Minor correction: Around 70,000 BC humanity's population dropped between 5,000 and 10,000 breeding adults. Scientist do not have evidence that it was ever as low as 1,000 breeding adults. NOTE: 10:04: The Singers world was currently engulfed in a war with it's "fringe" World. (𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘍𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘭𝘦𝘧𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘳.) The Audio clips in this section of the video!
Quick question. How would the wall facer project even work. How does someone coordinate their scientific discoveries or project plans with 0 communication? Love your videos by the way!
@@conorhealy2763 Basically you only give out enough information for people to make the plan advance without explaining where that step fits in the plan. Basically security through obscurity. They also knew that it wasn't foolproof and that someone could put the pieces together hence having multiple wallfacers come up with their own separate plan.
@@conorhealy2763 It is an expansion on how military projects are already done to a degree. Someone working on part of a submarine for instance, will have just enough information to build the part they are building. They may be able to guess what the part next to thier part looks like, but they wont have enough information to figure out what the whole assembly of parts looks like. The people assembling those parts will have to have higher security clearance. So imagine the WallFacer is the ultimate security clearance level. Only they know how all of the various pieces will fit together. But they delegate tasks to different groups or industries that are either a part of the plan or a false path. Only the Wallfacer knows.
The thing I hate about the Three-Body series is that the more you think about it, the more plausible Liu's depiction of the universe seems. The idea that every civilization in the universe is caught in a multi-polar trap that forces them to make life worse for everyone just to ensure their own survival is just all too plausible given the history of our own species.
The idea behind Liu's concepts is even worse than that. It isnt that "good aliens" and "moral behavior" doesnt exist in the universe and that everyone is mmbad, but that "evil" behavior, the Dark Forest and the eventual self-inflicted heat death of the universe by weaponized physics is a statistic certainty. Even if a billion alien races are good and moral, it only takes one single paranoid one capable of super-science to end the prospects of a star-trek esque hippie galaxy of jolly cooperation. Due to the tyranny of distance and the iron-clad universal constant of light speed, any diplomatic outstretch to other races is unfeasible, which is why the only way to tell the universe that you arent a threat to others is to essentially live in a prison of lowered light speed that will be your race's tomb until the end of the universe. In real world terms, this is an obvious comparisson to the current world order where the UN and international law et al. exists, but the power-struggle between the nations over finite resources inevitably lead to the end of diplomacy. It isnt a if but when, until a peaceful order breaks down.
The description from the book of the Solar System collapsing into two-dimensional space is one of the most creative, beautifully detailed and unique doomsday scenarios I've ever seen
The sobering implication discussed in Death's End - We are living in the ruins of a universe-wide warzone collapsed down to 3 dimensions and limited light speed due to the use of weaponized physics
@@ranggasaktibudiputra1547 Such manipulation results in local downgrading in the books. For example FTL travel results in no one, ever again, may reach that speed again on exactly the same route, the speed of light is slower where you passed. So if you let enough time pass, then the speed of light in the entire universe weill be lowered.
@@kazaddum2448 This is actually an underestimation of the scale of the universe. Even if such a thing were true, the universe is so bloody vast we'd barely notice a change before it was overtaken by entropy anyway. ;)
For me the duel vector foil sequence in Death’s End was when the novel really fell flat. A lot of the characters just didn’t feel very 3-dimensional afterwards.
Actually, you've on to something. The author did say there's a rush and high pressure to release the Death's End at the end of the writing and most of the works are done in rush without detailed. The ending is suppose to be a place-holder but the editor require him to meet the deadline and just publish it raw.
You should have mentioned that Singer even asks his supervisor "should we really be using these dimensional weapons so freely?" and the supervisor just said "what's the matter, everybody is using them". This just shows that Singer's race isnt the only one/evil one for using these dimensional collapse weapons but that they, too, are locked in a universal war between god-like civilizations and that using these monstrous weapons is like us throwing away a cigarette butt - "everybody is doing it". In fact, the dimensional weapon isnt even that big of a deal for superbeings like them. It is likely in their war against their rival fringeworld, they have long been using these weapons on each other without any effect, and that these dual vector foils are just pest control devices meant to casually nip out would-be-challengers in the bud. This is a pretty nice turnaround of the Trisolaran insult towards humanity that we are "bugs" - to Singer's race, everyone that cant fold dimensions and weaponize math and universal constants is a bug.
In fact, he says that using the dual vector foil is an "honor" because it shows that we have progressed enough to be a plausible threat to cosmic society. So the mass particle is the fly swatter but the dual vector foil is a whole can of Raid.
The irony is that they and all the other civilizations cause the universe to be destroyed through the casual use of these weapons and don't recognize their impact until the end of everything. Very much a parallel to climate change IMO.
Singer's "supervisor" also says the dual vector foil is one of the inexpensive ones, so he didn't have to think too much before approving it's use. Despite the title of the video, apparently there are way deadlier things that we will never get to know.
@@edumazieri Or perhaps the more expensive ones are less deadly.... More targetted weapons tend to be more expensive than general explosives. For instance if you wanted to destroy all traces of life in a system without destroying the star and planets. Or if you wanted to demolish only animal life and leave plants and bacterium.
@@patreekotime4578 Dual Vector Foil - _For those "fck everything in that general direction" moments_ ALL DIMENSIONAL SERVICE AGENTS *PLEASE NOTICE:* _All dimensional service agents MUST contact their supervisor for an approval prior to deployment of the DVF extermination system_
this weapon and its description of its effects is truly terrifying,this book series still gives me questions to this day,and i suspect will so until my last days,cixin liu is brilliant
@@defeatSpace I did this when I was in the US. I’m use to using the normal international paper sizes A0 to A8, standard would be A4 (which is used internationally, except for in the US) and didn’t know wtf legal etc was. They asked me to refill the printer but the paper sizes looked off. So… I eyeballed it and thought it would be fine but it wasn’t and I fucked the printer up lmao
The orion's arm universe has just about the end all be all of weapon technology. There's a weapon called a "Thunderbolt" that uses gravitational singularities to rearrange the topology of space-time in its future-pointed lightcone into a null geodesic. So, it essentially erases causality itself, making whatever you pointed it at simply cease to exist. The effect is essentially just "deleting the universe" wherever you point it. Not just the stuff in the universe either, it literally deletes space-time. Just causes existence to end, or never have been, more acurately. There's also a nice concept that involves creating a region of false vacuum that would actually have a lower ground energy state than the current universe's one. This region would expand at the speed of light, causing the quantum vacuum to decompose and fall into a lower energy state as it went. You would never even see the beyond appocalyptically rediculous blastfront of energy released as space-time itself underwent a phase state transition into this lower energy level, since the actual region of false vacuum would be expanding just as fast. You would be blasted into your consituent quarks by the ultra retarded explosion of space-time itself detonating at basically the exact same time as the reorganization of the quantum vacuum made them decay into whatever weirdo particles exist in the new continuum. And thus, the entire universe would be destroyed. Slowly, admittedly, but at the speed of light all the same.
The chapter from the perspective of Aliens that send the final weapon was a wild part of the story. It’s all done so nonchalantly. And to return to a hopeless human perspective afterwards was devastating.
@Paul Ridgeway it's not the same because the bugs are killed when they are going to hurt us. We don't go around killing bugs for no reason, only when they pose a threat. If someone does that, they are morally in the wrong and it is discouraged. Humankind was attacked to simply be removed from the equation, to remove a potential threat which we probably would never have achieved. We were ants going about our own business but this kid decided to kick us and crush our ant hill simply bc he could.
@@stars-and-clouds bugs are killed all the time even when they don't pose any threat, animals are literaly murdered for their fur or tusks and brought to the verge of extenction because of it, entire forests are chopped down without a second thought and so on.this triology just shows us how it's like being on the receiving part of such carelesness towards life
@@Paul_Ridgeway yeah, because, as I said, then they become a threat to you. I don't kill a caterpillar on the street, only ones that might eat my tomatoes.
I will never get over Three Body Problem uploads. Something about that concept of destroy-or-perish cosmic sociology and the horror in the stars is so. damn. intriguing. yet at the same time, so frightening - I love it
I couldn't stand this third book, and the dismal, nihilistic view of the universe is the worst part of it for me. It must be incredibly tiresome to be as intelligent as he is and have such a view.
@@Guardian978 I actually found the first book to be the hardest to read emotionally. Also, I EXPECT all aliens to be sociopathic towards alien species. I dont expect humans to be towards ourselves.
Agree, I'm so glad he branched out to these other books & series. Because of the original ASOIAF & Dune, etc videos he put out, I knew his taste in literature would b similar to mine, & that he's a diligent reader, who has the capability of intelligently analyzing & interpreting the stories, & describing the books w/ simple, yet thorough & objective explanations. And without being critical of differing perspectives, bcuz he's an open-minded reader. I knew he'd open us up to a whole 'nutha level of new books to read! And so far I've loved almost all of them.
What astounds me about the chapter is how small the epic of human survival is to them. Centuries of conflict between two civilizations, done in by a cosmic janitor who's only reaction is "huh, cool" followed by a quick issuance of apocalyptic doom.
I think Singer's chapiter the most interesting, and it do deserves a video just by itself, from who they are, their behavior, the conversation with it's superior, the big eye, how their society works, the hiding gene, so many information in just a single chapter, it deserves some attention
@@xHarpyx in an universe where the dark forest is the rule, evolution would favours those beings that naturally hides best from other's life forms, keeping this concept natural selection would favours those that don't seek for contact, those who strikes first if they find another civilization, put this selective pressure, to hide, thru billions of years of evolution thru the universe and you'll get the idea that a gene for hide would eventually surge and be advantageous in many populations across the universe, at least on those that survived long enough. Sorry, my english is terrible, so I hope I got it clear
@@Lord-ym4rq oh no you’re fine. :-) I understand you perfectly. That’s what I was deducing from the base definition of the words. I’ve read all tomorrows several times and evolution is a chaotic and yet intriguing process.
I love how the equivalent of a janitor on another world has the ability of a god to us humans, and was in charge of casually destroying countless civilizations. That chapter is what really elevated the entire trilogy to a transcendent level. All of this emotional investment over hours upon hours of reading, and a lowly janitor was like, let's just trash these two warring civilizations, now where's my iTunes!? And also, it's implied Singer's vector attack wasn't even the one that killed us. The attack happened too soon, implying a different civilization was the one who killed us.
they really went "aww, using their star to communicate? I'll call them star pluckers 😍" and then eons before we were a danger removed a dimension from our existence
I think he means that 10 dimensional space has already been dimension bombed several times down to the 4th dimension (3d+time). The dimension bomb that destroyed the 10th dimension was fired by beings infinitely more advanced than us than we are compared to ants. This basically means that even the most advanced technology cannot escape the dark forest.
I was in shock and awe over the dimensional weapon. I feel like I was finally able to process the scale when Ai AA told Cheng Xin "it's ridiculous to blame yourself for the destruction of the solar system." I laughed in the worst way. The scale of technology beyond this point in the story was on the level of gods by comparison to today.
There's two moments in Death's End that hit me particularly hard, first is when the button for the transmission is pressed, both Blue Space and Gravity's crew all vote for it, but for the last necessary vote everyone stops and gathers around the final crew member, they know the severity of what they're about to do, and unlike Cheng Xin they understood this was necessary, they wouldn't nurture those who had betrayed them, as sweet as their siren's call would be in the form of art about the beauty of our world. Particularly for the crew of Gravity, their chase mission and expected return to earth as triumphant heroes would now never take place, being forced to join Blue Space into becoming a cosmic species, the chances of humans in the solar system being able to survive the dark forest being too remote to consider returning. The second moment (SPOILERS NOT MENTIONED IN THIS VIDEO) is when Cheng Xin and Guan Yifan see both human and trisolaran languages were included in the message asking them to disassemble their pocket universe, it made me realise how after everything these two species had done to each other, they had become intrinsically linked, had Ye Wenjie never established contact with trisolaris, humanity would have likely began exploring the universe much later, and would have definitely been wiped out soon after becoming too notorious, Trisolaris instead would have likely looked for a way to expand their civilization away from their hostile solar system and become a cosmic society, which is what both species ended up doing in the end. Seeing how both species had endured enough to be included in the pocket universe message felt like the trisolarans and humans had been in a hurtful relationship that lasted centuries, but in the grand expanse of cosmic time the mutual destruction of our homeworlds felt like quarrel we had so long ago it no longer mattered.
its made better for their caretaker is a copy of the Quantum Chiko computer with the Japanese lady's form (i read the novel in chinese so i dont know what she is called in english translation) which both had tormented humanity for centuries yet at the end of everything now are friends, in a brave new world marching to certain end together
@@mentalcrash ah, in the novel the characters mentioned the word Sophon sounds like Japanese woman's name (Sophon is "intelligent particle" in Chinese, which is written the same way in Kanji as a Japanese female name "Tomoko")
If you had made that post on the fandom subreddit you would have been downvoted up to a lower dimension. They hate any slightest criticism about Cheng Xin.
I finished the trilogy a few days ago and I'm still stunned, mesmerized and meditating on the story and many fascinating concepts. It is one of the most profound experiences I have ever had with a work of literature. I am so perplexed that I found your videos in a hope to learn more and immerse myself deeper into the fascinating worlds created by Cixin Liu. I thank you for the amazing work you have done and the sense of wonder you convey through your excellent videos. Please continue to make more videos on the Three Body Problem series, I cannot get enough.
@danielrodrigues4903 yea. Don't put much hope into Netflix. Ten cent did a Chinese series of it. It lasted 30 episodes and covered EVERYTHING in the first book. I doubt Netflix will bother with more than 8. No way it'll be remotely worthy to watch.
Hey Quinn, when the world seems be coming undone at the seams, when things seems very bad, i often take a break from reality and escape on a journey with you to another world with your science fiction videos. You always manage to capture my imagination in the retelling of these concepts. I thank you for that.
@@DwAboutItManFr Yes of course, some of the best literature in history was written during extremely volatile times in history. I think for me, when we cant have resolutions in life and things feel abysmal, having a conclusion to a scifi or the reasons for events being explained etc, gives my mind an escape. In the the remembrance of earth's past series one of the charactes was considering the combined destructive power of humans. It was likened it to a lit candle combined to the destructive powers in space and how there was comfort in knowing that. (I think it was book 1, been a few months) The concepts also made me think about things differently. I love Quinn's content, he really captures my imagination with the abiance he creates and his re-tellings. It just puts me so far away from my troubles.
True story: before Cixin Liu even written "The Death's End", he once participated in a panel at a science fiction conference in China. The host asked a question to panelists: describe the most imaginative way of doomsday. Cixin Liu gave a quick and confusing answer: "The Earth is such a beautiful place. Let's turn it into a picture."
I discovered this series because of you! Mind blowing books! My favorite series now! I really loved "ball lightning" too because it's really unique and subbtle in the tone.
just to say -- you brought me back to reading fantasy and sci fi after almost a decade since I last touched a book for fun and not for learning. I'm genuinely thankful for that.
Quinn, your content is some of the best there is regarding sci-fi on this platform. Your calm, respectful, inquisitive and friendly nature make every video you post a treat.
I’m not a fan of reading but your videos on the three body problem have convinced me to buy the first book and start reading every night! I would love you to do an audiobook on this series aswell! Love your videos, Quinn!
Your videos are so helpful. I finished the series recently and your videos help fill in the blanks on parts that I missed or parts that's didn't make sense at the time. Awesome work man 👌🏽
This might not be the deadliest weapon in the universe, per Death's End. Singer describes how he doesn't like using "the expensive tools" because they are "too violent." Since he seems pleased with the dual vector foil, it's implied then that this weapon is basic, economical, and relatively gentle compared to what Singer's species is truly capable of.
I do wish the author of Redemption of Time had explained the other weapons that the brain guy (forgetting his name, the dude sent in the StairCase project) had found out about during his time with the Tris. He mentioned 6, but only explained the dual vector foil as it was the most likely to be used. Something about universal constants being altered as weapons makes me wonder.
Jesus Christ lmao. Bro threw a credit card at us that collapsed our whole solar system while singing nonchalantly… I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised.
If you think about it. While the foil does doom the entire universe, it doesn't work that fast. At most it works at light speed. Which can probably take hundreds of centuries, longer than it takes for a star to die before it affects anything close to its user. There are probably way worse stuff to mess with.
The problem with Singers plan is that it still would have failed if humanity had widely achieved lightspeed (which almost happened). The one on the Trisolarans also failed for the same reason, so it calls into question how successful Dark Forest doctrine actually is in the long term.
Basing survival on “luck” seems a poor prognosis regardless. The trisolarians escaped due to luck. Their fleet was far enough away to not be killed as the rest of their species was. The humans on Gravity and the other ship were lucky to be far enough away by the time the dual vector foil was unleashed. The main characters were lucky to be on a lightspeed capable ship. Cleansing would be far more productive than you imagine I think.
@antibull4869 each instant of luck has two sides though; one's good luck is another's bad. It would be just as lucky for the exterminator to strike JUST before an intelligence achieved lightspeed. A more sure model would be dark forest strikes long before intelligence arose at all. Why wait until the last minute?
Well, as the singer said, humanity is an odd ball. the earthlings discovered how to make themselves known to the dark forest (being a star plucker), but not how to hide from it. I suppose most advanced civs would somehow hide themselves from the rest of the universe or not advance at all.
Singer is nothing but a bureaucrat. He does what he's told, regardless of whether it's right or successful. What's frustrating is how humanity in the books has been unable to act pragmatically and unselfishly, always pursuing any initiative of Escapism until it was too late.
I've waited so long for this series to continue. Going to be the first sci-fi series I buy physical copies of. Thanks so much for the hard work you put in Quinn!
This series deserves an audio book/drama with full fledged cast for each characters and astounding background sound. Lets see if AI can make this happen.
On the subreddit they don't tolerate any criticism or jokes about her Apparently, readers have no right to feel frustrated with her... Even though Cixin Liu has said that in fact he doesn't like her himself.
@@AnonymousAnonposterreddit is cancer where blue hairs wield fat schtick cyst levels of power over normal people whose view of their society becomes twisted by said bluehairs
Thank you for these videos concerning the Three Body Problem series. I've read the books once but, at the time, realised there were many details I couldn't get to grips with. Your videos are the spur I need to revisit this series and to appreciate its genius. More power to you Sir.
Happy to see you continuing to cover Three Body Problem. Just got done with Death's End and your videos really help me to digest some of the heady ideas in this kind of science fiction.
I always thought of Singer as a guy who relaxes in his spaceship, listening to old rock music and playing tetris when he has nothing to do. Chill dude.
Thank you so much Quinn! I read this series because of you. This series was mind blowing - I’ve never had such a existential dread of space before. The Strike got to me like nothing else ever has
I was trying to explain these books to my girlfriend and was just reduced to a babbling assortment of incomprehensible words. Your ability to adequately condense everything is very impressive. Thank you
Please continue these. I am so hooked on it and you are such a fantastic story teller. I love sci-fi stories, especially darker ones and The Three Body Problem is a perfect example of such. Again, please continue doing these =)
I don't think I could ever read this book series because it seems so densely technical that it would feel more like work than pleasure, but with that said, I'm hooked on this video series.
i love your three body problem series so much. the last time something changed my view of the world like this was watching the matrix. Its so mind bending to think about being transformed into two dimensions. it made me really afraid! Is life even possible in two dimensions? How could singer's race transform a WHOLE PLANET into two dimensions and how can they live upon it? Didnt the trisolarans also have dimensional tech? they turned the 11 dimensional protons into 2 dimensions to make those supercomputers so why didnt they have foils?
@@Dr._Atom They're referring to the event where Singer's race translated their homeworld and everyone in it into two dimensions to escape the effects of their dimension strike, not the dimension strike against our solar system.
Just because the Trisolarans had the ability to unfold the protons, doesn't mean they had the tech to create those "dual vector foils" at the time, and the means to deploy them. While the book doesn't get into any specifics what kind of tech level is required for that, we can kind of make some educated guesses that for a civilization to possess this ability, they would have to be VERY advanced and here's why. If we consider the two different ways to perform a dark forest strike, the photoid and the dimension strike, the photoid is much more simple in comparison, it's basically a "relativistic kill missile", maybe if you could get something like the droplet to lightspeed, that might do the trick, but it's just something that I throught of just now and the book doesn't tell anything in detail of what the photoid is, so this is just pure speculation on my part. Anyway, with a photoid the effect is limited only to the target solar system, no harm beyond that. Maybe it wouldn't have taken too long for the Trisolarans to be able to casually toss some photoids around, but during The Crisis Era, they only had the ability to accelerate protons to lightspeed. To be able to casually toss "paper slips", is an entirely different beast because even if you could create them, you sure as hell don't want to use them before you can ensure that your own civilization can escape and survive the effects of the dimensional collapse. In the book, when Singer asked for permission to toss the paper slip our way, he was surprised with how quickly he got the permission, and how little, if no opposition at all the Elder had with the request. It was implied that previously they weren't as casual with the use of the dual vector foils, and that prompted Singer to ask the question of whether their homeworld had transitioned into two dimensions. Now that they had, it's fair to assume that the use of dimensional strikes is going to be far less restricted as the primary goal of their civilization that is survival is ensured. Without the ability to transform yourself into two dimensional beings that can survive in a two dimensional universe, you don't go shooting around with weapons like the dual vector foil.
@@Nabekukka exactly How the dimenson fold affects humans for example? They get "crushed" and die? does everything affected by It becomes a 2 dimensional plane?
Well, not sure if crushed is the right word, maybe more like flattened to such a degree that you've just lost one of your dimensions, think of an infinitely thin "slip of paper" like the dual vector foil that was described in the book, you can see it from above and below, but if you try to view it directly from the side, you can't see it at all. Since humans are three dimensional beings, it's impossible to survive. And yes, it affects everything, even space itself will be "flattened" down to a two dimensional plane.
I honestly wish you could do a 3 body problem fan audio book. It would be your most viewed video ever , your voice and channel is what introduced me to the book in the first place. Along with the music you use. I would donate to see something like this.
I'm not sure if that's possible, if you mean that Quinn would make an audio book reading the books in their entirety, I would assume that he would have to get the permission and rights to do so, from whatever entity controls that, which would also necessarily mean negotiating a price and a contract for that.
@@ChristopherWeaver1 I mean sure, he could do that, but when considering all the hassle required with it, and then whether it's ultimately worth it financially, I doubt that he'd want to go through with it.
There are already official audiobooks of the series for sale, so I doubt the author or publishers would sign off on another version (especially a free fan reading on RUclips).
Thanks for the video on blindsight. I always feel bad, since I have to turn your videos off after about 2 minutes to avoid too many spoilers, but you've brought several amazing new sci-fi authors to my attention and I really trust and appreciate your recommendations. Thank you so much for what you do, it's really great.
There’s a tiny logic conflict here however, if dual vector foil can expand with light speed, the spacecraft with light speed actually can’t escape from it, once the craft stops it will be caught up, but undoubtedly this dimensional strike is a creative idea
I am always blown away with the quality of your videos. Thank you for making such great, engaging content. The passion you show motivated me to try reading science fiction again, and has really helped me discover stories I would otherwise not have gotten to enjoy. Keep up the amazing work! Your remembrance of earths past series videos are my favorite.
Wade wasn't a good man. Far from it. He was still the hero mankind needed. The characters in this novel consistently made bad decisions so much that it hurt. By the end of the novel, I felt very little sorrow at the end of mankind. It's a bit strange to have that feeling when I'm generally against misanthropy.
I once tried salvia in my youth and in that experience I saw in the distance the world slowly being folded as if everything was being reduced from its normal 3D state into a flat 2D surface. It kept coming closer and closer, and ultimately I felt myself being folded as if the reality I was in was being reduced into this plain surface. It felt like some weird gravitational pull that was inescapable. That is kinda how I imagined succumbing to such an attack would feel like when reading this for the first time. Needless to say it was an experience I'll never forget lol.
Humanity had a weapon that could have saved them, even at the end with the dual-foil strike: Da Shi. They should've kept him in hibernation. The plan: Wake up Da Shi when the foil gets to the Solar System, hand him a carton of *real* cigarettes, two lighters and a black leather jacket. Give him a lightspeed ship. Problem solved. Da Shi can solve any problem, one way or the other. :) Great video.
The issue with dimension weapon is not that they have apparently used before, but that once a weapon is used, it will not stop at the targeted system. The weapon will end up destroying the entire universe at it currently exists
Makes you wonder about dark matter/energy and the great attractor 🤔 we've been looking some recently for evidence of mega and giga structures but what if we already have seen destruction caused by dimensional folding in unexplained mass and gravity wells
The audio books are worthy. Didn't like the guy that read the first book but the other 3 were good. Same guy on those 3. I say audio book because my eyesight doesn't allow me to read small print anymore.
As always, great video, you help me to discover this great sci-fi novels, hope you get great sells with your books. ^^ 1. ''her punishment was to continuing living''... yeah, that's like when you screwed so hard that your company get to bankrupt and you think ''yeah, my punishment it's to keep working'', lady, just have the decency to at least save mankind from your own naivety, like jeez.... this is why the existence of the expression ''captain goes down with the ship''. 2. I really could imagine some one dimensional aliens saying, ''dudes, you understand we need dimensions to exist right?, can we like... try to not murder each other for... I don't know... five cicles?''. 3. I would love a Futurama Episode based on the Three Body Problem.
i think reason singer decide to use dimensional weapon because it tought human will be lousy and will start galaxy war that potentialy accelerate the rate breaking dimension because some civilization have ability to use dimensional weapon. so its better kill human entirely and have more time to prepare
Ever since reading ASOIAF I've been searching for a book to at least try and pique my Interest....and nothing comes close...until I read this series...this series of books is absolutely brilliant
One thing I wonder about dimension strikes is two fold (no pun intended): ▪︎ What's preventing a species capable of collapsing a dimension in any given area from unfolding one instead, in order to counter the adverse effects of dimension strikes? ▪︎ Similarly, if such beings can reshape themselves, their technology, and habitats into lower dimensional beings, what's preventing them from re-reshaping themselves into higher dimensional beings?
There is a chapter where the crew of the escaping Blue Space come across the remnants of 4th dimension space and communicate with some AI left by its previous inhabitants and it was explained to them that what was left of the 4th dimension was mere puddles that was shrinking after the use of dimensional weapons. The humans from Blue Space being three dimensional beings can enter 4th dimension and interact with it somewhat because all the physical constants holding the matter of their bodies together still exist whereas a 4th dimension being cannot enter the third dimension without some of the physics they depend on to exist suddenly going missing. The in universe explanation is that higher dimension physics can only be destroyed, not brought back by alien technology, at least until everything collapses into a one dimension singularity where all the mass of the higher dimensions is unified and a big bang like event resets the universe with all of its dimensions.
I saw someone elaborating the possibility that Yun's mission is more than a benevolent messenger for Earth. That Trisolarians who so far had not the ability to even scheme, had so easily defeated deterrence using nothing more than human weaknesses, hints to the fact that Yun might well have been an active collaborator in their plan, under his own will. Maybe it's his grudge for being given the worst kind of torture by precisely the one you loved (another Cheng Xin-bashing moment here). Trisolarians likely treated him as much more than a messenger, it's plausible that he was given quite a high position inside trisolarian hierarchy given his values to them.
Goddamn, this series has _so_ many interesting science fiction concepts in it! Imagining all of humanity flattened into 2 dimensional beings is horrifying - I can barely even imagine how that would work. It's easy to imagine them compressing into representations based on external appearance, the way animated characters look, but that's not what would happen if you tried to take a 3D human and compress everything they are into 2D the way the attack is described. Would it unfold every surface of the body onto one plane like turning a 3D globe into a 2D map? Or would people become a long series of connected cross-sections, each an atom thick? Or would they just flatten, like a squashed bug, blood and bones and organs all spreading out like a spilled drink? Any way you slice it, there's no way humanity could survive such a thing.
Well, the humanity didn't survive it (at least all of it that didn't manage to flee). And that was actually the point, to wipe us out. The process of transforming yourself into a 2D being is implied to have to be a controlled one in order for you to survive. And the vector foil attack was just a flat out (pun intended) massacre.
@@jirkap5023 Right, haha. I meant that it really _is_ a fool-proof way to take us out because such a conversion is simply not survivable. It's absolutely wild to think about a species being able to do a _controlled_ conversion to 2D that _is_ survivable, though. The way 2D life would have to work is just so fundamentally different to 3D life that it's difficult to imagine going down a dimension.
Remeber Superman 2 with Christopher Reeves where he sent the Kryptonians to the phantom zone? That's how I image compressing 3 dimensional beings happens.
Quick question. How would the wall facer project even work. How does someone coordinate their scientific discoveries or project plans with 0 communication?
They had the authority to conduct any action with almost every resource humanity has, even that some of such actions were intended to be fake/misleading to create chaos for observing trisolarans. The technological level of humanity was well known to them, but not the intentions of behind them. So the idea was not "create wonder weapon" but "surprise the enemy with what they already know humanity has".
@@phh2400 Also trying to engineer situations in which they are the sole person that needs to flip a switch to change the course/purpose of a project. Like with the psycho/ai conditioning project.
One of the scariest things is the relationship of the use of this deadly weapons and the current "state" of our universe in the Three-Body Problem Trilogy. Spoilers: Our universe, in its beginning, had 10 dimensions. That's right, 10 dimensions. Considering that the author says that there are civilizations much more advanced than ours, some of them can literally control cosmic aspects: they don't use laser beams like in the movies, they use supernovas, gravity itself, neutrinos, antimatter, black holes, etc. So, our current 3D universe would be a corpse/undead from that original universe. In other words, the cosmic natural phenomena (black holes, supernovas, etc) that astronomy can see, the laws that govern physics and matter are just the remains/effects of the "weapons" used millions and billions of years ago against beings and other aliens civilizations. These civilizations would be the equivalents of the gods or cosmic entities that create/destroy in our myths. So much so that there is a civilization that lives in a two-dimensional universe that destroys our solar system by opening a portal to this 2D universe.
Another scary fact is that the guy who pulled the "trigger" and ended our solar system with such nonchalance was a low level bureaucrat. For him, it was just another Tuesday...
Brooooooo you are so awsome. Because of you I can't get enough of this series. I'm currently on Death' End and holy sht bro it just keeps getting better and better.
One of the unexplained threads was the origin of the dimension warfare. It is implied that originally, the Universe was 11-dimensional (which nicely harmonizes with the superstring theories) and that the speed of light was infinite by then. The Singers actually keep destroying their own living space by throwing the Universe into even less dimensions. The dimension weapon never ceases once started. It is speculated that the life is not possible in 2D, so this actually defeats the whole "Dark Forest" approach.
4:44 / 22:06 The easiest way to _make_ *sense* of -time- is hindsight 👁️🗨️ Love your way of sharing your ideas 💡 Quinn! Thanks for everything that you do…
Great video! In a lot of ways, this story is an exploration of game theory perspective as the overriding social structure of the Universe, and that is terrifying. Terrifying but also unworkable. As is hinted at here with Singer's species civil war, and different ways in other works like Brin's Uplift Series, dog-eat-dog in space usually doesn't allow such species to last long, as they tend to kill one another before they can get to the interstellar level of development. One of the main reasons I don't think Dark Forrest theory is a good answer to the Fermi Paradox, though it does make for fantastic Sci-Fi. Thanks for this great series you've put together.
I just think the likelihood of there being lots of intelligent species on many worlds that are also bipedal and be able to master fire is pretty low, and too many people are Anthropocentric about as to why we haven’t gotten messages from aliens yet.
Read the Killing Star. I believe it’s the vast distances that make the Dark Forrest theory believable to me. This story has earth and the invading Trisolarians being very chatty during the hostilities which is interesting from a story telling point of view. Once become an interstellar species, that’s when you sign your death warrant or put out a contract on your nieghbor. In most instances you can’t tell the difference between an invasion or a diplomatic mission as unknown engines are decelerating towards your solar system until it’s too late because the deceleration happened X amount of light months ago and well don’t look up I guess. So yeah it makes some sense.
For me the "dark forest" concept is one of the worst thought out of the various Fermi Paradox concepts. Its little more than projection of our own still generally limited and barbaric mentalities and neglects the vast near infinite universe we live in. At the point where a species has gotten to inter stellar, let alone intergalactic (or universal) travel they are almost certainly at or beyond "post-scarcity", you could really only benefit from peaceful dealing with other intelligent species as there is so much out there that you have ZERO reason to be territorial or conquest driven into already inhabited planets/system. It almost certainly conflicts with a few other of the Fermi Paradox concepts of self destruction because of your own hostile natures as you very well will have to get past that and work together as a species to reach out to other stars in any meaningful way, and again once you get to that point you are advanced enough that you should have gotten to a point where your own civilization understands there is no need for fighting each other over resources because they are not limited.
@@JohnA... I agree partly, but not because I’d ever expect spacefaring civilizations to necessarily cooperate, more like even if it was possible that many extraterrestrial species existed at once and had space travel in this Universe, why waste so many resources by collapsing entire Star systems like that? Like, none of our Systems will last forever, and life requires warmth and h2o. There is no reason whatsoever for every civilization out there to continue cutting off their nose to spite their faces, unless they had a death wish. At most I can get why the Trisolarians worked on an invasion, not so much about destroying hospitable Stars and 2D attacks.
Hey can somebody answer this question? I just read the first book and I’m also new to the science fiction genre, my first impression of this book is its very technical and it seems like there would be no plot holes. The one thing that puzzles me is why didn’t Trisolaris just use the two sophons the eliminate humanity?
Because the sophons are just Intelligent protons capable of messing with physics and reporting back information in real-time due to quantum entanglement but not killing someone because the protons are extremely small
I liked Death’s End, I really do, but I did feel frustrated that Ching Xin let down humanity, not once but twice. And both times it felt like the decision was one she stumbled into, rather than a decision she was supposed to make. That being said, I kind of knew humanity would succumb to a terrible fate at the end of the series but it wasn’t as understandable knowing one person was ultimately responsible.
Similar feeling about the series. I think the disappointment comes from wanting humanity to succeed in terms of escaping the fate of so many other species that get "cleansed. If the other wall facer (can't remember his name, the guy that tried to kill her) had taken her place the trisolarans would've probably had to keep moving away from the solar system and maybe humanity would've made it to the end of the universe
There is a sense that Ching Xin was actually the collective will of humanity when she chose wrong in both situations, which I think is partially true. But in that case, she seems to reflect the worst character flaws in us humans. The previous two books were told from the viewpoint of a character who saw the situation from outside humanities struggle.
@@matthewlaplante9293 You're right. That was Wade Thomas. I know he was ruthless, treacherous and even villainous, but I thought he was probably the book's unsung hero by the time his story ended.
Cheng Xin was literally the dumbest broad in the history of scifi. She never faced any repercussion for her dumb mistakes. Look at how Luo Ji was treated when his magic spell wasn't working or when it seemed like he was wasting UN resources. She got everything handed to her on a platter, like the lightspeed ship only she and AA got to use. You'd think they could put that ship to better use by turning it into a generation ship. Cixin kept blabbering about Escapism then went on to make his heroine become an Escapist because she's oh so spwecial
I need to re-read these. I really enjoyed books 1 and 2 but the 3rd one got a little out there for me. I think I would like them better the 2nd time around. This was certainly true of the Dune books and Tolkien's works.
If the edenic universe existed in 10 dimensions, and light speed was virtually infinite, then there would be no way to differentiate individual beings from one another. Even if there even were a concept of distance, the transfer of information across spaces would be instantaneous. A dark forest scenario would be impossible. Cixin's proposition suggests that a single all powerful 10 dimensional entity decided to nuke itself with a dimensional downgrade which is absurd.
i just finished reading The Dark Forest. started Death's End today. can't wait to finish it. I'm kinda glad I watched these videos before reading the series. you left out a LOT of big plot points that blew me away and I'm so happy you only talk about some of the main plot points, cause although I know a lot of the things that will happen, there's tons more I don't know that surprised me and makes me happy. this series is one of if not the best sci-fi/philosophy books
Here is my issue with the whole series: competition is a huge part of the natural world, but so is cooperation. Sooner or later aliens would form relationships similar to pilot fish and sharks or gut bacteria and mammals. The Universe wouldn't just be about killing other aliens.
@@x3tc1 The first one. I think "All Tomorrows," a graphic novel published fifteen years ago or so, does a much better job of showing how aliens would realistically interact.
Not all aliens are like that. It is revealed that there are many friendly alien races focused on science, art or philosophy. But the hostiles are the ones causing most of the current problems in that universe
@@rumrunner8019 All Tomorrows is also a great setting! Spoilers for book two and three of Remembrance of Earth's past: The series ends (open ended) with the cosmic community starting to peacefully communicate to save the universe. The problem was that humanity (and many others) existed next to hostile aliens. The Dark Forest is an assumption done by humanity in the books. But keep in mind what their sample size is: 2 (or 3, depending on how the part with Singer is interpreted) civilisations. The Trisolarans, in their own expansionist culture, assumed everyone in the universe would be the same as they are. And humanity's first contact is with the Trisolarans. It's kind of a self fulfilling prophecy. The other civilasations that they "come across" (wouldn't really calling it interacting with though) are fully space faring and go around smashing everybody who seems to be a threat. The thing is, it just takes a hand full of civilisations doing this and it looks like that's how the universe works. It takes just one bad actor to wipe out your civilisation. Even if 99% are friendly. In the end, when that vulnerability vanishes, civilisations are more than willing to call out in friendship.
Another interesting bit (even more spoilers!) : In the second book the Trisolarans trick humanity into believing that there was some change in their society and now they come in peace. Humanity falls for this and Trisolaris betrays them which leads to humanity broadcasting their position into the cosmos. Which in turn leads to both species having their home worlds destroyed. The ironic part: The solar system had enough ressources that both civilisations could've lived in symbiosis. And humanity was willing, even excited, to do so. It was just the Trisolarans being assholes that prevented it.
hey man. gotta thank you bro. happened to come across one of these videos... and just two days ago finished reading one of the best sci-fi series ever. i salute you.
Almost finished Deaths End! (will wrap it up this afternoon). What a ride! The pace of this book is very unlike the other two books, accelerating faster and faster towards the end. The structure of the book itself gains this frantic rate through the eyes of Cheng Xin that is really wild and parallels the pace of technological innovation and the dimensional strike itself.
How I loved reading this book series. Great video Quinn! Did you konw that in november will be released the third part of the "Children of Time" book series.
Yeah I concur, Children of Time was a really fun read, same with the sequel and I'd expect the third book to match that. Adrian Tchaikovsky is a good writer, Shards of Earth and Eyes of the Void are pretty good as well. One more reading tip, check out To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini, I stumbled upon it while searching something new to listen to from Audible and noticed that it was narrated by Jennifer Hale. No regrets. Considering it's the authors first foray into scifi, he nailed it.
that said, Cheng Xin was one of the weakest characters ever in Science fiction, she always made irrational(womanly) decisions that imperrilled humanity further to "feel good" Wade was right.
Minor correction: Around 70,000 BC humanity's population dropped between 5,000 and 10,000 breeding adults. Scientist do not have evidence that it was ever as low as 1,000 breeding adults.
NOTE: 10:04: The Singers world was currently engulfed in a war with it's "fringe" World. (𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘍𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘭𝘦𝘧𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘳.) The Audio clips in this section of the video!
Quick question. How would the wall facer project even work. How does someone coordinate their scientific discoveries or project plans with 0 communication? Love your videos by the way!
@@conorhealy2763 I think the idea is they tell people what to do next but never the whole plan
AYO QUINN. I love you man, thats all. Dont stop 💓💕 ineedya
@@conorhealy2763 Basically you only give out enough information for people to make the plan advance without explaining where that step fits in the plan. Basically security through obscurity. They also knew that it wasn't foolproof and that someone could put the pieces together hence having multiple wallfacers come up with their own separate plan.
@@conorhealy2763 It is an expansion on how military projects are already done to a degree. Someone working on part of a submarine for instance, will have just enough information to build the part they are building. They may be able to guess what the part next to thier part looks like, but they wont have enough information to figure out what the whole assembly of parts looks like. The people assembling those parts will have to have higher security clearance. So imagine the WallFacer is the ultimate security clearance level. Only they know how all of the various pieces will fit together. But they delegate tasks to different groups or industries that are either a part of the plan or a false path. Only the Wallfacer knows.
The thing I hate about the Three-Body series is that the more you think about it, the more plausible Liu's depiction of the universe seems. The idea that every civilization in the universe is caught in a multi-polar trap that forces them to make life worse for everyone just to ensure their own survival is just all too plausible given the history of our own species.
The idea behind Liu's concepts is even worse than that. It isnt that "good aliens" and "moral behavior" doesnt exist in the universe and that everyone is mmbad, but that "evil" behavior, the Dark Forest and the eventual self-inflicted heat death of the universe by weaponized physics is a statistic certainty. Even if a billion alien races are good and moral, it only takes one single paranoid one capable of super-science to end the prospects of a star-trek esque hippie galaxy of jolly cooperation. Due to the tyranny of distance and the iron-clad universal constant of light speed, any diplomatic outstretch to other races is unfeasible, which is why the only way to tell the universe that you arent a threat to others is to essentially live in a prison of lowered light speed that will be your race's tomb until the end of the universe.
In real world terms, this is an obvious comparisson to the current world order where the UN and international law et al. exists, but the power-struggle between the nations over finite resources inevitably lead to the end of diplomacy. It isnt a if but when, until a peaceful order breaks down.
That is just the concept of life in general, consuming everything around it to grow itself, which coincidentally also includes life in its appetite.
He's just projecting the fucked state of China's society onto the cosmos. A human locust like him can only see things from a locust perspective.
It is a legitimately terrifying and plausible answer to the Fermi Paradox.
I feel disturbed a out that.
The description from the book of the Solar System collapsing into two-dimensional space is one of the most creative, beautifully detailed and unique doomsday scenarios I've ever seen
The mother holding her baby above her head as she is being sucked into 2-D space just to give it few extra seconds of life...
I had to put the book down for a bit at that point. Just….damn….
It’s also horrifying lol
The models we have of the solar system as 2 or 3 dimensional fail completely to convey the true shape of things.
So what happens to people when they become 2d? Is it literally death or such a horrendous inconceivable existence that we just wish it was??
The sobering implication discussed in Death's End - We are living in the ruins of a universe-wide warzone collapsed down to 3 dimensions and limited light speed due to the use of weaponized physics
So 2+2=4 because some old alien quarrels?
@@exginto8053 even crazier than that. Physical constants of the universe are manipulated by these aliens.
@@Snowsnaype so basically they could manipulate the law of physics that we knew? Damn I wonder when they would use time manipulation
@@ranggasaktibudiputra1547 Such manipulation results in local downgrading in the books.
For example FTL travel results in no one, ever again, may reach that speed again on exactly the same route, the speed of light is slower where you passed. So if you let enough time pass, then the speed of light in the entire universe weill be lowered.
@@kazaddum2448 This is actually an underestimation of the scale of the universe. Even if such a thing were true, the universe is so bloody vast we'd barely notice a change before it was overtaken by entropy anyway. ;)
For me the duel vector foil sequence in Death’s End was when the novel really fell flat. A lot of the characters just didn’t feel very 3-dimensional afterwards.
GET OUT
haha
Actually, you've on to something. The author did say there's a rush and high pressure to release the Death's End at the end of the writing and most of the works are done in rush without detailed. The ending is suppose to be a place-holder but the editor require him to meet the deadline and just publish it raw.
@@morrischen5777 Thats a bummer
There isn't much content that remains after that point. It's normal to feel that way. Have u read the 4th book in the series. It's quite nice actually
You should have mentioned that Singer even asks his supervisor "should we really be using these dimensional weapons so freely?" and the supervisor just said "what's the matter, everybody is using them".
This just shows that Singer's race isnt the only one/evil one for using these dimensional collapse weapons but that they, too, are locked in a universal war between god-like civilizations and that using these monstrous weapons is like us throwing away a cigarette butt - "everybody is doing it".
In fact, the dimensional weapon isnt even that big of a deal for superbeings like them. It is likely in their war against their rival fringeworld, they have long been using these weapons on each other without any effect, and that these dual vector foils are just pest control devices meant to casually nip out would-be-challengers in the bud. This is a pretty nice turnaround of the Trisolaran insult towards humanity that we are "bugs" - to Singer's race, everyone that cant fold dimensions and weaponize math and universal constants is a bug.
In fact, he says that using the dual vector foil is an "honor" because it shows that we have progressed enough to be a plausible threat to cosmic society. So the mass particle is the fly swatter but the dual vector foil is a whole can of Raid.
The irony is that they and all the other civilizations cause the universe to be destroyed through the casual use of these weapons and don't recognize their impact until the end of everything. Very much a parallel to climate change IMO.
Singer's "supervisor" also says the dual vector foil is one of the inexpensive ones, so he didn't have to think too much before approving it's use. Despite the title of the video, apparently there are way deadlier things that we will never get to know.
@@edumazieri Or perhaps the more expensive ones are less deadly.... More targetted weapons tend to be more expensive than general explosives. For instance if you wanted to destroy all traces of life in a system without destroying the star and planets. Or if you wanted to demolish only animal life and leave plants and bacterium.
@@patreekotime4578 Dual Vector Foil - _For those "fck everything in that general direction" moments_
ALL DIMENSIONAL SERVICE AGENTS *PLEASE NOTICE:* _All dimensional service agents MUST contact their supervisor for an approval prior to deployment of the DVF extermination system_
this weapon and its description of its effects is truly terrifying,this book series still gives me questions to this day,and i suspect will so until my last days,cixin liu is brilliant
dude this is literally what happens if you accidently put legal paper in the printer set for standard paper
@@defeatSpace I did this when I was in the US. I’m use to using the normal international paper sizes A0 to A8, standard would be A4 (which is used internationally, except for in the US) and didn’t know wtf legal etc was. They asked me to refill the printer but the paper sizes looked off. So… I eyeballed it and thought it would be fine but it wasn’t and I fucked the printer up lmao
It's not especially terrifying. Something realistic, like global nuclear war, is way scarier to me.
The orion's arm universe has just about the end all be all of weapon technology. There's a weapon called a "Thunderbolt" that uses gravitational singularities to rearrange the topology of space-time in its future-pointed lightcone into a null geodesic. So, it essentially erases causality itself, making whatever you pointed it at simply cease to exist. The effect is essentially just "deleting the universe" wherever you point it. Not just the stuff in the universe either, it literally deletes space-time. Just causes existence to end, or never have been, more acurately.
There's also a nice concept that involves creating a region of false vacuum that would actually have a lower ground energy state than the current universe's one. This region would expand at the speed of light, causing the quantum vacuum to decompose and fall into a lower energy state as it went. You would never even see the beyond appocalyptically rediculous blastfront of energy released as space-time itself underwent a phase state transition into this lower energy level, since the actual region of false vacuum would be expanding just as fast. You would be blasted into your consituent quarks by the ultra retarded explosion of space-time itself detonating at basically the exact same time as the reorganization of the quantum vacuum made them decay into whatever weirdo particles exist in the new continuum. And thus, the entire universe would be destroyed. Slowly, admittedly, but at the speed of light all the same.
I desperately wanted to know more about the mysterious 'Singers'
The chapter from the perspective of Aliens that send the final weapon was a wild part of the story. It’s all done so nonchalantly. And to return to a hopeless human perspective afterwards was devastating.
@Paul Ridgeway it's not the same because the bugs are killed when they are going to hurt us. We don't go around killing bugs for no reason, only when they pose a threat. If someone does that, they are morally in the wrong and it is discouraged.
Humankind was attacked to simply be removed from the equation, to remove a potential threat which we probably would never have achieved. We were ants going about our own business but this kid decided to kick us and crush our ant hill simply bc he could.
@@stars-and-clouds bugs are killed all the time even when they don't pose any threat, animals are literaly murdered for their fur or tusks and brought to the verge of extenction because of it, entire forests are chopped down without a second thought and so on.this triology just shows us how it's like being on the receiving part of such carelesness towards life
Buddhist ethics shows killing bugs is discouraged..any being capable of suffering
@@Paul_Ridgeway yeah, because, as I said, then they become a threat to you. I don't kill a caterpillar on the street, only ones that might eat my tomatoes.
@@stars-and-cloudsto be fair, the aliens think humans would do much worse than eat their tomatoes
I will never get over Three Body Problem uploads. Something about that concept of destroy-or-perish cosmic sociology and the horror in the stars is so. damn. intriguing. yet at the same time, so frightening - I love it
I read the first book, then quit. I have a low terror threshold.
I couldn't stand this third book, and the dismal, nihilistic view of the universe is the worst part of it for me. It must be incredibly tiresome to be as intelligent as he is and have such a view.
@@Guardian978 reflection of Mankind
@@Guardian978 I actually found the first book to be the hardest to read emotionally. Also, I EXPECT all aliens to be sociopathic towards alien species. I dont expect humans to be towards ourselves.
Facts. I can't get enough of Three Body Problem uploads
Never stop with these videos, I love the fact that you branched out into all these different stories, it's so interesting, keep up the great work.
Agree, I'm so glad he branched out to these other books & series. Because of the original ASOIAF & Dune, etc videos he put out, I knew his taste in literature would b similar to mine, & that he's a diligent reader, who has the capability of intelligently analyzing & interpreting the stories, & describing the books w/ simple, yet thorough & objective explanations. And without being critical of differing perspectives, bcuz he's an open-minded reader. I knew he'd open us up to a whole 'nutha level of new books to read! And so far I've loved almost all of them.
Yes
Yes! As someone with adhd i really suck at reading but find these stories so interesting so im glad to have found a way to enjoy the ideas.
What astounds me about the chapter is how small the epic of human survival is to them. Centuries of conflict between two civilizations, done in by a cosmic janitor who's only reaction is "huh, cool" followed by a quick issuance of apocalyptic doom.
I think Singer's chapiter the most interesting, and it do deserves a video just by itself, from who they are, their behavior, the conversation with it's superior, the big eye, how their society works, the hiding gene, so many information in just a single chapter, it deserves some attention
I agree, I considered the Singer chapter my favorite in Death's End!
I haven’t read the series yet but I am extremely intrigued by the hiding gene concept…
@@xHarpyx in an universe where the dark forest is the rule, evolution would favours those beings that naturally hides best from other's life forms, keeping this concept natural selection would favours those that don't seek for contact, those who strikes first if they find another civilization, put this selective pressure, to hide, thru billions of years of evolution thru the universe and you'll get the idea that a gene for hide would eventually surge and be advantageous in many populations across the universe, at least on those that survived long enough. Sorry, my english is terrible, so I hope I got it clear
@@Lord-ym4rq oh no you’re fine. :-) I understand you perfectly. That’s what I was deducing from the base definition of the words. I’ve read all tomorrows several times and evolution is a chaotic and yet intriguing process.
it also mentioned abyss whale, matrix insect, and big balance bird
The dimensional strike scenes were terrifying and an incredible read.
I love how the equivalent of a janitor on another world has the ability of a god to us humans, and was in charge of casually destroying countless civilizations. That chapter is what really elevated the entire trilogy to a transcendent level. All of this emotional investment over hours upon hours of reading, and a lowly janitor was like, let's just trash these two warring civilizations, now where's my iTunes!?
And also, it's implied Singer's vector attack wasn't even the one that killed us. The attack happened too soon, implying a different civilization was the one who killed us.
Which just goes to show how fucked the universe is because what's left after one dimension?
That's what janitors do to bacteria every day
😂
they really went "aww, using their star to communicate? I'll call them star pluckers 😍" and then eons before we were a danger removed a dimension from our existence
@@yangdaoy good point
I like how every alien civilization has them own "final weapon". This series is something else, man!
care to explain? cheers!
I think he means that 10 dimensional space has already been dimension bombed several times down to the 4th dimension (3d+time).
The dimension bomb that destroyed the 10th dimension was fired by beings infinitely more advanced than us than we are compared to ants.
This basically means that even the most advanced technology cannot escape the dark forest.
@@plaguedoctor03 the trisolarens had their droplets, the singers their dimension folders
@@launcherx2044 And the unknown "low-entropy entity" had mass dot/photoids.
@@Plex42 weren't those unknowns just Singer and his people
I was in shock and awe over the dimensional weapon. I feel like I was finally able to process the scale when Ai AA told Cheng Xin "it's ridiculous to blame yourself for the destruction of the solar system."
I laughed in the worst way. The scale of technology beyond this point in the story was on the level of gods by comparison to today.
There's two moments in Death's End that hit me particularly hard, first is when the button for the transmission is pressed, both Blue Space and Gravity's crew all vote for it, but for the last necessary vote everyone stops and gathers around the final crew member, they know the severity of what they're about to do, and unlike Cheng Xin they understood this was necessary, they wouldn't nurture those who had betrayed them, as sweet as their siren's call would be in the form of art about the beauty of our world. Particularly for the crew of Gravity, their chase mission and expected return to earth as triumphant heroes would now never take place, being forced to join Blue Space into becoming a cosmic species, the chances of humans in the solar system being able to survive the dark forest being too remote to consider returning.
The second moment (SPOILERS NOT MENTIONED IN THIS VIDEO) is when Cheng Xin and Guan Yifan see both human and trisolaran languages were included in the message asking them to disassemble their pocket universe, it made me realise how after everything these two species had done to each other, they had become intrinsically linked, had Ye Wenjie never established contact with trisolaris, humanity would have likely began exploring the universe much later, and would have definitely been wiped out soon after becoming too notorious, Trisolaris instead would have likely looked for a way to expand their civilization away from their hostile solar system and become a cosmic society, which is what both species ended up doing in the end. Seeing how both species had endured enough to be included in the pocket universe message felt like the trisolarans and humans had been in a hurtful relationship that lasted centuries, but in the grand expanse of cosmic time the mutual destruction of our homeworlds felt like quarrel we had so long ago it no longer mattered.
its made better for their caretaker is a copy of the Quantum Chiko computer with the Japanese lady's form
(i read the novel in chinese so i dont know what she is called in english translation)
which both had tormented humanity for centuries yet at the end of everything now are friends,
in a brave new world marching to certain end together
@@sunso1991 The proton computers created by the Trisolarians? They're called Sophons
@@mentalcrash ah, in the novel the characters mentioned the word Sophon sounds like Japanese woman's name (Sophon is "intelligent particle" in Chinese, which is written the same way in Kanji as a Japanese female name "Tomoko")
@@sunso1991 a clever translation then. I was completely unaware they had a different name in the original untranslated Chinese.
If you had made that post on the fandom subreddit you would have been downvoted up to a lower dimension. They hate any slightest criticism about Cheng Xin.
I finished the trilogy a few days ago and I'm still stunned, mesmerized and meditating on the story and many fascinating concepts. It is one of the most profound experiences I have ever had with a work of literature. I am so perplexed that I found your videos in a hope to learn more and immerse myself deeper into the fascinating worlds created by Cixin Liu. I thank you for the amazing work you have done and the sense of wonder you convey through your excellent videos. Please continue to make more videos on the Three Body Problem series, I cannot get enough.
Hopefully if the Netflix series turns out to be great, we'll have more people talking about this. But I'm not keeping my hopes up too much.
@danielrodrigues4903 yea. Don't put much hope into Netflix. Ten cent did a Chinese series of it. It lasted 30 episodes and covered EVERYTHING in the first book. I doubt Netflix will bother with more than 8. No way it'll be remotely worthy to watch.
Now watch the dark forest episode on Isaac Arthur
Hey Quinn, when the world seems be coming undone at the seams, when things seems very bad, i often take a break from reality and escape on a journey with you to another world with your science fiction videos. You always manage to capture my imagination in the retelling of these concepts. I thank you for that.
You know what happens in these books is far worse than what we face right?
@@DwAboutItManFr Yes of course, some of the best literature in history was written during extremely volatile times in history. I think for me, when we cant have resolutions in life and things feel abysmal, having a conclusion to a scifi or the reasons for events being explained etc, gives my mind an escape.
In the the remembrance of earth's past series one of the charactes was considering the combined destructive power of humans. It was likened it to a lit candle combined to the destructive powers in space and how there was comfort in knowing that. (I think it was book 1, been a few months)
The concepts also made me think about things differently.
I love Quinn's content, he really captures my imagination with the abiance he creates and his re-tellings. It just puts me so far away from my troubles.
Amen
@@DwAboutItManFr we all gonna die mate
True story: before Cixin Liu even written "The Death's End", he once participated in a panel at a science fiction conference in China. The host asked a question to panelists: describe the most imaginative way of doomsday. Cixin Liu gave a quick and confusing answer: "The Earth is such a beautiful place. Let's turn it into a picture."
I discovered this series because of you! Mind blowing books! My favorite series now! I really loved "ball lightning" too because it's really unique and subbtle in the tone.
just to say --
you brought me back to reading fantasy and sci fi after almost a decade since I last touched a book for fun and not for learning. I'm genuinely thankful for that.
Reading this part definitely tipped things into straight horror.
Quinn, your content is some of the best there is regarding sci-fi on this platform. Your calm, respectful, inquisitive and friendly nature make every video you post a treat.
Very True!
I’m not a fan of reading but your videos on the three body problem have convinced me to buy the first book and start reading every night! I would love you to do an audiobook on this series aswell! Love your videos, Quinn!
I don't know if you hear’d hey made a TV show of the books, you can watch it on RUclips.
@@rexsand1321 You mean the Netflix adaptation?
@@Fyre0tencent chinese version is well adapted to the book series
These videos should be 40 minutes long. They are SO GOOD!
Your videos are so helpful. I finished the series recently and your videos help fill in the blanks on parts that I missed or parts that's didn't make sense at the time. Awesome work man 👌🏽
This might not be the deadliest weapon in the universe, per Death's End. Singer describes how he doesn't like using "the expensive tools" because they are "too violent." Since he seems pleased with the dual vector foil, it's implied then that this weapon is basic, economical, and relatively gentle compared to what Singer's species is truly capable of.
Yikes man
I do wish the author of Redemption of Time had explained the other weapons that the brain guy (forgetting his name, the dude sent in the StairCase project) had found out about during his time with the Tris.
He mentioned 6, but only explained the dual vector foil as it was the most likely to be used.
Something about universal constants being altered as weapons makes me wonder.
Jesus Christ lmao.
Bro threw a credit card at us that collapsed our whole solar system while singing nonchalantly… I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised.
After years of playing gacha games
I always knew credit cards are the most powerful weapon in the universe
If you think about it. While the foil does doom the entire universe, it doesn't work that fast. At most it works at light speed. Which can probably take hundreds of centuries, longer than it takes for a star to die before it affects anything close to its user. There are probably way worse stuff to mess with.
Kudos. I started this series because of your show… and you’re pushing out content faster than I can read the books!
Remembrance of Earth’s Past Trilogy is so fascinating. Great idea Quinn to cover this series!
I love Quinn’s coverage, of this series. Keep it up!
The episode I have thirsted for since when you first uploaded a three body problem series, very excited to listen while working.
The problem with Singers plan is that it still would have failed if humanity had widely achieved lightspeed (which almost happened). The one on the Trisolarans also failed for the same reason, so it calls into question how successful Dark Forest doctrine actually is in the long term.
Basing survival on “luck” seems a poor prognosis regardless.
The trisolarians escaped due to luck. Their fleet was far enough away to not be killed as the rest of their species was.
The humans on Gravity and the other ship were lucky to be far enough away by the time the dual vector foil was unleashed.
The main characters were lucky to be on a lightspeed capable ship.
Cleansing would be far more productive than you imagine I think.
@antibull4869 each instant of luck has two sides though; one's good luck is another's bad. It would be just as lucky for the exterminator to strike JUST before an intelligence achieved lightspeed. A more sure model would be dark forest strikes long before intelligence arose at all. Why wait until the last minute?
I guess the thinking behind it is that the dark forest would claim these species somehow. Imagine leaving an orphan child in the jungle.
Well, as the singer said, humanity is an odd ball. the earthlings discovered how to make themselves known to the dark forest (being a star plucker), but not how to hide from it. I suppose most advanced civs would somehow hide themselves from the rest of the universe or not advance at all.
Singer is nothing but a bureaucrat. He does what he's told, regardless of whether it's right or successful.
What's frustrating is how humanity in the books has been unable to act pragmatically and unselfishly, always pursuing any initiative of Escapism until it was too late.
finished the series recently because of these videos, amazing series
I've waited so long for this series to continue. Going to be the first sci-fi series I buy physical copies of. Thanks so much for the hard work you put in Quinn!
I would buy a version of this series as an audiobook where you read and explain everything.
SAME
Exactly!!! 👍
This series deserves an audio book/drama with full fledged cast for each characters and astounding background sound. Lets see if AI can make this happen.
I love hearing about this series from you, Quinn. Really makes me want to read these. You've been one of my favorite channels for a long while now
I thought the greatest extinction event in the books was the birth of Cheng Xin. We never recovered after that happened.
haha, feel the same way. forget Thanos, she's the real destroyer of worlds.
@@javiervidal366 IMO a better translation for the name of the third book is 'the death God lives forever', which... Yeah, lol.
On the subreddit they don't tolerate any criticism or jokes about her Apparently, readers have no right to feel frustrated with her... Even though Cixin Liu has said that in fact he doesn't like her himself.
@@AnonymousAnonposterreddit is cancer where blue hairs wield fat schtick cyst levels of power over normal people whose view of their society becomes twisted by said bluehairs
all my homies hate cheng xin. She's literally the epitome of "ffs you had ONE job"
Thank you for these videos concerning the Three Body Problem series. I've read the books once but, at the time, realised there were many details I couldn't get to grips with. Your videos are the spur I need to revisit this series and to appreciate its genius. More power to you Sir.
Reading the dual-vector foil scene and its implications was the most incredible reading experience I've ever had.
Happy to see you continuing to cover Three Body Problem. Just got done with Death's End and your videos really help me to digest some of the heady ideas in this kind of science fiction.
I always thought of Singer as a guy who relaxes in his spaceship, listening to old rock music and playing tetris when he has nothing to do. Chill dude.
Thank you so much Quinn! I read this series because of you. This series was mind blowing - I’ve never had such a existential dread of space before. The Strike got to me like nothing else ever has
I was trying to explain these books to my girlfriend and was just reduced to a babbling assortment of incomprehensible words. Your ability to adequately condense everything is very impressive. Thank you
Please continue these. I am so hooked on it and you are such a fantastic story teller. I love sci-fi stories, especially darker ones and The Three Body Problem is a perfect example of such. Again, please continue doing these =)
I don't think I could ever read this book series because it seems so densely technical that it would feel more like work than pleasure, but with that said, I'm hooked on this video series.
i love your three body problem series so much. the last time something changed my view of the world like this was watching the matrix. Its so mind bending to think about being transformed into two dimensions. it made me really afraid! Is life even possible in two dimensions? How could singer's race transform a WHOLE PLANET into two dimensions and how can they live upon it? Didnt the trisolarans also have dimensional tech? they turned the 11 dimensional protons into 2 dimensions to make those supercomputers so why didnt they have foils?
Whole planet? Dude read the book, it's the WHOLE SOLAR SYSTEM, and since the effect never stops, sooner or later it would be the ENTIRE UNIVERSE
@@Dr._Atom They're referring to the event where Singer's race translated their homeworld and everyone in it into two dimensions to escape the effects of their dimension strike, not the dimension strike against our solar system.
Just because the Trisolarans had the ability to unfold the protons, doesn't mean they had the tech to create those "dual vector foils" at the time, and the means to deploy them.
While the book doesn't get into any specifics what kind of tech level is required for that, we can kind of make some educated guesses that for a civilization to possess this ability, they would have to be VERY advanced and here's why.
If we consider the two different ways to perform a dark forest strike, the photoid and the dimension strike, the photoid is much more simple in comparison, it's basically a "relativistic kill missile", maybe if you could get something like the droplet to lightspeed, that might do the trick, but it's just something that I throught of just now and the book doesn't tell anything in detail of what the photoid is, so this is just pure speculation on my part. Anyway, with a photoid the effect is limited only to the target solar system, no harm beyond that. Maybe it wouldn't have taken too long for the Trisolarans to be able to casually toss some photoids around, but during The Crisis Era, they only had the ability to accelerate protons to lightspeed.
To be able to casually toss "paper slips", is an entirely different beast because even if you could create them, you sure as hell don't want to use them before you can ensure that your own civilization can escape and survive the effects of the dimensional collapse. In the book, when Singer asked for permission to toss the paper slip our way, he was surprised with how quickly he got the permission, and how little, if no opposition at all the Elder had with the request. It was implied that previously they weren't as casual with the use of the dual vector foils, and that prompted Singer to ask the question of whether their homeworld had transitioned into two dimensions. Now that they had, it's fair to assume that the use of dimensional strikes is going to be far less restricted as the primary goal of their civilization that is survival is ensured. Without the ability to transform yourself into two dimensional beings that can survive in a two dimensional universe, you don't go shooting around with weapons like the dual vector foil.
@@Nabekukka exactly How the dimenson fold affects humans for example? They get "crushed" and die? does everything affected by It becomes a 2 dimensional plane?
Well, not sure if crushed is the right word, maybe more like flattened to such a degree that you've just lost one of your dimensions, think of an infinitely thin "slip of paper" like the dual vector foil that was described in the book, you can see it from above and below, but if you try to view it directly from the side, you can't see it at all. Since humans are three dimensional beings, it's impossible to survive. And yes, it affects everything, even space itself will be "flattened" down to a two dimensional plane.
This has instantly became my favorite channel. Well done sir
I honestly wish you could do a 3 body problem fan audio book. It would be your most viewed video ever , your voice and channel is what introduced me to the book in the first place. Along with the music you use. I would donate to see something like this.
I'm not sure if that's possible, if you mean that Quinn would make an audio book reading the books in their entirety, I would assume that he would have to get the permission and rights to do so, from whatever entity controls that, which would also necessarily mean negotiating a price and a contract for that.
I'm sure if he opted for it he could get permission to make an audiobook, but of course that wouldn't be up here on youtube, would have to pay for it
@@ChristopherWeaver1 I mean sure, he could do that, but when considering all the hassle required with it, and then whether it's ultimately worth it financially, I doubt that he'd want to go through with it.
I would pay for that as well! 👍
There are already official audiobooks of the series for sale, so I doubt the author or publishers would sign off on another version (especially a free fan reading on RUclips).
Thanks for the video on blindsight. I always feel bad, since I have to turn your videos off after about 2 minutes to avoid too many spoilers, but you've brought several amazing new sci-fi authors to my attention and I really trust and appreciate your recommendations. Thank you so much for what you do, it's really great.
Damn man you’ve been busy this week and I/we appreciate all the good work !
There’s a tiny logic conflict here however, if dual vector foil can expand with light speed, the spacecraft with light speed actually can’t escape from it, once the craft stops it will be caught up, but undoubtedly this dimensional strike is a creative idea
i don't think the dual vector foil expands with lightspeed. it took "8 to 10 days" for it to reach pluto, which is definitely not the speed of light
I am always blown away with the quality of your videos. Thank you for making such great, engaging content. The passion you show motivated me to try reading science fiction again, and has really helped me discover stories I would otherwise not have gotten to enjoy. Keep up the amazing work! Your remembrance of earths past series videos are my favorite.
Just finished the series and this goes into so much more detail. Awesome work!!
Wade wasn't a good man. Far from it. He was still the hero mankind needed. The characters in this novel consistently made bad decisions so much that it hurt. By the end of the novel, I felt very little sorrow at the end of mankind. It's a bit strange to have that feeling when I'm generally against misanthropy.
I once tried salvia in my youth and in that experience I saw in the distance the world slowly being folded as if everything was being reduced from its normal 3D state into a flat 2D surface. It kept coming closer and closer, and ultimately I felt myself being folded as if the reality I was in was being reduced into this plain surface. It felt like some weird gravitational pull that was inescapable. That is kinda how I imagined succumbing to such an attack would feel like when reading this for the first time. Needless to say it was an experience I'll never forget lol.
I love these videos especially the three body problem series. Can't wait for the next one!
I've read the first and now sourcing the next two but don't stop on my account, preach brother preach. 🙌
I just finished The Dark Forest, Quinn thank you so much for recommending this book series. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed what I have read so far.
Humanity had a weapon that could have saved them, even at the end with the dual-foil strike: Da Shi. They should've kept him in hibernation. The plan: Wake up Da Shi when the foil gets to the Solar System, hand him a carton of *real* cigarettes, two lighters and a black leather jacket. Give him a lightspeed ship. Problem solved. Da Shi can solve any problem, one way or the other. :)
Great video.
The issue with dimension weapon is not that they have apparently used before, but that once a weapon is used, it will not stop at the targeted system. The weapon will end up destroying the entire universe at it currently exists
Makes you wonder about dark matter/energy and the great attractor 🤔 we've been looking some recently for evidence of mega and giga structures but what if we already have seen destruction caused by dimensional folding in unexplained mass and gravity wells
I love how creative Three Body Problem is
I’m glad Quinn is making these videos cause if I tried reading that book my brain would suffer from a Dimensional Collapse 🤯🤯🤯
Do it. Read the book. Collapse your brain into two dimensions. Become a part of the picture with the rest of us.
My brain collapsed into a singularity while reading the books, especially the last one. But box was it worth it.
It ain't that hard, gamer
The audio books are worthy. Didn't like the guy that read the first book but the other 3 were good. Same guy on those 3. I say audio book because my eyesight doesn't allow me to read small print anymore.
When you read the book i don't know about the brain but your soul would definitely have a collapse.
Three Body Problem videos are my favourite, keep up the good work!
Just found this channel a couple days ago. Great content. Never heard of the three body problem before coming here. Super interesting.
Babe wake up, Quinn Just posted again!!! I can't express enough how much I love your videos, man. I audible said "LFG" when I saw this lol
As always, great video, you help me to discover this great sci-fi novels, hope you get great sells with your books. ^^
1. ''her punishment was to continuing living''... yeah, that's like when you screwed so hard that your company get to bankrupt and you think ''yeah, my punishment it's to keep working'', lady, just have the decency to at least save mankind from your own naivety, like jeez.... this is why the existence of the expression ''captain goes down with the ship''.
2. I really could imagine some one dimensional aliens saying, ''dudes, you understand we need dimensions to exist right?, can we like... try to not murder each other for... I don't know... five cicles?''.
3. I would love a Futurama Episode based on the Three Body Problem.
i think reason singer decide to use dimensional weapon because it tought human will be lousy and will start galaxy war that potentialy accelerate the rate breaking dimension because some civilization have ability to use dimensional weapon. so its better kill human entirely and have more time to prepare
Ever since reading ASOIAF I've been searching for a book to at least try and pique my Interest....and nothing comes close...until I read this series...this series of books is absolutely brilliant
Really hope you do expand on several parts of the series. Your vids are great, keep up the good work. 👍
I just love these, I can't get the books easily where I live now so your videos are a blessing, thank you!!
One thing I wonder about dimension strikes is two fold (no pun intended):
▪︎ What's preventing a species capable of collapsing a dimension in any given area from unfolding one instead, in order to counter the adverse effects of dimension strikes?
▪︎ Similarly, if such beings can reshape themselves, their technology, and habitats into lower dimensional beings, what's preventing them from re-reshaping themselves into higher dimensional beings?
There is a chapter where the crew of the escaping Blue Space come across the remnants of 4th dimension space and communicate with some AI left by its previous inhabitants and it was explained to them that what was left of the 4th dimension was mere puddles that was shrinking after the use of dimensional weapons. The humans from Blue Space being three dimensional beings can enter 4th dimension and interact with it somewhat because all the physical constants holding the matter of their bodies together still exist whereas a 4th dimension being cannot enter the third dimension without some of the physics they depend on to exist suddenly going missing. The in universe explanation is that higher dimension physics can only be destroyed, not brought back by alien technology, at least until everything collapses into a one dimension singularity where all the mass of the higher dimensions is unified and a big bang like event resets the universe with all of its dimensions.
I just finished this series on your recommendation Quinn. It was top notch. Thanks buddy.
I saw someone elaborating the possibility that Yun's mission is more than a benevolent messenger for Earth. That Trisolarians who so far had not the ability to even scheme, had so easily defeated deterrence using nothing more than human weaknesses, hints to the fact that Yun might well have been an active collaborator in their plan, under his own will. Maybe it's his grudge for being given the worst kind of torture by precisely the one you loved (another Cheng Xin-bashing moment here). Trisolarians likely treated him as much more than a messenger, it's plausible that he was given quite a high position inside trisolarian hierarchy given his values to them.
Finally! The wait between each TBP video is agonizing.
Goddamn, this series has _so_ many interesting science fiction concepts in it! Imagining all of humanity flattened into 2 dimensional beings is horrifying - I can barely even imagine how that would work. It's easy to imagine them compressing into representations based on external appearance, the way animated characters look, but that's not what would happen if you tried to take a 3D human and compress everything they are into 2D the way the attack is described. Would it unfold every surface of the body onto one plane like turning a 3D globe into a 2D map? Or would people become a long series of connected cross-sections, each an atom thick? Or would they just flatten, like a squashed bug, blood and bones and organs all spreading out like a spilled drink?
Any way you slice it, there's no way humanity could survive such a thing.
Well, the humanity didn't survive it (at least all of it that didn't manage to flee). And that was actually the point, to wipe us out. The process of transforming yourself into a 2D being is implied to have to be a controlled one in order for you to survive. And the vector foil attack was just a flat out (pun intended) massacre.
@@jirkap5023 Right, haha. I meant that it really _is_ a fool-proof way to take us out because such a conversion is simply not survivable.
It's absolutely wild to think about a species being able to do a _controlled_ conversion to 2D that _is_ survivable, though. The way 2D life would have to work is just so fundamentally different to 3D life that it's difficult to imagine going down a dimension.
Remeber Superman 2 with Christopher Reeves where he sent the Kryptonians to the phantom zone? That's how I image compressing 3 dimensional beings happens.
Best series on RUclips right here.
Quick question. How would the wall facer project even work. How does someone coordinate their scientific discoveries or project plans with 0 communication?
They had the authority to conduct any action with almost every resource humanity has, even that some of such actions were intended to be fake/misleading to create chaos for observing trisolarans. The technological level of humanity was well known to them, but not the intentions of behind them. So the idea was not "create wonder weapon" but "surprise the enemy with what they already know humanity has".
@@phh2400 Also trying to engineer situations in which they are the sole person that needs to flip a switch to change the course/purpose of a project.
Like with the psycho/ai conditioning project.
I love your choice of music and ambient sounds
One of the scariest things is the relationship of the use of this deadly weapons and the current "state" of our universe in the Three-Body Problem Trilogy. Spoilers:
Our universe, in its beginning, had 10 dimensions. That's right, 10 dimensions. Considering that the author says that there are civilizations much more advanced than ours, some of them can literally control cosmic aspects: they don't use laser beams like in the movies, they use supernovas, gravity itself, neutrinos, antimatter, black holes, etc.
So, our current 3D universe would be a corpse/undead from that original universe. In other words, the cosmic natural phenomena (black holes, supernovas, etc) that astronomy can see, the laws that govern physics and matter are just the remains/effects of the "weapons" used millions and billions of years ago against beings and other aliens civilizations.
These civilizations would be the equivalents of the gods or cosmic entities that create/destroy in our myths.
So much so that there is a civilization that lives in a two-dimensional universe that destroys our solar system by opening a portal to this 2D universe.
now that's some cosmic horror for you
Just make your own damn videos
@@rumorcontrol7873 true that, Lovercraft for 21st century. Love how "Dark Forest" is now handled as valid hypothesis for the Drake equation problem.
Another scary fact is that the guy who pulled the "trigger" and ended our solar system with such nonchalance was a low level bureaucrat. For him, it was just another Tuesday...
Lulz
Brooooooo you are so awsome. Because of you I can't get enough of this series. I'm currently on Death' End and holy sht bro it just keeps getting better and better.
One of the unexplained threads was the origin of the dimension warfare. It is implied that originally, the Universe was 11-dimensional (which nicely harmonizes with the superstring theories) and that the speed of light was infinite by then.
The Singers actually keep destroying their own living space by throwing the Universe into even less dimensions. The dimension weapon never ceases once started. It is speculated that the life is not possible in 2D, so this actually defeats the whole "Dark Forest" approach.
I own this 3 book series. Because of you Quinn!! I bought and read it twice. Even after watching your videos. lol. I need the remembrance of time book
I love this channel and your dissemination of stories from multiple sci-fi book series! Thank you, good sir, for all that you do.
4:44 / 22:06
The easiest way to _make_ *sense* of -time- is hindsight 👁️🗨️
Love your way of sharing your ideas 💡 Quinn! Thanks for everything that you do…
Great video! In a lot of ways, this story is an exploration of game theory perspective as the overriding social structure of the Universe, and that is terrifying. Terrifying but also unworkable. As is hinted at here with Singer's species civil war, and different ways in other works like Brin's Uplift Series, dog-eat-dog in space usually doesn't allow such species to last long, as they tend to kill one another before they can get to the interstellar level of development. One of the main reasons I don't think Dark Forrest theory is a good answer to the Fermi Paradox, though it does make for fantastic Sci-Fi. Thanks for this great series you've put together.
I just think the likelihood of there being lots of intelligent species on many worlds that are also bipedal and be able to master fire is pretty low, and too many people are Anthropocentric about as to why we haven’t gotten messages from aliens yet.
Read the Killing Star. I believe it’s the vast distances that make the Dark Forrest theory believable to me. This story has earth and the invading Trisolarians being very chatty during the hostilities which is interesting from a story telling point of view. Once become an interstellar species, that’s when you sign your death warrant or put out a contract on your nieghbor. In most instances you can’t tell the difference between an invasion or a diplomatic mission as unknown engines are decelerating towards your solar system until it’s too late because the deceleration happened X amount of light months ago and well don’t look up I guess. So yeah it makes some sense.
For me the "dark forest" concept is one of the worst thought out of the various Fermi Paradox concepts. Its little more than projection of our own still generally limited and barbaric mentalities and neglects the vast near infinite universe we live in. At the point where a species has gotten to inter stellar, let alone intergalactic (or universal) travel they are almost certainly at or beyond "post-scarcity", you could really only benefit from peaceful dealing with other intelligent species as there is so much out there that you have ZERO reason to be territorial or conquest driven into already inhabited planets/system. It almost certainly conflicts with a few other of the Fermi Paradox concepts of self destruction because of your own hostile natures as you very well will have to get past that and work together as a species to reach out to other stars in any meaningful way, and again once you get to that point you are advanced enough that you should have gotten to a point where your own civilization understands there is no need for fighting each other over resources because they are not limited.
@@JohnA... I agree partly, but not because I’d ever expect spacefaring civilizations to necessarily cooperate, more like even if it was possible that many extraterrestrial species existed at once and had space travel in this Universe, why waste so many resources by collapsing entire Star systems like that?
Like, none of our Systems will last forever, and life requires warmth and h2o. There is no reason whatsoever for every civilization out there to continue cutting off their nose to spite their faces, unless they had a death wish. At most I can get why the Trisolarians worked on an invasion, not so much about destroying hospitable Stars and 2D attacks.
If Sentinel island exists and that’s just some members of our own species, just imagine an entire Inter-star civilization or a galactic civilization…
Just found this channel. Can’t stop watching your episodes it is awesome. Thank you.
Hey can somebody answer this question? I just read the first book and I’m also new to the science fiction genre, my first impression of this book is its very technical and it seems like there would be no plot holes. The one thing that puzzles me is why didn’t Trisolaris just use the two sophons the eliminate humanity?
Because the sophons are just Intelligent protons capable of messing with physics and reporting back information in real-time due to quantum entanglement but not killing someone because the protons are extremely small
I've been waiting a lot of time for a video about the 3 stoties, can't wait
I liked Death’s End, I really do, but I did feel frustrated that Ching Xin let down humanity, not once but twice. And both times it felt like the decision was one she stumbled into, rather than a decision she was supposed to make. That being said, I kind of knew humanity would succumb to a terrible fate at the end of the series but it wasn’t as understandable knowing one person was ultimately responsible.
Similar feeling about the series. I think the disappointment comes from wanting humanity to succeed in terms of escaping the fate of so many other species that get "cleansed. If the other wall facer (can't remember his name, the guy that tried to kill her) had taken her place the trisolarans would've probably had to keep moving away from the solar system and maybe humanity would've made it to the end of the universe
"Arrogance and hubris are what will doom humanity, not weakness or ignorance."
There is a sense that Ching Xin was actually the collective will of humanity when she chose wrong in both situations, which I think is partially true. But in that case, she seems to reflect the worst character flaws in us humans. The previous two books were told from the viewpoint of a character who saw the situation from outside humanities struggle.
@@matthewlaplante9293 You're right. That was Wade Thomas. I know he was ruthless, treacherous and even villainous, but I thought he was probably the book's unsung hero by the time his story ended.
Cheng Xin was literally the dumbest broad in the history of scifi. She never faced any repercussion for her dumb mistakes. Look at how Luo Ji was treated when his magic spell wasn't working or when it seemed like he was wasting UN resources. She got everything handed to her on a platter, like the lightspeed ship only she and AA got to use. You'd think they could put that ship to better use by turning it into a generation ship. Cixin kept blabbering about Escapism then went on to make his heroine become an Escapist because she's oh so spwecial
Been eyeing these books for awhile. This video has me convinced to read them before watching the series. Thanks Quinn
I need to re-read these. I really enjoyed books 1 and 2 but the 3rd one got a little out there for me. I think I would like them better the 2nd time around. This was certainly true of the Dune books and Tolkien's works.
I've done them thrice. Absolutely amazing works. Redemption of time is good though plays with the thoughts of angels, God and Lucifer.
Sometimes... sometimes I watch these videos and have a sip of beer for every 'civilization' and 'universe', it's a fun time.
If the edenic universe existed in 10 dimensions, and light speed was virtually infinite, then there would be no way to differentiate individual beings from one another. Even if there even were a concept of distance, the transfer of information across spaces would be instantaneous. A dark forest scenario would be impossible. Cixin's proposition suggests that a single all powerful 10 dimensional entity decided to nuke itself with a dimensional downgrade which is absurd.
The nature of intelligence is to kill itself
Or the ten dimensional being sought to be more than itself and is still technically doing that
i just finished reading The Dark Forest. started Death's End today. can't wait to finish it. I'm kinda glad I watched these videos before reading the series. you left out a LOT of big plot points that blew me away and I'm so happy you only talk about some of the main plot points, cause although I know a lot of the things that will happen, there's tons more I don't know that surprised me and makes me happy. this series is one of if not the best sci-fi/philosophy books
Here is my issue with the whole series: competition is a huge part of the natural world, but so is cooperation. Sooner or later aliens would form relationships similar to pilot fish and sharks or gut bacteria and mammals. The Universe wouldn't just be about killing other aliens.
Have you read the novels?
@@x3tc1 The first one.
I think "All Tomorrows," a graphic novel published fifteen years ago or so, does a much better job of showing how aliens would realistically interact.
Not all aliens are like that. It is revealed that there are many friendly alien races focused on science, art or philosophy. But the hostiles are the ones causing most of the current problems in that universe
@@rumrunner8019 All Tomorrows is also a great setting!
Spoilers for book two and three of Remembrance of Earth's past:
The series ends (open ended) with the cosmic community starting to peacefully communicate to save the universe. The problem was that humanity (and many others) existed next to hostile aliens.
The Dark Forest is an assumption done by humanity in the books. But keep in mind what their sample size is: 2 (or 3, depending on how the part with Singer is interpreted) civilisations. The Trisolarans, in their own expansionist culture, assumed everyone in the universe would be the same as they are. And humanity's first contact is with the Trisolarans. It's kind of a self fulfilling prophecy.
The other civilasations that they "come across" (wouldn't really calling it interacting with though) are fully space faring and go around smashing everybody who seems to be a threat.
The thing is, it just takes a hand full of civilisations doing this and it looks like that's how the universe works. It takes just one bad actor to wipe out your civilisation. Even if 99% are friendly. In the end, when that vulnerability vanishes, civilisations are more than willing to call out in friendship.
Another interesting bit (even more spoilers!) : In the second book the Trisolarans trick humanity into believing that there was some change in their society and now they come in peace. Humanity falls for this and Trisolaris betrays them which leads to humanity broadcasting their position into the cosmos. Which in turn leads to both species having their home worlds destroyed.
The ironic part: The solar system had enough ressources that both civilisations could've lived in symbiosis. And humanity was willing, even excited, to do so. It was just the Trisolarans being assholes that prevented it.
hey man. gotta thank you bro. happened to come across one of these videos... and just two days ago finished reading one of the best sci-fi series ever. i salute you.
Almost finished Deaths End! (will wrap it up this afternoon). What a ride! The pace of this book is very unlike the other two books, accelerating faster and faster towards the end. The structure of the book itself gains this frantic rate through the eyes of Cheng Xin that is really wild and parallels the pace of technological innovation and the dimensional strike itself.
Your channel is the best. Everytime a new video comes out it's better than the last video.
How I loved reading this book series. Great video Quinn! Did you konw that in november will be released the third part of the "Children of Time" book series.
Children of Time? Not heard of this series. Just googled seems to be highly rated. Wonder if I should check it out.
@@rhysholdaway do it! Is really great. Quinn made a video about it.
@@holyfreak86 👌 will do. Loved the original trilogy and been keeping an eye out for more stuff by Liu Cixin.
Yeah I concur, Children of Time was a really fun read, same with the sequel and I'd expect the third book to match that. Adrian Tchaikovsky is a good writer, Shards of Earth and Eyes of the Void are pretty good as well. One more reading tip, check out To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini, I stumbled upon it while searching something new to listen to from Audible and noticed that it was narrated by Jennifer Hale. No regrets. Considering it's the authors first foray into scifi, he nailed it.
I LOVED this series, thanks for spotlighting it, wouldn't have checked it out without your channel.
that said, Cheng Xin was one of the weakest characters ever in Science fiction, she always made irrational(womanly) decisions that imperrilled humanity further to "feel good" Wade was right.