This top guy is crazy!

Chapter 373 The Three-Body Problem: The Dark Forest
First, the prologue.

The prologue of "The Three-Body Problem 2: The Dark Forest" describes two conversations, one between Ye Wenjie and Luo Ji, and the other between Evans and the Trisolarans.

The prologue records the conversation between Ye Wenjie and Luo Ji from the perspective of a brown ant.

"Are you Ronaldinho?"

"I'm Luo Ji, Yang Dong's high school classmate."

The brown ant climbed on the smooth black tombstone, first walking over a "1", then a "9", then a "7", and finally another "9". So together they form a year:
1979.

The prologue is very interesting. It records the actions of the brown ants while interspersing the conversations between Ye Wenjie and Luo Ji. This gave Zhu Hua a very novel reading experience. Of course, it was also very difficult to read.

Because from the brown ant's perspective, it took him a long time to distinguish those "canyons", "black peaks" and "grooves" as "freshly dug graves", "tombstones" and "handwriting" respectively.

The conversation between Ye Wenjie and Luo Ji records the process of Ye Wenjie instructing Luo Ji.

And proposed the concept of "cosmic sociology".

Ye Wenjie hypothesized that there are a huge number of civilizations distributed in the universe, and their number is on the same order of magnitude as the number of observable stars. There are many, many of them, and these civilizations constitute an overall cosmic society. Cosmic sociology is the study of the form of this super society.

"Cosmic sociology", Zhu Hua accurately captured this term.

His first subconscious reaction was to search to see if this subject really existed, but there was no entry for this subject on the Internet. This surprised him! He thought the concept of "cosmic sociology" was great, at least it made sense in this book.

Moreover, Zhu Hua feels that the emergence of "cosmic sociology" will not be that simple.

Perhaps it will play a crucial role in the following plot.

He continued to look down.

The brown ant on the tombstone was still climbing and encountered another "2" and a "0".

"so."

Zhu Hua imagined a picture in his mind: brown ants crawling through '1979-20'?
Is this Yang Dong’s birthday and death date?
“But he only climbed halfway through the climb, so the remaining two should be ‘0’ and ‘7’, right?” As a loyal fan of the Three-Body Problem, Zhu Hua remembered that Yang Dong died in 2007. However, this information was not from the book, but from the TV series “The Three-Body Problem: Part One”.

The beginning of "The Three-Body Problem" mentions the selection of torchbearers for the 2007 Olympics, and Yang Dong committed suicide at this time.

but--

Zhu Hua thought:
Why is the prologue of The Three-Body Problem: Dark Forest told from the perspective of a brown ant? Why did Cheng Cheng have the brown ant crawl through Yang Dong's birth and death dates? Is there any metaphor or symbol?
Or is there some other intention?
He always felt that Cheng Cheng would not write anything idle.

He took a sip of water and continued reading. The conversation between Ye Wenjie and Luo Ji was still going on.

Luo Ji believed that the only known civilization at present was human civilization, and that studying cosmic sociology seemed meaningless.

Ye Wenjie said that it was precisely because no one was doing it that there was an opportunity.

She also explained the research value of this discipline and tried to propose two axioms of cosmic sociology:

First, survival is the first need of civilization;
Second, civilization continues to grow and expand, but the total amount of matter in the universe remains the same.

Seeing this, Zhu Hua once again felt the same shock he had when he read "The Three-Body Problem: Past Events on Earth".

Unlike other science fiction novels, other science fiction novels either fantasize about some future technology or introduce some alien civilization to highlight their "science fiction" aspects.

Although there are aliens and Trisolarans in "The Three-Body Problem", its most fascinating feature is not this, but its authenticity!
He really seemed to be reading a literary documentary of a cosmic civilization!
As in the "cosmic sociology" here:
Stars are all points. The complex structures of various civilizations in the universe are filtered out by the huge distance and become points with parameters, making it easier to construct mathematical models.

Even if such a theory appeared in a serious popular science article, he would not feel any sense of incongruity.

In other words, it's really "academic"!
-

In fact, after the release of "The Three-Body Problem 1: Past Events on Earth", it attracted many big-name fans, such as some bosses in the technology field, some politicians, giants and the like.

Of course, there are also many "heavyweight" black fans, and Yu Yuchen, a professor at Shuimu Nianhua, is one of them.

Last year, Yu Yuchen publicly stated on the show that science fiction is a poor genre among all literary genres.

He also said that it (The Three-Body Problem) just conveniently uses some scientific elements. What really touches people is the humanity in the story. And there are many movies that talk about humanity, and there are many better ones than The Three-Body Problem.

Therefore, he really couldn’t understand why “The Three-Body Problem” was so popular among so many people, and he was even “shocked”.

At that time, his remarks quickly caused an uproar, and the Internet was flooded with criticism of him.

Later, after being criticized, he participated in a radio program and again mentioned his views on "The Three-Body Problem".

He believes that Western science fiction literature uses science fiction and prophecy to reveal the possible adverse consequences of science, while Tianxia science fiction literature lacks such reflection and is basically an enthusiastic praise of science.

The public then realized that he was not dissatisfied with the plot of "The Three-Body Problem", but was dissatisfied with the fact that "The Three-Body Problem" did not follow the Western narrative model and that democracy and freedom did not ultimately lead mankind to victory.

Because in "The Three-Body Problem 1: Earth Crisis", at a time of major crisis for humanity, it is the "authoritarian" governance system that is more effective.

Ding Ju also hates his colleague very much.

He felt that his colleague had accomplished nothing and was using his status as a professor at Shuimu University to attract attention.

Yu Yuchen was admitted to the Department of Geophysics at Shuimu University at the age of 15 to study space physics. He made no achievements in physics, but became a professor who studies history. He is not a serious physics researcher, nor a serious history researcher, but he actually comments on literary works!

Really "never tired of destroying people"!
On the contrary, as a physics professor, he likes "The Three-Body Problem" very much.

He was also a former member of the Teikyo Spectrometer International Collaboration and had done experimental research in particle physics. In a sense, he and Yang Dong are still colleagues. The first episode of the TV series "The Three-Body Problem" mentioned Yang Dong's particle physics experiment at the Liangxiang Accelerator, which was filmed at the Teikyo Electron-Positron Collider National Laboratory in the real world.

As soon as the TV series came out, he sent screenshots to a WeChat group on particle physics.

Moreover, his colleague, Professor Liu Guang, a real particle physicist, is also one of the scientific consultants for the TV series The Three-Body Problem.

When "The Three-Body Problem 2: The Dark Forest" was released, he got the book through his own channels as soon as possible.

At this time, Ding Ju saw "Cosmic Sociology" and the two axioms it proposed. He thought it was very interesting. Yes, it was interesting, not "right". As a doctor of physics, his perspective on "The Three-Body Problem" is of course different from that of ordinary people.

When ordinary people read "The Three-Body Problem", they will be amazed by the various fantastic ideas proposed in it.

When a PhD in physics reads "The Three-Body Problem", he already has a critical perspective.

Of course, scrutiny is not criticism.

The Three-Body Problem is first and foremost a novel, not an essay. The premise of reading the novel is to "assume that these two axioms are correct," and then use the axioms to infer the universe of the Three-Body World and derive the subsequent story. If we must be serious about whether the axioms are true, then science fiction novels will almost not exist.

However, it would be wrong to think that Cheng Cheng’s “cosmic sociology” and its two axioms are meaningless!
In fact, in Ding Ju's opinion, Cheng Cheng did provide "a possibility", and Cheng Cheng definitely has considerable scientific thinking.

"Cosmic sociology" and its two axioms are based to a large extent on current observations, and any current scientific theory is also proposed through this method.

Ding Ju believes that Cheng Cheng is definitely the best among all science fiction writers.

At least, he can read Cheng Cheng's books and enjoy them, but he reads other science fiction writers' books like children's books, which are childish and cannot make sense.

-

The perspective returns to Zhu Hua.

He was completely attracted by the conversation between Luo Ji and Ye Wenjie. The brown ant also began a new journey. After a series of twists and turns, he crawled past "Mu". Then "Zhi". Then "Winter". Finally, "Yang".

Yang Dong’s Tomb!

Ye Wenjie's conversation with Logic also continued.

"I have been thinking about this for most of my life, but this is the first time I have talked about this with a fan. I really don't know why I should talk about it. In order to deduce the basic picture of cosmic sociology from these two axioms, there are two other important concepts: the chain of suspicion and technological explosion."

"These are two very interesting terms. Can you explain them?"

“No time”

Two new terms have emerged: chain of suspicion and technological explosion.

But unfortunately, Ye Wenjie did not explain.

As for Ye Wenjie's "no time", combined with the plot of the first part, Zhu Hua also guessed that the timeline here should be after Yang Dong's suicide and before the Guzheng Project. Ye Wenjie has not been arrested yet, but she will be arrested next.

Thus, the first conversation ended.

The description of brown ants has also come to an end.

The brown ants crawled past Yang Dong's photo and climbed to the top of the tombstone. At the foot of the lonely peak, the spider that Luo Ji had knocked down with his flower stalk began to rebuild its web. At the foot of the lonely peak, the brown ants crossed paths with the spider again. They felt each other's presence again, but still did not communicate.

Zhu Hua always felt that brown ants and spiders represented something.

He thought of the shooter and farmer hypothesis in the first film. Perhaps, when the brown ant crawled along the depressions of the text on the tombstone, it might be thinking and savoring these lines, just like the Three-Body Problem looking at humans?

In the eyes of the Trisolarans, we humans are bugs.

In our eyes, brown ants are bugs?
But what does the spider represent? What does it mean that the brown ant and the spider “saw each other’s existence twice, but still did not communicate”?
He always felt that the metaphor in this passage was not that simple.

At the end of the prologue, the conversation between Evans and the Trisolarans when he last received information from the Trisolaran world was also released.

Evans had not been sliced ​​yet.

Trisolaran: This is our 22nd real-time dialogue, and we have encountered some difficulties in communication.

Evans: Yes, Lord, I find that you actually did not understand a considerable portion of the human documents we sent you.

Evans: Your thoughts are completely exposed to the outside world and cannot be hidden.

Trisolaran: How can thoughts be hidden? Your idea is incredible.

Evans: My Lord, you need us.

Trisolaran: I am afraid of you.

The prologue of The Three-Body Problem: Dark Forest has 7,000 words. Zhu Hua reads very slowly and it took him 15 minutes to finish it. The entire prologue describes two conversations. The first conversation takes place between Ye Wenjie and Luo Ji, and only a small brown ant and a spider are witnesses.

The second conversation takes place between Evans and the Trisolarans.

There was no witness.

The second dialogue explains why the Trisolarans abandoned the ETO organization on Earth and why the Guzheng Project was successful.

When watching the first part, Zhu Hua was puzzled as to why the Guzheng Project was successful?

Is there a bug in the plot?

Because if the Trisolarans had not given up the Earth's ETO organization, the Earth's ETO organization would never have been destroyed, because Sophon could tip off at any time, and all the actions of the Earthlings could not be hidden from them.

Only now did Zhu Hua realize that the Trisolarans abandoned the ETO organization on Earth because they were afraid of the Earthlings.

The Trisolarans are afraid that the Earth's ETO organization will deceive them.

This fills in the "plot hole" of the first part.

Zhu Hua has a hunch that these two conversations in the prologue will play a very important role in the subsequent plot. It is definitely not that simple, and may even be crucial.

At this time, it was already ten o'clock in the morning.

The sunlight shines in from the window and onto the pages of the book. It is neither dazzling nor strong, just right.

Accompanied by the sunshine, Zhu Hua opened the heavy prologue and turned to the first part, the first page.

The upper part, the wall-facer.

In the third year of the Crisis Era, the Trisolaran fleet is 3 light-years away from the solar system.

The first to appear were Wu Yue and Zhang Beihai, who had appeared in the documentary "Cheng Cheng".

Wu Yue, Zhang Beihai——

Zhu Hua pondered over the two names:
Are these two people key characters in the next plot?
Afterwards, many people appeared one after another, including General Fitzroy, Raeder, Zhang Yuanchao, Yang Jinwen, and Miao Fuquan. There were big figures and small figures. Together, they built a post-Three-Body society.

That is the society after the news of the Trisolaran invasion is announced.

The book calls it the Age of Crisis.

At this time, humans convened a UN General Assembly meeting and calculated that the Trisolaran army would arrive on Earth in 400 years. Humans began to prepare for war. The era of crisis was coming, and humans began to plan for war against the Trisolarans.
(End of this chapter)