My problem with the series is the premise that invasion of another star system is worth it.
With all the resources Trisolarians put into colonization of Earth, and all their superior technology - they could've made space habitats that had perfectly safe orbits around whichever star they prefer, and put all of their citizens on them.
What's the point of risking mutual destruction by hunter in the dark forest (and we know they were afraid of it since the start), if you can create habitats in your own star system, or choose any nearby uninhabited star system if the 3-body-problem is really making it impossible to put these in your own system (and realistically - it wouldn't be so bad, just make a dyson swarm around the whole system.
Invading our Solar System was worth the risk for Tri-Solaris. Because of the Dark Forest nature of the universe they could not just pick a star where they thought there was no life, as life there could just be especially good at hiding. When they found earth they found a luxurious planet containing a race which was ignorant of the true state of the universe and technologically incapable of doing anything about it anyway. On top of all of this, our solar system was very close by :). Their own star system was hellish compared to ours, they needed to leave.
The final book in the series does a good job showing why Earth was a good option for them. Tri-Solarians knew far more about Earth than they could reliably determine about most nearby star systems.
If you're afraid that a planet will have life, then why choose a planet where you are sure there is life?
They were betting their existence on a species they knew already uses MAD as a basis for its' survival not figuring out that it could use MAD to defend themselves.
Their system was interesting, but ultimately not much worse than ours, once you leave the planet. And they have to leave the planet anyway.
Once you have nanomaterials allowing cheap access to space - putting your population in space habitats is cheap and easy. We could do it now, if we had space elevator. The cost of materials and energy is negligible compared to invasion of another star system. Especially with such conveniently storeable population :)
> Tri-Solarians knew far more about Earth than they could reliably determine about most nearby star systems.
There's nothing stopping them from figuring it out. You don't have to invade a system, you can send a stealthy probe. I would assume in their circumstances it would be a wise thing to do if they really don't want to live in space further away from the center of gravity of their star system.
Besides, if the dark forest is so important - why invade Earth at all and play with fire? You can kill everybody on Earth without bothering to show up or sending any warnings. Send a big meteor their way or make a deadly disease that looks like flu, infect everybody, and on set date kill all hosts. Much cheaper, and no risk of ceasing to exist.
What they did in the books was very risky and wasteful for no good reason.
> betting their existence on a species they knew already uses MAD
If ant colonies depend on MAD for continued existence, it means nothing to us. This example was used multiple times throughout the series. They didn't even make a singular bet on Earth. The invasion was just one avenue they chose for survival.
> You don't have to invade a system, you can send a stealthy probe.
In the dark forest of the three body universe you could send a probe, but you learn nothing if it finds no life in a system. The only reliable, actionable information a probe can provide you is if life is found. Finding an absence of life just as easily means that the life in the system is so far advanced beyond you that you cannot detect it. It would be far riskier to bet your future on a system in which you found no life. Not to mention that you are making a huge gamble on the stealthiness of said probe. The probe could be the very thing that makes you the target of a dark forest strike. Earth already appeared safe, so why take further action that carries real risk of notifying some other civilization that you exist? You can't be reliably stealthy because some other race can be technically beyond you.
> Send a big meteor
Earth was an un-imaginable eden to Tri-Solaris, it's made clear that they wanted the planet intact.
> or make a deadly disease that looks like flu
This requires a much longer timeline as multiple trips are required to carry out the plan. The Tri-Solarans were facing a very real threat of extinction that made a shorter plan worth the risk. It's made very clear that they did not wish to exterminate humanity.
Earth was valuable because in all probability the rest of the universe did not know it existed. Given that you are saying they were stupid for not building space habitats, you must not be aware of what actually happened to the Tri-Solarans :). Besides, those space habitats present their own form of danger to their inhabitants. Actually, the danger they pose is worse than existing on a planet.
> If ant colonies depend on MAD for continued existence, it means nothing to us.
But we're not an ant colony to them, we're already using technology that can be used for MAD (sending signals through the sun), and they know it from the start.
> Earth was an un-imaginable eden to Tri-Solaris, it's made clear that they wanted the planet intact.
As far as I understand every planet in the system was heaven for them, the orbit was important. Which is stupid, because you can make anything follow a circular orbit around some star.
> This [flu] requires a much longer timeline as multiple trips are required to carry out the plan.
Why? They have their stealth probe (don't remember how it was called), they can take a look at a spanish influenza or something and pimp it up a little. At worst they then need to send like 1 gram at almost light speed the conventional way - still much easier and faster than sending the armada.
> Given that you are saying they were stupid for not building space habitats, you must not be aware of what actually happened to the Tri-Solarans :).
They were destroyed because their coordinates were broadcasted. As they should expect from the start messing with civilization that broadcasted "hello".
> those space habitats present their own form of danger to their inhabitants. Actually, the danger they pose is worse than existing on a planet.
How? They aren't any less stealthy than sattelites, tv, or radio.
This is exactly my problem with the whole idea of alien invasion. The technological resources needed to traverse star systems are so huge, and even then it's very unlikely any life-bearing planet will be all that habitable for your particular biology (the life there will have evolved for the conditions on that planet, which might very well be toxic for you). If you have such resources, it should be much easier to just build yourself some O'neal cylinders, or even terraform some more conveniently-located planets.
This is the one book I have seen praised here endlessly. I am sincerely hoping it can stand with Neal Stephenson's work. I don't think there is any other author I can recommend unequivocally.
If you like Neal Stephenson, you'll like Cixin Liu (especially when translated by Ken Liu), but you'll have to give Liu a fresh chance and let his work be its own thing. I love NS's work, and I've really enjoyed Cixin Liu's trilogy.
Three Body Problem is very thrilling to read; fast paced with a lot of cliff hangers, and excellent world building. The sci-fi/speculative bits are extrodinary, and although the characters can sometimes feel like their only role is to give a 'first person perspective' of the science, Liu can surprise you with the emotional depth that his characters exude.
The Dark Forest is in my opinion harder to get through than Three Body Problem, but the payoff is extraordinary. The pacing is slower with more world-building, and the perspective bounces around between a lot of characters without much forward movement. I had to put it down for a while and read some other books before I built up the motivation to finish it (it helped that I already bought the next book, so I felt guilty not finishing).
Deaths End, the third book, is unbelievably amazing. The pacing is more similar to Three Body Problem, and the science is astounding. All of the patience necessary for Dark Forest pays off because Liu is able to bring his world-elements into a mesmerizing display of action and conflict. I'm only half-way through and I've lost count of the number of times I've had to take pause and simply exclaim "Wow!".
Thanks, always looking for new stuff to read. (edit: not really new, but new to me :)
Concerning The Three-Body Problem, I found it a bit disappointing. Great build up with a rather traditional solution making some things of the build up looking a little bit silly.
I can understand why you say Three-Body has a rather traditional solution, but I would argue said solution is misdirection. The first book is really just setting up the real meat of the story, in the 2nd and 3rd books.
Start with Snow Crash or Diamond Age - some of Neal Stephen's later work is too focused on the science/history, while neglecting the characters and the story, which is fine for most people here, but it might give the wrong impression of him as an author.
I found the ideas were interesting, but the writing (plotting/characters) to be ho-hum. It’s a translation, of course - but I’m not sure I would rate it quite as highly others here.
Yes, if there's other life in the universe, then we absolutely don't want to announce our presence to it. Due to exponential growth in technology and the old age of the universe, we are the plankton of the universe and they are likely the fish.
I used to worry about that a bit when we discussed this a year or two ago, but then I realized that Earth has been broadcasting the fact that it is inhabited to any civilization only slightly more sophisticated than ours (like, literally only by a couple of years) who can see spectroscopy of our atmosphere when we transit in front of the Sun. Earth has been broadcasting that it has free oxygen for nearly two and a half billion years and we have no evidence of any attack.
I run on the theory that if an alien civilization intended to destroy Earth, they would have succeeded. An alien civilization that reaches out once every few dozen million years years to sorta kinda whack the Earth seems about as likely as aliens hopping in their FTL spaceships and traveling the vast distances across the cosmos to our primitive little dirt ball, only to constantly crash into mountains located near secret military bases.
Or put more generally, "Why would they care?" We'd have nothing a vastly more advanced civilization would particularly want from us, and we'd pose absolutely no threat to them.
If they are crazy genocidal monsters wiping out all intelligent life besides their own, then they're probably systematically looking for targets, sending out their own probes to check out any planet that could sustain life. If they have any kind of presence in Alpha Centauri that could detect these probes, then they'd be here soon enough even if we didn't send out a probe.
The part where the Trisolarians try to make the Special Thing was hands down one of the dumbest things I've ever read in science fiction.
The first 3rd of the book that dealt with cultural revolution fallout was awesome, though. But yeah---back half was bad enough to ruin the whole thing for me.
I liked the novel, but the whole setup is written under an inaccurate understanding of how the Centauri system is arranged. Proxima is a long way out from Alpha Centauri A and B (0.21 light years), orbiting their mutual center of mass, and A and B themselves are a fair distance apart (from 11.2 to 35.6 AU). Any of the three stars could have planets in close stable orbits; we already know Proxima has one.
I really loved the series. I can see why some others weren’t into it, but I think it’s been my favorite books I’ve read in years and years.