Dark Forest (黑暗森林)

[K. A. Pital]

So I've finished the second volume of the Three Body trilogy by Liu Cixin.

Truth be told, the first book made me have a lot of expectations, but the second one turned out to be underwhelming. The writing is not well-executed at all, although the ideas are interesting. Some plot points barely make sense. The speeches of the Wallbreakers were particularly bad - it seemed a totally unrealistic approach to the problem and far worse than the obvious solution (which Earth's enemies applied in the end, but to just one of the targets).

The whole sociology bit was also... Too simplistic a model to actually be believable, although it had a grain of ominous truth to it.

I do not want to spoil too much here. In the end, it still manages to be an entertaining read, just not as good as the first one.

Looking forward to Death's End this month.

[Vendetta]

The speeches of the Wallbreakers were particularly bad - it seemed a totally unrealistic approach to the problem and far worse than the obvious solution (which Earth's enemies applied in the end, but to just one of the targets).

I think the point was that they didn't bother because the other plans were doomed to failure anyway. The Trisolarans figured out that the type of plan that the other three would come up with, based on what they knew of them, would be failures and didn't bother to intervene in their cases other than exposing their plans. Whereas IIRC the opening scene is supposed to take place after Ye Wenjie has made contact and so they might be aware that the seeds had been planted that would cause Luo Ji to come up with the plans he did.

Not sure which edition you're reading, but the English edition has a different translator, which probably explains why the writing might feel a little off in comparison. Good translators can make a world of difference.

I did enjoy it a lot though, more than I'm enjoying Seveneves anyway.

[K. A. Pital]

Well, it did seem that this conflicted the logic of the book, especially in the case of "self-destruct system" plan. Because that's mutually assured destruction just as much as what was done in the end. So it was a good plan, not inferior to any other such solution.

There are many ways to make the planet (or, indeed, all planets) uninhabitable, and these are all low-tech solutions.

I am sure it meant to be impressive, but I think because one could never be sure just what is going on in another human's mind (and Trisolarans were apparently very scared of that), they would've taken out these people and those who thought liek them. It is a more logical course of action than considering the apparently-exposed plans a failure. In the end, it also showed.

[Vendetta]

Well, it did seem that this conflicted the logic of the book, especially in the case of "self-destruct system" plan. Because that's mutually assured destruction just as much as what was done in the end. So it was a good plan, not inferior to any other such solution.

There are many ways to make the planet (or, indeed, all planets) uninhabitable, and these are all low-tech solutions.

There are, but how many of them would render the planet uninhabitable in a way the Trisolarans couldn't fix or would care about? Remember that what they covet about Earth isn't it's climate or biosphere, but the fact that is has a stable orbit, they obviously have a pretty wide range of atmospheric tolerances based on what happened to Trisolaris over the years (as given in the first book).

The other MAD scenario was dismissed by the enemy because humanity wouldn't have been able to achieve it anyway.
Spoiler

It would take roughly two earth masses of currently available fuel to deorbit Mercury. Even with the 2-300MT superbombs that Diaz planned to use it would take more than they could ever have built to do the job

[K. A. Pital]

Well, for once, Trisolarans need water to rehydrate. There are many ways to get rid of water or make it toxic.

It seems Trisolarans were after something more than just a stable orbit, otherwise (and that's the plot hole that exists from the first book, but becomes even more obvious here) they'd just use their supertechnology to make any uninhabited planet in stable orbit habitable. They actually needed the more-or-less intact bio/ecosphere of the Earth.

[Vendetta]

Well, for once, Trisolarans need water to rehydrate. There are many ways to get rid of water or make it toxic.

Not all of the water in the solar system though. There's way more water not on Earth than there is on it.

It seems Trisolarans were after something more than just a stable orbit, otherwise (and that's the plot hole that exists from the first book, but becomes even more obvious here) they'd just use their supertechnology to make any uninhabited planet in stable orbit habitable. They actually needed the more-or-less intact bio/ecosphere of the Earth.

Or maybe they just need a planet in the goldilocks zone. Even if they do just want a stable orbit, they still need to do what they're intending to (wipe out humans) because of the principles of the Dark Forest:
Spoiler

Our solar system is the only place the Trisolarans know is safe because they know that humans are technologically inferior enough to beat and can stop us developing with the sophons, at least long enough to get here.

But if they just came and eg, colonised Mars and left us alone on Earth they risk us either lucking into an unforseen technological explosion they can't stop or simply managing to shout loud enough to bring down a hunter.

They don't have a planet in stable orbit in their own system, and any other exoplanets in other systems are potentially inhabited by hidden predators that could take them on. Ergo they have one known safe option.

[K. A. Pital]

That they do need to wipe out humans is clear, and it fills the plot hole, if somewhat clumsily (because technically they should have migrated a long time ago, even before learning of any other civilizations, and since the ships are capable of interstellar travels, probes should've been well underway at least).

Theoretically, though, there's a variety of ways you could annihilate planet(s) or even set a dead-hand mechanism to do so with very little effort. Some are pretty low-tech - relativistic projectiles, for example, are not a super-high-tech solution. Orion drives could do it, and these are 50s tech. Humanity had a lot of time to work on the problem. I am sure that the MAD concept would quickly become a mainstay concept and it would revolve around that, basically. There is always the problem of tech disparity. But the very fact Trisolarans did not employ a relativistic projectile of their own shows that their ability to reconstruct destroyed things is relatively smaller than their ability to destroy things.

[Vendetta]

That they do need to wipe out humans is clear, and it fills the plot hole, if somewhat clumsily (because technically they should have migrated a long time ago, even before learning of any other civilizations, and since the ships are capable of interstellar travels, probes should've been well underway at least).

They were caught up in Dark Forest thinking though. As far as they were concerned travelling, or even sending a probe, into the unknown is the same as inviting disaster because they assumed that anything they would meet would kill them. They were unwilling to take the chance because they couldn't even concieve of anything Out There not being hostile. Only when it wasn't a chance any more did they set off.

Theoretically, though, there's a variety of ways you could annihilate planet(s) or even set a dead-hand mechanism to do so with very little effort. Some are pretty low-tech - relativistic projectiles, for example, are not a super-high-tech solution. Orion drives could do it, and these are 50s tech. Humanity had a lot of time to work on the problem. I am sure that the MAD concept would quickly become a mainstay concept and it would revolve around that, basically. There is always the problem of tech disparity. But the very fact Trisolarans did not employ a relativistic projectile of their own shows that their ability to reconstruct destroyed things is relatively smaller than their ability to destroy things.

Yeah, though clearly nobody was willing to accept MAD* solutions in advance, and by the time the Trisolaran probes arrived it was too late, even if the human ships could accelerate to 15%c to be used as suicide RKVs against Earth the probes were faster and could intercept and destroy them quite trivially, and that wouldn't stop the Trisolarans creating some kind of orbital habitat and surviving.

The window for a successful suicide RKV is between the development of those ship drives and the arrival of the teardrop, and that's 200 years before the arrival of the Trisolaran fleet where almost nobody at all is willing to accept the idea of defeat so a MAD solution was politically impossible.


* It's not even assured either, one of those 15%c ships on a suicide dive would be a Chixclub event but that didn't kill the biosphere, just knocked it back for a bit. Even totally razing the surface isn't MAD, once the Trisolarans arrive they have a whole solar system full of resources to build orbital habitats whilst they chuck enough ice at Earth to re-terraform it**. (Assuming they can't eg. dump energy into Mars' core and restart its magnetosphere to do the same, which their probes might even be able to do.)



** See also: Seveneves.

[K. A. Pital]

This concept of being caught up in a Dark Forest mentality is also a bit weird. For example, you get the coordinates of a place. You are the hunter, suspicions, etc. So you just throw an RKV at the target.

But what if that is a Kardashev 2,5 or almost Kardashev 3 civilization (interstellar)? You just blew one of their systems with an RKV based on a transmission, which they'll try to trace and find you. And wipe you out (this time with good reason).

The mentality only works against Kardashev-I or at most II civilizations. Anything greater, and hostile actions may be a greater threat than doing nothing. Any transmission could be a trap for lesser civilizations.

[Vendetta]

This concept of being caught up in a Dark Forest mentality is also a bit weird. For example, you get the coordinates of a place. You are the hunter, suspicions, etc. So you just throw an RKV at the target.

But what if that is a Kardashev 2,5 or almost Kardashev 3 civilization (interstellar)? You just blew one of their systems with an RKV based on a transmission, which they'll try to trace and find you. And wipe you out (this time with good reason).

The mentality only works against Kardashev-I or at most II civilizations. Anything greater, and hostile actions may be a greater threat than doing nothing. Any transmission could be a trap for lesser civilizations.

Yeah, I think the intention is that species have to make a decision about being an aggressive predator and taking the risk of being found by something stronger or hiding themselves, because nobody can ever really be sure what the outcome of revealing themselves will be.

It's just one of those things you have to accept as a fundamental of how the narrative works I guess.

I guess I've just become used to identifying and accepting core assumptions of the work and framing everything else in those terms rather than trying to break out of those assumptions. At least as long as I'm enjoying the rest of the work. (That's really what a "plot hole" is, it's not a problem with the plot, it's the point at which you stop trusting the author and the other problems start to present themselves).

[K. A. Pital]

I've now went through Death's End.

Don't want to spoil anything, but it is a better book and a return to the Asimovian space-opera style once again.