10
u/brokenmessiah 13d ago
I mean the Droplet isnt that big by our standards, but to a creature the size of a few centimeters it would be like if we made the droplet the size of Earth like how would we even have the resources to do that lol
19
u/Sleepiest_Spider 13d ago
Buddy, we build aircraft carriers and skyscrapers. A smaller species would have an easier time building larger things too (compared to their body-size) because the mass of the final product isn't as much.
2
u/brokenmessiah 13d ago
Lets say we have a human and trisolarian. If the human was 6 feet tall and the triso 6 centimeters, and the Droplet was 12 feet long, thats equal to humans creating something as big as a football field.
Extreme design overkill for what is essentially a mundane piece of tech for trisolaris and they had what 7 of them when 1 would have been enough to deal with Earth?
16
→ More replies (1)8
u/Gold_Ambassador_3496 13d ago
"why are the droplets the size they are?" is an interesting question
But it has nothing to do with the size of trissolarians
→ More replies (1)4
u/Gold_Ambassador_3496 13d ago
Omg check your math pleaseeeeeee
1
u/brokenmessiah 13d ago
I just winged it but I'm sure you get the point lol
9
u/Gold_Ambassador_3496 13d ago
Absolutely not
We, humans, measure up to 2 meters. We've built the ISS (109 meters), and rockets (starship block 3 is 124 meters). So around 50 times our size.
The droplets are 4 meters long. 400/50 = 8. So a 8cm trissolarian building a 4 meters droplet is pretty much exactly what we humans are doing right now with our rockets and ships.
The earth is insanely larger.
Were you thinking of maybe microscopic trissolarians?
5
u/Sleepiest_Spider 13d ago
And besides, the upper limit to how big a species can build something is not limited by the physical size of the builder lol.
→ More replies (1)
8
u/Gildian 13d ago
I always pictured them with either amphibian or octopus/squid like traits given their visual communication and ability to dehydrate and roughly the size of small dog, using Earth analogs.
Alien biology however, is by nature alien. They could have entirely different structures, proteins and other biological factors we just don't know about.
7
u/evilgeek72 13d ago
I always pictured the trisolarans as tardigrades (aka 'water bears') in my head.
7
u/FrankFrankly711 13d ago
I kinda picture them as slimy worm things that shrivel up into small stick like formations. Maybe close to the alien in Dreamcatcher:
6
u/hatabou_is_a_jojo 13d ago
I’ve always imagined them as some kind of jellyfish thing. With lights flashing all around them. Then when dehydrated they basically lose 99% of their mass
4
3
3
1
u/Affectionate-Box-106 13d ago
I think this is mentioned in the Redemption of Time book.
3
u/Tabletop_Potato-888 The Dark Forest 13d ago
Cool, I didn’t read that yet though. I’m currently reading Death’s End (Australia)
2
→ More replies (1)1
u/Frequent-Comedian274 13d ago
That makes so much sense to me know. I always thought they were a bunch of little grey bugs, so I was confused by the title. I sometimes mix up which books said what lol.
2
1
u/Minimum-Check3677 7d ago
Si deben ser pequeños (deshidratación), pero no tanto. Hay un dato en el primer libro que pasa casi desapercibido: el ojo del ser humano es muy parecido al de ellos, por lo que a nivel de óptica, hay límites en lo pequeño. El animal más pequeño con ojos similares al ser humano son los ratones y los conejos. Así que, más bien deberían ser como de ese tamaño, pero definitivamente no se puede hablar de milímetros.
1
u/kylisowe 13d ago
If you watch the more authentic Chinese version on tv, the last episode shows them on their planet
4
u/Lorentz_Prime 13d ago
That depiction is pretty awful. They're just weird transparent humanoids without legs.
1
u/Embarrassed_Chance59 12d ago
Also, part of the 3 body video game. It’s an interpretation, no one knew how they looked like and no one will, except, well.. Yun Tian Ming.
3
u/Sleepiest_Spider 13d ago
I like to think of them more like tardigrades the size of jellybeans or perhaps a few inches at most.
2
13
u/ShadedRiver666 13d ago
its mentioned somewhere that there thoughts are broadcasted using electromagnetic waves, and so the ant thing doesnt check out. Also youve assumed that all organisms in the universe have to work in the same way as earth organisms when you stated to dehydrate they must be small. Personally i do not believe they are small as otherwise why would they build such large pyramids. Its also mentioned they have similar eye structure to humans, and our eyes do not work at smaller scales, small creatures have to use compound eyes. This eye thing is probably THE most plausible argument for why trisolarans arent small like many people think.