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So I read Three Body Problem :marseysoylentgrin:, Dark Forest :soyjakanimeglasses:, and Death's End :soyjakwow:

What the frick is all the soyfacing "so heckin' mindblowing!" shit about?

Nothing is revolutionary or impressive compared to SciFi that was written years ago. The Dark Forest theory isn't new—it's already been proposed as a (dumb) potential solution to the Fermi Paradox. However, there are other explanations that make a lot more sense. For example, life might be rare, and intelligent life even rarer. The chances of two civilizations existing at the same time, where both their planets can sustain that kind of life, is minuscule—especially within a manageable radius.

So, unless some civilization invents interstellar travel, there's almost no chance of actually encountering aliens, aside from maybe microbes. But I doubt even that, since we've yet to discover any, even at the microbial level--but hey, gotta write a book and as long as it's well thought out, I can run with it.

The Trisolarans on the other hand, could never have evolved in the first fricking place. But reddit "science" worshippers (uh-oh a heckin strawman) would say, "Well, you don't know the different places life can evolve—maybe it could evolve on even the most hostile planets," my response would be: maybe, but in that case, why isn't there life on Venus? Why is there no life on Mars? Why don't we see giant floating octokitties in Jupiter's atmosphere or spiders on Mercury? Those planets can't sustain life, and Trisolaris, with its unstable three-body orbit, would be even worse. It wouldn't last long enough for life to develop—it would either be ejected from its solar system or collide with another planet or its sun. Although Alpha Centauri doesn't even have a fricking orbit like that.

All the stuff related to multiple spatial dimensions doesn't make sense scientifically. It's fricking ridiculous. There's no indication that other dimensions are actual physical planes we can visit, rather than just a way that a string folds in on itself and in which case, we're already in those dimensionrinos. The "escape velocity" of the 2-D vector higher than light from beyond the antipodal distance of the oort cloud and Pluto is just a handwave for "I need to kill everyone" because it doesn't make any fricking sense by any kind of spacetime metric that wouldn't rip the planets apart with tidal forces from its motion

The idea of the droplet being able to hit targets 40 kilometers underground is doubtful. We likely couldn't even dig that deep, regardless of technological expertise, unless we had some way to stabilize structures at that depth. Even then, the droplet has a set kinetic mass, and once it runs out of kinetic energy, it wouldn't be able to penetrate any farther into the bedrock, no matter how hard it is. Even with the most advanced thrust imaginable, there's just no conceivable way it could achieve that—it's not even relativistic.

On top of that, if you had a relativistic railgun and hit the droplet, even if it's "unbreakable," the deceleration from something like 4 million Gs would still wreak havoc on the electronics inside. So, while it might seem impressive at first glance, scientifically, if you apply any amount of common sense, it quickly becomes absurd.

The idea of spaceships accelerating at 125 Gs but only reaching 0.1% of the speed of light is completely absurd. If a ship can thrust that violently, why can't it get up to speed? You'd think with engines that powerful, we could extend their thrust duration by simply adding a larger fuel tank. You could build a fuel tank the size of a football field if needed. So, that doesn't make any sense.

The "Project Staircase" concept was flawed too. Why couldn't we accelerate something to even 1% of the speed of light? Back in the 1960s, we had proof-of-concept for Project Orion, which could theoretically reach anywhere from 15% to 50% of the speed of light using nuclear bombs for propulsion. So, the limitations being presented here are ridiculous, especially since Orion would be capable of carrying a significant payload.

Then there are the sophons, which are obviously ridiculous too. Pretty much everything is kind of absurd when you think about it. I'm not sure why this all appeals—it's an interesting read, sure, but it's essentially a fantasy novel set in space.

It also reflects a very Chinese worldview, where everyone is seen as the enemy, and you must defend yourself. People are portrayed as needing to be controlled because they're too stupid to handle freedom responsibly. But perhaps the most unbelievable part is the idea that humanity would submit to a gigaglobohomo government like that. I could see people agreeing to something like the UN or a coalition, but a global government suddenly having martial law over everyone?

I feel like this is the kind of shit the average :sciencejak: parses as "mind-blowing" and "realistic"

The morality is abysmal, killing people is a-ok as long as you have good intentions but everyone is out to kill you anyway. Although actual data shows that despite chud and redditroid fears, people are actually hardwired for social cooperation and empathy.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S002209651500168X?via%3Dihub

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongan_castaways

The characters are 2-D, Luo Ji is probably the most likable character and he's a literal manlet incel.

Shit just happens, the 4-D space handwave to disable the droplets was a unecessary Deus Ex Machina.

But, otoh, it's a decent read. I'd class it more like a comic or anime than actual literature but it's not terrible.

I think the writer makes books for people who cut their teeth on ridiculous Anime concepts, and maybe that's why it was so well received.

Anyway, I know nobody asked but I felt like bitching.

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When I saw the title, I thought this was gonna be a literary discussion thread. You forgot to rant about them using quantum entanglement to communicate, that would have really shown us how smart you are.

I suppose you can somewhat blame certain fans for claiming this is hard sci-fi (it's obviously not). But the wacky science facilitates the story. Sophons are the platonic ideal of mass surveillance. The deterrence era is an exaggerated MAD (which is an insane idea in real life, that we let govern geopolitics for decades). Everything that's stupid is directly connected to stupid shit from real life.

I somewhat agree on the morality, though I think he leaves it a bit open to interpretation. The over-the-top psycho realpolitik obviously engages with atrocities committed by "advanced" societies over the last few hundred years. But Cheng Xin is an actual character, and you could make a case that she didn't really do anything wrong. The ending plays with the idea that over a long enough scale, cooperative solutions to the universe's various prisoner's dilemmas could win out. But it might take a long time.

I know the writing of the series isn't great, but the concepts and plots can build up on themselves until the whole thing feels powerful. "The Dark Forest" is blandly written, overlong, and like 70% filler. But I cried at the ending. :marseyl: Gotta give the guy some credit for that one

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You had a chance to not be completely worthless, but it looks like you threw it away. At least you're consistent.

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https://media.tenor.com/3AUnMaJkylkAAAAx/donald-sutherland-pod.webp

Longy's an ayylmao spy trying to destroy our science (fiction)!

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