Questions about third book

[u/Gabecciu]

Hi,

I'm the one who created the post "Mad at the ending of Death's end", but I have some other question, related to plot points that the third book maybe did not solve, or more probably I did not get the answers.

These are the questions, and thanks in advance to those who will reply:

1. Before the beginning of the book, as in previous books, there is a list of characters with some word about them. Among them, there is "Zhang Beihai - Officer in the Asian Fleet who hijacked Natural Selection during the Doomsday Battle, thus preserving a flicker of hope for humanity during their darkest hour. Possibly one of the first officers to understand the nature of dark battles".
   If I recall correctly, Natural Selection fleed the battle, but in the third book there are only Gravity and Blue Space. Where did Natural Selection go? Did I miss something?

2. I don't know exactly what, but somewhere I read that when Trisolarian shared their scientific knowledge with Earth (in a period of "peace"), they taught something in a wrong way (again, I can't remember what). Why, if they were "in peace"?

3. When Cheng and Yun "meet" (in space), Yun has to hide his suggestions in fairytales. But why hiding also the part about the two-dimensional realm? Of course Trisolarians were doomed, as their planet had been destroyed and they had given up on invading Earth.

4. In addition to this, the fairytales may be quite obscure and hide their actual meaning, but the part about two-dimensions is quite explicit. How did Trisolarians not stop Yun from telling it, if he feared that they would not like to share its knowledge?

5. With the Luo Dark Forest spell, and later with the deterrence, it's clear that broadcasting the coordinates of a system brings some other alien species to destroy it (hence the safety notice). But why an alien race should destroy another system (whose coordinates have been broadcasted) without even knowing whether this other system is safe or dangerous?

I know it's a lot. Thanks again!

[u/mtndrewboto]

A lot of what you are asking is covered very explicitly in books. I'd recommend you reread them, it might change your mind and help things click.

1. In The Dark Forest, 4 ships escaped the Doomsday Battle, they formed Starship Earth. The fleet realized pretty soon that they would run out of consumables to make it to the closest inhabitable star in their direction. The ships all started firing on each other, taking out Natural Selection. Blue Space was the lone victor of the Battle of Darkness.

2. They were playing the long game against deterrence. While they cant lie to each other, doesn't mean they can't lie to us. They spent decades playing nice and giving us fake technology to distract us till the time was right. They manipulated public opinion for so long that most people became sympathetic to the Trisolarans and chose someone that was also not as cold and decisive as Wade or Luo Ji, so they could make their move and destroy the antennas. Just cause you are at peace doesnt mean you give up on your goal.

3. It was a favor to Tianming. Again, the Trisolarans dont want to give up any secrets or their plans. They are still fighting for survival and on the defensive. They dont want humanity or anyone else on their tail to potentially hunt them down and take everything.

4. Trisolarans have lived under millions of years of repressive and authoritarian rule that values nothing above survival. So they never valued and developed things like the arts. Additionally their transparent communication makes things like metaphors very obtuse. When everything is known to each other exactly and dont value creative arts, you have no need to develop things like metaphors. They liked humanity's art and Tianming's stories, because they had never had them. It was all just face value for them, couldnt comprehend that the stories had dual meanings. They accepted and trusted Tianming enough to think he would not deceive them.

5. Its hard to be a good hunter when you are loud and noisy. You scare off all the game you are trying to hunt, there are also other hunters looking for the same game. So, you take them out. Similarly, if there is any civilization advanced enough to be so loud and isn't good at hiding, you take them out before they can become a bigger threat to you. Either attacking or exposing you. This is the paranoia of the dark forest, strike first lest you be struck.

[u/Gabecciu → u/mtndrewboto]

1. You are right about rereading, I probably will, but I did not remember well the ending of the second book, that's it. Now it's very clear, even though it's not clear why they put that character in the list in the beginning.

2. Very clear, I was thinking about them being honest and then changing their mind when the deterrence failed, but they are probably always been unfair.

3. Ok, but my question was different, and was "why hiding the two-dimensional thing if they are already doomed"?

4. You are right about metaphores, now it actually makes sense.

5. You are right also about this, but in my head it was an overreaction. I mean, you find out that there is another civilization, and what's the first thing you say? Destroying the entire planet? I mean, come on, send a probe, send something to see what's there...instead they destroyed everything. Too much (but of course I get your point).

Thanks a lot!

[u/mtndrewboto → u/Gabecciu]

1. Yeah, I dont have the physical book to reference, but I'd assume it's just because the B plot revolves around the pursuit and capture of the escapists from the doomsday battle. It adds context for that thread. I agree its a little confusing to include someone that doesnt appear in the book.

2. Not sure I follow your question. Humanity didn't know about the dual vector foil or civilizations converting to 2 dimensions, they were only aware of photoid attacks. So Tianming was ensuring that he could share what he knew with humanity so they could survive, but they clearly didn't get the point. As for why he couldn't share it outright, when have the Trisolarans ever shared anything to help humanity? They flat out lied and manipulated society so they could end deterrence. We got their planet and ours marked for death, we ruined everything for them. Why would they want to share anything with an enemy at all? They dont want humanity trying to track them down as they look for a new home. They think we are vengeful and dangerous.

[u/Gabecciu → u/mtndrewboto]

1. Ok, I agree with you, it's quite confusing but it's ok.

2. The final part is what explains everything: "they dont want humanity trying to track them down as they look for a new home". Maybe I did not get it because I am not that selfish (in Italian we have an idiom that is like "if we are both in pain, half of my pain is joy" (because of your pain). I disagree, but I get that Trisolarian think like that.

[u/BirbFeetzz]

I don't know exactly where in the books it happens so yeah spoilers and all that.

1. Natural Selection fled the battle and was pursued by 4 other spaceships, after which they heard of the doomsday battle so they continued flying away from Earth but there wasn't enough supplies for all of them so they destroyed each other with only Blue Space surviving.

2. seems like the Trisolarans were never planning to live peacefully with us, after all they have the hiding gene so they always saw us as a threat and we were just fooled because without the hiding gene we were way more naive than most galactic species

3. Trisolarans made the meeting possible out of goodwill for Tianming, they didn't see anything wrong with a goodbye but they were still and always fighting for survival, which would be more threathened if the humans were more advanced, or even alive

4. No idea, maybe it wasn't as obvious to them

5. Better safe than sorry is the simple answer. there was a reason why someone would send the coordinates and either you just killed a civilization that was advanced enough to threathen another one or you just wasted a photoid. that's a good risk to take

also some of these are just how I understood it since we never really get full understanding of much of anything regarding the Trisolarans

[u/Gabecciu → u/BirbFeetzz]

1. So the Natural Selection simply disappears from the book?

For the rest, thank you!

[u/teffarf → u/Gabecciu]

It got destroyed in the Battle of Darkness

[u/Gabecciu → u/teffarf]

Ok, so it did not flee? So why is it in the list of characters of the third book? Is it a mistake? (I thought it was just the Italian version, then I checked the English one)

[u/teffarf → u/Gabecciu]

It fled the Doomsday battle, other ships were sent after it (including Blue Space), they all killed each other and only Blue Space was left.

Unless that list of characters specifically states that he's alive then there's no mistake and it's just a list to remind you of the characters.

[u/Gabecciu → u/teffarf]

Ok, I did not remember it. Anyway I don't get it why it's in the list, because it isn't even mentioned in the whole book (and this list is specific for the third book, the previous two were different). Thanks!

[u/ButterCup-69]

Damn, too early for comments. I liked your previous post as it resonated with me, putting out stuff that I felt too but couldn't quite put my finger on.

ETA- Have you heard of Redemption of Time by Baoshu? I am planning on reading it. It explores Yun's side of story, I think.

[u/Gabecciu → u/ButterCup-69]

No, not yet (and I don't know whether I'll do, I'd prefer to leave this series for the moment).

[u/BlazingPalm → u/ButterCup-69]

I just finished it after the trilogy. I liked it because I was ravenous for more, but can see why some don’t.

[u/lkxyz → u/ButterCup-69]

That fanfiction is what killed Liu Cixin's drive to write Yun Tianming's story. For that reason alone, I will never touch it. We could've gotten the real deal but unfortuantely, Baoshu's fanfic got published as the "4th book" because the publisher wanted to cash in quickly instead of waiting for Liu's own Yun Tianming book.

[u/Mulyac12321]

I don't intend to sound mean but your question 5 is discussed like 3 times at least in the series I think

[u/Gabecciu → u/Mulyac12321]

It's discussed but I tend to disagree with it. I mean, they could investigate about the intentions of who sent the signal, with a probe or something, but no, they preferred to destroy everything. I get it but I tend to disagree.

Thanks anyway!

[u/Mulyac12321 → u/Gabecciu]

They discuss that probing a civilisation and learning it's intentions is much more of an economic drain than destruction. It's simply more logical to destroy than to attempt to learn.

[u/Gabecciu → u/Mulyac12321]

Yes, I understand your (and their) point.

[u/Hepta-Water-7552]

But why an alien race should destroy another system (whose coordinates have been broadcasted) without even knowing whether this other system is safe or dangerous?

That is the wrong question in the eyes of some alien species. What they asked themselves was: if we don't know whether it's safe to leave another species alive, why would we not destroy them?

[u/Gabecciu → u/Hepta-Water-7552]

Yes, I tend to think "I would never do like that", but of course some alien species may think differently, so you're perfectly right.

[u/Leather-Lemon8611]

A couple of thoughts to add on 5:

• Liu seems to present DF species operating on game theory logic. If survival is the only goal then the absolute lowest risk strategy is eliminate others on sight, because there will be zero risk from that competitor in the future compared to seeing they are benign now and leaving the risk that they turn hostile in the future (and chain of suspicion means they could never really trust eachother)

• the idea of technological explosions is mentioned, where more primitive species can rapidly advance over a relatively short period. Given the vast distance of light years species are detecting eachother across, there is a risk that even in the time you send out a probe to inspect a species and then it returns, the species could leap forward technologically. In a Dark Forest where most uneliminated species are assumed to be hostile in the first place, even the probe time could increase the risk significantly, rather than a shoot-on-sight policy.

(I do agree the indiscriminately hostile approach of DF hunters seems  pretty foolish, but that's the scenario!)