Remembrance of Earth's Past
Remembrance of Earth's Past (Chinese: 地球往事; pinyin: Dìqiú Wǎngshì; lit. 'Earth's Past') is a science fiction novel series by Chinese writer Liu Cixin. The series is also popularly referred to as Three-Body from part of the title of its first novel, The Three-Body Problem (Chinese: 三体; pinyin: Sān Tǐ; lit. 'Three-Body').[2] The series details humanity's discovery of and preparation for an alien invasion force from the planet Trisolaris.
Author
Ken Liu (books 1 and 3)
Joel Martinsen (book 2)
Chongqing Publishing Group (Chinese edition)
May 2008 – November 2010 (original trilogy)
2011 (fanfiction spin-off)
November 11, 2014 – September 19, 2016 (original trilogy)
July 16, 2019 (spin-off)
3
地球往事
地球往事
Earth's Past
Dìqiú wǎngshì
Dìqiú wǎngshì
三体
三體
Three-Bodies
Sān Tǐ
Sān Tǐ
Synopsis[edit]
The Three-Body Problem[edit]
Astronomer Ye Wenjie is brought to the military's top-secret Red Coast Project after suffering an attack during the Cultural Revolution. She achieves a significant advancement in the search for extraterrestrial civilization when she uses the Sun as an amplifier to send the first sounds of Earth's civilization into space. Meanwhile, the planet Trisolaris, located four light years distant and dominated by the chaotic orbits of its three suns, experiences ever-recurring destruction and rebirth, thus forcing the planet's inhabitants to flee their home planet. As they prepare their exodus, Ye Wenjie, despairing of humanity's ability to save itself from itself, exposes the coordinates of the Earth to the Trisolarans, completely changing the fates of both worlds.
When anomalies begin to disrupt the ability of earth's scientists to conduct fundamental research, nanomaterials researcher Wang Miao plays the mysterious online game "Three-Body Problem" and starts to explore the nature of the game's world. Wang Miao meets the Earth secret organisation ETO, created in reaction to the impending arrival of Trisolarans, while attending a player meeting. "Operations Guzheng" allows the Operations Centre to partially defeat the Redemptionists and the Adventists, impairing human science and other fields of thought. It also reveals that the Trisolarans have launched their invasion of Earth in search of a stable place to live. The end of humanity draws near as the huge Trisolaran fleet approaches Earth after using supertechnology to lock down Earth's fundamental science.[7]
The Dark Forest[edit]
Following the Trisolarans' use of technology to lock down Earth science and launch a huge space fleet straight into the solar system, human beings also create a huge space fleet to react to the unprecedented Earth civilization crisis, while the PDC uses the fatal flaw in the Trisolarans' logic to create the "Wallfacer Plan". Astronomer Luo Ji is unexpectedly selected as one of the four "wallfacers" to launch a secret counteroffensive against the Trisolarans. The Trisolarians respond by deploying "wallbreakers" chosen by Earth's betrayers to make up for the Trisolarians' inability to see through human tactics.
In the fight for survival, Luo eventually recognised his responsibilities from escaping and hedonism at first and devised a strategy to fight the invasion of Trisolaris civilization. Luo Ji also confirmed the Dark Forest Rule, which states that any civilization that reveals its location will be wiped out. With this discovery, he threatened to reveal the Trisolaris' position coordinates to the whole universe, temporarily delaying the Trisolaran's invasion of the solar system and establishing a precarious strategic balance between Earth and the Trisolaris.[8]
Death's End[edit]
Using the life of human Cheng Xin on Earth as its main line, this book continues human history after the establishment of deterrents in the second work, Dark Forest, and further reveals the truth of the Dark Forest predicament in the cosmos. Humanity's first glimpse of the truth of the dark universe came from the fight with the Trisolaran civilization, which made Earth's civilization shiver in the dark night like a scared child. They believe they have discovered the key to survival, but in fact, they are far from qualified for an interstellar fight.
On the cosmic battlefield, the attack in the Dark Forest that has threatened the survival of two civilizations is simply a minor episode. As the techniques and weapons of war have far outpaced human imagination and the day of witnessing the battlefield is the day of extermination, no one has ever seen a real interstellar war, and it is impossible to see one. Although the solar system does not survive in the book, Cheng Xin and Guan Yifan from the Starship civilization manage to keep the flame of human civilization in the solar system.[9]
Analysis[edit]
Polish science fiction critic Wojciech Orliński argued that the trilogy represents Liu Cixin's endorsement of concepts of world government, consequentialism as well as tacit approval of "China's surveillance and control society".[12]
American journalist and writer Evan Lambert was critical of Liu Cixin's perceived sexism, which was predicated in the author's view that "women need the logic of men to balance them and temper their irrationality." He cited the author's characterization of Ye Wenjie as a "quasi-villain" due to her curiosity with alien species and her depiction as untrustworthy, incompetent and irrational. Lambert was also critical of the novels for what he regarded as its "thinly-drawn" characters. Lambert praised the Netflix television adaptation for addressing the source material's perceived sexism by recharacterizing Ye Wenji as an antihero and replacing the main character Wan Miao into two new female characters.[13]
University of Liverpool Chinese senior lecturer Aiqing Wang has argued that Liu Cixin's trilogy does not promote sexism and chauvinism. She cited the first novel Three Body Problem's depiction of the equal participation of both genders in science and its acknowledgement of the disparate mindsets of males and females. Wang also cited the allusion to "feminised masculinity" in the third novel Death's End. However, she conceded that the trilogy contained depictions of gender stereotypes, with female characters often being characterised as "delicate and soft."[14]
Adaptations[edit]
The Three-Body Problem is an indefinitely postponed Chinese science fiction 3D film,[15] adapted from The Three-Body Problem, directed by Fanfan Zhang, and starring Feng Shaofeng and Zhang Jingchu.[16][17][18]
A Chinese Minecraft machinima animated series based on the series began releasing on February 27, 2014.[19]
Waterdrop, a 2015 Chinese short film based on The Dark Forest.
A Chinese animated series based on The Dark Forest aired from December 10, 2022, to March 25, 2023.[20]
A Chinese live-action series based on The Three-Body Problem aired from January 15 to February 3, 2023.[21]
A live-action, English-language series based on The Three-Body Problem was released by Netflix on March 21, 2024, with David Benioff, D. B. Weiss, and Alexander Woo as showrunners.[22]
A 3-part documentary series entitled Rendezvous with the Future which explores the science behind Liu Cixin's science fiction was produced by BBC Studios and released by Bilibili in China in November 2022.[23] The series includes an extensive interview with Liu Cixin and covers many ideas featured in the Remembrance of Earth's Past such as: messaging extraterrestrial civilisations; gravitational wave transmitter; dark forest hypothesis; space elevator; artificial hibernation; fusion drive; and circumsolar particle accelerator.